An Accidental Woman (15 page)

The phone bank didn't blink.

Slowly, defiantly, Poppy raised her eyes. By the time they met Griffin's, she was boiling.
Why are you here? Didn't I make myself clear enough? Why can't you leave me alone?

She didn't say a word, just glowered. And then he had the gall to say, “You look like you could use a knight in shining armor.”

She exploded. “And you're it? I. Don't. Think. So. Besides, I couldn't get on a horse and stay there if my life depended on it.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I answer phones. This is what I do best. I can't climb hills, I can't snowshoe or ski, I can't dance or run or even
walk
down Main Street, and I certainly can't take care of kids, which is good reason why I'll never have them.”

“Is that what you were crying about?”

“That, and a million other little things. I have a right, y'know.” She produced a singsong mimic. “ ‘Poppy's a saint. Poppy's always smiling. Poppy never curses her fate in life.' ” Her pitch returned to normal. “Well, I do. My best friend is in jail, her kids are lost without her, her significant other is on the verge of
the
busiest weeks of the year for his business, and I'm stuck in a wheelchair—and with
dirty hands.”
She glared at them. “I
hate
these hands. No matter what I do, they're callused, and they get dirty whether I wear gloves or not.” Sticking them under her thighs and out of sight, she glared at Griffin. “If things were different, I'd be helping Micah in the woods,
with
the girls, but the reality is that I can't help
any
of them. Right now, I
hate
this chair.”

She stared him in the eye, daring him to say something patronizing.

What he said, after a moment's thought, was, “Want a kiss?”

“I do
not
want a kiss!”

He pulled a small foil-wrapped candy from his pocket and held it out.

She tried to make like she'd known all along what he meant. “I said no. I get them from Charlie's too, y'know. Kisses are a dime a dozen.”

“Actually, a dime for ten,” he said. Returning the candy to his pocket, he went around the desk to the back of the room. A long sectional sofa was there, dividing its focus between the television and the fireplace, which sat waist-high in a floor-to-ceiling wall of fieldstone. A low fire burned there.

The fieldstone wall also held a woodbin. Removing a log, he added it to the fire and brushed his hands together. “Reverse psychology won't work,” he said as he returned.

“Excuse me?”

“Turning me off with a show of self-pity.” He sat against the edge of the desk. “All of us have moments of self-pity.”

“When do yours come?” she asked.

“When I think about my sister and wonder why I can't find her,” he said. He began to gnaw on his lower lip, suddenly apprehensive. “
Actually, no. Right now, I'm feeling sorry for myself because I inadvertently mentioned something to my brother that probably resulted in bringing the FBI here. If I could turn back the clock, I would, because I know you're going to hate me for what happened to Heather, which means I've lost something I wanted. But you might as well know. It was me. My brother is FBI. He's on the cold case squad. When I left here in October, I went to his office and kept staring at the picture of Lisa that was hanging on his wall. She looked so much like your friend. I'm sorry.”

The confession stopped Poppy cold. She hadn't expected it, hadn't suspected Griffin of this. Taken so by surprise, she was without words. After a minute, feeling utterly deflated, she lowered her head to her folded arms. She was suddenly dreadfully tired. And sad. Profoundly sad. She didn't know why, but there it was.

With her head on her arms, she began to cry again. It was quiet and deep now, a soulful weeping, the venting of so many confused emotions that tears were the only possible form of expression.

She didn't look up. Her head stayed on her arms, not out of embarrassment but from an aching fatigue. “Oh God,” she whispered finally, pressing her eyes to her forearm. “It's been a wretched two days.”

When Griffin said nothing, she mopped her eyes with her hands, raised her head, and dared to meet his gaze. “What?” she invited in a nasal voice and dropped her hands. “No slick words?”

Not only didn't he come up with any, but those blue eyes of his actually seemed unsure. “I don't know what to do. I want to go over there and give you a hug, only I don't know if you want that.”

“I don't need hugs,” she informed him as archly as one who was all blotchy could do.

“Not need. Want, maybe.”

There was no “maybe” about it. It had been a long time since Poppy
had been held by a man. It had been a long time since she had been held by
anyone,
certainly not in the full way that would have given her the comfort she craved. Her chair was the proverbial third person, always there to remind her of her handicap.

She drew in a long, ragged breath. “I'm fine.” But she couldn't talk about this. “So. You were the one who told them about Heather.” It was safer to focus on that than on her own private needs.

“No. I just told my brother that someone here reminded me of Lisa. He's a good snoop.”

“But not good enough to find your sister.”

Griffin compressed his mouth and shook his head.

