Walking on Eggshells (Aloha Chicken Mysteries Book 16) by Josi Avari

Author:Josi Avari [Avari, Josi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quill Canyon Press
Published: 2022-11-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Saffron thought about her Uncle Beau’s time in the army, about his time with Floyd and Julian Jarvis Carlton and the rest of them when he was young and hurting.

“When we first started calling him Lucky, Beau got angry. He stormed out of the mess tent, and I followed him, and he yelled his whole story at me for forty-five minutes. He told me how he was cursed, and how he’d lost everyone.”

“So did you try to change it?”

“I tried, but that miraculous feeling of protection the guys had whenever Beau was walking point, and the many, many narrow misses he lived through just made it stick all the more. Guys snagged his helmet and painted a horseshoe on it, and they markered up his fatigues with clovers and stuff. No, he was pretty much just Lucky after that. Well, that was pretty much just his name after that anyway.”

Saffron let go of his hand. She finished off her soda and set the can back on the counter with a hollow click.

“I guess that’s why Cricket stuck so close to him all the time,” Floyd said.

“He did?” Saffron perked up. With all this new insight into Uncle Beau, she’d almost forgotten that she was really here to find out more about Carlton.

“Oh, yeah. If he hadn’t already had a nickname, we probably would have called him Shadow, for how close he stuck to Lucky, er, Beau.”

It seemed reasonable that someone who was so afraid of everything would want to stay close to someone who seemed impervious to danger.

“He was the map guy. Carried them, marked them, was pretty much obsessed with them. It was the one time I saw him relaxed, almost happy, when he was looking over those maps.” Floyd leaned back in his chair, “Beau was especially kind to Cricket,” Floyd remembered, “He wouldn’t let people tease him or scare him. And that was hard, because he was fun to scare.”

“Really?”

“Sure. He’d jump and curl up in a ball. Or sometimes, if you got him really good, he’d just freeze up and fall over, then scramble backward.” Floyd shook his head, “We all had a lot to learn about how to treat people. We were just kids, you know.” He smoothed a doily on the table, “Except Beau. He was like the big brother of the group. Miles more mature than we were. So he’d tear into people that picked on Cricket.”

“What about when you all got home?” Saffron said, “Did you stay in touch?”

“Some of us did. Beau and I both lived here on Oahu, so we got together fairly often.”

“Were Carlton and Uncle Beau still close?”

Floyd shook his head, “Nope. Carlton disappeared for a long time. He was pretty messed up. Beau was pretty bitter about him disappearing. I think he felt like he’d lost yet another family member.”

“But Carlton showed back up?”

“Yeah. After the website got up and running. He’d come on and comment sometimes. Ask about things. And he said he’d been on the streets a long time.

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