Long Walk Home

By Lilian Darcy

Everyone has baggage by the time they’re into their thirties.

When single mom and Marietta High School teacher Gemma Clayton acquires a strong, family-oriented and very good-looking new neighbor over her back fence, she’s not put off by his complicated past as the attraction flares between them. Her own past is a very different matter, however.

Nobody knows what she went through on the night of the 1996 Marietta High School senior prom, between running after Judd and Garth Newell’s car as it left River Bend Park and limping into her friend Neve Shepherd’s street two hours later.

But Gemma’s secrets have been rusted up inside her for so long that not even a gorgeous man like Dylan Saddler can help her to break them free.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tule Publishing
• Release date: Nov 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781940296159

Lilian Darcy

Lilian Darcy has now written over eighty books for Harlequin. She has received four nominations for the Romance Writers of America's prestigious Rita Award, as well as a Reviewer's Choice Award from RT Magazine for Best Silhouette Special Edition 2008. Lilian loves to write emotional, life-affirming stories with complex and believable characters. For more about Lilian go to her website at www.liliandarcy.com or her blog at www.liliandarcy.com/blog

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Long Walk Home

A River Bend Story

Lilian Darcy

L

ong Walk Home

Copyright © 2014 Lilian Darcy

The Tule Publishing Group, LLC

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-940296-15-9

D

edication

To my fellow founding authors at Tule Publishing, as well as the whole Tule team. What a journey we’re on!

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

An excerpt from Marry Me, Cowboy

The River Bend Series

About the Author

C

hapter One

Gemma Clayton had been spending more time than usual in her garden this summer. The long, cold Montana winter had gone at last, and now it was late July. With the Marietta Fair still a couple of weeks away and the tourists and summer visitors out and about, riding, hiking, swimming, and fishing at dude ranches and campgrounds, the town was quiet and sleepy in the Tuesday afternoon heat.

Gemma felt drowsy and safe and content with her garden wrapped around her. As a garden, it was nothing special. It was pretty and inviting, yes, with its lawn and flowerbeds and the shade of a hackberry tree, a handful of summer vegetables, some herbs in big pots near the bottom of the steps, but it was just an ordinary garden. It had no spectacular landscaping or unusual plant species, no flowing fountain or stunning outdoor entertainment area. None of this was the reason she’d been spending so much time out here.

Near her back fence, there was a wooden bench seat facing south into the sun, sheltered at certain hours by the dappled shade from a wooden lattice screen, covered in a riot of flowering clematis vine, and this was Gemma’s favorite spot. She sat here with a book, or her diary, or just her own thoughts, and tried to be in the moment.

If her new back-fence neighbor happened to be about, she listened to the far-from-unpleasant sounds of him working in his yard or talking to his dog. So far today, he hadn’t been around, although she’d been sitting here for an hour, with a book unread on her lap. She thought about picking up the book, but the summer silence—which wasn’t silent at all, with the birdsong, someone’s lawnmower, country music playing somewhere nearby, and leaves rustling in a tiny puff of tepid breeze—was enough to occupy her awareness.

Mm, maybe she’d even lie on the grass and have a snooze...

Then she heard voices coming around the side of the house. They belonged to her daughter Bree, and Bree’s best friend, Lucy.

"You have to tell her," Lucy said.

Nope. Not going to do that yet.

You have to. She’s your mother. Wouldn’t she have to pay for—

I’ve been working those shifts at Big Z’s. I have some money saved. I’ve said I’ll work more if they’ll give me the hours. I wish they would.

Still.

Not unless it’s definite. Not until I know.

Don’t you think it’s close enough to definite by now?

No, I don’t, said Bree. At all. I don’t believe it’ll happen. She sounded stubborn, resistant.

Gemma, who was wide awake now and with a galloping heart, heard Bree putting her key into the side door lock and struggling, as usual, with the temperamental mechanism. Bree thought Gemma was over at Grandma’s place. She didn’t know Gemma’s mom had postponed their planned basement clear-out until tomorrow, didn’t realize Gemma was home and the back door was already open.

"I don’t understand why you won’t just bite the bullet and tell her," Lucy said.

Gemma heard the lock give and the door swing open.

Because she’ll freak, said Bree. I’ve told you. She’s so set on my going to college, and this is going to— The door closed behind the two girls and cut off their conversation with a bang.

Gemma sat rigid on her garden bench, screened by the clematis-covered lattice. Her sweaty palms were glued to her summer-brown thighs, the moisture making her skin slick below the hem of her shorts. Anyone who’d ever had a teenage girl, or been a teenage girl, would have no trouble interpreting that conversation.

