“Charity spends too much time in the library,” John Earl said. “She needs to have a little fun.”
“Are you saying our eighteen-year-old daughter needs a boyfriend?”
John Earl chuckled. “That’s a father’s worst nightmare—his baby girl dating. But yes, it’s time Charity started dating. Some nice young man who attends church here, a boy whose parents we know.”
Erin closed the door quietly and walked away, tears trickling down her cheeks. John Earl was a man devoted to his wife and daughters. If she hadn’t been able to seduce him in four years, what made her think she ever could? And with no hope of John Earl ever returning her love, her life simply wasn’t worth living.
“You knew that Jackson Perdue was back in Dunmore and you didn’t bother to tell me!” Cathy stood in the middle of the kitchen, hands on hips, and glared at her best friend.
“I didn’t mention it because I thought you needed time to adjust to being back home and settling into your new place next week and…” Lorie threw her hands in the air in a gesture that was half plea and half exasperation. “I thought I was protecting you. After all, you’ve got enough on your plate without having to deal with Jack Perdue showing up in Dunmore after all these years.” Lorie reached out and grabbed both of Cathy’s hands. “I swear to you that when Ruth Ann told me some man had called and wanted to hire Treasures as decorating consultants, I had no idea it was Jack.”
“I believe you.” Cathy squeezed Lorie’s hands, then pulled free and turned back to the stove, where she had several pots and pans bubbling, boiling and simmering. She was making Seth’s favorite meal: meatloaf, green peas, creamed potatoes, deviled eggs, biscuits and caramel pie for dessert. This morning, she had prepared the pie and placed it in the refrigerator and had made the meatloaf that was now warming in the oven. And only a few minutes ago, right before Lorie arrived home from Fayetteville, Cathy had topped the pie with whipped cream and Maraschino cherries.
Lorie came up behind Cathy and placed her hand on Cathy’s shoulder. “How was it, seeing him again?”
Cathy lifted the lid off the green peas, stirred them, turned the stove down low and replaced the lid. “I’m not sure. At first, I was nervous. Seeing him was such a shock.”
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. If I’d had any idea this would happen, I’d have told you he was back in town.”
Cathy checked on the bubbling pot of sliced potatoes, then faced her friend. “He’s staying permanently. He’s moved into his mother’s house. He’s going to restore the old place, and he offered me the job as his design consultant.” Cathy giggled nervously. “Never in a million years would I have thought that someday Jack and I would…” Realizing she was on the verge of crying, she took several deep, calming breaths. “He’s different. And not just because he’s older and was injured in the war. He used to be so angry and tense all the time, but now he seems…I’m not sure—not so angry. Steadier somehow.”
“Did he tell you that he’s taken a job as one of Mike’s deputies?” Lorie asked.
Cathy nodded. “He was wearing his uniform and drove up in a county sheriff ’s car.”
“Is he still as handsome as sin?”
“Yes.”
“Any old feelings resurface?”
“A few.”
“Well, listen to you, being honest with yourself and with me.”
“I don’t lie to myself anymore.” Cathy picked up two oven mitts from the counter, opened the oven door and checked on the warming meatloaf. “There’s nothing wrong with admitting that I’m still attracted to Jack. Most women probably are. He always did attract the opposite sex. Besides, he’s single and so am I.”
“Amen, sister.” Lorie patted her on the back.
“He told me that Mike has assigned him to work on two cold-case files for the sheriff ’s department, and one of those cases is Mark’s murder.”
“What?”
“He was entirely up front about it.” Cathy looked directly at Lorie. “He told me he was sorry about what had happened to my husband, and then he explained that he was going over the county’s cold-cases—the unsolved homicides—including Mark’s murder.”
“But why? What possible reason would Mike have to reopen Mark’s case?”
“He’s not reopening the case,” Cathy said. “Jack is studying the files, and he’s going to compare notes with the police in Athens, where Charles Randolph, the Lutheran minister, was killed last year in the same way Mark was.”
Lorie put her arm around Cathy’s shoulders. “Oh, honey, you shouldn’t have to deal with any of this. You shouldn’t have to go over all those bad memories about the day Mark died. And you certainly shouldn’t have to work with Jack Perdue. I’ll step in and handle the consulting job myself, and that way you won’t have to—”
“No, that won’t be necessary. I can work with Jack. I’m not running away from the past. I faced a great many hard truths while I was in therapy. I learned that I can’t change the past. I can’t bring Mark back any more than I could have saved him the day he died. And I can’t deny that a part of me still loves Jack Perdue and probably always will.”
“Oh, Cathy…Honey, no, no…”
“It’s all right, really it is. I have no illusions about Jack. But he’s not the same now, and neither am I. I’m not expecting happily ever after, not with Jack or any other man. Whatever does or doesn’t happen between us, I can handle it.”
“Can you?”
“Yes.”
“What about Seth?”
Cathy swallowed hard. “What about Seth?”
“How do you think Seth would react if he found out the man you were in love with before you married Mark has come back into your life?”
“There’s no reason for Seth to know about my past with Jack.”
“Oh, honey, you’re lying to yourself if you think the truth won’t come out eventually. If you get involved with Jack again, all your secret little birds will come home to roost.”
He moaned and groaned and trembled with his release. She lay beneath him silent and unmoving, hating him, wishing him dead. His heavy weight pinned her to the bed—her canopy bed with white, lace-trimmed linens—as he kissed her tenderly and whispered the same words he always said when he had finished with her.
“I love you, sweetheart.”
When he lifted himself up and off her, she turned over, grabbed the sheet and pulled it over her naked body as she curled into a ball. She didn’t watch him leave her room, but she heard the door close behind him. He would go to his bathroom, remove the condom he had worn and take a shower. Then he would go into his den and spend the rest of the evening in his disguise as a man of God.
Lying there, her tender young breasts bruised from his rough hands and
