Undercover in Copper Lake

by Marilyn Pappano - Undercover in Copper Lake

While the girl shuffled off, Sean got to his feet. He’d seen the sign in the front window about this month’s classes but couldn’t imagine one that could hold Daisy’s interest for more than five minutes. “I should get going.”

  Leaving Daisy settling in at another worktable, Sophy walked with him toward the front door. “Have you seen Maggie yet?” she asked in a low voice.

  “Yeah, for a few minutes. She wasn’t happy, so she didn’t stick around long.”

  “Did she ask about the girls?”

  It hadn’t occurred to him until now that she hadn’t. Even when he said, I saw Daisy this morning, she hadn’t wanted to know how she looked, if she was okay, if she missed her mama. All she’d done was turn it into an opportunity to criticize him.

  He shook his head, part embarrassed, part annoyed with his sister and part of him just plain sad.

  Sophy’s expression was resigned, as if this wasn’t the first time she’d asked the question and gotten the same answer.

  They were just feet from the door when it swung open and two white-haired women started inside before freezing in their tracks. One was a stranger to him, but the other had been the queen bitch of Copper Lake fourteen years ago and probably still was. Louise Wetherby had never liked anyone, but especially anyone she considered beneath her. The Holigans hadn’t had the money to eat in her pricey restaurant or the right, in her mind, to live in her town or breathe her air. Even now, her nose was twitching as if she smelled something unwelcome.

  Though her icy gaze was locked on him—as if he might grab her purse and run if she looked away for a moment—her words weren’t directed to him. “What is that man doing here, Sophy?”

  “The same thing you are, Mrs. Wetherby. He came to see about making a quilt.”

  The tautness of Sean’s muscles eased slightly.

  The Queen sniffed haughtily while her minion twittered. “Don’t be ridiculous. We thought we’d seen the last of him when we ran him out of town all those years ago.”

  “You must be confusing him with someone else, Mrs. Wetherby,” Sophy said with scorn camouflaged by sweet Southern politeness. “As I recall, he graduated from high school one day and climbed on the back of his motorcycle and left town the next. He was gone long before anyone in town even knew. Now, just head on back to the work area. If you ask nicely, Daisy will be happy to help you get your supplies.”

  Another sniff as the two women began walking again. “A five-year-old has no place in a quilting class,” Louise huffed, but her friend hesitantly argued.

  “Now, Louise, she is learning to piece a quilt top, and that’s exactly what the class is for. My grandmother learned to quilt when she was six, so it’s not...”

  As the old women’s conversation faded, silence vibrated between Sean and Sophy. This time she hadn’t turned red, the way she had when he’d mentioned the lack of welcome for him at her house, but rather looked more irritated than embarrassed. She opened the door, the bell ringing, then stepped outside onto the porch with him.

  He broke the quiet when the door was closed behind them. “I see Louise is still her sunny, smiling self.”

  “Lucky us. You know, I’ve always wondered just what is so bad about that woman’s life that she has to treat people the way she does. She’s had every privilege money can buy.”

  “Some people are just that way.”

  She drew a deep breath, and in the late-morning light, he appreciated the fit of the red dress and its contrast against her skin and hair all over again. Out here, away from all the fabric, he could smell her perfume, sweet, teasing, there with one breath, gone with the next. Her eyes were browner, her skin warmer, her presence magnified, her smile twice as dazzling.

  “Here I felt honored that you remembered my name, and then you pull Louise’s name out of the thin air of your memory.”

  “Different reasons for remembering. She tried to have me arrested for hanging outside her restaurant. Said we were scaring customers away. And she tried to get us taken away from my dad a couple of times. She didn’t think he was a fit father.” After a moment, he added, “She was right about that. He was a lousy father, but he was ours. He was what we knew.”

  “Is that why you didn’t come back for Mr. Patrick’s funeral?” Sophy asked quietly.

  He walked to the top of the steps and stared across the street. On the left was River’s Edge, one of Copper Lake’s grand old mansions, and on the right, a much-smaller, less genteel place that advertised itself as a bed-and-breakfast.

  Probably a more comfortable place than the motel.

  Definitely better situated for keeping an eye on Daisy and Dahlia.

