Broken Pieces (9 page)

He lifted his coffee cup to his mouth and eyed her over the rim. “She looks pretty raised to me,” he said just before he sipped his coffee.

It had been years since a man had flirted with her and even longer since she’d enjoyed it. But she was enjoying it now. As night fell, they continued to talk, sharing little pieces of information about themselves interspersed with flirtatious banter.

It was close to ten when he stood to leave. “As much as I hate to say good night, I’ve got to get back to the office and check on a couple of sick animals.”

“It’s been nice.” Mariah got up from her chair, surprised at just how much she’d enjoyed the evening.

“Enough to do it again?” he asked. He stepped close to her, so close she could once again smell him, could feel the heat that radiated from his body.

Her heart hitched in her chest, the beat accelerating to a near fever pitch. He didn’t touch her in any way, but she felt touched by the gleam of his eyes as they gazed at her, by the faint stir of his breath against her face.

“You know this is foolish,” she said a bit unsteadily. “As soon as this house is ready to be put on the market, I’m heading back to Chicago.”

“From what I could see, it looks like it’s going to be a while before that happens,” he replied. “There’s nothing that says you can’t be a little foolish in the meantime.” He smiled wickedly. “And I’m just the man to be foolish with.”

“Call me,” she replied.

“I will. I’d also like to kiss you.”

“Okay.” The single word was a nervous breath.

He leaned forward and pressed his lips against her forehead. She closed her eyes, pleasure sweeping her from the point of contact to her very toes.

She tilted her face upward, fully expecting him to claim her lips. Instead he stepped back from her and she opened her eyes to see his smile. “Good night, Mariah.”

“Good night, Jack.”

She watched as he walked down the stairs and toward his car. A whispered sigh escaped her. The man was something else. He’d told her he wanted to kiss her, and what he’d managed to do was make her want him to kiss her.

As he got into his car, she raised her hand to touch her forehead where the imprint of his lips lingered. Maybe it was time for her to be a little foolish, to
indulge a side of herself that she’d been out of touch with for a very long time.

He gave a short honk as he pulled out of the driveway and she waved even though she knew he probably couldn’t see her in the dark.

As his headlights disappeared from view, she became aware of a prickling at the nape of her neck, the odd feeling that she was being watched.

It exploded inside her, a miasma of gray, a sense of impending doom. Her gaze went to the grove of trees where she’d seen somebody the night before.

Was he there now?

Watching her?

Waiting?

She took a step backward, crashed into one of the wicker chairs and nearly fell. Her lungs tried to draw breath, but it was as if a bag were over her head, a plastic garbage bag.

Stumbling to the door, she managed to get inside. She locked it, then leaned forward in an attempt to catch her breath. She closed her eyes and willed herself to calm down.

When she was once again breathing normally, she straightened. The brief panic attack only served to remind her that even though she was a great mother and a woman thinking about indulging in a relationship with a handsome man, there was still a piece inside her that was broken, a piece of her soul that her attacker had taken with him. And in its place he’d left fear and a sense of painful vulnerability.

As she climbed the stairs to her room, she mentally grabbed on to the memories of the time spent with Jack, knowing they would warm the icy center that had formed inside her.

Chapter 11

C
lay hated working the night shift, although he supposed he was better off at his office than at home. Sherri was still pissed off at him and had him sleeping on the sofa, and was talking to him only when it was absolutely necessary.

He got up from his desk and walked over to the coffeemaker, where the thick liquid inside the carafe smelled like it had been warming for months.

Most nights in Plains Point were quiet ones. Occasionally on a Friday or Saturday night somebody would get too liquored up and start a fight in one of the bars and Clay or one of his men would have to go out and take care of it.

The call from Mariah the night before had been the first time in a long time he’d left the office at night on any kind of an issue.

He poured himself a cup of coffee, then carried it back to his desk. He’d just sat when Roger Francis came in. It was obvious Roger had spent part of the evening with his nose in the sauce. He swaggered in and plopped himself in the chair opposite Clay’s desk.

