This Heart of Mine

“Neither do we! That’s the thing!”

“We have a lot more to base our decision on than he does.”

With a sigh, Riley slouched into the chair opposite her. “I’m not so sure. I’ve been wondering if we were wrong to keep them apart. It hurt Phoenix deeply, and I honestly don’t think she’s all that bad.”

His mother’s eyes widened. “Maybe you need to talk to Lori Mansfield’s family, to be reminded of how much they’ve suffered from losing their beautiful daughter.”

“I’m sympathetic to the Mansfields. I know you and Corinne are close friends, that her happiness is important to you. But they’re not the only ones who’ve suffered. And if Phoenix has been telling the truth about the events of that day, her punishment was completely unjustified. I’d hate to add to that.”

His mother got to her feet. “Now you believe she’s innocent?”

“There’s nothing to prove her guilt or her innocence.”

“Then look at the facts. That’s what they convicted her on, isn’t it? She was jealous when you started seeing Lori. So she tried to take her out of the picture. It was Phoenix’s car that ran her down, and Phoenix was behind the wheel. There was even a witness inside the vehicle!”

Who might have been lying, but he could tell the argument was only going to escalate if they continued talking about this. “We don’t know exactly what happened,” he insisted.

“What’s gotten into you?” she asked. “Just last week you were wishing along with the rest of us that Phoenix would go somewhere else.”

That was before he’d met her for breakfast, before last night. Both encounters had had a profound effect on him. It was much easier to malign someone who wasn’t around. Now that he’d seen the contrast between the real Phoenix and the monster they’d created in their minds, he understood that everyone’s negative comments and opinions had fueled fears in him that might not be well founded. “I didn’t want her to come back. I wrote her and told her as much.” He didn’t say that was one letter he wished he could unsend. “But Whiskey Creek is her home as much as ours. She can come here if she wants, and there’s nothing we can do to stop her.”

“So you’ve made up your mind? You’re going to support a relationship between her and Jacob?”

“If that’s what he wants, yes—unless she does something that seems...wrong.”

“By then it might be too late.”

“That’s the chance I have to take.”

“When they’d both be better off if she’d just move somewhere else?”

He thought of the shopping he and Kyle had done. His mother would not be happy if she learned that they’d helped Phoenix, but he didn’t regret it. Giving her those things had felt right.

“How would they both be better off?” he asked. “She has nothing to start over with. At least if she stays here she’ll have a free place to live until she gets on her feet.”

“That dump out there isn’t even sanitary. A normal person wouldn’t want to stay there.”

He felt slightly defensive. “She’s doing what she can to clean it up.” She’d told him as much.

“Either way, the Mansfields won’t put up with her living in this town.”

Riley scooted forward but rested his arms on his knees. He didn’t want to come on too strong. “There’s nothing the Mansfields can do.”

“Of course there is,” she said.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m saying someone should warn her. Maybe that’ll make her think twice about burdening us with her presence.”

He’d been uncomfortable with this conversation from the beginning, but now he was downright concerned. “Warn her? Really?”

“Yes! I’ve heard Corinne say that Buddy won’t allow it. You know how close he was to Lori. They were thirteen months apart and did almost everything together growing up.”

“I know he’s angry that his wife left him last year. He always seems to be out causing trouble now that she’s gone. But Phoenix has nothing to do with his current misery.”

“How can you say that? She’s at the root of it. He’s never been able to get over Lori’s murder.”

“So it’s also Phoenix’s fault that he goes from job to job? That he’s currently making minimum wage working as a clerk at the hardware store and living with his parents?”

“You can’t judge him!”

Although Riley had spent a lot of time around Buddy through the years—thanks to the friendship between families—he’d never cared for him. Buddy had always been an egotistic braggart. “But he can judge others.”

“In this instance, I think he’s got the right. Anyway, he wrote Phoenix before she was released. But either she didn’t get his letter, or she ignored it, like yours.”

Riley felt his muscles tense. Buddy was six feet four inches tall and weighed probably 230 pounds. A single blow from his meaty fist could cause significant damage. Even with a bat, Phoenix would never be able to defend herself. “What did Buddy say in that letter?”

“I don’t know. It’s not as though Corinne read it to me. But it was something to the effect that she’d regret it if she came back here.”

No wonder Phoenix had reacted the way she had when she’d heard them on her porch last night. She must’ve thought the Mansfields were coming for her. “He’d better not hurt her,” Riley said.

His mother frowned at the firmness in his voice. “I have no say over what he does,” she responded.

“Then maybe he should be warned.”

“About...what?”

“If he hurts her, he’ll answer to me.”

His mother’s mouth dropped open. “You’re taking her side? Coming out in opposition to my best friend’s son? When he’s the one who’s lost a sister?”

“Phoenix is Jacob’s mother,” he said, as if he’d be doing it for the sake of his son. But he knew in his heart that Jacob wasn’t the only reason he was willing to defend Phoenix. He admired her guts and determination almost as much as he admired her desire to be a mother to her child. Whether she was guilty or not seventeen years ago, she deserved the chance to prove herself.

He was drawing the line.

5 (#ulink_e800fb47-e8ea-5e14-adeb-483a58787d4c)

“What’s wrong with you?” her mother snapped.

Phoenix set the frying pan to one side and turned in surprise. It wasn’t easy to cook in Lizzie’s trailer. Hemmed in by stacks of packaged goods—trash her mother, for some strange reason, found valuable—plants, a bevy of dog bowls and giant bags of dog kibble and an overlarge hamster cage that took up most of the table, she had barely enough room to move on the sticky linoleum. Maybe that was why her mother never bothered with real food—she could no longer fit in her own kitchen. “What do you mean?”

“You’re smiling and humming and acting all...happy. What have you got to be happy about?” Lizzie absently petted one of her five dogs, this one a poodle, as she narrowed her eyes. “Did you have a man over last night? Was that the fuss that woke me?”

Phoenix felt her face flush. “No, I didn’t have a man over.”

Lizzie studied her more closely. “Then why are you blushing?”

“Because you’re embarrassing me!” For the past seventeen years, she’d rarely allowed herself to even think about sex. She hadn’t wanted to miss physical intimacy as much as the other women seemed to; that was all some of them talked about. She also hadn’t wanted to get involved in the kind of romantic relationships that sometimes sprang up between them as a replacement. “I’d rather not talk about my sex life—especially with you,” she added as she dished up the scrambled eggs she’d made for breakfast.