Whispers at Willow Lake (2 page)

“Well,
Mama
Stallings is going to have to wait.” Larder scooted to the side, but not before Ryder glimpsed a flash of fear in his eyes. “Because this is hardly nonsense.” He tapped his badge with an index finger before he reached for the pair of cuffs hanging from his utility belt. “You’re dealing with the law now, Hawkins.”

“Then, the law better get out of my way.” Ryder’s gaze narrowed as his voice lowered to a growl. “There’s no reason to cuff me, you idiot.”

“Are you resisting arrest?” Larder’s hand slipped back to the holster. “Because it would give me a tidy reason to shoot you.”

“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” Ryder weighed his options as lightning ripped the sky. Rain pelted in fat, sloppy plops, slipping beneath the collar of Ryder’s jacket in an icy drizzle. “I’m just trying to get to town.”

“Oh, you’ll get there all right.” Larder’s eyes glittered and his lips stretched into a thin, white line. “But, when you do, I have a holding cell with your name on it until we get this little mess straightened out.”

****

“Well, this certainly isn’t the reunion with you that I envisioned.” Alison MacLaren made her way through the police station with Ryder at her side. His phone call had dragged her from her bed way before dawn, and that fact did little to boost her mood. “I see little has changed at all over the past eight years. Getting arrested when you’ve barely passed the town limits,” she said as the heels of her navy pumps clacked along the polished tile. “It’s…embarrassing and so very predictable.”

“Wow, aren’t you making assumptions.” Ryder’s shoulder brushed hers as they rounded a corner. He carried a small duffel bag in one hand. “And it’s been seven years.”

“Close enough to eight.” She trained her gaze straight ahead, trying to avoid looking at him. Even the flannel he wore couldn’t hide a terrain of muscles that strained against his navy T-shirt. “Besides, Ryder, I was up most of the night. I’m tired.”

“You don’t look it. You look…” His gaze skimmed her. “Good.” He nodded. “Yep, better than good.”

“You can’t sweet talk your way out of this.” Yet, the words did battle with her pulse, which stuttered as her cheeks heated. “Because, in my experience, no good ever comes of an unexpected five AM wakeup call. John doesn’t make arrests without just cause.”

“John?” Ryder’s eyes narrowed. “You and Larder are on a first-name basis now?”

“Of course. We’ve known each other for years. We went to school together, or have you forgotten?”

“How could I?” Ryder’s voice lowered as they passed the front desk. He glanced over, and Ali guessed he was checking to see if John was there. He wasn’t, thank goodness. That’s all she needed was to referee a fight in the lobby. The two had never seen eye to eye—at least not since a playground brawl on the first day of kindergarten. Crazy, she admitted, but true. “And, that said, you should know he’s no saint.”

“Neither are you, Ryder.”

“I’m not the man I used to be, Ali.”

“Is that so?” She tugged the sash of her rain jacket tight. “Why did you call me, Ryder?”

“The explanation is long. How much time to you have?”

“I have to get back to the inn.” She glanced through the glass entrance doors, smudged with fingerprints, and then at her watch. “Breakfast is due to be served in an hour. I have guests waiting.”

“But, I thought your parents ran the inn. I thought—”

“My explanation is lengthy, as well, and the lobby of the police station isn’t the time or place to hash things out.” She inhaled the scent of his pine soap, still strong even after a night in the holding cell. The smell of him—pure male—sent her pulse leaping. The very fact that he still had any effect on her whatsoever annoyed her to no end. She adjusted her purse strap over her shoulder and redirected her attention. “Ryder, what kind of trouble have you managed to get yourself into now?”

“Ask the chief wannabe.” As he turned to study her with eyes the color of a stormy summer sky, her heart skittered. Black hair curled over the collar of his navy T-shirt and a smatter of stubble shadowed his jaw. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in a week, and she fought the urge to smooth a hand over his brow. “Talk about not changing at all, or gaining even one iota of maturity. He’s taken a tumble into a crevasse.”

“John’s very reasonable, if given a chance.” Ali glanced at his duffel bag. “Is all of your stuff in there?”

“Everything’s here. I just need my wallet.” He paused at the counter and motioned to the clerk to hand him a manila envelope stashed behind the deputy’s desk. “And my bike’s been impounded.”

“For how long?”

