Men and fish are alike.
They both get into trouble when they open their mouths.

—Jimmy D. Moore
(Left by Roger the dog, often the smartest one in the room)

Chapter 20

When I arrived at the hospital, Daniel was in a waiting area with several ranch hands and various people who appeared to have been part of the emergency response team that had rescued Jack. The air in the room was stretched gauzy thin, the discussion taking place in careful whispers intended not to ripple the fragile fabric. Conversations stopped and glances turned my way as I entered. Daniel stood up and met me near the door.

“Where’s Nick?” he asked, anxiety sketching lines over his forehead.

“Al stayed with him at the house. The Jeep wouldn’t start, so I drove Al’s truck over here. How’s Jack?”

Daniel moved to the wall near the door, and I followed. “We’re waiting for the doctors to tell us. It was bad, Mal. His heart stopped on the way to the hospital, and they had to resuscitate him. They’re doing CT scans now, checking for internal bleeding.”

I glanced around the room, trying to process everything, struggling to put together the pieces. All I could think of were Al’s final words before she tossed me her keys and told me to take the truck.

Find out where Mason was when it happened.

I scanned the anxious faces in the room, looked at Chrissy in the corner, sitting on the arm of a chair, her body curled protectively over Tag’s. Was she thinking the same thing I was thinking—that her husband could have been in that truck with Jack?

“Where’s Mason?” Ears seemed to shift my way when I mentioned the name.

“Talking to the sheriff’s deputy about the accident.” Daniel shrugged vaguely toward the hall. “I’m not sure where they went.”

“What happened, exactly?” I searched Daniel’s face for the things he wasn’t saying. He was worried, and not just about Jack’s prognosis. There was something deeper that he was afraid to give voice to.

Stroking his bottom lip with his thumb and forefinger, he blinked slowly and turned his attention from me to the window, as if he were trying to look across the miles and see the Cedar Break cliffs for himself. “Apparently they were parked at that test plot above the lake. Mason got out to take some pictures and step off some square footage for the lake house he wants to build. Jack stayed in the truck and slid over to the passenger side to stretch out and take a catnap. According to Mason, Jack had been up with the stomach flu last night and hadn’t slept much. Anyway, when Mason turned around, the truck was rolling toward the cliff. He tried to get to it, but he couldn’t make it there in time. Jack attempted to bail as it was going over the edge. He hit a patch of cedars about twenty feet down. That’s the only reason he survived the accident. That’s Mason’s version of what happened, anyway.”

I watched Daniel’s teeth worry his bottom lip, saw the tension in his fingers as he combed them through the dark curls of his hair.

“But you don’t believe him. . . .”

Pulling in a quick breath, he shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t know what I believe. Why did the truck just slip out of gear like that? Jack’s ranch truck was pretty new. It’s not like the gears are worn out. And why didn’t Mason hear it when it started rolling? It’s pretty quiet out there, normally, and it’s rocky. The tires would’ve been moving over gravel.”

“What are you saying? You think Mason might have . . . left the truck out of gear on purpose?” The words were hard to even say. The idea seemed so melodramatic and farfetched. Why, after all these years, would Mason come here to reunite with his father and then attempt something so sinister?

Our strange conversation the day Mason had given Nick the toys from the little house slid through my mind. I crossed my arms over my stomach, squeezed my elbows hard against my ribs. Maybe Daniel thought I was out of my mind, bringing up a suspicion like that, but that nagging feeling I’d had about Mason was now exploding like fireworks in my head. There was a history of people meeting strange fates in the West family. As frustrating as life under Jack’s thumb had been, I couldn’t help but remember the tender look on his face as he knelt over Nick’s sandpile.

Daniel tasted his lower lip again. “Jack was driving, though, or Mason says Jack was. And typically if Jack’s in the truck, he does insist on being at the wheel. If the truck was left out of gear, that would mean he was the one who did it. Apparently he got his foot hung up in the seat belt, trying to jump out the door, and that’s what actually dragged him over the edge. One thing different, and Jack wouldn’t have survived at all.”

