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I told her it was a date, and we ended the call. As I set down the phone, my gaze moved across the room to the spot where Chloe was still standing and laughing with Olivia. We didn’t have any customers in the store right then, so it wasn’t as if I needed to take them to task for wasting time…not that I would have even if the situation had been different.
No, right then I was thinking about something else entirely.
I was thinking about family…and how good it was to know that mine had expanded unexpectedly but beautifully over the past two days.
Chapter 5
GOLD DUST WOMAN
Chloe was more than a little surprised when I told her about our dinner plans a few minutes after my phone chat with my mother. “Your mom’s really okay with me being there?” she asked, a tinge of pink touching her cheeks.
“Absolutely,” I replied at once. “She made a point of including you. Remember, there aren’t any hard feelings between your dad and her, so she’s much more interested in getting to meet you than worrying about something that happened more than thirty years ago.”
This no-nonsense description of the situation seemed to reassure Chloe, because some of the worried look left her eyes and she gave a small nod. Still, she didn’t seem to be completely at ease about the prospect, since she glanced down at her black skirt and boots and said, sounding dubious, “Is the restaurant fancy? Because I didn’t bring anything really special with me, just the stuff I usually wear.”
“Nothing in Globe is fancy,” I told her with a smile. “What you’re wearing is great. I’m not planning on changing.”
By that point, I was way too big to wear anything except Empire-style maternity dresses and skirts with the most forgiving elastic waistbands possible, so my wardrobe wasn’t exactly what you could call extensive. The green gown I had on was one that Calvin liked a lot and was on the rotation at least once a week, but it was holding up pretty well.
“That’s good,” Chloe replied. “Then I won’t worry about it.”
Several more customers came in right then, so she hurried off to help them, leaving me to sit on my stool behind the counter. I assumed at some point they’d come up to the cash register to check out if they decided to buy anything, but for the moment, I couldn’t help feeling a little superfluous.
Which was just fine by me. I’d still come in tomorrow to make sure I’d covered all the bases with Chloe, but it definitely looked as though I’d be able to hand over the reins of the business sooner than I’d expected.
Then I could truly concentrate on bringing my precious cargo safely into the world.
Even though I’d worried that the meeting at the Gold Dust casino’s restaurant might still be awkward despite my mother’s reassurances to the contrary, it went better than I could have expected. She’d hugged Chloe and told her she was very glad to meet her, then introduced Tom. I could tell my little sister was happy to see my mother paired off and was in what appeared to be a very successful marriage. Not that there was any chance of her ever getting back together with Jordan Fairfield, but I had a feeling Chloe had sort of viewed my mother as a loose end in her father’s life nonetheless.
At dinner, they talked about life in the Valley, since my mother and Tom lived in Encino, about twenty minutes away from Chloe’s childhood home in Northridge. And then when my mom could tell that Calvin and I were starting to feel a little left out of the conversation, she deftly steered the discussion back toward Globe.
“Chloe, did you know that your sister has become quite the amateur detective since moving here?”
At once, Chloe set down her steak knife and looked over me, clearly surprised. “You mean like solving murders?”
“Yes,” I said. While I might have preferred to avoid that topic for a while longer, I also couldn’t deny that I’d probably tracked down far more killers than most cops ever had. “I suppose the whole thing just sort of fell into my lap, but over the past couple of years it’s been…how many?” I asked, turning toward Calvin, who sat next to me.
“Eleven,” he supplied with a smile.
“That seems like a lot of murders for such a small town,” Chloe said. “Are people around here really that bloodthirsty?”
“Well, not all those murders happened here,” I told her. “One of them took place at a ballroom dance competition Archie and Victoria were attending. That was in Scottsdale.”
“And most of them weren’t perpetrated by actual residents of Globe,” Calvin added. “They just happened to be committed here.”
“Still,” Chloe said, although her expression was now more thoughtful than anything. “So, do you use the Tarot to help you solve the crimes?”
“When I can,” I said. “Other times, I work with my pendulum…or I consult my grandmother’s spirit in my crystal ball.”
I mentioned this last with a worried little glance toward my mother, since I did my best to refrain from talking about those otherworldly consultations in case it might upset her that I was communing with her dead mother’s ghost. However, she didn’t seem bothered by it, and in fact seemed reassured that Grandma Ellen was still out there somewhere, dispensing helpful advice.
“That is so cool,” Chloe breathed. “I’ve only helped my friends find out if their boyfriends were cheating on them.”
Somehow, I managed to prevent a smile from touching my lips. “Oh, I’m sure you’ve done more than that if you were working at psychic fairs.”
Now it was my mother’s turn to look impressed. “So, you’re psychic like Selena?”
“I guess so,” Chloe said with an embarrassed little lift of her shoulders. “But yes, I read cards and have visions and stuff like that.”
