by Jodi Thomas
“Driving back tonight, I thought about something I should tell you. Now I know it has to be said.”
“Okay,” she whispered, fearing he was about to say something she wasn’t going to like.
“I’ve never told you, but my dad went to Tech. He planned to be a vet. He and my mom started dating in high school and she got pregnant with me just before he left for school. They married and tried to make it work, but even with two jobs it wasn’t easy for him to stay in school. Before his second year, Mom was pregnant again and Dad had to quit and take a full-time job.”
Lauren didn’t know what to say. Now his actions made sense. Maybe he thought he’d already ruined their lives and didn’t want to have his and Lauren’s added to the pile.
Lucas continued, “Dad says he never regretted it, but I decided I wouldn’t give up a dream of forever for now. I don’t mean the getting pregnant part. I mean the getting so involved in another person that I give up my goals. And worse, you’d give up yours, too. Some people drop off the right path and never find their way back. For as long as I can remember, I’ve sworn I’m never going to let that happen to me.”
Lauren’s heart was threatening to break her rib cage from the inside out. Lucas couldn’t be saying what she thought he was saying. She’d waited two years to make it to Tech so she could be with him. She’d kept their meetings, their conversations, their caring for each other a secret from everyone. She’d waited long enough but she could wait some more.
“I’ll wait.” She didn’t need much of his time. She’d be happy with a slice. Just some. Just a little. Just enough to keep her dream alive.
“I can’t ask you to wait. It’s not fair to you. I stood in the dark tonight waiting for you to get back and hating myself. I wasn’t here to help you with Polly. I didn’t take you to homecoming.” His laugh held no humor. “I didn’t even know it was homecoming.
“Don’t you see? If you wait, you’ll miss too much. For me to keep my dreams on track, I can’t be here every time you need me. If we started dating, I’d either be missing work and not be able to afford to come back next semester, or I’d miss studying and not have the grades. If I saw half as much of you as I want to, I’d be chipping away at my whole future, and it would crumble. I have to give me a chance before I can even think about giving us a chance.”
Lauren fought back tears. Lucas saw life as either-or and she was losing. She was being set aside for another time. He thought he could simply lock away their feelings. Love and passion had to wait. It didn’t matter now. She didn’t matter now.
“Then why did you kiss me like that, Lucas?” she whispered, not really expecting an answer.
“It won’t happen again. I swear.” He straightened and she saw the strength in him, the strength in the man he’d be one day. She feared his goals would always come before her and she realized that until this moment her only goal had been to be with him.
Not any longer.
For the first time in two and a half years, she hated Lucas. “So you’re giving me up.” It wasn’t much of a loss for Lucas, since he never bothered to come around anyway. He’d said such sweet words on the phone late at night when he was driving back from Crossroads. But apparently, they were just words to him.
She’d been building a future with his words when he’d simply been passing the time on the long drive.
He reached for her, but she pulled away. She had to think. Maybe she was taking this all wrong. The night had been endless and her nerves felt raw and sharp as if they might break the surface of her skin at any moment.
She had to think.
“We can still be friends,” he said, hammering the first nail into the coffin of their bond. “We can talk on the phone. Study together. The time isn’t right for us to be more than that, Lauren, can’t you see that? If we’re meant to be, it will happen when it is right for both of us.”
When she didn’t answer, he opened the door and they crossed through the main corridor back to the elevator. “Have you got a room you can sleep in tonight?” In the light his words were cold now, a stranger’s questions. Not a lover. Never a lover. Not even a boyfriend. Only someone she thought she knew. Only a high school girl’s dream of what might be.
It was time for her to wake up.
She remembered his question. “The girl two doors down doesn’t have a roommate. I don’t think she’ll mind if I bunk in with her.” Lauren didn’t look at him. Tears were dripping off her chin, but she would not wipe them away. She let them fall.
“Good.” He sounded relieved that he didn’t have to worry about her. “When you wake up, call me. I’ll bring coffee. We’ll clean up the glass together.” He leaned down to kiss her cheek but she stepped into the elevator before he could.
“When you’ve had some sleep, we’re going to have a talk about your promising to marry Tim.” He smiled. “Tomorrow you’ll see that what I’m suggesting is best for us both. We’ll have our time. We don’t need to rush.”
She pushed the up button. “Too late about Tim. A promise is a promise.”
Lucas frowned for a moment, “Mi cielo, are you all right? Do you understand?”
The door closed without her answering.
She used to love it when he called her mi cielo, my sky, even if she’d just learned that she didn’t mean as much to him as he did to her. Lucas had been her hero, her first love, and he didn’t even know it. He was also the first to break her heart.
Tim was right about one thing earlier tonight. These are supposed to be the best times of their lives. Only, if they are, why are so many lonely people walking around?
And now Lauren could add her name to the list. For the second time in her life, she felt it. That growing up all at once was happening again. She suddenly felt years older than she had this morning, and she knew there was no going back. The girl might cry herself to sleep tonight, but the woman in her would wake up tomorrow and pick up the pieces.
