Head Over Heels

by Susan Andersen

  “So Lizzy walked in on this and…?”

  “Completely misconstrued it and went running to the solace of Coop’s big ole protective arms.” She laughed without humor. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? He was worried she’d hate his guts, but instead she just loves him to pieces. I seem to be the villain in this little melodrama, because Coop believes her daddy is innocent, while I…well, I don’t know what the hell I believe anymore.” Then she shrugged and looked around, taking in their surroundings. “But enough about me. Believe it or not, I didn’t ask you to lunch to whine. This place is nice. And dinosaurs is a catchy theme, given the name of the town. Who are the proprietors? Anyone I’d know?”

  “Nope. It’s a couple who moved into the area a few years ago.”

  “Well, it’s great place, and the food is excellent. In fact, I noticed this entire part of town seems to be enjoying a resurgence.”

  Marissa suddenly laughed. “That reminds me. Guess what the city planners have started calling it?”

  “You’ve got me—give me a hint.”

  “Okay, what would you call something that’s been designated the oldest part of town?”

  Ronnie considered the emphasis her friend put on the word. “I don’t know, historic Fossil? There are a couple of pretty buildings down in this area, but they’re not of any real historical value. Come to think of it, there’s not a lot of history in this town, period. We’re an agriculture region whose hub sprawled out piecemeal every time it grew.” She set her spoon alongside her soup bowl. “I give. What do they call this part of town?”

  “Old Fossil.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Old Fossil.”

  Veronica laughed. “Get outta here. They couldn’t possibly have missed the redundancy.”

  “Swear to God.” Marissa crossed her heart with her index and fore fingers, then held up her hand as if taking a Girl Scout oath. “Even after it was pointed out to them in a veritable flood of letters to the editor in the Tribune that fossils by definition are antiquated or from another geological age, they still insisted it gave the area a certain panache.”

  Veronica laughed. “Who’s on this committee—your friends Wentworth and Tyler-Jones from the Junior League?”

  Marissa grinned. “Nah, but thanks for the I’m-your-bud-therefore-I-hate-who-you-hate moment. You truly are a best friend.”

  “Oh, my gosh, that reminds me. If I were such a good friend, I would’ve asked you right away what Kody had to say for himself when you talked to him about the kids. Has he been avoiding meeting them?”

  “I don’t know yet. We haven’t been able to get together. It seems like whenever I have the time, he can’t get away. And when he has the time, I’m tied up.” Marissa shrugged, but a tightness around her eyes gave lie to her apparent indifference. “We’ve made plans to get together Wednesday evening, though. Could the kids stay the night with you? I thought it might be less disruptive than rousting them out of bed in the middle of a school night.”

  “Sure. They can come straight from school, if you’d like.”

  “No, I’ll bring them down after dinner. We won’t burden you longer than necessary.”

  Veronica made a rude noise. “Big burden. If they get too noisy, I’ll give Mrs. M a call and take a walk around the block. Heck, maybe I’ll call her to come over and watch TV with me, anyway. I think she misses the kids since I’ve stopped spending so much time at the Tonk.”

  Another eddy of cold air blew across her shoulders as the door behind her once again opened and closed, and Veronica shifted slightly in her seat. “Next time we come here, we’re grabbing a table out of the path of that doorway. Either that, or coming on a warmer day.”

  “It’s sure been colder’n a witch’s leftie lately,” Marissa agreed.

  “Which is probably not a bad thing for the Winter Festival. I seem to recall bigger, rowdier crowds whenever it snowed or we had a cold snap. Speaking of which, how are the decorations coming along?”

  “Great. I’ve got a crew working over at the fairgrounds as we speak. We took your advice and made papier-mâché trees, and they turned out so well that several of the committee decided to make more for the ice rink. I plan to stop by after we leave here.”

  A couple sauntered into Veronica’s line of vision and took a table a few yards away. Even from the back, they drew attention as the man assisted the woman in removing an expensive-looking overcoat and ushered her into a seat. Both were blond: The man’s hair gleamed as gold as an antique doubloon, while the woman’s was a pale honey tousled bob that looked casual and thrown together but had probably cost the earth to attain. He was tall, and she was tiny, but both looked fit in wool sweaters and jeans that Veronica would be willing to bet sported a designer brand on the hip pocket.

  She only knew one man that pulled together, so she wasn’t exactly knocked for a loop when, having rounded the table and taken a chair that faced her own, turned out to be Troy Jacobson. “Which must make that his wife, whatzername,” she murmured.

  “Have you taken up talking to yourself now?” Marissa inquired. “Who must be whose wife?”

  “The pom-pom queen. Golden Boy Jacobson’s wife.”

  Marissa glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, Nancy, you mean. I didn’t know she was back in town.” She gave Veronica a look across the table. “She’s actually quite nice.”

  “If you say so.” Ronnie shrugged. “I suppose it isn’t her fault he was such a jackass back in high school. I’m just having a knee-jerk moment. Give me a second—it’ll pass.”