Bree had a secret.

Her beautiful daughter, her straight A, valedictorian, class president, never-given-her-mother-a-sleepless-night-in-her-life daughter had a secret that her best friend had been in on for a while, but her own mother knew nothing about because Gemma would, quote unquote, freak.

And when Gemma remembered the secrets she herself had been keeping from her mother at the same age, including the secret of Bree’s very existence inside her, she went cold all over.

She heard the girls inside the house, preparing themselves something to eat. No words came distinctly through the half-open kitchen window at this distance, but she could hear that they were talking and laughing and clattering about. They’d apparently moved on from the prospect of Gemma freaking and the current conversation topic was a lot less fraught.

Gemma sat on her bench, glued to it, her mind throwing up possibilities and coming back to the same one over and over.

Pregnant.

Please, no! Anything but that.

Maybe it was strange and very illogical to feel this way, but Gemma suspected there were many single, thirty-something mothers of teenage daughters who would understand it completely.

Bree was the best thing that had ever happened to her, and she’d been pregnant with this one precious child of hers at almost exactly the age that Bree was now. She would never wish that particular teen secret undone. Yet, all the same, a teenage pregnancy and a single mother’s struggle were just about the last things she would ever want for her own daughter.

For the thousandth time, she thought about everything she’d put her own mother, Kathy, through and wondered if she had anywhere near the same talent for understanding and forgiveness and unending support, if Bree had done something stupid.

Pregnant.

Please let it not be that.

But what were the alternatives? What possible secret could there be that wasn’t definite yet, that would cause Gemma to freak, and that would prevent Bree from going to college this fall?

Gemma tried to think of one, but couldn’t. All she kept coming back to was her own past, her own secrets—yes, more than one—and the words her best friend Neve had spoken to her more than eighteen years ago, identical to the ones she’d just heard from Lucy. You have to tell her.

Like Bree, though, she’d been secretive and superstitious. Neve had known Gemma was pregnant, but Gemma hadn’t told her own mother about it for months, not until her growing belly became impossible to conceal. As for Bree’s father, he hadn’t wanted to know. He’d—

No. Don’t think about it. It’s gone. It’s in the past. It’s done. It has to be.

He’d died years ago, violently, and heaven help her, she’d heard that news with relief more than anything. He was no loss to anyone. Bree had been four years old, and he’d never even met her. He’d greeted Gemma’s revelation about her pregnancy with scorn and disgust.

Oh, why was she even thinking about it? That whole terrible episode of her life was more than eighteen years ago, now.

Gone.

Gone.

She’d promised herself that over and over.

She tried to settle her spirits, closing her eyes and taking slow, deep, calming breaths. She would talk to Bree, or Bree would talk to her. She was such a wonderful girl. Whatever was going on, they’d work it out, and Gemma would be there for her.

Like Mom was for me.

And she wouldn’t tell Mom about it yet, in case it was nothing.

She began to feel better.

And then, at that moment, the main reason Gemma had been spending more time than usual in her garden this summer chose to come out of his back kitchen door and wander down onto his lawn, just behind her, over the fence. He was on the phone, and he didn’t sound happy. He sounded, in fact, as agitated as Gemma herself had been a few minutes ago.

We had this worked out, he said, his voice rising beyond its usual cool, dark baritone.

Gemma didn’t want to listen, but he was pacing in her direction, so it was hard not to.

And admittedly, maybe she wasn’t trying all that sincerely. She liked Dylan Saddler a lot—if you could say that about a man you’d only talked to over your back fence. He’d moved in four months ago, and once the weather had begun to warm up back in early May, they’d started to greet each other across the wooden palings, their little chats growing longer and longer and more and more enjoyable as the summer unfolded. They’d shared some laughs, discussed his plans for his garden, cooed over his dog, even talked a little politics.

Gemma had begun to wonder, with a little kick of heat and interest, what might happen between them if ever the fence wasn’t in the way. She even dared to hope that Dylan might be wondering the same thing.

Please, Amber, can we just keep to the plan? he said. Doesn’t that suit you, too, with the baby coming? He listened for a moment. He had his dog Maggie beside him. Gemma could hear the big German shepherd panting, and the dull slapping sound of Dylan giving her a hearty pat occasionally. No, I can’t tell you exactly what time, it depends on Jasmine’s schedule, he said. A pause.

Gemma thought about trying to make a quick getaway to the house, but couldn’t decide if that would be worse. He’d surely see her if she did it now. He was facing in the right direction, she could tell because his voice was so clear. Maybe he would wander back to his own back door, out of earshot, and when he safely had his back to her, she’d make a run.

