Erin's Way (6 page)

“She and Joe will join us for dinner,” he murmured. “We’d like you to be there too, Erin.”

She continued to stare at the painting for the longest time, never turning around as she asked, “What time?”

“Six.”

She nodded, edging away from him, as if she didn’t know how to be around them or what they expected. Stoner stifled a sigh. Because she had been gone for so long, they were all but strangers to her. Before he could think of something to say to ease her mind, she spoke.

“If—if you don’t mind, I’ll go rest. I’m tired.”

“I’ll walk you over there.” He started to take her elbow, but she edged farther away, so Stoner dropped his hand.

“No. No, Daddy… That’s okay.” Erin fled.

Stoner looked at Jenny after Erin left. “Well?” he inquired softly, hands jammed in his pockets to prevent anyone from seeing how tense he was. “What do you think?”

Jenny shook her head. “She doesn’t appear to be on anything right now, Stoner. Of course, knowing for certain would require testing. She simply acted like…” Jenny paused, then rushed on, “Well, she acted like a stranger walking into an unfamiliar setting might.”

“But she’s our daughter,” Catherine protested. “Why should she act like a stranger?”

Evan put his hand on Jenny’s shoulder. “Mother, other than that disastrous visit last fall, I haven’t seen Erin since she was eighteen. She is virtually a stranger. I’m not sure that we’re dealing as much with a substance abuse issue as we are that she’s running from something…or someone.”

“What makes you say that?” Stoner questioned.

“While she got her things out of Sam’s house this morning, he told me he dumped pot, ecstasy, and some Quaaludes out of her purse last night. She doesn’t appear to have any one drug of choice, which is more like an addict; she seems to do whatever will get her high. It’s an escape, not something she physically has to have.”

Stoner’s unease ramped up again. “Did Sam check her suitcase or just her purse?”

Evan grimaced. “He only mentioned her purse. You want me to call him to find out?”

Oh how Stoner wished he could say no, but it wasn’t possible. He nodded reluctantly. Evan stepped out of the room to use his cell phone. Stoner moved to the window and stared out over the winter-brown fields, grateful that Catherine knew him well enough to leave him to his thoughts, uneasy though they might be.

Evan returned in a few minutes. “Sam didn’t check her suitcase.”

The instant Stoner met Evan’s gaze, they hurried from the room toward the guesthouse. Stoner prayed this would not be a repeat of her teenage years.

Damn it,” Evan said. “She’s locked the door, Dad.”

Stoner dug into his pocket. “Hang on. I’ve got a spare key here. Jesus! She hasn’t even been here a day, and it’s already started.” He unlocked the door and opened it quietly. His eyes spotted the pills almost immediately. Evan examined them.

“Ecstasy.”

“What the hell is that?” Stoner demanded.

“It acts like both an amphetamine and a hallucinogen.”

“I don’t even want to know how you know these things,” Stoner grimaced.

Evan arched one thick brow, looking like a younger version of Stoner. “Prosecuting attorney, remember?”

Stoner raced up the stairs, heart pounding, opened first one bedroom door, then the second, smaller room. She was curled in one of the two twin beds in there, but when the hinge squeaked, she leaped from the bed and backed into the corner before her eyes cleared and she saw it was him.

“Daddy! What are you doing?” Her chest heaved, but a trace of panic lurked in her eyes.

Panic that she’d been caught? Stoner grabbed her and shook her. “What did you take, Erin? Damn it! How much?”

Her eyes were wide and shocked as she glanced from his face to Evan, who now stood behind Stoner.

“Nothing,” she whispered. “I didn’t take anything.”

“You’re lying,” Stoner snapped. Concern made him sound harsh and cold, but he couldn’t help it. She was scaring the shit out of him. “We saw the pills scattered on the table downstairs.”

“But… I didn’t take them,” she protested again. “Please. Daddy, you have to believe me.”

Stoner shut his eyes, feeling as though his heart was being ripped apart again as he admitted, “I can’t believe you. You’ve never given me any reason to believe you.” He turned to look at Evan. “I want Jenny to look at her.”

“Dad…” Evan began uncertainly, his gaze shifting to the hurt evident on Erin’s face.

“I want Jenny to look at her,” Stoner insisted. He remembered a night when she was in high school, when he had given her the benefit of the doubt, and she had nearly died from an overdose. “I’ll stay here. Get Jenny and flush that crap lying on the table.”

