Xander smiled, confirming her suspicions. “If she does, she’s smart and keeps quiet about it.” He took a step toward her and wrapped his arms around her waist. Rose allowed herself to be pulled against him, the protective cocoon of his body welcome after a long, distressing night. He dipped his head to kiss her again. Reluctantly, he pulled away and took a step toward the door. “See you soon, Rose.”
After the door shut, Rose let her body sink back against the wall. A swirl of emotions in her gut, compounded by exhaustion, made it hard for her to keep herself upright.
The future was wide-open now and she had no idea what to expect. It scared the hell out of her.
* * *
If you hurt my sister or my nephew, I swear I’ll be sharing a cell with my dad that very same day.
Those were Craig’s exact words, yet they’d inspired more confusion in Xander than fear. The threat was clear and Xander understood how concerned Craig was with keeping Rose and Joey happy and safe.
But a cell with his dad? Admittedly, Xander was out of touch, but certainly he would’ve heard something if Billy Pierce was in jail. Right?
There was only one way to find out for certain. Xander rolled out of bed sometime around lunch that afternoon. He got dressed and made his way from the converted barn known as the bunkhouse, where he and the other boys stayed growing up, over to the main house to talk to Ken or Molly.
He opened the back door, walking straight into the old kitchen he’d raided repeatedly during his teen years. His foster father, Ken, was sitting at the worn kitchen table, hovering over a bowl of soup and crackers.
“Morning, son,” Ken said, looking up and then back down at his watch. “Good afternoon, rather.”
“Hi, Dad.”
“Grab some soup and join me.”
“Sounds good.” Xander went to the stove, where beef-and-vegetable soup was simmering in a large pot. Even though it was only Ken and Molly on the farm now, she still cooked as if she had a houseful of teenage boys to feed. He ladled soup into a bowl and took it and a glass of tea with him to the table. “Where’s Mom?”
“She went into town to the farmers’ market. Everyone is getting ready for the strawberry festival this weekend. She wanted to pick up a bushel or two of Joe Wheeler’s berries and plan her entries for the baking competition.”
Every summer, Cornwall hosted the Strawberry Days Festival. Friday, Saturday and Sunday would be filled with parades, carnivals, food booths and contests. Someone would be crowned Queen of the Berries. Molly would cook herself half to death this week in the hopes of bringing home one of the coveted blue ribbons. The most cutthroat of competitions were the strawberry-preserves and the strawberry-pie categories, and the winner could lord it over all the other women in town the rest of the year.
Xander could remember eating so many of Molly’s practice dishes as a kid that he went nearly two years in college without eating strawberry anything. He swallowed a spoonful of soup and shook his head. Molly worried herself sick every year and never won, even though her stuff was great. “I’m surprised she’s still butting her head against that wall. You and I know it’s a setup and the mayor’s wife always wins. I know corruption when I see it.”
“Yes, but she’s stubborn, just like all of you kids.”
Xander smiled at the incredulity of his father’s statement. “You’re not including yourself in that group? The man who had a heart attack but refused to tell his kids because it was nothing? The man who’d rather sell off huge chunks of land than admit to his extremely wealthy children that he’d lost his medical insurance and needed some help with bills?”
Ken shrugged. “You all come by it honestly, I suppose.”
Xander shook his head and ate his soup. His father had no idea how much trouble he’d caused by selling that land. The unused back portion of the farm had served no purpose to him; it paid off his medical bills without causing a fuss. He couldn’t fathom why the kids were so upset. They were upset because they knew what was hidden in the far section of the property.
And now so did the whole town. They just didn’t know who it was. Over the months, the information had been slow to come and sparse when it did. Cornwall didn’t deal with many murder victims. So far the only information the police had released was that the remains had been buried for approximately fifteen to twenty years and that it was the body of a young adult male.
When they’d found out Ken had sold the land, Xander’s oldest brother, Wade, had come home to deal with the issue and buy back the land before anything could happen. Unfortunately, their parents had sold three plots and Wade had secured the wrong one. They hadn’t found that out until the body was found on another piece of the property.
