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At 12, Vanessa Whittaker defied her family to save 17-year-old bad boy Eric Cipriani from wrongful imprisonment and, possibly, death. She’d hoped for a “thank you” from him, a kiss on the cheek, but before she could grow up and grow curves, he left town.

Fourteen years later, Vanessa is a celebrity chef at the five-star Ozarks resort she built. Eric is the new Chouteau County prosecutor on his way to the White House.

Four hours apart and each tied to their own careers, their worlds have no reason to intersect until a funeral brings Vanessa back to Chouteau County, back to face the man for whom she’d risked so much, the only man she ever wanted—

—the only man she can’t have.

← The Proviso, Book 1

Magdalene, Book 3 →

 

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December 14, 1994

“PEOPLE VERSUS ERIC Niccolò Cipriani. Charges of statutory rape, sexual assault in the first degree, and forcible rape in the first degree.”

“Ms Leventen, how does the defendant plead?”

“Not guilty.”

“Hilliard?”

“Remand, your honor. The victim is thirteen.”

“So ordered.”

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The Poor Get Their Ice in the Winter

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1: SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT

HE LAUGHED AT the college girl as she scrambled for her clothes, half drunk and pissed. He tipped his head back and swallowed a mouthful of warm, flat beer from the bottle he’d left on the bedside table.

“You’re a prick, Eric,” the girl—he didn’t remember her name—snarl-slurred as she misbuttoned her blouse.

“Yeah, you didn’t mind so much when I was fucking you with it, did you? What, did you think I was going to tell you I loved you?”

“No, but I didn’t expect to get insulted, either.”

“Whatever. You’re twenty. I’m seventeen. You came to a frat house looking for good college-boy sex and you got better than you expected. What’s the problem?” She curled her lip at him. He shifted to sit more comfortably in the bed, his back against the wall, and gestured at her midsection with the hand that held his bottle. “Didn’t you learn how to dress yourself when you were five?”

She screeched and threw her shoe at his head. She was too drunk to hit him, though, and he watched it land three feet away. He laughed harder. She opened her mouth to say something else equally scathing when the door burst open, startling them both—badly.

“What the fuck—”

“Shut up,” snarled a Chouteau County deputy, who hauled all six feet three inches of naked Eric out of the bed by his hair and shoved him up against the wall, his arms yanked behind his back.

He was too shocked, too suddenly terrified to make a sound when he heard more than felt his rotator cuff pop, just drunk enough not to feel the pain of having his dick and face slammed against plaster and woodwork, and not drunk enough to be able to laugh it all off.

“You’re under arrest for statutory rape and sexual assault … ”

His mind shut down immediately, completely unable to process the combined assaults on his body, his senses, or the college girl’s sudden hoots of delighted laughter, her taunts.

Statutory rape and sexual assault? Of whom?

His mind then spun to life, turbocharged in spite of the numbness he sought. How would he get out of this? He already had a juvie record with nothing to offset it but a 4.5 average in his Advanced Placement classes, and a job as a manager at a feed store.

He had no money and he’d never had good luck with the public defenders.

Statutory rape and sexual assault?! He couldn’t possibly have fucked a girl that young … could he? Whowhowho?

Still naked except for a ratty blanket, he got stuffed in the back of a squad car. Cold. So cold. The deep freeze of a Missouri December at two a.m. was just another insult. He saw the frat house from which he’d been dragged, alight but still and quiet, all its occupants clustered together on the sidewalk at the foot of the concrete stairs that led up to the house. Sober, clustered together, shivering in various states of undress, they tried to keep warm while they watched Eric hauled away so spectacularly. He blinked. Glanced away, unable to look back at the people he had blithely called “friends” for the night.

None of them would bail him out. They barely knew him, much less cared. He was just known to be a hard partier and a good fuck.

He gulped.

No one to call. His mother, out of the question. She would believe that he had fucked an underage girl and let him rot, not that he could blame her. She’d bailed him out enough.

Couldn’t call old Jenkins. He’d told Eric that one slip-up would get him the boot straight out of the feed store.

Statutory rape and sexual assault.

I didn’t do it!

Wouldn’t matter. No one would believe him innocent.

They had no reason to.

The squad car finally began to move toward the courthouse. He knew the routine; he’d been through it enough times, but not for a year and a half now. He’d tangled with almost every one of the prosecutors in that office, Hicks more than most. He closed his eyes and collapsed in on himself. Please, no. Not Hicks.

The man was vicious and, unlike most of the attorneys in that office, was not on the take. Eric could only hope to get the new prosecutor, that fucker straight out of law school who’d offed the serial killer and skated. That was a man who’d appreciate a bundle of cash to overlook whatever bullshit Eric was said to have done.

Only … Eric had no money, so it didn’t matter who ended up prosecuting him.

No money, no payoff.

And for this, he’d be tried as an adult.

HE REGRETTED HIS WISH for the newest, youngest prosecutor immediately upon staring into Knox Hilliard’s cold, hard face—the face of a killer with nothing to lose and a raging thirst for justice.

“Simone Whittaker?!”

Eric shot to his feet, jolted out of his shocked numbness into a rage of his own when Hilliard told him his alleged victim.

“Siddown,” Hilliard snarled, so Eric sat.

“It can’t be,” Eric said, desperate for him to understand. “She came on to me and I told her to get lost. I don’t do little girls at all ever. Never. Second, even if I did—which I don’t—I wouldn’t have touched her with a ten-foot pole. She’s a disgusting, lying little bitch and who the hell knows what diseases she’s got.”

That was the wrong thing to say. He knew it by the chill in Hilliard’s ice blue eyes, knew it even before his court-appointed attorney hissed, “Shut up, Eric.”

“I’m done with this asshole,” Hilliard murmured, calm and cold, staring Eric down until Eric had to look away. Cold. That was the only word Eric could apply to the man who’d murdered another man in cold—well, not so cold—blood, who sat there on the right side of the law like he had a right to be there.

Eric’s attorney did manage to get him seen for his torn rotator cuff, but no one much cared beyond giving him a steroid shot. His life was over, over before it had begun.

Simone Whittaker, thirteen going on twenty-three.

He knew at least two dudes in his class who’d fucked her, but Eric? No way. He’d been creeped out enough to look at a girl that young dressing, talking, acting like an oversexed college girl.

He resigned himself to his fate, although his attorney, a lady Hilliard’s age, also straight out of law school, was actually doing a pretty decent job of defending him. He wouldn’t get off, though, because he could clearly see Hilliard was better—and motivated.

Thirteen-year-old girls.

Even ones who looked and acted ten years older, who spread her legs for any male who’d have her. No matter Eric was smarter than his cohorts: valid picture ID and condoms. Always, every time, without fail.

Shit, yeah, Hilliard had made his opinion known loud and clear what he thought of that particular crime. The man had a roar that could be heard all the way to St. Joe. A lion, his attorney had called him; then, after Eric had caught her checking out Hilliard’s ass, he wondered if she was fucking him on the sly.

“Lord, no,” she breathed, aghast when he asked her point-blank. “Knox doesn’t like blondes and he doesn’t like women my age.”

“Are you telling me he’s a closet pedophile?” Eric asked slowly.

“No, Eric,” she said dryly. “He’s not letting loose any self-loathing on you. He likes women older than he is. And no, I wouldn’t sleep with him while I’m defending you anyway. That’s just a little too kinky for my taste. In any case, I doubt any prosecutor anywhere would go any lighter on you. These crimes are—”

Yes, he knew. Universally despised. “I didn’t do it,” he protested. Weak. It was weak. Nobody ever believed a defendant who said “I didn’t do it” because they all said that.

She patted his hand. “I know you didn’t. I’ll do the best I can.”

Apathy: The only emotion Eric could muster.

Except when … put in general population, at which point, he didn’t hesitate to make his opinion known about some other inmate’s assessment of him. For the first time, Eric cursed his looks. The term “hottie,” applied by a male, didn’t seem like such a compliment. It was a relief when he was thrown into solitary confinement for damn near killing the fucker with his bare hands.

“At this point, all I care about is managing to get myself in solitary for the rest of my life,” he said to his attorney the next time he saw her.

She pursed her lips in commiseration.

She knew she was losing. Eric wouldn’t live to see his nineteenth birthday.

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2: LAZY, LOUSY, LIZA JANE

April 1995

VANESSA SQUEEZED TIGHT into herself, watching from across the street, waiting for him. She sat on the sidewalk, her back against the stone wall of the café and furniture store, a small book hidden between her upraised knees and her chest.

There he was, striding purposefully into the courthouse like he owned it: tall, blond, hard, and very cruel. She could see it in his face. She knew what he’d done—the whole county knew. And trembled. She didn’t know which was scarier: approaching the man who’d gotten away with the murder of her mother’s boyfriend or going home to her mother after having done so.

She could just forget the whole thing and go back to school, but Laura would be disappointed in her if she left now, so Vanessa tried to screw up her courage and go see the man every person in the county feared.

“He could snap again,” went the whispers. “Who knows what’ll set that crazy bastard off now.”

He had more than one reputation in town, for sure. Whenever Vanessa and the rest of the sixth graders ate lunch in the narrow quad between the elementary school and high school, she would overhear the older girls talking about him as if he were a rock star. Even a couple of teachers would whisper his name and giggle. She supposed he was kinda sorta good looking, but he was way old—like, twenty-five or something—and terrifying.

Her heart in her throat, she still couldn’t make herself move.

What would Laura do?

Laura would march herself on in there and do the right thing no matter what. “Vanessa, that boy didn’t rape Simone,” she’d say, or so Vanessa imagined she might say. “You’re the only person who knows that besides your mother and sister, so it’s your responsibility.”

Vanessa knew what would happen to her when LaVon and Simone found out she’d blown up their scheme—and they would find out.

Dirk, the only protector she had ever had, was gone all the way around the world to New Zealand, to talk to people about his church. She’d had no one to protect her for a year and this would seal her fate. Perhaps it was time she packed her bags and set out on her own.

The crowd of people going to work had thinned out quite a while ago and then only the intermittent flow of deputies coming and going kept her from entering. She supposed it was now or never if she was going to do this, because eventually someone would approach her to find out why she wasn’t at school.

Reluctantly she stood and shoved the book up her shirt, then hugged it to her tight. With leaden feet she crossed the street and headed up the long walk to the courthouse doors. Once inside, she didn’t know what to do. Everybody looked at her strangely but no one asked her her business.

She looked up at the building directory and looked for his name. There. Second floor. She stared up the very high, wide staircase and took a deep breath. One step at a time, one step at a time, one step at a time, and then she was in front of the door she was looking for:

PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE

Her hand reached out for the doorknob as if it were on a string and she was a puppet—wait, no, a … She searched for the right word. Marionette. That’s right. A marionette. And while she’d been thinking of the right word, her feet had gone ahead and taken her through the door and into the office.

Ancient wood and metal desks were crammed into an open area any which way. Men stormed around the obstacles, cursing, yelling, and generally filling the air with much anger and lots of bad words. She swallowed. In front of her was another door:

CLAUDE NOCEK
PROSECUTOR

A young black man stopped short and looked down at her. She stepped back, her eyes wide, because now she would actually have to talk to one of those men who were cursing and yelling and being angry.

She bit her lip.

Tightened her arms over her body, over the book, its vinyl cover stuck to her skin.

“Well, uh, hi,” he said after a long few seconds. “My name’s Richard. What can I do for you?”

She gulped. “I came to see Mr. Hilliard,” she whispered. “I have something for him.”

A bemused smile swept across his face and she knew then that he was nice and he’d help her. “Really? What would that be?”

“A book,” she breathed. “I really need to talk to him, please.”

He turned a bit and gestured that she should step ahead of him. She shrank from the curious glances of the other men as their conversation first lowered and then stilled in her presence. She felt Richard’s hand lightly on her back but didn’t pull away; she didn’t like strangers to touch her, but she had come here by herself for a reason. She tucked her head down and let her brown hair fall to cover her face. Finally, she took one step and then another, Richard’s hand guiding her across the floor to a dark corner in the back. Mr. Hilliard sat hunched over his desk, engrossed in his work. She blinked when he jotted a note. He was left-handed, like her. Somehow that made her think that maybe she didn’t have to be so afraid.

“Knox, this young lady says she has something for you.”

Mr. Hilliard raised his head and looked first at the man, then at her. She tried to hide how afraid she was but knew she couldn’t. Then the most amazing thing happened.

He smiled. And it was a nice smile.

“Hi. What’s your name?”

“Vanessa,” she whispered. She didn’t want to tell him her last name because his smile might go away and then he might not be nice to her anymore. Her mother badgered him enough as it was and she was sure he was sorry he’d ever heard the Whittaker name.

“How old are you?”

“Twelve.”

“Why aren’t you in school?”

“I have to give you something. It’s very important.”

He looked up at Richard and nodded, which she figured meant he was to go away. Mr. Hilliard reached behind himself and pulled a wooden chair toward Vanessa, setting it next to his desk. He patted it. “Have a seat, Vanessa. What do you have for me?”

She approached warily because of what he’d done. It was wrong and bad and horrible. Yet … Vanessa felt safer at home because of what he had done (honestly, she was secretly glad, which Laura would say made her as evil as Mr. Hilliard) so she bit her lip again as she sat down on the chair. She slowly drew the book from under her shirt, making sure not to show any skin, and without a word, she handed it to him.

He took it from her gently, turning it over and over again. She knew that book by heart: pink plastic with a small lock that didn’t seem to work very well. The key had been lost—she didn’t know when. The book was decorated in pink, red, and white hearts, glitter, and silver flowers. She also knew every word in it, which was why she had come.

He opened it and looked at the beginning of it, where its owner’s name was written, the “i”s dotted with hearts. Then his mouth tightened and he looked at her from the corners of his eyes. She didn’t think that was a nice look.

Thankfully, he began to read. It wouldn’t take him long to get to the important part, so she decided to make herself as small as she could. She curled into herself then, hooking her heels on the edge of the seat. She drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

Her stomach rumbled loudly, earning her another, longer, glance.

She knew that look.

More than a few people had been mean enough to say it.

When was the last time you ate?

Then he tipped back his chair and, putting one foot on the edge of his desk, he read page after page with what seemed to Vanessa to be lightning speed.

Then he was done and he looked at her for a long time. He was chewing on the inside of his mouth. She didn’t know what that meant, either.

He threw the book on his desk and linked his fingers behind his head. “Why did you bring me that?” he asked. She still couldn’t tell if he was mad or not.

“Because it’s the truth,” she whispered. “People were burned at the stake because no one told the truth.”

Mr. Hilliard got a funny look on his face. “What people?”

“The witches. In Salem. A long time ago. People died because mean girls told a lie. I read about it.”

“I see,” he said slowly and looked down at the book. He pointed to it. “How do I know this is the truth?”

She hadn’t thought about that. To her, it was so clear. Her forehead crinkled. “I guess— Well, I don’t know.”

“Now, you know I’m going to have to ask about this and that I’ll have to say how I got it, right?”

Vanessa nodded. “Yes,” she said, and gulped again. She began to tremble because now that Mr. Hilliard hadn’t shot her in the head like he did Tom Parley, she knew her mother and her sister would make her wish he had.

He wiped a hand down his face and didn’t talk for a long time. Finally, he handed her a pen and paper. “Write down your grade and teacher’s name, Vanessa.” She did, and then he took a business card, turned it over, and wrote on it. When he handed it to her, he said, “If anything happens to you, if you’re afraid at home for any reason, you call me and I’ll come get you, even if it’s three o’clock in the morning.”

“Where would you take me?”

“To my cousin Giselle’s house until social services could come get you.”

Foster people. That sounded worse than home, if that was possible. She bit her lip yet again in indecision.

“Well, okay. I can see that might not seem fun. Right now, I’m going to take you to school. Have you had anything to eat this morning?”

She shook her head again, understanding what he intended and that it would mean a ride in a car with a strange adult man, yet she was too hungry to let the possibility of a free meal pass her by.

So she went with him and she stood by his pretty dark green car while he unlocked and opened the door for her, then closed it once she had climbed in. She didn’t think much of it until he parked at McDonald’s and murmured, “Stay there.” Now simply curious, she watched him get out of the car, walk around to her side, and open her door for her. He offered her his hand as if she were an adult! A real lady! And then he opened the door of McDonald’s for her!

He let her pick whatever she wanted and eat at the picnic table (he didn’t say much because he seemed to be busy thinking), bought her more (enough for dinner tonight, breakfast tomorrow, and possibly lunch too, if she hid it well enough), then took her to school. The high school girls were outside because it was their lunchtime and they could go off campus if they wanted. She was very conscious of them because they thought Mr. Hilliard was handsome and dangerous, and they had stopped to stare when they heard, then saw, his car.

What would Laura do?

Laura would hold her head high and ignore the people who stared.

They parked and she reached for the door handle. “Stay there,” he reminded her, and again she waited, feeling very grown up and sophisticated. The senior girls watched Mr. Hilliard open her door for her and help her out the same way he had at McDonald’s. A strange, nice feeling went through her, like how the word “dignity” might feel. They watched him walk her across the lawn away from the lunch quad to the entrance of the elementary school. They watched him hold the front door open for her, again, as if she were an adult and a lady.

The school secretaries gasped when they saw him walk in behind Vanessa and they shrank away from him. He seemed not to notice.

“Vanessa Whittaker’s been at the courthouse for an interview,” he said to the principal, who came out of his office to see what the commotion was all about. “I’m sure you won’t put her down as tardy for today.”

“Oh, of course not, Mr. Hilliard. Of course not.”

Wow. She had never thought Mr. Roberg could be afraid of anything.

Mr. Hilliard stepped away from her then. He looked down at her and smiled again that really nice smile. “Thank you, Vanessa. You’re probably the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

Vanessa grinned back at him then, big enough she felt her eyes crinkle at the corners. Now she knew that everything would be okay. Her mother wouldn’t dare do anything to her as long as everyone knew that Knox Hilliard was Vanessa’s friend. He patted her shoulder before he left.

She was walking down the street toward her mobile home after school when the cop car whizzed by and stopped at her trailer. By the time she got there, her sister was being hauled out in handcuffs.

“You little bitch!” she screamed when she saw Vanessa. “You lying little bitch!” She lurched toward Vanessa and Vanessa instinctively stepped back, but the deputy hauled her back toward him, then shoved her in the back seat of the squad car, a hand on her head.

Her mother came out on the deck and looked straight at Vanessa, taking a puff of her cigarette. “So what’d that bastard do to you to get you to lie for that sonofabitch who raped your sister?”

“I didn’t lie,” she murmured as she climbed the steps, the deputy’s car pulling away from the curb and disappearing down the street. She pulled out Mr. Hilliard’s business card and showed her the back, where he had written the word “home” and his phone number. “Mr. Hilliard is my friend. He thinks I’m brave.”

Laura was brave.

Her mother stiffened, and after a long pause, she went back in the house without a word.

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3: BLACKSTONE’S FORMULATION

ERIC HEARD HILLIARD’S voice in his head now, in his dreams—and he had nothing better to do but sleep—accusing him of things he hadn’t done, presenting evidence so clearly, so indubitably that now even Eric believed he’d done it. The clang of jail cell doors, ever present, didn’t disturb his sleep until he awoke in a panic, Hilliard standing over him in his cot …

Looking at him completely differently.

“What,” Eric snapped, deeply offended that the asshole had invaded his meager space.

“You’re free to go.”

“Uh—” He looked at his attorney, who had a pleased smile on her face.

“Eric, we couldn’t have asked for better.”

He sat up slowly, looking back up at Hilliard suspiciously, certain this was a trick, some cruel thing Hilliard would do because Hilliard was cruel.

Perhaps he was just dreaming. There was nothing of the rage, the hatred in Hilliard’s face now. A smile that bordered on—relieved?—threatened to ruin Eric’s image of him, then he turned.

“Bring him to my office when he’s ready to go,” he finally said over his shoulder. “Make everything official. He doesn’t belong here.”

“Thanks, Knox.”

“Don’t thank me,” he said as he maneuvered his way around Eric’s attorney to leave the cell. “Thank one brave little girl.”

Eric waited until Hilliard left, then looked up at his attorney. He knew his confusion showed and he didn’t care. He was broken. At seventeen.

“Simone confessed?”

She smiled and shook her head, but would say nothing until Eric was attired in the suit she’d provided for him to wear for the trial. They were the only clothes he had that weren’t neon orange.

“Don’t worry about your hair now.”

Eric knew he was vain. Vain enough to want to keep his hair long, vain enough to risk tucking it down his shirt collar for his trial so as not to give off the stink of half-breed-bastard-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks, vain enough to fight for it.

When he was ushered into the Chouteau County prosecutor’s private office, he was shocked to see its six other occupants. He stopped and looked around, obeying his hard-won instincts for suspicion. Nocek, the head prosecutor, had disappeared. That really shook him up. Nocek ran the office and the county with an iron—albeit crooked—fist and without ever leaving his office. Was it possible Nocek himself was afraid of Hilliard?

