Sitting cross-legged on her bed with her biology book open on her lap, she wondered if he might be looking even harder for Sabra because he wanted to impress Mom. But that was good, right?
She knew she was going to have to tell Mom, at least about the mousetrap. Ms. Guzman or the vice principal would call. But if Emily told Mom or Detective Moore about the note, they’d want her to promise not to ask any more questions. And she had to keep on. The threat had to mean she was getting close.
When her phone rang, she was glad for the distraction. Seeing Asher’s name made her pulse jump. She waited a couple more rings so she didn’t look too eager. Then it was an effort to sound cool.
“Asher.”
“Hey,” he said. “I was wondering if you’ve done your assignment for geometry yet.”
Oh, goodie. He wanted to talk about congruent triangles.
Except, well, he’d never called her before about school assignments.
“No, when I got home Detective Moore was here. I just started on the chapter for bio.”
“What did he want?”
“He found someone who actually saw Mom drop Sabra off in front of the school right when she said she did.”
“You don’t think he really suspected her, do you?” he asked, sounding surprised.
“He says he didn’t. I mean, not once he talked to her. But still.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s good.”
The silence felt strange. Mostly Emily texted with friends. Suddenly wanting Asher to stay on the phone, she rushed to say, “He asked about that party, too.”
“You didn’t tell him anything, did you?”
“No, I wouldn’t do that, even though—well, he told me how much damage was done to grape vines and how long they take to mature. I’m glad I didn’t go.”
“Did anyone ask you?” There was an odd note in Asher’s voice.
“I’m not really part of that crowd. Sabra was more than me.” Which had stung a little, but now? She was mad because none of them cared at all about Sabra.
“I thought you were hanging around Dominic.”
Emily was so glad he couldn’t see her cheeks heat. “Not really. I haven’t gone out with him or anything like that. I heard he was with Amy Harris. I mean, at the vineyard.”
“I heard that, too.” He was quiet for a minute. “She has a good voice.”
Emily didn’t say anything.
“One of our jazz concerts, we worked with choir.”
“Right. I remember.” He played the trombone. The jazz ensemble practiced before school, which meant you had to really want to be in it.
“Amy’s a suck-up,” he said matter-of-factly. “And full of herself.”
“Yes!” Relaxing, Emily scooted back on her bed so her back was to the wall and she could stretch out her legs. “I stage-managed The King and I.”
“I forgot you did that.” Amusement sounded in his voice. “I’ll bet she didn’t want to be managed.”
“No, and Mrs. Jessup treated her like she was a Hollywood star who had blessed us with her presence. It was enough to make me gag.” And I am being such a bitch, she thought belatedly.
Yes, but he’d started it.
Clutching her phone, she could feel him on the other end. They hadn’t really talked about Sabra, so that couldn’t be why he’d called. Emily thought there was a good chance he did like her. That made all kinds of emotions swirl in her, one of which was relief. Because...he wouldn’t expect her to do things she didn’t really want to do, Emily realized. If Dominic had asked her, would she have gone to that party this weekend with him? Gotten drunk? Would she have hung back when everyone else ran through the vineyard but not dared say anything? Or would she have been such a coward, she’d have gone along with it? And she was pretty sure Dominic wouldn’t be interested in a girlfriend who wouldn’t have sex with him. Emily thought about it a lot, but unlike practically everyone she knew, she hadn’t actually done it yet, and the idea had been kind of freaking her out.
Asher made her heart race, but she felt comfortable with him. So comfortable, she was tempted to tell him about the note. Only...she couldn’t be sure what he’d do. So instead she took a deep breath and said, “I’ve been thinking about something. More like I’m wondering. And it sounds crazy, so I haven’t told anyone.”
“What’s that?”
So she just threw it out there, even though her stomach tightened. “Sometimes teachers, you know, get involved with students, even though they aren’t supposed to. What if Sabra...?”
She had no idea how to interpret this silence.
* * *
SQUINTING AGAINST THE too-bright porch light that evening after dinner, Jack suggested, “A good hostess would walk me to my car.” He was only half kidding...which meant he was also half serious.
His stomach was pleasantly full with an amazing meal that had included homemade apple pie à la mode. He’d hoped for a good-night kiss, too, but felt exposed out here on the porch.
Arms wrapped around herself, Meg laughed. “You do know we—how is it soldiers put it? Have eyes on us?”
He glanced toward the brightly lit front window. He didn’t see her daughter, but he had no doubt she was watching from somewhere.
“She must have a suspicion when you came out here with me and closed the door behind yourself.”
Meg scrunched up her nose. “Probably.” She frowned. “Did you notice what a strange mood she was in tonight?”
Jack cast his mind back. It wasn’t Emily he’d been focused on. “She was quiet,” he agreed.
“Maybe because of us.” Meg hesitated. “I’m not sure this is such a good idea, Jack.”
Having overcome his own doubts, he didn’t like hearing her say that. Okay, she had wounds, but didn’t she understand that they had the possibility of something good here?
