17. Pike
The multi-colored swirl of the Ferris wheel catches my side view as Lily tugs on my hand, urging me toward the strawberry-themed ride.
“Will you come on this one with me, Papa Pike?” she begs. “It’s not too scary.”
I look helplessly for Aspen, caught up in the cotton candy line, barely able to handle the noise and crowd of the Cypress Gardens fair. I stare at her, hoping she’ll look my way and sense my deep discomfort at being in the middle of all the bustle, but she’s lost in a conversation with a chatty older woman and can’t seem to free herself.
“Why don’t you ask Aspen to go on that one with you, honeybee?” I sigh, already knowing what her response is going to be.
“I want to go on with you!” she pouts, folding her arms over her chest. “You never want to go on any of the rides!”
Where the hell is Caden when you need him? I think miserably.
“I’ve got cotton candy!” Aspen spares me from answering, having gotten out of the conversation with the older woman.
Lily forgets about the rides for a moment and eagerly reaches for the treat, but I remind her to mind her manners.
“What do you say to Aspen, who just lined up for twenty minutes and got cornered for another five?” I say warningly.
“Thank you, Aspen!”
Aspen smiles her beautiful smile and joins us on the picnic table. “You’re very welcome, Lily.”
“Will you go on the strawberry ride with me?” she asks, stuffing the fluffy, pink sugar into her rosebud mouth. “Papa Pike doesn’t wanna.”
“I think you can go on that one all by yourself,” she replies. “You’re tall enough.”
Lily’s face brightens like the sun. “Really?!” she gasps. “All by myself?”
I hesitate at the idea, but Aspen is already standing, extending her hand for Lily to take. “Come here,” she says, gesturing at the height restrictions on the gate surrounding the ride. “You see this? You’re taller than the stork’s wing, right? That means you don’t need anyone to go on with you. Would you like to go on by yourself?”
“Uh… maybe she’s a little young?” I pipe in tentatively, but Aspen shakes her head.
“There’s nothing wrong with giving her a little independence,” she says. “We’re both right here.” She winks at Lily, who is suddenly elated by the idea of riding the spinning strawberry on her own. “Finish your cotton candy, and I’ll walk you to the line.” Aspen looks at me. “Papa Pike can take a minute to regroup while we’re gone.”
She grins at me, and I could kiss her right here. She can tell how much I hate this.
And I wouldn’t have come if Lily had not asked me specifically, although why she singled me out this humid evening, I’ll never understand. But I can never refuse when the child asks. Even Caden laughed with relief when we headed out to the garage, Lily bouncing with excitement to go on the rides and play at the midway.
“Enjoy the screaming kids, Pike,” he snorted as we headed out in Aspen’s BMW.
“You know I’m going, too, right?” Aspen told him dryly.
He winked suggestively at her. “Occupational hazard for you. Sheer torture for him. I’ll put the wine on chill for you when you get back.”
Suddenly, all I can think about is drinking that wine.
“You have got to be kidding!”
My shoulders stiffen, my head swiveling as the long lost but familiar voice permeates my ears.
Oh, no. Not tonight. Not with Lily and Aspen here.
I look up as Amanda glowers down at me, her pinched face almost opaque. And she’s not alone.
“You’re here now?” she sputters. “I would have thought that after all this time, you would have had the decency to leave!”
Her husband reaches a wrinkled hand to turn her away, but Amanda hasn’t finished. I stare blankly at her. “What? Nothing to say still, Pike? It’s been almost five years since you murdered our daughter, and you still have nothing to say!”
Her voice carries over the obnoxious carnival music, and I finally stand, a weariness settling inside me.
“Amanda, let’s go,” Paul mutters, unable to look at me. “The grandkids are waiting.”
She spits at my feet, and I resist the urge to spit out the entire truth about her daughter the same way she has declared me a murderer in front of half the town of Cypress Gardens. But I don’t.
“You should go, Amanda,” I mumble.
“Don’t you tell me what to do! I know what kind of monster you are, Pike Hartley, and I’m going to make sure the entire world knows it?—”
“Ma’am, there are children here.” Aspen steps between us, her expression calm as she faces Amanda and Paul. “You’re scaring them.”
“They should be scared! That man?—”
“Amanda!” Paul interjects as security approaches. “Let’s go, honey. You… you should take one of your pills.”
Amanda scoffs bitterly. “I will make sure everyone knows,” she grumbles but allows her husband to lead her back through the throng of people. Passersby cast us curious looks, and my stomach churns as I will the ground to open up and swallow me entirely.
Aspen spins around to look at me.
“Are you all right?” the security guard asks, but Aspen waves him away.
