by Sandra Hill
So he gave it another shot, not that it would do him any good. He’d tried a dozen times since picking her up, and she’d been stubbornly mute on the subject. Well, not exactly mute. “None of your damn business, you swine,” was her standard response.
Still, he could be as persistent as a thirsty mosquito when he had to be. “So tell me, beautiful,” he said, then almost choked on his own words. He hadn’t meant to say that at all, hadn’t said it as anything more than a spontaneous outburst. And the look on her face was at first shock, morphing fast into anger. Before she could blister him, he hurried on. “Just give me a good reason to let you go. Really. I’m not enjoying this anymore than you are.”
Now there was a whopper. True, she was a pain in the butt, but a really fun one to observe. “One good explanation and I’ll see you get safely back to your farm in New York.”
She hesitated, which was the best sign he’d gotten from her so far. Then she looked around and shook her head. “Too many eyes and ears here, if you get my drift.”
Kevin glanced around the diner, too, and realized she was right. A majority of Snowdon’s finest were keenly interested in their every movement, most acutely, his old eighth grade teacher, Mrs. Smith, and the MacLaren sisters. And he knew from experience that Mrs. Smith could read lips, not to mention minds, so he didn’t pursue his interrogation for now.
So he shrugged and asked instead, “So, you’re a high-falutin’ fashion designer, are you?”
“I do all right,” she said, suddenly interested in her breakfast again.
“Right. The folks on that bus almost fainted when you arrived. They hardly blinked when Stan showed up, and that boy was this close to winning a Super Bowl ring.” He chewed a forkful of scrambled eggs, then added, when she didn’t respond, “Maudeen says you dress the stars. The really, really big stars.”
“Some.”
“That’s why you looked so familiar. Living in New York, no matter how you try to avoid them, you can’t help but catch all of those theater premieres and award shows. You go to a whole bunch of those, don’t you?”
Her cheeks pinkened, and she still wouldn’t look at him. “Only when I have to.”
“You don’t enjoy all that celebrity crap . . . excuse me . . . stuff?”
She set down her fork and studied him suspiciously over the top of a glass of orange juice. But he was truly interested, and it must have shown in his expression, because by the time she polished off the juice and set the glass down, she shrugged and stared at him straight on, eyes clear and gorgeous. “I love creating beautiful clothes,” she said softly. “I’m lucky to make a good living doing what I love to do. Part of the process is public relations. If that means showing up at events where Suzy Superstar is wearing one of my gowns, that means I go. But I don’t have to like it.”
He believed her, dammit. Which shot her up another notch on that admiro-meter. And he was hating himself a little more and more by the moment. He was about to beg her to give him a reason to let her go when half the Santa Brigade—or so it seemed—suddenly appeared at their table.
“I hear you created that slinky number for Jennifer Lopez,” Maudeen said.
“Not me,” Callie replied, fast.
“Geena Davis?” asked Meg MacLaren. “Sister and I speculated on the possible anthropological reasons for some of her fashion choices.”
“Not me, either.”
“Madonna’s pointy numbers?” Morey Goldstein asked, a whole lot of hope shimmering in his voice.
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
Morey glared at Maudeen. “I thought you said she was famous.”
Kevin watched Callie grow more and more uncomfortable, and waved over the waitress. “Check, please!”
Somehow, amid a barrage of other questions shot at Callie, he managed to pay the bill and get her into the Gore-Tex coat Maudeen had found for her in their stash of goodies, and get her out of there, holding fast to her elbow. After they’d strolled far enough from the diner, he lovingly grabbed her hand and intertwined their fingers, then slapped the cuffs on their joining wrists before she could say, “Boo.”
She screeched at him and tried to kick his calf, but he sidestepped just in time. “Now, now.”
“You are such a jerk,” she said. “I thought you were actually trying to be nice.”
