Jaded (32 page)

“I’m not working on any fucking mural,” he spat.

Lucas put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “Don’t do that,” he said resignedly.

“You think I’m going to go down there and paint a picture on the wall like I’m some kind of trained performing dog?” he screamed. “You . . . this fucking town . . . you have to take him away again? He didn’t steal that ring. The clerk’s an idiot. He’s got the wrong guy.”

“He almost identified you,” Lucas said.

Cody’s eyes widened.

“That’s the thing about hanging out with people who make stupid choices,” Lucas went on. “Sometimes you get caught up in their bad shit.”

“I didn’t pawn that ring,” Cody said.

“I know you didn’t. You were here with your little brothers. But Colt wasn’t. Colt violated his parole. Selling stolen goods is a parole violation. He’s going back to jail.”

“Maybe he didn’t know the ring was stolen,” Cody said, his voice shaking.

“He knew,” Lucas said.

“Fuck you.”

“Cody,” Alana said quietly. “Come with me. We’ll get something to eat before we get started.”

“Fuck you, too,” he snarled at her.

Lucas saw her eyes widen. He took a step forward, intending to put himself between them. “Watch your mouth,” he said to Cody.

Things were escalating, but Alana was somehow now the one between him and Cody.

“I know you’re angry. Staying here alone won’t make that any better. Come with me and we’ll—”

“What the fuck do you know about staying anywhere? You’re leaving. You can go fuck yourself, your fucking mural, and your fucking art classes, too. Just fucking leave me alone.” He dashed up the stairs into the trailer and slammed the door so hard the flimsy metal rocked on its foundation.

For a long moment Alana stood beside Lucas. Then she turned and got into her car.

14

T
HE NEXT WEEK
was one of the busiest in Alana’s life. Finishing the request for bid document, and fielding questions, comments, and concerns from the public via newspapers, radio, and the Internet consumed most of her time. She was up early most days, talking to Freddie, but having one foot in both worlds was taking its toll. A steady stream of residents came to the library with ideas for the renovation, leaving Alana in the uncomfortable position of explaining that yes, the building renovations and technology upgrades were exciting and would be well worth their investment, but no, she wouldn’t be around to oversee or enjoy them.

She was going home tomorrow morning.

“You’ve done this place a world of good,” Mrs. Battle said as Alana locked the front door. Outside the building, traffic at the Spring Fling Carnival was picking up. The library would be open all day tomorrow, staffed by Mrs. Battle and some handpicked friends. Mayor Turner still hadn’t made an offer to any of the library director candidates, but he promised he would pick a candidate soon.

“I just did some research,” Alana said, pacing herself to match Mrs. Battle’s careful steps.

“Don’t downplay your role in all of this, young lady,” Mrs. Battle said. “It’s a very bad habit of yours, pushing your accomplishments and efforts into the background. That’s not where you belong.”

Alana blinked, because the background was where she’d lived her whole life. “Thank you,” she offered instead. “I was happy to do it.”

She was, she realized. She was happy doing this. Not just content, but happy. The realization startled her, because she didn’t come to Walkers Ford to learn to be happy. She came to be different.

Was she unhappy in Chicago? Six months ago she would have said
Of course not
. Now . . . ?

“You’re welcome. Cody’s still refusing to paint the mural?” Mrs. Battle asked.

Alana nodded. She’d been out to Cody’s trailer twice in the last week. Both times he refused to open the door to her. His sullen face and broken eyes scared her. “I don’t know what to do,” she admitted. How did she frame this question to develop the appropriate search terms?

How to heal a broken heart

How to give someone reason to live

Ending hopelessness

Giving life meaning

She wished she knew the answer to that question for herself, for Cody, for Lucas.

“We’ll have to find something else to put on the wall,” Mrs. Battle said. “The historical society will have some pictures. That will do. Anchor the room in our past while we look to the future.” They paused in front of the beer garden. “You’re sure you can’t stay?”

“I’m positive. If I’m not back in Chicago by Saturday for my stepfather’s awards banquet, my mother will have my head on a pike.”

“This is very important to your family.”

“Six hundred people are flying in from all over the world,” she said. “It’s being held at the Palmer House, with a four-course meal, wine, and speeches by some of the most powerful people on five continents.”