Erin stood like a statue in the corner of the room, her eyes huge in her pale face. Stoner’s heart ached. When he reached toward her again, she flinched, throwing her hands out to ward him off. “Don’t touch me.”

Her nostrils flared and her eyes glittered before she turned her face away from him, pressing her palms against the wall behind her. Stoner raked his trembling fingers through his hair. He had forgotten how many nights he had lain awake, worried sick about her. Now, she no sooner came back than it started all over again.

Jenny came into the room, took one look at Stoner and Erin’s stiff postures, and ordered him out of the room. When he started to protest, she glared at him. “I am doing this only because you’re her father, but she’s an adult, Stoner. You will not stay in here while I examine her, not even while I talk to her.”

* * * *

From the corner of her eye, Erin saw the door shut behind Stoner and Evan.

“Can I get you a glass of water?” Jenny asked.

Erin sucked a breath into a throat so tight it hurt. She shook her head and whispered, “I shouldn’t have come back. I keep saying that. Maybe I’ll eventually learn my lesson and leave once and for all.” She cast her hand around the room. “The guesthouse is where they’ve put me. Not their home. I’m a guest, not one of them.”

Erin blinked a couple of times as she absorbed the hurt and let it pass on through. All she had ever wanted from them was their love, their understanding, but how could they understand? Some of the fault lay squarely at her door. She could acknowledge that now, as an adult. She’d kept the real issues hidden, and done a damn fine job of it.

Jenny sighed, drawing her out of her introspection. Her sister-in-law sat on the edge of one of the twin beds. “It took me a long time to understand your father, Erin. A long time to forgive him. He is a man of very intense, deeply felt emotions.”

Erin laughed bitterly. “As deep as a chest freezer.”

Jenny shook her head. “I can’t help you two with those issues, but I can deal with some of yours. Did you take any of the MDMA?”

“No. I thought about it, pretty seriously.” Something about Jenny gave Erin complete confidence that Jenny would not doubt her. “My boss, Rick, never had a problem with us being a little loose, but I don’t want to keep doing that.”

“When’s the last time you used anything?”

“I smoked part of a joint last night right after I landed in Sam’s pasture with my rental car.”

“Nothing since then? No alcohol, cold medicine, anything?”

“Nothing.” Erin met her gaze without flinching. Jenny didn’t need to know the mental battle Erin had fought to leave the pills untouched.

“May I examine you?”

Erin nodded and submitted to having her pulse, respiration, pupil response, and reflexes tested. When Jenny asked to see the contents of her purse, Erin dumped them out along with her duffel bag. Jenny flicked open the birth control pills and looked at Erin.

“This is fine for pregnancy prevention, but you should use condoms to protect against disease.”

Erin snorted. “It’s not an issue. I take them for severe cramps.”

“But you make your partners use condoms?” Jenny’s concern was evident.

Erin raised her brows and said again, more slowly, “It’s not an issue. It’s never been an issue. You’re a doctor. Do I need to be clearer than that?”

“But…?” Jenny shook her head. “Are you telling me you’re a virgin?”

Erin laughed bitterly. “What? I’m sure my family led you to believe I’d spread my legs for anyone and everyone, right? Just because…” Erin paused, grinding her teeth in frustration. “You know, never mind. It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m almost twenty-seven. They won’t change what they think, and I can’t make them. Just…just tell my dad the truth, please. I’m not on anything. I’m exhausted. Last night was the first night in three days I’ve had any sleep… And I didn’t sleep well.”

“Why the MDMA downstairs then?” Jenny probed, her tawny eyes intent.

“I thought about it,” Erin whispered. “But then I remembered Sam going through my stuff. I didn’t want to disappoint him. What a joke, huh? I’ve always been a disappointment to all of them. I’m not an addict. I need a break sometimes from my own head.” She turned away. “Leave me alone, Jenny. Make Daddy leave me alone. I want to sleep right now.”

“All right.”

With a nod, Jenny stood and opened the door. When it had shut behind her, Erin slid down the wall and curled up on the floor in the corner of the room. Her lip trembled, but she refused to shed a tear. Why she had expected things to be different this time, she had no idea. It was another way of setting herself up for disappointment, and there were more than enough of those already.

