She swung on Mitchell and snapped, “I’m surprised you have the energy, what with your night job and all!”
His brows went up. “What are you talking about?”
Her throat was as tight as a clenched fist, and even if she’d wanted to bother with a response, she wouldn’t have been able to. She climbed back into the cab. Slamming the door, she cranked the ignition and threw the truck into gear. In a rooster tail of dust and spraying gravel, she spun the tires before they grabbed and cut a sharp U-turn, narrowly missing the other hog as it raced after its litter mate. She had a brief glimpse of Rafael and Victor in a heated conversation, complete with wild gestures and angry faces. As she headed back down the rutted drive, in her rearview mirror she saw the ramp on the ground and a couple of other men chasing after the wayward pigs while the argument continued.
In the midst of the chaos, Mitchell stood and watched her retreating truck, his features flat and speculative.
CHAPTER FOUR
Under a pulsing spring sun, Mitchell approached the main entrance to Gila Rock High School with a sense of futility. He knew he was on a fool’s errand, but he’d come this far, and he had an appointment, sort of, so he might as well see it through. He’d managed to slip out of the single-wide without being seen: the old man had been asleep, and both James and Darcy had been gone. That was good. He’d worn the best of what he currently owned for this meeting, and that alone would have generated a lot of questions he didn’t want to answer.
A few kids charged out the doors as he went in, but none of them gave him a second glance. At least not everyone remembered him or had a reason to stare. The smell of the hallways—paper, books, and aged asphalt tile, all so familiar—hit him in the face as he made his way to the office and approached the counter.
Miss Lou Emma Bently, old Bad-Ass Bently, the school’s head secretary, still presided at her desk behind the counter. He couldn’t believe it. Ancient and yet ageless, she’d always had a face that looked as if it had been rough-chiseled from granite, and a personality to match. The passing of nearly a decade hadn’t softened that face. Only her black hair, now the color of a horseshoe, had faded. When she saw him, recognition struck, and her mouth tightened into a hard line.
“Mr. Tucker.”
“Yes, ma’am. I have an appointment with Principal Schroder.”
Her lips nearly disappeared. “I have no information about an appointment. It’s not on my calendar.”
He wanted to sass her. That urge hadn’t died, but it wouldn’t do him any good, either. “At four o’ clock.”
A younger woman at the next desk piped up. “I took that call, Miss Lou Em. I put it on Ray’s schedule.”
Obviously stuck, Miss Bently turned and went to the closed, glass-panel door that read RAY SCHRODER, PRIN. in block letters. After tapping on the glass with the end of her pen, she stepped inside, and he heard a murmured conversation that he couldn’t quite catch. But when she came back she wore an expression of profound displeasure. She looked at the clock over her shoulder. It read 3:50. “You’re early.” It sounded like an accusation.
He didn’t reply but just gazed at her.
“I suppose you might as well come on back, then.” She buzzed him through a gate in the counter. “In here,” she added, indicating the office door, then watched him until he got there, as if expecting him to steal something.
He nodded his thanks, and with a lead sinker in his stomach, he walked past her to face the man who had promised him he’d fail in life if he didn’t get his act together. Now here he was again, and by his own request, having fulfilled the man’s dire prediction. Ray Schroder waved him in.
The office looked like a museum exhibit, frozen in time. Same furniture, same American and Texan flags. The wall calendar was current, but the birdcage he’d always kept on a stand in the corner was still there. Right now it housed a chirping blue parakeet. The last one Mitchell had seen had been yellow. Why he remembered that escaped him.
The administrator had aged no more gracefully than his secretary. His round, creased face resembled a shar-pei’s. His brow drooped in deep furrows, nearly obscuring his eyes, and his hairline had crept back a couple more inches.
He looked Mitchell up and down. “Well, now, Tucker. I heard you were in town, but this is a surprise.” He gestured at the chair Mitchell had occupied many times before. “I admit I agreed to meet with you because my curiosity got the better of me. Did I understand this correctly—you’re interested in a job here at the school? The janitorial staff is pretty much fixed until Pedro Ramirez retires or dies, whichever comes first, and I don’t see that happening anytime soon.”
