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Home to Whiskey Creek
Brenda Novak
Adelaide Davies, who’s been living in Sacramento, returns to Whiskey Creek, the place she once called home. She’s there to take care of her aging grandmother and to help with Gran’s restaurant, Just Like Mom’s.But Adelaide isn't happy to be back. There are too many people here she’d rather avoid, people who were involved in that terrible June night fifteen years ago. Ever since the graduation party that changed her life, she’s wanted to go to the police and make sure the boys responsible – men now – are punished. But she can’t, not without revealing an even darker secret. So it’s better to pretend…Noah Rackham, popular, attractive, successful, is shocked when Adelaide won’t have anything to do with him.He has no idea that his very presence reminds her of something she’d rather forget.


Sometimes home is the refuge you need—and sometimes it isn’t
Adelaide Davies, who’s been living in Sacramento, returns to Whiskey Creek, the place she once called home. She’s there to take care of her aging grandmother and to help with Gran’s restaurant, Just Like Mom’s. But Adelaide isn’t happy to be back. There are too many people here she’d rather avoid, people who were involved in that terrible June night fifteen years ago.
Ever since the graduation party that changed her life, she’s wanted to go to the police and make sure the boys responsible—men now—are punished. But she can’t, not without revealing an even darker secret. So it’s better to pretend.…
Noah Rackham, popular, attractive, successful, is shocked when Adelaide won’t have anything to do with him. He has no idea that his very presence reminds her of something she’d rather forget. He only knows that he’s finally met a woman he could love.
Praise for the Whiskey Creek novels of
New York Times bestselling author Brenda Novak
“A hero in need of redemption, a heroine up to the challenge, and an idyllic California gold country setting brilliantly launch Novak’s foray into the thriving ‘small-town community’ market.”
—Library Journal on When Lightning Strikes
The characters’ “heartwarming romance develops slowly and sweetly. The sex is fantastic, but the best part is how Simon and Gail tease and laugh as they grow closer.”
—Publishers Weekly on When Lightning Strikes
“Novak delivers a lively, sparkling series debut…romantic gold by a superior novelist.”
—RT Book Reviews on When Lightning Strikes
“It’s steamy, it’s poignant, it’s perfectly paced—it’s When Lightning Strikes and you don’t want to miss it!”
—USA TODAY, Happily Ever After Blog
“In this sensitive, passionate and heartbreakingly poignant second installment of her Whiskey Creek series, Novak masterfully explores what happens when a woman whose entire life has been consumed by playing a variety of roles casts off her suffocating masks and, with the support of an unexpected lover, embraces who she was, is and can be.”
—RT Book Reviews on When Snow Falls (2012 Nominee for Book of the Year)
“When Summer Comes is a magical addition to the already heartwarming Whiskey Creek series.”
—Fresh Fiction
“When you add a woman hiding from the future and a man running from the past, what do you get? A romance that has you in tears one moment and smiling with joy the next. Brenda Novak took me back to Whiskey Creek with When Summer Comes and I enjoyed every minute of it.…This is one book not to be missed!”
—Joyfully Reviewed (recommended title)
Home to Whiskey Creek
Brenda Novak


www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
To Anna…
I really enjoy working with you.
Thank you for being so dependable, responsible
and supportive. You’ve helped make my annual
online auction for diabetes research a fabulous event.
I consider you a good friend and a great blessing.
Dear Reader,
The concept for this story has been percolating in the back of my mind for some time. I was interested in the heroine’s journey—how she might overcome the terrible incident she endured at a high-school graduation party—but I was just as interested in exploring how the boys who impacted her life might feel as adults. Where might they be? What might they be doing? And how would they cope with their past mistakes, especially if the past came boomeranging back? I strongly believe that there are very few people who are all good or all bad, and I think that can be said for the characters in this story, which is what made them so fascinating to work with.
This is the fourth book in the Whiskey Creek series (following When Lightning Strikes, When Snow Falls, which was nominated for the RT Book Reviews 2012 Book of the Year Award, and When Summer Comes). In addition to these full-length books, you might want to look for the prequel novella called When We Touch, where you will meet Brandon and Olivia (who also appear in this story). Next up, we have the fifth book, Take Me Home for Christmas, which will be available in November.
For more information on these books and my other novels, please visit brendanovak.com (http://www.brendanovak.com/), where you can enter monthly drawings, order cookies from Just Like Mom’s, get autographed cover cards or drop me an email. I love hearing from my readers. I’d also like to invite you to get involved in my annual online auction for diabetes research (my youngest son has this disease, and so do million of others—someday I fear it will affect everyone in one way or another). The auction runs May 1–May 31 at my website, so please register right away at brendanovak.auctionanything.com (http://brendanovak.auctionanything.com/) so you’ll get the updates. So far we’ve raised nearly $2 million and hope to raise much more!
Here’s to making a difference!
Brenda Novak
Contents
Chapter 1 (#u1c5d9726-d981-53bc-9c42-afecaa910e9a)
Chapter 2 (#u1768775d-d734-5df7-a403-93f9d6e91c05)
Chapter 3 (#u92bc8211-e6c3-52cf-a280-a9c0a8352431)
Chapter 4 (#u6509011d-f665-5b7d-8a65-13255fa657f6)
Chapter 5 (#ufdbf98b4-1a7b-5741-9a6e-a8d3f0d24374)
Chapter 6 (#u161b51eb-67de-5c56-9ffd-1ef0fa1cafda)
Chapter 7 (#u73dbb261-09d9-57cc-bfe3-061c6b63a92d)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)
1
The past is never dead. It’s not even past.
—William Faulkner
No way would he be able to reach her, not with his bare hands. And Noah Rackham didn’t have anything else—just his mountain bike, which lay on its side a few feet away. In the pouch beneath the seat he kept a spare tube, the small plastic tool that made it easier to change a tire and some oil for his chain but no rope, no flashlight. He wouldn’t have packed that stuff even if he’d had room. For one, he’d come out for a quick, hit-it-hard ride before sunset and wasn’t planning to be gone longer than a couple of hours. For another, no one messed around with the old mine anymore. Not since his twin brother had been killed in a cave-in a decade and a half ago, just after high school graduation.
“Hello?” Kneeling at the mouth of the shaft where someone had torn away the boards intended to seal off this ancillary opening, he called into the void below.
His voice bounced back at him, and he could hear the steady drip of water, but that was all. Why wasn’t the woman responding? A few seconds earlier, she’d cried out for help. That was the reason he’d stopped and come to investigate.
“Hey, you still there? You with me?”
“Yes. I’m here!”
Thank God she’d answered. “Tell me your name.”
“It...it’s Adelaide. But my friends call me Addy. Why?”
“I want to know who I’m talking to. Can you tell me what happened?”
“Just get me out. Please! And hurry!”
“I will. Relax, okay, Addy? I’ll think of something.”
Cursing under his breath, he rocked back on his haunches. Ahead of him, the dirt road that temporarily converged with the single track he’d been riding disappeared around a sharp bend. To his left was the mountain, and to his right, the river, rushing a hundred feet below. He saw more of the same scenery behind him. Trees. Thick undergrowth, including an abundance of poison oak. Moist earth. Rocks. Fifty-year-old tailings from the mine. And the darkening sky. There were no other people, which wasn’t unusual. Plenty of bikers and hikers used this trail, but mostly in the warmer months, and certainly not after dusk. The Sierra Nevada foothills, and the gold rush–era town where he’d grown up, were often wet and chilly by mid-October.
Should he backtrack to the main entrance of the mine? Try to get in the way they used to?
He’d already passed that spot. Someone had fixed the rusty chain-link fence to keep kids from slipping through. Noah couldn’t get beyond it, not without wire cutters or at least the claw part of a hammer. That entrance and this shaft might not even connect. It was likely they didn’t, or whoever was stranded down there would’ve made her way over—provided she was capable of moving.
Scooping up his bike, he hopped on and went to check. Sure enough, the fence, with its danger keep out sign, was riveted to the rocky outcropping surrounding the entrance. He couldn’t get through; he didn’t have the proper tools, and there was nothing close by he could substitute. The only foreign object in the whole area was a bouquet of flowers that lay wilting in the mud. Noah guessed Shania Carpenter, Cody’s old girlfriend, had placed them there. She’d probably come up here to commemorate the anniversary of when she and Cody had started dating, or become an item, or first made love or...whatever. She’d married, divorced and had a kid, in that order, but she’d never gotten over Cody’s death.
Neither had Noah. It felt as if a part of him had died that night.
And now someone else’s life could end the same way.
Certain that this entrance wasn’t the answer to his problem, he returned to the shaft. He never would’ve noticed this other opening if not for that cry for help. The boards that’d been pried loose were so covered by moss they blended in with the rest of the scenery.
“I’m not going to be able to reach you,” he called down. “Is there some other way out? A tunnel that might not be sealed off?”
Considering what had happened to his brother, was it safe for her to move?
“No. I—I’ve tried everything!”
The hysteria in those words concerned him. “Okay. Listen, I know you’re...frightened, but try to stay calm. How badly are you hurt?”
“I’m not sure.” It sounded as though she couldn’t suck in enough air to speak normally, but he couldn’t tell if that came from fright, exhaustion or injury. “Help me, please.”
He wanted to help; he just didn’t know how. The shaft was too deep to reach her without rope. But if he hurried off to notify rescue personnel, he wasn’t sure she’d be alive when he got back. Trying to bring others would take too much time. There was no place for a helicopter to land. And it wouldn’t be easy to get an ambulance in here. A Jeep or truck could make it, but even that would be a challenge in the dark. Flooding several years ago had washed away parts of the old road.
But if he stayed, he’d soon lose all daylight and he had no flashlight. Even if he managed to get the woman out, how would he transport her in the pitch-black?
“Can you walk?” he called.
There was a slight delay. “How far?”
“I’m wondering if you’re mobile, so I can assess the situation.”
“I—I’m mobile.”
That made a difference. It meant she wasn’t so badly off that he couldn’t sit her on his bike and run alongside. If he could get to her.
He was pretty sure he had a flashlight and a length of rope in his truck. He might even have food or something else that would come in handy. A sweatshirt would keep her warm, at least. He could use it if she didn’t need it. It’d been a nice day, hence his lightweight bike shorts and T-shirt, but it was growing colder by the minute.
“Sit tight,” he called down. “I have to go to my truck but I’ll be back. I promise.”
“Don’t leave me!”
Panic fueled those words. “I’ll be back,” he repeated.
Tension tied his stomach into knots as he ignored her protests and clipped his feet into the pedals of his bike. The uneven ground and rocks and roots that offered the challenges he so enjoyed suddenly became unwelcome obstacles, jarring him despite the expensive shock absorbers on his bike. He was moving faster than ever before, especially through this stretch, where the riding was so technical, but he had no choice. If he didn’t...
He couldn’t even think about what might happen if he didn’t. He’d seen his brother’s crushed head. They’d made the decision as a family not to have an open casket.
Small pebbles scattered, churned up by his tires as he charged through patches of gravel. Hoping to shave off a few minutes, he climbed a steep embankment he typically tried only when he wanted maximum difficulty.
He made it up and over the ridge, and down the other side without mishap, but it felt as if it were taking forever to reach the highway.
By the time the trail leveled out, his lungs burned and his quads shook, but he knew that had more to do with fear than physical exertion. He owned Crank It Up, a bike shop in Whiskey Creek, and raced mountain bikes professionally. Thanks to endless hours of training, his body could handle twenty minutes of balls-to-the-wall riding. It was the memories of the day he’d learned his brother was dead and the frightened sound of Addy’s voice that made what he was doing so difficult.
In case her life depended on his performance, he forced himself to redline it, but daylight was waning much faster than he expected. What if he couldn’t see well enough to return? Considering how narrow the trail was in places, and the sharp dropoff on one side, his tire could hit a rock or a groove in the hard-packed dirt, causing him to veer off and plummet into the freezing-cold river—an accident he wasn’t likely to survive. The road, though wider, would take twice as long.
You won’t fall. He knew this trail far too well. This was where he felt closest to his brother—and not because Cody had died here. They’d started mountain biking when they were only thirteen, used to explore these mountains all the time. That was how they’d found the mine in the first place. It was Cody who’d turned it into a popular hangout during the final weeks of high school. Kids could bring booze or weed up there without being noticed or interrupted by the police, so a core group from the baseball team had thrown parties that had occasionally gotten out of hand. Toward the end, Noah had stopped going. He hadn’t liked watching his brother snort coke, didn’t appreciate the way Cody behaved when he was stoned. Noah had also been afraid Cody would get Shania pregnant before they had the chance to leave for college and he didn’t want to attend San Diego State without him. They’d done almost everything together since birth.
He’d mentioned the risks to Cody many times, but no amount of warning seemed to faze him. Although Shania hadn’t been at the party—her parents had whisked her away to Europe as soon as she had her diploma in hand—his brother had gone a little crazy that night with all the drinking and drugs, and he paid the ultimate price. From what Noah had heard, the party Cody had thrown graduation night had been as wild as they came.
Maybe if his brother had been thinking straight, he would’ve made it home safely, like everyone else....
After navigating a few final twists and turns, Noah spotted the gravel lot next to the two-lane highway where he’d parked, and raced down the straightaway.
Sweat rolled off him the second he stopped, despite the cold, but he barely noticed as he searched his truck. He found the towrope in his toolbox, a sweatshirt shoved under his seat not far from the flashlight and a stash of energy bars. He already carried all the water he had in a bladderlike contraption on his back. Unfortunately, he’d drunk most of it, but he found a first-aid kit in his jockey box, which was some consolation.
He had what he needed, but in case things didn’t go as smoothly as he hoped, he wanted to call for help so there’d be a rescue team waiting.
He’d put his cell phone under his floor mat to keep it out of sight. There’d been a rash of car burglaries several months ago, courtesy of a group of teenagers who smoked pot and hung out at the river all summer—“river rats” they were called.
He fished his phone out to check for service. Coverage was spotty in these mountains. But obtaining a signal didn’t turn out to be the problem. His battery was dead.
“Shit!” He wasn’t one of those people who kept his phone attached to his ear 24/7. It was more of an afterthought—obviously, since he didn’t carry a charger.
He gazed up and down the road, hoping a vehicle would come by, but after a few seconds, he realized he couldn’t keep standing there. He had to make a decision. Should he drive to Jackson, which was closer than Whiskey Creek, or go back for the woman as he’d originally intended?
