by Brenda Novak
“Are you coming out?” Jessica called.
Afraid she’d sound rude if she refused, Sadie reluctantly pulled on the jeans and walked out to model them. “I like the blouse, but...I’m going to pass on the jeans.”
Jessica’s face fell. “Why? They’re stunning on you. Look at that ass!” She glanced over at Dawson for support, but he immediately went back to playing with Jayden. “And don’t worry about the price,” she added. “I’m going to give you whatever you need half off. It’ll be my way of helping you bounce back from the fire.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Sadie said. “But...are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Thank you.” Although Sadie was grateful, she hated having to accept charity.
Jessica waved her off. “It’s the least I can do after what you’ve been through.”
Sadie allowed her gaze to stray to Dawson. Jayden had hid again and was waiting quietly to be found, but Dawson wasn’t going after him. She’d thought, when everything grew quiet, that he must be on his phone, but he was looking at her, and the expression on his face surprised her.
“I think someone else likes the way they look, too,” Jessica teased, but that only made everything grow awkward very fast. Dawson instantly shuttered the appreciation that’d been so apparent a moment before and pretended, like Sadie did, that he hadn’t even heard what Jessica said and started patting the clothes rack Jayden was in as if he didn’t already know Jayden was there.
“You should get them,” he said once he’d flushed Jayden out.
She was still deliberating in front of the mirror. Together with the blouse, she’d be spending close to $100, even with the discount. That sounded like a fortune to her. She’d had to watch every penny for so long. But she couldn’t complain about the expense, not when Jessica was giving her such a good deal, and she needed clothes right away. She’d been trying to figure out how to say no so that she could visit a thrift shop instead—she’d gotten really good at finding gems other people had given away—but with Dawson supporting Jessica, she felt cornered. Suppressing the nagging worry that she’d need the money she was spending, she smiled. “Okay. I guess I will.”
When she came back out of the dressing room, she found Jayden sitting on Dawson’s shoulders. “Look, Mommy! See how tall I am?”
At least he seemed to be having a wonderful time... Briefly, she wondered why his own father couldn’t make him this happy.
“You’d better get some underclothes,” Dawson said before she could approach the register. “You need that most of all, right?”
She didn’t even get the chance to answer before Jessica jumped in. “Oh, I’ve got the perfect thing!”
The shop owner went to the lingerie section, where she picked up a pair of champagne-colored lace panties with a matching bra that’d been on display.
Sadie had never seen anything so beautiful and delicate, but that was what told her it would be out of her price range.
“Isn’t this gorgeous?” Jessica said. “We have it in a small, too, which would be your size.”
Sadie opened her mouth to try to direct Jessica to something more affordable. She didn’t even need to see the price tag to know that set wasn’t for her. But Dawson spoke before she could formulate the words. “We’ll take those, too,” he said and pulled out his wallet.
One carefully manicured eyebrow slid up on Jessica’s lovely face. “You’re taking care of the bill?”
He didn’t answer that question, either. He just handed her his credit card, as if that should speak for itself, and she shot Sadie a knowing smile. Dawson had been watching Sadie’s son while she tried on clothes, and now he was paying for what she’d selected—was even buying her underwear. Sadie knew how it appeared.
While Jessica took her time wrapping everything in perfumed tissue paper and putting it all in a pretty sack with a pink ribbon, Dawson started out ahead of her. Not wanting to be far behind his new hero, Jayden hurried after him, which gave Sadie a moment alone with the shop owner. “We’re just friends,” she said, hoping to set Jessica straight.
But Jessica wasn’t buying it. “A man doesn’t look at a friend like that,” she said with a laugh.
* * *
As they picked up a few things for Jayden at the secondhand shop and then drove home, Dawson kept picturing Sadie as she’d probably look in the lacy underwear and bra set he’d just purchased. He tried to distract himself by turning on the radio. When that didn’t work, he started going over everything he had yet to do today. And when that didn’t work, he tried to think about whether or not he’d find the man who might’ve seen the hitchhiker he’d picked up the night his parents were killed. Usually, the murders triggered enough anger to drown out any other emotion, even sexual desire, but the vision of Sadie in those snug-fitting jeans had elicited such a deluge of testosterone it was hijacking his brain. The bra and panty set only made matters worse.
He was so consumed with fighting a constant erection it took him a while to realize Sadie hadn’t said anything since they left the nice-twice shop.
“You okay?” he asked, glancing over at her.
She stared straight ahead. “Yeah. Fine. Thanks for fronting the money back there—for both of us. I’m grateful.”
“And yet...you don’t sound grateful. You sound upset.”
She checked to see what Jayden was taking in—Dawson saw her do it. But the boy was so absorbed in playing with the measuring tape he’d found in the truck he wasn’t tracking the conversation. “I’m not upset, exactly. It’s just...that boutique we went to for me was expensive,” she said. “And I have a lot of bills to cover.”
He’d known her situation when he stopped at The Mint Julep, which was probably what was bothering her. “You need clothes,” he pointed out.
