Chapter 2 #2
There were days when I thought it was no more than I deserved—that I should just put my head down and move forward, try to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
I had to make amends to my family, to this town.
It was time I put some thought into what kind of man I wanted to be. Not who I’d been, that was for sure.
But that was just more self-pitying bullshit.
Maybe I did deserve for everyone to think I was guilty, but the fact was I hadn’t killed my father.
Someone else had done that. They might have solved a lot of problems for a lot of people when they did, but that didn’t make it right.
I’d paid with a year of my life for something I hadn’t done.
Maybe the penance felt good—a balm on my guilt—but I knew my family, the people I owed the most, hadn’t wanted that kind of penance.
Suffering under a false accusation wouldn’t ease the pain I’d caused.
It wouldn’t make things right, and if I couldn’t truly clear my name, I’d never really be able to move on.
As much as I loved being here in Avery’s taproom with flames merrily crackling in the stone fireplace at one end of the room, the golden light making the wooden beams, walls, and floor glow, the comforting sound of happy people talking, drinking, playing games—I had to figure out what came next.
I couldn’t do that with my father’s murder hanging over my head.
The thought had been spinning in my brain for weeks.
My siblings weren’t convinced that the killer was still out there.
They thought there was a good chance Cole had done it, despite his denials.
I was one of the few who believed him when he’d said he was guilty of everything except killing our father.
I knew Cole Haywood—not as well as I thought I did, considering I hadn’t pegged him for setting me up for murder, but better than the rest of them.
I thought if Cole had killed Prentice, he would have admitted it when he admitted everything else, if only so he could brag about how he’d outsmarted the wily fox that had been my father.
I needed to talk to Cole.
At the thought, my skin crawled. He was locked in the same state prison I’d spent a year in.
And as much as I despised my own cowardice, I couldn’t bring myself to walk through those gates again, even as a free man.
Just the thought of it sent clammy sweat to my palms, dripping down my spine.
I’d survived incarceration, but now that I was out, I didn’t think I could bring myself to go back, even to get answers from Cole.
I pushed the question to the back of my mind and watched Avery and West leave, Avery sending me a wave, miming that I should call if I ran into any trouble.
I’d closed the taproom more than once. Everything would be fine.
And it was nice to see Avery happy and rested, the shadows under her eyes gone now that she wasn’t working herself to the bone and had West to lean on.
Business picked up as it usually did in the evenings, the cold bite of winter’s air sending locals and tourists alike inside for the fire and the company—and for Avery’s excellent beer.
I imagined when Finn got the kitchen opened, we’d be even more packed in the evenings.
I liked being busy, the monotony of it. Filling beers, changing kegs, running cards, wiping the counter.
I even liked putting the chairs up and sweeping the floor at the end of the night.
It gave me a sense of immediate gratification, something that was sorely lacking in the rest of my life.
Heartstone Manor was dark and silent when I arrived home just before midnight, everyone tucked into their rooms. I made my way to the second floor with quiet footsteps.
The hallway sconces in the guest wing were turned low, giving just enough light to make my way to my door at the far end of the hall.
This wasn’t the room I grew up in. Traditionally, the master of the house took the suite currently occupied by my brother Griffen and his wife Hope—a sprawling apartment in the central section of the house.
It was luxurious and private, as it should be.
Wings extended in a V off each side of the central part of Heartstone Manor—one for family, one for guests.
The rest of my siblings lived in the family wing and would for another three years, until the terms of my father’s will were up.
After I was released from prison, Griffen had offered me my old room, but I couldn’t take it. The idea of being surrounded by my siblings was untenable. I didn’t know if I’d been more afraid of love or accusations. Either way, I didn’t want it. I just wanted to be alone.
This isolated guest room at the end of the hall seemed like the answer. I’d forgotten about the electrical and plumbing problems that plagued this wing of the house. I didn’t know when they’d started, only that it was sometime after I’d moved out a few years before.
