Booker nodded hello and continued walking, but Lucky stopped midstride. It was Garth Holbrook. She recognized him from the picture on his Web site.
“It can be slick right here by the door so watch your—” Halting the cart that was carrying his son as well as their groceries, Booker turned back when he realized she wasn’t with him anymore. “Lucky?”
Lucky swallowed hard as a sudden, poignant longing washed over her. She’d tried to prepare herself with realistic expectations, knew even if she found her father, he probably wouldn’t accept her. But the sight of Garth Holbrook looking so handsome and carrying himself so confidently made her long for a connection with him. He was everything her mother had not been. He had dignity, commanded respect. And she was willing to bet he was emotionally stable.
Booker’s eyebrows gathered as he followed her gaze. “Do you know Senator Holbrook?”
Holbrook rounded a corner toward the bakery section and disappeared, and Lucky forced her rubbery legs to carry her forward again. She didn’t want to raise too many questions.
“Not personally, no,” she said. “I just recognized him, that’s all.”
Booker navigated the cart around a large puddle and into the snowy lot. “He’s a good guy.”
“How do you know him?”
“He brings his Navigator to the shop occasionally. Last week he brought in his wife’s Town Car.”
Mention of Holbrook’s wife didn’t help the odd feeling in Lucky’s stomach. Even if Holbrook himself wasn’t averse to taking a paternity test, she felt fairly certain a normal wife wouldn’t give her blessing. “What’s Mrs. Holbrook like?”
“Celeste? She’s nice, too.” He grinned affectionately. “She’s always on some kind of mission.”
“What does that mean?”
“She’s involved in a lot of fund-raisers and the like. Lately she’s been raising money for a charity that provides Christmas toys to underprivileged children. She sends quilts to Ukraine. She runs Friends of the Library and is a big advocate for schools. I’m sure there’s even more I don’t know about.”
Celeste sounded like a saint—but would she be saint enough?
“Do you know anyone by the name of Eugene Thompson?” she asked, turning her mind to other possibilities.
“Never heard of him.”
“What about Dave Small?”
He grimaced. “Everyone knows him.”
“You don’t like him?”
“Not especially.”
Lucky hadn’t expected Booker to be quite so frank, but she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. He’d been pretty direct from the first moment she’d met him at the shop. “Why not? What’s he like?”
“Arrogant. Pompous.”
Not exactly a high recommendation. “Is he still in politics?”
“Yeah.” Booker pressed the button on his key ring that unlocked his truck and put Troy in his car seat in the back of the extended cab, where she also unloaded the groceries. “He’s been talking about running for Holbrook’s seat in the state senate should Holbrook go to Washington,” he went on. “He might even try for mayor when Rebecca’s dad retires. Fortunately—” he gave her a look of relief as she climbed in across from him “—Rebecca says her father isn’t planning to retire anytime soon. I’d hate to see Dave wield any more power in this town than he already does.”
“Who’s Rebecca?” she asked as he started the engine.
“Don’t you remember Rebecca? Tall, wild, unique.” He grinned as if saying she was “tall, wild, unique” was about the best compliment he could pay a person, and Lucky remembered his comment about hell-raisers. “She married Josh Hill about three years ago. Now they have a three-month-old baby.”
“Where do they live?” Certainly not at the ranch house, or Lucky would’ve seen some evidence of it.
He twisted to see behind them as he backed out. “They built a home several acres away from Mike, closer to the lake.”
“I see.”
“What makes you ask about Dave Small? And the other guy—Eugene, was it?”
“I’m just curious.”
He eyed her skeptically.
“I met them a long time ago, and I was wondering if they were still around.”
While that was a lie, it wasn’t a big one, and it allowed her to keep asking questions. “Does Dave still have family in town?”
“Of course.” Booker pulled into the recently plowed street. “The Smalls will never leave. They think they own this place.”
“Then it must get pretty crowded with the Smalls and the Caldwells.”
Booker cut her a sharp glance. “You’re not going to let bygones be bygones?”
Lucky wasn’t surprised that Booker seemed to know the whole story. Her mother had been dead for four years, but the people of Dundee probably hadn’t stopped talking about her. “The Caldwells are the ones who’re holding a grudge.”
“From what I heard, Morris and your mother are both gone and the will’s been settled. What’s left to fight about?”
Lucky thought of the way Marge had treated her in the store. “Resentment can linger for decades.”
He withdrew a toothpick from his ashtray and stuck it in his mouth. “It doesn’t have to. The Caldwells are good people. Especially Josh and Mike.”
Lucky remembered Mike’s closeness in the dark, misty bathroom…. Remembered the shower curtain sliding on its railing…and felt the giddiness she’d experienced as he touched her.
“If you say so,” she said, because she didn’t want to talk about Mike or his family anymore.
They drove several miles in silence, then Troy grew impatient in his car seat, and Booker asked Lucky to give him a cracker. While she dug through the diaper bag on the seat between them, he said, “Where’ve you been for the past six years, Lucky?”
“Nowhere in particular. I’ve traveled a lot.”
“What brings you home?”
Locating the crackers, she calmed Troy’s impatient squeals by giving him one. “I’m here to fix up the Victorian.”
Booker chewed on his toothpick for a few seconds before glancing over at her again. “So how does it feel to be back?”
Propping her elbow on the window ledge, she gazed out as they passed the Arctic Flyer restaurant, and a memory flashed through her mind. She was in high school and had gone to the Friday night football game to escape the house. Morris was out of town; her mother was “entertaining” again. Reluctant to head home, she’d hung out later than usual and had wound up at the Arctic Flyer. A portion of the football team showed up a few minutes later, with several of their cheerleader girlfriends.