“Is he married?” Jack asked. “Kids?”
“His wife is the pregnant one over there.” She jutted her chin in the direction of a blonde woman with a large belly sitting in a lawn chair by the fire with two small kids. They all had plates of food in front of them. She was chatting with some other women close by, interspersing her conversation with admonitions to the kids not to spill, or to sit back down.
“What about you?” she asked. “Siblings?”
Jack eyed her.
“Tit for tat,” she said with a small smile.
He smiled grudgingly. “Fine. Yes, I have two brothers. One is married with kids. They’re in Denver.” He’d been closer with his cousin Berto, though. They’d grown up together and had been closer in age.
“So you’re Uncle Jack.”
“I’m Uncle Jack. I’m good for cash on birthdays and rides in my cruiser. Those kids take way too much pleasure in the back of a squad car.”
Liv laughed, her eyes sparkling as she dished herself up some potato salad. “For you?” He held out his plate, and she gave him a spoonful. “Avoid the jelly salad. I don’t know what Bernice does to it, but it’s always off.”
Jack took her advice, looking up to see a thin woman in her early sixties approaching with a platter of fresh ribs.
“This is my aunt Marie,” Liv said. “Marie, this is Jack.”
“So you’re...a boyfriend, we assume?” Marie asked with a tight smile. This would be one who didn’t approve, apparently.
“That’s me,” Jack said. “Nice to meet you.”
“How long have you been together, exactly?” Marie turned her attention to Liv. “You’ve never once mentioned this man.”
“Eleven months,” Liv replied. She took some ribs onto her plate, and Jack followed suit. The food did look delicious. Marie’s gaze followed the food to Liv’s plate, then stayed fixed there, her lips pursed. Liv regarded her aunt for a moment, then handed her plate to Jack. “Hold this, would you?”
She licked off her fingers and then pulled her purse off her shoulder and started to rummage through it.
“It’s so nice that Liv has met someone,” Marie said, shooting Jack a smile. “What do you do?”
“I’m a cop. I just transferred to Eagle’s Rest,” Jack replied.
“And before this...?”
“I was in Denver.”
“Oh...” Marie looked at Liv, her eyes widening. He could see what was happening here, the subtle undermining of Liv’s fake good fortune. Every family had an aunt like this, and apparently, Marie was the Hyltons’.
“And yes, I know her ex-husband,” Jack said. This was the good part of them having some shared history—if word got back to Evan, it wouldn’t be inconceivable.
“Hmm.” Marie glanced down at Liv’s plate again, then said, “Dear, that potato salad has full-fat mayonnaise. Just thought I’d let you know.”
At that moment, Liv pulled a sheaf of papers out of her purse and handed them to the older woman.
“For you, Auntie,” she said with a bright smile. “I promised to print off those articles, remember?”
Marie swallowed, licked her lips and then thrust the papers back toward Liv. “I don’t need this.”
“They’re for you, anyway.” Liv winked, then took her plate back from Jack.
What was on those papers? Could Marie be involved, too? Jack and Liv walked together away from the table, against the tide of people moving in for fresh ribs.
“Sorry, that was kind of passive-aggressive,” Liv said as her aunt marched off. “She’s been hounding me about my weight, so I printed off some articles on dementia.”
Jack laughed softly. “You don’t say.”
“It’s better than stewing about it for the next month. One of us was going to walk away from this barbecue angry, and I was tired of it being me.”
Jack grinned and shook his head. She had spunk under all that sweetness, and some edge, too. Edge enough to be dangerous, he noted. Liv wasn’t the kind of woman who went down without a fight, and all the while, she was capable of a stunning, heart-stopping smile.
She was a wicked combination.
LIV TOOK A bite of the tangy potato salad and heaved a sigh of contentment. Marie, for all her faults, was a great cook. Her potato salad not only had full-fat mayonnaise, but she added a dab of Dijon mustard and diced pickles for flavor, and a bacon crumble on top. Not bacon bits from a plastic shaker, but actual fried, crumbled strips of bacon. If Marie was so concerned about calories, she only had herself to blame.
Liv watched as Jack took his first bite.
“Man, this is good,” he said.
She smiled. “Marie makes this potato salad for every family gathering, but she never eats a bite. Such a waste, in my humble opinion.”
“For sure.” Jack took another large bite. “Mmm. Wow. So—” He glanced around, swallowing. “Anyone here who might have a bit of a grudge? Or a connection to your ex?”
“A connection?” Liv shrugged. “Every last one of them. He was part of the family.”
Jack was eyeing her with an odd directness, and when she met his gaze, he turned his attention to his plate and took another bite.
“You’re convinced this is Evan,” she clarified after a moment of silence.
“Call it a hunch.”
“I don’t believe you,” she retorted. “What’s this based on?”
“I don’t like him.” A small smile turned up the corners of Jack’s mouth, and for just a moment, his eyes glittered with humor.
Liv chuckled. “That’s it?”
“He’s cocky, and he doesn’t seem to have the same guilt mechanism the rest of us have,” Jack replied. “Do you have a better guess?”
Liv shook her head slowly, doubt creeping into her mind. “No.”
Could it be Evan? It didn’t seem right. He had no reason to bother her. He had what he wanted in Officer Hot Pants. Jack knew more than he was letting on—she was willing to bet on it. Still, the memory of those photos in the box gave her an involuntary shiver. Whoever was threatening her—be it Evan or someone else—she wanted to know who and why. The mystery only made it feel more daunting than it probably was.
Or was she only trying to convince herself of that? At the very least, if she had someone in her life with a weird grudge against her, it was probably better to know.
Across the grass, Liv’s cousin Tanya was taking a photo of Aunt Beth and Uncle Herb in the low late-afternoon sunlight. The couple leaned in toward each other and smiled brightly. The flash went off, Tanya looked at the screen on the back of the camera and the older couple came in to have a look, too. Then they scooted back to their previous position, smiled again—a little less brightly this time—and lowered their chins. The flash went off, and they came around to look at the screen again.
“So...” A voice hummed at Liv’s shoulder, and she turned to see her uncle Gerard. He still looked the part of the drill sergeant, even in shorts and a T-shirt.
“Hi,” Liv said with a smile. “How are you?”
“Fine.