“It’s going to be rough for him.” Not only dealing with the knowledge that his father had loved another woman and had another family, but also small town gossip. Chris Montgomery would be tried by Bliss’s jury of public opinion, and that meant more scrutiny for Shane. People would wonder if he’d known, and then they’d come to the decision that he had to have known, which would lead them to his motive, and voilà! Shane would be guilty in their eyes, whether or not he’d had anything to do with his father’s death.
The front door opened again and this time Shane lumbered in, his shoulders slumped. From his body language it was clear he’d heard about his dad’s double life, and he wasn’t taking it well. He stopped in the doorway, his head hung low.
The instant Gracie saw him, she stood, a trio of rosettes dropping from her lap to the floor. She walked to him without saying a word, and opened her arms wide. He lifted his gaze to her as she reached him, and she curled her arms under his, pulling him close. He lowered his head and they fit together, her head leaning against the hollow of his neck.
My throat tightened and I tried to swallow the lump. If I couldn’t prove Shane’s innocence, Gracie was going to be devastated.
“I heard,” she said after they finally pulled apart. “He really had another family?”
Shane’s face was drawn, his eyes hollow and ringed with dark circles. “That’s what the sheriff said. I didn’t believe it at first, but then . . . I don’t know, it started to make sense.”
She led him to the little seating area in the front room and sat next to him on the love seat. I sat across from them on the red velvet settee, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees. “How did it start to make sense?” I asked.
He looked up at me, surprised, as if he just realized I was there. “I feel like an idiot. We all believed he was just working so hard, putting in long hours at the Granbury store, but he was with his other family.”
His voice dripped with disdain. Any sorrow and love he’d had for his dad had vanished when he’d learned the truth. My heart went out to him, poor thing.
“He loved you, though, Shane,” I said. “I know it’s not much consolation, but he fell in love with your mother and figured out a way to be with her. In his mind, I think he did what he did so he wouldn’t hurt the people he loved.”
From the grimace Shane wore, I don’t think he believed my more compassionate explanation for his father’s betrayal any more than I did.
“How’s your mom handling it all?” I asked, knowing it was more of a rhetorical question than anything. She’d just discovered that her whole life with her husband was based on a lie, and that had to be difficult to swallow.
His answer was a halfhearted shrug. “She said she’s not up for a visit, but she wanted me to give this to you.”
Gracie dropped her arm from around his shoulder as he stood and retrieved something from his back pocket and handed it to me.
It was a square linen paper envelope with Harlow Cassidy written in the center in pretty cursive. I peeled open the lightly sealed envelope and slipped out the notecard, an M at the top center.
Harlow,
I’m sure by now you’ve heard the news about Chris and the second life he was leading in Granbury. It has taken me by utter and complete surprise. So far, I have not been able to wrap my head around it. The fact that he could have been lying to me—to the kids—for so long is mind-boggling.
I keep telling myself that maybe there’s more to the story. I know the police will look at us with more scrutiny now, wondering if we knew and if that was the reason Chris was killed. Shane . . . I need to protect Shane.
More than anything, I don’t want their father’s selfish and stupid decisions to define Shane and Teagen’s lives. Please, Harlow, keep looking into this horrible situation, and if you find out anything, come straight to me.
Yours,
Reba
“Shane,” I said, wanting to ask him one question before I left him and Gracie alone. “Can you think of anything strange your dad did? Anything that didn’t strike you as odd then, but now that you know the truth, you see it differently?”
He sat back down and thought for a minute. Gracie rubbed his back with her hand and I could see him sit a bit taller, her compassion infusing him with strength.
“I’ve been dissecting everything he’s done for the past sixteen years,” he said, “and I’m seeing everything differently. All those nights he said he was staying at Bubba’s in Granbury when he was really with his other family. All Teagen’s cheerleading competitions he never made because of work, but was he really off watching his other kid play sports? He had two wedding anniversaries. My mom is freaked about that. All these inside jokes and traditions they had, he had with someone else, too. How could he do that to her?”
Despite the horrible circumstances, it was powerful to see Shane so completely concerned with what his father had done to his mother and sister, rather than making it all about him.
He pursed his lips, his nostrils flaring. “I don’t know how my mom’s going to get over all of that.”
“Your mom is strong,” I said.
“She is,” he said, “but this . . . this is huge. This is monumental. He lied about everything!”
Shane was right—a double life for his entire life was an unfathomable betrayal. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. But the Cassidy women adhered to a strict belief that whatever didn’t kill us would only make us stronger. It was the truth. We were tested, sometimes mightily, but at the end of the day, you had to recognize all the blessings.
“We might never be able to make sense of it all or understand why your dad made the choices he made, but your mom and your sister are strong, inside and out, and they’ll be okay. They will.” I looked him squarely in the eyes. “And you will, too.”
Barbara Ann Blake was as much a victim as the Montgomery family, I thought, although I didn’t say this aloud to Shane. Too much, too soon. She would move on, too. I couldn’t help but feel a stronger compassion for Barbara Ann. For whatever it was worth, Miss Reba, Shane, and Teagen had one another. Barbara Ann Blake had no one left, and that was the greatest tragedy of all.
