“It makes you a ten-year-old. Which is all you were at the time, remember.” Dawn grabbed for her hands and squeezed. “For goodness sake, have you been beating yourself up about this all these years?”
“Not all the time.”
“Silly girl.” With another quick squeeze, Dawn let go. “I saw how easily you ignored my compliments a few minutes ago, so let me try to come at this from another angle. Although you have to promise me you’ll go home tonight and ponder how little recourse you had as a child to do anything but obey your father. And how listening to him, believing everything he told you, was exactly what you’d been raised to do.” She paused until Casey gave a sharp head bob of assent. “Okay. Even if you ignore everything else I said—for the moment, that is—what about Zane?”
She thought of his broad shoulders, the dark hair that dusted his forearms. The way his tongue swiped across the back of her neck and shot shivers of sensation through her body. “What about him?”
“Well, he’s a professor. And from the extremely little you’ve told me—” Dawn glared teasingly, “¬—he likes you. You must be smart enough to keep him interested.”
They did talk non-stop. For hours on end. That would never happen if she bored him. Or didn’t manage to keep up her half of the conversation. “Point taken.”
“Great. Again, my compliments go ignored, but you’ll perk up from the attention of a handsome man.”
“Pretty much.”
“How wonderful is he? Aside from stating the obvious. The man’s very, very handsome. Not in a cover-model way, but in an approachable way.”
“Hands off,” Casey warned. “I saw him first, and I have more than called dibs.”
“If you’re ready to fend off other women, you must be attracted to more than just his looks.”
“He’s got the same unyielding belief in loyalty and trust that I do. Zane says it’s the personal code he lives by. To me—” Casey paused, trying not to sound too hokey while still managing to convey the almost tangible connection she felt to him, “—it’s as if we’re both crystal glasses, filled with the same amount of liquid.”
“I don’t get it.”
Yup. She’d gone way out on the ledge with this description. But it was so darn hard to put into words. “You know how you can run you finger around the rim of a glass and it resonates? If you do it on another glass filled with a different amount of liquid, then you get a different tone. Well, Zane and I resonate on exactly the same note.”
“That’s quite lovely.”
Not to mention so hearts-and-flowery that Casey felt a tad queasy. She flipped the quesadillas and started prepping another set. “What’s really adorable, and fun to watch, is his insatiable curiosity. I never realized there were so many things to wonder about on any given day.”
“Like what?”
“The other night, he ordered a Tom Collins with dinner.” She remembered vividly how he’d tied the cherry stem in a knot with his tongue. How her mouth had gone dry and someplace far lower on her anatomy had gotten a little damp watching his display of dexterity. “Zane wanted to know what the story was behind maraschino cherries.”
“They’re just a garnish.” Dawn gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Like a sprig of parsley nestled in between a steak and a baked potato. Nobody eats it. Nobody cares about it.”
“Right? But Zane cares about everything. So he asked the waiter. Then he asked the bartender, which led to a ten-minute discussion of the proper way to garnish with a twist. Did you know you’re supposed to rub the yellow part of a lemon on the rim, instead of the white part?”
“No.” Dawn plucked her lime wedge out of her glass and rubbed its green skin along the rim with an expression of utter disbelief. “Of course, I’m not a bartender.”
“Anyway, he finally had to look it up on the web. Where we discovered that the modern way they make these cherries, since Prohibition, is to soak them in sulfur dioxide and calcium chloride to bleach them.”
“Nobody wants to eat something that sounds like a high school chemistry experiment.”
“Which is why we both swore off ever eating one again. The whole thing was ultimately disgusting, but so much fun. Zane’s enthusiasm made me care about the history of the stupid cherry just as much as he did.”
“Remarkable. Where was he when we got in a screaming match about you memorizing plant phyla in ninth grade?” Laughing—and simultaneously wincing—at the memory, Dawn pulled out plates. “He sounds even better for you than I’d hoped. I can’t wait ’til he comes back to the store so I can scope him out more thoroughly.”
Casey flipped their dinner onto the cutting board with a practiced twist of her wrist. And hoped Dawn wouldn’t flip out once she learned the other, darker and potentially disastrous side to Zane’s curiosity. “There’s the problem.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t embarrass you too much. No photo gallery of the summer of the unfortunate pixie cut. I won’t mention that you put your hand on the wrong part of a set in The Music Man and fell right through the painted backdrop in the middle of a performance. In fact, I won’t reveal a single deep, dark secret.”
“The problem is that he may dig them up on his own.” Casey turned the heat off under the pan. She couldn’t split her focus for a conversation this important. “Dawn, sit down.”
“I don’t like the sound of this.” But she dropped onto a wooden stool without hesitation.
“Zane’s not only a college professor.” No point beating around the bush, or sugarcoating it with mention of the book deals and publicist awesomeness. Not if she wanted to eat before all the gooey cheesiness congealed. “He’s a cult expert. Who has spent a good chunk of his career trying to find the Lone Survivor of the Sunshine Seekers.”
Dawn’s lips tightened to a thin, white line. “That’s ludicrous. Impossible.”
