“Come in,” I repeat myself, still in shock as I hold out a hand, waving in the direction of the great room. “Want to take your coat off?”
She slips off her winter jacket, and I take it from her, placing it over the back of a chair once we enter the large living room. She observes the intricate K’Nex structure being built in the center of the floor, and the collection of boys constructing it.
“Mrs. Pickle, come here,” Louie calls out without looking up and then falters with disappointment when he sees our guest is not his favorite book reader. I feel the same, kid. Scotia and I need to talk and iron out where we’re at with one another.
“You’re not Mrs. Pickle,” Hunter states, following up Louie’s observation.
“Hello,” Campbell says quietly, watching Henny like he doesn’t trust her.
“You’re married,” Henny quietly states. Is that disappointment in her tone?
“I—”
“Did I hear the doorbell?” Savannah inquires as she enters the large room.
“Savannah, this is Hennessy Miller.” I don’t know how I should label Henny. Do I explain she was once the love of my life? That she ripped out my heart and reminded me I was no better than my upbringing? Henny saves me from further clarification by holding out a hand to shake with Savannah.
“She’s very pretty, Chester,” Henny states, addressing me as if Savannah isn’t standing before her. The compliment makes Savannah sound like a specimen to be assessed, and it reminds me of the old Henny. The gossipy, sugar-sweet woman disguising comments and insults in candy-coating. It reminds me of someone else who I haven’t heard from, and I don’t like the comparison. “You’re a lucky man.”
“Uhm . . .” Savannah pauses, glancing up at me.
“She isn’t my wife,” I clarify, finding my voice.
“I’m going to go check on dinner,” Savannah quickly states, dismissing herself.
“Are you here to build with us?” Hunter asks Henny as Savannah exits the room. “You can take Uncle Chet’s place.”
“Uncle Chet?” Henny questions, glancing at the child with an arched eyebrow before addressing him. “I’m not here to build, no.”
Hennessy knows my history. As a foster child, I didn’t have any blood relatives. I had Davis, and eventually, Harper accepted me because she loved him. Henny never knew Harper, and it’s a good thing because Harper was loyal, and she would have never approved of Hennessy. Davis didn’t like Henny, and I almost lost my friendship because of my fool hearted blindness when it came to this woman.
“Why are you here, Hen?” I guide her to a set of chairs on the edge of the room. My heart pumps a little faster because I don’t want her asking more about the boys, learning about them, or misjudging their circumstance.
“I shouldn’t be here,” she suddenly says, taking in the boys before gazing back at the entryway.
“But you are.”
“I just wanted to see you.”
I don’t know how to respond to that, so I don’t.
“How is Davis?” My friend’s name on her lips does not sit well with me. We fought so much over him. He and I fought so much over her.
“You have nothing to prove,” he told me over and over again, but I disagreed. I wanted the woman and I needed to better myself to get her.
“He died seven years ago.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She reaches for my forearm, and the touch reminds me of a thousand soft caresses when we were young. We did a lot of touching. Back then, sparks flew. She was an outlet, electric and dangerous, while I was the key warned never to be placed inside her. Her rebellious streak attracted me, and I loved that she chose me to love her.
But she hadn’t loved me.
Her current touch is not the same thrilling sensation from my youth. Instead, something prickles up my skin in warning. Being dumped by the love of your life will change a man.
“So what are you doing here?” I ask, slowly retracting my arm from under her hand and curious about this impromptu visit twenty-plus years later.
“I wanted to see what happened with our house.” She smiles, glancing up and around the room again.
“My house, you mean,” I correct as it never became ours. She sheepishly looks over at me, and her smile weakens. Those lips were so sweet, so eager, so delicious once upon a time. The memory is wicked. What she did to me was cruel, yet who do I have to blame? I thought I knew her. I thought I could give her what she wanted. I thought she wanted me. I had been wrong.
“Yes, your house. Of course. And your nephews?” she inquires, curious about the Uncle Chet comment.
“Do you have children of your own?” I ask, not interested in explaining Harper House.
“Yes, two.” She hesitates without giving further explanation. Her jaw tightens as if holding her smile in place, and I sense there’s something she isn’t telling me. I learned long ago I was never as good at reading Henny as I thought, but she still surprises me with her next comment. “We should have a drink sometime. Catch up, maybe?”
“What about Jeffrey?” I state, recalling her husband as I grip the armrest, holding myself still at the shift in conversation. After all this time, she wants to . . . catch up? What do I even say to her? I went on to make the millions you wanted. I went on to make something of myself. I’m involved with someone, sort of, I think. And now you want to catch up?
There comes a time when too much time has passed for connection, reconciliation, or even explanation.
“My husband passed away a year ago,” she clarifies, shifting her eyes away from me and back to the boys on the living room floor.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” I am sorry for her loss. Jeffrey Heiner had the prestige she wanted—the family name, the history behind it, and the money. Never forget the money. “What are you doing in the area?”
“Just visiting,” she states, remaining strangely vague. It’s a conversation of quipped questions and short answers like an awkward interview, but I remind myself Henny came to me. “So a drink sometime?”
