Chapter 2 #2
Willow emerged. She wore a sweatshirt over baggy, drawstring pants, and was rubbing her long, dark hair with a towel.
“That had to be the world’s fastest shower.”
“I just needed to wash the day off,” she said. “But I didn’t want to keep you waitin’.”
“Perfect timing.” He pulled out one of the little padded chairs for her with an exaggerated sweep of his arm and she sat down. Then he went around the table and sat down. They dug in, and he shook his head after the first bite. “Your aunt can cook like nobody’s business.”
“She’s had to change it up, though, since Uncle Garrett’s heart attack. It’s been a struggle for her.”
“I thought his heart attack was from the smoke inhalation,” he said. He’d been there, he and Ethan. They’d carried Garrett and Lily out of the flames.
“It was, but it turns out he has quite a bit of plaque in his arteries, and that really only comes from what you eat, so she’s recreatin’ every recipe healthier. Which is hard with lasagna.”
“This is delicious, though. You telling me this is healthy?”
“Healthi-er. Meat-free, whole grain pasta, and cashew cheese.”
“Ah.”
They ate in silence. He liked the quiet.
He’d never enjoyed folks who felt the need to fill every silence with idle chatter.
The quiet gave his eyes time to really look at her.
There was something enticing about the hollow beneath her ear, and for a while he got stuck there, and then his gaze slid lower to her neck where it curved into shoulder. His heart beat faster.
She caught him looking, and blushed a little. “So what’s goin’ on with you?” she asked. “That inheritance from your father still held up in probate?”
“Anything the state can link to one of his crimes is forfeit,” he said. “I was lucky to get the Jeep. But I made a lot when I worked for my father and spent very little.”
“Especially not while you were in prison.”
He lowered his head. “I was paid really well for that, too.” Why had he said that? It wasn’t her business where his money came from.
“Paid? For doing time?”
He nodded and chanced a look her way again. “The guy who did the assault was indispensable to my old man’s organization. Running things from prison meant he needed guys he could rely on, on the outside. So…I got paid to take the fall.”
Her brown eyes were bigger and browner than ever. “A year of your life…”
“I was promised it wouldn’t exceed a month.” He shrugged. “After a year, I realized I was on my own. Dad wasn’t even tryin’ to get me out. So I offered up everything I knew on the old prick, and they turned me loose.”
“And he died in prison and left everything to Ethan,” she said. “I’m really sorry your father was such a jerk to you.”
He shrugged. “Ethan didn’t want it, so it’s coming to me anyway. And I’m all right either way. Eager to buy a place of my own, get out of that bunkhouse.”
“Yeah? Where you plannin’ to buy? Here in Quinn County?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She frowned at him, so he went on.
“This was the last place my old man spent time before he went to prison,” he said. “I was just a kid, not even in kindergarten yet when he was locked up. I was hoping being out here, I could…understand him better.” He ran a hand across his chin, where there was stubble.
“I get that,” she said. “I don’t really know much about that time, bein’ that I wasn’t born yet. But I could ask Uncle Garrett about it, if you want.”
“I should man up and ask him myself,” he said. “It’s just awkward, bein’ that he’s the one who arrested him.”
She nodded. “I get it. And I really don’t mind. Just know my uncle ain’t one to blame the son for the sins of the father. Hell, he adopted your brother.”
Willow pushed away from the table and took her empty plate to the sink. “Should I look around for some dessert?”
“I’d settle for a nightcap,” he said.
He took his plate over there, too. She was rinsing hers under the faucet, stacking it in the drainer. Then she walked away and he heard her pouring while he rinsed his.
She handed him a glass with three fingers of whiskey in it, crossing back into the living room, but not sitting back down. She was standing near the front door, his signal that it was time to drink up and leave.
He walked over there and stood facing her, then slugged the whiskey back, swallowing it in a single gulp.
She did likewise. He set his empty glass on the stand beside the door, where she’d dropped her keys.
Then he took her glass from her and set it there, too.
And then, moving real slow, he put his hands on her upper arms, tipped his head down, and kissed her.
She didn’t turn away; he’d given her plenty of time.
She watched his mouth as he lowered it to hers, then her brown eyes fell closed just before touchdown.
He kissed like a man who loved kissing, drinking her in.