But he didn’t move away. If anything, he paced closer. She was tucked out of sight on her bench, but maybe not for long.

Well, we haven’t worked that out yet, she heard him say. I haven’t talked to her. Another pause. Yeah, but that’s not your concern, is it? Look, I’m going to be at the event for sure, unless she scratches at the last minute, so I’ll keep you posted and then if it’s getting late, we can always stop for the night in Missoula. He’s nine, not three, and it’s a five-hour drive not twenty. He listened some more, for longer this time. Occasionally he made little sounds of protest, or as if he was trying to get a word in. Finally, he did.

Okay, all right, all right, he said, let’s do it your way. Gemma could hear how hard he was fighting to sound calm and reasonable and not angry. If you want to lock it in right now, then we’ll do that, sure. I’ll stay over in Kalispell Sunday night and pick him up at the exact time you want me to, Monday morning. Agreed? Set in stone? Good. Please don’t change it on me, okay? He listened again, then let out a string of curse words under his breath and Gemma guessed he’d ended the call. Maggie, wanna play catch? she heard him call a few seconds later.

He must have picked up a tennis ball. Gemma heard it thwap against his garage wall and Maggie go after it in an eager flurry of scrabbling paws and panting tongue. They played the game over and over. Dylan was letting off steam after that phone call, Gemma guessed. Thwap, pant, pant, flurry. Thwap, scrabble, scrabble, pant. She felt bad about having overheard such a personal phone conversation.

He’d said Amber, whom Gemma knew was his ex-wife, and he’d mentioned Tyler, his son. The two still lived in the town of Cherry Lake, over on the eastern shore of Flathead Lake, and it was obvious Dylan had been negotiating with his ex over the details of Tyler’s agreed-upon summer stay here in Marietta. He’d said something, too, about the baby coming and she wondered whose baby that was.

Gemma debated going into the house, but if she went directly across the yard, out in the open, he would see her and realize that she must have been listening to all of that. Would he understand that she hadn’t done it on purpose?

Oh, shoot, and now he was making another call. The thwaps had stopped. She heard him say, Hey... and for half a second thought he was talking to the dog, until he added, Is this a good time?

Not the dog, then. For Maggie, it was always a good time.

Okay, well, it won’t take long, he continued quickly, Just wanted to tell you that I’m definitely coming to the event, I’ve worked it out with Amber. As before, he paused to listen, then said, Yeah, but I want to. Pause. "So give me something to do. I can mix feed, I can pull rugs on and off, and carry water buckets, and fill ice boots. Pause, then he repeated, as if talking to a child with poor listening skills, But. I. Want. To. That’s not going to change, Jasmine."

He used the same tone of carefully controlled frustration that Gemma had heard from him during the previous call.

The women in his life were giving him grief.

I need to make a getaway, Gemma decided. What was that saying about things always coming in threes? This was the third conversation she’d unintentionally overheard in the past hour, and none of them had brought her much joy.

She had no idea who Jasmine was. Another ex? Some guys had quite a few.

Whoever she was, Dylan’s conversation with her was, if anything, thicker with tension and controlled feeling than his conversation with Tyler’s mom had been.

The slow, delicious growth of back-fence neighborliness didn’t yet extend nearly as far as knowing this much about the man’s personal complications. She had no right to the details, and she really needed to move.

She decided it was safe to sneak away from her bench and over to her herb pots, going the long way around, hugging the garage wall and the side fence and the shade of the house. She was making a bolognaise sauce tonight and needed to pick parsley and basil, and hopefully if he saw her over by the herb pots, Dylan would think she’d only just come out of the house.

His messy relationships would stay his own business, and she wouldn’t mention them to a soul. She knew how it felt when people speculated about your secrets behind your back.

Emotional baggage. Who didn’t have it, by the time they hit their mid-thirties? Dylan was forty, she knew.

Over by her pots, she pulled sprigs of bright green, curly parsley, and thick, curvy basil leaves, and matte-finish, grey-green sage, thinking about the small but satisfying accomplishment of growing her own food. In a couple of weeks, she would have tomatoes, and her snow peas had only just finished. That was about it, really. Snow peas, a few lettuces now running to seed, tomatoes, and herbs.

Small pleasures.

A careful life.

Nothing too dramatic or exciting.

All her baggage was safely in the past.

He-e-y, neighbor, Dylan called, startling her a little because she’d been trying so hard not to think about him that she’d actually succeeded. She felt caught out, and straightened slowly with the bouquet of parsley, sage and basil stems in her hand, hoping the sudden color in her face could be put down to the afternoon heat.

