Sweet Justice (6 page)

“Really? Toilet-tissue cores? How does she do that?”

“You cut the tube in half and then cut flaps into the end of the tube, and then—”

“It folds like a little box! Neat! That's smart!”

Maybe he'd misread Mallory. In her jeans and T-shirt, she seemed more like the girl he should aim for—not the type of glamour girl he had a weakness for.

But she had said
lawsuit
, and Dutch was convinced that such a word was seldom uttered in vain. And the two of them were sitting here eating pizza off fine china plates and cloth napkins...and she couldn't seem to part with an entire box of shoes despite her quest for, what had she called it? Zen-like bareness?

So...who was the real Mallory Blair?

And why was he so intrigued by the apparent contradiction? Hadn't Dutch warned him to stay far, far away?

CHAPTER SEVEN

A
NOTHER
HARD
LOOK
at her finances the next morning had caused Mallory to leave the car and its precious half tank of gas parked at the apartment in favor of Katelyn's old rusty bike. She carefully rolled her work clothes and stowed them along with her heels into a backpack Katelyn had discarded some years before.

Thank goodness Katelyn could manage on her own for a few hours. She debated waking her sister before she left, but decided against it. Better to let miffed little sisters lie—and Katelyn had certainly been miffed with her the night before.

She had awoken about a half hour after Andrew Monroe had made a sudden departure, as abrupt and unexpected as his arrival had been. “Why didn't you wake me?” Katelyn had said churlishly as she'd gobbled up her share of the reheated pizza. “Maybe I wanted to see him, too!”

She had accused Mallory of running off Andrew because she didn't like him—which hadn't been fair. Mallory hadn't chased off Andrew. He'd just...gone, before she even had a real chance to wake Katelyn. It was as if a light switch had been flicked. One minute they had been eating pizza together, and the next, whoosh! Suddenly, the man had headed out the door as though he was responding to a fire.

Maybe it was because of the nap, or maybe because missing Andrew had amped up Katelyn, but whatever the reason, she hadn't been able to go back to sleep before midnight. She'd watched sullenly while Mallory had slowly continued to get the apartment's contents out of boxes and into some semblance of order. Mallory knew that eventually her little sister would come out of her blue funk, but it bugged her that the Monroes—both Maegan and Andrew—could have such an impact on Katelyn's mood.

No, for now, she'd let Katelyn catch up on her sleep. She didn't have therapy until late this afternoon, after Mallory completed her first day on the job. She left a note and Katelyn's lunch to be warmed up in the microwave, stowed her own lunch, a PB&J, in her backpack along with a thermos of water and her work clothes and then struck out.

The morning air was frigid but the biking warmed her up fairly quickly. Mallory wasn't a practiced cyclist, but she'd done this before when funds were tight. She only wished that the helmet she'd scored at a yard sale wasn't so aggressively princessy. Katelyn had laughed at it when Mallory had brought it home, saying it had so many sparkles and bling that it looked like a unicorn had sneezed on it.

As Mallory rode into the downtown area, her spirits rose. She liked this little town with its cheerful awnings and bricked sidewalks. She could imagine kids playing in the fountain in the summer, and the whole place seemed alive and vibrant and inviting with its mom-and-pop-style businesses. It wasn't like the dying downtown back in the city—there, for years, the center of town had slowly spiraled into pawn shops and adult-video stores, and only now were the locals finally fighting back.

She'd spied a deserted farmer's market pavilion as well on her way in, and that gave her hope for cheap vegetables later on. Cheap was good, as broke as they were, and Katelyn needed good food to help her regain her strength—not junky food like Andrew Monroe's pizza, despite how tasty it had been.

And free and impeccably timed. Don't forget that. I should write him a thank-you note.

It still bugged her that he'd left so abruptly. Had it been something she'd said? Something she hadn't? He'd disappeared as suddenly earlier that same morning, nowhere to be found after she'd talked over Katelyn's evaluation with Maegan. It had to be about the lawsuit.

The lawsuit.

She was still of two minds about
that
. When an old coworker had visited the hospital and urged her to talk to an attorney, Mallory hadn't wanted to even think about it. Katelyn had been still fighting for her life, and something about suing anybody at that point seemed almost guaranteed to jinx her progress.

