Undercover in Copper Lake

by Marilyn Pappano - Undercover in Copper Lake

  Was she reassuring him or herself? “It sounds like fun.”

  “Yeah.” Daisy beamed. “Dahlia has to go to stupid ole school, and I get to go to a swimmin’ party. And with hot dogs! I am so cool!”

  As Daisy danced along the sidewalk to the porch, Sophy asked, “What brings you downtown this morning?”

  Sean fell in step with her. “Killing time before my appointment with the D.A.”

  She gave him a long look—khaki trousers with a belt, a white shirt with buttons—and smiled an oddly sweet and provocative smile. “You clean up good.”

  “I even shaved.”

  “I notice.” She brushed the back of her fingers across his jaw. “Looks good. But just for the record, don’t ever feel you need to shave on my account. You work the beard-stubble look pretty well.”

  Damn. His skin was hot now, and not just where she’d touched.

  Daisy was waiting impatiently at the door. “Come on, I’m gonna be late when Gracie’s mama comes. Hurry up!”

  She was so excited and happy. An impromptu pool party shouldn’t be such a rare and special thing, and wouldn’t be for other kids. They seldom smile, Sophy had told him, and they rarely laugh. They don’t have any friends. No one to invite them to parties. No one to make them feel cool. No one to play with, to count on, but each other.

  He could give them that—a house in a neighborhood full of families, close enough to walk to school, put them in activities where they could meet other kids, get invited for sleepovers, have parties. It had never been in his plan, but plans could change.

  You can have more than you want, Sophy said last night. Raising two kids wasn’t on his agenda, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do it and do it well.

  Even enjoy it.

  As soon as Sophy opened the door, Daisy raced into the bedroom to change. From the kitchen island, Sophy asked, “Coffee?”

  “Please.” Hands shoved into his hip pockets, he wandered around the room, gazing at photographs, a couple of elaborately pieced and quilted wall hangings, a ragged stuffed bear nestled on a shelf high off the floor. “Your favorite toy?”

  She looked up from the coffeemaker and smiled. “That’s Boo. Miri held on to him for more than twenty years for me. He’s a little threadbare, but I love him.”

  A little threadbare was being kind. Much more loving and he was going to disintegrate into dust.

  “Did you have a favorite toy when you were little?”

  Pretending to think about it, he picked up a framed photo from the mantel. He didn’t need to ask to know it was her first family. The three sisters were practically identical, and the brother’s resemblance was almost as strong. “My favorite toy was Maggie,” he said after returning the frame to its place. “My dad used to say they had her so we could torment her instead of them.”

  As he’d intended, Sophy laughed. “If we’d all been raised together, Oliver would have felt that way, I bet. Miri and Chloe and I can be a little overwhelming at times.”

  She offered an insulated mug, steam seeping from the small opening on its lid. “One sugar and a little cream.”

  Nodding his thanks, he slid onto a bar stool while she fixed her own in a matching mug. “You’re prettier than your sisters.”

  Her look was level, though one brow was raised crookedly. “We look alike.”

  “So do my brothers and I, but I’m still better-looking than they are.”

  “I won’t argue with that.” After sipping her coffee, she leaned against the island. “Since Daisy won’t be back until school’s out, would you like to have lunch? We could have something delivered, or I could pick it up. Luigi’s is still in business and still makes the best pizza anywhere. We’ve got good Mexican, steak, home cooking, barbecue, soul food...”

  Sean’s hands tightened around the mug until his left fingers throbbed. So far, the only time they’d been in public alone was last night, driving through town and back again. Was she reluctant to be seen with him but without the girls?

  “You don’t want to get caught by your friends out alone with me?”

  For a long moment, she stared at him, then abruptly laughed before clapping one hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. Actually, I was thinking that if we ate here, maybe we could pick up last night’s kiss where we left off, and somehow I don’t think you’d be real enthusiastic about that in the middle of a restaurant.”

