“Fine then.” The male volunteer spoke in a barely controlled tone. “If you feel that way, why don’t you just go get in your truck and get on out of here?”
She risked turning to look over her shoulder. Mohawk glared at the man, but didn’t make a move toward the door.
Shayla sucked in air and hiked Portia higher on her hip. Her purse and coat were still in the kitchen. She needed to get them and get out of here.
Hurrying down the hall, she struggled to catch a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
“Miss?”
The voice came from behind her, but Shayla kept walking.
“Miss? Ma’am?” It was the volunteer who’d confronted Mohawk—a tall, white guy, probably about her dad’s age.
She turned, eager to dismiss him. She just wanted to get out of here.
He hurried toward her and, when he was close enough, he put one hand lightly on her arm, the other on Portia’s back. Portia buried her face in Shayla’s hair.
“I sincerely apologize for that . . . back there.” He hooked a thumb toward the dining room. “That was inexcusable. You shouldn’t have to listen to that. Not with everything you guys do for us.”
Shayla waved him off. “It’s okay. We . . . we’ve had run-ins with him before.”
“With Billy? Billy Waverton?”
“I don’t know his last name. But yeah, him.”
“I’m so sorry. I assure you he’ll be on his best behavior next time—or there won’t be a next time. He can sleep in his truck if he can’t show some common decency.”
The man reminded her a little of Link. For all the good their well-meaning threats did.
“I need to get my niece home.” She nodded toward the kitchen. “We’ll just get our coats.”
“Of course. And again, I’m sorry you had to listen to that.”
She forced a smile. “Have a happy Thanksgiving.”
He looked relieved. “You too.” He got in close and tickled Portia’s chin. “You too, little cutie. What’s her name?”
“Portia. I really have to go.”
“Of course. I won’t keep you.” He took a step back. “I’ll walk to the kitchen with you and make sure it’s unlocked.”
“Thank you.” She wanted to ask him to walk to the parking lot with her too, but for all she knew he wasn’t any more trustworthy than Billy Waverton.
***
Shayla hurried down the corridor and out to the parking lot toward her car, groping inside her purse for her keys.
“I don’t like him.” Portia clung tight as ever to her neck.
“I don’t like him either, baby. We’re just going to forget about him. Let’s go home and paint some toes and eat some Cheetos. What do you say?” She forced a smile she didn’t feel.
“Purple?”
“Purple Cheetos?”
“No! You’re bein’ silly.”
“You can have whatever color you want, Princess Portia. If you want rainbows and puppy dogs painted on those little tootsies, then that’s what we’ll paint.”
That got a giggle. Lord, please erase the memories of that monster from this sweet girl’s mind.
She watched over her shoulder while she helped Portia buckle into the backseat. She jogged around and got in, locking her car doors as quickly as possible. She breathed a little sigh of relief. And wondered how she was going to get out of delivering the day-old bread from now on. Because if she never saw that Billy whatever-his-name-was again, it would be too soon.
She drove around the building to the parking lot’s entrance, searching the lot for a gray truck that might be his. She’d barely gotten a glimpse of it that day he’d thrown the bottle through the bakery’s window. And she wasn’t good at makes and models. There were only two pickups in the lot, neither of them gray. She didn’t know whether to be glad or worried.
She pulled onto the street in the direction of home. She’d planned to stop at the grocery store for a few treats for their girls’ day, but now she just wanted to get home. As quickly as possible.
A light mist had started to fall, hazing the windshield. She switched on the windshield wipers, which only created a murky mess. She turned the wipers on high and pressed the button to squirt washer fluid. Better.
Even though it was only one p.m., most of the cars on the highway had their lights on, so she flipped hers on too. She stretched to check on Portia in the rearview mirror. The little girl’s eyelids were at half-mast. Poor thing. It had been a very strange, but hopefully not too memorable Thanksgiving. They could end on a happier note with their girls’ day.
