by Mary McBride
“Next stop—your folks’ place. What’s the name of the nearest town?” he asked, easing out of the parking lot and back toward the highway.
“Shelbyville,” she said, licking the last of the salt from her fingers.
“Excuse me?”
“Shelbyville. That’s the name of the town nearest to Heart Lake.”
“Shelbyville,” he repeated, thinking he’d heard her wrong. “Like your name?”
“Yes,” she said somewhat defensively. “Just like my name. What’s wrong with that? The town was founded by my great-great-grandfather, Orvis Shelby.”
“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it, did I?” He shook his head. “Hell, if a man wants to name a town for himself, more power to him. And if a family wants to recycle a dumb name, that’s okay, too.”
Now she was more than defensive. She was indignant. “My name’s not dumb or recycled. It’s tradition, Callahan. Who were you named for? Mickey Mouse?”
He laughed. Again. That made at least four or five times she’d managed to cut through his normal gloom in the space of a few hours. And that hadn’t happened to him in a long, long time.
Shelby stared out the window, seemingly entranced by the beautiful autumn colors along the roadside while she was actually trying not to laugh out loud at the lieutenant’s earlier remark. It was a dumb name. Despite her protest to Callahan, she’d hated her name when she was a kid and not only considered it dumb but embarrassing to boot, especially when the local kids at Heart Lake, who attended school in nearby Shelbyville, teased her.
For years she’d wished she’d been born second instead of first, and that her sister, Beth, had been graced with the family moniker. It was good she and Beth didn’t have a brother. The poor guy probably would’ve been saddled with Orvis.
Still, she wasn’t about to admit those feelings to Callahan. Damn him. Where did he get off, anyway, criticizing her place of residence and then her name? The jerk.
The only good thing at the moment, as far as Shelby could see, was that with every mile she was getting closer to Heart Lake, the place she loved more than any other in the world.
It wasn’t the house itself that claimed her heart, although she knew and loved every square inch of the huge old Victorian mansion. And it wasn’t the lake itself with its ever-changing water, which could be cold and gray in the morning, but azure and warm by afternoon, or smooth as glass only to turn wild with whitecaps in a sudden wind. It wasn’t the trees she climbed or the frogs and butterflies she chased or the thousands of marshmallows she’d toasted over the years or her very first kiss under a full moon on a long-ago Fourth of July, or...
It was all of that. And so much more.
Considering her love for the place, it seemed strange that she hadn’t been back there in this past year, after her parents had sold their house in Evanston and moved permanently to Heart Lake following her father’s retirement from his law practice. She’d been horrendously busy this past year, but that didn’t seem like such a good excuse at the moment. Even her sister Beth, who lived in California now, had been back to Heart Lake more recently than Shelby had.
Poor Beth. Shelby may have been cursed with the family name, but her sister seemed to have been cursed with bad luck from the cradle. She’d started out as a preemie in an incubator. At age two she needed night braces on her feet. Ten years later came the braces on her teeth. For a while the poor kid was allergic to everything. The list went on and on. If life seemed a breeze to Shelby, it was more a battle waged daily for Beth.
Several years ago, when Beth was again between careers, it had been her dream to renovate the hundred-plus-year-old house from its rugs to its rafters, and then to turn the place into a bona fide as well as profitable Victorian bed and breakfast. Her parents didn’t object. They were wild about the idea, and even subsidized the renovation. There was plenty of room, after all, for vacationing family as well as paying guests.
Bethie worked her ass off for the better part of a year—stripping, sanding, painting, staining, repairing old furnishings, acquiring new when the old stuff wouldn’t do. She lived in a sea of turpentine, paint chips, fabric swatches, and plaster dust for month after month. Heart Lake froze over, melted, and froze over again. Then, finally, when she was done, the house looked so spectacular that her parents had promptly declared it their ideal retirement home. They’d recompensed their younger daughter handsomely for her efforts, but still...
