Somewhere Between Luck and Trust

He stopped at the table’s edge. “I don’t know why you’d say something like that. Me? I’m an open book. It still hurts that you tried to frame me for stealing that ring. You got caught with it, and what did you do? You blamed it on the man who’d been thinking about buying it for you. Did you have time to think about that while you were in prison? Did you wonder if I would have stood by you if you hadn’t told those cops who grabbed you in the parking lot that I was the one who dropped the ring in your shopping bag?”

The scene hadn’t happened that way. At first Cristy hadn’t even considered that Jackson had put the ring in her bag. She’d been sure it was an accident, that someone had unknowingly brushed it off the counter, and it had fallen into the shopping bag filled with socks and dish towels from the Dollar General. Then, when that had seemed like too much of a stretch, she’d blamed the incident on the sales clerk, who must have hidden the ring there for some dark reason of his own. Later, though, with nothing but time to face everything that had happened, she had realized how hard that would have been for the clerk, how nearly impossible from his side of the wide display case.

Only then, sometime later in her first full day in jail, had she finally faced the truth. And only after a sleepless night had she realized that she had to tell the truth to everybody who would listen.

Jackson had never intended to marry her, even though he’d known she was carrying his child—something she had tearfully told him the previous morning. He had taken her to the jewelry store to look at rings, and then he had used her enthusiasm against her. While she had been trying on one ring, he had swept another off the counter, then easily slipped it into the bag she carried, since he was standing right beside her. He had wanted his pregnant girlfriend out of his life.

And now, months later, she finally understood all the terrible reasons why.

Her hand closed over the flashlight she’d set beside her. As a weapon it was probably useless, but the barrel was something to grip and steady her.

“There’s nobody here to hear this conversation except us,” she said. “We both know what happened. But it’s over. I’ve paid the price and it’s behind me.”

“It just confounds me, that’s all. After everything we were to each other, that you could do something like that...” He shook his head slowly. “And now I have to ask myself how I could make so many big mistakes choosing my friends. You, Kenny...” He shook his head again, as if he really couldn’t believe he had ever been such a fool.

Cristy knew better than to respond, but her hands began to shake. That he would use Kenny Glover’s name so calmly, as if it meant nothing that his best friend since childhood was about to stand trial for the murder of another of Jackson’s closest friends. Kenny, a sweet, goofy country boy who’d been known to miss a clear shot at a five-point buck just because the deer looked him in the eye.

Kenny, the man who would have given his right hand without flinching if Jackson had ever said he needed it.

“Please go,” she said.

“I just want to understand, that’s all. How I could have been so wrong. How you could have tried to destroy my name in my own hometown. How you could have thought you might get away with it.”

“That’s the hardest part for me to understand, too,” she said. “I really should have known nobody would listen.”

“But you went ahead and said those things anyway. And now sometimes I think people look at me different, you understand? Like they’ve lost a little respect. Of course maybe that’s just because they know you and I had a little fling before you got thrown in jail. And that lessens me in their eyes, because they know I made such a bad choice.”

“A little fling?”

“I never promised you anything, did I? You call it whatever you want to, Baby Duck.”

“How about a stupid mistake?”

Jackson’s brown eyes narrowed a little. She’d known women at NCCIW who had that same ability to mask their feelings, women with curiously unlined faces because they were so often expressionless. Jackson always looked pleasant, happy, even engaged. But now she saw what she hadn’t been able to see when she was so hopelessly in love with him. Jackson couldn’t show feelings he didn’t have. He could look sad, even contrite, if necessary. But on those occasions he was simply an actor demonstrating emotions for his audience.

He did feel rage, though. She’d seen that more than once and knew that rage, at least, was real for him when someone dared to cross him. A cold, thoughtful rage that was the most frightening kind of all.

With one swipe of his hand, the puzzle pieces she’d so carefully laid out fell to the floor, but his expression didn’t change. “We can talk about mistakes,” he said, as if measuring his words. “You getting yourself pregnant would be one of them. A real classic, wouldn’t you say?”

“I didn’t get myself pregnant.”