* * *
TOO SOON, DAWN BLINKED through open blinds onto her borrowed bed. Lauren slipped into an old pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, then tiptoed down the hall to her room. Mirrored glass shone in the morning light like slivers of memories that no longer fit together. Polly’s blood had dried dark, spotting the rug, smearing across blankets.
At some point last night someone must have stepped into the blood for footprints tracked over the hardwood like dance steps pasted to the floor for a song that had no rhythm.
As Lauren cleaned up the glass and the blood, her phone rang.
Lucas. The excitement at seeing his name wasn’t there today and she was too tired to wonder if it would be there tomorrow.
Lauren let it ring.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Angela
FACING DOWN DOC HOLLIDAY with her leftover cereal bowl half full of milk wasn’t easy but Angela had to set some boundaries. After all, this was her place, and the cat was only a guest, even if he obviously saw it the other way around. “You’ve got to come in at a decent hour, Doc. Every night since we’ve been here at the lake, you’re out running wild.”
At the beach house in Florida he was perfectly happy to lie out on the deck, but since they’d been in Texas, Doc was climbing trees, darting around as if he was on a hunt; and last night he’d tracked in mud.
Her parents had adopted Doc Holliday from the old lady next door when she had moved. She said he’d had his shots but wasn’t sure how old he was. Angie had always planned to take him to the vet, but at the time, with her mother ill, life seemed too full for errands and other things that had to be done.
She lowered the cereal bowl to cat level. “All right, here’s your favorite, Cheerio-flavored milk. Now, in return I want you to stay close to the cabin today and guard the place.”
Doc didn’t even bother to look up from the bowl.
Angie collected her purse, sweater and lunch. Going to work would take her mind off the possible stalker and her nervousness about going to Wilkes’s house for dinner. She had no idea what to expect at the Wagner ranch, but it was a dinner party and she planned to go dressed appropriately.
He might live in one of those shacks that had never seen paint on the boards, or he might have a big ranch house. People in this country didn’t dress to impress anyone, so she didn’t know how rich or poor he might be. A hat wasn’t considered comfortable until the band was sweat-stained, and jeans were bought looking new and worn thin after weeks of work.
Miss Bees, one of the ladies at the museum, told her folks often talk poor because only a fool brags to his neighbors. Angie liked these people. The slow way they talked, their giving nature. She loved the humor they saw in the smallest everyday events of life.
Mrs. Kirkland greeted her with an honest smile as she walked into the museum. “You’re two minutes late,” she teased. “Must have been the traffic.”
Mrs. Butterfield, dressed in pink and bling, agreed. “Probably a hangover from too much coffee with Wilkes Wagner.” She winked. “Nothing gets past us.”
Mrs. Kirkland giggled. “We live in the center of town right across from the café. How could anything get past us?”
Angela relaxed and laughed. Why worry about a stalker? She didn’t need surveillance cameras; she had the Evening Shadows Retirement Community retirement home watching her.
“I was up talking to Wilkes and Yancy last night,” she said. “They’ve got some ideas for the old Stanley wagon.”
Both women rolled their eyes and Mrs. Butterfield’s took their time coming back around.
“Two good-looking single men at a time,” Mrs. Kirkland exclaimed. “And she hasn’t been here a month yet.”
“I don’t think I have to worry about Yancy or Wilkes. They both seem more interested in history. I’m going out to the Devil’s Fork to look at Vern’s old maps tonight.”
Mrs. Butterfield laughed again. “I did that once in my twenties. It was very entertaining.”
Angela had a feeling she wasn’t talking about maps at all.
Mrs. Kirkland shook her head. “Don’t worry about Wilkes. His great-uncle is the man to watch out for. Vern Wagner is walking, talking sex appeal in an aged bottle.”
Angie simply smiled but inside she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to look at Wilkes’s great-uncle without laughing tonight.
On her lunch break she rushed home and rambled through half her wardrobe, finally picking a pretty silk dress of rich, swirling fall colors along the shoulders and hem. It was V-necked with three-quarter sleeves and was the right length to show off her legs to best advantage. She told herself she didn’t care what Wilkes thought of her, but it seemed every time she saw him, she looked as if she’d borrowed someone else’s clothes. This one dress was all her. Angie had known it the moment she saw it. The warm hues slimmed her figure, and the rustic golds brought out the shine in her hair.
High heels completed the outfit, but she’d packed her flats in her purse just in case they got too uncomfortable at the museum during the afternoon.
* * *
WHEN SHE PULLED into the museum parking lot, she couldn’t stop smiling. A cool breeze greeted her with midday sun sparkling off the canyon walls. If this place was so beautiful in late fall, she couldn’t wait to see it in spring. This was her new life. There was nothing left for her back in Florida or up in New York. Here was where she’d have to start over. Here was where she wanted to start over.
The two afternoon volunteers were waiting for her. Angie couldn’t remember their first names, but both were O’Gradys by marriage. They spent their time talking about everyone else in their family while they were on duty. When she ran up the steps, they both told her how pretty she looked. They made such a fuss she almost believed it.
