Steadfast (True North #2), Page 2

  I missed the bunkhouse. Privacy was not a luxury for me. If I got out of this bed and went to find a fix, there was nobody who’d notice or care. I’d needed those six AM milkings to keep me on the straight and narrow. I needed the watchful eyes of Griff Shipley on me while we worked the farmers’ market stall.

  This was going to be so hard—every minute. In Colebury, a fix was always in reach. Some of my druggie friends were probably within a mile of me right now. Still getting high. Still dealing. Colebury reeked of all my old mistakes and desires.

  The itchy void in my chest gave a throb, and I rolled over to try to quash it. But that only reminded me of another absence. I stuck my nose in the pillow and took a deep breath, wondering if any essence of Sophie might remain.

  But she was long gone.

  Chapter Two

  Sophie

  Internal DJ Tuned to: “You Keep Me Hangin' On” by The Supremes

  “Mom?” I called from the kitchen. “Did you make a shopping list?” After stuffing my wallet into my pocketbook, I threw on my trench coat. I was running a little late for work, as usual. “Mom?”

  Silence.

  Holding in my sigh, I walked through the house to the living room, where my mother sat in her chair, staring out the window. The cup of tea I’d brought her a half hour ago sat untouched beside her.

  “Mom? The shopping list?” I said one more time.

  Her head turned toward me, but her eyes were still flat. “I didn’t get around to it,” she said.

  Of course you didn’t. She never got around to anything at all. During the hours when my father was at home, at least she appeared for meals and responded to simple questions.

  But he’d left for work a half hour ago, and so she’d curled in on herself already, settling in for a long day of staring out the window, as useful as a paperweight.

  “We probably need coffee,” she offered. “Your father is so unpleasant when we run out.”

  Thanks for that insight. “Sure. I’ll just wing the rest,” I promised. “Bye.”

  Without waiting for a response, I trotted back through the kitchen, grabbed my pocketbook and ran out to the garage. I climbed into my Rav4 and started the engine. Then I counted to sixty, because Jude had always said that an engine needed a minute to warm up.

  I didn’t appreciate the fact that I thought about Jude three or four times a day when I started my car. Or every night when I lay down alone in bed.

  There was a lot about my current situation that I did not like. I never thought I’d be living in my parents’ house at twenty-two. But halfway through college, I’d moved home. My mother became a zombie after Gavin’s death, and I’d wanted to help out. But I’d thought it was temporary. Who knew she would still be barely functional three years later?

  Before the accident, my mother was like a forcefully orchestrated performance of Beethoven’s Fifth—a wave of ambition and pure will in every breath. She raised two children while working full time for the Vermont Department of Libraries. She directed our church’s Christmas pageant for fifteen years straight. She raised money for breast cancer, literacy and clean water in Africa.

  Now? She did none of those things. These days she was a funereal dirge, played one-handed on an out-of-tune organ.

  When my sixty seconds were up, I reversed out of our driveway and headed for work.

  I had no clue how to help my mother heal. I’d made appointments for her with a therapist, but she refused to go. So I took over the grocery shopping. And the cooking. So long as a meal appeared on our family table each night, my father could pretend that we weren’t an entirely dysfunctional family. And since my mother was never going to rise to the occasion, the shopping and dinner making had become my problem.

  Nobody wanted my dad in a snit, that was for damned sure. That would solve nothing. He was a bully and didn’t seem to care that my mother never improved. The situation at home was bad, but I had a job that I liked, and I was six weeks away from finishing my college degree.

  On autopilot, I headed through our neighborhood, toward the state highway linking my smaller town with Montpelier. Since I was a bit late for work already, I didn’t have time to stop at the new bakery for a latte.

  Driving over the speed limit was out of the question. When your father was the police chief, it was bad form to violate any traffic laws. Not that I minded a little rule breaking, it’s just that it caused me too much grief later. The deputies enjoyed ratting me out to Daddy.

  These were my thoughts as I put on my brakes for the stop sign at Harvey and Grove streets. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement just inside the open bay doors at the Nickel Auto Body Shop.