In the hallway, an orderly rattled by with a supply cart. I watched it pass, thought of Jack broken and battered. I imagined the net of thick cedars catching him, saving him from the rocks below. “But something is still bothering you.” I touched Daniel’s chin, turned his face toward mine, and stretched closer to him. “What are you not saying, Daniel? If you know something more, tell me. We have to figure this out before anything else happens. You could’ve been in that truck. You could’ve been in that truck with Jack. What are you hiding from me?” In that moment, I felt the depth of my love for my husband, the fierce devotion to our life together, to our life here. Somehow, in the past weeks, this place, this man, had become home for me. I wouldn’t let anyone threaten that.

He closed his eyes, took a moment to think, then looked at me again. “It’s just that Jack never parks the truck pointed toward the lake like that. My first day here, he specifically told me not to. He related some story about his wife and his stepson going out Christmas tree hunting in one of the pastures years ago. They left the truck out of gear, and it rolled over a cliff into the lake. No one was in it, but it almost ran them over. Supposedly it’s still down there under the water somewhere.”

“Did you tell the sheriff’s deputy that?” I thought of the letter in the cookbook. Her letter. If the letter was hers, could that accident be the reason she was afraid, the reason she was planning to flee the ranch with her young son?

“I haven’t talked to the deputy, and they haven’t asked me any questions. I don’t know if they’re looking at it as anything more than an accident. Jack has mentioned a few times that the sheriff’s department in this county isn’t very proactive. Mart McClendon, the game warden, was there and helped with the rescue. He asked me a few questions about how I thought it happened, but that was about it.”

“You should have told him what you just told me.” Overhead, the air-conditioner clicked on, and cold, antiseptic-scented air slid over my bare shoulders, raising gooseflesh.

Daniel slid a hand over my skin, a placating gesture. “Let’s just take things a step at a time. In the weeks Mason has been here, he hasn’t done anything to make me think he would try to . . . stage a murder. Because that’s what it would be. No way you would expect anyone to survive going over that cliff in a vehicle. I was at the Cedar Break right after the accident—remember, this afternoon, I told you I was going out there to gather some samples? When I drove up, Mason had already called 9-1-1. He had help on the way. Why would he do that, if he wanted Jack dead?”

I slid into Daniel’s arms and pressed hard against his chest. “I just keep thinking that you could have been in the truck. What if you’d been out with them today?” For an instant, I saw a future without Daniel—Nick growing up with no father, this new baby never knowing Daniel at all. No more mornings of drowsily rolling over in tangled sheets and reaching for Daniel, curling my body against his, feeling warm, protected, complete.

I realized how lucky I was, how much I loved him. It didn’t matter where we lived—ranch house in Texas, hut in Borneo, tent in Timbuktu—as long as we were together.

“I’m okay. I’m fine.” His kiss fell soft on my hair, and I took in the scent and the feel of him—the laundry soap from our washing machine, the shaving cream from our bathroom, the musky cowboy-hat-shaped soap that Daniel’s brother had given him at his bachelor party, the faint smell of new paint from our freshly repaired closets. Ordinary scents. Beautiful scents.

“You have to be safe, that’s all,” I whispered. “I think you should tell someone what you told me.”

“Let’s see what they find out about Jack, first.” Daniel’s answer ruffled the hair near my ear. “If he comes to and is able to talk, he might shed some light on what happened. I don’t want to stir up trouble where there may be none. It’s possible that Jack just wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing, and he parked in the wrong place. He’s been pretty manic since Mason came. Maybe he just had his mind on other things.”

“Maybe.” But every cell in my body was screaming that this wasn’t accidental.

“And to tell you the truth, Mason was beside himself after the accident. I know what I’d do if that were my dad, and that’s pretty much the state Mason was in. If he was faking it, he’s one heck of an actor.”

But maybe he is, I thought, and then the idea seemed off-base and unkind. Perhaps I was creating ridiculous drama where there was only an unfortunate accident. “Okay.” I leaned into my husband and hung on, waiting, trying not to overthink things too much, but I couldn’t stop.

