by Karen Rose
Tom eyed her skeptically. “What happened, Mom?”
Caroline sighed. “I had a fight with Max.”
“Can I ask what about?”
She leaned her forehead on the cool surface of the refrigerator. “You can ask. Once I calm down I might even tell you.”
“Did he hurt you?”
Caroline spun around to find Tom in a battle stance, his face hardened. “No! Oh, no, honey, it’s nothing like that. Max is a very gentle man. Normally he’s a reasonable man. Today he was a very stupid man. Come, have a seat.” She waited until Tom had folded his lanky frame into one of the small chairs, his expression one of suspicious disbelief. “Max has quite a story.”
“I know,” he said grimly.
“How do you know?”
“The guys told me—his nephews. He used to have these big fights with his brother, Phil’s dad.” He looked away. “I wanted to know about him. I wanted to know if he was …” Tom shrugged. “So I looked him up on the Net.”
Wary, Caroline narrowed her gaze. “Show me.” Impatiently she waited the thirty seconds it took him to get to his room and back, drumming her fingertips on the table. Her mouth dropped open in surprise at the thick folder Tom produced. In silence he let her look through every picture, scan every article. Finally she raised her head, amazement in her eyes.
“How did you do this?”
“We’re learning how to do research in our computer class. How to use on-line networks for study. Some of this comes from the LA Times, some of it is from old Sports Illustrateds. A couple of articles from his hometown paper, you know, local boy makes good.”
Twelve years, she thought bitterly. He’d carried this grudge for more than twelve years. Disillusionment fueled her anger as she felt her short-lived dream of the perfect man slipping away. Too many men in her life had blamed someone or something for their bad luck. Her father. Rob. Eventually they’d ended up blaming her. She’d believed Max was different. She still wanted to believe he was different. That he could truly rise above his circumstances, make himself a better human being. She stood up, ready to give Max Hunter one more opportunity to prove her wrong.
“Mom?”
“It’s okay, Tom,” she assured him. “I need to go out for a while.”
Tom pushed himself to his feet, blocking her path. “No. Not by yourself.”
Caroline drew in a breath, willing herself to be calm with her son, reminding herself that her anger was reserved for Max. Still her voice emerged much harsher than she’d intended. “Tom, I know you’re doing what you think is right and I appreciate you trying to take care of me, but I am your mother and quite capable of caring for myself.”
“He’s an athlete with a temper. You’re not big enough.” His voice was desperate. “Don’t go.”
She laid a hand on his arm and felt his muscle tense beneath her fingers. “Tom, please. Don’t make me pull rank. Not tonight. Max will not hurt me. I’m certain of it.”
Tom hesitated, then stepped aside, crossing his arms tightly over his chest. “When will you be back?”
Caroline buttoned her coat. “In an hour or two.” She could see the worry in his eyes. “Don’t fret, son. I’ll be okay. Can I have these pictures?”
“Okay.” He stood and followed her to the door. “Mom, be careful. Call if you need me.”
“I will. Don’t worry. Lock the door behind me.”
Max had almost calmed himself when Caroline showed up at his front door, but one look at her angry eyes set his ire blazing anew.
“Caroline, what a pleasant surprise,” he twanged, sarcasm dripping from every word. “Funny, I don’t remember growin’ up, gettin’ a life or givin’ y’all a call.”
A scathing look was all she spared him as she pushed her way into his foyer. Silently, he followed her into the kitchen where she was pulling at the buttons of her coat with stiff little jerks, a thick manila folder crammed under one arm. With a fluid motion she shrugged out of her coat and tossed the folder on the table where it bounced once, sending the contents sliding free. Eyes dark and narrowed, she stood with her fists planted on her hips, her jaw set, a petite prize-fighter poised for a bout. Even in his fury, his mouth watered at the sight of her.
“You are a pompous, ungrateful, self-pitying sonofa-bitch.”
His pendulum swung cleanly back to pure fury. “And you”—Max took a step closer and leaned forward—“are way out of line, Miss Stewart.” He towered over her, but she held her ground, staring up with a chew-nails expression.
