Grave Risk

She took his hand and climbed out, managing to retain some dignity as she did so. “I’m still thinking on it. Better get to your chores.”

Chapter Nine

Rex stood at the edge of the cemetery as the crowd slowly dispersed. Funerals had high attendance here in the rural areas, and folks lingered after the interment, as if their lingering might set the memories of their loved one more completely in their hearts.

There was going to be a special evening meal back at the bed and breakfast, hosted by the women from Edith’s church. Half the town would probably be there, maybe more. Last night, during the visitation at the funeral home, the line of people paying their respects had filled the building and spilled out onto the front lawn.

It had been a beautiful testament to the love this town held for the former high-school principal.

Now, watching the crowd mingle in conversation groups among the tombstones, Rex saw one lone figure separate from the rest. Jill.

During the funeral, she had remained detached from Edith’s family, sitting with her sister and brother-in-law, Noelle and Nathan Trask. Edith’s extended family had filled the front half of the small church, and other mourners had overflowed the little sanctuary.

Surprising himself, Rex strolled toward that lonely looking figure in the dark gray dress. Her brown hair had been pulled back into a knot at the nape of her neck, though some strands had refused to behave and fell in tendrils to her shoulders. Her eyes, devoid of makeup, were red-rimmed, her nose pinched.

He hadn’t seen her since the afternoon of Edith’s death; the tragedy had thrown the clinic—indeed, the whole town—into turmoil, and Jill wasn’t working at the clinic this week.

As he studied that grieving face, he remembered how beautiful Jill had always been to him. She had a mouth that was slightly wide for a classic beauty, but could spill into a smile that could dazzle the sun. Her blue eyes, often sober and serious, could suddenly soften with warmth.

She had walked to within ten feet of him before she looked up and saw him. He could see the conflict in her expression. She was too close to turn away and avoid him without being obvious about it, but she just as clearly didn’t want to talk to him right now. He could tell her emotions were too close to the surface.

“Jill,” he said quietly, “I’m not going to bite, and I don’t want to make things difficult for you.”

Her eyes darted up in a quick glance at him, then away again. “I’m just embarrassed, is all. I was rude to you the other day, and I apologize.”

“You’ve done nothing wrong, and I wasn’t offended. It was a horrible time for you.”

“Thank you, but I’m still sorry. You must have thought I was still upset with you after all this time, which would be childish.”

“Edith’s death struck you a nasty blow. It was a blow for everyone, but I know how much she meant to you.”

Another glance shot his way, this time a little longer. She was feeling awkward, he could tell.

“Did Cheyenne tell you why I came to Hideaway?” he asked.

She nodded, glancing back toward the crowd around the grave. “After I jumped her about it. Karah Lee said you didn’t want me to know you were here until you had a chance to talk to me.”

“That’s right.”

“Well? I didn’t get a call from you, and you didn’t come to my house.”

“I’d intended to speak with you over the weekend.”

She spread her hands. “Well, now you’ve spoken to me. I don’t see why you’re trying to make such a big deal out of it. We had a broken engagement half a lifetime ago. We’re adults. We can behave like it, right?”

“I never completely forgave myself for my behavior at that time. I was a jerk.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, so we were both jerks back then. Now can we get to work on the hospital designations and stop rehashing ancient history?”

He felt the sting of her words. He felt foolish again. “An excellent idea.”

She stepped past him toward the far edge of the cemetery.

He caught up and fell into step beside her. “I hear you never got married.”

She frowned. “And I hear you got a divorce. We’re still rehashing, here.”

Obviously, she wasn’t quite as ill at ease around him as he’d imagined her to be. “I don’t recall relaying the information to anyone here about my divorce.”

“Since when do you have to tell anyone? We have a deputy in town who makes it his business to check people out online. Tom’s never mastered the skill of keeping a secret. I guess that’s why you decided to come to Hideaway?”

He blinked at her, not quite sure what she meant. Jill had apparently retained that special ability to throw a conversation off center with a simple statement or question. “Excuse me?”