Twenty minutes ticked by, then thirty, then an hour, as the people in the room moved from place to place, from hushed conversation to hushed conversation. My mind returned over and over to that day on the porch with Mason, to words that seemed to have double entendre, to gut feelings and subliminal impressions. To the letter from the cookbook, the obvious fear. I’d assumed that, if the letter was hers, she was afraid of Jack. What if that wasn’t it at all? What if she was afraid of Mason? He would have been a young adult then. What if he saw the new wife and the cute stepson as competition? What if he didn’t want them around?

My father always said that a gut feeling will tell you more about a man than what he says. If you’re ever in doubt, go with your gut, Mallory.

My gut was still saying terrible things that I didn’t want to believe, whispering warnings as the number of people in the room increased. Reverend Hay showed up, along with Mama B.

Claire Anne Underhill from the hardware store arrived a few minutes later, obviously trolling for information. “Lucy Rivers told me it’s all over the police scanners, and a Dallas news station even sent a helicopter to film the story. They’re bringing a crane in to get the truck back out of the lake.” Her eyes widened, sparkling like small blue gems beneath her neatly hairsprayed bangs. “It’s just so fortunate that Jack was able to get out when he did. Has there been any report on his condition? I’ve been so worried. If we hadn’t been in the middle of a delivery at the store, I would have closed up and driven here right away. Mason must be beside himself. Just beside himself.” She scanned the room like a beauty pageant contestant making sure to work all sections of the audience. “Where is Mason? Is he all ri-ight? Does he need anything?”

“He’s with the sheriff’s deputies. But if he does need anything, all of us from the ranch are here,” Chrissy said, strangely territorial considering her usual sentiments about Jack.

Claire Anne helped herself to a seat by the window, not about to be squeezed out. “It’s just like those know-nothings from the sheriff’s department to trouble the poor man at a time like this. Really, I have half a mind to contact my stepson and tell him to give the sheriff a call. Maybe they’ll listen to someone from the county commission. Mason West is a state representative, for heaven’s sake. If they’re not careful, they’ll give Moses Lake a bad name. What with the drug arrests up in Chinquapin Peaks last year and the Proxica Foods scandal, this county doesn’t need any more bad publicity.” She checked the door again. “Is there no news about Jack’s condition?”

“We’re still waiting for the doctors to tell us something,” Reverend Hay answered, because no one else did. He had the patient look of a man accustomed to not letting his parishioners rattle him.

“It’s just so tragic,” Claire Anne lamented. “Such a terrible accident. I hope Mason is bearing up all ri-ight.” She peered through the doorway again, checking the hall. When Mason West didn’t magically appear, she settled back in her seat, her long, coral-colored fingernails toying with a loose thread on the arm of the chair. Silence descended over the group. Another twenty minutes ticked by. Al texted my cell to see if I knew anything. I told her we hadn’t heard.

“This is ridiculous. I’m going to figure out what’s happening,” Daniel finally whispered in my ear. “They must know something by now.” He pushed off the wall and left the room. Chrissy watched him go, then rose from her chair and came to stand by me.

“Where’s he goin’?” She kept her voice low, glancing over her shoulder at Claire Anne. “Was that something about Mr. West on your phone just now?” She motioned to the cell. I hadn’t even realized I was still holding it. My thoughts were spinning down the corridor with Daniel, wondering what he would find.

“He just went to see if there’s any news. The text was only Al Beckenbauer, asking if we’d heard anything.”

Chrissy blinked. “Why would she care? She and Jack West can’t stand each other.”

“The man fell over a cliff, Chrissy,” I said sharply. Chrissy would grow up to be like Claire Anne Underhill one day, if she wasn’t careful.

Tucking a shock of red curls behind her ear, Chrissy ducked her head. “Sorry. I’m just worried, you know? Tag and I need this job. If anything happens to Jack, Mason will get rid of the ranch in a heartbeat. The day Daniel went with Jack to pick up that new seeder in Fort Worth, Tag was counting cows on horseback up by the Twin Mountains, and he saw Mason driving around the pastures with some guy in a suit. They were pointing and talking and shaking hands, and stuff. Tag watched them for a long time. He said it looked like a business deal.” She cut a look my way, lashes narrowing. “And now, Jack has an accident, like two weeks later?”

“Let’s just wait and ask questions when Jack wakes up, all right?” After seeing Jack so euphoric about his reunion with Mason these past few weeks, I couldn’t imagine what would happen if he heard the ranch hands making accusations like this.

