Rose bursts into laughter. “I can imagine. I think I would die without my iPhone.”
Joseph’s grin gets even wider. “Yes. I have noticed that about a few of the women I have dated. The moment they realize they can’t call me, or me them—pfft—they are out of there.”
“So no one special?” Rose asks.
“No. Not since you.”
She has mixed feelings about his answer. There is a slightly morbid satisfaction that he hasn’t found someone else, but at the same time, she is saddened that he is still alone. But then, really, is she any different? She has had lovers, but none have made her feel like Joseph did. “I’m sorry to hear that, Joseph. I really am.”
His grin fades just a bit. “That’s life. You have to roll with the punches. So. Uhh… Rose. I need to check my messages. May I do that now, or should I come back? My food should be hitting the table pretty soon.”
“You’re dining with us today?”
“We all are. The Nine’s I mean. We eat here a couple of times a week. The food’s good, the prices are reasonable, and Tim is a good guy. Was a good guy,” he amends, and he looks at the floor.
“Go ahead. Introduce me you your club when you’re done?” Rose asks, rising from her chair.
“Sure,” Joseph says, brightening slightly. “I won’t be but a moment."
CHAPTER THREE
It doesn’t take Joseph long to take care of his messages and he escorts her to the seven tables they occupy. “Nines, this is Rose. Her family owned the Goose before Tim took it over. She is back helping out until Melina can get on her feet.”
“The Rose?” a woman asks Joseph.
Joseph blushes slightly. “The one and same.”
“What does that mean?” Rose asks him.
“Only that he talks about you. What you meant to him. I’m glad I have finally had a chance to meet you,” the woman answers for him.
Rose is terribly flattered by the comment. “Whatever he told you about me, it was all lies,” Rose says, trying to cover her embarrassment.
She quickly surveys the group spread across the tables. The only consistent thing about them is they all have on a Nine Devils jacket, jeans and riding boots. Beyond that they are as different as any group of people can be. They run the age gamut from perhaps her age of twenty-eight to a man and woman that appear to be well into their sixties. Some are clean cut, like Joseph, while others sport the stereotypical long hair and beard, and their skin color represents the entire human spectrum.
“Somehow I don’t think so,” says the older man, grinning at Joseph like a proud father. “He certainly wasn’t lying about how beautiful you are.”
Rose gives Joseph a push on the shoulder. “You charmer. So why are you guys hanging out with this loser?”
The table become quite for a moment before the man answers. “Because we believe in his vision.”
“What vision is that? The ‘living off the grid’ thing?”
“That’s right. If you take a moment and think about all the ways government intrudes on your basic freedoms, it becomes disturbing. After California closed me down, closed down a business that had been in my family for three generations, I finally realized that I was working at the pleasure of the government. I’m not doing that anymore.”
Rose notices that almost the entire group is nodding as the man speaks. “Closed you down? How?”
“My grandfather opened a plating company in the forties. We did plating for various hot rod and automotive companies. The state finally regulated me out of business.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Rose sympathies. “I own a restaurant in Las Vegas. Believe me, I know about regulations.”
“Rose, you don’t know regulations until you are in California and own a business that uses ‘toxic’ chemicals,” the man says, making quotation marks in the air with his fingers. “Nobody wants to pollute the environment, but the regulations… they got to be just ridiculous. I finally couldn’t operate anymore and had to close down. I had to lay off thirty-five people. That was the hardest thing I have ever done.”
Rose can feel the man’s pain. To be regulated out of business like that would be terrible because you would lose everything, unable to continue to operate and unable to sell. Before Rose can say anything else, the food begins to arrive and she fades away as the wait staff begins to pass out plates and refill glasses.
“They come in often?” Rose asks Tonya after the meals have been served.
“Oh yeah! They are my favorite customers! Gail and I, we always split up waiting their tables. They are great. They don’t make a mess and if you give them good service, they tip good too.”
“And they don’t cause problems?”
Tonya and Gail both smile. “Absolutely not!” Gail chortles. “They are some of the most polite customers we get and the only time they complain is when they have a reason to. Which we never give them of course.”
Rose pulls at her bottom lip, thinking. Motorcycle clubs have such a poor reputation—perhaps undeservedly so, if how they are welcomed in the Goose is any indication. “They always come in for lunch?”
“Naw… could be any time. Normally breakfast or lunch though,” Tonya says before stepping away with pitchers to refill drink orders.
Rose watches as the Nine’s eat, talk, and laugh, thanking Tonya and Gail as they scurry about filling glasses. To be so odd, they seem so… normal.
