Rose laughed and shook her head. She couldn’t be mad about it. At least she got first place in her category, and the owners of Daisy’s would be thrilled enough about that. She left the stage after the hoopla and she and Joey slipped out to find some real estate for the parade. They found a shady spot on the route and settled onto the grassy slope with some sodas and a container of popcorn.
“I’m sorry you didn’t win, Mom,” Joey said.
“That’s okay,” she said, hugging him to her side. “If I won, it wouldn’t be any fun. I’d have to ride in the parade and I couldn’t watch it with you.”
“And Xander?” he added.
Rose turned to look at her son. He didn’t just have his father’s soulful eyes. He also had his smarts. Nothing got past him. “I think he will be coming, yes, but you’re more important than some silly boy I’m dating. Always.”
She didn’t date much, but she wanted it to be clear that her son was always the most important thing in the world to her. Her father had always seemed to have other priorities—his grief, his business, his criminal proclivities—and she wouldn’t do that to Joey. Even in the worst of her mother’s illness, she’d always made Rose feel as though she was the center of her universe, and that was the standard she kept to.
“I like him.”
“I’m glad,” she said, smiling. She’d always known they would get along like two peas in a pod because they were so much alike, even without ever having met before now. “I think he likes you, too.”
“Do you like him? I’ve never seen you smile the way you do when you’re with him,” Joey noted quietly. “You seem really happy together.”
At that, Rose was a little taken aback. The past days had been a change from their normal routine, but had things been that different since Xander had returned to Cornwall? “Am I not happy the rest of the time?”
Joey shrugged. “You’re tired. You work a lot. There’s not much time for you to relax and enjoy yourself. I don’t even remember you going out with anyone more than once or twice. I hope you and Xander can hang out some more.”
Rose did, too, but there was a ticking time bomb for this romantic interlude. Joey needed to know that. Xander would always be a part of his life, but not necessarily in hers the way it was now. “Well, Joey, you know he doesn’t live around here. He’s visiting family. Pretty soon he’ll go back to Washington, D.C., and work. I don’t think much will come of this.”
“You could visit him there.”
She wouldn’t even allow herself those fantasies. If she did go to D.C., it would be to take Joey for a visit. She would be the awkward third wheel. “I don’t know, Joey. We both have different lives. We’re not thinking that far ahead. Xander and I are just enjoying being together again after all this time. Did you know he was my prom date?”
Joey wrinkled his nose. “No. Really? Did he buy you one of those flower things?”
“A corsage? Yes. He got one for my wrist in red roses that matched my dress.”
“She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life,” Xander said, appearing from the crowd to join them on the lawn. “When she opened the door in that red dress, I thought I might pass out on the doorstep. The only thing that kept me upright was knowing that your uncle Craig would dump me in the pond if I did.”
Rose laughed. Craig would’ve done something like that, she was certain. He’d been scowling at her the whole evening as she got ready. “Welcome, Xander. I’m surprised they didn’t corral you into the parade.”
He shrugged, settling down on the grass beside her. “I told them I had plans. I didn’t want to ride with Lois Walters anyway.”
“That’s your own fault,” Rose pointed out.
“It was good pie!” he said in his own defense. “I wish it hadn’t been hers, but damned if it wasn’t the best strawberry pie I’ve ever tasted.”
“At least Molly finally got a ribbon.”
“She’s still beaming over that. She wanted to beat Lois, of course, but a ribbon is a ribbon. Hey,” Xander added, lowering his voice a touch. “By the way, I spoke with Troy earlier.”
“Anything interesting come from that?”
Xander smiled, his dimples coming out in full force. “We are all set. The scout camp has a nurse on-site that will check in with Joey and give him pain medication if he needs it. He’ll have to skip some of the more active sports and water activities, but he’s welcome to go. I already wrote the check. All he needs aside from clothes and toiletries are a sleeping bag and a few forms filled out.”
Rose was thrilled for Joey, yet she couldn’t help wincing and shaking her head as he finished speaking. “We don’t have a sleeping bag.”
“We’ll get one this weekend. We have to drive him to the campsite and drop him off by nine a.m. on Monday morning. Pickup is Sunday evening.”
He had handled all the details. There was no way Rose could complain. She’d wanted her son to be able to go to this and now he could. “Do you want to tell him?”
“Can I?” Xander said, his expression brightening. When Rose nodded, he shouted to Joey over the oncoming marching band music. The parade would reach them any minute now. “Hey, Joey? Guess where you’re going next week.”
Their son narrowed his eyes and frowned. “To Uncle Craig’s house?”
“Nope,” Xander said. “You’re going to scout camp for the week.”
“What?” Joey said, excitement lighting his eyes. “Really? They’ll let me go with the cast and everything?”
“It’s all taken care of,” Xander replied. “We’re going to get you a sleeping bag and some first-class scouting supplies when the parade is over.”
After a moment, Joey’s enthusiasm waned a touch and his brow knit together in thought. “But wait, Mom, you said you couldn’t afford for me to go.”
Rose nodded and reached out to ruffle his hair. “Xander was nice enough to pay for it.”
