Once a Charmer Page 12

  “Motherhood should be avoided until adulthood,” I said.

  “Hence the condoms,” she whispered on a chuckle, touching my arm like all was going to be okay. Nothing was going to be okay. My life was twelve kinds of jacked up. I backed away from her touch and she clasped her hands, and my normal sense of snark mixed with partially impending doom came back.

  “Intimacy before you’re ready for it,” I said.

  “How about being used and dumped by a player before you even know what a player is,” Bash said, suddenly at my side. “Because horny teenage boys have no idea what intimacy is.”

  Vonda raised her eyebrows just a fraction but her smile remained. “Are you calling my son a player?”

  “I’m calling my daughter a fifteen-year-old,” I said. “She’s not ready to lose something precious to someone who’ll be moving on to enjoy the next girl.”

  Vonda crossed her arms, the first sign I’d seen of her getting remotely uncomfortable with anything.

  “Perhaps Aaron does need to move on,” she said. “Rather than get caught up in your family’s negativity. I’m surprised that you’re so conservative on this stance, however,” she added. “Considering.”

  “My family isn’t negative,” I said. “And what are you surprised about?”

  “Well, with having a baby as a baby, yourself,” she said. “And Bash essentially playing daddy while not playing hubby—it’s a little nontraditional, you have to admit.”

  My blood flared to my skin’s surface again, this time not in a good way, and the hand that came to rest on the back of my neck felt cool and calming. Except for that thing that made me want to curl into him. That wasn’t cool. Or calming.

  “It’s a little not your business,” I said. “I’ll tell you that.”

  “Miss Sharp,” Bash said, his thumb working on the side of my neck. “I don’t play at anything. I’m whatever Angel needs as well as what Allie needs. They are the closest thing I have to family, and I don’t need you to define that.”

  Vonda shrugged. “Fair enough.”

  “Angel may think she’s ready for something adult,” he said. “She may look at your son and go stupid, and I get that. But that’s what the real adults in her life are for. For guidance.”

  “There’s guidance, Bash,” she said. “And there’s dictatorial control.”

  “Dictatorial control,” I said, raising my hand. “Otherwise known as parenting. It’s not a democracy in my house. I have boundaries. I have rules.”

  “Which teaches her that she has limitations,” Vonda said.

  “It teaches her accountability,” Bash said. “And we’re done with this conversation.” He pulled me against him, I guessed in a show of solidarity, and God help me, I was good with that. “Please just let your unlimited son know in one of your casual non-dictatorial chats that he needs to skip to the moving on part.”

  Vonda moved around us, reaffixing her smile as she approached some of the others. I watched their faces soften in contentment as she shook their hands, but my focus quickly turned to the slow trail Bash’s hand took down my back.

  And the slower way he stepped away from me.

  “Thank you for standing with me on that,” I said, turning to look up at him as he took another step back.

  “Where else would I be?” he asked, meeting my eyes but then quickly looking away.

  “Bash,” I said softly. “We need to—

  He shook his head, his expression troubled. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Bash.”

  My phone dinged with a text as he turned and walked away, nodding and smiling to people on his way out.

  “Damn it,” I muttered, pulling my phone from my pocket.

  It was from Carmen.

  Sully has to see Bailey tomorrow at noon, so we can ride along. See you tomorrow.

  I sighed. Tomorrow was going to be a bitch of a day.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It was weird, riding through the old roads in the woods. You think you remember things a certain way as a kid. Smells, the way things look, the feel of a curve in the road. But it’s all on a smaller scale. Time shrinks. Time fades. The last time I was out there, I was a kid with my dad. I had no need to pay attention to landmarks or directions. Now, as we twisted and turned and bounced along in Sully’s pickup truck, I was hopelessly lost.

  “I have some business with Bailey,” Sully was saying, one hand lazily draped over the steering wheel. Carmen sat between us, one hand on Sully’s leg. “But he doesn’t draw things out. We’ll be done in five minutes.”

  “Does he know I’m coming?” I asked.

  “He does,” Sully said. “But I didn’t know what reason to tell him. Anybody want to share the big secret?”

  “No secret,” I said. “Just need to talk to him about my dad. They were friends—I think,” I said, realizing just how little I knew about that situation. “When they were young. My dad used to talk about Albert Bailey and Ruby Barrett and hanging out in these woods.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that, too,” Carmen said, an odd look on her face. “Have you ever met him?”

  “He used to wave at me from the door sometimes,” I said. “My dad would come by to—I don’t know—drop something off, pick something up, I never really paid attention. I’d wait in the car.”

  “Well, I’d be sure to not get too close if I were you,” Carmen said, glancing sideways at Sully.

  “Yeah, avoid shaking his hand,” Sully said.

  “Avoid shaking his hand?” Carmen asked. “That’s the same thing you told me, instead of hey babe, do not touch the man under any circumstances.”

  He gave her a smirk. “Come on.”

  “Come on, my ass,” Carmen said.

  “What are you two babbling about?” I asked. “Why can’t you touch his hands? Does he have a disease?”

  She looked at me, a sense of uncertainty about her. Just as she opened her mouth, Sully spoke up.

