13
Sadie was glad she’d already cleaned Angela’s room. That made it possible for her and Jayden to fall into a clean bed. But as exhausted as she was—physically and emotionally—she couldn’t drift off. She kept wondering if all of her belongings had been destroyed and worrying about what it would cost to replace their basic clothes and toiletries, not to mention Jayden’s toys. She couldn’t bring herself to even think about trying to replace the furniture she’d managed to cobble together secondhand. And what about the sentimental items she might never see again? Like the professional photographs she’d had taken of Jayden when he was a baby? Her only pictures of her parents were in that house!
Could Sly really have done something so terrible to her? He claimed to love her, to have changed. He swore up and down that he’d treat her like a queen if she came back to him. But the memory of their encounter on the road just after she’d pulled out of the farm the other day had haunted her since it happened. The determination and hatred she’d seen in his eyes contradicted his proclamations of love, made her believe he did start the fire—to take his revenge on her for embarrassing him by defecting as much as to force her back to him. He didn’t really care about her, but he refused to lose her, couldn’t stand being the one left behind.
As she stewed over how the fire might or might not be progressing at her place, she heard Dawson moving around downstairs. He had to be tired, too. Why wasn’t he in bed, asleep?
Once she could slip out without disturbing Jayden, she got up. The clothes she’d been wearing at the fire had reeked so much of smoke she’d thrown them in the washer as soon as she arrived and Dawson had loaned her a clean T-shirt and some sweatpants. Although his sweats drowned her—she could only keep them on because of the drawstring at the waist—she wasn’t about to leave the room in nothing but his T-shirt, despite the fact that it hit her at midthigh.
“What’s going on?” she asked when she found him standing in the living room, gazing out the large picture window.
All the lights were off in the house. Obviously, he wanted to be able to see what might be happening in the front yard and, possibly, the highway beyond.
“Nothing,” he replied.
“Then why are you still up? You’ve got to be even more tired than I am.”
“The night’s not over yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“The police will be coming. They’ll need to get a statement from you.”
“I already told Sly what I saw and heard.”
Dawson grimaced. “You don’t think he’ll be the investigating officer, do you?”
“Who can say? If he’s the one who set the fire, he’ll certainly lobby for the job. He’d be stupid not to.”
“If that happens, you’ll have to complain, try to get someone else. You can’t let him investigate.”
Raising any sort of question about his integrity would piss Sly off so badly she doubted they’d ever be able to have a civil word with each other again. But what did he expect? He’d gone way too far, had forced her into a corner. She had to fight back. It wasn’t as if he’d been allowing their divorce to proceed, anyway.
“I will.” Even though it would make her life more difficult. For sure he’d seek custody of Jayden at that point. “I’m just hoping whoever will be investigating will wait until morning to question me. I’m not sure I’m up for it right now.”
“Even if that happens, Sly will come by tonight—if only to see whether you’re here instead of at a motel or somewhere else.”
Of course he would. Had she not been so frantic, so shocked and upset, she would’ve been expecting him, too. “That’s what you’re waiting for,” she said.
“Aren’t you?” he asked in surprise.
She sighed. “I’ve been too distraught to even think about it. But now that you mention it... I can see him coming over. He wouldn’t miss an opportunity to make my life difficult—and I’m sure you’re now on the same short list I am.”
He shoved a hand through his hair, which was sticking up as if he’d done the same thing many times already tonight. “You haven’t heard from him?”
She hadn’t checked her phone. She’d been so grateful to get away from the melee and have some quiet time in which to recover that she’d shoved her phone in her purse and left it there. She was dying to know if any of her stuff could be saved, but, at the same time, she was afraid she’d hear the opposite—that the firefighters hadn’t been able to salvage anything.
She wasn’t sure she could take that kind of news right now. “One sec.”
She went into the kitchen, where she’d set her purse on the counter. “Nothing,” she called back when she’d pulled out her phone. No missed calls. No texts. Did that mean the blaze had grown out of control? Was Sly and everyone still there, caught up in the emergency? Was Maude’s house in danger?
“This is a bad sign,” she said as she returned to the living room with her phone in hand.
Dawson turned to face her. “What’s a bad sign?”
“That he hasn’t tried to reach me. That makes me wonder if my entire house is burning to the ground—with everything I own inside it.”
“It’s natural to be worried, but try not to jump to any conclusions.”
How could she not? “I feel bad for...for interrupting your life,” she said. “I know you’re under a lot of pressure to move Angela out of that facility, and to get the farm up and running—”
“This won’t stop me,” he interrupted.
“I don’t even want it to delay you. I’ll help in the fields tomorrow.”
“Don’t you work at the diner?”
“No. Saturday’s my day off, remember?”