Jackson would take too much time. He’d promised he wouldn’t be long and for some reason it was important to him to make good on that.
Draping the rope around his neck, he tied the sweatshirt to his waist and tossed out the extra tube and tire-changing equipment he had in his seat pack without even caring where it fell. He needed room to squeeze in the energy bars and the contents of the first-aid kit. Then he held the flashlight against the handlebars and took off.
He had to get back to the mine before full dark. Otherwise, he’d be forced to take the road or travel even more slowly on the trail, and he feared that whoever was stranded in the shaft couldn’t survive the delay.
2
Adelaide Davies stared at the hole above her, the only thing she could see in this dark space. Would the person who’d called to her really come back?
It didn’t look hopeful. She had no way of keeping track of the passing minutes, but it seemed as if an hour had gone by since he’d promised to help.
Maybe he was the same person who’d put her down here and he’d just returned to make sure she didn’t survive. Maybe he knew she was guilty of something even worse than what he’d done, and felt that this would be a fitting end....
No! No one knows the truth. Except me. She had to quell the fear charging through her, or she wouldn’t survive this emotionally, even if she survived it physically. It was fifteen years since she’d last been inside the mine, since she’d been anywhere close. As a matter of fact, she’d been here only once before—to attend a high school graduation party when she was a sophomore.
It’d all seemed so exciting, so hopeful when she was invited. But that party had changed her forever. Never again would she be the same shy but happy girl she’d been before. And, unlike so many other victims, she knew exactly who to blame. There’d been five of them, five of the most popular jocks, all upperclassmen.
The memories of that night made her sick. She would’ve gone to the police, would’ve seen to it that they were prosecuted as they deserved. But she couldn’t, for a lot of reasons.
It was getting too cold. She had to do something or she’d freeze to death in this damp, dark hole. After myriad attempts to climb or dig her way out, she could hardly move. Her wrists burned from the welts she’d caused by straining against the rope that had bound her hands. One whole side of her body was bruised from when she’d landed. But she had to scream, at the very least. She couldn’t let the discouragement, the heartbreak, the memories, win.
“Hello? Can someone help me? Please? I’m in the mine!”
There was no answer; calling out seemed futile. The guy who’d stopped before was gone.
Her throat too raw to continue, she got to her feet and made another attempt to climb. She had to save herself before it grew any darker. But she slipped and slid down on her aching bottom. Nothing worked. The walls were irregular and too steep, and the pile of broken and fallen beams, jutting out in all directions, gave her slivers when she tried to use it for support.
What now? she asked herself. The person who’d thrown her down here had only beaten her enough to get her to comply with his demands. He hadn’t raped her. But the moment she dropped her guard or became too distraught, the memories of what it’d been like that other time—the night of the party—washed over her, lapping higher and higher, like the incoming tide, until her mind was saturated with the past and she felt no different than the terrified girl she’d been at sixteen.
It was the smell, she decided. The smell conjured up that night as vividly as though she’d just lived it.
Sweet sixteen and never been kissed, one of them had breathed in her ear.
Hugging herself, she began to rock. She was shaking so hard she could hear her teeth chattering but couldn’t stop. Was she in shock?
Would she even think of shock if she were?
Either way, she had a black eye. There was little doubt about that. Her face throbbed where she’d been struck, full-on, by a man’s fist. She’d broken a couple of fingernails trying to fend him off. She could tell those fingers were bleeding. All the digging to create handholds or footholds or find crevices that might lead out hadn’t helped. She guessed the scratches on her arms and legs from the many tumbles she’d taken were bleeding, too, but she couldn’t see whether that was really the case. Not anymore. The light filtering through the opening was almost gone.
Would she have to spend another night in this place?
The prospect of that, of the cold and the rats and the fear of flooding, made her rock faster, back and forth, back and forth. It hurt to move, but she had to concentrate on something or she’d go crazy.
“You—you are powerful. You are...c-capable. You can overcome.” This kind of self-talk had fostered the determination that had carried her through the long hours so far, close to seventeen if her guess was accurate. It was at least 3:00 a.m. when she’d been dragged from her bed, wasn’t it?
She wasn’t sure exactly. She only knew that, after two and a half days of being “home” to take care of Gran, she’d been awakened by a man who whispered that he’d “stab the old lady” if she screamed or tried to escape; and that was all he had to say. She’d do anything to protect her grandmother Milly, even relive the nightmare of fifteen years ago. But he’d simply issued a terse warning telling her he’d kill her if she ever talked about that graduation party and then threw her down the mine shaft.
It was a miracle she hadn’t been more badly hurt. The demolition they’d done after Cody’s death had felled most of the support beams, sealing off some of the deeper crevices, or she might have fallen much farther.
“Hey, you still down there?”
Her heart lifted with hope. The man she’d heard before was back!
“I’m here!” she called. “C-can you help me? You have t-to help me. I don’t want to spend another night in here.”
“Another night? God, what happened to you?” he said, but she could tell he was busy and not waiting for an answer. He’d probably ask again once the pressure was off. For now, he seemed focused on the task at hand.
Closing her eyes, Adelaide tilted her head back and let the tears she’d refused to shed roll down her cheeks. She’d made it through another traumatic experience. The boys from Whiskey Creek hadn’t broken her yet. She’d survived. Again.
“I have a rope. Do you have the strength to hang on to it long enough for me to haul you up?”
If she tried, she’d fall. Not only was she battered and bruised, she’d had barely three hours of sleep before being abducted. Dressed in the shirt and panties she’d worn to bed, she was shivering violently. And she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in over a day.
She wanted to be brave, to say she could do whatever getting out required, but she felt as helpless as a baby. It’d taken everything she had just to stave off the panic and despair. Now that someone had arrived, now that she had support, the adrenaline that’d kept her going left her drained.
“I...don’t think so,” she admitted.
“Don’t cry,” he said. “I won’t leave you again. I’ll stay here all night if necessary, okay, Addy?”
She hadn’t realized her emotions were that apparent. She wished she could maintain a stiff upper lip, at least until she got home and could fall apart in private. But she had no more reserves of any kind.
Fortunately, the gentleness in his voice and the commitment behind those words made her feel as if he’d wrapped a warm blanket around her shoulders. “I—I appreciate that,” she stammered, and meant it.
“I’m going to make a loop. All you have to do is slip it over your head and down under your butt. Can you do that?”
She was still conscious. She had to be capable of doing that much. “I’ll try.”
It was now completely dark. She couldn’t see her hand in front of her face, let alone the end of a rope coming toward her, but he had a flashlight that illuminated the area above her head. “Do you see it?”
“Yes,” she responded when it nearly hit her in the face.
“Great. That’s the first step. Put it on. I’ll wrap this end around a tree so I can keep from falling in with you if I lose my footing. Then I’ll start bringing you up.”
He hadn’t asked how much she weighed, how her size compared to his. He was a guy; he expected to be bigger. But not all guys were. At six feet, she was taller than most women and a good number of men, too. Although she’d always been thin, she wasn’t convinced he’d have the strength to raise her.
Should she tell him the job might be more difficult than he expected and risk having him decide to go for help instead?
No. She couldn’t wait another second. Maybe he’d drop her on the ascent, but if this was her only hope of getting out now, she was taking that chance.
After wiping her tears, she did as he instructed. “Ready.”
“That’s what I want to hear. See? Everything will be fine. All I need you to do is keep the rope under your bottom. Can you do that?”
She didn’t have any choice, not if she wanted out. “Yes.”
“Perfect. Here we go.”
The rope drew so taut it cut into her thighs, but nothing happened.
Terror ripped through her. The task was too much for him, just as she’d feared! She stifled a whimper, preparing for the moment when he’d admit defeat. But then he began to reel her toward him, inch by painstaking inch.
Dangling in midair, completely dependent on a stranger she couldn’t even see, was frightening. But he was trying to help, and that was better than being alone in the mine. Anything was better than being alone.
When at last she reached the opening, she couldn’t see a lot more than she could in the shaft, but the fresh air sweeping over her confirmed that she was no longer inside the mine.
I’m free. She choked on a sob. She didn’t have the strength to crawl over the lip, but he grabbed her arms and hauled her out before sinking down next to her.
“There...you...go,” he said, as if her problems were over. But, in some ways, the mine still held her captive, and she was afraid that would always be true.
Heedless of the gravel and dirt, she rolled onto her back so she could stare up at the starry sky. “Thank you.”
He propped himself up beside her. She could hear his movements but couldn’t make out more than a dark figure. “I’m glad I heard you. How badly are you hurt?” he asked.
It was cold, colder than inside the mine, thanks to the wind, but she didn’t care. “I’m n-not sure.”
“Anything broken?”
Relieved that he was giving her a chance to recover before waving that flashlight in her face, she put her arm over her eyes in case he angled it at her before she was ready. “I don’t think so. I’m just...rattled and b-banged up.”
“What happened?” He seemed to have caught his breath. “How’d you wind up in the mine?”
You tell anyone about graduation and I’ll kill you. I’ll stab the old lady, too. Do you understand? No one wants to hear it. It’s old news. And in case you’ve been gone so long you haven’t heard, Cody’s dad is mayor now. Going to the police won’t get you anywhere. Consider this a little...FYI.
How much did she dare tell before she was asking for more trouble? She couldn’t say she’d fallen into the mine and expect to be believed. Once he could see her clearly, he’d notice that she was in her underwear and her eye was swollen almost shut. The marks from the rope would be another giveaway.
But she couldn’t be honest, or the man who’d done this might think she was blabbing, exactly as he feared.
“I, uh, s-sleepwalk sometimes.” It was an obvious lie, one that would most likely be interpreted as a refusal to answer, but that seemed her only option.
“You...sleepwalk?” When he raised the flashlight, she tried to cover herself. Her pink Victoria’s Secret tee fit tight and short, and her panties were barely a scrap of fabric, but there wasn’t much she could do about her nightwear at this point.
Fortunately, he didn’t seem to focus on her state of undress. He was too surprised by the condition of her face. She knew it was her injuries that had caught his attention when he turned her chin toward him so he could have a better look. “Sleepwalking, my ass.”
“I, uh, hit my face when I fell.”
“Right.” The sarcasm that dripped from that word screamed bullshit. “Why are you lying, Addy? Do you know the person who did this to you? Is that it?”
Not quite the way he thought....
“Was it your husband or boyfriend or...lover?”
“No. I’m not m-married.” Thank God! She had been once, but for such a brief period it wasn’t even worth counting. Saying “I do” to Clyde Kingsdale had been a bad fit from the beginning. Fortunately, she’d realized her mistake almost immediately.
“You have to be protecting someone,” he said. “You don’t need to tell me. But I hope you’ll tell the police.”
Unable to tolerate the brightness of his flashlight, she jerked her chin away. “There’s no reason to include the police. I— It was my own stupid mistake.”
He didn’t shine the light in her face again. He set it aside so he could help her pull on his sweatshirt. The soft fleece warmed her but not enough to stop the shivering. “Where do you live?”
“Whiskey Creek. At the moment,” she added because she hadn’t yet come to terms with the fact that, depending on what she convinced Gran to do, she might need to stay longer than the few months she was planning.
“Hey! I’m from Whiskey Creek, too,” he said with obvious surprise. “What’s your last name?”
“Davies.”
“Have we met?”
How could she tell? What she’d seen of him so far had been dark and indistinct. He was tall and muscular; she’d gathered that much from his general shape. He was strong, too, or he couldn’t have lifted her out. But that was all she knew. She couldn’t even see the color of his hair.
“Maybe,” she said. “Who are you?” Chances were good she’d recognize the name. Gran owned Just Like Mom’s, one of the more popular restaurants in the area, and she used to help out there.
She’d anticipated some degree of familiarity, but the name came as a shock.
“Noah Rackham.”
She said nothing, could say nothing. It felt as if he’d just punched her in the stomach.
“My father used to own the tractor sales and rental place a few miles out of town,” he explained to provide her with a frame of reference.
Fresh adrenaline made it possible for her to scramble to her feet, despite the pain the movement caused her scraped and bruised body. “Cody’s brother?” She had the urge to rip off the sweatshirt he’d given her.
Noah stood, too. “That’s right. You knew him?”
He sounded pleased, excited. She might have laughed, except she was afraid that if she ever got started she’d end up in a padded cell. Of all the people who could’ve come by and offered her aid, it had to be Cody’s fraternal twin. There wasn’t a greater irony than that.
“You and Cody were friends?” he prompted, trying to interpret her reaction.
She was glad she couldn’t see his face. That would be like meeting a ghost, especially here, at the mine. “Not really,” she said. “I was behind the t-two of you in sch-school, but...I remember him.”
She’d never be able to forget him, but it wasn’t because they’d been friends. Not only had Cody raped her, he’d talked some of his baseball buddies into joining the fun. And, when he came back after the others were gone, she’d done what she had to in order to get away.
3
Noah didn’t know what to make of Addy. Although she claimed they’d gone to the same high school, he didn’t remember her. He didn’t recognize her from around town, either. Of course, that could be due to the condition of her face. Someone had done quite a number on it.
While he drove to the accompaniment of a classic rock station, she curled up, as much as a tall woman could curl up while wearing a seat belt, against the passenger door. He’d told her three times she could lie in the seat, knew she’d be more comfortable if she would. But she acted as if she didn’t want to get too close to him. She went stiff whenever he touched her, which hadn’t made it any easier to wheel her out to the road or help her into the truck. The whole process had taken a couple of hours.
“Which hospital?” he asked.
She lifted her head. “Excuse me?”
He pulled his gaze away from the headlights flowing toward them on the other side of the road. “Which hospital should I take you to? I have a first-aid kit, but that won’t be enough.”
“I’m not going to the hospital.”
He felt his eyebrows notch up. “But...you’re hurt, and you’re still shaking even though it has to be a hundred degrees in here.” He’d been slightly chilled when he got in, too, but thanks to the heat blasting through his vents, he was sweltering now. “I really think you should be checked out.”
“Great idea. And what will I tell them?”
Her tone indicated it was a rhetorical question, but he answered, anyway. “How about the truth?”
Her head bumped against the door. “No, thanks. I’ll be fine.”
“You’re not doing yourself any favors, you know. If you go back to the bastard who did this, he could do it again. And maybe next time there won’t be anyone around to help you.” She was lucky he’d heard her. What if he hadn’t gone riding today? Or chosen a different location? It was only when he was feeling particularly nostalgic or really missing Cody that he took their favorite trail.
“A repeat performance is precisely what I’m hoping to avoid.”
