“So, what’s your name? I mean, if you’re going to be my plus-one for the parade, I should at least know your name.”
“Plus-one?” He shook his head. “Boone Buckam. And I can’t believe you got me into this.”
“Well, Boone Buckam, you’re about to find out exactly how much fun Fish Pic can actually be. Think of it like it’s a happy accident.”
He gave her a look and she shrugged her shoulders, kicked off her heels, and began waving to the crowd that lined the streets—their hands filled with everything from cotton candy to fish burgers, the spoils of a day spent at the community celebration.
“What are you doing?”
“Have you never been in a parade before? You’ve got to wave to your adoring fans. Like this.” Vivien took off her seatbelt and stood, letting the breeze lift her hair. “See—those are the Christiansens.” She pointed to John and Ingrid, who stood with their son Darek, his wife Ivy, and their own children, Joy and Tiger. Ingrid stood with her husband’s arm around her, her short bob haircut still stylish as ever. “Well, that’s some of them. They own a resort on Evergreen Lake. John’s the family patriarch.” She looked to see if he was paying attention. “Big family.”
“I see.” He put on his sunglasses. They made him look very James Dean, thank you, Classic Movies channel. “For someone trying to make a great escape, you seem pretty comfortable in front of a crowd.”
She turned back to Boone. “I’m an actress. Well, I was. I’m focusing on directing next. A community theater summer program.”
“I see.”
“Oh—and that’s Cole Barrett and his wife, Megan. He’s part of some new Crisis Response thing they’ve started up here. Also a deputy sheriff.”
She cast a look at Ree on the sidewalk, whose wide-eyed laughter was drowned out by the raucous cheers of the crowd on either side of her.
Well, Ree knew better than anyone how easily Vivien could put on a show. How much easier it was for her to be someone else.
And her newfound chauffeur-slash-fake boyfriend certainly wasn’t slowing her down. He drove through the parade, his mouth in a tight half smile, as if he might be enjoying himself.
The parade wound its way back to the Coast Guard station’s lot, the crowd gathering for the judges’ awards. They parked in the lot, watching the rest of the cars pull in and letting the breeze lift the heat of the day off them. The station stood at the end of the peninsula, the harbor on one side and the open waters of Lake Superior on the other. The two-story white building stood like a sentinel over the ever-changing waters.
She scanned the crowd. No sign of Sabrina.
“Are you sore?” Boone leaned in.
There it was again. Faint cologne mixed with heat, a little earthy and intoxicating.
“From what?”
“All that waving.” He lifted his hand, gave her a perfect royal wave, his hand rotating side to side on his wrist.
“You know, you’re actually pretty funny for such a serious guy.”
The microphone let out a squeal before the emcee, Ed Draper, began the drone of naming award winners from the stage at the end of the lot. Funny, the dog sled guy was manning the car show. Ed had always reminded Vivien of a younger Paul Newman. His graying hair had never diminished the classic handsome features and his clear, bright blue eyes. Edith must have exercised epic powers of persuasion to convince her son to participate in Fish Pic this year.
One by one, various participants made their way to the stage to collect their trophies.
Vivien turned back to her driver. “Thank you. I owe you one.”
Boone slid his sunglasses back on his head and held her in his dangerous blue eyes. “You’re welcome.”
“I’m sorry I made you super late for whatever your thing was.”
“It’s okay.” He lifted a book from the center console, shoved it under his seat before she could read the title. “I’d planned to lay low. Relax.”
“Hey—that’s you.” Ree had appeared next to the Mustang.
“What’s who?” Vivien asked.
“You guys won.” Ree was pointing toward the stage.
The crowd had turned, applauding, eyes on the 1965 Mustang.
Ed held a trophy, staring at the paper in front of him, his voice booming over the mic. “I don’t see an entry number or name here.” He looked up, pointed to the Mustang again. “Vivien, would you and your…uh…friend come claim your award?” The crowd began to clap again.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Boone shook his head.
“You shouldn’t be so surprised that your baby won.”
