Wild Angel

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Wild Angel Page 27

by Shari Copell


  “It’s good to see you too, boss. I was about to ask you the same question. You scared the shit out of me.”

  “Right back at you.” He wasn’t going to say a word about Chelsea and Nicks. It was none of her business anyway. “I came down to unload the wine.”

  Marybeth eyed him suspiciously. “It couldn’t have waited until tomorrow?”

  “No. I wanted to do it tonight. What were you doing?”

  “Cleaning out a space in the back room for all the wine. I also cleaned out the meat freezer. Where’s Chelsea?”

  “Getting the kids.”

  “Uh huh.” Marybeth pulled a cigarette from behind her ear and lit it, her gaze never leaving his face.

  He could tell that she could tell something was not quite right. But this woman was too smart to ask. She had a way of dragging stuff out of you without saying a word. If he’d known she was at Tapestries, he would’ve gone straight to a hotel.

  “You want to put that cigarette out and go get the flatbed dolly? You can help me unload as long as you’re here.”

  “Sure thing.” Still balancing the cigarette between her fingers, she turned away, returning moments later with the dolly.

  They unloaded in silence, making several trips back and forth to the storeroom. Tage could almost hear the gears grinding in the bartender’s head though. He watched her back as she wheeled the last flatbed of wine cases through the door. Maybe it was time to ask some questions of his own.

  “C’mon.” She patted the seat of a leather stool at the bar when they were finished. “Close the door and hop up here. What’s your pleasure tonight? Dos Equis? Sam Adams? Got the new Harvest Pumpkin ale on Friday.”

  He scowled as he slid onto the bar stool. “What kind of an idiot drinks pumpkin-flavored beer?”

  She shot him a look as she got a glass off the shelf. “It’s actually pretty good. Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.”

  “You know what? Skip the beer. Can you make me a bangin’-strong tequila and ginger ale?”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “You know I can. Coming right up.”

  He smiled as he watched her make it. Holy shit, it was half Patron Reposado. Marybeth Catalino was the best bartender ever.

  She set it off to the side and held her open hand out in front of him. “Give me your keys, and I’ll give you the drink.”

  With a disgruntled sigh, he dug into his pocket, closed his fingers around his keys, and dropped them into the middle of her palm. She pushed the drink in front of him. “Not necessary, but I understand. I’m staying here tonight anyway. I have to bring my luggage in. And I know that whirling brain of yours now has a zillion questions to ask so let’s get started. The sooner you know, the sooner I can get my drink on and hit the sofa in my office.”

  “Jesus, you’re in a mood, aren’t you? Trip not go so well?”

  “Trip was fine. The problems started when we got home.”

  “One of the kids?”

  He took a big gulp of his drink, loving how it burnt his esophagus on the way down. “I wish it were that simple.” He licked his lips. “What do you see when you look at Nicks, Marybeth?”

  Yeah, he’d caught her off guard with that question. The woman’s face went blank; she paled a little. Then the corner of her mouth lifted into what Chelsea always called a gypsy smile. She slid her elbows across the bar in front of him. “Do you want the politically correct answer or the truth?”

  “The truth.” Tage raised his glass in the air. “To the truth! And everyone who gets their guts ripped out by it!”

  Marybeth stared at the bar countertop as she destroyed an empty straw paper. “I see Asher Pratt.” She gave him a half-smile. “She’s Asher’s, isn’t she? There’s no mistaking those eyes.”

  He slumped on the stool. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Do you think I’m blind? And stupid? Don’t forget, I knew Asher. It wasn’t obvious at first, but I had my suspicions. I wasn’t a whiz in school, but the math didn’t add up. Birthdates and marriage dates and whatnot. Do I have to remind you I was in the backroom the first time you and Chelsea laid eyes on each other?”

  “God, you’re sharp, aren’t you?” Tage raised his glass again. “To Marybeth, and everyone else who knows I married a woman pregnant by another man!”

