by Joanne Rock
She hauled open the door before she could change her mind, the electric guitar music spilling out along with laughter and the scent of hair chemicals and nail polish remover.
“Gabby!” The slender woman standing closest to the door greeted her with a warm smile.
“Amy.” Gabriella opened her arms to the youngest of the Finley family, a woman who’d been absent from Heartache for as long as Gabriella herself.
Amy had been dating Sam Reyes, Zach’s best friend, the summer that Gabriella had been assaulted. Sam felt forced to leave town—and Amy—without explanation, and Gabriella had always felt guilty about that, especially during the years when she’d convinced herself she had a crush on Sam.
Sam had been safe to crush on at a time when she’d been so mixed-up about men and sex. Gabriella had known she was safe with him and he’d never returned her affections. But Amy and Sam were back together now, and Amy didn’t seem to hold it against her that she’d dragged her boyfriend to the West Coast with her.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Amy whispered fervently in her ear as she returned the hug. “Everyone else is talking about sulfate-free hair conditioners and nail art, and it’s like Greek to me. Nail art?” Leaning back, Amy shrugged her narrow shoulders, her all-black jeans and sweater broken up by a light green scarf that set off her auburn hair and green eyes. “It took me two whole minutes to realize they weren’t talking about something you make with an air nail compressor.”
Gabriella laughed, welcoming the levity. The Finley family owned a building supply store in town, and Amy was embroiled in a renovation project that involved turning a hunting cabin into a beautiful, two-story home. The woman had studied to be an accountant, but her do-it-yourself knowledge was off the charts. She could hang her own Sheetrock and install a toilet, for crying out loud.
“My makeup routine revolves around petroleum jelly for my lips and pinching my cheeks to put color in them.” Setting down the bottle of wine she’d brought on the reception desk, Gabriella watched as the hairbrush-singing duo ended their tune and sank into chairs across from one another, a blue light aimed at their toes. The pair was clearly younger—high school or college age. “Who are the teenagers?”
“Megan Bryer and Bailey McCord.” Amy lowered her voice, pointing first to the brunette dressed in a flannel shirt and skin-tight jeggings, then at her blonde friend with a purple butterfly T-shirt. “I only know that because Heather was held against her will the same time as Megan. And Bailey’s mom had the affair with Covington and then—when he cheated on her, too—convinced Covington’s wife to turn over the family computers that are going to be the man’s total undoing.” Shaking her head, Amy gave a wry grin. “But I don’t normally keep up with the soap operas, so that’s the extent of my information.”
“I’m impressed.” Gabriella knew of both girls in a peripheral way, having kept up with the case as Sam tracked the man who assaulted her. But she hadn’t spent much time in Heartache, so the faces weren’t familiar. “You may not know your sulfates, but I’m coming to you for all my gossip. Can you tell me anything about the town break-ins I’ve been hearing about?” She was only half kidding. It unsettled her to think of more crime in her small hometown. Especially while she was staying here.
But before Amy could answer, someone turned down the music.
“Ladies!” A tall beauty with caramel-colored hair hurried over, carrying a basket of bakery treats. “No lurking in corners! I’m having a mixer over at the nail polish bar and I’m luring you there with cupcakes.” She waved the basket under their noses, showing off gorgeous confections with frosting in every imaginable shade. “Gabriella, I’m Nina Spencer, Mack Finley’s significant other.”
Again, Gabriella knew that and remembered her vaguely from high school, but she appreciated the reminder of where she fit into the Finley family. The town’s former Mayor Finley had two sons—Mack and Scott—and three daughters, Erin, Heather and Amy, making a big crew to keep track of. Plus, they all had spouses or significant others, and Scott and his wife, Bethany, had a daughter who would be in college by now.
“Nina, you were on the varsity soccer team when I played as a freshman and I thought you were the coolest girl in school.” Gabriella grinned as she chose a yellow cupcake with pink frosting. “And since you went on to own a restaurant and bake things like this, I obviously knew the right kind of woman to idolize.”
