Safely Home

by Ruth Logan Herne

  “I wish things were that easy,” Cress replied. And was Audra really that easy-going or did she have a better handle on saving face than most?

  “They can be.” Stacey’s expression said more than her words. “You just have to learn to turn over the reins.”

  “I tend to make mountains out of molehills.”

  “Part of your control factor. You don’t like leaving anything to chance.” Stacey stood to go. “It’s a quality you share with your father.”

  She didn’t want to share qualities with her father. She’d written him off years ago. He’d abandoned her. She abandoned him. Tit for tat, but after talking with Alex last night, her grudge seemed pretty adolescent. Yes, she liked control, but then she’d gone and handed over control to James. Kind of like her father did with the bottle, once her mother had passed away. Maybe they were more alike than she wanted to admit. “I’m at a point where scrutinizing my options isn’t a bad thing.”

  “Like staying or going?”

  “Yes.” Cress eyed her tea glass, pretending the opaque shadows in the ice fascinated her. “Part of me wants to stay, but I want to stay for the right reasons. Not because I’m afraid to go back. Does that make any sense?”

  “Perfect sense.” Stacey leaned forward and laid a hand on Cress’s arm. “Your father and I would love for you to make a life here, get married, have kids and make me a very young step-grandmother. But more than any of that we want you happy. Content. Safe. And yes, I mean your father, too, even though the two of you are beyond stubborn and somewhat foolish. Police work here isn’t a picnic, but at least it’s here. And it’s not as rife with negatives as police work in the big cities these days.”

  Stacey was right on that score. Big city police work had more than its share of registered incorrigibles. A stint in a lower-crime area didn’t sound boring like it would have five years back. It sounded nice, actually. Normal. Downright possible.

  Stacey arched a brow at Cress’s smile. “Whatever’s going on, I want you to know I fully approve if only to see you smile like that more often. We miss your smiles, Cress.”

  Cress surprised her with a hug, a move the rough and tough MPD detective hadn’t done often enough it seemed. “Then I’ll try and smile more often.”

  Stacey toasted that promise with a wink. “From what I’ve been seeing, I don’t think you’ll have to try all that hard.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Cress studied Kiera’s photo spread, then handed the upscale magazine to Audra as she leaned against the fence rail. “Check the shot from behind. Whaddya think? Padding or no padding?”

  Audra eyed the photos from various angles, then nodded. “In this, this and this, yes. Not this one. That skirt’s so tight you can see right through it and what I’m seeing is all Kiera.”

  Cress agreed. “And she and the dress are gorgeous.”

  “I guess. If you don’t like breathing. Cress, do you know how tight they truss those things to get that look? A corset would be way more comfortable.”

  “And almost as sexy.”

  “I could hate her except I don’t.”

  Cress laughed and swept Audra’s typical farm clothes a look of exaggerated appreciation. “But what normal, red-blooded American guy isn’t attracted to,” she waved a hand Audra’s way, her gaze skimming top to bottom, then back, “all that?”

  “Dirty jeans, mucked-up boots, flannel shirt and,” Audra tipped back her cowboy hat, grinning, “the greatest hat on earth.”

  “Only you can wear a John Wayne repro and get away with it.” Cress eyed the hat, then her sister. “How much did that thing set you back?”

  “Enough to make me fully appreciate it,” Audra shot back, keeping her finances to herself. “It was my reward for making a go of this place for five years. I promised myself a decadent reward on my five-year entrepreneurial anniversary.”

  “And you bought a hat?” Cress shook her head, teasing. “There wasn’t a man available? A cache of amazing chocolate? A Caribbean cruise? Because I’m going to bet there was, and probably for less than that hat cost.”

  Audra grinned, jumped the fence rail and thumbed the brim. “Rooster Cogburn, True Grit, one of the Duke’s finest.”

  “Over budget, over-acted and overdone,” Cress corrected. “And you’re offering unconditional support to a guy famed for saying, ‘women have the right to work anywhere they want, as long as they have dinner ready when you get home’.”

