Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
FORREST
“ I ’ve got you set up,” Alice said, handing me a stack of printed paper. I glanced down to see the name of an airline and flight numbers. “Two tickets to Eugene and a rental car waiting on the other end. You have just enough time to get to the airport.”
“Alice,” Sterling said with a laugh, “you’re amazing.”
“I know,” she agreed. “You have bigger fish to fry right now and can’t hang around, but you have to promise to come back once all this is settled. Quinn told Lucas’s wife, Charlie, all about you, and she’s been dying to meet you. Now that Lucas met you first,” Alice’s eyebrow raised, and the side of her mouth quirked, “Charlie won’t be patient. Anyway, I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot more of you.”
I didn’t know what Alice Sinclair meant by that, but it looked like Sterling did. “Thank you, Alice,” I said, reaching out to shake her hand. “I’m assuming you’ll send me the bill.”
She winked. “It’ll be in the mail.”
“Thanks, really.”
“Any time. You guys are as good as family, and I can’t wait to see how this turns out.” Alice waved us off as we got in the elevator to begin the next step of our journey.
Another time, I would have been drawn in by her engaging smile, ready to laugh along with her. But at that moment, I was dazed, too much coming at me at once. I didn’t even know where to start. I’d already been unsettled to learn that Sterling knew how to write a computer program—not just one program, but multiple programs good enough to crack a basic cipher.
I knew from the way Griffen and Hawk talked about him that Lucas Jackson was the next thing to a computer genius, and he’d thought Sterling’s program was good. That meant she knew what she was doing. Why hadn’t she told me? I thought I’d earned back her trust, at least a little, but now that seemed like a distant possibility. Sterling had a whole life she was keeping from me. Maybe I was just a means to an end. I didn’t know anymore.
I’d barely absorbed that new information when I’d had to talk to my mother, had to confess that I was still chasing my father’s legacy. I’d hated hearing the pain and disappointment in her voice.
She’d sighed. “Of course, I have your things. Just don’t ask me to help you with this.”
My heart was a lead weight in my chest. I was a terrible son to shove this in her face again. Losing my father had shattered her. She’d poured all her love into me, unwilling to risk her heart on another partner. When her second husband, Jerry, had snuck under her guard with his shy humor and gentle teases, she’d let go of some of her grief. She loved Jerry. I loved him for giving my mom back a part of herself she’d lost when my father died.
The mention of Alan Buckley, even though he was seventeen years gone, always dragged her into the past. The depth of her pain, even across the phone, reminded me that this was no game. If the Learys and our stint in the root cellar weren’t enough to tell me that, hearing my mother’s voice go flat was a sobering reminder.
And then to find out that my father might not have killed himself, that he could have been murdered?
I couldn’t keep my head straight.
Sterling tucked the flight information in her purse and linked her arm through mine as we left the elevator and made our way back to the car. Moving on instinct, I opened her door, waited for her to get settled, closed it, got in the car, and programmed the map to bring us to the airport.
We were standing in the security line before I pulled out my phone and texted my mother. I started to type a few times before I settled on what to say.
I’m coming out to look for the book. Sterling is coming with me. Can we stay with you?
I hoped bringing Sterling would soften her up. My mother had been so angry when she’d found out what I was up to in Sawyers Bend and also furious that I’d lost the woman I’d told her so much about. She’d been thrilled I’d finally found a woman who caught my interest, as she put it, so excited to meet Sterling. I’d been frantically trying to figure out how to untangle the lies I’d told, and then it had all been over.
My phone remained silent as I loaded our bags onto the X-ray belt and took off my shoes, going through the ritual of setting my things out in the bin and waiting to be waved through the metal detector. On the other side, I checked my phone as I collected it from the bin. No text from my mom, and we were getting close to our boarding time.
“What gate?” I asked Sterling.
She pulled out our boarding passes, squinted down at the page, and said, “B24. Hey, Alice booked us in first class.”
I winced a little at the thought but didn’t mind.
