by Alison Kent
“What did you say?” she asked, her heart choking her.
He tossed the papers he had yet to sort back into the box, then laced his hands behind his head and cocked back his chair on two legs. He gave her a devil’s grin, and said, “I think you heard me.”
“I did hear you. That’s why I asked what you said.” She wasn’t making any sense, but then he wasn’t making any sense. And the way she suddenly couldn’t see straight was making even less. “A real engagement would mean we were planning to get married.”
One of his brows arched upward. “What if we did?”
“Got married?”
“Isn’t that what we’re talking about here?”
“I don’t know what we’re talking about, Trey Davis.” She’d never thought her heart beating so hard could actually hurt. Either she was having a heart attack or this was the worst case of anxiety, and panic and waiting-by-the-phone-for-the-boyshe-most-wanted-to-hear-from-to-call nerves that she’d experienced in her life. “I do know that I’m going to knock those other two chair legs out from under you if you don’t explain.”
“You asked me to marry you last week.” He paused, and she almost screamed before he added, “I’m saying yes.”
Calm, Cardin. Stay calm. “I asked you to pretend to be my fiancé and help me pull off a fake engagement. It was about getting my parents back together.”
“I know.” He nodded. “And I agreed to help. But I never answered your proposal.”
Calm, calm, calm. Calm, calm, calm. “So you’re putting this back on me somehow.”
He laughed, a huge hearty from the belly laugh. “You see, Cardin, this is why I love you. You don’t take anything at face value. You dig for the good stuff beneath.”
She thought he was saying something about value and digging, but all she heard was that he loved her. “Did you just say that you love me?”
“I did.”
“And that you want our engagement to be real?”
“That’s right.”
“And that you accept my marriage proposal?”
“I do.”
She just stared at him. She couldn’t move. Her belly was aching along with her chest, and she swore she was going to throw up.
Trey returned his chair legs to the floor, scooted all four of them across the worn linoleum and got up. He came to where she was sitting, spun her chair around, and knelt in front of her. “You know this story we made up to tell people about our long-distance relationship?”
“You mean the lie?” she asked, needing to make even the obvious clearer.
“That’s the one,” he said, reaching for the fingers of her hand that were digging into her thigh. “I’m beginning to think there’s a lot of truth to it. That the distance was simply across years instead of miles.”
She’d been looking into his eyes as he spoke, seeing thoughtfulness, sincerity, and an emotion that looked so much like real, live, from the heart love that it scared her. She raised her gaze to the ceiling, blinking away wetness before it fell as tears.
“I haven’t dated anyone seriously since leaving Dahlia. And it wasn’t until you walked into the Corley hauler last week that I knew why.”
She shook her head, a rapid back and forth, not because she didn’t want to hear what he was saying, but because she didn’t know how she was going to keep from blubbering like a fool.
“I don’t know why we never got together in high school—”
“We never even talked in high school,” she said, her voice breaking on an hysterical note.
“I know that. Part of me wants to laugh when I think about how stupid I was then. Another part of me is sad that we wasted so much time. But then I think that the waiting, the distance, all of it…” He stopped to clear his throat. “It was exactly what this thing between us needed to stir to life.”
She kept her eyes squeezed tightly closed. She’d never expected this, never spent time wishing or longing because doing either seemed like a waste of energy better spent where there was a chance for success.
That Trey was on one knee in front of her now…A sob escaped, a hiccup she tried to hold back.
“Look at me, Cardin,” he said, his fist beneath her chin lifting her head. “Look at me, sweetheart.”
It was so hard to do. So very hard to do. But she did. The tears she’d tried to stop welled, spilling from her lids and rolling down her cheeks. She didn’t bother wiping them away, or trying to catch them before they fell from her face to Trey’s hands.
“I’ve been serious about you for years. I just didn’t know how so until these last few days. And when I’ve thought about getting back to work, leaving Dahlia, leaving you…” This time it was Trey who choked up, whose voice grew husky and raw.
