Wallflowers: One Heart Remains Read online

  “Sienna just called me to say they won’t be back until Sunday.” His eyes darted across the bar then back at Devin, and his jaw tensed. “She also asked me to look into Poppy’s aunt while they were gone.”

  When he’d been a kid and his father had lost control, there’d been a forewarning, a thickness to the air that soured his stomach before his old man’s fists began to fly. The same feeling began to curl around his gut. “What?” Nate ground out, fisting his hands, yet again, to brace for more bad news. The whole day had been one long clusterfuck.

  Strawn glanced at Devin then back at Nate. “Sienna thinks Poppy may have fended off men who were visitin’ her aunt growin’ up.”

  A beer bottle exploded on the brick wall before Nate could stop himself. Half the bar paused at the commotion, waiting to see what happened next. With a swipe of his arm, Nate warded off a busboy who’d tried to approach. Drawing air into his lungs twice before he was able to speak, Nate gritted out, “Point me in a fuckin’ direction before I do somethin’ Strawn has to arrest me for.”

  Devin held his eyes, gauging Nate’s anger, then looked down at his phone. “GPS tracker says they’re headin’ toward Hilton Head.” With that, Nate pulled out the key to his Harley and headed for the back door, averting his eyes from Knox. The darkness that had settled on his soul when he was sixteen begged to come out, and he knew if he looked at the man, he’d land in jail.

  Three

  DO YOU KNOW ME AT ALL?

  TYBEE ISLAND, A LITTLE OVER THREE-SQUARE miles of South Georgia heaven, was thankfully only eighteen miles from Savannah. A twenty-minute drive most days, if traffic is light. But not today. We should have looked at the calendar to make sure the Island wasn’t overrun with tourists, which happened daily of course, but it was worse when there was something to celebrate. And there was always something to celebrate. Like Starbucks bringing back their chocolate mint flavor in the winter. Today was the Beach Bum Parade. Where Highway 80 turned into Butler Street, the main drag on Tybee Island, floats of all shapes and sizes armed themselves with water guns, also in all shapes and sizes, blasting parade goers with water. Of course, the parade goers were armed with water guns as well, making it a wet evening for everyone. And a traffic nightmare on the island. Because of this, we were stuck in traffic a mile from Bernice and Eunice’s cottage.

  “I haven’t been to the parade in a few years,” Sienna said, looking out the passenger side window like a kid. Minus the sticky fingers, of course.

  Up ahead, a float was getting ready to join the line. It was a boat which had been decorated with the words ‘Bees Gone Wild’ painted brightly across the side and the insignia of SCAD, short for Savannah College of Art and Design. It was the college I’d attended on a full-ride scholarship. Seeing the bee insignia brought back simpler times. A time when I was surrounded by like-minded individuals who just wanted to work in a creative field for the rest of their lives. And play Xbox Live on their off-hours.

  I’d majored in graphic design while at SCAD and put my diploma to use creating book covers. It was a natural progression to go from book nerd to creating book covers, I figured, and I’d loved it. Like Cali, I got to mold the perception of a book through my designs, sometimes even my artwork.

  Watching the SCAD students, as they filled their water guns in preparation for the parade, made me melancholy for my years at SCAD when my only worries were making an A. One where fathers were still ghosts in the shadows, and men like Nate didn’t factor into my life. I wanted to be that young girl again with stars in her eyes, drool on her face from falling asleep with a book plastered to her face, (wait, that still happened) and the world at her feet.

  “Park,” I cried out suddenly. “I want to join the parade.”

  Cali startled then pulled onto a side street. It took a few minutes to find a parking spot, then all three of us were out of the car. I didn’t wait to see if they would follow. Instead, I ran until I had the SCAD float in my sights and called out, “Bees!” A kid around the age of nineteen turned his head and grinned. Even though SCAD was an arts college, we still had a mascot. The bumble bee. He was big. He was bold. His stinger looked like a large male appendage coming out of his hind end. He. Was. Awesome!

