by Lacey Baker
Even with all that, his cool well wishes were not what she’d expected. In fact, they made her feel a certain way.
“The best only comes to those who seek it,” was her somber reply. “At this point I’m only seeking happiness. If that means I’ll live in a cabin near the water with only Coco for company, then that’s precisely what I plan to do. I’m not asking for anyone’s permission or approval in this regard. It’s my life and I plan to make all the decisions from now on. I plan to be happy regardless what anyone else says or does.”
With that she reached for the door handle and let herself out of the vehicle. She walked quickly up the path to the inn, praying Preston didn’t follow her, that he didn’t try to stop her, to talk to her, to hold her …
Michelle had told her once, “Heaven, don’t ever be afraid to pray. Prayers are always answered. They’re not always answered when we want and the answer is sometimes not what we want to hear. But they’re answered, always.”
Preston’s non-action was an answer she didn’t want. But it was still an answer.
* * *
He sat in the car for what seemed like endless moments, replaying tonight’s scenes over and over in his mind.
Heaven had been beautiful. There was simply no other word. That dress had been made for her, and for him as the sight of her in it turned him on inexplicably. When he’d approached her at the table, she’d looked up at him with eyes so bright with life and laughter, and something softer that reached out and grabbed hold of his heart instaneously. He’d allowed it to grab hold, to settle with a warmth in his chest, because he didn’t want that look to be given to any other man. He’d wanted Heaven all to himself.
Until her parents had arrived and he’d been reminded of her decision to live in Sweetland. She was going to stay in the town where he was born, where his family lived, where he’d sworn he’d never reside again. That should be a good thing and probably would have been to another man, but not to Preston.
There had been way too many changes in his life these past few months to even consider another one like relocating. His grandmother was gone; he was now part owner of a B&B and restaurant that was now in competition with a big coastal resort that could easily put them out of business. And to top all that off, his partner was steadily crying about hiring more help so that they could both have more free time. What the hell was Preston going to do with free time, besides work more?
And what would he do with a woman and a dog and a house in Sweetland? How did that play into his ultimate plans for life? The plans he’d made when he was younger, the ones he’d been so steadfastly living out, the ones that … had been so quickly interrupted.
She sounded so sure of herself, so strong and intent on her goals, and for that Preston was supremely thankful. There was a difference in the Heaven he’d seen tonight versus the one he’d met almost a month ago. She was stronger, more self-assured, more beautiful than ever. And he thought he might just be in love with her.
Love. That was another thing that hadn’t been in his plan. He didn’t want to fall in love, didn’t want to dedicate his time, his heart, his life to a woman whom he couldn’t trust to stay with him forever. Because for Preston that’s how he thought of love. He loved his grandmother forever and knew without a doubt that she’d loved him that way, too. He loved his siblings and their legacy with the same fierceness and loyalty. Loving a woman this way, Preston wasn’t so sure.
Her parents, he could deal with. Even though they were rich and thought that made them entitled and/or privileged, whichever—he really didn’t care. They were just people, people who needed desperately to learn their place in their child’s life and be careful not to cross that line again. He had a sense that if pushed, Heaven would cut herself off totally from her parents. Just as he suspected Opaline Montgomery would be the one doing that pushing. It was only a matter of time.
“There’s a chair up here on the porch if you just want to sit,” Mr. Sylvester yelled from the porch.
Preston hadn’t seen the older man up there. In fact, he hadn’t even looked in that direction since Heaven had gotten out of the car. If he’d watched her go into the house, he would have been tempted to follow her, to catch up with her and say … say … what? What could he say to her to make this better? Heaven had a life plan set in her mind, and while they hadn’t discussed it, Preston was almost positive it didn’t include shacking up with him on the days he was in town. She was looking for happiness, for contentment and stability, a place that she could belong to and it to her. If he was perfectly honest with himself, he’d allow that Sweetland was most likely the perfect place for Heaven. He was the one who had the problem.
He opened the door and stepped out of the car. If Mr. Sylvester knew he was sitting in there and he’d invited him up onto the porch, staying in the car wasn’t going to help. Mr. Sylvester would eventually get up and make his way down to the vehicle with him. That’s just the way the old man was.
Stepping onto the darkened porch, Preston sat in the Adirondack chair beside the one Mr. Sylvester was sitting in.
“Nice night,” Preston said, loosening the bow tie from his neck.
“Good night for folk to get all dressed up and have fun,” Mr. Sylvester said. “You two are back early. I guess you had all the fun you could stand.”
“The plans changed,” Preston said, leaning back in the chair, closing his eyes so that the sounds of crickets and rustling water filled his senses.
“Yep, they do that sometimes,” Mr. Sylvester replied with a laugh. “My daddy used to say this quote but he never could remember who originally said it. Something about the best-laid plans.”
“‘The best-made plans of mice and men often go astray.’ That was from Robert Burns,” Preston offered.
“Right, that’s it. Smart man, that Burns fella,” Mr. Sylvester said.
