by Sylvie Kurtz
She didn’t like the look of pity in his eyes. Maybe Grandy was right and she’d put too much stock in Chance. Except that that also seemed too easy an answer. “If he needed that second chance then, doesn’t he still need it now? So why go back after all these years?”
“Because…” Angus faltered and looked down at the floor in defeat.
“Trouble,” Nola clucked, and brandished both hands in the air. Her white puff of hair shook from side to side. “I told you from the first day that boy was trouble. And he’s proving me right, isn’t he?”
“You would have thought a saint was trouble where Taryn was concerned. You and Patsy never gave the girl enough credit,” Angus said. “Chance is a decent man.”
A cold, slimy eel of dread wrapped itself around her stomach. Taryn shuddered. “What if he did need that second chance? What’s he going to be walking into now?”
Looking at the carpet, Angus shook his head slowly. “No one can answer that question.”
“Because nobody bothered to look for the answers when they could have easily been found.”
“Taryn—”
“Do you think he’s in danger?”
Angus let his head fall forward.
Nola tapped her foot impatiently. “Well, answer the child, Angus.”
He exhaled slowly, then looked up again. “No, I think what happened has been long forgotten. He’ll find his answers and come home.”
Taryn swallowed hard. Chance had allowed her to take him home. He’d depended on her to protect him from the town’s well-meaning but curious people. He’d allowed her to love him. That had to say something. The tie between them was loose, but it wasn’t broken yet.
“I don’t think there’s any danger, Taryn,” Angus said. “But I do think he needs this time alone.”
“There’s something wrong here,” Nola said. “I can feel it in my bones.”
“Hush your mouth, Nola.”
“Then there’s no reason for me not to go after him,” Taryn said. “Two heads are better than one and the searching will go faster.”
“You stubborn, stubborn child!” Grandy snagged the holster from the chair and pressed it into Taryn’s hands. “Then take this with you. That boy is trouble, I tell you, and this old coot isn’t telling you the truth. You need to be able to defend yourself.”
Taryn sprang up and skittered back, letting the holster fall back into Grandy’s grip as if she’d asked her to hold a lit stick of dynamite. After a false start toward the dresser, she settled on a path that took her from the bed she’d shared with Chance to the window and its view of the river. As she paced, she rubbed her arms against the chill ghost of the past, bringing back unwanted memories.
“I don’t like guns.” She hated what their indiscriminate power could do, how the reverberations of one bullet could destroy more than just one life.
“You know how to use it.”
Chance had insisted she learn. He’d parroted his best friend’s words to her and had not accepted a no. The only way to deal with fear is to face it.
“I don’t like guns.” Never would.
“Take it anyway,” Nola insisted, and dangled the holster in front of Taryn. “Or come home with me. I won’t watch you waste your life over a man the way your mother did without giving you some way to protect yourself.”
“It’s not the same thing,” Taryn said, knowing Grandy was thinking of her daughter’s murder.
“I’ll have to side with your grandy on this one, sweetheart. It’s best to let Chance find his own way home.”
The energy that had driven her to pace wound itself into a weight that was now sinking her down. She stared out the window. Down below, beneath a leaden sky, the river ran fast.
She’d wanted a home, needed a home. This house might not be much, but it was hers and Chance’s and they were—they’d been—happy here. She’d felt safe and secure. Chance had seen her through the aftermath of her mother’s murder, through the trial where the defendant’s lawyer had tried to put the blame for her mother’s death on her shoulders. He’d stuck by her through all the tests she’d put him through to reassure herself his words of love were grounded in substance and not simply a passing fancy.
Now he was gone and the house no longer felt so safe, so secure. The walls seemed to be crumbling around her, exposing all her weaknesses for the world to exploit.
Had she, like her mother, put all her stock in one man? Did her happiness depend on Chance?
No, she didn’t need a man. The bakery was her own. Her work there was satisfying. She didn’t require much; she could live off the profits she made from her business. She didn’t have to have Chance or Nola or anyone to support her. She’d been careful in her choices. She didn’t need a man in her life.
The pain in her heart was heavy and she rubbed at it with the heel of her hand. Tears welled up, blurring the gray sky against Red Thunder’s muddy waters.
She didn’t need Chance, but she wanted him.
Maybe Grandy and Angus were right. Maybe she should wait and see if Chance came back to her. He was the one who’d disappeared and left all this turmoil in his wake.
Test him one more time.
Except love didn’t work like that. Chance had taught her that with his patience and his care. He’d stayed when it would have been easier to leave.
Maybe this time it was her love that was being tested. If she didn’t fight for him, for what they had, did their marriage stand a chance of surviving? She circled a hand over her belly. And there was the baby to think of. This precious child deserved to know his father.
She closed her eyes against the sight of the ever-flowing river. It had given her her husband. It had taken him away.
“You can’t keep him,” she whispered. “I won’t let you.”
“Taryn?” Angus placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“I love him,” she said to no one in particular. Staying would be easier, but for all he’d given her, he deserved more. “He needs me.”
“Let him go, sweetheart.”
“Leaving will only cause you more grief, Taryn-child.”
