Second Time's the Charm

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Believe.

  He knew he hadn’t committed a crime. And he believed he was going to be convicted, anyway.

  Hell, he’d convict himself, given the evidence.

  How in the hell had someone used his rubber cups to break into all of those homes? They were in the back of his truck. Always. Until he’d thrown them away. And there hadn’t been a break-in involving the cups since. There’d only been one, period. Involving a broken window.

  Greg Richards was certain that Jon had used those cups himself. Jon had told him about disposing of them and why he’d done it. But it had been too late. He’d already lost all his credibility with the lawman for lying in the first place.

  He had to get rid of Lillie. She couldn’t see him like this. He wasn’t going to taint her beauty with his dirt.

  The sound of a key in the cell door got Jon’s attention. A deputy he hadn’t seen before called him out and motioned him toward the interrogation room he’d spent so much time in the day before.

  Addy was standing by the table as he entered the room. The door closed behind him and they were alone.

  “Have a seat,” she said.

  Wordlessly, Jon complied.

  “We have a lot to go over, but the first thing I want to do is talk about each of the nights in question,” she said, sitting down next to him this time, rather than across from him, and opening her portfolio. Pen in hand she looked over at him, her gaze open, compassionate. Not the least bit doubtful.

  She thought they were going to beat this?

  Believe.

  He was sitting in jail with a top-notch attorney fighting for him. For free. Because she considered him a friend. While Lillie, beautiful Lillie, who’d spent the night in his bed, watched over his son.

  Believe.

  “I need to know where you were every minute of the dates and times in question,” Addy said. “If you remember what time you went to sleep, what homework you did...maybe you were on the internet and we could establish an alibi with a search of your IP address.”

  Believe.

  His job was to concentrate so he could recall the information Addy needed.

  After more than an hour of mental backtracking, all they’d come up with was that Jon had been at home every single night that there’d been a break-in.

  If Jon’s suction cups had been used, they’d been taken from his truck while it was parked at the duplex.

  The bed of his truck was covered.

  “Do you keep it locked?”

  “Of course.”

  “What kind of lock?”

  “A keyed lock.”

  “One that could be easily picked?”

  His foster brothers could have picked it. But he didn’t keep anything of any real value to him back there. Just tools that didn’t fit in the storage space he had in the apartment. Tools that he could replace if he had to.

  Addy called the sheriff. Jon could only hear her side of the conversation, but it sounded as if Shelter Valley’s sheriff was taking her seriously.

  And as if he knew something pertinent, some new information, that Addy and Jon hadn’t known.

  Before Addy could tell him what he’d said, her phone rang again. It was Mark calling, she said.

  “Do you mind if I fill him in on the details here?” she asked Jon before she picked up. “He wants to help, if he can.”

  “You can tell him anything you want,” Jon responded. “I have nothing to hide.”

  “Hold on.” Addy spoke into the phone, and then said to Jon, “Mark and Lillie are here. They’ve asked me to come out to the lobby. Sit tight.” She stood and, putting her phone in her pocket, left the room.

  He was alone again with four windowless walls. Jon leaned back in the chair, remembering Lillie in his bed the night before, laughing as he ran his tongue along her belly.

  Believe.

  * * *

  WALKING WITH PURPOSE, Lillie went straight to the door Greg Richards had indicated and pushed her way inside, closing it behind her with a distinct click.

  She’d been given permission to be there. And she was fighting for her future.

  “Lillie?” Jon stood, wearing the jeans and T-shirt the sheriff had allowed him to pull on before bringing him in that morning. His eyes wide, he looked surprised, but embarrassed, too. He’d been sitting alone in the room for more than an hour.

  “I asked you to believe, Jon.”

  He watched her, unsmiling. She was undaunted.

  “I want to know your choice. Right now. This minute. Will you marry me or not?”

  “I won’t tie you to a convict—”

  “Will you marry me or not?”

  He wouldn’t be able to turn her down. She really believed that. But he had to believe in himself, too. Or they’d never have a fighting chance against what might come their way.

  And one thing Lillie knew was that she had to have a man beside her who would stand in the fire with her. Not leave her there to burn alone, if the occasion arose.

  “You aren’t going to—”

  “You aren’t going to make my choices,” she said gently, still standing at the door. She couldn’t get closer to him until she knew she’d won. Until he acknowledged that he was hers.

  There was always an out with Jon. Always a reason why he couldn’t quite commit. She’d heard it in the stories from his past.

  He sacrificed for others. And used sacrifice as a crutch to keep his emotional distance. Keep him safe. She knew. Because she’d been just like him.

  He’d even been willing to hand his son over to her. He wanted what was best for his son. But what about for himself?

  Her mind raced, as it had been doing most of the day and night before. And all of the morning.

