Was this it? Was this all I had to look forward to?
Or was there something more I should be doing?
Back in New York, if the questions got too loud in my head, I would open a bottle of wine.
But now, everything felt different. I was surrounded by people who not only took me seriously, but who actually believed in me. Even better, I was feeling all sorts of excitement and passion about my new ventures. Maybe I could make a real difference helping people.
Me! Was it even possible?
When I offhandedly mentioned to Daniel that the desk that I wanted in the studio was in the family room, and I thought was too heavy for Mia and I to drag upstairs, he immediately offered to come by and move it for me.
“It’s awfully heavy,” I protested. “I’m not sure if even you and I can get it up the stairs.”
He waved me off. “I’ll bring a couple of buddies. Don’t worry, we’ll get it done for you.”
I was touched. So touched I started fussing with my meal to give myself a moment to compose myself.
He believed in me enough to bring friends and come drag that super-heavy desk up two flights of stairs.
“I’ll have some beer waiting for you,” I said, a little shyly. “And pizza, too. If you want.”
He put his hand on his heart. “Beer and pizza? Are you kidding me? I’ve spent an entire day moving entire houses for beer and pizza. This is a steal.”
I laughed, feeling more relaxed and content than I could remember feeling in a long while.
After dinner, he walked me to my car in the parking lot. “Sure you don’t want a police escort home?” he asked, standing so close, I could feel the heat of his breath on my cheek. His eyes were dark in the moonlight, but that didn’t hide the intensity in his gaze.
I shivered, even though the night was warm and humid. “I have roommates,” I reminded him. “I should be safe.”
He took a step closer. “It’s not the same as having a police escort.”
“I suppose not,” I said, trying hard to keep my breathing steady. He leaned closer, his movements slow, giving me time to turn away.
I didn’t.
His lips gently touched mine. He tasted of beer and pasta, and I found myself clinging to him, my arms wrapped around his neck as the heat in my body threatened to explode.
“You know,” he murmured against my lips. “I don’t have roommates.”
I almost said yes. I wanted to say yes.
But if I did, there was no going back.
Only a few short months ago, I had been trying to save my second marriage. I still wasn’t officially divorced. Was I really ready to jump into a new relationship?
What if I wasn’t?
What if I rushed into a relationship with Daniel, and it turned into a rebound?
Was that what I wanted?
Or did I want to do whatever I could to give this relationship its best chance at success?
I eased myself away. “Tempting,” I said. “You have no idea how tempting.”
“But too soon,” he said, taking a step back.
With the heat of his body gone, the air that rushed in felt cold and clammy. I shivered again. “It’s not that I don’t want to ...”
He reached out a finger and gently shushed me. “I know. I get it. We don’t have to rush. We can do this right. You’re worth waiting for.”
I could feel my cheeks growing warm. I didn’t know how to answer. I agree? Thank you?
“Besides,” he continued. “The divorce isn’t final yet, right?”
I nodded.
He gave me a slanted smile and took another step back. “We should probably wait anyway then. It would be nice if that was done and over first.”
I wondered what I could do to hurry Stefan along. “Yeah, I think you’re right,” I sighed.
Behind Daniel, a car pulled out of the parking lot, the headlights sweeping over us, temporarily blinding me and leaving him in the darkness. “Sleep tight, Becca,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I nodded again and slid into the car. He stepped aside as I turned the key and started to back up. As I drove out of the parking lot, I could still see him standing there, a lone, dark figure in the moonlight, watching me drive off.
Watching the coffee brew, I shivered again thinking back to our kiss. I couldn’t decide if I was relieved or annoyed that the divorce wasn’t official. Or both.
Well, I didn’t have a lot of time to mull it over before he got to the house. I had to clean up, take a shower, and run to the store for the promised beer and pizza.
“You are a lifesaver,” Mia said behind me, making me jump. “Thank God for coffee.”
“You startled me,” I said, reaching for another coffee mug. “I’m glad I wasn’t pouring yet.”
“So am I,” Mia said, opening the fridge to pull out the cream. “You may have ended up wasting some of that precious liquid.”
“Ha, ha,” I said, filling both mugs with coffee while leaving enough room for cream and sugar.
Mia doctored her cup and took a long sip. “Ahhh,” she said, leaning against the counter. “That hit the spot.”
“You’re up early,” I said, noticing the dark, puffy circles under her eyes. “Did you have trouble sleeping?”
She shook her head. “No. Well, not exactly. Not until you woke me up in the middle of the night. I’m guessing your night was pretty good,” she winked at me.
“Ah,” I was a little taken aback. “I did have a pretty good time, but it was only dinner. Sorry about waking you. I was trying to be quiet, but I didn’t expect you to be in bed before ten.” I had gotten home a quarter to and found only Chrissy still up, texting furiously in the family room. It was difficult having a conversation with her when she was buried in her phone, but I managed to get out of her that Mia had gone to bed early.
Mia took another long drink of coffee and shook her head again. “No, I looked at the clock. It was after two when you got home.”
