The Hero's Redemption

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “I’d like that,” he said. He didn’t bother pointing out that she’d be making a two-hour round-trip drive. She’d driven across the state to see him a dozen times during his incarceration. She wouldn’t say much, but he knew her husband, Jerry, hadn’t been very happy about it. Cole cleared his throat. “You visiting me in Walla Walla. I don’t think I ever said—” knew he’d never said “—how much I appreciated that.”

  “I was the only person who ever came, wasn’t I?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not even Lexa?”

  He shifted uncomfortably, glad Dani couldn’t see him. “I told her I didn’t want her to.”

  Funny, he hadn’t thought about Alexa in years. She’d been his girlfriend before his arrest. She had stayed at his side, even though she considered him foolish for insisting he was innocent, for turning down plea bargains that would’ve had him out of prison in three or four years instead of ten. He’d gradually come to realize she took for granted that he was guilty, whatever he said to the contrary, and that she really didn’t care.

  That was the moment he had fully understood how low he’d sunk.

  “You told me not to come, too,” his sister said tartly.

  That made him smile. “I know.”

  “I never liked her, anyway.”

  He laughed. “Looking back, I’m not sure I did, either.”

  “Hmph.”

  When Dani didn’t say anything else immediately, he tensed.

  “Dad asked about you.”

  “I’m supposed to care?” Cole knew he sounded hard.

  “You’d been doing some bad shit. Is it so surprising that he didn’t know where you’d draw the line?”

  “Or if I would?” He shook his head, even though she couldn’t see that, either. “You knew better.” Although sometimes he’d wondered if she really did, or just loved him enough to lie to him. Thinking one person believed in him—he couldn’t afford to let go of that.

  “Of course I did,” Dani said impatiently, “but you and I were still talking regularly. All he knew was that you’d gone to the dark side.”

  If he was going to be reasonable, Cole would’ve had to admit she was right. His clashes with his dad had been angry, the possibility of violence hovering. But Cole had never so much as struck out at his father, and couldn’t forgive him for believing he was capable of killing a man.

  No, not a man—a boy, at least from Cole’s perspective now. The kid, who still had lingering acne, had just turned twenty-one and been working at the convenience store for a month. Cole had only been a year older. There’d probably been terror in the guy’s eyes when he saw the gun pointed at him. Cole didn’t know, because he wasn’t there. The photos of the victim exhibited at the trial had haunted him. How could anyone who knew him think he’d pulled that trigger? Especially the man who’d raised him?

  Yeah, but if he’d stayed with the same group of friends, gotten deeper into drugs, needing money to feed an addiction, might he have become someone who would have done exactly that? Wondering had caused him some bleak hours.

  “You mind if I give him your phone number?” his sister asked.

  “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “Okay,” she said after a minute. “I guess I understand.”

  “When do you think you can come?”

  She said she’d call next week, once she knew the kids’ schedules.

  By then, he thought, laying the phone on the 1950s-vintage end table, he might have his driver’s license. He’d open a bank account, too. Get a debit card, like everyone else had. One evening, Erin had shown him how she paid her bills online. He could do that—once he had bills. And, oh, yeah, a computer. Which he would, in the not-too-distant future. It wouldn’t be long until he’d done the basic work to update this apartment. Then he’d either have to pay rent or move on.

  * * *

  ERIN FINISHED THE page in her book—and realized she didn’t remember anything she’d read on this page, or the last several.

  This was Tuesday—D-day, so to speak.

  The Department of Motor Vehicles wasn’t nearly as crowded as she’d expected this morning, meaning she was one of only about a dozen people sitting in the waiting area. Cole hadn’t seemed nervous about taking the test, although it was never easy to tell, because he excelled at hiding his emotions. In fact, during the drive here, he’d talked about how the work on the bathroom was going. He was currently without a toilet until he laid the vinyl flooring this afternoon. He planned to wait to install new molding and to paint until he was ready to do the entire apartment.

  Which meant it was time she chose some cabinets for the kitchen area.

  The door behind her opened, and she turned to see a man enter, Cole behind him. He flashed her a grin. She smiled in return.

  Once he’d had his photo taken and accepted a temporary license, which he placed carefully in his wallet, he was ready to leave.

  The minute they were outside, Erin asked, “It went okay, then?”

  “No problem at all.” He was quiet until they’d crossed the parking lot. “Not like the first time I took the test.” He offered her the keys, but she shook her head and went around to the passenger side.

  Once in the car, she said, “Did you really screw up?”

  “Yeah.” He started the engine. “I ran a red light.”

  “No!”

  “Yup. We came straight back to the DMV.” He chuckled. “Man, I was so cocky. I couldn’t take the test again for—I don’t remember. Weeks. I had to make an excuse to my friends for why I hadn’t done it yet. No way was I going to tell them I’d flunked. Dealing with Dad was bad enough. In his book, nerves weren’t an acceptable excuse.”

  Erin laughed, too.

  “Being a DMV examiner has got to be as scary as teaching driver’s ed,” Cole remarked. “Although today we never did go out on either Highway 9 or the freeway.”

  “Self-preservation.”

