Wicked After Midnight (Midnight Blue Beach Book 1) Read online

  It had been drilled into Bailey from the time she was in diapers to never discuss politics, religion, or sex. Especially with people you had just met.

  Plus she didn’t have a sex life to speak of and wasn’t all that eager to admit it.

  “I’ll do it,” she volunteered. How bad could it be? She’d leave out the upsetting parts. These women would never know the difference. “Where should I start?”

  “At the beginning. Where were you born?”

  That was an easy question.

  “In the Midwest. With the corn and the cows.”

  Chapter Three

  The bar was spinning and Bailey’s cheeks were flushed with heat. Several martinis over the last few hours had left her with a distinctly disturbing problem.

  She couldn’t seem to shut the hell up.

  So far she’d told Peyton and Willow about the night she’d lost her virginity, and also about the time she and some college classmates had garbed the alma mater statue in a dark black cloak and put a scythe in its hand as if it were the Grim Reaper. Thank goodness there weren’t remote cameras and cell phones to record a person’s every move back then.

  Peyton was also affected by the alcohol, her body swaying in her chair in time with the sound of the waves breaking on the beach. Willow, on the other hand, appeared no worse for the wear. The woman could hold her liquor, which made Bailey admire her all the more.

  They had yet to hear Willow’s life story but already she could tell that her new friend had a spine of solid steel and the smarts to go with her bravado.

  “So was it hot?” Peyton teased. “My first time sucked. I’m always hoping to hear someone say that their first time was amazing. Heck, I’d accept fair to good.”

  Remembering that night long ago, Bailey smiled. “The beginning was very good. But the end not so much. It hurt and I’m a wuss about stuff like that.” She elbowed Willow, almost spilling her drink in the process. “What about you? Anything to write home about?”

  The smile on Willow’s face vanished and she shook her head. “No, it wasn’t good at all. Just some guy who talked a good game and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. After he got what he wanted, he moved on. I knew then that I had to get a hell of a lot smarter about men or I was going to end up perpetually broken hearted.”

  It was hard to believe any man would leave Willow. Tall and slender in her dark purple cocktail dress, her golden brown hair was pulled up on top of her head in a mass of curls showing off a graceful profile. Even her eyes were a soft shade of amber, almost the color of brandy. She doubted seriously if Willow had trouble attracting men.

  Bailey frowned and took a large gulp of her martini. “I don’t know shit about men. I’ve been married and didn’t learn a thing.”

  “I learned that all men are the same,” Willow declared. “All of them. Old, young, fat, thin. It doesn’t matter. So if you know one, you know them all.”

  Peyton looked skeptical, shaking her head. “That would certainly be convenient but I’m not sure I believe it.”

  Shrugging, Willow eyed two men sitting a few tables away. “That’s been my experience but your mileage may vary. For example, I bet I could get those men to buy us a round just by giving them a certain look. They won’t need much encouragement.”

  No, no, no, no.

  Bailey grabbed Willow’s arm to get her attention. “Let’s not, okay? I believe that you can do it but let’s not invite them over. It’s just us girls.”

  Peyton lifted her glass and giggled. “Here’s to just the girls.”

  Bailey would drink to that. This entire evening had been more fun than she’d expected when she dressed this evening to go out.

  Willow sipped her whiskey and wrinkled her nose. “I heard you say you’d been married. Is he home tonight or did you split up? Or is that a rude question? Dammit, I swear I’m not this nosy when I’m sober.”

  Concentrating on inhaling and exhaling, Bailey took a moment before answering. It had been five years but the memories could still sneak up unexpectedly and knife her in the heart. She’d moved on with her life and most of the time she was fine and happy…then something would bring it all back again. A few years ago she’d decided to be happy and she was, but that didn’t mean the past was completely erased. It still had some power.

  “I don’t think much is rude after talking about losing my virginity. Actually, I’m a widow. My husband passed away in a scuba diving accident in Turks and Caicos.”

