“Okay. I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”
“Zoe thinks my accident may have happened around the same time Tina Fowler was killed.”
Michael thought back to the interaction with the waitress. “But Tina died early in the morning on her way to help open the diner for breakfast.”
“Right. But you and Zoe didn’t find me until eight in the morning, and you left me at about midnight to go deejay.”
Michael’s heart clenched at the memory. “Yeah, I wasn’t looking at a clock, but midnight sounds about right.”
“There’s almost eight hours where I can’t account for what happened. It only makes sense that I was injured somewhere between midnight and eight in the morning.”
Michael let the timeline sink in. Christ, she was right. But that didn’t automatically mean the events were connected.
“Em, the diner is at least a good ten minutes drive from Sadie’s Hollow. What are the chances that you strayed that far?”
“I don’t know. I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it is a pretty strange coincidence, right? I mean, how many hit and runs do you think happen in a town of that size? It can’t be many.”
“I agree. It is a strange coincidence, but I don’t see how the events are connected. You had scrapes on your knees, and you were covered in some sort of chalky dust. But the only real injury was to your hand. It doesn’t appear that anyone tried to do something to you as extreme as what happened to poor Tina Fowler. And we don’t even know…”
Em released a long breath. “We don’t even know if there was a somebody in my situation. It could have gone down like everyone in Langley Park thinks, and I really am that reckless girl who got drunk and high and injured herself. Maybe I’m grasping at straws, at anything that proves I didn’t do this to myself on purpose. I don’t have much time to figure this all out.”
He led her over to a bench. “We’re going to figure this out. We’ll find the answers. I just don’t know if Tina Fowler is part of the equation.”
Christ, he wished he had a fucking crystal ball that would give them the answer. He wished he could snap his fingers and Em wouldn’t have to leave, wouldn’t have to sell the Foursquare. His heart sank. They were meant to be together.
He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers. He tried to be positive. One thing at a time, MacCarron. She’s not leaving tomorrow. There’s time. He repeated the mantra like a prayer.
“Do you hear that?” Em tilted her head. “It’s music.”
He heard it, too. The one-two-three beat of Johann Strauss’ “Vienna Waltz” whispered in the night air.
He shook his head and chuckled. “I think I know what that is. Come on.”
Michael led Em toward the pavilion that overlooked Lake Boley. Tonight, the usually open pavilion was fitted with white tent flaps.
The outlines of people dancing inside reminded him of when he and Em would lay on his bedroom floor with a flashlight as their fingers created barking dogs and soaring butterflies on the ceiling.
“It’s the high school cotillion kids.”
“Cotillion?” Em asked.
“Yeah, you learn table manners and how not to break wind in public. It’s like Etiquette 101, and a teenager’s worst nightmare.”
Em laughed. “And the waltz?”
“That’s the worst part,” he said as they watched the shadows move in awkward pairs. “You have to dance with some girl while the adult chaperones watch over.”
“At least they get to listen to a beautiful piece of music,” Em said, swaying to the beat.
“I can tell you from experience, that’s the last thing those kids are thinking about,” Michael added with a smirk.
Em closed her eyes and leaned into him.
He had an idea. He raised their joined hands and rested his palm against her back.
Em’s eyes fluttered open. “What are you doing?”
“Waltzing. You know, the box step. But I can’t remember if I’m at the top of the box, or you’re supposed to be at the top of the box.”
Em relaxed in his arms. “I don’t know anything about boxes. Plus, you’re asking the wrong girl. The closest I’ve ever gotten to a dance was setting up for the dances at the school I worked at in Australia.”
“But don’t you work at a school for deaf kids?” He abandoned the waltz and reverted to swaying from side to side.
Em’s face lit up. “Just because they can’t hear, doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy music and dancing. They totally feel the beat, especially with drums. People are developing these really cool installations that turn sound waves into lights and vibrations. The deaf community has really embraced it.”
“You’re happy in Australia?” The words escaped before he could stop them.
Em glanced away, but just when he thought she wasn’t going to answer, she met his gaze.
“I needed Australia. I needed to get away after I was injured. I was so lost.”
“I’m so sorry—” he began, but she cut him off.
“Please don’t. Don’t apologize again. I was angry. So angry, Michael. But I know you and Zoe never wanted me to get hurt. I think I always knew that. I just had nothing to hold onto anymore. Music was gone. I felt like life as I’d known it was over. I turned all that rage into blaming you and Zoe.”
Her blue eyes deepened with emotion.
“The first year was rough. I wanted to stay in bed all day. But my mom and grandma were firm believers in work being good for the soul. If I wasn’t at the Centre helping my mom, I was with my Grandma Mary. So, I spent the majority of my day in silence communicating through sign language. I could only sign with my right hand for a while, which was annoying, but, as time passed, my left hand got stronger.”
“I was sad to hear your grandma passed. I wish I could have met her.”
Em’s eyes shined. “I didn’t handle her death well. I’d only been back in Australia for a couple of years, and then she was gone. I started going out, drinking, wearing all that makeup. That’s when I started remembering more of what happened to me.”
“I didn’t think you remembered more than those few things.”
