Watching Their Steps

by Alana Terry

  Marx regarded Jordan with cool civility. “What are you still doin’ here?”

  Jordan gave him a tight smile. “This is where the cookies are. And I was filling my last deputy in before heading home.”

  “I didn’t realize the eighty-year-old innkeeper was also your deputy,” Marx said dryly.

  “I guess that makes her an excellent undercover agent then, doesn’t it?” Jordan replied with equal dryness. There was an obvious thread of tension between them. “No one suspects the eighty-year-old cookie baker.”

  “Where does she stash her gun?”

  Jordan shrugged. “Best guess? Either in her apron, or in the drawer next to the measuring spoons.” He leaned forward and opened one of the drawers near the kitchen sink. Sure enough, there was a sleek silver gun tucked between the utensils. “Measuring spoons,” he said as he closed the drawer.

  “Is she a retired deputy?” Marx asked.

  “No. She just likes to be able to protect her guests.”

  “Is it loaded?”

  “Of course it’s loaded.”

  Marx gave me a stern look as he said, “Don’t touch it.”

  I responded to his stern look with an indignant scowl. Just because I fired a gun once and missed the massive human target standing four feet in front of me, and accidentally pointed a loaded gun at my head when the noise startled me into covering my ears, did not mean I couldn’t handle a gun. It just meant it probably wasn’t the best idea.

  “You don’t know how to shoot a gun?” Jordan asked.

  “I know how to pull a trigger,” I replied.

  Jordan grinned. “There’s a bit more to it than that. But I can teach you.”

  “If anybody teaches her how to shoot a gun, it’s gonna be me. And it’s not gonna be right now,” Marx declared.

  The two men exchanged a tense, unfriendly look.

  I thought about just tiptoeing out of the room and letting them resolve whatever this was. But if I just randomly disappeared, that would probably only make things worse. “Do you two need a minute? Because . . . I can go glare at the possessed clock in the foyer if . . .”

  Marx released a heavy breath through his nose and pulled his eyes away from Jordan to look at me. “No, we don’t need a minute. Let’s find you somethin’ to eat.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him I wasn’t actually hungry, but thought better of it. At least they weren’t arguing or trying to burn holes into each other with their eyeballs. He opened the refrigerator and my jaw dropped. “Whoa.” That was a lot of food.

  The refrigerator was stuffed with drinks, fruits, meats, cheeses, desserts . . . I was pretty sure the innkeeper had managed to squeeze an entire grocery store inside of it. I really wanted to snoop through it and see what all was hidden in there. This was like Christmas.

  “That’s what a refrigerator is supposed to look like,” Marx pointed out, and I picked up on the note of chastisement in his voice.

  “I had things in my refrigerator,” I reminded him. “It’s not my fault your people took them all.”

  “They were drugged,” he said flatly. “And milk, pickles, and fruit punch do not constitute a stocked refrigerator.”

  “What’s in your refrigerator? Leftover Chinese takeout and lunch meat?” I asked.

  He frowned at me, which was all the confirmation I needed. “Just eat somethin’. Please.”

  I grinned and started rummaging through the food for something that might awaken my appetite. Stress tended to rob me of my desire to eat, and I knew I was losing weight, which wasn’t something I could afford to do.

  I pulled out some trail bologna and cheese cubes. Those would help me gain it back. And maybe a cookie. I glanced at the chocolate chunk cookie in Jordan’s hand. Yep, definitely a cookie.

  I grabbed a heavy jug of chocolate milk and thumped it on the table. Marx shook his head. “You would find the chocolate milk behind everythin’ else.” He offered me two glasses.

  I took that to mean he wanted some this time. I poured him a glass and handed it back. I glanced at Jordan, who was watching our interaction with quiet interest. “You want some?”

  “No thanks. I have enough sugar.” He raised the half-eaten cookie and gave me that same guarded smile he’d given me when we walked into the kitchen.

  Sugar. I smirked and glanced at Marx.

  He narrowed his eyes knowingly and said, “Don’t you dare.”

