Page 8

8

“ W e’re here,” Lulu called out as she pushed open the door to Chase’s house. “Can we help?”

She and Henry were having dinner with her brother who had delusions of grandeur in the kitchen. He was pretty darn good, although she loved to give him a hard time about it.

He liked trying out new baking recipes for the coffeeshop, but now and then he liked to experiment with a savory dish. That’s where she and Henry came in. They were the guinea pigs. Luckily, there had only been a few times that Chase had made something inedible. Even he hadn’t been able to choke it down, so they’d all gone out for pizza instead.

“I’m in the kitchen,” Chase yelled. “Come join us.”

“Us?” Henry echoed. “Who else is here? I thought the rest of your family wasn’t coming tonight.”

“That’s what I thought, too.”

Chase now lived in their grandparents’ former home. Grandpa had died about five years ago, and Gran had passed on a few years later. Lulu’s dad and mom had said that it didn’t seem like Gran wanted to go on without her husband of more than sixty years.

There had been some arguments and tears about Chase taking over the home. He’d been adamantly against it, saying that the aunts and uncles should take it, and it would be disrespectful to live there. But Uncle Jason and his wife Aunt Sarah had moved to North Carolina about ten years ago to be closer to their grandkids, and Uncle Sam and Aunt Cindy only spent summers in Montana now. They spent the winters in Arizona, and they didn’t want a larger home to maintain anyway. Her parents had their own house that they were extremely happy with, and they didn’t want the hassle of moving.

Jason and Sarah had offered their home on the ranch to Lulu anytime she wanted to move back home. She’d taken them up on their offer, and was only waiting for furniture to be delivered so she could move in.

All of the family wanted someone living on the ranch even if they weren’t actively working it. Since Lulu and Bennett had been living outside of Montana at the time, that meant Chase. He still hadn’t been able to make many changes. Every time he tried, he’d get sentimental and change his mind. The both of them had spent so many wonderful times here with their grandparents.

Of course, now the ranch wasn’t all that active. After Gran passed on, the family had leased the grazing rights to others when it had become clear that Sam and Jason were getting too old, and no one’s child had stepped up to take over.

Henry placed his hand on Lulu’s arm, pausing her progress to the kitchen.

“You don’t think it’s Bennett, do you? Did he finally show up?”

“I doubt it,” Lulu replied. “Chase would have called to let me know.”

“Unless it’s a surprise.”

“It would definitely be a surprise.”

She loved her older brother, but damn, he was no day at the beach. Chase always joked that Ben was born forty years old with a cup of coffee in one hand and a briefcase in the other.

When she walked into the kitchen to join Chase, she almost tripped over her own feet. The unexpected guest wasn’t Ben. It was Kai Oliver.

And he looked good, too. He’d taken a shower since she’d last seen him, and his dark hair was slightly damp at the ends where it curled ever-so slightly. He was wearing jeans, but he’d changed his shirt from the light blue button-down from this morning to a red short-sleeved collared shirt. He was freshly shaved, as well, his square jaw free from the short stubble he’d sported only a few hours ago.

He looks better with a five o’clock shadow. No, stop looking at him. Stop thinking about how those whiskers would feel against my skin. Bad Lulu. Must not objectify the newspaper guy.

Was this some weird trick the universe was playing on her? Throwing her and Kai together constantly?

“Kai wanted to talk to me about you for his profile in the paper, so I invited him to dinner. He can ask all the questions he wants, plus he gets to see the Elvis room.”

“The Elvis room?” Kai asked, appearing confused.

He hadn’t heard. He wouldn’t be kept in the dark for long.

“You don’t want to miss the Elvis room,” Henry said with a grin. “I love wandering around in there. I always see something I didn’t notice before.”

Lulu’s beloved grandparents had been huge fans of The King, collecting memorabilia and filling a room with it. They’d visited Graceland every year, often taking their grandkids including Lulu. She’d grown to cherish that time with her grandparents, and they’d kept it up even when one of her uncles or her dad had to do the driving for the trip.

The room had been the first thing that Chase had said that he would never in a million years touch when he moved in. Like the rest of the grandchildren, he and Lulu would often come across something Elvis-related and add it to the collection.

“You don’t want to miss it,” Lulu agreed. “It’s a unique experience.”

“I made pot roast,” Chase announced, pulling a pan from the oven. “I’ve had it simmering all day. Plus, we have garlic mashed potatoes, green beans, gravy, and homemade rolls. Let’s get the food on the table and dig in. I’m starved. Kai, once we sit down, you can ask all the questions you want.”

