Close to Home Part 5

"You ran away," Patty corrected. "At what, seventeen years old, with no money and no resources and no experience of the world outside your community."

"It could have gone so badly." Tessa shivered. "When I think about it now, the kinds of people I could have met up with, the kinds of things I could have fallen into-I really am the luckiest woman alive. Because the person I met was Johnny."

"Now we're getting down to it." Patty settled in, eyes bright and interested.

Tessa nodded. "I waited a couple of hours until I was sure my parents were asleep. Then I got up and dressed in my warmest clothes. I went down the loft ladder as quietly as I could and let myself out of the cabin. It was so dark, but when the clouds shifted, the moon and starlight reflected off the snow, and I could see my way forward a little bit. I didn't have a plan, exactly, except to get back to town and be at the doctor's office the next morning to have those tests. I was putting one foot in front of the other, not looking any farther ahead than that-and I hadn't reckoned on how cold it was. I'd only gotten a few miles when I started stumbling and falling down because my feet were numb inside my boots. I realized I was slowing down, and I'd lost my way in the snow. Part of me wanted to just lie down in a s...o...b..nk and go to sleep, but I knew if I did that, I'd never wake up again. So I kept putting one foot in front of the other until, finally, I saw a light in the distance."

She paused, caught in the memory of that shambling, painful half run toward the tiny light that represented hope to a girl with none. The welcome sight of that red-sided barn whose safety lights had been her beacon. The shock of sudden warmth and the exhaustion that overtook her when she finally allowed herself to stop running.

"It was a barn on the edge of a neighboring farm," she told Patty. "Johnny's family's farm, as it happens. And when he came out to milk the cows the next morning, he found me huddled in the hay, in the middle of one of my fits. I came to in the arms of the handsomest young man I'd ever seen, being carried to his truck and bundled into the pa.s.senger seat. I told him I was better, that I was sorry for trespa.s.sing, but he waved it all away and took me straight to the hospital. I had my tests, and when I came back out ... Johnny was still there, waiting for me."

Tessa closed her eyes, reliving her complicated joy at the sight of a familiar face when everything in her life was in such turmoil. "The whole story came tumbling out of me, right there in the emergency room reception area, and Johnny never hesitated. He was amazing. He had a solution for every problem-I had juvenile absence epilepsy, I needed treatment. My parents wouldn't pay for the medicine, Johnny would. He didn't have the money ... but he'd joined the army upon graduating from college, and if we got married before he shipped off to basic training, I'd share in his health benefits. I wasn't quite eighteen? Well, the age of consent in Maryland was sixteen. Johnny took my hand, and swore to me that all he wanted was to help me."

Patty made a noise in the back of her throat. "Oh, sugar."

"I know. I was inexperienced, but I wasn't an idiot. Of course I was scared, but what could I do? What were my options? The doctor was very clear with me about what I needed to do to control the seizures, and what the consequences would be of letting them go unchecked. I couldn't stand the thought of going back to the commune, and I knew my father would never relent about the medications anyway-and here was this boy, enough older than me to seem like he knew everything and had all the answers. And he was so handsome, so kind. I took a chance. A crazy chance."

"You were only a baby," Patty said gruffly. "When I think what could have happened, I could strangle those parents of yours."

"But nothing terrible did happen," Tessa pointed out. "I got married, to a good man who wasn't lying when he said all he wanted was to help me. I got the treatment I needed, and when I was nineteen, the seizures stopped all by themselves-but by that time, I was taking my GED and keeping the house for when Johnny came home on leave, and I just ... stayed married to him."

Patty's mouth worked for a moment, silently, before she finally managed to say, "Sugar. When you say all Johnny wanted was to help you..."

Tessa could feel the sting of bitterness in the corners of her smile. "I mean, that's all he ever wanted. He never touched me. At first I was relieved, but oh, Patty, as the years went by ... He was gone so much of the time when he was in the army, but when he was home, it got harder and harder for me to pretend I didn't want more. We weren't husband and wife, we were roommates. I'm not proud of how long it took me to leave, but I was sure I was doing the right thing..."

She paused, uncertainty welling up in her belly and mixing unpleasantly with the chardonnay. Patty's gaze sharpened. "And now you're not so sure. Because he came for you."

"I don't understand how he could want to stay married to me! I'm n.o.body to him, just some waif he rescued almost a decade ago. It's long past time I let him out of this deal, so he can find someone he can have a real relationship with. And so I can find a man who actually wants to be with me!"

