by Lyla Payne
“Hello?”
“Hey, Gracie.” He sounds tired, as though the greeting takes monumental effort.
My heart stretches, trying to feel its way across the line, across town, and help hold him up. “You sound like you could use a night of relaxing. Are we still meeting at the Wreck?”
The pause on the other end of the line tightens my chest. I’ve given myself a bunch of silent lectures over the past couple of days as a reminder that his distraction has nothing to do with me or our relationship, that Beau needs time to figure things out before his plea hearing on Monday. But if he cancels tonight I’m going to have a harder time believing it. I need to see him. I want to let him lean on me, to show him I can be there for him, and the fact that he doesn’t seem to want me to is taking a toll on my confidence.
“There’s nothing I want more than to see your face, Gracie.” He pauses again as I let out a stale breath. “I was thinking maybe you could pick it up and bring it over to the house, though.”
“Because that way we can eat it naked?” I ask, my hope returned.
“Brick’s still here. We’ve got a lot of work to do, mostly researching old cases for precedent, before Monday. But I do want to see you.”
Now it’s my turn to think it over before replying. It’s one of those moments where keeping one’s mouth shut would be the more prudent path, but while I have been called many things during my twenty-five years, prudent has never been one of them.
Also, keeping my mouth shut is about as easy for me as hugging a Mudblood would be for Draco Malfoy.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Staying in?”
“What are you saying?”
I chew on my bottom lip, wondering if it’s too late to turn back now. “It’s just … It kind of seems like you’re hiding. If you want people to believe you’re innocent, wouldn’t it be better to get out and act like nothing’s changed?”
“And have people talking behind my back? You should know better than just about anyone how unappealing that is,” he snaps, the words cut off at the ends as though he’s hacking them loose with an ax.
The dig at my status in town smarts, and isn’t like Beau at all. I swallow my pride and decide to forgive him—this once—because he’s under a lot of stress. “Yes, well, that’s exactly why I’m the person to give you this nudge. You’re the mayor. You can’t hide, and you and I both know there’s no reason for you to since you’re innocent. Get out there and act like it.”
More than a little of my irritation seeps into my tone no matter how hard I try to bite it back, but sheesh. No one knows better than I do what it’s like to be talked about behind your back, and no one knows better than I do when it’s time to stop feeling sorry for yourself and get a life, flipping the onlookers a very deliberate bird.
Which is exactly what Beau said to me three months ago. Admittedly in a classier way.
“Not tonight, Gracie, okay? Can you just pick up fish tacos and come over?”
“Fine. Does your brother want an order?”
There’s a brief muffled sound as he puts his hand over the phone to ask. “No. He wants chicken fingers.”
“From the Wreck? Is there something wrong with him?”
“You have no idea, love. I’ll see you in a bit.”
Millie’s watching me in that careful way she has now, as though her keeping how bad things had gotten with Jake a secret has somehow erased her right to say anything about my relationship. In another life I might be grateful for her silence, but in this one I just want the old, confident Amelia back.
“Say it,” I demand.
“It sounds like he needs to pull his head out of his ass.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but his brother’s still in residence.”
“Don’t put any wedges between you and the Draytons before you even meet his parents, Gracie. They’re very important people, and let’s face it, you’re going to have an uphill battle with their approval even without pissing off the brother.”
“Thank you for the reminder. I never, ever worry about that on my own.” I make sure and overdo the sarcasm so there’s no way she’ll miss it.
She shrugs, her expression blank as she turns back to the computer. “You said say it.”
I pause, wondering if now is a good time to ask her how she’s doing, to encourage her again to talk to someone—if not to me or Melanie, maybe a therapist—about how depressed she seems. None of what happened last summer is her fault, and the police declined to press any charges for the shooting death of her husband. Even though Millie claims to know that, and insists that she only did what she had to do, I know she feels guilt over taking his life. A life.
Even if he would have killed her and the baby without a second thought.
