Close to Home (21 page)

Liam looked pained. “Aren't we here to work?”

“Course we are. But I just had to talk you up a bit, y'know. That win was critical to get us into the playoffs.”

His son sent him another embarrassed look, and Keith finally got the message. “Okay, okay,” he said, lifting a hand as if to stave off further arguments. “Time to get down to the reason we're here, I suppose. Daylight's fadin'.”

He was right on that count. Twilight had started to roll over the land, softening the shadows, warning of an early night. A trumpeting blast of wind rushed down the gorge again, rattling the branches of the cherry tree and reminding Sarah of the isolation of this place she called home.

Clearly relieved that the conversation had turned away from his athletic prowess, Liam pulled his phone from his pocket, glanced at it, then slid it away again.

Sarah wondered about him and the argument with Jade, but let it go. She motioned to the guesthouse, “So, how's the project going?”

“Better than expected.” Keith nodded, as if silently agreeing with himself. “Really coming along.” Suddenly the older Longstreet was all business. He opened the door of his van and pulled out a clipboard with a pen and legal pad attached. On the first yellow page was a handwritten list of the repairs they'd discussed earlier. “First of all, we replaced the gutters and downspouts that couldn't be fixed and used some old shakes we found in the garage to patch the roof. Also we took care of the rotten board on the porch.” He pointed out a new board with his pen, the fresh lumber in stark contrast to the older, weathered planks that made up the floor. “The steps, railing, and rest of the floorboards are okay.”

“Good,” she said, relieved that they hadn't discovered more rot.

“Windows are scheduled to be delivered on Monday, and we'll install on Tuesday. Shouldn't take too long. Half a day, maybe. And that's it for the exterior.”

They walked inside, where Longstreet referred again to the list on his legal pad and pointed out a few quick updates to the plumbing and electricity. The old furnace had been repaired, a rodent problem had been dealt with, and new wallboard had already been cut into the bedroom walls to cover up a couple of massive holes. The kitchen appliances were ancient but functional after a few repairs.

“Saved a little there,” Longstreet observed, then led her to the bathroom, where a toilet and sink from the main house had been used to replace the cracked fixtures in the guesthouse. All things considered, the little cottage would be livable by the middle of next week. Sarah had already decided she and the girls could paint and clean over the weekend, then move in.

In the living room, Longstreet said, “I thought we could take one of the old fixtures in the main house and put it in here.” He pointed his pen at the broken light dangling from the ceiling. “There's one in the foyer that would work pretty well, I think. About the right size. That is, unless you want a new one.”

“No, let's reuse anything we can,” she agreed.

They discussed the larger house for a few minutes before Longstreet and his son climbed into their van and drove off as darkness descended. The van rounded a corner, the rumble of the engine fading, taillights winking bright red through the trees.

The wind had died.

The isolation and darkness felt as if it was seeping into her soul.

Surely, though, that sensation was temporary. When the guesthouse was fully functioning again, the power, water, and heat hooked up, she wouldn't experience this sensation of being cut off from the world.

A wisping fog had started to creep across the fields, obscuring the trees and filling the gorge, wrapping tendrils around the corners of the guesthouse. The main house, barely discernable in the darkness, did appear sinister in the night.

Rubbing her arms, she made her way to the Explorer, popped the back door open, and pulled out the large sack of dry dog food for the new addition to the family. Juggling the bag, she pushed the back door of the SUV closed.

Once again the world went dark, the night black.

Only a bit of illumination from the windows of the first floor.

Enough, though.

She just needed to join the kids inside and push aside any ridiculous notion that there was someone watching her. Following her. Ready to do harm. Those lingering feelings had to be locked away and—

Craaack!

A dry twig snapped.

She whirled to face the sound.

Her eyes scanned the darkness, imagining movement in the umbra near the garage. That's where the noise had come from.

Or was she mistaken?

Had it come from beneath the cherry tree, where a brittle branch that had fallen to the ground could have been stepped on?