Taking a last, savoring swallow of wine, Patty leaned her elbow on the butcher block and regarded Tessa consideringly. "Are you certain Johnny doesn't want you? I would think his actions in pursuing you to Sanctuary Island indicate otherwise."

Tessa's mind flashed back to the way he'd kissed her in the park that afternoon, tender and fierce ... and hungry. Was it possible Johnny could actually want her? It was hard to believe, after years of being looked through as if she were invisible. Tessa wasn't sure she was brave enough to let herself believe Johnny's desire was sincere.

"Johnny's always had a thing about loyalty," she explained dully. "He would never leave me, even if he wanted to. I had to be the one to do it. So I did it."

Even though it had felt as if she were tearing out her own beating heart and leaving it behind. But that was a pain she was sure she could overcome, given enough time-unlike the insidious, soul-killing pain of living every day knowing that she was desperately in love with a man who could never see her as anything other than a vulnerable child to be protected.

That kiss wasn't real, Tessa decided as she accepted Patty's fierce hug. That kiss just couldn't have been real. What Tessa had to remember was how it felt when Johnny kissed her forehead and sent her off to her lonely bed, night after night. She refused to go back to that. She wanted more out of life. She deserved it. And goodness knew, so did he.

But as Patty went back to cooking dinner, finally allowing Tessa to help chop and stir, it was the kiss in the gazebo that kept replaying in Tessa's head.

Johnny paced the deserted beach, sand crunching under his leather boots and the rush of waves almost drowning out the thunderous silence on the other end of his phone call.

Losing patience, Johnny said, "Brad. Are you still there?"

A sigh. "I'm here, Johnny. But I was kind of hoping you were kidding."

The back of Johnny's neck felt hot. "I know how it sounds, but there's something going on with this bartender, Brad. I've got a gut feeling."

"Much as I respect your gut..." Brad paused again, seeming to choose his words carefully. "I have to wonder if this is hypervigilance left over from spending the last eighteen months in an incredibly stressful, high-pressure situation where your life was literally in danger every second."

"Not everything in my life is a reaction to the past eighteen months," Johnny growled, staring out over the ocean.

"I sent you to Sanctuary Island to get some rest and reconnect with your wife, not to get embroiled in another investigation."

"I slept fourteen hours straight last night," Johnny countered. It was the truth. Waking up had been like coming to after a coma. He still felt groggy, although the sea breeze was helping to clear away the mental cobwebs.

"That's good. And what about your wife? How's it going with Terri?"

This time Johnny was the one who paused, replaying the memory of that spectacular kiss. After years of dreaming about the softness of her lips, years of imagining the surprised sound she'd make in the back of her throat and the way she'd wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him back, Johnny's dreams had come true. And the reality had been even more devastating than anything he could have dreamed up.

Maybe he'd been wrong to keep their relationship chaste for so long. But after the way they met, how young she'd been, he would have felt like he was taking advantage of her. The idea of pressuring her into something she didn't want was the surest way Johnny knew to kill his own desire.

But now that he knew Tessa left because she thought he didn't want her, all bets were off. Maybe that kiss was fighting dirty, but Johnny was fighting to save his marriage. He'd use every weapon at his disposal.

"She goes by Tessa now," was all he told Brad. "And she's my number one priority here. I'm not going to let anything get in the way of that, not even looking into Marcus Beckett. But I'm not going to ignore my gut and pretend the guy doesn't ping every one of my internal alarms. He lives on the same tiny island where my wife lives, Brad. I need to know who Marcus Beckett is and what he's doing here."

Brad finally snapped. "Let it go, for the love of-Johnny, come on. This is textbook paranoia, man. Dr. Reeves talked about this. It's one of the most common reactions when someone is trying to reintegrate from undercover work back into civilian life."

"It's not paranoia if Marcus Beckett is actually a danger to the people in this town!" Johnny stopped, breathing hard into the phone and wishing he couldn't hear the way he sounded like a raving lunatic just then.

Brad, because he was a stand-up kind of guy, didn't bother to point it out. All he did was say, very gently and with no trace of judgment, "Your first session with the therapeutic riding center is this afternoon at one. Let me know how it goes."

As if Brad didn't have a line on that information already, Johnny mused resentfully. He probably had Johnny's new therapist on speed dial.

Reminding himself that was fair, since the ATF was footing the bill for Johnny's therapy and Brad was his boss and had to account for that money in his budget, Johnny forced a calm tone. "I'll be there. Don't worry about me."

"It's my job to worry about you."

The fond exasperation in Brad's tone pulled a reluctant smile out of Johnny. "Oh, in that case, I'm happy to keep you busy. I'd hate for you to get bored at work."