  For a man who believed his time with her was limited, he was wasting a lot of it in silence across the room.

  “Life is about choices, Jon. I get to make mine. That’s the beauty of it all. And I have made my choice. I choose you. And I need to know your choice.”

  She wasn’t going to cry. Or plead. She wanted him to come to her himself. To dare to reach for what he most wanted. To allow himself to shed his past and be whole.

  Because if he didn’t, if he couldn’t, she’d never have all of him.

  “Let’s wait and see what happens here, Lil. I have to know I can be there for you.”

  “Your choice is about whether or not you’ll be willing to let me be there for you, Jon. Do you have the courage to open your heart and let me in?”

  “Lil...”

  “I’m not telling you what to choose. But I am telling you that I want to know your choice. Now. Because this is what real love is all about. The bad as much as the good. I have to know that no matter what, we’re in this together. Because it’s pretty much a guarantee that there are going to be some hard times in the future, regardless of what happens with this case. Are you going to protect me then, too, by removing the emotion from the situation? Because it’s never the pain that goes away, Jon. It’s only the love that gets lost.”

  It had taken her a long time to get the lesson, but she’d finally seen the light.

  “What’s it going to be?”

  Answer me, you stubborn man....

  “Believe.”

  “What?” She wasn’t sure she’d heard right.

  “Believe,” Jon said again. “I have to believe, Lil. I’ll marry you. Now. Tomorrow. Next week. Next month. Whenever you want.”

  It was like a dam burst inside Lillie, throwing her across the room and at Jon, knocking him backward. With her arms around his neck, she clung to him, burying her head against his warm, strong chest, and started to cry.

  She’d been holding on for so long. And hiding, too.

  “Lil?”
/>
  “I’m fine,” she said, remembering where they were. “I’m just happy,” she said, her eyes still blurry with tears as she looked up at him. “Come on, baby, let’s go home.”

  He held back, the light in his eyes dimming. “I can’t do that.”

  “Oh, yes, you can.”

  “I can?” He didn’t move.

  She nodded. “Yep.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  And he still didn’t quite believe. She could read the doubt in his eyes. In the slight droop to his shoulders.

  So they had some work to do. They had a lifetime ahead of them to do it.

  “You’re not alone anymore, Jon. And I don’t just mean me. You’ve got friends who care about you, who are fighting for you.”

  “I’m under arrest, Lillie.”

  It was time to tell him. “I was sent in here to tell you that the charges were dropped,” she said.

  “What? Why?”

  “I was telling Mark that you wouldn’t have an IP address alibi because you don’t go on the internet at night because of the baby monitor.”

  Nodding, he said, “I told Addy the same thing.”

  “Well, Mark’s a bit of a techie, did you know that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He said that the monitoring software doesn’t just monitor in real time, it saves the files somewhere in the program, kind of like a security camera in a store. I took him to your place and he went on your laptop and found the files. They’re time and date stamped. And you, bless your heart, visit Abe’s room so often that you were captured on video on two different nights there were break-ins.”

  His mouth gaping, he stared at her. “I’m free.”

  “Yeah.”

  Jon’s grin was like an ocean. And a sky filled with brilliant sunshine.

  * * *

  BEFORE JON COULD do more than grin stupidly, there was a knock on the door and Greg Richards came in, followed by Addy.

  “We got him, Jon.” The sheriff spoke immediately upon entering. Jon. As though they were friends.

  The lawman had told him about Abraham’s well-being when he didn’t have to. Then again he’d also judged Jon by his criminal past.

  “You weren’t the only freshman at Montford who came to town with a criminal record,” Addy said over the sheriff’s shoulder. “The other guy had an alibi for the nights of the break-ins, but the sheriff dug deeper because something didn’t feel right.”

  “He’d be telling you that himself, but technically, because the case is ongoing, he can’t,” Mark said, coming up behind Addy. The sheriff’s head bobbed in a slight nod.

  “When I told Greg about the fact that your truck was at home every night of the break-ins, he told me that his other suspect lived in your complex—and would have been able to get the tools out of the back of your truck and return them without you being the wiser. Greg went back to the other guy and while we can’t say what transpired, or how or why, he ended up with a confession.”

  “It helped that my investigation of you turned up some other evidence that fit him,” Greg Richards added.

  The sheriff didn’t say what it was. Jon figured he’d have to wait until the case went to trial to hear all the details.

  “When I’m sure I’m right, I’m usually pretty good at getting a guy to crack,” Greg said with a bit of a grin in Jon’s direction.

  “Yeah, well, a guy shouldn’t crack unless he’s guilty,” Jon shot back.

  The sheriff nodded. And Jon figured that maybe they’d just taken their first step toward mutual respect.

