Looking for Trouble

by Victoria Dahl

“Maybe you’re just too damn used to the crazy to see it.”

  Shane’s jaw stiffened with anger, but his voice stayed calm and low. “I didn’t open myself back up to this until she started getting help. She’s been good. I mean it. Maybe this is just... I don’t know. Maybe it’s just coming to a head, and once the ceremony is done...”

  “Sounds like the same old wishful thinking, Shane.”

  Shane stared at him for a long moment, his eyes blazing with whatever he wasn’t saying. But he just shook his head. “Maybe. But I’m not going to pretend I’m sorry you’re here.”

  “Shane!” their mom suddenly yelped. “Tell your brother he needs to have his speech done by tomorrow night. It can’t wait!”

  Alex shook his head. “I guess I’ll be sorry for the both of us. And if you think I’m participating in this dedication, you’ve got another think coming.”

  Shane started to reach one hand toward him, but Alex brushed past him and headed for the door. This family was as sick as ever. He shouldn’t have come.

  Shane followed him across the living room. “Don’t run away again,” he said quietly.

  Alex paused, his hand on the doorknob. “I didn’t run away the first time. I started a life, and I plan to get back to it.”

  “Fine. Just give me a few days. That’s all.”

  “Okay,” Alex agreed. “A few days. I just came by to let you know I’m here, so you didn’t have to worry I wouldn’t show up. You’ve got my number if you need me.”

  “We’re getting together tonight with my girlfriend, Merry, to figure out the logistics of the dedication. She’s the one who runs the ghost town, so if you want to see where we’ll be holding the dedication, Merry will be out there until six. We’re meeting for dinner at the Wagon Wheel at seven.”

  Alex shook his head, not sure if he was refusing or just exasperated as he stepped out and closed the door behind him. Shane didn’t follow, but Alex only made it halfway to the sidewalk before he was stopped. Not by his brother or his conscience, but by the sight of a very pretty, very angry young woman heading straight toward him on his mother’s front walkway. Her head was down, the sun glinting off her red hair, and her mouth held tight in a frown. The hands that clutched a crumpled pile of papers to her chest were white around the knuckles.

  She was only two steps away when she looked up and stumbled to a stop. “Oh,” her pink lips said, her anger falling away to surprise for a brief moment. She pushed up her little black glasses. The anger returned within a few heartbeats and her flushed cheeks got even redder as her eyes narrowed, first at him, then at the door behind him.

  “Here.” She shoved the papers at his chest, and Alex automatically caught them. Sticky tape grabbed at his fingers as he tried to catch the few sheets that slipped away. “Tell her to leave me the hell alone.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “I have tried to be patient, but I won’t tolerate harassment. I’ve reached my limit.” Her finger poked at the papers and a few more fell away. “Tell her to stay off my property and out of my life.”

  “Who?” he started, but the wild bundle of female fury spun away from him and stalked off. Alex’s eyes followed her as she turned left and marched down the street. The skirt of her green dress swayed with the movement of her hips, the black belt drawing his eye to her slim little waist. He lost sight of her when she reached some pine trees, but kept staring for a few seconds anyway. Who in the world had that been?

  Remembering the papers, he juggled them until he could finally read one, and the murky confrontation became slightly clearer. They were all copies of the same flyer. Not a professional flyer, but something typed in all caps on a computer and printed in an obnoxiously large font. An announcement of the memorial service for his dad. Written in the sort of flowery language that could only have been conjured by an obsessed mind. His mother had printed these and taped them somewhere, apparently on that woman’s property.

  For a moment, Alex considered going back into his mom’s house and asking who the woman was and why his mother had assaulted her with flyers, but curiosity wasn’t a strong enough pull to force him back into that mess.

  He stuffed all the flyers into his mom’s mailbox and got on his bike, looking down the street in the hopes of spying the mystery woman as he buckled on his helmet. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who was sick of his mother’s madness. What a breath of fresh air.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THIS WAS SO humiliating.

  Sophie Heyer slid a little lower in her seat, then considered continuing the slide until she was underneath the conference-room table and could crawl out of the library meeting room. But that might draw attention. After all, there were only four others in the room, and they each kept shooting side glances at her, as if waiting for her to break.

  She suspected someone had purposefully scheduled this meeting on Sophie’s day off, but she’d ruined the plan by picking up an afternoon shift from Betty, who had a sick baby at home. Well, Sophie was here now. She wasn’t going to cower.

  She made herself sit a little straighter and raised her chin, then ruined the confidence by nervously adjusting her reading glasses.

  “I think that’s about it!” Merry Kade, the curator of the Providence Ghost Town, finished her presentation with a big smile. “I can’t thank you enough for providing space in the library to commemorate the dedication of the Wyatt Bishop Providence Trail. It means so much to the family.”

  Jean-Marie, the library director, nodded sternly. “We’re honored. They’ve played such an important part in the history of Jackson.” Her eyes cut briefly to Sophie, then she cleared her throat and forced a smile. “The display will be a great educational opportunity for people who’ve never made it out to Providence. Thank you for loaning us the items.”

