A murmur of approbation spread through the crowd. She stepped back among them and took in the full image of the mural. The row of businesses she’d seen when she first entered town, colored in such a vivid way, she expected customers to enter and leave the various shops, could almost smell the sizzling fajitas from the Mexican restaurant. But the part she’d just “colored in,” the two little girls with the long braids, that was something else.
“Even though we didn’t grow up here and, in fact, were never here together at the same time.” The damned tears started again, and in an annoying and soggy way. She brushed them from her cheeks and turned to bury her face in Roy’s shirtfront. “I miss her so much.”
He enfolded her in his strength. “I know you do, baby. And so does Ben. And I do, too, even if we didn’t see her much.”
“Entirely my fault.” She sniffed, wishing he’d deny her words, but her husband had never been one to varnish the truth much less to lie.
“Not entirely.” He tipped her chin up and kissed away the tears. “But mostly.”
“Roy, I’ve been so horrible to you. And you never gave up on me.”
He chuckled, the vibration rattling her core. “Not quite, no.” Setting her away from him, he straightened her smock and laced their fingers together. “With Ben talking and the mural finished, there is no reason we shouldn’t go home, I suppose.”
“Not yet,” she said, straightening her shoulders.
“Why not?” Roy eyed her. “I thought you would be desperate to return to the City once our business here was concluded.” He cast a glance over his shoulder at Sam who shrugged.
“Two things.” She spoke slowly for the first time. How could anyone understand her at the pace she normally kept. “First, we haven’t watched the video.”
“Oh, baby you don’t have to,” he said but she shook her head.
“Yes, I do.” Determination filled her from top to bottom.
“And the second thing?”
They haven’t caught the creep who killed my sister and her husband. We can’t leave while he’s still on the streets endangering others.”
Roy’s smile lit his eyes. He drew her close again and tilted their faces for the perfect contact before descending on her lips again. She more than allowed it, she drew strength from their kiss and when Ben butted his head against their hips, she rested a hand on his shoulder. Together, they could do anything. At least anything needing to be done by them.
“So it’s settled?” she asked.
“It’s fine with me, my office is being very understanding. But yours…I don’t know. Are you sure?”
She slipped free of his arms and held out a hand to Ben. “Let’s go, little man. We have a schedule to keep and a park to play in. If you will help us load up our supplies in Kirsten’s car?” Roy did, as well as several from the crowd. “I guess we’ll have to talk to the Board again? See if they will let us stay a little longer?”
“I will handle them, baby. Go and take Ben to play. I am sure it will all work out.” The man appeared so happy, she almost questioned him but his cell rang and he waved it. “I need to take this, can you stick around a minute?” Turning away he spoke low into the phone for a few minutes and then returned to her. “We need to go to the county sheriff’s office. There’s been a break in the case.”
As much as his heart had lifted when she’d suggested staying a little longer, it twisted when he learned the young man whose careless driving had killed Melinda and Shane had turned himself in two days later. They sat side by side in the minivan on the way down the highway, with Ben in his booster seat in back. His brother and sister-in-law had been in the much smaller sedan when they were struck. Would they have survived if they’d been in the bigger vehicle? He didn’t suppose they’d ever know.
Rage at the man who’d caused their deaths made it difficult to see the road clearly and he forced his emotions into check for all their safety. Beside him, his wife’s pale visage showed stress lines so deep they threatened to crack. “You don’t have to come in, Teri. I can go in and find out what’s going on while you and Ben wait in the car. There is no rule saying the victim’s family has to face the perpetrator.”
“No, I’m going. I have to face him. He hurt our family, Roy. He can’t get away without paying for his crime. Did they say how much time they think he’ll get?”
“No, they didn’t. I’ll find out what I can.
They pulled up in front of the sheriff’s satellite office and walked inside, each holding one of Ben’s hands.
Inside they found a tall, uniformed officer in his mid-thirties stationed behind a narrow Formica counter. Roy wondered whether they should have left Ben at home, but the responsible party should see who they’d harmed. For Ben, justice must be done.
