Carlotta nods. “Or in this case, throw the petition at her.”
Everett’s chest rumbles. “At this point she’s in hot water for getting people to sign a petition under false pretenses. I’ll give her a call.”
“No way.” I take up his hand. “She’s baiting you—the both of you.” I nod to Noah. “Send her a cease and desist letter and throw in a few good legal threats. Not that it will do any good. I’ll put a word in with the killer. I know exactly who he or she can feed a slice of poisoned pie to next.”
Evie’s mouth rounds and her eyes light up at the demented thought.
“Kidding,” I say quickly. Evie runs up the steps in front of us, and I shake my head to Everett. “I am so not kidding.”
Hannah’s old rental looks exactly like my old rental that once sat to its right, so when Noah opens the door and lets us in, an overwhelming feeling of nostalgia hits me when I see that it’s an exact cookie cutter of the home I just lost.
“Boo!” both Greer and Barry pop out from behind the sofa and shout at the very same time.
“Geez Louise!” Carlotta grabs ahold of her chest as she glowers at the spooky specters.
“Right?” Evie matches her enthusiasm. “Mom, this place is a carbon copy of your old house.”
“Oh, it is,” I say as I take in the open layout with the living room to the right, the pristine red brick fireplace that looks as if it’s never been used. To the left sits the dining room, and just in front of us is the kitchen with its marble counters. It’s light and bright, and could easily be mistaken for my old home, with the exception of the fact Hannah’s furniture looks a touch more modern than mine.
Evie runs ahead. “I’m taking the room all the way in the back. Sorry, Carlotta, but if my Dad is moving in, then I want to be as far away from my parents’ bedroom as possible. The last thing I want to hear is the two of them doing it.” She pretends to retch on her way to the kitchen. Or on second thought, she might not be pretending.
Carlotta makes a face. “That was me doing it that you heard, kiddo. I was the only one making a racket back at her old place,” she says, stalking off into the kitchen herself. “Butter my biscuits,” she chirps as she yanks open the pantry. “Was this woman training for the Honey Hollow Donut Classic?”
Evie peers that way. “Glazed crullers!”
Before we can stop them, both Evie and Carlotta are each halfway through their own boxes.
“Don’t eat that food!” I shriek. “The woman was poisoned!”
Barry nods Greer over to the kitchen. “What do you say, Greer? It can’t hurt us.”
Greer shakes her head. “We should stay focused and help Lottie. Besides, Evie doesn’t know about Lottie’s abilities. But once they’re gone, you and I, my friend, are going to rack up the carbs.”
Everett’s jaw redefines itself. “Carlotta, Evie, why don’t you explore somewhere else in the house. I’ll take you both to the bakery afterwards.”
Carlotta speeds past us. “I’m checking out my new closet.”
“I’d better do the same.” Evie blows past us in a blur. “If it’s a thimble like the one in Mom’s old house, I’ll need to take yours, too, Dad!”
“Sounds good,” Everett calls out just before his cheek rises as he looks at me. “Lemon, I can find my own place. I don’t want you to feel as if—”
“No way,” I cut him off. “We’re doing this together. You’re my husband. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be living together.”
Noah takes a breath, and I can hear it from clear across the room.
Everett blinks his way. “You have something to say?”
Noah shrugs. “I just thought the two of you were feeling things out. Sort of the way you and I were, Lottie. But you’re right. You’re married”—he lays a heavy emphasis on that last word as he looks to Everett—“I don’t see why you shouldn’t live together.”
Everett’s chest deflates a moment. “Why do I get the feeling you think our relationship isn’t the real deal?”
Noah shakes his head. “I didn’t say it. You did.”
“All right.” I hold my hands out. “Look, Everett and I are together. We also happen to be married. And—I like his company.” I turn to Everett. “Also, as much as I hate to admit it, I think having a little help around the house during the second half of this pregnancy would be heaven. If you and Evie move somewhere else, that’s just going to make me sad that I’ll have to drive to see you. We’re a family. I should have my daughter and my husband nearby. The arrangement we had before was fine, but there are no other available houses on the street. I want you here, Everett. Right here with me.”
