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“So?” Mel said. “How’d she meet him?”
Ned leaned toward the front seat. “Rhodes works for the same insurance company. He’s at corporate headquarters in San Francisco. Something to do with finances.”
His sister worked in the accounting department, so that explained it, he supposed. “She should’ve come to work at our office the way I wanted,” Linc said, and not for the first time. That was what he’d suggested when, against his wishes, Mary Jo had dropped out of college.
From her reaction, one would think he’d proposed slave labor. He never had understood her objections. He’d been willing to pay her top wages, as well as vacation and sick leave, and the work wasn’t exactly strenuous.
She’d turned him down flat. Mary Jo wouldn’t even consider working for Three Wyse Men Automotive. Linc regretted not being more forceful in light of what had happened. She might be almost twenty-four, but she needed his protection.
As they approached the Narrows Bridge, Linc’s mood began to lighten somewhat. Yeah, Mary Jo needed him, and he assumed she’d be willing to admit that now. Not just him, either. She needed all three of her brothers.
Ned’s idea that they bring gifts had been smart, a good way to placate her and prove how much she meant to them. Women, in his experience anyway, responded well to gifts.
Except that was probably the same technique David Rhodes had used.
“Did he buy her gifts?” Linc asked, frowning.
Ned understood his question, because he answered right away. “If you mean Rhodes, then yes, he got her a few.”
“Such as?”
“Flowers a couple of times.”
“Flowers!” Mel said.
“In the beginning, at any rate, and then after she was pregnant he bought her earrings.”
Linc sat up straighter. “What kind?”
Ned snickered. “He said they were diamonds but one of them came loose so I dropped it off at Fred’s for her. While he had it, I asked him to check it out.”
Fred’s was a local jewelry store the Wyse family had used for years. “Fake, right?”
“As phony as David Rhodes himself.”
Mel twisted around and looked at Ned. “You didn’t tell Mary Jo, did you?”
Ned shook his head. “I didn’t want to add to her heartache.”
“Maybe she already knows.” His sister might be gullible but she wasn’t stupid.
“I think she considered pawning it.” Ned lowered his voice. “She didn’t, so she might’ve guessed…”
The mere thought of his sister walking into a pawnshop with her pathetic bauble produced a stab of actual pain. “If she needed money, why didn’t she come to me?” Linc demanded.
“You’ll have to ask her that yourself.”
“I plan to.” Linc wasn’t about to let this slide. “What does she need money for, anyway?”
“She wants her own place, you know.”
No one needed to remind Linc of that. Mary Jo herself did a fine job of informing him at every opportunity. But it wasn’t going to happen now. With a baby on the way, she wouldn’t be leaving the family home anytime soon.
Linc liked that idea. He could keep an eye on her and on the baby, too. Even if he got married, which was by no means a sure thing, the house was big enough for all of them. His nephew would need a strong male influence, and he fully intended to provide that influence.
“How much farther?” Mel asked.
His brother was like a kid squirming in the front seat, asking “Are we there yet?” every five minutes.
“Hey, look,” Ned said, pointing at the sky. “It’s really coming down now.”
“Did you think I hadn’t noticed?” Linc didn’t have much trouble driving in bad weather; it was all the other drivers who caused the problem. Snow in the Seattle area was infrequent and a lot of folks didn’t know how to handle it.
“Hey,” Mel said as they approached the first exit for Cedar Cove. “We’re here.”
“Right.” Not having any more specific indication of where they should go, Linc took the exit.
“Where to now?” Mel asked.
Linc could’ve said, “Your guess is as good as mine.” But he figured his guess was better. “We’ll do what Mary Jo did,” he said. “We’ll chase down David’s family. That’s where she’s going to be.”
Mel nodded. “Whoever said the Wyse Men needed a star to guide them obviously never met the three of us.”
Chapter Eight
Olivia couldn’t wait to see her husband. For one thing, she wanted to tell him about her stepbrother, get his advice.
David Rhodes…that…that—she couldn’t think of a word that adequately described how loathsome he was. She wanted him exposed. Humiliated, embarrassed, punished. Only the fact that Ben would be humiliated and embarrassed, too, gave her pause.
When Olivia pulled into her driveway on Lighthouse Road she was delighted to see that Jack was already home from the newspaper office. Impatiently, she grabbed the grocery bag of last-minute items and made her way into the house, using the entrance off the kitchen.
“Jack!” she called out as soon as she was inside.
“What’s wrong?” Her husband met her in the kitchen and stopped short. “Someone’s made you mad.”
Olivia finished unwinding the muffler from around her neck. “Why do you say that?” she asked, not realizing she’d been so obvious.
“Your eyes are shooting sparks. So, what’d I do this time?”
