Barefoot in the Rain

by Roxanne St Claire

  No one spoke, giving her time to sift through her emotions to find the right words. “He…” Beat my mother. Kicked me so hard he broke a rib. Made me the control freak I am today. “Was physically abusive.”

  “Oh, baby.”

  “Jeez.”

  “Shoot the em-effer.”

  Jocelyn smiled at Zoe. “Don’t think the thought hadn’t occurred to me. But I did the next best thing. I left home and never looked back. Until today, it was my intention to never speak to him, look at him, or think about him until the day his death notice arrived in my mailbox.”

  That silenced all of them.

  “I know I sound harsh,” she said. “Especially now, when you look at the guy. He’s like a little old lady, doing needlepoint and watching HGTV. But I know what he is… what he was.” Her voice cracked and Zoe handed her the wineglass.

  She half smiled, accepting it with a slight tremble in her hands, then taking a deep drink.

  Tessa leaned closer, pain clouding her eyes. “Some people should not be allowed to be parents.”

  “No kidding.” One more drink and her limbs finally felt a little heavy, while the weight on her heart felt a little lighter. “Before I left for school, I… he…” Shit. “There was a pretty bad night.” Her voice cracked, which she tried to cover with a fake cough. “Will was there.”

  “Did he hit Will?” Tessa asked.

  She shook her head. “He was more mad at me than he was at Will, but he did have a gun.” When Zoe gasped, Jocelyn added. “He was the deputy county sheriff on Mimosa Key at the time, so he was, you know, law and judge and jury. And my father. So I basically decided at that moment that Will, who was on a direct trajectory to huge success, would be better off if we didn’t ever see each other again.”

  “And he agreed?” Zoe asked.

  “He must have. He never tried to track me down at UF and our friendship ended.”

  “And now he’s taking care of the guy you hate,” Tessa said.

  Zoe grunted softly. “That’s gotta hurt.”

  “But that’s Will,” Lacey said. “He’ll always do the right thing. That’s his nature.”

  “I don’t think it’s the right thing,” Jocelyn said. “I know that’s cold, but I don’t. And he’s my father, not his. Despite what Guy thinks.”

  “Guy thinks Will is his son?” Zoe choked on that.

  “He’s pretty confused.” She put the glass down hard enough to splash a little wine on the napkin. “Is the intervention over yet? I’m starving.”

  “Not an intervention.” Lacey sidled up closer and put her arm around Jocelyn. “And, really, we’ve all suspected it was something like this. Honestly, Joss, Will’s keeping your father’s condition pretty quiet. I knew he checked on him once in a while, but he’s been mum on how bad Guy is or, honestly, I’d have told you so you didn’t get blindsided when you arrived.”

  “I wasn’t really blindsided. I saw Will this morning and he told me how me how sick Guy was, so I went down there today and…” Another mirthless, dry laugh. “He doesn’t remember me, he doesn’t remember the past, and he sure as hell doesn’t remember…” That night. “Anything he did to his wife or daughter.”

  They all sighed, a collective exhale of dismay and disbelief. All except Zoe, who narrowed her eyes with a question. “Maybe Will didn’t know how bad it was with your dad for you.”

  “He lived next door. He had a front-row seat.”

  Tessa leaned forward. “You know what you need, Joss? You need to work this out. You need to get past this.”

  Jocelyn frowned at her. “I am past it. Why do you think I took all those psych classes? Why do you think I’m a life coach?”

  “I don’t think you’re past it,” Tessa said. “Or you could talk about it.”

  “I am freaking talking about it! What do you want, Tess? Pictures? Scars? Details?”

  Tessa dropped to her knees so that only the coffee table separated them. “I’m sorry, Joss. I don’t want to upset you, really. We just want to help you.”

  “Then change the subject. I’ve never talked about it this much.”

  “Even in therapy?” Tessa asked. “Didn’t you have to go through therapy to get your degree?”

  “Nothing… deep.” She’d been quite adept at avoiding the topics she didn’t want to discuss.

