She felt as if someone had turned off the lights and she stood in utter darkness, unsure of direction. Unsure even of which way was up.
“Why did you do that?” she asked carefully.
Josie shrugged.
“Remember what we told you about hurting people?” Delia said firmly, despite the quaking. She sat on the edge of Josie’s bed, wanting desperately to shake her daughter until she told her what she was feeling, what was going on. “You know better than to do that kind of thing.”
“Dad did it,” Josie said, her little face fierce in the moonlight.
“And Dad was wrong and he’s going to be punished. And get in a lot of trouble, Josie.” She stood, angry at the mention of Jared’s name. “Tomorrow we’re going to go over to Daphne and Helen’s house and apologize.”
“I already did,” she said, staring back out the window. “I felt bad for doing it.”
“Of course you did, Josie. Because it’s a bad thing to do.”
“I’ll bet Dad doesn’t feel bad.”
The shaking stopped and, like a door opening, she saw what Josie was thinking and her heart broke for her baby.
Delia leaned over Josie’s bed and touched her daughter’s chin, forcing her to look at her. “You aren’t your dad,” she said. “You’re you. And you’re scared and hurt right now, but you are a good girl. You are smart and kind and funny, and kids like you don’t do things like that.”
“Daddy always told me I was just like him,” Josie said and Delia got down on her knees beside her daughter’s bed, feeling an ugly crossroads at work in her daughter.
“You’re like you. That’s it. You’ve got some of him in you, and you’ve got some of me in you, but mostly you’re you. And you are a good person.”
Josie took a long time to think about it then she turned her face away, looking back out the window. “I won’t sneak out again, Mom,” she said. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
“I love you, Josie,” Delia said, and kissed Josie’s fore-head, something she hadn’t done in months because she’d seemed so reluctant to be touched.
“I know, Mom,” Josie said, and patted her cheek. She even smiled a little, but Delia felt no closer to her daughter.
Delia stayed there, stroking Josie’s hair until she finally fell asleep again. Then, restless and at loose ends, she went downstairs to see if Patrick was still up.
He was and when she stepped into the kitchen he reached over to the freezer and pulled out a pint of Ben & Jerry’s to hand to her. “We seem to have a lot of this stuff around,” he said. “One of the benefits of having a pregnant woman in house.”
“Better she crave ice cream than spinach,” Delia joked, taking the ice cream. “For you, I mean.” He laughed and she was suddenly so glad to be down here rather than up in that room, staring at her sleeping daughter.
“That’s some little girl you’ve got there,” Patrick said. His voice seemed somehow knowing and respectful at the same time, and she remembered that he’d been a single father to two headstrong boys. He must have had plenty of sleepless nights.
“She’s been through a lot.” She grabbed a spoon and hoisted herself up on the counter where her daughter had sat.
“She was on her way out the door to my son’s shed when I found her,” he said. “She reminds me of him. Still waters and all that.”
“I think it’s why my daughter took to him so fast,” she said, spooning out some chocolate ice cream. “They were friends in the first ten minutes she spent with him. I spent the first five years of her life despairing that she’d ever have friends.”
“Sounds like Max all right.” Patrick smiled, looking deep into his own pint. “You and your daughter really worked some magic on him.”
The ice cream in her mouth suddenly turned to sludge. She didn’t want to think about Max. She’d come to grips with her decision and if she didn’t think about him, if she locked away those fledgling feelings she had for him, she couldn’t regret the decision.
She wanted to laugh off Patrick’s compliment, minimize what had happened between her and Max, but she couldn’t. She didn’t know how, when she was still wrestling with the size and scope of what had happened, herself.
“When I left here, it was the same Max I’d been worrying about for the past two years. And when I come back—” He shook his head, smiling sadly. “Well, I just never thought I’d see that part of my boy again. Smiling. Talking. You know he never told anyone about the details of the shooting?” His eyes sparkled with tears in the half-light of the kitchen. “Gabe and I tried for months to get him to talk to us. Talk to his old partner on the force. Anyone. And no dice. He shut us out.”
“I’m glad he’s talking again,” she managed to say. “He’s a special man.”
“I know we don’t know each other and maybe you’ll want to slap me in the face, but there’s something between you two.”
“I’m not staying,” she said quickly, her voice a mere breath of longing. “I can’t. My daughter—”
He held up his hand. “Say no more, I understand wanting to protect your kids.” He laughed, but it wasn’t happy. “I did it my whole life.”
The words were rich with regret, covered in remorse, and she couldn’t help but imagine herself in thirty years, alone in a kitchen with only Ben & Jerry for company. Her child grown and finding her own life and loves.
That’s okay, she told herself, thinking of her daughter upstairs, so fragile and wounded. It will be worth it if she’s okay.
Patrick spun the cardboard pint in a slow circle on the butcher block he leaned against. “Our kids learn so much from us. How to read. How to behave. How to think about the world. But you know what I just figured out. They also learn how to be happy from us.”
Delia felt all the hair on her neck stand up.
“I’m not sure if you noticed, but Max has a hard time with happy, and Gabe, before Alice came back in his life—” He whistled. “It was like he was copying me trying to be happy.”
