Barefoot Season

by Susan Mallery

  “Not anymore. I got help. You need a group.”

  “I don’t want a group.”

  “I didn’t say you had to like it. You need to figure out how to make sense of it all. How to deal. You need someone, Michelle. Find a group.”

  His voice was low, the words insistent. Sexy.

  Her gaze drifted across his bare chest. He was strong and powerful. A take-charge kind of guy, which could be both good and bad in bed, depending on his attitude. She had a feeling Jared was the good kind.

  The sort of hot tickling deep in her belly stirred again.

  What would he say if she invited him to join her? Yes would be her first choice, but she wasn’t sure. For all she knew, he was involved with someone.

  There were also other issues. For one, she had to pee. For another, she would want to brush her teeth first and she couldn’t figure out a way to do that casually.

  “Think about it,” he told her.

  She had a bad feeling he wasn’t talking about sex.

  Even so, she nodded.

  “I can get you a number,” he added.

  “You just happen to have information on veteran support groups lying around?”

  “You’re not my first rodeo, kid. You found the information on this room at the VA, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I post it there on purpose. I keep this room for returning vets. To give them a safe place to get back into this world. After what I went through, I wanted to help.”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it. Great. She’d been thinking about sex and he considered her a mercy case. Wasn’t that always the way it went?

  “Get out,” she growled.

  He surprised her by grinning.

  She reached behind her and grabbed a pillow. By the time she’d tossed it in his direction, he was already gone.

  “Dickwad,” she muttered as she sank back on the mattress and turned off the light.

  But she was smiling, too, and for once the darkness seemed more friend than foe.

  * * *

  Carly straightened the bedspread, then stood back and studied the room.

  The drapes were open, allowing the hint of sunlight to spill onto the hardwood floor. Lamps sat in the exact center of the two nightstands. The linens were fresh, the room dusted and vacuumed.

  Against the wall, a narrow table held bottles of water, a coffeepot and bags of coffee, packages of cookies, a few postcards and a map of the town. In the bathroom, fluffy towels hung neatly; there were bathrobes on hooks on the back of the door and a tray laden with soap and bath salts and bubble bath stretched across the tub.

  She’d forgotten the satisfaction of cleaning a room in preparation for the next guest. She liked making sure all the fixtures sparkled and that the bed was perfectly made. She enjoyed putting out candles and setting the radio on a classical station. She had a sense of pride in her work.

  These days all she got were lists of which snacks were more popular and what coffee type got the most use. Cleaning the rooms, she could see the package of cookies with only one missing, as if they’d been too awful to finish. Either way, the inventory had to be replaced, but better to know what people liked rather than what they simply opened.

  She made a few notes on her pad, then shoved it back in her pocket. She’d taken on cleaning a couple of rooms three afternoons a week as a way to help but was now grateful for the chance to connect with their guests on a more intimate basis.

  She checked one last time to make sure she hadn’t left any cleaning supplies, then stripped off her gloves and started out of the room. As she did, she heard uneven steps in the hallway. Michelle came around the corner.

  “I didn’t know you could manage the stairs,” she said by way of greeting.

  “It’s a bitch, but I figured I’d better get up here.”

  Carly clenched her jaw and crushed the gloves in her hand. She shouldn’t even be surprised, she told herself, stepping back to allow Michelle into the room she’d just finished. Like mother, like daughter.

  She knew what would happen next. The not-so-subtle insults, the suggestions that were nothing more than a power play.

  Michelle limped toward her, then came to stop and frowned.

  “What?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Go ahead and do what? I came up here because I haven’t managed the stairs since I’ve been back. You’re cleaning rooms. The least I can do is haul my ass up here and look at the rooms. What if my mom turned this place into one of those theme places? With her crappy taste, God knows what could have happened.”

  The tension bled away, leaving her a little weak. “Oh.”

  “Oh? What’s going on?”

  “I thought you’d come upstairs to check out my work.”

  “You cleaned a room, Carly. You used to be a full-time housekeeper. What’s to check?” Her brows drew together and she swore. “Let me guess. Yet another legacy from my charming mother. She used to do that to me, too. Offer suggestions.”

  Michelle cleared her throat. “‘Perhaps if you cleaned the toilet counterclockwise.’ That was my favorite. Because what? The rotational pull of the earth makes the scrubbing better if it’s counterclockwise?”

  Carly laughed. “She always told me I was putting the things on the bath tray wrong. One time I wrote down what she said, then kept the note with me and showed it to her the next time she complained, so she could see I was doing exactly what she said.”