“Am I?” Spinning on one heel, Caroline lurched for the table and grabbed one of the photographs. “I thought I might be falling for a man with integrity.” Whirling back, she poked her forefinger at his chest, her knuckle buckling at the hard wall of muscle. “With some inner strength.” Another poke, softer this time. “With some character. Maybe somebody I could lean on for a change. But do I see that? No!” She shouted the answer to her own question, waving the photo in his face, ignoring his darkening scowl. “I see a spoiled little boy, bitter over being grounded, unable or unwilling to get past a real bummer of a deal! Who takes out his petulance on lovestruck little girls!”
“What petulance?” He grabbed her wrist to keep her poking finger at bay. “What lovestruck little girls? What the ever living hell are you talking about?”
“Evie, Max. Evie is head over heels in love with you and you stepped on her heart like it was yesterday’s garbage.”
“Evie, in love with me? Don’t be ridiculous, Caroline. It’s just a crush.”
“You don’t see it, do you? You think they all care about that damn cane and that makes you angry.” Her eyes narrowed. “I see you hiding it every time a beautiful woman walks by.”
He was irrationally pleased. “You’re jealous.”
She started to sputter a denial, then set her jaw stubbornly. “I’m not here to talk about whatever pathetic insecurity I might harbor in your presence, Dr. Hunter. I came to talk about this!”
“Will you stop waving that paper in my face?” Perturbed, he snatched it from her hand.
Then a fist grabbed his heart as he stared down at the picture.
“Recognize him?” Caroline was saying, her voice mocking. “I heard he was pretty good.”
The picture fluttered as his hands trembled. “Where did you get this?”
“From my son. He wanted to know what kind of man his mother was becoming involved with.”
Max couldn’t tear his eyes from the grainy photo, taken his rookie year with LA. His body suspended in mid-air as he reached for the slam-dunk. He could almost hear the cheers, see the pulses of camera flashes, feel the taut heat of his muscles as they stretched to the limit of his endurance. Slowly he sunk into one of the kitchen chairs, still staring, blindly now.
“This was my life,” he uttered, his throat closed, his voice a mere raspy whisper. “How dare you fling it back in my face this way.”
Caroline hesitated. “You threw your life away, Max,” she replied, her voice softer now. Then she retreated a hasty step, when he looked up at her, fury darkening the very edges of his vision.
“And you’re the little expert? Make some pastries, have a chat, give out some hillbilly wisdom?” He wanted to slice as deeply as she’d sliced his heart. “You don’t have one minute idea of what it’s like, Caroline, so just leave now and we’ll call this whole thing a miserable mistake.”
Her face turned red and for the first time he found her blush completely unattractive. Then her eyes flashed as she stepped closer. “I don’t have a minute idea? God, you’re a piece of work, Max. Do you think you’re the only human being on the face of this planet to be handed a bad break?”
“No pun intended,” he responded from between clenched teeth. “Go away, Caroline, before I become really angry.”
“And then what? Then you yell at your family? Yell at me? Yell at Evie? Who will you yell at next, Max?” She leaned over and braced a hand on either arm of his chair, caging him in. “Th
row another temper tantrum and run away for another ten years? Well, isn’t that the grown-up way? I’ll tell you something, Mr. Maximillian Alexander, and you’re going to listen to me. There are plenty of people in this world a whole lot worse off than you. Go to any homeless shelter or inner-city clinic and you’ll see it. Then tell me that your life sucks so much.”
His jaw tightened. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. Go home and take these damn pictures with you.”
Slowly she shook her head. “I have every idea of what I’m talking about. Do you know what rehab is like for poor people, Max? It’s not a fancy Boston hospital with therapists and state-of-the-art equipment. Do you know what it’s like to do it all alone? Do you have any idea of what its like to pick yourself up every time you fall down and know that nobody else in the world cares if you live or die? Do you know about that, Max?”
