by Leslie North
"What do you want, Brad?" she asked, relieved to hear that her voice sounded more like herself now. "You can't keep calling me like this, you know? It's harassment."
"Is it?" he countered. "Is it really that insane for me to want to get my family back together?"
"Back together?" she echoed, genuinely surprised. Last she'd heard, Brad had shacked up with some girl named Melanie. For all his attempts at communication, this was the first time he’d said anything about getting back together. It was also the worst thing she could possibly imagine.
"That's right," he answered in the same self-righteous voice he had always used when he felt comfortably on his high horse. "We've got a family, Heather. We were a family, once upon a time. I think it's about time we give it another go."
"But we're divorced now, Brad," she said, speaking slowly as if talking to a child. "Did you forget that? It's over. It's about as over as it can be between two people."
"And that should never have happened," he said, his voice taking on an unpleasant edge. "Things happen in relationships, honey. You work through them; you don't just leave. That's what marriage is about."
"Did Melanie kick you out or something?" Heather asked, more out of morbid curiosity at this point than anything else. "Is that what's going on here? You looking for someone to cook and clean for you?"
"I could make it bad for you, you know," he said, his voice suddenly sounding dead and cold. "If you keep giving me trouble, I could make sure you’re not happy in that dumpy little town anymore. If you think I can't get to you, you're wrong.” She took a breath to interrupt, but he went on inexorably. “You've got my kids, Heather. My kids. I’ll take them away from you so fast, it’ll make your head spin. All I need to do is prove you're unfit,” and it chilled her that she could hear the smile in his voice as he finished, “and something tells me that wouldn't be too difficult to do."
Heather's heart stopped, and for a second, she felt like she couldn't breathe. This was the Brad she remembered so well. Not a man who would fight to win back his lady love, but the kind who would threaten her relentlessly until she could no longer see what was real and what was a scare tactic. Had she been more naive, she might have thought he was bluffing. Unfortunately, she'd been through enough humiliations and physical bruises to know that he was serious, perhaps deadly so. To make matters worse, their current living conditions weren't exactly above recrimination. It was almost as if he had smelled blood in the water and chosen this exact time to go in for the kill.
"I don't want to talk to you anymore," she said, sounding painfully childish in her own ears. "And I don't have to."
"You're right," Brad snapped back. "You don't. But don't be surprised when you get slapped with a custody suit, okay?” She heard him take a deep breath, and then he almost sounded reasonable as he said, “You could make it easier on yourself and everyone else if you just come back,” though his voice hardened again to add, “but if you want to do it the hard way, I'm game."
Heather hung up the phone abruptly, slamming it down on the coffee table and then picking it up and slamming it down again twice more for good measure. It wasn't until she picked it up a last time and heaved it across the room that she noticed Randy standing there, his expression grave, his complexion pale despite his summer tan.
"What's going on, Heather?" he asked, his brows knitted together. "Tell me what's wrong. I didn't like the sound of that. Is somebody threatening you?"
She could tell what he really wanted to ask; it hung between them, a thickness in the air. Randy was a smart guy. He must have known it was Heather's ex.
She wanted to tell him, to rush into his arms and have him tell her it was all going to be all right, even if she knew it was a lie. Instead, she lifted her chin, hugging her arms around herself tightly. What she needed to do next was going to hurt, if not him, then at least herself. Her conversation with Brad had, at the very least, made her aware of how vulnerable she had made herself. The cocoon of Randy's protection was an illusion, and it would come to an end eventually. She needed to learn how to look out for herself, and if Brad really did intend to come after Andy and Amelia, she needed to be ready. She had to stand on her own two feet, even if it meant breaking her own heart in the process.
"I can't talk about that right now," she said stiffly, shaking her head once again to clear it. "And I'm sorry, but I can't stay here anymore. I'm going to pack us up and take us back to our farm, Randy. That's where we belong. I can't do this anymore."
In the silence that followed, Randy's eyes burned into hers, making her wonder exactly how much he had heard of her conversation with Brad. Then his eyes lowered, and she saw him clench his jaw as he shoved his hands into his pockets.
"All right," he said simply, his voice dull and lifeless. "If that's what you want."
12
Heather wasn't sure what reaction she had been expecting from Randy. In retrospect, she understood that she certainly hadn't believed he’d let her go so easily. Now she had to deal with not only the fact that she had gone and let herself fall in love, but also that the man she'd fallen for didn't seem to care whether she stayed or left. She was beginning to wonder if she could ever be special to somebody or if this was simply her lot in life.
"Mamma, what are we doing?" Amelia asked from the back seat, where her little legs were compulsively kicking the back of Heather's seat. "Can we go back to Randy now?"
"No," Heather answered, a little more curtly than strictly necessary. "We're going to go inside the diner for a minute and grab a piece of pie.” She tried to make her voice sound carefree. “Pie for supper, won’t that be a treat? Hopefully, you two are going to wait nicely while I use the potty. Can you do that?"
