The Marriage Conspiracy Page 5

  She caught his hand, squeezed it, let it go. “You know what I mean. I ended up with a baby and no husband, got myself ‘in trouble,’ made the oldest mistake in the book. So when I called Robert Atwood, I was hopin’…to make up for that, somehow. To be bigger than the mess I got myself into. To get past my own bad judgment in falling for Bobby by reachin’ out to his folks in their hour of need. It was pride, Dekker. You were right. Just plain old pigheaded pride.”

  “And now it’s over and done with. You need to let it go and move on.”

  “How can I let it go when I am so furious at myself?”

  “Look at it this way. It’s very likely, even if you hadn’t told them they had a grandson, that the Atwoods would have found out about Sam eventually. We may not travel in their circles. But word does get around.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Yeah.” He rose to stand above her. “Now. Are you finished giving yourself hell?”

  She blew out a long breath. “Oh, I guess.”

  “Then we can start thinking about what to do, about how to fight what they’re going to be throwing at you. The main attack is going to be on the fitness of your child care, the way it looks now.”

  She stared up at him. “What are you telling me?”

  “I think you know.”

  For an endless few moments, neither of them spoke. Noises from outside the study rose up to fill the quiet—a woman’s laughter beyond the high leaded-glass window that looked out on the side of the house, the music on Camilla’s stereo, something slow and bluesy and sweet.

  “All right,” Joleen said at last. “I’ll find someone else to watch Sam when I’m working. It will be tight, but I’ll manage it.”

  “Good.”

  “And then somehow I will have to tell my mama and my sisters why they are suddenly not to be trusted with the little boy they all adore.”

  “You don’t have to tell them anything tonight. You’ve got a little time to think it over. You’ll come up with a good approach.”

  “It doesn’t matter what approach I take, there will be hurt feelings. There will be cryin’ and carryin’ on—and then I’ve got to get a good lawyer, right?”

  “Yes. But don’t worry there. I’ll find you the right man.”

  “And then I have to pay the lawyer. Oh, what a mess. There is no way around it. This is going to cost a bundle.”

  Dekker knew that Joleen made an okay living, working with her mother. She supported herself and Sam and she did a decent job of it. He also knew that there wasn’t much left over once all the bills were paid. Quality child care and a good lawyer would stretch her budget way past the breaking point.

  But it was okay. Money, after what had happened in Los Angeles, would be the least of their problems. Dekker wanted to tell her as much. However, that would only get her started asking questions about L.A.

  Right now, they had a limited amount of time before someone would be knocking on the study door, demanding that Joleen get out there and deal with some other minor crisis. When he told her about L.A., he didn’t want to be interrupted.

  “Don’t look so miserable,” he said. “We’re just getting it all out there, so we can see what we have to deal with.”

  “I know.” But she didn’t know. He could see by her worried frown that the money problem was really bothering her.

  He strove to ease her fears without saying too much. “The money issue can be handled.”

  “I don’t see how.” She looked down at her lap and shook her head.

  “Jo, I’ll help out. The bills will get paid.”

  “Oh, no.” She glanced up then, her frown deeper than before. “You work hard for your money. And we both know you don’t have much more of it than I do.”

  Joleen was right—or she would have been right, as of a few days ago. Before the trip to Southern California, Dekker would have had to rob a bank to be of much use to her financially. He’d gone into something of a downward spiral, right after his wife, Stacey, died. He’d quit his job and sold his house. He had not worked for several months while grief and guilt did their best to eat him alive. With Joleen’s help, he’d pulled himself out of it. But by that time he didn’t have a whole hell of a lot left.

  For almost two years now he had operated a one-man detective agency in a one-room office over a coin laundry downtown. It paid the rent and put food on the table, but that was about it.

  Or it had been. Until he’d flown to L.A. and learned that he had money to burn. He was a rich man now, and he had every intention of spending whatever it took to help Joleen fight the SOB who thought he could take her child away.

