“Tell her, Buster,” Asha said. “Tell her she’s dealing with a shark who’ll eat her up and spit her out.”
Buster held up his hands. “I shouldn’t get involved. I’m aware that Matt did some terrible things, but he’s also a client and a friend. I do agree with Zane that he has a decent side. Travis and I have seen it many times.”
Asha snorted. “What, when he’s giving you kickbacks for getting jobs canceled that interfere with his projects? I imagine the project that Charlie’s engaged you for will suddenly fall through because of Matt’s influence.”
“Asha!” Steph’s tone was incredulous. “You owe Buster an apology. He’s here as my friend. He didn’t come around to be insulted.”
Buster stood. “I think it’s time I left.”
“No,” Asha took a deep breath. “Steph’s right. That was an awful thing to say, and I’m sorry. It’s just Matt Law. He brings out the absolute worst in me.”
“But the best in your throwing arm,” Zane reminded her, breaking the tension. “Did you see that dent in his Roadster Asha inflicted with a rock?”
Buster nodded, forcing a smile. Coming to see Steph had been a mistake. He still wasn’t quite sure what had driven him to Hope’s Ridge.
“Okay,” Asha said. “You said you and Travis had seen a decent side to Matt. Give us an example.”
Buster considered his response. He wasn’t sure that Matt would want his business dealings known by everyone, but he also felt it was his responsibility to make Asha aware of Matt’s other side.
“Were you aware that Matt funds part of LakeView?”
“What? The long-term care facility?” The surprise on Asha’s face confirmed she didn’t know this.
Buster nodded. “He allocates a percentage of the profit he makes from select projects to LakeView, which I believe helps with the upkeep of the facility itself and also the minivan that takes the residents on outings.”
“Select projects?”
“Ones where he can see the profit quickly. He buys up quite a lot of properties here and in Drayson’s Landing, improves them, and flips them. He gives a percentage of his profit to LakeView.”
“Why LakeView?”
Buster could see Asha’s curiosity getting the better of her. “His grandfather was a resident for a number of years and hated that he was dependent on family members to go on outings. Matt told me that a lot of the upgrades, including the minivan, were to please his grandfather. He died three years ago but Matt’s continued with his donations. Maybe it makes him feel close to someone he loved, I don’t know.”
Asha nodded. “That’s unexpected. It doesn’t erase what he tried to do to Charlie. One good deed would never be enough for that.”
“I agree,” Buster said. “Did you also know he helped out the Jean family after the fire?”
“The one that destroyed their house and their investment property next door?”
Buster nodded. “He had us draw up the plans for the new houses. The Jeans didn’t have insurance. Matt offered to finance the rebuild for a percentage ownership in the property.”
Asha snorted again. “Let me guess, ninety percent ownership, or was it a hundred?”
“Twenty. If they sold the properties today, Matt would recoup a fraction of what he’s invested.”
“That’s amazing,” Steph said. “Why did he do that?”
Buster hesitated. “I feel like I’m sharing far too much of Matt’s story. This is the last thing I’ll tell you. As you probably remember, Matt’s mom died when we were teenagers. Nicole Jean was a friend of his mother’s and also a nurse. She’d helped her on and off for years. It was his way of thanking her.”
Silence fell among the group.
“It’s like he’s two completely different people,” Asha said. “Why can’t he be that Matt all the time?”
Buster shrugged. “Who knows. But I am telling you he can be genuine. Whether or not he is on this occasion with Heat Wave, only he knows. I would advise being careful but also accepting that he can be decent.”
“Does he plan to develop the studio?” Zane asked. “He talked about a wellness center when I was working for him.”
“Ultimately, that’s his long-term plan for Heat Wave,” Steph said. “It’s all early days for figuring it out, but that’s where he’d like to head in the future. Keep the yoga studio but renovate the cottages and the land around the studio and make it a retreat.”
“That’s good, at least,” Asha said.
