by Liz Crowe
Once she joined this woman’s family, Cara had to stop caring so much what she thought. Kent had said that more than once. The memory of her first hookup with him surfaced from the dregs of her consciousness, convincing her that Vivian could peer right into her brain and see the quick-and-dirty session her sweet boy had initiated in a smelly bathroom stall.
She opened her mouth to reply when that clear, bright kernel of possibility—that the child could easily be Kieran’s—hit her like a sledgehammer to the brain once again.
Well, at least if it’s a redhead, no one will be the wiser. She touched her hair as if in reminder.
The question went unanswered. Cara sipped in lieu of honoring it while Vivian continued to wipe down the table. Finally, she took a seat, her wine glass refilled.
“When I was pregnant, we drank and smoked, ate sugary crap, rode horses and all sorts of things you young girls won’t do.” She held up the cut crystal glass, so out of place on the boat and pondered its golden depths. “We had smaller babies, is all I can tell. And all this nonsense about the daddies helping out in the delivery room. Ick. Poor Kent Senior would have passed clean out at the sight of all that...mess.” Cara thought not for the first time that Vivian Townsend Lowery functioned fairly high for an alcoholic. Kent’s mother set the drink down and focused her icy gaze on Cara once more. “Tell me, dear. Has he told you about—”
“Viv!” Her husband’s shout from the small boat cut off the woman’s question. “Y’all come on over here. Let’s take a fast ride. Cara, hon, you up for it?” Her future father-in-law’s solicitousness seemed overdone, masking his distaste for her son’s choice of a bride “from the boonies.”
She observed her future husband, who smiled around the stub of the stinky cigar and a shiver shot down her spine. He was a catch—a real perfection specimen—combining his father’s broad shoulders and thick dark hair, with his mother’s patrician profile. She grinned at him and winked.
“I’m fine now. Mama Lowery gave me a little secret lemon-water drink and I feel oodles better.”
Kent raised a dark brow at the Mama Lowery comment. It gave her all sorts of satisfaction to hear the woman suck in a breath behind her. Senior smiled and he held out a hand to help her into the boat. Vivian glared at her son a moment then shrugged.
“We’re gonna be fine, now aren’t we?” She patted Cara’s bare knee one too many times once they were seated. “All one, big, happy family.”
Kent opened the throttle and the front of the boat lifted, making both women squeal and hang onto their wide-brimmed sun hats and relieving Cara of the need to respond.
Chapter Twelve
Kieran pondered the small pills rolling around in his palm. They represented the very last of the hard-core painkillers he’d been taking for the better part of a month. He’d done plenty of research about them while recovering from the career-ending leg injury. His shoulder sent a bolt of pain through his neck and into his skull at that moment, as if in response to the sight of imminent, pill-induced relief. But something in him resisted how much he needed this dose.
“Son, take the dang medication,” his father growled, holding out a glass of water and a cracker. Kieran had to have something in his stomach when he took them; he’d learned that lesson the hard way.
“I’m fine.” He snagged a monstrously huge, over-the-counter bottle of generic acetaminophen instead, marveling at how heavy it was. His mother loved buying things like painkillers, peanut butter, paper towels, and soup in the gigantic multi-packs at the local warehouse-sized shopping club.
“But it’s the convenience, Anton,” she’d insist, tucking her latest oversized box of Cheerios or Quaker oats into the already overstuffed pantry.
“No, it’s that you like wanderin’ through that place, figurin’ out how much you’ll piss me off when you drag home a thousand pounds of whatever else we don’t need,” he’d mutter before she’d shoot him a sweet smile that made him shake his head, and mutter about evil women.
“Maybe, but that’s my role in life last I checked. And I take that sort of responsibility seriously,” was her typical reply to that.
Kieran dumped three of the less potent tablets out and swallowed them with a glass of water while staring out the kitchen window onto the distressingly familiar view.
“I gotta go home,” he said, keeping his gaze trained out onto the yard.
“Good luck convincing your mama of that.”
“I know. I need your help with it.”
