Tom stood up. “Let me take a look at the water heater,” he said. “If it needs to be replaced, I’ll replace it myself. I mean, as long as I’m in town, I might as well do the work.”
That was a good idea. If he simply gave Angela a check, the money would be spent on anything but the water heater. She’d color her hair or get her nails done and buy a new dress, betting that the ridiculous makeover would help her snag a rich husband from the crowd down at the fancy-schmancy four-star Baldwin’s Bridge Hotel. She’d take the gamble, hoping the payoff would bring the end to all their money troubles.
Yeah, right.
Oddly enough, the times Angela did okay were when she had just enough money to scrape by. It was the large sums of money that got her dreaming, and it wasn’t long until those dreams shattered, spiraling them down into the depths.
No doubt Tom had figured that out, too.
“It’s in the basement.” Angela opened the door and led the way down the creaky stairs into the musty dank.
But Tom didn’t follow, not right away. “I’m right behind you,” he called to his sister, then turned back to Mallory, pulling a fold of bills from the pocket of his cargo shorts. “Money for groceries.” He took out several hundred dollars.
But before he gave it to her, he took the cigarette out of her mouth and stabbed it out in an overflowing ashtray.
“Guess what,” he said. “You’re quitting smoking. As of today. When you join the Navy, first thing you’ll do is get in shape. And trust me, it’ll be easier if you’re not a smoker.”
She sucked on her front tooth, giving him her best you-bore-me-completely look. “You’re nuts if you think I’m actually going to volunteer to let assholes like you order me around.”
He laughed, grabbed her arm, and gave her a zerbert on the inside of her elbow, the way he might’ve done when she was seven. It tickled and the farting noises were so realistic she couldn’t keep from laughing.
“You’re such a jerk,” she told him.
He slapped the money into her hand. “It’s a chance to get out of here,” he said, suddenly serious. “And to do it completely on your own.”
To her horror, her eyes filled with tears. God, she wanted to escape, sometimes more than anything.
“Tommy, I’m standing down here in the dark!”
He turned away, pretending not to notice that Mallory was milliseconds from bursting into tears, giving her the space he thought she needed rather than pulling her into his arms.
God, she wished someone would hold her like she was five years old again and tell her everything was going to be okay. It was a lie, but it had always been a good lie, and for a minute, even for just a few seconds, she would feel safe.
“Think about it,” he said again, heading down the stairs.
Right. Mallory was going to do nothing but. Except thinking wouldn’t bring her any closer to doing. Because if she left, if she wasn’t around to buy groceries and sometimes even pay the rent with the money from her stupid paychecks from the stupid Ice Cream Shoppe, what would happen to her mother?
Mallory pushed her way out the door, angry as hell at the world. And angry at Tom for trying to give her hope when it was so effing obvious that everything sucked, and that nothing would change.
David Sullivan sat on a bench by the Ferris wheel, watching as most of the college-aged crowd of Baldwin’s Bridge walked by.
He had his sketch pad and pencils with him, but despite the freak-show feel of the small-town church carnival at this hour of night, he hadn’t yet taken them out of his backpack.
It was after ten, and he worked the early-morning shift at the hotel restaurant. He had to be dressed and ready to wait tables at 4:30 A.M. The room filled remarkably considering the hour. Golfers and sport fishermen. Leathery tan and rich, with big laughs and bigger wallets.
He had to move fast to get everyone on their way to the golf courses and the marina on time. Between 5:15 and 6:30, there was a bit of a lull, with a few golfers with slightly later tee times clogging their arteries with generous servings of steak and eggs. At 6:30, the women would appear, wearing tennis whites, sweaters tied around their necks. After 8:00, the sunbathers came and ordered coffee and toast. By 10:30 breakfast would be over. He would punch out, done for the day, having earned a small fortune in tips to add to his publishing fund. Another fifteen weeks, he’d have enough money saved, and Nightshade could become a reality. Problem was, there were only four more weeks before he had to be back at college.
He was thinking about getting a second job, maybe working more shifts, but he was already exhausted.
Almost every day he would vow to take a nap in the afternoon, but invariably something would catch his attention, and he’d start drawing. Before he knew it, it would be closing in on midnight again, and he’d be facing another very short four hours of sleep.
David stood, ready to be smart for once and head for his summer rental—a studio apartment on the third floor of a house two blocks from the hotel—when he saw her.
He had to be honest with himself, it was her body that first caught his eye. She was wearing one of those little nothing, clingy, thin-strapped tank tops. It was black, and so was the bra she wore underneath, its straps clearly visible.
In short, she was stacked.
She was tall, with shoulders that looked as if she could consider playing pro football without the pads. The muscles in her arms were well defined, and he would’ve guessed she was a weight lifter—except for the fact that she didn’t have muscular pecs. Instead, she had real breasts.
And that was the understatement of the new millennium.
She had a jeans jacket tied by the sleeves around her waist. It helped gravity drag her baggy pants even lower on her hips, leaving a wide gap between her waistband and the bottom edge of her shirt. That gap revealed the soft smoothness of her stomach, and the fact that her belly button was pierced. The streetlight overhead made the bluish stone she was wearing sparkle.
