“Was Julia Monroe right-or left-handed?” Sam asked Marsh, his gaze flickering to the driveway.
“Right-handed.”
Sam looked at Reed next. “What about Cookie?”
Reed recalled the way Cookie had slowly torn his receipt from her order pad that night, and later scribbled her phone number on a small piece of paper. “She was right-handed, too,” he said. “What did the handwriting analysis reveal?”
“Plain white stationery, blue ink, a steady, flowing script written in a woman’s right hand. Now, which one of you is holding out on me?”
“What are you talking about?” Marsh groused.
“The question you should be asking isn’t what,” Sam insisted. “It’s who. As in, who’s the redhead?”
Reed finally took a good look at the sky-blue Chevy pulling to a stop behind Sam’s dusty Ford. The next thing he knew, the driver’s-side door was opening and Ruby O’Toole was getting out.
* * *
There were three men standing near the sprawling white house when Ruby parked behind a dented SUV with a Michigan license plate. All three were tall, and all three watched her so intently as she approached she had to fight the temptation to smooth her skirt and fiddle with her bracelet.
Reed was holding Joey and talking with Marsh and a man she didn’t recognize. Judging by their squared shoulders and serious expressions, she’d interrupted something important.
“You were right, Reed,” she said, getting directly to the point the instant she reached the patio. “That girl with the long hair is still in Orchard Hill.”
“How do you know?” Reed asked.
“I saw her.”
His brow furrowed as he said, “When?”
“A little while ago in the alley outside my place. She returned for the bedroll, just like you thought she would.”
The slight breeze sifted through Reed’s short blond hair, and a shadow darkened his jaw. Joey wiggled, his head bobbing as he looked at something over Reed’s shoulder.
“Are you two talking about the girl who was sleeping in the tavern?” Marsh cut in.
Ruby started. Oh. Right. There were others present.
“Yes,” she said to the darker-haired Sullivan. “I came face-to-face with her while I was walking home from dinner not more than half an hour ago.”
“You’re sure it was her?” Marsh asked.
“I’m pretty sure, yes.”
As if trying to piece together her impromptu encounter with the mysterious girl, Reed said, “You mentioned that she returned for the bedroll. Did you actually see the sleeping bag?”
“It was tucked under her arm. I was pretty sure it was the same one. The moment she was out of sight, I ran to the tavern and checked. The bedroll Lacey asked me to leave out was gone. You told me you thought this girl’s presence in Orchard Hill was somehow related to Joey’s, so I drove right over.”
His tired smile caught her unawares, stirring something in that secret place beneath her breastbone where forgotten dreams lay waiting. Although the patio was shaded, heat lingered in the flagstones beneath the soles of her sandals. Surely that was where this warmth originated.
“Reed,” the man she hadn’t met said. “Maybe you could do the honors. And somebody bring me up to date here.”
Reed’s eyes widened for a moment, but when he spoke, it was with efficient practicality. “This is Sam Lafferty, Ruby, the P.I. helping us locate Joey’s mother. Sam, Ruby O’Toole.”
She and Sam Lafferty forewent a formal handshake as they sized each other up. So he was a private investigator, she thought. She might have guessed that from his appearance, although he could just as easily have been a bouncer or an undercover cop or a fugitive, for that matter.
Close to six-four in his scuffed boots, he stood with his feet apart, muscles flexed, hips slightly forward in the cocksure manner of a man who was confident in his sex appeal and wanted everyone to know it. She’d known men like that. In fact, she’d fancied herself having a future with one, but that was before she’d discovered Peter had been cheating on her.
Never again.
To his credit, Sam Lafferty’s gaze didn’t slip below her shoulders. She cut him a little slack for good behavior and followed his gaze to the table where a thick file lay near an empty baby bottle.
“Walk us through the encounter,” he said. “From the beginning, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Of course,” she replied. “I’ve been exploring the alleyways that run behind the businesses lining Division Street, familiarizing myself with the stores and shops while testing my sense of direction, you might say.” She happened to glance at Reed. Once again, it wasn’t easy to look away. “I rounded a corner and came face-to-face with the girl.”
“Can you describe her?” the P.I. asked.
“She was around five foot six, had an oval face, blue eyes and brown hair down to her waist. I didn’t see any piercings, but there was a butterfly tattoo on the inside of her right wrist. Her bag was Coach and her sandals had cork heels. And she had the sleeping bag under her left arm.”
“How long did this encounter last?” Sam Lafferty asked.
She pondered a moment, considering. “She didn’t stick around long. We were probably walking toward one another no more than five or six seconds.”
“That’s a lot of detail to recall after only five or six seconds,” he pointed out.
It was Reed who explained, “Ruby has an eidetic memory.” At Sam’s raised eyebrows, he said, “Do a Google search. Better yet, she’d probably recite your license plate number if you asked nice.”
She rattled off the number effortlessly, her gaze never straying from the unkempt P.I.’s.
Sam’s surprise was almost comical. He recovered quickly, though, and said, “How old would you say this girl was?”