His mother, tears in her eyes. Eric hadn’t seen her since before he was arrested four months ago.

Jenkins, his boss, the owner of Chouteau County Feed and Tack. He hadn’t bothered to show up at the courthouse, even to tell Eric he was fired.

Rayburn, the principal of Chouteau County High School.

Two of his advanced placement teachers, science and English.

Hilliard, leaning back against Nocek’s desk relaxed, as relaxed and at ease in his boss’s office as if it were his, his ankles crossed, his hands in his pockets. He had that same strange expression on his face that Eric didn’t trust for a minute.

“I thought you said I was free to go,” Eric finally muttered when no one seemed inclined to stop staring at him or to speak.

Hilliard inclined his head. “You are. But. I have a proposition for you.”

Eric cast a wary glance at his attorney whose mouth crooked in a relieved smile, then back at Hilliard. “I’m not fucking you.”

Hilliard laughed then—roared—his laugh no less deafening than his most enraged bellow. He finally wound down to a chuckle and wiped his mouth. “Ah, no. That’s not what I had in mind. I want to send you to college.”

Eric’s mouth dropped open. College!

A vague hope before his arrest, one he had worked toward in spite of his unwillingness to let the hope gel into a dream or, even worse, a goal—the one he hadn’t dared think about while he was in jail, on trial.

But Hilliard kept talking. “I’ve been watching you, looking through your record, wondering how a smart kid like you managed to fuck up so badly when what you want is crystal clear.”

“Why am I here?” Eric demanded. “What happened? Something happened and I want to know what it was.”

Hilliard’s mouth pressed a bit, but not, apparently, in anger. In thought. As if he didn’t know whether to say or not.

“We found proof of your innocence,” he finally said. “Someone who knew something came forward.”

Thank one brave little girl.

For the life of him, Eric couldn’t figure out who could do that other than Simone, and his attorney had already said she hadn’t done so.

“College,” Hilliard said, jerking Eric’s attention back. “Mr. Rayburn and your teachers have vouched for your willingness to work, to improve your station in life. Mr. Jenkins has told me how you’ve managed his store for the last year, part-time, taking a heavy course load and getting straight A’s. So. I’m willing to pay for your education provided you work as hard during your senior year as you have in the past and provided you go where I send you and obey their rules.”

“Anything,” Eric breathed, willing to go to all the way across the other side of the northland to William Jewell in Liberty, at least twenty-five miles.

“Don’t you want to know what the rules are?”

“I don’t care.”

“Mmmm, you might. No drinking, no smoking, no drugs. No fucking around. At all. You’ll have to get rid of the earrings, cut your hair. Short. Your course load will include religion classes.” Eric blinked. “Those are their rules. You need an attitude adjustment and you need to learn some propriety. I don’t have time to kick your ass constantly, so the deal is, you spend this year working on getting into Brigham Young University.”

Eric had no idea what or where that was, and apparently his face showed it.

“Mormons. Utah. You go there, you do a good job, you follow their rules. You stay there until you graduate—and I don’t give a shit what you study—then you stay another three years for grad school, because I think you can do it. That’s the deal and I’ll give you a free ride all the way through. Any scholarship money you come up with is fine, but your job is school and don’t even think about working during the school year. I’ll give you what you need.”

Eric knew nothing about Mormons, though he knew where Utah was on a map. It was a long way away, but he sure as hell was not going to pass up this opportunity.

“Yes, sir,” he breathed, wondering how his nemesis had turned into his mentor in the blink of an eye.

“We’ll help you, Eric,” said his science teacher. Eric turned to the man who’d spent the last year torturing him with physics and who’d spend next year torturing him with chemistry. “BYU is a prestigious university and difficult to get into, especially for a non-Mormon who’s not an athlete.”

“But,” Hilliard murmured, “you’re half American Indian and that trumps everything else in that admissions office. With your grades and ACT score, there won’t be a question.”

“You’ll need an ecclesiastical endorsement,” added his English teacher, who was also his guidance counselor, “but I don’t think we’ll have a problem rounding up a preacher somewhere. Do you have a church?”

“He is Osage,” his mother said, her tone sharp, “as Mr. Hilliard just said. He doesn’t go to any white man’s church.”

“He won’t have to,” Jenkins said gruffly, the way he said everything. “My pastor owes me a favor. He’ll do it.”

Hilliard nodded then, satisfied. “Thank you, everyone,” he said, and Eric knew it was settled. Had settled. All around him. Like the snow in a snow globe. Eric felt as if he’d been inside it and gotten his head rattled around. “Eric, you stay.”

Everyone took this as their cue to file out. The door closed quietly after them.

Eric swallowed, not sure how to treat this man, only barely able to look at him, wondering what obeisance would be required, willing to walk away from the deal if Hilliard wanted …

“The Whittakers,” he said, low, and Eric snapped to attention, looking Hilliard square in the face. “You know the family?”

“I told you everything I know,” Eric replied, still wary, still suspicious of a trap. “Simone dresses up older than her age and puts out to anybody who’ll have her. I’ve seen her sister. Seen their mother here and there, shootin’ her mouth off, slappin’ the little girl around.” That woman was plain evil.

Hilliard nodded slowly, looking at the floor, his tongue stuck in his cheek. Eric knew that look by now. Thinking. Eric waited long moments before Hilliard decided to speak again; even so, it startled him.

“Simone had planned it to the last detail and was stupid enough to write it down. I don’t know if her mother was in on it, but I suspect so. Simone seems to get vindictive when she doesn’t get what she wants and what she wanted was you.”

Eric swallowed. For once in his life, he’d done the right thing, and it had nearly destroyed him.

“Vanessa. The little girl. Simone’s sister. She brought me Simone’s diary. It was all there. Not only did Simone not get you, she lost the rest of her playmates, too. She named names. I’m rounding them up right now.”

Eric’s breath stuck in his throat.

“Tell me something. Would you want to go back home to LaVon Whittaker, knowing you’d gone against her? Go back to school knowing that half a dozen male juniors and seniors, a teacher, and a couple other grown men with their own families are going to prison because you coughed up the evidence?”

“Fuck no,” he whispered, horrified. LaVon Whittaker, all Eric’s burly classmates and their fathers, the families of the other men who’d done Simone Whittaker—versus one little girl.

“Yeah, me neither. So you think about that. Think about what a twelve-year-old girl did for you just because it was the right thing to do. Don’t let her down, Eric. Don’t let what she did for you be in vain.”

---

4: YOUNG MR. WILDER

May 1996

AND THERE HE WAS again. Tall, dark, and very dangerous.

The senior girls had always flocked around him because he was “hot.” They said he knew things—things about girls and how to make them feel good.

Well, Vanessa felt good every time she looked at him.

She had watched him for the last year, since she’d gone to see Mr. Hilliard, silent, invisible, wondering when or even if he would see her and acknowledge her. Eric Cipriani would graduate in a month. After that, she would probably see him around town and in the feed store he managed, but she wouldn’t see him all the time, like she did now. Every day, she woke up wondering, hoping that today would be the day he approached her to say:

“Thank you, Vanessa. You’re probably the bravest person I know.” And then maybe he would kiss her. Maybe on the lips, even.

The thought made her catch her breath and get a funny little sensation in the pit of her belly, which always happened when she thought that maybe, just maybe he would like her a little bit more than just as a brave person. Maybe he would come to like her, you know, that way.

Because once he graduated, unless he had that reason to seek her out, she would have no such easy access to him as she did now, no reason to go to the feed store, no reason to cross his path at all. Vanessa was running out of time.

She stood behind a tree, peeking around it, to watch him. He and his friends sat on the picnic tables just off campus, drinking beer out of longneck bottles and smoking cigarettes while they watched the senior girls, and pointed at a few of them here and there, laughing. Although she didn’t know what was funny about the senior girls, she loved his laugh. His smile made her want to smile, too, so she did.

At that moment, his gaze met hers, and he stopped laughing. Stopped smiling. Hurt began to blossom somewhere deep inside her chest and she bit her lip, hoping his expression didn’t mean what she thought it meant.

He turned away from her then and his beautiful long black hair floated on the breeze. He didn’t respond to the talk going on around him anymore and he took a long drink from his bottle. He threw his cigarette down on the ground and stubbed it out with his silver-tipped cowboy boots the high school girls said had retractable knives in the toes.

He walked away from his friends—away from Vanessa—without a word. Her attention caught on the way his tight ripped jeans moved over his butt with every step, and there was that funny little feeling in the pit of her belly again.

No “thank you” for Vanessa today. No kiss. She whirled and, her back to the tree, she slid down its trunk to curl in on herself, tamping down the sharp pain in her chest. She managed not to cry about it for two whole months, until cheer camp that summer.

“Vanessa,” drawled Annie Franklin, captain of the squad. “Did you invite Knox to our camp closing exhibition?”

“Yes,” she lied. She hadn’t dared, though she knew very good and well that her access to “that hot prosecutor Knox Hilliard” was the only reason the cheerleaders, prodded by their mothers, had reluctantly recruited her for the varsity squad. Considering Vanessa wasn’t eligible to cheer varsity for two more years, their mothers had lobbied the Alumni Association for an exemption.

“Well? Is he coming?”

“He has a family thing.”

“Did you give him that note?”

“Yes,” she answered truthfully. That was why she hadn’t dared ask him anything else.

“What did he say?”

Is she out of her fucking mind?! “He was in a hurry. He just put it in his pocket.”

Annie looked through Vanessa, her mouth pursed. “Maybe he’s gay.”

Uh, no. “I don’t know.”

“Hey, Annie!” called the vice captain. “What happened to your Italian stallion?”

Annie’s face darkened and Vanessa’s heart beat a lot faster; she hadn’t seen him in almost two months. Anywhere.

“He left,” Annie snapped back.

“Left? Left where?”

“Left town.”

“Where’d he go?”

“Don’t know.”

“Ask his mom.”

“She’s gone, too. It’s like they disappeared off the face of the planet.”

---

And the Rich Have Their Ice in the Summer

---

5: PLATINUM LININGS

January 5, 2009

THE CHOUTEAU COUNTY, Missouri prosecutor fought his way through the crowd of people lining the sidewalk to the courthouse. He shoved aside the cameras and booms, shouldered past disembodied hands holding out micro-recorders, and attempted to shield his eyes from the lights aimed ruthlessly at his face. Out of the din around him, he could understand only his name.

“Mr. Cipriani—!”

“Mr. Cipriani—!”

“Mr. Cipriani—!”

“No comment at this time,” he barked intermittently, trying not to grin. He’d worked and prepared and waited for this moment. He’d woven his web, caught his prey, and rolled them up in silk, right here in front of the courthouse.

Time to start eating.

He reached the steps that led up to the doors and turned to face the crowd of bloggers and reporters. At six a.m. in January, the sky didn’t show even a tinge of pink, making the bright lights from the cameras against the darkness blinding. He held his hands up for silence and got it.

“Which part of ‘the press conference will be held at ten a.m.’ didn’t you all get?”

That accomplished nothing except to restart the shouting, as he had intended.

They were so easy, especially that prick Glenn Shinkle from the Chouteau Recorder who hadn’t realized that newsprint was dead. He’d kept his little twelve-page rag alive for years on Knox’s back, always striving to be the next Bob Woodward. He would have succeeded if he’d just realized that every bit of Knox’s reputed corruption was an elaborately constructed façade and had figured out a way to prove it.

Oh, yeah, Eric had plans for Shinkle.

He shook his head with a chuckle, turned, and opened the door to go in the courthouse. He jerked his head at the deputies on duty and they went out to control the crowd. He bounded up the grand walnut staircase to the second floor, then through the outer door of the prosecutor’s office—

—only to stop cold at the sign stuck on the closed door of the private office toward the back of the bullpen.

ERIC CIPRIANI
PROSECUTOR

Knox must have had that placed as a surprise for him, his last act.

He flinched when the lights flickered on and a hand clapped him on the back. “Congrats,” Patrick Davidson said as he brushed in behind Eric, walked to his desk and dropped into the chair to rifle through his files.

“Don’t congratulate me yet,” Eric said over his shoulder. “I still have to get through the press conference this morning.”

Davidson shrugged. “Just keep your eye on that,” he said, pointing to the white board hanging on the wall behind Eric’s old desk, its to-do list printed in Knox’s precise block lettering:

GRADUATE FROM COLLEGE 5/99
GRADUATE FROM LAW SCHOOL 5/02
TAKE OVER PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE 1/09
START CAMPAIGN FOR CC PROSECUTOR 1/09
START CAMPAIGN FOR MO AG 4/10
MO AG 2012 – 2016
MO GOVERNOR 2016 – 2024
1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE 2024
GET A MOVE ON!!

Eric felt a deep growl of satisfaction welling in his chest. If he stayed on track, he’d be forty-seven when he hit the White House, the perfect age—old enough to quash credibility murmurs and young enough to avoid questions of senility.

As for the public scrutiny that had begun the minute Eric had abruptly taken over as interim prosecutor the month before, well, it’d take him a while and some savvy PR to sort that out. His refusal to distance himself from Knox would make the task more difficult, but Annie had hired a top-notch firm to help. On the other hand, Knox’s relatively powerful family had already put its political and financial wheels in motion to get Eric where he wanted to go—and where they wanted him.

Richard Connelly huffed and puffed his way into the office, then to his desk. “Why the long face? You still worried about your juvie record?”

Well, yeah, he was, and Connelly interpreted Eric’s silence correctly.

“Nobody cares,” he said flatly, “as long as you keep hanging it out there for everyone to see. You are the American dream.” Davidson made a noise of agreement.

“I got lucky,” Eric muttered, ever mindful of the fact that he couldn’t have done it on his own because he wouldn’t have known where to start. “Knox just … handed it to me.”

“No, he gave you help and guidance,” he said. “You did the rest. You set your goals and you’ve worked at them. More importantly, you’ve kept yourself squeaky clean. Nobody did that for you. You have an impeccable education from a religious university. Your politics are consistent, even though you’re as full of shit as Justice is.” Eric laughed. “You have an extremely photogenic fiancée who’s as well educated and smart as you are. Future First Lady.”

“The next President and Mrs. Obama, Republican version,” Davidson intoned.

“Not Republican.”

“Yeah, you’re not planning to run on a Libertarian ticket, I bet.”

“I might.”

“You’ll split the conservatives right down the middle.”

“Libertarian does not equal conservative,” Eric reminded him. “I’m not on board with the entire Libertarian party platform, either.”

Connelly grunted. “The Republican leadership’s dying. You could take all the conservatives with you and win as a Libertarian if you make sure to clarify where you differ from the party.”

“And they know that,” Davidson added. “All other conservative issues being equal, they might vote for a candidate who’d decriminalize marijuana and prostitution, but they’ll never go for an isolationist.”

“Which I am not, which is why I haven’t decided yet.”

“But it means the Republicans need you more than you need them.”

Eric didn’t bother to respond to that because it was true. The political landscape was shifting like quicksand underneath the old guard’s feet. Eric was young, outspoken, and had a growing nationwide blog audience. He represented real change, and he intended to capitalize on it. “I have a meeting with Tye Afton next week in Jefferson City.”

Davidson looked at him warily. “You better watch out for him,” he said soberly. “He’s a snake in the grass.” Eric blinked. Davidson turned to Connelly. “Do you remember? About fifteen years ago? Afton was involved in some cover-up of real estate acquisition and funding when he was on the state House appropriations committee? The governor was livid because he couldn’t prove it, and then that was about the time Knox went nuts, so he had to deal with that, too? Two scandals going at the same time and he couldn’t nail Afton or Knox.”

“Really,” Eric drawled.

“Really,” Connelly said. “Missouri’s version of Whitewater. And then he went to Washington. He’s been chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee for so long, it’s like nothing can touch him.”

“I guess it’s a good thing the FBI likes me, huh?”

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Connelly said. “I refuse to vote for you for anything but attorney general, but if I wanted to sabotage you, I’d tell you to get on his bandwagon. Afton’s not your friend and I don’t care how powerful he is.”

Justice Hilliard dragged in unexpectedly, dark circles under her eyes and a can of Red Bull in her hand.

Eric, Davidson, and Connelly all stared at her, shocked on two levels. “Uh, Justice, aren’t you supposed to be in the Ozarks tending to Knox?”

“He said I was getting too bossy,” she growled. She thunked the can down on her desk and turned to face them, her hand on her hip. “It’s not like he died last month or anything, right?”

All three of the men burst out laughing, but Justice scowled. Her sense of humor usually didn’t show up until after lunch, but that didn’t keep her from being funny by default.

“So … you’re here on time.”

“Early, even.”

“By an hour and a half. What’s the occasion?”

She plopped down in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. Glared. “For your information, I can’t sleep without Knox, okay?”

“Justice,” Connelly said. “You can sleep standing up with your eyes open. When did that get to be a problem?”

“Since my house was broken into, my baby was shot at, my home was burnt to the ground, and my husband was killed,” she snapped, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “All of which I would’ve slept through if Knox hadn’t been there.”

Eric reflected that now might not be the time to tease his predecessor’s wife, all things considered. Nobody wanted to think about the details of why Eric had had to take over as Chouteau County prosecutor a month sooner than anybody planned.

Knox’s death and resurrection was still too fresh for gallows humor.

“Sorry,” Connelly finally muttered when he spotted the moisture on her cheek.

She sighed. “Me, too, Richard. I’m just—” She raised a hand helplessly and dropped it on her desk. “I’m kind of lost right now, you know? Too many changes in too short a time, too many things to think about, too many plans to make. This whole last year, being pregnant and planning a wedding— Having a baby, for God’s sake. Then Knox getting shot— Leaving Mercy with Giselle this morning just killed me. She’s three months old and it’s the first time I’ve been away from her since I had her. And we’re supposed to be moving to Utah in May—not like I want to go, but it’s important to Knox—and I just don’t know how … ”

“You don’t have anything to move, Justice,” Davidson murmured. “It’s a lining. Not much of one and fairly tarnished, but Knox and Mercy are alive.”

“Don’t forget the cat,” Eric teased to see if he could get a smile out of her. It worked. Barely.

“I swear, I’ve done nothing but cry for a month,” she muttered, and pulled a box of Kleenex out of her desk drawer.

Eric figured she was perfectly entitled, but he had his doubts about her ability to remain cool and collected in front of a judge today. Or any time in the near future. If he had to send her home, he would.

But he kept his mouth shut about that for the time being. “I’m assuming you left Knox with a bunch of nurses and physical therapists?”

Justice huffed and blew her nose. “Yes. But he wouldn’t let me stick around to supervise them.”

“Terrorize them, you mean.”

“That’s what he said, but it’s so not true.”

Her cell phone rang and she snatched it open without looking at the caller ID. “What,” she snapped, but then her pixie face lit up. “Okay. I love you, too.” She clapped it shut and stuffed it in her purse, picked up her things and scampered out the door, a hurried, “He can’t sleep without me, either,” floating back to them. “Be back later.”

Davidson chuckled. “Later meaning in a couple of months.”

“If ever,” Eric muttered, staring at Justice’s desk, and wondering if she’d ever be back and how fast he could get some new lawyers hired. He was down to four at this point, not including himself, and their docket was full to bursting. Discussing political strategy with his staff wouldn’t get the business at hand done, and the business at hand was his ticket to the next step of his master plan.

“I’ll tell you something,” he said, pointing from Connelly to Davidson and back again. “We’re getting some admins in here. And no more Chouteau County residency program. I’m hiring experienced attorneys from now on.”

He took in their amazed stares. “Oh, is that right,” Davidson said, and Eric grinned when he heard the approval in that.

“I— We are done training newbs. If I hire any new grads, they’re going to have to pass the Justice McKinley Hilliard test.”

“Oh, hell, I wouldn’t pass that test,” Davidson grumbled, and turned his attention to his latest case. Connelly chuckled.

“Well, boy,” said another deep voice from the doorway of the common area. Eric looked up to see Judge Wilson. “You’ve finally come into your own. Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

“I remember when you were standing in front of me in shackles.” Eric’s mouth tightened a bit. “How long ago was that, anyway?”

Suck it up, princess. Hold your head high. Face ’em all down and dare ’em to find fault. You aren’t going to get anywhere in politics if you let that drag your ass.

He couldn’t count the number of times Knox had said that to him.

“I don’t know. Twelve, thirteen years.”

“That long! Well, I’m telling you now. If you pull anything like what Knox pulled, I’ll have you disbarred. I’m tired of all that bullshit and you know every one of his tricks.”

“Aw, Wilson, that’s not fair. I don’t know every trick.”

He pointed his age-gnarled finger at Eric. “Don’t push me or you’re going to find out what it’s like to have your political career go up in smoke before you really catch fire.” He looked at Justice’s desk, which was as clean as it had been when she left for maternity leave four months before. Adam and Lesley hadn’t come in yet, but it was early. “I’m really gonna miss that crafty bastard,” Wilson muttered, a catch in his voice, as he left.