“It’s not you, silly.” She hung her coat on the hook along with the bright red scarf her mother had knit for her. She stuffed the matching hat and gloves in the pockets, then kissed Jack’s cheek.
As she filled the electric teakettle and turned it on, Jack began to put the groceries away.
“Are you ready to talk about it?” he asked cautiously.
“It’s David.”
“Rhodes?”
“The very one. The man is lower than pond scum.”
“That’s not news.”
Early in her mother’s marriage to Ben, his son had tried to bilk Charlotte out of several thousand dollars. He’d used a ruse about needing some surgery his medical insurance wouldn’t cover, and if not for Justine’s intervention, Charlotte would have given him the money. David Rhodes was shameless, and he’d dishonored his father’s name.
“Is he in town?” Jack asked. He took two mugs from the cupboard and set them on the counter; Olivia tossed a couple of Earl Grey teabags in the pot.
“No, or at least not as far as I’m aware. And frankly it’s a good thing he isn’t.”
Jack chuckled. “I couldn’t agree with you more, and I haven’t got a clue what he’s done to upset you now.”
“He got a young girl pregnant.”
Jack’s eyebrows rose toward his hairline. “And you know this how?”
“I met her.”
“Today?”
“Not more than two hours ago. She’s young, probably twenty years younger than he is, and innocent. Or she was until David got hold of her. I swear that man should be shot!”
“Olivia!” He seemed shocked by her words. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
“Okay, that might be drastic. I’m just so furious I can hardly stand it.”
Jack grinned.
Olivia glared at her husband. “You find this entertaining, do you?”
“Well, not about the young lady but I will admit it’s a pleasant change to see color in your cheeks and your eyes sparkling, even if it’s with outrage.” He reached for her and brought her close enough to kiss her lips, allowing his own to linger. When he released her, he pressed his forehead to hers and whispered, “It’s an even greater pleasure to know all this indignation isn’t directed at me.”
“I’ve never been anywhere near this upset with you, Jack Griffin.”
“I beg to differ.”
“When?”
“I remember one time,” Jack said, “when I thought you were going to kick me out.”
“I would never have done that.” Her arms circled his waist. They’d found ways to make their marriage work, ways to compromise between his nature—he was a slob, not to put too fine a point on it—and hers.
Olivia liked order. Their bathroom dilemma was a perfect example. She’d been driven to the brink of fury by the piles of damp towels, the spattered mirror, the uncapped toothpaste. The solution? They had their own bathrooms now. She’d kept the one off the master bedroom and he had the guest bath. Jack could be as sloppy as he wanted, as long as he closed the door and Olivia didn’t have to see his mess.
“You’re lucky I love you so much,” Jack whispered.
“And why’s that?” she asked, leaning back to look him in the eye.
“Because you’d be lost without me.”
“Jack…”
The kettle started to boil, its piercing whistle enough to set the dogs in the next block howling. She tried to break free, but Jack held her fast. “Admit it,” he insisted. “You’re crazy about me.”
“All right, all right, I’m crazy about you.”
“And you’d be lost without me. Wouldn’t you?”
“Jack!”
Chortling like a schoolboy, he let her go and she grabbed the kettle, relieved by the sudden cessation of that high-pitched shrieking.
Pouring the boiling water into the teapot, she covered it with a cozy and left the tea to steep. Then she opened the cookie jar and chose two of the decorated sugar cookies she’d baked a few days earlier with her grandson—a tree shape and a star. The afternoon had worn her out physically but she treasured every moment she’d spent in the kitchen with Leif.
Just as she was about to pour their tea, the phone rang.
“Want me to get that?” Jack called from the other room.
A glance at Caller ID told her it was Grace.
“I will,” she told him. “Merry Christmas,” she said into the receiver.
“Merry Christmas to you, too,” her friend said in return. “I thought I’d check in and let you know how everything’s going.”
“So what’s the update?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“Mary Jo’s resting?”
“She was asleep the last time I looked, which was about five minutes ago. The girl must be exhausted. She told me she didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“She’s in the apartment then, or at the house?”
“The apartment. Cliff’s daughter and her family are already here, so…”
Olivia wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of leaving Mary Jo alone, but it was probably for the best. This way she could relax undisturbed.
“There’s something strange…”
“What?” Olivia asked.
“Well, for no reason I can understand, I decided to do a bit of housekeeping in the apartment yesterday. Cal’s been gone a few weeks now, and I put clean sheets on the bed and fresh towels in the bathroom. It’s as if…as if I was waiting for Mary Jo.”
That was a little too mystical for Olivia. “I’m so glad this is working out,” she said.
“She’s an animal-lover, too.”
That didn’t surprise Olivia. She sensed that Mary Jo had a gentleness about her, a soft heart, an interest in others.
