Casting Shadows (The Ash Grove Chronicles)

by Amanda DeWees

  “Wouldn’t that be awfully expensive, though?” Tan couldn’t help asking.

  Steven cocked an eyebrow at him. “What could you spend the money on that’s more important than your own wedding? Should Joy wear a thrift-store wedding dress and carry wildflowers picked at the side of the road?”

  Trying to make him look like the bad guy again. Tanner folded his arms and leaned against the kitchen counter. “Of course not,” he said. “But we need to think about making a down payment on a house.”

  Joy and her father looked equally startled. “We haven’t talked about that,” she said.

  “It’s something I’ve been thinking about, though. It would be good if we could start looking now, before Rose is born, because it’ll be harder afterward.”

  “I… I thought we would be staying with Dad a little longer,” said Joy, and his heart sank. He had hoped that by now she would have realized how much better it would be for them to start their life together in their own house, not her father’s.

  “And in the meantime,” said Steven, “your change of subject notwithstanding, we still need to plan a wedding. If Joy’s idea doesn’t suit you, what would?”

  He didn’t have an answer for that. Joy came to his rescue.

  “There’s that tiny little chapel in north Georgia, in what used to be Smithville village—on the top of the hill, you know it? The chapel won’t hold more than eight people, but it’s sweet.”

  “Eight people?” Her father was doubtful. “That’s too small.”

  “The three of us, an officiant, Bobby and Donna—that’s all we really need,” said Joy, sounding more wakeful by the moment as enthusiasm took hold. “There’s still room for Maddie and William, even. Or Gail and Jim. Tan, how about we take a road trip this weekend and go see it?”

  “What about Tanner’s parents? We need room for them, and their new partners.”

  “They won’t be there,” said Tanner. He could feel himself tensing up, and he silently willed Steven not to pursue the subject.

  No such luck. “And why not?” Steven asked.

  “They’re not going to be invited.” He turned back to the coffee maker to refill his mug, and to try to get a handle on himself. The thought of his parents at his wedding made him almost physically queasy. Behind him was silence, and he suspected Joy was giving her father a look to tell him to let it go. Joy understood his feelings about his parents, and he didn’t want to have to go into the whole thing for her father.

  But Steven couldn’t leave it alone. “If you’ve had some kind of falling out with them, surely this is the time to make up.”

  Tanner just shook his head. This was nonnegotiable.

  “Your wedding is the most important day of your life,” said Steven, with disbelief in every syllable, “and you’re barring your own parents from being there?”

  Tanner was careful to keep his voice calm. “As far as I’m concerned, the only parents I have are Bobby and Donna.” And now you. Lucky me.

  “Dad, let’s move on,” said Joy. “Tan knows what’s best where it comes to his own family.”

  “Does he? I have to say his attitude doesn’t seem very mature.” Tanner hated it when Steven talked about him as if he wasn’t there. “At the very least,” he continued, directing his remarks now to Tanner, with elaborate courtesy, “I’m sure you’re planning on announcing your marriage to them.”

  Anything he said now, except yes, would sound petulant. Well played, Steven: you’ve backed me into a corner. Again.

  “Dad,” said Joy, more forcefully. “This is Tan’s business. You don’t get to make these decisions.”

  Steven held up his hands up in exaggerated surrender. “All I’m trying to do is make sure Tanner doesn’t make some rash decision he’ll regret later. It’s not like you get a do-over on your wedding.”

  “Do we even need to do this now?” Tanner heard himself say. “I mean, we’ve got so much else going on, with Rose and—and things that look like me, and all that. Maybe we should postpone the wedding until things have settled down and we can make plans without so much stress.”

  Joy said slowly, “Actually, I was hoping we could move the date up and get married sooner.”

  That caught him off balance. “Why?” he asked, and realized too late that it might sound argumentative.

  Joy hesitated, glancing at her father. “We can talk about it later.”

