No Ordinary Joe

by Michelle Celmer

  She played dumb. “What about him?”

  “You looked awfully…friendly.”

  “We are friends. He’s a nice guy.”

  “You kiss all your friends like that?”

  She had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. He really was jealous. It was a tiny bit adorable, and a little heart-wrenching. “What are you saying? If you can’t have me, no one can?”

  When he didn’t answer she looked over at him. He was frowning.

  “Did it bother you that he kissed me?”

  “Of course it bothered me,” he ground out through gritted teeth. His look of surprise said he probably hadn’t intended to admit it. It made her feel like a big jerk because not only was he jealous, but his feelings were clearly hurt and that was the last thing she wanted.

  “It was nothing,” she told him.

  “It clearly was not nothing.”

  She grabbed his forearm, feeling the muscles tighten under her fingers as she pulled him off the sidewalk and into the doorway of a closed insurance office. “No, it was really nothing. He only did it to make you jealous.”

  He frowned. “Why would he do that?”

  “Because he knows I like you, and in his own misguided way he was trying to help. For reasons that make no sense whatsoever, certain people in this town seem determined to set us up.”

  “Aunt Sue?”

  “And Lindy and Zoey and now Nate. And God only knows who will be next.”

  Joe leaned out of the doorway to check on Lily Ann. She was in a line that stretched all the way out the shop door.

  “Lily Ann, too,” he said. “After dinner last Sunday she told me that she liked you and I should ask you out on a date.”

  She groaned and let her head fall back against the brick. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Yes, it is. I should have listened to you. I never should have come for dinner, and I shouldn’t be going with you to get ice cream. It’s just going to confuse her.”

  “Or maybe it’s time she learned that her daddy can be friends with a woman he isn’t going to marry. Because in a town this small, avoiding each other is going to be next to impossible.”

  “Maybe I’m not the best person to use as an example.”

  “Well, if you don’t want to be friends…”

  “It’s hard to be friends with someone when all you can think about when you’re with them is getting them naked!”

  A passing elderly couple shot her a sharp look. Embarrassment burned her cheeks, and a grin tugged at the corner of Joe’s mouth.

  “Would you stop smiling!” she said. “That only makes it worse.”

  He smiled wider. “We’re adults, Reily. We should be able to control our…urges.”

  Should be able to, but that didn’t mean they could. But being friends with Joe would sure beat the silent treatment and make their working relationship much more enjoyable. And she might just find that being friends with Joe would curb that insatiable sexual attraction. Maybe companionship would be enough. And maybe it would get all of the matchmakers off their backs.

  “I can if you can,” she said, hoping it was true.

  “Friends?” he said, holding his hand out to shake hers.

  “Friends,” she agreed, taking it. His fingertips tickled her palm and his thumb grazed her skin in a way that made her heart skip a beat. If they were going to do this, maybe touching each other, for any reason, was a bad idea.

  Reily pulled her hand free and checked down the street. She could no longer see Lily Ann, meaning she must have been getting close to the counter to order. “We’d better go,” she told Joe.

  “Yeah, or Lily Ann might actually order that double-scoop waffle cone.”

  They walked together down to the ice cream shop and arrived just in time to place their orders. A child-size chocolate cone for Lily Ann, a double-scoop double-chocolate chip for Joe and a single scoop of cookie dough for Reily—which Joe insisted on paying for.

  All the tables were occupied inside, so they decided to eat their cones while they walked back home. They’d barely made it a block when Reily heard the out-of-tune picking of a guitar. Curious, she sought out the source and saw two boys, both in their late teens, standing outside the closed barbershop across the street. The one holding the guitar was strumming awkwardly. Clearly he couldn’t play. Then she focused in on the guitar itself and the air backed up in her lungs. She gasped and her cone slipped from her fingers, landing with a splat on the pavement.

  She charged across the street, mindless of the traffic, over to where the boys stood and demanded, “Where did you get that?”

  Chapter Nine

  Both boys jolted with surprise and recoiled slightly. The one holding the guitar jutted his chin out and asked Reily, “Who wants to know?”

  “I do,” she said. “That’s my guitar.”

  They both looked at her as if she were unbalanced. “No,” the one holding the guitar said. “It’s definitely mine.”

  “But it was mine. It was stolen along with my car over a week ago. Look on the back. Those are my mother’s initials etched in the wood. B-E-E. Belinda Elaine Eckardt. It was hers. My dad got it for her as a wedding present.”

  He shrugged as if he didn’t care where it came from. “That’s not my problem, lady. It’s mine now. I bought it fair and square at a resale shop in Denver.”

  “Come on,” she coaxed. “You don’t even know how to play.”

  He puffed out his chest. “But I’m gonna learn and we’re starting a band.”

  From the sound of what she’d heard, he didn’t have a musical bone in his body.

  “I’m going to Nashville to be a singer, and I need that guitar,” she said.

  “So get a new one,” the other kid said.

