Skygods (Hydraulic #2)

by Sarah Latchaw

  “What do you think?” I murmured.

  “I think it was the latter, though my mother didn’t help. His grades began to slip, and it was only through Mr. Caulfield’s influence that he was able to graduate from law school at all.”

  “But he still passed the bar.”

  “Oh yes, exceptionally. Intelligence was never my father’s problem. It was dropping the ball. Which is what led to his disbarment.

  “For three years, Antonio and Rachel Cabral played the happy newlyweds, but I think depression, combined with the backlogging casework, my birth, and the responsibility of becoming a new father finally broke him. The state discovered he was using Caulfield family money—the stockpiles of ‘good behavior’ cash paid to Rachel—to bribe prosecution witnesses and bring about swifter resolutions to his cases. He was immediately fired, of course. The Caulfield Law Firm was thrown into the newspapers, a multitude of their court cases were reexamined, and disbarment proceedings began. But he was never actually disbarred.”

  A lump formed in my throat as I realized what he meant. “Because he killed himself first,” I whispered.

  “In a closed garage with a running Chrysler.”

  “Oh my God.” I gingerly touched his face and discovered that it was wet. It disturbed me as much as his story, because the Samuel I remembered hardly ever cried. Not the day we married, not the day he left. Until recently, I couldn’t think of a single instance. His quaking hand wrapped around mine and pulled it from his face, returning it to his waist.

  “My mother was devastated. She may have been self-centered, but she loved my father very much. Toss in her sudden status as a single mom to a baby she’d only ever thought of as a toy, and you can see how her illness spiraled out of control. Alonso tried to visit, but she threw him out and forbade him, or any of the Cabrals, from seeing me. They were so overcome with grief themselves that they easily gave in to her requests. Alonso took a job in Colorado as his escape from the pain. The Caulfields threw more money at my mother to satisfy their grandparent duties,” he said bitterly. “You know most of what follows from the book.”

  “Some.” I knew about her late night clubbing and drinking binges while her son waited in the car. Her frequent vacations, when she left Samuel with a babysitter for days at a time. The ridiculously expensive shopping sprees and the bills that piled up—there was plenty of money in the bank, but she never bothered to make credit card payments, Samuel explained. She’d put her son in a ritzy prep school not because she wanted the best for him, but because a neighbor had a child who also attended, and offered to drive Samuel as well. I knew Rachel had slapped Samuel and spewed vitriol, which only made him try harder to please her.

  “Just after New Year’s, the wild lifestyle stopped. It was around this time that my prep school shrink had a talk with me about what I could and couldn’t say. For a five-year-old, apparently I was very cavalier about things like drug use and raucous sex. The shrink gave my mother a stern warning. After that, she didn’t go out anymore.”

  “So she must have at least tried to be a good mom,” I said hopefully.

  I felt him shake his head. “No, Kaye. She stopped because she was sliding into a deep depression. She couldn’t have cared less whether a social worker came knocking and took me away. My mother shut herself in her room all day, all night. Occasionally she’d leave and I never knew where she went, though I have my suspicions.”

  “Where?”

  “Fenway Park. She’d leave the house with my father’s urn because she had this crazy idea that she was supposed to dump his ashes there. She fixated on getting into Fenway with the urn, mumbled about it all the time. She stopped eating, stopped buying food. That’s when I started sneaking food home from kindergarten.”

  I frowned. “Why didn’t your neighbors contact anybody?”

  “I really can’t say,” he replied, too nonchalant for my peace of mind. “Maybe they just didn’t want to get involved. Or maybe they did say something, but there were road blocks. I was too young to comprehend what was going on. You know what happened next.”

  “Your mother jumped.” I brushed a lock of now dry hair from his furrowed forehead. “And you came home to Colorado. To me.”

  He exhaled.

  The storm chose that moment to unleash its fury on our flimsy tent. Another gust of wind shook the tent walls and one corner, then two, snapped loose. The entire thing collapsed. Canvas tumbled over our heads with the wind, wrapping us, our belongings, and our sleeping gear in miserably cold wetness.

