Copper Lake Confidential (13 page)

“I have a dog. His name is Scooter.”

“Where is he?”

“At home.”

She pointed to the house. “In there?”

Of course she didn’t remember that this was
her
home, where she’d lived half her life. Granted, it had been a very short life. “No, my house is down the road that way.”

She looked to the north, gaze narrowed as if she could see through the fence and trees all the way to his little place, then turned that calculating look back on him. “Is it very far?”

“No.”

“Can we go see Scooter?”

Brent’s snort indicated he’d seen that request coming. Stephen didn’t mind introducing her to the dog. If he was going to help Macy pick out a puppy for her, it would be good to see how she interacted with him. “We’ll have to ask your mom about that.”

The kitchen door opened at that moment and Clary skipped over to meet Macy and Anne, each carrying a tray with drinks and plates of cookies. “Mama,
he
has a dog and we want to go see him. Can we, please?”

Macy’s expression as she smiled down at her daughter was enough to make Stephen’s chest hurt. Mothers loved daughters—no surprise there. But this look was so sweet, so intense, so...hell,
so
loving that he had to swallow hard to clear the lump from his throat.

When she shifted her gaze to him, the lump was right back. “You want to bring Scooter over? He can go for another swim.”

“Sure.” Stephen would have agreed to anything for that look. Go get the dog? No big deal. Flap his arms and fly the quarter mile? Easy. Slay a few monsters along the way? You bet.

With an excess of energy, he surged to his feet, pulling his keys from his pocket at the same time. Clary, cheering and swirling wildly, bumped into his legs and glanced up to give him a similar look. “Thank you, Dr. Stephen.”

He brushed his palm against her hair. “You’re welcome. We’ll be right back.”

“Thank you, Dr. Stephen,” Macy murmured when he passed her.

“You can repeat that later,” he whispered before stepping through the door.

He’d gone home after work to change clothes and walked back for lunch. His return walk was more of a jog. It took him maybe half a minute to wake Scooter and get his leash attached, then they headed for Macy’s.

“Home really is close,” Anne commented when the two of them came back onto the patio. She was sitting on the love seat next to Brent, a sweating glass of tea in hand. With straight black hair and a narrow face, she reminded him of an editor he’d once worked with, though Anne’s ready smile diminished the resemblance. That editor had had no sense of humor or compassion for brand-new authors.

“It’s just down the road,” he replied.

“Hey, Scooter,” Macy said, scratching between his ears. “We’ve got someone who wants to meet you, sweetie. Clary?”

The girl popped up from the carpetlike grass between two large beds of flowers, and her eyes widened to saucer size. “A puppy!” Scrambling to her feet, she ran across the lawn. At the last instant before collision, she stopped beside Stephen and Scooter and beamed at each of them. Excitement vibrated through her.

Stephen commanded Scooter to sit, then knelt beside them. “Clary, this is Scooter. He’s three years old, like you, and he likes to run and get tickled.”

“Like me!” she exclaimed. “Can I pet him?”

The dog had had plenty of exposure to kids, but Stephen stayed close anyway, holding her hand so Scooter could sniff her, showing her how to pet and where to tickle, explaining the importance of not startling or hurting him. When he was sure Clary understood as well as Scooter did, he stood and stepped back, letting them interact together.

“Have a seat,” Macy said, bumping his leg with her elbow.

He watched Clary a moment longer, then took the armchair next to Macy’s. A glass of tea had been placed on the coffee table in front of the chair, on top of a napkin that was soaked and dripping. After taking a long drink, he picked up a cookie, too, oatmeal with walnuts, and bit in.

“How’s it going with the packing?” Brent asked.

Macy’s slim shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I delivered a few boxes to the retirement center this morning. A group that helps young women is picking up the family room and some of the guest room furniture Monday, plus one antique dealer is coming then, the other one Tuesday morning. If you guys see anything you want, please take it or let me know.” She turned to include Stephen. “You, too.”

He pushed his glasses back up his nose to disguise his grimace. He didn’t want anything of Mark Howard’s...except his widow. And his little girl.

“We tried to get Macy to just turn the whole place over to an estate sale place,” Brent said. “She could have packed what she wanted in a couple hours and been done with this already.”

