by Bethany Kane
At least he knew now why he’d walked into that bathroom. It’d been a personal challenge. He’d needed to stand in the presence of pure temptation and walk away.
He thought of what Everett had accused him of out on the porch. He saw Katie standing in the shower, warm and supple and naked.
Do you want to get in with me?
He grimaced and sat down in the desk chair. It hadn’t been much of a personal triumph, really. It was useless to think he could resist Katie for long. He’d been blaming Everett in his mind for the worst kind of betrayal, but it was Everett who should have chosen a more worthy friend.
His fingers began to fly across the keyboard.
Eighteen
Katie felt like the only cheerful person at a funeral. She made chicken fajitas for dinner, even preparing a homemade salsa from the tomatoes, corn, peppers and fresh cilantro that she’d bought at the co-op. For all her efforts, she might as well have served Rill and Everett cardboard for dinner. Rill barely looked at her, wolfed down his meal, cleaned up his dishes and retreated once again to his bedroom. Everett was nearly as bad, but instead of not looking at her, she’d catch him examining her while she ate like he suspected she’d caught a fatal disease or something.
“Everett, why do you keep looking at me like I’m sick?” Katie hissed after Rill had left the kitchen.
“I’m not looking at you like you’re sick.”
“You are so. What’s going on? Did you and Rill have a fight this afternoon? He’s acting very strangely.” She glanced down the hallway uncertainly. “Although he is writing again. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
Everett grunted and closed the dishwasher.
“What is wrong with you?”
“My hip hurts like hell, if you must know,” Everett responded tetchily.
Katie sighed. “I’ll get you some Tylenol. I knew it was worse than you were letting on.”
If she thought she was going to get anything more that night out of her brother or Rill, she’d been wrong. Everett took his Tylenol and was soon asleep on the couch.
Rill never came out of his bedroom.
Katie stood outside Rill’s door for nearly a full minute, undecided about whether she should knock or not. She knew Rill wasn’t comfortable with the idea of them having sex. Now that Everett was here, he was only more conflicted about his desire for her. She’d read that conflict like a flashing neon sign on his face when he’d stared at her in the shower earlier.
Well, she wasn’t going to beg. She had some pride left.
Despite a restless night, she sprang out of bed the next morning at six, excited for her meeting with Monty. It was a crisp, crystal-clear fall morning. Technicolor leaves shivered in the trees and formed a thin carpet on the ground. Neither Rill nor Everett had stirred by the time she left the house at seven thirty.
She picked up the paper sack she’d placed in the passenger seat before she got out of her car and headed for the diner. Barnyard was scratching his ear with his hind leg when she approached the door. His pumping leg paused and he looked up at her with doleful brown eyes.
“Come here, boy,” she said softly. He wolfed down the leftover chicken from their dinner last night. He looked up at her soberly as she fastened a flea collar around his neck. “There you go. No more itchy fleas.”
The diner was as crowded as Katie had ever seen it and smelled of bacon and maple syrup. Even though Katie was early, Monty was already there, reading his paper and making a good dent in a stack of pancakes. He lifted one shaggy eyebrow when she slid into the booth across from him.
“You came, huh?”
“I said I would, didn’t I?” Katie replied loftily. Her attention was on the group of twenty or so people toward the rear of the diner. “Is Olive running a meeting?” Katie asked, nodding toward Olive, who was speaking now while the rest of the group listened.
“Yeah, it’s most of the folks from the co-op and the Trading Company. Two big things on their meeting agenda today—the same two big things that are always on their agenda,” Monty said. He noticed Katie’s raised eyebrows and explained further. “One—how to stop that damn gambling boat. Ol’ Marcus Stash over there”—he nodded at the weird guy with the buzz cut who worshipped Sherona—“he’s going to birth a heifer the day that boat opens. Two—they’re trying to figure out a way to get the word out to the world about Food for the Body and Soul. My Olive, she’s the one who’s always pushing for that.”
