Stef Ann Holm (28 page)

“I’m Spin’s great-nephew.” He extended his hand. “Morris Leonard.”

“Oh.” The word squeaked out between Jacquie’s lips. “She’s spoken about you.”

“She told me all about you, too.”

Jacquie wasn’t sure she liked the tone of that. Speaking about someone in a casual reference and telling them all about a person were two different things.

“She did?” Jacquie blurted, unsure what to say next.

This man was delicious, and if she didn’t watch herself, she’d be sticking herself to him like chewing gum. It had been far too long since she’d gone without. But she’d made Spin a promise and she’d kept it.

Morris smiled, his lips made for kissing, his perfect white teeth disarming her resolve and tearing it down a notch. Or two. Or three. And four. “My great-aunt was a hoot. She called me up weekly and told me about the two of you.”

“She did?” Rarely did something baffle Jacquie, but this had her confused. “What did she say?”

Morris simply grinned. “A lot.”

Jacquie’s breath solidified in her throat, caught, held, and she fought to remember to inhale, then exhale. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage. I’m not sure what this is all about.”

“I’m not exactly sure, either. Other than she spoke very highly of you and she told me not to talk to you until after the graveside service. She said she didn’t want you distracted from crying over her.”

“Distracted? Did she really say that?” A flash of indignance lit into Jacquie. She’d been overwrought, damaged, upset. That Spin would ever suggest she’d come to a funeral and be distracted—

But she had.

Shit on a stick. Spin had been right. The very irony…

Jacquie raised a gloved hand to her cheek and the words in Spin’s letter came back to her. Then, unbidden, she began to smile. Wider, bigger, broader, until she was laughing. And laughing so hard she almost peed her pants.

“Oh, you old bird,” she said with complete humor. “I get it now.”

Then, gazing at Morris, for the first time in months she let the old Jacquie come out and play. “Morris, how often do you get up to Red Duck?”

“Apparently not often enough.”

“My thoughts exactly. There’s somewhere I need to take you. Spin wanted me to show you her and Wally’s favorite fishing spot. And after that, I know of a fabulous place for dinner and drinks. We’ll give a toast to Spin. She’d like that. I know it for fact.”

The warmth that spread through Jacquie was a welcome tide, and long overdue. Her gaze settled on Morris Leonard like that of a cat who’d been denied a bowl of cream forever.

It felt good to feel sexy again. To allow herself to purr and be a female who appreciated a handsome man. On that thought, she let herself smile.

Jacquie Santini was back in business.

Lucy had been sewing new curtains for the living room. It had taken her the better part of yesterday to measure and cut everything into the right dimensions.

She’d worked out a deal with Bud Tremore that was too good to be true—but it was true. For whatever reason, Bud agreed to let her stay in the teardown. She’d proposed she pay for the land on a lease-to-own basis, since that was the only value the property had. It was an incredible arrangement. He was in no hurry to move his RVs and she’d gotten used to them, anyway. But the house needed major improvements and she’d been determined to make this a home for her and the boys. So she’d been painting and fixing things up on her days off.

The master bedroom was complete. With Drew’s help, she’d installed new floor molding, applied a coat of beige paint to the walls and refinished the hardwood floors—a process that had taken her far longer than she’d anticipated. The smell of varnish still lingered in the house. She bought rose-print fabric for her vanity skirt, hung some oval mirrors and had herself a nice place to put on her makeup.

Leaving the kitchen table, where her sewing machine was set up, she went into the kitchen to pour another cup of coffee. There was a coolness to the room and she was glad she’d had Jason chop a bunch of firewood into kindling.

She took her cup into the living room, threw some slivers of wood into the iron stove and sighed with contentment as the flames licked and sparked over the dry timber.

She caught a glance of her reflection in the window glass. She wore her favorite peach sweater, black jeans and little black-beaded slippers. Smiling to herself, she thought this was a nice day to be in Red Duck.

The boys were in school—Jason having driven them in a used Toyota truck she’d picked up for a reasonable price. She had the house to herself, and she was cooking for two clients tomorrow, so it would be a nice payday.

Remembering she needed a different spool of thread, she went into the bedroom where she kept her sewing things in the closet. As she rifled around for what she needed, the phone rang.

She’d had a land line installed for the Internet, the old wall phones still in place and now working. The boys thought it barbaric that she didn’t buy a cordless, but the three-prong jacks for the corded phones would have to be converted, and she thought they lent a nice touch as is.

“Hello?” she said into the receiver, the handset heavy.

“Mrs. Carpenter, this is Mr. Summers, the principal at your son’s school.”

Principal. School.

Dread worked up Lucy’s spine. Not again. Please, no.

“I’m calling about an incident we had today during break.”

Lucy felt sick to her stomach.

“Your son and a few other boys were discovered out in the parking lot—”

—smoking marijuana—

“—with a box of tarantulas.”

The ringing in Lucy’s ears ceased. “Excuse me?”

“They were in the back by the Dumpster and betting money to see whose tarantula would kill the others.”

“What?” Lucy blurted, not able to connect the dots. What was Jason doing with tarantulas?

