Her Hidden Smile, page 15
Of course he did.
“Your wife and Tina both have assault rifles?” Roan asked.
“Yep. My wife only uses hers when I take her out for target practice, but Tina keeps hers under her bed. Just like the brochure says, it’s great for home defense.”
Roan caught my eye and I knew what he was thinking. Harvey had done a hard sale on him to marry Tina. Same as me. The broad was scary, and now knowing she kept an assault rifle under her bed just made her scarier.
“Harvey. I’m all about personal safety, but don’t you think a handgun might be wiser?” Simon asked.
“Hell no. Somebody comes into my little girl’s bedroom, I want her to have the firepower to take him out.” He pulled the plate of pastries to him to see what was left. He picked a chocolate donut and pushed the plate back into the middle of the table.
“Thanks, Harvey, I’m going to decline on the SCAR. I’m good with the gun I’ve got.”
“Okay. But if you change your mind, just let me know.”
“In the meantime, I’m going to stay close to Millie.”
Simon gave me a slow smile. Yeah, he was one to be giving me looks; I remember how it went with him and Trenda. He had been staying real close with her too when things were looking kind of hairy.
Chapter Eighteen
Waking up with Renzo in my bed had to be the best thing in the world. Now I understood why Lisa was smiling all the time. I’d made breakfast this morning. Boy did he eat a lot. But he probably weighed twice as much as I did, and his was a physical job, so it made sense that he would need a lot more fuel.
Except for the fact that we still didn’t know who might have tried to break into my house, and now I had a gun—which was locked up at least—life was perfect. Heck, Renzo had even picked blackberries for me a couple of days ago so I could try making the peach and blackberry cake. I had him pick a lot because I usually screwed up my first two attempts of whatever I made.
Lisa and Bella were coming over this afternoon so I’d given myself enough time to make the cake three times. I was right, the first one was a mess. It came out cakelike, but the blackberries had exploded in the cake. I figured out they were too ripe and juicy. I used smaller blackberries and dunked them in cornstarch the second time around. When I opened the oven, I was confronted with a perfect cake.
Yay me!
The iced tea was cold, and so was the lemonade for Miss Bella. I also had some homemade peach ice cream to go with the cake. Hopefully this would be a hit. I grabbed a bowl of ice cream and headed to my computer. Today was grant day. It wasn’t nearly as much fun as donation day, but it definitely needed to be done.
I was halfway through my bowl of ice cream before I decided which two grants to apply for that would work well for the Burn Alliance. The first one wanted our financial metrics, our tax form and disclosure policies, key accountability metrics and measurable impact and results. I had all of that, so this one was going to be easy, but the second one was a little tougher. They wanted our adaptability story. That was going to take some research. Well, that’s why I got paid the big bucks.
I giggled. Yep, a salary of zero was certainly the big bucks.
I was lost in work when the fence sensor went off. When I looked at the clock on my computer I realized three hours had gone by. How in the world had that happened?
I got up and peeked out the front window and saw Lisa’s baby blue Dodge Charger. Bella spotted me because she was waving wildly from the front seat. I waved back as I pushed the button to open the gate.
I was hungry, so I couldn’t wait to see what Lisa had picked up for lunch. I opened the door and invited them in. I was surprised to see a bag that said Pearl’s on it. I was just conditioned to think Down Home when it came to takeout food here in Jasper Creek.
“I see that look, Millie. Trust me, you’ll like it. I got you a Rueben,” Lisa said as she went to the dining room table and plopped down the bag.
“I got a grilled cheese with ketchup,” Bella said excitedly.
“You mean ketchup for your French fries?” I clarified.
“No, for my grilled cheese. You dip it in the ketchup, and then it’s like you’re dipping it into tomato soup. It’s really good. Wanna try it with your sandwich?”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
“Feeling adventurous these days, huh?” Lisa said as she pulled out the sandwiches, napkins, utensils, and ketchup packs.
“I’ve decided that adventurous has its advantages.” I tried to sound prim, but my laughter blew it all to hell.
“I hear you, sister,” Lisa grinned.
“What are you laughing about?” Bella asked us as she opened the wrapper around her grilled cheese sandwich.
“We’re agreeing it’s good to take chances,” Lisa told her.
“I’m getting dishes and drinks.” I headed to the kitchen.
“I’ll come help.”
We soon had the food prepped and the drinks poured and were eating lunch.
“I’m liking the ketchup, Cariña.” I smiled at Bella.
“That’s what Mr. Renzo calls me! Do you know Mr. Renzo?”
“Yes, tell us,” Lisa prompted as she grinned. “How well do you know Mr. Renzo?”
“I know him really well,” I answered. “He comes over and visits me.”
“I didn’t think you liked people coming over. That’s what my mama told me. She said you were shy.”
I heaved out a sigh. “I guess that’s one way to put it. I had to spend a lot of time in the hospital when I was younger. A lot of doctors and nurses were always around me. I never got any privacy. It made me not like people. Then when I had to go back to school, the kids made fun of me because I was the new girl and I limped, so I really didn’t like people.”
“I wouldn’t have made fun of you, I would have been your friend.”
