Here in My Heart: A Novella (Echoes of the Heart) (18 page)

“Really?” Lisa had been remembering it over and over, how Sally had stood up for her with Simon. It had been great.

“Really.”

“But the Dream Whip opens in like an hour.”

“I’ll be back. I’ll tell Dru I left something at home. She and Officer Douglas are in the kitchen, acting like everything’s normal, when everyone in town knows they’re missing Mrs. Douglas since she died yesterday.”

All morning, a part of Lisa had wanted to tell Dru about Matthew, too, and to ask if she’d come to meet him. But Sally was right. Dru was too messed up herself to help Lisa.

Dru had come to work, same as always, even though cranky old Mrs. Douglas was gone and Dru had really liked her. But Dru’s smile had been all wrong again, and she’d looked mad at Officer Douglas again. Lisa could tell, even though Lisa and Sally had only glanced into the kitchen for a second, before they’d decided to do stuff in the dining room and leave the adults alone. No way was Lisa going to try and talk to Dru this morning.

But she really didn’t want to go meet Matthew alone, no matter what she’d promised him. She was sweating, like after she ran laps in PE. And Sally wasn’t trying to talk her out of going anymore. She wasn’t acting spoiled at all. She just wanted to be a friend.

“Okay, you can come,” Lisa said, heading outside as fast as she could because she didn’t want to give Sally a chance to change her mind.

“Wait for me out back,” Sally called after her. “I’ll be right there. Let me tell Dru I’m leaving. It’ll only take a minute.”

“You told Horace to sign the Whip over to me once the will’s probated?” Dru sliced another tomato.

She’d been slicing them for half an hour, trying not to lop off a finger. Trying her best not to confront Brad, who’d been quietly working beside her the entire time. So far, neither of them needed stitches. But she couldn’t keep quiet another minute.

She hadn’t seen him since he’d left her yesterday morning at Harmony Grove. She’d spent the rest of the day and last night at the Dixons’, sorting out her feelings for Vivian, and for Brad. He hadn’t called. She hadn’t expected him to. He had to have been busy with plans for Vivian’s funeral. And he’d said all there was to say already—or so she’d thought.

She’d told herself he was giving her time.

But somewhere between sleeping with her Friday night, telling her yesterday that she was his home, and now—Brad had evidently decided her time was up.

She’d wondered if he’d show at the Whip that morning. She’d hoped he would. There was so much she’d realized she couldn’t see clearly on her own—so much of Brad was tied up in who she’d become and who she wanted to be. And at the hospice center, he’d said he wanted a future with her, without coming right out and saying he loved her. Then Horace phoned on Dru’s drive over this morning, filling her in on Brad’s decision to shed his last tie to Chandlerville.

Brad pushed aside the enormous metal bowl he was using. “I wish Horace hadn’t called you. I wanted to tell you myself.”

He’d already been hard at work when she’d arrived, chopping up the chicken the staff had grilled and refrigerated the night before, dicing celery and boiled eggs and adding the mixture of seasonings that made the Dream Whip’s chicken salad impossible to replicate, though many had tried.

He hadn’t pushed her to talk when she’d walked straight to the rack of aprons, pulled one on, and gotten to work on the tomatoes. He’d let her go and gotten back to his own prep, hardly looking up until she’d broken the silence between them.

He laid his knife down now, placing his hands on the counter on either side of his cutting board.

“Let me explain,” he said. “I can see how you’d think—”

“That you’d already had a change of heart—since yesterday—once you’d rethought your options?” She sighed and put her knife down, too.

She sounded like a bitch. Another battle between them was the last thing she wanted. It might be the final time they really talked, and it was breaking her heart. But they weren’t teenagers anymore. They shouldn’t be saying things this time that they’d look back on later and regret.

“I don’t want to do this,” she said. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. We were both upset yesterday. Vivian had just died. We’d spent the night together. Emotions were running high. I’m not going to hold you to what you said . . . what you
almost
said, actually. I meant it the other night. No strings attached. Don’t worry about it.”

As a silly girl, she’d dreamed of their life together. When that hadn’t worked out, she’d thought she’d moved on. That she was still trying to make herself do just that was her problem, not Brad’s.

She’d carelessly spun new fantasies on top of a friendship she’d renewed with a good man who’d done whatever he had to, to please his grandmother. Dru had let herself want Brad again, even the parts of him that still infuriated her. She’d let him challenge her to take a chance on the future they could still have—kids and a family and a long life she could proudly record in a memory book, for someone to skim through one day and smile at. It was time to let all of it go, for good—the way he was.

But when he was gone this time, she
was
going to find someone she could make a real home with, work problems out with, and take every chance with, no matter how big or small. With Brad finally out of her life, she would find a love that would be hers forever, one she didn’t need to protect herself from—the way Marsha had found Joe, and Vivian had found Butler and then Horace at the end.

