by Dani Collins
L.C. leaned his elbow on the counter and surveyed the floor on both sides of the counter. “Going to pick up any of that?” he asked conversationally.
“No, I’m going to go eat a bottle of Pete Dolinski’s sleep aids. I am a useless human being who betrays little children. I don’t deserve to live.”
“And how’s your morning going then?” He didn’t bother to hide his amusement.
“Terrible.” The corners of her mouth went down and her eyes brimmed. “Dayton hates me. I told him he wouldn’t have to stay at school, but they kept him. I shouldn’t have left him but what am I supposed to do? Kids need to go to school, right? And I need to work. It would have been easier if his teacher had been like Ayjia’s, but no, Dayton’s teacher was trained by the Third Reich, far as I could tell, and if you’d seen the look in his eyes.” She pointed at her own, narrowed them into mean slits. “It was like all the trust he’d ever had in me completely evaporated in one tiny second. Don’t laugh. This isn’t funny.”
L.C. wasn’t really laughing, only smiling, and it was empathy. If she only knew how often he’d seen the exact look on Zack. Especially since arriving here in Flagstaff.
“Welcome to parenting.”
“Shhh!” She glanced around. “I haven’t told anyone yet. And it’s only temporary.”
“Then you can’t dig into that bottle of pills yet, can you? You’ll have to deal with this.” He bent to collect the mail.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said as he handed across the stacked envelopes then rounded the counter. “You really don’t have to do that,” she said as he scooped up the lawyer file and other items that had come from her purse.
“I don’t mind.” He let his gaze climb leisurely from her ankle to her knee, then her thigh, the bell of her skirt, the little eyelets in the lace across her stomach, the blue cups that held her breasts, the freckles high on her chest, the way her throat worked to swallow. The shine on her lips as she licked them. The startled uncertainty in her eyes. The shadow of...response?
Like fresh coffee, she was. Warm and aromatic and then—mmm—the welcome kick in the bloodstream.
“There’re perks.” He held out the stuff, held her gaze, heard himself say, “We should go out sometime.”
Her hand went to a spot low on her abdomen. “Yeah, that’d solve all my problems.”
Ouch.
She shut her eyes in a wince. “I’m sorry. That was rude. I just— Look at me, L.C.” She waved her hand around at the messy desk and the blinking phone, the courier boxes on the counter.
“Even before this, when I had free time, I spent it with the kids. I don’t have time to date. Well, unless I lose my job of course, which is so likely, I’m ready to vomit.” She pressed the heel of her hand deeper into her naval. “That’d almost be a relief at this point, because Dayton’s going to need—”
“How much caffeine have you had today?” he asked, mostly to distract her.
“What?” She dropped her hands to her sides. “A few cups, why?”
“You’re completely wired.” He set her stuff on her desk. “Look, Dayton will be fine. In fact, this will build trust. He’ll learn you only leave him in safe places with safe people and you always come back to get him.”
“Really?” Hope brightened her expression.
“Hell, I don’t know. That’s the kind of crap my ex-wife used to say. You seemed like you needed to hear it.”
“Damn it,” she sputtered. “I’m worried over here, L.C. I’m a wreck!” But she laughed, her exuberance natural and joyous. The kind of sound that produced a compulsion to make her laugh again.
Her humor pleased him and for a few seconds their gazes tangled and he didn’t care anymore that she had shut him down so bluntly. Hell, he should have known better than to suggest anything.
“I did need to hear that,” she said, her smile relaxing. “Thank you.”
He felt so good, he almost set himself up for another rejection, wondering if he would get a different answer on that date question.
“Hey Mercedes, have you seen—” Zack walked in the doors from the parking lot. He halted as he saw L.C. behind the desk with Mercedes.
L.C. ignored his son’s questioning look and picked up the checkbook he’d missed, setting it on the desk beside her wallet while Mercedes started rifling through the mail and said, “Have I seen who?”
“I was looking for Dad.” Zack’s tone was flat. “Did you get the approval on those purchase orders?” he asked.
