THE STARLIGHT HILL COMPLETE COLLECTION: 1-8

by Bell, Heatherly

  Sophia sighed. “I guess. Hopefully I won’t see much of him. And I suppose this means we can finally, you know, get our paper work done.”

  “You still can’t say the word?”

  “I can! I just don’t want to say it, that’s all.”

  “I’ve always believed maybe there was a reason neither one of you ever went through with a divorce.”

  She snorted. “No reason other than the fact that I’m lazy.” And apparently, so was he. Which come to think of it, was one word which she’d never before associated with Riley.

  “Who knows? Maybe there’s still a chance for the two of you.”

  Diana of all people knew their history. Had a front row seat to the implosion and its aftermath. “No. I’m never going there again.”

  Sophia hung up with Diana and walked to her bedroom. In her closet, she poked around the back wall until she found the brown container nestled under several other boxes. One might say her old life was in this package exactly where she liked to keep it. She slid the top off. The ring box with her wedding ring was inside. She popped it open for the first time since she’d moved into this house three years ago and took a look at it. Probably should have sold it long ago, but it wasn’t worth much to anyone else. The tiny diamond was all her enlisted man fiancé could afford.

  It was true that she’d never before or since loved anyone the way she’d loved Riley, but she figured it was because she’d been so young and virginal. Sheltered. Impressionable. Naïve. She’d never before had all the breath leave her body when a man walked into a room. Never given up everything she’d ever known and loved just to be with him. The photo of their wedding day still inspired a smile, and it no longer felt like her heart was being harvested and her bones grafted into powder. Riley, looking so badass in his Marine dress blues. Her, in a sweetheart collar wedding gown, her gaze happy and hopeful. Was that just eight years ago? If so, why did it feel like eighteen?

  She’d once loved him so much her heart ached just looking at him. But then that pleasant ache, that touch of glowing warmth that made her heart feel larger, turned into a bone melting and relentless pain. He’d abandoned her. It took years to get over him, and now that she was finally past all that agony she’d never open up her heart to him again.

  * * *

  Riley Jacobs had been in Starlight Hill for one day and already crossed off two major meetings from his list. First, his initial meeting with the staff, if one wanted to call three other police officers and a dispatcher a ‘staff.’ Later that Friday he’d treated himself to dinner at Giancarlo’s and then crossed another important meeting off his list.

  The one with his wife.

  He’d looked forward to that one the least, for obvious reasons. But while he expected some soul crushing glares from his beautiful brown-eyed wife, he hadn’t been prepared to learn that she’d been lured by some creep posing as a saint and pretending to look like a ball player. Everything he already knew about Sophia told him that she wasn’t naïve about online scams, but his wife possessed one trait that made her a soft target for anyone: she’d always believed the best in people. Now he had one other matter on his agenda. Track down the creep and beat the shit out of him. Nah, there would be no more beating anyone for him. Those days were long gone. Sure, he’d miss them but he had bigger fish to fry. He was now a card carrying member of civilian society and determined to act like it. If worse came to worse and he hadn’t done enough on his own to enlighten Sophia, he’d go ahead and use some of his law enforcement contacts to shut the jerk down.

  Even though he was scheduled to move into his rental later on Saturday, and all the resultant angst he could look forward to with that situation, he went ahead and took a drive up to Napa early in the day to see Lucy. Because he was a glutton for punishment. He was also worried, as Lucy was up to her eyeballs in shit again. More like their father than she’d ever want to admit, Lucy couldn’t seem to stay away from her drug of choice. Meth, last he’d heard. Rehab hadn’t worked the first time or the second time, because Lucy kept coming back to the same environment and the same old connections.

  Maybe a third time would be the charm.

  He puttered his Harley down the back roads, enjoying both the view and the weather, even in mid-January only a mild chill to the air. The back roads of Napa were familiar to him, as were the little hidden pockets of town no one wanted tourists to see. The places where he and Lucy had grown up, unaware that their quaint little town inspired postcards of charming bed and breakfast locations and endless vineyards.