  “Sleep comes after death!” I hollered, repeating the motto of SCAD students everywhere, so he’d know I was one of them. Cali and Sienna were standing next to me by then, and the kid, being male and all, scanned the three of us as his grin grew wider. When he put out his hand for us to climb aboard, I didn’t hesitate. One by one the girls and I ran to the float. We were pulled onto the slow-moving boat, then handed a water gun. Large metal barrels sat inside, full of water, ready for reloading once a water gun had run out. I dunked my gun into the barrel and began filling it.

  “I’m Jake,” the kid said then pointed behind him at the rest of the students. “That’s Kirstyn, Dani, Chris, and Doug,” Jake finished. The girls and I waved to the SCAD students then took up position. It was time to kick some pedestrian behinds.

  I was nailed in the eye by a five-year-old within seconds. Clearing my eyes so I could see, I stared back at the little monster. “Bring it, little goblin,” I mouthed, then took aim. He nailed me again in the eye, and I ducked down. “The kid’s got great aim,” I laughed.

  Cali and Sienna covered me while I dried my eyes and then it was on. By the time I’d finished with the kid, he was happy and drenched.

  An hour later, I was at the front of the boat, hanging over the side, trying to protect the flank coming up behind me. The girls and I were becoming legendary gun masters in the wake of the fight. No Beach Bum Parade had ever seen the likes of us.

  We were that good.

  Once we’d reached the end of the parade route, all three of us were on the hull. We were planting the SCAD flag like the soldiers of Iwo Jima, raising our guns like warriors for a camera crew who was filming the parade.

  Best parade EVER!

  Hoorah, baby!

  I looked back at our new friends and took in their waterlogged clothes. They’d been great combatants and needed to fill their stomachs with a brewski or two. “Drinks on me if you’re old enough.” They flashed me huge smiles, then promptly pulled out fake IDs no conman could reproduce. Never give highly creative teenagers unlimited access to technology and a laminator!

  God, it was good to be a Bee!

  _______________

  With an impatience born from being his own man, Nate gritted his teeth while he watched Devin scan the parking lot of a Holiday Inn. Halfway between Savannah and Charleston, his patience had worn thin an hour ago, and Strawn and Devin were right along with him.

  Nate had only made it ten feet out the back door of Jacobs’ Ladder before both men had followed him outside, determined to aid him in his search for their wayward women. He wasn’t the only one who wanted to find his Wallflower and chain her to a bed. Possibly gag her, as well. He had no doubt Poppy would spew some bullshit about not being his woman, and he was in no mood for her games. She could run for now, but he would find her if it took all night. He couldn’t piece back together what her father had broken if he didn’t have her in his sights.

  Both he and Strawn sat forward when Devin knelt beside a Harley and reached under the fender, pulling out a GPS tracker.

  “Son of a bitch,” Strawn muttered under his breath.

  “Seems they’re on to Devin,” Nate sighed, frustration mounting by the second. “Tell me again what Sienna said.”

  “Been over it three times already.”

  Nate turned his head slowly and leveled Strawn with an icy stare. “Go over it a fourth time.”

  Strawn rubbed his face with both hands, his jaw a straight line of steel. “She said they were takin’ a few days alone to process everything. Said Poppy needed time to come to terms with her father and her aunt. Said she’d lost control and flipped out; ranted about everything from her dead mother to freakin’ out about you. That she let slip somethin’ about fendin’ off creepy guys growin’
up, and would I run her aunt through our system and see what I could find out.”

  Nate’s chest tightened. Fending off men was no doubt the dragons that scared her in the dark. His hand curled into a fist at the thought, and he ground his teeth for control.

  “She didn’t give you any clue where they were headed?”

  Strawn pressed his lips together and glared back at Nate. “She hung up on me before I could ask.”

  Yep. Strawn was ready to cuff Sienna to his bed.

  Devin ripped open the door of Strawn’s F-150 Super Crew and climbed in back. His disposition was restrained violence, his eyes wild. He swiped his phone ON and called Calla’s cell again. “I need you to call me right fuckin’ now.”

  “You trace her phone?” Nate asked, knowing better than to ask.

  Devin shot him a look that could melt ice.

  “What about Poppy or Sienna?”

  “All three phones are off the grid. They must have turned them off.”