She didn’t know why she kissed him back, or when her arms had twisted around his neck, or how their bodies had mashed up against each other like they were trying to meld.
He was running his hands around her back and shoulders, and her butt like he was committing her to memory.
And she was riding his thigh like it was her horse.
The signals her body was sending drowned out the desperate shouts from her brain.
He’s an ex-con.
The way he moves his lips over mine, with just enough suction.
He nipped a little, and her lady parts tingled. She threaded her fingers up into his hair and nipped back, and he turned her, and they bumped against the wall.
Knock-knock-knock. “Willow?”
The sound of her mother’s voice and the knowledge that she’d open the door in the next heartbeat was the douse of ice water Willow needed. She pulled away only slightly and Jeremiah’s arms fell to his sides.
They each took a step apart from each other, but their eyes clung. Willow was breathing like an Olympic gymnast after a dismount.
The front door opened.
Willow’s mom looked at her, and the slightest frown bent her eyebrows, and then she saw Jeremiah, and they rose up high.
“I had a flat on the way home,” Willow said. “Jeremiah stopped to help me change the tire, and I offered to share Aunt Chelsea’s lasagna with him to thank him.” She was talking way too fast, she realized too late.
Her mother listened with care and didn’t interject, just tilted her head a little further at the less-than-honest parts. Like she knew.
“Well, actually, he offered to help, and I yelled at him for it. The lasagna’s more a peace offering.”
“Huh,” her mom said, then she glanced Jeremiah’s way.
He smiled at her, and Willow saw the moment those dimples made impact. Her mother actually blinked.
Then she looked down at the bundle in her arms and shrugging, returned her attention to her daughter. “I saw your lights on and I was too excited to wait. I got this today—for the cradle.”
Willow took the bundle unfolded it. It was a hand-quilted cradle liner with blue lions, pink bears, green elephants, and yellow donkeys.
“It’s for Lily and Ethan,” Taylor said, “for the baby. Garrett’s going to re-finish your cradle. But don’t worry. He won’t change it too much, and your name will remain carved into the headboard.”
Taylor’s eyes shifted to Jeremiah’s as she explained. “The cradles are heirlooms, made for us by a Comanche shaman who fills them with blessings.”
“Cradle, she means.” Willow put emphasis on the singular. “We only have the one.”
“Right. Gosh, I need to remember to get it out of the attic for Garrett before we leave. He’s eager to work on it.”
“You’re going away?” Jeremiah asked.
“Our biggest trip of the year. Three horse shows in the same weekend, and we’ll hit ‘em all,” she said.
"We leave next week.” Then she lowered her head.
“I should’ve waited until morning to show you this, though.
Really didn’t mean to interrupt. Goodnight, sweetheart. ” Then to Jeremiah, “Goodnight.”
Then she ducked right out the door, pulling it closed behind her. Willow watched her walk back along the flagstone path, into the driveway, and all the way beyond the reach of her porch light, out of sight.
Willow turned to face Jeremiah, met his eyes, and swore she could hear sizzling. “You need to be out the door in the next two minutes, or she’ll think we’re in here having sex.”
“What if we were?” he asked, and he held her eyes with his, not letting go.
“We’re not.” She reached past him without touching, despite the butterflies in her stomach and elsewhere, and opened the door.
“But what about all that kissing—”
“Yeah, um, I’m not lookin’ for…I mean, I’m not fixin’ to get mixed up with a man right now.”
“No?”
“No,” she said. “I want to be sheriff one day, and that’s gonna take a lot of work, a lot of focus.”
“I get it.” He lowered his head. “Okay then, I apologize if I—”
“Don’t apologize. I was as into it as you were.” Their eyes locked tighter. Sssssss. “But still…it was a momentary lapse. It’s just not the right time for me.”
“Right. I just…I really hate to leave.”
She really hated to let him, but she opened the door wider and stood there. He moved right up close, stood in front of her, and pushed it halfway closed again. Then he leaned in slow and she met him halfway. They kissed in slow motion, and a quicksand pit opened up in her middle.
After a long, long moment, he pulled away, opened the door wider again, and stepped through. “Night, Willow.”
“Night, Gringo.”
She closed the door, then moved to the window to watch as he walked back along the curving driveway to where it rejoined the main one, veering right, toward the road.
