Rough Waters

by Maggie Toussaint

  Jeanie stared. “Why would any red-blooded American male go for an overworked, yoga-loving mother of two when he could have an attractive single woman who cooks like a dream instead?”

  “Don’t sell yourself short. You’ve still got it, you know. What’s the harm in trying him on for size?”

  “He isn’t a pair of shoes. He’s a good looking man. A complicated one.”

  “See? Your date radar isn’t broken. You noticed him. He noticed you. Now one of you needs to make a move.”

  “You should be making a move, Donna.”

  “Not this time around. Besides, I already made my move.” She arched her back and eyed her reflection in a nearby window. “Do you think I need a boob job?”

  “Donna!”

  “Well you got pink hair.”

  “I just did that to...oh, never mind. Seriously, though, are you sure I don’t look, you know, a little crazy?”

  “Seriously? No. Why? What’s up?”

  “I keep getting this feeling someone’s watching me. Looking over my shoulder or something. I never see anyone, so it’s creeping me out.”

  Anticipation snapped in Donna’s dark eyes. “Really? Maybe the Secret Service is still down here in Mossy Bog, skulking around the marsh, keeping an eye out for bad guys.” She fluffed her hair and looked over her shoulder, like some sexy federal agent might materialize right behind her, wanting to go out on a date. “Hmm,” she said consideringly. “That boob job’s looking better every day.”

  Chapter 6

  Thanks to the woman at the carry-out place, Rock knew exactly where to find Jeanie Munro after work. Now that he’d met her, he planned to push his advantage. Mission Befriend Jeanie was officially underway.

  When he entered the brightly lit meeting room at the Chamber of Commerce building, he received strangely hopeful glances from the annual Mossy Girl Festival meeting attendees and more than one long look that promised a good time. He wasn’t looking for a hook-up. He wanted his coins back, and for that, he needed Avery Munro.

  With Munro off the grid, his ex-wife was Rock’s best lead.

  Jeanie shot him a surprised smile as she banged her gavel to get the meeting underway. She took roll, barking out the names of the committee chairs. With only four weeks until the festival, the chairs reeled off reports like colonels reporting from the front. This event apparently ran like a well­-oiled machine with Jeanie Munroe at the helm.

  Jeanie’s four year old played quietly with his trucks on the carpet near his mom. The toddler perched on Jeanie’s hip as she circled the table. No one seemed to think this was odd. Business as usual in Mossy Bog?

  Looking at the pink hair, a man might be tempted to think Jeanie was a featherweight, but her high octane approach seemed to inspire the committee chairs to find solutions to their own troubles. Then it was the fidgety guy’s turn, Joe something or other.

  “I got a problem with the Friday night band.” Joe tugged at his plaid bow tie and adjusted his owlish glasses. “Their rhythm guitar player quit and they replaced him with someone they say is light years better. Trouble is the new guy comes with a higher price tag and a need for dual billing.”

  The first sign of conflict in festival-topia. Rock felt sorry for the guy, clearly uncomfortable in his role. How would Jeanie resolve this? Rock eagerly awaited the outcome.

  “Now, Joe,” Jeanie said. “You’ve got to hold the line. It’s the Scalawags all over again.”

  Heads nodded around the room.

  Sweat beaded on Joe’s brow. He squirmed in his seat. “They say they won’t show up unless we give them more money.”

  Jeanie leveled a finger at Joe. “They have a signed contract that says they owe us money if they don’t appear. You call them back and remind them of the kick out clause.”

  “What if they don’t show up?”

  “In this day and age? We’d have 38,000 people all over social media who came to hear the Good Old Boys, and they didn’t show up. That kind of publicity can kill a band’s career. You remind them of how many bookings they’re likely to get from playing our Mossy Girl Festival. Everybody’s heard of us. We’re what passes for big time in the festival world.”

  “I don’t know,” Joe hedged. “The manager was firm about wanting another five grand.”

  “That manager needs a reality check.” Jeanie adjusted the baby on her hip and scowled at Joe. “If you’re afraid of him, I’ll give him a call.”

