13-

Eventually they had to get up for food. By that point it was almost midnight. Darcy pointed out that she would have to work the breakfast shift the next morning, which made Mark remember that he also had to be at the garage by 8. Reality had a way of rearing its head at the worst possible time.

Mark ventured up to the main house and raided the fridge there for something more substantial than the snack foods he kept in the apartment while Darcy took a short soak in the tub. Which was probably smart of her – if it had been a shower, he would have been tempted to join her and then they'd be up all night.

He gave her a t-shirt to wear to bed and they ate at the counter in the kitchen. Once that was done and they'd cleaned up, Mark took a shower while Darcy set the alarm clock by the bed and crawled under the blankets.

Mark felt like he slept as soon as his head hit the pillow. He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept so well. Darcy lay curled up next to him, and at some point the storms had moved in leaving behind nothing but the soft sound of rain hitting the metal roof.

When the alarm went off, Mark dragged himself out of bed with her. "You can sleep." Darcy pointed out, gathering her clothes that had been left on the floor.

Mark only shook his head and got himself ready for the day. He should have been exhausted, but he wasn't. He went to the main house with Darcy while she got herself ready and then walked her back out to the garage to get her car.

"Seriously, I don't need a bodyguard. I'm just going to work." Her voice broke into his thoughts. She had paused before climbing into the driver's seat while Mark had been lost in thought.

He smirked at that. "I know." He bent and kissed her. Darcy flashed him a brilliant smile and got into the car before he could get too carried away. He heaved a sigh watching her go then turned to look at the motorcycle, at his handiwork. He wasn't conceited but thought he deserved a pat on the back. Of course after the day he and Darcy spent, a pat on the back probably wasn't necessary.

Mark went up to the apartment and made some coffee. He had an hour to kill before he had to be at work. It wasn't until he went back down the stairs with the mug in his hand that he noticed it – at some point during the night Glen had returned. The truck he'd left in was parked in its usual spot. Mark felt an odd empty feeling in his stomach, the sort of thing he used to feel before a real screaming lecture from his dad when he was young. He and Darcy hadn't done anything wrong – but he felt caught all the same.

Etta wasn't around though. She would have been in the kitchen when Mark and Darcy had gone in. Odd. Mark started toward the corner of the house, almost to the stairs that led to the third floor when he changed his mind and set off down the path. After yesterday's rain, that morning had dawned cool and clear, and everything seemed to have grown overnight.

It only took fifteen minutes to reach the side path to the cemetery. Mark walked carefully on the still damp ground, and wasn't surprised at all to see Glen standing in the midst of the headstones. In front of his daughter's stone in particular. Mark didn't want to disturb him but Glen must have heard him coming up the stone pathway.

"You're up and about early." His voice carried across the quiet space.

Mark nodded and sipped his coffee. "Didn't expect to see you until tonight."

"Got done early. I hate hotels." Glen sighed and turned, moving to join Mark. He looked perfectly composed, except for his eyes, which until this moment Mark had thought could only express a sort of amused friendliness. The man looked absolutely haunted though. Not teary eyed, not sad. Haunted. "Coffee smells good."

"There's a whole pot up at the apartment."

"Probably the last thing I need. I should be sleeping. I was up all night driving."

Mark nodded and gestured with his mug of coffee toward the cemetery. He remembered Darcy's advice to play dumb. "Family cemetery?"

"Yeah. Going back to the first of the Graves family. Graves of the Graves, as my dad used to say. It always pissed my mom off that he was so…easy…about death. She took the family history seriously. Including this place." As Glen spoke he turned and looked directly at his daughter's grave. "Guess I do too."

"It must be something, to have that kind of connection to a place." Mark said quietly. His own parents were in different places. His mother had passed away first and had been buried with her parents and family two hundred miles from where they had been living. His father had been cremated and his ashes spread according to his wishes. Mark understood the purpose of a graveyard but had never really experienced the connection to one.

