Her Little Secret

“I don’t know.” Van’s weariness scared her more than his words.

“Mommy?”

“Everything’s all right.” Straightening, she yanked the frying pan off the burner and spoke firmly, to comfort her child and to keep Van from guessing she was talking to a little one.

Hope, who’d been through too much, misunderstood and ran to her room. Cassie followed her into the hall. She couldn’t explain Van to Hope or her to him.

“I have to come home.” She’d been raised by a loving mother and a responsible father who’d taught her to think of others. Rarely had she been selfish in her life—not because she was noble, but because her parents had never accepted such behavior. But—home?

She’d dreaded this day for five years, had felt it threatening like a bag of bricks hanging over her head.

She pulled herself together. “I’m coming.”

“I can take care of him.” Van stopped again.

“How?” she asked. “You’re not his next of kin. You’re not even family anymore.”

His breathing deepened. How could she possibly hurt him after all this time?

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“No, you’re right. It was crazy to offer. Not long after you left, he also told me to stay away. But I thought maybe that was an excuse I was happy to take.”

“I don’t want to know—” It was too late to catch up on what had happened after she’d left. The time they’d shared had belonged to someone else. It didn’t feel like hers any longer. “I’ll be on my way as soon as I can get a flight.”

“Wait, Cassie. Let me pick you up at the airport.”

So she could explain Hope at baggage claim? Not a chance. “I’ll be fine.”

His silence ran thick, full of words unsaid. Their relationship had ended unnaturally when she’d walked away, but she hadn’t been willing to wait for the usual recriminations and anger. The rape had humiliated Van and her father. She’d hated them both until she realized she’d never love Hope while she nourished bitterness.

“Thank you for calling,” she said, “and for helping my father. I’ll take over as soon as I get there, and you can go back to your own life.”

“I’m trying to warn you he isn’t the same.” He didn’t seem to hear anything she said, as if he had an agenda and was checking off the items. “I don’t think he’s been eating, and I don’t know when he last took a shower.”

“That’s not my dad.” An image of him burned in her mind. “They’ll keep him in the hospital until I get there?”

“I doubt they’d let him out. When should I expect you?”

“As soon as I can make a reservation. Your number must be on my phone. I’ll call you back.”

“Let me give it to you to make sure.”

She wrote it down. “Thank you,” she said.

“Cassie?”

She bit her lip. Hard. Her arms and legs felt heavy, strange. As if she were channeling someone else’s feelings. If only Van would stop saying her name. “What?”

“Are you all right?”

He’d always cared. That had never been the problem, but his concern left her empty now. “Fine.”

A few seconds went by. She should hang up, cut off the thick voice that had haunted her dreams a lot longer than the monster’s who’d broken into their bathroom. The monster’s voice only terrified her.

Van’s made her lonely, reminded her how it felt to be intimate. Not sex, but trust and talk and safety.

“Should I get you a room at the hotel?” he asked.

She wasn’t about to put Hope on display for the kind, but too-quick-to-pity citizens of Honesty. “I’ll stay at Dad’s house.”

“Maybe you’d like to try Beth’s fishing lodge? She had some trouble last year, but the place is up and running again. She got married last summer and she and her husband renovated—”

Running on wasn’t like him. “I’ll stay at home.” She’d had to give up Beth’s unstinting friendship, and it was too late to start over or explain.

“Okay.” His tone tightened. “Don’t forget to let me know when you’ll be here.”

For the first time since high school, he didn’t say I love you as he hung up. Even the last time—months after she’d left, while Hope had kicked lazily in her belly and Van had begged for another chance, and she’d asked him to stop calling, he’d said it.

She clicked the off button, sliding her palms over her face as if to wipe away memories of Van that flew at her. Always laughing—as she ran her hands through his silky dark blond hair. As he took her mouth with his. Laughter dying as he moved his body above hers.

She flinched and grabbed the wall. “Hope?” After a deep breath, she hurried to her daughter’s room. “I have to tell you some things.”

“No, Mommy. I’m mad. You talked mean to me.”

“I’m sorry, honey.” She was so careful. She tried never to raise her voice, never to let Hope see a hint of brutality anywhere. Her stomach lurched as she remembered the softness of the intruder’s body this afternoon. The human body was so fragile.

And the psyche more so.

“Who was on the phone?” Hope asked, with eyes only for her doll.

“A man I used to know—a friend of my father’s.”

“Huh?” Hope’s eyes rounded and she dropped the doll on her pink-flowered comforter. “You have a daddy?”

Cassie tilted her head back. She’d never even mentioned him? “I have a father,” she said. “He’s sick and he needs me to look after him.”

“Like when I’m sick?” Hope grabbed her hand. “Ooh, will we make him glasses of ice water and toast?”

“We can make anything that will help him feel better. Let’s talk about it over our eggs. Help me warm them up?”

“VAN, TAKE THESE KEYS.” Frail in his hospital gown, Leo Warne covered them with his hand, like a spy passing off a top secret microfiche. “They’re not safe here. Someone will steal them and break into the house and clean me out.” Leo’s eyes darted toward the door and back.

Van suppressed a shudder. He’d loved the man like a father. How could he have abandoned him? “Don’t worry. Cassie’s going to stay at the house. Your stuff will be safe.”

“Stop looking at me like I’m a stranger. I’m not sick.” He nodded toward the ceiling as if someone were watching them from above. “I’m just a smart old man. Something no one in this town likes. I know how they treated Cassie. They made her leave, looking down on her after that man…” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple as big as an egg in his too-thin throat. “Like the rape was her fault. No one took care of her.” He skewered Van with blue eyes that were so much like Cassie’s. “Not even you.”

Van gripped the edge of Leo’s rolling tray. “The rape repulsed me. Cassie never did. I should have protected her, but I couldn’t even make her see I still loved her.”