“We’re not even entered.”
“Go, you guys, go.” Ree waved her hands to usher them out of the car. Boone stood, rooted to the ground.
“Oh, come on,” Vivien slipped on her shoes and grabbed Boone by the hand. They made their way to the stage to stand next to Ed.
Ed tried to hand the trophy to Boone, who didn’t take it.
Oh, please. They’d won an award for Pete’s sake. Who turned down an award?
Vivien took a bow to the applause and accepted the heavy glass award, hoisting it over her head, bringing it down to cradle in her arms.
“Can I have the mic?” Vivien held out her hand to Ed.
“Um, sure.” He gave it to her and stepped back.
“Hi, everyone. I’d like to thank you for coming out to the Fish Pic car show today. Let’s give a shout-out to Ed Draper, who helped organize the event with the local booster club. I’m super glad I could share this afternoon with my dear friend Boone.”
Friend might be a stretch, but, oh, well. If Sabrina was still stalking the grounds, Vivien wasn’t going to give up on the charade. “And, wow—the People’s Choice award? Thank you. I’d like to announce we’ll be holding auditions for a summer community theater event on Wednesday evening at the Arrowood Auditorium in the high school. While the last show had a youth cast, this time all you adults get to give it a go. I’ll have a short synopsis and character list at the library community events table. We’ll be performing Then Came You, and I can’t wait to see you all Wednesday at the playhouse.” Murmurs rippled across the crowd.
“Thank you again.” Vivie held up the trophy. She imagined for a moment that she held an Oscar and smiled for her adoring audience. Well, a girl could dream, right? The crowd cheered one more time.
She stepped away from the mic and followed Boone off stage while Ed announced the end to the car show portion of the activities. The crowd dispersed and Vivien found herself facing Boone across the open convertible.
“People’s Choice. Not a bad way to end the ride.” And, shoot, she wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t really want it to be over. She swished the skirt of her sundress side to side. “What about my ice cream?”
“What ice cream?”
“Oh, come on. Every convertible ride ends with ice cream.”
He rubbed his hand across his face, a curve at the corner of his lips.
“Is that a smile?” She squinted at him.
He shook his head. “Get in. I’ll take you home.”
“Ice cream first?”
“Fine.”
She pointed the way while he drove three blocks to the Licks and Stuff ice cream shop. They stood in line among the rest of the Sunday afternoon crowd, and Boone leaned in, his voice low. “What do you recommend?”
The close tenor of his voice did annoying things to her pulse. Like, sent it into the staccato of a marching drum. Clearly, she hadn’t been around any eligible men recently. And he was hardly anything less than cover-model material, so she could let her heart beat a little. It did a girl good.
“You have to try the Moose Mocha Madness in the homemade waffle cone.” In answer to the question on his face, she added, “Espresso ice cream, chocolate chunks. A little hunk of paradise in a confectionary masterpiece.”
“When you put it that way…” He turned to the server, a cheery high school girl with a nose piercing and several p
urple streaks in her dark hair. “We’ll have two of the Moose Mocha Mad—”
“Just one—” Vivien interrupted.
“What?” He raised his brows.
Vivien looked over the ice cream display. “One double-scoop Moose Mocha Madness in a waffle cone and one…” She perused the colorful vats. “One Ravishing Rainbow sherbet in a sugar cone.”
“I hope the Moose Mocha Madness is for me, because I think I’d lose my man card if I ate the Ravishing Rainbow sherbet,” Boone said as he paid for the cones.
She laughed. Um, no worry there.
He handed the sherbet cone to her and held the door for her on their way out. He slid under the window awning into the shade.
“We’re not eating these in the car.”
She pressed her hand against her chest. “I would never.”
He started toward a bench along the sidewalk, weaving through the Fish Pic stragglers who smelled like sunscreen and smoked walleye, the din of children’s chatter competing with music from the stage. “I thought you said the Mad Moose Mocha was the best.” He looked from his oversized frozen treat to her bright sherbet.
