by Susan Sey
It was a mystery, she decided. One she’d probably be better off not solving. She went to the back and settled into the familiar rhythm of flipping burgers and dunking fries.
Half an hour later, Walt Kovacz showed up, six-and-a-half feet of painfully skinny hipster, from his clunky glasses frames to his Sperry Top Siders.
“Hey, Willa.” He swung on an apron with the efficiency of a guy who knew his way around a grill. He whipped a bandana from his pocket and fashioned himself a guy-friendly hairnet. “Thanks for covering. Meeting ran over. I told Peter it might.”
He held out his hand and Willa slapped the spatula into it like she was a sprinter passing the baton. Even over the hot grease, she caught the scents that always clung to him, butter and powdered sugar and kindness. It went down to the bone in him, that kindness, just like Peter’s need. She couldn’t help breathing it in while she was up close and personal.
“Willa.”
“What?”
“Did you just sniff me?”
She suppressed the wince. This, she thought grimly, was why her school years had been such a disaster. Behavior exactly like this, plus Georgie fucking Davis. “Sorry,” she said and stepped back. “You smell like doughnuts.”
He did, too. He’d only last year opened the Sugar Rush, a tiny doughnut shop housed in a ramshackle little fishing shack right next to the Davis Gallery. He’d painted it blazing pink, too. That alone would’ve made Willa’s day. A hot pink fishing shack shoulder to shoulder with Bianca Davis’ hallowed shrine to her late and utterly unlamented (at least by Willa) son? Nice. It was icing on the cake that Walt was genuinely good at what he did. And he smelled like it.
“I do? Still? It’s been hours since this morning’s bake.” He lifted his sleeve to his nose and inhaled deeply. Grinned. “Well how about that? I even took a shower before the meeting with Addy.”
Willa wasn’t surprised to hear that it was Addy who’d held Walt up tonight. As the CEO of Devil Days — Devil’s Kettle’s annual tourist bash — Addy was pleasantly and persistently harassing every shopkeeper in town about something these days. Then a grim thought struck her.
“Was it about Devil Days or the doughnut tree?” Willa asked suspiciously. “The meeting.”
“You heard!” His eyes sparkled and he flipped a burger. “I didn’t know if Addy and Jax were telling anybody yet.” His grin went sly. “Guess I’ll be seeing a lot of you and Georgie in the near future, what with you being co-bridesmaids and all.”
Willa scowled. “It’s a prospect that frightens even me, Walt, and I’m the one who got that bear out of the liquor store last year.” The buzzer went off over the fries and Willa snatched them out of the hot oil.
Walt laughed and hit the glistening fries with the salt shaker even as he flipped a burger with the other hand. “Be brave, Willa.”
“There’s brave,” Willa said darkly, “and then there’s stupid.”
“And then there’s love,” he returned mildly, one eye already on the new order slips coming in, “right there in the middle. Weddings make strange bedfellows. You’re doing a kind and loving thing for Addy, and she totally deserves it. Still—” He brought the spatula to his chest in a kind of line cook salute. “Respect for your sacrifice.”
“Yeah, thanks.” She pointed her chin at the sizzling grill. “You got this?”
“I got this.”
She left Walt to his burgers, shoved into the bar proper and pointed a bad-tempered finger at her brother.
“You.”
Peter ignored her to slide a beer and a smile to a guy leaning on the bar whose grease-stained nailbeds said both mechanic and straight to Willa. The guy smiled back in a way that said Willa’s call was no more than seventy-five percent accurate. And she was pretty sure about the mechanic bit.
“I need to talk to you,” Willa said to Peter.
“Figured.” Peter turned to the waitress who was restocking glasses under the bar. “India, can you take the stick for a minute?”
“Sure. Hey, Willa.”
“Hey, India. We’ll be in the office.”
“Oh boy. Privacy.” Peter leaned toward India and stage whispered, “If I’m not back in ten minutes, call the cops.”
“Don’t bother,” Willa told her. “They’ll never find the body.”
“Does she mean that?” India blinked at Peter then at her. “I can’t tell if she means that.”
