He approved of her clothes, too, if she was reading the quirk of his mouth correctly. His gaze left heat where it slid over her arms and legs, then back up over her body, all the way to the hair hanging loose around her shoulders. Wow, she thought.
Hellfire and brimstone, she could hear her mother warning.
“Come on in.” After he took a few steps, she secured the dead bolt and put the keys away.
“Did you just lock me in?”
“No, I just locked the girls in and anyone else out.” She made a dismissive gesture, not wanting to explain the overkill of security she needed to feel safe in her own home. “While I was changing, they were looking for my keys.”
“Do you sleep with them, too?”
She smiled and shrugged as she faced the kids. “Dahlia, this is your mama’s older brother, Sean.”
Still swinging her legs, Dahlia studied him the same way Louise Wetherby had. “Are you getting Mama out of jail?” Where did such a young girl learn such a sour attitude? On the wrong side of town.
Sean shook his head.
“Then why are you here?”
“There are other ways to help—”
She rolled her eyes and spun until her back was to him. After a moment, Daisy did the same thing.
“Wrong answer, I guess,” he murmured to Sophy.
“I’ve learned that sometimes there is no right answer.” She stirred the corn in the melting cream cheese, sugar and milk, gave the green beans a shake, then checked the timer on the bread. “Girls, you’ve got about fifteen minutes until dinner’s ready. You can watch TV if you want. No fighting, no blasting my eardrums.”
The kids pushed past Sean as if he were invisible, heading to the television and sofa at the far end of the room. He slid onto the stool Dahlia had vacated. “I guess the rules have changed since I lived in town. If we got arrested, we stayed there until we’d done our time or they got tired of us. No one ever bailed out anyone, and no one expected them to.”
It was a hard life he’d lived, one Sophy didn’t even want to understand. She felt cosseted and spoiled in comparison, even in the time her birth mother had cared for them. “Mr. Patrick’s been gone a long time, so the girls never even knew him. They live by Maggie’s rules, and she’s...”
“I think the word you’re looking for is self-centered.” He gazed at the girls, the backs of their heads identical and so much like their mom’s. “Maggie was always spoiled—the only girl in a family of males, our mother running out before she even started walking. She got used to special treatment, and when there was no one else to give it to her, it looks like she gave it to herself.”
“I always wondered why your mother left.”
He grinned. “Wherever she went was definitely a step up from Patrick Holigan and his four hooligans.”
“But you were her hooligans, too.”
“Maggie and I were. Ian and Declan had a different mom. She took off, too. Women who marry into the Holigan family tend to do that.”
“In my family, it was my father.” She removed a platter from the cabinet, then spooned the ribs and sauce onto it. She glanced up to see Sean’s puzzled look. “I’m adopted. My birth father didn’t think it was good for his career when my mother’s schizophrenia got out of control, so he left. My older sister, Miri, took care of us and Mom as long as she could, but eventually Mom lost custody and I wound up here.”
His gaze moved over her slowly, measuringly. If she hadn’t already been warm from the heat drifting out of the slow cooker, just his look would have made her that way. “So that’s why you look like the fair-haired stepchild.”
She smiled faintly. She’d been old enough to remember her first family when she was adopted. She’d more or less understood the concept, but she could remember looking at early Marchand family portraits, fixated on everyone else’s dark hair and blue eyes. To her child’s mind, her coloring had screamed outsider when she wanted very much to belong. “Yup, my other family are the brown-eyed blonds.”
The timer went off, and she turned to remove the bread from the oven, inhaling deeply of the savory yeasty loaf. She tore the foil away, put the bread in a towel-lined basket, then automatically held it out, balanced in both hands. “Doesn’t that smell incredible?”
Sean leaned forward, touching his hand to hers to bring the basket nearer, and the butterfly ballet in her stomach started again. Her mouth watered, not for fresh bread, not even for the tantalizing fragrance of his cologne, and she knew the answer to her earlier question.
