Cricket Cove

by Haddix, T. L.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Logan couldn’t sleep. A cold front had moved in, causing the wounds in his shoulder and his hip to throb like a toothache. Rather than turn to the powerful prescription medication he’d been given, he fell back to his usual routine. He went to the twenty-four-hour diner a mile from his apartment and wrote letters.

  Thanks to the cold front, which had brought the threat of dangerous ice along with it, school had been cancelled. He hadn’t fully started the new job, as the first day of the spring semester wasn’t scheduled to start for another week, but the pre-class work was ongoing.

  He wrote Colin, penned quick notes to a few of his other Army buddies, and wrote a short letter to Sydney. Once those were done, he got up and refilled his coffee at the self-serve station in the middle of the restaurant. Outside, big, fat flakes of snow were starting to drift out of the sky.

  Easing back into the booth, he stared at the blank page in front of him. The need to write a particular letter was riding him hard. He gave in with a sigh and picked up his pen.

  December 29

  Dear Amelia,

  I don’t know why I’m writing this letter, as I’ll never send it. Maybe that’s why I can write it.

  I’ve not even been here two months now, and all I can think about is you. No matter how much I try to distract myself, as soon as I’m not occupied with work, there you are. I’ve tried finding another woman, but I don’t want anyone else. I want you.

  You’ve invaded my dreams and I don’t know how to get you out. Too often lately, the nights I can get to sleep I find myself chasing after you. I never seem to be able to catch you. It isn’t just a physical attraction, but every other way, as well. Getting involved with you would only complicate my life in ways I don’t want it to be complicated.

  I swore years ago that I’d never let myself get attached to any woman emotionally. Not to the degree that I’d be in any danger of getting hurt if things went south with her. I have the feeling that if I were to let myself get close to you, I’d never be able to pull back far enough, fast enough. You make me want things I’ve spent most of my life avoiding. What I said to Archer that day in the barn, I didn’t really believe. I held those things up as a shield because without that shield, I don’t know what defenses I have against you.

  You despise me now, even though we’ve declared a truce. I suppose that’s for the best, all things considered.

  Yet still part of me wonders what it would be like to be with you. It would be a short relationship, as Archer would castrate me if I laid a finger on you. He’s terrified that I’ll hurt you more than I already have.

  That doesn’t stop me from dreaming. You burn me alive in dreams. My temper is short because I’m not sleeping. Between the nightmares, the pain, and the wicked dreams of you, I almost feel like the walking wounded again.

  And when I see you, you’ll move a certain way, laugh a certain way, and I’m flashing back to my dreams where you’re hot and naked around me. I have you in my bed, in my arms, and I’m touching you, tasting you, in ways that I’d give a million dollars to be able to do when I’m awake.

  Logan had to stop writing. Just thinking about the dreams had him growing aroused. He folded the paper carefully, tucking it safely away into the back of his journal, and not a moment too soon.

  One of the younger waitresses came by to check on him. “Need a top-off, hon?”

  “No. I’m going to head out. Thanks for the table.”

  “Anytime.” The way she looked him over as he stood and shrugged into his coat left no doubt in his mind that if he had wanted more than coffee, he could have gotten it. But the sad truth was he wasn’t interested. Not in her.

  He would rather go home and dream of Amelia than take the woman up on her invitation. And he had no idea what to do about that.

  Archer called the next day at lunch. “You have a minute?”

  “Sure. What’s up?” Logan pushed the remnants of his sandwich aside.

  “Do you have plans for dinner tonight? I need to talk to you about something.”

  “Well, I was going to paint my toenails, but I guess that can wait. Everything okay?”

  His brother’s pause was telling, as was the absence of a laugh. “It’s complicated. Can you be at the house around six?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Logan actually got there a little early. He pulled in right behind Archer, who was frowning as he got out of his truck. He waited for Logan to join him on the walk that ran beside the driveway. Logan didn’t waste time asking for answers.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Rick came to see me today. Remember the problem Amelia had with the power disconnect?” Archer asked as he led the way to the front door.

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, that was apparently the tip of the iceberg. It’s a lot worse than we thought. Come on in. Em won’t be here for a little while still. She’s picking up Sydney. We have a few minutes, and I’d rather not tell her about this. Not just yet.” When Archer started upstairs, Logan rubbed a hand over his mouth but didn’t comment. “Come on. I have to get cleaned up. We can talk through the door.”

  “Okay.” He hesitated at the foot of the stairs.

  “What? I’m not going to strip in front of you.”

  Logan shook his head and started climbing. “So tell me what happened. What did Rick say?”

  “Pip got out from her literacy thing the other night at the library and found dead flowers in her car, along with a nasty note. Roger was parked down the street.” He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it in the laundry bin. “She gave in and called Rick. From what he said, there have been several incidents she hasn’t told anyone about. There was a night when she got home and her porch light was off. He’d taken the bulb. He left gravel in a pile on the rug on the porch. He’s managed to get in her locked car twice now. Gave her four flats a few weeks ago. God knows what else.”