Chapter 17
An hour later, Gracie walked Shane out to his car and I headed to the kitchen to make a late dinner. I perused the refrigerator, then the freezer, waiting for something to entice my appetite. It wasn’t quite fall yet, and summers in Texas usually went on and on and on. There were still strawberries in the market, although they were less red and robust than they’d been a few months ago. I’d stocked up on them, and an abundance spilled from a container in the refrigerator. I grabbed the bowl, a red onion, a bunch of cilantro, a package of corn tortillas, and a large piece of mahi mahi from the freezer and set to work.
I soaked the plastic-wrapped fish in cold water to start the defrosting, then cubed it with my sharpest knife, tossing the pieces with cumin, a dash of salt, and garlic powder. Setting aside the fish, I washed and then finely chopped strawberries, half the red onion, the frozen mango and pineapple I’d also grabbed from the freezer, and a large handful of cilantro. Mixing it together released the different aromas, and my stomach growled in response to my creative end-of-summer cooking.
As I sautéed the mahi mahi, I thought about my next steps, both with my sewing projects and with helping Shane. I’d hit a wall with Danica’s dress. I had a clearer direction now, but I needed to think on it. Let the design simmer as I worked through the problems I saw with it. She’d be coming by for a fitting before the football game the next day, so my time was limited. At that point, once I knew if any adjustments were needed, I could finish and suggest styling tips to her.
Leslie’s dress was all done. The mums were finished, so that was one thing I could check off my list. I wanted to get Gracie to let me finish attaching the rosettes to the skirt of her dress, but so far she’d resisted my h
elp.
But now she was almost out of time.
Tomorrow was Friday, the day of the parade and the homecoming game. The kids would wear their mums all day at school, then take pictures wearing them and their fancy dresses on Saturday night before they headed out in limos or newly washed cars to dinner and then the dance.
I heated up the corn tortillas and warmed up some cilantro-lime rice and black beans I had leftover in the fridge. Just as everything was ready, Gracie came back in the front door and Will’s truck pulled up, parking behind mine under the possumwood trees.
Two minutes later, I heard his voice from the back deck. He finished a phone call, gave a quick knock on the Dutch door, which opened from the deck to the kitchen, and walked in. “Ah, just in time for supper, I see,” he said with a grin and a kiss on my cheek.
“Yeah, how’d you manage that timing?”
He plucked a cube of sautéed mahi mahi from the pan, and I batted his hand away. We’d grown into a comfortable relationship, and once again I was grateful to Meemaw for having the foresight to know the kind of man who could make me happy, and the kind of woman who could do the same for Will Flores.
He positioned himself behind me at the counter, his head bent, his lips brushing against my neck. I started to sink into him when the pan on the stove literally jumped at the very same time Gracie cleared her throat from the archway between the kitchen and the dining room. “Hello,” she said, “teenager present.”
And a ghost present, too, I thought, eyeing the frying pan, ready to grab it if it moved again.
Will stepped back, but instead of releasing his hold on me, he pressed his hand on my hip and spun me with him. He’d been grinning, but stopped when he saw Gracie’s face. “You heard,” he said. Not a question, but a dismayed statement. He couldn’t protect his daughter from the real world.
She dipped her head in a slight nod. “I can’t even believe it. It’s crazy, right? Who does that, has two families?”
She looked at her dad, then at me, as if we had the answers. We didn’t yet, but I hoped we soon would.
When we didn’t answer, she went on. “Shane left this for you. Told me not to look at it.” Gracie handed me a lunch-sized brown paper sack folded down at the top. “It’s for my mum.”
Once again, I was impressed with the sixteen-year-old. Even in the midst of his world falling apart—the death of his father, the realization of the man’s second family, and the accusations hurtling his way—he’d thought about Gracie. I unfolded the bag and peeked inside, half expecting a tiny bear or maybe an eagle, since that was the high school mascot. But I was wrong on both counts. Inside the bag was a miniature antique sewing machine on a sewing table. It had intricate metal details and looked like the perfect accessory for a shadow box or a dollhouse.
I smiled, my admiration for Shane increasing even more. He hadn’t just offered up some clichéd mum sentiment, he’d really considered her.
The sewing machine would be the perfect centerpiece for the mum.
I folded the bag again and took it to the workroom. It would be a surprise for Gracie.
We ate our dinner of mahi mahi tacos with the strawberry salsa, cleaned up, and a short while later, Will and Gracie got ready to head home. Gracie looked at the homecoming dress she’d abandoned when Shane had arrived, the three rosettes still on the floor. The bag of fabric flowers she’d intended to attach to the skirt to finish the dress right sat where she’d left it.
“Let me work on it, Gracie. I can attach the flowers so you don’t have to worry about it.”
She hesitated, considering my offer, but after a beat, she shook her head. “No, but thanks. I really want to do this all myself.”
She scooped up the wayward rosettes and tossed them in the bag, and then she took the half-flounced dress off the dress form. I helped her put it back on a hanger and zip it up into an inexpensive garment bag so she could get it home safe and sound.
