Home to Whiskey Creek (Whiskey Creek #4)(59)
Author: Brenda Novak

“No. A lot of girls liked Noah. And he probably slept with every one of them.” Except me.

“Actually, Noah didn’t lose his virginity until college. All he cared about was sports. But Cody made up for it.”

She did what she could to read his expression, but Ted wasn’t nearly as transparent as most people. “Because he had a steady girlfriend, you mean?”

“Whether he had a girlfriend or not didn’t matter. Shania still mourns his death, still talks about how different her life would be if he hadn’t died. But…” He gave a little shrug as if he shouldn’t say it but was going to, anyway. “I highly doubt he would’ve made a good husband. Noah tried and tried to get him to settle down. He just wouldn’t. You don’t hear that now that he’s been canonized. You only hear how wonderful he was. He did have a lot of potential, but…whether or not he would’ve achieved it is another story.”

“He wasn’t a very nice person,” she said.

Her agreement seemed to surprise him. “How well did you know Cody?”

“I danced with him once or twice. That’s all. But…there was something sort of…superficial about him.”

“You were there at the party on graduation, right?”

A tremor of foreboding swept through Addy; she’d said too much. But she couldn’t deny having attended the party. Too many people had seen her there.

She nodded.

“There were so many kids at the mine,” Ted murmured. “It’s strange that he was the only one to get hurt, don’t you think? I mean, why would he be the last to leave? And why would he be by himself? Cody was never by himself. Even if Noah wasn’t around, he always had a posse.”

The vinyl upholstery squeaked as she shifted. “I heard he forgot his coat and went back for it.”

“I heard that, too, but…it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. He wasn’t fastidious. He could’ve retrieved it the next day, when he was sober. Why go all the way back to the mine if you’ve already been out all night?”

Cody hadn’t appeared too late. Even after their encounter, she’d had time to walk the five miles or so to the road, thumb a ride and arrive home before dawn. A cement contractor from Jackson had stopped on his way to a six o’clock job in Angels Camp. When she portrayed herself as having partied too much and gotten separated from her friends, he bought into the whole thing. She didn’t say a word about the mine or Cody or having been raped. He’d attributed her disheveled state and her presence on the side of the road to alcohol, had even mentioned some of the crazy stuff he’d done the night he graduated from high school.

“Maybe Cody wasn’t thinking straight,” she said. “When I saw him earlier in the evening, he was completely wasted.”

Ted shrugged. “That could account for it, I guess.”

Suddenly uncomfortable, she stepped out of the booth. “I’d better clear this up. It’s getting late.”

He stood, too, and dug a five-dollar bill from his pocket. “Thanks for the coffee.”

She refused his money. “My treat.”

“You sure?”

“It was a cup of coffee. Don’t worry about it.”

“Thanks. I enjoyed getting to know you,” he said. “I hope you’ll make it to the party tomorrow. And, if you come, bring your swimsuit. I have a Jacuzzi. Might feel nice to get in if it’s as cold as tonight.”

She tucked her hair behind her ears. “Will Noah be there?”

A smile curved his lips. “Would you like him to be?”

Absolutely. But she didn’t want Ted to catch on. “I know better than to get involved with him.”

“What does that mean?”

“From what I’ve heard, he’s left a string of broken hearts in his wake,” she said because she couldn’t say anything more.

“Don’t worry about the gossip. Noah’s a good guy. He just hasn’t met the right girl, never really fallen in love.”

She held Ted’s cup and coffee spoon in her hands. “Maybe he’s incapable of it.”

“Maybe, but…” He winked. “Maybe not.”

20

Addy wasn’t really expecting it, but Darlene showed up for work the next morning. Even more surprising, they got through breakfast without a conflict—but only because they pretended they’d never had that conversation on the phone. Like the other employees at Just Like Mom’s, they were both dressed up for Halloween and smiling. Darlene was an angel—ironic from Addy’s perspective. Addy was a flapper, since that was the only costume Gran had that she could alter quickly enough.

At ten, after politely dancing around each other, serving breakfast and passing out free orange-frosted donuts and balloons for the kids, Addy decided to leave. Darlene had managed the restaurant for this long. She could get through another day, even a busy one, on her own. Addy needed a nap. She’d been up for several hours after Ted left, looking up Kevin’s, Derek’s, Tom’s and Stephen’s addresses in the Whiskey Creek phone book and trying to talk herself into going by each house to see who owned a white truck with damage on the front. She held off until two before deciding to wait one more night. Halloween would provide a much better opportunity. People would already be out. And she’d have the perfect excuse to wear a costume.

When she got home, she didn’t get to nap, however. Gran needed her help preparing for Halloween. She wanted to be ready when the trick-or-treaters came by.

Addy made the caramel apples everyone expected her to give out. She also applied Gran’s green face paint and fake warts for her witch’s costume.

“Are you leaving?” Gran asked when, finally finished, Addy got her purse.

“I have a few errands to run.” She adjusted the black hat she’d fastened, purposely askew, on Gran’s long black wig.

“Like what?” Gran reached up to help but couldn’t do much wearing her fake purple fingernails.

Addy searched her mind for a plausible excuse but could think of only one thing Gran would accept without hesitation—a social outing. “Ted Dixon invited me to a party tonight.”

“He has? And it starts this early?”

“No, it doesn’t start until later, but I’d like to get a costume that fits properly.”

Gran’s scowl turned into something far more pleasant. “How nice! You run along and do that, dear. I’ll be fine here. You’ve got my rocking chair out on the porch and that green flashlight I use?”