Mr. Write (Sweetwater)

by O'Neill, Lisa Clark

  “He looks brassed off.”

  Tucker agreed. “After he eloped with my mom, my grandfather pretty much disowned him. I thought they’d patched things up fairly well by the time I was born, but maybe not well enough. Or it could be that he was churned up over the dedication since it involved his mom. Or hell, maybe he’d just eaten some bad shrimp. There’s no way to know.”

  Beneath the newspaper clippings was a handwritten note. It was scrawled on a sheet from one of those cutesy notepads that some women liked to use. His mom had always had two stuck to their fridge: a running grocery list, and little comments or reminders for him each day. Seeing it gave him another pang.

  Ellie,

  So it was a note from his dad. Tucker’s mother’s name was Elle, and she’d told him that his father was the only person who’d ever called her Ellie and gotten away with it.

  Sorry for waiting until you were out to do this, but I knew you’d try to talk me out of it if you were here. I know he has the chief in his pocket, but I still have to confront him. It’s just going to eat at me until I do.

  If it all goes to hell, I promise we’ll take Tucker and get out.

  You said you wanted to see New York City, didn’t you?

  I love you,

  Tuck

  Tucker read the letter three times through. Then he asked Mason for his take.

  “Well, obviously your father was about to undertake a meeting that your mother deemed either unwise or detrimental. Particularly if the outcome would result in them leaving town. This line.” He pointed to he has the chief in his pocket. “It seems to hint at… some form of corruption, perhaps.”

  “Likely the Chief of Police. Or possibly the fire chief, since the bulk of those articles focus on the old library burning down.” One of Tucker’s inherent skills was outlining a story, and he thought the newspaper clippings were a sort of rough draft for this particular plot. The letter without the articles wouldn’t mean much. “My mom didn’t select this stuff at random.”

  “No, I don’t imagine she did. Do you think your father knew something that could be considered damning?”

  “Knew something, suspected something.” Tucker jerked one shoulder in a shrug. “Was somehow involved.” Although that thought wasn’t one he wanted to contemplate. “The thing is, from what I’ve observed, there are two names in Sweetwater that wield the kind of power that puts public officials in their pocket. Hawbaker and Pettigrew. Of those two, I know one of them has a penchant for shady land deals. I know one of them bought the riverfront property on which the old library sat – and I’m interested to see what he did with it. And lastly, I can’t imagine a scenario that would involve my twenty-two year old father confronting a federal judge.”

  “You believe your father was going to talk to your grandfather.”

  “I do.” He picked up the article about the dedication, pointed out the date to Mason. “In fact, I think my father went to confront his father over something that was weighing on his conscience. And that on the way back from that meeting, he ran his car off the road and drowned.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SARAH woke up five minutes before her alarm clock was set to go off. It was funny how crawling out of bed had been a chore when it was someone else’s time clock she’d been punching. For as much time and effort as she’d invested in the bookstore she’d managed, at the end of the day it still hadn’t belonged to her.

  The Dust Jacket did. At the end of the day, and at the beginning.

  She guessed that was why she hadn’t thrown her alarm a single time since she’d been back.

  Untangling her legs from beneath the bulk that was Useless, Sarah left her cat prostrate on the pale blue sheets. For the moment, anyway. He’d be off like a shot as soon as he heard the water.

  Blinking against the harshness of the light in the tiny bathroom, she slapped a hand over her eyes and reached blindly into the shower.

  Then smiled, as from the kitchen, she heard her automatic coffee maker signal that help was on the way.

  Not that she needed the caffeine so much this morning. She’d been getting her engine… revved pretty regularly over the past week or two. And today, June Darby – President of the Ladies Garden Club – was “dropping by” to have a look at what Sarah had done with Mildred’s gardens. And maybe “taste a little sample” of the kind of fare they served for a full tea.

  What June was doing, Sarah mused as she briskly scrubbed herself, rinsed, was giving the Dust Jacket a trial run.

