by Helen Brenna
“Mmm,” Lynn murmured. “You made this?”
“After I picked up…Zach from school.”
“I helped,” Jason added.
“You sure did.” Erica smiled at him, then looked back at Lynn. “Well?”
“It’s a little too hot for my tastes, but it has good flavor. What makes it spicy?”
“Red chilies.”
“You have a recipe for this?”
“It’s all up here.” Erica tapped her temple.
“Not sharing your secrets, eh?” Lynn chuckled. “Can you tone the heat down?”
“Absolutely.”
She took another bite. “The islanders don’t like changes.”
“So you leave their favorites on the menu and you add some new and interesting things for the summer tourists. Specials. What do you say?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Can Zach hang out at the bar? Just for this weekend?”
“Bribing me, huh?”
Erica grinned. She was actually starting to like Lynn. “You caught me.”
“Sure.” Lynn took another bite of pasta. “As long he stays out of the way.”
Erica took Jason’s hand and led him out of the kitchen and into the bar where Arlo was filling one of the stainless steel bar coolers with beer. “I’m going to need to walk around back here without tripping over you. So you have to sit over here and keep yourself busy, okay?”
She moved one of the tall stools to the end of the bar, helped him up, and plopped a root beer and the new toys they’d purchased from the grocery store in front of him. She turned around and took a deep breath. She was going to be bartending for the first time in years.
Within fifteen minutes, no fewer than five people had walked through the door and come to sit at the bar, and several couples and a small family had been escorted to tables in the restaurant. Someone put money in the jukebox and the sound of classic rock songs filled the air. Friday night happy hour had begun, and it turned out she hadn’t forgotten nearly as much as she’d thought.
Erica was in full swing when someone called her name, “Hey, Erica!” Sarah came toward the bar, her smile wide and sincere. Tonight, she looked stunning in a cashmere sweater and black dress pants. “How are you doing?”
“Good.”
Sarah was soon joined by Jason’s teacher, Hannah Johnson, and another young woman introduced as Missy Charms.
“We usually meet for happy hour on Fridays,” Sarah explained. “But tonight Hannah’s deserting us.”
“For a man,” Missy added.
Hannah blushed and looked away.
“I’d love to stay and chat,” Erica lied. It was really the last thing she’d like to do. “But I’m kind of busy.”
“That’s okay. We won’t bother you.”
“Would you ladies like anything to drink?”
After they gave her their orders, Sarah asked, “So how’s your new job going?”
“Good.” So far working in a pub on Mirabelle wasn’t all that different than the blue-collar joints she’d worked at back home, especially from a bartending standpoint. Given this was a well-known vacation destination in the Midwest, she’d expected Cosmopolitans, Appletinis, or froufrou blender drinks, but these people were turning out to be salt of the earth. With only a few exceptions, they drank beer, wine and regular mixed cocktails.
“The Duffys are nice people,” Missy said.
“I hope you’ll like it here,” Hannah added before she walked over to the end of the bar where Jason was sitting and patted him on the back. “Hey, Zach. How’re you?”
“Fine,” he said without glancing away from his game.
“What’re you playing?”
“Super Mario Brothers.”
“Hey, Zach,” Sarah called. “You should come over to our house some time and play Brian’s Xbox 360.”
“Really?” At that he looked up, his eyes wide. It was the first excitement Erica had seen on Jason’s face all day. “Sweet.”
“Maybe even tomorrow while your mom is working?” Sarah offered.
“Okay.” He was back to his game.
“That all right with you?” Sarah glanced at Erica.
It wasn’t a half-bad idea. It was Saturday, so Jason wouldn’t have school. “Maybe Zach and I can watch Brian the next day I have off?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“A good plan.” Hannah patted Zach’s shoulder. “See you at school on Monday.” She rejoined the other two women.
