Carolina Blues

by Virginia Kantra

  For six years, she had slaved, saved, and borrowed to turn the bakery into the home she’d longed for as a child. To build a future for her son filled with warmth and smiles and the smell of good things wafting from the kitchen. She’d painted the walls herself, chocolate brown and wheat yellow, and scavenged, stripped, and repainted every table and chair. The resulting décor was as eclectic as the buildings around the harbor, a comforting blend of old and new, weathered charm and practicality, from the antique cash register to the sleek refrigerated cases.

  Maybe it wasn’t perfect. But it was hers. Hers and Aidan’s.

  She ran a practiced eye over an unbussed table under the trees, the fingerprints smearing the front window. Since Jane’s part-time help had decamped last week to follow her boyfriend to Wilmington, the bakery had been short staffed.

  And at the moment, it was crowded with business. Her errand had taken longer than she had planned. Poor Thalia must be swamped.

  Grabbing the dirty plates from the picnic table, Jane hurried inside.

  And stopped.

  There was a customer operating the espresso machine. Behind the counter, which was totally off-limits. Lauren Something, with the piercings and puckish smile.

  She’d been in every day this week, Jane recalled, occupying the same corner table with her laptop and her phone. Always alone. Unlike some patrons who thought a single cup of coffee entitled them to sit all day, this one actually ordered food—a scone or muffin in the morning, a croissant and fruit at lunch, sometimes a cupcake in the afternoon.

  Jane appreciated every one of her customers. She liked feeding people. She was proud of her pastries. And she had overhead to pay.

  None of which excused a customer’s presence behind the Cimbali machine.

  Jane normally cringed from conflict. But the Sweet Tea House was hers. “What are you doing?”

  And where on earth was Thalia?

  “Oh, hi.” Lauren looked up, smiling, before setting a tall glass on the takeaway counter. “Iced mocha cappuccino.”

  “And an Americano,” added the woman waiting for her order.

  “Coming right up,” Lauren said cheerfully. She glanced at Jane. “If that’s okay with you.”

  “Um.” Jane blinked, fascinated and frankly envious of the other woman’s ease. “All right. Where’s Thalia?”

  “Kitchen,” Lauren said. “The timer went off.”

  “Right.” Jane slid behind the register to take the next order, watching out of the corner of her eye as Lauren tamped and pulled two shots.

  She seemed to know what she was doing. Was she looking for a job? Was that why she sat day after day in the shop, manning her computer and phone? But no, she’d said she was a writer.

  Unless that was the sort of thing people said when they couldn’t get other work. Real work.

  Jane rang up and plated two croissants—ham and Swiss, spinach and feta, a side of fruit, a chocolate chip cookie—as Lauren poured the espresso over hot water, put a lid on the cup, and set it on the counter.

  “You look like you’ve done this before,” Jane said.

  “I used to work as a barista.” Lauren stroked the gleaming Cimbali, the way Jane would pat a loaf of bread. “Your grinder needs adjusting, but you’ve got yourself a great machine here.”

  Jane flushed, torn between pleasure at the compliment and defensiveness at the implied criticism. She ran a bakery, not a coffee shop. She’d researched her equipment, buying the best she could afford. But there was no one on the island to teach her how to use it.

  “The grinder was adjusted when I bought it,” she said.

  “Mm,” Lauren said noncommittally. “You know, changes in humidity and temperature affect how coarse the grind should be.”

  “Seriously?”

  Lauren nodded. “You should probably adjust it every day.”

  Jane puffed out her breath. “Right. Okay. Thanks.”

  She studied the woman in front of her. She couldn’t afford to make mistakes. But . . .

  “How long are you here for?” she asked abruptly.

  Lauren shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “The Pirates’ Rest.”

  “I know it.” The Fletchers’ bed-and-breakfast. Not the most expensive place on the island. Not the cheapest, either, especially in midseason. Obviously, Lauren Whatever-her-name-was didn’t need to sling coffee to get by.

