Coming Home (Jackson Falls Series)

by Breton, Laurie

  The sense of unreality was still strong when she returned home the next day. Danny’s clothes were gone, and his guitar. His door key lay in the middle of the kitchen table, a blatant reminder of everything she’d lost. Casey locked herself in the bedroom, buried her head in a pillow that smelled of Danny, and let the deluge come.

  It was dusk when Rob knocked on her door. “I brought home a pizza,” he said. “Come out and have some.”

  “Leave me alone,” she said dully.

  “I can’t,” he said. “You need to eat.”

  She swiped the heavy dampness of her hair away from her cheek. “I already ate.”

  “Bullshit. Get dressed and get out here, or I’m coming in after you. And don’t think the lock will stop me, because I’ll break the goddamn door down if I have to.”

  She resented his bullying, but it worked. The pizza smelled like heaven with pepperoni on it. Rob poured a glass of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill and held it out to her. “You look like shit,” he said. “Have a drink.”

  She took the glass from him. “You certainly know how to sweet-talk a woman, MacKenzie.”

  He tore off a slice of pizza, gooey with elastic threads of mozzarella, and put it in her hand. “Eat,” he said.

  She ate. And to her astonishment, felt infinitely better. “Thanks,” she said, reaching for a second piece. “I guess I needed that.”

  He tilted the half-empty bottle of Boone’s, and a thin stream of red liquid poured into his cup. He set the bottle on his thigh and fumbled with the cap. “I promised myself I’d stay out of this,” he said, “but I just can’t. You’re miserable, he’s miserable—hell, I’m miserable, and it’s not even my marriage we’re talking about.”

  She held out her glass and he obligingly refilled it. “In some ways,” he began, “I’m an old-fashioned guy. I want the house and the kids and the wife.” His voice grew wistful. “And I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m actively searching for that special woman.”

  “Why, Rob. All this time, I thought you were a free spirit.”

  “Ah, yes, my sweet, but underneath there beats the heart of an Irishman who grew up in a family of nine kids.”

  “So what’s your point?”

  “I’m getting to it. When I find that special woman, she’s going to be a lot like you.”

  She blinked in surprise. “Like me?”

  “Oh, she might not look like you or dress like you. She doesn’t even have to cook like you.” He toyed with his glass. “But I have one absolute prerequisite. She has to love me as much as you love Danny.”

  She silently contemplated his words. “I’m afraid,” she said, “there aren’t many women like that around.”

  “Exactly.”

  Either her head was befuddled from the wine, or he was speaking in riddles, because she still wasn’t getting the point. “And?”

  “And. I’ve always held up your marriage as a shining example, a yardstick upon which to measure all other marriages, past, present, and future. If the two of you split up, you’ll be destroying my belief in the sanctity of matrimony.”

  “Oh, please. Don’t make me throw up.”

  “Shut up. I’m not finished. I know he did a dirty, rotten thing to you.”

  She sipped her wine. “What he did,” she said, “was despicable.”

  “And you want to see that he’s justly punished for it.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But you’re punishing yourself right along with him.”

  She considered his words. “Maybe,” she said grudgingly.

  “Look,” he said, “I won’t argue that you’re the injured party here. You know it, I know it, Danny knows it. But has it occurred to you that you’re not the only one who’s hurting? Sure, you were in the right, so at least you have your self-righteousness. Danny’s the one who got stuck with the guilt.”

  “Good! I hope it’s eating him up!”

  “Shut up and listen to me. His whole goddamn life has blown up around him, and he knows it’s all his fault. So don’t tell me you’re the only one hurting, because he’s bleeding inside just as bad as you are.”

  “Then why did he do it?”

  He leaned back against the couch. “Sex,” he said, fiddling with the lace to his sneaker, “isn’t the same for a man as it is for a woman.”

  Dryly, she said, “Would you care to clarify that?”

  “Women have trouble separating sex and love. Men don’t.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Are you condoning what he did?”

  “I’m not saying it’s right. I’m just saying the difference exists.”

