The Bartender's Secret (Masterson, Texas Book 1)

by Caro Carson

  They both raised their glasses, but neither of them took a drink. They held the whiskey up to the light for a moment to admire the color. Connor was not Irish, but Mr. Murphy was, and he’d taught Connor that long and poetic toasts were part of drinking with an Irishman. Connor rarely waxed poetic, but his mentor was looking at him with one gray eyebrow raised expectantly.

  Connor held his glass a little higher. “Grateful we are for the one hundred shades of brown in this aged Irish whiskey, in an old masterpiece’s strokes of paint...and in a young woman’s hair on a sunny day.”

  After a beat of silence, they lowered their glasses and took the first sip.

  “Saints above, lad. You’re going to be an Irishman yet. That near brought a tear to my eye.” Since that statement was practically a toast in itself, they both took another sip.

  They didn’t try to drink whiskey like a couple of synchronized swimmers. It just came naturally when Connor drank with the man who’d taught him to slow down and appreciate a proper drink—the man who’d taught him to slow down and learn everything else worth knowing. The things Connor had learned on his own, like how to break a man’s nose or break into a man’s car, led to life in a cell. Mr. Murphy’s lessons led to life in a building that had stood for 130 years and a business that had been operating inside it for just as long.

  Connor sat back and put his boots up on a newspaper-strewn side table and eyed Mr. Murphy over the rim of his glass. This would have been a perfect afternoon, two gentlemen at leisure, enjoying the good Lord’s finest gift to man—according to Mr. Murphy—if only Mr. Murphy weren’t enjoying his whiskey as he sat up in a stark white hospital bed.

  Connor toasted again silently. Grateful we are not to be in the ICU.

  This was an assisted living facility, and he was in Mr. Murphy’s studio apartment, which had a kitchenette, a small living area, a huge bathroom wide enough for a wheelchair to navigate, and a bed. Connor had moved Mr. Murphy’s sturdy oak bed from the pub’s apartment to this place, but a few months ago, the old man had fallen and broken his pelvis. He’d needed a wheelchair for the first time in his life. Pneumonia had set in, and the facility staff had put the oak bed in storage and brought in this hospital bed.

  Mr. Murphy kept his whiskey in one hand and used his other to press the buttons on the bed rail. “I have to confess, I’m in no hurry to get rid of this bed. That wheelchair is another tale entirely. I walked for ten minutes the other day without so much as a cane. I did have a fair and fine physical therapist beside me, so I have to take care not to get better too fast, or I’ll lose the pleasure of her company, but I’ll be back on my feet, you’ll see.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Mr. Murphy pushed a button and elevated his feet. “Ah, that’s nice. I’m keeping the bed. Now we’re all situated, so why don’t you tell me what you came here to tell me? I expect you on Mondays, when the Musketeer is closed. Friday is payday, don’t you know? You should be getting the pub in order. Folks will be wanting to end their work week with a pint.”

  “I do know.” Connor’s heart broke a little every time the old man thought he was telling Connor something he’d never mentioned before. “I haven’t forgotten what you taught me.”

  “Then you won’t be having time to stay all day, for surely I taught you that you need to be at the pub when the pub needs you to be there. Let’s get down to it. What is bothering you, lad?”

  I miss a woman I barely know.

  Connor sipped his whiskey. “There was another close call outside the pub last night. Those screeching tires get to me every time.”

  “That’s sorry news. You’ve been doing all you can. The picture of that bridge is a thing of beauty.”

  Connor nodded. The architecture student he’d hired to render a pedestrian bridge had been very talented. Connor had hoped the city council would move to allocate funds for that solution once they’d had it envisioned for them. So far, they hadn’t.

  “You can only do so much from the outside,” Mr. Murphy said. “You need to be on the inside. You need to sit on the city council yourself, and sure that is.”

  “Me?” Connor had to laugh. “Run for office?”

