Graveminder

She didn’t pull away, but she did turn her head to look at the slowly lightening sky.

They sat there for several minutes watching the night end. She had her feet curled up under her, and one hand clutched the chain of the swing as if she were a small child afraid of falling. The afghan was tucked around her, adding to her vulnerable appearance.

And he felt like a jackass for wanting to tell her the things that she always tried to keep unspoken between them. The problem with Rebekkah was that there wasn’t ever a good time to talk. She only let her walls down when she was hurt, and when she wasn’t hurt she ran—either literally or by chasing emotions away with sex. He used to think that there would be a time when the sex wasn’t an excuse to run from intimacy, but she’d disabused him of that notion the last time he’d seen her. Carefully keeping his own emotions in check, he said, “You’ll sleep better in a bed than out here on the swing. Come on.”

For a moment he thought she’d refuse, but instead she said, “I know.”

As she stood, he wrapped the afghan around her shoulders, and she whispered, “Will you stay?”

When he frowned, she hastily added, “Not like … not with me, just in the house. It’s almost dawn, and I don’t want to be alone here. The guest beds are probably made up.”

Instead of calling her out on the lie she was trying to sell, he opened the door. “Sure. It’s probably easier. I had planned to pick you up for the service.”

She stopped and kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”

He nodded.

But she didn’t move. One foot was on the step into the house; the other was still on the porch.

“Bek?”

Her lips parted, and she leaned toward him and said, “Tonight doesn’t have to count. Right?”

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand her question. “I don’t know.”

She pulled him to her almost desperately, and he wasn’t sure whether it was a cry or an apology she whispered as she wrapped herself around him. The screen door hit him as he let go of it to hold her tighter to him. A part of him—a very insistent part—wanted to ignore her grief and the inevitable this-is-a-mistake that morning would bring. Another more responsible part knew she would be running by morning and he would be kicking himself for ending up back where they always were if he did that.

They stepped into the house, and the door snapped shut with a bang. Rebekkah pulled back. “I’m sorry; I shouldn’t—” She stopped, shook her head, and all but ran up the stairs.

He followed. If he were a different sort of man, he wouldn’t let things end there, or maybe if she were a different sort of person, but he knew them both well enough to know that what she was inviting him to do was take the responsibility for the choice out of her hands so later she could blame him.

Not this time.

It was difficult for either of them to have any sort of resolve where the other was concerned. They both claimed they did, but inevitably his decision not to repeat the same pattern and her insistence that they were just friends failed. Over the years, they’d avoided talking by ending up in bed, and they’d ended fights in bed, but they’d always circled back to Rebekkah’s running and his deciding he was a fool for thinking this time was going to be different.

But here I am.

The difference was that this time he was standing outside her room, not in it.

At the top of the stairs, he asked, “Are you sleeping in your old room?”

She paused. “I can stay in Maylene’s room, so you … that way you have a bed, too, or … I could sleep in Ella’s—in the other room so … you—”

“No.” He put a hand on her forearm. “You don’t need to sleep in Maylene’s room or in Ella’s room. I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

She shook her head. “You don’t need to … I’m okay. I mean … I’m not, but—”

“It’s fine.” Gently he put a hand on either side of her face and looked at her. “You need to get some sleep.”

Indecision flickered in her expression, but after a moment, she nodded and went into her room. She pushed the door partway closed, but it was still open enough that he could follow. He considered it. In the past, he would’ve. She needed him, and he had repeatedly told himself that need was enough. With any other woman, it was all he wanted.

With Amity, it is enough, but Bek is not Amity.

Resolutely Byron pulled her door shut and went back downstairs. He sat on the sofa for a minute, lowered his head to his hands, and thought about everything that they needed to talk about, about all the things that were a mess, about the reasons that he wasn’t going to go right back upstairs.

