Flashback

by Cait London

  She snorted a little at that and tried not to focus on that prowling finger that had crossed to her other breast, circling the perimeter before tapping a nipple that was already peaked. Rachel gripped the table’s rail at her hips tightly—in another minute she’d be touching Kyle, going for him, and he’d avoid the answers she wanted by making love to her once again. “You’re no gentleman. Bob warned you off Mallory years ago, didn’t he?”

  Kyle’s lips tightened slightly. “He did. But you knew that, didn’t you?”

  “I guessed. Who is that young girl in the picture?”

  Kyle smiled briefly, then bent to nuzzle Rachel’s cheek, the stubble arousing against her skin. “You’re really warm, honey. And you smell really, really good. Has Shane been making a play for you? He seemed quite concerned.”

  He moved slightly, enough to bring his erection against her stomach, to nudge her gently. “’Morning, honey.”

  “You’re really good at this, aren’t you? Getting what you want, and around what you don’t want? You think you can push me into sex or into yelling at you and writing off that little chat you promised, don’t you? You’re very, very wrong. I’m not buying this time.” Rachel pushed him away and her legs were unsteady as she crossed the room and went up the steps. She could feel Kyle behind her, the heavy attraction sizzling between them, growing with each step.

  In her apartment, she turned to Kyle. “Your little display downstairs could have just been pure ego, or just maybe you were making it clear to the town that I was under your protection…. That is so outdated macho-bull, Kyle—”

  Kyle had framed her face with his hands, lifting her lips to his. “All I said was that you smell great,” he repeated. “Sexy.”

  Her hands were already at the snap of his jeans, locking him to her as Kyle slowly walked her backward into the bedroom. “Answers, Scanlon. Give me something I can work on….”

  “Oh, I intend to,” Kyle returned as his hands began to move knowingly over her body.

  Dangerous woman, Kyle decided later as Rachel lay soft and sleeping against him. He already knew that trust came difficult to her, a fact that Mallory had placed on the father who had deserted their young family.

  Rachel sighed softly and her hand rested, palm upward on his chest. It was a trusting gesture, that lightweight slender hand, the elegant fingers with practical short nails. Kyle brought it to his lips, and then to his face. He studied the softness of her skin against his darker skin, the fragility of woman’s hand to man’s larger, stronger one. The moment was bittersweet for him, there in the quiet shadows, when Rachel slept so quietly against him.

  While she settled the haunting darkness inside him, he feared for what Rachel could uncover—and the danger she could bring to herself, and just maybe to Jada and Trina—and the girl.

  He’d sworn to protect the girl, and he would, and that just might cost him the one thing he wanted for himself—Rachel….

  At three o’clock in the afternoon, traffic rolled quietly by the windows facing Atlantis Street. Nine Balls was quiet, except for the music Rachel had chosen and the steady click of balls against each other.

  Mallory’s favorite song curled around Rachel…. I’ll be with you forever, till the tides no longer flow, till doves no longer fly and roses no longer bloom, till time comes no more…. I’ll be with you forever. On the far, still side of tomorrow….

  Was that how Mallory felt, waiting for her? Waiting?

  In her office, Rachel tossed down her pencil and drifted back to the earlier hours when Kyle had taken his time making love, “Making an impression that lasts,” he’d said, holding her at the peak, taunting her until the last minute before releasing both their pleasures….

  His last kiss had been fierce and hard, demanding. “Don’t open that door tonight and maybe you’d better consider moving somewhere safer, like my place. You’ve already got some idea of what Mallory went through. I don’t want that to happen to you. I’ll call you and you’d better have everything locked tight tonight.”

  “I’m not moving in with you.”

  His knuckles had lightly brushed her nipples, causing them to peak. “Then I could move in with you. Think about it.”

  Her senses had told her that Kyle wasn’t coming to her tonight, but then she hadn’t invited him. “I don’t like firearms. Take that big gun with you.”

  “What big gun?” he’d taunted before pinning her to the bed, holding her wrists. “You have nightmares, you know. You don’t like being held like this, do you?”