  “This is yours,” the sheriff said, pulling a wad of bills out of his pocket and handing it to Jon. “But I’d suggest you keep it in the bank from now on.”

  “And unpack that bag,” Lillie added. “You’ve got no reason to run anymore.”

  It was too much for Jon to take in all at once. That four-walled, windowless room, filled with people he cared about. People who cared about him. But he suspected he had years ahead of him to relive the moment. And he knew he would, too. Over and over again.

  Savoring it.

  Like he’d once savored dreams of what might be in the future.

  * * *

  JON SUGGESTED LEAVING Abe at the day care until after lunchtime so he and Lillie could have a little time to themselves at home, to discuss their future, before they gave all of their focus to the little guy who had no idea how much better his life had just become.

  They talked about a quick marriage, officiated by Becca Parsons. She happily agreed to perform the ceremony but insisted that the Heroines of Shelter Valley, as the town’s matriarchs had been affectionately dubbed, would need a couple of weeks to pull the celebration together.

  And they’d talked about Clara Abrams, too. Addy was drawing up papers to allow Lillie to legally adopt Abe, in conjunction with Jon, which could be done with only Jon’s permission since his was the only name currently on Abe’s birth certificate.

  And for the fourth time in an hour, Jon brought up that morning. When he’d been alone in that sterile little room and she’d come to see him.

  “Why didn’t you just tell me when you first walked in that I was free?” he asked her, running his hands up and down her arms as though he couldn’t believe she was real.

  That he could touch her whenever he wanted to.

  They were standing together in Abe’s room, had been discussing a new bed for him when they moved him into one of the bedrooms in Lillie’s house. They planned to store the crib in her garage. For the next time they’d need it.

  “I didn’t tell you because I needed to know that you weren’t just committing to me in the good times, Jon. I needed to know you’ll let me be there for you through the bad, too. And that you’ll stick around through the bad. You aren’t going to shut down on me and go your own way like Kirk did.”

  Because she had her own scars. Her own issues.

  But she’d faced them now.

  Through Jon’s mirror.

  And was ready, able and committed to being happy.

  He studied her face for a long moment and grinned.

  “Makes sense to me,” he said.

  And in that moment, everything made sense to her, too. All that had been. And all that would be.

  Her life had brought her to this moment, to Jon’s arms, because that was where she was meant to live and grow and love forever.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Home to Whiskey Creek by Brenda Novak!

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  1

  The past is never dead. It’s not even past.

  —William Faulkner

  No way would he be able to reach her, not with his bare hands. And Noah Rackham didn’t have anything else—just his mountain bike, which lay on its side a few feet away. In the pouch beneath the seat he kept a spare tube, the small plastic tool that made it easier to change a tire and some oil for his chain but no rope, no flashlight. He wouldn’t have packed that stuff even if he’d had room. For one, he’d come out for a quick, hit-it-hard
ride before sunset and wasn’t planning to be gone longer than a couple of hours. For another, no one messed around with the old mine anymore. Not since his twin brother had been killed in a cave-in a decade and a half ago, just after high school graduation.

  “Hello?” Kneeling at the mouth of the shaft where someone had torn away the boards intended to seal off this ancillary opening, he called into the void below.

  His voice bounced back at him, and he could hear the steady drip of water, but that was all. Why wasn’t the woman responding? A few seconds earlier, she’d cried out for help. That was the reason he’d stopped and come to investigate.

  “Hey, you still there? You with me?”

  “Yes. I’m here!”

  Thank God she’d answered. “Tell me your name.”

  “It...it’s Adelaide. But my friends call me Addy. Why?”

  “I want to know who I’m talking to. Can you tell me what happened?”

  “Just get me out. Please! And hurry!”

  “I will. Relax, okay, Addy? I’ll think of something.”

  Cursing under his breath, he rocked back on his haunches. Ahead of him, the dirt road that temporarily converged with the single track he’d been riding disappeared around a sharp bend. To his left was the mountain, and to his right, the river, rushing a hundred feet below. He saw more of the same scenery behind him. Trees. Thick undergrowth, including an abundance of poison oak. Moist earth. Rocks. Fifty-year-old tailings from the mine. And the darkening sky. There were no other people, which wasn’t unusual. Plenty of bikers and hikers used this trail, but mostly in the warmer months, and certainly not after dusk. The Sierra Nevada foothills, and the gold rush–era town where he’d grown up, were often wet and chilly by mid-October.

  Should he backtrack to the main entrance of the mine? Try to get in the way they used to?

  He’d already passed that spot. Someone had fixed the rusty chain-link fence to keep kids from slipping through. Noah couldn’t get beyond it, not without wire cutters or at least the claw part of a hammer. That entrance and this shaft might not even connect. It was likely they didn’t, or whoever was stranded down there would’ve made her way over—provided she was capable of moving.