Willa hefted up the pass-through and gave Peter some uncompromising eye contact.
“Ten minutes, India,” he said. “Seriously.”
“Oh, hell, no.” Five minutes later, Peter kicked back in the squeaky old office chair that had been their father’s. He linked his hands behind his shaved-bald head and stared at her. “No way in hell.”
“It’s the conditions of his parole,” Willa said grimly. “He needs a permanent address and a job. I told him he can move into the cabin for the time being, so there’s the housing thing taken care of. The least you can do is give him a job.”
“What, in a bar?” Peter dropped his elbows to the desk and shook his head. “In what universe is that a good idea? He’s an alcoholic with violent tendencies who just got out of prison, Willa. For killing a guy while under the influence.”
“He didn’t kill a guy. He brain damaged a fellow drunk,” Willa muttered. “It was a lucky punch, that’s all.”
“Lucky for who?” Peter wondered.
“Given his blood alcohol content,” Willa went on doggedly, “it’s shocking he even landed that punch. He should’ve been out cold.”
“Well, he practiced.”
Willa couldn’t deny that. If drinking was a sport, their dad was a goddamn Olympian. Or had been, eight years ago. “Given the other guy’s BAC, he shouldn’t have been on his feet either,” she said. She hated the taste of the lawyer’s words in her mouth. Hated them. But family was family, and Brett — for better or worse — was hers. So was Peter, goddamn it. “His skull had a date with that curb one way or another.”
“The jury evidently didn’t agree.”
“There was no jury.” A fact he’d know if he’d bothered to come home when Brett had been arrested or charged. Bitterness curled inside her like smoke but she kept her face perfectly blank, her tone even. “You know what Sober Brett is like. He wanted to go to jail. Said he deserved to go to jail, and God knows there was nobody in this town who’d argue.”
“Nobody but you, and I don’t know why you’d bother. Brett’s been heading for jail his whole life. By the time he actually got there, most folks around here figured he was due.” He paused significantly. “Long overdue, in fact.”
Willa didn’t miss the implication. “They were wrong.”
“Were they?”
Willa held his gaze. “He was a crappy father and a worse husband, probably, but he didn’t kill Mom, Peter. She took off.”
“You know that for sure?”
Willa hesitated. Ninety-nine percent wasn’t the same as one hundred, and nothing was ever one hundred percent sure where Shay Zinc was concerned.
Peter smiled grimly. “That’s what I thought. So come on, Willa. Consider the facts. If Dad jumped at the chance to do time for a minor pushy-shovey that took a bad turn, isn’t it possible — probable, even — that he knew what he was doing? That maybe Drunk Brett really did disappear Mom, and Sober Brett was finally ready to pay for it?”
“Sober Brett is a child, and you know it. People take advantage of that.”
“And you’re going to protect him, is that it?” He steepled his fingers and gazed at her with their father’s gypsy-dark eyes. “Why would you do that? He never protected you a minute of his life.”
“Neither did you.”
“You weren’t my responsibility.”
“I was a child. I was everybody’s responsibility.”
“Everybody’s is the same as nobody’s.”
“Tell me about it.” She planted both hands on the desk, looked him dead in the eye. “Which is why f
inding Brett a job is your responsibility.” She smiled. “I’m making it yours.”
“And I’m telling you, there’s no way on God’s green earth I’m giving him a job in a bar.”
“So give him a job somewhere else. You’re the king of the financial world. You own a piece of everything in this town. Surely you can find him something somewhere else in your vast empire.”
His smile was sleek and ugly. “Your information’s a little out of date, sister mine. That vast empire of mine? It’s been downsized.”
“What, did you sign a prenup? Sign away half your assets if you failed to follow through on that gaudy engagement ring you gave Georgie Davis?”
His smile went bitter. “Something like that.”
She blinked, startled. “How bad?”
“My fabled empire now consists of—” Peter spread his hands, indicating the office and the bar. “—exactly one bar.” He frowned. “And a goddamn sheep farm nobody will buy.”
Willa stared. “You own a sheep farm?”