“That’s up to the honorable chief wannabe, too.”

“Shouldn’t you be past that silly high school rivalry by now, Ryder?”

“I’m way past it, so don’t defend him, Ali. The guy’s still a jerk.” Ryder took a pack of gum from his pocket, offered Alison a stick of spearmint before shoving one into his own mouth. “Can we just get out of here?”

“That’s the plan, isn’t it? And where, exactly, would you like to go?”

“I’ll start at the retirement village. I need to see Mama Stallings.”

“Oh, dear. Ryder, I…” Alison’s voice faltered. Her belly tumbled. She wrapped her arms across her waist as a wave of nausea threatened. “Oh, my.”

“What is it?”

“I can’t…oh...” Despite her frustration and the sheer shock of seeing Ryder once again, her heart broke for him…just a little. “No one’s told you?”

“Told me what?”

“Oh, this is just awful.” Alison poked a finger into her mouth and gnawed the nail. “I don’t want to…I shouldn’t—not like this. It just isn’t right.”

“Please, just spit it out.”

She drew a breath, her gaze locking on Ryder’s. “Mama Stallings—well, she passed away last night.”

Ryder’s eyes flashed and his jaw clenched into a firm, hard line. His shoulders tensed into a band of muscle that rippled through his shirt like a wave. “That’s impossible. It can’t be.”

“It’s true. I was there.”

“You were?” His gaze softened slightly. “What time?”

“Just after ten.”

“I should have been there, too.” His voice was pure grief.

She’d heard that despondent tone from him once before, and the realization sent a shock along the length of her spine, warming the nape of her neck, her cheeks. She was sure they flushed crimson.

“I just heard from her the day before yesterday. She left a message on my cell. She sounded a little tired, maybe a bit run down, but nothing more, Ali.”

“She was nearly ninety.”

“I know that. But I just never thought of her that way—old.” His fist clenched, and he turned to give the wall a trio stiff thumps. “It seemed as if she’d live forever.”

“I know. I was going to call you, Ryder, to let you know. But then you called
me
.” Alison saw the tears that dampened his eyes. She turned away, paced the width of the hall, fighting back a lump in her throat. “I knew Mama was wearing thin, and for the past several months I’ve tried to contact you, Ryder, but it was like you fell off the face of the earth. I’ve left you messages. Why haven’t you returned them? I wanted—”

“Give me a minute.” Ryder shoved through the revolving door at the station’s entrance and into maroon fingers of light that spread over the rain-splattered parking lot. Keeping her distance, Alison followed. The storm had moved off, leaving a wave of humidity behind. Ali leaned against the brick, crossing her arms, and waited while Ryder doubled over, his head dipped low. He sucked a few rattled gulps of air, groaning. When he turned back to her, his eyes were huge and wild. “You’re sure…she’s gone, for real?”

“Of course.” Alison fought the urge to soothe him. What good would that do either one of them? She waited a minute, two, before unfolding her arms and easing closer. “I’m sorry, Ryder. I never imagined…”

“I tried to get to her. I
needed
to get to her.” He shook his head and Ali saw tears shimmering in gray eyes that once heated enough to make her melt. She felt his pain, and tears sprang to her eyes, as well. “I told Larder I needed to get to town, but he had to create a public threat out of a speeding ticket just to flex his muscles.”

“I don’t understand.” Alison lifted a hand to Ryder’s shoulder. “Please, talk to me.”

“Don’t touch me, Ali.” He shrugged sharply and her hand slipped away. “Not now…not like this.”

“But a speeding ticket? It had to be more than that.” Alison shielded her eyes as the sun peeked over the horizon. “Come on, Ryder.”

“My tags were expired, too.” He pressed a palm to his face and Alison heard the scruff of stubble as his fingers ran the length of his jaw. “I’ve been deployed, and I just got back to the states.”

“So, that explains…” She shrugged from her rain jacket as heat steamed up from the blacktopped pavement. “Did you tell John? He’d never make a scene out of something so trivial, knowing the full details.”

“He would, and he did.” Ryder closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Mama Stallings was always there for me, Ali—
always
. And when she needed me, I blew it.”

“You did the best you could, Ryder.”

“But it wasn’t good enough.” He shook his head. “Nothing I do in Willow Lake has ever been good enough.”

