Bay Song

by Noelle Adams

  Everyone didn’t all have to live the same way.

  Living alone didn’t mean you were sick. She’d told herself this over and over again for years now.

  But the fact was, it was incredibly hard to be thrust back into community. Even with the month of transition time with Cade, it was terrible—stuck in a sterile room, surrounded by strangers, expected to spew out the most private of her memories, the most private of her thoughts.

  The world didn’t feel like the same place as she stepped into the entryway of the house. The oak floors were polished, and a lovely staircase led up to the second floor. Everything was clean and warm and pleasant.

  And Holly just wanted to get away.

  She felt better with Cade beside her, and he didn’t seem inclined to go anywhere.

  “Take her up to the guest room,” his mother called out from another room—probably the kitchen. “I’m sure she’ll want to clean up some—you’re both a mess—and then come down for some breakfast.”

  “Is that okay?” Cade asked. He looked incredibly tired, with deep shadows under his eyes. The cuffs of his khakis were covered with dirt up to his knees, and he’d sweated through his shirt. This night must have been hard for him too.

  “Yeah. I’d like to clean up.” Her legs were covered with mud and blood, from scratches from some of the underbrush in the woods. Her dress had been an ivory color, but now it looked mostly brown. “And I’m hungry.”

  The guest room was decorated in old-fashioned Southern style, with a handmade quilt on a four-poster bed. Cade turned on the shower in the adjoining bathroom and bent over to pull a few towels from a shelf. His eyes were worried as they rested on her. “Do you want to be alone? Or I can stay here if you want.”

  “I’m not going to break, Cade,” she said with more confidence than was entirely warranted.

  “I know you’re not. You’re amazing.”

  She shook her head. “Go get cleaned up yourself. I’m going to take a shower.”

  He kissed her before he left the bathroom.

  Holly stood under the spray of the shower and cried.

  A wound had been ripped open in her heart, causing the pain and all the blood to come back, start spilling out again. Sometimes it felt like another person who had found her mother dead in the woods that night and then had just buried her with dirt and leaves, but it was her.

  She’d lived through it, and that wouldn’t change, even though she’d finally admitted the truth.

  She cried for a long time until all the energy she had remaining was utterly spent. Then she managed to squeeze out some of the honey-scented soap from a pretty bottle and scrub down her body.

  She was rinsing off when she heard a knock on the bathroom door.

  “Holly?” It was Cade’s voice on the other side of the door.

  She turned off the shower. “Yeah.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Just finishing.”

  “Can I come in?”

  She’d reached for a towel and was starting to dry herself off, but she didn’t care if Cade saw her naked. “Yeah. You can.”

  He looked a lot better when he stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. His hair was still damp, but he had on a clean T-shirt and a beat-up pair of sweatpants. He was smiling at her.

  “I brought you something to put on. We have limited options here, so I hope this will do.” He held up a T-shirt—it looked like one of his—and a pair of yoga pants. The pants were probably his mother’s since his would have been a lot longer. The older woman was heavier than her, but they would probably stay up.

  “That will be fine.”

  Cade’s eyes had done the automatic trip from her head down to her feet, lingering on the naked parts he liked best. But then he focused down to her lower legs. “You need something for all those cuts.”

  She glanced down and remembered she’d been bleeding before. A few of the deeper ones were bleeding a little still. “Oh.”

  “I’ll get something for them.”

  While he was gone, Holly pulled on the T-shirt and braided her wet hair so it wouldn’t get everything around her wet too. She had no clean underwear, and she wasn’t going to put back on the dirty ones she’d been wearing earlier, so she decided to just do without.

  Cade came back with bandages and an antibiotic cream. She sat down on the toilet and reached out for the supplies, but he didn’t give them to her. He knelt down and tended her cuts himself.

  She was so completely exhausted that she couldn’t stop the tears when they started to stream down her cheeks.

  He looked up, his face changing when he saw her. “Baby, please don’t cry.”

  “I’m okay,” she said. “I’m just tired.”

  He finished with the bandages and stood up, wincing as if his body was sore. “Well, let’s get something to eat, and then you can sleep for as long as you want.”

  That sounded just about right to her.

  His mother was working in the kitchen when they went down, and she’d plated up eggs, bacon, and pancakes on two pretty, blue-and-white plates. Holly thanked her sincerely and sipped a big glass of water, telling herself that she had to speak politely to the other woman. She’d been so kind, and Holly couldn’t just ignore her and eat in silence as she really wanted to do.

  Cade gave his mother a look. Holly only caught the tail end of it, but she realized it was a sign when his mother said, “Okay, dear. I believe I need a little nap. You don’t mind eating alone, do you?”

  “Oh, you don’t have to—”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Cade said, smiling at his mother, even as he cut off Holly’s automatic objection. “Seriously. Thanks.”

  The woman smiled fondly at her son and then equally fondly at Holly. “You eat. And then you get some sleep. God knows you must need it after being up all night. I really don’t understand why the police can’t take care of things during the daylight.”

  Holly saw Cade suppressing a smile as his mother left, and it made her giggle a little.

  He turned quickly to look at her, his face softening in relief.

