Until Joe

by Smith, CP

  Wired blue eyes popped to Joe’s. “Not a chance,” he answered on a half-chuckle; then walked away like the piece of shit he was and climbed into a vehicle two down from where they were standing and drove away.

  Joe looked back at Charlie and had to restrain himself from giving in to her tears. He wasn’t built to watch a woman suffer. He strove to solve their problems, not make them worse. With a deep sigh, he squatted to his haunches and put out his hand for her to take, waiting until Charlie looked up at him to try and reach her one last time. “Is this the life you dreamed of having when you were a little girl? If not, all you have to do is reach out and take a hand when it’s offered.”

  She clenched her teeth as the tears poured down her face. Instead of answering him, she hacked deep in her throat and spit in his face.

  Joe closed his eyes briefly, wiping the spit off his cheek with the back of his hand. Some people you could help, others you couldn’t. He had to keep reminding himself of that. “Your final check will be waiting for you tomorrow afternoon.”

  Rising to leave without another word, Joe went back inside the club, leaving Charlie to hit rock bottom on her own, hoping she’d wise up quickly before her choice of drug killed her. Joe headed into his office after washing his hands and face in the men’s room and pulled up the payroll account, completing the necessary paperwork to terminate Charlotte Pegg. He printed her final paycheck and stuffed it in an envelope. Before sealing it, he turned back to the monitor and watched her in the parking lot. She’d risen to her feet but hadn’t moved from where he left her. He could see the bleakness in her expression and had to stop himself from going back on his word. With a sigh as weighty as the years he’d spent dealing with the crap that bled into his life, he pulled out his personal checkbook and wrote an additional check to put inside with her final pay. He doubted the kindness would be the kick in the ass she needed to get help, but he had to try one last time.

  _______________

  “You’re really gonna take off and leave all this behind?”

  Joe looked up from a beer invoice at his head bartender. “Deacon signed off on all the deliveries for the past few months.”

  Francis looked down at the invoice he was holding and nodded. “Makes sense since he usually opens.”

  Joe swiveled in his chair and stared blankly at the monitors. He’d found no evidence on the security footage. No one was seen leaving their storage room with cases of beer or liquor that weren’t accounted for. Whoever the thief was, he’d figured out a way around Joe’s cameras.

  Joe glanced at the monitor situated on the floor. After firing Charlotte the day before, they’d had to switch up shifts for a few days until they could hire someone new. Lolita was currently wrapped around a pole and hanging upside down. His attention moved to the camera over the bar to make sure it was covering all angles and paused. A lone man was sitting at the bar for the second day in a row, his body turned toward the back of the house rather than watching the live entertainment.

  “That guy sitting at the bar, was he in here yesterday?” Joe asked.

  Francis glanced at the screen and nodded. “Yeah, he had a couple of beers then left.”

  “You remember him watching any of the girls?”

  Francis hesitated to check his memory, then shook his head. “I could have missed it, but he just drank and then left.”

  Cop? Joe wondered.

  “Do me a favor and count the stock behind the bar, and while you’re doing that, keep an eye on the guy. I’ll be out in five,” Joe ordered, reaching for the phone.

  He dialed James Mayson, the sheriff in Murfreesboro, to find out if his club was under surveillance for some reason. Everything about the lone man said cop.

  Mayson wasn’t in, so he left a message, then grabbed a stock sheet for Francis to fill out and headed to the front. He kept his eyes locked on the stranger as he approached. The man was tall, well over six feet, with a face more suited to Hollywood than police work, but he smelled like a badge from across the room. The fact he didn’t take his eyes off Joe as he rounded the bar confirmed his suspicions.

  He handed Francis the stock sheet, ordering, “Count it twice, then return the sheet to me. I don’t want anyone else knowing the count. I don’t know how they’re stealing from me, but the fewer eyes on the numbers, the better.” Then he turned to the stranger and leaned on the smooth surface of the bar. “Second time this week,” Joe stated, scanning the stranger with a suspicious eye. “You’re either a cop, or you’re new to the area.”