Eric turned and opened the door to the office that Knox had occupied for fourteen years after he’d deposed his predecessor at gunpoint. Now it belonged to Eric. It seemed so … lifeless … without Knox’s overpowering personality, but it was his now. He would turn it upside down and pull it inside out, starting today at ten o’clock.

He had a nasty past that had caught up to him and a brilliant future within his grasp.

He meant to meet them both head-on.

---

6: TOO BIG TO CRY

THE ONLY TELEVISION Vanessa “Granny” Whittaker had ever bought for her inn hung in the kitchen for the staff. She had no time for pleasure viewing and she got her news from the internet, but her chief financial officer had had a TV installed in his suite the day before. He’d already read everything in the Whittaker House library, and his own library had gone up in flames last month.

His doctors had restricted him from most of the inn’s chores, his love-struck nurses all made sure he complied, his unsympathetic physical therapist controlled nearly every move he made, and he’d sent his wife home because she ran roughshod over his medical team. Since he couldn’t carry anything as heavy as a baby, the wife had taken their daughter with her. Since he wasn’t allowed to drive, he couldn’t go anywhere because no one at Whittaker House had the time or inclination to take him.

In the five days since he’d moved into Whittaker House, he’d caught up on all the accounting, sent all the quarterly reports to their corporate partner, compiled the financial data they needed to embark on Whittaker House’s next expansion, sent the paperwork to the county for zoning permissions, and filed and paid their taxes. Daily bookkeeping only took an hour if he was caught up, so he had to wait until tomorrow to do anything further.

One possibility for his entertainment, the Mormon missionaries who lived in one of Whittaker House’s cottages, were always busy. At the moment, they were doing their laundry and wouldn’t have time to talk to him until after lunch, if even then. The rest of their week was booked solid, which left them no time to indulge him in the deep theological discourse he enjoyed.

Ol’ Curtis Lowe wanted no truck with him; in Curtis’s opinion, any man who refused to fish and hunt was completely immoral.

Two of Whittaker House’s permanent residents had their own routines, which did not include him, and the third one, his chess partner, was in a meeting.

The production crew for Vanessa’s cooking show, Vittles: Gourmet Weeds and Roadkill, wouldn’t arrive until Saturday, which meant he had to wait almost a week for something different to occupy his mind and time.

So he was bored.

Vanessa didn’t think there existed anything more dangerous to her peace of mind than a wounded and bored, spouseless and childless, inn-bound Knox Hilliard roaming around Whittaker House with nothing to do and no one to talk to.

She’d warned him against fiddling with the food. Normally, he wouldn’t dare, but today … Alain, Whittaker House’s executive chef, had already blown up at him once for being in the way and a second time for daring to suggest that a delicate gooseberry curd needed pepper.

And it was only ten o’clock in the morning.

“Sister Whittaker?”

She looked up from a half-butchered animal to see the pair of elders clad only in jeans and sweatshirts shivering in the doorway of her butcher shop. Knox thought it funny to request that the missionaries address her in that manner and, being simpatico with Knox, they obliged.

Obnoxious bastard.

“What’s he done this time?”

“Alain said to tell you to get him out of the kitchen before he goes on strike.”

“Oh, shit,” she breathed. She dropped her knife, ripped off her paper coverall and surgical gloves, and ran to the mansion to keep her normally even-tempered executive chef from leaving for the day or, worse, quitting altogether. She burst through the back door into the kitchen, but stopped when she noticed the stillness amongst the skeleton kitchen staff, who had all stopped to watch television. Knox leaned against a stainless steel table, his attention as riveted as everyone else’s.

She looked up at the screen, then stiffened when she saw a face she hadn’t seen in thirteen years, and could have gone the rest of her life without seeing—the face of the man she’d spent the last several months thinking about.

Couldn’t stop thinking about.

Wrapped up in a fine black wool coat, he stood on the top step of the Chouteau County courthouse while snow fell around him, onto his broad shoulders and into his short black hair. Mr. Connelly and Mr. Davidson, looking much older and grayer than she remembered, flanked him, and two very young attorneys stood off to the side. None of the prosecutors held any papers or hid behind a pedestal of any sort.

He had a narrow, closely trimmed line of black facial hair along the sharp edges of his jaw and chin from sideburn to sideburn. His dark expression was tinged with the slight arrogance of success and power. Her breath caught in her throat at the changes time had wrought in his features, the changes that made him more beautiful than she remembered, than she could have imagined.

Vanessa clapped both her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide, feeling as if her chest had been kicked in, unable to breathe. She sprinted across the kitchen and up the stairs to her office. She knew Knox was watching her go, but he wouldn’t follow. She dropped in her plush office chair and whirled to stare blankly out the fourteen-foot floor-to-ceiling Palladian windows, a knot so deep in her soul she didn’t know how to untangle it.

“What about what I did for you, Eric?” she whispered. “Simone took your life away from you, but I gave it back.”

But really, Vanessa knew she should have no need for Eric Cipriani to be grateful to her for what she had done; she lived in her reward:

Acres and acres of rolling hills currently covered in brownish lawn and stripped trees that would grow emerald and lush come spring,

A large lake with a manicured island and lacy white gazebo in the middle of it connected to the shore by an arched concrete gothic revival bridge,

A collection of little gothic revival brick cottages arranged in an artfully scattered pattern and connected by cobblestone walking paths interspersed with random flower beds,

A carefully camouflaged playground and swimming pool toward the southwest edge of the property, and

Decorative placement of peach, apple, and cherry trees, and more strategically arranged flower beds.

Though she couldn’t see it from the office, across the highway lay the construction site for another collection of gothic revival buildings: shops for the selling of local handcrafted goods and food, hunting and fishing gear, and other high-end goods and services, including a spa.

In Vanessa’s office hung a bona fide Dalí. On another wall hung Whittaker House itself in oils-on-canvas, painted by the architect who’d built it and had risen to prominence in her field by doing so. Downstairs in the grand parlor hung another valuable painting done by superstar artist Ford, whose day gig consisted of raiding corporations. Owning those paintings gave her a great deal of cachet and somewhat of a nest egg should she need to sell.

I am grateful to her every day for what she did for me.

So Vanessa should also be grateful for what her sister had done, but she couldn’t muster it at the moment.

“Vanessa?”

She sighed at the soft female voice from the threshold behind her. “I should’ve locked the door,” Vanessa muttered.

“I’m sorry. Um, Knox said … ”

Oh, how Vanessa hoped Knox didn’t know or suspect. She’d taken his inability to read body language for granted so long that it surprised her when she caught flashes of insight in his expression. “I didn’t know you were coming back.”

Vanessa heard the footsteps, the snick of the door closing, the poof of the leather sofa as Justice settled in, and the snuffs of an infant warm and safe in her mother’s arms.

“He never thanked me,” Vanessa whispered, hoping Justice couldn’t hear her, but she couldn’t not say it aloud. Her eyes blurred with moisture and her nose stung. “He’ll publicly thank Simone, but what about me?”

“He can’t,” Justice said carefully. “You were a minor and you testified in a closed courtroom for a reason. Your name and all identifying information were redacted from the transcripts to keep you safe.”

Indeed. Simone’s diary had destroyed many men’s lives that day—except for the only life Simone and LaVon had intended to destroy. With only one simple goal in Vanessa’s twelve-year-old mind, it had never occurred to her what could happen to her, and without Knox to protect her both legally and physically, she may not have lived this long.

But that didn’t make her feel any better. Eric could have referred to her anonymously.

“He’s not going to say anything to remind people that you—whoever you are—exist,” Justice reasoned. “Is there something you haven’t told me? About Eric and you, I mean?”

Only the one pertinent detail she didn’t want anyone to know, which Knox would probably be able to deduce from her shocked reaction and melodramatic exit.

Vanessa drew a deep breath. “Does he remember me?”

She hesitated. “I don’t see how he couldn’t. He has to deal with your mother and your sister nearly every day.”

Vanessa thought about that a minute, unable to discern what that might mean. “You know,” she said after clearing her throat, forcing herself to sound halfway normal. “Until you started planning your wedding last year, I hadn’t thought about him in years.”

That was the absolute truth; she only wished it could have remained so.

“I’m sorry.”

“I mean, I should have at least gone to see Knox in the hospital. It’s not every day your dad dies and then wakes up right before his autopsy.”

“So … your real reason for not coming to the wedding was so you wouldn’t have to see Eric.”

It sounded so damned stupid—and selfish—when someone else said it aloud, but …

“No. I couldn’t possibly have come,” she murmured. “It was just another reason to say no. I’m sorry.”

Justice sighed. “Oh, Vanessa, don’t. You have no idea how much Knox depends on you, Whittaker House, to be here, solid. No drama. He needs to know there’s one thing in his life that’s always status quo. You being here running Whittaker House, not at the hospital hovering and crying— It gave him a sense of security, like there was one normal thing in his life he could count on.”

Vanessa looked around her chair at Justice then. “Are you serious?”

“Vanessa!” she said with an irritated scowl. “I wouldn’t lie about something like that just to make you feel better. If I thought you were being a bitch about it, I’d tell you.”

She would, too.

“I already suspected,” Justice grumbled. “I wasn’t sure why or how deep it ran. He’s never said anything about you. You’ve never said anything about him. Simone and LaVon don’t even mention your name because they’re so terrified of Knox.”

LaVon, you or Simone do anything to that girl or open your mouths, I got a bullet with your name on it and already nineteen reasons to use it. Vanessa knows to come to me immediately for any reason.

“It’s like none of them know you, like it never happened, like you have no connection to Eric or to LaVon or Simone Whittaker. I’m not even sure any of them have ever seen Vittles or even know about it.”

Vanessa’s mouth tightened.

A brisk rap on the thick wooden door made Vanessa sigh again, even as it opened to admit the one man she didn’t want to see right now. “Good morning, Mister Thompson.”

“Mornin’, Vanessa. Justice.” Vanessa’s third permanent resident sauntered in with the languid grace of a man accustomed to prancing around on stage in front of thousands of screaming fans, then sat on her desk. “Did I interrupt somethin’?”

“You always interrupt something, Nash,” Vanessa returned dryly. “Go find somewhere else to stay.”

“See, this is why I like you. You’re prickly.”

“Only to you.”

“An’ why is that?”

“I don’t like you. Never have.”

“If you hated me that much, you’d either rat me out to the tabloids or kick me out and you ain’t done either yet. Gives me hope I can weasel my way into your heart.”

“I don’t rat you out because I don’t want the paparazzi down here any more than you do. Which you know. I haven’t kicked you out yet because I charge you three times what I’d charge anyone else. And yet, you stay. More dollars than sense.”

“Aw, c’mon, Vanessa. Tons o’ women want my attention.”

“Prepubescent girls and old ladies, you mean.” And no wonder. Nash Piper—Mister John Thompson—was striking: black hair, hazel eyes, ruddy skin, and carved features mostly hidden by the full mustache and beard he wore in an effort to render himself unrecognizable. He had a sinfully seductive voice and an otherworldly talent on any stringed instrument ever made—particularly a banjo. “Go play chess with Knox. He’s as bored as you are.”

“Not in the mood for chess.”

Ah.

Nash looked over at Justice speculatively. “Ya know,” he said, “lately, I’ve been thinkin’ about both of you at the same time, all naked and on me. An’ each other.” He shivered. “The way I look at it is it’s y’all’s duty to arrange that for me, seein’ as how you’re all about givin’ the guests what they want.”

Justice began to laugh and Vanessa couldn’t help her reluctant chuckle. No matter how annoying Nash could be, his outrageous behavior did seem to cheer her up when she least expected it.

“C’mon, neither one of you can tell me you wouldn’t like to be able to say you had sex with Nash Piper. An’ Justice, I’m a helluva lot cuter than that old man you married for his money.”

“That ‘old man’ is forty. You’re thirty-seven. He gets me hot and bothered. You … don’t.”

Nash curled his lip at her, then cast Vanessa an expectant look. She waved toward the door. “Not interested in being another notch in your bedpost. Get lost, Studmuffin.”

He got to his feet and sauntered to the door. “You know what? That’s it. You ladies have insulted me for the last time. Vanessa, I’m gonna go sit in the grand parlor in front of your paintin’ and jack off in front of everybody.”

“Okay. Don’t get your thing caught in your zipper.”

He flipped her off and slammed the door behind him.

“Feel better?” Justice asked, still chuckling.

Vanessa nodded.

“Kinda makes you wonder why you’re sitting here pining over a small-time prosecutor when you could be sleeping with a smart, funny, handsome man who happens to be a country legend, huh?”

Vanessa blinked. Glanced at the door Nash had just exited. Pursed her lips.

“I’m not pining,” she finally said.

“Uh huh.”

“I have no reason to pine. I mean, we’ve never even spoken to each other.”

“And that appears to be the problem, right there.”

Vanessa sighed, unable to understand it herself, much less find a way to explain it. “Look, it just— It caught me off guard, okay? Knox has always wanted to keep his Kansas City life separate from his Mansfield life. Since I don’t want to hear about my family it’s never been a problem. I don’t ask. He doesn’t tell. It works for us. But then—”

“But then I asked you to be a bridesmaid and told you Eric would be your escort … ”

“And found out that he works for Knox and has for—” She waved a hand. “—years. I—”

“Freaked out.”

Vanessa took a deep breath. “Bad. My watches melted. I mean, he left town when he was eighteen and I never— He just— He left.”

“I … don’t understand.”

Vanessa sighed. “Never mind. It’s stupid. Least said, soonest mended.”

Leather creaked. The baby snuffed. Justice arose from the couch and went to the door. “Well, time to go put the husband down for his nap and bolt him to the bed in case he starts channeling Emeril again.” Justice paused at the threshold. “I’ll lock the office door. If you want to talk … ”

No, she didn’t. She’d pretty much spilled her guts, and whatever she hadn’t spilled, Justice would be able to deduce anyway.

Dammit.

“Thanks.”

The door closed quietly.

“He doesn’t remember,” she whispered, as if staring at her holdings, her wealth, her dream that she’d built here in the heart of the Ozark Mountains, could make that all better for her. “How can he not remember?”

Perhaps she would go visit Laura today as she always did when her spirit flagged and Nash couldn’t tease her out of it.

She hauled herself out of her chair and went to immerse herself in her to-do list before she completely broke down.

Vanessa finished butchering the porcupines, cleaned the butchery, and headed to the back of the property, where her cottage sat a little away from the others. A fragrant bouquet of pink flowers on the counter in her kitchenette surprised her and she buried her nose in them briefly.

She went up the stairs to her bedroom, not surprised to see Nash sprawled over her bed, playing Tetris on a cheap hand-held. Naked. She went right past him, entered her enormous walk-in closet, dug out her whites.

“What’s got your knickers in a twist, doll?”

“Nothing,” she muttered, not sure if he could hear her through the wall, amongst the clothes. “Thank you for the flowers. How’d your meeting go?”

“Oh, fuck that. You don’t care. C’mere and lemme love on ya.”

She pursed her lips as she held one of many double-breasted chef coats in her hands and stared at it blankly. It wouldn’t help. It hadn’t helped. Not for the last eight months.

“Nash, how long have we been sleeping together?”

“I dunno,” he answered absently as the tinny music from his Tetris game got faster and faster. “When’d I crash my plane? Two years ago? Took me almost two months to get here, so … Yeah. Not quite two years.”

“You want to get married?” she blurted, startling herself even as the Tetris game blipped off abruptly. She heard the rustle of her bedclothes and the pad of bare feet on Persian rug, then that hippie face atop that ripped and cut rodeo body appeared in the threshold of the closet. She noted his rugged beauty absently, the habit of a longstanding, comfortable relationship where nothing was a surprise.

She preferred him this way, with carefully dyed shoulder-length black hair instead of his natural—and all-too-recognizable—dark blond hair, immaculately cut, and clean-shaven face.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked quietly. “You been spacin’ out on me for months and now you’re wantin’ to get married?”

She flinched.

“Hell, no, I don’t wanna get married,” he said. “Particularly to you. An’ you don’t wanna get married. Particularly to me. What if I’d said yes?”

“I don’t know,” she murmured. “I just—”

Nash reached into the closet and caught her hand, tugging her out and sitting on the edge of the bed. He pulled her down onto his lap so she straddled his hips. He wrapped his arms around her and stroked her back. “What happened? Somethin’s had you all knotted up for months.”

Vanessa’s mouth tightened because she wanted to cry again, but how low had she sunk that she’d cry over a man—a boy—she’d never spoken to, while being held by her lover?

“Um, the— Let’s just call it the fish that got away.”

He started. “Taight?”

She huffed. “No! Not Sebastian. With him, it was like— Well, like you and me. Only shorter. And public.”

“Then—”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Nash.”

He pursed his lips. “Does this mean I’m not gettin’ laid right now?”

“I’m going to Laura’s, so I need to make some cookies.”

He said nothing for a moment, then, “You been doin’ an awful lot of that lately.” Yes, she had. The ladies over at Laura’s house were beginning to worry and wonder, too. He sighed. “Then I guess it’s back to chess, but damn, Hilliard’s beginnin’ to bore me stupid.”

That was a lie. He was waiting for Knox to wake up from his nap so they could get back to the game they’d had going for days—

“Oh. Your Raumschach boards came in today’s delivery.”

Nash’s face lit up and he practically dumped Vanessa off his lap to jump into his clothes. “He know yet?”

That made Vanessa chuckle in spite of herself. Two years now, any weekend when Knox could spare a minute away from inn business, they’d played chess, both men on equal footing, neither able to get the advantage of the other. At first, Knox had thought playing chess with an uneducated country music stud from the wilds of Montana would waste all of five minutes. Nash had never found a casual player who could beat him, so he’d assumed Knox had no more skill than any other opponent he’d ever had. They were brilliant, perfectly matched, very competitive—and they were both happy to have an equal to play without getting involved with chess clubs.

“Going out to Rocky Ridge?” Knox asked an hour later, shuffling into the kitchen as she pulled the last cookie sheet from the oven, dodging her scurrying kitchen and waitstaff like the pro she was.

Vanessa didn’t bother to answer; she only made peanut butter cookies for one reason.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him wipe his hand across his mouth, as if troubled. “Ah, Vanessa. About this morning— Eric didn’t mean—”

“Did you see your chess boards?”

“Yeah, thanks but—”

“Probably better go find Mister Thompson before he has a fit.”

“Vanessa, he only meant—”

Her mouth tightened.

“It’s just that your mother and sister—”

“Stop. Just stop talking. Right now.”

“But he—”

“Knox! Shut up! You can go on back to Justice and gossip and theorize all you want, but I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to know. And don’t make Alain yell at you again or I’ll kick you out of the kitchen completely.”

Knox sighed, but then winced in pain when he took a step. She looked at him fully then and for the first time since he’d taken up temporary permanent residence to recuperate from his injuries, she noticed how pale, how thin and gaunt he looked.

“I am apparently not feeding you well enough.”

His mouth twitched. “I don’t dare get corn-fed around you and your knives. As far as I know, human is the only meat you haven’t put on the table yet and you’re as likely to serve me for dinner as porcupine.”

“With a dandelion and mustard greens salad under a rose-petal and blackberry vinaigrette. I think Granny Clampett would approve.”

“And Hannibal Lecter.”

“And why is he the bad guy? He’s just epicurious.”

Knox snorted.

She handed him a breadbasket and he piled a dozen cookies in it. “Orange juice?” she asked sarcastically.

“Did you get Mountain Dew like I asked?”

Vanessa stared at him stonily.

“Then orange juice will do.”

“Your doctor told you to lay off the sauce a while back.”

“You know what? As long as Justice doesn’t know and you keep your mouth shut, what my doctor wants doesn’t matter.”

Vanessa pursed her lips. “Don’t you think the suicide-by-sugar plan’s kind of stupid now that you got your inheritance and that family you always wanted?”

“Well, you’re probably right about that, but until I decide to get on the wagon, you don’t breathe a word.”

She signaled a server to take the food out to the grand parlor so Knox wouldn’t try to carry it himself. “So. Dad. You think you can handle the phones and play chess at the same time?”

He smirked. “Yeah, I think so. Give my love to Laura.”

“Sure thing.”

---

7: LOW-RENT RENDEZVOUS

BY MID-AFTERNOON, the office teemed and thrummed with the comings and goings of attorneys, county deputies, Kansas City cops, state troopers, criminals, and witnesses—

—just another day in a prosecutor’s office.

Eric sat at Knox’s—his—desk sorting through a handful of very old résumés and wondered if he should try to get in touch with any of these people.

A state trooper burst through his door, dragging a blond twelve-year-old boy who turned the air blue with profanities he’d learned direct from his mother and grandmother. Eric sighed and pointed to one of the wooden chairs in front of his desk.

The officer snarled at the boy and cuffed him to the chair without having to be told. With one slap upside the kid’s head, he stalked out, his dignity offended by having to wrestle with the brat.

The boy spat at Eric, but it missed his mark; it was an old tactic and every cop knew to park the kid far enough away from any available human target.

“What’d you do this time, Junior?”

His nostrils flared. “Fuck you, Cipriani,” he returned. As usual.

