A Family Affair: The Weddings: A Novella (Truth in Lies Book 11) Read online

  Pop rubbed his jaw. “Maybe so, but maybe you’ll head down a different path and miss that old copperhead altogether. Ever think of that?”

  Lester pushed away his plate, rested his hands on the edge of the Formica table. “Did anybody ever tell you that you make a person’s brain work too hard?”

  That made Pop grin. “I’ll take that as a compliment. And as a matter of fact, Harry Blacksworth accused me of the very same thing a time or two. Look where he is now: married, three kids, running a restaurant, happier than a four-year-old with finger paint.” He lifted a shoulder, met Lester’s blue gaze head on. “It’s all about choices and thinking about the ones we care about, instead of ourselves. That’s what matters, and that’s why you’re gonna honor Phyllis’s request.”

  The snow started late the next morning, big flakes falling so hard and fast that by dinnertime, blankets of white covered the houses and streets of Magdalena, stretched along back roads and over trees. A picture-perfect postcard that reminded Lester of how much his life had changed these past few years.

  When Luella died, he closed his heart and became a loner. Hard to get hurt if you didn’t let anybody in, and that’s exactly what he’d done for a lot of years. Until he walked into Lina’s Café one sunny morning and Phyllis McGill served him up a ham omelet with more sass than a mint julep. She wasn’t intimidated by his silence or his two-word answers. Not at all. And that intrigued him as much as it confused him. Of course, he hadn’t told her the real reason he’d come to Magdalena, that he’d fabricated a job as a medical supply salesman calling on the local hospital. Lester was a card player from way back and could make his own mother believe he’d been adopted if the stakes were high enough. Back then, the stakes were dang high and that meant keeping his mouth shut.

  Lester stirred his coffee and stared out the kitchen window of the Heart Sent. He was a Texan born and bred, and though he’d known many a Chicago winter, he doubted he’d ever get used to the cold or snow. If he thought he could convince Phyllis to move south of the Mason Dixon line, he would’ve started soft-selling her months ago. Wasn’t going to happen, though; the one time he mentioned moving to a warmer climate, she’d buried him with those eyes and a comment about family and dressing in layers. His wife-to-be was a real firecracker, and she did have a point about family being more important than warm weather.

  “How about a shot of something in that coffee to warm you up?”

  Lester turned, smiled at the woman holding a bottle of whiskey in her left hand. “Only if you’ll join me.”

  She uncapped the bottle, poured a healthy dose of whiskey in his coffee cup. “Don’t mind if I do.”

  Mimi Pendergrass was a spry woman with a kick in her step and a no-nonsense attitude despite a history of heartache and loss. Pop said the death of her teenage son left a hole in her heart that would never heal. The loss of her daughter came next. The girl didn’t die; she left. Whoosh. Disappeared after a fight that rumors said had to do with a man. Nobody knew for certain, not even Pop. The only people who could tell the tale were Mimi and her daughter, and if Lester were going to find the woman, he needed information, the uncomfortable kind that could be cobbled together and lead to answers. And that’s exactly what he planned to do.

  “Nobody ever thought Phyllis would remarry.” Mimi sipped her whiskey-laced coffee, studied him. “She’s a tough woman. Been through a lot like the rest of us, but nobody had a husband meaner or more hurtful than Phyllis.” Her blue eyes homed in on him, narrowed. “Don’t do wrong by her, Lester. Phyllis deserves to be happy.” She let out a laugh. “We all said she’d had her fill of men and that’s why she wouldn’t even get a male dog.”

  Lester rubbed his jaw, chuckled. “I kind of got that impression, too, but Phyllis and I were friends long before we became anything else.”

  She nodded. “Good. Glad to hear it. But don’t try to change her or tell her you want her to dye her hair. And don’t you dare ask her to wear those ridiculous high heels so she turns an ankle. No pantyhose either. Or false eyelashes.”

  What was she talking about? High heels? Pantyhose? False eyelashes? “Why would I do that?” Why would he do that? It sounded plain uncomfortable.

