Chapter Sixteen
Trace followed her up the stairs and into her apartment, keeping a close-but-respectful distance away. Hands off, unlike any other time they’d climbed those stairs. No gentle guidance at the small of her back, no playful pats on her ass or carrying her up on his back. Nothing that said we’re still lovers.
Not good.
Jo dumped her keys in the dish by the door and set her cell phone on the table, then pointed to a chair. “Sit.”
He did so, not wanting to anger the bear by getting out of line. She sat across from him, hands close enough to her body to discourage reaching out for her.
“I feel lied to.” And the well-deserved punches started coming.
He winced. “I’m sorry.”
“Not done.” She held up a hand, then let it fall to the table lightly. “I feel like you held back this whole time. You had something in your life that affected our relationship, and you never let me in on it. I won’t say I’m hurt, because that’s going too far.”
He could see the lie in that written all over her face. But if she needed the small half-truth to soothe the wound, he’d let it go, gladly.
“But honesty is big with me. And I can’t tell you how shitty I feel being lied to. Not just that you did it, but that I didn’t expect it, see it coming. Whatever. I pride myself on reading people, and I hate feeling like I got it wrong.”
She paused for a long moment, and he hoped that meant it was his turn. “I don’t want you to be wrong. I want to be that guy you thought I was. And I’m sorry I didn’t mention Seth.”
“Seth.” She said it slowly, like she was committing the name to memory. “That’s his name?”
“Yeah. Seth Muldoon.”
She nodded, but said nothing.
“I didn’t mention him at first because, well, we didn’t really start out with anything that needed full disclosure. I wasn’t in a relationship, and you weren’t either. Two adults, unattached, attracted to each other . . .” Okay, he needed to skip that part before he got off track. “It just didn’t factor in. You didn’t seem like you wanted to know more. And I was out to get away from being a dad for a bit. I wasn’t about to break out the baby pictures and play Proud Papa while we were recovering in the sack.”
She nodded again. “Okay. I see what you mean. Sharing intimate details during something like that isn’t really a requirement.”
He started to breathe a little easier.
Then her eyes narrowed, and his throat constricted again. “But you wanted more. You were the one pursuing a relationship. A real one, not just fuck buddies.”
“Guilty.” He stared into her eyes, unblinking. “And I don’t regret it for a second.”
“But now there’s a tiny little elephant in the room. One you failed to mention.”
“I’ll admit, I screwed this one up.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I just got in the habit of not talking about that side of my life, and by the time I realized I’d left it out . . .”
“You didn’t want to scare me off,” she said quietly. Her gaze was firmly on the table.
“No, I didn’t. After I realized the clusterfuck I’d backed myself into, I had this whole plan to sort of . . . ease you into the idea.” As he said it, he realized it was a shit plan. But at the time, he hadn’t known what else to do.
Jo said nothing.
“That’s wrong. I get it. Full disclosure and confidence that you know what you’re walking into is important.” He reached across the table, and this time she let him take her hand. He chose to view that as a good sign. “I screwed up. And, spoiler alert, if we stay together for longer than five minutes, I’ll screw up again at some point. I’m sorry for it. And I’m hoping you’ll give me another shot.”
Her eyes drifted down to their joined hands.
“Here’s the thing . . .”
His heart, which had only just begun its slow crawl from his gut back into his chest, slid again. He pulled his hand from hers and crossed his arms over his chest, needing the extra layer of armor to absorb the coming blow.
“I’m not into the whole family thing. I don’t really have a family, and God knows my example of a mother was . . . well.” She smiled a little. “Less than perfect, we’ll say.”
“You know those spiders that sometimes eat their babies?”
Jo looked mildly grossed out. “Yeah.”
“My mom made them look like mother of the year.”
“Okay then.” The corners of Jo’s lips twitched, and he knew she was fighting back a real smile. “So neither of us came from super awesome parenting stock. Still, I’m not really set up, emotionally or physically, to be in a family. A couple?” She lifted her hands, let them fall back again. “I was gearing up to try, but even with that, I had reservations.”
