Wildly Inappropriate

by Eden Connor

  Answers to which questions? Dan didn't know and he still couldn't decide whether he wanted to read them, even as he held the leather-bound book and opened the cover.

  "So you play baseball, huh, Jonah? My brother played baseball, too." Cynda smiled once more at the teen, making Dan's heart twist at the way she seemed to be trying to connect with his nephew. A lot of women would've been rude to the kid, under the circumstances.

  She stepped away from Jonah to kneel by his side. Her hand caressed his back. "I think I can reach the others. Do you want me to try?"

  "Please." Dan got to his feet, taking a seat in his chair, closing the slender volume. Cynda kept talking to Jonah, and he was grateful she entertained the kid while he stared. He flipped it open again. His mother's handwriting still looked familiar to him after all these years. She'd signed his notes from school and left him lists. Her handwriting was old-fashioned and elegant. Like she'd been. He had to blink rapidly.

  "Jarrod played baseball so good he got drafted to play in the big leagues."

  "That's what I wanna do," Jonah said excitedly. "Who'd he sign with?"

  Cynda began stacking the journals on Dan's desk while she talked. "The Dodgers. He was the one hundred and twenty-ninth overall draft pick that year. You got to go higher than that to get a big signin' bonus. He got hurt while he was still down in the minors and he was afraid he was gonna get cut, so he went to the Dominican Republic to play winter ball. We didn't know he went there for the drugs. Something to make him stronger, so he didn't get hurt again."

  "Steroids," Jonah breathed, his eyes rounding. "Lila says she'll kill me if I even think about using steroids."

  "She's right. Jarrod got hold of some bad ones and they made his heart stop."

  She turned toward Dan, a plea in her eyes. "After havin' to wait weeks for them to do the autopsy and release Jarrod's body, we found out the insurance he had through the league wouldn't pay off because he had steroids in his system. We had to get the money to bring him home and bury him somehow. I had just heard from the school district my job had been cut. Grams was too old to find a job. Jarrod was just about broke. Grams decided to borrow the money against her house. Those bankers wanted her to refinance the whole amount the house was worth. She only wanted five thousand dollars and she couldn't have made the payments on what they wanted to loan her. I told her she could take the money then pay back all but what she needed right then. When she went back to do that, they asked her to get a co-signor. Grams has her pride. She felt the bank was jus' jerkin' her around 'cause she was black. It was her house, free and clear. So, she went to King instead, because she was upset and didn't have my Grandpa Earl to tell her what to do."

  Dan winced. Nineteen thousand dollars due on five thousand borrowed. He understood now why her "commission" was so high. No money would change hands. King was a loan shark. He'd tear up the note once Daniel sold him the land. If such a man could be trusted to do that.

  He had no intention of selling Kingsley Dazza that piece of land. But he was very interested in learning why the man wanted it, even as his heart sank at the realization of what his decision would cost Cynda. His vision blurred again, making it impossible to read the diary entry.

  She'd been forced to become Kingsley Dazza's prostitute to save her grandmother's home. Outrage burned in his chest.

  It'd been different somehow when he'd believed she'd signed his "contract" to put cash in her own pocket. He thought Brian Case had dangled a huge commission in front of a naive and probably new realtor. Or a whore. He'd sensed all along Cynda knew nothing about real estate, yet the women sent by Brian over the years had sent clear signals that sex was on the table. Anyone could've made his mistake.

  Sure they would've. The same way most any man would've asked a strange woman to sign away her body for two weeks. Mocking laughter seemed to ring in his ears, drowning out Cynda and Jonah's chatter about a sport she, like Lila, seemed to know and enjoy.

  She hadn't been sent by Brian. Daniel knew, in that moment, that he deserved to be alone. "I'm going to ride over to Georgia's," he announced, unable to face Cynda.

  "I have to work at the restaurant tonight," Cynda said, still on her knees beside his desk. How can she stand to look at me? He couldn't meet her eyes. He needed to get away from her, to take some time to calculate the enormity of his sin. He'd figure out some way to help her deal with King. Loan sharking was illegal, wasn't it?

  "No problem, I'll drive you. What time does your shift start?"