Seeing her shiver, Jack knew better than to argue. “You’re freezing. You need to go in.” But he couldn’t resist bending his head and brushing his lips over hers. Despite the rush of need that had his hands tightening on her arms, he kept the kiss soft, undemanding.
He sneaked in to nuzzle her, liking her scent and the warmth of her breath. His “good night” came out husky. Chaste though the kiss had been, he was aroused. With her, it took so little.
Her answering “good night” was a little tremulous, her eyes full of fears and hopes that tightened the knot that had taken up residence beneath his breastbone.
Like a gentleman, he waited until she had slipped back inside and he heard the dead bolt sliding home before he left the porch and strode across a lawn that felt crunchy with frost.
Less than anxious to analyze this reckless certainty that felt like a kick of adrenaline, he gave the engine only a minute to warm up before backing out for the short drive to his town house. Once home, Jack bumped up the thermostat and started his coffeemaker. Somewhere between Meg’s front porch and here, he had made a decision. She was right. Talking to his dad would help him decide what to do about his mother, which risked impacting any relationship with Meg. While he had come to believe Meg had a solid core that would never allow her to abandon anyone she loved, he was honest enough to know the childhood he’d lost when his mother left had a lot to do with why Meg had him feeling so much.
He was way overdue to call his father anyway. They hadn’t spoken since Jack phoned him on Christmas Day.
Bruce Moore lived outside Missoula, Montana, in the same house where he’d raised his son. As the crow flew, Missoula wasn’t so far from eastern Washington, but the mountainous country between them made the drive too long for brief visits. Jack had gone home last summer for a couple of weeks, but he hadn’t tried for the holidays. After Mom left, those had quit being festive anyway. He figured the officers who had kids should be able to take Christmas off.
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br /> His father answered on the fourth ring with a brusque, “Hello.” He didn’t see any reason for caller ID and carried an old cell phone, usually off, only in case of a roadside emergency.
“Dad.” Jack sprawled in his recliner, facing the dark flat-screen television. “It’s been a while.”
“Figured you were busy.”
“It would be nice if crime let up, but that isn’t happening. What about you?”
“Not much building going on this time of year.”
Especially in Missoula, averaging close to forty inches of snowfall every winter and most days still below freezing through February. Like other people in the construction trade, his father had learned to plan ahead, knowing he wouldn’t be earning much money during the coldest months of the year.
Making conversation with his father was hopeless. So just jump right in. “Dad, have you heard from Mom?”
“I’m the one who gave her your number,” his father said heavily.
In an abrupt movement, Jack shoved the footrest on the recliner down and sat up. “You couldn’t have warned me she’d be calling?”
“She and I don’t have a thing to say to each other. Didn’t want to get between the two of you.”
“Damn.” Jack scrubbed his fingers through his hair.
“She just get around to calling?”
“No, she caught me by surprise a few weeks back.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Haven’t you been curious?”
“Knew if there was anything to say, you’d get around to it.”
His father’s usual laconic style irritated the piss out of him tonight.
“Dad, we never talked about what happened before she left. Were you arguing? You must have seen it coming.”
He wouldn’t have been surprised if his father had refused to talk about it, but instead he gusted a sigh.
“Guess I didn’t think she meant it. She had a real pretty voice, but it takes more than that to become the next Reba McEntire or Tammy Wynette. And, hell, she was in her thirties by then.” He was quiet long enough, Jack was deciding how to ask what he needed to know. Not that he was sure what that was.
But then Bruce said, “Truth is, we weren’t getting along so good. She wanted to go out dancing, hear every band that came around, couldn’t understand that I was tired after a hard day’s work. Our life wasn’t what she thought it would be.”
“So she walked.” After all this time, Jack’s throat thickened.
A pause stretched into a silence that had his hand tightening on the phone.
And then his father said, “There’s something I never told you.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
REGRET IN HIS VOICE, Jack’s father sounded old and weary. “After she left...she called home. Half a dozen times. Wanted to talk to you, maybe have you come out to whatever city she was in for a couple weeks. I told her to forget it. You needed a mama, not some wannabe singer dragging you along between gigs in bars for a week here and there. Took a while, but she gave up, all right.”
Stunned into speechlessness, Jack tried to wrap his mind around a truth far removed from what he’d been led to believe. His mother had left his father but not Jack. She’d probably figured with her new life being transient, he would be better off staying in Missoula where his friends were, going to school there. But she hadn’t dismissed him without a second thought. She had intended to maintain a relationship with him.
“Why didn’t she take you to court?” He sounded hard, angry. Which he was. “Legally, she was entitled to visitation.”
“You think any judge would have let her take you on the road?” Dad shot back. “Her living with some man or other, probably a different one every time you saw her? A phone call now and again...maybe I should have let that happen, but I thought it was better to get it over with in one gulp, ’stead of those calls coming further and further apart, you hurting because she was losing interest.”
“You so sure she would have?”
“She didn’t stay the course for us, did she?” his father said, anger boiling up.
“Divorce happens.” A burn was happening in his chest. “She might not have lost interest in me.”
