Everyone Deserves a Second Chance (11 page)

At work Lindsey was
slowly growing accustomed to the lazy flow of people and somewhat
familiar faces that passed into and out of her day. She
remembered several of the men and women who sat down at her desk
at the bank, but far more remembered her. She and Marcus had been
well liked and well known in the small town before everything
went downhill.

"I heard you'd taken
up a job here." Connie said as she sat down at the desk and
arranged her purse and coat in her lap. "I didn't get a
proper chance to talk to you yesterday." Connie smiled at
her. "The parade always leaves the town exhausted
afterwards. But I think the benefits outweigh the fuss and
confusion."

"This really isn't
the best time," Lindsey glanced at her boss and then back at
her old friend. "Maybe you could come over for dinner
tonight?"

"No, no, dinner
won't do. I have a herd of my own to feed tonight."

"Maybe another time then." Lindsey gave her an
apologetic smile, yet she was relieved she could put off the
coming conversation for a few days more.

"Pete, mind if I
have a word with Lindsey?" Connie called over to the short
balding man at the desk not far from hers.

Pete smiled at her and
shook his head no. He was a really decent guy from what Lindsey
could tell. "Consider it an early lunch break and I won't
mind."

"Good," Connie
turned back to her. "Why don't we go get lunch? Might as
well if it's going to be your lunch break." Connie slipped
back into her coat and ushered Lindsey out the door before she
could so much as protest. Lindsey noted with annoyance that
Connie was better at getting what she wanted now then she had
been seven years ago.

"The little
restaurant down here is good. They moved in a while after you
left. Boy do they have the best Italian food." Connie
slipped her arm into Lindsey's and together they walked the few
blocks down the small town.

"This place is a lot
bigger since I left." Lindsey noted trying to reposition
herself in relation to the other stores and streets she had once
been so familiar with. "Mrs. Jane's place is gone I see, so
is old David's candy store."

"Lots of new places
have gone up also. The parade has brought in a lot more traffic
over the years. Although I have to say that it's about time we
got some decent shopping." Connie held open the door of the
small restaurant for Lindsey.

The smell of garlic, hot
bread and rich tomato sauce welcomed them, as did the slender
lady behind the counter. Once they had ordered Connie found them
a seat near the window and shed her coat again.

"You still love
Italian huh?" Lindsey said with a smile. "Does Rick
ever get tired of it?"

"Of course he does,
so do the boys. I just threaten that I'll make them cook dinner
and then they always stop complaining." Connie laughed but
it wasn't wholeheartedly.

"What's wrong?"

"You've always known
me too well. I swear you can read my every thoughts."

"Yeah well you're
like a sister to me. I mean, until you met Rick we were
inseparable. Debbie was so jealous like little sisters always
are. How is she doing?" Lindsey thanked the cook as she set
down plates of spaghetti before them and two glasses of ice-cold
water.

"Not so good. Her
marriage is in pieces. But that's not why I'm here." Connie
sighed. "I wanted to talk to you because I'm concerned about
Marcus."

Lindsey dropped her fork
to her plate and started to stand up before Connie caught her
arm.

"Lindsey wait.
Please. This is important." Connie didn't release her arm
until she returned to her seat.

"I really don't want
to talk about Marcus right now, okay?" She toyed with her
food for a bit but couldn't bring herself to take a bite.

"I know this isn't
what you want to hear right now, but its something you need to
know." Connie took Lindsey's free hand in hers and gave it a
squeeze. "After you left there was an incident. Marcus drove
Mercury into town in the middle of the day and unloaded him near
the police station. He shot him in the middle of the street."

"Why are you telling
me this? Don't you think I've had enough torment in my life?
What, do you think you can just bring this all back up and I'll
be fine and dandy? That I don't still cry myself to sleep at
night thinking about what happened?" Lindsey could feel the
tears welling in her eyes as her anger grew and she tried as hard
as she could to contain both.

