Mariah Stewart - Coming Home

“What if I tell them, and they still don’t like me?”

“Well, then, I suppose that’s a chance you have to take. The way it stands right now, they both have problems with you but they don’t understand why you acted the way you did. There is a chance that they could hear the truth and still have a problem with you. That’s the chance you take. But they’re your kids, and if you want them back in your life, you’re going to have to step up and talk to them, and tell them everything you’ve told me over the past twenty-four hours. Maybe they’ll understand and forgive, maybe they won’t. I’m seeing that as fifty-fifty. But if you don’t have those conversations with them, your chances of reconciling with your kids are zero.”

“What if they dislike me even more?”

“Like I said, that’s the chance you take.”

“Where should I start? What would you do, if you were me?” she asked.

“I guess I’d start by taking Ness out to dinner and just talking to her. Get to know her a little, find out what’s happened in her life since she’s come here.”

“Well, I know what’s happened in her life. I know that you took her under your wing and helped her to get her business started. I know that you financed that little house of hers. I know that she thinks of you as the father she didn’t have.”

Hal couldn’t tell if she sounded happy or annoyed.

“You know that much, seems to me that’s a starting point.”

He drove down Kelly’s Point and parked in the spot that was reserved for the chief of police. He never got tired of remembering that the chief was his son. He opened his car door and started to get out.

She reached for the door handle and asked, “Do you hate me, Hal?”

He shook his head. “No. I never hated you, Maggie.”

“Not even when you came back from Nam and found out I was married to someone else?”

“Maybe for a while, back then,” he admitted. “But I started thinking about how hard things must have been for you. Pregnant, not knowing if I’d come back alive, your parents pressuring you to marry this other man. After a time, I realized you did what you thought you had to do. I understood.”

He slammed his car door and walked around to the passenger side.

“The fact that I understood doesn’t mean that I liked it.” He fell in step with her and they walked down the road toward the Bay.

“I was scared.”

“Of course you were. Who wouldn’t have been?”

“My father kept telling me that the baby and I would end up like these homeless people we had in the town where we lived.” Her step slowed. “My parents owned a restaurant, and every night, there’d be people cleaning out the Dumpster out back. My parents would leave the leftovers in these Styrofoam containers and they’d leave plastic knives and forks out there so that people wouldn’t have to eat with their hands.” She shook her head. “It sounds so crazy now. But my father used to make me watch out the window when they came. ‘See that?’ He’d hold my face to the glass. ‘That’s going to be you if you don’t marry Vic.’”

She clasped her hands together in front of her as they walked, and Hal suspected that the hands were probably as shaky as the voice.

“I don’t blame you, Maggie. We already talked about this,” Hal reminded her.

He’d heard it the night before, and he didn’t want to hear it all again. He understood how one thing had led to another in the past, how everything had gone downhill and why she felt powerless to stop it. He just didn’t want to hear it again now. He wanted to put it all behind him. He wasn’t sure where that would take them, but one thing he knew for certain: looking back was no way to move forward.

Which was all well and good as far as he was concerned, he supposed, but apparently she hadn’t gotten it all out of her system yet, in which case he’d be hearing about it again and again. But if that was what Maggie needed to work it all out, that was the way it was going to have to be. The thing was, he wasn’t sure that even Maggie fully understood the choices she’d made over the years. Maybe she’d have to talk it through a little more before she did. And that was okay, because the longer she talked, the more time he’d have to look at her. It was a pleasure he thought he’d never experience again, and he wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity.

He took her by the arm and led her down the path to One Scoop or Two.

“Oh,” she said, surprised. “Are you taking me for ice cream?”

“Yes, I am,” he replied. “And while we’re here, I’m going to have a little talk with Steffie about this Candice person who was in Ness’s shop the other day. She may have noticed something that Vanessa might have missed.”

“And after that, are you going to take me back to the Inn?”

“Nope. After that, I’m going to take you for a cruise around the Bay on the Shady Lady.”

“The Shady Lady?”

“My boat.” He opened Steffie’s screen door and waited for Maggie to catch up.

“Did you name your boat after me?”

Hal smiled, and stepped back to allow her to pass.

“You won’t believe who that was on the phone.” Vanessa came into the spare bedroom, where Grady was hanging his tux in the closet. He’d meant to give it to Andy to return when he took his own back, but he hadn’t been able to locate his brother before he left the Inn.

“Let me guess. It was Candice, apologizing for having trashed your store and wondering if you could get her another one of those dresses.” He looked over at the doorway, where she stood leaning against the jamb. “Maybe one that’s in one piece.”

“I wish. Maybe her number would show up on my caller ID so that we could track her down and sit her phony little ass in one of my brother’s cells.” She plopped down on the chair in the corner. “Maggie was on the phone. She’s with Hal, and they wanted to know if I wanted to meet them for dinner.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I told them I had plans.” She crossed her legs.

“Do you?”

“I do now.” She grinned. “Unless of course, you have plans with your family…”

“I don’t. I did try to catch up with Andy and Connor at the Inn, but they’re either playing tennis or sightseeing, and they weren’t in their rooms.”

He tossed his suitcase on the bed and opened it.

“Mind if I use one of those drawers?” he asked.

“Help yourself. They’re all empty.”

He wondered if it felt as odd to her to see him put his clothes in her dresser as it felt for him to be doing it. He could have kept his room at the Inn, but that would have defeated the purpose of him staying in St. Dennis. He hadn’t planned on hanging around, but he could not in good conscience leave her while he still suspected that someone meant her harm. There had been one or two times in his life as an agent when he’d felt, in hindsight, that some action on his part might have prevented something from happening to someone who’d ended up a victim. For the past several years, he’d had to live with wondering if he could have saved Melissa. If he’d been able to see Brendan for what he really was, would she still be alive?

No way was he going to leave St. Dennis with similar regrets. Uh-uh. If something happened to Vanessa, too, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.

He thought about the guided hike he had scheduled for the end of the coming week. Well, if other arrangements for her safety could not be made, he’d just have to take her with him back to Montana, maybe leave her at the lodge while he took out his tour. Right then, the only thing he knew for certain was that he wasn’t going to leave her alone and vulnerable in St. Dennis.