by Brenda Novak
He thought of Luanna standing at the door, gaping after him. She’d been shocked by the change in him. But she was the one who’d opened his eyes. Had she never left him, he’d probably be playing golf. Or traveling with her, talking about her son and what Marty needed, while ignoring his own children.
Maybe, in the long run, it was a blessing that she’d found someone else, he decided. Certainly, it was going to make a better man out of him.
“I’m afraid we don’t have a big rental market here in Dundee,” Herb explained apologetically.
“I don’t need anything fancy,” Gordon said.
“And you’d like how long a lease?”
Hoping it’d help him stay put and deal with his children, even his grandchildren, Gordon planned to lock himself in for a good stretch. “A year at least.”
“Okay. Let’s see here.” Herb thumbed through a file, then placed a couple of calls. “I’ve got two properties to choose from,” he said at last. “One’s a duplex, and the other is a trailer.”
Gordon pictured the lovely home he’d left behind in L.A. But that wasn’t important to him anymore.
“Which one is nicer?” he asked.
“The trailer sits on a beautiful piece of land by a running creek. You could have horses, dogs, whatever you want.”
Horses? Gordon had never considered owning a horse. But that wasn’t a bad thought. He could learn to ride. Become a cowboy. A cowboy grandpa with a huge dog for the kids.
He stared at the picture Herb shoved across the desk. He’d never imagined himself living in a dilapidated mobile home on the outskirts of a small Idaho town. Yet he was excited about it. He suspected it was the chance to start over that made him feel so free.
“I’ll take it,” he said and chuckled as he imagined showing the photo of his new home to Liz.
THE DAY AFTER THE BREAK-IN at her shop, Liz sat on the couch at her brother’s farm with Reenie and Lucky Hill. Lucky was Reenie’s half sister—the daughter Garth had learned about only a few years earlier. The truth about the senator’s relationship to Lucky had caused a huge scandal in Dundee, had disrupted his bid for a congressional seat, and had threatened to tear the Holbrook family apart. But thanks largely to Celeste and the way she’d handled the situation, they’d all recovered. Now Reenie, Garth, Celeste and Lucky were close. Gabe seemed to be the only one still struggling to accept her.
Obviously, she didn’t feel the same reluctance toward him. From what Liz could see, Lucky admired Gabe a great deal and was as worried as Reenie was about his impending surgery.
“He’ll be okay,” Liz murmured to them both, patting Reenie’s dog Spike, a black lab–chow mix, who sat at attention in front of her.
Reenie nodded in agreement, but even so she had her hands clasped tightly in her lap, and Lucky kept glancing at the clock. Isaac’s substitute teacher had backed out at the last minute, so he’d had to go to school. But he’d already called several times to check in, and they’d promised to let him know the moment they heard any news.
“Hannah was beside herself when I talked to her on the phone this morning,” Reenie said. She’d put on one of their favorite DVDs, The Last of the Mohicans, but no one was really watching it.
“With worry?” Liz asked.
“With anger because she couldn’t talk him out of this!”
“That would be frustrating.”
“I can identify,” Reenie grumbled.
“I can’t imagine what we’re going to tell Mom and Dad if something goes wrong,” Lucky added.
Hearing Lucky call Celeste Mom had, at first, struck Liz as strange. But she’d grown used to it. Lucky’s mother was dead, and not so fondly remembered in this town, and Celeste included Lucky in the family as wholeheartedly as she included her other children.
Only someone as generous as Celeste could pull it off, Liz thought. In the beginning, she’d probably done it out of love for Garth. Lately, however, Liz sensed a real fondness between the two women.
“They’ll never forgive us for not telling them when they could still have stopped it,” Reenie said.
In the movie, Daniel Day-Lewis led Madeleine Stowe and various other actors into the fort. Liz glanced at the flashes of cannon fire as Spike nudged her hand for more affection.
Garth and Celeste had a right to know that their son might not make it through the day, didn’t they? she mused. As a mother, she would definitely want to be privy to that information. But it had been Gabe’s decision. And he hadn’t given Reenie a choice.
