by Jan Coffey
Then, just as her pulse rate dropped to the level of a mere drum roll, she heard a noise from the rear of the house. From the kitchen.
Léa’s actions were instantaneous. Grabbing her purse, she ran for the front door. Yanking it open, she lost her grip on the handle and stumbled backwards as the chain latch snapped tight. She threw herself against the door, slamming it hard and trying to work the latch free. Her fingers had suddenly become numb. She couldn’t undo the chain.
Behind her, a loud knocking sounded through the house. A man’s voice. But Léa was in no mood to listen. She was trapped, and she had to get out. Now. She slapped and tugged at the latch desperately. The chain finally gave in to her efforts. She jerked the door open and dashed out onto the porch and down the steps.
Her bare foot hit the slick ground where the bottom step should have been, and Léa felt something sharp drive painfully up into the flesh. Her other foot slipped on the wet grass and slate walk, and she tumbled hard onto her face.
For a moment, lying there trying to regain the breath that had been knocked out of her, Léa didn’t know what had hit her. Then, as she tried to roll to her side, there was a dark figure looming over her.
“Don’t move.”
Pain was shooting up her leg. She was still trying to force some air into her lungs, but she searched the ground around her for anything she could use as a weapon. Her purse was gone, out of reach. The man’s hand was on her shoulder, restraining her, and the rain was pounding into her face.
“I knocked at the kitchen,” he growled, “but then I heard the front door bang open. Don’t move.”
A baseball hat, pulled low, completely shadowed his face. He crouched by the steps and tried to work her foot free from where it remained caught in the broken stair.
“Slide back toward the step, if you can. That’s it.”
The bright beam of the flashlight he’d dropped in the grass was shining on the splintered wooden boards of the steps.
“Nobody’s used the front door in two years. This step was busted before the last tenants moved out.”
“Are you a neighbor?” Léa managed to ask as she felt her foot come free.
“Yeah, I live next door.” His face turned toward her, and despite the darkness and the rain, she realized she knew him.
The rush of relief was almost overwhelming. She felt like crying and laughing. At the same time, she wished a hole would open up beneath her and swallow her, for she suddenly felt incredibly foolish.
“You’re Mick Conklin.”
“That’s right.” He looked up. “Been a long time, Léa.”
It was flattering to think that he remembered her name. At the age of eleven, she’d had a horrible crush on Mick. She’d been certain at that time that he hardly knew she existed.
“I…I had no idea any of the old neighbors would still be around.”
The rain continued to pelt down on them. Trying to salvage something of her dignity, she sat up and brushed the mud off her bare arms.
“Actually though, driving through the town tonight, I was surprised to see how little everything has changed.”
His hand was wrapped around her ankle, and he didn’t appear to be in any hurry to give it up. He shined the flashlight at the scratches on her leg and her foot.
“I think you might have some splinters in there. When was the last time you had a tetanus shot?”
“I don’t know. Recent enough, I suppose.” She was sitting in a puddle of water that was getting deeper by the minute. “But I think I have more of a chance of drowning than dying from an infection.”
His smile was unexpected. More startling, though, was the immediate jump in her pulse.
He nodded toward the dark Victorian-style house next door. “Come in and let me check out your foot.”
She wiggled her toes and flexed her foot, trying to hide the pain that shot into her ankle from the sole of her foot. Whatever she stepped on was still in there.
“I’m okay. Plus, this is closer.” She glanced up the steps at the open door. “If you wouldn’t mind lending me a flashlight or a couple of candles, I’ll be all set.”
“I guess they didn’t tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“Your house is under quarantine because of the bubonic plague.”
“So…another Doctor Conklin. You went to med school after all?”
“I went, but I never finished.” He put a hand under her elbow and started helping Léa to her feet.
“Too many cadavers in the labs for you?”
“Too many sunny days outside. Can you walk or you want me to carry you?”
“I…I’m really okay.” To prove her point, she took a step away from him toward her house. But whatever was in her foot dug in sharply when she put her weight on it, and she winced with pain.
“You are coming with me.” In a matter-of-fact manner, he looped his arm around her waist. “Of course, it’s been years since I did any kind of surgery.”
“I thought you said you never finished medical school?”
“I didn’t. But as you said, I had plenty of chances to work on cadavers.”
Léa smiled. “Well, that just fills me with confidence. Just a sec,” she said, spotting her purse on the ground. She gathered it up and tucked it under her arm.
Before he could put his arm around her again—or do something unthinkable like really carrying her—she started hopping and limping toward his front yard.
“You’re almost there.” He wrapped his hand around her elbow.
“But I’m not going in your house. Call it vanity or whatever, but the way I look right now—” She pushed the wet hair out of her face. “I’m not going any farther than your front porch. So, if you want to play doctor, we’ll just have to do it in the open, where everyone can hear me scream.”
“Now, that’s a thought.”
Léa glanced up at him, hearing the tone of amusement in his voice. She blushed and quickly searched for something else to say before she got herself in any deeper.
“Is your father enjoying his retirement?”
Maneuvering up the three steps of the porch was difficult, and she found Mick’s arm around her waist.