  “I have a few extra resources,” he said. “I mean it. Don’t worry about money.”

  “Dekker. You are not listening.”

  “No. You’re the one who’s not listening.”

  “I couldn’t take money from you.”

  “Sure you could—for Sam’s sake.”

  “No. It wouldn’t be right. I couldn’t live with myself if I—”

  Someone knocked on the door. “Joly?” It was DeDe’s voice. “Joly, are you in there?”

  Joleen glanced toward the sound and sighed.

  Dekker said softly, “It’s all right. We’ll talk more. Later. After the party’s over and everyone’s gone home.”

  “You know that’s going to be good and late.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll be available.”

  “Thank you,” she said. Even if he hadn’t been a brand-new multimillionaire, the look she gave him then would have made him feel like one.

  “Joly?” DeDe knocked again.

  Joleen pushed herself from the chair and smoothed out her skirt. “Come on in.”

  The door swung inward and DeDe demanded, “What are you doing in here? I have been looking all over for you.”

  “Well, you have found me.”

  DeDe glanced from her sister to Dekker, then back to Joleen again. “What’s going on?”

  Dekker laughed. “None of your business. What do you need?”

  DeDe wrinkled her nose. “Oh, it’s Uncle Stan. He wants some special coffee.” In the Tilly and DuFrayne families, special coffee was coffee dosed with Irish Cream and Grand Marnier.

  “And?” Joleen prompted.

  “I can’t find the Bailey’s.”

  “Did you look in the—”

  DeDe groaned. “I looked everywhere. Would you just come and find it?”

  “Sure.”

  “And it’s almost eight. I think I should throw the bouquet pretty soon.”

  “Good idea.”

  “I want you to stand about ten feet, in a direct line, behind me when I do it. Understand?”

  “DeDe.” Joleen looked weary. “The whole idea with the bouquet is that everyone is supposed to get a fair chance at it.”

  “Too bad. It’s my wedding. And my big sister is catchin’ my bouquet.”

  Chapter 4

  Joleen did catch the bouquet.

  It wasn’t as if she had a choice in the matter. DeDe, after all, had made up her mind that Joleen would be getting it. And there was just no sense fighting DeDe once she’d made up her mind.

  Cousin Callie Tilly, one of Uncle Stan’s daughters, who worked at a bank and had just hit the big three-oh with no prospective husband in sight, was a little put out at the way DeDe went and tossed those flowers at the exact spot where Joleen stood. Callie grumbled that she was older than Joleen and she needed that bouquet more.

  But her own father told her to quit whining and have herself a little special coffee. Which cousin Callie did. And then one of Wayne’s friends, a handsome cowboy in dress jeans and fancy tooled boots, asked Callie if she would care to dance. Her attitude improved considerably after that.

  Joleen put Sam to bed upstairs in her old room at a little after nine o’clock. When she went back outside, she did some dancing herself. She danced with Uncle Stan and Bud and Burly. And with another friend of Wayne’s, a tall, broad-shouldered fello
w who ran an oyster bar in Tulsa. He told her she had beautiful eyes and that she knew how to follow. He claimed there were way too many women who tried to lead when they danced. Joleen smiled sweetly up at him and wondered if he was casting some kind of aspersion on modern women as a whole.

  Then she decided she was just too suspicious. A guy called her a good dancer and she started thinking of ways to take it as an offense.

  But then again, after what had happened with Bobby Atwood two years ago and with Bobby’s father just this evening, well, was it any wonder she had trouble trusting men?

  After the oyster bar owner from Tulsa, she danced with Dekker. Thank God for Dekker. Now there was a man that a woman could trust. She was so very fortunate to have a friend like him, who came straight to her aid anytime things got tough.

  Of course, she would never take the money he insisted he would give her. But it meant the world, that he would offer—and that he always came through for her and her mama and her sisters, too.

  Anytime any one of them needed him, he was there.

