“Juliette wants to talk to you.”
She couldn’t resist a smug smile as she took the phone from him.
“Jules? Hi!”
The sound of Juliette’s warm laughter emanated across the line. “Chelsea, oh, no! Oh, my gosh. I’m so sorry. I was supposed to leave a key for you. I completely forgot to set it out before I left. Obviously, I forgot to close the bathroom window, too.”
“Jules, it’s okay. Will you tell Deputy Dawg to stand down, please?”
“You always did know how to make an entrance.”
“I know, right? But for future reference, I’d rather use the front door than an open window. Scaling walls isn’t my best sport. Please tell Ethan it’s okay for me to be here. He’s about ready to have me hauled off to jail.”
With the phone pressed up to her ear, she brushed past him because she was starting to feel a bit claustrophobic in the bathroom. As she made her exit, her shoulder grazed Ethan’s very solid chest. If she hadn’t found the guy so annoying, she might’ve found the sheer masculine bulk of him quite sexy.
“Oh, Ethan’s bark is definitely worse than his bite. He’s a warm and cuddly teddy bear once you get to know him.”
Warm and cuddly? More like ripped and solid as steel.
“And you’re speaking from experience, I presume?”
Juliette snorted. “Um, no. I’ll tell you all about him later. For now, give him the phone and I’ll tell him you’re welcome to be there. Make yourself at home. Help yourself to anything. There’s tea in the cupboard by the stove and I just froze the rest of a homemade lasagna. I’ll be home tomorrow afternoon. We certainly have a lot to talk about.”
Chelsea glanced at Ethan, who was not even trying to pretend he wasn’t listening. There was no way she could tell Juliette that escaping from the mess that had become her life was going to be a lot harder than she thought. She’d already been forced into hiding, and on day one of hiding in Celebration, Texas, she’d nearly had a run-in with the authorities.
There was a long pause on the other end of the line and Chelsea could virtually hear Juliette’s wheels turning with unasked questions.
“We certainly do have a lot to talk about. I’ll tell you when you get home.” She locked gazes with Ethan. “In the meantime, will you please tell the teddy bear I’m welcome to stay?”
Ethan snorted. “Teddy bear?” But she ignored him.
“Thanks, Jules. I appreciate this so much.”
* * *
Chelsea Allen was hiding something. That much was certain. Ethan didn’t know what, but Chelsea had seemed jumpier than a box of bullfrogs on a trampoline.
It went beyond being startled after unexpectedly confronting someone inside a house she’d assumed was empty. His gut was telling him that the woman was hiding something, and his gut was rarely wrong.
But after Chelsea had finished talking to Juliette, she’d handed the phone back to Ethan, and Jules had told him in no uncertain terms that Chelsea was not only welcome at her place, but if she wanted to come and go through the bathroom window, too, that was her prerogative. That was the thing about Juliette Lowell; she was sweet and naive and tended to only see the best in people. That was exactly why Ethan intended to keep an eye on this Chelsea Allen.
At least she was easy on the eyes. It wouldn’t be too big of a hardship. But since Juliette had given her blessing for Chelsea to stay, he’d have to continue his neighborly duty from afar.
After he’d hung up the phone, he’d gotten in his truck, called Joyce back and reported that everything had checked out with Juliette. Then he’d headed to Murphy’s Pub. The place he’d been headed to before he’d been waylaid by the strange car in Juliette’s driveway. Tonight the Dallas Cowboys were duking it out with the Miami Dolphins and all he wanted to do was belly up to the bar and watch the game.
As he pulled open the pub’s front door, he was met by the sound of cheers and hollers. He glanced at the big-screen TV over the bar. The Cowboys had landed a first down, setting up a first and goal situation.
He muttered an oath under his breath because he’d missed the play.
He’d intended to get here in plenty of time to order his dinner—the cheeseburger platter with the works and a nonalcoholic beer—before kickoff, but thanks to Chelsea Allen he had missed nearly the entire first quarter.
Murphy’s was crowded tonight, but there were still a few open spaces at the bar. A lot of people had turned out to see the game. On football nights, Murphy’s ran specials on beer and their very own signature Cowboy burger. Ethan claimed the closest seat and settled in, raising a hand in a quick greeting to Jack Murphy, who was at the helm of the bar.
“Hey, bro,” Jack said. “I was wondering where you were tonight. Be right with ya.”
Murphy’s Pub was one of Celebration’s best-loved community gathering spots. It was a casual place and one of Ethan’s favorite haunts. It was the kind of place where he could get out and be among people yet not really feel obligated to interact or explain why he was drinking sweet tea or nonalcoholic beer at a bar on a Saturday night rather than imbibing like the rest of the drunken fools.
The long teak bar ran the length of the wall to the left of the entrance. Murphy’s bartenders prided themselves on their ability to mix any drink known to mankind, plus several originals that had been invented on the premises and named after local notables.
One quirk of the joint was they were proud of the fact that they only stocked a standard offering of American beers. None of those frou-frou microbrew abominations that seemed to be sprouting like mushrooms everywhere you looked these days. Ask Pop Murphy for something like that and he was likely to direct you to the local cantina Taco’s or to a trendy start-up in Dallas.
But it didn’t matter to Ethan since he had been sober for two years, three months and one week to the day. All he needed was his favorite brand of nonalcoholic beer, which the Murphys always kept in stock for him.
Even though he couldn’t say staying sober today was any easier than it had been the first day he’d made the decision to go cold turkey and turn his life around, each day he stayed out of the bottle and in control of himself was its own victory. He wasn’t about to break his winning streak now.
Some who knew of his struggles thought he was crazy to hang out at a place like Murphy’s. They thought he was making it extra hard on himself by surrounding himself with the poison.
No. He had a handle on the drinking. Everything was under control. He didn’t have to give up going out. He’d worked damn hard to get here and he had no intentions of sliding back into that dark hellhole he’d landed in after his divorce.
He was a recovered alcoholic. That didn’t mean he had to be a shut-in, too.
One day at a time. The AA slogan had been his mantra when he was going through the hardest times. Now that he was stronger, now that he was sober, he liked to test himself by sitting at Murphy’s bar, watching everyone else tip back a few too many. The smell of bourbon might tempt him, but it would never break him. Never.
Jack
