by Lexi Eddings
“No, I didn’t mean that. Of course they like you. They love you or they wouldn’t be trying to fix you up with Sweazy.” Though if the Walkers knew Skyler as well as Michael did, they’d stop pushing their darling daughter toward him in a skinny minute. “It’s just that parents are people and people have favorites. God knows my folks do, but even so, I can’t believe they’d ever want to choose between their kids. Neither would yours.”
“I guess,” she said with a sigh. “Everyone loved Jessica, you know. She was so easy to love because she did everything right and made it look effortless. You’d think I would have been jealous of her, but it wasn’t like that. We were more than sisters. We were best friends from birth. Jess was the keeper of all my secrets.”
Michael would bet any amount of money that Heather didn’t know all of Jessica’s. Beginning to end, that horrible night happened because of a secret that would rock the town.
“Maybe it was because we were twins, but even though we weren’t identical, it was like we were two sides of the same coin,” Heather said softly. “When she died, part of me went with her.”
Mike wondered how he’d feel if he lost one of his sisters. He had no doubt he’d grieve for Lacy. She’d been his partner in crime and, since he was older than her, she sort of hero-worshiped him when they were very little. No guy can resist that. But if something happened to Crystal . . . well, he and she were so different, it was almost as if they shared no DNA at all. His older sister had merely tolerated him. He was an annoyance to be borne, and swatted aside when their parents weren’t looking.
Still, would he grieve for the relationship they never had?
“At the funeral, I felt like an outsider,” Heather went on. “I had to be strong, for Mom and Dad, you see, so I couldn’t let myself feel anything. It was all so surreal. So . . . so . . .”
“Obscene,” he suggested. “Death is the last obscenity.”
“Yes.” She shot him an amazed look. “That’s deep.”
“Surprised?”
“Well, yeah. Sorry.”
“It’s OK. I get that a lot. One good thing about being underestimated is that you get to surprise people often.”
“I don’t underestimate you. I just expected you to be different, that’s all.” Heather laid her head back down on his shoulder. “Of all the people in the world for me to trust with this stuff, I never thought it would be you.”
She trusts me. Dang, that feels good! Now, how do I not blow it?
Her breathing slowed. She’d fallen asleep for real this time. He closed his eyes and imagined what it would be like to lie beside her every night. To listen to the soft sounds of her breathing, to know he could reach out and touch her whenever he wanted . . .
Before he realized it, he was skimming the surface of sleep, too. Then between one breath and the next, he dived headlong into blackness with her.
* * *
One of the red Fiesta’s headlights was still burning, sending a shaft of light through the dark water of Lake Jewel. A largemouth bass swam by to inspect the sudden illumination and then darted back into the shadows.
The passenger-side window was down, so water gushed into the interior. It was cold. Soul-sucking, body-numbing, ball-freezing cold.
Just before it closed over her head, Jessica screamed.
Michael jerked awake, sucking in a quick lungful of air. He’d been holding his breath in his sleep. Heart pounding, he forced himself to stay still, willing it to slow to a normal rhythm.
It took him a minute to realize where he was. Jessica Walker’s car was no longer at the bottom of Lake Jewel. They’d pulled it out the next morning. Jess had been pulled out the night before, but it was too late. She was dead.
And now, years later, here he was, all tangled up with her sister on an old leather couch.
Michael used to have that dream, or some sick variation of it, at least once a week. It hadn’t troubled him in months. Guess he should have expected it to return, what with being back in Coldwater and all.
He checked his watch and stifled a curse. It was past midnight. According to plan, he should already be airborne and on his way back to New York for that breakfast meeting.
He’d hoped to be able to check in with Jadis and run through the numbers once more before sitting down with the investors. Now he’d have to wing it. Even if he was roaring out of town this instant, he might still be late for the meeting.
Despite the way he’d jerked awake, Heather slept on.
She must be exhausted.
