by Alison Kent
“If he hurt your family, he wasn’t a good friend,” she said when he drifted off, but his admission pushed her further. “Were you suspicious of Will? When you took him on? You said he was a new hire. Did he get the prying eye of your microscope, too?” She let that sink in, added, “Did I?”
He laughed, breaking the tension binding the moment. “You came to me with money. You get a pass. And Will was recommended to me by a friend, and yeah. I see the hypocrisy. Guilty as charged.”
“That’s how this works. Will, Mitch, you. A sort of six degrees of professional separation.” She followed the direction of his gaze, watched Will take a scraper of some kind to the frame of the shutter he’d brought down with him. “And sometimes the professional becomes personal.”
“Like with you and Luna,” he said. “Or maybe even Luna and Will.”
“Yes,” she came back with, though she’d wanted him to say you and me, me and you. She just wished she knew why. But since he wasn’t here for that any more than she was, she got back to business. “Mitch did mention something I’ve been thinking about. Especially since Carolyn told me the police have had to deal with vagrants. I need to see about an alarm system.”
“An alarm system.” He repeated her words, and when he looked back to her he was frowning, but this time with concern. “You mean besides the dog and the knife?”
She glanced away, remembering the night she’d come downstairs with said dog and said knife to find Ten shining a light at her shutters. His being there was one thing. Her reaction to him as they’d talked another. She’d been having trouble with that part ever since. She was having trouble with it now. And no matter how many times she told herself to stay focused on why he was here, her mind rebelled.
He was standing too close, as close as he’d been when she’d had only moonlight to show her the way. Today she had blue skies and the dew in the grass and Ten within touching distance. Breathing deeply to settle her nerves, she thought it might not be vagrants she needed an alarm to protect herself from, and she wasn’t sure how to fit that realization into her plans or her life.
“I can take care of myself,” she finally said. “But I’d prefer law enforcement take care of the bad guys.”
“Then how about I hook you up with a guy I know who sells security systems. He does commercial installations, but you’re running a business, so that’s close enough.”
“Sounds good.” Though she’d check his guy’s references, as she’d checked Ten’s. Not that she’d done as thorough a job as she should have, making up her mind to hire him when he’d stopped at midnight to check on her shutters. “See? The six degrees of professional separation at work.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, holding up both hands as he laughed. “I give.”
“Don’t give yet. I want to mine your local connections for one more thing.”
“You keep mining, I’m going to have to start charging.”
“Funny. I want to put in a vegetable garden. And I need to do it ASAP or it’s going to be too late. Who do you know who could help me with that?”
His expression clouded over again. “You want someone to do all the work? Or just advise you?”
“I want someone to do the initial work, but I should be able to take it from there, watering, feeding, whatever else needs to be done. I want fresh tomatoes and cucumbers and such for my salads, and then maybe have someone can or freeze what I can’t use now for casseroles later in the year.”
“You hire Dolly, she can take care of that for you.”
“The canning, or the whole shebang?”
“The canning. But I do know someone who should be able to help with the rest.” He dropped his gaze to the ground, shoved his hands to his hips, and scuffed the toe of his boot over the driveway’s gravel. “I’ll just have to look her up. We haven’t talked in a while.”
Why did she get the feeling he wasn’t thrilled at the thought of doing so? “Someone you know well?”
“My sister. Indiana.”
The one who’d been a jock. He’d mentioned her before. But before Kaylie could ask any of the questions bubbling to the surface, Will’s shout of “Ten!” had both of them turning his direction. They made their way back to the house. Will had laid the shutter across two sawhorses and was still poking and picking at the frame.
Without saying a word, Ten joined him. Kaylie stood back, her hands in her pockets as she watched them, both men frowning, Will pointing to another section of the wood and Ten using the tip of his pocketknife to peel back a split section, jumping back when a stream of winged insects rose from the exit he’d made.
Kaylie lifted her gaze as they formed a cloud, then looked back at the two men. “Don’t tell me. Termites.”
“Yep,” he said, drawing out the one word until it sounded like two.
“Why wasn’t this discovered during the home inspection?”
“I’m going to guess whoever did it didn’t bring a tall enough ladder, and only checked the shutters he could reach.”
“That sounds highly unethical.” Not to mention like a possible construction delay should the infestation be widespread.
“Could be whoever you hired wasn’t qualified to look for insect damage. A home inspection’s pretty noninvasive. A visual going-over wouldn’t necessarily have turned up these little buggers. Will had to pull the shutter and dig.”
“Guess I need to get an exterminator in here to take care of this.”
“Good thing I know someone,” Ten said, jamming his knife point down in the wood.
All Kaylie could do was groan.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The dream came that night, creeping in as if sensing Kaylie had let down her guard. Magoo belly-crawled closer, whimpering and wary, the blade of the bowie knife glinting in the light from the moon. It was heavy in her hand, pinning her knuckles and wrist to the floor. The hardwood was cold to her fingers, the bare window damp with the chill of the mid-March air.