  She didn’t imagine the stunned looks on Peyton and Willow’s faces nor their swiftly indrawn breaths. They were clearly shocked and Bailey wasn’t sure why. She might be young to be a widow but it wasn’t unheard of. Willow was a widow herself after all.

  “Did I say something wrong?” she asked uncertainly, watching them over the rim of her glass. “You both look pale.”

  Had the booze hit them at exactly the same moment? They looked like they might be sick.

  Willow placed her glass down on the table with a shaking hand. “You didn’t say anything wrong. I was surprised, that’s all, because I’m also a widow.”

  The last words came out shaky and strangled.

  Peyton’s hand jerked, spilling part of her mojito on the table. Cursing, she tried to mop up the liquid with a tiny bar napkin but it wasn’t cutting it. Bailey dug in her purse for some tissues, dabbing at the spill.

  “How did your husband pass on?” Peyton asked, her tone unsteady and her lips pressed tightly together.

  Willow swallowed hard and stared into her drink. “He drove drunk and ran into a tree. Luckily it was a one-car accident.”

  The last thing Bailey wanted to do was upset her new friend. Patting Willow’s shoulder, she wanted to change the subject, but what topic could possibly lighten the atmosphere now? This was why she rarely revealed this part of her history. It made everyone sad and that was one thing she was trying not to be anymore.

  “I had heard he’d passed away,” Bailey finally said, the acid in her stomach churning. “Recently?”

  Something of a workaholic, she didn’t keep up on current events in the area like she should. She only watched the local news for the weather and they were wrong half of the time.

  “It was a while ago.”

  The silence stretched on, the tension at the table thick and uncomfortable. That was the thing about death. It could stop any conversation cold.

  It was several minutes later when Peyton spoke up, her voice so soft it could barely be heard.

  “Allergic reaction.”

  Bailey leaned forward, not sure she’d heard correctly. “What did you say?”

  Peyton’s entire body was shaking, head to toe, and her face had turned a ghostly white.

  “I said allergic reaction. To peanuts.” A tear streaked down Peyton’s cheek. “That’s how Greg died.”

  It was as if the bottom fell out of Bailey’s world and she was falling fast toward a sudden and violent stop. She had to force her trembling lips to move.

  “Who is Greg?”

  The question came out strangled as if someone had her by the throat, slowly squeezing the life out from her body while she struggled and clawed for oxygen.

  “My husband,” Peyton whispered, her knuckles white where she gripped her glass. “Greg was my husband.”

  Three women who met because of a kitchen fire and a broken high heel. Three young widows. Perhaps Bailey had finally met women who could truly understand.

  If nothing else, this entire evening would make a great story.

  If anyone believed it. She wasn’t so sure she did.

  Willow kept shaking her head and drinking her whiskey while Peyton appeared to be in some state of shock, her face still pale. Bailey wasn’t exactly one hundred percent sure that all she had experienced tonight was even real. It felt strange in the extreme to be discussing Frank with two women who had never met him, but understood what she’d been going through for the last five years.

  If anything, Bailey felt numb. Her m
ind was firmly in charge and not allowing her emotions to overwhelm her in any way. It was only temporary and eventually she’d have to deal with all the pain and guilt simmering inside but at the moment she allowed a chill to invade her bones, spreading to every limb. This was safer, controlled. Falling apart was best done in solitude.

  Willow refilled her glass, having long ago told the bartender to simply leave the damn bottle.

  “It’s going to be a long night,” she’d told him. “No sense wearing yourself out walking back and forth.”

  He’d left the bottle along with a pitcher of martinis and another of mojitos, and then come back with a large bowl of pretzels urging them to eat so that there would be something in their stomachs soaking up the alcohol. As nauseous as Bailey was she couldn’t imagine a morsel of food passing through her lips ever again.

  “I think the guilt is the worst,” Willow said, her eyes glazed with tears or booze. “What did I not do that would have made him stop drinking and whoring? I think about that. If I could have stopped him, he would be alive now.”

