Theirs was clearly not a love match.
Though . . . as I drove past Marjie’s inn, I decided not to write off the match altogether. Not yet. After all, if Marjie and Johnny could survive ten days on the high seas with each other, anything was possible. The pair was due home the next day, and I couldn’t wait to hear about their adventures . . . and to see with my own two eyes that each was alive and well.
Until then, I wouldn’t be quite convinced.
I turned left at a stop sign, wound through side streets, and slowed as I passed Haywood’s house. His actions the night before at the vet clinic came flooding back.
At first when I ran outside and had found Dylan and the deputies, I thought that Haywood had somehow led them to me, but it turned out he hadn’t.
Dylan had been led to the clinic by following the money trail. The blackmail scheme had been obvious in Gabriel and Idella’s bank reports. He’d called on Gabriel at home to question him further, only to be told by Idella that her husband was at the clinic.
With me.
It was hard to say whether or not I would have survived without Haywood’s help. Would I have been able to hold off Gabriel until Dylan and the deputies stormed the clinic?
I wasn’t sure, but I knew that with Haywood there, I’d been less afraid. His presence had brought a comfort that I wasn’t battling evil all alone. He’d been on my side.
In my eyes, he’d saved my life.
It had been a long night. By the time I made it home, Delia had been there waiting for me, oblivious to what had happened as she’d been running around town helping ghosts.
We’d talked long into the night, and come this morning, we both agreed to close our shops and take today to just be. Another form of hibernation. This time to heal.
I’d tried to stay put. I really had. But in the end, I couldn’t put off this trip any longer. Delia had understood.
I took one last look at Haywood’s house and drove onward, passing by the spot where Virgil had been killed, and also by Hyacinth’s house.
News had come that she was going to be okay in time, but would remain in the hospital for a while. I hated thinking of her missing Haywood’s funeral, but last night when she took those pills and drank that booze, she’d made her own choices. I’d heard through the grapevine that she’d admitted to her doctors that the guilt from taking Virgil’s life coupled with the loss of Haywood had been too much pain for her to bear. She was now getting the treatment she needed, and I hoped the news that she hadn’t been the one who’d run over Virgil would help her recovery.
Avery would be there, at the funeral. I’d called her this morning to tell her the time and also about the arrest of the man who’d killed her father.
She’d had news for me, as well. She’d heard from Haywood’s lawyer about his will. He’d had it changed several months ago, removing Hyacinth and adding Avery. She’d inherited his existing estate, and was going to file for ownership of the Ezekiel house as well.
After graduating in December, she planned to move to Hitching Post.
She wanted to do right by her daddy, and perhaps learn a bit more about her mama as well.
An added shocker was that Avery was graduating as a doctor of veterinary medicine and hoped to start her own clinic up here in Hitching Post, or join forces with Dr. O’Neill, who was likely to take over Gabriel’s share of the practice. All of that would be decided much later, after the dust settled around here.
As I drove along, her words from yesterday haunted me more than her father ever had.
He’s the only family I had left, and I barely got to know him.
But Haywood wasn’t the only family member left in Avery’s life, which was why I was on this mission in the first place.
Have mercy on my soul, I was going to see Patricia.
Choices.
Five minutes later, I rolled to a stop in front of Patricia’s rambling house, and spotted her out in the garden. Her head came up when she heard the car, and she peered at me under the wide brim of a straw gardening hat.
I fought a wave of nausea as I opened the Jeep’s door and crossed to the other side to open the door for Louella. She hopped down, and I grabbed the tote bag I’d brought along before heading through the gate at the side of the house.
“What are you doing here?” Patricia asked, her tone sharp.
“Making choices.”
Shaking her head, she said, “I don’t have time for this.”
“Make the time.” I walked over to a patio set under a pergola wrapped in climbing roses that still had a few blooms remaining, even this late into the season.
I set the tote bag on the table, reached inside, and pulled out a small can of dog food. I popped the top, removed a plastic spoon from the bag, and held both out to Patricia. “Please feed Louella. She’s starving herself to death, and you’re the only one I’ve seen who’s been able to get her to eat.”
She looked from me to the dog and back to me again and slowly took off her gardening gloves. After dropping them on the table, she took the food and spoon from me and sat down.
Louella immediately went to her side, pushing her face against Patricia’s leg. I sat down, too, watching and hoping.
Patricia dipped the spoon into the food, scooping some up, and brought it down close to Louella’s face.
I held my breath.
It took a moment, but eventually Louella’s tiny pink tongue darted out to taste the food. A second later, the spoon was licked clean and Patricia scooped up another teaspoonful.
“What happened to her fur?” she asked.
“She’s stressed-out.”
“A lot of that going around,” Patricia said, rubbing Louella’s head.
The dog didn’t so much as grumble, which told me that one of the choices I was making today was the right one.
“Sure enough,” I agreed, admiring the beauty of Patricia’s backyard, which overlooked the north fork of the Darling River. The water looked like a sparkling silver ribbon this time of day as it flowed toward town.
We sat in silence until Louella had finished the entire can of food. Patricia set the spoon aside and lifted up the dog, settling her in her lap.