  Kyle was right; pinned against her will reminded her of that attack. His orders about locking the door and the gun hadn’t sounded like he was coming back that night, and that meant he was leaving town. Rachel had intended to find out where he went, what he did, and the identity of that young girl. “I don’t believe that story about the girl—you know her, and I want to know what she was to Mallory.”

  At that, Kyle had pushed away and had slid into his jeans. “Did anyone ever tell you that dogging a man isn’t polite?” he asked coolly and hadn’t waited for an answer before leaving the apartment.

  A list of emergency numbers, including police and fire department and unfamiliar names of men, printed in Kyle’s precise block letters, had lain beneath the big deadly semi-automatic. But it wasn’t the list Rachel wanted—the one with the men in Mallory’s life.

  She already knew about Shane, who evidently did not want to be linked to Mallory, fearing that Rachel would find the poetry book he’d given to Mallory. Then someone wore size fourteen double-wide, custom-made high heels, and the cloth doll represented a man who Mallory hated very much, someone who might be using her family as a prod—

  The men in Mallory’s life could include Tommy James and Fred Parker and whomever Terri Samson was seeing.

  The women were playing pool now, “taking an afternoon break,” and Rachel left her office desk to watch them.

  Just entering the billiards parlor, Trina smiled warmly at Rachel and placed her briefcase on a stool. She removed her navy blue business jacket, kicked off her high heels, and walked to the cue rack. With an expert eye, she selected one, hefted it, and rolled it on the nearest pool table to test for warping.

  She smiled briefly at the women, slid the stick on the bridge of her left hand and shot, hitting the cue ball and creating a perfect spread in the break.

  At a side table, Rachel sat with Anthony Cornelia, a small, aged Spanish immigrant who created custom-made cues, but he had also maintained Nine Balls’ cues. Anthony had several sons who had their own businesses, but who sometimes picked up and delivered the cues. Rachel wanted to review the bill with Anthony, but also make it clear to him that if a before-or after-hours visit was necessary, that he or his sons must first call to arrange the time. But Anthony’s attention was locked on her mother, the aged Spaniard enjoying the movements of a sensuous, long-legged woman and thinking of his youthful romantic adventures.

  Rachel studied Terri, Sally Mae, and Dorothy. They were shielding their glances at Trina, but their expressions held guarded, fierce jealousy. Had they been so jealous of Mallory that they would hurt her, that they would send someone to do their dirty work, warning her off their men?

  In a white business blouse and navy blue skirt that showed off her long legs, Trina Everly held the men of Nine Balls attention. The table of elderly men who were playing checkers stopped and watched the woman who had fascinated them for years. Two young male executives, wearing slacks and dress shirts, designer glasses and neat haircuts, had been apparently networking, sharing confidences as they shot a game of eight ball. They stopped playing and considered the older woman with the lithe body and froth of soft blond hair around her still attractive face.

  “Excuse me, lady,” Anthony said as he rose slowly. “I must see your mother. She was so good as a professional. I made her first sticks, you know, that is how I got my start in business that grows every day—your mother, she go to tournaments, she talk about my work, I get business
to support my family. She is the same, always the same, beautiful, kind. Like Mallory with her tender heart for an old man who missed his homeland. Almost nine years ago now, she bought this place and she have me take care of the sticks.”

  Rachel watched Anthony make his way past the pool tables, nodding politely to the women as he passed. She finished her notes on his bill, closed the file, and walked to her mother. “Busy day? You look a little tense?”

  Trina placed the cue ball in position for a trick shot and missed, sinking two balls of the three. She smiled at Rachel. “It’s a good thing I’m pushing calculator buttons instead of entering tournaments or taking bets on games and trick shots.”

  “You’re good. You could play pro again if you wanted.”

  “Maybe. But I had a lot more drive back then, when I was desperate to support us and make some kind of a real life for myself.”

  Rachel hugged Trina briefly and said, “You’ve done that. Now what’s up? You look worried. Are your braces hurting?”

