“What?” Only then did he notice the only bandage that was exposed. The one on my hand. “What’s this?”
“Just a minor brush with death,” I joked, reaching for some pretzels in the bowl a couple of feet away. “Nothing serious.”
“Burns?”
“Yeah. Occupational hazard.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” He motioned for the bartender as he turned on his stool. His foot hit my shin, and I recoiled again.
“Come on—your leg too?”
“Just take it easy.”
“Where all were you burned, man?”
“My right arm, down my side, my leg.”
“Nate!”
“I didn’t want to distract from Pop’s homecoming. He was the man of the hour.”
“I thought you guys had training to stay out of the fires.”
“We try.”
Drew reached down and pulled up my pant leg. “Dude, you were in no condition for a road trip. You should have stayed home. Let us come to you.”
“I’m fine. How’s Pop?”
Drew shook his head. “He’s okay. Claims he’s a changed man.”
“We’ll see, won’t we?” I slid off my stool. “Can I get the key? I want to chill a little bit before I go over to Mom’s.”
Drew fished his keys out of his pocket and pulled off his house key. “Hey, before you go over to my house, I should tell you who just moved in across the street.”
“Who?” I asked, taking the key.
“Brenna Strickland. Well, Brenna Hertzog. I don’t know if she’s going back to her maiden name or not.”
I tried not to look interested. “Brenna moved?”
“Yeah. I saw her outside when the moving truck was there. She said she couldn’t afford where she lived after the divorce, so she and the kids downsized. She looked good, though. I just didn’t want you to be broadsided. I’m sure she didn’t realize there was a Beckett pulling the real estate values down when she signed the papers.”
He was kidding, but it didn’t feel funny. “Okay, thanks for the heads-up.”
“Hey, come say hello to everybody. Some of the old gang is here.”
Drew turned back to the crowd, and for an uncomfortable moment, I thought he might yell out, “Hey, everybody, get a load of my brother!”
I knew that look in Drew’s eye, so I grabbed his arm and stopped him. “I really don’t feel great. I need to put this leg up for a few minutes.”
“Yeah, right. I won’t drag you through the crowd tonight, then.”
I waved goodbye to Duke, then opened the door. Drew stepped out behind me. “I think there are sheets on the extra bed. Take it easy, man. You need anything for those burns?”
“I have what I need. When will you get home?”
“Probably around three.”
“Okay, so I’ll see you when you wake up tomorrow afternoon.”
“Good luck with the folks.”
Drew lived five minutes away, in a neighborhood I knew well from my high school years. I’d never been to his house, since I hadn’t been back to town in years, so I had to drive slowly, letting my headlights shine on the mailboxes to see the street addresses. Just as I found Drew’s house, I saw the house across the street with empty boxes piled up at the curb.
Brenna’s house.
I pulled into Drew’s driveway and sat in the truck for a minute, looking at her house in my rearview mirror.
Should I go over? I hadn’t seen her in fourteen years. She should have been a vague memory by now, a memory that started with childlike yearning and ended with grief. I shouldn’t be fazed by her being so close.
As badly as my burns needed tending to, I wanted to go knock on her door and say hi. Maybe I could reassure her about my dad being home. She couldn’t have taken his pardon well. Didn’t I owe her that?
I got out of the truck, closed the door, and limped toward her house.
Chapter 4
Brenna
I sat with my laptop open on my lap, staring at the few paragraphs I’d managed to write since Jack picked up the kids again last night, but nothing would come today.
The sound of the cable news on TV didn’t help. Fires were spreading across the upper part of the state, and the winds were picking up, making things worse.
As always, when I thought of the fires, I thought of Nate Beckett. Was he one of those silhouettes on-screen fighting back the fires? Would he come to town to welcome his father home?
I took another swallow of my whiskey and waited, hoping, praying it would numb the memories, or at least give me a buzz that would make me forget them. But as the half-empty bottle on my table attested, it wasn’t working.
Tears crested under my eyes, and I wiped them away. My hands still trembled. Too much to drink, or too little?
What would the church people think if they knew I was drinking, the preacher’s kid who hadn’t made a wrong turn since that one tragic night in her teens?
What about that marriage of yours? that annoying, alcohol-fueled voice in my head asked me. You don’t consider that a wrong turn?
True. That had been like making a rubber-burning 180, then slamming into a brick wall.
I should have known. Jack had it in him from the first day, but I was too good at pretending I didn’t see what was there. All it took was some college blonde with longer legs to come along and erase ten years of commitment.
But did I really not know that going in? Was the money the thing that made me put blinders on about his character?
If it was, I loathed myself. Now I was stuck with him for the rest of my life because of my children.
I checked my watch, wondering where Sophia and Noah were right now. I wasn’t even sure what they did with him each Saturday, especially since his mayoral race was ramping up. Were they at their father’s fund-raiser, hobnobbing with judges and politicians and financial gurus? Had Rayne had the foresight to feed them something so they wouldn’t starve before their eight or nine o’clock meal—which probably consisted of something that Sophia would be more likely to throw up than enjoy? Was the room filled with cigar and pipe smoke, which was sure to aggravate Noah’s asthma? Would all of it please Jack’s father—the billionaire who owned Hertzog Industries, Carlisle’s biggest employer?
After all, everything was about pleasing him, wasn’t it?
I took another swallow, praying for peace, for numbness, but God wasn’t listening anymore. He was punishing me for so many things, and Jack was the perfect tool.
Though the hoped-for buzz never came, the self-indictments did. I wouldn’t be divorced if I’d been a better wife. I should have dieted more, bleached my brown hair, dressed younger, and made wittier banter. If I hadn’t spent so much time taking care of my children, I might not be losing them now. If I hadn’t been so concerned with keeping the perfect home, being the perfect mother, living the perfect life, maybe I would have seen that my husband was looking elsewhere for the things I was so inadequate at giving him.
Wasn’t it always the wife’s fault?
Yes, God was punishing me for all those things, though I wasn’t quite clear on the reason God wasn’t punishing Jack. But that wasn’t how it worked. It was only me who got punished, and not just for the divorce. If the truth were known—and the whiskey got down to the truth every time—God’s punishment reached back to a time before I’d even met Jack. A time when I was sixteen. A time when my judgment had destroyed my family and killed my father—the ripples of which were still being felt by everyone involved.