Woman in Blue Read online

  “What’s all this nonsense? We’re family. Why wouldn’t we welcome you?” Miss Honi straightened from sweeping up the shards. “Ain’t that right, sugar?” Broom in hand, she swung around to face Lindsay.

  Lindsay was suddenly at a loss for words. “Of course,” she said lamely. “You’re always welcome.” To visit; the unspoken words lay heavy in the air.

  “But not when I need help?” challenged Kerrie Ann. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Will somebody please tell me what all this is about?” Miss Honi demanded, hands on hips.

  Lindsay could see there was no use beating around the bush. “Kerrie Ann needs a place to stay. She asked if she could move in with us,” she explained to Miss Honi, not taking her eyes off her sister.

  “Just until I get my little girl back,” Kerrie Ann hastened to add.

  “Your—you have a daughter?” Miss Honi turned to face Kerrie Ann, wearing a look of astonishment.

  Kerrie Ann nodded. A deep pain flickered in her eyes as she gave the abbreviated version of the story she’d told Lindsay the night before. At the end, she turned her gaze to Lindsay, shoulders squared and chin tilted in a stance Lindsay recognized from the early years, whenever she’d tried to get Kerrie Ann to obey her and Kerrie Ann had stubbornly refused, a look that was part defiance and part appeal. Either help me or put me out of my misery, her eyes seemed to say.

  Lindsay realized that she couldn’t go through with it; her decision had been guided by her head, not her heart. And whatever Kerrie Ann’s shortcomings were, she was still her sister. My responsibility, she thought, as she had so many times when Kerrie Ann was small. Even as misgivings rose inside her, flapping and squabbling like a flock of crows, she put a smile on her face and said, “You always have a home with us, for as long as you need it.”

  There were plenty of occasions to regret that decision in the days to come. It wasn’t that her sister didn’t make an effort, just that all too often her efforts fell short of the mark. “Not everyone can be as perfect as you,” Kerrie Ann snapped one morning when Lindsay pointed out that she’d left her wet towel on the bathroom floor—again. Kerrie Ann accused her of failing to recognize all the times she had remembered to hang up her towel or the clothes that, more often than not, were left strewn over the carpet. Kerrie Ann didn’t seem to understand that it wasn’t about being courteous and respectful some of the time—you had to be that way all the time, unthinkingly.

  Like with her smoking. Most of the time Kerrie Ann obeyed the house rule and smoked outdoors, but a few times Lindsay had returned home from her morning run to the telltale stink of cigarettes in the air. Each time she’d confronted Kerrie Ann, who’d confessed with a vaguely sheepish look to having been too lazy to get dressed and go outside. On one occasion, she blamed the weather, saying, “You expect me to stand outside in the pouring rain?”

  “I don’t care what you do,” Lindsay retorted, not bothering to hide her annoyance, “as long as you don’t stink up the house.”

  Whenever she found herself at her wit’s end, she thought of Miss Honi. How would she be able to look Miss Honi in the eye if she turned her sister out? Also, Kerrie Ann was making herself useful at the book café, where they’d agreed she would work until she found a paying job, though Lindsay suspected that her productivity had to do with the fact that she was partnered with Ollie, who brought out the best in people. It was a big help having her do the cooking as well. So at least Lindsay had the consolation of a decent meal when she arrived home tired from work, though it usually meant being stuck with a sink full of dirty pots and pans.

  The week after Kerrie Ann officially moved in—with the arrival of several large cardboard boxes shipped from her former address in LA—Grant phoned Lindsay at work on Thursday to ask if she’d care to join him for dinner that evening. “I’m entertaining a couple of clients from out of town,” he told her. “It’d be great if we could make it a foursome.”

  “Sounds tempting,” she fibbed. She hadn’t seen Grant since the night of the party, but dinner with clients wasn’t exactly her idea of a romantic evening. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to pass, though. We’re hosting one of the book clubs tonight, and I’m in charge.” That part wasn’t a lie, at least. “Miss Honi has a date tonight”—with a retired basketball coach she’d met at a recent literacy fund-raiser—“and I can hardly leave my sister in charge.”

