by K. A. Tucker
“And you won’t be speaking to me,” I grumble under my breath, scowling.
“Catherine Wright made local headlines seven years ago as a junior at Balsam Public High School when she claimed to be romantically involved with her art teacher, Scott Philips. Philips’s father was the principal of the school at the time. She recanted her statement after Philips’s arrest, and all charges against him were dropped, despite records detailing several inappropriate interactions between Wright and Philips.”
How the hell did they get arrest records already?
“Philips, who was charged with the misdemeanor of corruption of a minor—”
Keith’s fist slams against the Power button on the television. “What are you doing?”
I toss the remote to the couch, that deep burn of shame settling into the pit of my stomach. A sensation I haven’t had to feel in some years. “That didn’t take long.”
Grabbing me by the shoulders, Keith spins me around and pushes me to my dimly lit kitchen table. The electricity bills in this drafty little house are higher than they should be, and so I bought those energy efficient lightbulbs in an attempt to counter the costs. The only noticeable change so far has been poorer lighting.
I nudge his wineglass toward him, shuddering from the chill of the ice. “How is that jerk Gord Mayberry allowed to just go on TV and say that?”
The chair’s legs drag across the worn linoleum as Keith sits down. “There’s not really a law against it. Maybe if he had made a false statement there’d be more we could do.”
“Alluding to us dating is a false statement.” I can’t keep the grimace from my face.
It matches the one that flashes across Keith’s. “Yeah . . . not gonna lie, hearing that made my stomach turn. You haven’t given any guy the time of day for years, and then you go out with him?”
I shoot him a soured look as I ease into the chair across from him. “It was a blind date. I don’t know why I ever agreed to Lou setting us up. I guess I thought I could actually meet someone.”
An awkward silence hangs in my little house for a long moment as I take a sip of my wine, feeling Keith’s weighty gaze on me. We talk about a lot, but our dating life has always been an unspoken subject. Neither of us has ever had to draw the line to make sure it doesn’t come up. It’s like we both intentionally avoid it.
For different reasons, though, I think.
While he has never come out and said it, I’ve seen the looks, I’ve noticed the way he’s always available for me, how he answers my calls and texts immediately, without fail. Even when he’s in the middle of something police-related and can’t really talk.
I’m not the only one who’s noticed either. Misty’s convinced he has a diamond ring tucked away in an underwear drawer, sized for my finger. Every once in a while, when I’m especially lonely, I consider what it would be like if we were something more. But the thought always ends when I remind myself that I don’t feel that way about him. I’d be settling, and that’s not fair to Keith.
“What the hell’s with these, anyway?” Keith holds up the crystal glass in his hand.
“What? I found them at a garage sale. They’re nice!” And they were only fifty cents apiece.
“They’re made for children.”
“They don’t make wineglasses for children.”
“Then why are they so small? Come on, it’s like a shot glass!” To prove his point, he brings the rim to his lips and finishes it in one gulp, contorting his face into a sneer that I can’t help chuckling at. That’s Keith, always able to make me laugh, even in shitty situations.
“Sorry . . . next time I’ll make sure I have beer.” My eyes wander to the window, and unease creeps back in. There are people waiting for me beyond those curtains.
That reality puts a damper on the momentary relief.
“Tell you what, I’ll do a drive-by during my next shift and shake Mayberry’s tree a bit. Give him a good scare for taking advantage of the situation.”
“He’ll probably try to sell you a car while you’re at it,” I warn.
“I’d love to see him try.” He nods toward the street. “So? Shitty reporter practices or not, that’s not going to go away. I’m guessing there will be ten more out there by the morning.”
I sigh. “I know.”
“You can’t avoid it, Cath. What are you going to do?” Keith is notorious for being my voice of reason.
“What should I do?”
“Just give them what they want.”
“And that is . . . ?”
“The story. Tell them what happened, say your piece, and be done with it.”