“Why did she want us all to come back here?” Preston asked. He knew that if anyone would have the answer to that question—anyone besides Mary Janet Cantrell herself—it would be Mr. Sylvester.
“She believed that family should be together. Always. Think about it, remember how it felt growing up in this house with your sisters and brothers. The good times you had, the memories you made. Wouldn’t you want that same life for your children? They could grow up with their cousins and others who’d grown up with their parents. It’s a connection, a link that strings all of you together, that makes you whole. That’s what she wanted.”
He dragged his hands down his face.
“I learned early in life that you don’t always get what you want,” Preston said leaning forward. “I only know how to be the man I planned to become. It’s too late to change that now.”
Mr. Sylvester sighed. “Way I see it, becoming the man you’re meant to be takes a lot of time, a lot of ups and downs, potholes in the road and storms in the night. But you get there finally and when you do, you know, it’s because there’s a good woman standing right beside you.” He coughed a little, then finished with, “I said that myself. Maybe you can quote me one day.”
Then Mr. Sylvester stood from his chair. It took him a couple of tries and Preston had even stood ready to help him at any moment. But Mr. Sylvester swatted his hand away and reached for his cane when he was finally upright.
When he was gone, Preston stood on the porch alone, in the dark, staring out at what he wasn’t quite sure. If his mind hadn’t been so diluted with women and houses and jobs and responsibilities he might have seen the black SUV at the end of the street.
Chapter 23
The dogs were barking. Loudly, incessantly barking. To the point Heaven couldn’t stand it another moment. Tossing back the sheets, she reached for her robe. The room was still dark, not even dawn yet. And of course, she was the only one in her bed. Preston had not returned to her room. Then again, she hadn’t expected him to.
Her robe was at the bottom of the bed, and she pushed her arms quickly into it. One particularly loud, deep bark, which she a
ssumed was from Ms. Cleo, scared her, and she stumped her toe on the edge of the bed just as she was searching for her slippers. Biting her lip against the pain, she made her way to the door and out into the hallway finally. She had to find out what was wrong with the dogs and get them calmed before their one remaining guest was disturbed. After the Smythes and all their wedding guests had checked out on Thursday, only Abigail Mulroney remained, in the Chesapeake Room at the far end of the hallway. She was a gentle older woman who kept to herself, said she needed some R & R, and was from Maine. Heaven was sure a bunch of rowdy dogs barking in the middle of the night was not the woman’s idea of R & R.
Mr. Sylvester and Parker and Preston’s rooms were on the first floor of the inn, past the kitchen, down the hallway, and to the right. The restaurant entrance was in the opposite direction. She knew the layout of the entire place and moved quickly to the door of the basement where the dogs were kept at night. As she turned on the basement light, Heaven thought she heard some movement, probably from Parker and Preston’s rooms. Surely they would have heard all this racket by now. Still, she kept moving down the stairs.
The moment she stepped off the final riser Heaven knew something was wrong. Each dog had his or her own kennel, the puppies lined along one wall with Ms. Cleo about three feet away from them so she could see them all. The door to Coco’s kennel was open.
Normally, Coco slept on her pillow by the window in Heaven’s room. But tonight when she’d come in, Heaven had been so irritated by her parents’ surprise appearance and Preston’s pigheaded ignorance that she’d gone straight upstairs without stopping to pick up her puppy. Now her heart thumped at the possibility that something had happened to her. She immediately walked to the middle of the floor, checking each kennel to see if Coco was inside with one of the other dogs. Instinct told her that was a waste of time. And instinct proved correct when she stood from the last kennel and saw that the back door leading out into the yard was also open.
She gasped.
“What’s going on down here?” Parker asked when he cleared the last step and stood in the basement with her.
“Coco got out,” she said, looking at him over her shoulder.
She was already in the doorway about to go outside. “I don’t know how she could have gotten out and who left this door open?” she asked, but didn’t wait for Parker’s answer.
“Wait, Heaven, Preston’s coming now. He’ll go out and look for her,” Parker said.
But Heaven didn’t listen. She wasn’t waiting for Preston to come and find her dog.
Outside she’d already started calling for Coco, moving steadily toward the water and praying Coco hadn’t decided to go down on the rocks. Tears pricked her eyes at the thought. She loved sitting out here with Coco in the afternoons. Sometimes they would sit right on the rocks where they’d all taken their first impromptu dip into the river. Breaking into a run, she continued to call for her puppy, heart heavy with the thought that she might have fallen in and drowned.
She was almost to the water, her mouth open as she yelled once more, when strong arms wrapped around her waist. Her words were about to turn into a scream when a hand clapped over her mouth with stinging pain. In the next instant she was being lifted off the ground and carried. Fear had her fighting back, kicking and attempting to flail her arms. It was all to no avail as they rounded the house and were now heading down Sycamore.
It was dark and basically still, no sounds except for the feet of the person carrying her. In the distance she could still hear the dogs barking. Now the tears streamed from her eyes. She had no idea where Coco was and no idea where she was about to be taken. And then she saw it.
The black SUV.