The light ahead was yellow, and she tapped the brakes, slowing down well ahead of the intersection. The roads could be slicker in this kind of rain than if it was icy. She came to a full stop, but the pickup coming up behind her looked like it was going too fast to get stopped. She checked traffic around her, prepared to run the light if it looked like that truck was going to hit her.
But it stopped in the nick of time. When the light turned green, she started forward, checking her mirror again. It was hard to tell in the glare of headlights through the misty rain, but it looked like the truck was silver. Or gray. With a faded Confederate flag sticker on the front bumper.
She shivered. She was probably letting her imagination run away with her, but she couldn’t seem to shake the foreboding that skittered up her spine.
She went straight through the intersection, praying the truck would turn. But it stayed behind her. She pressed the accelerator, speeding up. The truck did the same. And was gaining.
22
Sitting stiff behind the steering wheel, eyes trained on the image in her rearview mirror, Shayla held her breath. The gray pickup truck was still behind her. Kingshighway was a main road, so maybe it meant nothing that the truck had followed her through the intersection. So had several other vehicles.
But when she turned onto Highway K, the pickup stayed with her, dropping back a ways, only to gain again and tailgate her, then drop back again. With her rear wipers going and the truck’s smeared windshield, she couldn’t see the driver well enough to tell if it was him. The truck finally settled in about a dozen car lengths behind her. Maybe he wasn’t following her at all. Maybe he was just looking for a place to turn around. Or ask directions.
Checking to be sure Portia was still asleep in her booster in the backseat, she slowed the car. Let the jerk pass her and go his merry way.
But he didn’t pass. Instead, the truck rode her tail for the next three miles. Not too close. But close enough that she could still make out the Confederate flag on the bumper. His bumper.
It was simply too much of a coincidence for it not to be Mohawk. But she still couldn’t see through the windshield—almost as if the glass was tinted darker than the law allowed.
With one eye on the road and the other on her rearview mirror, she blindly fished her cell phone from her purse. It wouldn’t do any good to call her dad. He was more than three hours away.
She considered calling Link. But what could he do? And the Whitman family was in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner. Besides, she was a little afraid of what Link might do if she told him what was happening. He’d take matters into his own hands or call the police, which could be worse—at least as far as her father was concerned.
She glanced at the clock on her dashboard. With Daddy gone, she wasn’t about to drive home and be a sitting duck. Especially not with Portia in the car.
She tried to remember if there was a good place to turn off this road and circle back to Cape. If he followed her then, back into town, she would drive to Walmart or some public place. She’d drive straight to the police station if she had no other options. And sit there and honk her horn.
There weren’t any polite words for a man like that. A kid like that. He was big—physically—but seeing him today, without the Mohawk—she doubted he was twenty yet.
She checked her rearview mirror again. He’d backed off a little. Maybe he’d grown tir
ed of his little game. Maybe it wasn’t even him. She hadn’t seen that truck in the parking lot, but he might’ve had time to beat her out there while she was getting her coat and talking to the volunteer in the hallway.
She glanced back to see Portia still sleeping soundly—thank the Lord. She started watching for a place to turn around. A minivan waited with its blinker on to turn onto K from the north and she thought about stopping and telling whoever it was that she was being followed. But even though the mist had lifted a little, she couldn’t tell who was in the car. What if it was a young mom with little kids? Or an elderly couple? She knew she’d be terrified if someone involved her that way.
And if they refused to help her, she’d be a sitting duck—headed off the highway on an unpaved, unfamiliar road—when the pickup caught up with her.
She passed the van and watched in her mirror as it turned east, toward Cape. It took a while for her to spot the pickup once the van passed it. And when she was sure it was the same truck, it seemed like it had dropped back again. She sped up gradually, hoping to put enough distance between them that he’d eventually lose sight of her. Then she could turn off somewhere. Ditch him.
The truck lagged a little more, and she sped up. Gradually. Terrified that if she went too fast, he’d pursue her.
But he didn’t. Her speedometer passed sixty, then sixty-five. The speed limit was fifty-five along this stretch. Daddy had taught her never to exceed the speed limit by even a little, but right now, she was more scared of that gray pickup than she was of being stopped for speeding. Which was a lot.