The question was met with a chorus of "yes, Mamma" that didn't fill her with confidence but would have to do for the time being. She hustled the three of them inside and situated the twins in a booth before heading off to the bathroom. The waitress gave her a sympathetic look that made Heather blink back tears and then set her lips in a thin line. She was done accepting people's charity and sympathy, and yet she seemed to find more of both every direction she turned.
"Ah, a moment of peace," she whispered as she closed herself into a stall. Things were looking pretty bleak when a public restroom was your best shot at some alone time, but at the moment, that was all Heather had to work with. She sighed and allowed her head to rest in her hands, unsure whether she should laugh hysterically or cry in despair, and afraid that once she started, she wouldn’t be able to stop. So much the better that she’d have nobody but her children to see her, and she planned to hold out until they went down at bedtime. Not long now. Heather wasn't the kind of woman who wanted an audience when she fell apart.
As if to make a mockery of her small slice of solitude, the restroom door banged open, and two women bustled inside. She couldn't help envying them for the confidence in their loud, cheerful voices. That was, until she heard what they were saying; then she wanted to scream.
"And you know she's been getting the ‘family' discount, don't you?" the first woman said. Heather stared at the speaker’s sensible loafers from beneath the door of her stall, too stunned to move.
"Oh, it's more than that," the other said. "Did you know she's not paying for the supplies at all? The vet is, and you know men don't do things like that for free. Kind of makes you wonder what she’s been up to, to get those brothers to do so much for her?"
"So we're not thinking it's out of the kindness of their hearts?" the first woman asked mockingly. Both gossipers burst into peals of cackling laughter, jarring even with the sound of running tap water to drown it out. Then, as quickly as they had come, they were gone, leaving Heather trembling from head to toe. She retrieved her cell from her purse, angry tears threatening to fall from her wide, disbelieving eyes.
Randy picked up after the second ring, and Heather began speaking without so much as letting him say hello. "How could you?" she demanded, hating the way her voice shook but unable to exercise enoug
h control to stop it. "What were you thinking?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Heather," he answered in the same slow, calm tone she’d heard him use on Honey. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"
"Oh," she said with a bitter laugh. "It sure did. Thanks to some incredibly informative women in the diner's bathroom, I just learned about the ‘family' discount you and your brother have been giving me on the work on the farm."
"That?" Randy asked, sounding genuinely confused. "But we were only trying to help. I wanted to get you back on your feet, that's all. You can't honestly think we were doing anything wrong."
"Actually, I can," she hissed, banging out of the stall and trying not to look at herself in the mirror as she paced back and forth. She didn't need to catch a glimpse of her reflection to know she looked like a mess.
"But why?" he asked, starting to sound heated himself. "I'm sorry, but that doesn't make a lick of sense to me."
"I'm sure it doesn't," she shot back, so angry now that she felt as if she couldn't breathe. "For starters, men don't have to worry about their reputations the way women do. Mine in this town, in case you were wondering, might already be completely destroyed, thanks to your so-called help."
"What does that even mean?" Randy asked, sounding thoroughly exasperated now.
"Forget about it," she said, shaking her head and thoroughly flustered. "I don't know why I even bothered. All you need to know is that I don't want your help anymore. Not with anything. At this point, I don't even know if I'm going to stay."
"What does that mean?" Randy repeated, his voice low and strained.
"It means I'm thinking I should just sell the stupid strawberry farm and go back to San Francisco," she said hotly. "It means I think it was a mistake to ever come here in the first place."
She hung up the phone without giving him the chance to respond. It was probably unfair, after everything he had tried to do for her, but she couldn't think about that now. She could only think of getting back to her home, which didn't even have a properly working roof to put over her children's heads. At least it was hers, though. At least nobody would bother her there while she tried to think of what to do next.
Heather held onto that belief until she pulled up in front of the house and saw that she wasn't alone, after all. For a second, she thought she had to be hallucinating, that lack of sleep and day after day of excessive stress had finally gotten to her. When Amelia and Andy started chattering away excitedly behind her, however, she knew that this was real. She got out of her car on legs that felt like jelly and shut the door with the engine still running and her children still safely inside.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, her voice trembling with rage, fear, and disbelief. "What on earth made you think this was okay?"
"Did you honestly think I was going to sit back and let you drag my children to the middle of nowhere without doing anything about it?" Brad asked, his voice low and dangerous. His eyes were dark, hooded, the same look they always got when he was spoiling for a fight. It didn't matter how much time had passed. She thought she would never forget this look, nor the fear it inspired, for as long as she lived.
"You shouldn't be here," she said, hardly above a whisper. "You can't just show up at a person's home without an invitation. People don't do that."
"Well, it's a good thing I did, isn't it?" he countered, really getting going now as he looked wildly around them at the half-completed renovations, looking even more forlorn after the workers had quit for the day. "Because this place is not fit for children, Heather—at least not any children of mine."
"I’m in the process of fixing it up," she said, although the words lacked conviction. On this point, at least, he was right, and she knew it. The farm wasn't in any state yet for their kids to live comfortably. She fought down a shiver as the cold reality hit her that Brad had something concrete to use against her when it came to Andy and Amelia. He must have thought so, too, because as his gaze returned to her, a slow, malicious grin spread across his face.
