The Posse Read online

  The Crystal Cove Books

  The Posse

  The Plan

  The Path

  If you enjoy spending time in

  Crystal Cove, Florida

  You’ll want to visit Burton, Georgia

  and follow Jude’s daughter

  on her adventures.

  The One Trilogy

  The Last One

  The First One

  The Only One

  The Posse

  Copyright © 2013 Tawdra Kandle

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Hayson Publishing

  St. Augustine, Florida

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Epilogue

  The Playlist

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Romantic Edge Books

  Other Books

  To Cheryl, Sally, Ellen and Terry

  The bravest women I know.

  ***

  “To Daniel.”

  “To Daniel.” Five glasses clinked together, but instead of the raucous laughter and jives that would normally have followed such a toast, there was only silence. The men around the bar looked at the floor, the wall or into their glasses—any place but at each other, where someone might have to acknowledge the deep sadness sunk into each face.

  Eric Fleming sniffed once, long and loud. “Can’t believe it’s been a year.”

  “Hell of a year for Jude, too,” put in Matt Spencer.

  “The real hell for her was the year before.” Logan Holt reached beneath the bar and pulled out another bottle of beer. “Taking care of Daniel, watching him disappear right in front of her.”

  They all nodded, wagging their heads in unison. No one in this crowd would ever dispute the way Jude Hawthorne had nursed her husband during his fight with cancer.

  “Dammit, did you see her face today? When we let go his ashes? I’m telling you, I’ve never seen anything sadder. But she held it together, man. Like she always did. Like she always does.” Cooper Davis rubbed a hand over his eyes.

  “Hell of a woman,” Matt said.

  “To Jude.” Mark held out his beer. “My baby sister. She and Daniel...” His voice trailed, and he coughed. “They were amazing together.”

  “What’s she going to do now?” Cooper dropped his empty into a nearby barrel and popped another top. “I mean, she’s holding onto the Tide, right? She’s not going to sell?”

  Mark shook his head. “Nah, why should she? It’s hers. It’s our family’s.”

  “I think the Tide and the kids are what kept her going this last year.” Logan traced the path of a drop of condensation down the side of his glass. “She won’t give that up.”

  “The kids are going back to school, right?” said Eric.

  “Yeah, Meggie’s heading back to Savannah this weekend, and Joseph is driving up to Gainesville with some friends next week.” Mark stood and stretched. “I gotta head home. Back to school tomorrow.”

  “You can’t go now. I’ve still got a bottle of Jack and three six-packs.” Logan glanced around the room. “Plus we’re not ready yet. To end this.”

  Mark sat down again without argument. Going home would mean more than the end of just the evening. Even though they had left the last of Daniel’s ashes in the rolling waves of the Atlantic that afternoon, as long as they remained here in Logan’s house, talking about their friend, he wasn’t really gone. Once they left, it would be over.

  The posse would be finished.

  “What if Jude doesn’t stay?” Eric spoke up from his perch in the corner. “What if she meets someone?”

  “Who’s she going to meet here in Crystal Cove?” Mark shrugged. “And I don’t think she’s even interested in that kind of thing.”

  “Not now. But she’s not exactly a washed up old lady, you know? And people come to the Cove. Tourists. Someone could stop at the Tide for breakfast, sweep her off her feet—”

  Cooper laughed. “You been hitting the romance stack at the library again, Eric? Sweep her off her feet, huh?”

  Matt took a long pull of his beer. “Could happen. Stranger things, you know.”

  Mark shook his head. “Jude won’t leave. Her life is here.”

  “Daniel was her life,” Logan said. “And he’s gone.”

  “She can’t. If Jude leaves, the posse is done for real.” Eric’s mouth twisted into a worried frown.

  They were silent again, each considering. If any of them were tempted to point out that with Daniel’s death, over thirty years of unbroken friendship was gone anyway, no one did. Jude had always been an unofficial member. She stood for Daniel now; there wasn’t any need to voice that.

  “What can we do?” Mark slumped back into his chair, covering his eyes. “Free world. We can’t make her stay. If she meets someone else, falls in love—or whatever, what are we going to do? Tell her no? As her big brother, I can promise you that doesn’t fly.”

  “It could be us. One of us could be the one to sweep her off her feet.” Matt’s words were measured, careful. “I mean, why not? We’ve all known each other forever. If I was married and then I was—well, wasn’t here anymore, I’d want one of you guys to take care of my wife.”

  “Daniel asked us to look after her.” Cooper poured another glass of whiskey. “I guess that’s true.”