“What are you doing out this late on a weeknight?” Clay asked his friend.

“Had a few beers at Larry’s and thought I’d stop in here before heading home to the little woman.” Roger rubbed the end of his nose. Beer always made his nose itch. “Any news on Missy Temple?”

Clay shook his head. “Nothing. I talked to her friends and most of them think that she ran off, said she’d been talking about getting out of here for months.”

“Marianne told me that Sherri told her you had to run out to Mariah’s place last night.”

“She thought she saw somebody lurking around in the trees near the house. It freaked her out, but when I got there I didn’t find anything.” Clay took a sip of the coffee and winced at the bitterness.

Roger leaned forward, a sly grin on his face. “Tell me the truth, she still rev your engine?”

“Jeez, Roger.” Clay shot a glance at his doorway, hoping nobody was on the other side listening in. “Of course not. You know I’m a one-woman man. Sherri’s the only one who revs my engine.”

“Still, you’ve got to admit, Mariah is as hot now as she was in high school.” He itched his nose again and leaned back in the chair. “You know if you wouldn’t have gone after her back then, I would have. She was one of the best-looking girls in school. I’ll bet she was hot under the sheets.”

Clay thought about lying, about telling Roger that he’d knocked off a piece of Mariah every night that they’d been seeing each other. “I wouldn’t know,” he said truthfully. “Mariah and I didn’t do anything but kiss. Back then she wasn’t ready to do anything else and I respected that.”

Roger sat back in his chair and rubbed the end of
his nose. “Too bad for you. I’ll bet Jack won’t have that problem with her.”

Clay shrugged. “That’s between him and her. They’re both consenting adults. Besides, I got more important things on my mind than Mariah Sayers and her love life.”

“Like what?”

“Like how to get back into Sherri’s good graces.”

“Has she been on one of her tears?”

“Ever since the night of the barbecue at Finn’s. She thought I was too nice to Mariah.”

“God save us all from jealous wives,” Roger exclaimed. “Speaking of which, I’d better get my butt home. Marianne has been complaining that I’ve been spending too many nights out lately.”

“Have you?”

Roger nodded. “Yeah, guess I have. I’ve been having trouble sleeping, feel restless and don’t quite know what to do with myself.”

“You feel this way every summer,” Clay reminded him. “As soon as the school year starts and you begin to train your football team, you’ll be fine.”

“You’re right.” Roger stood. “Guess I’ll head home. See you tomorrow.”

As Roger left, Clay took another drink of his coffee and fought an edge of bitterness that rose up inside him. As the high school coach, Roger was doing the job Clay would have loved to have.

When he’d been younger, his life plan had always included football. As the star quarterback of his high school team, he’d been awarded a full scholarship to Missouri University. There he’d played good football for three years and had been scouted by two AFC teams.

Then in his senior year tragedy had struck. A bad fall, a blown knee, and he’d become a cliché of what can go wrong when you bank on a professional-sport career.

After graduating, he’d come home with no idea what he was going to do with the rest of his life. By that time he’d married Sherri and she was pregnant with their first child. Roger was already the high school coach, all his other buddies had settled into jobs and he was drifting.

It had been Sherri who had encouraged him to run for sheriff. She loved the idea of being the sheriff’s wife. Nobody had been more surprised than Clay when he’d been elected.

For the last ten years being sheriff had involved little more than directing his men where to set up traffic stops, breaking up fights and dealing with the occasional robbery.

He knew what people said about him. Clay Matheson was a good man, a fair man, adored by his wife and children. He kept the streets of Plains Point safe and shared the same moral compass as most of the fine people in town.

If they only knew the truth.

As he stared out the window into the darkness of the night beyond, he had the impulse to get out of his chair, walk to his car and drive as far away from here as he could get.

He wanted to escape before the people of Plains Point found out the truth, before his image as a good sheriff, a good man, was shattered beyond repair.

Chapter 12

T
hunder rumbled in the distance and the air smelled of the approaching storm. Mariah stood beneath the cover of the trees and stared at her father’s study window. If he found out she’d sneaked out, he’d take the skin off her legs and butt with that willow switch.

