The Awakening (23 page)

“Well, you’re not greedy or envious, so why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

Tanner sighed. “If I’d shown up at your door and told you I was the son of the town drunk and had been in love with you since high school, would you have let me in the door?”

Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. “In love...”

“I left here as soon as I could, and I had no intention of ever returning. I thought it was the worst karmic joke of the century when my first case brought me not only to Miel but back to the one woman I’d never gotten over, no matter how far I ran.”

“But you didn’t even know me.... How could...” She shook her head. “You were just attracted to me. That’s all it was.”

“At first, of course it was. You were a beautiful girl and you’re the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen. But it was far more than that. You were smart and worked hard in school. You were kind to people, even when your friends weren’t. I heard you chiding some of them one day in the gym for being mean to another student. You huffed out of there and for an entire week, you ate lunch with the guy they’d been picking on and ignored them.”

Her mouth dropped open. “I haven’t thought about that since high school.”

“I have. And every other thing you did that made you stand out from the crowd.” He lifted a finger to stroke her cheek. “There is no other woman like you. There never has been.”

A single tear rolled down her face and she swiped it away with the back of her hand. “Oh, Tanner, what am I going to do with you?”

“Whatever you’d like.”

She hesitated for a moment, and he felt his heart drop. Then she flung her arms around him and kissed him soundly.

“Promise me,” she said, breaking off the kiss, “that you’ll never lie to me again, even by omission.”

His throat tightened. She knew exactly who he was and accepted him, anyway. It was everything he’d wanted and the one thing he’d never expected. The past no longer mattered—yesterday or ten years ago. All that mattered was the future.

“I promise,” he said, and lowered his lips to hers.

Chapter Eighteen

“We have to make it fast,” Tanner said as they rushed into the general store. “Everyone will be here in an hour.”

“I know. I know,” Josie said, and jumped out of the truck with a package wrapped in pretty red paper and a gold bow.

They hurried inside and Ted broke into a huge smile when he saw them approaching the counter. He yelled into the storeroom and his wife, Annie, stepped outside to greet them.

“Merry Christmas!” Josie said, and handed them the gift.

“A gift for us?” Annie asked.

“I think you’ll really like it,” she said.

“Go ahead,” Ted said, and watched as his wife pulled the paper off the silver picture frame. Inside the frame was a document.

Ted leaned over his wife’s shoulder and started reading. Her hands shook as she read out loud. Before she could even finish, Ted pulled the frame from her hands, placed it on the counter and grabbed his wife in his arms, twirling her around.

Josie and Tanner laughed as he set his wife down and ran around the counter to hug both of them.

“This is the best news ever,” Ted said. He picked up the frame and stared at the piece of paper that verified Annie’s admission to a drug trial, an almost reverent expression on his face. “I can’t believe it’s really happening.”

“The scientist is thrilled,” Josie said. “The clearance came a week ago for his trials. Part of his contract with the drug company was the stipulation that Annie and Emmett were the first in his test group. You’re not only going to get the best care in the country, you’re going to get paid to do it.”

Tears streamed down Annie’s face as she came around the counter to hug Tanner and Josie. “It’s the best Christmas present ever. I’m going to hang this next to my bed, where it’s the first thing I see every morning. Thank you both so much, and thank Emmett for us the next time you see him.”

“How’s he liking retirement?” Ted asked.

“He’s taken to it remarkably well,” Josie said. “He’s working part-time running a bayou tour business in New Orleans and having a blast.”

“Is the Honey Island Swamp monster part of his tour stories?”

Tanner smiled. He and Josie had never completely agreed about what had killed Rob that night in the swamp. They’d found the gray-haired costume in Marquette’s apartment, along with a bottle of a rank-smelling musk and an MP3 player with an earth-shattering howl loaded on it. They knew Rob had been responsible for impersonating the beast.

But there were still the unexplained things, like the height of the creature Tanner had chased in the woods that first day, the creature at the barn that had been eating raw meat and the hush that came over the swamp immediately before the creature appeared. Had it been a trick of light and shadows? Had their imagination and the stress of the situation caused them to see things that weren’t really there?