  “How’s that going by the way?” Grant asked cautiously.

  Lindsay, seated at her desk in the office, glanced at the door to make sure it was shut before replying candidly, “Wonderful when she’s behaving herself, not so wonderful the rest of the time.” She sighed. “A lot of the time it’s like living with a bratty teenager. It’s not just that she doesn’t always remember to pick up after herself. She doesn’t think. This morning was the third time in a week I’ve had to take a cold shower because she used up all the hot water. It’s making me not like myself—I’ve become a hopeless nag.”

  “Is that supposed to be a warning?” he said with a chuckle. Grant hadn’t given up trying to persuade her to move in with him and seldom missed an opportunity to inject a comment to that effect.

  Ignoring this one, she went on, “The bottom line is that my sister and I are oil and water, and the two don’t mix.”

  “No, but out of oil and vinegar comes salad dressing.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “That sometimes opposing elements can complement each other.”

  “That remains to be seen. At the moment, I’m just trying to cope.” She sighed once more, burying her elbows in the pile of paperwork on her desk—much of it unpaid bills or invoices due—as she leaned forward with the phone to her ear, propping her head on the heel of her other hand. “It’s not all her fault. It’s this damn case, too. It’s got me all in knots.”

  “What’s happening with that?” he asked, the warm concern in his voice banishing any uncharitable thoughts she’d had about his seeming lack of interest in the case. It had been several days since they’d spoken, and she was eager to bring him up-to-date.

  “The county board of commissioners voted two to one in support of the Heywood Group’s proposition.” Her lawyer had phoned that morning to deliver the bad news. “Assuming there isn’t an endangered species on or around my property in need of protecting, the next step will be for them to establish eminent domain.” She felt a fresh stab of panic at the thought.

  “Don’t let it scare you.” His calm voice soothed her frayed nerves. “Remember, even if they come out ahead in court, it’s only half the battle—they’d still have to get approval from the state, and that’s a much higher bar.” Making a case for eminent domain based on tax benefits to the community, he reminded her, was a far cry from what the concept had originally been intended for: to clear the way for the building of railroads and highways, dams and aqueducts.

  “That may be, but even if they don’t have a leg to stand on, they have the resources”—Heywood’s deep pockets and influence—“to make up for it. What am I but a lone voice in the wilderness?”

  “You’re not alone,” he reassured her. “You have Dwight—and me.”

  “For all the good it does,” she grumbled. Catching herself, she apologized. “Sorry. I don’t mean to sound so grouchy. I must have gotten out of the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

  “Or maybe a case of too many in the same bed?”

  “My sister and I are sharing a room, not a bed,” she reminded him.

  Though at times it did seem as if she were way too involved in every aspect of Kerrie Ann’s life. There were her sister’s frequent and often frantic phone calls to her lawyer. And her new twelve-step buddies—one a muscular biker type going to flab with a skull and crossbones tattooed on the back of his shaved head, the other a skinny ponytailed guy with bad skin and even worse teeth, a former “tweaker”—who’d begun showing up at the house to take Kerrie Ann to the local NA meetings she’d begun attending. If they we
re any indication of what was in store, Lindsay would soon have to put up with a parade of bikers and tweakers and God knew who else—just like the sketchy characters Crystal used to drag home. Lindsay shuddered at the idea. It’s only temporary, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time. Just until her sister got back on her feet.

  By the time she hung up, she was feeling a little better; sometimes it helped just to vent. She returned to work with renewed vigor. An hour later she’d just gotten off the phone with the St. Martin’s rep, a jovial man by the name of Ed Cosgrove, when there was a knock at the office door.

  “Come in!” she called distractedly.

  The door cracked open, and a head of wavy brown hair streaked with gray at the temples poked its way in. It belonged to a strikingly handsome man—fortyish, keen gray-blue eyes under heavy brows, a generous mouth bracketed by lines—who looked vaguely familiar, though she couldn’t place him. “I’m not disturbing you, am I? The lady at the register sent me back, but if you’re busy …” He seemed in no hurry to leave as he stood there smiling at her like someone accustomed to being a welcome interruption.

