Chapter 3 Stolen Ring
Atriple knock on the front door made Halle close her eyes to stifle a groan of irritation.
She almost succeeded. Despite her efforts, a bleat of frustration escaped her.
After three days on the job, she recognized the signature knock of Owen’s next-door neighbor all too well, and Brooke Aspen wasn’t a person she was looking forward to seeing again.
Brooke stopped by every stinking day around lunchtime, hoping to make Owen’s acquaintance, even though Halle had made it clear that her employer’s schedule was pretty chaotic right now.
He’d been running errands like crazy to get his family settled in before he started work at Lonestar Security on Monday.
Today, he was handling some paperwork that involved their medical insurance. On his way home, he was going to stop for a haircut. He’d told her not to hold lunch for him—that he’d grab some leftovers when he got home.
It was beginning to feel as if Brooke Aspen was going out of her way to be annoying.
Either that, or I’m just being a grump. That was entirely possible, too.
“Do you have a stomachache, Miss Garrett?” Ryder’s worried voice yanked Halle back to the kitchen. “That’s the same sound Coop makes when he eats too much candy.”
She met his worried gaze. “My stomach is fine, but thank you for asking, sweetie.” She climbed down from her barstool, since she and the twins had just sat down for lunch. Walking backward toward the door, she pointed at them with both hands. “There’d better be some taco meat left when I return.”
They were having build-your-own tacos and burritos with a full tray of trimmings to choose from—shredded lettuce and cheese, seasoned black beans, salsa, sour cream, and guacamole.
“If there’s nothing left, it’ll be Coop’s fault.” Ryder grinned as he tugged the brim of his baseball cap to one side. “Dad says he eats like a vacuum cleaner, shlooping up everything he sees.”
Shlooping was a new word for Halle. He’d either made it up on the spot or was mispronouncing whatever word his dad had actually used.
Regardless, she understood what he meant.
“Coop the Shloop!” She wagged a finger at them to underscore her warning, pulling the expected snickers out of the boys. “Save me some, you hear?”
“Coop the Shloop!” Ryder hooted out her new nickname for his brother and followed it up with a belly laugh that had him clutching his sides.
Cooper made the obligatory “shlooping” sounds, lowering his head to his plate to eat his next bite like a vacuum cleaner. No hands.
“Careful,” Halle called to him. “I don’t want you to choke on your food.”
He toned down the sound effects but continued to eat without his hands.
“I’ve created a monster,” she muttered as she turned around to open the door.
“Make that two of them.” She adored both boys to pieces, though.
Serving as their nanny was turning out to be easier than she’d anticipated.
They were high-energy and hilarious, but they listened to her and followed her rules.
Another triple knock sounded on the door as she twisted the handle.
Oh, for pity’s sake! She opened the door.
On the other side stood Brooke Aspen. They were about the same age, and both of them were single—something that shouldn’t have bothered Halle as much as it did.
She was pretty sure it was why the woman kept showing up at the door in the hopes of meeting Owen.
Brooke was a dyed blonde and slender in a willowy sort of way. Unlike Halle, who’d been born and raised in the country, it was obvious Brooke was from the city. It showed in everything from her high-end wardrobe to the way she complained about farm smells.
She was wearing a tangerine-colored suit with wide pant legs.
A paisley scarf was tied loosely around her neck, and a straw Stetson was perched at a sassy angle on her head.
Her feet were tucked into leather boot heels—expensive-looking ones that were heavily embroidered.
She probably thought she was setting new trends in western wear for the country peasants who lived on their street.
Lucky us!
In Brooke’s hands, with their perfectly manicured tangerine fingernails, she clutched a homemade pie between two quilted hot pads. A swirl of steam rose from the center, telling Halle that it had just come out of the oven.
“Hi, Brooke!” Halle forced a cheerful note into her voice. “What can I do for you?” Since she was the hired help, she technically wasn’t under any obligation to invite the woman inside or act like they were friends.
Owen’s closest neighbor was all gifts and smiles, but there was something about her that rubbed Halle the wrong way. She couldn’t say what it was. Maybe it was petty jealousy on her part that the woman owned her own cattle ranch.
Whereas I let my family’s chicken farm get conned away from me.
Not for long, though, if Owen lived up to his reputation as one of the top forensics investigators in the private security industry.
