Savannah stood in the kitchen working on supper and trying to think of a good way to tell Miriam that she and Todd were leaving on Saturday.
She was wrist deep in biscuit dough when Dash came slamming into the house. His boots struck the hardwood floor like hammer blows as he stalked right into the kitchen.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“About Todd being interrogated at school by the Department of Social Services.”
Oh, good Lord. Todd must have spilled the beans. She closed her eyes and prayed for strength. “Because I knew it would hurt you. I didn’t want you to be hurt.”
“Don’t you think I’m hurting right now? Don’t you think this crazy decision of yours hurts me?”
He was breathing hard. His hands were folded into fists. His eyes were brighter than bright, which was saying something because no one had blue eyes like Dash’s.
“Dash?” Miriam’s frail voice came from the hallway. “Are y’all fighting again?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
They glared at one another as Miriam came shuffling into the kitchen leaning heavily on her cane and looking a little wild-eyed without her glasses. Her crown braids were a mess today. Guilt assailed Savannah.
She’d been so consumed by her own problems that she’d neglected Miriam. Lately the old lady needed help getting her hair done in the morning. Who would take care of Aunt Miriam when she left?
Dash would do his best, but he had no idea how to braid her hair. He couldn’t cook for her either.
“What is it now?” Aunt Miriam asked.
“It’s nothing,” Savannah said, glaring at Dash.
“Oh, you think it’s nothing? I want to know why some person at Todd’s school is asking nasty questions about me.”
“What kind of questions?” Miriam said.
Savannah let go of a deep sigh. “Look, this is just Claire White using every means possible to get me to see things her way.”
“So that’s why you’re leaving?”
“You’re leaving?” Miriam asked in a quavery voice.
Savannah wanted to punch Dash in the mouth. “Thanks, Dash. This is exactly the way I wanted to tell Miriam about my change of plans.”
“You’re leaving?” Miriam said again. “Oh, dear, I didn’t count on that.” The old lady immediately started messing with her hair. It sure did look as if she was taking it down so she could rebraid it, right there in the kitchen.
“Yes, Aunt Mim, she’s leaving. She’s running away from a fight.”
“No, I’m not doing any such thing. And for the record, Dash, the last thing I want is for Claire White to smear your reputation in this town the way I did when I was ten. And furthermore, if I fight this thing, social services could swoop in and put Todd in a foster home. Is that what you want?”
He seemed to back down a little. “You don’t have to go.”
“Yes, I do. I told you before. Greg was here today, and he made it clear that if I don’t go back, then I’m going to have to fly Todd up to Baltimore every other weekend.”
“It could be done. Or you could work something out with him so Todd spends his summers up in Baltimore. You don’t have to go.”
“If I did that, Claire would smear your name from one end of this county to the other. And where would you be? No one would trust you. Your business would be gone. Little League and Pop Warner would shun you. Dash, I have to go. I won’t do that to you. I care about you. Don’t you realize that?”
He stood there breathing hard. She wanted to run to him. She wanted to tell him how much she wanted to stay. But she couldn’t be that selfish.
“Will you let me finish the theater?” he asked.
She opened her mouth to ask him why, but then she thought better of it. Maybe he needed the theater, too.
“I’ll give you the theater,” she said.
“You’ll give it to me?”
She shrugged. “I’ll be living in Baltimore. I can’t exactly take it with me, and I haven’t been a great owner these last ten years. I let it fall down before I found the courage to do something about it. And even then, I couldn’t have started the project without your help. So I’ll talk to Eugene Hanks and see about having the deed transferred. It’s the least I can do, given all the money you’ve poured into it.”
“The money’s not important.”
“Yes, Dash, it is. It’s important to me.”
He took a deep breath. Then he turned and walked out of the house. It was an ominous sign when he didn’t slam the door.
The theater was his. Dash had signed the papers on Friday afternoon in Eugene Hanks’s office. And then he’d come here and collapsed onto this hard folding chair in the lobby. Champ’s muzzle rested on his boot top. The puppy was asleep for the moment.