What a waste of skin, doomed from birth. It wasn’t the kid’s fault; he hadn’t chosen his family. When he still wouldn’t answer the question, Eric went back to reading résumés, knowing his phone would ring at any moment—

“Cipriani.”

“I want to file charges on that boy of yours.”

Eric sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, not bothering to correct the assertion, considering “that boy of yours” was county shorthand for “Simone Whittaker’s kid, you know, the kid with the same name as the prosecutor.”

Yes, it is true that Simone Whittaker had a son approximately ten months after I left for college and claims that I am his father. DNA testing has confirmed that I am not. Your press kit includes copies of the lab tests and all court documents, including his original and amended birth certificates.

“Do something with him. That’s the fifth time in two months he’s taken off with something he could pawn.”

“What was it this time?”

“Brand new CB radio.”

“They still make those?”

“Eric!”

“Sam, I don’t even know why you bother calling. Just send me the damned bill. As usual.”

He hung up and looked at the boy, who stared off to his left, out the window at the bleakness of winter. He did that a lot, Eric had noticed, as if he were far away, perhaps on a pirate ship or the space shuttle on his way to Mars. Maybe in a car running two hundred on a NASCAR track or pumping a bicycle in France, a hundred other cyclists on his tail. He remembered those fantasies, the escape, the need to get away from his life. Too bad the kid couldn’t read; there were whole libraries available to lose himself in.

Thirty-two-year-old Eric Cipriani looked at the twelve-year-old Eric Cipriani, wondering how many more Whittaker-spawned issues would crop up today.

“I hate your mother,” Eric said matter-of-factly. That got the kid’s attention and his eyes narrowed at him. “Look, tell me what you need. I’ll give it to you. Food? Money? Clothes? A place to stay besides juvie? What? Just tell me.”

He stared at Eric stonily.

“Dammit. What do I have to do to get you to act like a normal human being? You cannot keep stealing shit to pawn, and I’m about this close to getting social services out to your house.”

The kid swallowed, but otherwise showed no reaction.

Eric sighed. “Better the devil you know, eh?”

Eric Junior still wouldn’t answer, but Eric knew. Living with Simone and LaVon had to be hell, but at least it was familiar. And Eric Senior had to tread lightly; his life was inextricably woven with those women’s lives. Any action he took against them, legal or otherwise, could be seen as retaliatory—and he was in the power position in a county with a corrupt reputation.

It would look bad and for the sake of his career, Eric couldn’t allow himself to get caught up in their drama any more than they forced him to.

“Deputy!” he bellowed finally, and a deputy showed up in a moment or two. He gestured to Junior, and the deputy unlocked the bracelets to haul him off to the
juvenile facility, not a word between them.

None were necessary, but the baleful glance the boy shot back at Eric made him catch his breath with the memory of a little girl who had looked at him that way long ago. Her eyes were just that color of brilliant turquoise and told him everything that was in her heart.

Please talk to me. Please don’t make me go back home to my mother and my sister with nothing to show for what I did for you.

Guilt hit him in the same place it always did, low in his gut, sharp, a white-hot fire poker piked into his belly.

He hated dealing with Simone’s kid. Two or three times a week, he lived through the day he had walked away from his savior, the little girl who’d begged for some acknowledgment from the big badass of Chouteau High. He owed her so much, not the least of which a simple “thank you,” but he’d turned his back on her, too humiliated that a twelve-year-old girl had done what no one else could or would, too afraid to talk to her in case someone accused him of rape again, too aware that she had saved his life—

It never went away, that vile concoction of shame and regret, humiliation and fervent gratitude that had pooled in the bottom of his soul for the last thirteen years.

That kid needed something from him or he wouldn’t go to such lengths to get his attention, but Eric couldn’t figure it out. Apparently, he continued to fail whatever test the boy kept giving him and it frustrated Eric to no end, but if he wouldn’t speak …

Eric’s phone rang again. He didn’t have to wonder who would call so soon after his namesake’s arrest, but he checked the name on the display anyway.

“LaVon, good afternoon,” he said, affecting a cheer he didn’t feel. “Why are you up so early? Shouldn’t you be hung over or something?”

“You half-breed bastard,” she snarled at him.

“Have I thanked you yet today, LaVon?”

Nothing else drove Simone and LaVon Whittaker madder than when he rubbed their noses in the fact that their machinations had only served to make him fairly powerful.

“Oh, fuck you.”

“So are you calling about the press conference or Satanette’s spawn?”

“What’d you do with him?”

“You know where he is and you know I’m going to keep him at least overnight.”

“You think he can suck you off all night?”

Eric yawned.

“Simone’s on her way up there to get him and you better have him ready.”

“LaVon, you know the drill. He stays until I say he can go.”

He hung up in the middle of one of her tirades questioning his parentage, which wasn’t an entirely unreasonable thing for her to question. He questioned it often enough himself.

Another knock at his door and Eric looked up to see his youngest prosecutor poke her head in his door. “Simone’s here.”

No shit. “Get rid of her.”

“Eric, let me get a restraining order on her and be done with it.”

Eric cocked an eyebrow at her. She sighed and disappeared, closing the door behind her. Poor Lesley, always having to deal with Simone and LaVon Whittaker since Justice had passed that chore onto Adam, who had passed it on as soon as he could get away with it. It’d always been the low man’s job.

He heard Lesley’s stern voice, then the inevitable screeching. She had little patience for the entire business and would have Simone dragged out by a deputy the minute Simone dropped the first f-bomb, which usually took under ten seconds.

Eric shook his head and wondered what it would take to get Simone Whittaker out of his life, then decided that nothing short of her death could solve the problem.

---

8: NEEDS MUST, WHEN THE DEVIL DRIVES

April 2009

VANESSA LOOKED AT THE printout of the obituary Knox had sent to her via email with the entire message in the subject line: GO TO THIS

There were very few things in which he brooked no argument and she knew from experience that this would be one of them. She nearly told him where to shove it, but his head would explode and that was never pretty.

Knox’s motives bothered her. He never had just one reason for anything he did and he almost never explained himself beforehand, so she could only assume he had put some scheme into motion that involved more than simply attending a funeral.

Well. If he had any bright ideas about using Simone’s death to force Vanessa back to Chouteau County so Eric could conveniently run into her, then she would make sure that backfired on him.

There were ways around Knox Hilliard.

When she’d finished packing a duffle and garment bag, she clattered down the stairs and out the front door of her cottage. She had packed carefully, as she had very little trunk room and absolutely nowhere to hang her garment bag. She briefly considered hitching the trailer to her car, but then decided that wouldn’t be necessary for a short stay in a town where she wouldn’t be socializing.

Had to be on a weekend, too.

Dammit.

Well, better now, in April, than June, she supposed. Whittaker House had no guests other than her permanent residents. Nash had holed himself up in his suite for the past week “to work,” he said (whatever that meant), and would not tolerate disruptions other than room service. Her only concern was for Friday and Saturday dinner and how her absence would affect the mood of the diners who came as much for Vanessa’s celebrity as her food.

She went to her office to make a to-do list for Knox, hoping he could plow through some of it.

“Damn,” she muttered when she checked her calendar. “He’ll have to go to that zoning meeting by himself if I’m not back.” That wouldn’t earn her any points with the zoning board, considering a special meeting of the county government had to be called every time Vanessa wanted to do so much as plant a daisy. Everyone loved Knox, true, but Vanessa was the face of and driving force behind Whittaker House; the next thing she wanted to do would affect a lot of people—and a lot of those people didn’t want things to change.

“Shit.”

At the end of the drive, she waited for traffic to clear off the highway. Looking in her rearview mirror, she was struck again with the stately, elegant beauty of her home, her life’s work, her vision come to thriving and prospering life.

She will always be part of my life and I am grateful to her every day for what she did for me.

Vanessa clenched her teeth. “So help me, if this is about what happened in January … ” she muttered as she pulled off her property.

Chouteau City, Missouri, the Chouteau County seat.

She’d left it at sixteen, emancipated, graduated, matriculated, and headed for Indiana. She hadn’t been back to it in years and would never have gone back but for Knox’s imperious command.

Vanessa’s mood did not improve during the four-hour drive northward. She made phone calls to her allies on the county commission to warn them that she might not be able to make the zoning hearing Wednesday. She couldn’t estimate how long she’d be gone, but there were going to be a lot of unhappy people around the Ozarks, and she would hear every syllable of it, loudly and with much repetition.

“I might as well have gone to the wedding,” she snarled at no one. Her jaw clenched tighter and tighter as she neared her exit and then there it was: Chouteau City.

She sucked in a tortured breath as she zipped through town to a motel close to the courthouse. Once she’d parked and sat for a moment, hearing her engine click as it cooled, she allowed one moment of indulgence to wonder what he was doing right this very minute.

---

9: TIPPING POINT

“I THINK I’M GOING to lose my mind, right this very minute,” Eric muttered to himself as he surveyed the chaos of his dojo, crammed with students and their parents. How had he lost control of his life so fast? Knox had been gone a mere four months, and already Eric was in over his head. He looked at the clock; only half an hour to go before it would be time to close up shop and go back to the courthouse for the rest of the evening.

“EricEricEric!” squealed six little girls as they scrambled toward him. Dressed identically in white karate gis, their waists wrapped with little white and yellow belts, they jockeyed for position around him, which was kinda cute in a kitten sort of way.

“Yes, ladies?” he asked gravely, giving them his full attention. Kids. What a mess.

Too bad teaching kids’ karate was as close as he would ever get to being a father. He regretted that a bit.

“Will you come see us in our school program Saturday night?”

He pretended to consider that and watched them get antsier and antsier as he dragged his thinking out. “Well,” he said, wondering if Annie would blow her top, “I’ll have to check my calendar, but it’s a possibility.”

They all bounced up and down and squealed yet again. He supposed that in the world of ten-year-old girls, that was as good as a yes. Which, in this case, it was, and they knew that as well as he did. The six of them damn near knocked him on his ass with their enthusiastic hugs, then they bolted off to tell their parents that Sensei Eric would grace the hallowed halls of Chouteau Elementary with his presence come Saturday.

“Dude, you can’t keep this up,” said his partner as he brushed past Eric with gloves, foot pads, and other assorted equipment on his way to the back room.

Eric said nothing. His business was going to go down the tubes if he didn’t change something and fast. “Hey,” he called finally as he followed Dirk into the back. “What if we changed up our hours?”

“To what? Sunday between one and one-thirty in the morning? Because that’s about how much time you seem to have.”

Dirk tossed foot pads in their bin. Once that was done, they began working together to put the rest of the equipment away.

“I’ve only been in that office for three months. Four if you count the interim. It’ll shake out.”

“That’s all it takes for some of these kids’ parents to get nasty. Too bad you can’t quit your job.”

Eric grunted.

“How did Knox do it?”

“Knox had a bad case of insomnia, that’s how he did it. Well. Until he started sleeping with Justice, that is; after that, things started slipping. And I don’t have a photographic memory.”

“How did you do it when Knox was in the hospital?”

“Dirk, think about that a minute. It was December. How much does your office have to do between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, especially considering county government pretty much shut down waiting for news on Knox?”

Dirk stopped what he was doing and looked at Eric as he wiped the sweat from his dark brown brow. “Point taken. But now it’s April and you’re drowning and it’s time to figure something out. It might not matter so much if the economy weren’t kicking our butts, but it is and these people pay for you.”

Eric’s lips pressed together. “You know, maybe they’re going to have to deal with it. Twelve classes, six classes each kids and adults—and every one of those people knows where I work. Why should any reasonable person expect me to teach every single one of them and do my job?”

“Yeah, but we both have staff—and they know that, too. They expect the bosses to be able to cut and run when they need to.”

“You’re fully staffed. I have exactly six attorneys—one of whom is a new grad and another who is moving to Provo in a month. I should have ten attorneys and I still don’t have any admins. I just don’t have time, Dirk. I’m too busy hauling water to dig a well.” He paused, then grumbled, “I barely have time to kiss Annie goodnight.”

Dirk very pointedly said nothing, which said everything. Eric sighed. “Well. I do have one trick up my sleeve. If she’ll agree to it.”

“Who?”

“Giselle Kenard. She’s a black belt and she trained with Mill, same as us.”

Dirk grunted and walked back out to the dojo floor. “Won’t make a bit of difference, though, if you’re not here—and that’s the bottom line.”

Eric said nothing. Dirk directed his two oldest children to start on their dojo chores, then Eric and Dirk went to take their places in front of the class of adults who were just finishing up. Their highest-ranking student had taught the entire class (no one seemed to mind who taught as long as Eric was actually in the building during class), but stepped aside to allow the owners to close the session. Eric and Dirk dropped into meditation stance, at which point, so did everyone else. Finally, they straightened, stood at attention and Eric bellowed, “What style are we?!”

“Kenpo!” The roar of twenty adults reverberated through the studio. Eric and Dirk bowed.

Class dismissed. Eric had to get back to work—and he had a lot of it to get done.

“Oh, hey,” Dirk said once he’d corralled his kids and locked up, heading out into the chill of an early spring night. “You going to Simone Whittaker’s funeral?”

“What the hell do you think?”

“You might want to go just to make sure she’s really dead.”

He’d seriously considered that. “Trust Simone to get herself killed in a bar brawl in Raytown. Are you going?”

“Haven’t decided yet,” Dirk said. “I might go just to make LaVon mad, because you know, a black man crashing that redneck party … ”

“A Mormon one. Take your wife with you. That’d be hilarious.”

“Funny thing is, I’ve defended half those blockheads.”

“And the other half knows you’ll end up defending them eventually, too.”

Dirk burst out laughing.

“Speaking of that,” Eric said. “If you do decide to go, be sure to ask Wilson for a recess on the Blakely case.”

“Yeah, I’m winning and you know it. You’d love that extra day.”

That was the truth.

“Well,” Dirk said when Eric didn’t answer. His voice, laced with humor, floated back from the dark as he walked off to his car, one tired child in his arms and the other dragging against him. “Tempted as I am, I guess that’s one funeral I’m not going to—just so you can’t have your extra day.”

It was, at times, inconvenient to be business partners with a public defender.

Eric jogged across the street and into the courthouse, up the stairs, and into the office he’d practically lived in for the last three months. He dropped in his chair and dug out a pile of résumés.

He was not having a good time.

Eric had assumed that with no façade to keep up, no elaborate schemes going on, no FBI making extra work for him, and no extra legal work to do for Knox, he would have a lighter schedule than he’d had as executive. Considering his managerial style and the fact that he’d been managing the prosecutor’s office since he’d graduated from law school, it should have been a piece of cake.

Oh, it was a piece of something, all right.

Knox had never had any patience with bureaucratic paperwork and no compunction about tossing everything in the shred bin; he’d figured if it was that important, someone would come bug him until it got done. He could afford to do that: Nobody was going to walk into Knox Hilliard’s office to tell him to sign this or that or some other thing—except Eric, which was why Knox had hired him, only … after about a year of trying to manage Knox with one hand tied behind his back, Eric had finally decided he’d had enough of Knox’s pigheaded bullshit and had started signing Knox’s name to everything himself, daring Knox to say a word about it.

Knox had smirked and Eric went about doing his boss’s job—except for the massive amounts of paperwork Knox hadn’t bothered to pass along to him at all, thus fell on top of Eric the minute Knox wasn’t around to field it.

Eric couldn’t count how many times a day in the last three months someone had come to him for help or a signature, but ended the conversation with, “Well, that’s not how Knox did it.”

Of course it wasn’t. Knox hadn’t done it at all.

Eric’s resolve not to allow the office to maintain its reputation as a trainer of baby litigators proved difficult, since the law school advisors had disregarded his memo and metro area attorneys either didn’t believe he wanted to hire experienced personnel or didn’t believe Knox had not, in fact, been on the take. More than once he’d heard, “Are you sure there was never anything crooked going on up there?”

“Not since Knox ousted Nocek, no. Don’t you pay attention to the news?”

As far as Eric could see, the taint of corruption in Chouteau County might never go away, no matter what he did.

The Justice McKinley Hilliard test hadn’t worked completely on the sole attorney he’d managed to hire—a new grad—who had correctly answered all of Eric’s pointed questions designed to determine if she could do everything she was given the first day without help.

Either Eric’s test was flawed or the woman misunderstood how much work he expected her to get through the first day; she hadn’t done badly, really, but she hadn’t performed the way Justice had. As one of her last duties before she left for good, Justice made sure Eric knew she found his expectations unreasonable.

“You did not assign me that much work my first day.”

“I did, too. You have selective amnesia.”

“If you had lived through my first eight weeks in this office, wouldn’t you develop amnesia, too?”

Eric had to concede that point and took a third of the new attorney’s assigned work off the top. He could breathe a lot easier when she plowed through it with quality work.

Which also meant Lesley got to pass the “Whittaker Problem” off on the new person, too—

—until Simone had died Sunday, whose funeral Eric was only too happy to pay for over his mother’s objections.

“Mom, all the better to plant her as fast as possible, in a casket she can’t get out of. If I have to hot rivet that fucker closed myself, I’ll do that, too.”

Eric suspected it was a revenge killing for one of the men she’d named in her diary, but he didn’t give a fat rat’s ass if she’d been stabbed by accident, on purpose, or by whom. It was the Jackson County prosecutor’s problem and Eric was just glad she was permanently out of his life.

He briefly wondered if Simone’s sister would be at the wake tonight or the funeral tomorrow, but then dismissed that. If she hadn’t come back before now, she probably never would, which was fine with him. He didn’t want to look at her or talk to her, especially through the filter of his guilt, embarrassment, regret—whatever it was.

“Gah.”

His phone rang then and he looked at the ID. Annie. “Hey, baby,” he said when he answered.

“Where are you?”

“Courthouse. Sifting through résumés. Where are you?”

“In bed, reading. Got a ton of review copies today and I have about four reviews to write and post. Plus, you have not serviced me in days. One more day, and I turn from bitch to überbitch.”

True enough, and Eric had an equally dire need for some good sex. He looked at his desk and decided work could wait another day. “Okay, let me—”

“Mister Cipriani!”

Eric groaned at the sound of that voice from the doorway.

“Don’t tell me,” Annie said in his ear. “Glenn.”

“Glenn, I was about to go home and fuck my future First Lady. Can it wait until tomorrow?”

“No. I have a paper to put to bed.”

“Shit, Eric, just talk to the little cocksucker. You can service me later.”

Eric sighed. “All right. Night.”

“So,” Glenn whined smugly as he settled into the chair across from Eric’s desk. “Tell me about Simone Whittaker.”

“Are you going to the wake?”

“Of course. So?”

“And the funeral?”

“Eric!”

“What about her?”

“I want to know who ratted her out and got you off the hook.”

“You know I can’t tell you that.”

“You said you were going to be transparent. Simone’s dead. LaVon’s still not talking. It’s been fifteen years. What could it hurt?”

Eric pursed his lips and stared at the little toad, still unable, after all these years, to reconcile himself to looking at a living, breathing stereotype of the Greasy Newspaperman.

“You covered Knox for fifteen years,” Eric finally said. “You were the one who outed him as the most likely suspect in Parley’s murder. You were the one who broke the story that Knox kicked Nocek’s ass out.” Glenn preened in his chair. “You were the one who found all the ‘evidence’ that Knox was on the take, but you could never prove it. Oh, look. You weren’t any smarter than anybody else was, but you kept your paper alive off him. Bye bye Pulitzer for not catching on to the scam.”

Glenn’s smugness turned into irritation. “The FBI couldn’t do it and they had all the access in the world. Why would you hold me to a higher standard?”

Eric grunted. “Well, okay. You got me there. But you have the answer to this problem right under your nose, buried in your own morgue. All you need is about a week, a shitload of caffeine, and some better deductive reasoning skills. I’m sure as hell not doing your job for you, especially on this. Your cash cow went on his merry way smelling like a rose. You can’t dig any more dirt up on me because it doesn’t exist. You’ve turned Annie’s life inside and out and came up with bupkis besides her crazy-ass mother. You better find something pretty sensational to wank over or your little rag’s going to die like the rest of newsprint. I’d politely request that you not reveal this person’s identity just for his or her own safety, but I highly doubt you can figure it out.”

The man stood with a huff and went to the door, then stopped. “You don’t give me enough credit for what I know versus what I don’t print. I’m a responsible journalist. I back up my facts and then I print them.”

“With a little editorial spin on the side.”

“I know Knox murdered Parley, but I never printed that because I couldn’t prove it. What I printed was that he was caught on video at Texaco at 1:17 a.m. on June 9, 1994. I also printed that the videotape mysteriously disappeared from the property room, because it did. That’s a fact. I printed it. I can’t help the conclusions people draw from the facts that I print.”

Eric had to concede that point, too, but that still didn’t make him any less of a tool.

“Get lost, Glenn.”

The outer office door slammed hard enough to rattle the glass, but Eric only rolled his eyes and checked the clock: 9:45. It was still civilized to call people at 9:45 at night, wasn’t it?

