Nadine’s shoulders slumped a fraction.
“On the other hand, John’s extremely bright. In fact, a lot of times I suspect he’s bored. I’ve given him a couple of special assignments and he’s done very well with them. Right now, he’s helping another student who’s struggling.”
Nadine cringed inside. John, who always taunted his younger brother, didn’t seem a model teacher’s assistant.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Wanda said, as if reading her worried mind. “He’s doing well. The boy, Tim, is improving.” She smiled encouragingly. “Academically, John’s at the top of the class, and we’re working on his social skills. If you reinforce at home, what we’re trying to do here at school, I think we’ll see a vast improvement by the end of the school year.”
Nadine only hoped so.
“I...I, uh, was hoping John’s father would come to this meeting.”
“He had to work,” Nadine said quickly.
“Well, please let him know. John needs strong role models, and you can’t do it alone.”
“Sam will help out.”
Wanda managed a pleasant smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She knew Sam, of course. Most of the people in town did. There had been gossip at the time of their divorce; no doubt Wanda Zalinski had heard it. Wanda’s husband, Paul, a deputy for the sheriff’s department, had even hauled Sam into jail one night when he’d been partying too late, been pulled over and failed a breath test for alcohol.
Gold Creek was a small town. Everyone knew everyone else’s business. However, if Nadine, or Sam for that matter, ever needed anyone’s help, they had a web of friends and relatives that seemed to go on forever. Nadine could suffer the gossip for the security. It was more than an even trade.
* * *
HIS FATHER’S OFFICE felt uncomfortable. Though Garreth had only spent one or two mornings a week at Monroe Sawmill in Gold Creek, he had the most spacious office in the building. At that, the room wasn’t fancy—not like his office in San Francisco—but, by the standards of this mill, the room was impressive. Carpeted in commercial grade sable brown, the office boasted built-in metal shelves and a large wooden desk. Two chairs, worn orange vinyl, were situated near the window and a battered olive green couch had been pushed against the far wall. There were three filing cabinets and the walls were covered with pictures of Little League teams who had been sponsored by the sawmill company. Hayden wasn’t in any of the pictures of the smiling boys dressed in uniforms of varying colors, but he recognized some of the boys he’d known as a kid. Roy Fitzpatrick was in several, along with his brother, Brian. Scott McDonald, Erik Patton, and Nadine’s older brothers, Kevin and Ben, were on some of the teams from over ten years ago. Their pictures had faded with time, but there were more recent colorful pictures of kids who were probably still in school today. Without realizing what he was doing, he checked over most of the photos, his eyes scanning
the grinning faces of boys dressed in uniforms that looked as if they were made by major league manufacturers. Nadine’s boys weren’t among the eager group in any of the shots.
Why had she lied about being married? he wondered for about the hundredth time.
His father’s secretary, a small birdlike woman of about sixty named Marie Inman, was more than eager to bring him old files and reports and keep his coffee cup filled. She refused to call him Hayden, though he’d told her several times he preferred it to “Mr. Monroe.”
Most of the company’s accounts, payroll records and general information were on the computer, but Hayden was calling up old information—information from thirteen years before, so he sifted through dusty, yellowed printouts and general bookkeeping records, hoping that he would discover that his old man had lied, and that the check he’d waved at him under his nose was phony.
His gut grew tight when he found what he was looking for: a check made payable to George Powell for five thousand dollars. The notation was “return on investment.” Some investment. Hayden’s stomach soured as he remembered lying in the hospital in San Francisco, his leg in a cast, his body racked with agony between mercifully numbing shots of painkillers.
His father had visited him. Garreth’s face had been florid, his blue eyes as cold as the bottom of Whitefire Lake. “This is what that little tramp wanted, Hayden.” He waved a check in front of his son’s nose. “Money. That’s all. When women look at you, that’s what they see—dollar signs.”
Hayden had tried to protest, but Garreth raged on.
“I hope to God she’s not pregnant! That would kill your mother, you know. And Wynona, Lord only knows what that sweet girl thinks.”
“I don’t care ’bout Wynona,” Hayden had managed to say. Strapped down to the bed, he felt cornered, like a bear in a trap.
“Well, you’d better care, son. Because she’s planning on marrying you. That is if she survives. She’s still in ICU, you know. Thanks to you! I don’t know what you could’ve been thinking telling her you weren’t going to marry her.”
Hayden bit back the sharp retort forming on his tongue. The truth would only enrage his father further.
“Thank God for Dr. Galveston and all his connections. Wynona’s getting the best care possible.”
“I’m not going to marry Wynona,” Hayden said firmly as a tiny dark-haired nurse swept into the room and added something to his IV.
“Just rest,” his father insisted. “We’ll discuss this later.”
“I’m not—”
But Garreth had already huffed out of the room and soon the medication had dulled Hayden’s pain as well as his mind. He had slipped away to blissful, painless unconsciousness.
In the intervening years, Hayden had hoped that his memory had been clouded, that the check that had been shoved under his nose either had never existed and was a figment of his foggy mind or had never been cashed.