“Not to mention her Uncle Tim and Uncle Link.”
Audrey nodded. “I just wish that woman would leave town. I don’t understand why people get such a thrill out of ruining other people’s lives.”
“I know. And unfortunately, women like that rarely just disappear.”
* * *
Jesse tapped the brakes involuntarily at the sight of Michaela Creeve’s car in the parking lot. She wasn’t supposed to be back until Friday. Maybe she’d just left her car in the lot as she sometimes did when they carpooled to the airport, but he didn’t remember it being here yesterday.
He drove slowly past and started to turn into his assigned parking space, but something made him stop. On a whim, he put his car in reverse and stopped just behind Michaela’s. He glanced around surreptitiously, and when he was sure no one was watching, he climbed out of his vehicle and went to look through her front passenger side window. The tinted windows and reflections on the glass kept him from seeing clearly, and he didn’t want to be too obvious by shading his eyes and peering into the window, in case someone happened to be looking out from the office just now. But he could see enough to confirm that her car had a cream-colored interior just as he expected. At least he could put Corinne’s mind at ease.
But when he walked past the back window, headed for his car, a flash of color made him do a double take. Draped over the backseat like a seat cover was a fluffy wooly-looking blanket.
It was pink.
He bit his lip, trying to come up with a plausible explanation. But all he could think of was Sadie insisting that Michaela’s car was pink inside—and then remembering her telling them that she’d sat in the backseat while Michaela had put Simone in the front.
Sadie hadn’t been lying! His mind reeling, he got back in his car, parked it in his reserved spot, and strode into the building. He muttered a half-hearted reply to the receptionist’s greeting and headed straight for Michaela’s office. He didn’t care what anyone thought. Didn’t even care if he got fired. This had gone far enough. That woman had messed with his family for the last time.
She was at her desk, but she was on the phone. Fine. He would wait.
Her eyebrows went up when he entered her office and sat down to wait in the chair across from her. She appeared flustered and turned away from him to finish her conversation. She wrapped up the call, making a flimsy excuse to hang up.
She placed her phone face down on her desk and narrowed her eyes at him. “May I help you?”
“You tell me. Did you—take my girls for a ride last Friday?”
Now she looked him in the eye. Stared him down. “Your girls?”
“Sadie and Simone. Did you take them in your car?”
“Why would I do that?”
“You tell me why!” He hadn’t thought about what he’d do if she denied it. Of course, she hadn’t exactly done that. “But if you ever go anywhere near them again, I will make you sorry you ever met me.”
She looked at her lap and became preoccupied with a thumbnail that wore bright red nail polish. “I’m already sorry I ever met you.” She sounded close to tears.
He didn’t care. “You just think you’re sorry. I’m dead serious, Michaela. I don’t know what you are trying to prove, but I will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law if I hear you so much as looked at my daughters cross-eyed.” He hadn’t intended to threaten her. He wouldn’t know where to start with “the full extent of the law.” But he would not allow her to hurt his family.
She looked up at him, her eyes dry and cold as steel. “Then I suggest you keep your daughters out of my path. Last I heard, it’s a free country.”
He shot to his feet and took two steps backward. “There is no reason on earth you should ever have any reason to be within spitting distance of my family.”
Her face crumpled and pink rose to her cheeks. She swiped at her temple with the back of one hand the way Corinne did when she was crying but didn’t want to mess up her makeup. “I don’t know what I ever did to make you hate me so much.”
Jesse drew back. Where was this coming from? “I—I don’t hate you. I never said that. But I will not have you . . . stalking my family.” He glanced over his shoulder making sure there was no one in the hall outside her door. “What you did was virtually kidnapping.”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about, Jesse. If I read you wrong or if . . . if you’ve changed your mind about us, I’m sorry. All I ever wanted was to see where things might go with us.”
