As Darkness Gathers (Dark Betrayals Book 2) (33 page)

It was dark by the time I pulled into my parents’ driveway. The dusk-to-dawn lamp at the corner of the yard cast its pale yellow glow in a pool on the pavement, and the stars were bright overhead.
 

I sat on the porch steps, leaning back on my palms to take in the night sky. I’d been sitting there for several minutes when the front door opened.

“Finch?”

“Hi, Daddy.”

He didn’t say anything as he closed the door behind him and took a seat beside me on the steps, but then he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pressed his face against the top of my head. I leaned into his embrace.

“You should have told your mother and me about everything that was going on.”

“I didn’t want you to worry,” I said into his shoulder.

“We’re your parents. It’s our prerogative to worry.” His voice was gruff.

The front door opened, and Aramis, Porthos, and Athos shoved out of the gap and squirmed for my attention.

“Finch, is that you?”

I stood and went to hug her. “Hello, Mama.”

“Sweetheart,” was all she managed to say as she drew me into her arms and stroked my hair. When the dogs started barking at our feet, jealous of the attention she was paying me, we both laughed.

“Let’s go inside, ladies. It’s cold out,” my father said, ushering the dogs in as well.

“Have you eaten?” my mother asked, tucking her arm around my waist. “We just finished dinner, but I have plenty of leftovers.”

“I’m pretty hungry,” I said because I knew that was what she wanted to hear.

“Good. You sit, and I’ll get you a plate. After you eat, you can tell us where you disappeared to.”

I told them about the drive, and how I hadn’t really known where I was going until I got into Canada. I told them about the cabin Daniel and Timothy stayed in every summer. I told them about finding the lodge, about Simone and Honoré, and climbing the bluff, and then my phone rang.
 

I stared at Clay’s name and number on the screen and let it go to voicemail. He didn’t leave a message.

“He wanted me to let him know when you came home.”

I jerked my head up and met my father’s gaze.
 

“He also asked me how I felt about his pursuing a relationship with you.”

“Jacob!” my mother exclaimed. “You weren’t supposed to tell her that.”

I chuckled. “What did you tell him?”

He grinned. “I wished him luck, warned him that you took after your mother, and weren’t an easy woman to live with.”

She smacked him in the shoulder and then rubbed the sting away apologetically. “Since your father has already let it out of the bag, it’s clear the man loves you, Finch.”

“What I want to know,” my father said, “is if
you
love
him
.”

“I do.” My answer came so swift and vehement it surprised even me.

He smiled. “Then I’ll call him.”

“No, don’t.” I put a hand on his arm. “Don’t call him. I have a better idea.”

I spent the night with my parents, and the next morning I typed Clay’s town into the map application on my cell phone and drove.
 

It was afternoon when I arrived in Dogwood, and though it was the weekend, Clay’s secretary was seated at her desk.
 

She was a middle-aged woman with glasses dangling by a beaded chain from her neck that appeared to have been made by a child, and her smile was bemused when I rushed in. “May I help—”
 

I hurried past and she scrambled after me.
 

“Miss!”

I burst into Clay’s office without knocking, and he glanced up from the papers he was poring over, startled.
 

His desk was covered in stacks of books and binders and files, but it wasn’t messy. The clutter appeared to be organized. The rest of his office was immaculate, decorated in cream and dark wood accents. The shelves on either wall were lined with heavy, leather bound volumes, but no plaques or diplomas or awards were framed and displayed on the walls. His desk was large, but not ornate or opulent, and the shadeless windows overlooked the main street of the town.
 

The secretary cleared her throat, and I felt her disapproving stare at my back.
 

“It’s okay, Gloria,” Clay said, and I sucked in a breath at the pleasure that coursed through me at the mere sound of his voice.

I soaked in the sight of him as the door closed behind me.
 

The knot of his tie was loosened, the top two buttons of his dress shirt undone, and his sleeves were rolled up on his corded forearms. He ran his hands over his short hair, and the shadowed smudges under his eyes suggested he hadn’t been sleeping. I knew my face reflected the same about me. He pushed his chair back from his desk, and I wanted to go to him, to crawl into his lap, but my feet were rooted to the ground.
 

Uncertain, I said the first thing that came to mind. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve been a phone call away.” There was no rancor in his voice, but his face was guarded. There was a flicker of heat and relief in his gaze that gave me strength. “Your father was going to let me know when you were home. I asked Julia as well.”

“I told them not to call you.”

He leaned back in his chair, arms folded over his chest. “I see.”

“No, I . . . I don’t think you do.” The courage that had driven me the last several hours suddenly deserted me. My mother had said Clay loved me. “Clay, I—”

A soft thumping interrupted me, and my gaze caught on something I’d missed earlier.
 

On the far side of Clay’s desk, under the window, was a large, plush dog bed, and the canine curled up on it watched me with limpid eyes.
 

As I stared at the dog, its tail thumped harder. “Oh,” I said softly. “Who’s this?”

At my question, the dog pushed itself to its feet. It was huge and leggy. The gray around its muzzle and the gingerness in its steps showed its age, but it wagged its tail and lolled its tongue with all the enthusiasm of a puppy. I knelt and held out my hand, and the dog pressed its wet nose against my palm, and then ducked under my arm and burrowed its blocky head against my chest.

