The Coldwater Warm Hearts Club (4 page)

“What if I'm allergic?”

“Are you?” Mrs. Paderewski arched a pencil-thin brow at her.

Lacy's dad always recommended the truth. “It's easier,” he'd say. “We forget lies. Tell the truth and you don't have to remember what you told someone.”

“No, I'm not allergic,” she admitted.

“Well, there you go. Is settled.”

“But I can't have a cat. I've never had a cat.”

It was a bit like being Republican or Democrat. Either you were a dog person or a cat person. Lacy's family was filled with dog people.

Dogs were faithful, friendly, and pathetically eager to please. Cats never let you forget the favor they bestowed on you by allowing you to serve them.

“Last tenant left her, poor thing,” Mrs. P said, angling for a little sympathy for the creature. “She have no home.”

“You could take it to the animal shelter,” Lacy said. The way the cat bared its teeth at that suggestion, she probably ought to have it exorcised first.

“That I could not do.” Mrs. P. lowered her voice to a whisper. “If no one takes cat after little while . . .” She drew a finger across her throat.

As if it understood and wouldn't forget the insult, the cat emitted a strange staccato meh-ing.

Lacy took a step back. “I've never heard a cat make a sound like that.”

“Is OK. Is nothing. Siamese, they do it sometimes,” Mrs. P said.

“What's it mean?”

“Is cat. What can it mean?” Mrs. P shook her head as if the animal hadn't just made a sound like a feline Gatling gun.

“Mrs. Paderewski, it's obvious you're a cat lover. Look at it, er, him. Oh, that's right. It's a her, you said. She's such a pretty thing.” The cat flattened its ears to its head, obviously recognizing self-serving BS when it heard it. “Why don't you take it?”

“I would, but seven I have already.”

“She tempt me, but no, I cannot,” Mrs. Paderewski said. “But you can. She good company. You see. Cats, they no trouble. Food, water, litter, done. So, we good?”

Lacy looked around the apartment. It was charming, clean, and since it was located on the Town Square, she could indulge in the fantasy that she was still living in the thick of things like she had in her Boston loft. Everything else about the place was perfect.

How bad could a cat be?

She counted out her deposit and first month's rent in crisp Benjamins. “What's the cat's name?”

“Don't know. Last tenant call her ‘eff-ing cat.' Is not nice.” Mrs. Paderewski tucked the money into her cleavage. It would never see the inside of a bank. What the IRS didn't know evidently wouldn't hurt her. “So I call Effie. Is nice name. She like.”

“Effie,” Lacy repeated as Mrs. P made good her escape.

The cat growled menacingly. What Effie would really like was to be left alone.

“You and me both, cat,” Lacy told her. “You and me both.”

* * *

Jake gave his wet head a shake as he sat down to put on his prosthetic leg. His physical therapist had advised him to switch to tub baths instead of showers, but he'd never liked soaking in his own dirt. Hopping on a wet surface wasn't advisable, so he kept a set of crutches close. He had a teak bench in the stall to balance on if he needed it.

All in all, getting clean after a day behind the grill was a complicated business, but what hadn't become more complicated since his injury?

Jake massaged his stump, checking for sores or the start of one. The last thing he needed was a blister that might develop into something worse. He didn't think he could bear going back into a wheelchair.

There was something “in your face” about his titanium leg. He liked it. He could have had one that looked real enough to fool most folks, but he preferred the bare metal. It was like shouting to the world, “If I'm tough enough to wear it, you can be tough enough to look at it.”

A wheelchair, on the other hand, made him invisible. People, women especially, had averted their eyes when he'd rolled down the German hospital corridor. Once he got his leg, he felt like a man again.

Most of the time.

He stood and put his weight on the limb. The pin clicked into place and the leg was his again. Then he tugged on a set of sweats and wandered into his living room, wondering if he'd be able to catch the last few innings of a ball game before he fell asleep in front of the TV.