Her heart pounded, adrenaline kicking up a notch. She squirmed and kicked, then grabbed at the hand holding her mouth, scratching with her nail.
“Keep still, bitch!” a deep male voice growled in her ear. “Or I’ll make it so you can’t move again … ever!”
Yeah, that was a death threat. Just like the one he’d issued that night he’d almost run her down. Dammit, somebody had been after her all along!
Heaven continued to fight, even when the lights on the SUV turned on and even more so when the back door opened as they came closer. He threw her inside, and she tumbled off the seat onto the floor. She was moving instantly, trying to wiggle her way out.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said another male sitting on the far end of the backseat with a ski mask over his head, a knife in one hand and Coco in the other.
Everything stopped, her movements, her screams, even the tears seemed to freeze on her face.
“That’s what I thought,” the man with the knife said.
Behind her Heaven heard the door close. Then she heard another and then the start of an engine.
And then Coco barked.
And Heaven’s frozen tears once against fell in warm rivulets down her cheeks.
* * *
“Why the hell did you let her go out there alone?” Preston yelled at Parker as they stood on the front porch of the inn.
“Whoa, don’t go blaming this on me. If you weren’t acting like such an ass about her moving here, you would have been in her room with her and we wouldn’t be standing here right now” was Parker’s quick retort.
Savannah groaned. “And you two standing here bickering is making things so much better.”
“When are you going to get your own place?” Parker asked her with a frown.
“I don’t live in Sweetland,” Savannah replied instantly.
“I can’t tell,” Parker quipped. “Look, we’ve already called the sheriff. They’ll be here any minute now.”
“And Sweetland’s not that big, so they couldn’t have gone far,” Savannah offered.
Raine was staying with Michelle at her house down the road. They’d been called, and when Preston looked up the street in search of the sheriff’s car, he’d seen the two of them pulling up instead.
“That little pup’s gone, too,” Mr. Sylvester said, scratching his head.
“Which one?” Raine asked the moment she walked up onto the porch.
“Heaven’s puppy is gone,” Savannah announced.
She looked tired and on edge, Preston noted. He wasn’t totally sure that look was based solely on the events of the night, since they’d all noticed her having severe mood swings lately. And just as Parker had pointed out, she was still in Sweetland, even though she was quick to state she didn’t live here. Preston didn’t think too much on that last part considering he was doing the same thing.
“Use the dog to lure her out,” he said quietly. The thought had been floating around in his mind since he’d first gone into the basement to find Coco missing and then run outside just in time to hear Heaven scream.
It was a sound he would never forget, one that he knew would haunt him for years to come. Only to be rivaled by the completely impotent feeling he’d had as he ran around to the front of the house just in time to hear car tires pealing off down the street. He’d seen only the headlights of the black SUV but knew instinctively it was the same one from before.
“But why?” Michelle asked. “She’s not from around here and she hasn’t been here long enough to make enemies. Diana and her melodramatics don’t count.”
Parker frowned. “The enemies Heaven has aren’t from Sweetland.”
Preston cursed, gritting his teeth and clenching his fists so tight he thought his knuckles might break through the skin.
Quinn and two Sweetland police cars pulled up at the same time. Everyone hurried out of their vehicles, moving quickly up the pathway to where they’d all assembled on the porch.
“What’s going on? Where’s Heaven?” Raine asked, going straight to Preston and touching a hand to his shoulder.
“The dogs were barking. They knew something was wrong,” Preston said slowly. “Dammit, they knew!”
Sheriff Farraway and both his deputies pulled out notepads and pens.
&nbs
p; “We heard the dogs, too. Around midnight they just went wild,” Parker added. “By the time I got dressed and went into the basement, Heaven was already there.”
“Any of the dogs missing?” Carl Farraway asked.
“Just Coco,” Savannah said in a small voice.
Michelle had gone straight to her, standing close but not touching her. Not yet, anyway.
“Maybe Heaven Montgomery stole the dog and took off,” said Jonah Lincoln, the other deputy. He had dated Nikki for about fifteen minutes after Quinn had foolishly returned to Seattle.
Only the fact that he wore a gun and Preston’s huge respect for the law kept him from punching the guy in the mouth. “Heaven doesn’t need to steal anything. Besides, Coco is legally hers. She adopted her from me.”
“So maybe she just ran off with her fiancé. Her parents did say she was engaged,” Carl continued.
This time Preston did move: He walked until he had closed up on each of the deputies, Raine keeping a tight hold on his arm as he did. Parker also took a couple of steps forward so that he was now between Preston and the officers.
“I said Heaven doesn’t have to steal and she’s not engaged to any pompous-assed money counter!” he yelled.
Sheriff Farraway pushed both his deputies back and stood in front of Preston.
“All right. We know Ms. Montgomery’s not the stealing type, Preston. We also know she’s not from around here and that her hoity-toity parents are holed up at The Marina waiting to take her home. So there’s a good possibility she just up and left.”
Parker shook his head. “No. She was in her robe and slippers. This was no slip-away in the night.”
“And the truck she drove away in tried to run her down just a couple of weeks ago,” Preston told them.