“Giselle? Hi, it’s Eric. Didn’t you tell me you trained with Miller Evanston when you were at BYU? And you’re a first black belt, right? … Uh huh. I know you just had a baby, but I’m calling because I’m in a bit of a bind since Knox left and I wanted to ask you if you’d be interested in a part-time job … ”

An hour later, with memory lane having been well trod, he got to cross that thing off his to-do list, making his burden seem a little bit lighter.

Next thing on his list: an administrative assistant or two. Eric knew the value of good administrative assistants and he was going to get a couple or die trying. He picked up a pile of résumés and began to sort through them again.

Too much to do and too little time to do it in.

Too few resources.

Too little sleep.

Eric, you need to ditch your life for a couple of hours and go do whatever it is you do when you get all wound up. Meditate or whatever and then re-prioritize your to-do list. I’ve never seen you scattered like this. You’re losing it and we haven’t even started officially campaigning yet.

Annie’s voice rang in his head. Between the court docket, regular office business, his dojo, campaign tasks, and all the meetings he’d had with the Republican and Libertarian leaders who vied for his attention, he hadn’t had a chance to turn around twice in the same spot. But …

Annie had taken it upon herself to deal with quite a few campaign details.

Giselle had agreed to a meeting to see if she would care to take over some of Eric’s karate class load.

He did have one new lawyer, but one fresh grad didn’t hope to meet demand, and he’d stalled out on hiring administrative assistants.

If he couldn’t get everything under control, he wouldn’t have time to start actively campaigning for attorney general.

“Hell, I won’t deserve the job,” he muttered, then looked at the résumés in his hand. “Screw that. I’ll call a temp agency tomorrow.”

Eric trudged through the sheriff’s office and walked home. It was twelve-thirty when he climbed into bed. Annie was asleep, so he wouldn’t be getting laid tonight even if he weren’t completely exhausted.

Still, he lay awake, churning through his to-do list, nagged by his inability to prioritize effectively. Then his mind rolled back around to Glenn’s visit, and Eric felt a little bit of unease that perhaps the man could suss out the identity of the little girl who’d given Eric everything he had.

---

10: MORE DOWN CELLAR IN A TEACUP

VANESSA SHOWED UP at the wake, attracting every eye and dropping every jaw as she strutted by with purpose, feigning obliviousness to the looks. She’d known this would happen. She’d wanted it to happen; it was a power play and she’d learned about power from the best.

Her mother raked her with her gaze, head to toe and back again. “Well, aren’t we uppity?”

“Yes, I certainly am. You could use a little class yourself.”

A snicker caught her attention and she saw a blond boy, not much shorter than Vanessa, standing next to Vanessa’s mother. She flinched when her mother cuffed the boy in the back of the head.

“What’d you do to your hair?” LaVon demanded. “You look like a zebra.”

“I went out in the sun to do productive things. What did you do to yours? Mix four different brands of discount bleach?”

The boy snickered again, and again her mother cuffed him.

Vanessa’s eyes narrowed and she was no longer amused, remembering how little a child had to do to earn one of those incredibly frequent painful slaps. “Ma, if you do that again, I’ll have you arrested.”

LaVon’s jaw worked, but she said nothing and Vanessa felt free to leave her there and find a seat where she could watch people in relative peace. She did have to admit that being here, not forced to be gracious, being able to let loose, was fabulously cathartic.

Knox had finally explained why he demanded she go to her sister’s funeral. “You’re in the power position now and you need that closure.”

“So it’s not about Simone?”

It’s not about Eric?

“No. It’s about your mother. Trust me. My mother was a bitch, too, and I want you to go give her hell.”

Vanessa hated it when he was right, which, well, he was always right. Besides, she knew how much Knox had hated his mother and that put her fears about any other motives he might have to rest.

Vaguely wondering who the boy was, she started to watch him. It only took a few seconds to figure out he was Simone’s son. Possibly twelve years old and Vanessa had not known of his existence. He didn’t seem too terribly heartbroken over his mother’s death and she couldn’t blame him.

She felt the first stirrings of pity for the child; she had had protectors in Dirk, then Knox, who’d kept LaVon off her back. Vanessa couldn’t begin to imagine how miserable this boy must be with both LaVon and Simone over him.

Vanessa refused to stand in the family line at the wake that night, refused to sit with the family up front during mass the next day, and refused to drive to the cemetery at the front of the line after the funeral. She stood about fifty feet away from the tented gravesite, observing the whole mess, and wondered how LaVon had managed to come up with the money for the funeral and grave, much less the nice casket.

Somebody else must have paid for it. LaVon would have left Simone to be buried in a potter’s field.

“Hi.”

Vanessa looked at the stranger who had sidled up next to her, an otherwise smallish man but for a little bit of a pot belly. He seemed … dapper. That was the word. His clothes—straight out of film noir—weren’t expensive, but they were of good quality material and they’d been altered to fit him well. He removed his fedora to reveal a regrettable comb-over of mixed brown and gray strands, and his eyes bugged a little behind his stylish glasses. He wore a decent cologne, not overwhelming and not so thin as to be considered cheap.

“Hello,” she murmured, wondering which way he would approach this and how fast she’d be tomorrow’s headline.

“You’re Vanessa Whittaker.”

“Last time I checked.”

“You’re Simone’s little sister?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re the TV chef. Vittles, right?”

Vanessa sighed.

“I’m Glenn Shinkle, from the Chouteau Recorder, and I was wondering if I could get an interview? Apparently,” he said wryly, “no one here knows who you are, except me.”

“That does seem to be the case, doesn’t it?”

He pursed his lips. “Or at least of your mother’s crowd. Why is that, do you think?”

She laughed for the first time since she’d hit the county line.

If LaVon didn’t know about Vanessa’s life, it would be a result of her complete disinterest in computers or the internet, even if she could afford such, and a complete disinterest in Vanessa’s whereabouts or doings. While LaVon had always lived and breathed celebrity gossip, Vanessa didn’t occupy the realms of celebrity LaVon would follow. LaVon had never cooked, so Vanessa couldn’t imagine she’d watch cooking shows.

If LaVon did know about Vanessa’s little corner of fame or anything about Whittaker House, she’d have kept it to herself, ever mindful that any misstep would bring the wrath of Knox Hilliard down upon her head.

Vanessa suspected the latter. After all, LaVon could keep a secret better than a dead man if she had sufficient motivation.

Finally, she cast a vague gesture toward all the people gathered under and around the tent set up over Simone’s grave and said, “I have no idea.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “Miss Whitta—”

“Mr. Shinkle,” she murmured, laying her hand gently on his arm. “I’m at my sister’s funeral.”

As a reproof, it was a gentle one, but he seemed the sort to understand and respect it. He flushed a little, but nodded and put his fedora back on his head before trotting off.

Vanessa sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. She turned back to watch the mourners gather and chat and disperse in small, ever-moving clusters, then glanced at her watch. Noon. If she left now instead of staying for the family meal, she could make it home for dinner with more than an hour to spare.

But. When Nephew approached her with some stealth and muttered, “Aunt Vanessa, will you come to my school tomorrow night? There’s a program and I’m in it … ” she hadn’t the heart to refuse him. He’d spoken to her as if she were a regular, sympathetic part of his life, not a random relative he’d just met.

A whole lot of people Vanessa didn’t know spoke to her that way, which meant he’d watched her on TV enough to feel as if he knew her.

“Sure, kid. What time do you want me to pick you up?” He told her, then scampered off before she could ask him his name, in case LaVon caught him talking to the family traitor. She knew exactly how much he’d risked to do so. He probably saw her as his protector now simply because she’d stood down his grandmother.

Very few women and only a handful more men could make LaVon Whittaker back down, and now Nephew knew Vanessa was powerful enough to do that. LaVon wouldn’t dare do anything to that boy while she was in town.

Too bad she’d start in on him again once Vanessa left.

Thus, Vanessa decided to go back to the mobile home after the burial just to see if she could get a few licks in at her mother, but the conversation she’d imagined didn’t come to pass the way she’d intended. Instead, she saw her father in a broken-down wheelchair, on oxygen, trying to wheel his way through a fog of cigarette smoke and people who didn’t notice he existed, much less make room for him to pass by.

She shoved through the tight cliques, trying to go to him and wheel him out to the deck.

“Ma,” she snapped when she realized LaVon was right in front of her father, ignoring his distress. “Why don’t you get Pops an electric wheelchair?”

LaVon flushed and her jaw worked. Vanessa had embarrassed her in front of her friends. Good.

“’Cause we don’t have the money for it, Vanessa,” she finally said, nasty as always.

“Oh, hey, here’s a thought: Quit smoking and maybe A—Pops wouldn’t have to have so much oxygen and B—you’d have the money.”

LaVon slapped her face.

The entire assemblage fell silent and stepped back to watch this. Nephew observed Vanessa warily, as if he were afraid her power over LaVon was just an illusion.

“How’d’ja like that, Vanessa?” she sneered. “Ain’t no Knox Hilliard in town to protect you no more.”

“Well, that’s true enough,” Vanessa drawled. “What, exactly, do you think the new prosecutor would do with you if I went to him to have you charged with assault?”

The tension was suffocating.

“And wouldn’t Dirk laugh his butt off when you needed an attorney?”

LaVon’s mouth tightened.

“That’s what I thought.”

Then Vanessa turned and continued with her self-appointed task of getting her father outside for some fresh air. LaVon didn’t wait until she was out the door before starting in on the new prosecutor.

That was a show for Vanessa’s benefit, to drive home the point that LaVon had not forgotten her betrayal, much less forgiven her for it. Vanessa still wanted to curl up in a little ball of humiliation whenever she remembered watching Eric, waiting and hoping for some kind word, some sign that he knew what she’d done and felt some gratitude. A mere “thank you” would have thrilled her thirteen-year-old heart beyond reason.

But he’d given her that look and walked away.

“ … ting married to that bitch Annie Franklin.”

“When’s the wedding again?”

“December something.”

Vanessa didn’t stop, didn’t betray in any way how unexpectedly hard that news hit her behind her breastbone. She wasn’t sure her mother actually knew of her little-girl crush of so long ago, but it didn’t matter. Any news about the prosecutor that could be used to trash him would get the point across to Vanessa.

She wasn’t sure why she cared. After all, she was sleeping with a man half the women in the country had wanted—including LaVon, judging by the Nash Piper shrine that covered the main wall of the trailer’s living room. The wreckage of Nash’s plane deep in the Smoky Mountains had been found readily enough, but his body had never been recovered. Yet here was LaVon, still keeping vigil two and a half years later.

Why didn’t it surprise her LaVon would have built a shrine to a dead man?

“Typical,” Vanessa muttered.

With great determination, she finally got her father out on the deck, where he hacked and choked, and she pulled up a dilapidated lawn chair to sit next to him and look at the twilight sky.

“Nessie,” he rasped once his coughing fit had wound down. “I want you to know how glad I am you came back for your sister’s funeral.”

“I didn’t have a choice, Pops. My business partner made me.”

“Oh?” he asked, his forehead wrinkled. “If she’s your partner, how does she make you?”

“He. And he’s got a bit of a temper. It gets nasty.”

“Why did he make you come?”

“To make sure Simone was really dead. In case you didn’t notice, I don’t care about Simone. She got what she deserved. Live by the sword, die by the sword. And LaVon’s even worse.”

Her father’s nostrils flared, but since she had no investment in being warm and gracious at this moment, she had no qualms about stating her opinion. That harshness, that refusal to be cowed or apologize, which she’d learned from a master, was something she very rarely needed to break out. Today, with her family, she felt not only justified but obligated to push the envelope, shred it, and set it on fire.

Not Laura’s modus operandi.

“If it’s the truth, it should be spoken. If it’s not the truth, may I rot in hell. Pops, really. Let me take you home with me. I have a good setup. Fresh air, good food, pretty land. You can have your own little cottage or live in the main house, whatever you want. I can find things for you to do—one of my tenants is going to be a fly-tying shop and there’s a sharecropper on the back of my property who’d like to chew the fat with someone his age. I have a big lake with bass and channel cats and bluegill, and a clear stream with plenty of trout. You could fish all day long if you wanted.”

He looked at her, his face ancient, his turquoise eyes cloudy and bloodshot. He was only fifty-two, but he wouldn’t live much longer. Vanessa sighed and tried to hold back unexpected tears.

“I won’t leave your mother, Vanessa,” he murmured, a note of reproof in his voice. She didn’t know when he’d divorced himself from reality, but she couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t stood by her mother.

She didn’t know if that was admirable or pathetic.

“And I don’t like the way you’re talking about her.”

A wave of resentment hit her when, in a flash, she remembered all the times he could have rescued her from her mother’s cruelty but had turned a blind eye, always leaving it for someone else to do. Granted, he had attempted to assuage the pain once LaVon had finished with her, to kiss her and hug her and sing to her, but he couldn’t or wouldn’t stand up to LaVon.

“Okay, Pops,” she said quietly, before she said something she’d regret to this kind but weak man. “I’m leaving now. Here’s my number—” She wrote her number on the back of an old to-do list she found in her purse, and tucked it inside his shirt pocket. “Call me if you need anything.”

He caught her hand. “I watch you on the television, Nessie,” he whispered, surprising her. “The boy, too. I’m proud of you.”

She stared at him in wonder. “You— But Ma—”

“She don’t know about Vittles, about Whittaker House. It’s my own little secret,” he confided. “You an’ me. I can … pretend … I had a hand in raisin’ you, but I know who really raised you an’ I’m ashamed o’ that. I wouldn’t take your charity now ’cause I don’t deserve it.”

“You don’t deserve to be abused the rest of your life, either.”

“Won’t be much longer,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’m just waitin’ to find out if heaven’s as purty as that place you got. Just to know you—my little girl—built that. It’s all I need to die happy, Nessie.”

She found herself walking around the town square at midnight because she couldn’t sleep with her father’s fatalism echoing around her head, and she couldn’t get the cigarette smoke out of her expensive clothes. How had she forgotten that little detail?

Sunday. She’d leave Sunday. She would’ve left the next day and been home in time for dinner if she hadn’t promised Nephew—dammit, what was that kid’s name, anyway?—she’d go to his program. None of the rest of his family would be there.

Her attention was caught by the glint of glass panes reflecting the street lamps when the courthouse doors opened. A tall man with short black hair, in black pants and a loose black kimono-type jacket locked the door behind him. He rolled his head one way, then another. He rolled his shoulders over and under, then cracked his neck. He seemed to have some sort of black strap slung around his neck. He turned and walked slowly, rather bowleggedly, across the lawn—away from her.

Again.

And she wouldn’t go begging for … what? Exactly? A “thank you”?

Kinda makes you wonder why you’re sitting here pining over a small-time prosecutor when you could be sleeping with a funny, handsome man who happens to be a country star, huh?

With a choked sigh and a shake of her head, she went back to her motel room and stripped off her smoke-saturated clothes, stuffed them into a plastic bag, wondered if her housekeeping staff could get out the stink—the same stink that wafted from her hair. She got under a stream of hot water as fast as she could and scrubbed her zebra hair until her scalp was raw.

Her hand swept down her chest, over her breast, and stopped, her thumb playing with her hard nipple and she closed her eyes, caught her breath, wondering how and why she had let so many years pass before taking a second lover.

Had she been that busy? That focused?

Let’s just call it the fish that got away.

Or had she simply been pining?

It was easy to say that her first lover had spoiled her for other men, because it was true; no one else had approached his level of sheer sensuality. Unfortunately, the kinds of men who attracted her were intimidated by the fact that she had been a famous artist’s model—with the nude proof hanging in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was easy to refuse those who couldn’t match Sebastian and even easier to ignore those who let their intimidation get the better of them.

It was easy to claim that she was busy and she was young yet, because it was true. Knox had set her up for early success and financial independence for a reason. Sebastian had calculated his grand unveiling of Wild, Wild West to coincide with her last four months of culinary school to make Vanessa a hot commodity the minute she graduated. Still, she hadn’t yet reached that point in the process where she could just let go for a while. She had a grand vision for Whittaker House and not only was she far from attaining that, she’d just gone into a heap of debt to effect the next phase in her plan. If all went well, she’d have to go to the bank next summer for the final phase and it would take her years to climb out of that hole.

It was easy to fall back on years of religious training, both Catholic and Mormon, catechism class and Young Women’s. Giselle—the closest thing Vanessa had ever had to a real mother—had lectured her endlessly on the pragmatism of being, if not chaste, then savvy and discriminating. She’d warned Vanessa about strangers, about the emotional tricks men used, about getting drunk to lose her inhibitions, about disease and abuse and coercion and rape and drugs designed to enable rape. Giselle had taken Vanessa to the doctor to get her on birth control. Vanessa had had time to observe and learn without undue pressure, and years of watching her roommates at Notre Dame succumb to one or more of those had only reinforced Giselle’s opinions as truth.

Frat boys are pigs. Just don’t be stupid. If you want to have sex, wait and be very careful about who you choose. Do it sober, while you have your head on straight. When you’re out, always make sure your drink is covered. Whatever you do, don’t have sex without a condom and don’t forget to take your pill. Ever. Remember this: Men use love to get sex and women use sex to get love. Don’t ever mistake sex for love because that’s when girls start getting stupid. And whatever else you do, don’t lie about your age. That should be enough to put most men off until you’re eighteen, and it’s not like you don’t know what happens to men who fuck underage girls, right?

With Giselle’s warnings in Vanessa’s ears and a ton of bad examples in front of her eyes that validated every word, it was easy to refuse. Without the temperament or taste for hookups, without a man as fascinating as Sebastian to tempt her into an affair, with a cornucopia of ideas crowding her head and a constantly rotating laundry list of things to do, it had been easy to refuse—until a well-disguised country star on the run from his management, his fans, and his career had shown up at Whittaker House alone.

When Mister Thompson had imperiously informed her upon check-in that he expected her to bring his dinner to his suite personally at precisely ten p.m., she had done so as a matter of course. Personal service by the celebrity chef owner was one of her gimmicks, and though she had not expected to become the entrée, he’d made her eager enough to serve herself up.

Now, two years into a discreet, comfortable, monogamous affair with another famous man, Vanessa knew she was spoiled: Her dream had blossomed under her and Knox’s careful nurturing, and it continued to gain momentum. She also had an intelligent, low-maintenance, and fabulous lover to scratch her itch with no expectations on either side.

… ting married to that bitch Annie Franklin.

But still … possibly … pining.

For a thank you?!

“Screw that,” she muttered, furious with herself and making a mental note to call a therapist when she got home. “Small-time prosecutor. Bite me.”

---

11: WEB OF KNOWLEDGE

THIS COULD WORK.

Eric and Dirk sat on the floor putting Giselle Kenard through her paces, watching her, refreshing her memory, teaching her, updating her.

“I warn you,” she said, “I haven’t had a lesson or class since I left Utah, and I know Mill is constantly refining his curriculum. It’s probably changed several times since then.”

Neither of them had ever taught a black belt before, and it was as challenging for them as it was for her, especially considering she’d had a C-section four months ago.

“I’m still kind of stiff and sore,” she apologized, as if she had anything to apologize for.

Giselle’s husband Bryce had come, curious, he said, because he’d only seen her do this once. It was a very, very brief once, a twenty-year-old memory that had made his expression flash with pain and regret. “But then she converted to the gospel of the gun,” he muttered wryly.

Their son was a cute little devil, squiggly, jolly, inching and rolling his way here and there, a mop of bright orange curls bobbing around.

After two hours, Eric called a stop. He and Dirk could have watched more because her old training intrigued them, but—

“Annie and I have a date with six ten-year-old girls,” he pronounced, and the Kenards laughed. “Is this something you think you’d like to do, Giselle?”

“Oh, I would love to. Thank you.”

The four of them gathered in a huddle on the floor, the baby gleefully rolling over crossed knees from one adult to another like a glass pop bottle. Once Giselle snuggled up against her husband and he draped his arm around her shoulders, Eric got down to business.

“Would you rather teach adults or children?”

“Where do you need the most help?”

“The problem,” Dirk interrupted, casting a glare at Eric, who rolled his eyes, “is that people pay for Eric to teach them. It’s his name, his brand.”

“What we need help with is the six-thirty to nine-thirty time slots on the weekdays,” Eric said finally, tired of this, tired of being reminded of his life of relative leisure before he became the Chouteau County prosecutor. “I began building this dojo when I came home from Utah. When Dirk figured out he couldn’t make a living in Provo and he came back, it was a perfect setup for both of us, but—”

“But now Dirk’s trapped by your brand,” she finished. “And because you have to be here so he won’t take the hit, you don’t have time to start on the next step in your career.”

“Right and I have the same problem with the prosecutor’s office. Not enough lawyers and my new one needs to be trained. I have a couple of temporary admins coming Monday, but since we’ve never had any, I’ll have to start training them from scratch.”

Eric could feel the chaos and fatigue settling over all of them at once, because lately, he spread exhaustion like a disease everywhere he went.

