“Thank you, that’s kind of you to mention.”
“Well, it works in my favor to keep you around.”
The main road that separated the bed and breakfast from the bungalows is heavy with traffic. As the sun starts it’s slow descent down the horizon, the soft blues paint the white shell driveway in pastels. Lights from the passing cars dance spots over the windows and lawns. Gathered in a loose semi-circle are a dozen or so modest sized houses with matching porches and carports. Each had a little fence framing the sidewalk that leads up to the front door. Diane guides me down the road to the farthest one. The house is like a fairy tale tucked away under a pair of palm trees. It’s a faded lavender color, but not in any way that makes it look old or worn. Just lived in. The front window is large and bare, framed by a flowerbox of struggling impatiens.
“It’s nothing special.” Diane takes a ring of keys from her pocket and unlocks the door. “It has a bedroom, kitchen with attached dining room and small, but functional, bathroom. The yard isn’t much to speak of, but who needs one with paradise across the street, right?”
I step in and observe the second hand-furniture, oddly charmed by the mismatched pieces. “Right. Does this one need some cleaning or fixing up?” I’m eager to get started, I realize. To prove myself worthy of the two kind women taking a chance on me.
“If so, I’m sure you’ll be able to fix it in no time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, while you’re helping us, you’re welcome to live here. I’ll speak to my mother about a reasonable deal for rent and utilities, but if you want it, this place is yours.”
I turn in a circle, dazed. “This place?”
“Unless you’d prefer another?”
“No!” Giddy laughter bubbles in my chest. “No, this is great, I’m just caught off guard. I wasn’t expecting you to offer me a job let alone a house.”
“You need it and we need you.” I shift my weight from one foot to another at her frank appraisal. “I can tell that you’ve had a hard life. Trust me, I can relate. Just consider this southern hospitality. I wouldn’t question your good fortune; they never seem to last long.”
“You’re right.” I raise a hand to shake hers. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“You’re welcome. Besides, you’ll come to know everyone is family here.”
I turn in a circle, taking it all in. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. I’ll let you get settled in. You can start first thing tomorrow. Pleasure to meet you, Sienna.”
Logan
The beer is warm and flat, but it is wet enough to wash the sour taste of vomit from my mouth. My father always said a beer in the morning was the cure for a hangover. As a veteran drunk, I guess he knew best. Can drained dry, I toss it in the general direction of the overflowing garbage and wince at the clatter it makes against the tile floor.
The reflection in the chipped mirror above the leaky sink, which is stained with rust that I’ve been meaning to clean, reminds more and more of that old bastard each day. Sweat and a slew of other indiscriminate stains camouflage what was once a white T-shirt. My beard has far surpassed the five o’clock shadow stage and has grown in patchy and unkempt. But what most reminds me of my father are my eyes. Light green ringed by red, watery—like I'm drowning myself in alcohol as well as drinking it—and angrily bloodshot.
I flip open the medicine cabinet and hunt for a bottle of ibuprofen. Empties rain down into the sink, along with a dull razor, empty mouthwash, and squished tube of toothpaste. A singular rattle leads me to a lone pill. It won’t kick the headache completely, but it’s better than nothing. I twist the stiff knob on the sink and use my hands as a cup to drink water.
I half stumble half trip my way to the kitchen, bypassing a mountain of laundry and a stack of unopened bills. Dishes are piled over every available surface so I opt for a reasonably clean one I find next to the fridge. I give it a quick rinse, fill it with water, nuke it in the microwave and then dump in a couple spoonsful of instant coffee. It tastes like ass, but it helps eradicate some of the cob webs that took up residence in my head during the night. There’s some leftover pizza from three or four days ago that I throw on a paper plate and heat up as I suck back the remains of coffee. I’ve found coffee—like beer—is best consumed quickly and without mercy.
