He put the glass he’d been polishing this whole time on the counter before her. It didn’t look any cleaner than when he’d started.
He reached into the bar fridge and brought out a bottle of white.
More thumping from behind the bar.
“Pinot grigio, safest bar wine there is. It will usually err on the side of no taste than bad taste.” He poured a tiny amount into the glass, nodded at it, and raised his eyebrows at her.
He wanted her to taste it? What was he going to do, pour it back into the bottle if she didn’t like it? The situation was getting more ridiculous by the minute.
He nodded again, ludicrously attentive.
She took a minuscule sip just to move things along. “It’s good,” she blurted out.
“Told you.” He filled her glass.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“What’s that knocking?” Julie stretched to see behind the bar.
“Huh? Oh, it’s just Dougie. Dougie, go introduce yourself to the lady.”
There was groaning and snuffling and the sound of someone or something getting to his feet.
Julie lifted her own feet off the ground. Dougie could be anything from a barboy to a boa constrictor.
A huge, shaggy head with a lolling tongue and slobber hanging from substantial jaws appeared around the edge of the bar, followed by what must have been a shedding nightmare of fur.
Julie considered climbing onto the bar top.
Dougie lumbered toward her, stopped at the stool, and snuffled her knee, leaving a wet, gooey trail of doggy drool on her thigh.
“You’re not afraid of dogs, are you?” the bartender asked belatedly.
Julie forced a smile. “Not at all. I just—”
Dougie was looking for more interesting places on her person to snuffle; she tried to push him away. He just opened his jaws in a chasmic yawn and put his head in her lap, pinning her to the barstool.
“He likes you.”
“Great,” Julie said, trying not to move. “While we’re doing introductions, what’s your name?”
One eyebrow dipped. “Scatter,” he said.
“What?” Her head automatically snapped toward the door in a primitive reflex of fight or flight—or one too many attack drills at school.
She laughed, dispelling that momentary reaction, only to have it followed by a flash of recognition. But it was probably a surfer handle like Hanger, Slick, Ace, or Moondoggie.
“What’s on your driver’s license?”
“Alex.”
“Ah.” She absently took a sip of her wine. It was certainly more sophisticated than its surroundings. “I guess Dougie is one of my uncle’s strays?”
Dougie commented with a sound that would have been a bark if he could have worked up the energy to lift his head off her lap.
The bartender had taken out another glass, which he was giving desultory swipes with the bar cloth. But it stopped suddenly. His frown was fast, angry, and unexpected. “What do you mean by that?”
Had she just struck a nerve? “It’s what my mother always said. Tony used to live with us and he was always bringing home stray animals, down-and-out surfer buddies, scruffy runaways . . . all sorts of unsavory characters.”
She’d definitely struck a nerve. Maybe Alex/Scatter was one of them.
“You’re not drinking your wine.”
“I didn’t actually order it.”
He picked it up, took a sip. Looked at it. “Not too bad. Light, dry, but with surprising body. Crisp with a hint of pear.”
Julie rolled her eyes.
He finished it off and put the empty glass on the bar.
“Glad you enjoyed it,” she said.
“I did. And I’m glad you didn’t ask for white zin. I order the reds and whites, but I let the distributor decide on the pinks. If you ask me, pink drinkers don’t know the difference.”
He was definitely trying to piss her off, but he didn’t know the resilience of a fourth-grade teacher. His attitude paled in comparison to eight hours of booger and butt jokes.
“Do you have an opinion on everything and everybody?”
“Pretty much. But I try not to show it.”
“Ever consider trying harder?” She wouldn’t learn anything from this guy, and she had begun to think he was purposely keeping her from her uncle.
Julie pushed the empty glass toward him. “Put it on my tab.”
She eased Dougie’s head away and slid off the stool. Then she extricated her purse from beneath Dougie’s massive paws, trying to ignore the dirty prints marring its brand-new surface and making a note to self never to leave her purse on the floor while she was in town.
The bartender stopped, stared at her. “A tab?”
“Yeah, I’ll settle up when I leave—after Tony returns and we’ve had a chance to visit.”
She grinned at him. That should give him a few seconds of WTF.
“See ya.” And willing herself not to brush at the slobber drying on her legs, she sashayed out of the bar.
“FYI,” he called after her. “Around here, he’s called Lucky.”
Alex watched Julie Barlow walk across the floor and out the screen door. Dougie padded after her but stopped as the door slammed in his path. He lolled his head back toward Alex.
Alex gave him a quick nod, and Dougie nosed the door open and padded outside.
Then Alex reached beneath the bar for his cell. Pressed speed dial. Walked to the door while he waited for an answer. Lucky’s niece was standing in the parking lot, talking to her two friends.
“Get in the car,” he urged under his breath. “Just take your friends and get out of here.”
Dougie slowly snuffled his way down the steps and toward the three women.
Someone answered on the other end of the line.
“It’s Scatter. We may have a problem.”
Chapter 3
Marie Simmons ended the call and sat down at her kitchen table trying to assimilate this new information into her already overloaded mind. Julie Barlow had come to visit her uncle, which would be wonderful if it wasn’t the worst possible time for her to finally show up.
Lucky had hoped for a reconciliation for years, though he would never say so. He was hurt, Marie could tell, though he never mentioned it and she would never ask. He’d just give her some brush-off, like “Julie will figure it out.” Sure, Marie thought. Someday . . . maybe, when it was too late to matter. He might never know why she’d stopped confiding in him or communicating with him at all.
Marie thought she knew. She even sympathized. Lucky had always been a free spirit, even as a child. A citizen of the world, not someone you could pin down and own. Marie had learned that early on, but Louise never had, and evidently neither had her daughter.
Lucky was who he was and would be until the day he died.
Marie quickly crossed herself. She was no longer a practicing Catholic, but she was still superstitious. She’d honed that superstition at the feet of her mother and grandmother on the boardwalk at Asbury Park.
And Marie had a bad feeling. Her nerves were raw.
Not good, she reminded herself. Nerves were the first things to betray you. She took a deep breath, held it, let it out.
Lucky had been gone for four days. No communications, as they’d agreed, but she could sense that something had gone wrong. How wrong, she couldn’t tell.