What I Remember Most

by Cathy Lamb

  “I don’t feel charming or kind. I feel awful. I can’t tell you how awful. I am so sorry I lied. A hundred times over, Kade, I am so sorry. This could backlash on you and your company.”

  “It won’t, I’m not worried, and I understand. You were desperate. I was desperate for much of my childhood. I was desperate in jail and desperate when I was first released, until I could make money. And . . .”

  “And what?”

  He shifted in his seat, set his eyes on Broken Top, then back to me. “And I knew you were sleeping in your car.”

  “You did?” Oh, let this deck open so I could drop through and disappear. “How?”

  “I was driving home the night you and I talked at the bar and I saw your car parked alongside the road. I saw you in it. So, I knew if what you were accused of was true, you wouldn’t be dead broke. You wouldn’t be living in your car. If you had embezzled funds, you would have had money stashed somewhere.”

  “I didn’t have any money stashed anywhere. I had $520.46 when I left Covey, in cash. My personal and business accounts were frozen.”

  “I also knew that if you were the type of person who cared about comfort, you would not have left your home. You would have stayed where there was a roof, a bed, a kitchen, but you didn’t. You would rather live in your car than stay with Covey. That told me a lot about you, your courage, determination, and strength, your noninvolvement in Covey’s business and, frankly, your level of hatred for your husband.”

  “I am trying not to hate him,” I said. “It’s hard. I want to kill him most days.”

  “I can imagine. I want to kill him, too.”

  “First for what he did to other people who entrusted their money to him. It wasn’t all wealthy people who could lose a few hundred thousand, even though that’s so wrong, too. It was regular people, with normal incomes. He convinced them he could make them a fortune. They will now get pennies on the dollar back. For sure many will never retire. They will never be able to put their kids through college. Their savings are gone. And, for what he did to me . . .” I waved my hands. “You know I’ve been charged with theft, fraud, embezzlement, money laundering?”

  “Yes.”

  “I had no idea what Covey was doing, Kade.” I bit my lip, tried not to cry. “None. I was married to him for a year, and I knew I’d made a mistake a few months into it.” I told him about Covey’s possessiveness, the tracking devices, the cameras, Covey’s anger. I told him how Covey had implicated me and told me I had to move back in with him or he would cook me like a dead possum on a grill in trial and how I’d refused. I told him about my stint in jail.

  Kade stood up and stalked across his deck, a hand pushing his black hair back. He was furious. He swore, swore again. I wanted to hug him, but I didn’t. I stood up and walked over to him.

  “I wanted to talk to you about this, Grenady, but you were so closed. So private. So defensive when I offered to help you. It was clear that you didn’t want to talk. I was waiting—”

  “Waiting for what?”

  “I was waiting for you to trust me and tell me yourself.”

  “I hardly trust anyone, Kade.”

  “I wish you would trust me.”

  I took a deep breath. I could trust Kade, I knew I could. I wish I had sooner. “I have to tell you something else.”

  “Something else? What is it?”

  “I’m pleading guilty.”

  He was shocked. I still felt shocked.

  “What do you mean? I thought you had an upcoming trial?”

  “I’m going back in to talk to the assistant U.S. attorney on my case. I told him I was innocent, but I’m changing my plea.”

  “Why in God’s name would you do that? You do have an attorney? Is she asleep?”

  “No, she’s a kick-butt kind of lady. I recently told her I was pleading guilty. She advised against it. She yelled and threw a fit and threatened to box me. But the thought of spending five years in jail . . .” I clenched my jaw so I wouldn’t cry.

  “Damn. You don’t want to risk it, do you? But you have to, Grenady. You have to fight this.”

  “I can’t.” I paused. I told him what Covey had sworn to do, about the signed documents, the unpredictability of a jury. And, because I could not stand to have anything between Kade and me again, I told him about Rozlyn and sweet Cleo.

  He hung his head.

  We talked, round and round, his free-ranging anger at Covey impressive, his worry for me touching. When there was nothing more to say, when I would not relent on my plea, he held me close, my forehead in his neck, my arms linked over his shoulders, his arms around my waist.

