Fate Interrupted (22 page)

Clay stood like
a statue, droplets of blood dripping onto his orange Polo shirt.

Nancy covered
her mouth with one hand. “Oh Clay, you didn’t.”

Megan looked up
into her father’s stormy eyes. “Is this true, Daddy?”

“No, it’s not true!
I thought
you
were his girlfriend.”

Dean laughed and
stuffed the paper into his coat pocket. “He’s lying! He saw her picture in my
office yesterday, even asked about her. He probably had me tailed to her
apartment.”

Nancy tried
wiping the blood from Clay’s chin with a dishtowel, but he pushed her away and
spoke in a low growl. “That is not true.”

“Isn’t it?” Dean
snapped, pushing past Megan and slamming Clay up against the wall. A picture of
Megan and Nancy - all smiles in front of the Eiffel Tower - fell to the floor
and splintered into pieces that mingled with the broken casserole dish. “You’re
such a liar! No wonder you’re a politician.” Megan tried wrestling him off her
father but Dean pushed harder, pinning Clay to the wall. “I bet a lot of people
would be interested in your
tactics
.”

Clay stopped
resisting and clenched his teeth together. “You are sorely mistaken and have no
proof.”

Megan finally
shoved Dean back. “That is enough, Dean!”

“I should call
the police right now!” Clay barked.

“Go ahead,” Dean
fired, spraying Clay’s face with spittle. “I’m sure this will make for an
interesting article when I convince people of the truth, which, by the way, is
what I do for a living.”

Clay honed his
gaze, taking ragged breaths. “No one will believe you over me. You’re nothing
in this town.”

“Clay!” Nancy
shrieked with wide eyes.

The hint of a
grin tugged at one corner of Dean’s mouth. “We’ll see about that,
Mayor
.” He stormed out of the kitchen without
looking back and burst through the front door. The fresh air felt good against
his skin. Out of respect for Nancy, he resisted the urge to kick over a massive
flower pot, brimming with purple azaleas.

Clay followed
him outside. “Dean, I’m sorry!” he yelled from the porch.

Dean stopped at
the bottom of the double-drive without turning around.

“Daddy, please!”
Megan cried from the front door.

“Go
back inside, Megan!”
Clay ordered, turning back to Dean. “I swear to you,
Dean, I had no idea it was your
girlfriend’s
place. The police run these underage stings, not me. I just enforce the
consequences.”

Dean stared at
his Jeep in the street, his muscles tightening with anger. Clay Crawford was
lying and Dean knew it. He opened his mouth to tell him to go to hell but continued
for his car instead.

“I can get it
reversed!”

Dean stopped
again, his pulse racing. Slowly, he turned to face Clay, beads of sweat rolling
from his temples.

“Daddy!”
Megan pleaded,
her mother looking over her shoulder.

“Get back inside
that goddamn house and shut the door!”

Megan slammed
the front door loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear. Clay returned
his attention to Dean and sighed. “This isn’t the kind of start I wanted, Dean,
not with a baby coming.”

Dean laughed in
his face. “You mean the baby we don’t even know is mine?” he shouted, pointing
to the house where Megan and her mom were peeking out a living room window,
their brows folded in horror.

Clay dropped his
head and massaged his wounded jaw. He looked back up with glassy eyes. “Dean, I
promise you, I had nothing to do with this, but I will take care of it first
thing in the morning.”

Dean studied him
in silence. “If you don’t, I’ll be back for more.”

Clay held his
hands up. “I apologize for the confusion and hope you won’t take this out on
Megan. She has nothing to do with any of this and needs you by her side now
more than ever.”

Dean grunted and
turned for his Jeep, grumbling under his breath.

Clay waited
until Dean was down the street before digging his cell phone from a front
pocket. He poked at the screen and put it to his ear, wiping blood from his
chin while squinting down the street.

The ringing
stopped when someone answered, but no one said
hello
.

Clay inhaled a
deep breath of the evening’s warm air, gently grinding his teeth. “We need to
talk.”

Chapter
Twelve

“Well, I hope you feel better.”

“Thanks, Gina.
I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” Dean said, hanging up without saying goodbye.
He dropped his thick head into the pillow and stared at the blurry ceiling fan
above. Most of the night had passed this way, with sleep eluding him like an
escaped fugitive. Even the ceiling fan’s dull hum was powerless to help him. He
glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand and let out an aggravated breath.
In three minutes it would be eight in the morning and he wasn’t sure if he had
fallen asleep for even an hour during the night.

He rubbed his
puffy eyes and yawned, entertaining the notion of calling Evy and coming clean
about Clay. It might ease her mind knowing Sugars could be getting their
license back, but Clay’s word was sketchy at best. Probably wise not to get her
hopes up. Not yet. He rolled over onto his side, tucking an arm beneath his
pillow, and stared at a tall dresser in the early morning light. Despite the
exhaustion sapping his strength, his mind refused to shut down, conjuring up
twisted scenarios yet to come. Nightmares besieged him whether he slept or not.
One moment, back together with Evy - their love stronger than ever after surviving
such a harrowing ordeal, the next she was screaming at him for ruining her
life.

His only option
now was to wait and see which would happen. He shut his eyes and smiled when he
thought of punching Clay in the face, a lonely highlight amidst a sea of desolation.
Dean wondered what Evy was doing at this precise moment - probably serving up homemade
cinnamon rolls and apple fritters to an impatient breakfast crowd. He missed
her smile and
laugh
the most. He yawned again and saw
them in Chicago, strolling shops on Michigan Avenue two weekends ago. They
walked hand in hand, the wind blowing so hard it was like scaling a mountain. He
could still see the look on her face when her summer dress fluttered up high
enough to show off her cream colored panties. A group of high school girls had
laughed and Evy marched Dean straight into an H&M to buy her some new jeans
and a top while he begged her for just one more panty-shot. It had been a great
weekend and before he knew it, sleep pulled him to a dark place that would
leave him feeling tired and cranky the rest of the day.

