by Paula Graves
“Come on.” It was Dana who stepped forward and tugged the other two men with her toward the front door. She led them out onto the front porch, shooting Dalton a considering look before closing the door behind them.
“What are you up to?” Briar asked.
“I’m trying to keep you and your son alive.”
“Nix is right. Two days ago you didn’t have a clue who I was.”
“Not entirely true,” he disagreed. “For nearly a month now, I’ve learned almost everything there is to know about you, on paper, at least.”
She looked faintly horrified by his answer. “You’ve been checking up on me? Do you realize how invasive that is?”
“It’s my job. You were a person of interest in a case I’m trying to put together against a multistate criminal enterprise.”
Her chin stabbed the air between them. “I have nothing to do with Wayne Cortland or anyone who worked for him.”
“Your cousin Blake worked for him.”
“And I haven’t had anything to do with Blake since we were both kids.”
“Which I now know because of the background check,” he pointed out in what he thought was a perfectly reasonable tone.
But she looked anything but mollified. “I haven’t had the opportunity to return the favor.” Acid burned the edges of her voice. “I don’t know anything about you but what I’ve read in the newspapers and heard from some very good folks you’ve treated like garbage for the past few weeks. And you want me to move my son out of the only home he’s ever known and into yours? What’s in it for you, Mr. Hale?”
“A chance at salvaging what little there is left of my life,” he answered before he could stop the bitter words. He stared at her in consternation for a moment before he turned away, raking his fingers through his hair.
After a long silent moment, he felt her hand close over his arm. “I know you’ve been kicked in the teeth with this whole mess. And I’m real sorry about that. You didn’t deserve to be lied to that way all your life. Your daddy and especially your granddaddy let you down something awful. And I can’t hold it against you that you want to punch a hole in the world for the wrong it’s done you.”
He wanted to shake her hand off, to disconnect himself from the warm, gentle weight of her touch. But God help him, nobody had touched him with such compassion in what felt like forever.
His mother was barely holding herself together. His father couldn’t bear to look at him anymore, so ashamed was he of his part in the lies and crimes. His grandfather refused to admit to his guilt, choosing self-preserving silence over justice and truth.
All the trouble his grandfather had gone to in order to keep his mother from learning that the son she’d prayed so long to have had died—what good had it done? The truth always came out. Pete Sutherland had been the man who’d taught Dalton that truth years ago as a child.
Had he really thought he could keep this particular truth buried forever?
Dalton hadn’t been in his grandfather’s position that day at Maryville Mercy Hospital. He hadn’t walked into his daughter’s room to find his grandson dead in his crib. Maybe the times, the situation, the emotions had all conspired to push Pete Sutherland into the choice he’d made.
But Dalton just couldn’t imagine himself taking another woman’s baby in order to protect his daughter from pain, regardless of the circumstances, because at best, it was a stalling tactic.
Old Pete hadn’t saved his daughter any pain. He’d just pushed it thirty-seven years into the future, after years of lies and schemes and even crimes that made the truth exponentially uglier than it had been that day on the maternity ward at Maryville Mercy. Dalton couldn’t turn to Doyle or Dana, even though they’d both indicated, at the beginning, at least, that they would welcome the chance to know him. They couldn’t understand what it was like to look at them and see not family but the source of his pain, the strangers who’d blown into town and blown up his world.
It wasn’t fair or right. He knew it wasn’t. But he couldn’t figure out how to stop thinking of them as the enemy.
“What do you want from me?” Briar asked quietly, turning him toward her until he had no choice but to look at her.
There wasn’t pity in her gaze, as he’d feared. She looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and, strangely, a hint of understanding.
“I want to bury the Cortland organization once and for all,” he answered after gathering his wits. “I want them gone from these hills for good.”
“Because you think it’s the only thing that will make folks around here forget your family scandal and pull the lever for you in the voting booth.”
He shook her hand from his arm and turned away in anger. Not because she’d insulted him but because she was partially right. It might not be his only motive for wanting to see justice done, but it was a big part of it. Maybe too big a part of it.
“I’m not sayin’ I won’t help you,” she said as the silence filling the space between them threatened to smother him. “I just want to be clear on our motives. You want to be elected County Prosecutor. I want to protect my son, and if you’re right about Johnny, I want to make right what he did. And I wouldn’t mind solving his murder so my son won’t have to wonder about all that in years to come.”
“I don’t think it will be enough to save my ambitions,” he said quietly. “But I want the job anyway.”
“You could make more money in private practice,” she murmured.
He shot her a baleful look, unable to stop his reaction. “I don’t care about the money.”
“Everybody cares about the money. I know I do.” She waved her hand around the cabin. “You think I live here because I like a drafty cabin with a sometimes-leaky roof? You think I can my own food and kill my own game because I’m part of some organic whole-food locavore movement?” She shook her head. “I live here because it’s paid for. I grow and kill my own food because it’s cheaper that way, and it allows me to put money away so Logan can go to college and get the hell out of these mountains if that’s what he wants. Money matters.”