Did he realize she hadn’t come direct from the house?

Hi. She went toward him. He looked casual and friendly and unsuspecting. There was some lingering tension in his face, maybe, but she probably only picked up on it because she’d heard the conversations that had created it. Along the street somewhere, the Dixie Chicks began singing Wide Open Spaces.

I’m glad to have caught you, Dylan said.

Herbs, she answered, showing them like a decoy. They sat in her curled fingers, a green and edible and very non-bridal bouquet.

Herbs, Dylan, not me accidentally eavesdropping on your private phone conversations.

He tipped his head to the side. You like cooking, don’t you?

I do. She smiled at him the same way he was smiling at her—that not-so-secret glow of happiness at the sight of each other. They’d begun letting it show, lately, and it vibrated between them, deliciously mutual.

I smell all this stuff coming from your kitchen, he said.

Oh, you do?

Don’t look so horrified. It’s great.

You must cook, too. I’ve smelled steak and onions.

I barbecue more than I cook. Not sure if that counts. He leaned on the fence. It was a tall one, almost up to his shoulders, even now that he’d stepped onto the slightly raised garden bed on his side. On hers, the fence was even taller.

Barbecue can count, she told him kindly.

She thought he would have to do something about all this soon. The smiling. The excuses they kept finding to talk to each other. Like now, spooling out the conversation with talk about cooking.

He would be bound to, because the tension between them was growing palpable, and stronger by the day. A part of her felt terrified and unsettled about him taking action—it had been so long since she’d even stuck her toe in those waters—while another part of her, almost against her will, felt a wild, snaking thrill inside every time she thought of it.

She might fall hard.

He was that kind of man.

Did she want to?

Had she already?

The idea definitely scared her. Reminded her too strongly of Bree’s father, and violent, flaming feelings she’d sworn never to give in to again. They were dangerous. They made you stop being yourself and become someone foolish.

Not just foolish.

She’d been so damaged by her first love, so shocked and appalled at herself for it, and when Bree was little there really hadn’t been the time or the emotional space to think about that kind of thing, even if she’d wanted to. Long drought, willingly embraced.

And yet now, with Bree almost grown and gone, the thought of Dylan Saddler trying to convince her to go out with him, or kiss him, or sleep with him, or – or – shoot, help him weed his garden, even, was so heart-pounding and breathtaking she just didn’t have the willpower to get it out of her head, or to know if she should try.

Now, just talking to him over the fence, she had to fight to keep her breathing steady.

Just wondering if you could take care of Maggie this weekend, he said, his tanned forearm lying lightly across the top of the fence.

He was a big man, but without an ounce of fat on him. He was all muscle and bone, movement and strength. He was the kind of guy who could have jacked up a car with his bare hands, and his hands were as big as the rest of him, tanned and sinewy and strong. His face was strong, too. Gemma knew he was forty, because he’d told her so one day, and she could never decide if he looked older than that or younger.

His smile was young, and so was his aura of energy, but his eyes looked like he’d lived a while and lived hard, sometimes. Lived painfully. There were lines around his mouth that didn’t just come from smiling.

Well, there was the emotional baggage, remember?

She could never decide, either, if he was actually good-looking, or if he just looked good to her. Maybe most other women wouldn’t like what they saw in that harshly chiselled face or those serious, stormy brown eyes. Maybe they’d find him intimidating. There was nothing pretty about him, nothing tame. A strong man like Dylan might easily have been violent, but Gemma knew he wasn’t.

She knew, because she’d heard him with Maggie all summer. You could tell a lot about a man by how he treated his animals.

Of course I’ll take care of her, she said.

The big, elderly German shepherd had returned to stand at Dylan’s feet. Gemma glimpsed her through some thin gaps in the fence palings, panting and looking up at him with her big eyes, eager for the ball to rocket across the yard again so she could bring it back. She was twelve-years-old and needed to start slowing down. Dylan thought so, too. He looked down at her and said, No more ball, girl. Go drink your water and lie in the shade. Go, now, you’ve had enough.

But Maggie stayed right beside him, looking up at him with adoration in every line of her big doggy body. She’d been his Aunt Joan’s dog until Joan had died a few months ago, and now Dylan had inherited not just the house and its contents and, Gemma was pretty sure, some money along with it, but Maggie, too.

I think she wants to talk to you, Dylan said.

Hi, Maggie-girl! she said. Hi, girl!

You wouldn’t know the dog had come to Dylan as a bequest, so recently. You would think he’d gone