2

“Why do you keep defending him?” Ryder asked when they’d settled into Ali’s car. Resentment ripped him to shreds and he struggled to remember the Bible verse, Ecclesiastes 7:8, Mama Stallings had shared with him so long ago.

“Patience is better than pride.”

But, Mama Stallings was gone, forever. The loss left a cold, dark cavern in his gut. His mind reeled, but none of the thoughts merged to become anything coherent.

Mama Stallings is gone…

“Defending who?” Ali’s voice broke into his thoughts.

“Larder.”

“John?”

“Am I speaking a foreign language?” Ryder gazed out the window. The foothills of the Smokies, draped in a blanket of kudzu that seemed to devour the lush landscape like an invincible green monster, soared against a sky that was just becoming alive with hints of a magenta-orange swirl. He drank in the vivid colors, awed after so many months spent in a desert-brown landscape. At his military post, the only green for miles was growing on food left out in the heat for too long. “I asked, in English, why do you keep defending him?”

Ali tugged a pair of sunglasses from a holder on the visor and propped them over the bridge of her nose. A hand smoothed her blonde hair before tucking a strand behind one ear as she merged onto the highway. Traffic was light as it was barely six o’clock. But even at this early hour, after a night spent tending to Mama Stallings and the grief that accompanied her loss, Ali’s beauty shined. “John asked me to marry him.”

Ryder choked on his gum. For a moment, all he could do was cough, his eyes tearing as sunlight burned over the horizon. Finally, painfully, the words came. He worked to hold his voice light and steady. “And you said no, right?”

“Why do you care what I said?” Ali’s glossed lips pursed as she switched on the radio. Classical music drifted through the cab. “Our ship sailed a long time ago, Ryder, and you never even left the dock.”

“But, I wanted to.” How could he explain that he’d left to protect her…from him, from what he’d become?

“Wanting something and taking action are oceans apart.”

“So, you’d just settle for a loser like Larder?”

“A life with John would not be settling.” She lifted her chin, skimmed her hair back once again with fingers that were perfectly manicured. It was shorter now, and straight. She looked polished and efficient and had lost the carefree, sun-kissed look he remembered so fondly. Her eyes, once a shimmery, laughing green, were all business. “He’s going to be police chief.”

“So I heard.”

“He has goals…and ambitions.”

“So do I.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Besides, he’s an egocentric tyrant.”

“How would you know? You’ve been gone—”

“I know how long I’ve been gone. That’s beside the point.”

“You’re just jealous.”

“I’m…” What was he? Ryder clamped his mouth shut. Another of Mama Stallings’s favorites, James 1:19, came to mind.

“Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.”

Ryder drew a long, heated breath. He was certainly being tested now. A cursory glance at Ali’s hands on the steering wheel told him she wasn’t wearing a ring—at least not on
that
finger. He’d always loved her hands…the long delicate fingers that skimmed over piano keys with the ease of someone who enjoyed the gift of music.

And, he hadn’t been gone so long that he forgot her stubborn streak. A challenge—an argument—would only make her want whatever they were at odds about that much more. So, he changed the subject.

“You’re running Willow Inn now?”

“Yes. I bought it last year.”

“From your parents?”

“They were ready to sell, and I wanted it free and clear. They retired to Arizona. After what happened to Josh…well, they just couldn’t seem to find their rhythm again. So they decided to pull up stakes, move on.”

“Away from here? From you?”

“It only hurt for a little while. I’ve…adjusted.”

The pulse at her clenched jaw told him otherwise. She’d always been close to her parents, and knowing he was partly to blame for the rift stung. He reached for her hand, tucked it gently in his, and was pleasantly surprised when she didn’t resist. “I’m planning to stay for a while, Ali, so I’ll need a room at the inn if you have one available.”

She gulped hard, her gaze glued to the road. “You’re in luck. It’s slow this time of year, so I think I can manage.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth and tugged in a way he found familiar. “But, I thought you came to see Mama Stallings.” She suddenly looked like a deer caught in headlights as her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Ryder. I mean—”

“I came to see you, too, Ali.” He leaned across the seat and kissed her cheek gently, repeating Mama Stallings’s wise words. “It’s time.”

Ali gulped and brushed away a tear as it slipped down one cheek. “I know you loved her so.”