Taryn turned to look at them both. In her grandmother’s tears, she suddenly realized that Grandy was afraid for herself. If Taryn left, Grandy would be all alone. She’d lost a husband, a daughter and feared losing a granddaughter, too. Taryn got up and hugged her grandmother. “I love you, Grandy, but Chance needs me right now. I have to go.”
She looked at Angus. “Will you look after Grandy for me?”
Angus hesitated, worrying the brim of his hat as if it helped him weigh the pros and cons of the situation. Then he nodded once. “Don’t you worry. Lucille and I will take good care of her.”
“If you could just make sure she eats. She forgets unless I remind her.”
Nola buried her face in her hands and shook it from side to side. “I can’t go through this again. I can’t. If you go, Taryn, don’t you come back.”
Angus wagged a finger at Nola. “Enough.” He turned his gaze back to Taryn. “We’ll hog-tie her and spoon-feed her if we have to. And she’ll be waiting for you when you get back. Though why you’d want her interfering hide back, I don’t know.”
Taryn smiled through the tears swimming anew in her eyes. Grandy would be in good hands. She could let that worry fall aside. “Thank you.”
Angus reached into his jacket pocket and took out a cell phone. “Here, take this. There’s a charger in Lucille’s car. I want you to call me every day and let me know where you are. If you need anything at all, you give me a holler. Anytime, you hear?”
She nodded. Tears dripped onto the backs of her hands. “Thank you.”
“Take the gun, Taryn,” Nola insisted. “I know you don’t care for firearms, but I’d feel better if you had it with you.”
Reluctantly, Taryn accepted the holstered gun and burrowed it deep into the suitcase. She wouldn’t need it, wouldn’t use it, but she’d take it—for Grandy’s peace of mind. She swiped her te
ars, closed the suitcase and secured the latches. Dropping the bag at her feet, she looked at her grandmother who was busy closing drawers. “Grandy?”
“I won’t do it, Taryn.” Nola’s voice was strained as she busily straightened the already neat picture frames. Against the dresser’s top, she flattened the silver frame holding a photograph of Chance on his graduation day from the police academy. “I won’t give you my blessing for this fool’s errand.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Grandy.” She turned and searched Angus’s face. His expression was pained and resigned. “Where do I start?”
“Follow the river.”
THE AIR SEEMED to be thicker, staler around the small town of Ashbrook. The clouds were heavy with the promise of rain and the air crackled with expectation. His or the storm’s? Chance inched the truck down the near-deserted main street. Nothing looked familiar, but something had his gut knotted with tension.
Time to stop and refuel. He’d been on the road for two and a half days, crisscrossing the river to cover both sides. At each small town, he’d visited the local library and searched records for a report of an incident that matched the picture in his memory. He slid into a space in front of Driller’s Good Eats and took stock.
The architecture of the town’s commercial center seemed to be right out of a page of history—stuck somewhere around the 1920s. The street was redbricked, the buildings simple yet solid. Like most of the towns he’d come across, there wasn’t much to this one, either—just an odd collection of stores, a town hall and a couple of churches. And a library—which he’d check out after lunch.
As he stepped out of the truck, he heard a gasp. An old woman wearing a cotton-candy-pink muumuu clutched her straw handbag with both hands and looked at him as if she’d seen a ghost.
“You’re alive!” She crossed herself and hurried away, making the plastic bluebonnets on her hat bounce with each of her lumbering steps.
For a moment he was stunned. She recognized him. This woman knew who he was. Heart thundering in his chest, he trotted across the street. “Ma’am! Ma’am!”
She sped up and entered a building before he could catch up to her.
He knocked on the door but got no answer. He turned the knob, but it was locked. When he looked up, the blinds on the window snapped shut.
Someone had thought him dead, someone who knew who he was. The image of the dead girl’s eyes floated through his mind. Had he killed her? Was that why the old woman feared him?
He wiped a hand over his face, then squeezed the building tension out of his nape and turned to look down the street. If one person knew him, someone else was bound to recognize him, too. Trepidation needling his skin, he entered the diner.
Inside, he was met with curious and cold stares. Conversations stopped. Food was forgotten. All eyes seemed to follow his progress as he walked to the counter. The click of his boots against the tile sounded like thunder. The red stool at the counter squealed a protest as he sat. The swirl of air-conditioning against his sweat-slicked skin pearled goose bumps along his forearms.
“Coffee, please.” He glanced at the menu on the blackboard behind the counter. “And the brisket platter.”
The thirty-something waitress in the green-and-white uniform didn’t acknowledge his order. She stared at him as she poured him a cup of coffee. He stared back, but nothing about the brunette clicked a memory. Did she know him? Had she been a schoolmate? “We’re out of brisket.”
“Give me a burger, then.”
“We’re out of burgers.”
“Chicken-fried steak?”
“We’re out of steak.”
“What do you have left?”
“We’re just about to close.”
At the height of lunchtime business? “Thanks, then.”
He dropped some coins for the coffee and drained the cup.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked before he got up to leave.
She took a step back. Her eyes rounded. “N-no.”
“Chance Conover,” he said. “I’m visiting from Gabenburg. Where can I find a place to spend the night?”
