Before That Night: Unfinished Love Series: Caine & Addison, Book 1 (3 page)

While she knew it was way too early for her to be asking for any favors, she had to do it. The favor was the big reason why this particular job was so important for her to have.

“Joe, do you think it’d be at all possible for me to park my dad’s van here overnight? In that small lot you have out back? Aunt Bernadette’s place is so close, it’d be easier for me to just lock the van up here and walk home.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“Aunt Bernadette lives only a block away, right on the other side of the police station. I bet you have workers who walk farther to get to the bus stop.”

“True,” he conceded reluctantly. Then his brows furrowed in confusion. “Hang on, there’s nothing on the other side of the station for like a mile.”

“Her condo is in Lakeview Ridge Golf & Country Club. And the top entrance to the country club is literally right next to the police station.”

“Holy shit. That’s where you’re living? Wait a minute, if you have family who can afford a place there, why the hell would you need a job here?”

“Like I said before, Aunt Bernadette is on a fixed income. I know she bought the apartment when the country club was first being built so she’s not paying mortgage on it anymore, but she isn’t rich or anything. As far as I can tell, her social security and retirement only barely cover how much she herself needs to have a modest living.”

Joe’s eyes flickered over to at an old framed photo of an elderly woman up on the wall by the register before he sighed, “Yeah, I remember my mom going through that. For months, she didn’t tell us about a medical procedure she needed because she just plain couldn’t afford it.”

“Aunt Bernadette has a few health concerns as well.” That was actually why Addison was hired in the first place; to watch Bernadette during the hours her two daughters couldn’t. “Bottom line,” she continued, “unlike my brother and sister, I’m old enough to help with the family expenses. I believe in taking care of my responsibilities. School can wait. I’m not too proud to take charity if we ever need it, but I sure as heck am proud enough to step up until that day comes, seeing as how I have two perfectly good feet to stand on.”

While her lie about having worked in a diner before hadn’t impressed him, that little speech, by all evidence, did.

“See now you’ve gone and made me like you enough that I’m really not keen on you walking that late at night,” he grumbled. “You sure they won’t let you just park on the property?”

“Aunt Bernadette already has a car in her assigned stall. And when I tried to rent another stall there, they wouldn’t let me on account of my dad’s van being too big and too old. They claim older vehicles leak oil and they actually penalize the folks in the apartments for even the smallest oil leaks on their grounds.” Addison
had
actually tried, and had been shocked to hear about the oil leak rule—in the dozen or so apartments her family had lived in over the years, she couldn’t remember a parking lot that wasn’t filled with big ole oil spots everywhere. “Personally,” she shrugged, “I’m pretty sure they just think the van is too ugly to be there.”

“Wouldn’t put it past them in
this
judgmental neighborhood,” he shook his head, clearly not a fan.

Honestly, Addison wasn’t a huge fan of some of the snobbish folks in the area, but where Bernadette was concerned, it was actually a good thing since her kids paid for her to have these fancy delivered meals every day, there was zero chance of Bernadette ever going to the diner, meaning Addison’s worlds wouldn’t ever collide.

“What kind of van is it?” asked Joe, curiously.

“A rusty, blue Chevy Conversion Sportvan with, I admit, some really ugly stripes on the sides that don’t belong in this millennium.”

He cringed. “Yikes, I think my grandpa had a van just like that. The thing was as big as a boat.”

“Yup. And since I can’t park it in the country club, finding street parking big enough for the van nearby every night is pretty tough. I’d actually end up parking even farther away than your diner, if you think about it.” He was just on the brink of giving in, she could tell. “Bernadette lives on the top side of the course, real close to the north gate. And there’s twenty-four hour security; I actually have to go past a security shack to walk onto the property. It’s safe, I swear.”

Joe was still frowning with worry—revealing a tiny bit of his soft nougat center under that grouchy hard shell coating—but finally, he conceded, “I
guess
it would be safer and easier for you to just walk past the police station, right up to the gate.” He gave Addison a hard look. “Okay, you can park your van here. But if I hear of even one incident of you coming across any hoodlums or creeps on your way home, we’ll have to figure something else out, alright? And don’t think the boys at the station won’t tell me. Neglecting to tell me important things like that is grounds for getting served up some lunch time surprises in my book.”

Her lips twitched to the side at his ferocious, very specific threat. She had a feeling it wasn’t an empty one.

He confirmed her suspicions a second later. “After they saw my ninth grade daughter necking with some punk outside of the bowling alley last year and didn’t one, arrest the punk on the spot, and two, have dispatch call to tell me about it right away, I gave ‘em all pickled liver and tripe in their milkshakes and burgers smothered with bone-in sardines and the smelliest blue cheese and brie I could find.”

She couldn’t help it, she burst out laughing.

And that’s when Joe held out his hand for her to shake. “You keep on smiling like that while you’re working here, and we’ve got a deal on the parking situation.”

She couldn’t remember the last person who cared about her smiling.

After shaking hands with Joe, and mentally waving at the gatekeeper of hell again when Joe gave her his first genuine grin, Addison left the diner and almost sprinted down the street to where her van was parked. As soon as she hopped in, she put her head against the steering wheel.

And just cried.

* * * * * * * * * *

A SHORT WHILE LATER
, with blurry eyes, and as much relief as there was fear running through her veins, Addison finally remembered to pull out the small piece of paper she’d had with her every minute of every day for the last two weeks. Since she’d first woken up to find the electronics and valuables in the apartment gone, her mom’s closet and drawers empty, their family bank account cleaned out, the hard-earned cash Addison had hidden in her underwear drawer taken, and the car Addison had been covering the insurance on for the past few years missing from its stall.