  Three days after the disintegration of her life, Casey was back at work. The hotel’s part-time employees didn’t enjoy luxuries like sick leave, and without Danny’s income, she wasn’t sure she and Rob could stay afloat. She refused to dwell on Danny’s welfare or wonder how he was surviving. As her mother used to say, he’d made his bed, and now he was going to have to lie in it.

  It was September, the pleasantest time of year in New York, and as business picked up at the Montpelier, Casey took on as many extra hours as she could get. She worked double shifts and came home at midnight, feet throbbing so bad she couldn’t sleep until she’d soaked them in Epsom Salts and warm water. Working so hard had its benefits, though; when she fell into bed at night, she was too worn out to think about Danny, or about the baby she’d lost.

  Money was scarce. As the weeks passed, she dipped more than once into her emergency fund to buy groceries. In the evenings, when Rob was out, she sat in the dark to save on the electric bill. The soles of her shoes were nearly worn through when lady luck smiled upon them, and Rob got a break.

  Rick Slater and his band were well-known around the Big Apple, and when his lead guitarist left to form his own band, the drummer, who’d done some studio work with Rob, recommended him as a replacement. Rob auditioned, Slater liked what he saw, and the rest, as they say, was history.

  In October, Rob talked her into a trip to Atlantic City with some musician friends of his, Steve Stern and Chico Rodriguez. Along with Chico’s girlfriend, Marietta, they drove down in Steve’s red ‘68 Malibu convertible. It was a golden Indian summer day with a touch of breeze off the Atlantic, and after a twenty-dollar win at the slot machines (beginner’s luck, Chico said), Casey left the others in the casino and strolled the boardwalk alone.

  She was watching two gulls fight over a discarded French fry when she saw a tall, tawny-haired man in a suede jacket, walking arm-in-arm with a redheaded girl. Casey’s heart slammed into her rib cage, and the man turned to say something to the girl, and his face was nothing like Danny’s. But the damage was already done. How could she possibly long for Danny with this kind of intensity when she was so repulsed by the knowledge that he’d touched another woman? Had she become so desperate that she wanted Danny no matter what the cost to herself?

  If so, this was a side to her personality that she didn’t much like. She didn’t want to be the kind of woman who couldn’t live without a man. Hadn’t she proven that to be untrue? It had been six weeks since she’d last seen Danny—six weeks, three days, and seventeen hours, to be precise—and she was doing just fine. She was getting up each day and going to work. She watered her plants regularly. There was nothing growing in her refrigerator, and Con Ed hadn’t yet cut off her electricity. Didn’t that prove she was a fully functioning, contributing member of society? Didn’t that prove she didn’t need a man to survive?

  So what if she hadn’t told her family about the separation? So what if she’d found his old gray B.U. sweatshirt in the hamper, and now she slept in it every night? It didn’t matter that every morning when she awoke, she still automatically reached out to find him. Or that she still wore her wedding ring, and refused to even consider taking any step that might legally cement the separation. None of this meant a thing, because Casey was a survivor, and not even Danny Fiore could take that away from her.

  chapter thirteen

  He
awoke with a jolt, his breath coming in short, violent gasps as he fought to banish the images that still cluttered his brain. It was the dream again, in vivid Technicolor. He swung his legs over the edge of the narrow cot and reached for the pack of Marlboros he’d left on the floor, lighting one and drawing the smoke deep into his lungs in an attempt to chase away the monsters that had been his constant bedtime companions ever since Casey had thrown him out on his ass.

  He hadn’t yet figured out how to run fast enough or far enough to elude them, so instead of sleeping, he spent most of his nights chain smoking in this windowless little room that smelled of stale beer and mouse droppings. Tony was probably in violation of twenty-three different municipal ordinances, allowing him to take up residence here in this empty storage room at the back of the bar. But it was either this or a cheap room in some flophouse, and at least here he wasn’t in danger of being knifed in his sleep.

