by Jean Oram
Amber waved him away. She had everything under control and the sooner she redirected the gossipers from what could be seen as the explosive disintegration of her life, the better. With a shake of his head, Scott backed down the driveway. He made a phone signal with his thumb and pinky, letting her know he’d bail her out if the sisters got to be too much.
Amber had the best friend ever.
She ushered the women to the house. “Come in or you’ll start feeding the mosquitoes.”
“I heard they bite,” Liz replied, as her sister added, “Not at all tame.”
“Come in already and quit feeding the wildlife,” Amber said from the doorway.
“Have you seen Jen lately?” Liz asked, referring to Amber’s friend Jen Kulak who ran a guiding business out of Wally’s Sporting Goods. Last summer she’d been involved in a forest fire investigation and had fallen in love with the investigator, Rob Raine.
Liz, making herself at home in the kitchen, gathered plates and forks for pie. Amber wanted to tell her to skip the plates, since they’d undoubtedly be finishing the whole thing and might as well eat straight from the dish.
“Rumor is she’s pregnant,” Liz said.
The sisters were going to bait and switch. Warm Amber up with other gossip, disarm her, then get her talking about herself before she noticed.
Nope. No way. Her lips were zipped. Nothing was coming out of her mouth unless it was part of her plan.
“Oh, they’ve been saying that for months,” Mary Alice said. “Ever since she moved in with Rob. But I’ll bet she’s knocked up before Amber manages to move back to the city.”
“I’ll take that bet,” her sister said.
“Hey, I’m not sure I appreciate the doubt in your tone in regards to my ability to leave this place,” Amber interjected, taking the largest slice of pie for herself.
“I noticed your car was packed, and yet you are still here,” Mary Alice pointed out.
“I still plan to go. Just maybe not immediately.” Her rent was paid up at the moment and she’d have to see if she had enough for first and last month’s rent on a place in the city before she hightailed it out of here, anyway.
“You know, Jen looked a bit green around the gills the other morning when I stopped by the store to get a football for my nephew,” Mary Alice said thoughtfully.
Liz waggled a finger at her sister. “I’m going to win this one. You wait and see. Now, Nicola. She’s lost a lot of weight.” She spoke of their niece who had put on the Valentine’s Day extravaganza and was a Blueberry Springs newcomer.
“She’s working hard,” Amber said between mouthfuls of pie. “The new subdivision’s community development plans are keeping her busy.”
“Do you think Jen will invite her family if she gets married?” Liz asked, backtracking the conversation to Jen’s broken family. Her parents had split and used teenage Jen as leverage and, in the end, sent her to live with her boyfriend as she finished high school. The latest Amber had heard, the family was finally talking but she still didn’t expect Mr. Kulak to walk Jen down an aisle any time soon.
Kind of like how Amber didn’t expect her own father, Philip Powers, to walk her down the aisle. Wherever he was. She’d never met him, and by the sounds of it, never would. In any case, her mother had done a fine job of raising her on her own. Even if Amber were to meet him she wasn’t sure what she’d say, but she knew it wouldn’t be “Can you walk me down the aisle after leaving my mother high and dry, with no support whatsoever? What didn’t you like about us anyway, you selfish jerk?”
So, she supposed she did know what she’d say to him, after all.
“Divorces can be so tricky when it comes to weddings,” Mary Alice said.
“I don’t blame her if she doesn’t ask him,” Amber replied. “I won’t be inviting my dad to my wedding.”
Amber licked chocolate off the back of her fork and wondered if it would be rude to help herself to a second slice of pie before the others had finished their first. “Philip will just miss out on the fatherly privilege of walking me down the aisle,” she added.
“Philip?” Mary Alice asked, scraping the last of the mousse off her plate. She shared a confused glance with her sister.
“You know, the man who knocked up my mom, then ran off before I was even born?”
“Oh, would you look at the time,” Liz said, standing up. “We need to get ready for the community watch meeting.”
“Oh!” Mary Alice sat straighter. “How did I forget? I hope you’re feeling better, Amber. I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to chat more. You should consider helping us with the bake sale—we’re raising funds for a new bus for the seniors’ home.”
“Wait,” Amber said, holding up her hands as though trying to stop traffic. The women ignored her, quickly tidying up their plates and forks. “What happened to my dad?” The sisters said nothing, simply moved faster.
Mary Alice patted Amber’s arm. “I just hadn’t heard his name in so long. If you want to talk about Russell give me a call. I’ll put on tea.”
“There’s nothing to say,” Amber said, clicking into her rehearsed speech. “The book isn’t about me. I was just helping him out when he wrote it. It’s no big deal.”
The sisters turned at the door, giving her a look that told her she was failing to move them off their predetermined gossip path. They knew the truth about her and Russell as inherently as if it had happened to them.
The sisters left and Amber wondered what that shared glance had been about. Her asking about Philip Powers had definitely scared them off. If there really had been a community watch meeting they would have tried to convince her to join, as usual.
