The more India relaxed, the more Rod enjoyed being with her. He’d thought she might be so overwhelmed by what she was going through that she wouldn’t be able to forget it long enough to have any fun. But by the time they finished dinner, she seemed happy with the distraction he brought to her life. In any case, she didn’t mention her late husband again. She talked about her shop and what she hoped to accomplish there, even showed him pictures of various pieces she’d made and asked his opinion on which ones he felt would be the most popular.
He could see that she was talented, which gave him a measure of relief. She wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of being successful if she wasn’t good. It was going to be tough as it was. There were a lot of artisans in Gold Country, but only the best stayed in business.
She also showed him pictures of her little girl. Cassia wasn’t the refined beauty her mother was, but she was definitely cute, with bright orange hair and a smattering of freckles across her nose.
India didn’t just talk about herself. She acted interested in his life, too. She asked questions about his family. They weren’t intrusive ones, though. Since he didn’t like talking about his mother, he was grateful she didn’t go back to that subject. She mostly wanted to know what his brothers were like and had him show her a picture of Aaron and Dylan, whom she hadn’t met, as well as Natasha.
“She’s beautiful,” India said as she gazed down at his stepsister’s image on his phone. They’d left the restaurant in Jackson and returned to Whiskey Creek for dessert—to the ice cream parlor. He wanted to get India circulating around town so she’d have an easier time adjusting to the move. Since there wasn’t much employment in Whiskey Creek, it was great that she didn’t need a job. But working out of her house kept her isolated and alone with her problems. He didn’t think that would be good for her. He’d seen the worry in her face start to disappear as they talked and laughed and enjoyed their food. As far as he was concerned, she should get out more often.
“Natasha is pretty,” he said. “But she’s sort of...like me and my brothers, I guess.”
India paused before taking another spoonful of her mocha almond fudge sundae. “Meaning...”
“She’s had a rough past, and sometimes it shows.”
“You’re talking about the tattoos and the piercings?”
“I’m talking about her behavior. She often pushes away the very things she needs, tells the people she cares about most to go to hell. Stuff like that. But anyone would be screwed up after being raised by Anya.” He thought of Natasha’s salty language, which was worse than anyone else’s in the family. “She’s got a chip on her shoulder. She’s also opinionated, thinks she can take on the whole world by herself.”
“What’s that about?”
“It’s all bluster. She’s lonely and trying to make sure no one knows it. She’s also angry, which means she’s her own worst enemy. I understand that because I spent so many years being angry myself. You can get into deep trouble if you can’t admit when you really want something or need someone.”
India wiped her mouth with one of the small paper napkins they’d been handed with their ice cream. “The way you guys have taken her in and looked out for her is wonderful.”
Rod thought of his concern for Mack and the fact that he suspected his youngest brother’s feelings weren’t quite as brotherly as they should be, but he didn’t say anything. The last thing he’d ever do was make one of his brothers look bad. “Like I told you at dinner, she’ll be heading to college next fall—to Utah—so our job is essentially done.”
India straightened in her seat. “I’m glad you were willing to take responsibility for her. I bet it changed her whole life. But what you just said almost sounds like you’re booting her out of the family.”
“No, not at all,” he responded, backing away from the finality with which he’d spoken a moment earlier. “The situation will change. That’s all.” He hoped it would change for the better—that she’d find a boyfriend and put his misgivings to rest. She hadn’t had a single steady relationship in Whiskey Creek, rejected all romantic attention. Rod feared that her heart was set on Mack, but surely she’d forget him once she went to college and met so many other possibilities. Men she could date without the negative sentiment that would arise if she and Mack got together, especially in such a small town...
“You mean she’s growing up,” India clarified.
He took the out she’d given him, even though he’d actually meant more than that. “Right.”
Since he’d finished his own ice cream and she was eating so slowly, he helped himself to some of hers.
She slid it closer—an invitation to take all he wanted.
“I have a question for you,” he said.
“What’s it about?”
“Sebastian.”
She grimaced as if she didn’t like hearing his name. “I thought we were done talking about him.”
“I need to know a couple more things.”