  Slowly his fingers eased and the ache faded—there, at least, but it was growing elsewhere. Damn, but it would have been better if she’d said yes. He could resist a woman who was embarrassed to show her face with him in public. But when Sophy wanted privacy for personal, intimate activities...

  Daisy saved him from having to respond right away. She bolted into the room wearing the same outfit, though she’d traded the cowboy hat for a brown-and-tan visor that had giraffe ears on it. “Are they here yet? Don’t worry. I took off my panties and put on my swimmin’ suit bottom. Aren’t they here?”

  Sophy checked her watch. “A couple minutes. Come on, we’ll go downstairs and wait on the porch.” She gave him a smirk as she passed, knowing he would rather wait there. Hide there.

  Picking up his coffee, he followed Daisy out the door and down the stairs.

  They’d barely had time to settle in the rockers when a restored 1960 convertible Beetle pulled up to the curb, its Brunswick-blue paint job gleaming, the top down, the engine a perfect hum. A woman was behind the wheel, and a girl not much smaller than Daisy occupied the booster seat in the back.

  Though he wasn’t a big fan of chick cars, his attention was pulled in two directions—admiring the restoration work on the car and dealing with the surprise Anamaria Calloway presented. She was beautiful, tall, slender, exotic, the kind of woman who made a man look three or four times. But that wasn’t the surprise. It was pretty much a given that all the sons from the wealthy, socially prominent family had married beautiful women.

  The surprise was that she was black, because like a lot of wealthy, prominent, former slave-holding families, the Calloways embodied the Old South. They married people just like themselves: wealthy, prominent, a long, illustrious history that usually also included plantations and slaves. White people.

  Anamaria left the car, her movements graceful and sensual. Oddly, Sean realized, he preferred Sophy’s efficient way of doing things. Maybe because she had so much to do, she didn’t waste energy.

  When Sophy introduced them, Anamaria took his hand in both of hers. “Robbie’s been telling me stories about the mischief you and your brothers and he and his brothers got into. I’d like to believe you didn’t do half of what he’s saying, but I know him too well.”

  “His mother said our two families were put in this town to keep the police department on its toes.” Sara Calloway had always welcomed him and his brothers into their house. If she’d ever discouraged her kids from hanging out with them or blamed them for getting her boys into trouble, she’d never shown it.

  Odd. He’d forgotten that until now.

  “How is Robbie?”

  “He’s wonderful. Handsome, funny, smart. A wonderful husband and father. Though not grown up as much as you would’ve thought in the years since you’ve seen him.”

  “He takes care of his baby,” he said with a glance at the car.

  Anamaria laughed. “I know better than to think you’re referring to my child. Yes, Gracie is his daughter, but the cars are his babies, and he tinkers with them routinely. He’s had a ’57 Vette for years, but he was so fussy when I drove it that I made him get this one for me.”

  Sophy snorted. “At least he lets you drive the Vette.”

  “Having a little car envy, Sophy?” Anamaria asked.

  “Just a little.”

  “Are you ready, Daisy?” Anamaria crouched to her level. “We’ve got four rules. You have to obey all the adults at the party. You can’t push anyone into the pool. You have to wear a life vest. And what’s number four?” She tapped one scarlet-colored nail against h
er lower lip in thought. “Oh, yes, you have to have fun. Can you do all that?”

  Daisy’s eyes were wide, her anticipation level close to redlining. All she could do was bob her head up and down, making her giraffe ears bounce.

  “Then let’s go.”

  Looking over her shoulder, Daisy called, “G’bye, Sophy. G’bye, Uncle Sean. I gotta go ride in a combirdable now.”

  A few minutes passed in silence, then Sean said, “They’re like little tornadoes. They blow in out of nowhere, stir things up, then blow out even faster.”

  “And they leave your ears ringing when they’re gone, until you realize it’s just quiet.” Sophy finished the last of her coffee, settled comfortably in the chair, feet tucked under her, and said, “You never answered about lunch. If you’re afraid of being alone with me, we could always go to Louise Wetherby’s steak house.”

