Half Moon Hill: A Destiny Novel

by Toni Blake

  Up until now, he’d been . . . floating. Just like earlier with Anna in the boat. Floating, letting time pass, seeing where the floating led him. It had, somewhere along the way, become the easiest he’d felt in a long while. He’d quit worrying so much—about anything. He’d quit hurting quite so much inside. Oh, it was all still in there—Denny’s death, Linda’s loss, his father’s rejection—but it had just started seeming . . . farther away. He’d quit feeling it all so intensely, day and night. He supposed his Daisy had given him a lot of better things to think about—working on her house by day, working on her body by night. He’d have never dreamed upon first colliding with her in the woods that she’d end up making such a difference in his life.

  But now . . . now it wouldn’t be so easy to float. And as he started up the path toward Anna’s house, flashlight in hand, Duke knew he had some serious thinking to do about what came next.

  As Anna sat with Duke eating pizza on the sofa where they’d first made love, he told her everything Mike had said to him in the woods. Damn—she couldn’t believe Mike had sat waiting for someone to come back to the cabin all that time. It rather took the luster off the sense of giddiness she’d experienced coming home afterward. Maybe it was silly, but she’d somehow felt as if she’d stepped into the pages of Cathy’s diary to be sneaking around in the dark with Duke, then making out with him in a rowboat on the lake. But now that it came with consequences, it didn’t seem quite as magical.

  “I appreciate you keeping me out of it,” she said, “but you could have told him.”

  “But I thought you didn’t want him to—”

  “That was before he was accusing you of selling drugs.” She glanced vaguely in the direction of the old rotary phone in the kitchen. “I have half a mind to call him and tell him you were with me. Then everything would be fine.”

  But Duke appeared doubtful. “Would it, Daisy?”

  She blinked, a little confused. “What do you mean?”

  Next to her, he lowered his plate to the coffee table, looked her in the eye. “There’s a good reason neither one of us wants Mike to find out about us.”

  “Which is?”

  “He won’t think I’m good enough for you, and he’d make both our lives hell for it.”

  She sighed. “But wouldn’t that be better than having him think you’re doing something illegal? And . . . maybe it’s time to quit hiding, Duke. For me, at least, anyway.”

  “Best I can tell, honey, you haven’t been hiding from anybody lately.”

  “In ways, no. But if I’m still hiding a big secret from Mike . . . well, the old me wouldn’t have done that. It’s just a habit I fell into after moving up here—keeping to myself, keeping my life more private. But the old me wouldn’t have kept you a secret from Mike—the old me would have just told him to deal with it and move on with his life. And maybe that’s a part of myself it’s time to get back.”

  Yet now it was Duke who let out a long, tired sort of sigh. And Anna could pretty much read his thoughts. Just because she was ready to be completely out in the open now didn’t mean he was. “Truth is, Daisy, I’m not sure I’m up to dealing with Mike on this. I like your brother, but you know he can be a hard-ass, and . . .”

  “And it’s safe to say he’d be that way about the idea of me and you,” she finished for him.

  But it made her sad. To think that, even now, she wasn’t worth enough to Duke for him to stand up to her brother.

  And yet . . . he’d never made her even one single promise. Technically speaking, their relationship was still “light and fun.” She’d just told herself things were changing. She’d foolishly let herself believe that—again. What an idiot you are.

  Just then, though, Duke playfully brought a hand down on her knee in a light slap to say, “Tell you what, Daisy. How about we just let this go for now? How about we sleep on it for a night or two? I’m tired and . . . I’ve had enough heavy shit for today. That okay with you?”

  She nodded. And his words instilled in her a cautious sort of hope. He wasn’t suddenly closing up, acting distant, “turning off” their relationship. Maybe things would be fine. Maybe he’d wake up in the morning ready to face the “heavy shit.”

  But stop. Why do you keep trusting? Why do you keep believing?

  Though she knew the answer as soon as she asked the questions. Because it made her happier to keep believing, even if it was foolish, than it would to give up on him and decide that she’d been wrong about him all along.

  It surprised Anna—happily—when, after that, things were astonishingly normal between them.

  Because Lucky ran into a stretch of days when he didn’t have any work, they stopped installing the new trim and Lucky and Duke put a new black roof on the house. Anna stayed on the ground, mostly gathering up the old shingles they tossed down.

  She found herself looking often toward the road, sure Mike would be patrolling the area now and spot Duke working—but she only caught sight of his cruiser driving past twice. Once in the early morning hours before they were outside, and again one evening near dusk after Lucky had gone and Duke was upstairs taking a shower.

  She’d been passing by a window at the time, so she was inside as well, and she was glad she didn’t have to explain to her brother how miraculous her house suddenly looked these days. It was one thing to let the girls at the bookstore believe she was doing all the work herself, but that was probably harder to believe when you actually saw it. She’d have to figure out how to address that—especially if she couldn’t talk Duke into letting her tell the truth about them, an idea that appealed to her more all the time.