As gently as he could, he moved Heather and rose from the couch. She shifted onto her other side but didn’t wake. Michael was pretty good at reading other people, but he had trouble identifying emotions when they were his own. Something he guessed was tenderness made his chest heat. He covered her with an afghan and slipped out of the apartment. Then he took the stairs two at a time, climbed onto his motorcycle, and kicked it into high gear for Tulsa with no thought of speed limits at all.
Over the whine of the bike, the road surface seemed to be saying in a repetitive stream “She trusts you, trusts you.”
Mike hoped Heather never learned anything that made her rethink that trust.
Chapter 11
I always thought money would solve everything.
Of course, that was before I had money.
—Michael Evans, who still has trouble
with the concept of “can’t”
“I’m a little behind schedule,” Mike said to his private pilot as he supervised the crew, who loaded the Harley into the Cessna Citation that had been specially reconfigured to accommodate it. The crew was being paid to treat the hog like gold and they did. “Can you still get me back to the Big Apple in time for my seven a.m. meeting, Captain?”
“Yes, sir. We got lucky in that respect. The weather service reports winds aloft that are favorable at the altitude we’ll be flying. It’ll be a heck of a tailwind,” the pilot said. “But I can’t say the same for making the return trip to Oklahoma on the original schedule.”
“Why not?”
“I won’t be eligible to fly then. I’ll have timed out before we finish the flight plan. Per your request, I’ve been on the clock since 21:30. According to regs, I can only be on duty for fourteen hours without rest,” the pilot explained. “If we had Garcia with us, it would be different.”
Michael’s company copilot was out on maternity leave, and he hadn’t thought to hire a temporary replacement. Until his mother’s illness, he hadn’t taken any trips that didn’t involve an overnight layover. This requested turn and burn was out of the ordinary, but he was paying handsomely to have a flight crew at his beck and call. He assumed the timing of his travel would always be his decision.
“That’s unacceptable,” Michael said.
“Those are the rules, sir.”
“Why didn’t you tell me when I first requested this trip?”
“Sir, if we’d been wheels up by 22:00, we’d have been in NYC long enough to rest the crew. I could’ve filed a new flight plan for the return trip. But starting this late . . .” He let the sentence dangle unfinished. “Once we get back to New York, I can see about finding a replacement pilot for you.”
“That won’t do.” Mike wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but he was a white-knuckle flyer. He’d hired Captain Russo because he was retired Air Force. If the military trusted him with a fighter jet, Michael figured he could trust him, too. The idea of a rent-a-pilot made his gut churn.
“If you’re willing to wait for the required rest period, I can have you back in Tulsa by early Friday,” the captain said. “Will that be acceptable or do you wish to scrub the flight tonight?”
Mike rubbed his forehead. If Heather had been at choir, he might have been able to talk to her during the break Mr. Mariano insisted upon for coffee and cookies. Then he could have sneaked out a little early. He certainly could have left soon after the last chord sounded. If he hadn’t decided to take her music to her before he left town . .
. If he hadn’t taken the time to make the omelet from heaven . . . If he hadn’t fallen asleep with the girl of his dreams . . .
So he could make the investor meeting or his date with Heather, but not both.
Well, this is a no-brainer.
Of course he couldn’t stand up Heather. A guy only got so many shots with a girl like her. She’d confided in him. She’d let him hold her someplace besides a dance floor. She trusted him.
Besides, if you want to get technical about it, we freaking slept together!
He couldn’t let her down.
But then he remembered the other people he couldn’t let down. When Michael first started making serious money with MoreCommas, he’d thought that meant more freedom. Actually, the greenbacks came with more responsibilities. He had employees—hundreds of them. And they all expected him to make decisions that would grow the company. His people counted on him to ensure that their paychecks and health insurance and 401(k) plans and vacation days and maternity leave, and yada, yada, yada would continue without interruption.
