Mending Fences (23 page)

Emily was about to comment, when Marcie spoke up.

“Don’t scold her, Emily. Caitlyn’s right,” she said, a hitch in her voice. “I’ve made so many mistakes, I can’t even begin to count them. I convinced myself I was showing my kids that marriage was meant to be forever, but all I was really doing was showing them that it was okay for a man to bulldoze right over his wife and treat her with a total lack of respect.”

“No man will ever get away with that with me,” Caitlyn said. “If I ever get involved with a guy, forget being equal partners, he’s going to treat me like a queen.”

Marcie managed a faint smile. “At least I managed to get one lesson right, albeit in the most misguided way possible.”

“Look, whatever you decide to do about your
marriage, the two of you will be fine,” Emily told her. “I’ll do anything I can to help you get through this.”

“Even after what Evan’s done?” Marcie asked, her disbelief plain.

“Evan’s accountable for that,” Emily said. “Not you. We’ve been friends for years and I can’t bring myself to throw that away.”

Marcie nodded slowly, then turned to Caitlyn. “If I do this…if I divorce your dad when all this is over—” she regarded Caitlyn with concern “—we’ll have to move, live in a smaller house.”

“Do you think I care about that?” Caitlyn scoffed. “Come on, Mom. We’ll finally be able to do what we want, be whoever we want to be.”

“I’m not sure I know what that is,” Marcie said.

“But you’ll figure it out,” Emily assured her. “I did.”

“You have a career you care about,” Marcie argued. “What do I have?”

“You have a daughter who needs you, a dozen talents that are the envy of all your friends, and you have us. You can lean on us while you figure things out.”

Marcie rose to her feet. “Right now, I’m still a mom whose son is in trouble. I need to go home.” She leaned down and gave Emily a fierce hug. “This time, though, my eyes will be wide-open.”

As she stood, so did Dani. “I’m sorry,” Dani whispered.

Marcie blinked back tears and drew her into her arms. “Oh, baby, I’m the one who’s sorry about everything, about what Evan did, about doubting you.” She touched Dani’s cheek. “You’re a strong girl and you’ve got a family who loves you to pieces. And one day I hope you’ll be able to forgive me and remember that I love you, too.”

“I’ve always known that,” Dani said. “That’s one reason this was so hard. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Emily faced Marcie. “Caitlyn can stay here, if you want her to.”

Marcie nodded. “Thank you for trying to make it seem as if nothing’s changed between us.”

“It hasn’t,” Emily said firmly. “Not if you don’t want it to. This has been a terrible ordeal for all of us, but we’ll get through it. I know we will.”

Marcie nodded slowly, her relief plain. “We’ll talk later, then. I’ll call as soon as I know what’s happening at the police station.”

“Mom, don’t go back home later, no matter what,” Caitlyn pleaded. “Make the break now. Come here, if it’s okay with Mrs. D.” She turned to Emily. “Would it be okay?”

“Of course, if it’s what your mom wants.”

Marcie gave her a rueful smile. “Sweetie, no matter how messed up things are, I can’t abandon your father in the midst of this crisis, but if you don’t want to come home and Emily agrees, you can stay over here till everything is sorted out.”

Caitlyn regarded Emily intently. “Then is it okay if I stay? Please.”

“Of course, you can stay for as long as you need to.”

Dani reached for her hand and started to drag her from the room. “It’ll be like having a sister. You can help me clean out some drawers and make room in my closet.”

After they’d left the room, Marcie gave Emily a grateful look. “Thank you for not turning against her against us.”

“Never,” Marcie said.

“But what Evan did—”

“Was unconscionable and he’ll pay for it,” Emily insisted. “Not you and not Caitlyn.”

“How did you convince Rodriguez to let you tell me what was going on? I’m sure he objected.”

Emily smiled. “He’s a reasonable man.”

“And he’s trying to keep you happy,” Marcie guessed.

Emily hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, I suppose he is.”

“I’m glad for you. I truly am. You’ll have to tell me all about him once things settle down.”

“You’ll like him once you get to know him under different circumstances,” Emily told her.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Marcie said. “But for your sake, I’ll try.”

“That’s all we can ever ask of each other, isn’t it? Now go, be with your son. He needs you more than ever, whether he admits it or not.”

