by Vicki Hinze
“I’ve missed you, Mandy.”
The quiver in his voice arrowed straight into her heart. She looked up at him, let him see her regret and the tumble of sincere emotions she was feeling. “I’ve missed you, too. So much I can’t begin to describe it.”
He waited for Lisa to walk past them to the front desk and get out of earshot. “Before we take this any further, I need to ask something of you.”
“What?” He was the man with everything. What could she possibly give him?
“I need your promise,” he told her, brushing the line of her jaw with his thumb. “Never again will you keep secrets from me.”
She deserved that. She deserved worse. “I promise. Whatever comes, we’ll face it together.”
He smiled. “Perfect.”
“You aren’t still bitter?” If he’d done to her what she’d done to him, she couldn’t say she wouldn’t stay bitter. Even with protective intentions that were good, she’d still be bitter—or she thought she would.
“Honestly? I am. But I’m trying to forgive and forget it. I understand why you did what you did, which is something I haven’t been able to do for nine months.” He sobered. “I can’t say I’m not bitter at you letting me think you were swept off your feet by another man. That hurt.”
She could see that it did. Shame washed through her. “I am so sorry. I—I thought you’d be safer. I thought you’d accept that excuse and you’d—“
“I know. Ask no questions.” He looked past her shoulder. “I’m working through it.”
He hadn’t yet. That was plain. “Tim, are we going to be able to get back to where we were?” They’d been so incredibly in love.
“Honestly?” He waited for her nod, then went on. “No, we aren’t.” He hiked a shoulder. “Time and the things that happened . . . they’ve changed us. We’re not the people we were then. We’re the people we’ve become.”
True. Sad but true, and having no idea how to respond or where they would settle in, she wasn’t sure what to say, so she said nothing.
“Don’t worry. What we build from here will be extraordinary.”
He sounded sincere. She let him see her doubt. “Do you really think so?”
“I believe it—and you should, too.” He clasped her hands and squeezed. “We are going to have an extraordinary life.”
Extraordinary. Surely extraordinary couldn’t fit their lives unless he also loved her. How extraordinary would their lives be if that love only went one way? A flicker of hope inside her fanned to a flame.
“Mandy.” Lisa came walking up with two women.
The youngest of the two seniors looked too much like Lisa to not be her mother, Annie. The elder was raw-boned and Scots, which meant she had to be the village mother, Nora. “Hi.” Mandy nodded a greeting.
Lisa smiled, one arm around each of the women. “This is my mother, Annie Harper and this is my second mother, Nora. She pretty much raised me.”
“Very nice to meet you both.”
A fourth woman joined them. Short and round, she wore chunky jewelry and her dark hair styled in a classic bob. “And I’m Peggy Crane, Director of the Center.”
Mandy smiled. “Nice to meet you all.”
“Blast it, bud.” Sam’s voice carried over from the far side of the room.
Peggy stiffened. “Excuse me a second. I’ll meet you all in the conference room.”
“Oh-oh.” Annie clicked her tongue to the roof of her mouth. “Things are not looking good for Sam this morning.”
“Sooner or later my boy’s going to remember to mind his tongue. Until then, I ain’t sparing him.” Nora grunted. “Peggy ain’t having none of that kind of talk—and he knows it. I told him myself at least a dozen times in the last three days. Even made him tamales to help him remember.” She looked from Sam to Mandy. “He’s fond of my tamales.”
Tim looked down at Mandy, his warm eyes twinkling. “He’ll be griping for a week about getting jalapeno pepper juice in his tea.”
Poor Sam. “Who does that to him?” Mandy asked.
“Peggy.” Nora said, and then sniffed. “Or me.” She dropped her voice. “Or Lisa, Kelly, Roxy, or . . . well, just about anybody in the village but Annie. She can’t bring herself to it—even if it is for the boy’s own good.”
Annie’s mutinous defiance had Mandy biting a smile from her lips. “I see.”
