But he’d escaped all of them today and taken an extra day shift at Suckers. Bob’s last treatment was today—great way to spend the Friday before Knot Fest week—and Fiona had forbidden CJ from stopping by.
There was a possibility CJ had been a bear lately.
While he banged around the bar getting set up for what could possibly be the last normal day he’d ever have in Bliss, he told himself the comforting lie that Fiona didn’t want anything to distract Bob from getting his rest before Knot Fest.
Because they were coming to watch him make an ass of himself at the Games next weekend.
The back door banged open, and something that sounded like Huck singing drifted from the kitchen to the bar.
And was that—yep, CJ knew the song. “If You Want To Be Happy.” He’d sung it to every one of his sisters at some point in their lives. He’d always meant it as a compliment, obviously. A wish for them for long-term marital success. Getting to call them ugly in the song was simply a bonus.
Huck skipped out of the kitchen and shimmied his saggy sixty-five-year-old hips all the way to the front door, which he unlocked with a flourish. Braid swinging, an uncharacteristically happy smile splitting his cheeks, he danced back through the tables.
“Get an ugly one for wife number four, Huck?” CJ said. “Careful. She might stick.”
The old guy let out a gleeful laugh. “Hell, no, boy. I’m getting my freedom.”
A quieter presence behind CJ made him look back.
“Who in the hell is that?” Jeremy said with a nod at Huck.
“An anti-zombie in Huck’s body?”
“She’s getting maaaarrrrried,” Huck sang in a tune CJ didn’t recognize. “She’s getting hitched. She’s allllllll hiiiiiisssss!”
“Dude’s lost his last marble.” Jeremy moved to the nearest table and started pulling chairs down for the lunch crowd. CJ hadn’t expected Jeremy here until later, but today apparently wasn’t normal.
“Get a bottle of champagne,” Huck said to CJ. “Gonna have us a celebration.”
The front door opened. CJ’s pathetic little heart sputtered.
First time Lindsey had walked through that door in weeks. And it took everything he had not to strain to see if her sister was behind her. Dressed up like she was—in a power suit that could’ve done battle with some of Marilyn Elias’s getups, and with her hair back in a tight bun—Lindsey obviously wouldn’t have Nat, or Noah, with her, but CJ looked.
He couldn’t help himself.
The disappointment that she was alone twisted the log of a splinter that had taken up residence in his chest about two weeks ago. “I take it he’s not talking about you getting married,” CJ said.
Lindsey snorted delicately. “Not a snowball’s chance in hell.”
Huck hooted. “Sing it with me.” He puffed his lungs up, but Lindsey leveled a look on him that must’ve been inspired by the power suit.
“I don’t sing,” she said.
“Sad truth, that,” Jeremy said.
Lindsey ignored him and claimed the table he’d just cleared of chairs. She pulled a file out of her messenger back. “What’s the emergency, Huck?”
Huck pointed to the file. “You boys see that? That right there’s my freedom. Number two’s getting hitched to some old geezer with a Swiss bank account and a faulty pacemaker.”
Much more glee, and the guy would need his own pacemaker. His gray braid frizzed with all the excitement.
“So now she has to support you?” CJ said.
“Hell, no. Means I don’t gotta pay her alimony no more.” He poked Lindsey. “Right? That’s what my prenup said, right? Tell me I’m a free man. Go on. Tell me.”
Lindsey’s lips quirked up. “This is not an emergency.”
“Best case you’ve had in months, though, ain’t it?” Huck poked her again. “Lot better’n that custody problem you had last month. Go on. You tell me I’m free, I’ll pay you overtime.” He snapped his fingers. “Where’s that champagne?” He scampered back behind the bar.
Jeremy shrugged at CJ and went back to work clearing the rest of the tables.
“You want something to drink?” CJ said to Lindsey.
She lifted a water bottle from her bag and waved it at him without looking up.
Like it was his fault Natalie kicked him out of her house.
Except it was.