“How can they spare you? Isn’t that a busy day for the restaurant?”
“The busiest, but Petra can’t watch Jayden. She volunteers at her church on Saturdays, so they always give me Saturday off.”
“Why can’t his father watch him? I mean, not tomorrow. Sly’s working late tonight. But he should be available some Saturdays.”
She nibbled at her bottom lip while trying to decide how much to say about her ex’s parenting. “You’d think so.”
“Have you ever tried to arrange it with him?”
“No.”
“Because you don’t want to deal with him?”
“Not only that. He’s not very good with Jayden,” she admitted.
A car passed on the highway. Dawson fell silent as he watched it but returned to the conversation the moment it went by without turning in. “Jayden’s Sly’s son, right? He’s not from another relationship.”
“I’ve never been with anyone else.”
“How old is Sly? Your age?”
“No, he’s your age. Two years older than me.”
He leaned one shoulder against the wall, still keeping a vigilant watch on the drive while he spoke. “Why didn’t you go off to college? Give yourself some time before settling down?”
“Part of me wanted to. But Sly didn’t want me to leave, and we were so in love. I didn’t see any reason to put off getting married. He’d already joined the police force, so he had a good job and...and I thought we’d have the perfect life together. We did have a perfect life together—at first,” she added.
“Was the way he treated Jayden part of what came between you?”
She moved so that she could gaze out at the highway herself. “Definitely.”
“The boy’s only five, and he seems like a good kid. What could possibly be the problem?”
She was now close enough to Dawson that she could smell his cologne. That scent stood out because he didn’t normally wear cologne. At least, she’d never noticed it before, and it made sense. Why would he put on cologne to go out and work in the fields?
But tonight, he’d gone to the bar.
Had he been hoping to find a woman?
With his looks, she couldn’t imagine he’d have any trouble, despite his reputation.
“Sadie?”
She blinked at him. “Hmm?”
“What was the problem between Sly and Jayden?”
She’d been staring at him, imagining him at the bar dancing with...who knows who, and it made her feel...what? A trickle of envy? “Sorry, I’m tired,” she said as she dragged her gaze back to what lay beyond the window. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but Jayden’s sort of...sensitive. He likes art and dance, but he’s not too big on sports.”
“He’s young yet,” he responded.
She liked that he didn’t put Jayden down for his interests, didn’t seem to think it was the end of the world that a boy might not like what were traditionally considered “boy” things. Being different didn’t make Jayden any less than other little kids, and she got the impression Dawson agreed with that kind of thinking. “Yes, but...I doubt he’ll ever change. Sly keeps blaming me for making Jayden ‘soft.’”
“Making him soft?” Dawson repeated.
“Yeah. He’s always telling me to stop babying him. But I don’t think I’m the reason Jayden doesn’t like what Sly wants him to like. He just came to us that way.”
Although she wasn’t looking back at him, Sadie could feel the weight of Dawson’s stare.
“He’s going to have to accept his son for what he is at some point,” he said. “It’d be smart not to screw the kid up too badly before that happens.”
“I agree. But Sly doesn’t get that. He thinks he can ‘toughen him up.’”
“And how does he do that?”
She scrubbed a hand over her face. “By saying hurtful things that make Jayden feel inadequate. ‘Come on, you don’t want to be a dancer! Dancers are pussies.’ That sort of thing. I hate the constant put-downs. If not for that, I’d probably still be with Sly. I was so beaten down, so convinced I could never unravel the mistake of marrying him—especially given that I had a child to care for and no education—that I wouldn’t have left for only myself. To me, ‘for better or for worse’ meant exactly that. But the need to protect Jayden forced the issue. I hate knowing Sly’s embarrassed of his own son, that he wants him to be anything other than what he is. It’s so...damaging and hurtful—to both of us.”
“If Sly’s that hard on Jayden, how is it that he has partial custody?”
“Sly hasn’t been physically abusive.” At least to Jayden. What he’d done to her—pressing her to have sex with him when she didn’t even want him to touch her—definitely crossed that line. But she was too embarrassed to tell anyone about that. She felt as if most people wouldn’t think it was a big deal, considering she’d slept with him for so many years before.
“Did you tell the judge about the put-downs?”
“I tried to, but he cut me off. The nuances I’ve shared with you...they weren’t enough to get him to take action against Sly. This judge thinks of Sly as a fine officer of the law.”
“Wow.” Dawson rubbed his jaw. “As if I didn’t hate your ex before we had this conversation.”
“He’s emotionally toxic,” she said. “There isn’t a better way to describe him.”
Dawson didn’t get the chance to respond. A pair of headlights swung into the yard, drawing his attention back to the window.
“He’s here,” he said.