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Shay thought it more likely she smelled like gasoline and rust and that Beau was just giving her a hard time since she’d obviously spent the night out.
“Youdo,” Shay said, mostly to be a brat. But he flinched like she’d struck a nerve. Shay paused where she’d been reaching for her own battered mug, and whirled on him. “Beauregard Samuels. Are you dating someone?”
Everything about Beau had relaxed in the minute since she’d accused him, and he was back to looking loose and tired, slightly amused and slightly irritated. Pretty much his de facto mood.
“Areyou?” he shot back, the implication clear. She wasn’t exactly in a position to judge anyone for a one-night stand. Still, she was curious who it had been with for Beau. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d hooked up with anyone, let alone dated. He didn’t even try to pick anyone up when he came into the bar on his nights off.
“Touché,” she murmured. “I heard Mrs. Jackson has a nice—”
“Nope,” he cut her off. “I don’t care what relative that old bat wants to fob off on me. I’m not looking. And now, it’s time to move on from Beau’s Personal Life and to the electric bill.”
“You’re no fun,” Shay said as she reached into her pocket, where she’d stashed her tips. Beau’s paycheck, while not insubstantial, went to his father’s medical bills. Shay wasn’t exactly unsympathetic—and Beau certainly paid his equal share around the house despite the fact that his bedroom was a glorified pantry—but sometimes she wished they had the cushion of his full check.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll send it in.”
“Let there be light,” Shay murmured, and then headed for the shower when she heard Max’s door close behind her. “I’ll get to the groceries today.”
After so many years living together, and now sort of raising a kid together, they’d worked out a fairly equitable system that left little room for resentment to fester. What Shay selfishly worried about the most was Beau wanting real dressers and his own bathroom and personal space away from his two sisters.
Except Shay wouldn’t be able to afford the expenses by herself. That wasn’t a problem she had to worry about today, and she had made a habit of only worrying about ones she would have to deal with in the immediate future.
As she stood under the lukewarm spray, she let herself wonder if life was ever going to get easier. Max still had six years before she could legally be in charge of herself. That might as well be decades for how daunting it seemed right now.
Shay loved Max, had since Hillary brought her home, smelling of baby powder and innocence. Max hadn’t cried, she’d simply stared with those baby-big eyes and wrapped her tiny little hand around Shay’s finger. But Shay wished for all their sakes that Hillary had been even a slightly responsible parent. That she’d stuck around, that she’d contributed to taking care of her own daughter.
Hell, if she simply didn’t steal all the petty cash they had when she did swing by, that would be an improvement.
All of them had been forced to grow up too quickly, because Hillary wasn’t just a crap mother. She also knew how to pick thebiggest losers out there to father her children. The only halfway decent guy was Beau’s dad, and even he was only tolerable because he had wrung out the hundred-proof liquor from his barely functioning liver.
Back in the day, Beau would come home after a weekend with Billy covered in bruises. Shay suspected there’d been a couple of broken ribs that had never healed right, because Beau sometimes got more winded than he should.
Shay’s own dad was a blank spot on a birth certificate. A musician passing through, Hillary had told her the first time she’d asked, which made Shay think it was the closest thing to the truth. It changed after that—a truck driver, a dictionary salesman, a fugitive on the run from the law.
Maybe it was depressing, but Shay felt pretty lucky. At least no one had put cigarettes out on her arm.
That was the bar Hillary’s children were working with. And the less said about Max’s father, the better.
She pushed those thoughts away, her mind sliding back into that warm hotel bed with the FBI agent, his long, competent fingers, his half smile. The way he always looked a little surprised when he laughed. Like it was a rare occurrence.
Shay probably wouldn’t laugh much, either, if her job was staring at brutalized dead girls all day.
How long would he be in town if he was working a murder case? Days? Weeks?
Would he come to the bar again?
For a moment, she was back in the junkyard, dogs barking in the distance, the gun cold in her hand.
Her stupid heart hoped he would return.
Her head knew better.
There would be no repeat of last night, even if he sat on that dang stool for every minute of every shift she worked until he left town.
Shay might curse her life sometimes, but there was little she wouldn’t do to protect it.
Even say no to Callum Kilkenny.
CHAPTER FIVE