Audrey's Promise (12 page)

Only this time instead of using a pencil, she coped with a full of glass of red wine. It was a much more effective therapeutic tool. Even if only temporary.

“
An unwelcome guest,” he called me. Of the few who were supposed to support me, he was the first to cast me out.

No matter how hard she fought it, a tear slipped out of her eye and rolled to her cheek. She wiped it away, only to have another one follow behind it.
Snap out of it, Audrey.

She’d spent years of her life in depression, crying in solitude and desperate to keep her mind occupied and out of the depths of darkness to relapse again.

The phone vibrated in her pocket. Wiping her face again, she yanked it out and squinted through the mist in her eyes to see the screen. Miranda.

After clearing her throat twice, she answered. “Did you reach Houston intact?”

“Barely. Flight attendants are mean.”

“It’s Thanksgiving. They have to put up with a lot more crap than you.” Audrey rolled off the bed and groaned at her pitiful reflection in the mirror: splotchy skin, puffy eyes, and slightly running mascara. Black lips would have made the zombie-look complete. “You didn’t kill any of them, did you?”

“No, although one wench was asking for it.”

“We won’t be getting any complaints to our campaign office, will we?” Audrey wiped the mascara away and cleared her scratchy throat, again.

“If we do, we’ll move Airline Passenger Bill of Rights to the top of your platforms list.”

“Behind the Crisis Center, of course.” Audrey laughed.

“Anyhoo, we’re about to sit down to turkey, but I just wanted to check in with you and make sure Ethan is behaving.”

“He’s not the one you should worry about.”

“What do you mean?”

“My brother isn’t…cooperating.” The pressure between her eyes grew, and she pinched the bridge of her nose to suppress it.

“He’s the Marine turned cop, right?”

“Army, but yeah.”

“Not surprising. Cops don’t like the media.”

“Not just that…” The silver frame on her dresser caught her attention, and she picked it up, staring at the happy faces of her parents holding her baby sister, while Adam and her younger self wrestled in the foreground, laughing. “He’s had this longstanding grudge against me and is unwilling to help.”

“He’s not making things worse, is he?”

“For the campaign or for my family?”

“Either.”

It became hard to breathe, suddenly. The thought of her family torn apart further by the tragedy a decade ago ripped at her heart, and even more by Adam’s contempt. It was one thing to have the whole town believe the worst in her, but quite another to have her brother believe she was capable of anything malicious. And to top everything off, her insecurities were stripped bare in front of the first man she was insanely attracted to in ten years. As hard as it was to admit she was attracted to someone, let alone a newsman, being embarrassed in front of him proved there was not only no way he’d be interested in seeing her in the future, but also wouldn’t paint a positive light for her campaign.

Salvage what you can. You can’t pursue both, so pick one and save it.

“It’s nothing I can’t handle. Say hi to your family for me, and enjoy the turkey.”

“Hang in there, girl. It’s almost over.”

Audrey sighed, amazed she was able to draw in a breath. “It’s only just begun.”

****

“Throw another log on that pit, Ethan,” Paul ordered from his patio chair on the back porch. It was just the two of them, Adam and Sally having departed shortly after he simmered down and her heartburn kicked in. As cute as babies were, they sure caused a hell of a lot of problems and inconveniences. Not that Ethan would admit that to the heavily showing woman. Pregnant girls were overly emotional, to boot. And Adam wasn’t much better right now.

Ethan grabbed a piece of wood from the cut stack and tossed it into the metal pit just off the porch, then resumed his seat on the thin cushion behind him. If there was a full moon out, no one could admire it with the sky now covered by clouds in the dark night. The fire cracked and sparked, casting a whitish-orange glow on Paul’s face and across the lawn. The sound of trickling water filled the air from the creek just beyond the glow of the firelight.