As Erica set a glass of chardonnay in front of Hannah, Garrett Taylor was walking straight for the bar.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DAMMIT. HERE WE GO AGAIN. The man was going to ruin a perfectly good night. Why wouldn’t he leave Erica alone? Still, she couldn’t stop herself from checking him out. In a soft-looking leather jacket and dark gray dress shirt, he sure cleaned up nicely.
“Hey, there.” He sat on the bar stool next to Hannah.
“Hi!” She smiled at him, a shy smile that said he was all hers and she couldn’t be happier about it.
Figures. Opposites attract. Every night needed a day. Beauty and the beast. Now that Erica saw them together, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t expected them to be dating. Two attractive people move to an island this size and bang, they’re going to hook up.
So what had happened in Lynn’s office yesterday? He may not have made the slightest move to do anything about the obvious attraction between them, but that didn’t change the fact that it’d been there.
“Hello, Garrett,” Sarah said with a teasing lilt.
Garrett glanced at the other two women. “Sarah. Missy.”
“Sarah, let’s go get a table for dinner,” Missy said, standing up from the bar.
“See you guys later.” Sarah waved as she followed Missy.
“Sorry, I’m a little late.” Garrett returned his attention to Hannah. “A game warden stopped by with some paperwork.”
“That’s okay.” Hannah glanced up at Erica. “Garrett, this is Erica.”
“We’ve met.”
“You have?”
Erica barely caught herself from rolling her eyes. “What can I get for you?” she asked.
“A beer. Anything from the tap’ll do.”
Too bad this tap didn’t pour arsenic. She filled a chilled mug with beer and set it in front of him.
He reached for it with his big hands, workman’s hands, rough and calloused, but clean with neatly trimmed nails. His fingertips accidentally brushed against hers as he reached for the handle, and he quickly glanced at her. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
There were those pale gray eyes again looking at her as if they couldn’t decide whether or not they liked the view. “So how’s it going here at Duffy’s?” he asked.
“Good.” She washed a few glasses.
“Zach do okay in school today?”
She was surprised he cared, but then maybe he was only making small talk for Hannah’s sake. “He likes Hannah, and Brian’s in the class.”
“Every little bit helps.”
There was something in his subtle accent that reminded Erica of home. “What area of Chicago are you from?” She would’ve put money on the South Side, maybe Armour Square.
“Kenwood. Near Washington Park. Know the area?”
“Not really,” she lied, but Armour Square was a cakewalk compared to Kenwood. She’d worked there for a while, until a coworker had been murdered in the parking lot after closing one night. The next day, she’d quit. “Did you work in that precinct?”
At first, he didn’t answer. “No. Englewood.”
He glared at her as if angry she’d made him remember, and no wonder. That district was one of the worst neighborhoods in Chicago. The kind of place it was sometimes hard to tell the cops from the criminals.
Garrett Taylor. Suddenly his name rang a bell. This guy had been in the news last year related to a police brutality case. What was he doing on Mirabelle?
&nb
sp; As if the conversation had turned sour, he stood. “Ready to get a table, Hannah?”
“Sure.”
“There’s one by the window overlooking the water.” He placed his hand at the small of Hannah’s back.
“See you later, Erica.”
“Bye, Hannah. Chief.”
Much to her surprise, he stopped next to Jason and let Hannah go on alone to their table. “Hey, Zach. How you doing?” she heard him ask.
“Okay.”
“So what do you think of Miss Johnson?” he whispered.
“She’s okay.”
“Was I right about the candy?”
“Uh-huh.” Jason’s eyes lit up. “She even lets us chew gum after lunch.”
“No way.”
Jason nodded quickly, excited now. He went into a longwinded, for a kid anyway, explanation of every nice thing Hannah had done to make him feel at home. “I even got to pick who I wanted to sit next to in class.”
“Who?”
“Brian.”
“I should’ve known that. Duh.” Garrett chuckled.
“It’s even better than my old school.”
“Good. I’m glad you like it here,” Garrett said. “Well, I gotta go eat dinner. See you around.”
“Bye.”
