Bluewater Blues Read online

  Riptide Publishing

  PO Box 1537

  Burnsville, NC 28714

  www.riptidepublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All person(s) depicted on the cover are model(s) used for illustrative purposes only.

  Bluewater Blues

  Copyright © 2016 by G.B. Gordon

  Cover art: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

  Editor: Carole-ann Galloway

  Layout: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at [email protected].

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-457-2

  First edition

  October, 2016

  Also available in paperback:

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-458-9

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  Jack Daley left his music career behind—along with his domineering father—and is struggling to make a new life for himself and his autistic sister in Bluewater Bay. When a summer storm sweeps a handsome stranger into his general store, Jack is more than ready for a fling. No strings attached, because Jack can’t share the secrets he and his sister are hiding from. Unfortunately, his feelings refuse to stay casual.

  Mark Keao is married to his job as a costume designer on Wolf’s Landing. He’s autistic, so he’s used to people not knowing how to interact with him, but that doesn’t mean he wants to be a hermit. Especially when he meets Jack Daley, who dances with brooms, shares his love of the blues, and gets him like no one else. But relationships have proven complicated in the past.

  Just when Mark is ready to try anyway, Jack pulls back. But Mark isn’t giving up, and neither is Jack’s sister. And then there’s the music both men love, bringing them together time and again. It will take trust, though, to bring them together for good.

  TAL9000, yes, I really want to blow you away.

  About Bluewater Blues

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Dear Reader

  Acknowledgments

  Also by G.B. Gordon

  About the Author

  More like this

  The water ran in sheets down the big shop window, blurring the street beyond. Not that there was anything to see. The rain seemed to have swept every living soul in Bluewater Bay, tourists and movie people included, into the sea. “We might as well lock up,” Jack said, half to himself.

  His sister’s reply came instantly. “No.”

  He wasn’t surprised. They still had thirty minutes to go until six, and Margaret didn’t do spontaneous early closings.

  It had been piddling on and off all day, promising relief from the unusual August heat, and now it was just plain pouring. “Not a soul’s going to be out in this.”

  “No,” her voice came again from the back office. He couldn’t see her through the doorway behind the counter, but she’d been curled up in the armchair with her e-reader last time he’d checked.

  He shrugged and resigned himself to half an hour of boredom. The specialty mustard jars on the shelf by the door didn’t really need straightening, but it passed the time. He didn’t have to count the cash to know that it had been a lousy day for Your Daley Bread sales-wise. Besides, counting the cash was Margaret’s thing; no need to butt in and upset her.

  When the bell above the door chimed, he turned with relief, only to feel his smile freeze in place when he recognized the rounded shoulders under the ivory lace blouse. “Good evening, Mrs. Grissom. What can I get for you?”

  She held up a gnarled finger, shook out her umbrella on the tiles, shoved it in the stand by the door, then started digging in her purse. “Just a minute. I wrote a list. I have it here somewhere. I did put it in here, I remember.” Calcified was the word that jumped into his mind as he was watching her. And not only because of her ancient physique.

  He waited until she’d found her list in the pocket of her vest and handed it to him, then he read it out loud to double-check it was the right one.

  At detergent, Margaret called out, “No laundry.”

  The laundry detergent was one of the items still shrink-wrapped on the delivery pallet in the backyard because he hadn’t had his knife when the truck came, and then had forgotten about it.

  “It’s dish detergent,” Mrs. Grissom said, pointing to her list as if it were written there.

  “Coming up directly.” There was a brief silence as Jack collected all her items on the counter, mentally bracing himself for her next words. She never failed to comment on Margaret. And now Margaret had actually dared to say something in her presence.

  And sure enough, as he rang up her groceries she said, “Don’t you think she’d be happier in a home?”

  So very hard to keep his voice neutral. “She is home.”

  Mrs. Grissom tittered. Most annoying sound in the universe. “Oh, yes, no, I mean one of those places where people like her can be properly taken care of. Maybe even have a job of sorts.”

  Jack gritted his teeth. “She has a job. She’s the accountant for this business and a much better bookkeeper than I am.”

  Another titter. “Oh, you’re too good. I was just trying to help.”

  “I’m sure you were, Mrs. Grissom, bless your heart.”

  She looked undecided for a moment. His voice giving him away, maybe? But, patently unfamiliar with that Southern slight, she eventually took the smile that was threatening to break his jaw at face value and patted his hand.

  After she’d left, Jack stood braced against the counter for several long minutes, blindly staring at the rain-sheeted door, trying to unclench his jaw, trying to block the memories that defending Margaret always kicked loose.

  The scent of the Magnolia dinosaur on the front lawn and red clay baking in the sun; the cricket-like trill of the sparrows, and splashing, and Margaret’s screams.