Then the dead man’s sister had come to Cornwall looking for answers about her missing brother. Brody had sounded the alarm and dug up a mountain of information they could use against her if necessary. So far it hadn’t been needed. There was no information on her brother to find. Everyone had told her what they knew—Tommy had run away from his foster home a week before his eighteenth birthday and had never been seen again.
Now that Congress was out of session and the facial re-creation sketch could hit the news at any moment, it was Xander’s turn to deal with the potential fallout. An entire situation that could’ve been avoided if Ken hadn’t been so pigheaded.
Of course, if none of this had happened, Xander wouldn’t have known he had a son. Everything was a mess, but somehow he couldn’t regret that.
“What kept you out so late?” Ken asked. “Molly said you were going to that new Italian place, but they close at eleven. I heard your car roll in close to four this morning.” His bright blue eyes looked over his son, waiting for his explanation for the five-hour gap, as if he were seventeen and out past curfew again.
“I had to take my date to the hospital.”
Ken’s eyes widened in surprise, his cracker hovering halfway to his mouth. “Go that well, did it?”
“It wasn’t her,” Xander said with a smile. “Her son broke his arm and we had to meet him there.” Xander was surprised how hard it was for him to say “her son.” It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since he uncovered the truth and yet Joey was already “his” in his own mind.
He wanted to tell Ken the truth, but it was too soon. He couldn’t tell Ken and not let him tell Molly. That would put him in a bad place with his wife. Molly was desperate for grandchildren. If she was the last one to find out that she had one—and he was ten—someone would get hurt. “You remember Rose, don’t you, Dad?”
“Your high school girl?”
“Yeah.”
Ken nodded. “Sure. I saw her at the diner a few weeks back. Is that who you went out to dinner with? Your mother didn’t know.”
“I didn’t tell her, but yes, I had dinner with Rose. I didn’t want Mom to read too much into it.”
“I forget that she has a son,” Ken added. “I’ve never even seen her with him, but they live a few towns over, I think.”
“He’s a cute kid. Broke his arm pretty bad on the trampoline.”
“That’s a shame,” Ken said, pushing aside his empty soup bowl. “That whole family has faced one stroke of bad luck after the other. First Billy’s wife got that awful cancer. Things were so hard for them after that. He nearly ran their auto shop into the ground, he was so lost without her. And then...well, it’s no wonder Billy got wrapped up in that bad stuff.”
Xander’s ears perked up. He knew his parents would know what was going on with Rose’s father. Molly knew everything that happened in this town, and whether Ken cared or not, Molly would tell him all about it. “Bad stuff?”
“I forget you guys miss out on everything going on around here. About five years ago, Billy got in with the wrong crowd. He was recruited to drive the getaway car while a couple of them robbed a bank.”
Xander felt his soup start to churn in his stomach. He’d known that Billy being in a cell didn’t bode well, but he’d hoped for check fraud or tax ev
asion. A crime, but one that didn’t hurt anyone. He’d never anticipated armed robbery.
“Billy just sat in the car and drove off when they ran out. He had no clue what actually happened inside the bank, but apparently, things went badly. One of the guys shot and killed a security guard. It was a big mess.”
Yes. Yes, it was a big mess. Xander tried not to outwardly react, but the universe seemed to be conspiring against him. He’d managed to avoid scandal all this time. Now he had enough circling around him to end his political career forever.
Illegitimate children, murder, armed robbery—it was getting downright juicy. Heaven forbid one of the news outlets got ahold of this. If all this was so easily uncovered, he couldn’t imagine what a determined reporter could find if he really tried. On the bright side, he’d have plenty of fodder for a second book if all this didn’t tank the first one.
