Thirty and a Half Excuses (13 page)

“Violet has always encouraged me to hide the visions. She’s spent most of her life protecting me. But Joe thinks I need to trust people more. He’ll be happy to know I told you.”

Mason snorted. “I highly doubt that.” He looked into my eyes. “But Joe’s right. Your visions are part of who you are and how God made you. Don’t hide that Rose. You need to find people you trust and tell them. You might be surprised to find they accept you, visions and all.”

“Thank you.”

He grinned, looking down at his sandwich. “I’m starving.”

The tension still hung over the table as we ate. Mason was still adjusting and Neely Kate was palpably nervous. Finally Mason shot me an exasperated look. “Will you go ahead and tell Neely Kate you forgive her for spilling your secret? Otherwise, I’m sure to get indigestion from all the nerves at this table.”

I laughed self-consciously. “Neely Kate, there’s nothing to forgive. You didn’t mean to let it slip, and I’m glad Mason knows. Really.”

She pulled me into a hug. “Thank you.”

I looked at the two people sitting at the table with me, wondering how I could have felt so lonely the night before. The good Lord was blessing me with more people in my life than I’d ever thought possible before Momma’s death. I needed to count my blessings.

Chapter Ten

Before Neely Kate went back to work, she told me in cryptic terms that she’d probably have the information I was waiting on later that afternoon. “I’ll call you. And don’t forget I’ll be working at the nursery with you tomorrow.”

Violet and I hoped the weekends would be busier, so we’d decided to hire some extra hands. Neely Kate had agreed to help out, taking plants for her new house as payment. “Oh, wait.” I called after her.

She stopped on the street corner, waiting to cross the street.

“I might not be at the shop tomorrow. I’ll probably be working at the church.”

“How’s that going?” she asked suspiciously.

I hesitated, unsure of what to say, especially with Mason standing next to me. “It’s going good.”

“What about the stoners?”

I cringed at her choice of words, but Mason was well aware that Bruce Wayne and David were inclined to smoke pot recreationally. “Bruce Wayne seems determined to pay me back. He’s makin’ sure they do a great job.”

“Well, there you go. You just never know a person, do you?” Waving, she crossed the street toward the courthouse.

“You hired Bruce Wayne Decker to work for you?” Mason asked.

I glanced up at him, surprised at the lack of recrimination in his voice. “You going to tell me you disapprove? Go ahead. Everyone else has.”

He shook his head. “No, I think it’s a great idea. I firmly believe everyone deserves a second chance, and I’m thankful for it…otherwise, I wouldn’t be standing here next to you.” He grinned. “Where’s your car?”

I pointed down the street, and we headed for it.

“Who’s been giving you a hard time?”

“Violet, Neely Kate.” I supposed that list wasn’t long enough to encompass
everyone
, but the reality was it included most of the people in my world.

“Not Joe?”

Pursing my lips, I shook my head. “No. I hired them after he left. He doesn’t know yet.” I suspected he wouldn’t approve either.

“What are their objections?”

“Neely Kate worried they wouldn’t get anything done. Violet said the same thing, and she also thinks they’ll steal the church blind.”

“Do
you
think they’ll steal?”

“No. Call me crazy, but I don’t. I trust Bruce Wayne to keep his word.” We reached my car, and I looked at him over the hood. “Do you think I’m foolish?”

“No, definitely not. I’ve recently learned to go with my instincts. If your instincts tell you to trust him, listen to them.”

“And did your instincts tell you Bruce Wayne was guilty? You were the one prosecuting him.”

His eyes clouded. “My instincts were clouded by extraneous circumstances.”

My eyebrows rose. “What does that mean?”

“It means I needed someone to remind me that everything isn’t always as it appears. I knew it, I just needed reminding.”

We got into the car, and I rolled down my window. The day was cooler and the air conditioner wasn’t working as well as it had in the beginning of the summer. I asked Mason if he thought it would hurt the trade-in value of my car.

He shook his head with a smirk. “No offense, Rose, but this car is so old, I bet we could take it in on cinder blocks and still get you the same deal.”