Lulu wasn’t all that sure she wanted to hear her brother answer questions about her. It felt…strange. She wasn’t worried that Chase would say something bad about her. She wouldn’t say anything negative about him, either. But she wasn’t sure that Kai needed to know much more about her background other than she’d grown up here in Harper.

Frankly, I don’t think I’m all that fascinating. What is he going to write about? Adventures in cow tipping?

To her relief, Kai didn’t ask overly personal questions during the delicious meal. She could concentrate on enjoying the melt-in-the-mouth roast and fluffy potatoes without worry. He kept most of his queries general in nature such as what it was like growing up in a small town.

He hadn’t asked the most obvious two questions yet, and they sort of hung in the air, right over the table where they were eating. Unspoken, but still there, making their presence known.

Did you always want to follow in your father’s footsteps?

What was it like growing up with a father who was famous for helping catch not one, but two serial killers?

The latter question was usually the first out of someone’s mouth when they realized who her father was. People who had read the articles in magazines or had seen documentaries on television. Everyone had ideas and theories of how they would have solved the cases, and what they would have done.

The former seemed like a simple question, but there was far too much of her personal life wrapped up in it to answer. She wasn’t even sure she could put it into words if she tried.

“I’ve got these,” Henry announced as he jumped up, his hands full with dishes. “You’re chasing a killer, so you get out of dish duty tonight.”

“I’ll help,” Chase replied with a teasing grin to Lulu. The little shit knew what he was doing. Younger brother stuff, meddling in her life affairs as usual. “Last time you tried to put my cast iron skillet in the dishwasher.”

Chase had only been joking, but he didn’t have much of a sense of humor about the skillet he’d been seasoning for almost a decade. Lulu made a point to never get within a foot of it. It was practically her brother’s baby.

“I don’t suppose you’d show me the Elvis room,” Kai requested. “I think this is something I need to see.”

“You do. Follow me.”

In the beginning, the Elvis room had been in a spare bedroom, but eventually, there was simply too much, and the grandparents had moved everything into the large “rec” room at the back of the house. Previously, that room held a pool table, television, and furniture the kids could beat to death with their friends, and no one would care. That was pared down and moved to the bedroom, and the Elvis memorabilia now had a place of pride and a wide-open space of its own.

“Holy…moley,” Kai breathed in when he crossed the threshold. “This is amazing.”

Lulu loved seeing the face of a person walking into the room for the first time. There was awe, amazement, and yes, a bit of amusement, too.

“Gran and Grandpa were serious collectors,” she explained. “They had Elvis collector contacts all over the world. There’s some really rare stuff in here.”

Kai moved slowly around the room from one display to the other, shaking his head in amazement. The collection was eclectic with record albums, autographed photos, mugs, candles, plates, jewelry, lamps, wall clocks, and that was only the beginning. Lulu’s personal favorite was the black velvet painting of Elvis hanging on the wall.

She wasn’t as huge a fan as her grandparents, but she had an Elvis playlist on her phone. It was especially fun on a road trip with Chase. They’d both sing at the top of their lungs.

“I’d love to write an article about this,” Kai said. “This is fascinating.”

“I’m not sure it would be news,” she replied ruefully. “Everyone within four counties knows that they collected, and they always let people come in that were interested in seeing it.”

Kai’s expression turned horrified.

“They could have been robbed. Or worse.”

“They believed in trusting people,” Lulu said with a shrug. “Besides, Granddad had a shotgun, and even Gran knew how to use it. All my uncles had one, too, along with the ranch hands. A visitor with ill intentions could find themselves surrounded pretty darn quick. And in this county, I doubt they’d get far. My dad was the sheriff, after all. He would have dropped everything and gone after them. They wouldn’t make it to Springwood.”

“Still, there are valuables here. Isn’t your brother afraid he might get robbed?”

Chase never seemed afraid of anything, and he made it a point to not worry about stuff too much.

“You’ll have to ask him, but I think the answer would be no. He has a shotgun, too. But he did put in an alarm system when he moved here. He wanted to keep their collection safe.”

“That sounds like a smart thing to do.”

The conversation waned as Kai explored the record collection, leafing through the albums with a smile on his face.

“I remember this movie,” he said with a chuckle, holding up a Blue Hawaii album. “It was on television, and my mom sat down to watch so I did, too. I liked it, although I can’t say that I’m an Elvis fan on the level of your grandparents.”