That stung a little. He hadn’t been trying, but he considered himself a naturally nice guy for the most part. Well, maybe not. Still, he was never intentionally a jerk unless someone pissed him off first. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be mean, either. I just can’t take any chances.” And I don’t want you to get away. The scary part of that was, his reasoning had somehow slipped from justice to . . . something else.
He’d been irritated as hell last night as it became increasingly obvious that the Santa Brigade biddies were conspiring against him in favor of Callie. As much as he’d known how low their opinion of him had been when he was younger, a small part of him had looked forward to seeing them again, if nothing else, to prove to them that he’d grown into someone they could respect and proudly call one of their own once upon a time.
But no, once again, he’d been the bad guy, and the people in the only hometown he’d ever known had sided against him once more. It had felt like bitter bile in his gut, all over again. He’d made his Snowdon debut after all these years, and once more he’d been deemed a disappointment.
Still, he hadn’t quite been able to bring himself to resent Callie as much as he should. She hadn’t endeared herself instantly to those folks out of spite. She had no idea the baggage he and the good folks of Snowdon were carrying that went way beyond the millions of boxes in the back of that stupid bus.
And then, there were the hours he’d spent just watching her sleep in the motel room he’d insisted they share, much to her outrage. He’d kept staring at that dark, wild hair flared out starkly against the white of the pillow, her soft lips, slack and guileless in sleep, and something had stirred deep inside of him that he hadn’t felt in a good long time, if ever.
Worse, he’d had to listen to a nightmare she’d had, which he just felt deep in his belly was a living one, and from there on, he started realizing that turning her in might become the biggest regret of his life. That was saying a lot, considering his life.
It had bothered him so bad that he’d gotten up and gently awakened her. No matter how slowly he’d tried, she’d come to consciousness whimpering, “Please don’t make me lie!”
And his heart had nearly broken.
She was a famous fashion guru posing as an Amish woman who was wanted by the law. How much more of a lie was there than that? He was afraid to know, and dying to find out, at one and the same time.
“Damn you, Wilder, why won’t you believe me that I won’t try to run?” she asked now, yanking him back from the vision of her in her sleep, beautiful and tormented.
He tried to gather his wits, because at this single moment, he wanted to let her go so badly, he’d pay huge money for Betty to turn the bus around and take Callie anywhere she wanted to go. And at the same time, if he did that, she’d be gone. And that thought made him feel worse.
The analytical, systematic, judicial, prudent side of his brain had gone missing. Which meant he had nothing left to work with.
As they crunched through the new-fallen snow, that was getting deeper by the minute the way it was falling, he contemplated just giving her her freedom. The cold steel around his wrist was helping his decision. If it was freezing to his skin like that, it had to be doing the same to hers. And he didn’t like that thought at all.
Up ahead he spotted Stan and his blonde goddess approaching, and he couldn’t stand any more humiliation to Callie. “Promise you won’t run?” he asked as he fished for the key to the handcuffs.
“Where am I going to go, you dolt?”
He looked down into her eyes and smiled, even as he worked the locks. “You are definitely not a New York native, if dolt is the best you can do.”
/>
He found out, in the next ten seconds, that dolt wasn’t even close to the best she could do.
He’s a kidnapper, he’s a skunk, he’s a jerk, he’s a scumbag, he’s a rat, he’s a slimebag, he’s a dirtbag, he’s an arrogant bastard, he’s an unyielding tightass, he’s a rat, he’s a . . . a . . . jerk.
Sitting on the bus as they chugged and jostled and stormed their way up the highways and small streets of the snow-bound Northeast, Callie was pretty sure she’d had to repeat herself a time or two there, because she’d run out of really nasty superlatives. But repetition was necessary if she wasn’t going to delve into the good stuff.
Like that Harrison Ford in his early thirties would have been lucky to look like Kevin—JD, as his friends called him, for no reason she could figure—and be half as driven.
He was a bastard, and that was that. She wasn’t even going to remember the good things, not a chance. Especially when last night she’d gotten an earful of just what a hellion he’d been in his youth. Who was he to judge her?