“Yeah, I guess you had a little help from somebody or other.”

Anger shot through her, but caution won. She forced herself not to respond.

“I can’t help wondering whose baby that little boy of yours is,” Jackson said. “I’ve even thought about asking for a paternity test. You ever come back to Berle for any reason, I might just have to. Seeing him everywhere, like I would, that could surely make it hard to ignore the possibility he’s mine.”

Now she knew exactly why he had come, but she had to ask, to hear him finally say the words. “Why would you do that, Jackson? Then you would have to be responsible for child support.”

“Oh, if I found out he was mine, I’d have to let a judge decide a lot of things, that’s for sure. Like who he should live with, for starters. A felon like yourself, or the son and heir of Pinckney Ford, with everything the Ford family has to offer a boy?”

And there it was. The real threat, worse than Jackson’s presence here, a threat to the child they had created together. If she ever returned to Berle, if she ever told anyone what she knew about the murder of Duke Howard and the evidence against Kenny Glover, if she ever tried to incriminate Jackson in any crime again, she would lose custody, and he would turn the boy into a copy of himself.

The entire conversation was a sham. Jackson knew Michael was his. He knew he was the only man she had ever had sex with. And that was what it had been. Not making love, as she’d believed at the time. Sex, manipulation, lies.

“I am not coming back,” she said.

He gave a short nod, as if it pleased him to hear it. “So what will you do instead? Where will you go? Because this place?” He gestured to the room around him. “It’s nice enough, I guess, considering where you’ve been these past months, but it’s kind of dangerous, don’t you think? You out here so far away from any neighbors? A stranger in the area, too. And I guess you can’t get a gun to protect yourself, you being a felon and all. Besides, we know you don’t like guns.”

Her throat constricted. She couldn’t answer.

He went on, as if she had. “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Maybe I’m just worried about that boy of yours. People around me keep dying. You know, like Duke, then Kenny? I mean, Kenny might as well be sitting on death row already. And I’m guessing you didn’t hear about that pretty Nan Tyler who managed the Dairy Queen out on Freygale Road? She got killed in a car accident not too long ago. I knew her pretty well.” He grinned. “Had for some time, as it happens. What a shame that was.”

She tried to swallow, but nausea welled inside her. She felt as if she might get sick right there.

“You just make sure you make provisions for that little boy,” Jackson said. “You just never know what the future could hold.”

The blast of a car horn from somewhere below coincided with a huge clap of thunder. Cristy jumped at the noise, then she bolted around the table and stumbled toward the kitchen and the bathroom beyond. She would not be sick in front of Jackson.

She vomited into the toilet, bending low and growing faint as she did. Tears welled in her eyes. When she finally and slowly straightened, wiping her face on the hand towel behind the toilet, she fully expected to find Jackson standing behind her. And what would he do? Torture her more? Make additional not-so-subtle threats? Stop playing cat and mouse and simply do his worst?

But Jackson wasn’t there. She was alone. She ran water in the sink and splashed it on her face. When he still didn’t appear, she considered locking herself in the bathroom, but that would infuriate him, and he could make quick work of the lock on the door anyway.

She peered into the kitchen, but he wasn’t there, either. She wondered if he had come to the house with somebody else who had gotten tired of waiting. Maybe Jackson was down at the car now, explaining he hadn’t finished harassing her—or worse. Maybe she had time to lock the front door.

She crept through the kitchen and into the living area. She was halfway to the door when it opened again. The man standing on the porch this time wasn’t Jackson Ford. He was taller, lankier and certainly not smiling.

But as her father had so often told his flock, the devil’s closet holds endless disguises.

Chapter Eight

GEORGIA KNEW SHE was in trouble when she spent more than five minutes trying to decide what to wear for dinner with Lucas Ramsey.

The rain was a factor, of course. With it had come a blast of Arctic cold, so she wanted to stay warm and dry. Pizza meant jeans or khakis and a sweater, but her favorite sweater needed to be washed. When she realized she was dithering, she settled on a creamy Aran knit she’d bought on a trip to Ireland and brown corduroy pants. But even while she pretended this was all about the weather, a no-nonsense voice in her head pointed out that she had nylon athletic pants and a windbreaker that would do the job perfectly.

