For the first time since high school, he didn’t say I love you as he hung up. Even the last time—months after she’d left, while Hope had kicked lazily in her belly and Van had begged for another chance, and she’d asked him to stop calling, he’d said it.
She clicked the off button, sliding her palms over her face as if to wipe away memories of Van that flew at her. Always laughing—as she ran her hands through his silky dark blond hair. As he took her mouth with his. Laughter dying as he moved his body above hers.
She flinched and grabbed the wall. “Hope?” After a deep breath, she hurried to her daughter’s room. “I have to tell you some things.”
“No, Mommy. I’m mad. You talked mean to me.”
“I’m sorry, honey.” She was so careful. She tried never to raise her voice, never to let Hope see a hint of brutality anywhere. Her stomach lurched as she remembered the softness of the intruder’s body this afternoon. The human body was so fragile.
And the psyche more so.
“Who was on the phone?” Hope asked, with eyes only for her doll.
“A man I used to know—a friend of my father’s.”
“Huh?” Hope’s eyes rounded and she dropped the doll on her pink-flowered comforter. “You have a daddy?”
Cassie tilted her head back. She’d never even mentioned him? “I have a father,” she said. “He’s sick and he needs me to look after him.”
“Like when I’m sick?” Hope grabbed her hand. “Ooh, will we make him glasses of ice water and toast?”
“We can make anything that will help him feel better. Let’s talk about it over our eggs. Help me warm them up?”
“VAN, TAKE THESE KEYS.” Frail in his hospital gown, Leo Warne covered them with his hand, like a spy passing off a top secret microfiche. “They’re not safe here. Someone will steal them and break into the house and clean me out.” Leo’s eyes darted toward the door and back.
Van suppressed a shudder. He’d loved the man like a father. How could he have abandoned him? “Don’t worry. Cassie’s going to stay at the house. Your stuff will be safe.”
“Stop looking at me like I’m a stranger. I’m not sick.” He nodded toward the ceiling as if someone were watching them from above. “I’m just a smart old man. Something no one in this town likes. I know how they treated Cassie. They made her leave, looking down on her after that man…” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple as big as an egg in his too-thin throat. “Like the rape was her fault. No one took care of her.” He skewered Van with blue eyes that were so much like Cassie’s. “Not even you.”
Van gripped the edge of Leo’s rolling tray. “The rape repulsed me. Cassie never did. I should have protected her, but I couldn’t even make her see I still loved her.”
“Because you didn’t. I know. I know it all. I walk around this town in the night. No one sees me. I’m invisible.”
Van stared, his own good sense returning. “You’re tired and sick and you need to be cared for.” Van dared to stroke Leo’s thin hair as he would have touched his own father—or his child, if he and Cassie had been so lucky. “You’ll get better and you’ll start remembering.”
“I remember everything. People laughed at her and they said she deserved it. They said she should have been more careful. She was asking for it.”
“Those are your own fears talking. It never happened.”
“It was worse. You don’t even know. She won’t come home now.”
“She’ll be here tomorrow. She’s planning to stay at your house.”
The house. With his heart breaking for his broken friend, he felt anxious. What would Cassie walk into in her childhood home? If Leo hadn’t washed himself in weeks, he certainly hadn’t cleaned the house.
Cassie had enough to face. No one had understood why she’d run away from Honesty. Her former neighbors would flood her with casseroles. They’d sympathize with her about Leo’s illness and they’d fish for answers about why she’d stayed away so long.
They’d tried often enough to extract the truth from Van, but no one seemed to realize she hadn’t been content to cut the town out of her life. She’d had no more room for her father or her ex-husband, either.
“Leo, I’m heading over to your house for a while. Just to make sure everything’s ready for Cassie.”
“I’ll give you a buck and a half to mow the lawn.” Leo dug for a nonexistent pocket. “It’s not worth that much, but I know you. You’ll just spend it on a Coca-Cola with Cassie, and you shouldn’t be paying for her treats.”
Van felt as if he’d run face first into a wall, but Leo didn’t seem to realize it was December. “Pay me later.” Van wondered which lawn guy had flirted with Cassie. Van hadn’t noticed her as more than a cute kid until after he’d been working in the bank for almost a year and she’d started college.
He pushed his fist against his chest. They’d been a family once, the three of them. He kissed his former father-in-law’s head and hurried out.
At the nurses’ station, he backed up and asked them to call if Leo’s condition changed. Despite all signs to the contrary, he hoped Leo might improve before Cassie arrived. Good food, warmth and attentive care had to give him a chance.
The Warnes lived across the lake from Beth’s fishing lodge. Van pulled up to Leo’s place to find Trey Lockwood, one of last night’s EMTs, banging away at the front porch with a hammer. Trey stopped and brushed back his ball cap with a weary sigh. He pulled a couple of nails from between his lips.
“I didn’t expect to find anyone else here,” Van said. “What’s wrong with the porch?”
Trey stepped on a board and it squeaked. “Ann and I didn’t realize we should have checked on him.”
“Has he been acting odd for long?”
“He definitely changed after Cassie…” He didn’t say the words and Van was just as glad. “We thought you probably knew, but you weren’t welcome here, either.”
“I’d have forced my way in.” He took in the paint peeling off the siding. Why hadn’t he driven past once in a while? The answer would keep him from facing himself in a mirror for a while. He’d been a coward. Pretending Leo and Cassie didn’t matter anymore had been easier than fighting them for a few pathetic minutes of their time.
“You look gutted,” Trey said. “People think everyone knows what goes on in small towns. But the doors shut here, just like anywhere else, and some things you can’t know.”
Trey was a smart guy. “The door didn’t shut on this.” Van pulled Leo’s keys out of his jacket pocket. “I’ll see how things look inside.”
“Yeah. Good luck. Let me know if I can help.”
“Thanks.” Van trod the rickety boards with care. He dreaded opening the door. “Cassie’s due back tomorrow.”
“You don’t want her to see what’s been going on with her dad.”
“I can’t protect her from what’s happened to her father, but I’d like to clean this place a little.”
“She shouldn’t have left.” Even after five years, Van turned to defend Cassie, but Trey tested the next step, looking regretful. He’d been Cassie’s friend, too. He yanked and the plank gave way with a scream. “None of us asked her to go. None of us wanted her to.”
“It was my fault,” Van said, surprising himself. “Not hers.” A floorboard groaned as he eased across it. A strong wind could send the porch across the lake