“Let me know if you change your mind,” I said as she walked down the porch steps, her arms loaded down. She turned right and followed the flagstone steps through the English flower garden and out the side gate to the driveway.
Will and I watched her. I felt the helplessness emanating from him. There was nothing either of us could do to make her feel better. I took comfort in the fact that she could help herself with her sewing. She was a natural, and the craft that fueled me and had defined my charm was beginning to be what she turned to for comfort, too.
“She’s determined,” he said.
That she was. She wouldn’t let either of us even help her carry her things to the truck. Stubborn might be another word for it, but she was entitled to be dogged if it helped her get through this tough time.
“Don’t let her stay up all night,” I said.
He gazed after her, watching as she hung the garment bag on the hook in the extended cab portion of the truck. “The distraction is good for her.”
“It is, but I’m worried about her,” I said. She’d been through a lot for a girl her age.
He sighed, and I knew he was thinking the same thing. Gracie had suffered her share of drama, first when her mother had abandoned her on her unwitting father’s doorstep as an infant. Next, when she’d found out her maternal grandparents had been living in the same town with her all these years, unbeknownst to her or them. The most recent discovery had been that she was a descendant of Butch Cassidy and was charmed.
But now she’d added being the girlfriend of a potential murderer to the list of things she had to recover from. And much as I liked to think fashion was the be-all and end-all that could solve most problems, the reality was that sewing could only do so much.
Chapter 18
I awoke the next morning at the crack of dawn, and dressed quickly in jeans, a peasant blouse I’d recently made, and my go-to red Frye cowboy boots. By seven o’clock, I was on the road, heading for Bliss Park where the mum-exchange photo session was scheduled to take place. Somewhere in Bliss, a mother lay snug in her bed, blissfully unaware of the cameras snapping, the multitude of pictures being taken, and the mums being given and received.
I wasn’t a mother, but I was wide awake, what with the excitement of the girls I’d helped with their mums, the mums I’d made myself, and the elation of every teenager in town.
By the time I arrived, it looked like half of Bliss was already there. I searched the crowd looking for Gracie Flores, Holly Kincaid, Danica Edwards, Leslie Downs, or any of the other girls I knew were going to be here. I hadn’t been looking for any of the boys, but I saw Shane before I recognized anyone else. He stood away from the group, leaning against a tree with one shoulder, his eyes downcast. It looked like his stint being questioned at the sheriff’s station had taken its toll on him.
“Mum delivery,” I said, holding out the completed ribbon-flower concoction for him to give to Gracie. I tried to stay positive and grinned. “The sewing machine is perfect. Great thinking!”
He took the mum, mustering a slight smile. “Thanks, Ms. Cassidy—”
“Harlow,” I said. At thirty-three I was nineteen years older than the average high school freshman, yet I didn’t feel old enough to be a Ms. “Just call me Harlow.”
“I tried to talk her out of going to the dance,” he said, turning and leaning his whole back against the tree now. He hooked the hanger with the mum over his fingers, gripping the plastic covering the creation in his palm. “I told her everyone’s going to be talking about my dad and me and either hanging around us because of it, or avoiding us. Half of them think I did it, and the other half might as well think it, what with all the staring they do.”
He was trying to keep his cool and not let his emotions get the better of him, but I could see it was a struggle. His jaw pulsed with the effort and his eyes had a glassy film.
“Shane,” I said, looking him in the eyes. I waited until he met my gaze
and I was sure he was going to hear and register what I said. “I don’t believe you were involved, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it. I promise.”
He drew in a deep breath, his jaw relaxing slightly. My heart broke for him and everything he was going through. “You figured it out—about the two families, I mean?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He hesitated again, looking around as if he could draw strength from the energy of the homecoming frenzy. “What’s she like?”
My gut twisted. This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have, and I didn’t think it was one Shane should have, either. Then again, I realized it wasn’t my place to make that determination. And he had a right to know, much as I wished I could protect him from the truth.
In the end, I decided to say as little as I could. At least for now.
“Mrs. Blake? She seemed . . . nice,” I said. “Nice.” It had to be the blandest word in the English language, but honestly, it was true. She’d been irritated at first that her husband was MIA, but after we’d broken the ice, she’d been . . . nice.
I could only imagine the pain she was experiencing now that she knew the truth. Eddy Blake had been her husband first, and now she knew that when he’d met Miss Reba, he’d been willing to risk everything—from his marriage to his business to his freedom—all to be with her.
I was pretty sure those bits of knowledge wouldn’t give Miss Reba any solace, but they certainly had to be worse than a prickly thorn in the side of Barbara Ann.
Car doors slammed. Girls and boys, dressed in their everyday jeans and shirts, filed out of the cars carrying mums streaming with ribbons. The quiet morning slowly evaporated, replaced by the excited squeals of the girls as their guys presented them with their mums.
Still, despite the buzz of homecoming, plenty of people shot stray glances at Shane, pointing, leaning close to the person next to them, and whispering something. I’d thought there’d be more compassion toward him from his classmates, but instead they avoided him. They were probably praying for him, but they wouldn’t speak to him.
A Killing Notion: A Magical Dressmaking Mystery Page 13