Legacy (6 page)

“I fucked up,” he said, just before she slammed the door in his face.

She turned the bolt and slid home the chain with shaking fingers. She clamped her mouth shut as sweat broke on her brow. She felt like she could retch. Corinne hated herself for coming apart in front of him. For letting him see how much his words destroyed her.

But they had.

If anyone was one of a kind, it was Michael. Clearly, his life’s mission had been to love the unlovable. If Corinne didn’t prove that, Wes certainly did. Michael would have been so much better off if she had been the one in the car that night. The world was full of unlovable people.

But it was empty of Michael.

Fearing that Wes still stood just on the other side of the door, Corinne sprinted for the bedroom before she gave in to a bottomless keening. Tears scalded her face and hands, and it was an age before her weeping eased enough for her to top off the ZzzQuil cup and slam it home.

Corinne spent the next three days in bed, getting up only a few times a day to feed Buck, let him out, eat a banana, drink some water, and pee. She kept the ZzzQuil bottle by her bed and helped herself to a special dose three times a day.

Morgan came by on Tuesday, but Corinne managed to stash the illicit bottle and convincingly claim to be suffering from a stomach bug. Morgan wasted no time retreating to the germ-free sanctuary of her car, resorting, instead, to texting Corinne morning, noon, and night.

After feeding Buck, she finished off the liquid sleep aid at 6:12 on Wednesday night. In the back of her mind, she knew that a trip to the store would be necessary the following day, but in her seamless ZzzQuil cocoon, this did not trouble her. She just tucked herself under the covers and fell asleep again.

Knocking woke her sometime later. She wasn’t sure, but Buck might have barked. Opening one eye and seeing that her alarm clock read 7:42, she reached around to the corners of the mattress to see if the dog was still nearby. He was not.

Another round of knocking.

In her OTC inebriation, Corinne deduced that it had to be Morgan, key or no key. A stranger would have sent Buck into paroxysms of barking, and as much as Corinne wanted to ignore the disturbance, she couldn’t leave her pregnant sister out on the front porch in the dark.

Still navigating with one eye, Corinne staggered out of bed and made her way to the front door. Her heart raced in an effort to keep up with her sudden movement, a flush coming to her face. She placed her head on the cool doorframe as she unbolted the door, and she was glad for the crisp night air that met her cheeks.

Until she saw him.

Chapter 6

N
othing helped. Wes had done everything he could think of to push Corinne Granger and the restless guilt from his mind. He booked clients back-to-back; he ran a solid half-marathon after work on Tuesday, and he’d met Bethany Wallace that afternoon for one of her “sessions,” but the look of devastation on Corinne’s face still haunted him.

He’d gone two rounds with Bethany before she invited him to spend the night—Julian Wallace was out of town on business—and the thought of lying next to her in the darkness had threatened to choke him. Wes had made an excuse about a 5 a.m. appointment, but instead of going home, he’d driven to the Saint Streets. He had to apologize to Corinne before he went crazy.

Wes was prepared for her to slam the door in his face—or knee him in the balls, but he was not expecting the sight that met him.

Glassy eyed and flushed, she slumped against the door sill, looking ready to topple over. The apology that he had rehearsed on the drive from West Bayou Parkway to St. Joseph—along with any sense of self-preservation he might have had—evaporated completely.

“Corinne, are you high?”

A slow-motion scowl took her face.

“No...I took some...Benadryl...for my allergies, and I was asleep…” Her gaze sharpened on him then. “What the hell are you doing here, anyway?”

Wes inhaled, trying to marshal the right words again, but she looked worse than ever. Her long hair was stringy, oily, and her face was drawn.

Bitch-fiend or not, Corinne was more than pretty. The first time Wes met her—before his very presence made Corinne clench her teeth—he’d thought she was mind-blowing, and for about five minutes, he was almost jealous of Michael’s good fortune.

But the person in front of him looked like a junkie. In fact, every time Wes had seen her since the day of Michael’s death, Corinne looked worse than the time before. And he felt sure that he was—in part—responsible. He certainly hadn’t helped.

Wes met her gaze and held it.

“I
need
to apologize,” he stressed. He risked taking a step closer to the door, and he watched Corinne weigh the options in her mind. Slam the door or let him in.

She cursed under her breath and undid the chain lock. He didn’t waste any time stepping over the threshold, figuring that the look of tired resignation she gave him would be the best welcome he could expect.

“I need to sit down,” she said, turning from him and careening to the couch. She wore cut-off sweat pants and a drop-shoulder t-shirt, and as she flopped onto the cushions, his eye caught a sharply defined clavicle and more than a hint of her first and second anterior ribs. Wes sucked in a breath.