  As if realizing he was the subject of their discussion, Troy suddenly glanced up from the menu he’d been perusing and looked straight at Veronica. Without so much as a flicker of recognition, he immediately turned his attention back to his menu.

  She opened her mouth to say something scathing about it to Marissa, but then kept the comment to herself. She recalled Darlene Starkey’s reference to an affair Troy was supposedly having and his less-than-happy retort that his wife had heard the same rumor—which was the reason she’d still been out of town. If appearances were anything to go by, the couple had resolved their differences, and Veronica had to admit that in his place, she probably wouldn’t point out the sister of his onetime lover, either.

  A little devil nevertheless nudged her to go over and introduce herself, but she reined in the impulse and concentrated on her visit with Marissa. And after they paid their check a short while later and rose to go their separate ways, she managed to pass within greeting range of the Jacobsons’ table without uttering a word.

  The minute he heard sounds coming from downstairs, Coop saved the file of his current chapter and shut down his computer. It was too soon for Lizzy to be out of school, which meant Ronnie had to be home. For the past several days, she’d managed to avoid him or had given him the bum’s rush when she couldn’t avoid him, so this was too golden an opportunity to let pass. Coop pushed back from the little table he used as a desk and headed for the stairs.

  He found her putting her coat in the living room closet. Stopping in the doorway, he propped his shoulder against the jamb to observe her for a moment. She moved with economical grace, and watching her as she reached out to hook the hanger over the rod, he couldn’t believe how much he’d missed her these past several days.

  The really scary part was that it wasn’t only the sex that he missed. He missed her conversation and her way of looking at things. He missed the warmth of her laugh.

  He hadn’t thought he’d been particularly quiet when he entered the room, but when Veronica turned and saw him standing there, she jumped. “Hey,” he said softly, pushing away from the jamb. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “Then stop prowling around like a damn cat!” she snapped.

  With an inward sigh, he approached her. “Are you going to stay mad at me forever, Ronnie?” He looked down at her clear skin, flushed with ire, and at her soft mouth set in such hard lines against him, and stuffed his hands in his pockets t
o keep from reaching out to touch. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you who I was, okay? I didn’t set out to hide my relationship with my brother, but when Marissa assumed I was answering the bartender ad, it occurred to me that I’d probably have better luck clearing Eddie’s name if no one knew who I was.”

  Her mouth twisted, and he expected her to lambast him again for the opportunities he’d had to tell her the truth once they’d made love. She surprised him, however, when she merely said, “I understand what makes Lizzy believe in Eddie’s innocence. She’s a child and he’s her father. But what about you? What makes you so all-fired sure, against every bit of evidence, that Eddie didn’t do what the entire judicial system is sure he’s done?”

  “I don’t believe the entire system does believe in his guilt. His lawyer couldn’t understand why he ran—he claims the case against Eddie wasn’t all that strong. But I don’t need a lawyer to tell me my brother’s innocent. I know Eddie. And you must have spent enough time talking to him and seeing him with Lizzy to have formed an opinion of the kind of man he is. Can you honestly say you don’t have a single doubt he’s guilty?”

  “I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “I want to say yes, because the evidence all seems to point that way, and why else would he run, if he weren’t guilty?”

  “But?”

  “But…my first reaction, when I heard that Crystal was dead, was sheer disbelief. Not only because she’d been murdered, but because Eddie stood accused of it.”

  “He didn’t do it, Ronnie.”

  She studied him in silence for a moment, then finally said, “I can see you honestly believe that.”

  “I more than believe it—I know it in my gut.”

  “And your gut’s never wrong?”

  “Rarely.”

  Again she considered him, before saying slowly, “That man David said you were in the Marines.”

  “Yes. For thirteen years. My friend Zach and I were point men for a recon unit.”

  She walked over to the couch and sat. Coop felt encouraged, even though she was perched on the edge as if she might get up and leave at any moment. He took a seat at the opposite end.

  “So when you told me you’d been a travel bum for thirteen years,” she said, “that was—”

  “Courtesy of Uncle Sam.”

  “I was going to say a lie, but since we really didn’t know each other then, I suppose it was none of my business. So, what’s a recon unit?”

  “Reconnaissance—a unit of soldiers who survey a region to obtain information. Usually about an enemy.”

  “And the point men…?”

  “Scope out potential enemy territory ahead of the rest of the unit.”

  She gazed at him for a moment, then blinked and said, “Sounds dangerous.”

  Coop shrugged.

  “Lizzy seems to think Eddie will come back for her. Is that what you believe, too?”

  “Knowing the way Eddie feels about her? Yes.”

  She stiffened. “I won’t let him take her, Cooper. Unless he gets his life straightened out, I’ll fight you, I’ll fight him—I’ll even fight Lizzy herself before I’ll allow Eddie to ruin her life by taking her on the run.”

  She leaned forward to study him intently. “I admit, though, that you seem to have a decent grasp on people’s characters. So, if I agree to have an open mind about Eddie’s guilt in my sister’s death, will you agree to keep him away from Lizzy if he shows up?”

