Maybe Mark would come see her in Colorado. Maybe he wouldn’t.
Maybe, in time, she’d forget him.
She doubted it.
One step at a time.
By five, she was thinking about taking another bath. When her doorbell rang before she’d had a chance to run the water, she went to answer it, happy enough for the distraction.
She should have thought. At least long enough to look through the peephole.
Addy pulled open the door and was engulfed by a burst of noise that overwhelmed her.
“Welcome home, Adrianna!” The chorus of voices was loud enough to be heard on the next block. Male, female, young, old, there were at least twenty people on her stoop and spilling into the front yard, all of them smiling up at her as if she was a member of their family.
She didn’t recognize a single one of them. Until one body separated from the crowd. And then a second, a third, a fourth and a fifth. Will Parsons. Randi. Becca—Addy knew her instantly. And the elder Mr. and Mrs. Parsons, as well.
Standing there, frozen to the spot, she had no idea what to do. Nothing to say. She hadn’t been a member of a family for so long.
“Psst.” The sound came from behind her. Nonnie was outside, on her porch. She must have been there all along—probably because she’d seen the crowd gathering and couldn’t resist finding out what was going on.
Or maybe she’d been in on the whole thing from the beginning.
“Go hug ’em, girl! Go on.” With one papery, blue-veined hand, Nonnie shooed Addy toward the five people at the bottom of her stairs. “They all know ya,” Nonnie said. “But them five, they’re family.”
With tears threatening dangerously close, Addy stared at Nonnie, as though the older woman could save her from a step she didn’t think she could take. How much did Nonnie know?
“Go on, girl,” the woman said in the most firm tone of voice Addy had ever heard her use. “You got to do this if you’re ever going to be able to love wholeheartedly again.”
She could love wholeheartedly....
“Go!” Nonnie moved her chair forward and Addy stepped out of the way—straight into Becca’s waiting arms. And Randi’s. And Mr. and Mrs. Parsons’s. She could hardly breathe. Weak and trembling, she couldn’t stand. But she didn’t need to. The people of Shelter Valley held her up, assuring her that they were never going to let her go.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
MARK DIDN’T MAKE it to Adrianna’s party Thursday evening. Nonnie had called, telling him about the gathering that she’d help coordinate. It didn’t do any good, him telling her to mind her own business.
And if the meeting helped Adrianna, then he supposed Nonnie had been right to take part.
It wasn’t that he was averse to meeting some of the town’s most prominent citizens. He was sure he’d be meeting them soon enough—if Nonnie had her way. He just had something more pressing to do that night.
Rescheduling his time with Abe for that weekend, he started the evening by drinking a beer at the local bar with Sheriff Richards. The sheriff handed a satchel over to him under the condition that this confidential information be returned to him the next morning before anyone knew it was missing.
Mark didn’t go out that night. Not after everyone had left Addy’s house and Nonnie had settled in and the neighborhood had gone quiet. He sat in the chair in the living room and pored over investigative reports, timelines, descriptions of the scene of Addy’s fire, of evidence retrieved from the scene, the processing of the evidence, charts depicting placement of the evidence, of the bodies, the coroner’s reports. He read, and he lived through every single second of the night that Addy almost burned alive.
He choked up when he got to the part about the little girl who hadn’t given up—who’d been found nearly unconscious, with third-degree burns down her back, but still screaming because she wanted her mother to be able to hear her. Addy’s screams had led the firemen to her in time, providing them with her exact location so that the one-minute window they had to get to her was not wasted. Her screams had saved her life.
And it dawned on Mark, he’d seen Addy completely naked. He’d seen every private part of her. Kissed every intimate part of her body. But he’d never seen her back.
He knew now that hadn’t been a coincidence. Addy had deliberately positioned herself so that he wouldn’t ever see her back.
Obviously the plastic surgeons had done a good enough job that he hadn’t felt any scars, but there’d be silvery lines visible—at the very least.
When he was finished reading, he drove to the big-box store that was open all night and then out to the cactus jelly plant to request permission to use a corner of their huge desert property to conduct some experiments.
On Friday morning, he rose before Nonnie did. Or rather, he got up out of the chair where he’d rested his head for an hour’s nap, cooked up some bacon and left it in the warmer for his grandmother before stepping into the shower.
By 7:00 a.m., dressed in slacks and his nicest shirt, he presented himself at Addy’s front door. He had to knock twice.
“Mark?” She’d clearly just come from the shower. She was dressed, in navy blue dress pants, a silk blouse and pumps, but her hair was pinned up and wet on the ends, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. “Is Nonnie okay?”
“The interfering old biddy is just fine,” he said, not quite erasing the affection from his tone. He loved that old biddy.
