That Man of Mine (Whispering Bay Romance 3)

One of them, a big guy with a beer belly and a handlebar mustache stilled for a moment when he saw the uniform. “What’s going on?” he asked Calloway.

“This guy’s wife is Mimi Grant. She’s the one who hired us to play at the festival tonight in Whispering Bay.”

The guy put out his hand. Once again, Zeke hesitated before shaking it. “Bubba Collins. Sorry about the misunderstanding, but I’m sure you know the contract was breached. Not much we can do about that.”

“Yeah, I seem to be hearing that a lot lately.”

Bubba aka “Fatback” tugged on his strained belt buckle. “Look, do you have like a warrant or anything? Because if you don’t, we’d like to get back to our party.”

“Is there a reason I need a warrant?” Zeke asked mildly.

“Look, man, we get it. Your wife is pissed because—”

“My wife is not pissed. Nor does she know that I’m even here. I, on the other hand, am very unhappy. Do you fuckers have any idea how hard she worked on this festival? This is her first year as mayor and this festival is a make it or break it for her. She’s running around right now t

rying to figure out how to keep the town from going into riot mode when they discover in,” he stopped to glance at his watch, “about one hour and sixteen minutes, that Fatback Bubba and the Rattlesnakes are a no-show. I get why you don’t need to play this festival. You boys have just made it big. Good for you. But even if your word means shit, think about all those fans of yours who drove out today to see you. I hope they’re still fans when I get on that stage and tell them what assholes you are.”

“Hey, you can’t talk to us that way!” Calloway said.

Bubba jumped in to agree. “Yeah, who the hell do you think—”

“Boys, boys, let’s all calm down here,” said the other man, who up to now hadn’t said anything. He was tall like Bubba, but lean with curly brown hair that poked out from the edges of the baseball cap he wore on his head. “Let me get this straight.” He glanced between Calloway and Bubba. “You boys promised to play at a festival tonight?”

“It’s like thirty minutes from here in some little nowhere town no one cares about,” Calloway said.

“Aw, I like little nowhere towns. Came from one myself.”

Zeke frowned at the guy. Something about him seemed familiar.

Calloway went pale. “Sure, I love little towns, too. Doesn’t everyone? It’s just—”

“I don’t know about going on the road with someone who doesn’t keep their word,” said the guy with the baseball cap. “Seems like bad mojo to me.”

“But, they didn’t pay us the rest of the money they owed! What were we supposed to do?” Bubba said.

“Sounds to me like this fine officer’s wife was counting on you and you let her down. Let the whole town down. I sure hope all that bad publicity doesn’t rub off on me.”

Calloway was sweating now. “Maybe we can swing by?” he said to Zeke. “Play for like thirty minutes or something?”

“Oh, I think we can do better than that.” The man turned to Zeke and put out his hand. This time, Zeke didn’t hesitate to take it.

*~*~*

Mimi ran into the nearest porta potty and threw up. After an entire day of not eating, she’d grabbed a hot dog and was now paying the price. But most likely anything she ate right now would go down wrong. In exactly five minutes, tickets would go on sale for Fatback Bubba and the Rattlesnakes and she couldn’t let that happen. Which meant she needed to make her announcement now.

Is this how Bruce Bailey felt last year? Mimi could almost feel sorry for him, except she was pretty sure he’d put Doug up to the check scheme, so, no, she didn’t feel sorry for him at all. She could only feel sorry for herself right now.

She took a swig from her bottle of water and rinsed out her mouth. It was time to woman up. She was going to march out there and get on that loudspeaker and make an announcement. It was the only thing she could do.

Mimi worked her way through the crowd. The concert ticket line was so long it went all the way around the food booths. She had no idea Fatback Bubba was this popular. It had been a brilliant idea to get him. If only she hadn’t screwed up, today would have gone down in history as the most successful Spring Into Summer festival ever. Instead, it would probably go down as one of the worst, only second to last year’s fiasco. At least she hadn’t promised to bring in Billy Brenton.

She glanced around, hoping to see Zeke or one of the other uniformed officers, but all she could see were the familiar faces of everyone she’d grown up with. There were lots of unfamiliar faces, as well. Those were the ones she was most worried about. The people in Whispering Bay might not vote her back in as mayor, but they would eventually forgive her. The out-of-towners who’d driven up especially for the festival? They wouldn’t be as charitable. She cringed, thinking of the reaction her announcement would incite.

She walked up to the stage and plucked a mic off the pedestal, then tapped it a couple of times to make sure it was working. The tapping instantly drew the crowd’s attention.

A trickle of sweat ran down her back and into the waistband of her khaki knee length shorts. Here goes nothing. “May I have your attention, please?”

Everyone who wasn’t looking before, looked now. A crowd gathered as close as possible to the ropes sectioning off the grassy concert area. Mimi squinted, trying to make out individual faces. Momma and Daddy waved to her from the cotton candy booth. Bruce and Doug edged their way to the front in a clear effort to get the best view possible, like leering hecklers at an execution.