  Logan paced to the window as Archer recited the list. With each occurrence, the tension across his shoulders built. He stared out across the street to the river that wound around the neighborhood, well below the road.

  “And she hasn’t told anyone about this until now?”

  “No. Which honestly isn’t surprising. Pip tries to protect people, you know that. I’ll be right back.” He grabbed clean clothes and went into the bathroom, shutting the door.

  Logan heard the shower start up. The urge to leave, to find this Roger asshole, was riding him strong. To find him and then to tear him apart. It took all his patience to wait for Archer to come out of the bathroom, and even though he took less than five minutes, by the time the door opened Logan was pacing.

  “So what the hell is Rick going to do? Arrest the son of a bitch?”

  His vehemence took Archer aback. “He can’t. There’s no evidence.”

  “What? You just said he left dead flowers in her car. With a note! How the hell isn’t there evidence?”

  Archer’s gaze narrowed as he put clean socks on. “You’re overreacting a little bit, don’t you think?”

  Logan just glared at him as he paced. “How is it you aren’t overreacting? Do you know how serious this is?”

  “Yes, Logan, I know how serious this is,” Archer ground out. “That’s why I called you. I had hoped that with your background, you might have some insight as to how to help her.”

  It took a concerted effort for him to calm down. “How can I help?”

  Archer leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees. “I don’t know. Rick said she hadn’t told her folks about it yet. She promised she would this weekend if he hadn’t worked something out.”

  “That won’t be pretty.”

  “Oh, you are a master of understatement. I don’t know how I’m going to tell Emma,” Archer confessed. “And thi
s explains why Pip let herself get so run-down. She hides a lot of the darker stuff. Emma says she has since she was a little girl.”

  Logan knew there was usually a reason for that kind of behavior. “What happened to her when she was little?”

  Archer studied his hands, picking at one of his fingernails. “What do you know about Sarah and Jack’s sister Kathy?”

  “The one who’s in Georgia?”

  “The same.”

  Logan sifted through his memory. “She’s been there for a while. Eliza lived there with her, Emma and Ben went to school in the vicinity. She’s married, doesn’t have any kids.”

  “She did have. More than thirty years ago, she had two. A little girl named Moira, and a baby boy. Randall Junior. Only, he wasn’t the son of Randall Senior. Who, by the way, was an abusive son of a bitch.” Archer sighed. “Anyhow, Kathy had decided she was leaving him. She was taking the kids and running away with the man she’d fallen in love with. This guy decided he needed to man up, and the day before they were supposed to leave, he confessed all to her husband.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  Archer nodded. “He took the man hostage, took him back to the house he shared with Kathy. Killed the kids, killed the lover. Not before he raped Kathy repeatedly in front of him, you understand. Then he killed himself. Left her alive to deal with the fallout.”

  Logan felt sick to his stomach. He sat on the bed beside Archer and shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t imagine…” But he could. He flashed back to the day he’d found their father after he’d shot himself.

  Archer continued. “So Kathy had issues, as you can probably imagine. She finally managed to move past some of it enough to remarry. But then when Pip was about six or eight years old, the family went to Georgia for their annual summer trek. And I guess Kathy rejected her pretty harshly. It left an impression on her. She never went back to Georgia with the family, went and stayed with Eli and his wife Amy in London instead. Emma said Pip didn’t want to cause Kathy any more grief. She reminded Kathy of Moira, and being near each other hurt them both.”

  “Poor kid.”

  “Yeah. Emma said it devastated her. Sarah and Owen weren’t overly fond of the idea of leaving her in Kentucky for three or four weeks every year, but she wouldn’t budge. Even that young, she didn’t give in and they had no choice but to leave her. That’s kind of what she does when she gets hurt—she just removes herself from the situation as much as she can and walls herself off until she’s dealt with it.”

  Logan was well aware of that. “I know. So how do we protect her?”

  “We could go beat the shit out of Roger.” The brothers exchanged a look, Archer hopeful and Logan incredulous. Archer sighed. “Or not.”

  “If we do that, he’ll just take it out on his wife or Amelia, and we’ll end up in jail. No, we need to come up with something else. How well do you know this guy?”

  Archer stood and walked toward the door. “Let’s head down and get food going. I know him well enough. He works maintenance for a bunch of property owners around town, landlords and the like.”

  “Does he stay home or does he run the roads?” Logan asked as they reached the kitchen.

  “Pip says it depends on if he’s going through a jealous spell or not. He sticks close when he’s jealous, not so much when he isn’t.” He handed Logan peppers and an onion from the fridge. “What are you thinking?”

  “Maybe we should go out this evening. See if he’s home or what. If he’s following Amelia places, might be interesting to turn the tables, see what we can find out about him. You know where they live?”

  “Yeah.”

  The front door opened, and the sound of Sydney’s happy chatter filled the air.

  Archer blew out a breath. “We’ll finish this discussion later.”

