by Helen Brenna
CHAPTER TWO
STUPID, STUPID, STUPID. Erica chastised herself as she headed toward Duffy’s Pub. None of your business. What the hell had she been thinking making a comment like that? Then again, how could any red-blooded woman even hope to think after looking into that man’s piercing pale gray eyes?
To make matters worse he was a cop and not one of those doughnut-eating, potbellied middle-aged beat walkers, either. This guy had the lean face of an athlete and, from what she could tell, the muscles that went with that territory, making him all the more disturbing in her book.
Where she’d grown up, cops walked a fine line between two worlds. Most of them had grown up on tough streets, some even had juvie records, and a lot of them tripped big time on the power behind that badge. There was nothing worse than a man with a mean streak claiming to be on the right side of the law, and she’d known a few of those men in her lifetime. Men like Billy Samson.
Okay. So she’d stepped out onto this island on the wrong foot. What was done was done. If she didn’t lighten up and smile every once in a while, or at least quit acting as if every person she met was planning on stealing her purse—a purse that held every penny she owned—she would continue to stick out like a sore thumb.
This was small-town Wisconsin. People here waved when they passed you on the street and held doors open for pregnant women and old ladies. As hard as it might be, she was going to have to try and fit in.
“Are we in trouble?” Jason asked, glancing back at the cops.
“Absolutely not. We didn’t do anything wrong.” She squeezed his hand. “But to be safe keep your hat on inside.”
Erica opened the heavy wooden door to Duffy’s Pub and stepped into a dark and dank-feeling foyer, making her feel as if she were heading into a cave. That’d be the first thing she’d change if given the option. A restaurant gave only one first impression and in a place like Mirabelle that served a lot of Chicagoans on vacation, the last first impression a business owner wanted to give was dingy.
They went inside and found a couple people catching happy hour at an antique oval bar. The old jukebox in the corner was lit up but silent, and only one of several TVs mounted overhead was on and, thankfully, tuned to a national sports channel. Not that anyone was paying attention to it anyway. The main dining area with an impressive view of Lake Superior had only two tables occupied. Although the place had promise, it was clear from the looks of the wood paneling and faded curtains there hadn’t been an update in décor for at least a decade.
A lanky older guy, probably in his early sixties with a scraggly gray beard and startling blue eyes was cleaning glasses behind the bar. He glanced up as they approached. “What can I get for you two?”
“Nothing for me.” Erica lifted Jason onto a bar stool and sat next to him.
“How ’bout you, buckeroo?” the man asked.
Jason glanced up at Erica. One look into that sweet face and Erica’s heart leaped into her throat. Not used to being responsible for a child, she had no clue as to his tastes. “Do you like root beer?” As soon as the question was out of her mouth she wanted to bite it back. She was supposed to know these things. From now on, she was going to have to be more careful.
Jason nodded and the old guy poured some soda into a mug and set it on the bar. Jason took a sip and then pulled the video game out of his pocket and started up again on whatever it was he’d been playing all day, his gaze focused and his thumbs working overtime.
“Is Lynn around?” Erica set the classified ad on the counter. “I’d like to talk to her.”
“Ayep, hold on.” He poked his head through a door behind the bar and called, “Lynnie! Someone’s here about a job.”
Erica quickly flipped open a menu and perused the pub’s offerings, hoping to get an idea of what she was getting herself into. Diner fare. Could be worse. She glanced up when a woman with long, wavy grayish white hair and round, ruddy cheeks pushed through the swinging doors from what appeared to be the kitchen.
After wiping off her palms on an apron tied around her waist, the woman held out a hand. “I’m Lynn Duffy. What can I do for you?”
“Erica.” She firmly shook the woman’s hand. What was the last name on that fake ID she’d bought? Oh, yeah. “Jackson. Erica Jackson. You’re looking for restaurant help?”
“Bartender, waitress, cook. You name it, I pretty much need it. In a few weeks there’ll be a whole crew of college kids coming to work through the summer, but there are always a few who don’t show up. One of my bartenders just backed out. You worked in restaurants before?”
Erica nodded. “For the last ten years.”
“Whereabouts?”
“Couple different places. In…northeast Minneapolis.” She’d been there several times visiting an old high school friend, so if necessary she could name a few well-known establishments.
“What can you do?”
“Bartend, waitress, cook,” Erica answered. “You name it, I can pretty much do it.”
“All right.” Lynn smiled. “I can use someone like you. We got about a month before the summer tourist season gets in full swing, so let’s start you out behind the bar, and we’ll go from there.”
“Just like that?” No references, no applications, no personality tests? Erica eyed the other woman skeptically. There had to be a catch. Nothing was that easy.
“Well, now that you mention it,” Lynn said. “There is one condition. Can you stay through the summer?”
Four months on this tiny island? Not likely. Erica hoped to be back to her old job and her own apartment in a couple weeks, give or take, but she needed the money now. “Sure,” she said, making a promise to give the woman everything she had for as long as she had to, but not one minute longer. “Through the summer was our plan.”
“Well, then you’re hired,” Lynn said. “This is my husband, Arlo.” She patted the old guy’s shoulder. “Generally, he runs the carriage and horseback riding business, and I take care of the pub. Can you start tomorrow night?”
