by Joanne Rock
She eased out of his reach, not wanting to be swayed by the distraction of his strong hands.
“Fine. You should have told me sooner, but at least I know now.” She searched the kitchen for her handbag and found it sitting on the counter. “I’ve got to get home and talk with my brothers. Figure out what to do.” She’d probably have to interrupt Erin on her honeymoon, too. And she hated that. “I think I’d like a ride home. Please.”
He stared at her in the warm light of the kitchen, his crisp gray button-down as perfect as the rest of him. Too bad that polished exterior had deceived her. Or, at the very least, misled her.
“I can help you think through a response. You know as well as I that your family’s reaction will frame the way the townspeople view the investigation. We could bounce around ideas. Come up with a planned media strategy—”
“No.” She didn’t need any more of the mayor’s charismatic charm mixing up the issue. “I would prefer to discuss it with my family myself.” She slung the shoulder strap for her bag on one shoulder. “I appreciate the warning about the investigation, but it looks like it’s my turn to pull an all-nighter.”
She headed toward the door, not waiting to see if he followed.
Except his house was so big she realized she’d wandered into the wrong room.
“It’s this way,” he called.
When she turned, she saw he pointed at an open archway, which led to the breezeway attached to the garages.
She hurried to join him as he lifted the keys off a wrought-iron hook on the wall. So much for her plans to leave town tomorrow. No surprise that her dreams were being put on hold again. She’d never be able to leave her family in the middle of a crisis. This wasn’t some mood swing of her mother’s or a manufactured problem that her mom used to create drama.
At best, missing funds from Harvest Fest during her dad’s time in office would be a scandal and an embarrassment for all the Finleys. And at worst? It was the kind of thing that could send her mother into a dark, dark place emotionally.
As Heather slid into the passenger seat of Zach’s SUV, she found it ironic that she’d been leaving town—in part—to avoid stress and protect her health. Now she had to stay for incredibly stressful reasons. She hoped she could keep the effects of her RA at bay long enough to help her mother weather the latest storm. With her one sister on her honeymoon and the other sister incommunicado, Heather turned to her phone to email her friend Sylvia in Nashville. Better to have a cyberconnection than none at all.
But as she started typing out her frustrations, she erased them, unwilling to share the depths of her hurt with a friend she hadn’t seen in two months. Tucking her phone back in her purse, she stared out the window, feeling utterly alone.
CHAPTER NINE
“I’M SORRY, MS. FINLEY,” the nurse on the phone chirped early the next morning. “I double-checked your records and we haven’t seen you yet at our facility. Dr. Moab won’t write a prescription for medication without an evaluation.”
Heather closed her eyes and took a deep breath. No medicine if she didn’t get to Charlotte this week. She sat on her front-porch swing with a cup of tea and a blanket covering her lap and legs, keeping an eye on the time. Sam Reyes had invited her and the rest of the family to a press conference at town hall, set to take place in a few hours and—although Scott insisted she attend to present a united front—her stomach was in knots simply thinking about it.
She toed the swing into motion. The morning breeze blew cool and crisp, but the sun shone and the scent of autumn hung in the air. Too bad she felt like death warmed over on such a beautiful morning. She’d hardly slept last night after spending two hours at Scott’s house trying to figure out a way to break the news to their mother. In the end, her oldest brother offered to do it, and she’d been more grateful than she could say. By the time she’d gone to bed, she’d been emotionally drained and—she understood this morning—physically taxed. She was like a helium balloon with a slow leak.
She’d read online that autoimmune diseases depleted a person as their immune systems were continually engaged, providing sufferers with a constant “I’m coming down with something” kind of exhaustion.
Heather sighed. The nurse was waiting for her to speak. “I had my medical history released to your office. I thought since I was supposed to see Dr. Moab later this week, I’d be able to get a temporary prescription until I can reschedule.”
Not that she was taking much medicine anyhow. She’d had cortisone shots in Austin to tide her over, but the effects were wearing off. She didn’t know how much the anti-inflammatory drugs were helping, but she didn’t want to stop taking them in case she had another incident like the one that had sent her to the hospital in the first place.
Just as well that things hadn’t worked out with Zach, right? She wasn’t at a good place in her life right now.
Except that her time with him had been a bright spot in an exhausting string of days. It hurt that it had been tainted, first by his maneuvering to convince her to run for mayor and later, by hiding the truth of the missing funds.
“Have you tried calling your former doctor? Someone who treated you in the past would be in a better position to help, since we’ve never seen you at our office.”
Of course she’d tried that first and gotten nowhere. Doctors didn’t just prescribe medicines and leave you to your own devices. She needed follow-up care, blood work and a lot stronger treatment program.
“Hello? Ms. Finley?”
“Sorry. I’m still here.” Heather gripped the phone tighter and then winced when her knuckles throbbed in protest. She’d awoken in more pain today than yesterday. “I’ll try contacting my former doctor. Thanks.”