  I looked. (Of course I looked. Anyone would.) But I didn’t really expect to see him there, standing beside a beat-up Dodge that was up on the lift. And even when my throat seized up around the single, shocking word that flew to my lips—Jude—I still didn’t truly believe it.

  Because he couldn’t possibly be standing there, right inside the garage, running a calm hand along the tattered bumper of an ugly car. But that arm stretching up to the car—I knew that arm. There was a bramble of roses tattooed on the bicep. And that hand had touched my body everywhere.

  Forgetting myself, I just sat there, one foot planted squarely on the brake, staring at what could only be a Jude mirage. A few of the details weren’t right. Jude’s hair would never be that lightened, sun-kissed color. And he wouldn’t be caught dead in that flannel shirt. We used to mock the standard Vermont uniform. Mirage-Jude was too big, too, with a broad chest and visible muscles on his back when he moved his arm. My Jude had always been lean, and when he’d left my life he’d been downright skinny.

  At the time, I hadn’t wanted to understand why.

  Most crucially, Jude couldn’t possibly be standing twenty feet away from me on an ordinary November morning, right in the center of Colebury, inspecting a heap of a car. If he were actually here, I’d know it. I’d feel it deep inside, the way the bass line of a good song vibrates through your chest.

  Behind me, a car tapped its horn, and I barely registered the sound. I was still taking in the shine of his too-light hair and the muscled line of his forearm. The horn tap turned into a full-blown blast, which finally brought me out of my dream state. Vermonters never honked, which could only mean that I’d been staring at Jude for quite some time. With a hasty glance in either direction, I let up on the brake and gunned the accelerator.

  Somehow, I arrived at work ten minutes later, which was miraculous since I didn’t remember any of the drive. But there I was, shutting off the engine in a parking space behind the hospital. I jerked the keys from the ignition and tossed them into my bag, but I didn’t get out of the car yet.

  Deep breaths, I coached myself. Gripping the steering wheel, I put the side of my face against its cool center. My heart shimmied along at a disco rhythm while I tried to get over my shock. I knew Jude was out of prison. We’d been notified when he was released. But that was six months ago. I’d been on edge for a few weeks last spring, but he never turned up. After that, I forgot to worry about seeing him here in Colebury. My heart believed he had left Vermont just as thoroughly as he’d left my life.

  My heart was a goddamned idiot, obviously.

  A tap on the window startled me so badly that I spasmed upright.

  “Sorry,” mouthed the man outside my car.

  “Jesus and Mary, mother of God.” I fumbled for the door handle. “Denny, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. “But you were slumped over, like someone having an aneurism. Like someone who needed the hug of life.”

  “That’s for choking.” My tone was a little harsher than I meant it to be. Denny was a good guy, if awkward, and it wasn’t his fault that I was freaking out. I got out of my car and followed my coworker toward the building on shaky knees.

  “Seriously, are you okay?” He held the hospital door open for me, and I took my first lungful of the in
stitutional air that we breathed all day.

  “I’m fine,” I lied. “Just having a moment.”

  “Is it your mom?”

  Denny was nothing if not attentive. He knew something of my frustrations at home. And everyone knew of my family’s tragedy. After it happened, my brother’s death was in the paper for two weeks straight. First there were the sad stories—Police Chief Loses Firstborn. Then came the gritty details of the crash investigation, and the revelation that the poor police chief’s son had been thrown from a car driven by a junkie who was jacked up on painkillers.

  The newspapers didn’t tell the whole story, though. They didn’t reveal that the junkie in question was the boyfriend of the chief’s daughter, who had been repeatedly forbidden to date him. That bit of scandal didn’t make the papers, out of respect for the grieving family.

  We’d been in the news for weeks, and yet some of the really important questions went unasked. Such as: where on earth were the golden boy and the junkie going together that awful night?

  “Sophie?”

  I realized I was standing in front of my desk like a sleepwalker. And I’d never answered Denny’s question. “Yes?”

