BEACH VIBES

Standalone Women's Fiction

What would you do if you caught your brother cheating on your best friend?

While Beth is proud of her Malibu beach shop, Surf Sandwiches, she's even prouder of her charismatic brother Rick, who rose from foster care through surgical residency. She makes subs, he saves lives. Life takes a turn for the happy after she finds out Rick is dating her new best friend, Jana. Then Jana’s handsome brother adds even more sparkle to Beth’s days. . . and nights.

But when she catches Rick with another woman—like, with-with—her visions of an idyllic family future disappear in one awful instant. Either she betrays her brother, or she keeps his secret and risks losing the man she loves and her best friend.

Love and loyalty collide with secrets and betrayal in this witty and emotional tale about the lengths we’ll go to for family, from Susan Mallery, bestselling author of The Boardwalk Bookshop.

Chapter One

Beth Nield had no choice but to admit that her sixty-seven-year-old aunt had a much more interesting love life than she did. Actual living proof of that sad fact sat at their shared breakfast table, eating a high-fiber cereal while watching the morning news.

Hunter was a still handsome seventy something who’d worked for the USPS his whole life, retiring with a very nice federal pension. But his “real” money had come from playing the stock market. She had no idea where the two had met, but this was the third morning this month she’d found Hunter eating a hearty breakfast after a night of, well, nothing she wanted to think about.

Despite the fact that Beth’s divorce had been final just over a year ago, she hadn’t been on a date. As for spending the night with a man, well, she couldn’t begin to imagine that ever happening. She’d been telling herself she didn’t need that sort of distraction and that relationships were more trouble than they were worth, but thinking about how happy her aunt was these days, she was starting to wonder if maybe she was wrong. Perhaps there was something to falling in love. Not that she’d ever had much luck in the romance department—her divorce was proof of that. Her brother hadn’t been successful in love, either. Maybe there was a genetic flaw.

Not anything she was going to think about this morning, she told herself firmly as she put her breakfast dishes in the dishwasher and called out a goodbye to Hunter.

While the Los Angeles metro area was known to be a nightmare traffic-wise, Beth had what could only be described as a glorious commute. She lived a mere twenty minutes from where she worked, and the majority of that drive was along Pacific Coast Highway through Malibu. Yes, there were plenty of annoying stoplights, and on the weekends, visitors clogged the roads, but it was difficult to mind when just to the west was the Pacific Ocean.

Although Malibu was known the world over, the LA-adjacent community was in fact much smaller than most everyone imagined. The actual population was less than twelve thousand people, with the majority of the businesses and houses clinging to the coast. There were canyons and hills that stretched east, but the area everyone thought of when they heard the name was within a couple of miles of the water.

Beth made the familiar drive with her windows open and the scent of the salt air brightening her day. The ocean was more lively today with whitecaps visible out to the horizon and seagulls circling overhead. A light breeze danced with the palm trees. This early, the beaches would be relatively empty, but by noon, they would fill with locals and tourists, all eager to enjoy nature’s beautiful offering.

When she pulled into her reserved spot behind Surf Sandwiches, the sight of the cheerfully painted one-story building filled her with fierce, happy pride. She might have bought the business out of a sense of obligation and a need to help her brother, but over the years, she’d grown to love the place. When she and Ian had divorced, he’d asked to buy her out of their house. She’d used the money to purchase the vacant storefront next door and had expanded her business, giving her a much larger eating area for customers and a remodeled kitchen and prep area, not to mention additional parking. The latter was a precious commodity in always congested Malibu.

She’d kept the surfboard rack and outdoor shower for her customers who came directly from the beach across the street, and had painted the outside the same bright, cheerful yellow she used on the logo. To make the remodel go more quickly, she’d closed for three weeks, giving her just enough time to second-guess herself and wonder if all her regulars would forget about their favorite sandwiches. But at the grand reopening, there’d been a line nearly around the block, and since the remodel, sales were up thirty-eight percent. Information that would make any small business owner’s heart flutter with joy.

She unlocked the back door and walked to the newly enlarged employee space. Big lockers filled one wall, with comfy sofas opposite. During the refresh, she’d added a couple of sets of tables and chairs and had upgraded the Wi-Fi. By giving up space in her office, she’d squeezed in a third bathroom—this one for employees only.

It was barely eight in the morning, three hours before the store opened, but Yolanda and Kai were already hard at work prepping for the upcoming day. Surf Sandwiches was open from eleven until seven. The biggest rush was from about eleven-thirty until one, with a second, surprisingly intense post-school surge, followed by a gentle wind-down until closing.