Disconnecting the call, she lifted her tea and stared at the table beside her. She eyed the green bottles containing her daily meds, each with five pills remaining. She hurt more every day despite her taking the steroid and anti-inflammatory doses. How would she feel when she ran out? She’d considered making a trip into the nearest town with a rheumatologist, but the two she’d tried were scheduling appointments months in advance.
She took another sip of cinnamon tea, then set the cup down, and debated closing her eyes for ten minutes. Maybe she could shake the exhaustion before she needed to get ready for the press conference. Ten more minutes and she’d call Erin to let her know about the new family scandal. Would her younger sister, Amy, care? She could call her, but things hadn’t gone well the last time Erin reached out to her.
Adjusting a pillow on the arm of the swing, Heather lay down just as the phone rang.
“Hello?” She sat back up.
“Heather, you’d better get over here.” Scott sounded tense. In the background, she heard the low wail of a woman crying. “Mom needs you.”
* * *
CAN’T MEET TODAY.
Megan pulled on a cap with a red Owl’s Roost diner logo. She rechecked the last message she’d received on her phone earlier that day. The text from Ms. Finley, saying she couldn’t make their guitar lesson, had been the only one to come through the phone in twenty-four hours.
No new suggestions that she kill herself.
Awesome.
She shoved her phone into her backpack and then stuffed the bag in an empty employee locker. The scent of fried fish hung in the air despite the slow-moving ceiling fan. For today, she would take the small victory of no text messages. However, she didn’t dare go on any social media sites after yesterday’s nightmare. She was terrified someone was going to find that page. She’d complained to the internet host site yesterday, advice she’d found online about stopping cyberbullying. But she hadn’t checked to see if the page had been taken down. She didn’t have the heart to look. Besides, once something had been online, it lurked somewhere on the internet forever.
“You ditched me this wee
kend.” A guy’s voice behind her made her jump.
“Wade!” She straightened her ponytail underneath the Owl’s Roost cap and snagged a clean apron off a hook on the wall of the back room. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
Wade Sanderson towered over her, a gangly but cute guy who’d been in Megan’s grade at Crestwood last year. His father worked construction and had fallen off a roof while on a job last summer, giving him extensive injuries that required long-term rehabilitation. Wade had quit school to earn extra money to help out his family. He had at least two jobs, including waiting tables at the Owl’s Roost.
“I would have made more noise if I knew you were gonna be so jumpy.” He flicked the brim of the cap she’d just straightened and then moved past her to get to another locker. “Then again, maybe I wouldn’t have.” He narrowed his gaze as he looked back at her. “I told myself I would hold a grudge against you for not being here for Sunday’s brunch crowd. I had to work with Gina.”
He rolled his eyes. They’d both agreed the hostess who doubled duty as a waitress was the most difficult person to work with on staff. When she welcomed people and assigned them to a table, she put all the families with small children and all the cheapest residents of Heartache in one section, and then assigned herself to another.
“So you got all the town’s worst tippers?” Megan liked Wade. He was honest, fair and funny. She wished she’d dated someone like him when she’d moved to town instead of that backstabbing J.D.
Not that she thought about Wade like that. But it would have helped if she did.
“I got to serve a birthday party for a three-year-old thrown by the grandparents. I’m pretty sure there was a food fight.” He hauled his T-shirt off so that he sat bare chested while he dug in the locker for a shirt that had fallen into the metal depths.
Had she thought he was gangly?
Wade Sanderson actually had a very nice back. He was just...tall.
When he came up with the shirt, he pulled it over his head and stared at her.
“A food fight. Hello? I was scrubbing frosting off booths for half an hour after they left.” He smoothed the wrinkles out of his shirt and she followed the movement of his hands like a total dolt.
Blinking fast, she tried to forget what she’d seen. She definitely didn’t need images of Wade’s back in her mind when her life was falling apart.
“Sounds about right for the Sunday-brunch crowd.” She looped her apron over her head and tied it in the back.
“So, how was the wedding breakfast? Did you make big bucks over there while I was fending off French fry missiles from insane preschoolers?”
“I pulled in a little more than I make here,” she admitted, leaning back on a locked supply closet while she waited for him. “But if I’d known Bailey and her crew would be there, I would have taken your place as target practice for the munchkins.”
“She’s still being weird?” He grabbed a cap and apron from his locker.
She’d told him how Bailey had decided to hate her guts once Megan had broken up with J.D. and Bailey had started dating him. A watered-down version of the story had come out one day at work when she’d begged Wade to take the McCord family’s table after Gina had seated them in Megan’s section.
“You could say that.” Straightening, she headed toward the kitchen and Wade followed.
Before she could shove open the door, Wade’s long arm reached over her head and levered it wide, clearing a path to their workstation and the daily grind of refilling ketchup bottles, napkin holders and other table amenities before the dinner rush began. For a second, Wade stood all of an inch away from her as he held the door.
“She didn’t hassle you while you were working?” He grabbed a stack of menus and a damp cloth to wipe them down, a job Megan hated.
It was cool that he always took it since he knew that.
She sat across from him and started unscrewing ketchup bottles.
“She ignored me.” The temptation to confide something—just the text messages even—was strong. She’d hoped so hard that the torment would end, but she guessed that was naive.