Even his eyes misted. “I can’t do it. I want you with me. I need you with me. Whether here or on the road. I don’t care where we are as long as we’re together. As long as you’re my wife. I love you, Cardin Worth. Will you marry me?”
It was the last straw. She fell forward, collapsing in his arms, crying there on the edge of her chair, as he held her. “I love you, too, Trey. I think I’ve loved you forever. It’s probably why I stopped when I saw you and Kim.”
“You wanted to take her place?”
“No, I wanted to flatten her.”
Trey laughed, set her back in her chair, and ran his wrist over his eyes while she used her T-shirt to dry her face. Both of them were laughing, smiling, trying to catch their breath and their runaway giddiness in the face of realizing they weren’t alone in their love.
Trey grabbed his chair, pulling it next to hers. “You never answered me, you know.”
“Oh, my God. Yes. Yes, of course, I’ll marry you.” He was everything she wanted. He was who she wanted. If this was a dream, she never wanted morning to come.
“So it’s okay if people bring presents,” Trey said, and she smacked his shoulder.
“You just didn’t want to have to give back the cash.”
He screwed up his face. “The thought of doing so was making me ill.”
Her stomach hurt from the laughter. Her chest ached from the joy filling her heart. “Oh, Trey, I can’t believe our engagement is real. I’m going to float through work tonight, and Sandy’s going to bug me, wanting to know what’s going on.”
“Just tell her you’re high on sex.”
“After the last few days? That wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration. Oh, what about your place here? Do you still want to sell it?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I didn’t know if you’d want to keep it so we’d have a home when we’re here.”
He shook his head. “We’ll have a home of our own. If this place doesn’t sell, the house will come down. I’ll keep the property, and we’ll put up a house just for us.” He gave her a smile. “We’ll get around to figuring it all out. We’ve got time.”
Time, and so many things to talk about, she thought. Like when they were going to get married. What kind of wedding they wanted. If they were going to continue with the long engagement or if she’d get to call herself Cardin Davis soon.
“I can’t believe we’re going to get married.”
“Just don’t go telling people that since everyone already thinks that we are.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said, pouting.
“Sorry to knock the wind from your sails, sweetheart. Guess next time you’ll think twice about telling everyone you know a lie.”
“Trust me. I’m done with the lying. Unfortunately, I’m not done with having to earn my own living. I’d better get to work.” She got to her feet.
Trey stood, too. “I was thinking I’d see if Tater wanted to meet me later at Headlights for dinner, after your grandfather and I put White Lightning through a test run.”
“Is it a boys’ night out thing, or do you want company?”
“If the company is yours, you bet.”
“I’ll see you later then.” She rose up on her tiptoes to kiss him, the
n scurried toward the front door.
“Hey,” he called out, and she looked back to see him standing there with his arms stretched out to his sides. “Is that all I get?”
“You’ll get a whole lot more when you finish your paperwork.”
“I’ve put it off for six months, what’s another six minutes?”
“From here, it looks like it’s time you’re wasting,” she said, then hurried out the door, down the front steps and to her grandfather’s truck, her steps and her heart as light as air.
Cardin Worth Davis. Mrs. Trey Davis. No words had ever sounded so good, or so very very right.
20
THE SIX MINUTES CARDIN told Trey not to waste weren’t an issue. It was during the sixty that followed that his life began to come undone, that he made his discovery, that a scrap of newsprint he found in the box of his father’s papers shut him down.
He got up from the chair where his body had grown stiff, where his emotions had petrified, where his mind had seized up like frozen gears. He couldn’t see anything else. Think of anything else. At a time when he’d least expected it, and completely on his own, he’d found what he’d been looking for when he’d come here.
The reason for the fight.
A reason that had nothing to do with money.
It was all about murder.
