Past Due (7 page)

“Back with you?” she echoed, her mind numb.

“To my hotel,” he said, kissing her, nipping at her soft lower lip as if the intimacy of the past was fully restored. “Come back to my hotel. I want to be close to you, but not like this, not in public.”

Jenna’s head jerked as sobriety slapped her in the face. Maybe it was the wine, or the years she had gone without passion, no matter the cause, one reality proved certain, Tres Coulter not only melted her heart, but her spine as well. Scrambling to her feet, she covered her mouth with her hand; her lips still swollen, evidence of her loathsome lack of sense. She had to go, had to get away from this man before things went any further.

Tres leaped to his feet and grabbed for her. “Please, Jenna, don’t leave. We don’t have to go anywhere. We could stay here and talk. Nothing more, I promise.”

“I have to go. This isn’t right Tres. It always leads to the same place with us. I don’t want this. I have a life and I don’t mean to screw it up.” Again, she almost said. This time there is no Jake Austin to save me. I have to save myself.

She turned to leave, to distance herself from him, but he followed.

“Go away, Tres.”

“I’ll walk you home.”

“I can make it myself.”

“I know you can, but I want to walk with you.”

Jenna quickened her gait until her legs burned, but Tres’s long strides kept pace with hers easily. Walking as quickly as she could without breaking into a full run, she still couldn’t outpace him. He stayed right with her, step for step, begging her to talk to him. She ignored him completely, never even bothering to pause when she reached home. As she approached her lawn, he grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him.

“Don’t go, Jenna. Talk to me.”

“No.”

“Have dinner with me tomorrow?”

Jenna shook her head. “There is nothing and never will be anything between us.”

“How can you say that? How can you look me in the eye and say that after tonight?”

“What? Because you can physically get to me makes you think we have some sort of connection? I don’t even know who you are, Tres Coulter. Don’t kid yourself, or invent things that really aren’t there. Go home. Go back to your mansion or wherever you came from. Leave me alone. I don’t need you. I didn’t need you fifteen years ago, and I sure as hell don’t need you now.” She jerked her arm free and fled toward her house.

Stunned by her outburst, he stood dumbfounded until she neared the porch. Then he stepped toward her, “I can’t give up on you, Jenna Privett.”

Straightening her spine, she glared and shot back, “It’s Jenna Austin. And you have no claim to her.” She shoved at his chest, but couldn’t move his bulk. Frustrated, she stomped her foot, a strangled cry escaped from her throat and caused Tres to back away. At his withdrawal, she fled, slamming and locking her heavy front door. She slid to the floor, buried her face in her hands, and she sobbed wretched, wrenching sounds that tore through her throat.

Chapter
5

For Tres, it was a long walk back to his hotel, although in distance, it was less than a mile. He undressed and crawled into bed. Lying on his back, he stared into the darkness and replayed the evening moment by moment. Confused and restless, he sat up and planted his feet on the floor. Squeezing his temples with the palm of his hands, he tried to push the thoughts of Jenna from his mind. He wanted to shut her out of his life again…this time forever.

“What does she have to be so pissed about?” Tres asked himself as he stood, jaw locked, shoulders stiff. The walls of the hotel room closed in on him, the air grew increasingly heavy, and the lonely room offered no answer to his question. Pulling on his pants and shirt, he decided he would join Russ’s party.

He knew the place Russ invited him; well enough to make him first decline the invitation out of fear of opening too many wounds in one weekend. But really, he wondered as he paced, what was one more bleeding sore to take home and nurse?

The diner Russ invited him to was once rated in the top five of Tres’s father’s favorite haunts. It worked as their hide out when they were in summer residence at Kitty Hawk. The Coulter men, Chuck and his three sons, would sneak away from the lone female in their family. During this time, no one questioned manners, used napkins, or offered reminders to sit up straight. It was man time. And if a “man,” no matter how little or big, acted outside the realm of “acceptable” gentleman behavior? Well, they had a sworn allegiance to hide it all from the mother/wife.

The sudden urge to see the ramshackle place again overwhelmed him. He missed his dad—that solid force in his life—the one person who would know how to answer the questions that plagued his mind, could offer the guidance he needed.