Her coworker had insisted, even to the point of bringing an attorney that she knew to see Mallory in the hospital.

Chad had sat down with her, put her at ease right away. “You're not taking anything from anybody,” he'd pointed out. “They took something from
you
. They took Katelyn's health away, now, didn't they? Shouldn't they pay the medical bills?”

And so she'd allowed him to look into things. He'd been enthusiastic about the merits of the case—a fireman admitting that he'd left a poor helpless teenager in a burning building? Surely any jury would award them the medical expenses and give them a little money to help recompense Mallory for the days she'd had to be away from work to stay with Katelyn.

Those medical bills... Every single day in the ICU was another ten grand, and it went on and on, setback after setback. Mallory had only been able to afford the bare-bones catastrophic insurance plan for her and Katelyn, with a deductible that was ten thousand dollars, and her coinsurance after that was 40 percent of the negotiated rates of service, until an out-of-pocket max of twenty-five thousand dollars. Already the monthly payments for that deductible and her 40 percent were eating into their tight cash flow, but what else could she do? File bankruptcy? Her parents would have never countenanced that.

No. This was a new day. The county would help pay that debt—what was twenty-five thousand dollars to a big county government anyway? The lawyer assured her that the county carried insurance for exactly this situation—it wouldn't actually cost them anything.

And that was all she needed, those bills paid off, the slate wiped clean, so that she and Katelyn could start over. Mallory had a job, wheels under her that didn't require gas, a roof over her and Katelyn's heads—they would make it.

They had to make it.

She'd passed the shop where she'd be working and pulled to a stop at the traffic light to check the big old-fashioned clock hanging off a bank's granite exterior: 9:30. She had time to duck in somewhere and change clothes—but where? Was the library open?

It wasn't, but the squat and rather ugly municipal building a block or two from the downtown was, and she availed herself of the public restrooms. By the time she locked her bike to the bike rack near the shop and pushed open the door with its carefully scripted name, BASH, on the glass, it was 9:45.

Eleanor Bash, the owner, looked up. She'd been unpacking and steaming something seriously chiffony and yummy to Mallory. “Good morning! Did I see you wheel by here on a bike?”

Mallory blushed at the thought that Eleanor had spotted her on that old bike and in that terribly childish helmet. “Uh, yeah. Am I late? Should I have come in the back?”

“Gracious, no, but next time, feel free to use the bathroom in the back. I even have a shower in there, if you feel the need. My brother cycles—to the point he shaves his legs, can you believe it? I know all about how a cyclist needs to clean up.”

A huge weight lifted off Mallory's shoulders. She'd hoped that her first impressions of her new boss had been right on, and it looked as if they were. “That looks lovely—how can I help?” she asked.

“Don't you just love this color? Lemon yellow probably won't sell until spring, but, oh, I hate the winter!” Eleanor shuddered. “How about you start checking off that packing list? Sometimes this particular company, bless 'em, shorts me, so I have to be extracareful.”

The workday had begun, busy enough, though nothing as hectic as the city boutique she'd worked in previously. Eleanor had warned her at the interview stage that if she were looking for high volume, it wouldn't be here—BASH had to mix casual wear with formal wear in order to make it through the year, but the store had a steady business.

Still, Mallory felt calmed by the familiar surroundings of swishing silk and cotton, high heels and the warm, earthy smell of leather bags. And in Eleanor, she'd found a compatriot who understood the importance of line and style and fit.

It was just after Mallory had downed her PB&J that the door alert rang out and a group of three ladies came in. Two were a few years older than Mallory, comfortably but stylishly dressed, but the third woman wore a shell-shocked expression. She looked as though BASH was probably the last place she wanted to be.

The woman was in her sixties, her gray hair in a no-nonsense bun, her face devoid of even a trace of makeup. She was slim, but the khaki mom-jeans-style trousers and the baggy cardigan and button-down shirt did nothing for her. What made her beautiful despite all that was the way her sky-blue eyes sparkled and her warm, self-effacing smile seemed to light up the shop.

“My heavens, can't I go down to the mall and get something? Or just wear a church dress?” she was asking the two younger women.

“Now, Ma, no, we talked about this. This is Daniel's wedding. You got dressed up for my wedding, and for Cara's, so—”

“Why can't I wear one of those dresses, then? I'll bet they'll still fit,” the woman protested.