  “You. Run for office.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Humpf.” Mr. Murphy tipped his glass to him. “There’s nobody in this town who hasn’t heard a good word about you. You care about this city and you’ve made it your home for a full ten years now. You can run for the city council, and what’s more to the point, you can win.”

  It touched Connor’s heart that this man thought so highly of him. It broke his heart that Mr. Murphy had forgotten why Connor could not be a city councilman. He didn’t want to have to tell him all over again.

  “You’ve got what it takes, lad. The ladies do love you. I don’t need to be telling you that which you know, but I’m not at all sure you know that men think highly of you. So do the women who have better things to do than chase you to bed. You know how to keep your temper, and you know how to stop trouble before it starts. You don’t blabber on about yourself, and you don’t let fools waste your time. You’re a strong man, and others see that. They’ll vote for you. They’ll want you on their side, taking care of business without showing off. It’s what you do best.”

  Connor had to set his whiskey down. This was high praise, and it churned up too many emotions when those emotions hadn’t settled back down since Rembrandt had walked into his bar. Two of those emotions were now pity and sorrow, because Mr. Murphy had forgotten where Connor came from as surely as he’d forgotten that Connor already knew Fridays were paydays.

  “I’m humbled, Mr. Murphy. I respect your opinion, but there are real obstacles.”

  “Set them up, then. Set them up, so I can knock them all down.”

  Connor hated that he had to do this. It was the second time this week that the weight of his shortcomings was crushing. “I didn’t finish high school. That wouldn’t look good if an opponent plastered it all over any town during a campaign, but especially not in a college town. Two of the current council members have an MBA. One has a doctorate. I didn’t finish eleventh grade.”

  Delphinia had her PhD, and if he ran, she’d get a lovely campaign brochure in the mail from his opponent that would emphasize Connor’s lack of the most basic qualifications.

  “High school would matter indeed, if anyone considered electing a seventeen-year-old. They’ll be voting for the man you are now, for a thirty-year-old, self-made man.”

  “Self-made? I had help.” He and Mr. Murphy weren’t given to hugs and such, but Connor set his hand over Mr. Murphy’s on the bed rail. His larger hand covered the older man’s hand and his wrist, as well. The skin felt too loose over the bones, too frail. Connor fought back the fear, because Mr. Murphy’s hand was also warm and no longer gray with illness. Connor squeezed gently and let go. “I had the best of help.”

  “You worked hard for every scrap of every good thing you’ve got, so don’t be starting with the sentimentality.” Which meant, of course, Mr. Murphy was feeling sentimental himself. “You’re smart and you have your head on straight, and that’s more than most people can say to the good Lord. The city needs you.”

  Connor took his boots off the newspapers and sat forward, giving himself a minute to roll his whiskey glass between his hands before he broke the heart of the man who thought so highly of him at the moment. “I appreciate your faith, but believe me when I say I can’t run. Legally, I cannot be a candidate for elected office. I think you forgot—I think you’ve overlooked the fact that I have a record. I’m a convicted felon.”

  Mr. Murphy was silent.

  “A nonviolent offense. I didn’t commit murder...nothing like that. I didn’t... I didn’t beat someone bloody.” Not until after I was behind bars and had to survive. “It doesn’t matter what I didn’t do. I broke the law, and I was arrested.”


  “They say confession is good for the soul, but this is hard for me to hear.”

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you that I was—”

  “Is it possible you did something truly unforgivable at nineteen, like jump in the back seat of a car without first asking your friends politely whether or not they had perhaps stolen the car? Did you commit a felony as heinous as that?”

  Connor’s head snapped up. “You didn’t forget. How long were you going to let me go on like that?”

  Mr. Murphy laughed so hard as he slapped his knee that he almost spilled a drop of whiskey—but he didn’t.

  Connor tried to think of something Irish enough to please the old man, exasperating as that man was. “Best watch yourself. The devil won’t take you if you get meaner than he is. He doesn’t want to be outdone, and that’s the truth of it.”

