Damon (3 page)

He stared at me with a sad frown. “I don’t suppose your grandmother’s still around.”

“No, she got sick when I was seventeen, died a year later. She smoked like an Alaskan chimney in the dead of winter.”

He nodded, as if expecting this bad news.

“But you know what,” I said. “I have tons of boxes with her stuff in them down in the storm cellar. There’s bunches of pictures.”

He nodded, seeming especially interested, but then he said, “Come upstairs. I want to show you something.”

I don’t know why I was wary of going upstairs with him, we were already alone in the house, but I felt strange about it. Probably because I was growing increasingly aware of how attractive he was.

He grew on me somehow. At first glance, he was okay looking. Second glance he was pretty good-looking, and now he was so handsome I wanted to take a picture of him so I could stare at his face for hours.

It was his eyes. The depth of emotion and knowledge inside them. The long lashes and the sympathetic downward slant at the corners, the peaked eyebrows. And his mouth, the way his bottom lip was fuller, and how his lips curled upward slightly at the corners. And the muscles in his faintly stubbled jaw that ridged and moved as he ground out some deep, dark memory.

I also liked his dark blond hair, just curly enough to give groups of strands wild twists. Just long enough to make him seem a little untamed. He routinely raked his hair out of his face. I liked that, too. It gave me shivers when he did that.

So I wasn’t sure I should go upstairs with him, where there were beds. I sometimes had trouble controlling myself around men with long, strong, artistic fingers and muscled forearms.

Especially one with firm buns, long legs and powerful thighs. And he had to have been wearing jeans that fit just right.

But he didn’t seem to have sex on his mind. He stared at me like I’d just started barking. I realized he was waiting for a reply and I was staring at him like a star-struck groupie.

“Sure, okay,” I said. “Lead the way.”

Some opportunities were just too good to pass up.

CHAPTER TWO

Upstairs, Damon wanted to show me a picture hanging on Corky’s bedroom wall. The room was large with one sloped wall. Corky had loved all things sea-related and most of the decorations were of the ocean, boats and lighthouses. It had always reminded me of an eleven-year-old boy’s room. Even the large brass bed had a white bedspread with colorful fish on it.

I’d dusted the silver frame a hundred times without really looking at the photo inside.

In the black-and-white photograph, six people stood together in some unknown location. Damon pointed to one of the two women. “Is that your grandmother?”

I leaned in closer to look at the woman in the black hat. They were all dressed like the Fifties, the women in straight suit sets, hats and long gloves. The men in loose suits, with greased hair, holding their hats.

I’d never seen my grandmother in a hat, or looking so serious and dressed-up. But it was her, when she was in her early twenties.

“That’s her. And, hey, that’s Chester and Bella Brewer. Chester still had hair. Are any of these your grandfather?”

“Him,” Damon said, pointing to the man standing beside my grandmother. The man holding her arm!

I took a good long look at the man bothering my gram. My first thought was yuck, because of his sleazy slicked-back hair parted in the middle. But then I noticed his face was rather pleasant. He was almost good-looking. Almost. But not as good-looking as Grampa Harvey had been.

And where was my grandfather, anyway? He wasn’t in the picture. I looked at Damon, wanting to blame him entirely, although I knew I couldn’t. “My grandfather didn’t die until the late sixties, early seventies. I can’t remember exactly.”

Damon took the picture off the wall and dropped it face down on the dresser. Then he began bending little tabs and took the back off the frame.

I read around his shoulder, trying to ignore the heat from his body, and the seductive musky male scent wafting up to my nostrils. “Knoxville. 1959.” No names, no additional information.

He replaced the back and then stood there, holding the frame. I realized he intended to steal the picture.

“You can’t do that.”

“Nobody else wants it,” he said. “It’ll get thrown in the trash.”

That was true enough. Corky’s children had come and taken everything they’d wanted the day of the funeral. But I might have wanted it. I felt like a silly kid fighting over a found dollar. I had a hundred pictures of Grammy. But I didn’t have this one.

