into her father when he stepped over, folded her into his arms, rocked her side to side. “I thought I knew how much it weighed, since I’ve been carrying it. But now that it’s lifted, it was heavier than I thought.”
“We can help you with the rest of it. Your mama and I talked it over, and—”
“No, Daddy. No. Thank you so much. I love you.” She laid her hands on his cheeks. “I’m doing it. It’s going to take a while, but I’m doing it, and doing it feels good. It balances out, some, all the times I just let things go, stopped asking questions, let somebody else take care of everything.”
She leaned against him, smiled at her mother. “And the worst of it’s behind me now. I can deal with what’s ahead. I’m so grateful to know if it gets too heavy again, I can ask.”
“Don’t ever forget that again.”
“I swear it. I’ve got to get my baby in the tub. I had a good day,” she said as she pulled back, hauled up her bag. “I had a real good day.”
Once she’d tucked Callie in, she sat down with her spreadsheet. She should probably wait until settlement, but she thought she had every right to be optimistic. When she balanced the sheet with the sale, she shut her eyes, just breathed.
It was still a painful debt, but oh God, she’d cut it down to size.
The worst, she thought again, was over. And what was ahead?
She lay back on the bed, called Emma Kate.
“How was pizza?”
“It was magic, or so Griff convinced Callie, so she went to bed with a big smile and the anticipation of being a fairy princess riding a dragon. Before she and Griff get married with all due pomp and ceremony.”
“He’s got a way with kids. I think he’s got a lot of little boy left in there.”
“He kissed me.”
“Was that magic, too?” Emma Kate asked without missing a beat.
“My brain’s still soft. Don’t tell Matt my brain went soft. He’ll tell Griffin, and I’ll feel like an idiot. I don’t know if it’s because it’s been so long since I’ve had a serious kiss, or if he’s just that damn good at it.”
“I’ve heard he’s damn good at it.”
Shelby smiled, curled up. “Did your brain go soft the first time Matt kissed you?”
“It liquefied and leaked out of my ears. Which sounds disgusting, but was anything but.”
“I feel so good, so good I’d forgotten how it feels to feel so good. I just had to call you. I sold the house, and got kissed brainless on High Street.”
“You— Oh, Shelby, that’s great! On both counts, but shedding that house. I’m so happy for you.”
“I’m starting to see my way clear, Emma Kate. I’m really starting to see a clear path. Some more bumps to get over, but I see the clear.”
And part of the clear was being curled up on her bed talking to her best friend.
• • •
THE GOOD DAY ROLLED into a good week. She could savor the sensation of being happy and productive, of earning her way.
She mopped floors, filled dispensers, booked appointments, rang up sales, listened to gossip. She commiserated when Crystal complained about her boyfriend, comforted Vonnie when the masseuse’s grandmother passed peacefully in her sleep.
She set up chairs and tables in the little back garden area of the day spa, potted up some flowers.
After checking out the preschool where Chelsea would go come fall, she enrolled Callie. And felt the pride and the pang of what she knew would be the first of many layers of separation.
She had ice cream with Griff and discovered the second kiss could be as powerful as the first. But she hedged when he asked her out to dinner.
“It’s just my time’s so budgeted right now. I’ve got a routine going at the salon, so I’m easier there. But until I sing Friday night, see how that goes, I’m using up my free time rehearsing and planning for the next week.”
“After Friday.” He laid out the elements that would heat the tile floor of the new bathroom. “Because it’s going to go great.”
“I hope so. Maybe you could come by Bootlegger’s on Friday for a set.”
He sat back on his haunches. “Red, I wouldn’t miss it. I like listening to you rehearse in the shower.”
“I’m heading out right now to rehearse in place before the bar and grill opens. I hope Tansy’s right about people wanting to hear somebody sing old songs while they’re eating their pork chops or scooping up nachos.”
She pressed a hand on her belly. “We’re going to find out.”
“Nervous?”
“About the singing? No. I don’t get nervous about singing, it feels too good. About the draw not justifying what they pay me. I’m nervous about that. I’ve got to get on. It’s looking good in here.”
“It’s coming along.” He smiled at her. “Let’s make the word of the day ‘gradation.’ One step at a time.”
“Mmm,” she said, understanding he wasn’t just talking about a new bathroom.
• • •
SHE SQUEEZED IN A LAST REHEARSAL Friday morning, and ordered herself not to think about what she could do with the songs if she had a couple of live musicians.
Still, she thought she put a little of her own spin on the old classic “As Time Goes By.”
“Play it, Sam,” Derrick said from behind the bar.
