Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man (The Sinatras of Jericho County Book 1) (18 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The
front door of the small brown home was opened by a tall, lanky teenage boy, and
Paige Springer hurried in.
 
“Where is
she?” she asked the boy.

“In
the kitchen,” the boy said.

Paige
hurried in that direction.
 

Beatrice
was seated at her small kitchen table, nursing a cup of tea, when Paige hurried
in.

“Tell
me it is not true,” she said as she sat at the table across from Beatrice.

“Wish
I could tell you that,” Beatrice said.

“It’s
true?”

“It’s
true.”

“She
fired you?”

“He
did.
 
In front of her.”

“Why
that bastard!” Paige roared.
 

“It
was the most humiliating experience of my entire life, Paige,” Beatrice
said.
 
“I will never forgive that man for
how he treated me this morning.
 
Never!”

Paige
shook her head.
  
“No,” she said.

Beatrice
looked at her.
 
“No what?”

“No,
we will not do it.
 
We will not let that
. . . that
woman
come to our town and
take over.
 
She just got here and she’s
firing you?”

“Charles
was the one who fired me, just so we’re clear.
 
But he did it right in front of her.”

“Which
makes it worse,” Paige said.
 
“It was as if
he was attempting to impress her at the expense of your livelihood.”

“That’s
how I feel about it too,” Beatrice agreed.
 
“He was impressing her.
 
As if she
was the only one who matters now.
 
Where
did he dredge her up anyway?”

“I
don’t know.
 
I’ve asked everybody, and
no-one has ever heard of her before.
 
It’s strange in the extreme, in my view.
 
And I tell you we will not sit idly by and let this take root.”

“But
what can we do about it?” Beatrice asked.

“Root
her out,” Paige responded as if it was obvious.
 
“It’s going to take time, and a lot of planning, but we are going to do
it.
 
We are going to root that heifer
out!”

 
Abigail Ridge sat on the patio of her
beautiful home and looked at her tiresome pool boy.
 
He was one of her playmates when Charles
wasn’t around, and he hadn’t been around in over two months.
 
But the beauty of their relationship was her
invisibility.
 
He allowed her to live in
this home for free, he paid all of her bills, and all she had to do was be
available whenever he needed her.
 
She
just had to keep her mouth shut about their relationship, and be
available.
 
She did both exceedingly
well.
 

And
now, with this new news that she hadn’t even shared with Charles, she felt she
had placed herself in a stronger position.
 
But breaking it to him was the problem.
 
The timing had to be perfect.
 
She
was hiding it well, but wouldn’t be able to hide it completely for too many
more months.
 
But timing was everything
with Charles.
 
If she picked the wrong
time to tell him her news, everything could backfire.
 
And nothing was going to backfire in her
life.

But
she certainly needed a change in her life.
 
She was pushing forty now.
 
Surfer-dude pool boy wasn’t cutting it anymore.
 
She wanted real dick.
 
She wanted Charles’s dick, which was what she
privately called
her
Big Daddy.
 
But it had been two months and nearly two
weeks exactly, since she had a taste.

She
never questioned it.
 
They’d had dry
spells before.
 
But then pool boy made a
little offhand comment that was no different than all of the other offhand
comments he enjoyed making while he cleaned the pool.
 
Except that it rocked her world.

She
was leaned back on the lounge chair in her oversized bathrobe, with her shades
covering her eyes.
 
She was taking in
what little sun there was, and actually enjoying herself, when her boy toy
stopped gossiping about the local librarian being caught with the local,
married principal, and mentioned Beatrice Moynihan.
 
“It’s a shame what happened to her,” he said.

Abby
opened her eyes and looked at him.
 
She
knew Beatrice worked for Charles.
 
“What
happened to her?”

He
looked at her.
 
“Didn’t you hear?
 
Big Daddy Sinatra fired her today.”

She
had to play it cool.
 
Even pool boy
didn’t know just how deeply her relationship with Charles actually ran.
 
She lifted her shades on top of her red
hair.
 
“He fired her?”

“Yes!
 
And he didn’t do it in a nice way,
either.
 
At least that’s what I heard.”

“But
why would he fire Beatrice?
 
She’s worked
at the Inn for ages.
 
She worked there
before he even thought about taking over that establishment.”

“That’s
why it’s such an outrage,” the pool boy agreed.

“But
why did he do it?” Abby wanted to know.

“From
what I’ve heard, he had to make room.
 
He
fired Beatrice to make room for his new girlfriend.”

Abby’s
heart immediately began to pound.
 
“His
new girlfriend?
 
What new girlfriend?”

“Haven’t
you heard?
 
She came to town
yesterday.
 
She’s now the general manager
at the Inn.
 
And get this: she’s
African-American.”

This
really intrigued Abby.
 
“Oh, really?”

“Yes,
ma’am.
 
She’s a black bombshell from what
I’ve heard.
 
If you go to your country
club tonight, you may see her.
 
A friend
of mine who works there told me that Big Daddy made a reservation for two for
dinner tonight.
 
It was the first time,
according to my friend, that Big Daddy has ever made a reservation for
two.
 
It was always for one, for
himself.
 
