Black Ember (18 page)

“How about another?”

“Sure, I guess,” Zane mumbled.

They had dragged two of the rented chairs into the barn, with a hay bale from the loft serving as a footstool. Cal reached into the galvanized tin bucket that they’d lifted from the drinks table, and pulled out a couple of root beers. He popped the tops off and handed one to Zane.

“Thanks.”

“I really don’t mind going to fetch you something stronger…”

“Nah, I think this is about all I can handle tonight.”

They clinked bottles and drank. Zane was grateful for the company; Cal was working tomorrow, and Roan had to study for an exam Monday and had gone home. Everyone else was paired off and tucked away: Matthew and Jayne had left to spend their honeymoon night at the Three Horses Inn; Deneen had finally collapsed and Jimmy had carried her off to bed. Chase and Regina had disappeared at some point to make the most of their weekend together, and all of the guests had gone home. The caterers had packed up their things, leaving the few leftovers in the fridge The rented tables and chairs were stacked and ready to be returned in the morning.

And Carrie—make that
Caryn
—had taken Zane’s truck without telling anyone where she was going.

Cal was working a double tomorrow, having traded shifts to get the day of the wedding off, so he was done partying. Which suited Zane just fine: he didn’t need to be drunk to know exactly how he felt, and getting drunk wouldn’t fix it anyway.

“God, I can’t believe I didn’t see it,” he berated himself for the third or fourth time.

“It wasn’t just you, man,” Cal reminded him.

After Buddy’s pronouncement, there was a shocked silence that was filled almost immediately with excited cries of recognition. Deneen’s eyebrows went sky-high, and the other guests in the vicinity clearly didn’t need long to put two and two together.

It had taken Zane a little longer than the rest of them to catch up. Sure, he’d heard of Caryn Carver. He just hadn’t ever given her much thought. Another spoiled rich kid, using her daddy’s fame to get a fancy job in fashion—not exactly his cup of tea. He hadn’t paid much attention to her face on the news, but he seemed to remember that she had long blond hair and dressed like a fashion plate.

Nothing like Carrie, in other words.

But she didn’t deny it. Buddy grabbed her hand and stared at her as though he was looking at an angel fallen from the sky. For a moment, they were frozen like that, and then Caryn mumbled some excuse and bolted for the house. Zane didn’t go after her right away, and for that he was kicking himself. By the time he finally went looking for her, she’d bolted out the back door and made her escape. He didn’t care about his truck, and didn’t mind a bit that Carrie—no, Caryn—had helped herself to his keys…but he was pretty sure she was too upset to drive safely.

He would have tried to grill Buddy about what the hell was going on, but Melanie had tripped on a tree root in a poorly lit part of the lawn, and Buddy had his hands full comforting her. The old guy was so good with Melanie, but Zane could tell that he was shaken.

Whoever Caryn was to him, it affected him deeply.

“I just don’t get how he knew who she was.” This, too, Zane had said several times already, and it was a testament to Cal’s loyalty as a friend that he answered as patiently this time as the last few.

“Well, either Buddy’s a lot more of a celebrity watcher than we ever knew or their paths crossed at some point in the past.”

“But how?”

“Before he came here, Buddy was in Iraq, with Turk. And before that he was out in California somewhere. And Caryn’s dad’s an actor in Hollywood, right? So, I don’t know…maybe Buddy was their handyman, or their pool guy, or…or, I don’t know, the guy who drove her to school.”

“Which was why his face went white as a sheet when he saw her? And also why he recognized her despite the fact that she’s had two makeovers over the course of a few days? I don't know, man…it doesn’t add up.”

“Well, she looked every bit as shook up as he did.”

They were silent for a few moments, drinking their root beer. One of the barn cats came out from behind an old grain trough, looking for a handout and meowing. She jumped lightly up onto Zane’s lap, and he rubbed her fur idly.

“Maybe she needed a kidney, and he donated it,” Cal suggested. “Or she started choking in a restaurant and he did the Heimlich and saved her life, and her dad was so grateful that he bought Buddy the bar and—”

“Yeah…no,” Zane said. “And it doesn’t even matter. I mean…now at least I have a clue why she was down here, trying to blend in. I mean, I don't know why she was spying on Buddy, but it’s pretty clear he was the whole reason she’s on this little adventure.”