The headline dated 1939 said it all. Death in Dahlia Suspect. The story gave the facts. The body of Emmett Davis, Trey’s great-grandfather, had been found outside the home of his good friend, Cardin’s great-grandfather, Orin Worth. Though Trey knew Orin had run moonshine with Emmett during Prohibition, the article mentioned nothing about the duo’s partnership or their illicit money-making venture.
The authorities attributed the head injuries responsible for Emmett’s demise to a fall—the exact story Trey had been told all his life—but the newspaper added details he’d never heard. A female witness identified only as Trixie was quoted as saying, “Emmett didn’t trip so much as he had help hitting the ground. And I seen the piece of wood that done him in.”
The police discounted her story that Emmett’s fall had not been accidental. That he’d been struck in the head, and killed by the blow, instead. They discounted her story because she was known on the streets as unreliable with a taste for big cigars, bigger men and strong hooch.
On its own, the clipping was fairly innocuous, though certainly disconcerting to read. The story didn’t point fingers or place blame, simply questioned the findings in Trey’s great-grandfather’s death. But it was his father’s handwriting on the newsprint beneath the article that had a cold sweat dampening Trey’s skin.
Aubrey had written Trixie = Mrs. Orin Worth, and though surprised his father had learned somehow the fate of Cardin’s great-grandmother, Trey didn’t find it hard to believe. He heard more than once that the woman had vanished never to be seen again.
No, it was the list Aubrey had jotted beneath the article Trey was having trouble with. As if sorting out his thoughts on paper, Trey’s father had written, Ask Jeb about murder. He knows the truth. Am certain. Think he was there. There was no clue as to how Aubrey had come by the newspaper, or if he’d drawn his conclusions from other sources as well.
Right now, Trey didn’t care where the information had come from. His father’s notes implied that Cardin’s great-grandmother was right, and that Jeb knew when and how Emmett had been murdered. And neither man had ever said a word.
That was what Trey cared about. The silence, the hiding the truth. The lies.
He grabbed the newspaper and the notes and stormed out of the house toward his truck. The drive to the Dahlia Speedway took him twenty minutes. As much as he’d wanted to know the truth, he was not looking forward to the confrontation to come.
Other than a construction crew working on the containment fencing behind the southern side of the stands, the few cars belonging to the office staff and the traffic at Morgan and Son’s garage, the Speedway was deserted. Trey had no trouble finding Jeb.
The older man had hauled the car to the track with the pickup Eddie never used anymore, unloaded the Chevy Nova and four-wheeler from the trailer on his own.
As Trey parked and jumped down from his truck, Cardin’s grandfather waved him over, patting the seat of the ATV after straddling it. “Climb aboard. Let’s see if it shows as good as it sounds.”
The conversation they needed to have couldn’t be done over the roar of the ATV’s engine. And since Trey wasn’t even sure where or how to begin, he took the piece of newspaper from the pocket of his shirt, pulled it from the plastic bag he’d used for safekeeping, and held it in front of Jeb’s face.
Jeb read the words Trey’s father had written beneath the article, then reached for the key and turned off the ATV. Silence surrounded them, uncomfortable, angry, heavy with questions and accusations. Trey returned the paper to his pocket, while Jeb stared off into the distance, sagging in the seat.
He shook his head, a gesture that seemed to say he’d wondered long and often when this day would come. “Let’s get this race out of the way before we talk about that.”
Trey shook his head, a gesture that meant no. “There’s not going to be a race until we talk about that.”
“I was nine years old,” Jeb said, running his thumb over the palm of the other hand and staring down. “And that was seventy years ago, but I can still feel the splinters I got from gripping that board.”
“Wait a minute.” Trey’s blood pressure shot through his skull. He took a step back, felt himself shaking, struggled to find his voice. “You killed him? You’re the one in the article the witness, your mother, is talking about? And you kept it a secret?”
“I didn’t mean to do either one. I was a kid.”
