“I need some furniture. Cheap.” Katie Sara relaxed in one of the mismatched chairs pulled up to Rhonda’s maple-veneer table and grinned at the drawing of Cinderella meets Spiderman. Tucking the flaps of a Fruit Loops box, she slid it alongside the Flintstones vitamins. Not much doubt two munchkins lived here.
A tiny fist of pain clutched her heart. Someday, she thought. Someday, she’d have this. A family of her own. Well, maybe. Her best and oldest friend didn’t quite have it all, but she had the children—minus the jerk who’d fathered them. And bully to her for that.
“There’s a great little shop outside of town,” Rhonda said. “Winds of Change. It’s a big old barn that would make an extraordinary house. Ruth Dilbert owns it, and she gets stuff in from all over the place. Sometimes there’s nothing, but...” She shrugged.
“Let’s do it, then.” Katie Sara grabbed her purse and keys from the counter. “It’s sure nice of your mom to keep Krista so that you can go with me today.”
“She loves it. To be honest, I don’t know what I’d do without Mom. Raisin’ kids is tough. After doing battle with Nicole last night, I finally agreed to let her go with some friends today to a water park in Atlanta. Casey’s mom is taking them. Eleven, as Nicole informed me, is plenty old to do that.” Rhonda blew out her breath. “Keep your fingers crossed.”
She scooped up her purse. “I need to run by the beauty shop to pick up a brush Gina ordered for me.” Rhonda ran a hand through her mass of shoulder-length, reddish-blond curls. “She promises it’ll help tame this mess.”
“People pay a fortune trying to duplicate that hair, pal.”
“Yeah?” She narrowed her light blue eyes. “Well, they’re more than welcome to mine. Unfortunately, Krista and Nicole both inherited their hair from me, poor darlin’s. It would have been the one nice thing Woody could have done for them, given them his beautiful straight blond hair.” She shrugged. “Should have known he wouldn’t have the decency to do even that.”
Katie Sara’d barely begun to squeeze her Mustang into the tight parking space in front of Gina’s Hair Salon when Rhonda jerked upright and slid sideways in her seat, blocking her side view.
“You know what? Forget the brush! Duh! I’m sure it isn’t in yet. Stupid me!” She slapped herself upside the head. “She said next week, not this week!”
Katie Sara craned her neck to peer around her friend. “Rhonda, I can’t see to park.”
“It doesn’t matter. We don’t have to stop.”
When Katie Sara stared at her normally calm, collected friend suddenly turned manic, Rhonda started waving her hands in a shooing motion. “Go! Go!”
“What in the world is wrong with you?”
Rhonda smiled weakly. “I don’t want someone else grabbing the best buys. Some of those older women...” She shook her head. “They practically camp outside Ruth’s barn, waiting for the doors to open.”
Katie Sara’s brows drew together, then shot skyward when she saw what her pal had already spotted. Had tried to hide. Half in, half out of the parking space, she sat, Mustang idling, temper racing.
“T-O-P-D-A-W-G,” she muttered. Only one red ’Vette with that personalized plate...and there it sat, bold as crabgrass in a manicured lawn. It was parked in Gina’s own private parking slot, a trophy on display. “TOP DAWG, my foot. Scum-sucking bottom-feeder is more like it!”
The despicable jerk had certainly suffered last night, hadn’t he? While she’d lain awake late into the night, replaying the way he’d looked, that dark hair, those midnight-blue eyes, remembering his touch on her arm, their argument, he’d—well, she wouldn’t think what he’d done. And with Gina Altenburg.
TOP DAWG. He was a dog, all right. A mangy, flea-bitten hound dog.
To think that when she’d driven into Paradox Sunday morning, she’d sat in front of her new home, picturing how perfect it all was. How everything had come together. Karma. Hah! Karma, my eye! The joke was on her. Things had come together, but more along the lines of the Bermuda Triangle, and everything was sinking fast.
Her heart refused to listen to her mind. It would not shut out the image of Reiner and Gina. And it hurt. Far worse than she’d ever imagined it could. Of course there’d been other women in his life. She wasn’t a fool! Reiner Broderick was a red-hot, all-American male. Make that scorching red-hot!
