He’d seen rooms, or even wings, dedicated to someone before, but rarely an entire building. His mouth twisted into a grim smile. That donation must have been a doozy.
“Relative of yours?” Mason murmured.
“I assume so.” Tucker looked at the dates, did the math, and guessed Augusta had to have been his father’s mother. “Probably my grandmother.”
Mason gazed at him over his shoulder. “You aren’t sure?”
He shook his head. “My mother never talked about her. She would have been dead for several years by the time my parents met. And Carlton didn’t exactly bring her up when he was pontificating on the sanctity of the Pettigrew name.”
Mason gazed at the raised numbers on the plaque. “She died rather young.”
“Seems to run in the family.”
Because he was still feeling just a little raw, Tucker turned away before Mason could comment. He headed through the empty lobby, toward a reference desk where a woman with long red hair bent over her computer keyboard.
Tucker’s steps faltered. Until her head came up, and he saw that the eyes regarding him from behind horn-rimmed glasses were both wide and brown.
Not the pale green of new leaves, he thought, irritated by the extra little beat in his pulse.
“I’m looking for the microfiche,” Tucker told her. “If you could just direct me…?”
Since verbal communication wasn’t getting the job done, he snapped his fingers in front of her face.
“Oh. Of course.” Her cheeks darkened in that way only a redhead’s could. Or at least most of them. Some redheads were likely too damn stubborn and opinionated to blush.
Even when they waltzed around outside in their skimpy pajamas.
“We have a viewing room in the back. Do you have a library card?”
“I need a library card to look at microfiche?”
“Well. Not technically.” She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “But we always encourage our new residents to apply for one. That is…” her cheeks flushed again, but she had a certain gleam in her eye that Tucker was beginning to recognize. “Assuming you’re… new. To the area.”
“Actually, he was born here.” Mason came up beside him and leaned against the desk. The librarian looked stunned at his appearance, which was normal, but then flicked her gaze back toward Tucker, which was not.
“Really?”
“This library?” Mason leaned in even further, conspiratorially, and Tucker wanted to kick him. “Named for his grandmother.”
She widened her eyes even further, until they resembled dinner plates.
When the heel of Tucker’s size thirteen work boot came down on Mason’s toes, however, his muffled grunt was gratifyingly real.
“The microfiche?”
The librarian jumped a little at Tucker’s tone. “It’s all the way in the back. Last door on the left.”
“Thank you.”
“If you need anything –”
“I won’t,” Tucker said as he walked away.
Mason was limping, but he quickly caught up. “You are a wooden spoon,” Tucker gritted through his teeth.
His supposed friend chuckled. “I’m sorry mate, but I’m not the one stirring things up. You did that just by coming here.”
Because he guessed it was true enough, Tucker didn’t argue. “What is wrong with these women?”
“Maybe they’re taken with your manly form.”
Tucker turned down the hall which the librarian had indicated, and shot Mason a look. He might be built well, countless hours of physical labor having made him hard, and he knew his type of rugged looks appealed to certain women. But Mason was… well, Mason.
“Not when I’m standing next to you, Pretty Boy. Any normal place on the planet, I’d be chopped liver. But it’s like the females in town hear Pettigrew and lose all common sense. I mean, who bakes a casserole for some guy she’s never met?”
Mason sighed. “I wish you would have let me open the door for that one. I could do with a good home-cooked meal.”
“Maybe I should take out a billboard or something. I am not Carlton T. Pettigrew’s heir.”
“Or maybe you could just enjoy the attention.”
“Some of us aren’t completely superficial.”
“More’s the pity. Although I have to admit, it is rather amusing to be the wingman for a change. God knows with your multitude of personality flaws, you need all the assistance you can get.”
“Are you finished?”
Mason considered. “For now.”
Tucker tried the knob, found it wouldn’t budge. He’d just shaken it for a second time when the librarian came around the corner, hurrying as fast as her spiked heels would allow. “Sorry! I just remembered that we locked that room last night, because there was an art guild meeting in the conference room.”
