From Beer to Eternity. Sherry Harris

6 CHAPTER 7 CHAPTER 8 CHAPTER 9 CHAPTER 10 CHAPTER 11 CHAPTER 12 CHAPTER 13 CHAPTER 14 CHAPTER 15 CHAPTER 16 CHAPTER 17 CHAPTER 18 CHAPTER 19 CHAPTER 20 CHAPTER 21 CHAPTER 22 CHAPTER 23 CHAPTER 24 CHAPTER 25 CHAPTER 26 CHAPTER 27 CHAPTER 28 CHAPTER 29 CHAPTER 30 CHAPTER 31 CHAPTER 32 CHAPTER 33 CHAPTER 34 CHAPTER 35 CHAPTER 36 CHAPTER 37 CHAPTER 38 Acknowledgments Teaser chapter

      KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

      Kensington Publishing Corp.

      119 West 40th Street

      New York, NY 10018

      Copyright © 2020 by Sherry Harris

      To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

      This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

      Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

      First Kensington Books Mass Market Paperback Printing: August 2020

      ISBN: 978-1-4967-2303-1

      ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-2305-5 (ebook)

      ISBN-10: 1-4967-2305-8 (ebook)

      To Bob

      For making life an adventure no matter where we live

      and

      To Clare

      The angel on my shoulder

      Heritage Businesses

      Sea Glass—owner, Vivi Jo Slidell

      Briny Pirate—owner, Wade Thomas

      Redneck Rollercoaster—owner, Ralph Harrison

      Russo’s Grocery Store—owner, Fred Russo

      Hickle Glass-Bottom Boat—owners, Edith Hickle,

      Leah Hickle, Oscar Hickle

      Emerald Cove Fishing Charters—owner, Jed Farwell

      CHAPTER 1

      Remember the big moment in The Wizard of Oz movie when Dorothy says, “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore?” Boy, could I relate. Only a twister hadn’t brought me here; a promise had. This wasn’t the Emerald City, but the Emerald Coast of Florida. Ruby slippers wouldn’t get me home to Chicago. And neither would my red, vintage Volkswagen Beetle, if anyone believed the story I’d spread around. Nothing like lying to people you’d just met. But it couldn’t be helped. Really, it couldn’t.

      The truth was, as a twenty-eight-year-old children’s librarian, I never imagined I’d end up working in a beach bar in Emerald Cove, Florida. In the week I’d been here I’d already learned toddlers and drunk people weren’t that different. Both were unsteady on their feet, prone to temper tantrums one minute and sloppy hugs the next, and they liked to take naps wherever they happened to be. Go figure. But knowing that wasn’t helping me right now. I was currently giving the side-eye to one of the regulars.

      “Joaquín, why the heck is Elwell wearing that armadillo on his head?” I asked in a low voice. Elwell Pugh sat at the end of the bar, his back to the beach, nursing a beer in his wrinkled hands. I had known life would be different in the Panhandle of Florida, but armadillo shells on people’s heads?—that was a real conversation starter.

      “It’s not like it’s alive, Chloe,” Joaquín Diaz answered, as if that made sense of a man wearing a hollowed-out armadillo shell as a hat. Joaquín raised two perfectly manicured eyebrows at me.

      What? Maybe it was some kind of lodge thing down here. My uncle had been a member of a lodge in Chicago complete with funny fez hats, parades, and clowns riding miniature motorcycles. But he usually didn’t sit in bars in his hat—at least not alone.

      Elwell sported the deep tan of a Florida native. A few faded tattoos sprinkled his arms. His gray hair, cropped short, and grizzled face made him look unhappy—maybe he was. I’d met Elwell when I started working at the Sea Glass. I already knew that Elwell was a great tipper, didn’t make off-color comments, and kept his hands to himself. That alone made him a saint among men to me, because all three were rare when waitressing in a bar. At least in this one, the only bar I’d ever worked in.

      It hadn’t taken me long to figure out Elwell’s good points. But I’d seen more than one tourist start to walk in off the beach, spot him, and leave. There were other bars farther down the beach, plenty of places to drink. So, Elwell and his armadillo hat seemed like a problem to me.

      “Elwell started wearing it a few weeks back,” Joaquín said with a shrug that indicated what are you going to do about it. Joaquín’s eyes were almost the same color as the aquamarine waters of the Gulf of Mexico, which sparkled across the wide expanse of beach in front of the Sea Glass. With his tousled dark hair, Joaquín looked way more like a Hollywood heartthrob than a fisherman by morning, bartender by afternoon. That combination had the women who stopped in here swooning. He looked like he was a few years older than me.

      “It keeps the gub’ment from tracking me,” Elwell said in a drawl that dragged “guh-buh-men-t” into four syllables.

      Apparently, Elwell had exceptional hearing, or the armadillo shell was some kind of echo chamber.

      “Some fools,” Elwell continued, “believe tinfoil will stop the gub’ment, but they don’t understand radio waves.”

      Great, a science lesson from a man with an armadillo on his head. I nodded, keeping a straight face because I didn’t want to anger a man who seemed a tad crazy. He watched me for