He shrugged. “Artisanal, locally-produced, earth-friendly milk, butter and cheese. It hit all the trends and seemed like a good move at the time. It actually might’ve been one if that asshole hipster farmer who pitched it to me had had any clue how to actually fucking farm. Or shepherd, or what the hell ever.” He waved that off. “I’ll sell it, don’t worry. Just like I’ll sell this place.”
“You’re selling the bar?”
“My stake, sure. Soon as possible so I can get the fuck out of this inbred backwater.” He smiled at her suddenly, a flash of charm and unholy glee. “You want to buy me out, partner?”
She only barely suppressed a shudder. “No. This place is your headache. That was the deal when we agreed to a sixty/forty split.”
“Well you can’t have it both ways, Willa. Either I’m running this place or you are. Which is it?”
She ground her teeth and spit out the words he’d expertly maneuvered out of her. “You are.”
“That’s right. I am. And while I am, you can forget about Daddy dearest working here.”
CHAPTER 10
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS later, Willa stepped out of the shower, wrapped herself in a towel and grabbed another one for the mess of her hair. She gave it a good scrubbing, reached for the door and hesitated. Her dad was out there. That was going to take some getting used to. Her days of waltzing through the house in nothing but a towel were over, at least for the foreseeable future.
She grabbed a thick bathrobe from a hook on the back of the door and threw it on. She immediately began sweating. There was a reason she viewed the robe as winter-only wear. No help for that though. She yanked open the door and set herself on a direct course to the nearest pair of shorts. Brett was seated at her kitchen table, pecking away at her laptop with a resigned competence she assumed he’d acquired in prison. There were probably a lot of skills you acquired against your will in prison.
He looked up. “Your phone dinged.” He turned his attention back to the screen. “Didn’t know if you’d want me to interrupt you in the shower.”
Willa picked up the phone she’d left on the counter. She had one new text from a number her phone didn’t recognize.
Seven o’clock, my cabin. It’s just dinner so stop scowling. You’ll survive and then there’ll be only two IOUs to go. Anything you don’t eat?
Willa sighed. Eli. She’d managed to put their date out of her mind earlier while she’d squirmed her way into a crawlspace designed to admit only gymnasts and toddlers. Then she’d been too busy to think about him, what with convincing a mama raccoon and her clutch of pink, naked babies to find alternative accommodations. And then she’d been too filthy and sweaty to think about anything but a shower.
But now she was clean and Eli wanted to know if she was allergic to anything because this ridiculous dinner he’d somehow talked her into would be taking place at his cabin. At seven, evidently.
Eggplant’s not a favorite, she texted back and checked the time. Nearly six.
“It was nothing,” she said to her father. Phone still in hand, she headed for the staircase at the far end of the living room that led to her bedroom. All slanted ceilings and dormer windows, Willa’s room took up the cabin’s entire — if modest — second story. The space you could stand up straight in was just barely big enough for a full-sized bed, a dresser and a few bookshelves, but it looked out over the rolling forest in all four directions which made it her favorite indoor space in the world. But even if it weren’t, she’d adore it as it held all the shorts.
“Okay,” Brett said absently. “Your friends are upstairs.”
She froze, one foot on the steps. “What?”
“The Davis girl — Georgie? — and I forget the other one’s name. Pretty little thing with a head full of curls? She’s getting married to the oldest Davis kid, I hear?”
“Addison.” Willa stared. “Addison and Georgie Davis are in my bedroom?”
Brett looked up from the screen again, blinked uncertainly. “I — yes. They stopped by while you were in the shower, said you had bridesmaid stuff to talk about. I didn’t know you were close with the Davises.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re not standing up in this Addison’s wedding then?”
Willa pinched the bridge of her nose. “No, I am.”
“Oh.” Brett closed his mouth, clearly confused by the intricacies of female social interaction. Willa sympathized. “I’m sorry. I should’ve asked them to wait down here. I just thought—”
“Don’t worry about it, Dad.” Willa yanked the tie of her robe tight, gripped her phone in one shaky hand and marched up the stairs. Like Sober Brett could’ve stopped Georgie Davis from going any-damn-where she wanted. “Not your fault.”