“I know, but there are other places to buy them. I could’ve gotten mine secondhand, just like what we did for Jayden.”
“There’s nothing like that here for adults.”
“There’s one in Santa Barbara.”
“You were planning to drive to Santa Barbara today?”
“I could have. I might have. But it was so nice of Jessica to give me a discount, and you to loan me the money, that I felt as if it would be rude to refuse, and now I’m worried about what I’ve done.”
Thanks to the space Jayden’s safety seat took up, he could feel the warmth of her next to him. He liked having her so close, but it certainly didn’t help him rein in his libido. “Sadie, you don’t have to pay me back. As a matter of fact, I don’t even want you to. I only said it was coming from your wages so you’d relax and, hopefully, enjoy yourself. Otherwise, I knew you’d refuse.”
“Because I want to pay you back. Don’t you get it? I appreciate your kindness and understanding, but I don’t want your pity. I’m in a bad situation, which puts me at a disadvantage at the moment, but I’ll get back on my feet eventually.”
“So I bought you a couple of things,” he said with a shrug. “What does it matter?”
“It matters because...” Her words fell off and she blew out a sigh.
“I’m listening,” he said.
“It matters because I like you.” She answered grudgingly while continuing to stare straight ahead. “I want you to be able to respect me.”
He swerved around a pothole. “I do respect you!” Otherwise, he wouldn’t be working so hard to keep his mental and physical distance. Not only was he trying to give her a little help, he was trying to give her the time and space to recover from ten years of emotional abuse—without asserting his own needs and desires.
“Then you can’t treat me like a charity case,” she said. “It makes me feel like you’ll never view me as...as a responsible, likable, respectable adult. Someone who could...you know, be your equal.”
He slowed t
o turn in at the farm. “Sadie, buying you those clothes had less to do with you than it did me, okay? Sure, you need them, but that only gave me the excuse.”
She seemed surprised by his statement. “What do you mean?”
“It felt good to forget about my situation by buying you something pretty. Something you didn’t have to reject because of price. Something that would be beautiful on you. And, okay, maybe even something that was a little extravagant. That was the appeal of it. I wanted to feel like a man again and not a suspect for murder or someone who, like you, has a lot to rebuild. I only said you could pay me back when we went in so you wouldn’t refuse. I never planned on taking the money out of your wages. I know I chose things you wouldn’t.”
“But you spent so much on...on underwear!”
He couldn’t help grinning. “I know. That was the best part.”
* * *
Dawson’s words stuck in Sadie’s head for the rest of the day. She insisted on going out and helping him in the fields, but Jayden wouldn’t stay close enough for her to be as effective as she wanted. She had to keep stopping to catch him before he wandered off. Not only that, she wasn’t accustomed to such physical labor. And she was already battling such fatigue from being up so much last night.
“Go in and relax,” Dawson told her. “You look like you’re about to faint.”
She dusted the dirt off her sweatpants. “I’m doing okay,” she said, but his assessment had been far more accurate than she cared to admit. “If you can keep going, I can.”
“I could keep going a lot longer if you’d go in and make us something to eat,” he told her.
But they’d had lunch when they got home—meatball sandwiches—and it was only four-thirty. “You’re hungry again?”
“I’m always hungry,” he joked.
Breathing a silent sigh of relief, she pulled off the gloves she’d been using to protect her hands while she fought with some particularly deep-rooted weeds. “What would you like?”
“Why don’t you warm up some of that Stroganoff? That’s my favorite of what you’ve made so far.”
“I can do that.” She had the sneaking suspicion he was only trying to provide her with a good excuse to give up, but she was just weary enough to let him. “I can help more tomorrow, once I get back from the restaurant,” she said. “I’m just so darn tired.”
His muscles flexed as he kept fighting with the stubborn plant he was determined to remove. “You should take a nap after we eat.”
“If I do, I won’t sleep tonight. Nights are hard enough, you know? I can make it. Aren’t you tired?”
She grew self-conscious when he looked up at her. She was covered in dirt and sweat. “I am, but I promised Angela I’d come see her tomorrow, which means I won’t be able to work for a big part of the day. I need to make some progress this weekend.”
“I feel bad,” she admitted. “I’m the one who’s getting in the way—me and all my baggage. I’ve just sort of...crashed into your life.”
“It’s fine. What happened last night was Sly’s fault and not yours, anyway.”
“Or whoever set the fire,” she added.
Dawson leaned on his shovel. “You no longer think it was him?”
She shaded her eyes to be able to see Jayden. Her son had finally settled down and was digging in a muddy hole at the edge of their row. “I talked to Chief Thomas before I came out here. I had to tell him what to get, if he can, from the house.”
“What has he found that would lead him to believe it wasn’t Sly?”
“Nothing, yet. But he had a few things to say that made sense to me.”
“Let me guess. He said that Sly would never do anything to hurt his own son.”
“He did, but you already know I’m skeptical of that.”
He stretched his back. “So what’s causing you to second-guess yourself?”
