"Xander," she said very slowly and deliberately. "Look at me. Do you know what happened to Tommy Wilder?"
His eyes reluctantly met hers and he nodded almost imperceptibly.
"He didn"t run away, did he?"
Xander turned his back to her and took a few steps away to examine the collage of pictures on her wall. He studied them in great detail before he spoke.
"You noticed what the news left out of that broadcast, didn"t you? That his parents lost custody of him because they couldn"t control him? That he was suspended for fighting and bringing a switchblade to school? That he"d been arrested for theft and a.s.sault? He was under eighteen, so all that got swept under the rug. Now that he"s dead, they"ve conveniently forgotten he was a rotten person. They talked about him like he was an abused child instead of a two-hundred-pound menace."
He was right, but she was afraid to follow where he was going with that. "So you"re saying he deserved it?" she asked hesitantly.
Xander turned on his heel to look at her. She watched his expression shift as he fought with the words he really wanted to say. He probably wanted to say yes, he did deserve it. But he wouldn"t. He"d run it through his political filter first. "I"m saying that whatever happened to him, they need to consider that he probably brought it on himself."
He wouldn"t say the words, but he didn"t have to. Whatever happened on the farm all those years ago, Xander had been involved. The hows and whys didn"t matter. She was certain her father had reasons for doing what he"d done. He"d probably stated them in the hundred letters she"d thrown away. In the end, nothing changed the truth and nothing would bring the dead back to life.
"I suppose it"s just as well that we don"t talk to Joey today. Under the circ.u.mstances, perhaps we shouldn"t tell him at all."
"Rose, wait. This doesn"t change our plans or how I feel about you or Joey. I just need time to work this out."
She detected a pleading edge in his voice. Her father had pleaded with her, but it had fallen on deaf ears just as Xander"s pleas did now. She"d thought that loving Xander would be a safe choice-as far away on the spectrum from her father as she could get. Xander was a politician who carefully dodged scandal. He certainly wouldn"t commit a crime, right? She felt so foolish. Some people would say that all politicians were criminals to different degrees.
"Time to work it out?" Rose rushed into the bathroom and came out wrapped in her robe. She couldn"t have this conversation in a flimsy bath towel. "How long, Xander? Ten to fifteen? He already has a criminal for a grandfather. Do you honestly think I"m going to let him have a criminal for a father, too?"
Xander flinched and his jaw tightened in response. "I"m not a criminal, Rose. You don"t understand."
"Of course I don"t. I"m just a silly law-abiding citizen trying to live a decent life, and everyone around me seems h.e.l.l-bent on dragging me down with them. I don"t know what happened that night, Xander, and I"m not sure I want to know. It"s bad enough that I know how the night ended."
"It"s not as simple as that, Rose."
"I don"t know what I was thinking," she said, ignoring him as her blood pumped furiously in her ears. "Just like the rest of the voting public, I sat back and ate up all your practiced and polished words, but they didn"t mean anything. All this time, all the promises you made about our future together, our future with Joey, you were just talking big. Nothing but lies."
Color suddenly rushed to Xander"s face and clenched jaw. "Lies? I meant everything I said to you. If we"re going to talk about lies, Rose, how about the ones you"ve been spouting to the whole town for the last ten years, huh?"
"How dare you even compare those two things! I didn"t kill anyone. I just protected your career."
"And made a fine martyr of yourself in the process. Don"t throw stones, Rose. Neither of us is innocent."
"Look what telling the truth got me, Xander! How dare you demand to be a part of your son"s life knowing full well that you might end up in jail one day!" She shook her head, the tears making her vision blurry. "All this time, you"ve been sweet-talking me, trying to convince me to come to D.C. and move in with you.... It"s too late for me, but I very nearly let you become important to my son."
The anger faded from his expression for just a moment. "What do you mean it"s too late for you?"
"I mean that I"m a fool. d.a.m.n you, Xander Langston, for tricking me into loving you just so I could have my heart broken again."
"Rose, I don"t want to br-"
"Get out," she demanded. For the past eleven years, Rose had been reeling from the day she walked out of Xander"s life. She"d been afraid to take a deep breath since he"d returned, worried he would disappear. She wasn"t about to sit around and wait for him to leave, this time in handcuffs. Just like before, she would take matters into her own hands and walk away before he could leave her.
Xander"s jaw dropped. "Wait. Can we talk about this?"
Rose angrily shook her head. "No, we can"t. On this point things are nonnegotiable. I will not have a criminal as my son"s father."
"I am not a criminal!" Xander shouted. "And even if I was, I"m still his father. You can"t change that."