CHAPTER FOUR
The next day Rose closes the Goose after the breakfast rush so that the employees can attend Tim’s funeral. She rides in the family car with Melina, trying to be strong for her friend as Melina stares vacantly out of the side window.
Rose looks about as family and friends gather. Many she knows, at least in passing—a lot she does not. Tim must have been very well liked considering the number attending his service. As Joseph speaks of Tim, Rose can no longer hold her tears. His soft-spoken eulogy seems to come from the heart and he has to pause several times to collect himself.
After he finishes speaking he rejoins Melina and holds her hand, perhaps taking strength as much as giving it. Several others step forward to speak after Joseph but none have the eloquence that he did.
As the mourners begin to pass by Melina and her family, offering their support and sympathy, Rose hangs back, not wishing to intrude. She spends the time gathering herself and getting her emotions under control. To help herself she looks about the cemetery, trying to focus on the landscaping and not the heart-wrenching sadness on Melina’s face. As she does, she notices that there appears to be a group of men, some of which she recognizes from the Nines, stationed around the mourners. She slowly turns, not wishing to draw attention to herself by looking wildly about, but the phalanx of bikers surrounds them… and they all appear to be inconspicuously watching away from the group gathered about Melina.
She searches faces until she locates Joseph, and another member of his club, standing respectfully behind Melina, far enough back to not be in the way, but close enough to be at her side in an instant. But what captures her attention most are their eyes. Their eyes are hard and constantly moving, peering at each person as they get close before moving to the next person in the line. Rose watches the silent drama play out, Melina and the rest of Tim’s family apparently unaware of the silent guardians at their back.
After the funeral, Rose leaves Melina at home in the comfort of friends and family and returns to the Goose to reopen for the soon-to-arrive dinner crowd. Throughout the evening, the more she thinks about the scene at the funeral, the more she is convinced something is going on. Something more than just Tim Scholly being gunned down in cold blood.
***
“Melina? Are you okay?” Rose asks as she quietly shuts the door to Melina’s house behind her. It is just after eleven and she is exhausted from her long day and the emotional toil of attending Tim’s funeral. She is ready for bed, but seeing Melina staring blankly at the television screen as monster trucks rampage around an arena worr
ies her.
“What? Oh, hi Rose. I didn’t hear you come in.” Melina focuses on the television for a moment before making a face and clicking it off. “You look beat.”
Rose flops into a chair, glad to be off her feet. “Yeah. Now I remember why I only serve dinner at Aguilar’s.”
“You should let one of the others open or close. You don’t have to be there all day.”
“I know. And I will. I can’t do this for long. Eighteen-hour days get real old, real fast. But I have to see what goes on for myself before I can know what to do.”
Melina smiles sadly. “You sound just like Tim.”
“I should. Dad taught us both.” They sit quietly for a moment before Rose speaks again. “It was a beautiful funeral, Melina. Tim had a lot of friends.”
Melina begins to break but gathers herself with a sniff. “Yeah. He was a great guy. I’m really going to miss him.”
“I know. I am too. Joseph surprised me. I had no idea he could speak like that.”
“I did. I have heard him speak before. Not in the same setting, but he is a natural-born leader. When he talks, people listen.”
“Still, what he said was touching.”
“Yes. He and Tim were very close.”
“I can see that. Joseph told me about the arrangement he has with the Goose.”
Melina nods. “He’s no bother, but it can be hard to function in today’s world the way he likes to live.”
“That doesn’t strike you as odd?”
“Odd, as in different? Certainly. But you should ask him sometime why he lives the way he does. You may find yourself thinking about things you never even considered before.”
“You sound like you admire him.”
“I do. As I said, you should talk to him. Listen to what he has to say. I think you may find it very enlightening.”
“How are you holding up?” Rose asks, changing the subject.
“Okay, I guess. I don’t think I would have been able to cope with the Goose and this at the same time.”
“I understand. But you’re sure you want to sell?”
“Yes. I don’t really want to but I don’t have much choice. The Goose has been very good to us, but I can’t manage the Goose and raise the kids too. It is just too much. Maybe I will go back and work for Dad. Take Tim’s life insurance and finish my accounting degree. Find something with more stable hours.”
“You could always hire a manager for the Goose.”
“Maybe. You want the job?” Melina asks with a slight smile.
Rose snickers. “No thank you! I have enough problems with my own place. I couldn’t handle two.”
“I can’t thank you enough for helping me out.”
“Hey... What are friends for?”
Melina’s face crinkles as she struggles to not cry. “You have been such a good friend Rose,” she gasps.
Rose grits her teeth, struggling to stay strong, knowing if she begins to cry Melina will break. “And you, Melina. You have been my best friend ever.”
