The Moment of Truth

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “Not miracles, no, sir,” Josh said. “But I’m good at what I do and I’ll do it well.”

  A picture of Michelle, drool at the corner of her mouth, played across his mind’s eye.

  “I find my way into every bar we’ve got in this town at some time or another,” Sam announced. “This is the first I’ve seen you.”

  Sam was telling him he’d been looking. Josh got the message. And waited to see if Sam was going to keep the word he’d given Cassie.

  “Don’t let him kid you,” Ian said, apparently unaware of what, to Josh, seemed like a hell of a lot of tension. “Sam’s not a drinker. He’s too busy being a daddy to do much drinking. He comes in here to check on that daughter of his.”

  Sam had a daughter in college?

  He had more family here than he’d thought. College-age kids...

  Sam and Cassie, picturing them with kids, made them so much more real.

  And harder for him to resist.

  When he noticed the narrow-eyed gaze Sam was giving him, Josh said, “Your daughter giving you problems, sir?”

  “She’s a perfect kid, getting perfect grades, and I’m going to make damned sure no one breaks her heart, is all,” Sam said, the grin gone from his face. Josh pitied any man who messed with his cousin’s daughter.

  “Mariah’s a freshman this fall. She’s dating a freshman from California and Sam’s not taking it well.”

  “You two seem to know each other well,” Josh said. Leave it to him to gravitate to the one guy at work who was in with Sam Montford.

  He just wasn’t going to catch a break—had obviously used up his allotment in his past life.

  “I was born and raised in this town,” Ian said with a grin as Sam took a swig of beer. “You grow up here, you know pretty much everything about everyone else who grew up here,” Ian finished, losing the grin on his face as he looked from Josh to Sam.

  Time to go. Back to his rented house. If Sam blew his cover...farther than that.

  “He’s right about everyone knowing everything,” Sam said.

  A warning to Josh?

  “Which is why I left town when I wasn’t much older than Mariah,” Sam continued. “Thankfully my daughter’s a lot smarter than her old man.”

  “She takes after your wife, then?” Josh couldn’t resist the jibe.

  “Of course.” Sam’s expression took on a look Josh didn’t recognize. “But she’s not our biological child,” he said. “Mariah’s American-Indian. Her parents were two of my best friends in the world. They were killed in a terrorist attack in 2001. Mariah saw the whole thing. She was catatonic for months. It was Cassie, and her pet therapy, that saved that little girl’s life.”

  “Cassie’s his wife,” Ian said. “And they have a son, too. Brian. He’s eleven and takes after Cassie for sure.”

  Sam took a swig of beer at that and turned his grin on Ian. “Careful my man, I know your daddy and he’s pretty proud of you at the moment. I’d sure hate to see that change.”

  The threat was nonsense, but Josh figured that Ian had just been told to keep his mouth shut.

  Fair enough.

  Sam was keeping Josh’s secret, respecting his choice to remain anonymous to the Montfords; it was only fair that the Montfords not be known to him.

  But when he lay in bed alone that night, Josh wondered again if he was being a fool to think he could change who he was. Or could ever be anything but what he’d been born to be.

  An image of Michelle confined to her bed flashed in front of his closed lids.

  She was never going to be the same again.

  And neither was he.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ON THURSDAY, DONE at the university for the day, Dana stopped in at home after her one o’clock class before heading over to Josh’s house. She’d made cabbage rolls the night before and had frozen a couple of containers. She grabbed them both. And Lindy Lu, too. The two puppies were good company for each other.

  While she was at Josh’s house, she pulled out her phone.

  I’m an adult. It’s up to me to decide whether or not I need more than I am getting.

  Agreed.

  Less than two minutes had passed.

  Encouraged by his rapid response she thumb typed:

  You’ve been honest with me. I accept you as you are.

  Okay.

  An instant response.

  She wasn’t reading him wrong. Josh cared. He just had issues to work through.

  And if she could help him, then she wanted to do so. Just like she helped Jerome. And Sharon. And Lori.

  And all of the dogs who needed homes.

  * * *

  JOSH MIGHT HAVE missed the dinner waiting for him in the freezer that night if not for the written heating instructions left on his counter.

  While it was heating up in the microwave, he tossed a treat to L.G. and pulled out his phone.

  You need to stop doing so much for everyone else. They’ll take advantage, he typed. Feeling as if he was doing her a favor, Josh hit Send.

  If I don’t care if they take advantage, why should you?

  Because he was trying to save her from him. Didn’t she get that?

  The microwave beeped and, fork in one hand and phone in the other, Josh took his first bite while the container was still in the microwave.

  Mmm. Cabbage rolls. Thank you.

  You’re welcome. And I like helping people. If they take advantage, it’s on their conscience.

  Exactly. And he wanted it the hell off.

  * * *

  SATURDAY MADE IT one week and two days since she’d had sex with Josh Redmond. Dana wasn’t worried about STDs. But she was worried.