She tried to conjure up more outrage, but a lot of the stories Maudeen and the gang had related made it harder and harder to keep that self-righteous anger alive. If half the stories were true about his upbringing, the man should be doing . . .
“Jail time,” Morey, the stud on a mission, said beside her, apparently reading her mind. “We were all sure he’d be in jail by now. All three of them, actually.”
Callie was busy repairing busted stuffed toys, and didn’t want to get too involved in this discussion with everyone listening. But as she glanced around, she saw that it seemed every single person was occupied digging through boxes, yelling out numbers and tagging toys for destinations. Even Kevin had his head in a box, and for some reason kept muttering, “I’m sorry, Miss Smith.”
So it seemed they were alone. No time like the present to delve a little into the rat, the rotten jerk, whatever. “Why would Kevin be in jail, Mr. Goldstein?”
“Morey. Just Morey. No formalities here, especially with a cute young—”
“Morey Goldstein!” a voice admonished.
“Sorry, Emma,” Morey yelled back. “Damn hearing aid of hers is lethal.”
“I heard that!”
Morey rolled his eyes and lowered his voice to a whisper. “All three boys were throwaways. No one thought they’d amount to squat. I have to admit to doubts myself. But George—George Garrison, he’s the vet in Snowdon—never gave up. Thought those kids had potential, no matter how many times they were dragged by their ears into the police station. George, he’d bail them out every single time. Ye-up. He’d give them the blistering they sure enough deserved, and then he’d kick ’em out into the world and say, Do better, now’.”
“Why weren’t their parents doing that?” Callie asked, fascinated, as she glanced back and watched all three of those huge men being blistered by the women, and taking it. It was cute, actually.
“Parents? You don’t know anything about the boys, I see.” He sighed. “They didn’t have any to speak of.”
“But, then who did they—”
Morey suddenly turned tight-lipped on her. “Didn’t realize you didn’t know. It’s not my place to say.”
Morey’s reluctance to gossip reminded Callie that you didn’t pry with folks in the Northeast. They were tight as New England clams when it came to their own. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”
Morey’s tight expression softened. “I’ll tell you a secret I shouldn’t.”
Calley planted her best smile on him. “Do tell. I’m great with secrets.”
“That man of yours—”
“He’s not—”
“Oh, don’t worry, like I said, we keep our secrets. That man of yours . . . I admired the boy. He was an angry child, but determined. Every bad thing he whipped up, he did it outta anger for another. Never for himself.” Morey lowered his voice even more. “Was a time when the mayor herself was being accused of stepping out, if you know what I mean. That boy was so mad that she—our mayors have been women since ’76, you know—was being accused, he went and tracked down who’d be saying such a thing. Then he followed her for a few weeks.”
Morey stopped for breath, but Callie was impatient. “And?”
“And let’s just say that the “Happy Hour Motel” never got so many happy hours of free publicity in all its years. Room 6-B is now christened Sylvia’s Sighs.’” Morey coughed a little and added, “I didn’t have anything to do with that, you know. Just that the walls are thin and it was hard to get a decent night sleep in 6- A . . . so I heard.”
“Morey, you’ve spent more time in 6-A than the maid,” piped in Reba, who’d come up behind them.
Callie blushed at being caught gossiping, but Reba just grinned down at them both. All Callie could think about was tailoring that Santa suit so that it flattered the woman better. She was tall and gorgeous, everything Callie wasn’t. And Callie had spied her out jogging the night before. Reba Anderson had a body Callie drooled to design dresses for.
The woman was tall and slender, but not skinny, by any stretch. She actually had a woman’s body. As much as Callie enjoyed the money she made outfitting movie stars, she was getting just a little tired of trying to make pencils look sexy.
Morey slinked away, and Reba sat down in the seat across the aisle. “I can’t thank you enough for pitching in.”
“Oh, I’m happy to do it.”
“So, was Morey regaling you with the legendary stories of the Three Hustleteers?”
Callie laughed. “Well, one in particular.”
