Читать книгу An Unlikely Family - Cynthia Thomason, Cynthia Thomason - Страница 6

CHAPTER ONE

THE PAVEMENT ahead of Evie Gaynor’s Chevy Malibu shimmered hot in the sultry Florida sun. Two days after leaving Detroit, she’d clocked thirteen hundred miles and experienced a twenty-degree spike in the temperature. Since entering the state, she’d gone from her air-conditioned automobile to a chilled fast-food restaurant and a convenience store to pay for gasoline. And with each stop, she’d removed another article of clothing until now she wore only a camisole, capris and sandals.

The road she was driving was nearly deserted, but Evie had expected that. Claire Hogan, the town mayor, had told her Heron Point was a weekend tourist destination. On Friday afternoons the population swelled with Gulfside visitors who came to sample the fine food and browse the upscale gift shops. Since this was only Thursday, the influx had yet to begin.

Once she’d turned off the main highway onto the thirty-mile stretch to Heron Point, Evie had enjoyed a lush, green landscape. Taking advantage of the quiet drive, she picked up her cell phone and punched in the number from her notebook, propped open beside her. A woman answered on the first ring. “The Pink Ladies Cottages,” she practically chirped.

Evie introduced herself as the new principal of the elementary school and confirmed her reservation for one of the cottages which she assumed would most probably be pink.

“Oh, yes, dear, we’re expecting you.” The woman gave directions and verified Evie’s assumption by adding, “You can’t miss us. Our buildings are true baby-girl pink, just like our delightful beds of impatiens.”

Evie disconnected and rolled down her window, fully expecting another blast of steaming air to hit her face. Instead, an undercurrent of cooler, salty freshness promised a respite from the stifling heat. She ran her fingers through her hair and enjoyed the feel of it whipping against her cheeks.

After a few miles, the panorama changed. Dense hummocks of cedar trees dotted the horizon and the ground rolled with gentle hills identified as Indian Burial Grounds. She crossed a narrow bridge spanning a wide inlet. At the end a placard announced her arrival in Heron Point, population just over two thousand.

She passed a marina, a tavern and a small grocery before turning onto Gulfview Road. She had every intention of driving straight to her pink-painted destination. But when she saw a sign pointing down a road that read Heron Point Elementary School, she simply couldn’t resist. She drove by the entrance of the clean, freshly painted parsonage-turned-schoolhouse. The dazzling white exterior had just enough sage-green Victorian trim to give the building an air of whimsy. And Evie fell in love with it.

She pulled around to the parking lot in back and got out of the car. She didn’t have a key, but she walked up to the rear entrance and gave the knob a firm twist. The door opened with a subtle creak. Stunned, since no one seemed to be on the property, Evie looked around, waited a few seconds and then stepped over the threshold.

The back foyer smelled of old books, cleanser and something unmistakable to buildings where children gathered. Evie called it the smell of learning, and it varied according to the age of the student body. In this school, it was a pleasant mixture of crayon and pencil shavings.

She walked down the central hallway and looked into rooms identified with numbers on the doors. Desks were scattered haphazardly, waiting for a maintenance crew to finish the summer spruce-up and set them back in rows. The last door before the front entrance made her feel at home. The sign on the panel read Principal. There was no name under the title, but she anticipated seeing her own in a few days.

She entered her office much as a new student might enter his classroom for the first time, with an exhilarating rush of uncertainty. Reaching up to her ear, she twisted the diamond stud earring in her left lobe, a habit she’d developed over the years whenever she felt apprehensive. The smooth metallic finish of 14-carat gold and the slightly rough edges of the rose-cut stone were familiar, and she relaxed. She took a deep breath, comforted by the realization that she belonged right here in this eclectic hodge-podge of bookshelves, supply cabinets and wooden chairs.

The principal’s position she’d seen advertised a few months ago in an educational journal had been her wake-up call, her chance to stop spinning her wheels as an assistant administrator working for an impassive school board. Here, in tiny Heron Point, she could truly have a positive impact on America’s next generation. And maybe make a difference in her own stagnant life, as well.

Careful not to disturb anything, she progressed to the inner office—hers. It was smaller than the reception area and well-or-ganized, with a desk in the center, a credenza behind and file cabinets along one wall. She walked behind the desk to a corner window that afforded a view of flowering shrubs and towering pines. It was paradise, a sunny, inspiring space that caused Evie’s eyes to well with tears.

And then she heard a gentle ping, much like a tiny pebble ricocheting off a smooth surface. “What was that?” she asked the otherwise still air. She spun around, expecting to see that someone or some thing had disturbed her solitude. But she was quite alone in the stuffy office. A trickle of perspiration ran between her breasts. She again felt for her earring and discovered it was missing. Ah. The ping. She dropped to her knees and began searching frantically.