“I’m not Gord Mayberry. I don’t want to be on TV.”
“Like I said that night, you’re getting your fifteen minutes of fame whether you like it or not, so just get ahead of it now, while you still can. They’re going to tell the world about Catherine Wright.” He leans forward in his seat, a soft expression taking over his typical nonchalant face. “Make sure they tell the right version.”
I shake my head, the dread of my past rearing its ugly head. I thought that part of my life was over.
“You were in high school. High school kids do stupid stuff all the time. Hell, I just arrested a fifteen-year-old last week for shoving potatoes in his neighbor’s tailpipe.”
“Not even close to the same thing.”
“I know you think you’re still some sort of social pariah, but honestly, you’re the only one who hasn’t moved on. Everyone else has.”
“This is just going to remind them.” I sigh. “I don’t want to go back to that. You don’t know what it was like, not being able to go anywhere without feeling people talking about you, glaring at you, judging you . . . Knowing that you’re the topic of conversation around tables and at parties. And that was when I was seventeen and the paper couldn’t publish my name. Now there are going to be millions of people talking about Catherine Wright.”
“So you slept with your teacher when you were a teenager. You saved a guy’s life, too. Which part do you think people are going to be more interested in hearing about?”
We were friends for two years before Keith got the nerve to ask me what really happened between Scott and me, if I had made it up. When I told him that I hadn’t, he believed me instantly. “Get out ahead of this and show them who you are now. A responsible, loving, selfless mother, and incredible woman.” His voice cracks over those last two words.
I drop my gaze to where my fingertips grasp the grooves in the crystal, the emotion in his words pricking me a little too close for my liking. “I don’t know . . .”
Keith hesitates. “Brett Madden called the station.”
“Right. Of course he did.” In all this, I hadn’t even thought of him seeing the broadcast, but it stands to reason that he’d be watching the news, too. “What did he say?”
“He wanted to know if it was really you, or if Gord was just some jackass looking for airtime.”
“And? What did you tell him?” I can’t hide the anxiety from my voice.
“He’s desperate to talk to you. To thank you. So stop being such a chickenshit. After what you did for the guy, it’s kind of pathetic.”
“Okay,” I hear myself blurt out, taking both of us by surprise.
Keith’s brows shoot up. “Okay?”
A flutter stirs in my stomach. “Yeah. I mean, it’s all out in the open now so . . . May as well talk to him, right? You could give him my number and . . . I don’t know . . . tell him to call me?” What’s it going to be like to talk to him? Even after what happened, I can’t help but admit that I’m a bit starstruck.
Keith toys with the empty glass on the table. “Yeah, okay. I could do that.”
My gaze drifts to my worn La-Z-Boy and the old rotary phone sitting on the table next to it, unplugged. “My cell number.”
He chuckles. “I figured as much.”
“Okay.” I’m going to talk to Brett Madden. Maybe I’ll even meet him? A second, stronger wave
of flutters hits me, thinking of the man standing at that podium on television today.
Keith shoots a glare my way, and I realize I’ve started biting my thumbnail, a nervous habit.
“What do you think he’s going to say?”
“Uh . . . ‘Thanks for pulling me from a burning car’? ‘Thanks for saving my life’? ‘I owe you one’? Something along those lines, anyway. Just a wild guess, though.” His phone chirps and he immediately reaches for it, only to frown at his screen. “Shit,” he mutters under his breath.
“Something wrong?” Please don’t tell me that Keith has to leave. I feel safer having him here.
“Nothing. Just . . . I told my date that I had to work late and I guess she found out that’s not true.”
I’m about to ask why he lied to her but decide against it. People around here assume we have something going on, and if she’s heard those rumors, then it would stand to reason that he not tell her he’s bailing on her because of me. “Who is she, anyway?”
His mouth twists in a grin, making him look even more boyish. “Her name’s Cora. She’s a paramedic. Just started a few months ago.”