She watched until his shape was swallowed up by the darkness.
Then she locked up, turned off the lights, and went to the kitchen to wash Aunt Chelsea’s lasagna dish.
Willow was in the Quinn County Sheriff’s office at seven a.m. She’d dropped the flat tire off at the motor pool with a note to repair or replace.
Until then, she was driving around on the spare.
Her shift didn’t start until three, but she was on a mission, one in which she was completely immersed when Uncle Garrett came in bearing two things he was forbidden, donuts and coffee.
“Don’t give me that look, Will,” he said. “Mine’s decaf. And I’m only havin’ one donut. The suddenly crucial question is, which one?”
She didn’t bother to hide what was on her computer screen. She was running a background check on Jeremiah. He’d already seen it, and she wasn’t one to sneak around anyway.
“Jeremiah do something to make you think he’s worthy of investigation?”
“Yep.”
“You fixin’ to tell me what it was?”
“Nope.”
“Is this background check legal?”
“It’s…a gray area,” she said as if with great authority.
He reached past her and tapped the x to close out the program, but Willow had seen enough. Jeremiah Thorne had been a criminal every day up until the day he’d arrived in Quinn County.
“You find what you needed?” Garrett asked.
“I found some things. Don’t exactly know what I need. When his father came to Quinn way back then, Jeremiah was a toddler, livin’ with his mother. A year later, he was livin’ in his father’s mansion, even though the old man was in prison. Somehow he got custody.”
Garrett lowered his head, shaking it slow. “I didn’t know any of that. Who raised him, then? I didn’t think de Lorean had a wife or—”
“I don’t know. The records don’t say.”
“Sounds like he had it rough in the lap of luxury. No wonder he ended up in prison.”
“He told me his father paid him to take the fall for his right-hand man. Said he couldn’t run his organization from behind bars if his best guy got locked up, too.” She was watching Uncle Garrett’s face as she spoke. “That sound plausible to you?”
“Keep talkin’. I’ll let you know.”
She nodded, then pushed off with her feet to roll her chair toward the donuts.
“He says he got very well paid to plead guilty. His old man promised he’d get off with little or no time, got him a good lawyer, too, but he got sentenced to five years.
His father stopped payin’ the lawyer and the boss he was doin’ time for stopped takin’ his calls. ”
Nodding slowly, Uncle Garrett said, “That would explain why he turned on his father.”
She nodded. “He gave evidence on the organization that the DA didn’t already have, and they let him out. Then his old man died in prison and left Jeremiah completely out of his will as one final smackdown.”
“He left everything to Ethan,” Uncle Garrett said. “But Ethan didn’t want it.” He shook his head slow. “That man messed his boys up about as much as a man could. Too bad Jeremiah’s mamma didn’t know about our doorstep.”
Yeah, Willow thought, but then he’d be her cousin as much as Ethan was, and that would make things weird.
“And we know the rest,” she said.
“Yep. He came here, found his brother, and carried my backside out of a burnin’ buildin’,” Garrett said.
She sighed, lowering her head. “He’s not like our Bubba, though, raised here, by good people. Jeremiah was raised in a snake pit by God only knows who.”
Her uncle was watching her closely. “I’ll ask you again, has he done somethin’ to make you suspicious of him, Will?”
She pressed her lips to remove the memory of Jeremiah’s kisses. “Naw, not a damn thing. He’s lookin’ for…I don’t know, closure I think. Wants to know about his father’s time in Quinn.”
Garrett’s face turned a little darker. “I can tell him all about that.” Then he frowned. “But he might not be ready to hear me share recollections about the time I put his old man away for the rest of his life.”
Willow helped herself to a donut, eliminating one of Uncle Garrett’s options. He quickly took a glazed with no filling, and bit into it like he’d found nirvana.
When he’d finished chewing and taken a swig of decaf, Uncle Garrett said, “Actually, I put everything on paper at the time. Everything about the investigation, including all the things I learned afterward. The computers were new to the department and I hated ‘em.”
“You’re joshin’ me.”
“They’re in my personal files, in the office. I didn’t want ‘em where anyone could get at ‘em. Ethan’s past is his own business, you know?”
“Is that legal?” she asked, flipping his earlier question back on him.
He caught it and grinned at her. “It’s…a gray area. I’ll get you the files.”