She was a lucky woman. And she was most definitely courting disaster.
* * *
There had been a sad shortage of home-cooked meals in Sean’s life. At the Holigan house, they’d thrived on cereal, canned soup and sandwiches. Once he got out of prison, he’d eaten the same things broken up by fast-food meals. Even now, the kitchen back in Norfolk was the least used room in the apartment.
This—eating a regular meal with a nice woman at a cozy table for four, even with the kids—was something he could get used to. Maybe. Five, ten, twenty years in the future.
The conversation wasn’t as enticing as the food and the general sense of companionship. Neither Daisy nor Dahlia were showing any signs of warming up to him, and after an hour, he could see that they weren’t exactly warm to Sophy, either. It was no big surprise, but his nieces were brats.
After picking at and over their food, they were finally dismissed from the table and allowed to return to the television until bath time. Daisy pushed her chair in hard enough to bump the table and glowered at him. “Do you have a TV?”
“Yes, I do.” One that was really too big for his living room with a sound system that could vibrate the downstairs neighbors out of their beds.
“We only get to watch TV one hour a day. Isn’t that mean?”
Given the way they behaved, he thought they were lucky to get to watch commercials for three minutes. “That’s the rule of the house.”
Dahlia stopped beside Daisy, one foot pressed against the other calf and rotating side to side courtesy of the socks she wore. “What’s that mean?”
“Every house has rules. You obey them or you go live somewhere else.”
Her features wide with extreme irritation, Daisy gestured toward the door. “We can’t get out to go someplace else. We’re pris-ners.”
He shrugged. “Prison has rules, too. Lots of them. There, you obey them or you get locked in your cell. You only get to come out for fifteen minutes a day.”
“Which is about how much TV time you’re going to have left if you don’t quit complaining and start watching.” Sophy gave them a stern look, and both girls heaved and dragged their scrawny butts over to the sofa.
Sean watched until they settled in, then turned back to Sophy. “I didn’t realize you had a masochistic streak. Why aren’t you married and raising two or three cute little blonds of your own? What are you doing trying to shape Maggie’s kids into something that resembles human children?”
“I was a foster kid myself before Mom and Dad adopted me. I know how important the system is, and they’re always needing volunteers, so—” she shrugged self-deprecatingly “—I wanted to give back. To help frightened kids in difficult situations get through them.”
“There’s the first mistake—Holigans are never frightened,” Sean said. He lied. He was scared about what would happen to Maggie and the kids if she opened her mouth. “And their ‘difficult situation’ is pretty much life as normal for them.”
“But it shouldn’t be. They deserve a chance to have a better life than their mother has. Maybe they’ll learn something here. Maybe something will sink in and help them make a decision down the road that will save their lives.”
Nature versus nurture. Could the attitudes and beliefs given a child by his birth family be overcome by a loving environment? Though Daisy and Dahlia were young, they’d already learned a lot from Maggie that could be hard to undo.
He didn’t have a lot of faith, b
ut he hoped Sophy was right.
“What about the other question?”
She toyed with her utensils a moment, then abruptly stood and began gathering dishes to carry into the kitchen. After three trips, the only thing left on the table besides their drinks were the salt and pepper shakers and a small bouquet of flowers in a blue pitcher. He knew the yellow ones were daisies and guessed the others were dahlias.
With nothing left to do, she sat down again, far enough away from the table to cross her legs and fold her arms over her middle. “Marriage and babies, huh? It’s in my ten-year plan. First I had to get the shop up and running.”
“It looks successful enough. So...”
“There are only so many single men in town, and I think I’ve dated all of them.” She corrected herself. “Almost all of them.”
“And not one of them was suitable for marriage?”
“Oh, they all were. AJ married Masiela. Tommy married Ellie. Joe married Liz. Robbie married Anamaria. Pete married Libby. Ty’s marrying Nev. It’s gotten to the point that when my girlfriends meet a guy they’re seriously interested in, they ask me to go out with him for a while. It increases the odds in their favor.” She smiled ruefully, then turned the question on him. “Why aren’t you married and raising a garage full of little mechanics?”
