Devil in Disguise (11 page)

“I’m the worst sister on the planet,” she blurted over lunch.

“I’ve been telling you that for years,” Julia replied without
missing a beat, showing the first real spark of her old self Rachel had seen.

“What brought that on?” Neena prompted.

“I’m just realizing that you were right, Neena. I’ve spent more time with your grout than I have Julia.”

Julia frowned at that. “Don’t be stupid, Rachel. I know you were figuring out the whole Conrad thing. And you’ve checked on me
lots.”

“You knew?”

“I’m not stupid.” Julia stopped eating her pancakes long enough to peer up at Rachel from under the brim of her hat.

Neena smiled sympathetically. “Sweetie, everyone knows. Benjamin asked if you were mad at his Uncle Conrad.”

“He did not.” Rachel was horrified.

“Okay, maybe not. But I could tell he was thinking it, and he did mention the two of you in the same sentence,” Neena amended.

“So, have you figured it out yet?” Julia asked.

“I’m no closer than when I started.”

Julia shrugged. “For what it’s worth, I’ve always liked him.”

“I’ve always liked him too,” Neena added.

“That’s helpful. Can we talk about something else?”

“Charlie texted earlier to say your cat was dropped off today,” Neena offered.

“Darcy’s here?” Rachel perked up immediately. “Why didn’t
you say so sooner?”

“Because I wanted to finish my cheeseburger.”

Rachel gave Neena a pleading look. Neena popped the last of her sandwich in her mouth and held her hands up. Rachel took that as a sign and snagged the bill off the table to go pay while the other two finished their drinks.

When they arrived at Neena’s, it was evident Darcy had missed Rachel as much as she had him. He yowled until she picked him up, and then he purred just as loudly. He followed her through the house without fail.

“You know, when you close the door, that cat sits just on the other side of it and stares at the door until you come out,” Charlie
observed over dinner. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“He’s my baby,” Rachel sighed. “I missed him so stupidly much. Thanks for letting him stay here.”

“We’re happy to help,” Charlie responded in his typical easy manner.

“He’s pretty. Where’d you get him?” Neena asked.

“Conrad gave him to me for my birthday, oh wow, three years ago already.”

“I promise I didn’t bring him up on purpose.” Neena threw her hands up innocently.

“No worries.” Rachel waved off her concern, not at all eager to jump into that conversation with her mother present, even if she was being uncharacteristically quiet lately.

“I want a cat, but Mom keeps telling me no,” Gabrielle interjected.

“I don’t see how you can take care of a cat with everything else you have going on. You’re out as much as you’re home lately, sweetie.”

“I could do it, Mom; you just won’t give me a chance.”

Rachel saw a train wreck getting ready to happen, so she made a mental note to ask Neena later if Gabrielle could test-drive cat ownership on Darcy. Then she made an effort to steer the conversation onto another path. “So, Charlie, how do you like your
new gig?”

“I think I like it. It’s been a little stressful getting settled in, but I think it’s going to be a good thing. Lord knows the pay raise helps.”

“I don’t know. I liked the idea of you being the scrappy small-
town lawyer, fighting injustice and all that.” Rachel mulled it over. “I’m not sure I’m used to you being the Honorable Charles Russell yet.”

Charlie smiled as if amused by the notion. “Neena does her best to be sure nobody sees me as honorable.”

With that, the conversation moved into safer territory. Rachel breathed a sigh of relief and went on autopilot. Now that she’d stopped working herself to death, she was beginning to realize just how tired she really was. When her eyelids became so heavy she was in danger of embarrassing herself by snoring at the dinner table, she excused herself.

She was so exhausted she almost slept through Julia’s first nightmare. She might have anyway if the girl hadn’t punched her
while fighting off
the demons in her mind.

“Holy crap, that hurt!” Rachel shrieked before she could catch herself.

“What?” Julia shot straight up in bed.