He was right. The past was the past. "You"re right. Everyone makes mistakes. But I can change the future. You and I are done. And until whatever that is-" she gestured toward the television "-is cleared up, I don"t want you seeing Joey. You say you"re not a criminal? Prove it. Until then, I want you to get out of my apartment."
"Rose-"
"Now!" she nearly shrieked, hopeful that Joey still had his headphones on. They"d managed to keep their anger on a manageable level, but she was at her limit.
Apparently, so was he. Xander nodded and backed away from her toward the door. "It was good seeing you again, Rose." He turned the handle and walked out of the bedroom, picking up his overnight bag as he waved to Joey and slipped out the front door.
With him gone, every bone in Rose"s body disintegrated. She flopped down onto the bed, her tears rushing out of her almost faster than her body could make them.
Twelve.
Xander blew into his quiet, empty town house much later than he"d planned. The drive back from Connecticut had been fairly uneventful until he hit a bad accident on the interstate. It had left him stranded between exits for several hours as victims were transported by helicopter and cars were towed away. By the time his Lexus pulled up in front of his town house, it was nearly midnight.
The perfect capstone to two miserable weeks. It had started going downhill the minute he returned to Cornwall with Rose. Perhaps coming back to the comfort and safety of the Capitol would swing luck back in his favor.
Starting tomorrow. Tonight he was too exhausted to care about luck. He carried his luggage in and dropped it at the bottom of the stairs. He was too tired to carry it up right now. Eyeing the leather sofa in the sitting room, he seriously considered sleeping on the couch. His bed felt as though it were miles away and he couldn"t drag himself another step.
At the same time, he doubted he could sleep even in the comfort of his bed. His weary mind was endlessly spinning. Thoughts of Rose and how badly they"d parted. Leaving Joey behind without being able to tell him what was going on. Tommy"s body. Heath"s defeated voice on the phone. His parents" worried expressions as they were interrogated again by Sheriff Duke.
The past two weeks had been ones you couldn"t pay him to live over, but perhaps the worst was behind him now. By the time he prepared to head home, things seemed to have quieted down on the farm. The cloud of potential problems still hung over their heads as it had for years, but for now, the case had reached a standstill.
Xander stumbled into the kitchen, pulled a bottle of Scotch from the cabinet and poured himself a few fingers" worth over ice. He climbed onto one of the barstools and idly sorted through the stack of mail he"d left sitting there.
The Scotch burned as it went down, splashing into his empty stomach with a roar. The warmth spread through his veins and worked quickly to unknot the tense muscles in his shoulders and neck. He should"ve made a trip to the Wet Hen while he was there dealing with the cops. He was wound up tighter than a pocket watch and deserved a drink or two after fielding the press and the police at the farm.
That, at least, was easier than watching his parents deal with the tragic news. His cheerful, optimistic mother had been beside herself when she found out that the body belonged to her missing foster child. Molly had never quite forgiven herself for failing Tommy, despite her successes with so many other children. She hadn"t so much as raised a finger to Tommy, but she was consumed with misplaced guilt. She couldn"t even speak to the police the first day, she was so upset.
Ken had been distressed by the news as well, but he seemed to handle it better. Or at least more calmly than Molly. He"d sat on the porch, rocking in his favorite chair, as people came and went. Xander had sat beside him much of the time, trying to match his father"s level temperament and failing.
Ken didn"t have much to tell the police, of course, because he didn"t know the truth. All he could tell them was that Tommy had run away and he could take a lie detector test to confirm it. Xander had been sitting with Ken at the kitchen table eating breakfast when Wade had come to them with the note left on Tommy"s bed.
Xander had written the note himself, but he"d feigned surprise and chased after Ken when he"d rushed to the bunkhouse. There they"d found his bed hadn"t been slept in and all of Tommy"s things were gone. When asked, none of the boys said they had seen Tommy leave or knew where he could"ve gone. Ken had immediately called the police and turned over the letter. From there, the professionals had tried, and failed, to determine what had become of Tommy Wilder.
It was the same story Ken had always told. The same story Molly and Xander and everyone else told. It was all they knew to tell. The press and Sheriff Duke couldn"t do much more than write down their statements and go home. There was no crime scene to study or evidence left to collect. Tommy"s letter had been misplaced when the sheriff"s department archived old case files years ago.
There was an old story and a body, and between them, a gap big enough for Tommy to disappear into it.