  I yelled, my hands flying over my head, struggling to push the pile of slick material off of me. Samuel did the same, and I even heard him loose a startled laugh at our predicament. Together, we fumbled for the wall that was still partially standing and found the tent zipper. Samuel pulled me outside after him, shielding my body from the wind.

  I tossed up my hands. It would take work to re-stake the tent in the dark.

  “Roadside Motel?” Samuel asked. I saw his face a little better now, outside. The corner of his mouth turned up in that oh-so-familiar grin. But his eyes. His eyes were unreadable.

  I shook my head. “No way, Cabral. If you were in the wilderness, there’d be no Roadside Motel three miles back. We’re staying here.”

  He shrugged “whatever” and followed my lead. Before long, we’d managed to pound the stakes firmly into the ground and re-pitched the tent, though the inside of it was now as wet and wretched as the outside. I resigned myself to a soggy sleeping bag and pillow.

  We stayed outside for a ridiculous amount of time, heedless of the pelting rain, the twigs and leaves flailing in the air, smacking and stinging our skin. His arms tightened around me and I hugged him hard, trying to squeeze all of the hurtful memories out of him like toothpaste from a tube. A plethora of questions raced through my head. Had he seen a therapist as a child? Why had the fact that he was a Boston Caulfield never become public? But none of them were so important they couldn’t wait. Finally, his hold on me loosened and I sensed a change in his demeanor. He wanted to move on.

  I tugged his hand. “Hey,” I said, attempting a grin but failing miserably. “Let’s save our pillows before they float away.”

  “It’s going to be a cold, wet night in that tent. Are you sure I can’t talk you into a room at that dumpy little motel outside the park entrance? I bet they even have a vibrating bed.” He forced a chuckle.

  “No quarters. You can tough it out for one night, city mouse.”

  “As long as you’re sleeping in frigid rain puddles next to me.” He squeezed my hand and crawled into the tent behind me, splashing through muddy water at the entrance.

  And if I already hadn’t known, those words sealed it—I’d never be able to let him go back to New York. Not after tonight.

  Chapter 5

  Track

  At the tail end of a dive, a skydiver sometimes

  must track horizontally across the sky

  to distance themselves from other divers

  before they can deploy their canopy.

  SOAKED, SHIVERING, AND WRETCHED after our camping trip, we ended up heading back to Boulder a day early. The minute we turned on our cell phones again, all sorts of message alerts dinged and we knew vacation was over. I fielded calls from gossip reporters about the “Kingsley-Cabral-Neelie” love triangle (I finally pulled the plug on my landline), while Samuel poured through numerous voice mails from Caroline. Tweedledee and Tweedledum, my pet photogs, had returned and set up shop in the TrilbyJones parking lot. I even took them blueberry muffins and cups of coffee, much to Samuel’s annoyance.

  Finally, the news we’d hoped for broke around seven thirty Friday evening—Indigo Kingsley confirmed she was in a long-term relationship with a man she’d met on the set of Water Sirens.

  We lounged on the couch, Samuel’s arm casually draped over my shoulders as we watched the tail-end of some indie movie he’d found on IFC (I didn’t even know my cable package included IFC…huh). His cell phone blared
, startling us both from the swampy Louisiana diner on television. I groaned. Caroline had already called six times today. But to my surprise, it wasn’t Caroline.

  “Indigo!” Samuel’s face erupted into a grin.

  The green-eyed monster hit my heart with a bull’s-eye shot as I pictured Indigo’s pouty lips whispering words on the other end of the line. But then I got over it just as quickly because: No. Freaking. Way. Indigo Kingsley called my apartment. Well, technically she called Samuel, but still, he was in my apartment. Molly would squeal. Samuel, however, saw the monster peek through and winked at me, planting a reassuring peck on my lips.

  I barely heard the throaty lilt of Indigo’s familiar Aussie accent while Samuel nodded along, his fingers nervously pinching the ends of his hair.

  “Flip the channel to E!,” he whispered.

  Sure enough, stock footage of Samuel and Indigo at the Oscars rolled, followed by a series of clips from the Water Sirens movie.

