River on Fire (River's End #5)

by Leanne Davis

  “Yes, they are all very distinct couples.”

  “Try being the only one who wasn’t.”

  “I could see why.”

  He squeezed her hand. “I think your kids would be welcomed by them all too.”

  “Before or after Brianna tries to assault you again?”

  “I have to believe that’ll pass, Hailey. It’ll fall to the wayside. She’s just… confused and hormonal right now.”

  “I am too,” Hailey muttered, her gaze searching as she looked at Joey.

  He nodded. “I understand that. I’m not. I’m pretty clear on things. Clear enough for both of us, right now, that is. Or for however long it takes for you to get there.”

  Fear gripped her heart when he spoke like that. “I can’t—”

  He touched his finger to her lips. “Then don’t. Just float in the water with me.”

  She smiled in response and did just that. Later, they all decided to go back to Jack and Erin’s for dinner. Hailey thoroughly enjoyed the impromptu buffet made up of leftovers from the wedding. They talked and told stories, and Hailey talked sometimes with only one person, and at others, with little groups or couples. She was being included and accepted, as Joey’s girlfriend. And strangely enough, it didn’t feel weird or odd at all.

  They finally went back to Joey’s house after saying their goodbyes and exchanging hugs. They all had an amazing day together. Joey and Jack even hugged and Jack thumped his brother’s back. “You make me so proud.” Then he added with a gleam of humor in his eyes, “I did a damn fine job raising you.”

  Joey laughed and patted Jack on his back. “You doubted it there for a while. But you did, Jack. Thank you, you know? For taking me on. For always being there for me. I could have been traumatized forever by what happened to Mom and Dad. But because of you, it became no more than a tragic story to me.”

  “I love you, Jo. As my son and my brother. And my friend. What the hell does it matter how I love you? Just know and believe that I do. And I probably should have told you more often. But I didn’t know how to then. I know how to now.”

  “None of us knew then. But we also never needed to. It was just there, Jack. We all felt it. Between all of us. It still is, only now it’s grown much bigger.”

  Jack nodded. “Damn straight. The Rydell brothers forever.”

  “Forever.” Joey echoed. No hugs. No words. Just an exchange of smiles before they all turned and went to their prospective spouses, or in Joey’s case, girlfriend. For the first time however, he too had someone to turn towards.

  The words were prophetic. Beautiful. Binding.

  And too soon. Joey had a strange feeling that passed through his body like a tremble. Perhaps the words were spoken eerily too soon.

  Chapter Twelve

  JOEY WOKE TO LOUD knocking and thumping. He sighed and blinked his eyes open to find it was still night. Hailey mumbled and turned over in her sleep. He glanced at the alarm clock and saw it was after eleven. They’d fallen asleep almost right after they got home from Jack and Erin’s. After the fun-filled weekend, Joey still felt a little hungover. He pushed the covers back and found a pair of sweats, which he tugged on to cover his nakedness. His mind was fuzzy as to who could be knocking at that hour. It couldn’t be his brothers. Of that he was sure. His heart began to palpitate erratically as he suddenly wondered if something might be wrong.

  He hurried to the front door, which he so rarely used, usually coming in through the back slider that overlooked the river. He jerked the door open after looking through the peephole only to see a man he didn’t recognize.

  Then he froze. Behind the man was a small figure he did recognize. Brianna. What the hell?

  Rubbing his eyes, he tried to make sense of what he saw.

  “Joey Rydell?” the man asked.

  He nodded. “Yeah, who are you?” He glanced past the stranger at Brianna. “And what are you doing here, Brianna?”

  “I can’t find my mom.”

  “Well, why would you come here?” His heart pumped quickly. Did they know? No way. They could not know. Who were they? Except… he closed his eyes as reality slowly filtered in. Fuck! It was Brianna’s dad. Hailey’s ex. He opened his eyes quickly, trying not to give away anything. Like the knowledge that her mom was asleep in his bed right now.

  “You’re her dad?” Joey asked the man as he sized him up. The man was not short, over six feet, several inches taller than Joey. He had dark hair that was graying at the temples. Dressed in slacks and a button-up shirt, he seemed the epitome of the spit and polish type.

