Sam nodded, those gold-flecked, green eyes swallowing her whole. “Kate’s had a hard time sleeping. She’s terrified of the rain, especially the thunder. Ben hasn’t let her out of his sight. I think he’s even sleeping on the floor in her room—that’s whenever she sleeps.”
“Did Ben tell you this?”
“Not in so many words, but I’ve been bringing them lunch and dinner.”
“That’s right, Michael told me you bought a restaurant. We drove by it.”
Sam glanced at Kate. “Yeah, I did. I wish I could do more for them other than drop off club sandwiches, hot dogs, and chicken tenders. I’m just trying to do whatever I can. This…Sara’s…It’s hit everyone hard.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said, the words barely a whisper.
Her body was screaming to say more. Maybe it was the journalist inside of her, or maybe it was the eighteen-year-old girl she’d been, but she wanted answers. Why had he left her bed? What had transpired between that moment and seeing him in the hospital parking lot?
What had happened all those years ago?
Why didn’t he tell her he had a girlfriend?
Why did it feel like he had loved her?
Why did it all have to come rushing back?
The door to the Tudor opened, and her brother and Michael stepped onto the front porch and the gravity of the situation sunk in. Whatever she felt for Sam, she needed to lock it up and hide it from her heart. Bigger issues were at play. Life and death. Her brother was on the brink of a breakdown. Her niece was without a mother. She had crashed her career into a brick wall. Matters of the heart would have to wait, but she couldn’t let this moment pass.
She glanced at the men on the porch. She had less than a minute if she wanted to say something to Sam in private. She held his gaze. “Sam, I’m sorry. Those things I said all those years ago in the parking lot, I…”
His body tensed. “Let’s leave that buried in the past.”
The May air hung sweet and heavy around them. Hints of the Midwest humidity and the promise of the summer to come floated around them, holding them close, but just far enough away to keep them apart.
She nodded. “Okay, we’ll leave it in the past.”
It wasn’t the answer she wanted to give. But she sensed to keep this man in her life moving forward, it was the answer she had to give.
His shoulders loosened. “I know Sara’s death can’t be easy on you, Zoe. I know you’re going to give everything you’ve got to your brother and Kate. What can I do to help you get through this?”
I need you! I need to know why you left me!
Zoe pushed the thoughts aside and reined in her heart. There was one thing she could ask of him.
“I’d like it if we could be friends again.”
Sadness or maybe regret, flashed in his eyes before he smiled that perfect easy grin she’d loved since she was just a girl not much older than Kate.
He reached out to touch her but stopped as if some invisible forcefield existed between them. He dropped his hand to his side. “I’d like that, too.”
9
Present Day
“Suzie, you are very kind to share your husband with me,” Zoe said and sank into a chair at the kitchen table of a cozy Lawrence, Kansas, bungalow.
Suzie Baxter, the wife of her colleague and fellow Kansas Public Radio reporter Cameron Baxter, patted her ample, pregnant belly. “I mostly waddle around the house at this point. As long as I’ve got my bananas and tortilla chips close by, I’m pretty content.”
Zoe cringed.
Suzie shook her head and laughed. “Cam might as well be of use to you while he can. We’ll both be in a world of sleep-deprived craziness once this baby decides to make an appearance.”
Zoe leaned forward and squeezed the woman’s hand. “I appreciate it, Suz. It takes a special kind of gal to allow her husband to run off to a couples retreat in the middle of nowhere with another woman.”
Suzie chuckled. “Pregnancy has sure made me open-minded—or maybe I’ve just lost my damn mind with all these hormones surging through my body.” She rubbed her belly. “But in all seriousness, Zoe, do you really think the girls at that detention center near the retreat are being abused?”
Zoe sat back and stared hard at a small scuff on the wall. She wanted to be wrong. But the little bit of digging she’d been able to do had revealed similar abuse scenarios at the Kansas facility as she’d reported on years ago at the Newcastle facility in Virginia. But this time, she wasn’t going to get ahead of herself. This time, if what she feared was true, she’d need to get it right.
