To Trust a Stranger

by Karen Robards

  His lips tightened. “What happened to your father?”

  Julie hesitated a moment before replying. Talking about the father who had never been there was still, after all these years, a little painful.

  “He and my mother divorced when I was little. I used to see him periodically—a couple of times a year. Then he went away somewhere. I just saw him once more, and then he drowned a couple of weeks later.”

  A lump—stupid, stupid lump—rose in her throat, and she swallowed hard to get rid of it.

  “Sounds like you had a tough life.” There was a certain rough sympathy to his tone. His gaze slid in her direction, and Julie saw that he was looking—what?—a little annoyed? Or maybe that was just how he looked when he felt sorry for someone.

  Julie’s chin came up. She wasn’t much into sympathy, at least not when it was directed at her. All her sympathy went to people who were in the same boat she had once been in. She did her best to reach out a hand to them, teaching a regular class on makeup and grooming to the ever-changing residents of the local women’s shelter, donating clothes and fittings to poor women who had nothing to wear to job interviews, and generally doing what she could to help others along the path. But she no longer wanted or needed sympathy for herself. She had pulled herself out of poverty by her bootstraps—or, to be more accurate, by her high heels. And if she had to, she could do it again.

  Her response was, therefore, deliberately light. “It was interesting.”

  At that moment Josephine stood up on her lap and gave an imperious-sounding yap. All attention immediately focused on her.

  “What?” Mac said to Josephine, sounding exasperated. Her tail wagged madly, and she yapped again.

  “She’s got to go to the bathroom,” he translated for Julie’s benefit, and glanced around. They were approaching the Azalea Park and Bird Sanctuary, which was a magnet for tourists, although the locals, being blasé about so familiar a site, rarely visited. Pushcarts offering all manner of foodstuffs, vendors hawking balloons, and a juggler tossing china plates in the air prowled the area in front of the gates. Visitors streamed along the footpaths leading into the park.

  Mac found a parking place near the gates and pulled in. Julie looked around nervously. She really didn’t want to be spotted in his company—she could hear the questions about her companion’s identity now—but that didn’t seem very likely. The chance of someone she knew being at this particular tourist trap at just past noon on a steamy Saturday in July was so slim as to be negligible.

  He reached into the backseat and came up with a leash. It was pink leather and rhinestones, like Josephine’s collar.

  Josephine wriggled excitedly when she saw it. His expression was something less than excited as he clipped it to her collar.

  “Want to walk for a few minutes, or would you rather wait in the car?” His gaze met hers.

  “I’ll walk.”

  He turned off the engine, pocketed the keys, and got out of the car. Julie got out, too, and waited on the sidewalk for him to come around. The sun blazed down, the heat was oppressive, and the tourists were, for the most part, elderly folk decked out in plaid Bermuda shorts and crushable hats. Still, Julie felt happier than she had all day. Josephine squatted and relieved herself the moment she hit grass. Then Mac, his expression faintly martyred, and Josephine, wreathed in doggy smiles, headed toward her. Looking from one to the other—the tall, broad-shouldered, athletically built man with his surfer-god looks and the prancing white puffball of a very feminine poodle, linked by a rhinestone studded pink leash—brought a smile to her face. Julie was suddenly very glad that she was not facing this situation with Sid alone. Debbie and dog might be unlikely allies, but they were allies nonetheless.

  “Still feel like walking?” He smiled wryly at her. Josephine wagged her tail.

  “Sure.” Julie turned toward the gates. Mac and Josephine fell into step beside her. Josephine, being adorable, attracted her fair share of glances. Those glances inevitably shifted from the tiny prancing dog to Mac at the other end of the leash and tended to end with surprised expressions. Mac smiled in answer to the smiles directed at him, but Julie noticed that he didn’t look particularly happy to be the focus of so much attention.

  Just before they stepped inside the park, Mac signaled to one of the ice-cream vendors, who responded by pushing his cart their way. A pair of elderly women walked by, birding glasses in hand, casting covert glances at Mac and Josephine as they passed.

  “Tell you what, I’ll buy you an ice cream if you hold the leash,” Mac said.

