10
Since Dawson had been released from jail, he’d thought only of getting the farm up and running and bringing Angela home, where she belonged. He owed it to his parents. They’d essentially saved his life when they adopted him, gave him a good home and provided a solid education. More than anything, they’d given him love, which was what had finally made him whole—or as whole as he was going to get. He didn’t even like to think about what’d come before. But ever since last night, whenever he let his mind wander, he didn’t dwell on how many more plants he could put in if he cultivated another five acres, or how he might respond if he received a difficult question from the state representative who was coming in five days to see if he’d be able to provide a stable environment for Angela.
He thought about Sadie.
“Damn it, stop!” he growled at himself. There was no one around to hear him; he could do and say what he wanted. But no amount of censure seemed to change the pattern of his thoughts, not since last night. He’d had to put his sexuality on a shelf, had to focus on other things to survive. Now that the danger was past, and he was left to pick up the pieces, however, that all-too-human part of him was reasserting itself with a vengeance. Those gorgeous legs and what he might’ve found had he lifted that T-shirt she’d been wearing remained center stage in his mind, which affected other parts of his body, as well.
He should’ve hired someone else. A man.
Except he couldn’t hire a man to help bathe his sister...
As the sun moved higher in the sky, he found himself glancing toward the drive more and more frequently. He kept asking himself why it mattered to him what time Sadie arrived. She was going in to clean. It wasn’t as if they’d have much interaction. But he was looking forward to seeing her in spite of all that.
Shortly after noon, a car arrived, but it wasn’t Sadie. Although he couldn’t be sure, since he was standing at such a distance, Dawson was fairly certain it was Aiyana’s oldest two sons parking in his drive. He’d met them when he attended school at New Horizons Boys Ranch and had been friends with them ever since. Like Aiyana, they’d stood by him despite the doubt and suspicion he’d faced almost everywhere else, but he hadn’t spent any time with them since he’d been home. He’d been too focused on what he had to accomplish, too busy to even return their calls.
“I guess we have to drop by unannounced to get to speak to you,” Elijah said as they met halfway between the field where Dawson had been working and the drive where the Turners had parked.
“Sorry,” Dawson said. “It’s nothing personal.”
Elijah exchanged a knowing glance with Gavin. “We don’t doubt that. You’ve been through hell. I’m not sure I’d be particularly friendly after a year in jail, either.”
“Exactly,” Gavin chimed in.
“I figured you’d come around when you were ready—didn’t want to push,” Elijah continued. “But you know my mother.”
She’d tried to call him. He’d been meaning to get in touch... “Aiyana sent you?”
Elijah lifted a bucket. “With cleaning supplies.”
Dawson removed his cap and wiped the sweat from his brow. “She expects you to clean?”
“Just the...you know, the bedroom.”
Realization dawned. “The murder scene.”
“She asked us if we’d mind,” Gavin chimed in. “And we don’t.”
“Better us than you,” Elijah added. “She told us you were preserving it for some forensics expert, so we purposely held off to give you time. But if that’s happened already, we’d like to take care of the washing up for you.”
Gavin, who had a darker complexion and a smaller build, with tattoos covering both arms, propped his hands on his lean hips. “Has the forensics dude been here?”
Dawson nodded. “Guy by the name of Ed Shuler came out the day after I was released.”
Elijah spat in the dirt. “Good. He find anything that might be helpful?”
“Don’t know yet. He took all kinds of samples—fiber samples, wall swabs, drain swabs, blood samples, fabric samples and who knows what else. But he told me it could take months to process everything.”
Elijah frowned. “That’s disheartening.”
“Like everything else that’s happened this year,” he said.
“So now all you can do is wait?” Gavin chimed in.
Dawson shoved his hands into his pockets. “That’s about the sum of it.”
“But you’re done with the room, right?” Elijah asked. “Have you cleaned it yet?”
“Not yet.” Dawson knew it needed to be done—and before he brought Angela home. No one in his or her right mind would let him take custody of his sister with their parents’ blood still spattered all over the walls. But every time he decided to get scrubbing, he couldn’t quite bring himself to follow through. He hadn’t even been able to make himself go inside the room yet. The day he got home, he’d been physically ill, nauseous, as he climbed the stairs. That was why he’d locked their door—and tried to put what was behind it out of his mind. Even when he let Ed Shuler inside, he hadn’t gone in with him. He’d used some flimsy excuse that he had to take care of something else to get as far away as possible.
“So we can do that for you now?” Gavin pressed.
