The Bootlegger's Daughter

“I never give out family secrets.” Dave wobbled and hiccuped. “Rosie, I don’t feel so good.” Rubbing his stomach, he added, “I don’t know if I can handle riding with you all the—”

“You’ll handle it all right.” She wrenched on his arm, heading toward the front door Ty Bradshaw held open. Just because she’d had a slight accident years ago when she was learning to drive, which had resulted in Dave, the one teaching her how to drive, breaking an arm, he chastised her about her driving. It wasn’t her fault he’d stuck his arm out the window when she’d been forced to swerve off the road. Yet, he refused to ride anywhere with her, unless absolutely necessary. Tonight was one of those absolutely necessary times.

“I can give Mr. Sutton a ride to the resort,” the lawyer said, grinning as if he knew the entire history of her driving record. “My car’s right over there.”

Norma Rose glanced in the general direction he pointed, just so she didn’t have to look at him. A jalopy, a Model T similar to the one she’d wrecked years before. The lawyer was grinning even more broadly when she turned her glare his way. “That’s quite all right, Mr. Bradshaw. Your services are no longer needed.” On impulse, mainly due to how her blood had started to boil, she added, “They never were.”

He lifted both eyebrows as he dipped his head slightly. However, his grin still displayed a set of white teeth, sparkling like those of a braying donkey. Norma Rose opened the Cadillac’s passenger door and tossed Dave’s suitcase in the backseat. The car—a gift from her father for her twenty-fifth birthday a few months ago—didn’t have a scratch on it. Proof her driving skills were now stellar. That accident had been five years ago and her first attempt to drive. She wouldn’t have needed to learn how to drive back then if her younger sister by two years, Twyla, hadn’t refused to give her a ride that morning. The year before, when Uncle Dave had returned from the war, he’d taught Twyla how to drive. He was also the one who’d taught Josie and Ginger when they became old enough, and he rode with any one of her sisters regularly.

“Ohhh.”

The heavy groan had Norma Rose glancing at her uncle.

Sweat dripped off Dave’s forehead. “I’m going to be sick.” He stumbled then, all the way to the back of her car, where he unloaded his stomach.

Norma Rose’s stomach revolted at the sound of her uncle’s heaving. Her throat started burning and she pinched her lips together, breathing through her nose as her gag reflex kicked in. She could deal with about most everything, but not throwing up. Not the sounds, the sight, the smell. It evoked memories of death and dying. People too sick to care for one another, dying side by side in their beds.

The flu epidemic that had swept the nation had stayed for months in her home. Taking lives before it left. Her mother, her brother, her grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, friends. A few of them had been spared—her sisters and father—but they’d all been sick with coughs so deep and raw they’d sounded like a gaggle of geese honking, and so uncontrollable they’d coughed until they’d vomited. Once her grandmother’s most cherished and prized possession, the washing machine on the back porch couldn’t handle the workload. With no money to replace or repair the machine, Norma Rose had washed soiled linens and clothes in a tub with bleach so strong her hands bled.

Dave retched again and though he was downwind, she got a whiff of a smell similar to the one that had once hovered over her home. Sweat coated her hands inside her black gloves. Afraid she would lose the contents of her stomach Norma Rose slammed the car door shut and dashed around the front of her Cadillac, the slick bottoms of her new shoes slipping on the pavement in her haste.

“Fine,” she told the lawyer, afraid to breathe while pulling open the driver’s door. “You give him a ride home.”

Chapter Two (#ulink_2c7b3845-eff0-5ba9-b22c-df4e1b4c8a45)

The scent of new leather helped. Therefore, despite her desperate need to escape, Norma Rose waited until the lawyer loaded Dave in his Model T before she gunned the Cadillac and headed up the road. She drove with one eye on the mirror mounted to the spare-tire bracket near the front fender. Dim, and disappearing now and again as the mirror bounced, the reflection of the lawyer’s headlights eased her remorse of not taking Uncle Dave home herself. She would not let him out of her sight, which was almost the same. If the Model T took a wrong turn, she could spin the Cadillac around and overtake the much slower car in no time.