They weren’t prepared for the miserable young man in his late teens curled into a ball in a hard plastic chair in the corner. He couldn’t be much over sixteen. How long had he been driving anyway? The man in the three-piece next to him must be his attorney.
“Mr. and Mrs. Simms? We’ve been expecting you. I’m officer Randall.” He stepped out from behind the counter and shook both their hands. “We appreciate your coming by. He’s right over there.”
A female, uniformed officer appeared from a back room and waved at Ben. “We have a room full of toys and if you don’t mind I can take your little boy there while you speak with the suspect?”
An excellent idea. “Thanks.” Roy crouched next to the little boy. “This lady will take you to play for a few minutes. Will you be okay?”
Ben frowned but the officer waved behind her and the pile of toys in a corner decided him. “Okay.” He dropped Roy’s hand and moved into the room. The officer pointed to a window. “One way, so he can’t see what you are doing, but you can watch him. I amuse him to give you some time.” The door closed behind them and he could see Ben crouching by a set of giant blocks while the officer dropped cross-legged on the floor next to him.
As they hesitated by the desk, the teenager sat up and looked at them. The suit-clad man rested a hand on his arm, but the kid shrugged him off. “No, no, I have to talk to them.” He took a few steps closer but paused when Teri shrank against Roy. He cast a glance back and forth between them and his attorney but finally seemed to make a decision. He moved across the room with slow but sure steps and arrived in front of them. “I’m Darren Conroy and I was driving when I…that is, when the accident happened.”
Teri’s jaw tightened. “That little boy in there is our nephew, Ben. He is the one most hurt by your carelessness.”
“I’m sorry, so sorry.”
Roy wanted to move things along as quickly as possible before Teri’s temper let loose. Not that the kids didn’t deserve whatever she might dish out. He tried to catch her eye, but she was focused. Laser focused.
“I understand an accident, but what I don’t understand is how you left them there, in that car. How could you?” No sign of crying, not a single tear. A level, even tone. “Answer me.”
The young man shifted from foot to foot. “I’m sorry.” At least he knew where the tears had gone. “I’m so, so sorry.” A flood ran down his cheeks and his eyes were fire-engine red.
Teri got up in his face. “Your apology doesn’t bring my sister back or bring back Ben’s mommy and daddy. You killed them. You killed them and left them at the side of the road like garbage.” Her fists clenched and Roy moved closer, wanting her to speak her piece, but not to do anything she might be sued for.
The kid wiped his nose with his sleeve and sobbed but Teri didn’t relent. “Why? Tell me why?”
“I ran because I was scared, then I wanted to call someone but my dad told me not to. He said by then someone would have found them.”
“You mean your father encouraged you in this crime?” As her tone rose, the attorney did also and approached them, but Officer Randall blocked his approach.
“Darren signed off on his rights and did not ask you to represent him.”
>
The man blustered. “Assemblyman Conroy did. And his son—”
The officer crossed his arms over his chest. “The young man just turned eighteen. His father has coddled and spoiled that boy his entire life and this is the first time my nephew has taken responsibility for anything. It’s also the first time I have been proud of him. Step back, Martin, and let him be a man.”
“The councilman—”
“If my brother-in-law gave a damn about his son, he’d be here, helping him man up. One more word from you and I’ll toss you out in the parking lot.”
The lawyer’s eyes flashed but he subsided and so did Teri. She took a deep breath but didn’t say another word for long moments while everyone in the room hung in stasis. Then she wrapped her arms around the boy and hugged him. “You are too young for any of this.” The boy’s shoulders shook and so did hers while they wept together for the loss of life, his innocence and all the screw-ups leading him to his current situation.
Officer Randall murmured to Roy, “Despite it all, he’ll have to go to court. Once he signs a confession, I’ll get him to take on his father’s attorney to negotiate his sentence. He’s eighteen now, but he was seventeen when he had the accident, and his juvenile status then will help. Also if the victims’ family speaks up for him, but that’s a lot to ask.”