  As well as their foster mother.

  Are you freaking crazy? The kids don’t want you around; you need to keep your distance from Sophy; and what the hell does comfort matter to a Holigan?

  “It’s complicated,” he replied at last, the answer as well suited to his thoughts as her question.

  She came to stand a few feet away, making the warm day hotter. “Would you like to come over for dinner tonight so you can meet Dahlia?”

  His gaze shot to her. A Marchand not only inviting him inside her home but to pull up a chair to the table and eat with them. Was she freaking crazy? There would be hell to pay with her parents, maybe even with the social worker. He doubted hanging out with disreputable uncle was on the social worker’s list of acceptable activities for the kids.

  “You can’t meet one and not the other. Daisy would lord it over Dahlia to make up for not getting to go to school, and you don’t want to see Daisy lording anything over Dahlia. About six? We eat early so they can have a little downtime before I have to wrestle them into the bathtub and pajamas and bed.” She made a wry face. “They never had a regular bedtime before, and they’re not loving it.”

  If he said yes, it would be one more stupid, dangerous agreement he’d made in the past day and a half. He hadn’t had much chance at saying no to Special Agent Baker or Craig, but he could turn down Sophy. He could suggest coming after school to meet Dahlia, who wasn’t likely to be any more welcoming than Daisy. He could even suggest they go out to dinner instead—somewhere about twenty miles away from town. He had a reputation to live down. She had one to protect.

  But he didn’t try to get the words no, thanks out of his mouth. He knew a losing battle when he saw it. All he could do was be on guard. “Okay,” he agreed. “I’ll see you at six.”

  Chapter 4

  Sophy and Daisy were waiting on the porch when the school bus rumbled to a stop out front and Dahlia climbed off. Bouncing in place, Daisy waited until her sister had come through the gate, then raced to her. “Guess who I saw, Dahlia? Mama’s brother Sean.”

  Shifting her backpack to the other shoulder, Dahlia scowled at her. “No, you didn’t.”

  “Yes, I did. I saw him at Cuppa Joe, and then he come here. His name is Sean, and he’s Mama’s brother.”

  Leaning against the post at the top of the steps, Sophy wondered how she could have missed Sean at the coffee shop that morning. Oh, yes, because she’d had a whiny five-year-old in meltdown mode.

  “No, you didn’t. You’re just makin’ that up. He’s locked up somewhere, just like Declan and Ian.”

  The set of her mouth smug, Daisy shook her head. “Ask her. She’ll tell you.”

  Dahlia’s gaze flickered to Sophy, then away again before she sullenly climbed the steps and went inside the shop.

  “How was school?” Sophy asked as she and Daisy followed.

  Dahlia shrugged her thin shoulders, continuing to the back, the refrigerator and the treats. Her uniform of khaki shorts and blue polo shirt was surprisingly clean and neat—Daisy wore milk, juice, grime and the oops of lunch on her clothes—and her ponytail was still in good shape. Because she hadn’t met anyone to play with?

  “I wanted to go to school, too,” Daisy said, dogging her footsteps, “but I’m glad she didn’t let me because then I wouldn’t have met Sean. Mama’s brother. Our uncle.” />
  After getting a bottle of milk from the refrigerator, Dahlia dropped her backpack on the table, turned to Sophy and gave up resisting. “Really?”

  “Really. He’s coming to dinner tonight to meet you.”

  She considered that a moment, then shrugged again. “I don’t care. Mama says he’s bad and we don’t need him.”

  “That’s what I told her!” Daisy exclaimed.

  Mama says. Sophy wished Maggie had kept at least a few thoughts to herself. Who was she, anyway, to judge anyone else? Given the life she’d chosen, odds were good that her daughters might have to turn to one of their uncles one day, but loving-mom Maggie had tried to poison the girls against them.

  “He’s not bad, Dahlia, and he hasn’t been locked up somewhere.” Belatedly, Sophy hoped that was true. “He lives in Virginia. He just found out your mom was in trouble yesterday, and he came straight here.”

  “Is he gonna get her out of jail?”