Before I realize what I’m saying, I answer. “I’d like that, Hen.”
“Great. It’s a date. I’ll give you my number.” Reaching around herself for her bag, she produces a phone and asks me for my phone number. Then she texts me hers.
She looks at the boys one more time, lingering over each one, and a strange sensation fills my gut. Is she wondering what it would have been like? Wondering how many children we would have had? What they would have looked like with the combination of my dark waves and her blue eyes? I envisioned Hennessy as a mother. Just thought it would be the natural progression between us, perhaps. We’d marry. We’d have children. I’d take care of our family—the family I never had as a kid.
Her gaze shifts, glancing up and around the great room, noting the large couch, the two armchairs where we sit and the two-story fireplace. A flat-screen television hangs above the mantel for movie nights, and a shelving unit holds bins of toys and stacks of board games. The large three-paned window overlooks the mountain range, difficult to make out in the dark landscape but there nonetheless. I built the home I thought she’d want.
I never asked for this, she’d said.
“It’s so great to find you’re still here, Chester. You look good.” Her smile deepens. Her lips look larger, different than I remember, and it throws me off. Something warns me not to trust her, but I ignore the nagging hint. The thing about me with Hennessy—I’m stupid around her. I always was and, apparently, still am.
“You, too.” My shoulders tense, and my grin falsely grows. The more I look at her, the more there’s something off about her appearance. Her eyes are pulled a little too tight at the corners. Her nose looks thinner.
I stand to end this impromptu visit, and Henny follows my lead. I pick up her coat and walk her to the front door. Holding open her winter jacket for her, she slips her arms into it.
“Such a gentleman,” she teases over her shoulder, and a thousand things flash be
fore me. Frank Sepco taught me to be a gentleman. Hold the door for a woman. Take her hand. Bring her flowers.
Life lessons on women from a service station gentleman, he teased.
“Things change,” I mutter. Was I not a gentle man when we were younger? I wasn’t polished, but I wasn’t rough either. I was good to her. I’d assumed Henny would spiff me up once we were married. She’d teach me how to be better. Instead, she hardened me when she ripped out my heart.
“Yet some things stay the same. I never forgot you, Chester.” The sound of my name on her lips feels wrong. I’m reminded she never called me Chet. She doesn’t know me as him, and she’d definitely disapprove of Big Poppy. “I’m so glad you’re still here.”
Her hand comes to my chest, and she pushes onto her toes, pressing a kiss to the corner of my lips before I know what’s happening. I’m stunned, as stiff as the banister near the stairs. My brain is slow to register the most important question that I don’t want to ask myself. What does she want from me? Because there must be something after all this time.
“Be careful on that drive,” I say as I open the front door in order not to catch her eyes, which are searching for mine. The night is cold, and the scent of snow lingers in the air. A dark, sporty car sits in the driveway.
“I look forward to seeing you soon,” Henny says, and her hand pats my chest once more. She was always touchy, and it distracted me in my youth.
How could something so beautiful touch my filth? I’d marveled at the thought when I was young, but Henny touched me in more ways than one.
I watch Henny with curiosity as she walks across the drive, slides into her car, and reverses into the night. When I close the door, I press my large back to it and tip my head against the panel, closing my eyes.
“Was someone here?” Maura asks, coming out of her office off the entry.
“Hennessy Miller,” I state. Hennessy Miller Heiner.
“What the hell did she want?” Maura questions, nearly as surprised as me, and I glance at her. Maura and I have known one another for years, so we know each other’s pasts. We’ve never been attracted to one another, giving us a true male-female friendship. In many ways, Maura reminds me of a female Davis, and I’m grateful to have someone like her in my life.
“Drinks.” It’s so unbelievable. “Her husband is dead.” Is she looking for sympathy? Does she want more from me? Does she want comfort in the form of something I’ll never give her again? My money. My dick. My heart. I’m instantly disappointed in myself.
Way to judge someone, Chet.
Maybe she meant what she said. She only wants to have a drink and catch up.
“Drinks?” Maura repeats, uncertainty filling her tone, along with a side of I-don’t-believe-it. I stare at my nephews’ caregiver. Yeah, I probably shouldn’t believe it either.
“I don’t know what she wants.” I’m answering the unasked question, confused myself by Henny’s sudden presence and how surreal it was to have her in the house I built for her.
I don’t think I should see the inside. I’ll only fall in love with it, and it can’t be mine.
You’re in love with me, not him. You’re mine.
“Maybe this is a sign it’s time for you to date,” Maura states, and I blink back to the present.
“Henny?”
“Anyone but,” Maura harshly huffs. “Find a nice woman. Settle down a bit. Have stable companionship.” Maura has no idea about the instability of my relationships. The one-night stands. The distance I keep from women. The craziest thing I’ve done in years is Scotia Simmons. Thoughts of her collide with memories of Henny. The two women are night and day in appearance but not quite so different in personality. It’s one reason I’ve had my doubts about Scotia. My body doesn’t distrust a thing about her, but I don’t understand Scotia’s motive to be with me. The way she looks at me. The way she touches me. I don’t understand. Why me? And that question stems from what Henny did to me because she’d had a motive, and I’d been fool enough to fall for everything.