  I snickered and sat down at the table to work on my food. I nibbled on a cheese cube as I studied Jordan. He hadn’t been this guarded when we first arrived, so I must have done something to offend him.

  “Where are the cookies?” Marx asked.

  Jordan nodded to a stout jar on the counter covertly labeled “COOKIES.” Marx slid it to the edge of the counter and plucked off the lid to peer inside. “I take it she likes to bake.”

  “Oma bakes a fresh batch of cookies daily, and she usually sends some over to the department, because apparently she thinks in order to be sheriffs or deputies we all need to have waistlines that hang over our belts,” Jordan explained.

  “Oma?” Marx said with a questioning arch of his eyebrow.

  “She’s my grandma.”

  “So your grandmother owns the inn, your father is a retired sheriff, you’re the current sheriff, what does your mother do?” Marx wondered as he grabbed a cookie.

  “She runs the diner. And my father might have retired as a sheriff, but he’s on the mayoral council with my grandfather.”

  “Any part of this town your family doesn’t own?”

  Jordan thought about it for a moment. “The library. We don’t really do books.”

  I liked books, but I had never collected any because they were too heavy to take with me when I moved. “I wouldn’t mind going to the library.”

  “I think I know a place you’ll like better. I’ll take you there tomorrow,” Jordan offered. I hesitated, barely, at the thought of going anywhere alone with him, but he caught it. “Marx can come with us,” he added with a strained smile.

  I suddenly realized what the problem was. My reaction to him at the department earlier and my caution around him now bothered him. It wasn’t as if I was intentionally keeping him at arm’s length. I had tried not to shrink away earlier, but I couldn’t help it.

  I sighed and dropped my half-nibbled cheese cube on the plate. I rubbed my hands on my jeans as I stood up and announced, “I’m gonna . . . take a walk around the house, just to . . . get my bearings.”

  I didn’t have room in my chest for any more guilt than I was already carrying, and I didn’t want to feel guilty for being nervous or afraid.

  Marx saw straight through my flimsy excuse to leave the room despite my attempt to keep my expression neutral. “I’ll come with you.”

  “I’d rather be alone.” When he drew in a breath to object, I used the argument he had used to convince me I was safe in the hospital. “There’s a deputy on the porch, one in the backyard, and two officers in the kitchen. I’m safe as . . .”—I stumbled over the expression—”barns?”

  “Houses,” Marx corrected with a small smile. “You’re safe as houses.”

  I squinted as I considered the phrase. “Don’t houses get broken into a lot? That doesn’t sound very safe.”

  “It’s just an expression. Like . . . cute as a button.”

  “Yeah, that doesn’t make any sense either. Who decided buttons are cute?” I shrugged and walked out of the kitchen. As I wandered down the hallway, I studied the pictures that hung on the walls around the bronze sconces.

  There were a lot of family portraits with Jordan as a child, the innkeeper, and a couple whom I assumed were his parents.

  Jordan’s somber voice carried through the quiet house. “You know, I’ve imagined finding Holly hundreds of times. But I never imagined it would involve her being afraid of me.”

  I closed my eyes in silent regret. Somehow I always managed to hurt people without intending to.

  “I understand yo
u had expectations for this day,” Marx replied softly. “And that’s fine, so long as you understand that what you want to happen isn’t gonna happen. She isn’t gonna trust you right away, and your childhood friendship isn’t gonna pick up where it left off eighteen years ago.”

  “That’s one of my favorites,” an elderly woman’s voice stated from somewhere behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder to see the innkeeper. She was smiling affectionately as she gazed up at a picture on the wall: a blue-eyed blond boy sitting between two red-haired girls with an arm around one of them.

  “The little girl on the left—that’s Ginevieve. Sweetest child I’ve ever met. A little behind the other children on the intellectual track, but she could find sunshine on a cloudy day. The boy in the middle is my grandson, Jordy. He was always running around with those twins. I never saw him happier. The one on the right is Holly.” She paused and gave me a curious look. “How interesting that you have the same name and hair color.”