Delia set down her own ice cream, her throat closed. I will be happy again, she told herself, willing herself to believe it. Just not right now. Now is not my time.
Max is not for me.
“Your daughter might not be able to put it into words, but she wants you to be happy,” he murmured, and she felt his hand on her shoulder, heavy with experience and wisdom. “She wants you to be happy so she can be happy.”
He patted her and kissed her forehead. “You’re a good kid,” he said, and left, leaving his words behind him to re-configure her life.
Day one of Max’s fresh start was already better because Alice had made coffee.
“Hey,” she said, not rising up from Gabe’s cushioned rolling office chair she’d pulled up to the big chopping block in the kitchen. “I heard there was a Mitchell family love-in last night and I wasn’t invited.”
“Sorry, men group hugs only.” He smiled at her and poured some coffee into his travel mug.
“Gabe says you’re doing better.”
“I am.” He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her forehead, while she gaped, astonished. “I am going to apply for a juvenile parole officer position.”
“Good for you.” She smiled. “You shouldn’t waste your talents building mysterious sheds in the woods.”
“You’re probably right.” He laughed, feeling lighter than he had in years. Not just since the shooting, or meeting Nell. Further back than that. Maybe since he was a boy.
And unbelievably, he had Delia to thank for it.
And blame for his lagging heart.
The phone rang and Alice went to answer it, rolling herself to the office.
Max turned to leave, planning on going into town to talk to Joe about that job, only to end up opening the door for Joe as he walked in, shaking snow off his hat and stomping his feet.
“Sheriff,” he said, “I was just coming to talk to you—”
Joe held up a hand and Max got a good look at his dead-serious eyes. “We’v
e got a problem,” he said.
“Listen, Josie,” Delia said, crossing her arms over her chest and getting in her daughter’s face. It had been a long night, Patrick’s and Max’s words echoing through her head until dawn crept through the window.
She’d stared at the new light, fresh and pink and decided to stay. And fight.
For her daughter. For her job. For whatever might come with Max.
For happiness.
If Max could work toward forgiving his mother, she could forgive herself for taking care of her own. For leaving Josie with Jared when she’d had no idea what would come of it.
Delia didn’t deserve to be unhappy for the rest of her life.
She deserved the Riverview Inn.
“You are a child. You are my child and I have tried to make you happy,” she said, smiling. “I have tried to talk to you and give you distance. But nothing has worked.”
Josie sat on the end of the bed looking chagrined and that gave Delia hope. That and the echo of Max’s words telling her that her little girl only needed her, some friends and a steady diet of the truth.
“We have some choices to make,” she said. “And I will tell you the truth if you tell me the truth.”
Josie seemed intent on picking her thumbnail, but she didn’t say no so Delia took that as a good sign.
“We can go back to Texas, try and pick up our lives—”
“Without Dad?”
Delia sighed. “Dad might be in jail, Josie.”
“What’s our other choice?”
“We can move someplace else. North Carolina, maybe?”
“Or?”
“Or we can stay here.” She crouched down in front of her baby and waited until their eyes met. “And I want to stay.”
She waited. Josie didn’t say anything and Delia began to realize it was too much for an eight-year-old. That, by once again trying to be fair, or reasonable or not scar her further, Delia was making things harder for Josie.
What eight-year-old could make that kind of decision?
“I want to stay here with you,” Delia declared, shoving those divorce books out of her mind. She trusted herself enough to do things her way. “I’m not asking your permission,” she said. “But I want to know that you are happy. That we’re in this together?”
But again, Josie didn’t answer, and Delia wondered if she’d ever have a loving relationship with her little girl.
There was a knock on the door and Delia turned, hoping against hope that it might be Max. Because he showed up that way, in her worst moment, when she was flailing about like some kind of beached whale on the shore of her indecision.
And the thought of Max cemented her decision.
They were going to stay. They had a family of sorts here. Friends. Work she loved.
“Hi.” Gabe stuck his head around the door, holding on to a cordless phone. “Sorry to interrupt, but Alice answered a phone call for you and she sent me up here to make sure you got it. The man says it’s urgent.”
Josie was ashen, her fingers clenched in her lap.
“Did you call Dad?” Delia asked, feeling panic like a flood drowning her.
Josie shook her head and the fear in her eyes told Delia she was being truthful.
She reached out for the cordless and thanked Gabe as he ducked back into the hallway.
“Hello?” she said, hating that her voice trembled.
“Delia? It’s J.D.” J.D. sounded close to panicked and instinctively she wrapped her arm around her daughter, comforted and relieved when Josie clung to her.
“What’s wrong?”
“My guy lost Jared about twelve hours ago.”
“Lost? What do you mean ‘lost’?”
“I mean we don’t know where he is. I’ve talked to the D.A. A warrant for his arrest was issued yesterday and he ran. The guy I had following him was found unconscious and nearly beaten to death in Missouri just a few hours ago. Doing the math, we think he’s been on the road for twelve hours.”