Melina throws her arms around Rose and weeps softly into her shoulder, holding her tight. Rose embraces her friend and, despite her own tears of sorrow and grief, tries to give her the strength to endure.
CHAPTER FIVE
“When was the last time someone took you out to eat?” Joseph asks as he sticks his head into Rose’s office the next day.
“It’s been a while. But I eat out nearly every meal, if you think about it. What I want is someone to cook for me. Why?”
“I came to get my mail and see if I had any messages. I saw you sitting there and I wondered if you would like to go have some dinner.”
“I can’t leave. The dinner rush is coming up.”
“You can’t or you won’t? Tim used to open and work until lunch. Someone else normally closed. They don’t need you around all the time, you know. The staff is going to think you don’t trust them if you are here eighteen hours a day, every day.”
“It’s not that. It’s just I need to learn what is going on.”
“Rose…” Joseph says in exasperation. “You worked here for how many years? And you have owned your own restaurant for how long? I think you know how to manage a restaurant. Let Dick close tonight.”
“I don’t know, Joseph. It’s nice of you to ask, but…”
Joseph steps out of the office, cutting her off, and then returns a moment later with Dick in tow. “She doesn’t trust you to close,” Joseph says matter-of-factly. “I asked her out to dinner but she says can’t go because she feels like she can’t leave.”
Dick smirks. “I know you’re the boss, but you can’t work all day, every day. First off it will kill you. Secondly, it undermines everyone else’s confidence. I think you should go.”
“But…”
Dick, a man almost old enough to be her father, makes shooing motions with his hands. “Rose… Go. I know it isn’t nice to say this, but you look like hell. You haven’t been getting more than four hours’ sleep these last three nights. You have Arnie scheduled to open in the morning. Let him. Come in after you have had a good night’s sleep.” Dick pauses, then grins. “If you keep this up, you’re going to start scaring the customers.”
“He put you up to this didn’t he?” Rose asks Dick with a smile.
“Well… maybe a little. But that doesn’t make it any less true. Seriously, Rose, your dad didn’t work these crazy hours, and neither did Tim. Why should you? You’re going to make me think you don’t trust us.”
Rose scrubs at her face. “Okay. Fine,” she says in mock disgust. “I can’t have the staff thinking I don’t trust them.”
“Good girl,” Dick says with a fatherly grin. “I didn’t want to have to call your boss.”
She grins. “And who would that be?”
“Your dad.”
“You still talk to Dad?”
“Nearly every week. I think we’re going to retire there with them in a few years. It’s why I didn’t want to buy the Goose. Owning a business… that’s a young man’s game. I’m too old to get started. I figure between him and me, we can drive both of our wives completely crazy.”
Rose smiles at Dick. He is as much a part of the Goose as Gail, Tonya, and Jack. As much a part of it as Tim was. “Okay. You convinced me. Thanks Dick.”
“My pleasure. Now go. Have a good time. Have someone cook for you for a change.”
“Where are we going?” Rose asks Joseph as she gathers her things.
“First I am taking you home to change. Then we are going to Adele’s in Carson City.”
“Seems like I’ve heard of the place, but I’ve not been there. It’s supposed to be good.”
“I guess we’ll find out,” he says as they walk out. He opens the passenger door to her car, shutting it behind her, before getting behind the wheel. “Nice car.”
“I like it, but it’s a lease. All part of looking the part of the successful restaurateur.”
“It suits you. Sexy, but not in a ‘look at me!’ kind of way.”
Rose feels herself blush as she snickers. “Would you stop! I’m not sleeping with you, so you can just cut out the smooth talk.”
Joseph grins and Rose can feel the pull toward him once more.
***
“Joseph!” Melina says in surprise as he steps into her home behind Rose. “I’m glad you could stop by, but what are you doing here?”
“I convinced Rose to leave the Goose to Dick tonight and have dinner with me,” he replies, pulling Melina into a brotherly hug.
“What you said yesterday at the funeral. That was so touching. Thank you so much for that,” she says quietly as she hugs him tight.
“He was like a brother to me, Melina.”
“I know,” she says as she fights against her tears. She releases him and turns her attention to Rose before she starts crying again. “I’m glad you’re taking the night off. I was starting to worry about all the hours you were working.”
“Yeah. Dick convinced me th
at the place won’t burn down without me.”
“Good for Dick.”
“I’m going to hop in the shower and I will be right back,” Rose says before leaving Melina and Joseph alone.
“Make yourself comfortable Joseph. You know where everything is. I’m going to go make sure Rose has clean towels.”
Melina catches up with Rose as she begins to undress. “Are you and Joseph seeing each other again?” she asks excitedly.
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