“Listen—” He took his son’s hot, tear-stained face in his rough hands. “Look at me.”
Slowly, Noah lifted his red-rimmed eyes. Blake’s chest caved under a punch of emotion.
“I loved your mother. Very much. I love you. You have to believe this. There are as many ways to love people as there are people.” His voice snared on some thickness in his throat. It took a second to compose himself. “And I want you to know something. I will do anything for you. I will kill dragons for you.”
Silence.
Blake inhaled deeply. Being a fighter and a physical fixer of things was easy. But this? This tricky territory of a little boy’s heart and mind … this was the stuff of challenges. This was the stuff that scared Blake. It was so easy to lose someone, to say the wrong thing.
“Then why didn’t you live with us?” Noah said quietly.
“When you serve your country, you get sent away to fight, so that everyone back home can stay safe. In the army, you don’t have control over things like that.”
“Why did you go in the army?”
Blake hesitated, then told a version of the truth. “Because I wanted to serve, Noah. I wanted to help.”
Noah looked away, picked at a thread on his duvet. “Why did we go to see her, anyway?” he muttered.
“What?”
“That woman. Meg.”
Clearly, that was a mistake. “I wanted to introduce you to her, show her how proud I am of my boy.”
More tears released down his cheeks. “I miss Mom.”
“I know. I miss her, too.” I have so many regrets about your mother. “And whatever the Millars said, Noah, it twists things. It’s not true. I will go and speak to them about it.”
His eyes flared wide in horror. “No. No you can’t. Please.”
“Why not?”
“Alex and Jamie will think I tattled. They’ll call me a wuss.”
“They call you that before?”
Noah glanced away. Anger stirred into Blake’s blood. “Okay. I won’t say anything. On one condition. That you keep sharing with me what happens at school, and with Alex and Jamie, okay?”
He nodded.
Blake leaned forward, kissed his boy on the head. “Now let’s get tucked up and get some sleep.”
But as he reached the door and was about to flick off the light, Noah said, “What about Meg?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you want to marry her before Mom?”
“We were far too young to think about marriage back then, kiddo. Now, sleep.”
“Do you want to marry her now?”
Blake’s heart kicked. “Not even a question, champ. She’s engaged to marry someone else. Someone very clever and very, very rich.”
“So we won’t go back there, to her house?”
Wham. The coup de grace. Blake regarded his son, the choices before him stark. “No, Noah,” he said softly. “We won’t.”
“Promise.”
He swallowed. “Promise.”
Noah snuggled down into his duvet. Blake clicked off the light and stepped out into the hallway. He closed the door gently and ran his hand through his hair. Slowly he walked to the long window at the end of the upstairs hall. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and watched the beam of the lighthouse in the dark and mist.
Out of the mouths of babes. And the sacrifices we make to keep them safe, and happy.
Because, yes, Noah, I’d have her back in a heartbeat, but it’s not gonna happen. She’s taken. So it’s you, me, and Lucy, kid. And I’d best listen to you and stay the hell away … because good things have never come from getting mixed up with Meg.
CHAPTER 10
Whakami Bay. 7:00 a.m.
Geoff parked his Wrangler behind a line of gnarled shore pines, alongside the only other vehicle in the sand-strewn lot—a polished cherry-red MINI Cooper with two white racing stripes. A wry smile pulled at his mouth as he got out with two coffees in cardboard cups. He kicked his door shut and made his way up the small dune. Cold wind lifted his hair.
He crunched over to a log where a man sat huddled in a coat. The man did not turn around at the sound of his approach.
“Nice wheels,” Geoff said as he reached the log.
The man looked up. Their eyes met. Geoff’s heart crunched. He handed his old friend a cup.
Henry glanced warily at the offering, then took it. Geoff seated himself on the log, beside Henry. He noted the expensive designer coat, the softness around his bud’s waist, and the roundedness in his shoulders. He took in the receding hairline, the silver flecks in Henge’s once-dense black hair. Emotions stabbed through him. Affection. Sadness. A sense of poignancy over the lost passages of time. And something a little more sly. Love was a dark and oily thing.
