A Bride by Summer

“You noticed nothing unusual here today?” Marsh countered in a quiet voice strong enough to penetrate steel.

“If you have a point, make it. I don’t have time to play Twenty Questions,” Reed declared.

“You don’t seem concerned that the judge joined us for lunch,” Marsh said, digging into his pocket for the tip.

Ivan Sullivan was one of those men few people liked but most couldn’t help respecting.

After discovering Joey on their doorstep ten days ago, Marsh, Reed and Noah had paid their great-uncle a visit at the courthouse. An abandoned minor child was no laughing matter, and no one had been laughing as the brothers fell into rank in the judge’s chambers. The note clearly stated that Joey was a Sullivan, and they’d had every intention of caring for him themselves while they unraveled this puzzle. In order for Joey to remain under their care, they were to keep the judge apprised of Joey’s progress in detailed, weekly in-person reports.

Reed glanced over the heads of other diners and watched his great-uncle cut a path to the door. The way the aging judge tapped his cane on the floor with his every step only added to his haughtiness. Today’s interrogation had been impromptu, but it was completely in keeping with his character. Surely, Marsh agreed.

His older brother left the tip on the table and Reed picked up the car seat with Joey strapped securely inside. Showing up in public with the baby had been the private investigator’s suggestion. Arguably the most successful P.I. in the state, Sam Lafferty was banking on the possibility that seeing Marsh and Reed with Joey would stir up a little gossip and perhaps jar someone’s memory of having seen an unknown woman with a small baby in the area.

“We’re doing our best to care for Joey,” Reed insisted. “The judge knows that. We leveled with him today.”

“We?” Marsh countered. “He asked what steps we’re taking to locate Joey’s mother and why we haven’t hired a permanent nanny and how much Joey weighs and where he sleeps. You, who can outtalk most politicians, barely said boo.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Reed argued.

“That a fact?”

Reed narrowed his eyes at his brother’s tone. And waited.

“You ordered the salmon,” Marsh said offhandedly.

“That was salmon?” Reed asked.

Marsh slanted him a look not unlike the judge’s. “You had meat loaf. It arrived with a loaded baked potato just the way I ordered it. Shelly mixed up our plates. You dug into my lunch the moment she set it in front of you.”

With his sinking feeling growing stronger, Reed raked his fingers through his hair, for surely the shrewdest judge in the county had noticed Reed’s faux pas. If he and Marsh were going to keep Joey out of the system, neither of them had better display so much as a hint of poor behavior.

They walked outside together and stood shoulder to shoulder beneath the red-and-white awning shading the restaurant’s facade.

Grasping the handle of the car seat firmly in his right hand, Reed let the seat dangle close to the ground, simulating a rocking motion that was lulling Joey to sleep. “I owe you,” he said. “You don’t even like salmon.”

“It’s nothing you wouldn’t have done for me, but that was some reaction you had to the redhead who bought Lacey’s place.”

A city crew was working on a burst water main at the bottom of the hill on Division Street, and traffic was being rerouted. Unbidden, Reed’s thoughts took a little detour, too, over long legs and creamy skin and amazing hair and green eyes that had locked with his.

“Holy hell,” he muttered under his breath.

He didn’t get any argument from Marsh.

A horn honked at a delivery truck parked in the left-turn lane and three boys with shaggy hair and black T-shirts raced by on skateboards. A meter reader was marking tires and three old men were talking in front of the post office. It was just another ordinary summer day in Orchard Hill, and yet nothing had felt ordinary to Reed and Marsh in the past ten days. Joey’s arrival had changed their lives, and neither of them could shake the feeling that something monumental was coming.

Their phones rang moments apart, startling them both.

Reed fished his phone out of his pocket, and over the booming bass of a passing car’s radio, he said, “Yes, Sam, I’m here. Slow down.”

When it came to investigative work, Sam Lafferty didn’t mince words. Reed listened carefully to the latest report while keeping his end of the conversation to simple yes-and-no answers.

Marsh’s call ended first. After a few minutes, Reed slipped his phone back into his pocket, too. Waiting until two dog walkers were out of hearing range, he said, “Sam located another woman named Julia Monroe.”

He had Marsh’s undivided attention.

“According to Sam, she’s five feet tall, has curly blond hair, a doting husband and a six-month-old baby daughter who looks just like her.”

Joey’s eyelashes fluttered as he slept. Reed wondered if he was dreaming of his mother. He didn’t know if that was possible, but lately a great deal had happened that he’d never imagined was possible.

“The Julia I know is five-six and has dark hair.”

Marsh’s voice sounded strained and his disappointment over yet another dead end was almost palpable. He wanted a resolution to this as much as Reed did.

“Sam is following every lead he has on both Cookie and Julia,” Reed said. “He’ll locate Joey’s mother. Or she’ll return for him, as she said in her note. We need to be prepared either way, to do what’s best for Joey either way, and we’re working on that. We are. You know it and I know it. Who was your call from?”

“It was Lacey,” Marsh answered. “She and Noah stopped in Vegas and decided to spend the rest of their honeymoon there. She wants one of us to pick up those old cameras her dad used to display on the shelves behind the bar at Bell’s.”

“Why don’t you take Joey home,” Reed said. “I’ll get the cameras and be right behind you.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Obviously Marsh was thinking of Reed’s reaction to Bell’s new owner. But Reed was determined to stay levelheaded as he awaited the eventual outcome of the paternity test they’d performed that very morning. If the results of that test indicated that Joey was Reed’s son, Reed’s life would include Joey’s mother in one capacity or another. Until they knew for sure, he had no intention of getting involved with anyone.

“Maybe I should collect those cameras,” Marsh said.

“I’ll go,” Reed said. “Don’t worry, I have this under control.”

* * *

The last time Reed had been summoned to the alley behind Bell’s Tavern, he’d had every intention of calmly talking Noah out of a fight. He’d wound up with a sore fist and a bruised jaw. When it was over, he and Noah had brushed the alley dust off their shoes and walked away, leaving the three troublemakers sitting in the dirt.

The alley was paved now, the steps leading to the second-story apartment freshly painted. Determined to maintain a far greater degree of restraint this afternoon, he parked beside Ruby O’Toole’s sky-blue Chevy. He would knock on her door, politely ask for Lacey’s cameras and then leave. If he felt so much as a stirring of red-hot anything, he would douse it before it spread.

Cool, calm and collected, he started up the stairs. At the top, he knocked briskly. In a matter of seconds the lock scraped and the door was thrown open, and Ruby O’Toole was squinting against the bright sunlight, hard-rock music blasting behind her.

“Isn’t that Metallica?” he asked.

“Are you taking a survey?”

Reed had the strongest inclination to laugh out loud, and it was the last thing he’d expected. Ruby wasn’t laughing, however, so he curbed his good humor, as well.

She’d put her hair up since lunch. Several curls had already pulled free. The hem of her white tank had crept up at her waist and a strap had slipped off one shoulder, revealing a faint trail of freckles that drew his gaze. The ridges of her collarbones looked delicate, her skin golden. He couldn’t help noticing the little hollow at the base of her neck, where a vein was pulsing.

“I’m in the middle of something here,” she said huffily as a curl fluttered freely to the side of her neck. “So, if you don’t mind—”

Subtle she wasn’t.

“You’re busy,” he said. “I’ll come back at a better time.”