“That sounds much more delightful than a little country carnival.”

“I don’t know about that,” Alana said. “You got the funnel cake machine. I love funnel cakes.”

“They’re delicious. Completely outside my diet, of course.”

“I’d share one with you,” Alana said.

Tears shone in Mrs. Battle’s eyes. “I’m going to miss you.”

“I’m going to miss you, too.”

“We’ll all miss you. Including Chief Ridgeway.”

Alana laughed lightly. “Oh, he’ll be happy to get me out of his house so he can finish the kitchen renovation.”

Mrs. Battle studied her. “I’m old and my eyesight’s not what it used to be, but I’m not blind yet, my dear. He’s going to miss you.”

“I don’t think he feels much of anything anymore,” Alana said.

The hug surprised her. Mrs. Battle barely came up to Alana’s chin, but she turned and hugged her with a ferocity that nearly stopped her heart in her chest. Just as quickly she stepped back. “You drive carefully,” she said.

Alana swallowed the lump in her throat. “I will.”

She was going home heartbroken, leaving things unfinished. That wasn’t in the cards. But neither was not going home. And she always left things unfinished. She had her job, her tasks in the project plan. Other people carried on in their wake. But this time the people carrying on weren’t strangers, or nongovernmental organization workers. They were friends, and more.

 • • • 

SHE WALKED BACK
to her house—Lucas’s house—through a warm spring evening. A month made such a difference. The flowerpots were in full bloom, and the air was actually warm. She would open the windows when she got home.

Lucas’s truck popped and cooled in his driveway. Duke trotted out of the doggie door when she walked up the driveway, sniffing at her skirt and wagging his tail. “Hey, big dog,” she said. “Where’s Lucas?”

“Hey.”

She looked up to see him standing in his doorway, one shoulder leaning against the frame, a bottle of beer in his hand. A lump swelled in her throat as she looked at him, so handsome and strong and holding so much inside. She had to go. She had to. She had no business getting attached to people. Her life was elsewhere, and thanks to Lucas and the library renovation project, she was ready to go back to it.

Falling for her rebound guy wasn’t in the project plan.

“Come over for dinner?” she asked.

He studied her for a long moment. “You didn’t blush that time.”

She had nothing more to hide. “Please?”

He nodded and reached back to shut the door behind him. They crossed the driveways, Duke trotting beside Alana to the screen door and waiting until she opened it. She didn’t care if the neighbors were watching. She didn’t care if people gossiped. She had one more night with Lucas, and she intended to wring every moment out of it with both hands.

She set her bags down in the living room. Lucas surveyed the boxes and suitcases. “You’re finally packed.”

“I am,” she said lightly as she walked down the hall to her bedroom. Her last suitcase lay open on the neatly made bed. She swapped her skirt and sweater set for the pair of jeans and long-sleeve T-shirt she’d make the drive in the next day.

Duke was nosing around the suitcases, his tail drooping.

“Does he know what suitcases mean?”

Lucas nodded, then clicked softly to call Duke to him. In the kitchen, Alana unpacked the take-out pork chops and dirty rice she’d picked up from the Heirloom Café on her way home.

“Need any help?” Lucas asked. He was sprawled on the bare plywood kitchen floor, Duke nosing around him before he curled up at Lucas’s chest. “We could go over to my place.”

“I’d like to stay here,” she said.

NPR filled the silence in the room. Alana mixed up a quick salad to finish off what was left in the fridge. Braced on his elbow, Lucas scratched behind Duke’s ears, then the dog’s broad chest, finally rubbing his belly. The dog let out a grunt and rolled onto his back. Lucas stroked his belly.

“That’s one happy dog,” she commented.

“He’s comfortable here.”

He wasn’t the only one. Alana looked out the kitchen window at the rosebushes growing persistently toward the sun, buds forming on the stalks. The grass was spring green, just waiting to darken in the summer sun. The kids who lived in the house behind her played on the swing set in the yard across from her picket fence. Their laughter reached through the open window.

“Good traffic at the carnival?”

“Yes,” she said. “I left Mrs. Battle there. It looks like fun. Aren’t you working?”

