It was impossible not to wince.
“Here,” she said quickly, reaching for his arm—
“I can do it,” he snapped.
She held her hands up and backed off, looking wounded.
“Sorry.” It wasn’t her fault he didn’t feel like a man half the time and never felt like a worthwhile man any of the time. “I need to stand on my own two feet. It’s important to me.”
She nodded, her gaze lowered.
Standing up took five years off his life. By the time he’d shuffled, panting and sweating, down the dark hall to the beacon light of the guest bedroom with her hovering at his side, he’d lost another ten.
When she eased closer, without a word, and put an arm around his waist so he could lean into her a little bit, he was so unspeakably grateful that his pride never stood a chance.
He slung an arm around her shoulders, sighing with relief because she had his back and life was glorious. He felt pain, yeah, but that only intensified the unexpected sweetness of a summer night with a delicious dinner and a beautiful woman.
The pain only made him more aware of Jayne. More appreciative. More enthralled.
She was so solid and strong that there was probably nothing she couldn’t handle.
But then a new kind of agony roared to life.
He was halfway in Jayne’s arms and she was halfway in his. The thrilling warmth of her curvy body ran all up and down his side. Was he supposed to ignore the way she felt? She had tits and ass for days. A body that would keep a man’s hands full and his hips pumping for a good long time. She smelled delicious, like flowers and fruit, and her hair, where it brushed his bare arm, was like the touch of satin sheets.
It was wrong for him to notice.
But then he’d been wrong for a good chunk of his adult life, hadn’t he?
“Do you want me to walk you in?” Her breath sounded shallow. She didn’t look at him when they got to his doorway. “I can—”
“Jayne,” he said, shifting within the semicircle of her arm so he could face her.
“—help you to the bathroom, or I can station chairs along the way so you have something to hang on to.” Her gaze stubbornly lingered on everything that wasn’t him. “Just don’t snap my head off again—”
“Jayne,” he said softly, succumbing to the overwhelming urge to grip the hair at her nape.
Ah, man. A handful of warm silk.
She went quiet, until the only sounds in the entire universe were the thud of his heartbeat and the unsteady rasp of her breath.
His mouth filled with so many urgent words that shutting up was impossible.
“I’m fucked up right now,” he told her. “In every possible way.”
He’d thought she might give him a pep talk (Don’t say that, Kerry! You’re getting better day by day!), but she nodded, her attention glued to his shoulder.
“If I weren’t so fucked up, I’d start to notice the way you blush when you look at me.”
She gasped, but didn’t deny it.
“This is me doing the right thing and warning you.” He massaged her neck and absorbed her shivering response. So much better to focus on them instead of the pain in his side. “I’m not a good man. You know that.”
Her gaze, glittering and defiant, finally flicked to his. “I’d like to share some good advice I got recently from a very smart person.” Her voice was husky. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
That threw him for a loop, probably because it was his most fervent hope that wanting to be a better person was half the battle in actually becoming a better person.
Check and mate to Jayne.
He couldn’t have that. Not when he was trying to be an upstanding citizen here.
So he eased closer and tightened his grip enough to tip her head back.
“You wouldn’t mind if I kissed you right now, then?”
The answer was right there in her eyes. Wariness. Desire. But Jayne wasn’t about to surrender to late night temptation. She was way too smart for that, as he’d known she would be.
“Sex with invalids isn’t really my thing, Randolph.” She stepped back, hitching up her chin. “And I’m not sure you could handle me on a good day, to tell you the truth.”
That shut him the fuck up. At least for a second.
Then the startled laughter came in a heady burst that temporarily cleared away the pain. Jayne was tall and curvy, yeah, but if he were able-bodied, he couldn’t think of anything he’d rather do than handle her, and handle her well and repeatedly.
“We’d have to see about that, wouldn’t we?”
If she saw the gauntlet he’d just thrown at her feet, she chose to ignore it.
“I think we’re done here?” she asked coolly.
“We’re done.”