Again, he all but physically reeled. This woman was insane! “I don’t know what I ever did that gave you the impression I was remotely interested in—anything of the sort. I certainly never did anything that warranted having charges filed against me.”
She waved a hand as if swatting at a fly. “I haven’t done anything with that, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I’m worried about my family! I want you to stay away from them. Stay away from my wife and my daughters.”
“If you’re talking about that day in the grocery store, I can’t exactly help it if we end up at the grocery store at the same time. Are you going to send me your wife’s schedule so I know where not to show up when?”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. I think you know what I’m talking about.”
“I have no interest in your family. I have no interest in anything beyond getting back to the friendship we once had.” She slid her flattened palm across the desk, then repeated it again and again, as if smoothing out a wrinkle. “Jesse . . . Oh, Jesse, I’ve been miserable ever since that night we came home from Chicago and you left me thinking there was something special between us.”
He shook his head firmly. “Michaela, I don’t know what I did to make you think that, but I’m sorry. If I somehow led you to believe that—” He swallowed hard. He did not want to put an image with her outrageous words. And didn’t think it would be wise to do so, given her history. “I’m very sorry, but you need to know that I am a very, very happily married man and . . . whatever you thought about me, I’m sorry, but it wasn’t true.”
“I don’t know if I can ever believe that. I know what I saw in your eyes. A woman recognizes the signals you were send—”
“Stop!” He held up a hand. “I won’t listen to this.” He turned and fled, thinking oddly of Joseph fleeing the advances of Potiphar’s wife in the Old Testament story. And with every step he took, he felt as doomed as Joseph had been.
Michaela would surely file those charges now. She’d already started the process. That was the hard part. Going ahead and filing the papers she’d already prepared—and showed to Frank—would be an easy task.
He went back to his office, keeping his head down so no one would make eye contact or try to engage him in conversation. When he finally sat down at his desk, his hands were trembling and his heart was a strangling lump in his throat.
He needed a mediator. Someone who would hear both sides of the story and help him reason with this unbalanced woman. She hadn’t admitted to taking his daughters from Danae’s yard, but neither had she denied it. Anyone else would have been outraged at such an accusation—if it was false. But Michaela had almost toyed with him, as if she wanted him to believe she’d done it.
Yet she was smart enough not to admit to anything.
Maybe she hadn’t done it. Maybe she was just sick enough that she would let him believe something like that, take credit for it, just for his attention. Was that it? He couldn’t make sense of any of this. It was absurd. And he didn’t have a clue what his next step should be.
He knew one thing though. Michaela Creeve was dangerous. He could no longer do nothing and hope this nightmare would go away.
18
The June evening was warm, but a cooling breeze blew across the creek and up to the backyard where the Whitman women sat beneath the pergola on the back deck after another Tuesday family night dinner. Corinne leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. “Ahh . . . There�
��s just nothing quite like the music of men in the kitchen doing dishes.”
“Unless it’s a man pushing a vacuum,” CeeCee said in her gravelly voice. “Now that is a philharmonic symphony.”
“CeeCee!” Corinne couldn’t help laughing. “Then I guess I’m extra lucky to be married to a vacuum cleaner salesman.”
Her sisters and Bree cracked up, but Mom feigned horror and shushed them. “Pipe down, ladies. You do not want them to hear you gloating, or it could all go up in smoke just like that.” She snapped her fingers.
“Not for Jesse. It’s his favorite part of Tuesday dinners.”
“Doing dishes? Seriously?” Bree pulled her feet up under her in the deck chair, settling in for the girl talk that always happened at this point in the evening.
“He’d probably kill me if he knew I was telling you this, but he says there’s just something about the teamwork, and standing in a row like they do, that fosters the best conversations.”
CeeCee winked at her. “I told you that you got a good one when you caught him.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet,” Bree said.
