Steadfast (True North #2)

by Sarina Bowen

“Wow. I thought we’d live in a tiny apartment somewhere and save up until we were sure we could buy.”

  He put his hands on my shoulders and squeezed. “That would be the conservative thing to do. But I feel optimistic, Soph. For once, I feel like we’re going to come out on top.”

  I spun around and checked his face and found something unfamiliar there. Hope.

  “I love it,” I told him truthfully. “I’d love to live here with you. Show me more.”

  Hand in hand, we walked up the antique staircase together so I could see the bedrooms and the upstairs bathroom.

  We spent a good hour exploring the house. The cellar was a little scary, but otherwise it was perfectly livable, if dated. I pictured the rooms freshly painted. I dreamed of colorful throw rugs and Christmas stockings on the mantel.

  Reluctantly I followed Jude outside, where he relocked the door and hid the key under the mat. That’s how we do things in Vermont.

  “I want to live here with you,” I told him. “If you think the rent isn’t too much, let’s do it.”

  He walked me to my car and stood there in the street beside the door while I warmed up the engine. I rolled down the window to say goodbye one more time. He leaned in and kissed me. But my sixty seconds weren’t up, so I waited some more.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  “No! Just waiting for the engine to warm up. You always said it took sixty seconds.”

  He grinned.

  “What? For three years I thought about you every time I started my car. Even when I didn’t want to.”

  He tipped his head back and roared.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Oh, you are so fucking cute.”

  “Why?”

  “The long warm-up is for a car with a carburetor—like the old Porsche. You need that warm-up time to get the right balance of air and fuel. But your baby has fuel injection.”

  “Oh,” I said, my face coloring. “You should have been more clear.”

  He smiled. And, damn it! I loved that smile.

  “Talk later?” He leaned in for one more kiss. Then he backed away waving.

  I blew a last kiss and then pulled away from the curb. I drove away, shaking my head. So many things I thought I knew about my life were wrong.

  But that happened sometimes. All we can do is listen harder, hug harder and hope for the best.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Sophie

  Three Months Later

  Internal DJ turned to: “Memories” from Cats. Unfortunately. Because, ugh, Cats.

  “Are you still up for heading to this party later?” I asked Jude as he piloted my car through the streets of Colebury.

  “Sure. I’m all dressed up, aren’t I?” He was wearing khakis and a button down shirt, which for Jude was all dressed up. “And I want to dance with you in that dress.”

  “Why? Do I want to know?”

  He gave me a quick glance before turning his gaze back to the road. “It hugs you ass, in the best possible way.”

  “That wasn’t my ass you were just checking out.”

  He grinned at the windshield. “That dress is like Vermont, baby. Great views everywhere.”

  I gave a very unladylike snort as he pulled into a driveway and shut off the engine.

  When I saw where we were, the smile slid off my face. We both looked up at the place where the Nickel Auto Body Shop sign used to be. Now it was just a blank spot on a building that would soon be demolished.

  “You might miss the place a little,” I said into the silence.

  “I don’t think I will,” he said with a low chuckle. “Our new place is pretty great.”

  This was true. We’d been slowly furnishing the old house in Montpelier. A few pieces of furniture came to us from my childhood home, which my mother had recently sold. The Virginia condo she’d purchased near her sister’s house wasn’t as large, so she gave us the dining set and my bedroom furniture.

  Before she moved away, Father Peters and I had emptied Gavin’s room together, because my mother still wasn’t ready to do it. Though she was doing better in so many other ways. Learning the full extent of my father’s treachery had woken her up. There were many tears when she learned how Gavin had really lost his life, but the shock of it seemed to drain the well of self-pity she’d been drowning in. And with my father out of her life now, she’d risen to the challenge of taking better care of herself.

  I didn’t understand it entirely, but I was pretty excited to see her become more active. When she announced she wanted a change and that her sister had proposed she move down south, I was astonished but supportive.

