The Chocolate Garden (Dare River Book 2)

by Ava Miles

  They fell into a new schedule. They ate dinner together every night. Soon they were inviting his family over too, and sometimes Amelia Ann would also join them after she got off work.

  Welcome news came when Rye called, saying the police finally had a suspect for the break-in. The lead had come from Jolene’s Boating Rentals. Billy Ray Ferry, a former security guard who’d been fired recently for drinking on the job, had rented a boat with cash. Though he’d used a fake name, Jolene had remembered the color and make of his pick-up truck, and after some major tracking, they’d found the truck on a gas station security camera fifty miles out of Nashville, the license plate clearly visible. Billy Ray hadn’t been sleeping at his house, which was filled with pictures of Rye and copies of his albums, so the police assumed he was hiding out, but now they had a description and had released an all-points bulletin for his arrest.

  Tammy decided not to tell the kids about this development since they were healing so well. Meanwhile, she started to venture out a few hours each day to meet with clients and subcontractors. The kids were pretty calm about it, content to play with their babysitter and the dogs. The workload for Visionary Gardening was becoming more varied, with some of Tammy’s new clients requesting water features and other types of garden art to dress up their land. Her big score was the Reva Merrifield job, and she’d found a metal worker whose art perfectly complemented her concept for the singer’s gardens. Every time Tammy came home from work, she was beaming.

  The magic of imagination and love was transforming them all.

  And then Clayton arrived at his door one day, and John Parker knew something was about to interrupt the happy little world they’d formed together. And from the frown on his friend’s face, it was going to be bad. He immediately thought of the burglary suspect. But why would Clayton look so downcast if the man had been caught?

  “Sorry to intrude,” Clayton said, but John Parker only opened the door wider to allow him entry.

  “You know you’re always welcome,” he said even though part of him, the part that recognized how life-changing his friend’s news would be, wanted to order him out and bar the door.

  Clayton rubbed Charleston under the ears when she appeared. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

  As they were walking into the house, Tammy emerged from the kitchen, a glass of sweet tea in her hands. Her smile faded, and she said, “What is it? Did they finally catch the intruder?”

  Clayton glanced around the house, and John Parker knew he was looking for the kids. “They’re playing out back before dinner,” he explained.

  “No, he’s still at large,” Clayton said, “but I’m hopeful they’ll find him.”

  “Then is everything okay with Rye?” she asked, her brow knit with tension.

  His friend gave her a charming smile, something John Parker had seen him do plenty of times to avoid causing alarm. It was like a lead anchor had been dropped in his belly. If not the suspect, then what?

  “Absolutely. I just have some business with John Parker about some songs he’s been writing for Rye.”

  John Parker knew a load of horseshit when he heard it. “Let’s head into my office then.”

  “Would you like to stay for supper?” she asked.

  “That would be lovely, Tammy. Thank you.”

  “Wonderful, I’ll just add another plate to the table,” she said. A certain glint in her eyes told him she had unanswered questions, but she left the room.

  “Come on, then,” John Parker said, and together, they went to his office. After securing the door, he sat in one of the two chairs in front of his desk while Clayton took the other.

  “Okay, what’s going on?”

  “Rye wanted me to tell you this in person since he couldn’t slip away from the tour again. There’s no way to say it, but straight out.”

  John Parker braced himself.

  “The woman we hired to pump Gunner Nolan about the leak finally hit pay dirt. He confessed that it was a close female relation. After discussing it with Rye, we think it was his mama. She’s mean enough for it, even though we’d all dismissed her as a possibility because we figured she’d be allergic to airing her family’s dirty laundry.”

  “Their mama?” he asked stupidly. “But you don’t know for sure.”

  “No, Gunner didn’t mention a name. In the meantime, Rye is more pissed than I have ever seen him. Tory, Belle, and I almost had to restrain him from directing his bus to Meade and having it out with his mama right then and there.”

  He could well understand Rye’s desire for a confrontation. That kind of betrayal cut so deep no amount of sutures could heal the tear.

  “So Rye doesn’t think it could be another female relation?” he asked. As a lawyer, confirmation was everything.

  “Who else could it be? Rye’s Aunt Henrietta wouldn’t have been in the know, we don’t think, and Rye vouched for her. As for his cousins? He barely knows them, so their first inkling about the whole mess would have been when the tabloid was released. His mama is the only one who makes sense.”

  John Parker knew Rye’s family tree as well as he knew his own after all the years they’d spent trying to bury his friend’s connections to the Hollins clan of Meade, Mississippi. No one else really popped for him either.

  “Rye thinks Tammy deserves to know what we do,” Clayton continued, “but he wanted me to ask you what you thought about the timing. She’s been through a hell of a lot lately. Can she take this news right now?”

  Her confidence was growing, there was no doubt, but he knew she was still struggling to let some of her old patterns fall away. Still, he couldn’t imagine hiding this news from her—not when she’d told him at Rye’s wedding that she wanted him to stop looking for the leak altogether. He’d promised to tell her when they discovered something, and that they would decide together what to do.

  Loving her and respecting her like he did, there was no way he was going to break that promise.

  “There’s never going to be a good time for news like this.”

