CHAPTER ONE

June 1933

Dax stuffed her hands deeper into the pockets of her wool peacoat, protecting them from the cold overnight ocean breeze. Her feet bobbed with the Foster House dock as the marina waves continued their steady creep toward the shoreline. She kept her stare focused on the water lit faintly by the moonlight peeking through slow-moving clouds and watched for the skiffs from the Canadian cargo ship.

Her brother-in-law, Hank O’Keefe, stood silently beside her at the railing. Quiet was his natural state unless Dax’s sister was nearby, but tonight, he seemed sullen.

“Is something wrong, Hank?” she asked.

“Change is on the horizon.”

“The whole country is about to change, but I’m not sure if it will be good for the Beacon Club,” Dax said.

They’d both read the Halfmoon Bay Review editorial detailing the chances of the Twenty-first Amendment passing after New Jersey became the fifth state to ratify it. The polls in the article came to an earth-shattering conclusion: repeal of Prohibition was a foregone conclusion. It was only a matter of when Dax would buy her last barrel of illegal whiskey.

The last two months had given her a dismal peek into the future if repeal passed. The sale of beer and wine had been legal since President Roosevelt signed the Cullen-Harrison Act in April, just weeks after his inauguration. Within a week, a dress shop down the street converted into a bar, peeling off several of Dax’s customers. She predicted a bar would pop up on every corner within six months when the sale of spirits became legal again.

Hank focused on the water in the distance, matching Dax’s stare. “Maybe now war vets won’t go broke escaping their pain.”

“What do you mean?” Dax asked.

“Every speakeasy, including ours, charges an arm and a leg for a drink when most vets are already a limb or two short. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why we charge so much. The Canadians charge us twice as much for a barrel as they do north of the border, and we have to pay off the cops and local Prohis. The overhead is high, but we’re still making money hand over fist.”

“We’re the ones taking the risk, Hank. It’s not illegal to drink booze, but it is to manufacture, transport, or sell it. If we get arrested, we’ll need the money to get us out of jail.”

“I know, but vets can’t save a penny or catch a break. It’s like the horror of that damn war never ends. They’re on a carousel and can’t get off.”

“Is that what happened to you?” Dax asked.

Beyond his distinction as the best American sharpshooter during the Great War, she’d learned little about Hank’s life during the three years since he’d come to live with them and they’d officially become family. She’d gotten the impression he’d witnessed unspeakable atrocities.

“It was until I met May.” Hank craned his head toward her. Despite the darkness, she saw a glimmer of sadness in his eyes. “I’m lucky. Most don’t have a woman like her in their lives.”

“Can I ask you something, Hank?” Dax waited for his affirmative nod. “You once told me Grace had taken you in when you were at your lowest. Had you just come back from the war?”

“It was almost two years after I returned.” He shifted uncomfortably against the railing. “A drunk behind the wheel of a car had killed my first wife. The nightmares about Caroline’s death, the war, and everything I’d done didn’t stop, but Grace and Clive were there to make sure I didn’t eat my gun.”

“Then May came along,” Dax said, the corners of her lips drawing up. Her sister often drew out in him a gentle side he rarely showed others.

“When the nightmares stopped, I knew she was my ticket off the carousel.”

“And you were her ticket, too. I’ve never seen her this happy. I’m glad you were there for her when our mother passed away last year.” Dax’s sister had taken their mother’s death much harder than she had. The day her parents sent her away thirteen years ago was when she had mourned their loss. She had considered herself an orphan since.

Several minutes of silence passed before Dax spoke again. “What do you think repeal will mean for the Seaside after it reopens on the Fourth of July?”

The last four months had been brutal on the town. Grace Parsons, the Hollywood star and Rose’s ex who took over Frankie Wilkes’s properties following his death, closed the Seaside Hotel for repairs after a heavy winter storm that damaged most of the guest rooms. Thankfully, the Foster House had escaped with only minor issues due to Dax’s reinforcements over the years. Grace took the closing as an opportunity to redesign the floors, adding adjoining rooms for privacy. Couples could check in as man and wife and pair up as they pleased behind closed doors. The improvement would make the Seaside a safe place for people with different sexual appetites, like Grace, Clive, Rose, and Dax.

“With Grace’s Hollywood and political friends coming throughout the year, the hotel should be fine.”

“I hope you’re right, Hank.”

“You don’t know Grace like I do. After everything she’s done so people like you can come here without fear of being found out, she won’t let it die. The world needs more places like the Seaside.”

“The world needs more people like you who only judge us based on how we treat others, not who we love.”

Soon, the sound of multiple outboard motors cut through the night, signaling the skiffs were approaching rapidly with their load. Being able to shift the deliveries to Friday morning after Governor James Rolph took office in 1931 had been a godsend. Rolph had made it clear he would not enforce the Volstead Act, leaving it up to the federal government to tackle. That meant Captain Burch had only the Coast Guard and Prohibition agents to contend with and Dax could sleep in on her days off. However, she didn’t expect these deliveries to last much longer. If repeal passed as the local newspaper had forecasted, smuggling runs under the cloak of darkness and secrecy like this one would become unnecessary with a stroke of a pen. In its wake, Dax expected a fiasco with sourcing legal booze, like she’d encountered with beer and wine. Demand was high and supply was low, requiring a significant outlay for the first month of deliveries. She would have to earmark more funds for the inevitability.

