I sat back drumming my fingernails against the tabletop. Why did Leilah seem so damn familiar to me? The harder I concentrated on her, the more difficult it was to remember where I’d seen her before…
I shook it off. Diego had mentioned that there was some bad blood between Holly and Leilah. Maybe I need to look elsewhere for information. Nodding to myself, I began a search for any local news involving Holly Bishop.
I discovered that Holly had once been the victim of a robbery while working at the local antique store. I scanned the newspaper article and saw that significant damage to the stock had been reported and a jewelry theft had also occurred at the store. Holly had been attacked, ending up in the hospital. I followed up on that robbery story, changing my search parameters and saw another article dated a few months later. It reported that the perpetrator had never been caught, but that an anonymous source had returned some of the stolen items to the police.
I tried a search on the Drake family, scrolled through several society mentions in the local paper, and my jaw hit the table when I read that Duncan’s mother, Rebecca Drake-Quinn, had died a few years prior in a fire at the Drake mansion.
“Good lord!” I read the newspaper article and saw that the fire was believed to have been started by lightning striking the roof. I also saw that Faye Bishop had been injured during the fire and so had Duncan. While Duncan had been treated at the local hospital and released, Faye had been admitted.
“What in the hell was Faye doing at the mansion?” I muttered as I scrolled through the article and accompanying photos.
By accident, I stumbled across yet another article from the same day, mentioning that a police officer had been seriously injured during a home invasion. That officer had been none other than Lexie Bishop, and her attacker had been Rebecca Drake-Quinn.
Now all the stiffness and weird energy I’d felt from Bran and Lexie around the Drakes made a horrible sort of sense.
As my stomach churned with dread, I continued to search and found an article dated six months later, also from the local paper. It was entitled “Historic Drake Home Being Rebuilt”. There were pictures of the Drake mansion with a section of the roof missing after the fire, and then another photo of the progress made while the house was undergoing repairs and restoration. The article went on to say that the entire third floor was being rebuilt.
I tried a new search and eventually came across an obituary for Rebecca Drake-Quinn. Unsurprisingly, it was a perfunctory one at best. Nowhere did it say ‘loving mother’ or ‘dear sister.’ It simply listed her birth and death dates, and stated that she’d been preceded in death by her father and husband.
My stomach churned. No one had mentioned any of this to me. Nothing about Duncan’s mother, or the fact that she’d actually perished at the mansion. I’d been all over the mansion for the three weeks after my accident. I’d rambled through the third floor a couple of times. It, like the rest of the home, was gorgeous but I’d seen no evidence there’d ever been a fire…
“Mama?” Willow’s voice had me jumping.
Feeling nervous after my discoveries, and slightly guilty for snooping, I shut the laptop down. “Hi baby.”
Willow came in carrying her favorite babydoll and dragging her blanket behind her. “I’m hungry.”
I stood. “Would you like a snack?”
“Can I have a cookie?”
“No, darlin’,” I said, even as she pouted. “You had plenty of sweets already today.” I could see in her eyes that she was on the verge of pitchin’ a fit. “How about a cheese stick and apple,” I said, and when that got me nothing, I went for the big distraction. “Or, you can take a shower.”
“I want a shower!” she said. Showers were her new favorite thing. Willow had decided a few weeks ago that baths were for babies.
I checked the clock while I followed her to the bathroom. I had an hour before Wyatt was due, and enough time to put a face back on after Willow had her bath.
At six o’clock on the dot, Wyatt knocked on the front door of the cottage. Willow beat me to the door and was standing by my side when I opened it. “Hi Wyatt!” she said.
Wyatt flashed a smile that had my heart melting. “Hi Willow.” He raised his eyes and met mine. “Magnolia.”
He stood there wearing a button down chambray shirt, khakis, and scuffed trainers. He was holding a large paper bag filled with Chinese food, and I wasn’t sure what I was craving more. Dinner, or another taste of him.
He paused in the doorway for a moment. “You know,” he said. “I keep wondering if I’ll ever see you looking less than gorgeous. But no matter what the circumstances, you always are stunning.”
“I think you need to get out a little more,” I said dryly.
“I think you need to learn how to take a sincere compliment,” he replied, stepping inside.
We ended up on the sofa, sitting side-by-side, and eating off the coffee table. I poured Wyatt and I each a glass of wine, and Willow perched on a couple of pillows on the floor and sat across the table from us with her juice.
I waited to see how Wyatt would react to eating dinner with a rambunctious four-year-old. But he enjoyed himself. Once dinner was over, Willow decided she wanted to sit between the two of us and climbed right over Wyatt’s lap in order to do so.
As she did, the cuff on his shirtsleeve slid up, revealing more of the burn scars than I’d ever seen before.
“What’s that?” Willow asked pointing
