“I’d rather not discuss politics at the dinner table.” Mr. Biddinger held the serrated carving knife at an odd angle.
“Addy’s pageants mean just as much to me as any campaign stop, if not more. Go ahead and reserve a seat for me. Where are you getting your formal wear?”
“Trudy’s. She makes the best dresses.”
“Yes, she does.” Audrey sipped wine. “If Mom and Dad don’t object, I’d love to pay for it when it’s ready.”
“Since when do you care about pageant dresses?” Adam chimed in. “You were always more interested in scribbling in that notepad and wreaking havoc across town.”
Adam stared hard back at Audrey, who hadn’t paused in dishing up sweet potatoes on her plate. Sally placed her hand on Adam’s arm.
“I care about Addy and what she loves to do. Just as I care about you and the things you love.”
Peacemaker is back at it.
So she’s more willing to defend herself with her family than she is with people in her hometown. Something didn’t add up, but the tension around the table thickened with every spoonful.
Adam snorted and plopped green beans onto his plate before passing them and serving up corn. “Don’t use that politician schmooze with me. You already know I won’t be voting for you. You don’t give a sh—” A quick glance to his mother stopped him with a stern look. “…crap about what I love. Nor anyone else’s.”
“Adam…” Myrna’s warning, though soft, was just as forceful.
“White meat or dark?” Paul announced. “Pregnant ladies first. Pass me your plate, Sally.”
“White, please. Thank you.” Sally smiled as Adam picked up his wife’s plate and handed it over.
“I was thinking royal or cobalt,” Adelaide continued the passing plates. “I think one-shoulder would look best with crystals across the bodice and then ‘flowy’ silk cascading in the back, like a waterfall.”
“That sounds gorgeous,” Ethan broke in. “That color blue would really bring out your eyes.”
Everything paused at the table as everyone stared at Ethan. Adelaide’s smile beamed across at him. His attention was pulled away with another squeeze on his wrist and Audrey gave him a wink.
A corner of his gut tightened at the sight. Her legs and curvy figure had nothing on that wink. It could melt a man’s skin in the middle of the Arctic. Ethan bet only a spare few people in her world received it.
“Ethan!” Paul barked.
He jerked his head up. “I’m sorry. What?”
“White or dark?” the man asked roughly.
“Both please.” He passed his plate.
“That explains a lot,” Adam muttered as he shoved half a roll into his mouth. He barely moved when Adelaide elbowed him in the ribs.
“Ethan, dear,” Myrna chimed in with an upbeat voice. “Tell us about yourself. Were you born in Texas?”
Not that Ethan wanted the conversation directed at him. He avoided talking about his past and the questions everyone inevitably threw at him. But he had to play this part if he was going to get something out of this family. And there was no missing Audrey’s intent gaze at the question, which made his mouth a little dry.
“In Houston. Got my undergrad at UT Austin. Then my Masters at Brown before I started at the
Dallas Morning Journal
.” Simple as possible. What kind of questions can they come up with from that generic response?
“Are your mother and father still in Houston?”
Damn.
He squirmed in his chair and cleared his throat. “No, my mom passed away a few years back and my father left for Chicago a long time before that.” Forcing his voice to stay flat and unemotional had become second nature over the years when this topic came up. Particularly as he bit the inside of his mouth to push the resentment back down his throat.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Myrna replied with sincere sympathy. Ethan relaxed when she quickly changed the subject. “Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?”
“I was on the Yearbook Committee in high school and realized journalism was my forte.” A bite of turkey almost dissolved on contact in his mouth with a sweet flavor only a premier chef could identify. “This is delicious. What did you marinate this with?”
“Cream sherry,” Audrey answered for her mother with a smile, followed by a bite herself.
“And a few other things,” Myrna added.
“Audrey was on the Yearbook Committee at her high school, too,” Adelaide interjected. “For a while.”
“Yeah, during the brief times she wasn’t terrorizing the village and breaking hearts.” Adam sat back in his chair.
“Audrey was a heartbreaker?”
“Yeah, but she looks way different now,” Adelaide clarified. “I’ll show you.” The kid darted out of her chair.
“Not right now, Addy, please.” Audrey put down her fork and shook her head.