  The curator gathered up her presentation papers and offered a friendly goodbye to everyone. She seemed to be the only person unaware of the tension her talk had caused.

  Jean-Marie clasped her hands tightly together and cleared her throat one more time, looking solemnly over her employees. “I’d love to have the display done by tomorrow afternoon as the dedication is coming up this weekend. Lauren, would you be willing to—?”

  “I’ll do it,” Sophie interrupted.

  All eyes turned toward her. No one said a word. She willed her cheeks not to burn as she raised her eyebrows. “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” Jean-Marie said quickly. “Of course not. I just thought...”

  Sophie tipped her head in what she hoped looked like innocent bewilderment.

  “I mean...” Jean-Marie cleared her throat. “Of course. If you’d like to take on the project...”

  “It only makes sense,” Sophie said. “I’m working until seven and you know how quiet it’s been. I should be able to get it finished before I leave.”

  They all sat in awkward silence for a few more beats before Jean-Marie stood. “Wonderful. As you know, the Providence Historical Trust is considering sponsoring a new local history section in the library. I’d like them to be pleased with this display, so let me know if you need anything from me or from the trust. I’ll be happy to contact them for you. We don’t need any drama.”

  Jean-Marie left the room, followed by her loyal administrative assistant, Yolanda. Sophie and Lauren stood, too. Lauren closed the door. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m great,” Sophie said, lying to her friend without any guilt at all.

  “Are you sure? I was a little surprised you volunteered to work on it.”

  “It really doesn’t have anything to do with me, so no big deal.”

  Lauren watched her for a long moment, doubt written in every line of her face, but she finally shrugged. “All right. It’s your family scandal. As long as it doesn’t affect our girls’ night out tonight, you do whatever you want.”<
br />
  That actually made Sophie laugh, but she still made a quick escape, grabbing the box of artifacts and heading for the small lobby of the library.

  Her family scandal. God, she’d thought it was finally behind her. But she should’ve known better. It had been part of her life for as long as she could remember and it always would be if she stayed in Jackson. But she knew how to deal with it. The same way she always had: by defying everyone’s expectations. By being a good girl and not losing her cool. By not giving them anything to talk about.

  She hadn’t quite maintained that cool this afternoon, but Mrs. Bishop was pushing Sophie to the brink. The woman had made Sophie’s childhood a nightmare, and now she’d picked it up again twenty-five years later like a returning plague of locusts.

  When Sophie had moved into her uncle’s vacant house on Fair Street a year ago, she’d had no idea that Rose Bishop lived a few houses away. She hadn’t thought of the woman in years. That part of her life had seemed as far away as it could be.

  The first time she’d caught sight of Mrs. Bishop coming out of her house, Sophie almost hadn’t recognized her. She looked like a harmless old woman now instead of the threat she’d represented to Sophie as a child. But harmless old woman was just a disguise, apparently. Rose Bishop had lain in wait, pretending to only give Sophie the cold shoulder at first. But now it was full-out war. Sophie had awoken this morning to find two dozen flyers about the dedication ceremony taped to her front door. Unbelievable.

  She finished adjusting the shelves of the glassed-in display nook, then carefully placed the artifacts that Merry Kade had brought over. An old rolling pin, some woodworking tools, metal toy soldiers a child had played with long ago. There were also pictures of the town and printed descriptions of each item. Sophie really wouldn’t have to do much work at all, but the display would look too bare without more.

  She stepped back and eyed the start of her work. She’d have to pull the shelves back out, but the display would look really nice with a big, faded picture of the town of Providence set behind it as a backdrop, along with some of the rusted barbed wire they’d used for an earlier historical display.

  The door behind her opened, and Sophie glanced over her shoulder with a smile and said, “Good afternoon.” For a moment the patron was silhouetted by the slanting sunlight and she was reminded of the man she’d nearly run right into an hour earlier, but when he got farther in and offered a cheery wave, she saw that it was only the postal carrier.

  But too late. Her heart had already skipped a few beats, remembering that momentary panic. First, of looking up and finding someone in her path. Then of registering his height and the width of his shoulders and the menacing shadow of the stubble on his face that matched the stubble on his head. And then those bright blue eyes.

  She’d realized who he was then. Mrs. Bishop wasn’t the type of person who inspired people to visit, after all, so Sophie might’ve suspected anyway. But that angled jaw and those blue eyes looked like Shane Harcourt’s. His long-lost little brother was home.

  Not so little, though. Not little at all.

  She’d never met him before. The brothers had been too old for her to have known them in school, and she would’ve avoided them regardless. But living in the tiny town of Jackson, there’d been no way to avoid Shane Harcourt as an adult. Luckily, he’d never treated her with anything more than polite calm.

  Alex Bishop didn’t look like the calm, polite type.

  She couldn’t guess how he would’ve responded if he’d realized who Sophie was. After all, it wasn’t every day you met the woman whose mother had disappeared with your father. That terrible and permanent connection had been made even more awkward by Rose Bishop’s simmering hatred. For all Sophie knew, Alex Bishop shared the feeling.

  She decided to go the long way around the block on her way home from work tonight, just in case. If the Providence dedication had inspired a Bishop family reunion, Sophie didn’t want any part of it.