  “So what you’re sayin’ is they could be anywhere in the state, or they could be hidin’ right under our noses at Bernice and Eunice’s,” Nate stated.

  “I called Bernice and asked her to call if they showed up,” Strawn threw out.

  Nate shot Devin a questioning look, and he shook his head. “Bernice loves bustin’ balls. If Calla asked her to hide them, she’d do it and not feel an ounce of guilt.”

  Strawn glanced at his watch. “It’s pushin’ ten. We can be back in an hour. That’s early enough for a raid unless you think we should wait ’til the mornin’.”

  “Those three together are an accident waitin’ to happen,” Devin growled. “Are you willin’ to risk they’ll stay put at Bernice’s?”

  “Nope,” Nate said, agreeing with Devin. He still hadn’t recovered from the last Calamity Janes adventure.

  Strawn thought about it, shook his head, then started his truck, pulling out of the parking lot, heading south toward Savannah. “Remind me again why they’re worth the headache?”

  Devin’s lips twitched.

  Nate grunted and looked out the window.

  And Strawn muttered, “Fuck,” then punched his accelerator.

  _______________

  I waved at another group of drunken parade goers as they passed by on the beach. The moon’s light fractured across the ocean, its beams fluid as they rose and fell with the waves. Its surface, the imperfections caused by meteors, was cast in shadow and light. She hung low in the sky like a sentry, comforting in the darkness like an old friend.

  Relaxing on the porch of Bernice and Eunice’s cottage, I’d come to several conclusions while watching the waves rolling in and out with the tide. One, nobody could make me feel insignificant unless I let them, so my father could kiss my rounded behind. Two, where had green magic fairy potion been all my life, because it was the bomb.

  Raising a glass of the green liquid to my lips, I sighed as it spread through my limbs and gave me the clarity to take on the world. That’s when I realized I was awesome. My father had totally missed out not seeing me grow up, not the other way around. In fact, if he couldn’t see what a freaking treasure I was, it was his loss, not mine.

  I took another drink of the elixir of the gods and smiled wider as the burn took me under further. “I’m so awesome it’s like a Shakespearean tragedy or somethin’ that Knoxy missed out on changin’ my diapers, don’t you think?”

  Two other sets of feet were propped on the railing next to mine. The girls and I were watching as families and couples trudged around the beach, enjoying the coastal breeze while we sipped, in my case gulped, the answer to humankind’s problems.

  “You are pretty awesome,” Cali agreed, nursing her drink. For some reason, she felt it prudent to stay sober. Her loss and my gain. More green magic for me.

  Heck.

  Yes!

  I flashed her my best smile.

  “That moon is so full I could almost believe in shifters and vampires,” Sienna mumbled, more like slurred, holding up her glass so she could look at the moon through it.

  I held mine up too and closed one eye, studying the beauty of the lady on the moon. Anything that spectacular had to be a woman, not an old man. Men weren’t spectacular, they were butt-heads.

  Feeling smaller at that moment, surrounded by all the brilliant, silvery light, I quoted a wise Internet poet who seemed to have the answer to everything. “She always loved the things the rest of the world forgot. The snails and slugs and broken flowers. I think that’s why she loved me. I was just another broken thing that the world left behind.”

  Sienna and Cali turned their heads and looked at me blankly. “Who wrote that?” Cali asked, her eyes softening gradually, a tiny bit sad.

  “Atticus,” I explained.

  “The Greek senator?”

  I snorted. “No, the Instagram poet. He’s as awesome as me!”

  “Are you broken, Poppy?” Sienna questioned, placing her hand on my arm.

  I flashed her my best smile as well.

  “Pfft. No. I’m super-duper awesome, weren’t you payin’ attention?”

  Sienna rolled her bottom lip between her teeth, her own eyes gentling. Staring at her, I was once again reminded that she was my sister. Clearly, I was suffering from ADD, because for some reason I couldn’t hold that thought in my mind.

  Watching her watch me, and being awesome and all, a super-duper idea suddenly came to me. “Sienna, I think instead of callin’ each other by our names, we should call each other Sister just like Bernice and Eunice do,” I burst out with excitement.