The first motorboat silhouette appeared in the moonlight, then a second and a third. They slowed to angle into their designated slips until all six boats were in position. Men from each boat jumped onto the dock, tying the lines to the mooring bollards. The crews unloaded their illegal cargo like well-oiled machines, stacking the crates and barrels along the wood platforms in twelve minutes. One by one, the teams reboarded, untied their lines, and retreated into the darkness.

When it was time for the sixth boat to take off, the senior man waved Dax over and handed her an envelope. “From Captain Burch. He sends his apologies.”

“Thank you,” Dax said. She looked at the envelope, finding a wax seal on the back with the captain’s mark. Odd, she thought. The captain typically communicated through his onshore money man, who collected payment from his customers every other week. This likely meant he was raising his prices again. When beer and wine became legal, Burch said he’d initially lost a third of his customers. His losses continued to climb, and he had to raise prices to justify the cost of continuing the runs. Those who could not afford the increase turned to backwoods stills to fill the gap until repeal passed. Money was getting tighter, but Dax refused to settle. She’d built the Beacon Club’s and Seaside’s reputations by offering only the best in liquor, entertainment, and experience. She would pay or broker a deal they both could live with.

The senior man also handed Dax a two-foot square box weighing about ten pounds. “The item you requested the captain pick up in Seattle. He said no charge. It’s the least he could do for his favorite customer, considering the contents of his letter.”

“Please pass along my thanks.” Dax grew more concerned about the letter, but whatever was in it would have to wait until she and Hank had safely stowed their shipment inside the basement. “Please tell him we’re looking forward to hosting him and his wife for the grand reopening of the Seaside next month.”

The last smuggler tipped his cap and pointed toward the envelope in Dax’s hand. “The letter will explain.” He boarded his skiff, and it disappeared into the marina.

Hank whistled for the waiting drivers from the four speakeasies in neighboring towns to load their new stock into the trucks. This latest batch of drivers and helpers wasn’t as friendly as the ones in the past. When Dax first brokered the arrangement with Captain Burch to deliver his cargo at the Foster House dock instead of the beaches north of town, she had a good relationship with the other crews. They no longer had to navigate the dangerous curves around Devil’s Slide and were grateful for her intervention. But this new crop had no such history with her. They kept to themselves and trusted no one. And Dax didn’t trust them, especially the crew from Redwood City, where Roy Wilkes was running for county sheriff. Wilkes had an ax to grind with her, so she watched them like a hawk.

The smugglers had etched a mark on each barrel and crate, designating which item belonged to which customer to speed loading. The less time they spent at the dock increased the chance of everyone getting away with their cargo. As crews identified their unique marks and ran the items up the gangway to their waiting trucks, Dax kept count. Orders were the same each week, except for holidays. The Fourth of July was a month away, which accounted for Dax’s double order for the reopening of the Seaside. It might explain why the Redwood City crew would grab an extra whiskey barrel, but not the two they were taking.

Dax placed her personal box on a covered water barrel and elbowed Hank in the side. “They’re at it again.” Expecting a fight if she failed to catch them off guard, she pulled her pistol from the back of her waistband and rested it against her thigh.

Hank did the same. He followed her to the back of their truck, where Wilkes’s men were lugging a barrel earmarked for the Beacon Club. She waited until they placed it on the ground prior to loading it onto the truck bed. Otherwise, they might drop twelve hundred dollars in future sales.

Dax stepped forward and pressed her gun’s muzzle into the man’s back. “I think you miscounted again.”

The man flew an elbow back, striking Dax on the left cheekbone and sending her tumbling to the ground. While the coppery taste of blood filled her mouth, she tightened her grip on the pistol. With her blinded by pain, it was now three against one—them against Hank. Dax feared it would not be a fair fight.

A scuffle started behind her, followed by three loud thuds. She finally got her bearings and refocused on her surroundings, finding the uneven playing field had tilted in the expected direction. The three men writhed in pain on the ocean-moistened pavement while Hank stood over them, returning his gun to the waist holster beneath his jacket.

“It’s never okay to hit a woman.” Hank sneered, clenching both hands into fists. “Now, unless you want me to finish this, you’ll unload what isn’t yours.”

Dax righted herself and stood, thankful and also embarrassed for needing Hank to come to her aid. He’d saved her from a more severe beating, but he’d also shown everyone she could not defend herself. Her success depended on the mystique that she was as tough as anyone in the business, but his heroics may have set back her image.

The three rubbed their wounds and rose to their feet. She waited until the Beacon Club’s other barrel was safely on the ground before telling them the consequences of their third and final mistake with her. “I warned you when I caught you stealing last month. Now, I’m barring your owner from using this dock. Captain Burch will get my message by tomorrow. Good luck in convincing him to make a separate drop-off somewhere.”

