Before We Were Strangers

by Brenda Novak

  She covered her face as she tried to absorb the implications of what she’d been told, which were even worse than what she’d expected. Who was her father? Did she even know him? She’d inherited his genetic material, which made her feel as though she might be tainted.

  “I’m sorry.” Micah took her hands. “This can’t be easy to hear, no matter how estranged you are from your father.”

  Tears welled up. “Can he be the same person who took me and my brother to Disneyland that time? Who took us to the cabin in the summer? Who drove us to the doctor when we were sick, bought my dress for prom, attended my high school graduation? Granted, if he took us anywhere, he didn’t seem particularly interested. He spent most of the time on the phone or brought a woman along to watch us and entertain him. But everyone has faults. At least he did some nice things. Do murderers take their kids to a cabin during the summer? Or Disneyland?”

  “Some murderers are very good at compartmentalizing, Sloane. They honestly believe the victim is at fault for provoking them, or whatever. Anyway, no one is all bad.”

  The warmth of his touch acted like an inoculation. She could feel his strength traveling up her arms, bolstering her spirits. “But I don’t understand why this is such a surprise. Why didn’t I know my father was under suspicion for a triple homicide that occurred even before my mother went missing?”

  His thumb moved soothingly over her fingers. “The answer would be timing and location. It’s been thirty-five years since that event, so the case has been cold since forever. And your father was never the primary suspect. He was at university, miles away with plenty of people to corroborate his location, when the shooting occurred. His youth, close connection to the family and airtight alibi made him an unlikely suspect, so no one ever pointed a finger in his direction. Can you imagine accusing someone of such a horrendous crime when they have just lost their family? You couldn’t do that, not without irrefutable evidence. Because of the delicacy of the situation, the detective who had the case was very careful about broadcasting his suspicions. He couldn’t afford to be wrong. It would cause the whole department to look bad. Plus, you didn’t know your father was a suspect because the killings occurred outside our area. No one could prove your father was involved. They’ve found no forensic evidence in all the years since.”

  Her mind was busy playing back various snippets of the night her mother went missing, the morning after, the things she heard her father say about her mother over the years, the many times he talked as though he’d been the perfect husband and Clara had been the one to let him down. He twisted everything, always. “My father is so cunning.”

  “That’s true whether he’s innocent or guilty. Just the way he’s reacted to having you back in town has proven that. But given the circumstances of those old murders, it’s no surprise you didn’t know your father might not have been everything he pretended to be—the grieving survivor of a family that was brutally murdered.”

  She stared into Micah’s blue eyes, felt the familiarity of what they’d had before and realized just how much she’d missed him. She’d used Clyde’s friendship to build a dam between them, to try to compensate for having to leave him, but that hadn’t really changed anything. “I feel like the daughter of Ted Bundy or...or John Wayne Gacy!”

  He brought her hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “Even if he’s as bad as those serial killers, it doesn’t mean you’re anything less than you’ve ever been. You’re nothing like him.”

  She reached out to smooth a piece of hair off his forehead. That action came so naturally to her she couldn’t resist, and she needed him in this moment—felt like she’d needed him all along. “But that’s why you don’t want me to go back to the motel. You think I might be murdered by my own father.”

  He winced at her words but didn’t back away from them. “If he can kill his mother, father and brother—and his wife—he wouldn’t hesitate to do whatever was necessary to silence you.”

  Of course he wouldn’t. What was she to him if he couldn’t love his own parents? “What should I do? Should I go stay with Paige?”

  He held her chin as his gaze lowered to her lips. “No. I won’t let you go there, either.”

  “Because...”

  “Because you’re going to be staying here with me.” When he leaned forward, she knew he was going to kiss her. She felt the inevitability, the same overwhelming attraction that had brought them together before and didn’t even consider stopping him. She wanted him too much and had wanted him for too long.

  “What about Paige?” she asked before their lips could meet.

  “Don’t even mention her,” he replied and then they couldn’t say anything.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “So how do you feel about having Sloane back in town?”

  Paige paused from arranging the merchandise she’d received the day before to frown at her older sister, who’d stopped by the store to bring her an iced mocha. Yolanda was wonderful, but she was so much older she’d always felt more like an aunt than a sister. And because she’d lived out of state until three months ago, Paige hadn’t had the chance to be close to her two nieces, either, who were only a year apart and both in college these days. “I’m torn. I love her. I will always love her. We were so close growing up.”

  “But...”

  She returned to folding the cute pink-and-white sweaters with matching hats on the tabletop she’d cleared off in order to display her new winter items. “It’s complicated.” So complicated that she’d slept with Sloane’s father, a man in his late fifties, whom she’d thought was handsome for a man his age but wasn’t nearly as attracted to as she should’ve been in order to do what she did. Now just the thought of him made her slightly nauseous.

  She glanced over at the flowers Ed had sent. She hadn’t even thanked him for those, didn’t know what to say, especially since he’d been texting her as though he’d like to see her again.