He rubbed his jaw, wondering how many different ways he could make this woman despise him in one short night. “I have all the money I need. You must know that. I have the luxury of choosing a job because it satisfies something more than my bank account.”
“Lucky you.” She turned away, crossing to the sofa and sitting next to her sleeping son. She gently circled her palm over his back, lowering her voice. “I don’t have that luxury. I have to work so we can eat. And I can’t afford to put him in day care. Aunt Jenny won’t be able to watch him for a while, so you see, I’m in a really desperate situation at the moment.”
He waited, realizing she was on the verge of making a decision. Anything he said at this point would probably hurt his chances of getting what he wanted. And though she might not believe it, one of the things he wanted more than anything in the world was to protect her and her son from going through another night like tonight.
She looked up at him. “I would do anything to protect Logan.”
“I know.”
“I know you know. That’s why you’re offering to take us in. You know I’d never even consider it otherwise.”
He waited, keeping silent. The moment stretched to the breaking point.
“I’ll do it.” She looked down at her little boy. “But I have some conditions of my own.”
He moved slowly toward her, settling on the end of the scuffed pine coffee table in front of the sofa. “What conditions?”
“You let me pay rent.”
“It’s not necessary.”
“I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for me.”
Pride, he thought, not without admiration. “I need your cooperation, not your money. It’s far more valuable to me.”
Her
gaze snapped up to meet his. “You’ll have my cooperation. Matter of fact, I insist on being part of your investigation.”
“You already have a job.”
“I have time off, too. And I’ll spend what I can of that helping you with your investigation. But I get to see everything in your files.”
He wasn’t sure that condition was even possible to meet. “It’s an open investigation—”
“And I’m a Bitterwood police officer. It’s a condition of my agreement. I get to see all the files. I might recognize a clue you wouldn’t.”
He released a sigh. “Okay. But you have to tell me everything you can remember about your late husband’s time with Davenport Trucking.”
He could see the idea made her uncomfortable, but she finally gave a swift nod and extended her hand toward him. “Agreed.”
He took her outstretched hand, closing his fingers over hers. Her handshake was firm and businesslike, her palm dry and callused. He felt a sudden unexpected surge of anger at the feel of that small tough hand rasping against his. God only knew how hard a life she’d lived, trying to make a future for her son. How many more years of struggling and saving still lay ahead of her. The thought of those sons of bitches out there trying to rip her son away from her for who knew what reason—
He caught himself before his rage reached full throttle. There was a lot about her life he couldn’t change. But he could do this one thing. He could make the next few weeks of her life as comfortable and secure as he could.
“Let me tell the others,” she suggested, releasing his hand and pushing to her feet. “Watch Logan for me?”
He stared after her as she stepped out to the porch and closed the door behind her, realizing what an honor she’d just bestowed on him by trusting him to watch her child alone, even for a few moments with her so close by.
He looked down at the sleeping boy, carefully flattening his hand against his warm, flannel-clad back. He was so tiny, so breakable, Dalton thought, holding his breath as he felt the child’s rib cage expand and contract with his slow, deep respirations. And tonight someone had tried to rip him out of his mother’s arms, for reasons they still hadn’t quite figured out.
“Nobody’s going to take you away from your mama,” he whispered, his own breathing falling into rhythm with the boy’s. “Not on my watch.”
* * *
POKE, POKE, POKE.
Briar opened one eye and found herself looking up at her son’s bright, wide eyes. He poked her again in the ribs and laughed.
“Hey there, mister.” She pushed herself up on her elbows and looked around the borrowed bedroom, so unlike her bedroom at home, and wondered how on earth she’d let Dalton Hale convince her to come here to stay.
“I’m hungwy,” Logan informed her, patting her cheeks with his little hands. He bounced, too, foot to foot, the springy mattress too great a temptation for an energetic boy his age.
“I bet you are.” She hugged him to her, dipping her nose into the curve of his neck for a nice long smell. “Did you find the potty okay?” The guest room had a bathroom of its own, and somehow in the chaos of the previous night, she’d managed to remember his step stool for the bathroom.
Poor Dalton Hale, she remembered with a little smile as she followed Logan to the bathroom. His eyes had grown so huge watching her gather up the necessities of life with a three-year-old, she’d half expected that he’d rescind his offer of a place to stay.
Her watch read nine in the morning. She wondered if Dalton had left for the office already without waking them. He’d given her the grand tour of the place the night before so she’d know where everything was and how to work the security system. But by the time he’d shown her the guest bedroom where she and Logan would sleep, she’d been riding the last fumes of her adrenaline rush. He’d cut the tour short, told her to get some sleep and escaped to his own room before she’d been able to ask about his plans for the next morning.
