Meet Me in Barefoot Bay

by Roxanne St Claire

  “William is on a quick business trip,” she assured him, forcing lightness into her voice when the statement made her feel anything but. “He’ll be back before you know it.”

  “Before the yard sale?”

  “Yes,” she lied. “Before the yard sale. Now put your seat belt on and let’s get to this amazing hotel. You’re going to love it.”

  She didn’t see another car except for the UPS truck until they got closer to town. No one honked, cut her off, or sidled up next to her when she hit the Fourway and stopped at the intersection of Center and Harbor.

  There, she spotted a sheriff’s car in the parking lot of the Super Min. God willing, that was Deputy Slade Garrison and she could tell him what was going on.

  As she pulled in, Guy grabbed her arm again. “I won’t go in there.”

  “I just want to…” Did he remember Charity? “Why not?”

  He shook his head hard. “No. I won’t go in there.”

  Charity had made it her mission to force him to resign from his position as the local deputy sheriff and had essentially threatened to ruin him for what he’d done to Jocelyn. How would she react if Jocelyn said she’d forgiven her father?

  Didn’t matter. Now wasn’t the time to worry about that; she had to talk to Slade and not sit here, out in the open.

  “Stay in the car,” she said, pulling into a spot along the side of the convenience store. “I’ll only be a minute.”

  He gave her a dubious look, his mouth drawn, his shoulders slumped.

  “Everything’s going to be fine, Guy,” she promised him.

  But his eyes filled. “I miss William already.”

  “So do I,” she admitted. “Give me one second, okay?”

  As she started to climb out she heard him mumble, “Christ, I hate that woman,” under his breath.

  She froze, then turned back to Guy. “You remember Charity?”

  “No,” he said quickly. “I just remember I hate her.”

  Everything pressed on her as hard and hot as the Florida sun. “Wait here, Guy,” she said, climbing out to rush into the Super Min.

  Slade was leaning on the counter, talking to Gloria Vail behind the cash register.

  “I have to talk to you, Deputy Garrison,” she said quickly. “Privately.” The deputy and Gloria shared a look that told Jocelyn Gloria knew everything that was going on. “Or not,” Jocelyn added with a nod. “Just let me tell you both.”

  The back door popped open and Charity stepped out. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  Absolutely nothing got by that woman. She was probably watching the store on closed circuit TVs in her office.

  “I’m fine, but the media has definitely found me. They’re at my old house, so I’m taking my father up to Barefoot Bay with me.”

  “You’re taking him?” Charity’s drawn-on brows shot up. “Why?”

  She swallowed. “So he’s protected.”

  The older woman choked, but Slade stepped into the conversation. “That’s smart, Jocelyn. Did you happen to see what kind of car they’re driving?”

  She described it to the best of her ability and answered a few more questions, painfully aware of Charity’s dark scowl of disapproval. When Slade stepped to the side to call another deputy, Charity came around the counter and took Jocelyn by the elbow.

  “Come with me,” she said harshly.

  “I can’t, Charity. I left him in the car.”

  “Let him rot!”

  Jocelyn freed herself from the other woman’s grip. “Please.”

  “Really, Aunt Charity,” Gloria said. “Slade has this covered.”

  Charity flattened her niece with a glare and took Jocelyn’s arm again. “This’ll take one minute. Get back here. Might change your life.”

  “My life is changed,” she said softly. “I want to forgive him, Charity.”

  “Oh, hell. C’mere.” She gave Jocelyn a nudge to the back door and, fueled by curiosity more than anything, Jocelyn followed.

  The office was tiny, cluttered, and smelled like the cardboard boxes of snack items stacked in the corner, but Charity seemed to know exactly what she wanted, going right to a filing cabinet to whip a drawer open.

  “You want to forgive him, huh?”

  “I want to move on.” She hated the cliché, but it worked for the moment. What did Charity have in that drawer?

  A thin manila file, it turned out, that Charity used to fan herself. “I’ve been keeping an eye on your old man.”

  “I know you have. At least until my mother died.”

