by Lisa Jackson
Max had convinced himself that he was over Skye, that when she’d driven away from Rimrock and left him in her dust, he was over her. But he’d been wrong. Seeing her again had only proved that point all too well.
Interrupting his troubled thoughts, Hillary stretched and yawned. As if she was able to read his mind, she said, “You liked that lady.”
“What lady?”
“The one in the restaurant.”
Max’s teeth ground together. “I knew her a long time ago.”
“Did you like her then?”
He didn’t believe in lying to children. “I used to like her a lot.”
“More than Mommy?”
“I knew her before I met your mommy.” That was stretching the truth a bit, but not much.
“So why were you so mad?”
“I wasn’t.”
“You looked mad,” Hillary accused.
“Did I? Well, I’ll have to work on that, won’t I?” he said as the truck rolled past the sign welcoming one and all to Dawson City.
Hillary turned her head, stared out the window and saw the familiar landmarks of the town where she now lived. A dark cloud seemed to settle over her small shoulders. She caught her father’s eye and pouted, crossing her chubby arms defiantly. “I don’t want to go back to Mommy’s house.”
“It won’t be for long. I’ll pick you up on Friday,” he said, hoping to keep the conversation light but knowing that it would deteriorate as it always did. It wasn’t that Hillary didn’t love Colleen and vice versa, but Colleen, with two-year-old twins and a demanding husband had more than she could handle already. “I hate Mommy’s house.”
Max swallowed. He despised this separation every Sunday night. “You don’t hate—”
“I do! I want to live on the ranch with you and Aunt Casey,” she insisted as she did every time he took her home. “I hate Frank!”
“Frank’s all right.”
“He hates you.”
“Enough with the hating, okay?” Max said tightly. Truth to tell, he didn’t much like Colleen’s second husband, either. Frank Smith was a blowhard with a quick temper, which hadn’t improved with the birth of his twin girls. He’d been hoping for a boy and hadn’t bothered to hide his disappointment when Mary and Carey had come along. According to Hillary, he was talking about having another baby.
What Colleen did with her life was her business. When it affected Hillary, it was Max’s.
He pulled up in front of a two-story frame house located just within the city limits. The yard was overgrown and toys littered the sun-bleached grass.
“Please don’t leave me, Daddy,” Hillary said, her little chin trembling and tears filling her eyes.
His guts twisted painfully. “I’ll be back.”
“But not for five days.”
“I know, but you know how to count, don’t you?” He reached into the pocket of his work shirt for his weekly bribe and inwardly cringed that he was reduced to playing this silly game. She held out her hand expectantly and her tears dried surprisingly quickly. Max wondered, as he did every Sunday night, if he was being conned by one of the masters. “Okay, here you go—five candy sticks. You can have one each afternoon, and by the time the last one is gone—”
“The peppermint one,” she said, her eyes suddenly dancing.
“What happens?”
“You’ll come get me!”
“That’s right, dumplin’.”
She flung her soft little arms around his neck and encased him in the scents of baby shampoo and dirt. Though he always made her bathe before they returned to Colleen’s house, the grit of the ranch seemed to stick to her. His heart seemed to rip into a thousand pieces, as it always did when he dropped her off.
He carried her through the gate and up two steps to the front porch, where she leaned over and rang the bell— their Sunday night ritual. There was a loud crash and a baby started screaming loudly.
“Shut up!” Frank yelled from somewhere in the back of the house.
“The twins are dweebs,” Hillary said.
“They’re just little.”
The door swung open quickly. Colleen’s usually neat hair was rumpled, her lipstick long since faded. She was carrying one crying two-year-old while the other clung to the back of her legs, peeking up at Max and wailing, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy.”
“Well, come on, Hillary, hurry up,” Colleen said. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”
The baby on her hip let out a whimper of protest and Max felt Hillary’s legs clamp more tightly around him.
“It’s okay,” Max said to his daughter, and Colleen blew her bangs out of her eyes.
“Of course it’s okay,” she said a little harshly, then seemed to melt. “Just let me put Mary in the playpen—she bumped her head, but she’s fine now.”
