went to college?” she asked.
He closed his eyes. “I was waiting for you.”
She tried to smile, but her mouth trembled a little. “I think I see a pattern here, Will Palmer.”
He laughed, tipping her chin with his knuckle. “Damn, life coach, you’re good.”
“Only if you break your pattern, Will.”
“Yeah. Well, I intend to.” The low, sweet promise in his voice reached right into her chest and squeezed her heart.
Chapter Thirteen
Guy slapped the jack of spades on the table and gave Zoe the dearest look she’d seen in—well, since she’d left her great-aunt in Flagstaff, Arizona.
“You old coot,” she said, dropping her remaining card on the pile and shaking her head. “You beat the pants off me in Egyptian Rat Screws. That is not easy to do.”
“I’m really good at cards,” he said, fighting a smug smile.
She leaned on one elbow and pointed at him. “You like older women?”
“I might be dumb but I’m not blind, Blondie. You’re not older than me.”
“Not me.” She laughed, waving her hand. “My great-aunt. She’s pretty hot for eighty… ish. How old are you?”
He angled his head, thinking. “I don’t have a clue.”
She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, he was so damn sweet. “Well, you’re not her age, I can assure you of that. I’ll go with sixty-five. Still, you’d like Pasha.”
“Who’s Pasha?”
“My hot great-aunt who is, I might add, almost as good as you at the game I just taught you an hour ago.” She marveled at that; for a man suffering from Alzheimer’s, there were still a few sharp cells at work up there.
The doorbell rang and his eyes widened. “Who’s that?”
She pushed up. “No way to know until I answer it. But I hope to hell it’s a reporter.”
“Why?”
She grinned. “So I can channel my inner Meryl Streep.” She peeked through the window in the door and smiled. “They’re back,” she called out. “Stay in the kitchen, Pops. I’ll handle this. Oh!” She turned to him. “What’s your real name? Is Guy short for something?”
“Alexander.” Then he gasped. “Where the heck did that come from?”
She laughed. “Your memory, smarty-pants. Now stay there.” She shook her hair and arms, took a deep breath, and opened the door. “Yes?”
The little bald eagle stepped forward. “We’re looking for Mr. Bloom. For his daughter, actually.”
“Daughter-in-law,” she said. “You found her.”
He frowned. “His daughter, Jocelyn Bloom.”
She let out a full-body put-upon sigh, leaning on the doorjamb and shaking her head. “When are you nitwits going to get it through your head? This is not the man you want, no Jocelyn Bloom lives here, and anything you’re reading in the paper is not true.”
None of that was, technically, a lie.
Baldie wasn’t buying. “We have proof that this is the childhood home of Jocelyn Bloom who lived here with her parents, Guy and Mary Jo.” He lifted up an official-looking paper, and Zoe curled her lip.
“They did live here, like, eons ago. This is the home of Mr. Alexander.”
Again, not a lie. But distrusting eyes narrowed at her; he was no doubt familiar with the runaround. “Where’s Jocelyn?”
“Beats me, but you guys are barking up the wrong address.”
“She used to live here.”
Zoe leaned forward and flicked a finger at the paper he held. “Your info is wrong. Buzz off and don’t come back or you’ll be facing the sheriff himself. We’re sick of you all.”
“There’ve been other reporters?” A note of worry cracked his voice.
“A few. They’re gone, and so are you.”
She closed the door and instantly another white card slipped through the mailbox hole. Zoe ripped it into tiny pieces and shoved it right back out.
“That ought to keep the creeps at bay for a while,” she said, brushing her hands like she was good and finished and heading back to the living room, where Guy was shuffling the deck for the next game.
“What’s she look like?” he asked.
“Oh, it was a he. Bald and ugly.”
He grinned. “I meant your aunt.”
“Great-aunt. And, trust me, she is—great, I mean.” Zoe dropped onto the sofa across from Guy, giving him raised eyebrows. “So you do like older women?”
“I figure if she’s anything like you, yeah.”
“Aw, you sweet thing.” She started collecting her cards as he dealt slowly and with great precision. “She’s funkalicious for an octogenarian.”
He laughed. “I don’t know what that means, but I think I like it.”
“It means she spikes her gray hair, has too many earrings, and has a weakness for beer.”
“At eighty?”
She shrugged. “Youth is wasted on the young, you know.”
“I’d like to meet