Diamonds and Dust

by Jessie Evans

  “I don’t,” Chad said with a laugh. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the man, but it’s been nice having him out of the office. I get a lot more done without another cook in the kitchen.”

  Pike grimaced. “I get it. If I had to work with my old man, I’d be in the nuthouse by now.”

  Chad laughed harder as he reached into the front pocket of his dress shirt and pulled out a card. “You should stop by my office while you’re in town. I’ve got a few meetings lined up this week, but nothing serious. I can cut out whenever you have some free time, buy you a beer?”

  “Sounds good.” Pike slipped the card into his shirt pocket, figuring he’d want to get out of Mia’s hair sooner or later. “I’ll try to swing by tomorrow or Tuesday before the wedding stuff gets crazy. Mia’s got me booked after that.”

  Chad nodded. “I know the drill. My sister, Kelly, got married last summer. Luckily, I’ve got three more sisters so Mom hasn’t started obsessing over me yet. I’m not ready. Life’s too short to have all the fun over before I’m thirty-five. But I’m preaching to the choir, right?”

  Pike forced a smile. “Absolutely.” He promised to see Chad soon, and finished signing the last of the glossy eight by tens as fast as he could, trying not to let the quip bother him.

  Chad had no idea that Pike had been saving up for a wedding ring when he was twenty-two. For months, Pike had survived on Hamburger Helper while he socked away every spare penny to buy Tulsi a ring. If he hadn’t been played for a fool, he would have been married for years by now.

  “Smile,” Mia said through gritted teeth, appearing beside him as the last autograph hunter filed past the table. “You look scary.”

  “That’s what I look like when I smile,” Pike said, with a scowl. “Are we done yet?”

  “Almost.” Mia patted him on the back. “I just need to announce the winners of the silent auction and we’re out of here. You’ve done so well, don’t ruin it by glaring at innocent people on the way out.”

  Innocent people, his ass. He let his eyes skim across the room. There were more strangers than he’d expected, but he recognized enough of the people in attendance to know many were far from innocent. There was Bart Cutter, the pharmacist, who’d been having an affair with his tech for years. There was Grub Pillman, the assistant principal of the high school, who was addicted to painkillers and got his rocks off bullying the students he kept in detention after school. There was Farrah Stewart, who’d left her husband of twenty years for her nineteen-year-old kickboxing instructor, traumatizing her eighteen-year-old son in the process. And those were just the people Pike was certain were guilty. Knowing human nature, the rest of the crowd had their share of black marks on their soul.

  Even people you think are the good ones, the kind of sweet, sincere folks who wouldn’t tell a lie to save their own lives, couldn’t be trusted. Tulsi had proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

  “Okay, we’re done.” Mia grabbed his arm, hauling him across the tent, through the tables covered in white tablecloths and decorated with centerpieces in Cardinal red. “We’re almost home free, just hold on a few minutes longer.”

  “I’m fine, Mia,” Pike grumbled even as he let her propel them out the entrance and across the dirt road to where she’d parked the truck. “Are you going to hover like this all week?”

  Mia released him with a frustrated sound as she dug into her purse for the keys, turning so that the light spilling from inside the tent illuminated her bag. “I don’t know, Pike, are you going to be a cranky bastard all week? Seriously, the way you’re acting is ridiculous. If you didn’t want to come to the wedding, you should have just told me.”

  “Don’t be crazy,” Pike said. “Of course I wanted to come.”

  “Because I could have made Bubba my Dude of Honor,” Mia continued, stabbing her key into the passenger side door and wrenching it open. “And you could have spent the rest of your recovery in Palm Springs with whatever supermodel you’re boinking, and not had to bother with this bullshit.”

  “Your wedding isn’t bullshit,” he said softly, realizing he’d been an even bigger asshole than he’d thought. Mia rarely got hurt feelings. That he’d managed to upset his sister less than three hours into their visit made him ashamed of himself. “I’m sorry, okay? This has nothing to do with you. I’ve just been…going through some stuff. But I’m not going to let it ruin your wedding week. I promise.”