Yolanda, a pretty, petite brunette with more energy than the battery bunny and three kids under the age of ten, was her go-to morning person. Despite her tiny stature, she had a killer mom glare that could reduce anyone with attitude to submission in less than three seconds. Even more significant, she wielded the Hobart meat slicer with surgeon-like precision. Even Rick, Beth’s actual surgeon brother, agreed Yolanda had mad skills.

“Morning,” Beth called as she stepped into the kitchen. “How’s it going?”

“Good.” Yolanda smiled at her. “Kai’s a worker. I don’t mind when he comes in early.”

Kai, a twenty-two-year-old who’d walked away from family money to surf rather than go to college, beamed at the compliment. “Yo, that’s high praise. Makes me want to work harder.”

Yolanda winked at Beth, as if silently saying that was the whole point of the words. Then her humor faded.

“We need lettuce. When I went to get it out this morning, I saw it’s all rotten.”

Beth groaned. “Not the lettuce. What happened?”

Yolanda pointed to the small kitchen where the industrial refrigerator and restaurant-size stove sat. “You can go look for yourself. I salvaged a few bunches, but we’re going to need a lot more for the day.”

An unexpected but not unheard-of disaster, Beth thought as she went into the kitchen and saw containers of sad-looking lettuce sitting on the counter, the good bunches already off to the side. She calculated the damage, took a couple of pictures with her phone and then pulled the ongoing Costco list from a drawer.

While she ordered most of her supplies from various distributors, like most small restaurant businesses, she relied on a big box store for backup. She added tomatoes to the list, then returned to the front to confirm they had everything else they needed.

She and Yolanda quickly discussed what she would be buying.

“Let me get in touch with my produce guy. I’ll head to Costco as soon as they open.”

“We’ll be fine,” Yolanda told her. “We know what to do.”

Beth went into her office, where she quickly booted her computer and the pay system she used. She found two large office lunch orders waiting and immediately forwarded them to the kitchen, where they would be flagged and reviewed. Once Yolanda determined what had to be made, the orders would automatically go in queue thirty minutes before they were supposed to be ready. The improved software had been expensive, but worth it. These days a lot of customers wanted to order and pay online, then just drop by to grab their food and get on with their lives.

She sent a quick email to her produce guy, complete with pictures. She’d been working with him for years and knew a credit would be sitting in her account by the end of day.

She helped with the prep work until it was time to head out with her shopping list. Getting to the closest Costco required a longer and less interesting drive than her commute to work. She listened to the radio and thought about all she had to get done when she returned to the store. Kai would make the cilantro, pumpkin seed and jalapeño pesto, which was usually her job. He was her newest employee, but he was a good hire. She was very fortunate with everyone who worked for her. Most had been with the store over a decade, and turnover was low. She paid well, offered great health care and did her best to be a fair and reasonable boss.

When she’d shut down for the three-week remodel, everyone had been paid their usual amount. She’d even arranged for a special evening at a local movie multiplex where she’d rented the smallest theater and had hosted dinner and a movie for staff and their families. Everyone had had a good time, and a few had mentioned making it an annual event—a reaction that made her happy. Tragically for her, that was the wildest her social life had been since the divorce. Except for work and her recent commitment to volunteering at a local food bank, she was kind of turning into a grumpy hermit, which wasn’t her nature at all. But she couldn’t seem to get motivated to, you know, get out and be in the world.

She missed having friends to hang out with. She missed being in a relationship, yet given how she was spending her days, she was very much stuck in a rut of doing nothing. Her aunt was warm and caring, but Agatha had her own life, what with her man friend and a new and oddly successful home business of crocheting custom bikinis.

Beth turned in to the industrial area where the Costco was located and drove toward the sprawling building at the end of the street. As she headed through an intersection, her gaze drifted to a large billboard on her right. Immediately her entire body went on alert as her brain struggled to comprehend what she was seeing. She instinctively turned toward the billboard—and accidently steered in that direction as well. Before she could slam on the brakes, she’d driven off the road, up onto the sidewalk (mercifully empty of pedestrians), stopping less than a foot from a fire hydrant.

It took a couple of seconds for her to start breathing again. Adrenaline poured through her from both the near accident and the billboard itself. She managed to put the car in Park before turning off the engine and getting out to stand on the sidewalk and stare in disbelief.

The billboard was huge and showed a happy couple staring into each other’s eyes. Not really noteworthy if she ignored both the fact that the man in question was her ex-husband Ian and the heartfelt message next to the photo.

Patti, you mean the world to me. I’m so grateful to have found you. I love you. Will you marry me?