The afternoon was busy with work. No message light blinked on her phone. No black car hid in the trees. Angie was beginning to think maybe she’d made too big a deal of a car following her. After all, who would want to bother her?
Only, the words in her father’s note kept whispering in her mind. Run. Disappear. Vanish. Had he written it the night before he died, maybe as he feared for his life and hers? Was he so pressed for time that he couldn’t explain? But he had prepared.
His note behind the picture. The money he’d deposited into her account. The way he died. All were pieces of a puzzle she couldn’t make fit together. Almost from the day of her mother’s funeral, he’d talked about moving. He’d never said why, but she knew he wanted away from his brother. But the time was never right. Something held him in Florida with his brother.
That last night while he worked in his office, he’d taken a few minutes to move the money he’d loaned his brother to start the business. He’d put the note where only she would find it.
But he hadn’t even mentioned the priceless necklace that was rightfully his, and now hers. Obviously, her getting away was more important to him. She’d left the Greek coin circled in diamonds behind in the store’s display case. It hadn’t been important to her father. Her disappearing was. He must have thought her very life depended on her vanishing. But why?
She touched the replica Greek coin that now hung around her neck. The real one didn’t matter. She suspected it had always been a bone of contention between her father and Anthony, but for generations the coin had been passed down to the oldest child; otherwise, it would have been sold and the money split.
Now her uncle could have it for all she cared.
Maybe he’d written the note because he wanted her to move on with her life. Maybe he’d been afraid his brother’s family would try to run her life, or ruin it by having her work for the family. It seemed as if every time she saw her uncle after graduating college he’d complained that she should have gotten an accounting degree, and not studied museum management.
He’d frown and say, “I could have helped you then, Angela. I could have brought you into the business.”
Angie had never answered. How could she tell him she’d rather die than work for him? She’d seen how much her father hated it.
Whatever the reason why Uncle Anthony complained, he was right. There was nothing left in Florida for her. But here, in this little town, she could belong.
She forced her questions about her father’s death and home to the back of her mind. They were in her past now.
Midafternoon Angie decided to take the lunch she’d forgotten to eat outside and enjoy the warm sunshine on a rare, windless day. As she walked toward the seating area near the edge of the canyon viewing, she saw Carter Mayes climbing down out of his RV. His movements were slow as if forcing aching bones to function.
“Morning, Mr. Mayes,” she called.
He waved and walked over. “I know I’m meeting you for supper, but mind if I join you for a snack?”
“Not at all.” She offered him her extra bottle of water as he pulled out fruit from his pack.
“I usually eat down in the canyon. Take fruit so there’s no trash to have to carry up.” He laughed. “Every year I plant seeds down by the water, but I’ve yet to see a peach or apple tree growing, and I’m not even looking for an orange tree down there. Even if one sprouted it’d never make the winter.”
She smiled, but he was no longer looking at her. Following his gaze she saw something flapping against her van’s windshield.
“Looks like you got a ticket.” The old man pointed as if she might miss it.
“Probably just a suggestion on how to improve the museum. Everyone seems to have a few ideas for me.” Angie set her lunch aside and walked over to her van, then without opening the envelope, she hurried back to Carter.
She tore it open and unfolded the piece of paper. Words typed in all caps read simply: YOU KNOW WHAT I’M HERE FOR,
ANGELA HAROLD. WE NEED TO TALK SOON.
Angie stared at the words feeling her whole body turning cold. Whoever wrote the note wasn’t interested in talking. If he had been, he could have called or dropped by the museum. This note was left to frighten her, maybe make her run again. She could almost feel her blood freezing. If she ran, she’d be totally alone. No volunteers around all day. No sheriff watching over her at night. No senior citizens keeping an eye on whom she was with at the café. No Wilkes...
“What’s it say?” the old man beside her asked.
She couldn’t move. The words blinked in and out of her sight and a brooding darkness seemed to surround her as she fought not to pass out. She could no longer pretend that the voice mail had been a prank or the car hadn’t really been following her. It was time to see reality. She was in trouble, real trouble, and she had no idea why.
“Is it a ticket?” Carter asked.
“No. I have to go. Please excuse me.” Collecting her lunch, Angie hurried back into the building. Without speaking to the ladies at the desk, she rushed to her office.
There, silent and protected by the walls around her, she tried to control her breathing. The stalker wasn’t gone. He was still out there, watching her...waiting for her. Maybe he’d parked his car and walked over to plant the note, or maybe he’d driven in with one of the dozen cars that had stopped by this afternoon.
Standing, she stared out her huge window looking for answers. She decided that her father must have told her to run because he knew she was too much of a coward to face whatever trouble was out there. And she was a coward, hiding in her office.
Anger suddenly boiled inside her, keeping tears from falling. All her life her parents had protected and sheltered their only child, and now she wasn’t sure she’d ever be strong enough to face danger.
She tried to think of why someone was torturing her. Maybe it was a stranger in town who saw how frightened she seemed of the world and this was all a joke. Maybe her uncle was mad at her for taking the money her father had loaned him twenty years ago. She’d heard them arguing a few times, over money or store policy.