She realized she could no longer make out the bumper sticker or the color of the truck. Was she gaining that much ground? She saw a flash of red on the pavement behind the truck. Brake lights? Then the headlights flashed off, then on. Then off again. Like some kind of Morse code she couldn’t decipher. She slowed the slightest bit, not wanting to surrender the distance she’d put between them, but curious what the truck was doing.
It turned into a field entrance. The brake lights flashed bright, then dim, then bright again as the truck did a jerky one-eighty and pointed back toward Cape.
Foot still on the accelerator, Shay let out a shaky breath and checked the mirror one more time. The tail lamps in her rearview mirror grew smaller and dimmer until finally the mist and fog obliterated them.
Her hands stiff from gripping the wheel so tightly, she let go long enough to stretch her fingers out in front of her. They trembled like cottonwood leaves.
Portia still dozed in the back, her neck bent at an uncomfortable angle, her little mouth hanging open, completely oblivious to what had just happened.
Shayla scrambled to decide. She was almost to Langhorne Road. There were no vehicles behind her and she’d only passed two cars on K since she’d lost site of the gray pickup. Did she dare go home? Mohawk obviously knew where the bakery was. But did he know she lived there? Not likely.
It crossed her mind—briefly—to keep driving until she came to the Chicory Inn. Link would be there today. At least she would be safe there. But she simply couldn’t barge in on their Thanksgiving like that. Or embarrass Link. It wasn’t like she was in immediate danger. At least, not anymore.
Mohawk had merely been toying with her. Getting his jollies by scaring her silly. Well, it’d worked. She hoped he thought it was worth it. She would look up Billy Waverton—probably William?—on Google when she got home. Maybe there’d be something there that would help her decide how dangerous he really was. Her turn was up ahead. She had to decide. Lord, give me wisdom.
Almost instinctively, she turned toward Langhorne. Toward home. She and the curly-headed cutie in the backseat had a girls’ day date. And she refused to let an idiot skinhead ruin it.
***
Shayla parked the car behind the bakery, leaving room so her dad could get his car in the garage beside the delivery van when he got home.
Portia woke up as soon as Shayla cut the engine. Portia sat straight up in her booster seat, a huge grin on her face. “Is it time? For girls’ day?”
Shayla laughed. “It is! But we have to get in the house first. And remember we’re eating our chicken before we polish toes. Got it?”
Shayla heated up the chicken and started potatoes frying, then set the table in the kitchen alcove where there were no windows to the outside.
“Is this breakfast?” Portia wrinkled her nose.
“Chicken for breakfast? I don’t think so. What makes you say that?”
“ ’Cause this is where we eat breakfast.”
“I just thought it would be fun to eat Thanksgiving dinner in here too. Do you have a problem with that?”
“Is it fancy?”
“How about we make it a little fancy?” Anything to not have to explain why she was afraid to sit in the open dining room. She grabbed some colorful cocktail napkins from a cupboard that held leftover catering supplies. “Here—let’s fold these fancy.” The napkins were more fitting for an Easter brunch, but they’d do. She demonstrated, then left the task to Portia. “Fold enough for our snacks later too.”
She cast about the kitchen looking for something else Portia would deem “fancy” and landed on a trio of cornucopia baskets they sometimes used to decorate the tops of the dessert cases. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d put them out though. Maybe not since Mama died.
She washed off the dust and filled the baskets with fruit from the refrigerator. Anything special or “stylin’ ” had always been her mother’s department. Shayla had forgotten how Mama had always had flowers on the tables—even if they were just wildflowers she’d gathered from the ditches alongside the road. And tablecloths. Mama had been a stickler for a well-appointed table.
These days it was paper plates more often than not. Watching Portia carefully fold the colorful napkins, Shayla longed for her to have the magic of those special touches. Mama wasn’t here to do that for the precious girl. But she was. She needed to be more intentional about creating special moments for her niece.