“Um, nooooo,” I said. “I was sleeping then. What did you hear?”
Mia frowned. “But I heard you. You were walking around.”
“You didn’t hear me walking around,” I said. “Maybe it was Chrissy.”
“Well, it was someone,” she said. “If not you, then yeah, it must have been her.”
I took a sip of coffee and thought about what she said. “What did you hear, exactly?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant, but a cold shawl of dread was settling over my shoulders.
She shrugged. “Just someone walking around downstairs. I assumed it was you getting home from your date and went back to sleep.”
Chrissy didn’t do a lot of walking around at night ... unless she was sleepwalking. Oh God, was that happening again?
Or ... was someone in the house again? I thought about hearing the soft click of the door and Oscar’s reaction the other night.
Had someone broken into the house in the middle of the night?
“I’ll be right back,” I said to Mia and headed to the back door.
“What’s going on?” she asked, but I didn’t answer. I was too busy searching the house. Everything looked like it was in order, but was it?
The back door was locked. I could feel my shoulders relax slightly. Hopefully, that meant I could rule out an intruder, but first I needed to check the front.
Mia asked me again what was going on as I passed her in the kitchen. “I’m just checking something,” I said, heading to the front door.
“Wait,” I could hear her behind me as I tried the front door. Locked.
When I came back into the kitchen, she was staring at me. The color had leeched from her face, making the dark circles under her eyes stand out even more. “Do you think someone was in here again?”
I held my hands out. “I had to check. Bo
th doors were locked. And it doesn’t look like anything was disturbed.”
“Well, that’s good,” she said, but she didn’t look particularly comforted.
“I’m going to go check on Chrissy,” I said, putting my cup down. “Be right back.”
Hopefully, this is all nothing, I thought as I climbed the stairs. Hopefully, Mia had just heard Chrissy getting up in the middle of the night for a glass of water, or the house creaking from age.
Hopefully, it wasn’t anything more than that.
Chrissy’s door was closed, which was a good sign. If she had been sleepwalking, I would expect her door to be open. Carefully, I turned the knob and eased it open.
Chrissy was sprawled out in bed, fast asleep, covers tangled around her.
I closed the door quietly. It certainly didn’t seem like she had been up walking around.
“It was probably the house settling,” I said to Mia when I returned to the kitchen.
“Probably,” Mia agreed, but she didn’t look convinced. She took another long swallow of coffee before refilling her cup.
“Are you feeling okay?” I asked. “I mean, you went to bed pretty early last night.”
She shrugged. “I’m just tired,” she said. “It’s probably the stress of getting ready for school to start.”
“Well, you have been putting in a lot of hours,” I said. Along with starting to go through her schoolbooks, she had been working as many shifts as she could get, wanting to bank as much money as possible before dropping down to part time when the school year started.
She grimaced. “I know. At this rate, I’m going to need a vacation before I even get started. In fact,” she glanced at the clock, “speaking of work, I probably ought to get ready.”
I watched her move briskly around the kitchen, toasting a couple of pieces of bread to bring up to her room so she could eat and dress. I wanted to tell her to sit down, relax, and savor her food. She really didn’t look well. But I held my tongue.
Mia was an adult. She could take care of herself. She didn’t need me mothering her. If she thought she could handle it, then she could.
Right?
Chapter 8
After Mia went upstairs, I had some more coffee, ate a bowl of oatmeal, and started a shopping list. I left it on the counter to see if Mia or Chrissy wanted to add anything before heading up to The Studio. I wanted to finish cleaning and organizing before Daniel and friends brought the furniture up.
I opened windows, swept, dusted, and tidied up a bit. As I was putting my new sketchbook away in its new home, a scrap of paper fluttered to the floor.
I picked it up. It was thin with half circles cut into it. I turned it over, trying to figure out where I had seen something like it before, when it hit me.
It looked like the edge that gets caught in the coils when someone tears a piece of paper out of a notebook.
Had someone torn a piece of paper out of my new sketchbook? When? And why?
Did someone do it when I was at the store and I hadn’t noticed? Or was it Mia or Chrissy? But why would they?
I quickly flipped through the book, but nothing seemed amiss. As far as I could tell, the pages were intact. I counted the pages and came up two short of the number advertised.
So, what now?
Should I try and return it? It’s not like I could prove that it happened before I bought the book.
Chances were, this was a nothing burger. Some five-year-old tore the pages out to draw on while her mother shopped. That was all.
I ran my fingers through my hair and decided to think about it later. I still had a lot to do before Daniel arrived, and it was probably nothing.
But still ... I lingered for a moment, staring at the sketchbook. Something just didn’t feel right.
Okay, enough already. I was making myself crazy over nothing. I had bigger things to focus on. Like getting ready for Daniel.
I headed down the stairs to the kitchen and found Chrissy eating a bowl of cereal and poking at her phone. I was wondering if I should ask her about the sketchbook when she spoke first. “Are you going to the store?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Did you need anything?” My phone started buzzing from where it sat on the charger, and my heart sank. Hopefully, it wasn’t Daniel canceling.