  “Shut up, Tage. If you’re about to embark on a pity party, at least tell me what happened first. Then I’ll decide whether to kick your ass or join the party with you.” She threw the wadded up straw paper at his face, hitting him smack in the middle of the forehead and making him blink. “I’m guessing it will be the former.”

  Tage wasn’t sure what it was about the grizzled bartender, but he totally bared his soul to her without intending to. He spilled his guts, especially after the tequila kicked in and the tears started to run down his cheeks. He told her about Chelsea finding out she was pregnant and his proposal, what they did for Asher as he died, about his wife pouring her heart out on paper afterward. It killed him to talk about all that stuff when so many years had gone by.

  He hadn’t cried for a very long time. He was a bit embarrassed to be doing it in front of an employee now.

  No, she was more than an employee. Marybeth was a surrogate mother, had been since the day his feet crossed the threshold of Tapestries. She’d opened her arms to him, to all of the employees here. She had no children, so she adopted them as her own.

  Marybeth came around the bar to sit beside him when the tears started, patting him gently on the back in the way you’d comfort a heartbroken child.

  “Yep, it’s kind of a fucked-up story, that’s for sure,” she said as she rubbed his shoulder.

  “Why did Chelsea give her that notebook, after all these years?” Tage dropped his face into his hands.

  “Are you sure she did?”

  “Who the hell else would’ve given it to her?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. The Chels I know wouldn’t do that. Go behind your back with something that is obviously a sore spot with you.” She took her time lighting another cigarette before she spoke again. “Here’s my official take on the situation: You and Chelsea made a big mistake by not being honest with Nicks right from the start.”

  Tage lifted his face out of his hands. “You think so?”

  “You wouldn’t be sitting here getting shit-faced if she already knew Asher was her father, would you? And you and your wife wouldn’t have had a big dustup about it tonight.”

  He felt some of his self-righteousness slip. Yes, it could’ve been that easy. Maybe. Probably. He felt as though he had to say something in his own defense. “She didn’t have to give her the notebook.”

  “Why didn’t you want Nicks to know, anyway? Why the big secret?”

  He was fuzzy from the tequila, but he tried to remember why he’d asked Chelsea to keep it a secret in the first place.

  Well, his parents for one thing. The high-and-mighty Robert and Sylvia Sorenson of Butler, Pennsylvania. Lots of money, but not one ounce of human compassion or understanding. They donated to numerous fundraisers and food drives in the area, attended many charitable dinners every year, but it was only to keep their names and faces in the local paper. His first thought had been of those two and their reaction when Chelsea told him of her pregnancy.

  Chelsea’s initial meeting with his parents had gone horribly wrong. They’d treated her like dog shit to be scraped off their shoes. His mother had been especially brutal, but Chels had kept a smile frozen on her face during the excruciating three-hour-long dinner. She was silent and polite the whole time she was being firebombed by his mother. The bitch had grilled Chelsea about her parents’ social status, what they did for a living. Did she eventually intend to better herself by going to college? It only reinforced his decision to marry her. She’d shown him some pretty major cojones that night.

  In fact, his parents had behaved so rudely he refused to carry Sorenson Ale on tap in his bar to this very day. No one was going to treat the woman he loved like that. His h
eart ached when he thought of how hard she’d cried on the way home from Butler afterward. As an only child, Chelsea had been looking forward to being welcomed into another family. Instead, she’d gotten Adolf Hitler and Cruella de Vil.

  “Well, fuck them,” Tage mumbled.

  “Huh?” Marybeth’s voice brought him back to reality.

  No doubt about it. His main reason for keeping Nicks a secret had been his thoroughly fucked-up family. The backlash was bad enough when his parents found out she was a waitress in a bar. They would’ve been horrified if they’d known his future wife was pregnant with another man’s child.

  It wasn’t Chelsea’s fault. There’d been no expectations on her part. She’d been so heartbroken, so ready to say goodbye to him because of Nicks. No way in hell would he have let either of those precious girls walk out of his life.

  “I just wanted her to be mine. I had already started thinking of her as mine. I didn’t want anyone to know she wasn’t. I was afraid people would laugh at me for marrying Chelsea. Like I was a fool. Like I was only taking her, baby and all, because I had no other options. I hadn’t even slept with her yet when she told me. I loved them so much. I wanted both of them to belong to me.”

