Chapter 19
Eve
I jogged down the street, snorting back tears, forcing them down. I wouldn’t cry over him. I wouldn’t cry over loving a man. Not again. I shouldn’t have screamed at him. I shouldn’t have blamed him for this. “It was his fault,” I said, through gritted teeth. “If he hadn’t tried to protect me.” What’s wrong with him caring for you?
I let out a wail of frustration, then jammed my mouth shut. I had to get it together. I couldn’t lose it here in the middle of Hope Creek. I blinked and turned around on the spot, taking in the trees, the quaint lamps and the suburbia that surrounded me, now.
Cassidy’s house was close by, but I’d gotten lost somehow. Lost in the smallest fucking town in Texas. A typical Eve move.
I scrubbed tears from my cheeks, then drew in several deep breaths. I’d deal with what I’d said to Joshua later. Now, I had to focus on Cassidy. I’d blown a friggin’ gasket for a reason: my only friend had lost her means of providing for her daughter.
I’d come from a broken home. My father hadn’t had the inclination to stick around for the first year of my life or any other, and my mother had raised me the best she could. My mother and grandmother. The two women who’d taught me to cook and to work hard for everything in life.
I swallowed reflexively. “Don’t cry. Come on, grow a backbone. Crying won’t help.” One of my grandmother’s mottos. She’d been tough as nails. I put one foot in front of the other and walked the line toward the corner.
I stopped there and looked up and down the street. I didn’t recognize any of the houses. Thunder rumbled over ahead, and lightning arced through the dark clouds, illuminating the dimming afternoon.
I bit my lip and took a right, simply because it was closer. The rain would come down soon, and then what? I had to find Cassie and help her.
If only I’d brought my phone to work today. But no, I’d figured I wouldn’t need it because I’d be preoccupied with grilling and keeping Faith calm. Don’t think about her. But my entire body tensed regardless.
I hurried down the road, past houses and picket fences, lawn ornaments and mailboxes. None of the houses looked familiar. I turned the corner again and walked down the next street.
The clouds broke, and the rain came down, sparse at first, just a few drops on the sidewalk, darkening the concrete in splotches. It came down harder, plastering my hair to my head and my cotton dress to my skin.
I let tears join the rain and walked on, a pathetic picture to whoever looked out of their windows.
A familiar house appeared at the end of the street and my heart leaped into my throat. “Cassie!” I yelled, and quickened my pace. “Cassie!” I broke into a run across the lawn and skidded in the mud. I fell on my ass, but scrambled upright, slip-sliding in the mud.
I took the stairs in a single jump and crashed into the door. “Cassidy! It’s me! It’s Eve. Are you okay?” I knocked on the door. “Cassie, open up. I know you’re upset, but we’ll find a way to work this out, okay? I’ll – uh –” But what could I do? I didn’t have a restaurant of my own, and Lily’s place in Heather’s Forge wouldn’t be operating for months yet.
I sagged, but kept my fist up. I knocked again, softer this time – Charlie was in there, too, and sick.
I leaned back, the rain bucketing down outside the tiny square overhang above me, and scanned the windows on either side of the entrance. They were dark, no lights. Nobody home? Surely not.
I gripped the railing and ran down the front stairs, slipping on the mud all over again. I hurried to the side gate and measured my breaths. It was okay, this wasn’t the end of the world. Cassidy would make it through this.
The anger which’d driven me faded bit by bit. The memory of what I’d said to Joshua struck a gong inside my chest.
God, I’d compared him to Bryan. I’d – I’d lost it for a second there. I’d lost my damn mind. Everything about my relationship with Joshua, if it could be called that, had led me down the road to instability. It’d changed me for the worse.
I struggled with the latch on Cassidy’s side gate – the one that led into her backyard – and blinked rain from my eyes, shoved thoughts of what I’d done and who I was aside. Finally, the latch clicked and I shambled into the yard.
“Cassie!” I slipped and plonked down on my butt again. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I muttered. I sat there for a full minute, the rain pelting down on me, plastering my white summer dress to my skin. Well, at least it had been white before this had happened.
Suddenly, the humor of the situation struck me and I burst out laughing. I laughed and laughed until I couldn’t anymore, until there were just hiccups of hysterical mirth left to me. “Crazy. You’ve literally lost your mind.” It was plain that Cassidy wasn’t home. Her car wasn’t in the drive. She’d probably taken Charlie somewhere, perhaps to see her mother and confide in her about what’d happened.
