A Southern Promise. Jennifer Lohmann

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СКАЧАТЬ stared at bar, looking both surprised and unwilling to take the gift. Which amused him, because his handkerchief still lay on her knee, and he was pretty certain he was never getting it back. “Take it,” he said. “The Durham Police Department doesn’t want you fainting and running your car into a tree.”

      “Thank you.” She was still looking at the bar as if she had never been offered such a thing in her life. And maybe she hadn’t. Maybe industry princesses who lingered around after the dissolution of tobacco empire weren’t offered Clif Bars. Maybe when they needed a snack they pulled little trays of caviar out of refrigerated compartments in their luxury vehicles.

      Of course that was ridiculous, he thought as he watched her peel the wrapper off the energy bar and take a nibble off the corner. More likely she hadn’t expected anything about this day, including the Clif Bar.

      Howie could tell the moment the food hit her stomach and she realized how hungry she had been. Her color settled into a normal pink. She took a bigger bite. Then another. Then another, until the bar disappeared and she was staring at the empty wrapper in her hand.

      “Thank you. I needed that.” She held the empty wrapper out between them and they both stared at it. Howie didn’t take it from her—he had no better place to put it than she did—and eventually she crumbled it up and set it on her knee, on top of the handkerchief.

      “I’ll be in touch again soon. Leave your contact information with Henson. And your brother’s. And your cousin’s.” Not that he needed the information, as he could easily find it himself, but this was a good test of Julianne’s sincerity. “Are you okay to drive?”

      “I will be. In a minute.”

      “Good. Thank you for your time,” he added, even though they both knew she hadn’t had much of a choice. “Here’s my card. Call me if you think of anything else. I’ll be in touch.”

      At Howie’s signal, Henson opened the door. He stepped out of the car, giving Julianne time and privacy to collect herself, if she wanted. Which she apparently didn’t because she followed him immediately, so close on his tail he could almost feel her breathing down his neck.

      Once she was out of the car and lifting her face to the sky, the fresh air seemed to revive her. Her shoulders lowered as she steadied herself on her feet. Then she turned to him and gave him a dirty look—one she definitely hadn’t learned in finishing school.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      AS SOON AS Julianne stood to her full height outside the car and felt the breeze across her face, anger swept through her, momentarily shoving grief out of the way. It felt ten degrees cooler outside the car than it had inside. Sure, the air-conditioning was on full blast, but the detective had shut all the doors—no wonder she’d felt heat burn through her body sitting next to him. It wasn’t just the shock of her aunt’s death that had caused her to feel faint; it had been the blasted heat and confinement.

      But it was definitely not the attractive cop who’d put his hand on her head.

      Maybe the damned patrol car hadn’t been a torture chamber, but the detective had made it an interrogation room, and his eyes had been soft with concern while he’d done it. He’d even given her food, like she’d seen cops offer coffee to suspects on those TV shows. Not that she’d needed it to spill secrets about her brother and cousin. The heat in the car had loosened up her tongue just fine.

      She hoped that ability to lie with his eyes made him a good cop, and that he didn’t use those powers on the woman in his life.

      Was there a woman in his life? He was attractive and employed, which was enough for most women. But Julianne didn’t know how anyone could trust a man with such good control over his features. Even if Aunt Binnie had trusted him.

      She shook the distracting thoughts from her head and started her car.

      Rather than driving back to her apartment, Julianne drove to her mother’s house. Even blasting the AC the entire way, she would arrive at the house hot. The pit stains in her cotton dress were becoming fast friends in the middle of her chest and reuniting between her shoulder blades.

      Aunt Binnie was dead. Not just dead—she’d been murdered, brutally if the detective’s intimations were to be believed. The realization swung at her like a large open hand. A door flying open when you don’t expect it. Walking in on your husband with another woman, hitting you in the head and the gut at the same time, buckling your knees and bringing you to the ground with a whimper.

      She glanced quickly in the rearview mirror and winced at the streaks of mascara running down her cheeks. Maybe the handkerchief in her purse was still damp enough from tears that she could clean off her face. Not that it mattered; her mother would comment on the sweat stains regardless. As if sweating was something people should be able to control, even when they were sitting in a hot car. Hell, it was probably something her mother could control.

      Only once Julianne could remember her mother looking disheveled. Because when Ruthie Somerset cried, she did so with light sniffles and no streaky mascara. Ruthie had no patience for a good snotty sobbing. After the dissolution of her marriage and her return home, Julianne had learned to sob by herself in her bedroom. Or at Binnie’s.

      At least now she had an apartment where she could let the facade drop and be the imperfect person she wanted to be.

      She turned onto her mother’s street and spun her mind back to her pit stains before tears could obscure her vision, sending her crashing into the neighbors’ playhouse—a miniature version of their actual house—which they’d built on their front lawn. She would control her driving. And how she broke the news to her mom. Aunt Binnie was dead and Julianne had crawled onto the lap of the cop who’d broken the news—big mistake. She was enough of a Somerset to know that how she responded to the death would matter. Somewhere deep in her brain was a memory of hearing her mom tell her father about the importance of managing the press all through the horrible investigation into Uncle Winston’s death. The words had stuck in her head, even though she hadn’t understood their meaning at the time. Since that time, she’d had years of instruction on keeping the family’s name out of the mud. How the right smile could hide secrets and the wrong smile could give them away. How to set your shoulders and walk as if nothing was wrong at home. How to talk to the press and give enough information that it sounded like detail but was really just a whitewash of the truth.

      These skills had been mixed into each and every meal like fluoride mixed into the drinking water. Most of her life she’d followed her mother’s guidelines, even as she felt as if they were a straitjacket. Now that Julianne was trying to build a life for herself in Durham and turn around the family name, she finally understood why keeping the family’s name out of the mud mattered. She wanted the Somersets to be associated with the new Durham, not old tobacco. And not with another unsolved murder.

      If the investigation into Aunt Binnie’s murder got out of control, investors and participants might lose the interest in her business incubator. More important, the family must respond to the death appropriately in order to keep Aunt Binnie’s memory pure. And Julianne would hop into the ring and wrestle any reporter to keep Aunt Binnie’s memory from being tainted by any mention of her phone calls. Her aunt had been so much more than a simple crazy lady. She’d been dedicated to making the world a better place. While they had disagreed about how to go about it, that essential optimism was something they’d had in common.

      That and fighting for a lost cause. Tenacity had kept Aunt Binnie calling police departments week after week after СКАЧАТЬ