She was inches from his face, her voice a cold roar. “Well, sweetheart, I do. Been there, done that. I had an injury, too. A bad one. A broken back and legs that folded under me when I tried to get up and take care of my son. I’ve sweated and grunted and pushed myself until I thought it would be easier to give up and die. I have one hell of a lot more than a minute idea of what it’s like. It sucks. It’s not fair.”
She stopped to catch her breath, barely aware of his shocked expression. “So let me give you a little bit of hillbilly advice. What you lost is more than most people have in a lifetime. What you lost was temporary anyway. You lost a few years of your life. You lost a career.” She grabbed the photo from his now-limp hands, flung it to the floor. “You had wings. Okay, fine. Now you don’t. I wanted to be a ballerina. But I wouldn’t have had that even if I hadn’t fallen down a flight of stairs and broken my back, spent years of my life fighting to walk again. Know why?”
“Why?” Stunned, he could only mouth the word, unable to find his voice.
“Because I never had enough money to eat. I never had a brother to care about me. I never had a father to love me enough to cry over me. I didn’t have shoes to wear to school, much less ballet slippers. You had a lot, Max, and yes, you lost a lot, but you still have it all. You always had it all and you almost lost it by drowning in self-pity all these years.”
He stared in her eyes, blue, dark and wild and felt the stab of sorrow fell his anger like a mighty tree. “I’m so sorry, Caroline.”
Her lips pursed, producing tiny lines that marred the smooth skin around her mouth. “No! I didn’t tell you all this for you to feel sorry for me.” Abruptly she straightened, turning her back to him. “That’s not what I want from you.”
“Then what do you want from me?” His voice shook and he never even heard the quake as he watched her bow forward, her arms clasped around her middle. “Caroline?”
“I want you to be the kind of man I can depend on, the kind of man I’m proud to call my partner. I want you to be a steward of what you have left, to take your lot in life and make it fly.” She picked up the photograph from where it had fallen during the fray. “Let yourself fly again, Max.”
“I can’t do that,” he said tightly, feeling the old despair wash over him as if his injury were brand new.
“Yes, you can. Just not the way you did before.” Slowly she turned and flattened the picture against her thigh. “Do you know how many boys would think they’d died and gone to heaven for just five minutes with a guy who played for the Lakers? On the same court with Magic and Jabbar?” Gingerly she placed the picture in the folder with the others and smoothed the manila cover. “Your legs don’t fly anymore, Max, but love for the sport is still in your heart. Find it, use it. Make some kids happy.” A gleam lit her eyes as she reached for her coat. “My son’s high school has a huge need for an assistant coach for their JV team. They’re not rich. Probably couldn’t afford to pay you.” Her arms pushed the sleeves right side out and her small hands reappeared to button her coat. “Or there are plenty of courts in South Side or Cabrini. It doesn’t really matter where.”
He watched as her movements slowed, her eyes grown heavy with fatigue. “Where are you going?”
“Home. Talking about the past makes me tired. I think I’ll go to bed early tonight.”
Max lurched to his feet and followed her to the front door. Then stopped cold when he found David quietly standing in the foyer, his eyes filled with concern.
“Caroline,” David started.
“Not today, David,” she interrupted, pushing past him to the front porch.
Helplessly, David caught Max’s worried gaze. “She shouldn’t drive, Max.”
“She won’t. Let me drive you home, Caroline. David can follow and bring me home.”
Wordlessly she handed him the keys.
Forty minutes later David and Max followed her up the two flights of steps to her apartment where a frantic Tom was pacing the threadbare carpet to bare floor.
“What happened?” he demanded, his young voice cracking.
“I’m fine, Tom,” she answered, giving his shoulder a tired caress. “Really. I just lost my temper and tuckered myself out. Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t cure. Good night, David.” She turned with a measuring, sober look. “Max.”
Max waited until she’d closed her bedroom door with a quiet snap before facing the question in Tom’s eyes, so like Caroline’s. “She was angry with me. She probably had a right to be.”
“Probably?” David asked, totally serious.
“How long were you standing there?”
David considered a lie, decided against it. “From ‘you are a pompous sonofabitch.’”
“You missed ‘ungrateful’ and ‘self-pitying.’”