The Model T stayed close, rumbling on the cobblestones as she weaved through traffic, turned corners and crossed numerous trolley and railroad tracks. Miles later, when the paved road heading out of the city gave way to gravel and the Cadillac stirred up a good plume of dust, headlights still reflected in her mirror. She had the windows up, to keep the dust out of her car, but knew the truck version of the Model T behind her didn’t have windows and wouldn’t have blamed the lawyer for putting more space between the two cars.

He didn’t, and Norma Rose focused on keeping her mind on driving and off the man behind the wheel of the truck behind her as much as possible. Men, the entire lot of them, were banned from her mind, at least from that little section she kept for private thoughts. Since she ran the resort, the majority of her dealings were with men in the business realm, and that was more than enough.

Approaching headlights had her hugging the right side of the road, giving the oncoming automobile as much space as needed. Another Model T. She recognized this one, too. Brock Ness’s father once used it to deliver milk to the resort. Meeting the truck this close to the city made her stomach sink.

The truck passed and she eased her Cadillac back into the middle of the road.

She’d have her work cut out in finding a replacement musician for the next few weekends. However, that could explain why her mind was so distracted lately. Her sisters had gone berries over Brock, and their silliness must have left more of an impact on her than she’d realized. There was no other reason for her to have been so observant about Ty Bradshaw and his fancy suit. How spiffy he’d looked in pinstripes and that jaunty black hat. She could still see him in her mind and the image continued to burn a hole in her brain.

She didn’t think about men in that manner. Ever. And she wasn’t about to start now. There was no real reason for her to be concerned. As soon as her father set eyes on Ty, he’d be sent on his way. Very few people were brought into the family business. A lawyer from New York would never be welcomed.

Norma Rose adjusted her speed as the road grew curvy between the lakes of Gem and White Bear, and slowed more as she took the wide corner to merge onto Main Street of the city of White Bear Lake. The town was quiet, hardly a light glowing other than a few streetlights. This late, even the amusement park and the Plantation nightclub—which had recently attempted to rival the resort by bringing in various musicians—were dark and eerily silent. Forrest Reynolds at the Plantation would do better to focus on his billiard room and bowling alley. Folks of White Bear Lake liked to keep things as neat and innocent as a baby’s first birthday gift, all wrapped up with a bow on top. If she and Forrest were on speaking terms, which they weren’t, she might have told him that.

Located four miles north of town on the shores of Bald Eagle Lake, her family’s resort didn’t need to abide by the newly instated ten-o’clock curfew and noise ordinance, and catered to all those who liked things a bit more tempestuous.

A few blocks later, Norma Rose increased her speed as the town disappeared, and glanced in the mirror. Ty Bradshaw was right behind her. She couldn’t help but wonder how he kept those suede shoes of his so clean. Suede loved dust. She knew. Shoes were her one love. She wore a different pair most every day. Now that she could afford to.

Her eyes had obviously spent too long looking in the mirror, because the familiar Y in the road appeared sooner than expected. Norma Rose had to brake quickly to make the turn, and then again as her car bounced over the railroad tracks of the nearby Bald Eagle Depot. Ty had braked, too, keeping a safe distance between their vehicles, and as she entered a stretch where tall and leafy trees hung over the road, making the already dark night denser, she found unusual comfort in the Model T headlights in her review mirror. She didn’t know why, nor did she want to wonder about it.

Several curves later, she turned the final corner and drove slowly up the resort’s long driveway. The lack of rain lately had made everything dry. Most people didn’t understand how easily dust from the driveway entered the buildings and left a layer that had to be wiped away on a daily basis, but she did.

The parking area in front of the main resort building had cleared out considerably since she’d left. Veering around the right side of the big brick building, she wheeled her car into the garage built for family vehicles. Norma Rose parked between the two older coupes that belonged to her sisters and lifted Uncle Dave’s suitcase out of the backseat before she opened the driver’s door.

