bleedin’ to death.”
2
Eileen Moggeridge slammed the door of her van and locked it, keeping her right hand on the gun she carried in her jacket pocket.
Tonight she had met with someone she’d thought she would never see again. He had stood in this parking lot, nodding toward Poke Around, her gift shop, with a smile on his face. “I’m happy for you, Eileen. I only ever wanted the best for you—and Aaron.” And the smile was sad, his expression guilty, apologetic, humble.
As far as she could remember, he’d never regretted a thing he did and she didn’t believe he’d changed.
He wanted something, and it wasn’t an opportunity to take back responsibility for the family that was no longer his.
Chuck Moggeridge had left her, and Pointe Judah, several years ago. There had been talk about another woman but Eileen had not known who that was. Didn’t want to know, didn’t care. Chuck had beaten and humiliated her one time too many and she still hated herself for not getting rid of him a lot sooner. In the end, her so-called husband had barely beaten Eileen to a divorce lawyer.
Now he was back.
He had called from his car in the parking lot, asked her to talk to him, “Tell me about Aaron. Just for a couple of minutes. He’s my son as well as yours.”
His car had been parked only slots away from hers in the Oakdale Mansion Center lot, but Chuck didn’t know what she drove anymore. Or he hadn’t, but did now. Eileen had walked to her van and seen him hurry toward her. She got quickly behind the wheel, locked the doors and opened her window a crack.
For too long they had looked at each other.
Strange how two people who had made a life together, made a child together, could become strangers.
He didn’t ask to get into the van with her, or for her to go somewhere with him. At least he knew better than that—tonight. Eileen didn’t trust him not to push for more, not when his parting words had been, “I know my responsibilities. You should have let me know he was in rehab. Aaron’s had a rough time and he needs his father. It’s good to be back so I can make things right.”
Lies. Mostly lies.
How had Chuck found out about Aaron’s problems with alcohol? They weren’t an issue anymore. Aaron had gone through rehab—quietly, although she didn’t fool herself that no one knew—and he was just fine. When he had needed Chuck, the man hadn’t been around and now she wanted things to stay the way they were.
She had met Angel DeAngelo—his first name was really Christian—through his nephew Sonny. Sonny and Aaron had become fast friends and Angel had stepped up to give masculine support to Aaron when needed. Eileen liked him—a lot. Sonny wasn’t nearly as high on her list. Surly and silent around her, he was an Aaron-rescue. Aaron had a history of championing misfits.
She held the gun so tight her fingers ached.
The thought of being afraid of Chuck was not new. When they’d been together she dreaded the sight of him and never knew what he might plan to do to her. But she hadn’t worried about him since he’d made a complete break. His timing for coming back couldn’t be worse. She raised her face, grateful for the fine moisture on her skin.
If she didn’t get back inside the shop, Angel would arrive before her and ask where she’d been. She wasn’t ready to tell him.
Eileen and Angel had moved slowly together, each of them scalded by past experience, but she wanted them to have a chance at something more and she thought he did, too—if he could ever stop thinking of her as his good buddy. Most afternoons, around closing time, he stopped by for coffee but their conversations tended to revolve around Aaron and Sonny.
Damn Chuck for showing up now. He shouldn’t scare her, but he did.
The rain had eased off, but the evening remained damp, the air heavy. Eileen hurried away from her van toward the lighted windows of Poke Around. The shop was in what had once been the conservatory of the beautiful old Oakdale Mansion and she had strung white icicle lights around the roof and outlined the windows with twinkling multicolored strands.
Chuck’s call came only moments after Eileen’s employee, Suky-Jo, had left. They had been stocktaking—not so easy when the shop was crammed with holiday merchandise. All but the low lights were off in the patisserie and the new salon that flanked her place. Old friends ran the salon and Eileen had an investment in that, too.
The business was hers—at last.
Eileen could not get over the excitement she felt whenever she looked at the shop. Her shop. She had come a long way from being Chuck’s mostly ignored wife, the woman who belonged at home—who mustn’t ask for anything, so got nothing.
Angel’s offices were also in the Oakdale Mansion Center. He was the operations manager for her brother’s construction firm and worked late. Then he liked to walk over and pick her up. Within the hour he’d be at the shop door. She wanted to see him. In the months since they had started their tentative relationship, her need to be with him grew daily.
They circled each other and knew that’s what they were doing. Eileen wondered how much longer Angel would be satisfied with being her close friend. She couldn’t face the question tonight.
Her cell phone rang in her purse and when she looked at the readout she saw Angel’s number.
“Hi,” she said, smiling to herself.
“Where are you?”
Eileen frowned and slowed her pace. “Where I almost always am.”
He took his time to respond. “And that is?”
“You’re not interrogating a suspect in your former life.” He admitted to several years’ service as an ATF—alcohol, tobacco and firearms—agent but wouldn’t discuss what he’d done before that. “I’m at the shop,” she said. Or she soon would be.
“No you’re not. What’s going on?”
Eileen’s scalp prickled. She felt colder than she should on a humid night. He’d never spoken to her sharply like that. He had no right to. A few feet from the sidewalk, she stopped and stared at the shop. Angel stood inside the door, staring out, his face set, hard and cold, the way she’d seen it several times before, but never when he was speaking to her.
He had his own key.
In a way, since Aaron and Sonny met, they had almost become a family—with some notable things missing.
His tone turned her stomach. It also made her angry. “What do you think is going on, Christian?” She winced. Her habit of calling him Christian when she was either really happy or really unhappy with him gave her away every time.
He kept the phone at his ear but didn’t say anything. So far he didn’t know she was only yards away and staring at him.
Angel was one of those men who took up a lot of space. When he walked into a room, there was a subtle change in the atmosphere. People looked at him, and conversation faded.
Eileen crossed her arms. The open line between them unnerved her. She tapped a hand at her throat. When she and Angel had met, she and Matt Boudreaux, the local police chief, had seemed to be moving toward a serious relationship. But Matt had been taking his sweet time, often treating her as if they’d been married for years—and she shouldn’t mind a broken date, and another and another. Eileen’s patience had run out. She would always love Matt in a certain way, but Angel’s attention had eventually distracted her.
Sometimes she thought Angel didn’t trust that it was over between her and Matt. He’d never made a romantic move but he did give the impression that she was his property.
Suddenly, Angel slipped his phone into the breast pocket of his dark blue shirt and stood with his big arms spread. He gripped the door frame on either side. Those arms and shoulders weren’t just big, they