“I know,” he murmured. He’d driven right through the wall she’d set up against him. He’d do it again, if he had to.
He’d rather she opened the door, though. Much less messy.
“But this?” She laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “I’m nobody’s mother.”
“I’m not asking you to be.” What the hell did she think he was doing, trolling for nannies? “My son is a major part of my life. He’s the biggest part. But he doesn’t dictate who I date.”
“Doesn’t he?” She closed her eyes and sighed. “Would you get into a relationship with someone you didn’t trust him with? Someone you really thought would be bad for him?”
“No, of course not.”
“So that right there proves the point. I’m no good for a kid. I run a bar, for God’s sake. I live above it. I’m not someone you should trust with your child. I don’t even think I’ve ever held a kid before.”
She was starting to edge on hysterical again. “Look, when it’s us, it’s just us. You and me. Nobody else. I had plans on easing you into the whole ‘hey, I’m a dad’ thing. So let’s go back to that plan. We do what we’re doing. And eventually, maybe one day you come over and we just hang out, the three of us.” He looked a moment at her face, frozen in, well, he hoped not in horror. “I’m not asking you to change diapers or anything.”
“Better not.” She mimicked his pose, arms across her chest. “Fastest way to end this thing is to hand me a diaper.”
“Duly noted.” He couldn’t help but gain a little hope again at her wording. “So is there still a thing?”
She breathed in deeply and scrunched her eyes shut, the heels of her hands digging into her temples. It almost looked like she was fighting off brain freeze.
“Yes.”
The word came out as a squeak and he wasn’t entirely sure he’d heard her correctly. “Did you say yes?”
“Don’t make me repeat it before I take it back.”
“Done,” he said quickly and before she could even open her eyes, he was around the table and kneeling next to her chair. “You’re not going to regret this. Whatever happens with us, we’ll take it one step at a time.”
“I’m not Mary freaking Poppins,” she warned.
“Well, thank God. She sings way too much for me to handle.”
She laughed and grabbed his ears, yanking him up for a blistering kiss. “Any more family members I need to know about? Any wives or foster monkeys lurking in closets?”
“Foster monkey? We don’t even think about him like that. Bobo’s one of us now.”
She squeezed his ears and he yelped. “Nice one, Muldoon.”
He kissed her again, and was reaching one hand under her bar uniform shirt when her cell phone rang.
“Leave it.” He worked his mouth over to her neck. “Leave it and make me a happy man.”
“I will, after I check the . . . shit.” She pushed at his shoulders a little. “It’s the bar. They wouldn’t call if it wasn’t something they could handle. Hello?” She stood as she answered the phone, leaving him leaning over her vacant chair, all but heaving in deep breaths.
Cold shower, stat.
“Shit. Is he . . . okay, that’s good. How about everyone else? Yeah. Thank God. But why . . . no. No, I absolutely did not. Yeah, two minutes.” She shut her phone and set it on the table with deliberate care. Then she turned to him and smoothed down her polo. “Do I look like I’ve been making out with a horny cowboy?”
“No . . . but I just got started. Gimme a minute or two and you’ll be nice and mussed up.” He reached for her, but she stepped back.
“That was the police.”
Nothing doused lust quite like the mention of local authority. “What’s wrong?”
“Apparently a patron who came in earlier this evening was drunk driving and plowed into the side of someone’s house.”
“Jesus.” He stood and ran a hand down his face to help him refocus. “Whose house?”
“I don’t know. Didn’t get that far. They’re downstairs and want to talk to me.” She shrugged and grabbed her keys with one hand, stuffing her cell phone in her back pocket with the other. “Sorry to cut our little make-up session short, cutie.”
“Good luck with that whole mess.”
“I’m not worried. He only had one beer at my place. They’re likely just tracing back to double-check. Everyone’s okay, though. Nobody was home, and he was already at the hospital getting the okay from doctors when he was questioned.”
“Lucky break.” He opened her door and followed her down the stairs. “Want me to wait for you?”
“Nah.” She patted his chest. “Go home to—”
“Don’t.” He flattened her hand against him. “Don’t let this start changing things. I offered because I have the time available.”