“His father’s the one who’ll help him fight these charges,” Marcie said.

“But you’re the one who may be able to make him see that what he did was wrong. Ken won’t do that.”

Marcie sighed. “No, he won’t. How sad is that?”

Emily had no reply for that, so she simply gave her another hug and let her go.

Grady had to stand up and walk away after a few minutes of listening to Evan Carter try to defend what he’d done to Dani. He’d had no business being in the interrogation room in the first place, but when he was about to lose his temper and knock the kid on his butt, he knew it was time to get out.

“You take over in here,” he told Naomi. “I need some air.”

She gave him a sympathetic look. “I don’t think we’re getting anywhere anyway. Mr. Carter doesn’t seem interested in discussing the error of his ways.”

“Not with you, that’s for sure.”

Grady leaned across the table and got in his face. “Watch your mouth, kid. She’s Detective Lansing to you and you’ll show her the respect she deserves.”

“Or what?” Evan demanded, his expression arrogant. “My dad is going to see that both of you are busted down to patrolmen, assuming you get to stay on the force at all.”

Grady bit back another sharp retort. He caught Naomi’s eye. “Outside, now.”

She followed him into the hallway. “I swear to God that kid needs to have his mouth washed out with soap.”

Grady chuckled. “That’s your idea of a punishment that befits the crime?”

“For potty mouth, it is,” she said. “The jail time he deserves is a whole other issue. How long do you suppose it’ll take before his father gets him out on bail?”

“Years, if I have anything to say about it,” Grady said, his expression grim. “I don’t want him anywhere near Dani Dobbs. I think this time the judge will see it my way, especially when I report his attempts to confront Lauren Brown despite having a restraining order in place to keep him away from her. No judge is going to release him to go home to a house not a hundred yards away from where his underage victim still lives.”

“Not even if Daddy promises to keep him on a short leash?” Naomi asked skeptically.

“Not even if Daddy agrees to tie him to a chair,” Grady insisted.

Unfortunately Ken Carter overheard him.

“Really?” Carter asked, his tone smug. “When I get through telling the judge how you’ve bullied and harassed my son, you’ll be the one on a short leash, Detective. As for these trumped-up charges about him and Dani, do you honestly think anyone’s going to believe that the horny little kid wasn’t asking for it? You forget, I’ve seen how she is around Evan. She’s had a thing for him since she hit puberty.”

Grady had the man’s shirt bunched up in his fist and was about to slam him into a wall when Naomi managed to squeeze between them.

“He’s not worth it, Grady,” she said quietly. “Let him go.”

Grady’s grip held firm. “Not until I get my point across,” he said tightly. “Don’t you ever mention that girl’s name again. You see her, you cross the street. If she’s outside, you stay in the house. And at the first whiff I get that you’re spreading lies about her, I’ll see you hauled in here for defamation of character so fast it’ll make your head spin. I doubt that’ll do much for your PR business, having the world know that you’d spew lies about an innocent young girl just to save your son’s sorry hide. Most people who need PR services want someone who deals in positive spin, not mudslinging.”

He gave him one last bounce against the wall before releasing him, then walked away and headed straight for the chief’s office to tell Mike Miller word for word everything that had just gone down before Carter could put his spin on it with the chief, the mayor and anyone else on his cell phone speed dial.

“And how do you think people will feel when they find out the lead detective is screwing the so-called victim’s mother?” Carter shouted after him.

“Don’t do it,” Naomi said, her grasp on his arm unyielding. “The guy’s scum. Don’t make a bad situation worse by reacting.”

Grady knew she was right, but he really yearned for the satisfaction of connecting his fist with that filthy, lying mouth.

“Grady?” she said urgently. “Are you listening to me?”

“I hear you,” he said.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to offer to go on administrative duty until Evan Carter’s convicted and locked away,” he told her.

Naomi looked shocked. “Why?”

“Because there’s no way in hell I’m going to allow my personal involvement with Emily and Dani to muddy the waters once the case goes to trial.”

“A judge and jury will see right through that if the defense attorney tries to bring it in,” she protested.

“I’m not willing to take the chance.” He gave her a weary smile. “Go on back and try to keep those two from wreaking havoc over the place. I need to spend some time with the chief.”