And it wasn’t. This showdown with Georgie had been bearing down on her like a runaway freight train since the moment she’d agreed to stand up in Addy’s wedding. She only wished she’d been allowed to wear more than a sweaty robe when it finally caught up with her. Evidently, fate wasn’t done screwing with her yet.
There was no door at the top of the staircase. People could — and did, apparently — walk up the stairs and right into Willa’s bedroom. The lack of privacy hadn’t concerned the wild little girl she’d once been, nor had it much concerned the adult she’d become, as she hadn’t ever imagined sharing her snug little story-and-a-half in the woods with another living soul. She might have to consider getting a door, though, now that she had Brett in the house.
If she kept coming home to find Georgie and Addy elbow deep in her dresser drawers, she’d get a damn lock, too.
She leaned against the bannister that kept people from plunging from her bedroom straight into the living room and watched them paw through her underthings. “Having fun?”
“Willa!” Addy clapped a hand to her chest and whirled to face her, a guilty flush on her cheeks. Georgie didn’t flinch, just continued picking through drawers with two squeamish fingers, as if Willa stored anthrax in there instead of perfectly ordinary socks and underwear. “You startled me!”
“Isn’t that my line?” Willa folded her arms over her robe and gave her a good, hard stare. “Pretty sure you’re the ones ransacking my dresser without permission.”
“Yeah.” The flush deepened and she sent Georgie a swift glance. “About that.”
Georgie wiped her fingers down her undoubtedly expensive skirt like it was a common dinner napkin and turned to Addy.
“She’s a disaster.” She flipped a yard of gleaming blond hair (surely as expensive as the skirt) over one bony shoulder and spoke to Addison as if Willa didn’t exist. Fine by Willa. “I told you she would be.”
“Georgie, for goodness’ sake, we talked about this.” Addison folded her arms and glared. “Be nice.”
Georgie cut Willa a sideways glance from under long, dark lashes, a look that weighed, measured and condemned in a split second. “Remind me why again?”
“How about common human decency?”
“The thing about how I’m the bride and I asked you to?”
Georgie sighed. “That was it.” There was a long pause while Georgie digested the idea. Addy waited her out. Georgie, everybody knew, sometimes needed a good while to get her neural pathways fired up.
“Nice is too big an ask,” Georgie decided finally. “I’m going to aim for neutral. As a special favor to the bride.”
Addy frowned and opened her mouth but Willa said, “Quit while you’re ahead, Addison. I’d like to get dressed sometime this century.”
“Believe me, nobody wants that more than I do.” Georgie tapped the dresser Willa had tucked between the two dormer windows overlooking the drive. “But nothing in this wasteland qualifies as clothing.”
Willa smiled sweetly. “Naked is the only other option, Ms. Davis.”
“Please.” Georgie pressed a hand to her stomach. “I have dinner plans later.”
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t know you ate. Aren’t there an awful lot of carbs in food?”
“Yes, there are and thank the good lord,” Addy said seriously. “Carbs are life.”
“Amen,” Willa said just as seriously.
“I eat,” Georgie informed them loftily. “Once, maybe twice a week, or if I have a date, which I do.”
Addy stared. “You have a date? With who?”
“A real estate agent from the cities. He’s listing a hobby farm down the road from Hill Top House and stopped by to meet the neighbors.” She lifted a lock of silky hair and inspected the ends. “He suggested dinner, and since I haven’t let a man buy me so much as a drink since Willa’s asshole of a brother gave me a bottle of French champagne and a diamond ring, I said yes.”
Willa let that one skate by without comment. She could’ve told anybody who’d asked that Peter was a bad bet but Georgie hadn’t asked, nor would she have listened if Willa had offered the information up. Not that Willa had been tempted to do anything of the sort. Even if Georgie had had a heart to break — which Willa sincerely doubted — Peter hadn’t put a scratch on it. Georgie wasn’t hurt; she was pissed off, and Willa wouldn’t waste an ounce of pity on her.