Chapter Nine
LILY
Knox was waiting by the Land Rover when Adam and I rushed out of the house. Adam went to preschool three days a week, had been for over a year, and every morning was still a battle.
He didn't want to get dressed. He didn't like his breakfast. He wanted different sneakers. Not all that different from our bedtime routine.
I was afraid to ask how long it would take for Adam to grow out of making every chore into a game. I loved his imagination and sense of adventure, I just wished he'd save it for times we weren't running late. Since he'd started talking, it seemed like we were always late.
We skidded to a halt at the sight of Knox in a black T-shirt and dark jeans leaning against the hood of the Land Rover, arms crossed over his chest. He said, “I'll drive.”
Adam breathed, “Cool. Are you going to drive faster than Mom?”
Any thought of objecting to Knox's chauffeur services dissolved as a grin cracked across his rugged face, and he said, “I might. How fast does your mom drive?”
Adam clambered into his car seat, sitting docile as Knox arranged the straps and secured them with ease. I stood there like an idiot with my jaw hanging open. Adam never sat still to be buckled in. Neither of them noticed me.
Adam, giggling at Knox's question, considered it seriously before answering. “Mom drives like someone's grandma. My dad used to drive really fast. She yelled at him all the time. Told him to slow down, but he never listened. He had an accident in his car.”
Adam delivered this information as if he were talking about a stranger and not his father. Knox's eyes flashed to me. I looked away, fumbling with the door and then my seatbelt. I didn't want to talk about Trey's driving habits or the accident that had killed him.
The police thought he'd swerved to avoid a deer in the road and skidded off the bridge. He could have. Adam was telling the truth. Trey always drove too fast. He'd loved his sleek Mercedes coupe, a car designed more for a racetrack than rural Maine roads.
The night of his accident had been clear, with a full moon. Dry roads. No traffic. If he'd lost control, it would have been the first time. And the last.
I wasn't going to think about that. Not right now.
Knox backed us out of the garage, as comfortable behind the wheel of my Land Rover as if he'd been driving it for years. I imagine Knox did everything with that same relaxed competency.
I tried not to find it so reassuring. It wasn't smart to trust a virtual stranger too much, to let his strength and capability lull me into complacency.
I'd decided to trust Knox Sinclair with our safety. I couldn't hire him for security and then go around suspecting his every move. That would be stupid. It didn't mean I should sit back and assume he was the answer to all of our problems.
“Adam's preschool is in town,” I said, nerves making my voice unsteady before I swallowed and got it under control. “It's at the church on Main Street a few blocks down from Town Hall—”
“I know where it is,” Knox said.
I didn't ask what that meant. He knew where the church was, or he knew where Adam went to preschool?
It wasn't a stretch for someone new in town to know where the church was.
Built in a classic New England style, with white siding and a tall steeple, it anchored the center of Main Street, visible from all sides.
How did Knox know where Adam went to pre-school? The answer was instantly obvious. He'd investigated us. Sinclair Security probably investigated all of their clients. Trey had been a client for years.
What did Knox Sinclair know about my dead husband that I didn't?
Adam chattered as Knox drove, telling him everything he planned to do in preschool that day. He was as comfortable with Knox as he was with adults he'd known his whole life. More comfortable than he'd been with his father.
I winced at the thought, but my discomfort didn't make it any less true. Trey’d had little patience for a toddler's babbling. More often than not, when Adam had tried to talk to him in the fragmented words of the four-year-old he’d been when Trey died, Trey had brushed him off.
He didn’t want to be bothered with the ramblings of a baby, he’d told me in annoyance. ‘Shut him up or put him somewhere else.’
I’d gone out of my way to shield Adam from Trey’s dismissal, but seeing the way he opened up to Knox, who laughed with him and let him talk without interruption, I realized how much Adam had been missing.
Knox was out of the car a moment after he turned off the engine, helping Adam from the car seat. Preschool was located in a squat brick box of a building, tucked behind the church. The school building wasn’t pretty, but the playground more than made up for it.
The door swung open, and the sounds of screaming children assaulted our ears. Adam raced ahead of us, calling out to his friends. I put a hand on Knox's arm to stop him. We didn't need to go all the way into the classroom. Twenty kids were nineteen too many before I'd had a cup of coffee.