“Good night.”
Turning, she began a determined march to her bedroom and away from him.
Whereupon Kerry discovered it wasn’t that easy to let her go. Not when he still had so much to tell her.
“Jayne.”
She stopped. Presented him with her profile as she glanced over her shoulder and waited.
“Thank you,” he said helplessly.
“For what?”
For seeing me as a man and not something stuck to the bottom of your shoe.
For having faith in me, even if it was only a little.
For making me laugh more tonight than I have in the last two years.
It was all right there on the tip of his tongue. All as inaccessible as the dark side of the moon.
“For everything,” he said quietly.
22
“Mr. Kerry?” asked a medical assistant early the next morning. “Come with me.”
Kerry winced as he got up, favoring his bad side, and eagerly followed the woman through the door, around the nurses’ station and down the hall. It was a pleasure to leave the harried parents, squalling children and coughing seniors behind in the waiting area.
“Let’s get your weight.”
Kerry stepped on the scale, his attention wandering to the cheery public health posters dotting the walls. Tobacco or health? Choose health! said one, and another outlined the signs and symptoms of Ebola, none of which he had. Big relief.
“Two-nineteen,” said the medical assistant. “Height?”
“Six two.”
“Here we go.” They went into an exam room whose cracked linoleum floor and peeling vinyl examination table apparently dated back to the Eisenhower administration. “What brings you in today?”
“I need my, ah, wound checked.” He pointed to his face as he sat on the exam table.
The woman took his vitals. “Sorry about your wait. We’re short-staffed.”
“Well, that’s the thing about a free clinic,” he said.
“Ain’t that the truth?” she muttered. “Dr. Katz will be in as soon as he can.”
Kerry looked around as the door swung shut behind her, his resolve starting to fray. This was not a good idea. It was, in fact, probably a bad idea. Just because workable ideas were thin on the ground these days didn’t put any lipstick on this pig. It was one thing to contemplate his plan during the dead of night while safely and comfortably ensconced in Jayne’s guest bedroom. Turning up here to execute his plan with dwindling reserves of courage was a whole ’nother kettle of fish.
The place reverted him right to the snotty-nosed poor kid he’d been back in the day. The clinic hadn’t changed one iota since the last time his grandmother brought him in. When was that? High school? Chicken pox? Yeah. That sounded about right. Back then, he’d been so anxious to leave. Leave school. Leave town. Leave everyone who’d ever loved him and looked at him with pity in his or her eyes.
Now he saw this clinic for what it was: an invaluable local institution that had changed and probably saved countless lives. It was the kind of place where one determined person could make a difference—
Knock-knock.
The door swung open, and in walked just the determi
ned person Kerry wanted to see. There were many more lines on the pale face, the crazy Einstein curls were white now instead of sandy brown and there was more of a paunch around the middle, but nothing else about the man—including his kid-friendly Muppets tie—had changed.
“Mr. Kerry, I’m Melvin Katz,” the doctor said, sticking out his hand without bothering to look up from Kerry’s file. “I understand you have— Oh, shit.”
He finally looked up. His blue eyes went wide behind his tortoiseshell glasses.
Kerry’s mouth dried out, forcing him to clear his throat as he extended his hand.
“Hey, Dr. Katz.”
Dr. Katz turned a vivid red and smacked his hand away. Hard.
Kerry braced himself, keeping his chin up and his shoulders squared.
“Kerry Randolph.” Dr. Katz could barely speak around his sneer-curled lips. “Biggest disappointment of my life. What the fuck are you doing here? Trying to ease your rotten conscience with another blood-money donation check?”
Kerry knew he had this verbal ass whipping coming. That didn’t make it any easier to sit there and receive it with open arms. “No, sir.”
“No? Did you finally see the irony of trying to give the clinic money when the crap you sell is ruining the community and bringing in half my patients?” Dr. Katz waved in the general direction of the waiting room, his voice rising. “Because I would burn this clinic to the ground before I took fifty cents from you!”