Even though Monty’s voice sounded just as gruff and brusque as usual, Katie felt warmer toward him for saying “my Olive.”
She nodded toward the group. “Marcus Stash? What’s that man do for a living?”
“Stash used to be an Army Ranger, years back. Real patriot. He’s got a piece of land he raises sheep on. That farm’s passed down to him from generations of Stashes. Solitary type, Stash is. He used to be okay, but this riverboat business knocked a screw or two loose, if you know what I mean. Or maybe those screws were rattling around in his skull since he returned from the army. I never did completely believe the honorable discharge line of crap he sold people around here.”
“If he’s so solitary, how come he’s always in this diner?” Katie asked, even though she thought she already knew the answer.
“I’m guessing there’s something about this diner he likes an awful lot,” Monty replied blandly.
Sherona was standing next to Stash, listening to Olive and holding a coffeepot. Stash put a hand on her hip. Sherona jumped slightly and looked over at him. She smiled as she refilled his cup, but Katie decided Marcus Stash’s infatuation was unrequited. Maybe Sherona had finally declared Rill a lost cause, but she hadn’t transferred her affections to Stash.
Katie beamed at Sherona when she approached the table.
“Hi, Sherona. Nothing for me. Oh, but if you’d get me another loaf of that delicious seven-grain bread, we could sure use it.”
“Sure thing. I hope that means Rill is eating a little better.”
“I’m trying,” Katie said. Maybe she’d been wrong in thinking Sherona had designs on Rill when she’d first come to town, but she didn’t think so. She had a sneaking suspicion that if Rill had shown an ounce of interest, Sherona would have been all over him.
Sherona filled Monty’s coffee cup and went behind the counter. Stash’s face was turned toward Olive, but his eyes followed Sherona as she put Katie’s loaf of bread in a paper sack and set it on the counter for Katie. The guy was seriously infatuated.
“So . . . why’d you tell me to come here, Monty? You said it was something I could do to make a difference,” Katie said. Her curiosity had been mounting all weekend.
Monty stuffed a forkful of pancake, butter and gooey syrup into his mouth and reached for his wallet. He threw some bills on the table and pointed to the diner door. “Easier just to show you. I’ll drive.”
“Is this where one of your clients lives?” Katie asked five minutes later when they pulled into a decrepit-looking trailer park. Her confusion and curiosity were rising by the second, but she’d guessed Monty was a “show, don’t tell” kind of a guy, so she hadn’t badgered him with questions in the car.
“Joe Jones is one of my clients, actually. His trailer used to be down by the river. When he sold his land to Miles Fordham, he moved it here,” Monty replied before he brought his car to a halt. He glanced over at Katie while she stared out the window at the nearest trailer home. The top of it had started to cave in, so that the roof resembled a flattened letter M. At one time, the double-wide had been blue and white, but dirt and time and turned the white a dingy gray. There were about fifteen bags of garbage scattered on the plywood front porch and the tiny front yard.
“Thinking about changing your mind already?” Monty asked nonchalantly.
“Of course not,” Katie said, stung. “But I would appreciate you at least telling me what you want me to see here.”
“Joe Jones needs help with his taxes.”
“What?”
/> Monty nodded, impervious to her incredulity. “Yeah, believe it or not, a lot of poor people need help filing their taxes. More so than those hotshot movie stars you worked for need assistance with them. At least most of them know how to read and could figure out how to file a return if they weren’t too lazy to pay you so you could finagle ways for them to save all that money. Maybe they never told you in that slick Hollywood tax school that every American has to file a tax return if they have income, regardless of whether or not a body has the ability to read, or write or understand just what it is they’re agreeing to with an X on the dotted line?”
Katie flushed. “Of course I know that. So . . . you want me to do Joe Jones’s taxes for him? That’s how you said I could make a difference?”
