by Sey, Susan
“Now wait a darn minute,” Addy said to nobody in particular. She couldn’t seem to think past the shock of Jax walking away from her. Leaving her. Which was exactly what everybody else who’d ever professed to love her had done. So why Jax doing it surprised her, she couldn’t really say. On some level, she thought slowly, she must’ve believed Jax was different. She must’ve believed that Jax defined love the way her heart did. That when he said he loved her, he meant he’d be her family. That he’d stay when everybody else left, no matter how hard it was, no matter how tempting she made it to go. Because he was in love with her. He was supposed to stay. And yet… “He left.”
“No, he stomped off,” Georgie said in wondering tones, staring at the door through which he’d disappeared. “In a huff.” She shook her head and grinned. “If I hadn’t seen that with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it.” She turned that grin on Addy. “Well done, Addison.”
“What, did I set a new record?” She pushed out the words. Normal didn’t seem to exist at the moment but keeping up appearances was a hard habit to break. “True love to bitter acrimony in under two weeks?”
“True love, is it?” Bianca’s eyes were sharp on her, but Addy couldn’t make herself care. Jax had walked away from her.
“I must’ve thought so.” Addy shrugged. “Then again, I’ve been wrong before.”
“Not this time.” Georgie hugged her arms and performed a minor jig. Addy would’ve been astonished at the display of energy if she hadn’t been too busy trying to drag together the severed halves of her heart. “You pushed Jax into a huffy walk off! He completely lost it! If that’s not true love, what is it?”
The chimes at the door jingled again and a breeze tugged at Addy’s curls. It smelled like sun-warmed stones. She couldn’t dredge up any interest.
Then Bianca said in frozen tones, “Well my goodness. Willa Zinc. To what do we owe the pleasure?”
Surprise filtered dully through the pain. Addy turned without curiosity and found Willa standing just inside the gallery door, ball cap pulled low, fingers tucked in the pockets of her dirty jeans like she was reminding herself not to touch anything. Or like the place might be contagious. Something about the way she stood there, so straight and tense, made Addy wonder if she was holding her breath.
“Hey, Addison,” Willa said. “You still want to get those turkeys out from under your porch?”
“My porch,” Bianca said, smiling tightly.
Willa ignored that. Addy just blinked at her, unable to comprehend. How could turkeys possibly matter at a time like this? She’d just been forced to choose between the town and her family. She’d made her choice and hadn’t cried about it. But then Jax had insisted she choose between the family and him. She’d chosen wrong. She might just cry about that. As soon as she could remember how.
“Addison?” Willa prompted. “The turkeys?”
“Right.” Addy pushed to her feet, mildly surprised to find she could. Act normal, she reminded herself. That’s how a new normal always started. You pretended it existed. Then one day, it did. Then you moved again and started over but thinking about that was no way to survive today. “The turkeys. Thanks for getting back to me.”
“It would’ve been easier if you ever answered your phone.”
“Yeah.” Addy headed for the door. “That’s been a problem lately.” A semi-hysterical laugh bubbled up her throat. Her phone didn’t come close to the top of her list of problems these days. “Do you have time right now?”
Willa didn’t look away, her eyes dark and penetrating. “That’s why I’m here.”
“Let’s go.”
“I’ll drive,” Willa said and pointed toward her truck parked at the curb outside the bait and tackle. Addy followed her. Soren and the usual assortment of fisherfolk and liars were leaning on the counter inside the bait and tackle. Nan was there, too, probably getting quotes for the article she was undoubtedly writing. (Porn on Main Street! Shock and Scandal!) Addy knew she should smile at them, give them a little finger wave, something. Because that would be normal, and how she acted now would set the tone for the new normal, whatever it turned out to be.
She couldn’t quite manage it, though. Not with her heart still aching like an abscessed tooth. The best she could manage was a glance on her way by. Cold stares greeted her. Nobody lifted so much as a coffee cup her way. An ominous weight settled on the back of her neck.