“We’re fine, thank you.” He bows his head and moves on as she looks at me. “Who was that, Pike?”
My eyes trail toward the strawberry ride, which is still spinning around, Lily’s gleeful face passing by every few seconds.
“No one,” I say, but Aspen’s hands are on my cheeks.
“Please don’t do that,” she begs. “I am not your enemy. I am on your team. But you have to let me in if you want it to work, all right? Tell me who those people are, or I’ll just go home and Google the hell out of everyone in this town until I find out their connection to you.”
She offers me a half-grin, but I’m not sure she’s kidding.
“They don’t live here. I don’t know what they’re doing here,” I mutter. “They’re from Peachtree City… or rather, they were, the last I heard.”
“Okay…” Aspen presses.
“My former in-laws,” I sigh. “I was married to their daughter, Maddy.”
The shock on Aspen’s face is palpable. “You were married?”
“It was a stupid, whirlwind thing,” I mutter, humiliated now to speak about it aloud. “We were young, and Maddy was… convincing. I shouldn’t have married her.”
“Because you were young?” Aspen asks, leading back to sit at the table, and not a minute too soon. My legs are jelly in the aftermath of that encounter.
“Because I wasn’t in love with her.”
More stunned surprise overtakes Aspen’s dark features, and she looks away, embarrassed. “Oh…” she murmurs. “I see.”
“No, you don’t,” I growl. How can she?
“You’re right. Maybe I don’t. But I know you, and I know you hate making waves,” she replies quickly. “So I can see how a woman might take advantage of that when she finds a sensitive, wonderful man that she wants to marry.”
My defensiveness melts away. Maybe she understands better than I think.
“Why are they so mad?” Aspen asks, her eyes darting toward the ride again.
I turn my head and see Lily come running toward us.
“Can I go again?” the little girl asks excitedly.
“Yes!” we chorus in unison and share a smile as she rushes to join the much smaller line now.
“Just stay where we can see you and you can see us,” Aspen adds. The child sprints off and leaves us back to our conversation. “What happened to Maddy?” Aspen wants to know, leaning closer, the compassion on her face relaxing me.
“Maddy… had some issues, undiagnosed, but there were clear signs of some type of disorder. She would be so full of life, so charismatic… and then she would hate everyone and everything, lying in bed for weeks at a time. I begged her to seek professional help, but that would only make her turn on me. She would scream at me that I didn’t love her anymore, that I was evil—she called me names I wouldn’t call a rat in our pantry.”
I stop, swallowing. Reliving this isn’t something I wanted to do with Aspen or anyone else, but she’s right. This will never work if she doesn’t know the truth. The whole truth.
“One day, she just…” I pause again, remembering the call from the Peachtree City Police. “One day, she made good on her threats to me. I found her in our garage, and it was too late to do anything. Her parents blamed me, insisting I drove her to do it, that she was always happy, and I suppose they only ever really saw her when she was manic. But they must have seen signs when she was younger. I couldn’t have been the only one who saw it.”
Aspen’s hand closes over mine as if to absorb my internal anguish. “They’re grieving, Pike. They lost a child and need someone to blame for it.”
Logically, I understand that, but emotionally, I wish it weren’t me.
“I’m not saying that they’re handling their grief properly, but you are being the bigger man here, Pike,” she goes on. My chest tightens with her reassurance. “Can you imagine someone confronting Caden like this?”
I snicker, albeit humorlessly. “No. He wouldn’t handle it well.”
“You’re a good man, Pike Hartley. With all your talent, compassion—and sexiness, too!”
“I suppose you would know something about being sexy,” I tell her, my eyes boring into her mysterious, chocolate irises. Suddenly, the kids screaming and the music from the rides around us dissipate. It’s only me and Aspen at that moment.
“Thank you for telling me about Maddy.”
“Thanks for listening. I don’t think I’ve mentioned her name in years, but I needed to get it out…”
I’m surprised by my openness, but that’s what Aspen does to me. She inspires me and loosens me up.
Again, her head rises, and I turn as Lily throws herself excitedly into my lap. “I’m hungry,” she announces. “Can we get?—”
“Pizza?” I guess.
“No. A hot dog,” Lily corrects me.
“Look at that,” Aspen jokes, standing to hit the food vendor again. “You give the girl a little independence, and suddenly, she’s changing her tastes everywhere.”
“I’ll get it,” I say, picking up Lily under one arm as she squeaks with delight. The child clings to me, but Aspen also stands to join us.
“Let’s all go,” Aspen suggests, joining my side. Lily dangles off my left arm, but Aspen slips her hand into my right, casting me an adoring look as I peer back down at her.
I think I’m in love with my muse.