Not in Her Wildest Dreams

by Dani Collins

  Understatement of the century.

  “I’ve noticed.” He could feel his limbs tensing. “What happened?”

  “He’s been buying car parts on the company account. Paige found out and said—”

  His ears rang, drowning out the rest. “Where is she?”

  “Taking a late lunch? I don’t know. She left a little while ago and I thought she should have been back by now. I wanted to ask her—”

  “Where’s Fogarty?”

  She checked her watch. “His shift ended half an hour ago.”

  He walked out on Olinda, too angry to wait for Paige to return and explain. There wasn’t anything to explain anyway. He’d been here all afternoon; she should have come to him the second she knew. Instead she went to Olinda and then lunch? No. And he knew why she hadn’t come to him. She was afraid he would fire her brother.

  Well, guess what.

  ~ * ~

  “Fogarty!” Sterling shouted loud enough to cut across the murmur of conversation and Clapton’s I Shot The Sheriff on the jukebox.

  The Mill’s late afternoon patrons, the town’s hardest drinkers and the people who’d knocked off early to start their Friday night with gusto, raised their heads.

  Lyle turned in his chair, hooking his arm across the seat back. He chuckled when he saw who’d yelled his name. “Golden Boy!” he called back. “How the hell are you?”

  Aside from the throbbing lance of betrayal Paige had forked into his vitals? Ecstatic.

  It was unprofessional to take so much joy in this task, but Sterling didn’t bother to hide his grin of feral pleasure. “You fucking thief. You are so fucking fired.”

  The last of the people still talking fell silent. The bartender put down his towel, and moved to pick up the phone.

  Lyle gave one bark of laughter, short and harsh, then stood up with a scrape of his chair. “Let’s go then, you son of a bitch, because this has been a long time coming.”

  Sterling thought, He’s drunk, but he was on Lyle’s heels out the back door of The Mill, ignoring the bartender calling after them that he was phoning the police.

  They went to the area of the back parking lot that only filled on the busiest nights, near the dumpster, where all disputes that began in the bar had been settled since the hotel had been built with mining money.

  The late afternoon was gray and desolate. A cold wind cut down the side of the building, rippling Sterling’s hair and pressing his company sweatshirt against his back. Behind them, the door repeatedly slammed and swung open, as people filed out behind them to watch.

  Lyle dropped his chin. “Show me what you got.”

  “Ladies first,” Sterling countered.

  “You settin’ me up for assault charges?”

  “I’m not swinging first ‘cause I’ll be swinging last. I’ve got the advantage of sobriety, you dumb fuck.”

  “Oh, you’ve always got the advantages.” Lyle hunched into a boxer’s stance.

  Sterling wanted the first poke. Being on the receiving end of an initial shot could ensure you didn’t have the wherewithal to get in any at all, but Lyle was drunk. In the back of his mind he also knew Paige was going to be livid with him for firing her brother. She would be beside herself if he swung first.

  Which wasn’t a drawback. He was in a mood to wound her for hiding this from him.

  Sterling hunched and circled with Lyle.

  “Grade six all over again, huh?” Lyle said, twitching an elbow.

  Sterling reacted with a half-dodge. “Stupidest thing I ever did was give your old man an excuse to sit down with mine.” He shifted his balance to the balls of his feet, bounced lightly one step forward, trying to draw Lyle out.

  “Come on then,” Lyle said. “You want to.”

  “I do,” Sterling agreed, circling, circling. As a rule he was a lover, not a fighter, but not today. Today he didn’t have any love in him.

  “I’ve been waiting for this, too.” Lyle feigned a lunge.

  Sterling blocked and swung, testing Lyle’s reflexes.

  Lyle ducked with more speed than Sterling had expected from someone with a few beers under his belt.

  “Almost tagged me,” Lyle said, pulling back, looking like he was enjoying this. “Didn’t think you’d have the balls.”

  “Try me.” Sterling was hot, aware of the murmuring crowd, aware of the scuff of Lyle’s boot and the stink of the dumpster. “Or are you going to talk me to death?”

