Less than an hour later, a team had arrived to clean out the house. By morning it was as if they’d never been there at all.
He’d raged against being taken away. Had tried to bargain to be allowed to at least phone Patience and tell her what had happened. One of the marshals had explained if she knew, she was in danger. Justice had known that was true and had stopped asking.
After Bart had been captured, Justice was finally free. The murder conviction along with his other crimes had ensured that he would die behind bars. But he hadn’t gone quietly and his final screams as he was led away had been a vow that his son would die. That Bart would hunt him down and kill him.
Even now, long after his father’s death, Justice couldn’t shake the sense that Bart was still out there. Waiting. Watching. That if Justice went too far, got too close to being like everyone else, too close to being happy, his father would pounce and destroy it all.
He glanced down to the street below and saw Lillie walking along the sidewalk. She was joined by a couple of girls her age and they talked and laughed together.
He couldn’t risk it, he thought grimly. His father haunted him. There was no way to know that he could keep anyone he cared about safe. Especially if the enemy was him.
* * *
PATIENCESTOOD LOOKING at the floor in her newly leased space. She’d swept and cleaned in preparation for her meeting with her contractor. But before she handed over the deposit for the remodeling, she wanted to be sure. So she’d shown up, armed with a plan, a tape measure and masking tape.
So far she’d taped in the back and front counters, along with several tables and chairs. She walked back to the front door to confirm the flow, then wandered over to the empty area by the far window. What exactly was she going to put there? She had a cold case she was eyeing, or she could put in some kind of shelving and keep it for small meetings. Like for a book club. Ava kept suggesting a karaoke machine, but Patience wasn’t thrilled about that idea.
She pulled out her phone and took a picture of the taped outlines on the floor, then looked at the next hand-drawn design. Maybe if she moved the tables to the right of the door, she thought.
“Patience?”
She turned toward the sound of her name and looked at the man standing in the open doorway to the store. With the sunlight behind him, she couldn’t see him clearly at first. As he moved inside, she saw the features of an older man. He had green eyes and nearly white hair.
Her first thought was that she’d never seen him before in her life. Only there was something about him. Something familiar. They must have met somewhere and...
Her body stiffened as her brain filled in the blanks. She instinctively took a step back.
“Hello, Patience.”
“Steve.”
He gave her a slight smile. “I wasn’t sure you’d recognize me. We only met that one time.”
“Right. Two weeks before the wedding. You took us out to dinner and promised you’d see us at the ceremony.”
Ned’s father had made other promises. He hadn’t kept those, either. Instead he’d disappeared. She’d been shocked, but Ned had shrugged it off. He wasn’t used to anything better from his father.
“Why are you here?” she asked, her voice cold and stiff.
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“I’m not loaning you money.”
Steve’s expression turned rueful. “I suppose I deserve that. I haven’t been a very good grandfather.”
He’d been just as bad as a father, she thought. When she’d met Ned, one of the things they’d had in common was they’d both been abandoned by their fathers. She hadn’t seen hers in years, while Steve had drifted in and out of Ned’s life. When they’d talked about what they’d been through, Patience thought they had learned the same lesson. That it was important to follow through. To commit.
Instead, Ned had learned how easy it was to walk away.
Maybe it wasn’t fair, but she blamed Steve for that lesson. On a personal level, she wasn’t sorry to have Ned gone and had no interest in having him back. But this wasn’t about her. Lillie was the one who suffered without her father.
He glanced around at the empty storefront. “I heard you’re opening a coffeehouse.”
“Something like that.”
“Congratulations. That’s very exciting.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and watched him. “That’s not why you’re here.”
“No, it’s not.”
He wore a white shirt tucked into jeans. Not the least bit threatening. Still, she couldn’t help thinking she could make a dash for the back door if she had to.
“I’m not the man I was,” he told her. “For years, I had lousy priorities. I lost my wife and my son because of that.”
“You didn’t lose your son,” she told him. “You walked away. There’s a difference.”
“You’re right. I take responsibility for what happened with Ned. I’ve tried to see him, but he has no interest in me.” His green eyes grew thoughtful. “I can’t blame him for that, but I do wish things had been different.”
She tensed. “You’re here because of Lillie.”
“I’d like a chance to get to know her.”
She wanted to tell him no. To scream at him to get out of here and never come back. Lillie didn’t need another male relative breaking her heart.
“I’m retired now,” he went on. “I have been for a few years. I took stock of my life and realized I’d focused on the wrong things.” He gave her a slight smile. “I went into therapy and figured out what I’d done wrong. I want to do better, be better, for my granddaughter.”
“Can you think of a single reason why I should trust you?”
Steve shook his head. “Not one.”
She could feel herself getting angry. She wanted to scream that nothing about this was fair. Instead, she spoke the truth.
“I blame you for Ned’s behavior. He did what you taught him. He walked away. Do you know he never sees Lillie? He signed away all rights to her so he wouldn’t have to pay child support. She’s a sweet, smart little girl and I’m the one who had to explain why she doesn’t have a daddy anymore. For now she accepts what I’ve told her, but what do you think is going to happen when she’s older? When she figures out that her father simply wasn’t interested in her? How much do you think that’s going to hurt?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Being sorry isn’t good enough. It’s bad enough that Ned left me, but he also abandoned my daughter and I’ll never forgive him for that. There is absolutely no reason for me to trust you with Lillie. Not ever.”
He
