by Davis, L. C.
"Oh, it's not just what happened between those two. That whole family is bad news. I'd avoid the whole lot of 'em."
"They seem a bit too integrated into the town to avoid completely."
"That's the damn truth," she huffed, planting her hands on her hips.
I hesitated. It didn't really count as prying if I wasn't asking Nick directly... "What is it about the Whitakers that you dislike so much?"
"It's not just me. They've been a thorn in the side of my ancestors ever since Herschel Whitaker got tired of walking, raised a few barns and declared himself the God-appointed baron of the land in 1510."
"God-appointed?"
"Not a figure of speech, mind you. You won't find a mention of it in that hogwash at the town history center, but Stillwater got its start as a glorified cult," she said, yanking a handful of weeds up from the flower bed before tossing them over her shoulder into a pile on the stone path that led up to the porch.
I gulped. So much for the secular paradise I'd been hoping for. "When you say cult..."
"I mean Herschel told the few wretched souls who survived the boat ride from the Isles that an angel of the Lord himself had led them all to Stillwater as a sanctuary and a reward for their faithful pilgrimage," she said dryly. "Over the years, they've tried to spin it into some nonsense about religious tolerance, but the Whitakers are like that. If they don't like something, they make it disappear or cover it up until the truth and the lie are so tangled you can't take them apart."
"How do you know all this if they covered it up so well?"
"Because my ancestors kept a record of things," she replied, tugging at a particularly stubborn patch of weeds. "It's all in a journal somewhere, but I've lost track of how many great-grandmothers back it belonged to."
"Could I see it?" She gave me a quizzical look, so I added, "I'm kind of a history buff. It would be interesting to read something from that long ago."
"It was up in the attic, before I cleared everything out for Daniel years ago," she said, smoothing out the white hairs that had come loose from the bun piled on top of her head. "It's probably in the basement, but you'd have a better chance finding Waldo in a peppermint factory than finding the box it's in."
"So Daniel really used to live here?"
"For a couple of years, after his parents passed. He needed a place to stay when he was home from school, and the old house was too full of memories," she replied, starting to stuff the dead weeds into a trash bag. I reached out to hold it for her but she waved me off. "Go on, you'd better feed that cat of yours. He's been making an awful racket upstairs."
"Sorry about that." Her words still weighed heavily on my mind as I climbed the stairs and prepared myself for a mess. Nothing could have prepared me to find half my closet strewn across the floor in shreds. Puff was still ripping apart my red dress when I walked in. "Puff!"
The cat froze, a strip of satin still dangling from his claw.
"Bad cat!" I cried, stalking towards him. He tried to run but I grabbed him mid-air on the way to my bed. "Do I have to crate you while I'm gone?"
Then it hit me. My plants. My panic subsided when I realized that all my green lovelies were untouched, as were at least a few outfits he hadn't gotten to yet. Apparently, Puff only had a fetish for skirts and dresses.
"Do you have any idea how long it's going to take to clean this up?" I grumbled, shoving him back in the crate. He mewed innocently in protest as I gathered the tattered strips of my wardrobe and piled them into a trash bag. Once the room was clean, his pathetic trilling was beginning to get to me. I unlocked the door and poured him a bowl of food, leaving it in the corner.
"At least now I don't feel quite as bad for not being able to find the wet food," I muttered, watching as he sniffed the bowl of kibble, clearly less than impressed. "Don't look at me like that. Next time, I'm gonna let Daniel chip you."
Puff hissed and I got flashed with fluffy white cat butt before he leaped onto his bed and started grooming himself. Looked like the hunger strike had begun. At least he left me alone while I packed my online orders. Once I had a decent pile of packages on the table, I realized I wasn't half as eager to send them out as I had been.
The fact that the Whitakers were keeping secrets was one thing, but after what Mrs. Marrin had told me, I was even warier of them than ever. Weird family traditions and wealth that seemed disproportionate to the relatively normal jobs they held was weird enough, but I had enough supernatural secrets of my own to contend with. The last thing I needed was to fall in with a cult of angel groupies. Especially if they weren't human. After talking with Nick, that seemed like a decent possibility. What else would his entire family feel the need to guard so closely?