  “Um, I don’t know.” Ty had told Sophy that Maggie wasn’t likely to get out on her hundred-thousand-dollar bond. She didn’t have money like that, her boyfriend wouldn’t spend it on her if he did and her local family—a couple of teenage nephews and two ex-sisters-in-law—couldn’t afford it. Could Sean? If he could, would he?

  Sophy wouldn’t. She loved her sisters and her brother, but she wouldn’t risk ten thousand dollars to get them out of jail, especially if they had a track record like Maggie’s. But then, her sisters and brother wouldn’t be in jail in the first place...well, except for Miri’s one arrest. But Miri hadn’t been selfish enough to get involved with drugs. She’d tracked down their birth father, gotten a job with his company and, um, relieved him only of the child support he’d failed to pay for all those years after abandoning them with their mentally ill mother.

  Miri also hadn’t expected to slide on it. She’d pleaded guilty, gone to prison and served her sentence...then delivered a share of the money to each of her siblings—Sophy, Chloe and Oliver. The payback was nice. Knowing how hard Miri had worked to recover what their bastard father had hidden from them was precious. Reconnecting with the siblings she’d been separated from more than twenty years ago had been priceless.

  “If he’s not gettin’ Mama out of jail, I don’t wanna meet him.”

  Dahlia got her work bin and settled at the table. She had a great eye for putting fabric colors and patterns together. That had been the hardest part about quilting for Sophy, something she hadn’t mastered until she’d been in business a year or two. Even now, she sometimes questioned her choices until she cut out the shapes and laid them out together, but it came naturally to the six-year-old.

  “You have an artist’s soul,” she murmured.

  Though she pretended not to hear, the tips of Dahlia’s ears turned red.

  Sophy spent the next few hours waiting on customers and working on a baby quilt due next week. She’d already completed the rest of the order, all in light blue and tan and featuring a pudgy smiling elephant: a wall hanging, curtains, pillows, linens and, for future use, a tooth-fairy pillow, bearing the same elephant with a pouch beneath his back to hold the tooth and the money the fairy left behind. She planned to do something similar for her own babies’ nurseries. She didn’t have a dream wedding in mind, but she had already designed a couple of fairy-tale nurseries.

  The girls’ conversation flowed behind her: Did you learn to read? Can you do times now? Was there a dog or a goldfish or a hamster? Did you make any friends?

  “There’s a girl named Baylee. And one named Kayleigh. And one named Railey.”

  Daisy snorted. “Them’s silly names.”

  Sophy wasn’t sure someone named Daisy got to snicker at anyone else’s name. Someone named Sophy definitely didn’t.

  “Were they nice?”

  Hands stilling, Sophy waited for Dahlia’s response. It was a long time coming, given softly. “Yeah. They were. We had lunch together and played at recess.”

  The muscles in her stomach eased, and Sophy was able to breathe again. Thank you, God—and the “lee” girls.

  Obviously unaware of the importance of Dahlia’s answer, Daisy asked wistfully, “Did you learn how to write? Maybe we could write a letter to Mama.”

  Sighing inside, Sophy added another item to her to-do list. She might not think much of Maggie’s parenting skills, but the girls loved her. To paraphrase Sean, she might be a lousy mother, but she was theirs, and she was all they knew.

  When five o’clock came—Dahlia, did you learn how to tell time?—Sophy laid her project aside and got the sweeper. Daisy liked running it, with run being the operative word, and Dahlia had taken well to the job of straightening the work areas. Sophy closed out the register and was about to shut off the lights when a newcomer arrived: Zeke, charming owner of Bitsy the pudgy dog. She’d met two handsome men in two days. She should mark this day on the calendar.

  Daisy propped her hands on her hips. “You didn’t come to make a quilt, too, did you?”

  Feeling like propping her hands on her own hips, Sophy shook her head. “Daisy, remember what a proper greeting is?”

  After thinking about it a moment, Daisy said, “G’d afternoon. Can I help you?” Then, running the words together, she added, “You didn’t come to make a quilt, did you?”

  Zeke crouched to her level and grinned. “I never thought about it. Do you think I could?”

  “I dunno. I never made one, either. Prob’ly not. Where’s Bitsy?”

  “She’s at home.” Standing again, he turned his attention to Sophy. “I was wondering if I could take you three lovely ladies to dinner this evening.”