  From the searching looks Emma gave them through dinner, Logan figured she knew something was going on, but with Sydney present, the conversation stayed benign.

  As soon as Sydney went upstairs, though, Emma crossed her arms and stared Archer down. Logan was amused to see his baby brother squirm uncomfortably. At six- four, not much could make Archer squirm. Emma could do it with a glance.

  “What?” he finally asked.

  “What’s going on?”

  He stood from the table with a sigh. “Can I promise to tell you all about it later?”

  She walked over to him and curled her hands in his T-shirt, standing toe-to-toe with him. Eyes narrowed, she studied his face closely for a minute. “How much later?”

  “Later tonight. As soon as I get home. Lo and I have to go out for a bit.”

  “Out?”

  It was Logan’s turn to get the piercing stare turned to him. He shrugged, feeling guilty even though they weren’t planning on doing anything wrong. “Out.”

  “You aren’t planning on getting drunk, are you? Because I’m thinking about a certain incident a few months ago where my husband ended up having to use Gilly’s hangover cure. I’m not quite sure I like the idea of the two of you going out,” she told Logan. “You aren’t planning to take him to a bar, are you?”

  Logan couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. A glance at Archer told him his brother would be no help, as he was grinning like a love-struck idiot. “Um, not planning on that, no. But I can’t rule it out.”

  She shook her head and turned back to Archer. “You can’t go. I have plans for you later.”

  Archer reached over and slapped Logan’s back when he choked, coffee having gone down the wrong way when he swallowed. “We might end up going to a bar, but I won’t be drinking. Neither will Logan. So I promise you, whatever you have in mind, I’ll be ready for it.”

  “God, I don’t need to hear this,” Logan rasped. “I really don’t need to hear this.”

  Emma grinned and slid her arms around Archer’s waist. “Just bring him home to me safely, and you can borrow him. But don’t keep him out too late. I’ll worry.”

  Logan shook his head, but he smiled back. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll have him home by curfew.”

  “I’m going to go up and say goodnight to Sydney. Then we can go,” Archer told him.

  After he was upstairs, Logan helped clear the table. “You’re good for him,” he said as he handed Emma an empty dish. “I’m glad he found you.”

  She loaded the dishwasher as they talked. “I’m glad, too. I know we’ve only been married a couple of weeks, but it just feels like home. It’s hard to explain. So I don’t suppose you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “It really is best if Archer explains. You’ll have questions I can’t answer.”

  “Am I going to like whatever it is he tells me?”

  Logan answered honestly. “Probably not.”

  She frowned and wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Is it something to do with Candace?”

  “No. It’s nothing to do with the past.”

  He could tell curiosity was eating her alive, but she relented. “Then I’ll wait and let him tell me.”

  Archer came back down then, Sydney in his arms. “Someone wanted to say goodnight to her uncle.”

  Logan accepted the little girl almost as though he’d been doing it for years. He was getting used to holding small children, and it wasn’t as scary as he’d thought it would be. “I brought you a letter,” he said. “I forgot to give it to you earlier.”

  She smiled up at him with a lopsided grin. “Really? A letter for me?”

  “Yes, ma’am. All for you.” He carried her to the hall and dug into his coat with one hand. He pulled the envelope out and handed it to her. “Here you go.”

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love getting letters,” she said, holding it close to her chest. “They make me feel special.”

  Logan tightened his arms and
gave her a little hug. “You are special.”

  They headed out a few minutes later in Archer’s truck, an uneasy silence filling the cab as they drove. It took less than ten minutes to reach a little cluster of houses up a side road, more a group of homes than an actual neighborhood. Archer drove down the street, slowing ever so slightly when they reached a house midway up the hill.

  “That’s it. The white one with the green Christmas lights.”

  Two vehicles were parked in the driveway, a small car and a dark pickup. The lights were on in the house, glowing warmly through the curtains.

  “Looks innocuous enough.” Logan’s temper was heating up. “I’m liking your idea more and more. Maybe we should go knock on the door.”

  Archer kept going, though. He circled on around the street, which came out on the road a little farther down, and back to the gas station across from the main entrance. He backed in to park in the shadows. “Not tonight. Tonight, we watch.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I’m so glad I did this.” Amelia sat back in the restaurant booth with a sigh and smiled at the man seated beside her. “Thank you for calling me. I needed to get away from things.”

  Jonah Morissey raised his glass. “More than happy to help. But now you have me curious—what exactly are you getting away from?”

  She waited to answer until their server had removed their plates and poured their after-dinner coffee. “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Start with the man,” he advised, adding just the right amount of creamy liqueur to her coffee. His words startled a laugh from Amelia.

  “How do you know there’s a man?”

  His grin was full of self-deprecation. “Sweetheart, there’s always a man. So talk.”

  She did. She told him about Logan, about Roger, about all of it. “I swear to you that if I wouldn’t miss my family so much, I’d hit the road and just drive. Go wherever my little heart led me and answer to no one for a while.”