  I discreetly tugged my sleeve down over my bracelet, which was clearly visible in the picture. No one was supposed to know I was here. “That is interesting,” I offered, putting as much disinterest into my voice as I could manage.

  “Hmm,” she grunted. “Holly was a little ball of mischief, but she had a big heart. She used to sneak through here and steal my cookies. I thought she was just eating them all, and I was amazed she didn’t balloon into a little butterball. I knew something wasn’t right, so I followed her one day. There was a little boy in town whose parents was terrible poor. He got free lunches at school, but there was never much food at home. I followed her to his house and watched her crawl through one of those little pet doors and leave a bundle of cookies on their kitchen table with a note that said, ‘Love God.’”

  I smiled. I couldn’t imagine myself doing something that kind, let alone going into another person’s home without permission.

  “Obviously, I never brought it up. She was free to have as many cookies as she wanted, but I did have to let her parents know she was sneaking into someone’s house, because that just wasn’t safe.”

  “What did . . . she do then?” I had almost given myself away by asking what I had done. It was strange learning about my younger self from other people.

  She grinned. “Left them on the doorstep. She was not to be deterred. She was a determined child.” She released a mournful sigh. “Sometimes I miss those girls. Well . . .” She patted my shoulder gently and started down the hall. “I’m off to bed, dear.”

  “Thank you. For everything,” I called after her.

  She smiled and there was a knowing glint in her eyes. “Goodnight, sweet Holly. And the cookies are in the kitchen.” I had a feeling she knew exactly who I was.

  I wandered through the quiet, empty rooms of the house well into the night just to keep myself busy. I heard the resonating dong of the pendulum clock clear across the house as it struck midnight.

  I was staring through the glass French doors into the back yard when movement caught my eye. Marx strode into the room behind me, and I watched his reflection in the glass as he folded his arms over the back of an upholstered chair.

  “I hurt him, didn’t I?” I asked.

  Marx drew in a breath and released it slowly. “He doesn’t understand why you’re so afraid, that’s all.”

  I turned around slowly to face him and leaned back against the doors. “I . . .”

  “You don’t have to explain it to me.”

  The compassion in his eyes made my throat tighten. Somehow he already knew. “How do you . . . ?”

  He gave me a thin, sad smile. “I’m a detective, Holly; it’s what I do. I had it pretty well figured out before we went to Maine. Your reaction at the hospital when I suggested you have an exam done just cemented what I already suspected.”

  A trembling breath escaped me, and I hugged myself as I turned toward the doors. I stared out into the dark patch of trees.

  “I’m pretty sure I know who. I just don’t know when or . . . if it happened more than once,” he said, but his tone suggested he had his suspicions about that too.

  I closed my eyes, but it didn’t stop the tears from escaping. “So . . .” I began hesitantly. “Now that you know, does it . . . change the way you think of me?”

  “It does,” he admitted, and I flinched. It was always the people closest to you who knew just where to slip the knife, and his admission cut straight through me to the ever-present shame and humiliation my foster brother had left me with. I wiped at my wet face and wished suddenly that I could be invisible.

  “Oh, Holly, don’t cry,” he pleaded as he came around the chair to sit down on the coffee table closest to me. I stepped back from him, but he stretched out a hand and caught my wrist with feather-light fingers. “Please, just listen.” I stiffened at his touch and considered pulling away, but his grip remained gentle and loose.

  He wouldn’t hurt me. He’d proven that much.

  My nerves trembled as I tried to be still, and hurt slipped into my voice. “Listen to what? You already said—”

  “When I first met you, I saw a fragile girl on the verge of fallin’ to pieces. But I’ve realized that’s not who you are. You’re not fallin’ apart; you’re pullin’ yourself together. Knowin’ just some of what you’ve been through . . .” He shook his head, as if it were too difficult to wrap his mind around. “You not only survived, you picked yourself up and started to build a life. That takes a phenomenal amount of strength, and I am . . . amazed and proud of the young woman you’ve fought so hard to become. And I’m very proud to be a part of your life.”