  “Since I love to cook, that isn’t a problem.” Audra quirked a grin before she sighed. “Available men. That’s a problem.” Her cell phone interrupted them with the notes of Blake Shelton’s latest hit. “Customer. Gotta take this.”

  “You can take the girl out of the honky tonk…”

  Audra tossed her an impudent over-the-shoulder look as she strode away, hat cocked, her swagger sure and self-confident, a woman who knew where she was going and how to get there. Except for the whole guy thing.

  Cress wanted that. Shoot, she thought she had that, then realized she was living an illusion, a made-for-TV life in the Twin Cities.

  Now she wanted reality. Where better to find that than in her own backyard, very Dorothy-esque?

  Brandywood whinnied, as if wondering what she was doing, why all the down time? She soothed a hand across his head, her touch firm and sure. “All right, old man, let’s take a ride, hmm?” She led him out of the paddock, closed the gate, and mounted him with ease, their relationship growing day by day.

  She’d miss him if she returned to the city. She’d miss this time, this communion with a good horse. The MPD had a mounted patrol, but gaining a spot on the twenty-plus man roster wasn’t easy. And cruising crowded venues like street fairs, carnivals, parades and festivals wasn’t the same as taking off cross lots on Brandywood’s back, his gentle gait easy. She never had to hold him back on these easy rides. His touchy leg kept him to a walk, although the vet pronounced him fit the week before.

  Still, Cress trusted the horse to know his limits. How she wished she could say the same about herself.

  Her cell phone interrupted her musings, the notes from Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” jerking her into cop mode. She scanned the readout, surprised.

  Alex.

  She should have known. She snapped the phone to her ear, keeping Brandywood headed along the woods’ edge. “Tampering with other people’s cell phones is against the law.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, I’ve never touched your cell phone, and don’t most normal people answer the phone with a simple ‘hello’?”

  Then it had to be Audra.

  She’d kill her, plain and simple. Except…

  The song was a perfect rendering of how grounded Alex made her feel, like no matter what she said, did or tried, he’d be there to cushion the fall, take the blow, keep her steady and strong. Her port in the storm. Which was silly, of course, because she’d only been there a few weeks. And yet, not silly at all. “Sorry, Counselor. My sister must be playing matchmaker.”

  “More reason to love her.” Alex’s voice held that easy amenability that went along with being very smart and stinking rich, a casual aplomb that never said ‘look at me’. It didn’t have to, and that was a huge change from the kid Alex had been thirty years before.

  But she’d been fooled before. Once burned, twice careful. So even though every girl instinct told her to forget caution and trust her heart, her more knowledgeable cop side put on the brakes again. “What’s up?”

  “Not a thing. Just wanted to hear your voice.”

  Oh, crap. Silly romantic stuff would not be her undoing, it would not! She wasn’t a girly-girl, never had been, although she did clean up nice when she needed to, but those times were on an occasion-only basis.

  “Seriously, Alex? That’s why you called?”

  “Very seriously. I was wondering if you’d like to take a drive out to my almost finished new house tonight. Look around.”

  See his new house ver
sus freezing cauliflower? Drat. “I can’t, I promised Gran I’d freeze the cauliflower and broccoli with her tonight.”

  Her refusal didn’t seem to faze him. “Another time, then. We’re still good to go tomorrow? You haven’t chickened out?”

  Did he put her back up on purpose? Most likely. “I don’t chicken out, Counselor. Ever.”

  “Which can be good or bad depending on the situation. I’ll pick you up at nine, okay? Give you time to get Gran settled.”

  “You can’t come by tonight?”

  He hesitated, then declined, regret shading his voice. “I’ve got some things that have to get done at the house before the final inspection. Nothing major, but time consuming and I want to be able to move in next week. I need that certificate of occupancy first, though. “

  “I understand.”

  *

  Did she? Alex wasn’t sure, but he’d promised himself to let her find her way to him. Pull and tug on a stubborn horse? All you got was a stubborn horse, feet planted firm.

