Redemption Road (Jackson Falls #5) (13 page)

Furious with herself, she pressed harder on the accelerator in a
vain attempt to outrun the ghosts of her past. What the hell was wrong with
her? She felt ashamed to even be thinking about sex. She’d been a widow for six
months, one week, and three days. Surely there was some standard protocol, some
appropriate length of time for a widow to mourn before she started to think
about sex again. Maybe she should ask her sister. Casey would surely know the
answer. Casey always knew the answer, no matter what the question. This
particular question was rather intimate to be asking somebody who’d never
shared any personal information with her, but Casey was the only other woman
she knew who’d survived the ravages of widowhood.

She missed sex. There, she’d admitted it, and the sky hadn’t
fallen. Colleen glanced up through her windshield to make sure, but the heavens
above her head were still intact. She missed the hot, steamy pleasure, the slow
build-up, that ultimate moment of release. Missed that most intimate of
connections with another human being.

She was only thirty-five, in her prime. Strong and healthy and
normal. Was it wrong for her to feel such longing for that lost intimacy? She
knew how Irv would answer that question. He’d laugh, and then he’d run those warm,
comforting hands through her hair and cradle her head to his chest. And he’d
tell her, in that no-nonsense lecturing tone he used whenever he found it
appropriate to dispense advice, that she needed to get back on the horse and
ride. He’d certainly told her often enough while he was alive. “Don’t mourn me
when I’m gone,” he’d said. “You’re young and beautiful, and there’ll be other
men. Just look at you! Who could resist that face?”

A fat, salty tear rolled down her cheek. “Stop,” she muttered to
herself. “Just stop!”

But she couldn’t stop. It was suddenly all so overwhelming.
Goddamn
men.
Sometimes, it felt as though her life had been controlled by men. Her
father, Jesse, Irv, and now Mikey. Against her will, the tears spilled, gradually
turning to sobs, until she was forced to search for a place to pull the car
over because she was crying so hard she couldn’t see. Before she could slide
off the road into the river, fate intervened in the form of her dad’s place.
Harley’s
place
, she corrected herself. Colleen clicked her blinker and pulled into
the barnyard. She came to a stop next to the crooked utility pole, shifted the
car into Park, and broke down completely.

It took some time to get all the poison out, but eventually, her
sobs quieted, her tears stopped, and she was left with a stuffy nose and a
wrecked face. She was ransacking her purse for a tissue when somebody rapped on
her driver’s-side window. Startled, Colleen glanced up and into two sets of
brown eyes: one canine, the other human. Both were staring at her as if she
were an alien from outer space.

Mortified, she fumbled with the window crank that only worked when
the planets happened to align properly. After tugging at it, she managed to
lower the window. The dog, its massive feet propped against the door of her
car, slobbered all over her shoulder. Colleen sniffed and dabbed at her nose. Annabel
Atkins, dark hair blowing in the wind and dark eyes showing a compassion beyond
her years, said, “Are you all right?”

“I’b fide,” she said through her stuffy nose. “I’b sorry. This was
the odly place I could pull over.”

“Should I get my dad?”

Imagining what she must look like with puffy, red eyes and mascara
streaks on her cheeks, Colleen sniffed and said, “For the love of God, dod’t do
that.” She checked her reflection in the rear-view mirror and confirmed that it
was as bad as she’d imagined. “Oh, boy.” She blew her nose on the tissue she’d
found, then used a corner of it to try and repair the damage to her face.

“Why were you crying?”

How could she explain to a twelve-year-old? Colleen remembered
being twelve. It had been the last time in her life—until she met Irv—when
she’d been truly happy. Mama had died the following year, and that carefree
little girl had died with her.

She decided simplicity was the best way to go. “I was just feeling
sad.” She took a final swipe at her nose with the tissue. “My husband died a
few months ago, and sometimes it still gets to me.”

“I heard about that. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.”

The dog whined, and Annabel said, “Get down off the car, Ginger. You’re
drooling all over Mrs. Berkowitz’s upholstery, and if you’re not careful,
you’ll scratch her paint.”

Thinking about her multi-colored paint job, courtesy of the used
parts that had been fit together like jigsaw puzzle pieces to make the Vega whole,
Colleen snorted. “I don’t think we need to worry about the paint.”

“That may be true, but she’s being very impolite, and she needs to
learn proper manners.”

A movement caught her eye. At the door of the barn, Harley Atkins
stood, a greasy rag in one hand, watching her talk with his daughter.
Shit.
Sliding lower in her seat in a doomed attempt to become invisible, Colleen
watched him stuff the rag in his pocket and cross the yard to her car. He
crouched down by her open window, rested his folded arms on the door, and said,
in an exaggerated Georgia drawl, “Well, well. If it isn’t the Widow Berkowitz,
come to visit me on this beautiful Sunday morning.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Atkins. I didn’t come here to see you.”

