The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 2

by Nora Roberts

  “Finish it out. Get rid of it.”

  “All right.” Calm now, Tory opened her eyes. If there had been pity in his, the words might not have come. But what she saw was patience.

  “I felt sorry for her. I was disgusted with her. And I hated her. In that moment, I think I hated her more than him. I put down the knife and picked up my bag. I hadn’t even unpacked, hadn’t been there an hour. When I walked out, she was still sitting in the dirt and crying. But she looked at me, so much anger in her eyes. ‘Why’d you have to go and make him mad? You always caused nothing but trouble.’ She sat in the dirt, with her lip bleeding, either from where he hit her or from biting it when she fell. I just kept walking, never said a word to her. I haven’t spoken to her since. My own mother, and I haven’t had a word with her since I was twenty.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “No, it’s not my fault. I’ve had years of therapy so I can say that with assurance. It was none of it my fault. But I was still the cause. He, I think, he fed on punishing me, for being born. For being born the way I was. Up till the time I showed that I was different, he left me pretty much alone. I was my mother’s problem, and he rarely took time for more than an absent swat. After that, I don’t think a week ever went by without him abusing me.

  “Not sexually,” she said when she saw Cade’s face. “He never laid hands on me that way. He wanted to. God, he wanted to, and that frightened him more, so he beat me more. And got twisted pleasure from it. Sex and violence are wrapped up tight inside him. Whatever they said he did to that woman, he did. Not rape, at least not that could be proved, or they’d never have given him probation so easily. But rape’s only one way a man can hurt and humiliate a woman.”

  “I know it.” He got up to fetch the pot and pour her tea. “You said you’d seen them twice.”

  “Not them, him. Three years ago he came to Charleston. He came to my house. He followed me home from work. He’d found out where I worked, and he followed me home. He caught me as I was walking from the car. I was scared to death. Didn’t have much of that steel I’d forged in New York left in me. He said my mother was sick and they needed money. I didn’t believe him. He’d been drinking. I could smell it on him.”

  She could smell it now, if she let herself. The stale, hot stench like a bad taste in the air. She lifted her cup, breathed in the steam instead. “He had his hand around my arm. I could see what he wanted to do. To twist my arm, to snap the bone, and he was aroused by the images in his own head. I wrote him a check for five hundred dollars, wrote it on the spot. I didn’t let him into the house. I would not let him into my home. I told him if he hurt me, or tried to get in the house, that if he came to where I worked, any of those things, I’d stop payment on the check and there’d never be any more money. But if he took it and left, and he never came back, I’d send a hundred dollars every month.”

  She let out a short laugh. “He was so surprised at the idea, he let me go. He’d always liked money. Just the having of it. He liked to lecture about rich men and eyes of needles, but he liked having money. I got into the house and locked the door. All that night I sat up with the phone and the fireplace poker in my lap. But he didn’t try to get in. Not then, not ever. A hundred dollars a month bought me a kind of peace of mind. Not a bad price for it.”

  She drank now, a long drink of tea that was too hot and too strong, and nonetheless bolstered her. Unable to sit, she rose to stare out at the steady rain. “So, there you have it. Just some of the ugly secrets of the Bodeen family.”

  “The Lavelles have some ugly secrets of their own.” He got up to walk to her, ran his hand down the length of the tidy braid that hung down her back. “You still had your steel, Tory. You had what you needed. He couldn’t break it. He couldn’t even bend it.”

  He brushed his lips on the top of her head, pleased when she didn’t step aside as she usually did. “Have you eaten?”

  “What?”

  “Probably not. Sit down. I’ll scramble some eggs.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m hungry, and if you’re not, you should be. We’ll have some eggs.”

  She turned, jerked once when he slid his arms around her. Tears swam into her eyes, quick and stinging, to be blinked ruthlessly away. “Cade, this can’t go anywhere. You and me.”

  “Tory.” He cupped the back of her neck until her head settled on his shoulder. “It’s already gone somewhere. Why don’t we stay there awhile, see how we like it.”

