A Better Man. Emilie Rose

thirty years old. And I deserve the truth. Did you threaten to send him to jail if he didn’t enlist, then drive him to the recruitment office and stand over him until he signed the forms?”

      “He had a choice.”

      “Did you pressure him with threats against his mother?”

      “I did it for your own good, Piper. That boy was headed to the same place as his daddy—prison.”

      Oh. My. God. Roth hadn’t lied. A tremor started deep inside and worked its way to her extremities as the magnitude of his confession overwhelmed her.

      “You knew he didn’t steal and wreck Gus’s car, didn’t you?”

      “I need a beer. Want one?” He disappeared through the front door. The screen door slapped behind him like a gunshot making her jump.

      Piper’s feet seemed glued to the porch. She forced them into action and followed him, anger and betrayal vying for supremacy. “You knew, didn’t you?”

      Her father yanked open the refrigerator, pulled out a beer and popped the top. He took a long drink then lowered the can and wiped his mouth. “No matter what you claimed, evidence indicated him and he didn’t deny it.”

      Her thoughts and emotions churned like floodwaters oversetting everything she thought she’d known, everything she’d believed to be fact. She’d believed Roth had betrayed her. But so had her father, the man she loved and trusted more than anyone.

      What else had he lied about? Did she dare trust anything he’d told her? It was too much to take in.

      “What happened to innocent until proved guilty?”

      “Now, Piper—”

      “What happened to the truth and your sworn duty to uphold the law?”

      “That boy needed discipline. I knew the military would set him straight.”

      “What if he’d refused to sign? Would you have prosecuted an innocent man?”

      “Piper—”

      “Just how far over the line were you willing to go, Daddy?”

      “It wasn’t like that. I knew he’d sign the contract to protect his mama. She couldn’t survive without the money he’d send her if he drew a military paycheck. Land poor, that’s what she was. All that Roth land and she couldn’t sell it for dirt. Market’s changed now. We have new folk coming into town and property’s worth something, but back then…” He shook his head.

      Piper wanted to slap his beer out of his hand, and violence had never been her thing. “Don’t change the subject. The real estate market has nothing to do with your lies. To me. To Roth. To the rest of the force. To Quincey. You betrayed your badge.”

      He blanched and a spark of concern skipped through her. She probably shouldn’t upset him, given his heart condition. But damn it, he’d deliberately driven away the man she loved, the father of her baby.

      “Let me tell you something, little lady. I have never done anything detrimental to this town or this badge. I gave Sterling a chance to break the mold and become something better than his no-good daddy. And apparently he has if the sonofabitch has stolen my job.”

      His selfishness blew her away. How could he honestly believe he’d done the right thing? No wonder her mother had left him.

      Did her mother know? Was she in on this, too?

      Piper’s eyes and chest burned. “Do not try to make out like you had his best interest at heart. I don’t buy it for one minute.”

      “You gonna stand there and tell me you wouldn’t lie to protect Josh? Because I know better. You’ve lived a lie for the past eight years.”

      She flinched. He was right. Her life since returning had been one big lie. She’d forgiven her father for sending her away. Now it appeared that hadn’t been his only sin.

      “I wouldn’t send an innocent, hardworking man to jail.”

      “You’re making a fuss over nothing. Sterling would have turned on that boy before going to court. They were tight, but they weren’t kin.”

      His continued justification of his misdeed infuriated her. “If you think he would have betrayed Chuck, then you don’t know Roth very well.”

      “Turned on you, didn’t he? Left you in a bad way.” Rage rumbled in his voice.

      “So did you, Daddy. But what you did was worse. At least Roth had the guts to tell me to my face that he didn’t want me. You, the man I loved and trusted with all my heart, stabbed me in the back. And when you found out I was pregnant you threw me out of your house for falling in love when your sin was so much worse. No wonder Mom left you. You’re a hypocrite and a liar.”

      Her voice broke.

      “You are not the man I thought you were, and I don’t know if I can ever forgive you. I do know I will never trust you again.”

      * * *

      JOSH CLOSED his math textbook. “I’m going to bed.”

      Finally! Piper hadn’t had a moment alone with her mother since arriving home.

      She forced herself to smile, rise and kiss Josh on the top of his head as if nothing were wrong, despite her tumbled thoughts. And then she hugged him. He tolerated the embrace. He never hugged back anymore.

      “You’ll get the math. Hang in there. Sleep tight. Love you.”

      “Yeah.”

      She missed the return “I love you.” Those had ended within the past few months, but everyone assured her he’d be her affectionate son again sometime between eighteen and thirty. She might have to lose the closeness to him because of his age and maturing process, but she wouldn’t let Roth come between them.

      But that was another worry. Tonight she had a more important concern. She had to know if her mother had been a part of her father’s deceit. If Ann Marie had been in on the lies, Piper would never trust either parent again. With anything. Especially Josh.

      She listened until Josh’s bedroom door clicked shut then went to look for her mother. Piper found her curled in her usual spot on the sofa reading her favorite cooking magazine.

      Piper’s tongue felt thick. Her pulse accelerated. She and her mother had become very close since Piper’s return from Florida. Had their relationship all been based on a lie?

      “Mom, did you know Daddy forced Roth to join the Marines by threatening to make life difficult for Eloise if he didn’t?”

      Her mother’s shock and dismay looked real. “Lou would never—”

      “He admitted to me today that he did. He implicated Roth for stealing and wrecking Gus’s car even though he suspected Chuck, then Dad threatened Roth with jail if he didn’t enlist. He even drove him to the recruitment office.”

      Her mother’s mouth opened, closed. She shook her head, her bewilderment too genuine to be faked. “I can’t believe your father would— He lives for that badge.” And then the horror on her face transformed into understanding.

      Understanding?

      “Your father would do anything to protect you. You know that, don’t you?”

      “But to send an innocent man to jail?”

      “Piper, I hate that your father did what he did, and I certainly don’t condone it. But I know how much it used to upset him when he couldn’t do anything for Roth’s mama. He begged Eloise to press charges. And she refused. Time and time again.

      “I remember one night after another visit to the Sterling house he came home and made me promise that if he ever lifted a hand to me, that I’d wait until he was asleep then take his pistol and put a bullet in his head.”

      Revulsion