“Why’s that?” Steph asked.
Asha turned to look at Buster. “Because if he’s doing any development, he’ll employ Buster’s company to do it. If he’s doing anything that’s not aboveboard, you’ll be able to tell us, won’t you?”
Buster was aware of the three sets of eyes on him. Matt hadn’t even discussed the project with him yet, and his agreement with Travis was he’d be leaving the company as soon as the plans for Matt’s apartments on Lake Drive and Charlie and Asha’s pavilion were approved by the township. Heat Wave was not part of this plan.
“We’d hate to see Steph taken advantage of,” Asha said. “She’s had an awful year, and I want to see life get better, not worse.”
Buster swallowed. Steph’s awful year was because of the accident. For which he was responsible. While he was desperate to get out of the area and start again, he had to hang around for a couple of projects. Adding one more to the mix wouldn’t add too much time to his stay in the area. And he owed Steph, that was one thing he was sure of.
“Don’t feel you have to—” Steph began, but Buster cut her off.
“Don’t be silly. Assuming Matt buys Heat Wave and asks us to be involved, of course, I’ll keep an eye on him. I should clarify, I had no idea that he was up to no good with Charlie, so I can’t guarantee I’ll know what he’s doing.”
“Yes, but he had two sets of building plans going with the Lake Drive development,” Zane said. “If you include Steph in all of the meetings, or brief her afterward if Matt meets with you separately, then there’s no opportunity for him to do something unscrupulous.”
“That’s a good way to approach it,” Buster said. And it was. But what had he just committed to? A building development could take months, if not years. He felt a connection to Steph and a responsibility to look out for her, but he was planning on leaving the area for a fresh start, wasn’t he?
❖
“I can’t believe how quickly it’s all happened,” Bodhi said. “The paperwork still has to be finalized, but that should only take a matter of days. You’re sure you’re happy with everything?”
Steph nodded. Her head was spinning with the speed at which Matt worked, so she could only imagine how Bodhi was feeling. He was about to pack up and leave Hope’s Ridge, something he’d initially thought was a month or two away, at the very earliest.
“Matt’s got some amazing plans for the place,” Bodhi said. “I wish the situation was different because I would have loved to have done some of these things with him.”
“I still get worried,” Steph said. “He was so awful in his dealings with Asha and Charlie. I’m just not sure I’ll ever be able to trust him.”
“That’s understandable, and I hope I’m right when I say this, but I think this project is different. There’s more to it than just money for Matt. He’s passionate about creating something unique.”
“I hope so. Now, when are you going to leave?”
“Next week,” Bodhi said. “If all goes as planned, Matt will own Heat Wave as of Friday. Hopefully, you and he can work out your arrangement, and he’ll get the paperwork drawn up for that. We’re using the lawyers in town, and he advised them, when I was with him, of the plans for you to have a percentage ownership. He said the two of you would go in together to draw up the agreement. I was relieved when he said that, since it means you can ask about anything you don’t understand or say something if you think he’s doing anything untoward.”
Steph smiled. “I feel bad for Matt
. Every conversation I have around this comes back to whether he’s doing something unscrupulous.”
Bodhi shrugged. “He’s brought that on himself. I just hope that Heat Wave is the project that confirms we can trust him.”
Me too, Steph thought. She was comforted, however, by the knowledge that Buster would be looking out for her. Who would have thought that the man she’d done her best to avoid for the past twelve months was the man she was now happy to have on her side.
❖
Buster took deep calming breaths as he climbed out of his pickup and took in the high fence with the coiled barbed wire at the top. While he knew Eve was in prison, before today, he hadn’t given much thought to what that meant. He couldn’t begin to imagine what her life had become. He pushed away the flood of guilt the poured down on him.
The security process took longer than he anticipated, but finally, a guard nodded to the doorway that led into a large meeting room. Buster’s nerves, on edge in his stomach since he first arrived, magnified. Tables and chairs were set up around the room, and several women in white jumpsuits sat behind the desks. Some wore handcuffs, but most sat staring straight ahead, waiting for their visitors.