  Suppressing the sudden surge of warmth that wanted to wrap around him like a blanket simply because she’d expressed faith in his ability to assess character, Coop merely said, “He’d have to be able to see her.” Before she could protest, he qualified, “I could arrange for it to be while she’s sleeping, though. I’ll agree not to let him speak to her, but he needs to be able to see for himself that she’s all right.”

  “All right. Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me, Ronnie. As much as I’d like to get back in your good graces, I’m not doing this for you. While I see your point concerning the quality of Lizzy’s life if she were constantly on the run, I also don’t see where it would be appreciably richer or fuller without her father. I agree to keep them separated for Eddie’s protection. I doubt Lizzy’s ability to keep it to herself if she saw him, so until we get to the bottom of this mess, I agree to your terms.”

  “Fair enough.”

  She rose to her feet and so did Coop. Gazing down at her, he thought how earnest and solemn she looked as she stared up at him. For the first time in days she didn’t appear angry with him, and he was so pleased about it, he instinctively reached out for her.

  She smoothly sidestepped him.

  “Ronn—”

  “Several nights ago you said I had ’a look’ in my eye. Would you like to know what put it there?”

  He’d rather kiss her. No, that wasn’t the correct response. Coop squared his shoulders. Of course he wanted to know. Clearing Eddie’s name was the ultimate goal here. Taking a step back to keep from doing something stupid, he gave her a clipped nod.

  “I remembered a conversation with Crystal, which I needed to think about before I discussed it out loud. Then, the other night, I was going to thrash it out with you, but…” Her voice trailed off.

  “You discovered I was Eddie’s brother.”

  “Yes.” She hesitated, then gave him a look that was surprisingly prim. “It might not mean anything, but I feel you have the right to know that Crystal was involved with a man before her death.”

  Coop snapped to full attention. “Who?”

  “I don’t know. I’m assuming he was married, though, because she didn’t want to talk about it—and the only time Crystal ever avoided giving me way more information than I wanted to know was when she was pretty sure I wouldn’t keep my disapproval to myself. She detested being lectured.”

  “Did she give you any clue who he might be? A first name, anything?”

  “No. She called him her ‘honey,’ but that was it. I’m pretty sure he was wealthy, though. I had Lizzy for a long weekend early last fall when Crystal went to Hawaii with the guy. She came back raving over the luxury hotel he took her to.”

  “What hotel? That might be a place to start.”

  “The Royal Hawaiian. She showed me pictures of it—it’s this great, turreted pink hotel that was built in the 1920s. Crystal was absolutely blown away over the accommodations. They stayed in a pricey suite overlooking the ocean, which apparently is considered the premier location, and she loved the fact that the hotel served pink champagne.”

  “Do you have any guesses to the guy’s identity?”

  “No.” But something flickered in the depths of her moss-green eyes.

  “Darlene Starkey intimated Troy Jacobson was having an affair,” he said neutrally. The man had rubbed him the wrong way the one and only time they’d met, so he felt he had to bend over backward not to let that color his attitude now.

  “Darlene deals in rumors.”

  Hell, he didn’t like her defense of Jacobson any better today than he had that night in the bar. “Your sister had an affair with him once.”

  “But we have no real reason to suppose she’d taken up with him again.”

  Coop was trying not to feel low-grade pissed when she slowly added, “Still, I suppose it was seeing Troy with his wife at the café a while ago that made me think of Crystal’s mystery man again. He’s certainly rich enough to qualify. Except…didn’t he say something that night at the Tonk about his wife being at their place in Maui? It doesn’t seem like he’d mess around in his own back yard.”

  That took a little steam out of his awakened hunting instincts. “The Royal Hawaiian is on Maui?”

  “No, it’s on Waikiki Beach on Oahu. But still—”

  “Then we’re not really talking his back yard,” he interrupted. “But I’ll tell you what. You have the dates Crystal took her jaunt with her rich lover?”

  “Not off the top of my head. But they’re in my appointment book
upstairs.”

  “Good. You get the dates, and I’ll call an ex-Marine buddy of mine who’s become a private detective. Seems to me the place to start would be to determine whether or not Jacobson was even out of town during that period.”

  She went upstairs, and was back again shortly. “Here you go,” she said and read off the dates to him. She also handed him a photograph. “I don’t know how this could possibly help, but I thought you might be interested in seeing the photo she sent me when she got back.”

  “Is this the Royal Hawaiian?”

  “Yes. Gorgeous, isn’t it?”

  The snapshot showed a distinctive building of Spanish-Moorish architectural style, replete with arches and a dome-shaped turret. In the foreground was a coconut grove and the photo could easily have passed for a postcard…if not for a little brown and white spotted dog lifting its leg against one of the palms.

  Coop grinned, and not just at the incongruous picture. He didn’t know how the snapshot would specifically help, either, but, feeling exultant to be doing something constructive for the first time in what felt like forever, he reached for Ronnie again.

  She wasn’t fast enough to dodge him this time, but she slapped a staying hand on his chest. “Don’t,” she said and jerked her head out of the range of his descending mouth. “Don’t mistake my willingness to look beyond your brother for my sister’s murderer for anything else. I’m still angry with you, Cooper.”