The Road Home

by Susan Crandall

  Benny looked so pleased, she felt guilty. She should have known he’d like her and Riley to stop as customers. But she’d been run here by fear. Again, she felt selfish and inconsiderate.

  He said, “Go on out and find a table. I’ll come and say hi to Riley in a minute.”

  “Okay.” She’d considered telling him about the car following her. But he already had his hands full. There was no reason to worry him. The car was gone. And Lily was going to be on her toes from now on. She was going to do as Clay said, not let her feeling of security in this little town overcome her good sense.

  When she stepped into the dining room, she saw Faye talking to Riley near the kitchen door. They were laughing about something. Lily felt a quick stab of jealousy at the way Faye put a motherly hand on his shoulder and the easy way they shared a joke.

  Once again, she felt small and petty. She should be glad for the friendship they seemed to be building. She walked toward them. Faye’s smile slipped just a bit when she saw her.

  Lily nodded. “Faye.” She put an arm around Riley. “I think we’re going to share a platter of wings.” She took a step toward the kitchen. “I’ll go tell Henry.”

  Faye stepped between Lily and the kitchen door. “I’ll tell him. You two go find a seat.” Her voice was pleasant enough, but there was a glitter of resentment in her eyes.

  Lily held her gaze for a moment, wondering if this was the time for a showdown. She had poured hours and hours into this place and she was tired of being treated like a meddling outsider.

  She glanced at Riley. He was already walking toward an empty table, out of earshot.

  “Coming through!” One of the servers called, headed toward the kitchen with a tray full of dirty dishes.

  After a second’s hesitation, in which Lily felt Faye was weighing the same question—go teeth, hair and eyeballs? or back down?—Faye turned and pushed the swinging door open. The server followed. The door swung shut.

  A mixture of relief and disappointment spun in Lily’s chest. The air between her and Faye definitely needed clearing. And Lily was in just the right mood to let loose her frustration. She was tired of the perpetual challenge in the woman’s posture, of being treated like an intruder in her father’s life.

  She walked to the table knowing the battle had only been delayed, not avoided.

  Riley didn’t complain about the detour, as Lily had anticipated. He talked briefly with his grandfather when Benny took a minute from his work to say hello. But Lily could tell something was bothering him. Normally, she couldn’t get the child filled up. Tonight, he barely tasted the heaping platter of wings Henry sent from the kitchen.

  Lily spent half of her time wondering what was going on with Riley, and the other half organizing her thoughts to confront Faye. She made a pretense of eating a wing or two, but in the end boxed up most of them to take home.

  As they stood to go, Lily said, “I’m going to hit the restroom before we go. I’ll met you at the front door.”

  He nodded and swung his jacket on, then headed toward the door.

  Riley stopped near the entrance to the bar. He looked in, thinking he’d wave to Gramps. But Gramps wasn’t behind the bar. He was standing off to the side, near the door, talking to the sheriff.

  Riley’s first thought was that they were talking about him. He leaned his back against the wall, ensuring he couldn’t be seen from inside the bar, and listened.

  The sheriff said, “I’d appreciate it if you just keep your ears open. Sooner or later, we’ll get a clue to work with. I’d just rather it be sooner.”

  “Will do,” Gramps said. “Don’t need that poison around our kids.”

  “Guess it was inevitable, knowing the world we live in. We’d made it this long, I’d hoped…”

  Riley heard Gramps slap the sheriff on the back. “You’ll get him. Gotta nip this in the bud—can’t have drugs taking over the high school.”

  “Oh, it doesn’t stop at the high school, Benny. Even the little kids are at risk. Arresting the users doesn’t stop it. I need to find out who’s dealing.”

  Dealing? God, did the sheriff think it was him? Just like an adult, always fingering the kids when a grown-up was causing all the trouble. He felt sad for Mickey. His own dad might be a screwed-up alcoholic—but at least he wasn’t a drug dealer.

  “I’ll see if I can pick up anything,” Benny said.

