by Karina Bliss
CHAPTER SIX
“YOU STILL DON’T trust yourself, do you?”
Staring out the window, Joe was glad the psych couldn’t see him roll his eyes. If one more kindly professional probed his feelings…After ninety days’ rehab he was supposed to have learned how to control destructive impulses.
“That’s why you haven’t called your wife,” prompted Dr. Samuel when it became clear Joe wasn’t going to answer. “Because you’re worried you might fail her again.”
For all his bedside manner, Dr. Samuel had a gaze that could strip paint. Joe concentrated on Redvale House’s gardens. The soldierly rows of conifers down the driveway flanked symmetrical beds of purple and red poppies. Everything had self-restraint in this place, he noted wryly, even the plants.
“Talk to me, Joe,” commanded Dr. Samuel.
Joe turned to face the man who could have been his twin. Same age—mid-thirties—same lanky stature, same unexceptional brown eyes and hair. But they lived in different worlds. “I can’t make promises while I’m in here.” I won’t hurt my family again. “My ninety days is up this week. If I can stay sober outside for three months, we’ll talk.”
“And what’s your son supposed to do in the meantime?”
That struck a nerve. “What’s your point?”
“Six months is too long for a four-year-old to lose all contact with his father.”
Joe glared. “I’m trying to do the right thing by my family.”
“You want to make yourself perfect before you take the first step.” Dr. Samuel steepled his long, manicured fingers. Joe hated it when he did that. “Even if you never take another drink, that’s not going to happen, Joe. Humans aren’t made that way. Besides, maybe your wife doesn’t want you perfect. You won’t know until you ask her.”
“I’ll write her a letter.”
Dr. Samuel shook his head. “You know that part of the twelve steps is to make direct amends to the people we’ve harmed.”
“Except when it would hurt them more—or others.” Joe met Dr. Samuel’s paint-stripping gaze with one of his own.
The other man didn’t flinch. “At your lowest ebb, you got drunk and struck out at your wife. Let’s be very clear. I make no more excuse for that than you do.” His tone was acerbic. “But it affected you so profoundly that you acknowledged your alcoholism and committed yourself to residential rehab. At the very least, don’t you think she needs to hear that in person?”
Joe stared blindly out the window. He’d survived his childhood by not giving a damn. Alcohol had put a protective visor around the scary business of living with a woman he knew he didn’t deserve and a son who peeled his emotions back to tender. “I’ll think about it.”
“Turn around,” said Dr. Samuel, and reluctantly Joe complied. “Would you risk your life for your wife and child?”
At last, an easy question. “Of course.”
“Yet you won’t take an emotional risk for them.” The pain was so unexpected it took Joe seconds to realize he’d been cut. Having made his neat incision into Joe’s heart, Dr. Samuel probed gently. “What are you really afraid of? All she can do is say no.”
“Oh,” said Joe, “is that all she can do? That thought never occurred to me.”
Dr Samuel smiled. The first smile Joe had ever seen from the man. He was so surprised he returned it.
“Tell me, Doc—” he spoke gruffly to cover his momentary lapse “—are you this brutal with all your patients?”
Dr. Samuel turned serious again. “Only the strong ones.” Joe refused to feel gratified. “And the stubborn ones,” he added, and smiled at Joe again.
DON WAS WAITING FOR KEZIA and Christian back at the hotel, sitting straight-backed in a cane chair on the front veranda, his sparse ginger hair lifting in the warm breeze.
The sight of him distracted Kezia from her brooding and she hung out the open window with her thumbs up and called, “Success!” She was puzzled when she received no answering salute. “I’m going to have to buy that man a hearing aid.”
Christian didn’t reply, and she scrambled out of the passenger seat then slammed the Ferrari’s door, listening for the curse and smiling when it came.
What was she doing? Provoking Christian into a fight when she was within hours of being rid of him?