  “Please,” she pleaded, suddenly feeling desperate to have some small piece of her past back, some link to her parents. Tears burned the corners of her eyes. “It means the world to me. My mom used to play it for me at bedtime and sing songs to me. She died when I was seven years old. It’s the only thing I have left of her.”

  The kid holding her guitar hesitated, looking guilty, then said, “If it means that much, I guess I could sell it back to you.”

  Relief washed over her. “Thank you so much. I have…” She paused, digging through her backpack for what was left of her cash. “I have seventy-one dollars.”

  “Seventy-one?” he balked. “Are you kidding? I paid a hundred and fifty bucks for this.”

  Her heart sank. Until she made more tips this week, that was the best she could do. And she feared that if she let the guitar out of her sight, even for a second, she might never see it again.

  “Here’s the other eighty,” Joe said from behind her, and she swiveled around to see that he and Lily Ann had followed her across the street. He must have heard the entire exchange. His wallet was out and he was holding four crisp twenty-dollar bills.

  “Dude, I drove all the way to Denver for this,” the kid said, his eyes on the money. “Gas alone cost at least…ten bucks. And now I have to go back for a different one.”

  Joe pulled out another twenty. “Gas money. Now give the woman her guitar.”

  The temptation was too great. The kid took the money and handed her the guitar. She hugged it to her chest, and it took everything in her not to break down and bawl like a baby.

  “Do you have the case?” she asked.

  “Didn’t come with one,” the kid said.

  She couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth or not, but she didn’t care. She could buy a new case. The guitar was priceless. She was supposed to be saving her money, not spending every dollar she made, and it was ridiculous to have to buy her own property, but this was worth every penny it cost.


  “Thank you so much,” she said to Joe after the boys had ambled off, cash in hand. “I can give you the rest out of my tips next week.”

  “Keep your cash,” Joe said. “I’ll take it out of your next check.”

  “Are you sure? You’ve done so much already.”

  “That’s what friends are for.”

  And he was, she realized. He was a true friend. Him and Lindy and Zoey and Sue. They had all been there for her without reservation or question.

  “You dropped your ice cream,” Lily Ann said, gripping her own cone, the chocolate melting down over her fingers and onto her shirt.

  “I guess I did. I just got really excited when I saw my guitar.”

  Lily Ann held her cone out to Reily. “You can share mine.”

  Reily smiled. She really was a sweet kid. “That’s okay, honey. Besides, I wouldn’t want it to drip on my guitar.”

  Lily Ann shrugged and took a lick.

  “You probably want to get that home,” Joe said.

  She hugged it tighter. “And I’m never letting it out of my sight again.”

  “Reily, would you sing me a song at bedtime?” Lily Ann asked. “Like your mommy used to do?”

  “Sure, honey,” she said, glancing over at Joe. “If it’s okay with your daddy.”

  He smiled down at his daughter. “Of course it’s okay.”

  “Did Mommy ever sing to me?”

  A brief frown settled between his brows before he rearranged his face into a strained smile. “Sure she did. All the time.”

  It was a lie, Reily could tell.

  They turned in the direction of home, Lily Ann skipping ahead of them. When she was far enough away that she couldn’t hear, Reily asked Joe, “She didn’t sing to her, did she?”

  He shook his head.

  “Not even when she was a baby?”

  “Lily Ann was colicky, and Beth didn’t have a whole lot of patience. By the time I would get home after work, she would be stressed to her limit. She would hand Lily Ann over to me and leave.”

  “Where would she go?”

  “Out with her friends. At least, that’s what she told me. Most of her girlfriends were still single. They still had the party-girl mentality. She would stay out until 2:00 a.m., then complain the next day about how tired she was. But she would do the same thing again the next night and the next. And even when she was home, she wasn’t really there. I was the one who gave Lily Ann her bath and her bottle and tucked her into bed.”

  “What about when Lily Ann got older?”

  He shrugged. “Not much changed.”

  Which made a person wonder why she’d had a baby in the first place. She clearly hadn’t been ready for the responsibility.

  After a brief silence, Joe asked, “Was it true what you told those boys, about your mom’s guitar being all you have left?”

  She nodded. “That and a few old pictures. After they died my aunt had a huge yard sale to get rid of everything from the house.”

  He frowned. “That seems a little insensitive.”

  “She didn’t have a choice. She needed money.”

  “Your parents didn’t have life insurance?”

  “My dad had a small policy through work, I guess, but my aunt said that barely covered their debts.”

  “The minute we found out that Beth was pregnant, I bought a policy. If something happens to me, Lily Ann will be taken care of.”

  “That’s good. I wish my parents would have been so prepared.”

  “My dad insisted. It’s what he did when they had me. The insurance money I got after he died made it possible for me to rebuild the bar. And I was able to afford some much-needed renovations to the house before Lily Ann and I moved in.”

  “Where did you live before that?”

  “A little house a few streets west of here. It was small, but cozy. Beth hated it. She wanted something bigger, more modern, but it was all we could afford. She wanted a lot of things that I apparently couldn’t give her.” He sighed, shook his head and said, “I don’t know why I just told you that.”

  “Because we’re friends,” she said. “And friends talk about things.”

