Life in Lemon Creek by Kathryn Welch

Author:Kathryn Welch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter XVI

Frank Corelli Jr. sat at the bar at the Kum-Rite-Inn, a seedy roadhouse on the outskirts of Lemon Creek. It was dark and dingy and smelled of stale beer and burnt pizza crust. Even so, it was Frank’s watering hole of choice. He refused to go to The Keg. It had been taken over by Lucy Rye and her crowd. Besides, if he was going to get wasted, better to do it here where nobody respectable would see him--nobody he might have to do business with one day. Aside from the bartender and two drunks down at the end of the bar, the place was deserted.

He was thinking about Lucy, the most annoying person on earth. Ever since he’d had that big run-in with her over the annuity commission, she had become increasingly overbearing. More and more often she took clients for herself rather than referring them to him or to his father. Frank Jr. saw Lucy’s salary as an unnecessary expense, and now she was taking commissions that should have gone to him. His father didn’t seem to mind at all. He was sick and tired of his dad acting as if Lucy were the second coming.

Frank was just finishing his third beer when a woman came in and took a seat two stools down. Frank threw her a furtive glance. It was odd to see a woman alone at the Kum-Rite--at least one that wasn’t a hooker. This one was surprisingly smartly dressed in a tailored charcoal suit with a flash of white ruffled blouse at the neckline. She was young--thirty-ish he guessed--and quite pretty except for an excess of black eyeliner, which gave her a hard appearance. Her long dark hair was pulled back into a half-ponytail which was beginning to come undone.

She ordered a double scotch straight up and kicked off her extremely high-heeled shoes which fell with two dull clunks to the floor. She looked at Frank defiantly. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t want to be rude, but I’ve had one hell of a day and those heels were killing me.”

Frank shrugged. “This isn’t exactly the Ritz. I don’t think anyone will mind.”

When the woman’s drink was served, Frank lifted his beer bottle in a mock toast. “Cheers,” he said. “I had a rotten day too.”

She leaned across the empty stool between them, clinked her glass against his bottle and took a healthy swig of Scotch. She studied him for a moment, sizing him up, deciding whether he was safe to talk to. He seemed as out of place here as she did. He was clean-cut and nice-looking. As Lucy Rye had once noted, Frank Jr. was a lot like his father but without the extra weight and bald spot. He had a full head of nearly black wavy hair, soft brown eyes and a nice physique aside from the beginnings of a beer belly.

The way she was looking at him, it seemed as if she wanted to say something. “If you don’t mind my asking,” he ventured, “what brings you here? This doesn’t seem like your kind of place.

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