  “No, please. Come in.” She stood to greet him. “What can I do for you?”

  “Randall Craig.” He put out his hand—sturdy, tanned, sporting a silver band with Celtic lettering on the middle finger. “You said if I was ever passing through, I should drop by.”

  Now she knew why he looked familiar: the author photo on the back of his book. What had thrown her was that he was much better-looking in person. “Of course. It’s just … I wasn’t expecting … that is, I thought …” she stammered, flustered as much by his presence as by the impromptu visit. At last she managed to gather her wits and say, “Well, it’s nice to finally meet you. Though, honestly, I didn’t expect you to come all this way. I know how busy you must be.” She’d thought it merely a courtesy call when he’d phoned last week to personally apologize for canceling his author event. She hadn’t expected to hear from him again.

  “Never too busy to make amends. I hope you weren’t too inconvenienced.”

  “Not at all,” she lied. “It’s not the first time I’ve had an author cancel, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.” His eyes were the color of a foggy sky with the sun burning through, and his mouth, with its fuller bottom lip, made her think of biting into a plump raspberry. “Anyway, it couldn’t be helped.” He hadn’t elaborated over the phone except to say that it was a family emergency.

  “It was my mother,” he explained. “She had a stroke. Fortunately it was a minor one, but she was in the hospital for a few days while they ran tests. I felt I should be there.”

  “Of course.” Lindsay felt guilty for having assumed he’d blown her off for a more important gig. “She’s better now, I hope?”

  “Her doctor expects a full recovery.” He had only a few inches on her but seemed taller, and physically fit without the pumped-up look of a man who spent hours at the gym.

  She caught herself staring and quickly snapped back into business mode. “Well, now that you’re here, do you think I could get you to sign what I have in stock?”

  “With pleasure—it’s the least I can do. Just point me in the right direction.” Randall reached into the inner pocket of his well-worn brown corduroy blazer and produced a fountain pen that looked equally worn: marbled blue, banded in silver, with the enamel rubbed off in spots.

  She guided him through the warren of shelves to where the remaining copies of Blood Money were displayed on the New Releases table up front. “We’ve sold quite a few, as you can see,” she said, indicating the sizable dent in one of the stacks. “In fact, it’s our most popular title at the moment.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve read it?” He arched his brow at her as he uncapped his pen.

  “Yes, though I admit it’s not the type of book I normally read,” she confessed. “But once I picked it up, I couldn’t put it down—I was up half the night. It’s interesting that the comments I’ve been hearing are mostly about the plot,” like a high-speed chase in a stolen car, raved one of the blurbs on the back cover, “but what struck me most was the prose. It’s almost … literary. Which isn’t what you would expect in a thriller.”

  Randall looked as pleased as a schoolboy awarded a gold star by his teacher. “I appreciate the compliment. But I have a feeling you’d have given it to me straight even if you hadn’t liked the book.”

  “Probably not. Honesty isn’t always the best policy in my line of work,” she replied with a laugh. “Though I try to be fair to my customers. If I don’t think a certain title is right for someone, I’ll say so.”

  “But you’ll spare the ego of an author whose head is already swelled enough as it is?” he teased, his blue eyes sparkling.

  “Now you’re putting words in my mouth,” she said. “I never suggested you had a swelled head.”

  “Even though I just now shamelessly cornered you into giving me a glowing review?”

  He grinned and picked up a copy of his book, which he signed with a flourish and handed back to her, held open to the title page. Glancing down, she noted with surprise that it was autographed to her: “Lindsay, will you have dinner with me tonight? Humbly yours, Randall Craig.”

