A Bride Before Dawn

by Sandra Steffen

  It was his turn to do a double take. “I thought Houdini was dead.”

  “What? Oh. He is.”

  “Since when do you believe in ghosts?” he asked.

  With a roll of her eyes, she said, “Her name isn’t really Houdini.”

  “Whose name?” he asked, louder again.

  “Whoever has been sleeping underneath my pool table.” She blinked, gnashed her molars together and groaned. Obviously, she hadn’t meant to say that, either.

  “Somebody has been sleeping under the pool table? Downstairs? In the tavern? Right below you?” His voice grew louder with every question.

  She winced. She might say nothing, but she wouldn’t lie. He knew from experience that she couldn’t help telling the truth, even when it pained her.

  “I thought you had the locks changed.”

  “I did.”

  “You’re telling me somebody is breaking into the tavern? An out-of-business, closed, empty tavern? On a regular basis?” Okay, he admitted that was a little loud, even for him. Toning it down to a less deafening decibel level, he said, “And you thought, what? That you were going to catch him red-handed? You could have been killed. Did you think of that?”

  “Actually, I didn’t think of that until you showed up.”

  Failing to see the humor, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “I’m calling the police.”

  “Noah, don’t.”

  He’d already pressed the nine and the one.

  “I called the police,” she said.

  He paused, his finger on the final number. “I don’t hear any sirens.”

  “I didn’t call them tonight.” She huffed as if he was really starting to annoy her. “I called them when I discovered the sleeping bag and water bottle tucked out of sight underneath the pool table.”

  “When was that?”

  She glanced at the clock. “It’s after midnight, so I guess technically it was four days ago now.”

  He remembered how spooked she’d been when he’d caught her unawares down in the bar the other day when he’d come over to apologize for accusing her of deserting Joey. Now he understood why she’d been so nervous. It would have been nice if she had told him then rather than risk her life by herself. But, of course, she wouldn’t have told him. They hadn’t been a couple then.

  He had every intention of rectifying that, but first he was going to get to the bottom of this. He widened his stance a little and put his hands on his hips again. “What did the police say?”

  “Maybe we should sit down.”

  Obviously, this wasn’t going to be a short story. He glanced at his two options and chose the old leather recliner. He sank deep into the cushion. Rather than sit back, he leaned forward, his knees apart, his elbows resting on his thighs.

  Lacey lowered herself daintily to the sofa adjacent to him. “Perhaps I should start at the beginning.” She sat forward, too, her knees together beneath her skirt, her hands clasped. “The other day I was showing April through the tavern. She was taking measurements for the listing and I happened to notice a cue stick lying out. Then I saw something sticking out from underneath the pool table. It was a sleeping bag. I knew it hadn’t been there when I swept the day before.”

  “So you called the police.”

  She nodded. “They sent a seasoned officer who checked all the windows and doors and locks. Everything was buttoned up nice and tight. Since the sleeping bag was narrow and on the feminine side, he said it was probably some young high-school or college student or maybe a runaway just passing through town. He was pretty sure she wouldn’t be back.”

  Noah took an easier breath.

  Lacey ruined that when she said, “But then yesterday I found a partially eaten bag of mixed nuts, and the water bottle had been replaced with a bottle of green tea.”

  He sat up straighter. Something about this bothered the back of his mind. Hell, everything about this bothered the back of his mind.

  “I still don’t know how she’s getting in and out—that’s why I call her Houdini,” Lacey said. “I’m pretty sure Officer Pratt was right about her gender because there was a pink lipstick print on her water bottle and she has long brown hair.”

  “You’ve seen her?” he asked.

  She shook her head once. “I found a strand of her hair on the sleeping bag last night.”

  He stood. “Get your things together.”

  “What?” She rose, too. “What things?”

  “A suitcase. With a change of clothes and whatever else you need. You’re staying with us.”

