Two days in a cabin had turned out to be enough for Warrick. So much for his new life plan. It had been more than just the emptiness of not having anything to do. He could have handled that. This cabin had been more rustic than the one his family owned. He hadn’t wanted to go there. Not only had Tyvek killed a man there, it brought back memories of Vicki and him. Not to mention, it didn’t really qualify as a cabin. It was more like a luxury home except for being made from logs rather than drywall or brick.
The cabin he’d rented had a lake right outside the door and hiking trails through the woods. It had a wood burning stove and small kitchenette. It met the definition of cabin in more than a cursory sense. And that meant there was little to do there and it was awfully quiet. The biggest problem with it, though, had been that Sara wasn’t there with him.
He had wanted Sara. He wanted to hold her and make love to her. But he also wanted to talk to her, to hear her laugh, to have her take away that heavy weight that sat in his gut all day every day.
She would have made hiking through the woods fun. She’d likely have found a way to engineer fishing poles out of scotch tape and a paper clip so they could make use of the lake. That was the kind of thing she did. She could make something out of nothing. She could make him feel human again.
On the third night, Warrick got in his car and made the four-and-a-half-hour trip home. It was almost midnight when he got in.
He opened his condo door to find his Uncle Jonathan pawing through his mail. “Jonathan? Jesus, what are you doing here?” His thoughts went to his mother. Maybe something was wrong with her. Or Sara. Hell. “Is everything okay?”
Jonathan spun, anger in his eyes. “No, everything is not okay. You took off. You didn’t tell Charlotte where you were going. You didn’t call me or your mother. And you think everything is okay?” As he spoke Jonathan crossed the room, closing the distance between him and Warrick.
Warrick half expected him to strike him, but Jonathan pulled him in and hugged him tight to his chest. Warrick stood frozen, then brought his arms up, half surprising himself when he returned the hug.
His uncle held on for a long minute then stepped back and looked at Jonathan. “Where were you? I’ve been going through your place trying to figure out where you might’ve gone. I know you sold the beach house and you sold that monstrosity you bought for Vicki. I had the sheriff drive out to the cabin even though we’ve had that closed tight since the murder, but you weren’t there. I’ve been out of my mind. I couldn’t figure out where else you would’ve gone. I called the caretakers at your mother’s place thinking you might be in the guesthouse but they hadn’t seen you on the grounds anywhere.”
Jonathan sank into the couch and Warrick sat next to him, surprised to see his uncle was shaking a bit. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think—” He was so used to his uncle being a bit scatterbrained and not checking in for days, it hadn’t even occurred to him that his uncle would worry about him. “I went up to New Hampshire, rented a place. I thought maybe I’d get away for a little while but it turns out I suck at getting away.”
“And all this?” Jonathan waved his arm toward the empty end tables and the patio that still held the empty planter where the rosebush had stood. The dead shrub was gone and the glass and ceramic had been swept away. “You want to tell me what spurred this little getaway of yours?”
Warrick lowered his face to his hands and scrubbed it. “Things were just getting a little too, uh, stressful here.”
“You mean you were getting too close to Sara here?”
Warrick’s eyebrows shot up. He didn’t know his uncle could be that intuitive. The man was a scientist through and through. Intuition never seemed to play a big part in his makeup. “Yeah, that.”
“Have you told her any of it?”
“Any of what?”
“Any of why you and Vicki fell apart?”
“No. I’m not sure I can answer that question for myself much less for somebody else. Besides, Sara has her own issues to work through. She doesn’t need to deal with my shit.”
The lines in Jonathan’s face deepened. “Did you tell her about the baby?”
Just hearing the word “baby” felt like a knife twisting into Warrick’s gut. He was stunned that it had come from his uncle. “You know about the baby?”
Jonathan nodded. “You talk about it sometimes on your binge nights.” His uncle had always seemed to be around when Warrick needed someone to get him into bed at the end of his anniversary nights. That’s what they call them, the anniversary nights. The anniversary of the night he let his family down. He had to wonder how much more Jonathan knew if he’d been talking when he was drunk. Did he know Warrick had let Vicki walk out even though he knew she was too high and wasted to drive?
“Have you talked to Sara about it?” Jonathan tried again.
Warrick shook his head. “No. She knows a little bit about Vicki, but she doesn’t know everything.”
“You know I’ve been waiting for you to get over this by yourself. I kept telling myself Warrick is a strong guy, a smart man. But here you are, three years later and still feeling sorry for yourself.”
Warrick laughed, letting the bitterness rising like bile in his throat mingle with the laughter and come out in its tone. “I’m not feeling sorry for myself. I’m watching out for Sara. How can I let somebody else in my life after I let down everyone around me? After what I did to Vicki? To our baby?”
“What is it that you think you’ve done?”
Now Warrick started to raise his voice, something he had never done with his uncle. With his dad? Oh yeah. There’s been a lot of screaming between the two of them. But his uncle had always listened to him. Had always had time for him.
“Don’t you get it? Vicki would never have gone back to drugs and drinking if it weren’t for me. She was clean. She was off that shit. And you know what she wanted? All she ever wanted? Was to be a mom. She wanted a family. Not only did I not give her that, when she asked if we could adopt, do you know what I said?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I said no. What the hell kind of a husband says no when his wife asks if they can adopt a baby? I told her if the baby wasn’t my own I didn’t want it.”
“That was your father speaking, not you, Warrick.” Jonathan’s voice was quiet, but there was a firmness to it that wasn’t always present. “If you told her that, it was because your father had convinced you that you needed to give him an heir.”
Another burst of that bitter laugh. “On his deathbed. He told me on his deathbed that even my sperm couldn’t live up to his standards.”
Jonathan’s sigh was heavy. “Warrick, your father was a cruel man and an ass. He was one of those people who was never happy with himself, so he had to make sure the people around him felt as bad or worse than he did.”
Warrick didn’t answer. Jonathan wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know. Jonathan continued anyway. “But what you don’t realize is that you’re the polar opposite. You’re not happy with yourself, so you think you don’t deserve anything good in this world. That you deserve to pay the price forever for some imagined failings. And they are imagined,” he said when Warrick opened his mouth to argue. “Vicki was an adult. She made the choice to use drugs again, to get in that car when she had no business driving. I know you loved her from the time you guys were just kids, but that’s all the more reason for you to know that her problems started long before you could take the blame for any of them. She was sick when she was younger and her dad didn’t do right by her. He didn’t get her the kind of help she needed. You know that. In your heart, you know it. You just need to find a way to get your head to believe that. To let yourself forgive.”
He stood, leaving Warrick to think about what he’d said. His uncle stopped when he got to the door. “Sara is a pretty incredible woman. You deserve to have someone like her in your life, and I know you don’t believe you’re good enough for her, but that’s just bumpkis, Warrick. Plain and simple.”
Warrick shook his head. “Bumpkis, huh?”
“It’s a technical term,” Jonathan said. “Look it up,” He turned and let himself out while Warrick shook his head.