My father’s ability to find joy in what everyone else saw as the mundane had always amazed me. He wasn’t just a glass half-full kind of guy. Staying positive was one thing, but my father went way past that. His feelings toward his barber were a prime example of this. As far as I was concerned, it was just a haircut, but for him it was much more. It was part of a relationship he prized, so he tended to it by showing Andrew his appreciation whenever he came into McGuire’s.
I was more like my mother, though. For all her crusading, she had a hard time seeing greatness in the everyday. I, too, had that problem. I wanted to be more like my father and have reason to smile all the time, but too much weighed on my mind too often, and I knew firsthand too many people weren’t as good as my father claimed. For me, others weren’t possible relationships just waiting to be formed but suspicions waiting to be uncovered.
Albert waved to me as I stood behind the bar, and as I waved back, I wished I could be the kind of person who could be open. I truly did. That wasn’t who I was, though. I didn’t attract people into my life because in my heart I believed there was evil in the world and I didn’t exclude many people from the list of who might be the ones to bring that evil into my life.
Alex was one of those people I did exclude, though. While I still hadn’t figured him out, I knew I liked being around him. What had begun as admiration for his investigative abilities had morphed into much more for me, but now that I’d decided not to risk our friendship for anything more, I had to find someplace to push all the feelings I had for him. My brain had gotten on board with this, but my heart didn’t want to join the friend party. No, my heart was still trying to convince me not to listen to reason. Each time I told myself it wasn’t worth the risk, that heart of mine insisted on reminding me that all work and no play made Poppy a very boring woman.
I’d listened to my heart in the past with disastrous results, but still it had the power to make me reconsider my rational choices, and when it came to Alex, my heart seemed ready to work overtime to make me go back on my decision to keep our relationship strictly friendly partners.
“Is this your fourth job, Poppy?”
Roused from my thoughts, I looked up and saw Alex taking a seat right in front of me. My entirely illogical heart skipped a beat at seeing him there. “Fourth?”
“You work with me, at The Eagle, at your online job, and here. Four.”
“Oh, yeah. Don’t you remember? I lost my job online after our first case together, so I’m down to three. Well, two and a half since working here really isn’t a job.”
“That’s right. I do remember. They lost a good person. Two and a half is still a lot, though.”
I smiled at his compliment. “Do you want that ice cold beer you mentioned this afternoon or your favorite?”
He thought for a moment and said, “It’s cooled down a little since then, so I’ll go with the scotch.”
Placing his favorite scotch neat in front of him on the bar, I waved my hand as he moved to get his wallet out. “No charge. My treat.”
“Are we celebrating something?” he asked with a quizzical look.
“No. Just my treat.”
Alex lifted his glass in thanks and took a drink as I studied him in a way I’d never done before. Dressed in a dark blue button down shirt and jeans, he looked bigger. Since we’d started working together just about three months ago, he’d filled out from what he’d been in the spring. Maybe he’d begun working out.
“I thought you were going to tell me your father remembered something about Mary being here on Tuesday night that’s going to break our case wide open.”
Popping the top on a beer, I took a drink and shook my head. “Sorry, no. I asked him and he said he remembers seeing Mary around midnight, but he doesn’t remember seeing her after that because the bar filled up and it was busy.”
He took a deep breath in, as if to prepare himself for something, and said, “Then I think she’s moving up our suspect list to number one.”
I knew he was right to think that. Her neighbor had seen her with a man who she thought could be Canton Walters, and she’d admitted that he might have danced at one of the parties she attended. And then there was the strange detail of her address and phone number on that piece of paper we found in his hotel room that likely meant he knew her.
But I still couldn’t see her as the killer.
“You look like you don’t agree, Poppy. Do you know something I should know?”
I took another drink of my beer and rested my elbows on the bar. Leaning toward him, I said, “I can’t explain it, but I just can’t picture her killing anyone, much less driving a kitchen knife into someone’s back.”
“Hell hath no fury…what is it again?” he asked with a chuckle.
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. I get it, but I can’t even imagine her scorned and killing someone. And who’s to say Canton scorned her? Why would he? She’s beautiful and wealthy.”
“She is, but that doesn’t mean every man in the world is going to want her. What if she wanted him for more than a mere affair with a married man and he told her no? They fight, she grabs the knife, and it’s lights out for poor Canton.”
I tried to imagine Mary being that scorned woman, but it didn’t work. “I don’t think so, Alex. There’s one big problem with her being the killer. I don’t think she could physically do it.”
“That I don’t know, but I could find out. In the meantime, until I get some evidence that contradicts Mary being our killer, she’s on the top of my list of suspects.”
“Are you expecting to get some of that evidence any time soon?” I asked, curious to know what he hadn’t told me about.
“I am. I’m waiting on the list of calls in and out of the Hotel Piermont on the night of the murder. When we see those, we might have a much clearer idea of what happened.”
“When do you think that will come?”
