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“What do you think Dad would say if he were here?” Reed asked as he closed the mailing carton.
“After the shock wore off, he probably wouldn’t say much,” Marsh answered quietly. “Mom would be the one we’d have to worry about.”
Reed and Marsh shared a smile that took them back to when they were teenagers. Reed said, “She’d expect us to do the right thing. They both would.”
“We are doing the right thing, or at least as close to the right thing as we can under the circumstances,” Marsh said. “Have you decided what you’re going to do if Joey is yours?”
Reed eyed the baby now sleeping in his arms. If Joey was his son, it meant Joey’s mother was the curvy blonde waitress named Cookie who’d accidentally spilled chili in his lap during a layover in Dallas last year. She’d blushed and apologized and somehow, when her shift was over, they’d wound up back at her place.
“If it turns out Joey’s mine, and Sam locates Cookie and she has a legitimate reason for leaving him, I’d like to get to know her better.” He wished he’d asked more questions that night. She’d mentioned an ex-husband, somewhere, and a local play she’d been auditioning for. He didn’t recall ever hearing her last name. Now he wished he had asked. After all, if she was the mother of his son, she deserved better. She deserved the chance to explain. “What about you? What will you do if the test proves Joey is yours?”
Marsh took his time considering his reply. “The week I spent with Julia on the Outer Banks last year was pretty damn idyllic. I thought I knew her as well as a man could know a woman. I thought we had something. If Joey is our son, she would have had to have a very good reason for all of this. The Julia I knew wouldn’t have left Joey unless she had no other choice. I have a hundred questions, but it does no good to imagine what might have happened to her or what might be happening to her now. I only know that if Julia is Joey’s mother and I am his father, she will return for him, and when that happens I’d like to try to work things out, as a family.”
It wasn’t surprising that they wanted the same thing, for Reed and Marsh were both family men at heart. They grew silent, each lost in his own thoughts. The only sound in the room was Joey’s hum as he slept in Reed’s arms and the tick of the clock on the old stove.
“Why don’t you put Joey in his crib for his morning nap,” Marsh suggested. “The agency is sending another woman out for an interview later. You should have plenty of time to overnight the paternity kit and be back before then. Unless you want me to mail it.”
“You had the late shift with Joey,” Reed said. “I’ll take the kit to the post office.”
After laying Joey in his crib in the home office they’d converted into a nursery last week, he returned to the kitchen, where Marsh was still somberly sipping coffee. Keys in one hand and the sealed test kit in the other, Reed headed for the door.
“Hey, Reed?” Marsh stood across the room, his jeans riding low, his stance wide, his brown eyes hooded. “May the best man win.”
Again, that grin took Reed back to when they were kids and everything was a competition. He shook his head, but he couldn’t help grinning a little, too.
Getting in his car with its loosened side mirror, he wondered if Marsh was picturing Julia right now. Reed could only wonder what might have prompted Joey’s mother—whoever she was—to leave him with only a vague note and a loose promise to return for him.
He was at the end of the driveway when it occurred to him that he couldn’t seem to bring Cookie into sharp focus in his memory. Her bleached-blond hair kept switching to red.
* * *
“How was your drive?” Ruby’s closest friend, Amanda Moore, asked the minute Ruby got back. “Tell me you got completely lost.”
Ruby shook her head. “Sorry to disappoint you, but no.”
“Not even slightly turned around?” Because Amanda had been lost when she’d met her fiancé, Todd, she was convinced that the key to finding happiness was that sensation she’d experienced when she’d made a wrong turn but somehow wound up in the right place.
But as Ruby had told her a hundred times, she didn’t get lost. Ever. Her innate sense of direction was intricately linked to her keen memory for all things visual. Both had gotten her out of countless scrapes over the years.
“The reunion is in just over two weeks.” Amanda was tapping away on her notebook at the end of the bar in Ruby’s new tavern. “That doesn’t leave us very much time to find you a date.”
“You’re my best friend, and I would give you a kidney or the shirt off my back,” Ruby declared from behind the bar. “But I told you. I’m not taking a date. From now on I’m flying solo. I mean it, Amanda.” Her laptop was open, too. Next to it was the box she’d started filling with cameras from the former owner’s collection. “I don’t even want to attend the class reunion.”
