Travis

“Where’s Spencer?” Maggie asked, topping off my coffee.

“He’s with Birdie Ellis. They’re setting up a community relations group that will be presenting at the annual meeting,” I said, picking up my mug and taking a sip.

“Birdie Ellis,” Maggie said, turning her nose up slightly. “That woman needs a hobby.”

“So does Spencer,” I muttered. “Hopefully the work it takes to maintain the group will keep them both fully occupied.”

She eyed me. “Found a way to get him out of your hair a little bit, huh?”

“Am I that transparent?”

“To me. Honey, I’ve known you all your life. I know you down deep. Don’t forget it.” She leaned forward and looked into my eyes, pinching my cheek affectionately in the way I’d only ever let Maggie get away with.

“I never do, Maggie.”

The bell above the door sounded over the low hum of the end of the breakfast rush and a moment later, I saw Gage Buchanan sit down next to me in my peripheral vision. Just the person I had no interest in seeing.

Or thinking about.

Or acknowledging.

“Travis,” he greeted, dashing my hopes that he wouldn’t notice me, even if I was sitting right next to him.

“Gage.” I took another sip of my coffee, not glancing his way.

“Gage Buchanan,” Maggie greeted happily. “What brings you to our side of the lake?”

“I missed you, Maggie. It’s been too long.”

Maggie made a scoffing noise. “Oh please, you charmer.”

Gage chuckled. “I’m picking up some trees my mother ordered that couldn’t be delivered until this weekend. Our landscaping crew is there today though, ready to plant, so here I am.”

Maggie nodded “The nursery is installing landscaping in three new builds this week. Chase Dooley was in yesterday and said they’re stretched thin. Coffee?”

“Please. It’s fine, it gave me a good excuse to visit. How have you been?”

“Great. We’re updating and expanding the kitchen beginning September first. Norm is finally getting the Top Chef setup he’s always wanted, just in time to think about retiring.” She turned her head and said the last part so Norm could hear. But then turned and winked at us.

“I don’t believe in retirement,” Norm called back. “I’m going to take my final breath right here standing at this griddle.”

“Oh that’ll be swell for business.” Maggie rolled her eyes as she grabbed menus for a couple sitting at the end of the counter.

“What’s new, Hale?” Gage asked when Maggie had walked away.

“Not a whole lot.”

We sat in silence for a minute. “What can you tell me about Haven Torres?”

My muscles tensed. I took a sip of my coffee, setting it down slowly. “Why don’t you ask her what you want to know on your dinner date?” The words felt strangely acidic in my throat.

He paused. “I will. But I wanted to get your take on her. We’ve always had similar taste in women.”

I almost laughed. We’d competed over women in the past, both of us “winning” about as equally. What he didn’t know was that he’d already “won” Haven. Or at least, he’d won her interest. I wouldn’t tell him that though. I’d told her I’d help her get him to notice her with a faux competition, despite that it made my gut churn.

You’re taking a hiatus from women, remember?

At least, anything more than an uncomplicated moonlit rendezvous.

I angled my body toward him. “She’s . . . different.” I let the word hang suggestively, watching Gage to see what he did with it.

“That’s exactly what I think,” he agreed on an exhale. “God, I’ve grown so bored with nothing but women who . . . worship me and yet don’t really know me at all.” He looked away as if considering those poor, worshipful fools who hung on his every word, and yet heard nothing he said. The interesting thing was, I could relate. I understood exactly what he was saying. And I didn’t necessarily like that fact.

“She has this weird thing for possums,” he muttered, his brows going in opposite directions as though he was still trying to work that one out. “But she’s funny and charming and”—he paused, scratching the back of his neck in thought—“that hair. God, can you even imagine?” His expression had suddenly gone sort of dreamy and unfocused and I knew exactly what he was imagining. That hair wrapped around his fist as he—I shut the image down, slamming it hard into the floor and stomping it once for good measure. Unfortunately, he was still talking. “She has this beauty that sneaks up on you. You know, like”—he clapped his hands together suddenly, causing me to jostle the coffee I’d just been bringing to my mouth—“boom! Ambush.”

Oh, I knew. I pictured the way she looked in the morning as she cared for her plants, tipping a watering can, peace in her expression, tenderness even. The light of sunrise washing over her, glinting through her curls. The strap of her tank top falling slowly down her shoulder as I watched in quiet awe. I took a slow sip of the lukewarm brew. It was suddenly bitter and unpalatable. Ambush. That was a good way to put it. I’d stepped on the bomb that was Haven Torres. In some ways, I felt as though I’d been blown to smithereens. I was desperately trying to put the pieces back together. Or maybe I was lying there, happily scattered. Stupidly scattered. Maybe I never wanted to be put back together. At least not in the same order. God, I didn’t even know anymore.

And we were just friends.

But I knew what she tasted like. Sounded like. How soft she was.