As she thought of what her punishment would be, the old scars on the backs of her legs burned hot. She breathed a sigh of relief when his study light went out. Good, now she could get back into her bedroom and nobody would be the wiser.

The wind had picked up and lightning rent the sky in the southwest. She’d have to hurry to climb the tree that would lead her to the safety of her room.

A rustle behind her froze her in her tracks. Before she could process what the noise might be, a slick plastic bag was yanked over her head.

Someplace in the darkest recesses of her mind, Mariah knew she was dreaming and she tried to wake herself up before the real horror began, but the nightmare continued to play out.

She was on the ground. He was on top of her,
whispering to her. Then his hands splayed and pressed hard on her upper arms, holding her down as he raped her.

Help me. Somebody help me. Her brain screamed the words that she couldn’t audibly speak.

She sat straight up in bed, tasting the horror in her mouth, the smell of the storm lingering in her nose. The light of dawn creeping in the window brought her completely out of the dream and she shuddered and gasped in relief.

Usually when she awakened from the nightmare memory, her impulse was to shove it out of her mind, forget about it as quickly as possible.

This time she lay back on the pillow, stared at the faint morning light and tried to remember every detail of that night.

She’d forgotten about his hands pressing so hard against her upper arms, hard enough that for a week afterward she’d had bruises there. She’d been bruised other places as well. By the next morning dark bruises had appeared on her inner thighs, making even the simple task of walking difficult.

He’d been so big, so heavy. At this thought she realized it couldn’t have been Jack Taylor who had attacked her that night. Jack had been a scrawny, skinny boy and the person who had grabbed her that night had been big and husky.

She hadn’t realized until this moment, with relief flooding through her, that she’d been just a little bit afraid that it might have been Jack, who had confessed that he’d had a crush on her in high school, the man who made her feel special now with just a glance of his green eyes.

With the knowledge of his innocence shining bright inside her, she felt a weight off her shoulders and a new desire to allow whatever might happen between them to continue.

She stared up at the ceiling and tried to remember those last moments with Clay in the gazebo. Had somebody been watching them as they’d kissed and declared their youthful love for each other?

Had somebody been in the shadows of the gazebo watching and waiting? Had she been followed as she hurried home, running through the town park and down Main Street with the euphoria of Clay’s declaration of love ringing in her heart?

Knowing that she wouldn’t sleep any more, she got out of bed, pulled on her robe and crept out of her room. As she went down the stairs, even the familiar creak of the fourth and fifth stairs didn’t ease the residual horror her nightmare had left behind.

“Coffee,” she muttered aloud. That’s what she needed, a big hot cup of fresh-brewed coffee.

As she waited for the coffee to brew, she stood at the window and watched the sun crest the horizon, shooting pinks and oranges to lighten the night skies.

Had he followed her home from town? Had the attack been a matter of the wrong place at the wrong time or had he been waiting for her in the shadows of the trees, wanting her specifically?

She’d thought it was all behind her. For most of her time in Chicago she hadn’t dwelled on that night. She’d lived her life, happy, and it had been only odd moments when the memories had disturbed her.

But now she realized despite the fact that sixteen years had passed, she still hadn’t resolved it or been
able to put it completely behind her. She wished now she had reported it, but at that time she’d been more afraid of her father than anything else in the world.

That’s what bad girls get when they sneak out of the house
. Her mother’s voice filled her head.
It’s your fault this happened, nobody else’s
.

“Thanks, Mom,” she whispered softly as she poured herself a cup of coffee.

There should be a test that everyone had to take before they became parents, she thought. If you failed, then you didn’t get the responsibility of having an innocent, vulnerable child in your care. Both her parents would have failed miserably.

They had spoken often about the love of God, but hadn’t had any love in their hearts, and she had to wonder what influences had created them. She’d never known her grandparents, didn’t know what kind of upbringing her parents had endured.