He couldn’t sleep in Ella’s old room. She had been gone a long time, but sometimes he didn’t think Rebekkah would ever truly her let go. In death, Ella stood between them in a way she never would have in life. That, like so many other topics, wasn’t something Rebekkah was willing to discuss. Of course, there were also plenty of topics he was grateful not to discuss tonight. He was dreading telling Rebekkah that Maylene was murdered—and that Chris seemed unwilling to investigate it.

Byron thought about the homeless girl he’d seen lingering at the house yesterday afternoon and again tonight. She was young, a teenager, and too slight to have inflicted the injuries he’d seen on Maylene. He wondered if she traveled with someone, maybe a man. Byron checked the windows and doors again, but saw no sign of intrusion. Probably just hungry, he decided. She’d known that the house was empty, and when a person has no home, finding an empty house is surely tempting. He made a mental note to suggest that Chris talk to the girl. Maybe she’d seen something. Even if she hadn’t, letting her wander around alone in town without resources was a sure way to turn her into a criminal. Claysville took care of its own. Whether she had been born here or not, she was here now, so she’d need looking after. Which I should’ve thought of earlier. Right now, he suspected that the worst she was guilty of was theft of milk from Maylene’s porch. If she had nowhere to go, no food, and no family, there would be more serious problems in time.

11

ONLY A FEW HOURS LATER, REBEKKAH WOKE AFTER A FITFUL SLEEP IN her old room. It was technically a guest room now, had been since she’d stopped spending summers there, but it was still hers. She showered, dressed, and went downstairs to find Byron rubbing his eyes.

He didn’t say anything about the half-assed invitation he’d refused last night, and she didn’t tell him it didn’t freak her out to walk downstairs and find him waiting for her today. Instead, for a moment, neither spoke, and then he said, “I hate that you don’t have time to get your feet under you, but the final viewing will have started, and if we want—”

“Let’s go.” She motioned to her black dress and shoes. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. What do you need to do?”

He held up the key to her rental car. “Walk out the door.”

Byron drove her to Montgomery and Sons. They pulled around back and went in the kitchen door. He must’ve phoned ahead because William was waiting. Over his somber suit, the older man wore a frilled apron covered in pictures of bright yellow ducks. He held a wooden spoon in one hand.

“Go on.” With the spoon, he motioned at Byron and then at the stairs. “I’ll look after her.”

William turned to Rebekkah and gestured to the table.

She sat, and he poured her a cup of coffee. Momentarily she could hear the shower upstairs. It felt comforting to be there, like being in a real home—as long as she didn’t think about the other part of the house where mourners were gathering around Maylene’s body.

William set down a plate he’d just filled with scrambled eggs and bacon. “If you want to see her, you can. I know you and Maylene had your traditions, though, so we can wait till the rest of them are gone.”

Rebekkah nodded. “Thank you. I’m not going to hide all day, but the …” She felt the tears build up again. “I’ll be fine at the service. I’ll handle the funeral breakfast. I can do this.”

“I know you can,” William said. “Can I tell the ladies that they can get the meal set up at your house?”

Rebekkah paused. My house. It was still Maylene’s house. Calling it “hers” felt wrong, but arguing semantics wouldn’t help.

William looked at her expectantly.

“Sure,” she whispered. “That’s the right place to have it. I just … They took care of everything already, didn’t they?”

“Everything but bringing it into the house. They are efficient,” William said. “They have to be with the short time between death and burial.”

His words weren’t cruel, nor was his tone, but it still made her chest tighten. “I just heard yesterday and then the flight and coming home and …”

She heard herself, listened to the excuses pouring from her lips. The truth was that she didn’t want to see Maylene in her casket, still and lifeless, and she surely didn’t want to do it around other people.

“And there’s the jet lag,” William added. “No one will fault you for not being out there. Not many folks even know you’re home yet.”

“Thank you. For everything. You and Byron are both being so … I’d be even more lost without you.” She offered him a smile, a watery one, but a smile nonetheless.