  “Can I hang up your coat?”

  I scrambled out of my trench. “Sure. Thank you!” I was losing my manners as well as my mind.

  When he walked away, I rounded my desk and sagged into the chair. Get a grip, Soph, I ordered myself. But it wouldn’t be easy. When I was seventeen, I thought Jude was sent to me from heaven. When I was eighteen, I let him take me there. When I was nineteen, he broke both my heart and my family.

  He’d been gone for three and a half years now. I’d shed an ocean of tears for him. The first year had been the roughest. My family was a grief maelstrom, and since Jude was the cause of it, I hid my broken heart. Nobody had wanted to hear me say that Jude had never meant to hurt anyone. Nobody cared that he’d obviously been in need of help. They didn’t want to hear that he’d been (mostly) wonderful to me.

  That he’d been the only one who listened when I spoke.

  My father couldn’t tolerate Jude even before he killed my brother. When I’d begun my teenage obsession with Jude, it had taken my parents by surprise that good girl Sophie could become a rebellious teen. I’d dyed my hair black and got a tattoo on my ass. It was ordinary kid stuff, but my father raged and threatened.

  He’d also snooped in my room. When he’d found a receipt for condoms, my father had forbidden me to even talk to my boyfriend anymore. He’d ranted that Jude was trouble, but my heart didn’t listen. Instead, I just lied more often and snuck out at night.

  Things got a little less tense when I’d moved into the dorms at University of Vermont for my freshman year of college. My father assumed that the forty-five miles from Colebury to Burlington would lessen Jude’s influence in my life. But we only carried on more freely. Jude’s Porsche wore a groove into highway 89, and I spent every weekend with him.

  Then, one ugly spring evening just after freshman year ended, state troopers showed up at our door, hats in hand. That night Jude proved all my father’s points in one fell swoop. As our front door opened to reveal the officers’ hats in their hands, my father won every fight we’d ever had.

  That night will always be a blur to me. I remember my mother screaming, then fainting in the living room.

  “But what happened to Jude?” I’d asked in those terrible moments of confusion. Nobody answered me. It was twelve hours before I’d even learn that he was alive. As the awful story began to unspool, I ached for him. To know you’ve killed someone, even in such an awful, careless way, would be terrible. It was all so horribly sad.

  I kept my empathetic thoughts to myself, of course. Nobody would even say Jude’s name in my home. The only name on anyone’s lips was Gavin. Poor Gavin. Gavin the great. Lacrosse hero. Beloved son.

  On the outside, I did all the right things. I stumbled through my brother’s wake and then his funeral.

  But secretly, my heart tore open for Jude. After he made his plea-bargain and went quietly off to prison, I’d tried writing him. I wrote several letters in quick succession. They were all variations on “why?” and “what happened?” I’m not proud, but they also contained plenty of “I love you” and “why won’t you talk to me?”

  It wasn’t until weeks after Jude’s conviction that I received a large envelope from the Northern Vermont State Prison, containing all of my letters. Unopened. A single sheet of paper inside read, “Letters refused.”

  By then, I’d understood that Jude was sick, addicted and in pain. And I knew he’d done a terrible thing. But I never expected him to turn his back on me. I’d cried a brand new river of tears over those returned letters. I was just so angry that he’d reject me on top of all his other crimes. How dare he.

  Hell, I was still angry. Sitting there at my tidy desk in the hospital’s Office of Social Work, my hands were tightened into fists. I wasn’t at all prepared for his reappearance. Tonight when I went to the grocery store after work, I knew I’d look for him in every aisle. I’d look over my shoulder at the gas pump and standing in line at the bakery. In our town of nine thousand, it was inevitable that I would eventually run into him.

  I was never going to be ready.

  Something landed on my desk with a thunk. It was a covered coffee cup from the hospital cafe. “Thank you so much,” I said immediately, looking up into Denny’s serious brown eyes.

  “My pleasure. You just looked like you needed a little lift this morning.”