But those women had been pictures in magazines. In tabloids. Phantoms. This was real. This was the other woman in flesh-and-blood. Twerpy, scatter-brained Gina, and Reiner had slept with her!
Memories rushed over Katie Sara. The touch of Reiner’s hands on her skin, the brush of his fingers over her breasts. The frantic need for more, always more. And his kisses! God, they’d sent her over the edge. It had been heaven on earth in his arms, and she’d given in, gone all the way with Bad Boy Broderick.
The pulse point at her neck jackhammered in time with her heart, even all these years later.
Despite everything that had followed, she’d cherished those memories, memories she’d finally managed to tuck away like a well-worn but still seductive forget-me-not. She had never regretted a moment. Until now, when Reiner and Gina had shared that same intimacy practically under her nose.
“Let’s go, Katie Sara.”
“No. Let’s pick up that brush. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Gina.”
Rhonda trotted up the walk behind Katie Sara. “I honestly think you should reconsider. Bargin’ into Gina’s isn’t one of your better ideas.”
“Why, I’m not bargin’, Rhonda. I’m payin’ a social call,” she drawled, all sweet Southern belle. “It’s been a dog’s age since I’ve seen her. Seems only neighborly to drop by now that I’m going to be living here.”
Rhonda snorted.
Katie Sara shrugged. “Think what you will.”
Staring at the bungalow with its slightly tilted steps and listing porch, she took a second to catch her breath and reclaim her equilibrium.
A sign hung above the flower boxes. Gina’s House of Beauty. Katie Sara swore the old house wore a satisfied grin, as though it assumed the name referred to it. The cottage fairly beamed with pride at its sunshine yellow siding, the rose and lavender wreath gracing its door.
Okay, Gina had managed a decent job with curb appeal. Katie Sara glanced again at TOP DAWG’s red Corvette, and her nails bit into her palms. Gina, apparently, did very well with curve appeal, too.
She yanked open the front door. Hallelujah. No happy little overhead bell jingled. The mood she was in right then, she might have yanked it down and fed it to the nearest garbage disposal.
Framed in the entrance, she paused to take stock and to give her heart a moment to... What? Stop bleeding? Not likely! Stop yearning for what could have been? Get real! Slow down? Yeah, avoid a stroke!
Gina swiveled toward the door, smile in place, ready to welcome her new customer. The smile cooled fifty degrees, and the welcome stalled in the cold front.
Despite the frigid reception, the air in the tiny shop sizzled. Behind Katie Sara, Rhonda took a step back, then apparently caught herself and moved closer. Katie Sara felt the warmth of Rhonda’s hand as she touched her arm ever so lightly. United. Rhonda stood with her, for her the way she had in high school. Emotion clogged Katie Sara’s throat.
“My, my. Look what the cat drug in.”
“Dragged.” Katie Sara bit her tongue. Irritating habit, correcting everyone’s grammar! A compulsion she couldn’t seem to control.
A question formed on Gina’s brow but quickly disappeared, replaced by the same phony, happy-to-see-you smile Katie Sara herself slapped in place. Those ice-blue eyes, though, could have caused instant frostbite.
Katie Sara noted with more than a little relief that Gina held a tray of perm rollers rather than wickedly sharp scissors. Instantly, she berated herself for cowardice. Still...
The smile on Gina’s full, Marilyn Monroe-red mouth turned mean. “Want me to see if I can do somethin’ with that hair, Katie Sara? I sure hope whoever did that to you didn’t charge for it.”
Rhonda stepped around Katie Sara. “Is my brush in?”
“Sure thing. Let me get it for you.” Gina sashayed to the backroom, hips swaying in breath-inhibiting white capris.
“Ouch!” Katie Sara glowered at Rhonda and rubbed her arm. “You pinched me!”
“And I’ll do it again if you don’t behave yourself.”
“I’m behaving—”
“Here you are, already paid for. I think you’ll like it, Rhonda.”
“I’m sure I will. Thanks.” She grabbed Katie Sara’s arm and made a break for the door.