It was already getting dark outside, and my mind was tormenting me with images of Nick with vampire fangs, so I decided to mail the packages in the morning. Hopefully Puff had left me something halfway decent to wear on my date with Dennis.
Getting all dressed up for our first official date was probably false advertising, anyway. Hopefully he wasn't expecting me to be in drag again. I decided on nice jeans and sweater that had escaped Puff's purge and gathered my hair back since the wind was wrecking enough havoc with the leaves outside and decided I looked decent enough. Actually liking the way I looked was a pipe dream. The year or so I had lived in girl mode was admittedly more pleasant than wearing men's clothes that never fit me even if they fit my body well enough, but that hadn't felt fully right, either. In lieu of looking the way I felt--and I struggled to put a name to it, never mind to find a style that matched it--looking the way people expected me to look was easier. Most of the time.
I went to the window when I heard the sound of tires crunching the gravel in Mrs. Marrin's lot. Dennis drove a sleek black Mercedes, which didn't come as any surprise. I grabbed my wallet and keys and felt only the slightest bit of guilt for putting Puff back into his new crate. "Sorry, but this one's more than big enough to hold you for a couple of hours and you've proven you can't be trusted to roam."
He growled, but didn't carry on quite as much as I expected. I made sure he had food and water and tossed in a couple of the toys I'd picked up for him at the store before heading downstairs.
Dennis was waiting outside the car by the time I reached the front door and he opened the passenger-side door for me. "Hello, Holden. You look nice this evening."
"Thanks," I said, feeling a bit underdressed when I saw the blazer he was wearing. Something told me the man didn't own a pair of jeans to his name. "Maybe I should change..."
"No, not at all. I just didn't have time to change out of my work clothes after coming in from Burlington."
I slipped into the car and felt the slightest bit of apprehension about driving with him now that it was dark, but it faded once he looked over and smiled. I knew I was going the way of every surprised neighbor interviewed by the local news after a serial killer's lair is uncovered, but if I just couldn't accept that someone with such a gentle smile could hurt anyone or anything. Besides, in a town like Stillwater, I was more inclined to question the people who had enough influence to control the flow of information than the ones no one trusted.
"Oh, shoot," Dennis muttered. "I completely forgot, I meant to go by the house for something. It should only take a minute, would you mind terribly if we went back?"
Okay, that was slightly weird. It didn't seem characteristic for a man who remembered details of a case that wasn't even his own from years ago to forget anything, but social awkwardness didn't leave much room to insist that he take us directly to dinner. "No, not at all."
He put on his turn signal and turned around, driving past town and down a rural road that led into the forest and well away from town. Shit. I reached for my phone in my pocket and halfway through trying to mentally word a text that would let Nick know where I was without setting him off, Dennis pulled up to a mini-mansion nestled in the woods. From the stone fountain at the center of the circular driveway to the glass paneling and well-
lit interior that could be seen from the driveway, I realized the Whitakers weren't the only ones in Stillwater with old money.
"Wow."
He chuckled, unbuckling his seatbelt. "Now you see why I prefer not to throw stones. I won't be a minute, just need to let the dog out." He paused. "I'd invite you in, but..."
"Dog?" My defenses lowered immediately. "You have a dog?"
"It's my mother's, actually," he said, running a hand through his hair. "I'm pet sitting while she and my father are in Fiji, and I'm afraid I'm not quite in the habit of caring for something."
"Can I see it?"
"Sure," he said, motioning for me to follow him up the stone path.
The yapping started as soon as we approached the door. A small yellow ball of fur shot out and started jumping at Dennis' legs, scraping and scrambling in an attempt to climb him. The yaps turned to shrieks of joy as he lifted the dog into his arms and it showered him with kisses.
