by Sarah Hegger
Out came her stubborn chin and he cursed himself. “I know what I’m doing.”
“I know that.” He grabbed her hand from across the bar and gave it a squeeze. “You look tired is all.”
“I’m okay.” Her face softened and she returned his squeeze before dropping his hand.
“You let me know if that changes.” He held her stare. “I’m not rolling in it like Eric and Matt, but I’ve got enough set aside to help my little sister out.”
Shit! Jo must be tired because she dropped her head, but not before he caught the glimmer of tears in her eyes. “I’m okay.”
“I know that, but you don’t have to fly solo on this.”
“Yes.” She sniffed. “I do.” Her gaze met his, hers full of resolve. “I have to do this on my own. You get that, don’t you?”
He did get it, and Nate nodded. Jo, Isaac, and he owed their big brother Matt everything. When Dad died, Matt had stepped in like some kind of modern-day superhero and taken over as man of the house. He’d turned down a full-ride scholarship to run their dad’s failing business. Matt did everything. Put food on the table, propped up their mother, and even kicked their asses to get their homework done.
Isaac had disappeared, having some sort of late-life rebellion. But he and Jo, they’d had their rebellion on Matt’s watch, and they both would die before they made their adult problems Matt’s.
Happily married to kick-ass Pippa and in business with Eric, Matt had found his bit of magic now. He’d sacrificed everything for them, and Nate would be damned before he asked Matt for one more thing. He nodded to Jo. “Yeah, I know.”
Down the bar, a blond guy signaled Jo for his check and she moved away.
The guy from the other night, the night that had started an ongoing series of filthy morning shower sessions with Bella playing the starring role in his imagination. The guy looked up, caught him watching, and nodded a greeting.
Jo came back and ran the guy’s credit card.
“You know that guy?” He kept his voice low enough not to reach the other patrons.
Jo glanced at the card. “Adam,” she read. “Adam Smith. Yeah, I think he’s staying at the resort.”
The guy gave Nate a bad feeling. “Stay away from him.”
“Huh?” Jo eyed him askance. “I serve him drinks. What’s your problem with him anyway?”
“I dunno.” Because he really didn’t, and some part of him got that he was being a dick for no reason. “Just a feeling I get.”
“Uh-huh.” Jo cocked her head and grinned.
“What?”
She smirked. “This have anything to do with the fact that he was in here last night with Bella?”
“No! What?”
“Last night.” Jo leaned her elbows on the counter, her eyes laughing at him. “He and Bella looked pretty cozy.”
“Did Bella drink?” He didn’t want to think about the bolt of unadulterated possessiveness that shot through him.
“A little.” Jo moved back and grabbed Adam the Dickhead’s credit card and the slip.
“Well, next time she comes in with him, you cut her off at one.”
Jo scrunched her face at him. “Are you serious right now?”
“As a death threat.” And he ought to know what happened to Bella when she went over her limit.
“Sure, Nate.” Jo rolled her eyes. “I’ll start cutting off my paying customers at one drink. Or do you think I should substitute with soda?”
Smart-ass. Nate tried to hide his grin and failed. He was being a jerk. If Bella wanted to get hammered and strip in front of Adam the Dickhead, it really was none of his business. “Just keep your eye on her, if you can.”
“Will do.” With a perky salute, Jo went back down the bar.
Adam signed his slip, nodded to Nate, and left. He almost collided with Daniel on his way in. Both men nodded to each other and moved away.
Daniel Carver hadn’t changed much. He looked older, but then, they all did. His face was leaner and he’d bulked up some, but Nate would still have picked him out in a crowd.
“Hey.” Daniel took the stool next to him. “Sorry I’m late. I got caught up in a thing.”
Nate’s hackles came up. Daniel’s things did no good for anybody. “What thing?”
In the midst of taking off his jacket, Daniel stopped. He stared at Nate for a moment before he shrugged out of it and laid it over the back of the stool. “A volunteer thing. For charity.” He settled his ass on the stool. “And before you ask, I’m not the charity.”
It dragged a smile out of him, and Nate said, “Sorry. Old habits die hard.”