Marriage had never been in his plans, not even when he was twenty-two and half in love with Sara Moultrie. She’d been exotic, with a killer body, a satin-against-his-skin touch and a way of making a man forget everything in life but her. She was the only woman he’d broken his one-month rule for, but not even she had tempted him to consider marriage, though she’d made it abundantly clear in every tantalizing way she’d known that she was willing to consider it.
“Not everyone wants to get married.”
Sophy smiled, far from exotic but just as tempting in a wholesome, innocent sort of way. “You don’t want to be tied down.”
“I like not having responsibility.” He really did like it, and she needed to know just in case he forgot. He didn’t normally forget things like lifelong beliefs, but he was in Copper Lake now. Having dinner with someone from his past. Dealing with Maggie and her kids. Not exactly feeling himself.
“If you’re so averse to responsibility, what are you doing here?” Her tone was pleasant, disguising the pointed question as simple conversation. “As soon as you heard about Maggie’s arrest, you took time off from your job, came straight here, made a point of meeting your nieces....”
He couldn’t tell her the truth: that he wouldn’t have come if not for the threat against Maggie and the girls. That he’d been ordered to come by his drug-dealing, chop-shop-owning, murdering boss, whom he was informing on for the DEA. That he would rather be anyplace else in the world than here.
When he didn’t respond, Sophy said, “I think you’re deluding yourself, Sean.” A slow smile spread across her face, giving her a tender, serene, satisfied look that reminded him of all the softness he’d never had in his life—all the little intimacies a boy shared with his mother, a teenager with his girlfriend, a man with his wife. How in hell had Dahlia and Daisy managed not to melt under its warmth? She looked like love and caring and concern and hope and faith and comfort and security.
How much damage had Maggie done to her daughters that they could resist Sophy?
As giggles came from the couch, he glanced at his watch. “It’s been twenty minutes.”
Sophy gazed at the girls, her expression sad. “They seldom smile, and they rarely laugh. They don’t have any friends. The only people they know outside the family are police officers, social workers and drug users and/or dealers. The only medical care they get is when Maggie gets arrested for making meth and they’re automatically checked out at the hospital.”
It shamed Sean that this was his blood she was talking about, that his baby sister could have so little care for the lives she’d brought into the world. How much of that was his fault? If he’d sent for her when he got out of prison, would things have turned out differently? Would she have finished school? Gone to college? Held a job, learned responsibility, thought twice about having babies?
Or would she have lived the same life, just in a new place? Had it already been too late for her?
“Why hasn’t she lost them permanently before now?”
“Overtaxed systems and sympathetic judges. She’s always very sorry, always swears it’ll never happen again. She voluntarily enters rehab, then checks herself out again after a few weeks. She gets a job and quits within a day or two. She has good intentions, but they never last.”
Would prison give Maggie time to strengthen those intentions? Would the threat of death be enough to force her to change the way she lived?
The silence grew between them until finally Sophy smiled weakly and called, “Girls, it’s time for your bath.”
Daisy’s head jerked around. “But we took a bath last night!”
Sophy feigned shock. “I know. You’ve taken one every night you’ve been here, and you’ll keep taking them every night. That’s the rule of the house.”
Dahlia shut off the television, then tossed the remote on the sofa, her narrowed gaze zeroing in on Sean. “Thanks a lot.”
How had a kid that scrawny mastered such snideness?
He smiled back. “You’re welcome.”
“I didn’t mean—” Rolling her eyes, she headed toward the hall.
Without thinking, he said, “Hey, come back here and tell me goodbye...unless you want me to stick around and tuck you in and kiss you good-night.”