  “You don’t know that,” Bailey protested, knowing that guilty feeling all too well but for a far different reason. “He could have died from something else. When it’s your time to go… Besides, you can’t make a grown man stop doing anything that he wants to do. It sounds like your Alex didn’t treat you right.”

  Shoving a stray curl behind her ear, Willow shook her head. “It wasn’t always like that. I know people think I married Alex for his money but the fact is I loved him. Very much. He came into that nightclub and swept me off my feet. He was my knight in shining armor, at least for awhile. Then he changed and I don’t know what I did to make him do that.”

  “Another woman?” Peyton asked, her tone timid. “I know Greg had them. Many of them. After awhile I stopped caring so much.”

  Willow rolled her eyes. “There were women. Lots of them. And wild weekends, fueled by the booze and drugs. Sometimes it felt like he was pushing me away with both hands and then there would be times he would cling to me and beg me not to leave like a little boy who had displeased his mother. He was so sad and lost and I couldn’t help but try and take care of him.”

  “You didn’t do anything. He made those choices. It’s not your fault.”

  Perhaps if Bailey could convince Willow, she could somehow convince herself.

  “It’s not your fault either,” Willow said to Peyton. “If he was cheating on you then he wasn’t a good husband.”

  “I was a bad wife. I didn’t love him. Not really.”

  “Did you cheat?”

  Peyton’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “Of course not. I’m just saying that there’s plenty of blame to go around.”

  Bailey drained her glass and slapped it down on the table, enjoying the pleasant buzz. She rubbed her icy fingertips together, barely feeling the friction of flesh on flesh. She did the same with her toes and enjoyed a moment of satisfaction. She couldn’t feel a thing and was glad. The numbness was preferable at a moment like this.

  “The sad fact is that if we had grown old with our husbands we wouldn’t have this soul-crushing guilt. But because they died young, we think it was somehow our responsibility to make every day of their lives Disney World. That we should have made them deliriously happy and ignored the shitty things they did to us. I’m going to say this out loud and I’ve never told another living soul. I was thinking about divorcing Frank when he died. I’d even contacted an attorney. There, I said it.”

  She actually felt a little better. Maybe she should have said it a long time ago, but whom would she have told that would understand?

  “You don’t have anything to be guilty about either.” Willow poured Bailey another drink. They definitely weren’t going to be driving themselves anywhere when this place closed down. As it was, her stomach was doing somersaults and the room looked decidedly wavy. “If you were that miserable he probably was too.”

  “He was so cold to me. I sometimes wondered if he’d even notice if I up and left one day.” Bailey sighed and let her mind wander back, feeling the pain of being ignored acutely. She hadn’t loved Frank by then but his total indifference had been a blow. “You’d think after so many years I wouldn’t give a shit but it still hurts. How do you blow off a wife and act like she doesn’t exist?”

  “How long has it been?” Peyton asked. “Greg died five years ago so I know what you mean. He shouldn’t have the power to hurt me anymore.”

  “Five years for me too. July twenty-first.”

  Willow almost dropped her glass but caught it just in time, the contents sloshing onto the table. “No fucking way.”

  Peyton’s gaze darted around the table, a sheen of sweat on her forehead. “Am I asleep? This is too strange. It can’t be real. Somebody pinch me.”

  Willow reached over and did the deed, causing Peyton to yelp in pain. “Ouch! Shit, that hurt.”

  “Then you’re awake,” Willow replied with a cynical laugh. “I think we all are although this is some Twilight Zone and Outer Limits shit. I barely passed math in high school but the odds of this have to be astronomical. My husband died five years ago. On July twenty-first.”

  Peyton closed her eyes and nodded. “July twenty-first.”

  Bailey was holding onto that numbness like a life preserver. She didn’t have the luxury of allowing herself to feel anything right now. Frankly, she didn’t know how she was supposed to feel or react. It was bizarre and almost supernatural except she didn’t believe in any of that. There had to be a logical explanation for this but she couldn’t think of one off the top of her head.