“Ha!” Nina gave her a one-armed hug. “Aren’t you sweet? You need to move back to Heartache. But for now, will you convince Amy to choose a nail polish color for toes that have never been touched by paint?”
“I’ll have you know I bought a bottle of ice-blue polish and put it on my toes once. It made me look like a corpse.” Amy grabbed a chocolate-on-chocolate cupcake. “But I will choose something because I am a team player and I’m here to be beautiful.”
“That’s the spirit.” Nina moved on to introduce a few newcomers, letting her basket lead the way, its pink gingham ribbons flapping in her wake.
Together, Amy and Gabriella headed toward the wall of nail polish colors where an older woman held court from a black leather chair, a little Pekingese dog at her feet in a leopard-print carrier.
“You look like you’re in need of a primer for this,” Amy observed, nudging Gabriella after they’d taken just a few steps. “Do you remember this group?”
“That’s Mrs. Spencer, right? Nina’s grandmother?” She nodded in the direction of the Pekingese owner. The woman was famous for her jellies and pies. No doubt that was where her granddaughter got her skill with cupcakes, which were the best thing Gabriella had ever tasted.
“Daisy Spencer.” Amy nodded, confirming her guess. “And you know Erin and Heather, my sisters? Well, duh. Of course you know Heather since she’s been engaged to your brother for a week.”
“That’s Erin?” Gabriella would have never guessed, but then she recalled both Erin and Heather having long red curls like a pre-Raphaelite painting. Heather had kept hers, but Erin had a sleek copper-colored style with a dark streak around her face.
With her cartoon cat tee, a long, full skirt that looked like it came straight out of the fifties and dark leather combat boots, she had an ease and sophistication that Gabriella envied.
Amy nodded. “I know, right? When I left town, she was a total tomboy obsessed with building birdhouses for fun, and now she’s Ms. Elegant with her vintage clothing store.” Amy pointed to the shop next door and Gabriella recalled passing Last Chance Vintage on her way into The Strand. “And she does a huge Dress for Success event seasonally with a traveling bus that goes to rural places in Tennessee to bring women clothing when they’ve fallen on hard times. She’s pretty great.”
“She married the Cajun television producer.” Gabriella knew that, too, since Zach had been at the wedding. But she hadn’t seen any photos.
“Right,” Amy confirmed. “Remy. I haven’t met him yet either, but Erin wrote me all about it.”
“There’s a face I remember,” Daisy Spencer called, gesturing them to come closer. “Gabriella Chance, it’s good to see you again, honey. Do you remember coming out to the farm with your mother to buy jelly?” She laughed merrily, twisting the daisy pin on the lapel of her pink running jacket while the Pekingese wagged its tail. “Oh me, you were just a little one then and I had a whole lot less gray.”
They reminisced for a minute while Amy caught up with her sisters. And in the warmth of that shared memory with the older woman, Gabriella forgot to be an introvert. She was glad she came. Glad to remember she’d been a part of all this once. In the same way that being at the Owl’s Roost had reminded her of happier times with her mother, Daisy Spencer brought back more pleasant flashbacks to her youth before things took a nosedive. She remembered sitting in the Spencers’ big farm kitchen with an ancient stove unlike anything she’d ever seen before. With the wrought-iron apple p
eeler clamped to a wooden counter and the scent of pies baking in that huge oven, the Spencer home was firmly ingrained in her memories.
Over the course of the next twenty minutes, she was introduced to Tiffany McCord, Bailey’s mother and Jeremy Covington’s former girlfriend who’d turned evidence against him, as well as Kate Covington, Jeremy’s wife, who—Kate confided—was soon to be his ex-wife. Gabriella noted that the two women remained on opposite sides of the room. No doubt this was an awkward collection of women assembled here, including several people she hadn’t met yet, but it impressed her that so many of them had shown up, united in a common cause.