  “I see,” said Steven, rising and pushing his chair in. “I’ll let you two have your privacy. And when—or if—you come to an agreement about the wedding and feel like including me again, I’ll be in my room.”

  The little digs were wearing Tanner down, and they made him snappish. “I don’t think I want to do this anymore.”

  That stopped Joy’s father short. “Do what, exactly?”

  “Maybe we should just skip the wedding,” he said recklessly.

  Joy’s eyes flew to his face, startled. “Skip the wedding?”

  “Yeah.” If it was going to mean all this trouble—haggling over things, second-guessing every decision he made—he’d rather not even do it. He could see weeks and months ahead of this kind of barbed discussion, with Steven needling him every moment, and the idea made him want to jump on his bike and head for the horizon.

  Steven stood by Joy’s chair, one hand resting protectively on her shoulder. It should have been Tan’s place, but now they were sided together opposite him. “Let me see if I have this correct,” said Steven with icy distinctness. “You no longer wish to marry my daughter, who saved your life and is carrying your child.”

  And who has an interfering prick for a father. “I didn’t say that.”

  “But—what are you saying, then?” Joy’s voice wasn’t accusing so much as shocked.

  He couldn’t think, with Joy staring at him with stunned apprehension in her eyes, and Steven with condemnation in his. Why did Steven have to start all this right now? He’d had so little sleep, and his head was full of fog and nightmares…

  “We’re waiting for an answer,” said Steven, in the deep grave voice that made him sound like a judge. Tanner realized that he couldn’t take any more right then.

  “I’m going for a run,” he said, and before either of them could reply he went pounding down the basement steps for his running shoes. He laced them up, grabbed a hoodie, and emerged again into the kitchen to find Steven gone and Joy still sitting as he had left her. He dropped a quick kiss on her cheek. “I’ll be back in an hour or two,” he said before she could speak, and darted out the front door to the blessed relief of the open air.

  By the time Tan arrived at the motorcycle shop, he was drenched with sweat and breathing hard. The long uphill stretch from the Sumners’ had almost wiped him out, but it had felt good to get away from the house and outdoors, where his only adversaries were the pavement and the wind and the cold air stinging his lungs.

  He let himself in the workshop door, and Larry, Bobby’s second in command, looked up from his work on a ’69 Triumph Bonneville that was in for restoration. Bobby’s parts and repair shop was one of the most comforting places Tanner knew. The smells of oil and gasoline and exhaust, the familiar array of tools organized neatly along pegboard walls, the classic rock blaring in the background—it all felt like home.

  Even Larry was amiable enough now. A big guy with a ZZ Top beard and a build like a grizzly, Larry rode a Harley, like most of the bikers in that area, and he hadn’t exactly warmed to Tan when they first met.

  It wasn’t just that he was a Ninja owner. By bad luck, on Tan’s first day at work the word had leaked out that celebrity model Tristan could be found at the Hartwell shop on Highway 64, and the women had flocked there—crowds of them, from ten-year-old girls to retirees with walkers. He’d done his best to shoo them away, but he knew the best way to handle crowds like that was to keep them happy, so for hours he’d signed autographs and posed for photos and deflected questions about his personal life.

  Thank god, after that day they quickly
lost interest and moved on to the next flavor of the month, but that first day had been crazy. That was Larry’s first impression of him, and he still kidded him mercilessly about it.

  Like now, for instance. “Well hey there, McDreamy,” was Larry’s greeting, in a country twang. “What’s got you in a sweat? Your lovesick fans chasing after you again?”

  “You know it, Roadhouse.” Larry sometimes served as bouncer at McCloskey’s, and the nickname was inevitable. “It’s the price I pay for being me.” Tanner stepped over to the water cooler and helped himself to a paper cup full of water.

  “I wish I had a bunch of fat middle-aged housewives lusting after me,” Larry drawled, straightening the faded bandanna tied around his head. “Must be a real rush.”

  “Not everyone’s destined for greatness, Roadhouse. Will it cheer you up if I give you my autograph in sparkly pink ink?”

