“What? That’s not fair. Melissa and her kids are the ones that deserve a new life. Doesn’t anyone care if they get killed?”
“We live in a backwater county where there’s only one murder a year, Patricia. Witness protection isn’t a high priority. Besides, more often than not, these women go out looking like suicides.”
My heart beat in my ears. “What do you mean?”
“The suicide rate is off the charts around here.”
“Then my mom . . .” My voice petered into silence.
“May not have been a suicide.”
I stared at him. The breeze lifted a piece of his gray hair. His blue eyes were rimmed with red.
“You didn’t have anything to do with Mom’s death, did you?” I couldn’t forget Candice’s accusations.
He shook his head. “Not directly. But I’ll always wonder.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I should have never let her go that night. It was foolish of me even to mention it.” He shook his head and wiped a hand across his forehead, back in another time.
“Tell me what happened. Please. You have to.” I grabbed his hands. Up in the cedars, birds chirped. My horse reached her nose over the fence and whinnied. Puppa opened his mouth to speak.
From the direction of the barn, I heard Samantha’s voice. “Hey, Tish! Come and see!”
24
I tore my gaze from Puppa to watch Sam jog our way.
“Go on and visit with your friend, Patricia,” he said. “We can talk later.”
I gritted my teeth. Sam had terrible timing. Go away, I felt like telling her.
Sam reached us, bubbling over. “There’s a peacock, Tish. And roosters. And a llama.”
Goldie nickered again.
Sam turned. “What a gorgeous horse!”
Back away from the fence, Barbie, I seethed in my mind. Sam was driving me nuts and it hadn’t even been one day. August couldn’t come soon enough.
She gave Heaven Hill Gold a pat on the nose, then turned and grabbed my arm. “Come on. You’re going to love it.”
My feet slapped the ground in defiance at each step as she dragged me to the barn. Inside, we checked out the new stalls Joel and Puppa had put in. Even in my foul mood, I couldn’t help but laugh at the roosters with their bobbleheads, and the peacock, who tried chasing us off with a shake of its plumes.
We found the llama in a high-fenced pen adjoining the back of the barn. Sam and I ran hands through the animal’s thick wool.
She smiled at me. “Tish, I’ve never been to a farm. Thank you for bringing me along tonight.”
My heart melted as I put myself in Sam’s muddied shoes. She had the happiest disposition of anyone I knew, even though she’d suffered her own share of poor choices.
“I’m really glad you’re here,” I said. “We’re going to have a great summer together.”
“We really are.” She rubbed the llama’s ears. “I couldn’t help but wonder what you were talking about tonight regarding that Melissa woman. Is there anything I can do to help her?”
“What a situation. Poor thing. My grandfather’s already doing as much as he can.”
“Joel caught me up on some of the details. I hate the thought of her living in that house with her husband’s buddies hovering over her. Let’s sneak her out of there. She can live with us at the lodge.”
My hands dropped to my sides. “Absolutely not. We’ve got enough trouble worrying about your ex-husband. We do not need Melissa’s baggage coming after us too.”
“Oh. Brad told you about Gill, huh?”
“Well, yeah.” I looked at her with an expression that said “duh.”
“Then you see why I want to help Melissa. We have so much in common.”
“I doubt it. Somehow I can’t imagine you staying with Gill as long as Melissa’s been with Drake. And she’s still reluctant to go.”
Sam stiffened, her hands tucked deep in the llama’s wool. “I look like I’ve got it all together, don’t I? But you’d be surprised. I was with Gill for almost ten years before I had the courage to break free.”
I swallowed. The beautiful woman in front of me with her Grecian features and incredible black hair deserved only the finest man the world had to offer. And she’d picked Gill and stayed? “What’s the story behind that?” I asked. “It just doesn’t seem to fit who you are.”
“It’s our hardships that mold us, Tish. I wouldn’t dream of trading my past for a kinder, gentler one. The choices I made led me in some weird, roundabout way to the exact place God can use me.” She flipped that magnificent hair behind one shoulder. “I know this, if not for what I’ve gone through with Gill, my music wouldn’t carry any meaning. It would be about as deep as ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat.’”
I thought back to the church in downstate Rawlings where Samantha and her band led the worship each Sunday. “You wrote those songs?”
“All except the hymns.”
I recalled the many times tears had threatened as I listened to the words of gratitude and praise to the Lord. “Your lyrics are amazing.”
“Thanks, but it’s all God. I just made a bunch of dumb mistakes. He’s the one that took what I’d messed up and turned it to something useful. Something that can help others find their way.”
We left the llama with a final scratch behind the ears and latched the gate behind us. The guys had disappeared somewhere. We went back in the house, visited with Gerard and Grandma Olivia for a few minutes, then made the drive back home.
We drove past the cider mill and the turn to Candice’s house. I thought about my last visit with her, wondering why I should believe her when she said she hadn’t ripped my mother’s picture in half.
Would the kind and gentle Joel have ripped the photo? He’d seen Candice’s car leave the area that night. Maybe he went in the lodge to see what she’d been up to, saw the picture on my pillow, and in a fit of jealousy, torn it in two. He’d apologized for his behavior, hadn’t he? Maybe his remorse had been more for the vicious vandalism than the callous comments.
“So what did you think about my idea to hide Melissa down at the lodge with us?” Sam said, interrupting my train of thought.
“I think I don’t need one more wrench in my routine, that’s what.” It came out a touch snotty.
Sam’s shoulders pressed back against the seat. “It seems to me like your whole life revolves around protecting your personal routine. It seems like a really dull, really unfulfilling existence.”
My fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “You can just stow the guilt trip. Those don’t work on me anymore.”
She looked at me, eyebrows raised innocently. “No guilt trip here, honey. Just stating the facts.”
“No, the fact is that I am not going to invite chaos into my life. I just climbed out of that pit and I’m not going back there.”
“Come on. Haven’t you ever helped someone who needed it, Tish? Haven’t you ever felt that awesome feeling that comes over you after you did something nice just because someone asked you to?”
“Yeah. I know that feeling. It bought me three years behind bars. The answer is no.”
She crossed her arms and stared straight ahead. “I can’t believe you’d pass up the opportunity to do a good deed.”
I whipped my head in her direction. “You’re my good deed, Samantha. You’ve only been here ten hours and I’m already sorry.” I faced forward just in time to jerk the car back in my own lane and miss the set of oncoming headlights.
We made the rest of the drive in cold silence. As soon as the car stopped, Sam was out of it and running for the house.
I stayed slumped behind the wheel. Didn’t Sam realize how much I’d already put on the line for her? I’d been well on my way to making Brad and Rawlings a distant memory. Instead, the life I’d turned down was now dangled before my eyes like a carrot tied to the end of Pinocchio’s nose, with the distance between what I’d wanted and what I now had growing greater with each lie I told myself.
Sam had to understand. I didn’t want her here. I didn’t want to love her or get attached to her. I’d rather be annoyed with her. I’d rather have her go away and leave me in my misery. It wasn’t as if Brad and I were ever going to get together anyway. It wasn’t as if Sam would ever be my sister-in-law. I didn’t need the pain she brought, let alone the agony Missy with her adorable children would pile on.