“He is sweet, isn’t he? But don’t you dare let him hear you say that, Bree Whitman.” Corinne laughed, and was again overwhelmed with gratitude that Tim’s wife was still such a dear part of their family, even four-and-a-half years after Tim’s death. She knew they’d all mentally tried to prepare themselves for the inevitable day when Bree would find someone else. And of course, they all wanted that for sweet Bree. She was far too young not to marry again and have a family. And yet, it would change everything when she moved on with her life. And it would move them that much further from Tim. From his memory.
She shook off the thought, not wanting to spoil this evening of respite from the stress she’d been under because of Jesse’s lunatic coworker.
“I love the way you have it set up out here, Mom.” Corinne looked around at the magical space her mother had created under the pergola in the backyard. “I can’t believe how fast that trumpet vine has grown.”
“It’s the one thing I put my foot down about. I usually bow to Dad’s decisions when it comes to the flower—and your dad insists that vine is a noxious weed—but I love it.”
“Well, it’s the prettiest weed I’ve ever seen.” Danae reached to pick a bloom from a stem and put it to her nose.
The lush, green vine had engulfed three of the four pillars of the pergola Dad had built and was just coming into bloom. Mom had woven strands of tiny white lights among the fronds and all through the top of the structure. The lights were set to twinkle softly, giving the effect of a canopy of fireflies. Pots of lemon grass, along with citronella candles, did a decent job of keeping the mosquitoes at bay, and their tang mingled with the honeysuckle that grew along the side of the house. The sweet scent reminded Corinne of the cotton candy CeeCee had always bought for them at the state fair in Sedalia when they were small.
Mom started to say something, then stilled. “Did I hear a baby?”
Landyn settled deeper in her chair. “Chase is listening for them. He’ll let me know if they wake up.”
“It’s probably just the girls playing downstairs that you hear.”
Mom scooted her chair away from the table. “I think I’ll go check on all my babies. Anyone want anything when I come back?”
They eyed an almost-full pitcher of iced tea sweating on the table and sent up a chorus of murmured no-thank-yous.
When Mom had disappeared into the house, Danae took a sip of her tea and turned to Corinne. “Is everything okay with Jesse?”
“Why?” Corinne wasn’t sure her sister was referring to the whole thing with Michaela Creeve, and she didn’t want to bring up that subject if she could avoid it.
“He just still seems so—different. I miss the old Jesse,” Landyn said. “I thought maybe I’d said something to offend him.”
“What? You have to work pretty hard to offend Jesse.” She was genuinely puzzled. “What’d he say?”
Her sisters exchanged looks.
“It’s not what he said.” Landyn shook her head. “He just isn’t himself. Hasn’t been ever since that stupid woman—”
“Can we talk about something else, please?” Corinne sighed. “I am sick to death of the subject of that woman.”
“Sorry,” Landyn said. “I just hate seeing Jesse so uptight.”
“I wonder,” Danae said, seeming hesitant, “if this whole thing has made him . . . gun-shy.”
“You mean about being too friendly?”
Bree nodded. “I could see why, too. That woman has probably made him second guess everything he does.”
Without warning, tears sprang to Corinne’s eyes.
“Corinne? Are you okay?”
She shook her head, unable to speak just yet. When she’d swallowed back the tears, she tried to put her thoughts into words. “I think that’s exactly what’s happened, Bree. And . . . I’m sure I haven’t helped matters any.”
“What do you mean?” Landyn touched her arm gently.
“I’ve lectured him—for being too much of a flirt. I just don’t want him to get in trouble again. It scares me where this could all lead.”
“But Jesse’s always been a flirt!” Bree clapped a hand over her mouth as soon as the words were out. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. What I mean is, that’s just his personality. He’s never inappropriate or crude. It’s why everyone loves him so much.”
“Exactly. That’s just the way Jesse is.” Danae agreed. “He’s always been super friendly.”
Landyn picked up the battle cry. “That’s why he’s so good at his sales job, too. I wish I had half his charisma.”