  “Seriously?” Logan shook his head. “What is this, the Middle Ages? Our friend dies, so one of has to jump into his spot. Since when do we buy into arranged marriages?”

  “Who said anything about marriage?” Matt asked. “But a relationship between two consenting adults—old friends, who know everything about each other—why not? Why wouldn’t it work?”

&nb
sp; They all thought about it. It was crazy, but they’d done worse. And when they thought about Daniel, about Jude...there wasn’t anything any one of them wouldn’t do.

  “So who goes for it?” Cooper was the first one to speak. “How do we figure that out? Draw straws? Pissing contest?”

  “Well, Eric and I are both out. Wives might raise a fuss, plus—” Mark hooked two thumbs to his chest. “Brother. It’s between the rest of you.”

  “Why don’t we let Jude choose?” Logan flickered bright eyes between Cooper and Matt.

  “Are you crazy? Jude will never agree to that.” Matt rolled his eyes.

  “I don’t mean we tell her. I mean, we all...you know...like, date her. What do all the girls say? Court her. And whoever clicks, that’s the one.” Logan flipped up a hand.

  “You, me and Cooper?” Matt nodded. “Okay. Hey, I got nothing to lose. It’s not like women are beating down the door.”

  “If Jude gets wind of this, she’ll blow a gasket.” Mark crumbled his napkin, aimed for the trash can and missed.

  “I think we can keep it quiet. Nice shot, by the way.” Cooper punched his friend in the shoulder.

  “Basketball’s not my game. But listen, I’m serious. How are you going to keep this from her? Take turns?”

  “No.” Logan spoke definitively. “We act natural. We do what we would anyway—check in with her, take her to dinner, whatever. And then we see what happens.”

  “And no hard feelings, right? No matter who she chooses. We say it right up front now, Jude is the final word. Agreed?” Cooper laid a hand on the oak bar, a gesture that was old as their friendship. Matt slapped his own hand down on top, followed by Eric and Mark. Logan was last, unfurling a fist on the pile.

  “Deal,” he said. “Now let’s break out the good stuff.”

  ***

  The black velvet sky was giving way to vague bands of pink as Jude climbed up the cement steps that led to the side door of the Riptide. The restaurant sat at the edge of the beach, ugly and unassuming in its dingy white brick glory. When she was a little girl, Jude had thought the Tide looked as though it had grown out of the sidewalk and gravel parking lot. The raised porch that jutted over the sand had been added about ten years before she was born, so it was practically brand new. Her dad had screened it in just before her ninth birthday, and they’d had her party there that year.

  As she did every morning, Jude took a moment, leaned against the bricks and looked out over the beach into the waves. She wondered how many times she’d done this, stood here at five AM and let the rare solitude wash over her.

  She’d been opening the Tide since the summer after she turned sixteen. For the first two years, she’d come in with her dad, riding shotgun in his old black pickup, learning how to start the day. When school resumed that fall, her father had given her the option to sleep that extra hour, but Jude had chosen to spend it with him instead. He never said it outright, but she knew he was proud of her choice.

  After graduation, she took over opening on her own. Her mother worried about her all alone on the dark mornings, but Jude overheard her father saying, “It’s the Cove, Maggie. She’ll be safe.”

  Jude didn’t miss an opening until her wedding day, and only then because her mom put her foot down and insisted. She and Daniel spent their honeymoon in the mountains of Gatlinburg, a wedding gift given reluctantly by his parents, who hadn’t been able to convince their son to wait until after college graduation to marry Jude.

  She hadn’t missed opening the Tide the day she gave birth to Meghan, because her daughter had kindly waited to be born until eight in the evening. Joseph was another story; he’d made his appearance at four in the morning. Jude could still see Daniel, a full-day’s growth of beard on his tired face, holding his son and grinning up at her.

  “Hey, if you get up now, you could still make it to the Tide for opening,” he’d teased, and Jude, exhausted from laboring for ten hours, hadn’t even had the strength to throw her pillow at him.

  She’d taken off four weeks after each of her children was born. And then she’d missed opening the day her mother died, because she wouldn’t leave her dad and Mark in that empty, hopeless hospital room where Maggie Rivers had just drawn her last breath.

  Jude had opened the Tide hours after her father had passed, though, because she knew that was where he needed her, and where she needed to be. She’d come the morning after Daniel had died, too. She couldn’t stand being in that house one more minute.

  She smothered a sigh, gripping the chilled metal of the doorknob just as she heard her name.

  “Jude!”

  It was rare that anyone was out this early, and she turned in surprise, a frown between her eyes. It took a moment of focus to recognize the man jogging up the sand toward her.

