Copper Lake Confidential

by Marilyn Pappano

  Kiki was on her way back, making a beeline for him, and she didn’t look happy. He looked behind him. Ten feet to the hallway, another ten to the front door. He could claim an emergency call from the clinic.

  Nah, she probably had her service revolver in her purse and would suggest putting the poor critter out of its misery.

  “Come on, Noble, we’re outta here.” Ignoring Marnie and John, she dozed her way to the door, where she shot him a look that could kill over her shoulder.

  “You’re getting lucky, man,” John said.

  Stephen stared at him, both dismayed and turned off by the mere idea.

  “She’s getting you out of here early,” John explained. “Another guy’s got her panties in a wad, and she’s not going to be asking you to help her out of them. You get to go home without her.”

  “Noble!”

  Stephen glanced at her, arms crossed, gaze narrowed, then at John—three prestigious university degrees? Panties in a wad?—then touched Marnie’s shoulder. “See you. Nice to meet you, John.”

  By the time he caught up with Kiki, she was striding through the wrought-iron gate onto the sidewalk. He’d parked two blocks to the north after dropping her off at the entrance so she wouldn’t have to walk that far in her killer heels. Now she waited as if she expected him to pick her up.

  “I’ll get the car,” he said, pausing beside her.

  To his surprise, she turned. “I’ll walk with you.”

  They’d covered a block in silence before he hesitantly asked, “What’s up with you and Ty?”

  “Ty’s an idiot. He thinks we need a break.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She scowled at him. “You’re an idiot if you think he’s getting it. Like I told him, it was a mutual decision to start dating. It has to be a mutual decision to stop. I don’t acknowledge his breakup.”

  “I didn’t know you could refuse to acknowledge a breakup.”

  “Of course you can.” Though she didn’t add an insult, her tone made clear there was another idiot implied. “There are two people in every relationship. Each one has equal say in what happens. You can’t start a relationship with someone who doesn’t want to be in it, and you can’t walk away from someone who doesn’t want to end it.”

  Stephen grimaced, grateful she wasn’t looking at him. He was pretty sure she didn’t tolerate people who grimaced at her logic. “Substitute ‘marriage’ for ‘relationship,’ and you’re talking about divorce. And I’m pretty sure ‘breakup’ is the relationship equivalent of divorce.”

  She stopped beside his car and gave him a scornful look from head to toe. “No wonder you’re single. Let me explain it in terms you can understand. Ty has commitment issues. We date. We have sex. We get intimate. He backs off, breaks up, wants to play the field. He gets over his fears, we get back together, we repeat. It’s our routine. But this time I’m going to get a different outcome. We’re going to deal with his issues, and I’m going to get a commitment.”

  When she waited pointedly for a response, he said, “Oh.” It was the best he could manage.

  But thirty minutes later, sitting at the island in Macy’s kitchen, he said what he really thought. “If Ty has any sense, the only commitment she’ll get is an involuntary one into a high-security loony bin for stalking him. She’s not only scary, she’s nuts.”

  The spoon Macy was holding clattered to the floor, and she ducked to pick it up. It clattered again when she dropped it into the sink. When she turned, her smile was wan, her eyes shadowed. “From what I’ve heard, Ty Gadney is a smart man and a good detective. It probably is their routine to break up, get back together, break up again. My college roommate and her boyfriend were like that. We actually kept a chart on the refrigerator door. It had a green magnet for On and a red one for Off. I swear, sometimes it was the only way she could keep track. They got married after graduation.”

  “And let me guess—they lived happily ever after?”

  “Nope. Divorced at least three times in six years. They can’t live together, can’t live apart. I’m glad I’m not her.”

  He slid off the stool and circled the island to slide his arms around her. “So am I, because I don’t believe in messing with a married woman, but I sure do like messing with you.” After brushing his mouth across hers, he quietly added, “I missed you.”

  She didn’t say anything, but the squeeze of her fingers on his arms was comment enough.

  * * *

  Commitment. High-security loony bin. Nuts.

