Chapter 28

Mallowater, TX, 2008

Sloan drove home in a daze. What did Ridge mean it was her mother's idea? Why would Mom hatch a plan for Ridge to be kidnapped? He was lying. Covering for the Turners.

"How was she?" Sloan asked Dylan, hating that she sounded like a parent quizzing the babysitter.

"Pretty good," Dylan said. "How did it go for you?"

"Pretty bad." Sloan plopped down on the couch next to Dylan. "He'll probably be gone by tomorrow. But I don't wanna talk about it."

"Okay. So, what do you want to talk about?"

"I don't know." Sloan rubbed her forehead. "Dad's getting out tomorrow. Brad asked me to be there for his homecoming."

"Are you?"

Sloan leaned away. "Why would I?"

Dylan shrugged. "I thought you had a good visit with your dad. Thought you wanted to build a good relationship."

Sloan crossed her arms. "The only reason the Hadfields want me there is PR. Because they want the media to see that I'm supporting Dad now."

"And you don't want the media to know that? That you support him?"

"I don't know if I support him. And the Hadfields just want to play like we're some big happy family. It would be so awkward."

"Understandable," Dylan said. "But if you want to be there and don't want to do it alone, I'll go with you. Unless that would make it weirder."

"As much as I'd like to see Felicity's face when I walk up with you, I'm not up for the rest of it."

Dylan groaned and threw his head back against the couch. "So, you'd only want me there to make Felicity jealous and not for moral support?"

"A little of both."

"I really don't get the thing with Felicity."

"Sibling rivalry." Sloan smirked.

"But you didn't even grow up together."

"But she got the best of Dad. She was his little girl. She was his real family."

"That's really not a healthy—" He stopped and shook his head. "Sorry," he said. "You need a boyfriend, not a shrink."

Sloan leaned forward till she was inches from Dylan's lips. "You're right. I don't want a therapist, just you." Sloan inhaled Dylan's woodsy cologne and saw the tiny flecks of gold in his deep brown eyes. She needed to forget about last night, about tonight, about Noah, about everything. She pressed her lips against Dylan's, anchoring her hand to his belt, then slipping a finger beneath the waistline fabric. She deepened the kiss before pulling away. "Come on," she whispered, standing and offering him her hand.

Dylan hesitated only a moment before he took it and let her lead him into her bedroom. His skin felt hot, feverish.

Sloan closed the door as he sat on the bed. She couldn't help but notice he looked uncomfortable.

"Everything okay?" she asked.

"Yeah." Dylan tapped his foot. "Can you turn the light off?"

"Sure." Sloan flipped the switch before taking a few steps toward her bed. She kissed Dylan again, pushing him gently onto the silk comforter. But when Sloan tried to raise his shirt, he seemed to tense. He stopped kissing back. "Is this about my mom? The door's locked." Sloan laughed; it was like she was in high school again, sneaking Noah into her room. Ugh. Stop thinking about Noah.

"It's nothing," Dylan said, pulling his shirt off, revealing another T-shirt underneath. "Sorry." He laughed and removed that one too.

Sloan ran her hands down his chest and brought her lips to his neck. He moaned softly, reaching past a gap between the buttons on her blouse to touch her skin. She fumbled to unbutton her shirt, tossing it behind her.

But when she reached for his belt, Dylan jerked away, pushing his back against the headboard. "I'm sorry," he huffed. "I can't." He reached around him on the bed. "Where's my shirt?"

Sloan stood and turned on the light, trying to make sense of his rejection. She felt her neck and ears reddening.

When she turned around, she caught sight of Dylan's back just before he pulled his shirt over it. It was littered with scars. Round ones like cigarette burns and long thin ones like he had been whipped. Dylan picked her shirt up off the floor and handed it to her, keeping his head turned. "I'm sorry," he said again. "This part is hard for me."