  Mia sighed and her tense shoulders relaxed away from her ears. “I’m sorry, too. I know it can’t be easy being on the injured list. I mean, it’s great for me because I get to have my brother home, but your career could be in jeopardy. I know that has to be stressful.”

  Pike shrugged, deciding letting Mia believe that it was his torn ACL making him difficult wasn’t exactly a lie. He was concerned about how soon he’d recover and being benched for the past two weeks hadn’t been the paid vacation he’d thought it would be. Being on leave gave him too much time to think about his life and all the things in it that he wished were different.

  “If you want me to take you to Mom and Dad’s I can,” Mia said. “If you’re not up for nachos and poker it’s not a big deal. We’ll have plenty of time to catch up later in the week.”

  Pike snorted. “Since when have I ever chosen Dad’s place over yours?”

  “Since never,” Mia said. “But I figure there’s always a first time. Dad is really excited to see you, by the way. He made me promise to bring you to dinner at the house tomorrow night.”

  “He made you promise or Mom made you promise?” Pike asked, narrowing his eyes.

  Mia lifted one shoulder. “Mom made me promise because she knows Dad wants you home but is too cranky to say it. So I guess we know where you get it from.”

  Pike rolled his eyes as he reached for the open door to the truck. “I’m nothing like Dad.”

  “I know,” she said, capturing his hand before he could slip into the passenger seat and giving it a squeeze. “And try to stay like that, okay? I love Dad, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t need another Jim Sherman in my life. And you’re…”

  “I’m what?” Pike sighed, suddenly feeling the long journey down to Texas and all the sleepless nights beforehand, when he’d lain awake dreading the trip.

  “You’re better than that,” Mia said gently, tapping two fingers to the center of his chest. “You’ve got a good heart, Pike. You should let it show more often.”

  Pike stretched his neck to the side, trying to ignore the knot of emotion rising in his throat. “My heart’s just fine. Don’t believe everything you read in a gossip magazine, sis.”

  “I don’t. I believe your eyes, and what I’ve seen there since you got in today makes me sad. I don’t like seeing you look so…hard. And angry.” She shook her head. “What’s really going on with you, P? Because it seems like something more than stress over being on the injured list.”

  Pike’s jaw clenched. A part of him wanted to tell Mia to mind her own business, but he’d already hurt her feelings enough for one night. He and Mia didn’t talk on the phone every week or send birthday cards, but that didn’t mean they weren’t close. There had never been any bullshit between him and his sister. Whenever they were together, they picked up where they’d left off, as close as if they hadn’t spent months apart. He considered her a friend, not simply a family member, and if it had been anything else bothering him, he would have told her the truth.

  But Mia couldn’t be trusted with the truth about him and Tulsi. He’d kept the secret too long. Spilling it now would drive a wedge between him and his sister and maybe even Mia and Tulsi and he didn’t want to do that. Mia and Tulsi had been best friends since they were in kindergarten. He still remembered the day Mia had come home from the first day of school, bragging that she’d “saved a short girl’s life.” She’d had Tulsi under her wing ever since and was practically helping to raise Tulsi’s daughter. Pike didn’t have any sympathy for his ex, but he didn’t want to risk damaging one of Mia’s most p
recious relationships or hurting an innocent little girl.

  Which meant it was time to lie. He had to. If he didn’t give Mia something, she’d stay after him like a stubborn little bulldog until she got to the truth.

  “My girlfriend and I broke up last week,” he said, casting his eyes down to the gravel, grateful for the shadows that hid his face. He was a lousy liar, and Mia was usually able to catch him when he tried, but, hopefully, the darkness would be on his side. “Bella said it wasn’t working and went back to L.A.”

  “Oh, no.” Mia made a soft, sympathetic sound. “I’m so sorry. Now I feel terrible for making that crack about you not being able to find a date.”

  “It’s okay.” It really was. Bella had been more of a fuck-buddy than a girlfriend and things had ended amicably between them, but Mia didn’t know that. “I’ve known it wasn’t going to last for a while, but the breakup took me by surprise. On top of everything else, I guess it just…has me a little down.”

