Charlotte dipped her brush into the paint and applied it to the trim. It took several swipes to cover the marks, and each swipe made her feel a bit more melancholy. It was ridiculous to care about a house that she’d spent most of her childhood wanting to get out of. But she did care, and the emotion surprised her.
Her parents had lived in this house for thirty-four years. She’d been born here, and every big event of her childhood had been celebrated within these walls. But life was changing. Her father had died almost a year ago, and soon her childhood home would belong to someone else. It was ironic that that someone was her high school boyfriend, but Andrew was the new minister, and the house belonged to the church.
Andrew Schilling had generously given her mother three months to find a new home. After a thorough search, her mother had decided to buy a house on Ravenswood Lane, a few blocks away. Charlotte had agreed to move there with her for the foreseeable future. They didn’t make the best of roommates, but since she’d talked her mother into taking in a pregnant teenager, she could hardly leave her mother and Annie to fend for themselves. So the three of them would live together. She hoped they wouldn’t kill each other.
“Hey Charlotte,” Annie said as she walked into the room. “Your mom said to tell you that she’ll meet you at the new house.”
Annie was a pretty eighteen-year-old who was seven months pregnant. Three months earlier, she’d left home, desperate to get away from her father, a disabled veteran with psychological problems. Carl Dupont had abused Annie, and in confusion and despair, she had thrown herself into the bay. Fortunately, she’d been rescued and had immediately regretted her momentary insanity. Charlotte had met Annie in the emergency room, and upon learning of Annie’s situation, she’d convinced her mother to allow Annie to live with them until she had the baby and could find a way to support herself.
“Is there anything else I can do?” Annie asked. “Otherwise, I’ll walk over to the new house and help your mom start unpacking.”
“No, you’ve been a great help.” What had surprised Charlotte most about Annie coming to live with them was how well her mother and Annie got along. Monica Adams had taken Annie under her wing like a mother hen, and had never offered the slightest criticism or judgment about how Annie had foolishly gotten herself pregnant. Apparently
other
people’s daughters could make mistakes.
“I really appreciate your letting me stay with you in the new house,” Annie said.
“It’s no problem. We’re happy to have you.”
“Your brother sent another email today. His note
was so sweet, it made your mom cry. He said that he dreams about her barbecue chicken and potato salad, and that he never thought he would miss her so much.”
How like Jamie to remember to compliment their mother. She really should take a page out of her brother’s book once in a while.
“He sounds really nice,” Annie said quietly. “I didn’t think he would be.”
Annie had been terrified to sleep in Jamie’s room when she’d first moved in and realized he was a soldier. Annie’s father still lived up in the mountains, roaming the woods with a shotgun, fighting the war in his own head. But since Annie and Charlotte’s mother had started reading Jamie’s letters together, Annie had begun to see that not all soldiers were crazy.
“Jamie also wrote me a little note welcoming me to the family. Not that I’m in your family or anything,” Annie added. “You know I don’t think that.” She gave Charlotte a worried look.
“You
are
part of our family, Annie. My mother has practically adopted you.”
“Well, just till the baby comes, right?”
“Don’t worry, no one will be kicking you out anytime soon. My mom loves having you around. And she’ll adore having a baby in the house.”
“But I need to go to work and make some money after the baby comes.”
“You have time, Annie—really. My mother
doesn’t need rent money, and she loves to cook for you. You make her feel needed, and that’s a tremendous gift.”
“I need her more than she needs me.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” After her husband’s death, her mother had needed someone to take care of, and Charlotte was too busy defending her independence to be that person. “Oh, and don’t forget there’s a baby shower tomorrow for my friend Kara. I’d love for you to come.”
“I can’t go, Charlotte. I’m sorry.”
“Are you sure? It will be fun. You can’t hide forever.”
“All those ladies will be looking at me and gossiping.”
“The easiest way to stop the gossip is to name the father of your baby.”
Annie frowned. “You know I won’t do that.”
Charlotte did know, since she and her mother had been trying to convince Annie that the father bore some financial responsibility, but Annie had refused to give a name. She’d worked for a cleaning service in town prior to her pregnancy, and rumors were flying that one of the clients might be the father of her baby.