She scraped her fingers over the rubber mat under the chair and mumbled threats to the earring. She never heard anyone enter the room until a deep voice commanded, “Come out from under that desk right now. And don’t try anything funny.”

Evie gulped back a gasp, sat up and bumped her head on the desk drawer.

“Police officer,” the mean-sounding man said. “Come out of there.”

Police officer? Well, that was good, wasn’t it? Evie curled her fingertips around the top of the desk and said, “Okay, I’m coming out.” She almost laughed. She sounded like the lone hold-out in a hostage crisis. Slowly rising to her knees, she stopped when her nose was level with the desk blotter and stared across the top.

The gruff voice belonged to a tall, formidably built man whose face was set in a scowl. He was definitely a cop—blue uniform, lots of stuff attached to the belt, the whole package. And he didn’t look happy. Clearly he wasn’t welcoming her to town with a big ol’ Heron Point grin.

She spoke into the middle of the lap drawer. “You don’t have your gun drawn, do you?”

“No, but hear this sound?” She flinched at a muffled pop. “That’s me unsnapping the holster just in case.”

She stood and held her hands high enough so he could see them, figuring submissive and obedient was her wisest course of action. “I don’t have a weapon,” she said, “so, if you don’t mind, I’d prefer it if you’d snap up again.”

He did. “What are you doing in here?”

She felt the back of her head where a small bump had formed. “I lost my earring,” she said. “It was a gift from my father, and I would be heartbroken to lose it. It rolled…” She stopped when she realized that was probably the least significant part of the story to this man in blue.

He frowned, obviously lacking any sympathy for her. “Looks like a case of breaking and entering to me.”

She checked her fingertips. No blood from a head injury, thank goodness. Just a dull pain behind her eyes. “You’re wrong. I did enter, but I didn’t have to break anything to do it. The back door was unlocked.”

“I don’t buy that,” he said. “This building is a school. It’s closed for the summer and is locked every night.”

Okay, forget submissive. No one had ever called Evie a liar to her face, and she was running out of patience with this guy, cop or not. “I’m well aware this is a school, and I’m telling you I opened the back door and walked in.”

“You shouldn’t have,” he said. “It’s nearly dark. No one has any business being in this building this time of night. You’re violating public property even if you didn’t pick the lock.”

She released a frustrated breath. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. I’m not violating anything. Besides being part of that public you’re sworn to protect, I’m the new principal of Heron Point Elementary. And this is my office, or soon will be.”

He cocked his head to the side and studied her. His frown deepened. Was he drawing a conclusion based solely on appearance? Did he find her lacking in stature at five feet four inches? She followed his gaze downward and sighed. A jersey-knit camisole was definitely inappropriate for the head of a school. She tugged its thin strap back up to her shoulder. Give me a break, she thought. I’ve been driving all day. She was glad he couldn’t see her feet. One flat, flowered sandal had slipped off somewhere under the desk.

A corner of his mouth twitched. He rubbed his jaw and continued staring. “You’re the new principal?”

She squared her shoulders. “I am. And you’ll pardon me for saying so, but with your attitude, I’d guess you’ve spent more time in a principal’s office than I have.”

He folded his arms over his chest and grinned. She detected a dusting of fine dark hair on his left forearm, broken by a patch of white where his wide leather watch strap began. His ball cap covered most of what appeared to be thick black hair.

“That’s a pretty good guess,” he admitted.

She relaxed, one hand on the desk. “Can I assume you’re not going to arrest me?”

“Yes, you can. We don’t have a law against just entering.”

“Fine, but I still have an earring to find.”

“I guess I could help you.”

She started to protest, imagining a large, polished boot crunching the delicate gold mounting. “No need…”

“It’s okay. Firemen get cats out of trees. I suppose I can do jewelry recovery.” He started to bend in front of the desk when they heard a beeping sound from outside.

Evie spun around to the window and stared at a small vehicle racing toward the school at perhaps a wicked fifteen miles per hour. She turned back to the officer. “What’s that?”

“Oh, shi—shoot. I forgot to cancel Lou.” He pressed a button on a radio attached to his shoulder, and the device crackled to life. “Lou, it’s Billy. Never mind. False alarm. Everything’s under control.”

Too late. Whoever Lou was, he was arriving amid a blaze of flashing lights attached to the top of his vehicle. “Are you kidding me?” Evie asked. “Your backup is arriving in a golf cart?”

The man who had just identified himself as Billy joined her at the window. “He had to. I have the squad car.”

“The squad car? As in, there’s only one?”

“It’s all we need. You can see how fast Lou got here in the golf cart.”

At this moment Heron Point and her hometown seemed more than thirteen hundred miles apart. They could have existed in different galaxies. Imagine golf carts fighting crime in the Motor City!