  “…While rumors of the couple’s split have persisted for weeks, her announcement makes it official—no more nixie love for Indigo. ‘Ms. Kingsley and Mr. Cabral quietly parted company months ago,’ comments Kingsley’s long-time rep, Natalie O’Malley. ‘She and Mr. Caldo are very happy, and very much in love.’

  “And how is the playboy playwright handling the news of his former flame’s fling with the set caterer? Just fine, apparently. His rep tells us he’s taking a hard-earned breather in the midst of heavy book and movie promotions, spending time with friends in Colorado before he hits the West Coast…”

  Indigo and the set caterer? I stifled an incredulous laugh, turning it into an unladylike snerk. Celeb gossips had to be doing back-flips over this. Mr. Playboy Playwright smiled again.

  “Indigo, thank you so much,” he said. “I truly appreciate this…Yes, tell Nat thank you, too…” More throaty accent, then a muffled good-bye. Samuel snapped his phone shut and jumped onto the couch next to me. His arms snaked around my waist and I loosed an embarrassingly school-girlish giggle when he nuzzled my neck, the buzz of his breath tickling me.

  “So, Indigo Kingsley jilted you for the caterer, huh? You failed to mention this bit of hilarity to me.”

  “Marco is an extremely talented caterer.”

  “Seriously, how does something like that even happen? It’s so bizarrely Cinderfella.”

  Samuel flipped the channel back to his dull indie flick and settled in. “A little secret about Indigo: she loves burgers. Insanely loves them, which drove her trainer crazy. But she always complained about how it was impossible to get a good Aussie-style burger in the US—fried egg, pineapple, beetroot, the works—without special-ordering. So, after a long morning of filming, Marco overheard her telling another actor she would kill for an Aussie burger. After that, you can guess what lunchtime staple was added to the table.”

  “Romance blooms over burgers. That’s sweet,” I said, “though I’m sorry you were dumped for Marco, the catering sex god.”

  “It was devastating. I should have listened to Mamá when she tried to teach me how to cook.”

  I nudged him and he snagged my elbow, using it to gently twist me toward him. My breath caught in my throat as I saw his eyes, bright with elation. Soon I was lost in a celebratory kiss, grateful to Indigo (and Marco Caldo) for taking some of the heat off of Samuel.

  The second piece of news to arrive that night was not as welcome. Just as I took a deep breath and dove in for another “hello” with Samuel’s lips, his cell rang again. And again. And again. I groaned when he tore his mouth from mine. He flipped open his phone.

  “Hi, Caro,” he sighed, lips red and swollen.

  I watched in staunch concern as his face fell, then crumpled, then grew angry. He leaped from the couch and paced the room. Long fingers wove through his hair, tugging so hard I thought he might worry a bald spot right on the crown of his head.

  “That’s not enough time. Simultaneous publicity tours are already swamping me. I can’t turn around a script by Thanksgiving.”

  Crap, that didn’t sound good. Samuel’s face went fiery.

  “Well tell them it’s not possible! I can get one to the studio by early January.”

  When Samuel strode past me, I grabbed his arm and pulled his fingers from his hair, threading them with mine. He absently squeezed my hand.

  “I don’t give a damn about the contract. They broke the contract when they chose to bump up filming…”

  Caroline screeched something on the other end, her voice sending cringe-inducing shudders through my spine. Samuel also winced, holding the phone away from his ear. Finally, he slumped down next to me. “Fine,” he said stiffly. “We’ll try for Thanksgiving. But my Labor Day trip is still on…yes, I’m serious. We’ll talk about it when I return to New York—Caro?”

  Samuel growled and stared at his phone for a long moment. Then he suddenly launched it across the room, sending it clattering against my wooden floor. I sat, stunned and frozen. Heady, dark emotions stirred in his face and all the extremes of his visit—the dossier, our sex life confessions, his parents, his career demands—brewed together, creating a potion that would overwhelm him.

  “I can’t do this anymore,” he rasped. His head wearily fell against the back of the couch.