He turned down the volume on “We Will Rock You” by Queen. “Meaning what? You think he’ll come after you if you go to the authorities?”
She raised one hand. “Look, I’m grateful for your help but...will you let it go?”
Shouldn’t he insist she seek medical assistance? “You need to document your injuries. Then, if you change your mind, you can file a report later and have proof to go with it.”
“I’ll pass, but thanks,” she muttered.
“If you decide to press charges, you’ll need pictures.”
“I won’t be pressing charges.”
Obviously, she was covering for someone. No woman wound up stranded at the bottom of a mine shaft in her underwear, in the middle of the night without a little help getting there. “I wish you’d see a doctor.”
“I’ll do it later if I have to.”
“Why not now, when you need it?”
“If you drive me to a hospital I’ll walk out. Please, take me home. Or if that’s too much trouble, drop me at a pay phone so I can call someone else.”
“I’m happy to drive you. It’s just...” Did he have any right to keep pushing? No. He didn’t even know this woman. “Never mind. We’ll do whatever you want.” She wasn’t his problem. But telling himself that didn’t make it any easier. He hated to see whoever had attacked her get away with it.
“Thank you.”
She’d spoken so low he could barely hear her response, but she’d softened, or seemed to have softened, and that tempted him to dive back into the same argument. “So...where’s home?” he asked, fighting the impulse.
Her eyes had drifted shut. He could see her profile in the light of his instrument panel, thought she might be pretty without the swelling and abrasions. Lord knew she had nice legs....
“Mildred’s place on Mulberry Street.”
“You’re staying with Milly?”
The widow who owned Just Like Mom’s was one of his favorite people; he’d had no idea this woman might be associated with her. She’d said her name was Davies, but that was a common enough name, and Milly had lived alone for so long he hadn’t connected them.
“For the time being.”
He gave the truck enough gas to pass the car ahead. “Are you related to Milly, or—”
“I’m her granddaughter.”
The vision of a tall, gangly, flat-chested blonde with more hair on her head than any two people popped into his mind. She’d come to all the varsity baseball games. She’d even walked up to him once, after he’d hit a home run, and stammered her congratulations.
Could this woman be that shy girl?
She wasn’t flat-chested anymore. That was for sure. But she still had thick hair. Although matted and snarled at the moment, it was one of her best assets because it was such a rich blond color and so full of body.
He steered back into the right lane before glancing over at her again. “How long have you been in town?”
Her eyelids rested against her cheeks. If he had his guess, her head was pounding like a jackhammer, but she didn’t complain. “Since Saturday.”
“I mean...before that.”
“I was born in Whiskey Creek.”
“Then we’d be more familiar with each other, wouldn’t we?”
“Not necessarily.”
“I know most people in town pretty well, especially those close to my age.”
“You were caught up in your own life.”
There was a slight undercurrent as she spoke, but it was subtle enough that he couldn’t call her on it. In any case, he wasn’t convinced he’d been any more self-absorbed than other teenagers. “In what way?”
“Never mind.”
“Are we talking about when I was ten or fifteen or...twenty? ‘Caught up’ at twenty being the least flattering, of course,” he added with a chuckle.
A muscle jumped in her cheek. Then she sighed and opened her eyes, as if she was about to give him all the facts about her background at once so he’d leave her alone. “I spent my summers with Milly until eighth grade,” she recited in clipped syllables. “Then, when my mother left for Germany to be with her—what was it then, third?—husband I stayed with Gran.”
He skipped over the number of marriages, figured it wouldn’t be wise to comment on that, not when he was trying to put her at ease. “She married a German? How’d that happen? I’m guessing this was before online dating.”
At this, she actually smiled. “It was. They met via a dating service. He’s American. After dating here, they married. Then he accepted a contract with the military for some consulting work and that required him to live in Frankfurt. She wanted to tour Europe.”
“What about your father?”
“He died in a motorcycle accident before I was born.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He was racing when he died. He and my mother weren’t married. I don’t get the impression he would’ve been a big part of my life if he’d lived.”
He veered away from that subject, too. “So we were teenagers during the period you were referring to?” He grinned at her. “At least that’s younger than twenty.”
She didn’t hurry to reassure him that she hadn’t meant anything negative by her earlier statement. And he noticed the slight, couldn’t help wondering if it was intentional.
“Yes,” she said. “I lived with her until I graduated from high school.”
He found it odd that a mother would give up her child to tour Europe, but he didn’t want to probe what could be a sensitive subject. He was more interested in figuring out why he didn’t remember her, and why she was so...prickly. He’d never encountered anyone determined to dislike him right from the get-go. He might’ve thought he’d slept with her and never called, but he hadn’t done anything like that until college. In trying to cope with the pain of losing Cody, he’d done what he could to distract himself, and sex had been a more effective distraction than any of his other options. “Which would mean we went to Eureka High together for what...two years?”
“You were a junior when I first noticed you.”
She seemed to remember him distinctly, which made him slightly uncomfortable. Was it possible that she’d had a crush on him? Was that what she held against him—some unrequited love thing? Unlike his brother, he hadn’t been interested in girls until he’d started at San Diego State. “Was it on the baseball diamond?”
“It was in the halls, but I saw you on the diamond, too. I watched you play every game.”
So that was her who’d congratulated him so awkwardly. And...she’d watched him play? Specifically? Maybe he’d guessed correctly about the crush, too. The girl who’d approached him after that home run had turned beet-red the moment he’d looked at her, had seemed to regret being impetuous enough to draw his attention.
“Then you’re a baseball fan.” He was about to explain that he could now recall having seen her, but she cut him off.
“Not anymore.”
Why did it feel as if there was a personal element in that response, as well? As if she was saying she was no longer his fan? “What’s wrong with baseball?” Or me, for that matter?
“It’s become a bit of a symbol to me.”
“That’s cryptic.”
She’d gone cold again, remote. “I’m a cryptic person.”
“So you won’t tell me.”
“There’s no point.”
But he was curious. He’d always loved baseball, still played slow-pitch softball in a co-ed league. For him, sports didn’t symbolize anything except a challenge. “Listen, if I said or did something that hurt your feelings back in the day, I’m sorry. I honestly don’t remember it.”
She attempted another smile, but this one fell short of the more sincere grin she’d flashed him after his online dating comment. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said. “Don’t mind me. I’m not at my best.”
He could understand why. She had to feel like shit. So he cut her some slack. “No problem.”
He drove farther before breaking the silence again. “Where’d you go after high school?”
She stared straight ahead, through the windshield, instead of turning like most people would during a conversation. Her resistance gave him the impression that she didn’t like looking at him. He almost checked the mirror to see what the sweat and mud from his ride had done to his face.
“The California Culinary Academy in San Francisco,” she said.
“You’re a chef?”
Her eyes still wouldn’t meet his. “I was. I quit my job a week ago.”
“In the Bay Area?”
“No, Davis.”
“Why’d you quit? Were you planning to move back to Whiskey Creek? Or are you in town for a visit?”
Sliding lower in her seat, she pulled her legs up under his sweatshirt. “I’m not sure exactly how long I’ll stay. I quit because Gran needs my help. She’s getting old and can’t move around like she used to. She shouldn’t be driving, for one thing, yet she visits me once a month.”
“You can’t come here?”
“I haven’t been back since I graduated.”
“Because...”
“I don’t enjoy returning. But I don’t want to put her in assisted living. That’s never been what I envisioned for her. And some decisions have to be made about the restaurant.”
“Darlene Bigelow basically runs it for her, and she seems to do a good job. Won’t she continue?”
“I plan to keep Darlene on as long as possible, but I’m hoping Gran will agree to sell the restaurant and come back to Davis with me.”
He didn’t like the sound of that. “I’d hate to see the restaurant go to anyone else,” he said. “Just Like Mom’s is an institution in Whiskey Creek.”
She cleared her throat. “As much as I wish otherwise, Gran won’t live forever.”
“But you have restaurant experience. And you need a job.” He grinned, hoping to tempt her into taking his suggestion seriously, but she shook her head.
“I’m a good chef. I’ll find something elsewhere.”
“Then, considering how you feel about coming home, it’s nice of you to give up your job.”
“Actually, quitting wasn’t completely altruistic,” she admitted. “My ex-husband was coming on as manager, so both things sort of cropped up at once.”
Noah had to adjust the heat. He could hardly breathe. “Your ex, huh? That’s bad luck.”
She shrugged. “Luck didn’t have much to do with it. His family owns the restaurant. That’s how we met. But after our divorce, he lost his business—a pest control company—and hasn’t been able to get anything else going. They feel obligated to help, of course. And if I’d forced them to choose between us...well, you know who’d they’d pick.”
“Blood’s thicker than water and all that.”
“Exactly.”
“So...you’re divorced?”
“The marriage was so short it doesn’t really feel that way.”
She was quite an enigma. He leaned forward, hoping to get her to look at him, but...nothing doing. It was almost as if he repelled her. Maybe he stank. After such a difficult ride, that was possible. “Any chance you said ‘I do’ following a hard night of drinking in Vegas?”
He was teasing and he could tell she understood that. “Sadly, we were both sober, just...misguided.”
“How?”
“I thought he’d be true. And he thought I’d put up with him seeing other women.”
Noah knew better than to ask, but he couldn’t resist. “He’s not the one who did this to you....”
“No.”
“Then I don’t understand why you won’t let me take you to the—”
“Who’d you end up marrying?”
She’d interrupted because she didn’t want to deal with the pressure he was putting on her. This was the first personal question she’d asked; he knew it was merely an attempt to distract him.
“No one.”
“What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a professional biker. Mostly I race in Europe—during the spring and summer. This is the off-season, so I get to stay home and run my bike store, which is a nice change. Traveling so much can get old.”
“You own Crank It Up?”
“You’ve been there?”
“No, I saw it when I drove through town on Saturday. You took over the building where the old thrift shop used to be.”
“That’s right.”
“So...business is good?”
“Fortunately, mountain biking has become a popular sport. For the most part business is good.”
“Do you ever see Kevin Colbert?”
There was an odd, husky quality to her voice with this question that hadn’t been there before, but he didn’t know what to attribute it to. “Occasionally.”
“Who’d he marry?”
“Audrey Calhoun. They were an item back in school, remember? Got together junior year.”
“I remember. So they’re still in Whiskey Creek?”
“Yeah. They live in that new development not too far from the Pullman Mansion—the place where they have weddings and stuff? He’s a P.E. teacher at Eureka High these days. He’s also the football coach.”
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”
“He was always a decent player.”
“Any kids?”
“Three.”
“What about Tom Gibby?”
She seemed to know all his old teammates. “He’s around. He’s a postal clerk. Figures that the nicest guy in school turns out to be the steadiest, most devoted family man. You’re never going to believe this, though. He married Selena.”
“Parley Mechem’s little sister?”
He couldn’t tell if she was surprised. He couldn’t even tell if she liked the people they were talking about. She gave no indication one way or the other. “Yeah. She was about twelve when we were in high school.”
She rested her chin on her knees. “Are Cheyenne Christensen and Eve Harmon still friends?”
“Definitely.”
A faint smile curved her lips. “I’d be shocked if they weren’t. They were always close.”
“Except for Gail, who moved to Los Angeles, that whole clique still hangs out together.”
“You mean your clique?” she said dryly.
Minus the baseball players. He wasn’t quite as close to the guys who used to be on the team with him, but they had a drink every now and then. “Yeah. I see Eve and Cheyenne and the others at the coffee shop on Fridays. But...those people were all in my graduating class. Did you hang out with seniors?” He couldn’t recall seeing her at any of the parties, dances or other get-togethers. That one moment on the ball field was his only memory of the girl she used to be.
“By the end of the year, I had quite a few senior friends because those were the people in my classes.”
“What classes did you have?”
“AP Econ. AP World History. Honors Chem. The usual. I had calculus with Cheyenne and Eve.”
He whistled. “That isn’t usual. You were in calculus as a sophomore? And advanced placement classes? You must’ve been a brainiac. A shy brainiac,” he added, combining the two images he now held of her.
“I was naive,” she stated flatly.
They’d reached Jackson, so he pulled into the first fast-food restaurant he could find. She’d downed two energy bars and finished his water, but she needed a full meal. “What would you like?”
Her eyes widened as if his actions surprised her. “Nothing. I thought maybe you wanted dinner. I can wait.”
“There’s no reason to. We’re already here, and it’s only getting later. Nothing will be open in Whiskey Creek.”
Her eyes were riveted to the clock, which read eleven-thirty. “Gran will have food. I really don’t want to be seen like this.”
“You’re in a dark truck. No one will notice you. Let me buy you a bite to eat.”
She hesitated.
“Come on. It’ll help your headache.”
“How do you know I have a headache?”
He waited for her to finally look at him, and made a face that suggested anyone would have a headache.
“Okay,” she relented. “I’ll have a burger. Thank you.”
“Anything else?”
“No, that’s enough. I’ll mail you a check since I don’t have any money with me.”
Assuming she must be joking, he laughed. “It’ll be all of a couple bucks. And even if I wanted it back, why would you mail it? We live in the same town, remember?”
“True, but our paths won’t cross.”
She didn’t know that. She’d only been back a few days, and one of those had been spent in the mine. Their paths could cross. For whatever reason, she didn’t want them to. “I think I can afford to buy you a burger.”
After ordering two double cheeseburgers, two fries and two shakes, he idled forward to wait for the food. “Have you been in touch with anyone from Whiskey Creek since you left?”
“Besides Gran and Darlene? No.”
That didn’t sound as though she’d been particularly close to the people she’d mentioned. “Do your friends know you’re back?”
“Not yet. I’m not here to socialize. I’m here to help.”
So she’d said, but wouldn’t most people automatically do both?
He slung his arm over the steering wheel. “I could go to my father for you. He’s the mayor these days. Once he retired, he decided, out of the blue, to go into politics. Shocked us all. But the point is, he now has some pull with the police. If I tell him what happened, I know he’d have Chief Stacy look into the situation...discreetly. Would that make a difference?”
She shook her head, a resolute no.
“He’ll see to it,” he pressed. “And no one will be the wiser. Trust me.”
“No! Please. I don’t want your father to know anything about this.”
“Why not?”
“I’d rather go on about my business. Why does it matter to you whether I report what happened?”
“Okay, I get it.” And yet he hated feeling so...out of control when there was something he wanted to control. “It’s just...beyond me to let this go,” he explained. “Whoever did it deserves to be punished.”
“That’s not up to you.”