“I brought you a pie,” Brooke announced with a wide smile that showed off her bleached white teeth.
“Oh, wow!” Again. Halle eyed the steaming pastry, unsure it would get eaten before it went bad. Maybe she would try freezing this one. “That’s the third one this week.” One for each day she’d been on the job, though she doubted the pies had anything to do with her.
Brooke’s smile didn’t so much as waver. “It seemed like the neighborly thing to do. You have a lot of mouths to feed. I made this one with Aspen blueberries fresh off the vine.”
Aspen blueberries? Halle resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “It sounds delicious.”
According to word on the street, Brooke bought her fruit and vegetable seeds from the same nursery in town where everyone else did. It was misleading to toss her last name in front of the fruit she harvested to make it sound proprietary.
Halle reached for the pie. “I’ll let Owen know you stopped by.”
Brooke moved the pie out of reach. “It’s really hot. Allow me to carry it to the kitchen for you.”
“It’s okay. I can handle it.” Halle reached for the pie again. “The boys are eating lunch, and Owen is away—”
“I insist.” Brooke took a determined step forward.
If Halle hadn’t flattened herself against the open door, she might’ve been burned by the hot pan as Owen’s smiley neighbor barreled into the entry foyer with it.
“Hi, boys,” Brooke called cheerfully—a little too cheerfully in Halle’s opinion. Her voice never failed to grate on Halle’s nerves.
“Hi, ma’am,” the twins chorused politely. Then they went back to wolfing down their lunch.
Ryder was crunching his way noisily through three brimming tacos. Bits of lettuce, cheese, and meat dribbled onto his plate with each bite he took.
Cooper was busy demolishing an equally overstuffed burrito. Two hours of throwing, catching, and running intervals on the baseball fields this morning had helped them work up an appetite.
Brooke moved past the island to the stove with the familiarity of someone who’d been in the house a thousand times already. Had she?
Halle had discreetly asked around about her and discovered Brooke had purchased the old Haverty homestead a couple of years ago. It was around the time Halle had gotten engaged to James. Had Brooke crossed paths with him during the months that followed?
Brooke set the pie down on the kitchen cabinet, leaving it on the hot pads she’d brought with her, which would give Owen even more items to return to her.
She twirled around like a ballerina to face Halle. “You said Owen is out again?”
“He is.” Halle gestured vaguely. “Errands. You know how it is when you’re new in town.” She didn’t bother mentioning that he would likely be home within the hour. The last thing she wanted was to give the overdressed woman standing in front of her a reason to linger.
“He’s getting a haircut,” Cooper announced between bites, which unfortunately made their guest’s eyes widen with interest.
She turned her head to study him with a look that quickly turned to distaste. “What are you doing?”
“Shlooping.” Cooper glanced up at her, eyes twinkling, without halting his grazing. He’d already eaten more than half of his burrito; and from the look of it, he’d done it with no hands.
At Brooke’s confused expression, Ryder swallowed his bite and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Like a vacuum,” he explained helpfully. “He’s Coop the Shloop.”
Swallowing a sigh, Halle handed him a napkin. “Use this for your mouth, kiddo.”
“Yes, Miss Garrett.” He obligingly scrubbed it over the lower half of his face, then crumpled it into a ball and set it beside his plate.
Brooke returned her attention to Halle, not bothering to mask her disapproval. “It might not hurt to work in a lesson on dining etiquette.”
Halle was so taken aback by the suggestion that she didn’t immediately respond. Number one, she was only the boys’ temporary nanny. Number two, they were five-year-olds. They had plenty of school years ahead of them in which to fine-tune their table manners.
Before she could think of something to say that wouldn’t come across as rude, her gaze latched onto the antique gold ring Brooke was wearing on her right forefinger.
A fat pearl cradled in its setting was unmistakable.
It had come from a Pismo clam her late father had caught during a fishing expedition off the coast of southern California.
Until this very moment, Brooke had forgotten all about the ring. “Where did you get that?” She pointed at the ring, her throat going dry.
“Oh, this old thing?” Owen’s neighbor lazily held her hand to give it a closer look. “I found it while rummaging through some junk at one of the thrift stores in town.”
Junk? For a moment, Halle couldn’t breathe. It might not be museum quality, but the setting was genuine gold, and the pearl certainly wasn’t fake. There was no way a pinkies-up woman like Brooke Aspen didn’t know its value.