He’d been too mad to realize it that night, but the next day, when Kimmie had stopped by the rectory to drop off cupcakes, everything had clicked.
He’d pushed Marilyn’s buttons. He’d told her she should be afraid of Natalie, and she’d made Natalie pay for it. Made Kimmie pay for it too.
A prince among men, that was CJ. Always punishing the women in his life.
He propped his hands on the bar. “Haven’t seen you around much lately.”
Lindsey didn’t look up. “Been busy.”
“How’s Noah?”
He knew better than to show weakness to any woman. But he wanted to know. Losing Noah was as bad as losing Natalie. Worse, in some ways.
Because Noah was so easy to love.
Lindsey dropped her pen. “Are you leaving after Knot Fest?”
Simple question. Loaded, but simple.
He looked down at the row of vodka bottles beneath the bar.
“I saw you last Knot Fest,” Lindsey said. “When you kissed her.”
Everything inside him went still. Utterly, completely motionless. From his pulse to his nerves to his ego, everything—everything—stopped.
And waited.
“You were a married guy kissing my married sister. That doesn’t bother me. It’s the Games. It happens. But you and Nat—you weren’t a bad match. That bothered me. It bothered me for a long, long time.”
His body slowly moved back into motion. He lifted his head, inhaled fresh bar air, and studied her. He didn’t believe all this voodoo anti-matching crap.
But he still had to ask. “And me and my wife?”
“Is there any good that can come out of either answer I give you?”
No.
He didn’t have to think about it. Because there wasn’t. He’d either been a good match or a bad match for Serena, and he couldn’t change it now. They’d made their choices. She’d died for it, he lived with it every day.
He shook his head. “You think something good could come of telling me that me and Nat aren’t one of your bad matches.”
“Something very good,” Lindsey said softly. Almost wistfully.
CJ’s breath came out long and slow.
Something very good. Like a home. A family. A best friend and lover. Weekend T-ball games. Playing dinosaurs. Reading Dr. Seuss.
Giving up his freedom, he reminded himself. Never making it to the Great Barrier Reef. Seeing his family every holiday.
Seeing his family every holiday. Belonging somewhere again. Laughing.
Dammit, who turned off the AC?
“But if you’re going to use that plane ticket,” Lindsey said, “none of it matters, does it?”
He was sweating. A cold, steamy, life-changing sweat. He hadn’t mentioned to anyone that he’d bought his ticket to Utah last week. “How do you know about that?”
She smiled. Dammit again. She’d gotten him with one of Sage’s favorite tricks. Pretend you already know, and they’ll admit it.
“I hear all kinds of things,” Lindsey said.
The kitchen door hinges squeaked. “Saddle up, boys! The champagne wagon just pulled into the station. Yeeee-haaawww!” Huck plopped a bottle down beside CJ. “You figure out the rest of it yet?” he said to Lindsey.
“I need half an hour.”
“Quit bugging the lady so she can work,” Huck said to CJ. “Ain’t paying you to stand around with your thumb up your butt, am I?”
“Have been the last couple of months, haven’t you?” Jeremy said. He’d worked his way close to the door, and now he frowned at one of the small side windows. “We open early today?”
“If they’re paying,” Huck said.
The door swung open again.
“Aw, hell,” CJ muttered.
“Good to see you too, Princess,” Pepper said.
But she wasn’t alone.
She’d brought more of them.
He pinched his eyes shut. If he didn’t look, if he didn’t see them, they weren’t here. But if they were here, on a Friday, then they’d be here tomorrow on Saturday for the parade, and then again on Sunday.
“Is this place sanitary?” Margie wanted to know.
Eleven sisters, and he knew each of them by their voice alone. It was a curse.
“Some days,” Basil said with an audible sniff.
CJ surrendered and opened his eyes again. The whole Blue contingency from the northern part of Illinois was trooping into Suckers.
Cori paused to run her fingers over the purple rope lights circling the door. “Pimpin’.”
She stumbled forward, propelled, apparently, by an overeager Cinna.