The truth was she was hoping to make a better impression than that.

Her own tiny house was in Woodfin on the road between Asheville and Weaverville, although both towns were part of the greater metropolitan Asheville area. Woodfin was a town of about three thousand, and Weaverville was somewhat smaller and more picturesque, although she usually traveled into Asheville proper for shopping and dinner, because that was where Sam and Edna lived.

She parked on the street just down from the restaurant and grabbed her umbrella. She hadn’t eaten at Blue Mountain Pizza, but she knew the place by reputation. Usually it would be crowded, but on a Monday night in the pouring rain, she suspected they would have their pick of tables.

Lucas was waiting at a corner table and stood when she entered. The room was friendly, with lemony walls and cozy dark woodwork and bar. Although it probably wasn’t as busy as usual, it was still crowded, with the tables pushed close and people laughing. Best of all, it smelled heavenly. Garlic, oregano, freshly baked pizza crust. Fatigue melted away and anticipation ignited.

She took the chair across from Lucas and smiled, glad the place was noisy and casual. “The perfect antidote for a long day and too much rain.”

“I’m looking forward to warmer weather and outdoor seating. They have live music tonight, but we’re a little early.”

She removed her raincoat and settled in, stilling her hands when she realized they were fluttering along a coat sleeve like a girl on her first date. “I don’t live far away. I just never seem to make it up here.”

Their server, a young man in a black T-shirt sporting the restaurant logo, came to take their drink order. Lucas ordered a local beer, and Georgia asked the server to make it two. After consultation Lucas added an order of garlic knots as a starter, a delicacy for which the place was well-known.

She was glad she didn’t have to wait until the pizza arrived. She’d missed lunch entirely.

“So you’re new to the area?” she asked after the server left.

“I’ve been here about two months. I live over the hill from the Nedley farm. My house belongs to a friend, who uses it in the summers. He’s out of the country for a year, so he’s renting it to me.”

“What brought you here?”

Their beer arrived before he could answer, along with a promise that the garlic knots would be out soon. Lucas held up his mug in toast, and she tapped hers against it.

“I’m a journalist,” he said. “In Atlanta, although these days I’m just a guest columnist. Newspapers are hanging on by their fingernails.”

“So your job was...compressed?”

He smiled at her word choice. “It was compressed, but that was my choice. I’m also a novelist. I write a mystery series about an Atlanta cop. The books have done surprisingly well, and I decided that’s what I wanted to concentrate on.”

She was embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I don’t read mysteries, so your name’s not familiar.”

“What do you read?”

“Nonfiction mostly. Biography, memoir, psychology.”

“And education, I bet.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Don’t worry. Police procedurals aren’t everybody’s cup of tea. But I started out in the Metro section and spent so much time in police stations trying to get the real scoop that finally my main character, a detective named Zenzo Brown, just came to life and started making demands.”

“That must be pretty amazing. Like having an imaginary friend. My daughter had one of those for years, until third grade. Then Marigold just up and left. I think I missed her more than Samantha did.”

“So you have kids?”

“Just one, and she’s thirty. But I have a fabulous granddaughter.”

“And no husband.”

Lucas had changed into jeans and a sage-green sweatshirt over the shirt he had worn earlier, and if anything, he looked even more attractive. They had to lean forward to be heard, and their noses almost touched. She tried to remember the last time she’d sat this close to a man who wasn’t on the BCAS faculty.

She tried to remember the last time she had wanted to.

“I had one,” she said. “He died a long time ago. In Beirut, when the marine barracks were bombed. I haven’t wanted another.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too. He was a good man, and he was cheated out of watching his daughter grow up.”

“I was married, too. She didn’t want kids, but she didn’t tell me until we were a couple of years into it. I come from this strange Scots-Italian family, and all my siblings have at least three. I thought I’d have the same. The marriage dissolved somewhere between ‘I never want to have children’ and ‘I’ve met somebody who can give me a better life.’” He gave a wry smile. “I was easily fooled back then, but three years of marriage and a decade and a half in the newspaper biz took care of that.”