  The words had made it almost impossible for Macy to breathe. Her first commitment had been voluntary and, for all its apparent openness, the hospital had definitely been high-security. It was the place where wealthy people went to rehab, recuperate and regain their sanity.

  But she had not been nuts.

  “You’re tense. Have a bad day?” His hands kneaded slowly along her spine, making her groan when they reached her shoulders.

  “The day wasn’t so bad. I had trouble sleeping last night.” She’d tried to read, to sing herself to sleep with Clary’s favorite tunes. She’d paced the bedroom until her legs ached. She’d even moved the chair from the door, lifted Clary into her arms and searched the entire house for anything out of place. She’d wound up both physically and emotionally exhausted and had found nothing. Just that damn cologne bottle.

  She was not nuts.

  “Have you tried a sleeping pill?” Stephen asked, still rubbing knots from stiff muscles.

  “I’ve taken them before. After Mark died. They knocked me out. I couldn’t wake up for a few hours, and when I did wake, I was groggy and tired. I also found out I was getting out of bed in the middle of the night and doing things—making coffee, calling people, carrying on entire conversations, even falling—and I couldn’t remember any of it. I couldn’t take care of Clary like that.” Not that she’d been taking care of Clary at the time.

  “Clary could spend the night in the guesthouse.”

  Adamantly she shook her head.

  “I could spend the night here and make sure nothing happened.”

  The offer sent sudden heat through her that eased her muscles even more. She raised her head and smiled at him. “Why would I want to be unconscious if you were spending the night?”

  For a long time he looked at her with such intensity, such need. She recognized it because it was in her, too, sharp and edgy and restless. She hadn’t felt such complicated need in so long. For months all she’d worried about was gaining and maintaining control over the depression and anxiety that had crippled her, about being home again, being normal again, being a mom again. She hadn’t given much thought to being a woman again.

  Timing was everything, and her family’s was exquisite. Just as he started to lean toward her, just as she stretched onto her toes to reach him, the back door flew open to the accompaniment of giggles.

  “We’re not looking,” Clary and Anne chanted as they came into the room, though of course they were peeking through the spaces between the fingers covering their eyes.

  “We just came for ice cream stuff,” Clary said, pretending to stumble around blindly before crashing into their legs. “Hey, Mama. Hey, Dr. Stephen.”

  “Don’t mind us,” Anne instructed. “We’re just borrowing scoops and hot fudge sauce and...did I forget something, Clary?”

  “AnAnne! We can’t have ice cream sundaes without ice cream!”

  Smiling, Macy put a few steps between her and Stephen. “When you called, we’d just decided we needed ice cream to top off all that barbecue. Okay, ladies, you can open your eyes now.” She gestured to the tray she’d been fixing when Stephen dropped the nuts bomb. “I’ve got scoops, hot fudge, caramel, whipped cream and pecans.”

  Both Clary and Anne danced around the kitchen, arms over their heads. “I scream, you scream, we both scream for ice cream. Yay!”

  Stephen was laughing at their antics, and Macy couldn’t help but do the same. She adored her daughter’s silliness and her s
ister-in-law’s ability and willingness to dance and sing along with her. Anne had been such a blessing for their entire family.

  As Stephen picked up the tray, Macy took two cartons from the freezer, then they headed for the guesthouse. Clary claimed Stephen’s attention, leaving Macy with Anne, who leaned close. “Do you wish we’d waited five minutes?”

  “Nah. Well, maybe.”

  Anne’s snort was soft. “If we’d been even two minutes slower, I’d be explaining to your daughter why Dr. Stephen’s tongue was down Mama’s throat and his hands were inside her clothes.”

  As they passed the pool, serene and still in the cool night, Macy sighed. “Hmm. I wish you had waited.”

  Impulsively Anne reached across and hugged her. “I like this one, Macy. He’s so much better for you than Mark.”

  Macy totally agreed, but something perverse—a sense of fairness?—forced her to point out, “You didn’t even know Mark.”

  “Hello? Serial killer? Suicide? Scandal? Months at the resort?” That was how Anne always referred to the hospital. It sounded so much better, she said, especially when telling people where her sister was. Her voice lowered even more. “The baby. That bastard cost you so much, Macy. He wasn’t worth any of it.”

