Based out of Houston, Hawk wasn’t a native Texan but he’d learned early how to adopt the local lingo and attitude. He was a chameleon, his wife had always told him. A man who could fit in and adapt to any situation.
All but one situation, Hawk knew. Losing her wasn’t something a man adapted to. And widower was a suit that even after four years refused to fit.
His waitress picked up the check. “I’ll get you some change.”
“None needed.”
The woman’s eyes lit up at that, brighter than when she was flirting, and Hawk figured he’d best get to his plans for the day. There was no way Patty Sue was keeping her morning conversation with the stranger who’d rolled into Shadow Creek quiet for long.
He headed out of the diner and walked down Main Street. His B&B was at one end of town but it hadn’t taken him more than a few minutes to traverse the town square to reach the diner and, by his calculations, it would be about two more minutes to arrive at his final destination. The Honeysuckle Road boutique.
All the work of the past few months led straight to that front door.
Although he prided himself on being a good PI, Hawk had found his calling working cold cases. To give a family closure—something he’d never been fortunate enough to receive—had gone a long way toward making Jennifer’s death a situation he could live with.
Nothing could erase her memory and no case could bring her back, but if he could give other families the blessed relief that came from knowledge, he could take some solace from the endless questions that still filled his own mind.
“Honeysuckle Road.” He whispered the words as he walked toward the small storefront. Two large windows flanked the front door, but unlike the other businesses that lined Main Street, from the diner, to the drugstore, to a feed store that looked to do a brisk business, these windows were full of vibrant jewel tones and items that screamed “haven for women.”
He might have only been married for three years, but he’d dated Jennifer for two before that and had grown up with two sisters. Women loved color and shape and texture and design and if he wasn’t mistaken, Honeysuckle Road offered all those things and a little something else.
A big, warm welcome that said everyone belonged.
While Patty Sue might have been a bit hesitant to speak about Livia Colton in anything but a hushed whisper, she’d been practically gleeful as she described the new boutique opened by Livia’s daughter Claudia.
A bona fide New Yorker, Patty Sue had said reverently as she described Claudia, who’d left Shadow Creek to go to fashion school in Manhattan. The woman knew how to design clothes, match accessories and put together an outfit any woman would be proud to wear. But the clincher, to Hawk’s mind, was Patty Sue’s description of Claudia’s designs. Claudia Colton made clothes for real women.
Hawk had no idea at the time what that could possibly mean, but now as he looked at the clothing in the window, he suspected it had something to do with a palette of designs that fit women of all shapes and sizes.
And as a man who appreciated women in all shapes and sizes, Hawk decided to like Claudia Colton on the spot.
Pushing through the door, he let his eyes accustom to the darker interior, lit by a wall of soft lights that gave the boutique a warm glow.
He should feel awkward. Or at least ready to turn in his man card, but somehow he felt neither of those things. Instead, all he had was a deep-seated curiosity of how a person could make a room feel so simple yet so rich at the same time.
Since taking this case and narrowing in on the daughter of Livia Colton, Hawk had imagined a cold, calculating woman, much in the same vein as her mother. But the deep colors and rich fabrics and warm, welcoming environment flew in the face of all that.
A pretty, petite woman came out from behind the counter. He got a sense of competence and feminine grace, along with a subtle curiosity as to what he was doing in a fashion boutique at ten in the morning. “You look lost.”
Funny words since he’d felt lost for the past four years. Lost until this case involving Claudia Colton had fallen right into his lap.
The mystery—a child stolen from her birth mother over a quarter century ago—had gripped him for some reason. Those icy fingers of awareness that always ran up and down his spine when he caught a case that moved him had been in full evidence with this one, yet there’d been something more.
Maybe it was the awareness he and Jennifer had been cheated out of their own family and happy-ever-after. Or maybe it was the feeling that she was pushing him toward this case.
He’d always loved the mystery of a cold case, but mystery had turned to mission when he lost his wife. If he was able to help others find answers, in some small way he believed it helped find one for Jennifer, too.
“Sir?” The woman came out from behind the main counter, her smile gentle. “Can I help you?”
“I’m sorry. Good morning, ma’am. And yes, I think you just might be able to.”
“What can I do, then?”
“I’d like to speak with Claudia Colton.”
Raw curiosity replaced the gentle smile, but she asked no further questions. Instead, she simply nodded. “I’ll just go get her.”
* * *
Claudia reached for the cup of coffee Evelyn had brought in earlier, surprised to realize it had gone cold as she’d once again wrapped herself up in Maggie’s dress. The bustle was coming along nicely, the hidden hooks she’d begun to sew in matching to the precise places she’d pinned up earlier.
Standing, Claudia scrutinized the lines of the dress and the way the gathered material arced into precise folds, neatly pulled up in those small hooks. She hadn’t designed many wedding gowns all the way to completion, but had always loved the process of sketching out all the different ways a woman could attire herself to walk down the aisle. Maggie’s trust in her was both humbling and satisfying, but it was actually seeing the design come to life before her eyes that gave her a strong sense of pride.
Mac had been the one to suggest New York first. He knew her love of fashion and had freely indulged her madness for magazine subscriptions and sketch pads. But it had been the sewing machine he’d bought her shortly after she’d moved into his home that had clinched it.
A fashion mind needs to go where the fashion-minded are, he’d said to her. Just before he pulled one of the thick warm blankets that perpetually lay over the family room couch off the large box that housed her Singer Studio model. The machine had brought endless hours of bliss and madness, frustration and a special sort of creative delight that nothing else in life could quite compare to. She and her Singer were one, the machine an extension of her vision and her dreams.
And Mac had understood that, better than anyone else she’d ever met.
She tossed a fond glance toward the machine’s place of honor in her workroom, right near the window that flooded her studio with light. The best gift she’d ever received.
The knock had her glancing up, breaking through the weight of memories that had seemed to haunt her all morning.