“Those are excuses. Not an explanation,” Trey said. His temperature soared. “I think I deserve one since it was my great-grandfather who died.”
The silence grew darker as Trey waited. He felt it closing in, choking, consuming. He wasn’t sure how he kept from striking out—the same feelings his father must have suffered when he’d taken his findings to Jeb—but he held on until Jeb finally spoke.
“Tell me, Whip. What do you know about Emmett Davis?”
Very little, thanks to you, he wanted to say. “I know he ran moonshine with your father. I know that Diamond Dutch Boyle was sent here to stop them. I know you’re the one who finally found Boyle’s car in the LaBrecque ravine fifteen years later. But I know all that because it’s on the plaque hanging in Headlights. Emmett Davis didn’t live long enough for there to be much more to learn. He was only thirty-eight when you killed him.”
Jeb swung his leg over the ATV, pressed his hand to the small of his back as he straightened, then thumbed his cowboy hat up his forehead before he said, “Maybe we could have this discussion someplace more private.”
Trey looked around, seeing nobody within ear shot. “This is about as private as it gets.”
“Then let’s at least sit in one of the trucks. I can’t stand here for the length of time it’s going to take to tell this story.”
That was fine with Trey. He gestured with one hand for Jeb to take the lead and choose the truck. Jeb headed for Trey’s, the big crew cab dualie roomier than the one Eddie owned.
Jeb climbed up into the passenger seat, Trey behind the wheel. He noticed a sheen of sweat on the older man’s face. “Do you want me to turn on the a/c? Roll down the windows?”
“The windows will be fine.” Jeb pulled off his hat, finger-combed his hair, held the Stetson by the brim on one knee, and stared straight ahead through the windshield. “I’m guessing you thought your dad came to me for money to settle up his gambling debts. I know you did that for him. That he gave you the house and left Dahlia.”
“I didn’t come here to talk about my father.”
“Yes you did. Your father’s the reason you’re here at all.”
Semantics, Trey thought. He was here because of his father’s fight with this man, because of what his
father had discovered. And because Trey was the last Davis living, this man owed him answers. “I came back to Dahlia to go through his things, clean up the place, and yeah, see what I could find out about the fight. What I’ve found out makes me wonder why I shouldn’t go to the authorities instead of sitting here with you.”
“You’re doing just what your father did. You’re more like him than you know.”
If that meant neither Trey nor his father were satisfied until they got to the bottom of things, that he could deal with. But Trey was not a man who would cheat on his woman. Neither did he bet on anything but himself. “Then you tell me what kept my father from turning you in to the law.”
Jeb snorted. “For one thing, look at the law we’ve got around here. Henry Buell would bungle a traffic stop before getting it right.”
“He could’ve found someone a few pay grades higher than Buell.”
“If he’d wanted to bring the law into it, sure. But like you, he was more interested in hearing the story than seeing me locked up.”
Trey was pretty damn sure he hadn’t said that. “I may have a lot of things in common with my dad, but don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m him. I will call the law.”
“And what will you tell Cardin?”
He didn’t have an answer for that.
“Because I can guarantee that if you put me away, there won’t be a wedding.”
Not for a moment did Trey doubt that Jeb was speaking the truth.
He needed to know the whole story before he screwed up a whole lot of lives. “Right now I’m leaving Cardin out of this. Eddie and Delta, too. I don’t want to take this any further if you and I can settle things here and now.”
“One on one? Man to man?”
Trey gave a sharp nod. He would decide what to do once he had his hands on the whole truth.
Jeb took a deep breath and started. “I was too young to know a lot about your great-granddad, but the things I’d heard were the kind of things people only whispered about. Back then, a man’s sexual appetite wasn’t discussed at the dinner table along with the day’s news. Private things weren’t talked about openly at all. At nine years old, I didn’t know what sex was. Oh, I knew boy animals got on top of girl animals, and I knew girl animals gave birth to baby animals, but that was about it.”