It’s almost time to switch from my everyday anxiety to my fancy holiday anxiety.
River felt the panic clutch her so thoroughly that the baby in her belly rolled a slow somersault, leaving her winded enough that she had to put a hand on the wall for balance.
Lanie was patting herself down, clearly looking for her phone.
“No!” River cried. “Please don’t call the police. I can’t go to jail. I can’t have her born in jail.”
“I wasn’t going to call the police,” Lanie said. “I was going to call Cora—you look like you’re going into damn labor and more than you don’t want to have this baby in jail, I don’t want to deliver this baby.”
“I’m not in labor.”
Lanie sighed and came close enough to take River’s hand and guide her to the bed. “Sit.”
As soon as River sat, Lanie dropped her hand and stepped back, like she couldn’t stand to even look at her. The gesture made River’s heart hurt even worse because this was all her own fault.
Stupid. She was so stupid.
“Why were you stealing from me?” Lanie asked, arms crossed.
River opened her mouth, but then shut it again because what could she say? Nothing. She couldn’t tell the truth. No one would believe the truth. Hell, she hardly believed it herself.
“Hello,” Lanie said.
River looked into Lanie’s eyes. Behind the anger was pain. Pain River had caused. She had no real choice here, she realized, or at least not a choice that she wanted to face. Maybe if she’d opened up on her very first day and told Cora the truth about how she’d landed on their doorstep.
But she hadn’t.
And now she had to live with her lie. She’d taken the job because she’d seen an easy way in, only the joke was on her because she’d fallen for this place and everyone in it. She’d had it so good here that she’d become . . . happy.
And that had been the slippery slope. She’d gotten comfortable in this life where there wasn’t a daily worry about a roof over her head and food to eat, no stress over how she’d be able to take care of her baby. She’d forgotten how far from this world she belonged.
And in the end it didn’t matter since she’d just sabotaged it all. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Lanie let out a sound that very clearly said not good enough. “What were you looking for?”
One last lie, as it was easier than the truth. “Something I could pawn for quick cash.”
Lanie looked around her cottage and shook her head. “No. You’re lying. I left my purse on the counter—it’s right there in plain sight, and yet it’s still zipped. You didn’t even look in there for cash. You’re in my closet searching through what’s mostly an empty suitcase. Like you’re looking for something specific.”
With that rather shockingly accurate assessment, River managed to get back to her feet. She started to hold out the necklace, but Lanie came close and snatched it from her hands, hugging it close to her chest. It was an unguarded reaction that made River deeply ashamed. Her heart was pumping in her throat now with the need to somehow fix this. “Lanie—”
“Please just go.”
“Are you going to call the cops?”
“Just get the hell out!”
But River couldn’t leave, not like this, and she dug her feet in. “Not yet. Please, Lanie, please let me—”
“What the hell’s going on in here?” Cora asked from the still-open front door.
River startled in shock and would’ve gone down if Lanie hadn’t grabbed her. She waited until River had found her feet before once again jerking her hands away as if she’d been burned, taking a big step backward, carefully not looking at River again.
And just like that, the warmth that had been with her ever since she’d first come to Wildstone five weeks ago evaporated out of River’s chest, leaving her cold and chilled at the loss.
She’d done this.
“Someone answer me,” Cora said, using her scary CEO voice with River for the first time ever, which made her want to cry.
But it was Lanie who drew a deep breath and spoke first. “When I got back here after work, I found River searching through my stuff. She had my grandma’s necklace in her hands.” She didn’t mention River’s lie of needing something to hock for cash.
Cora’s mouth fell open in shock and surprise, and her gaze whipped to River.
But River couldn’t have spoken to save her life. Not with her heart in her throat.
“Oh, River,” Cora whispered.
“Is there a problem in here?” another voice asked, this one male.
Mark.
In uniform.
Oh God, River thought, beginning to shake like a leaf. This was bad. So bad. The shame that had filled her veins pumped even hotter and even more destructively through her body.
“Yes, there’s a problem,” Cora said. “Lanie came home to find River with her grandma’s necklace.” She looked at River with such worried, kind eyes that River felt herself start to break. She stole a quick glance at Mark, who was standing there looking stern, but clearly willing to hear what she had to say for herself. She opened her mouth and . . .
Burst into tears.
And not the pretty kind of tears either. Nope, this was the humiliatingly loud, can’t-catch-her-breath sobs as she let the entire sordid tale fall out of her, unable to keep it to herself any longer. “I wasn’t trying to steal anything of hers, I swear! I was trying to find something that’s mine. He stole it from me. He’d told me I was his moon and his stars, but that turned out to be a lie too, just like everything else he told me!”