  Mimi slid a glance his way. “Just checking. And between us, she told me she was considering one or two of those things, not that she wanted to, mind you, or that she’d actually do it, but she said she thought you might like it.”

  That shocked him. “I never said I wanted her to dance around in heels and pantyhose. Why would she think that?” He rubbed his jaw, tried to make sense of Mimi’s words. “False eyelashes? I don’t want some beauty queen. I want a wife.” Pause, a sigh. “I want Phyllis, just like she is.” Visions of Gloria Blacksworth swirled in his brain, made him queasy. She’d been a looker, with jewels and high-end clothing and manners to boot. But she’d been one of the most evil, vindictive, miserable women he’d ever met and a hundred years from now would be too soon to meet another woman like that.

  “Glad to hear it.” Mimi poured whiskey into two shot glasses, handed one to him. “How about we skip the coffee and go for the straight-up belly-warmer?”

  Lester grinned. “I do like the sound of that.” He saluted Mimi and tossed back the shot, welcoming the burn. Nothing like alcohol to warm up a body, or a brain. The key was knowing when to stop and how to keep the other person going to gather information. Mimi poured two more shots, downed hers. When she spoke, her voice came out hoarse and melancholy.

  “Do you know how many sad things happen at Christmas?” She didn’t wait for him to answer, but went on. “Too many. I know of husbands who tried to sneak away with their mistresses on Christmas Eve and got caught. I always wondered about that. Do you think the mistress put her foot down and demanded equal time?” She shook her head, poured another shot. “But don’t think it’s only the men. Oh no. There are wives who have boyfriends, some more than one. They don’t care if they have children; they don’t care about anything but doing what they want, when they want, with whomever they want.” A swirl of pink spread from her neck to her cheeks and her eyes grew brighter, her speech faster. “It always happens on the holidays so the poor souls who’ve been hurt can think of that memory every single year, like clockwork.”

  “That sure would be a sad state of recall.” Lester studied his empty shot glass. He’d been hired by a lot of clients to investigate a spouse and more often than not, by the time they contacted him, they already knew. Bone-deep knowing, the kind that lives in your gut. They only hired him for the proof: daily logs, pictures, a name. Lots and lots of pain, followed by mountains of rage and then the desire for revenge. Gloria Blacksworth was the perfect example.

  “Relationships break during the holidays.” Her voice shifted, turned soft and sad. “A mother argues with her daughter about the man she’s brought home. The mother doesn’t want to see her daughter get hurt and she knows this type will break her child’s heart. But it doesn’t matter because the daughter isn’t listening. Words are exchanged, ones that should not have been spoken but can’t be taken back.” Mimi blinked hard, stared out the window. “And then the daughter’s gone. The note on the kitchen table is barely legible, but the mother has burned the words into her soul: If you can’t accept him, you can’t accept me. I won’t be back. She carries these words in her heart, in her every breath, and as the years pass, she learns to take a full breath without the pain.” She cleared her throat, clutched her hands to her heart. “But every Christmas she looks at that note and remembers.”

  Lester shifted from one booted foot to the other. The woman was talking about the daughter who left, no doubt about it. He wasn’t good at emotions and the touchy-feely part of them, but he felt bad for Mimi. The pain on her face, the grief in her eyes told him as much as her words had. He laid a hand on her shoulder, squeezed. “I’m real sorry for your loss.” He wanted to tell her he’d find her daughter, one way or the other, but that would mean revealing his line of work and he’d promised Phyl
lis he wouldn’t do that. As far as ninety-eight percent of the residents knew, Lester Conroy was a medical supply salesman and that’s how it was going to stay.

  Oh, but living here full-time and keeping his real profession a secret was going to get tricky, no doubt about it.

  2

  “Phyllis, why don’t you sit down and let me clear up the dishes?” Lester placed his hands on her shoulders, leaned forward and brushed his lips over hers. “You work too hard.”

