Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Camillia
“That was good,” Wolf said later.
They were sitting at the small kitchen table in her mom’s house, and their plates were empty. “I’m glad you enjoyed it. Mom makes a mean lasagna.”
“I’ve been living on junk the past few days,” Wolf admitted. “Mom did all the cooking. That meal had more vegetables than I’ve seen in a while.”
“Was Cilla a good cook?” Camellia asked.
“No!” He said it with emphasis that made her laugh. Then he went on. “She got it wrong as often as she got it right, but I enjoyed our meals. Grandma Sage, now she could cook. I s’pose I’ll have to learn to fend for myself now.”
“I used to cook,” she said. “I’ve been letting my skills slide lately, though. Living with Mom, I’m getting spoiled.” She patted her belly. “And fat.”
“I would too, with food like that,” he said, smiling. Then he looked suddenly wide-eyed. “Not that I think you’re fat.”
“I don’t care if you do,” she reminded him. Only, she did, which was a problem. “So speaking if your Grandma Sage…?” she asked, raising her brows.
“I’ve been wondering about her, too, but I don’t know. I s’pose it’s in the journals,” he said. “I have a photo.” He took out his phone and scrolled and handed it to her.
The photo was of a little Native American boy, standing between his redheaded Irish mother and an old Black woman with white hair cut close to her head, in front of what looked like a petting zoo.
“That’s Grandma Sage?”
“The one and only. The three of us could’ve been the start of a joke if we’d ever walked into a bar, I guess.”
She handed him the phone.
They were quiet a moment, then she said, “Let’s have coffee and dessert in Mom’s parlor.” She got up as she said it, went to the coffee maker, and turned it on. Her mother always left it ready to go.
Wolf got up too and started to clear the dishes while she sliced pie. She put it onto plates and stuck them in the microwave for 45 seconds. Then she got the vanilla bean ice cream from the freezer and a scooper from the drawer.
“You don’t mean it.” Wolf’s deep voice sent a shiver right up her spine. The good kind. Well, the bad kind, considering her singlehood. She looked over her shoulder at him. He stood at the sink, rinsing plates. Beside him, the dishwasher was open and partly loaded.
“Oh, I mean it sincerely,” she said, and the microwave beeped like an exclamation point. She took out the plates, dolloped a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of each perfectly heated slice of apple pie, set a fork across each plate, and handed him one.
“That’s…heaven.”
“Close as we’ll get on this side,” she said. “Here’s to Cilla.” And she tapped the rim of her plate against his.
“To you, Ma.” He smiled when he said it.
It startled Camellia and she realized she hadn’t seen his smile before. She set down her plate and turned to put the ice cream away, and maybe hide her reaction to that smile.
After a beat, she took her plate, led him to the room her mother had always called the parlor, and tried to see it through his eyes.
There were filled bookshelves on three walls and five chairs that didn’t match, each a different style and pattern. Equally diverse end tables stood beside each of the chairs. The furniture was all arranged to face a set of large French doors that led out onto the currently barren stone patio.
“There are usually lawn chairs out there,” she explained, pointing. “But we put them in the shed when it’s cold and wet like this. And the flowers are all gone till spring.”
“It’s a nice room.” He nodded at the fireplace. “You want a fire?”
“Sure,” she said, and then picked up a remote control from one of the end tables and aimed it at the fireplace. It lit up with fake flames that were nowhere near convincing. “It blows heat if you need it. There’s a crackling sound effect, but it sounds tinny.”
“Cheap speaker,” he said, moving closer to the thing, bending low. “I could wire in a better one for you.”
“No,” she said. “Tell me you’re not one of those.”
“One of what?” He’d chosen a chair, the deep blue velour wingback with the peacock design. He put his plate on the oval cherry wood table-slash-magazine stand beside it, then took his first bite, closed his eyes and said, “Sorry. Couldn’t wait.”
She lowered herself into a Louis XV chair with ivory upholstery and pink roses on the other side of a ’70s end table, and set her plate there. “I’m waiting for the coffee.”
“Ice cream’ll melt,” he said.
“Only a little.”
He took another bite, closed his eyes again.
He was really into that pie. Watching him was too much, though.
She bounced out of her chair and hurried back to the kitchen.
Grabbing two cups, she filled them from the coffee maker’s flow, swapping a cup for the carafe, and then for the other cup, then back to the carafe again without spilling a drop.
It was better than waiting and watching him make love to that pie.