Before they reached it, Gina pulled off her latex gloves and tossed them on the counter. “Understand you came home to bury your daddy.”
The arrow zinged straight to her heart. A direct hit. Katie Sara stopped dead in her tracks. The gauntlet had been tossed. The score, two to nothing, Gina.
“Yes, I did.”
The dryer shut off, and the woman beneath it laid down her magazine and raised the hood.
“Ms. Charlotte?”
“Katie Sara! I’m mighty sorry, honey, about your daddy.”
Katie Sara crossed the room and embraced the woman who had been her father’s secretary for fifteen years and a good friend to her mother throughout and after the trial.
“I don’t care what anyone says. Ralph was a good man. Something wasn’t right, there. We never did get the whole story.” Ms. Charlotte’s thin face pinched.
Katie Sara saw the passing years etched on it. So many good people had been left behind with her Paradox childhood.
“No, ma’am. I don’t believe we did.” She battled tears, determined not to shed them in front of Miss Tight Britches.
Gina handed Charlotte her magazine and set a timer. “I’m gonna put you under for five more minutes, sweetie. You’re not quite ready yet.”
As Gina lowered the hood, Ms. Charlotte asked, “You’re living here now?”
Katie Sara nodded.
“Good. Give me a call, and we’ll have lunch.”
“I’d like that,” Katie Sara said.
Gina swivel-hipped her way to the counter and yawned. “Sorry ’bout that.” Her eyes met Katie Sara’s. “I had a late night, and that man about wore me out.”
She stretched and arched her back, her perky size-C-with-help cleavage practically springing out of her scoop-necked tee. “But then, guess you’d know that, wouldn’t you, sugar? Or maybe,” she purred, “he’s learned a few new tricks since you and he—”
“Time to go.” Rhonda grabbed Katie Sara’s arm in a hold any wrestler would have envied and hustled her toward the door. “See ya later, Gina.”
When the door closed behind them, Rhonda whispered, “She’s watchin’. Don’t let her know she got to you. It’s exactly what she wants. Walk to your car, open the door, and wave. If you need to, we’ll stop a mile or so down the road and you can throw a world-class hissy fit. But not here. Not now.”
“You’re right. Thank you. And I do believe I’ll need to take you up on that.”
Satisfied, Katie Sara signed the check and handed it to Ruth. With that, the outrageous red leather sofa and chair belonged to her, making her want to laugh out loud. She absolutely loved them. They looked as if no one had ever so much as sat on them, let alone frittered away an entire Sunday afternoon in either. Well, a great book in hand and a glass of sweet tea beside her, and she’d change that soon enough! The set, along with an awesome inlaid dining room table, would be delivered the following day.
Her ex-boyfriend had taken the furniture that belonged to him, including the living room and dining room set, and she’d never bothered to replace any of it. She’d made do with what she had. Well, no more making do. This time her house would be a reflection of her.
“We did it!” Rhonda grinned and did a little victory dance across the parking lot.
“Yes, we did.” A small crystal lamp tucked under her arm, Katie Sara followed her friend to the car. “That’s not her natural hair color.”
“Ruth’s? I don’t know. I think—”
“Not Ruth’s.” Katie Sara rolled her eyes. “Gina’s. It’s at least three shades lighter than in high school and needs touched up. There must be a quarter of an inch of roots showing in that dry hay. And she’s wearing way too much eye makeup.”
“Right.” Rhonda drew out the word.
“And what was that tattoo on—” She trailed off, clapped a hand over her mouth. “Listen to me. Not nice. Besides, it doesn’t matter.”
“Of course not,” Rhonda said carefully.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing.” Rhonda glanced sideways at her friend. “Oh, boy.”
“Oh, boy, nothing. Reiner Broderick is ancient history. He and Gina can get it on anytime they want. Anywhere they want.” She set the lamp on the backseat of her car and pressed her hand to the familiar pain in her chest.
It would pass, only to sneak back up on her.
Maybe this time it was indigestion. Or hunger. She hadn’t eaten breakfast. “Let’s grab something to eat and take it to the park. Kind of a picnic. What do you think?”