I guess that’s what makes us different, because I couldn’t be more thrilled that that piece of shit is rotting in hell where he belongs. Judge not and all that, I guess, but church had always been more her thing than mine. Old Testament God is more my vibe.
But asking about Jake or how she’s feeling only seems to make Amelia retreat further into herself, so I grope for another method of keeping her engaged. “Could you finish the last couple of order forms and send them in? They’re due tomorrow and I’m sick of being kept out of the loop on Beau’s case.”
She nods, a faint smile playing at the edges of her rosy lips. “You hate being kept out of the loop on anything.”
“Sue me.” I grab my purse and the jacket I tossed in the car this morning in the feeble hope that we’d actually get some rain. “I’ll see you … maybe not until tomorrow.”
That makes her snort. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.”
The air outside isn’t as stuffy as it has been, and a dark gathering of clouds out over the water seems to promise relief from the ridiculously hot summer, if not the brutal humidity. Like most Southern girls, I’ve given up on having hair that resembles anything but a rabid mongoose on top of my head, choosing to embrace the frizzy poof rather than fighting it.
A glance in my rearview mirror reveals that my hair’s not as bad as it could be. My clean-for-once long dark hair falls in pretty waves around my face instead of sticking out in eight different directions, so that’s something. It’s way past time for a trim, and Millie’s been after me about it, but the thought of putting myself in the hands of Sonny and Shears again gives me hives.
I put the old Honda into gear and tootle over to the Wreck. The setting sun winks off the Charles River on my way inside, where I ignore the leggy blond hostess who hates me because she had her eye on Beau before I came to town.
I approach the bar and slide onto a stool. “Hey, Louisa.”
The woman who tends bar is a few years older than I am and a single mother whose husband was lost at sea less than a year into their marriage. Lost at sea. Who knew that was still a thing? He was a commercial fisherman, a horribly depressing, disappearing industry that some people can’t let go because it’s all they’ve known for generations.
“Hey, Graciela. Fish tacos?”
“Two orders, lots of cabbage.” I wrinkle my nose. “And an order of chicken fingers.”
Her eyes widen a little. “You know they taste like fish, right? Because of the grease?”
“I don’t care, they’re not for me.”
“You’ve got it, then.” She writes the orders down on a pad, the Heron Creek relic still thumbing its nose at computers. “You want a drink while you wait?”
My worries about becoming an alcoholic dwindled as quickly as they appeared during my post-engagement-fail depression, so I nod. “Spicy Bloody Mary, please.”
Thank God I seem to be one of the lucky humans not prone to addiction. It’s the single piece of good fortune my cursed gene pool has allowed me, and I’ll definitely take it.
Louisa returns from the kitchen and the pleasant sound of ice clinking into a tumbler accompanies the low-volume muttering on the television. She slides the drink across the bar and wipes he
r hands on her apron, eyes glued to the screen. I follow her gaze, my breath catching in my chest when I see Beau’s face on the local news.
“Could you turn that up?”
She complies without a word, and we both watch the report. It reiterates that Mayor Beauregard Drayton, of the Charleston Draytons, has been indicted for abuse of power and that his plea hearing is scheduled for Monday. There’s brief speculation as to whether any additional evidence might have been found during a search of his home earlier today, and my blood turns sluggish in my veins.
They searched his house? No wonder he sounded like the weight of the world is on his shoulders, and his wanting to hide tonight makes more sense. I feel badly for pushing him now.
The reporter drones on for a few minutes, and it’s clear that Beau’s position as mayor of Heron Creek wouldn’t earn him this kind of coverage. It’s his family’s history and visibility that’s making it worse. Generating interest.
Beau doesn’t like to talk about his family, but the way he’s gone about trying to establish his career on his own, from the ground up, speaks volumes. He was a prosecutor and district attorney in Charleston, then worked on the police force in Heron Creek before running for mayor. A run at a state senate position probably would have been next and he would have won. He would have earned it, not been given the spot because he’s a Drayton.