  You have no idea. “Thanks,” I repeated, pulling the cup toward me. Even without lifting the lid, I knew I’d find a skim milk latte inside with a sprinkle of cinnamon. Denny knew me. Denny studied me. And once a month or so, he asked me out. I always worded my refusals gently but firmly. I hoped he’d stop asking. He was so nice, though. Turning him down made me feel like a diva.

  “You know it’s time for the staff meeting, right?” He tipped his head toward the conference room.

  When I looked, there were people gathering around the table already. Shit! I leaped out of my chair and grabbed the latte.

  I was two steps away before I realized that Denny hadn’t followed me. Looking over my shoulder, I saw him smile. “It’s your turn to report the case load, isn’t it?”

  With yet another muttered thanks to Denny, I snatched the folder off my desk and headed for the meeting.

  Pull it together, Haines, I ordered myself. Denny shouldn’t be saving my ass. He and I were in competition for the same job. We were both graduating at the end of the semester, and the hospital had only one full-time position available. He would probably get it, since his degree was a master’s and mine was a bachelor’s. Come January, I’d probably be begging them to extend my internship while I scrambled to find a real job.

  Given mornings like this one, it would be hard to begrudge Denny the victory.

  The two of us were the last to sit down. Our department was small and fairly informal, but since I was gunning for a permanent job here, appearing ditzy was a bad idea. There were five full-time social workers, with Denny and I as part-time help while we both finished degrees. Mr. Norse, our boss, a friendly, rumpled man in his sixties, opened the meeting with a discussion of next year’s budget forecast.

  Naturally, my mind wandered right back to Jude. Those budget forecasts didn’t stand a chance against my troubled ex, with his piercing gray eyes and tight jeans.

  We became a couple during my junior year of high school. But even before we’d ever had a conversation, I’d been aware of Jude. He was the boy who’d always slunk into class late if he felt like it. The teachers didn’t even give him a hard time, because there would be no point. He gave off an aura of “I don’t care what you think.”

  I’d found him ridiculously attractive. It wasn’t just his too-long eyelashes, either. I’d had it bad for his attitude. I was a cautious good girl, always too fearful of authority to say the things inside my head.

  Watching him
became my hobby. But the idea that Jude Nickel would ever look my way had been pretty ridiculous.

  One afternoon at school I was in a tizzy trying to set up for a school band concert. The copy machine had jammed while I printed the programs, and folding them had taken longer than I’d thought it would.

  So I was well behind schedule when I reached the gym. Someone had already set up a couple hundred folding chairs in rows, and I’d been asked to drop a program onto each one of them. There I was, slapping programs onto the chairs, when the fire door opened and a cool breeze flew through the room, sending those programs airborne before they went skating to the floor.

  Frantic, I’d grabbed them up again, setting everything back the way it should be. And then it happened a second time! My blood pressure rose as I chased another set of programs off the floor. Stomping over to the emergency exit, I kicked the doorstop, and the door began to swing closed.

  A tattooed arm shot out at the last second and held it open. “Do you mind?” asked a gravel-toned voice. “I’m having a quick smoke here.” A zing of nervous energy shot through my gut as Jude Nickel peered through the door at me.

  “Seriously?” I snipped. “That’s against about ten rules.”

  He raised a single eyebrow, as if questioning my sanity. That casual, wordless statement made me feel hot everywhere. Jude always had. Whenever he glanced at me, I never knew where to put my eyes. And now he was actually studying me for the first time.

  “I need the door shut,” I said, gathering my wits. “I have to get this done in the next ten minutes.”

  Still blocking the door, he held up a hand as if to silence me. Then he took a last puff and let it out. Finally, he crushed the cigarette under his boot.

  I waved my hand frantically in front of my face, trying to keep the smoke away from me. Cigarette smoke would not be good for my vocal chords.

  That’s when Jude had grinned, and I became even more addled. That hundred-watt smile of his made all the girls stupid. I was so astonished to find it pointed my way that I frowned back at him like an idiot.