“You know, Hideaway? As in, people come here to hide away, either from past tragedy or from danger.”

“Aren’t you being a little melodramatic?”

She slanted a glance at him. “You were the one making a big production out of coming here, and you’re calling me melodramatic?”

“You’re absolutely right.” He would lose this argument if he continued it. “So this place really is a hideaway. I never knew that before. Tell me about it.”

She watched him for a moment, as if trying to determine if he was patronizing her, then she relented. “For instance, Cheyenne came here initially because of the tragedy of pronouncing her sister dead after an automobile accident. Karah Lee came here to escape her father’s political manipulation—he was a state senator before his murder this spring. Willow Traynor—who will someday become Mrs. Graham Vaughn, even though she doesn’t seem to realize it yet—came to escape a killer who stalked her from Kansas City. You don’t know them yet, but you’ll probably meet them.”

“What about you?” he asked.

“This is my hometown.”

“Last I heard, you were living and working in Springfield.”

Her steps slowed as they drew near the city square—a cluster of old brick buildings that faced outward to an encircling street. He had always thought this was one of the most beautiful little towns in Missouri.

That could be a simple reflection of the beauty of Table Rock Lake, which surrounded Hideaway peninsula, on which the town had been built. Or it could be that he’d always felt this way because of the company he’d kept.

Far too long ago, he’d forgotten how to appreciate true beauty. He glanced at Jill. Inner beauty.

“That was a long time ago,” Jill said. “I was needed here at home.”

“Noelle needed you?”

Jill shook her head. “The sawmill needed me.”

“The sawmill? But you have scads of extended family members to run that.”

“Had. Past tense. My father, grandparents and others ran it until…” She swallowed and glanced back toward the cemetery briefly. “There was a horrible…incident in which my father and grandparents were crushed to death by a load of logs eleven years ago.”

He felt a chill at her words. He could see how the memory affected her even after all these years. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Why would you? It isn’t as if we kept up with each other’s lives. Anyway, my cousin and I had to take over.”

“So once again you gave up your own dream in deference to your family?”

She glanced up at him. “You make it sound as if that’s a bad thing.”

“Giving up your dream for someone else’s?”

“I was needed. Having loved ones who need you isn’t such a bad thing. Besides, I got a job here in town as the school nurse.”

“And how about Noelle? Did she ever have to give up her dreams and career and join the family business?”

He heard the censure in his own voice a fraction of a second before annoyance registered in Jill’s expression.

Suddenly, this was not boding well for a comfortable reunion. Maybe they did need to rehash ancient history. Or maybe that history wasn’t so ancient.

Jill felt the prickle of antagonism make a flying leap up her scalp. “You already apologized for being a jerk, Rex. Why do I get the feeling you didn’t really mean it?”

“Sorry. I didn’t realize I was going to say that.”

“You didn’t realize it? My little sister lost her mom before she was old enough to understand the meaning of death.”

“You lost your mother, too.”

“I was eight years older than Noelle. She got stuck with me—a bully of an older sister and a very poor substitute for a set of parents—because, in truth, our father pretty much abandoned us emotionally from that point on.”

“You never told me that.”

“I was ashamed to admit it even to myself at the time.”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

“No, you shouldn’t have, but you did.” She paused beneath a willow tree, arms crossed. “I’ve got a good rant going and I want to finish it for once. I realize you always resented Noelle because her need for love interfered in our relationship—”

“You’re right, and I was very wrong—”

“But in truth, for her sake, I should never have gone away.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t agree with that. You’re saying you should never have become a nurse?”

Jill hesitated. “I left home too soon. She wasn’t ready to be abandoned by the person she needed the most. I could have put nursing school on hold for a couple of more years.”

“And yet, you’d already put your life on hold for three years after graduating from high school, watching all your friends go away to college.”

“I went to college.” She could hear the defensiveness in her own voice.

“You drove to School of the Ozarks at Point Lookout for classes, then back home at night to be with Noelle.”

“I got the preliminaries out of the way.” He was still itching for a fight, was he? She could give him one. Strangely, though, she didn’t really want one. Not with him. “Not everyone has to leave home as soon as they graduate high school.”