Her face was hidden by a short, purposely ragged mess of dark black hair. Her chin and mouth—the only features he could see—were pixieish, her chin pointed and her lips delicate in direct contrast to her lush figure.
As David watched her from the other side of the church parking lot, she stopped walking and lit a cigarette, her movements quick, angry. She took a drag, then, still angrily, impatiently, she threw the cigarette down and moved swiftly away.
He shouldered his backpack, determined to go home, when she suddenly spun around. She went back to the cigarette, but it had rolled into a puddle.
“Shit,” he heard her say, her voice exactly as he’d imagined it—slightly husky, low pitched. Sexy.
She fumbled in her pockets, took out another cigarette, and lit it.
As she did, she turned slightly, lifting her head to look up at the Ferris wheel. Her hair fell back and the overhead street lamp lit her face.
And David stopped breathing.
It was the face he’d been looking for.
She was exotically pretty, with enormous eyes and wide cheekbones that tapered quickly down to that extremely pointed, delicate chin and almost tiny, doll-like nose and mouth. Her skin was pale, which made her dark eyebrows stand out. She looked otherworldly, particularly with the rows of glittering piercings in her ears.
As he watched, she took another long drag on the cigarette, and then threw it on the ground and crushed it with her clunky-heeled boot.
Swearing like a sailor, she stomped away, only to stop several feet away and light yet another cigarette.
Completely intrigued, all thoughts of a good night’s sleep forgotten, David shifted the strap of his pack higher on his shoulder and followed her deeper into the carnival grounds.
Kelly was sitting in the backyard, on the tree swing, when the lights went on in Joe’s cottage.
Tom was home.
Joe and Charles were still out at their weekly card game. Charles had awakened and had actually come into the kitchen at dinnertime,
leaning heavily on the metal walker Kelly had put in his room for him.
She’d been preparing him a tray when he’d appeared. Chicken broth, a salad she knew he wouldn’t touch, a power shake, and an array of his favorite, enticing desserts. He didn’t say a word about the walker, and she clamped her mouth tightly shut and didn’t mention it either.
He’d simply taken a few obligatory sips of the power shake she’d made him. Then he’d headed out toward the driveway, mumbling about the card game, grumbling something about how someone had to keep track of Joe, make sure he didn’t go shooting off his damn fool mouth.
Kelly had seen no point in trying to talk Charles out of leaving. Even if lying at home in bed would extend his life by a minute fraction, at this point an extra week of staring at his bedroom ceiling didn’t seem worth it. The man was going to die. He might as well do exactly what he wanted for as long as he possibly could.
As if Kelly could ever talk her father out of doing exactly what he wanted.
Besides, she had her pager on, and Joe had her number.
They’d left in the station wagon, and Tom had gone with them, getting a ride to his sister Angela’s house.
Tom.
Kelly gazed at the lights blazing from the windows of Joe’s cottage—lights Tom had turned on.
What was it about Tom Paoletti that got under her skin?
Just seeing him today had done something to her. It had woken her up, brought her back to life. The evening air smelled sweeter, the sounds of the crickets louder, brighter. The stars that were starting to twinkle through the hazy clouds overhead seemed close enough to reach out and touch.
Kelly had to laugh at the sheer poetry of it all—particularly since everything she was feeling could be traced to one extremely basic and base need.
Sex.
Fifteen minutes alone in a room with Tom Paoletti, and she couldn’t keep herself from thinking about sex. One small smile from the man, and she was fifteen years old all over again, discovering the true meaning of the word lust as she sneaked a peek at his incredible body while he worked in the yard.
But the man had the power to move her in a way that was more than merely sexual. Just this afternoon, as she’d watched from the kitchen window, he’d greeted his great-uncle out on the driveway with an unabashedly unembarrassed embrace. The two men, young and old, had held each other tightly for a good long time.
Maybe it was their Italian heritage that set them apart from the cold-as-ice Ashtons, but Kelly couldn’t remember ever seeing her father wrap his arms around anyone—male or female—in such a public and emotional display of affection.
Worst of all, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d greeted someone with a warm embrace. Even when she was married, she hadn’t hugged or kissed Gary in public. Even in private, unless they were in bed, he’d been aloof. He’d been a lot like her father—filled with chilly Beacon Hill propriety.
The lights went on in an upstairs window of the cottage, in the room that had been Tom’s throughout his years of high school. Kelly well knew which windows were his. She’d spent most of those same years fascinated by him—that grandnephew of Joe’s who came to live with him because he couldn’t get along with his stepfather and because his mother couldn’t control him. That wild Paoletti kid with his hair down his back and his penchant for getting all the teachers and administrators in school steaming mad at him. Kelly had been aware of his presence in Joe’s little house down by the gate with every fiber of her being.
She looked up into the tree branches above her, at the tree house Joe had built with her the summer she’d turned ten. She’d spent many an evening up in her hideaway, dreaming about Tom Paoletti.
And the fact that from her tree house she had an unobstructed view into Tom’s bedroom window had certainly helped solidify those fantasies. She’d seen Tom in only his underwear more times than he could imagine. And yes, once or twice she’d even seen him naked, too.