“If I can have your attention, please?” Nina Spencer Finley’s voice interrupted as she moved to the center of the room. Her cupcake basket gone, she addressed the more than twenty women. “Welcome to Salon Night and thank you to Trish for hosting us at The Strand.” She paused while everyone clapped for the hair salon owner. “I’m not much of a public speaker, so I’ll make this short. I wanted to do something for you all tonight to thank you for the role each and every one of you is playing in the trial of Jeremy Covington.”
The room quieted even more. It seemed even Daisy’s dog stilled at the mention of the man’s name. Gabriella swallowed hard, looking around at the women whose lives had been hurt in one way or another by him. Amy, too?
Gabriella wondered if her old friend had given some kind of testimony that she didn’t know about.
“I’m sure there are some of you who don’t consider yourselves public speakers, either, and yet you’re raising your voices to point out a monster in our midst to make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone else. Thank you for being brave enough to do that.”
Erin Finley cheered and slung an arm around her sister Heather. Amy silently rubbed Heather’s back. Maybe Amy and Erin were just here to support their sister.
“I read a book recently,” Nina continued, her expression grave. “And the author wrote that it only takes one voice—at just the right pitch—to start an avalanche.”
“Amen,” Daisy Spencer said softly.
“I want to thank you ladies for starting the avalanche that’s putting away Jeremy Covington for the rest of his days,” Nina continued. “Now, go get your nails done, have a cupcake and some champagne to celebrate your awesomeness.”
Gabriella ended up doing all those things. Over the next hour she had her fingers and toes painted in rose-petal pink since she wasn’t the artsy type like Erin, who painted a checkerboard on her index finger and all the other nails in alternating white and red.
But as Gabriella finally retrieved her coat to go home, she had to admit that she liked how her fingers looked with the pink nail polish. She’d had fun tonight. She liked hearing about what was going on in Heartache recently. And she even took a bit of pleasure learning how her brother had beat up Jeremy Covington when he and his son, J. D. Covington, were trying to kidnap Heather. Zach had downplayed his role when he’d shared the story with Gabriella, but Heather’s version was far more exciting.
Maybe she’d find healing here during this trial after all. If she wasn’t called to take the stand, she would benefit from being here when her attacker was convicted. And she’d promised herself she would speak to Clayton privately in the hope that confiding in him about the role he’d unknowingly played in that night would ease some of her old phobias about men and sex. It had taken her a long time to lose her virginity after that night, and her counselor had explained that her brain had associated sensual feelings with pain. She’d been too young to have positive sensual feelings prior to that awful night.
Although she’d successfully had sex—nice, normal, not painful sex even if it wasn’t anything to write home about—she still dealt with a strange and sickening mental cross-wiring of the sensual and the terrifying. If clearing the air with Clayton had any chance of helping her to heal fully, it was worth the embarrassment of wading through those old chats to untwine his real messages from the ones her stalker had sent.
Making quick work of her goodbyes, she edged through the salon door and out into the empty street. She’d parked a few doors down and by now, the only cars out here belonged to the women who’d attended the salon night. So it wasn’t like she worried about walking that short distance alone in the dark.
There were streetlights and she’d gotten over those old phobias about strange men launching themselves at her from dark corners just beyond her peripheral vision. Truly, she had. It’s just that she was back in Tennessee. And she’d been talking about Jeremy Covington. And Clayton.
Gulping in deep swallows of night air, she hoped some yoga breathing would settle her pulse rate. Maybe she should see if Clayton was still awake. It would be easy enough to spot his bike in front of one of the motel cabins.
She reached for her car door, pausing long enough to look up at the stars overhead in the cold night. A streak of light flashed through the sky almost as soon as she tipped her head back. A shooting star.
She made a wish on it without thought. Wishing for the first thing that came to mind.
Opening her eyes, she had to laugh. She could have wished for healing herself. Or a good trial outcome. Peace of mind for all the great women she’d visited with tonight.
Instead, she’d wished for a single, uncomplicated kiss from Clayton Travers.