After inhaling the pizza as I stand over the counter, I take make a second cup of coffee and amble through the dark hallway that forks off to the only bedroom and bathroom to the living room. Normally, I’d sit on the couch in front of the flat screen and ferment in the haze of the blue light until the sun went down, but it’s starting to cool off and I could use the fresh air. Since it’s hotter inside my house than it is outside, I head out to the porch. I don’t mind the heat, but I don’t want to sweat to death, either.
I spent the last decade in the desert. A little Florida sunshine is pitiful in comparison. The heat almost makes me a little homesick for the dusty trailers and hundred-degree weather.
The ancient wooden swing on equally ancient chains creaks audibly as I sprawl over it with one knee bent to the floor to sway myself back and forth. A fan circulates the humid air in lazy rotations above me.
A car door slams in the distance, but I ignore it. I’m almost asleep again and the throbbing in my head is finally fucking off.
Someone’s shouting over the whir of the fan, but I ignore that, too. A good nap to sleep off the last chokehold of this hangover is my number one priority.
I reach that point where all my muscles are lax, my breathing is slow and even, and the specters of the man I used to be are quiet. Then a woman screams, and I bolt upward, knocking my head against the arm of the swing and nearly blacking out for the second time in twenty-four hours—a record even for me.
My hand comes away smeared with blood. "Fan-fucking-tastic," I croak.
I use the hem of my shirt to staunch the bleeding, but that leaves me hunched over, so I just yank it off and press it to my forehead. When I sit up, the world tilts, and I have to grab on to the chains to keep from swaying like a reed in the wind.
I keep my head between my legs until the urge to yak all over my shoes—again—passes, then I get unsteadily to my feet and hobble down the steps. There’s a fifty-gallon container I keep near the water hose beside the house that’s already filled with rainwater. I duck my head in it to wash away the blood, and it also serves to cool me down and clear my head before I did something rash.
Like kill someone.
With the blood gone and streams of water flowing down my chest and back I feel reasonably calm when I turn to face the source of the scream that gave me the concussion.
I knew when the FOR RENT sign wound up in the neighbors trash a week ago that my little slice of solitude wouldn't be so for much longer. After spending a large chunk of my life packed like a sardine with fifty other men while I spent eight long years in the Marines, I’ve grown very protective of my privacy.
The little blonde—really she isn’t little, but I’m over six feet and would dwarf her—is standing on her own porch steps nearly identical to mine glowering a man in a suit that must have cost more than everything I owned.
They don’t pay me any mind even though I must look like a psychopath all shirtless and swaying from side to side with bloodshot eyes and bleeding.
“You scared me,” she was saying. One hand is pressed over nondescript breasts and the other gripped the railing.
“You're not answering my calls,” suit says. He leans forward like he wants to closer but pussies out and straightens back up.
Blondie doesn’t notice. The hand on her breast moves to her cocked hip. “Probably because I want to be left alone.”
“You can't keep running from this.”
Her eyes flash and if my head wasn't throbbing so much I may have grinned. "Don't tell me what to do, Phil.”
“I'm not.”
“I want him out of my life. It’s do
ne. I don’t want anything more to do with you or with him. You’ve followed me all over the state. Probably all over the country. You won’t wring one more thing out of me. Let it rest, for God’s sake, and leave me alone.”
The sour taste in my mouth multiplies. I shake my head before I remember the headache.
There's maybe a twenty foot spread of weed choked grass between our bungalows but even with the distance I catch the pleading look on pretty boys face.
“Pi—” A swift, fierce look has his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Sienna, let's talk about this. ”
I wince for him. Begging never works for a man. A woman doesn't want to be begged. I can tell I'm right when her full, pink lips pull into a frown. Loser never had a chance.
“I don’t want to talk. I've done enough talking. Don’t ever bother me again. Next time you do I'll put the concealed carry to good use. Understand?”
Pretty boy deflates under her fierce stare. He tugs at his limo tie and runs a hand through his hair. “I’ll call you,” he says.
“You do that.”
She watches until his sporty little car kicks up dust down the dirt road to the highway, then she turns and catches me staring at her.
