She smiled. He was being ridiculous. She even started to laugh. Yet…both the woman and the journalist in her were perking up over being given this free pass to puzzle him out. This Kyle was almost unrecognizable from the one who’d chatted companionably with her yesterday next to a wrecked ambulance. She was fascinated—same as she’d been in the hangar of the Bunker Hill—by who the real Kyle Hammond was: the supremely professional naval aviator, a gun-slinging, sharp-shooting rescuer of innocents, or this shithead.
“We’ll have to talk,” she warned him.
“Yeah. Go big or go home, honey.”
She came around to the front of Kitty’s cot and sat down across from him. “Okay, so…” Start in easy. “Where are you from?”
“Virginia.” He braced a hand on his knee.
Cool. “Me, too. Where in Virginia?”
“Norfolk.”
She nodded. She knew Norfolk. It was a large city, gritty in places. “Where?”
He paused. “The Young Terrace Projects.”
Ah. “A kid from the bad part of town, huh?”
A hint of impatience entered his tone. “I guess.”
“We lived in Burke, close to DC. My parents are lawyers there.”
Apparently that didn’t warrant comment from him.
“What do your parents do?” she asked.
“My mother’s a waitress and my father…does odd jobs.”
“Do you have any siblings?”
“One brother. Younger.”
“I have a younger brother, too. He’s a Marine, and the reason I know how to”—she formed her hand into the shape of a gun and popped her thumb a couple of times—“shoot a pistol.”
Once again he just sat there, no commentary, no attempt at engagement, which was…something more to utterly fascinate her. He was treating this like an interview. No—like he was brokering for power. And if this was how he connected with women, Max would bet her right arm he’d never had his heart involved in any relationship. Let’s see what he does when I start sharing. “When I was nine years old, I asked my parents for a baby brother for Christmas. And guess what? On Christmas Eve day, they brought home a five-year-old foster child, Kevin. He was so scruffy and adorable—his mother was trying to finish high school and couldn’t raise him—and I fell instantly in love. My parents ended up adopting him permanently, so I wasn’t an only child anymore. Cool, huh?”
Kyle hooded his lids, as if he were growing bored. “Sure,” he drawled.
She smiled benignly. I’m on to you, suckah. He was leaning forward at the waist. Just a bit—it was subtle—but his body language definitely projected interest. He was miles from bored. She pointed to the left side of his face. “How did you get the scar on your jaw?”
“I got cut,” he said flatly.
She laughed. “That much is obvious. How?”
“Someone cut me.”
She tilted her head. What a pill. “Who?”
“You interested in scars, Max? I got another one…a monstrous one on my leg.” Kyle stood up and unbuckled his pants, letting them drop to his ankles.
She sat back. Skidding her focus past the front of his underwear, she zeroed in on his left thigh, where—Good God. Judging by the size of his scar, it was a miracle he still had his leg.
“But you’ve seen this scar already. Right, honey?”
She returned her attention to his face.
He winked.
“I haven’t, actually,” she said in a neutral tone. “I was too embarrassed to look at you closely the night we had sex.”
His expression went blank. He didn’t say or do anything for a moment, clearly caught off guard by her confession that, even though she’d engaged in one of the most intimate acts imaginable between two human beings with him, she’d never even glanced at his parts.
Mobility was restored to his face in the form of a smirk slowly spreading across his mouth. “You know,” he finally said, “I was just thinking what a shame it is we don’t have a Jacuzzi nearby. Considering how long you can hold your breath, you probably rock at underwater blow jobs.”
Max pursed her lips. Interesting. We’re back to this. He was reverting to his old standby of being an overly bold flirt. She really had to figure out what brought out this shithead routine. “It comes with being a good swimmer,” she tossed back lightly. “What about you? Do you play a sport?”
“Baseball.” As soon as he said the word, the oddest thing happened: he blanched. Hauling his pants back up, he refastened them with tight, jerky motions. “You know what?” he growled, his jaw stiff. “This is stupid.” His boot heels ground into the grit on her tent floor as he wheeled and stalked out.
She stared at his retreating back, stupefied by his sudden departure. That’s what had run him off? Asking him about sports? The man was beyond flummoxing.
