“Do you want me to do it?” He deliberately ignored the fact that he had an appointment at ten with Pam Rosen. He didn’t want to think about that.
“No, I’ll take her,” said his father, coming forward. He put his hands on her shoulders and leaned over her. “Ida, we need to go to the doctor.”
Her gaze passed back and forth between them, until she zeroed in on Jaguar. “I thought you were the doctor.”
I’m your son, he wanted to say, but he choked it back. “No, the doctor’s at the hospital.”
She made a low moaning sound. “I don’t want to go to the hospital. Please.” She looked up at his father with a wounded expression and Jaguar felt his heart twist.
“It’s not to stay,” said Henry, patting her shoulders. “It’s just to get a few stitches.” He shot a glare at Jaguar.
Jaguar shrugged. How was he supposed to know that was a sore subject?
“I don’t want to go. Please don’t make me.”
“Ida, the doctor needs to sew up your cut. That’s all. Just a little while and we’ll be home.”
“That’s where people go to die. The hospital,” she said, her gaze drifting away. “They leave them there to die. You can smell the death.”
A shiver raced over Jaguar. “Do you think it can wait until the doctor’s available?” he asked Henry.
“And risk an infection? We don’t know what might happen.”
In other words, they didn’t know what she might do. It needed to be stitched. Jaguar nodded.
“Come on, Ida,” said Henry, urging her to her feet. “Let’s get a jacket and we’ll go for a ride. I’ll take you to get an orange zest afterwards.”
“I don’t want to go to the hospital,” she moaned, but she allowed herself to be lifted, using Jaguar’s shoulder to brace herself. Jaguar patted her hand, her fingers cool and thin against him. He could feel the knuckles and the parchment-like skin. He had a crazy thought that she was becoming transparent, fading away into nothing. She shuffled toward the door beside his father, both childlike and ancient. He realized that while she didn’t recognize him, he often didn’t recognize her anymore either.
A moment later, the kitchen was quiet and he could hear the front door open. He reached for the coffee, but he realized it had grown cold. Shoving himself to his feet, he carried the mug to the sink and hand washed it, then he stood staring at the empty basin, trying to pull one coherent thought to the foreground, but nothing would come. Shit, maybe Alzheimer’s was his destiny too.
* * *
Nancy Osborn’s business, Cater 2 U, had been housed in a pretty pink cottage with flowers in pots next to the stairs. Jaguar stared at them through the window of the taxi, finding it incongruous with the woman who’d tried to kill him.
“You want me to wait?” asked the taxi driver. He was of mixed ethnicity with dark black hair and a thick beard. He wore a San Francisco Giants ball cap and a Buster Posey jersey. He leaned an arm on the seat and turned halfway around to look at his customer. He’d been the one to take him to the Rollicking Robin the other night. Jaguar couldn’t help but wonder if he was the only taxi driver left in the area.
He looked back at the pink house. He knew he was stalling, but he didn’t want to go inside. “No, don’t wait. I don’t know how long I’ll be.” He dug his wallet out of his pocket and paid the man. His gaze chanced over the guy’s license. Hakim Adowani.
Hakim made change for him and held it over the seat. “Call if you need a ride back,” he said.
Jaguar nodded, but he didn’t take the change, pushing open the door. As he climbed out, a woman stepped out onto the porch, her arms crossed over her middle. He could feel his stomach bottom out, but he focused on the stairs and climbed up to her.
She looked him over, her head tilted to the side. He briefly met her gaze, then pretended to take in the porch and the gingerbread shingles.
“Coulda told you you were her father just by seeing your eyes,” she said, then she pushed open the door. “Come in. I’m Pam.”
A wind chime sounded as he followed her into a reception area. Pam crossed the room and pushed aside a beaded curtain that covered the doorway. Jaguar ducked through into a larger room with a desk, a leather office chair, a round table, and upholstered dining chairs. Boxes sat on top of the table. To their left was a fireplace and on the wall next to it another beaded curtain covering a doorway.