"You don't need to dream up new reasons for me to worry! I've got plenty already!"

That pulled a reluctant smile from Johnny as he ended the call. The smile faded quickly, though, when he went back to brooding about his new landlord.

So Brad refused to help out and run a background check on the mysterious, surly Marcus Beckett. Well, special agents with the ATF were broadly empowered to investigate criminal activities on their own, and Johnny had every intention of doing just that. He'd already embedded himself in Beckett's home base. He'd figure out what the man was up to, soon enough.

Johnny turned to trudge back up the beach toward the town square. He'd slipped out of the b.u.t.tercup Inn while Beckett was drilling something in the back, and headed out looking for a place where he could be sure of making a private phone call.

Johnny knew better than to ever say anything confidential in a closet or a locked, so-called private office. He'd taken advantage of enough hiding places in his day, and he'd overheard plenty that he wasn't supposed to.

No, if you want to have a completely private conversation, look for an open field or a stretch of empty sand where you'll see an eavesdropper coming for miles before they're close enough to hear anything.

Luckily for him, Sanctuary Island was a sleepy sort of place, not exactly bustling with activity on this spring morning. Other than a dark-haired woman watching her little boy on the jungle gym and an elderly man walking a bulldog around the rose garden, Johnny hadn't pa.s.sed anyone.

On his way back up to the town square, things were a little busier-more cars, more pedestrians, a couple of people on bikes. The lunchtime rush, maybe. The thought of lunch got Johnny's feet moving faster. He hadn't eaten anything in what felt like years, and those cinnamon rolls he'd smelled at Patty Cakes the day before were calling his name.

Chapter 7.

The instant Johnny hit Main Street, he caught the scent.

Melted b.u.t.ter and caramelized sugar, the warm spice of cinnamon ... Johnny licked his lips and jogged the last block to the bakery.

Patty was behind the counter again, but she was busy with another customer when Johnny entered. A young woman with strawberry-blond hair and freckles stared down at the gla.s.s display case like her choice of pastry was the key to world peace.

She looked to be around Tessa's age, but something about the way she tapped the dimple in her chin as she pored over the sweet treats made her seem younger than twenty-six.

"I don't know what he'd like," she was fretting. "Everyone likes the sticky buns. But what if he's the one-in-a-million person who somehow doesn't like them? Some people have no sweet tooth at all. Maybe a loaf of bread is a safer choice. Do you still have the jalapeno cheddar?"

Patty met Johnny's gaze over the girl's head and closed one eye in a slow wink. "We sure do, honey. Is that what you want?"

"I'm not sure," the girl moaned, clasping her fingers on top of her head. "Welcome Neighbor presents are the hardest! How do you know what he'll like when you haven't seen him since you were ten years-Oh, h.e.l.lo!"

The girl had turned far enough to nearly take out Johnny's eye with a gesticulating hand, and now she flushed bright enough to make all her freckles disappear.

"I'm so sorry! I didn't hear the door. You should go ahead of me, I need to think about this some more."

"That's all right," Johnny said, amused. "Take all the time you need. I'm in no rush."

He'd rather wait for Tessa to come out, anyway.

As if she'd heard his thought, Patty said, "I sent Tessa home early today. She worked a double yesterday and opened for me this morning, so I decided she needed the break."

... After the day she had yesterday, Patty didn't add, but Johnny understood her tone loud and clear. "I appreciate that, Miss Patty. I'm glad to know that Tessa's had someone like you looking out for her."

It was true, too. As much as Johnny might wish he could have been the one looking out for his wife, he'd made the choice to leave her to take that undercover a.s.signment. He had to own that, and he couldn't regret it because it had been necessary. The world was a safer place with those guns off the streets.

And, of course, at the time it had seemed like the only way to resist his need for his wife was to take any mission that would get him out of the house and away from temptation.

Patty gave him a nod and went back to helping the indecisive girl, who was wringing her hands and peering woefully between the sugar-crusted gingersnaps and the marbled cream cheese brownies.

"Everything in that case is delicious," Patty declared. "You can't go wrong, sweetie."

"Oh, I know! I love everything you and Tessa bake." The girl glanced up with an earnest smile. "Those salted caramel shortbread bars, oh, my gosh! But what I don't know is what Marcus Beckett will love."

Johnny's ears perked up, but he didn't show his immediate surge of interest. But how the h.e.l.l did a sweet, innocent girl like this have anything to do with a gruff, possibly dangerous bartender?

