Scandal in Copper Lake (5 page)

As Lydia responded with a laugh and a protest, Anamaria sipped her tea and quietly observed Robbie’s brother. He radiated contentment. He loved his wife, she loved him, and they were
having a girl in August. They would name her Sara Elizabeth, after their mothers, but he would insist on calling her Angel.

It was so easy to see into some futures. So hard to figure out a thing about her own.

“Russ Calloway, this is Anamaria Duquesne. She’s new in town,” Lydia said.

He nodded politely in Anamaria’s direction. “You’ve met the right person to help you get acquainted. Miss Lydia knows everyone and everything that goes on in this town.”

Lydia smiled modestly. “Not quite…but I’m working at it. And in that spirit, did you come looking for me just to brighten your day?”

“Of course. And to tell you that the landscape guy will be over here at one, so you can scare him instead of his employee.”

She smiled again, looking totally harmless, Anamaria thought, but she
would
scare the guy.

After Russ left, Lydia said, “Those are the flowers your message was about. Mr. John’s prize lilies. I have an entire bed of them at home, and I’d transplanted some here. That idiot had his shovel in the ground about to uproot them when I stopped him.” Her expression turned serious, and she toyed with the teacup before finally glancing up again. “Do you have…You said there might be…”

“Another message from Mr. John,” Anamaria said smoothly. “He’s concerned about Kent.”

Another harmless message, like the lilies, she thought. But apparently it wasn’t harmless to Lydia. She stiffened, her hand frozen above her teacup, and the color drained from her face. As her hand began to tremble in midair, deep sorrow lined her face.

With a heavy sigh, she busied herself for a moment, straightening photos that were already straight, closing the lid on the pastry box, securing the small tabs that held it shut.
Finally she looked at Anamaria. “Kent is my sister’s boy. He’s a Calloway, for all the good it did him. An only child, born to a man whose standards were impossible and a woman too self-absorbed to be any kind of mother. If ever two people were ill-suited to have children, it was Cyrus and Mary. Harrison and I did what we could for the boy, but no matter how much your aunt and uncle love you, it’s still not the same as having your mama and daddy’s love…and that’s all Kent ever wanted.

“Cyrus is dead now. That was no great loss to the world. And Mary still has a home here, but she spends her time traveling. Paying attention to everyone in her life except the ones that count the most. Do you know she didn’t come home when Kent’s son was born?” Her eyes glistened with emotion. “Connor was four years old the first time she saw him. She was in Europe when Kent and Connor’s mother divorced. She was in Asia when he married Lesley, his current wife. Connor will graduate from high school this May, but Mary won’t be there to see it. I hate to speak poorly of my own sister, but…”

But she’d lost the child she loved dearly, while her sister turned her back on her own child. The unfairness of it could cause a saint to turn catty.

“But you and Harrison have been here for Kent. You were here when Connor was born, when Kent divorced, when he married again. You’ll be there at Connor’s graduation.”

Lydia quietly agreed. “We always have been. We always will be.” Again, in one of those changes that Anamaria was beginning to expect, she stood and waited pointedly. “This has been a lovely time, but if I’m going to intimidate that landscape contractor, then I need a little time to get ready for him.”

By the time Anamaria got to her feet, Lydia was already opening the door into the corridor. “Thank you for the pastries, the tea, the conversation.”

At the front entrance, Lydia opened the door, then rested one hand lightly on Anamaria’s arm. “We’ll see each other again soon. And give my best to Robbie.” She nodded, and Anamaria turned to see a familiar figure leaning against the hood of her car. Definitely Robbie, wearing khaki trousers and a pale blue button-down shirt, ankles crossed, hands in his pockets and a hard look on his face.

Her heart rate increased a few beats as she said goodbye to Lydia, then circled around to the side gate. Because of the impending confrontation. Not because he was quite possibly the handsomest man she’d ever known. Not because he might be worth regretting. Simply because he was her adversary.

That was something she couldn’t risk forgetting.

Anamaria moved with the assurance of a woman who knew her body and was comfortable in her skin. She came through the gate, then strolled along the twenty feet of sidewalk that separated them, stopping just out of reach.

