Secret Love

by Natalie Ann

  “Sure everything is okay?” he asked again. She sounded different and he couldn’t put his finger on it for some reason.

  “I am. I promise. Thank you,” she blurted out.

  “For what?”

  “For everything. Being with me. Calming me. Talking to Detective Myers. Yesterday, cleaning up the mess, and the cameras. The list seems to go on and on.”

  “Think nothing of it.”

  “It’s hard not to. I’ve never had anyone do anything like this for me before. It feels odd and right at the same time.”

  He knew that feeling. “There’s nothing wrong with that. Is there?”

  “Not at all. Oh, I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. Jane is calling me right now. I’ll see you after work. Bye.”

  She hung up before he could say another word and he realized he had a smile plastered on his face.

  ***

  “How are things going with Vin?” Nicole asked her when she walked back over and saw her jumbos were out of the oven and cooling.

  “They’re going pretty good. Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure,” Nicole said, decorating cupcakes.

  “How did you know Justin was the one? Was it fast or slow?”

  “Do you think you’re in love with Vin?” Nicole asked, lifting her head.

  “I think so. I don’t know. I’ve never really been in love before. I’m not sure if what I feel for him is gratitude or something else.”

  “Gratitude?” Nicole asked, laughing. “Wow, he must be lighting up the sheets for you to say that.”

  Piper laughed. She couldn’t believe she let that slip. “Well,” she said, batting her eyelashes, “some things are best kept secret.”

  “Now you’re just bragging,” Nicole said. “Anyway, back to your question. I don’t really have an answer how I knew with Justin. I guess it came down to the fact that I was more miserable without him than with him.”

  “Huh?” Piper asked. She’d never heard anything like that before.

  “When Justin and I weren’t together, I found myself missing him. Thinking of him. What was he doing? What was he thinking? Was it me? Did he feel like I did? All those insecurities that I never had, I found I suddenly did. And when it was driving me insane, I decided to take a few days away with some friends to figure it out. I was miserable. I realized that being away from him was worse than all those insecurities. That’s when I realized I loved him. Come to find out, he was feeling a lot of what I was.”

  “Strangely enough, that makes a lot of sense.”

  She wasn’t about to ask Vin if he was feeling any of the insecurities that she was, but she sure the heck was thinking of him at the weirdest times.

  Though she joked about him being in her face all the time, she was finding she was missing him if he wasn’t around. Thinking of him at the oddest times and wanting to be able to hold him. Touch him. Kiss him.

  Yeah, she was in love. Now she just had to keep it to herself until she knew how he felt.

  ***

  “Are you sure you’re okay about going to dinner with me?” Piper asked him later that night.

  “I don’t want you going anywhere alone,” he said. He wasn’t thrilled about it, but she wanted to go and she really couldn’t put her life on hold.

  “It’s Chris’s birthday. Jane asked if I could come and bring his favorite dessert. I couldn’t say no. He’s the closest person I’ve ever had to a father. They don’t ask much of me and gave me so much.”

  Talk about guilt. “It’s fine. Do they know I’m coming? Or are you going to spring it on them?”

  “I told Jane I was seeing someone. She was all excited and said she couldn’t wait to meet you. It’s not a problem. She’s always asking when I’m going to settle down. You’re the first person I’ve ever asked them to meet.”

  That had to mean something, he was thinking. What, he wasn’t sure. “It’s fine. Where is dinner?”

  “Their house. Skip and Michele both have plans and can’t make it, and she knew Chris would be upset if none of us would see him on his birthday. I feel honored. I mean, they’ve always invited me and I’ve tried to go, but sometimes I couldn’t. I really want to this year.”

  “What is his favorite dessert?”

  “Strawberry lemon cake.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “It is. It’s simple but one of the first things I made, too. Just a lemon cake that I’ve tweaked over the years. I fill it with strawberries and a lemon buttercream in the center, and then on top. I’ll make it tomorrow afternoon at the bakery and have it ready to bring over.”