  No one—in the eighteen years I could remember—had ever said they were proud of me. I wasn’t even sure how to respond.

  I slipped my wrist free of his fingers, and he made no effort to hold me against my will. I stepped back from him and regarded him with doubt and fragile hope.

  “I mean it, Holly,” he said, and his green eyes shone with sincerity. He did mean it. He was proud to be a part of my life, and I . . . I didn’t know what to do with that. He knew so much about me—so much I never intended for anyone to know. I had always assumed that if someone learned the truth, they would either look at me with pity or walk away because they didn’t want to deal with my issues.

  I sank down on the edge of a chair.

  “I know you’re probably waitin’ for the other shoe to drop, but there isn’t one,” he said.

  “There’s always another shoe. They come in pairs.”

  “It’s gone.” He shrugged. “Lost, chewed up by the dog, had an unfortunate encounter with a lawn mower. There is no other shoe, so you can stop waitin’.”

  I swiped a tear from my cheek and smiled. “A lawn mower?”

  His face squinted as if he’d just eaten something bitter. “I don’t know who left it on the lawn. It wasn’t me. I was just drivin’ the mower. And it was less of a shoe and more of a . . . one of those flipper things that people wear in the summer.”

  I covered my face and laughed. “A flip-flop. You mowed over a flip-flop?”

  “Like I said. It was unfortunate. Especially the mess.”

  I sniffled and wiped away the rest of the tears from my cheeks as the laughter faded. I appreciated his ability to lighten the mood, but there was one more important thing I needed to discuss with him. I rubbed my hands together anxiously. “I don’t want Jordan to know . . . about . . . what Collin’s done . . . to me.” Jordan and I were already trying to find our balance on very thin ice; I didn’t want to make it even thinner.

  “It’s not my secret to share. And you don’t have to tell him; you don’t owe him that.” He rose from the chair. “Why don’t we get some sleep? It’s been a long day, and tomorrow’s gonna be another long one.”

  I didn’t think I could sleep in a strange place, but I would try. He walked me back to my room in silence, and I was pretty sure he stood guard outside my door long after I finished writing in my journal and closed my eyes to sleep.

 
Chapter 36

  CRISP LEAVES STIRRED around my feet as I stood on the sidewalk beside Jordan and stared up at the old wooden sign that creaked in the bitter breeze. It was late November—the time of year when autumn was still clinging and winter was breathing small snow flurries into the air.

  The background of the sign was painted with blue and purple diagonal stripes and the worn black letters read, “Criss Cross Books.” Recognition stirred through my memory. I had painted the purple stripes, and Gin had painted the blue: our favorite colors.

  “Criss Cross?” I said aloud.

  “Cristopher Cross. Your dad,” Jordan explained. “He loved books. He opened this store when you and Gin were six. You guys spent a lot of time here.”

  I looked over the front window that was decorated with colored leaves and cardboard pumpkins. Someone had clearly taken over after my father died. “Who runs it now?”

  “Georgetta. She was a friend of the family. She decided to leave the name of the store as it was in memory of them. You wanna go in?”

  I looked over my shoulder at Marx, who had decided to keep his distance and allow Jordan and me time to get to know each other. He could’ve stayed behind and let us explore the town alone, but I didn’t think he was any fonder of that idea than I was.

  He smiled at me. I occasionally checked over my shoulder just to make sure he was still there. A bell tinkled softly when Jordan opened the door to the store and held it for me. Right. This was the part where I walked through and he followed.

  I strode stiffly into the store and paused just inside the doorway as the scent of must and old books swirled around me, settling into my bones with a warm and peaceful sense of home.

  Rows of bookshelves lined the room, and little upholstered benches with enormous pillows were scattered around the shop. There was a round fountain in the center of the room encircled by a blue-and-purple bench.

  I remembered curling up on that bench with Gin as I read to her. She had struggled with the words, but her favorite book was The Wizard of Oz. She’d said it was about home.