The workers had gone an hour ago. The theater was mostly dark, except for the utility lights strung up on the ceiling. The old, ornate carpets had been pulled up, leaving a bare concrete floor. The woodwork was beginning to come alive under Zeph’s care.
Maverick sprawled on the top of the candy counter, purring like a fiend. The cat was not all that friendly to Dash or Champ, or anyone for that matter, except Savannah.
The cat had a serious thing for Savannah. Whenever she came into the theater, he would wrap himself around her legs and meow until she picked him up. Dash had never seen a half-wild mouser behave so shamelessly. The cat even let Savannah carry him around like a babe-in-arms.
“You and me, Mav,” he said to the cat. “Just a couple of old toms in love with the wrong woman. And that, cat, is the story of my life.”
He picked up his Nehi orange and took a long swig. “I wonder what Uncle Earnest would do in a situation like this?”
“Meow.”
“Thanks. That was very helpful advice. I reckon Uncle Earnest never would have gotten himself into a situation like this.”
Dash let go of a long breath. “She’ll be gone tomorrow, and all I have is the theater and a dog and a cat. I guess it could be worse. Although I’m having a hard time figuring out how.”
He wanted to fight for her, but it was a lost cause. He couldn’t keep Todd from his father. And he sure couldn’t risk the fight that might ensue if Savannah stayed. He’d checked with Eugene earlier, and what the lawyer had told him made his blood run cold. A fight over Todd could be expensive. And since Dash already had a reputation, the fight would get ugly.
Dash didn’t want Todd to have to endure something like that. He’d promised himself that he would do the best thing possible for Todd, and that was pretty clear.
It meant giving up Savannah. It meant letting her go. It meant letting the boy go. And it hurt. Bad.
He closed his eyes and thought about the twelve steps that he’d been working on as part of his recovery. The first step was to admit that he was powerless, and the second was to admit that only a power greater than himself could restore him to sanity. And the third step was to decide to give his life over to God as he understood Him.
He’d known from the start that Savannah was like an addiction. And even if it hadn’t felt like a destructive addiction, he still wanted her with his body and his soul. He didn’t think he could live without her. A part of him just wanted to find a bottle of bourbon in order to numb the pain.
But he also wanted to be the kind of man she saw in her dreams. He wanted to be her hero. He wanted to be a man like Uncle Earnest, who had been married to the same woman for fifty years. He didn’t want to let her go. He didn’t want to let her down. He wanted to be Todd’s father. And this situation was tearing him apart.
“Please, God, please help me.”
And he lost it. The tears flowed in a way that had never happened before. Not since he was old enough to know that crying only made Gramps beat him harder. He wept. All alone in Uncle Earnest’s theater.
Champ woke up and put his front paws up on his knee. Dash sank down onto the bare concrete and hugged that dog the way he’d hugged Murphy all those years ago.
When he’d cried himself out, he just sat there holding the dog. Letting the pup lick his face. He’d have to take up reading. Maybe he could learn to be alone like Zeph. Maybe. But it was going to take everything he had to do it.
And then his cell phone vibrated. He didn’t answer it. Five minutes later, it vibrated again, and this time he pulled it out of his pocket as he wiped the tears from his cheeks.
It wasn’t a number he recognized.
He checked his missed calls. There were more than a dozen from this same number.
He pressed the talk button. “Dash Randall.” His voice sounded gruff. His throat was still thick with emotions he was working overtime to keep contained.
“Finally,” a male voice said.
“Who’s speaking?”
“This is Andrew Prior of Prior, Jacobson, and Howard.”
The investigation company Dash had hired weeks ago. He’d almost forgotten.
“Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t pick up before.” He pressed the heel of his right hand into his right eye.
“Mr. Randall, we’ve just discovered something that you need to know.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s about Gregory White, the man you asked us to investigate.”
“Yes.”
“Well, he’s a deadbeat, but that’s hardly very interesting. He’s behind on all his bills, and he spends a lot of time at Pimlico. He’s also at least a year in arrears on his child support payments, which makes him a scumbag. But that’s not the most important thing.”