  “Thought a spoiled rich boy like you’d prefer to talk.” Lyle shifted back and forth. “Fighting’s like work, something you wouldn’t know anything about.”

  “Says the biggest dog-fucker ever pulled a paycheck.”

  “Way you’re dancing, I’m starting to see why Dad whipped your ass—”

  Sterling stepped into it and Lyle met him halfway.

  Pain exploded around Sterling’s eye and in his hand as his knuckles connected with Lyle’s jaw. Strong fingers dug into his upper arm. Sterling deflected a belly blow and gave Lyle a left hook that could have used more power.

  It still sent Lyle back a step, giving Sterling a chance to catch his breath. Then Lyle charged him and they both hit the concrete.

  Sterling felt his sweatshirt tear, felt the scrape of pavement against his shoulder. He heaved to throw Lyle off, they rolled, more skin came off his elbow. He took one to the ribs, Charlie-horsed Lyle’s thigh with his knee, bloodied his nose and maybe even broke it.

  They scuffled hard, both landing a few more good shots, grunting and swearing and spitting out enough blood to stain the asphalt.

  He was dimly aware of people shouting, of bursts of pain, but rage dimmed it all. He needed to hurt this man, badly.

  There was a blip of a siren. Digging fingers dragged him and Lyle apart and there was Cam, recruiting bystanders to help him hold the two of them apart.

  “Break it up! Settle down!” Cam cuffed them both, and locked them in the back of his cruiser.

  Sterling swore as he tried to get comfortable with his hands cuffed behind his back. His shoulder stung and his gut was cramped with adrenaline.

  “Like this,” Lyle said, showing him how to slouch on one shoulder. Blood ran freely over his lips.

  The last thing Sterling wanted was to look at that shit-head, but his far shoulder was too raw to balance against the seat back. He shifted and took Lyle’s advice, hurting. His whole body was a world of hurt. Despite it, he could have kept going. The dust-up had barely begun to work out the animosity he felt every time he looked at Lyle.

  Or the anger he felt toward Paige.

  Not telling him Lyle was stealing? What the hell, Paige?

  He looked out the rear window for Cam.

  “He’s giving us an opportunity to reflect on our sins,” Lyle said. “Probably asking Stephen if we broke anything, waiting for the crowd to disperse before he lets us go. Looks better, ‘specially this early. Keeps people from knowing he mostly tolerates the dumpster ring. You a southpaw?” Lyle licked blood from where it smeared his chin.

  “Switch hitter.”

  “Should have known. Golden Gloves,” he scoffed.

  “I can still get a foot up to kick your teeth in, asshole.”

  Lyle laughed, but it was harsh and humorless. “Sterling. Fucking Sterling’s Silver Spoon.” He shook his head. “You got it all, you son of a bitch, and you don’t even appreciate it.”

  For a few seconds, Sterling saw himself from Lyle’s point of view. Saw the car at sixteen, the team sports, the father who’d played catch with him. The mother who was mentally healthy and hadn’t walked out. The family business he hadn’t wanted, but would own anyway.

  “Most of ‘em are gone,” Lyle said, peering out the window. “Five more minutes.”

  “Is that why you set me up with Paige and your dad? ‘Cause you were jealous and wanted to knock me down a few pegs?”

  “I could give a shit about your advantages, G.B.”

  “Why then? ‘Cause you’re a born and bred as
shole? What’d I ever do to you?”

  Lyle flicked his hair out of his eyes, narrowed them on Sterling. “That why you’re such a prick? You think I sent Dad outside that night?” Lyle shook his head and leaned to see past Sterling’s shoulder. “Cam’s coming back,” he said in a remote tone.

  Sterling turned to see the cop walking with the slow authority of a man who was making a point about who was in charge and who wasn’t. Cam stopped to shoot the shit with a couple headed back into the bar.

  “You want me to believe you didn’t tell your Dad we were outside?” Sterling asked. “How the hell did he wind up out there, then, huh? Why else were you encouraging me to believe in that monkey-brained gossip?”

  She wants you to be the one. The humiliation of it still made him want to curl into a ball. How could he have fallen for it?

