Secrets of the Riverview Inn

by Molly O'Keefe

  “Okay,” Josie said, still not looking at her.

  “A lot happened last night. Do you want to talk about it?” Josie rolled her head to look at her and Delia could see the aging that had happened in her little girl’s eyes. The world looked different out of those eyes this morning, Delia could tell, and she’d do anything to make that go away—but she couldn’t.

  “Not yet,” Josie said.

  Delia nodded and stood, respectful of Josie’s limits.

  “Mom?” Josie braced herself on her elbow. “When you left for France, were you planning on coming back?”

  The floor dropped out of Delia’s thoughts. “Of course, honey. I was never going to leave for good. Why?”

  “Did you have a boyfriend over there?”

  Suddenly Delia knew where Josie was going with this and she shook her head, stepping to the side of the bed again. She stroked her daughter’s arm, despite the nonverbal cues indicating she wanted no such thing. Maybe her daughter had been calling the shots a little too often lately. “I haven’t dated anyone since your dad and I broke up.”

  Delia searched Josie’s eyes for some kind of clue to how Josie was processing this, but she couldn’t tell anything.

  “Did your dad tell you that?” Delia asked.

  Josie nodded and Delia wished, not for the first time, that her ex was here to strangle. She already felt bad for revealing the worst of Jared’s crimes, she wasn’t going to compound things by arguing with Jared through Josie.

  “He was wrong,” she said simply. “Very wrong. I love you and I loved your daddy. When we were together there was nothing more important than that.”

  Josie nodded but didn’t say anything further and Delia didn’t know if she believed her or not, but she took the questions as a good sign that Jared had fallen from the pedestal Josie had him on.

  “Mom? If Daddy is a policeman, why did he do those things to you?” Josie’s eyes were liquid and confused. “Aren’t policemen good guys?”

  No, Delia wanted to say. The badge only makes them powerful, it doesn’t make them trustworthy. And it certainly doesn’t make them good.

  “Most of the time, honey.” She hedged for her daughter’s benefit. She checked her watch again and winced. “I have to go to work for a little while. You can stay here and watch TV until I get back. Then we can do something fun.”

  “Finish Max’s shed?”

  To her horror she felt herself blush at the mere mention of his name. Her whole body went hot at the memory of last night. She knew she should feel guilt, something, on account of the one-sidedness of it all, but she couldn’t muster the feeling up.

  She’d slept like a baby, her body buzzing with life and a core-deep glow. Guilt really was the last thing she felt.

  She felt intrigued and fascinated by the man. Sad, for him and whatever demons he carried. But mostly she was attracted.

  If he’d thought walking away from her would somehow shame her or convince her that he wasn’t worth the trouble, his plan had backfired.

  Gloriously.

  “If Max wants our help, sure,” she finally answered, feeling like a schoolgirl at the thought of seeing him again.

  What would he do? What would she say? It was deliciously high school and she loved it.

  “Are you going to date Max?” Josie asked, and Delia sputtered.

  “What? Honey, what makes you say that?”

  “I don’t know. Just seems like maybe he likes you or something.”

  Delia’s brain was an empty vacuum. She hadn’t received the script for this conversation. She didn’t even know where to begin.

  “I’m just saying it would be okay,” Josie said, flipping the covers off her legs and getting up to turn on the TV.

  “Well,” Delia said, that core-deep glow spreading out into her hands, the ends of her hair. “I’m glad you approve.”

  Delia had been hoping that JoBeth would be the kind of client who liked silence while getting massaged.

  No such luck.

  “It’s lovely here, isn’t it?” JoBeth asked. “Those boys did such good work. I still can’t believe they built this place with their own hands.”

  Delia hummed some kind of affirmative response. She couldn’t vouch for Gabe, but Max was exceedingly good with his hands.

  Get your head out of the gutter, she chastised herself. But inwardly she was grinning. Which was ridiculous really, considering how he’d left last night. She had a feeling he wouldn’t be so reluctant to finish what was started the next time the opportunity came up.

