The Sugar Queen

  “Oh, the backyard!” Chloe said. “Josey, I want to show you the backyard.”

  Cups of coffee in hand, they went outside to the screened-in porch. The snow-covered backyard was large, large enough for a swimming pool, Chloe said, if she wanted one. But the Cramdons had gardened for years and the soil was good, so she might try her hand at that first.

  “Did you know your father?” Josey suddenly blurted out.

  Chloe raised her eyebrows at the sudden change of subject. “No, actually. I have no idea who he is. His name isn’t even on my birth certificate. My mom got pregnant with me when she was eighteen. Three days after I was born, she left town. I was raised by my great-grandparents.”

  “Have you ever tried to find out who he is?”

  “No,” Chloe said. “When I was young, I lived on fantasies of who he was. My favorite was that he was European royalty. I had a rock-star fantasy for a while too. He was from another planet in one daydream. But I realized long ago that if I really knew who he was, I’d only be disappointed. In my mind he’s sorry he never got to know me. Not knowing me is one of his biggest regrets. Secretly, over the years, he’s been watching out for me. And when my mom ran away, she ran to him. They’re happy together. I don’t want to know any differently.” Chloe suddenly smiled, realizing she’d gone dreamy. “Why do you ask?”

  “I was just thinking of my dad.”

  “He was a great man.”

  Josey nodded absently.

  “Girls,” George said, sticking his head out the back door, “who’s up for leftover pie?”

  “You wanted me to ask Mr. Lamar about the other woman my father paid off. You think it’s Chloe’s mother, don’t you?” Josey demanded when she finally got home late that afternoon and went straight upstairs to Della Lee in the closet. She was slightly out of breath, not from the dash to her room, but from the panic of how fast Della Lee’s influence was growing in her life. “You think Chloe is another one of his daughters. The first day you were here, you mentioned her by name. You kept sending me to her for sandwiches you never ate.”

  “Well, that took you long enough. What are you, blind?” Della Lee said, looking up from her collage. Today her blond hair was tied back into a ponytail with a pair of tights Josey had taken from her house. “But Chloe doesn’t know. Her mother took off with the money Marco gave her. It’s all in my mother’s notebooks. She documented their entire affair.”

  Della Lee had grown up with this. She’d been told this all her life, so of course she believed it. But the depth and detail, her complete confidence in something so wholly improbable, was getting under Josey’s skin. She was getting in her head, just like Della Lee said. “Della Lee, don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you might need professional help. I can help you. I can pay. Think about this—you’re wearing a pair of pantyhose in your hair. Is that normal?”

  Della Lee snorted. “Oh, don’t give me that. You’re starting to doubt yourself. You see how all three of us have his eyes. You see how Chloe’s hair is as crazy-curly as yours. You’re starting to believe me, aren’t you?”

  “No, I’m not,” Josey said firmly.

  “You’re saying you haven’t even considered the possibility that your father might have had other children?”

  “My father was a great man.”

  “That’s what everyone says. I wonder how many people who actually knew him believe that.”

  “I believe it.”

  “Do you? Do you really? Do you really believe that the man you knew was all there was to him? You don’t think there was something else?”

  That reminded her of Adam. Not that she thought Adam and her father were anything alike, but what she’d found out about Adam, what she never even suspected…could her father have had secrets too? Josey hesitated before saying, “You think my mother paid off your mother, that my mother knew about you. Do you think she knew about Chloe too? I mean in your fantasy. Not that I’m saying it’s real.”

  “I’m sure Margaret knew about all of Marco’s affairs.”

  Could that be why her mother had such a reaction to Chloe’s name?

  No, she thought as she walked away, she wasn’t going to go there.

  Mr. Lamar’s letter was going to settle everything anyway.

  “So you don’t want to go?” Adam asked the Sunday after Thanksgiving, waving the invitation as if that might make it more enticing.

  Jake was sitting on the couch in Adam’s living room, flipping through the television channels with the remote. “While going to the retirement party for your postal supervisor sounds like loads of fun, a bunch of us at work will be staying late Monday night. We’re ordering takeout.”

  “You’re a lousy date anyway.” Adam tossed the invitation on the coffee table and sat beside Jake. It wasn’t like anyone expected him to bring someone to these functions. He’d known about it for weeks. He’d also known Jake wouldn’t want to go. So why was he staring at the invitation instead of watching the television?

  Because of Josey.

  She was still avoiding him. He knew he had told her he liked the way things were, but that was before Wednesday night. She had somehow reached into him and seen exactly what he was trying to hide. He wasn’t here because he wanted to settle down. He missed his old life. He missed it so much that sometimes his body would shudder, as if fighting with his mind to put him in motion again. He’d felt it Wednesday night, that pull, when he was looking down into Josey’s face. It would have been so easy to kiss her. But he’d backed away instead. Was that the reason she wouldn’t come to her door now? Was she disappointed in him?

  “I think I’ll ask Josey Cirrini to the party,” he suddenly said.

  Jake muted the television and turned to him.

  “I like her.”

  Jake just stared at him, uncomprehending, as if Adam had suddenly started speaking Swahili.