  “Noah, I’m not packing my suitcase.” He opened his mouth, but before he could tell her she sure as hell was, she said, “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Somebody is living in the bar. It could be anybody. A vagrant. A murderer. A lunatic. A serial killer.”

  “She’s not a murderer or a lunatic or a serial killer.”

  “You don’t know that. And if this person can get around the locks downstairs, she could get in up here. Pack your things.”

  The only move she made was to dig in her heels.

  “Why are you arguing?” he demanded, turning toward her.

  “I’m not arguing.”

  “You’re right,” he said impatiently. “You’re flat-out refusing to see reason.”

  “Where is the reason? Noah, I spent my formative years in this apartment. There were far scarier people than this girl walking by at all hours of the night, shattering beer bottles, howling at the moon. Why are you worried now?”

  He clamped his mouth shut so hard she probably heard it. He hated that she was right. Nobody liked to be wrong, but in this instance it was worse because it reminded him of how much he’d taken for granted.

  Why was he worried now? A better question would have been why hadn’t he worried about her back then? He should have been scared out of his mind. Her dad had spent every night behind the bar serving drinks to his customers. Lacey could have gone anywhere and done anything, and often did. And yet Noah hadn’t experienced this brand of fear until now. It was a direct result of that headlong, head-over-heels tumble he felt himself taking for her.

  “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, all right?” he said.

  She smiled. And he wanted to bite through his cheek.

  His groan had a lot in common with a growl. He put both hands on his head, and stood looking at her, his elbows akimbo and his hair sticking out. “Why do you want to stay here when you know somebody is breaking in and out of a locked building?”

  “Because I’m not afraid.”

  “You’re not afraid.” He let his hands fall to his sides.

  “There,” she said, tipping her head ever so much. “See? I knew you would understand.”

  “You’re not afraid.”

  Her smile brightened. “I haven’t been afraid all night.”

  Noah faced the fact that Lacey wasn’t talking about things that went bump in the dark or this mysterious Houdini wannabe anymore. She wasn’t afraid of what was happening between them. Damn this burgeoning admiration.

  Then and there he wanted to swing her into his arms and carry her to bed. He’d start by untying the sash at the side of her waist of that amazing blue-green concoction she was wearing, and then he’d move to the straps at her shoulders. He would take his time there; he would take his time everywhere.

  “But if it’ll make you feel better,” she said, “there is one thing I’d be willing to do.”

  Only one? he thought. “There is?” he asked. “And what’s that?”

  “I could give you my phone number if you’d like. If it isn’t too forward of me after only the first date.”

  “You’re something else, do you know that?” he asked.

  “Are you just figuring that out?”

  She had him there.

  She recited her phone number as she walked to the door. She opened it and held it. Saying nothing, she waited for him to take the hint. Hitting him over the head with a t
wo-by-four would have been a hint. This was less subtle.

  For a split second he considered grasping her hand and pulling her out onto the stoop with him. Keeping her firmly at his side, he would proclaim to the world that Lacey Bell was his.

  But that was part of step three. He couldn’t take that leap just yet. He owed her a courtship, dammit, so he walked out the door she was holding open. Over his shoulder, he said, “Lock that. Wedge a chair under the damn doorknob, too.”

  “I will, but only because I know it’ll make you feel better.”

  On his way to his parked truck on Division Street, he looked back. Her door was closed. In his mind’s eye he saw her dragging a chair from the kitchen and wedging it beneath the doorknob. She’d said she would, and she didn’t lie.

  He met two groups of people taking a shortcut through the alley. The first looked like a couple of old army buddies. The second was a man and woman he’d seen having drinks at the outside tables in front of the Alibi across the way. Nobody had long brown hair.

  Long brown hair.

  He’d lost track of how many times that description had come up in less than twenty-four hours. Marsh said his Julia had had long brown hair when he’d known her. And Lacey believed her intruder had long brown hair, too. Was there a connection they were all missing?

