Shut Up and Kiss Me (6 page)

Shala felt the moral heaviness in her chest expand, but this wasn’t wrong. It was her camera, damn it!

In the kitchen and pantry, she found all sorts of cooking appliances, but in spite of searching every nook and cranny, she didn’t find her Nikon. She did, however, learn the man had a fixation on Lucky Charms cereal. Three boxes made it a fixation. Considering her cabinet at home held two—she’d just finished one—she couldn’t judge.

With the kitchen deemed Nikon-free, she searched the television armoire in the living room. In there, she discovered
Sky’s DVDs. She expected to find a few porn flicks, but nope, adventure movies, mostly. Amazingly, she’d seen all but two.

By the time she got to the computer room, she’d made up her mind to only take the memory card if she found her camera. She should have asked him for that in the first place. She would have, too, if she hadn’t been so distracted. This way, she could still download the images and get some work done. She’d even eventually pay the fine to get her camera back, though, come hell or a freaking huge tsunami, she would not shine his shoes. None of this meant she felt Sky had any right to keep her camera, but she didn’t feel right searching his house for it while he was gone.

Closing her eyes, she sent up a small prayer that Redfoot would be okay. She remembered how he had called her Blue Eyes, and she liked the idea that he’d given her a nickname. Her granddad had called her Pumpkin. Her dad, when he was alive, had called her Princess. Something about being called by a nickname made her feel special. She vaguely remembered asking her ex if he had a nickname for her. He’d laughed and said, “Yes—my fuck bunny.” And she hadn’t even been his only fuck bunny!

Pushing the past into a mental Dumpster, she poked around the computer room. Lots of drawers and file cabinets, lots of places to hide a camera, but they held only documents and old files. She didn’t take the time to check each out; her goal wasn’t to snoop. However, shutting the desk, she accidently jarred the computer awake. She heard it yawn, spit, and come alive. The screen lit up with a picture of her. Well, not just a picture of her, but her web page. He hadn’t been lying about visiting her site. He’d definitely done his own checking out, so maybe she shouldn’t feel as bad about searching his place.

The Internet isn’t the same as rummaging through his home.

She ignored the nagging guilt and bounced out of the chair. As she turned to leave the room, she spotted framed photos on a shelf: pictures of Sky with a family. Shala looked closer, and she realized the man in the picture was Redfoot. Was he Sky’s father? Again her heart clutched with hope that everything turned out okay.

Shala next found herself standing in the door of the master suite. She could smell him here. The scent of sleepy male skin filled her nose, and light from the hall sprayed inside. Her gaze caught on an unmade king-size bed with dark tan sheets and a darker, mussed comforter. For just a second, she allowed herself to imagine Sky in the bed. Her imagination took it one step further and she saw herself in that bed with him.

Oh, hell! What in freaking frack was wrong with her? Had being humped by that dog turned her into a divorcée on the make? Shaking off her desire, she stepped into the room. “If I was a camera where would I be?” But her gaze stayed on the bed. The low lighting created an intimate setting.

Did Sky bring a lot of women home?
I’m not prone to telling beautiful women they can’t stay in my house…or in my bed.
That’s what he’d said. Of course Sky brought a lot of women home.

“If I were a camera, I wouldn’t be in that bed.” She hit the light switch, hoping to chase away her lascivious thoughts. Like the rest of the house, the room’s decor stood out—not like an interior decorator had spent time pulling it together, but the owner was a person of good taste.

Forcing herself to get it over with, she went to the pine chest of drawers and opened the top. It contained underwear, socks rolled into balls, and a box of condoms. The second drawer held folded shirts and shorts—neat, but not to the point of obsession. None of the other compartments held her camera, either.

She next attacked the dresser. There she found some
sweats and another box of condoms. Okay, the man liked sex. She’d already figured that out, thank you very much. Slamming the drawer, she stood straight and faced herself in the dresser mirror. “It’s my
camera
I’m looking for. And I just want the memory card.”

Shaking off her sense of guilt, she headed to the bathroom. All sorts of dirty little secrets lurked in a man’s bathroom. Standing inside it, she glanced around. He clearly had someone who came out and cleaned his house. Men didn’t keep house this well.

