by Connie Mann
Blaze clumped down the dock toward them. “Hey, Jesse. Did you find the package? I left it on the seat.” She pointed toward the boat.
Jesse turned to look, just now noticing a small brown paper sack. “What is it? When did you put it there?”
“I found it on the porch a little while ago with your name on it, so I put it in the boat, thinking you’d find it when you were working.”
He’d been so focused on the engine, he hadn’t noticed.
At that moment, Nick Stanton, in uniform, walked toward them, and something about his stance put Jesse on full alert.
“Howdy, Jesse. Sasha. How’s it going, Blaze?”
“What brings you out here, Officer?” The caution he heard in Sasha’s voice matched his own.
Nick looked out at the water, then back again, clearly uncomfortable. “Well, it seems the chief got a tip that you might be, ah, taking up your former profession again, Jesse.”
“What are you talking about?” Blaze crossed her arms over her chest, ready to defend.
Suddenly Jesse knew, and he saw his future slipping from his grasp. “Somebody said I’ve got drugs.”
Nick nodded. “Can I check your boat and the shed you’re using?”
Jesse wanted to say no, but what good would it do? “Sure. Go ahead. I have nothing to hide.”
He hadn’t when he’d been arrested before, either, but that was different. He’d taken the blame on purpose. This time, the stakes were even higher. If the police took everything from him again, there was no way he could keep his promise to his friend and win that race.
Nick pulled on gloves, climbed into The Painted Lady, and picked up the paper bag. “What’s in here?”
“I put it there. Someone left it on the porch steps with a note saying it was for Jesse.” Blaze’s tone dared him to contradict her.
Nick looked at Jesse. “That true?”
He ignored the frustration churning in his gut. “She told me about it just before you got here. I haven’t touched it.”
“So I won’t find your prints on it.”
“That’s right.”
Nick opened the bag and Jesse heard Sasha gasp, but he wouldn’t look at her. His eyes were focused on the little bags of white powder. Cocaine. He’d bet his life on it. He wanted to smash something. He’d known people didn’t want him here, but this went far beyond the tire incident.
Sasha stepped up to Nick, right in his face. “Isn’t it just a little too convenient that the chief gets a tip after someone has Blaze plant the drugs in Jesse’s boat?”
Nick pulled out an evidence bag and looked from one to the other. “I’m not a big believer in coincidence, but I do have to get all the facts. Jesse, you’ll have to come to the station with me.” He reached for his handcuffs, then stopped. “You’ll come willingly?”
Jesse nodded. What choice did he have?
“This is crazy!” Blaze threw her hands up and she marched toward Nick. Sasha wrapped an arm around her waist from behind to stop her.
“Slow down. We’ll follow them and get this worked out.”
“No. Stay here. I will handle this. My way.” Jesse stared Sasha down. He would never let on how much their defense meant to him and how much he hated for them to be involved in this in any way. He thought he’d left all the ugliness behind in Tampa. “When I get back, I’ll fill you in.” He turned to Blaze. “Both of you.”
He walked up the dock with Nick. As he got in the patrol car, he heard Blaze say, “I can’t believe you just let him go!”
Far worse than his frustration about being falsely accused was the fear that no matter how he tried, he couldn’t make amends, couldn’t set the past to rights.
But he wouldn’t give up, not without a fight.
Chapter 7
“I can’t believe this. Does that cop really think Jesse is doing drugs? Do you?”
Sasha tried to find the right words as she and Blaze paced the dock. She didn’t believe it, no, not for a minute. She would have known. And selling them? Definitely not. She hadn’t looked up Jesse’s past online yet, but rumors were that it had to do with drugs. So suddenly drugs show up in his boat? Please.
“No, I don’t think Nick believes that. But he has to follow the rules. If Jesse’s fingerprints aren’t anywhere on the drugs, but yours are, hopefully whoever left the bag left theirs on it, too.”
“This sounds like people wanting to get rid of Jesse, but it’s so freaking obvious. Why would anybody believe it?”
