“He …” Eva’s voice stuck. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I think Father Neezrahiah realized he’d been wrong about the end of the world. He didn’t want any more press coverage. So he made Dagon turn himself in.”
“So this was supposed to have been some big going-away party? Take out as many nonbelievers as you can before the aliens swooped in to save you?”
“Something like that. But I didn’t want …” She held up the picture. “I didn’t know this would happen.”
“Really? You grabbed a rifle and followed the crazy guy because you thought he was going to do what? Shoot rabbits?”
Eva flinched. “You weren’t there.”
“I didn’t have to be there to know killing people is wrong.”
Her patience snapped. “You think everyone can be Lawrence Oates, nobly putting the needs of the group above their own. It’s a nice concept when you grow up safe and protected with a family who loves you. But what about when every day is a matter of survival, the strong prey on the weak, and there’s nowhere to run? You’ve been sheltered, Ben. You don’t understand.”
“I was a cop in Atlanta for six years,” Ben growled. “I’ve seen things you’d better hope to God you never have to see. I know just as well as you do about survival. But I’ve also seen people choose to be heroic and brave.”
Eva paused, and her voice was tight when she spoke next. “Were they seventeen years old and almost starving to death?”
“Some of them, yes.” He stared at the ocean, fists clenched on his thighs.
There was not much more she could say to that. Her only defense had been trumped and hew wasn’t in the mood to listen to excuses.
“If I could go back and change it, I would,” she said quietly. “But I can’t.”
“Where’s your brother?” Ben asked. “You bailed him out of jail earlier; where’d he go?”
“He left.” She’d loaded up his backpack with chicken salad sandwiches and watched him walk away, toward the edge of town, where he hoped to pick up a ride from a semi headed west.
“Why did he go?”
“He knew he wasn’t welcome here,” she sighed. “And he wanted to try and find our father.”
Ben turned to glare at her. “Why didn’t you go with him?” he demanded.
Brown was a warm color—melted chocolate and rich coffee and deep, loamy earth. But Ben’s brown eyes were cold and flat, holding no warmth or understanding.
Eva felt the blow of his look, the force of it, as keenly as if he’d struck her. She ducked her head, falling instinctively into the defensive position she’d learned in the Family—keep your head down, don’t make eye contact, hope the threat goes away as soon as possible.
“I thought—” She grabbed a handful of sand and watched as it trickled through her fingers, like Indigo Bay was spilling from her grasp. This sense of normalcy, this chance at a quiet, peaceful life, was ebbing away. “I’m happy here,” she whispered.
She wanted him to take her in his arms, to press her head against his chest and hear his heartbeat, feel his lips against her hair as their breathing became synchronized. She wanted to close her eyes and only know the feel and smell of him, to draw strength from his love. But he made no move toward her and they sat for a long time in silence until, with a heavy sigh, he got to his feet.
“I’m sorry, Eva. You’ve obviously been through some terrible things and it makes my heart hurt to think of them. But I can’t …” He shook his head. “I need some time to think about this.”
He left her sitting on the blanket next to the picnic basket, and she watched to see if he’d look back.
He didn’t.
Chapter 11
Eva knelt in front of the bookshelf, loading her books into an open cardboard box. Sam was coming in an hour and she had this last box to pack. She surveyed the stack of boxes by the door, already full and waiting. There were less than a dozen, holding the life she’d built in Indigo Bay. For someone who had started out with nothing, it was respectable, but bitterness churned in her stomach.
It had been a week since Ben had left her sitting on the sand alone, and she’d finally stopped hoping he would call. Evidentially through thinking about it, he’d decided that whatever had been between them was gone now, disappearing as quickly as a sunset, ruined by one grainy picture and a crazy man who shot at helicopters.
This pain was worse than the hurt when she’d left the Family. That had been a choice and she knew something better would come of it. But this was just rejection and emptiness and a hollow feeling that sat sluggishly her chest like a lump of clay.
