by Helen Brenna
“I don’t want to meet anyone.” He crossed his scrawny arms over his chest. “I want to stay with you.”
“I’m going to have to work, kiddo. We’ll have to keep you busy doing something.”
“I can keep myself busy.”
His shoulders sagged and a tear or two pooled in his eyes, and Erica immediately regretted her tough-luck attitude. She was completely out of her league. What would Marie say? The few times she’d seen her sister with Jason, Marie had always seemed like a natural and competent mother. Where had that come from? Certainly not their mother.
“I’ll tell you what,” Erica said, compromising. “You can take tomorrow off. Get the lay of the land, so to speak. Then on Thursday and Friday, you go to school. Check it out. See what you think. Anyone can do two days, right?”
“I guess so. If you want me to go to school, I’ll go. Mommy said I was supposed to do whatever you told me to do.”
“Marie said that? When?”
“Last week. She told me that if you ever came to get me, I was supposed to go with you and do whatever you said.”
Marie had known something was going to happen.
A flood of tears flowed into Erica’s eyes. Quickly, she looked away. Guilt and shame washed over her for not having been able to help her sister before now, for not snatching her away from Billy, but Marie had always been so quick to defend her husband and make light of his controlling behavior. In fact, the more Erica had pushed the more Marie had distanced herself.
It’s going to be okay. Marie’s smart. She’s hiding until whatever happened blows over.
Erica surreptitiously swiped at her cheeks and turned back to Jason. “I think you’re going to like the school here. Your teacher seemed really nice, but if all the rest are witches with bad breath, crooked noses and moles on their chins, you can hang with me.”
That caused a small smile.
She fluffed his pillow. “Go on. Climb in.”
He shoved his feet under the covers and pulled them up to his chin.
“night, kiddo.” She brushed his bangs aside, kissed his forehead and then flicked off the light.
“Erica?”
“Yeah?” Tonight, she didn’t have the heart to remind him to call her mom even in private.
“Where’s my mommy?”
She’d known that question was coming. In fact, she was surprised it’d taken him this long. “I’m not sure, Jason.” She remembered Marie saying that sounded better than “I don’t know.”
Sitting down on the edge of the bed, she picked up his hand. At the first sounds of him sniffling, her back stiffened. He was crying. Now what was she supposed to do? She was his aunt, not his mother. When she heard him dry his eyes with the sleeve of his pajamas and try to suck it up, something inside her melted. Opened. Unlocked.
“She’ll call us when she can, Jason. I know she will. She loves you very much and she’d do anything for you.” Erica pulled her nephew into her arms and hugged him tightly. Suddenly she wanted him as close to her as he wanted to be close. “You know your mom never would’ve left you unless she couldn’t help it.”
Jason nodded and tears dribbled down his cheek, one right after another. “I miss her.”
“Me, too.” Erica hugged him close and rocked him gently. Though she couldn’t recall ever having rocked anyone in her life, let alone having been rocked, the motion felt natural, comforting even to her. After he’d calmed down, she let him go. “I have something for you.”
“What?”
“Hold on.” She ran out into the kitchen, rummaged through her purse and came back with a wallet-sized photo. “Here.”
When Jason looked at it, he smiled.
“I took that picture of you and your mom at Thanksgiving last year. I’ll get a frame for it tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay.”
She took it out of his hand, set it on the bedside table and flicked off the lamp.
“Will you stay here with me?” he asked.
She hesitated. “Sure. Right next to you.”
She lay down on the other side of the bed and held his hand in hers. It wasn’t long before Jason gave up the fight and fell completely limp with sleep. His breathing turned quiet and even.
After a few moments, she disentangled her fingers from his and went out to the kitchen. Flicking off lights, she paced. This waiting was killing her. Without a second thought, she raced out of the apartment, down to the pay phone and dialed the number to her mother’s old boyfriend. “Teddy?” she said. “Have you found her?”
“MY DAUGHTER ALWAYS COMES to stay for a week over the Fourth of July,” Shirley Gilbert said from the steps of her garishly pink Victorian bed-and-breakfast a block off Main Street. “She’s a teacher, you know. Divorced. No kids.”
Hint. Hint. “Well, I’ll keep an eye out for her when the Fourth rolls around,” Garrett said, more than ready to get on his way.
He walked down the sidewalk, pulling a cart loaded down with a busted-up antique desk. One of Mrs. Gilbert’s guests had tripped and fallen into the desk, breaking a leg and causing a malfunction in the rolltop cover. She’d asked him to fix it and the job required some tools from his workshop, so after working on the Duffys’ apartment, he’d stopped to pick up the pieces. “I’ll get this back to you as soon as I can.”
“All right then,” she called after him. “Let me know what I owe you.”
A steady stream of construction and repair work was one thing Garrett hadn’t counted on when he’d moved to Mirabelle. Since the job of police chief was only part-time, if that during the winter months, Garrett had taken the position in the hopes of starting up a furniture-building business.
But with a new community pool and an eighteen-hole golf course opening in another couple of weeks, the islanders were gearing up for what promised to be one of the busiest summers they’d had in decades. Everyone seemed to need this or that done sooner rather than later, so he’d made the conscious decision to help the people of this island—his island now—get ready. His own business could wait.