Tres remembered too well the day he heard the words “massive coronary” and learned that meant his father’s big heart stopped much too soon. At first he told himself the hospital was lying. For some reason, they made it up…but then no dad came to tuck him in; he didn’t even get a phone call good night. In that silence, Tres had to admit his dad truly was gone. The fun and happiness, the glow of Coulter life was extinguished in a heartbeat. A tomblike silence fell over the house after the buzz of well wishes passed. That silence bred a soul anchoring sadness. He never thought he’d feel happy again, and then a few years later he met Jenna. She gave him hope, brought the sun back to his life.

Oh, Lord, he wondered. Why did you ever bring me here? He had only agreed to come to the island because he’d be in the area on the way to his Gram’s 80th birthday. Normally he would have just sent an assistant and now he wished he had. Pausing, he considered turning around, going back to his car, and just heading on to his mother’s home in Richmond, Virginia.

“Squid!” Waving with both hands, a man stood on the diner’s deck smoking a cigarette. “Been takin’ turns watchin’ for ya. We all know politicians don’t know which end is up, so we expected ya to get lost.”

“About did, Les, just about did.”

“Well, you’re here now, come on in. Party’s started.”

The place smelled just as Tres remembered: old wood, smoke, and hot grease. The floorboards—once
roughhewn
planks—were worn smooth after years of sweeping, scrubbing, and oiling. The place had a masculine air with glassy-eyed fish and old tin ads for alcohol covering the walls. The round pedestal tables were covered in slabs of dark solid wood with mismatched chairs tucked under it. The place hadn’t been redecorated for decades, but had withstood enough time to no longer be outdated. It had, through persistence, become a classic.

“Hey, squid boy, over here,” Russell said and waved Tres over.

Tres grinned at the nickname in spite of his mood, grateful to have camaraderie with some other souls on this earth. It felt good to belong, even if he’d just met these people today. Sadly, he felt more connected to Russ and his workers than he did to anyone else in his life right now. He took a chair and motioned the waitress to the table.

“A Coke, please.”

“Coke? Boy, we shut this whole place down for a private party. We’re bootleggers! Order a whiskey; drink like a man!” Russ clapped Tres’s shoulder with such voracity Tres’s whole body moved with each pat.

“All right then, a whiskey. With a beer chaser.”

“There ya go.”

The waitress returned quickly, leaning close to Tres as she placed his order on the table. Her breasts rubbed his arm as she set the drinks in front of him. Distracted from his thoughts by some primal instinct, he turned his attention to her. Her coquettish smile nearly made him blush. Tres supposed she was cute, although her hair was too short and the unnatural shade of red was too harsh, and her eyeliner was a bit heavy. Her body was nice, in a compact sort of way, but it was nothing compared to the willowy limbs of the woman he’d just held.

He took a deep breath and reminded himself Jenna belonged in the past. He couldn’t let her keep intruding. How would he ever move on if every woman had to be compared to his image of perfection? He didn’t attempt to jump into the conversation, concentrating instead on the mug in front of him. Downing the first round of drinks, he ordered two more. These were brought quickly and he tossed them back wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and letting loose a seemingly endless belch.

“Thirsty?” Russ asked.

“Not really,” Tres said with a smile. “Ran into Jenna again. Another crash and burn.”

Russell squirmed in his seat, “Well, ya’ better slow down son and pace yourself with the booze, or you’ll be findin’ yourself under the table by midnight.”

Tres leaned across the table with a most serious expression, “Does it really matter where the hell I end up?” Falling back against his chair, he signaled the waitress. Russ tried to wave her off but she appeared and seemed more than happy to bring the handsome man another round of drinks.

“Look, son, I came here to relax, and I can’t relax watchin’ you soak yourself in liquor. How’s bout you tell me the whole story of what’s ailin’ ya, and I’ll say ‘poor baby’ then you can go sleep off the booze and feel like a real ass in the morning.”

“Nothing to tell, really, just like you said, Jenna has no interest in any man, especially me.”

“I take it you’ve more than a bit of history with the girl, or do you always flip this easily over a pretty face?”

“She is my history,” Tres answered honestly and less articulately than usual. He wished he understood how it was possible to love someone so much when she thoroughly despised him.

“So, you knew her pretty good?”