Kelly looked into the tree again. She hadn’t gone up there in years. But she didn’t need to climb a tree to know that Tom would still look beyond hot without a stitch of clothing on.
Tom Paoletti.
She could remember the magical day she’d spent with him the summer after freshman year as if it were yesterday. The day—and the night. Through the years, she’d followed the news Joe had shared with her about Tom. And yeah, maybe she’d paid particular attention to the fact that he’d never gotten married, that he’d never even so much as brought a woman home with him, that he always described all his many brief relationships to Joe as “nothing special.”
He was, after all, Tom Paoletti. And as nice and kind as he’d once been to her, as many medals and honors and awards he won in the Navy, he still had a wild streak that ran deep.
Back in high school, she’d seen him out along the road by the beach more times than she could count, racing past on his Harley, the wind whipping his hair out behind him. She wanted to feel that exhilaration, taste that kind of speed. She wanted to fly like that with him.
She’d ridden on the back of his motorcycle just once. And she’d all but begged him to take her flying along that beach road. But he’d just laughed and kept his speed well beneath the posted limit.
Almost seventeen years had passed since then. And Kelly still wanted to fly with him.
She had to smile at the tackiness of that particular euphemism. Tom was home for thirty days—which would be just long enough for a perfect summer fling. At least she thought it would be. She didn’t have a whole lot of experience in that area.
She’d never spent time with a man for purely selfish reasons. Every relationship she’d ever had had been fraught with meaning and potential, and damn near quivering with importance. Just once, just once, she wanted to be with someone who didn’t give a damn about the fact that she’d graduated from Harvard Medical School at the top of her class. Just once she wanted to date a man without wondering how that growing relationship would further his—or her—medical career. Just once she wanted to be with someone a little wild, a little crazy, a little rough. Someone who wasn’t afraid of adrenaline rushes. Someone who would soul-kiss her on the beach and not give a damn who was watching. Someone who liked going dangerously fast. Someone like Tom Paoletti.
Someone exactly like Tom Paoletti.
Life was too short. Kelly was more aware of that now than ever, with her father’s impending death looming over them. She needed to make some changes, take some chances with her own life.
And what better place to start than with Tom Paoletti?
She wanted comforting arms to hold her when the night got a little too long and dark. But she didn’t want long term or heavy or complicated. She wanted simple, friendly sex, the likes of which she knew Tom could give her.
The fact that Tom was leaving in thirty days was a good thing. It set an end date to the affair—a boundary that would remind her constantly that she couldn’t let herself love him more than just a little. She liked the idea of going in with her eyes wide open, with the relationship—and its ending—clearly defined right from the start.
And as for Tom, he’d probably jump at the chance for a no-strings, short-term fling. She knew he was attracted to her. At least, she thought he was attracted to her. Except for the fact that he’d turned her down before . . .
But that was then, this was now. And the new, bold, chance-taking Kelly Ashton was going to take hold of this opportunity with both hands.
She’d ask him out. To dinner. Just the two of them.
The worst that could happen was he could turn her down, right?
Oh, God, what would she do if he turned her down?
But guys did this all the time. They asked women out, facing the uncertainty and potential rejection.
How hard could it be?
Kelly headed back inside, knowing that if she were a man, she’d be turning out the light in her monk’s cell in the monastery right about now.
Would she get the nerve to ask
him? She didn’t know.
The only thing she knew for certain was that this was going to be a summer she was going to remember for the rest of her life.
Four
TOM SHOWERED AND turned on ESPN in an attempt to rid himself of his relentless headache. He was reaching into the refrigerator for a beer when he heard voices out on the driveway.
Joe and Charles were back.
It was earlier than Tom had expected. In the past, their card games had been notorious for going on late into the night.
Of course, in the past, Charles hadn’t been dying of cancer.
“Have I ever asked you for anything?” he was saying angrily now, his voice reedy and thin, cutting through the quiet of the night. “Have I?”
Joe’s voice was softer, but no less intense. “Yes! All those years I kept silent . . . ? You think I wanted that medal that’s up in the attic? You think I don’t think about her every time I walk past that attic door?”
Holy shit. Charles and Joe were arguing. Joe, who barely spoke in anything longer than a monosyllable, who never lost his temper, was spitting mad and speaking in paragraphs.
Tom put his beer down on the kitchen counter and pushed open the screen door, stepping out onto the back steps. The outside air was heavy with humidity, and he had to grip the railing as a wave of dizziness hit him. Dammit, when was this going to let up?
The two old men still sat in Joe’s car, but the windows were open wide and their voices carried.
“Maybe you think I’m like you—that I’ve forgotten,” Joe continued hotly. “Well, I haven’t! I don’t take a single breath without remembering!”
Charles looked apoplectic. His face was red and he was shaking with rage. “How dare you suggest I—”
“It’s time,” Joe shouted over him. “Jenny’s gone—the truth can’t hurt her anymore. But you’re the one who’s afraid of that truth, aren’t you? It never really had anything to do with your wife.”
The Unsung Hero Page 5