Bartholomew by Elizabeth Lennox

Chapter 1

“Josephine!  Goodness, dear!” the elderly woman gasped, even placing a hand on her chest.  “What are you doing here?”

Josephine smiled warmly as she embraced her grandmother, Emeline.  “I’m here because something is going on,” Jo replied as she stepped back.  “Where’s Gramps?”

Emeline waved towards the back of the deli, their mom and pop store that they’d run since the two of them had bought the store three days after their wedding, over fifty years ago.  “Oh, he’s somewhere in the back.  I think he’s working on a new sauce.”

Jo watched her grandmother’s eyes and knew she was lying. Turning slightly, Jo watched her grandmother’s facial expression, testing the waters.  “Why don’t I go say hello?”

Emeline’s eyes widened and she shook her head.  “NO!”  When Jo paused, Emeline tried to appear casual.  “Dear, you know how he gets when he’s cooking up a new sauce.  He puts a great deal of pressure on himself to make it just right for our customers.”

Jo’s eyes narrowed.  “Yeah.  I also know that he loves to have someone test out his crazy recipes.”  She shifted the tote bag on her shoulder.  “So are you going to tell me what’s going on?  Because I’m here now.  And I can help.”

Her grandmother did another one of those hand flutters, which only increased Josephine’s worry.  “Nothing dear!” she replied.  “You should just head on back to your job in Philadelphia.  Everything is fine.  We’re fine.  The business is…fine,” she asserted, but that last word was weak, and Emeline couldn’t look Josephine in the eye. 

Jo shook her head as she leaned a hip against the teal blue counter, tilting her head slightly as she watched her grandmother.  “Gran, you are never vague.  You never do that hand-flutter-thing,” she added, tilting her head slightly.  “You are strong and capable, and always direct.  But you are obviously nervous right now.  Which only confirms my suspicions that something is going on that you don’t want me to know about.”  She took her tote bag off of her shoulder, dropping it behind the counter and gently led her grandmother over to one of the sets of chairs scattered around the eating area of the deli.  The tables were for customers so they could relax while eating the most amazing deli sandwiches, each made with love and care. The meats and cheeses were high quality.  The toppings were locally grown, whenever possible, and the bread was made fresh every day.  But it was her grandfather’s special sauces that made the sandwiches incredible!

“Oh,” Emeline sighed, looking at her hands.  They were trembling. 

Jo wrapped her hands around her grandmother’s fingers, squeezing them gently.  “Talk to me, Gran.  What’s happening?  Why is Gramps doing something you don’t want me to know about?  Why are the flowers outside all messed up when I know that you baby those flowers every morning?  Why are there no customers at the moment, when normally there’s a line out the door at this time of the day?  And,” she paused, looking into her grandmother’s terrified eyes, “why are you trembling?”

Emeline couldn’t hold back any longer.  With that last question, her face crumbled and she pulled her hands away, hiding her face with her aging fingers.  “Oh, Jo!” she whispered. “It’s horrible!  Just horrible!”

Josephine was so startled by her normally strong grandmother’s breakdown that she shifted off of the chair and came around to kneel at the distraught woman’s side, taking her wonderful, amazing grandmother into her arms.  “It’s going to be okay, Gran,” she promised.  “I’m here.  I’ll help!”

“You can’t help, child!” she whispered through the sobs.  A fraction of a second later, she lifted tear stained eyes.  “You have to get out of here. Get away from this place!”

That only terrified Jo more!  “What’s going on?” she asked, patting her grandmother’s back. 

“I…can’t tell you!”  Emeline’s arms tightened around Jo.  Not sure what else to do, Josephine continued to try to soothe her grandmother. 