“You knew he retired?” he said with surprise. “I guess you haven’t been too much out of touch with Stonybrook.”
“Right after Emily was borne, I remember Ted saying how disappointed he and Marilyn were that your father was—” Léa paused, realizing that she’d forgotten for a moment that her brother was in prison and his family was all dead. “Ted…Ted said Dr. Conklin had sold his practice and retired.”
“My father was the only show in town for too many years. But he and my mother are having a great time traveling around.” Mick helped her sit down on a wide wicker chair on the porch. “Every time I talk to him on the phone, though, he still brags that it took a general practitioner, two pediatricians, and a physician’s assistant to fill his shoes.”
“Really?” Léa asked.
“To a point. Things are growing around here. In fact, we have a bit of a boom going on. New schools, new developments, all kinds of new people. Most of it is on the outskirts of town, but it’s all the same area.”
The excited whimper of a dog on the other side of the screen door drew Léa’s attention.
“Don’t move. I have to go and sharpen my knives.”
She took the flashlight that he handed her. Léa smiled as he struggled past the bouncing form of an animal blocking the doorway.
“I like dogs, if you want to let him out.”
“You asked for it.” He opened the screen door and a blur of dark gold bounded toward her. Mick stood by the door for a second, obviously making sure she was going to be fine with it. “His name is Max.”
She started petting him. “We met at a distance when I first pulled into the house tonight.”
“I have to boil some oil too. I’ll be right back.”
“Take your time.”
After Mick went
in, Léa rubbed the dog’s ears. The animal actually moaned with delight. “You’re all bark and no bite, aren’t you?” She scratched his sides and back, disregarding the clumps of hair sticking to her wet body and clothes. She laughed in surprise though, when Max jumped up onto the seat next to her and stretched the top half of his huge body over her legs.
“Oh, a lap dog,” she said, scratching his muzzle and broad face.
Mick stepped back onto the porch with his arms full. “Get off, you beast.”
“But I just got comfortable.”
His smile was gratifying, and Léa’s blood warmed in her veins. He’d shed his baseball hat and jacket inside. This Mick Conklin was older and more strikingly masculine than the eighteen-year-old she remembered. He’d been on his way to college the last time she’d seen him.
“Off, Max.”
Grudgingly, the dog got down from Léa’s lap and huffed off to the edge of the porch stairs. Throwing himself down, he peered out into the darkness. Defending his kingdom, no doubt.
“He loves storms.”
Mick handed her a towel. Léa thanked him as she took it and dried her face and hair and arms. The lightning seemed to be moving away, but the rain continued to come down hard. Léa felt oddly protected here on the porch. She looked at Max, who rolled over on his side with a sigh.
“I have to get a dog.”
“Borrow him for a couple of days. That should cure you.”
She watched Mick move about the porch. He lit a couple of candles in large jelly jars and placed them on a table beside her seat. He grabbed a wooden stool from a corner formed by the porch railing and sat on it, facing her.
“Give me your foot.”
“Let me take a look first.” She crossed her ankle on top of the other knee and tried to reach for the flashlight, but he pulled it out of her hand.
“Don’t be a coward. I won’t hurt you too much.” He wrapped a large hand around her ankle and pulled it onto his lap. Without another word, he opened the first aid kit and placed it on her lap.
Léa hugged the towel tightly to her chest. She didn’t know how to deal with the prickles of heat that were washing in waves down her spine. There was an intimacy in his touch that she was hardly accustomed to. She moved back on the wicker seat, trying to create some distance between them. But the heat spread even deeper when his fingers began massaging her heel and the ball of her foot.
After a moment he put the light on the floor, angling the beam upward and then took something out of the first aid kit.
In an attempt to retain some slight grasp on reality, she looked down at the kit. From there, her gaze wandered to the furniture neatly arranged on the wraparound porch. In the next instant, however, she found herself fascinated by his long lashes, his short-cropped hair. She couldn’t help but admire the fit of the T-shirt across his chest and shoulders.
“Ouch!” She practically leaped out of the chair, but he didn’t let go of her foot. “What are you doing? A root canal?”
“I just wanted to make sure you were awake.” He gave her a half smile and went back to his prodding with the tweezers.
“Okay, I’m awake.”
Mick poked at the sliver again, and she squirmed on the seat.
“Wait a minute, I didn’t agree to any exploratory surgery. I mean…I’m an organ donor, but that is supposed to be after—”
“Quit moving your foot around. It’s almost out.”
Léa jumped again at the pain. “It’s supposed to be a sliver. I—”
“Actually, it was a tree.” He held the tweezers up where she could see the long and ugly-looking piece of splintered wood. “Now sit back, I have to clean it up.”
She leaned back and hugged the towel again to her chest. “Thank you. The way you were going there for a minute, I was sure you weren’t going to settle for anything less than amputating.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not done yet. It looks like we got it all, though.”
Whatever it was that Mick used to clean up the wound, it stung like crazy, but Léa bit back her complaint. Max came over again, this time carrying a chewed tennis ball he’d retrieved from somewhere, and dropped it in her lap. She bounced the ball on the wood flooring, and he caught it on the first bounce. “So you need someone to watch him for a couple of days?”