  After giving her a look that clearly said what he thought of that, he drained his coffee cup. “I’ll be back around noon.” He passed close enough to touch her shoulder as he set the cup on the railing, then started down the steps. At the bottom, he looked back.

  “And I’ll bring lunch.”

  * * *

  Sophy let herself into the shop and sighed deeply. This peace and welcome and solitude was what it had been like every morning B.C.—before children. With only a few lights on, lots of shadows filled the space that smelled of new fabric. It was the pleasant sit-and-talk-a-few-hours place she’d wanted it to be even before it existed, boosted by lovely quilt projects and the endless rainbow of colors and patterns provided by the fabric. Along with her apartment, it was her refuge, her safe place. Home.

  But she could make a refuge and a home anywhere.

  If ever came along a reason to do that.

  And if ever that reason quit being so stubborn.

  With more than an hour before the shop’s opening, she wandered along the fabric aisles, her fingers brushing over each sample. These were her most popular fabrics, varying in weight and weave and price, affordable and the basis for a lovely sturdy quilt that would last decades. The ones she ultimately chose, though, came from a rack against the wall, a small collection of hand-dyed fabrics that she’d done herself in a class. She laid six selections on the measuring table in the middle of the room, pieces with subtle patterns in gorgeous deep colors: royal-blue, emerald-green, crimson, chocolate-brown, deep purple, a gold that seemed to change hues depending on the light.

  She was laying them out in an overlapping pattern when the bell rang. Accustomed to friends dropping by before opening time, she rarely locked the door when she arrived early, so she glanced up, ready to greet her surprise visitor. The words caught for a moment before she forced them out. “Hey, Zeke.”

  “I know you’re not open yet, but I just wanted to say hello.” Sauntering along the center aisle toward her, he grinned. “Hello.”

  Her smile felt strained as she moved around the table to the other side, facing him. She continued to arrange the bolts, studying one color or pattern beside another before testing it against a third. “Do you work downtown?”

  “No, out on East Carolina Avenue.”

  “What do you do?”

  “My ex used to say I was in crisis management. Sounded better to her than ‘insurance adjustor.’ About the only time she didn’t mind my job was when it was her car that had been totaled.” He picked up a pattern book and flipped through it, then glanced at the quilts on display around the room. “You make all these?”

  “Yeah. I sell quilts. I teach classes. I stock the latest and greatest in tools. For my customers who only want to piece the tops, I do the quilting. I dye fabric. I show in quilt shows. Mostly, though, I give advice.”

  “Impressive. Though I’ve always wondered... This looks like a lot of trouble when you can buy one at Walmart or somewhere for, what? Forty or fifty bucks?”

  Her father had made that comment when she’d broken the news that she was going into the quilt-shop business. So had her sister, though the opinion hadn’t stopped Reba from requesting a free custom-made crib quilt the first time she got pregnant.

  “Not one of these. The last king-size quilt I sold went for a thousand dollars. That’s not the usual price—it was an award-winner in a large quilt show—but comparing handmade quilts to printed fabric that’s machine-stitched is like saying a meticulously restored Chevelle—” gee, wonder where that came from? “—and a beat-up station wagon are worth the same because they’re both cars.”

  “My mistake.” His charming grin didn’t take the edge off her discomfort. Maybe she was overreacting. Definitely she felt more vulnerable alone in the shop with a stranger. Funny how Daisy, not even forty pounds soaking wet, made her feel safer.

  Granted, she’d been in a house that blew up yesterday morning. That was enough to make anyone edgy. Then there’d been that sense that someone was watching her and Sean when they left for dinner last night, and seeing Zeke and his dog lingering in the shadows across the street when Sean had kissed her. She was justified being a little antsy.

  “Where are your partners?” Zeke asked, glancing around the shadows, skimming over the worktables usually scattered with the girls’ stuff.

  Two days ago, even yesterday, she would have answered without thinking. This morning, she shrugged. “They found more interesting things to do today. Who can blame them? For a few more weeks, it’s still summertime.”

  “To be young and carefree at the end of the summer, getting in that last picnic, day at the beach, snow cone, cookout, baseball game, fishing trip...”