“Nothing. I’m sorry, baby doll. Go back to sleep.” Rachel curled up with her sister, stroking her hair.

“I was having a horrible dream. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“I’m so sorry. It was just a dream; you’re safe now.”

“Do you think they’ll ever be out of my head?” Julia’s voice
sounded very small in that moment.

“It will fade with time,” Rachel promised. “This will always be a part of who you are, but no, they won’t haunt you forever.”

“I wish I could make it go away, like it never happened.”

“I do, too. But if you can’t do that, you can decide what you do with it.”

“It?”

“The pain, the anger, the whole ugly situation, what it’s done to you,” Rachel explained. “You can’t undo it, but you get to decide if it
will make you bitter or if it’ll teach you to love better. Will it break you or forge you into something stronger? I can’t undo what’s
happened any more than you can, but I will promise you that you won’t walk through this alone.”

“Thank you,” Julia whispered, curling her arms around
Rachel’s, holding them closer to her.

“Go back to sleep, love. Have happy dreams. It’s your head; you decide what you want to dream – don’t let the demons in.” Rachel
didn’t know if her words would help, but she sensed that a large part of Julia’s current struggle was with the loss of control. She was operating solely on gut instinct, though, and hoped she wasn’t
saying completely
the wrong thing. She wished Conrad were here. Even if he was as clueless as she was, his presence would reassure her.

Even if not present in person, Conrad permeated her dreams that night. His rich laughter floated all around her. His fingers twirled her hair absentmindedly as they lay stretched out in the
sand, sunshine
bathing them and the cool water of the Atlantic Ocean tickling their toes.

When her eyelids fluttered open the next morning, she took a moment to relish the remnant of the dream. She took another moment to relish the fact that she’d had more than two hours of sleep in the same stretch. Julia was in the shower. The smell of
waffles and coffee
wafted through the house. Rachel sighed deeply and stretched,
wishing she could sleep for about twenty more hours but still feeling better than she had in weeks.

The next thing she realized was that her eye was throbbing. She
brought her hand to it, gently touching the offending spot and
wincing once her fingers made contact. Her stomach tightened with dread as she sat up to peek in the mirror. Her sweet little sister had given her a fairly decent shiner.

Rachel braced herself to be teased mercilessly over her new look.
She tried to lie to Julia and say she did it to herself, but she was
busted when Julia asked how and she couldn’t answer fast enough.

Veronica called to check on them, which brought about more
teasing about the eye. She also passed along well-wishes from Rachel’s colleagues back at the station.

It was a little unnerving to Rachel how little she’d thought about
work over the past week. All those years of living for the next story, and then one catastrophic event flipped a switch inside her.
Suddenly, the office didn’t matter so much. More than that – it didn’t even cross
her mind. She wondered if it was a permanent change or if her
sudden indifference would pass.

Worries swirled around her mind, like what would happen if
she never cared about her job again and what that would leave her with. Something nagged inside her, making her wonder if she was
drawn back to Conrad only because of the current situation. That was the thought that sent her back into a cleaning frenzy.

“Alright, come on.” Neena confiscated Rachel’s scrub brush. “As
much as it pains me to stop you from cleaning my toilet, I think
you’re more likely to find your answer outside.”

“What’s outside?”

“Dirt.”

“You truly confound me sometimes, you know that?” Rachel followed Neena outside nonetheless.

“There is just something about sinking your hands in good dirt that frees up your brain.”

“Your garden needs weeding, doesn’t it?” Rachel accused.

“Yes, but that’s beside the point. You’re going to get high breathing bleach fumes. Come outside and spend some time in the
dirt with the sunshine on your face. I promise it will be good for you.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Rachel accepted the garden tools Neena handed her.

“I feel a little guilty here,” Neena admitted. “Either you and Conrad figure this thing out and I get a sister-in-law, which makes me happy, or you keep butting heads and my chores keep magically doing themselves. I win either way. It hardly seems fair.”