Of course, why would the man who’d known him all those years before expect him to want something more than a custodial job? The lead sinker gained weight. “Actually, I was thinking of something else. You could use a baseball coach.”
“We have a baseball coach.”
“Not really.”
Schroder’s brows flew up, temporarily lifting that sagging brow, and he sat a bit straighter in his chair. “Do you actually—are you talking about yourself?”
“Yep.”
“Tucker, you can’t be serious. Aside from the obvious problem, what in hell makes you qualified to coach baseball?”
“I took us to state two years in a row. Scouts even came down here to have a look at me.”
“That they did. And I remember that you were so cocky and sure of yourself, the night before you were supposed to meet them you got good and drunk with your JD friends.” His expression soured briefly. “Oh—we’re supposed to call them ‘justice-involved youths’ now. Your performance that next day was not exactly what they were looking for, as I recall.”
Mitchell suppressed the long sigh he almost let out. He’d hoped he was the only one who remembered the details of that episode. He hadn’t felt cocky at all. He’d been so wringing-wet terrified, he’d let some of those troublemakers he hung out with convince him that a little party was in order. “I remember it, too.”
The principal sat back again and drummed his fingers on his desk. It was a familiar gesture of frustration and impatience that still made Mitchell want to fidget in his chair. “People don’t get chances like that very often, especially around here. You had a gift—we really thought you’d found a good way to get out of Gila Rock. A few of us were pretty disappointed in you.”
Big news flash there. He’d told Mitchell the same thing eight years earlier. It had only made him sullen and angry then. Now he understood it a lot better. He hadn’t come here to get chewed out again, but he supposed it wasn’t realistic to hope for something else. “Yeah, I realize that. But I’m looking for a new start now.”
“First of all, Jimmy Thornton does a good, solid job coaching the team for us.”
“No offense, Mr. Schroder, but I’ve seen him with those kids out on the diamond a few times, and Jimmy Thornton is doing a pretty lousy job. He might be solid, but he doesn’t have a passion for the game. He doesn’t know much beyond the basics, as far as I can tell. He’s not giving the players the extra edge they need.”
“I have no reason to consider replacing him, or his assistant.” Especially with you—his obvious, unspoken comment hung between them.
Mitchell didn’t expect his jaw to drop, but it did. “A coaching assistant at a tiny school like Gila Rock?”
“Jimmy’s daddy was on the school board for thirty-five years. That gives him certain benefits.” Schroder’s glance flicked away to the parakeet for an instant.
So Thornton had the same kind of tenure that Pedro Ramirez did, but at a higher salary and with more perks. It was who you knew, not what you knew. “Uh-huh.”
Schroder pushed away a coffee cup on the desk. “Tucker, I can’t say I was expecting this when you asked to see me. How did you think this would play out? You probably have the skills and the ability, the ‘passion for the game,’ as you put it. Whether I thought you deserved a spot like that—and I’m sorry, but I do
n’t—what are your credentials? And with your record, you know you wouldn’t get past writing your name on an application. This is a small town. Everyone knows what happened to Wesley Emerson, and who did it to him. Convicted murderers just don’t get jobs in schools, not even janitorial jobs.”
Mitchell winced. Now he did sigh, and said, “I figured I was chasing a pipe dream.” He stood and put out his hand to his old principal. “I had to try, though.”
Schroder gave him a straight look with those shar-pei eyes and shook hands with him. “Mitch, I knew you’d had a hard time of things before the night of that fire. That’s why I was pulling for you when the chance for the minors tryouts came along. If you didn’t have that past hanging over you, I’d see what I could do to find a place for you. I’m sure you wish you had that night to do over.”
“Every damned day of my life, Mr. Schroder. Every damned day.” He straightened and walked out.
The next afternoon, Julianne stood with the phone cradled against her shoulder while she peered at the dirty, blue-backed ledger Joe Bickham had used for his accounts. Cade’s call had come at the moment her head had begun to ache at the base of her skull. Clearly, Uncle Joe’s accounting system had been one of his own invention, and he’d left no translation.
