53. The Narragansett Club

53

The Narragansett Club

NICOLE LAMB

Nicole was trying so hard not to complain, but— “Why is it so cold?”

“Because it’s Connecticut. Actually, we crossed over into Rhode Island,” Kingston said, walking beside her.

“Why does anyone live where the air hurts their face?”

“Spoken like my favorite little California girl. We can return to the car, and I’ll drop you off at the door. I offered.”

“No. I’m fine. I’m tough.”

She was not tough. Nicole was, at best, a complete wimp when it came to the frigid wind blowing off the ocean that had been slate-gray earlier in the afternoon and was now pitch black except for the whitecaps of waves roiling in the light spilling out of the clubhouse at the Narragansett Club on New Year’s Eve.

She’d been afraid she would slip on ice. Somehow, there was ice on the ground, outside, like the ice that built up in garage freezers, but it was outside. “There’s snow on the beach, just like the song. Snow should not be on a beach.”

“New England might as well be on a different planet than California.”

“Please reassure me again that we’re going to live in California.”

“We will live in California.”

Nicole clung to Kingston’s arm as she shuffled over the frozen gravel, the toes of her snow boots barely visible peeking out of the puffy coat that went down to her ankles. “You got my bag out of the trunk, right?”

“Yes, my little engineer. I brought your bag with your shoes and hairstyling implements for after you remove the hat and muffler once we get inside.”

“I’m trying really hard not to complain.”

“And you’re doing a smashing job of it,” he said, laughing out loud into the night.

Despite the snow tire-like treads of her boots, her feet kept slipping out from underneath her every time she took a step, and he caught her. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to walk on this. Wha— what?”

Kingston swept her up into his arms, carrying her easily as he marched over the snow toward the front of the country club’s clubhouse.

“How are you not slipping and falling down?”

“I grew up in Switzerland. The weather here may be wilder than in the Alps around Gstaad, but ice is ice.”

As they approached the clubhouse, the front doors whipped open, and people were right there to take her coat and help her out of the boots before one of them led her downstairs into the ladies locker room to freshen up after her perilous fifty-yard trek across the parking lot.

Whipping her curling iron through her hair and refreshing her makeup didn’t take very long because she was a California girl, and she trooped upstairs to rejoin the party just ten minutes later.

A bonfire was crackling a dead tree inside a room-sized fireplace, and she sidled over to that side of the group where Kingston was standing.

Jericho Parr, the third guy at the initial union negotiation, was there with his fiancée, as was the new guy, Mitchell Saltonstall, with his bombshell fiancée.

After the introductions, Kingston looked up and around. “Where’s Morrissey?”

“He said he was on his way and had someone for us to meet.”

Mitchell Saltonstall laughed. “Did we all get engaged this year? All of us?”

Kingston looked over the party, effortlessly searching above the crowd with his ridiculous height.

Sometimes, Nicole still felt two feet tall next to him.

“And more importantly, where’s The Shark?” Kingston asked.

Jericho frowned. “Nobody’s seen or heard from Gabriel Fish for months.”

“That’s weird.”

Mitchell Saltonstall turned and looked at the doors. “Yeah, really weird.”

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

The series continues in Sand Trap!

Morrissey Sand is the most cynical, least romantic, grumpiest CEO in Last Chance, Inc. There’s no way he’d take a chance on gambling, the lottery, or love.

When his old school chum’s sister needs job, he can’t refuse, and she’s a blast of motherfucking sunshine.

What’s a grump to do when a ray of goddamn sunshine won’t leave him alone?