  “Amen,” Clayton said. “So are you going to tell her or am I?”

  “I’ll tell her after the kids go to bed.” They could discuss it in the tree house, and she could scream or cry as much as she liked after hearing how her own mama had betrayed her.

  “Good. I’ll leave early after dinner. Be nice to sleep in my own bed for a change.”

  “You flying out early tomorrow morning?” he asked.

  “No. Mid-day. Rye is planning on calling Amelia Ann to break the news. He wants me to check in on her since Tammy will have you to comfort her, and he won’t be able to see either of his sisters until he and Tory can leave tour at the next break.”

  “You look real excited about that prospect,” John Parker commented, seeing the hard line of his jaw.

  “I don’t need to be checking on women,” Clayton grumbled, but John Parker thought his reaction was a bit overblown and wondered about it.

  “You don’t much like Amelia Ann, do you?”

  His friend shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Rye’s also going to call his daddy to tell him. I expect this will be the final nail in the coffin of the marriage.”

  “He was already intent on divorcing her, but I expect you’re right. It’s a damn shame. All of it.”

  “Rye’s mama is the coldest bitch I have ever encountered—and that’s saying a lot after my screw up with Amanda Grant. As far as I’m concerned, Margaret Hollins can go to hell.”

  “Clayton,” he couldn’t help but say, and he knew it was because of his mama’s own teachings about everyone deserving forgiveness.

  “Your preacher’s kid syndrome is showing, J.P., so we’ll just have to agree to disagree. Selling your own kin out is the lowest you can ever go in my opinion, and she deserves to be punished for it. Of course, Rye isn’t planning on stringing her up. He thinks the family knowing what she’s done will be her own personal hell. I’m just not convinced it’s enough.”

  He let it lie,
since he knew they would never agree on what was just or fair. John Parker couldn’t imagine what would have motivated Margaret Hollins do such a thing, but human beings often did puzzling things, and when they were hurt, they acted in ways that mystified him.

  “Let’s go eat supper and set this aside for now. I’ll call Rye after I’ve told Tammy so he can talk to her.”

  “Good,” Clayton said, rising and putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’ve heard what you’ve done with the kids here. Didn’t know you had a thing for fairies. How long have you been fantasizing about them bringing you chocolate?”

  “Shut up,” he said with a small grin. “You’re just jealous.”

  His friend chuckled. “You keep on thinking that, but in all fairness, I’m glad you found something that worked, even if it did involve some bullshit fairy tale.”

  Of all of his friends, Clayton’s shell was the hardest, but it was part of what John Parker loved about him.

  “Come on, bubba,” he said. “If you’re nice at dinner and don’t spit or belch, the fairies might even bring you some chocolate for dessert.”

  They both laughed at that, and when they walked out into the living room and the kids greeted Clayton, his eyes sought Tammy’s. He smiled at her and crossed the room to stand behind her.

  Reaching for her hand, he drew it back so no one could see him holding it.

  Hard times might have come knocking at the door of their magical sanctuary, but he wasn’t planning on inviting them to stay.

  Chapter 35

  Putting on a brave face wasn’t something she’d had to do in a long while, and like out of shape muscles, it took more energy than she remembered. Though she knew something was terribly wrong, she fell back into old patterns of small talk with Clayton at dinner, a wooden smile carved onto her face.

  When he left, her shoulders slumped, and all she wanted to do was drag John Parker into a private place and force him tell her what was making him so quiet, brooding almost. But the kids needed baths and song time, so her need to know had to be pushed aside. As soon as they fell asleep, Tammy met John Parker’s blue eyes. Seeing the sorrow in them, a flash of fear sizzled through her body. My God, what was he going to say?

  “Let’s go out to the tree house,” he whispered.

  She nodded, but she knew this wouldn’t be one of the visits to the tree house that sent passion and life flowing through her veins. The lawn was damp from the sprinklers, and the near full moon shone yellow, almost like it was trying to pretend it was the sun.

  When they entered the tree house and turned on the lights that usually guided their hands to the secret places which only each other knew, he didn’t make a move to pull the cot out of the cedar chest he’d hefted inside to store it. No, he sat on one of the children’s small chairs and pulled the other one out for her.

  She sat, and he reached for her hands.

  “Just tell me straight,” she said. “I know it’s bad.”

  A simple squeeze of comfort from him, and then he said, “We hired a woman to pretend to be Gunner Nolan’s girlfriend with the purpose of learning who the leak was. He finally confessed to her that it was a close female relation of Rye’s.”

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered, her heart bleeding from the slice of his words. “It must have been Mama.”

  “That’s what we think. Rye said he couldn’t think of anyone else who fit that description who would have known to say anything. I’m so sorry, Tammy. Sorrier than I can say.”

  She couldn’t sit, so she shot off the chair and rushed over to one of the openings that served as a window. Taking deep breaths of the muggy night air, she squeezed her eyes shut when she saw the fireflies dance in the woods. The scene was too childlike and innocent to bear right now.

  “I knew she hated Rye,” she finally said. “My agreeing to the divorce must have…” Words failed her. How could her own mama have betrayed her so thoroughly? “Made her snap. She wanted to hurt us, and oh, God, how she has.”