"I want you back in San Francisco, Heather," he said, his voice low and menacing. "I want you where I can keep an eye on things. And if you don't fall in line, I might just have to take it to the courts. I suspect you wouldn't have what it takes to beat me.” He put on an expression of mock concern. “Something for you to think about, you know? When you lay awake at night." He threw back his head and laughed and then walked by her without so much as a glance in her direction.
She stared after him, now unable to control her shaking. As terrible as the whole encounter had been, Brad was right about one thing. She was definitely going to be lying awake tonight. She had far too much to consider for her to be able to sleep.
13
Randy was driving too fast, and he knew it, but he couldn't make himself slow down. As long as he had to concentrate on the road, he could avoid thinking about the conversation he'd just had with Heather, and he was willing to do just about anything to keep her angry, accusing words from playing in his head over and over again on a loop. His previous failed relationship still haunted him. He didn't want another. That had been a huge part of why he hadn't wanted to get involved with Heather in the first place. He had known that he would likely only let her down. But it hadn't occurred to him that trying to help her out would end up hurting her.
He pulled haphazardly into one of the open parking spaces on Main Street, paying little attention to his surroundings or to his screeching tires. He wasn't even sure what he was planning to do, except that he wanted to make somebody pay for what had just gone down between him and Heather. It had sounded like his and Trevor's intentions had been completely twisted by the women who’d evidently confronted Heather. The McCall brothers had wanted to help her to get back on her feet, to give her a fighting chance at making a real go of things, but Heather had sounded so upset, those women must have accused her of trading her favors for the brothers’ help.
"Doesn't matter, though, does it?" he muttered to himself, climbing out of his truck. "Doesn't make a lick of difference."
He stood for a moment, looking from one side of the street to the other as if trying to decide which way to go. Then he headed toward the hardware store, still open though it would be closing soon, surely a place to start to get to the bottom of Heather finding out about the discount. That was the problem about small towns like Winding Creek. People got into everyone else's business. You had almost no chance of successfully keeping a secret.
"Randy?" a strangely familiar voice called tentatively. "Randy McCall, is that you?"
He turned, ready to confront whoever was interrupting his angry errand. Seeing the caller, however, he stopped in his tracks, completely thrown. He wouldn't have been surprised to find one of the busybodies reaching out to him. What he didn't expect to find was Sacha, the one woman he'd really tried to make a go of it with and his main regret when it came to the opposite sex.
"S-Sacha," he stammered, feeling like a fool for the simplicity of the greeting. It wasn't like she didn't know her own name. He was sure he struck her as a total moron, and all he could think to add was, "Sacha, what are you doing here? I thought you moved away. I...I didn't expect to run into you."
"Yeah, I know," she said with a cautious smile, approaching him slowly. "I didn't really plan on coming back to Winding Creek, but you never know what's going to happen, do you? Home has a way of calling to you. Seems like you heard it, too."
"I guess you could say that," he said uncertainly, removing his hat and holding it humbly in front of him. He didn't know the first thing about how to talk to her, despite their history together. What would be the right thing to say?
Before he could try to put more words together, she spoke again. "I heard about your parents," she said softly, her eyes full of sympathy and understanding. "I'm so sorry. They were such lovely people, and I know how much you loved them.” She paused and swallowed, her eyes searching his face. “Are you doing okay?"
"Sure," he said, his
voice faltering with unexpected emotion. What with the strangeness of his parents’ will and the flurry of activity that had ensued afterward, he hadn’t let anyone get close enough to ask how he felt about the loss of his parents. He couldn't remember the last time somebody had asked him how he was doing, actually.
"You don’t sound like it," she said quietly, frowning as she took another step closer. "What's really going on?"
What he wanted to ask her was probably insane. After all this time, it was surely best to let sleeping dogs lie. Except that Sacha had always been able to see through his lies, and suddenly, he simply had to know. He'd been burying his head in the sand for years now, and it hadn't gotten him anywhere. Even if she spat in his face and stormed away, that would be some kind of answer.
"What happened with us, Sacha?" he asked, his voice breaking as he spoke her name.
"What happened?" she echoed, her brow furrowed in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"I mean,” he began lamely, and ended up repeating, “what happened? How did it all fall apart? Was it my fault?"
"Oh, Randy," she said breathlessly, tears springing into her eyes. "Oh, honey, is that what you think? That everything went wrong between us because of you?"
Randy hung his head, feeling more vulnerable than he could remember feeling in a long time. He didn't trust himself to speak without crying himself, and he wasn't prepared to make that kind of spectacle. When Sacha closed the last bit of distance between them and lifted his chin with gentle fingers, though, he didn't fight it. In that moment, he would have allowed her to do just about anything, even if that meant hauling off and hitting him, which he still felt he deserved.
"I'm going to tell you something, Randy," she said, her voice serious and her eyes fierce. "Things fell apart because we weren't right for each other. We didn't have the kind of emotional connection we would have needed to make things work,” she smiled faintly, as if feeling sympathy for who they’d been at the time, “and we were so young. It wasn't anybody's fault."