  “Pretty ballsy of you. I doubt she was amused.”

  Carly remembered the icy stare, the cool way Brenda had said perhaps Carly would be happier working somewhere else. How she’d had to beg to keep her job.

  “No, she wasn’t pleased.”

  Michelle walked into the room and looked around. “It’s nice,” she said.

  “You hate the bedding.”

  Michelle glanced at the daisy-covered fabric. “Yup. Every inch of it, but that’s just me. I’m sure the guests love it.”

  “They don’t complain about it.”

  “Practically the same thing.” Michelle hobbled to the window and looked out. “I see our therapy people are busy.”

  Carly joined her. She could see the three couples at the far end of the lawn, near the beach. Seth and Pauline were talking to them.

  “They haven’t been a problem,” she said. “They’re up early and gone all day.”

  “And hey, probably not having sex in the beds. That’s nice. I used to hate to find condoms in the trash. Yuck.”

  Carly laughed. “I’m with you there, but it’s not as if we can ask them to take them home when they go.”

  “Why not? They brought them here in the first place. Pretend it’s the beach. Take your bottles and cans with you when you go. Or in this case, used condoms.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. They’re our guests.”

  “You’re romanticizing the business. That’s never good.”

  They both laughed.

  This was how it had been before, Carly thought. Easy. Back when they were friends, when life had made sense and she’d understood the rules. Before everything had changed.

  She wanted that again. To be friends with Michelle. To have them trust each other.

  Somewhere in the parking lot, a car backfired. Carly glanced toward the noise, then back to the window where she saw a car pulling out.

  “Someone needs to get his engine—”

  Michelle had gone white. Sweat broke out on her face and a tremor rippled through her.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, not sure what had happened.

  Michelle glanced around as if she wasn’t sure where she was. Carly reached for her.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  The words were more growl than speech, the tone guttural. Carly stepped back. Michelle sagged against the wall.

  “Just go,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

  Carly hesitated.

  “Get out!”

  The laughter was gone, as was
the moment of connection. She collected her cleaning supplies and did as she was told.

  Seventeen

  Still shaking, Michelle escaped. She slipped more than walked down the stairs, every part of her on alert. The sound of the explosion—not an explosion, she told herself, something else—still ringing in her head.

  She didn’t remember walking through the lobby, although she must have because when she was next aware of her surroundings, she was in the empty dining room. She made her way to the kitchen and found Damaris prepping for lunch.

  Her friend took one look at her and pulled out a stool.

  “Sit,” Damaris instructed. “Now.”

  Michelle stumbled forward, then sank heavily onto the stool, her hip screaming in protest.

  “Don’t tell Carly I have this,” Damaris said as she walked into the pantry, then returned with a bottle of whiskey in her hand.

  She poured an inch into a glass, glanced at Michelle, then added a little more.

  “Drink,” she instructed, handing it over.

  Michelle swallowed a mouthful, letting the good burn erase the last of the fear.

  “What happened?”

  Michelle drew in a breath. “Nothing. It was so stupid. I was upstairs and a car backfired. But I thought…”

  Damaris moved close and wrapped her arms around her. “Poor child. You’ve been through too much. It’s not right. Women shouldn’t be in the military.”

  That made Michelle laugh. “You’re about seventy years behind the times.”

  “The times are wrong. Why’d you have to go off, anyway?”

  Michelle raised her eyebrows.

  “All right. Maybe you wanted to get away, but the army? For ten years?” Damaris released her. “And look at you now. All injured and jumpy. You’re going to get better.”

  She wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement. “I’m trying.” She finished the drink and set the glass on the counter. “What’s the lunch special?”

  “Grilled chicken and sun-dried tomatoes on focaccia bread. With extra cheese.” Damaris wrinkled her nose. “Those psychologist people came to talk to me.”

  “Seth and Pauline?”

  The cook nodded. “They asked me for more healthy choices on the lunch menu.”

  “This is your answer?”

  “It’s chicken.”

  Michelle didn’t know if she should laugh or groan. “You couldn’t come up with a salad?”

  “Salad isn’t a meal.”

  Not an argument Michelle was willing to take on.

  She looked out the window and saw the psychologists in question leading their group through some kind of exercise. The women were standing, facing the men. Every time the women made a movement, the men copied them.

  “Silliness,” Damaris said with a sniff as she followed Michelle’s gaze. “You’re married, you stay married. That’s the way it is. Being happy or not is up to you. A man can’t make a woman happy. It’s like asking a cat to grow wings. It’s not in their nature. Happiness is in here.”