"I swear he's only been alone for six hours," Dennis said sheepishly, straining to keep the dog's tongue out of his mouth. "Needy little thing."
"Is that a tribble?" I laughed, both in amusement and relief. Any doubts that Dennis was not a cold-blooded killer were disappearing with each adoring squeak.
"Pomeranian, but it's the same difference," he said, putting the dog on the floor. He strode to the glass doors in a living room outfitted with tasteful modern furniture and the dog flew out into the fenced yard and immediately lifted a leg to pee on one of the hedges. He frowned. "Coco, no."
"Coco?"
He rolled his eyes. "I'm afraid my mother is the stereotypical New England socialite."
"It's sweet of you to watch her dog," I said, watching as he refilled the dog's water bowl and dropped a few ice cubes in. All of a sudden, I felt guilty for leaving Puff in a crate, even if it was for his own protection. Namely, protection from me if he spite-shredded anything else.
"She kept me alive all these years, so it's really the least I can do," he said, sliding the door closed when Coco rushed in and pawed at my leg.
I reached down, stroking the dog's plush fur. "He's really cute. I think my cat would eat him, though."
"Ah, yes. How is he doing after his vet visit?"
"He's...feisty."
"Cats usually are in my experience," he said, holding the door. "Now that Coco's all set, shall we?"
"Definitely," I said, following him out to the car with far less apprehension than the first time. As promised, we ended up at a nice Italian restaurant on the outskirts of town. Dennis was right about the attention we would draw together, but he'd made reservations so we didn't have to wait and I found myself relaxing after a couple of glasses of wine at a relatively private table.
"At the risk of ruining the evening, there's something I have to ask," he said, giving me an apologetic smile.
"How much of the witch stuff is a rumor and how much am I crazy enough to believe?" I offered.
"I wouldn't put it like that, but..."
"I know how it must seem to someone like you," I murmured, picking at my lasagna. "Someone educated, I mean."
"You seem perfectly educated yourself, Holden."
"I guess if you count Sunday school," I said dryly. "If you know about my case, you know I wasn't exactly allowed to attend school."
"And your father, he believed you were a faith healer?" he asked calmly, like what we were discussing was normal.
"He did."
"And what do you believe?" There wasn't a trace of judgment in his tone. Talking to Daniel had been so easy, the words had just slipped out whether I wanted them to or not, but I found lying to Dennis as off-putting as the idea of scaring him off with the truth. Maybe it was just the fact that I'd lost my oral virginity to him screwing with my head, but I felt normal when I was with him and I didn't want to lose that.
"I don't know. There are days I wish I could put it all behind me, and I don't believe in my father's version of the story, but no matter how hard I try, I can't get away from it completely. Weird things have always happened around me. Not believing in them doesn't make them go away, or make them any less dangerous to the people around me." I pursed my lips, suddenly overcome with the urge to crawl under the table. "I'm sorry, I know how crazy that sounds."
I didn't dare to look up, until I felt his fingertips brush over the back of my hand. He was watching me with that knowing gaze he wore so well, the one that made me feel certain everything was going to turn out alright, even if it couldn't possibly. "The way you talk, you'd think you were the one with something to be ashamed of. Most people wouldn't be able to function after everything you've been through, let alone summon the courage to face their abuser twice. There are plenty of words I can think of to describe that kind of resiliency, but crazy isn't one of them."
He squeezed my hand and the touch was somehow more intimate than the sexual contact we'd shared so recently. It flared passions I thought had long since cooled, as if his touch was all it took for my mind to go right back to where we'd left off. For all of Nick's talk of being soulmates, I had never met someone I felt so intrinsically connected to as Dennis. I wasn't about to let myself entertain the delusion that it meant anything, or that he even felt the same way, but it was a blissful kind of distraction. "Why are you so nice?" I breathed.
He smiled. "I could ask you the same thing, you know."
"I'm not nice," I mumbled. "I've just been the object of gossip enough to know not to treat people any differently because of it."