  “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  Riley took a giant sideways step, away from the bar. When the sheriff came out, Riley had his back to him, studying a framed poster of an ancient castle on a rolling green hill.

  “Mr. Holt.”

  Riley turned around. “Sheriff.”

  “How are things going at the marina?”

  Riley smiled and tried to look enthusiastic. “Good. I’m learning a lot.”

  “Getting on with Bud okay?”

  “Okay enough.” Riley didn’t want anyone to think he liked working with Bud. The man was mean—and crazy. Still, sometimes Riley actually found himself looking forward to going to work on the boats. Riley had even caught himself almost liking Bud when they rebuilt that engine today. Sheesh, maybe he was going crazy, too.

  The sheriff nodded. “See you around.”

  “Yeah.” Riley shoved his hands in his pockets and watched the man walk out the door. He didn’t act like he thought Riley was the one selling drugs; there hadn’t been suspicion in his eyes. But why else would he have been talking to Gramps about it?

  “Ready?”

  Riley jumped at his mother’s voice. “Yeah.”

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “You don’t look like ‘nothing.’ ”

  “I’m just ready to go home.”

  “All right, then. Let’s go.” She put a hand on his shoulder and they walked out the door.

  Riley had been braced for the fifth degree on the ride home. But his mother seemed preoccupied. She didn’t ask a million questions as usual. In fact, she hardly spoke at all. And it seemed to him that she was still looking in the mirrors a lot.

  She was even weirder when they got to the house. She was all, “Let me go in first,” and “Don’t go upstairs until I go with you.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I just think we shouldn’t be so complacent—I heard a house on the lake had been broken into. We should be careful.”

  Riley tilted his head and raised a brow, but didn’t say any more. There were houses being robbed all the time in Chicago and his mom never acted this way.

  By the time he finally got to his room and had the door closed behind him, he was out of the mood to read more in his book. Everything tonight was just crazy.

  His time with Mickey had been fun, but that was nuts, too. All day long, he’d had a strange little buzz of excitement going, like he usually got right before going on a roller coaster. That buzz had shot through the roof when she took his hand as he walked her home. And his guts knotted when he thought about her dad. What was up with that bastard? He hit her. He was a dealer. How could somebody so rotten have such a great daughter?

  As Riley laid on his bed in the dark, he flexed his fingers and popped his knuckles. He just wanted to tear something apart.

  The telephone rang as Lily was getting into bed. She answered.

  There was a moment of silence, then Clay said, “I just wanted to make sure things are okay there.”

  Lily couldn’t suppress a small smile. “We’re just fine.” She paused. “Thanks for checking.”

  “All of the doors are locked?”

  “Of course.”

  “You have a phone handy, in case you need to call someone in an emergency?”

  Lily wondered, Are you the someone I should call? As she had the thought, she realized that would be her first instinct, to call Clay—just as she had when they were young. She licked her lips. “Yes. Right here beside my bed.”

  There was a long pause. “Do you have my number?”r />
  The question took her by surprise. “Ah, no. Only the marina.”

  “Get a pencil.”

  “Just a second.” She should tell him to go climb a tree; if she needed help she’d be calling the sheriff. But something inside her ached for the connection, yearned for the touch of his concern.

  “Okay,” she said, once she was ready to write down the number.

  He gave it to her, then he asked, “Does that phone have speed dial?”

  “Really, Clay, I think you’re overreacting.” He’d really be over the top if she told him she thought she was being followed earlier. No doubt he’d be over here watching over her and Riley while they slept. Neither Riley nor Clay needed that kind of relationship right now.

  His voice took a harder edge. “Does it?”

  “No, I think this phone is as old as Peter.” As soon as she said his name, she wished she could recall it.

  For a long moment he was quiet. Lily held her breath.

  “Just don’t take any chances. If you hear a noise…”—he hesitated—“call me. I can be there in five minutes.”

  “All right.” A part of her wanted to tell him to come now, don’t wait for an emergency. Come and wrap her in the security of his nearness.