  But if you let the horse come to you with a sugar cube here, a pat on the head there? He’ll follow you forever, a trusted friend and confidant.

  And while Cress was way better smelling than a horse, the methodology paralleled. He didn’t want Cress nudged his way, he wanted her of her own volition, heart and soul. “Good,” he told her. “Maybe you can come out this weekend sometime. I’ll give you the grand tour.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Me too. Gotta go. Appointment coming in.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be there.

  *

  “You look good, Detective.” Alex’s gaze skimmed top to bottom before he added a complimentary whistle of appreciation. “I don’t know that a country boy like me can take such a fine lookin’ gal into the city and entertain hopes of bringing her back to little ol’ Watkins Ridge.”

  “Country boys don’t wear designer polos and Cole Haan jackets,” she corrected as she climbed into the front seat of his SUV the next morning. “But the styling Land Rover totally works.”

  “Including the leather seats? Warmed in the winter, by the way.”

  “Bragging, Counselor?” She arched him a teasing look as he settled himself in the driver’s seat, adjusting sunglasses that probably cost more than her monthly apartment rent.

  He flashed a grin her way as he backed out of Gran’s driveway. “A little. Just want you aware that I know how to take care of nice things.”

  “Really?” She grinned and dipped her chin to adjust the radio to a station that didn’t sound like something out of an opera house. “And the elevator music?”

  He growled, reached over, withdrew the CD and waved a hand toward the console between them. “Lots of stuff in there besides the changing radio stations as we head west.”

  “The Beatles, Celtic Woman, Best Hits of the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties and Alvin and the Chipmunks.” She arced him a brow of appreciation. “Eclectic.”

  He dropped the sunglasses with one finger at the last stoplight bordering town and winked. “Something for everyone, depending on who’s riding shotgun.”

  “Boy Scout preparedness. How lovely. Why do I suddenly feel downgraded to chick-of-the-hour? Or day, maybe, if I was feeling generous and I’m not.”

  He kept his gaze trained on the road, shifting gears as he headed for I-94. “You’re lashing out because you’re nervous. It would be fine with me if you decide to stop that at any time.”

  She flushed, knowing he was right, wishing he wasn’t and a little aggravated that he already knew her that well while she was just beginning to see the real Alex. If this was, indeed, the real thing.

  “This,” he held the Celtic CD case aloft, “is my mother’s favorite. Cruz is big on The Beatles, knows way more about them and their music than any normal human being should, and this one,” he raised up Alvin and Company, “keeps Aiden and Nick singing and laughing when I’ve got them aboard.” He set the CD down and negotiated the turn onto the interstate. “Feeling less threatened?”

  “Shut up.”

  He laughed, applied the brake as they hit a traffic bottleneck, leaned over and feathered a kiss to her cheek. “I’ve got your back, you know. Even though you don’t want or need anyone to cover you.”

  “Am I that transparent?”

  “Maybe only to me?” He thought a moment, eased into the acceleration lane when it was his turn and hit the gas. “No, you’re right. You’re fairly obvious.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are too.”

  She laughed, remembering her nights with Aiden and Nick. “Okay, I am nervous. I admit it.”

  He sent her a look that underscored the admission. “You trust Carl?”

  “With my life.”

  “Then what’s pushing your buttons? Proximity to the old boyfriend?” He said it easily, as if they’d talked about James before this, as if he knew what she’d gone through, put up with.

  But he couldn’t.

  Could he?

  No, she decided. Alex barely knew her, he wasn’t a trained detective, and she’d held her cards close to her chest. He couldn’t possibly know. “I have no intention of seeing him.”

  “Should you?” Alex asked the question as he melded into the quick-flowing west-bound lanes. “Would it help, Cress?”

  The soft note of worry suggested he knew too much. Wishing she had nothing to hide, no bridges to burn, no scars to heal, she turned her face outward, watching farm fields zip past, each passing tree marking her return to reckoning.

  A big broad hand covered hers. “I’m here. I won’t let anything happen to you. Promise.”

