Page 29 of The Locksmith’s Promise (The Promise Duet #1)

Answers

M aggie

I ran home as fast as I could. But the longer I stared at the wall, the more determined I was to get answers.

This time, I wasn’t running.

Buns and Biscuits was closed on Sundays, but Jenny lived in the apartment above it. She wanted to talk?

Well, now I was ready to talk.

Rounding the back of the building, I took the stairs up to her place two at a time and knocked firmly on the door.

“Jenny, it’s Maggie,” I clipped.

Whatever I’d planned to say died on my lips when she opened the door.

Eyes red-rimmed and swollen, she held a tissue to her face and stepped back. “You want to come in?”

Suddenly unsure, I gingerly stepped over the threshold. “Are you okay?”

She snorted, then gave her head a shake and nodded. “I will be.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “Why are you here?”

“I saw you down by the docks with Baxter,” I blurted. “What do you want with him?”

She folded in on herself. “That’s why you’re here?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Why else would I be here?”

“You haven’t talked to him yet,” she stated.

“No. I haven’t. I figured this time I’d talk to you before running away with my tail between my fucking legs. What were you doing down by the docks with Baxter?”

She laughed but it wasn’t a happy sound. Waving her hand toward the kitchen, she said, “You may as well come in. I’m not doing this standing in the front hall.”

I dropped my coat and slid my feet from my boots.

She led me through to her family room where she settled into an oversized armchair and wrapped a plush, raspberry blanket around herself. A pile of tissues and a half-empty cup of tea sat on the polished end table beside her.

Vibrant pillows lined the back of the wide couch, and a soft rug lay beneath my feet.

“I’d offer you a cup of tea but I’m all out of gas,” she murmured.

“Where’s Deacon?” I blurted.

“Back where he came from,” she answered flatly.

“What happened?”

She tilted her head to the side and sighed. “Is that why you’re here? To talk about Deacon?”

I shook my head. “I want to know why Baxter snuck off to meet with you without telling me.”

“I don’t know if Baxter wants you to know, but I’m tired, so tired of this hanging over my head.” She inhaled deeply.

“Besides,” she continued, staring into space. “It’s my story, too.”

My legs turned to jelly as I sank down onto the couch. There was something terribly, terribly wrong here, and it wasn’t about Jenny’s guilt. I wanted to run faster than I’d ever run before. But running had never solved anything for us.

I swallowed past the tightness in my throat and locked my knees together. “I’m listening.”

“That night I got a text from Baxter asking me to come by. He said something terrible happened with you and he needed help to sort it out.”

“But—”

She held up her hand. “Listen. Just, listen. When I get to the end, you should have all your answers.”

She gathered the blanket tighter around her shoulders, her teeth chattering lightly.

“I told Deacon that Baxter asked me to come over to talk. He wasn’t happy about it, but he drove me over and dropped me off.” She met my eyes. “I should have known something was off. Not once had Baxter ever invited me to his house.”

She shivered. “I can’t tell you how many times over the years I wished Deacon came in with me that day,” she whispered, giving her head a shake.

Taking a breath, she continued, her voice stronger. “I knocked on the door and his father let me in. Told me Baxter wasn’t home yet and asked me if I wanted a beer.”

A warning crawled up my spine.

“I declined but he sneered at me, asked if I was too good for his hospitality. To keep the peace, I went to the fridge and pulled out a beer. I checked the cap. I swear it was solid. Five minutes later, I was woozy and having trouble moving.”

“Oh my God,” I breathed.

“Next thing I know, I’m lying naked in Baxter’s bed and Baxter is tied to a chair. He’s yelling at his father to leave me alone, but his words are slurred, and his head is bobbing all over the place.”

Wide-eyed and lost in the past, her teeth chattered whenever she paused.

Her eyes met mine and she whispered, “He burned his back, Maggie. I don’t even know how many times.”

I covered my mouth with my hands and my tears ran through the gaps in my fingers.