  “Goodnight, then—and don’t screw around if you hear anything.”

  “Goodnight, Clay. Thanks.”

  Lily crawled between the cool sheets feeling more lonely than she had in months.

  Chapter 16

  On Monday morning Clay noticed a different feel to Riley’s silence. They never spent much of their day talking to each other. But Riley seemed more distracted than unsociable this morning. Clay considered asking him what was up, but he knew he’d get the standard, nothing. He’d get further by just letting the kid stew for as long as he was inclined to. If Riley wanted to talk, he’d open his mouth and start talking. Still, Clay couldn’t help but be a little curious.

  After Clay had signed for the daily UPS delivery, he walked out to the dock, where Riley was stocking the ice cooler. Riley was grabbing the seven-pound bags and slamming them so hard into the freezer, Clay was surprised they hadn’t burst open.

  “Hey, easy, there,” he said. “You look like you could use a punching bag.”

  Riley shot him a narrowed look, then chucked the next bag into the freezer.

  Clay busied himself nearby, pretending to ignore the crash and bang of the bags landing in the ice chest.

  As Riley picked up the last bag, he paused. “Shouldn’t doing the right thing be easy? I mean, it’s the right thing—a person shouldn’t have to get so bent out of shape over it.”

  Clay’s hands stilled in his work, but he didn’t look at Riley. “Sometimes doing the right thing is the hardest thing.”

  The last bag landed in the freezer with a thud. “I thought you could tell something was right because it caused the least trouble.”

  Clay shook his head. “I’ve found just the opposite. Sometimes to do the right thing makes you put everything at risk.”

  Sitting on a big rock nearby, Riley looked out over the lake and rubbed his hands on the thighs of his jeans. They were reddened from handling the ice, but Clay was pleased the kid wasn’t whining about it.

  Riley said, “If someone trashes your friend, isn’t it the right thing to stand up for them, set the guy straight—no matter what?”

  “I guess, it depends on the ‘no matter what.’ You can make things worse for your friend by setting up more trouble.”

  For a long moment, Riley was quiet. Clay busied himself and let the boy think.

  “I should have kicked that guy’s ass.” Riley said it so quietly, Clay wasn’t sure he was supposed to hear.

  Clay went over and sat beside Riley on the rock. “I guess you have to ask yourself if you betrayed your friend by not kicking ass.” He paused and felt Riley’s gaze shift to him. “If you’d taken that guy on, would it have saved your friend pain, or caused more?”

  Riley shot to his feet and lifted his hands in the air. “Geez, I don’t know! How am I supposed to know something like that?”

  “It’s not an easy call for a man to make.” At Clay’s use of the word “man,” Riley’s shoulders squared just a bit.

  “I just feel like I let—my friend down.”

  “Was it easy not to fight?”

  “God, no.” Riley’s hands fisted at his sides. “I wanted to take a swing at that guy so bad…”

  “Then my guess is, you did the right thing.” He got up and walked back to the office, leaving the boy alone with his thoughts.

  He tried to remember life when he was thirteen. He’d met Lily and Luke about that time. The Boudreau kids had begun their relationship with him and Peter as enemies, but once Lily’s accident happened, they’d been solid friends—at least until adulthood brought change.

  Now he and Lily weren’t enemies. They weren’t friends. They were estranged lovers looking for some sort of equilibrium, a level place to start. And he felt nearly as confused as Riley.

  At nine o’clock Riley was already up in his room reading—reading, not listening to angry music or playing violent video games. The subtle proof that he seemed to be changing for the better made Lily relax enough that her own creativity began to work again.

  She settled on the couch with a sketchpad. She had a few new pottery designs floating in her head, and she wanted to commit them to paper before they left her. She was still too nervous to actually try working with clay. While Riley was at work, she’d driven to Bedford and bought a pregnancy test. For the “most accurate results” she had to wait until morning to take it.