On the other floor she was seeing, blood pooled around the body lying there, spreading like spilled milk in slow motion, reaching for the legs of the chair where she sat curled into the tightest ball she could manage. Her nightgown was soft and worn where she pulled it over her knees to her feet, a faded Strawberry Shortcake smiling up at her and telling her to be brave.
She nodded quickly, swiping at her eyes and trying not to look down to where the other face seemed to be smiling as well, looking at her, waiting for her to be brave and use the knife, too. She hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. She’d only wanted some soup, and had tried to open the can. That was all. She hadn’t meant to hurt anyone else. She missed her daddy so much.
She curled her toes because of the blood, wiggling them to shake off the spatter. But the droplets stayed, clinging, too thick and heavy to drip from her skin to the vinyl chair seat. The liquid was warm, yet still she shivered, and when it wouldn’t go away, she screamed.
There was a man, then loud footsteps racing, louder voices yelling, the loudest sirens of all screeching like she did when her mother pulled a brush too hard through her hair.
Sweating, she jerked up, Magoo’s head on her knee, his dark eyes wide with worry, the whites crazy bright. She pulled in a deep breath, shaking, catching back a sob as she leaned forward to bury her face against her dog’s. He licked her arm where she’d wrapped it around his neck, licked it again as if letting her know everything was going to be okay.
“Kaylie? Are you there? Kaylie?”
That voice. It sounded like Ten’s. Why was she hearing Ten? And then she realized she was holding her phone, the display lighting up the room. “Ten?” she asked, as she brought the device to her ear. “Is that you?”
“Yes. Crap. Are you okay? It sounds like you’re crying. And it’s the middle of the night.”
“I had a bad dream. I don’t know why I called you. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
“Do you need me to come over?”
“No. I’m fine. I’ll let you…” She
started to hang up but stopped herself. She didn’t want to be alone, not yet. And Magoo, as much as she loved him, couldn’t say the words she needed, even if she didn’t know what they were. “It’s a nightmare I’ve had most of my life.” She took a deep breath, rubbed at her forehead. Magoo crawled closer to rest his chin in her lap. “After I moved to Austin, I used to call May. I didn’t even have to say anything. She would just pick up the phone and start talking.”
She heard him blow out a heavy breath. Then he asked, “What did she say?”
“I don’t even know. She just talked. Her voice was enough, I guess.” She gave a little laugh. “I think she talked about recipes. Changes she’d made to ones she’d never been happy with. New ones she’d tried. What the children in the house thought about them.”
“How long after you left did the Wises continue to take in kids?”
She leaned her forehead against Magoo’s, kissing him to let him know she was fine. He rolled onto his back, his tongue lolling as he panted his joy and waited for her to rub his belly. “About five years, I think. I know by the time I graduated from UT May and Winton were the only two in the house. Winton had a heart attack not long after.”
“That was when May sold to Bob Coleman?”
She nodded, forgetting for a minute that Ten wasn’t in the room with her. “Yeah. She went to live with her sister in Dallas.”
“Did you stay in touch?”
“She was good about it. I was terrible because it always hurt so much after seeing her.” And then, without understanding why Ten made it so easy for her to open up, or why with him she felt safe doing so, she told him something she’d never told another living soul. “I felt abandoned when I left Hope Springs. It was stupid. I was in school and lots of my classmates were on their own. And it wasn’t like the Wises had kicked me out…”
“It was your home. From what you’ve said, the only one you’d ever really had. What you felt is pretty normal, I’d think.”
“Thank you, but I still feel terribly selfish. I want to apologize to them for even thinking it,” she said, tears welling again as she remembered May so often telling her, “Don’t look to where you’ve come from. Look to where you’re going.”
“Did you ever tell them you felt that way?”
“No.”
“Maybe you should have. Not placed blame, but explained. Been honest.”
She had been honest. At least in her actions. Staying away. Never being the one to touch base except when she needed something. She buried her face in her free hand. “I’m a horrible person.”
“Don’t say that.”
“A not-horrible person would’ve come back to visit.” She pulled in a shaky breath. “I was too caught up in what I was feeling to realize they weren’t the ones to abandon me. I’d abandoned them.”
“Kaylie—”
“It’s true. I did. I walked out of this house and never looked back.”
“That’s not true. If you hadn’t looked back, or thought back, you wouldn’t have been so dead set on owning the place. On returning to what you’d known here.”
“But I didn’t tell them that.” Why hadn’t she told them that? “They never knew.”
“You might be surprised what they knew.”
“How could they?”
“Because they knew you.”
She closed her eyes and tucked her chin to her chest, still unable to believe that she’d called him. And more than a little bit embarrassed that she’d spilled her insecurities as easily as she might a glass of water. “You’re a nice man, Tennessee Keller. Thank you.”
“So maybe I can count on you doubling my bonus, huh? Since I’m so nice and all?”
She grinned. A full-on pulling at her cheeks that left no room for the sadness she’d let take over the room. “We’ll have to see if you earn the first one, won’t we? Before I can think about doubling it.”
“Are you okay now? Think you can get back to sleep?”
She pulled her phone away from her face to check the time. “It’s almost four thirty. I might as well get up.”