  “You can,” he said, a look passing between them when she turned to him. “Just—some people claim they get a sense of something odd when he touches them,” he said.

  “Some people claim?” Carmen said.

  “Odd?” I asked, even as a weird déjà vu settled over me. Like I’d heard all this before. I shook the thought away. “Look, I’ve lived with odd all my life. My dad thinks he has premonitions in his dreams and now he—”

  I stopped myself.

  “Now he what?” Carmen asked as we rounded a bend and a small-looking house came into view. A house surrounded and nestled by large welcoming trees.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I’m just saying that not much surprises me. Odd or not.”

  “Okay,” Sully said, putting the truck in park and opening the door. “He’s kind of weird about doing things one thing at a time, so give us a minute and then I’ll call you over.”

  Sully got out and strode purposefully up the porch, tapping his work boots on the wood as he waited for the eccentric old man to come to the door. We watched in silence as a few moments passed and the front door opened, leading Sully to back up a step as he greeted him from a slight distance.

  “Mm-hmm,” Carmen said softly. “Some people claim.”

  We sat there watching the two men talk, until Sully nodded and picked up a small cabinet sitting on the porch, bringing it back with him to the truck.

  “Your turn,” he mouthed through the window.

  “Coming?” I asked Carmen. On the one hand, I’d planned on doing this solo. I hadn’t wanted to involve anyone else in my business. On the other hand, the slight memories I had coupled with Bonnie and Clyde here managing to sufficiently creep me out, kind of made me want a sidekick.

  “Nah, I’m good,” she said.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, once was enough,” she said.
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  I got out and shut the door. “Nothing spooky here.”

  “Need company?” Sully asked, strapping down the cabinet in the bed of his truck.

  I frowned. “No, I’m good. Jesus, what’s wrong with you people?” I added under my breath as I made my way up to the porch.

  I’d grown up there in Charmed, so of course I’d heard the stories about weird old Mr. Bailey. How he stayed to himself out here in the woods like a hermit but always looked impeccable. Never had a family. Maybe that made him a little quirky, but surely he didn’t eat puppies and small children.

  Mr. Bailey came back to the door in the very second I approached it.

  “Miss Greene,” he said pleasantly.

  Taken aback, I smiled. “You know who I am.”

  “Of course,” he said. “You’re the spitting image of your father,” he said, tilting his head in speculation. “With just the hint of your mother’s wary gaze.”

  My jaw dropped and my mouth went bone dry.

  “Come in,” he said, holding open the door. “I’ve been expecting that you’d want to visit.”

  Stay far away. Don’t touch his hands.

  Good Lord, so many rules.

  “Really?” I asked, looking behind me, watching Carmen and Sully disappear as he shut the door. “Why did you expect that?”

  He ambled past me as I backed up to give him room, and my eyes left him to take in all that I could see. For the first time, I saw the ‘big house’. A high ceiling sported thick wooden beams and rich colors. The furniture was clearly dated but very high quality, and tapestries and mosaic wall hangings filled the walls. A fire roared in a giant stone fireplace along one wall, and when Mr. Bailey sat in his chair on what appeared to be an ancient Persian rug, he almost glowed from it.

  Everything felt like more. Nothing on the outside would ever give an inkling that this is what awaited the senses within.

  “Well, I suspect that it might have something to do with the package I had delivered to Oliver Greene,” he said.

  “A package,” I said. “Okay, we’ll call it that.” I perched on a tufted stool. “Who delivers a package like that? And why?”

  “To the point,” he said. “I like that. Oliver wasn’t like that so much.”

  “Mr. Bailey,” I said. “My ride is waiting on me. Can you please tell me why my father had one hundred thousand dollars in a grocery bag in his dresser drawer, and says it came from you?”

  He sighed deeply and packed a pipe, motioning me to sit closer.

  “I’m good,” I said.

  “Do you want to hear the story?” he said.

  I bit the inside of my bottom lip. “There’s a story? Do I need to go tell Sully to—”

  “Sully’s fine,” Bailey said. “He’ll wait.”

  I glanced toward the door, kind of wishing I was out there with them. Reluctantly, I rose, and moved to sit on an ottoman closer to him. Within reaching distance. Hopefully, that choice wouldn’t bite me in the ass.

  “The money is Oliver’s,” he said finally, after lighting his pipe and puffing till he was satisfied. “It’s what is left.”

  “Left?” I said. “Left from what?”

  “From what we found,” he said.

  I sighed and rubbed at my eyes. “Mr. Bailey, with all due respect, can you just tell me and stop making me pull it out of you?”

  “Certainly dear,” he said, laying a hand over mine.

  It was a good two to three seconds before it dawned on me that I wasn’t supposed to touch him, and another couple before it registered in his eyes that it didn’t do anything.

  “Ah,” he said, patting my hand and withdrawing his. “I should have known.”

  “Should have known what?”

  “You’re like your father,” he said. “But stronger. The one who broke him seeks to break you.”

  I blinked in surprise. “How did you know that?”

