Jaxson's Song (10 page)

Once again, Jaxson’s gaze
flicked up before it settled on Kate’s face. He opened his mouth,
only to close it a second later without having said anything
further.

This time, Kate leaned
over the railing and craned her neck to peer up toward the roof,
and, not seeing anything amiss, she shrugged, bent down, and
cautiously scooped up the cat, then headed back toward the
house.

“
If you have any problems…”

She paused long enough to
toss a look at him over one shoulder. “Yeah, I remember; don’t
worry, I have no intention of inconveniencing you again with my
problems.” Still cradling the cat, she walked back into her own
house without another backward glance. She used her foot to shut
the door, not bothering to latch it since they’d be leaving again
in a minute.

“
Yes, you’re going to have to go, too, cat,” she told the
animal, absently stroking its short, rough fur as she entered the
front sitting room. “Sorry, but you can’t stay.”

The cat meowed and its
tail swished against Kate’s arm. She refused to look into its
eyes.

“
Forget it, buddy. Right now, the last thing I need is someone
else depending on me. As you can see, I’m not doing so hot at the
moment.” Kate exhaled. “Besides, I work all day, and Lilly will be
at school.” She paused. “Although, I don’t suppose you require a
whole lot of upkeep.”

She did look at the cat
then, wincing over the pale scar that cut a path through the
animal’s fur, only a few inches from its left eye. The old wound
dipped down the side of its face, ending somewhere beneath its
chin. “I can’t keep you,” she repeated. The cat settled itself
securely in her arms and rested its head on Kate’s
forearm.

She sighed. “I just became
a cat owner, didn’t I?”

Glass crunched beneath her
shoes and she stared down at the mess on the floor of the sitting
room. Muted light filtered in through the sheers that hung on the
wide, dingy windows and reflected little prisms of light from the
shards of glass that littered the floor. Glass, glitter, and fake
snow was strewn over most of the intricate but threadbare
Fleur-de-lis
patterned gold-and-burgundy rug. A glance at the black marble
fireplace mantel showed two empty spaces.

“
You’re here for less than a day and you’ve already broken two
snow globes.” She tsked and bent for a closer look. “And you’ve
nicked the floor.” She frowned at the fresh, chipped groove in the
wood floor. Tightening one arm around the cat, she reached with the
other and gingerly picked up the base that had belonged to the
larger of the two globes. The weight of the object was all but
insubstantial in her hand.

“
How did you manage to gouge the floor like this?” she
mused.

A clock chimed six times,
the gong reverberating throughout the house. The cat stiffened in
her arms, and Kate made little shushing noises in an absent attempt
to comfort the creature.

“
Come on, we’ll hit the hardware store for some cleaning
supplies…and a new lock,” she said, snagging her purse from the
floor of the entryway where she’d dropped it earlier. She got as
far as the driveway before she stopped and groaned. Would anything
in Crystal Cove except the hospital and maybe a diner or two be
open this early? Probably not. But there was a Walmart about twenty
minutes down the highway; she remembered seeing it on the drive in
yesterday. Weren’t those usually twenty-four hour?

Depositing the cat into
the passenger seat of the car, she plopped down into the driver’s
seat, tapped a quick text message to Lilly, cranked the ignition,
rolled her window down to dispel some of the humidity, shifted
gears, and backed out onto the street. The whisper of the wind as
it moved gently through the large, towering old trees and merged
with the swish of tires on damp pavement was the only sound to be
heard as Kate made her way onto the main road and left the silent
neighborhood behind.

Chapter Nine

Shadow Boxing

“
A
nd
when
you needed me, I came through
…!”

Kate belted out the
familiar tune as the last of the broken glass was propelled up the
hose of her brand new vacuum sweeper. The light began to flicker,
and she glanced at the chandelier overhead. One of the fixture’s
five bulbs dimmed again and she frowned. Light bulbs. That’s what
she’d forgotten. Oh, well, she had the rest of the night off;
picking up a box of bulbs later at the grocery store wouldn’t be a
big deal.

Kate gave the floor a
final lingering appraisal before switching off the
vacuum.

“
Through the sleepless nights
,”
she sang alone with the radio, her voice trailing off when static
crackled over the air. After a few moments, she gave up and
switched the radio off.

The hose and attachments
detached easily and made a satisfying, job-well-done sort of snap
as she replaced the parts in their individual compartments. She
unplugged the cord from the wall and wound it, wrist over elbow,
until she’d created a long, loose loop to hang haphazardly over the
vacuum’s handle. Years of Olivia’s nagging made her bend down and
grudgingly wrap the cord around its designated clips.

Kate nodded to her new
cat, who was perched on the back of the sofa, grabbed the yellow
plastic sack containing the new lock kit and a screwdriver set, and
headed toward the entrance hall, stopping only long enough to stow
the sweeper in the small utility closet off the kitchen.

She passed the thermostat
on her way out, and paused to punch the buttons that would kick the
AC down a couple of notches.

Her flip-flops slapped the
floor, and the bag swung against her bare thigh as she shoved at
the screen door, set the catch at the top of the door to hold it
open, and stepped into the warm, brilliant mid-morning
sunshine.

Kate swiftly set the bag
onto the wide, flat top rail, dug into it, and began to lay her
purchases out in a neat row. A series of beeps sounded and she
fished her phone from the pocket of her shorts, tapped the icon on
the main screen. Three text messages; two were from Lindsey, the
first inquiring about her first night on the job; the second was a
picture of a grinning skeleton.

Kate snorted. “Funny,
Lindsey.” The most recent message was from Lilly and said simply,
“Call me.”

“
15 min
☺
”
she typed back, then slid the phone back into the shallow denim
pocket of her cutoffs. From her other pocket, she took a pocket
knife and carefully cut across the top of the thick plastic that
encased the screwdriver set.