He almost said yes. He sure as hell didn’t want to do it himself. But washing up smacked too much of moving on, and moving on made him feel disloyal. “No. I’m not ready.”
“Not ready,” Elijah repeated.
“It’s complicated,” he said.
Elijah arched one eyebrow. “My mother’s afraid you’ll let what happened consume your life. On the chance you refused to let us clean, she told me to tell you that your parents loved you and would want what was best for you, and that might be letting go. She says she’d feel that way about us, if she were in your parents’ situation.”
“The killer took a year from you,” Gavin concurred. “Don’t let him take any more.”
“I’m going to catch the bastard,” Dawson said. “I have to. I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t.”
Gavin let his breath go in a long, audible exhale. “What does that mean?”
“It means I have to do this my own way. I’ll clean the room when I’m ready.”
“I wish you’d let us take care of it for you,” Elijah said. “But...I don’t want to make things worse for you. I’ll tell my mother that she’ll have to come out here and talk to you herself if she feels that strongly about it.”
“Tell her I appreciate the support she’s given me. The same goes for you. A person in my situation...having someone in your corner makes a big difference.”
“We know you better than everyone else,” Elijah said.
Gavin kicked a pebble in the dirt. “I feel terrible. If only I’d been home when you came by after shoving that hitchhiker out of your truck, I could’ve corroborated some of your story.”
“I could’ve gone back to the bar to see you, but I didn’t want to drink anything else, didn’t want to get sucked back into that scene for any length of time. I was just wasting fifteen or twenty minutes until I could go home and get some rest. I had to work the next morning.”
“And you didn’t want to let your parents down by being unable to do that.”
He chuckled without mirth. “That’s the irony.”
The sound of a motor caused them to turn. Sadie had arrived. She parked to one side so the Turners could still get around her and climbed out carrying a small, white sack.
“Hey.” Elijah obviously recognized her and seemed startled to see her.
She glanced from one brother to the other. “Hi.”
“Sadie works for me now,” Dawson explained to avoid any misunderstanding. “She’ll be taking care of Angela, once we get the house cleaned up and I can bring my sister home.”
“You quit the diner?” Gavin asked her.
“I’m still there, but only for another week or so. This job will give me more hours. I needed to get something that paid a bit more.”
Elijah nodded. “I see.”
Dawson dug the house key out of his pocket. His parents had never locked the house during the day. They’d rarely bothered to lock it even at night. When they were murdered, the house had been left wide-open, and Dawson knew it was because they figured he’d lock up after he got home. They’d felt safe. But after what he’d been through, he wasn’t about to allow anyone, including the vandals who’d come after, the chance to get inside his home ever again. “Here you are. You can go inside and get started,” he told her.
“Okay. See you in a minute.” She offered them all a self-conscious smile before leaving.
“Sadie, Dawson?” Elijah whispered once she was out of earshot. “What about Sly?”
“What about him?” Dawson asked.
“He’s super possessive, for one. I can’t imagine he’ll be okay with having her out here—with you—even if you weren’t—” he paused, grappling for words until he ended with “—public enemy number one right now.”
“I’ve been tried. I was found not guilty.”
“That won’t matter,” Gavin muttered, showing his complete agreement with his brother. “Not to him.”
Dawson scratched his neck. “She applied. She was qualified and close by and needed the money. I didn’t see why her ex should have any say in the matter.”
Elijah looked less than comfortable. “Don’t mess with Sly, man. He can be a real ass.”
Dawson was finding that out. “He’s not going to tell me who I can and can’t hire. That’s not fair to me or her.”
Gavin cleared his throat. “I applaud your fighting spirit. And I can see why you’d feel that way. So would I. But I’ve seen that dude in action. Like Eli said, he’s a real prick—a prick on a power trip.”
“Most cops are,” Dawson joked. “At least the ones I’ve met.”
Eli dipped his head as if to say he could understand. “I’m sure you haven’t seen the best side of law enforcement. Everyone on the Silver Springs force is convinced you’re guilty. But you’ve been through enough. I’d hate to see you wind up in trouble again.”
“So what are you suggesting?” Dawson asked. “That I fire her and let him starve her out? Allow him to force her to come back to him because she has no other way of feeding her child?”
“Jayden is his child, too,” Gavin said. “Sly won’t let him go hungry.”
“I’m not so sure,” Dawson argued. “He seems to care more about himself than his son—or his desperate-to-be-rid-of-him wife.” He thought of how frightened Sadie had been this morning that someone would see him coming out of her house. Sure, she was concerned about what her landlady would think, but she was more afraid that Sly would find out. “She hasn’t said much, but everything she has told me suggests he’s not playing fair.”