I tugged the tote bag over and started unpacking it. “I think everything you need is in here.”
“Need for what?”
“Toys, food, a spare leash,” I listed. “Her dog bed is in my Jeep. I’ll grab it for you when I head out.”
“Carly, what are you talking about?”
“You adopting Louella, of course. I mean, look at her. She loves you. Adores you.” I took a deep breath. “Even though you aren’t her original owner, she knows you’ll love her like she’s always been yours alone. It’s what you do for those you adopt.”
A wash of tears filled her blue eyes. “You know.”
“About Dylan’s parentage?” I asked, not wanting to play games. “Yes.”
“Does Dylan know?” she asked, sounding like her heart was being ripped from her chest.
“Not yet.”
“Does he know you’re here?”
“Yes, but he thinks I’m just dropping off Louella.” He’d wanted to come with me, and it took everything I had to convince him not to. I needed to have this conversation with Patricia alone.
“He cannot find out.” She shook her head and gave me the evil eye. “This, Carly Bell Hartwell, is exactly why I never wanted you around him. You and your witchy ways. I knew you’d somehow figure out my secret and ruin his life.”
Feeling as though I’d just been punched, I leaned back. “That’s what your contempt for me has been about all these years? Not about my magic or my housekeeping or my family, but your secret?”
“I’ve known your family a long time, Carly. Adelaide, Neige, Augustus, Delia . . . Your magic is different. Special. I saw it when you were little, and I see it now. I don’t know the extent of your abilities, and I didn’t want to get close enough to you to find out. I didn’t want Dylan close to you,
either. Don’t you understand? I had to protect him at all costs.”
“He doesn’t need protection from me,” I protested.
“Clearly he does if you’re sitting here, telling me he should be informed about something that will destroy his life.”
“How?” I asked. “How will it destroy anything? If nothing else, it might help him to understand your bizarre behavior. It sure helped me.”
“This isn’t about you,” she snapped. “It’s about him learning that a man he idolized wasn’t so perfect.”
“Is it?” I asked. “Couldn’t it be that you’re more afraid he’ll walk away from you forever if he knows you’re not his birth mother? Especially with the way you’ve behaved the past few years?”
A crow cawed in the distance. “Go to hell.”
“No, thanks. I’ve been there these past couple of days, and I don’t care to go back. I spoke with Avery Bryan yesterday, and she’ll be attending Haywood’s funeral tomorrow.”
She gasped. “She doesn’t know . . .”
“Not yet,” I said. “But she needs to know, same as Dylan.”
“No, she doesn’t.”
“Dylan’s her brother,” I said. “The only family she has left.”
She sniffed. “Half brother.”
“As if that makes a difference,” I said, rolling my eyes. “She’s moving up here in December.”
Patricia went so pale I was afraid she was going to faint. “She can’t.”
“She is.”
“This is a nightmare,” she murmured, her hand shaking as she continued to pet Louella. “It started when I found out about Harris’s affair and I’ve yet to wake up thirty years later.”
“How exactly did you end up with Dylan?” I asked casually, hoping she’d tell me the whole story.
She eyed me for a moment, but finally said, “When I found out about Harris’s indiscretion, I gave him an ultimatum. Me or her. He chose me, and broke things off with Twilabeth. I forgave him.”
“I’m surprised you stayed.” In fact, I was shocked she hadn’t killed him dead on the spot.
“I loved him.” She lifted her shoulders in a gentle shrug. “Turns out you can compromise a lot in the name of love.”
So true.
“Shortly after their breakup, Twilabeth learned she was pregnant,” Patricia said. “That was the first time she tried to kill herself.”
I watched her carefully. She didn’t speak with any kind of hateful inflection. It was simply as though she was stating the facts.
“She was in a psychiatric hospital when Dylan was born and not yet ready to be released. The staff contacted Harris—she’d listed him as her spouse on her paperwork. She said she couldn’t raise the baby, that she couldn’t even care for herself properly. She told Harris he should take the baby and put him up for adoption. Harris couldn’t bring himself to do it, so he brought him home. To me. I’m not able to have children of my own, and as much as I resented the fact that Harris was bringing his bastard child into my house, I took one look at Dylan’s face and fell in love.”
I knew the feeling.
“I told friends we’d adopted privately. No one knew of the affair. Twilabeth was in and out of hospitals after that, and eventually found the right combination of medications. She never questioned Harris about what happened to Dylan, but I’d see her sometimes watching him from afar. She eventually married Haywood and seemed to be moving on with her life.”
“That’s when you turned on Haywood, isn’t it? When he married her?”
“I was afraid she’d told him the truth about Dylan, that he knew my darkest secret and was pitying me behind my back. Or worse, waiting to use the information against me.”
It almost made me feel sorry for her. “Do you know why she and Haywood broke up?”
“I only heard rumors of her mania starting up again and it causing issues between them. I had a private investigator keeping tabs on her when she moved, so I knew when she was with child again. This time when the baby was born, she didn’t let anyone know, and I assumed it was because she didn’t want Haywood to take the girl away from her in light of her mental instability. After Avery’s birth, however, I never learned of any other manic episodes, so Twilabeth must have found a good doctor down in Auburn.”