“But?” He kept wiping menus.
She stopped what she was doing.
“What?” He stopped, too. “You think I couldn’t hear the ‘but’ in that comment?” He wiped the cloth across another menu. “I quit school because I wanted to. Not because I’m a total dumb-ass.”
“Whoa.” She snatched the cloth out of his hands. “I know you’re nowhere close to dumb.” She whacked the towel against his arm and then slapped it back on the table. “You caught me off guard.”
“I hate not going to school,” he admitted, a rare thing for him to say.
Wade hardly ever said anything negative about anything or anybody.
“I’m sorry you can’t be there. How’s your dad doing?” She tried to focus on him. It took an effort. She was interested, but she’d gotten really good at letting her problems eat away at her night and day.
“Same.” He shrugged. “No closer to going back to work.”
“It’s good of you to help out.” She couldn’t imagine if something happened to her dad.
“I still think it was the right thing to do.” He scrubbed harder, making her realize how slowly she’d been working. “I just didn’t have a good sense of how little money I’d make compared to what my dad brought in. Which maybe does make me a total dumb-ass, after all.”
She didn’t know quite what to say to that.
“Can I ask you a question?” She finished the ketchups and wiped off the last bottle. “And don’t bring up the dumb thing again. My grandmother never finished high school and my dad said she was the smartest woman he ever knew. And he teaches college and has a lot of friends who do, too, so—you know. What does that say about professors?”
Wade looked up, grinning.
“Your granny could have beaten their asses on Jeopardy?”
“Um, no.” She smiled. “I think Dad meant that my grandmother was wise. You know? She didn’t need to know dates in history or how to solve for X. She raised five kids by herself on a waitress’s salary and could make her budget go a long way.”
“I get it. I was teasing anyway.” He finished his menus and started on the napkin holders. “So what was your question?”
“Do you think Bailey is the type of person who would text me mean messages months after I broke up with J.D.?”
“Mean messages like what?” Wade pushed his hat brim back as he propped his elbows on the table. His gray eyes were serious. Concerned.
“Asking me why I had to be at the wedding breakfast and ruin everyone’s fun. Stuff like that.” She hadn’t meant to confide in him.
Hadn’t meant to spill her problems on him when he had more than enough of his own.
Before he could say anything, one of the waitresses edged through with a big tray of fried fish, still steaming.
“Hey, kids.” Isabel Fielding balanced the tray with two hands, keeping her eyes on it to be sure she didn’t lose any pieces. “I’ve got a big order to wrap for a school group that’s doing a fish-fry fund-raiser, and the Bakers had to leave for a press conference this morning, so I’m on my own. Come help me out front when you finish?”
Rodney Baker, their boss and the owner of the place, was on the town council with Megan’s dad. Her dad hadn’t said anything to her about a press conference, but then, he never talked to her much about his work with the town.
“Sure, Izzy.” Wade jumped to get the door for her. “We’re almost done.”
“Thanks.” Isabel disappeared into the dining area, her red miniskirt a popular attraction at the Owl’s Roost.
Not that Megan was jealous or anything. Izzy was sweet and fun, and that was half the reason she received great tips. But Megan had seen male eyes follow her more of
ten than not. It made her like Wade all the more that his eyes stayed on Megan.
“Meg, why would anyone send you something like that?” He went right back to their conversation, as if Isabel had never passed through the room.
Megan kept filling another napkin holder. It was tempting to tell him everything. She’d been scared and holding it in for so long. But what would Wade think of her if he saw that awful, awful social media site? No way could she tell him everything.
“Meg?” He moved to sit on her side of the table.
He sat so close she could have cried on his shoulder, if she was the kind of girl to do that type of thing.
“I got some ugly texts that day. Anonymous, ugly texts.” She hardly recognized her own voice. Gruff. Quiet.
Embarrassed.
Which made her mad. Why should she be embarrassed by someone else being stupid?
“And they said you shouldn’t be at the wedding event?” He leaned down to get in her line of vision, tipping his head sideways so she was forced to see him.
“There were three texts.” Giving in, she set down the napkins and looked at him, the concern in his eyes making her need to share something. To offload some little piece of all the stuff that hurt her. “Anonymous texts.”
“What did they say?”
“The first one said, ‘You are such a slut.’”
He startled backward, as if she’d hit him.
“You’re kidding.”
“Of course not.” Still, she felt a little like the Scarlet Letter lady that she’d shocked him. “You know how high school girls can be.”
“Uh. No. I don’t.” He shook his head. “I hang out with guys in shop class and we rebuild car engines for fun. No one is calling anyone a—that.”
“Well, it’s not that uncommon.” She definitely wasn’t ever letting Wade find out about the social media page. If he thought “slut” was a big deal, he’d die if he saw the kind of crap written there. “Then I got a note that said, ‘Don’t you have anything better to do on a weekend than ruin everyone else’s good time?’ That one came after I spilled an ice tub, and a bunch of kids were laughing at me. That’s why I figured one of them—at the wedding breakfast—sent the text.”