  Lyle snorted. “Dad being there was bad fucking timing, for him and you. As for encouraging you? Shit, You were so lovesick someone had to do something. It was painful.” Lyle turned his attention to Cam and muttered, “C’mon, c’mon.”

  Sterling waited for a twitch or a grin or some sign that Lyle was just trying to get a rise out of him. And waited.

  “I wasn’t lovesick,” he managed to say.

  Lyle lifted the brow that wasn’t split. “Seriously, dickhead, you’re not foolin’ anyone. You never did.”

  Sterling stared at him, wanted to tell him he was full of shit, but something tickled down his temple. His hot face hurt all over, along with a few choice areas across his torso. The biggest pain came from the middle of his chest though, a pressure so great he could hardly breathe.

  Cam opened the door behind Lyle. “You boys work out your differences yet?”

  “Yeah,” Lyle said. “Golden Boy offered me my job back, but I told him to cram it.”

  “You can let me go,” Sterling said, “But take him in for stealing.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Paige swung the hood of her father’s Wildcat into the driveway. No Lyle.

  She slammed the two-ton door, then trotted straight around her father’s house and down the fence line, her angry breath making clouds in the biting fall air.

  She came up short against Sterling’s locked back door, banged twice, and was off the porch and halfway around the bungalow to the front door when she heard the back door opening behind her. She spun around to the porch again.

  “Did I hear right? Were you in the dumpster ring with Lyle?” She charged after his retreating figure into the house.

  “The C.I.A. would seize this town’s grapevine if they knew how fast it transmitted.” Sterling turned to the refrigerator and opened the freezer. “Yes, you both heard right. So what?”

  She vaguely noted Walter’s presence on the other side of the kitchen, but her knees were buckling as she caught a glimpse of Sterling. She grasped the end of the counter. “Good God.”

  Sterling’s eyebrow was bloody, his eye swollen, his lip bleeding. His knuckles were scraped. His torn shirt revealed a patch on his shoulder where a fine layer of skin had been planed off and tiny spots of blood had risen.

  She watched him wrap ice in a tea towel and hug it against his ribs with his elbow. Then he opened the refrigerator and bent his knees, trying to reach a beer on the lowest shelf.

  “You didn’t put Lyle in the hospital, did you? He’s not home.”

  He snorted. “He’s probably drinking off the pain, which is what I’d like to do if you’d both excuse me.”

  “What happened?” Walter asked. Demanded.

  He had some of his color back, but not much. He’d already been acting like he was having some kind of stress attack when she’d dragged him into a meeting at Beck and Jakowski to tell them about Lyle’s misappropriations. At the same time, he’d been willing to downplay it, which had been heartening, right up until Britta had interrupted them to say she’d just heard—from Cam, Paige assumed—that Sterling and Lyle were brawling outside The Mill.

  At that point, Walter had paled with something that had looked like sick terror.

  Paige was still incensed, but felt an underlying desire to cry as well. She was being stretched too thin, her emotions staked out so far by extremes of worry and anger and guilt, by so many people, she was going to snap.

  Sterling wasn’t answering, just leaned awkwardly, trying to reach the bottle of beer. His fingertips played with the top. He was obviously in too much pain to bend the extra inch needed.

  She shuffled him out of the way and grasped the cold bottle, retaining it as she straightened to confront him. “Why did it have to come to this?”

  “It was about time it came to this. Firing him just gave us both permission to get it out of our system.” He held out his hand in silent request for the beer.

  “You fired him?” Walter’s jowls quivered as he shook his head in disbelief. “You had no right.”

  “The hell I didn’t. He was stealing.”

  “How did you hear that?” Paige asked.

  “Olinda.”

  Of course it had been Olinda. Her middle name was not Patience.

  “Okay, so you were angry, but beating him up? That’s just wrong,” Paige said.

  “Hey, I pulled the first couple of jabs ‘cause I thought he was drunk. He wasn’t. It was a fair fight.” He reached for the beer she still held.

  “Alcohol is not the answer!” She threw it reflexively. It went through the window above the sink, exploding liquid and shattering glass with an ear-splitting smash.

  The violence left her as shocked as the men.

  “Babe, I look done in, but I’m actually still jumpy. That pissed me off. Leave. Now.”