“I was hoping for mostly daytime hours.” She flicked her head toward Jason. “So I can work while he’s in school.”
At the mention of school, Jason looked up from his game and frowned. How did he do that, stay totally focused on that handheld device and yet hear everything going on around him?
“Well now, there we got our first snag.” Lynn set a hand on her hip. “We don’t open until eleven in the morning and we close late on weeknights, even later on weekends. I need waitresses during the day and a bartender at night.”
Erica had been in the restaurant business for as long as she could remember, so she’d become quite a night owl, heading out with coworkers and friends after hours. All that was going to have to change. She had a kid to worry about now. Obviously, she hadn’t thought this job all the way through, but she wasn’t qualified to do anything else.
“School’s out in another month. Then what are you going to do?” Lynn asked.
With any luck she wouldn’t be here long enough to have to worry about summer, but she had to uphold the pretense of caring. “Is there a day care on the island?”
“Not that I’m aware of.” Lynn glanced down at Jason. “Snag number two.”
Jason suddenly put his game away, grabbed Erica’s hand and shifted on his bar stool, moving close to her side. “It’s my problem,” Erica said, sticking out her chin. “I’ll figure it out.”
“You got about a month to do that,” Lynn warned. “When the tourist season starts the beginning of June things are going to get crazy around here.”
“Can you recommend a house or apartment to rent that’s close to the restaurant? I need to find a place to live. Furnished, if possible.”
Lynn laughed. “Dearie, on this island everything is close.” She threw a questioning glance at her husband. “What do you think?”
He shrugged.
“What about the storm damage?”
He shrugged again.
“The college kids
?”
Erica glanced between the two of them, clueless as to what was going on. Without saying much of anything they each seemed to know exactly what the other was thinking.
“Oh, all right.” Lynn turned back to Erica. “First come first serve, I suppose.”
“What is?” Erica asked.
“The two apartments we rent out above the restaurant here.” She pointed upward. “They suffered some water damage last week from some straight-line winds that came in off the lake, but the roof has been fixed, so that’s the main thing. If you don’t mind the inconvenience of some minor construction…”
“How long before the repairs are finished?”
After a quick glance at Arlo, Lynn turned back to Erica. “A couple days. Week tops.”
Erica imagined Jason sleeping above a bar. “Is it noisy?”
“Never had any complaints.” Lynn shook her head. “The ceiling’s been pretty well soundproofed. Rent’s four hundred a month. You won’t find anything less expensive on the island. Mind you, they’re nothing special, but they are furnished.”
“I’ll take one.”
“You might want to look first.”
They were cheap. “As long as the rooms are clean and the roof doesn’t leak anymore, that’s all that matters.” Erica unzipped her purse and counted through her quickly dwindling supply of cash. She’d cleared out her savings account before leaving Chicago, but most of it had been chewed up with having to buy that rust bucket of a car she’d had to leave on the mainland. Add in some clothes, suitcases and a couple games for Jason’s handheld gamer, and she was about wiped out. If she paid a full month’s rent, she wouldn’t have much left for groceries.
She hated to ask this—she and pride having had an intimate and committed relationship—but she couldn’t use her charge cards and, with Jason in tow, Erica didn’t have much of a choice. “Can I pay you the other half of the rent with my first check?” She held out two hundred dollars.
Lynn didn’t say anything, only held Erica’s gaze for a very long and uncomfortable moment.
“I’m good for the rest,” Erica said. With any luck she wouldn’t need to be.
Arlo cleared his throat.
“Oh, all right,” Lynn said. “I’ll tell you what. Since the storm damage is in the process of getting fixed, you can have the first two weeks free.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“You haven’t seen the damage.” Lynn cocked her head at Erica. “So when can you start?”
Something told her Jason would need some time to adjust. “I need a day to get settled.”
“How ’bout Wednesday then? That’ll give you a couple days under your belt before the weekend. Unless you’d rather experience baptism by Friday night.”
“Wednesday’s fine.”
“Stop down here before eleven. We’ll get some paperwork done and I’ll show you around.” Lynn took a key ring off a hook near the kitchen door and pointed at their two suitcases. “That all you got?”
Erica nodded. She had this much only because she’d thought to stop at one of those megastores along the highway for some essentials, figuring it would look odd for a supposed mother and son to be traveling without so much as a toothbrush.
“Arlo, why don’t you help Erica get those bags upstairs?”
“Ayep. Figured as much.” Arlo grabbed the larger bag.
Erica had no sooner helped Jason down from the bar stool than the restaurant door opened, letting in a blast of cool air and silhouetting the shape of a man. The cop. She may have only met him once, but that muscular frame was unmistakable.
He walked inside, nodded at the group of customers at the bar and then turned to greet the Duffys. “How you doing, Lynn? Arlo?”
“Well, this day has certainly gotten brighter, Garrett,” Lynn said. “We hired ourselves a new bartender. Erica Jackson, this is Garrett Taylor, our police chief here on Mirabelle.”
So she’d brushed off the chief. Figures.