  His smile was nostalgic, matching his sigh, and she smiled in response.

  After a moment, he shifted, then picked up a stack of fat quarters—precut coordinating swatches of fabric—from the display bin beside him. “I didn’t want to ask in front of the kids, but...Sunday evening, Dahlia said you aren’t their mom. Stepkids?”

  “Foster.”

  One brow raised. “Wow. I’m impressed again. Have you had them long?”

  “A few weeks.”

  “No family around to take them?”

  “No.”

  “Will their mom be getting them back soon?”

  “I don’t know.” The hair on the back of Sophy’s neck prickled. Why the questions about the girls? Could he know Maggie or the boyfriend who’d been making meth with her? Work for one of their lawyers or social work? Or was he just making small talk while she was overreacting again?

  Then, with a studied casual air, he asked, “Have you and your husband been taking in kids for long?”

  Relief washed over her. So that was the point—finding out if there was a husband who might not appreciate his coming around. Smiling faintly, she unrolled a length of the gold fabric, aligned it with the yardstick attached to the edge of the table and used a pair of insanely sharp scissors to cut it. “If you want to know whether I’m married, Zeke, you can ask.”

  Grinning unabashedly, he tossed the packet back into the bin and took out another, fanning the loose edges. “Not as subtle as I thought, huh? Okay, are you married?”

  “No.” She wiggled her left hand in the air.

  “Yeah, man, I should’ve looked first. You seem like the kind of woman who would wear a ring.”

  “I would.” For a commitment of that magnitude, absolutely, if for no other reason than to be able to look at it, touch it and be reminded every time that she’d found her very own Mr. Right.

  “Are you involved with someone?”

  After a hesitation, she nodded. She wasn’t sure exactly what would happen between her and Sean, but she would regret it if she didn’t find out.

  “I thought so.” At her glance, he shrugged. “When Bitsy and I took our walk last night, we decided to see if you were enjoying your porch on another warm evening. Instead we saw...” Raising his eyebrows and tilting his head in the direction of the outside stairs, he slowly grinned. “But you can’t blame a man for trying, can you?”

  She wasn’t sure what
to say, but he didn’t wait for an answer. Frowning at the material he held, he asked, “Do people really make quilts with this stuff?”

  The particular patch that offended him was almost violently vivid: slashes of electric blue, lime-green and orange on a tiny floral background.

  “They really do.” Walking to the quilt hanging high on the nearest wall, she used the scissors to point to a very small piece in the overall twelve-inch-square pattern. “Sparingly.”

  With a shake of his head, he tossed that packet back, too, then pushed his hands into his pockets. “I’d better get back to work, or I’ll find myself in crisis management for sure. I’d have to move back in with my ex, and it wouldn’t be pretty.” Before starting toward the door, he grinned and winked at her. “I’ll see you around, Miss Sophy.”

  The wink was charmingly old-fashioned. With a breath, she released the tension humming inside and went back to work.

  First, though, she locked the door. She’d had enough surprise visitors for one morning.

  * * *

  In Sean’s experience, district attorneys had always been older men with balding heads, beer guts and pompous attitudes. If they’d had a prosecutor like Masiela Leal back when he was a kid, he would have made a point of getting hauled into court more often.

  Her age was tough to peg, somewhere between thirty and forty, he’d guess. She was black-haired, dark-eyed, olive-skinned, and she commanded the space she occupied. Her handshake was firm, her greeting polite. After introductions, she invited him to sit, then took the second chair herself instead of the authoritative spot behind the desk.

  Her posture was perfect but not rigid, not something she thought about but came naturally to her. She crossed her legs, clasped her hands and studied him, her head tilted to one side. After a moment, she smiled. “It’s nice to meet another Holigan. Your family is legendary around here.”

  “Don’t you mean notorious?”

  “Legendary, notorious...” She shrugged. “I hear good things about you from Tommy Maricci and Ty Gadney.”

  “You know Ty?” Immediately he chided himself. Of course she did. Ty was a detective; she prosecuted his cases.