There was a time when he'd have hit a couple of bars after work, maybe closed one down. It wouldn't have to be on a Friday night either. Now, after all day on his feet, he couldn't wait to get his leg up.

Then he made the mistake of looking across the Square from his apartment above the Green Apple.

“Someone should tell Lacy she needs blinds,” he muttered.

He could see her puttering around in her new place amid all the boxes. Moving was all it was cracked down to be.

Fortunately, his was. Jake headed down the back stairs to the grill to check the fridge. There was still some meat loaf, even though it had gone over well with the early supper crowd. Since the Green Apple didn't have a liquor license, he closed up by 6:30 every day. Along with freeing up his evenings, it appealed to his sense of fairness.

When he put the meat loaf in the oven to warm, the savory scent streamed into the air. He nuked some garlic mashed potatoes and fried okra. Once it was all steaming hot, he packed the food in an insulated catering bag along with some fresh icebox rolls. Then he decided to screw watching his diet for once and dished up blackberry cobbler and hand-packed homemade walnut ice cream for two. Lastly, he put a bottle of Yellow Tail merlot from his private wine stash into the bag.

His grill might not have a liquor license, but that didn't mean the apartment above the Green Apple was dry.

Jake headed out the front, setting the bells ajingle, and locked the door behind him. He nearly tripped over Lester, who'd staked out a spot on the sidewalk where he could watch the occasional car and more frequent pedestrian go around the Square.

“Easy there, marine,” Lester said, smoke curling from his stubby cigarette. Jake was relieved to smell only tobacco. “Walk wary. Saw an enemy patrol cruise by about a minute ago.”

“I'll keep an eye out.” He was also glad to see that Lester hadn't relocated his pallet of dirty blankets to the front of the restaurant. “Think it might rain tonight. The Green Apple has a covered back stoop, remember.”

Lester nodded. “Might take you up on it. Never know where the Cong is like to show up. Don't think they patrol the alley much though.”

Cong.
Poor guy thought he was still back in Nam half the time. At least when Jake had a flash that took him to Helmand province, it was very much separated from the real world, and once he came to himself, he knew exactly where he was and what had happened. He could usually hide that he'd even had an episode. That counted for something in Jake's book. It gave him a measure of control.

For Lester, the past was all tangled up in the present and he couldn't seem to distinguish between the two. On top of that, his mental state was slathered with a thick coat of paranoia.

But sometimes Jake wondered if there might come a time when a flashback might fail to disperse completely. Or if he'd lash out at someone in the throes of one without realizing what he was doing. He shook off the morbid thought. No sense borrowing trouble.

Jake took off around the Square. Half a dozen middle-aged couples were headed to the Opera House, where the local big band would be playing standards until 11:00 p.m. That counted as a pretty late night for most of the wannabe swing dancers. Some skateboarders had set up a ramp on the courthouse steps. They'd flirt with head injuries until a County Mounty came by, gave them a stern lecture, and made them pack up their gear.

There were a few window shoppers wandering toward the ice-cream parlor that stayed open late hoping to catch folks coming out of the five-dollars-a-head theater. The Regal never screened a first-run show, but it was a good place for a guy to get real butter on his popcorn.

Jake shook his head. He used to think of the back row of that theater as his favorite make-out spot. Now greasy popcorn was the first thing that came to him. He had to get his mind off his leg and on a woman again.

Well, he was doing that, wasn't he? Lacy Evans was the best opportunity that had come his way in a long time. She was worth the effort.

Worth the risk.

He rounded the corner and ducked into the alley behind Lacy's row of buildings. One of the sheriff's office cruisers was parked back there.

Jake glanced up in time to see Daniel Scott bounding up the metal staircase to the iron decking that led to Lacy's new apartment.

