me because I wasn’t there.”
“She says it was you, all right, and you did it because she wouldn’t give you what you wanted.”
“The lady says you’ve been sniffing around her like a dog around a bone,” another voice said.
Cole looked past his father. Sheriff Steele was standing in the doorway. “That’s not true, either.”
“No?”
“No,” Cole repeated coldly. “If anything, it’s just the opposite, Sheriff. She’s pissed off because I won’t do what she wants.”
Isaiah raised his hand to strike his son again. Cole’s eyes met his father’s and the older man took a step back.
“The woman says she saw you, boy.”
“She’s lying.” Cole looked at the sheriff. “I wasn’t anywhere near the Francke place last night.”
“Where were you, then?”
At the prom, Cole almost said, but he saw the little glint in the sheriff’s eyes.
“That’s right,” the sheriff said softly. “I already checked. You weren’t at the dance. You weren’t anywhere near the high school. Mrs. Francke would have seen you if you were. So, if you didn’t go to her house and trash it, where were you?”
With Faith, down by the lake. Cole opened his mouth, then clamped it shut.
The sheriff grinned. “Cat got your tongue, son?”
Cole stared at the men. How could he tell the truth without involving Faith? The whole town would start talking, making up stories that would get wilder as they spread. And the very thought of the sheriff going to Faith for confirmation of Cole’s story made his belly clench. Faith’s old man was a drunk; he was mean. God only knew what he’d do if the law turned up to question his daughter.
“Answer the man,” Isaiah barked.
“I said all I’m going to say. I didn’t do what Mrs. Francke says I did.”
“You got a way to prove that, son?”
Cole looked at the sheriff. “The only proof I can give you is my word.”
“Your word,” his father said, and laughed. “Your word is useless, same as you are. I don’t know how I could have had two sons and one of ’em be not worth a damn.”
Cole saw his brother’s pinched white face appear just past his father’s shoulder.
“I didn’t do it,” he said, as much to Ted as to anybody else.
“I know you didn’t,” Ted said, but it didn’t matter. Things moved quickly after that. Francke had told the sheriff he wouldn’t bring charges if he were paid for the items that had been smashed. The sheriff said he didn’t see how anything would be gained if he locked Cole up. And Isaiah said he didn’t give a damn one way or the other.
“You’re not my son anymore,” he said coldly. “I want you out of this house, tonight.”
Cole wanted to object, not to being thrown out of Cameron House but to being found guilty, but how could he? Nobody was going to listen to him. By morning, the story would be all over town. He’d be a pariah. It was one thing to ride a motorcycle too fast or cut school, or even chug down too many beers. Breaking into a house, vandalizing it, was different.
There was only one way out of this mess.
He had to leave Liberty and not return until he’d made himself bigger than the lies Jeanine Francke had fabricated. Then he could shove the allegations down his accusers’ throats, walk straight to Faith’s door and claim her as his own.
He’d go to Faith, tell her what had happened, vow that he’d come back for her someday…
But how could he? Just turning up at the trailer park would drag her into this mess. Faith, his sweet, innocent Faith, would listen to his story and insist on going straight to his father and the sheriff to defend him. And she’d be ruined. Wasn’t that precisely what he was determined to avoid happening?
There was only one way to prove his love for his girl. He had to leave her and never look back. The truth was, she deserved somebody better. She always had.
The dream wasn’t just over, it was dead.
“I want you out of this house, boy.” Isaiah folded his arms. “You have ten minutes to pack.”
Cole tossed jeans and T-shirts into a beaten-up backpack. When he’d finished, Isaiah held out a hundred-dollar bill. He took it, tore it in half and dropped it at his father’s feet. Then he went out the door and away from the house that had never felt like home. He climbed onto his Harley and gunned the engine to life just as Ted ran down the steps.
“Cole,” Ted hollered, “wait.”
Cole had already started the bike moving. “Take care of Faith,” he said.
“What should I tell her?”
That I love her, Cole thought, that I’ll always love her…
“Nothing. You hear me, Teddy? Take care of her. Make sure she’s okay. And—and don’t tell her what happened.”
“Yeah, but she’ll ask.”
“Let her think I got tired of it here and took off. It’s better if I just get the hell out of her life.”
“No. Cole, please—”
“Swear it!”
Ted sighed. “Yeah,” he said, “okay. But where will you go? How will you live? Cole—”
Cole let in the clutch and roared down the driveway.
Two years later, he’d worked his way across Georgia to Corpus Christi and then across the oceans of the world on an oil tanker, to Kuwait. He’d grown up. He’d stopped being so brash. His luck started to change and he lost some of the bitterness that plagued him.
More and more, he thought about going home. About seeing Ted and maybe even somehow reconciling with his father. Mostly, he thought about going back to claim Faith, and the life they could have together. He was in the midst of making plans to do just that when a letter arrived from Ted. The envelope was dirty and torn; it looked as if it had followed him around the world for almost as long as he’d been away.
Cole opened the envelope and read the letter inside. It said that his father was dead. He’d had a heart attack and died more than a year ago.
He waited to feel some sense of loss for the man who’d sired him but there was nothing except a small, cold disappointment that he’d been deprived of the chance to confront Isaiah and tell him how wrong he’d been about his youngest son.
Dad left everything to me, Ted wrote. Of course, that’s not the way it should be. We’ll sort things out when you get home.
Cole smiled tightly.
