Stay with Me (Misty River Romance, A Book #1)

by Becky Wade

  Yet he also couldn’t afford to stand aside and watch Gen pile the rare abilities God had given her into the back of her car and then drive that car off a cliff. Gen was gifted. Very.

  Kayden had been gifted, too. It still made him sick to his stomach when he thought about how Kayden’s potential had been spilled like a box of puzzle pieces.

  It felt as though God had given him a level of responsibility where Gen was concerned. God was doing a lot through her—all of which was at risk. Was he supposed to fight to protect her gifts? If so, how would he know when he’d crossed the line from intervening because it’s what God wanted into intervening because of his own sad history?

  It wasn’t his job to keep Gen alive or to save her ministry. But what was his job here?

  He had no idea.

  He couldn’t get mixed up with Gen.

  He’d couldn’t stand back from Gen.

  He was at war with himself, and he didn’t know what to do.

  Natasha

  I can feel Genevieve trembling beside me, and she’s making a whimpering sound. I bite my lip to keep from wailing because that will only scare her more, and I’m the older sister.

  “Is everybody okay?” My voice is tiny and weak.

  Harsh breathing answers.

  “I’m okay,” Ben finally says.

  “I’m bleeding.” Genevieve motions to her arm. Blood seeps from a cut that starts under the sleeve of her T-shirt and continues most of the way to her elbow.

  I swallow.

  “A piece of the ceiling hit my head,” Sebastian says. “It hurts. Bad.”

  “You’re both going to be all right,” I say, because that’s what they need to hear. I’m terrified, though, because I can’t do anything for them. I’m not a doctor. I’m fourteen years old.

  I look to Luke. He’s the cutest, most popular boy in the middle school youth group. My friends and I all have a crush on him.

  He doesn’t speak. His chin is shuddering.

  I cup my hands around my mouth and yell, “Help!”

  Chapter Eight

  Genevieve parked in front of Sam’s restaurant, Sugar Maple Kitchen, the next morning at nine fifteen.

  After leaving Athens yesterday, she’d driven in utter silence for an hour while her mind scratched and strained down wild tangents. Then she’d called Natasha and poured out everything she’d learned in a torrent. She and her sister had decided to table their discussion and any and all research until they’d had a chance to sleep on the news.

  Genevieve had suggested they meet at The Kitchen because she’d been wanting to see it and because eating here might afford her a glimpse of the elusive Sam.

  She sailed past the storefront and into a restaurant that smelled of coffee, bacon, and cinnamon rolls. The combination immediately stirred a sensory memory of the times she’d woken in her grandmother’s house when she was a girl to this same tapestry of smells.

  One small blackboard sign pointed to the takeout line. The other pointed to the dine-in line. Several people waited in both, and almost all the tables across from the long bar were occupied. It appeared that Sam’s place had become a local favorite. No surprise. He was so serious and determined that it was hard to imagine him failing at anything.

  She planned to consume two strong lattes back-to-back and possibly eat something that had been grown on Sam’s land. Grabbing a menu, she took her place in the dine-in line. Breakfast casserole with hash brown crust. Quiche. Egg scramblers. Pancakes. Waffles. Every item was marked paleo, gluten free, dairy free, or vegan.

  Her expectations for her breakfast dimmed. It was asking a lot of a paleo waffle to expect it to be both healthy and tasty. She knew that Sam ate incredibly clean, but she hadn’t realized that he’d applied his personal dietary habits to his restaurant, nor that there was such a high demand in Misty River for this type of food.

  After texting Natasha to ask what she wanted for breakfast, Genevieve placed their order, then carried the number an employee gave her to an open table.

  Sam had obviously hired a skilled designer to help him execute his vision. The restaurant had a great vibe. Cool, simple, sophisticated, and a little bit rustic all at the same time. Lots of natural wood and clean lines and a great mishmash of old and character-filled with new and modern. The ambiance here reflected the ambiance of his farm.

