Runaway Girl Read online

  “It sounds like you’re doing very well.”

  I am. And I shouldn’t like her knowing that so much. “What about you, beauty queen? Have you always been a pageant coach?”

  “No, this is my first time.” She takes her first sip of wine, sighing with pleasure, and I feel that sound right between my legs. “Officially, anyway. I have mentored some friends.”

  “What were you doing before you left Charleston to become a coach?”

  Birdie lets her fork clatter onto her plate. “God, Jason. She’s not a suspected terrorist. Stop with the interrogation.”

  “Just making conversation.”

  My sister makes her disagreement obvious with an eye roll. “We’ll wait here while you get your polygraph machine hooked up.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Naomi breathes, holding up peaceful hands. Looking…alarmed. “It’s fine. It’s totally natural to be curious. Why, I’m practically a stranger.”

  The almost-argument rattled Naomi, that much is obvious. There’s an ever-so-slight tremor in her fingers, and her coloring has gone from cream to pink. She jumped right into playing peacekeeper like an old pro. Needing to put her at ease, I open my mouth intending to drop the subject, but she keeps going before I get the chance.

  “I-I mentioned I needed some time away from Charleston and I meant it. I’m sure it sounds awfully trite, but I’m here to…well, discover what I’m made of, I guess you could say.” She’s talking directly to Birdie now and that’s fine, but I need her attention back soon so I’ll know I didn’t scare her or something. “I’ve never been out on my own and I wanted to try it. To see if I even knew how. Isn’t that something a woman should know about herself?” She waves a hand. “I kept busy while you were in school today, Birdie, walking around St. Augustine and figuring out what to do while I’m in town. Speaking of beer, did you know there’s a brewery in town? They teach a beer making course and I’m taking our little contest tonight as a sign that I should go.” She rearranges herself in her chair with a nod. “I’m sure they make beers that won’t make me want to buy a new mouth.”

  “So, you’re here for, like, an adventure?” Birdie asks slowly.

  “Yes.” Naomi reaches over to squeeze Birdie’s arm. “Coaching you will be part of the adventure.” She winks at my sister, who gives her a genuine but grudging one back. “It’s just exciting to spend my free time how I choose.”

  I’d like to explore that last comment, unfortunately I’m still stuck on the beer-making course. “Where is this brewery? Who’s teaching this class?”

  “I don’t know.” She turns and digs around in the purse she left hanging on the back of the chair. “There’s a group of young men with adorable mustaches on the flyer—”

  A grunt comes straight from my chest. “Let me see it.”

  Her back straightens at my command and I already know what that means. “No.”

  “Heard of Google? It won’t be hard to find out the information.”

  “Then I suggest you Google it, Mr. Bristow,” she fires back, celebrating the final word with a sip of wine. “Let’s talk evening gowns, Birdie…”

  If you’d told me six months ago I’d be sitting at a table listening to women debate the merits of strapless versus halter dresses, I would have called you a liar. But hell if the time doesn’t fly by while I’m watching Naomi grow more and more animated over the top of my beer, her giggle making my kitchen comfortable instead of functional. A place to dwell instead of a place to eat and get the hell out. An hour passes before I know I’ve blinked.

  I worried she’d be a distraction.

  As she deigns to look over at me, though, pursing her beautiful lips to find me studying her probably way too closely, I start to think distraction might have been an understatement.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ColdCaseCrushers.com

  Username: StopJustStop

  Question: Are you all off of your NUT? She’s probably at a friend’s house.

  Or having a nice long think. Try it sometime!!!

  This is how rumors start and trails go cold, people. Diversions provided by nincompoops like you. I’m taking a break. I’ll be offline until further notice. Good. Riddance.

  Naomi

  I tap the quarter against the payphone and play a game with fate. If the coin goes into the slot by itself, I’ll call my mother. If it doesn’t go in, I can wait until tomorrow. Tap, tap, tap.