“Hey, Julianne, did you get those pigs to Benavente’s?”
“Yes. He gave me a fair price.” She decided not to tell him about Mitchell. She just didn’t want to go into it.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t drive them over there for you.”
“I know. I understand. How’s your arm?” She asked the question but was more focused on a cramped column entry than she was on his answer. Why would her uncle have ordered $500 worth of birdseed? She peered around the shelves, looking for some evidence of the stock, but she didn’t see it.
“Well—still broken.”
“Uh-huh.” Distracted, she squinted at another notation, something about thirty cubic yards of potting soil. Oh yes, now she remembered. The bags were stacked in a corner up near the front window.
“How’s it going over there?”
She sighed. “Cade, I’ve been staring at Joe’s ledger for an hour, and I still can’t make heads or tails of it. He ordered goofy inventory like a mountain of birdseed and a gross of novelty key chains. It looks like he gave credit to people all over town. As far as I can tell, they still owe this place money, and the business still owes vendors. If I could collect these outstanding debts, I’d be way ahead of the game. But first I have to figure out what on earth he was talking about in these entries. For the life of me, I can’t understand what he did.”
In the background, she heard the squeal of childish voices and knew he was calling from his parents’ store. “Okay, I tell you what—I know I can’t build shelves or do some other stuff that takes two arms. But I can probably help you untangle that bookkeeping mess your uncle left you. Like I said, I know about the business side of running a retail store. You don’t have to pay me.” He had a confident, positive tone, which gave her some comfort. But there was an edge of eagerness in his voice, too.
Julianne twiddled with the curly cord that connected the receiver to the phone. “No, no, not for free. It’s good of you to offer . . .”
“But?”
“Cade, we talked about this. If you can help me collect these outstanding debts, I’ll be able to give you the same wages as before. But I can’t—I won’t promise more than a job. You know . . .” She wanted to nip in the bud any romantic notions he might be harboring. Regardless of her private yearnings, Cade didn’t fit into that picture.
There was an awkward pause. “Yeah, Julianne, I know. You have your priorities.” It wasn’t bitterness she heard. Was it longing? Hope? “Have you had any more trouble since the other night?”
“No, it’s been quiet. Maybe the Tuckers have had their fun and won’t bother me again.” Privately, though, she didn’t believe it. She looked over her shoulder every time she went out and carried the shotgun upstairs at night. But she tried to sound convincing.
“That’s good—those lousy bastards have given you enough grief.” Another shriek sounded in the background, followed by a youngster’s great, gulping howl that pierced Julianne’s head through the earpiece. “So, I’ll start tomorrow, okay?”
She smiled. “Anxious to get away, huh?”
“Well, yeah,” he admitted. “It’s a little crowded around here.”
“But you still can’t drive your truck. What are you going to do for transportation?”
“I think I can borrow a rig with an automatic. My sister used to drive it back and forth to school.”
“Okay, great. I can use your help. This old place might get a second life yet.”
He would not, though, stay on a cot in the back room, as he’d suggested before. It would be convenient, it would even give her a sense of safety, having him there at night. Safety from outsiders, at least. But the idea of Cade sleeping one flight of stairs away from her gave her other worries. Not that she believed he’d ever overstep his bounds, but she didn’t want to give him false encouragement, either. And she didn’t need the town making assumptions and gossiping about such an arrangement. It had been different out on the farm. There had been a foreman’s cabin, separate from the house.
“You can’t stay here, you know,” she said, just in case he wasn’t clear about that.
“Okay, I understand,” he agreed.
With a feeling of some accomplishment, she hung up the receiver and went to the front window, still fogged over with Glass Wax. Using an old towel, she cleaned off a square spot on the pane to put up a red-and-black HELP WANTED sign.
After that, she grabbed her purse and headed out the door with a handful of bright-pink signs she’d run off on the printer. She’d post one on the bulletin board at the Shoppeteria, on the wall at Lupe’s, and at any other good spot she saw.
