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"Thank you, Mr. Mattis. I'd appreciate the ride, if it's not too much trouble."
"No, of course not. I was just coming to bring my granddaughter her baton. She's doing some kind of demonstration later as part of her cheer group or whatever it's called, and apparently she needed one of the other thirty batons she has lying around her room."
I laughed and made small talk with the man while I followed him to his car. I went through the routine of updating the man on how my parents were doing, including all the success my father had found, but then I found myself hearing the one question I’d been hoping to avoid at the fair.
"So was that you I saw with Xavier Price?"
It was a ridiculous question because he had to have known it was me. So much for escaping the gossipmongers.
"Um, yeah. I hitched a ride with him from my uncle's ranch. I was hoping to check out the fair… I remember it from when I was a kid. It was always a lot of fun." That last part was a lie because I hadn't ever had much fun at the fair. I'd never been allowed to eat any of the junk food or play any of the games. The fair had been a time for my father to shine as the stallion he’d paid an obscene amount of money for had been paraded around an arena and the announcer had enthused about how great my father and mother were for sponsoring the entire fair.
William Mattis didn't take the bait for the topic change I was hoping for.
"Sure was a surprise to learn that man was coming back here to Eden," William said quietly as he focused on the road in front of us. We were just starting the climb up the mountain to the ranch.
"Where was he supposed to go?" I asked. "He has family here." I didn't realize how defensive I sounded until William glanced at me. I cursed myself because any emotion I showed when it came to Xavier would look odd and raise questions. It was exactly the type of scenario that would doom us if we even tried to have a real but secret relationship.
"No, sorry, that didn't sound right," William said. He shook his head. "I just meant it was a surprise that he'd come back to a place that had given him such a raw deal."
"Raw deal?" I asked in confusion.
"Now I know he needed to be punished for what he did to your barn," William began. "I'm not gonna argue that. But the prosecuting attorney shouldn't have railroaded that young man, not when he was only sixteen and was willing to plead guilty to the crime."
I tensed up and stared at the man. "Railroaded? What are you talking about?"
William must not have noticed the surprise or the confusion in my voice because he continued on without hesitation. "It was bad enough that your daddy convinced the prosecutor to charge Xavier as an adult, but when he had him tack on attempted murder charges when there wasn't any proof of that… well, I’ve always liked your daddy, but that wasn't right. That boy had his entire life ahead of him. He did a terrible thing setting fire to your barn, but there was no proof that he wanted your daddy dead. I mean, if he did, why did he pull him out of the fire in the first place? He could've just left him there, and no one would’ve been the wiser that it’d been him. It wasn’t like your daddy didn’t have more than his fair share of enemies."
It was information overload and I didn't even know where to start.
Yes, I did, actually. "Um, Mr. Mattis, can you pull the car over?"
"Excuse me?"
It was all I could do to get the words out the second time. "Please pull over. I don't want to throw up in your car."
My already violently ill stomach rebelled even more when Mr. Mattis jerked the car to the right and slammed on the brakes. I opened the car and fell to my knees, then emptied the contents of my stomach with one violent round of retching after another. I was dimly aware of Mr. Mattis coming around the car and handing me what I assumed was a handkerchief, but I pushed it away.
There was only one thing I needed, but the man who could give it to me was the same man I'd left behind.
Just now and ten years ago.
Because that's what I did when things got hard… I got scared.
And then I ran.
Chapter 20
Xavier
He was gone. I couldn't believe it. I stared at Curtis in disbelief, hoping against all hope that I’d heard him wrong. But the expression on Curtis's face said it all.
Brooks really was gone.
