“Yes.” Clare couldn’t hide the curiosity in her voice. “But it’s because he . . . seems to care about you.”
“Right.”
“The interesting thing is when I went home last night, I had already decided I would offer my assistance. Didn’t I say just that, Julian?”
“Just that.” He flipped a pancake. “Okay, who’s ready for some food?” He found plates and set the table as Lucy sat there, unmoving, watching it all from a distance. She had never been good enough to hang out with the Charleston aristocracy, and now they wouldn’t leave her alone.
Julian served both women and took a chair. “Let us pray, shall we?” He patted Clare’s hand. “Muffin, I believe it’s your turn.”
“Yes, so it is.” She caught Lucy’s watchful eye. “What? Bow your head. Don’t you understand prayer etiquette? The prayers won’t work if you don’t bow your head.”
“We’re kind of new to this,” Julian said.
Biting back a retort, Lucy did as she was told.
“Lord, we thank you for this fine breakfast. Even if someone isn’t grateful for it right now. And even if getting out in the sweltering heat has fired up my arthritis.”
“Yes, Lord,” called Julian.
“And we ask that you prepare Lucy’s heart for what is about to come. It’s going to be hard. It’s going to be trying. And that’s just my part.”
“Yes, Jesus.”
“Please comfort Lucy as she endures her training. And . . . as she discovers a side of herself she didn’t know existed. Because I have much to teach her. But I’m determined to bring her into the inner circle. And I can do that through the help of our precious Father. Even though Julian and I are new to your flock. But already membership has its privileges.”
“Like a gold card, Lord.”
“Okay.” Lucy jerked her head up. “Amen.” She picked up her fork and cut into a pancake.
“So we will begin our lessons tomorrow night,” Clare continued. “You will come to my house. I’ll send Julian with the car for you.”
“I have church.”
Clare took a dainty bite. “Remove your elbows from the table.”
Bossed around in her own house. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Mrs. Deveraux, but I’d rather get help from someone else.”
“From whom, dear?” Clare’s expression dared Lucy to come up with one single name.
She sipped her juice. “My friend Amy was Miss Magnolia Blossom.” In the third grade.
“Young lady, this is more than just poise and primping. Do you know the names of the current governor’s grandchildren?”
“No.”
“Rachelle and Michael.” Julian pressed a napkin to his lips. “Total heathens in need of a good time-out. Eh, Clare?”
“I’m sure you can tell me what group Alex’s opponent is going after in his latest campaign, correct?”
The pancake was a wad of glue in her mouth. “No.”
“Do you know where Alex stands on education?”
Her head was pounding. “I’m pretty sure he likes it.”
Clare huffed and put down her fork. “Leave us, Julian.”
He stood and bowed. “Yes, madam. I’ll just go in the living room and pretend I’m not listening to your every heavy-handed word.” And with a friendly wink he was gone.
“Mrs. Deveraux—”
“You may call me Clare.”
Lucy wanted to call her gone. “Clare, I realize I can be a disaster in social situations. And I have a lot of reading to do to get familiar with Alex’s politics. But these are quick fixes. I don’t require lessons.” Especially from you.
“My dear.” Clare’s face had gone intense again. “I have more than my years of experience to offer. I’m about to share with you something that can’t be learned from a book. Something only I can impart. Today I bring to you a gift that will give you credibility.”
“A decent pair of heels?”
Clare didn’t crack a smile. She reached out and laid her hand on Lucy’s. “I’m giving you my name.”
Okay, weird. Just weird.
“My dear girl.” Clare curled her fingers around Lucy’s hand. “I know who your father is.”
A million thoughts slammed through Lucy’s brain. “So do I. His name is Thomas Miller. He was a fighter pilot in the navy.” Chill bumps raced up her arms.
“That’s not possible.”
Lucy struggled to catch her breath. “Why not?”
Blue eyes locked on to blue. “Because your father . . . was my son.”