  "Drop me off home, Uncle D?" Jonah asked. "It's a long walk, even though Lila says I have nothing better to do every time I ask about getting a four-wheeler." Jonah turned plaintively toward Cynda. "She said Uncle C could buy me a bicycle." He sounded disgusted.

  Protective, Daniel thought. Lila was protective. He'd nearly insisted on becoming Jonah's guardian, but once Colton hooked up with Lila, she'd taken to mothering Jonah the way ducks take to water. It had to be killing Lila to know her son Charlie, now a Marine, was stationed in a war zone. He hoped that alone accounted for her recent mood swings.

  "Those things are dangerous," Cynda explained. "They flip over at nothin'. You can walk. No one ever died from walkin'."

  The unconscious way Cynda echoed Lila's motherly sentiment made Dan feel worse.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dan waited to call Reese until Jonah jumped out of his truck at the end of Colton's driveway. He explained the situation briefly to his cop buddy, the one who'd shown up at the scene of Lila's wreck.

  "This loan shark, Dazza, is he a black dude, maybe five-ten? Bald? Stocky guy, about two-forty?"

  "That's him," Dan replied, relieved and alarmed at the same time that Reese knew the guy.

  "What's the name of the person he loaned the money to?"

  "I'm not sure. My friend said her grandmother borrowed it. He's holding a note on her house, somehow, and is threatening to foreclose for five thousand dollars borrowed less than six months ago. That can't be legal."

  "Takes about a year for a legal foreclosure in this state. But Kingsley Dazza might scare them into moving out. The interest rate's not illegal, Dan. It's a personal loan and the terms agreed to aren't the state's business. It's what he's been known to do to collect that has him on our radar." There was a brief silence, then Reese added, "That's odd, because the guy I know never loans money to white people."

  "So if my friend's black…"

  "Sheriff's gonna call it a low-priority crime if Dazza hustles them out of their home. He couldn't care less if they tear each other to shreds. Oh, we'll take a report, but he'll make sure the officer it's assigned to understands to put it to the back of the pile."

  "You don't have any black officers? I've seen several." In fact, Reese had a black partner last time Dan had seen him, before he turned up at Lila's wreck.

  "They've been quittin' in droves since the last sheriff got elected."

  Dan felt sick to his stomach. Basically, Reese was saying that Dazza was a predator and those charged with protecting people from him were looking the other way. "Thanks, Reese."

  In spite of the heat, Dan shivered. He got to the end of the long private road, turned left, and drove slowly to Georgia's house. He slowed to look at the spot where Lila's truck went down the embankment. John Carpenter threw up a hand. The older neighbor was on his way to check on his goats, Dan figured from the direction the old farmer was heading. His little goat pen backed up to Georgia's property.

  The Mason home looked as well-kept as ever. Bright impatiens bloomed in green plastic pots on her shady porch. He pulled to a stop behind Georgia's Ford and cut the truck motor. He saw the curtain move in one of the front windows. Georgia looked out, waving at Daniel with a big smile when she recognized him. The curtain fell. He climbed the front steps and had to wait a few minutes before the front door opened.

  "My biggest baby boy. How you been, Dan?" she greeted him.

  "Been workin' too hard. How've you been, Ms. Georgia?" Dan stooped to give th
e woman who'd stepped in to mother his siblings a tight hug.

  "Jus' fine. Come in this house, you big rascal, and tell me what your family's been up to. Haven't see y'all much since we buried poor little Sarah, bless her sweet heart. How's that little boy of hers settlin' in with Colton?"

  He accepted a glass of sweet ice tea and took a seat at her table. Being in Georgia's kitchen was like taking a step back in time. Her cabinets had glass fronts, a project Rafe had helped her husband Timothy with after Cammie had given Georgia a large set of ivy-covered dinnerware, because it had chipped too easily to survive the De Marco's child-filled household. Cammie had taken Georgia's blue-patterned ironstone in return. Dan still used the few pieces that had survived his siblings.

  "You still have the Snow White dishes," Daniel blurted.

  Georgia chuckled. "I can't believe you remember Tim callin' them that."

  "You ever eat off one, yet, Georgia?"

  She nodded, her eyes growing misty. "Once a year, I put a slice of coconut cake on a plate and eat it. But I never did feed Tim off one."