  “So if I come up with a favorite, will you make it for me on my birthday?” he asked, tweaking her nose.

  “Absolutely! What’s your favorite? When’s your birthday?”

  “So far my favorite seems to be everything you make. Well, everything but those crazy things. I’m pretty simple at the heart of things. As for my birthday, it’s in June.”

  “Not very far away. June what? How old are you going to be? I mean, I know you’re older than me, but I’m curious.”

  “Nosy,” he said, kissing her on the nose this time. “June twenty-first. I’ll be thirty-five. Much older than you.”

  “Nah. Not old enough to be my sugar daddy. You’re good.”

  He laughed. If she only knew. It’d be his little secret for now.

  Once Again

  “Happy Birthday,” Piper said when Chris opened the door. She leaned in and kissed his cheek.

  “Is that what I think it is?” he asked, his eyes lighting up. “And how many times do we have to tell you to stop ringing the doorbell? This is your home. Just walk right in.”

  She couldn’t, though, and never would. It didn’t feel right. “This is Vin Steele. Vin, Chris Shaffer.”

  Vin walked in and shook hands with Chris. “Thanks for the invitation. Happy birthday,” he said.

  Chris waved his hand and laughed. “When you get to be my age, you stop counting. It’s easier that way. Better for my peace of mind too. And any friend of Piper’s is a friend of ours. Good to meet you.”

  Piper and Vin made their way into the house. She looked around and noticed that not much had changed. She remembered the first time she came here all those years ago. Scared and frustrated that she was being moved again and just hoping that it was better than the last place.

  She didn’t know what to expect and was hoping to just ride a few months out. She never thought she’d be here almost two years. The longest ever, and the best two years of her childhood.

  There was a part of her that didn’t want to leave when she turned eighteen, but she was afraid of staying too. She didn’t want to ruin what they had. She didn’t want them to tell her she’d overstayed her welcome and had to leave.

  By leaving on her own terms, it actually strengthened the relationship she had with them. It all worked out in the end, in her eyes.

  “Piper,” Jane said, coming into the living room. “Chris, let me take that from you. You aren’t allowed to have any until after dinner. We’re just grilling some steaks. You know Chris, he likes all the simple meals and that makes me just as happy.”

  “This is Vin Steele. Vin, Jane.”

  Jane balanced the cake on one hand and reached the other out. “So nice to meet you. Piper has always been mum on any boyfriends, but when she wanted to bring you over I got really excited. I’m sure you know she isn’t mum about a lot of things in life.”

  “No, she isn’t,” Vin said.

  “Thanks,” Piper said, pursing her lips. “Not funny.”

  “Yes, it is,” Chris said. “Come on into the dining room. I’m going to slap the steaks on the grill now. They won’t take long at all.”

  “Do you mind eating outside on the deck?” Piper asked. “I miss the backyard. I’ve just got a little terrace, and though it’s nice, it’s not very private. Nothing like your backyard.”

  “Of course, dear,” Jane said. “I’ll just move the dishes to the table ou
t there.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  “Vin, maybe you could go help Chris with the steaks?” Jane asked.

  He nodded and walked out, following Chris. “That wasn’t very nice,” Piper said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Sending Vin out there so he could be grilled.”

  “Chris hasn’t been able to do that to anyone in years. Let him have his fun. Michele hasn’t brought a man home in forever.”

  Piper laughed and felt like she was home once again.

  ***

  Vin was making it through the dinner better than he thought he would have. He couldn’t remember the last time he had to meet the parents. And definitely nothing like this.

  The Shaffers seemed like genuinely good people. You could see it by the way they were looking at Piper. The same way his parents glanced at him, if he was honest with himself.

  He wasn’t even put off by Chris’s questions. Nothing major. Just simple things. What he did for a living. If he’d ever been married. Where he was from. Nothing serious, and Vin kept the answers short and sweet.

