Losing Penny

by Kristy Tate

  Losing Penny

  by

  Kristy Tate

  Losing Penny

  Copyright 2013 Kristy Tate

  Formatted by IRONHORSE Formatting

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Hailey’s Comments

  Chapter 1

  Your stomach is only the size of your fist, so it takes just a handful of food to fill it comfortably.

  Keeping your portions reasonable will help you stay in touch with your feelings of hunger and fullness, but there is always room for ice cream. It really doesn’t matter how full you are, ice cream slides in and fills all the empty spaces.

  From Losing Penny and Pounds

  Penny loved Richard and she adored Rose, but her feelings toward pralines and cream were mediocre at best. She didn’t want to look like a giant pralines and cream ice cream cone on Rose’s wedding day. Dress sizes come and go but wedding pictures are forever. She frowned at her creamy white skin threatening to pop out of the too-tight and too-sheer beige bodice.

  Rose smiled at her from across the room. Because of all the mirrors lining the walls, Rose came in quadruples. Rose’s dress reminded Penny of a lampshade. “Understated” was Rose’s buzzword for her simple, yet elegant, $150 thousand wedding. Penny’s brother couldn’t deny his finance even one little thing, not even a waffle cone dress for his sister. Sweat trickled down Penny’s face and along her neck—a slow but steady procession toward the silk’s ruination.

  “It’s a smidge snug.” Rose folded her arms and frowned at Penny’s reflection.

  “Harrumph,” the woman at Penny’s feet said. Because of all the pins in the seamstress’s mouth, it surprised Penny that the seamstress could say anything at all. Rose, a fashion designer, understood tailor-speak, but Penny didn’t. She guessed the woman said, “It doesn’t matter what she looks like, everyone will be looking at you and you’ll be drop dead gorgeous.”

  “I know,” Rose sighed, “but we want her to look her best.”

  “Harrumph,” the woman retorted, which Penny interpreted as “You can paint a barn in fancy colors, but it’s still a barn.”

  “She’s worked so hard, it would be a shame not to show her off,” Rose said, smiling. She pinched the silk and tugged the waffle cone slightly lower, exposing a double helping of Penny’s cleavage.

  Penny prayed that her pralines didn’t show. She looked up at the ceiling, willing angels to swoop down and save her modesty.

  “Just a bit more va-va-voom.” Rose considered Penny’s spillover with a puckered brow.

  Penny spent the next three hours at the gym. She wanted less va-va and definitely less voom. With grim determination stamped on her face, she raced on the treadmill. All around her Orange County toothpicks and giraffes pounded and grunted on the machines, and their sweaty stench filled her head. Music blared from the speakers and barbells clanged with thousands of repetitions, but Penny only heard her own internal mantra: Less va-va. Weigh less voom.

  Chapter 2

  A soft, haunting music filled the night. The notes rose with the flames and smoke to join the stars in the glittering sky. Although Hans couldn’t see where the music came from, he knew a girl played a flute. How did he know it was girl? He couldn’t say, other than the tune filled his soul.

  From Hans and the Sunstone

  Drake Islington sat at a table in the back of the Fish House, a scowl creasing his forehead. Watching Blair and listening to her play increased his bad mood. His black thoughts sat on his shoulders like a cat. He hated cats.

  Drake had heard her play countless times in their years together. He knew her and he thought that she knew him better than anyone before or since. And then the notebook. Two notebooks actually. The one she’d burned and the one she’d given him. As if the second could possibly make up for the first.

  Melinda Marx pulled out a wooden chair at Drake’s table and settled into it, like she belonged there. She leaned forward, her elbows propped on the table and her face inches from Drake’s. Her perfume floated around him, like an invisible, dangerous toxin.

  “This is nice,” she whispered. “I haven’t heard this band before. I wonder if they’re new.”

  “Just the woman on the keyboard,” Drake said. “She’s new, but the rest of the Bewick's Wrens have been playing here on Friday nights for years.”

  “Ah, she does look a little nervous.” Melinda laughed and Drake wondered what she found funny. He studied Blair. She looked stunning in her black dress, heels, and hose, but not nervous. Drake tried to read her the way he once thought that he could, but because he didn’t want to be caught staring, he forced himself to look away. He took in the wide-planked floors, the tall windows overlooking the Sound, and the night sky. Involuntarily his gaze flicked over to Alec Rawlings, his replacement.

  Alec shared a table with a chunky woman who could pass as his sister. Drake tightened his grip on his glass, comparing himself to Alec and coming up short, even though he had at least a couple of inches on him. Everything about Alec raised Drake’s blood pressure.
First, and most importantly, he was with Blair. Second, the man was a fly fishing guide and a New York Times best-selling author.