  Sienna flashed me her own brilliant smile, reminding me of our father. I vowed right then not to point out that particular flaw in her appearance. She couldn’t help she looked like that douche canoe. “Are we goin’ to forgo men and buy a vintage clothin’ store?”

  I considered that. She’d already tied herself to Bo Strawn, just like Eunice had with Odis Lee, so I guess that made me Bernice. Which wasn’t a hardship since Bernice was hot for a middle-aged woman.

  “You can keep Bo, Sister,” I allowed. “I’ll just live my life vicariously through you and your children and have sugar daddies on the side who buy me lots of books. It’ll be great. I can teach your daughters about boys and take them to their first bar.”

  “What about Nate?” Cali questioned.

  Dang. I’d forgotten about him, too. Yep, time to see the doctor and get medication for my attention disorder.

  “I’m not sure he’d like bein’ called sister,” I answered, holding my glass up again to look at the moon. “He seems kind of a stick in the mud.”

  “Poppy.”

  “Sister,” I reminded Sienna.

  “Sister . . . you can’t avoid him forever.”

  “Sure, I can. Or at least I can until he figures out he was just reactin’ to what happened today. He doesn’t really want me, he’s just overprotective of his friends. I’m like a kitten to him. The lost kind that needs a home. But I already have a home. With a scratch pad and everything.” I curled my hand into a claw and swiped at her hair for effect.

  “Oh, he wants you,” Cali muttered, ignoring me.

  I tried to ignore her right back, but the skipping of my heart told the tale. I wanted him to want me. But I needed him to forget. It was for the best. “Well, if that’s true, I’ll have to help him see the error of his ways.”

  “How are you gonna do that?” Sienna questioned.

  I turned to her surprised. “How am I gonna do that? Do you even know me at all?”

  Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Lordy, you’re gonna act a fool, aren’t you?”

  I grinned knowingly. She’d watched in the past when a guy tried to step across a line I wasn’t ready for.

  “How’s she gonna act a fool?” I looked at Cali and giggled. She had no clue who she’d hooked herself to when she created the Wallflowers.

  “She has a way of chasin’ men away,” Sienna muttered, nibbling at her bottom lip.

  “Such
as?”

  Sienna leaned across me like a beached whale and answered. “When men have shown too much interest, she turns stalker. Leaves them notes on their cars spoutin’ about love at first sight and her dream of havin’ ten children. Then she accuses any woman who looks at them of cheatin’ with her man, until the guy runs in the opposite direction as fast as he can.”

  Both women gaped at me, taking in the mad genius that I was. I had so much to teach them. Maybe I needed to write an instruction manual?

  Even though I’d softened over the past couple of weeks, deluding myself into thinking I could have something special with someone like Nate, I knew the truth now. I was too screwed up. Had too much baggage for a normal guy. Too much baggage for an abby-normal guy.

  I snorted at my own joke. Abby-normal? Where do I come up with these great lines?

  Reaching down, I grabbed the bottle of Absinthe, better known as green magic fairy potion, and poured myself a smidge more while they continued to stare. Their understanding of how scarily brilliant I was, finally sinking in.

  “We should have Midnight Mojitos like Bernice and Eunice do on the covered patio we’re gonna have. Only we can call it Midnight Magic or Midnight Potion or,” I grew louder with each ingenious idea, “Midnight with the Gods.”

  Midnight with the Gods was my personal favorite, so I held my breath to see if Sienna agreed.

  “You’re not gonna drink green magic except on the night we have Midnight with the Gods?”

  She went for it!

  Yes!

  I scowled at her and tucked the bottle in my lap where she couldn’t steal it from me. “I swear, Sister, it’s like you don’t know me at all.”

  She tried to snatch the bottle from my lap, laughing. “I take it Midnight with the Gods will be a daily occurrence?”

  “Well, duh.”

  “Am I invited?” Cali asked.

  My head swiveled on my neck so fast it made me dizzy. Though, it could have been all the green potion I’d drank. “Invited?” I gasped, covering my chest in surprise, “It’s like you don’t know me at all, either.”