  It felt so good, so steady to be held this way, this easy and familiar way. “I don’t have any eggs.” She drew back, met his eyes. “I’ll make soup.”

  Sometimes food was only a prop. She was using it now, Cade thought. Maybe they both were as she stirred canned soup on the stove and he put together the makings for grilled cheese sandwiches. A nice, homey meal for a rainy evening. The kind a couple might share with light conversation, and for the hell of it, a good bottle of wine.

  He could have used an evening like that, he thought. Instead here he was slathering butter on bread the way Lilah had taught him and trying to figure out the way through Tory’s thin and prickly shield.

  “You could do better than soup and a sandwich down at Beaux Reves.”

  “I could.” He set the skillet on the stove and stood beside her. Close, but not close enough to touch. “But I like the company here.”

  “Then something’s wrong with you.”

  She said it so dryly, it took him a minute. With a laugh he laid the two sandwiches on the heated skillet. “You’re likely right about that. After all, I’m a hell of a catch, you know. Healthy, not overly hard on the eyes, got me a big house, good land, and money enough to keep the wolf from the door. And in addition to that, and my subtle charm, I make a terrific cheese sandwich.”

  “All that being the case, why hasn’t some smart woman snatched you up?”

  “Thousands have tried.”

  “Slippery, are you?”

  “Agile.” He flipped the sandwiches. “I like to think of it as agile. I was engaged once.”

  “Were you?” She said it casually as she reached for bowls, but her focus had sharpened.

  “Um-hmm.” He knew human nature well enough to be certain leaving it at that would swell her curiosity until she either burst or surrendered.

  She held until they’d set plates and bowls on the table, sat. “You think you’re clever, don’t you?”

  “Darling, a man in my position has to be. Cozy in here with the rain and all, isn’t it?”

  “All right, damn it. What happened?”

  “About what?” The way her eyes narrowed delighted him. “Oh, about Deborah? The woman I was on the point of vowing to love, honor, and cherish until death and so on? Judge Purcell’s daughter. You might remember the judge, except I don’t think he was a judge yet when you left.”

  “No, I don’t remember him. I doubt the Bodeens moved in his social sphere.”

  “In any case, he has a lovely daughter and she loved me for a while, then decided she didn’t want to be a farmer’s wife after all. At least not one who actually worked at it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It wasn’t a tragedy. I didn’t love her. Liked her considerably,” Cade mused as he sampled the soup. “She was lovely to look at, interesting to talk to, and … we’ll say we were compatible in certain vital areas. But one. We just didn’t want the same thing. We discovered that, much to our mutual embarrassment, a few months after we were engaged. We broke things off amicably enough, which goes to show there was considerable relief on both sides, and she went off to live in London for a few months.”

  “How could you—” She broke off, filled her mouth with sandwich.

  “Go on. You can ask.”

  “I just wondered how you could ask someone to marry you that you could let go again without a qualm.”

  He considered it, kicking back to chew the sandwich as if he were also chewing his thoughts. “I suppose
there were some minor qualms. But the fact is, in hindsight, I was twenty-five, and there was a bit of family pressure. My mother and the judge are good friends, and he was a friend of my father’s as well. Time to settle down and make myself an heir or two, was the idea.”

  “That’s awfully cold-blooded.”

  “Not entirely. I was attracted to her, we knew a lot of the same people. Her daddy was mine’s lawyer for years. It was easy to slide into an arrangement, one that pleased both our families. Then as time got closer, I for one began to feel like you do when your tie’s just a mite too tight. So you can’t quite get a good gulp of air. So I asked myself, what would my life be like without her? And what would it be like with her, in five years.”

  He took another bite of his sandwich, shrugged. “Turned out I liked the answer to the first part a whole lot better than I did the second. And as luck would have it, so did she. The only ones who were truly upset were our families.” He paused, watching her eat. “And we just can’t live our lives around what our parents want or don’t want for us, can we, Tory?”

  “No. But we do live our lives carrying around the weight of it anyway. Mine could never accept me for who and what I was. For a long time I tried to be someone and something else.” She lifted her gaze. “I can’t.”