They’d never know the answer for certain. What Tanner
was
certain of was that no one had seen the creature since that night, and the swamps remained alive with the sounds of all things living there. Ray and his crew had returned to work, and the crew leader had pronounced the swamp balanced once more.

Tanner’s mind turned back to the conversation in the general store as Josie was wrapping it up and telling them goodbye. He shook Ted’s hand, gave Annie another hug and they made their way out of the store, almost running into Sheriff Reynard when they stepped onto the sidewalk.

“Merry Christmas,” the sheriff said.

His attitude had changed remarkably since the night he’d come out into the swamp to arrest Marquette and call the coroner for Rob, but there was still that last thread of standoffishness when it came to Josie.

Right now, however, not a bit of it showed. He looked at Josie, then down at the sidewalk for a couple of seconds. Josie glanced over at Tanner, who shrugged. He had no idea what was up with the man.

Finally, Bobby looked back up at Josie, a slight flush on his face. “I want to apologize for treating you so poorly. I thought things about you that weren’t true, mostly because of high school.”

“You don’t have to—”

Bobby held up a hand to cut her off. “Yes, I do. I’ve been holding a grudge against you for over a decade and I want to explain. I asked you for a date in high school, and you turned me down. That was humiliating, of course, as it is for most teenage boys, but that’s not why I was angry. There was a note in my locker that evening signed from you. It said that you would never go out with a fat, stupid, poor loser like me and not to embarrass you by asking again.”

Josie’s eyes widened. “I never—”

“I know you didn’t. Marquette left a diary, and I’ve been going through it with the federal police. She’s the one who did it. She was jealous of you way back then. I guess she’s what doctors would call unstable. Your return to Miel set her off again, especially when Sam dropped her cold and started chasing after you.”

“Oh, wow.”

“I’m not the only person she did it to. As soon as I have clearance, I’m going to turn a copy of the diary over to you, and I’m going to contact every person mentioned in there who Marquette waylaid and let them know the truth. We also found a key to your house in her apartment, so I’m sure it was her or Rob who was in your house that night. No telling what they had planned.”

“The whole thing is so sad,” Josie said. “I know she tried to hurt me, but I can’t help feeling sorry for her. It must be hell to be trapped in her mind.”

“It is sad, but at least she’s got a medical excuse for her behavior. I don’t. I understand if you never forgive me, but I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t tell you what I’d found and apologize for being the biggest jackass this side of the Mississippi River.”

Josie leaned over to kiss his cheek. “Apology accepted. I have a new take on life—no looking back.”

“I like that,” the sheriff said, breaking into a slow smile.

He looked over at Tanner. “How’s the investigation into your father’s murder going?”

“Good. It’s a massive undertaking that will likely take years to get to the bottom of, if that’s even possible, but the New Orleans police and the FBI are dismantling the organization one piece at a time, starting with Frederick Shore.”

“Did you ever figure out...” The sheriff trailed off, probably not certain how to word his question.

“Our father’s involvement?” Tanner nodded. “We hired a forensic accountant to go through all his company’s records from the date of his murder to five years before. His CFO was laundering money through his businesses. They arrested him doing the same thing with a company in Baton Rouge six months ago. When questioned, he admitted that our father was killed because he caught the discrepancies, but claims he had nothing to do with the actual murder.”

The sheriff shook his head. “I’m sorry that happened at all, but I’m glad that at least you and your brothers were able to find out your father wasn’t involved.”

“Me, too.”

The sheriff extended his hand to Tanner. “Merry Christmas!”

Tanner shook his hand and gave the man a nod before grabbing Josie’s hand and pulling her toward the truck. “Let’s get out of here before anyone else sees you and wants to confess their sins.”

She laughed and swatted at him with her free hand before jumping in the truck. “They said they’d be here at one. We still have thirty minutes to get everything ready.”