  During a shift at the bookstore, Rachel dropped by to meet Amy for lunch, and she mentioned that Mike had been doing a lot of work at the orchard they ran with Edna—and Anna decided that, between that and the emotional turmoil of finding out he was going to be a father, it probably explained why Mike hadn’t been keeping a closer eye on Duke. Then she looked vaguely skyward, giving thanks for that particular timing. It took a lot to throw Mike off his game as a cop, so it seemed almost fated that now was the one time he was too busy and too flustered to keep worrying about a guy living in the woods.

  It was on a sunny day nearly a week after the incident with Mike that Duke and Anna returned to installing the home’s new trim work. A lot of it was being nailed into high eaves or the edge of the roof, which meant she was mostly on ladder-holding detail. Though Duke teased her about knowing when it was time to move the ladder, reminding her of the day she’d nearly fallen from it and had instead ended up in his arms.

  That night they grilled some fish Duke had caught the previous evening—and then they made love in Anna’s bed before falling asleep in each other’s arms. Life felt good, settled. She was in love. And even though he’d still never said anything more than “light and fun,” she knew deep in her heart that he loved her, too.

  So it caught her off guard when Duke rolled over beside her in bed the next morning, sun streaming in through the sheer curtains, and said, as if it were no more important than a discussion about the weather, “Not much more to do on the house, Daisy, and when it’s done, I’ll probably move on. Just so you know.”

  Anna’s throat nearly closed up. And she felt mired in a strange haze. A minute ago, everything had been fine. And now, with no warning, everything had changed.

  She heard herself murmur, “Oh.”

  He still wasn’t looking her in the eye when he sat up and said, “Gonna hit the shower if you wanna join me.” Then he turned to grin down at her. Like he hadn’t just shattered her world. Oh Lord. He still really thinks we’re just light and fun. That’s all it is to him, even now.

  “Um, thanks, but no.”

  He seemed undaunted. “All right, party pooper. After that, gonna head over to Crestview, get more trim nails since we’re almost out. You wanna go, or should I take the bike?”

  “Uh . . . take the bike. I . . . think I’ll sleep in.”

  “Sleepyhead
,” he teased her, walking toward the bathroom.

  She tried to smile. Then rolled back over in bed. And crushed her eyes shut, refusing to cry. This shouldn’t come as a shock. It’s what he said, what he wanted, what you agreed to. You decided it was worth it. You decided you could handle a casual relationship with him. But it still hurt to know he didn’t think she was worth more.

  She pretended to be asleep when he came out of the shower, and she waited quietly until he was dressed and gone.

  She didn’t want to be weak about this. She wanted to be confident, together Anna. I need something to make me happy right now, something to take me away from this. And so she thought of Cathy’s diary, which she hadn’t read since before that last trip to the cabin when she’d seen Robert’s picture.

  Grabbing a short red robe from a hook on the bathroom door, she threw it on over the cami and panties she’d slept in, then made her way downstairs with her cat underfoot the whole way. “I’m already feeling tense, so this is a bad time for you to bug me,” she lectured Erik as they went. But then she stopped, took a deep breath, and bent to scoop her kitty up into her arms.

  Picking up the diary from where she kept it in the library, she headed straight to the screened-in porch. A soft morning mist hung about the shrubs and trees in the backyard, making everything suddenly feel mysterious and mystical. Lowering her cat to the sofa beside her, she opened the diary, determined to find out that Cathy had ended up happy with Robert. Even if she and Duke weren’t going to end up that way—well, if Cathy had been happy here, maybe it would convince her that she ultimately would, too. Somehow. Someday.

  I have barely had time to write because life is so joyous. I am busy with school, but also busy loving my Robert. We spend every second together that we can, and lately, it has been easier than ever. Daddy is working long hours at the bank and Mother has become involved with the PTA, taking her away from home on many afternoons. When I step off the school bus on those days, I head straight for Robert’s kisses. The woods, his cabin, the lake—they have become like our private world. I didn’t know such happiness existed.

  Anna turned the page, her heart lifted by the first entry she’d read and eager for more. But it was a mere three pages later that she felt as if someone had reached a fist into her chest to squeeze the life from her heart.

  I can’t believe it. The worst has happened. The unthinkable.

  We grew too careless, I guess. Too carefree. We forgot about reality, about the world outside the one we built for ourselves in the woods.

  And it all happened so fast.

  I was lying in Robert’s arms in his bed; we were kissing. Thank goodness I was fully clothed—but in the end, maybe it doesn’t even matter. Daddy came barreling through the cabin door and there was nothing we could do except tell him the truth, that we were in love.

  He ordered me back to the house, and Lord, the venom in his eyes—he made me feel so ashamed, though in my heart I know I’ve done nothing wrong.

  And the next thing I know, only a few minutes later when I’d barely gotten home, there was Robert, standing in the front yard, calling my name.

  Daddy came in the back door just then and commanded I stay inside, but I raced out the front door and onto the porch before he could stop me. And there stood my Robert on the front walk telling me that Daddy had ordered him off our property. And saying, “Come with me, Cathy.”

  He held his hand out, reaching for mine. And my heart felt as if it would beat right through my chest.

  I was so stunned, confused. How could I have known even an hour earlier that I would suddenly be met with such a request, such a horrible choice. I simply stood there, lost for an answer.