“Oh.” My heart fell a bit with that news. While I knew the car was old, it still had sentimental value.

He cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. “It’s probably a good thing I’m going with you to negotiate. I’m not sure you could get a good deal in town on your own.”

Indignation rose. “Why? Because I’m a girl?”

“No, because the town thinks you have money.”

I pulled to stop sign at the town square. “
What
?”

“Word got out that you put a lot of money down on the business.”

My breath came in short pants. “That’s personal information. How does anyone know?”

“It’s a small town, Rose. People talk.”

Didn’t
I
know that firsthand? My hands gripped the steering wheel. “What are they saying?” I shot him a glare. “And don’t sugar coat it.”

He paused. “They say your mother left you a bunch of money, and that you stole it from your sister. You’ve opened the nursery, but you’re forcing you sister to work there, taking advantage of her vulnerable state.”

I took in several deep breaths. This must be what Violet had alluded to the day before we opened the nursery. “Do you believe that?”

“Are you really going to insult me by asking that question?”

“Part of it’s true, but it’s not what they think. Momma left the house and everything else to Violet. But she left me the contents of a wood box.” I sighed. “The contents of that wood box got me into trouble with Daniel Crocker, and now it looks like it’s getting me into trouble again.”

“What was in the box?”

I looked at him. “The truth.”

He didn’t answer, waiting for me continue.

“My momma wasn’t my birth mother. I was adopted.”

“Oh.”

“But it’s more complicated than that. My father was my birth father, but he left my momma for someone else, Dora Middleton. She got pregnant with me, but she died in a mysterious accident when I was a baby, and my momma raised me. Everyone in town thinks I’m hers.”

“
Oh
.”

“I didn’t know until I opened the box. I was so hurt when I found out she left everything to Violet. Violet was always her favorite. Momma hated my visions. She was sure I was demon-possessed, but it turns out she hated me even before I started seeing things.”

“What was in the box besides the truth?”

I shot him a half-hearted grin. “You’re perceptive.”

He shrugged. “It’s my job.”

“My birth mother’s will was in the box. She left me her family farm and some oil stock. But my uncle had taken over the stocks and had made me over a million dollars by the time I found out. Turns out I had more money than Violet.”

“So you funded the nursery.”

I nodded. “But my uncle set my finances up so that I can only take out chunks at a time. After I buy this truck, I’ll have used up my allotment for the next several years.”

“How are you dealing with all of that information? Finding out your mother wasn’t your birth mother?”

“Honestly, I try not to think about it.”

“Rose.” Mason’s voice was low and serious. “You can’t push this out of your head. What you discovered was earth-shattering. Life-changing. You have to face that and deal with it before you can move on with your life.”

I gaped at him. He was the first person to ever suggest such a thing. Everyone else seemed okay with me sweeping it under the rug. And by everyone, I meant Violet and Joe. But when we found out, Violet had been terrified that I’d no longer think of myself as her sister, even though we’d been raised together and we shared a father. And Joe, maybe Joe never thought I needed to deal with it because he seemed to be running from his own past.

But the problem was that I could see the truth in Mason’s words. I knew I had to face the truth and wrestle with what it really meant. I just wasn’t ready to do it yet.

“I know,” I finally said. “I just don’t have the first clue how to go about it.”

“I can only share my own personal experience, but at first, I tried to pretend the bad thing in my life had never happened. Eventually I realized that I could ignore it all I wanted, but it didn’t make it any less true. All it did was leave a festering wound that would never heal. I started letting myself absorb it in bits and pieces. And after a while, once I got used to it, it was easier to deal with. I can never accept it, but I’m learning to live with it.”

I couldn’t believe he was sharing so much of himself with me. Sure, he still hadn’t told me what exactly had happened, but this was just as important. “Thank you.”

His eyes widened in surprise. “For what?”

“For sharing something so personal with me.”

He was silent for a moment, and then he offered me a soft smile. “I hadn’t intended to, but then you never intended to share something so personal with me either. It felt right.” He paused. “Would you ever have told me about your visions on your own?”