“Not from around here, then?” I’d remember if we’d gone to school with a person by that name.
“Nah. Grew up south of Pittsburgh.”
“First date?”
Keith’s expression is neutral, unreadable. He’s a master of that. “Third. Or fourth? Can’t remember.”
That’s his way of saying he’s not at all serious about her, or wants me to think he isn’t anyway. A part of me—the selfish part—is relieved because it means I’m not going to lose his undivided attention just yet. But at the same time I want him to be happy. It’s just not going to be with me. “I’m glad you’ve met someone.”
His phone chirps again, and he begins punching out a text as he mutters absently, “Not sure that’s going to go anywhere now.”
“You should just call her and explain the situation. Not over text,” I push, adding a soft smile.
“Huh?” A deep frown creases Keith’s forehead, a look of confusion fills his eyes. “Oh, right. Yeah, I’ll talk to Cora later.”
I guess he’s not texting Cora, then?
He climbs out of his seat and heads for the window to peek out the blinds. “So, okay. Cath, don’t get mad.”
Wariness slips down my spine as I watch him reach for the dead bolt. “Whenever you say that, I usually have a good reason to be pissed with you.”
He opens the door. Muffled voices sound beyond. “Careful on that,” Keith warns someone. “The last thing you need is to break your other leg.”
A man’s smooth chuckle sounds and I feel the blood drain from my face. I jump to my feet, so fast that the chair topples over, two rungs cracking as the back hits the linoleum.
But I couldn’t care less about my broken chair right now because Brett Madden is suddenly standing in my doorway.
Chapter 10
I’ve only ever met one famous person before, and “famous” is a big stretch. I can’t even remember her name. She played the precocious little girl in the Campbell’s soup commercials when I was just a kid. There were at least three different ads, and I used to see them on television ten times a day. It felt like that, anyway. This girl and her family vacationed in a Balsam-area summerhouse one July and our paths crossed. She was a snot, plain and simple, her nose so high in the air I’m surprised she didn’t trip over the curb. The moment her eyes touched you, it was obvious what she thought: that she was better than you.
That was my one and only foray into knowing a celebrity. And now Brett Madden is standing in the front door of my tiny ramshackle rental cottage, and I am in a pair of two-sizes-too-big gray track pants and a graphic cotton T-shirt with Grumpy Cat on the front, and my hair is pulled into a messy bun on top of my head, and I am going to kill Officer Keith Singer for surprising me like this.
Brett looks much the same as he did in the news conference earlier today, other than swapping out his black shirt for a light blue and gelling his hair slightly. His face is just as scruffy. That’s a hockey play-off thing, from what I’m learning. It does a solid job of hiding the chiseled jaw I know is beneath, but it doesn’t take away from his eyes, which are piercing, much more so than they seemed through the television screen.
Maybe it’s because now they’re trained on me.
As covertly as possible, I reach up to smooth and tuck the stray strands of hair that hang around my face behind my ear. When it was Keith, I didn’t really care what I looked like. Now, I’m toying with the idea of excusing myself and darting into the bathroom.
Brett sighs. “He didn’t tell you that I was coming.”
Before I can respond, Keith pokes his head in. “I was just about to.” He has his even-toned cop voice on now, the one he uses when he’s working or talking about police-related matters. I spear him with a look that says he’s a lying bastard, but it doesn’t ruffle him. Keith can deadpan, even when he knows he’s in the wrong. “I’ll be out here on the porch, keeping an eye on the vultures. If you need me, holler.” He pulls the door shut behind him.
And I’m alone with superstar and media heartthrob Brett Madden.
I want to ask so many questions. Mainly, what is he doing here? Why did he leave his bed—his doctors told him to rest for the next few weeks—only hours after being released from the hospital?
And yet I can’t seem to form a single word.
All I can do is stare at this imposing man standing in my living room, until he begins to shift on his crutches.