  But Robert was patient, understanding. “I know this is huge, Cathy,” he said. “But I can take care of you. I can make you happy. If you’ll let me.”

  Daddy was yelling at him through all this, threatening to call the law, to go get his shotgun. And yelling at me, too. But all I could see were Robert’s beseeching eyes, and the hand he still held out, just waiting for me to take it.

  How could I choose? My heart said to go; my head said to stay where I knew it was safe. How was I supposed to decide? Home and security? Or passion and adventure?

  “I have the truck now,” he reminded me. He’d saved up his pay and just last week he bought an old farm truck from a man in town. It made me sad to know he thought that would be enough to convince me. And sad to know that it wasn’t.

  He held out his hand for the longest time, and I desperately wanted to take it. With every single beat of my heart.

  And yet the time came when I suppose we both knew . . . that I wasn’t going to.

  Oh Lord, the heartbreak in his eyes. How could he know, after all, what he was asking me to give up? He’d never really had what I have—a safe place, a good life. And it was only in that moment that I was forced to realize just how good my safe life indeed is. Parents who love me. Plenty to eat, new school clothes every fall. A big, warm, dry house that always welcomes me.

  I almost wished I were so foolish as not to recognize it all; I wished I were the sort of silly girl who would always take it for granted. But I was too smart. Too sensible. Too wary of the unknown.

  And so finally came the quiet moment when Daddy had stopped yelling, when there was no sound at all, when there was only Robert giving me one last desperate look, his eyes begging me to take his hand and run down off the porch and away with him. To somewhere.

  But then he finally let his hand drop. And I swear I felt my heart drop along with it—it was as if it vacated my very body, leaving only a gaping, empty space behind.

  I stood numb and almost disbelieving as I watched him climb up in his truck and drive away. And a large part of me wanted to run then, run down off the porch and call his name and make him wait. I could almost feel the joy running through me as I envisioned it—I saw me climbing in beside him, us smiling at each other, him promising me the world, me believing him because I so badly wanted to.

  But that’s not what happened. That’s not what happened at all.

  Her breath ragged, hands shaky, Anna turned the page.

  But the next one was empty.

  As was the one behind that, and behind that.

  Oh God, all the remaining pages were blank!

  How could that be? That couldn’t be the end. It just couldn’t be.

  Pushing up from the wicker sofa, Anna rushed inside and climbed the stairs. Then she hurriedly lowered the folding stairs to the attic and went up those, as well. She rushed to the trunk, lifted the lid, dropped to her knees, and rifled through everything left inside. No more diaries.

  But then she turned to the stacks of letters tied with ribbon. Yanking the ribbons away, she investigated them all, one by one—Erik by her side the entire time, having followed her up—to find they were all letters from Cathy’s grandmother and some cousins, and there was nothing about Robert in any of them.

  Anna longed, more than ever, to know Cathy had ended up happy. Even if it wasn’t with Robert but with some other man. She didn’t care exactly how Cathy’s happiness came—she just wanted to know she’d gotten over Robert and moved on to a guy it had turned out she was meant to find; or that somehow Robert had come back.

  But no matter how many times she looked through the contents of the trunk, she never found even one more word anywhere about Robert, or any other romance, ever.

  She finally plopped to her rear on the wooden attic floor.

  Cathy had lost Robert. And she was going to lose Duke. And this big house that had, for a while, been a much-needed refuge for her was now going to be empty and lonely.

  “Meow.”

  She looked down to see Erik rubbing up against her hip. There was something comforting in it, more than she could have imagined a few months ago. She pulled the black kitty into her lap, hugging him to her and realizing that she really had begun to love him. Everybody needed love and he was just more openly pushy in going after it th
an most. “At least I have you,” she said. “And you have me. I won’t ever leave you, I promise.”

  And the cat began to purr, snuggling against her.

  “I am thinking that we shall not see each other again . . .”

  Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

  Twenty-three

  Duke knew Anna well enough by now to know she’d been upset this morning. But he’d just tried to play it off, keep things normal, easy. And hopefully by the time he got home, she’d have worked through that and they could continue putting up the trim in peace.

  And it wasn’t that he wouldn’t miss her like crazy—it wasn’t that walking away would be easy for him, either. But he’d known none of this would last forever—his retreat to the woods, his work on the house, his affair with Anna. His leaving would be the best thing for her in the long run anyway, whether or not she knew it yet. And that was what made it the smartest thing to do, for both their sakes.

  As he was riding back from Crestview and realized Logan Whitaker’s car was behind him, he remembered what he knew about Logan, besides the fact that he was Mike Romo’s best friend and now married to Amy. He knew from Lucky that Logan had gone through something bad just like he had. On the job as a fireman last spring, he’d felt responsible for the death of two family friends he’d known his whole life.

  And it was with the idea of moving on, in more ways than one, that Duke made a split-second decision. He slowed, eased to a stop at the side of the road—then waved to Logan, hoping he’d stop.

  He took off his helmet as Logan eased up alongside him and lowered the passenger window of his Charger. “Need something?” he asked, squinting slightly, clearly trying to recognize whoever had flagged him down.