“I guess we’ll never know.”
“I want you to know that…I don’t want you to carry this burden around with you forever.”
Tears filled his eyes. It was hard for him to hear, but so welcoming.
“Thank you.”
“I never told you this, but when I first moved to Sweet after the trial was over, it was hard.”
He frowned. “How so?”
“People had a pre-conceived idea of who I was. I was Doug Mitchell’s sister. People knew about the trial even though it happened in a different county. It was in the news. So people either treated me with kid gloves or they shunned me.”
“Why would they shun you?”
“Because everyone knew my brother was…a drug dealer. There, I said it. It’s always so hard to say it. People knew. I had a hard time accepting that, but people knew.”
“What does that have to do with you? You weren’t a drug dealer.”
“But people didn’t know that. Every time I started working someplace my boss would give me a warning about drugs not being tolerated and grounds for immediate firing.”
“Really? But you didn’t have a record for drugs, did you?”
“Of course not. But they thought they knew everything about my brother. So they thought I was like that, too.”
“I didn’t realize you had that hard a time.”
“I did. What’s worse is that any time there was a crime where drugs were involved, people would look at me funny as if I knew the people involved. I didn’t. But they didn’t care. They just assumed.”
“I know that feeling. But my history is a little different.”
“I started Sweet Sensations after years of saving my money and watching every single dime. A lot of my money I sent to my parents. They needed it. But what I had left I hoarded like a miser. I didn’t want to work for someone else who would look at me and assume that just because I was Doug Mitchell’s sister I was into drugs and ran with that crowd. Most of my customers at first were tourists who knew nothing about my family or what had happened. Those first years with the shop were lean. I watched every penny and didn’t even have someone working with me until I could afford it without worry about how I was going to pay their wages. And truth be known, even when I hired Dixie, I worried.
“But these last few years have been better. Good even. The local people now come into the shop, not just the tourists.”
She turned away and he could hear her sniffing back tears. He understood her pain. His shame was stamped on his forehead each and every time he’d applied for a job. Hers was thrust on her through no fault of her own.
“I’ve worked hard to build something for myself. In one fell swoop, I feel like the rug has been pulled out from under me. Ox didn’t even know I was Doug’s sister. He just wanted money. My carelessness at keeping the back door open gave him the perfect opportunity to come in. He told Caleb Samuel that he’d been watching the shop and knew the back door would be open after Norma left. Thank goodness, he didn’t come in when Norma or Dixie were there. I would have hated it if either of them had been hurt.”
She put her hand over her mouth and yawned. Then she glanced at the muffin in his hand. “The muffin is probably cold by now.”
“It’s okay. I’m sure it’s still good. You’re tired,” Brody said. “I can take the muffin home and eat it for breakfast.”
She drew in a deep breath. “I don’t want to be alone, Brody.”
“You need to sleep. Even I can see that. You’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow. A lot of clean up.”
“I did most of it today after the police left. I…”
“What?”
“I don’t feel safe there anymore. It’s my store and I don’t feel safe there,” she said, tears now flowing down her cheeks. “I’m not sure I feel safe anywhere.”
“Do you want me to stay? I can sleep on the sofa.”
It was a bad idea. He didn’t want to sleep on the sofa when he knew Tara was a few short feet in the other room sleeping in her bed. He wanted to be in there with her, holding her, loving her.
“Would you stay? You can stay in my bed and I’ll sleep on the sofa. This sofa is too small for you.”
“No. You sleep in your bed. You’ll sleep better that way. And when you wake up tomorrow, I’ll be here.”
She got up from the sofa. “Thank you, Brody. You’re a good man.”
“Thank you for that.”
* * *
Tara was still asleep when the alarm on Brody’s cell phone went off at five-thirty the next morning. His back ached from sleeping on her couch and from all the cuts from the glass. When he’d first opened his eyes, Brody had been a little disoriented about where he was. And then he remembered yesterday’s events.
Ox hadn’t been a bad guy growing up. Like all dealers, he got into drugs and found an easy way out, just like Tara’s brother, Doug, had done. Seeing how wild-eyed Ox was yesterday as he pointed the gun at Tara still left Brody cold.
And it had given Tara a revelation he never thought would happen. She probably had no idea how her words had moved him last night. She hadn’t looked at him as a criminal. She’d looked at him as a man. She’d even called him a good man. Those words had filled him with such joy that he’d thought about them all night as he’d thought about her sleeping soundly in her bed.
He couldn’t hear anything in the next room as he stood up and stretched his arms above his head to pull out the kinks sleeping on the couch had left with