He took a deep breath of cool, crisp air. Although it couldn’t be much past eight, it was already dark. The night was quiet. Only a slight breeze ruffled the leaves still clinging to the odd oak tree. He was about to head up the hill toward his own house on the outskirts out of town when he heard a muffled feminine voice. From the tone he could tell the person was upset.
Leaving the cart propped against the nearest building, he walked toward the sound, keeping in the shadows, and slowed the moment he could make out actual words.
“I know it’s only been a couple of days.”
Pause.
“Nothing? There’s no sign of her?”
It was Erica. She had to be on the pay phone near the corner.
“You have to keep looking,” she said.
Wasn’t there a phone in her apartment? What about a cell phone? She didn’t want the call traced. That wasn’t good. She was someone who didn’t want to be found. The question was why not?
“She met with a divorce attorney?” she went on. “No, she was not having an affair.”
Who’s she?
“No!” Erica cried, then stopped as if becoming aware of her surroundings. “No, no, no, no,” she whispered. “I don’t want to think about that. Or talk about it.”
“Teddy.” She was still whispering, but her voice had taken on a desperate tone. “You’re all I’ve got. If you can’t find her, what am I going to do?”
Pause.
“I can’t go to the police. You know that.”
Pause.
“I’ll pay you. I don’t have the money right now, but I’ll get it. Please. You have to keep looking.”
A private investigator?
“Call me when you find anything. Anything.”
Pause.
“No, it’s better you don’t know where I am.”
Then silence. She’d hung up the phone. The only sound was crickets chirping in the brush. He was about to tur
n back to his cart when he heard it, one sniff, then two. A couple sharp intakes of breath. Was she crying? Trying her damnedest not to, if nothing else.
Great. Tough, bristly skin outside, marshmallow center inside. He was so screwed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SOMEONE WAS COMING. Footsteps up the stairs sounded from outside in the alley. Erica dropped her toothbrush in the bathroom sink, grabbed the bat she’d purchased yesterday for protection and ran into the kitchen. With the barest hints of a pale sunrise filtering through the windows, the footsteps stopped outside her door.
When no one knocked, she snuck to the window and peeked between two slats in the blind. Garrett Taylor. Thank God. She never thought she’d be so happy to see any man, let alone this one. She opened the door and found him buckling a tool belt around his waist. A waist that she had no doubt carried a nicely defined six-pack.
He glanced up and took in her full length before settling on the bat in her hand. “Expecting someone?”
“Sorry.” She leaned the bat against the kitchen counter. “When you said last night that you were coming back today, I didn’t realize you meant this early.”
The moment he and his big frame stepped into the apartment, the space seemed to shrink, and she became fully aware of the fact that she was still in her pajamas, a baggy shirt—without a bra—and a pair of boxers.
“Did I wake you?” he asked.
“No.” She wiped the toothpaste from her mouth.
“I figured if I got going early, I might be able to finish the other apartment, too, before my shift at the station.” He closed the door behind him. “Is Zach still sleeping?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I’ll be as quiet as I can.” He reached toward her head and she instinctively backed away. “Hold on there.” He held her still while he smoothed his hand over her head. “Your hair was sticking straight up.”
Bedhead. Great. His hand stayed on her arm a little longer than seemed necessary, but for some reason she didn’t feel the urge to pull away. She had to distract herself. Quickly. She went to the counter and filled the coffeepot. “You want coffee?”
“Sure. If you were planning on making it anyway.”
He went over to the supplies he had stacked in the storm-damaged corner, climbed the ladder and nailed in—more quietly than she’d believed possible—a piece of drywall cut to the size of the open area in the ceiling. He taped up the edges and then moved to the wall. While he moved with purpose and coordination, he had amazing grace for such a big man.
“Have you had breakfast?” she asked.
“Bowl of cereal.” He glanced back at her with a grin on his face. “But if you’re cooking, I’m eating.”
While he went back to work, installing the drywall, taping and patching, Erica made them both toast and scrambled eggs with cheese, chopped peppers and onions. “Hey?” Not wanting to wake Jason, she’d walked over and tapped him on the leg. “If you can break from what you’re doing, this is ready.”
He washed his hands at the sink and ate the breakfast as if he were starving. “Don’t you ever cook for yourself?” she asked.
“I’m pretty inept in the kitchen.”
She wondered how he was in the bedroom.
As if sensing her thoughts, he glanced down at his plate and quickly finished his eggs and toast. “Thank you,” he said, rinsing his plate in the sink.
Clearly, he was restraining himself, and for some reason that irked her, making her want to provoke him. “So why aren’t you married?”
He glanced back at her. “Maybe I’ve never found a woman who’ll put up with me.”
“Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“You trying to pick a fight with me?”
“What if I am?”
“What if I don’t want to fight?” He stepped toward her. “If I want to…?”
Erica glared at him. “You—”
A noise by the door made her glance around him. Jason stood in the doorway, looking as frightened as she’d ever seen him. “What is it?” She ran to him, knelt down. “What happened?”
He wouldn’t take his eyes off Garrett.