She’d called Miss Eulalie and quit her job, but she hadn’t told Marjorie she was moving out. Cowardly. But she couldn’t bring herself to face Ben’s mother. She had saved enough rent for the next month and planned to leave it behind on the counter along with a note for Marjorie to find.
She’d been tempted to add a paragraph for Ben to the note, ask Marjorie to give him a message. But whenever she tried to write to him, her mind came up blank. There was nothing to say. He obviously wanted her to go.
His feelings were understandable, but the hurt was still there, gnawing at the corners of the happy memories they’d shared, staining them with sorrow. It felt like Ben had opened up a room in her heart she hadn’t known existed. A place where she could trust someone … love someone. And right as she was growing accustomed to this new feeling of wholeness, he’d slammed the door shut again and disappeared, taking everything good with him.
Her text alert rang and she leaped up from the floor, hurrying for her purse. For one brief moment, she grasped at the wild hope it was Ben. He’d say he was sorry and he’d come over and they could talk, then he’d take her in his arms and she could rest her head on his chest and everything would be okay.
But it was Sam, texting to tell her he would be a few minutes late.
Eva sent him a quick reply, then placed the last of her books into the box and ran the line of packing tape down the seam with a sticky screech. She pushed the box across the room to join the small pile, then did one more walkthrough of the tiny apartment. Everything was quiet and clean. She’d spent the last two days scrubbing every surface, wanting to leave behind nothing, not even a stray hair, to indicate she’d been here.
Knowing he was unwelcome in Indigo Bay, Sam had hitchhiked to Savannah. He’d reported that he was working odd jobs, living in the homeless shelter, and saving money. After five weeks, he’d even saved enough for a small car.
He’d adapted remarkably fast to life on the outside and Eva couldn’t help but feel a small twinge of envy at his fearlessness. She’d always thought of herself as the strong one, but Sam had needed much less help to get established than she had. And now thanks to the money they’d both been saving, and Ben taking himself out of the picture, they could proceed with the next step in the plan—finding their dad.
The idea of her father was all that kept Eva going at times. Life with Ben had been a daydream—perfect, but built on nothing. Hopefully, something else waited. Maybe not true love, but maybe normalcy. A life where she had a father and a brother, a foundation for starting over.
She shut the door to the bedroom and walked through the dark apartment, taking a seat on the couch. The clock on the stove said half past nine and the sunset was fading through the closed blinds. Sam would be here soon.
Eva clutched the folds of her skirt as a sick wave of anxiety pounded through her. It would be okay, it had to be. She and Sam, together, away from the Family and looking for their dad—it was what she’d always hoped for, right? What she’d hoped for before Ben.
Her heart twisted and she closed her eyes, trying to push the hurt away. What was done was done. She would find a way to live with the memories and dreams of him that would forever snag her heart.
A soft tap sounded on the door and she leapt up from the couch. Sam stood on the porch, hands jammed deep in the pockets of his jacket. He’d shaved and tied his long hair back in
ponytail, but his cheeks were as hollow as ever. He gathered her into a long hug and his denim jacket against her nose smelled smoky and sweet.
“You okay?” she asked, pulling back from the hug and motioning him to come inside.
He managed a wan smile. “I guess. A little nervous.”
“It’s going to be okay,” she said. “At least we’re together.”
“Yeah.” His Adam’s apple worked as he swallowed hard.
They stood in silence for a moment, Eva not sure what she was waiting for him to say, but finally she waved her hand at the stack of boxes. “Well, this is all my stuff. If you can help me load it …” She broke off at the look of surprise washing over his face.
“We don’t have room,” Sam said. “The car’s really small. It’ll fit about half that.”
Eva’s heart wrenched again. Her things were nothing special—books, clothes, household items, most of it secondhand. But they were hers, things she’d worked for, part of a life she’d built painstakingly, bit by bit.
But they were just things. Once they were settled, she and Sam could get new things.
“Okay,” she sighed. “Let’s take what we can and I’ll have to leave the rest.”
