Chapter Four
For years, Bell’s Tavern had been considered the black sheep of drinking establishments in Orchard Hill. It was where someone just passing through town went to drink too much and whine to strangers, where regulars and first-timers alike drowned their sorrows and cheated at cards, among other things. Its saving grace had also been its most redeeming quality.
What happened at Bell’s Tavern stayed at Bell’s Tavern.
It seemed oddly fitting that Reed was about to reveal details of a nearly unbelievable situation to the new owner right here at Bell’s, where countless others had undoubtedly done the same thing. Choosing a stool, he sidled up to the bar and made himself comfortable.
The carton containing his sister-in-law’s cameras sat on the counter near Ruby’s right elbow. As she tucked an old movie projector from the fifties into the box, another curl pulled free of the clip high on the back of her head and softly fluttered to the side of her face. Her skin looked smooth, her lips full and lush, her eyes green and keenly observant.
A warm breeze wafted through the open back door, but other than the muffled sounds of midafternoon meandering in with it, Bell’s was quiet and still. And Reed’s voice was quiet as he began.
“My brothers and I discovered Joey on our doorstep ten days ago. We heard a noise none of us could identify and rushed out to the front porch. There the baby was, strapped into his car seat, wailing his little head off.”
“He was by himself? But he’s so small,” she said.
Reed released a deep breath. “I know. Who leaves a baby on a doorstep in this day and age? Noah is an airplane test pilot and always buzzes the orchard when he’s returning from out of town. From the cab of his plane an hour before we discovered Joey, he saw a woman walking across our front lawn. Despite the fact that it was eighty degrees out that day, she was wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt. We think she was hiding Joey underneath it.”
“And you believe this woman was Joey’s mother?”
“Who else could she have been?”
When Reed was growing up, his dad always said Marsh and Noah had been born looking up, Marsh to the apple trees and Noah to the sky, while Reed looked at the horizon and the future. That night the three of them had stood dazedly looking down, completely baffled and dumbfounded by the sudden appearance of the baby crying so forlornly at their feet.
“Joey was wearing a blue shirt and only one sock. Days later Noah discovered the other one under the weeping willow tree near the road. We theorize that his mother hid there until we’d taken him safely inside.”
Ruby covered her mouth with one hand as if imagining that. If it was true, Joey’s mother wasn’t someone who’d carelessly and heartlessly dumped her innocent baby off and driven away without a backward glance. Instead, she’d hidden behind a tree where she could see the porch but no one could see her, and had remained there until she was certain Joey was safe.
Reed remembered looking out across their property that evening, past the meadow that would serve as a parking lot that would be teeming with cars in the fall, to the apple trees, gnarled and green, and the neatly mown two-track path between each row. The shed where the parking signs were stored along with the four-wheelers and all the other equipment they used for hayrides and tours every autumn had been closed up tight.
He’d peered at the stand of pines and the huge willow at the edge of the property, but he’d seen nothing out of the ordinary. Certainly no one had moved.
He could only imagine how still she must have held, and he couldn’t even fathom how difficult it must have been to leave Joey in such a way. What he didn’t know was why. Why had she left him? Why hadn’t he or Marsh been told one of them was going to be a father? Why had she waited? Why had it come to this? Why?
“When I picked the baby up, a note fluttered to the porch floor. It said, ‘Our precious son, Joseph Daniel Sullivan. He’s my life. I beg you take good care of him until I can return for him.’”
Ruby seemed to be waiting for him to continue. When he didn’t, she asked, “That’s it? That’s all the note said?”
Reed nodded. “Nearly word for word. It wasn’t addressed or signed. So we don’t know which of us is Joey’s father.” He paused for a moment before clarifying. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”
Tucking another loose curl behind one ear, she said, “You know what I’m thinking?”
“Are you thinking that sounded perverse and oddly twisted?” he asked.
She smiled, and some of the tension that had been building inside him eased. Without explanation, she ducked down behind the bar, disappearing from view. He heard a refrigerator door open below. When she popped back up, she had a bottle of chilled water in each hand.
He accepted the beverage she offered him, and while she opened hers and tipped it up, he thought about that first night with Joey. In five minutes’ time, life as he’d known it had gone from orderly to pandemonium.
“Joey was crying and Noah and Marsh were trying to free him from the car seat and I was desperately digging through the bags he’d arrived with until I found feeding supplies. After a few clumsy attempts we managed to prepare a bottle, and while Noah fed Joey, I did a little research online. Judging by his size, the way he made eye contact, supported his own head and kicked his feet and flailed his arms, he was likely three months old, give or take a week or two. We did the math, and reality sank in like a lead balloon. One of the three women from our respective pasts had some explaining to do.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” she said.
He lifted the plastic bottle partway to his mouth and added, “Why would a woman go through a pregnancy alone, physically, financially and emotionally, only to desert a baby as strong and smart and damn close to perfect in every way three months later?”
Ruby shrugged understandingly, and Reed thought she might have missed her calling until now. “Is Lacey the woman from Noah’s past?” she asked.