  And then there was his old family house, right smack in the middle of downtown next to Olga’s, a woman who claimed to be a psychic and palm reader and who kept the neon-lit palm sign on all night. Since the area was zoned for both residential and business she got away with it. Even had a client in Lucy, who had never been known for her wise choices. He and Lucy had inherited the house when their mother had passed away which at least meant that Lucy would never be on the streets. As for Riley, he hadn’t been back in years but now that he was, things were going to change. He had a lot of cleaning up to do, and he might as well start here in his old stomping grounds.

  He pulled his Harley up to the front of the small shared driveway with Olga’s Palm Reading and shut off the engine. No sooner had he done that than the voice of a man drifted outside. Riley followed the sounds, his boots echoing on the concrete pathway.

  Stupid bitch … clean up this place … piece of shit… when are you going to learn …

  Riley didn’t knock. He simply opened the door to what might have been a scene from his childhood, except in the place of his mother stood his sister and in the place of his father stood a Neanderthal-like moron with a block for a head. Good to know Lucy hadn’t changed her type.

  The halfwit turned to Riley. “Who the hell are you?”

  Riley didn’t need to answer as he advanced because Lucy did it for him. “Oh God, Riley, don’t! Just don’t! He’s leaving. Aren’t you, Dick?”

  Dick. His name was Dick? In what universe was someone named so appropriately?

  “Who said I’m leaving, bitch?” Dick raised his fist towards Riley.

  Big mistake, because in three seconds, six foot five inches or so of Dick were lying face down on the floor, his arm about to be broken in two places. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. This guy fell like an iron bar.

  “Dude, I was just about to leave,” he said. “Tell him, Lucy, honey.”

  “Yeah, he was leaving.” This was from Lucy, hiding behind the couch.

  “Sounds like all three of us are in agreement.” Riley slowly released the man, who got up to his full height and shook it off.

  “See you later,” Dick said, moving towards the front door.

  “Or not.” Riley watched him go. Then he slammed the door shut and turned to his sister. “What the hell, Lucy?”

  “I was just going to ask you the same thing!” Lucy came out from behind the couch. “What the hell. You can just walk right in here and start throwing people out of my house.”

  Typical. Never a ‘thank you for saving my ass’ or a pinch of gratitude. Nothing but a pissy attitude, which he might have expected. Whatever. Riley knew it was the addiction talking. When she was clean, Lucy was human. A good and compassionate woman who reminded him of their mother on her better days.

  “Came to check on you.” He moved closer. Her dirty blonde hair was tousled, eyes smeared with streaks of black, cheeks stained with tears. The shakes.

  “Okay, now you’ve checked me. I’m alive. You’ve done your duty. Now get out.”

  “When’s the last time you ate something?” By the looks of her skinny ass, maybe not for some time.

  “I don’t know.” She sat on the stained black couch and tucked her bare feet under a pillow. “Maybe yesterday.”

  He stalked toward the grungy kitchen and searched through the cabinets for some soup to heat. “You’re going to eat something.”

  She sighed. “I’m no
t hungry.”

  “Do it anyway.” He found a dirty pan, cleaned it, then opened up a can of chicken noodle soup and flipped the gas powered stove on.

  “Have you seen your ‘wife’ yet?” Lucy asked with contempt in her voice.

  He didn’t answer because he never talked about Sophia when Lucy was strung out. The drugs made her say a lot of horrible things he told himself she didn’t really mean.

  “Never mind, I know you have. She’s why you’re here. The reason you took that stupid job.”

  “It couldn’t be because I wanted to be near you. Right?” He might as well clean the rest of these dishes, which looked like they might have been in the sink for a week.

  “If you think she’s going to want to get back together with you, you’re crazier than I am. She didn’t get a divorce because you were out of the country. Not because she still loves you. She probably never did, you know. I think she was slumming it with you for a while, that’s all. She’s nothing but a spoiled little rich princess who—”

  “Shut up about her.” He didn’t bother telling Lucy that it was a hell of a lot easier for a soldier to get a divorce than most civilians realized, in country or not. That wasn’t the point. The point was he wasn’t sure Sophia knew that either.

  Lucy gave him the stink eye. “I hate you, Riley.”

  “I hate you too, Luce.” He winked.

  Lucy bit her lower lip and almost smiled. “Good. At least we agree on something.”