“Why,” Mason teased, flirting by rote. “Do the artists come in and splatter paint on the microfiche?”
Her cheeks turned a shade deeper than her hair. “We’ve just discovered that it’s better not to leave any of the other rooms unlocked during meetings.”
“Sounds like splatter of a more personal nature,” Mason murmured while she wrestled the key into the lock. Despite himself, Tucker grinned. Until the librarian turned around, mistaking it for something directed at her.
“There you are, Mr. Pettigrew.”
Hell, maybe he should just change his name. After all, he’d done so before. “Thank you.”
“DeeDee.”
“I’m sorry?”
“My name is DeeDee.” She stuck out a hand. “DeeDee MacKenna.”
Tucker stared at her hand as he might at a loaded weapon, then took it briefly in his.
“If you need anything else…”
She let the thought trail off, and when Mason made an abbreviated wing motion behind her back, Tucker shook his head. “I won’t.”
SARAH waved goodbye to Mr. Pinckney as she left the hardware store. The little old man had been a fixture there for as long as she could remember, the deep pockets of his bib-overalls always holding a collection of starlight mints that he handed out to his customers’ kids. She’d probably eaten a hundred of them over the years.
A hundred and one, she corrected, smiling as the taste of peppermint tingled on her tongue. She hadn’t been able to refuse him.
Her smile broadened when she spotted Bark, tied to the wooden bench, right where she’d left him. Well, he had exerted himself enough to crawl beneath the seat. She’d left a dish of water, but from the looks of things it hadn’t pacified him.
He greeted her approach with a mournful expression.
“I swear, you’d think you were a geriatric basset hound instead of a relatively young… whatever you are.” Bark’s breed was indeterminate; though from his size and coloring she was pretty sure he had some yellow lab in his genes. Mixed with slug, and maybe donkey.
“Exercise is good for you,” she told him as she bent down to release his leash from the bench’s arm.
“Looks like it did wonders for you.”
The bag holding the wire brush crinkled as Sarah’s fingers jerked. That voice…
She closed her eyes, transported back a dozen years. She’d heard it countless times before, taunting, teasing. But that night she’d smelled the alcohol, heard it behind her.
And known true fear.
Gathering herself, Sarah drew on the self-confidence that had been so hard-won. And rose, turning to meet Austin Linville’s derisive stare head on.
Except the face gazing back at her wasn’t quite the one she expected.
This wasn’t Austin. It was his brother.
“Jonas.” She greeted the younger Linville coolly. If she’d been thinking, she would have remembered that Austin was still in jail. The realization that she hadn’t been thinking – had merely reacted instinctively – disturbed her.
“Sarah.” His tone was mocking.
Though she knew the brothers shared the same dirty blond hair a
nd bulky builds, she’d never realized how similar their voices were before.
Probably because it was usually Austin doing the talking.
Construction work had kept Jonas’s former football player’s body hard, but time outdoors, plus the cigarettes of which he reeked had aged his face beyond his years.
He shifted his weight, and Sarah glanced down at his left foot, which had borne the brunt of his brother’s ire. “Couple of broken bones,” he said when he saw where she was looking. “No big deal.”
Yeah, except for the fact that those bones were broken when his brother shot him. But as much as they fought, she knew the Linville boys tended to circle the wagons when it came to outsiders. They might pound the hell out of each other, but if someone took issue with one of them separately, they became a solid unit. That intense family loyalty might have been admirable if it hadn’t blinded them to common sense.
When Jonas’s eyes raked her up and down, lingering insolently on her breasts, Sarah wished she’d worn a parka instead of a thin tank top.
But instead of shrinking, or even giving him the slap he so richly deserved, she kept her face and her words impassive. “Well then. You have a pleasant day, Jonas.”
