When We Let Go, Delancey Stewart [early reader books .txt] 📗
- Author: Delancey Stewart
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“Maddie, please don’t be dramatic. I hoped this wouldn’t turn ugly.”
“It started out ugly, I just didn’t see it!” I hung up, swallowing my instinct to cry. Instead, I’d put on my hideous polo shirt and arrived to work early, and now everyone in the diner was pretending not to listen as two officers interviewed Miranda.
They were talking in low voices, but I could hear some of what they were saying as they quizzed her about Connor Charles and Amanda Terry. The two detectives peppered Miranda with questions about the times Connor and the girl had evidently come into the diner. From what she said, he did nothing wrong—they arrived separately, left separately, and never touched while they were together.
“If you think of anything else, let us know?” One of the detectives said to Miranda as they turned to go.
I turned to Miranda. “So I guess Amanda is pressing charges?”
“I guess so,” she said.
I thought about the way Connor kept appearing around me in the last few days. Could I buy the stalking accusation? Maybe it wasn’t that far fetched. I let the idea churn in my mind, but I was having a hard time making the man who smelled like Cinnabon into a bad guy.
Miranda lowered her voice and breathed into my ear. “Did you know Connor isn’t even his real name? That’s creepy enough right there.”
“Creepy enough for what, Miranda? He’s a writer. It’s probably a pen name.”
She shrugged and bounced over to make coffee.
I followed her.
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice light. Her hands stopped moving and she turned quickly to face me. “Oh my gosh, I forgot to tell you! He came in here this morning and bought two coffees and two muffins. I swear he’s keeping that woman prisoner up at his house.”
“It’s kind of him to run out to get her breakfast then, I guess.”
“Who else would he be buying coffee for, though? I’ve never seen him with anyone.”
I wasn’t volunteering anything. “Maybe it’s not our business,” I pointed out.
“Maybe not,” she conceded. “But the fact that he doesn’t come around makes him creepy. Everyone else who lives here comes in and says hello.”
“Maybe he’s shy.” I tried to fit that idea to the broad-shouldered man who’d stood on my property this morning, the sun glinting coppery in his hair. I doubted he was shy. He was camera-shy, that much was certain. “Maybe he’s just tired of the way everyone jumps to conclusions and spreads nasty rumors about him.”
“Well, he’s in trouble, that’s for sure.”
And so was I. The memory of my conversation with Jack was fresh, and I had no idea how I was going to handle payments on the Jag. If I lost the car, I’d be really and truly stranded. And I’d have to walk three miles to and from work each day. Fine in the summer, not as fine once it got cold. And the diner ran on reduced hours from November to March anyway, so my income was already going to take a hit. I had no idea what to do, but I’d have to figure it out fast.
I could do as Jack suggested. I could sell a photo of Connor. I actually already had one, the one I’d taken without his permission. Guilt flooded me as I considered it. I doubted that I’d be able to stomach saving myself by doing something that might further damage Connor’s reputation, even if it was an obscene amount of money. I wondered how much money it really would be. What would be a worthy price for the last vestige of self-respect I possessed? I wished Jack had never planted the idea in my head.
I was surprised to see Maddie Turner standing in front of my house the next afternoon, staring up at it like she was studying the structure, admiring its lines. She looked beautiful, her little chin tipped up as her wide eyes took in the sweeping lines of my house. She wore jeans and a flowered blouse tied at her waist, and her shoes today were more mountain appropriate than any I’d seen her wear previously. For some crazy reason it made me want to go tell the guy in the post office that she did have sensible shoes. Maddie Turner brought some kind of protective instinct bubbling to the surface in me. I didn’t understand exactly why, but I was doing my best to ignore it.
Stepping out onto the front deck, I called down to her. “I could ask you to get off my property. You’re trespassing, you know. Maybe I should threaten to shoot you. Isn’t that what folks do up here?”
She nodded and a nervous laugh escaped her. I couldn’t help being charmed by it. “Sorry. Yeah.” She looked around, seeming confused. “Um, I hoped maybe you might give me a second to talk?”
After the conversations I’d had recently with the cops and my agent, I wasn’t sure I had any skill at talking at all. “We can try. I’m not very good at that. You’ve already figured that out, I guess. But there are plenty of folks tipsy around the meadow at this hour.” The locals tended to walk the meadow loop at cocktail hour, meeting and greeting one another, often with tumblers in hand, as they meandered around enjoying the cooling evening air. I’d gone down once with my sister, but I didn’t feel welcome now.
Maddie looked down, and I knew I was making her uncomfortable, probably confirming whatever suspicions the recent police activity might have given her that I was unbalanced and dangerous. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not used to having visitors. Sometimes I’m really terrible with people.” I turned and went inside, descending the front stairs and coming out to where Maddie stood.
“Ms. Turner.”
She jumped and spun around, and then paused, looking over my khaki Henley shirt and dark brown cargo pants. I’d forgotten to put on shoes in my haste to come meet her, and she was staring at my bare feet now, a strange look on her face.
“Hi.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and I had a sudden impulse to touch it, to feel its softness between my fingers. Her voice was quieter when she said, “Please call me Maddie.”
“Maddie. Would you like to come in?” I tried to push down the strange hope I felt that she’d say yes, the almost giddy feeling inside me as I thought about her sitting next to me, talking to me.
She looked unsure, and I wondered if my invitation had sounded less than genuine. I’d clearly been around fictional people too much and had forgotten how to talk to real ones. Especially pretty ones. “I’m sorry, Maddie. Let’s start again. Please come in.”
“Okay,” she laughed. “Yes, I’d like that.”
I led the way through the front door and up the stairs into the living room. “Holy,” Maddie said on a breath.
I couldn’t help grinning at her. Where I’d felt the house was some confirmation of my evil nature when the cops had been here, now I felt a tinge of pride. I could see that Maddie understood the idea I’d had in building around the rock, pulling some of the magic of Kings Grove inside. “Yeah.”
The bulk of the house was hidden from view when you first approached it. It engulfed the massive rock, climbing along its surface across the entire opposite side, and plate glass windows spanned several levels, overlooking a grassy meadow. The whole house looked out and over the wide green expanse, and as we looked, several deer lingered at the far edge of the meadow, almost as if they were a fixed part of the scenery.
Maddie was silent as she looked around at the glass, metal, and warm solid wood that was everywhere. Much of the furniture appeared to be actually built into the house, low benches and tables seemed to grow from the walls and floor. On the side that hugged the rock, an immense stone fireplace glowed.
“Is that …”
“It’s carved into the rock that the house sits on.”
“How is that even possible?”
“Don’t know really.” I shrugged, feeling pleased that she was impressed, and waved her toward a low couch near the fire. “Can I get you a drink? It is cocktail hour.”
“Uh, no, that’s okay,” she said. She looked around, and I became suddenly conscious of the other parts of my decor, the things she might not find as charming. Various skulls and gothic fixtures probably did little to put her at ease. There were framed posters from old horror films on one wall and a photograph of a dead tree filled with ravens on another. I cringed, but couldn’t do much about it now. These were the trappings of my career.
“Can I ask why you’re looking to buy another house up here when yours is clearly … sufficient?” she asked.
I grinned at her. “You came here to ask me that?”
“No, sorry. Just curious. I mean …” she trailed off and seemed to pull into herself, crossing her arms over her body and making herself a little bit smaller. She was nervous.
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