The Piper

FOURTEEN




Normally, Olivia would have called Charlotte first thing to get the name of a plumber, she needed to find someone fast, but she wasn’t sure her sister-in-law was speaking to her right now. She was in her office, finding comfort in carbohydrates after five hours spent calling everyone on the client list to introduce herself and say hello. She and Teddy had stopped off at Panera’s for breakfast on the way to school, and Olivia had bought an apple pastry for her lunch.

There was precious little comfort to be had. There were a handful of clients who viewed a change in broker as traumatic as a divorce, and enough of them had such an unrealistic view of their investment portfolio that Olivia knew her predecessor had played them and made promises no broker could keep. Now the funds weren’t panning out, and she was going to take the blame.

The intercom alert dinged on Olivia’s computer.

Message from Robbie: Gentleman here to see you. Want me to blow him off or are you coming out of the cave? I know you didn’t want to be disturbed.

Message from Olivia: Name, Robbie? And ask him what he wants and if I can call him back.

A pause. Then:

Message from Robbie: He says he wants a brown eyed girl. Do you know this guy?

McTavish. Olivia fluffed her hair and thought about lipstick. She heard the voice before she’d slipped back into her shoes. He was singing as he thundered down the hallway. He would be, he’d serenaded her with ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ since the first time she’d turned him down for a date.

‘Hey, where did we go? Days when the rains came. Down in the hollow. Playing a new game.’

Olivia opened her office door and peered out into the hall.

He still had it. The presence. Barrel chested in the way of ex football players, thick brown blond hair waving just past his collar, mud green eyes. He wasn’t bad looking. But that wasn’t what turned heads. Maybe it was the boom of his voice, the way he loved to sing when he couldn’t carry a tune, or just the way that he engaged in the moment. When McTavish was smiling, you warmed at the fire.

Confidence, but not ego, not these days, and Olivia knew the secret – the high level of his intellect, the precision of his mind, cloaked by the crowd pleasing athlete, illegitimate, fatherless, everybody’s favorite son but no one to call dad. He and his mother shunned by their family because she had not gotten married, not had an abortion, not given up her child, just raised him, quietly, happily, right out in front of God and everybody, putting the lie to the pronouncements of doom.

The family had resisted the curly headed, chubby baby boy who would have toddled happily into their arms. By the time they were anxious to welcome the lauded football player, it had been too late – McTavish had been polite and distant, with everyone except Jamison. Jamison had been his hero, the cousin who loved him with the rough affection of a big brother until the accident, when their roles were cruelly reversed.

‘Brown eyed girl,’ McTavish said to Olivia, giving her that smile that always made you think he was up to something.

‘McTavish,’ Olivia said.

He opened his arms and folded Olivia into a hug that almost took her off her feet.

Olivia’s assistant, Robbie Arliss, followed down the hallway, and stared at McTavish as if she’d seen him somewhere before. She was tall and rangy, her look more Washington DC and political committees than Steel Magnolia. She’d let her fine soft hair go entirely white, and it aged her. Her face was tan, lined and thin, and she wore the kind of clothes favored by Republicans, right on down to the string of pink pearls. Olivia would bet money that she had a credit account at Talbot’s. She was just drifting away when she looked back again at McTavish, and put a hand to her mouth.

‘You’re Vince Modello.’ Robbie put her hands on her hips and actually smiled. ‘Vince Modello. Quarterback for UT.’

‘That was years ago, my dear. Today I’m just a lovesick fool.’

‘Stop it, McTavish,’ Olivia said. ‘He’s kidding, Robbie, he’s not lovesick. He’s married.’

McTavish shook his head at her. ‘No, ma’am, he’s divorced. How about you? What happened to that damn metrosexual from New York?’

‘San Diego. Hugh and I got divorced a year ago. I have a daughter—’

‘Named Teddy, and an old dog named Winston.’

‘Let me guess,’ Robbie said. ‘High school sweethearts?’

McTavish shook his head as Olivia pushed out of the hug. ‘We didn’t date until college, after I blew out my knee. Olivia wouldn’t go out with football players, no ma’am, she wasn’t into jocks. But back in high school, Livie and I had a deal. I wrote her theme papers for English class, and she helped me cheat the math exams.’

‘Until I found out he was having Annabelle McClintock do the work. He never wrote a single word. She lived to serve, like all the rest, but if she’d known those English papers were for me, she’d have fired your lazy southern ass.’

McTavish gave Olivia the sideways smile. ‘Still jealous after all these years?’

‘You wish, McTavish. This is Roberta Arliss, by the way. My office manager.’

‘Call me Robbie. I saw every game you played. Still never miss. My husband has box seats.’

Vince shook her hand gently, careful of fragile, bird sized bones. ‘You bleed orange then, just like me.’

‘So tell me, why does she call you McTavish?’

Olivia did not particularly like being called she. As if she were not standing in spitting distance of them both.

‘Only Livie calls me that, and don’t bother to ask her why, she won’t tell you.’

Robbie edged closer to McTavish, giving Olivia her back. ‘You know, Greg always said you should coach, after what happened to your knee.’

‘Only in my wildest dreams. I’m pretty happy with Knoxville PD.’ McTavish absently touched the back of his belt where Olivia suspected he holstered his gun.

‘Still homicide?’ Olivia said. Vince’s dreams of the military life had died with the knee, so he’d moved on to the next best fraternity of men.

He nodded. ‘We’ve had some bad ones here, Livie.’

‘I know. Charlotte told me.’

‘You be careful at the house. Crime rate around there is picking up.’

‘McTavish, I just moved here from LA.’

He grinned. ‘That’s a point. So, you got a minute, Livie? I’ve got that paperwork you asked for.’

‘I’m actually on my way over to pick Teddy up from school. She’s going to Bearden, can you believe it?’

‘Just like you and me.’ McTavish glanced at his watch. ‘How about I drive you over? That sound good?’

Olivia nodded, fighting the urge to throw herself into his arms and tell him it sounded better than good. McTavish magic. She would have to watch herself with this guy.