  When I returned to the motel last night, I used the phone in my room to contact the brewery and sign up for the beer making class. It took me fifteen minutes to walk here from the motel this afternoon, but since I’d allotted a half an hour, now seemed a good a time as any to get this dreaded phone call out of the way. I really don’t want to make it. So much so that I’m hopping around like I need to visit the little girls’ room. Until this moment, it’s been possible to pretend my whole disaster of a wedding day never took place. That it was all a cream-and-navy-colored dream. But it wasn’t. And the fallout is probably pacing by the golden-mouthed, ivory-handled antique phone in our grand salon back in Charleston.

  One might assume I miss the opulence of my parents’ home, but Lord, one couldn’t be further from the truth. I would rather be at my motel in all its lacking charm, questionable décor and disreputable clientele. Because I can wear what I want, leave to get food or go shopping without being questioned endlessly. It symbolizes the freedom I didn’t have before, and I won’t give it up yet. It symbolizes choices.

  Speaking to my mother doesn’t mean I have to go back to South Carolina. But she will use every tactic at her disposal to try and make it happen. Guilt, tears, threats. I know this from experience. Years of arguments at the dinner table between her and my father, just waiting for her to play the trump card. You had an affair. The winner to every argument against my father. Every argument I couldn’t mediate successfully, that is. Lord, the pressure to calm everyone down before we reached that point of no return—the affair—was so intense, I used to sit down with talking points in my head. Subjects with which to divert their attention. Jokes. Gossip. I even went through a card trick phase in my teens.

  Distracted by memories of the past, the coin falls into the slot.

  “Gosh darn it,” I mutter, poking the sticky keys until I dial the full number, listening as it begins to ring. “Here goes nothing.”

  “Clemons residence.”

  “Hello, Martha.” Stunned silence. “Is my mother or father at h—”

  “Naomi Elizabeth Clemons.”

  A chill racks my body, and I step into the sun to combat it. “Hi, Mother.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you have to say? Do you have any idea what the last forty-eight hours have been like? Where are you?”

  “I’m not in Charleston,” I push through stiff lips. “I went south. Kind of like the wedding.”

  Silence. “Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?”

  “No. I’m sorry.” Still cold, I turn my face up to the sky and let the sun beat down on me. It helps, the reminder that I’m here in this time and place. Because I chose to be. “I called to apologize. About everything. You worked almost as hard as the wedding planner—”

  “No, no. No. I worked much harder. I’ve been working on this wedding since you were a child. I did my job. Made an advantageous marriage, secured the right connections—the kind of connections that allow you to marry the next mayor. A war hero. The son of my best friend. How dare you walk away from this and leave me to deal with the damage, Naomi? How dare you?”

  “He doesn’t love me,” I whisper. “Can’t you see that? Can’t everyone?”

  A beat passes. “Do you think your father loves me, Naomi? You well know what he did.” I can hear her struggling to get a good breath. “The child of his former lover—that Potts girl—had the nerve to show up at the wedding. She drove off with your groom. Do you have any idea the kind of humiliation that caused me? Your father’s misdeeds are still fresh in everyone’s minds, and trust me, no one
missed the irony.”

  My eyes open only to be blinded by the son. “Elijah left with Addison Potts?”

  “Don’t you dare say her name to me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I murmur, trying to picture Southern gentleman Elijah with leather-pants-and-smirk-wearing Addison. “Do they…did they know each other before the wedding?”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” huffs my mother. “The tabloids are hard at work trying to find out.”

  I’m so stunned by the unexpected news, I’m not sure how I feel about it. Elijah and Addison. Day and night. An exciting, spontaneous night so different from my sensible nine o’clock bedtime with a cup of chamomile. They would have interesting conversations, I bet. He wouldn’t stare straight through Addison as if she’s invisible. He’d look. She’d probably drop his jaw. Am I jealous? Yes. Of course I am. I want Elijah to look at me like that, don’t I?

  A vision of Jason in his kitchen devouring me with a sweep of hooded eyes catches me off-guard, but I shake it off. What a weird time to think of my employer. I shouldn’t be thinking about him at all when he’s not around. Not even a fleeting brain wave.