“Malina’s opens for breakfast at five. How ’bout I buy you a waffle?”
“Mmm. Waffles. How ’bout you buy me three?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Knowing the truth of Will’s situation, Luna expected his loft to be small, one room even, with a sofa that folded into a bed and a kitchen tucked up against one wall. But it wasn’t anything like that. In fact, his apartment was almost as large as her suite of rooms in the house where she lived with her parents.
She’d often thought about moving out, living on her own. And, in a way, she did live on her own. She just did it under their roof, sharing the house’s big kitchen, but having her own apartment in a wing her father had decided to add just for her, one for which he refused to take payment.
Will had been in prison for three years. He hadn’t told her why, but she knew Tennessee Keller never hired career criminals, or those who sold or used drugs, or anyone who might present a threat to the community in which he worked. He hired men who’d made mistakes, who’d paid for what they’d done, earned and deserved a second chance.
His philosophy had been born of personal experience, that much she knew, but she’d never asked for details. Ten’s business wasn’t any of hers, and because of the tragedy in her own past, she knew more than most people should about speculation. But her refusal to gossip didn’t mean she wasn’t curious. About Ten.
And about Will. Especially his living conditions. She’d had no idea the old textile warehouse on the outskirts of Hope Springs had been converted into living quarters, though from what she could tell, Will had the entire top floor. She handed him a bottle of Tempranillo Cabernet. “I like your place.”
“Thanks.” He read the label with an appreciative look. “I had a lot nicer one before the whole prison thing.”
Nicer? Really? Though she supposed he wasn’t talking about the size. “You’ve got to have twelve hundred square feet here.”
“Fifteen, actually. Hard to tell when it’s empty of what used to be all my worldly possessions.”
“Used to be? You don’t have them anymore? Or you haven’t had a chance yet to get them out of storage?”
“This is all that’s left,” he said, waving an arm toward the stools at the kitchen bar, the big-screen TV, and the bed with the black iron headboard. It looked like it belonged in a New Orleans brothel, with its exquisitely rumpled white sheets and duvet. “My girl stored what mattered before getting rid of the rest of my stuff. Then she got rid of me.”
So he’d been in a relationship. And now he wasn’t. “You’re making me curious, you know.”
“I like curious women.”
“As much as you like keeping them in the dark?”
“I like you, Luna Meadows. You’re a bright girl.”
So he liked curious women, but he thought of her and his ex as girls. Time for a change of subject, she decided, breathing in and finding one. “Smells like Italian.”
“Spaghetti. From scratch. Well, a can of crushed tomatoes as the base of the sauce, but my sauce. And my bread. Had to work half a day for Ten, or we would’ve had my pasta, too.”
He thought of her as a girl, yet he’d gone all out to cook for her? His signals were dizzying. She didn’t know where to turn next, but followed him toward the kitchen anyway. “I’m impressed. A wolf boy who cooks.”
Using a wooden spoon, he stirred the sauce slowly. “Not as impressive as a moon girl who dresses celebrities.”
So he knew who she was. “I don’t dress celebrities. I just weave scarves.”
“A spider, collecting her flies.”
Luna wasn’t sure she liked the analogy. Being a spider. Creating traps. Lying in wait. Devious. It was too close to the truth. But she didn’t have time to respond. Will was spooning up a bite of sauce for her to taste.
She leaned forward, holding his gaze, his hand beneath the spoon to catch any drips. She took the s
poon, the flavors bursting in her mouth, Will’s fingertips grazing the skin beneath her chin as he took the spoon away.
“Good?” he asked, and she nodded, too choked by his touch to speak. “Can you grab a couple of plates from the cabinet there?” He canted his head to the left, nodding when she pointed. His dishes were heavy stoneware, and she only just stopped herself from flipping the plate to look at the manufacturer’s mark on the back.
She set the plates side by side on the bar, choosing two wineglasses from another shelf as Will strained the spaghetti and dished it onto the plates. He spooned sauce onto both and then retrieved the bread from the oven. Luna found forks and napkins and a corkscrew for the wine. Will did the honors, handing her the first glass. Luna had just taken a sip when he spoke.
“Did you decide what to do?”
The way he came out of nowhere with things amused her. “About?”
“Your two friends who are looking for each other.”
She didn’t want to answer. She didn’t know why except for some reason he made her feel that whatever she decided to do would be the wrong thing. She reached for her fork, twirled it through the spaghetti, but stopped with it halfway to her mouth when he started shaking his head.
“You did, didn’t you? You told them.”
“I told one of them.”
“Which one? Father or child?”
That part he didn’t need to know. “The one I’ve known the longest, that I’m closest to.”
“Why? Wouldn’t that be the harder friendship to lose?”
“I don’t want to lose either, but I owe this friend the truth.”
“So you don’t owe it to all your friends?”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said, thinking again of Sierra, and the whole Caffey family, but especially Angelo. He’d lost his sister when Luna had lost her best friend. It was a shared loss that should’ve brought them closer, but she was too tangled in the truth she’d kept from him to know where to cut through the knot. “Do you not believe in degrees of friendship?”