Dash straightened, the knot in his throat easing. “What else?”
“We didn’t figure it out until today. Back on April thirteenth, he had lunch with someone at McCormick and Schmick’s in Baltimore. We didn’t know who the guy was. We have photos, though.”
“Yeah. Tell me it was a Mafia don.”
“Sorry. It wasn’t anything that dramatic. But we finally figured out that the guy in the photo is John Rodgers, the principal of JBR Construction of Allenberg County. White’s been in South Carolina for the last few days, and he stopped by the offices of JBR. And then we realized that JBR was the contractor on the job when the fire was started. We haven’t been able to find any link between White and the snake incident, but since that happened before we were retained, I’m not that surprised.”
“April thirteenth, you said?”
“Yes, that’s a week before the arson at the theater. And near as we can tell, John Rodgers doesn’t have any reason to be in Baltimore. He’s never traveled there before or since.”
“You have a photo?”
“I do. Would you like me to e-mail it?”
“Yeah, right away.”
They ended the conversation.
He stood up and started pacing the lobby. It seemed to take forever for that photo to arrive. The minute it hit his inbox, he forwarded it to Stone Rhodes, the Allenberg sheriff.
Stone called him before Dash could finish dialing the number. “Did you get the photo I just sent?” Dash asked.
“No, I didn’t. I was calling to let you know that we’ve got a lead in the snake mystery. We think those snakes were purchased at Jungle Jim’s Reptile World on Long Island. It turns out there aren’t a whole lot of places where someone could buy a diamondback rattlesnake, so we were able to track down most of the dealers and review the purchases made in the weeks prior to the incident. It’s very unusual for someone to buy two diamondbacks, but we found someone who did. He used a credit card, and he has a rap sheet a mile long.”
“Who bought them?”
“His name is Nathan Martel, but he prefers to be called ‘New York Nate.’ He’s a pool hustler. We haven’t figured out a connection between this guy and Savannah, though.”
“I think I can help you. Savannah’s ex-husband regularly participates in pool tournaments. So Greg would probably know a few hustlers. And what’s more, I just sent you a photo of John Rodgers having lunch with Savannah’s ex. It was taken in Baltimore about a week before the fire. I’ll bet you Greg White paid Rodgers to set that fire, and he probably got this New York Nate person to arrange for the snakes.”
“So you think this is just some kind of domestic dispute between Savannah and her ex?” Stone asked.
“I don’t know, to tell you the truth. I have a theory, though. I think Greg White is a gambler. I’ve heard Todd talk about how he plays pool a lot. And according to my private investigator, Greg is behind on all his bills as well as his child support, even though he’s a partner in a fancy law firm.”
“So Savannah was playing hardball with him and he got mad at her?” Stone asked.
“No, that’s not what I’m thinking. I’ll bet Greg’s well-heeled mother has been bailing him out on his gambling debts. But this time, she told him he needed to get Savannah to bring Todd back to Baltimore as a condition for any further financial help. Claire White would use any means to get her mitts on Todd. She’s even got the South Carolina Department of Social Services on my case.”
“What?”
It took a lot for Dash to say the next words, but he forced them out. “They want to call me a pedophile.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Dash, everyone in town knows you’re not some kind of predator. Jeez, these people are evil. I’m glad Savannah and Todd escaped.”
Dash’s shoulders relaxed a fraction, and he realized that he was going to be okay. The local law was on his side, and probably always had been.
“I’m looking at the picture you sent right now,” Stone said. “I guess I need to go down to JBR tomorrow and have a little chat with John Rodgers. And I think I need to call the Baltimore police, too. Thanks, Dash, and… I’m sorry about what happened. You know I have to chase down every lead.”
“It’s okay, Stone. I know. And everyone in town is happy that we finally have a sheriff who knows what he’s doing.”
Dash disconnected and headed for the janitor’s closet, where he washed his face.
He looked down at Champ, who stood at his feet with a smiling face and a happy tail.
He laughed. “I guess I do know what Uncle Earnest would have done,” he said to the dog.