  He’d had another report yesterday from Rob. Casey was driving herself without mercy. His wife was proud and stubborn, and if she ever found out where the extra money was coming from, she would refuse it. But Rob had sworn on his life that he’d slip it into the kitty without telling her. Better she should think MacKenzie had hit the jackpot than know that the money was coming from his job as a cabbie.

  It was a crummy job, carting around businessmen to three-martini lunches and suburban housewives to Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s, but New York was full of crummy jobs, and at least he didn’t have Emile riding his ass any more. Whenever his job took him to lower Manhattan, he managed to find an excuse to drive past Wong’s Tea House, slowing the yellow cab to a crawl as he craned his neck for a glimpse of his wife in the apartment window upstairs. But all he ever saw was the Swedish ivy Rob had rescued from a trash can on the street and brought home to her. Casey had pampered and nurtured the damn thing until it resembled an acre of Amazonian rain forest.

  And that, in a nutshell, was the problem between them. Casey was a nurturer, while he was little more than a glib street hustler. He’d known it from the beginning, but with his customary disregard for the welfare of others, he’d taken what he wanted, ignoring the consequences. Casey belonged in a big house in the country, with a garden outside her door and babies playing at her feet. But he’d taken all that away from her when he made her his wife, and now he was paying for his stupidity.

  And for what? His wife wasn’t speaking to him, and his career was in the toilet. He’d spent two-and-a-half years making the rounds, making his face and his name known to New York’s numerous talent agencies and record production companies. He’d always believed that the best way to get a foot in the door was to make friends with the secretarial staff. So he made a point of pouring on the charm, and it worked: every receptionist in the business knew him, and most of them lit up like Times Square at New Year’s the instant he walked through the door.

  The problem was that he could never get past the receptionist to the people who made the decisions. He’d left behind a pile of resumes and demo tapes tall enough to rival the Empire State Building, but he’d had no bites. Not even a nibble. All that creative energy inside him was building up, with no outlet, until he thought he’d explode. On the nights he played guitar at Tony’s, he sang what the patrons wanted to hear. When he was alone, he sang the music that stirred his soul. He sang in the shower at the Y, in his cab when he didn’t have a fare.

  But this was New York, where struggling singers sold watches on every street corner, and nobody gave a rat’s ass about a blue-eyed white boy from Boston. In New York, Danny Fiore was a nobody. And he wondered, for the first time, if it was time to quit.

  ***

  With the final notes of Satisfaction ringing in his head, Rob left the stage, worming his way between bodies in the direction of the bar and the cold Heineken that was waiting for him. Halfway there, an immovable object planted itself in his path. “Hey, Mac,” the tattooed mountain said. “Some lady friend of yours come in asking for you. Seemed real upset. I stashed her away in Jimmy’s office.”

  At just over six feet, Rob was at eye level with Rico’s Adam’s apple. “Lady friend?” he said. “I don’t have any lady friends.”

  “I dunno,” the bouncer said. “This one would be hard to forget.”

  It had to be Casey. Something must be wrong at home. “Jimmy’s office,” he said. “Thanks.”

  Rico’s massive hand caught him by the shoulder. “Lemme give you a word of advice, MacKenzie. Jimmy don’t like no trouble, so you might wanna keep your little domestic problems to home.”

  Rob freed himself, shouldering his way through the crowd. He took the last few steps at a trot and burst through the door to Jimmy’s office. The woman sat on the couch, her hands clutching a tattered tissue, her face hidden behind a curtain of dark hair. She raised her head and her eyes were brimming. Dark eyes. Almond-shaped eyes.

  Oriental eyes.

  His anxiety turned to astonishment. “Nancy,” he said.

  “Hello, Rob MacKenzie,” she said in that melodious voice that had haunted his dreams for months. Those luminous eyes glistened, and a single tear escaped and rolled down her cheek. With a small cry, she got up from the couch, flung her arms around his neck, and pressed her face against his shirt front.

