A Family Affair: Summer: Truth in Lies, Book 3 (6 page)

As if anybody but his aunt would buy that story.

The doorbell rang at 10:52
a.m
. Tess used to set her watch fifteen minutes ahead so she arrived on time, but even so, she was invariably ten minutes late. Looked like that had changed. He wondered what else had changed since the last time he saw her. Cash sucked in a deep breath and eased out of the chair. The pill made his steps slow, the effort forced. He tried to shut down his brain, but the damn thing wouldn’t cooperate. Two more small steps and he opened the door.

The eyes grabbed him first, the color of dew-coated grass in the early morning. So clear, so true, he almost lost his balance.

“Hello, Cash.”

Same voice, but deeper, sexier, if that were possible. Her hair was shorter, cut just below her chin, parted on the side.
It looked blonder than he remembered. She still had a damn beautiful body, thinner he guessed from the looks of her arms and neck. No belly, small breasts, and just enough curve to mold to his body.

Eight years changed more than a person’s skin and hair. It changed things deep inside them
, sometimes for better, many times for worse. In Cash’s case, it was the latter, but she didn’t need to know that unless she’d already figured it out.

“Come in,” he said, amazed the words tumbled out in any form of coherence. She offered him a tentative smile, the kind she used to reserve for uncomfortable situations and people she didn’t know. Never for him.
The pill he’d taken earlier made him languid and stretched his muscles, which made it hard to maintain the posture he’d lived with since he became a policeman. Counting steps and the resolve she would not see him for the crumpled mess he’d become propelled him to his chair.

Tess took a seat next to him on the plaid
couch, her long legs tanned, toned, glistening. His gaze remained on them a second too long as he remembered the way she used to wrap them around his waist…

“Thank you for seeing me.”

So perfect. So proper. “No problem. Ramona said you had something to say to me.” He’d agreed to see her, but he had not agreed to idle chit-chat. She could ask her questions and then get out. Besides, if she stayed too long, the smell of her lily-of-the-valley scent would invade his lungs and smother the oxygen in the room.

“This is really hard, for both of us,” she stumbled, tried again, “but we need to talk about that night.”

Why wouldn’t she look at him, head on, eye to eye? Was she afraid of him? Afraid of what he might say? Or was she afraid of showing the pity she must feel for what he’d become? “Oh, you were pretty clear that night.”
I hate you
, she’d said.
You’re a murderer and I never want to see you again.

She shook her head and her blond hair shimmied and swung against her jaw. Very sexy. Did she know that? He guessed she did.

“I said horrible things to you, Cash. You didn’t deserve that.” Her eyes misted like they used to when she talked about things that really moved her; like how much she loved him. He did not want to see her pain. That would only be one more burden to carry and he was already sinking in his own misery. Knowing she hated him fueled his commitment to his job with an unrelenting fierceness he would not have possessed had a wife been waiting for him.

“You said what you felt at the time.” When had
he gotten so damn philosophical? Maybe too many days in a hospital did that to a person. “It’s done and there’s no going back.”
Though I’d give a body part to undo what happened.

Those
green eyes settled on his mouth and made his groin jump.
That
was not a welcome response. Feeling anything for Tess Carrick was dangerous, futile, and stupid, especially stupid.

“After you left
…” she started, stopped, looked away again.

Either she was damn good at lying or she really was hurting. The hell of it was, Cash couldn’t tell. Ironic, considering there’d been a time
when he could interpret what it meant when she twitched or scratched her nose.

Her voice dipped, smoothed out. “I did things that changed my life and
—” she paused, cleared her throat “—I’ve regretted those choices. Many times.”

“Stop.” He held up a hand to still her confession.
What had she done? Something tied to forgetting about him, no doubt? Had sex with his best friend? Nate was the closest person to a best friend he’d ever had, aside from Tess, and if she’d looked at Nate sideways, his friend would have hauled her to Cash and made her confess. Sex with a stranger then?

Now that could happen, and imagining another man’s hands on Tess made Cash angry, another emotion he did not want to associate with his ex-fiancée. But there they were—lust and anger squ
ashed into the same breath as her name.

Damn.

He could still get rid of her and deny whatever feelings were swirling in his gut, his brain, every part of him. Hadn’t he been denying those feelings since the second she told him she hated him? Cash shifted in the chair and winced as pain stabbed his shoulder.

“Cash? Are you okay?”

Pity from Tess? Hardly. “I’m fine.” He pushed past the pain and pasted a smile on his face. “But I don’t want to hear about any of your misguided choices. I’ve got enough of my own to carry, so you’re just going to have to deal with them yourself.”

“But—”

“No, Tess.” The years slipped away until they were kids again, about to be married, so much in love. And then it all crashed around them. “No,” he said again.