Corinne was not eating.

As a personal trainer, he’d seen his fair share of anorexics. Women who had lost so much muscle—and probably bone mass—and still wanted him to help them “trim down” some more. He would try to explain that he didn’t take clients whose BMI’s were lower than 17.5. They’d inevitably leave angry after arguing about having so much fat.

Corinne was a far cry from that, but something was not right. She had gone from being svelte to almost gaunt, and it seemed to have happened in a matter of days. He wondered how many meals she’d eaten since he last saw her.

He sat down in the gray chair across from her and tried again.

“Corinne, I’m so sorry I upset you the other day,” he started. She wasn’t looking at him, but inspecting her fingernails instead. Buck sat at his feet and licked Wes’s knee, wagging in what seemed a slow, encouraging way. He pressed on. “I know what I said was...well, it was wrong and thoughtless, and I know that Michael would be pissed as hell at me for it.”

Her eyes had shot up at the mention of Michael’s name, and he could see a kind of fierce defiance in them before they filled, and then it was his turn to look away.

“Believe it or not, I just want to help you...” He rubbed the palms of his hands over his thighs, not taking his eyes away from the floor, and waited for her to respond.

“I never pegged you for having a guilty conscience,” she said, finally. Wes looked up to see her still wearing an expression of defiance, and he girded himself for an insult. “Judging from the fact that you smell like Black Orchid and twat, I’d say that it still needs some cultivation, but I’m impressed that it exists at all.”

It hit him like a slap. The truth and all that it implied. As usual, she saw right through him, and it galled him. It galled him that she was right! It was his anemic guilty conscience that sent him clawing at Bethany Wallace, and it was the same guilty conscience that drove him here. She was right, and he wanted to turn away from it.

Wes wanted to fire back, asking her to name when she’d last eaten and what. When she’d last bathed. He wanted to ask her who the hell went to bed at 7:30 at night? But he inhaled through his nostrils instead. Wes counted to ten and reminded himself that if he was going to help Corinne—really help her—he was going to have to learn to let her little jabs go. And, for once, he realized that he could do that.

“How much money do you have left, Corinne?” Wes loved that he sounded no-nonsense, like her words hadn’t left him dissected, gut peeled open and legs akimbo. He sounded like it didn’t even matter, and it worked.

“That’s none of your damn business,” she hissed, her mouth turning up in a sneer, but she couldn’t hide the truth in her eyes, the uncertainty.

“It is,” he almost whispered, feeling the tide of power turn, remarkably, in his favor. He could afford for his voice to sound gentle, soothing. An idea had come to him, and he looked around the living room as though seeing it for the first time.

“Who else is on your side, Corinne?” he asked, letting go of the forceful tones he no longer needed. “Your sister wants me to take Buck so you can move in with her...”

He watched the confirmation of fear shape her eyes. It was the last thing she wanted. Well, it was the last thing she wanted
so far
.

“Well, you can’t have him, and I’m not taking your money,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest, almost daring him, but her eyes betrayed her, darting to Buck in worry. Wes almost smiled then in admiration, in solidarity.

No one’s going to take him from you, Corinne. Not if I can help it.

“My money’s no longer on the table,” Wes said, seeming to dismiss her words. “And from what I gather, no one else is coming forward to bankroll you, right? I mean, Morgan and Greg have a baby on the way, and if I remember correctly, Dad’s on a fixed income...”

Her eyes shot back to him, suspicion narrowing them.

“What’s your point?” she snapped. “Or are you just trying to rub it in?”

Wes smiled. He genuinely smiled. Because he could almost feel Michael smiling with him, letting him know that he was finally,
finally,
doing it right.

“I’m not rubbing it in,” he said, easily. “I’m just making my case.”

“Your case?” Corinne looked really confused. Confused Corinne was almost cute.

“Yeah, to move in with you.”

Chapter 7

“Y
ou’ve got to be joking!”

It had taken a while—too long—for her ZzzQuil fog to clear after she’d opened the door, but when Corinne heard Wes’s ridiculous suggestion, she snapped to attention.

“Nope. Totally serious,” Wes said, but his smile confused her. He looked so pleased with himself, his smile threatened to squeeze his dark eyes closed. Still, it wasn’t the smirk of someone ready to yell
Gotcha!
and burst out laughing. Wes was grinning like a gambler whose horse just won by a nose. And Corinne didn’t like the unease she felt in its power.

“You are not moving in with me,” she said with more force than conviction.

“Does the front bedroom have a full closet?” Wes asked, craning his neck towards the hallway as though he hadn’t heard her.