Kai placed the album back and moved on to a bookshelf of photos from their trips to Graceland.

“These are your grandparents? They look happy,” he observed. “And you were a pretty cute kid.”

“Oh please, I was in an awkward phase for many of those vacations.”

She’d had a particularly horrid summer when she was thirteen, flat-chested, and wore braces on her teeth.

“Naw, you look like a regular kid. And your grandparents and parents look like they’re having the time of their lives.”

“You’re right, they were. They adored each other. My grandparents were married for more than sixty years, same with my great-grandparents and the great-greats, too. My parents are looking to beat that record if they can. My dad used to say that he came from a long line of love. That’s what I like to describe it as. So much love. That’s why I won’t settle for just anyone or any relationship. I want one like my parents and grandparents. So, I’ll probably be single forever.”

Why on earth had she said that out loud? To him? All she needed was that quote to end up in the local paper. She was talking to him like they were friends, but they barely knew one another.

“I think…that’s wonderful,” Kai replied, his gaze on the photos. “My parents are divorced, but my mom seems very happy with my stepdad. Grandpa Mitch and Grandma Lois seemed happy, too. It was tough seeing him so lonely after she passed on.”

“I remember your grandma. She used to pass out cookies to the neighborhood kids. Her peanut butter blossoms were legendary.”

“They were,” he agreed with a smile. “But my favorite was her oatmeal with chocolate chips. The absolute best. I’m still trying to find one even half as good.”

“I’m sorry about your parents,” Lulu said. “I didn’t realize they were divorced.”

“It’s a sad tale of woe,” Kai said with a chuckle. “A story of teenage rebellion, not unlike Romeo and Juliet, except that six people didn’t die.”

“Is it rude of me to say that I now kind of want to hear it?”

“I don’t have a problem telling you the story,” Kai said. “It’s all water under the bridge now.”

“Why don’t we sit down?” Lulu offered. “I’m all ears.”

In addition to being an avid people watcher, she also loved to hear family stories. And there was something about this man in particular that made her want to know more about him.

Don’t think about the implications of that.

They settled on a loveseat with several Elvis pillows depicting his 1968 comeback special. His black leather outfit look was one of her favorites.

“My mom was a rebellious teenager. Sneaking out at night, running around with boys, smoking and drinking. That sort of thing. Her parents sent her to boarding school because of that, but according to her, all it did was teach her new ways to torture her parents. During her senior year Spring Break trip with her family and their friends, she met my dad in Palm Beach. He was visiting his aunt and uncle who lived near the beach. They spent an idyllic week together falling in love. By the time the break ended, they were convinced that they were soulmates. They continued to stay in touch by writing letters. They were crazy about one another.”

Lulu cleared her throat uncomfortably as he described his mother’s youth. It sounded rather familiar, although, she had never fallen in love like that. If anything, she’d found most boys her age boring as hell.

I liked my men older and more problematic.

“Right after her high school graduation ceremony, Mom ran off with my dad and got married. He was from here in Harper, and just as wild and rebellious as she was, from what I’m told. Dad drove his dilapidated Honda Civic all the way to Boston to marry her.”

“Anyway, my mom’s parents flipped their lids, of course. They’d hoped that she might straighten up after graduating and maybe get a job. They didn’t hold out any hope for college, but they thought she might find work in an office or something like that. By the time, my parents returned from their extended honeymoon backpacking around Europe she was pregnant with me. She hadn’t even turned nineteen yet. Dad’s parents, Mitch and Lois, were pretty chill about it all. As they said, it had happened so being mad about it wasn’t going to do anything. But as you can imagine, my mom’s parents were not thrilled. There was estrangement between them for years.”

“Something, something, you’re ruining your life. Was that how it went?” Lulu asked.

She’d heard that from her mom and dad a time or two.

Do you want to ruin your life? Because this is how you ruin your life. Don’t you care about your future?

If she’d been honest with her parents, and what teenage girl ever was, she would have answered that she didn’t care much about her future. It wasn’t even on her mind back then. She’d been busy reveling in living in the moment, happy to dig deep into the here and now.

It was only later as she’d grown more mature that she’d thought about tomorrow. But she was also aware that looking too much into the future often kept a person from enjoying the present. She didn’t want to go back to who she was, but she didn’t want to be that either. There had to be some sort of happy medium, right?