  “You should have seen the first time Piper came here to visit with us before she was placed,” Jane said.

  “Oh no, you aren’t going to tell that story, are you?” Piper asked, looking pained.

  “It’s funny. I can’t help it.”

  “Don’t laugh,” Piper said to him.

  “I won’t.”

  “She came in here all tough. Straight-faced, with a look that was saying she had it all figured out in the world and was ticked that she was being put here.”

  “Piper?” Vin asked, mildly stunned.

  “Yeah, funny huh?” Chris said. “Jane and I were wondering what the heck we’d gotten ourselves into.”

  “What did she do?”

  “Nothing bad. Just sat at the dinner table and barely said a word. Which, of course, we know is not the real Piper either. We were trying everything we could to get her to talk, but nothing worked. Then the neighbor’s cat came up on the deck like it always did and pushed its nose against the window looking for Chris.”

  Vin just raised an eyebrow. “Neighbor’s cat?”

  “Yeah. We’ve never had any pets, and we didn’t need to when the neighbors all had cats and they’d sneak over here because Chris fed them table food. I swear, there was one day I came home and there were five cats in the yard and he was opening cans of tuna fish for them.” Jane laughed, then waved her hand. “Anyway, Piper just giggled. Like she’d never seen a cat do that before.”

  “I never had,” Piper said. “I still have never seen a cat bump their head against a glass door like that either.”

  “That was this particular cat’s way of knocking,” Chris said. “I got up and grabbed the bag of cat treats I kept in the house and was going to toss a few out there when Piper beat me to the door and let the cat in. We’d never had cats in the house before.”

  “I had no idea,” Piper said. “I thought it was their cat. It was meowing and really excited when I walked to the glass door. I didn’t think it was going to run that fast.”

  Jane snickered. “That cat took off in a dead run all over the house. We couldn’t catch him no matter how hard we tried. Couldn’t find him, either. Piper finally trapped him in Skip’s room under the bed.”

  “He got stuck under the bed with all of Skip’s old science kits.”

  “Science kits?”

  “Skip loved science in high school,” Jane said. “He’d examine things. Anything. Bugs, rocks, flowers. You name it, he had it under a microscope and was looking at every nook and cranny.”

  “I thought for sure he’d be a mad scientist when he went away to college,” Chris said, “but in his junior year he changed his major from science to business. I think it was because of a girl, but he’d never admit it.”

  “You think everything is because of a girl,” Jane said, swatting his hand, “because that is how you’ve always been.”

  “So true,” Chris said.

  “Anyway,” Piper interrupted, “the cat got trapped between some lab kit he had, all the test tubes, and the microscope. It got freaked by the glass clanging around and when it went to run, I grabbed him.”

  “Piper snatched it by the tail and lifted it in the air,” Jane said, roaring with laughter. “I’m not sure which of them screeched the loudest. The cat, or Piper after the cat did. But she didn’t drop the cat, either. Just ran to the front door, opened it, and set the cat there and slammed the door shut, then apologized left and right.”

  “We’ve never laughed so hard as that night. We were missing laughter in the house and from that moment on, we knew she belonged here.”

  Vin looked over at Piper, saw her embarrassed face, and rubbed his hand over hers. “Yeah, she is good about bringing laughter into people’s lives.”

  Your Girl

  Wednesday morning, Vin heard his phone ringing, pulled it out, saw his buddy Kyle—who ran the lab he’d sent everything to—was calling, but had to silence it because he was finalizing the details of a contract with a client.

  The minute the meeting was over, he returned the call. “What do you have for me, Kyle?”

  “Sorry it took so long. The mouse came late and I figured I’d save us both the back and forth calls with the results of everything. First off, I pulled two sets of matching prints off the bowl and the car. Nothing on the flowers, they must have had gloves. I’m assuming one set is Piper’s, the other is unknown. I ran it through every database I could and got nothing. Whoever it is, isn’t in any system.”

  “So it’s all connected?”