Max swiped sweat off her forehead with the back of her wrist. And she had no idea who won that round. Her or him?
Chapter Ten
Plainview, Texas
It took a full week for Kitty’s fever to break after her mother set her broken arm. The first three days, Shirleen dumped pill after pill down Kitty—aspirin, Motrin, Tylenol—but nothing worked against the infection raging inside her. When Kitty finally got delirious—which she had no recollection of whatsoever—Shirleen had no choice but to trade a ham hock from one of the Hart’s recently slaughtered sows with Hal Tooley, a mechanic Howard used to work with over at T J and D Auto, for some antibiotics. Luckily, Hal was willing to shortchange his own daughter on her ear infection treatment to put fresh meat on his table, or else Lord only knew what would’ve come of Kitty.
Today was the first day she’d made it out of her bedroom. Dressed in a bathrobe that used to be terrycloth, but now was thin cloth, the sleeves worn out at the elbows, Kitty slouched on the sagging living room couch, sipping Campbell’s chicken noodle from a chipped mug and watching Family Feud. All the contestants’ faces were cut in half by a fuzzy horizontal line streaking across the television screen, but she could hear them well ’nuff.
The front door banged open against the living room wall, and Kitty sat forward in a sudden motion as Shirleen barged inside wearing her manicurist smock. It wasn’t unusual for Shirleen to come home during her lunch break—she liked to make sure Howard ate. But Kitty’s stomach turned over, muscles tightening and nausea rising as soon as Shirleen planted herself in front of the TV, clutching what looked like a bill in a chapped, white-knuckled fist.
“Cemetery wants to charge us three hunnert dollars for those gravestones you knocked asunder!” Her mother’s brows lowered into one of her nastiest scowls. “Three hunnert dollars!” She brandished the bill.
Kitty blinked several times and swallowed.
Shirleen pointed a domineering finger in the direction of the dining room. “Go set yourself in the dining room, girl. Your father and I need to talk to you ’bout this.” Shirleen marched down the short hall to the master bedroom to wake Howard from one of the many naps he took during the day.
With a shaky hand, Kitty left her mug on the coffee table next to an old bag of Jiffy Pop popcorn. A fly lifted off the bag and lethargically bobbed off to another location.
Their coffee table was an oval piece of plywood set on a stack of empty oil cans that stank up their house like a garage. It was a smell Kitty was well used to, seeing as her father still seemed to ooze mechanic’s grease from every pore even though he’d been out of work for over a year now. But she’d caught other folks wrinkling their noses at it.
The Harts used to have a proper coffee table. But two years back, Kitty’s older brother, Jake, broke it horsing around with friends one night, and Shirleen never got around to replacing it. Jake had been seventeen at the time, far too old for a whuppin’, but Mama had given him one anyway; Mama’s forearms were big as a wrestler’s. Two months later, on the very day Jake graduated from high school, he’d lit out fifty miles south to Lubbock and started working at a garage there.
&nbs
p; Kitty slowly hoisted herself off the couch, careful of her broken forearm—now splinted between a couple of two-by-fours and supported by a sling around her neck—and shuffled into the dining room. Tears burned her eyes. She hadn’t been in this room since the night her mother tortured her, and seeing it again brought back a load of terrible memories. Those stories folks told ’bout falling unconscious when pain got too fierce…? Didn’t happen. A body felt all the suffering, bones crunching back together, needle and thread jabbing the skin, lightning and fire and a thousand piercing pins and endless sticky blood…all of it.
Kitty moved to the dining room table, which was really a holding place for a lot of junk: her father’s dust-gathering tools, shoe boxes full of papers and Howard’s old Navy gewgaws—his stripes and ribbons—plus various whittling knives from when her father tried his hand at a hobby, car washing supplies, moldering from disuse, some of Shirleen’s clothes, sewing supplies that made Kitty’s stomach cramp. One thing the table had never been was a place where the Hart family shared a meal.
She eased herself into a chair at the head of the table, and a moment later Shirleen barreled into the dining room, Howard in tow.