  Joe sucked in air through his teeth so loud Rock heard it across the room. She had the poor guy by the balls. Either Joe would man-up, or he’d never hold his head high in Mossy Bog again. With his rounding physique and wavy white hair, Joe looked like someone’s kindly grandfather who’d wandered in off the beach.

  Rock raised his hand. “I’ll help Joe with the band.”

  The pinched look left Joe’s face. “Thanks,” he said. “Meet me afterward?”

  “Sure.” Rock nodded. The marketing guru and the kids’ entertainment woman looked at him like he’d walked on water. The food vendor guy kept checking his cell phone as if he expected a life-changing text message to appear. The art center woman looked like she was having trouble holding in a laugh.

  “Hmm,” Jeanie said, not missing a beat. “If you’re serious about volunteering, I think you’d be a great liaison with the safety and emergency crew during the festival, Rock. Everyone, this is Rock Mackenzie, who’s renting Lytham House for a while. Looks like he’ll be helping us out with the festival. Don’t look back now, Rock. I’ve got my hooks in you.”

  “Well then, be careful you don’t tear anything vital as you reel me in,” he quipped.

  The room exploded in laughter. Even Jeanie joined in, though her face pinked up to match her spiky hair. “Good one,” she said.

  After that, the committee reports motored along with no hitches. Rock noted the name of the person he would coordinate with in the safety realm on the day of the festival. If he was still here. If he ran across Avery by then, there’d be no reason to stay. He did have to admit Mossy Bog had a lot to recommend it though. Quiet. Peaceful. A real community, not a year-round tourist Mecca.

  And the most intriguing woman he’d met in years.

  Moms weren’t usually his type. While he was in the service, he’d deployed so often he’d avoided any kind of woman that hinted of responsibility or commitment. While he’d been taking care of his mother he hadn’t been in the right frame of mind to meet any women. Afterward, he and Tarp had spent all their time struggling to get their charter business afloat. And then there were the dives. Which had brought him to Mossy Bog.

  He was just passing through, but if he were looking to meet someone, Jeanie would be at the top of his list of candidates.

  Too bad she’d been married to Munro.

  Jeanie ended the meeting with the bang of a gavel exactly an hour after it began. Joe thanked Rock profusely and arranged to meet him the next day to call the band’s manager. The safety guy tried to impress Rock with his expertise.

  Rock had run into his type before. Blowfish. All puffed up and nowhere to go. He nodded and acknowledged the man’s proficiency with walkie-talkies and golf carts. They exchanged phone numbers.

  Jeanie cornered him next. “I was surprised to see you here tonight, but I’m thrilled you decided to help with the festival.”

  The strawberry scent of her hair did something funny to his insides. He’d always loved berries. And whipped cream. A man could do a lot with whipped cream.

  He shook his fantasy away. “Thought it would be a good way to meet people, but the work’s all done. You’ve got this thing running on wide-open.”

  She laughed and the baby smiled. “I’d better. This is my third year as festival chair. I only meant to do it one year, but no one else wanted to take charge last year or this year. I can do this in my sleep.”

  Her little boy stared at him with big eyes. “Are your dogs here?”

  Rock knelt down to the boy’s level. “I left them at home t
oday. Would you like to come visit them again?”

  The boy looked away.

  “Nathaniel, what do you say?” his mom prompted.

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll look forward to your visit,” Rock said, straightening and glancing around the empty meeting room. “This place emptied out fast.”

  “Everyone’s worried I’ll ask them to do something else.”

  “Do you have a lot of tasks left undone?”

  “I always need help with the parade. No matter how many times we tell people they can’t line up until they pay, we get folks who camp out overnight to get the first spots. I always have to roust somebody. I’ll bet if you told them they had to move, no one would give you lip.”

  She’d run the meeting like a benevolent dictator. Rock couldn’t imagine her letting anyone deviate from the plan. “Maybe, but I have confidence folks will get it right.”