  The pain was too much, and she pressed her hands to her face as the tears came.

  John Parker turned her and wrapped his arms around her, and she had what she and Amelia Ann had come to call a good cry. But like nails dug into flesh, there was nothing good about it. It was messy and intense, and it hurt oh so bad.

  How could Mama have done this?

  But she knew. Mama was mean and cruel, used to having her way, and as soon as her authority had been threatened, she’d struck back like a general launching a counter attack.

  “I don’t know what to say to you just now,” John Parker murmured, stroking her back. “I can’t even begin to imagine how much this hurts.”

  She sniffed against his chest. “That’s because your own mama would never have even thought of such a thing. I can’t even begin to imagine hurting my kids this badly. It’s inhuman, John Parker.”

  “She must be a very bitter and angry woman, Tammy, and I’m not making excuses. I’m only trying to remember how my mama taught us to look at unthinkable situations like this one.”

  Bitterness and anger weren’t good enough reasons, and deep down, she wanted to know what her mama had been thinking when she’d called that tabloid. Had she done it in a moment of anger? Did she regret it now? Or did she consider it a just punishment for Rye and Tammy?

  In that moment, she knew what she had to do. She’d been running from her mama ever since she’d left Meade—even cutting her hair and changing her clothes had been an effort to escape her mama’s sway. It was time to face her. Like she had faced every other challenge in her life.

  “I need to see her,” she told him. “I have to ask her to her face how she could have done this.”

  He sighed and caressed her nape, tipping her head so their eyes met. “Are you sure that’s wise? I know you want answers, but sometimes there just aren’t any that will make you feel better. I thought for years about going to see my daddy to ask him how he could have left Mama and me and my sisters, but I finally realized I would be tearing myself up for no good reason. I don’t want her to hurt you anymore than she already has.”

  Her eyes tracked to the knight his sister had painted on the wall of the tree house. Tammy knew this was a journey she had to make, just like the knights of old facing down the monsters everyone else feared.

  She was strong enough to face Mama now, and she promised herself that her visit would be more about going to Mama and telling her that she knew than it would be the expectation of an apology.

  “No, I need to do it.”

  His gaze was steady. “Okay. I’ll take care of the kids while you’re gone.”

  “Thank you for not arguing with me,” she whispered.

  “I promised you at the wedding we would decide what to do together when we heard more. I don’t break my promises.”

  No, he never did. “You have more honor than any man I’ve ever known.”

  He had to clear his throat, and she reveled in the emotion she could inspire in him. He made her feel more deeply than any person other than her children ever had, and all of it was so powerful, so good, she never planned to go without those feelings again. Not even for a moment.

  “I love you,” he whispered and then buried his head in her neck.

  “I love you too,” she whispered back. “Make love to me.”

  The power of their love was helping her complete her journey of self-fulfillment all the time. Her eyes tracked to the sign on the wall, Love Wins, and she thought, yes, it always does.

  Tammy had learned a lot of truths through making love with John Parker. She’d learned how she could be both brave and vulnerable by surrendering to her body’s urgings for him. And deep inside her was a well of desire. It had been dry for years, but like striking water suddenly in the desert, his loving touch had brought her back to life. She’d discovered that her needs and desires in turn fueled his, and that making love was one of the most sacred acts a man and a woman could ever experience together.

  Tonight she le
arned a new lesson, about how love could comfort and suspend time. As he undressed her in the quiet light, fireflies made their way inside the tree house, blinking on and off like magic. Tammy thought it was only fitting they grace this moment, this special place she and John Parker claimed for themselves when the world grew dark and mysterious.

  Her hands traced his muscular chest, and she freed him from his shorts and boxers, all hesitation or embarrassment over their nakedness now blissfully gone. When his hands cupped her nape, stroking the short hair there, she kissed her way along his chest and then went lower, causing him to groan.

  “Hold just a sec,” he murmured. “We need a bed.”

  In a flash, he had the cot rolled out on the floor, and when he held out his hand to her, she reached for it and lowered herself to his side. When their mouths met, there was love and gentleness and comfort there. And as he continued to kiss her, just kiss her, all thoughts of hurt flew away, as if to a dark cave.

  Her body’s rhythms changed then, and she sought what she wanted. She brought his hands to her breasts and reveled in throwing her head back as he touched her, increasing her longing for him, magnifying the glorious ache inside her. When his mouth replaced his hands, she cried out, wanting it to be a powerful sound in the night, as powerful as the crickets and cicadas and the rare hoot of an owl they sometimes heard.

  This was her place. This was her time. And she deserved it all.

  Her hands began their own magical journey across his skin, moving now to the place which she knew made him groan or call out her name.

  She reveled in it all, and by the time he guided her over the first peak, she was more than ready to surrender to the pink light she always saw behind her eyes when they were together. The power of their love had its own colorful light only visible to her inner sight.

  His hands were light and gentle as they moved across her skin, extending her enjoyment to the fullest. He never rushed her from one peak to the next unless her own body urged her on, and tonight it was utterly beautiful to simply lie there feeling her body pulse with his strong body beside it.