  Once, she’d wanted to become an interior designer. She’d always loved homes and home decorating and art. She’d been on her way to an interior design degree at Belmont when her romance with Thad had imploded. Before their breakup, her only experience with women’s ministry had been the years she’d spent in high school and college leading Bible study groups.

  After their breakup, she’d clung to the Bible with desperation, believing it to be the antidote to her heartbreak. She’d dedicated every spare minute to reading it, scouring commentaries, and conversing with professors. Somewhere along the line, she’d decided to funnel everything she was learning into the writing of a study.

  Amazingly, a Christian publisher had purchased The Deepest Love You’ll Ever Know right before her senior year and released it just as she was graduating. The hugely positive response to that study had been a stunning gift, a mercy. Akin to finding a golden coin in the gray ashes at the bottom of a fireplace.

  Seemingly overnight, she’d been catapulted into Christian celebrityhood, and she’d marveled at God’s amazing ability to redeem sorrow.

  Requests for speaking engagements followed. She spent the six months after the study’s release traveling, always with the intention of returning to Nashville, putting her author persona on the shelf, and becoming a designer.

  Over time she’d eventually recognized that her role as author and speaker wasn’t a short-term calling. It was her long-term ministry. God had used the debacle with Thad to guide her to His will for her in a way that nothing else could have.

  Every so often, like now, when she was surrounded by the visible skill of a talented designer, she remembered the road not taken with a fond, nostalgic tug.

  Natasha strode toward the table wearing running gear, her hair in a ponytail, and sat in the chair across from Genevieve. “Morning.”

  “Morning.”

  “Recovery update?”

  “Still clean.”

  “Not today, Satan.” Natasha had come up with the phrase, which she used often when questioning Genevieve about her well-being.

  “Not today, Satan,” Genevieve agreed. “How are you?”

  “I’ve got the worst headache.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Also, I’m a bad wife because Wyatt wanted me to watch a Star Wars documentary with him last night, but of course I’m not watching any TV during my Year of Living Austenly.”

  “Naturally. You read or knit of an evening.”

  “Naturally. But he kept after it, so we compromised. Since neither of us can play the pianoforte, I consented to watching someone else play the pianoforte on TV.”

  “Because Jane and her people do a lot of sitting around, watching people play pianoforte.”

  “Exactly. Turns out watching someone play pianoforte is dead boring, and now he’s vexed with me, as Jane would say. I didn’t think it was the time to mention that I bought tickets for Wyatt and me to attend a concert tonight.”

  “What kind of concert?”

  “Glee singers accompanied by the harp. Jane would be so proud.”

  “Mmm.” Poor non-musically-inclined, non-Jane-Austen-inclined Wyatt.

  “So Wyatt’s vexed with me, and I’m vexed with Mom for having a first husband she never remembered to mention.”

  A black-haired girl with a tattoo on her neck brought Genevieve’s latte and Natasha’s tea.

  They’d swirled a leaf design into the foam atop Genevieve’s drink. She took a sip. It tasted hot and strong. Milky, too, with just the right amount of sweetness. Perfection in a cup. “This thing with Mom is crazy pants,” Genevieve said.

  “I mean, what in th
e world?” Their discovery was likely hitting Natasha extra hard because Natasha hadn’t expected Genevieve to uncover anything. “How could she have married someone and then covered it up?”

  “With the cooperation of others, I’m guessing.”

  “Like Dad. He must know about this. Right?”

  “I think he must.” Genevieve had turned this question over and over in her mind since yesterday. “The fact that they had a small wedding in his hometown points to that.”

  “Everyone on Mom’s side of the family must also know,” Natasha said. “They almost certainly attended her first wedding.”

  “Right.”

  “But they never once said anything about it to us.”

  “I suppose that’s because Mom asked them not to.”

