Blue Skies Read Free Page B

that secretary of Drake’s. Mona? She was all pissed that you and the kids weren’t here.” Dixie shook her head. “She’s one black-hearted bitch.” For Dixie to give a review that bleak was saying something. This sweet Texas beauty queen’s greatest failing was not seeing the worst in people soon enough. Mostly men.
    â€œA very unpleasant woman,” Carlisle agreed, shaking his head. He stood up and stretched. “She completely ruined a perfectly nice funeral.”
    Buck’s shoulders shook. He draped an arm around Carlisle. “Come on, cupcake. Let’s see if old Drake left any decent whiskey in the liquor cabinet.”
    While the men went to the wet bar in the family room, Dixie followed Nikki to the kitchen to find the kids and Drake’s housekeeper, Lydia. April and Jared sat at the kitchen table while Lydia fluttered around them, serving them sandwiches, drinks of soda, chips and cookies, all the while patting their heads affectionately and cooing to them in Spanish.
    â€œHave you figured out what I owe you, Lydia?” Nikki asked.
    Immediately a troubled expression clouded the woman’s tanned and crinkled face, and she seemed to be wringing her hands on the dish towel she held. “Miss Nikki, Mr. Drake got a little behind for me.”
    â€œThat’s okay, Lydia. Just tell me how much.”
    The housekeeper moved closer to Nikki but didn’tmake eye contact. She simply gazed down at the floor and whispered, “Twenty-five hundred.”
    â€œTwenty-five hundred?” Nikki replied in a near shout. Hoping it was pesos, she asked, “Dollars?”
    The kids looked up from their food. Dixie clapped a hand over her heart. Buck and Carlisle entered the kitchen with a bottle of Scotch just in time to hear. Lydia actually flushed in embarrassment and began to fan her face.
    â€œ Sí. It was in dollars.”
    â€œHow long has he been behind?”
    â€œHe say when the tax return come, but then—” That was all she could seem to get out.
    â€œOh, brother. I’m surprised you kept coming back.”
    â€œSometimes he pay me,” she said. She went to the laundry room on the other side of the kitchen where her purse and sweater hung on a hook. She got them both, then took a notebook from her purse and passed it to Nikki. “I keep track,” she said.
    Nikki ruffled the pages briefly. It was clear the woman had documented her earnings carefully. She was telling the truth. It looked as though Lydia worked for several families, and if she hadn’t, she might have starved to death. Nikki handed back the small spiral notebook. “I’ll get my checkbook,” she said with resignation.
    A little while later, Lydia left with her check and a promise from Nikki that she would be called to help with cleaning again once they got their bearings.
    Drake had let himself get twenty-five hundred dollars behind in paying a Mexican woman of simple means whose entire family struggled to get by? What was he thinking? Did he have no consideration?
    â€œYou can repay yourself when the will is settled,” Dixie suggested.
    But something in the pit of Nikki’s stomach tensed. Could there be a reason other than greed that Drake had not paid her? Could he have had, as April would say, financial issues? But why borrow trouble? She was seeing the lawyer the next day.
    â€œIce,” she said, indicating the bottle Buck held. “We need some glasses and some ice. Right away.”
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    The lawyer who handled Drake’s will had also handled his divorce, and Nikki found it hard to be in the same room with him.
    â€œYou’re not technically family,” Richard Studbeck said in lieu of hello.
    What a cold bastard. “I’m technically the parent of the minor children who will be represented in the will. Besides an estranged sister, they’re his only family, as far as I know.”
    â€œHave a seat.”