Read Online Hollyhock Ridge by Pamela Grandstaff - Free Book Online Page A

Tommy to see his
mother in Florida, we had a layover in Atlanta.”
    “I can see that,” Claire said.
    Sam came back to the table, sat down, saw where Eve’s hand
was, and his eyebrows went up.
    “I need your team names,” Patrick called out.
    “Team Tardis,” Professor Richmond said.
    “Cop, Doc, and Pole,” Laurie said.
    “What about you guys?” Patrick called out to Claire.
    No one spoke. Eve was looking at Ed, Ed was looking at
Claire, and Claire was looking at Sam.
    “Team Awkward,” Claire finally responded.
    Sam, who was taking a sip of beer, choked on it, and Claire
patted his back.
     
    Team Cop, Doc, and Pole won, Team Tardis got loudly drunk,
and Team Awkward lived up to its name. Now, after the game, Laurie was playing
the old upright piano, leading the professors in singing a Monty Python song
about lumberjacks. Arwyn and Drew were acting cozy in a corner, and Patrick was
collecting his cut of the bet money from the locals.
    Ed and Eve had departed as soon as the game was over.
Claire, who had succeeded in not looking at either one of them since Eve put
her hand over Ed’s, could feel herself relax as soon as they were gone.
    “Surprising turn of events,” Sam said.
    “Not for me,” Claire said. “I’m used to men promising one
thing and doing another.”
    “You’ve had a little too much to drink,” Sam said. “Come on
and let me walk you home.”
    “Piss off, you,” Claire said. “I don’t need some man to take
care of me.”
    “Be careful, Claire,” Sam said, put a twenty on the table,
and left.
    Laurie immediately slid into the vacant chair to the left of
Claire. Claire looked around to find Professor Richmond had taken his place at
the piano, and was playing what sounded like a Cole Porter tune.
    “You’re either the most open-minded person I’ve ever met,”
Laurie said, “or your definition of an exclusive relationship needs to be
revised.”
    “There is no relationship between Ed and me,” Claire said,
“if there ever was.”
    “Can I buy you a drink?” Laurie asked.
    “You can buy me many drinks,” Claire said. “You can buy me
all the drinks.”
    Laurie went to the bar and returned with a tray bearing six
shots of whisky and a fresh pitcher of beer.
    “On the house, your bar-keeping cousin says.”
    “He’s a man among men,” Claire said. “Despicable, horny men
who can’t keep it in their pants, but I love him, nonetheless.”
    “Bottoms up,” Laurie said.
    Although Claire tipped up a shot glass and swallowed the
fiery liquid, she noticed Laurie did not.
    “On the wagon?” she asked.
    “I’m working the early shift tomorrow,” he said.
    After three shots, Claire was ready to unburden herself, and
told him everything that had happened since she quit her job working for movie
star Sloan Merryweather and moved back to Rose Hill. The whole time, Laurie
tended to her shot glasses and kept the pitcher filled.
    “So this thing with Ed’s wife happened before you came back
to stay.”
    “He’s Tommy’s guardian,” Claire said. “Melissa was in prison
down in Florida …”
    “For kidnapping him as an infant from his drug-addicted
mother and assuming her identity,” Laurie said. “Patrick filled me in.”
    “Yes,” Claire said. “She served three years of a ten-year
sentence, and Ed took Tommy down there to see her one weekend every month.”
    “So you immediately suspect that Eve was already pregnant
and just needed to hook up with Ed to make it seem like it might be his.”
    “Yes!” she said. “They hadn’t been together for ten years.
Why now, all of a sudden?”
    “I admit it does get my spidey senses tingling.”
    “It’s just like him to take whatever she says at face
value,” she said. “He’s so …”
    “Stupid? Thick-headed? Slow-witted? Moronic?”
    “Shut up,” she said. “He’s too trusting, is all. He thinks
the best of people. It’s a good quality; it just gets him in situations like
this.”
    “Name another