  “We’re going to hire him back,” she said, nodding toward his father.

  “Not fucking likely.”

  “Walter?”

  He’d already agreed to keep Lyle employed so long as he paid back what had been taken.

  “I want him back, son.” Walter’s voice, deep and grating, had an edge of desperation to it. He was sweating.

  “No, you want to prosecute,” Sterling corrected. “I’m going to need whatever evidence you’ve collected,” he told Paige, and reached for the bottle of ibuprofen on top of the fridge. “Cam wouldn’t hold him this afternoon because I didn’t have the proof on me.”

  “No.” Walter’s mouth twitched as though he wanted to say more, but couldn’t seem to make his lips do anything but repeatedly purse, like a mouse scenting cheese.

  “We’re talking about a few thousand dollars,” she told Sterling, then nodded to indicate his father. “We’ve been to the lawyer and they advised us to ask him to pay it back. He can’t do that unless he has a job.”

  Sterling paused in shaking pills into his palm. “What the hell is wrong with you two? He was stealing.”

  “It’s a misunderstanding,” Walter began.

  “The hell it is! Ask the accountant.” Sterling pointed at her.

  She dropped her gaze, then jumped when Walter slammed his hand onto the stovetop, making the burner rings rattle. “He has to come back.”

  “It’s me or him, Dad. Your choice. But let me tell you, if you’re making senile decisions like rehiring criminals, then you’re not fit to run the factory. I’ll take it from you and fire the son of a bitch anyway.”

  Walter quivered with emotion. It was like he was sucking air through an invisible straw.

  “Yeah, me,” Sterling went on. “Taking charge because it’s past time someone did. Christ, Dad, look at the shape the place is in. This is supposed to be my heritage? What the hell have you been doing the last ten years? Even Mom can see things are going downhill. That’s why she wants you running for Mayor, isn’t it? ‘Cause there’s no money in the business anymore. Pretty soon, there won’t be any money in this town. No one will have a job. I can fix that, but it means housecleaning.” Sterling turned on her so he didn’t see his father’s distraught expression. “Starting with Lyle Fogarty.”

  Behind her hand, Paige bit her lip, still
watching Walter.

  His hand fisted on the stovetop. For a moment he looked like he was going to argue, then he swallowed, nodded once, and looked very old. Defeated.

  “I’ll tell your mother.” He left, closing the front door behind him with a muted finality.

  Paige slid her hand to her collarbone. “That was awful. What were you thinking, talking to him like that?”

  “What the hell were you thinking, hiding this from me? How long were you going to let him keep stealing?”

  Whoa. Apparently he hadn’t worked out his anger. “It wasn’t like that. I knew you were looking for an excuse to fire him.”

  “He was overdue to be fired,” he cut in. “Everyone knew it and looked the other way except me. And you can take it as a warning, sweetheart, because you’re next on my list. I can’t trust you. Jesus, how much like your old man are you, thinking this shit doesn’t matter?”

  There were times when a bitchy comeback eluded her. This was one of them, and she really needed a mouthy remark to keep him from seeing how badly that cut into her. All she came up with was a hollow-voiced, “I had to talk to your Dad first.”

  Did he have any idea how difficult today had been for her? She pushed her hair off her face. “We took it to Gunner Beck, to get his opinion. I was going to tell you after.”

  A muscle jumped in his jaw. “You two were at the lawyers without me? Why are you still having meetings without me?”

  “It was business for shareholders.” She didn’t say it with the intention of aggravating him, but wasn’t exactly disappointed when his nostrils flared and his lips tightened.

  “Yeah? Well, I invested fifty thousand dollars so I’m a shareholder too.”

  Wind gusted through the hole in the window. She pimpled against the chill. Against the way this changed everything.

  “Yeah,” he said with a nod. “I’m your partner. And since you’re selling out soon, you don’t have a lot of say in what goes on at my company. So quit asking me to save your brother’s ass.” He started to turn away, pivoted back. “And know that I’m through chasing you, making a fool of myself, because it’s not worth it. Now take a hike while I fix my window. I’m too pissed to look at you.”