The little car sat at the base of the white-painted steps. It was once maroon, though much of the paint had peeled back to reveal the gray body beneath, spotted with rust. One of the tires had a hubcap missing.
“Sorry, I warned you about the car,” Sam said a little sheepishly. He brushed by her, two boxes balanced in his arms.
“It’s fine. It runs, right?”
“It’ll get us where we need to go,” he said, ducking his head as he fumbled for the trunk latch.
They loaded everything as tightly as possible in the trunk and the back seat, but Eva ended up having to leave three boxes behind. She lugged them back up the stairs and Sam waited in the car while she stood one last time in the doorway of the little apartment.
“C’mon, we don’t have much time,” Sam called.
She raised her hand in acknowledgement, then crossed the room where the letter sat on the counter. In a surge of sentimentality, she’d weighted it down with the piece of sea glass Abbie had found on the beach the night she’d joined the Andrews family for the crab boil. The day she’d met Ben.
Sam honked twice and Eva put the piece of sea glass in the pocket of her sweater.
The ice tinkled as the glass hit the table with a soft thump, and Ben raised his gaze from his phone to the warm smile of Miss Caroline, the owner of Sweet Caroline’s Cafe. She was in her mid-fifties but looked younger, with her short brown hair and sparkling eyes.
“On the house,” Miss Caroline said with a wink. “You just get off work?”
Ben was still in full uniform with his utility belt, holding his pistol, Taser, handcuffs, and other gear. It weighed more than twenty pounds, but he hardly noticed the weight anymore. “I was off a few hours ago; haven’t felt like going home,” he mumbled. “Thanks for the tea.”
He took a long drink. The caffeine probably wasn’t the best thing for him at ten o’clock at night, but he didn’t care. It wasn’t like he’d be getting much sleep anyway.
“Anytime.” Miss Caroline glanced around the mostly empty dining room and slid into the booth opposite him. “How are things going?”
Ben shrugged. “The usual. Nothing much to report.” After Atlanta, he’d been eager for a job with nothing much to report, and so far, the police work was going about as expected. But since his breakup with Eva, everything had seemed flatter—the job more tedious, the nights longer, the world less exciting in general. It was like the year when his mother had swapped out their traditional Christmas lights for energy-saving LEDs. The tree had always been his favorite part of Christmas, the warm, twinkling lights full of welcome and magic. But the new blue-white lights had drained the magic away, making the tree seem flat and cold.
Indigo Bay without Eva felt the same way. Cold and impersonal and stiff.
“We’re sure glad you’re back,” Miss Caroline said in a motherly sort of way. “And I’ll bet that pretty girl at the chocolate shop is glad you’re here too. Eulalie told me y’all are dating.”
His hand tightened around the cold glass of tea. “We were. Not anymore.”
She was silent for a minute, and though Ben kept his eyes focused on the Formica tabletop, he knew she watched him thoughtfully. “That’s too bad,” she said. “She seems like a nice girl. When I go in to buy caramels, and you know I have to have my caramels, she’s always been helpful and polite. Eulalie said she’s a hard worker.”
Did she tell you she’s a cop killer? Ben swallowed back the bitterness welling in him. “I guess,” he mumbled. He took another sip of tea, wishing for a late-night rush so Miss Caroline would find something else to do. But no one came in, and so they sat quietly for several minutes, Ben growing increasingly uncomfortable under her scrutiny.
“Why’d you come home, Ben?” she finally asked gently.
He shrugged. Sweet Caroline’s was a hub of down gossip; she undoubtedly already knew why he’d left Atlanta. “Ready for a change, I guess,” he said, unwilling to make this easy for her.
“There were things about Atlanta you didn’t like, then?”
“Well, yeah.”
“So you changed your situation.”
His shoulders hunched as he began to see where she was going with this.
“I probably don’t know everything.” Miss Caroline took his silence as permission to continue. “But Eulalie’s said enough that I know Miss Eva is only trying to change her situation.”
“Did she put you up to this?”
