Lie, Lie Again - Stacy Wise Page 0,17

have children. Shaking her head, she gripped Carson’s infant seat and walked into her apartment, reminding Kylie to keep quiet so they wouldn’t wake Daddy. He’d gotten home after three, which she hadn’t been expecting. Poor thing! It wasn’t uncommon for the bar to be booked for a special event, making it so he’d get home in the wee hours. He’d probably just forgotten to mention it to her. Heaven knows their lives were busy.

Sylvia sank into the seat of her car and blew out a breath. Sleep last night had been elusive. Her mind had been on babies—sweet little babies. She’d made a mental list of all the things she would need, and then she’d raked through lists of names when she knew she should’ve been counting sheep. It had all been so beautiful and exciting. Not stressful.

But seeing Embry looking positively haggard just now caused her enthusiasm to come to a startling halt. The woman was gorgeous, and she had a husband who adored her. A perfect life. What reason did she have to look so stressed? A clogged drain? Ha!

Well, it was entirely possible she had looked frazzled because she was a young mother, and her coping and management skills were still forming. There was no need to judge. True, Sylvia had finely tuned her coping skills years ago. Scraping through childhood had been a gift. It had taught her to be a survivor.

Perhaps Embry hadn’t known the tiniest bit of stress until now.

But was there another reason her enthusiasm had wilted?

Yes.

Her mind was adept at blocking and tackling unwanted thoughts, but they would eventually seep in, working like a vaccine, giving her only a small amount of the bad so she was fully equipped to attack it head-on.

As she backed out of her parking spot, she felt the prickling beneath the surface of her skin. Realization settled in. It pained her momentarily, but she was quick to turn on her intellectual switch. No need to have any sort of emotion about the thought that was now flushed out and fully formed: Hugh had lied to her last night.

About what? She wasn’t entirely certain. But she would get to the bottom of it. And she would either continue to reel him in or cut him loose. The father of her child would not be a pathetic liar. She refused to re-create the past for her future baby. Continuing onto the street, she reminded herself that Hugh was a simple man. A big, elaborate lie was beyond his skill set. But she was watching him.

At five o’clock sharp, Riki locked her classroom door. She lugged her tote to her car, knowing that it would most likely sit near her front door until Sunday. All she wanted to do tonight was curl up on the sofa with a bowl of cereal and fall asleep in front of the TV. But Chris had texted her during one of his many breaks, asking to see her tonight. She hadn’t responded yet, which was fine, because he knew she couldn’t use her phone while teaching. It was true she could’ve sent a quick text while her students had been at the library, but he wouldn’t know that. She wanted to see him, but she needed some time alone before mustering the energy to be social.

As she drove down Ocean Avenue, a smattering of drops landed on her windshield. Was that rain? She flicked on her wipers and let them swipe before turning them off. But suddenly water was slamming the windshield. She gripped the wheel tightly with one hand and turned the wipers to high with the other. After hearing all winter that they were supposed to be deluged by the “storm of the century,” they were getting a sudden downpour when it was almost spring.

She turned down the music and focused on the road ahead, anxious to get home, but she kept her foot light on the accelerator. The rain turned California drivers into maniacs. She could say this because she grew up here—she was one of them, but at least she was aware of it. The white Audi in front of her switched lanes, and she was now following a blue pickup truck. She licked her lips as she leaned forward over the steering wheel, anxious to see if the letters and numbers on the plate matched the ones stored in her memory. She hadn’t tried to memorize the sequence; it had just sort of happened. It was hard to