  This made Mr. Murphy absolutely howl with laughter.

  It was good to see him breathing well enough to laugh so damned long. Connor finished his whiskey and stood. “As someone reminded me, it’s Friday, so I’ve got to get going.”

  “Stay, stay a minute—I’ll stop, I swear it, or my father never called me Seamus—” He couldn’t finish as the laughter rolled through him.

  Connor crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head.

  Mr. Murphy got himself under control. “So, lad, I was waiting for you to hold up that old conviction. Now, let me knock it down. I’ve been keeping up with the news better than you have. The law that says you can’t be on a ballot has fuzzy legal terms in it about ‘remedies,’ so people like yourself have been testing it. A felon in Austin filled out the application to be on the ballot, and the city decided since he’d served his time and could vote again, there were no legal ‘remedies’ left for him to do. They put him on the ballot. It made the news, and I thought of you, didn’t I? I did.”

  “That doesn’t mean the city of Masterson would do the same.”

  “They will, I’m certain of it.”

  What could Connor say in the face of such unfounded optimism? He carried his glass over to the kitchenette and set it in the sink.

  Mr. Murphy was on a crusade. “You don’t believe me, then fine. But there’s another way, too. You can run if you get a judicial decision to put you on the ballot. Any judge with eyes to look at you would clear you as a candidate. But you have to start it, Connor. Turn in an application to be a candidate for the next election. The city will either accept it, or they’ll get a judge to decide.”

  Connor was not going to voluntarily walk into a courtroom to see a judge about anything. A middle-aged man in a billowing black robe could have decided to give a nineteen-year-old, first-time, nonviolent offender a deferred adjudication probation—Connor knew the legal lingo now—and not the formal conviction that would haunt him forever. Connor had spent two weeks in the county lockup waiting for his five minutes before the judge. He’d pled guilty to joyriding. Those two weeks could have been punishment enough.

  Instead, Connor had been given a felony conviction and sentenced to six months of hell. He’d walked in that courtroom wearing county jail handcuffs. He’d walked out five minutes later wearing state prison handcuffs. He’d survived, but he was not going to go back.

  He put on his jacket so he could bury his fists in the pockets. “I appreciate your faith in me. I always have, even if I didn’t show it when I was nineteen or twenty. But you taught me that I can’t go through life like I’m the only one who matters. I’ve got fifty-three people on the payroll. If I try to get on the ballot, an ugly past will be resurrected, and people will take sides. Some will see me as you do, but some will call me a criminal. Business will drop, maybe by fifteen percent. Maybe by fifty. People will lose their jobs.”

  He walked to the window. He didn’t see the same rosy future Mr. Murphy saw. He could only see what he had now, what he couldn’t stand to lose. “The Tipsy Musketeer will become a place of controversy, a line in the sand. I can’t do that to your legacy.”

  Mr. Murphy stroked his beard thoughtfully. He didn’t actually have a beard, but he always stroked his chin as if he did. “After that stirring speech, I can see why city council might not work. Someday, you’re going to be the mayor.”

  Connor could only shake his head at the familiar obstinacy. “I’m just trying to keep pedestrians from getting hurt outside our pub.”

  “Go get on your way, but be sure to come back Monday, and we’ll have ourselves a talk about what’s really bothering you.”

  “Everything else is going well. Cash flow is fine. Business is good.”

  “There’s a problem with a woman.”

  “There’s a problem with an intersection,” Connor said. “There is no woman.”

  “That’s a more difficult problem, then. You can’t kiss and make up with no woman.”

  “What makes you so sure there must be a woman?” Connor asked. Mr. Murphy always knew too much about him.

  “Your knuckles are scraped up. They’re healing, but two or three days past, you weren’t punching that bag of yours for some exercise, were you now? You didn’t take the time to wrap your hands or put on your gloves.”

  Connor took one hand out of his pocket and flexed it. Mr. Murphy should have been Sherlock Holmes.