Xander wouldn’t lie. He wanted Rose. Badly. Before she got that call, he was pretty certain he’d been on the verge of having her. Her cheeks had been flush, her lips bee-stung with kisses. She’d been pressing against him and making those soft sounds of desire that he remembered from all those years ago. And then everything fell apart. He still wanted her, but was it even possible now? He’d sensed her pull back after their kiss at the restaurant. She might’ve just been worried about her son, but it seemed like more than that. As if she regretted it.
And even if that wasn’t true, the night had ended far more complicated than it had started. They could try to keep Joey and her father’s incarceration a secret, but eventually, word would get out that he was romantically involved with Rose. It wouldn’t take much digging for a reporter to find out the rest and start connecting the dots.
And that was just Rose’s family. Never mind that Xander was fighting to keep his own skeleton buried. “How did Rose take it?”
“I’m not sure. I know that’s when she moved back here with her son. She tried to run her dad’s garage for a while, but her brother took over eventually. Molly mentioned that Rose always seemed so positive when she spoke to her. I think she copes by trying to pretend it didn’t happen.”
“That’s probably true,” Xander said. “She didn’t mention it to me at all last night. That’s sort of a big thing.”
“You can’t blame her. If one of you committed a stupid and violent crime, I wouldn’t be shouting it from the rooftops.”
Xander swallowed a mouthful of soup and opted not to respond. The last year and a half, he and his siblings had been struggling—not to stay out of jail but to keep Tommy Wilder’s death and their involvement a secret from their parents. They’d never wanted or intended to do what they did that day. Their hands had been forced by circumstances and the fear of losing their new home and parents.
But they had committed crimes that day. Heath had killed Tommy while trying to protect Julianne. Wade had hidden the body. Xander and Brody were both guilty of destroying or fabricating evidence. Brody had taken Julianne to the bunkhouse to clean up and change out of her torn and bloody clothes. Xander had gathered her clothes and burned them, along with all of Tommy’s belongings, and then forged a note from Tommy. Heath had cleaned up the scene.
They were just kids. Hell, Heath and Julianne were only thirteen at the time. They’d panicked and done what they thought they had to do to protect themselves. If pressed, they could prove Tommy’s death was an accident that happened while defending their sister from Tommy’s attack. Anyone who knew Tommy back then knew what he was capable of. He stole, he got into fights and he didn’t do his fair share around the farm. He’d been brought to the Garden of Eden as a last-ditch attempt to find him a foster home when his own family could no longer control him and no one else would take him.
But that didn’t mean the truth wouldn’t disappoint their parents. That the shock of it wouldn’t give Ken another attack or break Molly’s heart. At the very least, Ken would beat himself up for being sick that day and unable to protect his young daughter when she needed him. He might feel guilty that his sons had had to do it for him and carried the burden of their actions for all these years.
Xander couldn’t disappoint his parents. Or Rose. Or his son. He wouldn’t disappoint his constituents or the people who depended on the Fostering Families Center, either. They had put their faith in him and he wouldn’t abuse their trust.
It seemed everyone had their secrets. Now Xander just had to make sure these secrets didn’t destroy everything they’d worked so hard to build.
Five
Every time the chime on the front door of the diner went off, Rose jumped. She was a nervous wreck. She’d accidently poured water into someone’s lap instead of their glass. There were three order mistakes because she’d written them down wrong. Then she botched the apple pie she needed to bake for the dessert case by adding cups of salt instead of sugar.
She had been on pins and needles the past few days waiting for Xander to show back up again. Sunday had been a big night filled with revelations, kisses and confessions. She still wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about this whole turn of events. It felt good to get the truth about their son out, but everything else was so confusing.
Their date had been wonderful, and the physical reaction to their kisses too strong for her to ignore. A part of her wanted Xander, even if it would be a short-term arrangement. The other part urged her to keep her distance, physically and emotionally. She was no good at separating the two, as was evidenced by her anxiety over his extended absence. She had been busy taking care of Joey and working, but not so much that she didn’t notice he hadn’t come around to see her or Joey.
