A wave of nausea washed through her, as it always did when she approached her childhood home. These days, crossing the bridge meant confrontation and bickering. It was almost impossible to admire the beauty that surrounded her as they headed down Star Island Drive. When they arrived, she asked the driver to wait for her. It was important to know she could make a fast and clean escape.
She headed straight for the greenhouse, knowing that even if her mother wasn’t working with her plants, she would be sitting in there reading or watching segments from a documentary she was supporting.
“Hey, Mom,” she said, stepping inside the sunlit room.
“Lia, darling,” her mother said, putting her book down on the wicker-and-glass side table. She removed her glasses and stood. “You poor thing,” she said, taking hold of Lia’s arm and extending it so she could assess the damage.
“I wanted to see you,” Grace said. “But somehow . . . I don’t know . . . I just . . .”
“It’s okay, Mom. I understand. And I wanted to talk to you about that.”
Her mother looked down the hallway. “Your father just texted me to tell me he was on his way home.” Which meant they’d only have a few minutes to talk.
Lia had spent hours thinking about how to approach this. Not for one moment did she believe her mom was in love with her father anymore, but for the sake of her mom’s mental health she needed to tread carefully.
They sat together on the small wicker love seat and faced each other. “I wanted to know how you are feeling,” Lia said, “about Dad and his plans for the next few years.”
Her mom absently reached for the gold stud on her earlobe and twirled it. “For better, for worse, I agreed to stand by your father.”
Lia flopped back against the sofa. “I know, Mom. And I think you’ve made good on your promise a million times over. But I also wonder whether Daddy sees your relationship in the same way. Don’t you ever feel like we’re merely commodities to him? I mean, he doesn’t really want a relationship with me. He simply wants me to do his bidding.”
She hoped that speaking about her own story might inspire her mother to share hers.
“I’m not sure what you expect me to say, Lia. My life is what it is. I’m too old to consider anything else.”
“You have options, Mom. It’s my birthday next week, and I get the rest of my trust fund. It’s yours if you want it. I can help you.”
“Lia, I can’t. That money is yours to support you and your family when you start one. You need to keep it. Your father . . . when he rewrote his will several years ago . . . he . . . he wrote you out of it.”
“But Mom, I don’t care. I’ve never cared. I wanted a father, not a walking, talking ATM. And I want you to be happy. It worries me, what he’s about to undertake, and what he wants you to do to help him. You know how stressful it was for you last weekend to have all those people in your home. And that was such a small taste of what it’s going to be like when the nominations are actually open.”
“I know what you are trying to do, darling. I appreciate it, I truly do. But it isn’t that simple, and I have known for a very long time that this day would come.”
“You quoted your wedding vows earlier, but I’m not sure that Daddy puts any faith into those. If he did, ‘in sickness and in health’ would have some meaning. When I was ill, all he wanted to do was hide me away so I couldn’t embarrass him. He was so furious when it got in the way of his plans to run back then. Do you remember how he forced me to stay in my room, how he couldn’t stand to be around me? He didn’t care about me then, and I’m scared he is going to push you further than you want to go, Mom.”
“And why would I do that?” The voice came from the doorway to the greenhouse. She turned to face him.
“I don’t know, Daddy. Why would you do that? Why would you so blatantly disregard Mom’s needs in pursuit of your own selfish goals?”
Her father stayed in the doorway and shook his head. “Lia, Lia, Lia,” he tutted. “You always did have such an active imagination. I often thought that was why you focused on art so much.”
Lia didn’t respond or stand. Her father was in his business suit, his salt-and-pepper hair matching the gray pinstripes perfectly. There was no way he would step voluntarily into the steamy heat. She had never, in her whole life, seen him enter the greenhouse. It was her mother’s space, an atmosphere in which, when she was a child, she’d imagined he could not breathe.
“Is this one of those moments,” he said calmly, “when the protagonist returns home to find the natives plotting insurrection?”