“Be nice to her, Dad,” Annabel said. “Can’t you see she’s been
crying?”

“I can see that. Everything okay?”

He was much too near, invading her personal space. Up close, those
blue eyes of his truly were stunning. His nose was red from the cold, his dark hair
disheveled, a thick strand hanging out from under his John Deere cap and
draping across his forehead. A tiny smudge of grease marred the otherwise smooth
perfection of his face. She had the most ridiculous urge to reach up and tuck
that strand of hair back under his cap.

Slowly, insidiously, like the thin line of mercury in a
thermometer, her Colleen-o-meter began to rise.

Irritated, she said, “You need a haircut.” She hadn’t planned to
say it. The words just spontaneously erupted from her mouth.

“And you,” he said, without missing a beat, “need to wash your
face. Unless you’re tryin’ to start a new fashion trend.”

“Which fashion trend might that be?”

He shifted position and grinned. “I dunno. Maybe the Morning After
Walk of Shame look.”

“Nice, Atkins.”

“Just trying to be neighborly. Any more questions you need
answered?”

“I think that will do for now. And for your information, there was
no morning after. Or night before. Annabel, thank you for your concern.” She shifted
the car into reverse and shot Harley a pointed look. “Your daughter’s a nice
kid. You might want to move away from the car. I’d hate to run over you.”

His dark eyebrows lifted. Lazily, he said, “Do you spend all your
free time threatening to run over people?”

Her mouth fell open. How could he possibly know what she’d said to
Teddy? “This is a small town,” he said. “People talk. But I shouldn’t have to
tell you that. And although I haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting your cousin,
I’ve heard enough about him to suspect that threatening his life was probably
the appropriate response to the situation.”

He was still leaning on her door, his face inches from hers, and
her Colleen-o-meter hit a heretofore unreached zenith. This had nothing to do
with him, she was certain. She was simply deranged, a sex-starved widow, like a
randy dog, ready to hump the leg of any attractive man who crossed her path. And
he was, without question, attractive. Too damned attractive. “I really have to
go,” she said.

“You could stay for lunch. Come inside where it’s warm. Wash your
face. Take your shoes off.”

“I could,” she said, shockingly tempted by his offer. “But I
won’t.”

“Why do I get the feeling that you’re a complicated,
high-maintenance woman?”

“Maybe because I am?”

Those blue eyes deliberated for a moment, then he swung loosely
away from the door, took a step back, and wrapped an arm around his daughter. “Have
a nice day,” he said. “Y’all come back now.”

Without answering, she backed the car around, cut the wheel
sharply, and fled down the road before the Evil Colleen could overtake the Good
Colleen and do something really stupid.

Colleen

“Mikey!  Breakfast!”  This was the third time she’d called him. The
third time he’d sleepily mumbled that he was coming. The third time he hadn’t
come.

The last time he’d answered, she’d recognized irritation in his
voice. If he’d go to bed at a reasonable hour, instead of staying up half the
night watching rented movies, he might not have trouble with mornings. He liked
action movies, the kind that made her grit her teeth and contemplate investing
in earplugs. Sylvester Stallone. Bruce Willis. Chuck Norris. Even with the
volume turned down low, even with her pillow wrapped around her head, she still
couldn’t shut out the sounds of gunfire and explosions. What was this obsession
men had with blowing things up?

Don’t coddle him
, Jesse had said. Did cooking his
breakfast before she left for work count as coddling? If it did, she was
already sunk. Not that she was much of a cook. That had always been her
sister’s thing. But any fool with a frying pan and a spatula could scramble an
egg without destroying it. Even Colleen Berkowitz.

She was pretty sure that the morning newspaper—the one she’d
driven to town to pick up while he was still sleeping—sitting beside his plate,
folded open to the
help wanted
ads, was enough to negate any crimes of
coddling she might inadvertently commit. The red pen next to it, provided for
the purpose of circling promising job possibilities, was a pointed reminder
that if he thought he was staying here, he’d have to pull his own weight.

Colleen checked her watch and sighed. Granted, her brother-in-law
would probably not even notice if she arrived a half-hour late, but she was
determined to earn every penny of her paycheck. Besides, the studio phone rang
on a regular basis, and people had occasionally been known to wander in without
an appointment. Somebody needed to be there during business hours to deal with
those phone calls and walk-ins. Rob could certainly answer his own phone, his
own door, but if he wanted to be taken seriously, he needed a buffer between
him and the public. Besides, he was a little too open, a little too trusting,
considering who and what he was. He’d been living in Jackson Falls long enough
so the locals pretty much ignored him. They were used to him by now. But
despite his vehement claims to the contrary, he was still a rock star, and as
his assistant, it was her job to protect him from himself.