The Redwood City men laughed and issued threats of revenge before peeling out of the back parking lot. Hank turned to her. “Roy Wilkes won’t be happy.”

“Then he shouldn’t have sent men who steal.”

“This might start another whiskey war.”

“We stopped them once. We can do it again.” Dax forced her jaw open. The pain dissipated, settling into soreness and forecasting she might have trouble eating for several days. Maybe another war wasn’t such a good idea.

“I’m done killing, Dax.”

She had no words in return for Hank. He had taken on a small army three years ago, winning the war the Wilkes brothers had started in their thirst for control of Half Moon Bay. No one on Wilkes’s side survived that night. Dax didn’t know the entire story behind the atrocities Hank witnessed during the Great War, but she knew Grace enlisting him to employ his unique skills to defeat Frankie Wilkes had cost a piece of himself.

She laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Thanks for defending me tonight, but I can’t look weak again.”

“I understand. I’ll leave one for you next time.” Hank’s wink was the closest he’d come to boasting in their years of living and working together. He let his actions speak for him, but this playful side was refreshing, a sign of softening up after two years of marriage.

“Let’s hope there is no next time.”

“We better hurry and get you back to bed,” Hank said. “You have a long day ahead of you.”

“That I do. Thanks for offering to manage the club tonight.”

“You and Rose deserve a night in the city. Be sure to give Grace and Clive my best.”

“Of course.”

They sifted through the cargo, storing the Beacon Club stock in the basement and the items bound for the Seaside Club into the company truck. It had twice the power with a V-8 engine and double the hauling capacity of her old Model T pickup. The new Ford flatbed was a beast on four wheels and driving it over Devil’s Slide would have been a dream. However, given the agreement with Captain Burch to deliver the liquor to their dock, the purchase had seemed like a waste of money when something less robust would have sufficed. But Grace had insisted on only the best for the Seaside. When finished, the remodeled hotel and club would be the jewel of the West Coast, making Half Moon Bay the vacation spot along the Pacific.

Dax drove to the end of the block and pulled to the hotel’s loading dock. After three trips to the Seaside’s basement, she and Hank secured the load in the newly built hidden vault behind the bar.

The club occupied the same space as before, but the remodeling touched every aspect of the room except one. The stage Dax had built before the whiskey war between her and Frankie Wilkes was a focal point worthy of Grace’s vision for a destination more glamorous than Hollywood’s Frolic Room. Dax remembered the care she’d put into building it. After discovering how rotted the underbelly had become, she obsessed over designing a platform to last a century for one reason—Rose. Dax could not have the woman she loved performing on anything less sturdy or fetching.

She imagined the grand reopening with movie stars and their friends filling the hotel. During the day, some would picnic at the beaches north of town and others would take small launches around the inner harbor to drink champagne and make love in broad daylight. At night, space at the club would be by reservation only. Servers would scurry around, delivering meals and nonstop liquor while the guests waited for the main attraction.

Crystal lights would adorn the ceiling and walls. Elegant white linens and bone china would decorate the tables. When the clock struck eight, Lester would seat himself behind his piano and announce, “The Seaside Club is proud to bring you the Songstress of the Pacific, Rose Hamilton.” The crowd would go wild with applause, and Rose would mesmerize them with song after song until she’d convinced each guest they were going home with her, but Dax would know Rose had eyes only for her.

After returning to the Beacon Club to complete the paperwork associated with the night’s shipment, Dax poured two cups of water, sat next to Hank at the bar where she’d placed the special delivery from Captain Burch, and pressed the cold glass against her left cheek to stem the swelling.

“Is that Rose’s birthday present?” Hank asked.

“Yep. I’m glad Burch came through in time.”

“I’m surprised Edith couldn’t get one from the city.”

“They sold out in three days. No one for two hundred miles will get another shipment for weeks.” Dax could have kicked herself for not jumping at the chance to get one of these babies the day they first arrived in San Francisco. She could say it was because of her working nights, but it would not be accurate. She’d simply forgotten.

“Well, she’ll love it,” Hank said.

Moments later, she broke the seal on Captain Burch’s letter and read it. Considering this week’s special election, its contents weren’t surprising, but the news nonetheless made her angry.

“Any problems?” Hank asked.

“Nothing we can’t handle.” Dax returned the letter to its envelope and placed it in her jacket pocket, weighing whether to call Grace. She was the Beacon Club’s primary investor and owner of the Seaside, but she’d put Dax in charge of club operations. Dax was confident she could work out something with Burch. She had to. Otherwise, the Beacon and Seaside Clubs might wither until repeal. “Let’s hope the election goes the way we want.”

“That bad, huh?” Hank said.

“We’ll be fine.” Dax sounded more optimistic than she felt. But losing everything didn’t matter. She and Rose were thirty years old—Rose as of today—and were no strangers to being penniless. Until Grace opened the Beacon Club, neither knew what it was like to walk into a store and not worry about the price of things. Struggling again didn’t scare her, not as long as she had Rose.