How many times had Uncle Earnest told him to believe in the goodness of people? How many times had he also said that when the road seemed impassable you just had to trust in God and pray?
“Thank you,” he whispered as he turned off the lights and locked the door. And in that moment it almost seemed like Uncle Earnest was right there with him. Like a guardian angel or something.
Savannah folded her last sweater and zipped up the suitcase. Tomorrow at this time, she would be unpacking in Claire’s big house in the Roland Park section of Baltimore.
It depressed her to think about it. Claire had a cook who didn’t like Savannah messing around in her kitchen. And even after Savannah found an apartment, there wouldn’t be a crowd to cook for.
There wouldn’t be frog jumps, Easter dances, or Watermelon Festivals. She wouldn’t have friends at the book club or The Knit & Stitch. She wouldn’t be able to go to the theater every day and see it rising from the ruins. She wouldn’t wake up and feel like she was doing something important.
And there wouldn’t be any moments at the bathroom door. Or in the kitchen when she poured Dash a cup of coffee and handed him a thermos and a sandwich. There wouldn’t be any stolen moments at the river house.
But she had to give these things up. The alternative was unthinkable.
She put the suitcase by the door and turned off the light. It was early yet. But she didn’t want to sit on the porch and visit with Miriam. Her guilt ran so deep when it came to Miriam that she didn’t even know how to plumb its depths.
This situation was breaking her heart into a million pieces. She threw herself on her bed, but she didn’t cry. She’d cried herself out last night. She didn’t have any more tears. She had only the determination to do the best thing she could for her son. And for Dash.
She lay there listening to the quiet in the house until Dash came home. His big car’s tires crunched on the gravel driveway. His boots sounded on the porch and the landing. At the top of the stairs, he turned left instead of right. Damn him. Didn’t he know that she didn’t want to see him?
“Go away.”
“No.” He opened the door. She should have locked it. The light in the hallway silhouetted him. He was wearing jeans and a western shirt. She couldn’t see his face, but his presence made her heart sing.
“What do you want?”
“Savannah.” He took a step into the room. “Honey, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. And you know, there are some people on this earth who are so toxic that you have to accept that they have no part in your life. My father and grandfather were people like that. It’s taken me a lifetime and I don’t know how many AA meetings, not to mention a bucket of tears, to come to the conclusion that I was better off without my father and my grandfather.”
She sat up in the bed and squinted against the sudden light. “Please. This situation is more complicated. And besides, Todd deserves time with his—”
“Hush, let me finish.”
She shut her mouth. She listened. What else could she do?
“I know you want Todd to have a relationship with his father. And I know why. I even understand it. But you can’t send him back there.”
“Dash, I have to. I—”
“But he’s a gambler and a jerk. He doesn’t have any intention of spending quality time with Todd. You need to rethink.”
“Well, thank you for that. I think I’m capable of figuring out what is the right thing to do.” Of course she wasn’t really, but she wasn’t about to let Dash tell her what to do.
“Honey, listen, your ex is—”
“What in the world is going on up here?” Miriam’s voice came down the hall. She walked into the bedroom and turned on the light. “Are y’all arguing again?”
Her hair looked perfectly braided, and her gaze was sharp and lucid behind her trifocals.
“Aunt Mim, I’m trying to have a serious conversation with your niece.”
“Well, son, you’re doing a terrible job at telling her what she needs to know. And all she needs to know right now is that you can’t live without her.”
The exasperation in Miriam’s voice was clear as she turned her gaze on Savannah. “And as for you. Well, honey, I’m getting really old, and I’m tired of playing the poor, senile, old lady in order to guilt you into staying here. And I’m tired of you dancing around Dash making him crazy. And then there is the fact that I’m ready to retire as Last Chance’s matchmaker. You have to stay so I can turn it all over to you.”
Dash and Savannah stared at Miriam. She stared back at them. She raised one of her white eyebrows in an attempt to give them both her evil eye. “What?”
“You’re ready to turn over matchmaking to Savannah?” Dash asked.
“Of course. She’s got the sight.”
