The Cottages On Silver Beach. RaeAnne Thayne

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       CHAPTER THREE

      “THAT’S IT, CASSIE. You’re doing great. Focus on your sweet spot.”

      Megan grinned through the chain-link fence at her niece on the pitcher’s mound, and Cassie shifted her steely-eyed attention from the pigtailed batter at the plate to send Megan a quick flash of smile. The slanted lavender light from the dying sun hit the girl perfectly, turning her face golden in the reflection. Almost without thinking, Megan lifted her camera between links of the fence, focused and clicked away.

      The evening somehow managed to improve on the perfection of the morning. The air was soft and warm and lovely with the scents of freshly cut grass, popcorn and cotton candy from the Lions’ Club booth a few hundred yards away.

      Behind Megan, families of the girls cheered them on with enthusiasm.

      She snapped several more of Cassie then turned her 70-200 zoom lens to the batter for the opposing team, Rosie Sparks, whose parents went to school with Megan. She was a power hitter—if such a thing could exist in a softball league of nine-and ten-year-old girls—and she stared down Cassie, her face screwed up with concentration as the count rose to two strikes and one ball.

      “One more, baby,” Luke called from the bleachers. “You got this. Just bring it home now.”

      Megan shifted her lens to her brother, unable to resist. His features were intense and focused, without the shadows that usually haunted him, and she snapped away to capture Luke in a rare, unguarded moment.

      Her brother rarely showed emotion. Some of that control had been ingrained in them from childhood but much came out of the past difficult seven years.

      She photographed him for a few more moments, then amused herself by taking candids of some of the others in the stand, though she purposely avoided capturing the image of at least one person in the crowd—the man sitting on the top row of the bleachers, wearing a white dress shirt and jeans so precisely creased they might as well have been ironed.

      Trust Elliot Bailey to harsh the mellow of a beautiful spring evening.

      She knew why he was here. His brother’s stepdaughter was on Cassie’s team and all the Baileys were there in force. Charlene and Mike sat just below him, along with the rest of the Bailey clan.

      It warmed her, the way they stepped up to support each other. There wasn’t a softball game, dance recital, soccer match or spelling bee the family would consider missing.

      She wouldn’t have expected Elliot to join them all, but here he sat, part of his family, yet somehow always remote in his own way.

      She shifted back to the action in time to see Cassie deliver a perfect pitch, right in the strike zone. Behind the plate, the ump thumbed over his shoulder to indicate Rosie was out, and the crowd erupted in cheers.

      The Baileys and the rest of the crowd leaped to their feet, cheering wildly—okay, maybe a little more enthusiastically than a softball game between preteen girls really warranted, but Megan wasn’t about to argue.

      “Good game,” Luke called to Cassie. “Way to go, Pitch.”

      “Yay Cass!” Bridger called out, and his sister turned to both of them and beamed.

      “Hamilton has a good arm, and she’s fast.”

      Behind her, Bobby Sparks spoke loud enough to be heard by many of the people in the stands. It was his daughter Rosie who had just struck out. “She must get that from her dad. He was always fast. Look at how he’s been running from a murder charge for all these years—and getting away with it, too.”

      The reference quieted the crowd around them with an almost collective hush and she caught several furtive looks at Luke, whose features looked etched in granite. She gave a hurried glance toward Bridger and saw with relief he wasn’t paying any attention to the adult conversation but was busy chattering with Elliot’s nephew by marriage, Marshall’s stepson Will.

      “Cut it out, Bobby.” Wyn Emmett glared at the man, who flushed.

      This was the sort of thing her brother lived with all the time, finding himself the center of whispers and veiled—and not-so-veiled—accusations. It broke her heart every single time. Since the day Elizabeth disappeared seven years ago, Luke had faced this. Despite the fact that no charges had ever been filed against him, Luke had been tried and convicted in the court of public opinion.

      Not everyone in Haven Point felt that way. Many, like Wyn, had been supportive. But enough small-minded people remained in the area, especially in the other towns that surrounded Lake Haven, to make things harder than they had to be for Luke and the children.

      Paul Hamilton cast a long shadow on this community. Sometimes she didn’t know if Luke was being punished for his own perceived sins or because he looked like their bully of a father.

      Megan couldn’t understand why her brother didn’t simply pick up and move away from the rumors and innuendo. His life would be so much easier. His construction business had struggled the last few years. Funny, but people could be a bit wary about employing a suspected murderer to build their homes.

      Every time she asked him why he stayed, Luke only said this was his home and his children’s home and he wouldn’t let small-minded people push him out of it.

      Because he stayed, she stayed. As simple as that. He needed her help with Cassie and Bridger and she didn’t know how she could walk away either.

      “You’re coming to help us with the project tomorrow, aren’t you?” Katrina Callahan asked as everyone began gathering up their belongings and started clearing out the bleachers to make room for the next game. Kat held hands with a little girl who had the distinctive features of someone with Down syndrome—her daughter, Gabriella, who grinned at Megan.

      “Oh, СКАЧАТЬ