Page 50 of Ambush

Clark was a big guy with hunched shoulders weighed down by life. His shaggy brown hair curled on his neck. He was clean-shaven and his clothes were wrinkled. He eyed her. “Huh. How’d you do that? They don’t like anyone.” He glared at Blake. “You got some nerve coming here, Lawson. Get off my property before I sic my dogs on you.”

Blake stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I wanted to see how you were doing, Clark.”

The man swept his hand over the property. “How do you think I’m doing? No family, no friends, no brother, thanks to you. My mom killed herself after you murdered Kent.”

Blake’s jaw clenched, and he took his hands out of his pockets. “If I could take his place, I would. He was my best friend, Clark.”

Clark balled his hands into fists. “You should be in jail. I’d like to see you strapped into the electric chair. I’d pull the switch.”

“I can’t disagree with that.”

Paradise couldn’t hold her tongue a moment longer. “Clark, it was an accident. Have you never made a mistake? Failed to check something? It was a terrible tragedy, but you have to know Blake loved your brother.”

Clark swept a glare over her and snorted. “You’re letting him off too easy. It’s not your brother who died.”

“No, it’s not, but we’re both sympathetic to your pain. Blake carries it too. How would you feel if a mistake you made harmed someone you loved? How would you be able to make amends? If there was a way, Blake would do it. But Kent is dead and nothing can bring him back. Instead, Blake has dedicated his life to helping other people. What more do you want him to do?”

Tears glimmered in Clark’s eyes. “I might find peace if he was as dead as Kent.”

A few weeks ago she was as tormented as Clark. Would this have been her fate if she’d kept on the same path of anger and revenge? “You wouldn’t. Two wrongs don’t make a right. You’d still be angry and hate filled. The only thing that will help is for you to forgive him.”

“Forgive him? Did you pick some weed out of my patch? I will never forgive him.”

“Then your life won’t change, Clark. You’ll die a lonely man with no friends because you’ve pushed everyone away. We can’t control what happens to us, but we can choose how we respond.”

He sneered. “What do you know about my kind of pain?”

“My parents were murdered. Bludgeoned to death.” His eyes widened but he didn’t answer. Enough of this though. She couldn’t make him see what was in front of his face, just like no one else could have gotten through to her. “Your driveway is all overgrown. We nearly missed it.”

“My truck died a month ago, and I don’t have the money to fix it. Transmission. Not that anyone cares.”

Pay it forward. She had some savings, but the inner voice warred with her logic. The guy didn’t deserve anything from her. She pushed the urge away for now until she could examine it later.

“So you’ve been stuck here for a month? How are you getting groceries and other necessities?”

He shrugged. “I got good legs, so I hoof it.” Her questions seemed to have drained his defiance. He brushed past them. “I’ve said all I’m going to say.” His voice was tired and hopeless, and he didn’t look at either of them as he went up the steps with his dogs into the trailer. The door slammed but then cracked open again as the latch didn’t hold.

Blake took her hand. “You are amazing. I think he could tell you cared, and somehow that defused his anger.”

She curled her fingers into his and leaned against him, the strength running out of her legs as her adrenaline crashed. “If he’d sicced those dogs on us, we’d have been in trouble. But the bigger news is he can’t be behind what’s going on. He doesn’t have transportation.”

So they were back to square one.

***

Paradise’s silence filled the truck cab, but Blake let her stare out the window with her thoughts. He had plenty of his own as well. Like how completely he’d ruined Clark’s life. To have someone wish him dead was a new experience, and he wished he could heal the man’s pain somehow. The worst thing was he deserved it.

Paradise pointed out an auto repair place on the outskirts ofMobile only a few miles from Clark’s trailer. “Can we stop there a minute?”

Blake glanced at the busy lot. “Sure.” He pulled in beside the tow truck. “You having car trouble? There’s a closer place in Pelican Harbor.”

“Not me. I want to get Clark’s truck repaired.”

Jaw slack, he stared at her for a long minute. “Why? I mean, he just threw us off his property.”

“I’ve done worse. Didn’t you get a sense of how alone and desperate he felt? I’ve been in that spot so many times. How do you think he will feel when that tow truck pulls up and tells him his truck will be repaired at no cost to him?”

“Paradise, it’s his transmission! That’s not a cheap fix.”

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