“Mitch, it’s for you.”
James called to him through the screen door frame and gestured with the cordless phone he held.
Mitchell was outside in the late spring afternoon, tossing a tennis ball around with Knucklehead. He’d just finished installing a rebuilt carburetor in a sickly Buick Skylark, and by God, the thing had even turned over when he cranked the ignition. Of course, it put out more exhaust than an old man gumming a diet of beans and cabbage, but it would run. Where Darcy found these beaters he couldn’t begin to imagine. They weren’t worth stealing—they were barely worth parting out. Still, Darcy’s inventory changed occasionally, so he must be finding buyers somewhere. At least it gave Mitchell something constructive to do while he was out of a job. It kept him busy enough to divert his thoughts from Julianne. Not for long, though, and that was good. He didn’t want anything to distract him from his purpose.
Knucklehead jumped forward and back, the tennis ball clamped in his teeth. He loved to catch it, but he wouldn’t give it back. He turned it into a game of keep-away, and Mitchell had to chase him around the cars.
“Have it your way,” he said to the dog, turning back toward the trailer. Knucklehead immediately dropped the dirty yellow ball, a look of doggy disappointment on his canine face.
Who the hell would be calling him? Mitchell wondered, taking the phone from James, who hitched his eyebrows slyly a couple of times. Probably not Rafael Benavente to give him back his job. The scene that had followed Julianne’s visit to the farm had been a bitch—both he and Victor Cabrera had received their final pay envelopes. Oddly, Rafael had seemed even more angry at Cabrera than at Mitchell. And after that crappy meeting with Schroder, he had no prospects for work anytime soon. He had some money socked away, but he couldn’t just hang out here while he tried to catch up with Julianne. He’d go crazy.
“Yeah, this is Mitchell.” He sat down on the narrow wooden steps that served as the front porch with the phone tucked between his chin and shoulder. Knucklehead picked up the ball again and carried it to his feet.
“Hey, baby, remember me?”
&nb
sp; Mitchell paused. That teasing, smoky voice—it didn’t purr, exactly, but it was familiar. Unforgettable, in fact. In moments of sweating, screaming sex, that voice could screech like a cougar’s and practically strip the shingles off a roof. “Cherry?”
“I hoped you hadn’t forgotten. I sure haven’t forgotten you. I heard you were back in town. I’ve been wondering when you’re going to come by and see me—we’ve got some lost time to make up for.”
Making up lost time with Cherry Claxton was not on Mitchell’s to-do list. He’d dated her in high school, and after Julianne had told him to get lost, he’d caught her between boyfriends for a while. In fact, she was the last woman he’d had sex with before he’d gone to prison. The realization was vaguely depressing. “Yeah, well, I just got back into town. Besides, I thought you married Steve Brea.”
“Oh, you are behind the times, aren’t you, honey? Steve was two divorces ago. I’m a free girl now, in every way you’d want. Didn’t you get my letters while you were in prison?”
“I got a couple of them, saying you were getting married.”
“A couple—well, I wrote a lot more. The damned post office must have lost them.”
Oh sure. Mitchell knew it wasn’t the post office. With Cherry, if a man was out of sight, he was out of mind, and she moved on. “Two divorces, huh? Sounds like you’ve been busy.”
“I was just trying to get over you, Mitch. You know it broke my heart when you went off to Amarillo. I cried every night for a month.”
It was such blatant bullshit, and said with wry humor, he had to laugh. Cherry was always good for a laugh, as long as a man didn’t set fire to that temper of hers. “Yeah, I’ll bet.”
“It’s true!”
“Uh-huh. That’s why you never came to visit.”
“Well, those husbands did keep me hopping.” He could hear the grin in her voice. “For a while, anyway.”
“Any kids?”
Her own laugh was rough. “Me? Kids? No, no, that would be such a bad combination. The little monsters always want something, need something—always crying, always hanging on like possum babies. They’re okay as long as they belong to someone else. They’d just cramp my style.”
After You Were Gone Page 6