This one where my sweet, dependable, sane Grammy was possibly cheating on her husband. In front of other people.

I couldn’t believe it. And I knew I was jumping to conclusions.

They had probably just been friends until after Grampa Harvey had died. And then what was she supposed to do, live the rest of her life in mourning?

Yes!

“Mama was born in 1962, and Aunt Cynthia was born, like, three or four years before that. Maybe Gram and Grampa Harvey hadn’t married yet. I don’t know what year they got married.”

Damon stared at me, seeming completely uninterested in the possible affair between our grandparents. He only seemed to care about the stupid picture.

“Well, okay,” I said. “But at least leave the frame. It looks expensive.”

He shrugged and made no move to replace the frame. He intended to steal the whole thing, plumb outright.

And I had let him into the house, which made me his accomplice.

Now that he had what he wanted, I could see his thoughts changing course, and my thoughts were diverted, as well. He glanced at Corky’s tall high-backed bed, then at me. Not me, exactly, my breasts.

He absently set the picture on the dresser and came at me. I might have moved if I hadn’t been so surprised by the radical change in him.

I knew that look. I’d seen it from countless guys, countless times. He was thinking about sex now. And only sex.

I could see myself reflected in his eyes, already naked and lying flat on my back on the bed.

He glanced at the doorway then closed in on me, backing me against the wall. I wasn’t overly concerned. He didn’t seem threatening, only intensely interested. I couldn’t argue with that. Still, I knew I had only a few seconds to make up my mind.

No way am I sleeping with him, I decided just as he tilted his head and closed his lips over mine.

His kiss was firm and soft, heated yet almost sweet. He didn’t try to part my lips or grab me into his arms. He merely caressed my arm lightly and let the kiss fade naturally. His breath tasted like cherry cough drops.

I stood shock-still and waited to see what he would do next, so I could make up my mind about him.

He straightened and tenderly ran his hand over my hair, gazing at me with friendly eyes.

Then he went for his picture and led the way back downstairs.

Once we were outside, with Corky’s house safely locked again, he fell in beside me for the walk, lingering close enough for his arm to brush mine.

How fitting, I thought, that I might be on the verge of having an affair with my grandmother’s lover’s grandson. The idea was sort of creepy, but also strangely appealing. I looked up at him and he smiled at me.

All hope was lost for me in that moment.

***

We left Corky’s and walked back toward my house. I kept my distance, still not sure what was going on, or how I wanted to act around him. He left me unsettled and a little confused. Kind of the same way I always felt when it came time for James Eddie and the EMTs to leave the house.

“When do you want me to start on the house?” he asked.

“What?”

He nodded toward my house. “Painting your house. Do you want it white again?”

“You want to paint my house?”

“In exchange for the room.”

I stopped walking so I could see his face. “What room?”

“The room with the private entrance.”

“That’s not a… that’s a storeroom now. That was my grandmother’s bedroom.”

He blinked, and crossed his arms. “There’s a bed. The rest of the stuff can be stacked.”

My heart began to palpitate. I kept the curtains closed in that room. “How do you know?”

“I went in and took a look.”

“I keep that door locked. Always.”

He shrugged. “The lock was loose, I just took a piece of wood to wedge the jamb back and it pushed right through.”

Instantly, I was furious. Furious, like I wanted to kill him. This was one of the mental illness signs that always worried me minutes later, but in the moment, I couldn’t make myself care. I wanted to pick up a handful of dirt and throw it in his face. I couldn’t believe him. I wanted to lunge at him and scratch valleys into his face so deep they would leave horrible scars long after the wounds healed. “You have absolutely no respect for other people’s property, do you? You broke into my house!”

He glanced at my house then frowned. “I just wanted to take a look.”

“I don’t care what you wanted! You broke into my house.” Every muscle in my body tensed until I burned all over. Mama had said there was a man in the house. She’d been right, for once. “What did you see?”

He honestly didn’t seem to understand what he’d done. “I saw that the room wasn’t being used.”

“What else?” I must have looked like a madwoman just then, but he wasn’t intimidated. He remained relaxed and unconcerned.