“Uh-huh,” Tanner said, knowing Josie would think of a hundred other things to make everything “just perfect” before his brothers and their wives showed up for the Christmas Eve celebration.

It had taken some convincing, and Tanner had finally shown Josie a portfolio statement that spelled out just how much money his dad had left him, before she’d accepted money to get the bank off her back. He’d found an unexpected ally in Josie’s friend Adele, and had taken an instant liking to the spry older woman. They’d driven her to the airport in New Orleans the day before to catch a flight to spend Christmas with her son, who was stationed in Germany.

Despite his and Adele’s pushing, Josie had insisted on going through with the bed-and-breakfast plan because she wanted to make the income for the ongoing payments herself, but Tanner figured sooner or later, she’d come around to his desire of wanting the house all to themselves.

He was a patient man. It had taken over a decade before Josie Bettencourt was part of his life, and he’d never in a million years thought it could happen. Waiting a while longer for complete solitude was a small price to pay.

She’d hired a new foreman for the rice farming—a young man from Miel, who was excited about the opportunity and the salary, and most especially, the cut of the profit that he’d take for doing a good job. With Josie running the B-and-B and training her horses and the foreman handling the fields, Tanner could get back to work with his brothers, helping people who were out of options.

He’d spent a lot of time in the past couple of weeks talking to his brothers. Talking about serious matters—their childhood, their relationships with their father, their mothers and each other. Tanner had been surprised to hear Holt and Max freely admit the issues they’d struggled with because of the past. All this time, he’d thought he was the only one who’d felt damaged, but now he knew his brothers understood his struggles and were happy to talk any time he needed to.

Josie had been a whirlwind at the house, running from room to room and issuing orders for him to move, carry and place. He knew all the effort wasn’t necessary, but he had to admit that Josie had her mother’s touch. The house had been transformed into a winter wonderland, with garland wrapped around the spindles of the stairwell complete with giant bows spaced evenly upward and poinsettias sitting on each corner of the living room fireplace set off by a huge wreath hanging above the mantel. An enormous Christmas tree, stuffed to the hilt with decorations, stood beside the fireplace, towering up to the second-floor landing.

It was beautiful, and classy, just like its owner, and Tanner felt like the luckiest man in the world.

Josie was carrying a tray of sugar cookies to the living room when the doorbell rang. Tanner could hear his family laughing and talking outside as he waited for Josie to hurry up beside him before he opened the door.

They rushed inside, all shouting Christmas greetings, their arms full of packages. Tanner and Josie helped them unload the packages around the tree. Then everyone exchanged hugs and kisses. Tanner looked over at Josie, who’d wanted this holiday to be perfect, and was happy to finally see her relax as Alex and Colette exclaimed over the house and the beautiful decorations.

Tanner smiled as Josie took them upstairs for a tour of the rooms. His brothers and their wives were warm, wonderful people. He’d never doubted for a second that they’d take to Josie right away. She fit with them, as if she’d been perfectly made for the slot.

And maybe it was that simple. She was perfectly made for him.

Hours later, when they were stuffed with the wonderful dinner and entirely too many sweets, they moved back into the living room to open the gifts. Josie passed a tray of coffee around to everyone, and Tanner waited impatiently for her to set the tray down.

He cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention, and when all eyes were on him, he smiled at them. “I’d just like to say that I couldn’t be happier to be here with all of you. I spent so many years alone because that’s what I thought I wanted, but I was only hiding from my past. What I’ve come to realize is that I don’t have to do that anymore, and I want to thank each of you for the role you’ve played in making my life as good as it is today.”

“About time I get some credit!” Holt yelled, and raised his coffee mug.

Everyone laughed and Alex, Colette and Josie teared up a bit and sniffed.

“And if you’ll indulge me one more minute,” Tanner said, and reached inside his pocket for the ring he’d bought in New Orleans the week before.

“Josie,” he said, “I know it’s a lot to ask you to take on, but if you’re up for the job, I’ve got a great family with a hole in it. I don’t want anyone in that slot but you. Will you marry me?”