“Eric,” Bryce rumbled. “You know many of my attorneys are from your office, right? Would you like me to see if one or two of them would be willing to come back up here for a while to help you out until you can get some more attorneys hired?”

Eric felt hope surge through him. “Are you kidding me? Absolutely!”

Bryce shrugged. “Now, it’s up to them. I pay them four times what they made here—and I won’t pay them if they’re not working for me—so I can’t promise anything. But they may like to get back in the game since, well … ”

“Nobody in that firm goes to court anymore,” Giselle muttered with a smirk. Bryce chuckled and tugged gently at her braid.

Eric blinked. Stared.

The way Bryce Kenard looked at his wife was … unreal.

And Giselle returned his look with a shy smile, communing with her husband in a way that suddenly made Eric wonder if he were missing something.

He’d never had a reason to look at a woman that way—and he knew for a fact Annie didn’t look at him like that: love, lust, trust, and respect all rolled up into one lingering glance.

Six years navigating the dating waters and religious culture of BYU had convinced Eric that “soul mate” was a myth, that there was no such thing as fate. He’d learned that a marriage based on shared goals, intellectual and sexual attraction, and a commitment to working on the partnership—not “romantic” love—was far more desirable than bashing one’s head over finding The One.

Eric didn’t fear marriage. He never had. He’d left BYU without a wife, although he’d dated seriously and twice nearly popped the question. Then he’d come home to find a grown-up Annie, who had a grand plan. Being his wife would get her where she wanted to go, and with more prestige than she could get on her own. And Eric—well, he couldn’t ask for a better partner to walk his career path with him. Ambitious and pragmatic to her core, brilliant and street savvy, beautiful and good in bed, Annie also shared his politics, more or less, if she deigned to think about it.

Neither of them had ever pretended their relationship was anything but an efficient way to pool resources and strengths until they’d each achieved their goals, at which point they’d part company. They were the epitome of the sexy power couple; the voting public loved nothing better, and they intended to exploit it without mercy.

Eric had never had a reason to question his view of marriage.

Until now.

Watching a husband and wife share … something … he didn’t understand or know how to get.

Giselle’s voice shook him out of his reverie. “I can commit to two nights a week, your kids and adults. I’m staying home with Dunc now and it’d be nice to get out and back into something I love.” She grabbed the little boy and blew raspberries in his belly, making him giggle. After a moment or two of play, she cuddled the baby and said, “I want to raise this kid up properly—in a gi. How you handle marketing is up to you.”

Eric nodded and Dirk looked pleased. “Now, about pay—”

“Don’t,” she said. “You’ll be teaching me as much as I teach the students. You’ve each got five stripes on your belts and I’ve only got one. I’ve been out of it for years and I’m still recovering from getting Dunc here in one piece, so … I’ll teach in exchange for being taught. How ’bout that?”

“It’s a sixty-mile round trip for you. At least let us pay for your gas and mileage.”

She shrugged. “We can talk about it later.”

Eric could feel his burdens lightening even as he sat there chatting with the Kenards and he couldn’t believe his good fortune. Two good attorneys (maybe) who knew him and Chouteau County inside out because he’d hired them and Knox had trained them, and a new karate teacher who could take over four classes a week. Of course, Dirk-plus-Giselle still wasn’t Eric, but campaigning had to become his next priority; he couldn’t do that and teach six classes a week, too. With Giselle on board, he could begin to phase himself out without upsetting everyone at once, while conditioning everyone in the county that he’d be gone to Jefferson City in three years. Hopefully, he could do it so subtly the citizenry would take his absence for granted.

Dirk took care of outfitting Giselle with a gi, belt, patches, front door keys, and scheduling her for Mondays and Tuesdays, while Eric thanked Bryce over and over again for the possible loan of attorneys he didn’t have to train until Bryce finally laughed and held up his hands. “It’s okay, Eric. I get it, I get it. You golf?”

“Absolutely.”

Bryce grinned. “The Deuce at National next Saturday morning, then. Six-thirty tee time. It’ll give you a chance to plead your case to a couple of my buddies, get the word out about what kind of labor you need. Let the city know you’re not Knox and you’re serious about what you want to do up here. Get a start on collecting cash for your next few elections.”

Golf. With Bryce Kenard and two of his rich friends who could help Eric do what he needed to do: flip Chouteau County’s reputation upright, find experienced attorneys, and make connections that mattered to an up-and-coming politician.

Eric figured his luck had finally turned around …

… until he saw the Kenards walking to their car hand-in-hand, their baby lying quietly against Bryce’s shoulder, murmuring together as they rounded the opposite side of the vehicle to put Dunc in his carrier. He didn’t realize how much he’d missed seeing such sweet, innocent relationships like that since leaving BYU.

Being in one.

He didn’t have that with Annie, but he had exactly what he wanted with Annie, so why had he turned melancholy all of a sudden?

“You won’t get that with Annie,” Dirk muttered as he walked up to Eric after handing a set of keys to his oldest child and instructing him to take his sister around the corner to the office.

“Oh, fuck you.” Eric’s jaw ground, then it dropped as, through the windows and over the top of the Kenards’ SUV, he saw the Kenards’ gentility vanish: The man lifted his wife and slammed her against the truck, kissing her brutally—and she responded in kind, wrapping her legs around him so tight she would’ve broken a smaller man in half.

“Well,” Dirk breathed, “that goes a long way toward explaining the bruises around his wrists.”

Eric blinked. Shuddered. “Too kinky for me.”

Dirk grunted and turned to catch up with his kids at his office. Eric dropped into step beside him but he wasn’t sure why, since he knew that what had been brewing for a while was coming. “I wasn’t going to say anything,” Dirk began, “but I saw the way you looked at Bryce and Giselle. It’s like you’ve never seen people in love before.”

He had, but he didn’t remember it looking so … genuine.

“Now, you know Annie and I are friends, so I’m not slamming her. But you’re both deluding yourselves by thinking you can have a marriage like a business arrangement that’ll last long enough for you to do what you need it for.”

“Jelarde, you have no room to talk. You and your wife function like a well-oiled machine, just like me and Annie. Shit, you’re a fucking bishop and you can still do your job and teach class. You couldn’t do that without her. You work well together, you’re committed, none of that sappy shit I can’t stand.”

“Then you aren’t paying attention. Ten years Steffie and I have been married, okay? Four kids and one on the way, okay? I love her. I’m in love with her. But all you see is the ‘well-oiled machine,’ and you admire that so much you miss the rest of it. You don’t see what there is underpinning it. You don’t see the spontaneity and fun and laughter. You don’t see the sex. You don’t see the fights. You don’t see the crying. You don’t see us wrangling our kids constantly until we’re too tired to have sex at all. You don’t see how much time we spend apart because I’m always at church when I’m not here. You don’t see how much we miss each other, and I’m here to tell you—being in love is the sugar that makes that medicine go down. We couldn’t do it if we weren’t in love. You aren’t seeing how it all works together.”

“We don’t want all that drama,” Eric insisted. “No fights, no crying. That’s why we’re together. That’s why it works.”

“You know what?” Dirk said, exasperated. “You’ve never been in love so you have no idea what I’m talking about.”

“Apparently, I paid more attention at BYU than you did. It’s your church leaders saying there’s more than one person you can be compatible with and make a life with. I didn’t come up with that, but it makes a whole lot of sense to me.”

“More than one person who is compatible with you that you can also fall in love with,” Dirk corrected. “There’s a big difference. I bet some time before or after you marry Annie, you’ll fall in love with another woman. Then you’ll understand, but it’ll be too late.”

“Not possible. If it didn’t happen at BYU, it’s not going to happen.”

“Yeah, you know, there’s a reason it didn’t happen for you at BYU, and it wasn’t because you aren’t a member of the church.”

“Oh, it is, too. Heather told me that outright.”

“Heather had your number from the get-go. Why do you think you couldn’t get her out of the library, much less on a date? The girls you bought rings for didn’t dump you because you weren’t a member of the church. They dumped you because you weren’t in love with them the way they were with you.”

“That’s the biggest crock of shit I ever heard.”

“Do you know how many times your girlfriends came crying their hearts out to me?”

“And you got plenty of dates out of it. You’re welcome.” With that, Eric turned and jogged home to get ready for his date.

“Annie,” he said when he opened the door to their apartment. “Did you get the flowers?”

Annie, in her favorite set of navy lingerie, her blonde hair clipped up on top of her head haphazardly, sat on the couch, her feet propped on the coffee table, a romance novel in one hand and a glass of Scotch in the other. Jill Scott purred from the sound system.

She turned to look up at him over the rim of her glasses. “What flowers?”

He looked around. The rolling suitcase she used to cart her drug samples around to doctors’ offices was nowhere in sight. She had the bottle of Scotch and a stack of novels on the table between her feet. Obviously, she’d settled in for a weekend of well-deserved relaxation.

Oh, shit.

He’d obviously forgotten to tell her. He carefully explained about the school program— “You know, kind of an end-of-the-year exhibition to justify the arts budget.” —and that he had wanted to take flowers for the girls.

She stared at him stonily for a long time after he’d stopped speaking. Finally, she said, “You’d rather go spend two hours watching a bunch of little kids singing and playing instruments off key, looking at their bad art, than spend a quiet evening at home?”

When she put it that way …

“No, I wouldn’t rather, but it’s good politics and every opportunity counts. We can be quiet at home after.”

“Ah, I see. This is your way of poking at me about having kids.”

He sighed. “No, it’s not. I promised them I’d come.”

Her mouth pursed. “All right, Eric.” Then her eyebrow cocked. “Fuck me first.”

Eric’s mouth stretched in a slow grin. “Yes, ma’am.”

After a brief stop at the store for a bouquet of pink daisies, Eric and Annie strode into Chouteau Elementary that evening like the power couple they were. Seeing as how half these kids’ parents kept his dojo in the black, and three quarters of them might actually vote for him come his first election next year, he felt it was wise to schmooze whenever he got the chance.

The program was an agonizing affair, that was for sure, but the auditorium was dark and cool, so he dozed through most of it (time well spent, all things considered). The girls liked the flowers he handed out amongst them and the boys preened with Eric’s effusive praise. He spoke with parents either as their kids’ karate teacher and–or the Chouteau County prosecutor, as he and Annie strolled around looking at all the bad art.

Constant schmoozing kept him in the citizenry’s good graces. Most of those who knew his history liked the romance of his reformation, and those who didn’t know the story got it from Eric’s mouth.

It didn’t hurt that he’d been handpicked and trained for the job by the same man who’d tried him for Simone Whittaker’s rape.

---

12: LONG-LEGGED SNIPE

IF VANESSA HAD KNOWN he would be at Nephew’s exhibition—and why?—she would have flat refused. She saw him in the lobby between the auditorium and the gym, and her heart thudded in her chest and ears. She couldn’t catch her breath. She hadn’t seen him so clearly since the televised press conference in January and not at all in the thirteen years before that, give or take. He was more beautiful in person than on TV.

Tall. Six foot three on a short day.

Lean. A body hardened by karate and whatever other sports he was into.

Dark. Equal parts Italian and Osage. Black eyes. Silky black hair that lost nothing for being excruciatingly short instead of halfway down his back. Thin, close-cropped, elegant Donegal beard that emphasized the sharp angles of his chin and jaw.

Very expensively dressed. If she had to guess, she’d peg that as Ralph Lauren; not too flashy for a school event. Just flashy enough to call attention to his status in this county. He certainly had come up in the world, especially with the gorgeous blonde on his arm, dressed just as expensively.

Vanessa turned away when she saw him flash a smile at whatever Annie had said. Vanessa could barely look at him at all, much less see him snuggling with a woman she’d semi-idolized, the cheer captain, four years older than Vanessa and unfailingly kind to her. Eric and Annie very graciously chatted up his constituency.

Smart man, that one.

And Annie, well, she’d always been practical about her education and her future, wanting to make her own way in the world without depending on a man. Annie’s relentless and very vocal ambition had molded Vanessa’s outlook on her own future as much as Knox’s benevolent tyranny had, as much as Giselle’s pragmatic philosophies had, as much as Sister Jelarde’s kindness had.

Vanessa needed to get out of here. Fast. Before she puked.

Out of Chouteau Elementary, out of Chouteau County, back to the Ozarks where she belonged—and in bed with Nash immediately.

… small-time prosecutor … country star …

“Shit,” she muttered.

“Aunt Vanessa?”

Nephew’s mutter startled her. She looked over her shoulder to see him hunched over, his head down and his hands shoved in his pockets.

“Hi, Nephew,” she said, because she still didn’t know his name.

When she’d picked him up at her parents’ house, only her father had been home, naturally. Pops had been asleep in his decrepit wheelchair in front of the TV and she hadn’t had the heart to wake him. It was probably the only moment of peace he got.

She’d nosed her way into Nephew’s room, which was surreally filthy. Cat shit. Mouse shit. Clothes everywhere, none clean. And he’d stunk.

“Go take a shower. Now.”

The boy had taken one look at her face and obeyed without a word. She rummaged around his room holding her nose, looking for something fairly clean and found it on the floor, protected by the mounds of relatively clean items on top of it.

She’d opened the bathroom door and tossed the clothes in, not particularly caring that he squeaked with outraged modesty.

And while he did as instructed, she’d picked her way back into the living room to that ridiculous shrine, the largest uninterrupted wall in the house covered in glossies and magazine shots and newspaper clippings, over which a large hand-lettered banner proclaimed:

R.I.P. NASH PIPER
3/15/72 – 1/1/07

Under the banner hung a spiral-bound deck of three-by-five cards that served as a primitive counter for how many months, weeks, and days it had been since Nash Piper had disappeared. With a wicked chuckle, she’d whipped out her phone, taken a picture, and sent it to the enshrined.

Once Nephew had finished showering and was dressed presentably with minimal odor (she’d made him use the deodorant), they’d left.

Now, in the middle of a school hall teeming with vivacious children chattering at their parents, Vanessa looked at this twelve-year-old boy who was Simone’s legacy to the world. Turquoise eyes, olive complexion. Except for the blond hair—and who knew where that had come from—he was a mini-Simone, complete with shattered ego.

Suddenly she wondered if she would go to hell for leaving him here with her mother.

“Did you— Uh, how’d you like it?”

“You did really well,” Vanessa lied, and was rewarded with a cautiously hopeful expression. She didn’t really know how well he’d done; he’d been buried somewhere in the middle of the sixth-grade “tenor” section. Such as it was. “I’m very proud of you.”

His shoulders came up a bit. “Do you— Uh, you wanna go into the gym and see what I did in art class?”

Oh, hell no.

“Sure, after you tell me your name,” Vanessa said. “’Cause I sure don’t know.”

“Oh. Um, it’s Eric,” he muttered and looked down at the floor.

Vanessa’s throat stopped up. “Simone named you Eric?”

“Cipriani,” he added, low enough that she thought she’d misheard, then he sighed and she knew she hadn’t misheard.

Vanessa closed her eyes and took a deep breath, feeling as if she’d just stepped back into the trailer park. She would definitely go to hell if she left this child here with her mother. She couldn’t repay Dirk or Knox for their protection, but she could—and should—pay it down the line.

“You want to come home with me and live?”

His head popped up and his eyes sparkled like Fourth of July fireworks. “For real?”

“You understand I’m not your mother or your grandmother, and I’ll ride your ass if you screw up, right?”

She could see the sudden doubt in his expression.

“Uh huh. That’s the way it is with me. You won’t be able to get away with anything, much less whatever it is you do here. But. I also won’t slap you upside the head for no reason and you won’t live in filth and you won’t go hungry.”

Nephew stared at her for a moment, as if wondering how much worse his life could get with Vanessa demanding decent behavior. “I guess I could try it out for a while,” he finally said.

Vanessa shook her head. “Nope. No tryouts. You stay or you come with me, but whichever you choose, it’s a done deal.”

He was silent for a moment, then, decisively, “Okay, yeah. Why not?”

“Because she’s not your guardian, that’s why not.”

Nephew groaned at that stern male voice, and Vanessa stiffened. She hadn’t heard it since January. Real, not out of a speaker system, it was deeper, richer.

She slowly turned to face the Chouteau County prosecutor and Annie.

His eyes widened and he gulped. “Vanessa.” It was a whisper, a caress, and she felt it all the way to the depths of her soul.

She looked at an equally stunned Annie and nodded slightly in polite acknowledgment of her presence before turning back to him. “Eric.” She would remain calm and collected—no joy, no bitterness. Pride. Keep the chin up. Don’t think about the trailer park. “What would I have to do to become his guardian?”

Eric hesitated for a moment, his expression of astonishment changing slowly to one of assessment, as if her motives might not be pure, then he looked down at his namesake. She wished she could tell what he was thinking. She was sure he knew how she’d felt about him way back when; after all, she’d been just thirteen. He’d been eighteen and laid half the girls in town by that time. He’d have known all the signs.

Now she could only hope to hide her emotions as an adult woman who was looking at an incredibly handsome, successful man who had a knockout fiancée on his arm, a woman Vanessa had always respected.

“Junior,” he said. “Do you want Vanessa to be your guardian?”

“Anything to get away from you,” the boy grumbled. “And grandma.”

Eric Original Recipe pursed his lips, then looked back at Vanessa. She could feel the familiar heat gather within her, as it had done from the first moment she had ever seen him—but now she knew what it was: desire.

She couldn’t afford that and she flashed a politely apologetic smile at Annie to ground herself. Unlike Eric, who seemed oblivious to Vanessa’s distress, Annie appeared to know exactly what was going on and simply watched, waiting patiently to see how it would all shake out.

Annie was probably used to watching women drool over her fiancé, anyway, and Vanessa couldn’t hope to compete with her classic Scandinavian beauty.

Even if she wanted to.

Which she didn’t.

“I can’t see your mother letting him leave,” Eric said finally. “She uses him like a knife against me and he suffers more for it than I do.”

Yes, Vanessa knew very well how her mother reveled in such nastiness. “She smacks him around. His room is disgusting and he hasn’t had laundry done for him in— Well, I couldn’t say. Months, maybe. He’s probably malnourished. I was at that age.”

She felt, rather than saw, Annie’s start of surprise. No, Annie wouldn’t have known how miserable Vanessa’s home life had been. Four years older than Vanessa and immersed in her ruthless pursuit of her goals, Annie would’ve had no reason to know or care how her youngest cheerleader fared at home.

“You know how Simone was,” Vanessa continued calmly, refusing to allow the toxic stew of emotion inside her to bubble up. “My mother’ll turn him into Simone, Boy Version. Probably sooner than later.”

Eric nodded. “You’re right about that. When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow morning. I would have left this morning, but he asked me to come tonight, so I stayed.”

She felt Nephew move closer to her when she said that, and, surprised, she looked at him, then wrapped her arm around his shoulders to pull him into her.

Eric had not missed the gesture and said, “Listen, can you stick around a few days? I may be able to whip something up for you. Get it fast-tracked through family court.”

Wow. Not only were they actually having an adult conversation, he was offering to help a boy who had to be a thorn in his side. It was remarkable they were having any kind of conversation at all. She wondered what difference it might make if Annie weren’t there listening, observing.

But she had to know. “Um— Is he—?” Vanessa could feel herself blush. “Eric Two, is he … yours?”

“No,” Eric snapped, his face suddenly hard, his nostrils flaring. “He’s not mine, and you should know that better than anybody.”

Vanessa gasped, feeling as if her chest had caved in.

Annie stared at Eric in shock. “Oh. My. God.”

His mouth tightened and he looked at the floor, shoved his hand in his pocket. He took a deep breath. Held it. Let it go. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “You have a right to know if the court grants your request.”

It was all Vanessa could do to keep her composure, though her nose stung and she wanted to curl up into a ball in some dark corner somewhere. But she couldn’t.

Hi. I’m Chef Granny Whittaker and it’s time to whip up some Vittles!

Her alter ego wouldn’t let her.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “It’s nothing he and I both haven’t heard ad nauseam since I started working in the prosecutor’s office and it’s just gotten worse in the last four months or so. I’m sick of hearing it.”

Especially from you.

Vanessa started when her phone buzzed. “Excuse me,” she murmured, and pulled out her phone to check the text message: I GOTCHA SHRINE RIGHT HERE DOLL-CUM SUCK IT

Still fighting tears, it took her a long moment of staring to process it, but once she had, she began to laugh, feeling a strange combination of relief and irony and affection wash over her.

Trust Nash to make her laugh right when she needed it. She quickly thumbed a smart-ass reply, then put her gadget back in her pocket, but her smile faded when she looked up at Eric again.

“I have a meeting Wednesday afternoon I must go to,” Vanessa said, trying to stay on some sort of emotional level. “Can we get this done by end of business Tuesday or so? Or will I need to come back to get him?”

“I hope so, yeah,” he replied, clearly chagrined. He swallowed, then said with forced decisiveness, “So, uh, yeah. All right. Yeah. Uh, come on up to my office Monday morning. I’ll send a deputy out for your mother and Junior.”

“Thank you.”

Eric cast Vanessa a short nod without actually looking at her and turned, his hand splayed out over Annie’s back.

