LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      JOSH DIDN’T HAVE to wait until Monday to speak with Cassie Montford. His cell phone rang shortly after Dana Harris left Saturday, and he recognized the veterinarian’s number.

      “Josh? This is Cassie Montford.”

      Montford. Not Tate. She was on family business. He stiffened. “I assume you spoke with your husband?” he said, the Redmond in him coming out as he prepared to take control of the situation. To take control and not give off an iota of the emotion roiling around inside him. Getting his own way was all that mattered.

      He didn’t want to leave town. Didn’t have any idea where he’d go.

      “I’m sorry it took me so long to get back to you,” the older woman said. “I spoke with Sam last night but by the time we were alone and could talk it was too late to call you back. And I just got out of surgery now—a dog was hit by a car outside of town this morning....”

      It had been less than twenty-four hours. Josh had expected their decision to take at least through the weekend. In Boston, it would have. The pros and cons of upholding a family secret would have been weighed very seriously.

      “Sam and I will keep your secret for as long as we can without anyone being hurt,” Cassie said, her voice sounding even warmer than it had the day before at her office.

      More personal.

      “Sam has a request, though, Josh. He really wants to meet you.”

      Ready to respond with an unequivocal no, until he was a little more certain he could trust himself, Josh didn’t get the chance.

      “I’ve managed to rein him in for now, with a threat to tell his parents some things about his past that he doesn’t want them to know.”

      It sounded like a stunt any number of wives in his Boston circle might have pulled. It was all about keeping up appearances.

      “Not that I’d carry through with the threat, which he knows, but he got the point, anyway. Sometimes people need some space to work through their issues on their own.”

      He swallowed. “I... Thank you,” he said.

      He wanted to say more. To ask more. To find out more about Sam Montford’s life. About the secrets that he didn’t want his parents to know...the fodder that gave his wife some leverage.

      But he was determined to stick with his promise.

      He asked about Little Guy’s surgery, set a date for the week after Thanksgiving and started to ring off.

      “Josh?”

      He put the cell phone back to his ear. “Yes?”

      “I can’t promise that Sam will wait forever,” she said. “My husband has a bit of a wild streak. When it gets ahold of him, he’s apt to do something off the wall.”

      “Has he had run-ins with the law?” he asked. He couldn’t imagine his mother being gung ho about claiming her Arizona family if he had.

      “Absolutely not. Sam’s never been in trouble with the law. Have you?”

      Too late he saw what his question had implied. He quickly said, “No. I don’t have a criminal record.” It was the truth. He’d never even received a speeding ticket.

      Hard to believe, when a woman had lost her life because of his carelessness. He’d walked away without paying any price at all.

      “Sam’s just a bit of a social rogue,” Cassie said. “He says what he thinks, and when he believes in something he goes after it, regardless of what it costs him. He’s just found out he has a new cousin in town. And having grown up as the only son of the town’s founding family, he’s anxious to make your acquaintance. All I’m saying is don’t be surprised if you come home some night and find him drinking a beer on your back porch.”

      Something Josh might have done if the situation were reversed...

      Stop. He implored silently. This wasn’t going to work if he got in with the family. He’d fall back on his old ways. Become someone he hated.

      “Also, just so you know, there’s another cousin here in town. Ben Sanders. He’s fairly new to the family, as well, but biologically, he’s a Montford. Ben’s married to Tory and they have two daughters.”

      Did Cassie and Sam have children, too? There hadn’t been children in their family since he’d grown up...

      And he didn’t want to know any of this.

      “One other thing,” he said, realizing that he’d almost hung up without taking care of the thing he needed most from her. “Will you write to my mother? Let her know that all is well?”

      He hated being beholden to anyone. For anything. To his way of thinking, if he needed something done, he paid someone to do it. Except he couldn’t afford that anymore.

      “Is she on email?” Cassie asked.

      “Yes.” He waited while Cassie retrieved a pen and took down his mother’s email address.

      “So she knows you’re here already?”

      “Of course. She knows where I am 24/7,” he said. “She always has. It’s about the only thing she’s ever asked of me.”

      At least, the only thing she’d asked that he’d heard and complied with.

      He wasn’t ready to know about all the times he hadn’t listened, wasn’t ready to be accountable for all the hurt he must have caused his mother over the years.

      But he was getting there. One day at a time.

      * * *

      LORI WAS BACK Sunday afternoon, but only to drop off a catnip toy she’d bought for Kari, a thank-you to Dana for letting her spend the night twice that week.

      She also let her know that she’d be in town for Thanksgiving and would love to help cook if Dana’s dinner offer still stood.

      Sensing that the girl’s feelings were hurt by her father’s choice to go hunting instead of spending the holidays with her, Dana invited Lori in on the pretense of planning the menu for the holiday. She was planning to cook enough food for twenty people to come and go throughout the day. If she had lots of leftovers, all the better. She just didn’t want to run out.

      What she hadn’t expected, while she and Lori were sitting at the kitchen table just before dark, was for the other woman to ask about Josh.

      “Did you invite Little Guy’s new owner?” Lori asked, tapping a finger on the edge of the tablet she’d been using to keep their list.

      “No.” She hadn’t even thought about it. And she should have. She’d planned to invite everyone she came in contact with that she knew was alone. Or even might be alone.

      “I thought you said he’s new to town. And lives alone.”

      “Yeah, he is. And he does.”

      “Did you not invite him because he’s not a student like us?”

      “He’s not much older than I am. Three or four years, maybe.”

      She’d seen a soiled Harvard shirt thrown on top of the washer when she’d taken her empty tea can into the laundry room to throw it away. Emblazed on it was a year four years prior to what hers would have been had she gone to college straight out of high school.

      She’d asked him if Harvard was his alma mater.

      And as he’d answered in the affirmative, he’d sounded slightly lost again.

      “I think he went to college on scholarship,” she said now, saying out loud what she’d thought at the time. His reaction to having been a student at Harvard had been odd. It had reminded her of how she’d felt working at

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