The bedroom door creaked open, and her son shambled out, his hair
a mess, his clothes looking like he’d slept in them. Colleen bit her tongue, torn
between conflicting desires: to be his friend, to be his mother. She knew which
of those desires was more important, knew Jesse would expect her to toe a hard
line. But it was so hard. The Mom in her wanted to tell the kid to comb his
hair and put on clean clothes. The needy woman inside her wanted to wrap her
arms around him and hold on tight, for fear that he’d disappear as suddenly as
he’d shown up, without warning or notice.

He walked into the kitchen and leaned over her shoulder,
bleary-eyed, to examine what was in the frying pan. “Morning,” he mumbled.

“Good morning. What time did you finally go to bed last night?”

“I don’t know.” He opened the fridge and stood frozen in place,
contemplating its meager offerings. “Sometime around three, I guess. What time
is it, anyway?”

“It’s quarter to eight. I have to be at work in a few minutes.”

He took out the milk carton and began opening cupboard doors in
search of a glass. “Why didn’t you just let me sleep?”

She took a glass from the cupboard and handed it to him. “I wanted
you to have a good breakfast before you started your day.”

Pouring the milk, he said, “I’ve been living in a dorm. My idea of
breakfast is a cup of coffee and a candy bar.”

“Which is why I’m trying to make sure you’re getting proper
nutrition.”

“Mom? You’re trying too hard.”

His words stung. Maybe she was trying too hard, but wasn’t she doing
it for the right reasons? It had been a long time since she’d been given the
opportunity to mother anyone. It was a little like throwing darts in the dark,
hoping to hit something. Or like tossing mud at a wall and waiting to see how
much of it stuck.

“What’s this?” he said, looking at the newspaper.

“What’s it look like?”

“I don’t know how it looks to you, but to me, it looks a lot like
pressure.”

She glanced at her watch again. “Mikey,” she said, “if you’re not
in school, you have to work. It’s how civilized people live.”

He returned the milk to the fridge, took a fork from the drawer,
and ate a bite of scrambled egg directly from the frying pan. “Eggs are cold,”
he said.

“If you’d come the first time I called you, they wouldn’t be.”

“I need some time,” he said.

“Time?” she said. “Time for what?”

“Time to get my head together. Time to figure out where I’m going
and what I’m doing. Just plain time.” He set down the fork and, frying pan in
hand, walked back to the table and picked up the newspaper. “I can’t eat cold
eggs.” He crossed to the trash can, tossed in the newspaper, then emptied the
contents of the frying pan on top of it. “I’m going back to bed.”

“Damn it, Mikey!” He might as well have slapped her across the
face. Hurt and furious, she watched as he retreated to his bedroom and quietly
closed the door. If he’d slammed it, she might have felt better. At least she
would have known he gave a damn. It was his deadly calm, his cool air of
detachment, so like his father’s, that broke her heart.

Old hurts ran deep. His. Hers. She’d hoped, when he showed up at
her door, that they might be able to resolve their differences. But she should
have known better. She’d done the unforgivable, and now she was paying the
price.

With a sigh, she filled the frying pan with water and dish soap,
wiped down the counter and the table, and headed downstairs to work.

***

The filing was done, the mail sorted, the phone silent. Rob was
between projects, and business was pretty much nonexistent. After pouring
himself a mug of coffee and scooping up a couple of jelly doughnuts, he’d barricaded
himself in his office an hour ago, and she hadn’t seen him since. Colleen had
gone through every drawer in her desk, exploring, sorting, organizing. She’d
lined up all the books on her bookshelf with military precision. She’d washed
the telephone receiver with antibacterial soap. She was seriously considering
dusting the awards in the locked display case when his door opened and he came
out, barefoot, his hair looking like he’d spent the last hour raking his
fingers through it. In one hand, he carried a ledger. In the other, a pile of
papers. Absently, he said, “You wouldn’t happen to be any good with numbers,
would you?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Numbers?”

“Record-keeping. Accounting stuff. Ali always kept the studio business
records for me. When she left, she dumped the whole mess in my lap. I’ve been
avoiding it ever since. All I’ve done is toss more stuff on top of the pile. This
morning, I decided to give it a whirl. It didn’t take me long to realize it’s a
hopeless mess. Looks like she was a couple of months behind. I should’ve kept
better track, but numbers aren’t my strong suit. Neither is organization.”

“No kidding. I’ve seen your desk.”

“If I turn it over to my accountant in this condition, I’ll be
looking for a new accountant.”

