“Rhonda, you need to understand. I’m only trying to smooth things over so that both you and Trace can live in this town peacefully. Isn’t it time to let go of the past to embrace the future?” Dustin nudged the contract he’d had Kat draw up last night allowing Rhonda beach access free of charge at his resort during low and mid-season.
“Why would I do that? It’s Trace who should be here apologizing to me and this town. She’s a fake, you know. I can’t believe you fell for her holier-than-an-angelfish attitude.”
He didn’t know what that meant, but he wasn’t going to challenge her metaphor at the moment. “Tell me why you want to tear down her home.”
“Not her home. It’s her father’s, and she wasn’t around when he died. Do you know who was? Me.” She impaled her chest with her thumb. “I’m the one who took him food from here.” She waved her hand around the ship-like wooden room of Skip’s restaurant. “I’m the one who picked up after him.”
“I didn’t realize you were helping him before he passed.” Dustin wanted to make things right, and in that moment he remembered that there were two sides to every story and obviously Rhonda wanted to be heard. “Tell me about his final days. You must’ve gotten close to him in the end.”
She shrugged and dropped her hand to the table. “I thought so, but I guess not.”
“Why’s that?” Dustin asked in a counselor tone.
She slammed her palm down with a smack that echoed around the restaurant. Two people eating their fish and chips in the corner watched them. “Trace wasn’t around. I came to his house daily for a year. I should’ve inherited his place, not her. I was more of a daughter to him than she has ever been.”
Dustin fought his instinct to defend Trace. If Rhonda knew what she’d been through, maybe she’d back down. “Deep down, you understand that Trace was his daughter. No matter how much you cared for him, in the end, family obligation wins. It may not be fair, but it is the law.”
“He didn’t leave me anything. Nothing. Not even that old clock in the kitchen. I’d wind that thing daily for him. For some reason, he liked the sound. It’s as if he never cared about me. Fathers are supposed to care, even if my bio dad never did. I thought…” Her voice faded.
He understood now that Rhonda hadn’t tried to tear down the old house out of spite or some childhood feud. She’d been hurt. She was lashing out because she’d believed she meant more to Trace’s father than he’d indicated after leaving everything to his daughter. “You deserved better than that. Maybe I can get that clock for you.” Dustin reached out and patted her hand, a sign of a friend or confidant.
“Trace won’t like that,” Rhonda said in a conspiratorial tone.
He wasn’t going to engage in any conversation about Trace, so with his free hand, he scooted the document across the table. “This gives you what you wanted. Access to the beach. Read it over. Have your lawyer look over it. There’s even a place in here about clearing the edge of the hotel property so you can have an unobstructed view of the beach from your house. And of course, the shed shack in the woods will be torn down.”
“Really?” She raised an eyebrow at him. “What will Trace say?”
His pulse flipped and fluttered, but in the end, he hoped Trace would understand that he’d done this for peace in her life. If he couldn’t fight the big oil whale, he could at least take on the minnow in the pond. “You let me worry about Trace.”
“Where is he?” A raving, half-dressed Trace entered Skip’s place. Her soldier-behind-enemy-lines gaze shot through him with such intensity, it knocked the wind from his lungs. He snatched his hand instinctively from Rhonda, who shoved the contract back at him.
“Keep your fancy words. I know you’re not my friend.” The way she smiled like a devil dancing around the depraved made his skin crawl. “If it isn’t Ms. Murderer.” Rhonda sauntered up to Trace with an air of Mother Teresa Superiority. “Now everyone knows the liar you are.”
Murderer?
Trace lifted her hand, but Kat and Wind jumped in front of her.
Dustin rushed to her side and faced Rhonda, making sure that Trace knew he’d always take her side. “You need to leave. I made you a fair offer. It’s up to you what you do with it.”
Rhonda snickered. “I know exactly what I’m going to do with it.” She shot past them and disappeared out the door.
Dustin reached for Trace, but she stepped away. A small step with a Grand Canyon-sized ravine between them. Her eyes were wide and wild, breath short and stuttered. “You! How could you?”
Tears pooled in her eyes, but they didn’t spill down her cheeks.
Dustin looked at her, to the girls, to the others in the restaurant, but couldn’t find the answer to his sin. “What are you talking about?” He looked to Kat. “Oh, she told you?”
Trace looked to Kat, who only shook her head. “Told me what? That I trusted the wrong man? Why? Why’d you do it?”
“I was trying to help. She won’t get any of your property. Only mine.” Dustin tried to gather her into his arms, to soothe her anger, but she pressed a newspaper into his chest and shoved him away. He snatched the coarse, crinkled heap before it hit the floor. On the front page, he saw it. The reason for Trace’s meltdown.
“How?” He skimmed the article.
“You. You’re the only one who knew anything about this. I’ll be taken to court. I’ll lose what little I have. All because of you. The least you can do is tell me why.” Trace stumbled back, but the girls were there to catch her.
His gut knitted into a knot. A tight, constricting knot. “You don’t think that I…?” He shook his head, willing her to listen to him. “I would never!”
Trace waved her arms in the air and turned in a circle with the robe open and her nightgown flowing around her. A vision of tortured beauty. “Then who? You were the only one I told. I didn’t even tell my friends. No one else knew.”
Acid churned and clawed its way up his throat, spilling the putrid taste into his mouth. “I don’t know. But it wasn’t me.”
Trace bit her bottom lip. Her angry, tight face melted into a loose sorrow. “You were the only one. The only one I trusted.”
He tossed the paper to the side and stepped toward her, but Jewels scooted between them. “No. I don’t know what’s going on, but not here. Not now.”
Bri moved to her mother’s side. “You don’t get to speak with her again. Not now, not ever.”
Kat and Wind joined them, surrounding Trace in an impenetrable friendship fort. They ushered her out of his reach, out of his sight, out of his life.