Here in My Heart: A Novella (Echoes of the Heart) (20 page)

“Can we let Sally give her statement first?” Dru finally said. “I think it would be easier for Lisa, seeing Sally be okay after talking about what happened.”

“That’s going to be up to the sheriff.” Brad cupped Dru’s cheek, her chin cradled perfectly in his palm. He ran his thumb across her bottom lip. “But I’ll do everything I can to make this right.”

His words were for Lisa, who’d looked up to hear his answer. But his attention stayed on Dru.

“Mom!” Lisa burst from Dru’s grasp, running across the lobby to where Marsha and Joe Dixon had just rushed in. “Dad!”

Dru’s foster parents snatched the girl close, hugging her and making a fuss over her. Lisa clung tightly, allowing herself to be loved. The crowd of spectators in the lobby smiled at the touching scene.

“Look at that.” Brad smiled, too.

“Oh, thank God.” Dru raised her hand to her mouth.
Mom
and
Dad
. “They’re a family.”

Brad pulled her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “You’ve done a miraculous thing, helping her. She’s okay because of your radKIDS classes, and because you helped her make friends with Sally. She trusts you and the Dixons. Her life is opening up. She’s learned to feel safe. Now, what are we going to do about you?”

Dru scanned the lobby. For once, no one was paying any attention to them.

“I don’t want to talk about this here, in front of every—”

“You didn’t want to talk about it first thing this morning, either, when we were alone at the Whip.” Brad wouldn’t release her hand. “If you think I’m going to let you out of my sight again without making my case, making you listen while I tell you I love you, you’re underestimating how much I’m willing to put on the line for you.”

“Is . . .”
I love you
 . . . “Is that what you were doing when you gave up the Dream Whip, so you’d never have to come back to Chandlerville again?”

“I want the Whip to be yours outright,” he said, loudly enough for everyone to hear, “so when I
stay
in Chandlerville, you’ll know it’s for you, Dru, and only you.”

“What?” Every dream she’d ever had warred with the parts of her that had been so careful for so long.

She slipped free of his grip. Her fingers clutched against her heart. He loved her. He wanted to stay for her. But how could he be so sure, after everything, now that there was no Vivian, no Dream Whip, nothing connecting them if something went wrong?

You have to be there to care about her, even when things are completely messed up.

“I used my ties to Vivian for years,” Brad said, “to keep up with you and help you, without making a real commitment. Vi knew that, and she knew exactly what she was doing when she manipulated me home and showed me what I’ve been missing. You, Dru. I’ve been missing you, all these years. I’ve been a fool not fighting for a life with you, just because it would have been a complicated mess at first. I won’t make that mistake again.”

Dru shook her head, still confused, beginning to hope. “We do fight really well together.”

“And we make up even better.” He winked and took her hand. “I want you, Dru—for us, not for Vivian or the restaurant. And I’m a patient man. I’ll wait for as long as it takes. I’ll go back to Savannah for a while, if you need some space. But I’ll be back this time. I’m here, for you, forever.
You’re
my home. I’ll never stop fighting for you.”

Lisa was still scared, but she felt safer than she had her whole life, with the Dixons hugging her and with Dru and Sally still close, after they’d helped her fight the scary man Officer Douglas had tackled and made sure the police locked away.

All because Lisa had done something really stupid. She’d broken a bigger rule than ever before . . . But everyone was still there with her, telling her she’d been so brave. And her foster parents still wanted her, like they’d said they always would. And for the first time, she believed them.

So why didn’t Dru look like she believed Officer Douglas when he’d just said the same thing to her?

“M-Mom?” Lisa asked, worried about her big sister.

“It’s going to be okay,” her mom promised.

But both her parents looked worried, too.

“Fight for me one more time,” Officer Douglas said to Dru. “I don’t want to leave after the funeral. But I don’t want to keep hurting you, not like this. We’re good together. Not just the other night . . .” He kissed her, and Dru’s cheeks grew rosy, the way Lisa’s got hot when she was embarrassed. “We’re even good when we’re at each other’s throats the way we are sometimes at the Dream Whip. We’re good because we’re . . . right together.” He took her hand and placed it on his chest. “No matter what, you’ve always been right here in my heart, Dru. And you always will be.”

He looked around at everyone who was listening. Sally and her uncle were there, just across the lobby, and Ms. Hemmings from school, and lots of other families Lisa knew. Other officers. The lady in uniform at the front desk. They were all waiting to hear what Dru said.

Officer Douglas looked like he wanted to kiss Dru again and keep kissing her for always, the way the cute guys in the movies kissed the girls they liked.

“I love you,” he said. “Let yourself love me back, no matter how much trouble we make next. You’ve fought for everything else in your life. We’ll find our way. I just need you to be—”

“Brave.” Lisa let go of the Dixons and walked halfway to Dru before she stopped.

People were watching her again. She swallowed hard, waiting for them to start laughing. But Dru had always been there for her. And now Lisa’s sister was the one who needed help.