Buster hesitated as he saw Eve raise her hand from a table at the far corner of the room. She wasn’t cuffed, thank goodness. Regardless of how much he’d hated her at different times, he was relieved that her hands were free.
He walked over to her table, conscious of his own hands shaking. This was his ex-wife, someone he’d once loved deeply. Why was he so nervous to see her?
Eve’s smile wobbled, and Buster couldn’t help but notice her shaking hand. She quickly withdrew it from the table and buried it in her lap.
He sat down in the chair opposite her, an overload of emotions rushing through him.
“Thank you for coming.” Eve’s voice was barely a whisper.
Buster nodded, pretty sure his voice wouldn’t work. Eve was thinner, a lot thinner than when he’d seen her at the trial. Her skin and eyes were clear, a contrast to what she’d been like in the final months of Holly’s life.
He cleared his throat. “How are you?”
Eve gave a small smile. “Coping. Kind of. You?”
His smile reflected her forced effort. “About the same.”
Eve nodded. “Thank you for coming.” She shook herself. “Sorry, I know I already said that. I’m so nervous.” She leaned toward him. “I spent the morning throwing up. I was so scared to face you.” She pulled back, her face coloring. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have told you that.”
Buster wanted to reach across the table and take her hand, but the rules forbade it. His hatred for his ex-wife melted away as he had this thought. Her eyes were clear but haunted. She was clean but living a nightmare. One that he understood all too well. “I should have come to see you earlier, Eve. I’m sorry too. I wanted to forget about you. Push away all the memories. Not that that worked, of course.”
Tears filled Eve’s eyes. “I’ve never wanted to forget you. I want to go back and change everything from the day Holly was born. Everything. But before that, I wouldn’t change a thing. Would you?”
Buster hesitated. There were things about Eve that had worried him before Holly was born. But he’d brushed them aside. Concentrated his hardest on the fact that he had a beautiful, intelligent, funny, and mostly supportive wife. They had been happy. He couldn’t deny that. “What happened, Eve? Why did it change?” He held his breath, waiting for her answer. Jodi had made suggestions to him, but he’d never allowed himself to think too much about it. He needed to blame Eve. It was the only way he didn’t blame himself.
Eve rubbed the thumb of one hand on the fingers of the other as she considered her answer. They sat in silence for a few minutes, and then she spoke.
“I’ve seen a lot of psychologists since I’ve been here. As you can imagine, dealing with what happened has been pretty hard.”
Buster nodded and waited for her to continue.
“In talking with them, it’s been suggested that following Holly’s birth, I suffered postpartum depression. It’s no excuse,” she was quick to say. “I’m not trying to justify anything that happened, but it is a possibility.”
Buster nodded again and waited for her to continue.
“For me, it would explain how I felt after Holly was born. It should have been the happiest time of my life, and instead, it was the worst. I felt like such a failure. You have no idea.”
Tears welled in Buster’s eyes.
“It was no one's fault, other than my stupid hormones and lack of knowledge that this was what had happened. Mom’s a mess now that I’ve told her. She can’t believe she didn’t pick up on it. None of us did. Obviously I was pretty good at hiding it. I couldn’t understand why I felt so helpless and certainly didn’t want to admit to it. The drinking and…” she stopped for a moment “…and the other terrible things I did, were to try to cope. To make me feel better about everything. A pretty horrible way of coping, I know that. It destroyed our marriage, and for that, I’m truly sorry.”
Buster wiped the tears from his cheeks. “I don’t blame you, Eve. I did to start with, but I was a terrible husband. I promised to love and cherish you and look at what I did. Pushed you to drink, asked you to leave our home, and then fought for custody so aggressively. I loved you so much before Holly was born. I can’t believe what happened to us after her birth.”