  As for my father, he was currently incarcerated in the very jail where he’d illegally sent Jude. The sentence for framing Jude was just a year and a half. Both deputies who helped him with the cover-up all escaped jail time entirely by testifying against him.

  But my father wouldn’t be coming out for three years, because they also got him on possession of drugs. All this time he’d kept Gavin’s big stash of pills locked in his gun safe in our basement. Nobody would have ever known it was there if it hadn’t been for the photographs I’d found. They triggered the search warrant. The searchers opened the safe, and the mother lode of pills they found inside sealed Dad’s fate.

  The night I heard about this, I made Jude sit down to hear about the stash.

  His big, gray eyes widened, and his stubbled jaw fell open. “I didn’t see that one coming.”

  None of us did.

  Since my father was facing intent-to-distribute charges, he had to tell the prosecutor where he got the drugs. It turned out that Gavin had the entire stash in his duffel bag the night he died. My father had been horrified. He’d blamed Jude rather than let anyone know his own son was a dealer. But he couldn’t frame Jude for possessing such a big stash, because it was such a flashy news story that people would have asked too many questions. So he’d quietly tucked the bulk of the drugs away and let Jude hang for manslaughter instead.

  Jude’s conviction was officially overturned just two weeks ago. The letter was stuck to our old refrigerator in the kitchen. Jude and I both paused there every time we opened the fridge just to admire it.

  And now I realized that both Jude and I were staring up at his father’s garage, lost in our own thoughts. Jude’s might be awfully sad, too. “I love you,” I said quietly.

  He reached across the console to take my hand. “Love you so much it hurts. Here comes the old man.”

  His father pulled up beside us. He’d moved out yesterday to an apartment on the two-lane road between Colebury and Montpelier. He’d taken an hourly job at an auto parts store.

  The closing on this place was tomorrow, which meant there was one last thing to take care of.

  “Hey,” Jude said to his dad, climbing out of the car.

  “Hey.”

  The Nickel men seemed to communicate entirely in one-word sentences.

  “You okay?” Jude asked.

  His dad actually smiled. “Yeah. The end of an era.”

  I could almost hear Jude’s thoughts. Not a good one.

  This awkward little discussion was interrupted as a wrecker rolled slowly up the street. Jude jogged over to tell the driver that he was in the wrong spot—he needed to back into the alley behind the building.

  We all walked up the drive to wait for him in back. My phone buzzed with a text, and I pulled it out. May Shipley had sent me the address of the venue where tonight’s festivities were taking place. This place is great, she added.

  See you soon! I returned.

  When I glanced up at Jude, he was taking something from his father’s hand. He shoved it into his pocket awfully quickly. Then he glanced guiltily over his shoulder at me.

  That was a little weird, but I decided not to worry about it. If he and his father were suddenly closer, that could only be a good thing.

  The driver of the flatbed had positioned his truck right where he needed to be, and now he jogged
toward us. “Jude Nickel?”

  “That’s me.”

  “This is her, right?” The driver pointed at the Porsche.

  “Yessir.” Jude leaned forward and tugged off the tarp, exposing the wrecked car in all her ugly glory. Not only was it a wreck, but Jude had stripped it of all its useful parts, including the seats and metalwork. It was nothing but a carcass now.

  The driver shook his head. “Can’t believe a car like that became scrap metal.”

  “Take it,” Jude said forcefully. He glanced at his father. “The end of an era.”

  The old man actually chuckled.

  “All right,” the driver said. “This is for you.” He reached into his pocket and drew out an envelope.

  Jude held up a hand. “You bought Ryson’s Junkyard?”

  “Yeah, well, my father-in-law bought it.”

  “Keep the check,” Jude said. “I stole parts off that lot to buy drugs when I was a teenager. Mr. Ryson never knew. He trusted me.”

  The driver winced. “Awful story, son.” He looked Jude up and down. “Looks like you’re doing okay now.”