“Such as...”
“I couldn’t find anything online about the date of his next trial.”
“Because there isn’t going to be another trial,” she said. “I heard the news myself yesterday. The DA’s afraid he won’t have any better luck with a new jury. He’s decided to wait and see if the police can dig up more evidence.”
This was not good news, but Rod had been halfway expecting it. “How do you feel about that?”
Her eyes grew troubled again, the way they’d been at the restaurant when they were discussing her situation. “How do you think I feel? They’ve released him. He’s out, God knows where.”
He had another spoonful of her ice cream. “Are you afraid he might come here?”
“Of course. What’s to stop him?”
“And yet you’re acting as if nothing’s changed.”
“What else can I do? Quit living my life? Barricade myself in my house? Move again?” She frowned. “I might have to move again. I can’t bring Cassia to a place where she might not be safe. But trying to sell the house and find somewhere else to go... It’s not something I’m looking forward to.”
“I’m just surprised you haven’t said anything about it. We’ve been talking all night, and you haven’t mentioned a word.”
“You’ve had enough of your own problems. I figure you don’t need to hear about mine.”
But someone had to help her. She had a child to protect, couldn’t stand up to the man who killed her husband all by herself. “The cops can’t do anything?”
“No one can do anything. That’s the problem.”
“So what are the chances?”
“That he’ll come here? I have no clue what’s going on in his mind, if he’s glad to be free and plans to stay out of trouble, or if he’s angry and will take the opportunity to exact a bit of revenge. I lied to him that night. I had to. I did whatever I could to protect my child. And then I testified against him, so he knows I lied. The only thing I can be sure of is that he hates me now.”
“You didn’t leave a forwarding address when you left the Bay...”
“I did. My mail had to go somewhere, but for the time being it goes to a PO box.”
“Does he have contact with anyone who might tell him where you’ve moved?” Because once he heard the name of the town, it wouldn’t be hard to find her.
“Not really. But he could ask around. When I bought my house, the trial was still going on, and I was sure he’d be incarcerated for the rest of his life. I saw him shoot my husband. I couldn’t believe he’d get off after that. So I wasn’t as careful as I should’ve been.”
“Meaning...your friends know.”
“The ones who didn’t abandon me before I decided where I was going to move. Then there’s Cassia’s day-care lady, and a neighbor or two, as well as a handful of other people I might’ve said something to without realizing it.”
Rod felt anxious for her. “Now I know why you’re not sleeping.”
“I wasn’t sleeping even when he was in jail. I have...nightmares about...about what happened. Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat, convinced that he’s standing at the foot of my bed, watching me. My sense of security is completely shot—to use a bad pun. But knowing he’s out there, free to go where he will, only makes it worse.”
And yet...what was that she’d told him when he picked her up? “But didn’t you say you were actually able to sleep last night? Did exhaustion get the best of you, or...?”
A guilty smile curved her lips.
“What is it?” he asked when she didn’t reveal what she was thinking.
“Last night I had a little help.”
“So you did take a sleeping pill.”
“No. I slept on your deck.”
He sat up straighter. “You...what?”
She rolled her eyes. “I know. It’s pathetic to go creeping over to your neighbor’s house. But it was the safest place I could think of, and I needed to crash so badly.”
“You should’ve knocked. I would’ve shared the bed.”
“After hitting on you Friday night for... Well, I wasn’t about to knock,” she said with a laugh. “Besides, I don’t want to drag you or anyone else into this. One person’s already been killed simply for being part of my life.”
“Sometimes bullies throw their weight around until someone stops them.”
“This bully is a murderer. You don’t want to mess with him.”
He scraped the bottom of the bowl, then pushed it aside. “What was he like before? When you were dating him?”
“He wasn’t perfect, by any means. But he was never particularly violent.”
The way she qualified that statement concerned Rod. “Particularly?”
“We had a few minor skirmishes,” she allowed, “but nothing big, nothing that would lead me to believe he could seriously harm anyone.”
“What made you date a guy like that in the first place? Or a Hell’s Angel, for crying out loud? I can’t see a girl like you being attracted to those kinds of guys.”