“Of all the gin joints in all the world.”
“Are you an old-movie fan?”
“My daddy is, so we had to be. And who doesn’t love Casablanca? How’d that sound to you, Derrick?”
“It sounded like Tansy had it right. We’re going to rack them, stack them and pack them on Friday Nights.” Restacking glasses freshly cleaned from the night before, he cocked an eyebrow at her. “How do you feel about it?”
“Hopeful.” She stepped down off the tiny stage. “I just want to say, if it doesn’t pull in a big draw, if it just doesn’t work, it’s not a problem.”
“Are you setting up to fail, Shelby?”
She cocked her head, walked toward the bar. “Forget what I just said. We’re going to kick ass so high here tonight, butts’ll be landing on the moon, and you’re going to be obliged to give me a raise.”
“Don’t get carried away. Want a Coke?”
“Wish I had time for one, but I have to head over to the salon.” To be sure she wasn’t already late, she tipped her phone out of her pocket to check the time.
“Tonight should bring people in, just to see,” she said. “There’s me, the girl who wasn’t there for a while, and all the hyping Tansy’s done. Flyers everywhere, and I’m plastered all over your Facebook page. Hell, my family’s big enough to be a crowd, and a lot of them will be here. That’s something.”
“Kick ass high.”
“Kick ass high,” she agreed. “I’ll see you tonight.”
She walked out, distracted, still rehearsing in her head. She barely noticed the woman who fell into step beside her until she spoke.
“Shelby Foxworth?”
“Sorry.” She’d gotten used to “Pomeroy” again in such a short time she nearly said no. “Yes. Hello.”
She stopped, smiled and searched her memory banks. But the stunning brunette with the cold brown eyes and the perfect red lips didn’t ring any bells.
“I’m Shelby. I’m sorry, I don’t recognize you. Who are you?”
“I’m Natalie Sinclair. I’m Jake Brimley’s wife. You knew him as Richard Foxworth.”
The half-smile stayed on Shelby’s face as the words sounded like a foreign language to her ears. “What? What did you say?”
Something feline moved into the woman’s eyes. “We really need to talk, somewhere more private. I saw a cute little park not far. Why don’t we go there?”
“I don’t understand. I don’t know any Jake Brimley.”
“Changing a name doesn’t change who you are.” Natalie reached into a pale blue handbag, drew out a photograph. “Look familiar?”
In the picture the brunette was cheek
to cheek with Richard. His hair was longer than he’d worn it, a bit lighter. Something was different about his nose, Shelby thought.
But it was Richard smiling out at her.
“You—I’m sorry—are you saying you were married to Richard?”
“No. Wasn’t I clear? Let me say it again, in case you have trouble understanding. I was, and am, married to Jake Brimley. Richard Foxworth never existed.”
“But I—”
“It’s taken me quite a while to track you down, Shelby. Let’s have a chat.”
Brimley was not one of the names she’d found in the bank box. My God, had he had another? Another name. Another wife.
“I need to make a call. I’m going to be late for work.”
“Go right ahead. It’s a quaint little town, isn’t it? If you go for gun racks and camo.”
And didn’t she sound just like Richard? “There’s also art.” Shelby bit off the words. “Music, tradition, history.”
“No call to get testy about it.”
“People who consider us hicks are generally self-important snobs from somewhere else.”
“Ouch.” Looking amused, Natalie gave a quick shudder. “Struck a nerve.”
Rather than try to explain what was going on in a call, Shelby texted her grandmother, apologized, let her know she’d be a little late.
“Some people like quaint. I’m a city girl.” Natalie gestured toward the crosswalk, began to walk in gorgeous heeled sandals of pale gold. “So was Jake. But you didn’t meet Jake here.”
“I met Richard in Memphis.” Everything seemed just a little blurry. “I was singing with a band during my summer break from college.”
“And he just swept you away. He was good at that. Exciting, charming, sexy. I’ll bet he took you to Paris, a little café on the Left Bank. You’d stay at the George Cinq. He bought you white roses.”
A raw, ugly sickness roiled in her stomach—and must have shown on her face.
“Men like Jake have patterns.” Natalie patted Shelby’s arm.
“I don’t understand. How can you be married to him? I mean, he’s dead, but how could you have been married to him? We were together for over four years. We had a child together.”
“Yes, that was a surprise. But I can see how the family unit could work for him. I had the poor judgment to marry him—whirlwind to Vegas. Sound familiar? And I had the good sense not to divorce him when he left me in the lurch.”