  “I am, thanks.” He reached over to take my hand. The arm he’d broken at Christmas was all healed up now. And the thugs who’d hurt him had been convicted, too.

  The driver eyed the check in his hand. “If you’re sure…”

  “I’m sure.” He tipped his chin toward the sky. “I’m sorry, Mr. Ryson,” he said, and I recognized it as a twelve-step apology. But the wrecker driver might have thought it was a little weird.

  Jude wouldn’t care, though. He seemed more at peace with himself now than he’d ever been.

  The driver put the check into his pocket again and went to work. We watched while he attached what was left of the Porsche to the tow truck. “Hope the back wheels still roll,” I said.

  Jude put an arm around me. “I think the rear axle can do a few more country miles.”

  It was sort of like watching a funeral. The wrecker driver got in and cranked his engine. Then the Porsche, where I’d spent so many hours of my teen years, slowly rolled away.

  “Well,” he said into the silence. “We have a party to go to.”

  He shook his father’s hand and wished him well. Because apparently the Nickel men never hugged. Then he got into the driver’s seat of my car and started her up.

  The first part of our drive out of town was silent. “Are you sure you’re in the mood for a party?”

  “You’re still wearing that dress,” he said. “So yes.”

  “It’s at a bar.” That’s why I kept asking. We were headed to the grand opening of Zara’s brother’s bar.

  “I know. That’s fine.”

  “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

  He gave me an amused look. “Baby, if I say it’s fine, it’s fine.”

  “Sorry,” I said quickly. I wasn’t usually so protective of him, and he appreciated that. But tonight everything seemed more laden with emotion, and I didn’t want him to be dragged to a party if he didn’t want to go to one.

  “Some time soon you should come to a meeting with me,” he said suddenly.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I want you to see what it’s like. Some of these guys? They have wives who love to party. They get drunk and do drugs and ask these recovering addicts why they’re not fun anymore.”

  “Jesus. That’s horrible.” Jude and I were still in the early stages of navigating his recovery. But I knew I was a thousand times more supportive than what he’d just described.

  “It is horrible. But you need to trust me if I say I can go somewhere or do something. And with you for company, there aren’t many places I can’t go.” He gave me a quick smile. “You’re not much of a drinker, and the Shipleys don’t really go out to get wasted. So the fact that I’ll be standing in a place where they sell a lot of alcohol isn’t really a big deal for me. It’s all about the company I keep. Not the venue.”

  “Okay. But Griff said you never went to the Goat with them last summer.”

  “Ah. I was just getting my legs under me. I’m good. I promise.”

  “Just love you,” I said, touching his arm. “I never want you to be uncomfortable.”

  “Everybody is sometimes uncomfortable,” he said, accelerating onto the highway entrance ramp. “It’s what you do about it that defines you.”

  He was right, of course. So I relaxed, sitting back in my seat and stealing occasional glances at his handsome profile all the way to the brand new bar.

  Jude

  Zara’s brother Alec was going to do well for himself.

  I pulled up in front of a gorgeous old brick building with wooden shutters. THE GIN MILL was lit up in neon over the entrance.

  Inside were many, many bodies in a groovy space. There was good lighting and the dark orange hue of bricks and old wood. A gleaming copper bar stretched across one end of the room, where several people worked furiously to serve customers.

  On the other end were a few booths and a DJ that I doubted would be there every night. But the opening of The Gin Mill was rocking, and people were dancing already.

  “Wow,” Sophie yelled into my ear.

  “Right?”

  “I think I see Griff.” She pointed.

  Joining hands, we wove through the crowd toward the wall. Griff, Audrey, May, Kyle and Zach were clustered together, cocktails in hand.

  “Hey!” Griff said, raising his hand for a high-five. “You made it. Kind of crazy here.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “What are you drinking?” Griff asked my girl. “Alec makes his own tonic water and it is tasty. And he’s pouring a Vermont-made gin with honey as its base.”