She felt Jared’s thumb against her windpipe as if he was trying to kill her all over again. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
“Is he coming here?” she breathed, clutching Josie to her side.
“My gut says yes. I need you to get out of there. Get someplace safe. I have contacted the local police and he’s on his way to the inn right now. But for your own safety I can only advise you to leave the premises.”
“Right,” she said. Leave. Again. Keep running. Just when she’d gathered the courage to stay. Her whole body shook with how wrong that was. “I’ll be in touch.”
She hit End on the phone and threw it behind her.
“What’s going on?” Josie asked, white-faced and scared.
“I’m not sure yet.” She took a deep breath and took her daughter by the shoulders, holding her gaze so she understood that she was serious. Whatever breakdown was going on in Josie’s head needed to be put on hold for the moment, while the natural parent-child order was restored. “We might have to leave, but for right now, I want you to stay in here. I need you to lock the door and only answer it when you hear me or Max.”
“Max?”
“That’s it. You keep it shut for everyone else.” She stroked her daughter’s hair back from her face. “Especially Daddy.”
“O-okay.” Josie nodded and Delia pulled her into her arms, kissing her temple, holding her little bones as close as possible. “I love you, baby. I am going to try and do the right thing.”
Josie nodded then Delia left, turning the knob on the door to make sure Josie locked it.
“Good girl,” she called through the wood when the doorknob didn’t turn all the way.
She went to find Max.
Joe handed Max a gun. “I’m not sure what we’re up against here,” he said. “But that P.I. I talked to made it sound like this guy was capable of anything.”
The black Beretta, standard issue for country sheriffs, was a living thing in his palm. A snake. An angry scorpion.
“I—” Max shook his head, hesitant to step back into these shoes.
“Max?” Gabe, his brother, beloved and scared shitless, stood beside him. “Man, I think we need you to take that gun.”
Right. We. Lots of innocent people. And he might be the only thing between them and a madman.
Max took the gun, shaking off the ghosts that clung to him. He checked the clip and tucked the gun in the back of his pants, nestling it up against his spine.
“I need you to get everyone to their rooms,” Max said to Gabe. “Get them there and keep them there. I don’t need any more innocent bystanders in the way.”
Gabe nodded and took off at a run to do what needed to be done.
“Call for some backup,” Max told Joe. “I’ve got to talk to Delia.”
Joe left and Max ran through the kitchen, flinging open the door and charging through the dining room. He had started up the stairs when she appeared. Just like that.
Standing at the top of the stairs, her face pale and eyes blazing, he knew she was aware of what was happening.
“My husband is on his way here,” she said.
“We think he might be at the state line,” he told her. “Joe’s got state troopers looking for him, but there are so many county highways we have no idea—”
“I don’t want to run anymore,” she said, and Max realized that as fragile as she appeared, as shaken and freaked-out, there was something else at work here, something giving her height and depth. Suddenly she seemed bigger, taller. Stronger. “But my daughter—”
“We’ll keep her safe,” he said. “I won’t let anything happen to her. We can get you to a safe house.”
“What’s safe?” she asked. “My family? My home? I’ve let him take all of that from me.”
Though he wanted to be unmoved, his heart shook for her. Firm in his righteous anger at her earlier inability to fully understand what she was throwing away when she refused to fight for what she wanted.
“B
ut I’m not going to let him take this place from me, Max. I just told Josie I wanted to stay,” she said. “I want to stay here, with you, with your family and now he could take that away from me, too.”
“You’re scared,” he said, wanting to believe her but knowing she was too spun around to understand what she was saying. “These are things we can talk about later, when you’re able to think clearly.”
“I am thinking clearly,” she told him. “I am thinking more clearly right now than I have in maybe my whole life. That’s crazy, isn’t it?” She took the steps down until she stood a heartbeat from him and took his face between her hands. “I am going to have to leave. I have to keep my daughter safe, but I want you to know that I want you, too. The possibility of you. Of us. I want your scars and your loneliness and your messed-up family and your talented hands. I want your noble heart and your infrequent smiles.”
He opened his mouth to tell her that she didn’t need to say these things. That the unpredictability of the moment was making her say things she didn’t mean, but she kissed him.
She pressed one hard and fast kiss against his lips. Her fingers touched his scar, her hand cupped his cheek and, for a moment, a split second, he let himself believe her.
“Very sweet,” an ugly voice sneered and Delia spun so fast Max put a hand to her waist to keep her steady.
A tall man, well built, with twenty-four hours of beard on his face and enough menace in his eyes to make Max grab his gun, stood at the top of the stairs with Josie under his arm.
Jared.
16
“Josie—” Delia cried, and lunged for her, but Max held her back. He was too strong to overpower, but he had to give her credit.
“Are you okay, Jos?” Max asked, and Josie, her face wan and covered in tears, nodded slowly.
He felt the past rush up and fill the room. Suddenly there were two women. Too many children. Too many guns. Too many factors that could make everything go wrong.
The scars along his neck and in his thigh went white-hot as if to remind him of his failures. Pointing out the terrible fact that he’d been here before with terrible results.
Secrets of the Riverview Inn Page 19