The investor group’s money would enable MoreCommas to expand. His hundreds of employees would balloon to thousands, maybe tens of thousands. The company would thrive until it was ripe for an IPO. Then everybody associated with the startup—all those brainiacs who’d worked beside him for beer and the promise of stock options in the beginning, and later for princely salaries and benefit packages so Google wouldn’t poach them away—would win the Wall Street lottery.
Big time.
Michael had worked hard, but he’d be first to admit he’d also been blessed. When his company went public, he’d be paying it forward. Lots of families’ lives would change because of him.
Then maybe he’d tell his dad what he’d done and see if it made any difference.
But the main issue now was the old Star Trek dilemma—the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few.
Or the one.
It’s hard to argue with Spock. He made a low growl in the back of his throat and climbed into the Cessna. “Get this bird in the air.”
* * *
A shaft of sunlight poured into Heather’s little living room and teased her eyelids open. She stretched, mildly disappointed to discover she was alone. In her dreams, she’d been cuddled up with Michael Evans all night.
It had felt so right.
As Glenda at work might say, “Who’d a thunk it?”
Being with Michael was like standing at the edge of a limestone cliff—wildly exciting, and the view was terrific, but it could be dangerous all the same. Then last night she’d seen a different side of the town’s bad boy, a side that made omelets and listened to her troubles without needing to fix them for her.
It showed a measure of respect she never expected from someone who released goats into a library. What had changed him?
But this was not a day for such questions. It was her first day off in a couple of weeks, and Heather intended to enjoy it thoroughly. She fixed herself a leisurely cup of coffee and a steaming bowl of oatmeal with raisins and cinnamon while she listened to the local morning show on the radio.
“The Rotary Club is building a corn maze on the edge of Lake Jewel just in time for Halloween in a few weeks,” the announcer said in his pleasant drawl. “It’ll be open October twenty-fifth to the thirty-first from sundown to ten each night. Admission is two canned goods apiece, which will be donated to the good folk at the Coldwater Cove food bank. You can get in for just one can if it’s some kind of potted meat.”
Heather snorted. “Bet half of what’s donated will be pork brains in gravy,” she said to the radio as if he could hear her.
For some inexplicable reason, the unusual dish was considered a local delicacy. Even the convenience store out on the highway stocked cans of Mama Hopper’s Pork Brains in Milk Gravy on the shelves at all times.
Heather had never been able to bring herself to try it.
“Guess I’ve never been that hungry, thank God.” She switched off the radio and fed her goldfish, whom she pointedly refused to name. After losing Errol Finn, she didn’t have the heart to name his replacement. No point in naming something you might have to flush down the toilet someday, but she did enjoy watching him make tight circles in the bowl and gobble up the fish food floating on the surface.
“Life is good, eh, Fish?”
He answered her with a bubble.
She took her lazy time about getting dressed. Her day was almost a blank slate. First, she was lunching with Lacy and her mom and Jake’s sister, Laura, so they could work on plans for the wedding together. Then she’d have most of the afternoon to laze around and get ready for her ride with Michael at five.
Standing before her long mirror, she imagined what she’d look like tricked out in full biker leather gear. She pictured herself with a bandana corralling her hair, a ring in her nose, and a wicked-looking tat on her upper arm.
Heather giggled at her reflection. “I so don’t have the attitude for a biker chick.”
Instead, she pulled on worn jeans, enjoying the feel of old denim on her thighs, and topped it with what she called her Matrix sweater. It wasn’t like the slick, cool stuff the character Trinity wore in the movies. It was more like Trinity’s everyday kick-arounds on the Nebuchadnezzar. The sweater was a little frayed at the edges, but far too comfortable to toss out. She toed on her oldest pair of loafers, gave her hair a quick brushing, and called it good.
Then she practically skipped down the iron stairs before climbing into the Taurus and heading over to Mrs. Evans’s house to meet up with Lacy. Mr. Evans was out in his front yard, puttering around with something, when Heather pulled up. A handful of fallen leaves scuttled across the driveway in front of her.
“Hey, Mr. Evans, how are you doing this fine fall day?”