Anton chuckled and slapped his sore shoulder, making him wince. “You are how old now, Francis? And you still operate under the assumption that I can convince that woman of anything she doesn’t wish to be convinced of?” Shaking his head, he reached into the fridge for a beer. Kieran looked at it, his mouth watering, attempting not to grab one and drink it in two swallows.
“The insurance shark showed his face here yesterday.” Anton popped the cap and took a long, tempting drink. “Left you this.” An envelope materialized out of the kitchen junk drawer.
Relief coated his nerve endings. It sure did help that he’d graduated high school with the police investigator at the scene of his accident. He’d passed out before the ambulance arrived and had not given permission to conduct a blood-alcohol-level test so he’d dodged that bullet. His buddy at the insurance company had pushed his claim through to the best of his ability.
When he read the amount on the check, he had to do a double take before realizing that not only had he driven his beloved Mustang into the damn pond, he’d only be getting a portion of its value because of the suspicious circumstances that his buddy apparently had been unable to keep out of the accident report.
“Shit,” he said under his breath, ever mindful of Lindsay’s sharp ears as he crumpled the letter. He should have known better. Nothing ever worked out for him.
“Problem?” his father asked, sipping and watching him.
“No, no problem. Other than I gotta find a new job, I’m behind on rent, have no car and no hopes of buying one, and lost the woman I loved.”
“Eh, she’s a bitch anyway. Come on, let’s listen to the ball game out on the patio.”
Staring at Anton’s retreating back, Kieran felt shock, dismay, and a twinge of relief at the thought of baseball, the pool, the sun, and not thinking about anything for a few hours.
God, what I wouldn’t give for a beer.
Shaking his head, he followed Anton through the living room and down to the basement. His mother sat reading a book under the shade of an umbrella, a glass of iced tea at her elbow. She accepted her husband’s kiss to her cheek then patted the seat next to her.
“Son, come over here a minute.”
Unwilling to be on the business end of a Lindsay Love lecture, Kieran paused until his father elbowed him forward. She marked a place in the latest in her long line of self-declared trashy novels and set it on the table next to the glass.
“I need your advice,” she said, surprising him. Trying to ignore the way his neck ached and his shoulder continued to throb despite the wimpy painkillers, he scoffed.
“I’m guessing I’m the last one of us equipped to give advice.”
“Don’t be silly.” She smacked his knee. “You’re still you. You’ve had a run of bum luck to be sure but you’ll pull out of it. So, listen,” she continued before he could burrow deeper into his self-pity hole. “I’m worried about your brother.”
Laughter burst out of Kieran’s mouth before he could stop it. She frowned then smiled then joined him with a short chuckle. “Yes, I can see how that might be funny. You are too much.”
“So, be more specific. I’m sure you’re worried about each of us. Which one of us that’s not me is bothering you the most today?” He smiled at her, his strong-willed, in-charge mother who looked frail and sunken-in today. But her voice was firm like he remembered it and her emerald-green eyes snapped with good health and no small amount of sass. Exactly the way he wanted her. The concept of her loss that they had all fac
ed more than once in the last few years had affected them all differently. Kieran had chosen to ignore it, keeping all faith that the good Lord was in no way prepared for Lindsay Halloran Love in his presence quite yet.
“It’s Dominic. He’s gone quiet on me again. You know how he does?” She fanned her face with a worn sunhat. “He’s so....”
“He’s Dom. He needs his space. He’ll come around. You know when he gets in one of his moods he’s best left alone.” Rubbing his left thumb, he recalled how Dom had stomped on it once when Kieran had tried to get him to come out of the dingy apartment he’d lived in with that angry, hippy pregnant girl a few years ago.
“I know. I know. Lord knows I know.” Lindsay fanned herself. “You want some tea?” He shook his head, wanting a beer. A lot of beers. “Anton!” she called over to her husband who’d flopped into the hammock and had his Kentucky Wildcats ball cap tilted over his face. “Did Dominic ever show yesterday at the brewery?”
“I told you already. No. He went down to Atlanta for the craft brewer’s conference. He’s there, as far as I know.”