He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice, and he should have guessed that Cal would call him on it. Living with a guy in quarters as close as the bunkhouse meant that there were few secrets among them.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. You’re thinking she used you, right?”

“Well, not
used
me, exactly—”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to step on your manly feelings. I should have said, you see this thing ending and you don’t like it.”

Zane wanted to argue, but the fact was that Cal had pretty much nailed it. “Whatever,” he finally mumbled.

“But, you don’t have all the facts. You have almost
no
facts. Shouldn’t you be finding Caryn and talking to her instead of holing up in a barn with me and Marilyn Monroe?”

Zane looked down at the little barn cat, who was purring happily and arching her back against his hand. Regina had named all of the barn cats after her favorite movie stars. Clark Gable, a big tom with a torn ear, was a champion mouser, while Marilyn mostly lazed about in the sun.

“Well, I don’t know what exactly you expect me to do,” he hedged. “A girl steals a guy’s truck, that’s a pretty good signal she wants to be left alone.”

“I’d offer to arrest her,” Cal said, “but I’m not sure I could convince the Chief it was a good use of department resources.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, look, Zane, I’ve got to be at the station in six hours. This is sure fun and all, but I need to get a little shut-eye if I’m going to take good care of the citizens of Conway tomorrow. You going to be okay?”

“Yeah, sure, I was just about to turn in anyway,” Zane lied. He finished the root beer and tossed the bottle into the tub with the other empties.

The two men turned off the lights and closed up the barn, then headed back to the house. The moon was low in the sky, a creamy slice of glowing light. The air was scented with the floral arrangements, which drooped a little now, and a silver paper bell rolled lazily across the lawn.

On the porch, Zane hesitated. He turned and looked down the drive, searching for headlights coming down the lane. But the night was dark and peaceful.

Somewhere, out there, his Carrie/Caryn/Barracuda was on the run, and she hadn’t invited him to come along. He hoped she would find what she was looking for. Because he, for one, knew exactly what he wanted.

He just couldn't have her.

She hadn’t meant to fall asleep.

She’d only parked in front of the house for a few moments, to think, and to look at the place that her bio-dad called home. It wasn’t what she’d expected. She wasn’t even sure what she had expected—something run-down, a trailer maybe, or a leaning shack with trash overflowing the bins. A junker of a car parked out front, maybe sheets tacked in the windows in lieu of curtains. Evidence of a careless life, a careless man who let things slip through his fingers, even the daughter he’d given up before her first birthday.

But the address she’d found on the internet, the address she’d memorized before she ever started this crazy trip, was painted neatly on the side of a mailbox that was surrounded by geraniums. There was a stone path leading through a tidy lawn and up to a log house. A pair of rocking chairs sat on the porch, under baskets of trailing vines and flowers. A braided rug at the door held two pairs of garden boots: one large and brown, one smaller and bright pink.

Melanie
.

Not, as Caryn had suspected, the woman who had replaced her mother in her fantasies of an intact family. At least, not the way she’d thought.

Caryn was left with more questions than ever. But she’d lost her opportunity to find answers, when Buddy recognized her. She’d run away.

How was she supposed to face him now? When she’d first conceived her plan to spy on him, she’d been angry at him. She understood now that she’d been carrying around a grudge for years. Who knew how many of her adult relationships had been marred by that grudge? How often had she held a part of herself back, because the specter of the man who left her was never far away? If she was truly honest with herself, wasn’t that why she’d chosen Nathanial? A man who didn’t give himself completely couldn’t exactly ask the same of the woman in his life, which made him safe in a way that someone else—someone like Zane, for instance—could never be.

