CHAPTER TWENTY #3
“We can make googly eyes at each other when we get to yoga,” I said.
“Deal.”
“How was Mabel after you took her home? Still rattled?”
“A little. But hanging out with Damon and playing that riddle video game seemed to really help. Distracted her better than anything I could have thought of. She texted him and asked him if she could come back this morning when I picked you up for yoga. I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea, said the kid probably wanted to sleep. But she said he said it was fine.”
“I think my nephew is a little smitten. And while I’m definitely not trying to suggest they be anything more than friends, because they’re just kids, I’ve never seen him smile the way he smiles when he’s around Mabel, or get such a glittery look in his eyes.
” I tossed my hand in the air. “Hell, the kid is reading about lichen in his spare time because of your daughter.”
Lennox tossed his head back and laughed. “She told us about the lichen conversation. She was impressed that he said he thought about it from time to time.”
“You know he said that to impress her, but that he’d never had a thought about lichen before in his fourteen years of life before she asked him,” I said.
“Of course I know that. I was a teenage boy once, too. I never thought about lichen. But it’s cute that he tried to save face.”
“I think their friendship is adorable.”
We pulled into the parking lot for the Yoga Yurt. Lotus always kept the property so beautiful, and right now all her wildflowers were in full bloom. Bees and butterflies bounced from flower to flower as we made our way up the stone path toward the open yurt door.
“Welcome on this beautiful morning,” Lotus said in her breathy voice from behind the counter. “So nice to see you again, Naomi and Lennox.”
We signed ourselves in on the tablet, ditched our sandals, and headed into the center of the yurt.
Sometimes Lotus went for a dark, introspective class and she pulled down all the shades, but today she’d thrown everything open and the morning sun shone in through the windows, lighting it all up.
She’d even opened a few windows, causing the gauzy drapes to flutter and send a beautiful warm breeze fragrant of wildflowers and honeysuckle toward us.
“How about here?” I suggested, finding a big open spot near the back and a breezy window.
“Sounds good.” We unfurled our mats and grabbed a couple of blocks each, then settled onto the floor, facing each other.
“Gabrielle called me after she got home from seeing you know who,” he said, his voice just above a hush.
“Said she was, of course, obstinate, and played up the angle of ‘looking out for the island and people’s children’ like I’m some kind of predator and Mabes isn’t really my daughter, but my captive. ”
“Is that what Gabrielle said?” I asked, stunned.
He nodded. “The Mouth doesn’t trust me. Thinks because I haven’t spewed my life’s story to her, she can snoop around.”
I shook my head and growled, then softened my face and smiled as Jordana Pedersen walked in.
She gave me a wave back, but set her mat down on the other side of the room.
Facing Lennox again, I leaned toward him.
“I was busy working with some of the new hires, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to Gabs, but did she at least get The Mouth,” I whispered that bit, “to agree to take the post down?”
He nodded. “Yeah, she said she would, but when last Gabrielle checked, it was still up, and had garnered a lot of comments and shares. Several people said they knew me. Remembered me from high school, college, and my basketball days. But that back then I was Lennox Murchie. So now the old biddy has my former name as well.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I exclaimed, which prompted a few people near us to glare at me. “Sorry,” I muttered.
He shook his head. “At this point, regardless of whether the post comes down or not, my face and Mabel’s face are out there.
Recent photos of us, with our location and even my occupation and place of work.
We just have to hope that Kyla wasn’t on social media searching for us.
Or if she was, she uses her two brain cells and stays put in Cedar Bluff. ”
I reached out and rested my hand on his. “I’m really sorry you guys are going through this.”
“Me too,” he said with a sigh. He glanced behind me since he was facing the door and my back was to it. “Oh shit.”
I whipped around to find none other than Jolene Dandy with her minion Karen Ribko, the woman who owned one of the touristy gift shops in town. Jolene zeroed in on us, and her copper eyes widened.
I faced Lennox again, dipped my chin to my chest and repeated, “Don’t come over here. Don’t come over here. Don’t come over here.”
“Good morning, Naomi,” came Jolene’s shrill voice behind me.
I spun around and glanced at her. “Jolene. Karen.”
“So, you thought you needed to obtain a lawyer, Principal Paul?” Jolene asked, her voice loud enough to draw attention from the dozen other people in the room. “Only people with something to hide get lawyers.”