  Julie laughed and took the proffered leash as the ice-cream vendor reached them. Mac ordered a DoveBar, then glanced inquiringly at Julie.

  “None for me, thanks.”

  “You sure?”

  She nodded, and he shrugged and paid. The ice-cream vendor moved on, and they headed inside the park. Now that Julie held the leash, the attention Josephine attracted was unambiguously positive.

  “You don’t like ice cream?” Mac took a bite out of one corner. Julie watched enviously as he crunched through the crisp chocolate shell to expose the creamy white goodness within.

  “I love ice cream. I just don’t eat it.”

  “Why not?”

  “A moment on the lips, forever on the hips.” God, she sounded like her mother.

  His gaze ran over her body. “You don’t look like you need to worry.”

  “If I didn’t worry, I would need to. Just eat your ice cream, okay? It’s not like I’m starving or anything.”

  Her stomach growled just then, giving the lie to her words. Julie’s eyes widened, then flew to meet his. He grinned at her.

  “It’s lunchtime, and I haven’t eaten yet.” She felt compelled to explain away her body’s embarrassing gaffe.

  “So take a bite of ice cream.” He held the DoveBar out to her. Julie eyed the unbitten corner covetously. She loved DoveBars. They were right up there with Hershey bars on her forbidden list. “One bite won’t make you fat.”

  One bite. One piece of chocolate. It was a slippery slope, as her mother had pointed out earlier, and Julie knew it. But still—she surrendered to temptation, and sank her teeth into the treat held so tantalizingly close.

  Oh, it was good. It was so-o good. Smooth milk chocolate wrapped around sweet vanilla ice cream—she could just die.

  “Thank you,” she said, when the treat had left her mouth in search of her hips and she was able to talk.

  “My pleasure.” He held the DoveBar out to her again, but this time she shook her head. Firmly. He shrugged, took another bite, then passed the rest to Josephine, who, apparently unconcerned with her girlish figure, downed it greedily. When she was finished she looked up, clearly hoping for more. She had a ring of chocolate around her mouth and looked so comically expectant that Julie had to chuckle.

  “Don’t laugh. You’re not in much better shape.” Mac grinned at her. They had stopped in the shade of an enormous magnolia while Josephine wolfed her treat, and the scent of the waxy white blossoms wafted around them. The path underfoot was crunchy gravel, and birdsong filled the air. The only tourists in sight were busy exclaiming about a yellow-throated bullfinch or some such creature apparently perched high in a bearded oak some twenty yards away.

  “I have chocolate on my mouth?” Julie’s fingers rose to her mouth self-consciously. Tracing the perimeter, she shook her head at him. “I do not.”

  “Yes you do. Just there.” Still grinning, he touched the center of her lower lip with his forefinger, then rubbed his finger back and forth along the line where her lips joined. Her response to the playful gesture shocked her. Her lips parted, and heat shot from where his finger touched clear down to her toes, awakening every single nerve ending in between. She had to stop herself from touching that hard warm finger with her tongue, or drawing it into her mouth and biting down, or . . .

  Oh, God, was she pathetic or what? Even as she gritted her teeth and pressed her lips together to stave off the impu
lse, her gaze flew to his face. Surely he must be experiencing this surge of mind-blowing electricity too? It was impossible that such sizzling heat could be affecting her alone.

  But if he was battling a sudden fierce attack of sexual desire, he showed no sign of it. He was looking down at Josephine, his expression perfectly peaceful, and his hand was already dropping away from her mouth. The dismal truth hit her like a splash of cold water in the face: her body was at full boil, and his hadn’t even hit simmer.

  Of course it hadn’t. He wasn’t interested in her that way. Good thing, too.

  Grimly reminding herself of all the reasons why that was a good thing, Julie took a deep and, she hoped, unnoticed breath.

  “Do you need anything else from me? I have to be getting back.” Her voice sounded perfectly normal, she was pleased to discover.

