He laughed, then started through the door. “Whatever it takes.”
Between the refrigerator and the pantry, she had everything she needed for the brownies, almost as if she had gotten a craving for them before, bought the items, then didn’t make them. Maybe that would be her next ho-hum recollection.
Bailey measured, mixed and poured. Logan hadn’t lied to her. He hadn’t gone back to the pond to get the shoe. How could she have even suspected him of it? Billy Ray’s nonsense was getting to her. Bodies buried at Abbott Farm, indeed.
She shook her head, starting to hum again, the words tumbling through her head.
… Shatter every window …
Tony had gone back for his prize, reburied it, only to bring it to her today.
… ’til it’s all blown away …
Bailey poured the batter into the pan, then slid it into the oven and set the timer. She’d need toothpicks, she thought. And oven mitts.
The mitts were easy to find, the drawer directly to the right of the oven. She took the two red mitts from the drawer and tossed them on the counter. One slipped and landed on the floor by her feet.
She bent to retrieve it, then froze.
Two mitts. One for each hand.
Shoes. One for each foot. A right. And a left.
She shook the thought off, snatched up the mitt and laid it on top of the other. So what?
So, which one did Tony dig up? The right? The left?
Or both?
Stop it, she scolded herself. She was stealing her own happiness. It was masochistic. Obsessive-compulsive. She trusted Logan.
Bailey let out her breath in a huff. Easy fix. Look at the photo she’d taken the day Tony unearthed it.
She retrieved the phone, called up the photo. And swore.
She couldn’t tell. The light, the vegetation around it. She enlarged the image, turned it this way and that. If anything, she became less certain.
One shoe, two shoe, red shoe, blue— No, only red. Two red shoes. A pair.
… ’til it’s all blown away …
Bailey carried the device to the keeping room and sat. She studied the image, mentally going back to that day. She pictured herself unearthing it. Seeing it come into focus as she dug it free of the mud.
The smell of rain. And new growth.
A right shoe, she thought. Yes. A right shoe.
So, what did Tony bring them this morning? She pursed her lips in thought. She hadn’t really looked at it. Not that way.
Go out to the garage and look in the trash.
She acted on the thought. In the garage, Bailey grabbed gardening gloves from the workbench and some newspaper from the recycling bin. She laid the paper on the bench, then crossed to the trash barrel.
Logan had tossed the shoe out here—at least she assumed he had. She flipped up the lid. Her stomach lurched at the sour smell. She wrinkled her nose and prayed she didn’t puke again.
Bingo. There it was, lying right on top. Thankful for the gloves, she reached in, grabbed it and carried it to the bench.
But it wasn’t a right shoe. It was a left.
She stared at it, light-headed. Her memory was wrong. She pictured that day in her head once more. The shoe. Partially unearthing it, going for the stick, digging it the rest of the way out.
A right shoe.
She could easily be wrong. She’d been wet, out of her element, not looking at it analytically.
Time to remedy that. High heel, maybe two, two and a half inches. Pump with a peekaboo toe. Party shoes. The printing inside the shoe had worn—or eroded—off, but it looked to be about her size, a six. She removed her slip-on and set it beside the red pump. Close, she decided. Give or take a half size. Which meant its owner hadn’t been particularly tall.
The leather was cracked and peeling in places, the brand name unreadable, but for the most part it looked in pretty good shape for having been out in the elements, buried in the muck.
For how long? Five years? Three?
Could this have belonged to True?
“Hey, Bailey, what’re you doing?”
She jumped and spun around. “Paul! You scared the life out of me!”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re like a cat.” She brought a hand to her chest. “How do you do that?”
He smiled. “Years creeping around the barn, I guess. What do you have there?”
“Nothing.”
He cocked an eyebrow, amused. “Surely something.”
“Something I’m tossing.” She quickly rolled the paper around the shoe, then carried it back to the trash bin and dropped it in. If Paul saw the shoe and mentioned it to Logan, she would have to explain—something she wouldn’t be able to do without hurting his feelings.
“Why the gloves?”
“I was thinking about cutting some roses.” Not a complete lie; she had been—earlier in the day. “What are you doing up here? Logan’s not—”
“I know.” He slid his hands into his pockets. “He told me you might need some baking supplies, so I thought I’d check before I ran into town.”
“That’s so— Oh, no! The brownies!” She’d forgotten all about them. She yanked off the gloves, tossed them aside and hurried back to the kitchen. The steady beep, beep of the timer greeted her, but she didn’t smell burning. A very good sign.
She grabbed the oven mitts, removed the pan from the oven, then went searching for a toothpick to test them. She felt his gaze on her as she moved clumsily about the kitchen.
“You seem jumpy.”
She was, but she wasn’t about to admit it to him. Or why. “I haven’t done that much cooking in this kitchen yet, and I don’t know where anything—Here we go. Toothpicks.”
She inserted one; it came out clean and she smiled. “Saved in the nick of time.”
“They smell delicious.”
“Thanks to you.”
“Glad to have helped.”
“They’re my mom’s recipe, triple chocolate. You’ve got to try one.”
“Only if you insist.”
He had a disarming smile, she thought. Not sexy and mysterious like Logan’s. Paul’s oozed charm and likability. He was the quintessential boy-next-door.
“I do insist. Scoop of vanilla ice cream?”
“Or two.”
She laughed. “Now you’re talking.”
She fixed them both the same thing—giant brownie and two scoops of ice cream.
“Logan told me. I hope you don’t mind.”