  And it would.

  She was sure of it.

  JoBeth’s lower back and hips were a mass of knotted tissue and, Delia would bet, deep emotional scarring. She wondered if the woman had lost a baby.

  Delia put a few drops of lavender in the oil she cupped in her palms and applied her hands to the spine and put her thumbs in the center of the knots, working them out slowly.

  “My goodness,” JoBeth said, lifting her head to look at Delia. “I thought these were supposed to be relaxing.”

  “Sorry, I’ll ease up on the pressure.” She ran her fingertips across the area she’d just abused. “Do you have a lot of lower back and hip pain?”

  “Yes, you can tell that?”

  “Sure.” Delia smiled. People underestimated the power of massage all the time. “How about your stomach?”

  “Sheila says I carry my stress in my stomach.”

  “Well, that’s translating to the rest of the muscles in your core. You’re a bit wound up along those areas.”

  “Sheila says I walk around like I’m waiting for someone to punch me in the stomach.” Something in JoBeth’s voice was a bit watery, and while it wasn’t uncommon to have a client cry from the emotional and physical release of a massage, Delia had barely started.

  “You’re on vacation,” Delia said, slowly working more pressure into her hands. “You shouldn’t be feeling stressed.”

  JoBeth didn’t say anything and Delia hoped it might be a trend for the remaining forty-eight minutes.

  “So, how are the boys to work for?” she asked almost immediately and Delia nearly groaned. But the client dictated the session so she and JoBeth discussed the brothers and Alice and the upcoming baby.

  “Now,” Delia said at the end of the massage, rubbing her thumb across the bridge of JoBeth’s nose and down across her cheekbones. “Be sure to drink lots of fluids and take it easy for a while today. Tomorrow you might be sore.”

  “I’m sore now.” JoBeth laughed and opened her eyes. Delia smiled into them and stepped away from the table. She helped the older woman sit, clutching the sheet to her naked chest, and walked toward the door to give her some privacy.

  “For a restaurant manager and a former cop, the boys sure do know how to give guests their money’s worth. Who would have guessed—”

  Delia blinked, her stomach lurching. “Who is a cop?”

  “Max.” JoBeth ran her fingers through her silver hair, unaware that she was pulling Delia’s world down around her. “Or he was, anyway. Until that incident with the teenager.”

  Delia had to brace herself against the wall to stand. “What incident?” she whispered.

  “Are you okay, sweetheart? You’ve gone quite white.”

  “What incident with the teenager?” she asked again, not caring how she sounded. Only caring, only thinking she’d been duped by another cop. Nausea gurgled through her and she put her fingers to her mouth.

  She’d trusted another cop. Another—

  “He killed a teenager,” JoBeth said.

  Delia gasped.

  She’d trusted another killer.

  Delia marched, a woman possessed, a woman in full control of her rage and anger, through the inn. Dangerous, her cousin had said, and now she believed it.

  “Have you seen Max?” she asked Chef Tim in the kitchen and he looked nervous at the sight of her. “Have you?” she barked, and he hastily shook his head no.

  Memories of
last night, the ones that had kept her warm all morning long, that for hours had not embarrassed or bothered her, filled her with shame.

  She’d opened her legs for a man who lied. She’d practically begged him to put his bloody hands all over her.

  “Where’s your brother?” she asked a startled Gabe and Alice in Gabe’s office.

  “Max?” Gabe asked, wide-eyed.

  “Do you have another one?”

  “No. But—”

  “Where the hell is he?” she yelled, fraying at all corners, losing her grip on everything. Thank God he didn’t know where she was from or that her husband was a cop. If he had known she had no doubts, none, that Jared would be here right now.

  The pain of that imagined betrayal was stunning and she gathered that up in her stomach, mixing it with the rage and lust and shame.

  “Delia?” Alice stepped beside her, carefully laid a hand on her shaking shoulder, and Delia wished she could slap that comforting hand away. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I’m just looking for Max.”