“I think I should go with you,” she said stubbornly.

He shook his head. “Thanks for wanting to, but this is my situation. Let me handle it.”

To his shock, Naomi stood on tiptoe and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You need backup, all you have to do is shout.”

“I know that. Thanks.”

Grady watched her go, then drew in a deep breath and walked into the chief’s office to face the music.

D
ani turned her face up to the sun. She knew she’d wind up with freckles or maybe someday even skin cancer if her mom’s dire warnings were to be believed, but the warmth felt so good. In some ways she felt as if she’d been locked up inside for the past year. Ever since what she’d started thinking of as “the incident,” she’d avoided being outside alone. She hadn’t even realized she was doing it until lately. Now that Evan was in jail and the judge had denied bail, she couldn’t wait to get outside the minute she came home from school. The choking fear that had kept her from crossing the threshold just weeks ago had vanished.

To her relief, all the containers and patches of flowers she’d planted were thriving now that she was giving them the attention they needed. When her mom had taken over, they’d started to look pretty bedraggled.

“Don’t you want to swim?” Caitlyn called out to her from the pool. “You must have pulled every weed by now.”

“Pretty much,” Dani agreed, sitting on the edge of the pool and letting her feet dangle in the cool, aquamarine water just inches from where Caitlyn was clinging to the pool’s side.

Caitlyn looked up at her, her expression wistful. “Dani, do you think things are ever going to feel normal again?”

Dani kicked her feet and splashed Caitlyn. “Come on, Cat, normal’s highly overrated,” she joked, then sobered. “No, really, I guess one of these days everything will settle down. Reporters have to stop hanging around the neighborhood sooner or later. I mean, we’re boring, right? Once the trial’s over, we’ll be yesterday’s news, at least until I win some major international prize in botany and you get one for, what?” She tilted her head quizzically. “What do you want to do once we’re grown-up?”

“I think I’m going to be some reclusive writer who lives out in the middle of the Everglades where no one can find me.” Caitlyn grinned. “I’ll keep a shotgun by the door and wave it at anyone who comes onto my property.”

Dani had had her own fantasies about threatening the intrusive reporters, but she couldn’t imagine peace-loving Caitlyn actually doing it. “Forget the gun. You’d probably just shoot yourself in the foot.”

Caitlyn sighed. “Probably.”

“Would you really want to live all alone in the middle of nowhere?”

“After the past few months, it sounds really good to me.”

“Then I guess you don’t want to go away to college and live in a dorm with me in a few years, or maybe an apartment of our own off-campus,” Dani said, surprisingly disappointed. She’d liked having Caitlyn as a temporary roommate. It had been almost as much fun as she’d always imagined it would be to have a sister. With
the topic of Evan off-limits, they’d resumed their old friendship.

Caitlyn smiled broadly. “I thought maybe you’d forgotten about that plan we made. We were, what? Ten?”

“You were ten and I’d just turned twelve. And no, I haven’t forgotten. I’ve been counting on it. Once I get to college wherever we decide to go, I’ll scope things out and find the absolute best place for when you get there two years later. Can you imagine what it’ll be like to be on our own, to do whatever we want?”

“It’ll be a blast.”

Dani nudged her with her foot. “See. I knew you didn’t really want to be a recluse.”

“After that,” Caitlyn insisted. “If I’m going to be a writer, I do have to have
some
life experiences to draw on.”

“If my mom has it right, all the best writers have lived through some sort of trauma or tragedy,” Dani said.

“I’d say this whole mess with Evan qualifies,” Caitlyn said.

“That’s
my
trauma,” Dani corrected. “And his, too, I guess. I think
you’re
supposed to suffer for your art.”

“Please, don’t you think I’ve suffered enough listening to my dad talk down to my mom all these years? And being treated like I don’t matter because I can’t throw a football? My family brings new meaning to dysfunctional.”

“Come on,” Dani argued. “Your mom is great! You haven’t had it so bad, not like some of the kids we know. Self-pity isn’t the same as suffering.”

“Maybe not, but I can’t wait for the trial to be over,” Caitlyn said. “Maybe then my mom will finally get around to telling my dad we’re leaving.” She regarded Dani with satisfaction. “He’s going to freak.”