It made twisted sense that Lester would mistake his son for an old army foe. The now homeless vet had abandoned his family and Coldwater Cove near the end of Danny and Jake's senior year. Jacob had tried to forget about what had happened. He and Dan certainly never talked about that night or what had gone on in the Scott home leading up to it, but after the old man left, Danny's mom made a lot fewer trips to the emergency room.

But screw the past. Jake was inclined to side with Lester on this one. Everyone in town knew Danny and his wife Anne were separated, but they were still married. He had no business sniffing around Lacy Evans.

Jake started up the flight of stairs, his titanium leg clicking with each riser. Time to engage the enemy. He had meat loaf, blackberry cobbler, and—if he did say so himself—a killer smile in his arsenal. Danny Scott had a slightly tarnished wedding ring and a handful of otherwise empty fingers.

“Game on, Cong.”

 

—Daniel Scott, deputy sheriff

 

 

 

L
acy's furniture had been tentatively placed in the appropriate rooms. Boxes filled with her belongings were stacked on the kitchen counter, the small dining set, and her built-for-stout-not-for-looks coffee table.

“Coming,” she called out when she heard a rap on her door. She was happy to quit unwrapping the box of coffee cups to answer the knock. So far she'd counted five broken ones.

When she opened the door, she discovered Daniel.

“What are you doing here? I mean . . . well, that sounded rude,” she said. “I just . . . I thought you'd probably be manning the speed trap on Route 59.”

“Mabry's got the laser gun tonight,” Daniel said. The trap was designed to catch tourists in a hurry to connect with the scenic Talimena Byway. The locals knew the troopers would be there so they tended to behave themselves, but lookee-loos from other parts were none the wiser. It was no skin off the town fathers' noses if outsiders got to make not-so-cheerful donations to the county coffers.

“Can I come in?”

“Oh, yeah, I'm sorry.”
Sheesh! I must have misplaced my manners somewhere around Cleveland.
Lacy waved him in and he took off his hat. He still had that determined set to his jaw. His shoulders were broader than she remembered and he needed a haircut, but he still seemed like the same Daniel.

When he met her gaze, she hoped to heaven her face didn't show the way her insides jittered. It was stupid really. He might look like her Daniel, but he wasn't. In all the ways that mattered, they'd both changed. A lot.

But her stomach didn't seem to realize it.

Daniel crossed around to the other side of the kitchen peninsula and hitched a hip on one of the bar stools.

“Are you getting settled in?” he asked.

“Sort of.” She unwrapped the next cup and found that its handle was cracked in two places. “Oh, darn. This was my Grandma's.” She wasn't usually attached to things, but there were a few pieces that meant something to her because they'd belonged to people she loved. She narrowly resisted the urge to swear over the loss of this one.

“Keep track of your breakage,” Daniel advised. “You can get the moving company to reimburse you.”

She sighed. “It's not their fault this box got dropped. In fact, I'll be relieved if they don't sue. I had to tip one of the movers an extra ten dollars on account of the scratch.” She tried to fit the pieces of the delicate cup back together. A little of her dad's superglue might fix it, but it would never be the same. “And I'm not talking about the scratch he made on my coffee table.”

“Why'd you tip him at all?”

“Through no fault of my own, I have acquired a cat. She came with the apartment,” Lacy explained, gesturing toward Effie, who leaped up, as if on cue, to perch on the other bar stool next to Daniel. The cat daintily licked one of her front paws. “Meet Effie the Deranged.”

“Looks harmless to me.”

“Maybe now, but trust me, she's the feline from hell. She took a serious dislike to the movers. I had her shut up in the laundry, but one of the men accidentally opened the door and Effie came flying out. She landed on his face and cut a deep gouge in his cheek. I couldn't blame him for dropping the box he was holding.”

After that, the cat had streaked around the apartment defying Lacy's efforts to catch her. Finally, Effie scrambled up the drapes in the living room and from there, made a prodigious bank shot of a leap to the peninsula and then to the top of the kitchen cabinets. She stayed there for the duration of the move, spitting and yowling when anyone looked her way.

