Sophie ducked her head and tried to hide her smile as she walked up her block. It wasn’t easy to hide. It was a big smile. She had a lot to be happy about.
It was a gorgeous September day, even warmer than the last. She knew she’d only have a few more weeks of weather suitable for walking to work in a skirt and heels, so she reveled in the sun on her face and the swish of her blue cotton dress around her thighs. She also reveled in the slight twinge of soreness as she walked. Her muscles were still tired, her hips a little sore, and between her legs she felt bruised in the most satisfying way.
A soft breeze swept over her as she turned a corner, air slipping over her bare thighs. She’d worn her favorite pale pink garter today. The silk fabric was embroidered with taupe swirls that perfectly matched the color of her nude stockings. The bra was the same pale pink, with taupe straps that matched the swirls on the garter. Beyond that...she wore nothing at all.
The smile snuck up on her again, because that felt most wicked of all. The air caressing her bare sex as she walked. The most secret of secrets and no one would ever know. Unless she happened to see Alex later.
She patted the royal-blue skirt of her shirtwaist dress. She looked like Mrs. Cleaver in this dress. Like a woman who should be home cooking a nutritious meal for her loving family. But the truth was that all she wanted to do in the kitchen was be shoved over a counter and taken hard, her pretty little dress bunched around her waist. And she knew just who should be doing the taking.
She still couldn’t believe he hadn’t been angry. She’d lied to him, or at least withheld the truth, and he hadn’t seemed the least bit affected.
Then again, maybe he had been affected. Maybe when he’d realized who she was, the wrongness of it had turned him on. Because it was wrong. Their parents had been lovers. Cheaters. Liars. They’d run away together.
Sophie’s heel scuffed the sidewalk and interrupted her stride. She kept walking, but she’d lost her smile.
That was the truth she’d lived with her whole life. That her mother had run off with Wyatt Bishop. That they’d both abandoned their children for lust and illicit love and disappeared together forever. The shame of it had clung to Sophie her whole life, and to her father and brother, too. It had felt like a stain on her skin. A marking that everyone could see. Your mother didn’t love you. Your mother was a slut. Your mother left her children.
Sophie was only just starting to get used to the fact that it wasn’t true.
A year ago, Alex’s brother, Shane, had accidentally solved the twenty-five-year-old mystery. While exploring Bishop property near the Providence ghost town, he’d found a washed-out camp road and then, far below it, hidden in a ravine, he’d found their father’s truck and camper.
The news about Alex’s father had been immediate. But the confirmation that the second set of skeletal remains had been Sophie’s mother...that had taken weeks.
Dorothy Heyer hadn’t left her family. She may have cheated, but she hadn’t left Sophie motherless. Not on purpose. There’d been an accident, and she’d died.
Sophie took a deep breath and tried to ignore the shaking of her heart. She’d grieved for her mother too many years ago. She couldn’t do it again. The knowledge of her death didn’t change anything. Not really.
A horn honked behind her and Sophie jumped. By the time Manny pulled up next to her, Sophie had caught her breath and turned toward the street.
“Hey again, Miss Sophie!” he called.
“Manny, you scared me.”
“Sorry! I’m on my way to pick up a fare at the airport. Need a ride somewhere?”
She pointed at the library. “Just headed to work. But thank you.” She started to wave, but he didn’t pull away.
“All right. But I just thought I’d warn you that Mrs. Bishop is looking for you.”
“What?” Again?
“She just came by your house, all bothered about something. I told her you were long gone.”
“Thanks, Manny. I appreciate it.”
Crap. Had she somehow found out about Alex’s visit yesterday? Maybe she had a camera set up to point down the street. But it didn’t matter. Sophie couldn’t worry about it. Alex would be leaving soon enough.
“Hello, Sophie,” one of the firefighters called from the doorway of the station. He was with two of the other guys, all of them young and built for playing hero.
“Hi, guys,” she called with a wave.
They all smiled at her, and Sophie blushed, feeling more than a little scandalous after what she’d done yesterday. They thought she was shy, of course. One of them called out, “That’s a pretty dress, Sophie!”
She laughed and let them have their fun. She liked that they thought she was a bashful, conservative girl who was fun to tease but definitely wouldn’t be much fun to take home. It contrasted perfectly with the fact that she was so close to naked in very important ways.
If she ever actually needed rescuing by the fire squad, they’d all be in for a serious shock, especially if it involved hauling her down a ladder.
She was still giggling when she stepped into the library. Compared to her mood the last time she’d worked, today was going to be like a party. She hadn’t made plans to see Alex tonight, but she had a feeling he might text her. This time, he’d had as good a time as she had.
She was smiling at the thought when she spotted Lauren behind the circulation desk and waved. But instead of responding in kind, the smile Lauren had been wearing fell away. She took the books that a young boy was handing her, and she shot a pointed look toward the director’s office. When she looked back to Sophie, Lauren widened her eyes and shook her head. She was obviously trying to convey some sort of alarm, but Sophie couldn’t imagine what. She hadn’t even worked yesterday. What could she possibly have screwed up?