“I loved going to camp. I hated for you to miss it.”
That was enough to soothe his concerns. He grinned and looked over at a group of people settling nearby. One of the boys was from his ball team and was also going to the camp, Rose recalled.
“Can I go tell Ethan?”
“Sure. Don’t wander too far or you’ll miss the parade.”
Joey leaped up and shot off, the cast only marginally slowing him down. He would probably do fine at camp unless he whacked it on something. “Thank you,” she said to Xander while still watching her son.
“You’re welcome. I know he’ll have a great time. Hey, do you have some paper to write down Troy’s number? He wanted you to give him a call to talk over things.”
“Sure.” Rose reached into her purse and pulled out a notebook and pen.
“Oh,” Xander said, and he reached down beside them. He picked a folded piece of paper off the grass and held it up to her. “You dropped this.”
Rose instantly recognized it and frowned. She’d forgotten that was in her purse. She took the paper from him and crumpled it into a ball in her hand. “Thanks,” she said dismissively.
Her pen was still poised in her other hand to write down Troy’s number when she realized he was watching her with a concerned expression furrowing his brow just as Joey’s had been a moment before.
“What was that, if you don’t mind me asking?”
She sighed and clicked the end of her ballpoint pen. Troy’s number was apparently on hold. “This,” she said, clutching the ball of paper, “is a letter from my father.”
The drawn forehead stayed firmly in place. “Really?”
“Yep. Authentic prison mail. I forgot to throw it away.” She held it up to toss it toward the nearby trash can, but Xander caught her hand and plucked the paper from her fingers.
“Does he write very often?”
“About once every two months or so.” After he was first incarcerated the letters had come more frequently, at least once a week. Over the years, they’d arrived further and further apart. That was
fine by Rose. She didn’t want to receive any letters.
“Do you or Joey ever write him back?”
Rose turned away from his appraising gaze to the commotion in the street. The bearers of the Strawberry Days banner went past them, followed by the local veterans’ group waving red ribbons on sticks. A crowd had gathered along the streets now, families and friends, children on their fathers’ shoulders, and the occasional dog on a leash.
“You know, I remember coming to this festival with my dad once,” she said. “He put me on his shoulders like that little girl over there. I was maybe five at the time and at first I was scared that I would fall. But my dad had a hold of me and he said that he wouldn’t let anything happen to me. He gripped me so tightly that I forgot I was even up so high. I thought I could see the whole world from up there.”
Her gaze dropped to the grass as she fought the tears forming in her eyes. “He lied. My whole life he masqueraded as my protector, when in fact he was the one that hurt me the most.”
Xander flattened the ball of paper and scanned over the words she couldn’t bring herself to read. “He knows what he did to you, Rose, and he wishes you would write to him. He’s so sorry about what happened.”
“They’re just words, Xander. Nothing he says can change the past. And there’s nothing he can do in that medium-security federal prison for the next fifteen years. What’s done is done. The man that worked in that bank is dead and his family has lost their future with him. My father did nothing but lie to me and he will never be a part of my life again. He’s going to miss his grandson’s entire childhood. He hid the problems he was having for years. I can’t trust anything he says.”
Xander’s expression went from concerned to pained. Rose couldn’t understand why. It wasn’t his father in jail. “Everyone makes mistakes, Rose.”
“There are mistakes and then there are mistakes that leave people dead and turn you into a criminal, Xander. It was bad enough when we were just poor. He made us into trash. You want to know another reason why I never told you about Joey? It was because I was afraid that was how you’d see us. That even if you knew you had a son, you would be too embarrassed of us to ever become a part of his life.”
“Rose, you could never be trash.”
Xander reached out and tipped her chin up until she had no choice but to look into his hazel eyes. All these years, she had expected to see rejection and shame there when he found out the truth, but today she was surprised by the warmth and acceptance in his eyes. The heat of attraction. The possibility of more. Joey seemed to think that things between the two of them could last beyond his visit to Cornwall. It was a nice thought, but she refused to bet her heart on that.
“Never.”
Eight
There were days when Xander didn’t appreciate his brother Brody’s computer genius. Usually that was when he was able to uncover personal information about Xander that he’d rather not share. But considering everything going on with the as-of-now-unidentified body on the news, he was happy to have some insider information.
Brody had texted him an hour ago and indicated that they hadn’t made any announcements, because there were no credible leads on identifying the body so far. It seemed that most people had forgotten all about the troublesome teen who vanished all those years ago. That was a relief.
The more time Xander spent with Rose and Joey, the more he worried about the truth coming out. There was already a lot on the line—their careers, their father’s health, their parents’ love. Knowing that he had a son raised the stakes. Joey looked at him as if he was the coolest guy he’d ever met. He never wanted doubt or betrayal to show up in the eyes that were so much like his own.
There was already too much in Rose’s eyes. From the first moment they were reunited, and even in the moments of passion they’d shared, there had been a hesitation in Rose. Too much had happened in her life—some caused by him, some caused by other people. And while she was letting some of her barriers down slowly but surely, their discussion about her father yesterday made her stance painfully clear.