“You have to, Ruby.”
“Peter’s going to be there.”
“I know,” Amanda said gently. “That’s why I think you should bring a date. As former class officers, we’re not only the planning committee, but we’re the welcoming committee, too. Don’t even think about trying to get out of it. You promised, and you never break your promises.”
With a sigh, Ruby returned to compiling the menu of drinks that would be indigenous to her saloon. So far her list included alcoholic beverages with names such as Howl at the Moon and Fountain of Youth and Dynamite. Since she thought best when she was moving, she wandered to the pool tables in the back of the room.
Amanda tucked her chin-length brown hair behind one ear and followed. “Number one,” she said, fine-tuning a line on the small screen. “This goes without saying because it’s always number one with you. Nonetheless, number one.” She cleared her throat for emphasis. “He must be tall. T-a-l-l. Tall, with a capital T. Number two. It would be nice if he spoke in complete sentences.”
Ruby rolled her eyes. While she was looking up at the ceiling, a loud scrape sounded from above. Evidently her mother was still rearranging her furniture, even though Ruby had told her that the layout was fine the way it was.
Nobody listened to her, she thought as she shook out the plush sleeping bag she’d found near the pool tables and refolded it. It was a strange place to leave a sleeping bag, but at the closing yesterday, the previous owner, Lacey Bell Sullivan, had asked Ruby to keep the bedroll here for safekeeping for a few days while Lacey’s brand-new husband whisked her away on their honeymoon. Lacey had vaguely mentioned that someone might come by to pick it up. Ruby believed there was something Lacey wasn’t telling her, but Amanda was right. To Ruby, a promise was a promise.
Amanda was rattling off number five, apparently unconcerned that Ruby had missed numbers three and four entirely. “No bodybuilding Mr. America wannabes. And your date should be sensitive but not too sensitive. You don’t want to be apologizing all the time.”
Ruby smiled in spite of herself.
While Amanda recited the remaining must-have qualities from her list, Ruby took another look around. It was hard to believe this building was hers. The main room of the saloon was large and L-shaped, stretching from Division Street all the way to the alley out back. The tables and chairs were mismatched and the lighting questionable. There was a jukebox on one wall and two pool tables in need of a little restoration in the back. The ornately carved bar, where drinks would be served and stories swapped, was the crowning jewel of the entire room.
The ceilings were low and two of the walls were exposed brick. The hardwood floors were worn and the restrooms needed a little updating, but the building was structurally sound and included an apartment with a separate entrance.
Lacey Bell Sullivan had moved to Orchard Hill with her father when she was twelve. She’d inherited the building when he died. Business had fallen off, but she believed with all her heart that what the tavern really needed was a breath of fresh air. A new life.
Ruby thrilled at the thought.
“Rainbow of Optimism,” she said under her breath as she hurried back to her laptop and added another drink title to her menu.
Amanda hopped back onto her barstool, the pert bounce of her hairstyle matching her personality. “What are you working on?”
“I’m giving Bell’s a new identity so it will appeal to a lively, energetic, fun-loving crowd. Right now I’m compiling a menu featuring one-of-a-kind drinks.”
Amanda turned the screen around in order to read the menu. “These are fun, Ruby. Fountain of Youth and Dynamite are self-explanatory. What’s this two-X-Z-zero-three?”
“Oh, that doesn’t belong on the list. It’s just the license plate number of a Corvette I saw run a sweet Mustang off the road earlier. I stopped to make sure the driver of the Mustang was okay. What do you think of Happy Hops?”
“Was this driver a guy?”
“We’re talking about the title of a drink,” Ruby insisted. “Is Happy Hops too trite?”
“Was this handsome stranger under, say, thirty-five?” Amanda asked.
“I didn’t say he was handsome.”
“I knew it,” Amanda quipped.
Another scrape sounded overhead. Holding up one hand, Ruby said, “You and my parents are making me sincerely wish I had hired a moving company.”
Just then Ruby’s father came bounding into the room waving a sheet of yellow lined paper. A brute of a man with a shock of red hair and a booming voice, he said, “The smoke alarm doesn’t work. The bathroom faucet drips. Only one burner works on the stove, and that refrigerator is as old as I am. Did you count the steps leading to the apartment? Do you really want to have to climb twenty steps at the end of a long day?”