Sloan slipped her arms into her blouse, holding it closed in front. "Don't apologize. I didn't mean to push you. I thought you wanted this."

"I did want this. I do want this. Please don't take it personally. Intimacy is just hard for me. I've had positive sexual experiences, but my mind mostly goes to the negative, no matter how much my body fights against it."

Sloan sat beside him, putting her hand on his back, staring at his other shirt still on the floor. It made sense now, why he wore layers even in the heat of summer. "I'm fine with waiting."

Dylan kept his eyes on the carpet. "I get it if this is a deal-breaker."

Sloan laughed. "Come on, Dylan. A wife in another town—deal-breaker. Going slow—not a deal-breaker."

"It's not that I don't want to. It's hard to explain. I should have talked to you about this before now."

"And I should have considered it from your side." She began buttoning her shirt. "Let's stop feeling bad and go watch a funny movie."

Dylan didn't move from the bed.

"Come on. Really, it's fine."

He exhaled. "There's something else that's been bugging me. The other night you said you'd gotten sick and weren't up to hanging out."

"Yeah."

"Then why did Noah come over?"

Sloan froze. "How did you know that?"

"Caroline told me. I think she was trying to make me jealous." He stood. "Should I be?"

Sloan's heart thudded against her chest. Her mom had been awake. What all had she heard? "No. There's no reason to be jealous."

Dylan rocked back on his heels, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "I'm trying not to assume the worst."

"There's really nothing to worry about there. Noah's just helping me look into some stuff about Ridge."

"So, you felt up to talking to him about Ridge, but you won't talk to me?"

Sloan tapped her fingers against her jeans. "It's complicated. Intimacy is hard for me too. I mean, not this kind," she motioned to the bed, "but the sharing stuff."

Dylan swallowed. "But it's easy with Noah?"

"That's not what I meant. He's a detective and has access to the information I need. That's the only reason I told him." It wasn't the entire truth, but it was hard to explain her and Noah's shared history, their shared history with Ridge. She wanted to talk to Dylan, but it didn't come as naturally.

"Okay." Dylan managed a small smile. "Let's just forget about intimacy of all kinds for tonight and go see about that movie."

"What did you find out?" Sloan asked Noah when he called the following night.

"Vince worked at LSU for less than a year," Noah said. "They left Baton Rouge late in August of 1989, and it looks like they spent the rest of the year in El Paso. In 1990, Vince began working as a math professor at New Mexico Junior College. He retired in 2004, but they still live in Hobbs, New Mexico."

Sloan stepped outside to the back porch. "But he moved to Baton Rouge to be a dean. Why would he trade a dean's job for a professor's?"

"Change of pace?"

"Or he was running," Sloan said. "Ridge made a comment that they were supposed to bring him back." The gas station, Sloan realized. "I remember this night at a gas station. Mom said we were leaving Mallowater. We packed and waited there. Waited all night for someone that didn't come. That was when Mom lost it. They were supposed to bring him back."

"Calm down, Sloan. We aren't sure this was your mother's idea."

"Ridge said it was."

Sloan heard papers shuffling. "Kidnapped children sometimes eventually take the side of their captors," Noah explained. "We can assume they were hiding him out for a while, homeschooling maybe. There was no record of your brother until 1992, when a Ridge Turner was registered for school. He attended Hobbs schools from ninth-twelfth grade."

"Ridge Turner? They changed his name?"

"Likely got him a new identity altogether," Noah said.

"How do you do that? How does no one question a ninth grader just popping into existence?"

"Possibly black-market papers. But there are a few other ways too."

"Vince and Libby didn't change their names?" Sloan asked.

"No. That surprised me too."

"Then Mom could have found them. If she knew they had Ridge, why didn't she hunt them down when they didn't return him?"

"My hunch is that she never knew they took him."

"Then explain the gas station, Noah." Sloan caught her voice rising. "Do you have a number for Vince and Libby?"

Noah hesitated for a minute before saying no.