“Ma! You still have the dress you wore to my wedding? That was fifteen years ago! It's so out of style, you probably couldn't even give it away.”

“Styles come back in, don't they?” the older woman replied in a reasonable tone. “And I don't think...” she gestured to a trendy above-the-thigh strapless dress on a mannequin “No, that's not quite right for
me
.”

Mallory decided the woman had a realistic view of style, unlike her prior customer, who had insisted that if she had it, she should flaunt it.

The time was right for Mallory to approach her customers. “Hi, there.” She extended her hand. “I'm Mallory. Are you looking for something to wear to a wedding? Can I help you find something?”

“Well, aren't you cute as a button? Mallory, you say? Just call me Ma, everybody does.” Beaming, the woman grabbed the proffered hand. “Now, you, you'd look mighty fine in that number—” she indicated the mannequin “—but if you don't have anything...eh, a little more sedate, then one of my church dresses will have to do.”

Mallory laughed. “We do, in fact, have something a little more sedate. Can you tell me more about the wedding? When is it?”

“Not till the spring, so gracious only knows why they're dragging me out this early to look for a dress,” Ma grumbled. “It's going to be in late May, outdoors at our farm. I don't need to get all gussied up for that, now do I?”

The two younger women, her daughters, Mallory guessed from the marked similarity she saw in eyes that were now rolled heavenward, groaned. “Yes, Ma, you do have to get all gussied up. This is for Daniel and Kimberly,” the younger one said. “Now, you made such a fuss over the china patterns—this is no different. It's just like—”

“No, it's not. China, you got to live with, but a dress? I'll wear it once, and then the next time I try to wear it, you'll both be telling me it's out of style.”

“What if...” Mallory surveyed the woman. “What if we get you something classic and simple, something that won't go out of style and you can wear to other things?”

“Maybe another wedding?” Ma said hopefully. “Because my other son is getting married soon, too.”

“Ma!” the younger daughter protested. “You can't wear the same dress to Rob's wedding that you do to Daniel's—”

“And why not? She just said I could.”

“But it will be the same in the pictures!”

“Let's—” Mallory tried to smother a chuckle and couldn't. This woman and her daughters were too precious—for all the squabbling, it was obvious that they loved each other.

Mallory managed to control her laughter before it overtook her completely, and she held up a hand. “Let's try to get your mom a dress she'll love, and then maybe we can find it in a different color for the next wedding?”

Ma stabbed a finger at her. “I like this girl! Yes, ma'am, lead me on to these magical dresses that never go out of style.”

They began looking at sheath and column dresses, with Mallory desperately trying to figure out where the wedding would fall on the fancy/not fancy scale. Ma kept insisting that the wedding was not at all fancy, since it was going to be at their farm, while her daughters, who turned out to be DeeDee and Cara, insisted, that no, there must be bling on the dress.

“Kimberly's like me—not fussy a bit. Why, she hasn't even been able to find a dress herself yet—”

The door jangled, and Mallory, who had the store to herself while Eleanor had gone out for a late lunch, craned to see who it was.

When no head popped up over the dress displays, she frowned. “Excuse me—I could have sworn I heard the door open.”

“Oh, yeah. It's a girl in a wheelchair. Some nice gentleman opened the door for her and helped her over the threshold,” Ma told her. “I saw it all a minute ago while Cara and DeeDee were fighting to the death over sequins. Sequins! At my age!”

Mallory's heart stopped.
Girl in a wheelchair
meant only one thing to her—Katelyn. How had she gotten here? Who had driven her? Was something wrong?

It was Katelyn, sitting proudly just inside the door near a display of the store's newest arrivals.

“Hey, Mal. What do you think, huh? I managed to drive the car all the way down here, all by myself! Pretty cool, if I do say so myself!”

Mallory opened her mouth to—what? Fuss at Katelyn for driving when she hadn't been cleared by her doctor? When she didn't have good control of her legs? Scold her for using part of the gas Mallory needed to drive her to therapy?

Breathe. Breathe
, she commanded herself.
She's safe and sound, and how much gas could it have taken?

Katelyn's announcement, loud and boisterous, had attracted the attention of Mallory's customers. They followed Mallory toward the front of the store like a flock of little ducklings.