Mending Fences (25 page)

Even as the fantasy played out, she sighed. She knew that if Evan had been home, she wouldn’t have done it. She wouldn’t turn into the kind of person who took the law into her own hands, but she wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to!

Calmer now, she turned onto her own street, into her own driveway.

Inside, she mechanically went about making tea, then sat down at the kitchen table and thought about all the times she would have gone running to Marcie after a day as monumentally bad as this one. She could have told her about blaming Grady for something he’d had no part in. She could have discussed the fury that made her want to hurt the young man who’d hurt her child. But that young man was Marcie’s son, so how could she?

Tears welled up as she thought about the months it had taken to get to the truth, the weeks of torment she and Derek and Dani had gone through preparing to go
to trial. And now it was all going to be over with a flick of some judge’s pen. It didn’t seem right or fair or just.

Grady had insisted it was for the best, but how could it be? Anything that ended with Evan getting one second less than the maximum sentence possible wasn’t for the best. How could she be with a man who thought it was?

And how was she going to tell her daughter that the system that was supposed to protect her, that the man who’d promised her justice, had failed her?

Grady stood in the hallway outside of the courtroom where Evan’s hearing had been held. Lauren and Dani had both spoken passionately about what had happened to them and about the effect it had had on their lives, but in the end both had agreed to the deal that would give Evan another chance.

Based on their testimony and compassion, the judge had agreed to the plea to lesser charges. He’d sentenced him to serve time in a minimum-security prison for a year, then added years of probation on the condition that he successfully undergo psychological counseling and change his behavior around women. Any misstep would send him back to prison.

Grady had thought it a fair deal, but one look at Emily’s seething expression told him she disagreed. She wouldn’t even look at him, as if she somehow blamed him for the case being resolved with a plea bargain rather than a trial.

As he waited for her to emerge from the courtroom, Naomi joined him. “Dani’s mom doesn’t look too happy about this,” she commented.

“She’s not.”

“Even though Dani agreed?”

“She seems to think Dani’s being too easy on a boy she once cared about.”

“Is Emily taking it out on you?”

He shrugged. “Looks that way.”

“Well, you know what I think? I think she blames herself for not seeing what was happening right under her nose and seeing Evan sent to prison for years and years was going to be her way of making up for not protecting Dani.”

Grady regarded her with surprise. “I hadn’t looked at it that way.”

“Because you’re not a woman. Give her some time. She’ll come around and see that this was the best solution for everyone.”

Just then Emily, Derek, Josh and Dani came through the doorway. Derek gave him a curt nod. Josh came over and shook his hand. But when Dani started toward him, Emily halted her.

“Dani, we need to go,” she said tersely.

“But—”

“Now,” Emily said, not looking at him at all.

Beside him, Naomi gave a dramatic shiver. “Now that was just plain cold,” she said.

“I don’t need you to do a play-by-play,” he said. “I got the message. She’s still unhappy with me.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I wish to hell I knew,” he said. Regretting that he desperately needed the advice, he glanced at Naomi. “Flowers?”

“No way.”

“Chocolates?”

“Not enough in the world.”

“What, then?”

“Time,” she said, then grinned. “And maybe some heavy-duty groveling.”

“But I didn’t do anything,” he protested.

“Do you want to be right or do you want to make things right?” she inquired.

He sighed heavily. “I’ll get back to you on that.”

“When are you going to give in and call the man?” Paula demanded a few weeks after Evan’s hearing and Emily’s breakup with Grady. “He’s left at least one message every day since Evan’s sentencing.”

Emily stared morosely at the stack of term papers in front of her and tried to work up some enthusiasm for grading them. “I’m not going to call him. That’s why I tore up all the messages.”

“Maybe you should explain to me again why you’re so mad at him.”

“Because he let Dani down,” she said tersely. “What happened in court wasn’t justice, not for Dani or Lauren.”

“None of that was Grady’s call. Why are you blaming him?”

“Because he’s convenient,” she admitted. “And because he went along with it as if it were just another case to get crossed off his list.”

“I doubt he saw it that way. I know how hard that man worked to make sure that Evan could be successfully prosecuted. So do you.”

“I suppose,” Emily said, though she didn’t want to concede even that much. It was easier to blame Grady than to admit that she was the one who’d truly let Dani down by not intervening before her crush on Evan had had such disastrous consequences.

Paula studied her. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Are you really angry with Grady—or yourself?”

Startled that Paula had read her so easily, she sighed. “Myself,” she admitted in a small voice.

“And don’t you think that’s just as ridiculous as blaming him?”