  Macy’s heart twinged at the mention of the baby, but she breathed it away and said, “He was worth Clary.”

  Anne watched Clary skip up the steps and open the guesthouse door for Stephen, and she nodded. “He was definitely worth Clary. But the cute little nerd vet is so much better in every other way. And think of the cute little nerd kids he can give you.”

  Cute little nerd. Not at all the way Macy would describe Stephen. Oh, he was certainly cute, if “cute” also meant “gorgeous.” Little, nah. He was tall enough and broad enough of shoulder to make any woman feel secure. Nerd? Well, maybe. Those glasses, the perennially uncombed hair and the limited wardrobe did tend to push him toward that classification.

  But he was so much more. Sweet. Sincere. Real. There were no horrifying secrets hiding in his past.

  Inside Brent scooped ice cream into dishes while Anne set up a topping bar. Declining the extra calories, Macy made herself comfortable on one of the couches, kicking off her shoes and tucking her feet beneath her. Clary had climbed onto a chair dragged to the counter and was giving Stephen directions for the perfect hot fudge sundae covered with whipped cream.

  For only the second time all day, Macy was relaxed. She could breathe without struggle. The common denominator: Stephen. She was falling hard for him, and it wasn’t fair. While he might not have any nasty secrets in his past, she had plenty in hers. He was fine with having a fling with the needy widow down the street, but didn’t he deserve to know before he had one with a serial killer’s widow? A woman who’d spent months in a loony bin? A woman who’d been so mentally fragile over her husband’s crimes and the loss of her baby that she couldn’t even deal with her baby who still lived?

  Didn’t he have a right to decide whether to commit, even for one night, to a woman who might not be sane?

  So much for relaxation and struggle-free breathing.

  Stephen settled on the sofa next to her and placed Clary’s bowl on the coffee table. When he leaned back, he offered Macy his bowl. “Sure I can’t tempt you?”

  She glanced at the chocolate chip ice cream nearly covered by caramel sauce and pecans and shook her head. “Not with that, you can’t.” In the past few minutes, her stomach had knotted enough that nothing more substantial than water could possibly get through.

  Kiki Isaacs came up in the conversation, with Brent agreeing that she was stalker-crazy. Anne delicately licked a dollop of hot fudge from her spoon, then gestured with it. “Of course you can refuse to accept a breakup. It happens all the time. People fight, one of them says it’s over, the other one goes on with life as usual and before long it’s all forgotten. If this man keeps getting back together with her after he breaks up with her, what is she supposed to think? You know, it’s like the boy who cried wolf. Sooner or later, she stops believing he means what he says.”

  “The boy who cried wolf was fibbing, and then there was a real wolf,” Clary announced. “That’s why I don’t fib. I don’t like wolves.”

  Macy brushed her hand across Clary’s baby-soft hair.

  “Maybe the guy’s afraid of her,” Brent said. “She’s nuts, and she carries a gun.”

  “So does he,” Anne pointed out.

  “Yeah, but being sane, he doesn’t want to use it against his wacko girlfriend.”

  Macy’s nerves tightened before she realized that thought of her was nowhere in Brent’s mind. He wasn’t censoring himself or stumbling around trying to avoid words like nuts and wacko because he didn’t think of her that way. Affection flooded through her, then immediately dissipated. How quickly would his opinion change if he knew about the incidents this past week?

  “Maybe she does come on a little strong,” Anne conceded, then she smiled a slow, warm, teasing smile. “Just for the record, sweetheart, I don’t accept breakups, either. When I said till death do us part, I meant it.”

  “So did I.” Brent leaned over to kiss her, making Clary drop her spoon and clamp her hands over her eyes.

  Mark apparently had meant his vows to last until death, as well. Heavens, so had Macy. She wondered if he’d ever imagined that would be only seven years. Had he known he would stop taking other people’s lives by taking his own? Had he worried how it would affect her? Had he cared?