Lauren jerked her head toward the small office they shared behind the circulation desk, so Sophie headed that way to hide out until she could get the scoop. But she hadn’t moved quickly enough. She’d hesitated out of confusion and before she could make it past the director’s office, the door opened and Jean-Marie stepped out.
“Sophie,” she said coolly. “Could I speak with you a moment?”
“Of course!” she answered cheerfully, but she shot Lauren a look of horror over her shoulder. Lauren winced but couldn’t offer any clue. She had to turn back to her patron. Oh, well. Sophie was about to find out what she’d done to inspire a Serious Talk. Her day had suddenly lost its background music of singing birds and tinkling piano notes.
“Sophie,” her director said in a mournful voice. She sounded as if she were personally pained by just the sound of Sophie’s name.
“Yes?”
“In light of the new circumstances, when Merry Kade stops in today I’m going to tell her that I assembled the Providence display in the lobby.”
“The new circumstances?” Sophie asked blankly.
“I know you did the work, but I’m sure you understand why it would be better not to attach your name to it.”
“No, I don’t understand,” she insisted, but as the words left her mouth, a terrible thought struck her. People knew. People knew that she and Alex were sleeping together and it had created a new scandal. Maybe his mother really had put up cameras on the street. Maybe she—
“Don’t you think Merry might take offense?” Jean-Marie had dropped any semblance of concern and now looked only impatient.
“I’m sorry,” Sophie stammered. “I...I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Your brother,” Jean-Marie said, her mouth as flat as her words. “Now...” She turned back to her computer, obviously dismissing Sophie. “If you’ll—”
“My brother? I have no idea what you’re talking about. What does he have to do with anything?”
“Honestly, Sophie, if you
can’t keep up with your family’s peccadillos, then I don’t know what to say. Your brother filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Bishops this morning. I’m sure they’re understandably distraught, and I don’t want the library thrown in with your pile of dirty laundry. You know how important the support of the historical trust is to us. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do.”
Sophie would’ve liked to excuse her, but she couldn’t move. Her brother had filed a lawsuit? Against the Bishops? She just sat there, staring at her boss, mouth agape in undignified shock. The calm part of her brain told her to get up, close her mouth and leave. The shocked part was running around in mad circles, squealing like a panicked mouse.
Jean-Marie aimed a long-suffering look in her direction. It was the look she assumed anytime she had to do more than show dignitaries around the library or play solitaire on her computer. Sophie had seen it a hundred times, but it still snapped her out of her state of shock. The mouse stopped running in circles, Sophie closed her mouth with a snap, and she made her escape.
Lauren grabbed her arm and led her into their office. “You didn’t know,” she sighed.
Sophie shook her head.
“It only happened fifteen minutes ago, I think. You know Betty’s sister works in the county clerk’s office, and she called.... Well, never mind. Anyway, I was just about to text you, but I didn’t know if I should stick my nose into your personal business.”
“It’s not my business,” Sophie said numbly, but she knew it wasn’t true. It was her business now. Her awful, insane business. “I need to call my brother.”
“Yeah, go on. Jean-Marie won’t be out of her office again until lunchtime.”
That brought an automatic smile to Sophie’s mouth, but it felt stretched and unnatural. Lauren left and closed the door behind her, giving Sophie some privacy. She dialed her brother’s phone immediately, only realizing her hand was trembling when the phone shook against her glasses. He didn’t answer. She could barely find the words to leave a message.
“David, what did you do?” was all she said.
Sophie hung up and called her dad’s home phone number. When there was no answer, she called his cell, but it went to voice mail right away. He was out of range. He almost always was.
She didn’t leave a message for him. She couldn’t. She had no idea what was going on.
Shaking her head, she stared down at her phone. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t. The entire twenty-five-year scandal had been over, just one more weekend, one little dedication, and it would be done.
Now what was she supposed to do? Just put her phone in her purse and go to work?
She sent a text to David, repeating What did you do? He didn’t respond after thirty seconds. Or sixty. Or ninety.
Five minutes later she was still staring at the phone, waiting to hear anything. For one terrible moment, she considered calling Alex to ask if he’d heard something, but she recoiled from the idea. If he hadn’t heard yet, how would she explain it?
Oh, God. David had mentioned something about a lawsuit a few months ago, but she’d blown him off. She’d said no. She’d considered that the end of it.
She tried her brother’s cell again, then squeezed her eyes shut. This had to be a misunderstanding.
Still shaking, she slipped her phone into her purse and stood up to smooth down her hair and take a deep breath. She had work to do. She couldn’t break down now.
Sophie sneaked behind Lauren’s back and grabbed a cart. She hadn’t planned on weeding books today, but she needed to hide in the stacks, for a little while at least.
She made it halfway through one shelf, feeling a surge of satisfaction when she found an obsolete children’s book about the future of the space race and dropped it onto the cart. That book was definitely heading for the trash. There’d been a lot of progress in the space program since 1976. She hoped nobody had checked it out for research in the past two decades.
But Sophie’s brief interlude of peace was over when Lauren sneaked around a corner and grabbed her in a hug. “What did you find out?”