  And did she ever need him now. She needed his clear mind and his steely nerves—not to mention all he knew from being first a cop and now a private investigator. Dekker saw all the angles. Yes, he was way too cynical—but right now she needed someone who looked at the world through wide-open eyes. Someone to show her how to fight Bobby’s father at his own game.

  Joleen closed her eyes and laid her head on Dekker’s broad shoulder.

  “It’s going to be all right, Jo,” he whispered against her hair.

  Something in his tone alerted her. She lifted her head and looked up at him. “You’ve thought of what to do. I can hear it in your voice.”

  “Could be.”

  She couldn’t read his expression. “What are you thinking?”

  “Later.” He guided her head back to rest on his shoulder. “After everyone’s gone home. We’ll talk about it then. About all of it….”

  At eleven DeDe and Wayne took off for Wayne’s house. They’d spend their wedding night there and then leave in the morning for a twelve-day honeymoon at a two-hundred-year-old inn on the Mississippi shore.

  Wayne’s new peacock-green SUV had been properly adorned for the occasion, with Just Married scrawled in shaving cream across the rear window, Here Comes the Bride on the windshield and tin cans hooked to the rear bumper by lengths of thick string.

  Joleen had the bird seed ready, wrapped in little rose-colored satin squares and tied with white bows. She passed it around and DeDe and Wayne ducked through a rain of it as they raced for the car. Then everyone stood on the sidewalk beneath the Victorian-style lamps that lined all the streets of Mesta Park, waving and calling out last-minute advice.

  “Good luck!”

  “Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do!”

  “But if you do, take pictures!”

  Wayne revved the engine and pulled away from the curb. The handsome SUV rolled off into the night, tin cans rattling behind.

  Most of the guests took their leave then, turning for their own cars, waving goodbye and making happy noises about what a great time they’d had. A few stayed on—Callie and her cowboy, one of Camilla’s admirers, Aunt LeeAnne and Uncle Foley—to enjoy another dance or two out in the lantern-lit backyard. It was after one when Camilla, Joleen and Dekker showed the last of them to the door.

  “’Bye, now. Drive with care….” Camilla shut the door, turned off the porch light and then stretched like a sleek and very contented cat. “Oh, it has been a long and lovely day.” Her smooth brows drew together. “Now, where did Niki get off to?”

  Joleen said, “She went up to bed about half an hour ago.”

  “Our little Sammy all snuggled in?”

  “I put him down in my room.”

  “Well.” Camilla gave her oldest daughter a lazy smile. “I believe I am ready for bed myself. You and Sammy stayin’?”

  “I think so. I’d just as soon not wake him. And tomorrow I’d only be headin’ back over here to start cleaning up.”

  “Good. You’ll lock the doors when you’re through down here, then?”

  “I will. Right now, though, Dekker and I are goin’ out in back for a while, to enjoy the peace and quiet.”

  “Don’t you start in cleaning up tonight,” Camilla warned. “I mean it. It’s late. You’ve worked hard enough. We’ll take care of everything tomorrow.”

  “I won’t lift a finger, I promise.”

  Camilla was not convinced. She shook her head and clucked her tongue. “I know how you are. The only child of mine who will work instead of playin’ if given the choice. You have to learn to slow down a little, baby. Smell the flowers now and then.”

  “Mama, I’m not cleaning up a thing tonight. We’re just going to sit outside and talk some, that’s all.”

  “What do you two talk about? Always with your heads together. Thick as thieves, I swear.”

  “Nothing important, Mama.” Well, all right. That was a flat-out lie. But the truth, right then, would not have served. When the time came, Joleen would tell her mother whatever she thought her mother had to know.

  Camilla was already on her way up the stairs. She paused on the third step and cast a glance toward the door to the living room. Uncle Hubert was still in there, snoring away. They could hear the low rumblings even through the closed door. “Put a blanket over Hubert?”

  “I will. Right away. ’Night, Mama.”

  “’Night…” Camilla went on up.

  Joleen got a chenille throw from the closet under the stairs. She and Dekker spread it over Uncle Hubert, who just went on snoring, gone to the world.

