by Lexi Eddings
Oh, he tried to present a brave face to the world. He was a returning hero making the best of the poor hand he’d been dealt. But unlike his missing leg, no one could see the damage Jake had suffered on the inside. He couldn’t control it and it was getting worse.
He despised weakness in others. He hated it in himself.
Jake had tried to gloss over the trauma, to pretend it wasn’t there. But there was no prosthetic for his mind, no artificial patch to put over his wounded soul. And he had no way of knowing when that damaged part of him would lash out, when the past would intrude on his present with violence.
He didn’t want to hurt the people he was supposed to love and protect, the way Lester had.
Jake had no idea what he was doing with the Beretta. What if Lacy had been with him when he’d fired his weapon?
It didn’t bear thinking of.
She laid her hand on his knee, close to the spot where his flesh-and-blood calf stopped and his phantom limb began. “Jake, let me in. I want to help.”
“You can’t.” Nobody could.
“Then I want to go through this . . . this whatever it is with you while you work it out.”
Who said he ever would? The future was a long dark tunnel, and there was no light at the end of it. He brushed her hand away.
“No.” He didn’t trust himself to look at her.
“But, Jake—”
He swore a blue streak. “I said no. Now get out of here. Go back to Boston. It’s where you belong anyway.”
“No. I belong here. With you.”
“Not anymore. Coldwater isn’t for you. And neither am I. You outgrew both of us years ago.”
She jerked back as if he’d slapped her. Her baby blues welled up.
It made him feel like crap to hurt her, but better this than to let her stay near him when even he didn’t know what he might do next.
He held himself rigid, not daring to breathe as she slowly rose and walked toward the stairs that led down to the door to the alley and out of his life. He longed to call her back. Jake had taken his grandmother’s ring out of his safety deposit box at the bank a couple of days ago, intending to ask Lacy to marry him. He ached to tell her yes, he wanted her to stay with him, please, God, not just for tonight, but forever. He’d only been waiting for the right time to pop the question.
Now the right time would never come. He let out the breath he’d been holding in a slow, measured stream.
Then she stopped at the head of the steps and looked back at him. He tamped down the wild hope that surged in his chest. He couldn’t have it. Couldn’t have her.
“I should have known, Jake.”
“What?”
“That you’d break my heart. It’s what you do. Love ’em and leave ’em. I should have remembered.”
Couldn’t she see it was for her own good? He didn’t trust himself to speak. If he did, the words might pour out of his throat before he could get a handle on them and he’d be begging her to stay.
“You made me care about you,” she said softly. “You made me love you. Made me let you in. I can’t help it. I love you so much it hurts. Don’t you love me back . . . even a little?”
He steeled himself not to answer, but she ought to know anyway. Of course he loved her. He loved her more than his next breath. She was everything he ever wanted.
And shouldn’t have.
Which was why he had to send her away and make it stick. If he didn’t love her, he’d try to keep her even though he was a dangerous man to be close to. He’d lean on her and use her to try to fill up that damaged place.
But he couldn’t do that to Lacy. He loved her too much to chain her to a wreck like him.
“You’ll get over it. You’re a survivor,” he told her. She’d blown off her attachment to Daniel easily enough. And that Bradford guy. Jake was under no illusion that he was any different. “It’s what you do.”
“Not this time. I’m done. There’s nothing left in me for another go-round. You’re the last man I’ll ever love.” As she started down the stairs, he heard her say, “Whether I want to or not.”
* * *
Lacy trudged back across the Square toward her place, not sure she’d make it that far. By rights, her heart should stop beating by the time she passed the courthouse, but her feet carried her on. Her vision wavered with unshed tears. She made her way up the stairs to her place more by feel than by sight.
Love was supposed to be joy and flowers and strawberries dipped in dark chocolate.
No one told her it would be like this.
Her insides had been hollowed out. After Bradford, she’d thought she knew what rejection felt like.
His betrayal was nothing compared to this.
She’d been ready to give all that she was to Jake and to accept all of him—the good and the bad. But he didn’t love her back. He’d tossed her away as if she were a used tissue.
As soon as her door closed behind her, she slumped to the kitchen floor. Her legs wouldn’t support her a second longer. She covered her face with both hands and wept.
Effie meowed, her tail arched into a furry question mark. When Lacy didn’t respond, the cat circled her warily before sidling up to her hip and beginning to purr. Lacy ignored her and continued to let the grief pour out of her eyes. After a while, the Siamese rolled onto her side and began kneading Lacy’s thigh.
“Oh, all right, cat. If you’re trying to say I still have someone who loves me, I get it.” She relented and gave Effie a full-body pat, running her hand over the sleek head and on down to the tip of Effie’s tail. “Can you blame me for hoping it would be someone who’s a little taller? And doesn’t shed.”
Before Lacy had the chance to rise from the floor, her cell phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket, expecting it to be the DA’s office again. She’d successfully avoided taking no less than six calls from them. Instead, caller ID flashed the name Neville Lodge on the screen.
The guy who’d bought the Erté. The last thing she needed was a reminder of the other disaster this day had brought—giving up thirty thousand dollars to the Bugtussles. But it would be rude not to answer a call from someone who’d sent her a five-figure check.
