“He once helped save my life. Got shot for his efforts. I owe him.”
Sean’s neck and jaw muscles eased a fraction. “He’s a good guy.”
“He says the same about you.” She paused half a second before getting down to business. “You’re here about Maggie.”
He nodded. “What is she facing?”
“With her record, a conviction on all the charges would likely be twenty-five years or more. She would have to serve ten to fifteen, then the remaining ten to fifteen would probably be on probation.”
Twenty-five years. She would be past fifty before she was totally free of this mess, more than half her life gone. And ten to fifteen years on probation, keeping herself clean and staying out of trouble? She hadn’t managed that for ten to fifteen minutes.
“She’s talked about making a deal.”
After a moment, Masiela nodded. “Her attorney’s mentioned the possibility. Not knowing what she has to offer, it’s hard to say how much dealing we can do.”
“If it’s worth something?”
“She would probably do some time, maybe three to five years. Again, not knowing what she has to offer, I can only speak in very general terms.”
“Is there any chance she could avoid prison completely?”
Masiela shook her head. “I can’t imagine the information she could offer that would allow us to make that kind of deal.”
He understood that. Maggie was a small-time meth head who talked a lot. Who in their right mind would share anything important—anything that could get them and others sent to prison or killed—with her? Who would trust her to keep her mouth shut?
Though, apparently, her boyfriend, Davey, the meth addict and cook, had done just that.
At least, Maggie and Craig believed so.
“Do you know what she knows?” Masiela asked.
Would it be in Maggie’s best interests to tell the D.A. about Craig and the threats against her and the kids? About Davey? Special Agent Baker and the DEA? Of course Masiela would tell the police—with her husband the chief, how could she not?—who would put Maggie in protective custody, which would get back to Craig, who would send another message, maybe more directly this time, maybe against the kids, who were an easier target...
He shook his head, and Masiela smiled faintly. “A word of advice, Sean. When it takes you that long to answer a simple yes-or-no question, you’ll have trouble finding someone to believe the answer. Was the explosion at her house part of the case or just coincidence?”
This time he answered immediately—“I don’t know”—but she’d already caught him avoiding the truth, so she didn’t seem inclined to take him at his word.
“I understand you want to protect your sister, Sean, but she needs to face reality.”
“Maggie and reality have never been on very good terms,” he murmured.
She shifted in the chair, crossing her legs the other way. She had the muscular calves of a runner, and her skirt was short enough to show a length of thigh that was the same. “You know, prison isn’t the end of the world. Maybe she could straighten herself out. Get clean. Get a new perspective on life. Come out a better person. Look at you. Not a single arrest since your one incarceration.”
“I did fifteen months, not years.” Fifteen months for being innocent—once in his life. Besides, he’d left Copper Lake for the sole purpose of making a new life. Not partying, not drinking, not committing petty crimes that would have surely led to more serious offenses.
“You got smart quicker than Maggie has. She’s been very lucky. In all fairness, she should have gone to prison on her first felony arrest. She would have gotten a light sentence for a first offense, already been out, maybe in a better place, better able to take care of herself and her daughters.”
Grimly, quietly, he said, “In ten years, they’ll be practically grown.”
Masiela’s face softened. “I feel bad for Daisy and Dahlia. I’m sorry they’re going through this. But the truth is, Sean, everyone’s sorry for Daisy and Dahlia except Maggie. For her, it’s all about her. They’re an afterthought. I hate to sound harsh, but her going to prison is probably the best thing that could happen to them. You know how they were living. They deserve better.”
Holigans always stood up for each other. Half the fights Sean had been in had been defending his brothers or sister, or evening the odds when Declan or Ian had been jumped by more than one guy.
But he couldn’t summon even one word in defense of Maggie. It was true: the kids would be better off without this Maggie, the scheming, stealing, drug-using, self-centered Maggie. They would have better lives with adoptive parents, or with Sophy.
Or with him.
Prison held its risks, but informing on Craig promised only one: death. Having witnessed him putting a bullet in a man’s head...
