“Promise?” Aurelia asked.
“Reckon I can’t quite promise. But I will tell you this. I’m sure. And I will bring it down.”
“Even if it shoots at you?” Aurelia whispered.
“Reckon so.” He shucked out of his sopping coat, draped it around her shoulders, and eased her to her feet. “Now, come on.”
Thirty-Two
WHEN HITCH AND his group arrived in the Carpenters’ muddy yard, the rest of the searchers were already there. Nan’s husband Byron, Griff, and the Berringer brothers gathered beside Griff’s Baby Grand roadster in the mud of the yard, talking urgently. A distracted Molly—her red hair plastered into clumps down her back—herded the twins toward the porch. Nan’s urgent voice sounded from just within the house, as if she were speaking on the telephone.
As Hitch supported Aurelia on the way through the yard gate, they all looked up. Relief passed across most of their faces.
Only Griff’s tightened.
Nan burst through the screen door and down the porch steps. She wore a plaid kerchief tied under her chin and a yellow slicker belted at her waist.
She reached for her sister and pulled her into a hug. “Aurelia. Thank God, thank God.”
Jael and Walter both stepped back to give her room.
The rest of the group approached. Griff’s eyes were darker than the thunderclouds.
And… this was where it got awkward. Hitch let go of Aurelia and stood with his hands in his pants pockets. He’d done a good deed, but he was still the black sheep. He was standing on property Nan had told him never to set foot on. And he was trailing her kid, who she’d told him, in no uncertain language, to stay clear of.
Nan lifted her gaze to Hitch’s. Her mouth worked for a moment, as she seemed to consider all that. She’d sure like something else to be mad about. That was just the way she was. She’d love you forever until she hated you—and then she’d hate you forever. When he married Celia, he qualified for her love; when Celia died… well, there it was.
But if he’d ruined one of her sisters’ lives, he had just rescued the other.
She eased the clench of her jaw and took a breath. “Thank you. I… appreciate it.” The words sounded rusty as all get out, but at least she was giving him that much.
She started to turn toward the house, her arm around Aurelia’s shoulders.
Griff, who had stopped just in front of them, reached to take Aurelia’s other arm.
Nan glanced back. “Walter, come along.”
This was probably the closest Hitch was ever going to get to her not being full-blown angry with him. If ever they were going to clear the air between them, this was it.
He took a step after her. He didn’t look at Griff. “Nan—”
She turned over her shoulder. She bit her lip, her eyes big and a little afraid. For the first time in as long as he’d known her, she looked downright vulnerable—as if she knew what was coming and wasn’t any more ready for it than he was.
He swallowed past the sudden scratch in his throat. “Nan, I’m sorry.” He put all his energy into looking at her, not Griff. She was almost close to understanding, and shockingly it was somehow easier to say all this to her, instead of him. “Back then, I didn’t see any other way than leaving, but if I could do it over again, I’d do it all different. I’m not asking you to forgive me. I’m just asking you to… to believe that.”
She had always been indomitable, tough as a mud hen protecting her nest and just as stubborn. When they were kids, she’d been able to beat up most boys dumb enough to tangle with her—or, worse for them, her sisters. She and he had never quite got on; they’d rammed heads too often for that. But before he left, they’d at least been able to share some kind of mutual respect for each other’s grit.
He’d never seen her weaken. Never.
The edge of her mouth quavered. “I… believe you.” She breathed out. Her voice was weary. “For whatever it’s worth anymore, I believe you.”
Griff closed up the hand he’d extended to help Aurelia. “What are you saying?”
Nan looked at him, and she gave her head a slow shake. “I’m saying I’m tired. I’m saying I have better things to do with my life than hate your brother for the rest of it. And so do you, Griff.”
“No.” He came forward. Rain ran off the back of his fedora’s brim. He turned his fierce gaze on Hitch. “It’s not going to work that way, Hitch. You can’t just come back after nine years, stay a couple days, bring Aurelia home, and get everybody to absolve your sins.”
Here it was then. At last.
Hitch looked him in the eye. “I didn’t ask for absolution.”
Griff kept coming. “You can’t stand there and tell me some part of you hasn’t always believed you’re going to slide by, one more time, and still get what you want. Because you always have, right?” He stopped in front of Hitch, only a few feet between them. He was actually trembling. “You always slid by, with a wink and a nod, doing exactly what you pleased and nothing else. And everybody forgave you for it. Everybody loved you anyway.”
Nan reached for Griff’s arm. “That is not what’s happening here. Griff—”
He ignored her. “I loved you, Hitch. I forgave you. Every single time. You’d go running off to chase your rainbows, and I would cover for you. I’d make excuses for you. That’s my big brother, Hitch Hitchcock! Isn’t he somethin’? And I believed it. Even after you left and let us all down, I believed it.”
This was heading to a fight and fast. Hitch backed off a few steps, both to maybe mollify Griff and to get a little distance between them and Nan and Aurelia.
He tried to keep a calm voice. “Griff…”
“But guess what?” Griff closed the distance to barely a foot. “I stopped believing a long time ago. You’ve got no more excuses left.” He spread his arms. “You think there’s a person here you haven’t hurt?”
Most of what he was saying was true enough. Hitch had admitted that from the start. But how long was this supposed to go on? He’d come home. He’d admitted he’d been wrong; he’d apologized with all his heart. What more was there?
His own anger flared. “I know I messed it up. And I’ll shout it to the world if you want me to. But I can’t take any of it back. It’s done.”
“Nothing’s done! It goes on every single day. Every day, Hitch! You think coming back here fixed things? It didn’t fix anything. You come back, and the whole world falls apart! Everything happening right now—to this town and everybody in it—is because of you. You cannot tell me you haven’t had a hand in every bit of it!”
“It fell into my lap, same as it did yours. Back off, Griff.”
He maybe deserved some of this, but not everything. And he was sick of it. So help him, it was time for all of them to let go of the past and cut their losses, one way or another. Nan was right about that.
He clenched and unclenched his fists. “You don’t want to fight me, and you know it.”
Griff’s glare flashed. Something in his face seemed to snap. “Don’t I? Things are different now, Hitch, and we’re not kids anymore. Family is about being there when people need you. You weren’t there for Celia, and you sure weren’t there for me. You think when Pop was dying in that bed, he didn’t ask for you?”
Hitch shook his head. “You don’t—”
“And don’t give me this about Sheriff Campbell! You shouldn’t have gotten mixed up with him in the first place. And even then, how was running the right answer? If you stayed, you think I wouldn’t have stood beside you? You think all of us wouldn’t have? Nan may be willing to suddenly forget it all, but I’m not!” He reached for the front of Hitch’s wet shirt.