  He shook his head to clear it.

  People like Mrs. Grissom were the reason he’d taken Margaret away from Savannah, for her sake, and his. But they hadn’t been strangers or customers. They’d been family. Old blood and old money, so threatened by Jack’s
and Margaret’s otherness that it had driven him and his sister clean across the country under a name not their own.

  He should get back to work. Staying busy helped him keep the ghosts under control. The few customers they’d had that day had left muddy tracks on the black and white tiles that screamed for a cleanup. He got to work on the floor, and amused himself by humming a few notes of “Summertime Blues” into the mop’s invisible mouthpiece. Pretending it was his lost sax cut a little too deep, though, so he switched tunes, and pretended instead that it was a lamppost around which he then danced, belting out “Singing in the Rain” at the top of his lungs, when the door opened with the chime of the bell at the top, and the rain swept tall, dark, and handsome into the store.

  The man was soaked from black hair to black trekking sandals. Charcoal three-quarter cargo pants clung to a fine ass, and the black T-shirt was plastered to his torso in a way that was hard not to stare at. He looked so quintessentially Washington that Jack had to smile. Also unbelievably hot. Too bad that sinking to your knees in front of your customers and begging them for permission to lick the rainwater out of their navels was generally frowned upon. “‘Sweet summer rain . . .’” he murmured before he could stop himself.

  “Um,” the stranger said.

  “Sorry.” Jack tried a smile and to quit staring. “I’m Jack Daley. Anything I can help you with?”

  “Mark Keao. I was wondering . . .” He held up a ziplock bag filled with letter-sized posters. “There’s going to be a choir concert at St. Anthony’s on Saturday. Would you consider hanging one of these in your window?” The slow, rich baritone chased goose bumps up Jack’s arms and down to his toes.

  The guy was nearly a head taller than Jack—story of his life. Not striking, as in turn to look and wolf whistle down the street, but nevertheless Jack’s gaze was drawn to the different angles of the man. Dark eyes, a slight crease giving thick, black brows the air of a perpetual scowl. A mass of leather and friendship bracelets around one bony wrist; long, slender fingers Jack could feel ghosting up skin way too starved for touch, leaving goose bumps in their wake. Raindrops ran down strong cheekbones, while the stranger simply stood there, apparently impervious to the discomfort of being quite that wet. Full lips, collarbones visible against the soaked shirt . . . damn. He reminded Jack of things he couldn’t have and normally managed not to think about. His life was too complicated, too much of a mess to share with anyone.

  “Sure,” he found himself saying. What was the question?

  “No,” Margaret said at the same time from the back.

  Jack caught himself and shrugged a what-can-you-do apology. “That is, we have a corkboard for customers’ messages.” He pointed at the wall on the right, where sheets with rip-off phone numbers vied with other small notes for attention. “I’ll be happy to pin yours up there.”

  “I’d appreciate that.” The guy, Mark, wiped his hand on his pants and fished one of the posters out of the plastic bag.

  “You look like you could use a towel.”

  Surprise flickered across Mark’s face, as if he hadn’t noticed that he was wet. “I don’t mind.”

  “You’re soaked, man.”

  “It’s not cold.”

  Which was true. The clouds had cut the full force of the heat for now, but it was still quite steamy.

  “At least wait out the worst of it in here,” Jack tried one last time. For some reason he didn’t want the stranger to leave.

  “No,” quoth the raven in the back.

  Jack half turned to the open door behind the counter. “C’mon, Margaret. It’s pouring out there.”

  Her voice dropped low, though she didn’t have the range to match Mark’s baritone as she quoted him. “‘I don’t mind.’”

  “He was being polite.”

  “No, I really don’t mind,” Mark said. “The rain doesn’t bother me.”

  Jack faced him and took the poster. “Do you sing in the choir, then?” That baritone would be perfect for singing, wouldn’t it?

  “Yes.” Matter-of-fact, no embellishments.

  He shouldn’t keep the guy. Margaret was waiting for him to lock up so she could get the cashbox from the register and do her tally. The knowledge that she would be fidgeting behind him was like an itch across his shoulders.

  “What will you be singing?” Knock it off, Jack, you’re starting to sound desperate.

  “Haydn’s ‘Missa in tempore belli.’” Mark pointed to a line below Jack’s thumb. “It’s on the poster.”

  “Right.” Say good-bye, Jack.

  “At the third stroke it is five past six,” Margaret said in her best Speaking Clock voice.

  Jack nodded at the corkboard. “Well, I’ll hang that up for you, then. I hope you don’t have far to walk to your car.”

  “I’m not driving.” The way he said it, it was a fact given, an assumption corrected, not a request for a ride. But it made Jack turn back.

  “Oh, well, can I give you a lift anywhere?” As soon as he said it, he realized there was no way he could leave.