“Good.” He dots a kiss to my cheek. “Because that’s exactly where I want to be.”
Noah ticks his head to the hall. “The office is this way.”
We head down the hall and to the left, and sure enough, Hannah’s converted one of the guest bedrooms into a cosmopolitan office with white wooden floors, pale blue walls, and a small flat screen TV on the wall near the window. There’s a desk in the rear of the room that looks as if it’s comprised solely of mirrored glass and I speed on over to it.
“It’s all clear,” Noah says. “Touch whatever you want. I’ve taken all the prints I need.”
Everett opens the closet, exposing a few blouses and a couple of blankets set on the rack up above.
He rolls it closed once again. “The landlord said he’s trying to get in touch with her family, but if that doesn’t work, he’ll hire someone to put her things in storage. As soon as he does a few things around here, he says we can take possession of it. We’ll have a home again in no time.”
“A home.” I shake my head. “I guess we’ll need to do a little shopping. We lost everything we owned. I’m lucky Lainey still had some more maternity clothes to give me, and Everett, you’re lucky your tailor had an entire new line of suits ready for you in no time.”
Noah steps in close. “I’ll take you shopping, Lot. We can pick up a pizza and make a date out of it.” He inches back as if catching himself with the blunder. “A friendly date.”
“Would you think I was a loser if I said I’d rather curl up on our couch and do a little internet shopping while eating that pizza? In fact, I might just order the furniture to this place in the same way.” I shrug over at Everett. “All I want to do these days is eat and sleep. If my fingers can do the clicking, my feet don’t want to do the kicking.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Everett glances to Noah. “I’m going to do a quick sweep of the house and make sure Evie and Carlotta aren’t lying on the kitchen floor clutching crullers. Enjoy your date.”
Noah’s chest bounces. “He sounds bitter, Lot. I’d dump him.”
“Very funny,” I say just as Greer and Barry step into the room. “Ooh, quick, give me your hand.”
“If you’re going to cheat, I suggest you start with my lips. No reason to move slow. We’re having a baby.”
I make a face. “You’re a real comedian. Greer Giles and Barry Honeycutt are here.”
A while back I discovered that if someone was holding my hand, they, too, could hear the dead. I guess you can say it’s like a bad game of telephone, only the other line links straight to the other side.
“Hello, Barry.” Noah gives a circular nod to the space in front of us. “So how did you know Hannah?”
“I saw her at the gym now and again. I asked her out, and we dated hot and heavy for about six months. But I was doing competitions and she was sailing around the world, going on exotic vacations, spending her daddy’s money faster than her father could earn it.”
“Right up until he lost it all.” I filled Noah in on everything Barry and I gleaned from Reese. “Hannah may have been a socialite who fell from financial grace, but she did get her life together pretty quickly. I mean, this is a nice rental house. She had a business. She seemed like a real go-getter.”
Barry floats over and glances to the filing cabinet. “All right, let’s have a
t it. Those donuts are calling my name.”
I pull open the pink file first, and it’s loaded with paperwork of some kind—something to do with art.
Noah leans in. “It’s a certificate of authentication. Ivy dug into it. It belongs to a few oil paintings that were purchased on a cruise ship about a year ago. The pieces are currently in her bedroom.”
“Nice,” I say as I riffle through the rest of the file. “Receipts from the track—as in horse races. Huh. It looks as if she won a few small jackpots, nothing over seven hundred dollars.” There’s nothing else in the file, so I move on to the blue folder, and no sooner do I open it than I see an eight-by-ten picture of a horse. It’s black as midnight, and its mane is long and gloriously crimped. “What a majestic beast.”
Greer leans in. “I’ll say. That’s a Friesian. They cost as much as a Bentley. I once dated a man who had both.”
I turn the picture over, and there’s an inscription on that back that reads To Hannah, Merry Christmas. He’s all yours. Chuck
“Wow,” I muse. “Do you think this Chuck person gifted this horse to Hannah?”
Noah shakes his head. “I have no idea. But I can run a search and track down all the Friesians I can in the area.”
The rest of the file is filled with receipts spanning from an oil change on her truck to a receipt from a Doctor Van Spalding’s office. I quickly search through it.
