The bus trip to school had been a daily hell. A routine torture—until a cold October night in 1986 when the farmhouse erupted in a huge orange fireball and burned completely to the ground. Arson had been determined as the cause of the fire, and there’d been a big investigation. Almost everyone in town had been questioned, but the person responsible for dousing the place with kerosene had never been caught. Everyone in town thought they knew who’d done it, but no one had known for sure.
After Loraine’s death three years ago, Mick sold the property to the Allegrezza boys and he’d thought about selling the family bar too, but in the end he decided to move back and run the place. Meg needed him. Travis needed him, and to his surprise, when he’d returned to Truly, no one really talked about the scandal anymore. Whispers no longer followed him, or if they did, he no longer heard them.
He slowed the truck and made another left, turning into his long driveway and heading up a hill seated at the base of Shaw Mountain. He’d bought the two-story house shortly after he’d moved back to Truly. It had a great view of the town and the rugged mountains surrounding the lake. He parked in the garage next to his twenty-one-foot ski boat and entered the house through the laundry room. The light in his office was on and he turned it off as he passed. He moved through the dark living room and took the stairs two at a time.
For the most part, Mick didn’t really think of the past that had been such a focus in his childhood. Truly didn’t talk about it anymore, which was ironic as hell, because he just didn’t give a shit what people said and thought about him these days. He walked into his bedroom at the far end of the hall and moved through the moonlight pouring through the open slats of his wooden blinds. Shadow and muted strips of light touched his face and chest as he reached into his back pocket. He tossed his wallet on his dresser, then grabbed two fistfuls of his T-shirt and pulled it over his head. But just because he didn’t give a shit about the past didn’t mean that Meg was over it. She had her good days and bad days. Since the death of their grandmother, her bad days were getting worse, and that was just no way for Travis to live.
Moonlight and shadow spilled across the green quilt and solid oak posts of Mick’s bed. He dropped the shirt by his feet, then walked across the room. Sometimes he felt that moving back to Truly had been a mistake. It felt as if he were standing in one place, unable to move forward, and he didn’t know why he felt that way. He’d bought a new bar and was thinking of starting a helicopter service with his friend Steve. He had money and success and he belonged in Truly with his family. The only family he had. The only family he was ever likely to have, but sometimes…sometimes he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was waiting for something.
The mattress dipped as he sat on the edge and pulled off his boots and socks. Meg thought all he needed was to meet a nice woman to make him a good wife, but he just couldn’t see himself married. Not now. He’d had a few good relationships in his life. Good right up until the moment that they weren’t. None had lasted more than a year or two. Partly because he’d been gone so much. Mostly because he didn’t want to buy a ring and walk down the aisle.
He stood and stripped to his underwear. Meg thought he was afraid of marriage because their parents’ had been so bad, but that wasn’t true. The truth was that he didn’t remember his parents all that much. Just a few watery memories of family picnics at the lake and his parents cuddling on the sofa. His mother crying at the kitchen table and an old heavy telephone thrown through the television screen.
No, the problem wasn’t the memories of his parents’ fucked-up relationship. He’d just never loved one woman enough to want to spend the rest of his life with her. Which he didn’t consider a problem at all.
He pulled back the quilt and lay between the cool sheets. For the second time that night, he thought about Maddie Dupree, and he laughed into the darkness. She’d been a smart-ass, but he’d never held that against a woman. If fact, he liked a woman who could stand up to a man. Who gave as good as she got and didn’t need a man to take care of her. Who wasn’t needy or weepy or crazy as hell. Whose moods didn’t swing like a pendulum.
Mick turned on his side and glanced at the clock on his nightstand. He’d set his alarm for ten a.m. and was ready for a full seven hours of uninterrupted shut-eye. Unfortunately, he didn’t get it.
The next morning, the ringing of the telephone brought him out of a deep sleep. He opened his eyes and squinted against the morning sun pouring across his bed. He glanced at the caller ID and reached for the cordless receiver.