She supposed the intimacy that had developed so quickly between them wasn’t too surprising. It was some odd kind of shorthand, like a more mature form of speed dating. Get past the preliminaries quickly, and move on...to what?

“Why are we telling each other all this?” she asked, since the question intrigued her and all her filters seemed to have disappeared. “We’re supposed to be talking about Dawson.”

“We’ll get to him.”

The garlic knots arrived with marinara dipping sauce. They conferred for a moment and, before their server disappeared again, ordered a large Carolina Dreamin’ pizza to share.

“I need to be honest with you. I actually know more about you than I’ve let on,” Lucas said. “Before I approached you about Dawson, I wanted to know who I was dealing with. So I looked you up online. I can’t seem to help myself. It’s my journalist genes.”

She set down her mug, not all that surprised, but definitely disappointed. “Please tell me my life has nothing to do with a story you’re planning.”

He looked sympathetic. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”

She decided he was being honest and hoped her instincts were good.

“The Sweatshirt Baby,” he said.

Georgia thought of the article she’d pulled out of the envelope a little more than an hour ago. “It’s surprising how that still comes back to haunt me.”

“I imagine you got used to it somewhere along the way.”

“No, there was actually a long period of time when nobody pieced together the sad story of my birth with the one about a young widow working on her doctorate in education.”

“Then you were made the headmistress of the most exclusive private school in the Asheville area, and somebody dug a little and made the connection.”

“And it came up again when I got this new position.”

His gaze was warm and locked with hers. “I didn’t mean to invade your privacy.”

“I have no privacy. Not since the morning a woman gave birth unexpectedly and left a premature baby in a hospital sink wrapped in a University of Georgia sweatshirt. There was very little chance I’d be left alone after that.”

He didn’t offer sympathy, for which she was grateful. “It was a lot more than I expected to find. All I wanted was some hint on how to approach you. Your educational philosophy, maybe.”

That struck her as funny, and she gave a low laugh, which broke the tension. “I’m sorry my history is so overwhelming.”

“I’m sorry it is, too,” he said with feeling. “But you’re the model for every kid who’s facing his own problems and doesn’t believe he’ll ever be able to make a success out of his life.”

“I gather the ‘he’ is meant to be Dawson?”

“Don’t you have a whole school full of Dawsons?”

“Well, not all of them are quite so recalcitrant.”

He sat back, as if the hard part was over. She appreciated that he’d been honest with her, and thought how unusual that was. He could so easily have pretended not to know anything.

“The story’s pretty old,” she said. “Exactly what did you ferret out?”

“What you just said. That you were left in a sink in a sweatshirt and nearly died of exposure before somebody heard you crying and found you.”

“Forever after to be known as the Sweatshirt Baby. That’s obviously where the name Georgia comes from, too. The shirt. You got that, right?”

He smiled as if he was relieved she wasn’t angry. “I did. Someone had a sense of humor.”

“I think they just called me Georgia at first as a kind of shorthand, and the name stuck. Later somebody put it on my birth certificate. It was the only legacy my mother bequeathed me. Other than leaving me in the sink instead of on the floor of a toilet stall, and wrapping me tightly in the sweatshirt, which probably saved my life.”

“They never found her?”

“Never did. It was a cause célèbre for a long time. Newspapers, magazines, cops, psychics. Everybody looked, but nobody was successful.”

She thought about the articles on her desk and the charm bracelet. “Nobody cares anymore,” she said, without the level of certainty she would have managed before that discovery. “Now when they trot out the story, it’s to show what a person can survive if she has the fortitude.”

“What did you survive?”

“Well, first I survived being more than two months premature and abandoned. Then I survived surgery to repair a faulty valve in my heart. By then most of the offers of adoption had waned, and the one that didn’t was from a couple with no experience raising children, much less a child who’d spent the first year and a half of her life connected to monitors and machines. They returned me to the state when I turned five.”