  “Maybe they’re together now? Maybe…”

  My mother’s snort punches me in the ear. “Do you hear yourself? If you’ve learned one lesson from my life, Naomi, it’s that we are the wives. Potts girls are nothing more than passing distractions. Eventually men tire of the flash and return to the class. Elijah will be no different.” She stops for a moment. Dramatic emphasis, I’m sure of it. “You better be back here when that happens, Naomi. Do you hear me? You get back to Charleston and salvage this for us.”

  I hang up feeling like I’ve been pulled through a knot hole backwards. My sensible blue sandals gather dust on my way across the brewery parking lot and I almost forgo wiping them off with a moist towelette before entering. There is a crowd of people in the waiting room, some of them toting cameras, their out of state ball caps signaling their tourist status. I’m the only one who’s alone, but right now that’s probably a good thing. After the phone call with my mother, I’m unfit company.

  You get back to Charleston and salvage this for us.

  How long do I have here in St. Augustine before the situation with Elijah becomes…un­salvage­able? Birdie’s pageant isn’t for six weeks. With her inexperience, she’s going to need every single one of those days leading up to the competition. But I’m guessing my mother will begin expecting me much sooner than that. Like tomorrow. That expectation sits on my head like a boulder as two young men with goatees in leather aprons guide the medium-sized group out of the waiting room and into a warehouse filled with seven-foot-tall metal tanks. The large distillery room reminds me of a greenhouse with sloping skylights that take up almost the entire roof. It’s the sunlight, rumble of machinery and low drone of the guide’s speech that calm my fussed phone call nerves.

  I’m here now. I’m nowhere else. I’m here because I want to be.

  I repeat the impromptu mantra until I’m actually able to pay attention to the mishmash of a history lesson and brewing tutorial.

  A third member of the guide crew joins us with a tray of mini-pints, handing them out one by one to the sunburned tourists, including me. I’m meeting Birdie later for a training session, so my plan is to only have a few sips—but I’m pleasantly surprised when the cool liquid kicks up hints of chocolate. Chocolate beer. Who knew such a thing existed? Before I know it, the little glass has vanished and I’m staring down at nothing but droplets.

  Another tray is brought out, and this time, I’m definitely going to pass. Until a woman to my right gives me a light elbow in the ribs. “You have to try this one. It’s infused with wine.”

  “Wine? They saw me coming a mile away,” I murmur, plucking a glass off the tray and giving the guide a disapproving head tilt when he winks at me. “This is definitely my last one, though.”

  It’s not my last one.

  I have two more throughout the tour—one with a black licorice undertone and another, nuttier ale. I can’t help it, though. It’s too heady a temptation to bask in the sunlight with my new friend, an elbow-happy enabler from Tuscaloosa. It’s too easy to let my blood warm, my mind drift further and further from the wreckage I left behind in Charleston. Elijah and Addison. If my mother is right and they hit it off…how do I feel about that?

  I decide to have another beer and really dig deep for an answer.

  The sting of my mother’s phone call eases with every sip of the beverage I always thought I’d hate. What is Jason doing drinking Budweiser when caramel beer exists—

  Oh shoot. I picked up a sixth mini-pint, didn’t I?

  Letting the crisp liquid sit on my tongue as I’ve been instructed, I can no longer keep thoughts of my employer at bay. It riddles me with guilt even letting him creep into my head, but I know it’s only mild curiosity since I’ve never met anyone like him. Men like Jason have only ever existed for me in action movies. I better have a nap and some coffee before my appointment with Birdie later, because he’d take the utmost pleasure in firing me. When the gigantic fellow hired me, he looked like he was spitting nails. No, Jason doesn’t strike me as a forgiving man.

  Not like Elijah.