“What’s up, then?” She stood back in the shadows. “I was just getting ready...”
“May I come in?” He had a satchel on his shoulder. She could assume it was schoolwork.
Stepping back farther, she nodded toward the door. “Of course.”
He set foot inside and Addy turned toward the hallway. “I’ll just be a minute...”
Letting her go, Mark looked around for boxes or bins containing the belongings she’d be taking back to Colorado with her. The house looked just as lived in as it had the morning before—minus the mess on the kitchen table.
She was gone less than five minutes. “Sorry about that,” she said, a forced smile on her face as she reentered the room. Her long blond hair was combed and pulled back in a bejeweled clip. Her makeup was impeccable. She looked ready to walk into a courtroom.
Or maybe she’d always looked that way and he just hadn’t seen the lawyer in her.
“I’ve never actually associated with an attorney before.”
“I’ve never associated with a man with a genius level IQ.”
“I’m here to ask a favor.”
“Okay. I’ll do anything I can to help. You know that.”
His hands in his pockets, he said, “Turn around and lift up your shirt.”
“What?”
“You said you’d do what you can for me. It’s a relatively small thing, I’m asking. Lift up your shirt. It’s not like I haven’t seen you naked before.”
“I don’t...”
Her gaze implored him and he wanted to give in to her. He thought about that little girl who’d just kept screaming and screaming through a raw, burned throat. Screaming when she couldn’t even remember her own name. “Please,” he said.
Slowly, Addy turned, raised her shirt and showed him skin that was unlike the pearly smoothness covering the rest of her body. Just as he’d suspected, her middle back was lined with silvery scars from that night long ago. Addy let him look as long as he needed to and by doing so, it showed Mark how m
uch she trusted him. More importantly, Mark knew how much he loved her.
“Take a drive with me?”
* * *
ADDY SAT IN the passenger seat of Mark’s truck because he asked her to. She was strong. A survivor. She could get through this and then she’d be on her way back to Colorado.
The reunion the night before had been lovely. A dream dating back long ago. For one evening, she’d been a member of the Parsons family, just like she’d once prayed she would be. She’d see them again. When they came to visit her in Colorado. And when she made occasional trips to Shelter Valley.
Would she see Mark, too?
She couldn’t help but hope so.
The Parsonses were hoping she’d stay in Shelter Valley. But she couldn’t. Will would help them understand.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m not at liberty to disclose that information.” Mark threw her words from the other day back at her.
Staring straight ahead, Addy waited. Tried to stay tough. Surely the town had changed enough in twenty-five years to make it all unrecognizable. From the little bit she’d seen on her trip downtown, that was the case. Even the town square was different. Blessedly different. Not that she’d done more than glance at it.
Some of the stores had been the same, but she hadn’t gone in them.
Still, she wasn’t taking any chances. One never knew when a memory would hit, when recognition would strike.
She wanted no part of it.
The truck stopped in front of a building she didn’t recognize. The Shelter Valley Sheriff’s Office.
“Wait here.”
Mark jumped down from the truck and went inside the building. He was gone a few minutes and returned without the satchel on his shoulder.
“Don’t you have class today?” she asked him.
“Not until ten. And I’ve got perfect attendance, so I can miss if it comes to that. I know you went to bat for me. Thank you.”
“You didn’t need my help.”
“I’m a genius,” Mark said, grinning.
“I didn’t need a test score to tell me that.”
His smile faded. “I get that, you know,” he said, watching the road, but glancing at her, too. Holding her gaze for a long few seconds. “I’m the one who needed the validation, which is ridiculous.”
They were back on the road again. Going home, she hoped. But it didn’t look like it. They seemed to be leaving town. And that was okay with her, too.
Mark didn’t speak again until he pulled the truck to a stop. She figured that they really didn’t have all that much to say to each other. She’d lied to him. She’d turned his questionable entrance qualifications over to the authorities when she could have thrown the evidence in the trash.
But his scholarship had been saved.
“Did you ask who filled out your scholarship application?”
Mark turned to her. “I thought you knew.”
“There is no record of a scholarship for you in the database, which is all I had access to. Which means it was privately funded.”
“What about Will Parsons? You could ask him.”
She shook her head. “It didn’t have anything to do with the investigation.”
“I’m sure it was Nonnie.”
And something occurred to her. “She always said she didn’t fill out the application, but what if there wasn’t one?”
Mark glanced at her again. And said, “There’s no record of a scholarship.”
“Right.”
“Damn!” Mark slammed his hand on the steering wheel. “The old bat probably used her savings for the first semester fees and then sold her house and is using the money to fund the rest of the scholarship. She’d do that—set it up in the form of an all-expenses-paid scholarship that requires me to complete my education or pay it back.”