“I’m on call both nights.”

He gave Duke one last pat and got to his feet. The dog rolled on his side and closed his eyes again. Lucas washed his hands, took down plates, and got silverware from the drawer.

“You want to finish off this wine?”

“Please,” she said.

He poured her a glass and set his beer bottle on the table.

It felt so natural, so right to sit down with Lucas to a meal after a long day.

“How was work?” she asked.

“I took Gunther’s wife’s ring back to him,” he said.

“He must have been so happy to get it back,” she said.

“He was. He kept saying thank-you, saying how much it meant to him to have it back. It can’t be worth more than a couple hundred dollars. There’s almost no gold left in the shank, and the diamonds are too small to be chips. You’d think I’d given him a Kardashian’s engagement ring.”

“That makes me happy,” she said quietly. “When is his granddaughter’s sweet sixteen?”

“Next month. You?”

She lifted an eyebrow before she realized he was asking about her day. “Wrapping things up, mostly, which was harder to do than I thought.”

He gave her a sharp look.

“Twenty people must have stopped by the library to say good-bye and thank me. It was . . .” Her voice trailed off. To cover her emotions, she swallowed the last of her pork chop. “It was very nice.”

“Freddie will be glad to get you home.”

“I’ll be glad to see her.”

“There’s so much energy in Chicago,” he added. “You can see Nate again.”

She flicked him a glance through her lashes. “Unless he’s planning to relocate Martin Industries to Mumbai or London, I don’t think I’ll see much of him this year.”

“That’s where you’re headed?”

“The day after the Senator’s party. I’ll be lucky to get my boxes out of the car before I have to leave. Freddie’s speaking at a global human-trafficking initiative in Mumbai next week. Then it’s on to London for the first round of wedding planning.”

He set his silverware neatly on his plate and pushed it aside. “You’ll forget all about us in no time,” he said easily.

“I won’t,” she whispered. “I won’t forget. Mrs. Battle’s going to send me pictures from the carnival, and I’m not giving up on Cody. There’s no law that says if he doesn’t go to art school at eighteen, he can’t ever go. Maybe when the little kids get a bit older . . . or he can do something long distance. I’m not giving up. I’m not walking away from him. He has family responsibilities now, but he won’t always.”

Lucas just looked at her. “He’ll come around.”

“He thinks I’m abandoning him.”

“He’s seventeen. Everything is drama at that age.”

“I’m not. I’m not abandoning him,” she said firmly. Her eyes stung. “I’m not. I did what I could. It’s a good start. Someone else can carry it through.”

The legs of Lucas’s chair scraped against the subflooring. “Come here,” he said gently.

She stepped over Duke on her way to Lucas’s lap. The dog peered up at her, then seemed to think Lucas had things under control because he slumped back to the floor with a grunt. Lucas stroked her hair and let her cry herself out.

“I never meant to hurt him,” she said finally. “Or Mrs. Battle.”

He was quiet for a long time, his hand curved around her shoulder, one finger stroking at her nape. “No one ever does,” he said finally.

 • • • 

AS THE SUN
set, they cleaned up the kitchen, which meant throwing away take-out containers and disposable cutlery. Then Alana reached for Lucas’s hand and drew him down the hallway. In the dim light of her bedroom, she stripped off his shirt, then his jeans, and pressed her mouth to all the parts of him she wanted to remember. His forehead, so she would remember the way it wrinkled when he smiled. His eyelids, so she would remember the way he looked at her under his lashes when he thought she wasn’t looking. His cheekbones, so she’d remember the angles of his face.

His mouth. So she would remember his rare smiles, the way he whispered to her.

His shoulders and collarbone and chest, so she would remember how strong he was. His abdomen, so she would remember the first six-pack she ever saw on a live man. His hip bone and his shaft, jutting hard and heavy from his pelvis, so she would remember the way making love really felt. She pressed her mouth to his thighs and his knees and his insteps. When he glided inside her, moving slowly so it would last and last, she closed her eyes and committed his back to her tactile memory. The way his shoulder blades jutted, his spine between the thick muscles on either side. The nape of his neck, so vulnerable and strong all at once.

“Alana,” he murmured against her throat. “Alana.”