  He laughed, the sound still a little rusty, but coming so much more readily than it had before.

  “Any errands?” he asked, and she told him no.

  When they got back, she said, “I have you on my insurance for the moment, so you’re welcome to borrow the car. Just let me know.”

  Without moving from behind the wheel, he studied her, furrows in his forehead. “You mean that.”

  “Of course I do.”

  He gave a little shrug. “Then maybe I’ll go to the bank right now. Set up an account. I didn’t want you to have to sit there and wait.”

  “Feel free.” Erin smiled, hopped out and walked toward the house, wishing he had wanted her there, waiting for him.

  * * *

  BEHIND THE WHEEL, unsupervised, Cole would have liked to feel pure triumph, the way he had when he was seventeen and finally able to drive on his own for the first time. Then, he’d felt like the king of the road. Totally cool. Girls would turn their heads, take him seriously. The guys he hung out with would, too.

  Increasingly, he was discovering that nothing was as simple anymore. Maybe he would’ve already known that if he hadn’t spent the last ten years in cold storage. Blink of the eye, you wake up to find yourself in the future. Except coming from cold storage, presumably you’d be unchanged, and that wasn’t true for Cole. The shock of the arrest, the greater shock of the conviction. Figuring out how to defend himself in prison, to acquire allies even as he learned never to trust anyone at all. Hopelessness, mixed with the stubbornness that kept him confined those extra years because he still refused to say “I did it, and I’m sorry” to a parole board.

  Now, there was Erin. Plus the debt he owed her, along with the disturbing realization that he did trust her. She might hurt herself but never him, and not because she’d made him into some kind of project. If he’d ever beli
eved that, he no longer did.

  It did feel good to open the checking and savings accounts. The banker who helped him didn’t look at him askance once.

  When he got back, he rang Erin’s doorbell and handed over the keys. She smiled, said, “Hope it wasn’t a hassle,” and closed the door without inviting him to dinner.

  He ate alone that evening, uneasiness heavy in his stomach. There’d been something off with her today. And just now? She’d said the right things, her lips had curved, but her eyes had been blank.

  Tonight, he thought. She hadn’t gone out in a while, but she would tonight. Cole wanted to stop her again, but what good would that do? He wouldn’t always be here to protect her from herself.

  But he wouldn’t sleep tonight until she was home, safe.

  * * *

  ERIN LINGERED OVER her coffee in the morning until she felt certain Cole would have left to work at the Zatlokas’. She pushed herself to her feet, feeling as slow and old as Nanna must have in her latter years.

  Well, she wasn’t going back to bed, which meant she had to do something useful. She needed to paint the ceilings upstairs, but it made her dizzy even to think about that, so she’d do the walls in one of the extra bedrooms instead. She just had to get her supplies and the right can of paint from the garage.

  She opened the front door, started across the porch...and saw Cole standing at the bottom of the steps. His feet were planted apart, his arms were crossed and his expression was both formidable and furious.

  Erin froze.

  His eyebrows climbed as he surveyed her. “You look like something the cat dragged in,” he said scathingly.

  Part of her was startled to hear such an old-fashioned insult coming from him. The rest of her... She peeked down at herself, as much to hide her flushed cheeks as anything. Paint-spattered jeans and shirt. Ragged, also paint-smeared canvas tennis shoes.

  She shrugged. “Seems appropriate.”

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  “You heard me leave,” she blurted.

  “And come home,” Cole bit off. “Two hours later.”

  He made it sound like a sin. And maybe tempting fate the way she did was wrong.

  Suddenly shaky, she stumbled to a seat on the top step. “You didn’t try to stop me.”

  “I can’t stop you forever.”

  Because he wouldn’t be here. She was the one who should’ve been mad. What was with him, pretending to be scared for her, to care, when he had no intention of hanging around? Only...things had changed last night. She didn’t have anyone else to tell.

  “I almost hit something last night,” she said in a thin voice.

  “What?” He mounted the stairs two at a time, and was suddenly there, sitting a step below her so their faces were on a level. He took her hand. “Tell me.”

  “It was... I don’t know for sure.” She shuddered at the memory. “For a minute, I thought it was a person. Someone crossing the highway, or walking down it. I even thought—” She swallowed.

  “That it might be a ghost.”

  She met his eyes, aware of the desperation in her own. “Except I know it wasn’t. I think...I think it was a cow or maybe a horse. There are some farms along there.”

  He nodded, waiting.

  “Of course I swerved.”

  “Because you don’t want to risk anyone else.”

  Erin bobbed her head. “A couple of other times, I’ve had near misses. The kind where I almost lost control and went off the road. You know? I don’t think I felt anything at all.”

  “This time, you did.”

  Despite his earlier anger, all she saw in those blue eyes now was compassion. Even the hard line of his mouth had softened. Had he guessed what she was going to say?

  “I was terrified.” She felt pathetic, holding on to his hand as if she’d go tumbling down the steps if she let go. “Like any normal person would be.”

  “Because you are normal.” He tugged her closer, encouraging her to lean forward and rest her head on his shoulder. Still, she held on to that big, warm hand. “You’ve been healing, Erin. Maybe I’ve been your redemption. Maybe coming to a place that feels like home has you remembering happy times. Working on this place, seeing it come to life again.”