  “Not even to get certified as a life coach?”

  She lifted a brow. “In California? Hang a shingle, baby, and get some bigmouth clients.” She waved her hand to erase any wrong impression that might leave. “I am certified by several organizations.” She reached for some grapes, plucking them from the stems, hating the hot and cold sensations that rolled through her.

  Lacey put her hand on Jocelyn’s leg. “You know we just want to help you and support you.”

  She nodded, taking a bite of a giant green grape. “Then help me find an assisted-living facility for him.”

  Tessa leaned her elbows on the table. “You sure that’s what you want to do?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. I’m not taking care of him.”

  “Will is,” Tessa said.

  “Which is… kind.”

  “How did he handle it?” Tessa asked. “I mean, everything that went on with your dad when you were young? Did Will ever try to stop him? He seems like he would have.”

  She shot a look at Tessa, surprised by the little jolt of jealousy that Tessa—and Lacey—had gotten to know Will Palmer when he was so lost to Jocelyn.

  “My dad was the law back then. No, no. He was so far above the law it could give you a nosebleed. And Will had a big-time career to worry about.”

  “As if he’d put his career before something like that,” Tessa said.

  “He is loyal to a fault,” Lacey agreed. “Definitely our best and most reliable subcontractor, who just seems to work and live with all his heart.”

  “He was always that way,” she said, feeling an unnatural sense of propriety. After all, she’d known—and loved—Will before they did. “And still is that way because he doesn’t want to put Guy in a home, or at least wants me to think about alternatives.”

  “Would you think about alternatives?” Tessa asked.

  Before she could answer the oven beeped and Lacey stood slowly, waiting to hear Jocelyn’s answer before leaving the room.

  Jocelyn shrugged. “I have a lot of work to do down there first. And he…” She smiled, knowing they’d laugh. “He thinks I’m with Clean House and I’m going to put him on TV after I straighten things up and have a yard sale.”

  Zoe popped up and gave her head a shake. “So you better git to gittin’, uh-huh!”

  Jocelyn cracked up at the spot-on Niecy Nash impression, welcoming the levity and a chance to get up and help Lacey in the kitchen. But as she did Tessa was up, too, taking Jocelyn’s hand to hold her back.

  “Hey,” she whispered. “You know we just want to help you.”

  Jocelyn nodded, not trusting her voice.

  “And so does Will.”

  One more nod and Tessa pulled her a little closer.

  “He’s been hurt, too.”

  Jocelyn just looked at her. “I read somewhere he was married.” Not that she’d Googled him on one particularly lonely night back in L.A. or anything.

  “He was divorced before he got here. I always thought that was what put the little bit of, I don’t know, sadness in his eyes. Or maybe being so far away from baseball and not having a coaching job offer.”

  More inside information that Tessa had and Jocelyn didn’t. Who could she blame? She’d never called Will, had never kept in touch, and, of course, neither had he.

  “But today I thought maybe…” She waited a few seconds until Jocelyn nudged her.

  “Maybe what?”

  “I think it’s you who hurt him.”

  “Me?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it was his ex-wife. Short marriage—he never talks about it. You should find out.”

  She intended to. When they had that
“catch-up” conversation he wanted so much.

  The thing was, she wanted it, too.

  Chapter 9

  Will turned his truck into the Super Min, as he did every day on his way up to Barefoot Bay, to shell out a few bucks for Charity Grambling’s coffee. Like the owner of the convenience store, the coffee was bitter and a little past its prime. But it was usually served with a side of opinion or gossip, which Will filed away or shared with Clay if it had anything to do with Casa Blanca.

  And her gossip often did focus on the resort, since Charity, along with a few of her family members, considered herself the last word on everything related to Mimosa Key. The building of Casa Blanca, the island’s first true resort, was pretty much the biggest thing happening in Charity’s world.

  The bell dinged as Will pushed open the door, a charming reminder of earlier days when this was just a corner store and not the Shell Gas Station and Super Mini Mart Convenience Store. Without looking up, Charity whipped the magazine she was reading out of sight, shoving it under the counter before she leveled a beady brown gaze at her customer.