Two men came through the door and sat at the opposite end of the bar, so I put my hand up and said, “Wait a second. I don’t want to miss anything, so hang on until I get back from taking care of these people.”
I hurried to where they sat and took their orders for two beers on tap. Eager to hear when we might have a real break in our case, I set their drinks down in front of them and raced back to where Alex sat.
“Okay, shoot.”
“You’re really excited about this, aren’t you?” he asked with a smile.
“I’m a huge fan of research. You like dealing with people, but I like this kind of thing.”
Alex tipped his glass to get the last of his drink and put the empty down on the bar. As I poured him a second, he explained, “People are more interesting. It can be a challenge to figure out what they really mean when they’re telling you what they want to believe is the truth. Or what they want you to believe is the truth.”
“See, that’s my problem with people. That last part trips me up. Phone records don’t lie. They are what they are. I like that.”
He raised his glass to make a toast, and I raised my drink. Clinking his glass against my beer bottle, he smiled broadly. “To opposites as partners. Yin and yang.”
I took a swig of my beer and agreed. We were opposites. Maybe that was why we worked so well together. Whatever it was, I was glad I’d listened to my head instead of following my heart.
And then the one thing my heart feared the most walked through the door to my father’s bar and sat down next to him.
Wearing an even tinier sundress than she had on the last time she interrupted the two of us as we talked about work, Bethany leaned forward on the bar so I almost got a show and said, “Poppy, I didn’t think you’d be working tonight. When I called Alex and he said he was coming here tonight, I figured I’d pop in and say hi.”
I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say to that. She’d basically just announced that she had expected to have him all to herself, even though he hadn’t officially asked her to meet him. Stifling the snarky sid
e of my personality, I tried to remain pleasant as I plastered a smile onto my face.
“Yep, I’m here. You know me. Work, work, work. What can I get you?”
“I think I’ll do something fruity tonight. How about an orange creamsicle?” she asked with a giggle.
“Orange creamsicle. Okay.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alex watching me and a disturbing idea popped into my head. Had he intentionally encouraged Bethany to come to my father’s bar knowing full well I’d be here so he could see my reaction to his dating her?
No. Don’t think that way, Poppy. He’s given you no indication he knew she was coming here, and how about you remember you decided you didn’t want to risk your friendship and working relationship for anything else? And even more, Bethany is your friend, or at least you thought she was until recently. Try remembering that.
As all that rambled around my brain, I made her fruity drink and tried not to let myself be miserable. With my best attempt at a genuine smile, I placed it front of her and finished it off with a rim of whipped cream.
“Viola! That’ll be six-fifty.”
For a long second, it seemed like the world switched into slow motion. Bethany looked at me and then Alex before slowly opening her purse to get her money, and Alex stared at me like he was surprised I was charging her when I hadn’t charged him for his drink.
Some relationships I prized and rewarded and others I didn’t so much. If it was petty to charge her, then so be it. She was going to get a far bigger reward than just a few measly bucks.
Alex reached across the bar and ran his fingertip over my cheek, making my body instantly come alive. Surprised, I just stood there as he pulled his hand away with a dollop of whipped cream on his finger.
With that sexy grin he wore sometimes, he said, “You got a little whipped cream on your face when you made that drink.”
The blood rushed to my face so I felt like I had a fever of a hundred and five, and then he stuck his finger in his mouth to suck the whipped cream off it and I was sure I’d blacked out and my fantasies had taken over my brain.
Bethany made a joke about me being sloppy or something, but I wasn’t listening because my brain and my heart had begun their newest tug-of-war and all I heard in my ears was a single, deafening thought.
Had I made a mistake by not telling him how I felt?
Excusing myself, I made a beeline to the bathroom to rinse off the remaining stickiness from the whipped cream on my cheek. By the time I closed the door behind me, my heart had won the war and as I stared into the mirror to make sure I’d removed the last of Bethany’s drink from my face, I thought I knew what I had to do.
Now all I had to do was figure out how.
I returned to my place behind the bar to find the two of them deep in conversation about some club in Baltimore they both had in common. I stood there watching Bethany rave about how much fun she’d had the last time she’d been there and when I turned to see Alex’s reaction, my heart sank.
He talked about the place with an excitement he’d never expressed with me. His laughter, his voice never sounded that way when we spoke about anything. For the first time, I realized I knew little about Alex other than his work. He’d never told me anything about his life before he came to Sunset Ridge, and I had to admit a painful truth.
All I understood of him was the one part everyone got to see. Bethany, on the other hand, teased out of him in a matter of minutes what no one in town had found out about Alex Montero. Not even me.
“Poppy, Bethany and I are talking about this place back in Baltimore. It’s called Under Tenth. Have you ever been there?”
“No. I can’t say I have.”
I wanted to be able to talk about it like Bethany did, but I couldn’t. I’d never been to Under Tenth or anywhere else, it seemed.
“Poppy doesn’t do that club scene, do you, Poppy?” Bethany said with a chuckle.
Nothing about what she said was untrue, but it didn’t matter. I felt out of place in my own father’s bar, like I was intruding on the two of them instead of her intruding on us.