“Who says I don’t have all the companionship I need?” I joke.
Maura shakes her head, giving me a knowing look. “Wouldn’t someone steady and stable be nice?”
The question throws me off guard, and I wonder if she’s speaking about herself. In the six years she’s been with me and the boys, she hasn’t dated once that I know of.
“Dinner’s ready,” Savannah announces, entering the front entry where Maura and I have remained, and I’m grateful for the intrusion on this awkward conversation.
My thoughts rush to Scotia. She’s stable. She runs her own business. She has a solid family in her sisters. But she’s still a contradiction to me. What does a woman of independent means want with a man like me?
I wouldn’t share you because I’d want to keep you for myself.
The words almost erase the strange sensation prickling my skin after Henny’s exit. Scotia doesn’t hold back—not in words or opinions—but she also doesn’t hold back when we touch. She sparks like an unlit match, crackling to life, and I want to keep feeding that flame. I want to know how brightly she’ll burn. How hot she will heat. How intense can she be.
Maybe I should ask Scotia out on a date.
However, I’m too old to date. Dating is some kind of youthful mating ritual, testing the waters of compatibility and leading toward a commitment I can’t offer someone. I already have too many responsibilities as it is and don’t need the complication of a woman just because she smiles prettily at me.
But you do like when Scotia smiles at you. Her eyes light up. Her lips curl as though she knows a secret.
The boys scramble to the bathroom to wash up, scattering my thoughts, and Maura does a quick survey of heads.
“Has anyone seen Malik?” she asks the collective group.
“Maybe he’s upstairs?” Hugh suggests.
“I didn’t see him in the guest room,” Dewey volunteers as he had to pass the bedroom to come downstairs for dinner.
“I’ll check,” I say, taking my time to search the upper rooms. I only grow slightly uneasy as I scan the lower floor. But by the time I reach the dining room, with one empty chair among the rows of boys, I’ve moved from unease to anxious.
“I couldn’t find him.”
Maura glances up at me, her expression matching the concern in my chest. “I’ll call the authorities.”
Chapter 18
Arrested in Truth
[Scotia]
“Mrs. Simmons, this is Deputy Sheriff Hughes.” The second my phone rang, I pounced on it, answering breathlessly without greeting.
“Yes,” I cut him off.
“We’ve arrested a young man who had your business card on him.” On a typical day, I wouldn’t admit to knowing any young man with a business card, but Malik isn’t typical. Deputy Sheriff Hughes didn’t say the boy was Malik, but I’m already collecting my bag, knowing it can’t be anyone else.
He’s been missing for two days.
“I’ll be right there.” I hang up without further explanation. When Maura called me two nights ago to tell me Malik was missing, I was at my office. I haven’t left it, hoping he’d come here. Since the moment I met the boy at Harper House, I’ve had an affinity for him. I don’t know how to explain it. That lost look. That silent, sharp mind. Something about him just spoke to me, and I want to gather him in my arms and tell him the world isn’t always such a cruel place. I just wish he would open up to me.
I race for my SUV parked behind the building and swiftly make it to the sheriff’s department.
Rushing through the front doors of the station, I nearly yell, “Where is he?”
“Where’s who?” Flo McClure states from the reception desk. The evening hour seems a little late for her to be working, but I don’t pay her any mind.
“The boy. Aaron Hughes called me about him.”
“You mean Deputy Sheriff Hughes,” Flo corrects me for calling Aaron by his given name and not his title. Bless
his heart. His parents were at their wits’ end with him and likely felt relieved when he slipped right into this position at the local sheriff’s department. Flo takes her time to make the call back to him, asking him if he has a boy in interrogation.
“Interrogation?” I question. “He’s a child.”
“Kids still commit crimes.”
“What could he possibly have done?” I don’t need Flo to answer me as the deputy saunters into the reception area.
“Mrs. Simmons, if you’ll follow me.” I’m led toward his desk with no sign of the boy.
“Where is Malik?”
“That the boy’s name? He isn’t speaking to me, but I found your business card on his person.”
I’d given Malik the card in case he ever wanted to speak to me. It was probably against protocol for Harper House, but I wanted him to know he could reach out to me when he was ready to talk.
“Yes. His name is Malik.”
“Any idea where he’s from?”
“Isn’t that supposed to be your job?” I remind him. It’s been up to the sheriff’s department to further investigate Malik’s unexplained appearance, although Aaron is not the one assigned to his case. Deputy Boone is the investigating officer. Apparently, Officer Boone isn’t present this evening.
“He one of those homeless kids up on the hill?”
“He is not homeless. He lives in a private residence that’s a certified foster home. They’re approved by the state and well provided for.” I hope I’ve said that correctly. I don’t want anything to happen to separate any of the children from Maura or Chet. I should have called them, but my first concern had been getting to Malik.
“You seem to know quite a bit about the place,” Aaron states as if I’m under investigation.
Love in a Pickle: A Silver Fox Small Town Romance (Green Valley Library Book 9) Page 15