“We’ve already met.” He nodded. “Erica. Zach.”
Jason looked down at the ground, and Erica gave his hand a quick reassuring squeeze. “Chief Taylor,” she said, forcing a smile.
“Come on, let’s go,” Arlo said. “I don’t have all day.”
Erica took Jason’s hand and followed Arlo, sidestepping the cop. That man was dangerous on so many levels, it wasn’t even funny, and he was definitely not the type of person she’d expected to find here on quiet little Mirabelle.
“See you around,” the cop called after her.
Not if she could help it.
THE KITCHEN DOOR SWUNG closed behind Erica Jackson and her son, and Garrett, though trying his damnedest, couldn’t keep his big mouth shut. “So what’s their story?”
“How should I know?” Lynn went behind the bar and washed glasses.
“You didn’t ask?”
“As long as she does her job it’s none of my business. As long as she doesn’t cause any trouble on the island it’s none of yours.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. “How long she planning on staying?”
“At least through the summer.”
“So she’s renting one of your apartments?”
“You betcha.” She squeezed out a soapy rag and wiped down the bar.
“Where’d they come from?”
Lynn glared at him. “Said she’d worked in northeast Minneapolis.”
That he could—maybe—believe. From what he’d heard from other cops that part of the Twin Cities was a tough neighborhood, but he would’ve put money on her being from Chicago. Little Italy maybe with that dark hair and skin and those brown eyes.
Lynn paused in the middle of a long swipe down the shiny bar and set her hands on her hips. “I swear, Garrett, you are the most paranoid person I’ve ever met.”
“That’s what happens when you work fifteen years with the Chicago PD.”
“Well, you’re not in Chicago any more,” Lynn said. “How much harm can a pretty mom and her boy possibly cause on our island?”
Plenty. That woman was trouble, or trouble was following her. Maybe both.
“Garrett Taylor.”
When Lynn spoke his name like that, she reminded him of his mother, a stern, but loving woman. How she’d raised four boys, much of the time without a husband, and without any of those boys following their father’s footsteps by ending up in jail, for very long anyway, was beyond him.
“Jim Bennett was police chief on this island for twenty some years, so there’s no doubt he’s a hard act to follow. You’ve been here less than a year and it’s been an adjustment for a few people. Most of us happen to like you, so I’m going to tell you something for your own good.”
Ah, hell.
“I need a bartender, and I don’t want you hassling this young woman like you did that man Ron Setterberg hired over the winter to help remodel his rental shop.”
“That guy had a felony record for dealing.”
“And he’d done his time. He wasn’t the first person who’d come to Mirabelle to start over.”
As far as Garrett was concerned repeat offenders could start over on someone else’s island.
“Why did you come to Mirabelle?” she asked, putting one hand on her hip.
“You know why.” At least she knew what he’d told everyone, that he’d grown sick of the violence, that he’d simply lost the stomach for the heightening brutality of the crimes. The truth was that he’d hated who he was becoming. And he’d had a hard time looking at the man he saw in the mirror. A man who had begun to resemble his father more and more every day.
Before Garrett had come to Mirabelle he’d been treading a fine line for years, but after what had happened that hot night last summer he had to get out or risk becoming one of the very criminals he hunted. These last several months, which had included a thankfully long, quiet and cold winter, had all but erased that hardened, edgy cop, the cop who’d more than once taken matters in his own hands. The last thing he wanted to do wa
s dredge that man back up for no good reason.
“You don’t need to go looking for trouble,” Lynn said. “On an island this size you can see it coming from miles away.”
He nodded. “You want to know what happened to that guy Ron hired last year?”
She didn’t say anything, only held his gaze.
“He left here and got a job over on the mainland. Two weeks later he was arrested for possession.” Garrett stood and headed for the door. “So you want me to back off, Lynn. That’s fine. For now.”
CHAPTER THREE
ERICA FOLLOWED ARLO out the back door of the restaurant, into a narrow alley and up the metal stairs on the side of the building. He took his time, his feet clanging loudly on every step as if his hip were bothering him.
“You don’t need to go all the way up,” Erica offered. “I’m sure we can find the apartment on our own.”
“Well, I might be getting old,” he said. “The day I stop moving is the day I die.”
Whatever.
He unlocked the door to the first of two apartments above the pub. “This one’s got the nicer view out the bedroom windows.”
She poked her head inside. So much for fairy tales. From the outside, the building had looked well-kept enough with the redbrick having recently been power washed and a fresh coat of white paint on the shutters and trim, but apparently all a person had to do was lift Mirabelle’s picture perfect rug to find the proverbial dust.
But then the Duffys usually rented to college students on summer break. Knowing there might be any number of parties, no landlord in his or her right mind would spend much on décor. Then there was the storm damage. Part of the ceiling and drywall on the inside wall bordering what, most likely, was the other apartment was badly water-stained. A ladder and various other construction supplies and tools were piled up in the living room.
“Was that caused by the storm?”
“Ayep. The roof was repaired last week. The interior will be next.” He dropped their luggage off inside the door. “Well, there ya go. I know it isn’t much to look at, but things have been a bit tight around here moneywise.”