In less than five seconds, Adelaide bounded back into the room carrying a thin brown leather book and flipped the pages. “This is her senior yearbook. Daddy says she was a ‘rebel’ rouser.”
Ethan chuckled at the term while Adelaide found the page she wanted. When she passed the book to him, he reached out with wide eyes and a lopsided grin.
“Addy, does this really have to be done at the table?” Audrey went to swipe the book from her sister’s hands, but Ethan jerked it away. The woman flushed and pursed her lips, in that adorable way only little sisters could create.
Across the page were color photos of the senior class, and toward the bottom, mixed among bright smiles, black robes and perfectly coiffed hairdos—Audrey’s dark blue eyes beamed out, crossed, with red and blue strands streaked through her short hair, slightly longer than pixie cut. All it needed was a tongue sticking out, and she would have been the perfect fourth stooge. Larry, Curly, Mo and Bozette.
Ethan laughed and looked back at Audrey, trying to find the resemblance in her now-dark hair plummeting past her shoulder blades. “This is hardly the usual senior portrait.”
“Exactly.” Audrey tried to yank the book out of his hands. “That was the point.”
He pulled the book out of her reach and read the text beside her photo. “Audrey Biddinger, Personal motto: ‘Think outside the cage.’ Aspiration: Art school.”
“Art school. Politics wasn’t your plan from the beginning?”
As the table fell silent, Ethan’s eyes caught the photo to the left of Audrey’s. Adam. The young, unwrinkled and easy smile on the adolescent Adam’s face didn’t match anything he saw in her brother today. It took a second for Ethan to remember the two were in the same grade. He read the text to himself.
Adam Biddinger, Personal motto: ‘Never back down.’ Aspiration: Army officer.
That part fit perfectly with the image Adam embodied today. Another second went by before Ethan realized the table was still silent. Not even the sound of utensils clinking on the plates.
“Nope,” Adam answered for his sister. “She stole that dream from someone else, among other things.”
“Adam,” his mother whispered.
“More like living the dream
for
someone,” Audrey replied softly, spooning corn between her teeth.
A fork clanked as Paul put down his silverware and crossed his arms, staring at his only son. “You really want to talk about this right now?”
“It’s clear Adam doesn’t approve of my profession.” Audrey kept her voice even and tender. As if defending herself in her childhood home required careful plotting, just like any politician delicately considered each word before they spoke. “And I can’t change his mind.” Audrey wiped her mouth with a napkin. “But either way, I’m proud of him and what he’s accomplished. You’re living your dream. But I take it you don’t care that I’m happy for you. It’s clear you’re holding onto an anger so deep that nothing I say or do will ever be good enough for you to be proud of me. Or at least accept me. And I’ve accepted that. I’m not here to have you approve my decisions.”
“Then why are you here?” Adam crossed his own arms and stared harshly into Audrey’s empathetic eyes.
“Because I love you. You’re my family, no matter what happened.”
“You’re a liar.”
Audrey’s jaw clenched, the muscle twitching up behind her ear, and the empathy in her eyes now faded into bitterness. “I never lie.”
“You sure as hell chose a profession that required it. It made sense to me when I heard you were running for office.”
Ethan swallowed the food in his mouth and leaned back slightly. This was no simple sibling quarrel. Audrey Allen, the candidate, never grew defensive. But with family, Ethan knew better than anyone these could be the most painful and vicious.
“You’re one to talk,” Adelaide bit out.
“That was different,” Adam replied without taking his eyes off the target of his anger.
“What are you talking about?” Audrey glanced at Adelaide, who looked warily at her father.
Sally pushed a green bean across the plate with her fork, holding Adam’s clenched fist on the table. When no one answered, Audrey turned to her father. “Adam ran for an office?”
Paul leaned back in his chair and sighed. “He ran for sheriff last year.”
Audrey blanched. Seeing her surprised was a different angle than Ethan expected from her. Audrey Allen knew everything that went on her district, had responses for every difficult question before they were even asked. But apparently not within her own family.
This was getting better with every second.
Then why am I not as excited as I thought I would be?
“And?” Audrey waited for Adam, but he clearly bit his tongue hard inside his piercing scowl.
“He lost, sweetie,” Myrna replied sadly.
“I’m sorry. Sheriff Mallory has held that position forever. He’s a hard man to beat.”