  The doctors had said he’d been capable of normal emotions. That he could have loved her and Clary as much as he’d claimed and still have the compulsion to kill. They hadn’t been able to say with as much certainty what had driven him to kill. Surely there was more to it than a memorable way to spend visits with Grandfather. There must have been something wrong in his brain, some damaged area that made murder acceptable for more reasons than the fact that his grandfather had done it.

  When the leftover ice cream had melted in their bowls and Clary was running in hyper circles around the room, Macy and Stephen said good-night, and he gave Clary a piggyback ride to the house.

  “Let’s go see Scooter,” she suggested as she ducked her head to get through the door.

  “It’s too late. Scooter’s in bed asleep. That’s where you’re going to be in fifteen minutes.” Macy’s estimate was hopeful. Sometimes bath and bedtime ran closer to an hour, and she really didn’t want this to be one of those times.

  “I’m not tired, Mama. Dr. Stephen, let’s watch TV. Do you like cartoons?”

  “I do, but not at bedtime.” He grasped her by the waist and swung her to the floor.

  Propping both hands on her hips, she scowled at him. “Quit saying it’s bedtime. I’m not sleepy!”

  “Do dogs ever get this cranky when you try to send them to bed?” Macy whispered as she passed him.

  “Are you kidding? They happily sleep twenty hours a day if you let them.”

  Twenty hours of sleep sounded good to her at the moment. Maybe tonight would be more restful than the past few. “Tell Dr. Stephen good-night, then we have to get you into the bath.”

  Clary’s eyes filled with tears, and her lower lip trembled. “I don’t wanna! I want to watch cartoons and play with Scooter! I don’t want a stupid bath and I don’t wanna go to stupid—”

  “Clara.” Macy didn’t know if it was the look on her face, her tone or the use of her daughter’s given name, but that one word, said exactly like that, was usually enough to make Clary go silent. “Tell Dr. Stephen good-night.”

  She scowled up at him again and automatically repeated, “Good night, Dr. Stephen.”

  “Good night, Clary.”

  “And tell Scooter good-night since I didn’t get to see him at all today.”

  Stephen hid a smile. “I will.”

  She started down the hall toward the stairs. “I didn’t get to watch cartoons, either, or go swimming or do anything fun at all, and now I have to go to bed when I’m not e
ven tired.”

  “Go in my bathroom and brush your teeth,” Macy called after her. “I’ll be there in just a minute.”

  For a little girl, Clary made a remarkable amount of noise on the carpeted stairs. When the sound faded, Macy looked at Stephen, who’d given in to his amusement. “She’s a funny kid.”

  It was a simple comment, but it warmed her heart. She’d known a lot of people during her marriage who weren’t as taken with children, neither their own nor anyone else’s. None had carried it to the extreme of Miss Willa, but there’d been definite boundaries—including nannies and boarding schools—to keep kids at a distance.

  “I know you’ve had a long day, but...”

  When she trailed off, he grinned. “I’m not tired, and I don’t want to watch cartoons or play with Scooter.”

  She smiled back. “Can you hang around while I get her bathed and tucked? I’ll do it as quick as I can.”

  “Sure. I’ll be—” He glanced around. The family room sofa was still filled with boxes, and the living room was so obviously not comfortable. “Out back. By the fountain. Is that okay?”

  The thought of having that privacy with him, with the accompaniment of the bubbling and splashing of the fountain, was lovely. She’d hoped when she’d installed it that it would prove to be an intimate, romantic space to share, but Mark hadn’t cared for it. Still, it was all the way across the yard. Distance and the fountain could obscure any sound Clary might make. Any sound an intruder might make.

  She gazed up the stairs, and Stephen must have caught it. “On the patio. Right by the door. Okay?”

  Her smile came automatically, filled with gratitude for his understanding. “I’ll meet you there.”

  Chapter 9

  Bedtime was running twenty-one minutes and counting. Yes, Stephen was timing it. Though normally patience was one of his virtues, he didn’t have much of it at the moment, but not in a bad way. It was anticipation, really, rather than impatience. He wanted to see Macy. Wanted to spend more time alone with her. Wanted to touch her.