Page 49 of Married at Midnight

James shrugged. “Who really knows what she wanted for herself? We’ll never know now that the two of you ran off together instead. But she was very good at her job.”

“She’s still good at her job,” Connor acknowledged, his chest tight as he remembered Ellie painting the walls, prepping for the decorating to come over the next few weeks.

“Glad you appreciate her many skills,” James said as his line drew tight. He set the hook and started to draw yet another fish from the river.

While he and James talked, most of the other fishermen had moved downstream, claiming the noise was disturbing the fish. But James’s booming voice didn’t seem to bother the late-season river coho that bit at the man’s trade-secret “pinkies.”

James had already caught five fish in less than an hour. Instead of touting his success, he released each fish back into the wild, thanking the animal for a good time.

Connor had yet to catch a thing with the deadly hooks, except his own skin.

“Watch how you’re casting there, son,” James said with a rare frown. “Maybe you’ll understand if I explain it in car terms, since you definitely understand cars.”

Ellie’s father held his fishing rod before him, loosening the line. “Your back cast is like starting the car. You can’t drive if the car isn’t started. The front cast is the journey. Let the line go, and the fly will do the rest.”

Connor tried to whip the fishing line across the water, from back to front, but ended up catching the sharp hook on his head instead. “Not again,” Connor groaned as pain zinged across his skull.

James laughed as he came to Connor’s rescue. He plucked the hook from Connor’s skin, inspected the fly, then tossed it back into the water, clearing the blood. “Use your forearm and a straight line, son, or my daughter might not like the bloody mess we bring home.”

Concentrating, Connor tried to cast again. This time he slipped on a rock as he released the line. He caught himself, but couldn’t hold back the rush of frigid water into his boots.

He sucked in a breath as shivers racked his spine. Ellie could be a bloody mess herself after her day alone with Viola. Perhaps the two of them could compare their wounds when they both returned home tonight.

If he returned home, Connor amended, in anything but a body bag.

Right at noon, as requested, Ellie stepped off the hospital elevator and made her way to Viola’s room. Outside the door she stopped. She heard men’s voices coming from inside. She couldn’t make out the words. Was Connor’s father visiting? The two of them had met only briefly on the night they flew home from Las Vegas. Connor had made no effort in the past week to bring them together.

Putting on her best smile, she stepped into the room and gasped. She’d been expecting Clark Grayson, but four men stood like sentinels around Viola’s bed.

In the middle of them, Viola sat up, smiling. A hint of a blush tinted her cheeks pink. She looked happy and much improved from a week ago.

Ellie knocked at the door before stepping inside. “Hello, Viola,” she said cheerfully. “If you’d like me to come back—” Her words died as all four men turned her way. She didn’t know them, and yet she did. Without their Elvis garb they looked like average seventy-year-old males. Yet they weren’t.

“Allow me to introduce you to some old friends of mine,” Viola said, her cheeks returning to their normal color. “This is Lenny, George, Ernie, and Aaron.”

They looked different than they had in Las Vegas, definitely older without black wigs covering their balding heads. “You’re the Elvises Connor and I met in Las Vegas.” Cautiously, she approached and stopped beside Aaron. “How do you know Viola?”

Aaron turned to Viola with a question in his eyes.

Viola settled back against the elevated bed. “We used to have a singing act together in Las Vegas a long time ago.”

Ellie’s eyes went wide. “The dresses we found at Grayson House . . .”

Viola smiled. “You found those, did you? Those were the costumes I wore when we performed in all the best lounges back in the late 1950s.”

“We were quite an act,” Ernie added with a hesitant smile.

“We were quite an act, and so much more,” Viola said without taking her gaze from Ellie’s.

Viola turned to the man Ellie knew as Gold Elvis. “Ernie was the quiet backbone of our group. He might be shy, but he was also the optimist when things looked darkest.”

George nodded. “That’s the truth. Especially after you left us, Viola. Ernie was the glue that kept us together.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” she said, turning to White Elvis. “George was the lighthearted spirit of our little group.”

“As opposed to my foul moods,” Lenny countered.

Viola laughed at Red Elvis. “No, Lenny. You are the wise one. It was because of you that we got our start.” Turning to Ellie, she said, “Lenny had connections in the industry that led to our first gig. Once we performed our first night, the rest was history.”