by Sey, Susan
“Matty, don’t—”
“Turns out, I can’t paint for shit. And now I’m an arsonist.” He let out a long, shuddering breath. “Think Mom’ll keep me now?”
“Oh, Matty,” Georgie murmured, and her face was a perfect porcelain tribute to misery. “God, Matty.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve ruined everything anyway. I’m going to juvie for sure. Before I go, though, just tell me one thing, will you?”
“What?”
“The truth. It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted that Mom wouldn’t give me.” The bitter acknowledgement of his charmed life and Bianca’s stubborn claim lodged in Willa’s soul like a sharp-edged stone. “So, please, Georgie. The truth. Am I your son?”
“Oh, Matty,” she whispered again, her eyes shining with tears. “Oh, Matty. No. You’re not.”
“Then whose am I?” Matty’s anguished cry flayed Willa’s heart. “Please, Georgie, I need to know.”
The silence that followed hummed with raw pain and Willa stopped breathing.
Finally Georgie said, “Not mine. That’s all I can tell you.”
Willa crept back out to the yard, counted her heartbeats until they dropped out of panicked hummingbird territory, then headed back into the woods. This time she made sure they heard her coming.
“Okay,” she said, and knelt to cut Matty free of her net. “Party’s over. Time to face the music, kid.” She kept a cautious hand on his shoulder as she marched him through the side yard to put him in the cab of her truck for safe keeping. Georgie fell in behind them, for once absolutely silent.
Fire, Addy knew, was a community event in a town as small as Devil’s Kettle. If whatever was burning wasn’t yours, it likely belonged to somebody you knew. It was only neighborly to come out to show your support.
So people came while Davis Place burned. Of course they did. But they didn’t come to show support. They came to watch. To bear witness. To condemn.
But only one came to ask a question.
“I assume the paintings were in there,” Julia Gates said. She’d appeared a few minutes ago, planted herself at the caution tape next to Addy’s shoulder and watched the firefighters in grim silence. “Diego’s post-Angel works?”
“Yeah,” Addy said softly. It seemed like the least complicated answer. “They were.”
“Quite a move. I’ll admit, I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t think you had that kind of ruthlessness in you, frankly.” She sent Addy an assessing sideways glance. “Well played, Addison.”
Addy turned, met those shrewd blue eyes. “You think this is a game?”
“Of course it is.” Julia’s lips curled into a dangerous smile. “You probably think you won it, too, but you didn’t.” She gave Addy’s shoulder a friendly pat that had cold dread balling in her stomach. “Well, I’m off,” she said lightly. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again, though. Soon.”
She turned and the crowd swallowed her up. Addy watched her disappear, too baffled and tired to even try to figure out what on earth had just happened. She turned back to the smoking bones of her dream. “Mercy.” She linked her fingers on top of her head and blinked tears away from her gritty eyes. “Look at this.”
“What did you expect, Addison?” Gerte broke from the crowd this time, put herself in the hostile vacuum Julia had left at Addy’s side. “Devil Days is this town’s bread and butter, and showing those dirty paintings of yours could bankrupt people. I gave you the chance to tell your side of the story and you refused.” She nodded toward the smoking remains of Addy’s dream. “Folks won’t be disrespected that way.”
Addy absorbed her implication with dull resignation. “Skipping a council meeting didn’t used to be a torching offense,” she pointed out.
“I’m not saying it is now,” Gerte said, eyes wide and innocent. “Goodness, the idea. But to my way of thinking, you’re either dealing with a vigilante or a —” She paused delicately and slid those eyes toward Matty in the cab of Willa’s truck. “—a family situation. I’d prefer the vigilante, wouldn’t you?”
Addy stared at her, disgusted by the vindictive glee hiding behind all that grave concern. Matty was in this up to his ears, of course, but he was a child. He was a confused, heart-broken, miserable child laboring under impossible expectations. And nobody was taking care of him. They were all using him — to ease their grief, to further their ambitions, to vent their fury.