“I agree with you. It sounds like a setup to me.”
Suddenly Blaze slumped against a piling. “They won’t put him back in jail, will they?”
So, she knew about Jesse’s past, too. “I think if there’s no evidence that the drugs are Jesse’s, then no, they won’t. We’ll have to pray Nick can get all the facts.”
“Praying doesn’t seem to be doing much for Mama. I’m not sure it matters.”
Oh, she and Blaze were a lot alike. “I won’t lie. I’ve thought the same thing. But here’s what I know. Praying always matters. The hard part is that God’s timing is usually not the same as ours.”
“Well, I wish He’d get on with it, already.”
Sasha couldn’t help a grin. “Amen, kiddo.”
“What did you find out from Captain Roy’s wife?”
Sasha met Blaze’s determined expression. “She didn’t have much to add. Just confirmed that she’d been talking to Mama at the time. Something about a bake sale. She showed me an old photo taken just before Tony disappeared, but she got a phone call and I didn’t get to ask about the people in it.”
“You kept the pic, right?”
“She ushered me out before I could return it.”
Blaze studied her a moment. “You’re going to show it around town, aren’t you?”
Sasha smiled. The girl had quills like a hedgehog, but her brain was sharp. “That’s the plan. Though it may not help us much.”
Blaze nodded, apparently satisfied. “The new meds are making Mama pretty sick.”
Sasha’s heart started pounding. “Stomach-sick?”
Blaze nodded. “She spent most of the afternoon throwing up.”
“I was going to change the spark plugs on Jesse’s boat, but I’ll help you.” She turned toward the house.
Blaze blocked her way. “No. Mama is asleep right now. Pop is with her.” She crossed her arms. “We have it under control. We don’t need you.”
The words stung, but a split second before she retaliated, Sasha registered the pain in them. Just like her, Blaze was trying to find her place in the family and protecting those she cared about with everything she had. Sasha met the teen’s eyes.
“Will you let me know if something changes or you need me? I’m not a nurse, but I have lots and lots of first-aid training. I’ll help if I can.”
Blaze nodded once before she headed up to the house.
Sasha went back to The Painted Lady and went to work. She couldn’t think of any other way to help. Jesse had made it clear he didn’t want her underfoot at the police station. Which was probably smart, since she was mad enough at the chief to spit nails. Still, she couldn’t just sit on her hands.
She angled her gaze heavenward. “God, I don’t know what you’re doing here. This thing with Jesse is crazy. And no matter how many questions I ask about Tony, all I get are more questions. If you’re going to provide answers, as Mama seems to think you will, it would be good if you could send a few my way.”
Her phone chirped with a text from Eve, asking for an update. She filled her in, then tried to make sense of everything happening while she changed the plugs and checked the adjustment on the stuffing box in Jesse’s boat. It was almost dark when her phone rang again.
“Hey, Sash. It’s me. They let me go finally. You still game for dinner?”
Sasha straightened, shocked at his casual tone. “What happened? Did they figure out who set you up?”
“Yeah. I’ll tell you over dinner, OK?” He so
unded exhausted.
“Ah, sure. OK. As long as they’re OK with me being gone for a bit. Mama is having a rough day.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
He hung up and Sasha flew into action, putting the tools in the shed, buttoning up The Painted Lady.
Twenty minutes? By the time she raced upstairs to her old bedroom, her heart was pounding and her hands were shaking. She spun around and smacked her forehead on the low-hanging beam. She plopped down on the bed and rubbed her head with both hands. She had to get a grip. Her thoughts were spinning so fast, she was making herself nuts. Between trying to find answers about Tony and worrying about what was going on with Jesse, she couldn’t think straight. And then there was the man himself. A simple dinner invite had her so tangled up, she almost knocked her idiot self out cold.
With any other man, she would have said either yes or no, whatever suited her mood at the time, and not given it another thought.