Chrissy looked down at her feet and scuffed a pink flip-flop along the ugly linoleum tile. “I just hope Jack gets back up out of that bed. I mean, I complain about the man, but I didn’t want something terrible to happen to him.” Moisture rimmed her eyes, and she swallowed hard. “It makes me think that you never can tell what’s gonna happen—when everything might change in a heartbeat, you know? I mean, Tag and me had a fight last night, and this morning when he left, we weren’t even talkin’. When I heard about Jack’s accident, I thought, What if that were Tag, and I never had the chance to take it all back?”

I touched her arm, and suddenly she seemed like the bratty little sister I never had. “Something like this makes everyone take stock. So much of what seems to matter on a regular day wouldn’t even make a ripple the day after a car accident or a cancer diagnosis. The trick is to remember that on all the regular days, I guess. My grandmother gave me that advice years ago when she was diagnosed with cancer. I don’t always remember it as well as I should.”

Chrissy sniffled, her chest shuddering. A tear traced the outline of her cheek when she looked up again. “I wish Tag and I were more like you and Daniel. You guys are so . . . nice to each other.”

I wish Tag and I were more like you. . . . It had never occurred to me that anyone might be watching us, that we might be teaching lessons as we were learning lessons, and when we learned well, we might teach well. When we didn’t, we weren’t just hurting ourselves; we were polluting the world with bad examples. “It’s a process. My parents had their issues, and they drove us kids crazy with their expectations sometimes, but they were always kind to each other. I think that’s the best thing they did for us.”

Chrissy batted away a tear, her lips twisting ruefully. “My parents fought like two cats in a tow sack. I never wanted McKenna to see stuff like that. I never thought about it too much until y’all came here. The other day when I put McKenna to bed, she said she wished Tag and I were nice like you.”

Emotion squeezed my chest. All this time, I’d thought that Daniel and I were groping our way too clumsily through marriage. Maybe we weren’t doing so badly. “Oh, hey, we’re still in the design phase. Everyone’s family looks better from the outside.”

A text buzzed on my cell phone, and I paused to look at the message from Daniel. Jack stable now. Back there in a minute.

“It sounds like good news,” I breathed, showing Chrissy the text. She promptly shared the information with the rest of the room. Reverend Hay lifted his hands, and Mama B cried out, “Praise God!”

“Mason must be so relieved,” Claire Anne observed, anxiously checking the hall again. “I wonder if there’s anything we can do for him. Maybe I could organize food to go to the ranch house. Family members shouldn’t be worrying about cooking at a time like this.”

“They have a cook,” Chrissy pointed out blandly. “Besides, there is no family except Mason, and he’s staying out on Firefly Island. Good luck taking food out there.”

Claire Anne gave Chrissy a sour look. “Well, it’s only proper to ask. What sort of a town would we be if we didn’t rally around a neighbor in a time of need? I’m sure there are some ways we can help. I wonder where Mason is now. . . .”

“He’s probably got bigger things on his mind than casseroles, Claire Anne,” Mama B interjected. “Just leave him be. Don’t sound like there’s a lot we can do right now.”

Claire Anne’s thin, perfect fingers kneaded her pink leather clutch bag. “Well, we could at least . . .” She paused hopefully as Daniel entered the room, then registered disappointment when she realized he wasn’t Mason.

Daniel shared the report on Jack’s condition: broken ribs, cuts, bruises, no internal bleeding. “The thing they’re most concerned about is swelling in the brain from the head injury. They’re keeping him in an induced coma and giving him meds to try to relieve the pressure on the brain. If they can’t control the swelling with meds, they’ll have to relieve it with surgery. They’re optimistic going forward, but they won’t know the extent of the brain injury until he regains consciousness, and they’re not sure when that will be.”

Claire Anne stood up. “Well, where is Mason? Is he all ri-ight? I should tell him we’re prayin’ for his daddy. It wouldn’t do for him to think that no one even came by. I mean, especially considerin’ the amount of business that West Ranch does in this county.”