“Do you think I should call them?” Reenie asked, her expression mirroring the anxiety churning inside her.
“No!” Liz and Lucky responded in unison. Even Spike barked and wagged his tail as though he agreed.
“They can’t change the situation now,” Lucky said.
“But he’s been in there more than eight hours. Something must be wrong. And if the operation ends badly…”
Reenie could hardly get the last word out, let alone face the possibility. “I’m sure it’s going fine,” Liz said, hoping she sounded convincing. “Some surgeries take forever.”
Reenie stood and went to stare out the window. “I have a plane reservation, just in case Hannah needs me. If we lose him—” her voice cracked “—someone will have to help her bring him home.”
Liz walked over and put an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, Reenie,” she said, giving her a squeeze. “I know the waiting is getting to you. But don’t let yourself think the worst.”
“I’m a realist.” Reenie rubbed her eyes, which were already mottled and puffy from the tears she’d shed earlier. “Caught between what he wants, what I want, and what I know my parents would want. He’s put me in a terrible spot.”
“If he survives, I’m going to kill him,” Lucky muttered, joining them at the window. “And I’m just the person to do it. He doesn’t like me, anyway.”
Reenie tossed her a sympathetic smile. “That’s not true. He cares about you. But he has too much pride to let you know you’ve finally won him over. That’s all. Gabe doesn’t like being wrong.”
Lucky’s expression revealed how much she longed to believe Reenie. As she blinked quickly, battling her emotions, Liz felt a lump swell in her own throat. She was infinitely relieved, however, when Lucky managed to hold back her tears. After so many hours of waiting and wondering, they were all on edge. If anyone started to cry now, they’d all break down.
“We have to keep up the positive energy,” Liz said. “Imagine Gabe walking off the plane.”
“It won’t be like that,” Lucky said. “Even if today goes well, he’ll probably be looking at several more surgeries.”
“Can’t he see what that’ll do to Hannah?” Reenie asked.
On the television, Daniel Day-Lewis was arguing with the character who played Madeleine Stowe’s father. Liz frowned. Another stubborn character.
“Hannah’s boys still think their parents are on vacation,” Lucky said, adding that into the mix.
It had all been said before, of course. But they couldn’t help going over the worst of it again and again.
Reenie dropped her head in her hands. “I should never have let him do this.”
“If Hannah couldn’t stop him, you couldn’t either,” Liz told her.
“I know but…” She threw her hands in the air. “God, this waiting is driving me nuts.”
Kneeling, Liz scratched Spike, who’d migrated to the window with them. “Let’s change the subject.”
“To what?” Reenie asked, and Liz knew that for her nothing else existed. Not right now. The conversation had grown more and more stilted as the day dragged by.
“The Chocolaterie,” Lucky said. “Your grand opening was fabulous.”
Reenie and Liz exchanged glances. Evidently, Lucky hadn’t heard about the vandalism. “Not such a great topic,” Reenie warned.
Lucky’s eyes went wide. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ll tell you about it later.” Reenie pulled
them both back to the couch and flopped down on it. “I want to hear about Carter.”
“Carter?” Liz echoed in surprise.
Lucky muted the TV. “Hudson? The new guy?”
Liz tried to outmaneuver them. “Wait, I like this part,” she said, referring to the movie. “The scene with Madeline Stowe meeting up with Daniel Day-Lewis after tending the wounded is my favorite.”
“You’re stalling,” Reenie accused.
“I just want to watch that scene.”
“You’ve seen this movie a dozen times. I know because I’ve watched it with you.” She nudged Lucky. “She must really like him.”
“We’re dating,” Liz said. “That’s all.”
Reenie slumped lower in her seat and pinned her with a level stare. “Not quite.”
Liz folded her arms and stared right back. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I bumped into Dickie Robinson at Finley’s Grocery yesterday. He said you never came home last weekend.”
“What?” Dickie Robinson was Liz’s closest neighbor. An older widower who lived alone, he took it upon himself to instruct Liz’s children on putting their bicycles away and staying out of his flowerbeds. But he’d never struck her as particularly nosy. “Now we’ve got Dickie telling tales?”