  “I like who you are.”

  “Last night you had trouble with it.”

  “Some,” he admitted. “You worried me. You were frantic,” he added, laying a hand over hers before she could pull away. “Then fragile. Made me feel clumsy. I didn’t know what to do, and I’m used to knowing.”

  “You didn’t believe me.”

  “I don’t doubt what you saw, or felt. But I have to think part of it could be mixed up with coming here, with remembering what happened to Hope.”

  She thought about the call from Abigail, about the dates of both murders. But she held back. She’d trusted before, shared before. And had lost everything.

  “It is all mixed up with me coming here. And with Hope. If it wasn’t for Hope, you wouldn’t be sitting here now.”

  On more even ground again, he sat back, continued to eat. “If I’d seen you for the first time four, five weeks ago, if we’d never met before and there’d been nothing between us till then, I’d damn well have figured out how to get myself sitting here now. Fact is, if we’d started weeks ago instead of years, I do believe I’d already have you in that very interesting bed.”

  He smiled, slow and easy, when she set the spoon back down in her soup with a little plop. “I figure it’s time we got that out in the open, so you can think about it.”

  14

  The drive was pleasant enough and reminded her of all she’d missed by not staying close to J.R. There was such a hugeness to him, in his voice, his laugh, his gestures. Twice she’d had to dodge his arm as he’d thrown it toward her to point out something along the highway.

  He seemed to swallow you up with his simple joy of being.

  He sat in the little car, his knees all but up to his chin, his big, wide hand clutching the gearshift the way she’d seen some young boys clutch a joystick during a video game.

  For the fun and competition.

  The way he dived into the day they might have been racing to some mad picnic rather than a painful family duty.

  Living in the now, she thought, that was his gift, and a skill she’d struggled to master all her life.

  He got such a kick out of his new car, zipping and roaring up the interstate with his CDs of Clint Black and Garth Brooks blasting, and a natty glen plaid cap snugged down on his lamb’s wool mat of ginger-colored hair.

  He lost the cap just past the exit for Sumter when a frisky tail of wind caught it and flipped it toward the ramp and under the wheels of a Dodge minivan. J.R. never slowed down, and laughed like a lunatic.

  With the top down and the music up, conversation was exchanged in shouts, but J.R. still managed to hold one, with his topics of interest bouncing like a big rubber ball from Tory’s store, politics, fat-free ice cream, and the stock market.

  As they approached the exit to Florence, he allowed as he hoped they’d have just a bit of time to slip by and visit his mother. It was the first time since he’d picked her up that he mentioned family.

  Tory shouted out that she’d love to stop and see her grandmother. Then she thought of Cecil and wondered if J.R. knew about the new arrangements. Thinking about that kept her mind occupied and entertained until they bypassed Florence and headed northeast.

  She’d never been to her parents’ place outside of Hartsville. She had no idea what either of them did now for a living, or how they spent their time together or apart.

  She’d never asked her grandmother, and Iris never brought it up.

  “Nearly there.” J.R. shifted in his seat. Tory felt his mood shift as well. “Last I heard, Han, he was doing some factory work. They, ah, leased a patch of land and were raising chickens.”

  “I see.”

  J.R. cleared his throat as if about to speak again, then fell silent until he turned off the main road onto a shoulder-less twist of pitted asphalt. “I haven’t been up to see their place. Ah, Sarabeth gave me the directions when I said I’d come to see what was what.”

  “It’s all right, Uncle Jimmy, don’t fret about me. We both know what to expect.”

  The scatter of houses that could be seen were small and skeletal, yellowed bones stuck on overgrown yards or dust bowl lots. A rusted pickup with its windshield cracked like an eggshell tilted on cinder blocks. An ugly black dog leaped on its chain and barked viciously while less than a foot away a child wearing nothing but grayed cotton underwear and a tangle of dark hair sat on an old dented washing machine abandoned in a scrub-grass yard. She sucked her thumb and stared vacantly as the spiffy convertible drove by.