“Your head is bleeding,” she says, then she goes into her house and shuts the door behind her. I hear the unmistakable sound of the lock slamming home.
It takes me a good five minutes of staring after her before I clear my head enough to navigate on shaky feet back to my spot on the swing. I pop open the cooler by my side and flick open the tab on an ice cold beer.
It’s never too early for a drink as the old man would say.
* * *
After stewing away most of the morning, I shower, shave, and stumble my way down the winding driveway to my grandma’s. She and my grandpa started the little bed and breakfast on Lake McCormick just after they got married. Unlike my parents, whose favorite past time was getting into yelling matches with each other, Grandma Rose and Grandpa Deacon loved each other to distraction.
For thirty years they operated the Nassau Bed and Breakfast together, and their patrons always came back because the love they had for each other showed in the way they ran their business.
After Grandpa Deacon died from cancer, which no one saw coming, I made it a habit to stop by and check on her. Once she started getting sick and moved Aunt Diane in, I gave up my shabby one-room apartment and moved into one of their available bungalows to keep a closer eye on the both of them. They practically raised me, so I considered it my duty to help them around the property when I’m able. Today that duty extends to finding out more about the woman Diane is letting rent the cabins.
The long walk clears my head somewhat, even though it’s still throbbing from the earlier abuse. The scent of crisp bacon wafts through the open screen door and I let myself in, following my stomach to the kitchen where Grandma Rose sits at the table with the newspaper. Behind her, Aunt Diane is flipping bacon in a frying pan.
I pass Grandma Rose who tilts her head up for a kiss. Obediently, I place one on her forehead and she squeezes my hand. There’s a plate of bacon next to the stove so I nip a piece and take a bite before Aunt Diane has the chance to slap my hand away.
“Boy, if you don’t keep your hands out of my food,” she warns, spatula raised like a threat.
“You could never hit me.” I grin at her and she shakes the spatula.
“Just try me.”
Hedging my luck, I turn and fill a cup with coffee from the waiting pot on the counter. “Even when I came home at sixteen thinkin’ I got Jenny Anderson pregnant you didn’t raise a hand to me.”
Aunt Diane snorts. “Maybe I should have. If I’d been an advocate for corporeal punishment, maybe you wouldn’t already be divorced.”
I take a sip of coffee, opting to burn my tongue instead of having to answer. My marriage to, and divorce from, my wife is a spot of contention for both of us. We’d gotten married when we were both too young and too stupid to know better. Aunt Diane has always refrained from saying the actual words “I told you so”, but I don’t need to be a cop to detect the meaning behind her animosity.
The tense moment passes and I take another casual draw from my coffee cup. “Saw you rented out the cabin next to mine.”
“Yes,” she says succinctly. I wait for her to elaborate, but she doesn’t. Woman wouldn’t even crack under the most experienced interrogator.
“Were you going to tell me?”
She snorts as she plates the rest of the bacon. Then she crosses to the other counter to drain most of the grease for eggs in the little canister she keeps hidden behind the toaster. “And let you scare the poor girl away? I don’t think so.”
“I wouldn’t scare her away.” She levels a look at me. “Fine, but you can’t take in every stray.”
“I wish I would have taken that advice when I took you in sixteen years ago. Would have saved me a hell of a lot of trouble.”
“I’m serious, Aunt Diane.” My firm tone doesn’t even cause her to turn from the task of cracking eggs into the pan.
She merely turns to me and pats my cheek. “You worry too much.”
“And you don’t worry enough.”
As the eggs sizzle, she pulls out silverware from a drawer to her right, and I take out plates from the cabinet and set them on the counter. Grandma Rose winks up at me as she settles in to work on the crossword puzzle. She’s heard these arguments a million times over and likes to watch us go at each other’s throats. She told me once it replaced her soaps for entertainment.
I take my seat next to her on a wooden stool and Diane sets a plate of eggs and bacon down in front me. I’d spent most of my life at her counter. She doled out punishments, advice, and food in equal measure and is more a mom to me than my own.
