She guessed she would just have to wait and see.

“Excuse me,” a man said from the other side of the gas pumps.

He appeared in front of Emma suddenly, the elephant thunderheads in the sky haloing him as she looked up into his dark eyes.

Emma was standing beside her mother’s convertible, pumping gas for her while Ariel sat in the driver’s seat and checked her makeup in the rearview mirror. At the sound of his voice, Ariel turned. She smiled immediately and got out of the car.

“Hello there,” Ariel said, coming to stand beside Emma. They’d been out shopping again that day. Emma and Hunter John were going to Hilton Head for the weekend, just the two of them, then they were taking the boys to Disney World before school started. Ariel had insisted on buying Emma a new bikini, something Hunter John would like, and Emma went along because it was easier. But no matter what Ariel said now, Emma felt good about where she was with her husband. She didn’t blame her mother for her bad advice. Seduction always worked for Ariel, after all. But Ariel thought Clark women constantly needed to prove their abilities, even to strangers. Case in point: She saw a man talking to her daughter and had to get out of the car and lean forward so that her cleavage peeked out from her halter top, to prove she still had the touch.

The man was handsome and a little heavy. His smile was megawatt. He was good at whatever he did, that much was clear. He had that confidence. “Hello, ladies. I hope I’m not bothering you. I’m looking for someone. Maybe you can help me?”

“We can certainly try,” Ariel said.

“Does the name Cindy Watkins sound familiar?”

“Watkins,” Ariel repeated, then shook her head. “No, I’m afraid not.”

“This is Bascom, North Carolina, isn’t it?”

“You’ve got your toe just over the town limit, but yes. Down the highway. That way.”

He reached into the pocket of his very nice tailored jacket and brought out a small stack of photos. He handed Ariel the one on top. “Does this woman look familiar to you?”

Emma flipped the tab on the handle of the nozzle to keep it pumping, then leaned over to look at the photo with her mother. It was a black and white of a woman standing outside what looked like the Alamo. She was holding a sign that said, very clearly, she didn’t care at all for North Carolina. Judging by the style of her clothes, it was taken more than thirty years ago.

“No, sorry,” Ariel said, and started to hand it back to him before suddenly looking at it again. “Wait. You know, this might be Lorelei Waverley.”

Emma looked more closely at the photo. Yes, it did look like her.