Return to Emmett's Mill

by Kimberly Van Meter

Josh let the topic go, steering the conversation to neutral areas, and Tasha slowly relaxed. She listened as he talked about Christopher—his love for his son was evident in his tone and sent warm tendrils of some unnamed emotion curling through her body—and she chatted about her work in developing countries.

  “Coming back here, it almost seemed like déjà vu,” she admitted, looking up quickly to gauge his reaction. When he smiled, she added in a husky murmur, “I have a lot of memories of me and you in a darkened vehicle. Good memories,” she added.

  He broke into a wide grin. “Remember that time your dad caught us making out in my old Dodge Charger? God, I thought he was going to shoot me right then and there.”

  Tasha giggled and it felt good. “We thought we were being so smart by parking down the driveway with the headlights off. Who knew my dad was waiting and saw us drive up from his bedroom window. I was grounded for two weeks.”

  “I remember,” he said, groaning. “I thought it was the longest two weeks of my life.”

  “You and me both.”

  An easy silence passed between them, and as the laughter eased from their mouths Tasha’s thoughts turned unexpectantly. “What went wrong with us?” she asked, realizing too late what she’d just done. Embarrassed, she said, “Scratch that. I’m sorry. I have no idea where that came from.”

  Josh’s attitude turned solemn, but he surprised her with an answer. “Immaturity.”

  Good, safe answer. She agreed. “You’re right. We were just two young, dumb kids. I suppose high-school romances aren’t meant to last for that very reason. We were crazy to try a long-distance relationship.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  Since they’d already broached the subject, Tasha asked another question that had always plagued her.

  “Why Carrie? I mean, how did you two hook up?”

  Josh grimaced, and Tasha sensed there was something to the story that he didn’t enjoy telling. He exhaled loudly and said, “More dumb-kid stuff. I guess you could say there was a time period when I was a little lost. I was partying a lot and happened to see Carrie one night at a big New Year’s Eve bash in Stockton. We hit it off. She liked to party, I liked to party, so it seemed good. Then she turned up pregnant.”

  Tasha understood immediately. Josh’s moral compass would only steer him in one direction if faced with that situation. It was one of his most endearing qualities.

  “But I don’t regret it. Chris is a great kid. A father couldn’t ask for a better boy.”

  Warmth suffused her body as she gently grasped his hand. “A boy couldn’t ask for a better father.”

  He looked at her and she had to turn away, before he saw the sudden tears that pricked her eyes. She hadn’t meant to, but she couldn’t help but mourn the future that she’d been denied.

  She’d envisioned a future with Josh, had foolishly assumed in her childish naiveté that even though they’d broken up, when the time was right, fate would put them in each other’s path again.

  “She was a lucky woman,” she finally said with a bright smile that felt worn around the edges but hopefully didn’t show how ragged she felt inside.

  His mouth tightened, but he only shrugged in response. “My son is all that matters at this point,” he said.

  She nodded, her throat closing at the emotion squeezing her heart. “I understand completely. That’s how it should be.”

  Things had been going so well, she’d almost forgotten why they couldn’t pick up where they left off just as she’d imagined. Their instant, undeniable chemistry almost supported that childish hope, but Tasha knew there were no fairy-tale endings for her. Her place was not in Emmett’s Mill. She couldn’t hide the fear that caused beads of sweat to pop along her forehead anytime she drove past Crystal Aire Drive, and Josh was dealing with the aftereffects of a broken marriage. But sitting there with Josh within touching distance, his very scent soothing her nerves, was insidiously cruel as it taunted her with a possibility that was simply an illusion.

  “Hey,” he admonished lightly, making a direct attempt to change the mood. “Enough of this serious talk, okay? We’re two friends enjoying dinner. From this point forward, the topics of divorce, disillusionment and heartbreak aren’t allowed. Sound good?”

  She smiled through the tears threatening to embarrass her. “Sounds perfect. Let’s find that waitress. I feel like I haven’t eaten in a week,” she declared, immensely grateful for his ability to lift her mood.