They remained like that for several moments while Josephine imagined all sorts of horrible problems.  Cancer.  Alzheimer’s.  Health inspection issues.  Financial problems.  That last one Jo doubted because her grandparents were savvy with their money.  They’d made a profit on their deli from the first month they’d opened up, mostly because Gramps knew how to make the best sauces and customers clamored for the recipe.  But also because Gran pushed half of their income into investment accounts, twenty-five percent went back into the business for either improvements or marketing – and she was a whiz at both – then they lived off of the other twenty-five percent. 

Josephine had seen their retirement balance last year and had asked them why they didn’t retire and move to Hawaii.  Their massive retirement account could fund that move without even blinking!  Gran had scoffed and asked what they’d do in retirement. 

So what was going on now?

The possibility of either grandparent having health issues terrified her.  They were all she had.  As an only child of an only child, she didn’t have aunts and uncles, cousins or second cousins.  With her parents gone now, she only had her grandmother and grandfather.

“Are you sick, Gran?” she asked, whispering the words because they were just too terrifying for her.

“No, love.  We’re getting old, but we’re still hopping,” Emeline replied, sniffing as she pulled back.  Looking into Jo’s eyes, she affirmed, “We’re not sick.”  She knocked her knuckles on the plastic table and said, “Knock on wood, we’re still hale and hearty.”  The “knocking on wood” was an old joke.  Usually, Gramps would tap his knuckles on his head as a joke while Gran just knocked on anything nearby, pretending it was wood.

Predictably, Jo laughed, relieved by that small gesture of silliness and normalcy. 

“Okay, so if you and Gramps are healthy, what’s going on?”

Gran sighed and shook her head, placing her weathered palm against Jo’s cheek.  “Nothing we can’t handle, love,” she replied.

Josephine could see the fear lingering in her eyes and shook her head.  “Right.  Well, guess what?”

Gran pushed herself up from the chair and smiled as Josephine stood as well. “What’s that, dear?”

“Since I can work remotely, I’m staying here in your spare apartment for a while.”

Gran froze, then slowly turned to look at Jo.  “You’re…what?”

The fear, no, the terror, was back in her Gran’s eyes.  More confirmation that something was seriously wrong. 

“Yep!” Jo replied cheerily with a shrug.  “You mentioned that your tenant moved out, broke their lease.  So the apartment over the shop is empty, right?”

“Yes…but…!”

“So I’ll stay there until you and Gramps tell me what’s going on and let me help fix it.”  She bent down and hefted her tote bag back onto her shoulder.  With a spin, she whizzed her keys in the air.  “I’ll just go dump my stuff upstairs, then I’ll come down to help you guys around the shop.  She looked around and spotted a group of men getting out of their vehicles, heading into the shop.  They all had hardhats hooked onto the back of their trucks and were wearing reflective vests, indicating that they were most likely road construction employees taking a break for lunch. 

Jo leaned down and kissed her grandmother’s cheek.  “I’ll be right back!”

With that, she turned and headed out to the parking lot where she’d parked her small SUV.  It was late autumn, one of her favorite times of the year.  There was a crispness to the air that never failed to energize Josephine, especially after the heat and humidity of the summer months.  And the mosquitoes!  Good grief, she hated those blood suckers! 

She walked out to the parking lot, smiling to the four men walking into the deli.  They all nodded politely in her direction and headed into the store, even holding the door for her. 

That was the thing about Elsa, Pennsylvania.  Everyone here was so nice!  Jo lived in Philadelphia, which was about two hours from Elsa.  It was an easy drive, so she could get back to Elsa to visit her grandparents whenever the need arose, but it was far enough that she had distance and independence.  Her grandparents were awesome, but they tended to baby her a bit.  Jo understood.  They’d lost their daughter and son-in-law too soon and Jo was all they had left. 

She popped the lock on her trunk just as another SUV pulled into the parking lot.  This was a big, black SUV, impressively powerful. But it was the man behind the steering wheel that captured her attention. 