  “We’re havin’ dinner with our uncle Sean—”

  Forcing her smile to remain steady, Sophy clamped her hand over Daisy’s mouth. “Thank you for the invitation, but we’ve already got plans.”

  Dahlia, standing out of Sophy’s reach, hugged her backpack to her chest. “With our uncle,” she repeated. “He’ll be here soon.”

  Zeke’s smile faltered, disappointment flashing through his eyes before the smile returned full wattage. “A day late and a dollar short. The story of my life. Well, I won’t keep you. Got to have everything perfect for uncle Sean, right?”

  Daisy nodded emphatically, dislodging Sophy’s hand. “Right. ’Cause he’s our mama’s brother and he’s meeting Dahlia for the first time ever.”

  “First time ever? That’s an important date, isn’t it?” He met Sophy’s gaze. “I’ll have to try again.”

  She watched him leave with a bit of regret. He was cute, a nice guy who loved his daughter’s ugly dog. She knew a half dozen women, including herself, who would like to get to know him better based on nothing else.

  Don’t complain. You’re having dinner with the hottest, sexiest, baddest boy you’ve ever met.

  Was she the luckiest single woman in town tonight?

  Or was she courting disaster?

  * * *

  The smell of fall-apart-tender pork ribs basted with teriyaki sauce greeted Sophy and the girls when they went inside the apartment. She’d taken advantage of her lunch break to get the ribs started in the slow cooker and to prep everything else: garden salad, green beans and sweet corn cooked with cream cheese. She was still operating in the dark when it came to most of the girls’ tastes, but she figured there had to be something on the menu they would eat, even if it was only the tomatoes in the salad.

  She sent the kids to change clothes, then went to her own room to do the same. It was at the front of the house, overlooking the street, with an excellent view of River’s Edge from one window and Breakfast in Bed from the other. Though the street was busy during the day, at night there was little traffic, and she was a sound sleeper. She’d spent plenty of peaceful nights there.

  Stripped down to her underwear, she stood in front of the closet. She would like to think it wasn’t vanity that kept her there so long, but she wouldn’t deny the truth: she wanted to look good for Sean. Even though he’d never been her typ
e, even though the only thing between them was the girls. Even though bad boys like him reformed for good girls like her only in the romance novels she’d read. Even though cute, friendly and dog-happy was so much more her speed than gorgeous, brooding and wicked.

  Finally she settled on an outfit she would wear any evening—shorts, a sleeveless shirt, sandals—and went into the living room, the keys in her pocket clinking together. When she turned the corner from the hallway, she found Daisy at the door, trying to pick the lock with a paper clip, and Dahlia rummaging through her purse.

  “You looking for these?” She dangled the keys, put them back in her pocket and circled the island into the kitchen.

  “We thought we heard a knock,” Dahlia said sullenly.

  “Well, next time that happens, you come get me, okay? I don’t want you guys answering the door by yourselves.”

  “Prob’ly he won’t come.” Dahlia climbed onto the bar stool at the island so she could spin herself side to side.

  Daisy climbed onto the next stool to mimic her as Sophy slid a loaf of bread from Ellie’s Deli into the oven. She wanted to say, Of course he’ll come, but what did she know? The girls had grown up in a family of disappointments, and she couldn’t say how or even if Sean was different from the others.

  “If he doesn’t, we’ll have barbecue sammies for lunch tomorrow, and someone else will have to eat his share of the veggies.”

  The girls were in the middle of a collective groan when footsteps thudded on the stoop, followed by a knock. They stared at each other wide-eyed while Sophy whisked off another silent prayer. She’d always been a churchgoing girl, but it seemed the number and intensity of her prayers had increased tenfold the past few weeks. She set the corn on one burner, turned to medium, and the green beans on another, then headed toward the door.

  Though she hardly felt the need—the butterflies in her stomach were all the confirmation she needed—she lifted the edge of the curtain just enough to catch a glimpse of Sean, then unlocked the door.

  He’d changed clothes, too, to a pair of jeans less faded but just as tight as he’d worn that morning and a dove-gray T-shirt that fitted mouthwateringly snug. His hair had been recently combed, his beard shaved. The small changes made him less wicked and more gorgeous, if either was possible.