  Morning beautiful. Thanks for a fantastic night. She’d gotten that shortly after she’d opened the shop on Monday. The flowers had arrived later, probably because she hadn’t responded to the text.

  She’d hoped that would be the end of it until she could figure out some way to let him know they weren’t in a relationship. But this morning she’d received:

  Is everything okay? I haven’t heard back from you. If something is wrong, let’s talk about it. Why don’t we have dinner again tonight?

  She shuddered as she remembered the intimacy that’d followed their first meal together. What she’d done made her feel foolish—and now that she had a bit of distance from it, more mortified than anything else. She hoped no one would ever find out, especially Sloane.

  “It’s Micah, isn’t it,” her sister was saying. “He makes all your other relationships complicated, because you’re not over him.”

  In general, Paige tried not to talk about her ex-husband. It was bad enough that Micah had left her. She preferred her friends and family not know how truly lopsided their relationship had been. But she couldn’t seem to let go of him, couldn’t bounce back and move on. The desire to be with him was simply too great. Some days it completely consumed her. “I’m afraid I’ll never be over him,” she admitted.

  Sympathy registered on her sister’s face. “Oh, Paige. Time will help. I thought the same when Doug and I first started having trouble. It tore me up inside to think about divorce or being alone. I forgave him for his first affair—and his second—because I loved him. I didn’t want to break up our family. But he wouldn’t quit cheating. So once Alice and Ashley graduated from high school, I pulled myself together and got out.”

  But their situations weren’t the same. Couldn’t she see that? “Micah never cheated on me, Yo. He treated me great, and he was an excellent father.”

  “If that’s true, why were you so unhappy when you were married to him?” she asked.

  “I w
asn’t unhappy exactly.”

  “Really? Because you seemed miserable, at least in ways. Maybe we didn’t spend a lot of time together. I was going through my own shit at the time. But I’ll never forget how swollen your eyes were at Christmas a few years ago.”

  Something had been missing, something Paige needed and wanted. It had felt imperative at the time. She loved Micah so much she wanted him to feel the same about her. But now she wished she hadn’t pushed him so hard. If she could’ve been happy with what he already offered her, they’d still be married. Maybe that was the worst of it. He probably would’ve stayed if only she’d backed off a little.

  She kicked herself over that all the time, wished he’d give her another chance. She’d be less critical and more grateful to have him in her home and in her bed if he would.

  “I was stupid,” she said. “I should’ve realized what I had, that asking for more would mean I’d get nothing.”

  Her sister came over to put an arm around her shoulders. “You deserve his whole heart.”

  “Part is better than none!”

  “No, you were right not to settle. You’ll realize that one day. But given how you feel about Micah, why would you encourage Sloane to return to Millcreek?”

  “I didn’t encourage her! After Micah moved out, I contacted her on social media, thinking we could be friends from afar. Suffering the rejection I felt from her—that she would leave and never contact me again—was almost as hard as having Micah leave me. I haven’t mattered to either of the two people I’ve loved most in the world, aside from my family and Trevor. I needed answers, needed to understand why she could walk away from me so easily.”

  “And did you get those answers?”

  “More or less.”

  “But they haven’t changed anything.”

  “She says her leaving had nothing to do with me, but that doesn’t help the sense of rejection it gave me.”

  “And now she’s back.”

  “She’s the one who started talking about coming home! What was I supposed to say? Don’t? I’m afraid to have you here? Stay away from Micah?”

  “No, but you didn’t have to welcome her with open arms. You made it easy for her, let her stay at your house!”

  “Aren’t you listening? I don’t want to lose her and Micah. You were gone from the time I was four years old. I was basically raised as an only child, and that gets lonely. Mom was so involved in her church stuff, before she got mad at the pastor and quit going altogether, and Dad was working at the brewery all the time. Sloane filled a big hole in my life. She became a second sister to me, someone I could trust, confide in and laugh with. There were times, plenty of them, when it felt like we had only each other. She meant the world to me. You shouldn’t cast those people aside easily. Why should I let Micah rob me of Sloane, too?”

  Her phone began to ring. She was hoping to hear from Sloane, to find out where she’d been and why she hadn’t been responding, so she checked to see who was calling and quickly hit the silence button. It was Ed, and she wasn’t ready to have that conversation.

  She took a sip of her drink, but before she could jump back into the discussion, Ed texted her—and what she read made her heart sink.

  BJ Engle just called me. You know him, right? He owns the Royal Flush. Sloane left the bar with Micah last night. Are they getting back together or what?

  “What is it?” Yolanda sounded concerned. “You suddenly look pale.”

  Paige could barely breathe but she lowered her phone so that her sister couldn’t read Ed’s text. It hadn’t been twenty minutes since Micah had told her he didn’t know where Sloane was, that he hadn’t seen her. But if they’d met up at the bar last night, he had to be lying. Sloane had gone home with him, which meant she was probably there this morning, too. It made sense, since Sloane wasn’t responding.