  “Morning, Will.”

  “Charity.” He nodded and headed toward the back to grab a couple Gatorades for the job, pulling open the cooler door to check out the abysmal selection. Fruit punch and the blue shit. He let out a loud exhale.

  “Sorry, I can’t sell enough of it to get you that original flavor, Will,” Charity called back. “You’ll have to go back to the big leagues for that. Gonna happen anytime soon?”

  He grabbed two sixteen-ounce reds and carried them back to the counter. “You’ll be the first to know if the Yankees call, Charity.”

  She gave him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes or make her leathery old face any more attractive. Scooting around on her stool, Charity held her bloodred fingernail over the cash register. “Will that be all?”

  He gave her a look. “And coffee.” Like he hadn’t been getting a medium black every day since they’d broken ground at the resort.

  “ ’Kay.” She tapped the register but didn’t complete the transaction. “How’re things up at the white elephant?” She never failed to make a dig, still stinging over the loss of her fight to stop Lacey and Clay from building a resort that might steal some business from the dumpy motel her daughter owned.

  “Moving along real well,” he said. Or they would be if he could get his head around Bay Laurel’s floor today.

  “Taking any guests yet?” she asked pointedly.

  “Nope.” Not unless he counted Jocelyn. Still, something about the way she asked gave him pause; Charity had an uncanny knowledge of what was going on anywhere and everywhere on Mimosa Key. It wouldn’t surprise him if she’d somehow sniffed out the return of one of their most infamous residents.

  “I heard that one of those teeny little houses is all done and Lacey spent a fortune decorating it to look like something out of a Humphrey Bogart movie.”

  How did she know this stuff?

  “We’re a long way from taking guests,” he said.

  “Even just one?”

  He gave her a hard look. How could she know? From the magazines she sold? Had one of them leaked Jocelyn’s flight information or something? They were capable of anything.

  He turned to the rack of tabloids, ready to grab them all and clear them out if he had to. It would only help locally, of course.

  The entire top rack was empty.

  He peered closer, glancing at the other monthly titles below. Maxim and Cosmopolitan, some fishing rags and a stack of USA Today next to the Mimosa Gazette on the bottom. Nothing that would have word about Jocelyn. But those cheesy tabloids, like the National Enquirer he’d picked up the other day, were all gone.

  Shit. Had the entire town sucked up the news because she was a local girl?

  “What are you looking for?” Charity asked sharply.

  “The magazines.”

  “Sold out.”

  “Completely?”

  She shrugged. “Is that going to be all, then, Will?”

  “When do the new tabloids come in, usually?” he asked.

  She narrowed her eyes at him then hit the register key with an officious snap. “You taking a sudden interest in the latest on the movie stars in rehab, Will?”

  “Something like that.” He glanced at the empty rack again, pulling out his wallet. “It’s Tuesday,” he said, thinking out loud. “Will more magazines come in this week?” He’d buy every one of them if he had to, just to keep the locals from drinking that stupid Kool-Aid and somehow changing—or forming—their opinions about Jocelyn.

  “Varies.” She took his money and started to make change, faster than usual, he noticed.

  The bell rang and they both glanced at the door, seeing Deputy Slade Garrison with two other men, one holding a small video camera.

  “Charity, can I talk to you a minute?” Tough enough to be respected but still young enough to be respectful, Slade’s tone was deferential toward Charity.

  “What do you want, Slade?” Her gaze zeroed in on the camera, a touch of color draining from her face. “Something the matter?”

  Standing near the coffee station, Will set up a cup, listening to the exchange while he poured.

  “These gentlemen are from an Internet Web site and TV show known as TMZ.”

  The coffee splashed as Will missed the edge of the cup.

  “What the hell is that?” Charity asked, setting Will’s change on the edge of the counter with a loud slap.