“Do you want something to drink? Coffee, tea, a shot of whisky?”
Jaguar wouldn’t mind the whisky, but he shook his head no. She pointed to the chairs around the table and they took a seat. Pushing aside some boxes, Pam ran a hand through her short brown bob.
“She definitely has your eyes.”
Jaguar swallowed hard, not knowing how to respond to that.
“You’re not much of a talker.”
He glanced around the room, then noticed a hallway to their right. “Is she here?”
“No, she’s at the Y with my kids.”
“You said you had three kids?”
“Two boys and a girl. Ten, eight and six. Their father took off when Amanda turned three.”
Jaguar shifted in the chair. “I’m sorry.”
“Men suck,” she said.
Jaguar nodded, playing with the leather strings tied around his wrist. He wasn’t going to deny that.
“How many kids do you have?” she asked him.
His eyes snapped to her face. She had probably been pretty once, like Nancy, but there was a bitter set to her mouth and a weariness in her eyes. “Just the one. That I know of,” he said, giving her a sheepish half-smile. He started to ask her something, then stopped himself.
“What?” she demanded.
He tugged on the strings. “What’s her name?”
“Your daughter?”
He nodded. God, that sounded so odd, so wrong.
“Sophia Annabella Osborn. Annabella was our grandmother’s name. Osborn was Nancy’s husband. She let him think Sophia was his for a while, until he got wise to her.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he found out he couldn’t have kids. He was sterile. He knew Nancy had lied to him.”
Jaguar dropped his gaze to the table. Nancy had worked here in the house, had dreamed here, had wanted something more for her daughter, and now it was being boxed away. “So they divorced and Nancy raised Sophia by herself?”
Pam nodded.
“Like you?”
“Like me,” she repeated.
“You said your husband doesn’t help you with child support.”
“I said I can’t find him. He disappeared and I don’t have money to hire a private investigator. Just as well. I wouldn’t want to have to fight him over custody.”
“So, what do you need from me? I mean, moneywise.”
She didn’t immediately answer, just stared at him.
He gave her an encouraging nod. Surely, they could come to a number. He’d provide for his daughter. He could do that much at least.
“I don’t want your money,” she said slowly, emphasizing each word as if he were simple.
He frowned. Then why the hell were they here? “I thought…”
“You thought I wanted money? You thought I asked you here to shake you down?”
He held out his hands in a helpless gesture.
She tossed her head in exasperation. “I want you to take your daughter.”
“What?” He blinked rapidly a few times. He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.
“I want you to be a father to your daughter, let her come live with you.”
He leaned forward, pressing a hand to the center of his chest. “Nancy tried to kill me to keep me away from her. What the hell are you talking about?”
“I know. I know what she did.”
“She murdered someone,” he added.
Pam briefly closed her eyes. “I know.”
“And you want me to take my daughter? You want me to raise her after all that?”
>
Pam leveled a look on him. “Yes. She’s your daughter.”
He threw up a hand and slumped back in the chair.
“Listen to me,” she said. “I don’t condone what Nancy did, but she hasn’t been in her right mind for a long time. She has brain cancer for God’s sake.”
“She murdered someone,” he repeated. “She held a gun on my mother.”
“I know, but Sophia didn’t do those things. She never asked for any of this and now she can’t be with her mother, the only person she’s ever known, and she doesn’t understand why.” Pam flattened her hand on the table. “Nancy’s dying.”
“I’m aware of that,” he said.
“No, I mean actively dying. I don’t think she’ll live another week. She’s in that psychiatric hospital. I take Sophia to see her twice a week, but she doesn’t understand. All she understands is her mother’s sick, very sick.”
Jaguar swallowed hard. He could imagine how terrifying that would be for a five-year-old. He wished she didn’t have to go through this, but he wasn’t father material. “Nancy wanted you to raise her daughter.”