“Since the minute I got here,” Addy said to Gerte, “I’ve loved you.” Her voice trembled and she paused to steady it. To lift it. “I’ve loved all of you. Loved this place. Loved my place in it. And I tried — lord, I tried so hard — to earn that place. To be a good friend and neighbor. To be one of you. I’ve volunteered for your committees, served on your boards and smiled for your tourists. I’ve sent business to each and every one of you—”
“And you think we owe you something for that,” Gerte said calmly, coldly. “Well, we don’t. We didn’t ask for your favors and we don’t want them. All we want is for you to keep your filth—” She shot a malevolent look at Matty. “—to yourself.”
“Mom!” Lainey shot from the crowd and latched onto Gerte’s elbow. “Mom, stop it!”
“No,” Gerte snapped. “I’ve had enough of pretending the Davises are royalty. They behave like trash and I refuse to—”
“Matty didn’t blow up our Dumpster, for heaven’s sake!” Lainey’s lips were white, tight. “That was my fault, so stop torturing the poor child.”
“Your fault?” Gerte stared, her soft mouth dropping open in shock.
“Oh, don’t look like that. I said it was my fault, not that I blew it up myself,” Lainey said irritably. “But I think I know who did.” She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I think it was Eli Walker.”
“Eli?” Addy asked. “Your bus boy?”
“Yes.” She sent a swift look Addy’s way. “The night of the Dumpster fire, Eli and I had…words.”
“You fought?” Gerte asked faintly. “But I never saw the two of you even speak much.”
Lainey’s mouth curved bitterly. “No, I know. I was lucky if I got three words out of him over the course of an entire shift. I wanted more, and I made it clear that night. Very, very clear.”
Gerte stared. “You propositioned him?”
Lainey rolled her eyes. “He was the only man in town between eighteen and forty that I didn’t go to kindergarten with, Mom. Of course I propositioned him.”
Gerte’s hand crept to her throat. “I see.”
“He wasn’t interested but I refused to take no for an answer and things got…ugly. I got ugly, shamefully so.” She pressed her mouth flat and looked away. “He was gone by morning, and God help me, I was relieved.” She shook her head with a jagged laugh. “I’d take the Dumpster fire over sexual harassment charges any day. As for Peter’s old resort, well, Eli had been camping out there—”
“He had? How on earth do you know that?”
“Because I followed him all over town like the pathetic spinster stalker I am, that’s how.” Lainey brought her eyes back to her mother’s. “As for why he burned the resort down, too, I’m just going to assume he decided to flip the whole town the bird and go out in a blaze of glory.”
Gerte only stared wordlessly at her daughter.
“I’m not saying Matty’s an angel but if Peter says he didn’t do anything to us, then he didn’t do anything to us.” Lainey’s chin came up, her mouth went firm. “So don’t go connecting dots that don’t exist. If you want to blame somebody for our fire, then blame Eli. Blame me for refusing to take no for an answer. Blame yourself for hiring a vagrant firebug. But quit torturing some poor kid because you’re angry at his family. And stop pretending you know anything about what happened here, because you don’t.” She turned blazing eyes on the crowd. “None of you do.”
An uncomfortable murmur rose from the crowd, like a collective shuffling of feet. Nobody, Addy noticed, could look at her. Gerte stared at her da
ughter, eyes round and hurt. Lainey turned away from her, faced Addy again.
“I’m sorry, Addison,” Lainey said. “I’m sorry for my mom, for myself. For the way we’ve all treated you.” Her voice broke but she shored it up. “I’m sorry for all of it. For everything. You’ve been nothing but good to us, and we’ve been horrible to you.”
“It’s okay, Lainey.” Addy stepped forward and rubbed Lainey’s tight shoulder. She smiled, took a breath and let it go. Let all of it go — the betrayal, the hurt, the disappointment and shock. “It’s not your fault.” She ran a weary eye over the townsfolk. “It’s not anybody’s fault.”
“But the paintings?” Gerte had recovered herself somewhat, had drawn herself stiffly up. “Do you still plan to show them?”
Addy took a long look at the blackened house smoking on the cliff’s edge. “They burned.”
Gerte blinked, shocked, but Lainey touched Addy’s arm. “I’m sorry for your loss,” the younger woman said. “If it means anything.”
