“Well, shit,” I muttered.
“How’s it going over there?” Sully asked from two “walls” over.
“Dandy,” I said.
“Sounds it.”
“Yeah, bite me,” I mumbled.
“Need help?” said a female voice.
I turned to see Kia standing next to Sully, looking up where the slats were joined, shielding her eyes from the sun. She had on heavy work gloves, but a tank top and shorts. Because she was used to it.
“Those need to be flush,” she said, pointing. “But that’s hard to do from down here. Do you have a stepladder?”
“No,” Sully said. “Put that on the shopping list.”
“Then stoop down,” she said. “I’ll hold it.”
I didn’t know what that meant—I didn’t know if anyone else knew what that meant—but Sully knelt without question and didn’t blink when tank-top-and-shorts wrapped her legs around his neck and tapped his shoulder to tell him to rise.
It was like the circus act where the pretty lady mounts an elephant to ride around the arena. I stopped screwing. Or attempting to, since I hadn’t actually sunk one yet. Lanie did, too, sitting back on her heels to watch.
Sully rose easily, holding Kia’s right calf, and she reached out to grab the wood in question as he and his partner backed out two screws and redid them. They moved around to two other places before Sully knelt for her to dismount.
Lanie looked up at me.
“Sister,” I whispered.
“Weird,” she whispered back.
“Carnies,” I mouthed, focusing back on my screwing, thinking that kind of covered it. They really were their own kind of family, culture, and village. They had their own way of doing things, driven by limited resources and time.
It didn’t change the bolt of jealousy that shot through me like I was sixteen.
I’m a grown woman. I’m a lawyer. I am not a hormonal teenager.
“How’s that coming,” Sully asked, literally against my ear that time. I dropped the screw and damn near broke his nose with the drill.
“Shit, Sully,” I gasped.
“Sorry.”
“Is this hour of yours real or in carnie time?” I asked. “Because if you keep doing shit like that, I’m gonna be here for double that.”
Sully laughed and moved on. Again.
Okay, I was a hormonal teenager.
“Hey guys, can I get you to listen up for a quick second?” Sully called out. Conversations died down as everyone turned to see what today’s drama would entail. “I just wanted to apologize for yesterday,” he said in a low voice. “I kind of hit the wall, and I behaved badly, and I’m sorry. That’s not the kind of leadership I want to provide.” He frowned and looked down at his hands. “That was my dad’s way, actually. And not something I ever want to be, so… I hope you’ll forget you ever saw me act like such a fool.” He smiled, but his eyes weren’t quite back yet.
“Leadership?” quipped a familiar voice. It made me want to hide behind one of those walls.
Dean stood with his hands in the pockets of his slacks, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up to show off his fancy new watch. He was shaved and clean cut and definitely not dressed to work or slosh through the muddy pond bank with the protestors. So, why was he here?
“I thought the leadership was Frank Coffey,” Dean said. “Frank, weren’t you the one to kick off this little project?”
Poor Frank turned four shades of neon. “Well, Mr. Hart had the skills to—”
“Mr. Hart has no authority here,” Dean said.
“Neither does Frank,” Lanie whispered. I nodded, watching Sully’s good intentions and improved mood sink back into someplace dark. Dean was a dick.
“His skills lie in running a traveling carnival, not a waterfront entertainment and retail area,” Dean said. “But he didn’t even stick around for that. He pawned it off on his alcoholic little brother so that he could come play white picket fence with his old flame.”
“Dean!” I hissed.
Dean turned as if he hadn’t seen me, his hands still in his pockets. “Oh good, you’re here, Carmen. I’d hate for you to miss this.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. Sully stood there like he was before a firing squad. “There’s all kinds of interesting information out there when you start making phone calls,” Dean said with a satisfied grin. I knew that grin, and I knew that nothing good ever came of it.