“You better be spurting blood,” he said and pushed the covers down his naked chest. “I told you not to call before ten unless it’s an emergency.”
“Mom’s at work and I need some fireworks,” his nephew informed him.
“At eight-thirty in the morning?” He sat up and ran his fingers through one side of his hair. “Is your sitter there with you?”
“Yeah. Tomorrow’s the Fourth of July and I don’t got no fireworks.”
“You just realized this?” There was more to the story. With Travis, there was always more to the story. “Why didn’t your mom get you your fireworks?” There was a long pause and Mick added, “You might as well tell me the truth because I’m going to ask Meg.”
“She said I have a potty mouth.”
Mick stood and his feet sank into thick beige carpeting as he walked across the room toward a dresser. He was almost afraid to ask. “Why?”
“Well…she made meatloaf again. She knows I hate meatloaf.”
He didn’t blame the kid there. The Hennessy women were notorious for their shitty meatloaf. He opened the second dresser drawer and prompted, “And?”
“I said it tasted like shit. I said you thought so too.”
Mick paused in the act of pulling out a white T-shirt and glanced into his reflection above the dresser. “Did you use the real s-word?”
“Uh-huh, and she said I can’t have fireworks, but you say the s-word all the dang time.”
That was true. He hung the shirt over one shoulder and leaned forward to look into his bloodshot eyes. “We talked about words I can say and words you can say.”
“I know, but it just slipped out.”
“You need to watch what slips out of your mouth.”
Travis sighed. “I know. I said I was sorry, even though I’m not really. Just like you said I should say to girls. Even the stupid ones. Even when I’m right and they’re wrong.”
That wasn’t quite what he’d said. “You didn’t tell Meg I said that, though.” He pulled a pair of Levi’s out of the dresser and added, “Right?”
“Right.”
He couldn’t countermand his sister, but at the same time, a boy shouldn’t be punished for speaking the truth. “I can’t buy you fireworks if your mom says no, but we’ll see if we can’t work something out.”
An hour later, Mick shoved a bag of fireworks behind the driver’s seat of his truck. He’d bought a small variety pack as well as a few sparklers and snakes from the Safe and Sane stand in the parking lot of Handy Man Hardware. He hadn’t bought them for Travis. He’d bought them to take to Louie Allegrezza’s Fourth of July barbeque. If anyone asked, that was the story, but he doubted anyone would believe him. Like all other residents of the pyrotechnically obsessed town,
he had a big box of illegals just waiting to be shot over the lake. Adults didn’t buy Safe and Sanes unless they had kids. Legal fireworks were kind of like training wheels.
Louie’s son Pete Allegrezza and Travis were buddies, and days ago, Meg had agreed that Travis could go to the barbeque with Mick if he stayed out of trouble. The barbeque was tomorrow, and Mick figured Travis should be able to control his behavior for one more day. Mick shut the door to his truck, and he and Travis headed across the parking lot toward the hardware store. “If you behave yourself, maybe you can hold a sparkler.”
“Man,” Travis whined. “Sparklers are for little kids.”
“With your track record, you’ll be
lucky if you’re not in bed before dark.” Sunlight shone in his nephew’s short black hair and across the shoulders of his red Spider-Man T-shirt. “You’re having a hard time controlling yourself lately.” He opened the door and waved to the owner standing behind the counter. “Meg’s still pretty mad at us both, but I have a plan.” For several months, Meg had complained about a leaky pipe beneath her kitchen sink. If he and Travis fixed her S-trap so that she didn’t have to keep emptying a pan of water, maybe she’d be in a more forgiving mood. But with Meg, a person never knew. She wasn’t always the most forgiving person.
The soles of Travis’s sneakers scuffed alongside Mick’s boots as they walked to the plumbing section. The store was quiet except for a couple looking at garden hoses and Mrs. Vaughn, his first-grade teacher, rooting through a bin of assorted drawer handles. He was always amazed to see Laverne Vaughn still alive and walking around. She had to be older than dirt.