“Nobody got hurt, and from what our science teacher told us, a tarantula sting is no worse than that of a bee’s.” The principal went on in a half-amused voice, almost as if he were reflecting on an old schoolboy prank he’d once done. “I’ve seen a lot of things, but this was a first. We’re making all of the boys stay after school with desk-cleaning detention. Just wanted to let you know.”

Relief pooled in Lucy. Thank goodness it was nothing more than this, and if she allowed herself, there was a warped humor in the whole thing. Tarantula fights? A total boy thing that she would never understand, but it did give her a smile. “I do appreciate the call,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’ll talk to Jason when he gets home.”

The line grew quiet, then he said, “Ms. Carpenter, I’m Mr. Summers at the middle school. I’m calling about your son Matthew.”

“Mattie?” Lucy exhaled a huff of breath, then a delayed laugh. “Oh, I just assumed…” She let the thought trail, her laughter increasing. “I’m sorry. It’s just that…never mind.”

Some days, she just never knew what was going to happen, and this was one of them. She’d take tarantulas over pot any day. An astonishing sense of fulfillment washed over her. She’d come a long way. So had the boys.

They were all going to be okay.

After hanging up, Lucy remembered the thread, but the phone rang once more.

“Hello?”

“Hey, babe.” Drew’s voice warmed her to the core. “What are you doing?”

Lucy loved it when he called, loved hearing the sound of his voice. She sat on the floor and settled in to talk to him. “Just thinking about how great my life is.” She lay on the hardwood, propped her slippered feet on the wall and stretched the phone cord through her fingers. “It feels good to have it back.”

A
s far as Roger Lewis was concerned, Opal had the best set of gams on a woman he’d ever seen. They were as thin as twigs, but they had a real shape to them that he admired. They’d been going out for three weeks now, and he was after her flirty-girl trail like a bloodhound on a scent.

If he believed the rumors, they were engaged. Roger couldn’t go that far, but as he leaned back on his bar stool to watch his gal head on over, the thought did pop into his head. He had been waiting a long time to nail her.

“Hey, Rog,” she said, settling a smooch on his mouth right in front of everyone.

“Hey, Opal.”

“The day I’ve had. Ada let loose on me that if Drew brings her any more biscuits, she’s going to kill me.” Opal parked her behind on a stool. “She’s gained ten pounds on the South Beach.”

Raul rolled his beady eyes. The new couple were nauseating, ruining his appetite for what was already bad buffalo wings.

“And they call this bleu cheez dip?” he complained, poking a wing tip into the white puddle of dressing.

“You ought to cook for High Country, Raul.” Clyde made the suggestion. “Give this lounge some class.”

“I don’ cook for no restaurants. The Raul is a private chef and the number one best cook in all of Timberline. I always will be and don’ you forget it.” Cocky arrogance marked his tone, but the truth was the truth.

Although Raul would never admit it to anyone, Lucy Carpenters was very talented when it came to culinary expertise. After Spin’s funeral, Lucy and he had formed a kind of respectful thing for each other’s chef business. That wasn’t to say the Raul didn’t retain his mythological status in town, because he had savvy and looks—he just glanced the other way now and then and let Lucy shine.

Lloyd Zaragoza scooped a big wad of blue cheese onto his hot wing and munched the skin right off the bone. “Mighty good eats. Did I tell you that I heard some news about Jacquie Santini the other day?”

All eyes leveled on him.

“She got married. To that lawyer fella. Morris Leonard.”

Opal lit an unfiltered, blew the smoke away from the group. “He was related to Spin, wasn’t he?”

“Great-cousin three times removed,” Clyde stated.

“I thought he was her nephew,” Roger said.

“Who the hell cares?” Lloyd grumbled. “I’m trying to tell you a story.” In between licking his fingers, he related, “So anyway, this is what I heard. She married that Leonard guy and opened up her own real estate company in Boise—Santini Properties.”

“It sounds like a magic show,” Raul suggested.

“That was Houdini, you lug-head,” Lloyd growled.

“Santini. Hoodini. It don’ make no difference to me becuz in La Puente, you don’ need no magician to make your Cadillac disappear. Jess a Slim Jim.”

Opal laughed, cuddling up to her sheriff. She loved a man in uniform. He put a hand on her thigh and she winked at him. Bud Tremore made a face. He was probably jealous, the old coot.

Talk drifted over the tabletop like streams of Opal’s cigarette smoke. Drew and Lucy were always good for conversation, but they had turned about as dull as the floor in the Mule Shoe. They acted like a normal couple around town, never doing anything scandalous that anyone could tell, and always holding hands and kissing.

Trying to keep the conversational attention focused on him, Lloyd exclaimed, “That Jacquie is a piece of work. Seems like just yesterday she got arrested for painting red lipstick on that statue of Judge Harrison down in Boise.”

“I-gad, I remember that,” Clyde mused aloud. “I think it was that Leonard fella who sprung her from the jail. Bail was something like a thousand clams.”

“Four hundred,” Raul said.

Opal chimed in. “She got out on a bond that was five hundred dollars.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Bud adamantly shook his head.

Then a big debate ensued and suddenly everyone was talking over everyone as they all remembered the story a little differently.

It was just another day in Red Duck.

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