“We don’t know that.”
“But that’s what you’re thinking, too, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
It all made sense. And it answered the last question she had regarding Montford University.
“We’re here,” Mark said.
Addy glanced around. They were parked on the side of a road, a little ways out of town. There were some small homes around—all set on tiny lots at different angles. They were old. Mark hadn’t parked in front of any of them.
He’d parked in front of an overgrown vacant lot.
Did he plan to buy the lot? To build a home on it? Was that why she was there? “Let’s get out,” he said, opening his door with a sideways glance in her direction. Because it seemed to matter to him, she opened her door. Climbed down from the truck. Walked a couple of feet out into the lot to stand beside him.
Nonnie had sold their home for a fairly large amount. Probably because of land. It had been in the family for long enough to be paid off. Even after the scholarship, they’d have money to invest. Maybe Mark had already bought the place.
She hoped not. It was barren. He could do so much better and in a less run-down neighborhood.
He was watching her.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He looked around, surveying the land, and looked back at her. She had no idea what to say.
“What do you think of it?” he asked. It was like when someone showed up in a hideous dress and asked how they looked and you had to find something kind to say.
“I don’t like it.”
“You don’t?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mark. I know I shouldn’t say that, but I can’t lie to you. I hope I never have to tell another lie in my life. It makes me sick. And I don’t like this place. You and Nonnie shouldn’t have to live here.”
She wasn’t being a snob. It wasn’t about money. The neighborhood was filled with trash. Dirty. There was no attempt to make things nice. Nodding, his hands in his pockets, he kept staring at her.
“What?” she asked again, getting more tense by the second. He seemed to need something from her. She had no idea what it was.
“Nonnie says that you don’t believe in love.”
“Of course I do.” She loved him. “I know it exists. I’m the one who told you that.”
He shook his head. “You know it exists—you just don’t believe that you’ll ever find it. That it will last. You don’t trust it.”
Did he blame her? Her own father had murdered the woman he adored. She stared up at him openmouthed.
“I don’t, do I?” she said.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s just what Nonnie says.”
“She’s wrong.”
“Okay.”
But maybe she wasn’t. She knew she loved Mark. He was there now. Being kind to her.
Which would indicate that she still had a chance with him. “Why are we here?”
“You don’t recognize it, do you?”
Shaking her head, she looked around. “Not at all,” she said. “I’ve never been here before. I—”
Mark’s gaze was so intense it scared her. “Yes, you have.”
How would he know?
She looked around. And then it hit her.
“No.” Vigorously shaking her head, Addy backed up. One step. Then two. “No. Uh-uh. No.” Stumbling, she backed into the street. Taking more backward steps. Away. She had to get away.
And she backed into something that didn’t move. A rock-solid wall. Mark’s arms came around her. “I have to go, Mark.” She was leaning forward now, pulling away from him.<
br />
“Addy.” His voice was firm, but gentle, too. Warm and soft. Like he’d said her name the night they’d slept together.
That night had been good.
So good.
Better than any night she could remember.
And then there was the other night she’d never forget.
“I want to relive the fire with you, Addy. So you can accept it for what it was and come out the other side. I’ll sit with you in burning hell if that’s as far as we get. I’ll stay there with you if you can’t get out. But you have to know this, Addy. He didn’t do it.”
What was he talking about? She had to go.
“Water,” she choked.
A plastic bottle appeared in her vision. She stared at it. Mark loosened her grip on his arm, the arm that was holding her, and fastened her fingers, one at a time, around the cold, moist bottle of water.
With the bottle in her grasp, he unscrewed the lid, all the while holding her close with his other arm.
Shaking, she watched as the clear, cool, liquid splashed out on her hand.
“Your father didn’t set the fire.”
She was so thirsty.
“Greg Richards agrees, as does the fire marshal.” Mark kept talking. She heard him.
“Twenty-five years ago, they didn’t have scientific bases by which they determined causes of fires. They didn’t have fire forensics labs like we do today. The conclusions were anecdotal, mostly based on logical guesswork.”
She understood. But she couldn’t look up. Didn’t want to know, to remember any more than she already couldn’t forget.
“Do you know what a flashover is?”
She shook her head.
“It’s the time it takes from the moment a fire starts until the premises is engulfed in flames.
“The home your parents lived in, the materials it was made out of...” He could go into all of that later. Because he knew Addy well enough to know she’d want the answers. But she wasn’t hearing him now. So he went back to the important stuff. “We now have tests that prove that the flashover of the fire that night would have been less than five minutes.”
It's Never too Late Page 28