  The man shook his head once. “I’m from Georgia. Tybee Island area.”

  Joe’s gut tightened in response to the location. “What brings you to Tennessee?” he asked, still suspicious because the man smelled like a cop, even if he was from out of town.

  The stranger seemed to study Joe for a moment, then he pulled out his phone and swiped it on. Moments later, he looked up and held Joe’s eyes as he spun the cell around and showed him a picture, mumbling, “My woman . . .”

  Joe glanced at the picture, expecting to see some half-starved woman who’d gotten addicted to drugs, but he was shocked instead. Staring back at him were two blondes with peaches and cream complexions and eyes so light blue they almost looked lavender in color. They were eyes he knew. Eyes that had peered across the rim of aviator glasses less than a year before.

  Without thinking, Joe reached out and grabbed the phone, staring intently at his Southern belle. At Bernice Armstrong. The younger woman in the picture looked so similar in coloring and body type, he knew they had to be related. “This your woman and her mother?”

  “That’s my woman, Calla, and her aunt Bernice. She raised Calla like she was her own, so mother fits. Name’s Devin Hawthorne, by the way. I’m a private investigator.” Joe looked up from the image and saw Hawthorne’s hand extended. That explained the cop vibe.

  “Joe Rouger,” he replied, taking the man’s hand before handing him back his phone. “If you’re looking for your woman in here, you’re out of luck. I’m not sure I’d even let someone that innocent looking inside my establishment.”

  Hawthorne chuckled. “You’d not only let her in, but she’d probably end up runnin’ the place before the night was out . . . or burn it down,” he said without humor. “Maybe find a dead body or two while she’s at it.”

  “A dead—”

  “Then she’d pull her friends into the mix, and chaos would ensue.”

  Joe reached over and grabbed a bottle of scotch, then scooped up shot glasses and poured two fingers of the amber liquid into both. He handed one to Hawthorne. “On the house if you promise to never bring your woman and her friends into my club.”

  Hawthorne threw his head back and laughed. “Deal.”

  They each tossed back the liquor. Joe enjoyed the burn as it ran through his veins, loosening up muscles that had tensed at the unexpected picture of Bernice. What were the odds this man knew the one woman he wanted but couldn’t have?

  “Calla’s a handful, but I wouldn’t want her any other way,” Hawthorne continued. “It seems to be an Armstrong trait. Her aunts are both as nuts as she is.”

  Joe looked up from his shot glass at the mention of the aunts and caught the man studying him. As if he were waiting for a reaction. He started to fill their glasses again when something November had said stuck in his craw: If Bernice were happy with her man, then why had she looked at Joe with interest? Reacted as if she liked what she saw as much as he did?

  “The aunt, the one in the picture, does she give her man a hard time like her niece does?” he mumbled, filling their glasses.

  Hawthorne looked puzzled for a moment. “Hard time?”

  “The dead bodies,” Joe explained, though he thought the guy was pulling his leg.

  Hawthorne leaned forward on the bar and shook his head. “You misunderstand me, Joe. Calla and her aunts . . . they’re like fresh air. Sometimes they’ll cause you headaches and stress, possible heart failure at an early age, but what they a
ren’t is hard. Calla’s my heart. My soul. A reason to get up every day. Because of her, I’m a far better person. I’m absolved of all my sins, washed clean in a way I’ve never been after all the shit I saw while I was on the force.”

  Joe narrowed his eyes as jealousy flooded his system at the image Hawthorne had painted. He’d been looking for a viable reason Bernice had responded the way she had, but he hadn’t gotten the answer he expected. Only more fuel for his fucking dreams. “If you’ve got all that waiting for you at home, then why the hell are you sitting in my strip club?”

  “Like I said, I’m here for my woman.”

  Joe raised his arms, opening them wide to indicate the club. “She’s not here.”

  Hawthorne nodded. “No, she’s not. She’s back home waitin’ for me to call her with an update.”

  “An update on what?” Joe growled.

  Hawthorne stood from his stool without answering and pulled out his wallet, throwing bills onto the bar. He started to leave but turned back and faced Joe. “I forgot to answer your question.”