  “Definitely. Your gut was right there and it’s good you’ve got the evidence of it. I’ll send over the report for everything if you end up narrowing it down to a suspect.”

  “What about any traces in the bowl?”

  “Same poison in the bowl and in the mice. Exactly what you were suspecting. Nothing commercial. Something manufactured. Amateur at best, but deadly enough in small animals and that is what it seems they were hoping for. It’d make a human really sick, but not life threatening right away. Closest thing to it is rodenticide.”

  “Rat poison?” Vin asked.

  “Yep,” Kyle said.

  “Why make it? Why not just buy it?”

  “Didn’t want it traced back to them?” Kyle said. “Or maybe there was more power behind creating it themselves. A statement. Not sure. Either way, that’s what I’ve got for you.”

  “I owe you one, Kyle.”

  “No worries. Just ticking the box on one of the many things I owe you. Hope you catch them soon and keep your girl safe.”

  “Me too.” Vin disconnected the call and tried to think back to what he knew so far.

  Anyone could buy rat poison, but not everyone could create it. Not everyone would even try.

  He was a block from Piper’s shop when something popped into his head, so he called Detective Myers.

  “Vin,” Myers said, sounding grouchy as always. “You were on my list to call today. What’s up?”

  Vin paused. “Why were you calling me? What do you have to report?”

  “The girl at the bakery. Sam? She went over the video surveillance with the owner of the wine store. Nothing could be seen going on in the parking lot. All clear there.”

  “I figured,” Vin said, “but it was worth a try. I need you to look into someone for me.”

  “Your reasoning?” Myers asked, and Vin could hear the impatience in his voice. Too damn bad, though.

  “Those friends and money of mine, they come in handy. Lab shows the trace from a cat bowl matching the same rat poisoning used on the mice.”

  “Dead mice. Rat poisoning. Not hard to figure that out.”

  “Cat bowl,” Vin said, grinding his teeth.

  “What about a cat bowl? I don’t have anything reporting on that.”

  “Because Piper thought it was a natural death. Piper’s stray cat in the alley a few weeks ago. She always fed
it. It was dead one day when she went out. I had the bowl sent for trace. Just a hunch.”

  “And that hunch matched the same rat poison? Still stretching here, Vin.”

  “Not if it’s a homemade poison. Same compounds. Amateur’s work.”

  “That does put a new spin on it. So you’ve got a name you want me to run. Who?”

  “Skip Shaffer. Christopher Shaffer, Jr. Piper’s foster brother. Last night at their house, his parents mentioned he had lab kits and started out as a science major, then changed. Just my gut saying to look into him. I’m on my way to see Piper now.”

  “Funny you should say that name.”

  “Why?” Vin asked, driving faster to the shop now. That gut feeling he always had—the one where it felt like spikes in the back of his neck—was jabbing at him hard.

  “Sam noticed a few people she knew entering and leaving the wine store on the cameras, but nothing was time-stamped that she could make out. Two of them were Skip and his fiancée. They were going over wines, it looked like, with the owner. Nothing odd at all. I brushed it off as a coincidence they were there on the days we were looking at footage until you said the name. Funny how that name just popped up twice in one day, don’t you think?”

  “You don’t hear me laughing,” Vin said, pulling in front of the shop and hopping out.

  “I agree. I’ll look into this and contact Ms. Fielding for questions.”

  “Don’t bother, I’m in front of her shop now. Hang on.” He pulled the phone away from his ear. “Where’s Piper?”

  Sam looked up. “She left about twenty minutes ago to meet Skip and Kaylee to talk about the wedding cake.”

  “Where?” Vin asked, pulling the phone away. “Did you hear that, Myers?”

  “Skip’s house,” Sam said. “Why? What’s going on?”

  “Do you know the address?” he asked Sam.

  “No. Just that it’s out of town. In the country somewhere, about fifteen minutes from here.”

  Myers rattled off the address and then said, “Wait for backup.” But Vin had disconnected the call.