Mercedes kept fingering through the mail, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Zack was murdering L.C. with a poisonous look that Dayton couldn’t touch in a million years. See, there was trust and there was trust. L.C. hadn’t earned any in a while.
“What purchase orders?” Mercedes asked, lifting an absent, questioning gaze.
“One of the water pipes is seeping,” L.C. explained. “The inside wall of our laundry room is a mess. Zack and I can pick up the supplies right now if I can get your okay. I need another pair of hands on the drywall and he has class this afternoon.”
“Oh. Well, a water leak has to be dealt with, doesn’t it? Go ahead, but I’ll have to talk to Harrison about how we’ll handle all the supplies you’ll need ongoing.” She blew out a breath that wafted a strand of red-gold off her temple and picked up the envelope that had the lawyer stamp on it. “I have to talk to Harrison about a lot of things.”
“Let me know what he says.” L.C. waited while she absorbed that he really did give a small shit about her problem. For her sake and the kids, he hoped she was able to pull off keeping them here with her.
“I will. Thank you.” Her narrow hand settled on his forearm and squeezed. “Really. Thank you.”
“No sweat.” It would have been so easy to lean over and set a kiss on her cheek. Not a pass, but something tender. He liked her. He admired her. He wanted her to know she was doing okay.
But he couldn’t, not with Zack glaring at him.
Taking a small, brain-clearing breath, L.C. rounded the desk and nodded a goodbye as he headed out to the truck Zack had parked in front of the office. Zack followed, quiet, and handed over the keys so L.C. could drive, but apparently he was just waiting until they were out of earshot before starting in on him.
“I thought we agreed you’d leave Mercedes alone,” he said as L.C. pulled into a break in traffic.
“I was just talking to her. I’m capable of talking to a woman without getting drunk and sleeping with her.” He could feel Zack staring at him and glanced over to see he wanted to believe him, but wasn’t there.
“So you haven’t tried to take her out?” Zack asked.
Oh, shit.
“Dad!” Zack said, too quick.
“Just because you became sexually active, I’m supposed to lose interest? Damn it, Zack, I like women. I’m more selective these days and I’m not boozing. That’s as good as you’re going to get.”
“Have you told her about Lindsay?”
L.C. tightened his hand on the wheel. “No.”
Zack waited and L.C. knew his son expected him to fill the silence with some kind of explanation that made sense. There wasn’t one. There was just a yawning cavity inside him that he did his best to ignore because if he thought about his daughter, he thought about the one who hadn’t survived. Then he started thinking about drinking.
“She’s totally healthy, you know. You don’t have to worry—”
“Leave it.”
Zack made an annoyed noise, shifted, waited a beat, then said, “Even if you won’t go see her, you should at least be up front about the fact she exists. Especially with someone like Mercedes.”
Because she was dealing with the fall out of absent parents. He knew that. But his situation was one hundred percent different. Lindsay had two very capable people looking after her with Paige and Sterling on the side. L.C. had no place there even if he wanted one.
“Dad,” Zack prompted.
“You offer your life hist
ory the first time you talk to a girl?” he challenged.
“If she asks.” Zack bit his cuticle.
L.C. waited for a glimpse into his son’s eyes, but Zack avoided it. Hypocrite.
“I’m just saying—” Zack began.
“I know what you’re saying and she turned me down, okay? Mercedes is a big girl and can take care of herself. Who are you not being completely honest with?”
“What? No one.” Still talking into his hand.
“Me,” L.C. guessed. He slowed for traffic. “What’s going on, Zack?”
“Nothing!”
L.C. mentally rolled through all the conversations he’d had with Zack since turning up here, but didn’t find any red flags.
“What were you really doing when you guys broke into the complex?” he asked, taking a shot in the dark.
Zack groaned. “I told you, the guys saw the break in the fence and went in. I followed to tell them to get them out. That’s totally the truth.”
“Whose idea was it to go in?”