“Noooo!” Mary screamed as Colleen deposited her into a playpen pushed into a corner of the living room. The second little girl, Carey, Max presumed, still clung to one of Colleen’s legs. “Now there, did you have fun at Daddy’s?” Colleen asked as she took Hillary from Max’s arms and set her on the floor.
Hillary was still clutching her candy sticks in a death grip. She sent a pained look to her father, then answered, “Lots of fun. I rode Cambridge and played with Reuben and—”
“Good, good, well, come along. Supper’s almost on the table.” Colleen raised her eyes to meet Max’s worried gaze. “Goodbye,” she said without a trace of a smile. “Next time, forget the candy, okay? I don’t need trips to the dentist.” She shut the door quickly, cutting him off from his daughter. Max’s fingers curled into angry fists of frustration.
Not that he blamed Colleen. She’d tried to make him happy, he supposed, but he’d never loved her. Not as much as he’d loved Skye, and Colleen had sensed it. Their marriage had foundered, not so much from dissatisfaction as apathy, and Max had always felt that he’d failed Colleen, Hillary and himself.
Jaw clenched so tightly it hurt, he strode back to the pickup and drove away from the shaded sidewalk. Storm clouds were gathering in the Blue Mountains, and as he crested the hill just outside of town, the first fat drops of rain hit the dusty windshield and thirsty ground.
He flipped on his wipers. Just then an old love song, which had been popular years ago when he and Skye were dating, drifted plaintively from the radio. Old, nearly forgotten memories surfaced. Despite all his efforts, he couldn’t keep his thoughts off Skye. With intelligent, hazel eyes that seemed to cut right to his soul, and tousled blond hair that framed a flawless face, she was, and always had been, the most interesting and frustrating woman he’d ever met. He’d fallen in love with her completely, without guarding his heart.
And though it had turned out his father was right about her temperament, seven years ago Max had loved her with a passion that scared the bejesus out of him. She’d meant everything to him, but she hadn’t felt the same. She’d left Rimrock suddenly, never once glancing back over her shoulder.
Well, maybe she had, he thought sullenly as the wipers slapped the drizzling rain from the gritty windshield. The letter he’d just found the other day seemed to indicate that she’d had a few doubts of her own.
Damn the old man for lying to him. His back teeth gnashed together when he considered all the years gone by that his father hadn’t said a word about Skye’s letter. Not one goddamned word.
A prince among men, Jonah McKee.
Skye was back, Hillary was unhappy, and his mother was convinced that the old man had been murdered.
It had been one helluva week.
And it was only Sunday night.
The clinic had changed in the past seven years. It had originally been housed in the basement of Doc Fletcher’s home, but after Skye had moved from Rimrock, Fletcher had leased the renovated single-storied complex on the adjoining property. Carpeting now covered the old linoleum hallways and new Formica cabinets replaced the metal cupboards that Skye remembered from the old house.
Doc Fletcher gave he
r the guided tour, showing off the four examining rooms, reception area and finally his office. He shepherded her inside and closed the door behind them without missing a beat.
“—and of course some of the equipment needs to be replaced,” he was saying, “but everything’s still operational and should last a few more years. We send all our lab work to Bend and any injury we can’t handle goes to the hospital in Dawson City. There’s the local ambulance service in town, all volunteer, and then we have life-flight capabilities thanks to a local helicopter service.” Shedding his white jacket and hanging it on a peg near the door, he kept talking. “So we’re not as backward as you might think—or as isolated.” He used his fingers to comb his white hair while he ambled to his worn leather chair.
His desk was littered with open medical books, mail, patient charts, notes to himself, and folders. “I trust my accountant sent you all the records you need, including the information on the apartment house, right?”
She nodded. “I looked them over, then had a C.P.A. and my lawyer go over everything.”
“Good, good.” He seemed vastly relieved. “Let’s take a look around the house and then we’ll set up a meeting with my lawyer tomorrow. You can move in whenever you like. The main-floor apartment is vacant.” He extended his hand and Skye clasped it firmly, though she felt as if she was sealing her fate in a town where she would never be wanted, might never belong.