But Nephew reached out hesitantly to touch Original Recipe, halting him. “Thanks, Eric,” he said quietly.

Eric One finally smiled as he looked at the boy—that genuine, wonderful smile that had always made Vanessa catch her breath and want to smile, too. “You’re welcome, kid. Now you won’t have to get yourself arrested to get a hot meal.”

Vanessa saw Nephew’s face redden, and she bit her lip. Looked down. Blinked away the tears.

“Nice to see you again, Vanessa,” Annie said with the exactly appropriate tone of voice to extricate all of them as gracefully as possible from this tangled moment in time.

“You, too, Annie.” Again polite nods between Vanessa and Annie. Again Vanessa feeling like she’d just crawled back into the Darwinian goo of the trailer park.

… you should know that better than anybody.

She hadn’t felt that low, that inferior—that classless—since she’d left this godforsaken town.

---

13: NOT A MOMENT TOO SOON

DAMN SIMONE.

Eric escorted Annie toward the exit, which was where they’d been headed when he’d stumbled into that conversation. Eric hadn’t recognized the woman from behind, and had only meant to head off a possible abduction. Damn Simone to hell.

And damn Vanessa for having turned into the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

Eric slid a look at Annie, whose demeanor confused him. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Annie so positively livid—and never at him.

“All right, Annie,” he sighed, “which part pissed you off the most?”

She grabbed a handful of his lapel and dragged him off the school’s sidewalk and across the lawn toward the parking lot. Once they were alone in a copse of trees, she stopped, planted her hands on her hips and started to pace, her head down. Eric waited, because whatever she had to say, he deserved. Finally she stopped, held up a hand, and said, “I want to make something very clear right up front. I like Vanessa. I’ve always liked her. I have no quarrel with her. Per se.”

“Okay,” Eric said warily.

“You and me,” she said pointing between them. “We don’t love each other.”

“Right.”

“We get along and live together without fighting. We have good sex. We think alike and we’re both very well educated. We have history.”

“Right.”

“You need a trophy wife to get elected, and I need to be First Lady so I can get a head start on my early globetrotting retirement.” She stopped. Thought. He braced himself for whatever she meant to throw at him. “All this time,” she said, “you never said a word. I knew you had issues about whoever it was that proved you were innocent, mostly because of that fucking guilt trip Knox put you on to make sure you did something with your life. But I never thought— And you never told me— What, did you think I was going to go to Glenn and give him her name?”

“So that’s what you’re pissed about?” he demanded, immediately incensed. “That I kept it to myself? Because I was obligated to? Legally?”

“No, I’m upset that you kept from me that it was Vanessa.”

Eric stared at her, suddenly confused. “Okay … ?”

Her nostrils flared and her voice was tight with anger when she spoke. “I want,” she ground out, “something of my own without having to take the crumbs off Vanessa Whittaker’s table.”

Eric’s head spun. A—it wasn’t what he’d expected her to say and B—it seemed she was talking about a lot more than the fact that he’d wanted to kiss Vanessa in front of Annie and Junior and God and everybody.

“So she’s pretty,” he began, trying to sort out what the hell Annie was getting at. “I haven’t seen her since I left for college and she surprised me. That shouldn’t make any difference between you and me.”

“Surprised you?” Annie screeched. “What the fuck? You know, I wouldn’t even care if it weren’t Vanessa.”

“You’re jealous of her?” he asked, incredulous. Jealousy wasn’t part of Annie’s emotional repertoire.

“Yes! Yes, I am. But not because of this. This is a just another in a long line of reasons, and then I find out she’s the one who— That you of all the people in my life—” She took a deep breath and then began. “My entire adolescence was spent listening to my mother talk about how to cozy up to Vanessa Whittaker so she could have an in with Knox.”

Eric’s jaw dropped. “Vanessa? How was Vanessa your mom’s key to Knox?”

She stared at him. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“Oh, my God,” she whispered, covering her mouth with her fingertips, incredulous. “He never told you. You don’t know anything about her, do you?”

“No. I haven’t— I have no reason to. She’s just—” He spread his arms wide, unable to make sense of this conversation. “She’s the girl who— Yeah, saved my ass. What else am I supposed to know?”

She took a deep breath. “Everyone in town knew that if they so much as looked at Vanessa wrong, they’d have to answer to Knox. He also made sure Vanessa showed up at the prosecutor’s office after school or practice and stayed until she had her homework done—to his satisfaction. If she didn’t show up on time, he went looking for her. You know how Knox collects people and makes projects out of them? Because it’s his fucked-up way of atoning for his sins? That’s what everybody thought it was with Vanessa, and who could blame him? With a mother like LaVon?

“Well. My mother decided that the easiest way to get to Knox was through Vanessa. She made me recruit Vanessa for the varsity cheerleading squad when she was thirteen—because she thought Vanessa would be so grateful to me that she’d bend over backward to hook her up with him. When that didn’t work, she went out of her way to make Vanessa late for Knox’s version of study hall as often as possible just to get his attention.”

Eric’s mind blew all to hell.

All this time. Knox had never said a word.

But Annie recommenced pacing and muttering to herself. “Of course, it’s all my fault that he never asked her out and she still can’t shut up about it. And what’s worse— She’s pissed at me that after all the older women in Knox’s life, he ends up marrying a woman four years younger than me. And she still dyes her hair red in case his marriage doesn’t work out.”

“So that’s why Knox hates your mother? Because she was using Vanessa to get to him?”

She stopped pacing and glared at him. “Yes. Which I thought you knew.”

But no. Quite a few of the older women in the county had done ridiculous things to get Knox’s attention. It was just a way of life in Chouteau County. It wouldn’t have occurred to Eric that Knox’s aversion to Donna Franklin had any more depth than his aversion to the rest of the women who’d thrown themselves at him.

“So is this really about Knox and your mom?” Eric asked carefully.

“No. It’s about the fact that not only have I been hearing about Vanessa nonstop for the last fifteen years, but the minute she reappears, my fiancé—Mr. Pragmatic—takes one look at her and falls head over heels in love. One shot. Boom, done.”

“What the fuck?!”

“Don’t yell at me. I’m not mad at you. I’m not mad at Vanessa. I’m mad at my mother and the situation. Besides my job, you were the only thing in my life that had nothing to do with Vanessa Whittaker. As far as I knew, you didn’t even know Simone had a little sister, and now I find out that not only is that not true, you probably wouldn’t even be alive without her.”

Eric flinched.

“You are so messed up. It was all you could do in there not to get on your knees and kiss her feet. Gratitude. Hero worship. Whatever you want to call it, but you’ve got some other neuroses mixed up in there besides a hard-on and being—” She made air quotes, which he hated. “‘—in love.’”

“Annie,” Eric growled.

“Shut up. That—” She stabbed a finger in the direction of the school. “—kicked me in the teeth, watching you get all flustered so much you were mean to her. I cannot believe I never saw it before. You are a romantic. What, did you catch that disease at BYU, and it’s just been in remission all this time?” She paused. “By the way, why were you mean to her? You only get that way when you know you’ve screwed up.” His jaw tightened and he looked away. Annie threw up a hand. “Of course! What did you do?”

“I never thanked her,” he muttered reluctantly. “I’ve never spoken to her before.”

“No wonder she looked like you’d just killed her dog.”

Eric said nothing while he stared at the ground and worried a twig with his foot. “Okay, Annie,” he murmured, guilt-ridden. “I’m not in love with her, but I get your point and I’m sorry. What do you want to do?”

Silence stretched between them. “I was offered a promotion yesterday, up in Omaha,” she said finally, low, her voice full of what Eric heard as resignation. Regret. “Regional director of sales. I didn’t get a chance to turn it down before my boss had to go, but now I think … I don’t know. I need to think about this, with you and me.”

“What about globetrotting and collecting cabana boys?” Eric asked, grasping at straws.

“Look, the only thing being a former—divorced—First Lady will get me is prestige and swag and freebies along the way, but my privacy’ll be history. And you know I think it’s a shit job anyway. So it’ll take me a little longer to get to financial independence, but at least I won’t be obligated or accountable to anybody.”

Eric nodded slowly, seeing half his life crumble in front of his eyes, but strangely detached from it, as if it didn’t really matter.

That disturbed him.

Neither spoke while Annie breathed deeply to calm herself. After a moment, she said, “I liked Vanessa way back when. I think I’d still like her because she’s obviously successful at whatever the hell she does, and you know how much I like hanging out with powerful women who know what’s what. But I’m tired of being compared to her and coming out second best. You’ve spent the last fifteen years horsewhipping yourself over her and I really don’t want to know you’re thinking about what could have been with her when you’re married to me.”

“I understand.” He did, and he couldn’t promise he wouldn’t do exactly what she’d predicted. Annie knew him too well.

“I’ll walk home,” she murmured, taking his hand for balance while she pulled her shoes off. “I need time to think. Whichever way this goes, it isn’t going to be easy for either one of us.”

Eric sighed and dug his gun out of the back of his waistband and traded it for her shoes. She checked it carefully, then stuck it in the waistband of her skirt.

“Be careful,” was the only thing he could muster.

She strode off then, gorgeous as always, he noted absently, all that blonde hair and blue eyes, that tall, lissome supermodel body: the quintessential country beauty complete with cheerleading, 4H, and barrel racing credentials, and oh, by the way, an Ivy League education and a bank account far bigger than his.

Eric ambled toward his Corvette, his head low, one hand stuffed in his pocket and the other absently swinging Annie’s shoes. He dropped into the bucket seat. Sliding down, he let his head fall back and he couldn’t help the thought that breaking up with Annie might be … a relief.

That shocked the hell out of him, but what shocked him more—

It didn’t surprise him that she’d instantly deduced his Vanessa-related angst. It was the “in love” part that killed him.

In love? No, but Annie knew less about love than Eric did and dismissed it just as easily. However, Annie did know his tastes and his history and his habits, so he could see where she’d interpret an instant hard-on as falling in love.

Vanessa Whittaker, all grown up with curves worthy of a Varga pinup.

Average height, maybe five feet six, seven inches, much shorter than Annie’s five-eleven. Thick, professionally cut mid-back-length chestnut hair randomly streaked with blonde. Slight tan to her golden skin, even this early in the spring.

She had an air of primitive sexuality about her that her expensive grooming couldn’t camouflage. Her voice was husky, her perfume sultry and … dark, earthy. She had those piercing turquoise eyes that held the same deep hurt they’d held when she was thirteen and had only deepened when he’d snapped at her. But before he’d “killed her dog,” he’d seen …

Desire.

And now …

Eric might be free.

Vanessa was an adult.

Those facts seeped into Eric’s brain and he wondered if he had any competition, but decided it didn’t matter. Boyfriend or lover or husband be damned, Eric knew she wanted to get him in bed.

But she was still hurt, still wary, and she couldn’t hide that any better than she could hide her blatant sexuality.

And he’d hurt her feelings. Again.

“God, Vanessa,” he whispered into the dark, his hand over his arousal, pressing, rubbing until he forced himself to stop. It really wouldn’t do for the Chouteau County prosecutor to fog up his windows and get caught jacking off in front of Chouteau Elementary.

And another thing … where the hell did she live?

Really, the last thing he needed in this town was to be involved sexually with a Whittaker girl. He’d already been punished for not being involved sexually with a Whittaker girl.

On the other hand, between Simone and LaVon’s scheming and Vanessa’s rescue, Eric had a life he had never hoped for. At seventeen, he’d been desperate to hide his course load and grades from his party pals, desperate to hide his dreams from everyone, including himself. If the Whittakers had not happened to him, he would still be managing the Chouteau County Feed and Tack, probably with kids by a few different women and no way to pay child support, his wispy aspirations dissipated with the first garnishment on his paycheck.

And Vanessa …

… willing to take in “his” kid, the kid he hadn’t known how to help, except to pay for whatever he stole.

… the way the kid had snuggled up against her at the slightest kindness.

… the way she had overcome her surprise instantly to pull the boy close and give him comfort.

Eric found that incredibly attractive.

Annie would’ve never done that, and he wondered …

No. He couldn’t go down that road no matter how much he wanted to. Too many issues, too many problems, too much water that had passed under that particular bridge.

With those depressing thoughts, he heaved a sigh of great disappointment and drove home to await Annie’s verdict.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked when Annie came in the front door at three a.m. “I was about to go looking for you.”

“I,” Annie said calmly as she put the gun in its place and began to undress, “have been at my mother’s.”

His eyebrows rose. “Voluntarily?”

She was down to her lingerie when she dropped on the couch beside him. “Well, you know,” she said matter-of-factly, “it was an experiment. By the time I got there, I’d decided it was no big deal, your thing about Vanessa. I mean, therapy’s always an option and shit, I don’t care if you fuck her as long as you’re discreet.”

“Uh … ”

“Or, hey! All three of us could have a little party, if she’s into that. She’s hot. I’d do her.”

“Uh … ” His mind shut down.

“Yes, Eric, I have.”

“Why don’t I know that?”

“I didn’t find it interesting enough to tell you.”

His curiosity took over. “So, girls … ?”

“A couple of times,” she replied airily. “It just isn’t the same without a real penis. But for her? Yeah. So my mother,” she went on, “hit me up about Knox the minute I walked in the door, and I’m listening to her going on and on and on, thinking about all the times Knox told me to cut her off, wondering why I’m sitting there like a naughty little girl allowing myself to be yelled at over a fifteen-year-old situation that’s not my doing and not in my power to fix, even if I wanted to.”

“And?”

“And I decided she’s too toxic and I can’t take it anymore. I got up and walked out.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. Just like I’m going to walk on up to Omaha to take that promotion because I’m not going to live that way, caught between her obsession and your angst. I’ll sleep in the other bedroom tonight and pack up tomorrow. I would suggest that you talk to Vanessa as soon as you can and apologize for killing her dog. Poor girl.”

Eric sighed. “Monday, I guess. She’ll have to talk to me then.”

Thus, he wasn’t sure why he found himself at Vanessa’s motel room door early the next morning to ask her out for breakfast. She answered the door in a thick robe, shocked to see him there. He grimaced when her shock gave way to contempt and bitterness, no trace of desire to be found.

He knew he’d gone down in flames just by showing up, but he made his request anyway and almost flinched at her sneer. And then—

“Are you out of your fucking mind?!” she growled just before slamming the door in his face.

Though deeply embarrassed and feeling his confusion, his guilt, even more heavily than usual, it did actually occur to him that at the moment she’d spoken, she’d looked and sounded exactly like a female brunette version of Knox Hilliard.

And no wonder.

Everyone in town knew that if they so much as looked at Vanessa wrong, they’d have to answer to Knox. He also made sure Vanessa showed up at the prosecutor’s office after school or practice and stayed until she had her homework done—to his satisfaction.

Eric went home to find half-packed boxes strewn about the place, but Annie sitting on the couch with her laptop in her lap, her mouth agape. “Eric, you’ve got to see this.”

And it was like nothing had changed, like he and Annie hadn’t broken up. He plopped down beside her, intending to autopsy their relationship a bit more, but his attention caught when Annie turned her screen toward him.

Then his mouth dropped open.

Vanessa Whittaker, on the cover of Esquire’s “Women We Love” issue, bending toward the camera, her glossy pink lips in a pouty kiss, eyes half closed. Her long, thick, blonde-streaked chestnut hair floated out behind her.

She clutched an unbuttoned chef’s coat to her sternum with her left hand to keep it from blowing off completely, leaving the lower curve of her breasts exposed. With her right hand, she held a chef’s hat over her lower abdomen, but left none of the rest of her golden skin and magnificently lush curves to the imagination.

America’s hottest chef
serves up gourmet
roadkill and weeds
in the Missouri Ozarks

“Oh, my God,” Eric breathed.

“Yummy,” Annie purred.

“This is too fucking surreal,” he muttered, rubbing his forehead. “Turn the page.” With a couple of touches, she found the feature article.

“‘Ford muse catapulted to food stardom, then left New York glamour for Ozark simplicity to build a five-star resort,’” Annie read. “Ford, shit. She had an affair with Sebastian? He turned me down flat; said I was too skinny.”

“Annie!”

“What? He’s gorgeous. That was before he was outed as Ford, mind you. If I’d known, I would’ve tried harder because he has painted skinny women and everybody knows he loves blondes. Let me see if I can find that painting.”

Eric didn’t know what was worse: finding out that his financial advisor had had an affair with and painted Vanessa Whittaker (he didn’t have to see the painting to know she’d be nude) or that his fiancée (ex-fiancée, he reminded himself) had propositioned same financial advisor.

Are you out of your fucking mind?!

“I think I’m going to puke.”

Pause. Key clicks. “Whoa,” she breathed.

Eric thought he might have a heart attack, but he couldn’t look away.

Vanessa lounged nude on a magenta velveteen chaise in a classic odalisque pose, her back to the viewer, looking over her shoulder with one eyebrow raised cockily. Her skin was flushed and she wore a self-satisfied, heavy-lidded gaze that made no secret of her relationship to the artist. Eric barely kept himself from reaching out to touch the screen over her bare buttocks. Her long streaked chestnut hair fell in tiny haphazard braids and dreadlocks to pool on the floor. An enormous gray long-haired cat crouched on the chaise by her feet.

“That’s Knox’s cat,” Eric croaked, feeling betrayed.

Crowding the chaise was a vast array of paraphernalia more suited to the lair of a voodoo priestess brewing up potions and assembling gris gris bags than to a celebrity chef with an obscure specialty.

They both stared in stunned silence. Looked at each other in disbelief. Looked back at the painting.

It was titled Wild, Wild West, “an homage to the stereotypical American frontier saloon paintings,” according to Wikipedia.

“That resort she’s got, Whittaker House,” Annie said slowly, unsympathetic with Eric’s misery, “do you s’pose that’s the inn Knox owns?”

Eric had his cell out, speed dialed, and on speaker before she finished her question.

“Yes or no,” he barked as soon as Knox answered. “Whittaker House is yours.”

“Half,” Knox corrected with alacrity. Annie chortled.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me that?”

“Why should I have?”

“Because I’m your lawyer.”

“Being my lawyer doesn’t entitle you to know every single detail about my life,” Knox retorted. “I have a whole ’nother life at Whittaker House, which I like a whole lot, and I wasn’t about to mix that one with this one, which sucked a big fat cock about ninety-five percent of the time. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to expose her to my taint and all the financial scrutiny I’ve had to deal with for the last fifteen years.”

“Wait a minute. Why didn’t Whittaker House show up in any of the financial records we turned over to the FBI?”

“Funneled it through my cousin Morgan.”

“Your family is the fucking Mormon Mafia,” Eric grumbled.

“So what’s with the sudden interest?”

“We ran into Vanessa last night,” Annie offered, “and he had an instant hard-on, so I dumped his ass. He went to ask her to breakfast this morning and since he’s back in record time, I’ll assume she shot him down cold.”

Eric slouched and glared at Annie, but Knox began to chuckle, which turned into a rolling guffaw. “Shit. That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time.”

“She’s on the cover of Esquire,” Annie said.

“Yeah, and Maxim.”

Annie immediately turned back to the computer.

“And Sebastian painted her.”

“He sure did.”

“Which means he fucked her.”

“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Knox mused. “Sebastian never had lovers. He had models. Vanessa was his first and last lover before he met Eilis. They broke up when she went off to New York.” Eric felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “By the way, both of them think I’m too stupid and–or oblivious to have figured all this out, so I allow them to continue to think that.”

Annie sat back and began to laugh in earnest and Eric thought this must be the next-to-worst day of his life.

“You’re taking this awfully well, Annie,” Knox said politely.

“Little bump in my road, is all. Does Vanessa switch hit possibly? Say yes.”

“I’d really rather not think about those things, but I don’t believe so, no.”

“Damn.”

“So, uh, Eric, do you have anything to contribute to this conversation or am I stuck with trying to fix Annie and Vanessa up?”

“Fuck you,” Eric muttered. “She wouldn’t even talk to me this morning.”

“Well, no wonder,” Annie said, “after what you said to her last night. Damn near made her cry.”

“What did you say to her, Eric?” Knox asked calmly, although that sudden edge to his voice meant he’d gone into protective mode.

Eric reluctantly began to relay the conversation—

“She’s taking Junior home with her?” Knox asked incredulously. “Why didn’t I think of that? It’s the perfect solution for everybody.”

“And then he insulted her when she asked if Junior really was his kid.”

Knox groaned intermittently throughout Annie’s recitation. Eric had never felt like such a bastard in his life, but it had all been so sudden—

“You know, Hilliard,” he burst out, angry and frustrated beyond bearing, “this bites. The girl saves my life and you just … never tell me any of this?”

“Look,” Knox said, “I don’t know why you’re mad at me. You never said a word about her, so I assumed you didn’t want to dig up old history. I was respecting your privacy. If you’d told me you had something you wanted to get squared away with her and would I grease the wheels a little bit, I’d’ve helped you. But you didn’t. You’ve got deputies and troopers and the FBI available as your personal Google and you know how to work a computer. And it’s not like she’s a nobody. She’s fucking famous and if you’d googled just once, you’d have found all this out on your own, so I thought you were deliberately avoiding her. But then you got an eyeful. Don’t call me up on a Sunday morning to yell at me for not reading your mind and anticipating your needs.”