“Why haven’t you asked Casey for help?”

“She’d probably skin me alive if she saw what a mess it is. Plus,
we’re creative partners, but we keep our money separate. It’s not her
responsibility. The studio’s my toy.”

“That surprises me. The two of you are so connected, I’d think
you’d have joint everything.”

“It’s just easier this way. We have a household account that we
both dump money into, but when we got married, I had my money and she had hers,
we had different banks and accountants and investment firms, and with all the
different revenue streams coming in, it would’ve been a logistical nightmare to
merge it all. So we kept it separate.”

“No prenup?”

“It never occurred to us. We’re not expecting things to go south,
and even if they did, why would either one of us want to hurt the other? She’s
been my best friend since I was twenty years old. I trust her with my life. Besides,
if anybody ever needed to worry about getting cleaned out by a disgruntled
spouse, it’d be her. I have a lot of money, more than I know what to do with. But
your sister? She is one wealthy woman. Danny was worth a fortune.”

“Nice to not have to worry about where your next meal is coming
from.”

“Yeah, well, your sister and I have been there.”

“So have I.” She held out a hand. “Let me take a look at it. I’ll
see what I can do.”

He hesitated, then said, “If you make it any worse than it already
is, it might be incurable.”

“I think I can handle it. I have a business degree. I minored in
accounting.”

His mouth fell open. “You have a college degree?”

The hackles instantly rose on the back of her neck. “Is that such
a stretch?  Is it so hard to believe I could complete a college degree?”

“Are you kidding? Right now, I want to get down on my knees and
kiss your feet.”

She drew in her claws. “Well, don’t go overboard. It’s not any
fancy MBA. Just a basic Bachelor’s degree from a community college in Florida. But
I should be able to handle your books.”

“You do that, you’re getting a raise. A big one. Look, I know
you’re bored here, and way overqualified for the job. And things are slow right
now. But they’ll eventually pick up. We’re still in start-up mode, and—”

She ticked her fingernails against her coffee mug. “Short-term
employee,” she reminded him. “Three months. Gone by spring.”

“It’s a damn shame. I think the world of Ali. She’s cute, she’s
perky, she’s personable. Great receptionist. People love her. But she’s also a
little ditzy. Drifty. I know, I’m not one to talk. I’ve been known to cover
that territory myself a time or two. But I’d kind of hoped to find an assistant
with those organizational skills that I’m missing. She’s a good kid, and I’m a
softie. I haven’t had the heart to tell her it’s not really working out.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Me, too. Listen, there’s something I’m hoping you can help
me with.” He perched on the corner of the desk, set down the ledger, stacked
the papers on top of it. “We’re having the Saturday-night get-together at our
house this weekend.” He opened the lid to the doughnut box. “I’d like you to be
there.”

 “Oh, goody. Does this fall under
other duties as assigned
?”

“You know,” he said, studying the doughnuts with the same intensity
some men would employ to choose a diamond ring, “sometimes you’re more like
your sister than either of you wants to admit.” He chose a sticky glazed doughnut
from the box and dropped the lid back into place. “You have that same sassy
mouth. If you’re not careful, it’ll get you into trouble one of these days.”

Dryly, she said, “I’ll try to keep that in mind. So what is it you
want from me?”

He took a bite of doughnut, chewed, swallowed. “I heard a rumor
that back in the day, you and my wife used to sing together. In front of
audiences.”

She snorted. “If you could call it that. My mother dressed us up
in these hideous matching outfits and dragged us around to church suppers and
nursing homes.”

He studied his doughnut with intense interest. “I hear you were
pretty damn good.” 

“That’s ancient history. Why are you digging it up now?”

“I bought a Karaoke machine. I want you to sing with my wife on
Saturday night.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“Why, for the love of God?”

“Because Casey’s my wife and I love her, and she’s beautiful and
talented and she deserves to be heard.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to be heard.”

“Bullshit. Everybody wants to be heard. We humans crave attention.
We starve without it. When we have that kind of talent, we have an inborn need
to share it.”

“So why isn’t she out in the world, making hit records?”

“I bet you didn’t know that she sang backup vocals—anonymously, of
course—on most of Danny’s albums.”

She raised an eyebrow. “This I did not know.”

“I’ve been trying for years to get her onstage. Will you help me?”

Colleen drummed her fingernails on the desk. “What makes you think
I don’t have stage fright?”

“Because you’re brassy and bold and utterly fearless.”

“And you base this on having known me for what—two weeks?”

“I’m a good judge of character. I also know that things aren’t
always the way they seem. Sometimes, there’s more going on than people see.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Nobody’s all good or all bad. You claim to be the black sheep. But
I see a lot of good in you.”