Heaven Forbid (Southern Charm #2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Mary London

“You’ve been saving that comment all summer, haven’t you?” I line my voice with thick syrupy-sweet honey.

“Oh crap,” Maggie, my assistant, mutters behind me as she wraps up a purchase in tissue paper.

I’m killing my customer with kindness as every boutique owner does if they want to stay in business, but in my head, there’s bloodshed. This woman had the nerve to invoke my dead mother in her argument for ten dollars off a skirt. That’s crossing a line, folks.

“I just think there should be a discount for locals, that’s all.”

The woman’s daughter shifts nervously next to her mother, looking highly uncomfortable with this conversation. At least she has some good sense. I direct my blinding smile at the young woman because right now my long nails are itching to get a tug on her mama’s ratty hair.

Best be looking like you stepped off the cover of The Sip magazine if you want to go toe-to-toe with me, lady.

I hand over the logo’d gift bag with her precious skirt, smile locked in place. “Make sure you join us for the Battle of the Boutiques next year. You just missed a hefty discount last week.” I shoot her a wink. “Specifically for locals.”

The woman narrows her eyes at me, but turns to leave with her purchase without further nonsense. Honestly. The gall of that woman to lecture me about discounts when everything in this store was twenty-five percent off just last week.

“Uh, Mary London?”

I spin around to find Jerry, our local mail delivery man, poking his head out from the storage room in back.

“You got this?” I ask Maggie, and she gives me an enthusiastic thumbs up.

I rush over to Jerry and take the heavy box out of his geriatric arms. I set it down on a table for him. “Everything okay?”

“Sure, sure,” he mumbles, then points out the back door. “But you got a leaky gutter, ma’am.”

I put my hand on his arm. “No need to call me ma’am when your wife was my Sunday school teacher since I was old enough to sit still for longer than two minutes.”

He takes the hat off his balding head and smiles. He always brightens when we bring up his wife. I can only hope that kind of love finds me one day.

“Yessum. It’s jus’ that the gutter’s leakin’ on your other delivery.”

My eyes shoot wide. I run over to the door, fling it open, and let out a wail when I see a box sitting on my doorstep right under a steady stream of rain. I struggle to get it inside the storage room in my tight skirt and high heels, and Jerry—bless him—helps me.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he laments, shaking his head.

“It’s okay, Jer. It wasn’t you who delivered it right under my leaking gutter. I’ll see what I can salvage.”

He gives me a head nod and heads out the way he came.

“Thanks for your help! Stay dry now, you hear?” I call after him, remembering my manners at the last minute.

I rip open the box, which is made easier by how soaked it is. Layer upon layer of new clothing is inside, most of which is covered in plastic. I’ll have to take out each piece and see if any of it survived.

“Now, this is your fault, Mary,” I mutter to myself. “You knew those gutters needed cleanin’ and you just kept bumping it down the to-do list.”

My phone rings out loud and clear, startling me.

I pull it out of my bra to see who’s calling.

I know, I know, I shouldn’t stuff it in there.

It ain’t sightly, and I’m pretty sure these things cause breast cancer or some such thing.

It’s just so dang handy to tuck her in with the girls when I don’t have pockets.

My brother, Silas, tells me I should take up wearing a fanny pack.

I hope to God he has enough fashion sense after growing up with me to know that I’d lie down and die in the street before doing any such thing.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Mary London. It’s Janie Brook. Just calling to let you know that permits cleared for the plumbing and electrical. You’re free to start the build-out.”

Relief washes over me. “Has anyone told you you’re like an angel come down from heaven, Janie?”

She giggles and it makes me happy to hear it. She and Mama used to giggle like schoolgirls, gossiping in the kitchen while they drank wine and made cookies, when I was growing up.

Her giggle fades and there’s a pause. I know a heavy pause when I hear one, so I brace myself for what she’s about to say.

“You sure about this, honey?” Her question dances across the phone line, soft and wispy. No judgement, just concern.