  She didn’t feel pregnant… exactly. Some of the symptoms were there, yet it wasn’t as she remembered it from the first time. There was no doubt something was going on with her body; she’d never been this late with a period—except when she’d been pregnant with Riley.

  Picking up her pencil, she tried to concentrate. Since the Crossing House seemed to be running just fine with no help from her, she had to find some way to fill her days. Maybe she could ask Mr. Duckwall if he would sell a few pottery pieces on consignment at the hardware store.

  The first sketch was just beginning to take shape when she heard the crunch of tires on the drive. The windows were open, but even if they hadn’t been, she felt confident she would have known someone was there. Since the episode with the yellow rose, she’d been as alert to sounds around the house as a police dog.

  She walked to the front door and turned on the porch light. Her tension left her when she saw Clay’s truck. For one childish moment, a little skitter of happiness danced around her stomach. It was the same feeling she’d had years ago, always spurred by the mere sight of him. She tried to ignore it and undid the hook that secured the screen door.

  As he got out and came up the steps, she saw he had a box in his hands.

  “Hi,” she said, hating the awkward way she felt with each meeting.

  “Hi.” His voice was soft and rough at the same time, making that feeling in her stomach take off again. He stood outside, just looking at her through the screen. “Can I come in?”

  Lily gave her head a little shake. “Of course.” She opened the door. “What do you have there?” she asked, pointing to the box.

  “A new phone—with programmable memory.”

  Smiling she said, “You think I can’t remember 911?”

  He stepped a little closer. “I don’t want you to call 911. I want you to call me.”

  Lily’s breath hitched in her throat. Her mouth went dry. “Don’t you think the sheriff is bet—”

  He raised his hand and put a thumb over her mouth. “No one can protect you like I can. Let me.”

  With her heart running like a hamster in a wheel, Lily couldn’t ask the question that was on the tip of her tongue: Because of your training? Or because you care like no one else?

  She took a step backward, trying to get enough air around her to draw a breath. “The only modular plug is upsta
irs. That line was run later. The kitchen is hardwired.”

  He started toward the stairs. She just watched him go.

  He stopped halfway up. “Gonna show me where, or do I have to find it myself?”

  She started after him. “Clay, really, I can plug the thing in myself.”

  He’d reached the upstairs hall; she was afraid he’d speak loudly enough that Riley would come out of his room. How would she explain this to him?

  But Clay didn’t say anything. He just waited at the top of the stairs for her to catch up.

  Brushing against him as she passed, she headed to the master bedroom. Once they were inside, she closed the door. Riley’s room was at the opposite end of the hall, and she heard his stereo playing, but she didn’t want to risk him hearing Clay’s deep voice and coming to investigate.

  At the soft click of the door closing, Clay turned to her with a raised eyebrow.

  She ignored it and pointed to the nightstand. “Phone’s there, the jack is right behind the table.”

  Clay picked up the old Trimline phone on the stand and followed the cord to the wall. He unplugged it and started to neatly wind the cord around the phone. “The new one will need an electrical outlet, too.”

  “I think it’s behind the headboard.” She walked over to the bed, making an effort not to make eye contact with Clay. He stepped out of her way and she knelt on the mattress. Pressing her forehead against the wall, she peered in the small space between the headboard and the wall. “There it is. Right in the middle.”

  She turned to look at him, and was immediately sorry she had. He stood there, frozen in midmotion, the boxed phone in his hands, his eyes locked on her. The expression on his face said he’d forgotten completely about the phone. Lily realized she’d been leaning over, putting her posterior right in his face. Quickly, she spun around and sat on the mattress.

  He tore his gaze away, and his cheeks actually reddened. He cleared his throat and opened the box. “We can pull the b… bed out—”

  “Right.” She pulled down on the hem of her shirt. “Right.”

  Clay ducked his head behind the nightstand and finished unboxing the phone out of her line of sight. Then he put the phone on the table and unwound the electrical cord and transformer. He stood right in front of her. She sat there looking up at him, all thoughts wiped cleanly from her mind by those brown eyes.