CHAPTER THREE
“Have you heard that Lance Kendall is back in town?”
Brynn caught the shot glass she’d been polishing before she dropped it on the floor. It was a good thing her back was toward Jeremy Bell and Miles Schaeffer, or else the fact that their news affected her so dramatically would have been all over town come morning.
The bar was rather busy for a Wednesday night, but she chalked that up to all the media crews in town and their propensity to drink themselves into a stupor. The local B&B hadn’t been sold out of rooms like they currently were since Cindy Lou’s wedding. That had to be going on four years now, especially considering her son was turning four years old.
The bass of the country music coming out of the jukebox was at the right intensity that the patrons could enjoy their conversations with a mild level of privacy. Every now and then the smack of a cue ball was followed up with a yell of victory, and the clanking of glasses signified a celebration was fulfilling its purpose.
“Let’s hope Lance has better luck with his new house than Noah did with the Yoder place.”
“Hey, that’s confidential information,” Harlan warned Miles, though he wouldn’t have had to say anything if he’d kept his mouth shut in the first place. That was the problem with small towns, but she honestly wouldn’t live anywhere else than here in Blyth Lake. “I’m sure Gus is handing over the keys as we speak, but make sure you act surprised when Lance comes strolling in here with his dad later.”
Lance Kendall.
He’d been the star running back of the football team back in high school.
He had also been the only boy who had ever broken her heart.
“Brynn, didn’t you used to date that Kendall boy?” Jeremy asked, waiting for her to turn around to face them before sliding his empty beer bottle her way. Brynn silently counted how many he’d had this evening, figuring he was due a few more before she would give his daughter a call to ferry him home. “Whitney always had a thing for Billy Stanton, but I remember her saying that you and Lance went to prom your senior year.”
“It was homecoming, actually,” Brynn corrected him with a smile, maintaining a carefree tone so that no one was the wiser that this conversation was akin to driving a stake into her heart. It wasn’t that she was still hung up on Lance. Too much time had gone by to still hold a grudge. “He graduated early to go into the Marines, remember?”
“You’re right,” Miles said with a nod of agreement. He leaned back on his bar stool and called out to his youngest son. “Chad, did you know that Lance Kendall is back in town?”
Chad was playing darts with Irish, both of them high off their win in the annual county championship battle. Chad had come in first, with Irish second. All that mattered to either of them was that they’d put Billy Stanton in his place—third. Billy was finally finding out that money couldn’t buy him the county championship title.
Chad held up his hand to indicate that he would come join his father in a minute, obviously not wanting to break his concentration.
“Did you know that Lance has a meeting with Detective Kendrick at nine o’clock tomorrow morning at the diner?”
“Where are you getting this information, Jeremy?” Harlan asked before checking his phone. His wife must be calling to find out why he wasn’t home for dinner. “Has Whitney been in contact with Lance?”
“Nah,” Jeremy answered with an impatient wave of his hand, “that girl is too busy with that no-good boy she hooked up with a few months back. I was at the diner earlier and overheard that pretty news anchor from Channel Five going over her schedule. Trust me, she’ll be at the diner tomorrow morning trying to get a scoop on the other media crews in town. Not that Lance would have anything to tell her, though.”
Brynn collected Harlan’s empty glass, tossing the ice he always requested into his Screwdriver. He was one of the few patrons who preferred his drink with cubes.
She continued to listen in on the various conversations around the bar. Most of the stories revolved around the Kendall siblings returning home after being gone for twelve or more years. Mitch was the oldest, and Brynn figured he was at least five years older than the rest. After him came Gwen, Jace, and then Noah. Lance was the youngest of the clan, though he was mature beyond his years due to growing up circulating in the same circles as all his brothers and sister. Him leaving Blyth Lake to honor his family’s legacy proved that point beyond a shadow of a doubt.
“Doesn’t the discovery of Sophia Morton’s body make you wonder what really happened to Emma Irwin?”
