Barefoot Brides (4 page)

“V
ince! Am I ever glad to see you here.” Moxie slid in next to her sister Kate's onetime fiancé, Vince Merchant.

She scooted in close to him, then closer, hunkering down to use his broad shoulders and general above-average height for cover. Not that she thought it would do much good. If only the man had chosen one of the booths along the outside of the main dining floor instead of taking a seat on a communal bench at the long row of tables at the center of the large room. Sure, she'd have found herself up against a huge plate-glass window—every booth in Billy J's was under a huge plate-glass window—but she could have compensated by scrunching down and getting lost between the dark, highly varnished wood paneling and the dark, highly varnished table.

Everything in Billy J's was highly varnished, from the booths to the scattering of individual table-and-chair sets to the two long rows of plank-like picnic-style tables and matching benches that stretched the length of the dining floor. Varnish, her father said, made everything easier to clean. Moxie suspected that meant it hid the dirt. Also, she reasoned that when everything around you glinted with varnish it didn't make the food, most all of it glistening with grease, seem so unnatural.

The local fire department made Billy J's Bait Shack Seafood Buffet post a sign saying the place had a maximum occupancy of 203. During tourist season it pretty much stayed at full capacity with an overflow crowd that gathered out front, often bringing lawn chairs to make themselves comfortable for the long wait. At almost 1:00 p.m. on this November day it was practically deserted by those standards. Though to the inexperienced onlooker it still would have seemed to have drawn a pretty healthy crowd. Healthy being a subjective term, given that everything they served had been battered and fried, even the vegetables, and the food always came with bucket-size soft drinks.

Still, Moxie counted herself blessed to have found a friendly face in the diminished crowd.

“You don't have to duck.” Vince scooted away to give them both some elbow room. “Your dad isn't here to press you into service today.”

“I'm not avoiding my dad,” she whispered emphatically then felt compelled to add, “Today.”

“Oh, yeah?” The simple question practically demanded to know just who she was avoiding, and implied that he suspected it might be another member of her suddenly expanded family.

Moxie had known Vince since, as her dad might say, Moses was in knee britches. Well, maybe not quite that long, but for just over half of her thirty years. So it seemed to her as though he'd always been a fixture in Santa Sofia, and in her life. Anyway, she already regarded the man as something of a brother, not a big brother, mind you, even though she was closer in age to his son than to the man himself. No, Moxie felt toward Vince, much as she did to her father, like the adult in the relationship.

Not that Vince was immature. He just had this soft spot for his only son that made him…well, made Moxie feel like she wanted to flick the man on the ear and tell him to grow up and get a life of his own instead of trying to keep his son in a state of perpetual dependency.

In other words, no way was Moxie going to allow Vince to talk to her like that. “Oh, yeah? Don't try to play that game with me, Merchant.”

“Game? Me? You're the one who ran in here like someone playing cops and robbers, then ducked behind me like…” He scrubbed his blunt fingertips over his bristled jaw and frowned. “Why are you ducking behind me?”

“Ugh.” She sat up at last, satisfied the man hadn't followed her and wasn't about to come roaring through the door. “It's a long story.”

“It's an all-you-can-eat buffet.” He folded his arms over the table. “I have time.”

“I just think, or
thought,
really, that maybe someone…” She met Vince's amused and a bit annoyed gaze and realized if she wanted him to take her seriously, she would have to spell it out for him. “Just listen up. Somebody followed me here. I
thought
somebody followed me here!”

“Why didn't you say so?” He turned his attention to his food, obviously unimpressed with that bit of news. “Who?”

“Who?” Somehow blurting out she feared that Road Rage Pharaoh was on her trail didn't seem like a great way to get him to take her more seriously. So Moxie shrugged a little and mumbled, “No one. Well, no one you know.”

“Hmm. No one I know. That rules out everyone in town, most especially your sisters.” He grinned.

“It's silly, I suppose. Just…well…it started when I kind of stopped at a stop sign.”

“You stopped? At a stop sign? Aren't you supposed to do that?”

“Yeah. I just didn't start back up again.”

“Truck trouble?” Again. He didn't add that part but it was there, further evidence to Moxie that nobody in town would make a big deal out of her stopping overly long on the road.

“No, not truck trouble, this time. More like…” She pressed her lips together then looked at Vince. Of all the people she knew, he would understand her issues over the return of the Cromwells better than anyone. “More like family trouble.”

Vince chuckled then paused and frowned. “Everyone healthy?”

“Well, I guess
healthy
is a relative term.” She opened her mouth to say more, then suddenly put together what she said, laughed at her unintentional pun and finally relaxed just a little. “
Relative
term. That's a good one.”

“Maybe I should rephrase that question. Are
you
okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. Everyone is fine as far as I know. It was more one of
those
moments, you know?”

He shook his head.

“Your know,
those
moments,” she insisted as if saying it with a little extra emphasis would make the lightbulb go off in his head. “When everything going on in your life crashes in on you and you just…”

“Deal with it?” he suggested.

Moxie huffed in exasperation. “This kind of thing is easier for you because you're…you know…”

“A genius?”

