LITMIR.BIZ

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the hall, away from everyone else. Aside from a few raised eyebrows, no one had commented on her pick. She needed privacy. She never knew when they would show up.

      Nothing so far today. That was good. A day without them was a good day. As good a day as she got anymore.

      She padded downstairs, into the kitchen in her gorilla slippers and plush powder-blue robe, made a pot of coffee and sat at the table to watch it brew. The sun was shining. That couldn’t be a bad thing.

      When she heard footsteps, she thought someone else was up, and hoped it wasn’t Bryan. The two of them alone in the kitchen of the sleepy inn would be too intimate. He didn’t understand her withdrawal. How could he?

      She stiffened her resolve—it wasn’t easy—as she filled a cup with the heavenly smelling brew, and turned to see who was about to join her in the kitchen.

      He stood in the doorway, staring at her, and though he didn’t look the same way he had the last time she’d seen him, as he’d drawn his last breaths, she knew him. She knew his eyes. He had the most piercing, deep brown eyes she’d ever seen. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. He lifted a hand, took a single step toward her, and the cup fell from her boneless hand. The sound of it shattering seemed to break the paralysis, and her scream broke free of its prison in her chest.

      She turned her back, covered her eyes. “No, no, no. I won’t see you, I don’t want you. Go away, dammit, go away!”

      A hand fell on her shoulder, and she lurched away from it so fast she tumbled over a chair, tipping it sideways and landing on the floor beside it.

      “Dawn, it’s okay. It’s okay, babe.”

      Blinking through her tears, she looked up. It was Bryan, bending over her, looking terrified and sleepy and disheveled. And behind him, Beth and Josh came running into the kitchen, and Josh appeared ready for battle.

      “What happened?” Beth asked. “Dawnie, are you okay?”

      She blinked, looking past them, her gaze darting from one end of the kitchen to the other. But he wasn’t there. Mordecai Young, her father, wasn’t there. He was dead. Gone.

      “I…I think I was sleepwalking,” she managed to say.

      She saw them, saw them all looking from the broken cup and spilled coffee on the floor to the nearly full pot on the counter, to the robe and slippers she had put on. They didn’t believe her.

      She didn’t blame them.

      4

      Jax sipped her coffee and actively resisted the temptation to revisit the platter of sausage links on her mother’s perfectly set kitchen table.

      “Have some more, hon. You’re too thin.”

      She smiled. Her mother would say she was too thin no matter what her current weight was. Though, in Jax’s considered opinion, her mom could use a few pounds of padding. The woman had the body of a thirty-year-old. Only her face showed the signs of her age—or, more likely, the stresses of her past. You didn’t see it in her blond hair. She kept it colored, cut and styled to perfection.

      “I couldn’t eat another bite, Mom. Besides, I have to get into town. Don’t want to be late my first day.”

      “Oh.” Mariah frowned. “Oh, well, then, never mind.”

      Jax slanted a look from her mother to her father, who shook his head. “Don’t bother Cassie today, hon. I told you, I can take that stuff over for her and drop the other things off, as well.”

      Frowning, and curious, Jax said, “What stuff?”

      “Your mother has an ice chest packed full of food for you, is all,” her father said. “Thinks you might starve to death in a house without groceries, and a whole mile from the nearest store.” He pointed to a cooler in the corner of the room. It sat right beside a box of clothing.

      Jax smiled, because he’d nailed her mom so well. “I can take it for you.”

      “No, I won’t hear of it,” Ben said. “I’ve got to go into town anyway, take that box of castoffs to the Goodwill.”

      An idea crept into her brain as she followed his gaze to the huge cardboard box that sat in the corner near the cooler. Piles of folded clothes filled it. She tried to ignore the notion, and couldn’t. “What sorts of castoffs?”

      “Clothes. Shoes. Your mother didn’t throw a thing of mine out the entire time I was…away. Kept everything. Most of those don’t even fit me anymore. Came across them in the attic, when we were going through it looking for things you could use for the house.”

      Mariah shot him a look. “Ben, I asked you a dozen times to sort those things before we ever moved out here. Had you got around to it when you should have, we wouldn’t have ended up packing them and moving them with us.”

      “I told you I didn’t need them.”

      “There were perfectly good things in there!”

      Jax held up a hand. Even though their bickering was good-natured, she didn’t like it. And she supposed it was silly, after all this time, for her to still be afraid they’d end up splitting like so many couples did after a tragedy. But silly or not, she did worry. Her mother seemed to have recovered, for the most part. But her father—God, there was still something dark and enormous that haunted her father.

      Those two had lost a daughter. They’d survived her father’s lengthy prison sentence. And yet they’d stayed together. But they were not the same. Neither of them was.

      Jax wasn’t, either. She’d been the youngest daughter, a tough little hellion, but still…She had become the oldest, abandoned by her big sister, and by her dad, whom she’d thought would always be there for her. She’d become a caregiver to her mother—and there had been no one left to be a caregiver to her. So she’d grown up and she’d done it fast. Hadn’t done her a bit of harm, either, she reminded herself, just in case a hint of self-pity tried to creep in. She didn’t believe in that kind of garbage.

      Hell, it amazed her how solid her parents’ relationship must be to have weathered so much. And yet there was something lurking underneath. Something waiting, ready to pounce and ruin it all. And she thought they both sensed it, even if they didn’t know what it was.

      “I’ll be glad to take those things for you,” she said, breaking free of the silence into which she’d fallen. “Really. It’s no trouble.”

      Her father frowned. “Only if you’re sure.”

      “Do you need me to phone Frankie for you, hon?” her mother asked. “I could explain you might be a few minutes late.”

      Jax laughed. She couldn’t help it. She lowered her head and laughed.

      “Well…what did I say that’s so funny?” Mariah demanded, sounding defensive.

      Ben patted her hand. “Honey, our daughter is a grown-up woman. She doesn’t need you to write an excuse to her teacher.”

      Mariah pressed her lips together.

      “It’ll be fine, Mom. If I leave right now, I can still make it on time. That Taurus knows what to do when I stomp on the gas, and the roads are blessedly bare.”

      “Don’t you even think about breaking any speed limits, Cassie,” her mother warned.

      Jax got to her feet, gave her mom a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for breakfast. It was fabulous.”

      “You barely touched it.”

      One egg, two sausage links, a scoop of home fries and a pancake were apparently her mother’s idea of barely touching. “I’ll see you later, Mom.”

      Her father grabbed the ice chest and carried it out to her car, sliding it into the back seat. Jax carried the box of clothes, and even as she loaded them in and closed the door, she knew she wasn’t

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