  The Ladies Garden Club had met in the River Room of the Sweetwater Country Club practically since that venerable structure had been erected. Sarah knew this because Allie told her so. Just as Allie had told her that June Darby’s husband had been caught in flagrante delicto with one of the beverage cart girls in the facilities on the fourteenth hole.

  Understandably, June was interested in moving the club’s monthly meeting to a new, less humiliating venue.

  Sarah turned off the water. Grabbed a towel. Stepped over Useless on the way to her tiny closet.

  She pulled out a pretty blue wrap, discarded it. Considered a floral tea dress, but rejected it as too obvious.

  The green linen shift, she thought. Elegant fabric, classic lines. And the square neckline kept her cleavage from looking like it was attempting a violent escape. It had been exorbitantly expensive – for the woman who’d bought it new. Sarah knew because she’d found it at a secondhand store with the original tags still on.

  She sighed, thinking that this sort of thing had been so much easier in Charleston. Lord knew the old guard there made Sweetwater society look like provincials with delusions of grandeur. But Sarah hadn’t had any expectations to overcome, and tongues hadn’t been waiting to wag over any infraction.

  She’d been sorely tempted to let Allie handle this meeting. Allie had the familiarity, the connection, the manners that had been bred into bone.

  But the gardens had become Sarah’s baby. Just as the Dust Jacket was her brain child.

  So she drank her first cup of coffee while she applied understated makeup, tucked her unruly curls into a soft chignon. Refilled it before setting Useless up with his morning feeding trough.

  “Deal with it,” she told him, when he sneered at the measly helping in his bowl. “You’re on a diet. I don’t want the vet looking at me with scorn the next time she puts you up on a scale.”

  Turning her back on him, Sarah grabbed her mug and sailed out the door.

  It didn’t, she told herself, make her pathetic if she cast a quick glance toward Tucker’s window. Not even if she paused for a moment, imagining him sprawled naked across twisted sheets.

  Not that she knew if he was a sprawler, she admitted with a frown. Somehow, they’d ended up each sleeping in their own beds after their… tune-ups. She got up early, he frequently stayed up late. Her place was tiny, his was a construction zone inhabited by not one man but two. It had just seemed more practical to retreat to their individual corners. And though Sarah prided herself on being a practical woman, it… well honestly, it galled her that she’d been intimately involved with the man for the better half of a month, and she had no idea if he slept on his stomach, or on his side. If he was a blanket hog, or if he kicked them to the end of the bed in a bunch. If he snored. How he looked with bedhead.

  No, scratch that. His hair was nearly always disordered.

  Shaking the mood off as both petulant and pointless, Sarah walked around the viburnum hedge, started down the crushed oyster shell path toward the Dust Jacket’s back door.

  Then simply stopped.

  The light was misty yet, fingers of sun just reaching through the canopy to brush aside the gray veil of dawn. She stared for a moment, trying to process what her eyes were seeing. As it finally sank in, Sarah fell back two full steps. Then stumbled forward on shaking legs.

  “No. No, no, no.”

  She ran, sloshing coffee from the cup she didn’t even realize she still carried. And then climbed –
furious, humiliated, trembling – onto the porch.

  Trailer Trash Whore

  The black, dripping spray paint defiled a ten-foot section of cheerful yellow wall.

  “Bastard.” Beyond frustration, past insult, Sarah hurled the mug against the wall. Creamy tan coffee mixed with the virulent black.

  Sarah shook, the breath heaving out of her lungs in despairing gasps. Until her brain kicked back into gear, and she cast a panicked glance at her watch.

  She had a little over an hour before opening. Thirty minutes, at best, before Allie arrived. Being as it was market day, Josie was off buying fresh berries from the local farmers. She would have already done the baking, stocked the case, prepared the sampler platter of savories, scones and teacakes that Sarah had requested for her meeting. Which meant Sarah had a very short window to get rid of this obscenity before…

  Oh God. She had to get rid of this obscenity before June Darby arrived. What a way to convince the woman that the Dust Jacket was an appropriate, tasteful venue for her ladies’ club meeting. Sure. A little graffiti, a nice sexual slur ought to do the trick.