No anonymous sources. She needed undeniable, hard evidence.
After Jack Riggs had fired her from Zipline Media, her teenage source from the Newcastle detention center had died from a drug overdose, and the girl’s mother had blamed her. The woman had sent a scathing letter to her at Zipline, not knowing she’d been fired and had left the city. Agnes had forwarded it on to her in Kansas. Thirty seconds after she’d read the gut-wrenching note, she’d pulled the KPR station director’s number out of her purse and asked for an interview that day, vowing to never be reckless with another person’s life again.
Suzie cradled her belly. “Cam told me a little about the story you’re working on. I hope that’s okay. I’d never say anything. I know how it goes being married to a reporter.”
Zoe nodded. She could trust Suzie. Cam had been her first friend at KPR. He and his wife had welcomed her with open arms. She’d started at the public radio station six months after Sara’s death and lived in her brother’s carriage house for almost a year until she got a small studio apartment about an hour away in Lawrence close to the station. Despite the horror of Sara’s death, it proved to be the perfect cover for why she’d chosen to leave the fast-paced D.C. media circus.
Her family. Her niece. Her brother.
Reporter extraordinaire, the noble Zoe Christine Stein, left the big leagues of Washington, D.C. to report on Kansas school board meetings, 4-H’s prize-winning cows, and small town festivals.
But when she’d caught wind of a privately owned girls’ juvenile detention center tucked away in the open prairies and farmland not far from Sadie’s Hollow where they’d partied as kids, a shiver ran down her spine.
Any reporter worth their salt knew that the real scoop was rarely found by the individual out front, waving their hands and begging to be heard. Most often, it’s the person who wanted to remain hidden that held the answers to the real story.
Zoe had met that person. Specifically, she’d met another teenage girl who would only share her first name—Maggie.
A few months ago, Zoe covered the opening of a Boys and Girls Club in Kansas City. It was the usual smile and cut the ribbon event, but her attention wasn’t on the city councilman and his lovely wife. Her reporter’s eye had settled on a hunched over teen in the corner. When Zoe had seen the girl rub her wrists, a twisted sense of déjà vu had nearly knocked her off her feet. Zoe’s D.C. source’s wrists looked the same. The restraints used at the detention facility left the exact S-shape scars on the girl’s skin. Zoe abandoned the ribbons and speeches and spent the rest of the afternoon with the girl.
The teen had just gotten out of the Garret Grove Juvenile Rehabilitation Center for Girls, or GiGi as the girls called it, which was just a fancy name for a girls’ detention facility. Maggie had recently been placed with a foster family and, Zoe knew, despite what you often hear in the news or on TV, the majority of foster families are loving people who want to help kids. After a hellish stint in the detention center for an arrest stemming from being a passenger in a car she didn’t know was stolen, Maggie had landed in a safe place with good people and wanted to keep it that way. That meant she didn’t want to rock the boat and was adamant about remaining a confidential, unnamed source.
Contact with Maggie was spotty at best, but from what the teen did reveal, the parallels between the facilities were uncanny—no counseling, forced restraints,
isolation, strip searches by male personnel. And just like her teen from the Newcastle facility, this frightened girl didn’t want to go on the record. Like Zoe’s D.C. contact, Maggie had a friend, another foster kid who was still inside, and she didn’t want to do or say anything to jeopardize her friend’s safety.
You talk, your friend gets hurt—a despicable tactic used by abusers since the beginning of time.
But in the last few weeks, Zoe had hit a brick wall. Sometimes Maggie would respond to her texts. They’d met up a few times, but after their last meeting, Zoe knew she needed more. She needed to get into the facility. But calling in for a visit with press credentials was the quickest way to walk into a dog and pony show.
No, she needed a covert way to get close, and that’s when she found Intimacy Now: A Couples Retreat. Located on a farm in rural southeast Kansas, the website had described it as a spiritual place to enhance a couple’s marital connection. But to Zoe, it was the closest she could get to the detention facility without anyone knowing her real intention. The farm, which sat on a few thousand acres, butted up to the detention center, and Cam had agreed to join her and pretend to be her husband.