  She laughed again, a hearty sound that gave him an unexpected burst of joy inside. “You’re funny. People try to bulldoze me all the time.”

  “Something tells me you don’t give yourself enough credit. I saw how the crowd in here deferred to you. In addition to arranging flowers, you’ve got a talent for organization and management.”

  Her eyes warmed, then sobered. “Thanks for the compliment, but I’m reserving judgment until after the festival this year. You, on the other hand, did a very nice thing for Joe. He’s afraid of his own shadow since his wife died five months ago. She’s the one who booked the band, and he’s not filling her shoes as well as she did. She pretty much took him in hand and told him what to do.”

  “Joe has potential,” Rock said, feeling his way along their conversation. “He just needs a wingman. He’ll be fine.”

  “Good. I need a strong person as entertainment chair, and I wasn’t looking forward to asking him to step down next year.”

  “You’d do that?”

  “This is our signature event. All of our churches, nonprofits, and businesses count on this festival to raise money for their yearly projects.”

  He’d seen Jeanie responsive to her kids’ every need. He’d seen her sweet-talking cops. He’d seen her muscling the committee into formation for the Big Event.

  Clearly, Jeanie Munro was a force to be reckoned with.

  Chapter 7

  The call woke her up at four in the morning. Jeanie groaned and reached for her phone. The alarm company woman identified herself and said, “We’ve phoned the police. The back door alarm tripped at your business.”

  Jeanie sat up in bed, fumbled with the light. “What? My shop?”

  “Yes, ma’am. This is a courtesy call to notify you that the premises are not secured. Law enforcement is on the scene.”

  The kids. She needed to call someone to stay with them.

  “Who’d break into a flower shop?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, ma’am. Please wait outside the business until the police clear the scene. I will notify you once I hear from them.”

  She had no intention of waiting. “Fine.” She ended the call and threw on some jeans, leaving her T-shirt on. She phoned Donna.

  “You know what time it is?” Donna asked, sleep coating her voice.

  Jeanie’s stomach twisted into a double knot. “I wouldn’t call if it wasn’t an emergency. I know you’ll be getting up in the next hour anyway to start baking. Can I ask you to watch my sleeping kids?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “The alarm company called. Someone broke into The Muddy Rose. I’m supposed to meet the cops at the flower shop.”

  “I’ll be right over.”

  Donna lived less than a mile away. True to her word, she arrived in five minutes. She’d come in her purple pjs, the top of which barely met the matching shorty pants. Not date attire, but not shabby either. Jeanie assumed her day clothes were in the duffel Donna had brought in with her, and trusted she’d change before the kids awoke.

  “I made coffee,” Jeanie said. “Make yourself at home. Crash in my bed or on the sofa or knock around in the kitchen. I really appreciate your help.”

  Donna suppressed a yawn. “We’ll be fine. Go.”

  The van protested and took a minute to catch. Between the empty streets, the dusky star-filled sky, and the out of phase feeling of being up at this time of morning, the experience seemed like a bad dream. Any minute now she’d wake up.

  She bounced over a rough spot in the road.

  Not a dream.

  Someone had broken into her business.

  Why?

  What would she find?

  Who would do this to her?

  Mossy Bog wasn’t a high crime area. She couldn’t remember the last time a business had been burglarized. But there’d been a few residential break-ins recently. If this was a trend, the cops needed to get a handle on it before the festival. Mossy Bog didn’t need bad publicity, especially now. People expected a quaint fishing village. They didn’t expect crime.

  This better not be a crime wave.

  She zoomed past the buffalo farm. The county kept changing, no doubt about that. Who’d have thought a Tidewater County man would have a field full of buffalo? New people had started to trickle in, bringing their outsider ways with them.

  She’d lived her whole life here but she’d never been afraid for her safety. Or her kids’ safety. Lord, if anything happened to her kids, she’d fall apart. Everything she did, she did to make their life better. Including the firearms training class her friend Laurie Ann North had run for women a few months back. She’d thought about buying a gun to protect her family, but she’d decided guns and kids didn’t mix. Now she wished she’d bought a handgun.