Nora mumbled. “My boy knows if he’s loose-lipped, it’s coming. Apparently, he likes the stuff or he’d button it up.”
Mandy smiled at Tim. She liked these people. You knew right where you stood with them, and exactly what to expect.
Annie looped Mandy’s arm. “Nora and I will be planning your wedding. Of course, you’ve thought about exactly what you want.”
She really hadn’t. She’d thought a lot about being married to Tim, but not much about the actual wedding. “I expect it’ll be coming soon, so that limits—“
“Day after tomorrow,” Nora said. “Ain’t that right, Tim?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
That decision must have been made after she’d drifted off on Mark’s sofa.
“Will your folks be here, Tim?” Annie asked.
“I’m afraid not. They’re in Switzerland and won’t be back in the States until spring.”
Had he even told them? Mandy wondered, but didn’t ask.
“I see.” Annie swerved her gaze to Mandy. “And what about your father, Mandy?”
“I—I—“
“We know about the issue, dear. But he is your father. Wouldn’t you at least like to offer him the opportunity to attend?”
Annie Harper sounded so reasonable and rational and not at all judgmental. Mandy looked at Tim.
“Ask him,” Tim suggested. “All he can say is no.”
“For pity’s sake.” Nora elbowed Tim. “She’s still miffed that the man didn’t come to her mother’s funeral—I’m with you on that, Mandy. Unacceptable, no matter what.” Nora drew a quick breath then set her chin. “I’d ask him for that reason alone.”
“Nora, keep your stubborn streak to yourself.” Annie admonished her. “Mandy doesn’t want to poke at him.”
“Of course, she does. The woman needs to know whether he’ll ever be there for her. If he won’t for a funeral or a wedding, well, that pretty much tells her she can’t depend on him for a spitting thing. That’s information she needs to know.”
Everyone hushed and just stared at Mandy, waiting for her to make the call. A nagging uneasiness settled over her and stayed put. Did she want Charles Travest to come or not? Should she want him with her? Walking her down the aisle? The war between what she should feel and what she did feel raged. Down deep, she knew she had to forgive him. If not for him, for her.
Carrying around all the anger and disappointment in him took a heavy toll, and frankly it was a burden she was tired of carrying. Wasn’t it bad enough that things hadn’t been totally at ease between her and her mother? Now, that could never be fixed. She had to live with it. She didn’t want to live with that kind of thing with her father, too. “I’ll ask him, but I wouldn’t count on him showing up.” Day after tomorrow—her wedding day—was Monday not Tuesday. That pretty well cut the odds of his attending to near zero.
“What colors do you favor?” Nora asked.
“Purple. I love purple.” Mandy felt a little thrill. “And simple. Nothing fussy.”
“Write that down in your book, Annie.” Nora lifted a finger. “Purple and not fussy it is.”
Annie wrote in a neat hand: Purple. Simple, understated and elegant.
A stir at the front entryway snagged Mandy’s attention. A man in a suit and tie shook hands with nearly everyone he encountered.
“Ah, that’s Jeff Meyer,” Tim told Mandy.
“Who is he?” Everyone greeted him warmly. They all knew each other well, and from appearances got along well. Even Sam took being chastised by Peggy like a dutiful son. How lucky they were to not be outsiders, to have each other, helpin
g them through life. Celebrating and mourning together through the ups and downs . . . She could only imagine.
“Jeff’s a detective with the Seagrove police,” Tim said.
More authorities involved. “Why is he here?”
“We have to assume NINA is active again. He’s gone up against them with us before—I’m sure I mentioned that—and he’s done well.” Tim nudged her arm. “We’d better get to the conference room.”
More questions. Mandy staved off a sigh and moved with Tim down the hallway.
Forty-five minutes later, Jeff Meyer had revisited all the old ground that she and the guys had covered overnight. He’d taken copious notes in a little brown leather notebook that rested on the gleaming tabletop. It looked like chicken scratch to her, from across the table, but no doubt he interpreted just fine, based on him reviewing her comments then asking for clarifications.
