Mr. Write (Sweetwater)

by O'Neill, Lisa Clark

  Unlatching the lock, Tucker tried to lift the heavy sash, but humidity and years of neglect had caused the wood to swell. “You and your owner share some similar traits, you know that?” Tucker said to the cat. “You’re both large pains in my ass.”

  Putting his shoulder into it, Tucker finally got the window to slide up a measly foot, and he wedged his head and shoulders beneath it. “You’d better.” He grunted, and the window gave another inch. “Kill any mice.” Two more. “That hang out around here.” And finally, he was through. “Or next time you get stuck in my tree, I’ll leave your fat carcass to rot.”

  Tucker grabbed the cat, which had the temerity to scratch his arm. Though to be fair, it hadn’t seemed intentional.

  “You’re about one Tender Vittle away from coronary bypass, aren’t you?”

  The cat purred, and Tucker scratched its belly. He guessed it was kind of cute, despite the Jabba-the-Hutt thing it had going on.

  “Useless!”

  Tucker’s head came up.

  “Useless, where are you, you obstinate little butthead?”

  Fighting back a grin, Tucker looked down toward the ground. Sarah stood near the hedge, glowering toward his house.

  “Looking for someone?” he called down, satisfied when she jumped.

  Shielding her eyes, Sarah looked up through the branches. A stray beam of sunlight turned her hair to flame.

  “Not you, though it’s nice to know you recognize those qualities in yourself.” Then a little less sassily, “I seem to have lost my cat again.”

  “Does he look like this?” Tucker held the animal up to the open window.

  “Useless!”

  “I can’t believe you named your pet that.”

  “He’s a neutered male. Don Juan seemed cruel.”

  “He got stuck in my tree.” Tucker tried to resurrect his earlier resentment, but between amusement and the purring cat, he just couldn’t find it in him.

  “I ran into the house for something and he made his escape. Guess he was hoping to catch you in the shower again.”

  “You want to come up and join me, I’ll be happy to let him watch.”

  “That’s very generous, but I have some paint I need to watch dry.”

  He grinned. “Sooner or later, Red, I’m going to make you eat those words. I’ll bring him down.”

  “Thank you.” Her arm dropped to her side.

  Tucker headed toward the stairs, but wasn’t watching where he was going. When he came around the table, he kicked over a box.

  “Crap.” Tucker glanced down at the scattered contents. Some old baby clothes. A rattle, a keychain. A collection of greeting cards.

  Recognizing his mother’s handwriting, Tucker slowly knelt down to the floor. Balancing the cat in one arm, Tucker flipped the card open with his finger.

  For our sweet Tucker, on his first birthday. Love, Mommy and Daddy

  Something inside him squeezed.

  His mother had been the very best kind of woman: sensitive, sweet-natured. Even-tempered and kind. Of course, Tucker, being none of those things, was forced to be careful not to inadvertently trample on her feelings. He’d messed up a few times here or there, but mostly they’d done okay. He’d made her proud. It made it easier, knowing that.

  Stroking the cat, he flipped through the stack, finding various birthday cards, the commemoration of his baptism, even a card from Carlton when Tucker was born. Instead of teddy bears or little alphabet blocks, it bore some pretentious symbol that Tucker thought might be the family coat of arms.

  Son,

  Typical, Tucker thought. No mention of his mother.

  Congratulations on the birth of another generation of Pettigrew men.

  Tucker snorted. What must it have been like having to live with that kind of crap? He wondered if she’d ever questioned whether marrying a Pettigrew had been worth it. But then he found another card, this one from his father.

  Sweetest Ellie,

  I can’t tell you how proud I am right now. Of you, and of that precious little boy two clueless kids managed to bring into the world today. Well, mostly you managed it. I’m just the sap who almost passed out. You know I’m no good with this stuff, but I managed to find this in one of those books you’re always reading, and I think it fits.