  “No. I like walking.” And then, like an afterthought, “Thank you.”

  Jack was too used to Margaret’s matter-of-fact delivery to be bothered by missing thank-yous. But tacked-on like that, like something remembered at the last moment, or learned by heart, struck a chord. He studied the man’s face more closely.

  Mark held his gaze for a heartbeat, then looked at the corkboard. “I appreciate the offer,” he said, nodding once into empty space. Then he left and disappeared into the rain as suddenly as he’d shown up.

  Behind him, Jack heard Margaret come in and open the old-fashioned cash register.

  He locked the door and flipped the sign to the Sorry, we’re closed side. Then he stood and stared at the water sheeting down the glass. Tall, dark, handsome, and mysterious. There was something about Mark that had felt familiar, though, as if he should know the man he’d only just met. He watched Margaret count the money and enter sums into her hand-drawn table with a frown of concentration. Her seriousness plus the fact that the stranger hadn’t cracked a smile once the whole time they’d been talking kicked things around in his mind. Was Mark somewhere on the spectrum as well? Or was Jack starting to make up stories about strangers in his head because he didn’t want the encounter to be over?

  If Margaret had had professional help growing up, could she have been more independent today? If he’d found a different solution than dragging her from motel to motel? He wished, not for the first time, that he could offer her better than stopgap help. They’d done their best, him and Mawmaw before him. It hadn’t been enough for his mother. He could only hope that it was enough for his sister.

  She was certainly a lot calmer and seemed happier now that they’d settled down. The years on the road had been hell for both of them, but he’d always known that they’d been worse for Margaret, who depended on routines and quiet, safe havens so much more than he did.

  He dreamed sometimes that he was a child again, and that Mawmaw was still alive. She’d occasionally sat on the floor behind him when he was small, before Margaret was born, listening to him stumble through the sentences of a book with his finger on the line. He’d be swaddled in her limbs, her chin gently resting on his head—best place in the world.

  “You and me, Jack,” she’d say. “We have to be each other’s humanity.”

  “What’s humanty?”

  “Humanity. Beauty of the soul, my sweet. Beauty of the soul.”

  He hadn’t understood it then. How lonely she’d been in the middle of that family. He’d learned as he grew up. He understood now.

  When he opened the store on Thursday morning, the rain had stopped, and the sun was breaking through the clouds here and there. Steam rose from the asphalt like the setting of an apocalyptic movie. He glanced at the corkboard, then went and picked the poster off it. Classical choral music wasn’t his thing, but Margaret loved it. Which was reason enough to go. If she felt like it, that was.
r />   He stepped behind the counter and leaned against the doorway to the office, flyer in hand. Margaret sat in her chair, skirt moving in the breeze from the fan she insisted on when it was hot. She hated sweating. Jack didn’t mind it. The steamy heat reminded him of home.

  “Someone’s birthday is coming up.” He watched her closely for any response.

  “Margaret’s,” Margaret said immediately. “On August seventh Margaret will be twenty-six years old.”

  “Very true.”

  “Birthdays are for presents,” she said in a voice so like Mawmaw’s that he was momentarily breathless, as if he’d been punched in the gut.

  Margaret tilted her head and sat with her shoulders straight as she looked around the room and then, for a fraction of a second, straight at him. She was clearly excited about it.

  “Want to go listen to a classical choir concert, love?”

  She folded and unfolded her hands in her lap. Yup, definitely excited now.

  “Love,” she said, and the word spread in Jack’s chest as luscious and soothing as sweet tea on a hot summer day.

  She didn’t always let him call her love. When she was stressed or afraid, she’d insist her name was Margaret. When she felt all right, she let it go. And then there were those rare occasions when she’d repeat the endearment with an expression as if she were listening to the music of the word, and to Jack it always sounded like she was saying it back to him. Her way of telling him she loved him.

  “Make no other plans for Saturday, then. I’m taking you out,” he joked, trying to keep his own excitement in check. Anything could happen between now and the weekend. If Margaret had a good day on Saturday, they would go. If not, well there was always their favorite spot by the river or, if things were really bad, a book or a DVD while Margaret spent the day in her fort.

  Back in Chatham County they’d said she was touched, just like her mother. And when she sat like this, hands in her lap, watching a spark from her prisms dance across the wall, her head cocked as if it made a sound only she could hear, she looked like her too.

  Not that he remembered much of their mother. When he was small she had still come down to dinner sometimes, though she’d already been quite shut-off and living in her own head back then. She’d increasingly shied away from people until, by the time she was heavily pregnant with Margaret, anyone entering the same room, especially Charles, would throw her into a screaming panic. Charles’d taken to having her dinner sent up to her room, and after that Jack had found her door locked. From which side, he didn’t know.