“Ah! My harem,” Cam said, entering the kitchen. He kissed the top of Suzie’s head and took the seat next to his wife.
“You wish,” Suzie said then tensed and leaned forward.
Cam held his wife’s hand. “Are you okay, babe?”
Zoe smiled. Cam and Suzie were the best. High school sweethearts who’d kept that love going through college and were now expecting their first child. She couldn’t help imagining what would have happened if Sam had stayed in her bed. She would have gone to visit him in New Zealand. Hell, she would have followed him all the way to Antarctica if he’d asked. It was a painful, useless exercise imagining all the years they could have had together.
Could have—but didn’t. He’d had a girlfriend. But there had to be more to the story. She felt it in her bones. Still, more than a decade later, she didn’t know the answer. Those years had remained buried, neither she nor Sam willing to dig up the past.
She shook off the childish thoughts and reached into her pocket. “I have rings!” she said, scattering five bands in shades of silver and gold across the table.
Cam held up his left hand, his wedding band glinting in the light. “I’m good.”
Zoe shook her head. “No, that’s your real-deal ring with Suz. Thanks to eBay, I was able to get a bunch of rings. Dumped people sell them way cheap.”
“Hold on a hot second,” Suzie said, eyes wide. “These are all rings from people who have broken up?”
Zoe nodded. “Oh my god! I’m like the Pied Piper of marital misery, collecting tokens of heartbreak and human suffering! I never realized how sad that is.”
Suzie met her gaze, and the women broke out into laughter.
Cam shook his head and tried on a silver ring with a braided band. “Clearly, you think I’m some kind of giant with enormous hands, Zoe. I’m not sure if any of these are going to fit.”
She stared at the ring. This set of his and hers braided matching bands was her favorite. She shouldn’t have had a favorite. This was all for a fake marriage. But this set didn’t come from some random, heartbroken online seller like the rest. She’d seen these bands in a little antique store’s window and purchased them on impulse a few days ago. These rings seemed to call to her. The shop’s owner said they’d come from a couple married almost sixty years. She didn’t know if that was true, but she bought them anyway and added them to her collection for Cam to try.
“Oh!” Suzie’s smile changed to a grimace.
Zoe got up and rubbed the woman’s back. “Suz, I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t have made you laugh so hard.”
“No, no, I’m fine,” she said, rising to her feet. “If I walk a bit, things usually simmer down.”
Cam stood, but before he could get to his wife, a pool of water had formed at her feet.
Suzie’s eyes went wide. “Oh, Cam!”
“It’s okay, babe!” he said and glanced to Zoe. “Zoe…I…”
She put up a hand. “Cam, you don’t need to say anything. You guys are having a baby.”
Suzie’s brow furrowed. “I’m not due for ten more days!”
Cam patted his wife’s back. “The doc said we’re in the safe zone. It’s going to be okay! The baby’s fine!”
Suzie looked up. “Zoe, I’m sorry!”
Zoe met the woman’s gaze. “Suzie, this is like biology and vagina-ology and woman-ology! You have nothing to apologize for!”
Suzie chuckled through the contraction. “I don’t think the last two are real words, but I get what you’re saying.”
Zoe did her best to smile. Of course, she was happy for her friends, but this was the last week in October and the last week for an Intimacy Now couples retreat until the following spring. From the strange booking options available on the website, it looked like they were closed from the beginning of November until mid-March.
Her mind went to work, planning her next angle. She could always show up alone. For Christ’s sake, it was a retreat for unhappy couples! There had to have been at least one person who had gotten ditched by their partner and shown up alone.
“What can I do to help?” Zoe asked as Cam ran back and forth between the kitchen and the bedroom.
He shared an apprehensive look with his wife. “I think we’re good. Bags are packed. The car’s all gassed up.”