  Some of the words were smeared, the page stained with what looked like water spots, but Tucker recognized Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s love sonnet 43. By the time he got to the end, which spoke with terrible irony of love even after death, Tucker realized that the words were blurred not from water, but from tears. His mother’s tears. And that his own had fallen to mingle with them.

  And he knew. For her, it had been worth it.

  Tucker had so little of his father. So few memories. Hardly any tangible mementos.

  To read this, to feel his father’s joy, his pride in Tucker, his love for his wife, gave new scope to the breadth of what all of them had lost. A husband. A father. A life. After the enormity of that kind of tragedy, how could his grandfather have further torn them apart?

  “Hello? You up there, Tucker?”

  Crap. He’d forgotten all about Sarah. The cat stirred at her voice, but seemed either too content or too exhausted to move.

  “I’m, uh…” He had to clear the thickness out of his throat. “I’ll be right there,” he called down the stairs, but he could already hear her steps on the treads.

  “I thought maybe Useless was giving you…”

  With a sense of desperation, Tucker turned away. But he’d forgotten about the mirror. Twenty different Sarahs and his own heartsick reflection stared back.

  “…trouble,” Sarah finished. And as she noticed the pile of childhood mementoes strewn across the floor, pity softened her face. “Oh, Tucker. I’m sorry.”

  She hitched up her gauzy skirt and knelt on the floor beside him. She extended a brightly painted nail to trace the embossed letters on one card. “It does get better.”

  He forced his frozen lips into a sneer. “More words of wisdom from the land of happily-ever-after?”

  Her head came up at that. “That’s the great thing about fiction, Tucker. It can be whatever you want. Real life sucks too often.”

  “What would you know about it?”

  He waited for whatever verbal grenade she’d launch – welcomed it, in fact. He felt raw, exposed, needy. And was spoiling for a fight.

  But she reached over and rubbed her cat. “I know that when my mother died, I felt like my safety net was gone.” She met his gaze, but Tucker was the one to look away.

  “Underneath the grief, there was anger. And beneath the anger, an unreasoning fear.”

  Tucker’s own unreasonable fear made him thrust the cat off of his lap. He didn’t think he could handle her understanding.

  “Here’s your animal. Goodbye.”

  “Tucker, I didn’t mean to –”

  Close to panic, he headed for the stairs. He’d thought that by getting out of New York, he was leaving this behind. But hell, coming to this town, this house…had he returned here looking for some kind of emotional security blanket, like a little kid?

  He stiffened when her footsteps followed behind him.

  “Tucker.”

  “The front door’s that way.” He pointed, and then headed for his room. He’d sweated right through his T-shirt.

  “If you’d just –”

  “Sweet Jesus. You just don’t know when to shut up.”

  Because she didn’t, because she’d pushed him to the very edge of a precipice that he was afraid to look into, Tucker backed her against the wall. The cat protested with an annoyed meow, and leapt away to disappear down the hall.

  Sarah’s eyes were wide on his. “What are you doing?”

  “Putting that mouth of yours to use.”

  He took. With no thought to finesse, to what she might want, Tucker plundered. When her lips parted in surprise, he invaded with his tongue. It wasn’t the teasing sample of that morning. It was brutal
, reckless demand. He wound a hand into her hair, pulling her head back, fully expecting her to bite him. But she didn’t. The damn fool woman just stood there. And Tucker dallied too long, because he felt himself growing hard.

  “Damn it.” He pulled back, but couldn’t quite meet her eyes. “What’s wrong with you? Why aren’t you fighting?”

  “Because you’re hurting,” she said quietly, and Tucker felt it like a punch to the gut.

  They both stood frozen.

  “Honey, I’m home!” Mason called out from downstairs. “And there’s some kind of animal in the kitchen.”

  Tucker forced himself to look at her. Her lips were swollen. Her eyes were kind. Shame burned through him.

  She turned away. “I’ll get Useless on my way out.”

  SHRUGGING into a clean shirt, Tucker came into the kitchen to find Mason leaning against the counter, drinking a beer.

  Good. A handy target.

  “Have a nice day?”