  “That’s the Tasha I remember—the woman with the appetite of a horse and not afraid to show it.”

  She grinned and he motioned for their server.

  DINNER LONG FINISHED, it was several hours before they left the restaurant, both so busy catching up that they lost track of time.

  Josh held the door open for her as they left, and as Tasha stepped over the threshold, the sound of a drunken female screech filled the small square, drawing her gaze to a thin blond woman stumbling off the curb and nearly into the street as a man tried catching her unsuccessfully.

  “It’s my goddamn birthday!” the woman shouted as the door of Gilly’s swung shut. “That’s no way to treat a paying customer!”

  “C’mon baby, let’s take this party to my place,” suggested the man, but the woman pushed past him to give the door a resounding bang with her fist, then howled at the pain. The man came up behind her and slid his hands up her chest and blatantly fondled her breasts through the tight sweater she was wearing until she slapped his hands.

  “Get off me,” she said, but he wasn’t deterred and tried planting his mouth on hers until she pushed him. “Get away. Don’t touch me.”

  The door opened and a burly man blocked the entrance even as she tried shoving past him. “You’re cut off, Chloe. Go home.”

  Tasha gasped as she peered a little harder, barely recognizing the disheveled woman as the girl she’d babysat years ago. Pain lanced her heart as the woman wobbled and tried to move past the man again and ended up on her ass this time. The man who’d been hoping to get lucky wandered off, leaving her in the muck of the gutter.

  “Do you know her?” Josh asked, puzzled.

  “I used to,” she answered, tugging at Josh’s hand. “We have to help her.” She urged him to follow as she crossed the street and went to the woman who had begun to cry softly.

  Josh glared at the bouncer, but the man only shrugged, saying, “She’s your problem now,” and disappeared inside the bar, music blaring.

  Tasha tried getting Chloe’s attention but it took several moments before the woman could focus. She smelled like a distillery and looked ten years older than her actual age. “Chloe, honey, it’s Tasha. C’mon, we’ll take you home,” she said, helping Chloe to her feet.

  “Tasha?” Chloe slurred, recognition coming slowly. “Tasha Simmons? What are you doing here?”

  “Helping you. C’mon, you have to stand up. I can’t carry you.”

  “It’s my birthday,” Chloe said in a pained whisper, leaning heavily on Tasha and Josh. Her bleary gaze tormented, she said, “I hate my birthday.”

  “Once you reach a certain age no one likes their birthday, honey. Upsy daisy, let’s go.”

  Chloe’s knees went out on her, and if it weren’t for Josh’s quick reflexes, they both would’ve tumbled to the ground. Instead, Josh caught Chloe and hoisted her in his arms. Tasha sent him a grateful look and they walked to Josh’s truck.

  A soft snore against Josh’s shoulder told them Chloe had passed out, and Tasha smoothed a lock of sweaty hair from Chloe’s brow.

  “I used to babysit her when she was a kid,” Tasha murmured, wondering how Chloe Lewis had fallen so far from grace as to become a public spectacle. A horrid thought came to mind, but she shrugged it away. Bronson had been a monster but surely not a devil.

  Josh slid Chloe into the front seat and Tasha climbed in beside her, locking the seat belt in place. “I guess we’ll take her to her mom’s place. That’s the only thing I can suggest. She lives just outside
of town in Whispering Oaks. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all,” he said, turning the ignition and slowly pulling out of the parking lot. “She’s lucky you were there. No telling what kind of night she’d have ended with.”

  Tasha shuddered. She had a good idea.

  “Has she always been a bit of a wild child?” he asked in a whisper.

  Tasha shook her head. “Not the Chloe I remember. She was a good kid. Straight A’s, honor roll, she was gearing for an Ivy league. I don’t know what happened.”

  “Maybe she cracked under the pressure.”

  “Maybe,” Tasha said, but the ugly thought had germinated inside her head. “Let’s just get her home. I’ll feel better when I know she’s safe for the night.”

  They drove in silence to the Lewis house, and Tasha’s gut muscles constricted as the familiar columns came into view. The automatic flood lamps came on, bathing the driveway in light, and in the backyard the sound of dogs barking brought a robed figure to the front door.