A groundskeeper stood ready to close the big swinging garage door as soon as she exited, just as he’d opened it moments ago. Norma Rose expressed her thanks with a nod as her gaze locked on the Model T and the men climbing out the passenger side of the car. Ty had driven beyond the main building and along the line of big pine trees that gave the row of cabins on the lakeshore seclusion. He was parked near Dave’s bungalow. Her uncle’s blue Chevrolet sedan was there as well, making her wonder how Dave had gotten to town in the first place.

As she crossed the lawn and headed down the lane, her thoughts faded when she noticed how heavily Uncle Dave leaned on the lawyer as they walked toward his bungalow. Not sure if he was still ill, or just tired, she walked closer with extreme caution just in case he wasn’t done throwing up.

“I’ll put him to bed,” Ty Bradshaw said.

Dave’s bungalow, a small two-room cabin, didn’t hold a lot of hiding cubbies, but it did have a few, and she certainly didn’t need a New York lawyer finding them. She’d already shirked her responsibility by letting the man drive Dave home, and couldn’t do it again. “No,” she said, “I’ll do it.”

Mumbling, Dave shook his head, as if saying he didn’t need anyone’s help.

“I believe whatever he was given hasn’t worn off yet,” Ty said. “Open the door.”

Norma Rose hurried to comply and brushed past the men to feel for and catch the string hanging from the bulb in the center of the room. “His bed’s this way,” she said, entering the back room and finding the string hanging from that ceiling, as well. Light filled the room and she slid Dave’s suitcase under the foot of the bed before the men entered.

As soon as Ty helped Dave onto the bed, her uncle rolled onto his side, moaning deeply.

“I’m no doctor,” Ty said, “but I think he should be seen by one.”

Norma Rose froze momentarily. “He’s that ill?”

“I believe so.”

Torn between getting her uncle aid and leaving the lawyer alone, Norma Rose spun around to give herself a moment to think without gazing at the man who seemed to have grown more handsome since she’d seen him in town. The yellow haze of the lightbulb reflected in his brown eyes, making them twinkle, and her heart skipped a beat. That was all so abnormal it took several deep breaths for her to set her thoughts in order. “You stay here and don’t touch anything.”

Without turning to see if he’d heard, she marched out the doorway and then scurried toward the main building. After ducking under pine boughs, she ran on her toes so her heels wouldn’t sink in the plush lawn that was watered regularly to keep it green. Spying a groundskeeper, she shouted, “Get Mrs. Kasper, and my father. Send them to Dave’s cabin.”

The man waved. Norma Rose turned around and ran back to her uncle’s cabin, once again on her toes, which made the backs of her shoes slip off her heels. She planted her heels and skidded to a stop. The door was still open, and her uncle was being sick again. Backing up a few steps, she held her breath, twisting the chain of her purse with both hands. Anyone would think she’d get over this. She had tried, but couldn’t. Just couldn’t.

The lawyer appeared in the doorway. “Did you find a doctor?”

“I—” The sound of Dave’s retching had her slapping a hand over her mouth.

A hand, Ty’s hand, wrapped around her elbow and the heat seared her skin, yet she couldn’t pull away, or protest when he led her to the end of the walkway.

“What’s going on here?” her father asked, rushing through the trees along with Gloria Kasper, who was wearing her flannel robe, slippers and white floppy nightcap.

Norma Rose was able to pull her arm from Ty’s grasp, and uncover her mouth.

“It’s Dave,” Ty said, now taking a hold of Gloria’s arm and steering her toward the cabin. “He’s in here.”

“What’s wrong with him?” her father asked, glancing at the open door.

“I’m not sure,” Norma Rose answered, although her arm still stung. “Chief Williams suggested someone may have slipped him a Mickey.” She swallowed. “He keeps throwing up.”

Her father gave an understanding pat on her shoulder. For as big and ferocious as most people thought The Night was, Norma Rose knew differently. To her, he was as lovable as the stuffed Roosevelt bear that sat on her bed. Sweet and comforting.

When he wanted to be.