The Slow Burn of Silence (A Snowy Creek Novel) (21 page)

He snorted. “Quite the reception, huh.”

“That’s an understatement. Did it go okay with Cass?”

“I said what I wanted to. We’ll see how she handles it now.”

“She’s good,” Rachel said, casting him a quick glance. “She’ll go for the truth, Jeb.”

He nodded.

Silence. The weight, the repercussions of it all, vibrated darkly between them.

“It better be out there, Jeb Cullen,” she said. “The proof. Because now I goddamn
need
you to be innocent.”

“I don’t know how many ways to tell you this, but I did not hurt those young women. I went to the pit that night because I wanted to protect you.”

Rachel fisted the steering wheel, her jaw tight. They crossed through an intersection and headed north. But she swerved off the road suddenly, bumping her truck up onto a grass verge alongside a row of trees. She slammed on the brakes.

“What—”

She leaned over, put her hand around his neck, pulled him close, and pressed her mouth over his, kissing him hard, angry, her hand going down his stomach. She slid her hand between his legs and he was hard instantly. Poundingly, blindingly hard.

Jeb couldn’t breathe. It was as if she’d fired a twelve-gauge slug into his chest at short range.

Angling her head, she forced her tongue into his mouth, kissing him wide-mouthed, slick, aggressive, digging deep for something she seemed unable to find.

She pulled back suddenly, eyes dark, wild, like a hungry, enraged lioness. Her hair was a soft tangle, lids sultry and low. She was panting, breathless. He could read confusion in her face.

He couldn’t think straight, either.

“What was that?” he whispered, voice hoarse.

“That is what you do to me, you bastard. And you better be telling me the truth. Everything. Because you’re fucking up my life.”

She sat up straight, yanked her seat belt back over her chest, and put her truck in gear.

“I didn’t ask for my life to be fucked up, either, Rachel.”

She didn’t respond, just drove too fast. And Jeb knew there was no turning back now. They were on this road together, come hell or high water.

CHAPTER 16

“Slow down, Rach.”

With a start, I realize what speed we’re traveling.

“Don’t give them reason to pull us over. Don’t give them anything.”

I ease off the gas and it’s like grinding against the gears of my racing adrenaline. I
need
him to be innocent for so many reasons. My heart is cracking wide open, and I’m so afraid of letting go, falling into him again. I want to know who did this. I want to know where Merilee’s remains are, before I let go fully, yet I’m unable to stop myself.

“I don’t think you should see Quinn again,” I say suddenly, as we near the turnoff to my house. “Until this is sorted.”

He regards me in silence, tension coming from him in waves.

“I think that’s also my decision to make,” he says.

My gaze shoots to him in surprise. Something in him has shifted concerning Quinn. I wonder again how the legalities will play out down the road. Now that he’s been cleared of his conviction, will the reassertion of his paternal rights be automatic? Or will he have to retain a lawyer to redress that?

“You’re going to take her from me, aren’t you?” The words just come out.

“
Take
her from you?”

I turn onto the treed peninsula. He’s watching my profile. I wish I hadn’t raised this. Then, as I enter my driveway, I see Brandy’s dark-blue beater of a truck parked near the carport.

“Brandy’s already here with Quinn.” I drive right past the carport and take my truck down the rutted path and over the grass to the boathouse, parking where I did last night, behind a hedgerow, out of sight from the main house. I swallow.

“Right,” he says, opening the passenger door. “Maybe we can talk about this later, then.”

For a moment I can’t look at him. I hate this. Him having to hide in the boathouse. When his daughter is with me in the house. I hate the possessiveness I’m feeling over Quinn.

“I’ll bring supper later,” I say. “Once Quinn has settled.”

He startles me by leaning over and brushing his lips against my cheek at the corner of my mouth. My eyes flash to his. He holds my gaze a moment.

“Jeb—”

But he’s gone, out the truck, door slamming closed. I watch him stride over the lawn. Tall. Strong. Alone. His black hair gleams like a raven’s feathers in the evening light, and my heart hurts.

“You want to talk about yesterday, Quinnie?” I say as I set a bowl of pasta on the table. “About . . . being adopted?”

Quinn glances down. “No.”

“Sometimes it’s good, you know, just to keep talking.”

“Why can’t he come for dinner? Why is he in the boathouse while we’re in here, eating?”