"It's not always a positive thing." But Glen half-smiled. "The grave with the black marker…that's my daughter. Charlotte." Mark raised an eyebrow and said nothing. It seemed safer. "She would have been sixteen next week. We had her young."

"What happened?" Mark felt he had to ask.

Glen shrugged. "One of those things. She wandered away." He shook his head. "I was gone. We had some bad storms come through, a tornado hit the water, worst mess they'd seen in this area in years. I had to leave. The business wasn't going like it is now, I wasn't home a lot. I arranged for some people to come and clean up – we had a lot of trees that were down. And Charlotte just…wandered away." Glen blinked a few times. "I found her. If I had gotten home an hour sooner…even 30 minutes…"

Mark said nothing. It seemed there was nothing he could say. Glen took a deep, shaky breath. "She drowned out at the Falls. I used to take her swimming out there. She loved it. I used to tell her she was probably a mermaid in a past life." He smiled to himself. "I never did find out why she wandered off. She knew to wait for me. Her mother never went down there. She wanted a pool – she said lake water was basically a step away from swamp water. I told Char a million times not to go out there alone but she did. Maybe she just got curious. She'd been warned about the Falls after a storm, but she wasn't afraid of anything. She might have wanted to see for herself and…fell in. Or…I don't know." Glen finished helplessly. "I got home and she didn't come running to meet me. Struck me as odd. Got the workers to start hunting and one of them said he'd seen her on the path. I've read the phrase 'ice in the veins' in about a thousand different books but that was the first and only time in my life I actually experienced it."

"I'm sorry." Mark had nothing else he could possibly say. "Is that why you don't swim there?"

Gen nodded. "Can't bring myself to go back down there. Darcy found it on her own. Believe me when I tell you I about worried myself to death over it. But short of tearing up the path and filling the cove with sand or cement, what can I do?"

It was rhetorical. Glen turned and started back down the path. Mark spared the graveyard one last glance before joining him on the walk back.

"I couldn't help but notice…" Glen shot Mark a sidelong glance, and Mark could almost see the other man dragging himself out of his depression. "That Darcy wasn't at the house when I got home. Also I may or may not have seen the two of you coming and going."

"You don't miss much." Mark said, feeling the flush crawl across his face.

"I miss a lot." Glen corrected him with a smirk. "But Darcy's kind of special to me."

"I know. She's kinda special, period." Mark admitted.

"A man could do a hell of a lot worse."

"I have." Mark said self-deprecatingly. "But I'm trying to change that."

"Good." Glen smiled. "I'd say something like 'don't hurt her' but I think that's a foregone notion."

"I'm gonna try." It was the best Mark could do. Glen seemed to understand. He clapped Mark on the back. Out of curiosity, Mark had to ask. "So Darcy said that you and Ava…"

"Yeah. Me and Ava." Glen shoved his hair back from his face and sighed. "We're complicated. Always have been. To be honest, it shoulda been her that I married in the first place."

"Why didn't you?" Mark asked before he could stop himself. Glen smirked again.

"She said no."

"Oh."

"Gotta give it to her. She sticks to her convictions. She's been saying no ever since."

Mark snickered at that. "You keep asking her?"

"Sure. Once or twice a year. Eventually I'll wear her down." Glen glanced at his watch. "You'd better hit it if you're gonna get to the garage on time."

"Yeah." Mark knew he'd be cutting it close but wasn't too worried about it. His mood was too good that morning for anything to really put a damper on his day. Glen had seemed down but he was pulling himself up again. Mark had spent an incredible day and night with an incredible woman. He was starting to think he might have a few things going for him after all. That was all right. He was overdue for some good luck.

His good mood lasted all day. For good reason. He'd worked out the problems on the truck that had stumped him Friday, he'd spent his lunch hour with Darcy, and he was brought another motorcycle to work on. Not a custom Harley but that was all right, he couldn't win the lottery every day. For the first time in a long time it felt as though a weight were lifted off his shoulders.