  Mason eyed him warily over the rim. “Better than you have, I’d wager.”

  “You deserted the field last night.” He yanked open the refrigerator. Found two more beers, a bottle of Tabasco and a carton of rice that was growing hair.

  It made him yearn for a pastrami on rye like a lost lover.

  Mason shrugged. “Sarah came in. I figured you might actually get off your arse if I weren’t around. Although judging by the look on her face when she left here, your skill in handling women remains as finely honed as usual.”

  He didn’t want to talk about Sarah.

  “How’d you get home?”

  “These things on the end of my legs. I believe they’re called feet.”

  He slammed the refrigerator door and was in Mason’s face before it had shut. “Are you screwing around with Allie Hawbaker?”

  “I…” Something shifted in his eyes. “No.”

  It was said just mournfully enough to have Tucker drawing back.

  “I walked her home… back to the store, anyway.”

  “Your bedroom door was shut.”

  Mason’s stare was bland. “Because I assumed one of us might actually know how to talk a woman into his bed, and might appreciate a little privacy.”

  “You went somewhere with her today. Her car was gone.”

  “What, you’ve joined Scotland bloody Yard now? Why are you so concerned, anyway?”

  “You mean aside from the fact that I’m fond of her?”

  “You’re fond of your beer, too, but you don’t get all brassed off when I have one. Oh, fine,” he said when Tucker bared his teeth. “Help a woman out and suddenly I’m a villain.”

  “Depends on the kind of ‘help.’”

  Mason drained the rest of his beer, chucking the bottle into the trash can. “I noticed a clicking noise when she pulled away last night. Like when my Jag had a worn CV joint. So I stopped by today, mentioned that I thought it sounded off, and she may want to have it looked at. Ah, Josie, the old woman, sort of insisted that that happen right away. And that I should be the one to take the car in, since I seemed to know my arse from my elbow.”

  Tucker crossed his arms over his chest. “You took her car in to have it serviced.”

  “If I hadn’t, there’d probably be a wax likeness of me somewhere with little pins in it.”

  “And you walked her home last night. In the dark. During a storm. And then watched her drive away.”

  His busy mouth turned sulky. “So?”

  “So.” Tucker couldn’t believe it. “You struck out.”

  “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “It’s a baseball analogy, dumbass. You hit on a woman, and you struck out.” He grinned. “There is a God, after all.”

  “I did not strike out.” He dragged both hands down his face, and went to the fridge for another beer. Giving the top a vicious twist, he muttered: “I choked.”

  “You choked?”

  “I just couldn’t bring myself to…” He whirled, pointed a finger. “I’ve clearly been living with you too long. Your ineptitude has worn off.”

  Immensely cheered, Tucker grabbed his keys from the table. “Come on.”

  “Where?”

  “We’re going to get some food. And then there’s a piece of riverfront property I want to check out.”

  “You’re buying more land here?” Mason sounded puzzled.

  “Not exactly. I’ll fill you in on the drive.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  SARAH stared in heartsick consternation at what had been an especially lovely bed of lantana. Yellow and white blooms lay crushed and torn across the walkway, the plants having been simply ripped up from the roots.

  Deer, maybe. Pulled them up, decided they didn’t like the taste? Though the research she’d done before she planted it indicated that lantana was supposed to be deer resistant. She’d even sprinkled dried blood – a thought which she found mildly disgusting – around them as well as the various perennials that she’d discovered were like candy to the marauding varmints.

  Setting aside the shears she’d been using to prune Mildred’s wildly abundant azaleas, she studied the poor, mangled remains. The lantana was a particular favorite of hers, due to its low maintenance and abundant blooms, and one of the few new introductions she’d made to Mildred’s gardens.

  She could take some clippings, try to start some new plants, she guessed. Then she sighed. Starting from scratch like that took time, and time was something that Sarah had in short supply. She’d have to go back to the nursery, buy some specimens – likely costly specimens – that were already well-established. She couldn’t leave things like this. The ruined bed was an eyesore.