She pressed a hand to her chest, as if to keep her heart from jumping out and flopping around on the road. Her brain was still having trouble processing what she was seeing, and she honestly didn’t know what was more confusing to her. The billboard itself, the fact that it was two blocks from Costco, or that her very ordinary, believer-in-a-routine ex-husband had proposed in such an un-Ian-like way. Oh, and maybe the fact that he had obviously moved on and fallen in love with someone else while she hadn’t been out with friends, let alone a man.

Ignoring a sudden wave of sadness, she sagged back onto the driver’s seat and pulled her phone from her handbag. Within seconds she was on Instagram and scrolling through to find Ian’s account. As their divorce had been as low-key as their marriage, she’d never blocked him, and apparently he’d never blocked her, either. Which meant she could see everything he’d posted for the past couple of weeks in color photographs and videos.

If the picture of the two of them holding champagne glasses and smiling at the camera was any indication, Patti had said yes. But instead of staring at the happy couple, Beth found herself searching the crowd of friends that was gathered around them. Friends she’d thought had been her friends as well, back when she and Ian had been married. The three couples had been tight, hanging out together, even taking the odd vacation as a group. But when the marriage had fallen apart, she’d discovered she was actually only the friend-in-law. The other two women hadn’t wanted to get together and had finally explained they were picking Ian. At the time, that had hurt about as much as the end of her marriage.

She flipped through more pictures and saw one of Ian and Patti with Ian’s large, extended family. The family she’d thought of as her own, appreciating the sheer size and volume of get-togethers. Growing up it had just been her, her brother and her mom. She’d always dreamed of being part of a big family, and with Ian, that had happened. Only once she and Ian split up, her relationship with them had ended as well.

Beth dropped the phone on the passenger seat and stared at the billboard. Ian was getting married again, to Patti—whoever she was. They would have a life, possibly kids. All the things she’d thought would happen when she and Ian had been together. Only they hadn’t.

She knew she didn’t want him back—their relationship was long over. But she did envy his future, or at least all the possibilities. Ian had kept living his life and looking for ways to be happy.

And here she was, in her car, alone and semi-friendless. Except for Jana, a relatively new friend she really liked, there was no one. Yes, she’d done great things with her business, but what about her personal life? Why was she half-parked on a sidewalk, staring at a billboard while on her way to Costco? Didn’t she want more?

A sharp pain cut through her—two parts regret but one part intense longing for more than the nothing she’d apparently chosen. She needed friends in her life and possibly a man. While the latter seemed like more than she could comfortably take on right now, the former was doable. She was a good person. She was likeable. The friend thing shouldn’t be so hard.

She needed more than just work, she told herself. She needed to get out of the house and start doing things. Anything. Beginning right this second. Or possibly after she made her Costco run. But today for sure.

*

“What do you call a paper airplane that can’t fly?”

Jana Mead was already smiling, even as she turned from her computer to the man standing just inside her office.

“I don’t know,” she said, appreciating the happy anticipation that accompanied Rick’s unexpected visit. In the past couple of weeks, he’d stopped by a few times, always with a dad joke and an invitation to coffee or dinner or a picnic. So far she’d managed to resist saying yes to his very tempting suggestions, but even as she repeated, “What do you call a paper airplane that can’t fly?” she felt herself weakening.

“Stationery.”

She laughed. “Okay, I’m writing that one down. I may have to explain the difference between stationary and stationery to the younger ones, but my oldest niece will absolutely love the joke.”

“Excellent.” He stepped a little closer. “How’s it going?”

“Good. Busy, as always. What about you? How many lives did you save today?”

“Just a couple.”

Rick was a big-shot surgeon while she was a part-time medical billing clerk who spent her days fighting with insurance companies over coverage. Which one of these was not like the other? He was about five-ten with dark hair and eyes and an aura of quiet confidence. Fit without being too muscled, and good-looking enough to make a woman look twice.

“Impressive,” she told him.

He shrugged. “It’s just about the training and, you know, some skill.”

“I think it’s about more than that.”

He shoved his hands into his front pockets and drew in a breath. “I’ve asked you out three times, and you’ve said no every time. I get it. You’re not interested.”

He hesitated as if unsure what to say next, which gave her time to want to pound her head against the desk, mostly because she was interested. Very interested. When she saw him, she got that whooshing sensation low in her belly—the one that made a normally sensible woman want to ignore her vow of “no guys—not now, not for the next ten years” even when she knew she couldn’t afford to get involved with anyone.

There were so many reasons. She was the single mother of a precocious four-year-old, she was in the middle of her last semester at community college where the calculus class she was taking was kicking her butt, and she had this job. Dinner with a man? Who had the time?

But more significantly, she just couldn’t take the risk.