It dropped on her, a single crushing weight. “I was never married to him. That’s what this means. That’s what you’re saying.”
“Since he was still legally married to me, no, you weren’t ever married to him.”
“And he knew.”
“Of course he knew.” Now she laughed. “What a bad boy! Of course, that’s part of the appeal. Such a bad, bad boy, my Jake.”
The park held quiet. No kids on the swings or teeter-totter, none running over the green, climbing on the jungle gym.
Natalie sat on a bench, crossed her legs, patted the space beside her.
“I wasn’t sure if you realized that part and played along. It seems he duped you. But then, that’s what he does.” For an instant something that might have been sorrow flickered over Natalie’s face. “Or did.”
“I can’t think.” Shelby lowered to the bench. “Why would he do this? How could he do this? Oh my God, are there any more? Did he do this to another woman?”
“I couldn’t say.” Natalie gave an easy shrug. “But since he swung pretty quick from me to you, I don’t think there’s another wife in between. And that’s the time I’m interested in.”
“I don’t understand.” Suddenly breathless, Shelby sat back, pushed both hands through her hair, held it back a moment. “I can’t understand any of this. I was never married,” she said slowly. “It was all fake, just like the ring.”
“You lived pretty well for a while, didn’t you?” Natalie angled to her, aimed a look of contempt. “Paris, Prague, London, Aruba, Saint Bart’s, Rome.”
“How do you know all that? How do you know where I went with him?”
“I made it my business to know. You had a luxury condo in Atlanta, country clubs and Valentino dresses. Then the mansion in Villanova. You can’t claim he didn’t give you plenty. Seems to me you had a good deal.”
“A good deal? A good deal?” Not breathless now, not when insult and fury rolled through. “He lied to me, right from the start. He made me his whore without my knowing. I thought I loved him. At first, I thought I loved him enough to leave my family and everything I knew and thought I’d wanted.”
“Your mistake, but you were compensated. Plucked you out of this little hick town, didn’t he? Oh, excuse me, this art-and-culture-ridden town. Dropped you right in the lap for a few years, so don’t whine, Shelby. It’s unattractive.”
“What’s the matter with you? You come here, tell me all this. Maybe you’re the liar.”
“Check it out, be my fucking guest. But you know I’m not lying. Jake had a way of making women fall for him, and do what he wanted.”
“Did you love him?”
“I liked the hell out of him, and we had a damn good time. That was enough, would’ve been enough if he hadn’t hung me out to dry. I made an investment in him, you could say. And I paid a high price. I want my payoff.”
“What payoff?”
“Twenty-eight million.”
“Twenty-eight million what? Dollars? Are you crazy? He didn’t have anywhere near that kind of money.”
“Oh, he had it. I know because I helped him get it. Just shy of thirty million in sparkly diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires and rare stamps. Where is the take, Shelby? I’ll settle for half.”
“Do I look like I have diamonds and emeralds and all that? He left me in debt up to my eyeballs. That’s the price I’m paying for believing him. What did you pay?”
“Four years, two months and twenty-three days in a cell in Dade County, Florida.”
“You—you were in prison? For what?”
“For fraud, since I rolled like an acrobat on Jake and Mickey. That’s Mickey O’Hara, the third member of our happy little band. Mickey’s got twenty years to go, last I heard.”
Smile sharp and derisive, she ticked her finger at Shelby. “You don’t want Mickey O’Hara coming after you, Shelby. Take my word on that.”
“You hired that private investigator to hound me.”
“I can’t say I did. I do my own investigating—it’s one of my skills. Half, Shelby, and I’m gone. I earned every penny of it.”
“I don’t have half of anything to give you.” Shelby lurched to her feet. “Are you saying Richard stole millions of dollars? That the detective from Florida was telling me the truth?”
“It’s what we do, sweetheart. Or in his case, what he did. Find the mark. Rich, lonely widows worked best for Jake. He could turn them into putty in a matter of days. Easy to get them to ‘invest’ in a land deal—that was his specialty. But the big one, the biggest of our career, the one that went wrong, that was jewels and stamps, and she had some beauties. If you expect me to buy that you knew nothing about nothing, you’re not selling it.”
“I’m not selling a damn thing. If he had all that, why am I paying off his debts?”
“He always was a bit of a hoarder. And those jewels were hot. The stamps? You’d need to find just the right collector for them. When it went south, Jake could take off with them, but if he’d tried to sell them, even breaking the jewelry down to the stones, they’d have tracked him. Something like that, it’s best to give it a few years, lay low.”
“Lay low,” Shelby murmured.