“I do?” Savannah said.
“Of course you do. You knew Hettie and Bill were a match before anyone else did. I don’t blame you for not figuring out Dash, though. He’s always been a little hard to figure. Inside that tough hide of his beats a golden heart. You have figured this out by now, haven’t you?”
Miriam turned toward Dash. “And you’ve figured out that not only can she cook, but she’s got a kind heart. Not at all what you thought when you were young, but see what she’s ready to do now, just to spare your reputation?”
The tears Savannah thought she’d cried out suddenly sprang to her eyes. She stood up and walked toward Dash. “There’s no way I can stay.”
“But there is.” Dash took her hand and pressed it against his chest, right above his beating heart. “You can’t go. Because I have a home for you right here. In my heart. I don’t care what anyone says about me. I want to be with you. And I swear I will be there for you, Savannah, no matter what happens. You can come to me with all your problems. I’ll be the guy cheering you on. I’ll be here to pick you up when you fall. Savannah, I love you. I love Todd. I would endure anything in the world if I could have you in my life. If you leave me, it will break my heart.” He pressed his hand on hers. “I’ve been left so many times in my life…” His voice faltered.
She didn’t let him falter for long. She rushed into his arms.
“I don’t want to go.” She sagged against him. His arms came around her. “I only decided to go because I didn’t want to hurt you, and I thought—”
“Hush, now. No one is going to hurt me. And no one is ever going to hurt Todd, as long as I live.”
“I don’t want to live in Baltimore. I love you.”
His mouth came down over hers in a kiss that made her toes curl. She almost lost herself in that kiss before her common sense returned. She pushed away.
“We can’t do this.”
“Of course we can. We’re not really cousins.”
“No, I mean, Claire is going to ruin you if I stay, and I—”
He put his fingers over her mouth. “Honey, that’s not going to happen. First of all, I realized tonight that everyone in Last Chance with the possible exception of Lillian Bray is going to give me the benefit of the doubt. People in the rest of the world might not, but I don’t really care about the rest of the world. And second, it’s not going to happen.”
She pulled his fingers away from her mouth. “But it is.”
“Nope. Not after Stone Rhodes is finished with your ex.”
“What?”
“Well, I think Greg is going to go to jail for arson.”
“No.”
“I’m afraid so. John Rodgers met with Greg in Baltimore a few days before the fire. And Stone’s got a lead on the snakes, too, that points in the direction of a pool hustler named New York Nate, of all things. So I think I’m off the hook.
“But all this is still going to hurt Todd. It’s never easy to be the son of someone who is an addict. And I’m thinking Greg is addicted to gambling. So you and I are going to have to be there for Todd. I’m going to do my best to help your son get over this disaster in his life. Just like Uncle Earnest was there for me. That’s my solemn promise, whether you marry me or not.”
“Marry you?”
“Finally,” Miriam said on an exasperated breath.
“Will you?” he asked.
She blinked up into his craggy face. “I want to.”
“Then say yes.”
“Yes.”
Dash’s mouth came back down on hers in the sweetest, most tender kiss ever. She wrapped her arms around him. She wasn’t ever going to let him go.
“What’s happening?” Todd came wandering into the bedroom with Champ dancing around his feet.
“Your mother and Cousin Dash are having a moment,” Miriam said.
“A moment?” Todd said. “It looks like they’re playing tonsil hockey.”
Miriam sniffed. “Boy, where did you hear that term?”
“From Oliver. He wants to play tonsil hockey with Sherrie Ann.”
“Oh, my, she’s all wrong for him,” Miriam said. “You tell Oliver not to kiss that girl.”
“Yes, Aunt Mim, I will.”
The old woman and the boy stood there for a moment observing the kiss that went on and on. “I told you your mother and Dash loved each other, didn’t I?” Miriam finally said.
“Yeah, you did. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. But hey, this is tight.”
“Yes, very tight, indeed.”
Todd gave Champ’s big head a little pat. “C’mon, boy, Aunt Miriam was right after all. Looks like Mom and me are staying. C’mon and help me unpack.”