“I must’ve been dozing.”
“She never swears. My mom never swears.” Tom looked back at her bedroom door as if staring long enough would answer his questions.
“She did tonight.” Max laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Call me if she needs anything.”
Tom abruptly shrugged Max’s hand from his shoulder and spun to face the two brothers, fire snapping in his blue eyes. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough?” Tom gritted from behind clenched teeth. His hands fisted at his sides and he rocked up on the balls of his feet, leaning closer until angry blue eyes were all Max could see, until the very air crackled with the boy’s barely contained fury. “My mother’s off limits to you, Hunter. Got that?”
Instinctively, Max’s hand tightened around his cane and he shifted backward to put some space between them. “Tom, please.”
David took a step closer and grasped Tom’s shoulder firmly. “Take it easy, Tom,” he said soothingly. “Nothing hap—”
Tom’s fist came up, knocking David’s hand from his shoulder and pushing him away in the same movement. His head turned to glare at David, but his body stayed firmly in position. “Get your hands off me,” he snarled, then turned back to Max, fists still clenched, his body trembling. “And you, you keep your hands off my mother. You think you can just waltz into her life with your Mercedes and your expensive suits and get her liking your family, then hurt her like this?” Max watched, stunned, as Tom shuddered in a deep breath and his eyes filled with tears. Tom took a step back and drew another deep breath. “I tried to warn her about you. Big-time ball player with a nasty temper. But did she listen? No. She had stars in her eyes and couldn’t see past your fake … niceness,” he finished haltingly, tears now running down his face. “You don’t deserve her. Just go.” He wiped his sleeve across his eyes and opened the front door. “Go now. Please.”
Max stood there, trying to think of a word in his own defense. There were none. Tom was angry and hurt. And right. He knew Caroline was vulnerable; he knew she’d lived with a man who was emotionally remote. And still he let his temper have full reign over a pair of basketball tickets. Tom was right. He didn’t deserve Caroline. David tugged at the back of his winter coat and Max turned, still numb.
David patted his back awkwardly. “Come on, Max. Let me take you home.”
; Asheville
Tuesday, March 12
8 A.M.
Ross folded her hands on her desk and stared at Steven. Straddling a chair with his chin resting on the chair back, Steven stared back at Ross.
“You’re reachin’, Thatcher.”
Steven shrugged. He’d been up half the night, going through evidence, files, his own notes and he … agreed. He was definitely reaching. “You got anything better? I’ll get right on it.”
“I thought you were going to look for the Legal Aid attorney who started the restraining order.”
“I am. I think I’ve found someone who remembers him, but the woman’s out of town until tomorrow. My brain took a different turn.”
Ross sighed. “Let me get this straight. You’ve focused in on the statue found in Mrs. Winters’s car.” She raised a brow. “Finally, working on the actual crime, I might add.”
Steven rolled his eyes and didn’t care if she saw him do it. “Look. That statue had significance to Winters. He recognized it, according to the boys down Sevier County way. If it had belonged to him, he would have reported it missing after his wife disappeared. The cops went through everything in his house with a fine-toothed comb. There were inventories taken. Winters insisted nothing of his had been stolen.”
Ross inclined her head. “Okay, I’ll walk with you, Thatcher. So it did belong to Mrs. Winters. What next?”
“Well, I was thinking if it had belonged to her, why didn’t he just say so when he saw it in the Sevier County garage?”
“Maybe he didn’t want her to have it,” Ross conjectured.
“That’s the direction I took. Look, we know he abused her. Don’t tell me he’s never been charged, Toni,” Steven spat out when she tried to do just that. “You’ve bent over backwards trying to be fair, but the evidence is there. That woman was abused by someone. Repeatedly and brutally. She lived with him from the time she was fifteen until she disappeared at twenty-three. Some of those wounds in those pictures are fresh. Who else would have access to flay her back apart? The cat-o’-nine-tails fairy? Come on, Toni.”
Ross sighed. “Okay, Winters is a spouse abuser.” She held up one finger. “Accused. He has the right to due process.”