Tres nodded and explained with his thickening tongue, “She was my first love. I was crazy about her. We made plans. We were going to go to college together. Then after college we’d get married. It seemed perfect. She was supposed to come to my mom’s party to meet my family, but she never showed up. I wrote her, and I called... hell, I even came down to her house in Kitty Hawk and tried to find her. It was like she disappeared. The house was empty, and there was no sign of her.” Tres rubbed his eyes and continued, “Then my mother showed me her wedding announcement in the local paper.”

“So, she jilted ya’, huh?”

“Yep,” Tres said as he swirled the remainder of the amber liquid in the bottom of his glass.

“Tossed ya over for Jake, eh?”

“That surprise you, or do you just like rubbing it in?” Tres asked. Russell hesitated before answering. “I like you, Tres Coulter. And like I said, I don’t like speaking ill of the dead. But then I s’pose being honest ain’t so bad. It’s not like Jake ever seemed to be bothered by who he was. Surely didn’t give a damn about what people thought of him. So I guess I ain’t speakin’ too far outta turn...” Russell shifted in his seat and took a swallow of beer.

Russell began slowly, but built momentum as he spoke, “Now, like I said, I liked Jake. He was a good enough sort, though he preferred to drink and carouse more than he cared to put in a day’s work. But now, he always had a joke or a tale to tell. Easy man to get along with. Never found any fault with him ‘til he married Jenna. I’d never met her before then, her being from Kitty Hawk and all. But once I did, it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out Jake had struck gold. Most men would be tickled to have a wife like her.” Russ paused and took a long breath and lit a cigarette. He appeared to think for a moment before continuing on.
“But not Jake,” he added with a frown. “He never grew up. Never changed any of his ways. Definitely made a body wonder why he didn’t take better care of his family. But I still liked him. It was hard to dislike him.” Russ’ words weighed heavy with remorse, a fact not lost on Tres. “It was just hard to justify how he treated her. More than once I thought about grabbing him by the shirt collar and telling him to grow up. He was married. It was high time for him to step up and be a man and stop cavorting with loose women . It wasn’t right to make a fool out of a wife who was loyal and dependable. I knew...hell, the whole town knew what he was up to. Sure, he did all his partying in Elizabeth City, but that didn’t matter. Buxton might be separated from the mainland by water, but word spreads.”

“And I’m the bad guy? What’s wrong with her Russ?”

Russ shrugged. “Hell if I understand women, son. She must have loved him an awful lot. Maybe it was because he helped her with her daddy and her sister. I don’t know. But I know she was loyal to him…he wasn’t loyal at all to her. Breaks your heart really. I bet she even lost her dad over Jake.”

“What do you mean?”

Russ cleared his throat and explained, “Now, it’s not that I pay much attention to the hub-bub, but I am a married man, so I have to hear about such things.” Russell rolled the end of his cigarette in the ashtray bringing it to a perfect tip. “The summer they got married was a hell of a summer. I don’t think the gossip has ever been so wild. The whole town buzzed. And my wife, she was like a dog with a fresh bone. I suppose life here’s too boring, though we’re surrounded by strangers for half the year.”

Tres leaned forward, his elbows on the table.

Russ continued, “It all started with Jake dating Jenna’s sister, Angel. Now everybody knows just how wild and crazy most
preachers’
daughters are, but this girl, whoa...she was a real prize. Danced damn near naked on a bar in Nags Head.” Russell flicked the ash from the tip of his cigarette and sighed. “Hell, her antics were well beyond typical bad girl and though they lived up in Kitty Hawk, people in Buxton were shocked. And of course we all knew Jake and knew Jake kept runnin’ with the girl even though his momma and her daddy were against it. Poor Maureen asked a few of us men…Jake’s daddy died when he was a boy… to go up to fetch Jake home more than a few times. We damned near hog tied him and brought him home once. He fought us so bad, he damned near wore out three grown men. Well, we turned him loose and he was gone again before dawn, snuck out when Maureen went to bed.” Russ shook his head. “And unfortunately, Angel died that same night of a drug overdose.” He sighed and rubbed his chin. “Damned shame to lose a girl so young. Beautiful girl too. Just didn’t give herself time to grow up and get a little smarts about her.”