She selected the
neon-green-handled Phillips and made quick work of swapping out the
old brass single-key lock knob for a new pewter finish deadbolt. As
she worked, her eyes kept straying to the house next door. Jaxson’s
car was in the driveway, along with a late model Buick that looked
as if it had seen better days.

Once, Kate thought she saw
a curtain twitch to the side, but didn’t see anyone looking out at
her, and the fabric quickly fell back into place, so she figured
somebody must have brushed up against the window. What reason would
Jaxson have to be concerned with what she was doing? Frowning, she
crouched and raised the tool to secure the final screw.

What was wrong with her
that she was drawn to what he was doing? No, that wasn’t fair, she
decided, lining up the screw with the pre-drilled hole in the knob
plate.

She wasn’t drawn to him.
Hadn’t he already proven himself to be a foul-tempered jerk? That
and strange. Kate forced her gaze away from the now undisturbed
window and refocused her attention on the task at hand. No doubt
about it, Jaxson Green was an odd duck. Kissing him had been a
mistake, she insisted, giving the screw one final twist before
rising to her feet.

Her mind drifted back to
last night and what amounted to the wildest—okay, the
only
wild
thing—she’d ever done in her life. While Lindsey and many of the
other girls in her sophomore class were at dances and parties, Kate
was working after school to supplement the disability checks that
barely paid the rent, let alone put food on the table. After
graduation, when most of the people she knew were cutting loose,
making plans and traveling, rooming in dormitories, she was raising
a grieving fifteen-year-old who was angry at the world.

If it hadn’t been for
Lindsey opting to do the first two years of her business degree at
a local university, Kate wasn’t sure she and Lilly would have made
it through that first year. Lindsey’s constant presence in their
household had been a godsend.

Her friend’s daily habit
of dropping in to “hang out” with Lilly every day from thee to five
in the afternoon until Kate got home from classes and work, rain or
shine, had helped give a young girl a home base…and had went a long
way toward rebuilding a foundation that had been badly shaken.
Lindsey’s watchful eye had also probably kept Lilly out of
heaven-only-knew what trouble.

Kate turned, bags in hand,
and stumbled over her new pet. The bag with the screwdrivers landed
on the top of her foot. She managed to keep hold of the much
lighter bag that contained the trash—of course—and, with a muffled
curse, bent down to rub at her toes. Blood welled from a small cut
at the base of her big toe. Kate lifted the bag and noticed a
good-sized tear at the bottom, sharp plastic packaging from the
screwdriver set sticking out like a mini fin.

“
Son of a…” she muttered. A sudden rustling sound brought her
head up. “What…” she trailed off, reaching out to grip the edge of
the door and haul herself to her feet. What was
that
?

The noise sounded again,
louder this time, and closer. Mice, maybe? The cat hissed, but
didn’t relinquish his position of relative safely behind Kate’s
legs.

She laughed nervously.
“Hey, if that’s a mouse, aren’t you supposed to go check it out?”
She smiled down at the cat, then glanced back to the open doorway
in time to catch a ripple of movement at the bottom of the white
linen cloth draped over the wooden secretary in the entryway.
Remembering the chewed cable cord Olivia had found the other day,
Kate let out the breath she’d been holding, gathered her bags,
straightened, and walked into the house.

Dropping to one knee, she
reached with her free hand and swept the cloth aside to
reveal…nothing.

She swiftly scanned the
area around the heavy piece of furniture, frowning when nothing
stirred in the entryway. In fact, the whole house seemed
motionless, eerie. The silence was an oppressive, vivid…thing.
Beside her, the cat bristled.

Kate climbed to her feet,
an uneasy feeling pooling in her stomach. “It’s okay, those things
are fast. We—we’ll get a service out, first thing,” she chattered,
flipping the catch at the top of the front door and pulling it shut
behind her.

A cold, drafty chill swept
across her bare arms and she shivered, switched the air completely
off, and meandered into the kitchen. Hunching her shoulders and
folding her arms across her chest, she contemplated the open, airy
space in silence.

This room, too, was much
the same as she remembered it. Rows and rows of maple brown
cabinets with bronze hardware. She advanced further into the room
and opened the cabinet closest to the extra-wide single white
porcelain sink; her fingers lingered over the cool metallic handle,
worn smooth by years of use. Aunt Viola had loved this kitchen. She
herself had loved this kitchen—once.

Kate went through the
motions of brewing coffee with the only small appliance she and
Lilly had brought down from Georgia, save for a three-speed blow
dryer. Memories long past shadowed Kate’s motions as she took cream
and sugar dishes from the fridge and set them on the long, wide
counter alongside a clean blue ceramic mug.

Viola combining flour and
sugar in an enormous chrome bowl. The scent of roast turkey filling
the air while she perched precariously on a chair and accepted fat
brown eggs from Lilly, who sat on the counter top and stirred a
bowl of butter while Kate cracked eggs and Aunt Viola looked on
approvingly…

Kate tore off a paper
towel from the holder that someone—probably Olivia—had stocked the
day before. She ran it under the faucet, squeezed out the excess
water, and dabbed at the blood on her foot while she waited for the
coffee to brew.

A shadow fell across the
counter and Kate glanced up, startled out of her reverie of days
long gone, by the thick dark clouds beginning to fill the sky. The
kitchen took on a somber gray-green hue, and she pulled the
shutters and latched them before carrying her coffee to the sitting
room.

The first drops of rain
began to ping the windows as she pulled the curtains against the
gloom and switched on the pair of Tiffany lamps that framed the
couch. She took a sip of coffee, pulled out her cell, and punched
in Lilly’s number.

Chapter Ten