“Maybe I should run her background just in case. Did you at least check her references? Have her fill out an application?”
Aunt Diane points her spatula at me, grease dripping onto her pristine floor. “You’ll do no such thing Logan Elias Blackwell.”
I polish off a piece of bacon and then reach for another, but Grandma Rose steals it from my plate with a cackle. “There’s something off about her. Did you know she carries a gun?”
Diane just laughs. “You’d say the same thing about Mother Theresa if she moved next door. Besides, I suspect whatever is ‘off’ about her has more to do with what’s in your pants than whatever is in her past. Besides, what young, single girl doesn’t carry a gun in the south?”
Wincing, I push away my empty plate. “Low blow.”
She takes my empty dish to soak in soapy water in the sink. “Always knew how to shut that mouth of yours.”
I stand and round the counter and move up behind her as she reaches for a sponge to wash the dishes. She barely reaches my chin, but she’s just tall enough for me to rest it on her head. The mop of curly dark hair tickles my chin. If I were to delve my fingers into it, I’d find the raised line of a four-inch scar I could have saved her from.
When I speak next, it’s soft. “I just want to protect the most important women in my life. Can’t you let me do that?”
She sets down the soapy dish in the other side of the sink and grabs a kitchen towel to wipe her hands. Then she turns to me with a patient smile, which makes me scowl down at her. Hands dry, she reaches up to cup my cheek. “Sweet boy, you have nothing to worry about. For now, if you go pestering that girl, it’ll be a different story.”
Resisting the urge to growl, I block her path as she tries to move around me to gather Grandma Rose’s cleared plate. “I won’t promise to leave her alone because I plan on keeping a close eye on her.”
“I’m sure you do.”
I ignore her twinkling eyes and knowing smile. “The first time I see something suspicious, she’s gone.”
Aunt Diane’s smile fades, and I remember why the younger, more belligerent teenage version of me used to cower in her presence. “Don’t threaten me, Logan Elias. She’s a sweet girl l
ooking to find her roots. You, of all people, know well enough about needing a place to feel safe. If you go interrogating her, you’ll scare her for no good reason other than to soothe your male ego. So you’re gonna leave her alone, you hear?”
The tone is a familiar one and I know I’ve reached the point where she won’t bend an inch more. “I’ll leave her alone,” I say and pull her into a hug, knowing it will break down some of her resistance.
She wraps her own arms around me for a second and then pushes me away. “I’ve got guests to feed so you stop with all this nonsense and get.”
I kiss her forehead and her smile softens. Turning to Grandma Rose, I give her another kiss and her knowing eyes flash up at me. She grins, and I just shake my head. Why I thought it was a good plan to go up against them both, I’ll never know. Dealing with women, especially if there’s more than one of them, requires a great deal more intestinal fortitude than I possess.
“You remember what I said, Logan. Don’t you cause her any trouble,” Aunt Diane calls out behind me.
I lift a hand because we both know causing trouble is what I do best.
Piper
I don’t want to be that person. I’m not that person.
This is a new start, a new me, and the new me isn’t confrontational and doesn’t believe in stirring up drama. Especially not with a brand new neighbor who I haven’t even met yet. That would be a hell of an impression. Since Diane is my boss and this is her place, I want the first impressions with my neighbors to be good ones.
Besides, I am too damn tired to move let alone tromp across our yards to confront the man who thinks that the middle of the night is the perfect time to revving his motorcycle.
Great, now I sound like my mother.
Really, it’s none of my business. Who needs sleep anyway? Certainly not me after deep cleaning the house all day and helping Diane at the B&B. She kept telling me to get settled in first, but I couldn’t stand the emptiness of the bungalow—no matter how cute and quaint it is—so I spent the afternoon and evening hours helping to check in new guests, planning outings, and cleaning up after check outs.
Savior (First to Fight Book 4) Page 6