“I know some might raise their eyebrows at a woman opening a bar, but I think it’s high time Heaven quit clutching its pearls. I bet the town didn’t blink one single eye at Jessup opening up Saint & Sinner!” Referring, of course, to the sports bar in town.

“Well, now, you know that’s different. Jessup Whitley could take any man in a bar fight if one ever broke out.”

“I’ll hire the biggest, best security,” I quickly interject.

“I know you will, hon. It’s just not the way it’s done. I, for one, think you have every right to open up a bar in town, I just want you to be ready for the blowback.”

“Oh, I’m ready, Janie. I promise.”

“Okay, honey. Then you have my support.”

“Thank you.”

We hang up, and as much as her words unsettle me, it feels good to know she backs my decision.

It’s way past time for a woman to open a bar and not have the town throwing a hissy fit.

Plus my bar, Bless Your Heart, is going to be the best damn thing this town has ever seen.

The college kids are going to eat it up.

Country line dancing on Fridays and Wednesdays.

Free drinks for Girls Night Out on Thursdays.

And my personal favorite: the mechanical bull that’ll take center stage.

Now that the permits have cleared Janie’s office, I assume my time of being anonymous will be over. I look down at the wet clothes in the box before me and take a deep breath. Running one business is hectic enough. Add in another one and I sure hope what I told Janie about being ready is correct.

“Hey, boss, you got a spare hand?” Maggie pokes her head into the storage room.

I straighten, figuring she needs help on the sales floor more than I need to try to save this box of clothes.

I follow her out and, sure enough, we have three people in line to check out and the two fitting rooms are full.

Maggie and I get busy, and before you know it, it’s almost closing time when things slow down enough for me to check the time.

I bag another selection of dresses as Maggie finishes up the credit card sale, noticing a young man at the front of the store.

He’s dressed in shorts, a T-shirt, and sneakers, a lankiness to him that speaks of high school instead of college. His shaggy brown hair is in his eyes. These boys these days and their llama hairstyles. He peruses the table in front of him like he has all day to shop around.

“Here you go, sweetheart. Make sure you come back next week. We’ll have all new stock.” I beam at the sorority girl as she takes her purchases, Daddy’s credit card, and a gaggle of friends out the door.

I look back at the boy, frowning at his back as he leaves right behind the group of girls, hands stuffed in his shorts pockets.

My eyes narrow. Something feels off. I scan the display he was looking at.

Row upon row of bracelets and necklaces.

Costume jewelry, but high end. Not exactly worth keeping under lock and key, but not cheap either.

“Did you see that guy?” I ask Maggie, watching the boy through the window as he crosses the street, away from the college girls. He’s got his head down and he’s moving quite fast now.

“Huh?” Maggie looks up from the next customer checking out, clearly too busy to notice a teen boy who didn’t buy anything.

“Never mind.” I continue to help out at the register before closing up shop right at six on the dot. Maggie cleans the fitting rooms and the sales floor while I go rescue what I can of the new wet clothes in back.

That kid is still tickling something in the back of my brain.

I hang up the last dress and head over to the computer on a secondhand desk against the wall that’s connected to our security system.

I hardly ever use this thing, but Daddy made sure I had the top-of-the-line system installed before I opened Golden Halo right out of college.

Takes a bit for the computer to start up and I fumble through a few clicks before I find what I’m looking for.

The video from this afternoon will get recorded over next week, but for now, I can rewind and go back to when that kid was in my shop.

I have a camera by the register and one closer to the front of the shop that covers the front door, and more importantly for this mission, the jewelry display.

My heart starts to hammer when I see him enter the store.

It’s not hard to single him out. My shop is geared toward women, not men.

He roams around a bit and then focuses on the jewelry.

I can see him pick one up, check the price tag, and put it back.

He roams around a bit more, but doesn’t touch any of the clothing.

His hand comes up to the back of his neck like he’s upset or frustrated.

