Leaving Liberty (15 page)

           
She shot him a glare. “Funny.”

           
“I’m serious. You don’t jump in with an outfit like that. I’ll get an eyeful.”
His mouth twitched with laughter.

           
She let the comment slide and turned around, setting herself on the seat and
swinging her legs in after, knees together. It was almost graceful, elegant.
She allowed herself a small smile. “You should teach classes on this. Lots of
girls would pay for the inside information.”

           
He snorted. Shutting the door behind her, he crossed to the driver’s side and
angled in. “My last girlfriend hardly ever wore pants. I watched her pull that
move a hundred times. You can thank her.”

           
Daisy kept her smile in place but felt a strange contraction near her heart. So
she was sitting where the ex had sat a hundred times? Not a happy thought. And
then she gave herself a mental kick. It didn’t matter to her who had sat on
this seat. One ex or fifty, it didn’t make any difference. Pulling the seatbelt
tight, she focused on admiring the pristine interior. A lot of work had gone
into this truck. Classic. Small town men and their trucks had legendary
friendships.

           
“You two keep in touch?”

           
He glanced at her as he started down the driveway, adjusting his seatbelt.
“Sort of. Her parents live in Liberty so she comes back pretty often.”

           
“So, what happened?” Daisy watched his eyebrows shoot up. She had no idea why
she was picking at Lane’s past. Maybe she wanted to show she wasn’t afraid of
girlfriend talk. Maybe she hated small talk. Deep down, if she was honest, she
was mostly dead curious. What kind of woman would walk away from a man like
Lane?

           
“It’s complicated.”

           
Daisy waved a hand. “I hate that phrase. What does it even mean? Mostly it
means that the person doesn’t want to tell you.”

           
He looked at her, full on, blue eyes assessing. He seemed to be gauging her
seriousness. He checked both ways before pulling onto the main road through
Liberty. He was silent for a moment, as they passed neatly kept houses. A
dark-haired woman looked up from weeding her front walk and waved. A cat
stepped off the curb and watched them pass.

 “You’re right.”

           
Well, that was clear enough. At least he admitted he didn’t want to tell her.
Daisy looked out the window, watching her childhood neighborhood pass by. This
place was full of secrets, but it wouldn’t be full of lies if she could help
it.

           
“I don’t know if the story would be helpful to your stay here.”

           
Her gaze snapped back to his. “What does it have to do with me?”

           
The muscles in his jaw moved and his hands gripped the steering wheel. “Maybe
nothing. Maybe everything.”

           
“Very cryptic. Now you have to tell me. Did you two bury a body in the old
library?”

           
That startled a laugh out of him. The road leading out of Liberty widened to a
four lane rural highway. Half an hour and they’d be entering the Mile High
City. He’d have plenty of time to tell her the whole story.

           
“I don’t know where to start.”

           
“At the exciting part, obviously.” She crossed her legs and settled in. This
should be good.

           
He threw her one last look. “I got a call about a disorderly drunk on Poplar
Street.”

           
Daisy felt her smile freeze. Disorderly drunk. There was only one of those in
Liberty.

           
“I went down to Jack’s Brewery and got ready to take him down the station, like
I had at least twenty times before.”

           
She turned her head to the window, watching the pine trees fly past. She didn’t
care anymore what the ex-girlfriend had done or said. She didn’t want to hear
the story now.

           
“Maybe because I knew he was pretty harmless, or because I’d done it before, I
got lazy.”

           
Daisy closed her eyes, wanting to shut out the words. She could feel the hum of
the highway through the floorboards.

           
“A friend from high school was there in the parking lot and he called me over
to talk. I’d already sat Rocky on the back seat, but didn’t close the door. He
was calm by then, quiet.” Lane’s voice sounded tired, exhausted with telling
the story or remembering the details.

           
“I walked over for just a second. The keys were in the car. Next thing I knew,
he was driving by me, right out of the lot.”

           
Daisy kept silent, in agony, hoping the story ended well. Unable to ask if it
did. Wouldn’t she have heard the gossip if there had been a crash, or even
worse, a fatality? But she’d always been out of the loop. People whispered and
gossiped behind her back, never to her face.
Please, Lord, don’t let this
end with someone hurt.

           
“Once we got him stopped, a lot of people thought it was pretty funny.”

           
She felt bile rising in her throat. A drunk driving any vehicle was the very
opposite of funny.

           
“The department didn’t think so. I was officially reprimanded and lost a
promotion.” She could see the shame heating his cheeks. Daisy knew that shame,
had felt it a thousand times in her childhood. All because of that same drunk.
Her stomach twisted.

           
“How can you be friends with him?”

           
He glanced at her, surprised. Whatever he thought she was going to say, it
wasn’t that. He hit the turn signal and switched lanes before he replied. “It
was a changing point. He started going to AA, made a commitment to get sober.”

           
“Glad to hear it made an impression.” She didn’t bother to sound sincere.

           
“I’m not saying I understand why it made a difference to him, or excusing the
years he wasted, but that’s what happened.”

           
“And the girlfriend?”

           
“Was counting on the promotion more than I was, I guess.” His face was tight,
gaze locked on the road. “So she said.”

           
“You don’t believe her.” She didn’t, either. How much more money was in a
simple promotion for a small-town officer? She’d have to be pretty mercenary to
be counting on his salary before they were even engaged.

           
“I think it was the fact I was suddenly Liberty’s funniest cop, the butt of
every joke, the story everyone embellished over dinner.”