  “Damn it. Just hell.”

  Paint, Sarah calculated quickly. Some fast drying, oil-based primer would cover the graffiti like it had never been.

  Except she had no fast drying primer. The hardware store didn’t open until nine, and she didn’t have time to drive all the way out to any of the big chains along the highway.

  Sarah squeezed her eyes shut, bunching her hands into fists until the sharp bite of nails nipped at her palms.

  She could sand it. Noah had left some of his tools in the storage room, and Sarah was pretty sure one of them was a power sander. She’d simply… obliterate Jonas’s latest calling card.

  Damn him. Damn him.

  He’d been here, right here, on her porch, defacing her property. What gave him the right? What made him think he was entitled to mess up what she’d worked for? Just because he didn’t like her? Because he held her accountable for his brother going to jail?

  Bullshit. That was bullshit.

  Rage bubbled up, but worse – far worse – was the sickness that came with it. Sarah felt… dirty. Nearly as bad as when Jonas’s brother had felt entitled to attempt to defile her.

  Well, she wasn’t going to let him get away with it.

  Letting the rage propel her, Sarah let herself in the back door, stormed the storage room. She tossed boxes out of her way, shifted aside caulk guns, boxes of nails and tubs of putty. When she spied a loosely coiled cord, followed it to where it attached to a power drill, she had to force herself not to hurl the tool as she had the coffee.

  Finally, she found the electric sander. The sandpaper was slightly worn, but she thought it would do the trick.

  She had the sense to grab an extension cord before she dashed back out to the porch.

  SHE looked like a mad woman.

  That was Tucker’s initial thought when he peered blearily out the window. Anyone who would stand outside at – he squinted at the clock – too damn early in the morning, wearing a fancy dress and heels while aggressively running a power sander against their siding was…

  “Shit.” Tucker ran a hand over his stubbled face, blinked his eyes to clear them. And decided that the words dancing in front of his eyes were really there.

  Grabbing a pair of jeans on the fly, he yanked them on, jogged down the stairs, leaving the door standing open in his wake. Ignoring the pinch of pine needles against his bare feet, he crossed his property quickly.

  He stopped at the bottom of The Dust Jacket’s porch stairs, reading what he hadn’t quite been able to make out from his window.

  And felt his blood begin to boil.

  She’d nearly erased part of the first word, but he was able to make out the sentiment easily enough.

  “Sarah.”

  She either couldn’t hear him over the sound of the sander, or she was too engrossed to bother looking around. Tucker climbed the porch, laid a hand on her shoulder.

  And jumped back when she whirled, used the sander like a boxing glove.

  “Jesus, Red. You got a license to handle that thing?”

  “Sorry. Sorry.” She switched the sander off, pushed at a thick lock of hair that had escaped when she turned around. “You startled me.”

  “I can see that.” Her face was pale, the light dusting of freckles on her nose standing out like cinnamon on cream. Until he glanced over her shoulder, studied the nasty words, and her cheeks went violently pink.

  Any stray thought he’d entertained about this being the work of teenagers bent on hell-raising was effectively dismissed. “As a mission statement, I think I like the sign over the front door a little better. Although this one does have a certain ring.”

  She flipped the sander back on. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude,” she told him over the noise. “But I have to get this off here before we open.”

  With that, she turned her back, started attacking the L like a woman possessed.

  Since his attempt at levity had fallen flat, Tucker tried a different tack. “Sarah.”

  She ignored him. And when he touched her again, she merely shook him off.

  With a sigh, Tucker walked over to the outlet and yanked out the cord.