Heath had been worried that it wouldn"t be enough, but it seemed to hold. Xander had planted enough seeds of doubt in the sheriff"s mind that attention would eventually shift away from his family. Tommy had been a magnet for trouble, after all. That was a well-doc.u.mented fact. It wasn"t a stretch to suggest that perhaps Tommy had run off to meet someone. Maybe he"d been involved in dealing drugs or something else with dangerous and untrustworthy people. Anything could"ve happened to him once he left the safety of the bunkhouse.
All Xander needed was reasonable doubt and he was satisfied that he had it. Thankfully, he"d reached that point when he had. Congress would be back in session come Monday. He couldn"t do anything more at the farm right now. The only other reason for him to stay in Cornwall was to work things out with Rose, and as much as he might want to do that, she was very firm about him staying away for a while.
So he went home. Once he was able to lose himself in his job again, maybe the sharp pain that stabbed him in the chest every time he thought of her would fade away.
Xander sipped the last of his Scotch and sighed. The liquor had done its work and numbed the darkest thoughts in his brain. Now perhaps he could get some sleep. He wasn"t going to pa.s.s out on the stool at the kitchen island, so he needed to head upstairs. He left the gla.s.s on the counter and stumbled back to grab his bags. He hauled them up into his room and set them on the foot of the bed. His bigger bag could wait for the morning to be unpacked, but he needed his toiletries and things out of the smaller duffel that he used for his sleepovers at Rose"s apartment.
Methodically, he went about unpacking it, setting aside his case of grooming items and a few other things. He was rummaging through some dirty clothes when his fingers brushed against something hard and rough in texture. He didn"t recall packing anything like that, so he felt around until he found it again and pulled the item out to examine it.
Holding it in his hand, Xander glanced down and his mouth dropped open. He stumbled back to sit on the mattress before his knees gave out.
It was a picture frame. He remembered making one just like this when he went to scout camp twenty years ago. It was a craft project made of painted Popsicle sticks and backed with felt. Hard macaroni noodles were glued to the frame and decorated with puff paint and glitter.
The picture in the frame was of him, Rose and Joey under the Camp Middleton sign. He"d forgotten they"d even taken that picture until now. They looked just like a happy family in the photo. Joey was beaming with the excitement and antic.i.p.ation of going to camp. Rose seemed nervous, but she hid it well from her son. Xander smiled awkwardly, as though he felt out of place, but Rose"s grip on his arm kept him firmly in place. It was a nice picture of the three of them.
And then he looked at the words along the top. Spelled out in foam cutout letters was Dad, Mom & Me.
It was as though someone had punched him in the gut as hard as they could. Joey knew. They hadn"t told him. Hadn"t breathed a word of it, but he knew the truth. His son had made this picture frame for him at camp and slipped the gift into his bag when he wasn"t looking. Probably while Xander was in the bedroom fighting with Rose.
His son gave him this gift and minutes later Xander had walked out of his son"s life without a word of explanation. He felt sick. The Scotch that only a moment ago had soothed him was now churning in his belly and threatening to rise up into his throat.
What was he going to do? How could he convince Rose to let him back in their lives?
Xander had no intention of abandoning his son. It was bad enough that Joey had gone through the first ten years of his life without a father. But if the situation with Tommy took a turn for the worse, would it hurt his son more to have an absent father or, as Rose had pointed out, a criminal one?
He dropped his forehead into the palm of his hand and stared down at the picture. His son"s eyes were so much like his own. He reminded him so much of himself when he was that age. The same age when he had lost his father.
It would be cruel to give Joey a father at last and then rip him away in the same breath.
Rose might not like it, but he wasn"t going to stay away. He"d already kept his distance for far too long. No matter what happened on the farm this week or next week or next year, he would be a part of Joey"s life. He wasn"t going to walk away from his son.
Or the mother of his child.
Rose placed a curl of candied lemon peel as the finishing touch on her lemon chiffon cake. It was beautiful and delicious, the fifth dessert she"d made today. She slid it into the dessert display case and went back out front to check on a few of her diners at the counter.
It had been a month since the bake-off. Three weeks since she"d thrown Xander out of her apartment and tossed away their future together. In that short amount of time, things had changed very quickly for her.
First she was approached at the diner one afternoon by the man who owned three other eateries in the area. He was one of the judges of the bake-off and wanted to know if she was interested in providing all the desserts for his restaurants. One of his locations was a dinner-only establishment, so he offered her the kitchens to bake in the mornings. He even told her she could do any kind of baking she liked, even for other restaurants.