Her mother smacked the bill down in front of Kitty. “How in tarnation you reckon I’m goin’ to pay that?” she demanded.
“I’m sorry, Mama. I-I’ll pay it,” Kitty added quietly.
Shirleen’s voice rose. “Great day in the morning, how? Since you was stupid enough to get yourself fired from your job at KFC”—her mother gestured at Kitty’s broken arm—“you ain’t got no wages comin’ in.”
Kitty bowed her head and stared at the cigarette burns on the tablecloth. Jake was the one who’d developed the bad habit of smoking, always with a Parliament between his fingers as he gestured this way and that. He’d started smoking at fourteen, and now already at nineteen, his teeth were yellow as fly paper.
Shirleen planted her hands on her hips. “Cold, hard facts is, girl, your father and me can’t afford you no more.” Her mother exhaled coarsely. “We want you out of the house by week’s end.”
Kitty whipped her head up. “What?” Her mouth gaped open. “But…where am I supposed to go?”
“I called Jake down in Lubbock. He got a friend works with him in the garage there willin’ to marry you.” Her mother gave a firm, that’s-that nod.
Kitty widened her eyes. “Marry?!”
“You’re nearly eighteen,” Shirleen retorted. “Old enough to be gettin’ hitched so you can be a husband’s problem ’stead of our’n.” Her mother’s formidable finger made an appearance, stabbing the air in front of Kitty. “And don’t be gettin’ any fool notions ’bout tyin’ the knot with Clete neither. The Randall boy doesn’t have a pot to piss in now, and won’t amount to a hill a’ beans later.”
Kitty forced the question out of a tautly constricted throat, “Who, then?”
“Larson Holmes.”
Bile burned up onto the back of Kitty’s tongue. Oh, Lord…
“Jake says the boy knew you in high school and is sweet on you.”
Kitty twisted her bathrobe belt around her index finger, pulling it so tight the tip turned red. In high school Larson had been known as the weasel because of his greasy hair and long skinny, rat-like nose. And Kitty didn’t think a day ever went by that Larson didn’t have sweat rings under his armpits…and stunk to high heaven. She doubted he’d changed much since high school, and she’d sooner eat a lizard every day for breakfast than let Larson Holmes ever lay a hand on her.
“I’ll start makin’ the arrangements,” her mother said in a tone not to be argued with.
“Yes, ma’am.” Kitty shambled off to her bedroom, closed the door, then sat on the edge of her mattress and thought. She thought for a long time. Lord, I am stupid. No plan of escape came to mind. She shifted back against her headboard, tucking her feet under the covers, the sheets lapping at her waist. The sycamore out front clawed at her window and a breeze drifted inside, barely able to stir curtains heavy with filth. Kitty wept, reliving the moment her mother had condemned her to a loveless marriage. Sewing supplies…cigarette burns…we want you out of the house by week’s end…her father’s old Navy gewgaws…car washing gear—
And there it was, like a New Year’s Eve balloon popping overhead and sprinkling sparkly stuff inside her mind. An idea.
Kitty slowly, painfully put on blue jeans, a loose T-shirt, and cowboy boots, then snuck out the front door. She walked nearly a mile down Smythe Street to Highway 70. Turning left, she passed Jumbo Joe’s Restaurant, the KFC where she used to work, then the strip mall where Hubbard’s Pawn Shop and Sears Hometown Store were, finally arriving at the Dairy Queen. Sweat was running down her back and temples. It wasn’t hot out. She was hurting bad from the long walk.
She went inside the Dairy Queen, and, luckily, Mary Beth was working.
“Daaaamn, Kitty.” Mary Beth eyed her up and down. “You look like you been et by a wolf and shit over a cliff.”
Kitty smiled weakly at her friend. “Hey, Mary Beth, can I use the phone in back?”
Mary Beth snapped her bubblegum. “Your phone at home ain’t working?”
“No. Mama just has a burr in her saddle right now.”
Her friend nodded. “Shirleen could piss off the pope.” She gestured to the employee door. “Go on back, but be quick. Joss is out for a five-minute smoke break, and if he finds you in his office, he’ll get mad as a hornet.”