“No, Mallory retired. Adam ran against Billy Buck.” Paul picked up his fork and shoved in another bite of turkey.
“Billy? The guy who toilet-papered every cheerleader’s house in high school?”
Her father grunted and took a sip of wine.
“Well…was it close?”
“No,” Adam bit out.
“But…you’re army. Billy never served, did he? What was his campaign strategy?”
Her family all looked down at their plates, except Adam. His glower darkened over the steaming plate of food. This guy screamed for anger management courses.
Ethan took a small sip of water, something to fill the uneasy silence.
“No one voted for the brother of a murderer.”
Ethan snorted what little liquid was in his mouth. Before he dropped the glass, he managed to set it on the table and stared, dumbfounded.
Murderer? Talk about a fucking bombshell.
The room roared with silence. Instead of defending herself as Ethan expected from the prodigal politician, she gaped at him, with a touch of moisture at the corner of her eyes. There was no movement in her chair, except for the slightly faster lift and drop of her chest. Eventually, her eyes dropped to the table.
“You have nothing to say now, do you?” Adam glared at her. “Miss Always-Have-Something-To-Fight-About is finally speechless.”
“I’m sorry he used that against you.” Audrey’s voice lowered an octave. “Guess he figured throwing lies like that was his only chance at beating you.”
“I never had a chance!” He pounded his fist on the table, clattering every dish and spilling droplets of wine on the tablecloth. “It doesn’t matter who I am, what I do, or my experience. My potential has already been determined because of you!”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Adam.” Keeping her voice calm and steady in the face of a screaming madman was the mark of any true negotiator or mediator—or a sister who truly loved her brother. If anyone screamed in Ethan’s face like that, he normally matched their volume with insults or threw a punch. Especially in his drinking days. That’s why Audrey was the one running for office, not him.
“Don’t placate me,” Adam spat back.
“I’m not. I hope you don’t think that of yourself. I know how great your potential is, even if some people here don’t.”
“So now the people in this town aren’t good enough for you? You sayin’ you’re better than everyone in this place?”
“Not at all. But clearly they don’t have a clue what really happened that night and chose to make up their own conclusions.” The pause in her voice showed the ache in her heart. “I thought as my only brother you knew me better.”
Adam threw his napkin down onto his plate and pushed his chair back. Lifting his husky frame out of the chair, he leaned his fists on the table and glued fiery eyes on Audrey. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re just an unwelcome guest in my parents’ house.” His fury switched to Ethan for a second. “With another sorry fool at your side bound to suffer the same fate.”
Raising her chin to meet his gaze, Audrey refused to react to Adam’s dig.
“Why don’t you do us all a favor and leave? It seems that’s what you do best.”
Adam’s feet clomped on the wood floor as he stormed out of the room and down the hallway toward the back porch. The screen door squealed and banged against the white siding, and then slammed shut.
“You told me Adam lost because Billy Buck had more advertising money,” Adelaide said to her mother softly. “Audrey didn’t murder anybody. Did you, Aud?”
Only Ethan and Adelaide waited for Audrey to respond, but she clearly wouldn’t open her mouth now. The faraway look in her face as she looked at the empty chair across from her was all she would give. A last wipe of her mouth with her napkin, Audrey stood slowly, taking her wine glass with her.
“Mom, everything is delicious, as always. But I’ve lost my appetite. Excuse me.” Leaving her plate full of food, her footsteps were mere taps on the planks as she climbed the stairs, and the distant sound of her bedroom door closed.
Good God, the story here was epic. As was the pain, resentment, and a need for family therapy. But as the journalist inside Ethan drooled over the potential story, a stronger urge to follow Audrey upstairs and hold her gripped his conscience.
“Ethan.” Myrna cleared her throat as she quietly said his name. “As you can tell, this family has been through a lot. Small towns are notorious for talkin’ and pretty soon a small creek is as wide as the Mississippi. But no matter how false rumors are, squashin’ ’em is like unringin’ a bell.”
Chapter Twelve
There weren’t enough wine bottles or warm blankets in the world to comfort Audrey as she curled up on her old mattress and tried to shove her shoulders as far into the corner as they would fit. Her mother had painted over the smudges on the wall where she’d used to doodle with a pencil—her usual juvenile coping mechanism.