He was huge!  With dark, almost black hair, and hard angles making up his jawline.  His eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses, but…goodness, the man had some impressive shoulders!  That was all she could see of him through the driver’s window but, for some odd, reason, Josephine couldn’t move, couldn’t pull her eyes away from him.  Her head actually swiveled in order to watch him as he pulled into a parking space. 

Only when the SUV shifted past her and she could no longer see the man did she realize that she’d been holding her breath.  When she breathed in, it was to suck oxygen into her starved lungs. 

“Silly!” she whispered, then turned to haul her huge suitcase out of the trunk.  She’d packed a lot of her clothes because Jo wasn’t sure how long it would take to resolve the problems that were making her grandparents sound so stressed on the phone.  She was just about to thunk it onto the ground when it was lifted out of her grasp by tanned hands.  Hands that were attached to muscular forearms, lightly sprinkled with dark hair.  That’s all the skin she could see, but her eyes slowly traveled higher, noting the bulging biceps underneath the sleeves of a cream-colored Henley shoved up to the elbows.  And oooh, those shoulders again!  They were even better up close! 

And still, her eyes traveled higher.  This was the man from the SUV!  He was ridiculously tall.  Ridiculously good looking.  Those hard angles of his jawline made her fingers itch to touch it.  To touch those angular shapes and see if his skin was soft or rough or prickly. 

Higher still and Jo wondered if the giant man would be offended if she reached up and pulled those dark sunglasses off.  She desperately wanted to see his eyes.  What color were they?  Blue?  No.  He was too tanned for blue eyes.  Although, what a person’s tan had to do with eye color, she wasn’t really sure.  Brown.  She’d bet they were brown.  Yes, most likely brown. 

A soft, chocolatey brown! 

No, not soft.  There was nothing soft about this man!  He was hard.  Hard and muscular and…and drool worthy!  Goodness, he was hot!  She remembered an author who consistently posted a picture on Fridays to her Facebook page showing a good looking man, usually without a shirt, with clearly defined muscles all over his arms, chest and abdomen.  This man would be perfect!  And yet, she knew that this male specimen was…soooo out of her league! 

“Where are you taking this?” the Hot-Guy-Friday guy asked, his voice deep and rumbly.  Was ‘rumbly’ even a word?  Jo certainly hoped so.  Because it perfectly described this man’s voice. 

A dark eyebrow lifted and Jo suddenly realized that she was staring.  Yes, she was rudely and pathetically staring up at the man’s hard, handsome features.  Good grief!  The poor man!

“I’m sorry!” she gasped, jerking out of her contemplation of other adjectives to describe the man.  “I’ve completely objectified you and that’s so rude!  Goodness, if some man had done that to me, I’d be livid!  I’m very sorry!”

The man laughed and stepped closer.  “I don’t mind being objectified by you,” he replied, extending his hand.  “Bart Hudson.”

Jo jerked her eyes away from his deliciously handsome features to gawk at his hand.  He wanted her to touch him?  Dare she?  Oh, good grief, it was a simple handshake!

Slowly, as if in slow motion, she lifted her own hand carefully, almost tentatively placing her fingers into his. 

His massive paw closed around her fingers and she almost gasped at the jolt of electricity that flashed through her body.  Yeah, she’d read about the heat between two people sometimes being this intense, but in all of her twenty-eight years, she’d never experienced it herself.  It was…shocking!  And so sad.  Because this man…he probably dated professional cheerleaders or female body builders. 

Josephine occasionally went for a walk as exercise.  Others might describe that “walk” as “getting the mail”, but she counted it as exercise.  Every once in a while, she got a crazy niggle in her brain to join a gym and maybe lift some weights.  But then she’d see a coffee shop along the way and…well, she always had a good book on her phone and the allure of a chai latte and an hour’s escape from the world was a stronger temptation than a gym.  And poof!  Her niggle vanished, not to be acknowledged for several more months. 