“I’m sorry for the bill Alice is going to send you,” Sterling said. “But considering the length of the flight, I’m not complaining.”
“Me either,” I said, happy I’d be able to stretch my legs out in front of me.
The flight was already boarding by the time we reached the gate. My phone beeped just as I shoved our bags into the overhead bin. Sitting, I checked the screen. My mother.
Of course, you’re staying with me. Send me your flight information. I’ll kill the fatted calf for dinner.
Sterling looked over my shoulder as I responded to her text. “She’s still mad at you?”
“Yeah,” I admitted.
“How can you tell?” she asked, rereading the text for a clue. In explanation, I scrolled back to older texts. After a few pauses for them to load, I got to those we’d exchanged the weeks before my lies were exposed. My mother’s rampant use of emojis screamed off the screen.
Sterling smiled down at the phone. She reached to scroll forward in time, reading the stilted texts we’d exchanged in the past twelve months. “Why haven’t you been home to see your mother in a year?”
I remembered mentioning that at Sugar Mae and Bob’s and the surprise on Sterling’s face. “The only person more pissed at me than you about all the lies I told last year was my mother,” I said. “She was furious that I had anything to do with the Sawyers, that I had lied about who I was, that I was chasing after the statue my father had died over. And most of all, she was mad that I lost you.”
“Me?” Sterling asked, looking up, her eyebrows pulling together. “Why am I on the list?”
“I told her about you,” I said, smiling a little at the memory of how excited she’d been. It wasn’t like Sterling was the first woman I dated, but the issues with my dad aside, my mom and I were close. She’d known Sterling was different even before I did. I sighed at the memory. “I lied to her about where I was working, who I was working with, put her off on visiting. But I told her about you. She was excited, wanted me to bring you out to meet her. Then the truth came out and?—”
“She was pissed, huh?”
“When she found out I lied…oh yeah,” I replied, shaking my head at the memory of my mother’s rage. Her disappointment. “She was excited that I’d met someone, and the idea that I screwed that up over memories of my father… She wants everything with my father to have stopped the day he died. She doesn’t want him in the present. I think it hurts her too much. I think she needed to leave him behind for herself. But I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can’t,” Sterling said. She curled her hand around mine, her thumb rubbing the backs of my fingers. “He was your dad, and you loved him. He loved you. This scavenger hunt he sent you on…” She shook her head. “He really loved you. I’m sorry…my father…” She bit her lip and closed her eyes.
I wondered if she was trying to shut out the idea that her father had killed mine. If that had happened. Probably not with his own hand, but I was betting that if there was any proof out there, in the end, it would point straight at Prentice Sawyer. And none of that had anything to do with Sterling. I turned my hand to squeeze her fingers. “Sterling, no. Your father was a miserable human being, and that has nothing to do with you.”
“I’m not sure about that,” she said. She opened her eyes, the blue shimmering behind a veil of tears. “I don’t envy you your grief, Forrest. I grieved Darcy, and I still miss her every day. It sucks, but I envy you your dad, because you’re right—my dad was a miserable human being. And I’m sure if I knew everything he’d done, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. But I’d probably be able to forgive some of it if he’d loved me even a fraction of how much your dad loved you. I know you didn’t have him long enough, but what you had was pretty amazing.”
My throat locked shut, and I shook my head, not denying her words, just too overwhelmed to say anything. I lifted our joined hands and kissed her fingers. If she walked away from me when this was all over, I wasn’t sure I’d survive it.
The flight attendant stopped at our row, offering our choice of drinks. I could have used a drink, but noticing Sterling’s choice of soda versus alcohol, I went for the same. Drinks in hand, I ignored the passengers boarding the flight and asked the question that had been bugging me for the past few hours.
Turning to Sterling, I rubbed the back of her hand on my cheek and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me about the programming? When did you start doing that? You weren’t doing it when we were together.”
“No, I…I would have told you,” she said, but her words were hesitant. “Or maybe— I don’t know.”
“So why didn’t you say anything? Still don’t trust me?” I hated the thought of that, but I needed to know.