Who was I kidding? There was no us. I was someone he let tag around with him because I helped get the locals to talk. That’s all there was to us. He was Officer Alex Montero, retired Baltimore detective who had agreed to join the Sunset Ridge police force because he was bored hiding out in his house, and I was Poppy McGuire, town nobody the busybodies mentioned in whispered tones only to express pity that in my early thirties I was still unmarried.
“I can understand why you wouldn’t,” Alex said in response to Bethany’s claim that I didn’t go out to clubs. “I’m not a fan of them either.”
Whatever he was trying to do with that, all it succeeded in making me feel was that he pitied me too.
“We should go there tonight!” Bethany excitedly announced as she grabbed onto his arm. “It would be fun.”
Alex looked down at where she’d latched onto him and then up at me. “It could be fun. What do you say?”
I’d never felt more like a third-wheel in my life. Forcing a smile, I declined his offer, hating how out of place I felt at that moment.
“I think I have to work tonight.”
Before he could say anything else, I walked down to the other end of the bar to get those customers two more beers. I stayed down there for a few minutes pretending like I had to clean beneath the bar because I didn’t want to go back and hear him say they were going to that club. It should have meant nothing to me. I’d come to peace with the fact that I liked us being friends.
Until I saw how easily Bethany had peeled back layers that I hadn’t touched in three months of speaking every day with him.
I felt a hand brush my shoulder and turned to see my father at my side. “Everything okay up here? I was back talking to Andrew for a long time. That’s what happens when we get talking about forty years of history.”
“Can you take over the bar for me, Dad? I know I’m supposed to be helping, but it’s not too busy yet. I just need to go into the back for a little bit.”
He glanced down toward the other end of the bar where Alex and Bethany sat and then at me. “Sure. Take all the time you need.”
I swallowed hard and kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks, Dad. I just need a few minutes.”
Without looking back toward them, I headed into the stock room and closed the door behind me. I didn’t know why I wanted to hide out. It was foolish. A grown woman hiding out among kegs and cases of liquor.
Burying my head in my hands, I tried not to feel what I was feeling. Just hours earlier I’d convinced myself to forget all this silliness and now it was back with a vengeance. What was wrong with me?
I heard the door open and didn’t even lift my head. If it was my father, then he’d see me like I was and understand. If it was anyone else, they’d see me and leave immediately since it was a rare person who invited someone else’s misery into their world.
“You get the same look on your face when you’re down that your mother used to get.”
I looked up at him standing there and nodded. In my mind’s eye, I could see that mix of sadness and disappointment on my mother’s face that she let the world see so rarely. She preferred to put on a good face no matter what life threw at her, but on those occasions when the world got too much for her, she would let how she really felt come out for those who knew her best.
He sat down in front of me on a case of vodka and looked at me like he was worried about me. “What’s wrong, honey?”
“Nothing. I’m fine. I think the heat might have gotten to me today. Maybe heat stroke. I just needed a cool place to sit.”
That last part was clearly a lie since the bar was a very chilly temperature somewhere in the mid-sixties. I wasn’t a very good liar when it came right down to it. Not that I wanted to lie to him. I just didn’t want to talk about anything.
“I can understand that. Today was a scorcher. At least you and Alex got to drive around in air co
nditioning. I saw you two, I suspect heading toward Mary Jessick’s earlier today. You didn’t see me, though, but you two looked like you were deep in conversation.”
“Sorry. I didn’t see you.”
“Alex is a good person. I like him.”
I knew what my father was doing, but I didn’t want to play this game with him. I didn’t really have a choice, though.
“He is. He’s a great detective.”
“Are you enjoying working with him?”
“I am. I’m learning so much from watching him unravel clues and solve cases. I don’t do much to help him, but he’s really teaching me a lot.”
My father smiled and took my hand in his to give it a gentle squeeze. “Don’t discount yourself like that, Poppy. I’m sure he has his strengths, but you bring a lot of great things to the table too. His job would be much harder without you.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, wishing everything I was feeling would leave with it. “I’m not sure about that, Dad, but thanks.”
“Do you think he’d get the people in this town to talk to him without your help?”
“He’s a cop now, Dad. They have to talk to him. It isn’t like when we were working on our first case anymore.”
Accepting the truth of what I’d said, he nodded and smiled. “Okay, maybe that’s true, but you know details about this town he’ll never know because you know these people. You’ve lived around them all your life.”
All my life. There in those three words was the reality of all I was.
I’d never really gone anywhere or done much of anything, except for four years of college, and then after I was right back in Sunset Ridge. No clubs in Baltimore. No traveling around the state meeting with potential clients. Just back and forth from my house on Barn Street to my job at The Eagle on Main Street and then down to the opposite end of Main Street to this very bar before going back to my house.
“I guess.”
“You know, when you were in third grade you wanted to be like that Tamblin girl. Do you remember that? She had short hair and played baseball, and you wanted to be just like her.”
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