Special Agent Bartholomew Hudson stared down at the gorgeous woman, his fingers tightening on her soft hand and he had to resist the urge to lean forward and smell her.  He’d gotten a whiff of her shampoo a moment ago, lavender, and couldn’t seem to stop staring.  She was lovely, he thought.  Definitely not like the other women he’d dated in the past.  They’d been very pretty.  However, there was something different about this woman. 

Her long, dark hair lifted softly in the cool autumn breeze, sparkling in the early afternoon sunshine.  And her pale skin was…incredible!  Surely it couldn’t be as soft as it looked!  Not possible!  Because he suspected it would feel like the velvety texture of a rose petal. 

A…rose petal?  What the hell?  He was a tough, hard-core, mean, and grumpy FBI agent!  He was here to do a job!  There were criminals in this city who were most likely setting up a racketeering campaign.  He definitely didn’t have time to explore this woman’s skin texture or discover what her hair felt like as it ran through his fingers.

And yet, he couldn’t seem to pull his eyes away.  She was soft all over.  Not fat, just curves.  He’d noticed her delectable curves when he’d pulled into the parking lot.  He’d watched her walking towards her car and had almost hit another vehicle in his effort to park and watch her at the same time.  Plus, she had a slow, confident, easy gait that drew a man’s eye and held it.  He’d noticed the men heading into the deli turning around to admire her.

What’s more, this woman had no idea how incredibly beautiful she was.  She was oblivious to the other men’s stares. 

Her soft, blue eyes…they stared up at him, warming him.  No, heated him up!  Hell, his body was reacting to her scent and those amazing blue eyes. 

He should probably release her hand, Bart thought.  But he didn’t.  In fact, his fingers tightened around her fingers, feeling the slender, delicate bones.  Damn, she was soft!  And she smelled so good!  She was like a dessert that he wanted to explore and lick until he found all of her sweet spots! 

Down boy, he told himself firmly.  Bart had to remind himself, again, that he was here in Elsa merely to do a job.  He had to find the bad guys, lock ‘em up and then head back to Philadelphia and move on to the next investigation. 

“What’s your name?” he asked, instead of following his mind’s instructions to walk away. 

“Jo,” she replied.  Then blushed, stammering out, “Josephine Clairmont,” she clarified.  “But most people call me Jo.”

Josephine.  He tossed her name around in his mind.  It was a beautiful sounding name.  Lovely and soft, just like the woman.  “Named after the empress?” he teased.

The woman nodded. “Actually, yes,” she replied with a self-conscious laugh.  “All the women in my family are named after historical figures.  My mother had just finished reading a book about Empress Josephine before I was born.  Hence, the name.”

“It suits you,” he replied, charmed by the story as well as her laugh.  She wasn’t just beautiful, he thought.  She was cute, too.  That was hard to do.  In his experience, women were either beautiful and knew it, used it to manipulate men.  Or they were cute and vivacious.  Bart wasn’t the kind of man who discriminated.  He liked both.  Women were always lovely and soft, a wonderful distraction when he needed a break from the tension of a rough case.  But he’d never actually felt charmed by a woman. 

Until Josephine. 

“Where do you need this?”

The confusion was in her eyes…he almost laughed with relief.  She felt it too.  That sexual awareness, that blurring of the world around them.  Right now, it was just him and Josephine. Nothing else existed. 

That was probably dangerous.  Bart was trained to notice everything.  But not at this moment.  Not when Josephine was staring up at him with those big, blue eyes, pleading with him to…he wasn’t sure.  Possibly because his brain had been shorted out as soon as he’d watched her walk across the parking lot. 

“Need what?” she asked, her full, red lips opening slightly while her eyes…those blue eyes surrounded by long, dark lashes, blinked up at him.

“The suitcase?” he reminded her, then cursed himself for that reminder.  It pulled her eyes away from his and she stepped back.  He wasn’t able to smell her shampoo anymore and he almost growled, as if he were some sort of savage beast! 