Sterling gave an embarrassed laugh. “Not you specifically. I didn’t tell anyone. Hawk only knew because he had to go through all the web traffic when Emmett— It’s a long story, but Hawk found out. That’s how he knew and how Lucas and Emmett knew. But I was afraid. I was afraid you’d think it was stupid,” she said in a rush. “It’s so not me.”
Sometimes, this woman made my heart ache. She was so smart, so full of love, so much of everything that was good. It astounded me that she’d grown to the age of twenty-six and couldn’t see that in herself.
“You weren’t afraid to show me that you could break the ciphers,” I pointed out.
“I was,” she admitted. “But there was no way I could hide that if I was going to talk you into letting me see the Vitellius. The coding stuff was easier to keep quiet.” She drew in a steadying breath and let it out slowly. “I’ve been studying coding for about eight months. I didn’t tell anyone because, at first, I didn’t know if I’d be able to do it, and I didn’t want to fail at another thing. And then when I figured out I could do it, that I liked it, it just seemed so out of character. And I was afraid… I was afraid of being laughed at, I guess. I wasn’t sure what I wanted from it. It started with curiosity, and then…then I guess it’s turned into hopes. But I don’t…I don’t know what I’ll be able to do with any of this. Not really. Working in event planning at the inn was the first real job I’ve ever had. I don’t know what I’m doing trying to create a career out of some classes I’ve been taking.”
“There’s so many different things you can do with it,” I said. “But you wanted to talk to Lucas and Emmett. You want to get into cybersecurity?” Her eyes lit up, and I knew I was right.
“I do, and Lucas and Emmett liked my code,” she said, almost to herself, as if she needed to convince herself of the truth.
“You can learn anything they can teach you,” I said, utterly confident I was right. She was Sterling. She could do anything.
“You don’t know that,” she said, taking a quick sip of her soda and shaking her head with a smile as the attendant offered her headphones.
“I do because I know you. I know how smart you are, and I know how you are when you’re determined. You didn’t know anything about event planning when you came on at the inn.”
“I knew how to throw a party,” she said.
“Not the same,” I argued. “But you figured it out, and then you kicked its ass. You’ve only been coding for eight months, and already you’re writing programs that Lucas Jackson thinks are good.” I paused, letting that sink in. I was incredibly impressed with her but not particularly surprised. “You can do anything you set your mind to, Sterling.”
“Thanks,” she said quietly and settled back into her seat. “I guess we’ll see.” She slipped into thought, sipping her soda as we took off. A while later, she asked, “I hope your mom doesn’t mind me just showing up with you. I don’t want to make things worse between you.”
“You won’t,” I said.
“Will she like me?” Sterling asked in a soft voice that made me want to unsnap her seat belt and pull her onto my lap.
I raised our joined hands again and kissed her fingers. “You, she’s going to love you. It’s me she’s not that thrilled about.”
“What’s she like?” Sterling asked.
As much as I’d told my mom about Sterling, I’d never shared that much about my mom. I’d avoided any but the most general mentions of my past in my efforts to hide who I was. Now, I tried to think of how to describe my mother and gave up. “She’s great,” I said. “But you’ll see soon enough.”
The rest of the flight went by slowly. We napped, ate dinner, and watched a movie. It felt like days had passed by the time we landed, the wheels bouncing on the tarmac, Sterling’s hand tightening around mine as we rolled to a stop at the gate.
I texted my mother when I was in line to get the rental car, letting her know we were almost on the road.
I made lentil soup and fresh bread instead of fatted calf. See you when you get here.
That was it. It seemed she’d thawed a little, but not all the way. She was still pissed. It was there in every missing smiley face and heart emoji. When this was all over, I’d have to figure out how to make it up to her. I glanced over at Sterling, chewing on her lower lip, I thought, nervous about meeting my mother. I was hoping my mother would love Sterling as much as I did. I was looking forward to a future where my biggest problem was the two of them ganging up on me. I could only hope.