  "Them's the Snow White dishes," Georgia's husband had groused a few weeks after the project was finished. "Apparently, my kissin' ain't good enough to get Georgia to pull those plates out from behind that glass. Had to go buy a set of melamine, just so I could eat without leanin' over the damn pot. Shoulda used 'em for skeet practice the minute Cammie set them boxes on my table."

  Dan had been perhaps nine, standing on a crate in the barn, leaning over the engine compartment of the old Jaguar Rafe had towed in from some car auction. Tim Mason and Rafe had been teaching him how to solve the mysteries of the internal combustion engine, laced with the sage advice that a motor built by Jaguar was simple in comparison to a woman's complexities.

  Dan suddenly felt as though he'd missed out on something important. Complaining about things your woman held near and dear was a male ritual he'd never really gotten to participate in. Colton bitched for a month about Lila calling the local thrift shop to come pick up his couch and recliner about three days after she'd moved in, but turned right around to brag about breaking in the new pieces they'd bought to put in their place.

  "Man's home is his castle," Eric had stated. "You let her start that shit now, C, and before you know it, you won't be able to set foot in your own house without takin' your shoes off on the porch."

  What good is a castle without a queen? It was just a box to keep stuff in, it seemed to Dan, but no matter how sturdy the walls or how efficient the heat, it was damn hard to keep out the cold.

  Georgia didn't seem all that arthritis-ridden to him, although he supposed she could be having a good day. Her hair was almost completely white now and cut short. "'Bout time some lucky gal caught one of you boys." She cackled when he shared the story about Colton and Lila moving in together. "Shoulda been you. You the oldest."

  "Hard to schedule that kind of thing," Dan pointed out.

  Georgia looked sad. "If your mama was still around, she'd have fussed till all y'all got settled down. That woman sure did love bein' married."

  Dan stroked the condensation on the side of his glass. "Did she, Georgia? Did she still love being married at the end, when she thought she was pregnant again within weeks of having Sarah?"

  The old woman's dark face settled into sad lines. "How'd you know that? She swore to me no one knew."

  Dan pulled the small volume from his back pocket. Flipping it open to the last page, he slid it across the table toward his mother's best friend. Alarm jacked up his pulse when she started to cry.

  "I never wanted to tell any of you this story." She grabbed a paper napkin from the china holder on the table. It had that ivy pattern on it, he noticed. Looked like a few things had migrated from behind the glass.

  "You gotta understand, Daniel. Rafe wanted six kids in the worst kind of way. His daddy built that house you livin' in and he planned to have six children. But your grandma died giving birth to Rafe. Rafe's old man was just like him, the one-woman kind. So when she died, he give up on that plan, and buried hisself in them peach orchards. Rafe wasn't too happy growin' up an only child. Back then, it wasn't so easy to get off the farm and socialize like it is now. He made up his mind he wanted a full house of young'uns and Cammie knew all along that was the plan."

  She stopped, sipping at her tea. The back door opened and John Carpenter stepped inside, weighted down by a basket Dan hadn't noticed earlier. "Brought you some stuff from my garden, Georgia," John stated, "and some fresh eggs. If I'd realized you was headed here, Daniel, I'd have brought double. If you want to stop back by the house, I got plenty. Be glad to share." He sat the basket on her counter and touched the bill of his old John Deere cap.

  "Thank you kindly. Grab yourself a glass of tea, John. Me and Dan's talkin' about Cammie."

  "Best I let you two get on with that, then. I'll see you in a few days, Georgia. The late corn's 'bout ready to harvest." John was already backing out the door. The old-fashioned avocado green wall phone rattled on its hook when the sleeve of John's shirt hit the receiver.

  "I'll go get some supplies then, so we can fill up the freezers," Georgia nodded.

  That was how it was in this part of the country, Dan knew. Produce was shared rather than let go to waste. Neighbors helped neighbors. These two had both lost their spouses after long marriages. This was why he never understood Sarah's insistence on leaving. He thought she'd have come back in a year, maybe two at the most, but their sister steadfastly refused to return to this small community nestled into the South Carolina foothills.