"I swear to you that
if you didn't need to know this I wouldn't be talking to you
right now." Connie squeezed her hand tightly. "I know
how much she meant to him…" Connie paused as Lindsey
wiped at her eyes.

"After he shot
Mercury he turned the gun on himself. All the people in town who
saw what happened that day were positive he had one more round in
the barrel of that shotgun. When he pulled the trigger it was
empty."

Lindsey drew in a shaky
breath and let it out as slowly as she possibly could. She could
hear each beat of her heart inside her chest as it maintained its
slow rhythmic thumping. Her throat seemed to close up, and her
tongue stuck to her mouth. She couldn't bring herself to respond,
only stare blankly at Connie's worried face.

"Brenda was new in
town. She runs a family-counseling clinic just down the street
from the police office. She saw everything. Tim Gentner and the
boys at the station arrested him. From what Brenda's told me, Tim
asked her to come talk to him later that same evening. Marcus
showed up at her clinic the next morning, and every morning after
that for nearly a year. They started seeing each after she
stopped counseling him." Connie dropped hold of Lindsey's
hand and reached for her coat.

"Oh god Connie. I didn't know. I never would have left if
I'd have known." Tears were pouring freely down her face
now.

"I know you wouldn't
have. Everyone in town who knew you well knows you wouldn't have
either. Only now you're back and you brought his son with you.
I'm afraid for him Lindsey. I'm afraid of what will happen if you
decide to leave again. I'm afraid that now he won't propose to
Brenda like he's been meaning to. And I'm afraid that I don't
know what's going to come out of this, but you had to know."
She pulled her coat on, paid the woman at the counter with a nod
of thanks and left Lindsey to their cooling plates of food
without another word.

Marcus swung off of Rusty, let his reins drop to the ground, and
raced for the phone in the barn.

"Hello?"

There was no answer.

Marcus swore and hung up
the phone with a huff. He needed to finally give into temptation
and buy a cell phone. Rusty was pulling at the grass when he
turned back to collect the gelding's reins. The huge gelding gave
Marcus an annoyed huff as he pulled his head up and led him back
into the barn and out of the warming sunlight.

"I know, I know.
Nothing I do is ever good enough." Marcus chuckled despite
his exhaustion as he untacked the horse and rubbed him down. Of
all his horses Rusty was the one he rode the most and he deserved
the extra attention after a days worth of hard riding.

With the onset of colder
weather Marcus had decided to drive all the cattle closer in. The
older cows had been ornery as ever and tried to give him the slip
more then a few times. Rusty had had his work cut out for him
today.

After Rusty was brushed
down and fed Marcus turned him out with the other horses and went
back to work. Even as the sun started to set Marcus still had his
work cut out for him. He put out fresh bails of hay and water for
both the cattle and horses and fixed a loose board in one of the
horse's stalls.

This time when the phone
rang he picked it up by the third ring. "Hello?"

There was no answer.

"Hello? Anyone
there?"

Marcus finally shrugged
and put the phone back on the hook. This wasn't the first time
the phones hadn't been cooperative. Whoever was calling would get
through eventually.

It was starting to get
dark as Marcus took a head count of the cattle and scribbled the
number down on a book in the tack room. The number was a little
lower then normal, but nothing he was concerned about. It had
been a long summer and it wouldn't surprise him if he'd missed a
cow or two as he'd driven them in. He made a mental note to
himself to check the upper part of his spread the next morning to
see if he could find them.

The approaching darkness still couldn't entice him inside. Marcus
spent the better part of an hour cleaning stalls and checking
tack and going over how much feed and hay he had left to last him
for the week. The temperature was dropping outside and he was
considering pulling the horses in for the night when the phone
rang for the third time.

With a bridle in one
hand, Marcus grabbed the phone with the other and pressed it to
his ear as he continued to rub the leather conditioner into the
noseband. "Hello?"

Over the murmur of the
cattle, the chirping crickets, and nearby stamping hooves, he
could hear the sound of someone breathing on the other end of the
phone.

"Who is this?"

No answer.