What I did know was that the plumbing knocked and banged and sputtered, and sometimes didn’t work at all.
Ditto for the electrical. It was a flip of a coin whether a light switch would illuminate or merely click uselessly as I flipped it back and forth.
Sometimes I plugged things in, and the outlet sparked.
Sometimes it worked. We’d had every electrician and plumber in the county come through, and every time they thought they had it fixed—boom, another disaster.
I’d been told our family had been having problems in the entire wing since they’d moved in after the will was read, and we were forced to cohabitate.
In the months I’d been home, it seemed the issues had isolated themselves to the two rooms at the far end of the guest wing: mine and the one occupied by Griffen and Hope’s nanny, Paige.
Paige was a good sport about the conditions. As far as I could see, she was a good sport about everything. She needed to be, considering that in addition to caring for Griffen and Hope’s infant daughter, she also ran herd on a six-year-old, a seven-year-old, and a teenager.
I let myself into my room, crossed my fingers, and turned on the shower. Hot water steamed, and I stripped quickly, knowing it might not last. I showered off the long day and was just about finished rinsing the shampoo from my hair when everything went dark and the pipes sputtered.
Turning off what was left of the water, I felt in the dark for my towel. Sometimes a flip of the breaker did the trick. I ran the towel over my hair to remove the worst of the damp, then slung it around my waist.
Pulling open the door of my room, I was surprised to see that the lights were still on in the hall. Turning, I flicked the switch at my door experimentally. Nothing, which was fucking weird. The breaker affected the whole half of this wing, not just my bedroom.
The door across the hall opened and out stepped Paige, bundled in a fuzzy pink robe, her hair—usually constrained in a braid or a bun—falling down her back in a riot of dark, shiny curls.
Her unusual light-blue eyes, icy like a husky’s with an intriguing rim of navy blue, fixed on me, and she went still.
In the dim glow of the sconces, I caught pink flares of color washing across her cheeks.
She met my eyes for a split second, then looked away. “I was going to flip the breaker,” she said.
“Your power’s out too?” I asked.
She answered with a sharp nod, her eyes fixed on the floorboards at my feet.
“I’ve got it,” I said. The breaker box was in the back of a closet at the end of the hall. It would be dark and cramped with brooms and mops. “Stay right there.”
It was quick work to duck into the closet, pry open the breaker box, and feel for the two switches flipped the wrong way.
Hoping this worked, I flipped them back.
By the time I stepped into the hall, Paige was already disappearing into her room, her quiet “Thanks” floating behind her as her door shut with a decisive click.
I didn’t have to guess if Paige thought I’d murdered my father.
The way she couldn’t meet my eyes or force out more than a word or two in my company told me all I needed to know.
And why should it burn, coming from Paige?
I barely knew her. I didn’t think we’d spoken more than a sentence to each other since I’d come home. Why would we?
It was better if Paige McKenna thought I was a killer. I didn’t need to know her well to know she deserved far better than me. And I had no business thinking about any woman until I figured out the rest of my life. Maybe not even then. God knew, so far, I hadn’t had much luck picking women.
I closed my door, tossed the towel into the bathroom, and slid between my sheets.
Sleep didn’t come. I lay there looking at the plaster ceiling, watching the light fixture above sway in a breeze I couldn’t feel.
I wanted to be free—free of the past, free of my father’s murder.
I just didn’t know how to get there. Not yet.
But I would. And once I was free, I could figure out what I really wanted.
The image of Paige McKenna flashed into my mind. Those dark curls that looked so soft. Her haunting ice-blue eyes surrounded by thick, dark lashes. Her long legs.
I tried to banish her image from my mind.
I was not going to lay a finger on my brother’s nanny.
I didn’t know her exact age, but the innocence in her eyes told me it didn’t matter.
She was way too young for me. So many reasons I couldn’t have Paige McKenna.
But as sleep finally took me under, it was her I reached for in my dreams.