She pursed her lips, unhappy with the response. “Yes, but has he called you from there?”
“No, woman. He’s a grown man, not required to check in with me.”
Worry over her wild-child son shone clear on her face as she frowned at her mule-headed husband.
“I’ll call him,” Kieran promised, tugging his phone out of his front shorts pocket. Two text messages awaited him on the cracked screen. Ironic, really, since Dom had caused the crack the last time they’d had a disagreement. He glanced at a message from the phone company, reminding him to please remit his four-days-late payment so that his service wouldn’t get turned off.
Registering the other as one from the very brother they’d been discussing, he tilted the screen away from Lindsay and read: Call me. In trouble. Don’t tell anyone.
Kieran faked a yawn and stretch. “I’m going back in,” he declared, a little loudly, to his mother’s concerned face and his father’s now-snoring form. “I’ll give him a ring though. I’m sure he’s fine.”
He walked inside as slowly as possible then took the stairs three at a time before touching the call button from the text. It rang and rang, and finally went to voice mail. Cursing under his breath, he tried again, getting the same result. A quick look at the time of the text told him it had only been six minutes so he sent one in reply.
I’m trying to call you. Answer.
He waited, tapping his fingers on the worn Formica and then hit redial. No answer. The generic meds were kicking in and the shoulder throbbing had retreated to a corner for the time being. After contemplating the array of Love Brewing beers in the fridge, he slammed the door and drank two glasses of water in quick succession.
The day’s heat had found its stride, shimmering on the front lawn and the road in the distance as he willed Dominic to communicate, his brain spinning in a million directions. When his phone rang, he noted the unknown area code. Deciding to risk it, since he’d been getting credit-card-collection calls, he touched talk and put the thing to his ear.
“Kieran,” his brother said over a cacophony of background noise. “That you? Can you hear me?”
“Yeah, I hear you. What’s all that racket?”
“I’m in jail, in Atlanta. I need you to come down and get me outta here.”
Kieran opened his mouth but nothing came out.
“Damn it, Francis, can ya hear me?”
“And how do you suggest I do that? I don’t have bail money. I don’t even have a car to drive.” Kieran glanced behind him to make sure neither of his parents had returned.
“Get a car from Antony. I’ve got money at my place. Plenty of cash. Daddy has the key...oh, damn it.”
“Yeah, next idea, genius?”
“I’m trying. Okay, listen, there’s a key to my place in the brewery. You can convince Daddy you want to go there, can’t ya? It’s in my middle desk drawer, with a bunch of other junk, it has a tag on it, says ‘Gina.’ Go get that, go into my place, and look in the freezer, in the bottom of the ice maker....”
“You haven’t changed your lock since Gina? You have freezer money?”
“Can it with the twenty questions. Grab the baggie full of it. Get a car and get down here fast.”
“What happened?”
“It’s...uh...I’ll explain it when you get here. Just fuckin’ get here. And don’t tell anyone what’s going on. I mean it.”
At that the call ended, leaving Kieran staring at the phone, heart in his throat. A call to Antony came next with a quick overview of the situation sans the word jail as he arranged to meet at the brewery to exchange cars since Anton’s brewery van always needed repair.
“Hey, uh, Daddy,” Kieran called down the steps. “Antony wants me to meet him with your van. Says he got some part in or somethin’?”
“Your daddy’s sound asleep. Go on. I’ll tell him.”
“Okay, but….”
“Did you get ahold of Dom?”
Kieran winced, unprepared for the lie he had to tell and thankful he didn’t have to face her to say it. He’d never mastered the art of the bald-faced whopper to his parents like his siblings had.
“Yeah. Listen, I think I’m gonna go down there, you know, to the, uh, conference...thing? Spend some time away, some time with, um...my brother. I think he could use it.”
The silence stretched out. Kieran’s skin crawled with anxiety. When he spotted his mother in the doorway of the kitchen, arms crossed over her chest, his mouth went dry.
“Is there something I need to know?”