  She tried to explain it anyway. “They say that everyone has a twin somewhere in the world but they rarely meet up. I guess it’s possible to meet other people whose husband died on the same day. I bet there are hundreds, if not thousands of widows walking the earth that lost their spouse on that date. It’s just quirky and unusual.”

  Willow stared at Bailey as if she’d lost her mind and maybe she had.

  “I guess you’re one of those optimists.”

  “You aren’t?”

  Willow shrugged. “I’m pragmatic. I don’t care if the glass is half full or half empty, I just want to know how I can fill it.”

  Fair enough.

  “You haven’t said much, Peyton.”

  The blonde took a large breath and exhaled slowly, placing her hands flat on the table. “I think this is crazy and that I’m going to wake up and this won’t have happened. It’s surreal.”

  “I’ll pinch you again,” Willow offered.

  Peyton moved her arm out of Willow’s reach. “No, thanks. The thing is I haven’t said much because I have a question. What happens now? This strange cosmic thing has brought us together in this moment in time. What do we do? Buy lottery tickets? Go on Jerry Springer? This is too bizarre. Aren’t you freaked out? I sure am. My whole body is shaking and my heart is racing almost out of my chest.”

  They all looked around at each other and no one had an answer. Bailey was still trying to wrap her alcohol addled brain around it. It was too weird and spooky, and it had brought up a past she’d thought she’d left behind.

  Bailey reached for the pitcher of martinis in the middle of the table. “I don’t know what you all are going to do but I’m going to have another drink. Then later I’ll figure out how to deal with it. Nothing in my life has prepared me for this.”

  If she couldn’t deal with it, maybe she could forget it. Or ignore it.

  Yes, that’s what I’ll do. Ignore the whole thing.

  “What about us?” Willow asked, her brow lifted. “Are you going to deal with me and Peyton? Or are you going to try and forget you ever met us?”

  It was a good question. As much as she’d been enjoying her new friends, they brought with them too much baggage and too much hurt. She might not have been living the most exciting life up until now but she’d been content. This accidental meet up might be a hiccup of the universe but she had free wil
l.

  Can I truly forget this ever happened? Walk away?

  “I don’t know,” Bailey finally answered, her heart sinking at the idea of never seeing these women again. There was a big part of her that didn’t want to go back but going forward was too scary to even contemplate. “I’m not sure what we should do. What do you think? All we’ll do is remind each other of things we’d rather put behind us.”

  Peyton’s lips turned down. “If we never see each other again it will be kind of sad. I was hoping we’d be friends. I don’t have too many of those here in town.”

  Willow, however, seemed to understand Bailey’s torment. “I get what you’re saying. After all, we weren’t supposed to meet. The party and the fire and the broken high heel. If any one of those things hadn’t happened we wouldn’t be here together right now. I’ll respect whatever decision you come to. After all, this is a fluke.”

  No, it was a one in a million or billion chance and it never should have happened. Perhaps when Bailey woke up tomorrow morning she’d find out it never really had at all. It was just her imagination. A drunken fantasy.

  Chapter Four

  Bailey barely made it from the taxi to her bedroom before her legs gave out and sleep overtook her. Still wearing her dress, she tossed and turned, tangled in the sheets as she dreamed of Frank. Or at least it sort of looked like Frank. Only this man’s face was slightly distorted like a Dali painting and he kept pointing to her and shouting, although she couldn’t make out a word he was saying. Whatever he was angry about, she wasn’t going to be able to do a thing to correct it.

  In her dream she stood there staring at her late husband, tears streaming down her face while he berated her for some unknown offense. She did nothing to stop him, just standing like a statue. Funny how he’d barely spoken to her when alive but now in death was pissed as hell.

  When she awoke the next morning her head hurt, her tongue felt like cotton wool, and her body ached. She had to blink several times as the sun streamed in through the windows where she had forgotten to close the drapes before passing out. Forcing her feet to the floor, she padded into the bathroom to survey the damage.