  He cried. I could feel his tears on my cheeks. Warm, gentle teddy bear.

  I don’t know who moved first, but our lips caught and held and fire ripped through my body, the sexy kind of fire, the intoxicating yum of fire. For a second I thought I should pull back, stop, but I didn’t want to, not one iota of me wanted to stop, plus he was holding me tight, his lips moving on mine.

  My head tilted back as he kissed me in a manly and take-charge sort of way, and I let go of my entrenched anxiety, my past chaos, my future jail cell, and I kissed him back with all I had, riding lust up into that nature collage that moved.

  Kade picked me up and carried me up the stairs to his bedroom, like out of some romance movie, and laid me down, our lips hardly leaving each other’s.

  “I want you to know, Grenady,” he said, as I hurriedly unzipped his jacket and pushed it off those broad shoulders, “I have never dated, or even flirted, with any of my employees, not that there has ever been anyone working for me I ever wanted to date, but I’m going to have to temporarily fire you.”

  I pulled away for a second as our clothes went flying off—shirt, bra, panties, his jeans. “Don’t fire me. I quit.”

  “Got it,” he said, his chest heaving, his arms around naked me. My, was he well hung! We fell back onto the pillows. “I temporarily accept your resignation.”

  We tumbled around that bouncy, cuddly bed with the bald eagles who mated for life, and I wrapped my legs around those tight and manly thrusting hips and that hard butt as I had thought and dreamed and obsessed of doing a thousand times.

  Kade was a gifted and delicious lover. Gifted from the skies, the moon, butterflies, the galaxy, and all things hot and sexy.

  He was awesome.

  I lost myself in that man and that man’s hands and mouth. I did not worry about the scars on my hands or the scars on my back or the scars near my hairline. I have never let go with any man like I did Kade. I have always held back, always held myself back, but not so with him. I fell in deep, free, and I cherished it all.

  It was heated and steaming the first time, slower and gentler and explosive the next time. In the darkness he kissed every scar, on my forehead, my back, my hands, and I kissed his.

  We had a lot of scars to kiss.

  “I couldn’t hire you at first for the reasons I already told you, but Ricki got the info I needed back to me pretty quick. I still didn’t hire you. Want to know why?” Kade asked, the moon shining through his windows, like white magic.

  “Yes, why?” I was curled up next to him, his arm around my shoulders.

  “Because I wanted to date you.”

  “You did?” I leaned over him, safe and warm, my boobs on his chest.

  “Yes. I saw you in McDonald’s.”

  “Now, that’s not what I wanted to hear.” I remembered that morning. Living in my car. Sicker than a dog. Exhausted. Asleep in the booth, probably with my tongue hanging out. I put my hand over my face. He removed my hand and kissed me. “I am so embarrassed.”

  “Don’t be embarrassed, honey. Please. I see this woman with all this dark red hair in the booth.” He picked up my hair, ran it through his fingers. “I knew you didn’t live in town, that you were visiting, or new here and, I don’t know, Grenady, what it was, I don’t. But when I saw you, I actually stopped walking, stopped moving.”

  “I could
hardly breathe. It was this instant . . . lust. Instant attraction.”

  “For me too.” He grinned. Not such a tough guy anymore. “Then you arrived at Hendricks’ for the interview and I liked you so much, I could hardly talk, hardly focus, but I had to hide the attraction and see what was behind the secrets and the fear. It was a tough day on my brain.”

  “Poor you.” I kissed him, and he kissed me back and rolled on top of me, his elbows propping him up.

  “I was going to ask you out after we had lunch at Bernie’s, but I had cold feet.”

  “You. Kade Hendricks? You had cold feet?”

  “Hell, yeah. And when Moose sang to you, even though I could tell you wanted to escape, I was pissed. Here I was, wanting to ask you out and that lunatic gets up and starts in on his opera.”

  “You could have sung, too, Kade.”

  “You do not want to hear me sing, honey.”