It’s no use trying to hide it from her. She saw my truck down there, has seen the lights in the boathouse go on. I moisten my lips. I’m edgy as hell. The air outside has grown still and crackles with electricity and pressure. I want to put the radio on, listen to news of the wildfire, hear the weather report. I’m itching to see if there’s anything on television yet after our showdown at the Shady Lady Saloon this afternoon. But I’m trying to keep everything as routine as possible for Quinn, and I’d rather she not come across any news at all if I can help it.

I made sure she had a nice soak in bubbles in the tub, and I put a fresh Band-Aid on her knee. I asked her about her bike descent and we chatted about her crash and the fact Brandy said she was lucky her bike didn’t get all bent out of shape. I showed her my gold medal and told her about my own crash during the Olympics, and what fun she could have learning to ski this coming winter. I promised I would teach her if she liked, and it made me quietly yearn again for the feel of skis under my boots. I haven’t tackled the slopes since my crash, and I realize it’s left a deep hole in my soul somewhere. I realize that this child, and Jeb’s return, is slowly changing something fundamental in me.

But all Quinn is interested in is what’s going on down in the boathouse.

“He’s there because it’s a nice place to stay,” I say. “He’s a guest and he wants some privacy, too.”

“Is it because the police are looking for him? Is he hiding?”

I inhale deeply. “Please, eat something.”

“
You’re
not eating,” she accuses.

I curl spaghetti around my fork and deliver it halfheartedly to my mouth, chew. I’m not hungry, either. I feel vaguely nauseous. As though I’ve overdosed on caffeine. What I really want is a drink, to put the TV on.

Quinn suddenly pushes her chair back, grabs her bowl, and goes into the kitchen. She scrapes her food into Trixie’s bowl.

I stiffen but bite back a sharp retort.

“I’m tired,” Quinn says, dumping her plate in the sink. “Going to bed.”

I let her go and I clean up the dishes. There is no sound upstairs.

At eight p.m. I go up to her room. Quinn is pretending to be asleep. I click on the bedside light.

“Want me to read?”

Silence, but I know she’s heard. I look through the books on her shelf and find
Schooled
, the book Jeb mentioned. I want to be let into her life, too. I sit quietly on the edge of her bed, open the book, and start reading out loud.

Slowly her eyes open and she edges up the pillow a little, watching me intently. I read for a whole hour, until her eyelids are drooping and she is genuinely exhausted and ready for sleep.

“Night, sweetie.” I kiss her softly on her brow.

She holds my gaze for a moment, then says, “My mom used to read to me.”

I force a swallow. “I know,” I whisper. But I don’t really know. There is so little I know about my niece, even now. I want to change that with a passion that hurts. I realize I’ve fallen in love with her.

I go downstairs to get some food ready to take to Jeb, and it strikes me that I’ve put everything I have on the line today. Everything. And I’ve done it via my heart if not my head. Will there be anything left of me once this has all blown over? I think again of ripples in a pond, of where things begin and end.

Outside the air is cold and papery dry. The snowcapped peaks glow an eerie white as the moon rises over the range. The lake surface is a black mirror, and there’s a sense of electrical weight pressing down over the valley.

I have food in a basket, which I carry along with a bag that holds my laptop and some more of my father’s clothes for Jeb. On my way down to the boathouse, I plug the outdoor extension cord that I usually use for Christmas lights into the electrical outlet in the carport. While the boathouse has plumbing, it does not have electricity. I unravel the cord as I go. When it stops short, I connect it to a second cord, which in turn reaches the boathouse.

I knock on the door but there is no answer. I open it. It’s warm as toast inside, with logs crackling in the stove. The kerosene lamps have been lit, and three fat white candles flicker in holders on the coffee table. I enter, leading the extension cord in, and shut the door against the cold. I can hear water splashing in the small bathroom. Jeb is in the shower.

Removing my gum boots, I set my bag and basket on the small dining table. From the food basket I extract a bottle of cabernet, glasses, and the pasta that I’ve warmed for Jeb. I pour myself a glass of wine and take a deep sip. Warmth, relaxation, blooms softly through my chest. A measure of relief.

I set my laptop on the coffee table, plug in the extension cord, and am powering it up when Jeb exits the bathroom, rubbing his hair with a towel. No shirt. Just jeans, slung low on lean hips. Everything in my body goes quiet. I cannot help but stare.