With a supreme effort of will she opened the driver’s door. “Sorry about that.” You were the one to issue an ultimatum and refuse to compromise. “And thanks for all your help.” You were the one who disappeared without a goodbye. The memory of discovering him gone without a word could still upset her. “Bastard!”
She slammed the door again. Wrenched it open. “Damn it, I want to talk about it.” Her voice vibrated with passion.
Christian got out of the car and closed both doors with exaggerated care. “Tough. I don’t.”
“I didn’t dump you. You dumped me because I wouldn’t run away with you on one day’s notice. ‘If you love me you’ll come with me.’ Well, if you’d loved me you would have stayed!” Fourteen years of bitterness uncorked. “But that’s not your style, is it, Christian? Better to run away than to stick it out and work on a compromise.”
Christian began strolling across the car park toward the hotel. Kezia yelled after his retreating back. “That’s right, you coward! Walk away!”
“You’re confused,” he called back. “The coward stayed.”
Anger propelled her after him. “I had responsibilities.”
“You had excuses.”
“What’s your excuse for disappearing without a goodbye?”
“You ripped my heart out. What the hell did you expect?”
Her own began to bleed, the wound as fresh as the day he inflicted it. “Did it ever occur to you,” she cried with a searing anguish that cauterized the flow, “that I could have changed my mind?”
Christian swung around, his face a study in shock. “Did you?”
She was silent while she watched him suffer, wondered whether he could ever suffer enough. “I guess you’ll never know now, will you?” She held her chin high to stop it from trembling.
“Tell me!”
Without another word, she walked past him, forcing a smile for Don as she rounded the corner of the hotel. “We got it,” she enthused. Inside, her stomach was churning. “Isn’t that great?”
Don’s lined face remained grave and Kezia pulled up another cane chair. “You have bad news.”
“My dear girl.” He reached for her hand, waiting for Christian, who arrived grim-faced a few seconds later.
Like Kezia, he assessed Don’s mood at a glance. “Tell me something else I don’t need to hear today.”
Don cleared his throat. “It’s customary for the executor to notify the tax department to inquire after money outstanding but I had no idea…”
Wearily, Kezia leaned back. “A tax bill. Oh, great. I guess I could sell my station wagon.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be enough.” Don hesitated. “Muriel has been stalling Inland Revenue for two years over provisional tax. I believe she used the tax money she should have been setting aside to pay off other creditors.”
Oh, Nana, why didn’t you tell me?
“How much?” Christian asked quietly.
Don tightened his hold on Kezia’s hand.
“There’s quite a high penalty regime for provisional tax. Incremental penalties as well as use-of-money interest—”
“How much, Don?” Her voice came out harsh and Kezia dropped it to a whisper. “Please. Just tell me how much.”
His grip on her hand grew painful. “One hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That’s core debt with penalty and interest included.”
“Oh, my God.” Kezia stared at Christian, becoming conscious of how much she was revealing, then leaned back in her chair. Across the street the fruit and flower shop was a splash of vibrant color.
Plump Mrs. McKlosky came out of the shop with a bucket of purple irises and pink peonies. Seeing Kezia, she gave a cheery wave.
For twenty-five years she’d supplied the hotel with fresh produce and flowers. Kezia’s throat tightened. “Poor Mrs. McKlosky,” she said, and knew it as an admission of defeat.
Christian laid a hand on her arm. “No one could have worked harder to save this place.”
She couldn’t look at him and maintain her composure so she stared blindly at Mrs. McKlosky. “We’re beat, though, aren’t we?”
“I’m sorry, babe.”
Kezia hoisted herself up, feeling like an old woman. “I’m going to lie down for an hour. Then I’ll tell the staff.”
“Would you like me to do it?”
“No, it should come from me.” Don’s old face was drawn and anxious, and she bent to kiss his forehead. “I’m one tough broad. Don’t worry about me.” At the doorway self-preservation kicked in. She turned back. “Christian?”