She checked below his sink. Only cleaning supplies. No condoms. What, he didn’t keep them in every room?

Opening the medicine cabinet, she stared at a row of over-the-counter meds. Aha! Finally. She knew the man couldn’t be perfect. There, between the Advil and peroxide, rested a tube of athlete’s foot cream. Then she looked at the john and found his second flaw. The seat lid was up. Arrest the guy right now. She knew he couldn’t be perfect.

That’s when it hit her, and hit her hard. She hadn’t been looking for her camera in here. Damn! Damn! Damn!

She stormed out of the bathroom, ready to storm out of his house and out of his life, eager to outrun the crazy feeling that her emotional insurance was about to be tested. She almost got out of the bedroom before she spotted the closet door.

“If I were a camera,
that’s
where I’d be.”

She pulled open the door. Clothes hung in neat rows, more jeans and casual shirts than dress clothes, but the three pairs of Dockers, dress shirts, and two blazers said Sky Gomez wasn’t afraid to get dressed up. On several of the hangers hung plastic covers, as if he used a dry cleaner regularly. Then her gaze hit a box tucked in back. It seemed unlikely that he would have hidden her camera there, but then again, who knew?

She found the light switch and got on her hands and knees to retrieve the box. Pulling it away from the wall,
she removed its top. Her breath caught as her eyes lit on a metal object inside. Not her camera, a gun. An old gun, resting on some old photographs. Why the weapon surprised her, she didn’t know. Sky Gomez was the chief of police.

She started to close the lid when one of the photographs caught her attention. Reaching in, she pulled out the faded image of a family of three: mother, father, and young son. Sky? She studied the boy’s face. Yes, Sky. The boy still had a baby face. Probably no more than four, he clutched the hand of his mother. The father, whom Sky mostly favored, stood a foot apart. There seemed to be some meaning to the distance. Shala studied the father, who looked part Hispanic and part white. The mother must have been where Sky got his Native American heritage.

Reaching back into the box, she pulled out the next image. This one was of just Sky, older, maybe seven, posing beside a new bike. A Christmas tree stood behind him. Shala stared at the young boy’s eyes and saw happiness in his expression. He’d really liked that bike. She recalled that the year before her parents died, she’d gotten an Easy-Bake Oven. Somewhere at her house she had a picture much like this, a smiling girl thinking everything in the world was perfect because she’d gotten what she wanted for Christmas.

Her next foray found not a photograph, but a clipping from a newspaper. The image was of a firefighter, arms tight around a struggling child. The boy had dark straight hair and the saddest eyes she’d ever seen. Sky’s eyes. Shala read the article beneath the photo.

Desperate young boy attempts to save parents from fire. Paramedics had to restrain the ten-year-old to keep him from running into the flames. Unfortunately, the recovered bodies of both father and mother showed that the cause of death was not by fire but gunshots. Police suspect a murder-suicide.

Shala’s breath caught, and a knot crawled up her throat. She stared at the gun, then again at the image of Sky. How did a child get past something like that? He didn’t, she realized. To this day she remembered being pulled from the car, still remembered walking behind that curtain to see doctors and nurses trying to bring her parents back to life.

Dropping the photographs and newspaper article back into the box, she shut the lid and scooted as fast as her backside would go out of the closet. She stood up and hugged herself, wishing she hadn’t gone in there. Eager to leave Sky’s bedroom, eager to leave his house, super eager to shake the feeling that she’d done something really wrong, she forced herself into high gear. She shot down the hall, grabbed her bag from the sofa, and headed for the door. Her hand gripped the knob just as she heard the dogs’ insistent barking from outside.

Great. All she needed to do was get mauled or humped again. Then she heard the sound of a car engine. Light beams sliced though kitchen windows, and the engine cut off. Was Sky already back? Guilt flashed through her. Should she confess what she’d done? Apologize?

She hurried to the window to see if it was Sky’s truck. Nope. It wasn’t even a truck, but a dark sedan. A dark sedan just like the one she’d seen following her earlier. Okeydokey. Panic fluttered inside her.