Today was Wednesday and she hadn’t laid an eye on Xander. Perhaps it was too much for him at once. He’d seemed to take the truth about Joey well. Maybe too well. She’d expected him to be angry at her for lying to him or to accuse her of passing off another man’s child as his. Instead his stoic expression had only given away hints of sadness and disappointment, while his words seemed to understand what she’d done and why.
Perhaps that polished politician’s facade hid the truth and he was quietly freaking out. Or calling his lawyer.
“Rose, are you ready for the strawberry festival?”
She snapped out of her own head and turned to the older gentleman sitting at the counter. Lloyd Singer owned the local pharmacy. Every day, he closed up shop and had lunch at the diner, sitting on the very same stool at the bar. He always ordered a Coke with light ice, a patty melt or a Reuben, and a piece of pie or cake. Today he’d opted for a slice of her strawberry cloud cake. He was a big fan of Rose’s baked goods. Pity he wasn’t one of the judges this year.
Rose smiled and picked up his mostly empty soda glass. “You know what, Lloyd? I’ve hardly given it a thought. Is it this weekend?”
Lloyd shook his head. “That’s what all the banners hanging over the street say. You know, the big red banners with the white block letters. Pretty hard to miss.”
“I’ve been preoccupied,” she admitted, and it was the truth. Between Joey’s arm, Craig’s macho posturing, Xander’s return to Cornwall and receiving another unwanted letter from her father, she’d had zero time to worry about what she was going to make.
“I think,” Lloyd almost whispered, leaning in, “you should go with this strawberry cloud cake. I’ve never tasted anything like it. I’d love to see Lois Walters lose for once.” He pointed at his half-eaten dessert with his fork. “This could do it.”
That was a good idea. She’d never made that for the festival. The cake category wasn’t as hotly contested as some of the others, but the winner of each group did compete for the overall best in show. Wouldn’t that be a coup? “I’ll keep that in mind, Lloyd. Let me get you a refill.”
Rose carried his glass over to the soda dispenser and when she turned around, she nearly spilled the glass, she had such a start. Like a ninja, Xander had slipped into the diner undetected and was now sitting beside Lloyd at the counter, chatting. He was looking incredibly handsome today
in a blue polo shirt and khakis. His light brown hair was brushed back out of his eyes and his jaw had a hint of stubble, as though he’d skipped shaving this morning. It was a casual look for him, but she could tell it wasn’t cheap. The tiny polo player stitched onto his chest meant it was a Ralph Lauren piece.
He looked more like the Xander of her memories today. Without the suits and ties and expensive accessories, he was just the boy she’d fallen in love with and she was defenseless against his draw. It made her want to reach across the counter and caress his face. Imagining the rough feel of his unshaven jaw along the palm of her hand sent a thrill through her whole body. The mere fantasy caused goose bumps to race across her skin.
What would actually touching him do to her? She knew the answer to that and a part deep inside of her tightened at the thought. She took a deep breath to compose herself and returned with Lloyd’s drink as though she hadn’t even noticed Xander was there. She didn’t want him to think she’d been sitting around waiting for him the past few days.
Or the past eleven years.
“Afternoon, Xander,” she said with a polite, blank smile she hoped hid the maelstrom of emotions swirling around inside her. “What can I get you today?”
Xander ignored the menu, glancing briefly at the chalkboard for the specials instead. “The chicken and dumplings and a slice of that pink, fluffy goodness he’s got there.”
“You got it.” She disappeared into the kitchen to put his order in. It came up quickly since Oscar already had it made, so she brought it out a few minutes later with a tall glass of water and a slice of strawberry cloud cake.
Lloyd was gone when she returned. It was the tail end of the lunch rush and most of her customers were settling up and returning to work. She dropped off Xander’s food and busied herself collecting dishes, waving goodbye and scooping up the tips into her apron pocket.
When there were no more chores to handle or customers to serve, she returned to her lone customer at the counter. He had finished off his lunch and was halfway through his cake. “Everything okay?” she asked.
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