If only. “He writes articles, scholarly papers and books exposing cults, analyzing them, examining every aspect. Apparently it’s the only cult he hasn’t been able to dig up any members to interview and thoroughly study. Zane calls it his white whale.”
“If I recall, that hunt turned out quite poorly for Captain Ahab.”
“I don’t think reminding him of how the story ends would deter Zane one bit.”
A quick head bob. “Is that why he’s here?”
“No.” Casey honestly didn’t believe he’d had a clue this town had any ties to the cult when he signed up to spend the summer at Seneca Lake. Sometimes, coincidences were just that. Otherwise known as a metric crap ton of bad luck for her. “Or at least, it wasn’t why he came.”
“So why bring it up at all?”
“Well, on Friday morning when you let him in early, he found the journal from sixteen years ago. Specifically, the entry where you thanked the town for taking me in and keeping our secret. It took him no time to connect the dots.”
“Sooo...” Dawn drew out the word, even though it had to be as obvious as Mitzi licking the floor for specks of grated cheese where Casey’s story was headed.
“He knows the Lone Survivor is here. The only thing he doesn’t know is that I’m the survivor.” Casey braced for...well, she wasn’t sure what. Fear? Anger? Guilt for being the one to lead him straight to their secret?
But without so much as a flicker of expression, Dawn locked and loaded another chip. “Are you going to tell him?”
“What? No. Of course not. I’ve spent half a lifetime keeping this secret. Even from Ward.” That particular guilt still burbled fresh in her conscience. “I don’t want the media descending on our town. I don’t want people asking me if I hate my father for what he did. Or if I hate you for taking me away from him. I don’t want to be picked apart like a Thanksgiving turkey.” But those weren’t the worst consequences. “More than anything, I don’t want you to go to jail.”
; An eye roll epic enough to belong to an aggrieved teenager. “That makes two of us, believe me.”
“I hate that in the eyes of the law, you kidnapped me from Dad when you took me out of that place.” Casey didn’t let herself remember those times very often. Because when her mind did slip back to that tumultuous week, the knot that invariably formed in her stomach took her breath away.
She could still feel the sharp jabs of needles at the hospital, where they discovered she was malnourished and dehydrated. The dull ache in her jaw after a dentist insisted on pulling her last three baby teeth because of the cavities. The smarting skin almost everywhere from the nurses scrubbing months of dirt off of her. And the fear that woke her up every night for months that Dawn might change her mind and take her back to that place.
“Just because I was married to your father for years didn’t give me any legal rights as your guardian. I’d never pressed to formally adopt you because I didn’t want to insult the memory of your dead mother.” Dawn scraped her stool backward and stood. “But then, I never expected your dad to get taken in by a cult whackjob and disappear with you in the middle of the night, either.”
Yeah. That probably hadn’t been included in their marriage vows. Her father had always been a bit of a hippie. One who tried to control and/or hide his bouts with depression with marijuana and alcohol. But aside from that, he’d been a responsible, charming man. One who took his family to the beach every weekend and celebrated half-birthdays. Then he’d run into the Sunshine Seekers one day after visiting her mother’s grave. They offered him an alternative to his overwhelming depression. And he was just desperate enough to fall into their trap.
“You saved me, plain and simple. I don’t care what any court says.”
Dawn grabbed a pizza cutter and rolled through eight neat slices. “My lawyer cares. And the charge most likely wouldn’t be kidnapping.”
What? That was the fear they’d lived with for seventeen years. It was the reason Casey didn’t use her real last name. Why Dawn used her mother’s maiden name. As soon as she sprang Casey from the hospital in that California desert seventeen years ago, the two of them had spent a month slowly driving back across the country. Using only cash and a different name in every city, every hotel. It was why Dawn maintained a healthy skepticism of any strangers—even in this town that lived on tourist dollars—that seemed too friendly right off the bat.
“Ah, since when?”
“A few weeks ago, actually.” She plated everything and started layering the salsa and sour cream on top. Her methodical garnishing as she slow-rolled this new development was driving Casey nuts. “I consulted with my lawyer. And Josiah put out feelers to a few other lawyers. The marathon coming here will be great for the town. It’ll help tide us over until the insurance money kicks in from the funds our horrible ex-city planner embezzled. So I had no legitimate reason to turn it away. However, it also runs a considerable risk of exposure for me. As mayor, there’s no way I can avoid being photographed.”
“That didn’t stop you from running for mayor in the first place. You’ve been in the paper oodles of times.”
“Just the Seneca Lake paper. We’re a small town. The rest of the country doesn’t pay attention to us. But a big race like this will attract national media. So I thought it prudent to see where we stood with the statute of limitations on what they called your ‘kidnapping.’”
“And?”
“And it never expires.” A shrug.
It boggled Casey’s mind. A shrug expressed small, everyday disappointment. Like discovering you’d run out of toilet paper. Or accidentally ate half a sleeve of cookies instead of stopping at a reasonable serving of two. “That sounds dire.”
“Not as much as I always thought. The charge nowadays has been revised to custodial interference, not kidnapping. The fact that I raised you before and after would weigh heavily in my favor. As would the fact that you lived a normal life, thrived, and never complained about me. Aside from the normal teenaged grumbling when I insisted that potato chips and soda were not the building blocks of a healthy lifestyle. There’s a chance I’d get off with a fine and a slap on the wrist.”