In a righteous snit, Beth had run off to California with one of her painting subcontractors, yet another in a long string of bad choices in men. Undeterred, Mom and Dad had moved in, and as far as Shelby knew, they were loving every minute they spent in the big old Victorian hulk on the eastern shore of Heart Lake.
Given Callahan’s proclivity for speed, even on fairly narrow two-lane state roads, they weren’t all that far away from the lake right now. The rural landscape hadn’t changed all that much during Shelby’s thirty-four years. White frame farmhouses and double wides hunkered down amid the acreage of corn and sugar beets and fruit trees. Over there on the right, by the side of the road, was the dilapidated fruit stand where her mother would always stop on the way to the lake for tomatoes and cucumbers. Off in the distance she glimpsed the bulbous white water tower, which always was and probably always would be the tallest edifice in Shelbyville.
She was used to seeing everything colored a summer green rather than the vivid reds and yellows and golds that predominated in October. Even the occasional cows and pigs looked a little different. Maybe they were chilly. She imagined the house would look a little different, too, and quite spectacular nestled against its hillside of evergreens and birches that would seem less like trees now than glowing candles, their yellow flames flickering against a darkening sky.
Callahan reached out to turn on the headlights just then, making Shelby realize how late it really was. Since the clock on the dashboard registered a permanent twelve thirty-five, from an afternoon in 1980 no doubt, she squinted to check her watch. It was nearly six-thirty. Already? How could that be?
“Long day,” the lieutenant said as if reading her mind. She murmured her agreement. “Shelbyville’s just down the road. The lake is only three or four miles beyond that. We’re almost there.”
“Great.”
He sounded tired. Actually, he sounded like he was trying hard not to sound exhausted. It suddenly occurred to her that there was no way she could simply let Mick Callahan drop her off at the house and then send him on his way back to Chicago, a long and grueling five-hour trip. Even if he was a total jerk, Shelby didn’t have it in her to be deliberately rude or cruel. And anyway, jerk or not, the guy had put himself in harm’s way today on her behalf. She remembered the way he’d whisked her away from the explosion in front of her building, the way he’d sprung out of the car when her eager fans had accosted her not too long ago, and it hadn’t escaped her attention that he’d spent an inordinate amount of time this afternoon consulting the rearview mirror just in case someone was following them. She was grateful to him for that. The least she could do was see that he got a good night’s sleep before he went back to Chicago.
“Listen,” she said. “Why don’t you plan on staying at my folks’ house tonight, Callahan. There’s plenty of room.”
He flashed her a quick, rather quizzical look, as if he were surprised by the offer, before he said, “Thanks. I’d appreciate that.”
“Okay. Well, good. Then it’s settled.”
Except...
Oh, Lord. How was she going to explain him? There was no way she was going to tell her mother and father that he was a cop assigned to protect her because she was the target of a crazed letter bomber. In the first place, she didn’t want to worry them, and in the second place—and in all honesty—she really, really didn’t want to deal with their possible overreactions to her current plight.
Now she was almost glad she hadn’t been able to reach them by phone earlier today, when she probably would’ve
blurted out the truth. Her visit was going to be a surprise. That meant she had to come up with a legitimate reason why now, when her schedule was still jammed, she suddenly felt compelled to drop in at the old homestead. To drop in not alone, but with a gorgeous guy.
Knowing her parents, no matter how she explained her companion, whether it was a business associate, a reporter doing an extended interview of her, or merely a friend, they’d jump to the conclusion that he was her boyfriend. And the harder she insisted he wasn’t, the more certain they would be that he was.
Strange. After her thirtieth birthday, it wasn’t her own biological clock that had speeded up, but her parents’. They rarely missed an opportunity to inquire about her love life or to drop not-so-veiled hints about grandchildren. Her mother had even written a not very well disguised letter to Ms. Simon a year or so ago, pointing out the decrease in fertility in females over a certain age.
Okay. So she’d let them assume that Callahan was her boyfriend. That would work. Anything to keep them from worrying unnecessarily about this bomb deal.