Dismissing him, she turned away, tugging Bark’s leash to urge him from beneath the bench. But Jonas’s hand snaked out to grab her.
Sarah gasped at the painful grip, and Bark growled.
Jonas flicked an annoyed glance at the dog before glaring at Sarah. “Still an uppity bitch, aren’t you? Thinkin’ you’re better than us just because you got rich friends and know a bunch of fancy words. You grew up just as trashy as we did.”
No. Sarah’s father had had some troubles, and her family had been poor. But they weren’t trashy. It was a very important distinction.
“Take your hand off me,” she said softly.
Her brother’s dog growled louder this time, slowly coming to attention at her side, and after several galloping heartbeats, Jonas backed off. Physically, anyway.
“You called the cops on us that night.”
Actually, it had been Allie who’d made the call, but Sarah certainly wasn’t going to point that out. “Most people call the police when they hear gunshots.”
“Me and Austin was just havin’ a little disagreement. Would’ve worked it out ourselves, if you hadn’t gone and been all neighborhood watch on us. Now Austin’s in jail, and both of us are kicked out of that house we’d been promised. Neither of us is too happy ‘bout that.”
“Maybe you should have considered that before you started waving guns around.”
“Wasn’t hurtin’ anybody.”
The sheer idiocy of that statement had Sarah looking pointedly at his foot.
“Bullet went astray.” He smirked at her.
“You ignorant ass.” She lost her temper. Firing off rounds to make their point might have been how they handled arguments when they were out on that derelict property of theirs by the river, but now they were inside the town limits. Not only was it against the law, but it was downright irresponsible.
“What if that bullet had hit a passing car or someone walking down the street? Or, God, a child riding his bicycle –”
“Or you.”
“What did you say?”
He shrugged his thick shoulders. “Since we’re talkin’ all hypothetical.” He sneered. “I’m just sayin’ that the bullet could have hit next door. Slamming real hard and fast into you.”
The heat of her temper cooled as her blood quickly turned to ice. Those were the same words, almost exactly the same words, Austin had used… that night.
Only he hadn’t been talking about bullets.
Had Austin told his brother what had happened? Or had Jonas… overheard? Either thought – that they’d discussed it, probably laughed about it, or that Jonas had been watching – was repugnant.
And, to her shame, humiliating.
Disgusted with herself, furious with him, Sarah forced herself to a calm she didn’t feel. If there was anything she’d learned about bullies, it was that they eventually lost interest if you didn’t give them the reaction they were after.
So Sarah laughed instead. “Well, luckily your brother’s bullet seemed more inclined to slam into you.”
Jonas’s face turned red at the implication. “I ain’t no queer.”
“A boon for the homosexual community.”
Angered either by the comment or by the fact that she hadn’t cowered, his fists bunched, and he took a threatening step toward her. Bark strained against the leash, snarling. Mr. Pinckney stepped out the door behind them, keeping Jonas from making good the threat she saw plainly in his eyes.
“Everything okay out here, Sarah?”
Sarah glanced back to where the old man stood, the ebony planes of his face pulled tight in concern.
“Just fine, Mr. Pinckney. Jonas here was just leaving.”
“Bitch,” Jonas said under his breath, his gaze never leaving Sarah’s. “I’m not through with you yet.”
“I believe you are,” Sarah returned, unflinching, although her heart punched like a prizefighter in her chest. “Don’t be stupid,” she hissed. “Unless you want to pay an extended visit to your brother.”
The threat of incarceration seemed to remind the man that he’d basically just assaulted her on a public street. Not that he’d done more than bruise her arm. But she could technically press charges, were she so inclined.
He glanced at Mr. Pinckney, then down at the still growling dog.
“One of these days,” he finally murmured “you won’t have other people or stupid dogs around. We’ll see how tough you are then.”
He stalked off toward McGruder’s, and Sarah eased herself onto the bench. She told herself it was just to untangle Bark’s leash, but in reality her legs were trembling. She wasn’t sure how much longer they’d hold her if she tried to stand.