  Drake had begun writing as soon as he could hold a pencil. He knew this because his mother had kept his preschool stories. He studied literature at the university and abroad, he had one PhD in the Romantic Age from Yale and was working on his second in American Lit. He taught at Western Washington University. Alec “Yokel” Rawlings wrote about fish.

  And people bought his books.

  The only people buying and reading Drake’s books were his students, because they failed his classes if they didn’t.

  “You know why I asked you here tonight?” Melinda whispered.

  The smell of her breath mint wafted his way. He shook his head, trying to clear it from all her odors.

  “You don’t?” Melinda laughed again and leaned closer.

  Oh, he had an idea. Occasionally ideas still visited him. It wasn’t very frequently, but every once in a while an idea would make a flittering appearance. But none of them had anything to do with Melinda. Most of his ideas were about Vikings—murdering and pillaging Vikings.

  “My father?” Melinda said.

  Drake inhaled, remembering Don Marx, the car guy. Melinda’s father owned a string of dealerships from Canada to Portland. He wanted a biography. A horrible realization, like monster trucks with revving engines, swept over Drake: Melinda wanted Drake to write the biography.

  Melinda possessed a magnetic rather than classic beauty: tall, auburn hair, strong facial features. He stared at her while she spoke, trying not to be caught in her spell. His mouth hung open, and drool pooled on the other side of his teeth. He reminded himself to close his mouth and to swallow, but most of all to try to sound intelligent. His mind shot him commands, but he could only sit and worry about drool.

  The music stopped. His eyes followed Blair. The woman who had typed all his work, filled in all his commas, had left him for a fisherman. Sure, a best-selling, writing fisherman, but still. Think of the stink and headless fish. When Blair and Rawlings moved out onto the patio and out of sight, Drake tried to focus on Melinda and her proposition.

  “A surprise for my dad.” Melinda beamed.

  “You want me to ghostwrite his autobiography?”

  “Yes!” Melinda squeezed his arm. “Except it’s not an autobiography, it’s a biography. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

  Drake swallowed, his eyes fastened on the French doors. Blair hadn’t returned yet, but he knew that she would. The band had a second set to play. Why did he come here to torture himself? She wasn’t coming back to him. He blew it. Poof. She was gone. He watched her slip behind the keyboard and adjust the stops. Rawlings bent to her, kissing her cheek.

  “You’ll have to spend a lot of time with him.”

  Who, Rawlings? Drake touched his temple with his fingertips, looked at Melinda, and tried to block out Blair and Rawlings. “Don’t you think he’ll get suspicious if I’m hanging around?”

  “No. This is where things get brilliant.”

  The only thing brilliant about Melinda was her teeth. Heck of a dental job.

  “You can stay at the beach house right next door! It’s all arranged!”

  Drake slowly shook his head. “You can’t want me to stay with you—”

  “Oh, it’s not our beach house, it belongs to this darling old lady. But as luck would have it, she’s broken her foot! So she can’t come out this summer like she usually does, and Dad asked if I wanted to use it.”

  “Drake!” He felt a light touch on his arm and heard a familiar voice.

  Drake swiveled in his chair to face Andrea, the lead singer of the Bewick's Wren.

  “Hey, Andrea,” Drake said. He stood to hug her, resisting the urge to ask her to provide an escape from Melinda. Any excuse would do. He could fake help her jumpstart her car. Rooting around under a greasy hood would be much better than moping in the Fish House.

  “What are you doing here?” Andrea stepped away from him, tilted her head, and smiled. On anyone else the hippie/gypsy look would look dated and cliché, but Andrea, with her dark skin, wild hair, and macramé top, looked runway ready.

  “Excellent music and fish on a stick? Where else would I be?” Drake hoped his smile looked more genuine than it felt stretching across his teeth.

  She gave him a knowing look. “Did you know Blair was going to play?”

  Pain flashed through him as he shook his head.

  “I know,” Andrea nodded at Blair. “It’s shocking.”

  “How did you convince her?”

  “You heard about Emily?” Andrea laid her hand on his arm. “You must know about Charlotte’s murder?”

  “Of course.”

  Melinda cleared her throat, a loud, masculine growl.

  Drake placed his hand on Melinda’s shoulder. Her hair tangled in his fingers and he pulled away. “So sorry. Andrea, this is Melinda Marx.”

  While the two women made their introductions, Drake watched Blair behind the keyboard. Her eyes searched the crowded room before she caught and held his gaze. He lifted his hand in a half wave and she responded with a come-hither motion, a small smile on her lips.