She ignored him
, her voice growing softer. “You deserve to know.”

What the hell did that mean? He deserved to know exactly how she’d loaded a few more rounds of ammo in the chamber to destroy
him. He couldn’t take it. “Some things are better left alone. Take my advice on that.”

She pulled her lower lip through her teeth and
zing,
he grew hard. Just like that. Now he was pissed. He had to get her out of here, out of Magdalena, too. As soon as possible. “So, when are you leaving town?”

She hesitated. “I’m not sure.” Pause. “I’m thinking a few weeks
; it depends.”

A few weeks as in fourteen days or was a few weeks twenty-one?
Or longer? That was too much time. He couldn’t risk it. “That long? Why?” He wanted her gone and out of his life before Pop Benito and his garden club crusaders tried to play matchmaker.

He must have sounded harsher than he intended because those eyes filled with something awfully close to hurt. “I have some things to take care of and I wanted to spend a little time with my mother.”

“I doubt Olivia needs you to babysit her.”

A splash of pink climbed her neck, settled on her cheeks. “I didn’t know my presence would
offend you so much.”

Offend him? That wasn’t exactly the word that came to mind. Bother him? Make him remember things he’d fought years to forget? Now that was a hell of a lot closer to the truth. Tess Carrick’s presence in the universe bothered him because no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t forget her—the softness of her hair brushing against his belly, the taste of her skin after they made love, the greenness of her eyes when she told him she loved him, the—
No!
If he didn’t stop now, he’d say something stupid, like how he wished things could have turned out differently, and if he were really crazy, he might even admit, once in a while, usually after several whiskeys, he wished they could have tried again.

Admitting any of those tragic truths would be no better than
a gun without bullets. So, Cash did what he did best when face to face with himself. He lied. He looked her straight in the eye and said, “Now you know.”

He was so thin.
Gaunt
would be a better word. All angles and slashes. He’d cinched his belt an extra notch but his jeans, at least a size too big, hung on his tall frame. The button-down shirt bunched at the belly, like there was too much material, or not enough man to fill it. Cash had always been lean, but he’d been a muscled lean. Now he looked weathered and sinewy, like skin with all the fat sucked out.

And still, he’d snatched her breath away.

She tried to convince herself the skittering heartbeat that kicked into gear the second she saw him—and didn’t leave until she’d pulled out of the driveway—was nothing more than shock mixed with sympathy. But that was such a lie. Beneath the ill-fitting clothes and opaque gaze, he was still Cash and
that
was dangerous. When he spoke, his voice had seeped into the tiny cracks of despair to the loneliness that lived in the center of her soul. Ramona had told Tess she was the only one who could save Cash. What the woman didn’t know was that Cash might be the only one who could save Tess.

Of course, that
wasn’t going to happen, not once he knew the truth about the baby and what happened afterward that had stolen her chance for a normal life. She would live with that pain forever and even if Cash grew to desire her, want a life and a second chance with her, she knew there would be none. Once she told him the truth, all of it, he’d discard her. There would be no more calling her name in delirious longing. There would be nothing but disdain. He would be done with her for good, and then he would move on, find a wife, have a family.

And that was exactly what Ramona Casherdon was counting on.

***

People came to Pop
Benito with their problems. He listened. He counseled in a roundabout manner that dropped insight into a person’s lap. He never divulged conversations or names. The town referred to him as “The Godfather of Magdalena” and that was fine by him.

He’d called a special meeting of The Bleeding Hearts Society because there was serious business that needed tending to, and it had to do with little Tess Carrick, who wasn’t so little anymore, and Daniel
“Cash” Casherdon, one of Pop’s favorites. Even if the boy hadn’t chosen a profession as a policeman, Pop would still put him on the keeper shelf beside his Sinatra albums. The boy had zing. He wasn’t zinging much right now, not with a bum shoulder, a bad attitude, and a “she done me wrong” heartache a mile long. But things would get better. Those two tragic lovebirds belonged together, and Pop vowed on his dear Lucy’s favorite Chianti that he would see it happened.

And that was the reason for the meeting.
Christine Desantro, bless her heart, had made the phone calls for him, read Pop’s “classified” letter to them, and driven Pop to the meeting. She was a member of the group, too, but between the baby and helping the town with budgets, loans, and overall money sense, she didn’t get to a lot of meetings. Pop could have made the two-mile trek because his hip was all healed up and he had new tennis shoes with extra bounce—but he liked spending time with Christine, and she’d probably bring Anna with her. That baby was the spitting image of her mama and dang but if Nate didn’t puff up proud whenever he saw her. Or maybe he was looking at his wife when he was puffing up. Or both. Didn’t matter. The boy was happy, and for a person who hugged doom and gloom for too many years, that was saying something.