“I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask you. Truth is, the community center where I work has just been given a state grant for a financial and tax assistance office. It’s much-needed. Prairie Lakes County has one of the largest rates of illiteracy in the state. You get men like Miles Fordham who come into Vulture’s Canyon and start offering people like Joe here a pittance of money for their land, and the need for some sound financial advice for the poor rises exponentially. From what I hear about you, you’d be a good fit for the job. If you haven’t already decided it’s beneath you, that is.”
Katie reached for the car door. It hadn’t been what she expected . . . but hell. Why not?
“Let’s go,” she said.
An hour later, Katie and Monty got back into Monty’s car. It’d been a heartbreaking experience, no matter how Katie spun things in her mind. The trailer home had been a hovel, and Joe Jones had been a sweet, broken old man with no front teeth and a proclivity to smile at everything that was said to him, despite the lack of any understanding in his rheumy blue eyes.
She’d come close to tears upon seeing the bill of sale and the amount of money Miles Fordham had paid Jones for his land. True, she didn’t know the going rate for land around here, but the casino complex Fordham was building would increase the value of the land a thousandfold, if not more so. He could have at least offered Joe a decent amount for the valuable land, something that could have improved the quality of his life a bit.
Instead, he’d stolen the old man’s sole asset right out from under his nose. The fact that it’d all been legal made it no less criminal, in Katie’s eyes.
She had politely asked Joe if she could assess all his financial records, which he’d brought to her in a cardboard box that was falling apart at the seams.
“Do you want to see my granddaughter’s papers, too?” he’d asked eagerly.
Katie had assured him that she’d need only records associated with his own income in order to file a return. She’d gone through every piece of paper in the tattered box while Joe and Monty sipped coffee and talked about the fish they’d caught over the summer. Afterward, Katie had told Joe she’d return on Tuesday afternoon to assist him in filling out the tax form that had never been filed that year. After the sale of the land, the IRS would come knocking when they realized Joe hadn’t paid his taxes. Joe had seemed so grateful for her offer that it’d made Katie feel guilty for not being there a year ago to give him the advice he’d sorely required when he sold his land.
She’d seen his bank statements. After he paid his taxes, it’d be a close thing whether or not he had any money to live on. Katie grimly informed Monty of that fact as they drove back to the diner. Monty sighed.
“I had a feeling you were going to tell me that,” he said wearily. “Joe’s granddaughter has had her fingers in that till ever since Joe got the money, and little Amber’s got some highfalutin tastes.”
“Joe’s granddaughter is Amber Jones? The girl who works for Miles Fordham?”
Monty gave her a knowing look from beneath heavy eyelids. “That’s the one,” he said.
Katie stared out the window thoughtfully.
“So what do you think? There are lots of folks like Joe Jones all over these woods. Do you want to come by the community center and fill out an application for the job?”
She thought of her life up to now, of her flight across the country, of these beautiful woods . . . and Rill. She thought of the emptiness inside her that she’d finally determined she had to fill, or die trying.
“You know . . . I really would,” she replied softly.
He grunted, and Katie had the impression she’d just passed muster with Montrose Montgomery.
When Katie returned she found both Rill and Everett at the side of the house, splitting logs. She paused for a few minutes and observed them before they became aware of her presence. She sensed by the way they silently worked in tandem—one retrieving the log and placing it, the other chopping, pausing occasionally to mutually gather the split logs and then switch places—that they must have worked through the snarl in their friendship.
Her gaze lingered on the sight of Rill heaving the ax. Even his ass muscles flexed tight before he split the log neatly. The fact that he hadn’t come to her bedroom last night once again caused her to ache. How was it possible to miss so greatly something she’d never had until recently? She waited until the ax was resting against the chopping block before she approached.
“Morning, He-Men.”
“Where did you go so early in the morning?” Everett asked as he tossed a log on the neatly stacked pile. Rill’s gaze raked over her before he met her stare. She tried to ignore the little prickles of excitement his glance evoked, but it was difficult.
“Oh, I was just down at the diner,” she replied evasively. She’d tackle telling her family and Rill about her new job if and when everything was certain and settled. It wasn’t cowardice. Not really. She just wanted to make sure about things first. It wasn’t as if she officially had the job yet, after all.