He was watching her, all arrogance gone, and she steeled herself. “That other matter. I hadn’t changed my mind so a goodbye wouldn’t have made any difference.”
For a moment an indefinable emotion flickered in his eyes. “Thanks for telling me.”
Kezia nodded and turned away. She had told the truth—just not all of it. That would have been vindictive.
A ROW OF EMPTY GLASSES between them, Christian and Kezia sat at the dimly lit bar, oblivious to the curious stares of late-night patrons. They were mostly grizzled farmers who insisted on buying Kezia another drink she clearly didn’t need “for your loss.” Their nods to Christian mixed sociability with “watch your step with our girl.” He’d got used to it.
One of the biggest shocks in coming back had been discovering most of his peers gone. Left were the old, the young, eternal optimists like Kezia, and the hopeless, tied to their land by debt. At the center, socially and economically, was the Waterview Hotel.
Depressed, Christian took another swig of his beer and wondered if he should try to stop Kez from drinking any more. She plainly wasn’t used to alcohol, but he was in complete sympathy with her desire to soften the edges of a day from hell. Not one to shirk unpleasantness, she had spent the afternoon with the tax department signing over ownership of the hotel. It was already up for sale.
Kezia picked up her glass and took a ladylike sip. Christian removed the beer mat still clinging to the base. “At least I have my teaching to fall back on,” she said, “though I’ll probably have to leave the area.” There were no vacancies at her old school.
Christian tried to play along with her determined cheerfulness. “Meanwhile you’ve got your town council position.”
“And my community projects.”
“And your campanology.”
She looked up sharply, saw he intended no irony and relaxed.
“All I’ve lost is a roof over my head. I’ll just stay in a motel until I know where I’ll end up working.”
Christian nodded, unable to hide his pity.
“I’m not pretending this isn’t devastating, but I refuse to fall apart,” Kezia told him firmly, waving her forgotten drink. “From now on, my cup is half full, not half empty.” Then she noticed her glass was in fact nearly empty and signaled for the bartender.
“Coffee,” Christian told Davie before she could open her mouth.
Kezia had been about to order coffee, longed for coffee, but allowing Christian to take charge now would be fatal. “A Bloody Mary, please, and if you look to Christian for confirmation, Davie, I’ll fire you.”
The twenty-one-year-old kept his eyes on hers. “Okay, Kezia.”
She bit her tongue, resolving to make it up to Davie with some baking when she’d resettled. If she remembered right, peanut brownies were his favorite.
“Will the motel have an oven?” she asked Christian, then laughed, both at his perplexity and at the absurdity of expecting a millionaire to know such a thing. He’d probably never been in a motel in his life…. Oh, boy. The drink arrived and Kezia took a gulp, trying to quench the fire burning her face, the fire within. Instead the alcohol inflamed her memories, all of them slick, hot and wantonly abandoned.
“Small oven,” he said, and she looked at him blankly. “Big bed.”
He spoke the last softly, dragging it out like every sigh of pleasure he’d won from her. Kezia put down her Bloody Mary, reached for a jug of ice water and poured a glass. Drained it. He was tormenting her deliberately. Well, two could play this game.
“Is it hard?” she asked throatily, and waited until his eyes widened. “I do so hate a soft mattress.”
That surprised a laugh out of him. “Is there still a wayward streak in that pillar of the community?”
“I may have led a sheltered life compared to you—actually I can’t think of a single person who hasn’t—but I’m not unworldly. You think of rural life as entombment.”
“And you never have.” His tone was neutral but she sensed an accusation.
Alcohol made her brave. “I didn’t go with you fourteen years ago because I was scared.”
His expression changed to the one she hated—that of the world-weary cynic. “You were right not to trust me. Look how I turned out.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she persisted. “You were so intense, so fearless.” She struggled to find the right words. “So sure about what you wanted.” And didn’t want.
“I don’t do intensity anymore. A man lasts so much longer without it.” His intonation gave the words a sexual connotation but Kezia knew he was trying to steer the conversation into safer channels.