“Good boy,” she whispered to Bark, who licked her hands and her face when she bent to stroke him. “I’ve got a steak in the fridge with your name on it.”
“You all right?”
Sarah looked up. Mr. Pinckney blocked the sun, the light forming a halo around his grizzled head. “My avenging angel,” she said, and he shuffled his feet. But his tone was deadly serious when he said: “You be careful around that one, young lady. That one’s trouble, and mean with it.”
“I will.” She was touched that he’d come to her aid. He might be half Jonas’s size and nearly three times his age, but he was something Jonas would never be – a gentleman. “Thank you, Mr. Pinckney.”
When he’d gone, Sarah forced herself to her feet, glancing at the forgotten bag containing the wire brush. She’d gripped it so tightly that the brush had left indentations in her palm.
“Come on, Bark.” That she felt like curling up in a corner and shaking couldn’t be borne. She wasn’t a kid any longer, and she had a business to open. “We have tables to paint.”
For once, the dog came along without a protest.
CHAPTER SEVEN
TUCKER stared at the email on his computer screen, but couldn’t recall what he’d written. Something perfunctory. His fingers typed the words, sailing over the keyboard by rote, but his brain had been engaged elsewhere.
Namely, mulling over the contents of the newspaper articles he’d read.
It had been pretty much like his mom said. Dark night. Wet Roads. But what she hadn’t said was that his dad had to have been traveling at a pretty damn high rate of speed. The curve he’d missed wasn’t one that ran right up next to the river. On the contrary, where he’d run off the road, he had to continue on quite a number of yards to make it to the water. Tucker knew, because he’d found the spot and looked. There’d been a fence – gone now – but a board fence that should have slowed him.
Had he been in a hurry to get home? Angry? Or merely joyriding, testing out the engine, as young men were wont to do? Hell, his dad had only been twenty-two.
Twenty-two years old.
A kid, really.
The grainy photo the paper had published of the flooded car, juxtaposed with a family shot of him and his parents, made him ache. Not for the idealized image of the father that he’d always carried in his head, but for the very human man – human enough to drive his car too fast on slick roads – who’d been ripped from the life he was building, far too young.
Closing his eyes, he wondered who that young man had been. Had he preferred ketchup on his hotdogs or mustard? Had he liked the way rain sounded on the metal roof of his home, a pleasure Tucker had discovered just last night? Had he been confused by modern art? Enjoyed building things with his hands? Harbored a secret and somewhat embarrassing fondness for old black and white monster flicks?
It killed him to not know such mundane facts about the man who’d helped conceive him. Tucker could readily identify the traits he’d picked up from his mom, just as he knew he’d gotten his height, his build and his coloring from his dad. But without knowing the other stuff, Tucker had to wonder if that young man he’d read about in the paper would have been proud of his son’s achievements. And if Tucker would have achieved so much – or even the same kind of things – had his dad still been alive.
And since he seemed to have bought a first-class ticket on the maudlin train, Tucker also pondered the fact that one of his great-great grandfathers and his grandmother appeared to have shared a similar fate. Granted, they’d drowned, respectively, in a flood and after falling off a boat, but that hadn’t stopped the reporter from drawing the comparison. Even speculating about a family curse, given the fact that the river had taken them all.
Like a southern-fried version of the Kennedys. Apparently, even small town newspapers weren’t above a little sensationalism from time to time.
But maybe, Tucker thought wryly, he’d stay away from bodies of water for a little while, just in case.
“Working?”
Eyes easing open, Tucker caught a glimpse of the Mason he was used to. Hair brushed, rather than matted to his head with sweat, and dressed for something other than manual labor. Of course, his tan slacks and light blue shirt were more Gap than his usual Burberry, but it was still several notches above the beat-up jeans and T-shirts he’d been living in for the past couple weeks. Tucker got the feeling he was enjoying portraying himself as just a regular chump.
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