Miss Caroline shook her head. “I was in the chocolate shop yesterday and Eulalie said Eva quit suddenly. Now you’re sitting in my cafe on a Friday night looking sad as a whipped puppy when you should be out with her, having fun.”
The door opened and a couple Ben didn’t recognize came in—tourists, most likely.
“I’ve got to get back to work. But think about it?” Miss Caroline reached out and patted his hand.
Ben nodded.
“It’s good to see you again.” She slid from the booth.
“Yeah, you too,” he managed. “And thanks for the tea.”
“Anytime, sugar.”
She moved off to seat the couple and Ben turned back to his thoughts. It was several minutes before he realized he was staring at the glass case near the front counter where Miss Caroline kept a huge array of mouthwatering pies and other desserts.
The memory washed over him as if it had been yesterday: his first job. Miss Caroline had hired him to help clean up around the cafe—six dollars an hour to take out the trash, mop the floors, and scrape the grills.
He’d been mopping the tile floor, eager to please and going after it with a bit too much gusto, and he’d put the end of the mop handle right through the dessert case. It shattered, spraying glass over a dozen pies and four lemon cakes.
The dining room had quieted instantly as customers stared and Ben stood stock-still, his heart pumping frantically as Miss Caroline came running from the back to see what had caused the commotion. He winced, ready for her to start yelling and fire him, but she’d only asked if he was hurt, then helped him clean up the mess and haul the case to the dumpster.
“It happens,” she’d said when he’d tried to apologize. “I don’t fire people for making mistakes, Ben.” They’d been without a dessert case for a week while she had a new one delivered, and Ben had worked the whole summer and earned enough money to buy the Connelly GT Slalom waterski he’d wanted so badly.
He’d been seventeen when he put the mop through the dessert case. The same age as Eva had been when some nutjob thrust a rifle into her hands and ordered her outside to fight a hovering police helicopter. And he hadn’t been starving to death or had twelve years of conditioning in a tyrannical cult under his belt.
Ben’s stomach dropped as the realization hit him. He’d transferred his own guilt ov
er Griffin to Eva, as if being angry at her over the FBI agent’s death could somehow make up for Griffin being shot. The agent’s death wasn’t her fault. And Griffin’s injury wasn’t his fault. The only thing he’d accomplished was to lose the woman he loved.
He grabbed his phone and checked the time. By the time he went home, showered, and changed, it’d be almost eleven. Would she still be awake? Maybe he could skip the shower. His heart pounded at the thought of what he’d say to her. Would she accept his apology, or would she throw him out? He had to try.
Ben stood and dug his wallet from his back pocket. He put ten dollars on the table and waved to Miss Caroline on his way out of the cafe. She waved back, beaming.
His phone rang as he reached his police cruiser and his pulse jumped, then settled back down when he saw the unknown number. He punched the green button. “Officer Andrews.”
“Ben? It’s Miss Lucille.”
Ben bit back a groan. She probably wanted him to go arrest the McCormick twins straight from their beds or something. “Hello, Miss Lucille.” He leaned back to gaze at the sky, working to stay calm and professional. “What can I do for you?”
“Where is Eva going in the middle of the night with that strange man?”
The stars spun overhead. Ben snapped to attention. “What strange man?”
“He helped her load a bunch of boxes into a little car a few minutes ago, and they left. I didn’t know she was moving. Why’s she moving? And so late at night?”
“I’ll be there in five minutes.” Ben threw his phone onto the passenger seat of his squad car and cranked the engine.
Eva rested her forehead against the window and stared into the darkness speeding past. They’d been traveling about an hour and neither she nor Sam had had much to say. They’d made no comment when they passed the big sign at the edge of town thanking visitors for coming to Indigo Bay and reminding them to return soon. Sam was probably glad to see the last of the place, but Eva’s heart ached. It had been the closest she’d ever come to feeling at home. How long would it be before she found that feeling again? Would she ever find it again?
Sweet Illusions (Indigo Bay Sweet Romance Series Book 4) Page 10