Erica would’ve breathed a sigh of relief after they’d left the bar if Garrett hadn’t ended up directly in her line of vision every time she went to the waitress stand for orders. Hannah’s back was to the bar, but more often than not, Garrett was watching her, making her wonder if he’d chosen that location on purpose.
Part of her was irritated by his constant scrutiny, but another part of her, a part she couldn’t deny, was intensely aware of him. Curiously, the more she watched him with Hannah, the more she realized they didn’t really fit together. Hannah was pleasant and easy. He was stiff and edgy and seemed barely able to keep his focus on what Hannah was saying. He might’ve traded the pumped-up streets of Chicago for the comfy, relaxed lifestyle of Smallsville, Wisconsin, but there was nothing soft or tranquil about him. He didn’t fit on Mirabelle any more than she did.
Two older men came to sit at the bar. “Well, lookie here,” the tall, big-boned one said. “It’s fresh meat—er—a new bartender.”
She glanced at the man, ready to snap back at him, but the guy looked harmless enough. “Erica Jackson.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Erica dear. Doc Welinski. Everyone calls me Doc.” He stuck out his hand, and Erica couldn’t very well ignore him. She pulled back the second she had the chance. “This old coot’s Bob Henderson,” Doc said, tilting his head to the man on his left. “He and his wife run the drugstore.”
“Hi, Bob.”
Bob, thankfully, had no interest in being friendly. He nodded and quietly ordered a whiskey and water.
“I’ll take a club soda,” Doc said. “You might as well pour one of them foreign beers off the tap for a friend of mine.”
She was delivering their drinks when Dan Newman came to sit next to Doc. “This must be for you.” She set the beer in front of him.
“You betcha.” He grinned and flicked his head toward his friends. “I see you’ve met the other two stooges.”
She nodded. “You guys come here often?”
“Every Friday for the last ten years.”
“That your son over there?” Doc asked.
“Yeah.”
“Looks very well behaved.”
A woman named Sally McGregor with short salt-and-pepper hair ordered a gin and tonic. “None of that cheap gut-rot stuff, either,” she said, sitting down one stool away from Dan. “Top-shelf gin. Got me?”
Finally someone who spoke Erica’s language. “Coming right up.”
Then the couple who had been in the restaurant for lunch the other day, Jan and Ron Setterberg, came in and sat not too far from Jason. They greeted Erica and the woman chatted, thankfully, in a friendly way with Jason. From there the bar came close to filling up. Between tending to the waitresses and her own customers, Erica barely had a moment to stop by and check on Jason. At one point, Lynn came over and surprised Erica by setting a burger and fries in front of Jason. “Got an extra one. You hungry, Zach?”
“Yes!” He set his game down and dug in.
The bowl of penne she’d brought down earlier for him sat virtually untouched. “You didn’t like the pasta?”
“Too spicy,” he said, before gulping down the burger.
She should’ve known a kid his age might not like the red chili heat. “Thanks, Lynn.”
“No problem. How’s it going?”
“Good.”
The glasses had been washed, trays stacked, and the liquor bottles well organized, exactly as they had been. “Well, it sure looks like you’ve got everything under control.”
“I haven’t had to strike up the blender once tonight.”
Lynn laughed. “Well, that won’t last. You got nothing but locals in here tonight. Once the tourist season hits, you’ll have a blender in one hand and the martini shaker in the other.”
“Thanks for the warning.” She paused. “How am I doing?”
“I don’t know.” Lynn walked farther into the bar area and called out, “How’s our new bartender doing?”
“Peachy,” Dan said.
Doc held up two thumbs. “She’s keeping ’em coming.”
Bob nodded quietly.
“Too much ice in my drink,” Sally McGregor said.
Lynn turned around. “If Sally McGregor didn’t complain,” she whispered, “then I’d worry.”
Surprisingly, Erica felt rather relieved. She was starting to like this place, despite the fact that working around a kid’s schedule was tough.
“But I’ve been watching you,” Lynn whispered, leaning in toward Erica.