Dawn carried the plates over to the coffee table. Slid in the DVD like it was any other Movie Night. Like they weren’t discussing the possibility of her life being wrecked by a court system that only saw black and white legality, instead of the shades of gray which ought to count things like Casey being fed three meals a day by Dawn. As opposed to being fed by the members of her father’s cult whenever one of the adults came down off their high long enough to remember her.
“A chance? How good a chance?”
“Josiah’s still researching. We’ll have a better idea in about a week. The biggest fear is that the state of California would want to make an example out of me. Does it protect you at all by prosecuting me now? Of course not. But coming down hard on me could serve to scare other people out of potentially doing the same. That’s the real issue.”
Casey began to pace, Mitzi clicking behind her by half a step. “I don’t like the sound of that. Any chance is unacceptable. I’d never put you at risk.” Whirling to a stop, she grabbed Dawn’s arm. “We should cancel the marathon.”
And was shrugged off just as quickly. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
It had definitely been an out in left field idea. Didn’t mean it was entirely bad. “Okay, but what if you just don’t show up? Claim a sprained ankle. The German measles. Maybe gout?”
A peal of laughter. “Do you even know what gout is?”
“No.” Zane probably did, though. “I think a bunch of old, rich guys in Dickens and Brontë books had it.”
“As I’m neither old, rich or male, we’ll strike that one from the excuse list.”
Crap. Time to drop the other bombshell of the evening. “Ah, you might not even still be mayor by race day.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“I’m supposed to warn you that Joanna is setting up a secret town council meeting to discuss getting you booted.”
“Oh, that.” Dawn waved away what Casey had thought was a bombshell with a flick of her wrist. “I know.”
She’d been dreading telling her—and put it off—all weekend. “You know?”
“Honey, I’ve lived in this town almost my whole life. And I’m the mayor. I’ve got my ear to the ground, believe you me. Joanna’s always stirring up trouble. Everybody knows it. She’ll beat a few drums, get a few folks riled, but the meeting won’t happen.”
Wow. Guess she didn’t have to bother mentioning the removal from office petition they might circulate. “Are you sure?”
“I may not know for sure how the California penal system will treat me, but I absolutely am sure about how the citizens of Seneca Lake will. Now sit down and eat your dinner before it gets any colder.”
Casey scooped up Mitzi. Cuddling the dog kept her from giving in to the impulse to shake a little sense into Dawn. “That’s it? Discussion ended?”
“For now, yes.”
Unbelievable. They’d resolved a grand total of nothing. “But...what about Zane?”
“Do you plan to share more details of how he’s romancing you?”
“No. But what if he keeps poking around town, trying to find me?”
“He won’t get anywhere. This town, and the people in it, have kept our secret and will continue to do so. There’s nothing else incriminating in any of the journals. I want you to enjoy him. He’s much better for you than that bore, Pierce.”
“Why does everyone always cut down Pierce? He’s a perfectly nice man.”
“Damned with faint praise. Nice is dull. Nice is good enough. You deserve something far better than just nice. I’ve been worried for a while that you might settle for him.”
“Pierce and I were never serious. We were, uh,
convenient for each other.” Which was all Casey had wanted out of a relationship. Had thought she wanted, anyway, until Zane lit her up from the inside out. “No talk of settling down, that’s for sure.”
“Good. Go grab the margarita pitcher. It’s time to flash back to the eighties.”
Just like that, the heart-wrenching, gut-churning topics of the night were pushed back under the rug. Not that Casey minded. She’d far rather laugh at shoulder pads and gelled hair than think about what might, maybe, possibly go wrong. Or exactly how much risk she was taking with every extra hour she spent with Zane.
Chapter Seven
Zane paced the flagstones, each inscribed with the year of a Hobart graduating class, beyond eager to see Casey again. They’d had a date—a real date, with dinner, drinks by the firepit on the patio and an old-school makeout session down at the edge of the Manor’s lawn—on Sunday. Felt like forever ago. Which made him feel like a horny high-schooler. It shouldn’t be a big deal at all that she’d spent Monday with her stepmom and worked late yesterday. Zane hadn’t even been able to sneak lunch with her, thanks to his class. Except that it was a big deal. He itched to see her. Craved her company. Coveted her camaraderie. Hell, he just wanted to hold her.
A cool evening breeze rustled through the trees around the president’s house. Mansion. Really big, white-columned fat-ass perk for being president. Of course, the perk came with its downside. When you lived in a house large enough to hold parties, the college expected you to host them all the time. For alumni, for faculty, for visiting professors, for parents—the list never ended. Which was one in a number of reasons Zane never wanted to cross the invisible line between faculty and administration.
He’d seen some great houses on his walk across campus. The kind of place where he could have his friends over to watch a football game, but not big enough to be expected to host the department’s Christmas party. Zane liked department parties. Got a kick out of trying the weird casseroles passed down from grandparents, liked seeing his colleagues relaxed as opposed to focused and cutthroat as they often were during staff meetings. He just didn’t want all that ruckus in his house.
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