“I know, but I can’t.”
“I’ll give you money…”
“That’s not the point, Jaguar!” she said angrily. She slapped a hand down on the table, making him jump. “That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“I have three kids of my own.” She pressed a hand to the center of her chest. “It’s all I can do to raise them the way they should be raised. I work from morning until night trying to do everything that needs doing – cooking, cleaning, washing clothes. Then there’s the homework and the after school activities.”
He watched her, feeling a sinking in his stomach.
“I can’t take on any more. Not even one more or I will break.”
Jaguar looked away, thinking of the frightened little girl about to lose her mother and aunt both. That had to cause serious emotional damage. “I’m not father material.”
“Well, you don’t get a choice in that. Grow up, damn it!” She motioned over his body. “This was all cute and everything a few years ago, but you’re a full grown man now. And!” She punctuated with a finger against the table. “You have a daughter!”
Jaguar leaned forward again. “You keep forgetting that Nancy doesn’t want me anywhere near our daughter.”
“Well, Nancy’s dying.”
Jaguar blinked in surprise.
“So she doesn’t get a choice. Once she’s gone, it’s my decision.”
Jaguar rubbed his forehead, closing his eyes. He couldn’t be a father. He didn’t know a damn thing about kids. What the hell did this woman want from him?
“I talked to a lawyer. As soon as Nancy dies, which could be any day now, we can go see this lawyer and have him draw up a custody arrangement. The hard part is already done. We have the results of the paternity test, so we can prove you’re Sophia’s biological father. If we come to an agreement, we don’t even need to go before a judge. The lawyer can just enter the decision for us. In the meantime, I thought, maybe, you’d like to get to know her.”
He looked up through his hands, then dragged them over his face. “Look, Pam, I know how hard it must be to take care of four kids by yourself.”
“You don’t know.”
“Right. Right. But I’m not a father. I have no idea how to be one.”
“There’s not an owner’s manual, your idiot.”
“But I’m going back to LA. Nancy was right about one thing. My lifestyle’s not appropriate for a child.”
Pam started to speak, but he interrupted her. “Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll give you enough money to hire an assistant. I’ll even pay your mortgage or the rent on your house, but I can’t take Sophia.”
Pam’s expression hardened. “I wasn’t asking you, Jaguar,” she said in a cold, lethal voice.
Jaguar gave her a confused look.
“You’ve got until Nancy dies to make a decision, then I’ll make it for you. I won’t betray Nancy’s wishes while she’s alive, but as soon as she’s gone, either you take Sophia or, and this I mean with every ounce of my soul, I’ll put her in foster care.”
“She’s your niece!”
“I know that and I don’t want to have to make this decision, but my kids come first. They have to. I owe them and I’ll be damned if I’m going to make them sacrifice because you’re too damn selfish to do what’s right.”
Jaguar couldn’t speak. He just stared at her in horror. What fresh hell was this? She was blackmailing him with a child he didn’t even know, a child whose mother had tried to kill him. He offered to pay her to take care of the child, no questions asked. He couldn’t take a five-year-old to LA with him, take her on tour. This was insane.
Pam rose to her feet, staring down at him. “Think long and hard, Jaguar. It’s time for you to man up.” Then she turned and walked toward the other beaded doorway, throwing the hanging aside and disappearing from view.
Jaguar watched the beads swing back and forth, thoughts scrambling over each other for consideration. Finally, he felt like he was going to suffocate if he didn’t get out of this house. He scrambled to his feet and found his way outside, but once he was there, he didn’t know what to do or where to go.
He sank down on the stairs, bracing his forearms on his thighs, and stared at the leather strips tied around his left wrist. He could smell the evergreens and the coming heat of the day. It was late summer, but the heat would still top eighty.