Eli leaned around his brother, checking to be sure Sadie had gone into the house and wasn’t standing off in the shade somewhere, listening. “I don’t know him that well, to tell you the truth. You might be right. But Sly’s a snake, a jealous snake. A few weeks ago, Sadie must’ve found someone to watch her kid, because I saw her at the bar. Sly was there, too, and stared daggers at anyone who dared approach her. He made it very clear he still considered her to be his property and wouldn’t put up with interlopers. So...watch your back.”
“I’m not interested in her romantically.” What Dawson had been feeling since last night called him a liar, but he hadn’t intended their relationship to be anything other than employer/employee and wasn’t going to let it move in that direction.
“The reality doesn’t matter,” Eli said. “He’ll perceive you as a threat and give you grief over anything he can.”
“I asked her to dance when we saw her the night Eli’s talking about,” Gavin said. “I felt sorry for her sitting off by herself, you know? And, just for that, he almost started a fight with me right there in the bar.”
Dawson slapped his jeans to get the dust off. “Yeah. I’ve seen a bit of that kind of behavior.”
Eli’s eyes widened. “Already? When did she start working for you?”
“Just a few days ago. But the beginning of anything is always the hardest.”
“You think he’ll settle down and let it go,” Gavin said.
Dawson settled his cap back on his head as he looked up at them again. “Once he gets used to the idea. What else can he do?”
Eli made a clicking sound with his mouth. “I don’t like what comes to mind.”
“Legally,” Dawson stressed. “He’s a cop, right?”
“The fact that he’s a cop makes it worse, not better,” Gavin said.
“Who’s going to hold him in check?” Eli agreed.
Dawson turned to stare at the fields he’d been working so hard to cultivate. He’d hate to see all his effort wasted. He had to stay focused. And yet...he couldn’t abandon a woman who was being bullied. “I guess I will, if necessary,” he said as he turned back.
“Don’t do anything.” Elijah’s voice grew firm. “If he comes over, call one of us. He’ll be less likely to act out with a witness around. You can’t let it come down to his word against yours.”
“Sure thing,” Dawson said. But he knew if Sly came out, there’d be no time to invite the Turners.
He waved as they left. Then he pivoted and saw Sadie’s face at the window, looking out at him. He wanted to go in and talk to her, to see how she was doing.
And that was specifically why he averted his gaze and went right back to the field where he’d been working.
* * *
Because the diner had been slow, they’d cut her an hour early, giving Sadie time to swing by a small clothing boutique, where she’d purchased a new blouse. Perhaps it wasn’t wise to waste money in her current financial crisis. She could continue to get by without another top. But she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had something new. She was working two jobs right now, so she had more money coming in than since she’d left Sly, and it’d been fun to feel as though she had someone she wanted to impress. She hadn’t bothered with that type of thing in ages, had barely let herself look at the eligible men in the area.
The sheer, sparkly fabric that covered a solid nude-colored tank underneath made her feel pretty, maybe even sexy in a subtle way, but Dawson had barely glanced at her when she arrived—and then he hadn’t come in. She stood at the window mired in disappointment as she watched him move away from her until he disappeared from view.
“What did you expect?” she said aloud. She’d been a fool to buy a new blouse. Last night had been an anomaly. Dawson wasn’t interested in her. She’d be crazy to get involved with him even if he was. She had nothing but his word and her instincts to rely on when it came to the issue of his parents’ murder. And Sly would become even more insufferable if he thought he had competition. It was better to keep her relationship with Dawson professional—which she’d known all along, of course.
Trying to shake off a sudden melancholy, she went up to his room to borrow an old T-shirt. She hadn’t worn her new blouse for more than an hour. If she took it off now, before she could spill or splash on it, she could possibly return it. And since she did Dawson’s laundry, and he never showed up at the house unless it was time to eat, she’d just change back before dinner and then wash and return his shirt to his closet with the next batch.
His T-shirt nearly drowned her. She’d never weighed much, but the longer she’d lived with Sly, the harder it had been to keep any meat on her bones. He made her so anxious she didn’t care to eat. Sometimes she’d throw up if she did, and that problem was continuing now that they were separated and financial worries added to the other concerns that weighed so heavily. She never knew what to expect from him; he kept her constantly on edge, constantly wary.