  He often heard newcomers remark on how friendly people here were whenever they came to the garage and Dan or Colton or Eric broke the news they didn't need the expensive repair they'd been expecting. This also made Dan wonder where Cammie would've gone. She'd adored this community. Sure, she spoke of trips to see the Pacific Ocean, or Paris, or London, but she never packed a bag and dragged Rafe to the airport.

  The door closed behind John. Georgia picked up where she'd left, reaching across the table to put her hand atop his. "I reckon you're old enough now to hear the truth. I almost told you after your daddy died."

  His heart stuttered. Is it this easy? Just wait till the ghosts are so old that no one cares to hide the truth any longer?

  Georgia rocked in the straight chair while she talked. "Cammie knew all along Rafe wanted those six young'uns. She wanted to give 'em to him. But you was so big, and Eric wasn't two ounces smaller. Then Colton got born at home and she didn't get cut by no doctor. Even worse, Colton wasn't a girl. Rafe had his heart set on a daughter he could spoil. He mighta been happy with less 'n six, Cammie started to think, if she could just get that girl for him and Rafe didn't waste much time makin' that happen after Colton came along. So, when she and yo' daddy laid their eyes on Sarah, that was the happiest pair I ever did see."

  Her dark eyes seemed to bore into him. "But Daniel, that next 'un, nobody planned for, not even Rafe. School was fixin' to start. You was jus' startin' the fifth grade and Eric was goin' into the first. Cammie had been lookin' forward half that summer to havin' a bit of a break when school took back in, but suddenly she was starin' at maybe havin' three babies to look after come spring, real small ones. So that Sunday she come to ask me if I'd pretend to be sick, to give her an excuse to stay here for a few days after she got an abortion."

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dan had to look away from Georgia's wet face. He studied the wallpaper trying to figure out what he was feeling. "She had an abortion behind Dad's back?" The enormity of that betrayal was hard to comprehend.

  Colton and Sarah couldn't remember Rafe as the father who'd brought home a Shetland pony so fat Dan's legs could barely span it, giving him no way to grip without a saddle. He could almost feel Rafe's strong hands under his arms, lifting him to what had seemed an immense height, to plop him onto the animal's bare back. He squeezed his hand, thinking about the leather reins Rafe had laid across his grubby palms. Grabbing the bridle, Rafe led
the gentle beast in circles while Dan tried to find the courage to dig his heel into the animal's sides and prod it into a lazy trot.

  "There's a proud papa," Cammie said when Dan demanded Rafe let go of the bridle.

  "God, Cammie, I love you so much for giving me my sons." Rafe swept her off her feet like a bridegroom in the middle of the backyard. At eight, Dan had been jealous of their kiss because it took their attention away from his unsteady ride. Then Eric woke from his nap, appearing on the back porch, still rubbing sleep from his eyes. Rafe set Cammie on her feet and hurried to lift Eric into his arms, watching Daniel with a proud smile while planting kisses on top of Eric's head. The infant Colton had still been napping.

  "Your sons have ruined me, Rafe. I'm going to be covered with stretch marks." Cammie poked out her lower lip. Dan remembered thinking she'd looked just like Eric, right down to their lighter brown hair.

  "Tonight, I'm going to kiss each one, my darling, because I know you wear those stripes for me. I'd die if anything happened to you, Cammie. I love you so much it hurts to breathe when I look at you."

  "You'd better." Cammie smiled. "Since it seems we're having another. Maybe this one will be the daughter you want so."

  Rafe hurried to sit Eric in front of Dan on the pony. Eric had promptly grabbed for the reins. Dan had glared at his parents, angry he'd lost their attention, not to mention having to share the first pony ride with Eric.

  "I knew it," Rafe crowed. "Darlin', you never push me away from…"—he cut a glance at Dan and Eric, obviously recalling their four eager ears—"certain objects I worship, unless you're with child."

  Georgia patted his hand jolting him out of his reverie. "Honey chile, she never got the chance. Somewhere 'tween here and home, she just went missin'."

  "Why have I never heard this before?" he demanded. Anger began to coil under his breastbone, expanding with each heartbeat. There wasn't a thing between here and the farmhouse, just two roads that ran perpendicular, the public road and the long private lane Dan and his brothers lived on that led to the orchards.