Brynn’s heart twisted upon hearing her friend’s name. Emma had never been so happy as she’d been that fateful night. She’d been ecstatic that Billy Stanton had danced with her by the bonfire, going so far as to say she thought Billy would ask her out for the following weekend. Even the chance of getting caught sneaking into her house past curfew couldn’t chase away her bright smile.
The weeks following had been nothing less than an emotional rollercoaster.
How could a seventeen-year-old girl up and disappear into thin air? She couldn’t. That meant there had been some sort of foul play.
The days turned into weeks, the weeks into months, and eventually months into years. Hope began to evaporate little by little until there had been nothing left.
“Brynn?”
She’d gotten sucked into the past, which was happening a lot lately, and she wasn’t quite sure how long Tiny had been calling her name.
“I thought you were taking Rose into the city tonight?” Brynn asked before taking another glance around the bar to see if anyone else needed another drink. She swiped Miles’ empty draft beer glass out for a full one. “You shouldn’t be back quite yet, Tiny.”
The man she adored more than any other male on the face of the earth stood at six feet and six inches tall. He was African American with the brightest smile that could make the worst day better with just a flash. He’d shaved his head long ago, claiming that he wasn’t going to give away his age.
She didn’t care how old he was or that he didn’t have a single hair on top of his head.
He was her protector. He and his wife, Rose, had taken her in at the young age of fifteen years old when she didn’t have any other place to go. They had both seen to it that she stayed in school and out of trouble when all she’d wanted to do was run away from facing the death of her parents.
“There was some trouble up at the lake.” Tiny took the dishtowel from her hand and proved that old habits die hard. “Deputy Foster caught some teenagers partying in one of the empty cottages. It’s all taken care of now, but she’s personally paying a visit to each of the parents as we speak.”
“Now why doesn’t that surprise me?” Brynn asked with a laugh, taking back the dishtowel and trying unsuccessfully to chase him out from behind the bar. “Would you go and relax? You don’t have to work the bar anymore. It’s my job now.”
“I know that,” Tiny agreed, though his actions said something else entirely when he started to roll up his sleeves. “There’s nothing wrong with another person helping out, you know.”
Brynn had known all along that even though she’d purchased the bar—known as Tiny’s Cavern to the locals—Tiny would never be able to fully relinquish his hold on the old stomping ground.
She honestly didn’t mind, and the support Tiny and Rose had shown her over the years was more than she could have ever asked for in regard to this new path she’d chosen over leaving Blyth Lake. She’d always known it would be the natural continuation of that storyline. They were her family, and this town was her home.
“You’re here because you heard Lance was back in town,” Brynn said, handing him off a glass so that he could dry it before storing it back in the rack. She might as well take advantage of his presence, seeing as he refused to go join some of his friends over by the pool table. “That was a long time ago, Tiny.”
“That it was,” Tiny agreed, though his warm eyes still held a hint of skepticism at the ease of which she’d addressed the elephant in the room. Even the patrons weren’t ignoring the big grey animal. “He still broke your heart.”
“And I believe I broke his.” Brynn wasn’t saying that seeing Lance again wouldn’t be hard, but time, understanding, and acceptance played a big part in forgiveness. “He never lied to me, Tiny. Everyone in town knew that every Kendall sibling would sign on the dotted line to serve their country. I was well aware of that fact.”
“He asked you to wait for him,” Tiny reminded her gently, as if she couldn’t recall each and every word of their final conversation. Well, final as far as being a couple. They tried being friends after his departure and had even exchanged letters for the first six months he’d left town. Contact between them eventually faded as she went to a community college a few towns over and Lance was shipped out for his first deployment. “You could have said yes.”
Yes, she could have, but then their lives wouldn’t have turned out the same. Lance most likely would have tried to get her to move to all the various places he’d been stationed, leaving her with no support. She’d been there and done that with her biological parents. They had never been there for her, and unfortunately, their deaths hadn’t shown her any differently.