  He stood in paralyzed disbelief. Slowly, tentatively, he closed his arms around her and allowed his fingers to touch the shining silk of her hair. The scent of jasmine clung to her, making him dizzy. He swallowed hard. Jesus, he thought. Was this love, this pain that felt as if it would rip him apart? He wasn’t sure he was ready to handle it. At the same time, terrified that she might be an apparition, he tightened his hold. “Nancy,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

  She lifted a tearstained face. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should not have come here.”

  “No,” he said, needing desperately to reassure her. “You can’t begin to know how happy I am to see you.”

  She touched his cheek with a slender hand. “I tried to forget you. But it was impossible.”

  He kissed the palm of her hand. “What is it?” he said. “What’s wrong?”

  She wet her lips with the moist, pink tip of her tongue. “My parents have chosen a husband for me. His name is Kim Soon Lee, and we are to be married at the Chinese New Year.”

  He tried to make sense of her words. “You mean an arranged marriage?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are they nuts? Arranged marriages went out with hoop skirts!”

  Nancy shook her head. “They still occur among the Chinese. My own parents were betrothed when they were children.”

  “You’re twenty-two years old,” he said, trying to tamp down his anger. “You don’t have to do their bidding.”

  She shook her head. “You do not understand.”

  “You’re damn right, I don’t! This is twentieth-century America. They can’t do this to you!”

  “I cannot stop them.”

  “Jesus Christ, Nancy, just say no!”

  “You do not understand how I was raised. You do not know my parents. I’m not strong enough to fight them.”

  “Then we’ll fight them together.”

  She pulled away from him and crossed the room, leaving an emotional gulf the size of the Pacific Ocean between them. Toying with a pen from Jimmy’s desk, she said, “I cannot involve you.”

  “Nancy,” he said in gentle exasperation, “you already have.”

  “It was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come here.”

  He crossed the space between them and took her face between his hands. “But you did,” he said. “And I’m glad!”

  “If I involve you,” she said, “it will only make things worse. They are angry already because I told them I will not marry Kim. It would be disastrous if they discovered I was involved with a white man.”

  He tucked her dark head beneath his chin, and they swayed like slender reeds caught in a breeze. “I love you,” he said. “More than I’ve ever loved anybody.”

  “Please
don’t say that.”

  “Why? Do you think it’ll be any less true if I don’t say it out loud?”

  “I cannot love you,” she said. “Don’t you understand? I cannot allow this to happen.”

  “Nancy,” he said gently, “it’s too late. It’s already happened.”

  It was one-thirty in the morning when he dragged Casey out of bed. “Nancy,” he said curtly, “this is Casey. Casey, this is Nancy. We’re getting married.”

  Both women gaped at him in astonishment. He picked up the telephone and held it out to Nancy. “Your folks are probably worried,” he said. “They deserve to know you’re all right.”

  While she held a lengthy conversation in Chinese with her mother, he paced the apartment. Casey cornered him in the kitchen. “I don’t suppose,” she said, “that you’d care to enlighten me?”

  “She had a big blow-out with her folks. They told her she has to marry some Chinese guy. I’m not about to let it happen.”

  She exhaled loudly. “Rob,” she said, “how long have you known this girl?”

  “Long enough,” he said grimly. “Look, I know what I’m doing. Don’t try to talk me out of it.”

  “I’m not going to. On the other hand, I’d hate to see you make a terrible mistake.”

  “This is my life, babe. Let me live it.”

  “You,” she said, poking him hard in the chest, “are an insufferable ass.”

  He cupped her cheek and placed a kiss on the tip of her nose. “That’s why you love me,” he said.

  ***

  The anteroom outside the judge’s chambers reeked with the odors of stale cigar smoke and too many bodies crammed into too little space. Casey shifted on the wooden bench, trying to find some position that didn’t hurt her backside. There were two couples waiting to experience nuptial bliss ahead of Rob and Nancy. The teenage Hispanic couple held hands with terrified determination, and the middle-aged woman with the blond beehive slumped in her seat with terminal boredom next to a colorless man who leafed listlessly through a year-old issue of Time magazine.