  “As if you didn’t know my problem, sweet pea,” Trina returned easily. “My braces are fine, if irritating when I speak to a customer. At fifty-two, I’m a little old to be wearing them—but I’ve always wanted straight teeth, and they aren’t going to fix themselves…. I just finished speaking at a luncheon for businessmen and several people asked me about how you were doing here at Nine Balls. Bob was there. He feels almost like a father to you girls, and he’s obviously concerned. He thinks Kyle Scanlon spent the night here last night and that Kyle is no good.”

  “I know that Bob thinks Kyle had a lot to do with Mallory’s problems. I don’t. I think Kyle probably kept her going longer than she would have without him—but not even he could stop her,” Rachel said gently. She decided not to worry her mother; the unidentified man at her door just could have been anyone. “I trust Kyle, Mom.”

  “That’s something, because you’ve very cautious…. I know Kyle took care of Mallory and I’m grateful. There were times I couldn’t understand—” Trina smoothed Rachel’s hair. “Miss Mermaid of Neptune’s Landing,” she murmured lovingly. “You’re old enough to choose what you want to do, the relationships, I mean. After all, you’re thirty-three and you almost married Mark Bradburn, that’s the closest you’ve ever come to a commitment. I’ll talk to Bob, but know that he loves you and wants the best. But you handle your life as you wish…I just want you to be safe, and living here—”

  She looked around the billiards parlor at the women playing there, the young businessmen smiling back at her. “I worry that something can happen to you. I couldn’t bear to have another daughter—”

  Rachel wrapped her arms around her mother and leaned her forehead against Trina’s. “Nothing is going to happen, Mom.”

  Trina held her daughter tight, her blue eyes locking with Rachel’s. “Something is already happening. I feel it. I have the oddest feeling when I’m in here, like—”

  “Like Mallory is here? Waiting?”

  “Yes, just like that. I feel that she is very close and that she needs something. It’s like when she was so young and sick and scared, but she wouldn’t ask me to hold her. Do you think I’m—”

  Rachel shook her head. “No, I feel that way, too, like Mallory needs something to rest, and I intend to give it to her.”

  “It’s just grief and the closure we didn’t have, the things we couldn’t make right for her. Don’t let this obsess you, honey, please don’t. If anything happened to you—”

  “It won’t. You’re going to have to trust me on this one, Mom.”

  Trina’s smile was tender. “Sometimes you’re too much like me. You just decide you’re going to do something and you do it.”

  Rachel kissed her mother’s cheek and returned her smile. “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “You were too young, taking on too many responsibilities while I was working two jobs and traveling to tournaments. You don’t have to do this. You can’t be responsible for everything and everyone. You can’t take the blame for how Mallory died, or for how she lived.”

  “I owe her, Mom. And I’m going to repay her.”

  “What do you owe her, Rachel? Why?”

  Later, working in her office, Rachel shook her head. She hadn’t answered her mother’s question, because her debt to Mallory was very private; it would only hurt Trina now to know that she wasn’t included back then. “I know what that humiliation feels like, Mallory, and I’m going to get whoever used our family as leverage to get what he wanted. Don’t you dare leave until I get this worked out.”

  Rachel tapped a pencil on the desk. Who was that girl in the photo? And what did she mean to Mallory? She had an impish look that reminded Rachel of young Mallory, but her hair wasn’t red and curly, it was light brown and straight, fine enough for the slight wind to pick it up, just like Shane’s….

  “And Kyle knows. That girl meant something to Mallory and I’m going to find out just what it was….” She listened to the office telephone ring, to her recorded answer, then to the deep rumble of Kyle’s voice.

  He was using his cell phone, the same as when he’d left two messages upstairs on her private line, but this time the rumble wasn’t smooth and sexy—“Dammit, Rachel. Pick up or call me back.”

  The curt sound and brief call said his temper was fraying, and that was fine with her. She wasn’t obeying his orders….

  Would he have called her at all, if she had not left a message on his brand-new answering machine?