  She and Natasha had been very close to their mom’s parents. But because Caroline had no siblings, there’d been no Herrington first cousins to grow up with. Mom’s larger family gathered yearly for a picnic reunion, and Mom occasionally hosted a relative of hers at their house for a meal or an overnight stay. But Genevieve wasn’t connected with any of them the way she was with Nanny and Pop, and her cousins, aunts, and uncles on her dad’s side.

  Genevieve opened the photos app on her phone and handed it over so Natasha could survey the pictures she’d taken the day before.

  Natasha scrolled through the images, forehead knit.

  Genevieve cast a look around for Sam. She’d yet to catch a glimpse of him.

  Natasha slid the phone back to Genevieve.

  “What are we doing to do?” Genevieve asked.

  “The way I see it, we have two options. We can take these findings to Mom and Dad as soon as possible, today even. Or we can do more digging.”

  “What’s the advantage of more digging?”

  “My experience as an attorney has taught me that it’s unwise to wade into a situation without first learning everything there is to learn. We know Mom was widowed before she married Dad, but we don’t know what that might have to do with the weird letter you received.”

  “I know. I don’t get it. The letter indicated that Mom and Dad had done something shameful. But what’s shameful about remarrying years after your first husband’s death?”

  “Nothing. So right now, I feel like our information is very incomplete. We’ve simply learned that Mom has been lying to us by omission—”

  “And probably Dad, too,” Genevieve added.

  “If we confront them, I’m worried they’ll only confess to the information we can substantiate. Nothing more.”

  “And if they actually did do something shameful, and we tell them what we’ve learned, they might even destroy any remaining evidence.”

  “And we still won’t have a clue about what really went down back in the eighties.”

  Genevieve sat back in her chair. “It’s surreal to be talking about Mom and Dad destroying evidence.” Her mother had received a ticket for running a red light back when Genevieve was in tenth grade. To her knowledge, that was the worst thing either of her parents had ever done.

  “It’s surreal to think that Mom was married to another man,” Natasha replied. “But she was. So here we are.”

  Genevieve licked a dab of foam from her lip. “I’m good with waiting to talk to them until we’ve learned everything we can.” The more she and Natasha could uncover, the more honesty they could force out of their parents. Also, she wasn’t exactly looking forward to tackling this topic with them. They’d expressly told her that the letter held no merit. Then she’d gone behind their backs anyway to research their past.

  “It’s not practical for me to drive all over Georgia chasing down leads,” Natasha said. “I can only make it about forty-five minutes in the car with the kids before I want to kill myself.”

  “Well, I’m not on board with you killing yourself, so I’ll drive places when necessary.”

  “I want to contribute my share, though, so I’ll spend time online researching whatever I can.”

  “Because TV is a no-go when living Austenly, but computers and cell phones are permissible.”

  “Precisely. I started researching last night, after the pianoforte fiasco, by reading articles about Russell’s death.”

  “What?” Genevieve squawked. She lobbed a crumpled napkin at her. “We agreed to postpone research until we could sleep on the news.”

  “And you stuck to our agreement because I raised you right.”

  “Natasha!”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself.”

  A young man with a name tag reading Luis delivered their breakfast plates to them.

  “Wow,” Natasha murmured admiringly.

  Once they’d assured Luis they had everything they needed, Genevieve prayed over their food. Halfway through the prayer, sentiment swamped her, and her voice quavered. Shoot. Her state of mind during recovery: still so volatile! She brought the prayer to an end.

  “Are you crying?” Natasha asked.

  “‘Have you no consideration for my poor nerves?’” Genevieve asked, quoting Pride and Prejudice.

  “‘I have the utmost respect for your nerves,’” Natasha quoted back without hesitation. “‘They’ve been my constant companion these twenty years.’”

  That was unquestionably true.

  Genevieve considered her waffle, bordered by a garnish of berries and topped with a dollop of coconut cream. She took her first bite, and her spine liquefied as she chewed.

  Natasha swallowed. “This breakfast casserole is amazing.”