“You have to be brave,” Lisa said, “like you showed me. Say what you need to. Yell it if you need to. Don’t stop just because you’re scared.”

Lisa didn’t feel alone anymore, and she didn’t know why, exactly. She just knew she didn’t want Dru to feel the way Lisa used to. And her sister looked so sad, staring at Officer Douglas and not answering him.

Travis stepped into the lobby.

“We’re ready to take both your statements,” he said to Lisa and Sally. “I’ll talk with you, Lisa. And Officer Wilson is ready for Sally. It’s important that we take care of it as soon as possible. We need every detail you can give us about what happened.”

And before Lisa really knew what was happening, she and the Dixons and Dru were walking past the front desk toward one room, Sally and her parents toward another one, while Officer Douglas stayed behind.

Chapter Fourteen

Dru raced up the Douglas steps, needing Brad to be there more than she’d ever needed anything.

She’d stayed to help Lisa in her interview. By the time they’d been released, the lobby had cleared out except for Sally, who’d finished up first, and her family. Brad had been gone for more than an hour, Travis had said.

Dru had wanted to make a stop first, on her way home. Instead, she’d called Horace on the drive over to ask if he would handle her request the same as he was Brad’s. The lawyer had assured her he’d be glad to. He’d said Vivian would have been proud, and that he was, too.

“Brad?” She pushed the unlocked front door open and rushed inside.

He wasn’t in the parlor or the kitchen. She ran up the stairs, but he wasn’t in his room. Something told her to keep going, down the hall, peeking into Vivian’s room first, finding it empty, and then arriving at her own.

“You’re here,” she said, out of breath.

“Always,” Brad answered.

He was sitting on the edge of her unmade bed, flashing her back to the mind-blowing night they’d spent together. Then she saw the full duffel bag at his feet.

“Really?” Her heart wouldn’t stop racing. “Then why are you packed?”

“I’m not going far.” He smiled, not angry or worried or sad, thank God. He looked just as confident as ever, in her or them or whatever had made him sound so sure back at the sheriff’s department that they could make it. “I’m just giving you space for a few days while I figure out my next move. Travis said I can stay with him. Your foster parents did, too. I think they’re wrangling to adopt me, now that I’m homeless, or at least I will be once the will is probated.”

“No, you won’t.” She hurried closer before she lost her nerve. She could handle this. She could handle anything now. She dropped to her knees in front of him. “Not after Horace transfers the house to your name.”

His mother’s quilt had spilled over the side of the bed. Dru was on part of it. The rest lay beneath Brad in a rumpled, oddly perfect way.

“You’re going to have to say that again.” He drew her closer. They were face-to-face, his eyes searching for answers.

“I don’t want space.” She kissed him. “I love you, too. I don’t think I ever really stopped.”

So much could have gone wrong today with the girls, but it hadn’t, because Brad had been there. The same with the last few weeks, when he’d stuck it out and lived up to their agreement, no matter how hard she—and Vivian’s crazy scheme—had made it. Vi’s funeral loomed ahead, and it would be difficult, too. But Dru would be facing it with someone who’d loved Vivian just as much as she had. Someone amazing, who wanted to help Dru face every good day, and difficult day, to come.

I’m here, for you, forever . . .

Since he’d said it, she’d been trying to make sense of what had happened between them again so quickly. She couldn’t, of course. Love, as she was learning, rarely made sense. It wasn’t built to be easy. It simply was, along with every dream come true and potential problem that came with sharing your heart with someone. There was no protecting yourself from its possible dangers without running from the rest, too.

It was time to be brave, like Lisa had said. It was Dru’s turn to go all in, the same as Vivian always had.

“Say it again,” Brad whispered, his voice shaking, his eyes shimmering. “Say you love me.”

“I love you, Bradley Douglas. I don’t want the house, or the Dream Whip,” she insisted, “not unless I can have you, too, to make them my home.”

“You can have me any way you want me, darlin’.” He kissed her. He made her dizzy, just like their very first kiss seven years ago. He chuckled. “But what’s in it for me, besides real estate?”

“Me,” she said, “never giving up on you. The way you’ll never give up on me, while I shack up in your house and you work for slave wages in my restaurant. Us figuring out what we want for our lives. Everyone in town talking behind our backs, like they talked about the ridiculous things Vivian did. We’ll grow old and paste crazy memories into a book and buy cuckoo clocks and never look back and regret anything we were too afraid to try.”

“Is that all?” He let her push him down to the quilt and slide up his body to kiss the dampness from the corners of his eyes. “Can I make an honest woman out of you, even if it stops some of the rumors? I want legal grounds to fight with you about my plans for the Whip.”

“And I want as much trouble from you as possible before we compromise.” She pulled his T-shirt free from his jeans and over his head. “We can’t have the rumors stopping completely. And I want lots of trouble to kiss and make up about.”

He rolled her beneath him and smiled.

“Piece of cake,” he promised.

Don’t miss Oliver and Selena’s story in
Waiting for Your Love
, the first novel in Anna’s new Echoes of the Heart series.