  Four days ago Lacey had noticed the sleeping bag under the pool table for the first time. The night before that somebody had left Joey on the Sullivans’ porch. Now Noah wondered if it was the same woman.

  That would be the mother of all coincidences, but it didn’t explain how Lacey’s Houdini was getting in, or why. And if she were Marsh’s Julia, why would she leave the baby with them and then stay nearby in a deserted tavern? There were a dozen whys, and just as many ifs, ands and buts. It was enough to make his head pound.

  Noah dug his keys out of his pocket and started his truck. At the red light he pulled his phone out, too. He slid it open and deftly pressed the number from memory. Before the light turned green, he broke the golden rule of first dates.

  “I have an idea,” he said after Lacey answered.

  He hadn’t waited twenty-four hours to call. He hadn’t even waited until he got home. That was a no-no.

  “What kind of idea?” He heard the smile in her voice.

  “For our second date,” he said. No-no number two—never assume.

  “What did you have in mind?” Had her voice always been so sultry and deep?

  “Have you ever been on a stakeout?” he asked.

  “Oh, Noah, that’s a great idea. It so happens I know the perfect place.”

  “I figured you would. I’m going to call Sam tomorrow and get a few pointers. I’ll call you then.”

  She disconnected first, but not before he heard her little gleeful giggle. Noah was shaking his head when he hung up. If anybody had been looking they would have seen that he was smiling, too.

  “Today might need to be reclassified,” Noah said.

  Something told Lacey that Noah wasn’t referring to the fact that Marsh and Reed had decided they didn’t need the services of a temporary nanny on the weekend and therefore she had the day off. One hand at the small of her back, she went around to the other side of the old whiskey barrel she was filling with petunias and waited for Noah to make his point. Ultimately, his silence drew her gaze.

  Bent at the waist, he stood on the fourth step from the bottom of the staircase leading to her apartment. He had a wide paintbrush in his hand. A gallon of gray paint sat on another step.

  Lacey had never been accused of being particularly patient, but in this case the view gave her plenty to appreciate while she waited for him to continue. His jeans were faded, his legs long, his backside just muscular enough to be interesting. The temperature had reached eighty-six degrees today. Here in the alley the bricks and the black-top had soaked up the heat until it felt like at least a hundred. There hadn’t been more than a whisper of a breeze all evening. Noah had shed his shirt an hour ago before the sun sailed out of sight behind the tall buildings on the opposite side of the alley.

  He finished painting another step, then slowly straightened up. Making a show of stretching, he cast a casual glance over his shoulder as a group of people strolled past. Lacey saw them, too. There were three men, all of them balding, and four women, all with short hair. Like everyone else who’d taken this shortcut to the Orchard Hill Theater’s grand reopening a few blocks away, they seemed to have no idea that the painting and flower-planting was a cover for the stakeout Lacey and Noah were conducting.

  Going down another step, Noah dipped his paintbrush in the can again. “I don’t think there are two other people in the world who’ve had a second date like this.”

  So that’s what he’d meant by reclassification. Stepping back to view the barrel now filled with yellow, lavender and white flowers next to the stairs, Lacey said, “When we first moved to Orchard Hill, these steps were open. For my fourteenth birthday I asked my dad to install the boards on the back so I wouldn’t be terrified that somebody was going to grab my ankle every time I went up or down.”

  She found herself looking at her pointer finger poking through the hole in the end of the brand-new garden glove she’d found in the clearance bin, remembering the young girl she’d been at fourteen. “Dad bought the lumber that very day. For my birthday a week later he converted the hall closet into a darkroom. I got a decorated cake and a new camera, too.”

  Finding Noah still looking at her, she smiled.

  “Never let it be said I don’t know how to work the system.”

  “You’re saying you don’t mind this so-called date?” He gestured to their tasks, to the alley setting and the lack of privacy.