Zoe swiped the rings off the table and slid them into her pocket. “All right, you two! I’ll leave you to it! Go kick some parenting ass and have a baby!”
10
“Sam, we’ve got a special order for gluten-free pancakes.”
Sam crossed his arms and surveyed the restaurant. Brunch at Park Tavern was in full swing. Families enjoying omelets, French toast and fresh fruit smiled and laughed, oblivious to what it took to make it all run like a well-oiled machine. He turned to the teen holding an order ticket. “Why are you waiting tables, Jonah? You’re supposed to be a runner today.”
The kid nodded. “Yeah, but TJ didn’t show up again, so Addison’s been going back and forth between hostessing and taking orders. I’ve been trying to help out where I can.”
Sam released a tight breath. “Addison didn’t mention anything to me about TJ not showing up.”
Jonah shrugged his shoulders. “She’s probably just trying to cover for her friend.”
Sam nodded. He did his best to hire kids who needed a little direction. Jonah had been living with his mother in a women’s shelter in Kansas City when Sam had brought him onboard. Over the years, he’d hired teens in foster care placements and on probation. TJ had been referred to him by a social worker. She’d been a great employee until about two months ago.
“Sam?” the kid asked. “The gluten-free pancakes?”
“Yeah, yeah, take the ticket to the kitchen.”
Jonah zigzagged past the tables and into the back of the house where the Park Tavern staff was prepping items to go out onto the brunch buffet. Sam did another once over of the main dining area when his eye caught the calendar hanging behind the bar, and it hit him. He’d returned to Langley Park six years ago today.
Six years.
Six years since he’d stopped running.
The muscles in his body tensed. While he couldn’t imagine being anyplace else, he’d never planned on coming back. Not after all the heartbreak. Not after the complete and utter clusterfuck he’d left in his wake.
Six years ago, his father had left him their little bungalow on the west side of Langley Park. Saying that the gift of the house surprised him was way more than an understatement. He and his father had never been close. All the time he’d spent abroad was a way to put some distance between them. But the old man had changed. The bitter edge he’d carried when Sam was a kid had disappeared. The reason was simple—the man had found love. He’d met a woman online. He’d sold what was left of his fledgling local moving company and bought a
one-way ticket to Phoenix to raise cacti with a divorcée named Sheila.
So, Sam had come home ready to sell the bungalow and then get the hell out of Dodge.
But that’s not what happened.
Before he’d ventured to his childhood home, he stopped by the old German bakery where his younger brother had worked one summer. He was particularly fond of the bakery’s owner, a regimented, no-nonsense German woman named Gerda Becker who insisted everyone call her Oma—grandmother in German.
He could still remember their conversation. He’d come in for a German chocolate cupcake and noticed a restaurant had opened catty-corner across the street from the bakery. He’d asked Oma if she knew anything about it. To this day, he still remembered her exact response.
“You youngsters come and go! Do you think I have time to know the business of everyone in Langley Park? Some of us work, Samuel! If you care so much, go see for yourself. I have strudels to make!”
He’d bitten back a grin, taken his cupcake—still the best damned cupcake he’d ever tasted—and had followed Oma’s advice when a blast from his past hit him full force. The same rich kid who had owned the bar he’d carried Zoe out of all those years ago owned this place—Park Tavern—and was looking to sell.
The guy had recognized him on the spot—which wasn’t too surprising. He was six five with red hair. Guys like him weren’t falling from the sky. But the man had offered him a beer on the house, and they got to talking. The trust fund baby shared that he’d gone through a string of bars and restaurants—all tanking. He’d thought a restaurant in Langley Park would be a no brainer. There wasn’t anything besides a pizza shop and an ice cream parlor in the town center. He’d figured a restaurant would do gangbuster business, and that’s when Zoe’s words came rushing back.
“After you’re done saving the world, you’re going to open a restaurant in Langley Park, and I’ll eat there every day.”
Zoe Christine Stein.
Fucking hell.
The Complete Langley Park Series (Books 1-5) Page 115