“Honey, tell me what’s wrong.”
“Is he going to…hit you?”
“Garrett? Are you talking about Garrett?”
Jason nodded.
She heard Garrett growl behind her. That sound sure wasn’t making her nephew feel any better. “No, Zach. He wasn’t going to hit me. He would never do that.”
“How do you know?” Jason whispered.
She didn’t know, but she knew. Somehow she knew. How did one go about explaining that to a kid? “I—”
“Can I say something?” Garrett asked, but before she had the chance to respond he butted right in. “Have you ever gotten mad, Zach? At a friend, a teacher. Your mom?”
Jason nodded.
“Have you ever hit anyone?”
Vehemently, he shook his head back and forth.
“That’s right. People get mad. It’s a fact. It’s human nature. But it’s never okay to hit.” He knelt down, keeping his distance from Jason. “A man never hits a woman. Never.”
Erica’s throat nearly closed with emotion as she watched Jason assimilate what Garrett was telling him.
“Can Erica hit you?” Jason asked.
“No.” Garrett shook his head. “It’s not okay to hit kids, either.” He paused, and then asked tentatively, “Has anyone ever…hurt you?”
While Erica held her breath, Jason nodded. The kind of anger she’d never felt before hit her in the chest, sucking out the air. Who hit you? She wanted to scream. Who? But she knew it was Billy.
“That was wrong,” Garrett whispered.
“Even if it was my fault? Even if I left the car door open? It’s my fault the light stayed on.”
“It doesn’t matter. Hitting is never the right answer.”
Jason looked from Garrett to Erica.
Why did kids always think they’d done something to deserve the abuse they received? “Never,” Erica whispered. “Even if you left the door open. Even if you break something, or get in trouble at school or make any kind of mistake. There’s never an excuse to hit a child.”
As a child, she remembered too well thinking there had to be something wrong with her. If she’d just do this or that, or not do this or that, then maybe everything would be better. “The adults in your life are responsible for their own behavior, Zach. Not you. They’re grown-ups and they should know better.” How many times had she had to tell herself that before she’d believed it?
As if the weight of the world had been lifted off Jason’s small shoulders, he stepped back. “Can I watch TV now?”
“Sure.” Erica stood. “I’ll make you some breakfast.”
As Jason wandered into the living room, she could feel Garrett’s unanswered questions boring holes into her back. She turned around and whispered, “I never have and never would hit Zach.”
Garrett clenched his jaw. “I want to know who did.”
“I can’t tell you that,” she said, but even she could hear her conviction wavering.
“LAST BUT NOT LEAST, this is my office,” Lynn said, after having given Erica and Jason a complete tour of the bar area, storerooms and kitchen. “Such as it is.” She stepped into a small room off the kitchen housing a paper-strewn desk and several file cabinets.
A computer and printer of relatively new design sat on a credenza and were covered with a thin layer of dust as if neither had been used in months. Erica wished she could ask to log on to the Internet to see if there was any news yet from Chicago about Marie or Jason, but she already felt beholden enough to Lynn.
Erica let go of Jason’s hand and was happy that he didn’t immediately reach for her again. Giving him some time to acclimate to the island had been a good idea. Already, he seemed less tense and clingy, although he hated having to wear a baseball cap everywhere.
“Now you know everything there is to know about the inner w
orkings of one of the oldest establishments on Mirabelle Island,” Lynn said with a smile.
“So…how long has this pub been here?” Erica asked. She wasn’t a small-talk kind of person, but she was standing next to the stairway leading to her and Jason’s new apartment and needed to ask if they could unlock it at night after Jason went to bed. It was the only way she could see her way clear to bartending on a regular basis, but she hated asking for favors.
Lynn sat down at her desk. “Well, this particular brick building’s only about a hundred fifty years old, but there’s been a pub on this spot since the early 1800s.”
“Did you grow up on Mirabelle?”
“You betcha. My parents moved here from Detroit right after they got married. Arlo and I have known each other since we were babies. We got married right after high school and raised two sons here, Ben and Adam.”
Jason walked around Lynn’s office, looking at family photographs littering the walls and every flat surface, showing Arlo and Lynn with two clean-cut looking boys in various stages of development. “Do they live here, too?” he asked, pointing at two young men in one of the pictures.
“Nope.” Lynn’s smile disappeared. “One lives in Chicago. The other in D.C. Haven’t seen either one of them in years. They’re both so busy, I barely get the chance to talk to them these days.”
“You should e-mail them,” Erica said, pointing at the computer. “It’s fast. They probably check messages several times a day at work.”
“E-mail? That’d be the day. Arlo pushed me into buying this, but neither one of us knows how to use it. The dang thing crashed on me a couple months ago and I haven’t turned it on since.”
“I could show you.” Erica felt, in a way, as if she owed Lynn, and if being helpful smoothed the way for that door getting unlocked for Jason, all the better. Then there was always access to the Internet.
“We’ll see,” Lynn said.
Erica hesitated in the doorway.
“All right.” Lynn cocked her head. “What do you need?” Erica tried looking innocent, but Lynn only chuckled. “Running a bar and restaurant for as long as I have, you get to know how to read people.”