"It doesn't stop most people.
I hesitated. "Don't answer if this is too personal, but why would you want to run for Council if it means serving a town that treats you so badly?"
He shrugged. "I guess I'm just tired of being on the outside. For a long time, I told myself that if I kept my head down and worked hard, eventually I'd find where I belonged. Recent events have made it clear that the only way that's going to happen is if I carve a place out for myself. People are going to think whatever it is they want to think, but I'd rather them have to say those things to my face."
I smiled. "Well, I did see it a few flyers on my way to the market this morning. You're very photogenic."
He grimaced. "The flyers were my mother's idea, although I don't suppose that helps my street cred any."
"Not really," I agreed. "But it's sweet that you're close. You know, I feel a bit traitorous for saying this since Daniel is running against you and we're almost-friends, but it's probably a good thing that you're putting yourself out there in a way people can't ignore. It's easy to project judgment onto a mystery, but I think things will change if you give people the chance to get to know you the way I have."
"One can hope," he sighed. "Almost friends, hm? I'm jealous. It took me a decade to get to almost-tolerated by him."
"He does take a while to warm up, doesn't he?"
"He seems to have warmed up to you quite a bit. Enough to warn me to stay away from you," he smirked.
"He did?" I groaned. "Probably because of Nick. He's got it into his head that we're, um, more than friends."
"Nick Whitaker?" He cocked an eyebrow. "Huh."
"What?"
"Nothing, I just never thought he swung that way. Maybe Daniel just wasn't his type."
"What do you mean?"
Dennis froze and looked like he'd just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. How anyone thought this guy could get away with murder was beyond me. "Nothing. I shouldn't have said anything."
"Daniel and Nick were...?"
"No, no. Not at all. I don't know Nick very well, but as far as I'm aware, he's only ever dated women. I of all people shouldn't be fanning the flames of town gossip," he mumbled with a hint of self-loathing.
I swallowed hard. Looking back, maybe it was obvious. Daniel's overprotectiveness made sense when placed in a slightly different context. "Yeah, you're right. It's none of my business, anyway, it's not like Nick and I are actually dating or anything."
"And here I was st
arting to worry I was too late."
I looked up, caught off-guard by his comment. "Hm?"
"Not that you'd want to date me."
"No, I would," I said quickly. "I do, it's just..." I trailed off, realizing the only explanations I had either sounded like excuses or were guaranteed to land me in a padded room.
"You don't need to explain yourself."
"But I do. Dennis, I like you. I really, really like you," I admitted. "You're charming and sweet and I can't be around you for five minutes without feeling like a horny frat boy, but my life is a wreck. The things you've found out about me are just the tip of the iceberg that is the clusterfuck otherwise known as my past, and you're running for political office."
"It's Stillwater, not D.C.," he said good-naturedly.
"I know, but things still have a way of coming out of the woodwork and I'm supposed to be blending in," I murmured. "You deserve someone who can be at your side, not someone who'll force you back into hiding."
"And what about what you deserve?" he asked, holding my gaze. "I've spent a long time in hiding, Holden, but I know a thing or two about running. Trust me when I say it's not possible to run far enough to feel safe after what you've been through. At some point, you have to stand your ground and let the people who care about you be there for you. You don't have to be by yourself, not anymore."
I stared at him, at once soothed and confused by his words. Dennis had a way of speaking that made me feel like I was the one on the outside, even when I was the one trying to protect him. "You don't have any idea what you're getting into."
The corner of his mouth twitched as he brought my hand to his lips to kiss it. "I pride myself on reading people well. If I couldn't do that, I wouldn't be very good at my job."
I laughed. "You did think I was a woman, remember?"
"Some things go deeper than skin," he said, turning my hand over to trace the faint blue outline of the veins on my wrist. The featherlight touch made me shiver. His finger traveled down over the base of my thumb and along the tender lines inside my palm. "Destiny is one of them."
"You don't believe in things like that," I reminded him.