  “My treat,” he said when she brought her startled gaze up to meet his. “The book, that is. I wanted you to have your own signed copy.” He pulled out his wallet and extracted two crisp bills, handing them to her—a first from an author. “Now, about dinner …” He spoke casually, as if not wanting her to see it as anything more than a friendly invitation. “I’m on my way to Monterey for a convention, so I thought I’d stay in town tonight. And I was hoping you’d let me make it up to you for canceling the other night.”

  Lindsay knew from Randall’s author biography that he lived just up the coast, in San Francisco. Not so far away that he couldn’t easily have made the return trip and still gotten to Monterey in plenty of time tomorrow. She wondered if he’d arranged to stay just so he could have dinner with her. The prospect was appealing even if it was only a case of his wanting to make amends.

  But there was still the problem of the book club she was hosting tonight.

  Kerrie Ann could handle it, she decided. She and Ollie would be on hand anyway to supply the coffee and cake. Would it really be too much to ask that she keep an eye on things and maybe ring up a few purchases? Before she knew it, Lindsay was replying, “I’d love to have dinner with you, Mr. Craig.” She suggested a little Italian place around the corner where she often took visiting authors. It was intimate without being overly romantic, so she wouldn’t feel too guilty about accepting Randall’s invitation after having turned down her boyfriend’s. Not that Grant would have cause to object. It’s just business, she told herself. And part of her business was getting to know authors. So what if the author in this instance happened to be charming and magnetic? That was entirely beside the point.

  Lindsay arrived at Paolo’s shortly before the appointed hour, and she was able to snag one of the coveted tables in back, by the wood-burning oven, before Randall showed up. An hour and a half later, aided by a bottle of red wine, a plate of antipasto, and some of Paolo’s magical fettucini al limone, they were as content as two people could be.

  “I didn’t know they made pasta like this outside Italy,” Randall said, tearing off a hunk of bread to mop up the last of the sauce on his plate. The look on his face was one of such genuine pleasure that she found herself warming to him in a way that was far from business-like.

  “Whatever Paolo can’t buy or grow here, he has shipped over from the old country—even the flour that goes into making the pasta.”

  “No wonder it tastes so good.” Randall popped the morsel of sauce-soaked bread into his mouth and chewed, eyes closed as if in silent communion with the gods, before washing it down with a swallow of wine. “When I was a kid, we used to spend a month every summer in Italy with my dad’s family,” he told her. “They lived in the village of Montepulciano, just south of
Siena. For my little brother and me, it was heaven on earth. We ate like kings, ran around barefoot all day long, and were spoiled rotten by our nonnas and zias.”

  She was reminded of the first time she’d felt the salty sea air against her cheeks and the sand beneath her toes, walking along the beach here in Blue Moon Bay. She had thought she must have died and gone to heaven. “So how does someone with an Italian father end up with a last name like Craig?” she asked.

  He smiled. “Anthony’s my stepdad.”

  “Ah, that explains it.”

  “I never thought of him as anything other than my dad, though,” he went on. “One of the advantages of your mom getting remarried when you’re young, I suppose. Though I’m sure it had more to do with Anthony being such a great guy. Also, I didn’t see much of my real dad growing up.” A note of bitterness crept into his voice, and he offered her a rueful smile. “Not that that doesn’t have its silver lining. I think all writers—the good ones, anyway—are born out of some childhood angst, so I have him to thank for that, at least.”

  “If that’s true, then I would’ve been a Pulitzer Prize winner if I’d ever decided to try my hand at writing,” she replied with a short, mirthless laugh.

  He cocked his head, his gaze locking on to hers. “So you had it tough growing up?”

  Lindsay sensed he wasn’t asking merely out of idle curiosity. Still, she was sorry she’d brought it up. Only the wine and Randall’s easy company made her feel relaxed enough to venture into territory she normally avoided. “My childhood was kind of a mixed bag,” she told him. “I think of it as being divided into two parts, like B.C. and A.D., only in this case, B.C. stands for Before California. I moved here with my parents when I was thirteen. Before that I lived in Reno with my mother and my sister—my real mother, that is.” She paused to add, with a slow shake of her head, “It seems strange calling her that because she wasn’t really a mother. She was just Crystal.”