  She wasn’t so sure about anything he’d said, except...she hadn’t wanted to die last night. There’d been no relief, no thinking, Finally. Only sheer terror, fast reflexes and luck. That animal—too big to be a deer—had lumbered in panic back the way it had come at the same moment she swerved over the yellow line. If it had kept coming—Remembering made her heart pound.

  “I knew you’d go out,” he whispered, his mouth brushing her hair. “I can always tell. You...withdraw.”

  She nodded against the reassuring strength of his shoulder. “I can feel it coming on.”

  His fingers slipped into her hair, his hand cupping the back of her head. “Will you go again?”

  “I...don’t know,” Erin said honestly.

  His steady breathing stopped, reason for her to lift her head to see his face. Worry seemed to deepen the lines, aging him. But he sighed and said, “I guess that’s better than hearing you say yes.”

  “Maybe...” No, she wasn’t ready to say this yet. It would sound like a promise she might not keep. But she was serious.

  Maybe he’s right and I should make an appointment to talk to someone. Maybe I will.

  Cole hadn’t released her. His arm was looped around her shoulders. His gaze had dropped to her mouth, and the temptation to lean forward scant inches and press her lips to his was hard to resist. Or to lay her hand on his angular cheek, feel the texture of his freshly shaved jaw.

  His eyes had darkened, narrowed, and she knew he was thinking the same. Hoping, she quit breathing now.

  Abruptly, he straightened, letting her go. Rose to his feet. “What’s your plan for today?” he asked from high above, as if nothing had happened.

  Probably it hadn’t. Humiliation warmed her cheeks as she realized any response on his part must have been in her imagination.

  “Paint one of the bedrooms. Then I’ll see. How are you progressing?” she asked.

  “Good. Come take a look later.”

  “I might,” she said. “Unless you think I’d scare the neighbors.”

  “Scare the—Oh.” He smiled. “I guess that was rude.”

  “Nanna used to say it. About something the cat dragged in.”

  “My mother did, too.” Sadness flickered in his eyes. “She’d have said it a lot if she could have seen me my last few years at home. Staggering in wasted.”

  “Except those years might have been different if she’d still been alive,” she pointed out, pushing herself to her feet. Still creaky.

  “Yeah. I hadn’t thought about it, but I think you’re right. She softened Dad.” He half smiled. “And she made me want to live up to her standards.”

  “What about your sister?”

  “Dani spent a lot of time furious at both of us. Hey, she’s driving down on Saturday to see me. I’d like you to meet her.”

  Warmed, Erin said, “Just let me know when.” She stood. “Now we’d better both get to work.”

  “Yeah.” For a moment, he didn’t move.

  Once again, Erin had the sense of standing on the edge. If he reached for her...

  Instead, he rolled his shoulders as if to loosen stiffness and turned to go. “See you at lunch?”

  She waved. He broke into a trot, as he usually did. Erin was a lot slower when she headed for the garage.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  COLE GROANED AND slapped his second pillow over his face, no closer to falling asleep than he’d been two hours ago. Last night, he’d lost sleep worrying. Tonight...

  He
growled an obscenity and rolled onto his side, bunching both pillows beneath his head. He kept seeing Erin’s bewilderment as she whispered, I was terrified. Like any normal person. But bewilderment wasn’t all he saw. In that moment when his arm had been around her, when they did nothing but look at each other, he’d been completely absorbed. He always thought she was beautiful, but with only inches separating them, he’d been painfully aware of her lips, her fine-textured skin, lashes darker than the red-gold flame of her hair. He had ached to touch her, to feel that skin beneath his fingertips, to trace her eyebrows and the curve of her cheeks. To rub his thumb over her lips, even if he couldn’t allow himself to kiss her.

  He lay rigid, staring toward his window, thinking about her in bed not that far away. What if he had surrendered to temptation? She’d wanted him to, he knew she had. Would giving in have been so wrong? Did she know why he hadn’t?

  Usually he ignored the inner voice determined to taunt him, but this time he couldn’t. His answer was too important.

  Because it would be a shitty thing to do, that’s why. He wanted to be better than that. Honor was a word he’d added to his vocabulary over the ten years he’d spent thinking about mistakes, and about who he wanted to be.

  He owed Erin too much to take advantage of her current fragility. If that sounded stupid, so be it. If he was positive all she wanted was sexual release, that would be different. Damn, he wished he did think that, because there was nothing in this whole world he wanted more than her. Too bad she was more messed up than he was, which was saying something.

  And sure, he was probably afraid of feeling too much for her. He was a guy; he could enjoy sex without emotional entanglement, but not when it came to Erin. Unfortunately, he knew that anything they started would inevitably hit a brick wall. Someday, if she didn’t succeed in killing herself first, she’d wake up and wonder what she’d seen in an uneducated ex-con not good for much but lifting heavy loads. It humiliated him to think of how she’d have to introduce him to friends or her former colleagues.

  She felt...diminished right now. That was the only reason she looked at him the way she did. The only reason she leaned on him.