Chapter Nine: Crazy Dreams

Chapter Nine

Willow

CRAZY DREAMS

Performed by Carrie Underwood

After Lincoln left, my emotions and thoughts were all over the place. Excitement at the idea of seeing him again. Regret knowing it was stupid to play with fire. Hope that I couldn't quite squash. With my mind whirling, it was impossible to nap, so I threw my restless energy into my dessert art. By the time Mom finally made it home well past dinnertime, it was finished.

Analyzing it critically, I could see where it fell short. The tarts needed more color to really stand out, and the miniature pies made the faces a blurry oval reminiscent of a George Seurat painting. I'd have to stick to impressionist art unless I found a way to add more detail to the pastries. Still, the dessert looked surprisingly like the mosaic on the wall at the cemetery.

Accomplishment zipped through me. I'd done it. Which meant I could do even more. Another thrill ran up my spine.

After setting her stuff down, Mom came into the kitchen, looked over my shoulder, and gasped in delight. Satisfaction zipped through me at her reaction, and my smile only grew as she said, "It's beautiful, kiddo."

I turned and hugged her.

She laughed quietly as I released her, tucking a soft strand of blond hair that had escaped her bun behind her ear. Her eyes were a bluish gray that landed somewhere between Lincoln's stunning sapphires and my mist-colored ones. I looked like her in a nesting-doll kind of way, the same but only two sizes smaller. I felt lucky to have any of her features because she was beautiful.

Dad used to tell Mom she was the belle of his ball. He'd whirl her into his arms, swing her around the kitchen, and kiss her softly. I'd never been grossed out by it. Instead, I'd thought it was sweet and been reassured by the love I felt drifting around them. It was the cornerstone of our family. I wanted Mom to experience it again. I hoped we'd both be able to seize love and joy with both hands.

At the moment, I didn't have anyone in my life who I'd ask to take the leap into the unknown with me. Lincoln certainly didn't count, but Mom had Hector just waiting to shower her with adoration.

"What are you going to do with this?" Mom asked.

I shrugged. "I haven't a clue. All I know is that I love it."

I'd left a few of the tarts, pies, and petit fours out, and I handed one of the butterscotch bites to her. She bit into it, eyes closing in pleasure, which only made me prouder. Happier.

"You just get better and better," she said. "You should bring this to Hector. He'll know what to do with it."

My stomach fluttered with nerves. Anticipation. Hope. "It doesn't exactly fit The Tea Spot's brand."

"Brands change," she said. "And you know Hector would adore showing you off."

He would. He'd be just like a parent putting a kid's stick-figure drawing on the refrigerator. But that was exactly why it made me nervous. Would I really know if it was good enough if it was just a parent bragging about a child's amateurish design?

Mom tugged at the braid I'd twisted my hair into while I'd been working.

"Show him. He won't blow steam up your ass."

"Mom!"

She laughed, finished the treat, and reached for another before taking it with her and sitting on a barstool. Her energy shifted, away from teasing and happy to serious. I'd gotten really good at reading her moods over the last six years. She'd never once taken any of her anger or loss out on me, but for a long time, her grief had felt like it was my fault. As if I could have done something to stop what had happened when I knew, logically, I couldn't have.

My throat bobbed.

I needed to tell her about what had happened with Poco. I wanted to, and yet I also wanted to protect the last vestiges of her good mood. I'd just worked up the courage to tell her, was just inhaling to let it all out, when she said, "Deputy Marshal James called today."

I bit back my words, waiting for her to finish with a dread much larger than Poco had caused when he'd grabbed me this morning.

"Roci Vitale died in prison last week."

My eyes widened, body tightening automatically at Roci's name on her lips. Roci had been the youngest of the Vitale brothers who'd attacked Dad. He was my age and had attended my high school, but we hadn't hung out in the same circles. I'd known to stay away from him even before that awful night. Everyone at school had known he was part of the Viceroys street gang.

"What happened?" I asked.

"He was shivved in the showers and bled out before they could save him."

Goosebumps sprinkled my skin, and panic tried to swallow me as the memory of hate-filled eyes flashed before me. Evil eyes. Not Roci's but his brother Aaron's. He'd been Roci and Danny's defense attorney, and when the jury had read out the guilty verdict, he'd sent me a look that would have left me dead if it had taken real form. It had been sharp. Brutal. Cold.

"What does that mean?" I choked out.

Mom shifted on the stool uncomfortably before saying, "Deputy Marshal James doesn't think it means anything. She insists they're watching Aaron and that he's still in Chicago. There's been no murmurs of him looking for us. She thinks his hands are full enough with the RICO case pending against him and his buddies that he doesn't have time to even think about you, let alone look for you."

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations case had developed from the evidence the police had collected after Dad's murder. My identification of Danny and Roci had led to search warrants uncovering other crimes. The RICO case was part of the reason Aaron had worked so hard to get my testimony, and the warrant granted because of it, tossed out. I'd been the linchpin, and if I'd been taken out of the picture, it would have unraveled all the government's cases. The Viceroys might have gotten away free and clear.

Mom read my fear just as I'd read her seriousness. She reached across the island and squeezed my hand. "There's nothing for us to worry about. They haven't come after us once since we left Chicago. And even if they tried, they can't find us. The Marshals haven't lost a single witness in their protection who were following their protocols. We've never deviated from them."

We let that settle between us. And it was comforting. If we did as we were told, if we stayed under the radar, the Viceroys couldn't find us.

"Maybe I should find someone else to go with the kids this weekend," Mom said.