“Not much. Saw the house a little. Said hi to your mom.”

Oh… dear… god….
“What happened?”

“Nothing. She was just sitting there talking on the phone.”

After a long, slow, cleansing breath, I had to laugh. I could do nothing else. Although I still felt like attacking him with a shovel. How could he be so… weird?

Hadn’t he been able to tell the poor woman crouched on the floor clutching a phone to her ear was terrified out of her mind? He must have looked like a monster to her.

“You can’t do that,” I told him, no messing around. “She’s on medication. She sees things, and misinterprets things. You can’t just go breaking into houses, scaring people half to death. My mother thought you were gonna kill her.”

“
Kill
her,” he repeated, jerking his head in surprise. “Why would I kill her?”

I stared at him, flabbergasted. “When a strange man breaks into your house he’s not usually dropping by for a cup of coffee and a chat. What did you steal from my house?”

“Nothing,” he said. Then he reached into his pocket. “Well, just this.”

In his palm, he held my grandmother’s amethyst pendant. Gasping, I snatched the precious piece of jewelry from his hand. Tears of anger and disbelief came to my eyes. “How could you? How could you do that?”

His eyes instantly turned wild. “I remember that,” he said, “clearly. The old lady used to wear it around her neck. I need that.”

“You can’t…
god
!” I needed to scream. “You can’t just take everything in the world you remember! This was my grandmother’s!” And then what he’d done became much worse. “I keep this in a box in my underwear drawer.”

“I know,” he said.

“You are
dead
,” I said, pointing at him as I jogged away. “I’m calling the sheriff. You’re insane, that’s all.”

I ran in case he decided to follow. God, he really was insane. And I had let him kiss me.

Yuck!

I had thought about letting him do more.

Double yuck!

I had thought, at least for a minute or two over the past few days, that he might be my soul mate!

How sleazy and stupid could I be? I couldn’t tell the good ones from the bad ones if my life depended on it.

When I reached the back porch and had my hand on the doorknob, I looked back, expecting to see him still standing where I’d left him, feeling sorry about what he’d done. Instead, I turned to see his chest just inches from my eyes.

And then his hand reaching for me.

I only had time to cripple myself by locking down every response and function of my body before he had hold of my wrist.

He pulled and I collided with his chest. He closed his arm around my waist, taking my hand behind my back. And I was trapped.

I thought he intended to kiss me, forcefully, perhaps painfully, and so I winced and turned my head.

But his lips stopped close to my ear, and his voice, deep and resonant, infiltrated my head.

“There’s a secret,” he said slowly, “more important than privacy. More important than laws. More important than you. Or me.”

He released me at once and stepped back. Yet, I felt pinned by the outrageous change in him. He wasn’t the person I had been talking with minutes ago. This new person was full of radiant energy, full of passion and intense focus. Full of fire and ice.

I had seen my mother change like this a thousand times.

Insanity is hereditary… insanity is hereditary… insanity is hereditary
… little birds chirped in my ear.

My thoughts began to churn for answers. What if Damon’s grandfather had really been…? What if Gram really had been having an affair and Damon’s grandfather was Mama’s natural father? What if the insanity came from him? Gram and Grampa Harvey had both been perfectly sane, as far as I knew. The insanity had to have come from somewhere.

From Damon’s grandfather.

And now Damon had inherited it, too.

He moved with me as I inched toward the door, but he didn’t try to stop me. He only seemed intent on staying near me, and I knew he would come inside the house if I went inside.

Mama got this way sometimes, where she wanted to be so near me I could barely move around, staring at me like she wanted to devour me. Sometimes she would grab my arm, or my hair, but most of the time she didn’t touch me.

I sensed that Damon didn’t intend to touch me, for now. Others might have thought this type of behavior intimidating, but it seemed to me more a way of expressing affection. Even if Mama never let me touch her when she was this way, or speak to her, I knew she wanted attention.

But there was also a belligerence about it, and any reaction on my part was perceived as an opportunity to bite back.