  “Mine’s amazing, too.”

  “I love eating here because I don’t have to leave wracked with shame.”

  Genevieve savored more coffee, then sectioned off another bite of waffle. “So what did you learn last night about Russell Atwell?”

  “Russell graduated from Mercer the same year Mom did.”

  “It’s pretty safe to assume that they met in college, then, since they got married just a few months after graduating.”

  “I agree. Russell’s from Camden, which explains why he and Mom were living in Camden after they married.”

  “Ah.”

  “As far as I could tell, Russell himself wasn’t all that remarkable. He was a clean-cut, all-American guy. His death, however, was very remarkable.”

  “Death by serial killer.”

  “Yes. How many people are you personally connected with who’ve been murdered by a serial killer?”

  “Russell’s the first.”

  “The Shoal Creek Killer was a man named Terry Paul Richards. He was active for about seven months before Russell’s death and for about five months after. When he was caught, he confessed to six murders, including Russell’s. He got his nickname because he terrorized a region of Georgia that more or less followed the path of Shoal Creek.”

  “Did he kill all his victims by hitting them in the head?”

  Natasha set aside her fork. “He did. He always broke into the houses of his victims at night when his victims were alone. He’d attack and sometimes enter into a life-and-death struggle. He murdered his victims by striking them in the head, usually with something he found in the house. A small statue. A shovel. A curtain rod. He always clipped off a lock of his victim’s hair and he always left the house dark. No exterior lights, nothing.”

  “Were all his victims men?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he steal anything from the houses? Or was murder his only objective?”

  “Murder was his only objective.”

  “How did the police catch him?”

  “Through his neighbor. Apparently, she thought he was strange and reclusive, and, because of that, she never trusted him. She kept a close eye on his comings and goings from her front porch, where she often spent the hot part of the day in order to catch the breeze. As soon as she realized that the occasional bruises on his face synced up with the timeline of some of the murders, she called the police.”

  Genevieve ran the tines of her fork thro
ugh her puff of coconut cream, leaving tracks. Their poor mom. She’d been through something unimaginable, and her children hadn’t even known.

  Mom’s motivation for keeping Russell a secret was becoming clearer. “Sweetie, my first husband was murdered by a serial killer” wasn’t exactly the bedtime story you’d want to tell your four-year-old.

  On the other hand, Natasha and Genevieve were adults. For a long time now, they’d been old enough to hear that kind of hard information. Keeping Russell’s existence a secret wasn’t very respectful to his memory. Shouldn’t Mom have honored him by talking about him? “Did Terry Paul Richards receive capital punishment?”

  “Yes. He was electrocuted in 1995. I’m sort of obsessed with the Shoal Creek Killer now. I say we continue to read whatever we can about him and about Russell. Then go from there.”

  Boss, I think there’s a celebrity eating at table six.”

  Sam’s attention cut to Luis, who was leaning out The Kitchen’s back door. Up until five minutes ago, Sam had been in the back of house, expediting. He’d let his sous chef take over while he’d stepped outside to slug back some water and stare at the drifts of clouds snagged on the mountain peaks behind town.

  “Which celebrity?” Sam asked.

  “I don’t know. A woman. I’ve never seen her before in my life.”

  “Is her presence creating an issue?”

  The younger, shorter man shrugged. “Sort of. Four women went up to her first. When the other diners saw them talking and taking pictures with her, then more people recognized her. Now there’s a pretty big group. Diners who want to walk to the back of the space are having to squeeze past the crowd.”

  “Thanks. I’ll look into it.” He headed to the dining room, where he found at least ten women in their twenties and thirties standing around table six, listening, nodding, smiling.

  A somewhat-famous country singer who owned a cabin nearby came in from time to time. Every month or two, their congresswoman brought her family to The Kitchen on a Saturday morning. However, neither of those had drawn a crowd this large.

  Sam made his way to the front of the group as politely as possible. “Excuse me.”