Men abided by unwritten rules, including never looking at each other when surrounding a fire. They were required to look at the pit, or the sky, or anywhere else when talking of profound things. They were lessons Ethan never learned from his father, but from his friends and colleagues as he meandered through life. Even though his career goal required ripping Audrey Allen’s campaign to shreds with any unpleasant details he uncovered this weekend, he still respected her father as the man sipped on his beer nestled in his own patio chair. He’d continue to respect him simply because her father never left his family. He may have been a quiet man at the table, hard on his children at times, but he didn’t leave.

A trait Ethan hadn’t seen in his own pitiful excuse for a father, despite the asshole’s success in business.

But Ethan was never one for small talk, and getting to the center of tootsie pop was best achieved in one bite.

“Your son has a lot of anger, but calling his sister a murderer is something you don’t hear every day.”

A long pause filled the space between them, but Ethan knew Paul was a man of few words. Careful not to fidget or move his gaze from the fire pit, Ethan waited. Some people needed coaxing to speak up, but Ethan knew this man needed time. And silence.

“For most people, you’d be right,” he finally answered after a long sip of beer.

“You don’t see many murderers running for office.”

One grunt was laugh enough for the old eyes gazing across the lawn. “I’m sure I don’t want to know the real answer to that question.”

“Even something as dramatic as Adam’s accusation, in front of a journalist no less, I’m smart enough to know there’s more history than what was said.”

“Then as a journalist, you know people love dirty laundry, as long as it’s not their own hangin’ on the wire for everyone to see.” He crushed his empty beer can on his leg and threw it in a bucket behind him.

“That’s the truth.”

“No, I’ll tell you the truth.” Audrey’s father leaned forward in the chair and broke the man rule of the night by looking him straight in the eye. The direct connection from his hard stare made the fire stop crackling in his ears. “I’m not ignorant to the kind of things you write. I know what you’re here for and I don’t like it. My daughter has been through enough in life. This town has been through enough. I’m askin’ you to leave this one alone and find whatever dirt your lookin’ for somewhere else.”

Saliva filled Ethan’s mouth, but he wouldn’t dare swallow. Paul hadn’t broken the man rule, but instead used the one exception men were allowed: to look a man in the eye when he was threatened. Where the magnitude of the message was of the utmost importance. But all media junkies lived for stories like this, and Paul’s insistence to stay away only made Ethan want to push more.

“She’s running for a public office. Opening this can of worms was her doing.” Despite the meaning of his words, Ethan made sure to keep his tone sympathetic, even softened.

“No, you opened it.”

“Then why’d she come home and let me see this if she didn’t want the worms set free?”

“You should ask her that.”

“I did. She said she wanted me to see her family. Said you had big hearts, bigger hospitality, and you were the best people she knew.”

For a man who showed no other emotion than condemnation, Paul displayed shock well enough. The wrinkles on his forehead pointed upward for once and Ethan could see the full white of his eyes instead of a half-squint.

Eventually, he looked away and cleared his throat. He reached down beside his chair and cracked open another can. “Hard to hear that.” Long sips filled the break between his words. “Words I don’t really deserve. It’s been a long time since my daughter has done something with her life I could get behind. Her teenage years were my toughest as a father. She did a lot of things I didn’t approve of.”

The normal response for someone without an agenda would have been “don’t most teenagers?” It’s what Ethan wanted to say to console a doting father. But his dirt-digging job had trained him otherwise.

“Like what? She didn’t want to join Junior League?”

Paul shook his head and focused on his boots. “That was her mother’s dream, not mine. She was rebellious, headstrong, stubborn…desperate to show her independence. I lost track of how many times we were called by parents upset with something Audrey said to their daughters, or just generally complaining. But underneath it all, Audrey had a good heart and meant well. She was the first to help a hurt stray or give her lunch money to a kid whose parents were laid off.”

Sounds familiar.
With how hard and heavy Audrey pushed for this Women’s Crisis Center, it was bound to be the grand slam of philanthropy. Perhaps a trait she inherited from her family, or maybe just born with a golden heart among a town of bronze pellets.

“But any ruckus that went on in this town was put on Audrey’s shoulders, whether she was responsible or not.” Paul grabbed another beer and tossed it in Ethan’s lap as he continued. “It didn’t help that senior pranks were her specialty, all four years of high school. But at the end of the day, people just disapprove of anyone different. And Audrey was different.”