She had a point there.
The girl working the drive-through pushed open the window to collect his money—and gave him a thousand-watt smile the moment she recognized him. “Hey, Noah!”
He was tempted to roll his eyes at her enthusiasm. She was maybe seventeen. “Hi, Cindy.”
“What are you up to tonight?” A calculated dimple appeared in her cheek. She didn’t live in Whiskey Creek, but he saw her when she came to visit her married sister, who happened to be his closest neighbor.
“Just got back from a ride. How’s school going?” He hoped that would remind her of her age.
“Fine. Can I get you anything else?”
As he’d promised, she hadn’t realized he had company. The way Adelaide hugged her door kept her completely in shadow. He wasn’t sure he’d ever had a woman sit so far away from him in his truck. He could only assume that, after what she’d been through, she was afraid of men. “No, thanks.”
Cindy counted out his change and passed him his receipt with the sack. “Well, if you’d like something later, you know where to find me.”
Embarrassed by the innuendo in her voice, he pretended not to notice. “Thanks.”
He handed the food to Adelaide as he drove off. Had she picked up on the offer he’d just received? He hoped not. He knew it wouldn’t reflect well on him.
Why he cared, he couldn’t say.
Addy stretched her legs as she sat up, and he cranked the heat again so she’d be comfortable.
“If you won’t go to the police, what will you tell Milly?” he asked.
“I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“I really think you should come forward.”
“That changes everything.”
The sarcasm in her response took him by surprise. “Pardon me?”
She lifted her chin, revealing her unwillingness to bend on this issue. “I can’t, okay? If I come forward, whoever did this will hurt Gran. He told me so.”
“Why would anyone want to hurt either of you?”
She didn’t answer.
“Are you not going to respond?”
“It’s just a freak thing that happened. If I put it behind me and forget, it won’t happen again.”
“You hope.”
She didn’t answer.
“What if Milly already filed a missing-person report?”
Obviously not enchanted by that idea, she caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “Would Chief Stacy allow her to? It’s only been one day. Doesn’t it take, like...three days for the police to consider a missing adult as a criminal case?”
“Depends on the circumstances.”
“Right.” She slumped over, as if her chances of having the ordeal go unnoticed weren’t as good as she’d hoped. “I was taken from my bed.”
“How’d that happen?”
“There’s a door to the outside in my bedroom, where the porch wraps around the house. I left it open to get some air, and he cut through the screen door.”
“Then it’s not like you drove off with him. I’m guessing the police are already involved.”
She stuck a French fry in her mouth. “So...I’ll just tell everyone the same thing I told you.”
“That you must’ve been sleepwalking.”
She had to roll back the sleeves of his sweatshirt; they were too big to stay pushed up on her long, thin arms. “Why not?”
The marks on her wrists suggested she’d been bound, which upset him more than any of it.
“Because no one will believe you.” Especially once they saw what he did.
“That part doesn’t matter.”
“It only matters that they not learn the truth. Is that it?”
She’d been shoveling the food down pretty fast, but at this she slowed. “Basically.”
He stopped at the light where he needed to turn to go to Whiskey Creek. “You’re not making sense,” he said in frustration. But then something occurred to him that he should’ve thought of before. “Wait a second. He didn’t...rape you, did he?”
She’d had her panties on, and they’d been intact. Her shirt hadn’t been torn off, either. But those marks on her wrists...
“No, he didn’t,” she said, but she’d spoken too quickly and the tears that welled up called her a liar.
Shit! He was an idiot for not catching on sooner. She’d been beaten but his sweatshirt had covered her wrists until she started eating. And the way she’d responded when he questioned her led him to believe she knew the person who’d hurt her and was even trying to protect him. That screamed domestic violence, not rape—at least, not stranger rape.
If she’d been sexually assaulted, maybe she was refusing to go to the hospital because she didn’t want anyone to find out, didn’t want to go through the humiliation.
Or she had no confidence it would make any difference.
“Adelaide, please,” he said, “let me take you to the hospital. I know it’ll be degrading and...terrible but...I don’t think you should make this decision in your current, uh, condition.”
A tear crested her lashes and ran down her cheek as she shoved the rest of the food away. “You don’t know anything.”
A car honked behind them. The light had turned green, and he hadn’t noticed.
“I know this is...a hard situation,” he said as he accelerated. “But...they have what’s called a rape kit. You need to try and get a sample of his DNA while you can.” He grappled for other reasons that might convince her. “You don’t want anyone else to be hurt, do you?”
She covered her ears. “Stop it! He won’t hurt anyone else. That’s not an issue.”
Could he believe her? Or was it wishful thinking?
Either way, her expression broke his heart. She’d reached her limit. One more push and she might shatter. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll back off.”
After that they drove in silence. When they reached the house, he thought she’d get out and go in without saying goodbye. Although they couldn’t see Milly through the windows, every light seemed to be on. He could sense Adelaide’s eagerness to get behind that closed door. But she turned back with her hand on the latch. “So...is this our little secret?”
He studied her. “Is what our little secret?”
She hesitated, obviously trying to define what she was asking. “Just...don’t make a big deal out of what happened. That’s all. Let me do the talking.”
“I’m not going to make a big deal of it. But if your grandmother’s called the cops, others will know about it. Even if it doesn’t reach the major news outlets, it’ll be reported in the weekly paper. You won’t be able to avoid the Gold Country Gazette.”
Her shoulders drooped as she recognized the truth in what he said. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” She started taking off his sweatshirt.
He stopped her. “Keep it. I get free T-shirts and sweatshirts all the time, and it’s cold out.”
She seemed tempted to return it, anyway, but probably realized that would reveal more of her than she wanted him to see. “Thanks for the help.”
“No problem,” he murmured, but she’d already climbed out and was limping across the lawn.
4
The house was quiet. But the lights in the kitchen and living room would’ve told anyone who really knew Milly that all was not as it should be. She never stayed up past ten o’clock and, other than on the porch, she never left a light burning when she went to bed.
Adelaide had hoped to slip into her room and put on some clothes before she disturbed Gran. She didn’t want Milly to see her looking so battered. But she heard her grandmother call out the second she returned the hide-a-key container to its place under the porch. Gran had probably been lying in bed with her hearing aids in and turned up high, praying for her safe return and listening for the door.
“Addy? That you?”
The worry in her voice upset Adelaide, made her even angrier with the man who’d thrown her down the mine shaft. She’d always live in the shadow of the past, but Gran had nothing to do with graduation night fifteen years ago. Stephen, Derek, Tom or Kevin—whichever one of them had abducted her—had no right to put Milly through the panic of finding her missing.
“Yeah, Gran, it’s me. Sorry to wake you.” Intent on getting into a pair of sweatpants, she started toward her bedroom, but her grandmother wasn’t in bed. Gran intercepted her at the hallway entrance, fully clothed, walker and all.
“Wake me?” She definitely had her hearing aids in. Addy could tell without having to look because Milly was speaking at a normal volume. “I’ve been absolutely frantic. Where’ve you been?”
She was carrying her eyeglasses, hadn’t put them on yet. Adelaide was grateful for that small reprieve, even though she knew it wouldn’t last long.
“I didn’t mean to give you a scare. I had a little...” God, Noah was right. No way could she keep this quiet. Not in Whiskey Creek. Her injuries, not to mention the timeline, refuted every excuse she could devise. “Mishap,” she finished weakly.
“What kind of mishap? What happened?” Her grandmother’s hands shook worse than Adelaide had ever noticed but, steadying herself with the walker, she managed to slip her glasses on her nose. Then she covered her mouth. “Good Lord!” she breathed through her fingers. “Who did this to you?”
Thanks to shock and righteous anger, Gran’s voice rang truer and stronger than it had in months. For a moment, Adelaide felt like the little girl who’d been so well cared for by this woman. Part of her wished she was still young enough to crawl into Gran’s lap for the love and solace she used to find there.
But Gran was almost eighty. It was Adelaide’s turn to take care of her. And she wanted to do that. Her mother certainly never would help out. She always had an excuse to be off doing whatever she pleased. “I don’t know,” she said. “Someone cut the screen on the outside door to my room and dragged me from my bed.”
Gran’s fingers, gnarled with arthritis, gripped Adelaide’s arm. “I saw that. Scared me so much I called Chief Stacy right away.”
There went Adelaide’s hopes for not involving the authorities. But, deep down, she’d known she wouldn’t be able to avoid it. “You’ve called the police?”
“Of course! Chief Stacy’s been as worried about you as I have. He started searching the minute he left here, him and the other officers.”
“All three of them?” It wasn’t a large force; it never had been.
“All three of them,” she confirmed, oblivious to Adelaide’s sarcasm. “But...how’d someone get past the door? Wasn’t it locked?”
Adelaide was embarrassed to admit she’d not only unlocked it, she’d left it open. Gran kept the house so hot she couldn’t sleep. “I needed some air,” she explained.
The skin below Gran’s throat wagged as she shook her head. “In this day and age, you can’t go to bed with your doors unlocked. Even in Whiskey Creek. I haven’t done it in twenty-three years, ever since your Grandpa passed.”
The house had no air-conditioning. During the summer, they had to open their windows—essentially the same thing, but Adelaide didn’t argue.
Gran’s gaze lowered to Adelaide’s bare legs. “The man who took you...he didn’t—”
“No.” She understood where her grandmother’s thoughts were going. Noah’s had just traveled down the same path. Anyone would think of sexual assault, especially since she wasn’t fully clothed.
“Then why’d he do it?” Gran persisted.
She needed to downplay what had occurred. Tell only as much as she had to so it would go away as soon as possible. And whatever she said had to be believable, first and foremost. “I think he intended to rape me but...I fought him off.”
“What took you so long to get home? You haven’t been with him this whole time, have you?”
Adelaide wished she didn’t have to mention the mine. She didn’t want it connected to her, didn’t want anyone to be reminded of Cody and his graduation party. But even if she lied about that part, Noah would give away the truth when he said where he’d found her. She hadn’t been able to offer him a single compelling reason not to share that information. She couldn’t, not without raising his suspicion as to why she wanted it kept quiet. And, other than Chief Stacy and maybe his father, he was the last person whose curiosity she wanted to arouse.
Left with no choice, she told Gran what’d happened, and who’d saved her.
“Noah’s such a nice boy,” she said.
Not if he was anything like his brother. Adelaide owed him for what he’d done tonight, but she didn’t have a positive impression of him from high school. He’d been one of those senior “gods” she’d worshipped, one who’d acted as if he owned the school. Never had she known him to be aware of the plight of those around them or to care. She told herself it was a miracle he’d bothered to come to her rescue.
“Thank goodness he was in the right place at the right time,” Gran was saying. “That’s one of the Lord’s tender mercies. But why didn’t he take you to the hospital?”
“I wouldn’t let him.”
“Then we need to go now.” She moved her walker forward as if intent on getting her purse, but Addy caught her arm.
“There’s no need.”
“Of course there is. You’re bleeding!”
“I’m fine, Gran. This looks much worse than it is. Trust me, it’d be a waste of time and money. Nothing’s broken.”
“We should still—”
“I wasn’t raped,” she insisted. “What can they do other than clean my wounds? We can do that here.”
Gran’s concern warred with the practicality of Adelaide’s argument. She’d always been frugal. “You’re certain?”
Adelaide mustered a reassuring smile. “Positive.”
“Okay, but I should at least let Chief Stacy know you’re home. He’ll be anxious to talk to you—”
“Not tonight,” she interrupted. “There’s no need to wake him. I’m too exhausted to answer any questions at the moment.”
“But you’ll want to give him a statement as soon as possible, while you can remember the details.”
“I don’t know anything that will help figure out who did this, Gran. I can’t even provide a description. The man was wearing a ski mask.” She actually had four men to choose from, but she couldn’t make a determination by body type alone, not when they’d all probably filled out and changed so much. Chances were she’d recognize their faces if she happened across them, but the person who’d dragged her from her bed last night had been careful to hide his identity.
“There’s his height, his weight—”
“Both a blur to me. Can’t it wait until tomorrow? Please? I’m not up to being grilled.” She managed a pleading expression. “Even by you.”
Empathy etched deeper grooves in Gran’s wrinkled face. “Okay, we’ll wait, if that’s what you want. Maybe you’ll remember something important once you’ve had a chance to recover.”
Or not. “Thanks.”
“I’m so glad you’re back, honey. I don’t know what I would’ve done if...if this had ended differently. You’ve always been my Addy, my pride and joy.”
Hearing the tears in her voice, Adelaide gave her another hug. “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine.”
Milly was a proud woman, not one to cry easily. With a sniff, she straightened her spine and motioned for Adelaide to follow her to the kitchen. “Come in here so we can get you cleaned up.”
“Shouldn’t we do that in the bathroom?”
“There’s more room in the kitchen. More light, too.”
That was true. Gran’s house was one of a handful of local homes listed on the National Register of Historic Places. As was the style a hundred years ago, it had tall ceilings, thick molding, elaborate cut-glass windows and—the one downside besides the old plumbing and wiring they’d had to replace—small bathrooms. “I’ve got to shower first.”
Reluctantly, Gran let her disappear into the bathroom, and Adelaide took her time stripping off Noah’s sweatshirt and her filthy clothes before standing beneath the hot spray.
Blood and dirt ran off her body, circling the drain and taking the last of her energy with it. When she’d finished scrubbing, she could only stand there and stare as the last of the soap bubbles disappeared.
“Addy, you coming?”
Gran’s voice brought her out of her stupor.
“Be right there,” she called, and turned off the water. She’d hoped her grandmother would give up and go to bed, allow her to recover on her own. But she should’ve known better. Gran would never leave her like this.
“Can you grab the bandages from under the bathroom sink before you come?”
“Sure.” Her body complained at the movement but—even injured—it was easier for her to crouch than Gran. Tossing her towel aside, she sorted through the laxatives, extra soap, Listerine and bath salts.
She found a small box of Band-Aids, but she wasn’t sure what good they were going to be. Abrasions covered most of her arms and legs.
“We need gauze,” she muttered, but she wasn’t about to go to the store—or let Gran attempt to drive there. The only drugstore open this late would be halfway to Sacramento.
Gran had a cup of tea waiting for her when she entered the kitchen. Adelaide could smell the mint. She normally liked tea, but tonight she didn’t have enough strength to hold the cup. And she had another problem. While pulling on a pair of cutoffs and a tank top she’d figured out why her legs hurt worse in back. Thanks to the fact that she’d slid down the wooden supports of that mine shaft when whoever it was had shoved her in, she had as many slivers in her butt and thighs as she did on her hands.
