by Lucy Farago
“How did he take it?”
“Better than I had anticipated, or so I thought. I didn’t know the real reason he wanted me there.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, looking so vulnerable he knew this would be bad.
“He’d planned a party that night. All I had to do was show up. The next day I could go home. He failed to mention he’d promised me to one of his buddies for helping him out. This crooked finance guy who had a thing for young girls.”
Noah crushed the half-empty bottle in his hands. “Are you fucking kidding me?” If the douche bag weren’t already dead, he’d have killed him himself.
“Don’t worry,” she assured him with a laugh. “I got out of there real fast.”
But from the sound of it, not fast enough.
“I thought … I thought he’d come after me.”
He flicked water off his fingers. “JJ or this creep?”
“Either one. His friend wasn’t the type of guy people said no to.”
“So you got a gun.” Had she planned on using it or had it been for protection?
“I got a gun.”
He wanted to know the whole story—wanted to bash JJ’s head in. But he wasn’t her protector. All he could do now was make certain she returned to Vegas safe.
“It was the last time I saw him. Until three months ago.”
“He was some piece of work.”
“To put it mildly,” Shannon agreed. “I realized then that I meant nothing to him. I mean, I always knew he didn’t give a shit. But that day proved how much.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” And why hadn’t she trusted that he loved her? Even if she didn’t love him, she had to have known she could share everything with him. He’d known all the crap JJ had made her pull.
The soft wind rustled the air, blowing long strands of hair across her face. She brushed them away. “I don’t know why I told you now. It’s in the past, and some things need to stay there. Maybe I just need you to understand my state of mind that week. By the time I got on a bus back to Tweedsmuir, Mr. P had killed himself. I never found out why he needed the money, but it must have been too much for him. Even if it had been a legit insurance plan, Mrs. P wouldn’t have gotten the money. Maybe he didn’t know or understand the suicide clause. Either way, it was the proverbial straw that broke me. My life was shit.” She shook her head. “Worse than shit.”
Then what was he, nothing?
“Maggie had been talking about taking her scholarship and going to California. I couldn’t leave my mom alone, but nor could I take care of her for the rest of her life. Or risk JJ coming back for me. Maggie assured me she could convince her mother to help. And she did. Mrs. Hopewell sent me reports—through Maggie of course. I was a kid and so tired of being used that I needed to put myself first. So I did.”
“Your mom never knew where you went?”
Shannon shook her head, circling the tip of her shoe in the dirt. “I had to make a choice. Her … or me. And she would have told JJ where to find me. She wouldn’t have been able to help herself. I sent money whenever I could. Maggie made her mom promise to keep our secret. Mrs. Hopewell wasn’t keen on the idea until Maggie lied and hinted at abuse.”
“She didn’t exactly lie.” Shannon may not have been physically abused, but she’d been forced to do things she didn’t want to. Damn, and wasn’t he doing the same thing? He brushed the pang of guilt aside. They had to close this case. Too much time and money had been invested in it already and this was bigger than both of them.
“I doubt a judge would have seen it that way.”
“You were a minor.”
“Tell that to Mr. Polanski’s family.”
Slowly, like he was some skittish deer, she approached and sat beside him again. “The whole thing was kind of an oxymoron. To be happy I had to leave the only thing that made me happy. You.”
His heart clenched at her words. But were they true? “I would’ve gone with you.”
“I know. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”
Part of him was relieved to hear he’d made her happy; the other part wanted to strangle her for messing with what they’d had. Sure, they were kids, but he’d say that if it was still on his mind it had been real. “I don’t get it.”
“Noah, you had this amazing family. Your mom baked cookies. Mine barely knew how to turn on the stove. Your dad went back to school and became a respected doctor who helped people. Mine helped himself to other people’s money. The only thing those two had in common were the big plans they had for us. Only yours were a great university and a bright future, mine a life of crime and who knew what else.”
“You’re saying we came from different backgrounds. Big deal. None of that mattered to us.”
“Maybe. But if you came with me, I’d have destroyed your future. I did enough destruction with JJ. I couldn’t do it to you too.”
“That’s stupid, and you should have let me decide what I wanted.”
“No, you’d have chosen me.”
“Like your life is so bad? You’re successful. You seem happy. We could have been too.”
“I am happy. But I hadn’t expected to be. Maggie was running to a university education. I had nothing. I graduated high school after she and I left, but I didn’t have the money for anything else. I was sixteen. I barely made enough to pay my share of the rent. If Maggie’s grandmother hadn’t helped, I’d probably still have nothing. She put me through law school.”
“That was generous of her.” There weren’t many people who would do that.
“She loved her granddaughter and she was stinking rich. But she had a condition. I had to agree to volunteer at the woman’s shelter and local YMCA. She helped me and I helped others.”
“Is that why all the pro-bono work?”
“You go snooping into my life?” she asked, nudging him.
“Yes,” he said, completely unashamed.
“Before or after you learned JJ had found me?” she asked, so quickly it caught him off guard.
“Does it matter?” he said, avoiding eye contact like the schmuck he was.