She carried her coffee to the table and sat, surprised to discover that the rage, the hatred, that she’d always felt for her parents had tempered into something different. A weary acceptance.

Perhaps they had truly believed that they were decent parents, that the punishments they gave were just and right. They hadn’t been evil people, just cold and hard and unavailable to any emotional need Mariah might have had.

As the sun rose higher in the sky and she sipped her coffee, she realized they didn’t deserve her hatred. They deserved her pity. If she accomplished nothing else returning to Plains Point, this realization was enough.

She was dressed to work by the time Joel was supposed to arrive at eight thirty. She was going to help
him move the rest of the living room furniture into the now empty study so he could begin sanding the living room floor.

She’d told him he could have the furniture but not until she and Kelsey were ready to head back to Chicago. She didn’t want her daughter and herself to live in a house where there was no furniture. Joel had been agreeable to waiting.

He was not agreeable when he arrived nearly half an hour late. It was obvious he was suffering a hangover and was sullen and slightly ill-tempered. He reeked of alcohol and his eyes were so bloodshot they looked as if they could bleed at any minute.

Together they moved the furniture, with Joel bitching and moaning at every step. Mariah tried desperately to hold on to her patience, but finally she snapped.

“Go home, Joel. Go home and sleep off whatever is wrong with you,” she exclaimed. “You’re no use to me today. I don’t want you here.”

“I’ll be all right,” he said, although the sullenness of his voice said otherwise. “There’s no reason for you to get all hoity-toity. I remember you from high school, you walking the halls like you thought your shit didn’t stink.”

She wasn’t sure who was more shocked by his words, her or him. He stared at her in horror. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”

“Why don’t we talk about it tomorrow,” Mariah said coolly.

“Look, I said I was sorry,” he said, and wrung his hands. “Hell, everyone in high school treated me like dirt. Half the people in this town still do.”

“Joel, I don’t even remember you from high school,” she exclaimed. “And if I was mean to you or ignored you or something, then I’m sorry. But that was then and this is now.”

“You gonna fire me?”

She sighed. She so didn’t need this. “I’ll tell you what, how about you show up tomorrow on time and we’ll pretend today didn’t happen?”

He nodded, his lank hair falling forward. “That’s a fine idea.” He grabbed his toolbox and slid out the door. A moment later she heard the spit of gravel and the roar of his engine as he fishtailed out of her driveway.

“What was that all about?” Kelsey said as she came down the stairs carrying Tiny in her arms.

“Joel. I sent him home. He was hungover and cranky and I didn’t want to deal with it today.” At that moment the phone rang.

“Have lunch with me today,” Jack said when Mariah answered.

Giddy pleasure swept through her. “You scarcely give a girl a chance to think,” she replied.

“That’s the idea. Don’t think, just do.” She hesitated and he continued. “If you’re worried about my intentions, don’t. I’m working today, so lunch will be an hour at the café.”

Why not? She certainly didn’t need to be here to supervise Joel. Why not have lunch with a man who both intrigued and excited her? This trip back to Plains Point didn’t have to be about the ugly past; it could also be about pleasure. And she deserved it.

“All right,” she agreed. “What time are you planning on taking your lunch hour?”

“Unless an emergency comes up, around one. Would that work for you?”

“Shall I meet you at the café or at the clinic?”

“The clinic. That way if I do get held up, you won’t be sitting all alone in the café waiting for me.”

“Okay, then I’ll see you about one.” She hung up and turned to see Kelsey beaming at her. “Wipe that look off your face,” she exclaimed. “It’s just lunch.”

“If you say so,” Kelsey replied. “If you’re going out for lunch, could you drop me off by the pool?”

“I think that could be arranged,” Mariah replied, her head filled with sweet anticipation at seeing Jack for lunch.

At twelve forty-five Mariah pulled to the curb near the swimming pool. “You have your sunscreen? Your towel?” she asked her daughter.

Kelsey rolled her eyes. “Mother, I’m almost fifteen, old enough to know what I need when I go to the pool.” She opened her car door. “Should we just go ahead and set a time for you to come back and get me?”