"Don't lie to me. What's their number?"

"I don't have it," he said. "Unlisted."

"And you don't have a way to get it?"

He sighed. "Talking to them is a bad idea. If they took your brother, they need to be prosecuted. They will run if they realize we are on to them, and it's all over."

Sloan leaned against the house. "Fine. But you've got to keep looking into this."

Noah promised he would, and they ended the call. As soon as Sloan stepped back inside, she heard a soft rap on the front door. It caught her off guard. Who would be here this late?

She opened the door, leaving the chain latched. She was surprised to see Ridge standing in the shadows. "Can I come in?" he asked.

"Of course." Sloan undid the chain and opened the door again.

Ridge stepped inside. "Mom's asleep, right?"

"Last I checked. She had her sleeping pill, but her sleep seems restless tonight."

Ridge seemed restless too. He walked circles around the room, stopping to pick up the lone picture off the mantle—one of Caroline and Sloan her senior year.

"What's going on, Ridge? I haven't heard from you all day."

He sat down on the couch. "I slept most of the day and couldn't fall asleep tonight. I just wanted to see you. I wanted to see the pictures you found. Maybe I even wanted to see Mom."

Sloan sat beside him. "I'm glad you came. Dad got out of jail today."

"Did you see him?"

Sloan shook her head. "Just on TV. I couldn't bring myself to go. I didn't even let Dylan come over today. I wanted to be alone with it all. With my memories."

"Didn't mean to crash your party," Ridge said.

"It needed crashing. I was just about to get another beer. Want one?"

"Absolutely." While Sloan was in the kitchen, she heard Ridge turn the TV on. "Think they'll replay Dad getting out?"

"I'm sure." She handed him the beer. "Turn to channel five. Local news comes on at 10:00."

"Well, at least it's just local news."

"Yeah, until the Hadfields do another People magazine interview."

Ridge used his class ring to twist the lid off his beer. "I saw that." He took a sip. "Well, I did more than see it; I bought it and tripped out a few weeks."

Sloan laughed. "Years for me. Not proud to admit this, but I brought it back out today."

"It's just hard to imagine that Dad had this whole second life with them," Ridge said.

Sloan took a drink of her own beer. "You should talk."

Ridge gave a shallow sigh. "Yeah, I guess you're right, but—"

"Shh!" Sloan grabbed the remote and turned up the volume as the news played footage of their father walking out of prison. Felicity and Anna ran, wrapping their arms around him. Kyle, Brad, and their families close behind.

"Wow." Ridge moved closer, sitting on the coffee table. "Dad has gray hair."

Sloan folded her legs up beside her. "And grandkids."

Ridge stared transfixed as the reporter spoke. "Jay Hadfield was released today after spending almost twenty years in prison for the murder of his son, Ridge Hadfield, back in 1988. Jay, a Vietnam Veteran, was Texas's first, and perhaps most famous, use of the PTSD defense, claiming he killed his son in a dissociative flashback. The jury ultimately convicted Jay Hadfield of manslaughter. The body of Ridge Hadfield was never found."

Ridge scrubbed his hands over his face. "What a trip."

"During the investigation into the child's death," the reporter continued, "it was discovered that Jay Hadfield had a secret. He had two families. A wife and three children living in Tyler and a long-time girlfriend in Mallowater who had two children with Hadfield. Neither family had any knowledge of the other. Today, when Jay Hadfield was released, only his legal wife and their three children were present. Ridge's mother, Caroline Radel, could not be reached for comment, but our records show she has spent most of her life in various mental hospitals and living facilities."

Ridge turned back to Sloan. "They tried to call Mom?"

"I unplugged the house phone right after I came home," Sloan said.

"Such a fascinating case," the balding reporter back at the news desk said. "This is the second time in recent weeks that Mallowater has made the news."