  Bailey shrugged and a small smile pulled at his lips. “Lucky guess.” He sat back in his chair. “Oliver, myself, and Ruby Barrett—we were friends as children. We found each other, you could say.”

  “Because you’re different,” I said.

  He shrugged as if he were talking about wearing blue instead of green. “To a degree. Ruby was always the intuitive one, your father had his dreams, and I—well, I was never really anything special, but I was a bit older and tended to lead.”

  “That’s not what I hear,” I said.

  “Really?” he said, chuckling. “What do you hear?”

  I crossed my arms. “That you’re some force of nature and not to touch you.”

  His chuckle spread to his chest, pulling a hearty laugh from such a small and frail looking man.

  “I love your honesty,” he said. “Oh, that the people I pay to be honest with me would do it as well. So anyway, we ended up in these woods quite often, exploring; making up grand adventures for ourselves.” His eyes narrowed as he studied me. “I’m going to tell you something that only two other people know, and one has passed.”

  “As long as you don’t have to kill me afterwards, I’m okay with that,” I said.

  It didn’t escape my notice that he didn’t say he wouldn’t.

  “I assume you know about the caves down by the water?” he asked.

  “I do.”

  “The three of us found a box buried in one of them one day,” he said, smiling a faraway smile. “In it was an incredibly old dry-rotting leather bag. Oh, we fancied it some pirate’s bag—not thinking that a pirate ship wouldn’t be sailing on a pond,” he added with a smirk. “But instead, it held money.”

  I knew I had to look like a kid getting a bedtime story, but my eyes got big.

  “You literally found this money?” I asked.

  “Up there on the mantel,” he pointed. “You’ll see a small shadow box with an old piece of leather.”

  I got up and went to where he pointed. The glass was yellowed, but I could see the strap. On it was a number three written in something dark.

  “That was from the strap,” Bailey said. “The only thing written anywhere. We called it the power of three and split it evenly among us.”

  “Oh my God, how old were you?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Old enough to know we should have told our parents,” he said. “Young enough to think making treasure holes in the trees and forming a secret pact to never tell anyone was better.”

  Money in the trees.

  “That hundred grand was my father’s take as a kid?” I asked.

  Bailey took a puff of his pipe. “One hundred grand is what is left of his take,” he said. “As we grew up, we all had our own demons to fight, but Oliver’s was probably the hardest.”

  “Gambling,” I said.

  “Horrible thing to fight when you know you have secret money stashed away,” he said.

  “So he—we didn’t have to lose the house,” I said, really more to myself. “The car. Why—why didn’t he just use that money?”

  “I don’t know,” Bailey said. “But years ago, when it hit one hundred grand, he brought it to me. Asked me to keep it for you and your daughter, because he didn’t trust himself.”

  “Oh my God,” I breathed, leaning over on my knees, my face in my hands. “And now you sent it back?”

  “My old friend can’t do any damage with it now,” he said softly.

  My eyes filled with tears.

  I could.

  A hundred grand—could solve all my problems. Or at least a big non-Bash-related chunk.

  Bailey scooted forward in his chair and laid down his pipe.

  “So,” I began, sitting up. “You never stopped to wonder where such a windfall might have come from? I mean, it could have been drug money, blood money, ransom…”

  “It could have been anything,” he
said. “Where it came from became less important than where it went. It became an inheritance for Ruby’s niece. A diner on Main named The Blue Banana. The trailer park you grew up in. Half this town.”

  “You’re saying—”

  “I’m saying it’s getting late, Miss Greene,” he said. “We should probably say goodnight.”

  “Goodnight?” I said. “Okay.” Way weird, considering it was barely past noon, but whatever. “I can get out of your hair.”

  “Very nice to finally meet Oliver’s daughter,” he said, looking at me sincerely and chasing that look with a surprised one. As if he wasn’t accustomed to feeling sincere.

  “What made you tell me this story?” I asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

  Bailey rolled his head a little and ran his hands up and down the arms of his chair.

  “I can’t honestly say,” he said. “Maybe I just don’t want to be the last of it.” He gave a short little wink. “Maybe you have a little gift of your own, making me want to share. Take care, Miss Greene. Sweet dreams.”

  I rose to my feet and stretched my stiff legs, bidding him goodbye as I walked outside and closed the door behind me. Into the dusky night air. Wait—night air?

  It was dark.

  Goodnight.

  I’d gone inside his house at twelve fifteen. How the hell was it dark? And where was Sully’s truck? Where did he and Carmen go? What the—

  At that thought, lights cut across the darkness and bounced along the road. Sully.

  “Oh, thank God,” I whispered, running toward the lights, and then stopping and waving my hands in the air as he slowed to a stop. I pulled open the passenger door to see Sully at the wheel. “Where’s Carmen?”

  “She’s at home, she wanted to clean up after supper,” he said.

  “She—she what?” I asked. “When—how did she get home?”

  “I took her home when you texted her that you’d be a while.”

  “When I texted her?” I asked, confused. “I didn’t text her. Why is it dark?”

  Sully looked at me funny as I climbed in. “It tends to do that when the day is over.”

  “Over,” I echoed. “It’s only like one o’cl—”