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She didn’t have the memories attached to the place that he did. “It’s in great shape. Did you fix it up?”
“Oh, no. It was in perfect condition when we moved in and the rental company has folks who come out whenever something needs fixing.”
Who was paying for this? He and his mother would have to have a talk. “Have you been here long?”
“Almost eight years. Quincey is a lovely community. Close enough to Raleigh for convenience, but far enough away for privacy and safety. We don’t want to leave the area. Ann Marie is looking for another house for us nearby.”
“Ann Marie Hamilton?”
“Yes. Do you know her?”
Piper’s mother. “I did. I’ve been gone a while.”
“She’s Quincey’s only real estate agent. If you’re looking for a place near your mama, maybe Ann Marie can help you find one.”
He might not be planning to stay, but no one else needed to know that. He could use a fictitious house search to find out what Piper was hiding. “I appreciate the tip. I’ll give her a call.”
Time for a little recon.
* * *
“SPILL IT,” MADISON SAID as she set down her med-kit.
Piper tried to gather her scattered thoughts and pretended to be busy shuffling the charts on her desk. “How’s Pebbles?”
“Routine delivery. Mrs. Lee exaggerated as usual.” Her boss/friend hitched a hip on the counter, parking a butt cheek on the files and effectively ending the shuffling. “And don’t ignore the question. Who is Roth Sterling? How do you know him? And what is he to you?”
Piper had exceeded her fib quota for the year with Roth. She could not look Madison in the eye and lie. “We dated when I was eighteen. It was a long time ago.”
“Will you be dating him again?”
“No.” Piper winced at her sharp tone, and sure enough, Madison’s hiked eyebrows said she’d picked up on it.
“So you’re saying he’s available?”
Ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom. Piper’s heart slammed against her rib cage then lodged in her throat. “He says he’s single.”
“That’s not what I asked, Piper. I don’t have to tell you how limited the selection of eligible men is around here. At least your father parades potential dates in front of you.”
Her father. Roth’s story had Piper so conflicted. There was no way her rule-following father could have done as Roth said. Her father would never deliberately hurt her or break the law. She believed that with every fiber of her being.
But Roth had sounded so convincing. She ached to confide in Madison and ask her opinion. But Piper said nothing. She couldn’t risk it. The person she needed to talk to was her father.
“Each of the men Dad brings home has been screened more thoroughly than an FBI candidate. They’re so squeaky clean they don’t even have dirty thoughts.”
“Hmm. Sounds like you have a penchant for bad boys. And I think Chief Sterling might be one. He has an edge that’s kind of sexy.”
Piper remained mute. The less she said the better. Roth had definitely been a bad boy and he’d abandoned her.
But was he a liar? He had to be.
Madison sighed. “I remember the last time I had sex. Do you?”
“Do I remember the last time you had sex?”
“Funny girl. I know you too well for playing dumb to fool me. I’m saying we’re both overdue for someone to satisfy our biological urges. I don’t think you’ve hooked up with anyone in the five years I’ve known you.”
“Neither have you.”
“No, I haven’t.” The sad tinge of her voice reminded Piper how little she knew about Madison’s life before Quincey. She knew her friend had been married and suffered a miscarriage. But that was it. Madison didn’t like to talk about the reasons she’d relocated from a busy suburb of Atlanta to a sleepy Southern town. But that was okay because then Piper could keep her secrets without feeling guilty.
Madison rose. “I might be ready for something…temporary. Scorching hot and brief. That’s what I need. How about you? Is Roth going to be the one who breaks your drought?”
Adrenaline shot through Piper’s veins. “Absolutely not.”
“Why? Is he a jerk? Did he cheat on you with another woman? Another man?”
Piper nearly choked on a shocked laugh. “You are awful. He didn’t cheat on me.” He did something worse. He made me love him then he left us. “If you want him, he’s yours.”
“Hmm. I’ll think about it. He definitely has the tall, dark and handsome thing going for him.”
Piper’s stomach churned and she realized this would be one of those sour grapes situations from the fables she’d read to Josh. She didn’t want Roth, but she couldn’t handle a ringside seat watching him sweep another woman off her feet either.
* * *
PIPER MADE A BEELINE for her father’s immediately after work. She had to know who had lied. Roth or Lou. She was almost certain it was the former, but that twinge of doubt had nagged her all afternoon and turned her into such a clumsy idiot that even Madison had started looking at her funny.
Piper whipped the Jeep into the driveway of the house where she’d grown up and leaped from the vehicle.
Her father stepped onto the porch. “Piper, this is a surprise.”
He didn’t look like a man with dark secrets.
She stalked up the sidewalk. “I had lunch with Roth Sterling today.”
He stiffened and his welcoming smile faded. But that didn’t prove anything. He’d always hated Roth.
“He didn’t waste any time looking you up.”
“Did you coerce him into joining the Marines?”
His hesitation made goose bumps rise on Piper’s skin. No. Please no.
“Now, baby—”
“I’m not a baby. I’m thirty years old. And I deserve the truth. Did you threaten to send him to jail if he didn’t enlist, then drive him to the recruitment office and stand over him until he signed the forms?”
“He had a choice.”
“Did you pressure him with threats against his mother?”
“I did it for your own good, Piper. That boy was headed to the same place as his daddy—prison.”
Oh. My. God. Roth hadn’t lied. A tremor started deep inside and worked its way to her extremities as the magnitude of his confession overwhelmed her.