“And?”
“Would it kill you to loosen up and smile every once in a while? They won’t bite, you know.”
“I’ll try.” Erica sighed. “Could you watch the bar for a few minutes while I get Zach up to bed?”
“No problem. By the way, I unlocked the door in the kitchen.”
“Thanks.” She packed up Jason’s things. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s get you up to bed.”
“Good night there, Zach,” Jan said. “Will you be back next Friday night?”
“Dunno.”
“We’re working that out,” Erica said.
A round of good-nights came from everyone else close enough to hear as the two of them headed into the kitchen. Erica showed Jason the staircase up to the apartment. “This’ll work out great, don’t you think?”
“I guess,” he said, hesitantly. Once in their apartment, Jason got ready for bed and climbed under the covers. “You can’t stay, can you?”
“I have to get back to work.” She brushed his bangs back off his forehead.
“What if…what if someone comes to the apartment?”
She saw the fear in his eyes. “That’s not going to happen.”
“How do you know?”
“Remember all that driving we did?”
He nodded.
“No one’s going to find us here.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.” She planted a kiss at his temple, feeling more comfortable with how quickly she’d fallen into the strange routines of psuedo-motherhood. “If you need me, all you have to do is run downstairs, through the kitchen and find me at the bar. Okay?”
“Okay.” He was being such a trooper. “Will you come in and sleep with me when you get off work?”
“Tonight and every night, kiddo. For as long as you need me.” Her heart sank as she left the apartment, and her misgivings must have shown when she came back to the bar.
“How’s he doing?” Lynn asked.
“New apartment. New school. It’s a lot for a kid.”
Lynn sighed, seeming to consider something. “If it’d help, I could sit with him until he falls asleep. The kitchen’s closed, and you’re much more efficient in the bar than I am.
If you want, that is.”
Erica glanced at Lynn and felt emotion tighten her throat. “You’d do that?”
“I’ve been bugging my boys for years for grandkids. It’s nice having a little boy around.” She smiled. “We’re glad to have you here, Erica.”
Erica didn’t know to say, let alone how to say it. Oh, hell. “I’m glad to be here, Lynn.”
As Lynn disappeared into the kitchen, Erica made her way to the other side of the bar, passing beneath the TV mounted overhead. A lull in the conversation made the sound audible.
The Chicago Police Department is urging anyone with information regarding missing six-year-old Jason Samson…
At the mention of Jason’s name, Erica quickly glanced up and breathed a sigh of relief that Garrett had left the restaurant, and no one in the bar seemed to be paying a lick of attention to the broadcast. Even so, it was only a matter of time before someone figured out Erica and Jason’s true identities. Then what?
She tuned back in to the TV newscaster as a picture of Marie, smiling and holding a blond-haired Jason, flashed up on the screen. Erica’s heart felt ripped apart.
…an arrest warrant has been issued for Jason’s mother, twenty-five-year-old Marie Samson. The boy and his mother were last seen by a neighbor the morning of their disappearance.
An arrest warrant? Erica would’ve bet anything Marie had asked Billy for a divorce. Now he was getting ready for a custody battle.
The screen switched from a shot of the national news correspondent to previously filmed footage in Chicago of investigators going in and out of a small, white house. Erica had only been there a few times, but it was unmistakably Marie’s. Billy, surrounded by detectives—his friends—came out through the side door and reporters crowded around him, asking him questions.
“Do you have ideas where your wife and son may have gone?” one of the reporters asked.
“No,” Billy murmured, stopping for a moment. “I’ll tell you, like I told the detectives, this is all Marie’s sister’s doing. That woman has always been trouble. A couple days before Marie disappeared, she called and—” He clamped his mouth shut and headed toward his car. “I can’t say any more.”
Always been trouble? What the hell? Erica had called to talk to Marie a few days before Marie’s frantic message, but Billy had answered, and that had been the end of asking Marie out to lunch. Billy was lying and trying to deflect suspicion onto Erica and Marie.