  Adam shook his head and got up and walked to the kitchen. After a moment, he heard Jake get up and follow him. Adam opened the fridge and handed Jake a beer, then took one for himself.

  Jake was quiet as he opened his bottle and took a long drink. “Okay,” he finally said, “now that the shock has worn off…What?”

  “She’s nice.”

  “Well, yes, I guess she is. She sent me a card my first week at the DA’s office, saying congratulations on my new job. And she was the first person to send my mother flowers in the hospital when she had her hysterectomy. But you know what my mother said? ‘I can’t believe she sent me flowers.’ Yes, my nice little mother said that. Apparently, when Josey was a little girl, she kicked my mother in the shin when my mother saw her eating candy in the grocery store and my mother told her she should probably pay for it first. She left a scar.”

  Adam opened his bottle. “Have you ever noticed her hair?”

  “Her hair?”

  “She has great hair.”

  “I guess so.”

  “And amazing skin. And that figure…”

  “Figure?” Jake repeated. “Come on, Adam.”

  Adam was disappointed. Jake was usually more generous than this. “What did she do to you? Out with it.”

  Jake tried to look innocent. “What do you mean?”

  “She apparently did something to everyone in this town. What did she do to you?”

  Jake shuffled his feet for a while. “She stole my piece of chocolate cake,” he finally mumbled.

  Adam laughed. “So naturally you’re scarred for life.”

  “Well, I love chocolate cake.”

  Adam had done stupid things as a kid. Most people did. But when he left for college, he never looked back. His parents were gone, so he didn’t have any reason to keep in touch with anyone from his hometown in California. He couldn’t imagine what it was like for Josey to be constantly reminded, and judged, by something she did when she was so young. The dynamic of her relationship with this town was fascinating.

  Adam suddenly set his beer down and grabbed the phone book. He left the
kitchen, Jake watching him curiously. When he got to his room he sat on the edge of his bed and looked up her number. He couldn’t believe how nervous he actually was. It felt like being at the starting gate at a downhill competition. He used to feed on this feeling. And, God help him, he still liked it. He couldn’t forget it.

  He dialed and their maid answered. “Cirrini house.”

  He cleared his throat. “Could I speak with Josey, please?”

  “Oldsey?”

  “No, Josey.”

  “I get. Who speak?”

  “This is Adam Boswell.”

  “Ahhhh, the mail,” she said, sounding pleased. “Hold. I get.”

  He hunched over and stared at the floor, taking deep breaths, his heart pumping heavily. A few minutes later, Josey came on the line. “Hello?”

  His head jerked up. “Hi, Josey, it’s Adam.”

  Pause. “Hi, Adam.”

  “I haven’t seen you in a couple of days. Are you okay?”

  “Oh, yes. I’m fine,” she said awkwardly. “Thanks for calling.”

  “Wait,” he said. “Josey, you’re backing off and I don’t know why. I’m hoping it’s not because you’ve changed your mind.”

  “About what?”

  “About me.”

  Silence. “It’s not my mind that needs changing.”

  That made him smile. “Listen, I’m thirty-four and I haven’t done this in a long time, so forgive me my teenage-boyness.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “I’m asking you out on a date.”

  Silence again.

  “It’s a retirement party on Monday night. It’s short notice and not very exciting. Feel free to say no.”

  “Of course I’ll go out on a date with you,” she said simply. Of course. Like how could he have thought otherwise? Okay, so he didn’t expect her to squeal. He just thought this might be met with a little more enthusiasm. Maybe she was in shock.

  “Okay then.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “I’ll pick you up on Monday at seven o’clock.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “You already have something planned?”

  “No, it’s not that. I meant, don’t pick me up here. I can meet you somewhere.”

  His heart rate had picked up again at the jolt of a near miss, like he could have fallen. “I want to pick you up.”

  “I can’t let you do that. You’ll be berated by my mother and possibly have a curse put on you by the maid.”

  “My favorite things,” he said.

  “Seriously, I can meet you somewhere.”

  “Seriously, I want to pick you up,” he insisted.

  “For a date,” she said, as if to verify, to make sure she didn’t have it wrong.

  “Yep.”

  He was smiling when he took the phone book back to the kitchen. God, he felt good. He’d made it to the bottom of the hill. A hell of a ride.

  “Look, I’m sorry I said that about Josey’s figure,” Jake said from the living room. “I was out of line.”

  “Yes, you were.” Adam picked up his beer from the kitchen counter and joined Jake on the couch.

  “Chloe is going to be over the moon about this. She’s always wanted you to date more.”

  Adam knew Jake had been trying to call Chloe all weekend, to find out more about her buying the house. “You still haven’t been able to get in touch with her?”

  “No. She’s not answering the phone,” Jake said, staring at the television. “I’m happy about you and Josey too.”

  “Thanks.”

  Jake waited a couple of beats before he said, “I could really go for some chocolate cake.”

  Jake approached Chloe’s shop the next day, Monday, her first day back at work after the holiday. After not being able to reach her by phone, he’d stopped just short of going to the apartment to see her.

  She was buying a house.

  She was slowly, surely, moving away from him, and he didn’t know how to stop her.