“The shelter’s best guess is that she’s a German shepherd, mastiff mix. Maybe some retriever in there as well,” Clay said as he stood and leaned against his desk.

I pressed my cheek into the ruff of fur around the dog’s neck and stroked my hands over her broad back. She sighed and leaned more heavily against me, almost knocking me off balance.

“I’d intended to get a puppy, but as soon as I saw her . . .”

“She’s beautiful. What’s her name?” I pulled back and looked at the red collar around the dog’s neck. There was a gold medallion attached to the collar, and I spun it around. My breath caught in my throat. Both my name and Clay’s were on the back with our phone numbers. I turned over the circle of metal, and my eyes filled at the name engraved on the front.
 

Queequeg.
 

I covered my mouth with my fingers.

I cupped her muzzle in my hands and peered into Queequeg’s dark, soulful eyes. She looked like she was grinning, her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth. She had terrible dog breath. But when she licked my nose, sat, and placed an oversized paw on my shoulder, I knew she was mine.

As was the man who crouched down behind her.
 

She tipped her head back against his shoulder and panted, her tail pounding the floor.

“We were going to drive down when you got home,” Clay said, rubbing Queequeg’s ears.

“I was the one who ran away. I needed to come to you.” I swallowed. “With everything that was going on, I wasn’t sure if I could trust my feelings for you. But what I feel when I’m with you has been the only thing I
could
count on during the last weeks.”
 

He stood and leaned back against his desk. Queequeg followed him, sat on his feet, and stared up at him with canine adoration.
 

“What do you feel when you’re with me?”

I tucked a wavy lock of hair behind my ear and got to my feet. “Safe. And . . .” I licked my lips and his gaze followed the movement. “And loved.”
 

His eyes darkened and his fists clenched where they gripped the edge of his desk.
 

“And with me?” I asked. “What do you feel when you’re with me?”

His throat worked, and when he spoke, his dry voice was rough with emotion. “Like I’ve come home. Like I’m welcomed and wanted. And loved.”

My smile trembled. “You are. Will you . . . will you hold me?”

He spread his arms, and I nudged around Queequeg to step into them.
 

With a sigh, she lay on the floor at our feet.
 

He enfolded me tightly against him, his arms strong and sure. When that contact wasn’t enough, I pushed against him until he was sitting on the desk, and I climbed up after him, my knees straddling his hips, my head on his shoulder. His hands delved under my sweater to splay across the bare skin of my lower back, and I shivered at the contact.
 

“Comfortable?” he asked, his chest rumbling against mine, the wryness back in his voice.

When I pulled away to smile at him, there was a tenderness in his gaze that made my heart quicken. I pressed my lips to his and whispered, “Oh, yes.”

Epilogue

Five years later

“What do you think?” I turned to my audience of three on the bed. “Green?” I asked as I held up the flowing jade sundress, “or yellow?” I tucked the simple, sunshine-colored sheath under my chin.

My daughter turned from trying to fit a bonnet on Queequeg’s head and studied me.
 

At three years old, Simone was already adamant about her sense of fashion, and it was with no little amusement that I realized it much resembled Julia’s. Today, she wore a tiara and pink and purple tights with a lime green scarf over my blue silk nightgown, which kept slipping off her small, dimpled shoulders.

“Gween, Mommy! The gween one!”

Queequeg responded with thumping tail and canine grin, and my son with a gummy, “Mamamamama.”

“Green it is.” I slipped into it, keeping an eye on the trio in the mirror. “Honey, I don’t think Edgar wants to wear that bonnet.”
 

The six-month-old’s face was screwed up in protest, but when his sister returned to fitting it over the elderly dog’s ears, he gurgled happily and laughed at her antics.

I did a slow pirouette for them. “You don’t think this makes Mommy look like a dinosaur, Simi?”

She bounced on the bed, her strawberry curls a riot over her head, and squealed at the hilarity of my statement.

“What mischief are all of you getting into?”

“Daddy!” Simone shrieked and threw herself into the air.
 

Clay caught her and straightened the tiara from where it had slipped askew over one eyebrow.
 

“Mommy thinks she looks like a
dinosnore
!”
 

Clay met my gaze and grinned before Simone planted her small hands on either side of his face to turn his attention back to her. She placed a smacking kiss on his nose and then whispered at a decibel that could be heard in the next room, “But I think she looks like an angel.”

I scooped my son off the bed from where he reclined against the dog and balanced him over the curve of my stomach. He leaned his head against my chest and fisted his chubby hand in my hair. “Mamamama.”

Clay cupped the back of Simone’s head in his hand and whispered in her ear. It never failed to make my heart clutch to witness how gentle he was with his children.
 

I knew he’d been as afraid as he was excited when I’d first told him I was pregnant on our one-year wedding anniversary. The legacy of the men in his life wasn’t one he would ever forget, but he spent a lot of time with my father in the months leading up to Simone’s birth. Neither of them told me what they’d discussed all those evenings on the back porch, and I didn’t ask. I didn’t need to know.