“Thanks for tracking me down, Willa.” She stood in the shadow of Soren’s enormous plaster fish and tried to smile while Willa unlocked her truck. “My phone’s been on the fritz.”
“Lucky you.” Willa slid into the cab and reached across the bench seat to unlock Addy’s door. Before she could get in, the scent of black coffee and cigarettes enveloped her, which could only mean one thing. She closed her eyes briefly then turned to find Jax’s grandmother standing on the curb, gazing at her with his eyes. She didn’t flinch, but it was a near thing.
“Addison,” Nan said. “Do you have a minute?”
“Sure, Nan.” She pasted on a smile. “What can I do for you?”
“You can tell me what the hell’s going on in that twisty little head of my daughter-in-law’s.”
Willa sighed and got back out of the truck. Leaned her elbows on the hood and settled in to wait. To listen, evidently. Addy produced a quizzical smile for Nan and a helpless shrug.
“She doesn’t exactly confide in me, Nan. You know her as well as I do. What do you think she’s up to?”
“If I knew, why would I be asking you?”
“You’ve got me there.”
Nan rummaged in her bag, never taking her eyes off Addy’s. She found her cigarettes, plucked one out, and tapped it thoughtfully on her little paw of a hand. “I don’t believe you.”
Addy gave her innocent eyes. “Don’t believe me about what?”
“That you have no idea what Bianca’s up to.” She flicked a fat silver lighter, leaned into the flame and puffed until her cigarette glowed dangerously. “You know exactly what she’s doing.”
“I do?”
“You can’t lie for shit, Addy. I’ve always liked that about you. Don’t start now.”
Addy felt herself trying to smile, automatically trying to distract and deflect. She let the smile die before it was born and lifted her shoulders instead. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Nan.”
“How about the truth?” Nan exhaled a lungful of tar and nicotine, and squinted at Addy through the smoke. “Are you planning to put your and Diego’s sex life on display for Devil Days?”
“Is that what people think?” A brutal pulse of hatred seized Addy by the throat. Damn Diego. Hadn’t he cost her enough already? Him and those stupid paintings? “That Diego painted the two of us having sex?”
“Some do.” She shrugged. “But that’s hardly the point. It doesn’t matter who he painted. It’s the what that’s concerning people.” She aimed her cigarette toward Addy’s chest. “We’re talking about you putting sexual content on Main Street during the biggest tourist event of the year. A traditionally family-friendly tourist event, mind you. The gallery is on the same block as the doughnut shop, for Christ’s sake. The bait and tackle is across the street. Any father and son wandering in to charter a boat, any mother and daughter looking to rent a couple fishing poles, and any grandpa looking to buy his grandbaby a doughnut? They’d have to walk right by your big ass window display full of, well, ass.”
Nan paused significantly, her penciled-on brows lifted in a silent well? Addy just stared back, anger pulsing dangerously at the base of her skull. She knew Nan had a point. She knew Jax had one, too. Bianca had a point of her own, come to that. But Addison was too raw right now to think about what everybody else wanted from her. Too raw to deal with their needs, their demands or their reactions to Addy’s own pain. But everybody had an opinion, didn’t they? They always did.
To Bianca, those paintings were art, and showing them would avenge her lost boy’s death. To
Jax, they were pain and not showing them was the only way Addy could prove herself worthy of his love. To Nan and the rest of the town they were smut, the sort of thing decent people kept private. The intimate details of her marriage had been keeping the town in the black for years, of course, but those were only the pretty bits. The ugly, mean, humiliating bits? Evidently, she was meant to keep those to herself. To deal with her pain all alone.
Which was, she realized suddenly, exactly the point she’d been missing. This was her pain. Her humiliation. Her history. Jax had said it himself. This whole mess belonged to her. She’d earned it with blood and tears, and it was hers to do with as she pleased. Nobody else’s opinion mattered unless she wanted it to.