“Moose Mocha Madness.” She licked the melting top off her scoop, the sweet-tart raspberry melding with the orange sherbet on the roof of her mouth. “And, it is, but I don’t know. Today felt like a rainbow sherbet kind of day for me.”
“I didn’t realize that was a thing.”
“Oh, yes. There are days for chocolate chunk, days for mocha madness, days for sherbet.” She considered her cone for a moment. “I suppose there are even days for vanilla.”
“You don’t strike me as the vanilla type.”
“Well, I haven’t had a vanilla day, but I’m leaving open the option that there could be a vanilla day.”
“Hmm. I see.” He took another bite of ice cream. “This is really good, by the way.”
“I told you so. I know my ice cream flavors.” The band had started playing in the park and the smells of cheese curds and smoked fish floated on the breeze. Families still crowded the downtown streets, squeezing the last hours out of Fish Pic.
They watched a metallic blue Impala drive by. “Oh, that’s a nice sixty-four,” she said.
“You seem to know a lot about classic cars.”
She turned from the car, her eyes settling on him. “I’ve always had an eye for fine things.” Oh, sometimes she wished she could filter what came out of her mouth better. But he was standing there, tall and strong and utterly adorable with his double-scoop waffle cone. “I’m actually car-less right now. I moved back here a few months ago from New York City.” She lifted a shoulder. “Didn’t need one there.”
“I see. But, you’re in the market for one?” He took another bite of ice cream.
Well, hmm. “Not yet. I’m not sure when I’ll be heading back to the City.” She took a bite, savoring the tang. “You’re not half-bad at this acting stuff. You’re not, like, some soap star from Hollywood, are you?”
He cut her a look over his cone and sat on one of the benches along the sidewalk. So, that was a hard no.
“What do you do then? What brings you to the village of Deep Haven?” She sat down next to him.
“Village?”
“Well, we are quaint. I think it sounds so much more picturesque than ‘town.’”
He looked like he was running an inventory of exactly what to say, finally settling on, “I’m a detective. Taking a vacation.”
Oh boy. “A detective? As in a police officer?” Vivien’s heart rate ratcheted up a few notches. “And I asked you to impersonate someone else? Good grief, why didn’t you say something?”
And there was that warm rumble of laughter again. “Well, technically, I didn’t impersonate anyone else. I just pretended to be something I’m not.”
Oh, like every day of her life. She shot him a smile. “Aha. So, we’ll consider it an undercover operation.”
He seemed to be considering her, as if she intrigued him. Maybe the detective in him. “Why don’t you tell me about this theater thing? You said you’re an actress?”
“I’m not currently acting. I’ll be directing the show I announced.”
“Well, Garbo.” He tossed his napkin into the trash and stood. “I’ll give you that ride home now, if you’d like.”
Garbo? This guy was trouble of the most scrumptious kind. “Just so we’re clear, I wouldn’t normally accept a ride home with a strange man. Which probably sounds funny since I rode in the parade with you, but that’s different. I may be—I may come across as—dramatic, but I’m really just a small-town girl.” She refrained from breaking out into “Don’t Stop Believin’.”
“A villager.”
And this time, she laughed. “Yeah. I’m just a villager with big dreams. Hoping to shine.” Vivien followed him back to the car. “But, if you’re really a cop—and maybe you need to show me some credentials—then, yes, I’ll let you drop me off.”
He pulled his wallet from his cargo pocket and flipped it open.
Oh, Handsome really was a cop. “Thank goodness.” She tugged off her heels and slid into the seat. “I did not want to have to walk home in these. They look super cute, but let me just say, they are painful.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” He closed the door and slid into the driver’s seat. “You know, the solution would be to wear something more practical.”
“Practical?” Hardly. She wasn’t the kind of person who could get away with practical. “Oh, you can’t imagine. A girl’s got to keep up appearances. The world is a stage, after all.”
“Indeed.”
“Head up the hill, past the gas station,” she said, pointing the way. “After that cute yellow house—we call it the Butter House—go down the street past those big dogwood trees.”