Hiatus, Hale. Hiatus.

“The problem is,” Gage droned on, “she’s only here temporarily. And I’m ready for something more long-term. Something that has the potential to become serious.”

“You’re kidding. You, the unattainable Gage Buchanan is looking to get serious?” I said it like a four-letter word.

He gave a short laugh that died quickly. “Yeah.” He nodded, as if he was still trying to talk himself into what he was saying. “Yeah, it’s time. A man can’t just screw around—pardon the expression—forever.” He looked at me a little sheepishly. “I really was sorry to hear about you and Phoebe. It seemed like maybe you might have been considering settling down too. At least, that’s what the rumor was.” I glanced at him to see his expression was genuinely sympathetic, the same way it’d been when he brought it up at the blueberry festival.

I gave a small nod, followed by a shrug. “She wasn’t the one.”

“No, I guess not. Well, there’s someone out there for you, buddy.” He gave me a slap on the back that made me want to punch him in his face. I gave my head a small shake, trying to dispel the sudden bout of hostility.

“Anyway,” Gage went on, putting his elbows on the counter and lacing his fingers, sighing. “Do you think there’s any chance she might stick around?”

“Nothing she’s said indicates that. Plus, she’s traveling with her brother so it’s not only up to her.”

“Hmm.” His face suddenly broke into that grin that had cost me the win with any number of potential girlfriends growing up. “Maybe I can convince her.”

I felt a small internal pinch. Part of me hoped he would convince Haven to stay because I didn’t like to think of her driving out of Pelion. This town seemed to suit her. As she said, she’d found a place that provided peace. But another part of me absolutely did not, because it would mean she was staying for him and I’d have to watch them together for the remainder of my days. Maybe I deserved as much.

You either lose it all. Or lose it all.

I suddenly felt sick to my stomach.

I pulled my wallet out and retrieved a ten, placing it on the counter just as my phone rang. I snatched it up without glancing at who was calling.

“Travis?”

“Hi, Mom.” I sighed internally, standing up, covering the mouthpiece. “See you around, Gage.”

He gave me a tip of his chin. “Travis.”

I gave Maggie and Norm a wave as I headed for the door. “What’s going on?” I asked my mother because if she was calling, it was always something.

“There’s a bad leak in my apartment.”

I opened the door to my cruiser, getting inside. “Call a plumber,” I said. I was up to my eyeballs in leaks already.

“I don’t have the money for a plumber,” she whined, “because of those medical bills I had to pay last month.”

Medical bills.

She’d been to her plastic surgeon for something that wasn’t overtly obvious and I didn’t ask about.

I ran a hand over my face, about to tell her I’d call a plumber for her. It would be yet another expense when I was still fighting with my insurance company over what they wouldn’t cover, facing the likelihood that I’d have to buy at least several pieces of new furniture, not to mention the cost of staying at the B&B. And I was saving every penny possible to start building on my land sometime in the next decade.

“And I have something I want to give to you. Something that was your father’s.”

That old yearning crept over me. Something that was your father’s. “What is it?”

“Some photo albums . . . papers, things like that.”

I sighed. “How quickly do you need me there?”

“Oh, I don’t know! I might be flooded by tomorrow! Drowned in my bed!”

I scrubbed my hand down my face again. Melodrama. Christ. I came by it honestly.

“Okay,” I sighed. “I’ll come check it out after work.”

**********

My mother’s apartment was small, but nice. Not the nice by which Tori Hale had become accustomed to once upon a time, but nice by any other objective standards. There were hardwood floors, granite countertops, and even some custom molding. I’d helped her out with extras when necessary, but I lived on a small-town chief’s salary, without the benefit of the town income my father had enjoyed, and so that’s all I could reasonably do while paying my own rent and saving so I could retire before I was ninety-five. Frankly, it could be argued that I shouldn’t do anything at all. She probably deserved to live in a homeless shelter after what she’d done, and what might have resulted. But . . . she was my mother, and I didn’t have the heart to abandon her completely, despite the suspicions that had lasted eight years, and beyond her fervent denials. She was still the woman who’d read to me before bed, and clapped at my little league games, the only one in the stands after my father had left. After my father had died. She’d shed tears at my graduation, and even looked on with pride when I’d joined the Pelion Police Department, regardless of the fact that she had more lofty ambitions for me. It was confusing and heartbreaking and it made me feel ashamed. Mostly I just wanted to avoid her. The fact that she lived out of town made it easy enough.

She’d vowed time and again that she hadn’t meant for anyone to get hurt when she’d alerted a drug addict with a debt to settle about Bree’s whereabouts eight years ago. She’d wanted to “persuade” Bree to move away from Pelion, yes, but she had never intended for someone to get shot. “I was protecting you, Travis!” she’d said, tears filling her big blue eyes. “I panicked when I thought everything would be taken from you. Again.”