“Lacy, darling, I called to thank you again for uncovering that marvelous painting.” Neville’s cultured New England accent didn’t allow him to acknowledge the existence of Rs.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying it.”
“Oh, it wasn’t for me, more’s the pity. That check was written on the company account and FYI, we’ve already sold the Erté to a serious collector for triple the money.”
“Great.” Someone had skinned her like she’d almost skinned the Bugtussles. She understood that there had to be a markup in the art world. A business of any stripe couldn’t stay afloat if it didn’t make a profit. But three hundred percent seemed off the charts. Of course, she’d lost her business, so what did she know? “You didn’t call to tell me I sold too low. What do you want, Neville?”
“To offer you a position with Boyleston, Quincy, and Lodge. When I told my partners you had such a good eye that you found the Erté in a . . . a thrift shop of all places, they decided we need to bring you on board full-time.”
Then he named a salary that was double what she’d made in her best year with her own shop.
“What exactly do you want me to do for you?” Donate a kidney?
“We want you to find more undiscovered pieces. If Boyleston, Quincy, and Lodge develops a reputation for being able to provide our clients with heretofore unknown masterpieces, collectors will flock to our door. Art and high-concept design is a small and, fortunately, a very affluent world. A few more finds like your Erté and we’ll be able to knock our European competition back on their heels.” Neville giggled. Evidently even he had trouble imagining himself knocking anyone on their anything. “The position will entail a good deal of travel, for which you’ll be well compensated, of course.”
Her head was spinning while he went on to tell
her about stipends and expense accounts. “We have one very avid Saudi prince who signed with us to replace the art in all his estates simply because we promised him we had a full-time expert actively acquiring new pieces.”
“I haven’t said yes.”
“But you will,” he predicted. “Let us fly you in to discuss it. You must be wild to escape that ridiculous little hamlet you’ve landed in by now.”
Oddly enough, the idea of leaving Coldwater Cove was a lead weight that dropped through her heart and settled in her belly. It would mean giving up on Jake completely.
“I can’t, Neville.”
“Don’t say no. Say you’ll think about it. I’ll send you the offer in writing. You can mull things over and give us the green light next week. Toodles.”
The astronomical sum he’d offered to pay her orbited around her brain a time or two. If she was making that kind of money, she’d have the O’Leary brothers paid off in half a year—less, if she was frugal.
Even that much-to-be-desired outcome didn’t raise her spirits. But she did feel oceans better about having returned the money from the sale of the Erté to the Bugtussle family.
“Evidently, there’s something to that old sowing and reaping stuff,” she told Effie.
Then her phone rang again. Hoping it was Jake, she answered before checking caller ID this time.
“Ms. Evans, this is Deputy District Attorney Ethan Hopkins.”
Oh, shoot! He was probably calling to tell her new charges had been filed against her to appease Bradford’s influential family.
“Are you still there, Ms. Evans?”
“Yes. Yes, sir, I’m here.” Unfortunately, if he had her number, he probably knew where “here” was, too.
“I want to apprise you of new developments in your case.”
“I thought my case was settled,” she said shakily. After all she’d done to make restitution, how could the Commonwealth go back on the settlement like this?
“I suppose I should amend that. Some things have happened that have changed the disposition of your case.”
“Is Mr. Endicott in custody?”
“No. To my knowledge, he’s not even in the States. Besides, this doesn’t concern him directly.”
Oh, no. The Endicotts had managed to have all the blame for Bradford’s embezzlement transferred to her.
“This has to do with your arrangement with the former DA and Thomas and Malcolm O’Leary.” He went on to explain that his boss had been indicted for taking kickbacks from known organized crime types and was awaiting his own trial. DDA Hopkins needed Lacy to return to testify that the former DA had wrongly forced her to make restitution for a crime for which she was not guilty. Then the DA had put her in touch with the O’Learys so she could meet the financial requirements of the deal he’d made with her.
“You’re not the only one who’s fallen prey to this sort of arrangement,” DDA Hopkins explained.
“If there are others, you don’t really need my testimony.”
“On the contrary, the weight of numbers makes a difference.” DDA Hopkins needed as many of the old DA’s victims to step forward as possible. “Besides, you’re one of the few who is actually an innocent party. A jury will be especially sympathetic to you.”
Lacy shakily agreed to testify.
“Oh, and just so you know, the O’Leary brothers were indicted as well and the judge ruled that all loans they made in conjunction with the DA’s office are frozen until such time as a trial can determine whether said loans should be considered fraudulent. So in the meantime, you don’t need to worry about repaying another dime.”
All the air whooshed out of Lacy’s lungs. Stunned, she thanked DDA Hopkins, promised again to appear in court when he needed her, and ended the conversation.
She’d done one good thing by turning the money for the Erté over to the Bugtussles, and now her whole financial life was turning around.
Sowing and reaping, indeed. Maybe Heather Walker and the Warm Hearts Club were on to something.
But being out from under the O’Learys’ thumbs and having a fabulous job offer didn’t make her happy. As long as Jake was suffering, she would suffer with him. But he wouldn’t let her help him, and she wasn’t sure what she could do even if he did.
