• • •
AFTER DINNER, which turned out just fine despite the fact that her mind hadn’t been on the cooking, she shooed Griff out with Callie to chase the lightning bugs. The early ones blinked their yellow lights against the dark, setting the stage for the multitudes who’d light up the hills and forests in June.
Summer was surely on the way, and the snow-caked winter of the North faded until it became distant and almost otherworldly. Something over nearly as soon as it began.
She thought how much she wanted it to be over, but despite lightning bugs, a sweet fairy garden, the deepening green of the hills, something cold had followed her home. Her little girl might be dancing with the lights out in the yard, safe under the eye of the man she was . . . involved with. Her brother would be off now, looking into that something cold. So it was here, a shadow dogging her, and she couldn’t pretend otherwise.
She had run off looking for adventure, love, an exciting future, and had come home disillusioned and riddled with debt. But there was more, and worse, and she’d have to face that down, too.
She wished she had the damn millions. She’d wrap them up in shiny paper, tie them with a bow and hand them over to this Jimmy Harlow without a single regret.
Just go away, she thought. Just leave me to take a good hold on the life I can see having now.
She couldn’t think what Richard had done with all those jewels and stamps, or the money he’d gotten from them if he liquidated them. How could she know when she’d never known him? He’d worn a disguise throughout their marriage just as truly as Jimmy Harlow had worn one that afternoon.
She’d never seen through it. Maybe a shadow, a shape now and then, but never the whole man.
She knew what Richard had seen now when he’d looked at her. A dupe—a mark, that’s what they called people like her. Something useful, maybe valuable for a time, and once used, once the value had been mined, something carelessly discarded.
She was working her way out of debt, wasn’t she? She’d taken control, taken action. She’d figure out a way to take control, to take action in what was happening now.
She wouldn’t live her life being haunted by the actions of a man who’d used her, who’d lied to her, who’d been a stranger to her.
She put away the last of the dishes, decided, hell yes, she’d have another glass of wine. She’d let Callie have a little longer before bath and bed, a little longer to dance with the lights. And tomorrow she’d start working on a way to clear her life of the past, all of it, once and for all.
She poured the wine, started for the door when her phone signaled.
She pulled it out, checked the text from Emma Kate.
I’m getting married! Holy crap! Didn’t know I wanted to until he asked. I’ve got a ring on my finger, and I’m crazy happy. I need to talk to you tomorrow—too busy now. Sending this from the bathroom before I get busy again. OMG and WTF! I’m getting married. Gotta go.
Shelby read it a second time, felt her smile getting bigger, brighter. Her best friend was dancing in the light, too.
So happy for you! she texted back. Crazy happy for you. Stay busy—I can be jealous there as I don’t know the next time I’ll be able to get busy. We’ll talk tomorrow. I want every detail. I love you—tell Matt he’s the luckiest man in the world.
She sent the text, then stepped out to do a little dancing of her own.
22
She met Emma Kate at the park so she could let Callie and Jackson play.
“Doc gave me an hour, bless his heart. He knew how much I wanted to talk to you. Look!”
Emma Kate shot out her hand, and the princess-cut diamond winked in the sun.
“It’s beautiful. It’s perfect.”
“He got channel set—see how it’s set in some, instead of poking out?”
“Yes. I just love it, Emma Kate.”
“He said he did that so I wouldn’t get it caught on things, working with patients. I love that he thought of that. And he got my exact size, too. He made a template from one of my rings—that was Griff’s idea.”
“I got a little of that when I told Griff after I got your text. He never gave me the tiniest hint that he’d gone with Matt to buy you a ring.”
“Matt says Griff’s a vault when you ask him to be.”
“I want to hear all of it. Oops, wait.” She hurried over to Jackson, who’d taken a little spill. After she brushed him off, kissed his knee, she dug out one of the trucks in her bag so he could roll it around in the sandbox.
“He’ll do all right for a while. Callie likes to boss him around some, but that’s the way it is when you’re the oldest.”
“We talked about kids, having them. We want to wait a little, but in another year or two . . . God, married, kids.” Laughing, she pressed both hands to her heart, bumped her shoulders up and down. “I can’t believe it.”
“You want it.”
“With Matt, I do. Yesterday he texted me how he had to work a little late, but he’d stop and get dinner to bring home. He brought wine, too, and flowers. I guess I should’ve known something was coming, but it was just nice not having to think about either of us cooking anything, and having a nice bottle of wine, and flowers on the table. I’m babbling on about needing to get into the salon, do something with my hair, and he says how I’m beautiful. How everything about me is beautiful.
