In Too Deep

Chapter Two (Scene 1)

Not even two hours off the ferry and somehow Piper had ended up in Due South’s kitchen. Find your happy place.

She submerged her hands into the dishwater and searched through food scraps for the pot scrub hidden somewhere in the voluminous sink. It was a little like a fingertip search, when a weapon or some of piece of evidence the squad needed to retrieve lay at the bottom of a murky pond. Locating the rough sponge under the soaking roast pan, she hauled it from the depths.

“Got ya, ya little booger.” She wiped the sheen of sweat off her brow with her forearm.

“Finished yet?” Bill bustled past. “Some of us have plans later tonight.”

West’s father ran his domain here the same way he once would have as a New Zealand army chef, with rigid discipline and a lot of barked orders. Every item shone ship-shape in Bill’s kitchen—stainless countertops, fridge doors, and cookers. Not a speck of dust would dare land on one of his pots or assortment of utensils, which hung on precisely spaced hooks. Twice he’d returned a giant pot to her, wordlessly pointing at a miniscule trace of food left on the metal.

“Just about.” Piper injected a cheerful tone into the words, resisting the desire to strangle him with the kitchen towel draped over her shoulder.

She plunged her dish-glove covered hands back into the water and dragged out the pan, attacking the glued on scraps of meat with the pot scrub like she was, well, scrubbing off the smirk West had worn earlier.

Bill’s reaction hadn’t been much better. Not a conversationalist, Bill’s reticence suited her mood perfectly because she also had little to say to him. She knew where she stood with West’s father. The man was direct, if nothing else.

West, on the other hand…

Piper crinkled her nose. No more wasted thoughts on West tonight. All she wanted right now was to be horizontal, preferably with something soft under her aching feet. She grabbed the pan and rinsed it under the hot tap, setting it aside on the draining board.

The swing doors blew open and her mother, Glenna, swept into the kitchen, towing West by one arm in her wake. “There she is! There’s my girl!”

Glenna dismissed West with a wave of her peach-tipped nails and floated past the countertops, a wall of Chanel No. 5 preceding her.

“Hello, Mum.” Piper peeled off the dish-gloves and stepped into her embrace, watching West over her mother’s shoulder as he paused to talk to Bill.

He bared his teeth in a savage grin at something his father said and looked over.

“Piper, darling? Did you hear what I said?” Her mother pulled back, blocking West’s stare and forcing her to refocus.

“Ah, sorry, I missed that last bit.”

Glenna smoothed her cap of sleek auburn hair and sighed. “I said, ‘It’s wonderful to see you. How long are you planning to stay?’”

Aware of West and Bill standing across the room, Piper lowered her voice. “Mum, you know why I’m here, don’t you?”

 “Darling, I know nothing less than the catastrophic would bring you back to Oban.” Glenna gave her a thin-lipped smile. “Shaye told me you’d arrived when she rang earlier. I would’ve been down sooner, but guests—always wanting one thing or another.”

Piper glanced at her mother’s clasped hands. The gold Claddagh wedding ring mirrored the one her father always wore. She cleared her throat, swallowing the memories before they overwhelmed her. “None of us are willing to let you use the house to clear Ben’s debt—Ben’s especially adamant. So I’ve come to help for about six weeks until his ankle’s healed enough to skipper again. Dad wouldn’t have wanted you to risk your home to keep his dive business operating.”

“I’m grateful and very touched that you’d do this for your brother—stubborn as a mule though he is.” Glenna squeezed her hand, her fingers a cool, soothing balm on her flushed skin. “Have you arranged for somewhere to stay?”

“Oh. I thought I could sleep in Shaye’s old room.”

“Darling, I’m sorry. I turned it into another paying room a couple of months ago and right now it’s the busiest time of year for the B&B. I’m booked to the gills for the next two months.” Glenna shrugged a shoulder under her chiffon blouse. “If you’d rung to say you were coming...”

She hadn’t told anyone in Oban of her plans, because up until the plane had left the runway in Wellington and turned toward the southern city of Invercargill, she had half-convinced herself she’d chicken out and change her mind.

“It’s okay, Mum. I’ll bunk in Ben’s spare room, or with Shaye if she’s got space—”

Glenna shook her head before Piper finished speaking. “Ben’s rented his house out over the summer season to bring in some extra cash—he’s staying in West’s downstairs room. Shaye’s sharing a house with the new schoolteacher, Kezia, and Kezia’s little girl, and goodness, there’s barely room to swing a cat in their tiny place.”

She tapped one peach nail against her matching shade of lipstick and then clapped her hands. Piper respectfully resisted an eye roll. Her mum, ever the drama queen. “I’ve just thought of the perfect solution.”

She whirled around in a swirl of chiffon and Chanel. “West, dear? A word, please?”

Piper’s palms were damp, so she tucked them under her elbows.

Any idea, any perfect solution followed by West’s name, couldn’t turn out well.