Sully crossed his arms. “I have nothing to hide, Crestwell,” he said. “You’re the one making a scene right now, and I’m kind of busy catching up after losing an entire load of wood. Heard anything about that? Or about Bash’s hives?”
“Nope,” Dean said. “And let’s just see what you have to hide,” he added, chuckling as he held the paper out at arm’s length.
Sully leaned against a sawhorse like he might need to brace himself.
“It appears that our esteemed Sullivan Hart had quite the colorful life on the road,” Dean said. “Bailing out family right and left.” He squinted at the paper as if he hadn’t memorized the damn thing. “Daddy filed bankruptcy a few years back? Little brother had one—no, two DUI’s and a public indecency charge?”
I watched the glaze come over Sully’s face.
“Yeah, we’ve had some challenges,” Sully said. “My family’s not perfect. If yours is, feel blessed.”
“It’s not,” I said, walking forward. Sully’s expression was a mix of gratitude and old-school male ego hit. He fought his own battles and didn’t want me defending him; I got that. But Dean’s self-righteousness was enough to choke a horse.
“Stay out of this, Carmen,” Dean warned.
“Oh no, you very much included me with the ‘I’d hate for you to miss this comment,’” I said, putting my hands on my hips. “So if you’re into throwing stones, then let’s look at your house.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Sully said under his breath.
“Your sister humps a pole for a living, Dean,” I said. Snickers rippled through the crowd. A few people probably knew that, but he definitely kept a lid on it. “Do you advertise that? What about Uncle Bobby and his secret swill in the shed?”
“How dare you,” Dean said through his teeth, hands out of the pockets now, the carefree look gone. “They were once your family.”
“And not one has said boo to me in six years,” I said. “So not so much.” I turned to the crowd. “Any of you have gems to share from your closets?” I met my mother’s wary look. “I, for one, never knew my dad. And my mom has this weird fondness for overly red hair color.”
My mother smirked and chuckled as Mr. Mercer from the drugstore patted her on the head.
“My aunt had magic powers,” Lanie said, raising her hand, bringing chuckles from the crowd. Everyone knew about Lanie’s Aunt Ruby. It was just a measure of whether they believed or not.
“My cousin is a transvestite,” said Mr. Masoneaux, from the candy store. Everyone stopped and gaped on that one.
I held out a hand toward him and kept a neutral face. “So see? Mayberry doesn’t exist, not even in sweet little honey-soaked Charmed. And Sully’s family drama isn’t any different from some of ours, so—”
“Really?” Dean said, looking really put out that his little witch hunt hadn’t brought out the torches. “So you wouldn’t be interested to know that he got a coworker pregnant and then paid for the abortion?”
The words didn’t process in my head right away. It was like the word ‘pregnant’ stalled everything, putting the world in slow motion, and I had to circle the wagons to catch up. Pregnant meant sex. Sully had sex with someone. Of course Sully had sex with someone; did I think he was celibate for fifteen years? But the gasp to my left brought my gaze to Kia, who turned a sickly shade of gray with eyes full of tears.
Kia.
The like-a-sister girl.
Then I saw Lanie’s eyebrows go up, and the world sped up to real time.
“What the hell
is your problem, man?” Sully said, coming off the sawhorse like he’d been shot in the ass. “I keep trying to coexist with you here, and you have such a twisted vendetta against me that you’ll hurt other people just to get to me?”
He stopped just a foot from Dean, and my whole body tensed. My brain was spinning and my heart hurt, but the very real possibility of a brawl made me shove my feelings aside. It was the lawyer thing, ranking the priorities. I’d kick Sully in the nuts later for lying to me. Right now—
“Why, Mayor?” Sully said in a low voice, staring at Dean. “Because she loved me? Were you so insecure that you couldn’t handle not being her one-and-only?”
“Get out of my face,” Dean said, drawing out each word.
“She married you,” Sully said. “Get over it.”
“And never got over you,” Dean spat. “Try marrying that.”