  “Which question?”

  “The one about Bernice. She doesn’t give her man a hard time because she doesn’t have one.”

  Joe blinked, unsure he’d heard the younger man correctly. “What?”

  Hawthorne surveyed the club, then turned back to Joe and looked him over, assessing him one more time. He took so long in answering, Joe had an impulse to shake the man for the answer.

  “Bernice spent her whole life takin’ care of my woman. She sacrificed the love of a good man for the love of her niece, who’d lost her parents in a car crash. She’s more than just Calla’s aunt; she’s my family, too. She deserves a good man in her life. One who’ll put her first.”

  Joe closed his eyes and dropped his head back on his shoulders. He’d heard Hawthorne correctly. “You’re saying she doesn’t have a man in her life? A woman like her?”

  “Man? No. Men who want her, yes. The only constant male in her life is a father who would use her for his own devices if he could. You’ve seen her picture, so you know she’s unique. She’ll always garner attention because of her looks, but she’s loyal to a fault to those she loves. And she’s got a lot of love to give.”

  Two and two were starting to add up, so Joe dropped his head and demanded the truth. There was no way it was a coincidence this man was here in his club. The how of it was still a mystery though. “Why the fuck are you telling me any of this?”

  Hawthorne grinned. “Because you wanted her a year ago from the account I’ve heard, and I doubt that’s changed. Not if you’re the man I think you are, and I’m hardly ever wrong. Not about this.”

  “How?” Joe asked. “How the fuck did you know?”

  Hawthorne moved a step closer, leaned in, and smiled. “My woman’s a hopeless romantic. Reads nonstop. When she heard about you from Bernice, she made it her life’s mission to find you. She relayed the story to me after I caught her in yet another hairbrained scheme to hunt you down. I wired her for sound, listened in while Calla interrogated Bernice, so I could gauge how much you affected her. I needed to be sure finding you was the best course of action. Though I admit to bein’ confused about one thing and almost didn’t come here lookin’ for you.”

  “Confused about what?”

  “That you walked away after the reaction you had. There was no way in hell I’d have walked away from Calla once I laid eyes on her, so the fact you walked away from Bernice meant you didn’t deserve her. But Calla repeated the encounter for me one more time, and then it clicked into place. Her sister’s man showed up while you were there, and you thought she was already taken. You walked away because you’re not the type of man who goes after another man’s woman.”

  “Her sister’s man?”

  “Silver goatee, dresses like he stepped out of the 1980s?” Joe nodded, pissed for not talking to Bernice when he had the chance. He couldn’t fathom a woman like her was single, so he’d made the wrong assumption. And he’d lost close to a year he couldn’t get back.

  “Jesus. I should have—”

  “Yeah, you should have, but I get it since I made the same mistake about a man in Calla’s life. The here and now is what’s important. So how about it, Joe? She’s the kind of woman who could make a man feel whole. Especially a man who’s been surrounded by”—Hawthorne glanced around the club—“hard lives.”

  Hawthorne’s cell rang in his hip pocket, and he pulled it out. “That’s Calla. She’ll keep callin’ until I answer, so I’ll make this quick. I have no clue what’s runnin’ through your head, or if you’re even interested in Bernice at this point. But you need to know what you’d be gettin’ into if you decide to engage. Bernice’s parents are wealthy. Hell, wealthy doesn’t cover it. They own half of Savannah and most of Hilton Head. She and her sister were raised under the iron fist of their father. He’s a dick. He follows me constantly and sticks his nose in where it doesn’t belong. He’s got a man on me now, which is why I’m bringing this up. He’s an old-school, good ole boy with a superiority complex. He’s pushing eighty, but don’t let your guard down around him. Short of a heart attack, the man isn’t goin’ anywhere anytime soon. He’s fit and more than capable of causing trouble with the number of people he employs.

  “Bernice and Eunice fought hard to gain their independence from him, and in doin’ so, he cut them off. Financially they’re fine. Money that old has many layers. When her grandparents died, they left the bulk of their money to Bernice and Eunice.”