  “And after.” Charity slammed her hands on her bony hips. “Someone had to watch the old prick.”

  Someone had: Will. But she stayed very still, waiting for Charity to explain.

  “After she died, he started to go downhill pretty fast,” Charity said.

  “I know.”

  She held out the file. “Or did he?” When Jocelyn didn’t move to take it, Charity snapped the folder like a whip. “Don’t you want to know?”

  Maybe she didn’t. “Whatever you have doesn’t matter, Charity, because so much time—”

  “It matters!” She shook the folder viciously. “You can’t let someone get away with abuse!”

  “The abuse is history.” She had to hold on to that belief. It had taken so long to get to this point and it had cost her so much. She wasn’t about to let this old busybody steal her forgiveness. Even if this old busybody nearly saved her life once. “Guy is suffering from dementia and doesn’t even remember what he did.”

  Charity threw the file on an already overcrowded desk with a dramatic sigh. “Of course he wants you to think that, Jocelyn! What if you press charges?”

  “I decided long ago I wouldn’t.”

  “Even after your mother died?” The question was loaded with implications.

  “Of brain cancer, Charity. He didn’t kill her.” Made her life a living hell, but didn’t end it.

  “Are you certain of that?”

  “Absolutely. I spoke to the doctors.”

  “It was sudden, though, wasn’t it?”

  Jocelyn’s gaze shifted to the file. She had no doubt her mother had died of natural causes—and possibly a broken heart. But Guy hadn’t killed her.

  “Just look at it, for crying out loud.”

  Very slowly, she reached for the file and opened it to see a single piece of paper with The Lee County Library System Serving Southwest Florida scrolled across the top.

  “That came courtesy of Marian Winstead.”

  “Marian the Librarian,” Jocelyn said softly, the locals’ nickname for Mimosa Key’s keen-eyed librarian popping into her head.

  “She doesn’t like to be called that,” Charity said. “As you may know, she’s my lifelong dear friend and quite trustworthy.”

  Jocelyn read a list of books, authors, and Dewey Decimal numbers.

  Elder Law: Financial and Legal Considerations for the Alzheimer’s Patient

  Alzheimer’s and the Law

  The Defense Rests: One Man’s Acquittal and Dementia

  “You’ll notice that all of those books were checked out in a five-month period by Alexander Bloom.”

  Alexander. Like the baby boy. She shook her head, wishing she could throw away all of these thoughts and just start over. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m not saying anything. I think that list says it all. Now, I’m not accusing him of anything that he’s not already guilty of.” She took a few steps farther. “It just makes a person wonder, doesn’t it? Just how convenient it is for him to ‘have Alzheimer’s.’” She air-quoted and lowered her voice to a new level of sarcastic.

  Jocelyn put down the file and met Charity’s gaze. “If you’re implying he’s faking the dementia to cover up for anything he did or didn’t do, you’re wrong.”

  “You’re letting him off the hook.” Charity’s nostrils flared at the thought. “Maybe you should take another look at those pictures I gave to Will Palmer. Count the bruises. Rememb
er the pain. I was the one who put ice on you, you know. I was the one—”

  “I know!” She shot her hands up in apology the minute the shout came out of her mouth. “I know,” she repeated, softening her tone. “I just don’t want to live with all this hate anymore. He’s sick.”

  “Is he really? Are you absolutely certain of that, Jocelyn?”

  She closed her eyes, picturing Guy and all he didn’t know and couldn’t remember.

  I hate that woman.

  She could still hear the echo of Guy’s sly comment. “It’s a very hard disease to understand.”

  Charity leaned so close Jocelyn could count her oversized pores. “So’s abuse. I know. I had my own broken ribs to help me understand it. And I got the hell out of there, and took my Gracie with me. Which is more than I can say for your poor, pathetic dead mother.”

  She couldn’t take this. No matter what Charity had done for her, she couldn’t stand here and listen to her accuse Guy of being a fake or a murderer or whatever. He was what he was—and Jocelyn had decided to get past that regardless of what Charity wanted her to do. “I’ve made up my mind, Charity. Thank you for the information.”

