Page 72 of Fall Into Temptation
Eva leaned across the tiny table and squeezed Phoebe’s hand. “You know I love you, right?”
Phoebe grinned. “As my boys used to say until it drove me insane and I threatened to cut the internet to the house, ‘duh!’”
Franklin returned with two coffees and a kiss on the cheek for each of them. “Well, my lovely ladies, I hate to cut this short, but I need to get to the restaurant.”
Phoebe rose. “And I need to get to Gia’s so I can help her with her bookkeeping.”
“Is she catching on yet?” Eva asked.
Phoebe laughed. “We really use it as an excuse to eat pie and play with Lydia. I don’t think your sister is going to be interested in learning exactly what constitutes a business expense or when quarterly taxes are due.”
“Well, enjoy your pie, your coffee, and your grandbaby,” Eva said, wrapping her in a tight hug. “And you, my fine father, have a beautiful day.”
“I don’t see how it could get better,” Franklin said, cheerfully. “Dinner soon. Or lunch. Come by the restaurant.”
Eva waved them off and decided she might as well get home, shower, and test how unbelievable sex affected her writing. She gathered her things and headed out the door into the crisp autumn morning.
She was clutching her latte and navigating the sidewalk traffic when someone called her name. Ice formed in her belly, and every muscle tensed before she turned around to face the past.
“Hello, mother,” Eva said evenly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Agnes Merill, or whatever she went by these days, hadn’t aged well. There was little left of the bright, beautiful woman from the family photo album in the too thin, too sharp woman before her. Her once red hair was dyed a shade of burnt blonde. Sallow skin sagged around her chin, and her cheeks were hollow. Her fingers were yellowed with nicotine stains, pink paint peeling from the nails.
In all the times Eva had seen Agnes since the woman found her, she’d never seen a hint of the woman her father had married, the woman who had baked her sisters fanciful birthday cakes and taught them silly songs. That woman had disappeared just as surely as if she’d died. And in her place was a scheming, angry shell.
“I’ve got some plans cooking, and I need that cash now,” Agnes told her, lighting a cigarette with a cheap Bic that flickered in the autumn breeze. There was no greeting, no “How’s it going, sweetie?” Everything with Agnes was about the bottom line.
Eva looked over her shoulder and breathed a sigh of relief that Franklin and Phoebe were no longer in sight.
Agnes rasped out a laugh and with it a cloud of blue smoke. “Yeah, I saw him. Looks like Frank got himself a new wife.”
Eva’s eyes narrowed. “Stay away from them,” she said. She may be a lot of things, a push-over, a liar, a chicken shit. Butno onemessed with Eva’s family.
“Oh, I will, but it’ll cost you.”
Eva was already shaking her head. “Not this time, Agnes. The ATM is closed.”
Agnes gave another dry laugh, one that didn’t reach her bloodshot green eyes. “You owe me, Eva. Because of you, I lost everything.”
It was the line that had gotten Eva a hundred times before and the guilt, familiar as an old quilt, settled onto her shoulders. “If you’d just gotten help—”
“There was no help. You were born, and I was dropped into a black hole. I lost my husband, my family, my home,” Agnes counted her losses on her stained fingers.
“You walked away from your husband, your family, your home,” Eva countered.
“Well, well. Look who decided to grow a backbone,” Agnes said, amused.
“Get out of Blue Moon now, and don’t ever come back.”
Agnes looked around them at the morning sidewalk bustle of a town waking up and starting its day. She shrugged rail thin shoulders. “I don’t know. I kinda like it here. I might decide to stay.”
“If you don’t leave town and leave me alone, it’ll be your turn to pay,” Eva said, her voice shaking with the vehemence behind her words. It ended now. She was done paying for something that wasn’t her fault.
“Now, you listen to me. I want ten grand, and I want it by next week. If you don’t deliver, I’ll do everything I can to ruin your pretty little life, just like you ruined mine. And when I’m done with you, I’ll start on your sisters and your father,” Agnes spat back.
Eva took a threatening step forward. She wasn’t sure just how far she’d be willing to go on the sidewalk on Main Street, but Agnes didn’t need to know that.