“I didn’t come to offer you money,” Kerry said, his voice hoarse.
“Well, what the hell do you want?” Dr. Katz roared.
Kerry took a deep breath and met his furious gaze head-on.
“I’m here for my job interview.”
Dr. Katz recoiled. “You cannot be serious.”
“I’m dead serious,” Kerry said quietly.
“So you make up lies? Pretend you’re a patient? Which is exactly the sort of thing a crooked person would do?”
The C-word skewered Kerry through the center of his chest. Sudden guilt made him flinch and lower his gaze. “I didn’t think you’d see me if I just called.”
“You were right! Get out of here!”
Kerry tensed, more than ready for this fight.
“No, sir.”
Dr. Katz walked to the door and swung it open. “Get. Out.”
“No, sir. I think you could use my help.”
Dr. Katz cursed and slammed the door shut again. Before Kerry knew it, the man was in his face, unleashing years of fury.
“You think my job offer is still open after over a decade? After you spat in my face and moved out west? And then you moved back and spat in my face again by working with a glorified street-level dealer? And now you think I still want you?”
Shame burned in Kerry’s chest, throat and eyes. He’d rejected this good man for no good reason, just like he’d rejected his grandmother and the opportunities Cincinnati offered him.
“I hoped you could use me, yes.”
“What happened?” Dr. Katz said. “Did you finally get smart? Finally have your eyes forcibly opened for you, you stupid fucking punk?”
Kerry slammed headfirst into the limits of his patience.
He was a stupid fucking punk. Absolutely.
And he’d also paid a pretty high price for it.
“What happened?” Kerry yanked up the bottom of his shirt and pointed to his bandaged side. “I got carved up like an Easter ham, man! I almost died! I reaped what I sowed! I made my bed and I laid in it! Now I’m trying to balance the scales! Maybe if you’d shut up and give me a chance, you’d understand why I came!”
Dr. Katz looked stricken. He tossed the file onto the counter, sank onto his stool, slid his glasses to his forehead and rubbed his face hard enough to erase his features.
Kerry pulled his shirt down and waited, trying to catch his breath.
Dr. Katz cleared his throat, put his glasses back on and swept his hand wide.
“The floor is yours,” he said gruffly.
Kerry shrugged. “Kareem wasn’t too happy I turned him in to the feds. We tried to kill each other the other day. I shot and wounded him. He left me for dead after he sliced me up. His wife had the pleasure of finally doing him in. I’m a civilian now. The end.”
Dr. Katz’s expression brightened. “You’re out?”
“I’m out.”
Dr. Katz’s eyes narrowed. “This all seems a little too good to be true.”
“Indeed,” Kerry said.
Dr. Katz eyed him speculatively. “So you cut a deal. The feds aren’t prosecuting you.”
Kerry didn’t have the stomach for an outright denial. Plus, he knew that if there was one person in the world he could trust, he was looking at him.
“The feds work in mysterious ways,” Kerry said. “Let’s leave it at that.”
“Yeah? And what about all your old cronies? Don’t they want a piece of you?”
Fair questions.
Too bad Kerry didn’t have any answers.
“Maybe. But the three I worked with—the ones I grew up with—are all dead.”
Skeptical snort from Dr. Katz.
Kerry shrugged. “One of the good things about working for Kareem—”
“Now there’s an oxymoron.”
“—was that he held his cards close to the vest. I didn’t know everyone in his organization, and everyone didn’t know me. Will someone come looking to put a bullet in the back of my head one day?”
“Jesus, kid.”
“It’s a possibility.” Kerry shot him a rueful smile. “Meanwhile, I’m going to live my life. It’s past time for me to do some good somewhere.”
“Congratulations. Why don’t you take your ambitious ass back out to the Bay Area and sign on with your fancy-schmancy sports clinic again? That’s where the big bucks are.”
Kerry couldn’t think of a less appealing idea.
“I don’t want big bucks. I’m not about that anymore.”
