Until Joe

by Smith, CP

  He started to take a step toward her when movement caught his eye. A man was walking up the sidewalk with a grin on his face, and he was looking straight at the woman. With control born from years of handling drunks at his club, Joe curled his hands into fists as the man walked up and pulled his angel into a too familiar hug.

  Frustration, disappointment, and raging anger curled in his gut at the sight of their embrace. He wasn’t surprised a woman like her would have a man. He’d been a fool to expect anything less.

  Turning his back on them, Joe headed to the car, ripped open the driver’s side door, and climbed inside without a backward glance.

  “You okay, Uncle Joe?” November asked through the open passenger window.

  “Yeah. I’m just ready to get the fuck home.”

  One

  An Angel With Fire in Her Eyes

  Eleven months later . . .

  WILLIAM OF OCKHAM ONCE THEORIZED “Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.” Loosely translated, so the average Joe could understand, Occam’s Razor implies that if my niece and her friends were acting suspicious, the simplest explanation was the correct one. Meaning: based on their current behavior, the Wallflowers were up to something and no amount of acting innocent in the face of their brooding males was gonna sway those men. It also explained why my sister, Eunice, and I were currently watching them through the back window of our store as said brooding males interrogated them like common criminals.

  I smiled as our niece, Calla Lily, attempted to deflect Devin’s questions by snuggling into his side. It worked like a charm. Devin froze briefly then sighed, curling his arm around her shoulders before whispering in her ear. I thanked God every day that Devin had decided to settle in our fair city and moved in next door to my niece.

  Born and raised in Savannah, Georgia, Calla, Eunice, and I were the only surviving heirs of Preston and Margaret Armstrong, the current matriarch and patriarch of the Armstrong Shipping dynasty. Our ancestors, one of the first families to settle in Savannah, had initially prospered in cotton. But the Civil War changed everything. Our sixth great-granddaddy, Lucius Armstrong, switched to shipping after the Civil War, knowing full well the South would rise again and would need supplies in order to do so. Within ten years, Armstrong Shipping was one of the biggest employers in the state of Georgia, and not much had changed in the hundred and fifty-some-odd years since the war ended.

  Our mother named Eunice and me after our great-great-great-grandmothers, which explained our nineteenth century names. Eunice and I used to hate our names and insisted on being called Neecy and Bernie. Now in our fifties, and not given to caring what anyone thought, we were plain old Eunice and Bernice Armstrong again.

  “Sister? Is it just me, or have the girls been actin’ suspicious for the past month?” Eunice asked while watching Devin, Bo, and Nate attempt to intimidate our niece and her friends. It was fun to watch, if truth be told. All three men were Southern gentlemen through and through, so it went against their grain to be high-handed. A fact their women knew too well and took advantage of by batting their eyes and smiling brightly, just as Calla had done.

  “It’s not you,” I answered. “Ever since that kidnappin’ went down last month, the girls have been whisperin’ in corners and on their phones.”

  The girls had interrupted an attempted kidnapping of a senator’s daughter the month before, landing them in the eye of the media, and ever since, they’d been acting sneaky.

  “Well, leave it to Devin. He’ll get the truth out of Calla Lily, mark my words,” Eunice stated, then picked up her coffee and headed out of the break room into the store we’d owned together since 1985.

  Frock You, our vintage clothing store, was located on River Street in historic Savannah, Georgia. We’d bought the old cotton exchange building with money we’d inherited from our grandparents and turned it into our living quarters and business. The third floor of the building housed our home, a three-bedroom apartment we’d raised Calla Lily in from the age of six when her parents died in a car accident, leaving her orphaned. We renovated the second floor of the building into two one-bedroom apartments, which were currently occupied by Devin Hawthorne and our niece, and the reason they’d met. He moved in two months ago, and they’d immediately fallen in love.

  I glanced one last time at the group and smiled. Calla had become fast friends with Sienna Miller (not the actress) and Poppy Gentry. All three had baggage from their past, and they’d isolated themselves from the world to keep from being hurt again. But once they became friends, all that changed. They’d banded together and called themselves The Wallflowers after fictional heroines in the books they loved so much, and chaos ensued . . . Followed by three strapping Southern gentlemen who beat their chests at the world to keep the women safe.

