When Snow Falls (Whiskey Creek #2)(39)
Author: Brenda Novak

“I mean it.” Their mother had skated out of every mistake. Anita always ran, pointed a finger at someone else or manipulated the system. She’d been conning others her whole life, wreaking havoc and never cleaning up the messes she created, and Cheyenne was sick of it. She’d been sick of it for as long as she could remember.

“What good will that do?” Presley asked.

“It’ll give the victim’s family some closure. She should’ve called the police that day.”

“She was drunk! They would’ve taken her to jail. And then what? What would’ve happened to us?”

Cheyenne had no answer. Anita was all they’d ever had. Even the few friends Anita had made passed in and out of their lives very quickly. And she had no roots. What she did have, always, was a reason she couldn’t do the right thing, why she was justified in doing the opposite.

“She’s dying, Chey,” Presley said.

“Exactly.” Cheyenne hitched her towel higher. “We need to hurry.”

“I can’t believe you! That would affect us more than her. Do you really want to deal with something so negative? To live in the shadow of it? We had nothing to do with her drinking and driving. Anyway, Mom’s last days are hard enough. In case you haven’t noticed, she’s in horrible pain. If you want her to suffer, you can feel confident that she is.”

Want her to suffer? Cheyenne didn’t want anyone to suffer. But sometimes she did crave justice, just as her mother’s victim probably did.

She pressed her forehead to the wall as her sister walked away. Why couldn’t Anita have been someone she could be proud of?

* * *

Presley stood inside Anita’s bedroom, listening to Cheyenne’s shower. She should’ve left the Eugene Crouch issue alone. She’d already sent him off with a story he seemed to accept, hopefully never to return. Why had she decided it would be so smart to put Cheyenne’s curiosity to rest, as well?

“What…are you doing?”

She turned to see that Anita was awake. “Kicking myself.”

“Why?”

Because she’d gone one step too far. “I made a stupid miscalculation where Cheyenne’s concerned.”

There was a long silence, but when she looked up, she saw that Anita was still watching her closely. “What…does that mean?”

“It means she’s angrier than I realized. And one day…” She wiped her sweaty palms on her sweats.

“One day?”

“I’m afraid of where it’ll lead.”

Anita’s eyes closed but reopened a second later. “She doesn’t know…about Crouch.”

“No.” Presley didn’t want to share with her mother what she’d just told Cheyenne. She and Anita had never spoken of the hit-and-run. It was something she preferred to forget; she wished she hadn’t brought it up to her sister.

“You’d better…hope she never learns.”

“Whatever happened in the past is over,” she insisted, and prayed to God it was true.

* * *

Before dialing Joe’s number, Cheyenne locked the door to her office. She could hear Riley and Jacob working upstairs. She doubted they’d come down, but didn’t want to be interrupted if they did. She preferred a few minutes of privacy to tell the man she’d wanted since she was fourteen that she couldn’t see him again, even while Eve was out of town.

Especially while Eve was out of town.

His cell rang three times before he picked up.

“Finally,” he teased. “I thought maybe you weren’t going to allow me to apologize.”

She could hear sounds from the service station in the background. Obviously, he was at work. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. I understand how seeing that guy would throw you. It’s fine.”

“He took me by surprise, but that’s no excuse.”

“Considering what you told me in your message, he had a lot of nerve, expecting you to greet him like a friend.”

“We were friends, once. That’s what makes it hard. But it’s been years. I shouldn’t have let him get to me.”

“Seeing him was a shock.”

“Thanks for being so understanding.” He covered the phone to tell someone he’d be just a minute. Then his voice deepened. “Does that mean you’ll give me another chance?”

She hauled in a deep breath. “I wish I could, Joe. I—I’ve had a crush on you for years,” she said with a weak laugh. “I’m sure you’re aware of that.”

“No, I wasn’t,” he said in astonishment.

“I guess I’m better at keeping a secret than I thought.”

“You’re certainly better at it than Eve.”

He was joking again, trying to ease the awkwardness, and that offered the perfect segue. “Speaking of Eve. She’s…great.”

Silence, then, “She is great.”

“She’s also my best friend,” Cheyenne continued. “And now that she’s interested in you, my hands are tied. I don’t…I don’t want to see her get hurt.”

“I admire your loyalty. That’s rare these days. But—”

“And I definitely don’t want to be the person to hurt her,” she broke in.

There was another long pause. “You’re saying even if I’m not interested in Eve, you don’t want to get involved with me.”

That was really her only choice. And yet, she knew it would be so much easier to forget her dark, sexy neighbor if she could throw herself into a relationship with Prince Charming instead.

Too bad it wasn’t possible. She’d been unsure and overwhelmed when Joe showed up with that bottle of wine—unsure and overwhelmed enough to let him in—but since then she’d received an education. Thanks to Dylan, she now understood how quickly attraction could ignite. “I can’t.”

Her honesty seemed to take him off guard. No doubt he’d been expecting a simple “no problem,” and a commitment to have dinner with him. Instead, she’d told him how long she’d yearned for his attention—and then refused to see him.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said.

“I’m sorry to say it,” she responded. “You’re one in a million.” With a wince, she hit the end button. Then she sat in her chair and stared at the picture of her and Eve taken while they were visiting Baxter in San Francisco earlier in the year.