The only thing good to come out of such a tragedy had been Tiny and Rose. Brynn had found a family with them, and she wouldn’t have given that up for anything in the world.
She’d chosen to stay in Blyth Lake, and there wasn’t a single day that passed that she regretted her choice.
That didn’t mean Lance hadn’t crossed her mind from time to time. He’d been her first love.
“Go join Chester for a round of pool,” Brynn suggested, giving Tiny a playful shove that didn’t move him an inch. “He’s been itching to play you ever since you cleaned the table in one round.”
“He’ll still be there in an hour. We both know that.”
It was obvious that Tiny wasn’t going to budge on helping her out tonight. She sighed in resignation, leaving him to join in the conversation with Jeremy and Miles regarding Emma Irwin and Sophia Morton. Personally, Brynn couldn’t take hearing any more about Sophia’s body being discovered in the wall of Noah Kendall’s home.
She lifted the small section of the bar that Tiny had managed to fit his large body through, setting it down behind her before heading toward the back to make sure that the restrooms didn’t need restocked. It would be one less thing she would have to do come closing time.
“Brynn Mercer? Would you mind if I asked you a couple of questions?”
Brynn somehow managed to suppress a groan of irritation when the annoying redhead of Channel Five News decided now would be good time to ask questions regarding the very same topic she was trying to avoid.
“I’m sorry.” Brynn tossed the woman a small smile to soften the refusal. “Now isn’t a good time.”
“This will only take a minute, I promise.” Charlene Winston rested her manicured nails on Brynn’s forearm to stop her from walking away. “It’s come to my attention that you used to be best friends with Emma Irwin. Did you know that she’d forged a friendship with Sophia Morton? Do you think their cases are connected?”
“I have no comment,” Brynn managed to say around the tight constriction of her throat. “Please excuse me.”
Everyone in town thought there was a connection, but Charlene Winston’s questions were just bait for a soundbite on tonight’s eleven o’clock news. Brynn wouldn’t stoop to that level for a bit of fame.
Hell, she’d had her fifteen minutes in the limelight after her parents’ deaths. She wasn’t inclined to seek the notoriety of being the latest news story ever again.
“What about Lance Kendall? It’s my understanding that he used to date both you and Sophia. Don’t you think it’s more than a coincidence that Noah Kendall was the one to find Sophia Morton’s body?”
Brynn wasn’t a physical type person, by any means. She’d always been one to avoid confrontations, except when needed. Her frame was rather small with her only standing at five feet and five inches tall, and she became nauseous at the sight of blood.
That didn’t mean she would allow some stranger to come into town and make allegations that could ruin a good man’s reputation.
That wasn’t going to happen, and it was time someone stepped up to the plate.
Brynn could easily hear the gasps and exclamations of shock from the numerous patrons who’d come into the Cavern to relax and shed the stress of their day over the bass of the jukebox. She’d instinctively backed Charlene Winston against the wall and pointed a finger in her face so the woman didn’t miss a word of the advice she was about to receive.
“If I so much as hear another disparaging word come out of your mouth about the Kendall family, I will personally make a call to your superiors to let them know about the drug problem you are so obviously struggling with,” Brynn muttered threateningly, stepping even closer when Charlene tried to slip away from the wall. “You see, that white powder on your face has nothing to do with the caked-on makeup you use to go live on camera. This comes down to karma, Ms. Winston. You tarnish the Kendalls’ surname around here, and I will do the same to you at the network headquarters.”
Brynn waited until Charlene slowly nodded her acceptance of what would happen should she utter one word against the Kendalls before stepping back and allowing the woman room to draw a breath.
Everyone consistently underestimated the petite blonde who hadn’t always had it easy and worked in a bar. Maybe Charlene Winston knew Brynn owned the place or maybe she didn’t, but the woman would sure enough remember the warning being issued and be very careful before throwing slander on the residents of Blyth Lake.