"That's right, I heard he was back in town," Patty said, darting a glance at Johnny. "I haven't seen him since his mother's funeral, right after his college graduation."

"I don't think he's been home since, and that was fifteen years ago. I was only a kid, and I remember worrying that cancer was contagious and my mom might catch it since we lived right next door."

Early death of a parent, Johnny noted, trying not to let the pang of sympathy interfere with inferring what that might have done to a young man at a formative time in his life. Most criminals, in Johnny's experience, boasted some traumatic childhood or adolescent event that "pushed" them into a life of crime.

Johnny's own catastrophic childhood tragedy had shoved him in the other direction, straight into law enforcement.

"Such a sad thing, what happened to that family." Patty sighed. "What a bright future Marcus had ahead of him, and then ... Didn't he go into the army?"

Johnny felt an internal rush of satisfaction. He hadn't lost his ability to spot military training. Now, the only question remained-was Beckett a veteran who should be honored for his service to his nation? Or had he turned the training Uncle Sam gave him into something shady as h.e.l.l?

"Yes, and that was the last anyone heard from him. I'm sure he turned out wonderfully!" The girl bit her lip. "Except for the part about how he hasn't visited his poor father in years and years. But maybe Marcus was busy. With work, or something."

Yeah, or something, Johnny thought grimly. Something illegal, maybe. The way Beckett had warned him off the subject of where he'd gotten the money he seemed to be spending like water ... There was a secret there. Johnny was sure of it.

And where there were secrets about money, there was usually criminal activity.

In fact, maybe it was time to warn this sweet young thing off her mission of welcoming Marcus Beckett home. Johnny put on his most charming, trustworthy smile.

"You know, I couldn't help but overhear you talking about Marcus Beckett-and as it happens, I'm staying in the apartment next to his, above the bar he's opening."

Quinn turned to him with a dazzling smile at the coincidence. "Oh! Do you know if he likes cream cheese brownies?"

"Um, I don't. Sorry. But I'd be happy to bring him whatever you pick out. Save you a trip."

Her face fell. Johnny hoped to G.o.d she never tried to play poker for money.

"Gosh," Quinn said. "That's really nice of you. But I couldn't impose ... Oh, and I have to go see him anyway, because I'm going to ask him for a job! So I might as well deliver the cupcakes myself. Yeah, cupcakes, I think. The yellow cake ones with chocolate b.u.t.tercream."

The relief in her happy smile was equaled only by the alarm Johnny felt at this turn of events. "You want to work for Beckett?"

For some reason, that made her blush again. "Well, I bartended in college, and I'm kind of between jobs right now, so I was sort of thinking it might be a good fit. Why, does he already have a bartender?"

She looked so anxious at the thought. Johnny hated to crush her dreams, but he hated the idea of this nice girl getting mixed up with Beckett even more. "He's probably a good week away from opening up, but I'm pretty sure he plans to tend the bar himself."

Her brow cleared. "Oh, that's all right, then. No one wants to work seven days a week, and I'm good with part-time. It's sort of my thing."

"Here are your cupcakes, sweetie." Patty handed a plain brown box tied with red ribbon across the counter. "Tell your parents I said hi, the next time you talk to them."

"I will!" Quinn bounced on the soles of her sneakers as she counted out change. "They're loving the vagabond life. I haven't heard from them since they hit Yellowstone, but I think they're getting to the lodge in the next day or so, and they should have better reception then. I'll give them your love. Thanks, Miss Patty!"

With that, she wafted out of the bakery on a cloud of shiny optimism bright enough to make Johnny's head hurt. Part of him wanted to run after Quinn and keep her from going to talk to Marcus Beckett, but Johnny consoled himself with the realistic understanding that there was almost no way Beckett would be interested in hiring Little Miss Sunshine to work in his bar.

Again showing an uncanny, discomforting ability to read his mind, Patty shrugged. "No use trying to talk that girl out of anything. For such a flibbertigibbet, she's got an obstinate streak a mile wide."

Flibbertigibbet? Who said that?

"She seemed very sweet," Johnny said after a short hesitation.

"Oh, very. Always has been. But she's twenty-five years old and she's never had a real job. No idea what she wants to do with her life, no direction, nothing permanent. Even her living situation-she's house-sitting for her parents while they take an extended RV trip out West." Patty shook her salt-and-pepper curls. "In my day, most girls were married by her age. And if you weren't married, you'd better have a good backup plan like my bakery here. Not that I'm saying women today ought to get married young. That's usually not a good idea these days."

Johnny stared at her. "I guess I don't need to ask where you stand on the subject of Tessa and me."