Dani knew all about divorce. Even though her mom and dad still got along okay, she missed what it had been like when they’d all lived here. Now she could call her dad whenever she wanted and they did stuff together—probably even more than they had before, if she was being honest about it—but it wasn’t the same as seeing him at dinner every day or being able to go into the den and ask him about stuff. Then, again, maybe she was glorifying the good times, because the truth was he’d been gone a lot even before the divorce.

“Cat, are you really that anxious for your mom and dad to split up?” she asked. “I know you used to idolize your dad and want his approval more than anything.”

“And then I woke up and realized I was never going to get it,” she said bitterly. “I’m not his precious son. That’s my big crime. What’s the point in wasting my energy wanting something I’m never going to get?”

“Your dad loves you,” Dani said with more hope than conviction. She couldn’t imagine feeling her dad didn’t care about her. Even when he’d hardly been around at all, she’d known he loved her. It must really suck for Caitlyn not believing that about her dad.

“It doesn’t matter,” Caitlyn insisted, but her chin wobbled as she said it.

And maybe the dampness on her cheeks was from being in the pool, but Dani didn’t think so. She thought she was really, really sad, so she said the only thing she could think of that would get her mind off everything that was going on.

“Who cares about any of that? Your mom sent over more brownies,” she reminded Caitlyn. “And we have ice cream and hot-fudge sauce.”

Sure enough, Caitlyn’s eyes brightened. “Awesome,”
she declared, scrambling out of the pool. “I’ll fix ’em, though, because when it comes to food, you’re no better in the kitchen than your mom.”

Dani grinned as she ran into the house after her. “Maybe not,” she said, conceding the point as she surveyed the bright splashes of color around the yard. “But you gotta admit, my garden rocks!”

Emily was a nervous wreck. Not only was today the very first time she and Grady had planned anything close to a real date, but it involved meeting his family, or his mother, anyway. She knew from the way he talked about her and his uncle Luis and the rest of his family that they were all important to him, so she felt the pressure of making a good impression.

“Why do you look as if you’ve just been caught with your hand in the cookie jar?” Grady inquired, amusement sparkling in his eyes.

“You’ve been a cop too long. It’s not guilt you’re seeing on my face, it’s fear.”

“What are you afraid of?”

She winced self-consciously. “Your mother,” she admitted. “Or, rather, meeting her.” She rubbed her damp palms on her slacks. “I wonder if this is the way my students feel when they’re about to give a book report?”

“You mean terrified enough to hurl?” Dani inquired, bouncing into the kitchen.

“Dani!” she protested.

“Well, that is how they feel,” Dani said blithely.

“And how do you know that?” Emily asked, appalled that she was viewed as some sort of terrifying force.

“Mom, kids talk about their teachers all the time. You know that.”

“I guess I’m just surprised they’d say stuff about me around you.”

Dani grinned. “I ask. Sometimes I even put in a good word for you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Can we go now?” Dani asked Grady. “I can’t wait to pick up the stuff for your yard and get to work. There’s a lot to do today.”

Startled, Emily stared from her to Grady. “Dani’s coming along?”

He grinned. “I thought it would be easier if you thought all the attention wouldn’t be on you.”

“Well, thank goodness for small favors. I just wish you’d told me that before I had my panic attack.”

“
That’s
your version of a panic attack?” he asked. “Wait until you see my mother. When she’s nervous, she cooks. Right about now, my kitchen is probably filled with enough covered dishes to feed me for the next month. And that’s just from her first trip over. She’ll be back with more later.”

“Why would she be nervous?”

“Because you’re all I’ve talked about for a few weeks now. She knows you’re important to me.”

Emily felt something in her stomach flutter. “You told her that?”

“I didn’t have to spell it out. It was the fact that I never shut up about you and Dani and Josh.”

She studied him quizzically. “What did you say? Specifically?”

“Now you’re just fishing for compliments,” he taunted. “Come on. Let’s go before the kid here decides to drag us out. She’s a little impatient, don’t you think?”

“I’m a
lot
impatient,” Dani corrected, heading for
Grady’s car. “Have you looked at your yard? I could have a whole crew and not get everything done that needs to be done.”

“Your mom and I will help,” Grady promised.