  As she turned to the door, Charity’s hand landed on her arm. “Be a shame for that file to land in the hands of the wrong person.”

  Jocelyn froze and looked at her. “Yes, it would.”

  “You know, like the National Enquirer.”

  Jocelyn opened the door and stepped into the store without answering, nodding to Gloria and Slade. “Thanks again,” she said softly. “If you need me, I’ll be up at Lacey and Clay Walker’s house.”

  Outside, the sun smacked her, blinding after the dreary, miserable back office of the Super Min. But it couldn’t wash away the accusations and doubt. Maybe Guy had known he was forgetting things and needed to check up on his rights or insurance. Without Mom to help, and in the aftermath of her death, that would be a reasonable worry.

  Maybe he was scared all the stuff he had done would come to the surface.

  Maybe he—

  Was gone.

  Jocelyn stopped dead on the curb and stared at the empty front seat of the car and the wide-open passenger door.

  “Guy!” She ran around the car, turning in a full circle, sweat already dribbling down her back. “Guy!”

  She ran into the lot, looked up and down the intersection, over to the motel parking lot, everywhere, everywhere.

  Guy was gone.

  When Will landed in L.A., it was still light and fairly early, a blessing for a person who wanted to make a cross-country round trip in as little time as possible. If all went according to plan, he could be on a red-eye tonight, mission accomplished. If not, then his plan just sucked.

  But he had to do something. He had to help Jocelyn—this time. And it couldn’t be too little, too late. It had to work.

  Scott hadn’t been happy, of course, when Will had called him back to turn down the offer. But telling Jocelyn that he wasn’t taking the job wouldn’t have convinced her of anything; he had to show her he loved her. Plus, she’d have wallowed in guilt, assuming it was her decision to stay that had made his decision.

  Not true at all. She loved him, and he was never going to lose her again. But until he made up for the wrongs he’d been carrying around for fifteen years, he hadn’t earned her.

  Well, he was about to. He hoped. Unless this stunt was an exercise in futility.

  After he got situated in a rental car and figured out which freeway to take, he checked his phone, just in case. Jocelyn had called once, when he’d arrived at the airport, and, man, had she sounded miserable. A little terrified and a lot stressed out.

  She’d asked him three times if he was certain the reporter followed him and he’d confirmed he had. But there must be more of them for her to be that tense. The damn reporters were probably crawling all over that island now, which made his mission even more imperative. Maybe she wasn’t physically beaten this time, but she was being emotionally, professionally, and personally battered and he sure as hell wasn’t going to sit back—again—and watch that happen.

  Fueled by his focus, he navigated the mean, and sickeningly slow, streets of Los Angeles, threading his way through the Hollywood Hills and onto a canyon road off Sunset Boulevard. He found the address and drove up to an eight-foot-high gated entrance, then picked up his cell phone and called the number he’d taken from Jocelyn’s phone. He knew he had the right number because it had worked that morning when he’d first texted and put his plan in motion.

  “Bringing Jocelyn Bloom in,” he said when the phone was answered. Just please don’t ask to talk to her.

  She didn’t. In a moment, the gates slowly parted like opening arms, leading Will down a half mile of creamy white bricks to a sizable Tudor-styled house tucked into a wooded lot.

  The front door opened and a woman stood in the entry, so small he thought for a moment it might be a teenage girl, not the superstar actress who thought Jocelyn was coming to see her. When he climbed out of the car, he could see her face and made a mental note never to fall for on-screen beauty again.

  Coco Kirkman looked nothing like she did on TV.

  “Hello.” He nodded to her as he approached.

  An oversized sweatshirt hung halfway down her legs, the sleeves so long they hid her hands. As he got closer, she hugged herself as if she were cold, despite the hoodie and the black scarf knotted around her neck. A few honey-colored strands of hair slipped out of a sloppy ponytail, and she brushed them away to train famously sky-blue eyes on him.