  Finished with the dirty dishes, he ladled the hot soup for Lucy and walked it over to her. “Eat.”

  She reluctantly accepted the bowl. “Sometimes I think the only difference between you and Dick is the badge.”

  “It’s a big enough difference.” He straddled the chair nearest the couch.

  “This isn’t the Marines, sergeant.” She blew on the spoonful of soup. “If you want to get Sophia back—”

  “I said we’re not talking about her.”

  “Hey, look I’m sorry for what I said before. You show up here like a badass again, kick my Dick out and put me in a bad mood.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Sophia’s all right. She comes by here sometimes.”

  He froze at this news. “Why?”

  “I’m her sister-in-law, aren’t I? It’s not like she comes by all the time, just every once in a while. She brings me bread and pasta from the restaurant. Both of you are obsessed with getting me to eat.”

  That sounded like Sophia. And how angry could she be with him if she came by to see Lucy? He’d have to put a stop to that, of course, but it was still encouraging news.

  “I was going to say, don’t start right off with all the orders. Sit down, eat this, do that. Learn to ask. I mean, if you want to get her back.”

  “So this is you, trying to help.”

  She lifted a shoulder. “I know women.”

  “If that’s true about you women, why are you with Dick head?” But he had his answer before the question was completely out of his mouth. Most likely Dick had the drugs.

  “Who says I can do better than him?”

  “I do.”

  A little shadow of hope passed over her face, a look that seemed to say she wanted to believe it. Maybe had even once believed such a thing but no longer.

  Among so many other things in his life, he was here to change that.

  * * *

  “Would you look at that?” Lizzie asked. “They’re so adorable I’m about to puke up a lung.”

  “Aw, they’re so sweet. Look, she’s feeding him the cannoli,” Angie said. “Holy cow, he’s hot.”

  “Please. You’re talking about Scott. Ew factor times a hundred.” Sophia elbowed Angie right in the gut.

  All three of them were standing just outside the kitchen door watching the two freaks of nature go at it. Eight years later, and they still didn’t seem to have much luck keeping their hands off each other. Especially when they were without their girls.

  “So who’s babysitting the baby girls tonight since Ms. Babysitter Extraordinaire isn’t available?” Lizzie asked, leading the way back to the kitchen.

  “Either Brooke or Genevieve,” Sophia said.

  The girls always took turns for each other on the nights Sophia worked. Sometimes Eileen would babysit too, if she and Daddy-o were in town which was almost never these days. They’d been home for the holidays as they were each year, and then had taken off again to their Italian villa. “Diana already asked me to babysit tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow? What’s going on Sunday?” Angie asked from next to one of her boiling pans.

  “I don’t know.” She took every opportunity to babysit the girls when asked. It wasn’t like she had, you know, a life. “I’m sure it’s to partake in some uninterrupted nooky.”

  Angie snorted. She was always with Sophia on this one. “Yeah. Like she has problems. Married to Mr. Hunk Firefighter. Two adorable daughters. Such a cross to bear.”

  “Don’t you think you’d want some uninterrupted nooky time if you were married to him?” Lizzie said, picking up her order and doing a little jig as she walked towards the kitchen door. “I know I would.”

  Sophia stuck a finger in each ear. “I didn’t hear that.”

  Angie turned away from her pots and pans and to Sophia. “So what happened with Bruce?”

  She had been trying to avoid the subject. Turned out that Bruce was sorry he’d used a fake photo, and Sophia really felt bad for him. But Angie and Lizzie weren’t likely to be as sympathetic.

  “He confessed that wasn’t a photo of him.”

  “How nice of him to do that when he’d been caught red-handed.”

  “But he sounded really sorry about it. He’s kind of insecure about his looks. Said he was always teased about being a geeky looking science guy in school. And I totally get that.”

  “I take it he still hasn’t sent you another photo.”

  “Not yet. But he will.” Sophia had a feeling where this was headed, so she moved to slip out the kitchen door. Time to swoop around the tables again and make sure everyone was happy.

  “Wait.”

  Sophia stopped and turned. “Yes?”

  “Did you tell him you need to meet if this is going to go any deeper? That you want a real guy to sit across the table and you know, do all the stuff Lizzie talked about? Stare into your eyes and all that crap?”