Yes, she is.
Which is probably why I can’t stop thinking about her.

Ethan stared at the beer can in his hand. Four years without a drop of alcohol, but he didn’t want to insult the man who had just started to squeeze out the juice he needed for his article. So he just held the frigid metal in his fingers.

“But as hard as I’ve been on Audrey, Adam is tenfold. He
does
have a lot of anger and he has his reasons. Just like many people in this town. The way I see it, there are three things that run deep in this place: that creek over there, memories, and grudges.”

The clouds moved with the wind, allowing a sliver of a half moon to shine across the grass into the heavy woods on the other side of a large crevice. The branches in the large oaks creaked and swayed to the rhythm of the flowing water that Ethan could hear, but not see within the fracture’s dark space.

“My daughter is many things, but not a murderer. She was just in the right place at the wrong time. People made assumptions, chewed on it like tobacco to an outlandish story, and stuck it to the bottom of their boots.”

“What kind of assumptions?”

“You’ll have to ask her.”

They sat staring at the dying fire. Maybe it was another
man rule
, or maybe it wasn’t, but leaving a fire before it dwindled felt disrespectful. At least out here where the stars were brighter, even if hidden above a layer of clouds.

Chapter Thirteen

Nothing I can’t handle.

Audrey had been saying those words for the last ten years, so often it felt like her personal motto. At what point would she run into a situation she couldn’t handle? And how would she respond? Explode into a raging tirade of expletives, throw punches and karate kicks, or withdraw completely like a scared rabbit?

It was a wonder she
handled
the events that had led to this point without losing her sanity. At least, when in public. Distraction was a useful tool in times like that.

So Audrey buried herself in the paperwork she had brought along for the weekend, while snug in her green flannel pajama pants and loose T-shirt. Speech notes, campaign funding reports, and upcoming interview agendas. She would have much rather reviewed legislative bills or construction plans for the Crisis Center. God willing, this election would help her achieve both.

Wyatt Williams was a fierce competitor with years of experience in the House of Representatives. But all of those years proved he was nothing more than a bull in a china closet, or a snake in a rat’s nest. Audrey just needed to show the people she was more capable of getting things done in Austin without blowing up the bank. Which would be a lot harder now that her own brother had accused her of murder in front of a reporter.

Canyon’s notes on her latest speech blurred red across the black and white text. The guy was a genius in pinpointing statistics to prove a platform, and putting them in words that swayed even the most confirmed disbelievers. Her campaign team was the killer combination. Miranda found the right venues and audience, Canyon wrote the words with which to influence people, and Audrey closed it. But the fourth companion on her team started to fail her: the empty glass of wine on her desk.

The clip in her hair itched her scalp, and when she pulled it out, the ache permeated down each strand of hair. She massaged her head and grimaced at the split ends. She’d need to cut them before the awards ceremony on Saturday.

“You hardly look the murdering type.”

The soft words made her breath stop. She stared at her bedroom door, now open with Ethan’s eyes boring into hers. The dim light reflected in his pupils, dilated and playful. She didn’t remember hearing a knock or the door squeak open, and his stare felt like an intrusion. One arm braced on the frame, he held a glass of clear liquid on the rocks in the other. But what unnerved her most were his eyes waiting for a response to the uncomfortable question.

“You must be used to not knocking, as a scandal seeker. But please remember you’re in someone else’s house and etiquette rules apply.” Audrey pushed up from the chair and steadied herself, trying to wince out the needles in her leg, which had fallen asleep. And it was the wrong moment for her nipples to react to his manly presence.

“Etiquette?” His eyes laughed back at her. “How about answering a question?”

“You didn’t ask one.” She crossed her arms, hoping it hid most of her body’s unwanted response.

“Touché. I never thought I’d see The Peacemaker crying.”

“I’m not crying. And don’t call me that here.”

“Oh, okay. Then I’ll just take the wetness in your eyes as allergies and the empty wine glass as medicinal.”