“It’s not!” she insisted. “We both let Dani down.”

“Is Dani mad at either one of you?”

“No. In fact she’s been pestering me every since we left court to call Grady so she can go over to his house and check on her landscaping. She’s relieved that all of this is behind her.”

“Then apparently she’s forgiven both of you. Or, perhaps, she understands that there’s nothing to be forgiven.”

“I failed her.”

“She doesn’t seem to think so,” Paula said reasonably. “Call Grady. Try being as grown up as your daughter and let him off the hook.”

“I’ll think about it,” she promised. “That’s the best I can do.”

Since eating crow wasn’t in her nature, it was just as well that she found Grady waiting for her in the parking lot that afternoon. He was leaning against her car, wearing faded jeans, a tight T-shirt and aviator sunglasses that prevented her from reading his expression. She wanted to snuggle up to all that hard masculinity and beg him to forgive her for being a stubborn idiot, but of course, she didn’t.

“Finding you loitering in the school parking lot is getting to be a habit,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “Should I report you for suspicious behavior?”

His lips curved slightly. “I wish you wouldn’t.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Naomi suggested for the thousandth time that it was time for me to start groveling. I got tired of the nagging.”

Emily had to fight the smile tugging at her lips. “Really? I wouldn’t mind seeing you grovel. Are you any good at it?”

“I doubt it. And I’m not entirely sure where to start, since I don’t have a fix on exactly what I did wrong. Maybe you could help me out.”

She’d thought about little else for weeks now, but she still didn’t have a reply that made a lot of sense. She offered the best she had. “You crossed the mother hen in me,” she said. “And made me feel a thousand times guiltier for not doing more to prevent what happened. If I’d been on the job, Evan would never have been alone with my infatuated daughter.”

“You do know it wasn’t your fault, right?”

“I want to believe that.”

“Well, believe it.”

“So, where do we go from here?” she asked, her heart in her throat. Surely the fact that he was here meant he hadn’t given up on them.

“Your place?” he inquired, grinning. “Or mine?”

It was time to seize the moment, but she couldn’t seem to get the words out.

“Come on, Em. Say something. I do okay on body language, but I can’t read your mind.”

She reached up and removed his sunglasses. “You sure about that, Detective? Take a guess. What am I saying?”

He moaned. “Don’t look at me like that, not here in the school parking lot. I’ve been waiting for a while to see a spark like that in your eyes. Your timing sucks.”

“Did I mention that Dani is staying after school for cheerleading tryouts for next year?”

His expression brightened at once. “No, you didn’t. You’re sure she’s not coming home right away?”

“She’s been really, really looking forward to these tryouts,” Emily said. “They usually take hours. And I know she’s anxious to talk to you about how your yard is doing without her constant monitoring. That gives us hours to kill doing, well, whatever we can think of to do.”

“Then it makes perfect sense for the two of us to go home to wait for her, right?” he inquired hopefully.

“Perfect sense,” she agreed. “You going to meet me there?”

“No, I’m taking you with me. I can use the siren and flasher.”

“Isn’t that illegal or something?”

“Don’t ask.”

“Who knew you harbored the soul of a break-the-rules kind of guy?”

“Yeah, who knew?” he said. “Now, will you please hurry?”

He didn’t have to ask twice.

When Emily came home from work a month after Evan’s sentencing and after the Carters had moved away, Grady was in the backyard with a shovel. She admired the view of his bare shoulders for several minutes before crossing the lawn to drop a kiss on his cheek.

“What are you up to?”

“Josh and I thought we’d have this done before you got home,” he said, linking her hand with his, then pressing a kiss to her knuckles.

“Have what done?”

“This,” Josh said, rounding a corner of the house with a huge fuchsia bougainvillea that he placed in front of the gap in the hedge. “We’re mending fences.”

“Moving on,” Grady added. “Okay with you?”

She thought of all the good memories that would be left behind with the bad. “So many years,” she said with regret.

“You don’t have to forget everything,” he reminded her. “And we’ll make new memories.”

She thought of the promise she’d made to Marcie right before she and Caitlyn had driven away. The two of them would come back for visits. They were only moving across town, after all. They would make fresh memories together. Good ones.

Dani joined them just then and linked her fingers through Emily’s.

“Do it,” Dani said softly. “It’s time, Mom.”

Emily blinked back tears. Her daughter was so incredibly strong, and she was smart enough to see that the present and the future meant more than a past that couldn’t be changed.

“Yes,” she agreed, her eyes locking with Grady’s even as she gave Dani’s hand a squeeze. “It’s time.”