“He wouldn’t share what he knows with just anyone,” Reenie said. “He trusts me. Isaac asked him to look out for you.”
“Oh, brother.” Liz rolled her eyes, but Reenie was undeterred.
“So?” she prompted, rubbing her hands together.
“So what?” Liz repeated.
“So get to the good stuff. I was waiting until I thought you might be ready. But I need to hear it now. What’s really going on?”
Liz wished she knew. She and Carter had had a wonderful weekend together. But she didn’t know if it meant anything. She didn’t even know where he’d gone or why. Or when he’d be back. She hadn’t heard from him since he’d left twenty-four hours ago. Carter had many wonderful qualities—and more sex appeal than any man had a right to possess—but he told her only as much as he wanted her to know, and she doubted he’d ever let her get any closer to the private person that his rough exterior protected.
“Didn’t you once tell me Liz was involved with her old tennis coach?” Lucky asked Reenie in confusion.
Reenie waved a careless hand. “That’s old news. At least I’ve been told it is.” She looked pointedly at Liz.
Liz glanced forlornly at the movie. “Are you sure you want to miss the part where Madeleine Stowe and Daniel Day-Lewis hook up?”
“We can always rewind it,” Reenie said and snapped off the movie.
Liz sighed. Evidently, she was the entertainment now. But as long as talking about her screwed-up love life kept Reenie from thinking about Gabe…“Dave told me he loves me,” she confided.
“That’s the tennis coach?” Lucky asked.
“That’s the tennis coach,” Reenie confirmed. “But Liz doesn’t love him in return. Right, Liz?”
“Right.”
“You’re sure of that at this point?”
“I’m sure.” If meeting Carter had done nothing else for her, she was grateful for that bit of clarification. Except she’d have no love interest at all once he moved away. She couldn’t imagine how lonely that was going to be. But she couldn’t string Dave along. If she hadn’t fallen in love with him by now, it was likely she never would.
“That’s quite an admission, for someone who likes to play fast and loose,” Reenie said, referring to Dave.
“He claims he’s a changed man.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I do,” Liz said. “Whether or not it’d last might be another issue. But he swears he loves me.”
“What does Carter have to say about him?”
“Not a word. He doesn’t have much to say about anything. That’s the problem.”
A flash of concern drew Reenie’s eyebrows together, and Liz realized that absolute honestly would only add to her friend’s burden of worry. So she smiled brightly. “But it’s okay. We’re just enjoying each other while it lasts. It’s a summer fling,” she added indifferently.
Reenie studied her for a moment. “I think he’s a good man.”
“He is a good man.”
“But—”
“What?” Liz asked.
“He’s guarded. And if he can’t get beyond that—”
Liz shrugged carelessly. “He doesn’t have to get beyond it. We’re having a little fun together, that’s all.”
Reenie opened her mouth to say something else, but the phone interrupted them. The three of women stared at it as if it were a live wire. Then Reenie jumped up and ran to answer before the ringing could stop.
“Hello?” she said breathlessly, cradling the receiver with both hands.
Liz and Lucky grabbed each other, squeezing until their knuckles turned white.
As they watched, Reenie closed her eyes. Several tears squeezed out from beneath her lashes to roll down her face.
“Thank you,” she murmured, letting those drops fall from her chin without bothering to wipe them away. “Thanks for letting me know.” When she hung up and turned, she looked as white as chalk, but she managed a tremulous smile. “He’s alive. They don’t know if he’s better or worse off than he was before, but he survived the operation.” She shook her head. “The tough son of a bitch.”
The three of them laughed and hugged all at once. “He is a tough son of a bitch,” Lucky murmured. “How could we ever have doubted him?”
Liz wiped the tears from her own cheeks. She felt heartsick about what had happened at The Chocolaterie and confused about her relationships with her father and Carter. But this day had put a few things into perspective.
