Sanctuary Forever WITSEC Town Series Book 5 Page 6

  Over and over again, every single time, it broke her heart to have to watch him go without those things.

  “The sheriff can’t help me.” His breath hitched. “The only one who gets what I went through is you. Even Miranda looks at me funny.”

  Chase’s wife needed to keep her looks to herself. Dan didn’t need the added pressure of other people’s emotions when he could barely contain his own. Gemma was going to go and have a talk with her.

  “I want to know who he was.” He swept his arm out to encompass the whole room. “What if the answer is in here? What if I can find out why?”

  “And if there’s nothing, if all you find out is that he was awful before he came here and then he was awful here, what then?” She couldn’t bear it if that was all he got for this much heartache. “How will you move on?”

  “I’ll get up. Just like I get up every day, Gemma. I need this, even if just thinking about it is one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. Don’t take the answer away now, when I’ve been handed a sealed envelope. The solution to a riddle that escaped me my whole life is in this room.”

  A single tear rolled down her face. What if it wasn’t what he hoped for? “That man is nothing to do with you, and he never was.” She pointed to the facedown photo on the linoleum floor.

  Gemma said, “Hal wanted nothing to do with me. Your father terrorized you. Why do I want to know who my father was? Why do you want to know yours? Why can’t we both just be happy with who we are. Who cares about the past?”

  He reached for her, but she backed up a step. “No. I’d rather burn it down. Hal didn’t care about me, and your father certainly never cared about you. Neither of our mothers were strong enough to handle the life they had, let alone really take care of us or protect us from getting hurt.”

  His gaze softened. “She still won’t speak to you?”

  “Don’t change the subject. This isn’t about my mom.” Gemma folded her arms, the dampness of tears still on her face. “I’ll read it all. If it’s something that will help, I’ll tell you what you need to know about your father. But you don’t need to do this. Not if there’s no guarantee of a result.”

  “Maybe I should read it instead of you.” He stood toe-to-toe with her. “If there’s something in here that will help you, I’ll tell you what you need to know about your father.”

  “He wasn’t my father, Dan. Not really. You know that.”

  “Maybe the secret he kept all these years, the secret that meant he couldn’t know you…maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with either Hal or my father.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’s something else.”

  “There’s still information in here about both of them. Maybe we should tell someone else, because I don’t want you reading about him.” Even the memory of those black eyes staring at her made her flesh break out in tiny bumps. “Whatever is in here doesn’t matter. We are what we make of our own lives.”

  “Unless God took the nothing that was my life and gave me everything in exchange for it.”

  “This isn’t another gift, Dan. It’s nothing but a curse.”

  “In my flesh dwells no good thing.”

  She sighed. “You’ve said that before, but I have no idea what it means. I was charged with keeping this secret for Sanctuary. That’s it.”

  He looked like he wanted to say something, but then he sighed. “I know it won’t be good. I know that. I don’t need it to give me something; I already have everything I need. That’s what I’m saying.” He paused. “But I can’t walk away from this. Not if it might help even just a little bit.”

  “I won’t let you take the risk.” She was pushing the boundaries of their friendship, denying him this. Dan would walk away if she made him. He wouldn’t like it, but he’d walk away.

  “If this secret cost you your father, it’s big. No more being a lone wolf. It’s not going to help you.”

  Gemma shook her head. “There’s no ‘we’. Not now. There can’t be.”

  “Gem—”

  “No. I won’t let you do this.”

  “At least think about it.”

  “I won’t. I can’t do what you’re asking.” She couldn’t watch the truth take the little his father had left behind and destroy that as well. “You need to leave. I can’t talk to you, not now. Maybe not for a while. I can’t do this friendship thing anymore.”

  Oh, God. I’m really doing it. She had to. I’m breaking up with him. “Don’t come back. No more hanging out. No more chats. No more secrets. I can’t do it. Not a single one of your friends even knows that we know each other more than acquaintances. And why is that?” He started to answer, but she cut him off. “I can’t do this anymore, Dan.”

  Gemma sucked in a breath. It was for his good. She was saving him from this awful idea. “If we see each other it’ll just eat at you, and you have to let it go. No one knows. This secret dies with Hal.” She choked on her father’s name.

  “Gemma…” his voice was thin. She couldn’t look at his face; she’d change her mind.

  “You need to leave, Dan. I’m serious.”

  **

  The same words she’d said to Terrence slapped him in the face. Dan took a step back, hardly able to form a complete thought. She was…

  “You’re breaking up with me.”

  “Our friendship, yes.” And she wasn’t going to change her mind. Dan had seen that look on her face before.

  He sucked back all the emotion she didn’t need to see, and said, “Fine.”

  Her gaze softened. “Dan—”

  “No.” He stepped back. “Don’t do that. Not now.” She’d made the decision, and she needed to stick to it.

  Okay, Papa. Help me accept this. He cried to God in his head while they stared at each other. If he took one step away from her, who knew when he’d be able to come back? Dan shut his eyes, unable to spend any more time drinking in the sight of her. He turned away, walked away from his best friend in the world. Outside to the street. The library. His truck. He fired up the old beast, thanking God when the thing started.