“Just tell me when and I’ll be here,” Mariah replied.

“Why don’t we say about five?” Kelsey slid her long tanned legs out the door. “Oh, and have a great lunch with Dr. Hot.”

“Stop calling him that,” Mariah protested, then laughed as her daughter wiggled her fingers in a good-bye and took off toward the pool.

She’d expected daily hassles with Kelsey while they were here. She’d thought her daughter would pout and whine about missing her friends back home, hating being away for the summer. But Kelsey had adjusted remarkably well.

As she pulled away from the curb, her thoughts went from her daughter to the man she was about to meet for lunch. A kick of adrenaline shot through her.

“Calm down,” she said aloud as she headed toward the clinic. She was acting like a hormonally charged teenager. She’d intentionally dressed down for lunch, as if choosing to wear jeans and a summery tank top would make the meal less important.

As she parked the car in a space in front of the clinic, the beat of her heart belied the casual clothes. Although there was no rhyme or reason for it, this
felt
important.

She got out of the car and went into the cool interior of the building. Behind the receptionist’s desk a woman with graying hair and a smile greeted her with a friendly hello.

“I’m here to see Jack,” Mariah said.

“Oh, you must be Mariah. He told me to expect you. He’s with a client right now, but he should be finishing up any minute if you’d like to have a seat.”

Mariah nodded and sat in one of the chairs. She could hear the rumble of Jack’s deep voice coming from one of the examining rooms. Just the sound of it created the butterflies taking flight in the pit of her stomach.

She’d been sitting only a minute or two when the door to one of the examining rooms opened and Jack ushered out an elderly woman clutching a cat carrier.

If ever there had been a man born to wear a white coat, it was Jack Taylor. It was a perfect foil for his slightly curly dark hair and green eyes.

“You bring Casper in next week at the same time and I’ll check her out,” he said to the old woman. He smiled at Mariah as he placed a hand on the
woman’s shoulder and led her to the door. “And don’t forget to bring me pictures of that new great-grandbaby next week.”

“I won’t.” Her face wrinkled with her smile as she gazed up at Jack. “And if Casper has any other problems, I can call?”

“Anytime,” he said as he patted her arm. “I’ll see you next week, Mrs. Waverly.”

As the door closed behind the old woman, Jack turned to gaze at Mariah. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.” There was an almost iridescent glow in his green eyes that made her think he might not be talking about food at all.

“I’m beginning to have an appetite,” she replied. Her ambiguous words were met with a new flame of heat from his eyes. “Maybe we should get to the café,” she added.

He grinned at her as if knowing she didn’t quite trust herself alone with him. “Have you met Beverly, my right-hand woman?” He gestured toward the receptionist, who looked at Jack as if he’d hung the moon.

Mariah smiled at Beverly. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too. You two go and have a nice lunch. I’ll keep things going here.” She made a shooing motion with her plump hands.

Jack grasped Mariah by the elbow, his hand warm against her bare skin. “Ready?”

She nodded and together they stepped out into the warm afternoon air. “Is Casper a sick kitty?” she asked.

“No, that’s the healthiest cat I’ve ever seen. But Mrs. Waverly is the loneliest woman I’ve ever seen. She lost her husband six months ago and soon after
his death she started bringing Casper in with imagined illnesses. It didn’t take me long before I realized it wasn’t about Casper needing care, but rather Mrs. Waverly needing company. So once a week I tell her I’m doing a free cat checkup and she comes in and tells me about her grandkids and what’s going on in her life.” He shrugged. “It’s no big deal and it keeps her happy.”

It was a big deal. Jack’s hot gazes and sexy demeanor had her in a slow burn, but the fact that he’d take time for a lonely old widow spoke to her heart.

The café was busy, but they found a table near the back and seated themselves. “If you eat here every day, you must know what’s good,” Mariah said as she studied the menu.

“It’s all good. I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad meal here,” he replied. “Today is Thursday, so that means the special of the day is chicken à la king and a side salad.”