“I’m getting married,” Geoff said, taking a sip of his latte as he looked out toward the sea, the horizon beyond.
Henry’s eyes flared to his. “I … congratulations. Who … is she?”
“He. Nate Fischer. An architect.”
Henry stilled. He stared at Geoff for several long beats, then lowered his cup to his lap, cradling it in both hands. He closed his eyes, bent his head. His shoulders rolled inward. He was crying. Emotion whammed Geoff in the gut. He reached out, touched, just barely, Henry’s hand.
Henry allowed it. Wind gusted, whipping up sharp specks of white sand. Spindrift blew off the waves rolling in the distance.
A tenderness between them hung, like a forgotten memory.
Henry swiped his eyes with the base of his thumb. “What do you really want back here, Geoff?” His voice was thick, defeated. “What do you want with me? You’ve got it all now.”
Geoff removed his hand, took a large sip of his coffee. Inhaled deeply.
“I’m going to invite Blake and Noah to the wedding in person. I’m going to come out to them. I’m not going to hide from this, even here, back home.” A pause. “I’d like you to come, too. To the wedding. It’s in September.”
Henry paled. He stared at the untouched coffee in his lap.
“I can’t.”
Geoff studied his friend’s wedding ring. Questions crashed like the breakers through his mind.
“You can’t do this, Geoff. You can’t tell everyone in town.”
“It doesn’t need to impact you, Henge.”
He nodded. But his skin had taken on a greenish tinge—he looked like he was going to throw up.
“And what you said about Blake telling Meg that you were on the point that night—what did you mean by making a plan?” He refused to meet Geoff’s eyes.
“I’m going to the marina to see him today. I’ll stay there a while, hopefully. I’ll try to convince him it means nothing that I was there, and that keeping it from Meg will have no impact whatsoever on her story. I’ll talk to Meg, too, try to dissuade her from digging up old hurts.” Geoff paused. “But what worries me is that Blake said she was remembering things, that her memory might be returning.”
Henry spun, faced Geoff square, eyes bright with anxiety. “If she does remember, or if this case is reopened for some weird reason, if they do learn that you were on the spit that night, they’ll want to know what you saw. Or who you were with. If they know we were together—”
“Nothing. I saw nothing. And no one.”
“Shit.” Henry rubbed his brow. It was shiny with sweat, even in the chill wind. “Because it’ll kill me, you know that, right? If it gets out that we … it’ll finish me off, be the end of my marriage. My life … after all these years …”
He dropped his face into his hands, hunched over. Geoff placed the palm of his hand on Henry’s back. Henry jerked upright. “Don’t touch me, okay. Don’t the fuck touch me.” He was starting to shake.
“Listen,” Geoff said, easing off. “I’ll handle it. Whatever happens, whatever I say, it will have nothing to do with you. Trust me?”
Henry looked away.
“Henge, do you trust me?”
Slowly
he nodded his head.
“The only problem, the only real problem, will be Meg’s memory.”
“And what if she does remember?”
Geoff looked up at the wild, gray sky full with scudding clouds. A gull wheeled. “Then we’re screwed. Then we’ll have to deal with it as it comes.”
Henry jolted to his feet, took three strides away from the log, then stopped, spun back. “Are you insane? We don’t deal with it—it deals with us. It’ll be over. We’re toast. What is it with you—you have a death wish? What is going on with you, Geoff? The only way to stop this is to stop Meg Brogan. Just … just—you’ve got to get her to give it up, leave town. She should never have come back.”
“I’ll talk to her. I’ll get a sense of why she’s doing this. I’ll see how much she really might be starting to recall.”
“And please, Geoff, just drop this thing about coming out, please.”
“I need to. I’m getting married, and I want a clean, open start. I want to finally step out into the light and be myself. None of this hiding shit, anymore. It’s been like a sickness my whole life.”
“And what do you think it’s done for me?” He held his hands out to his chubby sides, palms up. “Look at me. I don’t even know my fucking self. I’m prisoner in my own skin.”
