Dru and Shea had attended the separate funeral services last week for Becca and Kate, but they had gone late, slipped into a back pew, and left early. Even though Charla and Joy—the whole town, in fact—had known by then that AJ was completely innocent, Dru had wanted to avoid an encounter. She didn’t trust herself, or her temper. While she grieved for both mothers, it rankled, the way she and Shea had been treated at Charla’s house, even though in view of her own recently vanquished suspicions of AJ, she could understand it.
What she didn’t understand and couldn’t so far forgive was how the same feeling of suspicion had driven Joy’s husband, Gene, to get behind the wheel of his pickup truck and attempt to run her and Shea off the road. In essence, he’d tried to kill them. He could have very easily. It had been such a shock last week when he’d come forward and confessed to Captain Mackie that he was responsible. He’d cited his grief over the loss of his daughter and claimed he had little recollection of the incident. He’d said he’d been driven to the edge of insanity, that he’d needed someone to blame. He’d wanted Dru and Shea to pay, however irrational his choice of a target seemed. Captain Mackie had told Dru that Gene had cried. Dru hadn’t heard from Gene. Like Amy said, he hadn’t had the guts to face Dru or Shea.
But Joy and Charla were here, standing at the foot of the porch steps, looking up at Dru. Two women, bonded by mutual grief. Dru’s heart ached for them. Who was she to judge them? She hadn’t walked in their shoes. Her fervent prayer was that she never would. Hadn’t she thanked God a thousand times for sparing Shea? Hadn’t she counted herself lucky?
“Would you like to come and sit?” she asked, and she felt Amy’s startled glance.
Charla thanked her. “I only wanted to say I’m sorry in person for how I spoke to you and Shea. The evidence just seemed to suggest—”
“Gene and I are sorry, too.” Joy interrupted Charla, as if she was anxious to get her part over. “He—he wanted to come, but he’s—it was awful, what he did. There’s no excuse. He’ll—we’ll pay for the damage to Shea’s car.”
“We haven’t heard yet from the insurance company.” Dru wished she were wealthy enough to tell Joy to forget it, but the truth was, repairing the car would put a financial strain on Shea and her.
“We want to pay,” Joy said. “It’s the least we can do.”
Dru frowned, not taking Joy’s meaning.
“Captain Mackie told us you refused to file a complaint against Gene. He thinks the district attorney won’t pursue charges in light of the circumstances, because you’ve said you won’t testify if Gene goes on trial.” Joy glanced away, blinking.
Charla drew her into a one-armed embrace.
Dru’s throat constricted. She sensed Amy was struggling for her composure, too.
“I pushed Kate on Erik,” Charla said, and although she looked startled for having spoken, she went on. “I told her she would never find a better man, a kinder, more handsome man.”
“We were all fooled.” Joy broke out of Charla’s grasp. “I knew there was something not right when Becca went to Dallas. She wanted to believe AJ cared for her, but it was so plain that Shea was—I let Becca go anyway. I didn’t lift a finger to stop her, and even if it was the wrong man, Erik, and not AJ, who hurt her, I knew nothing good would come of it.”
Dru said, “You can’t blame yourselves,” and when she went down the stairs to them, it was because she was shaken by their anguish. The three fumbled their arms around one another, mothers comforting mothers. Amy came, too. It was an unlikely embrace, but what else could you do in a storm but cling to one another?
The bond was broken as quickly as it was forged.
Joy said, “You know who he is—Erik.”
Dru knew what was coming, and her jaw tightened.
“He’s Jeb Axel’s son by that Mexican woman who works for him.”
“Do you know Winona Ayala?” Dru asked. “Personally, I mean?”
“No,” Joy said. “But what kind of woman—”
“They’re both single and over twenty-one, right?” Dru smiled.
“It’s their business, isn’t it?” Amy suggested.
Dru said, “What Erik did, as horrible and unforgivable as it is, his mother isn’t to blame. She’s struggling, too.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive him,” Charla said softly.
“I hope he gets the death penalty,” Joy said.
“I heard he’s under a suicide watch,” Amy murmured.
Dru looked off, her eyes following the progress of a neighbor, a youngish man she saw regularly in the late afternoons, running along the road’s shoulder. She could hear the thud of his footfalls in the soft dirt. She thought of Winona’s prayer for peace, and it comforted her.
25
It was the Friday afternoon of the rehearsal dinner. They should have been getting ready for it, flinging cloths over the tables they’d set up in the pasture, stacking dishes and cutlery into the cart that would have been hitched to the four-wheeler, making the job of going to and from the ranch house easier. The air would have been redolent with the aroma of roast pork. The weather was perfect. There was a delicious breeze now as the sun was setting. It would have guttered the candlelight, carried the sound of laughter, the buzz of conversation. The scent of perfume. Music. Lily would likely have been upstairs about now, dressing in the emerald-green suede western skirt and boots to match that she’d planned to wear.
Instead, she was sitting on the front porch swing, across from AJ and Shea, who were in the rocking chairs near the front door. She and Shea had made lasagna, and it was baking in the oven. Her dad was napping. Something he did a lot of now. Maybe it was from actual need, but it might also be out of a wish to avoid dealing with his part in the mess that had been made. In Lily’s mind, emotional illness was no different from physical illness. It required rest to recover.
AJ had only wakened and joined Shea and her a bit ago. They had changed his dressing earlier, and they’d both remarked how much better the wound looked. It was no longer as red and swollen as it had been. His ankle, too, while it was still discolored and sore, looked much better now.
“You may actually be able to stand long enough to marry your bride tomorrow,” Lily said, teasing him.
He grinned. “I think I already said this—if I have to crawl.”
“You did.” Shea took his hand. “I hope we get another nice day.”
While they weren’t holding a rehearsal, they had decided to go ahead with the wedding. In all the chaos, nothing more had been done about canceling it. There hadn’t been time to think about it, or the will to deal with how. The social protocol . . . who knew what it was in a situation like this? They would gather in Dru’s garden at the hour appointed on the invitations and let matters take their course. Right or wrong, that was the decision they’d made.
What Shea and AJ wanted.