An overeager Cinna who, last CJ checked, had been living with Rosemary in St. Louis while temping as a receptionist and taking night classes in… something. “Totally pimpin’,” his baby sister agreed. She crossed her arms and surveyed the room. “Who’s in charge here? They still hiring?”
Holy hell. He was too old to work with his baby sister in a bar.
But the thought wasn’t as unappealing as it should’ve been.
Actually, it wasn’t unappealing at all. He had a fun family. Having family to make him smile and laugh now—that was priceless.
“What brings you all here?” he said.
Cori, who wore her personality like Cinna but her hair like Pepper, grinned the famous Blue grin at him. “We’re here to cheer you on.”
“Is that our code word for heckling?” Margie—a redhead who could’ve been Basil’s twin except for the eleven years between them—didn’t twitch a single eyebrow. Cori and Margie bookended him in birth order, and he was all but certain they’d been the two who had ultimately driven Basil to seminary.
“Heckling, support, it’s all the same,” Pepper said.
She’d given notice at her job and was staying at the rectory while she looked for a house and filled in at Bliss Bridal until the purchase paperwork went through.
She was also being stubbornly tight-lipped about it.
Because she didn’t want to bore him with the details or remind him of what he didn’t have the marbles to fight for, she said.
“You all know the Games are next weekend, right?” CJ said.
“We’ve taken time off our respective lives to spend some quality time in preparation for the heckling,” Margie said.
“Your skin’s gotten a little thin,” Cori added.
Margie nodded. “Think of us as your coaches.”
Huck grunted. “You gonna stand there gossiping, or you all gonna order something to drink?”
“Think we’re out of Kool-Aid,” CJ said to the group, “but I might be able to dig up some milk and cookies.”
“We’re all legal to drink, you dingbat,” Cinna said.
Margie lifted an insufferable eyebrow. “I believe he was attempting to incite hilarity with an implied question of our maturity.”
“Didn’t work,” Cinna said. “What else you got?”
“A headache,” he offered.
Basil blew out a Holy Constipated Breath. “Our female siblings are correct. If two minutes with them gives you a headache, you’re in need of training.” He looked down at the four girls and shuddered, then took a seat at the bar. “Double shot of vodka, please.”
Pepper introduced the rest of the family to Lindsey, who politely but firmly informed them that she was working. And then let her shoulders relax when they backed up to take seats at the bar instead.
He set his siblings up with a round of drinks, half-listening to their idle chatter while he and Jeremy finished prepping the bar to open for the real lunch crowd. Sage was looking at buying her first house. Rosemary’s oldest hit a home run in her softball game last weekend. Ginger’s husband finally got snipped.
All the good stuff.
“All signs would indicate whoever picked May second should receive the pool,” Margie said.
CJ nearly dropped a tray of glasses.
Pepper visibly choked. Lindsey looked up from her books, first to CJ, then to his sisters.
He was going to kill Cinna and Margie.
“Did they—” Lindsey shook her head. “Never mind. Don’t want to know.” She motioned to Huck.
“I’m free?” he said.
She nodded. “As the day you were born.”
“So I can sell this heap of sticks and retire to Tahiti and she don’t get any of it?”
“As soon as she’s married.”
“Hot damn!” He poured himself another glass of champagne and slammed it like it was tequila. “Hear that, boys? I’m putting this place up on the auction block soon as that ol’ hag has a new ring on her gnarled fingers.”
Jeremy frowned.
“Thought she would’ve been a looker, Huck,” CJ said. “I heard what you were singing about marrying ugly girls if you want to be happy. And we all know you weren’t happy.”
“Oh, she’s a looker,” Lindsey said. “This one won the first Miss Junior Bridesmaid pageant. Huck, unfortunately, sees her through alimony goggles.”
“See her for what she is,” Huck said. “And I ain’t telling her new husband anything about it.”
Jeremy’s frown was growing more menacing by the second. “How’s that all work out? You’re getting to sell because of her getting married?”
