The Ninth Step

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

Joe. The guy she’d met the other night.

  At Bo Jangles, when she’d made such an ass of herself.

  God!

  She felt his gaze on her, felt him waiting while she stopped the car. The engine ticked as it cooled. She couldn’t look at him and looked through the windshield instead, thinking witlessly of the mango sherbet she’d bought at the store just now, thinking it would have already begun to soften. . . .

  How had he known where to find her?

  She must have told him, she answered herself. Maybe, like an idiot, she’d given him her card.

  Livie curled her fingers around the steering wheel and lowered her head to her hands. She’d been so looped that night, she couldn’t remember half of what . . . He was a doctor, she thought. In Navasota. Kat would be pleased, or maybe not. He specialized in horses, not humans, if Livie recalled correctly. He’d moved out of Houston, too. They’d talked about that, how neither one liked city life. Something lingered in her mind about a Christmas tree farm. Joe owned one or was buying one . . . it was all so hazy.

  He tapped on the window and she jumped, feeling her cheeks flame.

  “Are you all right?” he called through the glass.

  She cracked the car door. “No,” she said. “I’m dying of embarrassment.”

  “Because of the other night? But that was a mistake.”

  “I know,” she said miserably.

  “No! It was my mistake. My bad.” He patted his chest. “I acted like a jerk, pushed you--when I knew--”

  “I was drunk.” She met his gaze. His eyes were dark, the color of chocolate. His longish hair was dark too, but sliced with gray. It didn’t look as if he had it cut regularly, or even professionally. It was kind of loose and windblown and long enough in back to curl over the collar of his blue work shirt. Livie could admire the look, but her mother would be dismayed. She’d have been dismayed at Livie’s behavior the other night as well, not that she’d have any right to be.

  “I’m not usually such a party girl,” Livie said. “I don’t ordinarily drink so much, or do sex--”

  “On the first date. You told me.”

  “I did?” It kept getting worse.

  “Afterward.” His glance glimmered briefly, teasing her, as if he were recalling a joke he’d shared with party-girl Livie. He probably wouldn’t like tee-totaler, old-maid Livie. Joe widened the car door, held out his hand and after a moment’s hesitation she took it, because she didn’t want to appear rude. His grip felt warm and strong. His palm was calloused and she had a sudden inane image of him wielding an ax, strongly chopping down Christmas trees. In a Santa hat. Snow swirling. Red socks. Ridiculous. God, the man had seen her naked. She didn’t know his last name, but he knew she had a mole near her left nipple. She took her hand back, pushed a hairpin more tightly into her chignon.

  He said, “I’ve felt terrible ever since.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “But I took advantage--”

  “Groceries,” she said, faintly, walking away from him, opening the hatch. “There’s sherbet.”

  He took the sack from her and the two other bags as well, while she got her satchel, and together, they brought everything into the house.

  “I’ve called several times.” He stowed the sherbet in the freezer and unpacked a jar of mayonnaise, holding it up, raising his brows.

  “Pantry,” she said indicating the door adjacent to the refrigerator. She set the pint of blueberries she’d bought at the farmer’s market in the sink. “You didn’t leave a message.”

  “I didn’t know what to say.” He closed the pantry door.

  She looked down at her hands.

  “Pretty flowers.” He indicated the filled vase that stood on the marble-topped island between them. “They’re irises, right? Japanese. . . ?”

  Livie said they were. “You know flowers?”

  “I remember you said they were your favorites. You said something about them meaning hope, is that right?”

  “Hope, yes, or the gift of them might convey a message.” Like the promise of love. Was that why Cotton had left them for her? Livie wondered. Did he remember what they symbolized?

  Joe held her gaze. “I wonder if we could start over.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” She got down a colander from a cabinet, upended the carton of blueberries into it and rinsed them.

  “We could pretend the other night never happened.” He was at her elbow, searching her face.

  Maybe you could. “I don’t know your last name,” she said aloud and her cheeks warmed.

  “Bolten,” he said. “Joe Bolten and you’re Miss Saunders, Miss Olivia Marie Saunders.” He extended his hand, but withdrew it when she showed him that hers were wet. “Will you go out with me, Miss Saunders?” he asked after a moment. “Will you let me take you to dinner? Give me a chance to redeem myself?”