Her mom coughed politely. “Franklin, it’s not what you think.”
“Are you certain, Grace? Because to me, it sounded a lot like my daughter was trying to convince you to leave me.”
Now Lia did stand. She turned to face him. “It’s okay, Mom. You’re right. That is what I was trying to do. And if you eavesdropped for long enough, which I assume you did, you realize that Mom has put great stock in her wedding vows.”
Franklin stepped onto the greenhouse floor. Behind her, Grace gasped. “I put stock in our agreement that you would support me in this, Grace. If you have even the slightest shred of doubt, I suggest we divorce now, so that the whole situation can be forgotten before any campaigning begins in earnest.”
“Oh my God, Dad. Seriously? I don’t know why you have it in your head that Mom and I are so vital to your campaign. It didn’t affect Ronald Reagan when Patti Davis was active in the antinuclear movement. And look at Sarah Palin, preaching the traditional family values platform while her daughter’s getting knocked up. Nobody is expecting us to be perfect. Why can’t we embrace that?”
Her father didn’t even look at her; the gray eyes she’d inherited were solely focused on her mother. “Those were their children . . . not their wives. Grace?”
“Oh, Franklin. I have no intention of divorcing you,” her mother said, a slight quaver in her voice.
Her mother looked toward her, and her eyes told her everything she needed to know. Lia’s stomach sank.
“As you have always said,” her mother began, her eyes filled to the teary brim, “Lia has always had a flair for the dramatic.”
* * *
Thank heavens there was nothing complicated on the manifest for today. Even though it was Sunday, it looked kind of light. Depending on the progress they made, he might let a couple of the guys go early. Reid looked at the Buick Century currently on the lift. He’d already removed the wheel covers and center caps, along with the lug nuts, wheels, and tires. Changing the front brake pads and rotors was going to take a little time, but it gave him the opportunity to think.
Restlessness bothered him like an unscratchable itch. Sitting in his apartment the previous evening had been a miserable experience, only made better by an hour-long video chat with Lia. He wanted to be where she was, helping her recover, not removing the bolts on the back of the caliper.
Reid placed the bolts in a small container so he’d remember to grease them before reinstalling them.
He felt like he’d just installed a new engine in a classic car but had over-tightened the head bolts. At best, the engine might perform sub-par, but at worst, he could cause unfixable damage to the head gasket.
Coming back to Fort Pierce was meant to give him distance to see things a little more clearly. To get some clarity on the relationship he was building with Lia. But as useful as Fort Pierce was for distance, it sucked when it came to comforting Lia. He wasn’t much of a talker, but now he found himself waiting like a pussy for her call, and fighting the urge to jump on his bike and go to her. If it weren’t that he’d promised Sharon that he’d spend time with Donovan at the hospital while she took care of her three other children, he would have done so.
“Got something on your mind, boss?” asked Chase, who was working on the rear pads.
Yeah, a shit ton. “Nah, I’m good,” he replied.
“Really? ’Cause you’re really going to struggle to remo
ve that rotor without removing the brake pad bracket.”
Reid looked down. Damn. He needed to focus. “Think I need a bit more coffee,” he said. Chase grinned. “Can I get you some?”
“I’m good,” Chase replied. “Is somebody keeping you up at night?” he teased.
“If there was, I certainly wouldn’t be telling you about it.”
Chase dipped his chin. “Whatever you say, boss.”
Reid couldn’t face another mug of the sludge Jarod passed off as coffee. It was thick enough to stand a spoon in. He slipped out the side door and took the stairs to his apartment. There was a reason he’d bought a Keurig, and it was on his list of things to buy as a wedding gift for Harper and Trent. After all, Harper had said they didn’t have one was because Trent had an aversion to them—which made it, in Reid’s mind, the perfect gift. There was no malicious intent; he just intended to tease the ever-loving shit out of his brother-in-law to be, even though the more time they spent together, the more he liked the guy. It would be hard not to, given how much he obviously loved Harper.