Buddy. Zane. Nathanial. Georgia. Melanie. Deneen and Roan and Regina, Jimmy and Cal and Chase, the Burgesses and Matthew’s family…Opal and Turk and the customers at the bar who already knew her name. Her fake name, anyway. All these people who were in her life in strange, undisciplined ways; the thoughts swirled in Caryn’s mind as she sat in the cab, staring out in the moonlight at the house at the end of a country drive. There was little chance of Buddy coming out and seeing her; it was almost one in the morning, and the whole world seemed to be asleep. Somewhere on the outskirts of town, Jayne and Matthew were spending their wedding night. Just thinking of the pair, of their obvious love and happiness and delight at being married, tugged at Caryn’s heart painfully.

She’d drive back in a moment, she told herself; she’d apologize to Zane for taking his truck without asking. She’d pack up quietly and in the morning she’d retrieve her things from the police station and, hopefully, be on her way out of town without too much fuss. She would write a sincere apology to Buddy—because she saw now that what she had done had been wrong. She had come here with the intention of spying on him, judging him, getting him out of her system without ever hearing his side, and now it was too late, because she’d behaved so deplorably.

Maybe someone else could recover from a gaffe like that. From creating a drama at someone else’s wedding and then fleeing instead of sticking around to clean up the mess she’d made. But Caryn wasn’t someone else. She held herself to a much higher standard. Georgia had raised her to be polite, and gracious, and, above all, correct.

She’d go in a minute, she thought, and she’d closed her eyes just for a second because they were a little gritty from a lack of sleep and maybe a little swollen from crying.

But now, someone was tapping on her window, and morning light was streaming through the cab of the truck.

Caryn stirred, the seat belt cutting into her painfully. Buddy stood outside. He was wearing an old plaid shirt and a pair of baggy camo pants, and face glinted with silver stubble. He was giving her a shy smile, and she saw that his front teeth gapped just as her own had before her mother insisted on a second round of corrective orthodontics.

The keys were still in the ignition. Caryn turned them and rolled down the window.

“I don’t know what to say,” she mumbled quietly.

“I’ve got coffee on,” said the man who was her father. “How ’bout coming in for a cup?”

#

The inside of the snug log house was every bit as welcoming as the outside. Big, sturdy leather sofas were anchored by a Navajo rug in front of a huge stone fireplace. Copper pots hung from a rack over the kitchen island. A mason jar held wildflowers on the scrubbed pine table.

And on every surface were photos: of the girl, Melanie, who had accompanied Buddy to the wedding. Of a younger version of Buddy, in uniform, posing with other servicemen in Iraq.

And of Caryn.

There were pictures of her at every age: school pictures with her hair pulled tightly into pigtails; her high school graduation picture in her cap and gown. The photo that ran with her byline on the column she wrote for her college newspaper. And several photos taken in the years since she had started her own business, photos that had appeared in newspapers and magazines across the country.

“I…had no idea,” Caryn said, her eyes misting as she looked at the pictures on the wall, stuck to the fridge, in frames on tables.

“Yes, I guess you could say I have quite a collection.” Buddy seemed every bit as nervous as she felt as he busied himself with pouring two ceramic mugs full of steaming coffee. “That was one of the things your mom agreed to, sending me your school picture every year.”

“She never told me.”

“Aw, now, Caryn, don’t be too hard on Georgia. She was just doing what she thought was right. I was a pretty irresponsible guy back then.”

He handed her a mug, the coffee lightened with heavy cream, and she took a sip, savoring the warmth and the delicious taste. “Thank you.”

“Here, why don’t we sit out on the porch. Melanie’s a good sleeper, but this way we won’t worry about waking her up.”

They carried their mugs outside and took seats in the pair of rocking chairs. In front of the house, the land sloped gently downward, revealing fields of wheat that stretched out for miles. Far in the distance, Caryn could make out a rig, its steady rhythm bringing up oil from the earth.

“Is it okay if I ask…how you came to know Melanie? Is she your daughter?”

“You can ask me anything you want, Caryn. I figure if you came all this way, the least I can give you is answers. And no, Melanie isn’t my daughter. But her parents gave up their rights to her when she was just a baby, and she went into the state system. That was years ago—she’ll be nineteen in September. She lives at a facility in town, a real nice place. They’ve got some good folks looking out for her. But she didn’t have anyone special that showed up regular in her life, until…” he shrugged, not finishing his sentence.