  “I can’t, not tonight, anyway.”

  “What about another night?”

  “I don’t think so.” She picked up the towel.

  “What about one morning then? We could have coffee. Baby steps.”

  She met his gaze. The tiny creases radiating from the corners of his eyes were white against the darker complexion of his face. “My life right now is--”

  “Is there someone else?”

  She guessed he meant because of the vase filled with irises on the kitchen island. “I’m someone else,” she said. “I mean I’m not the person you met at Bo Jangles. Not even remotely.” But now she bent her head, feeling mixed up and perturbed at herself. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

  “No.” He touched her elbow. “I’m sorry. I’m usually better behaved. I think I’ve been spending too much time with the animals I treat. I’m starting to act like one.”

  Livie didn’t say anything.

  “I’ll go.” He crossed the floor, went into the front hall and she followed him.

  “Thanks for helping me with the groceries,” she said.

  He paused at the door. “Maybe sometime you’ll call me,” he said over his shoulder. “I left my card on the counter.” And then he was gone.

  Chapter 6

  Cotton figured he wouldn’t go back to the Latimer’s, that was all. But after a sleepless night, he did go, with his heart laboring in his chest and the voice in his brain calling him every kind of crazy, but once he got his head into the job, he was lost. The days passed and between the remodel project and his second job working maintenance for Gooney, Cotton fell into a routine that was as comforting as it was painful in the way it reminded him of who he’d been. He couldn’t be that guy again; he knew that, but what if he could be this guy. This uncomplicated guy, doing this work, and after he finished here at the Latimer’s, maybe he’d move on, find a paying project. Cotton knew it was magical thinking, and dangerous. And every day he was confronted with the reality of Nikki Latimer, her shining innocence, her total oblivion. She had no inkling of what Cotton had robbed her of.

  She only wanted to help him. Every day she’d come home from her babysitting job and ask: “What can I do?”

  “There’s really nothing,” he would say.

  “No,” she would insist. “I want to help, it’s my project.”

  He couldn’t think how to put her off. It wasn’t as if he could tell her the truth, that he found the whole idea of her presence alarming. What if she got hurt? What if something else bad happened to her because of him. Every day, he was afraid, of working with her, talking to her. But every day, she came, Humphrey at her heels, and made herself useful. She knocked out the rotten studs, while he measured and cut the fresh ones; she scraped the exterior siding and the interior woodwork. She did the menial stuff, picked up trash, pulled up worn carpet, swept the slab. She found the Phillips screwdriver he mislaid, brought out an extra extension cord for the band saw.

  When they got so hot and sweaty they couldn’t see, she made lemonade and they sat on the deck steps to drink it. She told him she hated daytime TV, TV period, and comput
er games. She said she missed her friends, that she was glad she had the project, glad she could help him.

  She said, “I always help Daddy, like when he made my bookshelves and Trevor’s bunk beds, all three of us worked together. Once we even tore out the fireplace and made a new one, but Daddy hardly ever has time to do stuff like that with me anymore.”

  Cotton looked sidelong at her, at her small woebegone face. He hated that she sounded so lonely.

  “Did you help your dad? Is that how you learned?” she asked him.

  “Some, yeah.” Cotton absently wiped away the moisture that had beaded on the outside of his glass. As a kid, he’d been like Nikki and followed his old man around, pestering to use the tools. “Summers, when I got older, though, my brother and I went to Louisiana and worked construction for my uncle.”

  “You have a brother, too?”

  “Yep.”

  “Does he live in Houston?”

  “Seattle.”

  “Trevor’s in Florida.”

  “Your dad told me.”

  Cotton smiled at Nikki because she was smiling and twisting her hands self-consciously. She was all bony angles, jutting elbows and knees. Her teeth seemed too big for her mouth and her eyes were too large and dark for her elfin face. The line of her eyebrows was almost unbroken, but somehow she was pretty. Other things Cotton had noticed about her, besides her stubbornness: She chewed her lip when she was concentrating, she talked a lot when she got nervous, she was a quick learner. There wasn’t a job she wouldn’t take on. The other day, she’d hounded him about letting her use the circular saw. When Cotton said no, she got her dad on the phone, got him to agree it was all right.