Chapter Thirteen
Alex found her speed-walking down Pecan Street in a knee-length robe and snow boots.
“Look at that crazy woman,” his sister said from the passenger side.
His Mercedes slowed to a crawl as he pulled alongside Lucy and rolled down his window.
Finley double-checked the locks.
“Nice morning for a walk.” His dashboard read eighty-six degrees.
Finley leaned over to get a better look. “You’re not gonna give her a ride, are you?”
“Nah.” Alex kept up Lucy’s pace. “Just gonna marry her.”
Finally his angel of morning hair and bad shoe choices spoke. “Any moment I’m going to wake up. I’m going to wake up and this will all have been a bad dream.” She marched right on, like a solider heading to the battlefield. “My girls’ home,” she huffed. “Clare Deveraux. My father.” Her next words came out in a hiss. “And you.”
“PMS.” He shot Finley a look. “Hits her hard every time.”
“I hear that.”
He watched as his soon-to-be intended stepped right over a dead, bloated possum without so much as slowing down. “Babe, you want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Go drive off a cliff.”
He gave his sister a smile. “Loves me so much she sometimes has a hard time expressing it.” He maneuvered past a pothole as three vehicles went by. All staring. “Do you want to get in the car?”
He could see her lip curl from here. “Does it look like I want to get in the car?”
“It looks like you’re on your way to strangle someone at a slumber party.” He tried to pull up a little ahead of her so he could get a better look at her face. “But I’ve never been one to judge by appearances.”
Alex smiled when he heard her predictable snort.
“My sister Finley and I were on our way to breakfast. I thought you might like to meet her and go with us.”
Lucy dipped her head and peered inside the car. “Nice to make your acquaintance.” She pulled her attention back to her path. “I’ve already eaten, though. With my grandma.”
If a man kept things shallow and casual, he didn’t have to deal with this sort of thing. Something told him Lucy’s problem couldn’t be solved with a pretty trinket or a weekend getaway. He was fairly good at reading the signs. Like how her robe was tucked into the back of her boxers. They weren’t even his brand. Lord, I need some help with this one.
“You want to talk about this?” He watched the cars begin to pile up behind him.
“No.”
“I can’t follow you forever,” he said. “I might run out of gas and what would it do to my image for the public to see two women pushing me in my car?”
Lucy swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. She sure did cry a lot. He was really hoping this wasn’t the norm because he didn’t deal well with criers. Finley knew from infancy if she wanted anything, all she had to do was turn on the waterworks, and he and Will would move heaven and earth to get it.
Alex tried again. “Can we take you somewhere?”
His sister cranked up the air. “Like a mental ward?”
“Um, Luce.” He waved two cars on. “Isn’t that outfit kind of drafty?”
And then she stopped. Right there on Pecan Street, Lucy sat down, leaned her elbows on her legs, and dropped her head. Uh-oh.
Alex pulled over. Got out. Stuck his head back in the window. “Drive around the bloc
k a few times.”
Finley jumped over the console. “Sweet.”
“No scratches this time.”
With screeching tires, she was gone.
Alex studied the wild arrangement of Lucy’s morning hair before dropping to his knees beside her. The dewy grass soaked right through his jeans. “I can’t help you unless you talk to me.”
“Nobody can help me.” Her head shot up, and crazy eyes stared back at him. “I’m trapped in some psychotic soap opera, and I just want my life back.” She sniffed her red nose. “And you”—she punched her finger to his chest—“how could you ask Clare Deveraux to tutor me?”
“Mentor you. Give you some advice.” Lucy had herself some nice legs beneath that robe. “Is that what this is about?”
“Yes.” She rubbed her sleeve across her nose. “No. Maybe.”
“Have you been drinking?”
Lucy pulled her hands inside her sleeves. “She says she’s my grandmother.”
“Who?”
“Haven’t you been listening to any of this? Clare Deveraux says her son, Steven, was my father. Can you imagine?”