“I did what I thought was best.” That summed up Bruce Moore, uncompromising to the end. A man who, in his way, had loved his son, who had stayed the course, but who should never have married the bubbly, social, creative woman Jack remembered. In the face of his father’s stolidity and silence, she must have felt like a pansy rooted in dry, cracked earth.
Maybe she was flighty. Jack’s anger hadn’t died. She could have fought a lot harder to see him. Gotten herself a lawyer, even come to town and hammered on the door until Dad relented and let her have visitation. Kept calling until Jack answered the phone himself.
He had an unexpected thought: if he wanted, he could ask her why she hadn’t done any of those things. Why she’d just let him go. It was even possible he might understand her choices.
At least he could hear her out.
“It wasn’t best,” he heard himself say to his father. “I hurt anyway. More and longer than I let you see. Did it ever occur to you to ask me what I wanted?”
Silence was his answer, as it had been for most of Jack’s life.
There was something different tonight after he ended the call, though, an ache he’d never experienced. Not many men liked to talk out how they felt, him included. There was a good reason he’d been such a jerk the couple of times Meg had pushed him to open up. His habit was to shove unwelcome emotions down deep where he didn’t have to acknowledge them. So it took him a minute to discover that he wanted to tell someone else about what he’d learned. More surprisingly, how it made him feel.
Not someone. Meg.
Even thinking that told him how serious he was about her. Still, he tried to back away from the impulse. Yeah, he’d tell her all about it eventually, sure, when it rubbed a little less raw. But tonight? Take two aspirin and get a good night’s sleep, he told himself. The all-purpose cure would fix him right up.
Jack frowned into space. He had asked Meg to expose herself, to tell him about the worst things that ever happened to her. He hadn’t asked because of the job; he’d asked as a man who needed to understand a particular woman. How could he expect something from her that he wouldn’t give in return? Fair is fair.
And, yeah, talking to her might help him make sense of his confusion, lessen the useless anger balled up inside. It also meant baring himself in a way he’d never voluntarily done before.
He groaned out loud. All he needed was a dump of other emotions on top of what Meg had already stirred up. Why had he let her talk him into confronting his father?
Except he didn’t like to think of himself as a coward. And knowing was better than not knowing, wasn’t it? Which meant...he had to talk to his mother, too.
* * *
HAVING JUST PULLED a fleece top over her head, Meg took a last peek at herself in the mirror. Jack would be here any minute. If she had to redo her braid...
A few tendrils had escaped to curl around her face, but they were the annoying bits that had broken off at some point. They’d make their way free even if she plastered them with hard-hold gel. Besides, how many times had he dropped in unexpectedly? Her hair had probably been awful.
Hearing a car outside, she hurried to the front window. Jack’s SUV was just pulling into the driveway. Feeling breathless, she let herself out the front door, locked it and pushed her keys into a pocket.
He had called half an hour ago and asked tersely if she wanted to go for a drive. “Out to the lake,” he said. “Maybe take a walk. I’d like some company.”
Of course, she couldn’t resist.
By the time she grabbed a scarf and came down the porch steps, Jack had gotten out of his SUV, dressed more casually than usu
al in cargo pants, boots and a heavy sweater. He smiled at seeing her. “Ready for the arctic?”
“It’s cold today.”
Low and husky, Jack’s laugh felt a little like his hand had on the sensitive skin of her neck. Once they were both seat-belted in and his attention was on backing out into the street, then driving, she was able to study him in profile.
Her first thought was that the deepening of the lines on his forehead made him appear troubled. He’d sounded that way when he called, too. She ached to lay a hand on his thigh, to let him know that, whatever was bothering him, she was here. The impulse startled her; physical affection had come naturally with her own child and, in a more limited way, with other children, but not adults. Anyway, as aloof as he seemed, she had a bad feeling that he might see it as an intrusion.
And then, with a shock of alarm, she quit breathing. What if she was misinterpreting him entirely? Ask. Make him tell you now. “You’re not deciding how to give me bad news, are you?”
“Huh?” He cast her a sidelong glance. “Oh. No. I’ve just...” He gave his head a slight shake and returned his attention to the road ahead.
Meg resumed breathing.
The town of Frenchman Lake wasn’t actually on the lake, having grown up sheltered by gently rolling hills to the south. The several-mile drive was scenic, with pale winter wheat on one side of the road and, on the other, vineyards. Bare, sculptural vines were tied and pruned into lines that curved along the contours of hills. As the road descended, the lake lay ahead, a cold blue reflecting the sky.
Jack pulled into the county park. In the otherwise empty lot, he aimed the nose of his SUV toward the lake, set the emergency brake and turned off the engine. He didn’t move for a minute, just gazed ahead.
“Do you want to get out?” he finally asked.
“I’d like a walk if you would.”
Jack nodded and reached into the backseat for a coat. She hopped out and found the sun, while not warm, still felt good on her face. Jack shrugged on a leather bomber jacket with a sheepskin collar and said, “Shall we?”
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