In Too Steep by Kate Kingsbury

Author:Kate Kingsbury
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

Chapter Ten

The GPS on Vivian’s Toyota took her into a quiet, tree-lined street of modest homes that looked like they’d been there for centuries. A rickety fence surrounded the house at the address Connie had given her, and dim light glowed behind curtains at the windows.

Felix whined when she shut off the engine.

“No,” she told him. “I’m sorry. buddy, but you’ll have to stay in the car. Be a good boy. I won’t be long.” With that, she climbed out and slammed the car door shut. Farther down the street, a group of kids, dressed in various flamboyant costumes, chattered with excitement as they streamed up a pathway.

Three women stood watching them, and Vivian relaxed her tense muscles. She wasn’t exactly alone. That was reassuring.

A street lamp nearby shed just enough light for her to see her way up the uneven path in front of her. Spotting a doorbell on one side of the door, she gave it a jab and waited.

Seconds later a porch light flashed on, the door opened, and a small boy looked up at her from the doorway.

This, Vivian assumed, was Connie’s grandson. She gave him her best smile. “Hi. You must be Noah. I met your grandmother. She told me about you.”

Noah’s blond hair fell into his eyes, and he swept it back with a grimy hand. “What did she say?”

“Well, she was telling me about a gift she gave to you. It’s a—”

She broke off as a man appeared behind the boy. “Go inside,” he told Noah, his harsh voice daring the boy to disobey.

Noah took one look at his face and fled back inside the house.

“I’m sorry,” Vivian said, beginning to wish she had chosen to visit in daylight. “I met your mother, and she told me about Noah. I was just—”

“What do you want?”

Looking at the man’s unshaven jaw, his straggly hair, badly in need of a trim, and his fierce eyes, Vivian felt intensely sorry for Noah. “My name is Vivian Wainwright, and I own a tearoom in Misty Bay. I met Noah’s grandmother, Connie, and she told me she’d given Noah a model of Big Ben.”

The man continued to glare at her without saying a word.

Thoroughly unsettled, Vivian cleared her throat. “To make a long story short, I sold the Big Ben to a woman a month ago, and it ended up in a thrift store. I’m trying to find out how it got there.”

The man folded his arms in a way that somehow felt threatening. “I don’t know how it got there. Noah took it down on the beach and left it on a rock while he was playing with his friend. When he went back for it, it was gone. That’s all I know. I’m sick of hearing about the damn thing, so do us both a favor and forget about it. Goodbye.”

The door closed abruptly in Vivian’s face, and she wondered what kind of desperate woman had allowed that man to father her child.

Back inside the car, she fended off Felix’s sloppy kisses as she got comfortable behind the wheel.

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