“No.” Alex couldn’t imagine a useless fool like Steven Deveraux fathering someone like Lucy. Steven had been a cold-blooded snake whose only care had been getting his face in the society pages. “Tell me everything she said.” He was going to wring Clare’s wrinkle-free neck when he saw her. He’d asked her to befriend Lucy. To invite her to lunch. To share some advice and wisdom. Not scare her by claiming they shared DNA.
“She offered to tutor me.” Lucy shot him a look of misery. “I know last night went badly. But I can do better than that, really. I just need to focus and get used to all this.” She sniffed. “And watch some C-SPAN.”
He rested his hand on her knee. “You’re doing fine. Last night was just a little hiccup.” More like a disaster of epic proportions. And one he couldn’t afford to have again. “What else?”
“Then she said, ‘My son is your father.’ Just like that.” Her face dropped to her hands again. “I totally know how Luke Skywalker felt.”
“Did she give you any proof?”
“She pulled out some pictures—some of Steven as a baby. Steven as a teenager. But what do baby pictures prove, right? I mean, we all look the same as babies.” The humid breeze blew the palmetto tree beside them and picked up Lucy’s tangled hair. “I mean, sure, he and I were both white-headed. And his hair stood straight up like he’d been hit by lightning on the way through the birth canal—like mine. But it means nothing.”
Alex’s phone buzzed at his hip. He checked the display and inwardly winced. He needed to take the call but couldn’t leave Lucy like this. “And what did you say when you told her the photos weren’t confirmation of paternity?”
“I don’t know.” Lucy pulled at a tuft of grass. “I ran out. I just left her and her man friend alone in my apartment.”
“Because walking down the road in your robe and snow boots made sense?”
Lucy’s eyebrows slammed together. “Like all of your ideas are brilliant. I read in the Enquirer last year you had two girlfriends show up at your Malibu beach house. Two girls who didn’t know about each other.”
“I’m sorry, but two chicks and one me? You don’t call that brilliant?” One look at Lucy’s face, and Alex knew he should’ve taken that call. “You can’t believe everything you read. Just look at all those stories about us. So tell me again what you know about your father.”
Lucy pressed against her temple as she rattled off her list. “My father was in the Air Force. Fighter pilot. Died in a practice run. Never married my mother, but they had planned on it. He was an orphan. I never met him, but I have pictures.”
“And do you look like him?”
“I don’t know. I guess. Maybe.” She shrugged. “Mostly I just look like my mom.”
“There’s one way to find out if Steven is your father.”
“Clare said she had irrefutable proof at her house.”
Alex started to rise. “Then let’s go get it.”
“No!” Lucy grabbed on to his hand. “I can’t right now.” She licked her lips, and Alex watched her as if in slow motion. Even with bed-hair, Lucy was something to look at. “I don’t want to see her. I just want to go home. I want my old life back. And I want that woman out of my apartment. And—”
“You want to make better shoe choices?”
Lucy glanced down at her Sherpa stuffed snow boots. “They were all I had in my coat closet. I grabbed them on my way out the door.” And then the tears started again.
Alex rubbed a hand over his face. He had to get Finley fed and himself back to the campaign office, but he couldn’t just leave Lucy sobbing in her boxers on the side of the road.
“Lucy, you leave me no choice.” He wondered if she realized she was still holding his hand. “It’s time to show you the campaign headquarters. Introduce you to my team. Give you some insight on my platform.” He reached out and brushed his knuckles over her cheek. “Teach you how to put campaign signs in yards after dark.”
She sniffed. “I’m a mess.”
He swept his eyes over her nightwear. “Nothing a little lip gloss won’t fix.”
Having Lucy at the office would help in keeping Finley occupied as well.
His parents had been having a small battle with her lately, and he knew when they suggested a brother-sister outing this morning, they just wanted a few hours of peace.
Eyes as blue as a perfect summer sky looked up at him. “Do you think I’m a disaster?”