  Josh and Tasha helped Chloe out of the truck and Tasha could tell by Diane’s stricken expression she was in for a shock.

  “Diane, we found Chloe outside Gilly’s and decided to give her a ride home.”

  “Chloe? I didn’t even know she was in town,” Diane said as she came forward, shock registering on her lined face. Without the protective layer of expensive cosmetics, Diane’s age was evident. “Yes, please bring her in.”

  They deposited Chloe on the nearest sofa and Tasha wanted nothing more than to make a quick getaway, but something was nagging at her and her mouth took control. “She doesn’t live here anymore? In Emmett’s Mill?”

  “Chloe moved away when she turned eighteen. Last I heard she was living in Fresno. She moves around a lot, though. I haven’t a clue where she’s living now.” Her gaze strayed to her daughter and a subtle spasm of pain rippled across her expression before she could hide it. “Thank you,” she added, her posture stiffening ever so slightly. “I’ll take it from here.”

  Tasha nodded and led the way back to the truck, eager to get away from Diane, Chloe and the evidence that was staring her right in the face.

  “You okay?” Josh asked as they climbed inside.

  “Let’s just get out of here,” she said, tears choking her voice.

  If her suspicion was correct—she hadn’t been Bronson’s only victim. And the realization soured the food in her stomach until she felt she was going to retch. It was bad enough how she’d suffered, but to think he might’ve done the unthinkable to his own daughter made her gag.

  EVEN IN THE DARK JOSH COULD tell Tasha was on edge.

  “Tasha, what’s wrong?” he asked as he pulled into a parking space at her hotel. “Is it Chloe?”

  He caught the shake of her head. “She was a great kid,” she managed to say. “I can’t believe how much she’s changed.”

  “You never know how people are going to turn out,” he said, gently agreeing.

  She turned to him sharply, her eyes blazing. “No, some people don’t change because they want to—it’s forced on them. A person doesn’t start out a stellar student and end up a drunk unless something happened to put them there.”

  “We don’t know what happened in Chloe’s life. Some people aren’t as strong as others and life can beat a person down if they’re not prepared.”

  Her breath came quickly as if she were struggling with something, and Josh ran his knuckle gently down the side of her jaw. She closed her eyes at the brief contact, and when she opened them again, there was a wealth of agony that cut him to ribbons for his ignorance. “Tasha…tell me what’s bothering you. Please,” he pleaded softly, but she only gave a short jerk of her head.

  “I can’t.”

  And then she bolted from the truck before he could stop her and practically ran to her room, leaving him to stare and wonder if Chloe wasn’t the only one life had thrown a curve ball at.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  JOSH KNEW HE’D PROMISED not to pressure her, but there was a gnawing sense of intuition that he couldn’t ignore. Tasha was hiding something.

  The next morning he knocked on her hotel-room door only to find she’d already left for her parents’ house.

  He drove to the Simmons place and found her outside, staring at the trees. She turned and saw him coming toward her. “Josh? What are you doing here so early?” she asked in surprise. “Is everything okay? Christopher?”

  “Christopher is fine. I came to talk to you about last night.”

  She sighed heavily. “Josh, let it go.”

  “Not going to happen.” He fell in step with her as she walked the property. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this,” he promised, and read fear in her eyes. “You can trust me.”

  She stammered a denial. “N-nothing’s wrong, Josh. Please, stop asking.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve sensed it since I first saw you and I chalked it up to grief, but I think it goes deeper than grief and that’s what worries me. When we first entered the restaurant your entire body tensed, and when we were talking to Karl…” He stopped, an awful thought coming to him. “Did Karl do something to you?”

  “No, Karl didn’t hurt me. I’m fine,” she insisted, but there was an underlying panic in her tone. His heart rate began to thunder as his gut told him something terrible had happened to Tasha but she was trying to bury it. She blinked away the moisture he saw creeping into her eyes. “It’s nothing you can fix. No one can.”

