Where There's Smoke (28 page)

I'm not out to impress her.
 
Besides, she's not interested in what I do.
 
She thinks flying is a hobby.
 
If I was the pilot of Air Force One, it wouldn't be good enough for her."

He returned the shot glass to the tray, his motions slow and heavy with discouragement.
 
"Jody doesn't want me here.
 
The sooner I leave, the better she'll like it."

"Please don't feel like that.
 
And don't go away with this thing festering between you.
 
She's still devastated over Clark's death, and because she can't tolerate that weakness in herself, she overcompensates by lashing out at you.

"I've always been a convenient whipping boy.
 
She hasn't liked me since the day I was born and Daddy failed to send her six dozen yellow roses.

"He hurt her, Key.
 
She loved him, and he hurt her."

"Loved him?"
 
he repeated with a bitter laugh.

Janellen looked serious and a bit puzzled.
 
"She loved him very much.

Didn't you realize that?"

Before he was able to refute her, the doorbell rang.

"It's going to get better between you.
 
You'll see."
 
She pressed his arm before releasing it.
 
"I'll get the door."

Rejecting his sister's optimism, he decided to have another whiskey.

He swallowed the shot whole.
 
It stung his throat, seared his esophagus, and in all probability would upset his stomach.
 
He didn't enjoy drinking as much as he once had.

He didn't enjoy most things as he once had.
 
When had taking a woman to bed become more trouble than it was worth?
 
He was soured on life in general and didn't know why.

He had blamed his recent disenchantment on his sprained ankle and the bullet wound in his side.
 
But his ankle only bothered him occasionally now, and his wound had healed, leaving only a little tenderness and a pink scar to remind him of it.

So what was wrong with him?

Boredom.

He had too much idle time in which to think.
 
His thoughts invariably turned to Clark's accidental drowning and all the loose ends of the theories dangling like the ragged hem of a shroud.
 
Key wanted the facts, yet was cautious not to root them out, afraid he'd learn something he didn't want to know.
 
Every rock he'd overturned lately had ugly worms beneath it.
 
He decided that some things were best left undisturbed.

Thank God he was actively flying again.
 
He hadn't flown Letty Leonard to Tyler for the publicity it would generate, but since then his phone hadn't stopped ringing.
 
He'd already flown some good contracts and had scheduled even more.
 
He didn't particularly need the money, although it was always welcome.
 
What he desperately needed was the activity and the sense of freedom that only flying afforded him.

For his peace of mind, he was in the wrong state, the wrong town, and the wrong house.
 
He wanted to find a place that was completely different from anything he'd experienced, where the language was foreign and the food was strange.
 
Some exotic place where the people had never even heard of the Tacketts.

He'd traveled all over the world searching for a place where nobody knew that he was Clark Tackett's brother.
 
It was an ongoing quest.

Eventually strangers would put two and two together.
 
"Tackett?
 
Any kin to the former senator from Texas?
 
His kid brother?
 
Well, I'll be damned."

Clark had been the measuring stick by which Key had been judged all his life.

"Key is almost as tall as Clark now."

"Key can run almost as fast as Clark."

"Key isn't as well behaved as Clark."

"Key didn't make the honor roll, but Clark always does."

He'd eventually exceeded his brother in height.
 
During adolescence, he'd surpassed him as an athlete.
 
But unfavorable comparisons had followed him into adulthood.
 
Incomprehensible as it seemed, he'd never been jealous of Clark.
 
He'd never wanted to be like his brother, but everyone else thought Clark was the example to which he should aspire.

Jody thought so more than anyone.

As a kid, it had hurt him that she so obviously favored Clark.

She'd bandaged his skinned knees but never kissed them.
 
Rather, she'd rebuked his recklessness.
 
His small gifts, the pictures he'd colored at school, were glanced at and set aside, never cherished, never taped to her vanity mirror.

When he was a teenager, he resented her coldness toward him.

Blatant disobedience and rebellion had been his way of dealing with her favoritism for Clark.
 
She only approved of him when he was throwing touchdown passes for the Eden Pass Devils, but that was self-aggrandizement and had little to do with him personally.

Off the gridiron, he went out of his way to show her just how little he cared one way or another, although deep down he cared a great deal and couldn't understand why he was so unlovable.

But with maturity came the acceptance that his mother simply didn't love him.
 
She didn't even like him.
 
Never had.
 
Never would.

He'd given up trying to analyze why, and, frankly, he didn't much care anymore.
 
That's just the way it was.
 
Clark had been caught in a bedroom scandal involving a married woman, but Key was the one accused of "whoring."

Several years ago, having finally reached the conclusion that winning his mother's tolerance, if not her love, was a lost cause, he'd decided that it would be to everyone's advantage if he made himself scarce, a decision that also satisfied his innate wanderlust.

