Tainted

by Tess Thompson

She kissed his cheek. “They told me at the lodge I might find you here.”

  “What’re you still doing in town?” The familiar scent of her perfume curled the hairs inside his nostrils. What did she do? Bathe in the stuff? He coughed and stepped backward, smacking into the edge of the desk.

  Freckles, on his feet now, growled.

  “It’s okay, boy.” Lance steadied him with a command to sit. Freckles obeyed but kept his focus on this new enemy.

  “I couldn’t break the promise I’d made to my father,” Tori said. “I couldn’t leave town without seeing you.”

  Mary appeared at his side and held out her hand to Tori. “I’m Mary Mullen. Lance’s wife.”

  “It’s a pleasure.” Tori’s cool blue eyes settled on Mary’s stomach. “A baby on the way. How delightful.”

  Had she always sounded so pretentious?

  “Lance was surprised to get your phone call,” Mary said, her voice ice cold.

  The corners of Tori’s mouth twitched into one of her half smiles he remembered well. “I’m here as an ambassador for my father. He’d like to offer you a position. I didn’t have a chance to tell you during our brief phone call.”

  His old job?

  “He’s prepared to give you a partnership,” Tori said. “Your former clients left in droves. The guy who took your place is a mess.”

  A partnership?

  He didn’t need the money. Remember that.

  “A partnership. What you always wanted,” Tori said.

  “Things have changed,” he said.

  Tori’s gaze flickered around the shop. “Yes, so it seems. What a quaint little store. Well done.” This last part was directed at Mary.

  “We like it,” Mary said.

  “Hear me out, at least,” Tori said to Lance. “I’m on my way out of town in a few hours. Let me take you to lunch. Like I said, I promised my father I’d talk to you about his offer.”

  He looked over at Mary to gauge her reaction. She gave him a quick nod. “Why not?” she asked. “After what they did to you, it’s certainly worth a good laugh.”

  Damn. Mary had a sharp tongue when she wanted to. He draped his arm around her shoulders. “Would you like to join us?”

  “No, Freckles and I have work to do.” Mary placed her hand over her round tummy and held up her cheek for a kiss. She was quite the actress. He loved her for it. She knew how important it was that Tori think they were happily married. Success is the sweetest revenge.

  “Let’s head up to The Oar,” Lance said to Tori. “It’s our stomping ground.”

  “Stomping ground? What connotations that evokes.” She nodded at Mary. “Again, such a pleasure. Good luck with the shop. These old brick and mortar shops are an endangered species.”

  Lance waved at Zane when they entered The Oar. Zane brought over menus after they’d slipped into a booth near the front window.

  Lance introduced them. “This is Tori Hawthorne,” Lance said.

  “Right. Tori from New York. Lance mentioned you once,” Zane said. Once. Nice one.

  “Only once?” Tori lifted an eyebrow and spoke without inflection. “We meant a lot to each other at one time.”

  “I think he mentioned you cost him his job. Yes, that was the reference point, if I remember correctly.” Zane said all this with his surfer boy smile as he set a menu in front of her.

  She smiled stiffly. “And you’re Zane. A Dog and the bar owner. The reverent way he used to speak of your little gang made me wonder if you all were actually a secret society with initiation rituals.”

  “The five of us go way back,” Zane said. “We’ve seen one another through thick and thin.”

  “Our weekly poker game is a ritual of sorts,” Lance said.

  “Yes, well worth leaving a lucrative career in New York to play poker once a week with the guys.” Tori pointed to the surfboards that hung on the wall. “I’ve never seen boards as art work.”

  “Really? Well, you’re welcome then. Drinks?”

  “White wine, please,” Tori said. “Unless it’s from Oregon.”

  “You have something against Oregon wine?” Zane asked.

  “Doesn’t everyone?” she asked with a sharp pitched laugh.

  “Careful,” Lance said.

  “Not everyone, no,” Zane said. “But I’ll be sure to get you a nice oaky Chardonnay from California.”

  “I’ll have an IPA,” Lance said. “Preferably one from Oregon.”

  Zane shot him a look before heading back to the bar.

  “He’s not how I pictured him,” Tori said.

  “How so?”

  “I imagined a rather dull surfer dude.”

  “Dull? You mean, dumb?”

  She shrugged one skinny shoulder. “Maybe a little. He’s snarkier than I imagined. You always said he was such a…what did you call him? A standup guy. I believe that was the phrase.”

  “My friends don’t like you. What can I say?” Lance asked. “They know the full story about what went down.”

  With her napkin, she scrubbed a spot on the plastic menu. “Rather unforgiving, isn’t it? I thought Californians were about peace and love.” Same cool, unflappable girl he’d once loved. She never cared what anyone thought of her. That was the thing with rich girls. They assumed rules didn’t apply to them.

  “It’s not 1965,” he said.

  She tapped the table near his left hand. “Where’s your wedding ring?”

  “I don’t have it yet.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Touché.”

  Zane came with the drinks and asked for their lunch orders.

  “What do you recommend that isn’t fried?” Tori asked Zane.

  “You’ll like the Brody Salad,” Lance said.