Anne rested her hand on his knee. “
You
tried. I agreed with her that she should do it the way she needed to.”

Stephen could understand needing to oversee the packing and sorting. Though she didn’t seem interested in any of the stuff for herself, there were surely items she wanted Clary to have and others, like those jade carvings, she intended to give to someone else. There must be a few things inside that belonged to her, that didn’t hold bad memories of her marriage.

None too subtly, Macy changed the subject. “I planned to put you two in one of the guest rooms, but since I’ve already started clearing them, I’m putting you in the guesthouse. It’ll give you a little privacy, which I know you haven’t had much of since the wedding. It’ll be a bit of a break until we get you sent on a proper honeymoon.”

Anne’s smile brightened her face. “Ooh, privacy. Hmm. Tell me again what we do with that?” After a half groan, half growl from her husband, she gestured toward the pool. “I know it’s only April, but how’s the water?”

“Scooter loved it last night,” Macy replied. “I haven’t been in.”

“Anyone mind if I dip my toes in? Otherwise, after my next three cookies, I’m gonna need a nap.” Anne looked around the group, then stood. “Hand me the keys, babe, and I’ll get our bags.”

“I’ll get our bags. You can get baby girl’s.” Brent polished off the last of his own cookie, then followed Anne inside.

After the door closed, silence settled, comfortable, familiar. “They seem like nice people,” Stephen said.

“Very nice.”

“They seem like they’ve been together for years.”

Macy kicked off her sandals and turned sideways in the chair to face him, her knees drawn up. “Actually, they’ve only known each other about fourteen, fifteen months. I guess it’s just one of those things. You know what you’ve found the minute you’ve found it. Not love at first sight but...more.”

Stephen had experienced a few of those
things:
people he’d known he would be friends with, people he’d known would be important to him long after their meeting. Not Sloan, though. His first impression of her wasn’t flattering. Smug, self-absorbed, aggressive.

It hadn’t been wrong, either.

He didn’t regret the marriage, though, or the divorce. He didn’t regret anything. Everything he’d done or had done to him had brought him to this place and made him who he was. He liked this place. He liked who he was.

He liked whom he was with.

“I should get the key for the guesthouse,” Macy said. “Can you keep an eye on Clary?”

“Sure. It’s not often I get to see someone wrap Scooter around her little finger. He’s usually the one who does the wrapping.”

She looked at her daughter, talking earnestly to the dog on a nearby patch of grass, and Scooter, listening just as earnestly, and that incredible smile returned. “My daughter is a charmer.”

He waited until the kitchen door closed behind her to quietly add, “She gets it from her mother.”

* * *

The clock in the hallway struck ten, only distantly audible through the glass door. Brent and Anne had said good-night and retired to the guesthouse a half hour before. Macy and Stephen remained on the teak love seat, Clary sprawled across her lap, snoring softly. Scooter, on the chair Brent had abandoned, was doing the same.

Ten or fifteen minutes had passed since either she or Stephen had spoken, but it didn’t bother her. Being able to talk with someone was important, of course, but being able to stay quiet with them was even more so. Mark hadn’t been much of a believer in silence, not just with her but with everyone. He’d liked to talk. Miss Willa had understood the value of silence, but she’d used it as a weapon. Quiet equaled disapproval in her life.

Macy definitely approved of her life at the moment. Clary in her arms, Stephen at her side, Brent and Anne only a shout away. If her parents were there, the moment would be perfect.

“How often do you see your parents?” she asked.

If Stephen wondered where the question had come from, it didn’t show. “Mom comes to Copper Lake three or four times a year, and Marnie and I go to Alabama for Mother’s Day, her birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

“What about your father?”

“We see each other in June—his birthday, Father’s Day, my birthday—then we shoot for a visit in the fall. We rely on the phone more than Mom and I do.” He shifted, a whisper of sound, a creak, a pop, and propped both feet on the coffee table. Basketball player-sized feet, big enough to dwarf hers when she rested them beside his. “You see your parents a lot.”

She laughed. “I’ve lived with them for the better part of the last eighteen months. When my dad gave me away at the wedding, he thought I’d stay away. The joke was on him.” And on her. When Mark had promised to love and honor her, she hadn’t known he would be killing people in his spare time.