She looked down at the enormous suitcase that, okay, perhaps his FBI mind was a bit warped, but the suitcase was large enough to hide a body! 

“Yes!  Um…!” she looked around, as if she had to remind herself of where she was.  He liked that!  “Right!”  She pointed towards the second story of the small building.  “I’m going to be…” she stopped, and he recognized the issue.

“I’m not going to stalk you,” he vowed, turning serious now.  “I’m one of the good guys.”

She breathed a sigh of relief and Bart wanted to pull her into his arms and tell her that she was safe, but also grab her arms and shake her.  Just because a man said he was a good guy, that wasn’t always the truth.  He could have quoted the number of serial killers and serial rapists who looked and acted like a good person, but their souls were pure evil.

Didn’t matter, he thought. He’d look out for her. 

“Just moving in?” he asked as he lifted the suitcase and carried it towards the stairway that led up to a small balcony. 

“Only temporarily,” Josephine replied, glancing at him over her shoulder as she led the way towards the stairs.  She started up the steps and he had to pause because…holy hell, the woman had a great ass! 

Good guy, he reminded himself.  Bart was one of the decent, respectful guys!  And good guys did not ogle a woman’s ass when he was trying to be helpful.  He shouldn’t lust after the woman either, but that was a lost game already.  Bart definitely lusted after the very lovely Ms. Josephine Clairmont! 

She was saying something about…he had no idea.  All he could think was that she was gorgeous!  Front and back!  Okay, he probably hadn’t checked out her front well enough.  But he would get to that very soon.  Once he was able to stop looking at those stunning blue eyes! 

“…something weird,” she said as she unlocked the door to the small apartment. 

He stepped inside and looked around.  It was a one bedroom apartment with a small kitchen, but everything here looked…cozy!  It was nice!  There was a sofa and two chairs situated around a low coffee table.  End tables and lights sat at both sides of the sofa and a small table with four chairs around it was in the corner.  The door to the bedroom was open so he could see the queen sized bed topped with what was obviously a hand-made quilt.  Everything in this apartment was used, but it was warm and comfortable.  The sofa even had another hand-made quilt folded over the back. 

“This is nice,” he commented, looking around.  “How long are you staying here?”

She turned, flicking the keychain around her fingers over and over again.  “I don’t know.  As long as it takes.” 

He lifted a dark eyebrow at that reply, pulling off his sunglasses.  “As long as what takes?”

She started to say something, then changed her mind, shaking her head slightly.  “Just…I need to fix some things.”

A mystery.  Oh, the lovely Josephine had no idea what she’d just done.  Not only did he want to know every secret about her delicious body, but now he wanted to know what her secret “things” was all about.  If there was one thing he loved, it was solving mysteries.  It was one of the reasons he was such a good FBI agent.  He wasn’t just good at connecting seemingly random clues, he was tenacious about discovering the truth and finding the bad guys! 

“Do you have time for dinner while you’re ‘fixing things’?” he asked, trying to be casual, but her answer to his question was important.  More than he’d realized moments before.

“Dinner?”

He smiled, thinking she was delightful.  “Yes.  Dinner.  It’s a meal, usually with a protein and a starch.  Sometimes a vegetable if you want to go crazy.”

She laughed, just as he’d intended, but then she shook her head. “I don’t think…”

“Don’t think, Josephine.  It’s just dinner.  We can share the meal together, or alone.  Usually, those kinds of activities are more fun together.”

Josephine’s whole body tightened with awareness at the smile that eased onto his handsomely rugged features.  Were they still talking about dinner?  Surely they were, right? 

But for some reason, she suspected that he’d moved on to a more intimate subject and, at the thought, her cheeks heated.  Gad!  She prayed that the blush wasn’t showing on her cheeks.  But the sly grin and the amusement in his green eyes…green, she hadn’t expected that…warned her that he was also thinking about other things people do together.  Or alone!

