After You Were Gone

by Alexis Harrington

  She tore the tape off and lifted the box flaps. She flipped through photos of her mom in a funny, old-fashioned-looking dress and platform shoes with wooden soles, a recipe file, an empty perfume bottle—Jōvan Musk—some old costume jewelry, and . . . a journal.

  Julianne sat down on the floor and looked at the cover. It wasn’t fancy—no leather-bound, gilt-edged treasure. In fact, it might have come from this very store. It was the kind of thing that a person found in greeting-card sections. The binding featured color drawings of stylized butterflies and bumblebees with smiling faces on a pale-pink lattice background. One thing she knew for sure—it wasn’t her own.

  She opened the cover and found the first entry dated shortly after her parents’ marriage. Her heart leaped when she saw her mother’s handwriting. Losing her mom had been so hard, and she missed her. The entry contained chatty, mundane information, such as what she and Paul, Julianne’s father, had eaten for dinner, how she’d spent her day (canning), and the people she’d talked to on the phone. Julianne realized her mother would have been just about her own age now. There were many similar entries, not written every day, until Julianne reached one that stood out from the rest.

  I will never forget this day. I wish I could go back to yesterday and somehow change what was coming, but I can’t.

  Today, a woman came to our door while Paul was in town. She had long brown hair with stringy ends. Her black eyeliner and mascara were so heavy, her eyelashes stuck together to look like spider legs. She was just a little wisp of a thing with big boobs and a few freckles across her face. I didn’t know her, but she asked to see him. I told her he wasn’t home, and she handed me a letter, folded in half with no envelope, and told me to give it to him. I thought it was pretty danged strange and pretty danged nervy. Then she walked back to the road and was gone.

  I stood there, holding the note, trying to decide what to do. I could have read it, easily. But I didn’t. I put in on the kitchen table and waited for Paul to come home. When he did, he figured I knew what was in it. I didn’t say anything. He told me that it had happened before he met me, when he and Earl Tucker were dating the same girl, Tammy Lindgren from Cuervo Blanco. At the time, she wouldn’t tell either of them whose baby it was. Then I said I hadn’t read the letter. He stared at me with his mouth open, knowing he’d just given away a secret he’d kept from me all this time.

  The journal entry went on to say that in the letter, Tammy revealed that Paul Boyce, Julianne’s father, had sired the baby. Tammy had named him Cade, and she’d left him with her own parents to raise while she took off for parts unknown, never to be seen around here again. Just like Mitchell’s mom. Julianne’s father and Earl had been bitter rivals at first, then bitter enemies.

  Julianne stared at the journal with her mouth open. She gasped for air, but it felt as if steel bands encircled her rib cage, keeping her from getting a deep breath. Her heart pounded against her breastbone, and a flood of adrenaline poured into her veins, constricting them and making her hands icy.

  Oh my God!

  She and Cade had been fathered by the same man? Cade? Who did Cade look like? That meant she had a half brother. But to think of him as a relative? She couldn’t—at least not yet. Cade Lindgren was her half brother. She had a half brother. And he wanted to marry her.

  She finished the rest of the journal. Apparently things between her parents had never really been the same after that, although they’d stayed together and had had Julianne. They’d both taken this secret to their graves. Even on his deathbed, her father had not revealed this to her, or the true reason for the Boyce-Tucker feud. She would bet that none of the Tucker boys knew about it, either. In this isolated case, that blockheaded Earl had kept his clacking dentures shut.

  And those people Cade thought were his parents were really his grandparents. His sister Carol was his aunt. It explained so much—why they were so old, and why they hated him working for Julianne. She couldn’t marry him—and he couldn’t ask her anymore.

  She leaned back against the wall, the journal in her lap and shock still coursing through her. This might partly explain why kissing him felt so, well, icky. She thought of his face and decided he must take after the Lindgrens, because she could see no resemblance to her father.

  She rummaged through the rest of the box but found nothing else of much interest beyond the sentimental. Finally, she got up and dusted herself off, then went upstairs to change into a skirt and sandals to begin her day as the proprietor of Bickham’s.

  Mitchell paused outside the front door to Bickham’s and took a deep breath. Exhaling, he leaned against the push plate, making the brass bell ring to announce him.

  Julianne hurried out to the front, saw him at the counter, and her steps slowed.

  “Hi, Juli.” He gave her a tentative smile, trying to see if she was still mad. “How are you doing?”

  She nodded. “Business is pretty good.”

  “No, I mean how are you?”

  “Fine.” She relented then. “If you want to know if I’m still angry, no, I’m not.”

  He waited a moment, wanting to talk about what he’d learned, but his courage deserted him. Then he responded, “Okay. I’ll finish those shelves for you, if that’s all right.”

  “Yes, it’s great. Thanks, Mitchell. Oh, by the way, I’d like to hang a valance over the window that matches the back curtains. Could you help me with that? It’s really a three-handed job.”

  “Sure.” He glanced around. “It looks like we’re the only ones here. Maybe this would be a good time.”