“An adult meal,” Rhonda said dreamily. “Sounds good.”
“Maybe you’d rather go to a restaurant. Something fancier.”
“No.” Rhonda shook her head. “Open air.”
They stopped at a deli and loaded up on all the makings for an impromptu picnic lunch. Feeling slightly wicked, they included a bottle of wine, then drove back to the little park on the outskirts of Paradox.
Popping the Mustang’s trunk, Katie Sara reached for the stadium blanket she kept there. They commandeered a table and, relaxed, they ate and chatted.
Moss-draped oaks shaded them from the sun. Squirrels scampered across the grass and dashed up tree trunks. High in those trees, birds sang. A day, she thought, stolen from a happily-ever-after picture book.
As they sipped their wine and ate the cheesecake they’d bought for dessert, Katie Sara felt the time spent away from Rhonda melt into oblivion. Their friendship was that strong, surviving separations and forging new ties when they managed visits.
Eventually, the talk turned to Katie Sara’s dad, who’d been released from prison in April.
“I’m glad he spent his last two months with you.”
Katie Sara nodded. “If only they’d caught his cancer sooner. We didn’t have enough time, even with the leave I took to be with him, to take care of him.”
She kicked at a pebble as tears swam in her eyes. “It was so unfair. I finally had him back—only to lose him again. Forever.”
Rhonda put an arm around her, and they sat, threads of sunshine banding them, while Katie Sara talked and cried. She ached for the time she and her father had lost, time they’d never reclaim. She cried for the man she’d loved to the bottom of her soul.
It felt good to let it out. A catharsis. Rhonda was the one person in the world with whom Katie Sara had shared her pain, who knew the true depths of her grief and frustrations.
“This time, though, I got to know a different side of Dad. Adult to adult.” She took a shallow, shaky breath. “His last wish was to come home. He wanted to be cremated, his ashes buried here in Paradox.”
Rhonda squeezed her hand as a raucous murder of crows flew overhead. A fly circled, landed on her shorts, and she brushed it away.
“When I checked on-line for the funeral home’s number, I pulled up The Paradox Press and saw the P.E. and Sex Ed opening. I knew I had to resign from the college and take the position here. I couldn’t leave Daddy alone. When I ran across the ad for the house, I took it sight unseen. I figured it was meant to be.”
Lamb to the slaughter, she thought. Why did the big, whoop-dee-do football star have to pick now to return home, too?
“Did he ever tell you what he did with the money?”
“Hmmm? Daddy?” She drew back into the conversation and shook her head.
“Not even when—”
“No. Not even when we knew it was the end. I thought he would.” She rolled her shoulders, struggling to ease the tension. “I have to let it go. I know that, but it would be so much easier if I he’d told me it had all been for some noble cause.”
Rhonda met her eyes. “Maybe it wasn’t, and that’s why he kept it a secret.”
“Where is it then? Where did it go? What could have been worth all that?”
When Rhonda shrugged, her shirt slid off one shoulder. Quickly, she tugged it back in place.
Not fast enough, though. Katie Sara took in the ugly fading purple bruises and was all over her. “What happened to your shoulder?”
“Nothing.” She averted her eyes and started fussing with their picnic mess.
“Don’t lie to me, Rhonda. Did you fall?”
“No. We’ve been moving a lot of supplies and things at school. I must have bumped it.”
“Look at me. Woody paid you another visit, didn’t he?”
Rhonda’s chin trembled, and she picked at her thumbnail. “The judge granted him visitation rights.” She raised her chin defiantly now. “I can’t keep him away. He was drinkin’ last weekend when he came over, and we had words about him taking the kids in that condition.” She held out her hands. “He got in the last word, as usual. With his fists.”
Katie Sara leapt to her feet. “Did you report him?”
“It won’t do any good.” Rhonda sounded tired, defeated. “You have no idea. I’ve fought this battle so many times. I do the best I can.”
“But it’s not right!”
“No, it’s not.”
“You can’t—”
“Let’s talk about it another day, okay?”
Katie Sara stared at her friend for a long moment and decided not to push it. For now. No way she’d forget it, though. No, sir. Woody Jenkins better watch his back if he ever touched her friend again.