Dani regarded him with horror. “I don’t think so. Mom kills stuff just by looking at it and, from what I’ve seen, you’re not much better.”

Grady ruffled her hair. “Careful. I’m the one with the credit card you get to use at the nursery.”

As they drove off, Emily watched the interaction between them and marveled. Dani had taken to Grady in a way she’d never anticipated. She’d feared her daughter would always think of him as the man who’d forced her to relive an emotionally painful experience. Instead, Dani seemed almost grateful to him for coaxing the truth into the open.

Listening to the two of them banter, she leaned back in the passenger seat of Grady’s car and relaxed. A couple of years ago she would never have imagined herself being this comfortable with a man who wasn’t Derek. A few months ago she couldn’t have envisioned a future with the man who’d arrested her best friend’s son. And only weeks ago, knowing that her attraction to him was deepening with every day that passed, she still wouldn’t have given two cents for their chances when he’d forced her to strip away the blinders she’d been wearing about Evan and her daughter. Lately, now that Dani’s healing process seemed well underway, it was almost impossible to imagine her life without him.

Stopped at a traffic light, Grady glanced her way, then reached over and took her hand. “You okay?”

“Just thinking about how quickly things change and how many unexpected things can happen.”

“Good things?”

She smiled at his serious expression. “Some of them. You, especially,” she confessed.

“You know, one of these days we really are going to have to have an honest-to-goodness date,” he said. “Think you can handle it?”

“That depends on your idea of a date,” she said, her pulse skipping a beat.

“Dinner, maybe some dancing. Believe it or not, I do a pretty mean mambo.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Hey, I’m Cuban. We mambo. At least in my house we did. My mother has an entire collection of Celia Cruz CDs. They provided background music for every meal. Drove my dad nuts.” He grinned. “Or so he said, but I saw him and my mom dancing more than once after they thought we’d all gone to bed. It was a revelation, since I’d always pegged him as stiff and boring. For an old man, he has some impressive moves.”

Emily realized he almost never mentioned his father. “Are you close to your dad?”

A look of regret passed across his face. “We’ve been at odds most of my life. We’re just too different and he’s never had much tolerance for people who made choices he didn’t agree with. It took a long time for him and my mother to forgive me for Megan’s death and for what they viewed as me driving away Kathleen. I’m much closer to my uncle. He may not always agree with my decisions or approve of what I’ve done, but he listens and he tries to understand. He never judges me. He’s the exact opposite of my father. How they came from the same gene pool is beyond me.”

Just when Emily was beginning to think she was
finally getting some real insights into this man who’d become so important in her life, Dani cut in excitedly.

“Grady, the nursery’s right up there, on the left. See it? Don’t miss the turn.”

“I’m on it, kid,” he said, smiling at her eagerness. He winked at Emily. “To be continued.”

Emily couldn’t seem to stop herself from smiling.
To be continued
. Funny how words she saw all the time on the bottom of a TV screen and found so incredibly frustrating could be filled with so much promise in real life.

Grady was hot and filthy and tired, but it had been years since he’d felt this much contentment. His seriously neglected yard was coming back to life. The pool, which had been drained and left empty ever since Megan’s death, had been scrubbed and painted and filled with crystal-clear water once more.

His lawn had been neatly mowed, old plants ripped out and replaced with bold tropical flowers that suited the Spanish style of the house. The runaway bougainvillea had been trimmed to within an inch of its life, leaving stems that were still bright with splashes of fuchsia and purple flowers. Dani had added orange birds of paradise with their dark green leaves and a dozen other plants he didn’t recognize.

The girl worked tirelessly, her arms strong enough to haul the five-gallon containers of plants, her expression serious as she gently patted the soil around their roots.

“She looks happy, doesn’t she?” Emily said from the chaise longue next to his. “Almost as if nothing happened.”

“She hasn’t forgotten,” Grady said. “But she’s strong enough to start putting it into perspective.”

“Do you think it will affect how she thinks of men and dating? I really worry about that. She’s been so cautious for months now. I should have guessed it had something to do with Evan.”

He knew all too well that the rape could well shape her outlook on dating. “It might,” he said candidly. “But with time and the right kind of encouragement, I think she’ll get past all of it.”

“To be honest, a part of me hopes she won’t want to date for another ten years,” Emily admitted.