Corinne looked at her lap and tore at the edge of the paper napkin wadded in her hand. “I hate what that woman has done to our lives.”
“Don’t let this change him, Corinne.” Bree got up from her chair and came to put an arm around Corinne’s shoulders.
“I feel like it’s too late. He already has changed.”
“Do you want us to say something? So at least he knows he doesn’t have to change around us?”
Corinne smiled through her tears at the defensiveness in Landyn’s voice. But she shook her head. “I don’t think he’d like it if you brought it up. We’ve mostly just been trying to pretend that . . . witch doesn’t exist. That this will all go away if we just ignore her.”
“But she still works at Preston-Brilon, right?”
She nodded. “Unfortunately.”
“So does he have to see her every day? Are they on speaking terms?”
“She’s been traveling a lot this month—and Jesse hasn’t—so that’s made things a little easier.”
“Has Jesse said anything to her about—Sadie’s claim?”
She sighed. “Seriously, can we change the subject?” She was growing uncomfortable with where this conversation was leading, plus, she’d promised Jesse. He’d given her the slimmest details about his confrontation with Michaela at work yesterday, saying only that she’d been frustratingly obtuse and hadn’t admitted to anything at all. Yet for the first time, Jesse seemed worried that maybe Michaela had been involved after all in the incident with the girls disappearing from Danae’s yard.
But Jesse had asked her not to say anything to her family. And she would honor that. They didn’t need a dozen other opinions about how they should handle this. There were already too many disagreements about it—starting with her and Jesse.
The back door opened and Mom appeared with one of the twins in her arms. Corinne still had trouble telling them apart, especially in the waning evening light.
Landyn scooted out her chair. “Do I need to feed somebody?”
“Grace is still sleeping, but this one decided she was missing a party.”
“That’s my party girl.” Landyn laughed.
“Can I have her, Mom?” Corinne rose and reached for the baby.
“It’s not that I’m not willing to share, but your hubby asked me t
o tell you he’s ready to go.”
“Yeah, right. I’m not buying that one. Hand over the baby and nobody gets hurt.” It was rare that Jesse was ready to end a Tuesday night before she was.
“I’ll hand her over, but I’m not kidding about Jesse. He’s rounding up the girls right now. He said they had swimming lessons tomorrow.”
“Oh. Yeah . . . they do. Okay then.” She patted her tiny niece’s back. “Next time, sweetie. Aunt Corinne has first dibs.” She gave her sisters what they’d called the stink eye when they were kids. “You hear that, aunties?”
Bree and Danae waved her off, laughing.
She kissed little Emma’s cheek and started gathering up empty glasses and crumpled napkins from the table.
It was odd for Jesse to want to leave this early, but the girls did have swimming lessons in the morning. And she was exhausted. Mostly from trying to put on a “normal” face when their lives were anything but.
* * *
Jesse buckled Simone’s car seat and went around to get in the driver’s side. “You have everything?” he asked Corinne.
“Yes. I left the rest of the salad for Mom and—”
“Hey, guys.”
They looked up to see Chase and Landyn picking their way across the gravel driveway. Landyn was barefoot and leaning heavily on her husband to navigate the rocky surface. Huckleberry tagged behind them, no doubt hoping for a ride in somebody’s car.
“Hey there.” Jesse shut the driver’s side door and went around to meet them. “Did we forget something? I was just asking Corinne if she got everything . . .”
“No.” Chase ducked his head briefly. “We just wanted to talk to you guys.”
“Oh?” Jesse heard Corinne crunching on the gravel, coming around her side of the SUV. He wondered if she knew what this was about. Huck trotted over to her, and she took his large head in her hands and baby talked softly to him.
“We just wanted you guys to know we’re praying for you,” Chase said. “I know it’s been a rough ride with everything that woman has tried to do.”
Jesse put out his hand to shake his brother-in-law’s, but Chase grasped his hand and pulled him into a quick hug.
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