While Reiner showered and shaved, Auntie Belham went shopping. Her dog and the rat both stayed behind with Felicity.
Barefoot, a pair of boxers riding low, and towel-drying his hair, he opened his door a crack. “Hey! Imp!”
“Yeah?” Felicity answered from the living room.
“Find your room?”
“Did I ever! Wow! It’s like—freakin’.”
“I assume that’s a good thing,” he said.
“The best.”
“Great. At least somebody’s happy.”
“Oh, yeah. Shiner likes it, too.”
“The rat? How can you tell?”
“He’s smiling.”
“Oh, for—” He drew his head back into his room but didn’t close the door fast enough. Ivan the Terrible skidded through the opening, made a leap, and landed smack-dab in the middle of his brand-new king-size bed.
“Don’t think so, bud.” He tucked him under his arm like a football. “I haven’t even slept there yet. I get first dibs.” He set the dog on the floor, turned to find his duffle, and Terrible seized the opportunity to climb right back onto his bed.
Reiner, hands on hips, glared at him. “You might get away with that stuff with Bel, but she’s not here now. It’s just you and me, pooch, and I say you’re gettin’ down.”
The dog scooted just out of arm’s reach.
“Come on,” he pleaded. “I had a really bad night. Don’t do this.” Moving to the other side, he bent to pick up Ivan—who hustled to the head of the bed.
Reiner straightened. “You conniving little miscreant. This is ridiculous. You’re a dog. A little dog. I’m a football player. A big quarterback. Enough’s enough. It’s fourth down.” With that, he threw himself at the bed, arms outstretched for a tackle, and came up empty-handed, feeling foolish. Ivan the Terrible grinned down at him, then licked his face.
“Ugh.” Using the end of his towel, he wiped dog spit off his cheek. His eyes declared war. “Okay, now it’s personal.”
He snatched at the dog that feigned left. In a flash, he was up off the bed and after the mutt, the two of them ducking and dodging. Frustrated and swearing, he let rip with the big one at the very second his partially open door swung wide.
Auntie Belham clapped her hands over Felicity’s ears as they stood transfixed. Reiner dropped the bed skirt and got up off his knees.
“Really, Reiner. You’ve got a young lady in the house now. Watch your language.”
Felicity’s eyes sparkled with humor, and her lips twitched up on one end.
The little monkey was enjoying this, he thought.
“Yeah, like she hasn’t heard worse at school or from her friends.”
“Well, she won’t hear it from you. Understood? From now on, if you feel you absolutely must use that foul word—” She hesitated. “Say fudge.”
“Fudge?” He stared at her in disbelief.
“Yes, fudge.”
“You have got to be kiddin’.”
“It’s nearly the same.”
Reiner dropped to the edge of his bed. Fudge. Badass Broderick reduced to using fudge as his naughtiest word.
He looked at his boxers. “I’m not even dressed.”
“I noticed that, too.” Auntie Belham didn’t give an inch.
“Is it too much to ask for a little privacy in my own bedroom?”
“We’ll buy you a robe.”
“I have a robe.”
“Then wear it.” She placed her hand on Felicity’s back and herded her out of the room. “By the time you’re dressed, breakfast will be ready.”
The door closed behind them—and Ivan. Reiner dropped his head into his hands and rubbed his temples, hoping to stave off the growing headache. A book he’d read as a kid came to mind. A Swiftly Tilting Planet. He couldn’t remember what the book was about, but the title certainly described his world right now.
He hoisted himself to his feet and moved to the closet in search of clothes, praying Bel had remembered coffee.
True to her word, Bel fed them, cleaned up, and pulled everything together in half an hour flat.
Giving the black granite countertop a final swipe, she said, “Reiner, this kitchen is an absolute dream. I certainly hope you plan to do more in here than use the phone to order take-out.”
He tried for an offended look. “Sure we will, won’t we, Imp?”
His niece threw him a handle-this-yourself look.
“We will,” he said. Confident. Never let the other guy see your weakness.
“Felicity needs to pick up some things her mom and dad sent. They mailed the package to my house, Reiner.”