“I will.” Kitty dragged herself to the Dairy Queen’s back office, sat down at the desk, and tucked the phone receiver between her ear and shoulder as, one-handed, she dialed Clete. He picked up on the second ring. “Hey,” she said. “It’s me.”
“Hey.”
“Remember how a spell back you told me there was a fella you talked to ’bout joining the Navy?”
“Oh, yeah. Fella down in Lubbock. Called a recruiter.”
Sweat dripped off her chin onto the desk. “Do you think you could drive me out to see him?”
“What? Really?” Clete paused. “Shucks, Kitty, I don’t think the Navy takes girls.”
“Why not?” Didn’t they? “Just come get me, Clete.”
“Now?”
“Yeah, now.” With the tip of her finger, Kitty smeared her sweat around the fake wood veneer of the desktop. “I need to take care of this today. I’m in a fair bit of trouble here.”
Silence came through the phone line.
“Clete Zachary Randall.” She made her voice scolding, like his mother’s. “I’m in this fix because of your stupid moonshine.”
“All right, Kitty! Shit, don’t pitch a fit. I can take you tomorrow. My pa will tan my hide I don’t get the chicken coop mended today.”
Tomorrow! By tomorrow Larson Holmes could be here in Plainview, wanting to pick out a plate pattern with Kitty—no doubt one resembling a hubcap. “Never mind,” she snapped and slammed down the receiver.
Chapter Eleven
Kitty handed Steve Whitmore a screwdriver.
He met her eyes as he took the tool. “I hate to side with your mother on anything,” he said. “But in this case, I have to agree; Clete is a no-account pissant.”
Kitty laughed. Even though she’d said the same phrase about Clete when quoting her ma, having Steve say it was funny. Just sounded weird coming from the lips of such a smart fella, and Steve was, inside and out and all the way through the middle, sharp as a whole bucket of tacks.
“I’m liking your ex-boyfriend even less than I did before,” Steve added. He was standing on the opposite side of a table from her in the Authorized Personnel Only room, most of the guts of the autoclave spilled out in front of him.
After three straight days in bed in the post-op ward, Steve had told her he couldn’t stand the inactivity anymore, could she find him some tools? She’d brought him the small toolbox kept at the guard outpost—a ten-by-ten shack stationed at the front gate with a couple of chairs and some weaponry in it—and Steve had set right in to fixing Ms. Dougin
’s movie camera. Now he was at work on the autoclave.
He’d exchanged his open-backed hospital gown for a pair of scrubs as soon as he started fixing things, and for this task, he’d also put aside his sling, which Kitty was grateful for. Of all the things she’d been forced to get used to as a corpsman—not to mention as Dr. Barr’s surgical assistant—a sling still gave her the willies.
“Your jerk of an ex didn’t protect you again,” Steve went on with his character bashing of Clete. “You had to join the Navy in order to avoid marrying Larson Holmes.”
“I suppose.” Kitty straightened her scrubs top, even though it didn’t need straightening. This protective side of Steve’s always confounded her a bit. The only soul in her past who’d ever said he’d protect her was her ex-boyfriend, Shane—but he’d never been around enough to actually do any protecting.
Steve yanked a fistful of wires out of the back of the autoclave. “How could you have enlisted, anyway? You were only seventeen.”
“I was a month away from my eighteenth birthday,” Kitty explained. “The recruiter said he’d sign me on as soon as I came of age, so I moved out of my house, took the GED, then bought a case of Beanie Weenie and lived on that and water for a month in Mary Beth’s back shed.”
Steve glanced up. “You’re kidding?”
“Nope. I didn’t have money for anything else. I’d given most of my savings to my ma and pa.” Kitty had been so hungry back in those days she could’ve eaten the north end out of a south-bound polecat. The spare conditions didn’t speed along her arm healing none either. Just thinking about it made her stomach grumble. “By the end of the month at Mary Beth’s, I was showing signs of scurvy.” Although she hadn’t known what scurvy was until she went through corpsman training.
Lord, she’d never forget her shock when the recruiter told her she’d scored high enough on her ASVAB23 test to become a corpsman, if it was something she wanted. She made him recheck her scores twice.
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