  Suddenly I could taste the bitter sweetness of gin and tonic on my tongue. But that didn’t mean I had to have one. “Maybe I’ll get just a tonic water and lime.” Close enough.

  “I got it,” Sophie said, slipping away from us all and heading toward the bar before I could stop her.

  Griff took a sip of his. “This place is going to do well.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  “Alec looks happy.” He jutted his chin toward the bar, where Zara’s dark-haired brother was working hard to serve drinks.

  “I thought you and Zara’s brothers weren’t close,” I said.

  Griff leaned in to speak privately. “He likes me more now that I’m not banging his sister.”

  “Ah,” I said, while Zach blushed profusely beside us.

  God, I loved these guys. It had taken me a long time to feel part of their circle, but I did now. I wasn’t just some guy they’d paid hourly wages to over the summer. Griff and his family were my friends, and I wasn’t ever giving them up. Sophie and I went to Thursday Dinner as religiously as we went to Community Dinner on Wednesdays. This summer, on my days off, I planned to help out Griff with the renovation of the little house he shared with Audrey.

  By some miracle I’d populated my life with good people. So sign me up for a lifetime of helping them wherever I could.

  “What are you dudes gossiping about?” Zara asked, appearing in front of us. “Were you discussing the ridiculous shape of this belly?” She put a hand on what was, indeed, an incredibly large baby bump. It wasn’t even a bump. It was a blimp.

  “How long will it be?” I asked.

  “Any minute now! I can only thank her for waiting until the opening. It’s been a crazy week.” She rubbed her giant belly.

  “You did a lot of work on this place?” Griff asked.

  “Yeah, I couldn’t stand to watch my big brother fuck everything up. He had no idea how to do a liquor inventory. He’s a rookie who thinks he knows what he’s doing. It’s the worst.”

  “Hey—everybody’s a rookie sometimes,” Audrey insisted, appearing beside Griff. “I’m, like, a permanent rookie in life. I have empathy for poor Alec.”

  “But see—you admit when you don’t know something,” Zara argued. “Nobody in my family is ever wrong.” She rolle
d her eyes.

  Sophie returned a minute later with two glasses, handing me one. “What did you get?” I asked.

  “Same as you!” She touched her glass to mine.

  “You didn’t have to do that.” She could have a few drinks if she wanted to.

  She stood on her toes and kissed me. “I know. But why not? Gin makes me sleepy.”

  I kissed her again, putting my free hand to the silky fabric of her dress. How was this my life? I had everything I’d ever wanted right here.

  “Break it up you two!” Zara complained. “I want to show you guys the patio, because it’s less loud and less crowded. Follow me.”

  We all trailed after her, and it was totally worth it. The patio stretched the length of the rear of the mill, overlooking the Winooski River. There were strings of lights on the banister and candle sconces on the wall. It was a surprisingly warm April evening for Vermont, and the nighttime air promised that spring was really coming.

  “Wow!” May said, and I could hear her because it was quieter out here. “Pretty.”

  “What a spread!” Audrey crowed. “They could rent this space for private parties.”

  “Like, weddings,” Griff’s cousin Kyle said. “Maybe if Griff ever gets around to proposing, you guys could have the reception here.”

  Griff gave his cousin an evil glare. “I’ll take it under advisement.”

  “What?” Kyle said. “Just a suggestion.”

  “You can’t throw a man under the bus like that,” May argued. “These things happen on their own time.”

  Kyle grinned. “Just hangin’ it out there. All men are a little squeamish at the mention of weddings. It’s a guy thing.”

  “Nobody’s squeamish,” Griff argued. “Some people have to do some home renovation before they plan a wedding.”

  “Is that so? I thought maybe you were chicken.”

  Audrey rolled her eyes. “You’re an ass, Kyle.”

  “I’m perceptive, that’s all.”

  Sophie tugged my hand, and I followed her to the railing away from the group. “The moon is shining in the river,” she said. “Look.”

  “Beautiful,” I said, finding the moon on the surface of the water. But the real beauty was her.