“Don’t take it personally, Mason. You have to understand that I’ve told very few people, and most people haven’t responded very well. I didn’t want to lose you as a friend.”

“Joe knows?”

“Of course. I told him during the whole Crocker mess. And Neely Kate guessed after I told her that her flower girl was gonna come down with chicken pox.”

“You’ve been friends with Neely Kate for years, and you just told her recently?”

“No. Neely Kate and I only met on the jury.”

“You two are so close… I just assumed you’d known each other forever.”

I shrugged. “I know, but sometimes you meet someone and you just know they’re perfect for you, you know?”

“Yeah, I do.” A wistful look crossed his face before he turned to look out the passenger window. He was silent for a moment. “So the visions really just come to you?”

I squirmed in my seat. “Yeah.”

Mason sat up straighter. “If you don’t want to talk about—”

I shook my head. “No, it’s fine. I’m just not
used
to talking about it.”

“How often do you get them?”

“Several times a day.”

“And you can’t control it?”

“I wish to God I could. Especially since I automatically blurt out what I’ve seen.”

“Do you ever try to have a vision?”

I resisted the urge to sigh. “I’ve only tried twice. The first time Joe asked me to, and I saw him dead. But that was good because I knew what to do to stop it from happening.”

“And the second?”

“Neely Kate’s wedding. It was a good vision. I don’t have many of those. But it was the best vision I ever had.”

“Why was it so special?”

“I don’t know.” I paused. “Maybe because I just let it happen without being anxious about it, so it was longer than usual. And it was filled with happiness. Neely Kate walked down the aisle, and she was bursting with joy.” I turned to him. “That was the first time I ever felt overwhelming emotion in a vision. I’m glad it was a good one.”

“Do you have bad ones very often?”

The worry in his voice caught me by surprise. “No, not really. When I was younger, I saw upsetting things, but nothing really bad, like someone cheating on his wife or my momma losing the blue ribbon at the county fair for her pie. The first time I ever saw something
really
bad was when Daniel Crocker came into the DMV last May. And that was the first time I saw a vision about myself. I was sitting on my momma’s sofa with my head bashed in and blood everywhere. When I saw it, I passed out at my desk from shock.”

“I can’t even imagine how frightening that must have been.”

My throat burned at the memory of that day, but I swallowed to clear it. “I didn’t know what to do or who to tell. I just waited for it to happen. And then it happened to Momma instead.”

“You just waited for Daniel Crocker to murder you? Why didn’t you tell the police?”

“What was I going to tell them? They would have never believed me.”

We were silent for several moments before Mason spoke. “Do you ever talk about what happened? With Joe or your sister?”

I tensed, feeling defensive. Violet didn’t want to hear it, and I didn’t want to worry Joe. “No.”

Mason sighed. “Rose, you can’t let these scary things happen to you without talking about it.”

“There’s no one to talk to about it, Mason. I’ll just upset or worry everyone, and a psychologist would think I was crazy.”

“You can tell
me
.”

I pinched my mouth, unsure of whether it was a good idea.

“Why don’t you tell Joe?”

I turned to him for a moment. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. It’s not that Joe doesn’t want to hear it.”

“But does he ever ask?”

I hesitated. “No.”

“I’m not judging him or you. That’s exactly how a lot of people handle traumatic situations, but we’re friends, and as your friend, I think you should talk about it. And I’m volunteering to listen whenever you’re ready.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Thank you.” His voice hardened. “But if you ever have a vision in which you see yourself physically harmed, I want you to call me immediately.”

“Mason…”

“Rose, I’m the assistant DA. I have the power to protect you.”

“Not without proof.”

“Just promise you’ll tell me, and I’ll sort out the rest.”

“Okay.”

I pulled into David Moore’s uncle’s used car lot. There were a lot of clunkers and a few newer cars and trucks. A sign reading
Henryetta Moore for Less Used Car Lot
leaned to one side, threatening to topple over onto the road. Mason and I stayed in my car, staring out through the windshield.

“I should have asked you if you had any idea what kind of truck you want or how much you want to spend.”