She felt Lanie jerk in surprise but she couldn’t look. She couldn’t do anything but shake and cry. She was getting close to hyperventilating as the sobs wracked her frame, but she couldn’t stop talking now, not until she made them understand. “I thought I was m-m-married, but it turned out I w-w-wasn’t. It wasn’t ever r-r-real. Kyle f-f-fooled me and d-d-destroyed my life and left me alone and p-p-pregnant. And it was all my f-f-fault for trusting him.” She had to stop for a second and suck in air, which gave her the hiccups. “H-h-he told me we’d be a family and that I w-w-wouldn’t be alone ever again and then v-v-vanished on me. Turned out he’d d-d-died and I wasn’t his only w-w-wife.”
At that, she ran out of air and covered her face and let the sobs take her.
Cora hadn’t said anything more and she knew Mark was still standing there. She couldn’t see him, but she could feel his presence, along with that ever-present sense of rock-solid, stoic authority. “I’m s-s-so sorry,” she tried to say, but she wasn’t sure the words were even understandable. She was horrified, humiliated.
And terrified.
“River.”
This was a new voice. Holden’s voice. And her heart about stopped now because she couldn’t let him know what she’d done. Then they’d all hate her. “No—”
Two arms came around her. Strong, warm arms attached to a solid body that smelled like the mountains and the sea. “Shh,” Holden said in her ear. “Slow deep breaths now, River. Do it with me. In . . .” He demonstrated by inhaling deep. “And then out, slow . . .” He exhaled against her jaw and she clutched at him, the only lifeline on her sinking ship.
“You’ve got this,” he said.
They breathed in and out for a few minutes, during which she shuddered with the last of her tear storm, doing her best to pretend she was anywhere but where she was, with a silent audience, waiting her out.
“That’s it. More.” Holden ran a big hand up and down her back in a soothing, comforting gesture that melted her into his embrace—until she realized he might hear things about her that she didn’t want him to hear because then he too would stop looking at her with all that warmth and affection in his gaze. “What are you doing here?” she managed to ask.
“I heard the yelling. Keep breathing, River.”
“You’ve got to go.” Panic had her shoving him now. “Please. Just go.”
Holden looked around the room, his gaze landing on Mark first, then Cora and Lanie standing there, all very serious, before his gaze came back to her. “If you’re worried about me hearing what’s going on, you’re too late. And I think that more than you need me to go, you need a friend on your side. So I’m staying.”
She swallowed hard and looked away, unable to meet his eyes. But she wasn’t strong enough to let go of his hand, which she gripped tightly.
Cora came to sit on the other side of her and stroked her damp hair from her face. “Water,” she said and snapped her fingers.
Mark was way ahead of her, having already helped himself to Lanie’s kitchenette, where he grabbed a bottle of water from the small fridge. He opened it and handed it to River, who took it with shaking hands.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“I know you are,” Cora said.
But River had been talking to Lanie.
Who still wasn’t looking at her.
She sipped at the water, awaiting her fate, shaking in her boots because she’d really managed to do it now, hadn’t she, sabotaging the greatest thing that had ever happened to her. Not only with Cora and her family, but with Lanie, who’d been the best friend—no, the best sister—she’d never had.
But instead of sending her away, Cora just sat next to her, hand on her shoulder. Anytime someone tried to speak—Mark tried twice, Lanie once—Cora stopped them with a look.
She was clearly waiting until River got ahold of herself and stopped hiccupping for breath like a scared five-year-old, but she couldn’t because she felt so ashamed. She somehow forced herself to look at Mark. “I’m ready.”
“For what?”
“For you to arrest me.”
Silence.
Mark slid a look at Lanie, who wasn’t looking at any of them. She’d moved to the window and stood with her back to them all, hugging herself tightly. Unreachable.
Mark headed toward her but Lanie held up a hand and gave a single head-shake. This didn’t stop him. He still moved to her side, but he didn’t touch her, just stood next to her, silent, supportive. A presence of security that River was both painfully jealous of and also wistful for.
“Lanie?” Mark said.
From the window, Lanie didn’t move except to sigh as she answered a question River didn’t realize had been asked. “No. I don’t want to press charges.”
All of the tension seemed to drain out of Cora at that. “Extremely generous,” she said quietly to Lanie and gave River a small smile.
“Thank you,” River whispered to Lanie’s stiff back.
“I’m not doing it for you.”
River nodded even though Lanie still wasn’t looking at her. She stared down at her tightly clasped fingers in Holden’s big hand.