  Mia reached for him, pulling him into an unexpected hug that made him feel awful for lying, no matter how noble his reasons. “Well, we’re going to do our best to cheer you up while you’re here, okay?” she said. “I love you so much, Pike. And I’m glad you’re home, grouchy or not.”

  Pike patted her red curls. “I love you, too,” he said, his throat tight all over again.

  He’d let the tension with his dad and his history with Tulsi come between him and the people he loved for too long. His mom and Mia deserved better than one or two rushed visits a year, and now that Mia was getting married, there would be even more reasons for him to return to Lonesome Point. Mia hadn’t said anything about starting a family, but Pike knew she wanted kids someday, and he wanted to be a bigger part of his nieces’ or nephews’ lives than some distant uncle who spoiled them at Christmas. He might never have a family of his own, but he was crazy about kids, and he was going to be even crazier about Mia’s kids because they were hers. She was his goofy, funny, strong, secretly sweet baby sister and he didn’t want to miss out on any more of her life.

  It was time to make a change, to stop running away from his past and face it, head on. And if that meant burying the hatchet with Dad and finding it in his heart to forgive Tulsi, then…that’s what he would do. He was old enough to be the mature party in his and Dad’s relationship and seven damned years had passed since Tulsi betrayed him. It was past time to put his anger to bed. The only thing more pathetic than the fool he’d been back then was the fool he was now.

  The longer he held on to his bitterness, the more of his life he let Tulsi taint, and he was sick of living in the shadow of that one stupid spring. He was ready to move on and leave those bittersweet memories behind him once and for all.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Tulsi

  Tulsi pulled into the Blue Saloon Hotel parking lot at ten after eight to find the church bus already idling in the corner of the lot and the other parents saying their goodbyes while the teenage counselors loaded up backpacks and sleeping bags.

  “Crud biscuits,” she said, breathlessly shoving the truck into park. “Move it Clementine or you’re not going to make the bus.”

  Tulsi couldn’t believe they’d both overslept. But it had been a big weekend and between bad dreams and dwelling on seeing Pike for the first time in years, Tulsi had barely slept at all.

  “I am moving it, but I still can’t find Monster Princess,” Clem said, the last word becoming a three syllable whine. Clem wasn’t usually a whiny kid—something Tulsi was tremendously grateful for—but her daughter had never spent the night anywhere without Snuggly Blanket and the monster princess doll Mia had made for her when she was a baby.

  “She’s got to be in there, bug. I know we packed her.” Tulsi unbuckled and slipped out of the truck. “Here let me look.” She helped Clem out of her booster seat and down to the pavement before turning to dig through the duffel on the seat with shaking hands.

  She shoved aside the once carefully folded outfits Clem had succeeded in wadding into wrinkled balls as she searched for her doll, digging down to the bottom of the cavernous bag. She found Snuggly Blanket next to Clem’s toiletry case and neatly labeled containers of sunscreen, bug spray, and shampoo, but no monster doll.

  “I don’t know, Clem.” Tulsi wiped away the sweat gathering on her upper lip as the early morning sun began to heat up the cab of the truck. “Did you take it out when—” She broke off with a cry of triumph as she found Monster Princess hiding beneath the large Ziploc bag full of socks and underwear. “Found her! Now let’s get you to the bus.”

  Tulsi spun around with a grin, doll in one hand and Clem’s bag in the other, to find the blacktop behind her empty.

  “Clem?” She turned in a slow circle but couldn’t see any sign of her daughter’s pale blond curls. “Clementine?” she called in a louder voice, drawing the attention of some of the other parents across the parking lot.

  “Have any of you seen Clem?” Tulsi asked, doing her best not to panic. “She was standing right here a second ago. She didn’t get on the bus while I wasn’t looking, did she?”

  “Not that I saw.” Deb Harkness, who also had a future first grader going on the camping trip, started toward the front of the bus. “Do you want me to check?”

  “Would you?” Tulsi asked, hooking the duffel bag over her shoulder. “I’m going to run to my friend Mia’s place and make sure she didn’t go there. If you find Clem, don’t let her move, okay?”