  “There are some things that I don’t talk about with anyone.”

  “Well, maybe you should. Maybe you need to.”

  “Maybe,” he said, his expression completely unreadable. It was amazing to her, his ability to shut his emotions off like a lightbulb. One minute they were having an open, honest conversation, the next he was robot man again.

  Oh well, baby steps.

  “So, is that why you were headed to Nashville?” he asked. “To sing?”

  She nodded. “I’m surprised Abe didn’t mention it.”

  “He may have. But about two minutes into the conversation, when I got the information I needed, I started to tune him out.”

  “Singing is all I’ve ever wanted to do. It’s been my dream since I was a little girl. And I know every aspiring artist probably thinks this, but I’m good enough to make it. I’m willing to do whatever it takes. Being stuck here in Paradise is just a temporary diversion.”

  “I’m assuming your aunt couldn’t help you.”

  “She barely gets by on her disability.”

  “Is she sick?”

  “She got into a bad accident when she was eighteen. She was out drinking with her friends and she wrapped her car around a telephone pole. She’s been in a wheelchair, in constant pain, ever since.”

  “And she still raised you?”

  “Yeah.” They turned onto Joe’s street. “My grandparents were too old, and not much better off than my aunt, really. It was her or a foster home. And since she was my mom’s older sister, and my mom spent years helping their mom care for her, I guess she felt obligated to take me. And she did her best under the circumstances. She won’t be winning any mother-of-the-year awards, but I had a roof over my head and food in my belly. If nothing else, it taught me how to take care of myself.”

  “Daddy, I’m finished.”

  Lily Ann had stopped walking and was waiting for them to catch up. She held out what was at least three-quarters of the cone with a dollop of ice cream left inside.

  “Run on ahead and put it in the trash can,” Joe called to her before turning to Reily with a grin. “Told you she wouldn’t finish it.”

  Lily Ann darted off down the street, flip-flops slapping, but came to a stop at the foot of the driveway. For several seconds she just stood there, then she turned around and ran back toward Joe and Reily, her eyes big as saucers.

  “What the heck is she doing?” Joe asked, looking puzzled.

  “It almost looks as if something scared her,” Reily said.

  When she reached them he asked Lily Ann, “Why did you come back?”

  She curled what had to be one very sticky hand in his much bigger one and said in a somber voice, “Aunt Sue looks really mad.”

  “What do you mean, she looks mad? Where is she?”

  “On the porch, fighting with the lady.”

  Joe frowned. “What lady?”

  “I don’t know, but she yelled at her, and she only yells when someone does something that makes her really mad.”

  Joe’s expression went from puzzled to downright worried. “Then we better go see who this lady is.”

  He swung Lily Ann into his arms—oblivious to the chocolate ice cream she was smearing all over his white shirt—and picked up the pace. Though she couldn’t help feeling she was intruding somehow, Reily had no choice but to follow, since for now it was home for her, too. Besides, Joe’s alarm, and the fact that he was trying to hide it from his daughter, worried her as well.

  When they reached the house Reily saw that Sue was standing on the porch, and she did indeed look mad.
But the woman she was arguing with hardly appeared a threat. She was a wisp of a thing, Sue’s age or older, and looked as if a strong breeze might blow her over. Her hair was gray and close-cropped. In a gauzy skirt that brushed her ankles, a silky, peasant-style blouse and copper bangle jewelry, she looked like what Reily’s aunt would have referred to as an “artsy” type.

  “Aunt Sue, what’s up?” Joe said, rapidly closing in on the porch.

  Sue spun around, looking startled to see him.

  The other woman turned too. When she saw Joe, her eyes lit and she raised a hand to her chest. “Joey?”

  Joe stopped at the foot of the porch steps, still holding tight to his daughter, looking puzzled. “Yes.”

  He obviously didn’t know her. Reily was still several yards away, but she could see that the woman’s hands were trembling.

  “And this is your family? Your daughter and your wife?” the woman asked.

  “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

  The woman took a deep, shuddering breath. “No, but you used to. A very long time ago.”

  “You’re determined to do this?” Sue asked her. The resignation in her tone, the distress in her chubby face, gave Reily a very bad feeling.

  The woman turned to her. “I told you that I am. I have to.”

  Sue shook her head, clearly upset by whatever it was the woman was about to reveal.

  “Would someone please tell me what’s going on?” Joe said.

  Whatever it was, Sue obviously didn’t want Lily Ann to hear because she walked past the woman and down the stairs, holding her arms out to her great-niece. “Look at you, you silly goose! You’re covered in chocolate. Let’s get you inside and washed up.”

  Lily Ann went to her and Sue carried her around to the back door. When they were out of earshot Joe looked up at the woman. “Well?”

  “I’m Veronica Spenser,” she said. “But a long time ago I was Veronica Miller.”

  The color drained from Joe’s face and for a second Reily thought he might actually lose consciousness. In a voice that was so cold she wouldn’t have been surprised at all to see ice form on his lips, Joe glared up at the woman and said, “Hey, Mom, where you been?”