“I’ll see you at the house.” Annie moved toward the door, clearly eager to avoid further discussion.
Charlotte put another coat of paint on the trim, then took her paintbrush into the kitchen and ran some water through it. She was just drying it out when she heard the front door open.
“Anyone here?” Andrew called.
“In the kitchen,” she yelled back.
He walked in and set a bag of food on the counter, giving her a smile. “I hope you’re hungry. I got Chinese food for two.”
“I can’t stay. I need to help my mother.” While Andrew seemed interested in pursuing a relationship with her, she wasn’t sure she wanted that. They’d had a brief romance in high school, but that was years ago, and the fact that Andrew was a minister now didn’t play well in her mind. She certainly couldn’t see herself as the minister’s girlfriend, or the minister’s wife.
“You can stay for a few minutes, Charlie,” Andrew said firmly.
“Well, maybe a few.” She leaned against the counter as Andrew pulled out cartons of food. He was dressed in casual tan slacks and a button-down blue shirt tucked in at the waist. His blond hair was cut short and with a little gel flowed back in perfect waves. He always had a freshly shaved look and a scent of cologne about him, and she had to admit that his smile still had the ability to make her heart beat a little faster.
“You left the plates behind,” Andrew said in surprise as he opened the cupboard. “I thought we were going to have to eat out of the cartons.”
“Those are new plates. My mother bought them for you, along with some glasses and silverware for four. She didn’t want you to walk in and have nothing to eat on.”
“That was very generous. I’ll reimburse her.”
“You can try,” she said with a smile.
He smiled back. “Okay, I’ll just say thank you.”
“Good call.”
“So how do you feel about all this, now that moving day is here?”
“Weird. Strangely sad.” She gave a little laugh. “I hated this house for most of my teenage years. It was prison, and my mother was the warden.”
“But there were some good times, too.”
“Yes, there’s a lot of history in these walls. The new house will never be home. Christmas won’t be the same without the tree in the corner of the living room by the fireplace. It’s ridiculous. I’m a grown-up—I shouldn’t care.”
“You don’t have to give up this place entirely. You can always visit me. Help me buy furniture, decorate.”
“I’m not good at any of those things. That’s my mother’s area. I’m sure she’d be happy to help you.”
He heaved a dramatic sigh. “When are you going to give me a break, Charlie?”
“A break from what?”
“From me asking you out, and you saying no.”
“We can’t recreate the past, Andrew.”
“I don’t want to do that. I’m talking about the future.” He moved toward her and put his hands on her waist. “I like who you are now. I like who I am. We could be good together.”
Maybe they could be. But if she ever got seriously
involved with Andrew, she’d have to get seriously honest with him, and there were some things in her past she didn’t want to bring up. “It wouldn’t work. You have a reputation to maintain. I know what it takes to be the minister in this town and to be the woman at his side. That woman could never be me.”
“You don’t have to be your mother. There are all kinds of minister’s wives, but I’m not talking about marriage,” he added quickly. “Just dinner—you and me—where we go to a restaurant and sit down and maybe have some wine.”
“Let’s start with
this
dinner and see how we do.” She stepped away from him and started dishing out the rice.
Andrew pulled out a chair and sat down. “Is there someone else?”
Joe Silveira’s face flashed through her mind. He was not
someone else.
He was the chief of police. He was married. But he sent her blood pressure soaring, a fact she tried very much to deny. “No,” she said, realizing Andrew was still waiting for an answer.
“That took you a while,” he said with a contemplative expression.
“I’m concentrating on my career and my mother right now. That’s all I can handle at the moment.”
“How is Annie doing?”
“Good. She’s getting along great with my mother. And I must say I’m surprised that my mom can be so open-minded about Annie’s teenage pregnancy,
when she was so . . .” She bit off the rest of her sentence, realizing she was getting into dangerous territory.
“So what?” Andrew prodded.
“So rigid with me. Remember my curfew? It was ten o’clock when I was sixteen years old. Talk about embarrassing—everyone made fun of me.”