With a little help,
Cash could end up just as happy as Nate. They used to be best buddies, until the horrible event that ripped a hole in the town and tore Cash Casherdon and Tess Carrick apart. But now, Cash was back in town, and maybe he was a bit banged up, but destiny often showed her face in times of adversity. That’s what his Lucy always told him. And a sprinkle or two of holy water helped ward off the bad times, too.

Pop sipped Mimi Pendergrass’s specialty hibiscus tea and picked up a slice of Miriam Desantro’s pumpkin roll. Ramona Casherdon was the
go-to person for refreshments, but since she wasn’t invited for soon-to-be-revealed obvious reasons, Christine had asked her mother-in-law to fill in. That was big of Miriam because she didn’t exactly condone The Bleeding Hearts, saying they were too busy poking in people’s lives and not busy enough tending their own. True, to a point.

Pop munched on the pumpkin roll, savored the cream
cheese filling. Miriam had Lily and Nate, and now Christine and Anna. Many of the group only had memories and each other, which made the goings-on of the townsfolk more compelling, kind of like watching a real-life soap opera. And the kick of it was that every now and again, The Society could tweak the outcome a bit and get a “happily ever after.”

T
hat’s what they were all here for today: figuring out the “happily ever after” for Cash and Tess, but before they could do that, there was the business of how Tess just so happened to drive into Magdalena when she hadn’t set foot here in eight years. It did make a person wonder if there’d been a snitch among them, but who?

“Pop?” Mimi Pendergrass saluted him with her mug of hibiscus tea. “We’re ready to start.”

Pop cleared his throat and scanned the table, taking in the familiar faces of the group. Of particular interest were Will Carrick and Bree Kinkaid. Will was Tess’s uncle and had been Cash’s boss and mentor. The man also had close ties to his sister-in-law, Olivia Carrick, Tess’s mother, and the ever-pregnant Bree Kinkaid had been best friends with Tess and was still friends with Gina Servetti, one of the only people allowed in the Casherdon home. Maybe Gina was there for physical therapy sessions, but maybe she’d been there for something else, too. Gathering and sharing information, which she’d passed on to Bree, who took it upon herself to contact her once-best friend. Somehow, that didn’t quite wash. Maybe Will had been the one to make the call to Tess. Poor man had always regretted what happened and even said he should have stepped in when JJ was out of line, but with a sick wife, he’d been tapped out in the energy department. Was this his way of tossing Cash and Tess together again? If it were, the attempt was about as lame as one of his jokes.

But
Will wasn’t the type to mix in other people’s business, necessary or not. So who was it?

“Pop
?”

“Huh? What? Oh, excuse me.
” He wiped his mouth with a napkin and nodded. “I been gnawing on a predicament for two days and I can’t seem to work my way to an answer. That’s why I called the meeting. Somebody here’s got to know something about how two people who haven’t set foot in the same state in eight years can both end up here in Magdalena at the same time.”

“You mean Cash and Tess, don’t you, Pop?”

Bree Kinkaid looked at him with those amber eyes and he wasn’t sure if she was just being movie-star dramatic or was too dim-witted to put the puzzle together. Hard to say with a husband who wanted her to pop out babies like a popcorn machine.

“That’s right, Bree. I’m talking about Cash Casherdon and Tess Carrick.” He adjusted his glasses and peered at the faces of the group. “That’s too close to be called a coincidence. I want to know who did it and why.”

Bree’s face lit up and she burst out, “So that’s why Ramona isn’t here! You didn’t invite her because you don’t want her to know.” Her voice dipped and she added, “Tess’s name is dirt to her.”

Mimi Pendergrass cleared her throat and shook her head with enough gusto to
bounce the shiny ball earrings she wore. “I still can’t think about that sad event without tearing up. I could hardly take down the decorations for their wedding reception, and when I had to scoop up the rose petals off the honeymoon bed,” she paused and blinked hard, “well, it was plain torture.”

“The cake was good
, though, wasn’t it?” Wanda Cummings piped in. “Glad we convinced Ramona not to throw it in the trash can.”

“
And I was eating Jordan almonds for weeks,” Bree said. “Even though the blue ones didn’t help in the baby department.” Her voice turned soft, wistful. “But Ella Blue sure is a daddy’s girl.”

“Th
ere’s no sense reliving bad memories. Best to let them lie and move on.” This from Will Carrick, who rubbed a work-roughened hand over his jaw and frowned. “I’ve been wondering the same thing as you, Pop. How did Tess end up here after too many years of pretending we don’t exist?”