So Lacy tried something she hadn’t done in a long time.
She prayed.
Chapter 31
Around here, it’s always a slow news day. But that’s all right. My readers like to read slow.
—Wanda Cruikshank, editor of the Coldwater Gazette, who wouldn’t trade it for some big-city rag on a bet
A week moseyed by.
Though most doings about town were overshadowed by news of the astounding good luck of Tina-Louise Bugtussle, a few things of note happened.
Deek Atwater, the sole member of the cyber team at the Gazette, took first place in a chess tournament in Muskogee. He credited the win to all the hours he spent playing against the computer in his mother’s basement. Who knew the time spent in such a dank, musty place would amount to anything except mushrooms?
Mrs. Paderewski’s piano students presented their yearly recital in the Catholic church fellowship hall. Mr. Evans would have said the performance was rated PC—Parental Consumption.
The town council voted to have a Most Beautiful Front Lawn Contest to encourage folks to plant more flowers and shrubs and generally spruce up their homes. Like most things decreed by government, the competition had unintended consequences. Lacy’s dad overfertilized his lawn, which left several patches of grass dry and brown. He fixed this with a can of green spray paint and a promise from Lacy “not to tell her mother.”
She also didn’t tell her mother about the job offer in Boston. Or her dad. In fact, she didn’t tell anyone except Heather and then only because she had to talk to someone. Her friend offered a sympathetic ear but no answers.
She’d been praying for Jake all week without receiving any answer, too. Finally, she called in the big guns and put him on the prayer chain as “an unspoken request.” God would know who Marjorie and her gang were talking about, even if they didn’t.
* * *
“Did you hear the latest news?” Lester asked Jake. The two men worked side by side flipping pancakes and making breakfast scrambles to meet the demands of the Tuesday morning rush.
“I’m not deaf.”
Everyone in town had heard about how Grandma Bugtussle had turned an old painting she didn’t even like into a big fat wad of cash. Not only was there a full-page article about it in the Gazette, the Bugtussles’ good fortune was on everyone’s lips.
Jake, however, had gotten the whole story from Gloria, the owner of Gewgaws and Gizzwickies, when he’d dropped by some pieces his mother wanted to consign. She thought it would be a good idea to have some of her wares in both consignment shops.
“Best not to put all your eggs in one basket,” his mom had said. “It’s good to spread things around.”
Gloria evidently agreed. Without any encouragement on his part, Jake was told that Lacy Evans had bought the painting from the shop.
“In fact, she came back in wanting to know who it had belonged to before, but don’t tell her I said anything. My discretion is why folks trust me with their treasures,” Gloria had said without a trace of irony. “Forget I said anything. If she’d wanted you to know what she did, she’d a told you.”
But Lacy wasn’t telling him anything. In fact, she’d gone out of her way to make sure their paths didn’t cross. The Coldwater Warm Hearts Club was meeting for breakfast in the Green Apple as usual that morning, but Lacy was a no-show.
The club didn’t know she’d given the biggest helping hand of all that week. Considering her debts, Jake figured Lacy’s good deed was certainly more sacrificial than any of the other things the Warm Hearts did.
“To be honest,” Jake said to Lester over a mess of frying sausages, “I’m a little tired of hearing about the Bugtussles and their plans to invade Disneyland.”
“That ain’t the news I’m talking about,” Lester said. “Lacy Evans got herself a big job offer from some company back east. I overheard Heather Walker say something about it while I was bussing the table next to her group and—hey! Where you off to?”
“I need to top off some coffees. Ethel’s running a little behind.”
Ethel would have disputed that with her dying breath, but Jake had to have some excuse to leave the kitchen and find out about this job offer. When he’d told Lacy to go back to Boston, he never dreamed she’d actually do it.
His heart was pounding, but he tried to act casual. As he refilled the mugs around the Warm Hearts Club table, Mr. Bunn came in to the meeting late and had to be brought up to speed. It seemed Lacy had been offered a very lucrative position with a prominent New England art and design firm. They wanted her to start next week.
“Is she going to take it?” Mr. Bunn asked.
“She’d be a fool not to.” Heather’s nose twitched delicately and she glanced toward the kitchen. The smell of something burning wafted toward them. “How’s Lester working out, Jake?”
He didn’t take time to answer. Instead, he hoofed it back to the kitchen and sent Lester out to bus more tables before the old vet set the whole place on fire.
For the rest of the day, Jake was on autopilot. Cooking had a certain mind-numbing routine to it. He didn’t really need to think about most of the prep work. Chopping veggies and measuring ingredients had become second nature to him. He really only needed to focus when he was dealing with a new recipe or the hot grill.
So while his body went through the motions of his day, his mind raced a mile a minute.
Lacy. Gone.
It was what he’d told her he wanted.
He’d lied.
A couple of days after that horrible night, he’d started working on a plan to dig himself out of the hole he’d fallen into. Jake broke down and went to the Bates Clinic to talk to a psychologist. It might take medication, he was told. It would certainly take therapy, but there was help for his flashbacks. He just had to be willing to accept the help and do the work.