But this was Jesse. When it came to him, her gut twisted into knots and she behaved like a complete nitwit. She reached into the closet and pulled a sundress over her head, one of two dresses she owned. The other was a little black dress completely wrong for Florida in the summer. She’d planned to wear the sundress for Mama’s party, but she’d been late and gotten scooped up by Pop and Eve before she had the chance to change.
Should she wear it tonight? She stood and went back to the mirror, mindful of that beam. Was it too much? Did it send the wrong impression? What signal did she want to send? Or not send?
Annoyed with herself, she flopped down, undid her braid, and ran a brush through her hair. She dabbed some concealer on the growing knot on her forehead, pushed her hair out of her eyes with a beaded headband she’d bought from an Indian woman she met in Seattle years ago, and spritzed body spray here and there. It would have to do.
Sasha checked in with Mama before she walked into the living room and looked around. “Is Jesse here?”
Blaze hitched a thumb over her shoulder. “He got tired of waiting, so he’s outside with Bella.”
She walked out onto the porch, watching Jesse and Bella play together. Had she ever been that carefree in her life? As though they were both attached to her by an invisible chain, man and dog stopped and turned toward her. Bella woofed and bounded over, while Jesse’s blinding smile took her breath away and his determined walk made her feel like prey in the hunter’s sights.
He stopped much too close and took both her hands in his, lifting them away from her and giving her a thorough once-over. Sasha squirmed and tried to pull her hands away, but he wouldn’t let go. Finally he met her eyes. “You look absolutely beautiful tonight. Thank you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “For what?”
“For dressing up for me.”
Heat raced up her cheeks and made her response sharper than she intended.
“I didn’t do it for you.” She turned and motioned Bella to go inside. “Stay with Blaze,” she told the dog.
When she walked toward Jesse’s truck, he fell into step beside her. “So are you meeting some other guy tonight?”
“What are you talking about, Money-boy?”
“If you didn’t get all spiffed up for me, then who?”
“For me. I felt like wearing something pretty.” Why did the man forever get her all mixed up inside and babbling like an idiot? She never babbled. And she didn’t like feeling out of step all the time. “Stop it, OK? Just stop it.”
If anything, his grin got wider, and those gorgeous eyes sparkled with mischief. She wanted to slap him. Or kiss him. She wasn’t sure which, and that more than anything flustered her. She reached for the door handle on his truck, but he blocked her with his arm.
“Please, let me.” He opened the door and offered her a hand up into the big vehicle. She caught him sneaking a peek at her legs as her dress rode up her thighs. He reached over to tuck her skirt in so it wouldn’t get caught in the door, and despite her resolve not to let him get to her, a little shiver shimmied up her insides.
Once he had the diesel engine rumbling, he turned that grin her way again.
“Choices are the Pizza Palace and the Blue Dolphin for all-you-can-eat shrimp night. Or we can drive toward Tampa for something more upscale.”
“I didn’t think you could afford upscale. But let’s go to the Blue Dolphin. I don’t want to be gone too long.”
“How’s Mama doing with the new treatments?”
“Blaze said she spent most of the afternoon throwing up.”
He glanced her way, genuine concern in his eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s hard to watch a family member struggle.”
“Are you going to tell me what happened at the police station, or will I have to beat it out of you?”
He grinned, but she could see the exhaustion he’d been trying so hard to hide. “The chief was ready to throw me in jail—no surprise there—but Nick did some more digging. Sure enough, Blaze’s prints were on the outside of the bag. Mine were nowhere, not on the bag or the drugs. But they did find the prints of some low-life drug dealer from a couple towns over. The dealer said somebody ordered the drugs over the phone and asked him to drop them off on the porch with a note.”
“Were they able to trace the caller?”
“Burner phone. So, the dealer is in jail and they let me go.”
“But not without the chief telling you he’d be keeping an eye on you, I’ll bet.”
“Of course. I don’t want to talk about this anymore tonight, OK?”