“Poor movers.” Daniel eyed Effie with suspicion. “Guess she was trying to tell them she preferred the place empty.”

“I hope you've had all your shots,” Lacy told the cat. Then she turned to Daniel. “I guess I ought to take her to the vet to make certain. But that supposes I can get close enough to put her into a carrier of some sort.”

Effie laid her ears back and hissed.

“She won't let you near her?”

“No, she allows me to feed and water her. I'm good enough to clean the litter box, but heaven forefend I touch
her
. Effie is a one-person cat who hasn't found her person yet.” With a slightly malicious grin, Lacy turned to the animal. “Better start playing nice. If not, once I manage to corral you in a carrier, I may never let you out.”

Effie produced that staccato
meh
-ing noise again, as if daring her to try it.

“Ignore her,” Daniel said, shifting away from the animal on his bar stool.

“Good idea,” Lacy agreed. “That's probably the worst thing you can do to a cat.”

Obviously offended, Effie lifted her question mark of a tail toward both of them and jumped down from the bar stool. Daniel laughed.

Lacy's heart ached a bit to hear it. She'd always loved his laugh, maybe because she heard it so seldom.

“Always figured you for a dog person.” He shook his head. “But I'm not here just to meet your new pet.”

For a few seconds their gazes locked and Lacy remembered what it was like to tumble into those green eyes. Then she looked away. She struggled to remember why she'd needed to bolt away from Coldwater as soon as she could.

“I don't have anything to offer you.” No joke. Not only was she still bruised from Bradford's betrayal, she hadn't been to the store yet. “How about some water?”

“Sounds good.”

She needed to keep her hands busy in case they were trembling a bit, so she rummaged through the box again. “There must be something in here that isn't broken.”

Lacy came up with two Boston Bruins mugs that had made the trip intact. She let the tap flow for a few seconds, and then filled them with the liquid the town was named for.

“I hear you're married now.” She could have kicked herself, but the words were out there in front of God and everybody.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
“When did that happen?”

How
did that happen? She knew it was selfish of her, but she'd always thought of Daniel as hers. That's how it was supposed to be. It wasn't rational, but while she'd lived and worked in Boston, she imagined everyone in Coldwater Cove frozen in place. She'd grown and changed, but she never imagined them doing the same. Daniel was still supposed to be pining for the girl who'd left him to follow her dream.

“Anne and I got married about three years ago, but we've been separated for a bit.” He drummed the fingers of one hand on the countertop. “I shouldn't be talking to you about this.”

Lacy forced herself not to reach across the countertop and touch his hand to encourage him to trust her. If it had been anyone else, she would have, but if she so much as brushed Daniel's skin, the sparks it would set off inside her might never quit firing. She settled for a verbal promise.

“It's me, Daniel. I won't tell a soul. You know I won't. I don't remember anyone named Anne in our class.”

“She didn't grow up here.”

“How did you meet?”

He loosed a long breath. It was obviously a relief to talk to someone about his marriage, even if it was the girl he used to love. “About a year after you left, Anne Littlefield moved to town. She lived with her dad in Tulsa until she graduated, but her mom and stepfather were here. So she moved in with them when she took the dispatcher job at the sheriff's office.”

Lacy could imagine their courtship. It would have gone in fits and starts because Daniel wasn't smooth like Jake. He was the quiet one, but still waters run deep, her dad always said. At one time, Lacy had thought it would be worth a lifetime to figure out what was going on inside Daniel Scott.

“When I promised ‘till death us do part,' I meant it,” he said, “but about two months ago, Anne said she needed to take a break.”

A pained expression passed over his face. Whoever this Anne Littlefield was, Lacy decided she must be crazy. With supreme effort, she swallowed back the smoldering question most likely to give her heartburn.

She buried her nose in the cup and sipped her water.

“It's not her fault,” Daniel said as if she'd asked. “Never think it is. I'm the one to blame for our problems.” Then a smile lifted one corner of his lips. “Let me show you a picture of my boy.”