“Tell her that if she wants to cooperate with us, we’ll do the best we can. But the odds of her walking away scot-free are very slim.”
She rose, discussion over, and so did he. When she offered her hand, he took it, and she held it a moment longer than he expected. “Tell her to cooperate with us, Sean. It really is best for her.”
He nodded, thanked her and left the office, having zero intention of doing that. Holigans didn’t cooperate with authorities even if it was in their best interests. They were pretty stubborn about ignoring those interests. And this time...
Even with his eyes wide-open and the hot August sun glaring on every shiny surface around, he could see that whole scene in the garage as clearly as if it were yesterday: the shadows, the single bright light beaming on Craig, his guys and the man kneeling on the floor. The echo of the gunshot, the man’s body slumping forward, the blood. The paralyzing horror that the man was dead. That his buddy, to whom he owed so much, was a killer.
Prison wasn’t the end of the world, Masiela had said.
But death was. And the only way Maggie could avoid that was giving up those ten to fifteen years of her life. It was all on her. Her chance to learn that actions had consequences. But, damn, it felt like his fault. His failure.
He still had time before lunch, so he drove aimlessly around town, or at least that was what he told himself. But after a few turns, he found himself on a familiar old street, approaching a familiar old building. A sign outside proclaimed it the AME Zion church. Years ago he and Ty had dubbed it NOS: Not an Option on Sunday.
He pulled into the gravel lot, empty of vehicles, and stood beside the car for a time. Nothing had changed there in the years he’d been gone, probably not in the one or two hundred years since it had been built. Whether he’d just stayed a night with Ty or had moved in to hide out from one of Patrick’s ongoing tempers, he’d spent enough Sunday mornings here to learn the words to the gospel hymns they sang, to identify every member of the small congregation by name, to attend more than a few of their postsermon potluck dinners.
Ty’s grandfather had bought him black pants, a white shirt and a tie, because all his kids had to dress with respect in the Lord’s house. Sean would bet that was another thing that hadn’t changed.
Pushing away from the car, he walked along the drive, footsteps crunching. He bypassed the path that led to the front doors and kept walking, listening to birds and the traffic on River Road. When the big trucks entered town, their squealing brakes could be heard a mile away.
At the back of the white church, tucked into the tall pines fifty feet away, was a cemetery. A picket fence surrounded it, expanded each year as needed to accommodate new graves. Decorating the graves had been the women’s job back then, mowing and weeding the men’s, and the task of keeping the whitewash on the fence fresh belonged to the boys, one that he’d helped with a time or three.
The gate creaked when he opened it, again when he closed it. He walked along the broad path until he reached two markers in particular and crouched in front of them: Genevieve and Rozene Gadney, Ty’s grandmother and his mother. He’d never met either woman, but he’d felt as if he knew t
hem. He’d known they were special because of the way people remembered and loved them long after they were gone.
“Pull up that weed there, would you, son? It’ll save me from having to get down on these old arthritic knees of mine.”
Sean pulled the weed at the base of Miss Genevieve’s stone, then got to his feet. Mr. Obadiah had shrunk over the years, his knuckles swollen, his pants too big to fit his bony frame without a belt and suspenders. Even though it was Wednesday, he wore dark trousers, a white shirt, a tie and a hat to shade his head from the sun, and he was smiling about as happily as Sean had ever seen him.
“Ty told me you was back. I always prayed you’d come back so I could see you one more time. Got to the point that I wasn’t sure I had much more waiting in me.” Mr. Obadiah stepped forward to close the distance between them. Sean had to stoop for the old man’s arms to reach around his neck, and he blinked rapidly as he did so to keep his vision clear. “You sure are a sight for sore eyes,” the old man whispered.
After a long hug, no more words, just reassuring pats, Mr. Obadiah finally stepped back, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and patted his eyes. “You look good, Sean. ’Course, all my boys look good. You get it from me.” He chuckled. “All the single women in the church are still trying to marry me. Now that Ty and Nevy have gotten engaged, I just might let one of them catch me. She can take care of things around the house so I can play with my great-grandbaby all the time.”