Gerte emerged unexpectedly from the bait and tackle, and Addy realized that she was about to be treated to another big swallow of public opinion, whether she wanted it or not. Soren trudged onto the sidewalk behind Gerte, coffee mug in hand, followed by a half-dozen of his friends. Old guys. Fishermen. Retirees. They would’ve been in there since the scene in the Wooden Spoon, gossiping like middle schoolers. Matty the Arsonist. Porn on Main Street. Bianca the bitch queen. Whipping themselves into a frenzy of outrage over Addy’s role in all of it until they’d convinced themselves that somebody needed a lynching.
And here was Addy, right on the sidewalk waiting. How convenient.
“May we have a word?” Gerte asked. Her tone was all civility, but Addy wasn’t fooled. She knew a mob when she saw one. Fury and fear twined together in her stomach but she folded her arms and smiled.
“Sure.”
“I’m glad I spotted you out here,” Gerte said with grave concern but her eyes were full of avid anticipation. “You should know the city council has called an emergency meeting for this evening.”
Bianca had been right, Addy realized abruptly. Gerte was enjoying this. She was loving it. And suddenly the agony inside her erupted into rage. It just exploded in a single, cleansing nuclear blast, filling her brain with a stark field of spotless white.
“Is that so?” she said softly, fury dancing inside her. “What seems to be the problem?”
“What’s the problem?” Gerte widened her eyes. “You have the gall to display porn on Main Street, then you want to know what the problem is?”
Addy’s jaw clenched. “You have an awfully strong opinion about paintings you’ve never seen, Gerte.”
“Like I need to see them.” Gerte flicked this away. “I don’t know what kind of nastiness Diego painted the two of you getting up to. Lord knows I’d rather not.”
Well, that makes two of us, Addy thought.
“What I do know is that anybody who’d call it art and sell tickets to the show is nothing but a common tramp.” Her round cheeks pinked with a hectic excitement and her chest inflated importantly. “And I, for one, would rather go bankrupt than sell a single slice of pie to the kind of people who’d come see it. And I’m quite certain I speak for us all when I say that.”
Addy opened her mouth to, well, she didn’t actually know what. Breathe fire like a dragon and reduce Gerte to a pile of smoking ashes? It seemed possible. Likely, even, given the way anger was banging in her head.
But Willa said, “Hey, at least she’s doing something.”
“What?” Gerte drew back, a quick frown pinching her fine brows.
“We need tourists, and Addy’s delivering them,” Willa said reasonably. “Which is more than I can say for anybody else around here.”
Addy blinked at Willa, shocked that she — that anybody — would wade in to defend her on this.
“I don’t see how hanging filth in the shop windows does anything worthwhile for this town,” Gerte said. She turned that cold gaze back to Addy. “But you can’t be expected to understand that. You’re a Davis, after all. Arson is just boys being boys to you, and to hell with anybody who even tries to object.” Her eyes narrowed. “The sheriff’s been invited to the council meeting tonight, by the way. You can bet she’ll be asked to have a good look at your precious Matty’s whereabouts on Saturday night.”
“I see.” Addy folded her arms and met Gerte’s gaze. Held it. Forced herself to recognize what she saw there. The vicious thrill of cutting loose with some real venom. The relief of finally having an excuse, however flimsy, to say every nasty thing civil society normally forbade. The pleasure of being perfectly, cruelly, horribly honest.
Her anger shifted abruptly from hot to cold and she bared her teeth in a fierce smile. Gerte wanted honest? She could do that.
“I see,” she said again. “And I’m sorry. Very sorry.”
“You should be,” Gerte murmured, flushed with triumph.
“See there,” Soren said to Gerte. He shambled forward, laid a hand on Gerte’s plump shoulder. “I told you to calm down. Addy’s good people. I knew she’d see reason.”
“Oh, I’m not apologizing. Not about the paintings, and not about Matty. I make it a habit not to say I’m sorry unless I am,” Addy said sweetly. “But I am sorry that I won’t make that emergency council meeting tonight. Gosh, it sounds like fun. Unfortunately I have a tremendous lot of slutting around to do today, and it’s just so hard to fit everything in. Rest assured, however, that I’ve heard your concerns. I’ve heard them and I want to thank you all — but you, especially, Gerte — for your honesty. In return, I’m going to be just as honest with you as you’ve been with me.”