  He gripped the wheel but didn’t go anywhere. She’d seriously thrown him out? Given him a gift, the possibility of understanding his father at least to an extent, and the chance to answer some of the questions of his past. Hot tears tracked down his face. It was years since he’d cried, but apparently today was his day. Papa. Why offer a gift and then take it away? It made no sense, although not much about Dan’s life did.

  He hit the gas and peeled away from the library. Didn’t God want him to understand so that he could forgive?

  Otherwise it made no sense. And he hated when things made no sense. Dan needed peace, and this was the opposite. His heart felt like it was on fire, flames of pain licking his chest. Life had happened to him. He’d never had the chance to make his own choices. Not even with the farm, not really. Only being the town’s pastor gave him some semblance of control back.

  Gemma.

  Now Dan didn’t even have her. God had given him enough, but Dan didn’t have anything which he could give up. There was no margin, there was only God’s hand on his life. Giving. Taking.

  Dan clung to Him regardless of the fact he was falling apart. He was never not falling apart, it was just that it happened in differing degrees.

  He pulled up outside the barn, across from where Gemma had fallen into the ground. Someone had taped off the area. They should have taped off the house, too. Dan let go of the steering wheel and squeezed the bridge of his nose. The sound of a gunshot, that crack which had filled his ears. He could never escape it.

  He glanced at the house. Maybe she had the right idea to get rid of the issue by burning those papers. But if he burned the house down would that really make things better? He’d probably start a wildfire with as dry as things had been lately. The town’s air quality would tank as the smoke had nowhere to go. Inversions were a killer here. The mountains didn’t let anything out unless the incoming front was strong enough to scoop the air from the basi
n where Sanctuary sat.

  If not for all that, he’d have burned the place down years ago. But it wouldn’t get rid of the memories. All that blood. The searing pain. His father’s laughter.

  No one had even asked him what happened, and he’d never gone into that house again. His mother was gone forever. Dan had been left with little but a pain and rage he could do nothing about. The backlash from his father would put him in the ground as well.

  It wasn’t until he’d found God that he’d been able to let go of some of that furious helplessness.

  Dan shifted in the seat and pulled his Bible out. He leaned his head back on the headrest and absorbed David’s words, finding his feelings echoed there in the Psalms as the not-yet-king cried out for justice. For peace. Not an absence of fighting, but a state of mind that allowed God to be sovereign in spite of what was going on.

  Everything had shifted, like that ground which should have held up Gemma. Was the answer in those files she’d banished him from? Dan hadn’t only lost his shot at finding out who his father was, and maybe why the old man had been the way he had been, he’d also lost her. Sure, they didn’t see each other frequently, but she’d been there. Through so much of his life she’d been present for him, a solid person he could hang onto. Maybe she didn’t get the depth of feeling he had for her, the way he’d needed her deep down to his core. He would have said she knew what their friendship meant to him.

  But maybe she hadn’t.

  Either way he wasn’t going to be a burden. If she wanted him gone, fine. He’d honor her wishes and stay away. Try to forget what she’d been given and find his answers some other way. Now he had a name to research, a name Hal had known all along. Bill Jones. He should check the house for information, maybe look through anything his parents might have kept in the attic. If he could bring himself to go inside.

  A curtain shifted. Dan frowned. Was someone inside the house?

  He climbed out of the truck and walked around the bed. The sheriff’s Jeep approached on the road. Dan looked back at the house one more time before he went to meet John as he got out of his vehicle.

  “What’s up, Sheriff?”

  John shut his car door, then pinned Dan with a look.

  Dan said, “Something is.” Was it bad?

  “How about you driving forty-five through town? That enough for you?”

  “Uh…” He had? Dan had been so upset, he’d just driven.

  “I’d ask for your license and registration if you’d been given any, or ever been required to take any kind of test.” John sighed. “Want to tell me why you were going so fast I got calls from three different people? You blazed a trail through town. They said you looked upset.”

  Dan glanced at the window and the curtain he’d seen move. “I’m okay now.”

  Was it just his imagination, or had someone actually been in there? It was hard to tell anymore, what was real and what wasn’t. So much of this land was pure memory, shadows of the past he couldn’t escape or ignore. The house was a specter at best. Not a physical thing, but the sum of his memories. A past that beat at him, constantly.

  “Dan?”

  He turned.

  “Is something going on?”

  Papa. Dan waited for an answer on what to tell the sheriff, but it didn’t come. He didn’t want to lie, but neither did he want to explain the sad reality of his life to a man he respected. A man he considered a friend.

  “You can talk to me, you know.”

  And tell the sheriff that he never went in his own house, and that he lived in the barn? John didn’t want to know that. It was enough that Chase, Miranda, and Gemma knew what they did about him.

  Dan scratched the side of his head. “I have a lot on my mind. I had a lot on my mind when I drove through town. It won’t happen again.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about, Dan. You seem kinda…I don’t know, out of it?” John shook his head. “I can’t put my finger on it except that things seem to have changed since Gemma was hurt here.”