“I figured he just wanted to get lucky.”
“Emma Kate.”
“It’s not like he never tells me, but it was the way. I’m thinking, I had such a long day, but it was so nice not to have to think about fixing anything, and I felt good, after a couple glasses of wine. So maybe we’d both get lucky.”
Pressing her hand to her heart again, she sighed. “That surely happened, but before . . . Before, he reached over for my hand, and he just looked at me. I swear, Shelby, we’ve been together for nearly three years now, but my heart skipped a beat. It really did, and it skipped another when he said how he loves me. How I make everything in his life make sense, and being with me, having a life with me, is all he wants.
“He actually got down on one knee.”
“That’s so sweet. Emma Kate, you got a storybook.”
“It feels like it right now, and I never expected it, and never thought I’d feel the way I did when he took out that ring.”
“Tell me what he said. How did he ask?”
“He said—he said just this: ‘Marry me, Emma Kate. Spend your life with me.’” Emma Kate’s eyes filled; her voice broke. “‘Build a life with me.’”
“Oh.” Shelby pulled out tissues for both of them. “That’s just right.”
“I know. Just right. So I said yes. Yes, I’ll marry you. Yes, I’ll spend my life with you. Yes, I’ll build a life with you. And he put the ring on, and it fit. I started crying I was so happy, like right now.”
She sighed, laid her head on Shelby’s shoulder. “I wanted to talk to you last night, but—”
“You were busy.”
“Really, really busy.”
Callie walked up, patted Emma Kate’s wet cheeks with both hands. “Happy tears?”
“Yes, they are, darling. Happy, happy tears. I’m going to marry Matt, and it makes me really happy.”
“I’m going to marry Griff.”
“Are you?”
“Uh-huh. I love him.”
“I know just how you feel.” Swaying side to side, she cuddled Callie. “Just exactly how. You know what, Callie? I think you should be my flower girl.”
Callie’s eyes popped wide. In a reverent whisper, she said, “Mama!”
Afraid she’d start tearing up again, Shelby popped Jackson and his sandy truck onto her lap. “My goodness, Callie, that’s such an honor. You’ve never been a flower girl.”
“I’ve never been a bride, so it’s perfect,” Emma Kate decided.
“Can I get a new dress and sparkly shoes?”
“We’re both going to get a new dress and sparkly shoes. And your ma
ma, too. You’ll be my maid of honor, won’t you, Shelby?”
“You know I will.” Beyond happy, Shelby threw her arms around Emma Kate, sandwiched the kids between them. “You know I will. And I’m going to give you the best bridal shower ever seen in the entire state of Tennessee—just like we planned when we were girls. Have you picked a date?”
“If my mama had her way it would be tomorrow, or two years from tomorrow so she could fuss me into insanity while she devises a scheme to hold the wedding in the governor’s mansion, at the very least.”
“You’re her only girl.” As she was her own mother’s, Shelby thought with a pang. “A mother’s bound to be excited over her only girl’s wedding.”
“Mama was born excited. She’s already talking dresses and colors and venues and guest lists. Matt and I talked about having a small, civilized wedding in the fall, but now that Mama’s got the bit between her teeth, we’ve surrendered to a big wedding, and next April. So I’ll be a spring bride.”
“What could be prettier? Oh, let’s have an engagement party, Emma Kate. Everybody likes a party.”
“I wanna party,” Callie chimed in.
“Of course you do. You want a party, right, Jackson?”
“I get presents?”
“It’s not a party without presents.”
“Mama’s ahead of you. I couldn’t hold her to a backyard barbecue. She wants a dress-up party, so she’s already wrangling to use the hotel. I’m letting her have her way because I’m getting mine on everything else. I’m firm on it. And I’m counting on you to help me rein her in.”
“I’m your girl. How about we give y’all a push on the swings?” she asked the kids.
“I want to go high!” Callie made a beeline for the swing.
“No point in swinging unless you go high.” Shelby hefted Jackson onto her hip. “We’ll give them a push, bride-to-be, and we can talk wedding dresses.”
“One of my current favorite subjects.”
• • •
SHELBY DIDN’T TELL Emma Kate about the keys, the laptop. She wouldn’t spoil the brightness of the moment. But she gnawed on it.
Once she had the kids fed and down for a nap—say hallelujah—she sat down with her laptop. Business first, she ordered herself, meticulously paid bills, adjusted her spreadsheet, calculated how close she’d come to paying off the next credit card.
Considerable to go on that yet.