When she set their cups on their respective end tables, he said, “What did you mean by ‘one of those’?”
“One of those guys who can fix things. A maker. A…MacGyver.”
“You know MacGyver?” he asked, his eyebrows high.
“My mother still has the entire series on DVD. Bookcase on the right, top shelf.”
He looked that way, then whistled and said, “Boxed set,” as if impressed.
“Mom doesn’t kid around about MacGyver. How do you know him? He’s before your time, too.”
“Grandma Sage,” he said. “VHS.”
Camellia laughed all the way from her belly, and in a second realized he was laughing, too. When they stopped, he was still smiling. He said, “You might be good for me, Camellia Rio.”
A forbidden memory floated free of its prison, rising in tandem with the chill up her spine. You’re good for me, Camellia. You’re the only good thing in my life. I’d kill you before I’d let you go. You know that, right?
The sound of Wolf’s fork against his plate as he set it down sent the ghost skittering back into the shadows. She closed her eyes like closing the door, shutting it in.
“What was that?” Wolf asked.
“What?”
“Something in your eyes just then. Was it because I said you’re good for me?”
She shrugged. “I don’t really want to be…good for anyone. I had a fiancé. He…needed me a little too much.”
“How so?” Wolf was frowning, curious, maybe concerned.
“At first, just…hyper-attentive,” she said. Because why not let him know right up front where she stood? If they were going to work together, she needed to set her boundaries firmly. “Later, he became controlling, suspicious, jealous. When I broke it off, he stalked me for three years.”
“That’s awful. I’m sorry, Camellia. Is it ongoing? Are you okay?”
She shrugged. “He stopped six months ago. I don’t know why. I don’t dare try to check up on him, because if he catches on that I did, it might reactivate the whole thing. It just…flashed through my mind when you said I was good for you. I know you didn’t mean it that way.”
“I could’ve phrased it better,” he said. “What I meant was I enjoy your company. How’s that?”
“Better.” She nodded at his pie. “Finish up before it gets soggy.”
Then she started eating her own to stop herself from talking. She probably shouldn’t be sharing so much personal stuff. He was a client. A potential client. But he was so damn attractive to her that it seemed a good idea to be clear about where she stood on male-female relationships and why.
When they finished the last sips of coffee, he rose and said, “I should go. You’ve been kind, you and your mother both. I’m grateful.”
Camellia stood up, too, tried to think of something to say and failed.
Wolf took his jacket from the hook near the door and draped it over his forearm. Head low, he opened the door.
She blurted, “I enjoy your company, too.”
He lifted his chin and turned to face her again.
He seemed pleased, but the sadness remained in his eyes.
So she went on. “On a personal level, I mean. I really do. I wouldn’t want you to think otherwise.
It’s just that…I’m not gonna take that risk again, you know?
So, if we go forward with the case, we’d both need to be clear on that.
First sign of anything…you know…and I’m gonna have to call it quits. I’d refund the fee, though, of course.”
He studied her face for a long moment, frowning. It felt as if he was trying to see more than she was saying. “Look, Camellia, I don’t even know my real name. It’s like when Ma died, she took my whole identity with her. I’m not looking for…you know.”
They locked eyes. A thunderbolt struck her speechless.
He put on his coat. “But I’ve decided that I would like you to go ahead and help me find my roots.”
“What?” She thought they were addressing the slow simmer she felt between them, but maybe she was the only one feeling it. His sudden change of topic gave her mental whiplash.
“You do?”
He nodded.
“Are you sure?”
“No. Nervous as hell about it, to be honest.” He lowered his head, a humble gesture. “I don’t think I’ll ever be sure, though,” he said, looking her in the eyes once more. “So let’s do this.”
Her breath left her chest in a rush and she couldn’t get it back for a second.
“Where do we begin, Detective?”
She tried not to smile too much. This was serious, and his mother had just been buried.
“We’ll begin at the beginning. We have to look for a missing newborn around the time of that flash flood, upstream from where you wound up.
That location, I hope, is in your mother’s diaries.
It shouldn’t be hard. We’ll start with the internet.
” She saw the hesitation in his eyes, then added, “But not tonight. I need to hit the treadmill and then the shower.”
“No way am I working off my dessert,” he said and rubbed his belly like an older, fatter man might do. “I want to keep it for a while. So when do we start, then?”
Tomorrow sprang to her lips, but she didn’t let it escape. “I’ll call you,” she said.