“So,” he paused to look up at her, seated across the conference table. “You know nothing about Jackal, nothing about NINA, and nothing more on the Jackal connection to Tim than your mother telling you not to marry him to protect him or Jackal would kill all the guys and their families.”
“And my mother and me. That’s right.” Succinct summation. Mandy nodded to add weight to her claim. “She intended to tell me more that night. That’s why I was going to her house for dinner. But when I arrived, she was already dead.”
“You don’t ever go to her house for dinner otherwise?” Jeff asked.
“Actually, no. I phoned to check on her, and occasionally went over when she needed something, but we haven’t been as close as we used to be for a while now.” She’d hoped not to have to reveal that. Couldn’t she have any luck at all?
“How long a while?” Jeff pushed.
“Since I was seventeen.” The others would put the puzzle pieces on that together quickly.
Jeff tilted his head. “Why? What happened?”
“Her mother and father weren’t married, Jeff,” Tim said. “He has a wife and two children. Mandy learned that when she was seventeen and everything changed. That’s that.”
“I’m sorry.” Jeff scribbled notes into his book. “So when you got to your mother’s and learned she was dead, did you call your father?”
“Not until the next morning, when he was at work.”
“Because you didn’t want to risk getting his wife on the phone.”
“Because he forbid me to ever call him for anything—and I didn’t want risk getting his wife or his children on the phone.”
“You couldn’t call him even to inform him of your mother’s death?”
She shrugged. “Ingrained habits are . . . ingrained. It didn’t occur to me to do anything different. It never crossed my mind.”
Jeff nodded, clearly having a strong grip on her home life and situation. “It must have been really hard for you to walk away from Tim.”
“Yes.” She’d believed they’d spend their lives together. He loved her. Really loved her—or he had. Whether or not he did now, she couldn’t begin to guess. Bitter. “It was hard.” Shunning the only person in her life who’d ever been totally honest with her. Loved her without condition. Oh, yes, it had been beyond hard to walk away from him.
“I don’t have any more questions right now,” Jeff told the guys seated around the table.
“Great.” Mark flattened his hands atop the table. “You all know what to do. We reconvene here in two hours.”
People began filing out of the conference room. Mandy couldn’t yet make herself move. She’d been through the mill, and then had been through it again. Jeff Meyer was every bit as detail-centric as the guys had been, leaving no stone unturned or secret concealed.
“You okay?” Tim asked, keeping his voice soft and low.
“I’m fine.” Humiliated. Ashamed. Quivering inside. But then who could air all their dirty laundry to this group of principled people devoted to helping others and keeping people safe and not feel those things?
Would Mandy ever fit in here? Find her own place among them? Or would she always feel like an outsider?
Tim leaned closer. “You want to do lunch or talk wedding with Annie and Nora?”
“I cut Annie and Nora loose on the wedding.”
“But it’s your wedding, Mandy.”
“I know, but the circumstances are . . . unusual, and there isn’t much time. They’re experienced, and I don’t want to make anything harder for them.”
He nodded, turned quiet and thoughtful. “Lunch it is, then. We can run over to Ruby’s Diner and get a roast beef on rye.”
Her stomach growled. “With onion rings?” Whether he was disappointed or relieved about her lack of involvement in their wedding, she couldn’t tell. Maybe he was a bit of both. Maybe she should be, too. Heaven knew she was terrified of what might happen there. NINA bait. But as fearful as she was of that, she feared something else even more.
Her mother didn’t interact with anyone but her and, on Tuesdays, Charles Travest. She was murdered on a Thursday.
Despite Jackal’s threats, Mandy had believed Detective Walton’s conclusion based on the evidence that the murder had been the result of a random break-in. But then Tim and the guys had made the NINA connection through Jackal. Now, she had these horrific suspicions. Was Charles Travest somehow involved? Could he be the murderer?
Surely not. He did love her mother.
He didn’t come to her funeral.
It wasn’t on a Tuesday.
You’re burying your head in the sand.