Addy smiled. “Thanks.”
Lainey slipped a hand through her mother’s arm and drew her back into the crowd.
By the time dawn brightened the smoky sky, they’d all come. One by one, they’d all come to her. Soren and Graham, Mason and Frank. Shopkeepers, innkeepers, farmers and teachers. They all touched her arm, her shoulder, her cheek. Some spoke, some didn’t, but they all came. And when they were done, that aching void inside her where her roots used to live was less empty. It wasn’t repaired, not by any means, but it wasn’t empty. And that was something.
Suddenly Willa was there beside her. “You okay?” she asked.
“Yep.” And she thought she really was. Addy nodded toward the smoking house. “Place has bones, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” Willa agreed. “You going to rebuild?”
“I don’t know.” Addy frowned. “Everything’s so...” She waved a hand to fill in the blank. “I don’t know.”
“Tell me about it.” Willa tucked her fingers into her pockets, shook her head and turned to go.
“Willa, wait.”
She stopped, cocked a brow.
“Would you really have worked the hot dish action?”
Willa sucked her teeth. “I don’t actually cook.” She pushed her hands deeper into her pockets and rocked back on the heels of her boots to consider it. “Might’ve brought him a pizza and a six pack, though.”
A laugh burbled up out of Addy’s chest, surprising them both. “I’d claw your eyes out.”
“No doubt. That’s why I’d have waited till after your fiery death.” What might have been a smile flickered at the corner of her mouth, though with the brim of her cap pulled so low it was hard to tell. “See you around.”
“See you,” Addy said, unaccountably cheerful.
“Willa Zinc!”
Addy turned to find Bianca hustling toward them.
Willa stiffened at the imperious command in Bianca’s tone.
Bianca stopped next to Addy. She folded her hands at her waist, as composed as if she were about to belt out an aria. “A moment, if you please.”
Willa turned warily, an eyebrow lifted in question. “Can I help you, Ms. Davis?”
“You already have,” Bianca said, and tipped her head delicately toward Matty. He’d been retrieved from Willa’s truck and was now sitting on the ground in front of Georgie’s bumper, his arms wrapped around his knees, his head bowed. “Thank you.”
Addy expected to see her own open-mouthed stupor reflected in Willa’s face, but all she saw there was a flat, white calm. Willa shrugged. “Not my story to tell.”
Bianca peered at her in the smoky dawn for a long, tense moment during which Addy had absolutely no idea what passed between them. But something evidently did because Bianca said, “Exactly so,” in a satisfied tone. “People in this town talk too much.”
“Amen.” Willa touched the brim of her cap, then turned and headed for her truck. Addy watched her go.
“What was that about?” she asked. Bianca’s eyes followed Willa’s tail lights until they disappeared around the bend in the road.
“That’s a story for another day.” Bianca patted her shoulder. “Come now.” She turned and headed back to their family standing in a tight cluster around Matty’s bowed head. “We have our hands full with today.”
Chapter 36
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, a freshly showered Jax sat on his mother’s couch and listened to her spout some of the most ridiculous bullshit he’d ever heard.
“I’m not suggesting we pretend nothing’s happened,” Bianca said, holding out those long, elegant hands. “But let’s be reasonable. There’s a great deal at stake and we can’t afford to be emotional.”
“You’re right.” Jax nodded firmly. “This is a legal matter. We need to get the cops involved.” He shifted, dug in his pocket for his phone. “Peter’s got lawyers — damn good ones — but I have friends and they owe me favors. I can’t guarantee justice, but I can make damn sure he spends a couple nights in jail while we figure out how to sue him into the next galaxy.”
Beside him on the couch, Georgie made a noise — damp and vicious — that sent Jax’s rage dancing even higher. He touched her knee, a comfort and a promise. Because blackmailing Matty into arson was Peter’s biggest offense, but Jax wasn’t about to overlook the way the bastard had disrespected his sister. He wouldn’t call in any favors to deal with that, though. No, he’d take care of that one personally. And enjoy it.
Bianca said, “Put the phone away, Jackson.”