“Tall men, a bumpy bridge, and the Paganini piece,” Em offered.
Michael nodded. “Yeah, is there more?”
Em shook her head. “No, but sometimes when I was reckless, like really out of control with alcohol or sex, I’d feel like I was standing on this edge, like the answers were somewhere trapped in my head, but just out of reach. The more reckless I was, the closer I felt to remembering the truth.” She looked away. “I’m not proud of the person I’ve become.”
“Em, you did what you had to do to survive. I’m not judging you. I’d never think less of you.”
Her lips curved into the ghost of a smile. “Well, you know my mom. She wasn’t going to put up with me staying out all night. She gave me an ultimatum: pull it together and get a real job as a teacher’s assistant at the Centre’s school or move out. My gran left me a little money after she passed, but I was only granted access to it after I turned twenty-one. So, I was pretty much broke. I took the job, and it was the best thing for me at the time. It gave me a buffer from music. You know, up until a couple of years ago, I couldn’t even handle hearing someone whistling on the street. And the kids made it easy to forget. The eight hours I spent at school each day were like a refuge from all that anger raging through me.”
Strauss’ waltz ended and Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite No. 2 filled the air like a jaunty soundtrack for a flying trapeze act.
“You didn’t answer my question, Em. Are you happy in Australia?”
They swayed together in the moonlight surrounded by trees cast in twinkling lights. It was the kind of night that inspired enchanted tales of brave knights and dreamy damsels. With her hair hanging in loose waves and the soft light warming her features, Em looked like a fairy-tale princess, ageless in beauty and grace.
She had only been home a little more than a week. But that w
eek had seemed like a lifetime. He’d gone from living each day, counting the hours, and waiting for the next crisis with his father to counting the seconds until he could run his hands through her hair and make her tremble with his touch.
She met his gaze, and he nearly drowned in the endless pools of blue.
“This is the happiest I’ve been in twelve years.” She bit her lip. “No, that’s not right.”
Uncertainty shot through him. He tried to speak, but she silenced him by pressing her index finger to his lips.
“I have never been happier than I am, right now, here with you.”
He cupped her face. “We’re better together,” he whispered, relief and hope lacing his words.
Em pushed up on her toes and pressed her lips against his. Something beyond this world passed between them. A silent contract that didn’t require lawyers or notaries. A connection that went soul deep.
Michael gathered her into his arms and carried her to a private spot behind the tented pavilion. The sound of laughter and clinking glasses hummed over the music drifting from beneath the tent flaps like smoke signals calling them back to a place only the two of them knew how to find. The dancing portion of the cotillion event had ended, and the string of waltzes faded as Chopin’s Nocturne 20 in C Sharp Minor streamed from the tent like rays of warm sunlight.
That song. Their song.
He lifted her against the side of the pavilion, and their breath grew more urgent, more ragged. With one hand supporting her ass, Michael reached between her thighs.
“How much do you like these tights?” he growled, feeling the thin fabric that separated her sex from his touch.
He caressed her through the thin barrier.
“Not much,” she breathed.
“Good,” he said and ripped the material to shreds. She wasn’t wearing any panties. “Jesus, Mary Michelle! First, those fucking pajama bottoms and now these tights. As far as I’m concerned, I never want you wearing underwear again.”
She giggled into his ear, but he silenced her by undoing his trousers, freeing his cock, and sliding deep inside of her. The rush of the cold night air and the heat of their union sparked an inferno where their bodies met and became one. The need to claim her surged through him like a storm raging on the open sea. Waves crashed and snarled in nature’s battle between chaos and harmony.
Michael gripped Em’s ass and guided her body up and down in steady strokes. “I never want to lose you again,” he said, doubling his pace.
She answered him with puffs of breath tangled with soft cries of pleasure. She tensed her muscles and entwined her fingers into his hair. He could feel the tight tremor of her core as she neared release. He met her mouth with a fierce kiss, stifling her cries as her body shuddered around his thrusting cock.
He found the perfect rhythm, and the muscles in his arms flexed and contracted. Unable to hold back, he joined her, flying over the edge. Her breath, her cries, and the slide of her body against his produced the sexiest trio of sound he had ever heard.
Em exhaled a satisfied little hum, and Michael inhaled the faint orange scent of her shampoo. They would always be better together. She belonged in Langley Park. She belonged with him. He didn’t have much time, but he would use every minute he had to prove it to her.
22
Em leaned against the counter in her Foursquare’s kitchen and handed a mug of coffee to Ben Fisher. “The house is really coming together. Your guys do amazing work.”
The past few weeks had flown by in a flurry of craftsmen working to update and repair the old house. A fresh coat of paint had ushered out the last traces of tobacco smoke, and her childhood home was transforming from a space trapped in the 1950s to a sophisticated, move-in ready home.
“It’s looking good.” Ben inspected the newly installed espresso-stained hardwood flooring in the Foursquare’s kitchen where well-worn linoleum once rested. “Is Michael around?”