  “Mind? This is the most fun I’ve ever had on a second date. And those steps look fantastic. April was right. A coat of paint on the stairs and these flowers next to them really helps to make the entrance to the apartment look more inviting. Hopefully, buyers will agree.”

  “I thought you might reconsider selling and reopen the bar,” he said, moving down yet another step.

  She shook her head. “That would take money. Besides, if I could be anything in the world, I wouldn’t be a barkeep.”

  Noah resumed painting. Noticing the play of light where the sky met the roof of the building on the opposite side of the alley, she automatically reached for her camera. She set the focus then snapped a picture. Next a petunia just opening in the whiskey barrel caught her eye. She took a close-up of it, her garden glove now lying next to it. Through her lens she discovered a ladybug she hadn’t noticed before.

  She was still taking pictures when Noah finished painting the last step. “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “Starving,” she said, snapping a picture of him, too.

  “Pizza?”

  They’d been taking turns going after something one or the other of them needed. When Noah ran out of paint, she’d gone to the hardware store for another gallon, leaving him to keep watch in the alley. When she’d needed more potting soil, he’d gone and she’d stayed behind.

  “It’s my turn,” she said. “I need to wash my hands before I go.” She was looking at the soil on the tip of her pointer finger, and might have started up the freshly painted steps if Noah hadn’t pulled her back.

  Since she couldn’t very well go out for food without washing her hands, she said, “Maybe you could go pick up a pizza.”

  She followed the course of his gaze to the black T-shirt draped over the railing at the top. Until the paint dried, he couldn’t retrieve his shirt, and without a shirt, he couldn’t go into any restaurant in Orchard Hill.

  As he extracted his phone from the front pocket of his blue jeans, she took advantage of this legitimate reason to be looking there. When she’d first met him, he’d been thin as a rail. He was one of those guys who would always be lanky, but he’d filled out over the years. His shoulders had broadened and his chest was muscled and accentuated by a spattering of dark curly hair. She glanced
away because, well, because this was only their second date for one thing.

  Eventually, she noticed that he’d grown silent. It occurred to her that he’d asked her a question. Since he was ordering the pizza, it stood to reason that his question had to do with that. “Surprise me,” she said.

  And that was exactly what Noah did.

  He surprised her when the pizza arrived and he lowered the tailgate on his truck and helped her up as if he were holding her chair in a fine French restaurant. He surprised her when he asked her if she still had that personality quiz she’d mentioned yesterday. After she ran to the cab of his truck where she’d stashed her purse, and brought the tear sheets back with her, he surprised her again and again.

  She gave him the quiz between bites of pepperoni-and-mushroom pizza with green peppers and extra cheese. She didn’t bother asking him to explain his viewpoint about clowns, but she couldn’t help peering over her fountain Coke at him about his latest reply. “Spiders are worse than snakes? Are you kidding me?”

  “If I don’t answer truthfully I don’t see how the results would be accurate,” he said.

  “Fine. B. Spiders.” She circled the corresponding letter. “Even though spiders build incredibly delicate, yet strong—not to mention beautiful—webs out of a substance they produce themselves. Snakes don’t build anything.”

  He shrugged one broad, bare shoulder. If he had issues, his masculinity obviously wasn’t one of them. “I think snakes are sexy.”

  She made a sound of pure disgust. “There is nothing sexy about a snake.”

  “Tell that to Adam and Eve.”

  Darkness was falling fast. The mercury lights came on while Lacey’s blood was thickening and her thoughts were wandering to naughty scenarios. It was no wonder it took her longer than it should have to calculate his score.

  “Am I a night owl, too?” he asked, biting into the last slice.

  She carried his total to the results section on the back. She read the short paragraph describing his character type then wadded the paper into a ball. He rescued it from the pizza box and smoothed it out.

  Reading the explanation pertaining to his score, he smiled. “I’m morning, noon and night? You don’t have to worry about it going to my head.” His gaze met hers, and she knew where it was going.