Then that hand grabs the same necklace he was looking at earlier and shoves deep into his pocket.

The gaggle of girls leaves and he follows. I freeze the playback.

I force myself to take deep breaths. The thing is, I’m a kind, Southern belle to my core.

I will smile through an extra-long church service sitting behind TJ Bethel after he ate too many baked beans the night before, bake anybody cookies when they’re laid up, and still talk to you if you show up at a potluck in our football rival’s colors.

But you cross me or one of my friends? Oh, honey, I’ll bless you up and down like your mama should have when you were a kid.

Next-day shipping to Jesus can be arranged.

Zooming in, I rewind the recording just a bit to see which necklace he was looking at.

It’s a pretty one. Gold plated with tiny pearls making a cross charm.

I snort in the silence of the storage room.

The irony of stealing a cross necklace just sets my hair on edge.

I zoom back in when the boy leaves Golden Halo. The necklace is gone.

I smack my hand against the desk and let out a string of expletives I’d never repeat in public.

Before I can think things through, I let that anger bubble to the surface and hit print on each screenshot of this boy showing not only his theft but that one beautiful moment he turns his head just right and I catch his face on camera.

Aha! Nobody steals from Mary London Winthrop and gets away with it.

Lord knows I will bend over backward to help my community.

Feed the poor a home-cooked meal, shovel out an elderly person’s driveway in the dead of winter, or anonymously donate dresses to the local high school for the girls who can’t afford homecoming dresses.

What I will not do is sit quietly while some poor excuse of a man steals my inventory right out from under my nose.

Grabbing the papers off the printer, I storm out of the storage room and startle poor Maggie. I hold up the pages like I’m Paul Revere alerting the colonial militia that the British are coming.

“I need to know who this boy is. Right now!”

Maggie flops her mouth open and closed a few times, then rushes over to look at the screenshots.

She gasps when she realizes what’s happened.

“Oh no! He stole a necklace?” Her shoulders deflate.

The girl has a heart bigger than the state of Texas.

“If he’d just said something, we could have put him on a layaway of some sort. ”

We don’t do layaways as a rule, but she’s right.

We would have worked with him. Deuce, my brother’s best friend and the big brother I never asked for, knocks on our door, waving at us with a smirky grin like he’s done something just barely legal.

I rush over and let him in, grabbing him by the lapels and dragging him to Maggie, who happens to still be holding the printouts.

“Whoa! What’s the hurry, MayLo?” He removes my hands from his suit and smooths out the material. He shoots me a wink. “I kind of like you all bossy like that though.”

“Shut up, Deuce. Focus. You know this boy?” I practically shove the paper in his face. Deuce looks annoyed, but then his face clears.

“Actually, I think I do. Spitting image of his daddy, who I went to school with back at Heaven Elementary. Oof. Nobody liked his granddaddy, I can tell you that much. Plus Birdie told me just this morning that he moved back to town with his teenage son.”

I want to smack the man. It’s just like someone from our small town to give me the long history of a person before getting to the information one actually needs. “Who, Deuce?”

He taps the paper. “That’s Rhett Price’s son, I’d bet my suit.”

My face transforms into a terrifying smile. Maggie’s eyes widen and Deuce shivers dramatically.

“You’re scaring me, MayLo.”

I drill my index finger into his well-dressed chest. “Quit that stupid nickname or I’ll turn this smile on you.”

Deuce holds his hands up in peace, not dumb enough to get on my bad side when I’m on a tear. “Yes, ma’am. You might want to know he lives off Emerald Parkway, just a mile or two past his granddaddy’s old place.”

I give him a nod of thanks. “I’m on my way.”

“Careful crossing those railroad tracks!” Deuce calls out as I scramble for my purse, not meaning the tracks themselves but the fact that section of town is known for being a little rougher.

But I’m not in the right mind frame to worry about those kinds of details. Rhett Price and his thieving son don’t know it yet, but they’re about to get a true Southern welcome to Heaven, Mississippi.