  “Did something happen during JoBeth’s massage?” Gabe asked. “What is with the woman that she keeps upsetting everyone?”

  Delia turned and left the office, heading for the back door. He was probably out in his clearing anyway.

  But she came to a dead stop in the middle of the kitchen—her brain turning to mush, her blood to ice water.

  Her worst fears were confirmed.

  Through the window of the door she saw, out in the parking lot, a brown sedan with police lights and across the doors in bloodred letters it read County Sheriff.

  “Well, I thought I’d get a good look at them myself. Get my own description of them. You know as well as I do that there are a lot shades of red hair,” Joe said, sidestepping the snow Max was shoveling out of the small parking area behind the kitchen. “Unless you’re planning on coming down to the office every day. In which case, you might as well take—”

  “For crying out loud, Joe,” Max said, leaning against his shovel. “Give it a rest. I don’t want the job.”

  Joe just stared at him, his old eyes saying Oh, really? loud and clear.

  “I don’t.” Max shook his head and went back to shoveling, sweat running down his spine, despite the cold. The furnace at work in him was churning out enough heat to keep him sweating for days. “And you better get going before this snow gets much worse. We’re supposed to get a foot by afternoon.”

  “Well, what about the girls? Fresh reports come across the wire every day, Max. And you haven’t even told me what we’re looking for. If this woman is committing a crime—”

  “She’s not.”

  Guilt was feeding coal into this fire in him. He believed he’d done the right thing yesterday, investigating Delia and Josie. But now, after last night, it felt wrong.

  He trusted her and wanted to help her and going behind her back wasn’t the way to get that done. If she found out, she’d kill him, destroying the chance for any future kissing in dark rooms.

  Something he’d been obsessing about most of last night and this morning.

  He couldn’t get her out of his head. Her scent was on his hands, the feel of her was burned into his skin. He wanted to close his eyes and spend the next twenty years replaying those twenty minutes in the dark last night.

  But, in terms of going behind her back to Joe and the national database, it wasn’t as though she’d left him with much choice.

  It wasn’t the most nefarious thing in the world to protect your family, he tried to convince himself through the guilt.

  But it was nefarious to lie, go behind her back, protect his family then do what he did on the bar last night.

  He needed to start over with her. From scratch. And he couldn’t do that while investigating her.

  Max buried his shovel deep under snow and strained to fling it over his shoulder. “I got a little overeager,” he told the sheriff. “But if I find out more, or the situation changes, I’ll bring you in. Don’t worry about it.”

  Joe grumbled and shoved his wide-brimmed hat down farther on his head. “You got your head so far up your ass, boy, you don’t even know what the situation is.”

  Joe got back in his cruiser and pulled away, kicking up gritty snow as he drove off. As Max turned back to shoveling, something flashed in the window of the kitchen door and all he saw was Delia’s red hair as she ran away.

  He charged through the kitchen.

  “Hey,” Gabe said, stepping out of his office. “Delia was looking for you.”

  “I know,” Max muttered, hitting the door to the dining room in time to see her charge up the stairs. His brother followed him.

  “Delia,” Max cried. She didn’t stop so he tempted fate and reached for her arm. “Stop, please—”

  His fingers barely grazed the flesh of her arm before she turned and shoved him.

  “Don’t you dare come near me,” she snapped. She turned again, heading up to her room and who knows what kind of trouble. He knew if she got away from him now, she’d be gone for good. And he wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. Not with her taste still on his tongue.

  He jumped around her and stood in her way.

  “Delia, what’s wrong?”

  He didn’t touch her, but he made it real clear that her little body, fueled by whatever anger she had for him right now, wasn’t a match for his size.

  She glared at him. “Get out of my way.”

  “I got all day, Delia, and you’re not getting past me. So, tell me what’s going on.”

  “What was the sheriff doing here?” she asked.

  “He’s a friend.”

