Conard County Spy (26 page)

Now he was glad he hadn't called the McCays for several reasons, not the least of which was that he knew Peg Merrill, had known her all his life. If she and Holly were friends, then Holly
couldn't
be the woman the McCays had made her out to be. Peg had an unerring BS meter—she'd nailed Chris on a few things over the years—which meant Holly couldn't have fooled Peg about the kind of woman she was. To top it off, Peg reigned supreme in one area in particular—motherhood. The worst insult in her book was to call someone a bad mother. No way would she be friends with a woman who was a bad mother.

Besides, Peg was his sister-in-law. Former sister-in-law, really, since Laura was dead. But he wasn't going there. Not now. Sister-in-law or not, Chris didn't want to be on Peg's bad side. Especially not on a pro bono case he'd already been having second thoughts about.

* * *

Chris waited until Holly McCay strapped her twins into their car seats and drove away before he got out of his truck. He shrugged on his blazer to hide his shoulder holster, then settled his black Stetson on his head and ambled toward Peg's house, determined to find out whatever he could about Holly McCay from Peg.

“Chris!” Peg exclaimed when she opened the door. “This is a surprise. Come on in.”

“Unca Chris!” Peg's two-year-old daughter, Susan, made a beeline for Chris when he stepped inside, and he bent over to swing her up into his arms. A cacophony of barking from three dogs—one of which had been Chris's gift to Laura not long before she died—prevented anyone from being heard for a couple of minutes, but eventually Peg's two dogs subsided back to their rug in front of the fireplace in the family room.

Chris settled into one of the oversize recliners, still cuddling Susan against his shoulder while his other hand ruffled Wally's fur. “Hey, boy,” he murmured, gazing down at the golden retriever Laura had adored. If his heart hadn't already been broken when Laura died, it would have broken at losing Wally, too. Chris had given Laura the puppy thinking they'd soon be moving from their apartment into a house with a large fenced yard. But that dream house sat vacant now—Chris couldn't bear to live there without Laura. And an apartment was no place for a growing dog, especially since Chris was rarely home. So when Peg and her husband, Joe, volunteered to adopt Wally, Chris had reluctantly accepted their offer. At least he'd still get to see Wally, he'd reasoned at the time—he was always welcome at the Merrill house.

Chris and Peg chatted about nothing much for a few minutes. About Bobby, Peg's napping one-year-old son, who was already starting to walk. About Joe's thriving gardening center in Granite Gulch, the Green and Grow. About Chris's highly successful private investigation business—which he'd thrown himself into even more thoroughly after Laura's death—and the fourth office he'd nearly decided to add in Arlington.

When Susan's eyelids began fluttering, Peg reached to take her daughter from Chris, but he forestalled her. “I'll put her down for her nap,” he told Peg, doing just that. When he came back, Peg handed him a frosty glass of iced tea prepared the way he preferred it, with two lemon wedges, not just one.

They'd just settled back into their spots in the family room, Wally at Chris's feet, when Peg put her own glass of iced tea down on a coaster on the end table and said, “So what's wrong?” She didn't give Chris a chance to answer before she continued, “I didn't want to say anything in front of Susan—you would
not
believe how much she understands already. I told Joe he needed to watch his language now that Susan is so aware—and she mimics everything he says...
especially
the bad words.” Chris laughed, and Peg said, “But something's up. You wouldn't be here in the middle of the week, in the middle of the afternoon, if something wasn't wrong.”

Chris shook his head and smiled wryly. “You must have second sight or something.” He hesitated, considering and then discarding his original idea of pumping Peg for info about Holly McCay on the sly. “The woman who was here a little while ago—”

“Holly?” Peg's surprise was obvious.

“Yeah. Holly McCay. I've been hired by her in-laws to find her.”

Copyright © 2016 by Harlequin Books S.A.

ISBN-13: 9781488004964

Conard County Spy

Copyright © 2016 by Susan Civil Brown

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