“What kind of a father encourages a boy to turn away from such a thing?”
“When my sister died, Darren was about the age of your little boy.” Randall stuck his hands in his pockets and stared at the floor. “His father wasn’t a bad guy back then, kind of driven but loved his wife and son deeply. I think her illness—she had cancer and died by slow, agonizing inches over months—broke him. He left Darren in the hands of nannies and spoiled him rotten. Focused on his career. He plans to run for governor soon.”
“Isn’t having a son with a criminal record going to be a problem for him?”
“Once Darren refused to deny his actions, his father washed his hands of him.”
Roy’s emotions were in an uproar, too. The similarities between his and Ben’s circumstances were too strong to be denied. Delivered from a loving family into one so ambitious as to deny the needs of a small, grieving child. “So he’s on his own, barring the legal help?”
“Not a chance.” The officer lifted his face, and the sadness in his expression touched Roy’s heart. “My wife and I won’t let him drown. He’ll pay the price for his actions and then our doors are open to him. We’ll help him get on his feet. My sister would have wanted it that way.”
Teri released the boy and held him away from her. “Darren, you know they died instantly. It was an accident, and nothing you could have done would have saved them. You made a big mistake, but only in not reporting what happened. I think you’ve learned a lesson you won’t forget.”
“Ever,” the young man said. “Some things can’t be fixed.”
She smiled, her eyes sad. “No, they can’t. You’ll be a good man. I know it.”
After a few more moments of conversation, they retrieved Ben and headed for the minivan. “You’re an amazing woman, Teri. To forgive him so graciously after what he did.”
“He told me what happened, Roy.” She dug in her purse and pulled out a handful of tissues while Ben scrambled into in the booster seat. “Turned out he did stop, and he tried to get them out, tried to revive them, but they weren’t breathing, and the car was so crumpled he couldn’t move them at all. Then the fire started and he ran.”
Despite her own pain, she’d been able to forgive the instrument of it. “Did he tell you what caused the accident?”
“A deer.” She sighed. “He says the both swerved to avoid it. If his story is true, he isn’t even really responsible for the accident.”
“They found his paint on the bumper, so they made contact.”
“True,” she said, reaching into her purse. She pulled out a fistful of tissues and lowered the visor, wiping at smudges of makeup under her eyes. “He said he isn’t sure what exactly happened, it was all so fast. The deer made it to the other side of the road, Darren scuffed against Melinda and Shane’s car, and then they careened off to the side.”
Despite her own pain, she’d been able to forgive the instrument of it. No, the boy hadn’t been one hundred percent responsible, if he told the truth. “Since he came forward on his own, I guess it’s probably true, at least as he remembers it. Nobody dragged him in there.”
“No, nobody did.” They rode in silence for a while, the landscape peaceful, green close to them, white frosted peaks in the distance. A glance in the rearview mirror showed Ben’s head lolled to the side, his eyes closed. “Randall is his uncle.”
“I heard some of what you were saying. I’m glad he has someone to stand behind him. His father has money but his uncle and aunt have love to share.”
“You’re the best woman in the world, do you know that? Smart, beautiful, and kind.”
She snorted. “I think I’ve grown since we’ve been in Corbin’s Bend. It’s almost a shame we have to go back.”
And she meant it. In less than a week she’d learned a lot. She’d made friends, acquired a son, found out she could paint a little, and fallen in love with her husband deeper than she would have believed possible. And managed to handle her clients from a distance. Could she telecommute? Could she give up the penthouse?
“Maybe we can find a way to stay.” Roy turned off the highway and approached the entrance to Corbin’s Bend. “I like this community. Except I know how important your job is to you.”
Teri looked out the window, taking in the storefronts and then the houses as he pulled up to their home. It had become home, hadn’t it? “I’ve been working all week from here,” she said. “And it’s been kind of pleasant being able to turn the computer off and walk away.”