  It was just after lunch, a slow time for her, and she was sitting at one of the café tables reading a book titled The Complete Homeowner’s Guide. Her hair was braided into one long plait down her back. She always wore it like that when they would go skiing or hiking. And sometimes she would stand in front of the bathroom mirror and sigh in the mornings, lifting her arms to braid it because she couldn’t do anything else with it. He remembered how her breasts moved under her shirt when she braided it, how he would come up behind her at the sink and kiss her neck, cupping her breasts. Once they’d even made love that way, her arms lifted and in her hair, his hands on her breasts, watching each other in the mirror.

  Chloe took a deep breath, like there was something in the air she had picked up on. She looked up and saw him walking toward her. She immediately stood and hurried around to the other side of the counter. He counted his blessings that she didn’t hide in the storeroom this time.

  He stopped a few feet from the counter when he saw she was backing into a corner. “You don’t have to stand back.”

  She pointed to the coffeemaker. “The water.”

  That surprised him, that she would still have the ability to sense his feelings, and that his feelings still had the ability to cause a passionate physical response in her. “Still?”

  “It didn’t stop the moment you said you cheated on me. This might be a little easier if it did.”

  He took a moment to appreciate how precise that shot was. It wasn’t a low blow, and it didn’t go over his head. It hurt right where it was supposed to. “I tried calling you over the holiday.”

  “I know.” She didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands. She tried clasping them in front of her, then crossing her arms over her chest. Finally she stuffed them into her jeans pockets. “I’ve been a little busy.”

  “You were missed at my parents’ Thanksgiving dinner.”

  “I missed going,” she said. “How was it?”

  “I really don’t know. Adam and I got sent home early for getting into a snowball fight.”

  Chloe smiled slightly.

  “Did you hear Adam and Josey Cirrini were going out?”

  “Josey called me today and told me. I’m happy for them.”

  “I knew you would be. So, I heard you were buying the house on Summertime Road,” he said, knowing the segue was wrong, and the casual tone didn’t feel right either. Well, hell, none of this felt right. He had no idea what he was doing. He just wanted to be near her. It was getting harder and harder to stay away. This past month had been excruciating without her. He would lie awake in Adam’s guest room and think about her. Every moment without conversation or distraction was filled with her. He had to let Chloe deal with this on her own terms. He knew that. What could he do, after all, when being sorry wasn’t enough? But it went against his very nature not to fix this.

  She paused, searching his face for something. “I was at the right place at the right time.”

  “I know how much you love it. I’m happy it’s going to be yours.” He wanted to ask why, why did she do it without him? He wanted to share the joy of it with her. Who better than Jake knew what buying that house meant to her?

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “What’s going to happen, Chloe? Are you moving out?”

  “Once I close on the house, I will. But if you want to come back to the apartment, I can find somewhere else to stay.”

  “No,” he said immediately. There was no way he was going to push her even farther away. “Stay there. It’s as much your place as it is mine.”

  She shook her head. “No, it’s not.”

  That surprised him. Did she buy the house because the apartment was an issue with her? “Chloe, I’ve never made you feel like it wasn’t.”

  “I know that.”

  “Tell me what to do,” he said. “Tell me how to make this right, Chloe. I don’t want to lose you, but I don’t know how to make you stay.”

  “What is h
er name?” she asked softly.

  He lowered his head. This was an impossible situation. Was he going to tell her? Could he? “I tell you, and you’ll forgive me?” He looked up and met her eyes. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Jake walked around the counter toward her. She backed farther into the corner and put her hand out. “Don’t, Jake.”

  He walked all the way up to her hand and pressed her palm against his chest under his suit jacket. “I tell you, and everything will be okay. Is that what you’re saying?” He never thought he would compromise the Beasley case like this. But he never thought he could hurt like this either. He never thought he would be a man who cheated. When she tried to take her hand away, he grabbed it and held it there. Her elbow bent, just slightly, her arm relaxing. It was like she was trying to let him closer, trying to let him in. Their bodies inched toward each other. He could feel his skin grow warm. Chloe’s eyes began to dilate.

  “Jake, I…”

  But what she was going to say was lost, interrupted by a voice booming through the rotunda. “Jake!”

  Jake turned his head to see his father walking briskly toward the shop.

  Kyle Yardley reached the counter and said, “I need a word with you.”

  The spell broken, Chloe again tried to tug her hand out of his. Jake turned away from his father and met Chloe’s eyes, trying to reestablish the connection. “Go away, Dad.”

  “I told you to stay away from her,” Kyle said.

  Jake felt his skin grow tight with anger. He couldn’t believe his father just said that in front of Chloe.

  Chloe looked confused and slightly alarmed. She tugged harder at his hand.

  “This isn’t the time,” Jake said, still looking at Chloe, trying to get her to see him, to feel him, to know that everything was going to be all right. He was so close.

  “You’re going to ruin everything. Chloe, I’m sorry,” Kyle said.

  Chloe looked at Kyle over Jake’s shoulder. She knew something was going on. “Sorry for what?”

  “Dad, get the hell out of here.”

  “Come with me,” Kyle said.