  “No, I haven’t gotten to that yet. You know that I have a few things to take care of first. Before I start officially dating a real live, in-the-flesh man.”

  “The divorce?”

  Sophia flinched. “Uh, yes.”

  “Honey, you flinched again. You have to stop doing that.”

  She really did. “Okay. I’ll work on it.”

  “Try the full immersion thing my cousin Stacy did. She was afraid of heights so she went to big skyscrapers and drove to the mountains. Stood near a cliff. You have to just walk around saying, ‘I’m getting a divorce. I’m getting a divorce.’”

  “I’m sorry, Angie,” Angie’s sous-chez, Raul, said. “I didn’t even know you were married.”

  “Not me, you fool!” Angie turned back to Sophia. “Full immersion, baby. It’s the only thing that works. Now Stacy can fly on her business trips without taking Xanax.”

  Sophia tried a smile and went out the kitchen door. Full immersion. Sounded interesting, but she didn’t want to think about the D word tonight. Tonight was about food and family and love. Everything seemed to be under control on the floor. Wine glasses filled, every couple stared deeply into each other’s eyes, or held hands across the table. Scott and Diana were doing both, of course. Damned overachievers.

  “Are you serious?” Scott said at the top of his voice. “Babe!”

  Sophia’s head whipped around. Scott was lifting Diana out of her seat, and all around them curious customers wanted to know the obviously good news, judging by the ear to ear grin on Scott’s face. But Sophia froze, because she understood what this had to be about even if n
o one else did.

  “We’re pregnant again,” Diana said with a smile, explaining to the curious folks surrounding them.

  There were no secrets in Starlight Hill, especially when you were as loud as Scott. Sophia forced herself to go over and congratulate them. “Guys! I’m so happy for you.” She hugged Diana first, then Scott, and for the first time noticed the lack of wine at their table. “I didn’t see that one coming.”

  “Well, we had to try for a boy,” Diana explained.

  “Of course.”

  Mama had three girls and that was good enough for her and Daddy-o, but some people were greedy. Oh God, listen to her. She was a horrible person. A terrible sister and sister-in-law. Tonight she’d say ten Hail Mary’s before bed and beg for forgiveness less she be punished with a barren womb once she finally… finally…moved on or something.

  “Should I break out some champagne? I mean, you can’t drink of course but what about Scott?”

  Diana waved a hand and drew Sophia aside. “We’re good. You’re still babysitting tomorrow?”

  “Sure, sure. Where are you guys going?”

  “Just up to the Hennessey House for the day. We’re going to relax and take naps, and—take naps.” Diana stared dreamily at Scott, who was accepting a cigar from a male customer.

  “You guys have a great time, and don’t worry about the girls. At all.”

  Diana grabbed Sophia in a bear hug. “Thank you. What would I do without you? I’d have gone crazy by now. Mandy is no good at babysitting. All she does is give them candy to shut them up.”

  Diana’s sister Mandy was not in the same babysitting ballpark as Sophia, a badge she wore quite proudly. She followed parents’ instructions and didn’t hand out unapproved snacks and sit the kids in front of the television for hours. Well, almost never. It meant that by the end of the day she was usually exhausted but it wasn’t like she had her own children to keep her busy twenty-four seven.

  Sophia needed to get over herself that was all. Two years ago when Courtney had been born, Sophia had told herself that she’d have the next baby in the family. That in another year she’d meet someone, get married again (forgetting the minor fact that first she’d have to take care of the D word. This was, after all, a fantasy.) and have a child. It seemed logical that she’d be the next one in line to get hit with the baby stick. Brooke and Billy had three kids, Wallace and Genevieve four, and Scott and Diana two. All the Turlock wives were all taken care of in the child department and it would be her turn next. But time got away from her. She’d never started seeing anyone, so how could she get pregnant? She wasn’t exactly the Virgin Mary. And yes, she’d considered a sperm bank but that was so unromantic. She didn’t want to have a child with a stranger’s sperm. She was Italian, for crying out loud! What would Daddy-o say? ‘Where’s the damn sperm that got you pregnant?’ And Mama would roll over in her grave. Twice.