  “Sophie?”

  She jumped, too lost in thought to have noticed the door opening again, but she recognized the man’s voice and was smiling even before she turned around. “Hi, Will.”

  “You look lovely today.”

  She touched the soft cotton skirt of her favorite green dress. “Thank you.”

  “I was wondering if you’d reconsidered my offer.”

  Her smile widened. He was awfully cute with his dimpled smile and curly blond hair. “I told you I don’t date men I work with.”

  “But I don’t work with you,” he drawled, leaning against the wall and aiming that adorable smile at her again. His blue uniform shirt only added to the cuteness.

  “The fire station is just on the other side of that wall. It’s too close for comfort. It would be awkward when we stopped dating.”

  “Who says we’d stop?”

  Sophie just shook her head in exasperation. She says they’d stop. First of all, while it was stimulating to work in the same building that housed the fire station, it really wasn’t ideal for meaningless sexual flings. Way too close to home.

  Second, Will was cute and all, and she enjoyed sitting outside watching him play shirtless basketball with the other firefighters during the summer, but he wasn’t her type. Too local. Too young. And too gullible to her good-girl camouflage. She’d been working near Will for two years and he couldn’t see past the librarian glasses and knee-length skirts to the secrets underneath.

  But Will had too much confidence in his good looks to give up easily. “I’ll ask again soon,” he warned.

  “So you’ve said.”

  He winked. “And don’t I keep my promises?”

  She shooed him out and he gave her a gracious wave and headed over to the fire station. She supposed she should feel flattered, but he wasn’t truly invested. It felt like a game. Try to talk the shy librarian into a date.

  Only she wasn’t as shy as he thought. She was just circumspect. She had to be. Hopefully Will would never know anything about that.

  Parents with kids in tow started passing by on the sidewalk, so Sophie packed up the artifacts and locked the glass cabinet. There’d be a rush of children in the library in a few minutes and she wanted to find a great photo for the display and fire up the poster printer while she still had time.

  She pasted a smile on her face and walked past the other librarians.

  You okay? Lauren mouthed from behind the circulation desk.

  Sophie nodded. Why wouldn’t she be? It wasn’t as if she was helping to promote a ceremony that would remind everyone her dad was a cuckold and her mother had abandoned her small children and run off with someone else’s husband.

  Sophie forced her smile wider and walked through the library with a bounce in her step.

  No, it wasn’t like that at all.

  CHAPTER THREE

  HE SAW HER again, four hours later, walking down the sidewalk near the center of town as if she’d left his mother’s front yard and never stopped moving. But it was late now and cooler as dusk set in, and she wore a black sweater over that modest green dress.

  Alex slowed. He’d gone for a long ride to clear his head, but the clarity had only made him more reluctant to return to his mom’s. She wanted to suck him back into her obsession, and he wanted nothing but distance. Relieved at the prospect of a delay, Alex pulled the bike up next to the redhead and put his boot on the curb.

  She stopped and took one step back, uncertainty wrinkling her brow, but at least she didn’t look furious anymore. Alex took off his helmet, just in case she didn’t recognize him with his shaved head covered, but the uncertainty on her face didn’t budge.

  “Hey,” he offered as he killed the motor.

  “Hello,” she said carefully, as if the weight of the word might change the energy of the air.

  “The flye
rs,” he reminded her. “This afternoon.”

  Her chin dipped to let him know that she remembered.

  “I wanted to apologize. I gather she’s been bothering you. I can’t say I know anything about it, since I just got into town this morning, but I’m damn clear on how dogged she can be. Do you want me to talk to her?”

  She relaxed a little, finally. And he could see more of the real her, now. A mouth that looked naturally happy on a sweet little pixie face. She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, but the rest of her pretty red hair was still smooth, twisted into a roll at the base of her neck like something from the 1940s.

  She shook her head. “I’ve talked to her plenty of times. Do you think she’d really listen to you?”

  “Ha.” He managed a quick smile at that. “No. She doesn’t listen to anyone. Ever. I’m Alex, by the way.” He kicked down the stand and dismounted. “Alex Bishop,” he added, holding out a hand. “I assume you’re a neighbor of my mom’s?”

  She blinked a couple of times. Maybe she’d heard of his long absence or maybe she was realizing that he was the crazy woman’s son. But she took his hand and shook it. “I’m Sophie. It’s nice to meet you.”

  She looked right up at him now, her brown eyes friendly behind the little black glasses. She was a slight thing, but not short. Five-six, he’d guess, in her delicate black heels, shorter without them. His eyes swept down to admire the little black straps over the arches of her feet. She had a style. He liked it.

  “Have you been walking all day in those shoes? I could give you a lift.”

  “I’ve been working.”

  “The town museum?” he ventured. She certainly didn’t work in one of the bike-rental places or T-shirt shops.

  Her laugh skipped over his skin, and he realized he was still holding her hand.

  “The museum, huh?” She slipped her hand from his grip, but she did it slowly.

  Was this little thing flirting with him? The slide of her fingertips over his palm left him feeling decidedly inclined to flirt back.