I looked at her troubled little face, and I grabbed her hand. “I know you would have. You are the best kid I’ve ever met.”
“That was mean of the other kids to make fun of you for limping. They were bullies.”
“Yes they were. But between the hospitals and the kids at school I shut down more and more.”
“What about your mom and dad? Didn’t they help you?”
Boy, she sure knew how to go to the heart of the matter. “My mom and dad died.”
Bella looked at me with such sad eyes, and her bottom lip trembled. “When you were a little kid?”
“Yeah. They died when I had to go to the hospital.”
She shot up from her chair and rushed around the table to hug my waist. “I’m so sorry,” she wailed into my chest. “I didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t, sweetheart.”
Her expressive eyes were filled with tears. “So you were sad and scared, right?”
“I was.”
“Did you have aunts and uncles like me?”
“I had an aunt and uncle, but they came from far away and I hardly knew them. They took me away from Jasper Creek so that made me even sadder. But I’m much happier now. I have friends like you, Bella. And Lisa. And Renzo. And Little Grandma.”
“And my mama wants to be your friend, but she didn’t think that you wanted her to come over.”
I looked down at her precious face. “Yes, I would love to meet your mama sometime.”
“Mr. Renzo loves my mama’s lasagna. You should come with him when she makes it.”
I shot Lisa a helpless glance. She toasted me with her glass of sweet tea.
“I’ll think about it.” I brushed a kiss against her forehead. “Are you ready for dessert?”
“Did you make us something?” Her brown eyes gleamed greedily.
“I made blackberry peach cake with homemade peach ice cream.”
Her eyes got even wider and she turned her head slowly to look at Lisa. “Did you hear that?” she practically screamed. “She made homemade ice cream! I didn’t know you could do that.” She turned back to me. “Can we make Captain Crunch ice cream?”
“I suppose, but you’ll have to ask your mother first.”
“Maybe we could make it for dessert when she makes lasagna. That would be epic!”
Lisa and I burst out laughing.
“We’ve found him,” Simon said after I answered my cell phone.
The lump in my stomach that had been churning since the night someone had tried to break into Millie’s house, started to dissipate.
“Where is he?”
“He really is an idiot. He’s been living in his aunt’s shed. Seriously, we could have just followed the ding-dong and ho-ho wrappers instead of doing any real sleuthing.”
I chuckled.
“Can you do me another favor?”
“What?”
“Harvey and I have this bet going on. Junior is always in front of his work computer when we go in to see him. Harvey thinks he’s reading Outdoor Life, I say he’s surfing porn. Anyway, you can let us know who’s right.”
“Oh, you win on that one. We checked his work and home computer. Nothing but porn. Another thing of interest is that he has downloaded every picture of Tina Sadowski that there is.”
“Tina?”
“Yep.”
“Hmm.”
“So you don’t know what that’s about?” Simon asked me.
“Not a damn clue. Where’s Junior now?”
“I’ve got him at our second office. We have a cabin further out than the one that I’m renting to you. Nice and quiet. A perfect place for people to stop and contemplate life.”
I chuckled. “Give me the coordinates. After I talk to Harvey, I’ll be there.”
Simon gave me the coordinates and I promised to see him in a couple of hours.
I was standing in Harvey’s study when he called out for his daughter. I’d worried that they weren’t going to be doing well after Harvey had to lay down the law about her would-be fiancé. It turned out that she was doing fine.
Simon and Roan did a background check at Harvey’s request and found that Tina’s boyfriend had three failed businesses behind him, his car was about ready to be repossessed, and his house was in foreclosure. Not a stellar candidate for a future son-in-law as far as Harvey was concerned. But Tina didn’t seem to care.
However, she did care when he explained that Roy’s extensive collection of Japanese sex dolls were also going to be auctioned off. He explained that some of them had been purchased for more than ten thousand dollars. At that point Tina was more than happy to scrape him off.
“You wanted to see me?” Tina said as she sauntered into her father’s study. She gave me quite the onceover, then licked her lips. Seriously, Harvey should have just let her marry Roy.
“Yeah, Renzo and I were wondering why Wylie Junior might have a bunch of your pictures downloaded onto his computer.”
“Ewww. Junior? That oaf? I can’t stand him. He followed me around for three months after Jessica’s wedding. I couldn’t pry him loose to save my life. I swear he took stalker classes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Harvey asked.
“Because I knew you would go ballistic. I had Cousin Forrest take care of it.”
“What did he do?”
“Well, that’s the thing, Daddy. I’m not really sure. But now, every time Junior sees me in the store or on the sidewalk, he turns around and walks the other way.”
“I always did like Amalie’s boy. Got to give him a good bottle of bourbon for that.”
“Is that all you needed me for?”
“Yeah, that was it.”
“Good, I have a date tonight. I need to go get prettied up.”
Harvey frowned. “Who is he? Do I know him?”
“He’s one of the Beaumonts from Knoxville. You and Mama know them from the country club.”
“Is he the bad son, or one of the two good ones?”
“It’s all a matter of perspective,” she laughed. She looked over at me and winked. “Good seeing you, Renzo.” She tried to sway out of the study, but she just didn’t have Millie’s behind to do it right. I turned back to Harvey.
