Heir to Scandal (Secrets of Eden 3)

Things had returned to normal and after that point, she’d forgotten all about Tommy Wilder. Apparently, the story had not ended as neatly as it seemed. Xander had been excited to talk to Joey today. They had a great afternoon planned as a family. Now he was agitated and wanted to bail on the whole thing to go home. This had to be why.

“You call that something, Xander?”

He sighed and stood up, shaking his head. “What do you want me to say, Rose? I have to go home and protect my family from scandal and criminal charges?”

Rose lifted the remote to turn off the television and slowly got up from the bed. When she looked at Xander, she saw an expression there that she’d never expected to see. Guilt. His hazel eyes couldn’t quite meet hers, the corners of his mouth slightly downturned as if he was trying to think of what to say. His hands were thrust in his pockets and his shoulders were hunched over.

Her father had looked the same way when she visited him the first time in jail after the robbery. They couldn’t afford bail, so he was locked up for the months leading to his trial. Long before he was convicted, there’d been guilt in his eyes and his broken stance that he couldn’t hide from her.

“Protect your family or protect yourself?” she asked.

“I want to protect everyone,” he clarified. “Including you and Joey.”

“Xander,” she said very slowly and deliberately. “Look at me. Do you know what happened to Tommy Wilder?”

His eyes reluctantly met hers and he nodded almost imperceptibly.

“He didn’t run away, did he?”

Xander turned his back to her and took a few steps away to examine the collage of pictures on her wall. He studied them in great detail before he spoke.

“You noticed what the news left out of that broadcast, didn’t you? That his parents lost custody of him because they couldn’t control him? That he was suspended for fighting and bringing a switchblade to school? That he’d been arrested for theft and assault? He was under eighteen, so all that got swept under the rug. Now that he’s dead, they’ve conveniently forgotten he was a rotten person. They talked about him like he was an abused child instead of a two-hundred-pound menace.”

He was right, but she was afraid to follow where he was going with that. “So you’re saying he deserved it?” she asked hesitantly.

Xander turned on his heel to look at her. She watched his expression shift as he fought with the words he really wanted to say. He probably wanted to say yes, he did deserve it. But he wouldn’t. He’d run it through his political filter first. “I’m saying that whatever happened to him, they need to consider that he probably brought it on himself.”

He wouldn’t say the words, but he didn’t have to. Whatever happened on the farm all those years ago, Xander had been involved. The hows and whys didn’t matter. She was certain her father had reasons for doing what he’d done. He’d probably stated them in the hundred letters she’d thrown away. In the end, nothing changed the truth and nothing would bring the dead back to life.

“I suppose it’s just as well that we don’t talk to Joey today. Under the circumstances, perhaps we shouldn’t tell him at all.”

“Rose, wait. This doesn’t change our plans or how I feel about you or Joey. I just need time to work this out.”

She detected a pleading edge in his voice. Her father had pleaded with her, but it had fallen on deaf ears just as Xander’s pleas did now. She’d thought that loving Xander would be a safe choice—as far away on the spectrum from her father as she could get. Xander was a politician who carefully dodged scandal. He certainly wouldn’t commit a crime, right? She felt so foolish. Some people would say that all politicians were criminals to different degrees.

“Time to work it out?” Rose rushed into the bathroom and came out wrapped in her robe. She couldn’t have this conversation in a flimsy bath towel. “How long, Xander? Ten to fifteen? He already has a criminal for a grandfather. Do you honestly think I’m going to let him have a criminal for a father, too?”

Xander flinched and his jaw tightened in response. “I’m not a criminal, Rose. You don’t understand.”

“Of course I don’t. I’m just a silly law-abiding citizen trying to live a decent life, and everyone around me seems hell-bent on dragging me down with them. I don’t know what happened that night, Xander, and I’m not sure I want to know. It’s bad enough that I know how the night ended.”

“It’s not as simple as that, Rose.”

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said, ignoring him as her blood pumped furiously in her ears. “Just like the rest of the voting public, I sat back and ate up all your practiced and polished words, but they didn’t mean anything. All this time, all the promises you made about our future together, our future with Joey, you were just talking big. Nothing but lies.”