  “Numbers where you can be reached, including cell phone. As much as you know about your husband’s daily schedule and usual associates. The kind of car he drives, including license-plate number. Anything else I can get later.” He glanced up, met her gaze, and smiled. Those beautiful blue eyes, she was both chagrined and relieved to discover, showed no awareness of her as a woman. “And one dollar.”

  “One dollar?” Julie asked, surprised. Then, realizing that she had left her purse in the car, she shook her head. “I don’t have any money on me.”

  Mac sighed, pulled out his wallet, extracted a dollar bill, and handed it to her.

  “Now give it back to me.”

  “What?” Julie was smiling at the sheer silliness of it as she obeyed. “Why?”

  “Retainer. Congratulations, ma’am: You’ve just officially hired yourself a private investigator.”

  And that was all, Julie told herself sternly as they retraced their steps to the Blazer, and tried to feel happy about it.

  “From here on out you want to be careful. When you’re with your husband, behave as normally as possible. Whatever you do, don’t get in a fight with him and tell him you’re having him investigated. You could wind up getting hurt,” he warned some ten minutes later, as, with the information Julie had scribbled in a notepad for him tucked safely away in the glove compartment, he stopped in the Kroger parking lot.

  “I told you, Sid isn’t violent.” Julie opened the door and got out. The bright heat of the parking lot was almost disorienting after the air-conditioned protection of the Blazer. Josephine, dislodged from her comfortable perch on Julie’s lap, stood on the seat wagging her tail in doggy good-bye. Mac gave Julie a skeptical look.

  “Emotions tend to run high in this kind of case. People do all sorts of unlikely things. So you mind what I say.” His tone was cautionary.

  Julie smiled. “I will.”

  Promising that was easy. Whether Sid was apt to turn violent or not, she wasn’t about to tell him what she had done. He would be livid if he found out. She started to shut the door, then hesitated, glancing in at him again. “When will you start?”

  “Right now. There’s some preliminary work I can do, and tonight I’ll be parked out in front of your house, waiting for the midnight ride of Paul Revere Carlson.”

  “Funny.” It was lame, but it made her smile again, and smiling, as she had discovered earlier, boosted her spirits. Actually, he boosted her spirits. He and Josephine.

  “Mac. Thanks.”

  Their gazes met, and the skin around his eyes crinkled as he returned her smile with, she thought, a touch of ruefulness.

  “You’re welcome. Julie.”

  10

  “AUNT JULIE! AUNT JULIE!”

  Erin and Kelly both came tearing into the hall as Julie stepped through the door of her sister’s house. Although it was nowhere near as big and fine as Julie’s, it was a comfortable, two-story brick house in a nice neighborhood. Becky and Kenny had moved in when the former construction worker had been offered a job by Sid shortly before Erin was born, and they seemed prepared to spend the rest of their lives there.

  If Kenny didn’t lose his job as collateral damage in her possible divorce, that is.

  “Erin. Kelly.” Echoing the girls’ boisterous greeting, Julie set her packages down on the blue slate floor and opened her arms to them. They reached her at the same time, and she was giving them both a big hug when her sister walked into the hall, looking harried.

  “Hey, Jules. You’re just in the nick of time. In five minutes we’ll be knee-deep in preschoolers and Mama’s decided that this is the moment to start drawing smiley faces on four dozen balloons.” Becky rolled her eyes. “What I need is someone to finish filling the party bags. That means you.”

  “Hey, Beck.” Julie grinned at her sister over the girls’ heads. Becky was three years her senior, and was in appearance pretty much a younger version of their mother, minus about thirty pounds and the red hair, of course. She had mink brown hair cut sensibly short, and a round, cheerful face. Her body was sturdy rather than slender, and she looked very much the suburban mom in belted khaki shorts and a white camp shirt.

  “Julie, is that you?” Dixie yelled from the kitchen. “Get in here. I need help.”

  “Hi, Mama,” Julie hollered back. Then, to Becky, “My car got stolen last night,” as Kelly, the birthday girl, began jumping up and down with excitement, loudly begging to know if the gaily wrapped packages on the floor were for her.

  “I know that,” Becky said, turning a well-practiced deaf ear to her daughter. “What I want to know is, how mad was Sid?”