  “Oh, yes, the famous Brody Salad,” Tori said. “No dressing, please.”

  Lance ordered one as well. “I’ll have mine with the dressing.” Zane left without a word.

  “You’re making a mistake on the dressing,” he said to Tori. “It’s a secret recipe.”

  “I’ll take my chances.” Tori lifted her glass. “To old times.”

  He drank from his beer without acknowledging the toast. “Did your father really send you out here with a job offer?”

  “I asked if I could come. I had no idea you were married.”

  He followed her gaze to the window. What did she see when she looked at his town? Did she notice the way the flowers were displayed outside the grocery store? Had she admired the signage over his shop? Was she as taken as he by apple blossoms or the blue of the sky? What about the scent of the sea that drifted up from the beach?

  It didn’t matter what she thought, but still, a need for her to see Cliffside Bay as he did tugged at him. This was his community. Everyone and everything he loved was here.

  “I have no intention of coming back to New York,” he said. “Mary’s having our baby in September. I want to raise the baby here surrounded by my friends and family.”

  She smiled, moving her glass in a circle in the way he’d once found intriguing. “Is that why the rushed marriage?”

  “Nothing rushed about it. We’ve known each other for a while.”

  Tori lifted her eyebrows. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “She’s pretty.”

  “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”

  “Daddy’s offering a full partnership. He says it was a huge mistake to fire you.”

  “Not interested.” Huge mistake.

  She drank from her glass, eyeing him. “I find that hard to believe. You were always so ambitious.”

  “Things change.”

  “I suppose they do.”

  “Are you happier now?” Lance asked.

  “Now?”

  “Divorced,” he said.

  “I suppose. He was vicious when he drank. I didn’t know that until it was too late. I wish I’d chosen the right man.”

  He scoffed and crosse
d his arms over his chest. “What did you think? You could just come out here and get me to move back to New York and now that I’m a partner, we’d just pick up where we left off, only this time I’m on the ‘appropriate to marry list’?”

  She twisted her tennis bracelet around her wrist. He’d forgotten that habitual gesture. “I didn’t expect that, no. I did think you’d be interested in my father’s offer. Over time, I thought you might forgive me and we could start over.”

  “You ruined my life.”

  “That’s an exaggeration, don’t you think?” She pulled a travel sized sanitizer from her handbag and squirted her hands, then rubbed them together. “You don’t belong here.” She pointed at the surfboards on the walls. “This is what they think of as art work? Think of the life you would have back in New York. You could have everything you ever wanted.”

  “You’re right, it is an overstatement. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have found the life I’m truly meant to live. The one here.”

  “A partnership in the firm. Do you know how much money we’re talking?” she asked.

  The old ambition floated in front of him like a ghost. He imagined puckering his mouth into a siphon and sucking the old familiar apparition up, bringing it back to life. But no. This life Tori offered was no longer what he wanted or needed. He silently saluted the ghost of ambition as it floated by him, no longer a friend or foe.

  “I don’t need money,” Lance said. “I’ve done well enough.”

  “Father says it’s never enough.”

  “And that right there is why I’m here and he’s there,” Lance said.

  Zane brought their lunches and left them alone without a word. He didn’t need to say anything out loud, Lance knew what the glitter in his friend’s eyes meant. Get the hell out. Run away as fast as you can.

  Tori picked at her food. He’d forgotten that too. She never ate much, with no regard to the cost of the meal. He made a mental note to tell Mary. She would enjoy hearing that detail.

  “Mary’s a librarian?” Tori asked. “Turned bookstore manager?”

  “I told you that last night.”

  “And you really bought the bookstore?”

  “What’s your point?”

  “I had no idea you were interested in books,” Tori said. “I recall your interests were money and me.”

  He stabbed a piece of chicken with his fork.

  Tori reached across the table and clapped her cold fingers around his wrist. “Can you honestly look me in the eyes and tell me this is enough for you? A librarian? A bookstore? In a one stoplight town?”

  “Your description is inaccurate. Mary is a complicated, intelligent, totally fascinating woman. I worship her. Our bookstore was an institution in this town. When I heard it was in trouble, I knew I had to buy it and make it profitable. Because, as you say, I’m interested in money and I know how to make it grow, but it’s more than that. Every town needs a bookstore—a place where people of all ages can come and ask the local shopkeeper to help them find the perfect book. When all is said and done, the stories in those pages help us make sense out of chaos. This one stoplight town is a community, which I know you wouldn’t understand because you’ve never been part of something that isn’t comprised of a gaggle of backstabbing, catty social climbers. The people here care about their town and one another. This town is my home. Everyone I love is here. No amount of money or esteem will ever change that. Please, Tori, go home. Give your father my best but tell him to find some other schmuck willing to work eighty-hour workweeks. I’m home where I belong.” He stood, throwing some bills on the table. “Good luck, Tori.”

  Zane winked at him on his way out the door. “Well done.”

  “You can find me at my bookstore.” Lance grinned at him. “With my wife.”

  When he returned to the shop, the young woman they’d hired for the early evening shift told him Mary and Freckles had left for the day. “She said to tell you to meet her at home.”