“Walter, would you stop?” The only person who called Red O’Toole Walter was his wife. Ruby’s mother now joined them downstairs. The freckles scattered across Scarlet O’Toole’s nose gave her a perpetually young appearance, which was at odds with the streaks of gray in her short red hair.
“It isn’t too late for her to get out of this,” Red said to his wife.
Scarlet wasn’t paying attention. She was listening to Amanda, who was telling her about the near accident Ruby had witnessed and the driver she’d stopped to help earlier.
“Was he tall?” Scarlet quizzed her daughter’s best friend.
“I asked her that, too,” Amanda replied. “That particular detail has not been forthcoming. Yet.”
Ruby dropped her face into her hands.
“She needs to come home with us,” her father insisted, as if that was that.
“She signed the papers,” her mother said dismissively.
“I don’t like the idea of our little girl serving up hard liquor to a bunch of rowdy m-e-n.”
Ruby didn’t bother reminding them that she was standing right here.
“Driving a tow truck you were okay with.” Ruby’s mother had a way of wrinkling up her nose when she was making a rhetorical statement. She demonstrated the tactic, and then said, “She’s only a three-and-a-half-hour drive away.”
Ruby backed away from the trio—not that any of them noticed—and traipsed to her laptop, where she added another one-of-a-kind drink title to the top of her menu. Kerfuffle. If her life thus far was any indication, this one was going to be a big seller.
“It’s time for you to go,” she said loudly enough to be heard over the din.
All three turned to face her.
“What?” her mother asked.
“But I’m not finished—” her father grumbled.
“You’re kicking us out?” Amanda groused.
Ruby stood her ground. “Thanks for all your help these past two days. I mean that from the bottom of my heart.”
“You’re asking us to leave?” her six-foot-three-inch father asked incredulously.
“I’m begging you,” she said.
“See what you’ve done?” Scarlet said to Red.
“So I’m worried that my little girl is a barkeeper.”
Red O’Toole’s little girl was twenty-eight years old and stood almost five foot eleven. But she smiled at him as she rounded the bar to give him a daughterly kiss on the cheek and a heartfelt hug. “The smoke alarm probably just needs a new battery. One burner and a microwave is all I need. I can deal with the leaky faucet, and those steps will be a good workout.”
Heaving a sigh that seemed to originate from the vicinity of his knees, her father said, “Isn’t there some legal provision that allows you three days to change your mind?”
“Even if there was a provision like that, I wouldn’t back out of this,” she said gently but firmly. “I like this town and I especially like this bar. I feel a connection to this place. I can’t explain it, but I want to make it a success. It’s going to be a challenge, but I can do this. I know I can.”
“Don’t worry, dear, you still have me,” Scarlet said to Red. “And Rusty. If you want to worry about one of your children, worry about him. Our daughter’s right. We should be getting back to Gale. She’s going to have plenty to do putting her furniture back the way she had it. Isn’t that right, honey?”
Ruby pulled a face, for her mother knew her well.
“Are you coming, Amanda?” Scarlet asked.
“I rode with Ruby, remember?” Amanda said. “I either have to catch a ride home with you two or take a bus. But nobody’s going anywhere until she answers my question.” She spun around again and faced Ruby. “Details would be good.”
“Details about what?” Ruby’s innocent expression didn’t fool anybody.
“What was the guy driving that sweet Mustang like?” Amanda asked, sounding like the kindergarten teacher she was.
Even Ruby’s father waited for Ruby’s reply.
“What was he like?” Ruby echoed, seriously considering the question. “Let’s see. He didn’t slam his car door or kick the no-passing sign even though it took out one of his mirrors.”
She saw the looks passing between her mother and her best friend. There was nothing she could do about what they were thinking.
“Patient isn’t on my list,” Amanda said, “but it should be. What else?”
With a sigh of surrender, Ruby said, “He was blond and well dressed and understandably irritated but polite.”
“And?” Amanda stood up straight, as if doing so would make her less dwarfed by the three tall redheads.
“And that’s all,” Ruby stated.
“That’s all?” Amanda echoed.
“Isn’t that what she said?” her father asked gruffly.