“Mason is with Jack in ICU. They’re not letting anyone else in.” There was something Daniel wasn’t telling the group. I could see it in his face. “It’s just as well for everyone to go home. They don’t expect anything more to happen tonight. Best-case scenario is that they’re able to relieve the swelling on the brain with meds, and they won’t have to do surgery.”

The room cleared slowly as people retrieved their belongings and left. I sent Al a text with the news about Jack, then stood with Daniel until everyone was gone.

“You should go on home to Nick,” he said as I slid the phone into my purse. “There’s nothing more to do tonight.” Outside the windows, the day was dimming, golden sunlight slanting through the glass in angular streams.

“But you’re staying . . .” I looked at Daniel, his shirt still spattered with dirt and Jack’s blood, and I knew he wasn’t planning on going anywhere.

“I feel like I should.”

“Because . . .” What wasn’t he saying?

“I’m not sure.” He rubbed the back of his neck, stretched it side to side. “I just feel like I should. I can’t really explain it. This whole thing still bothers me, and I guess it will until Jack wakes up and can tell me what happened. I’m going to hang out by the ICU. There’s a table and a couple chairs in the hall there. Someone needs to be here . . . besides Mason.”

Trepidation walked up my spine again, looping and tightening the muscles like my mother’s quick crochet stitches. “Did the sheriff’s deputies leave?”

Daniel’s cheek twitched the way it always did when he was irritated. “Apparently. When I went up there to see about Jack, Mason was sitting outside the ICU by himself.”

“How did he seem?”

“Upset. Nervous. Kind of like a cat on hot tar, to borrow a phrase from the Docksiders at the Waterbird. When I asked him what the sheriff wanted, he said it was just routine—they needed the details to fill out the accident report.” Daniel caught my hand in his, lifted it, and kissed my fingers. “I’m just going to spend the night in the chair up there. Don’t worry about it, okay? You shouldn’t be worrying right now.”

I pointed a finger at him. “Daniel Everson, don’t you go babying me because I’m—” It still felt so strange to say the words. “In a family way.”

“I wouldn’t think of it.” He caught my other hand, kissed those fingers, too. “Have Tag or one of the guys bring some clean clothes up here for me, okay? In fact, could you send a couple sets? I asked Mason if he wanted me to have one of the ranch hands go pick something up from Firefly, but he didn’t take me up on it. He said he’d go himself when he could.”

Daniel kissed me tenderly, and I left the hospital feeling off-center. The remains of the day were strangely beautiful as I crossed the parking lot to Al’s truck. Opening the door, I turned to look over my shoulder one more time. Something fluttered in the corner of my vision—a piece of paper trapped partially under the truck tire, the wind teasing it, threatening to carry it away. I retrieved it, looked up and down the parking lot, then turned the paper over in my hand. It was a check stub from a literary and entertainment agency in LA. It had Al’s address on it, but the name was different. Alex Beck.

Alex . . . Beck . . .

The name stirred the dusty corners of my mind and left behind a vague agitation, as if those words should mean something to me, but I couldn’t quite put a finger on it.

Why did Al have another name, and why did that name seem so familiar . . . ?

The question shadowed me as I drove the rural highway home from Gnadenfeld, the river basin and cream-colored limestone cliffs peeking through yawning trees, playing a magician’s trick. There one minute, gone the next. Hiding secrets.

Here, everyone seemed to have secrets.

When I reached the ranch, Al was gone. She’d left to take care of the evening feeding at her place, and Keren had taken over watching Nick. They were at the table, coloring in one of Nick’s coloring books. Nick was freshly bathed and already in his pajamas.

Keren offered to take Al’s truck back to her, and I agreed. My body was weary, and my emotions were tangled like a kite string after a crash. I just wanted to eat something, then melt into bed—to sleep and not think about the day.

“Have you ever heard of Alex Beck?” I asked as I walked Keren to the door.

She paused before stepping out, pale brows gathered over blue eyes. “I don’t think so. Why?”

“No reason. I was just trying to figure out why it seemed familiar.”

She shrugged, then gave me a hug. “Well, it’s kind of similar to Al’s name—maybe that’s why it’s ringing a bell.”

“Maybe,” I said, the name scratching back and forth across my mind, sanding off a layer of old lacquer as I watched Keren walk away.