  “Yes, I do. It would be music to my ears.” Like the word honey is.

  “But the wanting to date you and not hiring you because of it changed when I found out you were living in your car. Then it was more important to me that you had a job and a home than I had you. So I called the next day. It was my intent to get you into an apartment or a rental house immediately. In fact, I had about five calls in to people I knew who rented their homes out, but then I heard you were living above Rozlyn’s barn in the apartment.”

  “Thank you for looking for a place for me to live, Kade, and thank you for hiring me.” What an awesome man he was.

  “My pleasure, darlin’. You’re the best.”

  I drew a finger down his cheek. I kissed him, long and slow, and we both teared up, messy and snuffly.

  “I love you, Grenady.”

  “I love you, too, Kade.” I became even weepier. “I fought off my feelings as hard as I could because my life was such a mess and I have trust issues and I have anxiety and you’re sexy and huge.”

  “I didn’t fight off my feelings at all. I tried to hide them from you, but they were always there. It feels like I’ve been waiting for you to arrive my whole life.” He sniffled.

  “I feel the same. I’ve wanted you for forever.” I hugged him close and wrapped my legs around him. The man looks like the gang leader he used to be, but his heart, ah, that heart, so beautiful, so loving.

  “And now you’re finally here.” He kissed me again . . . and we kissed the other’s tears away.

  Kade cried in my arms Sunday night. He tried not to let me see it, but I did, and I insisted the gentle bear let me see it.

  The next morning, after we made love, I hugged him like I was never going to let him go. My bones felt cold. My body felt cold.

  “Let me go with you.”

  “No.” We had already been over this, many times.

  “Let me drive you, please. I’m begging you, Grenady.”

  “No. I’m driving myself.”

  He argued; I put my hand on his mouth, then kissed him. When I was dressed, he walked me to my car and hugged me close.

  “Grenady, I’ll see you when you get back.”

  When I returned to Pineridge, my life would be shaken, stirred, and upside down again. The cold was spreading, head to foot. Alice, My Anxiety, was unhinged, her hysteria barely smothered.

  Kade kissed me hard and held me to his chest. Our tears mixed and blended and dropped, then I yanked myself away and drove off.

  I did not look back.

  Freezing.

  Frozen.

  Dying of cold.

  Hello, Alice!

  I went back home and talked to Rozlyn. She was on the couch with an ice pack on her head. She told me her head was banging like a “drum being played by a teenager who doesn’t know what he’s doing.” I gave her her medication and called Eudora to come and sit with her so she could run her to the hospital if necessary.

  Then I told her what I was going to do. She deserved to know.

  “Are you pleading guilty and taking eighteen months because of me?” She gripped my hand, tears streaming. “Be honest.”

  “No. I’m taking the eighteen months because I’ll be burned at the stake at the trial. Think about it, Rozlyn. Even my own husband is prepared to say, in endless detail, how he and I ran his business together and how I was an active participant in gaining new clients. He has even used the word mastermind to explain my role. Can’t beat that.”

  “Grenady, I am so sorry.” She waved her hands in front of her face, then flushed, then burst into another round of tears.

  The truth was, I wanted to be out of jail as soon as possible for Cleo and Rozlyn. But I am realistic, too. There was a chilling chance I would go to jail for five years. Would I have gone to trial without Rozlyn’s tumor? Yes. I’m ticked off. I don’t want to do time for something I didn’t do. But eighteen months was the better and more rational decision now and, probably, the better option no matter what.

  If Rozlyn knew what role she played in my decision, she would feel guilty, overwhelmed, and blame herself. The stress of my being in prison, and not taking a chance at a trial, would make her health worse. I think somewhere deep inside she knew, but her head was hurting too much, her panic too high, her death hanging too close, to think as she normally would. And she is a mother. Her first priority was, is, and always will be Cleo. I got it.

  “I’m so sorry, Grenady, soul sister.” She patted her heart. “I am so sorry. I love you.”

  “Love you, too, Rozlyn, soul sister.” Our tears ran together when I bent to hug her.