She smiled. She and Michael had fallen into a comfortable rhythm over the last three weeks. Monday through Friday, she would visit her father and oversee the renovations while Michael put in long hours at the office. On Saturdays, they would visit bridges near Sadie’s Hollow. And, while nothing substantive had come to light, they were steadily making their way through the list Zoe had put together.
Sundays were spent in bed finding new uses for grandma’s pearls, and every moment they weren’t a tangle of writhing, sweat-slicked bodies, they were in the carriage house composing, mixing, and making music together.
Em took a sip of coffee. “No, he had to go meet with a client. People seem to love to change their wills over the holidays.”
“But today’s Thanksgiving?”
“Michael says people get a little tit for tat this time of year. A nephew choosing to go to Cabo over the holidays instead of coming home to pay homage to Great Aunt Whatever could see himself written out of an inheritance.”
“Ah, the life of being Langley Park’s most trusted attorney,” Ben said and headed toward the front door.
Em smiled at the comment and grabbed her coat as they passed through the foyer.
“Do you need me to drop you off somewhere?” Ben asked, looping a scarf around his neck.
“No thanks. I feel like a walk. I wanted to pick up a strudel for my dad from that little bakery in the town center before everything shuts down this afternoon for Thanksgiving.”
“Are you and Michael going to the Senior Living Campus today?”
“Yeah, Michael says they put on a pretty nice spread for Thanksgiving. Plus, we can both be with our fathers that way.”
“How is Noland?”
“He has good and bad days. They’ve adjusted his meds, and he hasn’t had any violent episodes recently.”
“That’s good to hear,” Ben said. He clicked his key fob and unlocked his car. “Send my regards to your father and Mr. MacCarron. And don’t forget, my parents’ holiday party is just a few weeks away. My mother is adamant that you and Michael join us this year.”
“We wouldn’t miss it.”
Ben’s car disappeared down Foxglove Lane. Em tightened the belt of her trench coat and set off toward the town center. As she walked, she started going over all the things that still needed to be done with the house. Ben was making it easier by connecting her with reputable contractors, but she still had to pick a realtor and have professional photos taken.
Was she really going to sell this house? There was no choice. She had to. Her father needed the revenue from the sale of the Foursquare to afford his assisted living cottage. It was as simple as that.
She took out her phone and scanned through a listing of local realtors. A few looked promising. She kept scrolling down when she careened into a body on the sidewalk.
“Pardon me. I’m completely guilty of distracted walking,” she said.
“This may just be the way we greet each other,” Kyle replied and adjusted his camera bag.
“Hey, Kyle! I’m so glad I ran into you.” She glanced at the bag. “I need to hire a photographer to take some pictures of my Foursquare. Have you ever photographed houses?”
“I have.” Kyle shifted from side to side. “I’ve done quite a bit of work photographing old homes for several historical societies in Kansas and Missouri.”
“Can I see some samples of your work? Do you have a website?”
He glanced away and shook his head. “None of that work is online. I do have the printed photographs at my place.”
Em looked at her watch. It was a little past ten. She had at least a couple of hours before she was due to meet Michael at the Senior Living Campus.
“I have some time right now,” she offered. “You still live in Langley Park, right?”
He nodded and shifted his stance again. “Yeah, I do.”
“Do you live near your mom’s place? Wasn’t she on the west side of Langley Park?”
His smile wobbled. “I live in my mom’s carriage house. I’ve got a studio apartment on the secon
d floor. Sounds kind of pathetic, doesn’t it?”
Em met his nervous smile with a reassuring one. “Kyle, I’ve lived with my mother for the last twelve years. I’m the last person who would judge you for living in your mom’s carriage house.”
“Home sweet home,” Kyle said, opening the side door of his carriage house.
The first-floor garage portion of the carriage house contained what looked like a car under a thick canvas. The remaining space was crammed tight with boxes.
Em lifted the edge of the canvas. “This isn’t your truck, is it?
“No, no,” Kyle answered, smoothing the canvas back in place. “Just the old beater I used to drive in high school.”
“Michael kept his Range Rover from high school. What is it with guys and their first cars?”
Kyle gestured to the staircase leading to the second floor. “It’s not always easy saying goodbye to the past.”
She met Kyle’s gaze. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
She climbed the stairs and listened to Kyle’s heavy footfalls on the steps behind her.
“Have you had any luck figuring out what happened that night at Sadie’s Hollow?” he asked.
She entered the carriage house apartment. The rectangular space was divided into a kitchen and living and dining area. A large table at the far end was cluttered with photos and photography equipment.
“No, Michael and I have visited several bridges in the area, but nothing’s clicked yet.
Kyle flipped on a few lamps and pawed through a stack of photographs. “I’m sorry to hear that. Let me grab some of those house photos for you. As you can tell, my organizational skills aren’t top notch.”
While Kyle flipped through photos, Em studied his bookcase. He had several framed pastoral scenes, a few well-worn classics by Steinbeck and Dickens, and a violin sat dormant under a layer of dust.
“Not playing much violin anymore?”
“No,” he answered sifting through another pile. “I quit playing after high school.”
A fresh paperback copy of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America sat on the shelf. Its spine was smooth and void of any creases or cracks.
The Complete Langley Park Series (Books 1-5) Page 42