“I think Sophy Marchand might wrestle you for babysitting privileges.” Sean’s voice had gone husky.
“Aw, that Sophy...she’s such a good girl. You tell her we’ll compromise. I’ll play with the baby, and when he needs changin’ or burpin’, I’ll hand him over to her.” His knobby fingers gripping the handle of a cane, he gestured toward a bench a few yards down. “Sit with me, Sean. Tell me what you been up to since the last time I saw you. I know about prison, so you can start after that.”
Sean matched his pace to Mr. Obadiah’s, gazing at the stones they passed, some as new as a few months, others dating to the Civil War. There were elaborate carvings of crosses and angels alongside simple ones, nothing but names and dates chiseled into chunks of concrete.
After helping the old man sit, he sat down beside him. “I haven’t really done much. I moved to Virginia and got a job working on cars. I run the garage now, and I still work on cars.” Life in about twenty words. That was pathetic.
“Never fell in love? Have babies?”
He shook his head.
Mr. Obadiah laid one hand over his. “Take it from an older, wiser man. It’s never too late. Well, maybe for the babies part, for me, at least, but not for you. And never for the loving and marrying part.” After blowing his nose into the handkerchief, he went on. “I hear your sister’s probably going to prison and those daughters of hers are gonna need a home. They don’t exactly overwhelm you with their sweetness, do they?”
Sean smiled wryly. “Have you met Dahlia and Daisy, or is that based on everyone’s horror stories?”
“I met ’em. Once. Briefly. If I was twenty years younger, I’d take ’em in and get them past that anger and fear. Well, maybe thirty years younger.” He grinned, but his expression turned sorrowful quickly enough. “I should have taken in their mama the day you left town.”
If anyone in this town could have given Maggie a different outlook, it would have been Mr. Obadiah. He’d known too many kids with sad stories. Even now, stoop-shouldered and frail, he could probably earn Daisy’s and Dahlia’s respect in no time. Kids just automatically knew they could trust him.
“I should have sent for her, like I said I would. If I had...”
“You listen to me, son.” Mr. Obadiah shook one unsteady finger his way. “You were a boy. You could barely take care of yourself. You couldn’t have handled her, too. It’s not your fault. For all her bad upbringing, Maggie still had plenty of chances to change things. She knew right from wrong. She knew she was making bad choices, and she did them anyway. It’s a shame, and I feel bad for her, and I pray for her to turn her back on that life. But at the end of the day, she’s a grown woman. She’s the only one responsible for the mess she’s in. Think on that, and tell me I’m not right.”
Sean stared across the tombstones. His upbringing had been no better than Maggie’s, but his life now was in a whole different universe. While there were plenty of explanations—he’d wanted something better, he’d been tired of the disreputable label he’d been born with, he’d had enough of handcuffs and frisks and jails—at the end of the day, there was only one reason: he’d made different choices.
God, he hoped the ones he was making now didn’t come back to haunt him.
Chapter 8
The sound of a ringing bell was supposed to be music to a retail merchant’s ears, but Sophy’s were starting to ring, too. She’d had more customers this morning than all day yesterday. Good for the bottom line, not so good when she couldn’t think about much more than lunch and Sean and that kiss.
Now it was a few minutes to twelve, and she’d had a whole five minutes without interruptions. She’d made little progress on the quilt she’d started before Zeke came in, so she gathered the fabrics and moved them into the storeroom. The bell rang while she was in there, and her stomach knotted in anticipation. She returned to the shop, a smile curving automatically, ready to greet Sean, and found her mother instead.
“Oh. Hey. Hi.” The smile slipped, but the knot in her gut remained. Rae Marchand had never picked up a needle in her life, not even to sew on a button, and she only visited the store when she wanted something—usually a little badgering of her daughter. Well-intentioned but badgering all the same.