  “Mad.” Julie switched her gaze to her not-to-be-denied niece. “One for you, and one for Erin.”

  She handed a package to each girl. Kelly immediately began tearing at the wrapping paper on hers, eager to get at the gift.

  “But it’s not my birthday,” Erin objected, hesitating even as she accepted hers. Erin looked much like Becky, although she had her father’s gray eyes. She was a sweet, earnest child and Julie loved her dearly.

  “Ith my birthday, Aunt Julie,” Kelly lisped importantly, looking up from her struggle to tug the ribbon off. Kelly’s build was far more delicate than her sister’s, and her hair was darker, mahogany rather than mink, and wildly curly. She was a pretty, lively child, and Julie loved her dearly, too. “I’m five now.”

  “Wow, five. That’s a big girl.” Julie smiled at Kelly, and then at Erin. “I thought you needed a present to help celebrate your sister turning five.”

  “Was he mad at you?” There was concern in Becky’s voice. Julie wondered, as she had once or twice before, if perhaps Becky suspected that all was not shining in Camelot, but she shook her head and said, “He was just mad,” as Erin, reassured, started unwrapping her gift, carefully separating the edges of the paper instead of ripping it off with abandon as Kelly was doing. Telling Becky the truth was even less an option than confiding in her mother. Becky would worry, and if she was worried, Kenny would know and badger her until he found out why, and then Kenny would run immediately to Sid. Kenny was fine as a brother-in-law, he loved her sister and the kids, but he knew which side his bread was buttered on. And in this case, Sid was the man with the butter.

  “Barbie!” Kelly shrieked gleefully, having finally succeeded in getting the wrappings off, and headed at a dead run for the kitchen, brandishing her gift. “Nana, look, Aunt Julie got me Barbie!”

  “I got Barbie too!” Erin yelled after her sister, having unwrapped enough of the present to identify the contents, and took off in hot pursuit.

  “What do you say?” Becky called after her daughters as she and Julie trailed them into the kitchen, which was a big square space decorated in cheery yellow. A taped-up HAPPY BIRTHDAY banner formed a swag over the top of the window that looked out into the neat backyard.

  Dozens of brightly colored balloons with a rainbow of ribbons attached bobbed against the ceiling. Dixie, holding a balloon with two circle eyes but no mouth drawn on it in one hand and a permanent marker in the other, bent over her granddaughters, admiring their gifts.

  “Thank you, Aunt Julie,” the girls
chorused as their mother prompted them again. Then, still clutching the dolls, they tore off in the direction of their bedrooms.

  “Here, Jules, finish filling these. They each get a Fruit Roll-Up, a package of SweeTarts, three stickers, a barrette, and a pencil.” Looking harassed again, Becky pushed Julie toward the kitchen table, which was cluttered with Powerpuff Girl–decorated party bags, about two-thirds of which were filled, and a jumble of the aforementioned goodies. Julie went to work as Becky turned to the birthday cake on the counter and started sticking small blue candles into the white icing.

  “Kelly and Erin remind me so much of you two at their age,” Dixie said with a hint of nostalgia as she drew a smiling mouth to complete the balloon, then reached for another one. “If Becky weren’t so silly about entering the girls in pageants, I bet Kelly could win as many titles as you did, Julie.”

  “No,” Becky responded sharply. Dixie pursed her lips at her older daughter, but before she could argue the doorbell pealed. With a quelling look at her mother, Becky went to answer it to the accompaniment of wild whoops from her daughters, who skidded past in an effort to beat her to the door.

  “Can you believe she’s that way? You winning all those pageants was the best thing that ever happened to us, her included.” Dixie’s gaze shifted to Julie in a transparent appeal for support. From as far back as Julie could remember, Dixie had entered her in every beauty contest that came along, worrying over her hair and makeup and strategizing over how to come up with eye-catching costumes on their dollar-store budget, which had actually been a good thing, because Julie had learned how to design and make the most beautiful clothes out of nothing, which in turn had led to Carolina Belle. Julie’s looks would be their ticket, Dixie had prophesied time and time again, and so it had proved.