“No.” Only he and Jesus would know he was lying. “I think you’re overwhelmed. That’s the only reason I asked Clare to contact you. Had I known she was going to drop an atomic bomb in your lap, I would never have suggested she offer her assistance.”
Lucy turned as a red Camaro blared its horn. “Matt was going to ask me to marry him.”
Guilt punched Alex straight in the gut. “Ah, Luce. I’m sorry.” Great. Now he wasn’t only living the biggest lie since Watergate, but he was ruining Lucy’s future. “But how good could this guy be if he walked away from you once?”
She set that jaw and lifted her chin. “You don’t even know him.”
No, he didn’t. But something about Matt Campbell didn’t sit right with him. The accountant looked about as exciting as a tax code manual. He knew enough of Lucy by now to understand she’d be bored with a guy like Campbell in minutes.
He had to get her mind off this. “Did I mention we’re throwing a big party next month? You like party planning, don’t you?” Didn’t every woman?
“Have you met me?” Lucy jerked her hand from his and stood. “I stink at this! Alex, maybe we need to cut our losses now. You find yourself some trophy lady, and I—”
“You’ll what?” Alex pulled himself to his full height and towered over her. “Don’t bail on me now. You need my money, and I need—”
“My ability to stab waiters? My impressive knack for destroying priceless art?”
She stomped away, but he caught her in two strides and hauled her to him. Anger sparked in those eyes she had trained on him like crossbows. “Don’t bail on me. Not now. I have way too much at stake.” It was everything to him.
Lucy stared at his hands, then back at his face. She smelled like pancakes and looked like a displaced nursery rhyme character. “How many people are we talking at this party?”
“Hundreds.”
“Am I going to hate it?”
He dragged his eyes away from her pink lips. “Most assuredly.”
Lucy nodded once, coming to some decision in her head. “If I don’t get Matt back when this is over, I will never forgive myself.”
“Understood.”
“And I will relentlessly harass you and make you miserable for the rest of your life.”
Alex reached for her hand as his car came into view. “Lucy Wiltshire, I do believe you’re sounding like my wife already.”
Chapter Fourteen
Sometimes the sight of a church could bring immediate peace and contentment, as if to say, God is going to meet you here.
Today was not one of those days.
As Lucy got out of her car, the red brick building looked imposing, mad. She felt like a hypocrite for even following the sidewalk that pointed to the sanctuary doors. Hey, I’m lying to the world. Praise the Lord.
Steeples poked through the clouds in the Charleston skyline like arrows to heaven. A church could be found on nearly every corner, which meant Lucy couldn’t drive a block without seeing Guilt in her faded passenger seat. She had always been the good girl. The one to toe the line and do the right thing. And now look at her. She was walking the tightrope of depravity and about to fall right over. But every time she thought of backing out, she saw the faces of her girls from Saving Grace.
She did her third double take as she walked away from the dusty car. As she had navigated the highway, she’d thought for a moment a red sedan was following her. To be with Alex meant paparazzi everywhere, and paranoia was quickly becoming her new best friend—right after lipstick, which she was constantly applying. Photos could be so brutal. Like in this morning’s Sunday paper. A big unflattering picture of her at the art center, caught just as she had brought down the expensive painting. And of course it had been accompanied by an article about her humble background. Obviously it had been a slow week if a reporter had to resort to that. But it stung. And Lucy hadn’t even finished her oatmeal before she knew it was time for drastic action— no matter the cost.
Chuck greeted her at the door. “Welcome, sister. Glad you’re here.”
She laughed. “No jeans today?”
He tugged at the tie below his lopsided collar as Morgan came to stand beside him. “Pastor’s sick. I’m filling in.”
“Nervous?” Lucy asked.
He wiped his sweating brow. “It’s quite possible I peed my pants thirty minutes ago.”
“He’s going to do great,” Morgan said, patting Chuck’s arm.
“Yeah, I hope I remember how to preach to a crowd older than sixteen.” He waved to another friend. “It’s okay to use the word ‘dude’ in prayer, right?”
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