  “When you come to drink whiskey with an old man at noon on a Friday, I know something’s afoot. Friday is payday, don’t you know? You should be getting the pub in order. Folks will be wanting to end their work week with a pint.”

  Connor buried his fist back into his pocket. “I do know that. I was taught by the best—and his father called him Seamus Murphy. I’ll be back Monday.”

  * * *

  Seamus Murphy waited until the door clicked shut before he reached for the whiskey. He added just a drop more, then raised his glass to admire the color.

  One hundred shades of brown in a woman’s hair? In the sunlight, no less. It was a wonder he hadn’t dropped his glass when those words came out of his boy’s mouth.

  Seamus might be getting up in years, for that was what happened and no man could stop it, and his memory might not always be what it had been, but he could still read young Connor like a book. When that stubborn McClaine of unfortunately Scottish descent had raised his glass and spoken as poetic a toast as any Irishman on the Isle had ever spoken, Seamus had known there was a woman. Finally.

  That boy could charm any woman into ironing his shirts, if he desired to. The fact that he was sitting here and not even trying could only mean one thing: he didn’t think he was good enough for the woman in question.

  Seamus sighed and raised his whiskey high. “To the fair colleen who has caught my boy’s eye. He’s as fine a man as anyone has met on this green earth, but I cannot make him see the truth of that. May the woman with one hundred shades of brown in her hair have better luck than Seamus Murphy at breaking through Connor McClaine’s infernally thick skull.”

  Chapter Eight

  “She’s back!”

  Rembrandt? Where?

  Bridget roared into the pub through the employee entrance. She’d quickly recovered from her Tuesday hangover, so Hurricane Murphy had been back in force the past few days.

  “Who’s back?” Connor asked casually, coming out from behind the bar, determined to keep the foolish pounding of his heart his own secret.

  “Me.” Bridget dumped her backpack on a chair, then slammed her fist onto the table theatrically. “O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the marketplace.” She pulled an imaginary heart out of an invisible man’s chest and took a giant bite.

  It was the next level of Delphinia’s ominous intonation, Finish him. The women in his world relished bloodthirsty lines—not that Delphinia was part of his world.

  Which was for the best.

  “What are you back from, Hurricane?”

  “I’m back to normal after the temporar
y insanity that made me pick Juliet’s sappy balcony scene. I’m changing to Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing. She’s sooo much more like the real me.”

  “Eating hearts in the marketplace? You’re into public executions by cannibalism?”

  “Revenge tastes sweet, don’t you know?”

  “It’s best served cold.”

  “Who has time to sit around and wait for things to get cold?” She tossed her red hair. “Not me.”

  Connor grinned at that. As she got older, Bridget was losing her girlishness, but none of her feistiness. The right kind of guy would appreciate having her keep him on his toes. Kristopher was an idiot if he didn’t see it.

  It wasn’t really any of Connor’s business. Still, every time he read a novel that had an overprotective older brother, the character’s thoughts felt familiar. It was just as well that Connor had never had a sister, considering how much it took just to keep Bridget pointed in the right direction.

  Bridget’s smile was too smug. “My new piece is a solo. Kristopher’s going to have to come up with something solo, too. Quickly.”

  Connor stopped grinning. “That’s wrong of you, Britt. You know that. What is this really about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Something happened. You got your first hangover, and he tried to use his professor to make you jealous on the same day. Now, you’re trying to get some kind of revenge.”

  The change in Britt’s expression was instant. “That’s why he was all over Dr. Dee? You think he wanted me to be jealous?”

  Connor managed not to wince at the idea of another man being all over Dr. Dee. “Yeah, I do. Judging by your sudden change of heart about playing Juliet, I’m guessing he succeeded.”

  “We’ll find out. I asked Dr. Dee to come hear my new role, and I told Kristopher to come if he wanted her to go over whatever his new piece is, too.”

  “She’s coming,” Connor repeated flatly. “Today. Here.”