“Okay. Fine.” He pulled at his ear, then rubbed his chin. “Ah, I, ah...f...udge! I don’t know where my car is.”
“Your bike’s still in my garage.”
“Your bike?” Felicity laughed.
“Motorcycle,” he growled. “A Harley.”
“A Harley? For real? Wow!” Her lavender eyes practically popped out of her head.
The same thrill ran through him. His bike. Hot damn! A grin split his face ear-to-ear. “You kept it? All this time?”
“Of course, I did. I had it serviced once a year, too. Barnie changed the oil and checked the tires. They got old sitting there, so I had some new ones put on. He emptied the gas tank when you left town. I called yesterday afternoon and had him refuel it, just in case you wanted to take it for a spin.”
Reiner took a good hard look at his aunt. He’d wheeled his bike into her garage twelve years ago and asked if he could store it there for a bit. He hadn’t touched it or asked about it since—not even on his whirlwind four-hour trip back to ride the Chamber of Commerce’s float.
Yet she’d seen to it that his Harley was taken care of. Ready if he ever bothered to take the time to come visit his friends and family. But not once had she ever said anything to make him feel beholden or insinuated he’d let anyone down.
He felt like a heel.
And she’d be royally pissed if he told her that.
Instead, he gave her a quick hug, kissed her cheek, and simply said, “Thanks, Auntie Belham. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that. It means a lot to me.”
“I know.”
He swore he saw the glimmer of a tear in his fearsome aunt’s eye. But it must have been the sun.
“Get your shoes. You can ride over to the house with Felicity and me.”
Slouched in the backseat, Reiner pulled his ball cap way down over his forehead and prayed nobody saw him. He felt eight-years old again, forced to hitch a ride with Auntie Belham in her big boat.
As she backed out of his drive, he grimaced at how little space remained between car and mailbox. Another two inches and one or the other would have been forced to cry uncle.
Ivan, wearing an Atlanta Braves ball cap, deigned to join him in the back, and didn’t that just make this his lucky day?
Stepping into his aunt’s house had always made him feel good. That hadn’t changed. The house exuded warmth and love. Like its owner, it was rather eccentric, with all sorts of nooks and crannies that only added to its charm. Bel tucked the unexpected throughout her home... including an oil painting on a bottom cupboard right above Ivan’s food bowl. She insisted he liked fine art, too. If it aided human digestion, why not doggies’?
From a white ceramic monkey on the dining room sideboard, she fished out the key labeled Reiner’s Harley. “Here you go. Be careful.” She patted his cheek.
Felicity tagged along to the garage. “Can I have a ride?”
“Tell you what. Give me a day on the beast to get my sea legs, then we’ll go for a spin.”
“You got it.”
Raising the old wooden garage door, he spotted it in the back corner. He removed the cover almost reverently, and there she was, all black and chrome, shiny as a cadet’s spit-polished shoes. His hand ran lovingly over the leather seat, the handlebars, and the fenders. On the back were two helmets, his and Katie Sara’s.
He sprinted back to the house, taking the porch steps two at a time. “I really hate to do this, but could you keep Felicity for one more night? There’s something I have to do.”
“Not if it has anything to do with that Gina Denlinger, I won’t. Reiner, she goes through men like ducks on a pond go through a loaf of bread.”
“It has nothin’ to do with Gina.”
She took his chin in her hand, searched his face, his eyes. “If you’re lying, you’ve gotten better at it.”
“I’m not lyin’. Honest.”
His aunt dropped her hand, and Reiner put his own on her shoulder. “I’m not interested in Gina.”
“Tomorrow’s the first day of school. It’s probably just as well that Felicity does stay here and gets off to a proper start.”
“What? You think she wouldn’t with me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Children, fight nice,” Felicity said.
Reiner grinned. “I promise, Bel, I’ll do right by Nathan’s little girl. Startin’ tomorrow, I’ll be the best uncle-daddy you’ve ever seen.”
Auntie Belham snorted. “Go on. Get out of here before we both drown.”
“Love ya.” He gave her a big kiss and took off for the garage.
He had some getting ready to do before the sun set.