  He’d been worried for her. Scared for her. He’d thought she might have a total breakdown.

  Holly was really glad that—after everything—she was stronger than she’d thought.

  The food was absolutely delicious, and Holly almost cried over the cinnamon pancakes. She’d never had anything that tasted so good in her entire life.

  They put their dishes in the sink when they were done, and Cade walked with her into the guest bedroom.

  Holly wasted no time in crawling under the covers.

  Cade stood next to the bed and looked down at her. “I’ll be in my room,” he said at last. “Unless…”

  “I want you with me.” She reached an arm out for him.

  He made a soft, throaty sound and climbed in beside her, pulling her into his arms.

  She burrowed against his body, finally, finally feeling safe again. She was almost asleep when she heard Cade murmur, “Just don’t tell my mom I slept with you.”

  Holly woke up completely disoriented.

  She was so warm and comfortable that she assumed she was at home, but she opened her eyes to see an unfamiliar room.

  Then she remembered Cade was supposed to be in the bed with her, but his side of the bed was empty.

  She’d woken up sometime earlier, just briefly, and Cade had been sound asleep, the covers pushed down to his waist and one of his arms bent above his head on the pillow.

  She’d watched him for a minute before she’d fallen back to sleep.

  Now she had no idea what time it was. What day it was. She sat up, feeling a spark of fear at being in such a strange place.

  The antique clock on the wall said it was three in the afternoon. She must have slept for seven hours. She wondered when Cade had gotten up. She hoped he’d slept well too.

  She rolled out of bed, feeling sore and stiff and slightly dizzy. She limped in to use the bathroom
and then throw water over her face.

  Staring at herself in the mirror—pale face, huge eyes, dark shadows beneath, hair frizzing out of her braids—she wondered if that girl could possibly be her.

  Deciding she didn’t want to look like a wreck when she went downstairs, she undid her hair, combed it out, and then rebraided it so it was smooth. She rubbed at her cheeks until they had some color, and then she straightened the wide neck of her T-shirt.

  She wore Cade’s big shirt and the oversized yoga pants. There was no way she was going to look anything but sloppy.

  Finally she gave up and went downstairs, hoping Cade’s mother wouldn’t be disappointed in her. Cade was the kind of guy who could have any woman he wanted. His mother had probably been waiting for years for him to bring a girl home he thought was special.

  His mom probably wasn’t too excited about his landing on someone as damaged and complicated as Holly was.

  But she’d seemed very friendly and welcoming. Maybe she would like Holly.

  Holly intended to try her very best.

  In that effort, she was smiling as she walked into the kitchen. She assumed someone was there since a delicious odor had hit her nose as soon as she’d started down the stairs.

  Cade was sitting on a stool at the kitchen bar, talking to his mother, who was leaning over to pull something out of the oven.

  Holly assumed they were talking about her, especially since they both stopped talking as soon as she made an appearance.

  “Hello,” she said, holding on to her smile. “Something smells amazing.”

  “Oh, good,” Cade’s mother said as she set a pan on the top of the stove. “You’re up just in time for the muffins.”

  “I love muffins.” Holly stretched up to sit on the stool next to Cade.

  “I know,” his mother said, smiling at Holly so kindly, so sympathetically, that it made Holly’s throat ache. “Cade said you liked them, so I made some for you.”

  “Thank you,” Holly whispered, managing to get control of herself. She was obviously still not fully recovered from the night before. Then she turned to Cade. “How did you know I love muffins?”

  Cade’s hair was a rumpled mess, and he definitely needed to shave, but he looked gorgeous and warm and sexy and like everything she’d ever wanted. “Roy said you used to get them from the coffee shop, and then you bought those from the drugstore that day we first met.”

  “Oh. You remembered?”

  He frowned. “Of course I remembered.”

  “Oh.” She felt ridiculously embarrassed for no reason she could understand.

  His mother chuckled. “I have a feeling he remembers just about everything about you.”

  “Mom,” Cade muttered.

  She just laughed again.

  “How do you feel?” Cade asked, his expression changing as he searched Holly’s face. “Better?”

  “Yeah. A lot better.”

  “Cade told me a little about what happened,” his mother said, pulling out a couple of muffins from the pan, which must have been very hot. “I guess it’s going to take a while to really feel better after all that.” She cut one of the muffins open, sliced off a slab of butter, and put muffin, butter, and knife all on a plate, which she offered to Holly. “But I figured a muffin couldn’t hurt.”

  Holly smiled, breaking off a piece of very warm muffin and covering it with butter. “It definitely couldn’t hurt.”

  The muffin was some sort of spice muffin, and it was so good Holly almost melted off her stool.

  Cade got a muffin too, and they were about halfway through when his phone rang. Glancing at the screen, he said, “That’s the sheriff’s department. I better get it.”

  He stuffed the rest of the muffin in his mouth and took his phone out of the room to take the call.

  Holly didn’t mind his leaving. She didn’t really want to hear from the sheriff herself. She was still scared of what was going to happen, even though the no-nonsense lawyer Cade had gotten for her had told her there was nothing to worry about. But she was a little uncomfortable about being left alone with his mother, no matter how kind the other woman was.

