No One But You (Silver Springs #2)(37)

Sadie breathed a sigh of relief that she’d asked Dawson to stay inside until after she left. Maude would go in for breakfast in a few minutes. Then no one should be paying any attention to what went on at her place.

“Morning,” she responded and smiled as Maude approached.

“I’ve got something to show you,” her landlady told Jayden, eyes sparkling with excitement.

He hurried over. “What is it?”

“Only the biggest snail I’ve ever seen,” she replied.

“A snail? Where?”

Sadie put the bag in the back of the El Camino and followed her son to a table where Maude had put the snail in a large plastic bowl. While they oohed and aahed, Sadie pulled her phone from her purse and texted Dawson. My landlady is outside, all right. But she should go in after we leave. Can you keep an eye out for her and make sure she’s gone before you come out?

You got it, came his response.

When she had Jayden in his safety seat and was backing out of the drive, Sadie sighed in relief. She thought she’d pulled off keeping Dawson’s presence a secret. Jayden had been so excited by the snail he hadn’t mentioned the fact that they’d had a visitor, and with as quickly as his mind moved on to whatever was happening at the moment, she couldn’t imagine he’d pipe up with that later—not unless something jogged his memory. With any luck, that wouldn’t happen. She should be in the clear.

But then she caught a glimpse of a black-and-white sedan turning at the corner and realized that Sly had probably been behind the wheel. He’d just driven past her house. Again.

She searched for where Dawson had parked his truck and nearly gasped when she spotted it not far from where the patrol car had turned. There it was, plain as day!

Had Sly recognized it?

He had to have. Like her car, that truck was distinctive...

“Why aren’t we going, Mommy?”

Jayden was so used to her backing out of their drive as fast as was safely possible, rushing to get him to Petra’s so she wouldn’t be late for work, that he’d noticed the hesitation. They were sitting in the street, her foot on the brake as she gaped at Dawson’s truck. She was trying to convince herself that what she’d seen a moment earlier was merely her imagination—fear getting the best of her—and not her ex-husband’s cruiser.

“We’re going.” She gave the El Camino some gas, but instead of heading straight to Petra’s, she rounded the corner and headed toward the center of town. She wanted to know if that was Sly...

“Can I go to the farm?” her son asked.

Her heart was still pumping erratically, knocking against her chest and making it difficult to concentrate. “What’d you say, honey?”

“Can I go to the farm today?”

“I told you I’d think about it at the diner. I’m not at the diner yet.”

“Why can’t I know now?”

She reached California Street—the main thoroughfare in Silver Springs—and looked both ways, searching for any sign of a patrol car, but saw nothing. “I’ll call you on my break and let you know.”

“I can’t wait that long. I want to go to the farm!” he pleaded. “You’ll be there, won’t you?”

She decided to stop by the store while she was heading in the wrong direction. “Yes, I’ll be there.”

“Then why can’t I come? Dawson said I could!”

She wanted to say, “Because your father would use it against me.” But she refused to undermine Jayden’s relationship with Sly. They struggled to get along as it was. “Today might not be the best day, that’s all. There will be plenty of other opportunities.”

Because he wasn’t happy with her answer, he continued to beg her both before and after she stopped to get him and Petra’s kids some fruit snacks for later, but Sadie held fast. If Sly had recognized Dawson’s truck, there’d be a confrontation, and she didn’t want Jayden to have any part of that.

She was still feeling nervous after she’d dropped him off and was pulling into the diner—but a text she received from Dawson brought her a bit of relief.

All is well. Your landlady turned her back to put away the hose, and I slipped right past her. Houdini couldn’t have escaped more cleanly.

She smiled at the image he’d created of himself sneaking away. He made her feel good—from when he stood up to Sly at the door to when he helped her down from the roof to when he tried to fire her, for her own good, and couldn’t quite succeed because he had too soft of a heart. He wasn’t what other people thought he was. He was the best-kept secret in town.

But she couldn’t get too excited. Sly would somehow wreck what she had going, if he could.





10


Since Dawson had been released from jail, he’d thought only of getting the farm up and running and bringing Angela home, where she belonged. He owed it to his parents. They’d essentially saved his life when they adopted him, gave him a good home and provided a solid education. More than anything, they’d given him love, which was what had finally made him whole—or as whole as he was going to get. He didn’t even like to think about what’d come before. But ever since last night, whenever he let his mind wander, he didn’t dwell on how many more plants he could put in if he cultivated another five acres, or how he might respond if he received a difficult question from the state representative who was coming in five days to see if he’d be able to provide a stable environment for Angela.