Will h
ad a bead on that niece of his, and Pop would bet his new crop of parsley the man had a bead on his sister-in-law, too. Olivia Carrick was a tough bird but she had to be with a daydreamer like Thomas Carrick. The dang man could tell a good story fluffed with terms like
gonna do
and
want to do
but he never quite grasped the idea of
did.

Will, on the other hand, was a man of action, duty, and his word. When MS finally took
his dear Julia two years ago, Will mourned her something fierce, but eventually, he realized he had to move on or smother in his own misery. That’s when he’d started hanging around Olivia Carrick’s, fixing a door for her, painting the mailbox. Didn’t fool Pop. He could spot a dog on the hunt from across town. Not that either one of those two recognized the ritual for what it was, but maybe now with Olivia having some sort of health issue (according to Wanda whose daughter spotted Olivia in the waiting room of the imaging center at Magdalena General two weeks ago), the two might get closer.

Pop scratched his jaw
, considered the possibilities. “I can’t picture Olivia calling up Tess and telling her about the tests she had done.”

“Tes
ts?” Bree glanced around the table, clearly confused.

Mimi waved a hand in the air, dismissing Pop’s comment. “Some female tests. And Olivia’s too practical to call her
daughter home to hold her hand because of a test or two.”

“Unless,” Bree
Kinkaid said in a swoosh of secrecy, “it’s bad news.”

“Stop it, Bree.” Will Carrick threw
her a stern look, another mark in Pop’s book that said something was brewing between that man and his sister-in-law.

Pop would think about those two later. For now, he had to get to the bottom of
Tess’s sudden arrival in Magdalena, so he could start working on a way to get the two lovelorn birds together again. “Show of hands. Did anybody at this table contact Tess Carrick about her mother or,” he paused, “her ex-fiancé?” They all shook their heads. “Okay, then we’ll chalk Tess’s return to destiny and go from there.”

“And where exactly would you be heading?”

“Will, you know the boy better than most of us. He’s had his hide beaten, been shot at and shot up. I hear he’s got a bum shoulder and a disposition that makes the old Nate Desantro look like a charmer. Remember Nate a few years back, miserable and wanting the rest of the world to share in his misery? Lily was the only good thing in his life, the only person he cared about other than his mother.” His voice softened and he said, “And then Christine drove into Magdalena, unannounced and unwelcome, kind of like Tess. Look what happened to them? They’re so in love they could do ads for one of those match-maker places.”

Mimi coughed. “Not exactly, Pop, but we get the idea.”

“Good, because I want you all to think about that picture and remember how Nate was not exactly keen on poor Christine, and how Christine didn’t want nothin’ to do with any of us. But then things changed and that’s my point. Tragedy can pull even the most unlikely people together and give them a second chance if they let it. I say Cash and Tess have never stopped loving each other and it’s up to us to make them realize it.”

“That is just so sweet.” Bree sniffed and rubbed her big belly. “I don’t know if it’s hormones or the story, but I think I’m going to cry.”

Mimi reached across the table and patted her hand. “There, there, dear. Pop’s right. Cash and Tess belong together and this town’s got to help make that happen.”

***

Christine tossed a handful of twigs and leaves in an old red wheelbarrow. She’d spent the last hour cleaning up the backyard from the debris that winter had left behind. Clumps of wet leaves, twigs, skinny branches, even wispy balls of paper-thin hydrangea flowers lay scattered on the wet ground. Nate hadn’t wanted her to slop around in the mess, had said he’d take care of it this weekend, but the fresh air cleared her lungs and her head, and it was good for the baby, too.

Anna
sat propped in her stroller, bundled from the chilly spring air. This yard was so different from the one in Chicago that was dressed and adorned with manicured shrubberies and hand-selected flowers. Gloria had always insisted on gardeners who could match the color and tone of the season to the shutters and brick on the house. How exactly did one do that? Christine often wondered if her mother interviewed the candidates and made them submit sample portfolios. Of course, the yard was beautiful and wonderfully accessorized, but no one ever visited it. All that color and beauty wasted. How sad was that?

Nate and Jack Finnegan had planted four bags of bulbs in the backyard last fall. Hyacinth,
daffodils, tulips, and allium. She’d wanted to help, but Nate absolutely would not hear of it, as though a pregnant woman had never dug in the soil before. Apparently, he thought his wife should be relegated to supervisor in a “point and plant” capacity. Christine had let him fuss over her, because what pregnant woman doesn’t like to be fussed over? The fussing hadn’t stopped after the baby, though. Nate respected her need for independence but he took every opportunity to make her feel special and loved: fresh-brewed coffee and croissants in bed, lavender soap made by Jack Finnegan’s youngest daughter, special-order winter gloves for the sub-zero weather. And then there was the way he cherished her body, with a tender fierceness that stole her heart
and
her breath…