  Which was too bad. The HELP WANTED sign still hung in the window. If only Jane could afford to pay more than a measly hourly wage . . .

  No more if-onlys.

  “Well, it was nice of you to help out. Do you want . . .” A cup of coffee. A cookie. A muffin. “A job?”

  “Oh, I—”

  Jane saw the uncertainty gather like clouds across her face and hurried into speech before she could refuse. “Not full-time or anything. Maybe ten hours a week? Just around the lunch rush. You’re here then anyway.”

  “But I’m working. Writing.”

  Right. Jane sighed. Well, it had been worth a shot.

  Lauren’s dark gaze fixed on hers. “Only ten hours?”

  Jane nodded, afraid of sounding too eager. Too desperate.

  Lauren bit down on her lower lip. “I have been in kind of a rut,” she admitted.

  “We could give it a couple days. See how it goes. You’d really be helping me out,” Jane added.

  That didn’t sound too needy. Did it?

  And maybe it was the right thing to say, because Lauren’s smile broke like the sun through clouds. “Sure. Why not?”

  * * *

  JACK DROVE THROUGH the center of town toward the bakery. Fifteen months ago, he’d been a plainclothes detective with an unmarked car. Driving the big, department-marked SUV made him feel like a beat cop again, like a giant leap back.

  But he had a chief’s responsibilities now. Bottom line, the shield on the door, the lights on top, were a visual deterrent to crime. For every tourist speeding through town, for every island kid with too much time on his hands, the official-looking vehicle and uniform served as a reminder. Slow down. Think twice.

  Jack parked the SUV near the road, where it could be seen by passing motorists. Gravel and oyster shells crunched underfoot as he stepped out into the lot.

  He climbed the steps to the porch, anticipation tightening all the muscles in his abdomen, like he was about to take a punch to the gut. Like he didn’t need coffee, his heart already pounding.

  The over-the-door bells chimed. He stood a moment silently inside the doorway, eyes adjusting to the light.

  Jane was coming out of the kitchen with a tray, a smudge of flour on one flushed cheek, pink and white and delectable as one of her own cupcakes. He looked past her toward the corner table, Lauren’s table. Empty.

  She wasn’t there.

  The unnamed hope in his chest collapsed, leaving him deflated.

  Jesus Christ. He wasn’t a fourteen-year-old boy anymore, hanging around some girl’s locker after class, waiting for her to show.

  Even at fourteen, he’d never had to wait. Females had been coming on to him since first grade when Tina Zanelli offered to show him her underpants if he’d be her boyfriend. He couldn’t remember how that had worked out. He might have taken her up on her dare. She could have delivered on her promise. More likely, he’d said something rude and the opportunity had been lost.

  Proving he hadn’t learned a damn thing in thirty years. What the hell had he been thinking, busting Lauren’s chops the other day, making that crack about her running away?

  Relationships were supposed to get easier when you got older. More supportive or sophisticated or something.

  Maybe Renee was right. You only see what you want, she used to say. You don’t think about what I need. You don’t know how to make a woman happy.r />
  His jaw set. He’d known how to make her come, though. For a while, that had been enough.

  “You look like you could use a cookie.” Lauren’s voice broke into his thoughts.

  He turned his head and she was there, her dark hair slipping its messy bundle, the stud on the side of her nose winking at him like a tiny exclamation point: Here I am!

  Something inside him contracted like a fist and then relaxed. “You sound like my mother.”

  Her brows rose in question.

  “Ma believes most of the world’s problems can be solved with food.”

  Comprehension lit her eyes like laughter. “Well, it’s a place to start.”

  He met her gaze. Held it. Today she wore a cuff shaped like a snake with jeweled eyes, coiling under her hair, whispering in her ear. Tempting her. Tempting him. Where else was she pierced?

  A rush of heat washed through him. He wanted a lot more from her than a cookie.