After folding her new blouse, she set it on the dresser and went about cleaning the room. She hadn’t made it upstairs before, so she figured it was time to dig in on the second story. Although she’d taken the dirty laundry from Dawson’s room, there was more, and the clean clothes she’d left on his bed before were now piled on the floor in a haphazard fashion because he hadn’t taken the time to put them away.
“Good thing you got me,” she mumbled and changed his bedding, dusted, vacuumed and cleaned and straightened the closet and drawers. She also wiped down the lighting fixture and ceiling fan and scrubbed the window, which looked out onto the front yard and the highway beyond.
While pausing there to rest for a moment, she saw a police cruiser go by. Whoever was behind the wheel didn’t slow down or turn in, but the sight of any cop car was enough to remind her of the panic she’d endured earlier when she thought Sly had noticed Dawson’s truck parked on her street. She hadn’t heard from her ex today—not while she was working at the diner and not after—so she’d begun to relax. But as the minutes ticked by with no word, she realized that could be foreboding. He always checked in, did whatever he could to remain in her thoughts and to encourage her to see him. She had no doubt that once he got her to come back to him, and was secure in the relationship, he’d treat her the same as before, but he swore that would never happen.
Her hair was falling from the ponytail she’d pulled it into after changing into Dawson’s T-shirt, so she took a moment to put it up again. Then she went downstairs to retrieve her phone from the counter, where she’d left it.
She’d received a text from Petra.
Jayden took the news that he couldn’t come out to the farm pretty hard.
I’m sorry, she wrote back. I didn’t mean to get his hopes up. She wasn’t the one who’d gotten his hopes up. Dawson had done that by agreeing to let him come to the farm, thereby putting the decision squarely on her shoulders. But she couldn’t tell Petra how the possibility had cropped up, didn’t want to draw Dawson into the conversation. She hoped Jayden hadn’t mentioned him, either.
He’s fine now, came her response. I was just surprised by how badly he wanted to go. Usually he gets over disappointment much quicker.
I’ll bring him here when I can, she wrote but had no idea when that might be. It depended on Sly and how he behaved in the next few days—whether he calmed down or continued to cause trouble.
She checked her missed calls and her voice mails. Nothing from him so far. Where was he today?
Relieved that she hadn’t heard from him—and nervous at the same time—she turned on her music and poured herself a cup of coffee. She was about to carry her phone upstairs so she could listen while she cleaned Angela’s room when the sack she’d brought, which was on the counter with the coffeemaker, reminded her that she’d purchased a piece of Lolita’s homemade apple pie for Dawson.
She decided she’d change back into her blouse and take it out to him in an hour or so, but before she could go back upstairs, she heard a noise directly behind her and nearly jumped out of her skin.
“Whoa! Take it easy! It’s me,” Dawson said when she screamed and whirled around like she was about to be attacked.
She pressed a hand to her chest in an effort to slow her galloping heartbeat. “Sorry. I...I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Probably because of the music. I wasn’t being quiet and certainly didn’t mean to startle you. I just ran out of water.” He lifted his thermos, but then his eyes lowered to her chest and she watched as the fact that she was wearing his shirt registered.
“I apologize for...for appropriating your clothes for my own use. I—” She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t feel comfortable telling him she’d worn a blouse to work she couldn’t actually work in.
“It’s fine,” he said before she could even come up with an excuse.
“Thanks. I’ll wash it, of course. I planned to put it through the laundry. It’s not as if...well—”
“How much do you weigh?” he asked, cutting her off.
She blinked in surprise. “A hundred and twenty pounds.”
He tilted his head, giving her a look that indicated he didn’t believe her.
“Okay, I only weigh about a hundred and eight, maybe a hundred and five. But...I’m trying to eat enough to build back up.”
“Why isn’t it working?”
She cleared her throat. “I guess I’m a high-strung person. Turns out nervous energy can really amp up metabolism,” she added with a humorless chuckle.
“You look like a teenage girl.”
She felt her smile slip from her face. She’d bought a new blouse, hoping to please him. She’d thought he’d liked what he saw—last night, anyway. This let her know that he didn’t find her attractive after all. She could tell by the censure in his tone.
“Yeah, I...I’ve struggled with my weight for a few years now.” She turned away to hide the fact that his comment had stung—because that was an unreasonable reaction. She was too thin. She had no business fantasizing about him, anyway.
Fortunately, she spotted the sack she’d brought with her, which gave her a way to divert his attention. “I brought you a piece of pie,” she mumbled and handed it to him. Then she escaped from the kitchen before he could react.