“I saw the news break, so I left Philly and headed here. I knew that mess out there was going to happen, and fast, once they had your name. I’m sorry, I should have just said ‘no comment’ and left it at that.” His naturally deep voice sounds different, slightly off, a touch unsteady.
Still, it somehow vibrates inside my chest. I can actually feel his voice.
“Why didn’t you?” I manage to get out in a croak. I remember him hesitating during the press conference, his mother giving him that disapproving look that all mothers somehow master without training, myself included. Was she warning him not to?
He sighs, shakes his head. “Honestly, I don’t know. I guess I just thought that, if that was the only way I could reach you . . . I’m sorry.” Sincere eyes peer down at me. Even all banged up, he’s entrancingly handsome.
I feel a blush creep in under the weighty gaze. “It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. They had my license plate number so it was only a matter of time.” Another long pause hangs between us, until I nod toward the front door. “How bad is it out there?”
“Depends. Are you ready to talk to a reporter?”
“No. Not particularly.”
“Then I’d suggest you stay put.” His eyes skim over my tiny house, stalling plenty, and making me wish that Keith could have at least given me five minutes’ heads-up to straighten the place.
What must he think of my cramped space and kitschy thrift store finds, with his multimillion-dollar houses and fast cars and, I’m sure, designer everything. I’m dirt-poor by comparison.
I take a deep breath and force myself to stand taller, to not compare myself to that, to not be ashamed. I’ve worked hard to get here, and all on my own, with a child in tow. That’s something to be proud of.
He nods toward the last vase of flowers on the side table, where Keith moved them for fear of an allergic reaction, though the lilies are long gone. “My mother said that she sent flowers.”
Last week while I was car shopping with my dad, Mom decided that the bouquet from the Madden family was “too ostentatious” for my table, so she and Brenna spent the afternoon arranging flowers in jars and glasses, and then strategically placing them along windowsills and side tables. There wasn’t a flat surface in this place that didn’t include flower petals. I’ve been changing the water daily, and plucking out the overripe blooms one by one, trying to preserve them as long as possible.
“Yes. Ple
ase tell her thank you. They were beautiful.” An absurd voice in my head wonders if I’ll ever get to thank her for them in person, but I quickly dismiss it. Not likely, given who she is.
After a moment, his gaze lands on me again and the most awkward tension settles in the air. Or maybe it was there from the moment he stepped through the door and I’m only just noticing it, now that the initial surprise of him in my doorway has faded.
He shifts his stance and winces in pain. “Do you mind if I grab a chair?”
I finally snap out of my daze. He’s not even supposed to be on his feet, and here I am making him stand at my door. “Oh, my God. Yes. Please.” I rush to pull a chair out for him, inhaling a light waft of cologne on my way past. A wave of déjà vu hits me. He was wearing that cologne the night of the accident. My senses didn’t process it then, but they obviously cataloged it for future reference because I’m instantly drawn to it, breathing in the scent of him, horrific memories or not.
I step back to make room, silently assessing how tall and broad he is as he hobbles closer. They say television distorts your body, adds twenty pounds. I’m thinking they’ve got it backward, because he feels larger than life right now.
How the hell did I ever get him out of that car?
He’s peering down at me, scanning my slender arms and bony shoulders, like he’s thinking the exact same thing, but he doesn’t voice it, easing himself into the chair with great difficulty, propping his crutches against the table next to him.
I move Keith’s dirty glass to the sink, feeling Brett’s warm, probing blue eyes on me the entire time. I can’t help the heat from crawling up my face, so I duck over to the sink and busy myself with rinsing dishes, waiting for my cheeks to cool. “I don’t have much to offer, but do you want a drink?”
He groans. “I’d kill for a cold beer.”
“How about cheap white wine that makes you cringe?” I really need to start stocking beer in my fridge.
When Brett doesn’t answer, I glance over my shoulder to see his amused expression. “I’m not selling it very well, am I?”