It was like watching an episode of This Is Your Life, but without the sweet video playbacks and happy moments. It was horrifying. Absolutely horrifying. I tore my eyes away from the two of them to scan the faces watching the show. The shocked faces. The fascinated faces. The really fucking nosy faces. I worked very hard to keep my private life private, in spite of the fact that everyone knew my story. This was like being stripped naked in the middle of the football field during halftime. Even the Kia sideshow was a dim flicker compared to watching these two men talk about me like I wasn’t even there.
My mother was at my side; I hadn’t even seen her walk up. She linked her arm in mine. It was nice. Solidarity and all that. In a minute, I’d ask her to hold my hair so I could puke behind some shrubs.
Dean saw us, and did a double take, pulling his attention away from Sully. For a fleeting second, I thought that was going to be a good thing.
“Since you’re all so tight, Carmen,” Dean said. “I’m sure one of them has told you the truth by now.”
I blinked in confusion as my mother’s arm tensed beneath mine. Sully shook his head.
“What?”
“Don’t,” Sully said. There’s a moment of clarity right before the wrecking ball smashes into your life, when everything is crystal clear and logical. It was that moment. And without knowing the details, I knew without question what it was.
I turned to look her in the eyes. Her very frightened eyes.
“What did you do?” I asked.
Chapter Ten
“Tell her, Sully,” Dean said. “Tell her how you bailed on her because her mom paid you off.”
I jolted like I’d been struck by lightning. No way my mother would have—
“What?” my mom said, letting go of me, her attention fully on my ex-husband. “There was no money.”
“You’re full of shit,” Sully said to Dean. “Her mother never gave me a dime.”
My mouth opened, but no words came out. There was nothing. How—why—nothing. All I was, was more naked, if that was possible. I’d always been under a spotlight in this town, and now I was more bare, more stripped, more everything, because the people I thought I knew had kept something life-altering from me.
“Right,” Dean said. “Because you’d just leave a girl like Carmen behind without something to make it worthwhile. Just because her mother asked you to.”
My mind reeled. The life wasn’t for you.
“Yes, actually,” Sully said. “That’s exactly what I did.”
He turned and what looked like him pulling gravity out of the ground to do it, looked at me, a million apologies in his eyes.
“Where on earth would you think I would get money to pay off some boy?” my mom was asking—screeching—yelling. “Honestly!”
Sully held out a hand to quiet down, but she was Gerry Frost. She was having none of being outed, insulted, and shushed in one sitting.
“Put your hand down,” she said. “I’m not a child. I’m a grown woman and a mother, and if any of you ever have kids one day, I hope you never have to make a decision like that. But you do what you have to do to protect them.”
Several older people in the crowd nodded in agreement. It was surreal.
“You!” she said, pointing at Sully. “She would have followed you to the ends of the earth and jumped off with you, to hell with anything else.” Her voice cracked at the end and she stopped to gain her composure. “She was eighteen. And maybe it broke her heart and maybe I was wrong, but she was too young to make that kind of choice. To live that hard of a life.”
“I know,” Sully said. His eyes glazed over.
Her shoulders drooped. “I know you do,” she said, grabbing his hand.
It was like I was dreaming. Or dead. And watching it all on some afterlife rerun. Lanie stood next to me and took my hand.
“Honey, you’re shaking,” she whispered, squeezing my hand.
“Please tell me you don’t have a secret, too,” I whispered back, my voice trembling.
“You know all my secrets.”
“And you!” Mom said, letting go of Sully to point at Dean. “You sorry excuse for a human being.” I straightened up. Even though I felt gutted a hundred different ways, I didn’t want to miss this. “How convenient that you throw everyone under the bus but yourself, Mayor Crestwell.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dean said.
“Of course you don’t,” she said. “You’re a politician. And a bad one, by the way. You talk too much and think your petty little underlings don’t pay attention.”
“You’re babbling,” he sneered.