  Pained, I dropped down in front of him, resting my arms on his knees. My hands smoothed over his legs. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  He sighed, relaxing under my fingers. “The movie studio plans to film the next five Water Sirens movies back-to-back, did I tell you this?” I shook my head. “They want the next script by Thanksgiving, a full two months earlier than they’d originally requested. I told Caroline that was impossible, but she’s already agreed to it.”

  “And she hung up on you?”

  “Yes. It’s a new habit of hers that’s going to end, and soon.”

  “That’s very unprofessional.”

  “She’s not usually like this. But she’s had her feelings hurt…her pride, too.”

  Then you shouldn’t have dated your publicist. I couldn’t keep my disgust from my face, and he saw it. A part of me didn’t care. I wanted him to wake up before it was too late. Molly’s warning flitted through my mind—Caroline Ortega wore too many hats.

  “What if you let another writer adapt your books?” I casually suggested. Ha, fat chance.

  Samuel’s eyes narrowed at me, as I’d expected they would. “Never,” he retorted.

  “We could cancel the Planet Bluegrass trip. That would give you some extra writing time.”

  His hands gripped mine. “Kaye, I’m not about to sacrifice our time together for my career.” No, Samuel, of course you won’t.

  I chewed my bottom lip, peering up at him beneath my eyelashes. It was a trick Danita’d taught me long ago, and Samuel had never figured out the look was intentional. “And I suppose you’ll be too busy to help with the fund-raiser or our book.”

  “I know what you’re doing.” His lips quirked.

  Okay, so maybe that trick only worked on seventeen-year-old boys. Nevertheless, fire flickered in his eyes and, trickery or not, it still affected him.

  I turned my palms to meet his. “Samuel, it’s too much. You can’t make everyone happy, so something’s gotta give.” Or someone. “If you don’t want to cut out anything else, that leaves the book and movie tours. May I see your schedule?”

  He retrieved his phone and opened his calendar. A dense, color-coded planner popped up, rendering me speechless. He’d said it was a busy time for him, but I had no idea. Every day, weekends included, was packed, hopping from city to city from this coming Monday and on. The only free time blocked on his calendar was a weekend in late August—Rocky Mountain Folks—and then it picked up again until Christmas. And if his concern over the rapid five-movie schedule was any indication, this insanity wouldn’t end any time soon.

  I closed my eyes in silent fury at Caroline for her obvious control ploy, and even at Samuel for allowing her to ride roughshod over him. When
I opened them again, Samuel watched me intently, unsure if I was about to go Annie Oakley on his tail.

  “This.” I tapped the screen. “This is a big problem. I don’t know what Caroline is thinking, but this will kill you in a week. You think you’re exhausted now? There are five more movie promotions waiting around the bend.”

  “I know,” he said soberly. “I’ve never done a simultaneous book and movie tour, and I’m hoping I won’t have to again. That’s the only reason I agreed to this, but once the events started piling up—”

  “You don’t plan to publish another book someday?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then there will be more simultaneous book and movie tours. Don’t set a precedent, Samuel. Put your foot down, now. Caroline and her agency don’t own you.”

  His eyes searched mine. “You’re an expert with this kind of thing. What do you suggest?”

  I bit my lip and scoured his event schedule, trying to determine which appearances could be dropped. Unfortunately, only Caroline could answer that and I wasn’t about to call her. “In my opinion, you should draw a hard line. No more than five appearances a week, with two days completely free, and only through Christmas. Everything else can be done via phone and social media. Let Caroline decide which are the most important commitments to keep—that’s what she’s paid to do.” I looked him straight in the eyes, all business. “If she doesn’t bend, go over her head.”

  Samuel nodded, agreeing with me. What the heck. I pushed a little further. “After Christmas, I suggest you decide what role you ultimately want Caroline to hold: editor, publicist, or agent. She’ll probably come out fighting, so be prepared.”

  He stared at our hands in contemplation. Finally, he spoke. “You’re right.” I swear, somewhere, choirs sang, victory bells tolled, and cherubic children strewed brightly colored flower petals. “Caro’s too invested in my career, to the point where it’s not my career anymore. It’s not fair to her.” He bent forward and softly kissed the top of my head. “It’s not fair to you.”