Lacy swallowed hard to avoid spewing the water out her nose. “Your boy?”

“Yeah. Anne and I may not agree on much right now, but we both know Carson is the best thing either of us has ever done.” Daniel pulled out his phone and showed her a shot of a sandy-haired, green-eyed toddler with the same serious expression as his dad.

Talk about the road not taken.
If she'd not left for New England, this child might have been hers. An ordinary life might not have been so bad. “He's beautiful.”

“He'll be a heartbreaker someday,” Daniel admitted. “He's already full of the dickens.”

“Where is he now?”

“Here in town with Anne. She's staying with her folks. I see him as often as I can.”

Lacy mulled that over for a bit. Other than fending off the well-meant smothering of her overprotective parents, she didn't have any practical experience with the demands of a family. Managing marriage, kids, and a career would be a real juggling act. The fact that she only had a surly cat to care for suddenly seemed light duty in the relationship and responsibility department.

Daniel put away his phone and cocked his head at her. “Now it's your turn. What really happened in Boston?”

“Long story short, I screwed up.”

“Your dad said your business partner got you crossways of some pretty serious people.” His expression amended that to “seriously
bad
people.”

Lacy's brows shot up. “Dad talked to you about me?” Clearly, her father didn't think she was as out of the woods after the Boston debacle as she wanted him to believe. “I'm so going to have a discussion with him. About boundaries.”

“Don't be too hard on him. He said you narrowly avoided prosecution over an embezzlement you had no part in. He's just worried about you.” Daniel met her gaze in a way that made her insides shiver afresh. “So am I. Is anyone likely to follow you here to try and make trouble?”

“I hope not.” Not as long as she made her payments. Requiring her to make full restitution to her clients was the DA's way of making sure she wasn't in on the scheme with Bradford. Bad as taking out that loan was, it was still a lot better than prosecution and jail time. “Coldwater is a long way from Boston. I didn't exactly leave a trail of breadcrumbs.”

“Yeah, but if anyone's looking for you, they'll check your hometown first.”

“I don't know how they'd discover where it is.” She'd done everything she could to distance herself from Coldwater Cove while she was back east. She used her college address when she set up her business. If her accent made people ask where she was originally from, she'd claim the Midwest. That was ambiguous enough to suggest Chicago. Other than the Windy City, no one from Boston seemed to believe there was any place of note between the Berkshires and the Pacific coast anyway.

“If you're worried about it, turn off the GPS on your phone and stay off the Internet. Oh, and you might need to drop by the
Gazette
to make sure Wanda isn't running a piece about your coming home,” Daniel said. “We may be in the boonies, but the newspaper's online now, too, you know. Anyone can Google you.”

“Yikes.” He was right. Dealing with the O'Leary brothers had scared her. She'd been thinking of Coldwater Cove as a sort of do-it-yourself witness protection program. “I'll pop by the
Gazette
office first thing in the morning before Wanda plasters a piece about my prodigal return all over page one.”

He chuckled again. Lacy got the sense that he hadn't done that much lately.

“I'll try to keep an eye out for out-of-state plates, but we can't monitor everything.” Dan fished in his pocket and came up with a business card. He wrote something on the back of it and handed it to her. “If someone bothers you, if you even get a feeling that someone's watching you, call me.”

“Thanks.” She slipped the card into her pocket. He'd written down his personal number but she didn't know what weight to give that information.

“I'll always come if you call,” he said. Then he reached across the countertop and covered her hand with his. Sparks flew up her arm like a welder's arc. “I'm glad you're back in Coldwater, Lacy.”

She'd come home because of a mistake. She'd never intended to be here again for more than the occasional fly-by on holidays. Hiding out in this small town was so not how she saw her life unfolding. But when she looked at Daniel, she realized that maybe this was her chance to have a do-over, to take that road she'd passed by before.