They had to come out and she couldn’t do it on her own, so she’d brought the magnifying glass Gran used for reading and a pair of tweezers, along with the Band-Aids. She hoped her grandmother would be able to help because Adelaide couldn’t wait to crawl into bed and block the past twenty or so hours from her mind. Everything from that first terrifying image of a man looming over her bed to the shocking realization that it was Cody’s brother who’d pulled her out of the deep, dark hole. The hole that might otherwise have become her grave.
* * *
The lights were still on at Milly’s house, only now the blind in the kitchen was down.
Conscious of the late hour and that he’d be intruding, Noah hesitated on the stoop with the bag of supplies he’d brought from his place. He knew that Adelaide, who’d tried to avoid even incidental contact with him in his truck, wouldn’t be happy to see him. She’d disliked him instantly. But most people didn’t have the kind of first-aid supplies he kept on hand for mountain bike spills. And Adelaide had refused to go to the hospital, so...he figured she might need them.
Telling himself he was going the extra mile largely for Milly’s sake, because he knew how much her granddaughter’s injuries would upset her, he took a deep breath and knocked.
The curtain moved; someone was peering out at him. After what’d happened, he was relieved to see they were taking precautions.
He raised the bag to show he’d brought something. Then he heard the bolt slide back.
“Noah!” Milly exclaimed as soon as she got her walker out of the way so she could open the door. “How nice of you to come back.”
Surprised by the intensity of her relief, he looked over her gray head to find the living room empty. Was Adelaide in bed? “She okay?”
Milly lowered her voice. “Who knows? She refuses to see a doctor. Do you think I should make her?”
He’d already tried and was sure it wouldn’t work. In his estimation, they were better off going with the “do-it-yourself” method he held in his hand, unless her injuries were worse than she’d let on. “Have you found anything serious?”
“Not really. She says nothing’s broken. And I’m doing all I can to get her cleaned up, but...it’s not easy when your hand shakes like mine.” She motioned to the sack. “What do you have in there?”
“Iodine, painkiller, large bandages.” He didn’t mention that the painkiller was prescription-strength, a couple of pills he had left over from when he’d broken his jaw in a free-ride bike race six months ago.
“That’ll come in handy.” She glanced over her shoulder. “But what I need right now is another pair of eyes and a steadier hand.”
“For what?”
He’d expected her to take the bag and say good-night. Instead, she drew him inside. “Come see what you can do.”
“With?”
She didn’t clarify because Adelaide called out. “Gran, who is it?”
Milly used her walker like a cattle prod, herding him into the kitchen. “It’s Noah. He’s here to help. Isn’t that nice of him?”
“Noah!” Adelaide was at the sink, rinsing out a cup. But she whirled to face him, and he immediately jerked his gaze up to her face. She was dressed in a tank top and cutoffs that weren’t even fastened. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and the cutoffs were very short, the sort a girl might wear around the house but not out in public. Obviously, she wasn’t prepared for company.
“We’ll be up all night without him,” Milly said, oblivious to everything except her worry. “I’m not much help. And you can’t keep standing there. You’re about to collapse.”
Adelaide glared at her grandmother as if she was trying to convey a deeper message—something closer to “Hell, no!” than the words that came out of her mouth. “Gran, I’m fine. And if you’re not, we can take a break. Or finish in the morning.”
Milly shook her head in defeat. “I don’t think I’ll be much more use to you in the morning. I’m too old for this, honey. So unless you’d rather go to the hospital—and Noah will carry you to the car if need be—you’ll hold still and let him finish up so we can all get some sleep.” With that, she managed a smile for Noah. “Can I make you some coffee?”
“No, thanks.” She could barely get around; he didn’t want to put her to the trouble. He was too distracted to think about eating or drinking, anyway. He saw a dish towel on the counter, speckled with blood. But it wasn’t until he noticed the magnifying glass and tweezers beside it that he began to understand. “You’re extracting...slivers?”
Milly frowned. “I removed the ones in her hands. Problem is she’s got them all up and down her backside, too.”
“But we wouldn’t want to inconvenience you,” Adelaide interjected. “It’s late and...I’m sure you have better things to do.”
He did. Like going to bed. But he couldn’t leave such a tedious job to poor Milly.
“I’m happy to help,” he said. “Just not in here. Come lie on the couch before you drop.”
“You don’t need the light?” Milly asked.
“One lamp will be fine. I’ll pull it close.”
* * *
What were the chances? Adelaide wondered. It wasn’t bad enough that she’d been beaten and thrown down a mine shaft? Now she had to suffer the embarrassment and indignity of having Cody’s brother remove myriad small splinters from the backs of her thighs?
Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad in the middle of the day. But with the late hour, the quiet of the house and Gran sleeping so deeply in the chair across the room, it all felt very...intimate.
“You okay?” he asked when she shifted.
She’d taken the two Percocets he’d given her. Gran hadn’t caught on to the fact that they weren’t aspirin, but Noah had made sure she was aware of it. She’d been in so much pain she’d tossed them back almost immediately, and she was glad she had. He’d done all he could with the tweezers. Now he was using a sterilized needle to dig out the deeper slivers. “Yes. You?”
He cleared his throat. “I’m not the one who’s hurt. But...what am I supposed to do about the ones that are...a bit higher?”
He’d studiously avoided touching her anywhere that could be considered inappropriate, but her butt had as many slivers as her legs. That was part of the reason she’d agreed to self-medicate. She’d needed something to get her through the embarrassment as much as the pain.
“Maybe I should’ve gone to the hospital.” The fewer people who saw her beaten up, the better. But she’d never dreamed that her plan to avoid medical care could be thwarted by slivers. When she was in Noah’s truck insisting he bring her home, she’d been hurting but hurting everywhere. She’d assumed all the injuries would heal with time, had no clue she’d need this kind of help.
Relaxing into his chair, he sighed. “’Bout time you said that. Come on, I’ll take you.”
Somewhat dazed by the drugs, she rose up on her elbows. Did they really have to go to the hospital? They’d made it this far.... “How much longer do you think it’ll take to get the rest?”
“I haven’t seen what I’m up against, of course. But I’m guessing...twenty minutes?”
Did it really matter that they were on her butt cheeks? Gran was sitting right there. She was asleep, but Noah wasn’t hoping to touch anything he shouldn’t. Chances were the E.R. doctor would be a man, if they did go to the hospital.
“That’s not long.” Twenty minutes would certainly be shorter than going to the emergency room. She didn’t think she had the strength to get up. She definitely knew she couldn’t walk, not without staggering. And how would they explain that she was doped up?
That could get Noah in trouble.
“No...but you’d have to take off your shorts,” he pointed out.
She didn’t plan on ever seeing Noah again, anyway. They might pass each other once or twice over the next few months while she was in town, but she could muster a wave and move on, couldn’t she? Forget that this ever happened?
Gathering her nerve, she reached beneath her to undo her cutoffs. Then she wiggled them, along with her panties, down over her hips.
“Hurry,” she said. As innocuous as her actions were, she didn’t want to add to her humiliation by having Gran wake up to such a sight.
She’d taken him by surprise. His sudden silence and stillness told her that.
“You don’t have a problem with finishing, do you?” Was the painkiller she’d taken affecting her decision-making ability? Maybe. She felt sort of...distant and relaxed, despite what was going on.
He cleared his throat again. “I’m thinking...maybe we should wake Milly and let her do this part.”
“Except she couldn’t see well enough to do the other part.”
Tension hung thick and heavy in the room—awkwardness, embarrassment, hesitation. She’d already bared her ass and he wasn’t quite sure what to do about it.
“It’s just a butt, no big deal.” She kept her face turned into the couch because she didn’t want to look at him. He’d changed since high school, but not enough that she couldn’t recognize him—or see the resemblance to Cody. There was also the hero worship she’d once felt. This was worse than walking up and congratulating him on a good baseball game....
But finishing what they’d begun seemed the most direct route to accomplishing their goal. She’d get through it and then she’d forget about it. Noah wasn’t part of the life she’d built since leaving Whiskey Creek. He didn’t matter. No doubt he’d forget this by tomorrow, too. He hadn’t even remembered her, and she’d watched him for two years with such longing....
“I know you can’t be shy,” she prodded when he didn’t move.
“I’m definitely not shy, but I’ve never touched a woman who...who’s been—”
“Noah, I wasn’t raped last night.” She wondered what he’d think if she told him the only rape she’d ever suffered had been instigated by his brother and carried out by his teammates, that the man who’d thrown her down the mine shaft was one of those teammates. “Just get the job done, okay? I understand the difference between removing a few slivers and...and other activities.”
“Maybe it would be easier if you didn’t cringe every time I touch you.”
After everything he’d been in high school, and she saw no reason his status in Whiskey Creek would’ve changed, it probably came as a shock that she didn’t want his hands on her. As far as she was concerned, a dose of indifference now and then would be good for his ego. “This isn’t exactly a pleasurable process.”
“I’m not talking about now. I’m talking about earlier when I was trying to get you out of the mountains.”
Because of who he was. He was the twin brother of the man who’d caused her so much pain. They weren’t identical, but there was a strong family resemblance and that was a hurdle she had to clear whenever she looked at him, even if it was merely a glance.
But he didn’t understand that, of course, and she couldn’t tell him. So she cut to what mattered at this particular moment.
“Don’t worry. I’m not that fragile.” Not anymore, anyway. It’d been fifteen years since she was raped by a handful of Whiskey Creek’s most popular athletes. She’d slept with two men since, men she’d cared about and hoped to have a deeper relationship with. The last one she’d married. With three years’ therapy in her early twenties, she’d gotten past the trauma.
Anyway, having Noah help her out with a medical problem had nothing to do with sex or rape, even if it dealt with the same general region of her body. “Can you please, er, hurry? You’ve already gotten an eyeful, and you’re holding the needle. It doesn’t make sense to stop.”
“Right.” Despite his reluctance, his hand, when he touched her, was warm and firm. She jerked as he went after one of the deeper slivers, and he cupped her bottom. She wasn’t sure if he was trying to soothe her or hold her still, but he immediately realized what he was doing and let go.
“You hangin’ in?” he murmured after several minutes.
For the most part, Adelaide couldn’t feel pain anymore. She seemed to be floating somewhere up near the ceiling, looking down on the scene. “Yeah.”
She wasn’t sure how much longer it took. She didn’t care. She was too tired to care about anything except drifting off to sleep....
She woke because something had changed. He was rubbing antibiotic ointment on her, which felt good despite all the reasons it shouldn’t. Somehow she’d lost her anxiety. Pure exhaustion, and painkiller, had carried her beyond that.
“You ready for bed?” He helped get her shorts up. Then he woke Gran and walked her into her room. When he returned to find Adelaide unable to drag herself off the couch, he offered to help her, too. She said no, that she’d be fine right where she was, but when he lifted her in his arms and brought her to bed, she didn’t argue.
“Thanks,” she mumbled as he laid her on the soft mattress and covered her. “Your sweatshirt’s on the bedroom floor. I—I’ll repay you for what you’ve done. The burger, too. I won’t forget the burger.”
She could tell she was slurring her words, but her unwieldy tongue couldn’t do any better. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, except that she was home, out of the damn mine and even the slivers were gone.
“I don’t want your money, Adelaide.” He checked to make sure the door leading to the porch was locked.
“Then I’ll give you something else.” What? A homemade pie? A meal? She felt she had to compensate him, if only to keep from thinking of him too kindly. She definitely didn’t want to feel she was in his debt.
“What exactly did you have in mind?” he drawled.
She heard the teasing note in his voice and covered a yawn. “How about my firstborn child?”
He hesitated at the foot of her bed. “Your future husband might have a problem with that.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t ever have another husband.” She frowned as she followed that thought to its obvious conclusion. “Oh! And that means I probably won’t have a baby, either.” Somehow that seemed sad, but she was flying so high she refused to worry about it.
“So...what would you like?” Her eyelids drooped and she felt herself slipping away. “I’ve got to...have something...you want.” That hadn’t come out right. It sounded suggestive even though she didn’t mean it that way. Surely he’d interpret it correctly.
“After the past half hour, that’s not a fair question to ask me,” he said, and then he was gone.
5
Chief Stacy banged on the door first thing the next morning. Gran, always an early riser, was up, despite having gone to bed in the wee hours. Regardless of the challenges she faced, she clung rigidly to her routine.
When Adelaide heard her greet the police chief and invite him in, she buried her head beneath the pillow. Her whole body ached, and she was so tired. She wanted to sleep for a week, not drag herself out of bed to answer a million questions. Now that she was safe and had some perspective on the past thirty hours, she could plainly see that whoever had dropped her into that mine shaft meant to give her a warning, nothing more. He’d hit her, but only when she fought him. He’d probably assumed she could climb out and make her way home. It was even possible, had she not returned to town, that he would’ve come to make sure she didn’t die. If he’d really been planning to kill her, he could just as easily have tossed her in the river.
You tell anyone about graduation and I’ll kill you. I’ll stab the old lady, too. Do you understand me?
What would be the point of those words if he believed she wouldn’t be around to talk?
Too bad he didn’t know he’d gone to the effort of abducting her for nothing. She wasn’t going to say a word about what happened when she was sixteen—with or without the possibility of imminent danger. He’d only succeeded in creating a mystery for everyone else to solve. Thanks to him, she had Chief Stacy to contend with.
Way to cause more problems....
“I would’ve called you when she got home, but I didn’t want to wake you in the middle of the night,” she heard Gran explain.
“Like I told you this morning, I’m available whenever you need me,” he responded. “Goes with the job.”
Adelaide could almost see him puffing out his chest as he spoke and would’ve rolled her eyes if her head wasn’t already under her pillow.
“You’re so devoted,” Gran gushed. “Whiskey Creek is lucky to have you.”
Which was, no doubt, the compliment he’d been fishing for.
Or maybe he was being sincere. Maybe Adelaide was just in a terrible mood.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee?”
“You bet. Your coffee’s the best in town.”
“Better than Black Gold down the street?” she asked in surprise.
“As good,” he hedged.
Now Adelaide knew he was full of shit. Gran’s coffee wasn’t one of her better offerings; it was basic and cheap because she couldn’t tell the difference.
“Then I’d like to speak with Adelaide, if possible,” Stacy was saying.
“Of course. I’ll tell her so she can get dressed.”
