Page 29 of Secret Sins

And then I would have to leave it behind, despite having just found it.

Chapter 12

Bailey

I suppose Van freaking out was exactly what I expected. He'd told me before that he was afraid to live his life out in the open, so it shouldn't come as a shock that he would leave the second he got too close to me.

That didn't mean it stung any less.

My life went on. It had been a while since I'd been to Riley's house, so I figured I'd drop in on her and Jay. Their house was a small blue Victorian sitting on a little bluff by the bay with a serenity and warmth that felt like home. It wasn't where Mama Riley had raised me; she'd moved into Jay's place a few years after they got together. It suited her, though, with the wraparound porch and sloping back lawn surrounded by a white split-rail fence where she could plant to her heart's content.

Some people might consider them hippies, but I didn’t. They liked things natural, homemade, and mostly healthy, but that was as close as they got. Raising goats and chickens, making pottery and hand creams, didn't make them hippies to me. Whether they were or weren't, I loved them both, especially since Jay wasn't afraid to fill a fatherly role for me.

"There’s my girl," he said as he greeted me at the gate.

Gray-haired and paunchy, Jay was barely taller than me as he hugged me tight. "Where's Mama?"

"Out back. Come on."

I followed him down the path, circling the side of the house to the backyard. Riley sat on the grass in the middle of her goat herd, one of which had crawled into her lap.

"What are you doing?" The sight made me laugh, but I envied her a bit.

"Communin' with nature. Wanna join?" Her thick accent never ceased to bring a smile to my face. She sounded nothing like the other residents of this Pacific Northwest town.

"Of course." With ease, I sank down beside her, leaning until our bodies touched.

"I missed you, pea."

Even though we saw each other pretty much every week, I grinned wider, looking out over the water. My family was right here, and they enjoyed my company. "I missed you, too, pod."

Jay had once made a joke that we were so different from each other we couldn't ever be called two peas in a pod. Riley had responded that she was fine with that, but I was still her little pea. She'd been my protector, my safe haven—my pod—since before I could remember.

"Well, this mama was fixin' to make supper. You wanna stay?"

"Hell, yeah."

Joining her and Jay in the kitchen was a familiar routine. We'd spent countless evenings making dinner together, and plenty of holidays gathered around the large island.

Riley chattered as she pulled ingredients from the fridge. "I remember Mama'n them makin' chicken and dumplins from the time I was knee high to a billy goat."

While chopping carrots, celery, and onions to help out, I watched her cut up chicken and put it in a large pot full of broth. Jay turned on music, the eighties and nineties country they both favored, and set the table while she gathered the ingredients to make dumplings.

"Tell us whatcha been up to, sweetpea." My mother in every way that mattered, Riley glanced over at me as I hesitated. "That bad, or that good?"

"I don't know, honestly." I took a seat at the table, witnessing the effortless dance between the two as they moved around each other. "Have you heard about the new guy?"

"I reckon you mean Chris's new boy."

I grinned at her turn of phrase. "His name is Van."

"Sure, I know who you mean." Pausing with flour on her hands, she turned the heat up under the pot and looked over at me. "He warmin' your bed?"

"Rye!" Jay admonished, a look of horror on his wrinkly face.

Unperturbed, she continued her line of questioning as George Strait crooned about blue clear skies. "I've a right to ask my daughter who she's knockin' boots with. So? He any good?"

Face flaming, I fussed with my ponytail. "I wouldn't know, but if he's as good in that department as he is at kissing me, then I can only imagine."