Now, even that was being stymied.

He was restless and bored, and the questions surrounding his brother's death were tethering him to their home.
 
He needed to go looking for anonymity again, but whenever he was tempted to pack up and truck it, a vision of his sister's imploring face saddled him with guilt.

Her concerns were valid and justified.
 
Aging and the loss of control that accompanied it were frightening to a woman as strong-willed as Jody.
 
In good conscience, Key couldn't leave Janellen to handle her alone.
 
He'd come to agree with janellen's fear that Jody's forgetfulness and confusion were harbingers of something much more serious than senility.
 
If a medical crisis did occur, he'd never forgive himself if he were thousands of miles away and unreachable.
 
No matter that he wasn't her ideal of a son, Jody was still his mother.

For the time being, he belonged in Eden Pass.

"Key?"

Lost in thought, he turned at the sound of his sister's hesitant voice.

"There's someone at the door to see you."
 
She was looking at him in a peculiar, quizzical manner.

"Who is it?
 
What does he want?"

"It's a woman. chapter eleven.

Lara arched her back, stretching the stiff muscles and holding the position for several moments.
 
Gradually she relaxed and rubbed her eyes before repositioning her reading glasses on the bridge of her nose.

After eating an early dinner while watching the evening news, she had forgone watching prime time TV because it offered nothing enticing.

Any enjoyment derived from reading fiction had been sadly reduced since that morning in Virginia.
 
No novelist could conjure up a plot with as many twists, pitfalls, and calamities as those in her life the last five years.
 
It was difficult to sympathize with a protagonist whose dilemma was mild when compared to her own.

With nothing to do for entertainment, she had decided to read through her patient files.
 
The intricacies of medicine never failed to engross her.

While other students in her class had complained all through medical school, for Lara it had been like a vacation.
 
She relished the required hours of study.
 
Having unlimited access to textbooks and perplexing case histories was a luxury.
 
She gorged on them like a gourmand with an endless supply of delicacies.

Unlike her parents, none of her instructors or classmates berated her for her unquenchable thirst for knowledge, or repeatedly told her that the study of medicine was unsuitable for a well-bred young woman and that there were much more acceptable avenues of interest to pursue.

She'd graduated third in her class at Johns Hopkins, excelled as an intern, and had been offered her pick of hospitals in which to serve her residency.
 
Naturally, she'd enjoyed the grudging admiration of her colleagues, but the real reward lay in healing.
 
A grateful patient's simple "thank you" surpassed the accolades of her associates.

Heartbreakingly, those rewards came few and far between now.

That's why Lara enjoyed perusing her files, charting a patient's progress from diagnosis to cure.

She was roused by an approaching car.
 
Expecting it to drive past, she watched with puzzled interest when it entered her driveway and wound around to the rear of the clinic.
 
She laid aside her reading material and quickly left her office.
 
As she made her way through the clinic, she experienced a twinge of deja' vu.
 
This was disturbingly similar to the night Key Tackett had appeared on her threshold, his side bleeding from a gunshot wound.

It was so similar that she barely registered surprise when she opened the door to find him standing on her back steps.
 
Only this time he wasn't alone.

Lara gave the girl a curious glance, then looked at him.
 
"I keep rgular office hours, Mr. Tackett.
 
That's something you seem to forget.
 
Or ignore.
 
Or is this a social call?"

"Can we come in?"

He wasn't in a mood to spar with her.
 
A frown was pulling his eyebrows together, and his lips were compressed into a stern, narrow line.
 
If he had come alone, Lara probably would have slammed the door in his face.
 
She was on the verge of doing so anyway when she gave the girl a closer look and saw that she'd been crying.
 
Her eyes and nose were moist and red, and her face was mottled.
 
She was clutching a damp tissue so tightly her knuckles had turned white.

Beyond these visible signs of distress, she appeared to be a perfectly healthy girl in her late teens.
 
She was stoutly built, with a deep bosom and full hips.
 
Her face was pretty, or would have been if she'd been smiling.
 
Her shoulder-length hair was straight and dark.

Because of the bleak expression in her brown eyes, coupled with her obvious misery, Lara couldn't shut her out.

She stepped aside and motioned them in.
 
"What can I do for you?"

The girl remained silent.
 
Key said, "This is Helen Berry, Dr.

Mallory.

She needs a doctor."

"You're ill?"
 
Lara asked the girl.

Helen glanced furtively at Key before saying, "Not exactly."

"I can't help you unless you tell me what the problem is.
 
If it's a general checkup you need, you can be the first patient I see tomorrow morning."

"No!"
 
the girl protested.
 
"I mean .
 
. . I don't want anybody to know . . . I can't "Helen needs you to examine her."

Lara turned to Key, who'd spoken for the girl.
 
"Examine her for what?