They hadn’t said a thing, but Amber could have sworn they didn’t think Philip was her father. But how could that be? Knowing who your dad was wasn’t something a person normally got wrong.
She flicked through her mind’s rolodex of memories. Her mother had never once corrected her the few times Amber had referred to Philip as her father, while dancing around the taboo subject of her parentage. Then again, she couldn’t recall her mom ever out-and-out stating that he was.
What did it mean?
If he wasn’t her father, was everyone she knew keeping secrets from her? Did everyone believe she was the most naïve and gullible person in the world?
Because when it came right down to it, if the town’s biggest gossips believed Philip wasn’t her dad… he wasn’t.
* * *
A vehicle pulled up Amber’s driveway and, assuming it was another gawker coming to check out the scene of the trailer’s death, she kept working at the kitchen table, head down, trying not to think about the layers of deception she’d been living under for months and possibly even years.
“How long are you planning to hide out?” her mother asked, entering the kitchen and setting a casserole dish on the table.
Amber jumped. “Technically, I’m not hiding out,” she said, “just catching up on database work.”
Her mom waited, hands on her hips.
Amber had to look away, afraid to think that her mother had allowed her to believe a lie all her life. She trusted her, but if her mother had deceived her, then what other lies about her life did Amber still unknowingly believe?
“I’m not going to town again until everyone has forgotten about me,” she said.
“The gossip isn’t that bad.”
“Yeah, right. Mary Alice and Liz were here last night and already had their minds made up about how everything went down.” Amber sighed and rubbed her forehead, still mad at herself for how trusting and blind she’d been.
Her mom smiled. “Sounds like them.”
“Everyone’s read the book, haven’t they?” It had been out a mere twenty-four hours and Amber had had a ton of texts and phone calls about it from people in town. So far, she had ignored every single one of them. “He got me all wrong.”
“You read it?”
“Of course. I have to know what I’m defend
ing,” Amber said.
“It wasn’t that bad. He got your charm right, I think.”
“You read it?” Ugh. There were scenes in there she definitely didn’t want her mother reading.
“Yes, and I brought you chocolate drops.” She pulled a cellophane package out of her shoulder bag and set it on the table. Which meant the book was that bad. Although the chocolate could also be a sympathy gift due to her recent breakup, or for the accidental recreational vehicle manslaughter.
“My hips thank you.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You seem upset.”
“It’s nothing.” Amber debated asking her mother about Philip. She wanted to believe what she’d always believed, but had promised herself that there would be no more secrets in her life. But if she found out her mother had lied about Philip, how many other secrets would come pouring out? Amber wasn’t sure she was ready to deal with a complete life upheaval.
Her mom sat across from her, hands folded, waiting for her to unload.
Amber closed her laptop and pushed it to the side, then wished she’d kept it as a barrier between them. Gloria had always avoided and dodged the subject of Philip with determination similar to that of a running back on his way to the end zone.
“The trailer really was an accident,” Amber said.
“And so you’re mad?”
“I’m upset because Russell kept so many secrets from me…” She watched her mother for her reaction. Maybe she was simply waiting for Amber to bring up the subject so she could lay everything out in the open. Or maybe the gossips were wrong for once.
Gloria eased back in the chair, but said nothing.
“And I feel as though I don’t really know myself any longer,” Amber added.
Her mother tipped her head to the side, watching her.
It was now or never.
“Mary Alice and Liz each gave me a funny look when I mentioned Philip yesterday.”
“Oh?” Her mom got up and began straightening items on the kitchen counter, a sure sign that she was nervous.
“It was almost as though they didn’t believe he was my father.” Amber watched her mother’s back. Her busy moves ceased for a split second.
“Is there insurance on Russell’s holiday trailer? I can’t imagine one of those things being cheap even though it was an older, secondhand one.”
Her mother was keeping something from her. Something about Amber’s dad. Something vital.
Amber felt as though her world was deep, shifting sand and she no longer had solid ground to stand upon.
* * *
Amber rinsed out her teacup and, through the kitchen window, watched Scott pull up the driveway in his police truck. He got out slowly, assessing the yard as though on the lookout for clues, his badge winking in the early April sunshine. He ambled slowly to her door, his gait relaxed in a way that said he was in charge and nothing could faze him. No wonder he was the one steady presence in her life.
The only person who didn’t keep secrets from her. The one man who might be able to help her get to the bottom of her life, then help her up again.
He knocked twice, then let himself in.
“I’m in the kitchen, Officer Malone,” she called, meeting him in the entry with a big smile.
“I love it when you call me that,” he said, with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. They grew more serious as they roved over her. “How are you today?”
“Fine.” She was still upset about Russell putting her in a book, but not nearly as bothered about him breaking up with her as she thought she should be. Maybe the unexpected grand event of both the book and trailer was overshadowing the emotional fallout of the breakup. Or, even more odd, maybe she was okay with him being out of her life. She’d always felt as though she had to work to be bright, funny, and everything he needed. Add in the fact that the man was a usurious schmuck and it was a case of well-timed good riddance.