“Yes, she is,” Reed said. “She took herself out of the equation almost immediately. Once you’ve gotten to know Lacey better you’ll believe me when I say she wasn’t subtle about it, either.”
“So,” Ruby said gently. “Paternity comes down to you and Marsh.”
Reed nodded before taking a long drink of his water. “When you happened upon my near miss this morning, I was on my way home from the drugstore with a paternity test kit. Marsh and I have been interviewing potential nannies all week, but until we find one we both approve of, we’re taking turns caring for Joey. Marsh needs to work in the orchard this afternoon, so Joey’s going to help me balance the books in the new business system.” With that, he pulled the carton of cameras toward him and stood up.
She stepped out from behind the bar and followed, switching lights off along the way. “You two are looking for a nanny for the baby. That’s why Marsh practically offered me a job earlier.”
“He what?” Reed stopped so abruptly she slammed into him, every lush inch of her front pressing against every solid inch of his back.
Her hands landed on his waist like a pair of fluttery birds, her breath warm and moist on his shoulder. She was svelte and soft and slender, and if his hands hadn’t been busy carrying the cumbersome carton containing Lacey’s cameras, there was no telling where he might have put them.
The contact was over quickly, and yet her imprint remained. Heat surged under his skin and need churned in its wake. Heat and need. Man and woman. Hunger and allure.
This was not good.
It felt good, damn good. That wasn’t good, either.
“Sorry about that,” he said, his voice huskier than it had been moments earlier. “I guess I shouldn’t stop in front of you without warning.”
An awkward silence stretched like evening shadows. Her cheeks were pink and she didn’t seem to know where to look. Reed couldn’t s
top looking. A vein was pulsing wildly in the little hollow at the base of her neck. One strap of her tank top had slipped off her shoulder again, baring a faint sprinkling of golden freckles he wanted to touch, with his fingertips, and with his lips.
Not good. Not good at all.
Attempting to move his thoughts out of dangerous territory—again—he cleared his throat and said, “You must have made quite an impression on Marsh in order for him to have offered you the position without consulting me.”
“At the time,” Ruby said on her way once again toward the open door, “I thought it was strange when he asked me if I’ve ever been arrested or cheated on my taxes or had an overdue library book.”
That sounded like his older brother, Reed thought. “Did you accept his offer?”
She made a sound men were hard-pressed to replicate. It was a breathy vibration females learned at a young age. He couldn’t see her expression, but he imagined she was rolling her eyes as she said, “Accepting job offers from complete strangers in crowded restaurants is on my bucket list along with picking up hitchhikers, hiking in the woods with serial killers and amputating my toe for fun.”
Reed walked outside smiling.
At the threshold of the tavern’s back door, she quietly asked, “What about Joey’s mother?”
That, he thought, was the million-dollar question. He hoisted the carton of cameras a little higher in his arms and said, “She’s either someone I met during a layover in Dallas last year or an artist Marsh fell for on vacation earlier in the same month. Unfortunately, it could take up to four weeks for the paternity test results to be processed and mailed back to us.”
“And if she returns in the meantime, as her note implied? What then?” she asked.
“We’d know which of us is his father, wouldn’t we?”
“Why did that sound as if you have a plan?” she asked.
Reed was accustomed to feeling unsettled. Feeling understood was new and far too pleasant.
Not good. Not good at all.
“I couldn’t hand Joey back to his mother and pretend this never happened. I couldn’t forget he exists, and I doubt Marsh could, either.”
“You’d fight for custody?” Ruby asked.
Shifting slightly beneath the blazing afternoon sun, he opened the trunk of the Mustang he was driving until the mirror on his other car was repaired. “If I’m Joey’s father, and if Cookie had a good reason for leaving him with no explanation—and it would have to be a very good reason—it’s highly likely she’ll be in my life. I don’t know how this is going to end or what’s going to happen between now and then.”
Shading her eyes with one hand, she said, “Now isn’t a good time for me to lose my direction and it isn’t a good time for you to change yours.”
“I appreciate the recap.”
She pulled a face, but she couldn’t help smiling at his wry humor. “Good luck, Reed. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
“I prefer not to rely on luck.” He closed the trunk and strode to his door. “We’ve hired the most successful P.I. in the state. And by the way—” he turned back toward the bar and pointed “—we’re keeping our eyes open for the young woman Lacey and Noah saw climbing out the tavern’s window.”
“What?” Ruby yelped. “What woman? What window?” Her voice rose in pitch and volume with every query.
She swung around and looked where he was pointing. Until this instant she hadn’t given the window in the loft space above the tavern more than a passing thought. A pipe that had once served as a downspout ran alongside the window all the way to the roof. The pipe had been cut off at some point in time and capped six feet above the ground. The bottom of the window itself was at least fifteen feet up. “You’re telling me a woman was seen climbing down the downspout outside my window?”
“Technically it wasn’t your window at the time.”
She didn’t need to tell him this wasn’t funny. He wasn’t laughing. In fact, he looked dead serious.