  Deb gave her a thumbs-up. “Will do. Don’t worry, we’ll find her.”

  Tulsi spared only a second to nod before she turned and hurried down the sidewalk, scanning both sides of Main Street and calling out for Clementine as she went. But there was no sign of her daughter and no response, and by the time Tulsi hurried across the street to Mia’s lingerie shop, her skin was crawling with terror. The thought that her child might have been snatched away by some monster while Tulsi was standing right next to her was so horrific she didn’t spare a second to knock and make sure she wasn’t interrupting Mia and Sawyer’s morning. She simply threw open the door of the closed shop and shouted, “Clementine, you’d better be in here!”

  After a heart-stopping moment, Clementine called out from the back room, making Tulsi sag against the door in relief. “I’m here. Keep your shirt on, Mom. We’re looking for Monster Princess in my tent.”

  Tulsi pulled in a ragged breath, anger flooding in to mix with her relief. “Don’t you dare tell me to keep my shirt on, Clementine Rae! Your doll was in your bag right where I said it was.” Tulsi stormed through the shop toward the back room. “And I was about to have a heart attack. I thought someone had snatched you off the street. Don’t you ever run off and—”

  Tulsi whipped aside the curtain, cutting off mid-sentence when she saw who was helping Clementine sort through the toys in her play tent.

  She’d expected to see Mia or Sawyer. Instead, she was greeted by the sight of Pike in a pair of striped pajama pants and a black tee shirt, his hair sticking up around his head and a sleepy look on his handsome face. He looked exactly the way she remembered, back when they would wake up bleary eyed in their shared sleeping bag and greet each other with drowsy smiles and long lingering kisses.

  Their eyes caught and held, electricity leaping between them while a voice in Tulsi’s head wailed that her house of cards was about to come tumbling down. Surely, now that Pike had seen Clementine, he would realize the truth. Clem was tiny and blond—a miniature copy of all the women in Tulsi’s family—but surely Pike had to sense something. Surely…

  The thought made Tulsi’s already pounding heart slam in triple time. She braced herself for the worst, but when Pike lifted his hand in greeting, he didn’t seem outraged. In fact, the look in his hazel eyes was warm and almost…welcoming. Like he was actually happy to see her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said with a smile. “I let her in. I heard her knocking and I knew she had a bunch of toys back here, so…”

  “No, it’s
fine,” Tulsi said, shaken by the combined shock of seeing Clementine and Pike standing side by side and having Pike smile at her for the first time in seven years. She’d almost forgotten the way that smile made the bottom drop out of her stomach and her head feel like it was going to float off of her shoulders. “It’s not your fault. She knows better than to run off without telling me where she’s going.”

  Tulsi shifted her attention to her daughter, grateful for the reprieve from eye contact with Pike. “What were you thinking, Clementine? Didn’t you realize I’d be terrified?”

  Clem’s fists tightened around the doll clothes in her hands and a guilty look flickered behind her blue eyes. “I knew you’d say we didn’t have time. I didn’t want you to say no.”

  “Not wanting me to say no is not a valid excuse for scaring me half to death,” Tulsi said, propping her hands on her hips. “Honestly, I have half a mind to keep you home from camp.”

  “No!” Clementine wailed, her jaw dropping at the injustice. “Jesus, Mom! I’ve been so good it’s almost killed me. I want to go to flipping camp!”

  Pike brought a hand to his mouth and coughed hard, but it was obvious he was trying to conceal a burst of laughter.

  “Don’t encourage her,” Tulsi said, fighting a smile. “She’s a hellion already.”

  “I can see that,” Pike said. “Must have gotten it from her mama.”

  “Mama’s not a hellion,” Clem said glumly. “Mama’s good all the time.”

  “Is that so?” Pike arched a brow and shot Tulsi a look she felt all the way down to the tips of her toes.

  Her mouth went dry as visions of all the naughty things she and Pike had done together cantered through her thoughts like a herd of runaway horses, shaking the ground beneath her. Thankfully, Clementine broke the charged silence before Tulsi’s knees could get too weak.