Tami Hoag - Dark Paradise

She had come for a break. To clear her mind. To get in touch with her soul. She intended to do just that. Permanently. There would be no going back to California. There would be no more living in limbo at the Moose. She felt as if the Marilee Jennings who had first piled her business suits in the back of her Honda and set out from Sacramento had ceased to exist. The false shell of that woman had been shed and the real Mary Lee was just beginning to emerge. What a wonderful feeling that was. A little frightening, a little painful, but so right.

Kevin kissed her cheek and gave her right hand a squeeze. “Promise me you’ll come to dinner Wednesday.”

“Scout’s honor.”

She climbed into the passenger seat in the front of the van and Spike promptly launched himself into her lap and propped his feet on the dashboard, ready for adventure.

“You’re certain you can manage-” Drew began as he buckled himself into the driver’s seat.

“Yes, Drew,” Mari said in a tone that was both patient and patronizing, as if she were answering a two-year-old. “I manage very well with one arm. Juggling is a trick, but the day-to-day stuff? No sweat.”

He frowned and made a humming noise, as if his brain were stuck in neutral.

They made their way through town at a leisurely pace. The usual wave of summer tourists had swelled with the ranks of the morbidly curious who had seen the town spotlighted on national network news. The sidewalks were busy. All parking spaces were full. The traffic on Main Street was enough to drive the locals to alternate routes. The ranch dogs stayed in the backs of their pickups, guarding their territory and leaving the sidewalks to the strangers.

The businesses were prospering. Still, Mari couldn’t help but wonder what J.D. would make of it. She could almost hear his growl of disdain as they passed the Feed and Read, where tourists were emerging licking stick candy and carrying an odd assortment of souvenirs-seed packets and bottles of horse liniment and stacks of western novels and cookbooks from the Lutheran church ladies’ auxiliary. Outsiders . Outsiders were becoming the life’s blood of his hometown, with or without the permission of J. D. Rafferty. The town would change or the town would die, and Rafferty would stay on his mountain until God or the bankers drove him down.

Stubborn. Unyielding. Uncompromising. Those weren’t supposed to be compliments, but she could imagine the hard gleam of pride in his granite-gray eyes when those words were applied to him.

In front of the courthouse Colleen Bentsen had herself an audience as she worked on her pile of twisted metal. M. E. Fralick was giving a one-woman performance of Evita under the shade of the bandshell. Her rendition of “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” carried across the park to clash with strains of Joe Diffie coming from a boom box.

They drove out the ridge road past the Paradise Motel in silence. Since the incident on the mountain, Drew had had little to say about the revelation of Bryce’s private game reserve. He had kept their conversations focused on Mari, fussing over her well-being and her state of mind. An obvious diversion, but she had allowed it, too tired and too fresh from the ordeal to want to talk about it any more than she had to. The questions came to mind now, but she didn’t ask them. She just sat there, scratching Spike’s ears.

Drew glanced at her sideways, trying twice to find the right words. Finally he just plunged in like a penitent in the confessional. “I knew about Bryce’s hunts. I pieced it all together from odd bits of conversation I picked up, rumors, that sort of thing. Hints Lucy dropped. She was a great one for leaving a trail of bread crumbs, then standing back to watch who followed it and what they did. I didn’t do a bloody thing,” he said, his voice sharp with self-loathing.

“Why?” Mari asked evenly.

“Fear, I’m ashamed to say. At first there was the fear of what Bryce might do to our business if we meddled in his. Then the fear that what happened to Lucy might happen to anyone.”

“That wasn’t an unreasonable fear,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as Drew. She was disappointed in him. She felt let down, betrayed.

“No, but somehow that doesn’t make me feel any more a hero,” he said. “Perhaps if I’d spoken up earlier, you and Samantha would have been spared your ordeal. Perhaps Lucy would still be alive.”

“Sharon killed Lucy out of jealousy. She was after Sam for the same reason. She didn’t want another woman getting close to Bryce.”

“Still, if Bryce’s activities had been revealed sooner, she might never have had the opportunity.”

“There’s no way of knowing that.”

“No, and that’s something that will haunt me the rest of my life.” He took his eyes off the road long enough to give her his most sincere look of apology. “I’m so sorry, luv.”

“This is what you and Kevin were fighting about, isn’t it?” Mari said.

He sighed as he let off the gas to negotiate a curve. “Yes. He wanted me to go to the sheriff. I refused. He accused me of condoning what Bryce was doing. In a way, I suppose I was. But I was also trying to keep my friends from getting hurt. Hear no evil, see no evil, and all that.”

“Will you work it out?”

“I don’t know,” he said softly, staring out at the road, then he shot another glance across the cab at her. “Will you and I?”

Mari said nothing for a moment, thinking about the value of friendship and forgiveness. She had nearly lost her life, but Drew’s intent had been to save her.

“Let’s not be sorry,” she said quietly as they started up the switchbacks. “Let’s just start over. That’s what I came here for.”

Drew carried her bags in for her, then headed back to town. Mari didn’t invite him to stay. After two weeks of media madness, she wanted some time alone. Time apart from Drew to let the raw feelings fade seemed a good idea as well. They could start over with their friendship in a few days, start fresh.

The house was exactly as she had left it-half restored, half disaster area. Mari walked through, making a mental list of the things she would do in the coming weeks, of the things she would change to make the house her own. Everything that had been Lucy’s would go. She couldn’t bear to look at a chair or a painting and wonder whose secrets had been used to buy it. She would scavenge through antique shops and flea markets for things of her own. The expensive artwork would go. She would replace it with local folk art. She had already made arrangements for a plumber and a carpenter to come out and repair the damages made by Bryce’s people during the search that had passed for vandalism. The cars would be sold and the proceeds, along with the cash Lucy had left behind, would go to pay the inheritance taxes.

When all was said and done, she would have an empty house and an empty bank account, but her new life would not be tainted by the old.

In the great room her eyes landed on the Mr. Peanut tin on the mantel above the fireplace. The peanut regarded her with a cynical, knowing look, as if it had foreseen everything that had happened and was amused with her response to the challenges. With a heavy heart she took it down and packed it in a box.

“You’re outta here, Luce,” she whispered, blinking back tears.

With Spike scouting the way ahead of her, she walked out to the barn with the box tucked under her bad arm and checked on Clyde. The mule was unimpressed by her return and went on eating grass. The gash in his side was healing nicely. The vet had told her he would be ready to ride before she would be ready to ride him.

Spade in hand, she wandered out into the llama pasture. The llamas had all gone down to the other side of the creek to graze and to lie in the shade of the cotton-wood trees. Spike caught sight of them and sent up an alarm that caused the whole herd to raise their heads. He charged toward them, ready to do battle. Mari called him back and explained to him that the llamas were cool and he didn’t need to worry about them. The little dog cocked his head and listened to her with perked ears. When the lecture was over, he picked a shady spot and curled up to watch her dig a grave for Mr. Peanut.