Fletcher punched a button on his intercom, explained to his receptionist-secretary that he’d be gone for about twenty minutes, then led Skye out the rear door. A concrete pathway parted overgrown laurel hedges and ended up at the back porch of a three-storied home built sometime in the early part of the 1900s. The broad back porch was enclosed by windows and sagged a little on one side.
He opened the door and stepped into a kitchen that hadn’t been updated in thirty years. The linoleum was cracked but clean, and the appliances looked as if they’d been new in the early sixties. “Like I said, it needs a little work.” Fletcher guided her through an arch to a dining room with a bay window and a view of an overgrown grape arbor. The living room, adjacent to the dining room, was graced with a fireplace surrounded by tile and carved wood. He led her through French doors to a sun porch and then on to the bedroom and a bath with a claw-footed tub.
“As you know, two of the units on the second floor are occupied, the third is vacant and needs work, and the unit in the basement—well, I won’t lie to you. It needs to be gutted and reconstructed. I worked a deal with Jenner McKee. He’s already signed a lease, and for free rent he’ll do all the labor involved. He’s kind of a jack-of-all-trades now that his rodeo career has—”
Jenner McKee? As in Max’s brother? “I thought you said it was unoccupied.”
“It was, but Jenner needs a place to rest his boots for a few months, though he hasn’t moved in yet. This isn’t a fact, of course, but rumor has it that old Jonah cut the kid completely out of his will. They had a falling out a few years back and...oh, hell, here I am spreading town gossip and I don’t know what I’m talking about.” He offered a sheepish smile. “For all I know, Jenner could be loaded. Anyway, I thought since the basement needed fixing and he was looking for a place...is there a problem?”
What could she say? That she didn’t trust anyone by the name of McKee? That she needed to keep the entire family at a distance? In this town? Who was she kidding? She’d only met Jenner a few times, but knew his reputation. A bad apple. The black sheep. Trouble from the get-go. But what was done was done and she’d rather deal with Jenner than his brother. “I’m sure there’ll be no problem,” she lied.
Fletcher clapped his hands together. “That’s fine then. The McKees, they’re all good people,” Fletcher continued as they walked down a concrete stairwell to the lower unit. “Besides, I thought you might like an able-bodied man around, you know, to—” He stopped short, obviously seeing the censure in her eyes.
“Look, I appreciate everything you’re doing for me, Dr. Fletcher, but since we’re going to be working together, I think you should know a few things about me. The first is I don’t need a man.”
He shuffled his feet and had the decency to color behind his ears. “I didn’t mean to imply that you did. Hell, you’ve been through medical school. In my time, few women dared even apply, but...oh, well. Didn’t mean to offend you.”
“No offense taken,” she lied again.
He twisted a key in the lock and held the door open for Skye. He hadn’t been kidding. The place was a mess. Most of the floor tiles were cracked or missing, exposing the dingy concrete below. The place smelled musty, the low ceiling sagged in several spots, and the old paneled walls were filthy and scratched. Some of the panels had fallen from the framework, revealing the dirty pink insulation. Ancient pieces of furniture and cabinets from the days when Fletcher’s medical practice had been housed down here were stacked in a corner, and probably the homes of several nests of mice. The windows looked as if they hadn’t seen any glass cleaner or a sponge for years. The smell was awful, a blend of mildew and dust and oil, and a bucket had been set in the middle of the floor to collect drips from an old pipe that drizzled rust and water.
“I have an inspector’s report on this place,” Fletcher said, suddenly embarrassed by the mess. “I’m replacing the roof and some of the porch beams where he found dry rot. I’ll put up new gutters, as well, and install two new water heaters.” He pointed to the ceiling. “These pipes will go. New ones will be installed and the insulation replaced where it’s coming away from the walls. Other than that, it’s up to you. I’ve already moved over to Hanover Meadows, so you can move into my old apartment tomorrow if you like. If the deal falls through, well, we’ll work out something for your rent.”
“It won’t fall through,” she said with a streak of conviction that surprised her. Suddenly she wanted very much to own this old house.
He cleared his throat. “I know there’s lots of work to be done, but I think the price is fair.”