“Do me a favor, will you, Callahan?”
“What’s that?”
“I’d rather my folks didn’t know about this letter bomb business,” she said. “No point in getting them all upset. So let’s not tell them you’re a cop, okay?”
“Okay.” There was a note of skepticism in his voice, a hint of reluctance, as if he clearly didn’t relish subterfuge. “So if I’m not a cop, then what am I supposed to be?”
“Um. Well . . .” She closed her eyes a second and dragged in a breath. God. She hated this. Just hated it. “I was thinking about introducing you as my boyfriend.”
“Your boyfriend!”
“Well, you don’t have to sound all shocked and awed, for God’s sake. It’s not unthinkable, after all, that somebody like me might find somebody like you attractive or...”
He snorted. “Or that somebody like me might find somebody like you the least bit fun to be around.”
“I’m fun,” she shot back.
“Oh, yeah? When?”
“Well, not right now. This isn’t fun.”
He rolled his eyes for about the seventeenth time today. “You’re telling me.”
“Look. Will you just do it?” she shrieked, hating the exasperated tone of her own voice. “Please.”
“Yeah. Okay,” he grumbled. “Whatever.”
“Thank you.” She pointed ahead. “Turn right at the stop sign. The lake is just a mile or so down the road.”
Well, maybe it was a mile or so to a crow, Mick soon discovered. Once they turned off the blacktop, the final half mile to the lake wound its way through a deep forest of pines that looked damned near virgin timber to his untrained eyes. Hey, if Shelby Simon had to hide out for a while, the forest primeval was probably the perfect choice.
She was sitting forward in the passenger seat, her nose practically pressed to the windshield, unable to disguise her excitement over this homecoming.
“Turn here,” she said, pointing right.
He swung the Mustang into a pebbled drive that crunched under his tires, then finally pulled up in front of some sort of fancy detached garage. Well, it seemed fancy until his gaze encountered the house not too far away up a sloping lawn.
“Whoa,” he murmured. “That’s some house.”
“It is, isn’t it?” she responded, already halfway out of the car. “God, it’s good to be back. I had no idea how much I missed it until just this minute.”
The place was lit with spotlights that angled up from the front yard, making it nearly bright as day. He’d never seen anything like it in his life.
“What do you call it?” he asked, still eyeing the house while he opened the hatchback for the luggage. “Victorian?”
“Uh-huh. Well, technically, it’s Italianate. At least I think so. My sister is the authority on that.”
Maybe it seemed so big because it sat—loomed, actually—on the crest of the sloping lawn. The sucker had to be ten or twelve thousand square feet or more, all three stories of it. A deep, columned porch ran around the first floor. All the windows were tall and arched and elaborately framed. Every possible surface was carved, or turned, or somehow decorated. Mick half expected to see a sign out front saying “Historical Society.”
Shelby, standing beside him, seemed to be regarding it with an awe similar to his own.
“I haven’t been back since my sister finished all the renovations. I can’t believe how fabulous it looks.” She squinted. “Beth must’ve used five or six different colors of paint. Amazing. It used to be just a flat, fairly boring white with green trim.”
Not anymore. In addition to a basic pale gray, Mick picked out touches of navy blue, maroon, and even some gold.
“Well, the lights are on, so I guess they’re expecting you,” he said, pulling her suitcase out of the trunk.
“Actually, they’re not. I couldn’t reach them this afternoon to tell them I was coming. But that’s okay. They’re pretty good about surprises.”
“Oh, yeah?” He angled his head toward the front door where a female figure had just emerged and stood, fists on hips, staring their way. “If that’s your mother, I’d say she doesn’t look all that pleasantly surprised.”
Actually, the woman looked pretty much like a deer in headlights.
Surprise!
CHAPTER FIVE
“Shelby!”