She had come back because she feared for her life, and in some corner of her mind, she supposed she still associated home and safety with her parents. Or maybe she wished it were so. Erin rubbed her eyes. She was rubbing away the scratchiness from lack of sleep. Yeah.

Sam couldn’t shake the unhappy feeling hounding him as he pounded new fence posts into the soil and hammered up fresh boards. Evan’s call to find out if Sam had searched Erin’s duffel bag nagged at him. Had she taken something? He fought the urge to rush over there. She wasn’t his concern. Stoner had made that plain more than a decade ago. Sam wanted to shake some sense into Erin at the same time he wanted to protect her from whatever hell Stoner was no doubt giving her. And the fact he couldn’t get her off his mind bothered him. He swung the hammer even harder as he secured another board in place.

By the time his cell phone rang early in the afternoon, Sam had worked off most of his concerns. Then he saw it was the Richardson’s number and his gut twisted as he answered.

“This is Sam.”

“Oh, Sam. I’m so glad I caught you. It’s Catherine.” Relief surged through him. She sounded perfectly normal. Everything must be fine. “Tabby and Joseph will be here for dinner this evening along with Evan and Jenny. I thought I would invite you as a way to say thank you for giving Erin a job.”

“I don’t want to intrude on a family dinner.” It was a convenient excuse, because somehow Sam had the feeling the reason behind the invitation was far from a simple thank you.

“Nonsense. We’re all very fond of you.”

Sam grinned. That was doubtful, especially when it came to Erin and Stoner. In fact, he had a hard time picturing either one of them looking at him with gratitude about anything. “You need me to even out the numbers, right?”

Sam knew there was more to it than that, but it would give Catherine a convenient reason without having to admit Sam would provide a buffer between Erin and her family.

“Well…partly.”

He laughed, letting her off the hook. Besides, it would give him a chance to check on Erin. “I’ll come. Your cook beats my cooking any time. I figure you’ll tell me eventually why I’m really invited.”

After sliding his phone back in its clip, he returned to the job of fixing his fence. It was hard sometimes not to envy the Stoner Richardsons of the world. He had plenty of money to hire a crew to fix something like this. But Sam’s family had always been the poor neighbors.

Years ago, he’d resented that difference much more, but now, seeing everything that had happened with Stoner’s family and his political career, Sam’s envy had mellowed. Senator Richardson had certainly tumbled from the mountain top, opting out of a political career rather than facing exposure for some of his past misdeeds. Then there’d been the whole fiasco with Jenny and Evan’s relationship. Stoner’s interference there had split the two apart for more than a dozen years.

Sam shook his head. No. He no longer envied Stoner Richardson. Most of the time, except when he considered what having the kind of money the Richardsons had would allow him to provide for a family. He could update his farmhouse, maybe install an updated kitchen where someone who really enjoyed cooking would feel at home. Sam nearly smacked his thumb with the hammer. With a shake of his head, he returned to the backbreaking work of rebuilding his fence.

He knew some of his neighbors laughed at him for the wood fences when woven wire would have been a hell of a lot cheaper. When it came right down to it, though, he’d rather be hefting boards and pounding nails than trying to stretch wire in cold weather. He glanced along the road, eyes narrowing, at the neat line of fence that fronted not only Richardson Homestead, but his farm too. And there was the whole issue of appearances. Having Richardson Homestead as a neighbor wasn’t easy, in more ways than one.

At six that evening, he knocked at the door, tired but dutifully on time as he’d promised. Peterson was there to let him in, looking every inch the British butler he was. Sam nodded to him, then looked past him to Stoner, who stood in the doorway to his study.

“Sam, come on in.” Although his welcome was friendly enough, Stoner was tense. When Sam entered the study, he discovered why. Everyone was there except Erin. No doubt waiting to make an entrance. Creating dissension came as second nature to her.

Never one to ignore the obvious, Sam asked, “Where’s Erin?”

“Just a little late, I’m sure.” Catherine’s smile was just a bit tremulous.

Sam studied all of them. Stoner, Catherine, and Evan looked ready to chew nails. Jenny, Tabby, and Joseph were calm, but then they didn’t know her. Sam wouldn’t put it past Erin to walk in wearing nothing but her diamond belly button stud. Never had he met anyone quite so able to throw things into complete chaos.