wearing.
Marcy squealed with recognition and held out her arms to Scotty. This time, he went to her with a big grin.
“This is Alicia’s baby,” she announced to the others, whirling him around and hugging him. “Isn’t he adorable?” Then to Carlee, “What brings you to the beach?”
Soberly, Carlee replied, “Our conversation at the cemetery.”
Marcy’s eyes went wide. “Oh, wow. That’s great. So you’re really going to nail the guy. Good for you.”
Carlee hadn’t thought of it in quite that way. All she wanted was to ask Scotty’s father to accept his responsibilities. If he refused to believe Scotty was his, then it would be a different story. She wasn’t going to let another man mess with her life if she could help it. Besides, Scotty deserved the support of his father.
She turned to the other two women, who were obviously taking everything in. “Did either of you know the man Alicia was seeing?”
One shook her head and the other explained, “We’ve only been here a month and didn’t know her very well, but we went to her funeral because we liked her.”
“It was so sad,” her friend added. “But we talked about it later, how tired she seemed all the time. She would sit down every chance she got, and I thought she was breathing heavy a couple of times.”
If only Carlee had insisted Alicia see a doctor. Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda, as the taunting saying went. It was too late for regrets now.
Carlee felt her frustration growing. “Well, is there anybody working now who was here when Alicia was seeing her mystery man?”
“Bonnie Handel was,” one of the girls on the railing said with a snap of her fingers. “I heard her say she’s been here since the place opened four years ago. Others come and go, but not Bonnie.”
“Why should she leave?” the other said with a snicker. “She’s the hostess and the cashier and gets to sit on a stool behind the counter all night. She doesn’t work her fanny off like we do.”
Carlee, feeling a wave of excitement, cried, “Where can I find her?”
“Try looking over your shoulder,” Marcy said, handing Scotty back to her.
Carlee guessed Bonnie to be in her mid-fifties. She was attractive with silver-tinted hair and ice-blue eyes framed by shimmering turquoise shadow. The black satin blouse she was wearing with tight white slacks revealed the care she had taken of her figure through the years.
Carlee quickly introduced herself and explained why she had come.
“We can talk in the office.” Bonnie led the way, and once they were inside, closed the door, leaned against the desk and flashed a big grin. “I want you to know I’m glad you’re going to try and track him down. The creep deserves to have to pay through the nose for walking out on that poor girl. If it’d been me, he’d have never gotten away with it, and I told her that.”
Carlee soberly agreed. “I know. I tried, too.”
“She fell for him like a ton of bricks, and I can’t blame her, because he was nice-looking. A real hunk. She lit up like a launch from the Cape the first night he came in. He was in her station, all by himself, and she hovered over him like you wouldn’t believe. He started coming in every night, and I’d see them leave together and knew things were getting hot.
“She’d talk to me about him a little from time to time,” Bonnie continued. “I’m older than the others are, and I’ve always been a good listener, so they come to me with their troubles sometimes. Alicia said he was married, but he was trying to get a divorce—only his wife was giving him a hard time. I told her I’d never known a married man yet who was fooling around that didn’t say the exact same thing. But she said she believed he really cared about her, and even when he quit coming around, she held out hope he’d come back.”
Scotty was getting heavy and starting to fret. Carlee sat down in a chair and poked his pacifier into his mouth. “How long were they together? Do you remember?”
Bonnie pursed her lips in thought, then said, “Oh, it was only a few weeks. She really fell hard and fast. It was something, all right. She totally flipped for the guy.”
“And then he just disappeared,” Carlee said, more to herself than Bonnie. “Maybe she was right in figuring he went back to his wife. She said she wasn’t going to chase after him, that if he really loved her, he’d come back to her on his own.”
“Oh, yeah, right.” Bonnie rolled her eyes. “And he swore he did, too. She told me that. He said it was love at first sight, that he’d never felt like that about a woman before. He had a line, all right.”
“Did she ever tell you his name?” Carlee probed hopefully. “She’d refer to him only as Nick, and once I asked her for his last name, but she wouldn’t say.”
“Well, she said that from the very beginning he made her promise to keep everything between them hush-hush, because if his wife found out, she’d make it that much harder for him to get the divorce. How come you’re looking for him? To get him to take the baby?”
Carlee was taken aback. “No, no, of course not. I love Scotty and plan to raise him myself.”
“Were you related to Alicia?”
“We were best friends, but she wanted me to have him. She signed a paper naming me guardian right before she died, and…” Carlee trailed off, embarrassed to share so much information. All she wanted was the name of Scotty’s father and where to locate him. She didn’t want to confide anything.
Bonnie gave a disgusted snort. “He wouldn’t want him, anyhow. But since that’s not what you’re after, then it can only be money. Good luck there, because after he abandoned her like he did, I can’t see him paying child support unless you want to take him to court. That means paternity testing, hiring a lawyer to go after him. You’re talking big bucks.”
Carlee hoped it wouldn’t come to that. “I just want to find him and give him a chance to do what’s right. After all, he doesn’t even know he has a child and—”
“What’s that you say?” Bonnie stared at her incredulously, hands on her hips. “I don’t think I heard you right.”
Uneasily, Carlee repeated herself.
“Honey, is that what Alicia told you—that he didn’t know she was pregnant?”
With a chill of foreboding, Carlee hugged Scotty a little closer. “She said she never got a chance to tell him, because all of a sudden he just stopped coming around. And like I told you, she wanted him to come back because he loved her, not because he felt obligated, so she didn’t go looking for him.”
Bonnie swung her head from side to side, laughing softly, sadly, then said, “Boy, if pride could be bottled and swallowed, Alicia would have stayed drunk on hers. She was just too ashamed to tell you the truth—she did tell him she was going to have his baby, but he told her to get an abortion. They had a fight over it, right out there on that deck one night after we closed. I know, because I heard every word. It was real smoky in here that night, and I wasn’t feeling good and went out to get some fresh air before checking out the register. They didn’t