           
“Oh.” Now
that
she could understand. Her entire life in Liberty had been
one long gossip fest for the locals. She would never forget the whispers, the
sly looks, the giggles. The ex-girlfriend seemed a lot more reasonable now. She
watched the trees pass for a while, the summer sky bright with sunshine.

           
“So, how did you and Rocky become friends? You must have been pretty angry with
him.”

           
A smile played over his lips. “Not really. I was mad at myself for being
stupid. When he reached the AA step about making amends, I accepted his
apology.”

           
Daisy felt the sentence hang in the air, humming with unspoken words. She
hadn’t accepted Rocky’s apology. She sent all his letters back unopened.
Lately, avoiding him and every chance of seeing him, had been her second part
time job.

           
Lane continued, speaking softly. “As a Christian it was the right thing to do.
As a man who carried some fault in the whole disaster, it was the just thing to
apologize in return.”

           
She felt the conviction heavy against her heart. Of course God would always
forgive her, that was His promise. And she was refusing to give that gift to
someone else. Forcing away the familiar guilt at the situation, Daisy tried to
get the conversation back on track.

           
“Do you think Tara will ever change her mind?” A few moments after speaking,
she felt her face go hot. He hadn’t said what his ex’s name was.

           
He shrugged, not seeming to notice the slip. “Maybe. I don’t think I’d be open
to another round. She was a nice girl, great family, sweet personality.”

           
She flinched inwardly. Lane’s list of perfect attributes for a woman and two
out of three weren’t anything she could claim. Nice girl, sure. But sweet
wasn’t her strong point and her family was a joke.

           
“But not everything that is broken can be mended.” He looked over at her, gaze
serious. “Marie told me that once.”

           
“True.” Daisy looked up at the sky, thoughts far away. “Trust is one.”

           
“Right, faith in someone isn’t a thing that can be patched together.”

           
“Or broken hearts.” She wasn’t sure what had made her say it, not having had
her heart broken before.

           
He frowned out at the highway. “I felt pretty broken-hearted when I got dumped.
Not sure if all heartbreak is the same, but mine is healed.” He paused.
“Mostly.”

           
She felt her stomach drop a little. The handsome, faithful man beside her just
admitted her was still in love with his ex. It shouldn’t matter at all, but it
did and she hated herself for it.

           
Shaking his head, he let out a low chuckle. “That sounds like a plea for
sympathy. What I meant is that I’m over it, but I’m not the same person I was.”
He glanced over. “If that makes sense.”

           
She nodded, feeling the ache in her chest ease. “It does, actually. It’s mended
but scarred.”

           
“Hm. Sounds dramatic.” One side of his mouth quirked up. “How about patched?”

           
“Like a pair of pants?” The conversation was getting weirder by the moment but
Daisy didn’t want to let go.

           
He snorted. “My heart is a pair of old pants? That’s a visual for you.” His
tone turned thoughtful. “How about like a quilt. Marie had to cut all sorts of
scraps to make her masterpiece. God is making his own work of art, here. Patch
by patch.” He tapped his chest.

“Nice.” It was all she could say past
the lump in her throat. His analogy would have been over-the-top corny if not
for the grin he wore. He meant what he said, but the fact they were discussing
the state of his heart wasn’t lost on him. It was silly and awkward and touched
Daisy in a way she hadn’t felt in a very long time. He spoke of forgiveness and
grace like a man who refused to let someone else’s actions determine his life
course.

“Marie had a lot to say about the whole
situation. It kept me from wallowing in my sorrow.” That same self-deprecating
smile punctuated his words.

“She never gave me much love life
advice.” Now that she thought about it, that was one thing Marie didn’t hold
forth on in their long conversations.

“Maybe it was because her husband left
her. She knew what I was feeling.”

Daisy felt the air shift around her, as
if the universe had tilted. She stared at Lane, looking for some sign he was
joking. “She wasn’t married.”

He nodded. “She was, once. They were
both really young. It sounded like it was arranged by their families and after
a year, he decided he didn’t want to be married anymore. Divorce was a huge
scandal back then. Maybe she moved west to get away from the talk.”

Blinking back her confusion, Daisy took
a deep breath. “Are you sure? She told you this?”

“Right after Tara left.”

The mountains out the window seemed to
blur. It was too much to take in. Marie had been married and never mentioned
it? Her throat tightened with every breath. The one person in Liberty she’d
thought had been honest, had been holding on to a secret.

“Why wouldn’t she have told me?” Daisy
tried to make the words off-hand but her voice wavered on the last word.
Me.
Of all people, why tell Lane?

He focused on the road, glancing in the
rear view mirror, choosing his words carefully. “Maybe she didn’t want people
to see her as a victim. She wouldn’t have denied it had happened, but it didn’t
rule the rest of her life.”

Picking at the ruffled hem of her dress,
Daisy let the words swirl around and around in her head. Just like Lane, Marie
had refused to let someone else brand her as a victim. She’d been wronged,
cast-off, and humiliated. She didn’t wear it for everyone to see, but certainly
didn’t harbor a secret bitterness. “Marie had made peace with it.”

He nodded. “Seems so.” The clouds in the
distance reflected bright sun and he reached for his sunglasses on the dash.

Daisy watched the skyline of Denver come
into view. Downtown sky scrapers were startling against the sky. When she was
younger, all she’d wanted was to leave Liberty. In Fresno, she made no secret
of how miserable her childhood had been. Ana had been positively shocked to
hear she was staying the summer.

She swallowed. Was she playing the victim?
Did she wear her bitterness like an old smelly coat? Rocky had wronged her, no
doubt. She’d been neglected and abused. It was no secret. But what was the
difference between owning your past hurts and letting them rule your every
decision?