“I do the pro bono because I want to. I changed my major from criminal to civil law. I thought I wanted to put people like JJ away. Then I met women with battles they couldn’t fight for themselves. If I can’t help them, I have friends who are willing to trade services. Getting others help makes me feel like I’m contributing instead of taking. And if I’d let you come with us, I would have been taking.”
“So you did it to save me from myself? I don’t think I like that answer.” It should have been his choice to make. She had no right to make it for him.
“I did it to save you from me. Look, we can’t say what our life would be like now if you’d come with me. But I was sixteen. I didn’t have the answers. All I knew was I wasn’t good for you.”
“Okay. So how are you going to make it up to me?”
“Excuse me?” She leaned away, regarding him like he’d lost it.
“You crushed a poor innocent boy’s heart. You ruined him for other women.” He couldn’t blame his divorce on Shannon, but she wasn’t totally absolved from his having trust issues.
“You were seventeen and the hottest guy in Tweedsmuir. You were leaving to go to school anyway. I bet all those sorority girls loved you. You might have been hurt, but I’m sure you got over it faster than you’re letting on. Remember in the car, that childhood thing you could barely recall?”
“I only said that to get a rise out you,” he countered with a smirk. “And as you so vividly have recalled it not once but twice, I’d say it worked.”
Then, to his surprise, she punched him in the arm. “Of course it worked. I loved you. You were my first everything. To have you brush it away as insignificant was cruel. You destroyed one of the few fond memories of my childhood.” She placed her hand over her heart with a grief-stricken expression. “You owe me.”
Noah bit back a laugh. Fuck, did he miss her. “Damn, you’re go
od.”
She smiled and overexaggerated puffing out her chest. “Best lawyer in Nevada.”
Then they both laughed and, doing what felt right, he slung an arm over her shoulder. To his amazement, she didn’t pull away. All the many years between them seemed to vanish. He hadn’t forgotten how great it was to hold her, to press her body against his. How could he? It had been imprinted on his brain. Her scent, the sinuous way she moved against him. He got hard every time he thought about her. Even when he hated her. He wanted what they’d had. Trouble was, she was right; they had been kids. And now they lived in two very different states. He liked his hometown. She wouldn’t ever let herself return. But for the next few minutes he didn’t care.
“Spin it any way you like, Miss Fancy Lawyer, but you still owe me. And I intend to collect.” And before she could bring around another argument about who owed who, he kissed her. He did more than kiss her. He yanked her onto her feet, pushed one hand into her hair, and pressed her as close as he could. It was great, beyond great. He hadn’t forgotten one damn thing about her. So maybe it was because they were no longer the fumbling teenagers they’d once been. Maybe because he’d missed her so damn much. Whatever the reason, this was better than any kiss they’d ever shared. And she was kissing him back.
Then, just like that, she pulled away, leaving them both breathless and, admittedly, a little stunned. They went from kissing to staring at each other, she like a deer caught in the headlights, he like he was certain he wanted to keep kissing her.
She held up her hands. “No way. You don’t get to do that.” She took several steps back. “You don’t get to kiss me like you’ve done nothing wrong.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” he argued, still a little wonky from the kiss.
“No, you haven’t done anything illegal. The Supreme Court has ruled that law enforcement officers can use trickery or deceit in an investigation. Which is what you did,” she said, echoing his thoughts from earlier. “I’ve gone along with all this because I don’t trust you not to go to the press out of sheer spite, but you and your team,” she flicked her wrist at him, “had nothing on me. You knowingly took an innocent person, me, and coerced her into going along with your plans.”
He considered telling her the truth, but in the mood she was in, he wasn’t sure she wouldn’t back out of helping them. “You were with your father the night he was murdered.”
“Yup, that much is true. I didn’t deny being with him or that it was my gun you found, and beyond that fact, you can’t prove I fired it. You also know I was at the airport at the time he was killed.”
Shit, she’d figured it out. Now what?
“That’s right. I know. Want to know when?”
Should he play stupid or come clean? He could tell himself he was going to be honest for the case’s sake, but truth was, he’d hated lying to her in the first place. “When?”
“At the airport.”
And yet she’d gotten on the plane with him?
“Yeah, dumbass, I knew before I got on the plane. When we were going in for coffee. I realized then we were leaving a rental car. I rented a car the night I saw JJ. The return of that vehicle would show when I arrived at the airport. But that’s not all. There are cameras in the parking lots and in the airport. All time stamped. So you knew before you came to see me that I didn’t kill JJ.”
“Why did you agree to help, then?”
“Like I said, I didn’t trust you.”
“Shannon—”
“Don’t. I’m glad we had this talk and cleared the air. I truly am sorry I hurt you. But it had to be done. I made the right decision. You fucked me over by dragging me back here. I say we were even yesterday. I’ll finish what you forced me to start and then we can say our good-byes.” And with that she headed down the hill and to her car.
He wanted to go after her. But what would be the point? She hadn’t said she’d stop helping, so he still had what he’d wanted. Didn’t he?
*
Shannon’s mood driving back to town would scare most of the pimps Maggie liked to go up against when she got it in her head to save an underage prostitute.