Her mother looked great, absolutely stunning tonight in a pair of beige wool slacks and one of her own designer sweaters, this one a gorgeous turtleneck concoction of nubby beige yarn and black silk ribbon. Nobody ever said Linda Simon didn’t know how to dress to show off her perfect size six figure and to set off her meticulous blond pageboy. Aside from her fabulous appearance, though, Shelby couldn’t quite discern the expression on her mother’s face.
Was she surprised?
Taken aback?
Flummoxed?
All of the above, Shelby decided as she ascended the veranda stairs with Callahan a few steps behind her.
“Shelby!” her mother exclaimed again, coming forward to kiss her. “My goodness! What a surprise! Why didn’t you call, honey?”
“I did, Mom, but nobody answered. I didn’t leave a
“ message because...Well...” She sighed. “It’s complicated.”
At the moment her mother was peering over Shelby’s shoulder, apparently getting a good look at the complication. “Hello,” she said in the gracious, almost musical tone that always translated to Shelby’s ears as “Thank you so much for your interest in my unmarried daughter.”
“Mom, this is Mick Callahan, my...uh... friend.” “Welcome, Mick!”
He dropped Shelby’s suitcase in order to take her mother’s extended hand. “Mrs. Simon.”
“Oh, please. Call me Linda. It’s so nice to meet one of Shelby’s . . .” She paused, as if carefully considering the meaning and importance of her vocabulary. “Friends,” she finally said with a faint sigh, making it sound like suitor or gentleman caller anyway. “Well, come in, you two. Let’s find a place to put your bags.”
Shelby trudged through the front door, thinking maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea. All of a sudden she was trudging, for heaven’s sake. Not just walking or even gliding across her parents’ threshold, but coming through the front door like a dorky, slump-shouldered teen. Why did she always forget that despite the fact that she was a successful and independent thirty-four-year-old, her mother had this strange, almost Wiccan ability to turn her instantly into some sort of petulant spinster?
Behind her, she heard Callahan breathe a quiet “Holy shit” as he entered the foyer and encountered the full effect of Victorian grandeur from the massive walnut hall tree on the right, the huge porcelain urn filled with peacock feathers on the left, and the half acre of inlaid black and white marble beneath his feet.
“Welcome to 1880,” Shelby said with a laugh.
“Yeah. No kidding.”
Her mother w
as already upstairs, flinging open doors and shutting them again, talking to herself.
“This way,” Shelby said, leading Callahan up the staircase with its oriental runner and heavily carved walnut banister.
“Why don’t you put your things in your old room, Shelby?” her mother said. “Then Mick can take Beth’s old room, and you’ll have the bathroom between. Or . . .” She lifted her designer clad shoulders in a shrug. “If you prefer being in a room together, I don’t have any objections. It’s really up to you.”
For some strange reason, Shelby glanced at her bodyguard slash boyfriend. The look on his face was as neutral as any human being could possibly manage. Not even a tiny tic to suggest how he might feel about sharing a bedroom with her. And why her brain was even entertaining the thought was a complete mystery to her.
“Separate is fine, Mom,” she said. “No big deal. Really.”
Really.
Perish the thought.
She took her big suitcase from Callahan’s grasp and shoved it into the bedroom where she’d spent hundreds of summer nights. “Your room is two doors down the hall.” She pointed.
“Great.”
“Well, I’m going back downstairs while you kids get settled,” her mother said. “Have you had dinner?”
“Don’t worry about us, Mom. Okay? If we’re hungry, we’ll find something in the fridge.”
“All right.” She sighed again and turned to go downstairs, almost as if she couldn’t get away fast enough.
“Where’s Dad?” Shelby asked. It wasn’t like him to hide out during any sort of homecoming, expected or not.
“He’s out in the carriage house,” her mother said as she continued her trot down the staircase.
There was something odd about her tone of voice. Shelby couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Her mother was usually pretty straightforward rather than veiled or ironic or downright shifty. Shelby was about to comment on it when Callahan cleared his throat and asked, “Did you say three doors down?”
“No, two. Here. I’ll show you.”