“A dad. You know, you have a family. I've only had my foster folks. One of which was never really all that involved and the other was, well—” she raised her hands to offer their very surroundings as evidence of her point “—my dad.”

“Hmm.” Meaning
I don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about.

“This trying to make things work while considering your whole family. What
they
want. What
they
need. Then taking into account how much you have to spare emotionally, physically and still have a life of your own.” She put her elbows on the table and rested her forehead in her hands. “It's all so new to me.”

“And that made your truck stall?”

“No. It made my
brain
overheat.” She shut her eyes. That didn't quite describe it, either. “Or maybe it was my heart? Anyway, the results were the same—I feel like I'm not getting anywhere.”

“
That
I understand!” He pinched the bridge of his nose.

She wanted to ask if he had a headache. He looked as though he had a whopper. But she feared he would not only say yes, but then accuse her of giving it to him.

“Don't sweat it, Vince. I'll work it all out.” She looked across the room at the faded photo on the wall of Dodie holding her as a child and sighed.

Vince followed her line of vision then shook his head and gave her a pat on the back. “My advice is don't borrow trouble. Don't let yourself get all worked up about this stuff. Keep some time for yourself. Have some places where you can escape, where you don't have to even think about your family.”

“In Santa Sofia?” She gave him one of those looks. “Besides, no matter where I go, my family, it seems, is the type that even when they are nowhere near you, they are right there
with
you. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah. I guess that's something about family that I take for granted. I feel that my son and granddaughter and, by extension, my daughter-in-law and now Kate, are always with me, always a part of me.”

Moxie nodded to show her sympathy.

Vince broke into a slow, wistful smile. “I like that.”

“Well, I don't. At least, I don't know if I like it or not, but since neither they nor I seem to be going anywhere—”

“And the story finally comes full circle.”

“What?”

“You started this rant by telling me your truck had stalled at a stop sign and something happened.”

“It didn't stall.
I
did.” She rested her forehead in her hands again. If she hadn't given Vince a headache, she sure was well on her way to giving herself one. “I was sitting there, thinking. And everybody just went around me, you know, the way you do when you see my truck stopped.”

“Sure.”

“Except for this one guy.”

“Who?”

She pressed her lips together to keep the name Road Rage Pharaoh from tumbling out. “I, um, I didn't recognize him. The point is that he got out of his car and started right for me.”

“What did he want?”

“Want? I don't know what he wanted.” She swung her leg over the bench. If the guy had truly followed her, he'd have burst through the doors by now. “I took off. Used my head about it if I say so myself.”

“Yeah?”

“Put on my blinker then went the opposite direction. I drove down alleys and backtracked, anything I could to lose him.”

“And he was tailing you this whole time?”

“No. I mean, I don't know. I just wanted to make sure he
couldn't.
”

“Yeah, because that ‘left turn signal, big noisy vintage truck roaring around the corner to the right' ploy fools even the most heinous bad guys every time.”

“I didn't say he was heinous.” Actually he was kind of cute. “He got out of his car, after all.”

“Maybe he thought you needed help.” He stuck his fork into a mound of coleslaw and muttered, “In more ways than one.”

“Very funny.” She stood, her eyes narrowed at the man she had thought she could rely upon for cover. “Thanks anyway for your concern. That'll teach me to be more careful who I seek out whenever—”

“Whenever it's convenient or necessary for you?” He tipped his head and caught her off guard with an earnest, unyielding glare.

“What?”

“You've spent the past few minutes telling me how hard you've got it with your new sisters and Dodie closing in on you. All the while wasn't that exactly what you were doing to me?”

“I came to you because I was scared, Vince.”

“And you think your sisters and your mom aren't scared by all that's happened? By the possibility that everything they've prayed for all their lives might blow up in their faces?”

“I…uh…” Dodie, Kate and Jo always seemed so confident. A team. The ones in control of everything. Of every
one.

“Think about it.” He went back to his meal. “It might just create a little more room in your world.”

“Room? My…?” How could he say something like that to her? Something so penetrating. Something so guilt-inducing. Something so true. How could he say that, then go back to stuffing popcorn shrimp into his mouth as if he had washed his hands of the whole thing?

He stuck the pad of his thumb into his mouth to clean off deep-fried shrimp grease and his eyes met hers. “You need anything else?”

She needed to scream. She needed to stand there in the heart of the Bait Shack and pitch a walleyed, no-holds-barred hissy fit. She needed—

“Doesn't anyone in this town grasp the concept of moving on?” She heard the masculine voice, complete with the smarmy Yankee accent and attitude to match, just seconds before the tray jabbed her in the back.

For an instant she thought of letting loose on the poor man and taking out all her frustrations but one glance at Vince told her he'd get far too much fun out of watching that. So she decided with a split-second's notice to do that slopping sugar thing she had hoped to use on the man in the white muscle car. She'd be so friendly and flirtatious, so sweet and so decidedly Southern that the man would find himself helpless to do anything but…

She turned. “Call the police! This is the man who followed me!”

“That seems highly unlikely since not only was this the place I was headed to from the moment I left my office but also since I got here before you.” He held up his tray of food as evidence of how long he'd been in the place and just what he had come for, then took a step as if to go around her and forward.