“But, honey,” Ruby’s mother implored.
“Was he tall?” Amanda and Scarlet asked in unison.
Ruby opened her mouth, closed it, skewed her mouth to one side and finally shrugged. “I didn’t notice.”
“You didn’t notice?” her mother asked gently.
“But height is always what you notice first,” Amanda insisted.
“I told you. I’m not interested in finding a man. Maybe I’ll get a dog. Perhaps a rescue with a heartbreaking past and soulful eyes.”
“You’re bound to run into him again, you know,” Scarlet said, and very nearly smiled.
“Since you didn’t hear me, I’ll say it again. I’m finished with men. All men. For good.”
There were hugs all around and a few tears, but those were mostly from her father. Ruby promised her mother she would call. She promised her father she would keep her doors locked. When Amanda reminded her that the reunion was in two weeks’ time, Ruby reluctantly reconfirmed her promise that she would be there, too.
Finally, she stood in the hot sun in the back alley, waving as her parents and best friend drove away. Alone at last, she returned to the tavern and looked around the dimly lighted room. She had a lot to do, from remodeling to advertising to hiring waitstaff. Already she could see the new Bell’s in her imagination. There would be soft lighting and lively music and laminated menus featuring one-of-a-kind drinks and people talking and laughing and maybe even falling in love. Not her, of course. But friends would gather here, and some of them would become her friends, and all of them would be part of her new life.
Happiness bubbled out of her. No matter what her father claimed, buying a boarded-up tavern in Orchard Hill wasn’t a mistake.
She happened to catch her reflection in the beveled mirror behind the bar. Chestnut-red wouldn’t have been her first choice in hair color and she’d never particularly liked her natural curls. Her face was too narrow and her lips too full, in her opinion, but her eyes were wide and green, and for the first time in a long time, there was a spark of excitement in them.
She hadn’t made a mistake, not this time. Buying this tavern on a whim was the first thing she’d done in too long that was brave and a little wild, like the girl she used to be. She hugged herself, thinking how much she’d missed that.
Once again, the near accident she’d witnessed replayed through her mind.
Had the driver of the Mustang been tall?
Normally she had only to blink to bring the particulars into focus. In this instance her snapshot memory didn’t include that detail.
Thinking about her history and her recent decision regarding singlehood, she decided to take that as a good sign, and left it at that.
Chapter Three
Two hours after her parents and Amanda left, Ruby stood tapping her foot on the sidewalk at the corner of Jefferson and Division Streets. She wasn’t thinking about the quote she’d requested from the electrician or the baffling little mystery regarding the sleeping bag folded neatly on one of the pool tables in her tavern. She wasn’t even thinking about the broodingly attractive man she’d encountered on Orchard Highway earlier. Well, she wasn’t thinking about him very much.
She was thinking that if the walk sign didn’t light soon, she was going to take her chances with the oncoming traffic, because she was starving.
At long last, the light changed and the window-shoppers ahead of her started across, Ruby close behind them. There was a spring in her step as she completed the last little jaunt to the restaurant at the top of the hill.
Inside, it was standing room only. People huddled together in small groups while they waited for a table.
Ruby made her way toward a handwritten chalk menu on the adjacent wall and began pondering her options. The door opened and closed several times as more people crowded into the foyer. Ruby was contemplating the lunch specials when someone jostled her from behind.
“Sorry about that,” a tall man with a very small baby said, visibly trying to give her a little room.
Ruby rarely got caught staring, but there was something oddly familiar about the man. He had dark hair and an angular jaw and brown eyes. Upon closer inspection, she was certain she’d never seen him before.
He eased sideways to make room for someone trying to leave, and Ruby found herself smiling at the baby.
With a wave of his little arms, the little boy smiled back at her. “He likes you,” the father said.
“It’s this hair.” She twirled a long lock and watched the baby’s smile grow.
“You aren’t by any chance looking for a job, are you?” the man asked.
Voices rose and silverware clattered and someone’s cell phone rang. Through the din she wondered if she’d heard correctly.
“Provided you have never been arrested, don’t lie, steal, cheat on your taxes or have a library book overdue, that is,” he added.