She lowered her voice, in case any part of what she said carried over to Jayden. “He wouldn’t want to do something that could possibly ruin his image or get him kicked off the force, let alone sent to prison. He loves his badge. It makes him a big shot, gives him power in this town. And power is what he loves most.”
Dawson shook his head as he went back to work.
“You don’t agree?”
“It’s none of my business,” he said.
“I’m asking your opinion.”
He stopped again. “Honestly? I think he did it. Maybe what Chief Thomas mentioned—his badge and his ego—would stop him if he believed there was any chance he could get caught. But he thinks he’s too smart for that.”
“People blamed you for something terrible because you seemed like the logical choice, and they were wrong. I’m tempted to believe he did it, too—you know that. But I’d hate to make the same mistake with Jayden’s father.”
“I wouldn’t wish what’s happened to me on anyone, even Sly,” he said. “But I was blamed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, essentially. I didn’t mistreat them beforehand, wasn’t bullying, threatening or abusing them, the way Sly has bullied and threatened you. There was no pattern of aggression, not that anyone cared to cut me any slack for that. I was adopted, had a rough past and found them. That was all it took.” He jammed his shovel even deeper into the ground. “If I have my guess, Sly didn’t like that you suddenly had an ally, some other way to make money and survive. He felt he was losing his grip on you and needed to do something to shore it up, something that would force you back under his control once and for all.”
He was echoing her own thoughts—the thoughts she’d had before Chief Thomas got in her head, anyway. “Yeah. You’re right,” she agreed. “It’s just hard to believe that...that he would do such a thing. Because if he would go that far—what might he do next?”
“Good question,” he said. “Regardless of what Chief Thomas had to say, you have to stay on your guard. We both do.”
17
Someone was skulking around her house, a dark shadow that Sadie could see from her window but couldn’t completely make out. He was wearing a dark hoodie, pulled over his face. He’s back, she thought. Only, suddenly, she wasn’t at her house peering through the window at all—she was at the farm, gazing out at the fields, and she could smell smoke again. She was trying to scream, to warn Dawson to get out of the house, when she opened her eyes and, heart pumping, blinked at the semidarkness.
There was no smoke. Everything smelled like it usually did—a little musty, since the house was so old. Those sights, sounds and images were all a dream.
It felt late, yet the light was still on in the hallway, the TV blaring downstairs. She’d left it that way when she came up to lie down with Jayden because she’d been planning to go back and wait for Dawson to finish up outside. She’d wanted to feel secure in the fact that they were both in for the night before retiring but had fallen asleep as fast as Jayden had.
So where was Dawson? After she’d served him the leftover Stroganoff, he’d said he’d work for only another hour or two. Had he ever come in? Was he in his bed? If so, why’d he leave the TV and lights on?
Maybe he’d been too tired to bother with that sort of thing, she thought, but she knew, instinctively, that would be odd for him. He was a man who took care of things. He took care of people, too; she was an obvious example. He would’ve locked up and turned everything off before going to bed.
Still struggling to overcome the last vestiges of sleep—and the effects of that nightmare—she leaned up on one elbow and squinted to see the clock. It wasn’t as late as she’d thought—only eleven. Dawson could easily be watching the TV she heard.
Jayden was snuggled close to her. After kissing his forehead, she slid him over so she could get out of bed. She was wearing Dawson’s clothes again; she’d put her own sweats in the washer after working outside.
Although she was plenty warm, the hardwood floor proved cold enough that she wished for her slippers. It was so easy to take the little things for granted—until they were gone.
Thoughts of how she was going to recover from the fire threatened to commandeer her mind yet again. Before she’d gone to sleep, she’d decided that, with the way things were going, she had only one option: she had to save every dime she could and leave Silver Springs as soon as possible. Dawson was right. That Sly would set her house on fire was a warning sign, and she’d be stupid not to heed it. He’d finally gone too far, so far she felt justified in escaping any way she could, and in taking their son with her.
But she knew it would be some time before she had the money to leave, and she didn’t have many options in the meantime except to watch her back, so she pushed away those worries. Chief Thomas had called just before she put Jayden to bed to say that he had someone going through the house at that very moment, and he’d bring the items on her list—what they could salvage—tomorrow. The officer he’d sent said he couldn’t find the pictures of Jayden or her parents, which concerned her, but that didn’t mean they weren’t safe. The officer didn’t say they’d been destroyed, only that the plastic storage container she kept them in wasn’t in the bedroom closet where she’d told him to look, which was potentially good news. If the container wasn’t there, the pictures weren’t, either, so she must’ve moved them.
Hopefully, she’d put them in a safe spot. Which might’ve been the case. No spot could’ve been worse than the closet.
So, overall, she should be feeling grateful, not panicked, she told herself. Her situation might not be as bad as she’d first thought, on the recovery end of things, anyway. She was just overwhelmed by how hard it was going to be to escape and start over—and it didn’t help that she was disoriented and uneasy right now, especially when she passed Dawson’s room and found the door standing open and the bed made.
She checked the bathroom. He would’ve showered before bed. He was particular about his hygiene. But she couldn’t detect any recent moisture or anything else that might suggest a shower had recently taken place.