  My eyes fell on my lily bracelet. It still sparkled after all these years. I would have thought the sprayed-on gold would have faded, but it hadn’t. I would leave it with Rozlyn, my friend, while I was in jail. For luck. In friendship. A promise to her I would be back to be with her and Cleo.

  Cleo hopped in a minute later wearing foil wrapped around her from neck to knee. “Hi, Grenady! I’m a Uranus zombie.”

  On my drive to Portland, through the snowy, icy, curving Santiam Pass, I replayed my delicious time with Kade, every caress, stroke, moan, sigh and pant, my heart racing, his keeping pace with mine. I thought of kissing his mouth, his face, his neck, his chest, lower. I have never been a huge fan of blow jobs, but for him, and seeing how much pleasure he got out of it, how it made him lose control in a sexy way, well, I’ve now changed my mind.

  Blow jobs for Kade, and Kade only.

  I thought of how I’d run my hands over the scars on his back, the bullet hole, the knife swipes. I thought of how strong and solid he felt in my arms, how I felt in his as he held me close. I thought of his voice, what he said, his love, his strength, his courage, and how he had the strength and courage to cry.

  I missed him.

  “Ms. Wild,” Dale Kotchik, stern and solemn assistant U.S. attorney, said to me, “I understand you want to talk to us about your plea.”

  “I do. I am changing my plea.”

  He blinked a couple of times, then steepled his hands together like last time. The whole Scary Gang from the first meeting was there: the IRS, the FBI special agents, including the human calculator, the postal service mail fraud man, the woman from the finance and corporate services division, assistants, and other suits.

  They all stared back at me at that long table in the intimidating building in the expensive office in downtown Portland, with the furniture made by prisoners.

  “Why?” Dale asked.

  “Because I’m guilty.” My hands were clasped, tight and white. I was wearing my black skinny slacks, knee-high black boots, and a thick burgundy sweater with a clasp in front over a black turtleneck. I was freezing cold.

  “I’m going to tell you one more time, Dina,” Millie said, so mad she leaned all the way into my arm, inches from my nose and spit out, “Do not say another word. Let’s leave now.”

  “No, Millie.”

  “This is a mistake.”

  “Guilty of what?” Dale said.

  Millie made a loud, guttural groaning sound. “Think, Di
na. Think. I want it on the record that I have advised my client against this. She is not guilty.”

  “I’m guilty of signing those documents,” I said, “and I knew what I was doing.”

  Millie threw her head back and swore at the ceiling. “You’ve lost your head. Where is your brain? Are you not capable of rational thought?” She gave Dale one of her piercing glares. “She’s innocent. You know the lying, arrogant, narcissistic, possessive husband. She’s doing this because of him.”

  There was a tense silence in the room . . . and something else. I saw those seriously anal people exchange glances with each other. One coughed. A couple wiggled in their chairs.

  “Which papers in particular, Ms. Wild?” Dale asked.

  “All of them that I said I signed and all of them I said I didn’t sign.” Damn but I hated that butthole Covey. “The ones where I said my signature was forged, I signed.”

  “And you’re signing away your life,” Millie sputtered. She grabbed my arm and squeezed it. She is quite strong. “You should not be doing this. Please shut your mouth.”

  I didn’t blame Millie for her electric fury. It’s her job to defend me to the best of her ability, and she could not do it with a client like me. I was grateful to her. She had worked hard for me. She’d been honest, and tough, from the get-go. Now I was messing things up.

  “Dina,” she snapped. “We all saw those signatures. They’re not yours.”

  “Yes, they are.”

  “No, they’re not.”

  “Sometimes I . . . I write differently.”

  “No, you don’t.” Millie shook her head so vehemently her black curls whipped her face.

  “Yes, I do.”

  Dale leaned forward in his seat. I saw the FBI lady raise her eyebrows at the FBI human calculator. The IRS people stared hard at me.

  “I don’t understand,” Dale said. “You said you signed five of the documents last time we met. Now you’ve requested this meeting and you’re saying you signed all of them.”