“We’ll get back to that,” she said, putting both hands firmly on her hips and stepping up into his space. “First, since you are all about sharing today, be sure to mention how I even found out that they were planning to leave town together. Because it sure didn’t come from my daughter,” she said, turning around to give me the eyebrow.
Like she had any right to give me the eyebrow.
When I didn’t respond, some of her cockiness drained, and she turned back to Dean with an angry expression.
“You came whining to me like a little boy, crying ‘I love her’ and ‘I can’t live without her,’ and begging me to do something to stop them from leaving,” she said, turning back to me. “He heard your plan from following you around.”
My mouth fell open.
“Oh my God,” Lanie said under her breath, grabbing my arm. “Breathe.”
“Oh, I’m breathing,” I said, stepping free of her, of everyone. Of everything. I was shaking from anger and pain and embarrassment and sadness, and none of it mattered. The only person I could trust in my entire life to be there for me and never leave—was me.
“This is absurd,” Dean said, shaking his head, but his face was as red as a beet. “I’m not staying here for this.”
“Oh and back to my babbling and your lousiness?” my mother said, turning to Dean’s red face as he backed up. “I left a message with Bash’s secretary. Anonymously, because I didn’t want to make a stir, but now I don’t care. I know you took the bees.”
Agasp went through the crowd, through me, and even Sully stepped back.
“I did no such thing,” he blustered.
Oh, Dean. This was too much. Even for you.
“Your bragging and arrogance get the best of you, Mayor,” she said. “You go on and on about what you get away with, about hiring people to do your dirty work.” She leaned into him. “You love the sound of your own voice. And people listen.”
“And my lumber?” Sully steamed.
“If I had to guess…” Mom said, shrugging. “Don’t have proof on that one, but I heard the hives are in the caves.”
“You son of a bitch,” Sully breathed.
“You people don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dean said, backing up. I recognized the panic on his face. He was guilty as hell.
“Stop!” I yelled. Everyone turned around, as if they’d forgotten I was there. Me—Carmen Frost—the common denominator in all of these cluster fucks. I was still here. I was shaking like a leaf and tears w
ere rolling down my cheeks, but I was still here. And boiling mad.
I pointed at Dean, taking a cue from my mother as I approached him. “Don’t ever, ever talk to me again,” I said, my voice not sounding like mine. “If you see me in town, walk the other way.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You were my wife.”
“And Bash was your friend,” I said. “Clearly your agendas are more important than either of those things. Go away.”
I dismissed him with a look and let my watery gaze land on my mother. “You—” I swallowed hard, the emotion slamming into me. Her betrayal hurt more. I shook my head. “You kept it all from me. All these years. You—let me believe that he just—”
“Carmen,” she said, her eyes filling, too.
“No,” I said, pushing her hands away as she reached for me. “You let me marry a stalker, even? I don’t know you!”
“Carmen!” she cried, as I turned to walk blindly toward my little stack of belongings. I passed whispers and averted looks, and I didn’t care. I was almost there when Kia stepped into my path.
I sucked in a breath. “I’m really not in the—”
“It wasn’t his,” she whispered, fresh tears welling in her eyes.
“What?”
“Of all the things, don’t blame him for that. He covered for someone else,” she finished, the tears breaking in her voice. “He’s my friend.”
I watched the pain work in her face, and I knew she was telling the truth.
“His brother,” I said.
She swiped at her face and blinked back more tears, but I saw the hurt break through the pride before she brought the walls up. I nodded and touched her arm as I kept going.
“Are we leaving?” Lanie said, appearing at my side as I reached our stuff.
“We’re so leaving.”
People were going back to their stations, working on whatever, or milling in little groups to gossip about what they’d just witnessed. It was mortifying. And as we walked by them all, there was one constant.
Sully hadn’t moved. He stood in the exact same place, arms crossed, alone again now that Dean and my mother had bolted. I had to pass him. I had to look at him. Or—I didn’t have to, but I was damn well going to.
Lucky Charmed Page 11