  Businesses passed in a blur. Sheryl’s Diner. The grocery store. The bank. Phone company. She hung a left at the art center. Flashing lights spilled acid blue strobes across the storefront of The Muddy Rose. The door was propped open, light spilling out onto the lawn.

  The building was still standing. No flames. She swallowed around the lump in her throat, switched the van off, and headed to her shop.

  Laurie Ann was inside with Josh Calucci. “Is it safe to come in here?” Jeanie asked.

  “Safe enough,” Laurie Ann said. Last month, Laurie Ann’s transfer had become official. She was the newest sheriff’s deputy, and the department’s first ever female investigator. “Heard the call come in and wanted to check out the shop for you.”

  Jeanie gulped at the carnage, her worst fears crystallizing into reality. Display vases were busted on the floor. Cards from the toppled card rack were everywhere, the white envelopes tarnished with boot prints. The glass refrigerator case had been bashed in. The sickening sweet scent of crushed flowers reminded her of funeral homes.

  The room started to spin. She reached for the counter and pulled in a deep breath. Cut flowers littered the floor. The stems were broken, the heads crushed. Her cash register was missing.

  “Oh. My. God.”

  “Looks like a straightforward smash and grab.”

  Jeanie clutched the counter so her knees wouldn’t buckle. “Who would do this to me?”

  “I’ll figure it out,” Laurie Ann said.

  “I only keep fifty dollars in the cash register because most people pay with their debit cards. Why did they take my register? I bought that dinosaur from the Pirate’s Cove estate sale years ago. Avery laughed at me for wasting my money, but I knew I wanted to open the shop even then. That register carried all my hopes until the bank agreed to stake me.”

  Laurie Ann patted her shoulder. “We’ll catch this joker and make an example of him.”

  The lump in Jeanie’s stomach got heavier. Her hopes. Her dreams. Smashed like yesterday’s flowers. Tears welled, and she blinked furiously. She couldn’t break down here.

  After Avery left, she’d sworn she’d never be so vulnerable again. Now this.

  Somehow she’d find a way to pick up the pieces.

  Voices raised outside. Dogs barked.

  “Get behind the co
unter,” Laurie Ann ordered as she drew her weapon.

  Jeanie bent her body into a tight crouch. She held onto the floor and tried to think.

  Weapon.

  She needed one.

  She reached up for the ballast rock beside her phone pad. Two hundred years of tidal action had smoothed the rock’s rough edges. Since childhood, it had been a lucky talisman. Her cold fingers clenched around the rock.

  This had to be the second worst night of her life.

  Chapter 8

  Sirens awakened Rock about half past four. They stopped wailing near his place. Curious, he dressed and strode outside with his dogs. A wash of blue lights strobed in the direction of Jeanie’s flower shop.

  Had someone broken into The Muddy Rose?

  Was Avery in town?

  He had to know.

  Rock hurried toward the shop, his steps quickening once he saw Jeanie’s white van. Someone called out, “Halt. Police. Hands where I can see them.”

  He raised his good arm in the air and hoped the shoulder sling gave him a pass on the other arm. Quietly he commanded the dogs to heel before he answered. “Easy. I’m a neighbor.”

  The tall female cop didn’t lower her weapon. She nodded to the two uniforms that flanked him. “Pat him down.”

  A familiar male patted him down. Carlisle. Carstairs? No, that wasn’t right either. Something Italian sounding. Caruso. Calypso. Calucci. The cop from the dog incident with Jeanie and her kids.

  “I’ve met this guy,” Calucci said. “And his dogs. He’s renting Lytham House. Name of James Mackenzie.”

  “What are you doing out here, Mackenzie?” the female cop asked, her weapon leveled at his heart.

  “I heard the noise and walked over to investigate. Like Calucci said, I’m two blocks over.”

  “What’s with the dogs?”

  “Former K-9 officers in North Carolina.” He nodded toward the closest dog. “This one’s Castor. The other’s Pollox.”