  He took a deep breath. Slow down. Think twice. She wasn’t some shiny image on his television anymore, the one bright spot in his boozy, miserable world.

  He forced himself to step back, to remember their surroundings. And saw her hands full of dirty glasses, the apron around her neck.

  “What are you doing?” he asked. Rookie question.

  She shrugged. “Working.”

  “Bussing tables.” Not a question this time.

  “Among other things,” she said lightly. “I also make coffee. Don’t judge.”

  She had it all wrong. He admired her, her courage, her willingness to put herself out there. Hostage Girl.

  “Coffee’s good,” he said. “I wish we had somebody around the office who could brew a decent pot of coffee.”

  “Then you wouldn’t have an excuse to drop by here anymore.”

  He went still. She’d heard him say he didn’t come by for the coffee. Did she think he came by to see Jane? He didn’t want her to think that, for reasons he wasn’t prepared to examine. “I don’t need an excuse. It’s my town.”

  She smiled suddenly. “I thought maybe you were going to ask why I’m not working on my book.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not my job to rag on you about how you spend your time.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  Her droll tone made his lips twitch. “I’ll leave that to Meg.”

  Her smile lost some of its shine. “She doesn’t know yet.”

  He frowned. “You haven’t told her?”

  She regarded him thoughtfully, her pupils wide, like she was trying to see inside the darkness in his head. “I’m not hiding anything. I just haven’t had a chance to talk to her.”

  “I only offered Lauren the job half an hour ago,” Jane said. “She hasn’t even filled out the paperwork yet.”

  Not hiding, Jack thought with relief. Not lying.

  Not that it was any of his business.

  “You might want to mention it,” he said. “Unless you want Meg to hear about it from somebody else.”

  “Who’s going to tell her? Nobody even knows who I am. That’s why I came down here.”

  “You’d be surprised. On an island, everybody knows everything.”

  “And what they don’t know, they make up,” Jane said, her tone bitter.

  He took another look at her. Her smoke gray eyes were shadowed, her soft face strained.

  Well, hell. Maybe there was something to the talk after all.

  “Heard your ex-husband’s back,” he said.

  She blinked and then sighed. “How did you know? Who told you?”

  He wasn’t ratting out Hank. “Word gets around. He giving you any trouble?”

  Her lashes swept down, veiling her eyes. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  Lauren threw her a quick, uncertain glance.

  Interesting.

  Jack gave them both a minute in case they had anything to add, but Jane remained stubbornly silent. And Lauren, who until this moment had shown no hesitation in butting into things, kept her mouth shut.

  Jack wasn’t here to stir up trouble. “If anything changes, if he bothers you, you let me know,” he said.

  A blush suffused Jane’s face like heat inside a cup. “Why? So you and my dad can discuss my lousy judgment in men? I don’t need that kind of help.”

  “This isn’t about your father, Jane.”

  Jane crossed her arms at her waist over her apron. “Can you honestly tell me Hank didn’t ask you to check up on me?”

  No, he couldn’t tell her that. And he couldn’t explain, even to himself, why, if Hank was worried about his daughter, he hadn’t come by to see her himself.

  “He cares about you,” Jack said instead.

  “I know.” Her head dipped, in acknowledgment or defeat. “You tell him I’m fine. I’m making ham and collards for dinner. Aidan has T-ball practice tonight, but you tell him I’ll leave him a plate. He’ll know what that means.”

  Girl code. Dinner in the oven meant Jane cared about Hank, too. Jack frowned. And that they wouldn’t be discussing anything when her father got home that night.

  She escaped into the kitchen, her rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the old wooden floor.

  Lauren handed him something wrapped in a napkin.

  Jack narrowed his eyes in surprise. “What’s this?”

  “A cookie.”

  He could see it was a cookie. “I meant, why are you giving it to me?”

  “I told you. You looked like you needed one. And . . .” Her eyes met his. “That was nice, what you said to Jane. Nice of you to look out for her.”

  He wasn’t nice.