  “Good God, Logan, what the hell are you doing up so early? I thought you’d all be ringing in the wee sma’s last night.”

  Logan had the good grace to look a little winded, even as he managed a grin. “We did. Around two, I gave up the ghost and told them to turn off the lights and lock up before they went to bed.”

  “Two? And you’re up running at five?”

  He shrugged. “The body clock won’t be turned off. I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I figured I’d get in a jog before everyone else woke up.”

  Jude unlocked the door. “I’ve got to get the grill on. Want some coffee? Or a bottle of water?”

  “How about both?”

  She shot him a grin as she flipped on lights and headed for the kitchen. Logan climbed onto a barstool, and Jude reached into the small fridge to pull out the water. She slid it across the bar to Logan and then moved through the kitchen, setting up the coffee and turning on the grills.

  “You look like you could do all that with your eyes closed.” Logan took a long chug on the water before recapping it.

  Jude laughed. “Some mornings I do.”

  “Do you ever think about giving it up?”

  “The mornings? Nah. Like you said, the body clock gets me up at four every morning anyway. I’d be awake worrying even if I turned it over to someone else.”

  Logan shook his head. “Not the mornings so much as the whole thing. Running the business.”

  “The Tide?” Jude snagged two mugs off a shelf and filled them with steaming coffee. “Give it up? No.” She doctored Logan’s coffee with a sugar and a healthy dose of cream before setting it in front of him.

  She leaned her elbows on the bar and blew into her own cup. “Funny, just before you showed up, I was thinking about how long I’ve been pulling morning duty. Almost thirty years, give or take. Some days I think...why? I want to stay in bed, I just want a day to myself. But you know, it’s a part of me. Might be a pain in the neck sometimes, but it’s who I am.”

  Logan watched her sip the coffee. Her black hair was skinned back into a pony tail, just as it was every day, and her bright green eyes were fastened on the dark wood of the bar top. One finger traced an ancient gouge in the wood, but Logan knew she wasn’t seeing it. She drew in a deep breath and set the mug on a coaster.

  “So what time did my kids leave your house?”

  He drank before answering. “Before midnight. You weren’t up when they got home?”

  “They crashed here, upstairs in the apartment. They were going to have a few friends come over, hang out. I wanted the peace.”

  Logan frowned. “I thought they were going to be with you last night. They left you alone?”

  “Logan.” Jude covered one of his large tanned hands with her own smaller one. “I’m telling you, I wanted some time. If I had said I needed them, you know they would’ve been there. They’re good kids.”

  “Yeah, they are.” He turned his hand beneath hers to grip it briefly. “You going to be okay when they go back to school?”

  She returned the hand squeeze for just a minute before pulling loose and turning to the large refrigerator at the back of the kitchen.

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine.
They need to go back. This last year, and the one before, it was tough on them. They need to go be kids again. We’re all ready for it.”

  “Okay.” Logan drained the last of his coffee and rounded the bar to rinse off the mug in the huge sink. “You know where we are if you need anything. All of us. You only have to ask.”

  “I do know.” She shot him a smile. “Now get out of here and let me get cooking. The early birds are going to be here in a few minutes wanting their pancakes and eggs. And you have a house full of hung over men you need to kick out.”

  “Right.” Logan grabbed the bottle of water to take with him. “Thanks for the drinks, Jude.”

  As she watched him stride toward the door, the muscles on his back evident through the tight running shirt, light brown hair curling on his neck, Jude felt an almost foreign warmth shoot down her spine, straight to her knees. She paused for a moment to appreciate the view, and then shook her head.

  Pull it together, Jude. Here comes the breakfast crowd.

  ***

  Meghan stumbled down the narrow steps from the apartment over the Riptide. She yawned as she rounded the corner into the main dining room and plopped onto a bar stool.

  Her mother was across the room, chatting with a couple Meghan pegged as tourists. Jude had bent one leg onto an empty chair so that she could point out something on the simple one-laminated-page menu.

  “It all looks good,” the woman told Jude. “It’s just that my husband here wants lunch, and I was hoping to have breakfast.”

  “It’s almost eleven. Too late for breakfast.” The man shook his head.

  Jude smiled. “I know it says we only serve breakfast until ten on weekdays, but I can whip you up some pancakes and eggs. How does that sound?”

  “That would be perfect.” The woman shot her husband a triumphant look, and he rolled his eyes.

  “And how about one of our special Ripper burgers for you, sir?” Jude cocked her head.

  “Sounds good.” He handed her both of the menus, and Jude moved away from the table, back to the open kitchen.