He’d never used the word flounce in his life, but that was exactly what they did, stopping just outside his reach, standing stiff and oozing disdain. Daisy, of course, spoke first. “G’bye. Nice to meet you. Don’t let the door hit you on the ass—”
“Daisy,” Sophy warned.
“That’s what Mama says.”
Yeah, this was a pint-size version of the sarcastic Maggie that Sean remembered.
Dahlia stepped in before Daisy could add more. “G’bye. If you don’t get Mama out of jail, we don’t need to see you again.”
Still moving rigidly, they disappeared down the hall. A moment later, the sound of running water filtered back.
Had Sophy known Daisy’s and Dahlia’s silky black hair hid devilish horns when she’d agreed to foster them?
He stood, and so did she. They walked the few feet to the door, where she undid the lock for him before sliding the keys back into her pocket.
“Thank you for dinner.”
“Thank you for not running out screaming. They have that effect on a lot of people.”
“I’m a grown-up Holigan. I can run wilder than those kids ever dreamed of.” Her perfume drifted on the still air, sweet and girlie and tempting. Filling a deep breath with it, he blindly located the doorknob, opened the door and lost the scent as warm night air drifted in. “Despite their polite request, I’ll see them again if it’s okay with you.”
“Of course. They need all the people on their side they can get.”
With a nod of acknowledgment that she automatically returned, he headed down the stairs and toward the Chevelle parked on the street. Seeing Daisy and Dahlia again meant also seeing Sophy. As ideas went, that one was monumentally bad, but the part of him that had been alone pretty much forever was already looking forward to it.
He was pretty sure that made it officially the worst idea he’d ever had.
* * *
Thankfully, the shop was busy Tuesday morning, or Sophy was convinced Daisy would have gone insane and taken her along for the ride. Why had she thought the second day of school would be easier for poor, left-behind Daisy? Oh, no—now that she knew what wonderful things went on inside those brick walls, she wanted more than ever to put on a uniform, take her lunch and ride the bus. She wanted to meet Baylee and Kayleigh and Railey—hey, maybe we could change our names to Daily and Dahlee!—and to have recess and learn everything.
With a nice little st
accato drumbeat pounding in her head, Sophy flipped the old-fashioned out-to-lunch sign over and turned out the front lights. “It’s lunchtime, Daisy. Are you hungry?”
“No” came the mopey answer from the back of the shop.
“Want to have a picnic?” For late August, it was a nice day, and the thought of sunshine, warm weather and the sounds of nature soothed the ache in her temples a little.
“No.”
Sophy walked through the shadows to the work area, where Daisy half sat, half sprawled across a table. The French braid she’d been proud of this morning had come loose, bobby pins still holding a few strands of hair, the rest of it falling free. A half dozen scribbled drawings in clashing colors were scattered around her head, and her pretty little face was drooped into the best example of dejection ever.
“Do you feel okay?” Sophy pulled out the chair across from her.
“Yeah.”
“Are you a little blue?”
“Yeah.” A sigh, followed by “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means you’re sad.”
“I’m a lot sad.” She lifted her head. “Is Mama ever comin’ home?”
Sophy quavered inside. How was she supposed to answer that? Was it her job to tell the kids that this time Maggie was probably going to be gone a lot longer than ever before? Was it the right time to prepare them for the fact that they might be living with her, or other foster parents, not for weeks or even months but for years?
“She’ll be home, sweetie, when she’s better. But it might take a while.”
“How long is a while?”
“No one knows exactly.”
“Then why does everyone say it when they don’t know what it means?” Daisy jumped to her feet so quickly that her chair fell over backward, one leg scraping her own leg. She yelped, then shoved the chair away. “Stupid chair! Stupid pictures! Stupid place! I hate this place! I hate it! I wanna go home!”
After swiping the drawings and markers onto the floor, Daisy took off down the center aisle, grabbing the display ends of fabric bolts, yanking them to the floor. Signs fell in her wake, and freestanding displays of thread went flying, all accompanied by her unhappy wails.
Undercover in Copper Lake Page 7