“Look at this, Noah. It’s the paperwork from her gluteal augmentation.” I flip through the next few pages. “And these are her aftercare instructions.”
Greer leans in. “So she did have a butt lift! Knew it. The woman was a fake.”
Barry moans. “That’s too bad. She could have got there the natural way. Although, she was putting in the work via her classes.”
“She sure was,” I mutter. “The entire neighborhood can attest to that.”
I pull out the final sheet from the back.
“Noah”— I glance up at him—“this is a receipt for a room at the Maple Meadows Lodge.”
He nods. “Yup. She was there for about four days last June.”
“So interesting.” I shake my head as I study the paperwork. “She was in a lake view room. Those are prime real estate. It seems Hannah was doing really well for herself.”
“I don’t think so,” Greer is quick to offer up the commentary. “She sounds like a kept woman to me.”
Carlotta pokes her head into the room. “Speaking of kept women, Lot, you’re gonna love your new bedroom.”
“Yeah,” Evie shouts from the hall. “There’s a swimming pool in the bathroom!”
“Now this I’ve got to see.” I put the files down, and a hardback catches my eye. “The Horseman,” I read the title out loud as I pull it close. I open up to the first page, and there’s a signature under the author’s name in print. “It’s a signed copy.” I glance at the cover once again and note the author’s name, Charles Nelson.
I take a quick picture of the book before entombing it back into the drawer.
Barry and Greer have already zipped out of the room, and just as Noah and I are about to do the same, he gently spins me into him.
A pained smile rises on his cheeks as he bears those green eyes into mine.
“I love you, Lottie Lemon, more than you will ever know. Welcome to the neighborhood again.”
“I love you, too, Noah.” I pull him in and indulge in a hard embrace. There is a very real chance this baby in my belly belongs to him, but regardless, I will always hold a special place for Noah in my heart. “You know we’re family.”
“Forever.” He glances to my midsection and nods as he looks back up at me. Noah is so sure this baby is his it makes my heart ache for him.
We head on out, and soon we’re in the master bedroom where Everett, Evie, and Carlotta are congregating in the bathroom.
“Hey? This bedroom feels bigger than my old room, and wow—” I gasp and stagger as I take in the bathroom. “Holy heck.” I elbow my way to the front. “This is amazing!”
Everett nods. “It was definitely upgraded in the last few years.”
The bathroom looks four times the size of the one I had next door. There’s a long marble counter in here with two sinks and a mirror that’s backlit with a blue light. There’s a small sofa and a bench to the right, and in the back there’s a walk-in shower that looks as if it could house all of us and a spa tub built for two or three or sixteen of your closest friends. Suffice it to say, that tub will be therapeutic for more than just Everett. And the things that man knows how to do in a hot tub will be more than beneficial for me.
“Everett”—I press a hand to his chest— “how fast did the landlord say we could move in again?”
“He said a moving van would be coming by this Saturday to get her things either way.”
“Well then.” I take a breath. “I think it’s time we order some furniture. It looks as if we’re about to have a new beginning.”
Everett glides his arm around my waist as we turn and look at Hannah Beckham’s old bedroom.
“There’s plenty of room for a bassinet.” He dots a kiss to my cheek.
My hand rises to my stomach, and I warm our little sugar cookie with it.
“This is really happening.” My lips invert to stave off the sudden burst of emotion.
Noah slings an arm around my shoulders. “It’s happening, Lottie. And do you know what else is happening? You’ve got an appointment tomorrow with Dr. Barnette.”
I nod his way. “I took her last appointment of the day in hopes you could both be there.”
Everett touches his head to mine. “There’s no way in the world I would miss it, Lemon.”
“Me either,” Noah insists.
I’m so very lucky that Noah and Everett haven’t killed one another by now, that they are both so sweet and attentive to me.
A picture of Hannah and her friend Maizy sits in a frame on the dresser, and it snags my attention.
Hannah wasn’t so lucky.
There’s a quilt on her bed and clothes on the ottoman at the foot of her mattress. Hannah Beckham very much planned on coming back here once the street fair was through, however, someone out there had other far more nefarious plans for her.
But who?