Just close enough for him to catch a whiff of her fragrance—exotic, musky, putting him in mind of heat and hunger and long sultry nights. There was nothing exotic about her clothes—a denim skirt that ended a few inches above her knees, a white V-necked shirt, its short sleeves cuffed once—but the image, too, filled him with heat and hunger.

She was gorgeous.

“Three men are traveling,” she said without a greeting. “An accountant, a doctor and a lawyer. A storm breaks, they have nowhere to stay, so they stop at a farm, knock on the door and ask the farmer if they can spend the night. ‘I only have room for two of you inside,’ the farmer says. ‘The third one will have to sleep in the barn with my pig.’ The accountant says, ‘I’ll do it,’ so he goes to the barn. A little while later, he comes back to the house and says, ‘Sorry, I just can’t stand
the smell out there any longer.’ The doctor says, ‘I’ll go,’ and he goes to the barn. Soon after, he’s back at the house, saying, ‘Sorry, the smell is so bad.’ The lawyer sighs and says, ‘I’ll go.’ A little while later, the pig comes to the house and says, ‘Sorry, the stench is just too bad.’”

Robbie didn’t crack a smile. Lawyer jokes weren’t overly appreciated in the Calloway family, where about half the adults had law degrees. “River’s Edge is closed to the public on Wednesdays.”

“I know. Miss Lydia says hello.”

“Did she ask you to come here or did you set this up?”

Anamaria gazed at him a moment, all dark eyes and full lips, revealing nothing. “And this is your business how? Oh, right, her husband’s paying you to spy on both her and me.”

He didn’t feel guilty. A lawyer’s job was to protect his client. If Anamaria were as innocent as she wanted him to believe, she wouldn’t mind that.

“Where’s your toy car?”

He gestured over his right shoulder. “In my sister-in-law’s parking space.” Jamie’s office came with one space in the private lot behind the building, but deeming the alley spooky, she never used it. Since he knew the only two tenants who did, he figured the Vette was safe there.

“My car may not be as pricey—or apparently as high maintenance—as yours, but it is mine, so please get off it.”

He stood, brushing dust from his butt, then stepped onto the curb beside her just as she stepped off. She didn’t go to the driver’s door, though, and let herself in. Instead, she headed across the street.

“Where are you going?”

She waved one hand in the air but didn’t slow or turn back. “Follow me and see.”

It was a nice, sunny Wednesday morning. He had nothing
on his schedule for the rest of the day and had a cooler packed with ice-cold water and sandwiches and his boat waiting at the Calloway dock for an afternoon’s fishing—his favorite pastime.

Then he glanced at Anamaria again, at the gentle sway of her hips, the strong muscles of her calves, the swing of her arms—and amended that thought to second favorite. The fish were always biting.

He jogged across the street and caught up with her as she started along the block on the north side of the square. “How is Lydia this morning?” he asked as he matched his stride to hers.

“She’s perturbed with one of your brother’s subs for messing with her flowers.”

He grimaced. He’d once crashed his bike into one of Lydia’s flower beds and had spent the better part of the next month doing penance in her garden, digging, hauling rock, weeding. He’d never gone near anyone’s flower beds after that. “I suppose you had another ‘message’ for her today.”

She glanced at him as they reached the corner, then turned onto the path that led to Ellie’s Deli. Steps led to a broad covered porch, and a screen door opened into the main dining room. Ignoring his comment, she said, “I met your brother.”

“Which one?”

“Russ. He seemed very nice. I was surprised.”

The waitress greeted them with a smile. “Table for two?”

Anamaria gave him another glance, quick but seeing more, he’d bet, than others saw in twice the time. “Are you going to skulk nearby if I don’t invite you to share my table?”

“Calloways don’t skulk.” Then he added, “Yes, I am. We’ll take a table in the back room, Carmen.”

Anamaria opened her mouth as if to object, glanced around the dining room, then closed it again. Ellie’s was a busy place, the main room nearly full, and more than a few people were
watching them. Wondering who she was. Wondering what he was doing with her.

Carmen led them to a wrought-iron table on the glassed-in back porch, set out menus and silverware, then left to get iced teas for them both. Anamaria chose the chair facing out. He sat where he had a great view of brick wall and her.

“How many brothers do you have?” she asked as she spread a white linen napkin over her lap.