  Pushing at one of the pins she’d stuck into her hair to keep the heavy mass off of her neck, Sarah blew at the stubborn curl that tumbled free regardless. Then she picked up the shears, right before she felt the prickle on the back of her neck.

  “Easy.” Tucker held up a hand, gaze shifting to the shears she’d gripped like a lethal weapon. “You have every right to be pissed, but I’d hoped we could avoid bloodshed.”

  She eyed him, big and dark and sporting an expression somewhere between broody and annoyed. She wasn’t sure what it said about her that she’d started to find that appealing.

  “You’re lucky I didn’t clip something off, sneaking up on me like that.”

  He snorted as he dropped his hand. “I didn’t sneak. I’ve been standing here for about two minutes. You have the survival instincts of a turnip.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Unfortunately. And for the record, that icy tone doesn’t work as well when a woman’s wearing a shirt with Snoopy on it.”

  She glanced down at the ancient tank. The words It was a dark and stormy night danced over Snoopy’s bent head. “If you’ve stopped by to irritate me, you can consider your task complete.”

  “Irritating you is a side benefit. I stopped by to bring you this.”

  When he held out the simple brown bag filled with bright, pretty tissue, Sarah could only blink.

  “Did you wrap that up yourself?”

  “Would you just take it so that I can stop feeling like a jerk?”

  “I would think you’d be used to that particular sensation by now.” But she took the bag.

  He watched her, and when she took her time taking off her gardening gloves, laying them with the shears, he stuffed his hands into his pockets. He’d taken the time to shave, she noted, and his damp hair was combed into order. She caught the faint scent of spicy soap. When he shifted his feet, scowled, awareness struck.

  “Are you nervous?”

  “No.”

  Could have fooled her. It probably made her a terrible person, but she found his discomfort, and the fact that he’d troubled to make himself more presentable…well, cute.

  “What happened to those plants?”

  “I’m not sure. Deer, I think.”

  “Huh.” He glanced around, jingled his keys. “Why didn’t they eat them
?”

  “Well, they’re not supposed to like lantana, which is why I planted it to begin with. Apparently they didn’t get the memo.”

  The keys stopped jingling. “I guess they didn’t get the memo that smoking is bad for them, either.”

  “What?”

  Tucker pointed. “There’s a cigarette butt on top of that pile.”

  Sarah stared, feeling her gorge rise in her throat. And realized that this was… destruction. Of the deliberate variety.

  “Maybe teenagers,” she suggested. Who were known to do things like this for the hell of it. She knew that there were several in town who were giving Will fits, knocking over mailboxes, egging public buildings. Breaking into the old mausoleum. Though why they would target a lowly flower bed, she had no idea.

  She did, however, have an idea why… certain other individuals might find this sort of thing entertaining. Bullies, she knew, enjoyed destroying things that were special to others.

  Just to show that they could.

  And she recalled, vividly, the smell of cigarette smoke the night on her porch when she’d been so certain she was being watched. She’d attributed – mistakenly – the smoke to Tucker, and the prying eyes to a stray cat.

  Now… now she wasn’t so sure.

  “Are you okay?”

  Sarah blinked, then glanced up at Tucker’s face, embarrassed to see that chagrin had morphed into concern. “I’m fine,” she said, rather briskly. “Just… annoyed. Since I inherited this garden, so to speak, I’ve felt duty bound to take care of it. And I’ve discovered that I enjoy it, which is a nice bonus. You know.” She untied the ribbon. “I have several wonderful books on flora that does well in this zone, if you’re interested in doing some work on your landscaping. A couple big, splashy pots of hibiscus on either side of those front steps would perk the place right up.”

  From the look on his face, she figured he knew that she’d deliberately changed the subject, but decided to give her a pass. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  When she lifted the tissue paper out of the bag, admired it before folding it neatly into a square, Tucker said: “Jesus. What is it with Southerners? You’ve got molasses for blood? It’s tissue paper, not one of the Dead Sea Scrolls.”