My blood was like molten lava running through my veins. How dare this woman.
Lennox cleared his throat and forced out a smile. “I didn’t get a lawyer. Gabrielle just offered to help me. And whether we have something to hide or not is none of your business.”
“Did you ever stop to think that maybe Lennox and Mabel are in witness protection and you just went and advertised their whereabouts to the entire world? To the people they might be hiding from?” I said, my voice shaking just a touch.
I had to bunch my hands into tight fists, otherwise I was going to jump up like a puma and claw this woman’s eyes out.
Karen’s eyes widened, and she glanced at Jolene. “Jolene, that’s really dangerous if that’s the case.”
Flustered, Jolene waved her hand dismissively.
“I doubt that’s the case. You’re just making things up.
I just want to know who you are. Is she really your daughter?
Seems far too old, or you far too young for the two of you to be father and daughter.
What, did you have her at thirteen or something? ”
“Yeah. I did,” Lennox said deadpanned. “After her mother—my stepmother—molested me. She’s who we’re hiding from.
Because she just got out on parole. Are you happy now, Jolene?
You know our dirty little secret. I was raped by my stepmother, got her pregnant, she went to jail, my daughter and I went into foster care together so I could raise her.
We moved here to get a fresh start. Her mother just made parole, and we have no idea if she’ll leave us alone, or try to find Mabel and take her away. ”
Every single person in the yurt was dead silent. They all gaped with disgusted disbelief at Jolene, whose face was brighter than a perfectly ripe strawberry. “A-a woman can’t rape a man,” she finally blurted out.
“You absolutely fucking can, Jolene,” said a man I couldn’t see from the other side of the yurt. “Get your head out of your wrinkly old ass.”
Jolene craned her fold-riddled neck around to see who had said that.
“You just doxxed our new principal and his daughter—a minor,” Jordana said. “They could be in real danger.”
“I-I-I am looking out for the island. For the children,” she stammered, trying to defend her actions.
“Maybe leave that to their parents?” Jordana said, shaking her head in repulsion. “You’re certainly not looking out for Lennox’s daughter.”
“Take down the post and apologize,” said the same man who said Jolene’s ass was old and wrinkly.
Jolene swallowed, and her eyes darted across mine and Lennox’s faces.
Karen elbowed her friend. “Apologize, Jolene. You really screwed up.”
Holy shit, Karen Ribko had finally grown a backbone? Only took seventy-ish years.
“I’m … I’m sorry,” Jolene murmured. “But if you’d just been honest with me—I mean the island—in the first place, then this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Apologies shouldn’t come with buts,” another person in the yurt said. “Then they’re not real apologies.”
Several people shook their heads and continued to give her dirty looks.
“He didn’t have to share that information with anyone, ever,” I said, practically spitting venom. “And yet, you made it so he had to, so you would get off his back and leave him and Mabel alone.”
“The way she spoke to me at the farmers market—”
“You fucked up, Jolene. Own it and stop making excuses,” said Jackson Clemmons who ran the metalwork shop.
“Mabel is autistic,” Lennox said. “She is gifted. She might be thirteen, but she is already taking college courses—for fun. And as perfect and brilliant as she might be—because to me, my daughter is perfect—she has anxiety and struggles in some social settings. She is also quite shy. It was her idea to approach you, and I support her and the way she did it. You came around our house while she was home alone and tried to get a peek at her through the window. I think the way she spoke to you last weekend was beyond polite enough after your behavior.”
Karen shook her head, regarding her friend with a new level of repugnance. “Jolene, seriously?”
With her nostrils flaring and all her feathers ruffled, Jolene did a rather graceful pirouette and rushed out the door.
“I’m not chasing you,” Karen called after her. “I’m here for yoga.” She moved away from us a bit and set down her mat.
All eyes were on us though. But they were eyes of sympathy and compassion.
“Well, now that that has been dealt with, perhaps we can find some Zen?” Lennox said, reclining onto his back in savasana. “Get our namaste on?”
I followed suit and lay down on my mat. His fingers intertwined with mine, and I rolled my head to the side to smile at him. “You did great.”
“Any chance we can find somewhere to go be alone after this for half an hour?” he mouthed.
The spot between my legs that had become very fond of him in the last week or so fluttered. “Definitely. We might need to get a bit creative though.”
He squeezed my fingers and bobbed his eyebrows. “I’m all about getting creative.”