“Talk to us, River,” Cora said softly.
It was the last thing she wanted to do. The very last thing, right behind having a root canal without drugs. But she’d been braced for Mark to cuff her and drag her off and he hadn’t done that. She owed them all, but she especially owed Lanie.
“You thought you were married,” Cora prompted.
“Yes,” River said.
“But you weren’t?”
“No, because Kyle was already married.” She wanted, desperately, for Lanie to turn around so she could see River’s regret, but Lanie still didn’t budge. “To Lanie.”
The sudden silence was so absolute that River wasn’t sure any of them were breathing. Then in unison, they each turned to look at Lanie.
Who was still doing an impression of a statue.
“Since my marriage wasn’t real,” River said, “I got nothing when he died. Not that I wanted a thing from that rat-fink bastard. I don’t want anything from anyone that I haven’t earned, but . . .”
“You ran out of money?” Cora asked.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Kyle told me he’d paid my rent up to a year, but that wasn’t true. I lost my apartment and when I couldn’t hide the pregnancy anymore, I lost my job as well.”
“And you had to stop going to school,” Cora said, but she was looking at Mark as she said it.
“Yes.” No use thinking about her dream job of being a nurse, helping others the way she’d watched nurses help her mom.
“What did you want from Lanie?” Mark asked. Calmly. Quietly. But with an unmistakable tone of unbendable steel.
She wasn’t out of the woods with him, not yet.
“I was desperate,” she said, equally desperate for them to understand. “You have to understand, it took me forever to figure out what even happened to Kyle. At first I thought he’d just vanished on me. Two months went by and I got kicked out of our apartment—”
Lanie made a soft sound of . . . pain? Hard to tell. Everyone looked at her but she never took her gaze off the window.
“Go on,” Cora said quietly to River.
She swallowed hard. “I needed a new place, but didn’t have enough money, so I went to hock the ring Kyle had bought me.”
Cora nodded encouragingly. “But . . . ?”
“But it was fake.” He’d given her a fake diamond. The humiliation of her stupidity burned deep. “I’d bought him a real ring.” With her entire nest egg. “And I want it back. I need it back so I can sell it and get a place for me and the baby. But when I tracked down Kyle’s family to ask about it, they told me his wife had his belongings.” The words were bitter in her mouth. “That’s when I found out I wasn’t married to him at all. That he had another wife.”
Lanie finally turned to face her, her expression so carefully blank it broke River’s already broken heart all over again. “You tracked me down and came here to make pretend friends with me, to feel things out and see if you could somehow get to Kyle’s belongings through me.”
River winced at the harsh truth. “Yes.”
Lanie nodded and turned back to the window.
River stared down at her hands, feeling the same helplessness as she had when her mom had died. She was going to be kicked out, maybe arrested, and once again she’d be on her own.
Stupid.
She was so stupid.
“Everyone, follow me to the big house, please,” Cora said, eyes on Lanie’s back. “This is Lanie’s private space; we will finish this without further intrusion on her.”
More guilt slashed through River, but Cora wanted them to move, so they all moved. Even Lanie.
Cora kept a close eye on them all as they walked to the big house, waiting until everyone settled in the living room, even Holden. Lanie tried to keep to herself, but Gracie wasn’t having it, leaning all her considerable doggy weight against Lanie until she was pretty much forced by cuteness overload to pet the dog.
“River,” Cora said, “look at me.”
She forced her gaze up to Cora’s.
“I understand why you did what you did,” she said and River stilled.
“You do?”
“Yes. You were alone, terrified, and pregnant. We’d have to be monsters not to understand.”
Mark cleared his throat. “Mom—”
“She’s a kid having a kid, Marcus. She needs us.”
Mark just looked at his mom.
“We’re all about second chances,” Cora told him. “And she didn’t actually steal anything.”
“Yet,” Mark said.
“You heard her, she’s only looking for what’s hers.”
There was another long look between mother and son.
“She was taken advantage of,” Cora said and took River’s hand. “It’s going to be okay.”
“So . . . you don’t want me to leave?”
“No,” Cora said. “I most definitely don’t want you to leave.”
A tiny flame of hope flickered. “I can keep my job?”
“You’re keeping your job. We’ve got you, River,” she said.
No one had ever had her, not since her mom died. She couldn’t help it, her eyes filled again. “Are you sure?”
Cora turned to Mark, who just gave her a single nod. Cora looked at Lanie next.
She didn’t react.
“Lanie,” Cora asked softly. “Are you okay with that?”
And River held her breath, waiting for the only answer that mattered.