"You're right, Ralph," the chipper woman sitting on his right said. "Recently, former Mallowater resident Eddie Daughtry was arrested for the murder of Logan Pruitt after another of his alleged victims, Dylan Lawrence, came forward."

"Geez." Ridge shook his head. "Talk about the news hitting close to home."

"Yeah." Sloan muted the TV. "Thus, the beers."

"May need something harder."

Sloan unfolded herself from the couch. "On it." She emerged from the kitchen with two gin and tonics, and a bag of Chex Mix. "Slumber party?"

"Hell yeah." Ridge took one of the drinks and sat back on the couch. "Man, that never stops being weird. Hearing about my death."

"I bet," Sloan said.

Ridge kicked his shoes off. "Seeing Dad is the weirdest of all. To say I have mixed feelings about him right now would be an understatement."

"Yeah." Sloan took her first sip, and the gin burned her throat. "Dad didn't abuse me, Ridge."

"I believe you. Nothing adds up. Mom told me he hit her a lot, but wouldn't we have known?" I mean, I never even heard them fight."

"The only time he was violent was during the flashbacks," Sloan said. "He wasn't faking that."

"How can you be sure?" Ridge asked.

"Oh, come on, Ridge. You were there. You saw his eyes. He was out of it. You heard him all the times he'd wake up screaming. Don't try to justify what Mom did." Sloan ran her fingers through her hair. "Why did she do this? Why did she lie to you to frame Dad?"

"A crow never forgets," Ridge said. "I bet she found out about Anna. Remember how distant and strange she got? Remember the night with the pantry? I think she used me to make him pay."

"Surely not," Sloan said, but she couldn't exactly put it past her mother. "You should ask Libby if you're right."

Ridge leaned against the couch. "I plan to call her tomorrow. I just hope she'll be honest with me."

Sloan downed the rest of her drink. "What about Dad? Do you want to see him?"

"Yes and no. I'm so mad at him about the other family, yet I've got all these good memories of him, too. One day at Hastings, I came across that Randy Travis album he loved, The Storms of Life . I bought it and listened to it over and over. It was the closest to home I ever felt."

"It was the same for me with Keith Whitley." Sloan jumped up. "I brought down Dad's old tapes in the attic. Let me see if the Randy Travis one is in there."

She returned to the room a few seconds later, holding a shoebox of old photos, Ridge's beloved stuffed animal, and the Randy Travis cassette.

"Blue!" Ridge emerged from the kitchen, where he'd mixed a few more gin and tonics. "I thought I'd seen the last of him."

Sloan plugged in her old cassette player. "Let's hope this still works." She placed the Randy Travis cassette in the tape deck and pressed down the slightly stuck play button. "On the Other Hand" began to play softly. "Wow," she said, "This song certainly takes on a different meaning now."

"Right?" Ridge sat on the floor beside her with the box of photos. "No wonder Dad loved country music. His life was a country song."

"Aren't all of ours?" Sloan asked.

"Well, my girlfriend broke up with me six weeks ago, so I left New York for Texas. But I drove an RV here instead of a truck, and I had a pet crow instead of a dog."

"You stayed in New York even after college?"

"After college?" Ridge laughed. "What's that? I'm still trudging through my Ph.D."

"So, you don't work?" Sloan asked.

"Writing a dissertation is work. But no, I got a research grant, and Mom and—I mean Libby and Vince—still help me out."

Sloan tried to ignore the fact that he'd just called Libby his mom. She bumped her shoulder against Ridge's. "I'm impressed. My little brother's gonna be a doctor."

"I'm studying crow families." Ridge pulled out a picture from the box and stared. "Specifically, bonds among sibling crows and how they affect social skills and eventual survival and reproductive success."

Sloan couldn't stifle her giggles.

"What?" Ridge sounded offended, "What's so funny?"

"I'm sorry." She held her lips together, but a burst of laughter escaped. "Maybe that explains all my problems. If sibling relationships are as important to human success as they are to crows, no wonder I haven't found any social or reproductive success in life."