“You’re trying to tell me you were the only person who could take care of Noelle? At that time you did have extended family.”

Jill wasn’t prepared to explain to him about the concern she’d had for Noelle’s safety at that time in their lives. Would Noelle still even be alive if I hadn’t been so obsessed for her welfare? That was a time when my OCD came in handy, hard as it’s always been.

“You made that sacrifice because of your unique ability to love,” Rex said, as if he’d read something of her thoughts in her expression—much as he used to do. “Few people I know have that ability.”

The sudden gentleness in his tone undercut her momentum. She paused and looked at him, and felt an unwanted pang of regret.

What if they hadn’t broken the engagement?

Chapter Ten

Fawn was halfway between the dock and the street when she saw a familiar head of blond hair poking up over the railing of the pastel-blue gazebo. The tiny structure was surrounded by a riot of red and yellow flowers held in place by a bricked flower bed. It was Fawn’s favorite gazebo.

She stepped to the small, round picnic shelter and paused. “Sheena?”

The woman raised her head and peered over the railing.

“How’re you doing?” Fawn asked. Sheena looked as if she hadn’t slept much. She had such a sensitive nature, and events like Edith’s death and the awful experience Saturday would have left her upset for days. Kind of like Blaze, Fawn guessed.

Sheena shook her head. “I couldn’t go, you know.”

“To the funeral? I know. I didn’t see you there. Your parents were there, though, and it was a packed house.”

Sheena nodded, her gaze returning to the surface of the lake, where a flock of wild geese came in for a noisy landing.

Fawn stepped up into the gazebo and sat down next to her friend on the wooden bench. “Hey, are you okay?”

Sheena hugged herself, still staring out across the lake, the water now momentarily gray under the shadow of a passing thunderhead. A fitting day for a funeral, Fawn thought.

“How’d you do it?” Sheena asked, still staring at the lake. “You seem to…I don’t know…handle things so well. I mean, I know what you went through.” She didn’t look at Fawn, but shuddered. “Your mom disowned you, and yet you’re happy.”

“Sure I am.” Fawn gestured around them. “Look at this great town we live in. And Karah Lee and Bertie practically smother me with love. Even Taylor treats me like a favorite niece.” Though she wondered how long that would last after the wedding. Sure, Taylor was a good guy and all that, but still…

“You’re not bitter.” Sheena did look at her then, lowering her voice, though no one could hear them. “I heard you were…that your stepfather…”

Fawn sighed. Even though she was making peace with her past, she still had trouble talking about it sometimes. “Raped me?”

“Yes. That’s just so horrible.”

“But it isn’t something that’s happening now. You can live with a lot of things when you can convince yourself it’s over. It isn’t like I’m going to crumble.”

“But your own stepfather,” Sheena said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“My mother could really pick ’em.”

“And then when you ran away to Las Vegas, you had to…you know…support yourself by…” Sheena’s face flushed.

“Man, oh, man, a girl can’t keep anything a secret around here,” Fawn said.

“You mean you really did that?”

“I was a hooker. Yeah.” Fawn ignored the shocked expression on her friend’s face. People freaked way too easily about some stuff. “It isn’t like I’m one now, you know.”

“Uh, no. Of course not.”

“I was starving on the street, and I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I figured if somebody was going to take advantage of my body, I might as well make a living with it.”

“What was it like?”

“You don’t want to know. It was like the worst nightmare a person could have.”

Sheena stared at the lake in silence for another moment, then glanced toward Fawn again. “Do you still think about it?”

“Sometimes.”

“Is it still horrible?”

“Once in a while I wake up screaming at night. When that happens, Karah Lee sets up a cot in my room and sleeps near me.”

Sheena stared at her, eyes filled with sympathy. “How do you stand it?”

“I’ve got help. I know I’m loved, and I make sure to fill my mind with things in the present and the future, not things from the past. If I focus on the good things and remember the Bible verse Bertie likes to quote to me, then I can do okay.”

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