She looked over at Billy who was intent on watching the battery vehicle purr to a stop at the school’s entrance. An older, decidedly well-nourished officer in the cart lifted a radio from the dashboard. His voice emerged from the radio at Billy’s shoulder. “Ah, Roger that, Billy. But I’m already here.”

Evie got down on her knees. “I’ve got to find my earring, while you tell your crime-fighting partner about the potentially volatile situation here.”

Billy returned to the desk and stood a couple of feet from where she was searching. He didn’t say anything, but Evie could hardly ignore his presence towering above her. She looked up at him and sighed. “Is something else wrong, Officer?”

He was staring disapprovingly. “Maybe there is. I think you’re having a bit of fun at the expense of our town’s law-enforcement division. We take our jobs seriously here, Madam Principal, and if you ever find yourself in real trouble, you’ll be thankful for our commitment to keeping order on this island.”

Oh, dear. She’d hurt his feelings. She hadn’t intended to. All she wanted was to find her precious earring and crawl between clean, pink sheets. “I’m sorry, Officer…?”

“Muldoone. Billy Muldoone.”

“Officer Muldoone.” She stuck her hand up to him. “I’m Evie Gaynor.”

He took her hand. His lips curved into a sort of conciliatory smile, but she sensed he was a long way from becoming a friend.

“I apologize if it seemed I demeaned your position and authority. I assure you I have the utmost respect for the law and police officers.” She felt rather silly looking up at him from all fours, while he stood like one of the pine trees outside, tall, unyielding and, in his cop way, even more impressive. “I meant no offense, really.”

“Then none taken.” He pointed to her left foot. “Look there. I think that’s your earring.”

She scooted around, spotted the glimmer of a diamond and exhaled a sigh of relief. “That’s it. Thank you, Officer.” The small gold post backing was next to the gemstone, and she palmed both pieces.

“No thanks necessary. And call me Billy. Everybody does.”

“Okay, Billy. You can’t imagine what this means to me. My father was never much for shopping, so when he actually went to a jeweler for this and wrapped it…” She cleared her throat. “Well, enough about that. I’ll just be on my way so you can return to whatever it was you were doing before—”

A knock at the front door cut her off. “That’s Lou,” Billy said, heading out. “Maybe we can get to the bottom of who left the door unlocked.”

While Evie wiped off the earring and reinserted it, Billy returned with Lou. He explained that she was the new principal and introduced her to the man he identified as a service aide. Lou, while not exactly the ideal image of first responder, was jovial and probably competent enough to deal with problems that could be investigated from a golf cart.

“Lou thinks one of the maintenance crew left the door unlocked,” Billy said. “I’m sure it was a mistake. It would have gone unnoticed if I hadn’t seen someone moving behind this corner window.”

“Yes, I’m sure it was.” She twirled the diamond stud, relieved to have it back where it belonged. Billy had removed his cap, revealing an abundance of wavy hair. When he ran his fingers through it, spiky strands fell onto his forehead nearly reaching his straight black eyebrows. Evie reaffirmed her first impression that he was decidedly well-proportioned at better than six feet. She didn’t doubt his ability to maintain the upper hand over most any law-breaker.

But Officer Muldoone wasn’t all brawn. His facial features gentled him in a way his build and that deep baritone voice never could. His eyes were a soft brown, the color of wet sand. His lips were full and framed by fine crescent-shaped creases. Something Lou said made him chuckle, and the low, rumbling sound seemed to vibrate into Evie’s chest. The tough cop had a nice laugh.

Lou flipped a notebook closed and stuck a pen in his pocket. “I’ve got some time, Billy. We’ll secure the building and then you go home to your family. I’ll write up the report.”

Go home to your family… Evie turned away from the men and fiddled with the zipper on her purse. She didn’t even know Billy Muldoone, so how could she be disappointed to learn he had a family? He appeared to be in his mid-thirties, and he was a decent-looking guy. Of course he would have a wife and kids. Most men did at his age. Most women at thirty-four did, too, but Evie had learned to live with being the exception.

Settling the strap of her purse over her shoulder, Evie headed for the door. “Thanks again, Billy,” she said, “and I’m sorry for any misunderstanding.”

“No problem.” He wiggled his cap into the groove around his hairline. “We’ll follow you to the back door and make sure the lock is secure.”

It was dark when Evie got into her car. She pulled out of her spot and took one last look at the men checking the mechanism on the door. Billy gave a wave and hollered at her to drive safely. She exited the parking lot in the direction of Gulfview Road and the Pink Ladies.

She planned to take a shower and ask her landlady about the nearest place to grab dinner. Then she’d call her father and spend the rest of the evening curled up in bed thinking about plans for Heron Point Elementary. Her mind raced with opportunities for the school year. That was a good thing. Because she couldn’t allow her mind to dwell on any possibilities as far as family man Billy Muldoone was concerned.