Ridge tried in vain to suppress a smile. "You're terrible."

"Nah, just a little past my alcohol limit." She leaned over to look at the picture Ridge was holding. It was one of them opening presents in front of the fireplace. "Oh, do you remember the year we got to pick out our ornament?"

Ridge pointed a finger at her. "Rabbit in a roller skate?"

"Yes!" Sloan jumped up too quickly and felt light-headed. She lowered herself back to the floor, making a mental note to slow down on the drinks. "It's in the attic!" She kicked the box of pictures away from her brother. "Go get the Christmas box, please."

"Hey." Ridge reached for the shoe box. "You go get them."

She fanned herself. "Come on, Ridge. I'm a little tipsy. You're going to freak out when you see this stuff. Honestly, the ornaments brought back so many good memories, it made me want to put the tree up this year. Go get them, please. I'll tell you right where they are."

"Oh geez." Ridge stood. "I remember where they are. Dad and I had to bring them down every year."

"Yay! Thanks!" Sloan ignored her own inner voice and drank the rest of her second gin and tonic as she looked at old pictures and listened to old country songs.

A few minutes later, Ridge emerged from the attic carrying the Christmas tree box.

"What are you bringing that down for?" Sloan asked. "I said the ornaments."

Ridge began climbing the attic stairs again. "Yeah. You also said you wanted to set the tree up."

Sloan laughed. Maybe Ridge was a little drunk, too. "I meant I wanted to put it up at Christmas."

"I won't be here for Christmas. Let's put it up tonight."

"It's July, Ridge."

"And? If putting up a Christmas tree will make us happy, let's do it."

"You know what? You're right." Sloan retrieved a pair of scissors from the kitchen to cut open the box. "We haven't put up a tree together in twenty years. I'd say we waited long enough."

Ridge brought down the box of ornaments, and Sloan pieced together the tree as Randy Travis sang in the background.

"This feels like something Dad would do," Sloan said, stepping back to admire their work. "Christmas in July."

"I thought the same." Ridge straightened the crooked star on top of the tree. "He was always an outside-of-the-box kind of thinker. Remember those weird questions he'd ask?"

Sloan grinned. "Do you think leprechauns are related to gnomes?"

"Or how about, is cereal soup?" Ridge added.

"Oh!" Sloan slapped his shoulder. "If peanut butter wasn't called peanut butter, what would it be called?"

"We had some good times, didn't we?" Ridge collapsed on the carpet. "I remember we used to lie under here and look up at the lights." His words were slightly slurred. He scooted under the tree and laughed. "Come on; it's even cooler when you're drunk."

"Isn't everything?" Sloan lay beside him and had to admit it was still pretty magical to stare at the twinkling lights through the branches.

"Merry Christmas," Ridge said, taking her hand.

"Merry Christmas." Sloan squeezed his hand, then laughed. "What's mom going to think when she wakes up to this?"

Ridge pushed himself up. "Speaking of, I better get back to the RV. It's late."

"You can't walk all the way out there this late. You're drunk."

"And you're not? I'll get some coffee on."

"Don't bother." Sloan sat up too quickly and saw twinkling lights all around the living room. "Just sleep in our old room. Lock the door. I'll sleep out here on the couch."

"And how am I supposed to get out in the morning?" Ridge asked.

Sloan grinned. "The same way I snuck out to meet Noah for five years—through the window."

"Alright. I am pretty beat." He rose to his feet and stumbled forward a few steps. "Night, Lo."

Sloan stood up. "Hey! You almost forgot something." She tossed Blue at his stomach. Ridge caught the stuffed animal and smiled—the same little boy smile she remembered.

Sloan realized she could have asked her brother anything she wanted tonight, and the alcohol would have loosened his tongue enough to answer. But she didn't care. Her heart was full for the first time in forever. Maybe remembering was more important than knowing.