“I’m pretty confident that is not the case.” At least he didn’t have to lie.
She took a long, deep breath. “All right then. I trust you. You’ll take care of him for me?”
“Yes ma’am. I’ll do that. I promise.” He gave her a tight hug, marveling at how much like a baby bird she felt. Snagging the van keys, he did a quick mental calculation of how many hours of driving he had ahead of him.
Dom’s apartment keys resided in the drawer and were indeed labeled with the name of the girl who’d been swollen with Dominic’s baby by the time she bailed for New York. He grabbed the Ziploc bag of cash tucked under the ice and was on the road forty-five minutes after the phone call, a duffel bag with a change of clothes and a toothbrush tossed into the jump seat of Antony’s oldest pickup truck.
After getting snarled in construction traffic at Chattanooga and stopping to refill his bottle of Tylenol and oil for the overheated engine, he finally pulled into the run-down police station parking lot that matched the address Dom had sent him. His whole body ached from skull to bum leg, but he tried not to limp as he walked in and asked to have Dominic Sean Love released.
The cop at the desk observed him, his gaze full of malice that Kieran didn’t comprehend, before motioning for some other cop to join him and together they gave him the top-to-toe once over.
“Is there a problem officer,” he asked, his jaw clenched.
“Nope,” they said in unison, and pointed him down a hall to another door. After nearly an hour and a half waiting around, sipping the dreck they called coffee and fighting sleep, he was about to start bitching when a door opened and his brother stumbled through it as if pushed hard from behind.
Trying not to react to the sight of Dom’s face, knowing it wouldn’t help since he probably realized how awful he appeared, Kieran flinched when a vicious-sounding voice barked his brother’s name from a window nearby. Dom motioned for Kieran to join him. They waited together for the woman to finish whatever paperwork she huddled over.
A horrific stench rose from the other man’s skin. Vomit and stale booze mixed with blood and body odor filled Kieran’s nose forcing him to take shallow breaths. The woman pushed some papers under the bulletproof glass that separated them. Dominic nudged Kieran’s side.
“The money?”
“Oh, right, here. Sorry.” He handed over the baggie and Dom
counted out five thousand dollars in hundreds. “Uh, why are we doing this here? Isn’t there a bail-bond place?”
“This is done here,” the woman barked. Taking the money, she counted out the cash in front of them, handed Dom a receipt then swiveled around to pin him with an evil smile. “Next time you want to go butt fucking some Atlanta boys, ya perv, better do your research. We’ve snagged more turd burglars from that nasty club than there are hairs on your pretty fairy head. Now beat it. And don’t miss your hearing. Or else.” She ogled Kieran. “Oh, he’s cute. Nice work, faggot.” Then she slammed the window down so hard they both jumped.
Kieran focused on the scarred wood behind the thick Plexiglas, his mind wrapping itself around what he’d just heard.
“Ugly bitch.” Dom tucked what remained of his money in his front jeans’ pocket and wiped a shaking hand over his bloody face. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
But Kieran couldn’t move. His feet froze and his face burned. Dominic limped toward an exit, but before shoving it open, he turned to face Kieran, his expression a familiar mix of defiance and deep unhappiness. “Don’t start,” he muttered before disappearing through the door.
Glancing around at the few souls still lingering in the hell hole he’d occupied for the last few hours, Kieran followed his brother out, shouldering the door open by mistake. The pain slammed into him from all directions, making him stumble and drop to one knee. As Dom helped him to his feet, Kieran studied his brother’s mangled face.
“We should take you to the ER. Your nose is definitely broken, you’re cut in three different places.” When he reached out to brush strands of hair away from Dom’s face the other man winced and stepped away.
“I’ve been in worse shape than this and not needed a nursemaid. Just take me home,” Dominic insisted, his voice hoarse like he’d been smoking, or yelling, or someone had clouted him in the windpipe. He dropped to butt at the curb and propped his elbows on his knees. Kieran hovered over him, unable to conjure a single word of comfort.
Finally Dom met his eyes. “Thanks for coming. Please, take me home now.”