Dr. Katz gave him a hard stare. “You’re the most ambitious person I’ve ever met. You were driven when you were five years old and your grandmother brought you in for your school shots. You told me you wanted to be a doctor because they help people and make a lot of money. Remember that? And I said you could come here and work with me, and you asked me what kind of car I drove. When I told you it was a used Mazda, you said no thanks.”
Kerry remembered the relentless yearning deep inside his gut, the need for something better that had never given him a moment’s respite his entire life. He was done with that feeling now. All it had ever done was lead him in the wrong direction.
“Hopefully I’m smarter now than I was at five,” he said.
“Yeah? Well, what are you about these days, pray tell? Don’t keep an old man in suspense.”
“Atonement. A little peace would be nice.”
Dr. Katz flared up at the A-word. “Oh. So you want to snap your fingers and make it up to all the people whose heart you broke? All the people who believed in you and warned you? All of us fools who had no agenda other than wanting the best for you?”
“I know there’s no making it up. But I want to try anyway.”
“Bullshit pretty words.”
“I’m sorry, Katz.” Rising frustration kicked his volume up a couple notches. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“It’s too small a word, but—”
Dr. Katz’s eyes bulged as tendons began to work in his throat.
“Sorry?” he roared. “I took you under my wing, Kerry! I mentored you! I protected you! I brought you into my home, where you spent time with my wife and kids! I wrote recommendations for you! I helped you get into colleges and land scholarships! I never saw a kid with so much potential, and I poured my heart into you! And for what? So you could turn into a parasite and leech off your own people? And now you want me to endanger my staff by bringing you around when, for all we know, someone from your past is coming after you?”
Kerry turned
his face away with no thought of defending himself. There were things he could mention that might mitigate Dr. Katz’s low opinion of him—I was only on the finance end of things, Katz, he could say, a strategy guy like Tom Hagen or I hardly ever saw Kareem kill anyone—but what would be the point?
“Are you just gonna sit there?” Dr. Katz shouted. “That’s all you’ve got?”
Kerry took a deep breath through his flaring nostrils and blew it out through his mouth. Cleared his throat. Blinked back the tears that wanted to embarrass him.
When all that was done, he looked to the man who’d been the closest thing to a father figure he’d ever known. Met his gaze head on and blowtorched the remnants of his own ego, which had never done him a damn bit of good.
“I was greedy,” Kerry quietly admitted. “I was ambitious. I was tired of being poor and too impatient to work for things the right way. I didn’t think for myself. I made all the wrong choices. I wasn’t a man.” He paused. “And I’m ashamed. Please give me a chance to do one good thing in my life.”
Dr. Katz stared him down. His lips thinned. His jaw tightened. He started to say something, then stopped. Started and stopped again.
And then, finally, he heaved a serrated breath and cleared his throat.
“Let’s get this clear right now.” He pointed a gnarled index finger at Kerry’s nose. “The job is crap. You’ll spend all day telling parents why their kids don’t need antibiotics, treating STDs and teenage pregnancies and begging folks with diabetes to stop drinking two liters of pop every day and to take their insulin.”
Kerry nodded eagerly.
“You’ll work to the point of exhaustion, then you’ll work some more. There’s no glory. There’ll never be any glory. You’ll be covered in puke and snot and baby shit, so you won’t need your fancy shoes and clothes. You’ll work yourself to death and you’ll never make a dent in the need. There’ll always be another kid coming in needing a save shot because he OD’d on some shit some punk sold him. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“There’s a new drug on the street that’s the nastiest thing I’ve seen in my forty years, and I think it’s going to kill a lot of people. You ready for that? You’ll think you’re making a difference in some kid’s life—just one special kid—and then you’ll discover that it was all an optical illusion and he was never listening to a thing you said.” Dr. Katz swiped his nose. “You’ll discover he’s determined to self-destruct no matter how hard you love him or how much you beg him not to. And by the way, I don’t forgive you. I may never forgive you.”
Deadly Secrets Page 15