“No worries. I earned my share of suspicion.” Daniel signaled Jo for a drink.
Jo hesitated, a motion so tiny, Nate nearly didn’t catch it before moving over. “Hey, Daniel. What can I get you?”
“Coke.” Daniel showed his teeth in a tight smile.
“Coming right up.” Jo sounded a little too jaunty.
What the hell? Nate turned from his sister and looked at Daniel. “Something going on I should know about?”
“Like what?” Daniel lied like a man born to it, which was exactly what he was. Daniel came from one of those families that made social workers tear their hair out. Alcoholic mother, flyby father who bounced in and out of the hospitality of the state. You didn’t have to look far to find the reason why Daniel had ended up like he had.
“Like stay away from my sister.”
Daniel opened his mouth and shut it again. He nodded. “No problem, man.”
“I mean it.” Nate kept his eye on Jo as she slid the soda in front of Daniel.
“Got it.” Daniel sipped his drink. He turned to face Nate. “Thanks for meeting me.”
A platitude almost made its way out of his mouth before Nate stopped it. He had to be at Pippa and Matt’s thing in an hour, and he and Daniel had gone way past this. “Why did you want to meet?”
Daniel took a deep breath, turning his glass around on the cardboard coaster. “Yeah, this isn’t so easy.”
Nate’s nape prickled. He didn’t want to hear about another of Daniel’s fast-track-to-riches schemes.
“So, you know I’ve just gotten out of prison,” Daniel said.
Nate nodded.
“And I got into a program while I was inside. AA actually.”
No shit! Nate had to snap his mouth shut. Daniel had always liked his beer, but AA? “You did?”
“Yup. Turns out I take after my mother.” Daniel twisted his glass until the one edge matched with the edge of the coaster. “After you took old Sheriff Wheeler up on his offer, things got a bit more out of hand for me. Actually, they got way, way out of hand.”
“No shit.” This time he did say it out loud.
“Anyway . . . Cut a long story short, I ended up a guest of Uncle Sam, ended up in my first meeting just because I heard they had better coffee than the shit they served the rest of us, and stayed to hear what they had to say.”
Nate knew the program. He’d guided a couple of people into it over the years. “Is this like an eighth-step thing?”
“Ninth step.” Daniel cleared his throat. “This is a ninth-step thing, and if you give me a minute to find my balls, I’ll get right on it.”
“Fuck me.” Nate had trouble getting his head around this. When Daniel said he’d changed, he’d meant changed-changed, like really changed. “I never thought we would be having this conversation.”
Daniel laughed and took a sip of his soda. “Yeah, me neither.”
And when Daniel did a ninth step, he went all out. Spared himself no detail, cut himself no slack. Some of this stuff Nate really didn’t like to think about anymore. It reminded him how close he’d come to slipping off the knife edge. He and Daniel, with a small group of others, had run wild for a few years there. Blurring the line of legal on more than one occasion. Jesus, he’d gotten lucky.
“And that’s it.” Daniel’s hand shook as he reached for his soda and took a swig. “Other than
the part where I ask for your forgiveness.”
“You got it.” Nate didn’t even have to think about it. Daniel had paid his debt and, knowing what it was like for ex-cons, would continue to pay it for a while longer. An uneasy silence fell between them. “Do we hug or something now?”
Daniel jerked. “Do you want to?”
“Hell no!”
Chapter Ten
The call came in as he left the bar, on his way to Dame Philomene’s place. Nate would like to call it a house, but Phi’s Folly defied any attempt to put a name on it.
“Two-thirty to four-fifteen.”
He answered the radio. “What’s up, Gabby?”
He did it to mess with her. Deputy Gabby had a thing about proper radio protocol. “Four-fifteen, we have a possible—”
“Cut the crap, Gabby. What’s going on?”
“Headlights.” She nearly spat the word. “Seems she’s had her regular prowler around again tonight. Want me to send someone else?”
Shit! Gabby must be having a horrible day not to get on him about procedure. “Nah.” Nate didn’t have the heart to do that to Jeff. “I’m going right by there on my way. I’ll look in.”