Again.

Likely, she was more concerned about everything being taken from her, but I doubted I’d ever truly know. Nothing had ever been proven, and it was worthless to continue asking her. Whatever she’d say to me was what she’d convinced herself of. Tori Hale had always been a good liar, because she believed her falsehoods. 

“Where’s this leak?”

“In the kitchen, under the sink,” she said, hurrying behind me as I walked to her gleaming kitchen, setting my toolbox on the table.

I knelt on the floor and opened the cabinet, peering inside. There was a small spot on the bottom where it looked like a few drips of water had dried, leaving a water spot, but other than that, nothing. I peered over my shoulder at my mother.

“Do you see the spot?” she asked.

“That’s what you were worried about? A spot? It looks old. And dry. And it might have come from anything. A bottle of cleaner, who knows.” Irritation skated down my spine. It’d taken an hour to drive here, and now I had to drive an hour home. Still, just to make sure, I stood, turning on the faucet and letting it run, and then kneeling back down to examine the pipes.

They remained dry, nary a drip in sight.

I stood slowly, turning off the faucet. “I don’t think you’ll drown in your bed tonight.”

She laughed faintly. “What a relief.”

I leaned on the sink. “How are you?” She looked as put together as she always had, but there were more lines on her face, and her mouth looked pinched. Even Tori Hale couldn’t manipulate gravity forever. She’d called me here not for a leak in her plumbing, but because she was lonely. My heart softened just a bit. She suddenly seemed very human to me when, for much of my adolescence and even beyond, she’d seemed larger than life and almost completely untouchable.

She was always working, always strategizing. She’d exhausted me since I was a kid, and especially then because I had no way of creating distance from her. I wondered if she’d exhausted herself. Maybe, in some deep corner of her mind, loneliness and boredom felt like a soothing break.

I didn’t hold out much hope of that.

“I’m okay I guess,” she said, followed by a long-suffering sigh. “I joined a pinochle club. It meets every Monday.”

My eyebrows rose. “That’s good.” She’d always enjoyed socializing.

She moved her finger idly along the edge of the counter. “And I’m seeing someone.” She waved her hand around as though dismissing the importance of her own comment. “It’s casual. He’s older. Just someone to pass the time with.”

“That’s good, Mom,” I said. “Finding people to pass the time with is good.” I’d bet anything he was quite a bit older. And rich.

Possibly hooked up to oxygen, or in hospice care.

Nasty thought, Hale.

Why did I always let my mother bring out the worst in me?

But as long as he was a mentally functional, consenting adult, I’d consider it a positive. Maybe if she got herself more of a life, she’d stop calling me for every little thing that barely needed fixed or replaced in her apartment.

“Yes, yes. Listen, Travis.” She walked from the open kitchen to a writing desk in the attached living room area. There was a stack of photo albums and file folders sitting to the side. She picked up the folder on top. “I found these albums and papers in the bottom of a box that I thought was mostly junk. I’ve been reading through the bylaws from Pelion’s founding in 1724. I think there are a couple ways you might challenge Archer’s right to the—”

“Okay, then,” I said dismissively, picking up my toolbox and walking around her toward the front door.

“Wait!”

I stopped, turning toward her. “Give it a rest, Victoria. God, please, for once in your life, just give it a rest.”

She flinched slightly at my use of her given name. “I’m only looking out for you,” she said weakly. “What happened wasn’t fair and—”

“It was fair, Mom. And more than that, Archer’s good at running the town. Pelion is thriving. The citizens are happy. I wouldn’t take it away from him—or from them—even if there was a foolproof way to do it.”

She waved the folder around, looking confused and flustered. “You can’t be happy living on a public servant’s salary alone, Travis, deprived of the things we used to have, privileges that I believe are rightfully yours.”

I was suddenly weary. She did that. She made me feel tired to my marrow. She obviously saw that I had no intention of answering her questions and so she thrust the folder at me. “Here. Along with the bylaws regarding town ownership and legal paraphernalia I just discovered, there are all kinds of things in here that belonged to your father . . . certificates, awards he won. As far as the legal documents, they’re all original. Just look it all over. When you see what I’ve highlighted, I think you’ll understand the line of my thought. See if you agree.”

All kinds of things in here that belonged to your father.

I took the photo albums and the file folder of my father’s papers when she held them out to me, unable to resist that which my father had once touched. Something, anything, that I might have a right to even as second best. His handwriting . . . I couldn’t even remember what his handwriting looked like. A scrawled note. A photograph I’d never seen. Something. I held it tightly to me as though a part of him might live inside these dusty pages. “Goodbye, Mom,” I said, walking out and closing the door behind me. And for God’s sake, drop this, I wanted to say, but I had a well-earned feeling that it wouldn’t make a difference what I said. Tori Hale still felt wronged. It wasn’t about me at all. It never had been.