“Late teens most likely. I seriously think twenty would be a stretch. She wasn’t at all what I would expect someone who sleeps in derelict buildings and climbs out of second-story windows to look like. She seemed polished. Poised. She must have nerves of steel because she didn’t glance over her shoulder as she hurried away, although I sensed she knew I was watching her. There’s one more thing.”
She turned to Reed and Marsh. “She was wearing a silver chain around her neck and a monogrammed charm. I’m pretty sure two of the initials were J and S.”
“Joseph Sullivan,” Reed said.
She found herself looking at the baby. His little T-shirt was bunched slightly beneath Reed’s hand, exposing the top of his diaper and the unbelievably soft-looking skin on his lower back. His feet were bare, his dark wispy hair standing adorably on end. It was hard to imagine anyone abandoning a child so innocent, so small and healthy in every way.
Silence stretched and the mood became even more somber. The clues were stacking up, and they all indicated that the girl with the long hair was indeed connected in some profound way to Joey and this case, although at this point the actual nature of the connection was pure speculation. Was she a family member, someone who was somehow related to Joey’s mother and consequently Joey, too? Or was she a close friend? What did she know? Why was she here in Orchard Hill? And where was the baby’s mother?
Questions abounded. Eventually they would be answered. They had to be. But when?
Since Ruby had relayed everything she’d come here to say, she backed up a step, preparing to leave. “You three undoubtedly have important matters to discuss.”
“Thank you,” Marsh said, his voice deep and moving. “For taking the time to drive out here and for going to the trouble to try to help. Would you care for something to drink before you head back? A Pepsi or a cold beer? I don’t know about you, but I could use a nice neat scotch.”
She laughed unconsciously. “Thanks, but I’m meeting someone later. I’ll have some
thing then.” With a nod at all three, she began the short walk to her car.
Reed didn’t stop to analyze his actions as he fell into step beside Ruby. He simply matched his stride to hers. His shoulder was close to hers, their elbows nearly touching. Their shadows glided ahead of them over the grass, her skirt airy and her long red hair curly and free.
This late in the day, the shade from the maple tree his great-grandfather had planted the day after he returned from World War One stretched across the driveway. Joey had been fitful earlier, but now he was completely relaxed, his little head turned so that his cheek rested on Reed’s shoulder, his body completely supported in Reed’s arms.
Being careful not to jostle the baby, Reed stopped in the fringe of dappled shade, reached around Ruby and opened her door. “That’s twice you’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty and twice all I have to offer is my gratitude.”
“Gratitude-smatitude,” she replied, wrinkling her nose.
There was something appealing about her irreverence. It wasn’t the first time he’d noticed. “You’re uncommonly kind, Ruby.”
Her smile was wide and genuine, her bottom teeth just crowded enough to make it unlike anyone else’s. He took a deep breath, and caught a hint of flowery perfume. He hadn’t been expecting that any more than he was expecting her to reach her hand toward him. He thought she meant to touch him, but she laid her hand gently on Joey’s back, instead.
“He looks safe and secure in your arms, Reed, as if he knows he’s home.”
The simple observation touched him most of all.
She got in the car, adjusted her skirt and fastened her seat belt. “Good night. And good luck,” she said.
As she was driving away, he wondered who she was having drinks with later. Not that it mattered. It didn’t, not in the least. He was curious, that was all.
Very curious.
Marsh and Sam were looking at him when he returned to the patio. Reed wanted to wipe the smug expressions off both their faces.
“My Sunday school teacher had it all wrong,” Sam exclaimed.
“Leave it alone, Sam,” Marsh warned.
“You went to Sunday school?” Reed asked.
“You’re missing my point,” the big man with the attitude to match declared.
“Maybe you should make your point,” Reed said, his voice so gravelly Joey stirred in his arms. “Are you on the clock?”
“Prickly, aren’t you?” Sam quipped. “It’s no skin off my nose what you do, or who, for that matter. It’s just that it occurred to me that maybe the Garden of Eden was an orchard not a jungle. Apples and temptation seem to go hand in hand.” He cast a pointed look at the apple trees nearby. “Reed, I’d lay nine to one odds that your life is about to get even more complicated. For the record, that observation was a freebie. The kid’s asleep. Do you want to put him in bed before or after I tell you what lead I’m following next?”
Reed gritted his teeth. Remorse didn’t sit well with him. Tightening his arms protectively around the baby, he said, “What’s next? Fire away.”
And without further ado, Sam did.
* * *
The stars were out.
Reed had watched them flicker into view one by one. Normally he wasn’t much of a stargazer, but he’d been out here for a while. Brooding. Berating himself.
He could see the lights in Orchard Hill from here. A mile and a half away, the tallest building downtown was four stories high. When September rolled around, the football field would be lit up like a space station every Friday night. The brightest streetlights lined the business district; the rest of the city stretched out beneath the softer glow of streetlamps on every corner. It was a far cry from an urban skyline.
Reed put the plastic bottle to his lips and let the cool water run down his throat. Why was he sitting here in the dark? Why had he let Sam get to him? Why seemed to be the question tonight.