I’m not. He has a sterling reputation and, except for when it came to my mother and me, by all accounts he’s a man of character. A high-profile attorney and pillar in the community. She’d checked him out herself—him, his wife, and their children. They all had sterling reputations. How could she not dig into their backgrounds or be curious about them?
Outsider . . . Appearances can be so deceptive. You know it, too. You lived it.
She had. But her father? A murderer? Connected to NINA? Surely that was impossible.
It had to be her resentment that made her even consider the possibility. Her resentment and anger demanded she consider it, but of course those same things skewed her deductions. Nothing colors assessments more than emotions. He couldn’t be involved in anything so sleazy that hurt so many.
Of course, he could.
No. No, he couldn’t. It’s impossible.
Is it really?
“Mandy? Are you okay? You’ve gotten so pale.”
“I’m fine. Just hungry.” She answered by rote and riveted her attention to Tim. A snippet of conversation had gone right over her head. “Sorry. What did you say?”
“You asked about the onion rings at Ruby’s. I said, they’re great.”
“We’ll have to try them, then.”
“Absolutely.” He smiled. “They’re your favorite.”
He remembered. Moved, she swallowed a knot in her throat. With Tim, she never felt like an outsider. She always felt like the center of his world. Amazing how much comfort she found in that—being at the center of someone special’s world. For the first time in nine months, Mandy smiled from the heart out.
“Let me just tell Mark where we’re going, in case he needs anything.”
She nodded and watched the others, all busy with various tasks. Nora, lecturing Sam on his language. It’s the sign of a weak mind, I’m saying . . .
Annie, on the phone with someone she knew well, talking about the wedding, and shooing Lisa, who kept interrupting with calls for a chocolate groom’s cake at the reception. Lisa insisting, But, Mom, it’s got to be Double Dutch chocolate. It’s Tim’s favorite.
It was Tim’s favorite, and he loved it. Smiling inside, Mandy let her gaze drift past Peggy Crane to Mark and Tim, who had stepped away from everyone else and whispered in low tones. Tim’s smile faded and worry replaced it. Why?
“She’s definitely holding something back.” Tim cringed at revealing that much to Mark. Voicing doubts
about Mandy had guilt tugging at him, him feeling the sting of betraying her, though he knew for a fact he wasn’t and he was doing the right thing.
“What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know. If I did, I’d be less concerned.” Tim swiped a hand through his hair. “She’s always been present in the moment, you know?” He loved that about her. “But again just a minute ago, she retreated to somewhere inside her head in the middle of a conversation about onion rings.”
“In all fairness,” Mark shrugged, “onion rings isn’t exactly a riveting topic. After all that’s gone down, no one could fault you for being a little skittish, but she was up being grilled most of the night and Jeff put her through it all again this morning. The woman’s grieving and worn out. Are you sure you aren’t putting too much weight on this?”
“Maybe, I am.” Tim conceded. “I don’t know. But onion rings are her favorite food. She’s into food—and she doesn’t usually drift like that. I could be wrong—I am touchy—but her retreating like that got my attention. It’s not normal for her.”
“Must have been significant, then.“ Mark paused to think a second, then added, “What’s your gut saying about it?”
Tim forced himself to look Mark in the eye. “She’s holding out on us.”
“The woman sacrificed her heart for us, Tim. For you. She loves you, no doubt about it. It’s in her eyes every time she sees you. But she gave you up to keep us all safe,” Mark said. “She told us all about that and about her mother and father. If she’d tell us about them, feeling as she does about it, why would she hold back anything else? I mean, can you get closer to the bone than your parents betraying you your whole life?”
“You never get over that,” Joe said, joining them.
“Ah, the voice of experience.” Mark hooked a thumb at Joe. “He’d know.”
He would. Thugs, thieves and outlaws. His thugs, thieves and outlaws.
Joe cocked his head, reluctantly spoke to Tim. “Not to change the topic, and I don’t want to rattle you, but I’ve got to say it, bro.”
“What?”
“Mandy’s holding out on us.”