Her gaze blazed into his and she hesitated a bit too long before she finally answered. “Your best bet would be Lufkin. Take Farm Road 255 to 63 and follow the signs. It’s about fifty miles up the road.”
“Much obliged,” he said, nodding once.
At the general store, he was met with the same cold reception. The middle-aged clerk accepted his money for the beef jerky, crackers, cheese and apple, but seemed to do so reluctantly. The bed-and-breakfast at the edge of town claimed it had no vacancy. For the number of rooms being taken up by visitors, the streets sure were quiet.
Good thing he’d found a tent in the workbox at the back of his truck. It looked as if he’d need it tonight. Just as well, he thought as he bit into the apple. He had no idea what the limit was on the credit card in his wallet.
Maybe it was the heat that was turning this business district into little more than a ghost town. Chance made a gruff sound. Or maybe it was something less pleasant. What did you expect? That they’d welcome a killer with open arms?
The thought wasn’t reassuring. Don’t dwell on it. Get the facts. Wasn’t that what the hospital shrink had told Taryn? That the pictures and feelings needed to be grounded with facts. That was his training, too, getting the facts. He swallowed back the bitterness burning in his throat.
He threw the apple core into a trash bin.
He’d once been a sheriff, but instinct told him to avoid the local police station and not to count on professional courtesy. He didn’t want to end up in jail before he was ready.
Part of him wished Taryn were with him. Holding her hand would ground him in this place where nothing felt real. An ache lodged itself in his chest. A sense of loss as deep as his amnesia faltered his step. He could smell the freshness of her scent, hear the sweetness of her voice, feel the passion of her touch.
These new memories were nearly as strong as the old ones driving his search.
Both tugged him in different directions.
He stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets and forged ahead, trying to push the image of Taryn out of his mind. He had to find the truth of his past to know where his future lay.
An unseen series of gazes seemed to follow his progress down the street. The hot, unbreathable air was once again replaced with the cold slap of air-conditioning when he walked into the library. The smell of burnt coffee, dust and neglect didn’t do much for his tense stomach.
“Where can I find your newspaper records?” he asked the young man sitting behind the checkout desk. His dark mustache was thin. His black hair was cropped short. His white shirt seemed brand-new. With his bulging biceps and flattened nostrils skewed to one side, he looked more like a boxer who’d taken one too many punches than a librarian.
Shaken out of his boredom, the man eyed him up and down. “That’d be back in the reference area. The reference librarian’s on the phone right now. Can I help you?”
“I’ll wait.”
“And your business?” There was a hopeful note to his voice, as if anything would be more interesting than calling patrons to tell them the books they’d placed on hold were in.
“Personal.”
The young man quirked an eyebrow. Disappointment drooped his mouth. “Around the corner to your left.”
Was the boy old enough to recognize him? Did he know what Chance had done fifteen years ago? The look in the focused gaze was curious, but not afraid like the old lady’s or the waitress’s at the diner.
Chance wandered through the reference stacks. He kept an eye on the two elderly patrons sitting at the long wooden table with magazines, and the other on the reference librarian. She wore a white blouse embroidered with red, a long denim skirt and red cowboy boots. Her white hair was tied in a ponytail with a red-and-white bandanna. Her laughter was pleasant, her voice helpful, her eyes friendly. The name on the placard said Joely Brahms.
After s
he put the phone down, she looked up at him. One eyebrow shot up. Recognition? “Can I help you?”
“I’d like to look through your newspaper records.”
She led him toward the machine and pushed the On button. “Are you looking for anything in particular?”
“Your local paper going back about fifteen years.”
Wariness clouded her dark eyes. “You won’t find anything.”
“I won’t?”
“A fire twelve years ago burned down the library. And I’ll save you the trouble of going over to the Ashbrook Herald. Their records went missing when they moved from Marshall Avenue to Green Street about eleven years ago.”
“I see.”
“You’d have better luck finding what you’re looking for in Lufkin.” She flicked off the machine and started to walk away.
“Why Lufkin?”
She gave him a wry smile. “Size does matter.”
With a grandmotherly hold on his elbow, she ushered him toward the door. “If I were you, I’d head on that way.”
“Why is that?”
She shrugged. “It’s a matter of economics.”
He stopped and studied her lined face. “Do you know who I am?”
“How can I since you haven’t told me your name?” Her small laugh tried to dispel the current of anxiety stirring between them.
“Chance Conover.”
“Oh, that’s a fine name.” She seemed relieved. “Lufkin is about fifty miles northwest of here. Good luck with your search.”
Chance found himself dismissed and the library’s side door closing behind him.
Outside the building Chance paused. It was as if they all knew him and hated him. Once more he wished for Taryn, for the unwavering trust in her eyes. He looked down Main Street at the slow bustle of activity. The contents of his stomach turned. In the roll of nausea one thing became clear.
He’d come head-on with his past.
IF THERE WAS ONE THING Garth couldn’t stand it was someone who couldn’t control his emotions. He had little respect for the man who’d broadsided his way past his secretary and into his office, but instead of telling him how he felt, Garth welcomed the sheriff and offered him a drink. He was nothing if not the perfect host.