Chapter 9
Dr. Barnette’s office sits nestled between the Honey Hollow General Hospital and one of the thickest forests in all these parts. That must be why I feel so cradled and safe each time I visit, but then again, it might have something to do with the fact that both Noah and Everett are with me each time I visit, too.
We’re already in the exam room, me with my paper gown and fuzzy socks on, Noah reading a pamphlet on after-birth care, and Everett studying the flow chart on the wall that depicts each phase of the baby in the mother’s womb.
Everett steps aside and points up to the cartoon fetus in the mother’s belly. “According to this chart, at five months, the baby is putting on weight, has eyebrows, and could start hiccupping. It says you might be able to feel that.”
A laugh trembles from me. “I’d welcome a hiccup from the baby. I’m just dying to feel it move. I’m so excited for it. I just know it’s going to feel like Christmas.” I give my belly a pat. “But you don’t have to wait until Christmas, Sugar Cookie. Feel free to kick up a storm as often as you like.”
“Call me when it happens, Lot,” Noah says. “I don’t care what time it is. I want to rush over and see if I can feel it, too. I’m just as excited as you are.”
“I’m excited, too, Lemon.” Everett’s eyes grow glossy as he presses out a faint smile my way. Every single smile that man gives is hard-won, but when he does give them, it’s as if the sun has sent down its warmest rays.
A gentle knock erupts on the door and in walks Dr. Barnette.
Dr. Priscilla Barnette is a brunette stunner with a white toothy smile and bright blue eyes. She’s not only dated Everett, but she’s a member of the exclusive Club Essex. I thought things might be weird betwe
en us, but it turns out things are just fine. She also delivered Lainey’s baby girl this past August, so I feel completely comfortable with her handling my pregnancy and delivery.
“Well, if it isn’t the happy trio.” She grins as she makes her way to the computer and takes a seat. “According to this, you’ve gained a little more weight, Lottie.”
Last month when she told me I had put on twenty pounds, I thought it was a good thing, but she told me I might want to cool it.
“Are you trying to add some healthy alternatives to your diet like we talked about?” She raises an eyebrow my way as if she knows I’m not.
“Oh yes, lots of healthy alternatives.” The deep-fried butter comes to mind. Technically, butter is dairy, and dairy is chock-full of calcium—and both the baby and I need that for our bones.
I shoot both Noah and Everett a threatening look should they choose to divulge my buttery secrets.
“Okay. Maybe toss in a few salads now and again, too.” Dr. Barnette shrugs as she spins in her chair to face the three of us. “So how did the couples’ counseling go last month?”
It’s true. The three of us subjected ourselves to a moment of couples’ torment a few weeks back. For whatever reason, Dr. Barnette feels it’s her fiduciary duty to set us on a course for success via the social systems of this world. First, she tried to get us to see a lawyer to set up a visitation schedule with Noah, should the baby be his, and that didn’t go over so well. Then, she insisted we see a counselor to iron out any kinks in our relationship, but that pretty much ended in disaster when the counselor, a women who is also Dr. Barnette’s friend, wanted to date Noah. Regardless, it’s safe to say I’m not buying into any more options she might throw our way.
“The counseling is over,” I tell her as I force a smile to come and go. “The three of us are fine.”
She takes a breath as if she wasn’t convinced. “Okay, let’s review the plan one more time. After giving birth to your child, Lottie, we’ll run the paternity test as we’ve already discussed. Just to review, you’ve opted out of a paternity test prior to delivery, so we’re going to wait until the baby is born to collect its buccal cells—cheek cells—with a swab. We’ll be swabbing each of you that day as well, and we’ll send all of the swabs straight to the lab. We’ll have the results to you either the same day or the next, depending on the time of delivery and how busy the lab is. But, rest assured, you’ll have the results within twenty-four hours.” She sighs hard as she looks to Noah and Everett. “This will prove to be an emotional day all the way around. It’s an added stressor that most people don’t have to contend with. But since you do, I ask that you spend some time beforehand to brace yourself for either scenario. Everett, Noah, have you already thought about how you might feel to discover this baby that you’ve loved all of these months and will have probably held by then is not your own?”
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