To her mom’s credit, at least she’d left a note this time. In the past, when she’d disappear for a while with whatever guy she was sleeping with, and whatever high she was chasing, she’d just disappear and then resurface weeks later.

The note had been Addison’s first clue that this time would be different than all the others.

The vodka-soaked note that morning had been scrawled out in the shaky, drug-induced handwriting Addison had watched get less and less legible over the years.

Sonny and I are getting married.

Be back after the honeymoon.

-- Mom

Addison didn’t even take a minute to wonder. Or hope. And she sure as hell didn’t waste any time believing the lie on that piece of paper.

So what she did was flip the note around and start a list.

It’d come down to the wire but as of today, she was now officially able to cross the last three things off her long laundry list. The list that had begun with:

• Get a tuition refund for the Fall term.
  
• Mail out an apology letter to the scholarship fund director with a payment plan to return the semester’s tuition amount, and a check for the first installment.
  

The rest of the list had been no less hard to do. But she’d done it all, one by one. But the last three items on the list were the ones that made the reality of how her life was about to change really hit home.

• If the mechanic signs off, pay the balance for the Craigslist van.
  
• Get the job at Joe’s Diner.
  
• Get him to agree to let you park in his locked lot. Beg if you have to.
  

Drawing the line through that last item on the list had been the biggest load off her shoulders. And had started the tears of relief streaming down her face all over again.

She’d spent a week walking all over Creek Hills, searching every nook and cranny for the safest possible place where she could park the van.

The kids’ new home.

Addison had actually seen the ‘Help Wanted’ sign in the window of Joe’s Diner before she’d discovered the delivery vans getting waved into his locked parking area tucked in the back of his L-shaped lot, completely hidden from the main stretch, with walls tall enough that the neighboring business couldn’t see a thing.

She knew the kids would be safe there during her shift, and that they’d all be able to sleep through the night now in the van without worry.

This is going to work.

It has to work.

Wiping her eyes, she drove over to the nearby public library where she’d left the kids a few hours ago.

Just as she knew they would be, Tanner and Kylie were waiting for her in the front, quietly reading the two books they’d each picked out.

God, they were such great kids. Perfect angels. Just like she’d always tried to be growing up. Probably for the same reason she’d had.

To get their mom to love them.

Despite everything her mom had done that was unmotherly at best, criminal at worst, making Tanner and Kylie feel unloved all these years was the one thing Addison had never, would never forgive her for.

Things were going to be different now.

“Hey kids.”

Kylie lit up like the adorable ball of sunshine in pigtails she was.

Meanwhile, Tanner just studied her expression silently, looking far more worried than a boy his age should be.

He didn’t ask, but she answered his silent questions anyway.

“I got the job, kids. And, my new boss agreed to let me park the van in his secured lot out back.”

Even little Kylie, who Addison knew wasn’t grasping the entire situation fully, looked immensely relieved over that.

“We’re going to be just fine.”

Addison wasn’t completely delusional; she knew living in a van wasn’t ideal. The kids’ safety and well-being was the most important thing in the world to her. But with the big age gap between Tanner and Kylie, she knew that if social services stepped in and put the kids in foster care, the likelihood of them being able to stay together was pretty low. She knew the foster system was at its core a good program—she even knew a couple of friends whose amazing parents were equally wonderful foster parents. And yes, she’d researched enough to know that there were happy stories as well as horror stories about kids in the foster system.

But that very research was what led her to stumble across the huge national study done on children trapped in the foster care system that was published in USA Today under the article title:
Troubled Homes Better than Foster Care
. The findings of the study, which had tracked 15,000 children over twelve years was overwhelmingly definitive. With exception to the children who’d been physically abused and severely neglected, the children in the foster care system were far more likely to have problems with delinquency, drugs, difficulty adjusting as adults, and a host of other hardships.

That was the day Addison had decided that no one was going to break her family apart. “From now on, it’s just the three of us. I’ll take care of you guys, I promise. No matter what. You hear?”

Both Kylie and Tanner nodded gravely.

“Okay then. Tomorrow’s the last day of the month. So let’s go do one more check to make sure everything important we’re keeping is out of the apartment.” She wanted to be sure to be long gone before tomorrow. “Then you guys get to test out the new air mattress in the back tonight. We’re going to go to a secured overnight parking lot in Scottsdale tonight because we can’t park at Joe’s until tomorrow so we’ll stop by the rec center first so you can pee and brush your teeth before bed.”

She looked in the rearview mirror at Kylie. “That means no milk before bed tonight, okay sweetie? Just to be on the safe side.” They’d rehearsed what their nightly routine would be like from now one, and Addison just smiled like this was all perfectly normal.

This is going to work.

It has to work.

“Don’t worry, this’ll be fun. Like camping.” Seeing their pensive, but wholly trusting faces, she added firmly, “It’ll be temporary. Just until I can save up enough to make sure we won’t ever have to go through this again.”

CHAPTER TWO

Present Day

CHRIST, SHE JUST KEPT GETTING
sweeter every day.

Caine Spencer sat in his usual spot at the counter of the diner he’d been eating at almost nightly for the past several weeks, and watched the tired, but determined waitress behind the counter draw a big egg-shaped oval on a piece of printer paper before proceeding to zig zag and polka dot patterns all over it with a mix of pastel and neon crayons—and tiny-ass glitter stickers galore—to make yet another colorfully-designed Easter egg to decorate the walls with.