I’d traced those scars with my hands.

Ran my lips over them as if to heal him.

My God, I ran and left him there.

Left them both while that man laughed.

The dizzying truth broke over me and drizzled like freezing rain down the back of my neck.

Violence like I’d never felt before blackened my heart. I hated that man with a visceral passion that left me shaking.

He destroyed us all in one fell swoop.

Broke my heart.

Deprived my son of his father.

Hurt Baxter worse than he ever had before.

And broke Jenny.

Grief swelled in my chest, expanding to fill every bit of space not occupied by regret. Its heavy, aching presence near suffocating me.

She continued, her voice flat. “I woke up alone in Baxter’s bed, my head splitting. I pulled my clothes on and left. I just wanted to get home to Deacon.”

“What happened with him?” I asked softly.

She shook her head and pressed her lips together. “That’s a different story for another time. I went to the hospital, and they confirmed I’d been drugged. No sign of rape, but they did a test and gave me the morning after pill just in case.”

She’d faced a nightmare, and she’d faced it alone.

As had Bax.

I raised my eyes to hers. “Did you go to Sergeant Elliott?”

She nodded. “I planned to press charges, but after you left, Baxter nearly killed him.” Her lip curled. “That bastard threatened to press charges against Bax. Baxter would have gone to jail for attempted murder, Maggie.”

Prison for attempted murder.

My sweet Baxter who dreamed of us having our own house.

Who longed for his own key so badly he inked it onto his ribs.

I pressed my fingers over my mouth and breathed, “Oh my God.”

“I told Sergeant Elliott what he did to us, gave him copies of my hospital report, and told him what I wanted. He took it to Baxter’s father and made a deal.”

“What was the deal?” I whispered.

“He drops his charges, I drop mine,” she murmured.

“And Baxter had to leave town. If he stepped foot in Moose Lake, his father would renege on the deal.” She raised her eyes to mine.

“Never in a million years did it occur to me he wouldn’t track you down and explain.

I thought he knew what happened, but I think he blocked it out. ”

Her soft eyes implored me. “Maggie, I’m not telling you to accept him or his past. But you need to stop holding it over his head like a guillotine. Forgive him. Or let him go. He deserves happiness.”

Forgive him?

He wasn’t the one who needed it.

She pressed her lips together in a thin line. “And so do you.”

“Jenny,” I whispered, shattered to the depths of my soul. “I’m so sorry.”

She sniffed, a hint of anger warring with grief flashing in her eyes. “I never would have done that to you, Maggie. And even if I tried, he would have never.”

The scene I walked in on filled my mind.

Jenny’s face as white and bloodless as the pillow beneath her head.

The kitchen chair knocked over on its side.

A coil of rope peeking out from under the bed.

Baxter laying twisted up in the sheets, his face lax.

And I left him.

I left both of them, vulnerable and helpless, with that monster.

She could have nailed his ass to the wall, but she didn’t.

My blurry eyes raised to meet hers as I forced the words past the knife in my throat. “Why, Jenny?”

A fat, lonely tear rolled down her face as she choked out, “You were my friends.”

Gutted, I buried my face in my hands. “My God, Jenny,” I groaned, stricken by the burden of her pain and loneliness.

The burden of secrecy she’d carried for so long.

The sacrifice she made for Baxter.

For me.

For Cor.

“My God,” I breathed.

Lifting my head, I found her staring into space.

“Jenny,” I whispered. “Can I hug you?”

She turned toward me, her eyes slowly focussing on mine as her face crumpled.

She nodded, and I shot out of my chair. Sitting down half on top of her, I wrapped my arms around her tight and held her to me as she cried.

I closed my eyes and absorbed her pain.

Accepting the shame of my part in her tragedy.

We’d lost so much.

I tightened my hold on her.

But no more.

She cried the way I’d cried the night before.

I only prayed she’d purge herself of the past and move on just like she did before.

Only this time, if she let me in, she wouldn’t do it alone.