He always ate alone.
 
Never would take any of his ladies to the
club for dinner.
 
Until now.”

Abby
could hardly believe it.

“And
from what I hear she’s hot,” her pool man added.

Abby
looked at him.
 
“Hot?
 
What do you mean she’s hot?”

“Very
nicely packed, according to what I’ve heard.
 
Some guys are saying she could give you a run for your money, Miss
Abby.”

Abby smiled
her one-second smile and then frowned, and pool boy, who knew when he had hit
the wrong nerve, quickly reversed course and began talking about other
matters.
 
He, like everybody else in
town, knew that she and Big Daddy Sinatra had an understanding going on, and
that he paid her bills.
 
She seemed to be
the only one who didn’t know that everybody knew.

Abby
didn’t even know about this new girlfriend Charles had brought to town.
 
He had other women.
 
That was his nature to always have a slew of
them.
 
But he’d never brought any of his
outside women into Jericho.
 
That would
be a first.
 
She would be discreet.
 
She wasn’t as obnoxious as Paige Springer and
a few others who loved to broadcast their affiliation with Charles.
 
But she was going to ask around.
 
And see for herself if Charles showed up at
their club tonight with that woman on his arm.
 
Because if he did parade her out so publicly, she would know beyond a
shadow of a doubt that this lady was different.
 
She would know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this lady was not going
to be just another bed warmer for Charles.
 
She was going to be competition for Abby.

It
was such a picturesque small town situated against a gorgeous mountainous view,
Jenay thought, as she drove slowly into town toward Charles’s downtown
office.
 
It reminded her of all of those
beautiful postcards, and of places like Mayberry RFD.
 
Any moment she expected Andy Griffin, or
Barney Fife, or little Opie and Aunt Bee to come out onto the pristine
sidewalks with smiles and good cheer all around.
 
But as she drove by, in Charles’s car,
instead of smiles, she got stares.
 
Instead of good cheer, she got a lot of whispers and sidelong looks.
 
She was a stranger here.
 
And they wanted her to know it.

The
turn-by-turn navigation system in the car took Jenay straight to Charles’s
office.
 
And his office was a surprise
too, as she unbuckled her seatbelt and took a good look.
 
Not that she expected a Donald Trump-type
office building in a place like Jericho, but she did not expect this small,
understated storefront of an office either.
 

She
stepped out of the car, grabbed her purse, and walked across the sideway to the
entrance.
 
Sinatra, Inc
. was written on the plate-glass window, and was in
semi-circled letterings as if it was a pawnshop or a bakery or some other type
of small-scale business.
 

It
was surprising, given Charles’s obvious wealth, but Jenay was learning that
Charles was in many ways very surprising.
 
He never seemed to be what people wanted him to be.
 
Even she had been disappointed in him
already, when he didn’t like the fact that she chose not to fire Edna.
 
But he didn’t seem to care that he didn’t
live up to people’s expectations.
 
He was
his own man and he lived his life his own way.
 
His style was going to take some getting used to for Jenay, but she
could see where she could someday really understand him.
 
Someday.

“May
I help you?” an older woman asked as Jenay entered the office.
  
She was seated behind a big, glass-enclosed
reception area not unlike the kind you find at a doctor’s office.

“Yes
ma’am.
 
My name is Jenay Franklin, and
I’m here to see---”

“Yes,
Miss Franklin,” the woman said as she stood up and came from out of the
enclosed area.
 
“He’s expecting you.
 
Right this way, please.”
 
She began walking down a narrow hallway.
   
Jenay followed her.
 

“He
has a visitor at the moment,” the woman said, “but he instructed me to bring
you straight back when you arrived.”
 
She
opened the door and stepped aside.

When
Jenay entered the office, Charles looked up from behind his desk.
 
“Jenay, come in!” he said cheerfully, and
rose to his feet.

“Thank-you,”
Jenay said to the receptionist and walked further into the office.
 
The receptionist closed the door behind
Jenay, and went back to her desk.

Jenay
entered slowly.
 
Another man was seated
in front of the desk, and he stood up and buttoned his suit coat on her
arrival.
 
And just like the front of the
office, Charles’s office itself was just as understated and small.

“Come
on in, sweetheart, I want you to meet Buzz Hadley.”

Buzz
extended his hand.
 
“Hello, there,” he
said as they shook hands.
 
He was an
older man, in his fifties seemingly, with a nice smile.

“Nice
to meet you, Mr. Hadley,” Jenay said.

“Call
me Buzz, please.
 
We aren’t formal type
people here.
 
All of that Mr. and Mrs.
doesn’t work in Jericho.
 
We’re good,
hard-working, simple folk here.”

“Don’t
believe a word of it,” Charles said as he reached out his hand for Jenay to
come around his desk.
 
“He’s the
president of my bank and there’s nothing simple about him.”
 

When
Jenay made her way behind the desk, Charles surprised her by giving her a big
kiss on the lips in front of his bank president.
 
She would have thought he wouldn’t want the
gossip just yet.
 
But again, Charles
surprised her.
 
She was not going to be
his secret.
 
In no way, shape, or form
apparently.