“I’ll probably be very busy helping my grandparents,” she replied, feeling as if she needed to give the man an escape. 

“Okay, you just arrived in town today.  How about tomorrow night?” he offered.  “That will give you enough time to help your grandparents, then you can tell me about it tomorrow night and maybe I can help.”  He moved closer, bending slightly as if he were telling her a secret.  “I’m very good at solving problems.”

She laughed and he noticed that her eyes sparkled with her amusement.  Damn, she was gorgeous! 

“Seriously, I should…”

“Seriously,” he interrupted, moving closer.  He took her hand and lifted it to his lips.  “I’m very attracted to you, Josephine.  I want to get to know you.  If I’m reading you correctly, then I think you feel the same attraction.  So unless you tell me that I’m wrong, that you don’t feel this too, then I’m going to keep asking you until you give in.”  He moved even closer.  “Not to be stalkerish or anything,” he teased.

She laughed, but it was a soft, almost desperate laugh.  “Fine.  Yes.  I feel it but…,” she paused, looking up at him.  “Are you sure?” 

“Yes.  Dinner tomorrow night.  I’ll pick you up here at six o’clock.”

She let her breath out in a woosh, but she nodded her agreement.  “Six o’clock.”

“Good.  Until tomorrow,” he said, then turned and walked out of the apartment, pulling the door closed behind him.  He noticed that her locks were a bit flimsy and made a mental note to get her something more solid. 

Josephine stood very still, wondering if she’d just agreed to have dinner with the man.  Mentally, she reviewed the conversation in her head, but everything was a bit fuzzy.  The man…he was a powerhouse of testosterone and masculine charm!  Good grief, surely…yep, she had!  She’d just agreed to have dinner with a man that made her stomach go all fluttery and images of him naked doing things to her that…well, she never thought about things like that!  Never!  She was the calm, serious one of her friends! 

“Good grief!” she sighed, pushing her hair off of her forehead as she looked around.  Everything in the apartment looked the same.  Green dishes, home-made quilts, soft colors and a few scratches on the table.  The furniture wasn’t new, but it was solid and of good quality.  Her Gramps had restored several of the pieces over the years, but everything still looked nice. 

So why had the previous tenant left in such a hurry?  Why had they abandoned such a great apartment?  The space was larger than average and the rent was lower than what her grandparents could charge.  Plus, if anything broke down, Gramps rushed over to fix it. 

Pushing the thought of Mr. Tall, Dark, and Mysterious out of her mind, she focused on the reason for her temporary return to Elsa.  It was such a cute, quirky town.  But something was definitely going on.  She’d noticed small signs of something strange happening to the city as she’d drove through the streets this morning.  Jo couldn’t put her finger on what it was, but there was a strange sort of…almost neglect.  No, it wasn’t neglect.  It was more like…well, a tension.  Yes, that was it.  There was a tension. 

No, she was just imagining things.  The whole town couldn’t be bracing for something bad to happen.  It was just…crazy thoughts. 

Turning, she rolled her suitcase into the bedroom and started unpacking.  She hurried, knowing that her grandparents would need help with the lunch rush.  She changed into a pair of leggings and a long sleeved tee-shirt, knowing that a sweater would be too hot and she didn’t want to get any of her work clothes dirty.  Working in a deli was fast paced during the lunch rush.  In the midst of preparing made-to-order sandwiches, the space sometimes got a bit crazy and food tended to go everywhere while hurrying to make the meals as fast as possible. 

She walked down the back stairs that led directly into the storage room of the deli.  Her grandfather wasn’t back here at the moment, which made sense.  It was nearly noon so that meant he’d need to be out front, helping customers.

Jo grabbed one of the flowered aprons her grandmother sewed, tying it around her waist as she stepped out into the brightly lit area of the store.  Sure enough, a line of customers had formed and she stepped right in, pulling on plastic gloves so she could make sandwiches for the customers.