  I sighed with satisfaction, knowing the girls were happily matched. That had been my greatest wish while raising Calla. That she’d find a man who would put himself between her and the world while allowing her to spread her wings and fly.

  I headed out into the store front and began working with Eunice on a new display for our window. Summer was upon us, and it was time for a Fourth of July theme to draw in customers.

  “Are we plannin’ on spendin’ the Fourth at the cottage like last year?” Eunice asked as I handed her a strand of twinkle lights.

  At her question, I immediately returned to the weekend we’d spent there last year and the man who’d taken my breath away. I’d admitted to the girls, during Poppy’s courtship with Nate, that I’d never met a man who’d tempted me as much as the dark and dangerous-looking stranger who’d crossed my path right before he left the island. So much so, that in the deepest, darkest part of the night, I could still feel his eyes burning a path down my body like they had almost a year ago. No man I’d met since, or would likely encounter in the future, had compared to the man called Joe.

  Being raised by an indifferent father who cared more about the bottom line than his own children, Eunice and I had been determined to escape the life that came with being society princesses. We threw up our figurative middle finger at both our parents once we turned eighteen and lived our lives on our own terms. And our own terms had meant we’d avoided commitments with men because of our father’s inability to love us. Years of being ignored had left us cynical about love. But the love of our six-year-old niece changed everything. After losing her family, she’d clung to us for support, and in doing so, she healed both of us in ways I’m not sure even a man could have. We were able to mother her, to show her the affection we’d never received, and she loved us unconditionally in return. Loved us so much that the world righted itself and we moved forward instead of hanging on to the past. But that took years. We’d been determined to focus solely on her, which meant finding a man who completed me hadn’t been in the cards. But now Calla was happy with Devin, and Eunice had committed to Odis Lee. And I . . . well, I had the memory of a man called Joe, who’d made me feel sexy and wanted with a single look, to keep me warm at night.

  The bell rang over the front door, and Calla entered, fiddling with her shirt.

  “Did you convince those men of yours that you’re innocent of any wrong doin’?”

  Calla blinked. “How did you . . .”

  Eunice snorted. “Don’t play poker, butterbean. You’ll wipe out the entire Armstrong fortune.”

  She rolled her eyes at us both, then leaned down and picked up another strand of twinkle lights to hand to Eunice.

  Devin and the rest of the Wallflowers passed in front of the shop, waving as they headed next door to his office. Devin, an ex-cop turned private investigator, had rented our office space next door. He was currently in high demand—thanks to several YouTube videos—after he and Bo Strawn, a Savannah homicide detective, fixed all the trouble the girls seemed to find themselves in.

  “Where are they goin’?” I inquired.

  Calla leaned forward and waved at Devin, tugging on her shirt. He heaved a sigh heavenward and tapped
his ear before opening his door and heading inside with the girls.

  “Is that code for somethin’?” I asked, looking back at my niece.

  She froze and slowly turned to me. “Code?”

  I pointed to her shirt. “You tuggin’ on your shirt. Does that mean somethin’?”

  Her eyes rounded with surprise, then she looked down at her shirt. “It was, um, code for ‘I’m hot.’ He makes me hot. You know, ‘cause he’s so hot.”

  “He is, indeed.” Eunice chuckled.

  Clearing her throat, Calla started digging through the clothes we had set aside for the mannequins. “So, the Fourth is comin’ up.”

  “Funny how that happens every year in the summer.”

  She nodded absentmindedly, flipping a tag over like she was interested in the size. “It got me thinkin’ about what you told us at the cottage. The story about Joe.”

  I looked over my shoulder at Eunice. I’d never mentioned Joe to her, and I didn’t want to bring it up. She’d bug me about it or, God forbid, find some man to fix me up with so I wouldn’t be lonely.

  “Butterbean, can you help me in the kitchen for a minute?”

  “Who’s Joe?” Eunice questioned.

  Calla looked at me and bugged out her eyes. “No one?”