Maybe that was the secret to life - finding that balance.

“Pretty much,” Kai agreed. “Both sets of parents tried to convince them to settle down and get jobs now that I was on the way, but my mom and dad had a different idea of how to live life. They took off, and I didn’t meet either side of grandparents until I was six. By then, my mother had left my dad and had to come back home. Dad had started drinking way too much, and eventually, she didn’t think it was safe for me to be around him. From what she said, it was a humbling experience. She had to admit that her plan for life had basically failed. She was so humiliated. It shaped the way that she parented me. She actively discouraged me from ever taking chances, doing anything outside of convention.”

Despite being horrified by some of Lulu’s antics, she gave her parents a great deal of credit because they could have done the same. But they hadn’t, especially her mother. Presley Reilly had always been Lulu’s biggest cheerleader, telling her to keep trying things to figure out what she wanted to do and be.

“Is she still like that?”

“Yes and no,” Kai laughed. “Obviously, I’m a grown man so she doesn’t say much. She was upset when I quit my law career to come out here and run Grandad’s newspaper. She wasn’t the biggest fan of my paternal grandparents to begin with. Her parents always called them hippies, and she wasn’t close with them, no matter how hard they tried. But she never stopped me from coming here in the summer to visit, though. She wanted us to be close, even after my dad died.”

“Hippies?” Lulu giggled. “Mitch and Lois were hippies?”

“As far as my uptight, maternal grandparents were concerned…yes. They were good people, but they saw life one way and only one way.”

“Their way or the highway?”

“That sums it up well,” Kai replied. “They rarely ever spoke about the seven years my mom was traveling around with my dad, and they sure as hell never said my dad’s name. Not once. When he passed away from drinking too much, I heard them arguing with her about going to his funeral. They said she shouldn’t go, and that he didn’t deserve it.”

“She said that she needed to take me so I could say goodbye and get closure. That it would be wrong not to. It was one of the few times she stood up to them. They even sort of picked out her second husband, although they truly do seem in love and happy together. But I always got the feeling that there was a bit of sadness inside of her. I think she missed my dad and their adventures together.”

“But she’d never admit that?”

“Bingo. Not in a million years. I get why she is the way she is. I understand it. And she’s not unhappy. She has a great life.”

“Maybe you should take her ziplining or something,” Lulu suggested. “Or book one of those vacations where you explore uninhabited islands.”

“If she doesn’t have room service, she’s not going. But I wouldn’t mind trying ziplining. Have you ever been?”

“No, but I think it would be fun. There’s just one little problem, though,” Lulu said. “I’m afraid of heights. Not just a little either. I’m terrified. A friend did it though, and she’s scared, too. She told me she just didn’t look down.”

“Interesting advice. Don’t look down. I’m not afraid of heights.”

“Then you should go,” Lulu urged. “Take a chance.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Kai replied, a wistful tone in his voice. “But when you’ve been raised to never do that… It simply doesn’t come naturally. I find myself looking back at situations wondering what would have happened if I’d followed that little voice in my head.”

“It depends. What does that voice say? Knock over a bank? Or just take the road less traveled?”

“It’s never told me to rob a bank, but it has told me to step forward. Go on that cross-country road trip with my buddies, take that job that sounds interesting but isn’t prestigious, kiss that girl in the moonlight.”

Lulu didn’t want to think about Kai kissing other women under the moon or any other place. The thought of him kissing her had her cheeks growing warm along with a few other places farther south. She shifted on the cushion to hide her reaction and tried to change the subject. Quickly.

“Being spontaneous isn’t everything, I can assure you,” she said. “There are many other wonderful qualities that I’m sure you possess.”

Personally, she’d like to be a tad less impulsive. She was better about it these days, but now and then… Funny how she’d like to be more like Kai, and he wanted to be more like her.

“Well, I am extremely organized,” Kai responded. “That’s always been a plus for school and then my career. I’m also good with people and tough negotiations.”

“I’ll take you with me when I buy my next car,” Lulu said. “Wait, I think I have an idea. How would you like to help me put together my murder board? I could use someone with your organizational skills.”

Once again, she wanted to slap herself on the forehead. Why was she inviting Kai even more into this investigation?

Because you want him here. Admit it.

“I don’t know what that is, but it sounds like something I want to be a part of. Count me in. When? I can free up my schedule tomorrow.”

“Kai, what are you doing tonight?”

If she was going to be spontaneous and stupid, she might as well get it over with quickly.