  He fetched the ladder, and she climbed up the steps with a ruler to check the placement. She held it with two hands to make sure it was straight. “I think the rod should extend out just here, three inches.”

  Watching her with her arms raised and seeing the graceful curve of her body stirred memories in Mitchell as nothing else had—of her as a young girl in his arms, of warm summer nights when she slipped out to be with him, of a time long before Wes and the fire and prison. When she stepped down he pulled her into his arms and gave her a fierce, desperate kiss. Her mouth was soft and yielding, slick and warm. For an instant she responded, then struggled to get out of his embrace. They stared at each other, breath coming fast, she with angry fire blazing in her eyes. He looked at her, and all he knew was how good it felt to hold her again.

  “Mitchell, we can’t do this.”

  “We’re adults, both unattached, with a history that goes back further than Lindgren or Wes or any of that stuff. There was you and me.”

  She shook her head. “No . . . it’s not . . .” She put the heel of her hand to her forehead. “Think of what—”

  “Julianne, we can’t keep living in the past. That’s what my brothers and Earl are doing. Darcy and James learned to hate from Earl and it’s corroded all of them. They can’t think of anything else. Don’t let that be us.” He held out his open hand to her and willed her to take it. “Please.”

  Just as she began to reach for it, the bell on the door rang. He swore softly.

  “Well, this looks cozy!”

  He turned around and discovered Cherry Claxton standing behind him. Damn it all.

  “Cherry—what brings you here?”

  “I heard so much about Julianne’s new version of Bickham’s, I thought I’d better take a look for myself.”

  “Um, thank you. Feel free to look around. I’ll be at the counter if you need anything,” Julianne said, then walked back to the cash register.

  Cherry was dressed as she usually was, in a low-cut, white top and second-skin, dark-blue leggings. No curve was left untouched.

  She ran both hands up his arms to his T-shirt sleeves and down again. He backed up a step. “Mitchell, honey, I haven’t seen you for a while. I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve been pretty busy helping Julianne get this together.”

  “So I heard. I’m glad you’re making all this money. You still owe me that dinner at Jett’s Grill in Marfa you pro
mised.”

  His temper began to heat up. He could feel Julianne’s eyes on him, and he knew what Cherry was doing. He wasn’t about to let her make Julianne believe there was something cooking between them. “Cherry, I seem to remember that was your idea. I didn’t promise.”

  “Oh, Mitch,” she pouted. She grabbed at his little finger and linked hers with it, swinging their two hands high, like they were eight-year-olds. He pulled his hand away. “I’m still waiting for that good time we talked about at Lupe’s. Remember how much fun we had that night?”

  “Look, I hate to cut this short, but I’m working on a project in the back. I’m sure Julianne would be happy to help you out here.”

  A cloud of genuine hatred crossed her face. It was very brief, but he knew he’d seen it. And he didn’t think it was directed at him. She looked over her shoulder at Juli. “Okay, sure, Mitch. I’ll see you around—eventually. Don’t worry, I’m not going to let your job get between us. I’ve never let the Captain Gas interfere with my love life.”

  He knew he was being a coward, but getting away from her was the only way to stop the damage without a full-on confrontation, which he knew would be ugly, and unfair to Julianne considering this was her place of business. He headed toward the back with a grimace on his face Cherry couldn’t see, but that he hoped Julianne could.

  “Were you looking for something specific, Cherry?” he heard her ask.

  “Yeah, but I’m not going to find it here. I’ll have to wait for the right place and time.”

  Mitchell heard the bell ring and poked his head out between the striped drapes to the back. “She’s gone?”

  “Yes.” Her answer was clipped.

  “I’m sorry about that,” he said, emerging. “I didn’t mean to leave you here alone to deal with her, but she’s been after me ever since I got back to town. I have no interest in Cherry.”

  “I seem to remember that you two were an item for a while after I married Wes.”

  “Yeah, after. Think about that. We ran with the same crowd in high school, but it was never a romance. You know what Cherry is like. She’s been married two or three times and never lacks for male attention. I think that’s one of the reasons she’s after me—because I’m not interested.”

  Sighing, she said, “I hope she doesn’t come back.”

  “Huh, so do I. She’s got a vicious streak in her.”

  He went back the task of hanging the valance and tried to brush off the uneasy feeling that Cherry’s glower had given him.

  That night, Julianne listened to someone pelt the storefront with three dozen eggs while Jack barked his head off. She was fairly certain of the count, because the guilty party also left the egg cartons in her doorway.

  “Okay, ma’am, that ought to take care of it.”

  The installer from SAF-T Security Systems came to the counter with his metal clipboard. The oval name patch on his shirt read Mark, and he was pretty dirty from crawling around under the building to run the wiring. “You’ve got your camera over the back door, and another up there that covers the front. They’re pretty hard to see, to help avoid the risk of someone spray-painting over it.” He gestured with his pen. “But even so, I put up the one in that corner that covers this whole interior. Then you’ve got your alarm system on both front and back doors, with motion detectors. If an intruder makes his way past the locks and windows, the alarm will sound, we’ll get the alert on our equipment just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “The system will call the police even before we call you.” He’d been at the store all day, and this was a big expense, but Julianne needed to feel safer. After all the things she’d been plagued with the past few months, she wanted to know just who was hanging around here at night, or when she wasn’t looking. Now anyone who decided to pester her would either see the cameras and think twice or be recognized.