She paused a moment, then nodded. “Okay. You can go home, but we’ll continue this another time.”
“Okay then. Call me later.” He bent to kiss her once more in the dark shadows of the corner before heading for his car.
Damn drunk driver cutting things off short. But he couldn’t stop the curving of his lips as he started the engine. It might have delayed things, but their relationship had survived its first scuffle . . . a doozy of one. In his mind, this only meant more promising things in the future.
Despite the abrupt end, it had been a very good night.
Jo forced herself to walk calmly into the bar rather than running full speed the way her pounding heart dictated. Between hearing the words “police” and “in the bar” together in the same sentence, and recovering from that kiss upstairs, she was on the ragged edge of control in so many ways.
She opened the side door and walked in through the kitchen. Stu gave her a long look and a shake of his head.
“Never good for business when the cops show up and don’t order something.”
“You’re right there.” She patted his shoulder as she eased by him and walked into the dining area. The place was deserted, though that wasn’t totally surprising as it was near closing time. But two officers in khaki uniforms sat at the bar, listening to Amanda as she told some amusing story that had them both laughing.
Good girl. Keep them amused and entertained. Always good to have the law smiling when in your home. And the bar was her home, come hell or high water. “Officers, welcome to Jo’s Place.”
“You’re a Ms. Josephine Tallen, correct?” One of them glanced at the pad of paper in front of him.
“That’s me. You can call me Jo.” She held out a hand and shook with both as they introduced themselves as officers White and Nelson. “Can I get you something to drink? Water? Soda?” Both politely declined. “Well then, what can I do for you this evening?” She knew why they were there, but she wanted to hear it directly from them.
The one on the left, Officer White, scratched his chin. “We had a bit of an accident earlier tonight. Car drove into the Peckinpaugh place a few miles down the road. Quiet subdivision, not much traffic through there. Guy was heading home.”
“I hope nobody was hurt.” She also hoped she sounded sincere, since she knew the answer already.
“Minor injuries to the driver, nothing a night spent in observation won’t fix. Nobody was home, so only property damage on their side of things.”
She nodded, then waited. People who asked a lot of questions tended to look guilty. She had nothing to hide, but she wasn’t going to start volunteering information either.
“The driver, a Mr. Jeffrey Effingham, Junior, informed us he’d spent the time before going home here, at the bar.”
“He was here earlier, yes.” She patted the bar.
They played the same game as she had, waiting to see if there would be any more information. She stuck to her guns.
The man on the right, Officer Nelson, glanced at his partner’s pad. “He informs us he ordered dinner and drinks.”
“Dinner and a drink. I served him one beer, which he drank. He didn’t touch the dinner.”
He nodded, then asked, “Was he intoxicated when he arrived?”
“Not at all. He seemed in a pleasant mood, but there was no indication he was under the influence.” She gave them both intent stares. “I’ve been doing this long enough to pinpoint someone under the influence pretty quickly. I don’t over-serve my guests, and I don’t give someone who’s already buzzed fuel for a fire already started.”
“Good policy. We’ve just got one problem here.”
Oh, goodie. A problem. “Yes?”
“Mr. Effingham blew a point-one-five at the hospital.”
Good Lord. Talk about overkill. “I see.”
“He says he didn’t stop anywhere else to drink.”
“Okay.” She leaned against the cooler.
“He tells us you were his only stop before going home.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t follow him.”
“He also says, you plied him with beer, encouraging him to drink. Made him believe he was less intoxicated than he was.”
“Say what?” She shot off the cooler, causing the beer bottles to rattle. “What, like I funneled his beer while he was fighting me off?”
“Nothing so dramatic, ma’am.” The officers glanced at each other, as if silently asking each other how to approach the bear, and how long a stick they should use when poking.
“Just tell me how nondramatic it was, please.”
Officer Nelson tried again. “It simply appears as though his story and yours don’t quite . . . match.”
Officer White added, “He says you served him several beers—he doesn’t remember how many. Then he got in his car and drove off.”