  At the mention of her family’s wealth, Joe stiffened. “If you’re telling me this because you think I’m after her money, you’re—”

  “I’m tellin’ you this”—Hawthorne raised a hand to placate Joe—“because of her old man. He’ll stick his nose in her business. She brushes him off for the most part, but he’s still her father, and he pushes buttons I’m not sure she’s aware she’s got. Old wounds never heal completely. But you need to know, to understand the man is not gonna like you, and he’ll push at her to get rid of you.”

  The old man could try to run Joe off, but it wouldn’t work, not after years of searching for a good woman.

  Joe took the younger man’s measure. He was good-looking, sharp, and had an edge about him. He wasn’t the typical prototype of the rich and famous. He had the looks, but he was too gritty to fit in. “Does he hate you?”

  Hawthorne smiled. “He hates me, and I’m an ex-cop, not a strip club owner. He won’t care that for years you’ve helped women get on their feet; he’ll only see the surface. We both ride Harleys, thumb our nose at the rules, and don’t give a shit what anyone thinks but the women in our lives.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up,” Joe murmured, wondering how a woman who seemed so carefree could have come from such a pretentious asshole.

  “You needed to know what you’d be walkin’ into before you make a decision to seek her out.” Hawthorne’s phone began to ring again, and he looked down. “I’ll let you go so you can think about what I’ve said. Take your—”

  “I don’t need time to think,” Joe butted in. Only a fool needed time to think. And Joe was no fool. “Now that I know she’s single, it changes everything,” Joe swore, crossing his arms. “Bernice has haunted me for the better part of a year. If she’s half as spectacular as I think she is, it will take more than an old man with money to stop me from claiming her.”

  “Figured as much,” Hawthorne answered, putting out his hand to shake Joe’s. “But know this, Joe, if I got my wires crossed about what kind of man you are, I’ll make it my top priority to run you out of town if you harm her in any way.”

  Joe smiled slowly, tightening his grip on Hawthorne’s hand. The man was arrogant, and he liked that about him. “Duly noted.”

  Hawthorne’s phone began to ring again. He looked down and sighed. “Can I tell Calla to expect a visit soon?”

  “Yeah. But it’ll take me a few weeks to clear up my schedule before I can head down south. I’ve got a thief i
n my employ who’s stealing liquor, and I need to weed him out.”

  Devin glanced at his ringing phone then at the bottles lined up neatly behind the bar. “I know a good PI if you need help . . . pro bono.”

  Three

  fucking boom!

  Three weeks later . . .

  A SEAGULL SCREECHED OVERHEAD. Its high-pitched call drowned out the noise of tourists outside our cottage on Tybee Island. Eunice and I had closed up Frock You early to beat the traffic out of the city for the long holiday weekend. July Fourth was around the corner, and there was nothing a Southerner liked more than an excuse to have a party. Tybee knew how to party with the best of them, so Eunice and I never missed a holiday here. Parades, bands on the beach, and a fireworks display that could beat out New York City in its splendor were in store for us.

  “We need mojitos before dinner,” Eunice called out from her bedroom. “I’ll whip up a batch while I cook.”

  “Good, yours taste better than mine anyway,” I hollered back as I tied a mint-green sarong around my waist to cover any cellulite that may have accumulated against my will. “I’m gonna water the plants outside.”

  “What are you wearin’ tonight?” Eunice returned.

  I paused on my way to the front door and opened the windows in the living room to air out our three-bedroom cottage. We’d purchased the aging bungalow by the sea when Calla Lily was eight. We wanted to build as many good memories for her as we could after the loss of her parents and brother in a car accident, and family time at the beach, while restoring the cottage to its former glory, seemed a good way to put a smile back on her face.

  “What I always wear at the beach,” I called over my shoulder. What difference did it make what I wore? We were spending the long weekend alone. No Odis Lee. No Wallflowers and their crazy antics. Just Eunice and I catching up after a crazy couple of months.

  The sun was starting to dip low in the sky as I stepped outside, putting off an orange glow on the water. I paused to take in the sight of another Tybee sunset.