  She was probably just feeling guilty for throwing caution to the wind, was making an issue where there wasn’t one. Her cycle was regular. It always had been. And her small window of opportunity that month hadn’t been the previous week. But just to be sure, she picked up a home-pregnancy test first thing that morning—the brand that claimed it could detect pregnancy as early as one week after unprotected sex. At home in her bathroom, she looked between Kari and Lindy Lu, two little faces staring up at her as though waiting to see what would happen next.

  “Taking action is the only way to stop the worry,” she explained. Kari took a paw swat at Lindy Lu’s nose. The puppy blinked, lay down and looked up at Dana again.

  She followed the directions on the box and sat down to wait.

  Jumping onto the counter, Kari went for the little stick and Dana rescued it just in time. The kitten batted the folded paper directions instead, and Dana grabbed those, too.

  Kari sent the box flying to the floor. It landed a foot from the puppy, who stood to investigate. She smelled it. Pawed at it. And then, picking it up in her teeth, dragged the thing that was as long as she was to the corner of the room where she plopped down to chew on it.

  “You really shouldn’t be doing that,” Dana admonished, to which Lindy paid no attention at all.

  Glancing in the mirror across from her, Dana saw the skinny woman sitting there in jeans and a short-sleeved navy pullover. She looked so ordinary. Plain and wholesome. Not at all like someone who’d be taking a home-pregnancy test.

  Dana glanced at her watch. “Another minute and then we can get on with our day,” she said. “I’m sure it’s going to be negative.” She took a deep breath. Watched the kitten bat at a drip from the bathroom sink. “Which doesn’t really let us off the hook.”

  She had to be honest with them. “It’s really early so chances are, even if I am pregnant, I’ll get a false negative. Gestation can take up to five days and then you need another few days for the hormones to get flowing, and it’s the hormones that register a positive on that stick.”

  Kar
i licked her newly moist paw. Lindy stood and tried to shake the box, which whopped her upside the head instead.

  “Yeah, you’re right. Worrying is silly. It wasn’t my fertile time.”

  The kitty landed in her lap, her wet paw leaving a mark on the bottom of Dana’s shirt.

  Five...four...three...two...one.

  Time to look. She waited a little longer. Just to be sure she’d waited long enough.

  Setting the stick on the counter without looking at the results, she scooped up Kari in one hand and Lindy Lu in the other. “Ready?” she asked, looking from one to the other.

  Kari batted at Lindy’s nose again. The puppy scrambled to get down. “Shhh. Both of you. It’s fine,” she told them, raising them to either side of her face. “We just have to stay calm, okay? You guys can do that for me. I know you can.”

  She kissed each of them, put Kari down and cuddled Lindy Lu between her jaw and her shoulder as she looked at the stick.

  Okay.

  Not what she’d hoped.

  Like she’d told her housemates, all they had to do was remain calm.

  * * *

  JOSH WAS BARELY out of the sack Saturday morning when he heard pounding on the door.

  In boxer briefs and a T-shirt, he stumbled out to the kitchen, leaving a howling L.G. locked in his kennel on the unmade bed. He looked through the peephole and saw nothing.

  The pounding came again. On the sliding-glass door off the kitchen. He’d overheard someone mention that there’d been a string of break-ins the previous month in Shelter Valley by a burglar who always entered the premises through sliding-glass doors.

  They caught that guy, though. A student who’d since been expelled and was now in jail awaiting trial.

  Peeking around the edge of the full-door blind he pulled closed each night after putting L.G. out one last time, Josh saw a black-suited guy with a black ski hat standing in bright sunlight on his back porch, holding two travel coffee mugs.

  The getup did nothing to disguise the man. Josh figured he wasn’t going anywhere, either, and took his time grabbing a pair of pants from the hanging rack in the laundry room, pulling them on and fastening them before opening the door.

  “Hold on,” he said, and, closing the door so as not to invite the intruder into his actual home, he sauntered back to the master bedroom, grabbed a rambunctious L.G. out of his kennel and made a run for the door.

  He was not about to face his long-lost cousin with dog piss running down his pants.

  The puppy made it to the patio. And, seeing Sam, ran up to greet him, peeing on his shoe in the process.

  Josh figured he couldn’t have planned that one better. The man was trespassing, not just on his property, but on his life. Grabbing a couple of paper towels from inside, wetting one, he held them out.

  “I’m not changing my mind,” he said, guy to guy.

  “No one’s asking you to.” Sam handed him one of the mugs in exchange for the paper towels and wiped his shoe.

  Josh took a sip.

  Not as good as his favorite brew back home, but better than a lot of stuff he’d had in expensive coffee shops all over the globe.

  L.G. took a dump in the yard.

  “What’s with the garb?”

  “I rode my bike,” Sam said, no longer grinning, but looking too damned friendly for Josh’s taste. “It’s cold.”

  “For wimps, maybe. This is spring weather in Boston.” What in the hell was the matter with him? He might be lacking in a lot of areas but basic manners wasn’t one of them.