“Who was she? What was she doing here? And why would she have been climbing through a second-story window of a derelict building regardless of who owned it at the time?”
Reed reached inside his car and snagged a pair of sunglasses off the dash. Slipping them on, he said, “I suppose because there’s no other access to the loft anymore.”
She shot him a look that had maimed lesser men.
“Seriously,” he said. “Lacey and Noah didn’t recognize her, but evidently a few days earlier, Lacey had discovered a sleeping bag under one of the pool tables at Bell’s.”
A sleeping bag? A gong was going off in Ruby’s skull. “But why?” she asked. “What does that have to do with—”
“Apparently someone had been sleeping downstairs in the tavern.”
The temperature on the thermometer across the alley registered eighty-seven degrees. That meant Ruby’s goose bumps had another origin.
“Lacey called the police,” Reed explained. “During a thorough inspection, the officer discovered a water bottle with a pink lipstick stain on the rim under one of the pool tables where the bedroll had been. It’s possible whoever stowed the items there was a college student or a runaway. The police have no reason to believe she’s still in the area.”
“Then she’s long gone?” Ruby didn’t think she’d ever met a man who held so still, and it occurred to her, as her hand fell away from her eyes, that his stillness was a prelude, like the calm before the storm.
“That’s their theory,” he said.
“But not necessarily yours,” Ruby said, calming down.
“She was sleeping here,” she said, thinking out loud. “And the sleeping bag is still here. I’m more interested in your theory than theirs.”
“Honestly? I think she’ll be back, if not to retrieve the sleeping bag, then for whatever she came to Orchard Hill to do.”
“Could she have been Joey’s mother?” Ruby asked.
“The women my brother and I were involved with are in their early thirties,” he replied. “Lacey thought this girl was closer to seventeen or eighteen, and had light brown hair down to her waist. I don’t believe in coincidence, either, and the fact is, Lacey discovered that sleeping bag the same night my brothers and I discovered Joey on our doorstep.”
Her unease evaporated like dew in morning sunshine. What did she have to be afraid of, really, except a teenage girl with waist-length hair and a penchant for trespassing?
Ruby had taken self-defense classes in college, although admittedly her best training had begun in childhood. Growing up with a tyrannical twin brother had taught her to recover quickly from surprise attacks around corners, and of course, the sweet art of retaliation.
Operating one of her father’s tow trucks hadn’t been without risk, either. Now, in purchasing Bell’s, she had inadvertently inherited a mystery, and a very puzzling one at that. But she wouldn’t let that scare her and get in the way of her plans.
Reed slid behind his steering wheel and started his car. “I appreciate you boxing up Lacey’s cameras. Knowing her, she’ll stop over and thank you in person when she and Noah get home from their honeymoon next week.” With that, he drove away, one arm resting on his lowered window. There was a hint of reluctance in his wave.
Ruby retraced her footsteps inside, where she made a wide sweep of the tavern’s interior. At the billiards table where the plush sleeping bag was folded neatly, she went perfectly still, listening for phantom footsteps overhead.
A fly must have followed her in and was buzzing from one light fixture to another. Otherwise, the room was utterly quiet. There were no suspicious creaks, no hollow thuds or discordant scrapes of a window being opened or closed, no footsteps of any kind. In fact, the only other sound in the tavern was the slow release of the breath she’d been holding.
She
took one last look at the bedroll on the pool table and locked the back door. As she started up her stairs, she reminded herself that the police didn’t expect the young woman to return.
The former owner did, though. And so did Reed Sullivan.
* * *
At four-thirty on Friday, Ruby was settled comfortably in a booth at the Hill with a glass of ice-cold lemonade near her left hand, her iPad and phone in front of her and an order of appetizers due any minute from the kitchen.
She’d been in all-systems-go mode since early yesterday. So far she’d hired a father/son duo to refinish the floors and paint the tavern’s ceilings, scheduled the electrician, taken applications from two college students with experience waiting tables and arranged to interview a bartender from Lansing. She’d spoken with dozens of people. Many were men. Some were tall. Her toes hadn’t tingled once.
Absently sipping her lemonade, she reminded herself that she wasn’t going to think about her tingling toes. She wasn’t going to think about Reed Sullivan’s puzzling situation or how lean and fit he’d felt during those brief moments when her body had been pressed against his. She especially wasn’t going to think about that.
She had plenty to occupy her mind, as well as every moment of her time: namely, preparing for Bell’s grand reopening three weeks from tonight. Thanks to the little inheritance her grandmother had left her, she’d been able to pay cash for the building. Ruby was a saver from way back—her mother claimed all the O’Tooles still had their first nickel, and she had the money for the renovations and a year’s expenses in her savings account. That didn’t mean she planned to burn through it. The sooner she had the tavern up and running the better.
She’d missed lunch, and right now, those appetizers she’d ordered were vying for her attention, too. She took another sip through her straw and looked around. Other than a large group seated around a long table in the back of the room, she and a handful of others had the restaurant to themselves. It was the ideal atmosphere to work through dinner.
A Bride by Summer Page 5