Chapter 11 #2
“What do you mean you’re having company for dinner?” she demanded, brandishing a wooden spoon like a sword. “You think food just magically cooks itself and appears on your plate? Cooking for company takes planning and time. Especially if it’s a lady friend.”
Isadora Blackstone was a little sprite of a woman with coal-black eyes and hair to match—though the hair had some help from Clairol these days.
Her skin was the color of creamed coffee and her face was remarkably smooth for her age, which she credited to fifty years of faithful moisturizing.
Her eyebrows were drawn on sharply with a black pencil and her lips were ruby red.
She was maybe ninety pounds soaking wet, but when she got her dander up, she was as scary as any giant.
“Unless it’s that Hazel Trout,” Izzy continued, narrowing her eyes. “I’m not cooking for that little tramp, so if you’re thinking of parking your horse in that particular barn again, you’d better think again.”
Beckett snorted out a laugh before he could help himself, and the spoon missed the tip of his nose by an inch. He congratulated himself on not flinching.
“I told you to stay away from that girl. I said, Master Beckett, you keep your dallying with that girl out of my house. She sees herself as Queen Bee over Hamilton Ranch, and I’m already Queen Bee. There ain’t room enough for the both of us. Didn’t I tell you that?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Beckett agreed quickly. She had told him that, and he wasn’t going to argue. Everyone knew Izzy ruled the roost at Hamilton Ranch.
“It’s not Hazel. It’s Marnie Whitlock.”
Izzy’s expression transformed immediately, her eyes softening. “The Whitlock girl? Harley’s daughter?” She nodded slowly. “That poor child. I remember her trailing after the O’Hara girl like a little shadow. Skinny as a rail and big sad eyes. Heard she made something of herself.”
“She did. She’s a photographer now. Just opened a studio in town.”
“Good for her.” Izzy stuck her head in the refrigerator, slapping contents on the counter. “Now shoo. Get out of my kitchen. You smell like you’ve been rolling in manure.”
“Pretty close. You’d think the cows would be smart enough to come in from the cold on their own.”
“Thank goodness they’re not. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have steak thawed out and ready to put on the grill for your dinner guest. Now go before you stink up the whole house.”
“I’m going,” he said, and grabbed an apple from the bowl while her back was turned.
By the time he was showered and dressed in jeans and a soft gray sweater, the meal was ready and warming in the oven.
Izzy had made herself scarce, leaving a note taped to the refrigerator reminding him to be a gentleman and that she was going to bed because her reality show was on.
She lived in the small guesthouse behind the garage.
When the doorbell finally rang, he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
He opened the door to find Marnie covered head to toe in snow, her face white as a sheet.
“What happened? Are you okay?” He pulled her inside toward the fireplace.
“I didn’t realize the weather was going to get so bad so quickly.
” Her teeth chattered and he steered her toward the blazing logs.
“I tried to call you and cancel, but I couldn’t get through.
I think service is down. I didn’t want you to think I’d driven in a ditch somewhere and have to come looking for me. ”
“That’s very thoughtful of you. Did you walk here? I’ve never seen someone covered in this much snow from driving a car.”
“The windshield wipers on my van decided to stop working. I had to roll down the window to see where I was going. And then when I got out, the wind blew the door open and knocked me face-first into a snowbank.” She peeled off her gloves and laid them in front of the fire.
“I might have parked on your lawn. I honestly couldn’t tell. ”
“I’ve never heard you say that much at one time.”
“You make me nervous.”
He laughed—she’d said that once before, on a certain Ferris wheel. “Hand me your things and I’ll hang them up to dry. There’s coffee or I can make tea.”
“Tea sounds perfect.”
He hung her coat and hat by the fire and went to put the kettle on. When he came back, she was standing close to the flames, color slowly returning to her cheeks.
“You’re stuck here for the night,” he said. “Roads are already impassable and getting worse. The weatherman was wrong by about twelve hours.”
“First snow of the season?”
“First big one. We had a dusting last week, but nothing like this.” He handed her a cup of tea. “I hope you don’t mind being stranded.”
“I knew when I left the studio that I probably wouldn’t make it home tonight.” She wrapped her hands around the warm mug. “Simone warned me about mountain weather. Said it could turn on a dime.”