Huck pointed to Lindsey. “Tell him. Go on.”
Lindsey slid the files away. “Long story short,” she said, “with his second wife remarrying, his various prenups and divorce settlements have now played out in a fashion that entitles him to sell the bar and keep all the profits to himself.”
Those weren’t just thunderclouds forming on Jeremy’s face. It was a hurricane. “Who you think you’re gonna sell to?” he said.
“Hell if I know,” Huck said. “But I got a feeling one or two of them minor league guys will snatch this place up quick.”
“Unless one or two of your current employees made you an offer first?” Lindsey said. She was still shuffling papers, still calm and cool and indifferent as one would expect of a divorce lawyer, but CJ knew better.
She was nudging fate.
His sisters had stopped their yammering, and each of them wore her own particular brand of thoughtfulness. Margie’s matched Basil’s constipated look, Cori did a head-tilt, Pepper went quiet but alert, and Cinna chuckled with unrestrained glee. “You still got that big retirement fund you were working on, old man?” she asked CJ.
“Shut it, Cinna,” he growled.
Not one of his finer comebacks. But his head was spinning too fast over the idea of settling—of owning a bar, of owning Suckers—for him to effectively deflect his sisters’ attention.
What scared him the most was how much settling in Bliss didn’t scare him.
Should’ve terrified him down to his toenails. Wasn’t anything exciting in Bliss. A golf course, a couple minor league teams, a bus to Chicago. No scuba. No BASE jumping. No skiing.
“Don’t have much capital,” Jeremy said, “but I got the heart, man. Don’t want to work for a bunch of jocks.”
CJ’s chest prickled. His foot bounced. He’d seen Huck’s books. The guy wasn’t talking about running away to Tahiti because Suckers wasn’t profitable. He was taking off for Tahiti because he was old and tired of working and wanted someone else to wait on him.
Once in a lifetime business opportunity here.
If Huck were selling because Suckers wasn’t profitable, this would be an easy decision. CJ still had plenty of old accountant left in him.
He also had the part that broke out in hives at the thought of dipping into retirement funds to buy a bar.
“You should do it,”
Cinna said. “I’ll be your manager. Fun job, right?”
“We could do cross-promotions with the boutique,” Pepper said. “Buy a dress from me, get a free round for the bachelor party from you.”
“Mathematically speaking, that gives CJ no benefit,” Margie said.
“And he needs some financial benefit,” Cori agreed. “Unless you offer a free round for the bachelorette party instead. Then he’s getting some benefits, if you know what I mean.”
“I believe it was previously decided that he received his benefits on May second,” Margie drawled.
Basil waved his shot glass at CJ.
“Tarra totally won the pool,” Cinna said. “But we don’t have to tell her. She always wins. CJ, you think you could try to get laid again?”
“First thing we could do is ban them,” Jeremy said, hooking a thumb toward CJ’s sisters.
Lindsey slung her bag over her shoulder. “You all have a pleasant afternoon. I have marriages to correct.” She glanced at Huck. “Next time you make me clear my schedule for an emergency, make sure it’s an emergency.”
“Next time, I’m flying you to Tahiti,” Huck said. He saluted her with his champagne flute, then danced back to the kitchen, singing his freedom songs.
Jeremy leaned a hip into the bar and stared at CJ. “Think it over. We make a good team.”
Yeah, they did.
But he’d made a good team with other people in other places. Places without ridiculous rules about who could cavort with whom, without antiquated royalty structures based around marital status. Places without complications, places that didn’t require leaps of faith or facing his demons or underestimating Queen Generals.
Places that weren’t as colorful.
Places that didn’t have sharp-tongued women with wounded eyes and little boys who believed in the power of stuffed dinosaurs.
The door shut behind Lindsey.
Bliss had grown on him. Owning Suckers? Not a bad proposition.
Except when the Games were over next week, the real draw in Bliss wouldn’t be around much longer.
Blissed (Misfit Brides #1) Page 25