A man got out of the car, reached back in, and pulled out something else. An article of clothing? A ski mask. He pulled it over his face. And since Shala felt certain Mayor Johnson would have mentioned a ski resort if one existed in Precious, and since the heat index of a hundred precluded any snow in the forecast, her flutters of panic changed from butterflies to bats.

The man started toward the porch. The dogs started some serious growling. Shala’s stomach stopped fluttering and all the wings seemed to bolt up her throat.

Sky pulled into the ER parking lot five minutes after the ambulance. Fear of losing Redfoot had been sitting shotgun as he drove the six miles to the hospital.

He’d stayed behind at the house to call Jose, then run by the lodge. When he found the lock on the door broken, he’d called Pete, one of the state troopers who assisted him, to come and park by the lodge to make sure whoever had shown up wasn’t coming back to finish the job.

As Sky made his way to the hospital entrance, he thought about Jose. He didn’t judge his foster brother’s need to leave Precious. Small-town life wasn’t for everyone. And that was without even factoring in the reservation. As one of the elders’ sons, Jose was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps. Only problem was, Jose wanted an entirely different path. An architect, he wanted the glitz and glamour of the big city.

In the last two years, Sky’s foster brother had come home twice, both short visits. But at least he’d come back. In addition, he’d sent plane tickets to Redfoot to visit him on three different occasions. Redfoot had packed a bag and gone to New York to visit his son, but Sky saw the hurt in the old man’s eyes every time Jose’s name came up. Redfoot wanted his son home. Of course, Redfoot wanted a lot of things for other people’s lives. As much as Sky loved his foster father, he knew the old man’s expectations were often too much.

Walking into the hospital, Sky spotted Maria sitting in the corner looking extra worried. She shot up and across the room, wrapped her arms around his waist, and pillowed her head on his chest. The woman was a hugger, something Sky had to continually work at accepting.

“How is he?” Sky feared the tight embrace meant bad news.

Maria pulled back. “The doctors haven’t announced anything yet. The paramedics said he has a concussion. He came to on the way here. I thought they were going to have to strap him down when he realized he was in an
ambulance.” Her brown eyes welled up with tears. “I tried to go back with him in the ER, but they wouldn’t let me. I’m scared. I love that old man so much.”

Sky pulled her in for another hug. Not for him, but for her, though he’d be damned if he didn’t find some comfort in it. He closed his eyes and let himself hope that everything was going to be okay. Then he stared at the door toward the back, wanting to storm through it but knowing he’d only be in the way. “We have to believe he’s going to be fine.”

He released Maria, but she held on for a second longer. Like him, Maria had known hard times. Unlike him, the experience had made her needy.

“Did you call Jose?” she asked.

He nodded.

“And?”

“He’s booking a flight. Supposed to call and let me know when he has a time. Someone may have to pick him up at the airport tomorrow.”

“Can’t he just rent a car?” Maria asked.

Sky saw the emotion in her eyes. “He didn’t mention renting a car, but don’t worry, I’ll pick him up.” He moved Maria back to her chair.

Of all the flaws of his foster brother, this one stuck in Sky’s craw. Maria had been in love with the boy a week after she arrived to live under Redfoot’s roof. Jose, nineteen to Maria’s sixteen, hadn’t given Maria the time of day. He’d gone off to the university the next year, coming back on summers and holidays. While Maria remained crazy about him, he’d treated her like a sister, though Maria never missed the opportunity to point out that they weren’t blood related. Jose remained aloof, parading his college girlfriends home to meet the family, almost as if to discourage her. When Sky asked Jose about it, his foster brother got his nose all bent out of shape, protesting a little too much, in Sky’s opinion. And then the summer before Jose moved to New York, Sky noticed looks
passing between Maria and Jose. He had no proof, but he’d wager that the baby Maria lost had belonged to Jose.

His foster brother didn’t know how damn lucky he was that New York wasn’t a few hours away. There had been a night or two Sky might just have driven to Jose’s uppity high-rise apartment and beaten the holy shit out of him. Not just for Maria, but for Redfoot. Sky figured that if he suspected the truth about Maria’s child, so did the old man. The only thing that kept Sky from removing a couple of the boy’s lower body parts was that he didn’t think Maria had ever told Jose about the baby. She had avoided ever seeing Jose on his visits back to Precious.