  “I’m her dad,” he confirmed, his mouth bracketed in stress lines. “We need to have a discussion.”

  “What? Right now?” Joey again rubbed his eyes, unclear of what was happening or what they wanted, or worse still, what he should do about it.

  “Now works for me.”

  “I take it you just got here?”

  “Yes, I flew back and drove here. However, Hailey’s cabin is empty. And her children don’t know where to find her, since she told them she was staying there.”

  He had no choice. If he didn’t let them inside, it would appear odd. If he did… maybe Hailey would stay asleep. He opened the door wider. Then, without a word, he turned and went to the living room. The ex followed and sat down when he saw Joey sitting.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Brent Starr.”

  “Right, Brent. What do you want?”

  “Brianna told me all about what went on with you two. Including the parts she didn’t tell her mom.” His tone was icy cold and his gaze was lethal. Joey glanced at the teen who conveniently kept her face looking downward. His stomach knotted. He just bet she told him all about them. Lies. A bunch of lies were all she could have said about him.

  “Again, I have to ask, what is it you want?”

  “I can’t allow what happened between you two to stand without voicing my strongest objection. It’s wrong. And I can’t, in good conscience, allow you to move forward in the capacity you are currently employed. I’m sure you are constantly in the presence of young girls like my daughter. I understand your family owns this place. But that is no justification for such inexcusable behavior. I’m alerting the police about this.”

  Joey leaned forward, holding his suddenly aching head. Crap! Was he for real? Police? What? Like he was some kind of pedophile, a sexual predator? How could he tell the man it was actually his own daughter who was trying to initiate all of that?

  Still, if Hailey were found there, it could irrevocably destroy her and Brianna’s relationship, and subsequently his relationship with Hailey. So he’d have to use all of his finesse in extricating himself from suspicion.

  “Why come here and warn me?”

  “You don’t deny it?”

  Joey leveled a glance at Brianna, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I most certainly deny it. Brianna knows what happened. She just doesn’t want to admit it to you. I imagine it’s easier to blame it on me than to tell her dad about her not-so-innocent behavior. But again, why did you come here?”

  Brent fidgeted. “I can’t just let it go. I keep thinking of it. I had to see the face of the man who would victimize my little girl.” He fisted his hand. Joey actually felt sorry for the man. A growing respect for him too. Joey would also have had to repress the urge to kill any man that would dare to hurt his daughter. He sympathized with that, of course, although it didn’t help the situation much.

  “I’d like to hurt you. Smash up that pretty face of yours. But I know that will only get me in trouble. I won’t risk that, not when Brianna needs me so much.”

  “I didn’t touch your daughter. I don’t want to. Ever. I’m sorry she insists on playing games like this. But none of what she said is true.” He spoke up for himself, knowing it was futile.

  A godawful rumbling suddenly filled the room. Brent and Brianna both jumped, looking visibly alarmed as they glanced around in caution.

  “What was that?” Brent asked.r />
  “Thunder.”

  Then the room lit up with a weird, blue light. Joey didn’t point out the obvious. Lightning.

  Brent glared at him. “How can you live with yourself?”

  He sighed. “What exactly did she tell you I did?”

  “She described how you nearly forced yourself on her. And if someone hadn’t come along just then and stopped it, you would have succeeded. She got away, sure, but barely.”

  “Let me ask you this: did that little scenario occur in the river?” he asked, feeling more than tired now. His voice was losing steam, as Brent’s voice seemed to deepen in his accusation. He stood on his feet, both fists clenched, his jaw clamped, and his throat pulsating with boiling blood.

  “Yes. You dirty, filthy, no good son-of-a-bitch! I’ll see you registered permanently as a sexual predator for this and losing your job and…”

  “He didn’t do anything, Brent.”

  They all three whirled around. There stood Hailey, standing in the hallway where his bedroom joined the living room. She wore a pair of light pajamas. More clothes than Joey left her in. Her hair was rumpled. There was no use in her trying to cover up what she’d been doing there. Sleeping. Staying. With him.