Why had she let him kiss her? It had taken her so long to get him out of her mind and now she’d gone and mucked it up. Things would have been fine if he’d kept his hands to himself, but the moment he’d slung an arm over her shoulder—like time hadn’t interrupted their young love affair—it was game over. She’d recalled in vivid detail the first time he’d done that. They’d gone for ice cream to celebrate her first good grade in math, a subject she’d hated and he’d been tutoring her in. It had meant nothing, less than nothing; simply a congratulatory gesture after an exhausting week of studying. Or so she’d told herself.
Guys like Noah Monroe dated the mayor’s kid, little Miss What’s Her Face, Suzie I’m So Perfect. Or the preacher’s daughter. Although her father would’ve approved, Maggie’d had no interest in Noah, which had amazed Shannon. All the other princesses in town had eyes for him and Noah for them. Not that she’d begrudged any of them. Why shouldn’t their textbook lives include a perfect romance? So when he’d first put his arm around her shoulders, Shannon had known it meant nothing, even though her heart had wished otherwise. What had shocked the hell out of her was that she’d liked it. Just like now. And for one second, maybe two, she’d been sixteen again.
Well, enough of that bull. She wasn’t sixteen and he sure as hell wasn’t the great guy who’d promised to protect her, who’d said they’d find a way to make sure JJ left her alone. She’d done that all on her own. And whoever put a bullet in his crotch had licked the stamp and mailed that letter to a place JJ would never return to sender.
Shannon would ignore whatever feelings Noah had rekindled. They weren’t real. They were childhood dreams of a life she wished she had.
*
Shannon parked in front of the boardinghouse instead of around back like yesterday. They’d planned on returning here after tonight’s meeting. She was going to nix those plans. She’d repack now and take her suitcase with her and insist Noah take her to a hotel in Boston. She was done with the Keyeses so there’d be no need to return to Tweedsmuir. She was halfway up the porch when she heard her name.
“Shannon?” repeated a voice she prayed wasn’t who she thought it was.
Drawing a slow, silent breath, she turned. “Mrs. Polanski?” she said, trying her damnedest to sound surprised.
“Oh, it is you,” she said, opening her arms for a hug. “When you come home?”
Home. There went that word again. “Yesterday.”
Shannon never knew her grandparents. Thanks to drugs and bad boyfriends, her mom’s had disowned her long before Shannon had been born, and JJ’s had died when she was too little to remember them. But there, standing on the sidewalk, was the closest person to it. Heart jammed tight in her throat, she walked down the path, bent down, and put her arms around the woman she’d once considered family. Then she bit the inside of her mouth to stop from crying. She had no right to hug her.
“I so glad you safe,” Mrs. P said. “Why you no write? You hurt my feelings.”
Inhaling the familiar scent of orange blossoms and cinnamon, Shannon released the old woman. How did she explain she couldn’t write without telling her why she’d left? She’d not only been too ashamed but would’ve had to tell her why she didn’t want JJ to find her. And that she couldn’t do. So what did she tell her now?
“It’s okay,” she continued in a conspiratorial whisper. “Allison tell me you out of harm’s way.”
“Maggie’s mom?” What exactly had she told her?
Mrs. P nodded. “When you disappear I go see her. I lost my Frederick and then I lost you. Why you not tell me about your father? You could come and live with Freddy and me.”
Shannon’s lower lip trembled at the mention of Mr. Polanski. At the suggestion that she could’ve moved in with them, thirteen years of guilt poured out of her. She told herself not to cry. This woma
n, who’d baked her birthday cakes when no one else thought to, would think her crazy, but she couldn’t help herself. She hugged Mrs. P again, embarrassed by her tears, overwhelmed by her shame.
“I happy to see you too. You busy now? Can you come to dinner? There is so much I want to ask. See, my English better,” she said, making sure to pronounce the words slower.
Shannon reluctantly let the woman go. “Better than my Polish.” She still couldn’t string two words together to make a sentence. “I can’t,” she said, for once grateful for what Noah was making her do. “I have a dinner date.” It was the truth.
Mrs. P beamed. “With Noah Monroe?”
It took a few seconds for it to register that she’d gotten it right. “Yes; how did you know?”
Mrs. P kept smiling, reaching out to take Shannon’s hands into hers. “First him and now you. Easy peasy.”
“First him?” she asked, confused as hell.
“Yes. He bought reverend’s house. And now you. Lovebirds find each other,” she said, a hand over her heart. “Make me very happy.”
Noah had bought Maggie’s old house? Why should that surprise her? Of course he would do something like that. He loved this town. “It’s not what you think.”
“No,” she regarded her skeptically, “you come here for another reason? I know you did not like town.”
What could it hurt? Shannon said nothing, letting her believe what she wanted to believe, especially if it made her smile that way.
“I wish you keep in touch. I would not tell that man where to find you.”
She could never tell her that she couldn’t look her in the face again. That if she heard her voice, she’d break down and cry … and never stop. “I don’t know exactly what Mrs. Hopewell told you, but I couldn’t chance anyone knowing where I was. She only knew because of Maggie, and I needed to make sure my mom was taken care of.”