Her grandmother’s walker thumped as she moved down the wooden hallway and stopped at her door. She didn’t bother to knock. She didn’t see the point in giving Adelaide any privacy. Adelaide would always be her little girl; it didn’t matter if she was three or thirty.
“Addy?” she said, poking her head in. “Chief Stacy’s here. He’d like a word with you.”
Static electricity made strands of her hair stand up when she set her pillow aside. “I heard. I’m coming.”
“You have a few minutes while I get him some coffee.”
A few minutes? She’d barely be able to dress and comb her hair. Knowing she must look like she’d been dragged behind a horse, she swallowed a sigh. “Be right there.”
Clomp. Shuffle. Clomp. Shuffle. The noise from Gran and her walker receded as Adelaide kicked off the covers and sat up. She expected a headache. She’d had a whopper of one last night. But her head seemed to be the only part of her body that didn’t hurt.
Thank God for small favors.
She dressed in a pair of jeans and an orange tee, gingerly avoiding all the bandages Noah had applied, as well as the memory of his sure, gentle hands applying them. Then she went into the bathroom, brushed her teeth and pulled her hair back before making her way into the living room.
Chief Stacy was sitting in her grandmother’s antique rocker, looking quite comfortable with a steaming cup of coffee and a slice of cinnamon-walnut cake. Maybe Gran’s coffee wasn’t anything special, but her baked goods were out of this world. Of course, her recipes were also “old school,” meaning there was enough fat, sugar and cholesterol in each serving to bring on a heart attack. Adelaide had long wanted to introduce a few new, interesting and organic options, at least on the meal side of the menu.
She thought she still might try to do that.
If they hung on to the restaurant long enough...
“Well, hello, Addy.” Setting his plate and cup on the side table, Chief Stacy got up to greet her, but it was awkward. She couldn’t tell if he intended to hug her or shake her hand. He’d been a regular officer when she lived in town, a position slightly less prominent than the one he held now, but she’d known him. He’d eaten at Just Like Mom’s once a week or so; she’d often served him.
She offered her hand to let him know what she preferred, and he acted as if that was the most he’d expected.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said.
She conjured up a pleasant expression as they shook. “So am I.”
Once she sat down, he sobered in apparent concern. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“Sure. Although there isn’t a lot to tell.”
He returned to his seat but didn’t pick up his cake or coffee. He took out a pad and pen. Whiskey Creek was pretty uneventful. A true abduction would be the case of a lifetime for a backwoods cop like Stacy—could make or break his career.
Too bad she wasn’t about to give him anything that might help him solve the crime. Even if, as a victim, she could be completely honest about what she knew and remembered, Adelaide wouldn’t pit him against a very wily kidnapper. He seemed long on confidence but short on experience. As far as she could remember, the most he’d ever had to find was a runaway horse or dog. A big day for a cop in Whiskey Creek was handling security for the annual Fourth of July parade or the Victorian Days festival every Christmas.
“Just start from the beginning,” he said.
Lacing her fingers together, she stared down at the fingernails she’d broken. “Before I went to bed, I opened the door in my bedroom—”
“The one that leads out to the street?”
“To the porch. Yes.”
“Because...”
“I needed some fresh air.”
He raised his eyebrows. “It’s fall,” he said.
Not wanting to blame Gran for her heavy hand with the thermostat, she glossed over that. “My room hasn’t been used much since I left. It was sort of...stuffy.”
“So you opened the door to air it out.”
“Yes. There was the screen door, of course, which was locked.”
“A screen provides little protection....”
As if she didn’t feel foolish enough. “I wasn’t too worried about protection. Not here at home.” It wasn’t until she’d disobeyed her grandmother, back in high school, and ventured to the mine that she’d gotten into trouble. And pointing out that she should feel secure in a town he was supposed to keep safe shifted the blame back on to him.
“Nothing like this has ever happened before,” he told her, backpedaling.
“Which is why I didn’t worry about it. But someone, a—a man, cut the screen, dragged me from my bed and drove me up to the old mine.”
“The Jepson mine, where Cody Rackham was killed?”
The fear that, at long last, she’d be implicated in Cody’s death, tied her stomach in knots. But she’d expected the immediate association. They’d had their tragedies in Whiskey Creek—when Dylan Amos’s father got into a bar fight and stabbed his opponent and when Phoenix Fuller used her mother’s Buick to run down her rival, to name two—but the popular, wealthy and handsome Rackham family had always generated a great deal of interest. “Where Cody...died. Yes,” she said.
“Did your abductor...” The way Stacy lowered his voice and shot a warning glance at Gran told Adelaide what he was about to ask.
She jumped in to save him the effort of formulating the rest of the question. “He didn’t rape me, no.”
His chest rose as if her answer allowed him to draw a deep breath for the first time since he’d arrived. He even left his pad and pen in his lap and reclaimed his coffee and cake. “I’m happy to hear that.” He took a big bite, then paused to give her a searching look. “You’d tell me if he did,” he said while chewing. “I realize there’s a certain...stigma that goes with that word, with the act itself, but I can’t help you if you’re not honest with me.”
Her mouth was so dry she could hardly speak. “He didn’t rape me.” But she could clearly remember the time before, when he had....
“So you were awakened in your bed and then what? Let’s go over it detail by detail.”
She cleared her throat. “He whispered that he’d hurt me and Gran if I screamed. Then he tied my hands, blindfolded me and forced me to walk out to his truck or SUV.”
“You’re sure it was a truck or SUV.”
“By the sound of the engine and how high off the ground it was...yes.” That was true, but she hardly saw it as revealing. Practically everyone in these parts owned a truck.
“Did you get the color, or the make and model?”
“No. The blindfold was too tight.” And when she’d tried to remove it, he’d panicked and struck her. That was the first time he’d hit her, but it wasn’t the most painful, just a glancing blow on the cheek.
“What about before the blindfold? Were you able to see him or any part of him?”
She wished she could tell the police chief to forget about the incident, but she knew that would only make him wonder at her reaction. She had to act as if she wanted her kidnapper caught. “Just that first glimpse.”
“And...”
She swallowed. “I’m afraid I can’t give you a description. It was so dark, and he was wearing a ski mask.”
Stacy frowned as he formulated another question. “Did he have any exposed skin? Any tattoos or birthmarks?”
“He was completely covered.”
“What was he wearing?”
“Black pants and a black sweatshirt.” That much was true, but the sweatshirt had a strange logo on it, a bright yellow logo with a website URL that was easy to remember. Thanks to the light of a full moon streaming through that screen door, she’d spotted www.SkintightEntertainment.com before he’d managed to blindfold her. But she was giving Stacy only generic information, information she felt safe providing. As far as she knew, that URL could be connected to where the culprit worked, could lead police right to him.
“Were his clothes particularly expensive or cheap?” Stacy asked. “I mean—” he leaned forward, beseeching her with his body language “—did you notice anything that might help identify him? What kind of guy was this?”
A guy who wore a brand of cologne she normally would’ve liked. She remembered that, too—but it was another detail she planned to keep to herself. “They were just your basic cargo pants and a plain sweatshirt. They could’ve come from any department store.”
He put his coffee down again so he could make a few notes. “Can you tell me how tall he was?”
She’d known instantly what the encounter was about, which had evoked immediate terror. And the abduction happened so fast. She doubted she could answer all of Chief Stacy’s questions even if she really wanted the man apprehended.
“About my height.” She had no idea if that was true. He could’ve been an inch or two taller, or an inch or two shorter, but six feet sounded average. She was embellishing, changing this or that, describing a person who didn’t exist, so what did it matter?
“And his build?”
This time she didn’t have to make anything up. The truth described a large proportion of the male population, so she could speak honestly. “He was...fairly muscular, I guess. But not overly so.”
“Can you guess at his weight?”
She went for what would be likely, given the height and body build she’d stated. “About two hundred. I can’t recall, to be honest.”
Stacy took another bite of cake. “What about age?”
“Middle-aged?” She certainly didn’t want to say close to her age, which was what she believed. Anyway, age wasn’t easy to determine in a situation like that.
“Did he speak with a lisp or an accent or...use foul language? Was there anything distinctive about his voice?”
Her kidnapper had spoken in a hoarse whisper. That hadn’t evoked the memory of any particular boy, but it had brought back what she’d experienced fifteen years ago, deluging her with the kinds of images that plagued her worst nightmares. Hold her still, damn it!
In retrospect, however, when she examined the details of this most recent attack, she felt he hadn’t been taking any pleasure in what he was doing. Especially once she started shaking and crying and pleading with him not to rape her again. He’d muttered—and she’d only now remembered this—“Stop it! I—that’s not who I am!”
“Adelaide?” Chief Stacy’s voice intruded on her thoughts.
She glanced up. “Yes?”
“I asked if there was anything distinctive about his voice.”
“Oh.” She wiped her palms on her thighs. “No.”
His cup clinked on the china saucer. “Do you know any reason someone would want to harm you? If he didn’t...rape you, what did he want? Did he ask for anything? Demand money?”
“No.” She shrugged. “At first, I—I thought he was intent on rape, but...”
“Looks like you fought tooth and nail. I’m sorry about your injuries.”
His sympathy made her feel guilty for shading the truth, but she had to do what she could to make this go away. “I’m fine now, thank you. It’s all...minor stuff, really. I’ll recover.”
“You forced him to reconsider. I’m proud of you for that.”
Her kidnapper was the one who’d made it possible for her to fight by tying her hands in front of her instead of behind her back. She couldn’t get them loose until she was alone in the mine, but she could use them—like when she’d attempted to remove her blindfold. Such a tactical error gave her the impression that he wasn’t used to abducting people. He’d gone for what was quick and convenient because he was in a hurry and was afraid of getting caught, possibly by Gran. Maybe he figured his threats and the knife he’d brought would keep her cowed.
Anyway, she felt even more uncomfortable at Stacy’s compliment than she’d already been. She wasn’t out to elicit praise. She was hoping to present a degree of believability, to put together a coherent story, so that his curiosity would be satisfied and she could get out of the spotlight as soon as possible. “At one point, he mumbled that he couldn’t go through with it and just...tossed me into the mine.”
She’d fabricated his change of heart. He hadn’t even attempted to rape her. She’d been fighting because she’d been afraid he might. She was so convinced that she was in for more of what she’d endured at sixteen that, once she was away from the house and he couldn’t hurt Gran, she’d let loose with everything she had and nearly caused them to crash. The sound of scraping metal told her his vehicle had sustained some damage. That was when he’d slugged her—hard. Other than that, and when she’d nearly managed to remove her blindfold, he hadn’t hit her.
“Doesn’t mean he won’t try to rape someone else,” Stacy said. “I’ll find this guy, I promise.”
She hoped not. That was all she needed—a string that would unravel the past. Even an overzealous search could spook the man who’d appeared in her bedroom. Then there was no telling what he might do. Fear could push him into taking risks he wouldn’t otherwise take. That was what it had done to her when she’d tried to crash his car.
“Is there anything else you remember?”
She shook her head, but she could probably describe Tom Gibby, Kevin Colbert or any of the others in great detail and Stacy would never suspect them. They’d been athletic, popular, good students—and were apparently successful adults. Tom Gibby was a postal clerk, a steady, devoted family man. And Coach Colbert was married to his high school sweetheart and had three kids. She hadn’t asked about Derek Rodriguez or Stephen Selby. She hadn’t wanted to string those four names together. But she doubted Derek and Stephen would be at the top of Chief Stacy’s suspect list, any more than Kevin or Tom. They certainly hadn’t acted out since high school. Or, if they had, no one knew about it. Gran had visited her regularly all the years she’d been gone, and they talked on the phone every few days when they weren’t together. She would’ve heard if any of the people she’d known had been charged with a crime. She also received the Gold Country Gazette, Whiskey Creek’s weekly paper, at her apartment in Davis. So even if Gran didn’t mention an arrest, the newspaper would. She’d subscribed for that very reason.
For the thirteen years she’d been gone, all had been quiet.
“That’s okay,” Stacy said. “I’ll still get him.”
“I’m praying you will.” This came from Gran, who’d been listening silently but intently.
Chief Stacy scooted forward in his seat. He’d been handed the worst crime to be perpetrated in Whiskey Creek in at least a decade and had just promised her he’d find the man responsible, but he had nothing to go on. “So why you?”
Wishing this could be over, Addy threaded her fingers more tightly together and searched for an explanation he’d find plausible. “I’ve heard...on various forensic shows that most crimes are crimes of opportunity. I guess...I guess I made it too easy when I left my door open.” Essentially, she was taking the blame. She deserved some of it—not for leaving her door open, but for sneaking out and attending that stupid party in the first place. Gran had told her she couldn’t go.
If only she’d listened...
“There’s got to be a detail, some evidence we’re missing,” Stacy said.
“Nothing I can think of right now,” Adelaide told him. “But...if I remember anything, I’ll give you a call.”
He put his notepad and pen in his pocket. “I did find an interesting object that might help.”
Adelaide’s chest constricted. “What did you say?”
“The man who attacked you must’ve dropped his knife when he was wrestling you out to his truck, because I found this—” he straightened one leg so he could take something from his pocket “—in the flower bed outside the door to your bedroom.”
If it had been a plain pocketknife, Adelaide wouldn’t have paid it much heed. But it had a wolf carved into the handle, which wasn’t something one saw every day.
Her mind raced. “Couldn’t that have been dropped by someone else?”
“I doubt it. With all the watering in the summer and the rain we get in the winter—” he flipped out the blade “—there’d be some rust if it’d been exposed to the elements for any length of time.” He pointed to the shiny steel. “Look at that. It’s perfect. Someone loved this knife.”
Palms sweaty, heart pounding, she sat in silence.
“So you didn’t see him with it?” he asked.
“He—he said he had a knife. But...I didn’t see it, no. And...I—I assumed he had it with him the whole time.”
Stacy studied the carving. “Okay, I’ll keep asking around. See if anyone can identify its owner.”
“He must’ve used that to cut the screen,” Gran said. “Were there any fingerprints on it?”
Adelaide held her breath. Please, no.
“Unfortunately not. I’m guessing he wiped it clean before he came here.”
“He—he was wearing gloves,” Adelaide said. “I remember that from when...from when he was tying my hands. The gloves made it difficult.”
“Gloves.” Chief Stacy sighed in a way that indicated he found this expected but disappointing. Then he lifted the knife. “But...this is very hopeful. We’ll see what turns up.”