  TMZ? Holy shit. Will knew what it was. He knew exactly what it was—thanks, Guy—and why they’d be here. Son of a bitch, if Charity had given away the fact that Jocelyn was in town, he’d kill her.

  “They stopped into my office,” Slade said, not answering her question. “They are looking for some information on a former resident who I don’t personally know, but I told them if anything is going on here in Mimosa Key, you’d know about it.”

  Only in a town the size of Mimosa Key would visiting reporters get an escort from the sheriff’s department.

  Charity stood, pushing back her stool and lifting the countertop so she could step out. When she did, a couple of Will’s coins dropped but she ignored them, her unwavering focus on the men.

  Of course. Charity would be in her element now. The most gossip-crazed busybody in the state of Florida with a chance to be on TMZ? Her head would explode.

  And if she so much as uttered the name Jocelyn Bloom, Will would break their fucking camera and run them over with his truck. Right in front of Slade.

  Will eyed the two men, one stepping forward and handing a card to Charity.

  “Bobby Picalo,” he said, flashing a fake-white smile and running a hand through hair that had spent too much time in the sun or maybe a salon. “Reporter-at-large for TMZ.com.” Slimeball freelancer, in other words. “We’re a news-gathering organization.”

  Will almost groaned out loud. News? They call this news? And, shit, this bastard would have Charity plastered all over TV tonight—–or all over the Internet in an hour—and sixty more slimeballs just like him would be barreling over the causeway by tomorrow morning.

  He had to stop her.

  “What brings you to Mimosa Key?” Charity asked.

  “We’re tracking a big story out of Los Angeles and we think it’s possible a source we’d like to talk to is on this island. A young woman by the name of Jocelyn Bloom.”

  Despite the fire that shot through him, Will stayed perfectly still, not reacting, not breathing, just waiting, the coffeepot poised in the air.

  Charity said absolutely nothing.

  “Do you know her?” the reporter asked.

  Charity glanced at Deputy Garrison, who didn’t respond, then she lifted a skeletal-thin shoulder. “I’ve heard of her.”

  Maybe she wanted them to beg so she could negotiate for more airtime. That’d be just like her.

  “From the papers or do you know her personally, ma’am?” Picalo asked.

  “She used
to live here years ago. Maybe came back now and again, but I think she’s on to much bigger and better things than a little town like this.”

  Will gently set the coffeepot back on the burner. Was this Charity Grambling? Not attacking the opportunity to be in the middle of a national scandal? Something was not right.

  “Does she still have family living here?”

  Another look at the officer and then a sideways look at Will. If he didn’t know Charity better, he’d have sworn she’d sent something like a warning. To him?

  Because if these pricks went anywhere near Guy, he’d—

  “Her mother passed ’bout a decade ago,” she said. “And her father took an early retirement from the sheriff’s office. Right, Slade?”

  “That’s right,” Slade agreed. Will waited for him to mention that the retired sheriff lived a few miles south, but he stayed silent.

  “No other family?” the man asked, looking from Charity to the sheriff.

  “No.” Charity locked her hands on her hips. “No one.”

  Will couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. Charity missing out on the chance to gossip to a reporter? Why? Money, of course. She must want to have her palms greased thoroughly before she parted with any information.

  “But if someone knew her or saw her here, how would—”

  “I’d know about it, young man,” she said, bouncing on her sneakers and crossing her arms with a remarkable amount of moxie considering that she was well north of sixty, at least. “I know every damn thing that happens on this island, and every person who lives here. She’s not here, hasn’t been for years, and won’t be probably ever again. I suggest you head back to Hollywood for your story.”

  “Well, I—”

  “You heard the lady,” Slade said.

  Charity flicked her fingers toward the door. “Good-bye now, gentlemen.”

  They backed out and Charity went with them, as if she didn’t trust them to hang out in the Super Min parking lot.

  No money, no airtime, no nothing.

  What was wrong with this picture?

  Holding his coffee, Will went back to the counter to grab the bills she’d left there for him, noticing the two quarters that had fallen to the floor. He set the coffee on the counter to crouch down and scoop up his change.