  She slapped her chest. “The quicker women accept men don’t change, the happier they’ll be. I married my husband on my eighteenth birthday. If I was expecting him to make me happy, I’d have died waiting. You have to make a life. Be a good wife, have children. That’s happiness. Look at your father. Did he make your mother happy? Of course not.”

  “He left.”

  “Exactly. One day he was here, the next he was gone. She never got over it. I’m not saying he should have done what he did, but when he was gone, she had a choice.”

  The logic was twisted, but Michelle had to agree with the part about Brenda. Her mother could have gotten over what had happened. Instead, she’d chosen to be miserable.

  “Mom took it hard,” she murmured, wondering what her life would have been like if her mother had been a different person. Or was asking the question too much like wanting cats to grow wings?

  “I don’t care about her,” Damaris said. “Not to speak ill of the dead, but you’re the one I worry about. You had to take on too much, too soon. Your mother should have taken care of you. Instead, you took care of her.”

  Mostly out of guilt, Michelle thought. Because she’d known in her heart her father had loved her more than he’d loved his wife and even as a child she’d guessed that was wrong. Not that his love for his daughter had kept him from leaving.

  She’d been sixteen when she’d walked in on her father in bed with Carly’s mother. The image had burned itself in her brain—two adults she’d loved and trusted betraying them all. She still remembered the sight of Lana’s bare breasts bouncing and heaving as her body arched, Frank’s head buried between her spread legs.

  At first she hadn’t realized what they were doing. She’d stood there, gaping, confused but with a growing sense of shame and horror. She must have made a sound, because they both suddenly turned and looked at her, their shocked expressions probably mirroring her own.

  She’d run. Run down the stairs and out of the inn, making her way to the side of the road before throwing up. Then she’d kept on running until the cold and the rain had caused her to slow.

  The tears had continued to pour down her cheeks. She’d been crying when her father had found her.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he’d said.

  That was as close as he’d come to apologizing. He’d never asked if she was all right or even said why he was betraying his wife with her best friend, the mother of Michelle’s best friend. Instead, he’d talked about how important it was for Michelle to keep quiet.

  “Your mother won’t understand,” he’d told her.

  Michelle had wanted to scream that she didn’t understand, either. That it wasn’t right.

  “You’re my best girl. I need you to keep this a secret.”

  He’d explained why it was important, but she hadn’t been able to hear much more. She’d agreed, more because she couldn’t imagine talking about what she’d seen than because she agreed with his excuses.

  She’d always been a daddy’s girl. When she’d been little, he’d been the one to tuck her in, to read her stories. She’d felt safe. Protected.

  All that disappeared the afternoon she’d found him in bed with Carly’s mother.

  Michelle had pretended to have the flu and had retreated to her bed for two days. She’d been unable to look at her father, to deal with her mother. Slowly, so slowly, life had resumed and she’d told herself to pretend it had never happened.

  The following year when both Carly and Michelle were about to start their senior year of high school, her father and Lana had run off together. They’d disappeared into the night, leaving only notes behind. Their love had been too great to be denied, they’d written.

  The second betrayal had forced the truth from Michelle. She’d admitted what she’d seen to both Brenda and Carly. She’d expected they would all grieve together. Instead, Brenda and Carly had banded together to blame Michelle. Her mother had insisted if Michelle had told the truth, Frank wouldn’t have left. That somehow Brenda would have been able to stop him. Carly had agreed.

  While her relationship with her mother had never been especially close, after Frank left, it had gotten worse. More devastating had been the loss of her best friend. Carly had disappeared from her life. Michelle had faced her last year of high school completely alone, having lost mother, father and best friend in a matter of hours.

  Damaris pushed her glass toward her. “Drink,” she instructed again. “We shouldn’t be talking about this. You have enough on your mind. You don’t need to be remembering the past.”

  “I agree,” Michelle murmured, knowing it was too late for that. “He’s been calling.”

  “Who? Your father?”

  She nodded. “A couple of times. I don’t know how he got my cell number.”

  “Don’t look at me. I wouldn’t give it to him.”

  “I know.”

  “Maybe Carly did.”

  Michelle was le
ss sure. “Does she talk to her mother?”

  “How would I know? She and I rarely speak.”

  “You work together.”

  Damaris sniffed. “We both work at the inn, but we’ve never been friendly. She’s always in here, telling me what to do. I ignore her.”