“Wes. Listen to me. You are
not
moving in.” But she could already see him drawing up the space in his mind, picturing himself in it. Worse still,
she
could picture him in it. Leaving sweaty clothes in the bathroom. Air boxing to hip-hop. Talking about carbo-loading and drafting and bonking. In her face. Every day.

No.

Wes got to his feet and headed for the hallway to explore, and Corinne shot off the couch, intercepting him.

“Stop!” she told him, raising her open palm between them. “You are not going any further.” She hated the way her voice wavered, not in fear, but in weakness.

“It’s just the one bathroom, right?” Wes asked, peering into the hallway with the hint of a frown. Then he shrugged. “I don’t think that’ll be too big of a problem. I mean, I’m at work by 5 a.m. three days a week, and I can always shower at the gym...”

Corinne wondered when she had become so powerless. Was it the moment Michael died or in the months since?

“WES CLARKSON, YOU ARE NOT MOVING IN WITH ME!” Corinne shouted in his face. Except for the slightest squinting around his eyes, Wes did not flinch, did not react at all. Then he turned his gaze back on her and smiled that infuriating smile.

“Corinne, how much money do you have?” He spoke softly, too softly following her outburst. It made her by contrast seem out of control. She felt herself scrambling to wrest some of it back. There was no way she’d be out-maneuvered by Wes Clarkson.

“I have enough,” she lied. Without meaning to, she crossed her arms over her chest, realized too late that it made her look defensive, and dropped them again.

“How much, Corinne?” Wes’s eyes pinned her in place, keeping her from looking away. She drew a silent breath and braced herself to stare him down. What was he hiding behind that smile? The smile was real, she knew, not a put on, but what did it mean?

Corinne let herself forget about mounting a defense and hiding her weaknesses and tried to see into his instead. His eyes were a dark brown—with absurdly feminine lashes, and up close, Corinne could see the typography of his irises, a craggy landscape of ebony and mocha. If she were painting them, they’d be caramel, purple, and black. With a hint of indigo because now she saw what lived behind the smile: a sadness so inky and deep that it threatened to soak up all of the other colors.

Corinne broke her gaze and found herself answering his question.

“I have about three thousand,” she muttered, suddenly disoriented and half-forgetting the crux of the argument.

Wes startled her then by clapping his hands onto her shoulders, trapping her before him and forcing her to meet his eyes again.

“That won’t even last you through June. Hear me out,” he said. “I’ll move in and cover rent and groceries—”

“Wes, I can’t—”

He stopped her with a little shake at her shoulders.

“Listen! Rent and groceries for six months. You’ll still pay utilities and all your other expenses, but for six months you can afford that.”

She couldn’t argue with that. She
could
afford utilities and other bills for six months and more.

“But—”

“And in six months, you might be painting again; you might be ready to move. Who knows?” He shook his head at the uncertainty and pressed on. “Whatever you decide, you won’t be broke, and you won’t be homeless...It’ll buy you some time.”

His hands were heavy on her shoulders, almost enough to make her knees give. She felt the tug of inevitability suck at her feet. What would she do if she refused him? She hadn’t wanted to think about it, despite Morgan’s hounding, but the problem wouldn’t just go away.

“What about your apartment?” Her voice shook, and when she heard it, she realized that her whole body was trembling.

“The lease is up at the end of next month.” Wes sounded matter-of-fact. Fully committed.

“What about all your furniture? It can’t all fit in here with our things...” It was going to happen if she didn’t shut it down right now. Was staying in the house that important? Was holding onto Buck?

“I can put some of it in storage,” Wes said, shrugging, like he’d already considered the possibility.

Could she live with him? Wes? With the partying on Friday nights? The whoring around? The stupid, stupid arm shaving? He drove her crazy! And could she live with knowing that she was in his debt?

“Wes, it’s too much. I can’t allow you to do it.”

Another little shake.

“Corinne,
I owe you $8,000
. It’s not too much. It’s just right.”

“But, Wes—”

His hands became vices on her shoulders, and his voice dropped an octave.

“He was my
best friend,
Corinne,” Wes grunted. “He. Was. My. Best. Friend.”

Their eyes locked again, and it seemed that everything had become indigo. Any fight Corinne had left seeped right out of her.

“Fine,” she sighed, sagging under the weight of his hands and just catching herself before she crumpled. Wes shifted his grip to the top of her arms and steered her back to the couch.

“We’re going to kill each other,” she muttered, grateful to sink down onto the cushions again. “You do realize that, right?”

To her surprise, Wes grabbed the afghan that was draped over the arm of the couch before flaring it open and laying it on her lap.

“Oh, I’m looking forward to it, Granger,” he said. The stupid smile was back. “I’m looking forward to it.”