He leaned back in his chair and stared at the lights in the distance. At last count, there were twenty-five thousand people living in Orchard Hill. Technically twenty-five thousand was a high number, but compared to Chicago or Baltimore or Seattle, this was a small town. Once upon a time, he’d been certain he would spend his entire adult life in one of those cities. He’d certainly never planned to come back to the family orchard. To visit, sure, but not to live.
The Orchard O’s varsity basketball team had taken state’s his senior year. As the starting center, he’d been offered a sports scholarship from a big-ten college downstate. Reed didn’t have the passion or the desire or, truth be told, the talent to be a professional athlete, and he’d known it. He’d had something else in mind, and Purdue came through with an academic scholarship. The following September he had been on his way toward an eventual MBA and an urban lifestyle that included a different restaurant every night and elevators to the twenty-eighth floor.
Then Marsh’s phone call had come one cold February afternoon. His voice as hollow as an echo, he’d said there had been an accident. Either Marsh had stopped speaking in complete sentences after that, or Reed only heard every other word. An icy pileup on the interstate. Twenty miles from home. Their parents. Killed instantly. Both of them. Gone. Just gone.
Reed had returned to Purdue after the funeral, and he’d remained on the dean’s list and the debate team and in all the right clubs for promising young professionals. He could have stayed the course he’d set because Marsh, then nearly twenty-three years old, had stepped into the role of head of the family, becoming guardian to Noah and Madeline, both just weeks away from their sixteenth and thirteenth birthdays respectively.
But Reed’s course had been changed instantly and irrevocably by a force no mortal could fully comprehend. He’d doubled his class load and hurriedly finished his degree. He’d followed a new course, for he’d discovered a need for something deeper than a concrete skyline and an elevator to the twenty-eighth floor.
He’d come home and never regretted it. For Reed, it had become a point of pride. In the years since, he’d rarely thought about that old urban dream. He certainly never considered moving to Seattle or Baltimore anymore. Instead of living in some loft or high-rise, he’d moved back to the sprawling white house where he’d grown up. Together, he and Marsh had finished raising Noah and Madeline. With hard work, careful planning, educated risks and a little luck, they’d expanded the family orchard into the business it was today. Reed wasn’t rich, but his life counted. That thirst for something that was missing had never quite been quenched, though.
Until the night Joey arrived.
He scrubbed a hand over his eyes. Earlier he’d done some work in his office off the living room after Sam left. Unable to concentrate, he’d brought his laptop out here only to close it before the first stars appeared. He’d heard Joey crying briefly earlier. By now Marsh had most likely tucked him into the crib they’d assembled together a few days after they’d discovered him on this very porch.
The screen door creaked open. Relying on moonlight and the light spilling through the living room window, Marsh joined him on the porch, a bottle of water in his hand. Two weeks ago they would have both been having a beer about now.
“Joey asleep?” Reed asked.
“Yeah.” Marsh sat down, his forearms resting on his thighs, the bottle held loosely in both hands. Reed knew that pose. Whatever he had on his mind was important. Looking at the sky, Reed thought it was possible the stars would burn out while he waited for Marsh to speak. Thankfully he didn’t have to wait quite that long.
Finally, he began. “Twice now I’ve seen the way you reacted when you came within ten feet of Ruby O’Toole.”
Silence.
Marsh unscrewed the cap and tipped the bottle up, then lowered it again. “I noticed you didn’t deny it.”
Reed didn’t waste his breath telling Marsh he was making too m
uch of this.
“I know how you feel.” Marsh’s voice was barely more than a dusky whisper, but full of conviction. “It’s like holding Great-granddad’s divining rods too close to a power line. The buzz paralyzes you, but not quite everywhere.”
Reed could have done without the analogy, even though it described the sensation fairly accurately. “Was that how it was when you met Julia?” he asked.
Marsh made a reluctant sound that meant yes. “I know you want Joey to be your son. And you know I’m hoping he’s mine. We haven’t talked about it, but we’re handling it. We always do. That said, in a perfect world, he would wind up mine, not because I’d be a better father than you. He’d be mine because that would mean his mother is the woman I fell in love with at first sight last summer.”
Reed couldn’t fault Marsh for the insinuation that it would be better somehow if Joey were the product of something more meaningful than a one-night stand. He’d thought the same thing. That didn’t change anything, however.
“I thought Julia felt the same way about me, and yet once the week was over, she never returned my calls. I tried for weeks. I assumed she didn’t want to talk to me. What else could I think? Still, if I were in charge of a perfect world, Joey would be mine,” Marsh said after taking another swig of his water. “And Mom and Dad would be the ones sitting on this porch and Madeline wouldn’t have had to go through the hell she went through last year, and those kids from Lakewood wouldn’t have drowned in Lake Michigan last month and nobody would die until they were good and ready. But then Madeline wouldn’t be happily married and expecting her first child and, hell, I suppose the world would get pretty overpopulated my way.”
“You’re saying maybe it’s best that we can’t see the big picture?” Reed asked.
A Bride by Summer Page 7