  The thunder was what most likely had awoken her. Hearing her ex-husband’s voice in Joey’s damn living room, she didn’t have to reveal herself. Joey fisted his own hands. He was anxious now that she had and he wondered what would happen now. How could they work things out now?

  Silence grew thick between them, and more claps of thunder growled and disturbed them, a fitting backdrop for all the drama.

  “Hailey?” Brent’s voice trailed off as his eyes scanned her up and down. His flabbergasted shock manifested. “What… what are you doing here?”

  “I was sleeping,” Hailey answered and shattered the quiet in more ways than one. The flaming round of gazes were glaring at her. Her tone was calm, cool and resolute.

  “Oh, my God. MOM,” Brianna screeched. Then, without any warning, she suddenly launched herself at Hailey, crying. “You? Your—”

  Hailey grabbed Brianna’s shoulders as her own sagged. “Yes, Brianna, I’m spending the night with Joey. I have been for a while; although it’s none of your business.”

  “But—”

  “Nor yours,” she snapped at Brent. Then she stepped further into the living room. “Whatever she told you is a pack of lies. As I told you on the phone, I was the one who interrupted them in the river and the one who found Joey pushing her off him, trying to get her to stop coming on to him. He’s been rejecting her advances and trying to discourage her from the start. I’m not sure why you didn’t believe me.”

  Brianna suddenly screeched and started crying before she rushed around her mom and ran out of the room. Hailey’s body sagged with the weight of her revelation and she walked over and sat down on the couch, deflated and defeated. Lightning again illuminated the room for a fraction of a second.

  “Where’s Jacob?”

  “Trinity came with me. She stayed back at your cabin with Jacob while we came looking for you.”

  Hailey winced. Joey naturally assumed Trinity was Brent’s new wife. “Is he okay?”

  “He’s been good, actually. Smiling a bit more often. We spent a lot of time together.”

  “He needed that. They both need that.”

  “Yes.” Silence followed, but Brent’s body was still emanating waves of unspent energy. “So you started an affair with the same boy that your daughter liked?”

  Hailey snorted. “Boy? He’s as much of a boy as your wife is a little girl. And how dare you accuse this boy of statutory rape and threaten to send him to prison. Which is it, Brent? Is he a predatory older man after our daughter, or a boy that I’m toying with?”

  “Trinity is…”

  She held up a hand. “No. No, don’t explain. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. I don’t want to fight anymore. I don’t care about Trinity. I’m sorry. Really. I’ve put all of that to rest. I just get petty sometimes, especially when you get petty about me.”

  “Hailey, really, you can’t be having—”

  “Excuse me, but my sex life and the partner with whom I choose to share it no longer concerns you. In fact, it doesn’t concern either of our children either. She lied to you, Brent. She went so far as to bring you here to prosecute an innocent man. Has that fully registered in your mind yet? Brianna’s coming undone. And we, as her parents, together, need to figure out what to do. No fighting, or being petty. This isn’t about Trinity or Joey. It’s strictly about us.”

  Brent shut his eyes as if he were suddenly in pain. Joey squirmed on the couch, wanting to leave or become invisible. He felt like an intruder and muttered, “I’ll give you two some privacy.”

  But Hailey grabbed his hand and tugged. “Stay. This concerns you too.”

  Brent frowned. “I just didn’t know you were…”

  “Dating? Moving on? That’s what usually happens when people divorce and no longer love each other. You’re not the only one who gets to enjoy that.”

  “No, no, I know. But… I didn’t foresee… this.” He waved his hand at Joey, still refusing to acknowledge him.

  “Oh, really? And I foresaw Trinity?”

  “But the kids need you right now. They are so fragile. They need their mother…”

  Joey gripped Hailey’s hand and had to consciously fight the impulse to speak on her behalf. Brent could move on, have sex, fall in love and even get remarried, but Hailey was relegated to only being recognized as the kids’ mother? Was she never supposed to have sex again? Or fall in love again? Was it lost on Brent he’d ended up with someone far younger too? Yet Brent could do all of that and still be considered a good parent? But Hailey could not? What sense did that make?