The sales from the consignment shop had started to dwindle—not unexpected—and she reminded herself just how big a hole they’d helped fill in.
And she tried not to think just how mortifying it was to know some stranger had copied all her troubles—the e-mails, the lawyer and tax correspondence, the spreadsheet, the painful chipping away at bills.
Couldn’t let it matter, she told herself. She’d think of the upside there. Poring over her personal miseries ought to tell Jimmy Harlow if she had access to millions, she wouldn’t be squeezing out nickels and dimes to pay off debt.
He’d go away, wouldn’t he? Surely he knew he risked capture and being tossed back in prison if he stayed too close.
But then, millions of dollars made a shiny incentive.
Payback made a darker one. She understood that. She’d felt that ugly tug herself over the past months.
Take action, she thought, and began to make a list.
She culled through pictures she kept in a file. Would Harlow do the same? Was he studying her years with Richard through her photographs? And why hadn’t she deleted them—those images of Richard, of the two of them, in Paris, in Trinidad, in New York and Madrid? All those places.
All those places, she thought again.
Had he taken the property he’d stolen, stashed it on those travels with her? Another bank box, an airport locker, holding onto it or selling it off a piece at a time?
She had the photographs to tell her where they’d gone, when they’d gone.
Then Atlanta, where they’d settled. Or she had, she thought now. He’d still had all those “business trips.” And she’d packed the baby up from time to time when he insisted they fly off somewhere for a holiday.
“Where did he go when I wasn’t with him?” she wondered. “And why did he take a wife and baby he had no real interest in along other times?”
She got up, walked around the kitchen, opened the door for air, walked around again.
As cover, of course. That’s all they’d ever been to him. Just another disguise. How much had he scammed or stolen on those trips with her and Callie? She could barely think of it.
But she would think of it.
She sat again, using the photographs to add to her list. Tried to put herself back in time, in those places. But God, sometimes she’d been so tired, so stressed, trying to deal with an infant in a strange place, a place where she didn’t know the language or the geography.
She pored over what she had, making notes, trying to remember people he’d introduced her to, or had her arrange cocktail parties for. Wealthy people, she thought now. But then, she’d thought they were wealthy.
Had they been marks? Had they been associates?
Likely some of both.
She jumped up when she heard footsteps and, heart pounding, swung around to pull the chef’s knife from the block.
“Shelby? Shelby Anne?”
“Mama.” On an unsteady breath, she shoved the knife back in the block, put on a smile as her mother walked in.
“There you are. Where are my babies?”
“They’re napping, after a hard day at the park. They’ll be up soon, though, probably wanting a snack.”
“I’m going to take care of that. Look here, I got new pictures when I went in to the hospital to see the baby this morning.” She took out her phone, cuddled close to Shelby as they scrolled through. “He’s just handsome as a prince. Got his daddy’s chin, you see that? I went by Clay’s and made sure everything’s as it should be, because they’re letting Gilly bring Beau home tomorrow.”
“That’s wonderful. She’ll love being home with Jackson and the baby.”
“She’d walk out of there now if we’d let her, but she’s settled for tomorrow. I found the cutest stuffed hound dog and put it in Beau’s crib, got some nice fresh flowers for the bedroom for Gilly. That nursery’s as sweet as an ice cream cone. And I got two facials in at the salon. Later on I’m going to make up some spaghetti—Gilly favors my spaghetti—and get it over there so nobody has to think about dinner tomorrow.”
“You’re not just the best mama, you’re the best mama-in-law.”
“Gilly’s one of the lights of my life. Right now I’m going to spend the rest of the day with my two other grandbabies. And you go on, go on out and do something fun.”
“Mama, you’ve driven over to Gatlinburg and back I don’t know how many times the last two days, fussed over at Clay’s, and plan to cook them a meal so they don’t have to. And you went in to work.”
“That’s right.” All but sparkling with joy, Ada Mae got the pitcher of tea from the fridge. “And now I’m going to enjoy the rest of my day. Oh, I also went shopping. I got the sweetest little baby clothes for that boy. And picked up a big brother toy for Jackson, and a little something for Callie.”
“The best Gamma, too. Mama, you spoil them all.”
“I do a fine job of it.” She poured two glasses of tea over ice, snipped some mint from the pot on her windowsill. “I don’t know when I’ve ever felt so good. Nothing like a brand-new baby. And I’ve got a master suite straight out of a magazine. I swear I’d’ve slept in that big tub last night if I could. I’ve got my own baby girl and hers home with me. My chicks are happy and home, my husband still takes me on dates. I’ve got everything I could want.”