  Two minutes later, he was on the road to his house. It wasn’t like Mary to leave the shop before 5 p.m. She was upset. He cursed Tori under his breath.

  When he walked into the house through the garage door, Freckles bounded out to meet him. Wagging his tail, he led Lance through the living room to the patio. The angle of the late afternoon sun hovered between the awning and horizon, showering the patio with light and warmth. Mary sat in a shaded area with her feet resting on an ottoman. His copy of Anne of Green Gables rested on her lap. Dark sunglasses covered her eyes.

  “Hey.” He sat next to her and placed a hand on her leg.

  She took off her sunglasses. Her eyes were red and puffy. She’d been crying.

  “You okay?” He cleared his throat. What was he supposed to do now?

  “You came back.”

  “Was that ever a question?”

  “She looks like Grace Kelly.”

  “Not really.”

  “Beautiful and sophisticated.” Mary’s words sounded like one long sigh.

  “I used to think so. But now I see her through a new filter.”

  “The moment I set eyes on her, I saw what attracted you to her. She’s the symbol of everything you ever wanted.”

  He nodded. “I suppose she was.”

  “Elitist, rich. She’s art gallery openings and opera seats and the Hamptons. That life you pursued with such ambition. I can’t compete with that.” She put her hand over her stomach. “And a partnership? It’s all you ever wanted.”

  “Wanted. Past tense.”

  “Did she bring up the bookstore, how it was beneath you?”

  “She did.”

  “And me? An uptight librarian?”

  He smiled and wrapped his hand around one of her feet. “She didn’t say uptight.”

  “She asked if you married me because I was pregnant, didn’t she?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  “And called our town boring and unsophisticated.”

  “I believe she described it as a one stoplight town. Which is inaccurate, as were her other observations. I set her straight about everything. Every town needs a bookstore because books make sense out of chaos. Cliffside Bay is a community of people who know that family and friendship matter more than who you are or what you do for a living. I may have said something about her inability to understand why or how I could feel the way I do because she runs with a gaggle of backstabbing, catty social climbers.”

  “Oh.”

  “Then I told her how you were the love of my life, everything I’ve ever wanted, and that I worship you.”

  Mary sucked in her bottom lip and looked up at him. Unshed tears glistened in her eyes. “You said all that?”

  “I did. It was quite the rant. You can ask Zane about it sometime. Then I told her to go home.”

  “You weren’t at the lodge having sex with her?” She smiled as a teardrop ran down her cheek.

  “Um, no.” He shook his head. “Is that what you were thinking?”

  “Maybe.” She looked down at her lap.

  “Why would you care?” he asked. “You’ve already said you don’t want this…me.”

  “It’s more complicated than that.”

  “How’s it more complicated? You know how much I love you. You know the man I am. Either you love me or you don’t.”

  She wiped at her swollen eyes with a rumpled tissue.

  Should he take his brother’s advice and throw the gauntlet? Her tears told a different story from her mouth.

  “I think I should move out. Brody says I can move in with them,” he said. “You can stay here until the baby comes and then we’ll find another house for you.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mary

  * * *

  MARY STARED AT him as panic rose from her gut to the back of her throat. She clasped her hands together. “I don’t want you to leave.”

  “It’s not fair to me. You know that. I’ll make sure you have everything you need.”

 
“I need you here.”

  “Why?”

  “I just do.” She started crying harder.

  “Why were you crying when I was with Tori? Did you really think I was with her?”

  “It’s like a spinning top I can’t control. The thoughts came faster and faster until I could practically see it play out before my eyes.”

  “And why do you care?” He lifted her chin, forcing her to look into his eyes. His voice was low, but resolute. “Tell me the truth. Tell me or I have to leave this house. I can’t live like this any longer.”

  Her face reddened. “You really want to know? The thought of your hands on her made me feel like I was dying.”

  “And what does that mean exactly?”

  She looked away, gathering her thoughts. If they were to have a chance she had to tell him her secrets. The lie between them would invade like an angry weed. “I’m in love with you. I have been since our first night together. Before that, even.”

  “I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t you just tell me?” A myriad of expressions passed over his face, going from mournful to confused to hopeful.

  “I’ve been trying to drive you away.”

  “Why? Because you’re afraid?”

  “No, that’s not it. Not with you.” She jumped when Freckles bounded out to the patio and barked, then lay next to the chair with his chin on Mary’s feet.

  “Why then? Knowing how I feel about you?” Lance brushed her cheekbone with his fingertips. The dog at her feet, the man at her side, the baby in her womb. This was her life. The way it was meant to be. This was her family.

  She closed her eyes for a split second, enjoying the sensation of his skin on hers, knowing it might be the last time she ever felt his touch. When she opened them, she ran her knuckles across the spiky stubble on his chin. “Because I did something horrible. Something unforgiveable.”

  “What could you possibly do that I wouldn’t forgive?”

  “I lied. I wasn’t on the pill and I’m not allergic to latex.”

  “What?” Lance drew in a sharp breath, like someone had sucker punched him. “Why would you lie about that?”

  “I wanted to get pregnant.”

  He stared at her like he’d never seen her before. “You had sex with me for a baby?”