“Ten-four.” Gabby’s voice crackled.
The street looked quiet as he pulled up, but no big surprise there. Liz was a couple of days late on her call-in.
Liz opened the door, bright red underwear, which answered the question loud and clear as to how she’d earned her nickname, escaping her bathrobe.
“Sheriff.” She purred and did this rubbing thing against the doorjamb. “If I’d known you would come, I would have worn something more appropriate.”
Ah, hell no. Nate dug his hands into his utility belt. He didn’t even want to think what Headlights considered appropriate. “Gabby says you have a prowler. Again.”
She glared at him. “I do.”
“Uh-huh” He had a schedule to keep here. “Liz, my family is waiting for me. Can we get to the problem?”
“I’m invited too, you know.” She straightened and twitched the collar of her bathrobe into a more modest position. “And I really did see something. At least, I think it’s a prowler.”
They were breaking new ground here. Normally, Liz invited him into the house to show him from which window she’d seen the prowler. Depending on how feisty she felt that night, it could be any room in the house. Nate paid better attention. “What do you mean, you think you have a prowler?”
“Not me.” She grabbed a coat from the rack next to the door and slid it on. “I thought I saw someone over at Bella’s.”
“Bella’s?”
“I’ll show you.”
“That’s okay.” Nate blocked her exit. After all, the boy who cried wolf had seen that wolf eventually. “Why don’t you tell me where you thought you saw this prowler and I’ll take a look?”
“Round back.” Hunching her shoulders, Liz shivered. She had to be cold in those red bits of nothing. “Near the kitchen window.” She frowned. “I’m not sure, though. It was a shadow really, there and then gone.”
“I’ll check it out.” Nate leaned in and shut her front door. Shit! He really didn’t like the sound of this. And he’d put his balls on a block that Bella hadn’t learned to lock her door yet.
* * *
Bella was running late, what with this being the festive season and a few last-minute shoppers looking for that perfect dress to wear to ring in the New Year. One of the best parts of owning your own clothing store was never being short of a quick change when you needed it. Slipping into a return she rather fancied, Bella freshened her makeup and locked up the store behind her. Her new Christmas wreath twinkled at her through the window, simple, elegant, and classic. Nana would hate it.
The car parked beside her own looked a lot like Adam’s Lexus. In a town like Ghost Falls, coincidence didn’t really factor into things, and she peered through the window.
Smiling, Adam waved back and motioned to the phone at his ear.
She waggled her fingers good-bye and drove to the diva’s house.
Where else would Pippa have a get-together but at Phi’s Folly?
Bella pointed her car down the sweeping, tree-lined driveway. With the house set barely a hundred feet from the road, the serpentine drive had always mystified Bella. But then, after you’d met Phi a time or two, nothing much surprised you anymore.
She’d grown up with the infamous Diva Philomene St. Amor as Ghost Falls’s most illustrious resident. The diva had been born and raised in Ghost Falls and had retired here several years ago now. Bella hadn’t really gotten to know Philomene—or Phi, as everyone called her—before she’d grown close to Pippa when she’d returned home under the cloud of being America’s most hated celebrity.
The drive wound its way onto a wide, turning circle in front of a part Gothic mansion, part gingerbread house. People milled about in the light spilling through the windows. Phi threw a great party and, by the looks of things, nobody had turned down Pippa’s invitation.
Bella parked behind a compact CUV and did one more hair and makeup check because there was a good chance Nate would be there. She might be over her crush on him, but a girl still liked to put her best foot forward.
“Ma petite Belle!” As she crossed the threshold, Phi descended on her. Swathed in gold spandex and glittering to rival the massive Christmas tree in the entrance hall, Phi tugged her into a patchouli-scented hug. “So small and sweet, like a special Christmas bonbon.” Phi beamed at her. “We need to find some big, strong man to gobble you up.”
Bella’s cheeks heated. She never knew quite how to take Phi. The diva winked at her, eyelids encrusted with sparkling gold shadow, and chuckled.
“Dear God, Phi.” Pippa emerged from the crowd with a rescuing arm. “Bella hasn’t even stepped in the door and you’ve got her blushing.”