  “Only if you sign my right ass cheek, Bieber.”

  Tan didn’t have a chance to answer back, as Bobby entered through the curtained doorway to the front of the store. “I thought I heard your voice, son. You’re in early.” He took in his appearance. “I take it this is what you might call an impromptu visit.”

  “Yeah. I won’t be long.” Just long enough to man up for more Sumner family drama. “Don’t let me get in your way.”

  “We won’t,” said Larry. “’Course, if you wanted to make yourself useful instead of standing around bein’ decorative…”

  Even better. He might get caught up in a project with them and be held up for hours. But Bobby seemed to guess he was avoiding something. “Everything okay with Joy and the baby?” he asked as he joined Larry in lifting the Bonnie’s engine out of the frame and placing it on the workbench, where the parts they’d already removed were laid out neatly.

  “Yeah, they’re good.” He was the one who couldn’t get it together.

  “How are you and Joy’s dad getting along these days?”

  He grimaced. “It feels like there’s still this power struggle going on in his mind. Sometimes I think he’s trying to get rid of me.”

  “Well, he was alpha dog until you came along,” Larry pointed out. “It’s only natural for him to protect his little girl. I don’t think us dads ever outgrow that.”

  “From the little I’ve seen of him, he seems like a decent enough guy,” Bobby said, picking up a socket wrench to start removing the cylinder heads. “He raised Joy, after all, and she turned out good. You’ll work things out. Family changes always take some adjustments.”

  Especially when the whole idea of belonging to a family was something Tan was still trying to get used to. For years now he’d thought of family as something to be avoided at all costs. Nothing in his past had prepared him for being a son-in-law… or husband or father, for that matter. As comfortable as he was in front of a camera or dealing with fans and reporters, he had no idea how to be part of a normal family. And that was messed up.

  For Joy’s sake, he’d find a way to adjust to this new life. But it was harder than he’d imagined it would be. “She’d be better off with someone like William,” he said. “Someone normal and well-adjusted.” Someone who was good with parents, who didn’t wait in dread for every family discussion to turn into a screaming match.

  “If she wanted someone like that, I imagine she’d be with him,” said Bobby calmly. “Put that out of your head now.”

  Larry was blunter. “Kid, you need to stop talking yourself out of being with her. With a baby on the way, the time to run is over.”

  “I don’t want to run out on her!”

  “Better get things straightened out with her dad now, then,” said Bobby. “Because when the baby comes, you don’t want to be locking horns over her too.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” said Larry. “When Chelle had our first and her mother came to stay with us, it was World War Three.” He straightened up and stretched his back briefly. “Know what her name for me was? ‘The Sperm Donor.’ Her and me get along okay now, but it was ugly for a while, I mean to tell you.”

  “How about you, Bobby? Did you have problems with Donna’s parents?”

  Bobby guffawed. “Let’s just say the best decision we ever made was moving two hours away from them. I remember one time…”

  Tan listened with curiosity shading into apprehension as the older men traded stories of their early days of fatherhood. The thought of the baby made him lightheaded with happiness but also brought a hollow feeling to the pit of his stomach. The idea of being a father still overwhelmed him sometimes. Rose would depend on him so much. What if he screwed up? Would he warp his daughter somehow?

  He reminded himself that he wouldn’t be figuring things out on his own, though: Joy would be with him every step of the way. He could just see her holding their baby in her arms, her adorable face bent over Rose, her soothing voice singing a lullaby, and the picture swelled his chest with a painful sweetness. Suddenly he wanted more than anything to be with her.

  “I should get back,” he said, but before he could move toward the door a man pulled the curtain aside and stepped through the doorway. It was the reporter, Standish Billups, with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. Tanner wondered how long he’d been standing behind the curtain, listening to them.

  “Sounds like you’re getting some good advice, Tristan,” was his greeting. “I’m more curious all the time about your baby mama. How did you two meet, anyway? Was the baby planned?”