  Was he in another woman’s arms?

  One night with Kyle didn’t make her an expert, but Rachel didn’t think that his sex drive could equal two very busy nights.

  But then, she didn’t really know Kyle at all, did she?

  And perhaps it was time to find out more.

  And the best way to change that was to invite his “ex-wives” over for a private game of pool and girl-talk. But soothing Bob’s ruffled feathers was first on her list.

  Bob Winters’ Handy Hardware was quiet at closing time; the store was small and stuffed with an old-fashioned mix of small appliances, basic hardware, pest controls, lawnmowers, and yard tools. Rachel, Jada, and Mallory had often worked part-time in the store, sweeping floors, sorting nuts and bolts, and stacking new items, gift-wrapping irons and mixers at Christmastime.

  Bob’s balding head gleamed beneath the fluorescent lights, his expression guarded as Rachel walked to where he was arranging a display of camp cookware. “Hi, Bob.”

  He placed an aluminum coffeepot onto the small camp stove. “Hi, yourself.”

  “How’s it going?” Rachel didn’t know where to start, to ease the tension created by Kyle’s display that morning.

  “Oh, pretty good. How about yourself?” He nodded to Jason Frederick, the clerk who was just leaving the store.

  “Good.” Rachel handed him a sack of his favorite bakery sweet rolls. “Sweets for the sweet. Jada is watching Nine Balls for me, so I can’t stay long.”

  “Thanks. These rolls are my favorite.” Bob wasn’t looking at her, his usual warm smile gone, and he was obviously uncomfortable.

  This wasn’t going good, Rachel decided. She moved close to hug him, felt the safety that had always been there, the comforting softness of his belly, the familiar old-fashioned aftershave he preferred. “Are we all right? I mean you and me?”

  “Sure, why not?” But his body was stiff, his words curt, and the air was cold between them when she stepped back.

  Bob placed the bakery sack aside, when he usually opened it with delight. He walked past a key-making machine to the display of doorknobs and locks and started to tidy them.

  He was obviously upset, and Rachel felt like she was thirteen years old, awkwardly explaining why she had eaten a second helping of his homemade ice cream when no one was looking. “About this morning—”

  His expression darkened as he opened a box and took a dead bolt from it, placing it into an empty place in the display. “I don’t want to talk about that. Just don’t
see Scanlon again. He ruined your sister, and now you’re asking for the same thing.”

  Uncertain how to handle a scolding she sensed was coming, Rachel didn’t want to defend herself against a man who had been almost like a father. “Bob, I don’t know what to say. I thought the same thing, but Kyle took care of Mallory when she needed someone.”

  “Mallory could have come to you or her mother or Jada or me. I know she stayed with him several times. You girls aren’t mine, but I feel just as though you were. Now here you are, an intelligent, competent, educated woman, going down the same road as Mallory with the same scum. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am in you, Rachel.”

  Feeling guilty and censured and young, Rachel was uncertain of what to say. The words came out unexpectedly, “I’m sorry, Bob. Really, I am, but Kyle isn’t what you think he is—”

  “I know what he is. Years ago, when he started fooling around with Mallory, I tried to stop her, too. But she wouldn’t listen. I tried to give that—that mechanic—money to leave town and never come back. He laughed at me. I’ve tried to protect you girls the best way I knew how. It would break your mother’s heart to see you going down the same road as Mallory did. My poor wife and I came to town years ago, and when Alissa passed on, I came to be a part of your family, caring for all of you. Think of your mother, for God’s sake, girl. You think she wants to see you relive the hard life with a no-good like she had? Think of the consequences. Think of how she had struggled to take care of all of you, of how you were doing more than a girl’s share of house and home. What happened to that nice boy you were engaged to?”

  “That didn’t work out.” Mark Bradburn hadn’t been nice when she couldn’t respond to him after her attack. While she’d been sexually traumatized, he’d expected her to go on as if nothing had happened—

  Rachel kissed Bob’s cheek. “I know you love us and that you worry. But don’t—”