He followed her directions. “Here?”
She urged him to keep driving. “Go past Edith’s house—it’s the one with the pink gnome in the front yard. Stop at the blue bungalow on the corner.”
“Oh, you mean the one with the giant walleye and salmon eyeballing the neighborhood?”
“It’s a walleye and a trout.” She grinned. The gentle breeze swung the two 4-foot-long papier-mâché fish from the porch rafters. “That’s the one. Well, mine and Ree’s. Until she gets married and moves into her fiancé’s gigantic log house. She’s my best friend and the town journalist.” Why was she babbling?
He pulled up to the curb.
She glanced at him. “Thank you again. You nailed the role.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Will I—will I see you around?” Oh, shoot, and now she sounded needy. She shot him a smile, picked up her high heels, and stepped into the grass. “I mean, how long are you here for?” Lovely. That made it sound like a prison sentence. She shot him a smile, a little big, like she might be on the local tourist council.
“Five weeks.” He picked up his book and waved it. “I foresee a ridiculous amount of reading by the lake.” His tone held something of sadness. Or regret?
And she dearly wanted to ask, but before she could, her eyes fell on the foreign objects lying across her porch floorboards.
She stilled, her breath caught.
No. That wasn’t…no, this could not be happening again.
“What’s wrong?” Boone asked.
She turned back to the car, stepping over to block his view of the porch. “Oh, nothing.” She waved him off. “Just a neighborhood prank from the boys next door. I’ll see ya.”
He paused, as if he had something else to say, and she gave him another flash of smile until he pulled away.
She had the sinking sense that Sabrina wasn’t the only person who’d found her in Deep Haven. Those roses looked exactly like the last ones she’d received from her stalker.
So much for a relaxing start to his five-week decompression.
Boone sank into the deck chair of his rental cabin. All he’d wanted was to slip into Deep Haven with the tourists. Sit by the lake. Read t
he stupid book his boss had given him.
Be in a place where he could be a man without anything to prove, didn’t have his history dogging him every single day.
And maybe figure out how to get his life back.
Problem was…well, he wasn’t exactly sure Vivien was a problem.
But she might be. He had to admit that Vivien probably wasn’t the prescription for tranquility.
But he also had to admit he’d enjoyed his impromptu tour around Deep Haven very much.
The parade, the ice cream cone, even the song she’d sung.
If only he could get his mind to forget the look on her face when she’d seen the black roses on her doorstep.
Burned roses. Scattered across her porch beneath the garish walleye and trout.
No way did he buy her words when she said they were probably a prank by the boys next door. That it was no big deal.
Like he should just let it go.
Right.
The thing was, letting go wasn’t really in his blood.
Relax.
He leaned back on the deck chair and took a long drink of his iced tea. The sun had sunk low in the sky, painting the few clouds deep orange, pink, and purple. Lake Superior stretched out in front of him, the waters reflecting the brilliant hues, setting the world ablaze in color. Condensation dripped off his glass and he let the evening sunshine soak into him. At least he was finally settled into his home-away-from-home after his crazy morning at Deep Haven’s annual Fisherman’s Picnic.
It had been just his luck that the key was missing from the lockbox at the cabin, forcing him to drive into town earlier in the day to meet Nathan Decker, the man who managed the rental. Too bad he hadn’t thought better than to park his Mustang in the middle of the car show when he went looking for Nathan in the crowd, but, well, he loved a good car show. And he loved showing off his own classic car restoration.
He probably should have just asked Nathan to meet him by the main entrance, grabbed the key, and left. Instead, he’d lingered. Enjoyed a fish burger. Let the wind off Lake Superior carry the scents of tangy cheese curds and sweet kettle corn to him.
Then he’d spotted the dark-haired woman wearing her retro dress with yellow sunflowers on it. The halter-style top hugging her curves and slender waist made her hard to miss in the crowd of T-shirts and shorts. Like she’d just stepped out of 1950s’ Hollywood. False lashes, manicured nails, polished makeup.
Then Came You Page 2