She made a quick gesture with her head toward where I left the list on the counter. “Why are you buying frozen pizzas?”
“Well, I guess I could get delivery. I thought frozen would be easier,” I said, picking up my phone. It wasn’t Daniel. It was my mother. Now it wasn’t just my heart sinking, but everything inside me.
It was only two words. Call me.
It wasn’t the first time she had call or texted after our conversation in the garden, but I had barely responded, not wanting to get into a thing with her.
My strategy didn’t appear to be working.
“Earth to Becca,” Chrissy said. “Is anyone there?”
I looked up, shaking my head a little. “Sorry, just got distracted. What did you want?”
“I was asking about the pizza,” Chrissy said impatiently. “Why are you getting it?”
“Daniel and some of his friends are coming over to move that desk in the family room to The Studio,” I said. “And hopefully the love seat. I was going to feed them with pizza and beer. It’s going to be a bitch to drag that furniture up two flights of stairs.”
Chrissy eyed me over her phone. “I can make homemade pizza if you want,” she said. “Since you’re going to the store anyway, I’ll write down what I need.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said, touched by her offer.
She shrugged. “I don’t mind. I like making pizza. I’ll make an extra we can freeze.” She peeked at me from behind her long, black hair, her eyes coy. “Besides, I like Daniel,” she said. “I think he’s good for you. The last thing I want is for him to break up with you because you gave him frozen pizza.”
“It’s not frozen, it’s DiGiornos,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, whatever.”
I smiled slightly and handed her the list and a pen. “You make the list and I’ll go jump in the shower.”
“Deal.”
***
I was standing in front of the beer section, trying to remember which brand Daniel liked, when someone from behind me said, “Becca?”
I turned to see JD. He was wearing his normal tight jeans, cowboy hat, and cat-who-ate-the-canary grin.
I forced a smile while glancing around to make sure I wasn’t alone with him. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
His grin widened. “Why? I have to eat, too.”
I peeked at his cart, which was filled with cans of soup, frozen meals, and a box of cheerios. “If you call that ‘eating.’”
“Clearly, not everyone is blessed with gourmet chef skills.” He looked pointedly in my cart, which was filled with all the makings for homemade pizzas and made-from-scratch meals.
“It’s not me, it’s my stepdaughter,” I said, and then wondered why I even told him that. He was a virtual stranger. How much did I want to share?
He cocked his head as if he knew what I was thinking, and smirked. He wore a black tee shirt that stretched across the muscles in his chest, which I tried not to look at too closely.
“I stand corrected—not all of us are blessed to be living with a gourmet chef.”
“That’s actually not what I meant,” I said briskly. “I just thought, the way you were talking, you’d be leaving Redemption soon.”
He shifted his weight and frowned. “Not sure why you’d think that. I like it here. I’m thinking I may stick around. I even got myself a job.”
Oh great. Like I wasn’t trying to avoid enough people in this town, now I had one more person to stay away from. “A job?”
“At Aunt May’s. Dishwasher.”
Inwardly, I groaned. Mia and her meddling. Maybe he would have left if she hadn’t opened her mouth two nights ago. “Oh. Well, that’s good.” I started pushing the cart away. “I have to get going, but I’m sure I’ll see you around.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” he asked.
I gritted my teeth as I kept pushing the cart. “No, I think I’m good. Thanks though.”
“So, you don’t need any beer?”
Oh crap. I had almost forgotten. For a moment, I wondered if it was worth stopping at a liquor store on my way home, but did I really have the time? Daniel was going to be there shortly, and I knew Chrissy was anxious to get the pizzas started.
Trying not to show my displeasure, I turned my cart around and pushed it back. “No, you’re right. I do need beer.”
I could feel JD’s eyes hot on the back of my neck as I studied the variety of cans and bottles on display. What to grab? There were too many choices. I was kicking myself for not remembering what kind Daniel always ordered.
“Leinenkugel’s.”
I jumped. His voice was right by my ear. I could feel his breath tickle the hairs on the back of my neck.
“What?” I asked, stepping away. I wanted to scrub the back of my neck where his breath had touched, but I restrained myself.
He gave me a sideways smile, as if he was guessing my thoughts. “Leinenkugel’s,” he said again. “You’re buying beer for Daniel, right? Well, that’s what he drinks.”
How did he know that? Any of that? What Daniel drinks and that I’m buying beer for him? I snatched a twelve pack from the shelves, trying not to grunt in surprise at how heavy twelve bottles of beer were. “I just need beer,” I said lamely. “I don’t drink it, so I don’t know what’s good.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Thank you,” I muttered, dropping it into the cart and wishing I didn’t feel so self-conscious. “I appreciate the help.”
“Everyone likes Leiny’s,” he said. “It’s a good choice.”
I straightened, gave him a faint smile, and pushed my cart away, hoping he would take the hint and not follow me. He stayed where he was, and when I glanced back at him, he gave me a cocky smile, like he knew what I was thinking.
The Evil That Was Done (Secrets of Redemption Book 3) Page 8