Walking through the dingy basement unit, Skye didn’t argue. He was willing to sell the house below market value in order that she take over his lease for the clinic. She’d hired her own inspector to check out both buildings, so she knew that Fletcher was being honest with her.
But she hadn’t expected to have to deal with a McKee on a daily basis. Thank God it was Jenner and not Max.
Lugging two baskets of fruit, coffee and cookies up the stairs, Skye told herself that she was making the right move. Fletcher hadn’t bothered to introduce her to any of her tenants and she wanted to meet each one on friendly terms.
There were three units on the second floor, each with one bedroom; one unit was unoccupied. She rapped softly on the door to the left. Through the door she could hear the sound of rock music, which was immediately switched off.
She saw an eyeball in the peephole, and then the door opened as far as the chain would let it. A girl about thirteen looked through the crack. “Yeah?”
“I’m Skye Donahue and I wanted to meet you. I’m going to be your new landlord.”
“Mom’s not here.” The girl, whose face was covered with freckles, didn’t bother to smile.
“Oh, well...”
“You probably won’t want to talk to her, anyway. All she does is bitch about this place.”
“All the more reason to meet her. I’d like to find out all about your apartment—what you like and what you don’t like.”
The girl’s eyes narrowed. “She don’t like anything about it. Neither do I.”
“What’s your name?”
Hesitation. Finally she said, “Paula.”
The teenager’s attitude grated on Skye’s nerves, but she managed the cool smile she’d learned in medical school. “Well, Paula, maybe you could give her this basket and ask her to come down to the first floor and meet me. We could have coffee or something.”
“Great.” The girl rolled her eyes, reluctantly opened the door and held out her hand. Skye handed her t
he basket and the door was promptly slammed in her face. A few seconds later, the sound of heavy metal music seeped through the door.
“Great is right,” Skye muttered under her breath. She turned and knocked on the door across the hallway. It was opened immediately as if the tenant had been lurking near the door, waiting.
A woman barely five feet tall, with gray hair tinged a soft apricot shade, stood on the other side of the threshold. “You’re the new landlord,” she guessed, blinking through thick, rimless eyeglasses.
“Yes, Skye Donahue.” Skye extended her hand, and the seventyish woman pumped it enthusiastically.
“Ruth Newby, and boy am I glad you’ve bought this building. Now maybe something will be done about my hot water heater, if that’s what you call it. Why, it barely keeps the water tepid, and I’ve got a window that rattles something fierce when the wind kicks up, not to mention that there are rats...huge rats in the cellar. Some of them have climbed up the drainpipe and burrowed into my furniture, I’m just sure of it!”
“Well, Mrs. Newby, I’ll try to fix anything that’s broken.”
“Good, because the oven thermostat is off by twenty-five degrees! Try to bake your grandson’s birthday cake in that! It’s a nightmare! Come in, come in, and I’ll show you everything. I’ve already prepared a list.” Mrs. Newby guided her through the small rooms decorated in green and gold, past a velvet sofa, fringed lamp shades and a gateleg table in the kitchen. “Here you go.” Mrs. Newby pulled a typewritten list from a bulletin board in the kitchen and gave it to Skye. “I certainly hope you do something about these problems. I’d hate to think that we’d have to organize a tenant grievance committee as I threatened to do with Dr. Fletcher.”
“But there are only two tenants.”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter.” Her lips pulled together and she wagged a finger in front of Skye’s nose. “It’s not the size that matters, it’s the voice!”
“I see. Well, I brought you this basket—”
“Oh, well. Oh, my. How lovely!” Mrs. Newby beamed as she took the basket from Skye. “Cookies and crackers and fruit and coffee. Why, aren’t you a dear? Here, sit down, sit down, and I’ll make us some of this coffee right now.” She wouldn’t take no for an answer, and Skye perched on one of the chairs while Mrs. Newby bustled around the room, setting out a plate of the cookies and perking coffee. “Isn’t this just grand,” she said as she finally lighted on one of the chairs and held up her bone china coffee cup. “Cheers.” She clinked the rim of her cup to Skye’s. “Here’s to a long and mutually beneficial relationship.”