Sasha totally understood. Besides, she needed time to collect her thoughts—and stop acting like her sarcastic, insecure, high school self. She couldn’t figure out how to stop. Maybe if she ignored the way just looking at him made her insides shiver, and the way his grin made her want to kiss him, and the way his hair made her want to slide her fingers through it . . . She sighed and shook her head.
Jesse parked in the crushed-shell lot. Since the Blue Dolphin was one of the few restaurants in Safe Harbor, it was crowded, as always. The smell of fried fish and french fries wafted out onto the street and spilled over the outdoor seating area. She and Jesse wound their way inside to the hostess station, surprised to find an old high school friend manning the booth.
“Hey, Sasha. Heard you were back. How many tonight?” LuAn asked.
Sasha tried not to stare at how much weight the former cheerleader had gained.
“Just two. Thanks, LuAn. How have you been?”
LuAn laughed and patted her belly. “Me and Joey got hitched right after graduation and I’m still trying to lose the weight after baby number four. But I wouldn’t trade any of them. Except maybe Joey, sometimes.”
She laughed, and then her eyes landed on Jesse and her entire demeanor changed. “Jesse Claybourne. Didn’t expect you to show your face in town again. This here is a nice, God-fearing, family community.”
“Hello, LuAn. It is that. Congrats on your family. I’m sure you’re a wonderful mother.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you making fun of me?”
Jesse sent her a lopsided grin. “No, ma’am. I have the utmost respect for mothers. Hardest job in the world.”
“We don’t want your kind in this town,” she hissed. She left them cooling their heels for several minutes while she seated other customers who came in after them.
When another table opened up, Sasha leaned in and slipped the menus from LuAn’s hands.
“Don’t let us bother you, LuAn. We’ll just take that table right over there.” She pointed and started walking in that direction.
LuAn sputtered and rushed after them, and Sasha wondered if she’d make a scene. She looked over her shoulder as LuAn stared daggers after them and whispered to Betty, the rail-thin sixty-something chain smoker who had been keeping her pencil tucked in her bright-red beehive since 1972. Betty walked right up to their table.
“Well, hey there, Sasha. How you been, sugar?” Then she leaned closer. “You all are pulling the tiger’s
tail getting LuAn all riled up. Her daddy owns the Blue Dolphin, don’t forget.” She looked Jesse in the eye. “Your aunt Clarabelle was a devoted Christian and a good friend of mine. You going to cause trouble in our little town, young Jesse?”
Jesse shook his head. “No, ma’am. I don’t plan to. I have good memories of Safe Harbor. I thought it might be just the place for a fresh start.”
“It’s a good place, I’ll grant you that. But folks in these parts have long memories. They thought very highly of your aunt. Folks might think you were taking advantage of her good name.”
“She left her cottage to me.”
Betty raised one penciled eyebrow. “Well, now, that ought to give the gossips something to talk about. I’ll be sure they hear about that.”
“Much obliged,” Jesse responded. He turned to Sasha. “You know what you’d like?”
Betty grinned. “All-you-can-eat shrimp?” When Sasha nodded, Betty laughed. “You always could pack them away. How about you, Jesse?”
“I’ll have the same, thanks.”
Betty smiled. “I’ll get this right out. Don’t let those old biddies get to you, ya hear?”
“Was she talking about LuAn?” Jesse asked, and they shared a laugh.
“She shouldn’t have treated you that way.”
Jesse shrugged. “I expected it. Hopefully, they’ll get over it. Eventually.”
“You ever going to tell me how you ended up in jail in Tampa?”
He met her eyes, gaze serious. “I figure if you want to know, you’ll read about it online.”
Sasha nodded and looked around the crowded room, surprised at the downright hostile looks aimed in their direction.
“When people act like this, I remember why I left this place.”
Jesse grinned. “You wanted to do your own thing and not have to answer to anyone.”
Sasha grinned back. “That, too. I was eighteen and stupid.”
“I’m glad you’re back. Are you going to stay?”