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He smiled. “It isn’t what you think.”
“She isn’t married, is she?”
“No.”
That, at least, was a relief.
“I’m starting over, Liv. My slate’s clean now and I want to keep it that way.”
Olivia certainly hoped so. “Tell me who it is,” she said again.
Her brother relaxed and folded his hands on the table. “I’ve seen Shirley Bliss a few times.”
Shirley Bliss. She was the artist who’d created the dragon, breathing fire and pain and anger.
“Shirley,” she whispered. “The dragon quilt lady.” Olivia hadn’t even met the woman but sensed they could easily be friends.
“She’s the one,” Will said. “We’re only getting to know each other but I’m impressed with her. She’s someone I’d definitely like to know better.”
“She invited you for Christmas?”
Will shifted his weight and looked out the window. “Well, not exactly.”
Olivia frowned. “Either she did or she didn’t.”
“Let’s put it like this. She hasn’t invited me yet.”
“Good grief, Will! It’s Christmas Eve. If she was going to invite you, it would’ve been before now.”
“Perhaps.” He grinned boyishly. “Actually, I thought I’d stop by her place around dinnertime tomorrow with a small gift.”
“Will!”
“Hey, you can’t blame a man for trying.”
“Will she be by herself?”
He shook his head. “She has two kids, a teenage daughter who’s a talented artist, too, and a son who’s in college. I haven’t met him yet.”
Before Will could say anything else, Goldie arrived at their booth, carrying two chicken pot pies. She set them down and came back with two huge pieces of coconut cream pie. “Make sure you save room for this,” she told them.
“I’d like to remind you I didn’t order any pie,” Olivia said, pretending to disapprove.
“I know,” Goldie returned gruffly. “It’s on the house. Think of me as your very own elf. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas to you, Goldie the Elf.”
Will reached for his fork and smiled over at Olivia. “I have the feeling it’s going to be a merry Christmas for us all.”
Olivia had the very same feeling, despite—or maybe even because of—their unexpected visitor.
Chapter Seven
Linc gritted his teeth. It was after two, and the traffic through Tacoma was bumper to bumper. “You’d think it was a holiday or something,” he muttered sarcastically.
Mel’s eyebrows shot up and he turned to look at Ned in the backseat.
“What?” Linc barked.
“It is a holiday,” Ned told him.
“Don’t you think I know that? I’m joking!”
“Okay, okay.”
“You’re going to exit up here,” Mel said, pointing to the exit ramp for Highway 16.
Linc sighed in relief. They were getting closer, and once they found Mary Jo he intended to give her a piece of his mind. She had no business taking off like this, not when her baby was due in two weeks. It just wasn’t safe.
His jaw tightened as he realized it wasn’t Mary Jo who annoyed him as much as David Rhodes. If Linc could just have five minutes alone with that jerk…
“I’ll bet he’s married,” Linc said to himself. That would explain a lot. A married man having an affair would do anything he could to hide the fact that he had a wife. He’d strung Mary Jo along, fed her a bunch of lies and then left her to deal with the consequences all on her own. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. No, sir. Not while Linc was alive. David Rhodes was going to acknowledge his responsibilities and live up to them.
“Who’s married?” Mel asked, staring at him curiously.
“David Rhodes,” he said. “Who else?”
The exit was fast approaching and, while they still had twenty miles to go, traffic would thin out once he got off the Interstate.
“He’s not,” Ned said blithely from the backseat.
“Isn’t what?” Linc demanded.
“David Rhodes isn’t married.”
Linc glanced over his shoulder. “How do you know?”
“Mary Jo told me.”
Ned and Mary Jo were close, and he was more apt to take a statement like that at face value.
“He probably lied about that along with everything else,” Mel said, voicing Linc’s own thoughts.
“He didn’t,” Ned insisted.
“How can you be so sure?”
“I checked him out on the internet,” Ned continued with the same certainty. “It’s a matter of public record. David Rhodes lives in California and he’s been married and divorced twice. Both his marriages and divorces are listed with California’s Department of Records.”
Funny Ned had only mentioned this now. Maybe he had other information that would be helpful.
“You mean to say he’s been married more than once?” Mel asked.
Ned nodded. “Yeah, according to what I read, he’s been married twice. I doubt Mary Jo knows about the second time, though.”