“Nothing,” she said into Lauren’s shoulder. “He didn’t answer.”
“Crap. So you didn’t have a clue?”
“No, and I doubt my dad did either.” She pulled back. “Neither of us would’ve supported this. It’s outrageous.”
Lauren grimaced. “Maybe it’s not that bad. You haven’t seen the suit yet.”
“It’s a wrongful death suit over a car accident that happened twenty-five years ago! There’s nothing reasonable about that! They’re both long dead. No one even knows what happened.”
Lauren put a finger up to her mouth to shush her, and Sophie realized she’d been speaking well above a whisper. “I’m sorry. I just can’t...” Tears sprang to her eyes, and she tried to blink them away.
“Sophie, you need to figure this out. Take a personal day.”
“I can’t! I’m going to need all the personal days I can get when I go to trial for murdering my little brother.”
“Ha. Don’t murder him. Just rough him up a little. Either way, you can’t do that from here.”
“No. I may as well stay. At least I’m slightly distracted here, and unfortunately this whole mess will be waiting for me whenever I get off work.”
Lauren glanced at the clock. “Are you here until six?”
Sophie nodded.
“I’ve only got a half shift until two. We’ll switch. You leave at two, and I’ll stay until six. You need to talk to your brother.”
“No. I need to talk to my dad. He’s going to be so...” She waved a frantic hand. “But I can’t do that to you.”
“Of course you can. I owe you. If it weren’t for you, I’d never have hooked up with Jake.”
That actually cheered Sophie up enough to snort. “You’re joking, right? With the way you stared longingly at the fire station all the time? He was bound to notice.”
“I wasn’t staring longingly at the station. I was staring longingly at his body every time he jogged to work.”
“Regardless, it was only a matter of time before you two fell on each other like hungry beasts.”
Lauren blushed and nudged her. “I still owe you. So get out of here at two if you won’t leave now. Okay?”
Sophie thought of her dad. And then of Alex and what he would think about all of this. “Okay.”
She got back to work weeding and somehow managed to keep distracted until the busy lunch hours. Those went quickly at least. And thank God for that, because she caught several people studying her as if they wanted to ask a question about the long-ago scandal. None of them did, though, and after a very long half hour of reading to preschoolers for story time, it was finally two o’clock. Lauren waved her out the door.
Sophie glared out the windshield as she drove. She’d tried her brother two more times, but he wasn’t answering. Of course he wasn’t. He knew exactly how pissed she was going to be.
Well, he thought he knew. He couldn’t have any idea that her day had started off so sweet and perfect, and that she’d been looking forward to an even sweeter evening with a man who probably wouldn’t be too keen on her anymore. Did the lawsuit involve him? It must. He would have inherited part of his grandfather’s estate.
“David, you little shit,” Sophie muttered to herself as she took the highway south toward her dad’s ranch. It was supposed to have been a perfect day and now she was driving to her family’s house wearing no panties and a scowl on her face. She passed by the pull-off from the other night and growled, “Unbelievable.”
At least she still had some clothes at the ranch. She wasn’t going to argue with her brother while the mountain breeze caressed her naked ass. “God,” she groaned out loud. She’d never be free of these stupid family nightmares. It was like her family was
living out a Wyoming version of The Thorn Birds. At least there wasn’t a wayward priest involved. Yet.
She tried her brother one more time and then threw the phone onto the passenger seat hard enough to make it bounce. It was possible he wasn’t at home, but she doubted it. He never went anywhere except to weekly karaoke with the same people he’d hung out with since high school. Though he’d apparently added “trips to the county recorder’s office” to his habits.
The drive seemed to take forever, and when she finally skidded to a halt in the gravel yard that fronted the house, her heart fell. The house looked locked up tight. Her dad’s truck was gone. But maybe her brother was locked in his room, trying to hide from her wrath. Best of luck to him, the little shit.
Sophie walked through the silent living room and kitchen and headed straight down the hallway to her brother’s door. She pounded hard on it, hoping he was in there, hoping she would scare him half to death. But there was no gasp of shock and no response. When she tried the knob it was unlocked. Only her anger made her open it. She’d never have invaded his privacy otherwise, and when she saw that he wasn’t in the room, she closed the door immediately. She had too many of her own secrets to tempt fate by poking her nose into others’.
Speaking of... She grimaced and hurried to her own room. She dug through her top dresser drawer until she found a pair of pale pink panties and slipped them on. Even she wasn’t perverted enough to have a family meeting in this state.
Once that little housekeeping task was taken care of, she lost her momentum. She didn’t know what to do. She was standing alone in an empty house with too many feelings whipping through her, and Sophie was suddenly exhausted. Her knees began to shake and she finally gave up and sat down on her bed.
The springs squeaked and slumped under her weight. Amazing how old your childhood bedroom could make you feel. It was strange, because she’d lived here only a year ago, yet it felt like something from her girlhood. Probably because she still had high school pictures on the wall.
“That could have something to do with it,” she muttered before collapsing back on the bed. Dust motes burst up and danced through the slanting rays of sunshine that sneaked past the blinds.
Looking for Trouble Page 9