  “Let me try,” he said gently, but she fisted her hands at her side. He cupped her hands in his own, coaxing the tension from her palms. “Whatever it is, I’ll do my best to make you feel better,” he promised, but fear was starting to curl in his belly. What had happened, for God’s sake? He could think of only one thing that could crush a woman’s spirit so completely and the thought was making him shake with trepidation.

  “I…I…don’t want to talk about it,” she said, her voice tight with unshed tears, her cheeks deathly pale. “I can’t.”

  “You can,” he encouraged her softly. “I know you can. You’re the strongest woman I know. There’s nothing you can’t do.”

  She shook her head in a wild, jerky motion. “I’m not strong. I couldn’t fight him,” she said, gulping for air. “I couldn’t fight him. He…he was too big, too strong.”

  “What happened?”

  Her expression stark, she whispered, “What do you think? I was raped.”

  Josh staggered under the suffocating weight of her revelation and struggled to comprehend the magnitude.

  Oh, God, he wanted to moan. His mind balked at the possibility, bitter rage filling his mouth at the very idea. He’d kill the bastard with his bare hands. How could someone do that? Suddenly, Tasha’s behavior made sense.

  She’d been outgoing to the point of overly social in high school. Pretty, she’d always turned heads. Now he noticed she downplayed her natural good looks, not that it worked. She had a bone-deep grace that not even a pound of mud could cover. Son of a bitch, he swore.

  He swallowed against the pain he read in her eyes. Beyond anything else he wished he could pull her into his arms and take away the memory. Short of that, he wanted her to know she didn’t have to carry this burden alone.

  “Tasha, whoever did this is the scum of the earth and deserves to die, but short of that, he’s got one hell of an ass-kicking coming.” She turned away, her reaction baffling him. It almost seemed she was protecting the bastard. “Tasha…tell me who did this.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” he demanded, his hands already curling into fists, hungering for violence.

  When she met his gaze again, the look in them was devoid of emotion.

  “Because he’s already dead.”

  TEARS STREAMED DOWN her face unchecked but she was frozen, unable to wipe them away or make them stop. Fear paralyzed her as Josh’s gentle face contorted with rage and she could feel his body trembling.

  His growl of frustration ended wit
h a deep rumble, and she knew he was swallowing the carnage he wanted to wreak on her behalf.

  Tasha felt nothing. It was as if she were watching the scene from outside her body. Her revelation had stunned Josh and taken the fury out of his resolve, leaving in its place bewildered shock.

  She sighed. “He died five years ago. Heart attack.”

  “Heart attack?” he repeated, quickly digesting the information. “He was an older man?”

  Tasha felt herself nod. “My dad’s age.”

  Revulsion crossed his strong features and she slammed back into her body, curling into herself. “So, you see, God has already taken care of things. There’s no need for misplaced heroics,” she said.

  Josh cursed. “Were there ever charges filed?”

  At that Tasha smothered a hysterical laugh. File charges against one of the best defense attorneys in town? If the case hadn’t been laughed out of court, he would’ve painted her to look like some opportunistic slut out to destroy a good man, her family would’ve been ruined. She couldn’t take the chance. She shook her head.

  “Why not?” he asked, earning a derisive look that he didn’t understand but she wasn’t up to explaining. “Tasha, why would you let someone get away with that? What if there were other victims?”

  Tasha thought of Chloe and swallowed a lump of guilt. “It was just easier to leave.”

  “Easier for who?” Josh demanded.

  “Everyone.”

  He advanced toward her, but when she stiffened, he stopped, pain at her reaction in his eyes. “Tasha, let me help you. I can’t stand to see you hurting like this.”

  “What’s done is done, Josh. Nothing can change the past. Believe me, if there was a way, I’d have found it.”

  “I’ll help you find a good therapist so you can work through this.”

  “And then what?” she asked. “It’s not part of my future to ride off into the sunset with my handsome prince. I’ve come to realize this and I’ve stopped fighting it. I was dealt a different hand and I’m managing the best way I know how.”

  “You may have stopped fighting, but when you did you stopped living. Don’t let this destroy you.”