That was interesting and Linc wished he’d heard it earlier. “Did you find out anything else while you were doing this background search?” he asked. He eased onto the off ramp; as he’d expected, the highway was far less crowded.
“His first ex-wife, who now lives in Florida, has had problems collecting child support.”
Linc shook his head. “Does that surprise anyone?”
“Nope,” Mel said.
“How many children does he have?” Linc asked next.
“Just one. A girl.”
“Does Mary Jo know this?” Mel asked. “About him being a deadbeat?”
“I didn’t tell her,” Ned admitted, adding, “I couldn’t see any reason to upset her more than she already is.”
“Good idea,” Mel said. He leaned forward and looked up at the darkening sky. “Snow’s starting again. The radio said there’s going to be at least three inches.”
“Snow,” Linc groaned.
“Snow,” Ned repeated excitedly. “That’ll make a lot of little kids happy.”
Mel agreed quickly. “Yeah, we’ll have a white Christmas.”
“Are either of you little kids?” Linc snapped. His nerves were frayed and he’d appreciate it if his brothers took a more mature outlook.
“I guess I’m still a kid at heart,” Ned said, exhaling a sigh.
Considering Linc’s current frame of mind, it was a brave admission. With a slow breath, Linc made a concerted effort to relax. He was worried about Mary Jo; he couldn’t help it. He’d wanted the best for her and felt that he’d failed both his sister and his parents.
To some extent he blamed himself for what had happened. Maybe he’d been too strict with her after she turned eighteen. But to his way of thinking, she was under his protection as long as she lived in the family home.
Not once had she introduced him to David Rhodes. Linc was convinced that if he’d met the other man, it would’ve taken him all of two seconds to peg David for a phony.
“What are you gonna say when we find her?” Ned asked.
Linc hadn’t worked out the specifics. “Let’s not worry about that now. Main thing is, we’re going to put her in the truck and bring her home.”
“What if she doesn’t want to come with us?”
“Why wouldn’t she? We’re her family and it’s Christmas Eve. Mary Jo belongs with us. Besides, that baby could show up anytime.”
Mel seemed distinctly queasy at the prospect.
Thinking back, Linc knew he should have realized she was pregnant a lot earlier than he had. In fact, he hadn’t recognized the signs at all; she’d told him and after that, of course, they were easy to see.
Not until the day Mary Jo rushed past him in the hallway and practically shoved him into the wall so she could get to the toilet in time to throw up did he have the slightest suspicion that anything was wrong. Even then he’d assumed she had a bad case of the flu.
Boy, had he been wrong. She had the flu, all right, only it was the nine-month variety.
It just hadn’t occurred to him that she’d do something so dumb. An affair with the guy was bad enough, but to take that kind of chance…
Frowning, Linc glanced in his rearview mirror at his youngest brother. He was beginning to wonder about Ned. He’d never seemed as shocked as he or Mel had, and Mary Jo had always confided in him.
“How long have you known?” he asked casually.
Ned met Linc’s gaze in the rearview mirror, his expression trapped. “Known what?”
“That Mary Jo was going to have a baby.”
Ned looked away quickly and shrugged.
“She told you as soon as she found out, didn’t she?”
Ned cleared his throat. “She might have.”
“How early was that?” Linc asked, unwilling to let his brother sidestep the question.
“Early,” Ned admitted. “I knew before David.”
“You knew that early?” Mel shouted. “Why’d she tell you and not me?”
“Because you’d tell Linc,” Ned told him. “She wanted to keep the baby a secret as long as she could.”
Linc couldn’t figure that one out. It wasn’t like she’d be able to hide the pregnancy forever. And why hadn’t she trusted him the way she did Ned? Although he prided himself on being stoic, that hurt.
Mel tapped his fingertips against the console. “Did she tell you how David Rhodes reacted to the news?”
Ned nodded. “She said he seemed pleased.”
“Sure, why not?” Linc said, rolling his eyes. “The pregnancy wasn’t going to inconvenience him any.”
“I think that’s why he could string Mary Jo along all this time,” Ned suggested.
“You’re probably right.”
“I warned her, you know.” Ned’s look was thoughtful.
“When?”
“When she first started seeing him.”
“You knew about David even before Mary Jo got pregnant?” Linc couldn’t believe his ears. Apparently Mary Jo had shared all this information with Ned, who’d remained tight-lipped about most of it. If he wasn’t so curious to uncover what his brother had learned, Linc might’ve been downright angry.
