the Cyrillic letter etched in gold back inside her blouse. As much as steady nature and good sense felt like faint praise, she had to grin at Peggy’s on-the-money assessment of their family dynamic.
“You know, we’ll have to nail her shoes to the floor when we start painting the bedrooms. The fumes will go straight to her head and make her dizzy. Dizzier,” Brooke amended, eliciting a smile and reassuring Peggy that Louise’s remarks had no lasting effect on her ego. Brooke sipped her coffee and reached for one of the English muffins Peggy was toasting for breakfast. “I told her that I was going to hire someone specifically to do odd jobs like that around here. At lunch today I’m interviewing a man Mr. McCarthy recommended.” She thumbed over her shoulder toward the ceiling. “When we agreed to cut a few costs by completing the finish and landscaping work ourselves, I didn’t mean having either one of you hanging from the scaffolding or doing some other dangerous thing.”
“I’m already ahead of you, dear.” Peggy winked and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’ve let the weeds grow in my garden and we’ll have to turn up the soil before anyone can lay new sod, so I’ve got plenty lined up for her to do outside while you’re painting.”
Brooke winked back and reached across the island to squeeze Peggy’s hand. “You’re the real smart cookie of the bunch, aren’t you?”
Peggy turned her hand and squeezed back. “You can have Lou’s long arms and legs. My brains will get you further any day of the week.”
“I found it.” Louise beamed with the satisfaction of a fairy godmother admiring her magical handiwork when she returned. Urging Brooke to stand, she pinned a silver brooch with a lapis, turquoise and coral mosaic onto her lapel. “I got this on a trip to New Mexico when I was in college. A young gentleman classmate insisted I have it. There. That brightens things up. Smile for me.” As generous as she was honest, Louise cupped Brooke’s cheek and smiled back. “Now that, my dear, is your most beautiful asset.”
“Thanks.”
Lou twirled her finger into a tendril that curled over Brooke’s cheek and tucked it behind her ear. “Have you thought about one of those short, kicky hairstyles? Maybe some golden highlights?”
“You can’t tell I put in highlights?”
“Leave her alone,” Peggy reproved. “Brooke looks just fine.”
“Fine, sure.” Lou climbed onto the stool beside Brooke and doctored her coffee with a spoonful of sugar. “But what about sexy? Or hot? I mean, I was never drop-dead gorgeous, but I always knew how to work what I have.”
“Enough.” Blushing around her last bite of muffin, Brooke stood and checked her watch. Though she was in no danger of being late, she could only handle so much of her aunt playing Cinderella with Brooke in the title role. “Even if you dolled me up, I could never pull off hot. Besides, I’m going to work, not to some fancy ball to pick up a man.”
Lou cradled her mug between her hands, shaking her head. “All those men in uniforms and badges and she’s not trying to pick one up.”
“Lou…” Peggy warned. “Don’t put that kind of pressure on her. Brooke is just a late bloomer. When the right man comes along, he’ll see her real beauty.”
“Yes, but you know how dense men can be. It doesn’t hurt to help them find their way.”
Brooke’s blush heated her clear down to her toes now. Louise didn’t have a shy bone in her body—she’d never understood how it made Brooke’s perfectly intelligent brain seize up whenever she tried to break out of her shell and try to get a man she was attracted to to notice her.
Buying herself some time to gather her thoughts and slip her newly forged assertive armor back into place, Brooke picked up her purse from the card table that served as living-room furniture, and dug out a tube of copper-colored lip gloss. Only after she’d put her professional game face back in place did she loop her carryall bag over her shoulder and turn to Louise. “Tell you what. I’ll make a deal with you.” She pointed across the main room. “You stay off that ladder and I’ll make the effort to talk to… three…men today.”
“About something not work-related,” Lou qualified, setting down her mug and smiling with hope.
“Agreed.”
“Then you’ve got a deal.”
“You’re a hopeless romantic, Lou. But I love ya.” Brooke squeezed her aunt in a hug. She traded another hug with Peggy at the back door. “Love you, too.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll keep her out of trouble. You just concentrate on the new job and have a wonderful first day.”
“I will. See you tonight.”
Brooke crossed the sundeck that had yet to have a railing added, and bopped down the stairs at the opposite end. The sun was warm on her face as she crossed the yard to where her car was parked at the curb. The tall, broken grass packed into the dry dirt where Truman McCarthy and his construction crew drove their heavy equipment and supply trucks up to the house reminded her to start pricing carports. When winter hit, it’d be a bear to have to trek through the snow or shovel a path out to the street. And the historical value of the church’s turn-of-the-century exterior wouldn’t allow her to attach a modern garage.
But the remodeling notes were only a minor diversion from the real concern at hand as Brooke dug her keys from her purse. She’d made a promise to her aunt. Now she had to keep it. Talk to a man. Pick one up, if Louise had her way. It could happen. Right. Brooke nearly snorted, squelching her ironic laughter.
Think positive. Be positive. The new and slowly improving Brooke could do this. She just needed to break the task down into smaller, less-daunting goals, and not psych herself out over the bigger challenge of transforming into the social butterfly Aunt Lou believed she could be.
Three men. She could do that. “Hi” qualified as speaking to a man, didn’t it? “I’m Major Taylor’s new administrative assistant” could be an entire conversation at a busy office.
Sure, she’d love to have a man notice her for something more than her computer skills, to have him think she was something special. But she’d pick smaller battles, savor lesser victories, instead of setting herself up for failure. She wasn’t going to let Louise’s fairy-godmother fantasies make or break her day. Or her life.
She’d have plenty of interesting things to do at the Fourth Precinct, meeting coworkers and learning new routines. Plus, there was the work here at home. She had love in her life from her aunts and friends. She didn’t need Prince Charming to make her happy or make her feel complete.
Still, it wouldn’t hurt a girl’s ego to…
A subtle, external awareness seeped into Brooke’s thoughts, short-circuiting the endless debate. The sun was already bright in the cloudless sky, yet a chill slunk down her spine and she halted beside her car.
She slowly turned, seeking the source.
It was that same odd sensation she got watching a DVD by herself late at night, when she was reminded of how Alfred Hitchcock’s suspenseful timing combined with her ever-churning imagination could totally spook her. Only this wasn’t something she could turn off with the remote.
She zeroed in on a dented