  As the son of Charleston’s longest sitting mayor, Elijah was occasionally approached in the street by those who opposed his father’s politics. They weren’t always friendly, either. No, they could be downright insulting toward Elijah. But he never lost his temper and always took the time to patiently address their concerns. One such occasion took place while we were on a dinner date. A volunteer at a local community pool had been applying for funding to reopen for several years and continued to be rejected. Meanwhile a new community center was being built in a more affluent neighborhood.

  A month later, I was watching the news and a segment came on, proclaiming the closed community center was once again opening its doors, thanks to intervention from the mayor. Elijah never once took credit, but I knew he’d run interference.

  Most women wouldn’t have a chance in hell of gaining a man’s forgiveness for leaving them at the altar, but my fiancé is…was? A very compassionate person who puts very little stock in public perception.

  My mother is right. It is possible to make what I did right. I’m just not ready yet. I’ve embarked on exactly one expedition of self-discovery and it has only led to me feeling wobbly on my stool. I’m capable of surviving one day on my own. Whoopeedoo.

  “Naomi, isn’t it?” The main tour guide—Keith, I believe—brings my head up, as I’ve been staring into my empty glass once again. “Why don’t you come on up here and stir the barley.”

  “Me?” I clunk down my glass, acutely aware of my tipsy state now that everyone is looking at me. “Why, sure…”

  I walk to the front of the room and hop up onto the crate indicated by Keith. He drops a leather apron over my head and almost knocks me off balance, but I recover, returning a thumbs up from the Elbow Queen of Tuscaloosa. I’m handed a large wooden paddle roughly the same size as an oar and begin stirring the contents of a steel turbine. The clockwise circling of liquid and barley is so hypnotic, I don’t realize right away that Keith has joined me on the crate. A quick glance over my shoulder tells me he’s at the borderline of being too close, but I don’t want to interrupt him while he’s addressing the room, so I keep stirring. When his body heat moves closer, though, I start to weigh the merits of clocking him with the paddle. A thought that makes me giggle.

  Keith’s warm breath tickles my ear. “Care to share the joke—”

  Hands clasp me around the waist and I’m lifted off the crate, my feet dangling in midair until they land on the ground. At first, I think it’s Keith manhandling me, and I freeze in shock, but I twist around to find—Jason?

  “What are you doing here?”

  My question emerges sounding more like What’reyoudoonhere?

  Not that Jason notices. He’s too busy glaring at Keith.

  And now that I’ve been discovered
drunk in the middle of the afternoon on a workday, I’m too busy wondering if my new boss will make a big or small scene while firing me.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  EndoftheInternet.net

  Username: IGotAnswerz9

  Let me be plain. The only one with a motive the kill was the ex-fiancé.

  He’s not even trying to hide his “new” lover. Case closed.

  Jason

  What the hell am I doing here?

  It’s not normal behavior to ignore a startled receptionist and waltz into a tour-in-progress, like the rules don’t apply to me. But to my mind…they don’t. I’ve been back on US soil for six months and still, the world around me doesn’t make sense. Rules seem arbitrary. I don’t want my sister’s pageant coach drinking beer with other men, so here I am to collect her. There. Done. Special Forces has conditioned me to follow gut feelings—red tape be damned. Once you’ve set explosives in the desert or slipped silently into the ocean and swum five miles in the pitch black to do recon, a flimsy gate that says next tour at four o’clock is laughable.

  I don’t have answers to the questions that are sure to follow, though. Naomi is looking up at me with clear confusion. The whole room is staring at me the same way, in fact, and it’s making the back of my neck sweat, little winks of light going off in front of my eyes. How many times have I told myself to stop acting without thinking? Is this how a civilian behaves? Is this behavior out of the ordinary? Those are the questions I’m supposed to ask myself.

  I’m not supposed to cancel a lucrative, corporate personnel dive at the last minute and drive like a bat out of hell across town to put a claim on a woman who hasn’t asked for it. Hell, I don’t want to claim her. Do I? My blood is pumping hot, my pulse shaking like a pissed off rattlesnake from seeing the guide standing too close. I barely know the first thing about Naomi.