Free The Coldwater Warm Hearts Club by Lexi Eddings Page B

She couldn’t imagine Deek caring enough about another germy-handed human to indulge in gossip, and matronly Marjorie wasn’t the sort who would stoop to it unless it was in conjunction with the prayer chain.
    â€œI heard a rumor about why she left him. It explains why he’s moving out of the house, too.”
    No names were mentioned, but Lacy wondered if they were talking about Daniel and his wife. He hadn’t said anything about moving when he’d stopped by her place. She quit trying to straighten her desktop and pushed her chair closer to the beige cubical wall so she wouldn’t miss anything.
    Hey! I’m sort of a journalist. We’re supposed to be nosy.
    â€œI heard he lost the house in a poker game.”
    â€œNooo.”
    â€œI wouldn’t bet against it.”
    One of the pair—Lacy couldn’t say which for certain—tittered over the lame wordplay. If Lacy were a gambler, her money would be on Georgina as the giggler. Upon hearing the laughter, Wanda, sensing not everyone’s nose was being ground to nubbins on their grindstones, burst out of her office like an avenging angel.
    â€œAm I the only one around here with a deadline?” she bellowed. “Back to work.”
    Lacy tried to focus on her desk again. Surely the gossips were wrong. She’d never known Daniel to gamble. Heck, he never even bought a lottery ticket. He was the poster boy for the straight-arrow type.
    Or at least he had been.
    People change.
    â€œThank you for that update, Jake Tyler. Now get out of my head,” she muttered under her breath.
    Her cell phone rang. It was her friend Shannon Keane from back in Beantown.
    â€œAre you OK, Lacy?” she asked, concern making her Boston accent even thicker than usual. There was no trace of the r sound in her “are” at all. “There really is a place called Coldwater Cove?”
    â€œYeah, and it’s really in Oklahoma. You know. One of those I and O states. I haven’t fallen into some giant mid-continental sinkhole,” Lacy said with a laugh. A soft one. She didn’t want Wanda popping out of her office like a deranged jack-in-the-box again.
    They talked about everything and nothing for a few minutes, and then Shannon got to the meat of her call.
    â€œDeputy DA Hopkins came by today asking if I knew how to get in touch with you.”
    Lacy had changed her cell number and carrier before she’d left Boston in case someone decided to trace her with the old one. Only Shannon had her new number. “Hopkins? Doesn’t ring a bell. Why did he want to talk to me?”
    â€œHe wouldn’t say. I hope it means Belize is shipping back that waste-of-skin Bradford Endicott.”
    â€œI won’t hold my breath.”
    â€œYou better, girlfriend. Even though you did what you could to make restitution, there are still people around here who are mad enough to want someone convicted—deal or no deal. I hear Bradford’s family is putting pressure on the DA to take the heat off their precious little scoundrel so he can come home without a warrant hanging over his head.”
    Lacy glanced out her window in time to see Jake entering Secondhand Junk-shun, bearing a taped-up cardboard box. Her conscience pricked her. He’d been nice enough to bring her supper and she’d practically thrown him out on his ear. It didn’t matter how stressed-out she was—she was better than that.
    â€œDid you hear me, Lacy?”
    Shannon’s voice made her jerk the phone back to her ear. “Yeah. No one named Hopkins was assigned to my case. Or Bradford’s.”
    â€œWell, anyway, I told him I didn’t know how to reach you,” Shannon said. “Hey, you should be proud of me. I’m not even using my own phone to call you now.”
    â€œGood.” Her dad’s suggestion that Bradford might have fallen afoul of the Irish mob had stuck with her. “I’ll wire you