  Cocking his head to the side, Sam perused him. “You ever ride a Harley?”

  “Standing up.” Not one of his brighter stunts.

  The older man was grinning again, just like he had that night in the bar. “You wreck it?”

  Shrugging, Josh took another sip. “I lived.”

  “How about the bike?”

  “It lived, too.” But he’d sold the powerful fifty-thousand-dollar custom toy for pennies on the dollar because it had had a scratch on it.

  “When I first left Shelter Valley, before I joined the peace corps, I bought a custom-made parasail and jumped off a mountain.”

  “I see that you lived.”

  “Yeah, the parasail didn’t.”

  When he caught back his own grin, just in time, Josh scoffed, “What’s with the ski cap?”

  Sam pulled it off, letting the long locks of his hair float down to his shoulders. “Can’t stand to have strands of hair poking around under the helmet.”

  “I didn’t hear a bike.”

  “You don’t look like you’d have heard much of anything.” With his head slightly cocked and his gaze narrowed, Sam Montford was making Josh uncomfortable.

  “I treated myself to nearly a fifth of aged Royal Salute last night.” He’d brought the expensive Scotch whiskey with him, in case of emergency.

  “How was it?”

  “Same as always.” He should have been the one with a low tolerance for alcohol, not Michelle.

  “How’s the house look?”

  “Like the housekeeper has already been here this morning.”

  Sam kept watching him. And grinning. “I parked the bike a few blocks over—at my son’s karate school. People around here know me. And know my bike. I didn’t figure you’d want them knowing I was here. The boy’s going to be expecting me back soon.”

  “Does he know where you are?”

  “No one does. I merely went for a walk in the desert.”

  Sam was honoring his request for anonymity. As hard as he was trying, Josh was having a hard time finding anything about the guy to not like.

  And he couldn’t afford to like him. He couldn’t trust himself to stay true to his cause with the temptation of the life he’d always known so close.

  “You jumped the wall,” Josh said, making the words sound like an accusation.

  “Your mother thinks you’re celebrating Thanksgiving with us.”

  “Not from me, she doesn’t.” And she wasn’t supposed to be in touch with the Montfords, either.

  “I think she just assumed. At least that’s how it seemed in her response to Cassie’s email. The one you asked her to send.”

  “She’s wrong.”

  Nodding, Sam said easily, “We’d like you to be there.”

  “I have plans.”

  Chin to his chest, Sam hid whatever he was thinking. And then said, with all seriousness, “I respect what you’re trying to do.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’d like to know why you’re doing it.”

  “Ask my mother.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  Josh hesitated, looking the older man in the eye.

  “I almost killed a girl.” It was no secret back home.

  “Knowingly?”

  “No.”

  “How long are you planning to be AWOL?”

  “I can’t answer that.”

  “Can’t, or won’t?”

  “Can’t.”

  Nodding, Sam sipped some coffee, looked at his watch and put his mug down on the ground next to a porch support. “I just bought the mugs,” he said. “They’re yours.”

  He could use them.

  Turning, Sam headed toward the back wall, stopping to pet L.G. in the process. Josh followed him.

  “Thank you.”

  When Sam stopped, he wished he’d kept his distance. The emotion searing from the other man’s eyes was painful to see.

  “I killed my first-born,” he said. “Not on purpose, of course. I didn’t know Cassie was pregnant.” He paused for a few seconds. “Your acumen is already obvious in the work you’re doing at Montford. You’re a natural at it. I wasn’t. I hated business.
This town. And everything associated with both. My family expected me to go to law school. Cassie, too. I skipped town instead. Was unfaithful to my wife, and joined the corps. My desertion practically killed Cassie. The baby neither of us knew she was carrying at the time was born five months later. She only lived a month.”

  Josh stared. Didn’t know what to say. If he’d had the whiskey handy he’d have offered the bottle to his cousin.

  “It took me sixteen years to find my way back,” Sam said, apparently not needing Josh to say anything. “If you need to talk, find me.”

  Before Josh could respond, the man had gone over the six-foot-high wall and disappeared from sight.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  FUNNY HOW LIFE COULD “crash on a dime,” as Daniel put it, and still just keep on going like nothing had changed. Dana had a call on Saturday from a new rescue dog placement—they needed a dog-sitter for the following week and didn’t know who to call. She immediately thought of Lori.

  Lillie called and asked if she and Lindy Lu wanted to join them that night for a barbecue. Harrison could visit with his sister and Dana could meet their friends, Mark and Addy, and Mark’s eighty-one-year-old grandmother, Nonnie. She wanted to decline. To hide.

  But she knew better. She was staying calm. Putting one foot in front of the other.

  And the first step she had to take was to get ahold of Josh. She was her mother’s daughter, but she would not make the same mistakes.

  No matter what the cost. Because she knew that the price of secrets was far more costly than she was willing to pay.