He lowers his towel slowly, holding my eyes. His hair hangs damp onto his shoulders. His skin is supple looking, dusky. The fish tattoo is dramatic in the flickering light, and his pecs, abs are honed to perfection. Across the left side of his chest runs the jagged scar I noticed earlier. On the right side of his torso is the blue medical tape I used to hold his ribs in place. The tape is sticking well after his shower, but it will likely have to be redone after it gets wet a few a more times.

My cheeks go warm and I try to swallow against the sudden dryness in my throat. I hate myself for being so damn readable.

“How did it happen, that scar?” I ask again in an attempt to deflect attention from my fixation with his bare chest, the flush in my face.

“Cell mate.”

Surprise washes softly through me. “H
e . . .
cut you?”

“With a sharpened pen. We didn’t get on that well.” He tosses the white towel over the back of the dining table chair. “That kind of thing happens when people think you sexually molest and kill innocent schoolgirls.”

“
I . . .
thought you were alone in a cell.”

“He was a snitch. Cops put him in. He was fishing for where I might have left Merilee.”

A cold sensation drops through my stomach. “Jesus, Jeb.”

He gives a half shrug. “What did you bring? I’m famished.”

I get up and move quickly back to the table. “Spaghetti, homemade Bolognese. I warmed it. I’m sorry I took so long.” I hesitate. “Quinn didn’t seem to want to settle, and I couldn’t shortchange her. Not now.”

He holds my eyes, our earlier conversation resurfacing silently between us. “Thanks.” He pauses. “You make a great mother, Rachel.”

Is this his way of saying he doesn’t want to take Quinn from me? I turn away from this line of thought, unwilling to probe it further right now. Because one way for us both to keep Quinn would be if we came together as a family, and I’m afraid to even begin to contemplate this when we still all have so much to lose, with so much hanging precariously in the wind.

I take the bowl of pasta from the basket and remove the lid. “Where do you want to eat?”

He looks at my glass of wine on the coffee table. “There by the fire is good.”

I take a spoon, fork, and knife from the drawer in the small kitchenette and place them on a napkin along with his bowl of pasta on the coffee table. Reseating myself on the sofa, I reach for my glass, take another deep sip of wine.

He sits easily on the rug. The candles flicker in the wake of his movement. “You’re not going to join me?”

I’m staring at him again, my mind going to dark, hot places, the candlelight too intimate, his naked torso, damp hair too seductive.

“Rachel?”

“
I . . .
u
h . . .
ate already.” I feel myself flush again. “Do you want to watch the news? Shall I stream it now?” I say quickly, fiddling with my keyboard to bring up the CBC website.

“A little later.” He curls pasta around his fork. “I just want to enjoy this.”

“You serious? You want to wait?” I can’t believe it. I’ve been waiting hours myself. I’m itching to see what we’ve done, where the networks have gone with this.

“I want to eat, Rachel,” he says simply. “I want you to enjoy your wine. Relax for a minute. You need it.” He delivers the food to his mouth, closes his eyes, his dark lashes a thick fringe against his cheeks, and he groans softly.

“God, this is good.” Opening his eyes, he quickly winds more noodles onto his fork. “I haven’t had anything this good in years.”

It hits me then, what this freedom to just sit and eat a home-cooked meal must mean to him after being locked away so long, this simple pleasure. I feel embarrassed for rushing him suddenly. Embarrassed by his compassion for me, by my own self-indulgence.

Jeb has waited in a tiny cell for almost a decade to get out. Time must have a very different meaning for him. And this moment in the boathouse—safe, warm, suspended from the rest of the world—I can see why he might want to savor it for a few minutes before allowing the harshness of reality to flood back in, before finding out what havoc we might have wreaked by our actions today.

I curl my socked feet under myself and sip my wine as I watch him eat, as the alcohol eases my wire-tight muscles, calms my mind. He hasn’t bothered with his shirt—the room is toasty. Muscles roll smoothly under his supple skin as he moves, the tattoo aggressive up the side of his neck. I allow myself the luxury of fully absorbing his features—those perfectly arched brows, almond-shaped eyes of liquid obsidian. Those long lashes that would make any woman envious. His wide mouth, firm, sculpted lips.