  “You want a beer or something?” she asked Dekker before they went outside.

  “I wouldn’t mind some ice water.”

  That sounded good to her, too, so she fixed them two tall glasses and led him out into the night.

  Camilla had a matching pair of chaise lounges with nice, thick, floral-patterned cushions. For the wedding party, Joleen had put them near the fence, under the sweet gum in the corner of the yard. A low patio table sat between the lounges, just perfect for setting their glasses on.

  “You think it’s too dark out here?” Joleen asked. They’d unplugged the lanterns a little while before.

  “I like the dark.”

  So they went over and stretched out on the lounges and stared up through the leaves of the sweet gum at the stars. They hadn’t had a single frost yet, so cicadas serenaded them from the trees, making it seem as though it was still summer. Now and then, from the wires overhead, night birds trilled out their high, lonesome songs. The moon had gone down some time before, but as her eyes adjusted, Joleen found she could see well enough, after all. There were no clouds, and the stars were like diamonds sewn into the midnight fabric of the sky.

  Joleen set her glass down and leaned back, aware of a jittery feeling in her stomach. Anticipation. She just knew that her friend had come up with a way out of this tight spot she had got herself into.

  He had said as much, hadn’t he?

  Everything will be all right, Jo. Dekker was not the kind to give her empty words. If he said things would be all right, it was because he honestly thought they would be.

  She waited, her jitters increasing, wishing she could see inside his mind, that she could know what he was thinking, what kind of plan he had thought up—and at the same time reticent, not wanting to push him, feeling it was only right he should say what he had to say in his own time. And in his own way.

  He sipped his ice water, set it down next to hers. And then, finally, he spoke. “I want to tell you about Los Angeles first.”

  Oh, not now, she thought. She did want to hear about whatever had gone on out there, but right now, as far as she was concerned, everything took a back seat to the problem of Robert Atwood and the threat he posed to Sam.

  Be patient, she silently reminded herself as she sucked in a slow breath and let it out with care. “All right. Tell me about Los Angeles.”
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  It was a moment before he said anything. Cicada songs swelled, then faded off when he spoke.

  “Do you remember, about a week and a half ago, that couple who showed up at your mama’s front door—Jonas Bravo and his wife, Emma?”

  Joleen remembered. Jonas Bravo and his wife had told a strange story about a baby, a baby that had been Jonas Bravo’s younger brother. They’d claimed that the baby had been kidnapped thirty years ago. And that they were looking for a Lorraine Smith, who was supposed to know something about the kidnapping. Joleen had told them that the Lorraine Smith who used to live next door wasn’t going to be able to help them, since she was no longer alive. Then Camilla had mentioned that Lorraine had a son. As soon as they heard that, they’d asked to speak with Dekker. Camilla had suggested they try him at work.

  Joleen sought her friend’s eyes through the darkness. “I thought you said it was nothing. That they were mistaken—that it must have been some other Lorraine Smith they were looking for.”

  “I lied.”

  She considered that admission for a moment, then asked, “Well, and why did you go and do that?”

  “Because I didn’t want to deal with what they’d told me. I didn’t want to think about it and I didn’t want to talk about it, either.”

  “You mean you were lyin’ to yourself?”

  “That’s right.”

  The little hairs on the back of Joleen’s neck were standing at attention. “You’re saying that your mama did know something about a kidnapped baby?”

  He made a low noise, a noise that meant yes.

  “So when Jonas Bravo and his wife showed up at your office…”

  “They told me about the baby, Jonas’s younger brother. And I told them I didn’t know anything about any baby, and neither had my mother. I asked them to leave. And they did.”

  “Okay. But I don’t see what—”

  “I left out a few details, when I told you about it—like the fact that Jonas said he believed I was the baby.”

  Joleen’s mouth felt dry. She picked up her ice water and knocked back a big gulp. “Wait a minute. Jonas Bravo said that you were the kidnapped baby?”