A shudder ran through her, and she clutched Clary a little tighter, enough to make the girl stir.

Deliberately she changed the subject. “Do you have to work tomorrow?”

“Yeah, until one.”

“Brent mentioned going to out to dinner to that great little barbecue place near the interstate.” She hesitated, because she had claimed an awful lot of his time off this week, then took a breath and went on. “Would you like to join us?”

“Yeah. But I can’t.” He combed his fingers through his hair then pushed his glasses up before facing her in the dim light. “I have...an obligation tomorrow night.”

Something in her stomach looped and tightened. “That sounds serious.” Another hesitation. “It’s okay if you have a date. I mean, I’ve only known you a few days, and you don’t owe me an explanation. It’s really none of my—”

Reaching over, he laid his fingers across her mouth. “It’s not a date. The police chief is retiring, and they’re having a big party at River’s Edge, and Marnie asked if I’d take one of the female cops she works with. Believe me, I wouldn’t have said yes for anyone but Marnie because this detective scares me spitless. She makes my ex look spineless, and Sloan wasn’t intimated by anything.”

But Macy was. She was vulnerable, unsure of herself. Was that a point for or against her in Stephen’s estimation? Did he enjoy being able to take care of a woman for a change, or was she too needy for his tastes? Would the novelty wear off soon?

“River’s Edge is beautiful.” The antebellum mansion sat in downtown Copper Lake, a gleaming Greek Revival of a house overlooking the square and the river. Though built about the same time as Fair Winds, it was a far more inviting place where people had lived, loved and laughed—where they still did now that it was used for weddings, parties and other events. “You’ll have a good time.”

“Right,” he said morosely. “I have to wear a suit. And a tie.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed you owned long pants or a shirt with buttons, much less a tie.”

That made him grin. “I prefer an uncomplicated wardrobe.”

“I’ve noticed.” She thought of the dozen custom-tailored suits in Mark’s closet, the tuxes, the dress shirts hung in rows that cost enough per shirt to feed a family of four for a week. And his hand-painted silk ties, the Italian leather shoes... “‘Uncomplicated’ is nice.”

Nice.
It was a greatly underrated word. She could be deliriously happy with
nice
for the rest of her life.

“And maybe you could tuck a muzzle into your pocket for Detective Scary Pants,” she added.

“Not a bad idea.” Slowly he straightened. “I’ll be brave. I’ve treated a lot of angry animals over the years. I’ve had my hand—hell, my whole arm—in places those animals didn’t want it, and I’ve survived. Maybe I can survive Kiki Isaacs.”

The name was familiar to Macy. Naturally, the Howards hadn’t socialized with mere police officers, but she’d read the newspaper regularly, and she’d seen the woman’s name and photograph a few times. Her vague recollection was curly hair and round face. No horns, no fangs, no six-inch claws.

“If I do survive and it’s not too late, can I stop by when it’s over?”

Warmth curled through her and she smiled. “I’d like that.”

He stood, causing Scooter to slowly rise, too, then gestured. “Do you need help getting her upstairs?”

“No, thank you. I don’t think I’m going to let go of her tonight.” Though she had to shift Clary to take his hand since getting out of the deep cushion without help wasn’t likely. He opened the kitchen door, then closed and locked it behind them and switched off the lights she pointed out as they made their way to the front door.

There he brushed Clary’s hair gently back from her face. “She’s beautiful. Though how could she not be, with you for a mother? You sure you don’t need help?”

“Sure.”

He fastened the leash to Scooter’s collar, then bent to kiss her. It wasn’t the kind of kiss they’d shared last night that had made her remember things in her very cells that she’d never felt before, not with Clary’s limp body between them, but maybe an even better kind of kiss.

A normal one. A routine one that was quickly becoming one of the best parts of her life.

“Good night,” he murmured, then opened the door and followed the newly energetic Scooter out.

“G’night,” Clary murmured unexpectedly before snuggling deeper against Macy.

Macy locked up and armed the alarm, balanced her daughter precariously while snagging the strap of the pink-and-purple backpack Anne had left hanging on the newel post, then headed up the stairs. She intended to have a good night. Her baby in her arms, Brent and Anne out back and sweet dreams of Stephen.