“I simply cannot resist.” Phi conducted the air in a clash of bracelets. “She wears that glow of radiant innocence.”
Did she? Bella tripped after Pippa as the other woman led her into the throng.
“I’m going to need you,” Pippa whispered. “Cressy is here and she’s in fine form tonight.”
Matt’s mother had moods: a lot of them, all the time. After her husband’s death, she’d clung to her oldest son. The arrival of Pippa, and Matt and Pippa’s subsequent relationship, had exacerbated Cressy’s moods.
As she and Pippa reached the midpoint in Phi’s cavernous salon, Bella spotted the problem. Cressy had taken up a position by the bar. Dressed tonight in head-to-toe black, she peered into the throng with a palpable air of martyrdom.
“I’ll go talk to her,” Bella said. She and Cressy had a weird bond. They’d both been struck in the past by the death of a family member.
“I owe you.” Pippa gave her a fierce hug. “Get yourself a strong drink while you’re there.”
“I’m fine.” Bella had to smile at how grateful Pippa looked. She couldn’t help it; she felt sorry for Cressy. Yes, she knew how toxic she could be, and she totally saw how difficult she could make life for Pippa, but Bella’s heart went out to her. She couldn’t help but think how unhappy Cressy must be to make life so difficult for herself and her five grown children.
“Bella.” Eric Evans stepped into her path with his signature bad-boy smirk. In a beautifully tailored pair of black pants and a button-down, the second-oldest Evans brother had a definite edge to him that had most of the Ghost Falls female residents catfighting each other to get closer.
“Eric.” He still managed to pull a flirtatious smile from her. Just by being Eric. He could make a nun bat her lashes.
Taking her hands, he held her away from him. His hot dark eyes wandered her from top to toe with a gleam that made her blush. “Damn, girl. You are looking fine tonight.”
It was like a shot of adrenaline straight to the ego and she’d have to be long dead not to appreciate it. “You say that to all the girls.”
“You’re right.” Eric grinned. “But I only
mean it when I say it to you.”
God help the woman who ever fell for that line. Bella chatted to Eric for a bit longer before threading her way over to Cressy. She knew a lot of the people here and she always enjoyed catching up.
In response to her greeting, Cressy gave her a sad smile. An attractive woman in her late fifties, all the Evans brood had inherited her dark hair and impeccable bone structure. Bella didn’t remember Mr. Evans well, but he’d been a big man with a great smile and an easy laugh.
“Pippa tells me you’re all alone for Christmas,” Cressy said as Bella accepted a glass of wine from the barman. Typical; Phi had hired a barman who looked like you could bounce a coin off his abs.
“Yes, Nana and my parents went down to Florida. Nana says the cold makes her arthritis worse.” Bella tried to inject a little enthusiasm into her voice, but the topic didn’t lend itself to bubbly.
Cressy’s eyes went huge. “What will you do? All on your own?”
She made all on your own sound like a chronic condition. “Oh, I have a plan,” Bella said, feeling a bit like a chirping canary. Whenever she got around Cressy, her natural instinct to jolly the older woman along kicked in.
Cressy dug into the dip with a chip and crunched. “What sort of plan?”
“I got it off the internet.” She made it sound like a miracle cure, but Bella couldn’t seem to get a grip on her tone. Cressy and her glass-half-empty approach pinged her need to make happy. “It’s a series of ten things to do if you find yourself alone on the holidays.”
Cressy went for another chip and chewed like it was the Last Supper.
Jolly Bella went in for another try. Part of her brain—the part not twittering like a demented sparrow—wished Liz would get there and slap her. “First, I decorated the house. I put up a tree, decorated. I even managed to get some lights on the outside.” All on its own, Bella’s head bobbed up and down. “Well, actually, there’s a funny story about my outside lights.”
“Oh?” Cressy’s mouth turned down at the corners. “I love funny stories.”
“Well . . .” Dear God, could someone please stop her? “There I was on top of my roof, and you’ll never guess what happened.” Now she sounded like she was entertaining the first-grade class at Ghost Falls Elementary. “I got stuck.”