The feeling of being trapped intensified until he could hear his heart pounding in his ears. What was it about this place that wrapped its tendrils around a person and held him captive? He needed to get back to LA. He needed to save his career. But he just couldn’t see any path forward that would take him there, not now. Not now.
He hardly registered the sedan pulling up before the pink cottage until the door slammed. Sheriff Wilson walked around the front of the car and stepped up on the sidewalk. He tucked his thumbs into the tops of his uniform pants and stopped at the bottom of the stairs.
Jaguar lifted his head and met Wilson’s gaze. “I’ve got no pot on me today,” he said wryly. “And I’m not playing guitar in a redneck bar.”
Wilson drew a breath, expanding his concave chest, and released it. “Come with me, son,” he said wearily. “I’m afraid there’s been an accident.”
CHAPTER 5
Someone held a paper cup of coffee under his nose. Jaguar looked up into Zion’s green eyes. He accepted the cup and brought it to his mouth. Café au lait, his favorite. He forced a tired smile for her. His eyes burned and his back ached, but he was actually glad to see her. Zion Sawyer was one of those people who instinctively drew others to them. Whether it was her open face or her good nature, they’d struck up an unlikely friendship since he’d come home.
She sat down next to him. “Tate told me you were here.”
Jaguar wrapped both hands around the warmth of the cup. “What time is it?”
“Eight.”
“AM or PM?”
“AM,” she said. She looked around the waiting room. “Where’s your father?”
“He’s sitting with her. Only one person can be in intensive care at a time.” The small waiting room was half-lit, the furnishings in a 70’s orange brown with faux wood end tables. A television was suspended in a corner, but he’d turned it off hours ago. He’d looked through all the magazines, but home decorating and celebrity divorces had lost their appeal a long time ago.
“Tate said it was an accident?”
He nodded and sipped at the coffee. “My father took her to get stitches in her hand. She broke a mirror the previous night. He was waiting in line to get a prescription filled, for antibiotics, and he told her to wait on a bench for him.” Jaguar drew a breath and held it, then he released it slowly. “When he came out, she was gone. He searched the whole building, frantic, then he heard the commotion out in front of the hospital.”
“Sh
e wandered into the street?”
“Yeah.” His voice broke and he cleared his throat. Zion put her hand on his arm. He really did like Zion. She’d let him work in her coffee shop when he thought it would help him get back to writing music. He realized now that it was a desperate attempt to recapture something from the past, a time when he felt angry at the world. He’d lost that hunger somewhere along the way and the music had left him. Working the coffee house was fun, but it hadn’t fixed his problems.
Zion had also saved his life. When Nancy had held a gun on him, Zion had talked her down. Zion had made her see how insane her actions were. She and Tate had also saved his mother, but nothing was going to save her now.
“The guy driving the pickup said he didn’t even see her. She was just suddenly there.”
Zion’s grip tightened. “I’m so sorry, Jaguar.”
He stared at the pattern on the linoleum tiles. He’d stared at them for so many hours now. He thought he saw a woman’s profile in one and a butterfly in another. He hated this feeling, this ambush every few minutes. He actually forgot for seconds at a time that his mother had been hit by a car, that she lay in intensive care, that she was supposed to have surgery if they could get her stable, stop the internal bleeding, but her blood pressure was too low, her heart rate too erratic. He actually forgot for a few seconds, only to have it sneak up on him again.
He took another sip of coffee. “I appreciate you coming down. Tate was here when I arrived.”
“Yeah, he told me. How’s your dad doing?”
Jaguar shrugged. “We haven’t spoken. When Sheriff Wilson brought me in, Dad glared at me, but he didn’t say anything. The doctors came out and told us what was happening, that they were trying to stabilize her for surgery, then we’ve been switching off every couple of hours. One of us sits with her, while the other one tries to sleep.”
“Have you gotten any sleep?”
“I doze, then I jerk awake and it all comes back. I just keep seeing her the way she was when she broke the mirror, looking up at me, afraid.”
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