Jax stared, shocked. “You’re protecting him? After what he did to us — to Georgie, to Matty — you’d protect him?”
“I’m not protecting him.” Bianca lifted her chin, cold anger spilling off her. “I’m protecting Matty.”
“Bullshit,” Jax snapped. “You’re too focused on Diego to think about anybody else. But Matty’s not him, Mom. He’s a kid. He’s your kid, just as much as Diego was, and he damn well deserves—”
“But I’m not, am I?” Matty asked dully. “I’m not her kid.”
Jax froze, then turned slowly to Matty. The boy hadn’t spoken a word since Willa had delivered him to Bianca outside a flaming Davis Place. Peter had done all the talking — concussions evidently made him chatty — but Matty had sat silently on the gravel, arms around his shins, forehead on his knees, while Peter had given them the whole ugly story.
“I don’t know why you’re all pissed at Peter.” Matty gave a broken laugh. “He was the only one with the guts to tell me the truth. You’re the ones who lied to me. All of you, but especially you.” He turned flat eyes on Bianca. “You were never pregnant with me,” he said, his voice achingly empty. “I didn’t surprise you in Italy. You’re not my mother.”
Bianca came slowly to her feet. She crossed the room with deliberate grace, planted herself in front of Matty’s knees and waited until he brought those fog-gray eyes to hers. The pain in them was like a punch to Jax’s throat, and he leaned into the steady warmth of Addy beside him on the couch. Her hand crept up his back, spread strong and sure over his spine.
“Not in the way you mean, no,” Bianca said softly. “I’m not.”
The air left his lungs on a hiss of shock and Jax closed his eyes. He’d never believed the rumors. Heard them of course, but hadn’t believed them. What was the point? Matty was his brother. He just was.
Bianca went on. “But you are mine nonetheless.”
Matty let out a breath, half relief, half agony, and tried to turn away but Bianca caught his chin. She lifted it, tipped his face to the light. “You’re so much like him in some ways.”
“Diego,” Matty whispered and closed his eyes. Jax didn’t blame him. It was always Diego with their mom, wasn’t it? “My…father?”
She only sighed. “All this anger and impulse. The need to put your emotions where nobody can ignore them. I can’t say he ever burned down a house — not to mention an entire resort — but he certainly got into his share of
trouble.” She smiled, small and crooked. “And when he did, I protected him. Sheltered him. Not because he could paint, and not for the Davis name but because he was my blood. Our blood. I may not have given birth to you, Matisse, but that’s our blood in your veins. Look there.” She caught up his hands, lifted them. “These are Joe’s hands, and you use them with Georgie’s grace. You have Jax’s stubborn spirit, Diego’s shocking beauty. And you have my heart.” She folded her hands around his and bent to stare hard into his face. “You are my child. Mine. And nothing you do, say, burn, paint — or don’t paint — will ever change that. I will never let you go; I will never let you down. And whatever I did to bring you here, to make you ours? It was absolutely necessary. And that is all I’m ever going to say on this matter. Are we clear here?”
Matty returned her gaze for an endless heartbeat. Then tears flooded into his silvery eyes and he dropped his head. Nodded as his shoulders shuddered under the weight of emotion. Bianca slid to her knees and threw her arms around her boy, rocked him like the baby he’d once been. Addy wiped her eyes on Jax’s t-shirt sleeve and Jax found his own throat slightly tighter than was comfortable.
“Excellent.” Bianca seated herself on the couch beside Matty, threaded her fingers through his and turned to Addy and Jax with a serene purpose that had the hair standing up on the back of Jax’s neck. “Addison,” she said. “Darling. You have the power to fix this whole thing.”
Beside him, Addy blinked cautiously. “I do?”
“Of course. We’re all victims here but going public with the truth of that will only inflict further punishment on people this night has already damaged. I see no need to follow the letter of the law.”
Jax tensed. He didn’t like the sound of this. “What does that mean?”
Bianca kept her eyes on Addy as she continued. “Our insurance policy certainly won’t honor a claim on Davis Place, not once Peter’s and Matty’s involvement comes out, as I assume it eventually will.”