  “Okay.” What was he supposed to say about that? “Sunday was fine, wasn’t it?”

  “I’m not concerned about your sermon. That’s not the part of you that worries me.”

  “There’s nothing anyone can change.”

  “Then tell me why you look at your own house like it’s going to jump up off the ground and bite you.”

  Dan bit his lip. Weight hit his shoulder. Dan flinched from under it before he realized John had simply set his hand on Dan’s shoulder. “Shoot.” Dan ran his hands down his face.

  “This is more than you being out of sorts.”

  Dan didn’t want to say it all out loud. “Can’t you just read my file?”

  “You were born here. You don’t have a WITSEC file.”

  “What about my father?”

  John shook his head. “Him either, for some reason. He isn’t even listed. I read your mother’s and the police report. It was a blessing you weren’t there to see them argue badly enough she’d run off, though the file indicates you spent the night in the woods.”

  Right. An argument, and his mom had run off. What had the previous sheriff thought, putting all that down? Had he seriously believed it? The sheriff before John…Dan didn’t even know how to describe Chandler. But he hadn’t helped anyone. He’d looked the other way far too many times.

  Only Gemma had really seen Dan and seen the truth. Her mom had looked aside at him a few times, and Olympia had tried to get him to open up about himself, but by then it was too late. His father’s reign of terror lasted until the minute his heart failed, and he hit the ground.

  “It’s over now.” At least, he wanted to be done with it. Though it seemed the past didn’t want to be done with him. Is that You, Papa?

  “I’m here, if you want to talk.”

  Dan shrugged but nodded as well. He didn’t know what to say, but it was clear that John cared about him. Dan couldn’t tell the story out loud. Gemma had known, and so there was never any need to speak about it.

  John pulled a paper from his pocket and held it out. “Until then, here’s your speeding ticket.”

  Chapter 6

  The following Saturday afternoon Gemma saw the moment her mom arrived at the wedding. Ten minutes to start and Gemma dashed out of the dressing room. Shelby was ready; she was early for everything and apparently her own wedding was no exception.

  “Gem—”

  She was out the door before Shelby could finish, but then she glanced over her shoulder. “I’ll be back in one second.”

  White chairs had been arranged in rows at the park for the wedding. The place was transformed in a way Gemma knew it would never be for her. Shelby hadn’t missed a thing, which made the contrast all the more stark between Shelby’s wedding and the wedding Gemma figured she’d probably never have.

  Dan was there. She’d have to stand close to him and pretend everything was fine. Talk about awkward. She hadn’t seen him since she’d kicked him out of the radio station, and it still hurt. Like something inside her had ripped open and would never be repaired.

  It was all over town about the speeding ticket. Six hours of community service, whatever he chose to do. It wasn’t exactly punishment, unless he chose something like trash duty, but John had made his point.

  Law in Sanctuary didn’t happen the way it did on those TV shows. Forty years and they’d only had one murder—at least that was recorded. She’d always figured the previous sheriff reported whatever he wanted just to prove the town was a success. Debatable. He’d probably been more of a fan of his assignment in a small town, than of actually policing people who pretty much just wanted to be left alone.

  Gemma slowed as she caught up to where her mom stood. People gave her weird looks, but she ignored them. They’d never thought she was normal. Why get them to change their thinking now? Her mom’s hair was down and unwashed. She hadn’t bothered to style it, but it still gleamed strawberry blonde in the sunlight. Her mom had been so beautiful when G
emma was younger. She wasn’t even fifty-five now, so why did she seem so old?

  “Mom.” Gemma tried to stop gracefully, but heels were not her friend. Shelby hadn’t let her wear Converse, probably because she hated her and wanted Gemma to break her neck. Okay, maybe not. “Hey, Mom, wait up.”

  Janice turned. Her outfit was a dress that draped over her slender figure, swirls of color. Beads. A hippie headband to keep wayward strands off her face. She barely reacted. “Gem. You’re here.”

  Of course she was here. She was a bridesmaid.

  Gemma gathered her mom to her, whether she wanted a hug or not. “Hi.”

  Gemma readjusted the wrap that covered her shoulders.

  It was okay that she’d moved out. It was okay that she’d taken that step toward independence a few months ago, and it wasn’t the reason her mom looked so haggard.

  Gemma sighed. “How are you?”

  Like there was nothing special to talk about, just checking in. Like Hal wasn’t her father, and he hadn’t left her the town’s secrets behind a hidden door in his radio station for her to guard. Like her mom hadn’t been with Hal for years and never told anyone.

  This was just the way it was.

  “Fine.” Janice faked a smile, but Gemma didn’t buy it. “I’m so happy for Shelby. I ordered her that pan set from her registry. I’m so glad it got here on time.”

  She should give her mom more of a break. Janice was grieving. “Can we get together later? I have some things that I need to talk to you about.” She paused, but didn’t want to give her mom too much time to formulate an excuse. “Would that be okay?”

  “Sure, Gem. Why don’t you come over for dinner tomorrow?”