CARTER SAT IN A SMALL SQUARE room across a metal desk from Charles Hooper. At Carter’s request there was no safety glass to separate them. Hooper wasn’t cuffed or shackled. It was important to Carter that the man he’d put in prison for murdering eleven women and raping and torturing Laurel know that he wasn’t afraid of him. On the contrary, part of Carter—a large part, actually—hoped Hooper would attack him. He was certain Hooper knew that, just as Carter knew Hooper wouldn’t give him the chance to exact the revenge he craved.
Besides, Hooper was a coward. He stalked only women—and little girls. Once he had lured them to his car with some seemingly innocent question, he dragged them inside and cuffed them to him. What happened after that was too horrid to contemplate.
Carter remembered Laurel’s halting testimony in court, the way her gaze kept sliding toward him for strength—and felt sick inside.
“Nice of you to break up the monotony of this shit hole,” Hooper said, leaning back and crossing his legs under the table.
Carter watched him beneath half-closed eyelids, trying to quell the revulsion and anger rising up inside him like bile. Special Agent Johnson stood outside the room, watching them through a one-way mirror. Ostensibly, he was there in case Hooper stepped out of line. But Carter knew Johnson was more worried about having to save Hooper from Carter.
Interestingly enough, however, Carter’s anger wasn’t directed solely at the tall, narrow-shouldered monster sitting across from him. He was mad at Laurel, too. Why had she let this demented bastard win? After all Hooper had done to her, why had she handed him the final victory?
“What have you got to say to me?” Carter asked without preamble. It was difficult enough to be sitting in the same room with Hooper. He didn’t want to have to say anything beyond what was absolutely necessary.
But he knew Hooper didn’t want it that way, knew it wouldn’t be that easy.
“How’s Laurel?” Hooper responded with a grin that showed teeth as yellowed as fifty-year-old newspaper.
Carter clenched his jaw. Hooper knew about Laurel’s suicide, as he’d suspected. He could tell by the insolent light in the other man’s eyes. But he refused to give Hooper the enjoyment he was looking for by letting hi
m know that he’d just hit his target. “Better now,” he said.
Hooper’s bushy eyebrows shot up at the lift in his voice, the longer gray hairs falling into a deep groove on his shiny forehead.
“And you?” Carter pressed on. “How’s life on the inside?”
Hooper quickly rallied. “Not as bad as I thought.”
“Glad to hear it. So are we past all the bullshit? Or did you want to inquire about my health?”
Hooper folded his hands in his lap and didn’t respond for a moment. “You’re an interesting man,” he said at last.
“I won’t say what I think of you.”
Hooper laughed softly. “Come on. No need to be so…malevolent,” he said as if it was his new word for the week. “Your lovely wife must’ve been confused when she told you it was me, because she fingered the wrong man.”
“And the DNA evidence?” Carter asked dryly.
Another laugh. “Oh…that.” He drummed his fingers on the desk, then sent Carter another piercing gaze. “Tell me, does it bother you to know I was inside her? That I got there before you? And she was moaning.” He closed his eyes as though the mere memory excited him. “Right in my ear…”
Every muscle in Carter’s body bunched, but before he could react the door banged open and Johnson came in. He wore an apologetic expression and waved Carter out of the room, but Carter shook his head. “I’ve got it. Get out of here.”
“Come on, he’s playing games.”
“Get out,” Carter said.
Several seconds passed, but then Johnson backed out and the door clicked shut. “Does it bother you to know you’ll never be inside a woman again?” Carter asked Hooper.
Hooper sobered and sat up straight, looking agitated and glancing in the direction of the people he knew were standing behind the one-way mirror.
“What’s wrong?” Carter questioned.
“My mother abused me when I was young,” Hooper said. “How can you hold me accountable for what I did? When she was so cruel?”
“Cruel?” Carter echoed. He managed to laugh, as if being around Hooper was merely entertaining and not causing every nerve he possessed to burn with the most negative of emotions. “You’re kidding me, right? She coddled you, doted on you. And we both know it. She sobbed through the whole trial. You’re a terrible disappointment to her.”