The little piece of shit. “Do you want his receipt? He paid cash but—”
“That’d help, yes. But he also mentioned the beer was on the house, as you two were close friends. And when he asked if you would call a cab, you encouraged him to drive home, as he was”—the officer glanced at the pad—“just fine to drive.”
The big piece of shit. Drinks on the house wouldn’t show up anywhere. “All I can say is, that’s not true. He had one beer, a Bud, which I served him and he paid for, and that was it. I stepped into the kitchen as his meal was being served, and when I came back out, he was gone, his pint glass was empty and his meal was untouched. What he did after leaving here, I don’t know. But I do not over-serve my customers. I never have, and I never will.”
When Officer Nelson pulled back a little, she realized she’d advanced until her palms were slapped down on the bar. Great way to uphold the image of respectable business owner. Charge cops just doing their job like a bull seeing red.
Relaxing her stance, she gave them an easy smile. “Is there anything else I can help you gentlemen with?”
White looked up and around a little. “Any cameras inside?”
“I’ve got two inside, but they’re focused on the front and back door. Nothing trained on the dining area or bar.”
“Hmm.” He drummed his fingers on the bar, then scooted the stool back and stood. His partner did the same. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Tallen.”
“Jo, please.” The formality worried her. People around here didn’t do formal.
She showed the officers out the door, then locked it. There was nobody else in the bar, and it was only a little before nine.
“Bad news bears?” Amanda poked her head around the corner of the kitchen door.
“I wouldn’t say that. Not great news, either.” Her hand curled into a fist against her heart. “That little rat bastard tried to blame me for his drunk-driving problem. I can’t believe it.”
“I can.” Amanda shrugged. “Sorry, I didn’t think you wanted to hear anything negative about the guy. You seemed like you were getting along with him. And not in the sexy, giddy up cowboy way you are with Trace.”
Jo rolled her eyes and headed toward the bar, then froze. “Why is it so quiet in here?”
“Because we’re closed?” Amanda said slowly.
Stu peeked around. “Because Amanda sent the other servers home an hour ago.”
“Oh. Okay then.” She would have given Amanda a small lecture on taking such action when she wasn’t technically a manager . . . but tonight her decision was fortunate. Fewer people to see her talking to the cops. Even though she was innocent, it never did any good for business to be associated with the po-po.
“So now what?” Amanda grabbed a take home cup and filled it with ice and diet soda. “Are we going to court?”
“What? No. Calm down, Judge Judy. We gave our side of the story. And our side includes a receipt that shows he ordered exactly one beer.”
“Or, shows we only charged him for one beer.” Stu followed in Amanda’s footsteps, getting a diet soda for himself as well. Apparently, he was watching his liquid calories. “Which could look just as bad, if not worse.”
“Mary Sunshine, not helping.” She reached for a take home cup herself, filled it with ice, a little soda, then stepped on a stool to find the good stuff on the top shelf, Jack Daniels. “Hello, Jack. I’ve missed you.”
“Ditto.” Amanda held up a cup, but Jo shook her head.
“Hell, no. You’re getting in your car soon and there is no way I’m giving you a drop.”
“One shot won’t . . . ah. Right. Well, sucks to be me.” She tipped her cup in acknowledgment. “But you can’t keep everyone who comes in here from drinking. How are you going to play this?”
“Play what?”
“The nasty ju-ju. Negative press. The bad rap. The—”
Stu nudged her with an elbow. “She gets it.”
“Yes, she does,” Jo said sullenly. “I thought being an outsider was bad enough. People still aren’t sure what to make of me. Now I have to add in I don’t over-serve immature twenty-two-year-old man-children to the list of things to make clear?”
“Afraid so.” Amanda sipped. “I’ll vouch for you, but that might not be enough. I’ve got a financial stake in seeing you pull through this. You’re my meal ticket.”
“Same here,” Stu put in. “You could look back at the receipts of anyone who was here eating dinner when he was. See if the cops would talk to them and get their take. It’s usually memorable when idiots drink too much. If other customers can at least acknowledge he looked no worse for the wear, it couldn’t hurt your side.”
“No, it couldn’t. Good call.” Though she remembered just how empty the bar had been at that point in the day. Witnesses would be few and far between. But few was a better number than zero. “I’ll look into it.”