“I can guess which one. But trust me, all three were awful,” Reba said, but her smile was soft and eyes limpid in remembrance.
“The entire town was certain they’d end up in a life of crime.”
Since Callie had learned in the last twenty four hours she’d been among these folks what each of the Three Hustleteers had become, she smiled. “I guess they showed the town a thing or two.”
“Or three,” Reba said, nodding. Her eyes found each of the former troublemakers, then turned back to Callie. “Everyone in Snowdon is happy with the way they turned out, but I’m guessing Sam and JD and Stan won’t ever believe that. If it weren’t for George’s wedding, my guess is all of them would have been happy to live out their lives never stepping foot in Snowdon again.”
Callie glanced up, but in the process pricked her finger on the needle. “Ouch,” she said, then brought the injured digit to her mouth. “Who is this George person, anyway?”
Reba smiled at her. “Why don’t you ask Kevin? He can tell you much better than I what George meant to him. To all three of them.”
“Like I want to talk to that slug at all,” Callie muttered, digging the needle into the cloth with a vengeance. Mostly because she was mad at herself for truly being curious about the man. “But tell me this. What does JD stand for? Obviously they aren’t his initials.”
“Juvenile delinquent,” Reba responded. “He was called that so often by the adults in town, his friends began just shortening it.”
“That’s awful!”
“Oh, trust me, he earned the nickname.” Reba grinned. “When you decide to ask him about his past—”
“I won’t.”
“When you decide not to talk to him about his past, make sure to ask about the Jamie Kellerman incident.” She chuckled. “Here he comes. You can not ask him now, if you want.” With that, Reba stood up and strolled forward.
For some reason, Callie’s heart sped up like a race car. She tried to convince herself that it was irritation acceleration, but couldn’t quite pull it off. Not to mention, as adamant as she’d been about denying any desire to hear about the Jamie Kellerman incident, she had to admit to a certain morbid curiosity. Not to mention, it might be a good thing. If she heard some awful stories about what a jerk he’d been as a kid, maybe she’d stop admiring some of the things she knew about him as an adult.
Like his reputation in New York was almost heroic. I
f prosecutors wanted to find that tiny piece of evidence or information about a criminal that would seal his or her fate during trial, they called on him to find it. And he rarely failed.
Like that as uncouth and uncaring as he tried to appear at times, he was unfailingly considerate, to her as well as to the people on this bus, who by all accounts had written him off as a no-good thug in his youth.
Like, that although he’d been rotten enough to force her to share a motel room with him last night, he hadn’t once tried to ravish her, hadn’t even made any suggestive remarks, hadn’t attempted to take advantage of the situation in any way, giving her all the privacy she wanted. In fact, when she’d awakened from her now nearly nightly anxiety dream, it had been to him trying to soothe her, quiet her, then help her fall back to sleep by gently running his fingers over her forehead. Her last memory before succumbing to slumber was him whispering softly, “That’s it, Sleeping Beauty, sweet dreams this time.”
And funny enough, she’d slept like the dead the rest of the night.
None of the haunting nightmares that had plagued her the last few months. None of the fitful, worried sleep that had probably aged her five years in sixty days. She’d awakened refreshed, and for some insane reason, looking forward to the day spent with the Santa Brigade.
And to be honest, with Kevin—JD. Which was stupid with a capital S, considering he was hell-bent on turning her over to the authorities.
Or was he? As much as he grumbled about Maudeen and Betty’s manipulation in getting as far away from law enforcement as much as possible, he wasn’t actually complaining loud and hard, much less threatening them with obstruction of justice, or anything like that. He normally just rolled his eyes and kept his mouth shut. “Because Betty scares the beejeesus out of me,” had been his explanation when she’d asked him about it earlier.
Somehow, she doubted that.
“Hiya, Stitch,” she heard beside her, making her once again poke her poor finger.
“Ow!” she muttered, then forced herself to glare up at him. Her breath hitched, like it did just about every time his visage came suddenly into her view. She stuck her finger into her mouth again.