Or had the sound emanated from the nearby field? Glancing at the fence line, she saw nothing, only the barest hint of once-white rails. Her skin crawled as she peered through the wisps of fog to the night beyond. Ears straining, eyes narrowed, she backed up, one step at a time, toward the house. Surely she was alone out here. What she'd heard was probably just an animal—skunk, rabbit, even a deer.

Or the dog.

Maybe the rambunctious dog had never made it into the house.

So, where was Xena?

And the kids . . . God help her, they were surely in the house.

For a second Sarah was certain she wasn't alone. That someone or something was nearby, watching her every move.

You're being silly, There is no malevolent presence,

She remembered shouting out to the “ghost” upstairs and felt foolish, but her fears at that time had been real enough that they'd propelled her into adopting a dog. This was ridiculous. Of course there were wild animals out here, but so what? She'd grown up with them, whatever they were.

Lifting the bag to her shoulder, she faced the house again, and as she did, her eyes strayed to the third-floor window of Theresa's room, and there, through the thin layer of fog and watery glass, she saw movement, the flimsy image of a woman in a white dress.

Stumbling, she dropped the sack. It hit the corner of one of the flagstones and split open. Tiny kiblets sprayed over the grass and stones, but Sarah barely noticed. Her eyes were drawn to the window and the image behind the gauze of the curtains.

The ghost?

No way.

Her back tensed, and the hairs lifted at her nape.

In a second the image disappeared, but not before Sarah thought she recognized her daughter.

Jade?

She let out her breath slowly.

This was no otherworldly being, no specter, but it might be her daughter exploring around. Since it was too dark to clean up the mess, she left the spilled kiblets to whatever night creatures would come along and hauled the rest of the bag to the house.

In the kitchen, Gracie was trying to teach Xena to “shake” on command. So far the lesson wasn't going all that well. “Use some of these,” Sarah suggested, dropping the bag onto the table. “Maybe you can find some plastic bin to pour it into, as the bag is toast.”

Gracie dug into the torn sack for a few morsels. All the while Xena's eyes watched her every move.

“Jade?” she called up the stairs.

“What?” But the sound came from the living room, where she found her eldest daughter wrapped in a quilt and multitasking by texting on her phone and watching something on her iPad.

“What were you doing on the third floor?” Sarah asked.

Jade didn't bother looking up. “I wasn't up there.”

“You were in Theresa's old room. Just a few minutes ago.”

Finally, Jade's gaze moved from the screen to meet Sarah's eyes. She shook her head. “I said I wasn't up there.”

“But I saw you.”

“You didn't!” Jade declared. She stared at Sarah as if she'd gone crazy. “Wait. You actually think you saw me up there? In that room where Gracie saw the ghost?”

A frisson slid down Sarah's spine. “You weren't upstairs?”

“No.” Flinging off the quilt, she gathered up her electronic equipment and stood up. “Why would I go up there?”

“I don't know. Maybe to watch Liam Longstreet and not be seen.”

Jade made a choking sound. “Oh, God. He just came up to apologize for breaking my iPhone, and yeah, it's cracked!” she said, holding the screen up for Sarah to see. “It barely works.”

Sarah nodded, gazing at the phone and trying not to think of the ghost. “I think your dad bought insurance.” Swallowing, she added, “I thought maybe you and Liam might be friends.”

“Friends? He's got an ogre named Miles Prentice for a ‘friend,' and he goes with Mary-Alice Eklund, the biggest two-faced snob at the school. I hate her.”

“Hate's a pretty strong word.”

“Yeah, Mom, I do! She's making my life miserable, and I really don't need any help in that department.”

“Jade, if you give it time—”

“I'm not taking any more advice from you,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Sarah shook off her distraction and keyed in fully on her daughter.

“Because you haven't been honest with me.”

“About what?”

“My father.”

“Your father. Jade,” she began, her tone weary.