She paused to relish the growing alarm in their unfriendly faces. “I’m showing Diego’s paintings.” An ugly smile spread over her face and she didn’t try to stop it. She just aimed it straight at Gerte, who grimaced like Addy had slid a plateful of burning garbage under her nose. “Oh, yeah, the showing is on. Every last allegedly pornographic brush stroke will be in a frame and on the wall for Devil Days.” Her smile was all teeth now, nearly a snarl. It felt fantastic. “And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”
Gerte simply stared, open-mouthed and flushed. Soren heaved a deep sigh. The fisherfolk grumbled ominously, and Willa might’ve chuckled. Nan, however, narrowed her eyes and aimed that cigarette at Addy once more.
“Don’t do anything you’re going to regret, Addison.”
Addy yanked open the door of Willa’s truck. “I regret a lot of things,” she told Nan, her teeth bared in a vicious smile. “What’s one more?”
Chapter 30
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, Jax warily considered the steps of Davis Place’s front porch and prayed like hell that Willa had gotten the turkey situation under control. Not that he didn’t deserve to be humiliated by a pack of rogue turkeys. He deserved worse. He’d been a fool earlier, walking out of the gallery that way. Walking out on Addison.
Shame pooled in his gut, black and oily, and he dragged a hand down his face. It had taken nearly six hours of punishing physical activity — his hoses had never been cleaner and he’d out-lifted even Graham Graves in the station’s weight room — but he’d finally achieved the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that occupied every inch of his body and soul. The kind that left no room for emotion. The kind that allowed him to finally see with brutal clarity what he’d done.
He’d sworn that his love was unconditional, then he’d put a big old condition on it. And when Addison hadn’t immediately met it, he’d walked out on her.
He’d been hard in the grip of love-induced insanity, yes, but it was no excuse. Abandonment was her nuclear button and he’d punched it. He’d jumped on it with both stupid feet. He was truly his mother’s son, wasn’t he? Hurting his wayward beloved as much and as efficiently as possible. Unlike Bianca, he hadn’t done it on purpose. There was that grim bit of comfort but it would hardly matter from Addy’s point of view, now would it?
He’d raced home, praying the entire way that it wasn’t as bad as he thought it was. That it was fixable. That there was something he could do or say, some penance he could perform that could erase the hurt he’d caused, undo the damage he’d done. But Addison wasn’t at home. Neither were her things. Every last trac
e of her — from her shampoo to her suitcase — had vanished.
She’d left him.
It was a stunning slap, the pain dizzying and savage even as he understood how well he’d earned it. Holy Christ, she’d left their home.
Denial rose up like a towering wave inside him and he thought, Fuck that. He’d just bring her back.
Then again, he’d have to find her first.
It had taken a while but he’d finally tracked her here to Davis Place. To the safety net she was building his family out of her own dreams and bank account. He didn’t deserve this woman. Fear gripped his nape with cold fingers as that realization sank in. That kind of heart? That kind of straight-up loyalty, no-holds-barred generosity? He was unworthy. Which was as stupid and old-fashioned a conviction as it was unquestionably true.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t live without her, so what the hell. Time to throw all the cards on the table.
He sucked in a breath and marched up Davis Place’s precarious front steps. He knocked on that massive door and stood back, uncomfortably aware of his pulse thudding in his ears.
He’d knocked twice more before the door finally rattled, then there she was, beautifully rumpled, disconcertingly pale. She studied him with green, suspicious eyes. Jax’s heart tumbled like a puppy inside his rib cage and he leaned into the door frame.
“Hey, Addy.” He gave her what he hoped was a charming smile.
She didn’t smile back. “Jax. What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I was in the neighborhood, feeling like a jackass. Thought I’d stop by to see if you thought the same and wanted to discuss it.”
She blinked, clearly startled by his decision to go with flat-out honesty. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. Evidently, she was going with honesty as well. Relief warred with worry inside him. At least she hadn’t slammed the door in his face.