“Now on to the good stuff.” Amanda leaned in, elbows on the bar, chin in her hands. “Has Trace talked to you yet?”
“You’re relentless.” Might as well get it over with. “Okay, fine. Yes, he talked to me. Yes, we worked it out, sort of. And yes, we’re still an item. But I don’t want to share more. We are what we are, and I’m comfortable with that. We’re not pushing to be more, and we’re not going to make a big deal about it. Right?” She shot Amanda a hard look.
Unfazed, the other woman smiled, catlike. “Did he convince you in bed? Was it a wrestle to the death?”
“Let’s pretend you didn’t ask that, and we can move on.”
“Thank you,” Stu grumbled.
“How are you going to handle the baby?”
Jo’s eyes closed at the reminder. Ugh. “Yeah, I’m not sure yet. We’re sort of... ignoring that elephant in the room. At least for now. That won’t last forever, but I’m hoping things will be clearer when we reach that stage.”
“Good idea.” Stu nodded. “Single parent dating can’t be easy. Don’t wanna introduce the kid to every woman who comes by. If you’re taking time to get to that point, it can’t be anything but good.”
“Yeah.” She didn’t know how to explain the whole wait and see thing wasn’t just for the kid’s benefit, but hers as well. But hey, if this approach made her look mature and capable, then she’d grab it.
“Oh!” Amanda’s eyes lit up. “Oh, my God, I totally just remembered! This is perfect. Now you can find out who the mystery mama is.”
“The . . . no. I’m not even going to ask.” Jo sipped her doctored soda and sighed. Jack Daniels, the best man of all.
“I’ll tell you anyway. Trace went off to do the rodeo thing, and we all watched from a distance. Marshall is very proud of our local cowboys when they go off and do their own thing, you know.” She puffed up a little with town pride. “But he didn’t come back all that often, so any news we got about Trace was either through the circuit, or from Peyton. And then one day, poof. He’s just back, seemingly for good. Only now, he’s got a kid. Which is so weird, because he did not at all seem like the type to play doting daddy.” Her eyes went a little soft. “But from the few reports I’ve heard, they say he’s actually really good at it.”
“None of that sounds mysterious,” Stu pointed out.
“Shush, I’m building. So anyway, we expected to see some buxom blonde trailing behind him any day. But a week went by, then two, and no sign of the kid’s mom. So delicate inquiries were made, and it appears nobody knows who the kid’s mother is. Not even his family. Or if they do, they’re completely quiet about it.”
“Does it matter who the mother is?” All this intrigue over one man and his son. It boggled her big city mind.
“Well, no,” Amanda conceded. “But I’d just like to be the first—or second, or even third—to know. Spill.”
Jo smiled a little wicked smile. “My lips are sealed.”
“So unfair!” Amanda posed with a pout, then shrugged one shoulder. “Oh, well. If you need someone to unload your burdens to, my phone is always with me.”
“Uh-huh,” Jo said dryly. “I’ll remember that. Now scoot. I’m closing up.” Amanda stood, and Jo gave Stu a pointed look. “You, too, big guy. I appreciate the support, but as Semisonic said, it’s closing time.”
Amanda started humming the tune as she grabbed her purse and walked out the door. “See ya later!”
Stu waited a moment more, then bent down to buss her cheek. “Call me if you need some muscle. Or call Trace. He’s a cocky son of a bitch, but he’ll watch out for you.”
“Thanks.” She patted his arm and followed him to the door. “But I’m a big girl. I can watch out for myself.”
“I know you can, but nobody’s got panoramic vision. Having someone there to watch your back isn’t a weakness, it’s a strength.” With a wink, he left her alone in the bar.
A strength . . . to depend on someone? She just couldn’t wrap her mind around that one. If you needed anyone but yourself, you were that much weaker, weren’t you?
Jo scrunched her eyes shut and massaged her temples. The end of a long day was definitely not the time to get philosophical. It was the time to get drunk.
She reached for the best man in her life, Jack Daniels. Jack could watch her back any day.