  Tanner put on his professional smile, but it was strained. He had hoped to be done with the press, especially with this guy and his intrusive questions. “I’m looking forward to retiring from public life to be a husband and father,” he said. “That’s as much as I’m prepared to say on that subject. If you’ve followed me here to interview me, I’m afraid you won’t get anywhere.”

  “Did you cheat on Melisande with your girlfriend?” Billups pressed. “Is that why she dropped your contract?”

  He kept his voice even. “My contract with Melisande ended when I turned eighteen.”

  “Did you need something motorcycle related?” Bobby put in. “Because if not, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. We have work to do.”

  But Billups wouldn’t be subdued. “This won’t take long—not if Tristan realizes it’s useless to keep avoiding me. Is it true that Melisande and your girlfriend got into a catfight over you? How bad was it?”

  Stay cool. The reporter would seize on any display of temper and turn it into a headline. “I’ve really got to be going,” said Tanner, moving toward the door. But Billups darted over to block his way.

  “I’m not the only one who thinks it’s suspicious that Melisande hasn’t been seen in public since you two parted ways,” he said. “There’s something here that doesn’t add up.” With his beer belly and UGA sweatshirt, he should have looked harmless, but his persistence was starting to set off alarms for Tanner. And this new train of thought could only mean trouble.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have any theories about Melisande’s behavior,” he said briskly. “We haven’t been in contact. I suggest you talk to Raven, her PR man. Now if you’ll excuse me—”

  “You seem to have a lot to hide, Tristan.” He brought his pudgy face closer, his eyes narrowing. “And if you’re involved with Melisande’s disappearance, it’ll take more than those pretty-boy looks of yours to get you off the hook.”

  A large hand closed over his shoulder then, and Larry’s voice boomed, “I think Tanner’s said all he has to say. I’d suggest you move along now.”

  Billups gauged the other man’s height and build, looked at the breadth of chest under the stained coverall, and put up his hands placatingly. “Whoa, buddy. I was only talking with, uh, Tanner here.”

  “And Tanner said he’s done talkin’. Time for you to go.” Larry stooped until his face was on a level with the reporter’s. “I don’t think you want to come bothering him any more. Him or his girl. Bikers take care of our own.” He drew back up to his full height and
rumbled, “So you get your ass on out of here, and don’t be troubling Tanner again. Here or anywhere. Got it?”

  “I’m just doing my job,” said Billups sulkily, but in a much more subdued voice, as he backed toward the door. “If Tristan and his girlfriend did something to Melisande, I’m going to find out. No matter how secret it is.”

  “Asshole,” was Larry’s verdict as Billups beat a retreat toward a rental car. “You let me know if you need us to step up the watch on your house, you hear?”

  “Sure thing. Thanks, Larry.” But the confrontation had unsettled him. How did Billups know so much? And how much harm could he do if he went public with his suspicions?

  * * *

  When Tan took off, Joy waddled into the living room and watched through the front window as he rapidly passed into the distance. He was certainly cutting a good pace. Anyone would think to look at him that he was trying to escape from something.

  She went and hammered on her father’s door to vent her frustration.

  “Is Tanner back already?” he inquired when she entered. Ugh, she hated it when he acted like this.

  “You know perfectly well he’s not,” she snapped. “Why do you keep pushing him? It’s like he has to pass a test with you before you’ll start treating him well.”

  He hardly looked up from the reference book that lay open on his desk. “I push him, Joy, because life will push him. If he’s going to fail you, I’d rather it be now, before you’re bound to him.”

  It took a moment for her to absorb the magnitude of this calculation. “But that’s terrible,” she said.

  “Why is it so terrible? It seems logical to me.”

  “But what if you’re the worst that he’s ever going to face? What if you drive him off, when he and I might be perfectly able to handle everything else?” That he would try to do this made her angrier by the second.

  He shook his head. “The chances of that are slim to nonexistent. You need to know that the man you marry is strong enough to be an asset to your marriage, not a liability.”