“Terrible about Mayor Beau.”
My head jerks around, searching Louisa’s face for any clue she’s being disingenuous, but find nothing. Louisa’s always been a little quiet, for a bartender. It’s one of the reasons I like her. “Yeah. He’s going to be fine, though.”
She nods. “No doubt about it. He’s a good man, that one. Good heart, good head … Can’t say I’m sorry about the Lindsay Boone case getting more attention, though. Always felt like she got a raw deal.”
“Oh?” I don’t want to react, even though my knee-jerk response is to defend my boyfriend. Maybe finding out more about that original case and why so many people are so quick to defend a local drug dealer might be a way to get to the bottom of what happened.
My feelings are kind of tangled on the subject. Is it possible to agree that Lindsay’s sentence was too harsh while also believing that Beau never intended to do her wrong?
Maybe.
“Yeah. We went to school together. She was never right after what happened with that jackass science teacher, but she’s not a bad person. I kind of feel like she needed a life preserver and they tossed her a vest full of lead, instead.”
My curiosity stirs. “What happened?”
For a girl who doesn’t gossip, Louisa barely seems to notice that we’re doing exactly that. “Oh, surely you remember. He started flunking her so he could keep her after class for tutoring, and ended up taking advantage of her. He was fired, of course, but she wouldn’t press charges so he never went to jail.”
My stomach feels queasy and I push my half-empty drink away. “That’s awful.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t know that. News like that doesn’t stay secret in a town this size.” She frowns, looking a little green around the gills herself. “Not that it should.”
“People forget I only spent summers here,” I mumble with a small smile. “Myself included sometimes.”
“Yeah, that’s right. It seems like you were always here, probably because you left us all with enough stories to last the whole year.” She smiles, letting me know the memories are fond. “Still think you would have heard about it, being friends with Leo.”
The phone rings and she excuses herself to answer it, grabbing her notepad again and sliding a pencil from behind her ear to write down a call-in order. What Louisa told me about Lindsay makes me feel even sorrier for her, but even if she’s had a rough time, that doesn’t mean she gets a free pass in the eyes of the law. I know that, and so does Beau, but … what if there had been a way to give her a break?
I would have done it in a heartbeat, but Beau’s a stickler about the rules and the letter of the law. There’s a sick feeling in my stomach at the thought that, even if he had seen another way, he could have meted out the harshest punishment and never thought twice about it even knowing everything about her past.
Louisa hands over my bag of food a few minutes later. My mouth waters from the wafting scent of grilled fish and mango salsa that manages to overpower the usual stench in my car on the way to Beau’s house on the edge of town. I give myself a pep talk on the way there, figuring the best thing for me to do is not bring up the case at all. He and Brick have probably been beating it like a long-dead horse for days on end, and even though I want to help, the best way for me to do that is probably to just be his girlfriend. I might go as far as calling myself an amateur sleuth these days, but that’s stretching it since my ghosts do most of the pointing and shoving, and I mostly stumble into trouble on my way to answers.
Which only reinforces my decision to let the legal minds handle this thing, regardless of the fact that one of them thinks ordering chicken fingers at the Wreck is a good idea.
Beau answers the door before I can even ring the bell, almost knocking the food out of my hands as he grabs me in a breath-stealing hug. Tingles spread over my skin and down my spine at the feeling of his breath hot on my neck, moving strands of my hair. His strong hands grip my back, holding on tight, and I let him hold me, happy to give comfort in whatever way he needs it.
If Brick weren’t awake and inside, I’d be more than up for comforting him in a different way. It’s been, like, five days—by far the longest we’ve gone since tumbling into bed together—and I’m surprised to find that I miss it. With my ex-fiancé, David, I’d been vaguely interested on occasion but gave in most nights because it kept him happy, and it took less time to do it than to tell him no and then deal with his pouting.