I scrambled around in the mud and eventually brought myself upright. I sloshed over to the gate and exited the yard, then swung it shut behind me and made sure the latch clicked. It wasn’t as if there was a dog to let out, but Cassie likely wouldn’t appreciate me leaving it open and swinging back and forth in the wind.
The urgency had finally worn off, and I shivered in the icy torrent. Wind ripped my wet hair back and whapped it against my skin again. “Ouch.” Well, there was nothing for it. I had a long walk home to enjoy the weather.
I set off walking and a truck rumbled past, thankfully, one I didn’t recognize. The brake lights flashed red and the truck idled in the rain, exhaust pipe steaming. A man stuck his head out the window and squinted back at me from underneath the brim of his cowboy hat. “Need a ride?”
Recognition tickled me. “I – who are you?”
“Harry,” he yelled. “We met in Heather’s Forge? Joshua was bringing me a goat for my granddaughter’s birthday party.”
“Oh, yeah!” I jogged to the passenger side of the truck and clunked open the door, consequently exposing the muddied state of my dress. I clamped my arms across my breasts to hide the bra that poked through the fabric.
Old Harry didn’t leer at me at all. “Well? What are you waiting for? Get in, girl.”
“But I’m muddy.”
“This truck’s seen far worse than a bit of mud. That goat shat all over these seats after Joshua gave it to me,” Harry said.
I snorted a laugh, but it was accented by pain at the mention of his name. I scrambled into the cab and slammed the door shut behind me. “Thanks,” I said, and swept my hair back over my shoulder. “I stay above the butcher’s store in town.”
“Great, that’s on my way out. Shoot, I don’t know if I’ll make it back to Heather’s Forge in this weather, though. Might have to stop off in Cowboys n’ Cuts for a while.”
“They’re closed,” I said.
“Aw, just my darn luck. Ah, well, I’ll go visit Marjorie instead,” Harry said, and drove off down the road, away from Cassidy’s house. The worry about her followed me, though. I swayed from side to side as Harry took corners and ramped through potholes, water streaming down the windshield only to be swept away by the wipers.
“You all right, girl? You look kinda pale. And what were you doing out in the mud and rain anyways?”
“I – uh, I had an accident. I –” I swallowed and bit back tears.
“Oh, hell, don’t you go crying on me, now. If you got something you need to say, just say it. I ain’t gonna tell nobody.” Harry tipped back his hat and scratched the gray at his hairline. “Ain’t got nobody but my wife to tell and she’s more interested in her baking than gossip. Part of the reason I married her.”
His warmth made this worse. Tears pricked my eyes, then wormed past the barrier at which I tried to hold them. Finally, I exploded. I told Harry everything, from the way I felt about Joshua to why it couldn’t be, and how I’d lost Cassidy her job.
He listened in total silence. By the time I’d finished, we’d already parked outside my apartment, and my tears had dried. My throat hurt like hell, but it’d felt amazing to get everything out there in the open.
“Now,” Harry said, and scratched again, “I’m not one to give the best advice, in fact, my wife thinks I should keep my big trap shut most of the time. I feel I should tell you that you’ve gotta do what’s right for you, girl. You’ve got to follow your heart and your soul, because following anything else ain’t gonna make you happy. Trust me, I know.”
I swallowed. If only I knew what my heart and soul truly wanted.
“And as for that Faith Stone,” he said, and grunted something unintelligible. Harry inhaled, then looked over at me. “Don’t you worry about her. Women like that always end up digging their own graves. You mark my words. She’s going to fall short because of how she treated you and Cassie. She will. And don’t you go thinking that what happened to Cassie was your fault. It wasn’t. If I know Faith, this was a long time coming. A long time planned. The woman’s evil.”
“T-thanks,” I managed. “For everything.” He was like a grandfatherly angel come down from above to lift me quite literally out of the mud.
“You go on up there and get warm. If you need anything else, you give me a call.” He took a card out of his top pocket and handed it over. “Be safe now, hear?”
“Thanks, Harry.” I let myself out of the truck and darted for the metal grating that led up to my apartment. Harry’s pep talk had worked wonders – I wasn’t on the verge of a breakdown anymore, but I had a lot of questions to consider.
And the answers were still elusive.