“Yeah, that’s on you,” Annie agreed, now staring at the cover of Maxim that Vanessa graced, lying on wet grass, her eyes closed, her hair—again in those braids and dreadlocks—all her most interesting parts covered by pink and white blossoms …

… her pouty mouth around a hot pink popsicle.

Sucking it.

“Why wasn’t she at the wedding?” Eric demanded.

There was a slight pause. “We, uh, put on a masquerade on New Year’s Eve,” Knox said almost reluctantly. “It brings in a third of our yearly revenue. Celebrities go, the überwealthy. They go for her, so she has to be there. Part of what makes Whittaker House so popular is that a famous chef—who also happens to be a Ford model—meets and greets, serves personally, parties with everyone else. Her fame was about half our collateral when we started out. The painting itself was the other half.”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll buy that, but there’s something you’re not telling me.”

Deep breath. “Justice wanted her to be her third bridesmaid and I wanted you to be my groomsman,” he said quietly.

Annie gasped. “That would’ve put her and Eric together.”

“Yes. And she declined.”

Eric felt pain slice through him and he closed his eyes. Now, the only version of Vanessa he saw in his mind was the little girl who’d saved his life, who’d only wanted a little attention from the bad boy of Chouteau High.

The look of devastation on her little face.

The hurt in her turquoise eyes last night.

The anger this morning.

“Well, could you—”

“No, I couldn’t. I’m not going to. You’re going to have to figure out what you want to do about it and how. If anything. And good luck with that if you try. She’s not the most accessible woman who ever lived. If she has a love life at all, nobody knows about it.”

“But—”

“Shut it, Eric. You’re pissed ’cause you got caught with your pants down and your dick in your hand.”

Click.

“Eric,” Annie said with a chuckle, arising to continue packing. “I don’t know what you’ve been doing with women all these years besides putting it in and pulling it out, but you better get a clue before you can’t even do that anymore.”

---

14: LAST CALL

MONDAY MORNING SAW two of Bryce’s attorneys on Eric’s doorstep, salivating for the chance to get back into a courtroom. He divvied up the caseload as he always had and saw the top of his desk for the first time in almost four months, which enabled him to start the paperwork for Vanessa’s guardianship of Junior.

Eric had spent the night on YouTube watching episodes of Vittles: Gourmet Weeds and Roadkill, featuring Vanessa “Granny” Whittaker in her own studio kitchen in the Ozarks, preparing all sorts of wild vegetation and exotic animals. On her premiere episode, she’d made a third of the outrageously disgusting dishes mentioned in The Beverly Hillbillies.

Utterly telegenic, her smoky voice cheerful, her hair clipped haphazardly on top of her head, clad in jeans and a pink tee shirt, she walked around her kitchen barefoot while she chopped, mixed, baked, and did what television chefs did—only with weeds.

And raccoon.

And skunk.

And ’possum.

And coyote.

“’Possums are mean things,” she tossed out conversationally as she cubed the meat in front of the camera for a stew. “So don’t shed any tears. And coyotes eat cats, but they tend to be rangy. We have a whole coyote episode coming up, and we’ll make a couple of terrific marinades you can use for cheap cuts of domestic meat, too.”

Eric dressed for work with a combination of dread and anticipation.

“Oh, hey, Eric,” Annie had called to him on his way out the door. “Give her my phone number, ’kay?” She’d laughed when he flipped her off over his shoulder.

At nine, Vanessa strutted into the courthouse dressed in an ankle-length pale pink linen skirt that emphasized the generous curve of her hips. The long slit up the back showed off the beautiful curve of her legs, made more so by the pink suede sandals on her feet. She wore a nicely tailored white linen button-down blouse with fine white embroidery and French cuffs.

Her streaked hair was in a prim twist at the back of her head and studded with pearls— businesslike enough to be taken seriously; flashy enough to let everyone know they were dealing with wealth and class and that yes, she would get her way.

In his mind, all her personae began to blend and morph into a repeating loop: The hurt little girl. The angry woman. The cover girl chef. The television personality. The regal businesswoman.

The nice, pretty lady he’d met at Chouteau Elementary.

LaVon had been subpoenaed to present Junior immediately with a deputy escort in case she felt like thumbing her nose at Eric. Dirk volunteered to be appointed the boy’s guardian ad litem. Considering Dirk had grown up in the same trailer park with Vanessa, occasionally serving as her bodyguard when things got a little rough with LaVon or various neighborhood thugs, he was eager to argue Vanessa’s case once again.

That was something else Eric hadn’t known until Dirk gave him a rundown of his own history with the Whittakers.

“Why didn’t you motherfuckers ever tell me any of this?”

“By ‘em-effers,’ plural,” Dirk drawled, “I’m taking that to mean Knox, as well?”

Vanessa didn’t deign to speak to or look at Eric, preferring instead to communicate through Dirk, but Eric surreptitiously watched her as much as he could and got caught by Dirk’s sharp eye more than once. He would make sure to wipe that smug grin off his face the next time they sparred.

Vanessa was exquisitely gracious with everyone to whom she spoke, though it seemed few people in the courthouse knew what she’d done with her life. Every one of the few who did worked in the county clerk’s office, where Vanessa signed autographs with a smile, and happily wrote down a couple of her recipes. She answered questions about everything from cooking to television to New York to the Ozarks, and never once lost that charm. Judge Wilson would damn near trip over his warm-and-fuzzy old heart to give her anything she wanted.

Glenn Shinkle had, of course, caught wind of this turn of events. When Eric saw him approach Vanessa, he expected to see her send the little weasel on his way, but instead …

“Hi, Glenn,” she said, her voice warm and her expression patient, pleasant.

“You’re taking Eric home with you then?”

“The small one,” she said, her mouth twitching. “Yes.”

Glenn, seeming a bit troubled, hesitated. He opened his mouth, shut it. Opened it again. “It’s been nice meeting you, Vanessa,” he murmured, as if bemused by his own hesitance. He turned to leave her where he’d found her, but she touched his arm. Surprised, Glenn looked at her warily.

“If you really want to talk to me,” Vanessa said gently, “you’re free to come to Whittaker House, stay awhile. See what I do, how I work.”

The man stared at Vanessa for a full half minute, probably trying to figure out why she was being nice to him. Eric wouldn’t mind knowing that, either.

“Okay,” he said slowly, and suddenly Eric realized that Glenn didn’t know how to respond to someone—anyone—who had taken time to speak to him kindly. “Thank you, Vanessa.”

She smiled at him and said, “You’re welcome.” Then she glanced up and caught Eric watching her, listening to the exchange, and her smile faded. She turned away with a final, absentminded pat on Glenn’s arm.

Eric had had the wind knocked out of him before, but this …

All those years, carrying his gratitude around like a punishment, his humiliation keeping him from finding her and doing what he should’ve done immediately—and he was the only person in the county she wouldn’t speak to.

… you should know that better than anybody.

“What was that about?” Glenn asked snidely, snapping Eric out of his agony.

“What?”

“That look. You two have some bad blood between you?”

Not on Eric’s part. Glenn might not be able to put the last piece of any given puzzle in place, but he could get uncomfortably close. Every response that flooded Eric’s mind would indict him, so he simply stared Glenn down until the man left. “Karma’s a bitch,” Eric growled at no one.

… you better get a clue before you can’t even do that anymore.

Eric decided to stay in his office and close the door.

He was in a foul mood that night when he sat down by Dirk to watch their new karate teacher in action, so he was mad at Giselle by default. Knox wasn’t there to take the blame for keeping the facts of Vanessa’s existence from him, so someone in that mafia family had to.

Once he got immersed in Giselle’s teaching, though, a don’t-fuck-with-me wall around her not mitigated in the least bit by her easy humor, it occurred to Eric that perhaps he’d just rather tussle with Knox than her. Knox barked a lot but rarely bit. Eric could clearly see Giselle wouldn’t bother to bark before she took a chunk out of somebody’s ass.

She converted to the gospel of the gun some time ago.

Yeah. That. Exactly.

Eric and Dirk knew what she’d done, gotten arrested and investigated for. Cleared of. Eric suspected her of having much darker secrets, but didn’t dare ask.

And he could see why she’d converted to the gospel of the gun: She was a small woman. The realization had been slow in coming because her personality was far too large to be contained in that petite body.

Dressed as she was, being in charge, an intimidating edge to her fragile and humor-packed voice, she had the instant respect of every person in that room. She would not coddle students as Eric and Dirk were wont to do.

Giselle called on two of the more timid women in the class to demonstrate a technique. They arose nervously, but both showed a competency and confidence they’d not shown before.

Those women didn’t want to disappoint her. They wanted to be like her—check that. They wanted to be her. Eric looked back at Giselle and he saw that she knew exactly what she was doing.

Women responded to her edge.

He and Dirk exchanged looks, then bumped fists. “Bryce Kenard is definitely the only man in town who could roll her,” Dirk muttered out of the side of his mouth, and Eric couldn’t find fault with that statement. Eric glanced over at Bryce, the soon-to-be golf partner, where he sat on the floor with his son asleep on his shoulder.

Even with an infant in his arms, Kenard’s power was unmistakable. He intimidated everyone. Not only was he huge, taller and much broader than Eric, he had deep burn scars that matted one half of his face. His voice was as damaged as his face from the house fire that had killed his first family and nearly killed him. Eric didn’t think the man could get any more intimidating than he already was—especially in a courtroom—but the wide Celt knot tattoo around his massive right arm probably made him downright terrifying to anyone who didn’t know him.

Yet he’d rather watch his wife teach karate classes while feeding and burping his baby than be home alone at night.

That was really sad.

On the other hand, Bryce would be going home with and getting laid by a woman who obviously adored him, and Eric …

… would not be.

Which jolted his mind fully back to Vanessa Whittaker.

Not the cover girl. Not the TV chef. Not the Ford muse.

The sweet woman he’d met at Chouteau Elementary.

How could he apologize to her, thank her, and make her believe it enough so he could have a chance to find out if—

Eric looked down at the floor, his mouth tight.

Who was the sad one again?

He wanted to talk to the woman who’d fought for the guardianship of a troubled kid, the one who’d been kind to an old crank reporter nobody liked, the one who’d borne Eric’s unwarranted rudeness with grace.

His gratitude remained, along with deepening embarrassment, regret, and guilt, all badly tarnished by the fact that he wanted to sink himself into that gorgeous body. He wasn’t sure how much was his emotional connection to her or sheer attraction.

Gratitude. Hero worship. Whatever you want to call it, but you’ve got some other neuroses mixed up in there besides a hard-on and being ‘in love.’

He sighed. The rest of the class passed in a blur until all the students had left and the Kenards had said their goodnights.

“Must I say it or are you going to pop out with it like you know you should?”

Eric glowered at Dirk’s smirking face. “Dammit, news gets around this town fast.”

“Yes, it does, especially when you telegraph it for the entire courthouse to mock. And you thought Justice’s crush on Knox was pathetic. At least Knox managed to hide his feelings for her until they started sleeping together.”

“I’m just grateful nobody knows the rest of the history.”

“Why would that make any difference?”

“I,” said Eric heavily, “was the only person in Annie’s life who didn’t have any connection to Vanessa Whittaker at all. And then I wasn’t.” At Dirk’s blank stare, Eric explained what had changed between Saturday and Monday.

“Well, I’m sorry,” Dirk sighed. “I can see why Annie wouldn’t want to stay.”

So could Eric.

Tuesday, Dirk argued for Vanessa’s permanent guardianship of Junior. It wasn’t hard.

Vanessa Whittaker had everything a kid could ever need: a mansion to live in on hundreds of acres of developed and wooded land, a gourmet restaurant, a small fortune in the bank.

LaVon Whittaker had … less than nothing: A toxic dump of a home, an empty refrigerator, no money, and a bad reputation.

In the courtroom, Eric had to face LaVon’s screeched accusations once again, but that was nothing new. Judge Wilson finally threatened her with contempt of court if she didn’t shut up. When court was adjourned, the room emptied, and LaVon continued her rant. Dirk interrupted her spiel, at which point she’d hurled racial epithets at him Eric had never heard outside a redneck locker room.

“LaVon, shut your mouth before I slap it shut,” Vanessa snapped as she approached them. She grabbed LaVon’s arm and forcibly dragged her away. “Sorry, Dirk,” Vanessa tossed over her shoulder with a wince of embarrassment.

Dirk shrugged, unperturbed, and turned back to Eric. “I have been hearing that since the first time I stepped between her and LaVon.”

“Huh. So what’s up?”

“Turns out the kid can read.”

“No shit?”

Dirk shook his head. “Vanessa found him in a corner with his nose in a book—and I mean, in the book—so I called his teacher. She came up here on her own to testify on his behalf, but he needs glasses. She’s sent notes home with him, but she doesn’t know whether LaVon got the notes or if she ignored them. She wasn’t sure whether or not to call you directly to take him to the eye doctor.”

“Good God,” Eric muttered, feeling as if he’d failed the kid on a couple of different levels.

An hour later, from the window of his private office, Eric watched Vanessa leave, holding Junior’s hand as they went to her car. His jaw clenched when he beheld the fine piece of machinery she drove, and his fist clenched against the window, above his head.

A Plymouth Prowler, in that distinctive purple metallic.

Eric had vaguely noticed it at her motel, but had been too distracted to devote much attention to it.

He watched her drive that beautiful purple … Batmobile … down the street, the boy belted in and looking happy for the first time in his life.

“I’ve never been so humbled by an act of courage in my life—by a child,” Knox had said years before as he stood in the Salt Lake City airport with Eric and Dirk, awaiting the boarding call that would take Knox back to Kansas City, leaving a freshly shorn Eric to Dirk’s stewardship in these strange cities with a strange history and a strange religion. “And at great personal cost. Make something of the life she gave you and don’t let her down.”

Eric couldn’t believe the sudden moisture in Knox’s eyes when he looked at Dirk, so freshly returned from his mission to New Zealand that he still spoke with an accent. “Don’t try to convert him, don’t haul him to church; just get him acclimated to Provo and the culture so he can concentrate on school. Keep him out of trouble as much as you can. You know what I want to happen.”

Yes, Eric had been obsessed with Vanessa all these years, doing what was right, trying to make that little girl proud of him, being careful not to let her down so that her sacrifice would not have been in vain.

And after all that, after everything Eric had attained, he’d let her down anyway simply because he hadn’t said “thank you” when he should’ve.

---

15: LAURA MUST NOT COMPLAIN

TUESDAY AFTERNOON was extremely busy once Vanessa had been appointed Nephew’s legal guardian.

“Nephew—” Vanessa refused to call him Eric. Eric Cipriani, no less. “Junior” was just as bad. “I’ll give you ten minutes to collect whatever prized possessions you have and put them in here.” She handed him a largish box once they’d pulled up in front of her parents’ mobile home. “No clothes. No shoes. Nothing that stinks. I’ll let LaVon dig out that landfill herself because I sure as hell am not doing it and I’m not going to let you do it, either.”

“That’s stupid. What am I going to wear?”

“We’re going shopping for a few things and get your sizes. When we get home, you can go online and see what you like and order from there.”

She could see that concept was lost on the kid. He had no idea how business was accomplished in the world of easy access to … anything because there was no computer in the trailer, much less internet access. No PDAs, video games, cell phones, though they did have basic cable because LaVon wouldn’t miss her soaps. Nephew’s school had a computer lab and internet access, but he didn’t understand how it worked because he’d never had enough time or attention to have it explained to him thoroughly or use it to any great extent.

“Oh, and before we get to the store, remember this: You swipe anything you don’t pay for, I’ll take you right back to Eric and have him keep you there for a good month before I come back to get you. If you do it when we get home, you’ll really be sorry.”

His jaw clenched.

“I know you’ve grown up thinking that’s normal, but it’s not. You pay for what you get and you do honest work to earn the money you need. Next item on the agenda: Pick a name. Any name. I’m not going to live with a pint-sized Eric Cipriani.”

His eyes narrowed speculatively. “You like him.”

“Yes, I do, and if I wanted to take an Eric Cipriani home with me, it’d be the big one.”

“You know he’s getting married in December?” he taunted.

“Yes, which is one very huge reason I’m not taking him home with me.”

Well, and Nash.

“And so maybe you’re not so different from Simone after all.”

She turned to look at him slowly and cocked an eyebrow at him. His smug expression faded. “Do I need to remind you? I have a college degree, a television show, a million-dollar business, and I know how to cook. How am I like your mother again?”

That shut him up, since, being a fairly bright kid, he understood when one of these things was not like the other.

“One more thing. If you think Eric’s hard on you, you just wait until I get Knox Hilliard down your throat.”

He gulped.

Naturally LaVon wasn’t in the trailer, but Vanessa’s father was, napping in his wheelchair, his chin on his chest, working for every breath of oxygen he took. This time, she didn’t let him sleep; she awakened him to tell him what was going on—and it shocked him to his core.

“But Nessie—”

“Not another word, Pops. This was his decision and as you can see, he’s not heartbroken about Simone’s passing or getting the hell out of this shithole.” His mouth tightened and she sighed. “Please let me come back for you,” she begged. “Please. I can give you such a much better life than this.”

“I vowed before God and a priest I’d stay with your mama, Vanessa Nicole,” he said solemnly. “An’ I’m gonna. Don’t matter what she does ’cause what she does is on her at Judgment Day.” He crossed himself. “Only matters what I said I’d do.”

Vanessa relented because that was completely true, and bent to hug him. Nephew stormed out the door without a backward glance or a word to his grandfather. “I love you, Pops,” she said, pretty sure it would be the last time she’d ever see him alive.

“I love you, too, Nessie.”

But not enough. Never enough.

She left then and found Nephew sulking in the front seat, his box wedged between his knees and the dash.

“What’s your problem?”

His mouth tightened. “Why do you love him?”

She shrugged, understanding instantly. “He’s my father.”

He said nothing to that and she sighed, turning the key to release that glorious roar and cover the awkwardness. “Look,” she said when they finally turned out onto the highway, “until you choose a new name and it gets carved in stone, I’m calling you Nephew. Get used to it.”

“Fine with me.” As they ventured south, he began to perk up. “Where are we going first?”

“UPS to ship your box. It’ll be there tomorrow,” she said and ruffled his hair.

That done, Vanessa herded him into the salon at Wal-Mart and had his hair cut to a respectable length, which was to say, short. Very, very short. He squinted into the mirror and didn’t let loose one word of protest. That was suspicious.

“You really can’t see worth a damn, can you, Nephew?”

He looked up at her, his brow wrinkled, and said, bemused, “I don’t know.”

She sighed and dragged him twenty feet to the eyeglasses shop for an exam and had orders for glasses and contacts sent to the Wal-Mart in Ava.

“Oh, my,” Vanessa murmured when she saw the prescription, then looked up. “Okay. Clothes. If you don’t like anything here, let me know and I’ll take you to Target.”

He looked at her, surprised. “You’re going to let me pick what I want?”

Vanessa’s soul started to hurt. Was this how Knox had felt before he’d asked Giselle to take her shopping for clothes? At least she didn’t have to explain what a period was and how to deal with it, like Giselle had had to do. “Yes, Nephew. Why would I make you wear clothes you don’t like? Except, I’d prefer it if you at least matched.”

She stood outside the changing room door holding clothes Nephew had chosen. She’d tried to estimate his size, but had struck out three times now. Twelve must be an odd age for a boy, she decided, because almost nothing fit him well. When he came out of the dressing room for the last time, she muttered, “Well, it’ll have to do.”

That done, Vanessa found a medical supply company and arranged for an electric scooter to be delivered to her father in the morning.

Nephew stayed with Vanessa in her motel room that night and she made him shower over and over and over again.

They left early Wednesday morning and though she had absolutely no reason to pass by the courthouse on her way out of town, she did anyway, looking for a glimpse, a sign, anything. But the only sign of Eric was the same one that stood where she’d first seen it, across the street from the courthouse.

CIPRIANI KENPO

A bittersweet pain poked through her breastbone. He knew what she’d wanted from him when she was thirteen: a “thank you,” some acknowledgment of what it had cost her to prove his innocence. Now, as a woman who’d been schooled in love by the best, whose second lover had proven to be as splendid as her first, she also wanted a whole lot of other things from Eric Cipriani, only one of which was sex.

Shocking, is what it was.

Why had he come to her motel room Sunday morning with an offer of breakfast—and possibly more—when he had a fiancée at home? And after he’d thoroughly humiliated her for asking an important question? There was only one answer to that: He was still the dog he’d been in high school. He certainly had not knocked on her door to say what he should’ve said years ago. Indeed, it was almost as if he’d forgotten all about it.

She got mad all over again and the speedometer measured every rise in her temper, leaving behind that cesspool of a town and its prosecutor.

Who still hadn’t said “thank you.”

★