Now that he knew Harper was safe and happy, he needed to figure out his own future, and the one thing holding him back was a remnant from the past. He pulled his phone out from his pocket and tried to remember the name of Harper’s lawyer. It was Lydia something. And the law firm name ended with Ross. Reid started to put some words into the browser on his phone, and after a few moments he had the names. Lydia Grayson at Brewster, Grayson, and Ross.
The coffeemaker finished its thing, and Reid poured milk into the espresso. He took a sip and sighed. There would be definite advantages to buying one of these machines for the garage downstairs. They could even begin to offer drinks to customers. He put the milk back in the fridge and closed the door. On it, hung with magnets, were images of the kind of studio he really wanted to run. Reid laughed to himself sadly. He was so far away from affording it when he couldn’t even afford a second coffeemaker.
He sat down at the breakfast bar. It wasn’t fair to leave Chase to finish the brake job, but he needed some professional advice. With Winston back on the scene, Reid was worried whether he might be in legal trouble for the deal he’d made prior to Harper’s trial, should anybody ever find out about it. And the best person to tell him was the person who had helped his family through it. Only she was in Chicago, a place he still wasn’t sure he could go back to.
Before he changed his mind, he dialed the number.
“Brewster, Grayson, and Ross. How may I direct your call?”
Reid rubbed his hand across his forehead before pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m looking for Lydia Grayson, please,” he said.
“Can I ask who’s calling, please?”
“It’s Reid Kennedy,” he replied.
“One moment please.”
He took another sip of his coffee and debated the relative merits of hanging up the phone. If he did, nothing would change. Or not in the short term, at any rate. If he didn’t, at least he would know for sure what he might be on the hook for.
“Hello, Mr. Kennedy,” the phone operator said. “I’m afraid Ms. Grayson is in court today. Would it be okay to put you through to her voice mail?”
Voice mail was tricky. He didn’t want what he had to say recorded in any way. Perhaps it was a sign that he wasn’t meant to have this conversation yet. With a very heavy emphasis on yet.
“No, thank you. I’ll call again later in the week.”
A small part of him was relieved by the outcome, even though it was a totally cowardly move. Yes, he’d just dodged a bullet, but he had a feeling that when it finally caught up with him, it would hurt twice as much.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A fucking Impala. Again. Happy birthday to me.
Lia laughed at the nondescript car outside the building.
“Is everything okay, miss?” The car rental employee handed her the clipboard and pen.
Lia rested the clipboard on the hood of the car and quickly signed her name. “Everything is great, thank you. I appreciate you delivering this.”
It had been a spur-of-the-moment decision based on a momentary flash of genius from Trent. She’d called him about returning to work, but he was having none of it. They’d brought in a freelance tattoo artist they knew to fill in her spot on the schedule because Trent was adamant that she have time to fully recover. When she’d complained that she was bored, Trent had suggested she go spend the time with Reid. When she’d raised her braced arm in a How the fuck am I supposed to drive a stick? action, he’d pointed out that she was more than capable of driving an automatic and that she could just rent one.
She’d started her birthday celebrations by having breakfast with Pixie and Dred and had laughed so hard at Dred’s attempt to get runny cereal into Petal’s mouth. Pixie had cooked and baked all of her favorite things and then presented her with a skirt she’d sewed herself—thick black-and-white stripes in a wonderfully structured satin.
In the past, she’d made the trip over to Star Island for lunch, but this year would be different. She’d had no contact with her mom since Grace had sided with her father. It was hard to be angry, because Lia understood her mother’s reluctance to step out from under her father’s control after all the years they had been together, but hurt surrounded her like a wet mist. Instead, she was going to celebrate with her friends and focus on the good she had going on in her life.