“She’s going to be the death of me. I swear it.”
“So do you want to go with me while I talk to Junior?” I asked him.
“Nah, just get me the information I need. Really mess him up.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. This is the whole reason I don’t want to be Harvey’s employee. He doesn’t think straight. A partner? Yes. An employee? No.
“Harvey, I’m not going to beat the shit out of some guy tied to a chair. This isn’t like some episode of the Sopranos. I just plan to scare the shit out of him, so he gives me all the info we need before he lawyers up.”
“I don’t care how you go about it, just find out the truth.”
“I will.”
Before I walked out the door, I turned back. “By the way, you owe me a hundred bucks.”
“For what?”
“Simon checked. All of Junior’s screen time at work was spent on porn sites.”
“Yeah, a minute after I made the bet, I knew it was a bad one.” He pulled out his overstuffed money clip and peeled off a hundred-dollar bill for me. I really needed to introduce Harvey to Bella. She would be attending an Ivy League school, for sure.
Chapter Nineteen
I’d given Renzo one of the gate openers, just like I’d provided one to Irv, so they could both let themselves in and out. So when I heard the gate opening, I knew it was him. Plus the fact that he’d called five minutes ago to tell me he’d be here in five minutes.
I was too tired to get up off the couch. First there had been the grants, then there had been lunch with Lisa and Bella, and then there had been an impromptu training session with two new grant writers. After that I had desperately needed time in the lavender field and the orchard. I pretended that I was determining when things needed to be harvested, even though I already knew the answers. Actually, just touching the flowers in the field and picking a peach here and there provided me with serenity and balance. I hadn’t been using my land for that lately.
I giggled as I heard Renzo opening the door. I hadn’t been walking my land for comfort because I hadn’t needed to.
“Hi, Beautiful,” he greeted me with that smoldering Spanish accent.
Lately I’d been comforted with Renzo’s love and affection.
“Hi, Renzo.” I smiled at him.
“Did I hear you giggling?” he asked as he tossed his keys on the table by the fence and floodlight switches.
“Yes. You did. I was thinking about how I don’t need to go meditate in the orchard as much as I used to now that I have you here to help me relax.”
“Is that so?”
I stood up and held out my arms. He circumvented the coffee table, pulled me close, and kissed me. Soon my head was spinning and I was ready to head to the bedroom. Then I heard Renzo’s stomach growl. I pulled back.
“Have you eaten?”
“Not since lunch.”
“It’s nine o’clock,” I admonished. “Let me get you some food.”
“Sit down, honey. I’ll fix myself a sandwich. Go back to watching TV or whatever you were doing.”
“It’ll take just a few minutes to boil some water and get the ravioli going. I’ve got some good marinara sauce that I can heat up to go with it. But I don’t have any salad fixings.”
“Really? Nothing vegetable-like in your refrigerator? Shocking,” he teased.
I grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the island. I sat him down and soon had a plate of ravioli in front of him. “Now tell me what you don’t want to say.”
He finished his bite, then put down his fork. “Am I really that easy to read?”
“Ah-ha. So I’m right!” I turned to pull out the peach ice cream from the fridge. I didn’t want him to see the look of concern on my face. I’d really been hoping my guess would be wrong.
“Cariña, turn around and look at me.”
“Gotta get the dessert ready.” I got down the bowls, and got the spoons out of the drawer. Then I brought the ice cream to the island. “This is homemade,” I told him.
“Really? I don’t think I’ve ever had homemade ice cream before.”
“Hold on, there’s cake to go with it.” I kept my eyes down as I turned to get the cake. I knew whatever he had to say I wasn’t going to like. “Do you want your cake in the bowl, or a separate plate?”
“The bowl is fine, Millie.”
I brought what was left of the cake over to the island.
He dished out the ice cream as I served up the cake. He didn’t say anything as we had our first bites of the treat. He was seated on the stool. I stayed on the kitchen side, leaning against the counter. It was the most comfortable position for me right now. As I ate the dessert, I found mine didn’t taste nearly as good as it had when I was eating it earlier with Lisa and Bella. I put down my spoon.
“Okay, spill it.”
“We got Junior. I had a nice long talk with him today. We got all the information we needed to know which projects we have to retrofit.”
I stood up taller. “Well, that’s good news.”
“Yeah, it is,” he sighed. “The bad news is, he insists that he didn’t try to break into your house.”
“So, he lied.”
“That’s what I think, but Simon’s not so sure. There were no recent fingerprints but yours and mine on the kitchen door, and his foot size was the same size as Juniors. The sheriff is going to need to get a warrant to check to see if he can find boots at his house that match.”
“Well, if you’re sure, what’s bothering you?” I asked.
“Two things. One, your alarm system isn’t going to be installed until next week. I hate that, but according to Simon and Roan, Ace Alarm Systems is the best. I’ll call Fred tomorrow and see if they can fit you in any earlier.”
“Why the rush?”
“I need to go back home to Springfield for a couple of days.”
“Why? What’s wrong? Is it your grandmother?” I knew that she hadn’t been feeling well.