  “Jesus, you really have the Y-chromosome fully engaged tonight, don’t you?” Marybeth shook her head as she took another drag off her cigarette.

  “What do you mean by that?” Tage turned to her, a little pissed at her dismissive tone.

  “Sperm meeting egg makes you a father, but it doesn’t make you a daddy. I gotta tell you, Tage, my opinion of you just went through the roof. Most men wouldn’t have done what you did. Marrying Chelsea. Accepting Nicks as your own. I got eyes. I worked here, remember? I could see Chelsea got under your skin, almost right from the start. You don’t have to explain that kind of love to me.” Marybeth poked him in the chest with a finger. “I always knew you were one of a kind. You got heart, mister. I’ve watched you dote over Nickles for nineteen years. I always had my suspicions about who put her inside Chelsea, but I never doubted who her daddy was. You show me every day how much you love that girl.”

  “I do?” He stared into the bottom of his glass. “I’m empty, Marybeth.”

  She went behind the bar to make him another drink. “I remember how furious you got when she was being picked on at school. Chelsea had to practically tie you to a chair to keep you from burning the school to the ground. I also remember how you’d drop everything and take her to guitar practice. Once, when her fingers were bleeding from playing, I saw you plop her up on the bar and wrap them up in Band-Aids, from fingernail to third knuckle. You told her not to cry, that she had magic fingers. She looked at you with those big, brown eyes and said, ‘Really, Daddy? Do you think my fingers are magic?’”

  “I remember that.” Tage felt his eyes well up with tears again. A large swallow of nearly pure tequila helped.

  “How about the day you were teaching her how to drive, and she ran into the back of Tapestries hard enough to buckle the wall behind the stage? You could’ve ripped her a new asshole, but you didn’t. You made sure she was all right, then hugged her and told her they could build a new wall but no one could ever make another Nicks Sorenson.”

  He dropped his head into the crook of his arm on the bar, his shoulders shaking with sobs. “God, I love her, Marybeth. She’s everything I hoped she’d be, but she’s going to hate me now. For lying to her. For keeping it from her. She’s a guitarist, like her real daddy. Asher is going to mean more to her than I do. And Chelsea still loves Asher. I know it. How do I compete with someone like that?”

  “Oh, you big, dumb goofball. That’s the alcohol talkin’. Makin’ a crybaby out of you.” Marybeth swatted his arm. “There isn’t a man alive who knows how a woman thinks or what’s in her heart. Nicks isn’t going to hate you, and Chelsea doesn’t love Asher more than you. You’re plain wrong about all of that. So wrong, I’ll pick up the bar tab for this Friday night if I’m the one who’s wrong.” She snatched the empty glass of the second drink from in front of him. “Go home, Tage. Tell Chels and Nickles you love them and talk about what happened. Then get over it. There isn’t a single thing about this situation that should tear that beautiful family of yours apart.”

  “I can’t go home. You have my keys.”

  “And you’re drunk enough that I’m not giving them back. I’ll drive you home.”

  He lifted his head to stare in the mirror behind the bar. There were two, possibly three, of him staring back. “No. I’m going to stay here tonight and give it some thought. I know you’re right. I just want to think about it for a while.”

  She shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’m leaving. See you tomorrow.” She started to walk away then turned back with a grin. “There’s a bottle of aspirin under the bar. For your head in the morning.”

  Nicks wasn’t sure she should call Stone that late on a Sunday night, but she desperately needed a wing man if she were going to talk to her father at Tapestries. He’d stormed out of the house in a high fury. A little moral support was greatly appreciated.

  Stone didn’t hesitate to drive over, even though it was ten o’clock at night by the time she and her mother finished talking. “I’ll be right there, baby. It’s sort of my fault all this came about anyway,” he’d told her.

  Well, not really. It had all swirled together like the perfect storm. With a little nudge from The Great Beyond.