For a moment, he closed his eyes, aware of her slow, even breaths and that sweet, exotic fragrance, of warmth and desire and need. When he opened them again, she was giving him a level look. “I was projecting the answer. You didn’t get it? Some mind reader you are.”

“I don’t read minds. I read futures.”

Reaching across the table, he held out his hand, palm up. “Read mine.”

“No.”

“Why not? Am I not gullible enough?”

“Because you’re a skeptic. I don’t waste my time on skeptics.”

“How convenient, to deal only with people who already believe your mumbo jumbo.”

She studied him a moment, a cynical smile curving her lips, then opened the menu and turned her attention to it. One instant she was focused entirely on him; the next, she wasn’t. The difference was as obvious as turning off a light.

Carmen returned with the teas, delivered a loaf of warm dark bread and soft butter, then left with their orders. Anamaria continued to ignore him. He didn’t like it.

“Three,” he said at last. “Rick lives in Atlanta, Mitch in Mississippi and Russ here. We look alike, we talk alike, we sometimes act alike, but I’m the charming one.”

Finally she shifted her attention back to him. “I doubt everyone who knows you would agree.”

“Maybe their wives would argue the fact.” Rick’s wife, Amanda, certainly would. Jamie might adore him, and Mitch’s wife, Jessica, hardly knew him, but Amanda tolerated him only for Rick’s sake. Robbie couldn’t even blame her. He’d given her plenty of reason to despise him.

“Why aren’t you married?” she asked.

“How do you know I’m not?”

She nodded toward his left hand and the bare ring finger. He held out his hand, fingers spread, gazing at it. “Rumor has it that my old man had so much practice at removing his wedding band that he could do it with just his thumb, and so quickly that a prospective one-night stand never even noticed his hand moving.”

“I bet he was your hero.”

“I hardly remember the bastard. I was five when he dropped dead of a heart attack. I never missed him.” He sounded callous but didn’t care. “Tell me about your father.”

She gave another of those cynical smiles. “Don’t disappoint me and tell me you didn’t check out my birth records.”

He shrugged. “Mother—Glory Ann Duquesne. Father—Unknown. That’s officially. Unofficially, did you ever meet him?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Did you ever miss him?”

She waited until Carmen had served their meals to answer. “The last marriage in the Duquesne family took place more than two hundred years ago, and the only children born since then have been girls with gifts. Men have little place among us. We have no husbands, brothers, uncles or sons, no fathers or grandfathers. We don’t miss what we don’t have.”

“So your only use for men is to bed them and forget them.” Somewhat similar to his own policy for women. He didn’t indulge in one-night stands; that would be too much like his
father. He preferred pleasant, short-term relationships that ended amicably on both sides. In a town like Copper Lake, with its twenty thousand or so citizens, the “amicable” part was important.

“Not forget,” Anamaria disagreed. “The Duquesne women love well.”

But temporarily. It sounded as if the two of them were a good fit, on that issue, at least. But the Duquesne women, apparently, made little to no effort to avoid pregnancy. Robbie made every effort. Adults might not owe each other anything after an affair ended, but a baby…that changed everything.

“Are you planning to move back to Copper Lake?”

She shook her head.

“Sell the house?”

Another shake.

“Come back in another twenty-three years for a visit?”

She speared a tiny tomato and a chunk of cucumber on her fork and dipped them in dressing before shaking her head. Her earrings, silver chains that cascaded from a diamond-shaped shield, caught the sun, winking as they swung gently against her neck. “Who knows? I can’t tell you what I’ll be doing twenty-three days from now, much less twenty-three years.”

“Not a wise thing to say for a woman who claims to read the future.”

“Not my own future. I rarely see anything about myself or people I’m close to.”

“What else do you do? Do you know who’s on the phone before you look at the caller ID display? Can you pick lottery numbers?” He made his voice Halloween-spooky. “Do you see dead people?”

A stricken look crossed her face, shadowing her eyes, chasing away the easy set of her mouth and making her lower lip tremble just a bit until she caught it between her teeth.

Robbie felt like an ass. He’d forgotten that her mother had died, that seeing her dead in her casket was likely the most traumatic event in Anamaria’s life.