“You knew he didn’t steal and wreck Gus’s car, didn’t you?”
“I need a beer. Want one?” He disappeared through the front door. The screen door slapped behind him like a gunshot making her jump.
Piper’s feet seemed glued to the porch. She forced them into action and followed him, anger and betrayal vying for supremacy. “You knew, didn’t you?”
Her father yanked open the refrigerator, pulled out a beer and popped the top. He took a long drink then lowered the can and wiped his mouth. “No matter what you claimed, evidence indicated him and he didn’t deny it.”
Her thoughts and emotions churned like floodwaters oversetting everything she thought she’d known, everything she’d believed to be fact. She’d believed Roth had betrayed her. But so had her father, the man she loved and trusted more than anyone.
What else had he lied about? Did she dare trust anything he’d told her? It was too much to take in.
“What happened to innocent until proved guilty?”
“Now, Piper—”
“What happened to the truth and your sworn duty to uphold the law?”
“That boy needed discipline. I knew the military would set him straight.”
“What if he’d refused to sign? Would you have prosecuted an innocent man?”
“Piper—”
“Just how far over the line were you willing to go, Daddy?”
“It wasn’t like that. I knew he’d sign the contract to protect his mama. She couldn’t survive without the money he’d send her if he drew a military paycheck. Land poor, that’s what she was. All that Roth land and she couldn’t sell it for dirt. Market’s changed now. We have new folk coming into town and property’s worth something, but back then…” He shook his head.
Piper wanted to slap his beer out of his hand, and violence had never been her thing. “Don’t change the subject. The real estate market has nothing to do with your lies. To me. To Roth. To the rest of the force. To Quincey. You betrayed your badge.”
He blanched and a spark of concern skipped through her. She probably shouldn’t upset him, given his heart condition. But damn it, he’d deliberately driven away the man she loved, the father of her baby.
“Let me tell you something, little lady. I have never done anything detrimental to this town or this badge. I gave Sterling a chance to break the mold and become something better than his no-good daddy. And apparently he has if the sonofabitch has stolen my job.”
His selfishness blew her away. How could he honestly believe he’d done the right thing? No wonder her mother had left him.
Did her mother know? Was she in on this, too?
Piper’s eyes and chest burned. “Do not try to make out like you had his best interest at heart. I don’t buy it for one minute.”
“You gonna stand there and tell me you wouldn’t lie to protect Josh? Because I know better. You’ve lived a lie for the past eight years.”
She flinched. He was right. Her life since returning had been one big lie. She’d forgiven her father for sending her away. Now it appeared that hadn’t been his only sin.
“I wouldn’t send an innocent, hardworking man to jail.”
“You’re making a fuss over nothing. Sterling would have turned on that boy before going to court. They were tight, but they weren’t kin.”
His continued justification of his misdeed infuriated her. “If you think he would have betrayed Chuck, then you don’t know Roth very well.”
“Turned on you, didn’t he? Left you in a bad way.” Rage rumbled in his voice.
“So did you, Daddy. But what you did was worse. At least Roth had the guts to tell me to my face that he didn’t want me. You, the man I loved and trusted with all my heart, stabbed me in the back. And when you found out I was pregnant you threw me out of your house for falling in love when your sin was so much worse. No wonder Mom left you. You’re a hypocrite and a liar.”
Her voice broke.
“You are not the man I thought you were, and I don’t know if I can ever forgive you. I do know I will never trust you again.”
* * *
JOSH CLOSED his math textbook. “I’m going to bed.”
Finally! Piper hadn’t had a moment alone with her mother since arriving home.
She forced herself to smile, rise and kiss Josh on the top of his head as if nothing were wrong, despite her tumbled thoughts. And then she hugged him. He tolerated the embrace. He never hugged back anymore.
“You’ll get the math. Hang in there. Sleep tight. Love you.”
“Yeah.”
She missed the return “I love you.” Those had ended within the past few months, but everyone assured her he’d be her affectionate son again sometime between eighteen and thirty. She might have to lose the closeness to him because of his age and maturing process, but she wouldn’t let Roth come between them.
But that was another worry. Tonight she had a more important concern. She had to know if her mother had been a part of her father’s deceit. If Ann Marie had been in on the lies, Piper would never trust either parent again. With anything. Especially Josh.
She listened until Josh’s bedroom door clicked shut then went to look for her mother. Piper found her curled in her usual spot on the sofa reading her favorite cooking magazine.
Piper’s tongue felt thick. Her pulse accelerated. She and her mother had become very close since Piper’s return from Florida. Had their relationship all been based on a lie?
“Mom, did you know Daddy forced Roth to join the Marines by threatening to make life difficult for Eloise if he didn’t?”
Her mother’s shock and dismay looked real. “Lou would never—”
“He admitted to me today that he did. He implicated Roth for stealing and wrecking Gus’s car even though he suspected Chuck, then Dad threatened Roth with jail if he didn’t enlist. He even drove him to the recruitment office.”
Her mother’s mouth opened, closed. She shook her head, her bewilderment too genuine to be faked. “I can’t believe your father would— He lives for that badge.” And then the horror on her face transformed into understanding.
Understanding?
“Your father would do anything to protect you. You know that, don’t you?”
“But to send an innocent man to jail?”
“Piper, I hate that your father did what he did, and I certainly don’t condone it. But I know how much it used to upset him when he couldn’t do anything for Roth’s mama. He begged Eloise to press charges. And she refused. Time and time again.