The police chief and Gran moved on to other subjects while he finished his coffee and cake. Adelaide learned that he was recently divorced, that he was suing his wife for custody of their two kids, that his ex was “crazy” if she thought she was going to tell their son he couldn’t play football.
At last Stacy got up to leave—with a final promise to see that her attacker was apprehended.
Closing her eyes, Adelaide stayed where she was while Gran showed him out. She was embracing the silence, wishing her return to Whiskey Creek could’ve gone smoothly and wondering what she should do now.
“I sure hope he can catch the man who did this to you,” Gran said as she returned.
“So do I.” Adelaide twisted around to smile up at her, but the prospect of a police capture scared her more than anything—because she knew where it would lead if Kevin, Tom, Derek or Stephen decided to point a finger in her direction.
6
Baxter stood at Noah’s door, looking at him with that odd sort of expression Noah had noticed before, the one that made him so uncomfortable. He wanted to say something about it—had wanted to address the issue for some time because whatever was going on seemed to be getting worse instead of better. But he didn’t know how to broach such a taboo subject without busting up a friendship that had lasted almost since birth. What could he say: “Dude, sometimes you look at me like you’re dying to get in my pants”?
If Baxter wasn’t gay, Noah knew how much that would offend him. He’d be offended if a buddy accused him of sexual interest. That kind of talk was out of bounds between two guys. But Baxter’s look... It was so damn hungry.
“Why are you staring at me like that?” he snapped.
Baxter seemed taken aback. “Like what?”
Shit. Maybe he’d imagined it. That was another thing Noah hated—how he’d begun to second-guess his best friend’s thoughts and reactions. It seemed as if he was always reading more into what Baxter said and did. Suspicion affected people that way; it messed with their minds. “Forget it.”
Baxter seemed more than willing to let the subject go. “Do you know it’s almost noon?”
With a yawn, he scratched his head. “Haven’t looked at a clock. Just rolled out of bed.”
“So Amy opened the shop for you?”
“She was supposed to. She’s there now, isn’t she?” For a moment, he was afraid that his employee hadn’t shown up.
“She’s there. But...I thought she had school.”
When Baxter’s gaze once again strayed to Noah’s bare chest, Noah grabbed the football jersey he’d left on the couch sometime in the past few days and put it on. It wasn’t as if he’d answered the door nude. He’d donned a pair of basketball shorts, but his state of undress seemed to be a distraction, which added to the creeping sensation that all was not as he’d believed with the kid who’d grown up next door. “She graduated in June, remember?”
“I forgot. Does that mean you’re off today?”
“No, but this time of year weekday mornings can be slow. There’s no rush. I’ll walk over in a bit, spell her for lunch.”
“I can spell her if you’re sick.”
“I’m not sick. Just tired.” He yawned again. “I got in late.”
Baxter glanced beyond him, into his small bungalow. “Do you have company?”
“You mean a woman? No.”
“Then where were you last night? I came by a couple of times.”
Noah ignored the apparent subtext of that sentence—the possessive “where were you?”— because he wasn’t even sure it existed. “Believe it or not, I was rescuing someone.”
“You always wanted to be a superhero,” Baxter joked.
“Now I just need the cape.” Relaxing slightly, Noah held the door. What was wrong with him? This was Bax! They’d been on lots of double dates together. Noah knew for a fact that Baxter had slept with a number of women—at least when they were younger.
His friend grinned as he came in. “Who’d you rescue this time? Yet another chick from the confinement of her clothes?”
See? When Baxter said stuff like that, as if he was just another one of the guys, Noah wondered if he was simply being conceited or...or paranoid to think Baxter was attracted to him.
But there was always that indefinable something, like the feeling that had triggered his desire to pull on a shirt.
Whatever was going on was so damn contradictory and confusing....
“Is that the kind of rescue mission you’d like?” he said with a laugh.
Baxter didn’t rush to convince him. “Now and then. There are too many risks and complications that go with sleeping around to do it very often.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t get naked with anyone last night.” He had seen—and touched—Adelaide’s bare ass. That was memorable. But, in deference to what she’d been through, he wasn’t going to mention it. Maybe the rest of the circumstances surrounding her ordeal would go public. The incident was too sensational for word not to spread. But nobody had to know about the private hour he’d spent in Milly’s home, removing slivers. “Do you remember Adelaide Davies?”
Baxter’s gaze lighted on everything that was out of place. He’d been a neat freak since he was a little kid. “Adelaide who?”
“Went to high school with us. Would’ve been a sophomore when we were seniors.”
“I don’t recall anyone by that name.”
“Doesn’t surprise me. We were at San Diego State by the time she graduated, and she left town right after.” Noah dropped onto the couch and dangled one leg over the arm.
Baxter sat in the opposite chair, but he did so with his usual decorum. He wasn’t wearing one of his hand-tailored suits. He worked at a brokerage house in San Francisco Monday through Thursday, but his hours were flexible. Maybe he was taking two days off this week instead of one. Anyway, even his casual jeans and shirts came with expensive labels. He was stylish, well groomed, always had a perfect haircut and smelled like the men’s department at Macy’s.
But Noah tried not to file any of that under the “gay or not gay” headings going on in the back of his mind. He refused to define Bax—someone he was supposed to know better than anyone else—according to stereotypes. He was still hoping his so-called gaydar was wrong....
Actually, he didn’t care if his best friend preferred men. He’d deck anyone who had anything to say about it. He just didn’t want Baxter’s preferences to include him. Any admission along those lines would be far too weird.
“She’s back?”
“Just returned.”
“And you didn’t sleep with her? You’re falling off your game, bro.”
Noah scowled. He wasn’t that big a player. Living in a small town made it impossible to screw around very much—and maintain any respectability. It wasn’t as if he went out looking to get laid. Not very often, anyway. Women had always sort of...come to him. “Why do you keep bringing everything back to sex?”
“Isn’t that what you usually want to talk about? How hot your latest conquest was?”
Maybe he did talk too much about the women in his life. But he was trying to convince himself that the loneliness that had begun to plague him in recent years wasn’t going to taint his whole existence, that the life he led was fulfilling and would continue to be fulfilling even if nothing changed.
Besides, he couldn’t think of a better way to put Baxter on notice that he wasn’t about to get intimate with another man.
“She was beaten up! Of course I didn’t sleep with her. If you’ll listen, I’ll tell you what happened.”
“Fine.” Baxter spread out his hands. “Let’s hear it, then.”
“Forget it.” Flipping him off for being so damn facetious, Noah got up and headed to the kitchen.
Baxter chuckled as he followed. “Now you’re clamming up?”
“You don’t really want to hear.”
“That’s not true. I’m dying to learn every sordid—or not so sordid—detail. Did you punish the guy who was giving her trouble, or what?”
Noah turned to face him. “She was in the mine.”
At this, Baxter sobered. “What do you mean ‘in the mine’? What mine?”
“The one we used to party in at the end of our senior year.”
“The Jepson mine? She couldn’t have been. They closed it off after—” his voice softened “—after Cody.”
Noah didn’t want to think about his brother. Ignoring the reference, he once again shoved away the memories of the June morning he heard his brother had been found. “That’s what I thought, too,” he said.
“But...”
He pulled a carton of orange juice from the fridge and shook it before offering some to Baxter.
“No, thanks.” Baxter’s lip curled in disdain. “I wouldn’t drink from one of your glasses to save my life.”
“Because you’re OCD.”
“Because you barely rinse them before you use them again.”
Just to bug him, Noah drank from the container. “Wasn’t enough for you, anyway,” he said, and tossed the empty carton across the kitchen and into the trash can.
“Nice shot.” Baxter transferred a stack of dirty dishes to the sink before leaning against the counter. “Back to Adelaide Davies. How’d she get into the mine? And how did you find her?”
“I was riding past the entrance when I heard a woman call for help.”
“That must’ve freaked you out.”
“Yeah. It was twilight and cooling off, so it’s an odd time to run into someone up there. I certainly wasn’t expecting to perform a rescue mission.”
“That entrance is no longer sealed off?”
“It is. This was an ancillary opening. Someone had torn away the boards and, after beating her up, threw her down into the hole.”
Baxter blinked several times. “You’re kidding.”
Noah could understand his surprise. Nothing like that ever happened in Whiskey Creek. There’d been rumors that Sophia DeBussi’s husband, the wealthy world-traveler Skip, knocked her around once in a while, but that was the only hint of violence that had occurred in recent years. “No. And get this...she’d been taken from her bed.”
“Kidnapped? That’s what she said?”
“She didn’t have to say. It was obvious. She had rope burns. And she was in her underwear.”
Baxter whistled. “That’s serious. How badly had she been beaten up?”
“One eye was swollen shut, and she was all scraped and bruised.”
“Who did it?”
Noah shrugged. “Who knows?”
Baxter pushed away from the counter. “Wait a second! When I stopped at the Gas-N-Go last night, I heard that Chief Stacy was asking about a woman who’d gone missing. It’s Milly Davies’s granddaughter, right?”
“That’s right.”
“You found her?”
“I found her.”
“Milly must be relieved. But—” he hesitated briefly “—had she been raped?”
“Claims she wasn’t, and I’m inclined to believe her.”
“Because...”
“Her panties were...you know...on and intact.”
Baxter looked baffled. “So...what was the point of taking her?”
Noah sighed. “No idea. Maybe he intended to rape her, but she fought too hard and he gave up.”
“Wow. After that welcome home, I bet she’s ready to leave town again.”
“She can’t.”
“Why not? She left before, didn’t she?” Baxter started cleaning up the kitchen, which he’d probably been itching to do from the second he got there.
“Milly’s getting too old to run her restaurant. That’s the reason Addy came back.”
“It’s a good thing you were there and that you heard her. The Jepson mine’s not stable. She could have...”
He let his words trail off, but Noah knew what he’d been about to say.
Instead of following up with a comment about Cody, Noah focused on the mundane. Avoidance was always easier than trying to cope with the loss he still felt. As far as he was concerned, that was private. “Stop doing my damn dishes!”
“Why?”
“Because it makes me feel like a slob.”
“You are a slob,” Baxter joked, but there was no real energy or accusation in the statement. Noah could tell he was thinking about Cody. The three of them had been inseparable as children. Baxter wasn’t a stellar athlete, but he’d joined all the same teams Noah and Cody had been on, even if he didn’t get to play on game day.
“Compared to you,” he said. “You iron your sheets and underwear.”
“Makes them feel great. You should try it sometime.”
Noah rolled his eyes. “No, thanks. I have better things to do with my time.” He rinsed off a plate, but Baxter took it and put it in the dishwasher as if Noah would only put it in the wrong slot.
“Do you think Chief Stacy will catch the guy who kidnapped Milly’s granddaughter?” Baxter asked, returning to their conversation.
“Not if she doesn’t give him some sort of description.”
“Maybe it was someone who followed her here from wherever she lived before.”
Noah remembered how reticent Addy had been after he’d pulled her out of the mine. Wouldn’t most women be shaking and crying and begging to go to the police?
She’d wanted to pretend the whole thing had never happened.
“It has to be someone she knows.” He couldn’t get around that. She’d said it wasn’t her ex, but...was she lying?
“Why?” Baxter spoke above the sound of the kitchen faucet.
“Because she acted strange, wouldn’t give me any details. She wouldn’t even let me take her to the hospital or the police.”
“There could be other reasons.”
“Like...”
“Maybe she hit her head, wasn’t in her right mind. Or...it’s possible that she was raped and she’s too embarrassed and humiliated to talk about it.”
Noah doubted she would’ve allowed him to remove those slivers if she’d just been violated. “That’s not what happened. I believe she’ll try to play it off as if it was a stranger. But...”
“What?”
He rinsed off another plate. “I got the impression it wasn’t.”
Baxter kept loading the dishwasher. “I’m not sure that makes sense. If she knew him, why not point the finger?”
“My guess? She’s afraid.” Actually, it wasn’t a guess. She’d said as much, hadn’t she?
“That he might get to her before the police can get to him?”
“Absolutely.”
“If she wasn’t raped, what could her abductor have wanted? Was it a robbery?”
“No.” Noah felt certain she would’ve said so if that were the case.
His cell phone vibrated on the counter, but when he saw the incoming number, he ignored it. It was a woman—a tourist he’d met when he’d stopped for a drink at Sexy Sadie’s during the summer. She’d come through town with her sister, they’d spent one night together and she’d been calling him ever since.
The noise caught Baxter’s attention. “You’re not going to get that? Why not? Don’t tell me Shania’s been calling you again.”
Noah wrung out the dishrag so he could wipe down the counters. “No, I think she’s finally accepted that I’m not going to take Cody’s place in her life. It’s Lisa. Again.”
“I thought you liked her.”
“As a friend.”
“She wants more?”
“She hasn’t asked for a commitment, but she sure wants to see me a lot.”
“She’s the one who took off your clothes in the car.”
Noah could easily remember that night. Few women had come on as strongly as Lisa. And yet she’d seemed almost straitlaced when they were talking in the bar. “That’s the one. She’s been hounding me ever since.”
Baxter’s smile shifted to one side. “I guess you’re just that good in bed.”
Was there an undercurrent to that statement, too? It felt as if maybe there was, but Noah couldn’t figure out why there would be. What was Baxter feeling? Jealousy? Envy? Or was there some criticism in those words? “Very funny.”
The buzzing of his phone stopped but started up again a second later.
“You’re right,” Baxter said. “She is persistent. Maybe you should answer it and tell her you’re not interested.”
“I don’t want to hurt her feelings. I don’t mind seeing her now and then.” As long as they were in the company of others. He was growing bored with the kind of sexual encounters that didn’t mean anything, and had begun to think he was missing out on a whole other dimension. Actually, after seeing how happy and in love Gail and Cheyenne and Callie were, he knew he was missing something.
“Of course not. You’re always up for a good time.”
Noah studied his friend, searching for clues as to the correct interpretation of that line. But Baxter’s benign expression suggested he should take it at face value and Noah felt it was in the best interest of their friendship to let it go. “You like a good time, too, don’t you?”
“Sure,” he said.
Noah grabbed a bowl from him. “Good. I’ll tell her to come this weekend, and bring a friend.”
Baxter met his gaze. They were only a few inches apart and Noah got that odd feeling again, but he refused to step away. He shouldn’t have to. This was his best friend, damn it.
“Why would you have her bring someone?” he asked. “Now you’re into threesomes?”
“No. The friend is for you.” Noah clapped him on the back and smiled, waiting for him to beg off. These days, that was what he normally did. He’d say he had to work, he was in the middle of a project at home or he’d be out of town. Noah had started hanging out more with Riley and Ted, especially if there were going to be women present.