Geoff nodded to the wedding band. “Who is she? You want to tell me about it?”
He slumped back down onto the log. “Lori-Beth Braden. Eight years now.”
Geoff looked into his eyes, searching. “You’re not happy.”
“What the fuck is happy?” A pause. Then. “It’s fine. I’m fine. I was, until now—you. We’re expecting a baby. A daughter. In a week or two.”
“Your own progeny. Wow. So … the physical part of the relationship is—”
Henry looked down, rubbed his knee, silent for a long time. A dark memory uncoiled like a smoke serpent between them. Neither wanted to go there, but Meg’s arrival was forcing them to go there. It ground to the heart of everything.
“LB is a paraplegic,” he said quietly. “We’re adopting. From a young unwed teen. Her baby is due any day now.”
“So, no sex?”
He moistened his lips and flicked Geoff a sideways glance, as if trying to decide whether Geoff even had a right to ask this question. “We tried. It wasn’t working for either of us.”
“A wife of convenience for the gay man,” Geoff said softly. And a husband of convenience for the paraplegic. His heart ached for his friend, and in that moment he loved Nate more than he could articulate, for Nate had given Geoff the courage to be himself. Otherwise he might have ended up like Henry, living his life in an iron closet.
Very quietly, Geoff said, “Does LB know?”
“She might suspect. She’s never let on, though. It’s not in her interests.” He cleared his throat. “Thing is, the birth mother is the teenage daughter of a devoutly religious family whose faith will not allow abortion. They’re seeking a … couple with compatible values to adopt. We’ve signed a private adoption agreement based on some fundamental tenets, namely that we will raise our daughter in faith with … traditional … values.” He looked up, eyes beseeching. “I know it’s not something they can realistically go back on if they find out years later … about me. But if they learn before the baby is born, then that contract will be null and void. LB—we—will lose our daughter.” He paused. “Geoff, I implore you, don’t do this. If people in town put two and two together, and guess that we were close at school, I’m done. LB will not survive without that baby. Our marriage will not survive.”
Compassion and pity unfurled through Geoff. He touched Henry’s hand that rested on the log, just pinkie against pinkie. Henry swallowed. His face warmed. Geoff’s pulse increased, and he felt himself stir.
Henry got up fast. He looked around, panicked. “I wish you well, Geoff, you and your architect,” he said quickly, eyes frantically scanning up and down the beach, the parking lot behind them. “But I wish you hadn’t come back. I’d rather you got the hell out of town, and stayed the hell away.”
“And Meg? And what might be coming down the pike anyway?”
“I …” He rubbed his brow angrily, and his eyes were suddenly those of a desperate man. “Please … just leave. I’m a dead man, Geoff. You’ve fucking come home to kill me. You and Meg. Is that what you want?”
Geoff came to his feet. The wind was picking up, whipping sand into skin. Flumes of froth tore off the crests of waves. Geoff took his old lover’s shoulders in his big hands. “Look at me. I’m going to do what I can, okay? That’s the key reason I’m back. Trust me, Henge?”
Henry bit his lip, nodded.
The two men near the log on the rise of the dune hugged briefly, awkwardly—dark windblown silhouettes against a silvery sky. The driver of a silver SUV watched them from behind a row of dune shrubs at the back end of the parking lot. Before the men turned and made for their vehicles the driver pulled out of the lot, tires crunching quietly on sand and gravel.
Meg exited the GoodFood Mart loaded with bags and enough sustenance to last at least two weeks. In her truck she already had cleaning supplies, toilet paper, soap, stuff for minor repairs, fuel for the weed whacker. If it was going to be dry tomorrow, she might tackle some of the lawn and the weeds around the house.
She’d left the house at 8:00 a.m. when the contractors, cleaners, and window guys had arrived. She’d already been to a Realtors’ office and spoken with an energetic young woman who said she’d come around and do an assessment of the property. Meg had momentarily wavered, thinking of Irene, but decided to go ahead and at least see what they might get for the house. It didn’t mean she had to put it on the market right away. Plenty of time for that—she still had a book to write. Her plan for the rest of the day was to stash the perishables she’d just bought in her camper fridge, then maybe take Irene out for lunch, or afternoon tea. In the meanwhile, she had calls and appointments to make, which she could do from her camper.