"Look, whoever this
is, I can hear you breathing."

The breathing continued
slow and steady. Marcus rolled his eyes and hung up. Most likely
it was one of Greg's boys playing a prank. Although he liked
Greg's kids they were prone to trouble.

It was pitch black
outside when Marcus got all the horses into the barn and
blanketed. He was dressed in only a long sleeved t-shirt and
tattered jeans and could feel his teeth chattering as he hurried
towards the house. The first frost would be setting in soon;
winter was coming.

It was nearly as dark in
the house as it was outside when Marcus got in and pulled his
boots off. He hit the kitchen light with one hand while he hung
his hat up with the other. Nothing happened. He hit the switch
down and back up again. The power was out.

"Man!" Marcus
felt around in the dark for the wall and then the refrigerator
handle. Slowly he worked his way around the kitchen until he
could move into the living room and down the hall. In the hall he
smacked into the utility door before he found the knob with his
hand. "Of all the times…" He cursed as he pulled
the door open and felt around for the breaker box. When he felt
around and flipped the main breaker switch he heard the hum of
electricity as the house came back to life. The light from the
kitchen illuminated the hall enough for him to shut the door and
flip on lights as he walked back to get something to eat.

When he came into the
kitchen he stopped. The kitchen door was wide open and he could
see nothing but the empty darkness of the night beyond. Marcus
spun around in a full circle. He'd shut the door when he'd come
inside. With confident strides he walked towards the door and
shut it and locked it. Suddenly he no longer felt hungry.

The telephone made him
jump. He let it ring and ring before he finally put aside his
foolishness and picked up the receiver.

"Hello?"

The breathing was there.
Faintly, but there.

"Who the fuck is
this?" Marcus said, gripping the phone hard and struggling
to control his temper.

The breathing continued,
slow and steady.

Marcus slammed the phone
down on the hook. The door hadn't opened itself. He was starting
to go upstairs when the phone rang again. This time Marcus let it
ring. It could ring all night for all he cared. As he came up the
third floor stairs he heard the creak as weight shifted across
the floorboards below him. Instead of turning he continued to
climb purposefully up the stairs. When he got to his room he
grabbed the shotgun shells off his dresser and pulled out his
spare shotgun in the same fluid movement. As he turned around and
aimed, he loaded shells into the barrel and cocked it just as
quickly.

He nearly blew the cat's
head off. He lowered the barrel of the gun with a curse as he
watched the animal spring up onto his bed and curl up on his
pillow. When the phone rang he grabbed it off the hook in a fury.

"What the fuck do
you want!"

"Marcus?"

"Connie?"

"Yeah. It's me,
Connie. I've been trying to call you forever. I don't think our
phone is working. I finally gave up and switched to my cell. Are
you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm
fine." Marcus rolled his eyes to himself and removed the
shell from the gun. The cat followed his movements with its big,
yellow eyes. How in the hell had it gotten inside?

"Marcus…what
are you doing with your shotgun?" Connie's voice was a
little less then a whisper. She'd lived in the country long
enough to know that sound when she heard it.

"Nothing. Don't
worry about it."

"Marcus maybe you
should come spend the night over here for a few days. Both Rick
and I are worried about you."

"There's nothing to worry about Connie. I'm fine. Now that
Lindsey's gone things will get back to normal."

"Gone? What do you
mean?"

"She left yesterday.
She went back to her husband."

There was a silence on
the other end of the line.

"Connie?"
Marcus asked, watching the cat close its eyes and start to doze
on his pillow. "Connie, are you there?"

"Yes, yes, I'm
here."

"Who's freaking out
who, huh?" Marcus said with a grin as he put the shotgun
away and took a seat on his bed next to the cat. It didn't even
object when he pushed it aside and off the pillow.

She gave a half-hearted
chuckle. "Marcus, I saw Lindsey today working at the bank."

"She was at the
bank?" Marcus's mind wandered. Maybe there was something
left of the woman he remembered after all.

"Yeah. She was at
the bank."