  “Hey!” She stalked over, snarled when she made a grab for the cord and he held it out of her reach. “I’m sorry if I disturbed your beauty sleep, but that doesn’t give you the right to come over here and –”

  “Sarah.” He took her by the shoulders, gave her a little shake. “Are you okay?”

  “Of course I’m not okay. You’re an idiot, and you took my cord.”

  Her mouth seemed to be working well enough. “What did the cops say?”

  She opened that mouth, closed it.

  Unbelievable. “You didn’t call Hawbaker?”

  “There’s no point.”

  “For such a smart woman, you’re being incredibly dumb.”

  “Thanks for that opinion, which I will file under Who asked you. Now give me back the cord.”

  He brushed past her, calmly tilted his head toward the wall. “This all that was written?”

  “What, that’s not enough? Maybe you can expand it into novel form.”

  Because he knew she was overwrought, Tucker reached for patience. “What I meant is, is this the only graffiti you found?”

  “Yes.” She pushed at her hair again in agitation. “I had that cheery thought right after I started sanding. I checked. He… they limited their artwork to the back.”

  “Where you were sure to see it first.”

  “Or, they realized that they’re far more likely to be spotted by a passerby out front.”

  “Do you think I don’t realize this is Linville’s doing?”

  “I…” She glowered at him, then sighed. “No.”

  “Hawbaker needs to see this.”

  “What’s Will going to do?” She spun away from him, turned back. Threw up her hands. “There’s no indication, no proof that Jonas did anything. He might be ignorant, but he isn’t stupid. Unless he walked into Pinckney’s and bought six cans of spray paint, discussing his intentions to vandalize the store while he paid, I doubt Will can pin this on him. Will can’t even find him.”

  “So you’re just going to brush it under the rug?”

  “You mean like I did before?” Temper leaped out of her eyes, green sparks of fury. “This wasn’t an attempted rape. It wasn’t a dead animal on my doorstep, or a ruined flower bed. It was a nasty little slap from a nasty man. And taking care of it myself is not brushing it under the rug. I just want to run my damn business without people speculating about what I must have done to be referred to as a trailer trash whore!”

  Recognizing the near panic that fueled the temper, Tucker reached for the sander.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’ll finish this.”

  “I don’t need you to do it. I don’t want you to do it.”

  “Okay.” One of them neede
d to be reasonable. Looked like it was going to have to be him. “Then you might want to go change your dress before you do any more damage.”

  “What?” She looked down. And when she spotted the black smear of what looked to be grease across her left breast, went statue still.

  For whatever reason, it was the straw that broke her.

  “Shit,” Tucker said under his breath. But he overrode the instinct to drop the sander and hightail it off the porch. And took her into his arms about two seconds before she started watering.

  Tucker rode it out, wondering if there was a man on the planet who wasn’t terrified of a woman’s tears. They made him feel helpless.

  Tucker hated feeling helpless. But more, he hated that some jerk had caused Sarah such distress.

  “This was the right dress,” she gritted, sounding far more angry than sad. “The perfect dress. Now I’m going to have to wear the damn roses, and how transparent is that?”

  To Tucker’s way of thinking, a transparent dress would be a lot more interesting than the one she had on. But since he doubted that was what she was getting at, he wisely held his tongue.

  She wound down pretty quickly, thank God, the hands she’d laid against his tear-streaked chest curling into fists.

  “You done?”

  She waited a beat that he suspected was filled with mortification. A fact which she confirmed when she said: “God, I hope so.”

  He stroked a hand down her back.

  “Thanks for not saying there there.”

  “I make it a point not to sound like an idiot whenever possible.”

  When she finally lifted her face, he took her chin, frowned over the black stuff running down her face.

  “Better?”

  “Some.”

  “Good. Do you have a camera?”

  “I’m not feeling real photogenic at the moment.”

  Tucker brushed his thumb over her damp cheek. “You want that off your wall, not tainting your business. I get that. But it would be smarter to take some pictures before I finish sanding it off.”

  “Tucker, you really don’t have to do that.”