  Eunice turned and looked at me, raising one brow. “Who is Joe?”

  “Lie,” Calla whispered.

  “I’m old-ish, not deaf,” Eunice snapped.

  I sighed. There was no avoiding it now. “No one. Just a man I saw once who I liked the look of. Nothin’ more. The girls and I were talkin’, and one of them asked me what kind of man I was drawn to. I gave him the name Joe, ‘cause it fit.”

  “You mean his name wasn’t Joe?” Calla gasped.

  Eunice stepped down off the ladder and answered for me. “That explains why you mumbled the name Joe in your sleep a few times.”

  My back went ramrod straight. “I have never mumbled in my sleep.”

  “Sister, that’s the only reason I knew you were sneakin’ out of the house to meet William in the tenth grade. You talk in your sleep.”

  “His name was Billy,” I snipped.

  “Goats are named Billy. William is a respectable Southern name.”

  “Eunice, don’t be a snob,” I bit out.

  “I’m a ‘Borderline’ snob,” she quipped, using a Madonna song title like always when we had a disagreement. We’d come up with the game when Calla was little as a way to distract her from the loss of her parents and brother. She’d spent so much time listening to Madonna so she could play along, she didn’t have time to be sad.

  “Was his name Joe or not?” Calla asked a tad panicked.

  “‘Future Lovers’?” Eunice inquired.

  “‘Fever,’” Calla replied with her own Madonna song title.

  “He’s not a future lover.” Fever was accurate, but the man could live in Spain for all I knew, so future lover was definitely out.

  “‘Forbidden Love’?” Eunice continued, intrigued, but I’d had enough. Nothing good could come from Eunice having this much information.

  “Butterbean, was there a reason for your visit, other than stirring up the history that’s better left in the past? If not, ‘Goodnight and Thank You.’ I don’t want to—”

  “Tell me what this Joe looked like again,” Calla blurted out, interrupting me.

  Eunice turned toward me and crossed her arms. “Good question, sweet pea. Tell me about this Joe, Bernice.”

  Dagnabit. Eunice and I always called each other ‘sister’ instead of our names. When she pulled out Bernice, it meant she was serious.

  Calla jumped in before I could say another word, the traitor. “She told us he was tall, dark, and dangerous lookin’. Said she could hardly breathe just lookin’ at him. That he had an edge about him, similar to Devin, Nate, and Bo. The kind that said granddaddy wouldn’t be able to run him off if he had a mind to because he commanded the space around him. That he was like a force of nature.”

  Being two years older than me, Eunice had always taken her role as big sister seriously. Today was no different. She turned shrewd eyes on me and stared.

  “‘Papa Don’t Preach,’” I blurted out.

  “Why are you keepin’ this from me? So, you had a reaction to a good-lookin’ man. Who cares! It’s not like you’re runnin’ off with a stranger.”

  I grabbed the stapler from her hand and climbed the ladder, putting distance between us. “It was nothin’. Next to nothin’,” I called over my shoulder. “Calla is romanticizin’ a story I told to Poppy about not givin’ up on love.”

  A long pause.

  I probably shouldn’t have said that.

  “You used a brief encounter with a good-lookin’ man to convince Poppy not to turn her back on love?”

  Yep. I definitely shouldn’t have said that.

  The memory of the night a few months back rushed unwanted to the forefront of my mind. I knew I’d helped Poppy settle her nerves about Nate, but more than once I’d regretted foolishly enlightening my niece about my reaction to Joe.

  “I’m gonna be just like you,” Poppy had said earnestly. “Who needs a man anyway? They’re more trouble than they’re worth, right?”

  My smile slipped like an ill-fitting bra. “Are you out of your cotton-pickin’ mind?” I whispered on a screech.

  Poppy blinked. “But you just said—”

  “Sugar, I had the love I needed to help me heal from a loveless childhood, but don’t think for a second that I didn’t lie in bed at night, wonderin’ where my Prince Charmin’ was.”

  “Bernice—”

  Pain had coiled around my heart as I spoke. “I love my girl. I’d kill for my girl. But I still would have welcomed a man into my life if the right one came along. But we were so busy tryin’ to heal Calla after her parents’ deaths, that I woke up one day on the wrong side of fifty. Don’t close yourself off from the love of a good man, Poppy. Never do that.”