“So did you bring us something to eat from the diner?” Everett asked single-mindedly.
“No.”
Rill cocked his head. “You were down at the diner? On a Sunday morning?”
“Yeah,” Katie replied, uncertain about his narrowed gaze. He glanced over her again, and this time she sensed more than heat in his assessment.
“Why are you dressed like that?” Rill asked.
Katie looked down at herself. She hadn’t wanted to show up for her meeting with Monty dressed inappropriately, but since she hadn’t known why he wanted to meet with her, she hadn’t really known what “appropriate” was. She’d chosen a brown skirt, brown leather high-heeled boots, a crisp white shirt with a wide collar and a tailored Burberry jacket.
“You look like you were on a job interview,” Rill continued, his dark brows knitted together in puzzlement. His piercing glance seemed to slice right through her discomfort at his astute observation. “You haven’t let Olive Fanatoon and her co-op crowd recruit you to their cause, have you?”
“No, I haven’t,” she bristled. How could he be so attractive and so insufferable at once? “How did you know Olive and those people would be down at the diner?”
He gave a negligible shrug and bent to pick up the ax. “Because Olive has asked me to attend their Sunday meeting practically every weekend since I came to Vulture’s Canyon.”
Katie forgot her embarrassment. “She does? Why?”
“She seems to think that if I were a spokesperson for their cause—Food for Body and Soul—they might get a lot more publicity.”
“Oh, she wants a celebrity spokesperson,” Katie murmured. It shouldn’t have surprised her, of course. She was used to every charitable organization under the sun vying for celebrity attention, both from her work experience and her private life. As a popular film director, Rill got his share of pleas for endorsements, time and money, although Everett was the one who was besieged constantly. Katie did Everett’s taxes, so she knew for a fact how much he gave back to the community and various charitable organizations. Rill gave just as generously, even sponsoring a valuable scholarship program at UCLA in the film department. The scholarships were all done through a trust,
so the program had continued since Rill had holed up in Vulture’s Canyon. Still, Katie found herself wondering about Olive’s pleas for help.
“And you don’t want to do it, obviously . . . help out Olive and Food for Body and Soul, I mean?” Katie persisted.
“Obviously,” Rill replied.
“Because it might do you some good, to get involved with something,” Katie observed, unaffected by his blue-eyed glare.
Everett placed a log upright on the chopping block and stepped back. Rill let the ax fly. The log split like it’d been struck by lightning.
“Okay,” Katie said, rolling her eyes. “I get the message.”
“You’ve already got him whiskey-free and eating fresh fruits and vegetables, Katie,” Everett said, his mouth quirked in a little grin. “Best give yourself another week to turn him into Mother Teresa.”
Katie gave her brother a sarcastic glance and turned to go. “I’ll be a good little woman, then, and go make you He-Men omelets . . . keeping my mouth shut the whole time, of course.”
Rill spoke with her back turned. “Everett’s leaving in a little while.”
“What?” Katie asked, spinning around. “You just got here.”
Her brother shrugged. “Lawson called,” he said, referring to his agent. “I need to get back. Besides, I saw what I came here to see.”
“You did?” Katie blurted out before she could stop herself.
Everett shrugged and gave first her, then Rill, a dubious glance. “Rill doesn’t seem determined to do himself in anymore, and that was my main worry. As for the rest of what’s happening in Vulture’s Canyon, I haven’t got any control over it, so I’d rather not hang around and see anything that’ll make me nuts.”
Rill gave her a sideways glance. God, she wished she knew what was going on inside that brain of his. She blushed for some stupid reason, mumbled under her breath about the omelets and hurried into the house.
After they’d eaten a brunch of omelets and whole-wheat toast, Everett went to pack. Rill helped her clean up in the kitchen. The whole time, Katie sensed he wanted to ask her more questions about what she’d been doing in town this morning. She’d prepared herself for it, but she had no safe response for what he did end up saying.