  Yes, Tory thought. They knew what to expect.

  The road turned, climbed a little, then veered off in a fork. J.R. switched off the music and slowed to a crawl to navigate the dirt and gravel path.

  “Your county taxes at work,” he said, with an attempt at a joke, then only sighed and eased his car into the hardpack driveway that butted up to the house.

  No, not a house, Tory corrected. A shack. You couldn’t call such a thing a house, and never a home. The roof sagged, and like an old man’s smile, showed gaps where shingles had blown away or fallen off. The ancient speckled gray siding was torn and ragged. One of the windows was plugged with cardboard. The yard, such as it was, was choked with weeds. Dandelion and thistle grew in nasty abundance. An old cast-iron sink lay on its side and showed a black fist-sized hole in the bowl.

  Beside and back from the house was a metal building gray with grime and spotted with blood-colored rust. A wire fence spit out from its side and in this enclosure a dozen or so scrawny chickens pecked at the dirt and complained.

  The stench of them stung the air.

  “Jesus. Jesus Christ,” J.R. muttered. “Didn’t think it would be this bad. You never think it’ll be this bad. No call for this. No call for it to come to this.”

  “She knows we’re here,” Tory said dully, and pushed the car door open. “She’s been waiting.”

  J.R. slammed his own door, then as they walked toward the house lay his hand on Tory’s shoulder.

  She wondered if he was giving her support, or asking for it.

  The woman who appeared had gray hair. Stone gray that was scraped back pitilessly from a thin face. The skin seemed to be scraped back as well, so that the bones jutted out like knobs. The lines that bracketed her mouth might have been carved with a knife, and the deep gouge of them pulled the lips down into misery.

  She wore a wrinkled cotton dress, too big for her, and a small silver cross between her lifeless breasts.

  Her eyes, rimmed red as fire, glanced at Tory, then away, fast, as if a look could burn.

  “You didn’t say you were bringing her.”

  “Hello, Mama.”

  “You didn’t say you were bringing her,” S
arabeth said again, then pushed open the screen. “Haven’t I got worries enough?”

  J.R. gave Tory’s shoulder a squeeze. “We’re here to do what we can to help, Sari.” With his hand still on Tory’s shoulder, J.R. stepped inside.

  The air stank of garbage gone over, of stale sweat. Of hopelessness.

  “I don’t know what you can do, ‘less you can get that woman, that lying slut, down to Hartsville to tell the truth.” She pulled a tattered tissue out of her dress pocket and blew her nose. “I’m at my wit’s end, J.R. I think something awful’s happened to my Han. He’s never stayed away so long as this.”

  “Why don’t we sit down?” He transferred his hand from Tory to his sister, then scanned the room.

  His stomach clenched.

  There was a sagging sofa draped in a dingy yellow slipcover, and a vile green recliner patched with duct tape. The tables were littered with paper plates, plastic cups, and what he supposed was the remains of last night’s dinner. A woodstove, streaked with soot, stood in the corner, hobbled on three legs with a block of wood for the fourth.

  There was a picture of a mournful Jesus, exposing his Sacred Heart, inside a cheap wire frame.

  As his sister’s face was still buried in her tissue, J.R. led her to the sofa and sent a pleading look at Tory.

  “Why don’t I make some coffee?”

  “Got some instant left.” Sarabeth lowered the tissue and stared at the wall rather than look at her daughter. “I haven’t felt much like going to the store, didn’t want to go far from home in case Han …”

  Saying nothing, Tory turned away. The house was shot-gun style, so she walked straight back into the kitchen. Dishes were piled in the sink, and the splatters on the stove were old and crusted. Her shoes stuck to the torn linoleum floor.

  During Tory’s childhood, Sarabeth had cleaned like a tornado, chasing dust and grime, whirling through them as though they were sins against the soul. As Tory filled the kettle she wondered when her mother had given up this nervous habit, when poverty and disinterest had outweighed the illusion that she was making a home, or that God would come into it as long as the floor was swept.