CHAPTER FOUR
CLAYTON SAT OUTSIDE his motel cabin long after sunset, ignoring the fact that his fingertips were going numb in the cold night air. It wasn’t good for his guitar, he knew, to play in this kind of weather. Changes in temperature caused the wood to expand and contract. But banging out a tune was more for relaxation than anything. He liked to think his two-hundred-dollar pawn shop purchase helped him avoid the shrink’s chair, mellowing him out when he was wound too tight. His foster mom had helped him find ways to regulate the frenetic energy that churned through him after he’d gone nuts at his guidance counselor’s suggestion he try medication.
In theory, he knew the meds helped some people. But as a kid, he’d been scared spitless that any drug would be a gateway to turning into his parents. What kind of chance did he have of avoiding addiction given his genetics?
Guitar picking was safer. If a little tougher on the ears of unsuspecting neighbors.
Holding the last note of a sixties folk tune that Bob Dylan made famous, Clay debated going inside for the night. With his feet propped on the narrow porch rail and his back jammed into a corner on the wooden chair he’d borrowed from the dinette set inside, his joints had gone stiff from staying in one position for too long. Or from the cold. He pulled his feet off the railing just as a car turned off the interstate and into the parking lot.
The white Ford sedan had out-of-state plates. A rental, he guessed. And since there weren’t many guests staying in the motel cottages, he paid attention to who stepped out of the vehicle and under a streetlamp.
Gabriella.
“Are you going to play anything or is that just for show?” she called as she strode his way, a warm smile on her face.
She looked pretty. Dressed up a bit, like she’d been out to dinner with friends. Pale hair skimmed her shoulder where it fell loose from a ponytail. She wore a long gray dress belted over dark tights, plus a lightweight trench coat. Shiny earrings bobbed in the porch light as she leaned on his railing.
“I guarantee that if I play for you, it’ll be the last time you ask me to play.” Setting the guitar aside, he clapped a hand on the arm of the wooden rocker. “You’re welcome to have a seat if it’s not too cold for you.”
He asked because it was the neighborly thing to do. And because he was more than a little curious about her. But he was surprised when she joined him without hesitation.
“Thank you.” Stepping up onto the narrow planks, she seated herself carefully. There was a slow deliberation in the way she moved, as though she never rushed int
o anything. “I’m glad for the fresh air. I went to a Salon Night in town for a bunch of the women who are giving testimony in the Covington trial and it’s good to clear my head from the scent of fingernail polish.” She waggled her shiny nails, studying the pink polish. “I’m not usually one to spend time in a salon, but it was fun.”
She wore no ring. He’d noticed that over breakfast, too. And it occurred to him he wasn’t usually the kind of guy whose eye gravitated to a woman’s left hand.
“Pretty,” he observed lightly. “And probably a good distraction tonight when everyone is keyed up before the trial.”
“About that.” She tugged on the cuff of one loose sleeve of her coat, fingering the dark button that decorated a taupe-colored strap. “I’m definitely keyed up, which is part of the reason I ran out at breakfast this morning. I’m so sorry about that.”
She sounded both genuine and distressed.
“No need to apologize. It wasn’t a big deal.” He didn’t want her to worry about it. Hell, he’d rather have her thinking about reliving happier times when—he’d thought—they’d been on the verge of acting on an attraction.
“But I was actually planning on seeking you out tonight to tell you the other reason I left the table abruptly this morning.” She bit her lip, her pale forehead furrowed. “It’s awkward. And embarrassing.”
A breeze toyed with the loose strands of hair around her face, and his hand itched to smooth away the silky pieces. Put her at ease somehow.
“I wish it didn’t have to be. Are you sure you don’t want to sit inside where it’s warm?” The motel cabins were tiny, but each unit had a kitchenette. A small sofa.
“I’m fine.” She shook her head, but wrapped her arms around herself, hugging her coat tighter to her body. “I wouldn’t mention this at all, but I hoped if I talked to you about it, maybe it would put some unsettling parts of my past to rest for me.”