Xander’s secret would ruin everything. If Tommy’s body was identified and the truth came out, the two of them would be through. Hell, he would be lucky if she let him see the son he’d just met. As far as Rose was concerned, he would be criminal trash just like her father. If she could cut Billy from her life, Xander would be even more easily dispatched.
According to Brody, things were still okay. For now. Xander would hold his breath and wait for things to change, but in the meantime, he wanted to make the most of his time with Rose and Joey. He was on his way to pick them up and drive them out to the scout campground. Knowing Tommy hadn’t been identified yet would be one less thing lurking on his mind.
As it was, he was waiting for the police to question his parents. He’d told Ken to text him the moment they called or showed up. Sheriff Duke was more inclined to set an appointment than arrive unannounced, especially considering how respected the Edens were in the community. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t. Xander was not familiar with the man who had taken over the job a few years back.
Xander slowed to turn into the parking lot of Rose’s apartment building. It was a nice enough place, but he intended to find her someplace else and well before the winter weather set in. Her Honda didn’t have snow tires or four-wheel drive, after all.
Sitting on his pack on the curb as Xander pulled in was Joey, decked out in his scouting uniform. He was bouncing with energy and excitement. When he spied the car, Joey leaped up and ran into the apartment. By the time Xander had parked and opened the hatch to load up his gear, his son had returned with Rose in tow.
She was looking lovely today. She was wearing a snug pair of jeans that clung to each curve and a tank top that gave just a glimpse of her cleavage along with the smooth, unblemished expanse of her décolletage and arms. Her hair was down, spilling like dark brown silk over her bare shoulders. Rose was a tempting treat he couldn’t wait to get a bite of. When she got off work tonight, he had every intention of getting a taste.
Joey ran to him, clutching his new sleeping bag with his good arm. “Hi, Xander!” he greeted him.
“Hey, Joey. Are you ready for camp?” He took the sleeping bag and tossed it inside.
“I am. My friend Ethan is going and we’re hoping to share a bunk. I’ll have to sleep on the bottom because of my arm, but that’s okay with me.”
Rose rounded the back of his SUV with Joey’s backpack. “You’re going to have a great time. But you remember to take it easy on that arm. The nurse will have your pain pills if you need them.”
“I know,” Joey said with an exasperated look on his face. It was obvious Rose had given him this speech several times since they’d found out Joey could go.
Xander slammed the hatch closed. “Let’s hit the road, then. Camp Middleton, here we come!”
They loaded into his SUV and hit the highway. It took about thirty minutes to reach the camp and they arrived at the peak of drop-off time. There were scouts and parents everywhere. They checked Joey in and Rose turned over his medication and signed a few waivers for the nurses. The nurse even came to introduce herself to them and pointed out to Joey which of the log cabins had her office in it. A couple older scouts who served as counselors collected his things and carried them to his bunk. Finally, they were shooed over to the Welcome to Camp Middleton sign for pictures.
“This should be just the two of you,” Xander argued, but Rose ignored his protests and tugged him into the shot.
“You have to be in it, Xander!” Joey said.
Posing like a real family, they waited for the photographer to snap their picture and the check-in process was finally complete. A few of the counselors were standing several feet away with lettered flags for each of the cabins. The closest flag had an A on it for the boys assigned to cabin A.
“There’s your group,” Xander said. “But one last thing, first.” He squatted down and pulled a thick black Sharpie fr
om his back pocket. “This is for all your new friends to sign your cast.”
“Thanks, Xander. This is great!” Joey stuck the pen in the pocket of his khaki shorts and rushed forward to give him a hug.
Xander braced himself for impact but underestimated the emotional punch that came with it. He had carried Joey to bed unconscious, given him high fives, ruffled his hair but hadn’t actually hugged him. It was the first time he’d held his son in his arms. A wave of feelings surged through him and in that moment, he didn’t want to let go. But he knew he had to. “Have fun!” He choked down the emotions and broke into his wide practiced smile.
Joey pulled away with a grin and turned to his mom. Rose gave him a big hug and kiss and then let the squirming boy run off to join the others.
Xander took her hand and led her back to the SUV. “Are you okay?” she asked as they reached the car, surprising him.
“Me? I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“I’ll be fine. He’s getting older and wants to do more things on his own. I’ve had years to prepare for this, but I saw the look on your face when he hugged you. You seemed a little overwhelmed.”
Xander nodded and they climbed into the car. “Things just got a little real all of a sudden.”
He pulled out of the gravel parking lot and set a course back to Torrington. In the silence of the drive, Rose reached over and took his hand. He wrapped his fingers through her own and instantly felt better. Rose always seemed to understand the things he kept inside. Back in school, he never had to tell her he was upset. She would just sit down beside him, take his hand and offer her silent support. She didn’t push him to talk or layer on empty platitudes to make him feel better.
Rose was just there for him. Then, like now. In the world of politics, that was a rarity. Everyone he interacted with on a daily basis wanted something from him. They were fair-weather friends who could turn on him as quickly as public opinion. His family members were the only people he could count on. They were the ones who would quite literally help him hide a body.
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