***

Evy dropped a
pan of cupcakes onto the silver workspace with a loud clatter, stripped the
oven mitts from her hands and slammed them down. Brooke glanced over but Evy
ignored her while loading a frosting gun with cherry frosting.

“I don’t get why
we’re even doing this,” she grumbled, having trouble locking the plunger into
place.

Brooke stopped a
spatula from layering a thick coat of chocolate frosting over what was to
become a three layered cake. “You didn’t have to come in this morning.”

“What was I
suppose to do? Stare at the ceiling some more?”

Brooke struggled
to keep a civil tongue, her eyes just as red around the edges as her sister’s. “Well,
we have to sell something, Evy. We can’t just give up and quit.”

Evy pinched her
eyes together. “Stop talking to me like you’re mom. For the record, I’m five
years older than you are and I know we can’t just give up,” she replied, her
eyes betraying her, because deep down, that’s just what she wanted to do. Give
up. Move back to Des Moines and start all over again, far away from this strife
and grief.

She clicked a
long tip on the end of the barrel and wrapped a finger around the trigger. “This
is so embarrassing. What’re we supposed to tell people when they order a glass
of wine with their vanilla bean cheesecake?
So
sorry, but we’re not responsible enough to sell alcohol anymore.
” She
pulled the trigger instead of squeezing it, blasting a chocolate cupcake with
too much frosting. Evy swore and threw the cupcake into the reject tub for Ben
to eat later on. “This is pointless!”

“You think I’m
not scared, Evy?” Brooke cried, slamming the spatula down and bursting into
tears. “We used Ben’s money to open this place! How do you think I feel about
the idea of him losing everything because of me?”

Evy closed her
eyes and groaned, not believing things could possibly get worse. She lowered
the gun along with her voice. “It’s not because of you.”

Brooke buried
her face in her hands. Tears slipped between her fingers and fell to the shiny floor.

Evy rushed over
and wrapped her in a tight hug. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to
take it out on you.”

Ben waltzed
through the swinging door and stopped, staring at them with his mouth agape.
“Awe hell, looks like I’m just in time for a little girl on girl!”

They turned to
him, venomous scowls stretching their features.

His smile faded.
He thumbed toward the door behind him. “I’ll be helping customers if anyone
needs me.”

Brooke watched
him go, biting back a smile. “He’s such an ass,” she sniffled.

Evy wiped tears
from her sister’s face. “At least he didn’t knock some strange girl up,” she
muttered.

“Evy, this isn’t
Dean’s fault. None of it is. In fact, last I checked, he’s the only one trying
to help us.”

Evy groaned
again and gravitated back to the pan of cupcakes, sheepishly hanging her head. “I
know it’s not his fault.”

“Then why don’t
you talk to him?”

“I tried last
night. Remember?”

Brooke wiped her
nose with a shoulder. “Well, try again.”

Evy sank onto a
stool and hid her eyes with a hand. “How did everything go so wrong?”

“I don’t know,
honey, but there’s no need to make it worse.” Brooke tipped her head down and
peered at Evy through the top of her eyes. “Stop being such a sissy and call
him already.”

Evy glanced at
the cell phone resting on the table, her insides twisting uncomfortably.

***

Dean ran as fast
as he could from something so unspeakable he dared not look back when his phone
began to ring. He searched himself without slowing. His empty pockets inflated
his panic and he tripped over something and tumbled to the ground with a grunt
bursting from his lips. His eyelids snapped back to find the sunlight driving
the morning’s shadows into the far corners of the room. A long yawn eased from
his mouth as he rubbed his eyes, trying to recall what had been chasing him in
his dream. Within seconds, the vision dissolved into nothingness, bringing his
ugly reality crashing back down with a thunderous force. Evy was still gone.

His cell phone
rang, jolting him from his thoughts. He reached over and fumbled it from the
nightstand, staring at the screen through sleepy eyes.

“Hey Shaun,
what’s up?” he said, trying not to sound sleepy.

Heavy breathing
hissed through the line.
“Were you
sleeping?”

“No. What’s
going on?”

“I’ve got a major problem.”

Dean closed his
eyes and fought off another yawn. “Join the club.”

“I’m serious. I was just served with a sexual
misconduct charge, courtesy of a new patient.”

Dean sat bolt
upright in bed, the covers sliding down his sculpted chest like snowpack on a
warm car windshield. “What?” he said faintly, the cell phone amplifying his ragged
breathing.

A paper rustled
in the background.
“A patient I saw yesterday
morning for the first time by the name of…Julie Donovan.”

Dean threw back
the covers and got to his feet. “Not that new girl you were talking about?”

“That’s the one but I can assure you that nothing
happened. You know I’m all talk, Dean. I don’t leave the house.”

 
“I know, but…”

“She only wanted a cleaning, no anesthesia or gas or
anything.”

The living room
shook as Dean traipsed through it in his underwear like a drunken hobo, his
hair sticking up in all directions. In the kitchen, he grabbed a cold bottle of
water from the fridge. “Who signed it?”

Shaun didn’t
reply.

“The paperwork
they gave you, who signed it at the bottom?”

The paper
ruffled again.
“Some state health
official by the name of Aaron Brewster. Why?”

Dean tipped the
water back and drained half the bottle, extinguishing the fire in his throat. He
swallowed, struggling for breath. “Sugars had their liquor license yanked
yesterday afternoon.”