“Not really. Heather does that when I am out on a job.” He reached for a tube of ointment and lowered his voice. “That beast is so spoiled that I have to threaten him constantly. Watch this. Dog pound, pal!”
Léa didn’t think Max looked too scared as he ignored his master entirely and dropped the ball again in her lap.
“Heather is my daughter. She moved back in with me a couple of weeks ago. Her mother lives out in L.A.”
Léa didn’t look up, but continued to rub the dog’s ears as Mick put a large adhesive bandage on the bottom of her foot. She was curious about Mick—about what he had been doing for all these years, about what had gone wrong with his marriage, about what his daughter was like. But at the same time, she’d been so focused for so long on her responsibilities in life that she’d never had much time for socializing, or even making good friends. And this wasn’t a good time to be starting, either, she told herself.
She put her foot on the floor as he started packing up his supplies.
“Thanks, doc.”
“No problem.”
It was surprising how easy it had been to let down her guard for a few seconds. To be herself. But she was in town for only a couple of days. A week at the most. Only long enough to sever the last ties she had with Stonybrook.
“Well—” Léa came to her feet when he did.
“You don’t have to go yet. I’m only putting these things back in the kitchen.
She smiled and shook her head. “I have a big day planned for tomorrow.”
“Don’t you want to at least wait until the lights come back on?”
As if the world had been awaiting his signal, the lights in the house and on the street came back on in one sweep.
“I see you have the power,” she said in jest. She gave the dog a final pat on the head and started toward the porch steps. “You could have made a fortune during the west coast power shortages.”
“Hold it. You can’t step out there barefoot and ruin my handiwork.”
“I am not eleven, Dr. Conklin, and this is not a life-threatening emergency.”
“You sure know how to bruise a guy’s ego.” He put a hand on her arm. “But wait…I’ll get an umbrella and walk you to your door.”
It was unnecessary, since she was already wet. But Léa kept her comment to herself and watched him reach inside the screen door. She heard the first aid kit hit the floor, and he re-emerged with a pair of black shoes and an oversized umbrella.
She eyed the high platform clogs he dropped in front of her. “I’d hate to wear these. Are you sure you won’t need them to go out later?”
“Very funny. Don’t worry, they’re Heather’s, not mine, and she’s done for the evening.”
Léa smiled and slipped her foot into the shoes. “I feel like I’m walking on stilts.”
He opened the umbrella, then took her by the elbow as they started down the steps.
“How long are you staying around for?”
“Just for the weekend, I think.”
“And you’re roughing it in there?”
“Yeah, it’ll be easier getting things done that way.” She made a conscious effort not to trip and fall or limp. Arriving at her decrepit front steps, she looked up and saw the door wide open, just the way she’d left it.
“Are you sure you want to go up this way? The back door is a lot safer.”
“No, this will be just great.” Léa climbed over the missing step and onto the landing, slipped the shoes off and handed them back to Mick. “Please thank Heather for me.”
“Maybe you’ll meet her this weekend.”
“Maybe.”
Léa gave a little wave and turned to peer in the door
way, wondering suddenly why she’d been in such a hurry to come back to this dismal death house.
~~~~
Marilyn fidgeted in the seat on the stage. The windy, old politician had been droning on forever. He’d bored her to death ten minutes ago. The handing out of the Foley Scholarship certificates promised to be even longer and more tedious.
Her feet were swollen and hurting. She glanced down at her stomach, which had popped out like a balloon with this second pregnancy. She wanted to sleep all the time, but having a toddler running around the house made that totally impossible.
Nobody in the audience was looking at her. Other than the usual ‘When’s the big date?’ or ‘How are Ted and Emily?’ no one at all had commented on how she looked. She couldn’t even remember the last time anyone had glanced down at her breasts or checked out her ass.
She shot a resentful look at her mother, sitting so dignified next to her on the stage. Dressed in a stylish navy suit, Stephanie looked young, beautiful, and well taken care of. Marilyn’s gaze went to Bob Slater, sitting in the front row. That stuffed shirt only had eyes for his wife.
Her gaze wandered down to his crotch, and she wondered idly how easy it would be to get him to go hard. One touch, probably. She shivered with the thought of giving Stephanie a reminder lesson about infidelity.
The back door of the auditorium opened, and she saw them walk in.
Ted had Emily in the carrier on his back. The room was large, but Marilyn had no doubt that her husband’s attention was only on her. She felt her entire body begin to relax.
Marilyn returned his warm smile and once again let that weird feeling of contentment creep through her, forcing out the bitterness.
Ted loved her more than anyone else.
Chapter 5
The storm had moved through, but the air was still heavy and damp. Mick stood on the walkway, listening to the crickets and watching Léa walk into the empty house and close the door behind her. Finding her at the bottom of these steps tonight had been like getting thrown back in time. Léa had always been the brave little hazel-eyed girl next door, always watching the world around her at a careful distance. He closed the umbrella.