  She shrugged, ignored the heat creeping through her. It had been a lot of years since a man had wanted her for anything other than the next slice of apple pie or a double order of fries. But Lester Conroy did and he showed it in ordinary ways like offering to do dishes, taking her car in for service, signing her up with a snow plow service so she didn’t have to shovel her way out of the driveway. No man had ever shown her such tenderness, not even her own husband and she’d had two babies with him. “I don’t like to just sit around. It makes me jittery. Twenty minutes with my feet up is all I need and then I’m good to go.” She raised a brow, grinned. “The support shoes you got me last month make a big difference. Just like walking on air.”

  His voice dipped, turned rough. “I want to do a whole lot more than buy you support shoes.”

  “Not necessary.” She handed him a dishtowel, tried to act as though his words didn’t affect her. But they did, oh yes, they certainly did. Nobody had ever cared about her comfort or her wishes. Certainly, not a man.

  He pulled out a kitchen chair, pointed to it. “I want you to sit while I clean up the dishes. Now I’ve never been one to act like a drill sergeant and I’m not about to start now, but it would please me if you’d sit here and talk to me while I wash these dishes.”

  His blue eyes turned the color of the water on the travel magazine he’d shown her last month. Phyllis plopped into the kitchen chair. “Don’t think I’m going to start lying around like I was the queen because it’s not in my nature.”

  He nodded, picked up the plates from the table. “Nobody’s ever going to accuse you of loafing.” The grin came next, spread. “Or being lazy.”

  Lester stacked the dishes, turned on the water, and squirted dish liquid in the sink. Phyllis subscribed to washing by hand, no dishwasher allowed, but he didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he hadn’t commented on her lack of a garbage disposal, central air conditioning, or automatic garage door opener. No raised eyebrows over the seventeen-year-old couch either. Some men would waltz in and start trying to change the place, upgrade the television and the recliner, but Lester said he’d spent enough years coming home to an empty house that as long as she was in it, he didn’t care about fancy gadgets or furniture. Still, it had been a lot of years since she’d depended on anyone for anything, and this letting-someone-else-lighten-the-load business would take time.

  “Harry Blacksworth called me this afternoon.” Lester glanced over his shoulder, met her gaze. “Asked if we wanted a final rundown of the food they’re serving.” He hesitated a few seconds before continuing. “I would have handled it but I knew you’d want a say-so in what you did or didn’t want to do.”

  He was right on that one. Phyllis didn’t want anyone making decisions for her, husband-to-be or not. She’d suffered through enough years of Nelson telling her how it was going to be, saddling her with the girls, cooking, cleaning, paying bills, waitressing part time at Lina’s. The longer the list grew, the more angry and resentful Phyllis became, lashing out at the man, demanding he help with the chores. She might as well have been talking to a dishtowel because Nelson liked to spend his time and his money on booze and running around. The anger turned to hate the day she realized she could create a magazine-worthy pot roast and never utter a harsh word again, and her husband would still drink at O’Reilly’s and keep company with Kitty Hinkersham. Like Pop Benito told her, You can’t make anybody do anything they don’t want to, no matter how much you want it. When Nelson died, she cried, but they were tears of relief, and most of the town knew that. The only person wailing in the back pew of St. Gertrude’s was his girlfriend, and three weeks after he died, Phyllis saw her driving around town with one of Nelson’s friends. Imagine that?

  “Phyllis? What do you want me to tell Harry? The man’s been very generous with his offer to host our reception at his restaurant and I don’t want to ignore him.”

  “I know, I know.” Word had it Harry was a reformed playboy-turned-husband and Phyllis didn’t need a report to believe it. The man had looks, charisma, money, and a way about him that pulled you right in. Oh, she bet the women swarmed him back in the day, but those times were long gone because the man loved his wife and his family, and no amount of naked flesh or come-on lines was going to tempt him. How about that? A man of honor. Lester was a man of honor, too, and that’s why she didn’t want him spilling his story about the real reason he’d come to Magdalena or his part in the “almost destruction” of Nate and Christine Blacksworth’s marriage. That would not be good and it certainly wouldn’t portray him as a man of honor. And what would it say about Phyllis? There’d be enough comments to fill Sal’s kosher pickle barrel.

  She never could pick a man.

  Too bad, Phyllis just isn’t lucky in love.

