Gus watched the tall, dark-haired man bolt out of the tavern. She didn’t know who he was, but she knew what had happened to him. Not in the particulars, but she was well aware of the peculiar power of the jukebox over some people.
He’d been nailed by it. He and Monica’s red-haired friend.
Gus didn’t know the redhead. She was a newcomer to Brogan’s Point, and she rarely came into the tavern. But Gus knew Monica Reinhart. Hell, she’d known Monica when the kid was just a bump in her mother’s abdomen. Like Gus, the Reinharts were in the hospitality business. The Reinharts’ brand of hospitality was a bit more upscale than hers, but their inn and her bar were both landmarks in town. Gus knew that the Reinharts often recommended the Faulk Street Tavern to the Ocean Bluff Inn’s guests, even though they had a cocktail lounge at the inn. And Gus was always happy to send travelers up the road to the inn if they needed a place to stay.
She’d watched Monica grow from a scrappy kid into a hard-working teenager, into an even harder-working adult. She’d sometimes found herself wishing Monica had been just a couple of years older, or her own sons a couple of years younger. Gus’s younger son and Monica would have made a great pair. Now that they were all old enough that the age difference didn’t matter, her boys no longer lived in town. And Monica was still dating Jimmy Creighton, who’d been a good-looking twit as a teenager and hadn’t evolved much since then.
Sometimes Gus wished a tune from the jukebox would seize Monica and spin her around, give her a different perspective on life and love. But this evening, it seemed as if Monica’s friend had been the one spun around.
Monica’s friend and that lanky stranger. Just recalling how quickly he’d fled from the bar caused Gus to smile.
Manny Lopez, Gus’s assistant, lumbered the length of the bar, hauling a case of vodka from the storeroom downstairs. Gus was strong, but Manny had been a linebacker in high school, and he was still built like one, big and solid, with muscles as tough as the rubber in the radial tires on Gus’s four-by-four. He carried the case of liquor as if it were no heavier than a box of tissues. “Gonna be light tonight,” he said, commenting on the sparse crowd.
“It’s early yet,” she assured him as he set the carton down and began unloading the bottles. “Jimmy Creighton and his friends’ll drink enough to keep us in the black.”
Manny laughed. Gus smiled, but she wasn’t actually joking. Monica could do so much better. All she needed was a little nudge. Or maybe for Will to swing back into town and decide he liked Brogan’s Point, after all. Gus’s older son had a wife, a baby and a mortgage down in Quincy. He wasn’t going anywhere. But Will still rented, and that Boston rent he was paying devoured a huge portion of his paycheck. He could come back to Brogan’s Point, find work here, settle down, notice that Monica had blossomed into a lovely lady.
Gus’s smile widened. Her sons were every bit as stubborn and headstrong as she was. She’d never fulfilled her mother’s dreams, choosing basketball over ballet, marrying a bar owner and joining him in the business, taking it over after cancer had claimed him, and currently enjoying a nice, comfortable, out-of-wedlock affair with Ed Nolan, one of Brogan’s Point’s finest. Gus’s mother frequently made comments about Ed’s not buying the cow when he could get the milk for free. Gus ignored her.
She glanced over at the booth where Monica and her friend were seated. With the man gone, Monica had switched benches so she faced Emma. They bowed their heads together over the table, conferring intensely. Gus couldn’t see Monica’s face, but she could see the redhead’s.