On a whim, she rummaged some plastic daisies out of a basket near the cash register and plopped them into the cornucopias with the fruit. Glancing around the bakery looking for decorations, she realized the whole place could use some sprucing up. If they weren’t going to be busy, maybe she would make that her project for the coming weeks.
Surely things would pick up again for Christmas. Thankfully they had the Whitman wedding coming up. But she might need to cancel that third student helper after all. On one hand, she looked forward to the wedding at the Chicory Inn. On the other, it would be awkward, seeing Link after the way things had ended between them.
Had they ended? She was determined they had. And yet things felt so unfinished between them. But whose fault was that? He’d tried to call and text her, even sent an e-mail, and she’d ignored them all. But then he’d quit trying. Too soon. That said something, didn’t it?
Sighing, she dished up their plates with hunks of the rotisserie chicken, green beans, and fried potatoes, putting sprigs of slightly wilted parsley from the restaurant fridge on each of their plates. Shayla said a simple blessing over their dinner and Portia chattered the entire rest of the meal.
Shayla had planned bubble baths for part of the evening’s entertainment, but something about undressing and stepping into the tub after what had happened today . . . She couldn’t bring herself to let down her guard, be that vulnerable. She opted to do hair instead of bubble baths.
Three hours later, with beautifully coiffed hair and brightly colored toes and fingers, Shayla snapped selfies to mark the occasion—and to show Daddy later—then settled Portia in the playroom.
“I’m going to clean up the kitchen, and then I’ll be down in the nook if you need me. I love you, sweetie.”
Portia gave her a funny look.
“What’s wrong?” But she knew what was wrong. And it broke her heart. “I don’t say that often enough, do I?”
“Say what?” Shayla could have sworn the gir
l was testing her.
“That I love you.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, baby, it really isn’t. I should say that more.” She knelt in front of her niece. “You know Big Daddy and I love you like crazy. You know that, right?”
Portia nodded, looking solemn.
Shayla opened her arms wide, and Portia fell into them, giggling.
“I love you too.” The words seemed to come so easily for the five-year-old. “You’re my Shayla.”
“Yes, I sure am.”
“And I love Big Daddy. And I love my mama in heaven. And I love my other daddy.”
Tears welled in Shayla’s eyes. She couldn’t talk about that right now. Not without breaking down. But if Portia listed her “other daddy” in the list of people she loved, they needed to start addressing that. She’d have to do some research to discover how much a five-year-old could really understand about a daddy in prison. And a mama who’d taken her own life.
She shook off the memories and hopped to her feet. “Okay, kiddo. You have fun playing. I’ll be downstairs if you need anything.” She grabbed a couple of magazines and the novel she was reading from her bedside table and took them down with her.
As she was finishing up the last of the dishes, Daddy called to say he’d gotten a late start and wouldn’t be home until after nine. She wondered how his visit with Jerry had gone. If it was like the last time she’d gone with him to see her brother, they weren’t even allowed to eat together. There was a break during the seven-hour visiting period when prisoners went back to eat in the secure dining room like usual. That meant her dad might have eaten alone in a McDonald’s somewhere. She hoped Jerry realized that. And apologized.
He could have eaten with you and Portia if you hadn’t been so stubborn.
The realization jarred her. She’d only been trying to protect Portia. But no, if she was honest, it wasn’t only about Portia. Shayla had her own reasons, her own resentments that had made her refuse to go with Daddy today. So maybe she owed him an apology too.
Seemed she had a lot to learn. And a lot of growing up still to do. Sighing, she took her magazines and curled up on the couch in the corner nook. Settling in, she looked up and at the reflection in the darkened window glass. It had never bothered her before that the windows of the bakery were open to the world on three sides. Besides the street-facing front, the windows looked out over a parking lot and the detached garage in back, and across the alley to a brick wall on the north. They had blinds on the front windows, but had never needed them on the back or north side, thanks to the two-and-a-half story insurance office next door. No one could see in during the day, and at night, the streets of tiny Langhorne were all but empty. But tonight, she looked at her reflection in the black glass and she could only see his face.
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