  He was closed and uncommunicative and angry most of the time. If she imagined he was nice, she was only going to be disappointed.

  “I’m just doing my job,” he said, more harshly than he intended.

  But she didn’t back down. Damned if he didn’t like that about her. “Take it anyway. You should never leave a bakery empty-handed.”

  He shook his head. “Thanks. But I already got what I came for.”

  She searched his gaze. “Information?”

  You, he almost said. I wanted to see you.

  But the admission made him deeply uneasy. Hell, the thought made him deeply uneasy.

  So he took the cookie and left, the big, bad police chief running from the quirky writer with the pierced nose and too-perceptive eyes.

  Four

  THE FOLLOWING MONDAY, Jack borrowed a bucket and supplies from the fire station and hunkered down in the parking lot to wash the department SUV. The sun beat down, heating the hood, leaving water spots on the paint.

  “Hell of a way to spend your day off,” Hank observed.

  Jack hosed the vehicle’s roof. “You’re one to talk.”

  “A man your age should have better things to do.”

  An image surfaced of Lauren Patterson, holding out that cookie like Eve with the fucking apple. And that tiny stud in her nose, winking, irresistible . . . She tempted him on more than one level.

  He’d like to do her. Hell, he just liked her, her expressive face, her crazy earring, her dark, intelligent eyes.

  Tension shivered through him, rippling through his muscles, like he was a sleeper waking to arousal. She made him remember how it felt to be alive.

  He ran the dripping sponge over the windshield, dissolving the bloom of salt. He finally had his life under control again. He had himself under control. All the time. Take a breath, go for a run, hit the heavy bag instead of the bottle. He wasn’t looking to lose it all again over a woman.

  No more emotional highs and lows. No games. No lies.

  Hank was still watching him, waiting for a response.

  “Take care of your gear and it’ll take care of you,” Jack said evenly.

  “Couldn’t find another s
ucker for the job, huh?”

  He dropped his sponge into the bucket of sudsy water. “You volunteering?”

  “Hell, no. I’m fifty-eight, boy. I’m too old, too mean, and too tired to volunteer for anything.”

  A smile tugged Jack’s mouth. “That why you turned down the chief’s job?”

  “Pretty much.” Hank’s face creased in a grin. “Plus I didn’t want to spend my remaining years kissing the town council’s ass.”

  “So you became a reserve officer instead.”

  “Said I was old. Didn’t say I was smart.” Hank watched Jack pick up the hose, playing water over the hood. “You know, you could have gone to the Soap and Suds.”

  The Soap and Suds Car Wash and Beer Barn was half an hour away on the other side of the bridge. Off island. Out of Jack’s jurisdiction. Too far away if the officer on duty—it was Luke today—suddenly needed backup. Not to mention the public relations fail of taking a police vehicle to a drive-through liquor store.

  Jack picked up the sponge again. “You didn’t come out here to critique my car-washing technique.”

  Hank grunted in acknowledgment. “Heard that low-life scumbag asshole Tillett’s still in town,” he said after a pause.

  And there it was. The real reason Hank was out here in this heat instead of inside reading the paper. Travis Tillett, Jane’s ex.

  “I ran him through the database,” Jack said. “Vehicle registration checks out. No outstanding warrants.”

  “He doesn’t belong here.”

  Neither did Jack, according to half the island’s old-timers. He smiled thinly. “If that was enough to lock him up, I’d have to arrest the entire tourist population.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Hank said.

  Jack didn’t respond.

  “He giving Jane any trouble?”

  Jack thought of Jane’s veiled look, Lauren’s quick, uncertain glance.

  If he bothers you, you let me know.

  Why? So you and my dad can discuss my lousy judgment in men? I don’t need that kind of help.

  “You could ask her yourself,” he suggested. Leave me out of it.

  “It might have escaped your notice,” Hank said, his drawl thickening, “you being a big-city detective and all, but my daughter and I aren’t exactly what you’d call close.”