The sky was bright, Front Street alive with banners snapping happily in the salt wind, and as she made her way back to the parking lot, Meg’s thoughts turned to Blake and Noah—the bombshell the kid had dropped. Her heart ached for their loss. The notion of Blake struggling as a single dad stirred a deep compassion in Meg. With it came something hotter, trickier—she didn’t trust her feelings around him. But it didn’t matter, because she wasn’t going near Blake, apart from an interview for the book, which she still needed to set up with him. Whatever had fueled Noah’s outburst, it was clear that she was a problem for the kid. She needed to keep her distance—she’d messed up Blake’s life enough in the past. And she had to keep focus on why she was writing this story.
As she passed The Mystery Bookstore, she hesitated at the sight of her books in the window. Her face smiled back at her from one of the jackets—a fake face, thought Meg. All sleek and sophisticated in a charcoal suit, ridiculously high heels. She was posing half perched on one of those tall bar stool–type chairs, arms crossed with self-importance. Barely the hint of a smile on her lips. The intent had been to project an image of approachability and “intelligence.” Someone fit to tackle the gravitas that was true crime. Jonah liked that photo.
The door swung open. “Megan!”
Meg jumped as a woman bustled toward her, gray hair swept up in a chignon, red-rimmed glasses perched on the end of her nose. She wore a tweed skirt and a soft cream sweater, a demure strand of pearls.
“It’s me, Rose Thibodeau! Remember? Your old English teacher from grade nine?”
Meg’s jaw dropped. “Oh wow, hi, yes. Blake mentioned you owned the bookstore now.” Meg set her bags down on the wooden bench under the store window, and gave Rose a hug.
“I was just looking at the display,” she said. “Thank you so much for stocking my book.”
“We have all your books in-store,” Rose said with a smile that danced in her small blue eyes. “How are you, Megan?”
“I’m good. And you’re l
ooking wonderful. How’s Mr. Tibbo?” Just the mention of her old elementary school principal’s name sent Meg hurtling back through a wormhole in time.
“That’s his shop next door.” Rose motioned to a tiny door recessed into an alcove adjacent to The Mystery Bookstore. Above the door hung a wooden plaque that said SHELTER BAY STAMPS.
“I’m now a philatelist’s widow,” she said with a grin. “Albert travels the world in search of the elusive missing watermark, or rare collection. And when he’s home, he’s poring over his finds in the store.”
“And Henry?”
“Henry married Lori-Beth Braden. They still live in town, and I’m so grateful for it. He’s VP of Kessinger-Sproatt now. Tommy took over his dad’s old company and has been growing it aggressively since. Best news of all is that Henry and LB are making us grandparents in a few days.” A smile creased her face. The genuineness in this woman, the kindness in her eyes, it cracked something free in Meg. She felt welcome, and the sensation caught her by surprise.
“Congratulations—I’m so happy for you all,” she said, affection warming her heart. That some lives had actually turned out well in Shelter Bay was good to know. It took the edge off her own fears about coming back here.
Wisps of Rose’s hair blew free of her chignon as she touched Meg’s forearm. “Would you do us a favor, Meg, could you come give us a talk—about the new book? I started a book club a few years ago. It’s called the Armchair Sleuths and Philosophers Society.” She flushed a little. “Several of us are wannabe scribes, too. And we love, love, love true crime. We’re currently reading Sins Not Forgotten, and with you now writing the Sherry Brogan story—” Her flush deepened. “I mean, I … I heard on the news—”
“I’d love to,” Meg said.
Rose clasped her hands together. “Oh, that would be so wonderful! We meet every second Friday afternoon at four, really informal. Coffee, pastries. Between ten to fifteen of us. Would this Friday work for you?”
“Nothing I’d like more.”
“Thank you! And do bring Irene. I haven’t seen her in a while. I … I’ve been meaning to visit her at Chestnut Place, but—”
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