Marilyn Pappano - Copper Lake Encounter

Sighhh. Not for her, but still sighhh...

“Would you like a tour of downtown Copper Lake? Depending on whom I channel, it could take as little as ten seconds.”

She reached for her iced coffee and miscalculated, almost knocking the cup over. Catching it quickly, she looked up, meeting his gaze. “Channeling?”

Cocoa brown eyes, grin, shrug that reminded her of a big lazy cat. “Channeling, copying. Like my boss. ‘Coffee shop, church, old house. Square, memorials, old buildings. Ellie’s Deli, more old buildings. More that way, that way, that way.’” He gestured north, east and south.

The vague uneasiness stirred by his mention of channeling faded. “I take it your boss is a man of few words.”

“He was. Now that he’s got kids, he’s expanding his vocabulary. Now, I could also do Miss Lydia’s version of a tour. Her family’s been here for centuries—they built the mansion over there—and she knows the history of every building and pretty much every family in Copper Lake. She can remember seeing presidents in the town square when she was a little girl.”

“History is good,” Nev agreed. Her family had history, too, but they weren’t big on remembering it. Lima said it was people a person should value, not places, circumstances or events. Nev couldn’t figure out how to separate them. Didn’t growing up black in the South, with a grandmother who’d been a slave, do a lot to shape YaYa into the woman she was today? Hadn’t Pawpaw’s experiences in helping to break down race barriers in the army in World War II—harassment, prejudice, hatred and fear—affected who Daddy had become?

Hadn’t growing up with a father who adored her, a sister who was perfect and a mother who preferred that sister played some role in who Nev was?

“How long will you be here?”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty flexible.” As soon as his grin started, her face heated and she restated, “My schedule is flexible. So...” She took a long suck of coffee, savoring it. “Does it offend you if people call you police officer instead of detective?”

He stretched out his long legs, bumping hers, murmuring an apology. “Some of the people I work with take offense, yeah. It takes commitment to become a detective, and some people want the respect of the title. But me, nah. It took commitment to become a cop, too. Either title deserves respect in my opinion.” He took a long drink of his own. “In a lot of people’s opinion, neither does.”

“Is it what you always wanted to do?”

“Always. Are you doing what you always wanted to do?”

Once again she shifted on the metal chair. Doing what she always wanted? Not by any stretch of imagination. She was old-fashioned, Marieka said scornfully, because she’d always wanted to get married, have a bunch of kids and be happy. That was it.

Jobs didn’t matter; she’d held a variety of them and hadn’t hated any of them except waiting tables. Money didn’t matter. As long as they could pay their bills, that was enough. A husband she loved who loved her back, kids who grew up safe and hopeful and loved—that was her dream.

Aware that Ty was waiting for an answer, she shrugged. “I don’t think my job existed when I was a kid. I’m a virtual personal assistant.”

“So you work mostly online and do virtually everything your clients need?”

She smiled at his play on words. “I shop. I do research. I plan events. I liaise. I answer mail. I post on Facebook and tweet for my clients.”

He laughed. “So when people think they’re chatting with your clients, it’s really you?”

“Most of the time.” She broke off another piece of cookie, thought about her curvaceous figure and Ty Gadney’s muscles and almost put it back. Marieka certainly would have. Marieka rarely ate more than a few bites in front of a man. But she wasn’t Marieka, so she took a bite instead. “YaYa, my grandmother, became a computer whiz after she retired, but she just can’t grasp someone being so busy that she’d pay me to ‘speak’ for her.”

“Me, neither, actually,” Ty said. “Shop? You bet. I hate going into stores. Do research, plan parties, take care of my bills, sure. But I can’t imagine wanting someone else to do my talking for me.”

“My clients are mostly public figures. Their jobs require a certain amount of public interaction, but they don’t have either the time or the temperament to sit at a computer and do social media.”

“Interesting. Next time I see my favorite quarterback tweeting, I’ll wonder if it’s really him.” He polished off his first cookie and then glanced at his watch. “Man, I’ve got to get going. I’ve got a big date tonight, and I can’t be late.”

“A big one, huh?” Of course he had a date. He was gorgeous. It was Saturday. Living, breathing women lived in this town. Nev wouldn’t have thought otherwise. How long had it been since she’d had a big date? Four months? Six?

“Yeah, Granddad can’t stand to miss the beginning of a movie.” He flashed that bright smile at her again. “It’s been nice meeting you, Nev Wilson.” He picked up the lone cookie left in the wrapper. “Granddad can’t stand a day without one of Liz’s cookies, either. I’ll see you again.”

That last seemed a bit presumptuous—he didn’t know where she was staying, what she would be doing, how long she would be there, because even she didn’t know those things—but the thought was lost as she watched the back view of him on the way to his car. Snug-fitting jeans, long legs, muscular everything...sigh.

Seeing him again would be a benefit.

But it didn’t change the reason she was here.

Her next sigh was heavy and morose.

Chapter 2

Nev had reviewed online the accommodations available in Copper Lake and settled on the Heart of Copper Lake Motel. If she’d had some of Marieka’s money to splurge, she would have opted for The Jasmine, an antebellum mansion turned bed-and-breakfast. It would be nice to see how the one percent lived. But a night at The Jasmine cost as much as five nights at the motel, and she didn’t intend to spend a lot of time in a room.

She checked in and unloaded her luggage in room ten—too many bags for a stay of undetermined length, but she had to be prepared for anything, YaYa had insisted, from sightseeing to interviewing people for information to a night on the town. Sure, as if Nev spent lots of nights on the town. She took the time to hang up her dresses and then headed out to her car again and drove Carolina Avenue from one end of town to the other, before taking River Road to the north edge and then the south.

She drove through neighborhoods of houses that ranged from small mansion to shack and everything in between. She passed at least one church for every three bars, noted nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, schools and historic sites, businesses of every sort. Some of it she knew from the website. Some she’d never seen before. Some she knew from her dreams.

The sun was low on the horizon when finally she pulled into the parking lot of the riverside park. A woman sat on a blanket underneath a live oak, an electronic reader in one hand, while two kids climbed on the pirate ship nearby. She glanced up with a courteous smile when Nev passed, and then she went back to her book.

Nev walked to the edge of the asphalt path and gazed at the river a few yards away. The Gullah was lazy, not too wide, giving the impression it had nowhere to go and was in no hurry to get there. A few small boats puttered toward docks jutting into the water on the other side, weekend fishermen calling it a day.

It smelled familiar. Important. A century ago it would have been vital to the logging industry that had made fortunes here. Two centuries ago it would have played a major role in the decision to found the town here. People had used it to irrigate their crops and ship them to market. They’d culled fish from the water for their meals. Kids had swum in it. Folks had been baptized in it. It had given life, and it had taken life.