“She’s not wrong. Izzy left dinner warming in the oven. You hungry?”
“Starving.”
They ate at the big kitchen table—steaks, baked potatoes, and a salad Izzy had thrown together.
The conversation was easy, wandering from the ranch to her photography to memories of summers spent at the O’Hara place.
But Beckett could sense there was something more she wanted to say.
Something hovering just beneath the surface.
After dinner, they moved to the living room with fresh cups of tea. The fire crackled and popped, and outside the windows, the snow continued to fall in thick curtains of white. Marnie curled up in one of the overstuffed chairs, her feet tucked beneath her, and stared into the flames.
“I spent a lot of years in therapy, you know,” she said quietly.
Beckett settled into the chair across from her, giving her space. “I’m glad. I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like for you growing up. And that you were able to hide it from all of us.”
“At first I thought maybe if I’d been born different, he wouldn’t have had a reason to beat me.”
“Some people don’t need a reason. He would’ve found one no matter what.”
“That’s what my therapist said.” She nodded slowly.
“He was just a bad person. There’s no cure for that.
And it took me a while to admit to myself that part of me was glad the O’Haras hadn’t been able to adopt me, even though I felt broken without them in my life.
Even though I hated leaving you before we’d ever had a chance to get started. ”
“Why were you glad?”
“Because for as long as I could remember, my one goal was to have freedom. From my father and from this town. I was counting down the days until I could leave. I needed to know that I could survive on my own. And once I’d survived on my own, I needed to discover that I hadn’t deserved what he’d done to me. ”
The firelight played across her features, casting half her face in shadow. She looked vulnerable in a way he’d never seen before, and it made him want to pull her into his arms and never let go. But he sensed she needed to get this out—needed him to listen.
“They placed me with a foster family in Bozeman,” she continued. “It was only a year before I aged out, but it wasn’t bad. I had clothes that fit and three meals a day. And there was never the sound of a belt being pulled through loops.”
She took a sip of tea, steadying herself.
“I made it through college. I took photography on a whim—just trying to fulfill a fine arts credit—but I found a calling instead. Life looks different through a lens. There’s always beauty through a lens, even when life isn’t so beautiful.”
“I kept up with you,” Beckett admitted. “Over the years. I saw articles about the cases you helped solve. The gallery showings.”
“Then you know about Clive.”
He nodded, his jaw tightening. “I saw pictures of you with him. You looked happy.”
“Not happy in the relationship. But happy in my career. Fulfilled.” She set her tea aside and pulled her knees up to her chest. “He walked into my studio in Savannah one rainy afternoon. He was one of the most well-known gallery owners on the East Coast, and he wanted to represent me. My life became a whirlwind. He arranged a show in New York.”
“The show was a success,” Beckett said. He remembered seeing the headlines.
“The money started rolling in. And Clive started paying more attention to me personally.” She set her tea aside and pulled her knees up to her chest. “I was flattered. He was sophisticated, well connected, almost twenty years older. I thought that meant he knew what he was doing—that he’d take care of things.
Take care of me. I didn’t realize until later that “taking care of things” meant taking control of everything. ”
Beckett’s hands tightened on the arms of his chair, but he kept quiet.
“I thought I was finally getting it right. I’d spent time on my own, worked my way across the country, built a business from nothing.
I thought I was ready.” She laughed, but there was no humor in it.
“And then I found myself walking on eggshells all the time. Doing everything I could to please him so he’d be happy with me. ”
“Did he hurt you?”
“Not physically. He never hit me. But he controlled me. Owned me.” She met his eyes.
“In a different way than my father. Daddy was always ashamed of my gift. He hated it and hated me because I had it and he didn’t.
Clive was the opposite. He loved my gift.
Loved that it brought attention to him, that his name was associated with mine.
I was like a pet. A prize. And he never saw me as a woman or as someone of worth. ”
“Marnie…”
“Then I found out he’d forged papers making himself executor of everything I did. He literally owned me at that point. My name, my work—all of it. I knew I had to get out before there was nothing left of me at all.”
“Wait.” Beckett leaned forward. “This man lied and stole from you, and you just walked away without a fight?”