Two million dollars had been deposited into her account that morning, the last of her trust fund from Granny Emmeline. The money had done nothing except make her sad. The condo she’d loved since the day Granny Emmeline had given her the keys suddenly felt too large. Perhaps it was because having Reid there had felt so right. Or because her prediction had come true and her family was now much smaller, limited to her brother. He was in theater. She’d always thought that term for being out in a war zone with every possibility of incident was an odd choice. He’d been able to patch through the previous evening to wish her happy birthday, and for the briefest moment she’d considered sharing the problems happening at home. Knowing that he didn’t need that kind of distraction, though, she kept her thoughts to herself.
The drive to Fort Pierce took twice as long as normal. An accident on the highway, road work that narrowed the number of lanes, and a fucked-up arm that demanded she take two breaks en route. But she was on her way to see Reid, and that more than made up for it. The day he’d left her condo, she’d realized that there was no point in pretending that she wasn’t falling in love with him. Hell, she was already there. And while she couldn’t explain it to anybody else, she knew this time was different. All her relationships in the past were tepid approximations of what she felt around Reid.
It was midafternoon by the time she reached the Fort Pierce exit, and a few minutes later she pulled onto Kenny’s forecourt. All of the large roller-shutter doors were wide open, and there seemed to be a lot more people working there than she remembered. She stepped out of the car and patted the roof of the Impala. It might be a bit on the bland side, but it had served her well. Like the term babe, it had grown on her.
Lia rubbed her hand over her shoulder. Her posture was screwed, her back was tight, and the weight of the brace was heavy on her arm despite the sling she still occasionally wore.
One of the men she’d been introduced to the day her car had needed towing walked toward her. “Hey. Red Plymouth, right?”
“That’s me,” she replied with a smile. “Good memory.”
“Hard to forget a car like that. It isn’t broken down again somewhere, is it?” he said, glancing past her toward the Impala.
“Oh, Lord, no.” She could only imagine having to explain to Reid what had happened to the car if she’d had another incident, but at least she knew he’d fix it for her. “This happened,” she said looking down toward her brace. “It’s pretty tough to drive a stick with only one arm.”
“Ah. Well, what can we do for you?”
“I’m here to see Kenny,” she
said, remembering to use his nickname.
“Well, let me go get the boss man for you.”
Realizing her presence had garnered her some additional attention, she played along, lowering her chin and her sunglasses to peer over the top of them. “Hello, boys,” she said with a smile.
Reid stepped out of the darkness of the garage into the brilliant sunlight wearing a pair of overalls over his jeans, the top half tied around his waist by the arms. Goddamn, she needed to ask him what his views were on role-play, because she’d love to drive into his garage and be manhandled by a dirty-talking mechanic.
“I can’t decide whether I’m mad that you drove all this way with that arm, slightly pissed off that you seem intent on distracting my boys, or three . . .” Reid said as he came to a stop in front of her, leaning forward to whisper in her ear, “horny as fuck because I haven’t been inside you for six days and you look spectacular in that skirt.” He bit the lobe of her ear gently. “Happy birthday, babe.”
Embarrassingly, at thirty years of age, she still giggled. “Thank you. And for what it’s worth, I think you are entitled to feel all three, although I have to admit I prefer horny to mad and pissed.”
He grinned in return and held his hands up, palms facing her. They were smeared with streaks of black, as was the side of his face. “How much do you like that skirt?” he asked, echoing the question he’d posed to her the night she’d shown up at the garage after the tattoo expo.
“Unfortunately for you, very. It’s my birthday present from Pixie, and it’s the very first time I’ve worn it.”
“Damn. Then I should probably go wash my hands before I molest you in it.” He pulled a set of keys out of the pocket of his jeans. “It’s the silver one. The alarm isn’t on. Make yourself comfortable, and by comfortable I mean lose the skirt and everything else. And be naked in my bed at five o’clock. Because, for once, I’m finishing on time, locking these doors, running up the stairs, likely taking an item or two of clothing off as I run, and then, grease-covered or not, going to fuck you until every ounce of horny, mad, and pissed is gone.”
The Darkest Link (Second Circle Tattoos) Page 21