“That settles it,” Austin said. “Sleepover.” He tried to make the best of it.
“I called the boss boss. Charlie owns the store. No answer.” She nibbled on her lip and tapped the pencil on her clipboard until the end dulled to a blunt edge.
“How bad can it be?”
***
It was worse than he thought, Austin realized an hour later. Her mother, a ball of energy, had directed them to rearrange the display furniture to make it homier, move portable walls to form a house-like atmosphere, hang drapes, and set the table with the best King’s had to offer and was now debating where to order dinner from.
Poor Peg rushed behind her, trying to stop her, and finally just started making lists of items they were using on the pages on her clipboard. “No, Mother, not that,” Peg warned. The lamp teetered precariously and then tipped over, smashing to the floor.
The emotions chasing over her face stabbed at him. She’d gone from gritting her teeth to all-out clenching her jaw.
He went to her, putting his arm around her. She sighed and put her head on his shoulder. “For a hottie, you’re sweet,” she said.
“Don’t let my secret get out, all right?”
She half laughed, half snorted.
“Why don’t we escape this place?”
Jerking her head up and turning to him, she asked, “The store? No can do. I got to keep an eye on them or they may destroy this place.”
“Five-minute getaway, that’s it.” He’d like to run a lot longer and a lot farther than that with her.
He wondered where that thought had come from. His plan of running away to a nice, warm island somewhere hadn’t entered his mind for what, a couple of hours now? That surprised him.
Two years of travel and playing nearly every night had soured him on the industry and music world. Just to get by the last few months, he’d conjured up the idea of this vacation.
Alone.
Every day, sometimes a dozen times a day, he’d replay the image of a long stretch of beach in his mind. Deserted beach with white sand and no one around beckoned to him.
He’d even left his guitar with his bandmate in New York, right after he’d had all his hair shaved off and ditched his “work” clothes. His rock persona stayed behind.
But when had he stopped thinking or wanting to shed the rest of the world? About chucking it all and leaving everything behind? Including people?
Looking at her, he realized Peg had everything to do with it.
Austin swallowed hard. He backed away. “I’ll go…check with the guard…about food.”
***
Peg jammed her fisted hands on her hips, the clipboard clutched in her left hand. He couldn’t have broadcast it more loud and clear. He didn’t want to stay around her. He might have asked for the mini getaway, but somewhere from the time he suggested it until a second ago, he changed his mind.
“Figures,” she muttered. “All of them run. Eventually.”
Her heart tugged as she turned away from his fleeing back. “Too bad.”
Brushing it aside, she nearly threw up her hands as her father lay snoring in one of the store’s recliners. Her mother tucked a blanket, a brand new beautiful white cashmere one the store had just gotten in, around him.
“Biscuits and bunnies, I’m never gonna be able to pay all this back to King’s. I’ll be working this off until I’m eighty!”
“Hey, sis, this is the best.” Her brother dragged the display baby car seat in one hand while pushing a stroller in the other. His wife had a bundle of baby clothes clutched to her. “We should have come to see you much sooner. King’s has great stuff.”
Groaning, Peg began to jot down more things they’d grabbed up. Beads of perspiration dotted her brow and she swiped at them. Man alive, make that ninety before she paid it all back!
***
Austin waited for the food, having followed Bruno’s advice and called Marcus at his pub and grill, putting in a mayday for Peg. Her former boss and a husband to one of the King sisters came to the rescue and said he’d deliver it himself.
“You the Austin Rhoades?” the guard, Bruno, asked as he stood by his side at the door.
“Yep.”
“Don’t you play with our Peg, you hear? She’s a sweetheart with a heart of gold. Keeps this place running. Now we don’t want Peg to get hurt, do we?” He clasped his hands together and flexed them away from him, his knuckles cracking.
“No.” Austin frowned. “Nobody’s going to hurt Peg.”
“Just sayin...”
“Loud and clear.”
“Now all you gotta do is walk out that door. I won’t be the wiser. She won’t get any deeper than she already is, understand?”