Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
FORREST
“ W hat do you want for it?” I asked, mentally calculating what I was willing to pay for the next clue. I wasn’t convinced there was a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, but if we walked away, I wouldn’t have an excuse to see Sterling.
Bob gave a snort of disgust, shaking his head. “You got me all wrong, boy.” He looked up with a wide smile. “Ah, here she is.” He hopped out of his chair to open the door behind me for Sugar Mae.
She came out holding a tray loaded with a pitcher of iced tea, four glasses filled with ice, and a plate of sugar cookies, covered in sprinkles.
“Now,” Mae said as she sat, setting the tray on the low table, “tell me everything you’ve been up to. Where are you living? What are you doing? How’s your mama? Are you in this neck of the woods for a visit, or have you come home? I want to know it all.” Before I could answer, she went on. “You were always such a bright boy. So well behaved and sweet. Your parents were so proud of you. I thought we’d get to see you grow up, and then poof! Sometimes life just stabs you in the heart, doesn’t it?”
I nodded, feeling an echo of that long-ago stab as I took in her familiar bright eyes. “Sometimes it does.”
“Here’s the deal,” Bob said, leaning forward to pick up an iced tea and handing it to me. “You’ll stay for dinner.” He looked to his wife. “We have enough?”
“We do,” she agreed with a nod. She continued where Bob left off. “You’ll stay for dinner and catch us up on everything you’ve been up to since you left. You’ll stay the night, and in the morning, we’ll give you what your father left for you.”
“Why not just give it to us now?” Sterling asked.
“We could,” Mae said, her eyes sliding to Bob and then back to me. She reached out to pat my hand. “We could. Maybe we should. But it’s been seventeen years—and I know you don’t remember us the way we remember you—and the three of you were like family to us. In a million years, I never would have thought we’d lose your father that way. I would have said he didn’t have it in him. Then he lost his company.” Her eyes darted to Sterling, then back to mine. “And I guess he lost heart. I don’t know. Sometimes, you don’t know what people have inside them. We’ve missed him, and your mother, and you.”
Mae handed me a cookie. I took it, a lump growing in my throat.
“Now, here you are,” she said. “And I have a feeling if I hand you what you came for, you’re going to disappear, and who knows when we’ll see you again. So, you’ll stay, you’ll tell me everything we missed out on, get a good night’s sleep. And you can head home in the morning with what you came for. Fair?”
I found myself nodding. It was a little weird. I wanted to say these people didn’t know me… But they did. I just didn’t remember. And if they wanted to let two strangers sleep in their house, who was I to argue?
“Sounds fair to me.” Sterling flashed a blinding smile, picked up a cookie, and bit in. “I see why they call you Sugar,” she said, a hint of a southern accent coloring her words. “These are delicious.”
“I’ll push dinner up a little early since you all have to be hungry,” Mae said. “For now, tell me everything. How did you two meet? Seems an unlikely pairing.”
“That’s kind of a long story,” Sterling said. She looked to me. “I’ll let Forrest tell it. I’m curious to see what he’ll say.” She took another bite of cookie and sat back in her chair, a wicked grin on her face.
“We can start with that,” I said. “But it’s not going to paint me in a very good light.”
Sterling let out a snort of laughter, but she didn’t interrupt as I told the story of coming to Sawyers Bend for revenge and falling in love with her, the daughter of the man who’d ruined my father’s life. By the end, Sterling had finished her cookie and taken my hand in hers. She didn’t comment. Didn’t condemn me. Didn’t let me off the hook. She listened when, at Mae’s urging, I went all the way back to the days after my father’s death, when my mother decided she was done with Georgia. She’d wanted to go back to Oregon and her family. In a matter of weeks, she’d packed us up, sold the house, and driven us across the country to a new life, leaving Buck and my father’s memory behind.
As we moved from the porch to the kitchen and Sugar Mae served up broccoli salad and roasted chicken, I remembered more. Seeing Bob and Sugar Mae here, at the lake house, hadn’t jogged my memory because while they must have visited here at the lake, the Murrells were from Willow Springs.
As I talked and answered questions, memories came flooding back. Coming home from school and finding Mae and my mother at the kitchen table. My father, in his office, talking to Bob about who knew what, because I was a kid and I didn’t pay that much attention to the grown-ups. I realized that my mother hadn’t just moved us away from home, she’d excised a huge part of her life completely. For Bob and Mae, losing my father and then my mother and me so close together must have been like losing a part of themselves.
We talked into the night, Bob reminding me that my father had loved to fly-fish, something I’d forgotten, and Mae asking if my mother still devoured murder mysteries, then frowning at me when I told her I didn’t know.
“I haven’t seen my mother in almost a year,” I told her. “Things weren’t the same after Dad…” I trailed off. I didn’t know how to explain the distance between us. I loved my mom. She’d always been my champion, my rock, ready with a hug or sage advice. But she’d also denied me my father, so bitter over his death that she refused to speak of him, refused to let me have my memories. It was like she’d been the perfect mom until it came to anything that had to do with my dad. Then she became a black hole, empty and cold. We should have grieved together, but instead, we’d grieved alone, and I was pretty sure both of us had done it wrong.
And on top of that, we’d fought bitterly when I told her why Sterling dumped me. Sterling wasn’t the only woman I loved who I’d lied to. I’d never told my mom the exact name of my new employers, or Sterling’s true identity. When the truth came out, I wasn’t sure what my mother was more angry about: me lying about my job, that I’d lost the woman I loved, or that I’d reclaimed the Vitellius.
That fucking statue , as she called it. According to my mother, the Vitellius had ruined our lives once, and now I was letting it ruin my life all over again. Leave your father in the past where he belongs , she’d said and hung up on me. It had taken months to get on speaking terms again, and things were still distant between us.
My mother was right. I shouldn’t have lied. Not to her, not to Sterling, not to anyone. But she was also wrong because I never would have met Sterling if I hadn’t gone after the Vitellius. And the Vitellius was going to give me a shot at getting her back. And maybe a little bit of my father as well. But I couldn’t tell my mom that. She’d never been able to see things clearly when it came to my dad.
Mae shook her head, sharing a long, heavy look with her husband. “She was so angry at Alan for leaving her. I’d hoped by now she would have forgiven him.”
“She’s remarried,” I said, a faint smile coming to the surface at the thought of my stepfather. “Jerry’s a good guy. I think she loves him. But I don’t think she’s forgiven my father.” My throat tight, I said, “I’m not sure I have either.”
Sterling made a rough sound in her throat and stroked her fingers over the back of my hand. I couldn’t look at her. I hated admitting I was still angry at my father. And I knew instinctively that my anger was different from my mother’s. Her loss was, in a way, a deeper betrayal. For all their arguments, they’d loved each other. And then he’d knowingly taken that away from her. From us.
“I still don’t understand,” I said. Bob knew what I meant. He patted my hand.
“Me either, son. But I’ve learned that in life, we rarely know the depth of another person’s heart, even when we think we know them well. And Alan— Alan must have been struggling to have made the choices he did.”
I nodded, my throat locked tight, anger and grief swirling in my chest.
“Well,” Mae said, glancing at the clock, “I don’t know about you two, but it’s past my bedtime. Especially when I had wine in the afternoon.” She reached across the table, taking my hand in a tight squeeze, her smile suddenly as dazzling as Sterling’s. “I appreciate you indulging us with your time and your company. Nothing can bring back the past, but seeing you all grown up goes a long way.” She let go of my hand and stood. “Let me show you to the guest room.”