She took a step back. “Um, that is, I mean—”
“Forgive me.” Unlike the baby, this man didn’t appear to be someone who smiled easily. In his mid-thirties, he looked tired and earnest and completely sincere. “It’s just that Joey didn’t take one look at you and start screaming.”
She took a deep breath of warm, fragrant air and noticed that someone else was entering through the heavy front door. The crowd parted, making room for the newcomer. Suddenly she was standing face-to-face with the man she’d encountered along Old Orchard Highway earlier.
He looked surprised, too, but he recovered quickly and said, “Hello, again.” He gave her one of those swift, thorough glances men have perfected over the ages. His eyes looked gray in this light, his face lean and chiseled. “I see you’ve met my brother Marsh.”
Did he say brother?
She glanced from one to the other. But of course. No wonder the man holding the baby looked familiar. These two were brothers.
“I’m Reed Sullivan, by the way.”
Upon hearing the name Sullivan, she said, “Ruby O’Toole. Do you by any chance know Lacey Bell Sullivan?”
“We’ve known Lacey forever,” Marsh said. “Two days ago she married our younger brother, Noah.”
“How do you know our new sister-in-law?” This time it was Reed who spoke.
And she found her gaze locked with his. “I bought Bell’s Tavern from Lacey. I’m a little surprised to run into you again so soon,” she said. “I mean, one chance encounter is one thing.”
“Is that what this is?” Reed asked. “A chance encounter?”
His hair was five shades of blond in this light, his skin tan. There were lines beside his eyes, and something intriguing in them.
Something came over her, settling deeper, slowly tugging at her insides. She couldn’t think of anything to say, and that was unusual for her. Reed’s gaze remained steady on hers, and it occurred to her that he wasn’t talking anymore, either.
He was looking at her with eyes that saw God only knew what. It made these chance encounters feel heaven-sent, and that made her heart speed up and her thoughts warm.
In some far corner of her mind, she knew she had to say something, do something. She could have mentioned that she’d met their sister, Madeline, a few months ago, but that made this feel even more like destiny, and that simply wouldn’t do. Someone mentioned the weather, and she was pretty sure Reed said something about the Tigers.
Normally, the weather and baseball were safe topics. They would have been safe today, but Reed smiled, and Ruby lost all sensation in her toes. Moments ago, the noise in the room had been almost deafening. Suddenly, voices faded and the clatter of silverware ceased.
Ruby’s breath caught just below the little hollow at the base of her throat and a sound only she could hear echoed deep inside her chest. Part sigh, part low croon, it slowly swept across her senses.
In some far corner of her mind, she was aware that Marsh said something. He spoke again. After the third time, Reed looked dazedly at his brother.
“Our table’s ready,” Marsh explained.
It took Ruby a moment to gather her wits, but she finally found her voice. “It was nice meeting you,” she said to Marsh.
Her gaze locked with Reed’s again. She wasn’t sure what had just happened between them, but something had. She’d heard about moments like this; she’d even read about them, but she’d never experienced one quite like it herself. Until today.
After giving him a brief nod, she wended her way through the crowded room toward the counter to order her lunch to go. Initially she’d planned to wait for a table. Instead, she fixed her eyes straight ahead while her take-out order was being filled. All the while, her heart seemed intent upon fluttering up into her throat.
It was a relief when she walked out into the bright sunshine, the white paper bag that contained her lunch in her hand, her oversize purse hanging from her shoulder. Dazedly donning a pair of sunglasses, she hurried down the sidewalk. She’d reached the corner before the haze began to clear in her mind. Up ahead, two young girls were having their picture taken in front of the fountain on the courthouse square and several veterans were gathered around the flagpole.
Ruby skidded to a stop and looked around. Where was she?
She glanced to the right and to the left, behind her at the distance she’d come, then ahead where the sun glinted off the bronze sculpture on the courthouse lawn. With rising dismay, she shook her head.
She was going the wrong way.
* * *
“Care to tell me what you’re doing?” Marsh asked Reed after the waitress cleared their places.
Decorated in classic Americana diner style, the Hill had its original black-and-white tile floors, booths with chrome legs and benches covered in red vinyl. Other than the menu, which had been adapted to modern tastes and trends, very little had changed. The Sullivans had been coming here for years. This was the first time they’d brought a baby with them, however.