“I’d be better if I could get rid of these dang squirrels,” he said grumpily, and bent over to monkey with something on the side of his house near the foundation. His faithful little Yorkie, Fergus, was nosing about in the mums nearby.
Lacy had told Heather about her father’s fixation with what she called “The War of Squirrel Insurgency.” The Evanses’ yard didn’t have more fluffy-tailed rats than anyone else in town, but Mr. Evans was convinced the ones in his oak trees held a special grudge against him. He claimed they chewed off small branches and littered his lawn with them out of pure spite. To protect himself against a possible barrage of acorns that might rain down at any minute, he always wore a football helmet while he mowed.
Paranoia much?
“Shirley doesn’t want me to use poison to get rid of them,” Mr. Evans explained. “Deputy Scott has warned me against using the shotgun in town anymore. And my homemade squirrel repellent. . . well, let’s just say it repelled more than squirrels.”
The whole town had heard about Mr. Evans’s experiment gone awry. His pest-repellent concoction had smelled like moldy tacos in an outhouse. The odor lingered in the Evanses’ kitchen, where it was created, and front yard, where it was applied without the desired effect, for weeks. Lacy’s mother had moved to her daughter Crystal’s house until the stink cleared. Heather covered her mouth so Mr. Evans wouldn’t catch her smirking over the memory. Or worse, laughing aloud.
Instead, she peered down at the device he’d plugged into an exterior electric socket. “Pests Be Gone” was plastered across the metal side of something that looked a little like an old popcorn popper, minus the oil and kernels.
“What is that?”
“That,” he said proudly, “is the latest development in vermin eradication. I got it off the Internet.”
“What does it do?”
“It fights squirrels with sound waves.” He flipped a switch and stood up straight, beaming down at the device like a father surveying his newborn for the first time.
From the corner of her eye, Heather saw Fergus give a startled shake and begin chasing his tail in frantic circles.
“It’s all very scientific.” Mr. Evans grinned. “A
nd it should drive all those furry devils over to Mayhew’s yard.”
Alfred Mayhew was a notorious fussbudget, but he’d lived next to the Evans family since Lacy and Michael were kids. Crystal too, though Heather always had a hard time remembering her as a child.
She was sort of born old.
Heather cocked her head, listening. “I don’t hear anything.”
“That’s the beauty of it,” Mr. Evans said. “The sound waves are emitted at a frequency beyond human range. Only the critters can hear it.”
At that moment, Fergus stopped circling and plopped his little Yorkie bottom on the ground. Then he pointed his nose at the sky and howled like a miniature wolf. Up and down the street, all the dogs in the neighborhood joined the mournful chorus. Even Mr. Mayhew’s cat, who’d been stalking crickets in the grass, leaped two feet into the air and yowled wildly. Then he made a beeline for Mayhew’s slightly propped open garage door, trying to get away from the Pests Be Gone sound waves. Songbirds roosting in Mr. Evans’s oak trees took wing, like bats shooting out of a cave at dusk.
The only animals that didn’t seem adversely affected by Pests Be Gone were the squirrels. A trio of them chattered down at Heather and Mr. Evans from the safety of a high branch. Their furry little heads bobbed in time with a pulsing rhythm Heather couldn’t hear.
“Like headbangers at a rock concert,” Heather said in disbelief.
“The darn things like it!” Mr. Evans quickly bent over and turned off the device. Fergus stopped howling, and Mr. Mayhew’s cat peered out from under the garage door, trying to make sure the coast was truly clear. A brisk wind ruffled by, and a hail of acorns rained down from the oak tree. When Heather looked up, the squirrels were nowhere to be seen.
“Did you see that? Those dirty sons of bi—biscuits,” Mr. Evans amended with a guilty glance in Heather’s direction. “They just threw acorns at me.”
“Surely not.” Even as she said it, Heather was doubtful. The timing was too precise. At the risk of jumping onto the crazy train, she was beginning to be on Mr. Evans’s side. “It could have been the wind.”
