How could she not have known? “When?” she asked, hurting. “When did this start?”
“I suppose about the time he gave up his practice.”
Just after her mother’s death.
“Why didn’t somebody call me? Why didn’t—” She bit the words back and pressed her trembling lips together.
He squeezed her fingers. “It wasn’t an overnight thing. At first he just seemed preoccupied. Or like he needed time to grieve. On his own. It wasn’t until recently that people began to talk.”
Avery turned her gaze to her father’s overgrown garden. No wonder, she thought.
“I’m sorry, Avery. We all are.”
She swung away from her old friend, working to hold on to her anger. Fighting tears.
She lost the battle.
“Aw, Avery. Geez.” Matt went to her, drew her into his arms, against his chest. She leaned into him, burying her face in his shoulder, crying like a baby.
He held her awkwardly. Stiffly. Every so often he patted her shoulder and murmured something comforting, though through her sobs she couldn’t make out what.
The intensity of her tears lessened, then stopped. She drew away from him, embarrassed. “Sorry about that. It’s … I thought I could handle it.”
“Cut yourself some slack, Avery. Frankly, if you could handle it, I’d be a little worried about you.”
Tears flooded her eyes once more and she brought her hand to her nose. “I need a tissue. Excuse me.”
She headed toward her car, aware of him following. There, she rummaged in her purse, coming up with a rumpled Kleenex. She blew her nose, dabbed at her eyes, then faced him once more. “How could I not have known how bad off he was? Am I that self-involved?”
“None of us knew,” he said gently. “And we saw him every day.”
“But I was his daughter. I should have been able to tell, should have heard it in his voice. In what he said. Or didn’t say.”
“It’s not your fault, Avery.”
“No?” She realized her hands were shaking and slipped them into her pockets. “But I can’t help wondering, if I had stayed in Cypress Springs, would he be alive today? If I’d given up my career and stayed after Mom’s death, would he have staved off the depression that caused him to do … this? If I had simply picked up the pho—”
She swallowed the words, unable to speak them aloud. She met his gaze. “It hurts so much.”
“Don’t do this to yourself. You can’t go back.”
“I can’t, can I?” She winced at the bitterness in her voice. “I loved my dad more than anyone in the world, yet I only came home a handful of times in all the years since college. Even after Mom died so suddenly and so horribly, leaving so much unresolved between us. That should have been a wake-up call, but it wasn’t.”
He didn’t respond and she continued. “I’ve got to live with that, don’t I?”
“No,” he corrected. “You have to learn from it. It’s where you go from here that counts now. Not where you’ve been.”
A group of teenagers barreled by in a pickup truck, their raucous laughter interrupting the charged moment. The pickup was followed by another group of teenagers, these in a bright-yellow convertible, top down.
Avery glanced at her watch. Three-thirty. The high school let out the same time as it had all those years ago.
Funny how some things could change so dramatically and others not at all.
“I should get back to work. You going to be okay?”
She nodded. “Thanks for baby-sitting me.”
“No thanks necessary.” He started for the car, then stopped and looked back at her. “I almost forgot, Mom and Dad are expecting you for dinner tonight.”
“Tonight? But I just got in.”
“Exactly. No way are Mom and Dad going to let you spend your first night home alone.”
“But—”
“You’re not in the big city anymore, Avery. Here, people take care of each other. Besides, you’re family.”
Home. Family. At that moment nothing sounded better than that. “I’ll be there. They still live at the ranch?” she asked, using the nickname they had given the Stevenses’ sprawling ranch-style home.
“Of course. Status quo is something you can count on in Cypress Springs.” He crossed to his vehicle, opened the door and looked back at her. “Is six too early?”
“It’ll be perfect.”
“Great.” He climbed into the cruiser, started it and began backing up. Halfway down the driveway he stopped and lowered his window. “Hunter’s back home,” he called. “I thought you might want to know.”
Avery stood rooted to the spot even after Matt’s cruiser disappeared from sight. Hunter? she thought, disbelieving. Matt’s fraternal twin brother and the third member of their triumvirate. Back in Cypress Springs? Last she’d heard, he’d been a partner at a prestigious New Orleans law firm.
Avery turned away from the road and toward her childhood home. Something had happened the summer she’d been fifteen, Hunter and Matt sixteen. A rift had grown between the brothers. Hunter had become increasingly aloof, angry. He and Matt had fought often and several times violently. The Stevenses’ house, which had always been a haven of warmth, laughter and love, had become a battleground. As if the animosity between the brothers had spilled over into all the family relationships.
At first Avery had been certain the bad feelings between the brothers would pass. They hadn’t. Hunter had left for college and never returned—not even for holidays.
Now he, like she, had come home to Cypress Springs. Odd, she thought. A weird coincidence. Perhaps tonight she would discover what had brought him back.
CHAPTER 2
At six sharp, Avery pulled up in front of the Stevenses’ house. Buddy Stevens, sitting on the front porch smoking a cigar, caught sight of her and lumbered to his feet. “There’s my girl!” he bellowed. “Home safe and sound!”
She hurried up the walk and was enfolded in his arms. A mountain of a man with a barrel chest and booming voice, he had been Cypress Springs’s chief of police for as long as she could remember. Although a by-the-books lawman who had as much give as a concrete block when it came to his town and crime, the Buddy Stevens she knew was just a big ol’ teddy bear. A hard-ass with a soft, squishy center and a heart of gold.
He hugged her tightly, then held her at arm’s length. He searched her gaze, his own filled with regret. “I’m sorry, baby girl. Damn sorry.”
A lump formed in her throat. She cleared it with difficulty. “I know, Buddy. I’m sorry, too.”
He hugged her again. “You’re too thin. And you look tired.”
She drew away, filled with affection for the man who had been nearly as important to her growing up as her own father. “Haven’t you heard? A woman can’t be too thin.”
“Big-city crapola.” He put out the stogie and led her inside, arm firmly around her shoulders. “Lilah!” he called. “Cherry! Look who the cat’s dragged in.”
Cherry,