“Wow, you really did your homework.”
“I was interested.” He was still interested, maybe even more so. There was something about her that got to him, made him want to protect her.
“You and everyone else since Charlie died. I feel like my past’s been put on display for everyone to criticize.”
“I was looking for reasons to believe you.”
She smiled. “That feels good. It’s why I’m talking about this at all, why I’m trusting you after shutting everyone else out. But I can’t explain why I was attracted to bad boys. I was young and reckless, and they were...exciting.”
“You can’t tell me you thought they’d make decent husbands...”
“In those days, I wasn’t looking for a husband. I wasn’t thinking in terms of what would be best for my life.”
“You were more interested in hot sex.”
“Could be,” she said wryly. “But it was more than that. Every emotion was exaggerated. Life in the fast lane can be sort of...addicting.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Are you saying life—maybe sex—with a man like Charlie wasn’t quite the same?”
She looked pained, as if she preferred not to answer that question. Her reluctance, as much as anything else, told him she’d had no hand in Charlie’s murder. She couldn’t say a bad thing about the guy. She’d have to be able to disconnect from that in order to kill him or even want him dead. “No, of course not. It was good. Just...different.”
“Better?” he pushed. Something had been missing. What was it?
“In all the ways that’re important.”
She sounded slightly defensive, so he took it one step further. “But not in other ways, like maybe...you weren’t as sexually compatible as you’d hoped?”
Suddenly defiant, she lifted her chin. “I loved him, so that didn’t matter.”
“It’d matter to me,” he said point-blank.
Her eyes met his, revealing in their intensity. She felt something for him, if only that old attraction to men she thought weren’t good for her. Rod almost called her on it, but then she looked away and seemed to stifle what she was feeling—as if that, too, was disloyal.
“I think what I’d been searching for before was all-consuming passion,” she said. “But I’ve realized those types of relationships don’t last, except in books and movies. What I had with Charlie was a solid marriage, especially when you compare it to all the dysfunctional, volatile relationships I’d had before. He gave me consistency, dependability, unconditional love, and he was such a wonderful father.”
Rod had pushed her too far. Instead of acknowledging that despite her love for her dead husband, she was feeling the spark of attraction right here, right now, with him, she was singing Charlie’s praises. To stop her from becoming any more entrenched in the defense of her marriage, he backed off. He’d learned what he needed to know. For all the great things Charlie was, he hadn’t fulfilled India completely, not in a deep-down, intimate way.
Maybe Rod couldn’t fulfill her, either, but he wanted to try. He supposed that said a lot about the level of his attraction—that he’d choose to continue their relationship knowing she had a homicidal ex. “What would a minor skirmish with Sebastian include?”
She seemed to relax, definitely didn’t feel the same impulse to defend Sebastian that she’d felt for Charlie. “An angry shove here or there. A raised fist. But until that night, he never struck me.”
Rod felt his muscles tense. “He hit you?”
“Not as hard as I wish he had,” she muttered.
How was he supposed to interpret that?
She must’ve seen his confusion because she explained. “If he’d beaten me to a bloody pulp, it wouldn’t have been so hard for all our friends and his family to believe I wasn’t in league with him, and I wouldn’t be such a pariah.”
“Charlie’s family turned against you, too?”
“Not completely. Not yet. But I’m afraid that’s coming.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Things between us feel...different, strained.”
“And if he’d nearly killed you, everyone would know you were as much of a victim as Charlie was. Is that it?”
“Exactly. And then...”
“Then?”
The bell over the door jingled as a small group of tourists entered the shop. After glancing up and taking note of them, she lowered her voice. “Then maybe I could forgive myself for not doing more. If I’d managed to call for help, maybe I could’ve saved Charlie.”
They’d come full circle—back to the guilt she felt, which was probably why she could remember only the good things about her husband. “So why didn’t you call?”
“At one point I got hold of a phone. But Sebastian told me he’d kill Cassia if I didn’t put it down.”
“You don’t believe he would’ve done it?”