  Her laugh was coated in poison. “Oh, I’ll just bet he is.” She stepped right, and he mirrored her, not letting her pass.

  “You’re a cop!” she yelled. Her hands were fists at her sides and her eyes spit daggers at his heart. “I should have known,” she cried, putting her hands in her hair, fisting them in exasperated rage.

  He wanted to ease those fists, stop her from pulling her own hair, but he couldn’t touch her.

  “Who else gets shot?” she asked, clearly mocking herself. “Cops, criminals and soldiers. That’s it. You lied to me,” she bit out.

  He shook his head, feeling like a member of the bomb squad and not sure which wire would calm her down and which would make her explode. “I was a cop. I’m not anymore.”

  “Don’t play word games, Max.”

  “It’s the truth.” He held out his hands. “I was a cop up until two years ago.”

  “Okay.” Her sarcasm lashed at him. “How about you tell me the truth about that scar.”

  They leaned forward at the same time and her fingers actually grazed his neck, leaving a trail of fire across the tissue that was just as hot as the bullet that had caused it.

  “I told you the truth yesterday,” he said rubbing at his neck.

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re so clever, aren’t you? Dodging all my questions, while getting me to answer all of yours, pretending to be so righteous.”

  “What do you want to know?” he asked, beginning to lose his temper. He wasn’t righteous. Or clever. He was feeling awkward, lost, unsure of what she wanted. Unsure of what he wanted.

  “What happened to the teenager? The kid with the gun.”

  Here it was. The words he didn’t say. He could keep his silence, let her go, thinking the worst while he strangled on these words. Or—

  “I shot him.”

  The words exploded out of him, startling both of them. He didn’t look away from her. He didn’t let either one of them off the hook. Her eyes went wide, then narrowed in disgust and horror.

  “That’s not the whole story, Max,” Gabe cried. “You can’t keep—”

  “I quit, Gabe,” she said, interrupting him. “You’ll have to find someone to replace me.”

  “Max,” Gabe nearly moaned. “What did you do?”

  “Apparently,” Max said, his eyes still locked to Delia’s, “I’m
a murdering cop bastard, just like, I am finally figuring out, her ex-husband.”

  Delia’s expression shut down. “I’m leaving right now.”

  This time when she tried to get past Max, he let her go.

  Better this way. It was always going to be better this way, with her leaving. He’d been stupid to think otherwise.

  “Delia?” Gabe said.

  “Let her go,” Max said.

  “No.” Gabe shook his head, the look in his eyes the same as when they were kids—before Max got bigger and stronger than him and some bully on the playground picked on Max. Gabe, his older brother, his savior and protector, would rush in and defend him. “She’s not leaving here thinking the worst of you.”

  “It doesn’t change anything,” Max said.

  Gabe’s eyes were so sad, they hurt as much as the judgment in Delia’s. “Of course it does,” he whispered, then looked over his shoulder to focus on Delia where she’d stopped on the stairs.

  “Believe what you want, Delia,” Gabe said. “But Max saved a woman and a baby that day and he nearly died doing it. He left the force a—”

  “Don’t, Gabe—”

  “A hero. Damn it. Can we just talk about this? Finally. You’re a hero.”

  Max felt his insides turn to water, his bones to air. Delia stopped on the stairs and his whole body, as it had since he’d met her, was tuned to hers and he could feel her tension. Her urge to run. Her heavy feet.

  Killed. Teenager. Wife and mother. Hero.

  His ears rang and the air buzzed as if gunshots had been fired.

  “Max?” Delia asked, her voice still skeptical, still touched with her anger. And rightfully so.

  He didn’t answer. It was hard enough to breathe. Why were all these people here, anyway? Couldn’t he relive his own private nightmare alone? Without his brother and the woman he feared he was falling, stupidly, in love with, as witnesses.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why did you lie about this?”

  “I could tell,” he whispered. “I could tell how you felt about cops and—” he took a deep breath, determined to be honest…for once “—I didn’t want you to feel that way about me.”