“Is the neighbor my dad?” Jade asked flatly. “Clint Walsh. Were you dating him and broke up when you found out you were pregnant or something?”

Sarah opened her mouth to answer, but it felt as if she'd been hit in the gut. She wanted to lie her way out of it, but could do nothing more than stand in frozen shock, and that was enough.

“I did the math, Mom.” Jade's chin lifted a bit, and she looked so young, so vulnerable. “Don't even think about lying.”

“I've been meaning to talk to you,” she said unevenly.

“Oh, Jesus. It's true. I knew it! Oh, God. That guy—that
man
I've never met before, he's my . . .” She was shaking her head, backing up. “Why didn't you just tell me? All this time? Why did you make it a big secret?”

“I didn't know how to tell you,” Sarah admitted.

“Does he know?” Jade demanded. “You said he didn't know.”

“He doesn't. No one knows . . . well, your grandmother guessed, but that's it. I was able to keep it from the family as I was away at college.” Sarah had never felt such remorse. She was dying inside, wishing she could roll back the years, wishing she had come clean the first time Jade had asked about her father. “I'm sorry. It was wrong. I know.”

“That's all you can say now?” Jade charged, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. She swiped at them furiously.

“Jade . . . ,” Sarah tried to move a step closer, but Jade shrank back.

“When were you going to tell me? And don't say ‘when the time was right' because that's the problem, Mom. It's never the right time to admit that you've been lying for years!” She was nearly shouting, her voice tremulous, her features distorted with her pain.

God, this was a mess, one she'd created and made worse with every passing day that the truth was hidden.

“You're right, Jade. I should have been honest with you and with Clint from the get-go.”

“Why weren't you?”

“Because he and I were already split when I found out. It's not like it is today, that you can take a pregnancy test the same week as . . . as conception.” She gathered herself. How could she explain that not only had they been broken up for several months, but that they'd gotten together one final time and it had been a mistake? That they'd tried to rekindle something that was gone? That they'd both felt awful; he was dating someone else, and it felt like they'd both cheated? “He was with someone else, and I didn't want to make him think he had to come back to me or marry me.”

“It wasn't the nineteen fifties!”

“I know. I had plenty of opportunities over the years to tell you. You asked me, and I evaded, and that was wrong. And the longer it went, the harder it was to admit the truth. I didn't want to hurt you.”

“Or yourself.”

“I suppose. Yes.” She took a step forward. “I'm sorry. Really.”

Jade shrank away, and Sarah wanted to die inside. “So,” Jade sniffed, “he doesn't know?”

“No.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

“Think I'd better,” she said and pulled her phone out of her pocket to punch in the number she'd memorized in her youth.

“Now?” Jade looked shocked just as, out of the corner of her eye, Sarah saw Gracie come in, with the dog trotting behind her.

“No time like the present. Hope he still has the same number.”

“What's going on?” Gracie asked, sensing the tension running like a wild current of electricity through the room.

Sarah held up a finger.

“Gracie, this is none of your business,” Jade said.

Gracie asked, “What isn't?”

The phone connected and started ringing. Sarah took in a deep breath. She'd thought about this moment a thousand times over the years, planned for it, but now that it was here, she had no idea what she would say.

One ring.

Two.

“Wait!” Jade said suddenly. “Maybe we should wait—”

Three rings that ended with a distinctive click, and then, “Hello.” Clint's voice.

“Hi,” she forced out, her insides quivering as she held her oldest daughter's gaze. “Clint, this is Sarah. I need to talk to you.” Her legs went weak, but she somehow stood.

“About the house?”

“Something else. I'd really like to see you in person.” Jade was shaking her head frantically, trying to stop what she'd started. Gracie's eyes moved from Jade to Sarah and back again, while the dog, sensing the tension, slunk into the living room to settle in by the fire.

“Okay,” Clint said slowly.

“Would now be okay?” Sarah suggested as she drew in a long, calming breath. “I can come over to your place . . . or, if you'd rather, you can come here.”