“Do you think your company will allow you to work from here long term?”
She shrugged. “I make my clients a lot of money; that’s what they really care about. The dinners and social occasions are extras. If I leave, they will follow me. I don’t think the company is stupid enough to argue. I can fly in when necessary, but it shouldn’t be often.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” He put the car in Park and leaned back in the seat.
“Yes, but the problem isn’t my career, it’s yours. You can’t exactly handle your caseload from way out here.”
“I’ve wanted to talk with you about a possibility all week, but I never dreamed you’d be open to it. Sam is retiring and selling his practice.” He faced her and his happiness lit his face and made her heart pump. “The New York and Colorado Bar Associations have reciprocity, which makes things simpler, but under any circumstances, Teri, I want that practice.”
“Then, honey, it’s yours.” How long since he’d been happy? And maybe he’d be healthy, too. She would think about it later; so much time to make up for. “It’s the best thing for us, and for Ben. I don’t want him to be raised by nannies. Melinda wouldn’t like it and neither do I. And we still haven’t been to the Edgers’ house for dinner. We don’t want them to think we didn’t want to go.” She bounced in the seat and winced. They’d had another session the night before and everything below the waist was a bit sore. “Do you think Corbin’s Bend will have us?”
“I think we are just the kind of people they want. A family with a stake in the community. And there is the spanking thing.”
“What do you mean?” Suddenly Kirsten’s comments came back to haunt her. The balm…. “Oh my goodness. Is everybody here into spanking?”
“In one way or another, yes.” He grinned and she giggled. “We’ve fallen into a nest of them, baby. Our kind of folks.”
Epilogue
Teri curled up on the sofa in her sister’s—rather her own new home. She tucked her legs under her and pushed back the sadness that had threatened to freeze her every time Roy had suggested they watch Melinda’s video. She’d put it off, for weeks, afraid of the pain seeing her sister alive
and well on that screen might bring. But that afternoon, with Roy and Ben at the store getting snacks for movie night, she’d decided to take a chance.
She brightened for a moment. Heaven only knew what they’d bring back. When it was Ben’s turn to pick the treats, it could be anything. His last choice had been giant spicy dill pickles and yogurt. Which led to the infamous dipping dare. She’d faked it, but Roy had spent the night doubled over with stomach pains reminiscent of his former high-stress life.
But he’d said it was worth a little discomfort to make Ben laugh. And she’d never loved her husband more or been more proud to be his wife.
How her priorities had shifted.
She lifted the remote and hit play.
“Hi, Sis.” Melinda’s beautiful smile lit up her face. She wore the maternity-to-motherhood designer dress Teri had sent as a shower gift. White cotton, flowing, set off by a strand of huge multicolored beads. Shane, in T-shirt and jeans, by her side, gave a little wave.
“Hi, Teri, Roy.”
Teri brushed a tear from her cheek. “Just me, guys. Roy can watch later.”
“Is Ben with you?” Melinda lifted a bundle from her lap and pushed a blue and white striped blanket back to reveal a newborn Ben, with only a little fuzzy hair on his head. His unfocused eyes blinked in the general direction of the camera. “He’s here with us, but I hope by the time you’re watching this, he’s married with a family of his own. Maybe grandchildren.”
“No,” Teri murmured, rubbing at her streaming eyes with her sleeve. “No, Sis, he’s almost four, and he misses you so much, but he’ll be okay.” She sniffed. “I promise he will.”
On the screen, Shane put his arm around Melinda and beamed at his family then glanced up again. “You will probably never even see this, but you know how new moms are. Always worrying.”
Melinda slapped his leg, her long curls bouncing. “We’re doing the responsible thing.” She hugged the baby close and crooned to him for a moment. “Right, Benny? Mommy and Daddy have to be grownups now, to take care of you.” The love in both their eyes as they focused on the tiny scrap of humanity brought a sob from Teri’s throat.
For Ben (Corbin's Bend Book 6) Page 9