  “She knows how to handle the tools,” Wes said when Nikki brought Cotton her cell phone. “She’s been helping me out on building projects since she was yay-high. I had to teach her, or lose my mind to her nattering.”

  Wes said he knew she could be like Chinese water torture. He’d laughed and said, “Her brother calls her Naggie.”

  “Trev’s the biggest dork.” Nikki made a face now.

  “My brother used to slug me if he thought I looked at him funny.” Cotton swallowed the last of his lemonade, studied the glass, thought about Scott and felt pissed. He felt the burden of his grief and his shame shift against his ribs. He thought how he ought to call and let Scott know he’d left town. Give him a reason to celebrate. Cotton thought of all the damage that lay between them, how it wouldn’t matter what he did, it would never be repaired.

  Nikki squinted at him. “I didn’t really notice before, but you and Trev sort of look alike. You know Steve McQueen?”

  “Bullitt.”

  “Love With the Proper Stranger.”

  “Pappilon.”

  “Trevor looks like him and you do too, a little. You wear your hair the same and your eyes are like his.”

  “Do you ever watch new movies?”

  “Most of them are stupid.” Nikki slipped down beside Humphrey and scratched his ears. “I wish Trev wouldn’t have gone to Florida, you know?”

  “Yeah,” Cotton said. He did know. He’d idolized his big brother too, a long time ago.

  #

  It was on a beautiful Tuesday morning in June, when Cotton turned the corner and saw the Dove Lake county sheriff’s car parked in front of the Latimer’s house, that the stage collapsed. That lovely stage he’d been so busily constructing out of snow and blowing smoke and enough hot air to support the gossamer web of his dream that his life could be good again and worthwhile. That he might even deserve such a life. In that oh-shit instant of panicked clarity, he gunned right by the house, but when he looked in his rearview, he spotted Nikki in the front yard looking after him, arms spread wide, face twisted into a What are you doing? expression.

  He had to go back. Or not. He slowed to a crawl. Forced his glance to the rearview again. Wes was on the porch with the cop, but neither of them were looking in Cotton’s direction. Maybe it wasn’t about him. Cotton put the Mercedes in reverse. He pulled to the curb opposite the squad car and got out. Walked up the drive like it was nothing to come to work and find a county sheriff on the premises. He felt sweat break out on his scalp; his shirt stuck to the wet patch between his shoulders.

  Nikki came up to him. “What happened? Did you forget where we lived?”

  “Something like that,” he answered. “What’s going on here?”

  “Mrs. Langley’s house got robbed.”

  Cotton glanced sharply at Nikki. “Is she okay?” He’d met Linda a few times since he’d started work. They both knew her mission, when she popped in, was to check up on him, but somehow she managed to make it appear as if she was just being friendly.

  Nikki said she was fine. “But they took her jewelry and some of it was her mom’s. She’s upset ‘cause it can’t be replaced.”

  “That’s tough.” From the corner of his eye, Cotton saw the uniform leave the porch; he marked his progress down the sidewalk. Cotton kept his attention on Nikki, her chatter about what else had been ripped off at the Langley’s house.

  “. . . silverware, a laptop, the DVD player . . . .”

  “Wes tells me you’re doing a little work for him.”

  Cotton turned to the deputy. “Yessir,” he said. He was aware of Nikki hovering at his elbow. Wes was still on the porch talking on his cell phone now.

  “So, where you from?”

  “Houston.”

  The deputy nodded at the Mercedes. “That yours?”

  “Yeah.” Cotton managed to eke out the syllable, but his breath was gone. The cop would run the plates, then what? The title had never been transferred. Cotton didn’t know what would happen; he couldn’t think. . . .

  “What is it? ’78? ’79? Man, she could be a real beauty.” The deputy walked to where the car sat in front of the house with Cotton and Nikki trailing behind him; he laid an admiring hand on the fender. “You ever want to sell her, would you let me know? Wes can put you in touch.”