“We still managed to have some fun,” he said with a mischievous smile.
She gave him a warning look. “I can’t imagine how you’re going to counsel the teenagers in this town, having done what you did.”
“I think it will help me.” His expression grew serious. “I know what they’re feeling.”
“So you’d tell them to wait?”
“I would,” he said, meeting her gaze.
“Do you regret that we didn’t?”
He thought for a moment. “I think I do. Not because it wasn’t great, but because if we hadn’t crossed that line back then, maybe you’d be more willing to give me a chance now.”
“You think I won’t go out with you because you took my virginity?” she asked in amazement. “I’m not holding that against you.”
“What about the fact that I slept with someone else three days later? Not my finest days.”
“True, but those weren’t my finest days, either.” And she wasn’t talking about what had happened with him. “Let’s eat before this gets cold.”
“All right. When we’re done, I’ll practice my sermon on you. That way if you fall asleep during
the service tomorrow, you won’t miss anything.”
She made a face at him. “That was just once, and I was up all night delivering a baby. As I recall, you were talking endlessly about apples.”
“I was talking about temptation,” he corrected.
“Well, you tempted me to fall asleep.”
“That’s why you need your own personal minister: to keep you on the straight and narrow.”
“I tried to walk that line for eighteen years, Andrew. I failed.” She put up a hand to ward off any pep talk. “Enough about us. What gossip have you heard lately?”
“I can’t tell you what I hear in confidence.”
“How about what you hear at the café?”
He grinned. “Well, this morning I overheard Mary Harper tell Lucy Schmidt that you got a boob job. And how it was so sad, because men didn’t marry women with fake breasts.”
Her jaw dropped, and she felt even more uncomfortable when Andrew’s gaze fell to her chest. “They’re real. You
know
they’re real. Mary Harper said that so you’d overhear her. She has her eyes on you, so watch out.”
“I’m not worried—because I have my eyes on you.” His gaze moved once again to her chest. “They
are
a little bigger, Charlie.”
She threw her napkin at him. “Okay, dinner is officially over.”
When Lauren returned from the police station, she found her father dozing in his favorite recliner. She shut the door softly, watching him thoughtfully. It was no secret that he’d favored Abby with his attention, but his money—that surprised her.
She’d been surprised a lot in the past few days. She’d thought she knew the people she lived with, the people she loved. But they were showing new sides of themselves, making her doubt that she’d known them at all. She hated the idea of Mark Devlin’s movie, but she had to admit he was stirring things up.
She set her purse on the table, and her dad started. He opened his eyes, blinking against the light, as he stretched his arms over his head. “Lauren,” he murmured with a yawn. “You’re back.”
Thank God he knew who she was.
“Where have you been?” he asked as he brought his chair back up into a sitting position.
“The police station.” She sat on the couch. “I met with the chief of police, Joe Silveira. He’s reviewing
Abby’s case.”
Her father looked pleased. Would he be so happy if he had something to hide? She might as well find out.
“Chief Silveira mentioned a bank deposit that you made the day Abby died,” she continued. “You put eight hundred dollars into her account.”
“He asked me about that the other day. I was starting to save for her college education. She had a couple of years of high school left, and I wanted to put some money aside.”
His answer seemed truthful. And he wasn’t acting as if he’d done something wrong, which disturbed her on another level. “Why weren’t you putting money aside for my college?”
Surprise flashed in his eyes. “You wanted to go to the community college and work at Martha’s Bakery.”
“I wanted to go the Culinary Academy, but I didn’t think we could afford it.”
His mouth turned down. “You’re angry about the money.”
“I know you and Abby were close, but why was her education more important than mine?”
“It wasn’t more important. I don’t remember ever hearing that you wanted to go to the Culinary Academy. But Abby and I used to talk a lot about her dreams. I wanted to be a marine biologist when I was young, too, but there wasn’t enough money for me to go to school. I wanted to give Abby what I missed out on. It’s not that I didn’t want to help you,
Lauren. I thought you had what you needed. You seemed happy.” He gave a little shrug, as if he’d never understand her or get it right.