But Bax didn’t offer up the typical excuse. Although he didn’t seem as pleased as Noah thought he should be, he accepted. “Why not?”
“So, if she can do it, we’re on?” he asked in surprise.
“As long as it’s not tomorrow night. Tomorrow’s the big game, remember?”
It was Homecoming at the high school, but that didn’t mean what it used to. They didn’t attend the Friday-night games anymore; they were too old to hang with the high school crowd. But he had to go to this game. He, Cody and a lot of the friends they’d grown up with, including Baxter, had been part of the football team that won state during their senior year. Those who lived in the area had been asked to return and help present a memorial plaque to Coach Nobis, who was retiring and would be moving to Arizona in a few months. They were also going to retire Cody’s number. Noah’s father would be on hand to speak, in his capacity as mayor and as Cody’s father and, because he was his brother’s best receiver, Noah was expected to say a few words, too. But he wasn’t looking forward to it. Cody was too emotional a subject for him. He hated speaking about the loss of his brother, especially in public.
“Right. The big game. Trust me, I’m not likely to forget.”
Obviously picking up on his sarcasm, Baxter studied him. “You’re spending too much time dreading it. It won’t be that bad.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You never do.”
Noah rounded on him. “Why should I have to? Why does everyone want to hear about Cody?”
“It’s been fifteen years, Noah. How much longer can you put off dealing with it?”
“Dealing with it? You’re kidding, right? I have to deal with it every day of my life! I just don’t want to dwell on it.”
“So you’d rather talk about people who mean nothing to you. Lisa, for instance.”
“Sure, why not?” Lisa was an uncomplicated subject. He’d been honest with her about his level of interest and owed her nothing. But Cody. That was a different story. With Cody he had to ask himself too many what-ifs. What if he’d attended that party? Would he have been able to keep Cody safe? What if he’d gone to his parents and told them Cody was using drugs? Would they have been able to change the situation before it was too late? Would they have restricted him? Kept him home that night? And what if he hadn’t pointed out the Jepson mine to Cody in the first place?
“Should we ask Gail if she’ll let us use the cabin Saturday night?” he asked.
Baxter hesitated but allowed Noah to return to their former subject without complaint. “You mean the mansion?”
One of their best friends, Gail DeMarco, had married box-office-hit Simon O’Neal, who’d recently had a cabin built back in the hills. It must’ve cost eight million dollars, but that was mere pocket change to them, and the O’Neals often let friends or family use it.
“We could grill steaks, watch a movie, lounge on the deck,” Noah suggested.
“Drink a few bottles of wine?”
“If you want,” he replied, but this suggestion surprised him. From what he could tell, Baxter had quit drinking. At least, he never drank around Noah. He’d started taking life more seriously, had become all about making money, for himself and his clients, and renovating his house. And then there was that scare, when they thought they’d lose Callie, another friend, to liver disease. Baxter had been singularly devoted to her for most of the summer, even after the transplant that saved her life. He’d probably be at her farm this weekend, helping improve the place, if Callie wasn’t on her honeymoon. “But...you don’t drink anymore.”
“I haven’t quit entirely,” Baxter responded. “I might as well enjoy myself. It’s not like I have anything to lose.”
As far as Noah was concerned, that was as strange as any of his other comments, because there was an element of anger, maybe even hurt, to it. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Baxter smiled. “It means I’m looking forward to it.”
If what he said was true, why did Noah get the impression he meant just the opposite?
7
Gran did a great job of keeping the locals at bay, at least until dinnertime. By then she’d fielded so many calls, she was getting too tired to deal with the onslaught and took her old-fashioned phone—the kind with no voice mail or answering machine—off the hook. Everyone in Whiskey Creek wanted to show their concern. Several neighbors had brought casseroles, flowers, cards or a combination of the three. Chief Stacy had checked in to tell Adelaide he’d be working late, that if she remembered anything, anything at all, to contact him right away. And Ed Hamilton, from the Gold Country Gazette, had pleaded with Gran to have Addy call him before the day was through. He wasn’t about to miss the deadline for this week’s paper. He wanted to take advantage of having something bigger to report than the completion of movie star Simon O’Neal’s cabin not far from town.
That wasn’t how he’d described it, of course. He’d told Gran he wanted to use the power of the press to alert the community to possible danger and enlist their cooperation in apprehending the man who’d hurt Adelaide.
With a sigh at the effort moving required, Addy forced herself to come out of her bedroom in time for dinner. She was sore but somewhat rested, not that her long nap had changed her outlook. If she had her preference, she’d return to Davis until the firestorm ended. But she couldn’t leave Gran so worried and upset. It was better to stay and act as if she was as desperate for the police to find her attacker as everyone else. That meant she had to at least pretend to be cooperating.
“So...are you going to call Ed?” Gran had fully embraced the idea that appealing to the public might break the case. She’d shuffled into Addy’s room three times to talk about it, hoping, no doubt, that Addy would jump up and give Ed his interview.
“Sure.” Addy managed a reassuring smile.
“When, honey? When will you call? He’s under a deadline.”
That might be true, but what could she safely reveal? She had no idea what Kevin, Tom, Stephen or Derek might think of Ed’s article, and their perceptions were as important as reality—no, more important. If they thought she was revealing too much, or that she might expose them, she could be in danger again.
It was so hard to guess which of her former rapists had attacked her, exactly how much damage he’d hoped to do, how far he might go in the future and what his expectations might be now that she’d been warned. Other than that gruff threat, he hadn’t been particularly clear on what statements or actions would constitute a breach.
She needed to use her laptop to check the website she’d seen on her attacker’s sweatshirt. Maybe it would give some clue to his identity. Whether or not she decided to share that information, she was certainly curious.
But there was no internet here at Gran’s. Once she was back on her feet, she’d have to go to Black Gold Coffee, the only place in town that offered free Wi-Fi.
Or maybe she wouldn’t bother. What good would knowing do? She couldn’t turn him in. And one man could be as dangerous as the others. They all had the same thing to lose if she came forward, didn’t they? It was even possible that they’d gotten together and agreed on the approach that was taken.
“Addy?”
She glanced over at Gran, who had set about dishing up some meat loaf and potatoes. Gran still made breakfast and a few other simple meals. Her kitchen was her kitchen, and she liked being in charge of it. But these days Darlene used Gran’s recipes and did most of the cooking at the restaurant. The meat loaf was something Darlene had brought over the day Addy arrived. Gran was just warming it up so it wouldn’t go to waste. Addy had no idea when they’d eat all the food brought by others, because she hadn’t had much of an appetite since her return.
“I’ll call him as soon as I finish my dinner.”
Satisfied with that commitment, Gran seemed happy to relax and do what she did best—put on a meal.
The comfort of being in Gran’s kitchen, of smelling her wonderful food, eased some of Addy’s apprehension, too. She’d get through this. She’d play it smart, mind her own business and convince Kevin, Derek, Tom and Stephen that she planned to maintain her silence. That way she could stay and do right by Gran. Maybe her mother wouldn’t shoulder any responsibility, but Addy wasn’t like that, and she was bound and determined to prove it.
Gran’s orthopedic shoes squished as she navigated the kitchen without her walker. After watching her struggle to get a plate down, Addy was tempted to take over. She could’ve assembled the leftovers much more quickly and efficiently. But she knew Gran liked feeling productive, liked bringing her pleasure through food.
“Noelle came by while you were sleeping.”
Addy had been twirling a glass of orange juice. At this, she stopped. “Noelle?”
“Arnold. Don’t you remember her?”
“You mean Olivia’s sister?”
“That’s right. She wasn’t in your grade, was she?”
“Olivia was, but not Noelle. Noelle’s two years younger. So why did she drop in?”
There was a shrug in Gran’s voice when she answered. “Said she heard about what happened and felt terrible. She brought a gift from that shop where she works.”
This was completely unexpected. Addy knew her, but they’d never been friends. “Which shop is that?”
Gran had given her a lot of information over the years. Addy knew that Noelle had married the handsome Kyle Houseman even though Olivia, her sister, had been dating him only a few months before. She knew that Kyle’s proposal had a lot to do with Noelle’s pregnancy, and that Noelle had aborted the baby after they were married without telling Kyle, which pretty much destroyed any obligation he’d felt toward her and resulted in their divorce. But she didn’t know where Noelle had gone to work. She probably would’ve learned if she’d returned when Olivia married Kyle’s stepbrother, Brandon Lucero. She’d wanted to attend the ceremony. She and Olivia had called and exchanged emails for several months after she left town, but Addy had eventually stopped responding. She’d done what she could to break ties with everyone except Gran and those who helped Gran, like Darlene. She couldn’t have too many people drawing her back to Whiskey Creek....
“A Damsel’s Delights.” Gran smiled when she managed to remember the name of the store. Her mind was mostly sound, despite her age. “They have dresses, handmade jewelry, hats and other accessories.”
Addy pictured a quaint-looking shop done up in pink and brown with striped awnings and cute tea tables out front. “Oh, it’s a couple of blocks down Sutter Street. I saw it when I drove through on Saturday.” Once she’d arrived, she’d wanted to see what had changed while she’d been gone and was relieved to find that there wasn’t much she didn’t recognize. Set in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, Whiskey Creek had been founded during the gold rush and, like so many other towns with a similar history, had covered boardwalks, old-fashioned light poles and a bevy of restored Victorians and shops that maintained the nineteenth-century feel.
“She’s been running the place since her divorce.”
“Why’s she working? You told me she stuck Kyle for quite a bit of spousal maintenance.”
Gran’s voice turned sour. “She took him for everything she could. She wanted him for his money—and to hurt her sister.”
“I’m guessing it worked on both counts.”
“Sure did. Can’t say why she went back to retail. Maybe she doesn’t have anything better to do.” She clicked her tongue. “I feel sorry for her parents. She’s always been such a...difficult girl.”
Which Gran understood, thanks to her own daughter.
“Why is she reaching out to me?” Addy asked.
“She probably needs a friend. Everyone who lives here is on to her.”
It wasn’t like Gran to dislike anyone, but she clearly disliked Olivia’s younger sister. “Olivia lives in town these days, doesn’t she?” Addy asked.
“Not far. Brandon owns a cabin up in the mountains. But he won’t have anything to do with Noelle, so they don’t spend much time together. Her parents aren’t pleased that he’s drawn such a hard line. They blame him for ‘breaking up the family,’ but...if you ask me, he’s doing the right thing.” Her hand shook with the usual tremors as she carried Addy’s plate to the table. “And I think Olivia’s secretly happy about the break.”
“After what Noelle did to her, Olivia has every right not to spend much time with her sister. Has Kyle remarried?”
“Not yet.”
“Is he seeing anyone?”
“Haven’t heard, but somehow I doubt it. He wasn’t given any choice when his wife aborted his child. And he lost his true love to his stepbrother. Life has been hard on him.”
Addy shifted to relieve the pressure on her sore backside. “He got Olivia’s sister pregnant, Gran.”
“He and Olivia were on a break.”
“They hadn’t been split up very long. Some people would say he deserved what he got.”
“Those people don’t know Noelle. She’s a life-wrecker, just plain wicked. You should see how shamelessly she flirts with Brandon if she ever runs into him. I’ve witnessed it at the restaurant, and I’m guessing that’s why he won’t have anything to do with her. He’s not about to let her ruin his marriage.”
Adelaide took a bite of meat loaf. “It takes two to make a baby.” After being married to an adulterer, she wasn’t letting Kyle off the hook too easily.
“That’s true, but Kyle’s paid the price for his mistake. He’s a good man.” She touched Grandpa Davies’s war picture hanging near the stove as if to say he wasn’t the last good man, after all. “He stood up and married her even though he knew what he was in for, didn’t he? Did it for the baby. That’s called taking responsibility for your actions, and it’s something I don’t see too often these days. Everyone wants to make excuses. Anyway, I like him. I hope he can find a woman who’ll treat him right.”
“Don’t look at me.” She lifted her hands in mock protest.
Gran didn’t laugh; she scowled. “Why not? Don’t you think he’s handsome?”
He was handsome. But so were his friends. Especially Noah. She had to admit that, despite everything, she still felt a sizzle when he was around. She’d have to be dead not to feel something. He had that much sex appeal. But she’d gone to great pains to extricate herself from this town. She wasn’t about to build any relationships while she was here—not with Noah or Kyle or anyone else.
“He’s not bad.” She pretended to be intent on stirring gravy into her mashed potatoes when she added, “Do you see him with Noah very often?”
“Oh, yes. They come into the restaurant all the time. To this day, that whole group is the best of friends.”
Adelaide had always envied them their closeness. Her class had nothing to rival the clique that had included Cody and Noah, Eve, Cheyenne, Gail, Callie, Ted, Kyle and others. Maybe that was why she’d acquiesced so easily when she was invited to that fateful party. She’d known a lot of popular people would be there. She’d accepted in the hope that Noah and his friends might go, too.
And Cody had gone....
“Speaking of Noah, I think we should invite him over for dinner, to thank him for his help last night, don’t you?” Gran said.
Adelaide nearly choked on her food. “I’m sure that’s not necessary. He doesn’t expect anything.”
“Maybe he doesn’t expect it, but he might enjoy it.”
Addy had offered him something. She’d been loopy when she’d asked what he wanted as his reward, but she could remember the way he’d looked at her when he’d said, “After the past half hour, that’s not a fair question to ask me.”
She was glad he hadn’t taken her up on anything specific. This way, they could both just...let it go.
“Don’t you agree?”
When Gran turned to face her, Adelaide set down her fork. “To be honest, I’d rather not see him again. It was awkward when he had to take over for you yesterday. We—we don’t really know each other that well.”
“Oh, don’t be silly.” She waved Adelaide’s words away. “What are a few slivers? A pretty woman like you...I’m sure he didn’t mind one bit. But we do owe him. What would’ve happened to you if not for him?”
She hated to imagine. But...he wouldn’t have had to save her if not for his twin brother. “Maybe when my scrapes and bruises have healed,” she mumbled, hoping that small concession would encourage Gran to leave the matter in her hands.
“Noah’s a lot like Kyle.”
“He’s a cheater?” she teased.
“He’s a good man!”
Adelaide wasn’t so sure. Cody had seemed just as promising—just as smart, handsome, athletic and even more popular. He’d had such innate ability, could do anything and do it well. She’d experienced the effect he had on others firsthand.

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