It wasn"t enough to keep her from having to wait tables, but it was a start. The major impediment to starting her own baking business was getting the licenses and permits. She needed a dedicated kitchen that was subject to health inspections. That was something she simply couldn"t afford, but using the restaurant kitchen was perfect. Making desserts for both places was a great supplement to her income and there was always the hope that it would lead to more work with other restaurants. Then maybe, one day, her own bakery.
It was the one bright thought she clung to during the darkest of days. Xander had been the one to suggest the idea of opening her own bakery and it had offered a welcome distraction. It gave her something to talk to Joey about where she didn"t get upset. She didn"t want to cry in front of her son. Then she might have to explain what was really going on and where Xander had gone.
She didn"t know if he was still in town or not, but he had done as she asked and stayed away. It was probably easy for him with everything else happening. She wasn"t entirely sure what was going on; she was avoiding the news as best she could. She already knew more about the situation than she"d ever wanted to.
Rose couldn"t get away entirely, though. As she wiped down the counter, the sound of the local newscast taunted her from the other side of the counter. There was no way she could get away from it with the television in the diner always finding its way back to the local news every time she turned around.
"Rose, can you turn it up? They"re talking about the body again."
"Which is why I turned it down, Paul. People are eating," Rose complained, but she still grabbed the remote off the counter and turned the volume up a few notches.
"Police have questioned the family that had owned the property for over thirty years, but they are not suspects at this time. Ken and Molly Eden reported Tommy missing the morning after he disappeared. What happened after Tommy left and how he ended up in that shallow grave is still a mystery."
"You must"ve known the dead kid," he pointed out. "You were going with one of the Eden boys back then, weren"t you?"
"I was. And I did know him, but I didn"t have much to do with him." She didn"t elaborate. She wasn"t keen to invite this topic of conversation. The news crews were hot for people to interview who might"ve known Tommy or the Edens back then. Rose didn"t want any part of it.
Paul watched the television thoughtfully. "I"ve heard he was a pretty rotten sort. His own parents couldn"t handle him, so the state took him away."
Rose nodded, pretending to listen, as she had every day since Tommy Wilder"s body was identified. Instead she cleared a few empty plates, scooped a few dollars" tip into her ap.r.o.n pocket and went back into the kitchen to put the dirty dishes into the dish pile.
She hoped that by the time she returned, the segment would be over. And it was. It was fortunate since Paul was now gone and the flame-red hair of Tori Sullivan could be spotted at the far end of the counter. She was probably tired of the news, too.
"Hey, Rose," she said in greeting.
Rose put on her best smile and headed in that direction. She poured a gla.s.s of water and set it down in front of her. She wasn"t unhappy to see Tori, but at the moment, she was trying to avoid anything to do with the Edens. Tori could be here to gossip, to get a piece of pie or to try and convince her not to be mad at Xander. She hoped it was the pie.
"What can I get you today? I just put out a beautiful lemon chiffon cake."
Her blue eyes lit up, and then disappointment crossed her delicate features. "I"d love to, but I can"t."
"Why not?" If anyone deserved cake, it was people with police officers traipsing through their yard.
"The wedding is coming up. I had my dress fitting last week and the seamstress threatened my life if I gained or lost any weight. Mostly gained," she added with a smile. "That means no lemon chiffon cake for me."
Rose nodded sympathetically. "Well, if you find you"ve somehow lost weight without intending to, you march right down here and get some cake to get you back where you need to be."
Tori smiled widely. "I absolutely will."
So she wasn"t here for dessert, Rose thought with a frown. "What about lunch, then?"
The woman eyed her, her pink lips twisting in thought. "I shouldn"t. I really didn"t come down here for food."
Shoot. Why couldn"t it have been the pie?
"What can I do for you, then, Tori?" She wished she could say the restaurant was slammed and she didn"t have time to chat, but they were the only two people in there at the moment. It was that odd time that was too late for lunch, too early for dinner. Things would pick up in an hour or so, but until then she had nothing better to do, apparently, than talk to Tori.
"I wanted to talk to you without the boys or anyone else around."
Rose leaned her elbows onto the counter. "About what?"
Tori tilted her head to the side like a confused puppy. "Come on, now, Rose. You can be honest with me. I mean, I know about Joey. This whole thing has to be hard on you."
The sympathetic words brought an unexpected rush of tears to her eyes. "It"s okay. Really," she argued, s.n.a.t.c.hing a napkin out of the nearby dispenser to halt the flow. "I never really envisioned a life with Xander in it."
"Liar," Tori said. "You know you"ve spent the last decade fantasizing about him being back in your life."
How did she know Rose so well? "And look what it got me, Tori. He"s a criminal."