As I watched her talk, I realized this was the longest conversation I’d ever had with her in all the years I’d known her. The wind ruffled my hair, and I tucked strands behind my ears. “You must have panicked when Avery walked into that ball.”
“She may as well have been wearing a sandwich board proclaiming her relationship to Dylan. They look quite similar.”
They had the same jawline, the same smile, the same eyes. But it wasn’t quite as noticeable to a stranger as it might have been to someone who knew Dylan as well as I did.
A plea was in Patricia’s eyes as she looked at me. “You can’t tell him. I promise I won’t ever give the two of you a moment’s trouble ever again if you do this for me. Please.”
With a sigh, I clasped my hands and set them on the table. “What do you think would have happened if Gabriel Kirby had simply admitted he accidentally ran over Virgil Keane the day he did it?”
She tipped her head as though wondering where I was going with this but said, “I’m not certain. He probably would have been arrested for vehicular manslaughter, but with the cancer playing such a factor, I’m not sure he’d have ever been formally charged. If he had been, he’d probably have gotten off light.”
“Would you have thought any less of him if you’d known what happened that night?” I asked.
“Of course not. His eyes . . . It had been dark. It was an accident. They do happen.”
I leaned forward. “And if you knew of his and Idella’s money issues?”
“I’d have helped them, given them a loan.”
“How about Hyacinth? Would you have helped her if you knew how bad her drinking had become?”
“Of course.” The brim of her hat fluttered in the breeze. “What are you getting at, Carly?”
“If those people hadn’t been so intent on keeping secrets, protecting themselves instead of looking at the bigger picture, a lot of this heartache wouldn’t be happening. Doc wouldn’t be sitting in jail facing all kinds of charges, and Idella wouldn’t be facing the rest of her life without her husband. Think about that.”
I felt for Idella. Rumors were already swirling with news that she was planning to leave town as soon as possible, embarrassed and ashamed. I wished she’d stay and lean on her friends for support. If there was ever a time, it was now. But I had no say, and the choice was hers to make.
“It’s not that easy,” Patricia said sharply.
“But it is.” It was time to go. I stood up. “Here’s what I know. Dylan loves you. You raised him. You bandaged his scrapes, helped with his homework, and taught him how to drive. You fussed and lectured and loved. His knowing that you didn’t give birth to him isn’t going to change the fact that you’re his mama. It’s not always about blood. Sometimes it’s about love.”
“Carly . . .”
I took a deep breath and cut her off. “Is he going to be shocked at the secret you’ve kept? Absolutely. But the longer the secret is kept, the more painful it’s going to be to him. Which is why he needs to be told. The secrets need to end. I’d rather he hear them from you, but hand to God, I’ll tell him myself, because I cannot keep something like this between us. I’m giving you until Saturday.”
I walked away and didn’t look back.
Chapter Twenty-six
“What did you do?” I exclaimed when I walked through my front door fifteen minutes later and came face-to-face with an item I’d never thought I’d see again. “What. Did. You. Do?”
I dropped my pocketbook and Louella’s dog bed on the floor. I’d forgotten to leave the bed with Patricia, but figured there was time enough to drop it off later. Until then, the cats would make good use of it.
Ainsley bounced on the ball
s of her feet, her big chest bobbing. “Do you love it? I love it. Do you love it?”
“I love it,” Delia said from her spot on the couch. She sat with both legs tucked beneath her. Her hair had been pulled back in a ponytail, and she was making the most of hibernation day by still being in her pajamas at noon. Boo sat on her lap, and he yipped. “Boo does too.”
“Don’t forget about me,” Dylan called from the kitchen.
I laughed. “I do love it!”
Ainsley’s amethyst eyes were bright with happiness. “Delia helped. She got me in touch with the woman who had originally made the dress so I could buy the notions I needed. Isn’t it pretty?”
Tears came to my eyes, and I threw my arms around her. “So pretty!”
I picked up the dress, gently touching the golden trim, and held it up to myself. Ainsley had taken my ball gown and turned it into a cocktail dress. The top half remained the same, but the ivory silk now fell to just below my knees. She’d replicated the intricate design along its hem and also added a touch of gold at the waist as well. I spun around, watching the silk flare out. “I like it even better now.”
Ainsley slapped my arm. “I love you for saying that, even if it’s not true.”
“It’s true!” I protested.
Dylan came into the living room carrying a tray of snacks. He stopped and gave me a kiss before setting the tray on the table. “How’d it go?”
“It went,” I said, giving love and attention to Roly and Poly, who were eyeing the snacks.
“You’re not bleeding.” Delia grabbed a chip, dipped it in salsa. “That’s saying something.”
“I don’t see Louella,” Ainsley said, looking around. “Does that mean Patricia agreed to adopt her?”
“She did,” I said. “I think they will be very happy together.”
Dylan glanced at me, a look in his eyes I couldn’t quite decipher. I had the feeling he knew I was keeping something from him.
“Did she not want the bed?” Delia asked.
“I forgot to give it to her,” I explained with a shrug. “There’s time enough.”
The phone rang, and I dashed into the kitchen to answer it. My mama.
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