Tears now flowed down Eve’s cheeks. “It wasn’t your fault, you need to believe that. So many professionals failed us. I tried to get help for my depression, yet none of the doctors I saw linked it to postpartum depression. The legal system for the divorce was geared up for how we could tear each other apart rather than work amicably to move forward in co-parenting roles. We were let down on many different levels.”
“Maybe, but I let you and Holly down,” Buster said. “You were my women. My loves.” Tears rolled freely down his cheeks now. “When your mom asked me to come and visit, I got angry. Thought of all of the reasons as to why you didn’t deserve me to visit. I now realize it was all an excuse. To hide from how much I’ve let you down, from how much I’m responsible for.”
Eve’s bottom lip wobbled. “I thought you’d be angry and hate me. I can’t tell you how much of a relief this is. But no matter what happened after Holly’s birth, I went against the court order, and I’d been drinking. There’s no excuse for that, and I don’t expect your forgiveness. I’m not even asking you for it. We lost the most important thing in our lives. Our love, our joy. I don’t even know how to move on from this point.”
Buster wiped his cheeks, his eyes locked with Eve’s. She was the only other person in the world who felt the loss as deeply as he did. They’d both lost in the worst way possible.
“It’s her birthday soon. She would have been seven.”
Buster nodded. Holly had died a few months before her sixth birthday. He’d drunk himself into oblivion on that birthday and had planned to do the same this year, and probably every year moving forward.
“Could you come back and see me? I don’t think I’ll get through the day on my own.”
Buster found himself nodding before he even had time to process what Eve had asked of him.
❖
It wasn’t unusual for Steph to wake at three in the morning, but it was unusual for her to wake from excitement rather than the terror of a nightmare. She almost felt guilty when she sat up in bed, realizing her reason for not sleeping was the thought of not only improving Heat Wave but becoming a part owner. She would miss Bodhi, that went without saying, but the unexpected chain of events had left her with an opportunity she’d never considered. The only downside to the whole project was Matt. As much as she wanted to trust him, he’d made it very difficult. The main thing she needed to do was safeguard herself against every possible scenario that could leave her in trouble. She got out of bed, made her way to the kitchen, and placed a pot of water on the stove.
“I’ve got a lawyer you shoul
d contact,” Zane said, walking into the kitchen. He handed her a piece of paper, and she laughed.
“It’s the middle of the night, and you’ve got a lawyer’s details for me. Should I call them now?”
Zane laughed too. “I’ve been awake for hours. I know you said Bodhi had a lawyer he was using with Matt, but I thought under the circumstances, you might want to get some independent advice.”
Steph frowned. “Speaking of independent advice, I think you need to go and see someone else. Dan’s a nice guy, but you don’t seem to have made any improvement since you’ve been here. You need to find someone who specializes in PTSD.”
“Nope, that’s not why I’m awake. It’s something else. Something nerve-wracking and exciting all at once, and something I want your opinion on.”
Steph raised an eyebrow. “Sounds ominous.”
“I’ll tell you over tea. Backyard or living room?”
“Living room. The fire is probably still smoldering from earlier.”
“Okay, I’ll get it going, while you make the tea. And come in with an open mind.”
Steph smiled. Zane was uncharacteristically nervous. She wondered what he was going to ask her. Possibly that he wanted to move in with Asha? If that was his question, he should be asking Asha, not her. She was pretty sure Asha wouldn’t live with someone before marriage. But perhaps her sister would change her mind for Zane.
A few minutes later, she carried a tray into the living room. Zane had the fire roaring, and the room was already cozy. She poured the tea and handed him a mug, then sat and waited.
“So, I want to ask Asha something, but I’m worried it’s too early.”
Steph was right. He did want to move in with her.
“I’m also worried about what Jenna will think.”
“Jenna? Why would she care? She knows you’re both serious.”
“So you’ve guessed what I want to ask Asha?”
Beyond Hope's Ridge Page 8