She bit her lip. “Could he really kill a child? I don’t know. That’s the thing. The threat seemed real. He’d just shot my husband. But I keep going over and over the events of that night, wondering if I could’ve done this or could’ve done that. And everyone else has done the same, questioned my every move.”
“Let it go,” he said. “You had no choice.”
“I wish it were that easy.”
So did Rod. The questions she was asking herself were terrible. “What if” was always hard, but it would be excruciating in this serious a situation. “You acted in the safest way you could. You need to accept that.”
She opened her mouth to respond but didn’t get the chance. Someone else called his name. “Rod!”
When he looked up, he saw Theresa Santiago, a girl he dated now and then. They weren’t in a committed relationship. She was as aware of that as he was. But because she sometimes acted as if she’d like to get serious, she wasn’t one of the people he’d hoped India would meet when he brought her out for ice cream.
Only Melody would’ve been worse.
“Hi, Theresa.” He stood and collected the napkins they’d used, to signal that they were leaving.
“What are you doing here?” Theresa’s eyes cut to India.
“Just enjoying the night,” he replied. “You?”
She didn’t bother shifting her attention back to him. Clearly, she wondered who India was—and what they meant to each other. “Same thing,” she replied, except that she was alone, which made him think she’d stopped in because she’d seen his truck on the street. “Did you get my message?” she asked.
“About the barbecue next Saturday? I haven’t had a chance to check my schedule. I’ll do that and get back to you.”
“Okay.” She gestured at India. “Is this...a new friend? I don’t believe we’ve met.”
The garbage can was only a couple of steps away. Rod walked over and tossed in the napkins before returning to the table. “This is India Sommers, my new neighbor.”
“The woman who bought the house next door?”
“That’s me.” Wearing a polite smile, India held out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Wow. I was hoping you’d be older.” She looked thoroughly disheartened as they shook hands. “And I think I’d feel better if you weren’t so attractive.”
Rod hadn’t expected Theresa to make her interest in him so obvious. She’d never been that bold in the past. He was about to say something about how she’d always been a great friend. He felt he needed to clarify their relationship, since India seemed a little confused. But India spoke while he was still trying to come up with the kindest way to phrase what he wanted to say.
“I’m no competition,” she said. “Rod and I just met.”
Theresa studied him, as if she was taking note of the fact that he’d dressed up—and then he remembered refusing to be her date to a friend’s wedding because it would mean putting on a jacket and tie. “Well, if you’re like me, it won’t take you long to fall in love with him,” she said. Then she nodded in his direction. “Have fun.”
India remained silent until Theresa had walked out. “Please tell me that woman isn’t your girlfriend,” she said.
“No. We’ve been out a few times, that’s all.”
“Did you know she was in love with you?”
He scratched his neck. “I’m pretty sure she was joking when she said that.”
India tilted her head to give him a “no way” look. “I’m pretty sure she wasn’t.”
Well, she’d certainly picked a fine time to tell him. “I’ve never made her any promises.”
“But you have slept with her.”
“Casually. And not often.”
“Have you ever had a serious girlfriend?”
“I’ve had a few,” he said, but he didn’t want to talk about the last one. What Melody had to say wouldn’t recommend him to any woman but would especially frighten someone like India, who’d been abused by men in the past.
“Let’s go.” He jerked his head toward the door. “I’ll take you for a ride on my brother’s bike, since mine’s not working at the moment.”
“You’re not comfortable with this subject,” she guessed, watching him closely.
“Like I said, I’ve never made Theresa any promises.”
She said nothing.
“About that motorcycle ride...”
“I’d have to change my clothes.”
“Of course.”
She didn’t seem convinced it was a good idea. “Motorcycles are dangerous, even when the driver has full use of both hands.”
He slipped his left arm around her shoulders as they walked to his truck. “Babe, who do you think you’re talking to?” he teased, hoping to put the melancholy of their earlier conversation, and the awkwardness of running into Theresa, behind them. He felt it was time for India to forget her problems and have some fun.
“Who am I talking to?” she quipped, playing along.
“Someone who’s been riding his whole life,” he replied. “You have nothing to worry about. I’ll take care of you.”