  “Sister?” Eunice said, forcing me back to the here and now.

  I nodded my head in answer to her question, then remembered what she’d said. Time for damage control. “No! I used Calla Lily as an example of how love heals past hurts, but I also said I wouldn’t have been opposed to romantic love if it had come my way. Poppy asked me if I’d ever been tempted, and I said no.”

  “Except for Joe,” Calla interjected oh so helpfully.

  “Tell me more about this man,” Eunice pressed. “He must have been really somethin’ if you’re talkin’ about him in your sleep.”

  I jammed the stapler into the wall and squeezed hard. The staple buried itself into the sheetrock as I pulled Joe up in my mind. “Mid-to-late forties, maybe. Dark hair. Tall. Strong jaw and brow. He was built like he worked out daily. He had an edge to him that spoke of danger, or he’d seen more than his fair share of it, and a tattoo of some sort peeking out from beneath his shirt sleeve.”

  “Half the men in Georgia look like that. What made this man special?” Eunice questioned.

  I dropped my head back, closed my eyes, and I thought back to what I’d told the girls.

  “Eunice and I were here on a long weekend. I’d just gone outside to water the plants, and there were two cars parked in the street. I looked up to watch a family loadin’ their bags, and there he was. Tall. Dark. Dangerous lookin’. I could hardly breathe just lookin’ at him. He had an edge about him, similar to your men. The kind that said my daddy wouldn’t be able to run him off. The way he looked, the way he commanded the space around him, was like a force of nature.”

  “You know how Odis Lee looks at you when he thinks you’re not payin’ attention?”

  I glanced over my shoulder to see if she understood. Her face softened. “Yeah. Like I hung the moon.”

  “Exactly. I saw Joe first, so when he turned and caught sight of me, I paid attention to his reaction. Before lust clouded his eyes, he seemed relieved to see me; acted as if he’d been searching for me and finally found me. I’v
e had attention from men before, but none of them have ever looked at me as if I were essential to their next breath.”

  “That’s so stinkin’ hot,” Calla mumbled.

  “What she said,” Eunice agreed.

  “It was, but I’m also realistic. More than likely, nothin’ would have come of it, even if he had talked to me. But the way he looked at me . . . he made me feel wanted in a way that was more than just someone to warm his bed. That’s why I dream about him.”

  I turned back to the wall, hoping we were done with the Spanish Inquisition.

  “Sister . . . maybe he was in a relationship and did the honorable thing by walkin’ away.”

  I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, Eunice. It’s like I told the girls; I’m in my fifties, and any man worth his salt is already taken. I’ve lived a good life, thanks to you and Calla. I can die happy with or without a man in my life. Besides, we both know Daddy would find a way to sabotage any relationship he didn’t approve of. And Lord knows the only man good enough for an Armstrong woman, in Daddy’s opinion, is one who swims in money and lies through his teeth.”

  Calla bristled at my comment. “He better not try to run Devin off.”

  I climbed down the ladder and cupped her cheeks. “Devin is a different breed of man, my dear sweet girl. The kind Daddy respects, even if he won’t admit it. Devin’s safe from Preston Armstrong’s influence.”

  “Because he’s the kind of man who never quits?” she asked curiously.

  “No, because he’s the kind of man who isn’t afraid to say no to your granddaddy and mean it. There aren’t many men who can stand up to Daddy and not quake in their boots.”

  _______________

  Flames crackled in the firepit. Smoke, thick and choking, spun silently as the wind whipped it like a funnel until it scented the deck and surrounding yard. Joe raised his glass of whiskey, watching the flames dance through the dry wood like fairies as it flamed and fractured. His eyes drifted to his laptop propped on the arm of his chair and the video he had paused on the screen. The caption read: “Kidnapping Attempt on Senator’s Daughter Foiled on Tybee Island.” He’d found it while Googling beaches to visit. The video was close to a month old, but he’d watched anyway when a face that haunted his dreams caught his attention.