  His mother was busy setting the muffins on a cooling rack and then tidying up the counters, so Holly got to finish her muffin in peace.

  She was sipping the hot tea she’d been given when Cade’s mother came to stand opposite her, with just the bar between them. “Can I get you anything else, dear?”

  “No. This was wonderful. Thank you.”

  “What about an apple? I picked up some really good ones from the farmers’ market.”

  “Oh, no. Thank you though. Maybe later.” Holly hoped Cade would return soon. She wasn’t sure what to say in a one-on-one conversation with someone she didn’t know. Even just small talk was hard. She hadn’t been put in this situation in a really long time. Hardly ever, really.

  “Cade told me I’m not to smother you,” the older woman said with a slightly crooked smile. “I’ll do my best.”

  “Oh, no,” Holly objected, feeling ridiculously guilty. “You can— I mean, you don’t have to act special toward—”

  Cade’s mother went on as if Holly hadn’t even spoken. “It’s just that I feel so bad about what you’ve been through. I’ve been trying to think about what it might feel like—just a young little creature with your mother, who that terrible man—” She shuddered, as if she’d pictured the scenario. “I can’t even imagine. But I feel so bad about it, and I want to do something to help.”

  “You’ve already helped. There’s nothing else you need to do.”

  “I hope…” Mrs. Chesterton looked unexpectedly rattled, and she stared down at the countertop. “I hope it’s all for the best. Getting it out in the open like this. It must have felt safer—to have it hidden away in the trees like it was—but I hope it might be better in the long run this way.”

  Holly hadn’t been expecting that, and she was suddenly emotional again. She swallowed. “I… I hope so too. But I didn’t do it because I thought it would make me feel better.”

  “Then why did you do it, dear?” Her eyes were fixed on Holly now, and she looked like she really wanted to know. “You were safe as things were. So why did you do it after so long?”

  Holly wasn’t sure she’d known the answer until she was asked the question. But now she knew. She knew. “Because the true story matters—and not just to me. It needs to be told.”

  Cade’s mother thought about this for a minute, and then she nodded. “Yes. That’s right.”

  Cade walked into the room then, and something about his stance and expression made Holly think he’d heard at least part of their conversation. He stood behind Holly’s stool and put his arms around her.

  “What did the sheriff say?” his mother asked.

  “They found the… remains. They don’t have the resources here to do the forensics, so they’re sending it to Norfolk. They want Holly to come in again tomorrow morning for some follow-up. Just routine.”

  She nodded. She hadn’t expected it to be over quickly or easily.

  “He did say,” Cade continued, “that everything so far seems to confirm Holly’s story. They don’t think there will be any problems going forward.”

  Holly exhaled and leaned back against Cade’s chest.

  His mother nodded in satisfaction. “See? It’s exactly like we said. Of course the evidence is going to support what you’ve said. It’s the truth—and the truth wants to be told.”

  Three days later, Holly and Cade walked over the dunes and down to the beach.

  Holly’s house was still cordoned off, so they parked in the vacation rental next door and walked down to the beach from there.

  “How’s this?” Cade asked, indicating a stretch of sand near the border of her property.

  Holly glanced over and saw that the dunes and the trees blocked her house. “Yeah. This will be fine.”

  She didn’t want to see any evidence of people tramping all over her home. They’d stop
ped work for the day—no one was there—but she was afraid she would see something that shouldn’t be there. She understood the invasion was necessary, but she still couldn’t stand the thought of it. She wanted desperately to be let back into her house, but they weren’t finished with their investigation yet.

  She hoped they’d finish it up soon.

  She loved Cade, and she really liked his mother, but it was hard to have to stay in that house—especially since there wasn’t a definite end point. Mrs. Chesterton was very popular and very social, and she had a lot of people stopping in. More than once, Holly had had to run upstairs when she’d accidentally walked into a room of people she didn’t know.

  She hoped Cade wasn’t disappointed in her. Maybe he’d thought she’d be fixed automatically, now that the whole story had come out, but the habits of a lifetime weren’t reversed overnight.

  She wanted her home, her beach, the fox and birds and deer, so intensely she could almost taste it in her mouth.

  The animals had probably all been scared away. She hoped they’d come back, once all the commotion was ended.

  Cade had spread out the blanket she’d brought along and was now peering at her. “Is this not a good place?”

  “Yes,” she said, shaking off the thoughts and smiling at him. “It’s a great place.” The bay smelled familiar, like an old friend, and the sun was warm today, heating up the humidity in the air until it surrounded her.

  He pulled off his T-shirt as she lowered herself to the blanket. “Do you feel like swimming?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Not yet. I just want to lay in the sun for a while, if that’s okay.

  “That sounds good to me.”

  They stretched out side by side and then turned their heads to smile at each other. Cade was wearing sunglasses, so she reached over to pull them off. She wanted to see his eyes.

  They hadn’t made love since that night in Virginia Beach. At first they’d been too tired and stressed, and then Cade had been really careful, as if he didn’t want to move too fast. Plus he was obviously uncomfortable doing anything more than light kissing in his mother’s house, which Holly could perfectly understand.