  “I have to go,” Andrea said, and Drake realized Blair had been beckoning Andrea. He sat down hard, the wooden chair groaning beneath his weight.

  “Murder?” Melinda raised her eyebrows.

  “Charlotte Rhyme,” Drake said. The death of the local artist had made the national news and sent the prices of her paintings skyrocketing. Melinda would have had to have been hiding in a cave not to have heard.

  “Oh yes,” Melinda said, sounding as if she wanted to be sympathetic, but wasn’t quite.

  The music started. Andrea sang something about a lost coin into the microphone.

  Something gained, something earned,

  Something lost never to be returned.

  The words twisted in Drake’s gut. His longing for Blair ate at him. It swelled until he thought it would swallow him completely. Melinda talked, her words competing with the music.

  “I want to call it Geared.” Melinda paused. “What do you think?”

  Drake tore his eyes off Blair and refocused on Melinda. “Geared? Like gearhead?” He wanted to add, “Are you serious?” But he thought better of it.

  But when Melinda started talking numbers, Drake realized she was very serious. The salary was as serious as a heart attack—or at least the debt on his credit card. And with a free summer’s stay at a beach house, he could sublet his apartment for the extra cash, and have an entire summer free for writing.

  “I can’t…” But he didn’t sound convincing, even to himself. He thought of his colleagues at the university and the words “sellout” repeatedly rang in his head, keeping time with Frank on the drums. Drake stopped thinking when the numbers he calculated grew so high they drowned out every thought.

  Chapter 3

  As a medicinal herb, basil is commonly used to treat stress-induced insomnia, tension, nervous indigestion, and melancholy.

  From Losing Penny and Pounds

  Penny blinked. Her eyelashes brushed against rotting leaves and twigs. She tried to lift her head from the forest floor, prop herself onto her elbows, and look around for her horse, Gwendolyn. No, her horse was named Sir Gawain. Sir Gawain was a fine name for a horse. But she didn’t know how to ride a horse. Well, it was her dream, and if she wanted to ride, she would. Pain curled her into a tight ball. Her head throbbed. She touched it gingerly and found dead leaves stuck in her hair. When she pulled the leaves away, they were spotted with sticky blood.

  This wouldn’t do. She didn’t want to be alone in a forest, bleeding, and in pain.

  A dense, cottony fog hung in the trees and blocked the moonlight. Penny let out a long whistle for Gwendolyn—no, Sir Gawain—but the sound hurt her head and made her teeth ache. Only the night birds answered. Something skittered in a nearby thicket, and a twig snapped. Penny ignored the pain and listened. How lo
ng had she been on the ground?

  Penny rolled over onto her back and watched the moonlight flicker through the boughs of a pine tree and wondered where she was and how she would get home without her horse. She reminded herself that she was at home and in her bed, but the dream continued.

  Penny struggled to sit up and a skin-pricking sensation said she wasn’t alone. Animals. Possibly a red fox, a raccoon, skunk, or an opossum. Harmless night creatures. Panic caught in her throat, and she scooted on her bottom until she leaned against a pine tree. The fog swirled through the forest. Someone or something hid in the dark, watching. Using the tree for a brace, she stood and brushed off her plain, cotton shift. She found a hole straight up the middle of her shift, and her thigh had a corresponding scratch. She also had a bloody elbow, a throbbing head, and scraped hands.

  Penny limped away from the tree, confused about her old-fashioned clothes. The leather sandals on her feet and the heavy cotton apron over her shift were from who knows what time or place. If she was going to dream, then why not dream of the Edwardian era? She loved the turn of the century fashion. But then she’d be wearing a tight corset and long skirts, and running would be hard enough with her wet noodle legs and unfocused eyes. Another twig broke. She swallowed and patted her apron pockets for some sort of weapon. Nothing. What did she expect? She found a stick and swung it as she limped in what she hoped was the direction of home. Her head thudded with every footfall, but she held it high, careful not to demonstrate weakness or fear. Another, closer twig snapped. She broke into jog, and heavy footsteps followed close behind.

  Penny peered into the dark woods and watched the fog curl through the trees, but seeing nothing but the white mist, she ran, praying for a straight, unimpeded path. The ground became uneven and rocky, and she realized she was in a dry riverbed. Penny stumbled over the rocks, mindful of her ankles and the screaming cut on her thigh. Her pursuer was so close that she felt his breath on the back of her neck. Scrambling out of the riverbed and up the bank, she sprinted up the incline that led to a pasture. A shed’s roofline poked out of the fog. As she raced toward it, her foot caught on something and she pitched forward.