"What? No!" I pushed aside my fear. "It's the state championships! The kids are counting on you. You've all worked hard for this. Like you said, there's nothing for us to worry about. Go. Have fun. Revel in all your coaching paying off."

She still hesitated. I walked around the counter and hugged her.

"We're okay. I'm okay. Really. If I get freaked, I can call Deputy Marshal James, and if I need anything else, I'll just call Hector. He'd do anything to make you happy."

Her lips turned upward, and her eyes sparkled at my words. Her reaction made every tight muscle inside my body loosen.

"He'd do anything for you ," she said, patting my cheek. "Now, go get some sleep. Otherwise, you'll be a zombie by the time your alarm goes off."

I tugged her hand into mine, squeezing it. "I love you, Mom."

"Love you too."

? ? ?

After I'd changed into my pajamas, I climbed into bed and fought the urge to search for the news about Roci and the rest of the Viceroys on the internet. I pushed the worry and fear as far away as I could. I chanted the mantra, We're safe and they can't find us , over and over again until, like always, I almost believed it.

I picked up my journal and opened it to the dog-eared page with the list of joyous experiences I wanted to have before any signs of FFI exhibited themselves and ended my life. I ran a finger down the words I'd first scribbled on the flight home from Chicago after the trial, happy to see so many already marked off. They weren't huge things, like going on a baking competition show, because those large events could never happen within the bounds of witness protection, but they were small and doable and simple. Everyday kinds of joys.

An X sat next to find a passion , go to culinary school , and sing karaoke with a stranger along with a dozen others. My finger stalled on the line that read, Ensure Mom finds love again . I was so close to checking that box I could almost taste the sweetness of it.

The next line down had me trembling as I pulled the metallic-pink pen off the spiral and drew a heart in the box next to, Flirt with someone who made my stomach whoosh .

The day may have started with a scare, but it had also been full of tantalizingly beautiful moments with Lincoln. I relived the heart-stopping smile he'd given me in the car after we'd dashed through the rain, and the thrill that had coursed over me when he'd said flirting was a delightful dance with those intense blue eyes boring into me. I wished I had a photograph of every moment so I'd never lose any of them the way moments with Dad were fading. I wished I knew more about Lincoln and what had happened in his life that had shadows clinging to him.

It felt deeper than just whatever had hit the news recently about him and Felicity Bradshaw. Something about him proposing and then taking it back? Leaving her to foot a huge resort bill? I couldn't recall the details. I looked over at my phone, almost as tempted to search for him as I'd been to search the Viceroys.

But I didn't. Not only because simply thinking about Lincoln was dangerous but because I didn't want to see him through someone else's tainted eyes. I knew the truth from what I'd witnessed today. He was a brave, confident man who'd stood up to protect a random stranger. So what if he was a bit bossy and broody—who cared? And in truth, in some secret part of me, I'd liked the way he'd demanded I do as he said. I wasn't sure exactly what that said about me.

I slid my finger down to the very last line on the page: Experience the love my parents had.

I'd written that one with a shaky hand, barely able to admit that hope, that wish, to myself because there was so much standing in the way of it. Not only the inability to tell the person you loved about your past for fear that somehow, in a moment of anger, they'd out you, but also because I'd have to ask them to take a leap of faith with me.

Look at what had happened with Chad. Unable to use FFI as the real reason, I'd told him I had a brain tumor that might someday turn deadly, and he'd bowed out before we'd even begun. He'd said it was just too heavy for him. Too much for a college fling. And that had hurt even more because I'd thought we were on the track to something more. True love. Forever after.

It wasn't his fault. How could he have known all the pieces of my past and future had me wishing for fairy-tale endings at twenty years old? It hadn't been fair to him.

The danger for me now was in thinking, for even one brief second, that the sparks and whoosh I'd felt today around Lincoln could lead to marking off that last box.

Just the idea of the twenty-nine-year-old president of the United States' son wanting any kind of relationship with some twenty-three-year-old nobody was ridiculous. I wasn't completely na?ve. I'd seen the heat in his eyes when he'd looked at me, and I'd heard the sensual tone that had felt like a caress as he'd flirted his way out my door. But even if, by some magical miracle, those feelings could have possibly turned into something more, my witness-protection situation made it impossible to pursue.

I had to remain invisible. A nobody. A baker in a café no one really registered. And Lincoln was very much in the public eye. In fact, I was surprised it hadn't been all over the media that he'd moved to Cherry Bay. Sooner or later, the paparazzi would track him down here. He'd be in the headlines again, especially with his dad's election heating up.

I let out a soft sigh, put the journal down, shut off the light, and sank down under the covers.

If Lincoln showed up at all in the morning, I'd let him walk me to work for a couple of mornings—for both our sakes. So he could sleep, and so I didn't jump at every shadow. There'd be no need for him to walk me home when it was daylight, when there were plenty of people to help me if Poco did show up, but also plenty of people who might see us together. I couldn't afford for someone to take a picture of the president's son with me at his side and having them blast it all over the internet. But no one would see us in the dead of the night. I rarely saw anyone on the street when I walked to work.

Seeing Poco had been a rare exception.

So we'd walk together for a few mornings, and I'd keep all my attraction and wishful thoughts wrapped up tight. And if everything was still quiet by Thursday, the end of my work week, we'd both be reassured. I could thank Lincoln and send him on his way, and my life would go back to the simplicity of before.

It was the only possible ending to this story where once upon a time a lowly baker met the prince of the kingdom.