“Hey, sweetie.” Rae was dressed to impress. Like Nev, she believed in looking her best at all times in a dress and heels, perfect hair and makeup. She’d aged gracefully and beautifully, and though she wasn’t the visitor Sophy had been hoping for, she was happy to see her.
Mostly.
It took a few minutes to get the small talk out of the way, with Rae wandering the entire time, touching this, studying that. Finally, she faced Sophy. “Where is Daisy?”
“At a swim party at Anamaria’s.”
“Oh, good for her. Maybe Gracie will be a calming influence on her. How’s Dahlia doing at school?”
“She’s making friends.” Learning, too, but the friendships with the “lee” girls were more important in Sophy’s opinion.
“I hear her uncle Sean is back in town.”
A muscle twitched in Sophy’s little finger, and she folded her hand to hide it. “Yes, he is.”
“And he’s seen the girls a number of times.”
“Yes.”
“Which means you’ve seen him a number of times.”
The twitch extended to the next finger. “I have. What would you like to know about him, Mom? He’s a respectable, contributing member of society. He earns an honest living, pays his bills and came back as soon as he heard Maggie was in jail. He’s good with the kids—”
“Is he still gorgeous as sin and twice as tempting? Even at eighteen, the boy could have graced any romance novel cover or pinup calendar I’d ever seen. ‘Hot Hunks of the South’ or ‘Bad Boys of Georgia.’” She fanned herself with one beringed hand, apparently cooling the flames. “I can only imagine how he’s matured.”
“Mom! He’s young enough to be your son.”
Rae gave a negligent shrug. “There’s nothing wrong with looking. Getting older has simply increased my appreciation for beautiful things. Flowers. Art. Fine wine. Incredibly sexy men.”
Her lips pressed together to contain a smile, Sophy shook her head. “Well, if you stick around long, you’ll get to see for yourself. He’s coming by soon and bringing lunch.” She watched for even the slightest change in her mother’s expression that might show disapproval—the lift of an eyebrow, the narrowing of her mouth—but surprisingly found nothing.
“So...is he tempting you?”
Her en
tire right hand was fluttering now, and keeping her fingers folded didn’t help. Sophy clasped it with her left hand, took a breath and evenly replied, “Yes. And I’m doing my best to tempt him right back.” A pause. “Do you have a problem with that?”
Rae studied her a long time. “You’re my baby, Sophy. You always will be. I admit, I’m not always thrilled about your choices, like quitting college, opening this shop, dating Robbie Calloway and Tommy Maricci and Ty Gadney. I wanted you to have that degree, Sophy, to have the fallback of a career that could support you, so that no man could ever leave you in the position your—”
A lump appeared in Sophy’s throat, and she swallowed hard. They’d had a lot of arguments about her dropping out of college, with her parents providing a lot of reasons why she shouldn’t, but Rae had never brought up this particular one.
“In the position that my birth mother was in,” Sophy said quietly. No education beyond high school, no job experience and, worse, no skills—and four children to raise by herself.
“Not being able to feed her babies when they were hungry...I can’t imagine what that did to her.” Rae shook her head sympathetically, then went on in a more normal tone. “But look at you. You’re doing fine. You were right to follow your passion. It’s paid off for you, in business, at least. In romance, eh.” She did a wigwag with her hand. “But at least you haven’t had your heart broken yet.”
Fiddling with a display, changing it this way, that way, then back again, Sophy hesitantly asked, “What if Sean is my passion?”
Rae breathed a time or two before forcing a smile that wobbled. “Then Sunday dinner just got a whole lot handsomer.”
It cost her mother to say that, to affect the attitude. In her head, she probably really did believe that Sophy was a woman capable of making her own choices, but in her heart she still wanted to protect her little girl from every little thing, and Sean Holigan was a hell of a thing.
Closing the distance between them, Sophy hugged her. “Thanks, Mom. But who knows what will come of it? You know me. I’m the queen of dating men who fall in love with other women.” Though she said it lightly, the idea of Sean falling in love with someone else stirred pain around her heart.
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