  “Where’s Jocelyn?” she demanded, leaning over to peek into the car as if he’d hidden her in there.

  Time to come clean. “She’s not here.”

  “Excuse me?” Her eyes flashed in horror. “Her text said she and a bodyguard would be here to talk to me. You have my private number?”

  “She gave it to me.” More or less.

  She made no gesture to invite him in, but blocked the door as much as her waif-like body could block anything, so he stopped at the bottom stone step, making them essentially eye to eye.

  Behind her, a crystal chandelier lit an oversized entry and a sweeping marble staircase that he certainly wouldn’t build in a Tudor house, but probably cost more than he ever made in a year.

  “So…” She shifted from one bare foot to the other, shooting a quick glance behind her as if she expected someone to pop up any minute. “Why did she send you here?”

  “She didn’t,” he said. “I sent you the text that you thought was from Jocelyn.”

  “Oh, fuck.” She snorted the curse. “I can’t believe I fell for that. Of course, no one in the world has that phone number but Jocelyn, so it’s not like I’m a complete idiot. What do you want?”

  “What do you think I want? To ask you to please, please reconsider what you’re doing and tell the world it’s a lie.”

  She lifted on eyebrow. “You think it’s a lie?”

  “I know it is. Jocelyn wouldn’t break up a marriage any sooner than she’d jump off the Empire State Building. And she won’t say why she’s letting you do this, before you jump all over her for breaching life-coach ethics.”

  She smiled a little, a sad smile that barely reached her eyes. She leaned against the doorjamb, her arms still firmly wrapped around her middle. “You’re that guy.”

  “What guy?”

  “The baseball player.”

  He nodded, ignoring the little punch of happiness because Jocelyn had actually talked about him.

  “So everything she said about you was true.”

  “Guess that depends,” he said vaguely. “On what she told you.”

  “She told me you were… kind.”

  Was he? Or did she have that mixed up with passive? “I have my moments.”

  “And reliable.”

  “Enough.”

  “And…” She gave an approving nod. “Hot.”

  “I didn’t come here to talk about me.” He took one step closer, gl
ancing into the house in a silent request for an invitation.

  She shook her head, her eyes widening just a little. “Look, the only reason I said yes to the text is because I thought Jocelyn wanted to see me. Does she? Or does she have a message for me?”

  “Yeah. Get your butt in front of a camera and tell the world you lied.”

  She bit her bottom lip so hard he thought she’d drawn blood. “She knows I can’t do that.” He barely heard the whisper.

  Okay. He hadn’t expected this to be easy. But he also hadn’t expected to stand on her front porch and make a plea. “Are you really that selfish that you don’t care about her reputation or her feelings?”

  “She’s the strongest person I’ve ever met.”

  “So that’s why you picked her as your fall guy?”

  She laughed softly. “That’s why she volunteered for the job.”

  “She what?”

  She wrapped herself up again, so small and vulnerable he wondered whatever made her decide to pursue a career that put her in the spotlight. “Guess she didn’t tell you everything.”

  “Guess not.” Jocelyn was in on this? “Why?”

  “To protect me, of course.”

  “At the expense of her career?”

  She shrugged. “It’ll blow over and she’ll…” She glanced to the side, into the house, then stepped a little farther out of the doorway. “She’ll weather this storm much better than I will. It was her idea.”

  It was? Would she go her whole life sacrificing her own happiness for other people?

  Yes, maybe she would. And wasn’t that one of the things he loved about her?

  He heard a noise from inside the house, and instantly she startled and flinched, throwing a wary look over her shoulder, but no one was there.

  “Who was that?” he asked.

  “My housekeeper,” she said quickly. “And I have security here.”

  “Then you should feel comfortable letting me in. I’m not armed and I won’t hurt you. I just want you to understand what Jocelyn is going through because of you.”

  “It’s not…” She closed her eyes and fought for something—the right word, composure, maybe. Inner strength. She looked like a person who had none, inside or out. There was something helpless about her that reminded him of someone. Not Jocelyn, that was certain. “It’s not because of me,” she added.