  “Brent, I am their mother; nothing has changed. You are their father. They need us both.” Her tone of voice seemed as if she were explaining multiplication facts to a third grader.

  He glared at them. “You always put them first.”

  “And I still will. As you must also now.”

  “Yes, but… what about him?”

  She glanced at Joey, her eyes softening. “It’s between him and me, exclusively. Except for the part where our daughter lied and accused him of trying to assault her. That is where you and I must begin.”

  “But you need to go and talk to her.”

  “Maybe Brent, you need to go talk to her. Maybe you should explain why we split up. Maybe you should take some responsibility for her unhappiness. Maybe you should go figure out why she lied so broadly and managed to convince you. She didn’t lie to me, she lied to you. Maybe you should try to comprehend why our daughter feels so afraid of losing you that she’d rather lie than take responsibility for her own inappropriate behavior.”

  Joey almost applauded Hailey. Finally, she stood up for herself. Then she rose, just as another bolt of lightning illuminated the room. “But since you seem so reluctant to, I’ll have to go out and find her.”

  Then Hailey walked out of the room.

  ****

  Stuffing her feet into Joey’s slippers, which were rubber-soled, Hailey was grateful they shared the same shoe size. Joey wasn’t a huge man, even if he were a well-built one. She stepped outside, using the back slider, bypassing her ex and Joey.

  Her heart was lodged in her throat. Brianna! She nearly chanted her daughter’s name with every beat of her heart. Brianna. Brianna. Brianna. She had to locate her daughter. She had to smooth this over… or, at the very least, apologize. Surely there was something she could manage to accomplish in her efforts to salvage their relationship. Tears started to form in her eyes. Berating herself, she rued the performance and speech she delivered in Joey’s living room. She should never have done it.

  Waking up after their incredible weekend—which, perhaps falsely, seemed to deepen whatever was growing between them—the loud crack of thunder that awakened her startled her mind back to consciousness. Still foggy from her
deep slumber, she started to curl up next to Joey, only to find the bed empty. That was when she heard the voices. They coincidentally entered her stream of consciousness just as the room lit up in a weird, bluish color owing to a bolt of lightning that struck nearby. Who the hell could Joey be talking to at nearly midnight? Lifting her head, she strained harder to hear the conversation, instantly recognizing the voices of her daughter… and her ex-husband! Launching herself from the bed, she slipped her pajamas on and rushed out before pausing to decide what she should say or do. Looking back now in hindsight, which they say is 20/20, she thought she should have laid low. But she heard Brent accusing Joey of attempting to rape their daughter. That was the last straw. Hailey could not, allow the decent, law-abiding, good-natured, nice-mannered Joey Rydell to be accused of such a heinous crime. He was no damn criminal. And Brianna knew that most of all.

  Hailey knew she shocked her daughter. And now, her daughter was hiding out somewhere under the cover of night despite the crazy, spooky thunder and lightning show that was flashing and roaring around them. The crack of thunder boomed as if a giant whip were being struck across the whole sky. Hailey jumped like a spooked horse. Only seconds later, the lightning bolt flashed and sparkled, creating celestial fireworks. It was creepy and right over their heads. A weird wind accompanied the storm, but no rain fell. That was perhaps the oddest sensation. It was all dry still, and the warm wind seemed to be rushing around her body. She was still wearing short sleeves despite it being the dead of night and the loud storm waging overhead.

  Crack! Boom! Then more lightning. Hailey wanted to duck and take cover. But Brianna was still out there somewhere. She yelled between the clashes of thunder, ironically grateful when the lightning struck since it illuminated the entire area. She managed to do a cursory sweep around her, but failed to distinguish anybody out there. When the lightning disappeared, the pitch darkness was even starker and thicker. She tromped towards the resort and finally reached the main grounds. There. She finally found her. There was her daughter, sitting on a bench on one of the lighted paths. Safe. Hailey almost staggered to the ground with joy. Her daughter had gone to a safe, illuminated area, and not back to Trinity and Jacob. Or her dad. Or Hailey.