  Cotton said he would.

  The deputy gave his attention to Nikki. “We’re real close to catching these crooks,” he told her. “Don’t you worry.”

  “I hope so,” she said.

  Nikki accompanied Cotton back up the sidewalk talking a blue streak, something about how the robbers got into the Langley’s house, that it was through a window in the guestroom. Cotton struggled to focus, to walk, to breathe.

  “. . . so I went to check our guestroom window,” Nikki was saying, “and guess what? It was unlocked too. Probably ‘cause of Trev. He used to sneak out that way.” She stopped and made Cotton look at her. “Don’t tell Daddy, okay?”

  “I won’t,” Cotton promised. “I swear,” he said. “They could cut off my fingers,” he told her. “Bust both my kneecaps.”

  Nikki gave him a look. “What’s your deal? You’re acting all weird.”

  Cotton said, “Yeah.” He said, “Go figure.” He looked down the street where the patrol car had disappeared and said, “Some days are rocks.”

  Nikki frowned harder.

  “It’s a line from a Tom Petty song. Some days are rocks, some days are diamonds.”

  She shrugged; she didn’t know what that meant either.

  #

  It was almost noon when Wes came out to the studio. He was dressed for work.

  “Thought you were hanging out here today,” Cotton said.

  “I had hoped to, but this new client is turning out to be a real ball-buster. I’m kind of worried about going off, though, that break-in at the Langley’s last night--that’s a little too close for comfort.”

  “Nikki told me it’s the first one on this street.”

  “Yeah, and she insisted on going to her babysitting job. I don’t like it, but you know how damned hardheaded she is.”

  Cotton said he did.

  “Linda’s keeping tabs on her--uh, but let’s keep that between us. If Nikki knew--”

  Cotton nodded; he said he’d keep an eye on her too. “I�
��ll keep her busy,” he said. “Whatever I can do,” he added and then he shut his mouth afraid he was laying it on too thick.

  Wes thanked him and said it was bad enough that the bastards were going in when no one was home. “But this, the Langleys were there, man, they slept through the whole thing, if you can believe that. They weren’t even aware anyone had been in the house until they got up this morning.”

  “That’s scary.” Cotton wiped his hands on a rag.

  “You’re damn straight it is. Linda and her family could have been murdered in their beds.”

  “The deputy who was here this morning said they were close to making an arrest.”

  Wes snorted. “Where have I heard that before?”

  Cotton looked up.

  “I lost my wife a while back. Drunk driver hit her. I’ve waited years for the cops to catch the guy who ran her down. You think they ever have? And I can’t count how many times they promised they were close; they’d have him; they’d get the jerk who did it. Yeah, well how’s this for close? Buddy of mine loaned me his Glock. Now that’s what I call close.” Wes paused.

  Cotton felt his stare and he wanted to meet it. It would be best if he did. I’m that jerk. He held the words in the clench of his teeth.

  “What?” Wes misunderstood Cotton’s silence. “You wouldn’t keep a gun in the house, I guess. You wouldn’t shoot to kill if the bastards broke in. Well, maybe you’re right. It’s not like I have a permit for the thing, but I damn sure know how to use it. And I will. I’m not waiting on the cops again. You can bet on that.” Wes put his hands on his hips; he left an ample space for a response. When none came, he said, “You’ll look after Nikki?”

  Cotton nodded.

  “She doesn’t know anything about the gun and she won’t. It’s locked up; she can’t hurt herself with it.” Wes allayed another of what he assumed were Cotton’s concerns.

  “That’s good.”

  “It’s only until they catch these crooks, then I’ll give it back.” Wes said that as he was leaving as if Cotton would find such reassurance comforting.

  #

  “What do you think of sunflowers?” Nikki asked.

  “Sunflowers?” Cotton was hunting through a stack of cartons for the porch light fixture. They symbolize loyalty, the birds love the seeds, they need staking, they’re best at the back of the border. Inexplicably, from nowhere, Livie’s voice ran playfully across his brain and he was so caught by it, by his delight in hearing it, that he went still in the effort to hang onto the sound.