  Her eyes welled at the concern, the pledge. A big part of her wanted to trust, to believe in the Alex she saw, the man who offered shelter from the storm, but her track record suggested she wasn’t the best judge of character. And she couldn’t afford any more mistakes. Her current levels of mental anguish went well beyond the norm. She knew that. But figuring out how to fix herself?

  A whole other thing.

  A tissue found its way into her lap. “Dry your eyes, breathe through your nose, and take potshots at me. That’s always made you feel better in the past.”

  She blotted her eyes, blew her nose, sucked a deep breath and nodded. “True enough. Okay, music will help. And while I’m a huge Alvin and the Chipmunks fan, I think a little Celtic Woman would be just the ticket.”

  He flashed her a smile. “That’s my girl.”

  She ducked her head, enjoying the inference way too much. When she was with Alex, her world righted itself. Alex’s self-assuredness, easy faith and hope were a pillar of strength.

  But on her own she free-fell into a vat of self-doubt and self-incrimination. She prayed seeing Carl would help. Logically it made sense, but Cress understood what she wasn’t willing to say. The shame of her relationship with James lay at the core of her stress, underscored by her disregard for her father, a guy who’d made bad mistakes, but rose above them, eventually. Where did forgiveness fit into all of this? How long was too long to hold a grudge?

  Seventy times seven.

  She knew the old scriptural saying, and she’d laughed at it in the past. Who would put themselves into the position of forgiving someone that often?

  But maybe it wasn’t stupid. Maybe putting yourself above the negative was the step toward grace she longed for. Could she be that person and still be herself? Maybe talking with Carl would help her perspective. It had worked in the past, despite the fact that she hadn’t heeded Carl’s warnings.

  She’d paid the price for her stubborn stupidity, and what a price it was.

  But no more.

  As they drew nearer to the state line, she fought a tiny surge of panic, drew a breath and prayed for strength, for guidance, for the guts to see this through.

  The soft strains of Celtic voices, women’s voices, sang of being lifted, raised to walk on mountains, braving stormy seas. The harmonic meld and soulful words spoke to
Cress’s heart, soothing her soul, reaching deep within. She’d been knocked down, literally and figuratively. She’d been soul-weary for way too long.

  But now…

  Things were changing. She was changing. She hadn’t thought it possible, or maybe even necessary, but these weeks at home, the trials of the city, the job, the destructive relationship…

  Change wasn’t only necessary, it loomed imperative. And nice. Warm. Welcoming. A comfort from the storm, the raging seas of unrest and fear.

  The soulful words blanketed her, nudging open a door she hadn’t seen until lately. And now that door stood as the only logical choice, the only good choice, and it had taken a dark of night bullet and an old woman’s cancer to grab her attention, point her to that door, but she saw it now, in all its small-town opportunity.

  She chanced a glance Alex’s way. A little smile softened his rugged chin, the comfortable GQ appearance he wore as easily as Brett Favre wore Wranglers, an easy sight to behold.

  They didn’t struggle for small talk. He left her in peace, the music washing over her, tipping her closer to a decision with each song of warmth. As the Minneapolis suburbs tweaked awareness, she relaxed into the thought of being held through tough times, strong, gentle hands steadying her. She’d see Carl, talk with him, spill her guts and let the pieces fall where they may. Pushing her fear down, she stepped out of the car as soon as Alex angled into a spot in the park, the slope of the treed hill leading toward the lake. She turned full circle, scanning the area cop-style, a buzz of electricity zinging her pulse.

  “You okay?” His gruff voice betrayed his worry.

  She smiled up at him. “Much better. Thank you.”

  “Where’s he meeting you?”

  She jerked her head to the right. “Picnic tables just beyond that grove of trees.”

  Alex frowned. “A little off the beaten path, isn’t it?”

  She raised a hand and caressed his cheek, his chin. “It’s Carl. He’s like a brother to me. I’ll be fine.”

  “Still, this end of the park is a little remote.” Alex’s gaze scanned the area. “School’s back in session, there’s no one around.”