  Strike two! Won’t she ever learn?

  Maybe she should just stick with animals.

  After all these years, she still hasn’t learned.

  No, she would not be humiliated by people who didn’t know Lester or the kindness in his heart. Phyllis sighed, grabbed the notepad and pen next to the bowl of plastic vegetables and began jotting down a few reminders. Take Belle for a bath. Stop at Sal’s for soup bones. Call Herb Carey about the toilet—

  “Phyllis?” Lester placed a hand on hers, stopped her frantic writing, and eased the notebook from her fingers. He let out a sigh, sank into the chair next to hers. “This doesn’t look like a wedding list.”

  Oh, but there was hurt and disappointment on his weathered face. “A wedding isn’t going to stop Belle from needing a bath, or our bellies from getting hungry, and that darn toilet has been running for three weeks.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, sucked in a breath. “Life goes on and there’s only twenty-four hours in a day, not twenty-six.”

  “I can count.” He squeezed her hand, released it. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s bothering you.”

  She blinked, blinked again. Tears? Absolutely not. Tears were for people who gave up. Phyllis McGill did not give up and she did not cry. “Nothing’s wrong, Lester. I have a lot on my mind.”

  He leaned against the wooden back of the chair, crossed his arms over his belly and studied her like she was a bug. “Do you want to call off the wedding? Is that what this is about?”

  “What? Of course not.” What was he talking about? Why would she want to call off the wedding? She wanted to marry Lester. They got along, they laughed, they saw eye-to-eye most of the time. Dang it all, she loved the man. Didn’t he love her, too? Was this his way of sliding out of a commitment like her dead husband would do? “Are you having second thoughts?”

  Those blue eyes sparked with emotion. “No. Once I make up my mind, I don’t go back.” He stroked her hand, gentled his voice. “But you’ve got to feel the same way. If we were standing in front of the preacher and you had doubts, I’d want you to say so. I wouldn’t want to let you go, but I would, if that’s what you wanted.”

  “You’re a good man, Lester Conroy.” Phyllis cleared her throat, held his gaze. “A truly good man.”

  “Then do me this one favor and tell me what’s really on your mind.”

  She opened her mouth and let the words spill out before she lost her courage. “I’m afraid. Not just a little bit afraid, but bone-deep, freezer-chill afraid. I can play along with the customers and laugh. They think nothing bothers me; some say there’s nobody who’ll speak her mind like me. It’s all play, because deep down I have a lot of feelings and those feelings get hurt.”

  Lester’s lips curved into a hint of a smile
. “In other words, you’re human?”

  “Oh, I’m human, all right. More than human. I’m not always the nicest person to be around. I get moody and snippy, and some days if I’m not working, I don’t get out of my pajamas. I see you judging me. Well, judge away, because Belle and I lounge in bed and share chicken tenders and tater tots.” There, let’s see what he had to say about that.

  “I like chicken tenders and tater tots, and you know I have a fondness for your dog.” He glanced at Belle’s food and water bowl in the corner. “I miss the little girl. If the girls want to keep borrowing her for sleepovers, maybe they should think about getting their own dog.”

  “Did you hear what I just said?” She snatched her hand from his, gripped the edge of the kitchen table. “Pajamas, no shower, eating in bed with my dog?”

  “I did.” Pause, followed by a soft, “Did you hear me say I have a fondness for all those things?”

  Phyllis bit her bottom lip. He was not going to make this easy. Some men refused to see the real person they were marrying until it was too late, like after the wedding. Instead, they concocted ideas about who they wanted them to be and that’s all they saw, that and the snippets of “controlled” behavior the other person let them see. Hadn’t her mother always said people could be anyone they wanted to be for short periods of time, like an actor on stage? “Your first wife was a real lady, Lester. I can tell by the way you talk about her. That’s not me. I don’t have that kind of class and I’m not going to make excuses for it.”

  That comment made him ease back his chair, cross a long, booted leg over a knee and rub his jaw. “You don’t have to make any excuses to me or anyone else. I’d never want you to do that. Is this about the physical part of our relationship? Are you thinking about that?”