  “Thank you for your help.” She wrote him a check. “And it’s set up to go?”

  “Yes, indeed. I’m leaving the manual with you, which is written for just about anyone, and we have live twenty-four-hour phone and online help. I showed you how to access the computer display for the cameras, right?”

  “Yes. I appreciate it.”

  “Okay, ma’am. If you have any trouble with the system, just call us.”

  She nodded, and it was just about closing time when he left. She set the alarm, locked the front door, and flipped her OPEN sign to CLOSED. There was still plenty of daylight left, but she had a special task to complete, one that she performed every month.

  She got into her truck and drove to her destination with a small bunch of flowers she’d picked up at the Shoppeteria. It was odd. For as many times as Julianne had made this journey to the edge of town, she’d never encountered anyone else. New graves appeared, and she visited at different times of day, but she had yet to see another visitor or a funeral. She was always alone here in this necropolis.

  She came up here for one reason, to see Erin. It was such a tiny grave, and the lamb on her headstone, the one she had chosen herself, always made her throat tight and her eyes burn. Only she remembered that her child lay out here. Poor little soul, her poor baby, forgotten by everyone but her mother.

  Today, though, something was different. Flowers didn’t last long up here because of the heat, but she spotted some fairly fresh ones at the base of the headstone. She got out of the truck and headed straight for the grave. When she reached it, she picked up the wildflowers that had been tied with a long blade of grass, and saw a note among the stems. A shiver went through her. This was just like the notes she used to find . . .

  Erin, your mama can’t forgive me. I hope you can. I’m sorry for everything. I wish I had known you.

  Love from your father

  It was written on the back of a receipt from Captain Gas, leading her to believe his visit hadn’t been planned. Maybe he hadn’t even known that she’d see it. She pushed a hand through her hair. Why had he come up here? How, how had Mitchell figured out this secret, one she had shared with nobody? She looked at the headstone again and realized how easy it would have been for him. She’d never expected him to even come back to Gila Rock, much less to this cemetery, so she thought he’d never see Erin’s lonely little resting place. She hadn’t told him where the baby was.

  Oh, Mitchell . . . Tears filled her eyes, making everything look swimmy, and ran down her cheeks. The closer he got, the more she cried, it seemed. But these weren’t tears of despair—not exactly anyway. He’d made her begin to feel something besides anger and loss. How odd that he, of all people, should be the one to do that. Reaching down, she pulled a couple of weeds that grew in front of the little headstone.

  Neither Wes nor Mitchell had known she was pregnant when she’d gotten married, and neither had she. She’d thought that stress and worry had made her late. The truth came to her a week after the courthouse wedding when morning sickness had set in. But when the baby was born and she was an orphaned widow herself, she gave Erin her father’s middle name to share. No one would know except her, in the private hell of her own grief and guilt. Until now.

  Mitchell knew.

  That changed everything.

  She laid her own bouquet next to Mitchell’s and, her stomach as tight as a fist, she briefly ran her fingers over the etched name on the stone. Then she walked to her car and drove back to town.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The following morning, Julianne stood at the computer in the back, reviewing the images her new security system had captured on the cameras. They were crisp and sharp, for which she was glad. Often when the TV news showed security videos of thieves or attackers caught on cameras in parking lots or convenience stores, the quality of the images was so poor they were downright useless. Then viewers were urged to notify authorities if they recognized the pixelated, moving blobs. Apparently, it had been a quiet night. The only thing she saw was a coyote running down the sidewalk past her front door.

  Mitchell had washed down the front of the building a
nd cleaned up the egg mess, and she had dutifully called the sheriff’s office. She felt pretty certain that he wasn’t responsible for this. While he was outside, Darcy drove by and yelled insults at both him and Julianne. This was really becoming a problem, but she knew that Mitchell’s brothers would continue to plague her even if he were gone. And the sheriff was no help in a case like this. They could drive past and yell ten times a day, if they wanted to. The Tucker brothers had all sorts of protections under the law. She had none.

  But Mitchell, he was a different story.

  After all he’d done for her, and all she’d read in his face and heard in his voice, the ice around her heart shifted. She couldn’t forgive him, but she would let him know she appreciated the gesture of his apology. When he walked in fifteen minutes later, she stopped him on his way to the back.

  “I thought you were done with everything.”

  He glanced at her. “Well no, not exactly. I’ve still got a couple of door pulls to install and I was wondering if there was anything in the apartment that needs help.”

  “Yes, in fact, there is. I’ve got two sticky kitchen drawers and I think there’s a leak under the sink. But just a second.”

  She went to the front door, locked it, and put another decorative sign in the window that read BACK IN 15 MINUTES. She used it when she had to go to the bank or run some other quick errand. Since she had no other help, she had to leave sometimes. “Come on back,” she said, waving him toward the work area.