leaving home just shy of eighteen, James had found that the former came far more easily to him than most. For eight years, it had brought him a great deal of the latter. Which was why when the dealer, another mover, this one heavyset around the middle and sweating like a pig in the unaired rooms of James’s new house, flicked the river card onto the table, James took pity on his less fortunate opponent.
Ignoring those smiling pocket jacks, he dropped them facedown onto the siding board laid across two sawhorses to make a makeshift poker table and cursed under his breath. “Nothin’,” he muttered as hope lit in his opponent’s eyes. Reaching for the bottle of water that was sweating as much as their dealer, James lifted a shoulder and leaned back in one of the creaky beach chairs he’d found folded against the wall of the sorry excuse for a two-car garage. “Goddamn, Ripley. The cards love you.”
The dealer—Denning was his name, as James had gathered over the course of the busy morning—barked out a knowing laugh. “Bull. Nothing’s ever loved Ripley. Least of all Texas Hold ’Em.” He reached over to slap Ripley on the shoulder. “Ain’t that right, son?”
Ripley was still blinking in disbelief at the poker chips. He’d gone all-in before he realized he was drawing dead. Carefully setting his cards down, he splayed them on the table and looked up at James. “Denning’s right. I was bluffing the whole time.”
James stared down at the two and the eight. Just as he’d thought. “Hell of a poker face you got there.” It was a lie. James had spotted Ripley’s tell half an hour ago when the lower lid of his left eye twitched after the man wound up with trip nines. It had been his one well-played hand of the game. Ignoring Denning’s answering snort, James pushed the chip pile toward Ripley. “Go on. Count your spoils. I need some air.”
Ripley’s hand paused before it reached for the pot. “You’re gonna finish the game, right?”
James hid a smile by turning to the long line of windows and sliding doors that led out onto the wide deck. This was the reason he’d bought the house. Something about all that glass—smudged and dirty as all get-out at the moment—and that yawning view of the sunbaked deck and the pool and yard beyond it had called to him.
James had always been a sucker for a lost cause. The fact that he’d snatched up this dilapidated house only a short walk from Mobile Bay where he’d grown up was indisputable proof of that. “Sure, I’ll finish the game—after we’ve got all the furniture in.” As nice as the companionship he’d found in Ripley, Denning and the other movers was, James was eager to get a move on—to get started making things right here in Fairhope where he’d left his past and all the ghosts that had chased him away.
The past that had haunted him for eight long years. The past that he’d realized he was desperate to finally make right.
A knock on the door echoed from the entryway and James smoothed over the scowl he saw reflected in the dirty window. Turning back to the others, he said, “That’ll be the pizza. Let’s eat, boys.”
* * *
THEPIEWASCHERRY and it was still warm. With Kyle’s hope for a new neighborhood friend in mind, Adrian had procured it during that morning’s visit to Hanna’s Inn where her friend, innkeeper and adept cook and baker, Briar Savitt, lived and worked alongside her husband, Cole. It wasn’t out of Adrian’s way at all. She owned Flora, the flower shop on the street side of the building next door to Hanna’s, a building that also housed their mutual friend Roxie Levy’s bridal boutique, Belle Brides, and Briar’s cousin and Adrian’s high school friend, Olivia Leighton’s bar, Tavern of the Graces, on the bay side.
As luck would have it the midday lull at the flower shop allowed Adrian to slip back to her cottage a few blocks away. Kyle would need his soccer gear for his practice that afternoon anyway, so she’d be saving herself a trip later if she left her assistant, Penny, in charge of the shop and picked up the duffel bag now, in addition to dropping off the pie.
The day was downright gorgeous—it made the gloom of winter feel far away. As Adrian walked from Flora down the sidewalk along the bay toward home, she watched sunlight kiss the water’s small crests with golden light. The breeze lifted the bangs off her brow. Over the delicious aroma of cherry pie were strong currents of salt and magnolia leaves. Without sunglasses, she had to squint to see the shadow of silver spires and cranes on the western horizon that marked the opposite shore and the port city of Mobile.
She turned onto the street where she had lived since she left her ex-husband in a hurry years ago while Kyle was still a toddler. The trees on either side of the street grew thickly, merging overhead. Shade gathered around her, sunlight choked out by leaves and heavy waves of Spanish moss. She climbed the hill to the cottage, waving to the few neighbors who were out and about.
She hoped her son didn’t have too many memories of those disastrous years she’d spent with Radley Kennard. The man’s presence still lurked like a towering wraith at the edge of her consciousness. Run-ins with him had been fewer and farther between as the years passed, mostly thanks to the restraining order she’d filed against him and the fact that her friend Olivia and her husband, Gerald, had given him a non-too-friendly warning the last time Radley had come calling months ago.
Nevertheless, Adrian never forgot he was around. She’d spent many sleepless nights worrying he might show up, drunk and pounding at her door again. Or that he might realize the one thing that would be most devastating to her—losing Kyle.
Adrian shuddered and was thankful when she broke into a patch of warm sunlight again. Dodging around the big moving van and the sportster at the house next door, she slowed. Checking that no one was around, she did a quick perusal of the vehicle. North Carolina plates. As she rounded the car, she caught sight of a Van Halen CD in the passenger seat.
No sign of a car seat, toys, or anything that would denote the presence of children. It looked as if Kyle was going to be disappointed. The sportster was the only vehicle in sight—not exactly a parent-minded mode of transportation. In fact, it was the kind of car she would attribute to a single man. One more than likely going through a midlife crisis.
Add in the Van Halen CD and there wasn’t much hope for anything else.
Adrian found herself stopping in front of the run-down house just on the cusp of its overgrown yard, frowning. What kind of a midlife crisis called for a ramshackle house that looked to be far more trouble than the slashed real estate price could possibly have made it worth?
She was about to find out. Straightening her shoulders, Adrian walked into the tall grass. The movers were nowhere to be seen. Beyond the torn screen door with its rusted hinges, the front door was wide-open. As she climbed the sagging porch steps, she heard the hard clash of rock music drifting from within along with clipped male voices and a few choice words.
She took a moment to peer into the house. Through the tattered screen door she saw a wide, empty foyer with scuffed, dark wood floors. The worn hardwood led into a yawning space with windows overlooking a raised, uncovered deck. Though she’d known the previous owners, she had never actually ventured inside the residence. Even from this distance, she saw that the glass was smudged and dirty. Again she wondered who in God’s name could have seen the house’s potential, as she balanced the pie on one hand and lifted the other to knock on the wood frame of the screen.
Adrian bit her lip. The knock had hardly made a dent in the din of conversation and dueling guitars. She knocked louder and called out, “Hello?”
Something heavy clattered to the floor. She heard more cursing, then the rhythmic clump of footfalls. Adrian watched a long shadow fall across the floor, followed