  Paige couldn’t believe it—except she really could, which was the problem. She felt sucker punched. This meant Sloane couldn’t have been sincere when she’d been consoling her over Micah. She was merely playing along. And Micah had lied to her face at his front door.

  Damn them both! How dare they make a fool of her!

  Obviously, neither one of them cared about her at all. And to think Sloane had very likely overheard everything she’d said to Micah this morning. They’d probably both been secretly laughing at her!

  “Paige? What’s going on?” Yolanda asked.

  “Nothing,” she replied. “I just... I have to get something over to the school for Trevor. Can you watch the store?”

  “Sure, but I’m not very good at working the cash register.”

  “You did fine when you helped me last week.”

  “I made it through but that was only for a few minutes. Can you take a second to go over it again?”

  No. She couldn’t. She had to get over to Micah’s. She wanted to see if Sloane was still there, wanted to catch them together so they couldn’t lie out of it. “I don’t have time, but it’s slow this morning, so you should be fine,” she mumbled and hurried through the back storeroom to where she’d parked her car in the alley.

  * * *

  Micah’s heart was pounding like the pistons of an engine. He’d dreamed of Sloane even while he was married. Maybe that was why he’d been riddled with guilt the whole time he’d been with Paige, why he could never properly defend himself when she accused him of cheating. He had visited Sloane’s Facebook page. He rarely went on social media for any other reason. And he’d bought every magazine he’d known she was in—all of which he’d had to hide. But he’d never tried to contact her, not after those first few days and weeks when he’d spent the money he’d received for graduation driving all over Texas, hoping and praying he’d find her, and his parents had finally convinced him that he was wasting his time and money. She’d left him. That was her choice, and he had to respect it, even though he wanted her back much worse than he’d ever wanted to come home to Paige, before or after they were married.

  Now he had her in his arms again, after ten long years. Once he kissed her, they melted into each other and began making out so frenetically and intensely they could barely breathe. He had his hands up her blouse almost immediately—and she was yanking on his T-shirt, trying to take it off without pulling away long enough to do it effectively.

  “I hope you won’t regret this,” she murmured when he removed his own shirt. They both understood they should think about what they were doing, but they were too far gone to change course. Even if it meant taking Paige back to court to make her respect his parental rights, Micah was seizing this moment, the opportunity to feel Sloane beneath him again. He wanted to experience what it was like to make love to her as an adult instead of a boy.

  “I’m not going to back out. Are you?” He held his breath as he lifted his head so he could look at her. He knew how difficult it would be if she shut him down. He’d already committed himself. But she didn’t bail out.

  “I’m not going to change my mind, either,” she said and lifted her arms so that he could drag off her shirt. He unsnapped her bra and tossed that on the floor, too, and he wanted to remove her jeans, but he didn’t have the chance before she drew his mouth back to hers.

  “I thought I’d never taste you again,” she whispered against his lips.

  He was enjoying the feel of her tongue moving with and against his. But he was hungry for more than a kiss, even a good one, and he couldn’t seem to get to it quickly enough to satisfy the raging desire that threatened to burn him up.

  He managed to slide her jeans down over her hips by moving his mouth to her breast so he could reach. He peeled them down low enough she could step out of them without disengaging entirely. But when she moaned and dropped her head back, his knees nearly buckled, and he feared he wouldn’t have the strength or the stamina he’d always dreamed of having should he ever get this opportunity.

&n
bsp; “I’ve never felt the way you make me feel,” she said.

  He pulled away from her breast so he could see her face. “What do you mean? Surely you’ve been with other men.”

  “Three, to be exact. But with each one, I just pretended it was you.”

  Could this be true? He’d convinced himself that she couldn’t have cared about him, not like he’d cared about her. “You’ve never fallen in love?”

  “Not since I fell in love with you.”

  He wasn’t sure what to say. This was opposite to everything he’d been telling himself for the past ten years—and made the fact that he’d lost her so much more tragic. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he said, “and I thought that long before you were famous.”

  She was wearing nothing but her panties—a lacy white scrap of fabric that covered only a small triangle in front. He had on his jeans and nothing more when she stood on tiptoe to kiss him again. The moment her breasts came back into contact with his bare chest, he felt such a powerful surge of testosterone that his strength returned in a rush. He wanted to sweep her into his arms and carry her into the bedroom so he could drive into her in a feverish act that had more to do with claiming what he’d wanted for so long than intimacy or pleasure.

  When she lifted his hand to her breast, he cupped the soft mound while kissing her again. Then he did sweep her into his arms, couldn’t help acting on the impulse.

  “Do you have any birth control?” she asked as he carried her into the bedroom.

  “In the nightstand.” Fortunately, that was one thing he’d decided to buy when he moved to town. Paige had been on the pill while they were married, so he hadn’t had any reason to buy birth control, not for a long, long time. Doing so was more of a statement, a promise to himself, than anything else, but he was glad he’d done it.