Holding Logan’s hand, she helped him down the long flight of stairs down to the first floor, trying not to gape like a hillbilly on her first trip to town. It wasn’t so much that the house was grand and ostentatious—it wasn’t, really. It was large and roomy, yes, but it didn’t have priceless paintings on the wall or rare sculptures displayed under glass.
But almost everywhere she looked, she saw things that were nothing but luxuries, things that had no purpose beyond looking pretty or drawing the eye to something else. Things that Dalton Hale had bought, not because he needed them or could make use of them but because they’d caught his eye and pleased his tastes.
That’s what I want for Logan, she thought. I want him to be able to have things he likes just because he likes them. And not worry about whether they’re taking money away from the things he needs.
To her surprise, Dalton was still there, perched on one of the breakfast bar stools in the kitchen reading the Knoxville morning newspaper. He looked up and smiled, the expression softening the stern lines of his face.
“Did you sleep okay?” he asked.
“Better than expected. I thought you’d be off to work by now.”
“I took the day off.” He folded the paper and set it aside, sliding off the stool to crouch in front of Logan, who was half hiding behind Briar. “What would you like for cereal, little man?”
Logan leaned his head around Briar’s leg. “Ice cream.”
Dalton grinned and looked up at Briar, who shook her head firmly. “I think we’d better have something a little more nutritious.”
“He likes peanut butter with sliced bananas on toast,” she suggested, trying to think of something even a bachelor might have in his kitchen.
“I can handle that.” Logan rose and crossed to the large pantry by the refrigerator. His kitchen, like the rest of his house, was built for convenience and ease of use, with plenty of cabinets and miles of counter space. The breakfast bar doubled as a butcher block, but despite its large size, it barely seemed to make a dent in the spacious room.
“I know folks who’d kill to have a kitchen like this,” she said as he brought a jar of peanut butter, a couple of ripe bananas and a bag of sliced bread to the counter. “And no jury in this part of Tennessee would convict them.”
“It’s too big for one person,” he admitted. “But it comes in handy when I entertain.”
“Do you do much of that? Entertaining?”
He put four slices of toast in the oversize toaster on the counter nearby. “More than I want to. The price of politics.”
She set Logan on one of the stools and perched on the one beside him. “I’ll do some shopping for Logan and me sometime today. So we don’t eat you out of house and home.”
He paused in the middle of twisting the top off the peanut butter jar. “No. You’re here as my guests.”
“No, we’re not.” She lifted her chin. “We’re here so you can pick my brain about Johnny. And I’m here because you live in a gated community and you have a real nice alarm system. We’re not friends.”
He looked at her for a long moment, and for a second she thought she saw something that looked suspiciously like hurt in his green eyes. Then he looked down at the open jar of peanut butter and shrugged. “As you wish.” He sounded indifferent, not insulted, and she shook off the guilt that had fluttered for a moment in the center of her chest.
“Speaking of that,” she added a moment later, “how soon can you get me those files we talked about last night?”
The toast popped up and he gingerly removed the hot bread from the toaster and set it on a paper towel spread across the counter. “I’ll have to go into Barrowville to retrieve them, but I think today would be better spent figuring out the logistics of your stay here.”
“I work the five-to-midnight shift at the station,” she said, reaching for the bananas sitting next to the jar of peanu
t butter. While Dalton spread peanut butter on the bread, she peeled the bananas and started slicing them into thin rounds and putting them atop the peanut butter and toast. “My aunt has been watching Logan while I’m at work, but she can’t deal with him with her arm broken the way it is.”
“I took the liberty of calling Laney this morning to discuss the options.” He left the counter and walked over to the refrigerator.
“Yeah?”
He pulled a jug of milk from the refrigerator and looked at the expiration date. Wincing, he put it back into the refrigerator and turned to look at her, his expression apologetic. “Will water be okay?”
“Water’s fine,” she answered, hiding a smile. “What did Laney have to say?”
“My work keeps me in the office until six most nights. It’s a ten-minute commute from Barrowville to here, so I can be home by six-fifteen or six-twenty at the latest. I assume you’d need to leave for work around four-thirty in order to have time to change into your uniform and gear, so we’re talking about less than a two-hour window of time we need to cover, correct?”
“I suppose so.”
“How well behaved is Logan? In general?”
“He’s a three-year-old boy. He’s impatient and rowdy, but he’s not particularly disobedient. It helps if he likes you.”
Dalton set a small cup of water in front of Logan and bent to look him in the eye. “You like me pretty well, don’t you, Logan?”
Logan looked up at him as if considering the question. “Ice cream?”
“Cupboard love,” Briar murmured.
“What I’m thinking is you could leave a little early and drive him by my office when you’re ready to go to work. Laney and I can take turns watching him until it’s time to leave the office.”
“I don’t know about that—” Briar began.
“I can set up a place for him to play. I’ll buy him some coloring books and picture books—is he starting to learn to read?”
She nodded. “He has a few favorite books. I brought them with me.”
“I can buy duplicates for the office, then. So he’ll have the things that are familiar to him.”