“You’ve probably earned at least one situation in life that’s a win-win. You have my permission to enjoy this.”

“Please tell Charlie that. He thinks I’m exploiting you.”

Rachel laughed at that. “I’ll let him know.”

AS IT TURNED OUT, NEENA HAD BEEN RIGHT:
Rachel enjoyed
working the earth more than she thought possible. She may have picked as many of Neena’s flowers as she did weeds, but she didn’t
let her ineptitude in the garden dampen her enjoyment. Just to be safe, she made sure to stash the plants she’d pulled in the yard waste bin before Neena came to check on her progress.

By the end of the day, she was a happy kind of tired, her skin had darkened to a pretty shade of brown, and the morning’s panic
had passed. She might not have solved any of the problems looming over her, but they didn’t seem so insurmountable.

That night, Julia only woke up once. Rachel considered it a
victory. But her joy was diminished when Neena wouldn’t let her weed the
vegetable garden. Instead, she gave Rachel a wheelbarrow full of
shade plants, showed her a patch of ground under their oak tree, and told
her to plant a garden. While Rachel didn’t mind the new task, she had a sneaking suspicion Neena didn’t trust her with their food
plants. It irked Rachel to not be good at something.

To redeem herself, Rachel determined to plant the best damned shade garden Neena Russell had ever seen. By the end of that day, she was drenched in sweat and had dirt smeared across her face, but
she was able to stand back and admire her creation. She’d also reached a certain peace when it came to the subject of Conrad. She might not be able to say how things would work, exactly, but she accepted the simple fact that she still loved him.

It was obvious to the rest of the world that she’d never stopped. Maybe it was time to risk shattering what was left of her pride and heart to see where it led her. If he rejected her, at least it would be a sudden death instead of the excruciatingly slow one she was currently experiencing.

The next morning, Rachel’s muscles screamed in protest as she rose from the bed. She consoled herself with the fact that her black eye was fading fast. She must have done okay on the garden too, because Neena turned her loose with a mountain of mulch to be spread and instructions to water the plants thoroughly.

She was so immersed in her task that it took her completely by surprise when tires crunched the gravel of Neena and Charlie’s driveway. Rachel looked up with a start, her heart leaping with joy even as she groaned in dismay. Conrad got out of the truck and strolled over to her, a devilish grin on his face. She wasn’t sure she
was ready to see him just yet.

“The story about the shiner finally made it to me through the grapevine. I came as soon as I heard. I have to admit, I’m a little sad it’s almost gone already.”

“You drove six hours to see a black eye?” She wiped the sweat off her brow, and his grin deepened. She knew without checking that she’d just smeared dirt across her forehead.

“I seem to recall you laughing at me when my sister clocked me in her sleep,” he reminded her.

“But that was a spontaneous laugh. This is totally premeditated. The two are very different creatures.”

“Is that so?”

“Everyone knows the difference.”

“Would I be redeemed at all if I admitted that I really came because I missed you, all of you?”

Rachel wanted to shout that he would have come a lot closer to redemption if he hadn’t amended his question, but instead she smiled. “Consider yourself forgiven. I think your sister’s in the
kitchen. She and Gabrielle are teaching Julia how to make jewelry.”

She couldn’t quite read the look in his eyes. She thought she saw disappointment but couldn’t fathom what she’d done wrong. He was the one who’d made a point of saying it wasn’t just her he’d been
missing.

She finished her gardening in solitude, much of the joy gone from the task. When she cleaned up after herself, she stomped the
dirt off her
shoes and let herself into the kitchen, making a beeline for the refrigerator, intent on pouring herself a glass of iced tea.

Even through the refrigerator door, she could feel the weight of
his gaze. Telling herself she was imagining it, Rachel peeked over
the
fridge door, her eyes locking with his. Maybe she was simply seeing what she wanted to see, but his eyes told her he’d spent their time apart thinking about her too. There was such yearning in them, such promise, it made her want to crawl in his lap and hide from the world in his arms.