Free Holly Grove Homecoming by Carolynn Carey Page B

dad’s side? Any cousins there?”
    “Not a one. Dad was an only child.”
    “What a shock it must have been for him, marrying into a family as large as your mother’s. I believe Myrna said there were eighteen children in your mother’s family.”
    “Right. Myrna was the youngest and my mom was the next youngest girl. Fortunately, Dad fit in just fine with Mom’s family. Myrna has always told me that she came to love Dad like he was her brother.”
    Carly put a top on her sandwich, cut it in two, and carried her plate to the table where she sat down across from Trooper. “Any idea how long you’ll be staying in Holly Grove?” she asked.
    “Not really,” he said with a smile that appeared forced. “The Bureau says I should take some time off, not only to recover physically from my wound but also to come to terms with what happened. No one seems to know how long that should take, including me.”
    Carly swallowed hurriedly. She’d just been making conversation, not trying to probe a sore spot. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dredge up an unpleasant memory for you.”
    He lifted his right shoulder, then dropped it. “No problem. The shrinks say I should talk about it when I’m comfortable doing so. Of course I haven’t thought about much of anything else since that day.”
    He looked down at his glass and tightened his fingers around it. Carly moistened her lips. She wanted so much to say the right thing to him, whatever the right thing might be. Should she encourage him to keep talking? Was it better for him to talk to someone like her, who was nearly a stranger, as opposed to a family member or a doctor?
    “I don’t know what to say,” Carly admitted. “I don’t mind listening if you want to talk, but I don’t mind changing the subject if that’s your preference.”
    He looked up and smiled. “You’re a nice person, Carly Morrison.”
    She smiled back. “Thanks. Does that mean we’re changing the subject?”
    “I guess it does. Why don’t we talk about you? You said you were immersed in your writing earlier today. How’s that coming?”
    She felt blood rushing to her face. She was such a bad damn liar. “Okay.”
    “So tell me a little about your research. Are you delving more deeply into the lives of your subjects in order to try to interpret their writings in ways that don’t deal with domesticity?”
    “No, not at the moment.” She tried to smile but suspected she resembled someone who’d gone overboard with Botox shots. “I’m more into the writing.”
    “You must really be into the writing if you’re so immersed that you didn’t realize you’d skipped lunch.” He looked deep into her eyes as though to hold her gaze against her will. Was this a tactic that agents used to deal with offenders?
    She certainly felt like an offender at the moment, one who was in too deep with no way out. What did he suspect? What did he know? And if he didn’t know who she was, wouldn’t he be able to call some pal in the FBI and find out all her secrets in a matter of hours?
    Better to fess up on her own, she decided. “Have you ever heard of Marcie Malone?”
    His widened eyes and his sudden air of alertness told her that she’d surprised him.
    “Marcie Malone, the writer?”
    “Obviously you’ve heard of her.”
    “Well, I see her books listed on best seller lists and displayed prominently in bookstores, so it would be hard not to have heard of her. I’ve never read any of her books though. Why?”
    “I’m Marcie Malone.”
    He didn’t react to that news, not visibly anyway. He just stared at her for a few seconds. “Does anyone else in town know?”
    “No.”
    “Then why are you telling me?”
    “Because you were just suspicious enough to look into my background. And while I’ve tried to keep my pseudonym quiet, I’ve never attempted to hide it so that an investigation wouldn’t make the connection in a short time.”
    His eyes narrowed slightly. So slightly that if she