Brad reached for her and pulled her close until their bodies pressed together, making her ache from wanting him to want her just as much. He tipped up her chin and waited for her to look at him.

“You
don’t
understand,” he said.

She needed his kiss, even now. She needed him to let her go. “Please don’t do this. I—”

Sally rushed in from the dining room.

“Quick,” she said, running toward the back door without waiting to see their response. “I have to get outside. Lisa’s going to leave without me if I don’t. I told her I was just letting you know I had to go home and get something. But you have to follow us over to some bank. I don’t know what bank. But you have to come right now. Don’t let her see you, but you have to be there.” Sally headed out the door to the parking lot, sunlight casting an aura around her. She looked positively terrified. “Lisa’s meeting some loser she found online, and I . . . You just
have
to come.”

Chapter Twelve

“Lisa’s going to be okay,” Brad said to himself as much as to Dru.

They were following the girls through the business end of Chandlerville, staying off the sidewalks as much as possible, keeping close to the buildings, hurrying but staying out of Sally and Lisa’s sight line.

“We should stop her,” Dru whispered back.

“Not until we’re sure there’s a problem. If we’re wrong, and you don’t handle this right, you’ll lose her trust.”

The way he’d lost Dru’s again, because he’d left her alone yesterday, last night, believing in the love growing between them.

If she couldn’t do the same—if she could jump so easily again to the wrong conclusion about his conversation with Horace—he had to accept that he might never get her back. She hadn’t wanted an explanation about the Dream Whip. Friday night when they’d made love, she hadn’t expected promises from him. She kept looking for reasons to write him off.

He wasn’t going to let Dru put herself in the same predicament with her little sister.

“Lisa’s making a mistake,” he said. “But she won’t believe you unless you let her make it. Then you’ll be there for her when she needs you. She has to know you’ll always be there, Dru. You can’t push her into doing something she doesn’t want to, and you can’t hold her back. You just have to care about her, even when things are completely messed up.”

Dru stopped running, bringing him up short, too.

They were breathing heavily, quietly, while she stared at him with those eyes that had always seen him, wanted things from him, like no one else could. They would be unstoppable together. He was certain of it. She had to let herself see that, too.

She headed after Sally and Lisa again, and he had her back. He always would, while she tried her damnedest to let him go.

“You’re right,” she whispered. “We have to know who Lisa’s meeting. We have to be sure she needs our help, or she’ll never let us help her again.”

“Or Sally.”

Brad took Dru’s arm and slowed, stopping her at the north corner of the Chandlerville Federal Bank parking lot. They were hidden from sight behind a cluster of camellia bushes that were a foot taller than him and bursting with a riot of blooms even though it was nearly Christmas.

“If Lisa finds out Sally ratted on her,” he said, “she’s just lost what I’m guessing is her only friend in town. If this goes down wrong, she’ll feel betrayed by all of us.”

“We’ll explain. She’ll understand.”

“Will she? Can you really get over a person you love letting you down like that?”

Dru stared at him again, seeming to understand the double meaning of his words. She placed a hand over his heart and stretched up on her toes, kissing his cheek.

“You’re a good man, Bradley Douglas,” she whispered. “You always have been. You never meant to let me down or hurt Oliver. You wouldn’t have slept with Selena that night if you hadn’t been drunk. I should have known that. I shouldn’t have waited this long, made you prove so much, to get over what happened. I’m sorry for making it impossible for you to come back for good. Call Horace and tell him you’ve changed your mind about the Whip. Don’t give up the restaurant because of me. Hold on to your ties to this town, the way Vivian wanted you to. I understand you changing your mind about us. I’ll keep my distance from now on, except for work if you still want me there. Just know that I don’t blame you for anything that’s happened.”

He shook his head, needing to tell her again that she didn’t understand anything. Movement near the bank stopped him. Dru grabbed his arm, holding him in place when instinct told him to race toward the girls and the disaster that was clearly about to happen.

“Wait,” she said urgently. They watched a full-grown man approach the girls. “Maybe it’s not what we think.”

“Like hell.” Brad was going to kill the bastard. “And that guy could grab Lisa or Sally before we got to them.”

They quietly moved together, watching Sally’s and Lisa’s eyes grow wider, fear blooming on their faces. The man stepped closer, talking to them in a deep voice. Brad couldn’t make out the words.

The girls’ bodies grew rigid with caution, both of them assuming the balanced radKIDS stance of one foot in front, one slightly behind, ready to strike or run, hit or kick or battle, or whatever else they’d need to do to escape danger. With Sally’s hand on her shoulder in warning, it was Lisa who reacted first.

“No!” Lisa yelled, the way Dru had taught her, the way Brad had helped her practice, punching up with the heel of her hand, jamming it into the man’s nose.

He howled and grabbed her with meaty fists, cursing and calling her a bitch.

She screamed “No!” again and stomped down on his instep.