“That’s hard to fathom.”

Georgia couldn’t imagine it, either, but her fuzzy memories of those years weren’t happy, and now she thought she’d been lucky her adoptive parents had given up trying to raise her.

“After that I went to foster care and treatment programs because nobody had done me any favors emotionally. At eleven the state placed me on a farm with an experienced foster mom with four special-needs kids. Arabella was seventy-two, if you can believe that, and still full of energy. She sat me down and told me to make a list of all the things I planned to do to make her life miserable, so she could tell me why none of them would work. Then she said the only way I’d leave that placement was if she left first in a coffin, and she wanted me to know she would be watching her back.”

“Some woman.”

“Arabella saved my life. She had a gift for giving comfort and attention when it was needed and ignoring all of us when that was needed, too. She kept me so busy that I didn’t have the energy to run away or cause trouble. Eventually, for the first time, I felt safe. No one tried to smother me with pity or love. Arabella and the other children took whatever affection I could manage, and they didn’t expect anything more. From the moment I arrived, I was treated like I belonged there. Before long I did.”

Georgia realized how much she’d just said. She also realized that Lucas had wanted to hear it all, that her life actually interested him.

He affirmed her theory. “I’m betting that Arabella was the driving force behind your desire to help children with problems. What a role model.”

“Let’s talk about you. Are you up here because Asheville’s a good place to work on another novel?”

“But my life is so boring in comparison.”

“Let me be the judge.”

He gave a slight shrug and reached for another garlic knot. “The beginnings of another novel, yes, but something more interesting, too. A cookbook.”

“You cook, too? You write, you research, you cook?”

“My cop cooks. Zenzo’s a gourmet chef. When he’s not solving unspeakable crimes, he’s in the kitchen. My publisher got so many requests for Zenzo’s recipes they asked me to produce them.”

“You must cook, too. Surely they aren’t asking somebody who can’t boil an egg to write a gourmet cookbook. They would use a ghost writer.”

“I cook. Actually I cook well. I’m looking forward to cooking for you.”

Deep inside she could feel how quickly everything was proceeding. Yet as cautious as she normally was, she had no desire to put on the brakes. She was old enough, confident enough, to take a chance now. There had been men in her life since Samuel, but the relationships had, for the most part, been superficial. One, which had lasted nearly a year, had never reached the intimacy she felt tonight with Lucas. Not only was she entranced with the way one dimple creased his cheek and the way his hair swirled back from a slight widow’s peak, she was moved by the way they had simply slid into each other’s life stories. No fuss, no bother, no tension.

“I’ll look forward to your cooking,” she said. “But I won’t return that favor unless you’re a fan of grilled cheese and tomato soup.”

“Dawson,” he said, as if he was reminding both of them. “Let’s get him out of the way right now. I know you can’t talk about how he’s doing in school, but his mother’s talked to me. He’s ripping her heart to shreds. Nothing they do at home is making a difference. The thing is, I don’t think they’re doing the right things. They just clamp down harder and harder on him. His father only cares if he gets a diploma, then he wants him to work full-time on the farm.”

“Dawson has mentioned that,” she said, carefully.

“They lost their older son in Iraq two years ago. He wanted to be a farmer. He was suited for it, and he loved the place. He and his dad had all kinds of plans for the future. Dawson is somebody else entirely, but I don’t think his father sees that. He thinks Dawson’s being willful and hard work will straighten him out.”

“If only life were that easy.”

“I think Dawson has a superior IQ. He’s interested in a million things his father thinks of as affectations. The Nedleys love that boy. No mistake about it. They just don’t understand him.”

So far there was nothing Lucas had said that Georgia could disagree with. She had picked up on the tension, although she hadn’t known about the soldier brother.

“What are you proposing?” she asked.

“I’ve befriended him. I like this kid a lot, and he’s always glad to be at my place away from his father’s constant demands. But it would help me if I knew a little more about what’s happening at school and how I could encourage him to hang in there and finish strong. Is there any way we can work that out without breaching confidentiality?”