  She watched for Stone’s car out the bow window in the kitchen. Alone again. Her mother had gone ten minutes earlier to pick up the other four kids. If she started to hear voices, she was prepared to stand outside until he came for her.

  Did she believe in that sort of thing? Ghosts? No, not really. But there was no rational explanation for the things that had happened lately. To her mother and Stone too. She wasn’t alone in hearing things. It made her feel better and freaked her out all at the same time.

  She tried to imagine what this must feel like for her father. She knew, from the notebook, how adamant he’d been about keeping Nicks’s parentage a secret. Her mother had promised to do so. And then to see Nicks with the notebook must’ve felt like a kick in the stones with spiked army boots. He’d blamed her mother for giving the journal to her. He deserved an explanation, no matter how crazy it sounded, and she was going to give him one.

  Headlights shone down her street then flashed across the front of the house. Stone had made it there in record time. Turning off all the lights but the one over the sink, she went outside and got in his car.

  He leaned across the seat for a kiss. “Hey, lover. Didn’t think I’d see you again so soon.”

  She kissed him then buckled her seatbelt. “I’m so sorry about this. I hope you got a nap. I owe you some sexy time.”

  “And I will be sure to collect that sexy time this weekend,” he said brightly. “And I did take a nap.”

  “Good.” She settled into the seat.

  “So what happened?”

  “Mom was great. She answered every single question I had with brutal honesty. But Dad... he didn’t take it so well. He stomped out and went to Tapestries. Said he was staying the night.”

  “What are you going to say to him?”

  “I don’t know yet. I want him to know that nothing has changed, at least as far as I’m concerned. He’s my dad, you know? God, he did everything with me. I wouldn’t be who I am if it weren’t for Tage Sorenson. I love that man with all my heart.” She laughed with delight. “You know what night sticks out in my mind the most?”

  “What?”

  “Mom doesn’t do puke. Never has. One time we all got the flu. I was thirteen or fourteen. T.J. was just a baby, and didn’t get sick but it was coming out of both ends of the rest of us. Mom did okay with the back end, but ran like a scared rabbit whenever one of us started to heave. Dad stood over me in the bathroom, holding my hair back and singing Let Me Call You Sweetheart while I nearly barfed up a lung.”

  Stone snickered. “Strange choice of song.”
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  “I know, but he has a nice voice, and it made me feel better. No kidding, I expected to see my brains come out my mouth that night. He was so strong and caring. He did that for all of us. Thank God for five-gallon buckets. There weren’t enough toilets in the house for us to puke in.”

  Nicks ached inside for her father. He was the rock of their family. He didn’t even have to yell at you to get your attention. None of them ever wanted to disappoint him. Chelsea had always hoped Nicks would find a man like Tage someday.

  Glancing at the man beside her, she thought maybe her mother’s wish had come true. Stone had defended her to the rest of his band, saved her life, and had taken her nearly anywhere she wanted to go in search of her biological father.

  “I think you’re a man like my father, Stone.”

  “Oh, sweetheart. I’m not that selfless. Your dad is a superhero compared to the rest of us.”

  “I don’t think so. I think you’re exactly like him. That’s why I love you so much. We have a connection. Don’t you feel it?”

  His eyes sparkled like stars. “I do feel it. I felt it the very first time I ever saw you, Nicks.”

  Tage lifted his head slowly off the bar when he heard the key in the back door. Eleven o’clock at night. His head dropped back into the crook of his elbow.

  He hadn’t been this drunk in a long time. He couldn’t focus on anything. He wondered why Marybeth was coming back, then decided he didn’t give a fuck. She could just work around him.

  “Daddy?” A soft voice called to him through the haze of alcohol. It was a voice he loved, a voice he’d always delighted in, loving its owner so much he’d willingly give up everything to make things right for her.

  It was his first-born daughter.

  He lifted his head and squinted in the direction of the voice. “Nicks?”

  “Boy, are you drunk.” He heard her coat rustle as she removed it and put it over the back of the stool beside him. “I hope you can hear me, because I have some things to say to you.”

 

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