Seeming satisfied with his assessment and her answer, Scott moved past her, his fingers drifting over her hip so he probably wouldn’t knock her over. Shivers ran through her at his touch and she shut the outer door, following him into the house. “I hear the ladies brought you pie the other day,” he said from the kitchen. “Any left?”
“Nope.”
His lips twisted into a pouty frown, which undoubtedly got him what he wanted from women 99 percent of the time.
“Did you really think there’d be any?”
“A guy can hope.”
“Scott?”
“Yeah?”
Amber paused, thinking. He knew things. He was one of those quiet, protective sorts that people confessed to—even when he was out of uniform. If anyone knew who her father was, it would be him.
“If I ask you something, do you promise to tell me the truth?”
Scott was quiet for a long moment, then his gaze drifted up, meeting hers. “Always.”
“Do you know who my father is?”
Scott blinked slowly. “Come again?”
“That’s what she said.”
He snorted at her lame, off-color joke.
“Come on, that was a perfect setup for an innuendo,” Amber said, hoisting herself onto the kitchen counter so she’d be closer to eye level with her best friend. “So? Do you? I’m getting the vibe that it’s not Philip Powers.”
“Right.”
Amber felt as though every molecule in the room had stopped moving. “What do you mean, ‘right’?”
She watched him for a moment as he struggled with what to say.
“You knew it wasn’t Philip and you never told me?” Amber exclaimed. She gave him an outraged glare, reaching out to give his chest a massive shove, sending herself off the counter and into Scott’s arms instead. “Some friend you are.”
He braced his hands under her elbows. “I don’t know who your father is. For all I know it really is Philip and the gossips have it wrong.”
“They never have it wrong! Not on something huge like this.”
“Why are you asking about this? Why now?”
“Why not now? I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. I thought you were the one person…” She thumped his chest when he refused to let her go. “The one person, Scott.”
“Amber.” His grip was firm as he held her in front of him, his voice rough. “What I hear at work is confidential. If I thought this was worth pursuing I would have told you.”
“How can it not be worth pursuing? We’re talking about my father.”
“Sometimes secrets need to be kept.”
“What do you know that you’re not telling me?”
Scott gave a frustrated sigh, finally releasing her to push a hand through his hair.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just take a moment and think outside yourself. Why would anyone keep your father a secret from you for several decades?”
“Because, apparently, that’s what people do. They keep secrets from me because they think I can’t handle it. Well, guess what, world, I can handle it.”
Scott leaned against the counter, his expression thoughtful, as if he was sizing her up. “Secrets are secrets,” he said, “because people don’t want them known. It’s not our business to unearth them. They’re secrets for a reason.”
“They’re secrets about me, Scott. They affect me.” She was hanging off his collar, begging. “They’re about my life and I deserve to know. You know who your father is, but imagine not knowing. It’s like part of you is a mystery. Unanswered. Unexplainable.”
Scott carefully pried her fingers from his shirt. The sound of another vehicle coming up the driveway distracted Amber.
“Is that Dr. Leham?” she asked, pointing to the shiny BMW that had pulled up in front of the house. Why would he be visiting her? Maybe his new girlfriend—Amber’s long-time friend Katie Reiter—had borrowed it and was coming by to see how she was doing.
“He’s got a newer model,” Scott said, leaning against Amber�
��s back to get a better look out the window. His body was a warm and comforting presence and she resisted pressing against him. Scott had been the one constant in her life, but she needed to remember that even he had been keeping secrets from her.
She turned to face him, realizing that if her mother had been lying, something must have gone incredibly wrong.
“Scott? Do you have secrets? I mean more secrets? More than just the Philip thing.”
“Everyone has secrets, Amber.”
Not the answer she wanted.
“Did you ever tell your mom about what really happened when you bent the bumper of her car?” he asked.
“I meant that you’re keeping about me, my life.”
Scott’s eyes narrowed as he glared out the window, his hands going protectively to her shoulders.
“What?”
She turned, spotting Russell and his editor, Sabrina, walking up to the house. Outrage cut through Amber and she didn’t know whether to run and hide or come out fighting.
“What does he want?” Scott grumbled, moving swiftly to the front door to head him off.
Amber hesitated, then followed. Scott opened the door before Russell could knock or let himself in. Seeing Sabrina in her lithe linen outfit standing behind Russell made Amber glad to have Scott as her own personal backup.
“I’m here for my stuff,” Russell said.
“There is no reason for you to be here unannounced,” Scott said, arms crossed, acting as a human wall between Amber and her ex.
“I need my trailer. My stuff.”
“And you plan to pull it with that?” Scott asked, tipping his chin toward the sports car.
“The trailer might be a problem,” Amber murmured.
“I have a friend coming with a truck in a few minutes. He’ll tow it.”
Scott faced Amber. “Are you going to tell him, or should I?”
“It didn’t take you long to move on.” Russell smirked.
“You called that one,” Sabrina whispered to him, eyeing Scott with what looked like hunger.
“Move on?” Amber stepped in front of Scott, rage boiling through her. “Move on? You moved on to her while I was still in your bed.”