She let him. “You couldn’t burn me now, Christian, even if you tried.” She refilled her glass with ice water, looked up and fell into his eyes, shimmering with male heat.
Casually he took the glass, already forgotten. “No?”
Ignoring the thumping of her heart, Kezia held his gaze. She was thirty-two and in charge of this conversation even if her emotional responses were still eighteen.
“These days,” she said carelessly, “I might just burn you.”
“You could try.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him to get naked. “I got over you, Christian,” she said instead. And almost meant it.
“Me, too. So there’s no reason to rehash the past, is there?” To Kezia’s surprise he reached out a hand. After a brief hesitation, she took it. “We have enough to deal with.”
“I have enough to deal with,” she corrected, and withdrew her hand to reinforce an independence she didn’t feel. “Your work here is done.”
“Are you counting that as one of your blessings?”
“That would be ungrateful,” she said, and he laughed.
“I’ll take that as a yes, then.”
Yes. Go before I care. “I figure I’ll leave most things for the new owner. A clean break is probably best.”
In his mind’s eye Christian saw her walking past the hotel every day, swinging her arms a little more briskly, giving it a cursory glance, catching people’s eye so she could say brightly, “Hi, how are you? I’m fine!” Being brave.
He drained his glass, signaled Davie for another, hating this feeling of helplessness. If you weren’t dead, Muriel, I’d wring your neck.
The old woman had put too much faith in his ability. Kezia’s theory—that Muriel wanted to throw them together—he’d already dismissed.
Only a sentimental fool would chance everything on love, and Muriel had never been that. Stubbornly independent maybe, but no fool. Her granddaughter had inherited her independence in spades so why was he reluctant to leave her like this?
Maybe because he’d suffered few failures in his adult life, and every damn one of them involved Kezia Rose.
But he could do something for her. He slid an envelope along the bar. “This is for you.”
She opened it. Inside were hundred dollar bills—lots of them. “What’s this?”
“Your commission for helping me close that multimillion-dollar deal yesterday.”
Snorting, she pushed it away. “I’m not a pity case yet.”
He
pushed it back. “Pity has nothing to do with it. Like you said yesterday, I owe you.”
“Okay, let’s be realistic. Give me a hundred bucks toward a new church bell.” She removed one bill and tried to pass him the envelope.
Christian hid his hands behind his back. “My reality has a lot more zeros in it.”
“Well, mine doesn’t.” She reached around him to make him take the money and his arms came about her like muscle-sheathed iron.
“People around here tell me you peg your worth too low.” His arms tightened. “And on the subject of unfinished business, I still haven’t kissed you properly—improperly—yet.”
His arms were warm against her back, his mouth inches from hers. Kezia began to struggle. Christian released her and raised his brows in mock surprise. “I thought you said I couldn’t burn you now, even if I tried?”
Needing to have the last word made her reckless. “I also said I might just burn you, so don’t play chicken with me. Unless you mean it.” She threw the envelope down between them like a gauntlet. Then swallowed.
Christian pocketed the money, his eyes never leaving her face. “Oh, I mean it,” he said slowly. “If you won’t take my money—” his smile brought the butterflies back “—how about I put myself at your service for three hours?”
“That’s some hourly rate,” she said dryly, “but I like the idea of having you in my power.”
“For three hours I’ll do anything you want.”
“Anything?” Kezia managed an ironic expression but her heart wasn’t as good at overlooking innuendo. Unwittingly, she put a hand on her heart and Christian’s smile reached his eyes. “You mean, dig potatoes or put out the trash or…”
“Get dirty,” he agreed softly, and she stopped pretending she didn’t understand his meaning and started pretending she could manage this.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“OKAY, I’LL ADMIT to a little sexual curiosity.” Kezia regrouped, that wasn’t what she’d meant to say. “But.” That was better. “Why would I—Miss Uptight Whatever—abandon my principles and sleep with you on your last night in town?”