“One second. Let me just drop off his backpack.”
I left Knox standing by the door and was back a minute later, Adam's backpack securely deposited in his cubby.
“Preschool only lasts until noon. I usually do some grocery shopping and then go to the park. If you have things to do—”
“Which grocery store?” Knox asked.
I guess that answered that question. Being trailed by a stranger as I went about my errands might raise some questions, but I couldn't deny the relief I felt having Knox by my side.
I was good at ignoring my worries during the day. Walking through the grocery store beside Knox, I realized how anxious I'd been since Trey died, always alert for anything out of the ordinary, worried, uncertain, and scared.
Did I think someone was going to come after me in the produce aisle? Of course not. We were in town, in the middle of the day, at the height of tourist season. I couldn't have been safer, with or without Knox. I still felt better with him by my side.
I decided not to analyze. I was going to enjoy feeling safe for the first time in months.
“Do you have a list?” Knox asked.
I held up my phone with the grocery list app open on the screen. “I don't need much. If there's anything you want for the cottage, just throw it in.”
I meant it when I said it, but I made a face as a bag of chips hit the cart.
“Not a fan of junk food?” Knox rumbled. I swear I heard a hint of amusement in his deep voice.
“Who doesn't like chips? I usually try to keep stuff like that away from Adam. Don't be surprised if he comes begging. And if he does, try not to let him eat the whole bag.”
“Deal,” Knox said. “I'm assuming soda's out?”
I slid a glance at Knox. His T-shirt wasn't tight, but what I could see of his arms told me his body fat had to be in the single digits. This was not a guy who drank soda. Was he yanking my chain?
A little giddy at the thought of Knox teasing me, I let out a halting laugh. “Definitely no soda,” I confirmed. We stopped in the baking aisle, and I grabbed the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies.
I refused to give up. I would learn to bake. I'd learned to cook, hadn't I?
When Trey and I got married I had no clue in the kitchen, but, between the Internet and cookbooks, I'd learned. I'd learned pretty well if I said so myself.
Baking, though, that was new. Trey hadn't wanted sweets in the house. He'd discouraged me from baking, and I'd gone along.
I'd gone along with a lot of things.
I'd gone so far, I'd almost lost myself.
A month after he died, I'd been standing in the bathroom with a hair straightener in my hand, ready to torture my curls into the smooth style Trey had loved.
All of a sudden it hit me.
Trey was dead.
Gone.
I'd dropped the straightener and sunk to the floor, tears flooding my eyes. So much effort to hold myself together, to be strong for Adam. The dam broke, and I wept until I ran out of tears.
Eyes dry, a few things had come clear.
Adam and I were on our own.
I was responsible for everything.
Including myself.
Slowly, I'd been regaining bits of my life and trying new things.
I'd put the straightener away and hadn't used it since.
When Trey and I met, I'd been trying the straight look.
He'd hated my curls, so I'd kept up with it.
But Trey was gone, and I was tired of trying to make someone else happy at my own expense.
Leaving my hair to its natural curls was the beginning. Next came my clothes as I traded twin sets and skirts for jeans and t-shirts. I still dressed up now and then, but when I was home by myself all day? Comfort ruled.
Now I was working on learning to bake. I'd always imagined being the kind of mom who made muffins and cookies, all sorts of yummy treats. I would be. As soon as I figured out how to make them taste like vanilla and sugar instead of baking soda and salt.
Practice makes perfect, right? I just had to keep trying.
At that thought, I grabbed extra chocolate chips in case the first batch didn't work out. Who was I kidding? When the first batch didn't work out.
Knox gave my baking ingredients the side-eye but said nothing.
We moved to the next aisle, passing shelves of packaged cookies.
I waited for him to grab one in case my chocolate chip cookies turned out like the muffins and the coffee cake.
He ignored the cookies and other snacks but grabbed a canister of raisins and one of oatmeal as well as a bag of apples, an extra carton of eggs, and a pint of gourmet vanilla ice cream.
I threw in a box of fruit-juice popsicles for Adam, and we headed to the checkout. I didn't know the teenager at the register. Tourist season was short but busy, and every business in town had temporary summer help.
There's an old saying: There are only two seasons in Maine. Winter and July. Like most old sayings, it was based in fact.