While Mick grabbed a PVC pipe and plastic washers, his nephew picked up a caulking gun and aimed it at a bird feeder at the end of the aisle as if it were a .45 Magnum.
“We don’t need that,” Mick told him as he reached for some plumber’s tape.
Travis popped off a few rounds, then tossed the gun back onto the shelf. “I’m gonna go look at the deer,” he said and disappeared around the corner of the aisle. Handy Man’s had a big selection of plastic animals that people could display in their yards. Although why you would want to do that when the real thing was likely to roam through was beyond Mick.
He stuck the pipe beneath one arm and went in search of his nephew, who didn’t usually go looking for trouble, but like most seven-year-old boys seemed to find it anyway. He moved through the store, glanced down each crammed row, and paused next to a display of mops.
A smile of pure male appreciation curved the corners of his mouth. Maddie Dupree stood in the middle of aisle six, a neon-yellow box in her hands. Her brown hair was in one of those claws and looked like someone had stuck a dark feather duster on the back of her head. His gaze moved down her smooth profile, past her throat and shoulder, and stopped dead on her black T-shirt. Last night, he hadn’t been able to get a good look at her. Today, the fluorescent lighting of Handy Man Hardware lit her up like a walking, talking, breathing centerfold. Like an old-school playmate before eating disorders and silicone. Desire stirred in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t even know her well enough to be feeling a thing. Didn’t know if she was married or single, had a man in her life and ten kids waiting at home. Apparently it didn’t matter, because she drew him down the aisle like a magnet.
“Looks like you got problems with some mice,” he said.
“What?” Her head snapped up and her gaze flew to his like he’d caught her doing something she shouldn’t. “Christ almighty.” Her lips parted and she sucked in a breath, drawing his attention to the mole at the corner of her mouth. “You startled me.”
“Sorry,” he said, but he really wasn’t. She looked good all wide-eyed and breathy and a little off balance. He glanced up and pointed with the PVC to the box in her hand. “Mice troubles?”
“One actually ran across my foot this morning while I was making coffee.” She crinkled her nose. “It slid under the pantry door and disappeared. It’s probably in there right now feasting on my granola bars.”
“Don’t worry.” Mick laughed. “He probably won’t eat much.”
“I don’t want him to eat anything at all. Except maybe some poison.” She turned her attention back to the box in her hand. Fine dark hairs clung to the side of her neck and Mick thought he smelled strawberries.
At the far end of the aisle, Travis turned the corner and stopped in his tracks. His mouth got a little slack as he stared at Maddie. Mick knew the feeling.
“It says here that odor problems can occur if rodents expire in inaccessible areas. I really don’t want to have to search for stinking mice.” She looked up at him out of the corners of her eyes. “I wonder if there isn’t something better I could use.”
“I wouldn’t recommend the tape.” He pointed to a box of glue boards. “Mice get stuck on it and squeak a lot.” There it was again. Strawberries, and he wondered if Handy’s had some scented feeders for hummingbirds. “You could use traps,” he suggested.
“Really? Aren’t traps kind of…violent?”
“They can snap a mouse in half,” Travis said as he came to stand beside Mick. He rocked back on his heels and grinned. “Sometimes their head pops off when they go for the cheese.”
“Good Lord, kid.” Maddie’s brows drew together as she lowered her gaze to Travis. “That’s gruesome.”
“Uh-huh.”
Mick stuck the pipe under his arm and placed his free hand on top of Travis’s head. “This gruesome guy is my nephew, Travis Hennessy. Travis, say hello to Maddie Dupree.”
Maddie stuck out her palm and shook Travis’s hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Travis.”
“Yeah. You too.”
“And thanks for telling me about the traps,” she continued and released him. “I’ll keep them in mind if I decide on decapitation.”
Travis’s smile grew to show off his missing front tooth. “Last year I killed tons of mice,” he boasted, employing his special brand of seven-year-old charm. “Call me.”
Mick glanced down at his nephew and wasn’t sure, but he thought Travis was puffing up his skinny chest. “The best way to get rid of mice,” he said, saving Travis from embarrassing himself further, “is to get a cat.”