I press my lips to his cheek, lingering long enough to pass my desire along, and feel the hitch in his breath. “I miss you, Mayor Beau.”
“I miss you, you gorgeous little troublemaker.”
“I guess it takes one to know one,” I joke, pulling away and checking the Styrofoam boxes to make sure they didn’t spill. Beau doesn’t respond, a tight, obligatory smile on his mouth that makes me grimace. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. Maybe in a few more days I’ll be ready to joke about it. Now get your sexy ass in the house. I’m starving.”
Frigid air-conditioning slathers my skin with chills as soon as I step over the threshold. “Crap on a cracker, it’s colder than Sherman’s heart in here, Beau.”
Beau’s a born-and-bred Southerner—which means he prefers to deal with the heat naturally, especially since he’s got the benefit of a property near the water—and even though I’m technically from Iowa, I’ve never been a fan of air-conditioning, either. It’s a shared quirk, one that makes sharing space more comfortable. I hate coming in from ninety humid degrees to sixty dry ones. It’s not that I love sweating down my ass crack, but if the alternative is shivering under three blankets in the middle of summer, no thanks.
“I know. Brick’s got fire blood. I’ll get you a sweater.”
He disappears, and I wander into the kitchen to find Brick at the thick wooden table, manila file folders and scrawled-on pages scattered all over the top as if a hurricane swept through Beau’s house while leaving the town untouched.
“Hey,” I try, my cousin’s warning about being nice to Beau’s family ringing in my ears. “How’s it going?”
He looks up. A pair of glasses are perched on his nose, barely hanging on as though they know he hates them for betraying the slightest weakness. In the next breath, he flicks them off, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “It’s going.”
Apparently he didn’t get the “be nice” memo from Beau. More likely he’s choosing to ignore it, although maybe I’m giving my boyfriend too much credit, thinking he’s worried about Brick and me getting along given everything else going on in his life. I guess he can have another pass, even if I’m a little tired of giving th
em out.
“See any ghosts lately?” Brick gets up from the table and stretches, eyeing me with a cruel humor. He knows from my reaction at Beau’s birthday party last month that my ghosts are not open for discussion. No matter what Amelia and Mel and Will and everyone else say about my experiences being common here in the South, if I had my way no one would know about my dead visitors.
Hell, half the time I pretend they don’t exist. Which would work a lot better if other people quit bringing them up.
“I got your chicken fingers,” I say by way of response, wrinkling my nose. “Just so you know, they’re going to taste like fish.”
“That’s what the honey mustard is for.”
“I didn’t get you any honey mustard. Beau didn’t say.”
“Well, that’s bloody wonderful,” he snaps, more forcefully than a tub of mayonnaise and mustard would require.
“Look, it’s a seafood joint. I don’t even think they have salad dressing, so get some barbecue sauce out of the fridge and quit whining like a five-year-old.”
“I can see the two of you are getting along,” Beau comments, striding back into the kitchen and to my side, handing over a warm, crimson Gamecocks sweatshirt.
I slide it over my head, fuming for no good reason. “Your brother is disappointed in me for not being a mind reader.”
Brick throws up his hands. “Who gets chicken fingers without asking for honey mustard?”
Beau rolls his eyes, giving his brother an exasperated look. “You’re aware you sound like a child, right? There are all kinds of dressings and sauces in the fridge. You’ll survive.”
To his credit, Brick doesn’t say anything else as he finds what appears to be an acceptable form of honey mustard to dump into a ramekin. The redness in his cheeks suggests it’s not because his mood has improved, however.
“Thank you for bringing dinner. We’ve hardly eaten all day.” Beau brushes a kiss on my neck, too close to my ear to be chaste, and I shiver.
“I’m happy to help. I wish I could do more.”
He slides onto one of the stools at the island and pats the one next to him. It’s a little weird, sitting in the kitchen with Brick but not eating at the table with him, but since I don’t really want to force conversation, I follow Beau’s lead.