His admission gave Poppy a vague sense of power. “So what good is he? What good are you? And why are you here? Major question. If you're looking for me, the me you might have scored with left here twelve years ago, and if you're here looking for a story, you're still in the wrong place. I'm not helping you out.”

“Turn that around. I was thinking I could help you out.”

“Were you.” It wasn't a question. She didn't want his help. “That's some bruise on your face, by the way.”

A mite gingerly, he fingered the purple slash. “There was a struggle before I could convince the truck which of us was in charge.” His hand rasped coming down over the stubble on his jaw. It was even darker than the auburn his hair had become since the autumn before.

“Your thumb looks awful, too. Who
is
winning the war?”

“Me. Definitely me. I got the cabin warmed up and the electricity on. I can't get the water going, but I'm working on it.”

“Don't bother,” she took pleasure in informing him. “The piping is bad. It can't be fixed until spring.”

Griffin looked dismayed. “Are you serious?”

“Totally. We all know it. And another thing. There aren't any loons here this time of year. What you heard was Billy Farraway playing his loon pipe. He's seventy-five years old and spends the winter moving his bobhouse around.” She wondered if Griffin had ever been ice fishing. “Do you know what a bobhouse is?”

“Yes. But I didn't see one near the island.”

“You wouldn't if it was tucked behind one of the other islands on the lake. Do you know how many of those there are?”

Griffin smiled. “No. How many?”

“Thirty-eight. Thirty-eight islands on Lake Henry, and as lakes go, we're not overly big. If you haven't met Billy yet, just wait. He'll find you.”

“A loon pipe? Are you sure? It sounded very real. I was talking at Charlie's about hearing a loon. No one there mentioned Billy.”

“They wouldn't,” Poppy replied and held his gaze until he got the message.

“Ahhh. They were letting me put my foot in it deeper.”

She nodded. It struck her that between the bruise on his cheek, the one on his thumb, the stubble on his jaw, and the rumple of his hair, he looked a little worse for the wear, but it was a good worse. More rugged. She motioned him to move back from the desk so that she could see him head to toe. When he had done it, she said, “Nice boots. Nice vest. Nice thermals up there under that nice flannel shirt. Warm now, Griffin?”

He smiled again. “Yes, thank you. Quite warm. Your house is very comfortable.” He meandered around the desk and sank into the sofa.

Poppy turned to watch. She liked the way he moved. She liked the way his shoulders looked when he put both arms along the back of the sofa. She also liked the way he smiled.

Then his smile faded. He shot a glance at her over his shoulder. “Have you seen Heather?”

Reality returned. “Yes. She's in bad shape. If you were the one who tipped off the cops, that makes me feel responsible, too. You came in October to see me.”

He stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles. “So we can sit here and fixate on that, or we can talk about how to solve the problem. I take it it's a matter of proving that Heather is Heather. What does she say on that score?”

“Not much,” Poppy remarked. “She seems unable to talk about this. And don't ask me why, because I don't know.”

“Is that what upset you just now?”

Poppy thought about the crying jag he'd witnessed. “I don't usually do that,” she said.

“I'm sure.”

“I was taking care of the girls. The little one, Star, wandered out into the woods and I couldn't go after her. I was totally panicked. It's been a while since I felt as helpless as that.” And then there was Micah, returning all stony from visiting Heather. And then Poppy's talk with Maida. She still didn't know what she had wanted her mother to do.

“You're good to be staying with them,” Griffin said. “I can't believe half the town hasn't volunteered to do it.”

“They have. But the girls are mine.” She rushed to explain. “I mean, only in a way. Of course, the girls are Heather's.” But she had to qualify that, too. “Not legally, but in every other sense.”

“Why not legally?” he asked. “She could adopt them.”

“She and Micah aren't married.”

“Why not? They've been together . . . how many years?”

“Four,” Poppy said. “Heather never pushed Micah. She didn't need to be married. She never wanted the girls to think that she was trying to make them forget their mother.”

“Did you know the mother?”

“Yes.”

“What was she like?”

Poppy struggled to say something positive. “She was very pretty. She died in an auto accident when Star was two months old.”

Griffin blew out a surprised breath. “Were she and Micah in love?”

“Yes. For a little while, at least.”

“Until Heather came along?”

“Oh, no. No. That wasn't it. Micah didn't cheat on Marcy. He's a loyal guy.”

“So what was the problem with his marriage? And don't give me that look. There's a whole lot you're not saying. I can sense it.”

Poppy said, “There's not a ‘whole lot.' It's just that Marcy grew up here in town, but I think she always wanted something more.”