Maddie shook her head and her brown eyes looked into his, all warm and soft and liquid. “Cats and I don’t get along.” His gaze slid to her mouth and he again wondered how long it had been since he’d kissed a mouth that good. “I’d rather have severed heads in my kitchen or hidden carcasses stinking up the place.”
She was talking about severed heads and stinking carcasses and he was getting turned on. Right there in Handy Man Hardware, like he was sixteen again and couldn’t control himself. He’d been with a lot of beautiful women and wasn’t a kid. He’d saved Travis from embarrassing himself, but who was going to save him?
“We’ve got some plumbing to do.” He held up the sealant and took a step back. “Good luck with those mice.”
“See you boys around.”
“Yeah,” Travis said and followed him to the checkout counter. “She was nice,” he whispered. “I like the color of her hair.”
Mick chuckled and set the PVC next to the register. The kid was only seven, but he was a Hennessy.
Chapter 3
September 5, 1976
Dan said he was going to leave his wife for me!! He said he’d been sleeping on the couch since May. I just found out she got pregnant in June. I’ve been cheated and lied to!! When is it my turn for happiness? The only person who loves me is my baby girl. She’s three now and tells me every day that she loves me. She deserves a better life.
Why can’t Jesus drop-kick us somewhere nice?
Maddie closed her eyes and leaned her head back in her office chair. In reading the diaries, not only had Maddie discovered her mother’s passion for exclamation marks, but her fondness for other women’s husbands as well. Counting Loch Hennessy, she’d had three of them in her twenty-four years. Not counting Loch, each had vowed to leave his wife for her, but in the end, they’d all cheated and lied!!
Maddie tossed the diary on her desk and stretched her arms above her head. Besides the husbands, Alice had dated single men also. In the end, they’d all cheated and lied and left her for someone else. All except Loch. Although, if the affair hadn’t been cut short, Maddie was sure Loch would have cheated and lied like all the others. Single or married, her mother had chosen men who left her heartbroken.
Through the open windows, the noise from her neighbors’ barbeque carried on a slight breeze. It was the Fourth of July, and Truly was in full celebration mode. In town, buildings were decked out in red, white, and blue bunting, and that morning there’d been a parade down Main Stre
et. Maddie had read in the local paper about the big celebration planned in Shaw Park and the town’s “impressive fireworks show” to begin “at full dark.”
Maddie stood and walked into the bathroom. Although really, how “impressive” could the show be in such a small town? Boise, the capital city, hadn’t had a decent show in years.
She plugged the drain in the deep jetted tub and turned on the water. As she undressed, her neighbors’ laughter carried though the small window above the toilet. Earlier in the day, Louie and Lisa Allegrezza had come over to invite her to their barbeque, but even at her best, she wasn’t very good at making polite conversation with people she didn’t know. And lately, Maddie had not been at her best. Finding the diaries had been a real mixed blessing. The diaries had answered some important questions for her. Questions that most people knew from birth. She’d learned that her father was from Madrid and that her mother had become pregnant with Maddie the summer after graduating from high school. Her father had been in the States visiting family, and they’d both fallen madly in “luv.” At the end of the summer, Alejandro had returned to Spain. Alice had written him several letters to tell him about her pregnancy, but she’d never heard from him. Apparently, their “luv” had been one-sided.
Maddie swept her hair up and clamped it on top of her head with a big claw. She’d come to terms with the fact long ago that she would never know her father. That she would never know his face or the sound of his voice. That he’d never teach her to ride a bike or drive a car, but like everything else, reading the diaries had brought it all to the surface again and she wondered if Alejandro was dead or alive and what he might think of her. Not that she would ever know.
Maddie poured German chocolate cake bubble bath into the running water and set a tube of chocolate-cake-scented body scrub on the side of the tub. She might not care about matching underwear or the brand name on her shoes, but she loved bath products. Scented potions and lotions were her passion. Give her a creamy scrub and body butter over designer clothes any day.
Tangled Up in You Page 3