“Geez, I don’t know. One of them. They were drunk.”
L.C. pulled into the lumberyard, noting how they had come halfway across town, but were still a good distance from Zack’s dorm. It was the first time he’d realized how far away the two places were for a group of young men on foot.
“What were you guys doing on this side of town anyway? Meeting someone? A drug dealer?”
“Are you kidding?” The way Zack sounded so dumbfounded was reassuring.
“It’s a long way from the school, Zack. What brought you?” He waited to hear about an underage bar or live music in a park.
“Nothing. We were just walking wherever. They were passing a bottle and goofing around. It wasn’t supposed to turn into anything stupid.” He left the truck as he spoke so L.C. couldn’t see his expression. “I didn’t expect a Spanish Inquisition,” he added, cutting a hopeful look across the hood of the truck.
L.C. was supposed to drop the subject in favor of picking up the next line in the Monty Python routine, claiming no one expected a Spanish Inquisition.
He only asked, “Why didn’t the other guys want to do community hours and stay in school?”
“I don’t know. I guess they don’t think it sucks quite as hard to go home and tell everyone they were kicked out. And they were okay with taking summer classes. I can’t. I’ll be working at the factory.”
It all sounded logical and Zack’s boredom with the subject was real, but L.C. couldn’t shake the feeling he was missing some backstory. It was one more reason to stay, one more reason to reconnect with his son.
One more reason to stay the hell away from Mercedes.
Chapter 9
The Coconino safe was mostly used for passports and dinner rings and could only be opened with two board members present. Mercedes chose carefully when she asked for assistance in tucking away her newly acquired custody papers.
Her witnesses, however, were ominously silent.
“You’re not saying anything,” she finally said.
“I’m still trying to remember when we cut off the water to that duplex,” Harrison said. “I forgot all about that. Constantine noticed the pressure in his hose was gone— That’d be his garden hose,” he clarified with a wink. “We decided the empty units didn’t need water anyway, so we shut off the valves. I guess no one thought to check if there’d been a leak inside the unit causing the low flow.”
“Mmm.” Closing the safe, Mercedes turned back to offer the key to Harrison.
He shook his head and nodded toward Mrs. Yamamoto. She accepted the key and opened her knitting bag, digging out an embroidered change purse.
Mercedes waited, trying to be patient even though she needed to circle back to her situation in a timely manner. She was due to pick up Ayjia in twenty minutes.
“I remember.” Mrs. Yamamoto nodded. “Constantine complained about his tomatoes all summer. That was two years ago.”
“Oh, hell, didn’t he?” Harrison skimmed his hand over what remained of his hair. “You know he’s fertilizing one as we speak? Could you eat a tomato picked off a grave? But his wife said that’s what he wanted.”
“A good man provides for his wife,” Mrs. Yamamoto said with an approving nod, her glance toward Harrison sly.
Harrison chuckled, and Mercedes tried, but couldn’t hold more than a feeble grin. They noticed and both sobered.
“I’m sorry,” Mercedes said, silently begging both of them to understand. “I know it’s not right to spring this on everyone, but I don’t know what else to do. Will I lose my job?”
Harrison took a big breath. “I don’t know, Mercy-girl. If Edith has anything to do with it, I’d say yes.”
“But didn’t that woman... What was her name? Two or three managers ago. I’ve heard you talk about her. She had a daughter, didn’t she?” Mercedes pleaded.
Mrs. Yamamoto fussed with the contents of her knitting bag. “Her daughter was older. Twenty-five?” Mrs. Yamamoto checked with Harrison.
“And they were Christians,” he said. “So Edith approved.”
“What am I? I attend service here.” Maybe only Christmas and Easter, but still.
Harrison held up his hand. “I’m only telling you what Edith will say.”
“I know, I know, but I don’t know what else to do. I really need this job. I put them in school. Surely that will help. And I’ll try to keep them out of sight, so...?”
Harrison shrugged. “I’ll be honest. I don’t care for brats cluttering the common area. Lots of folks flat out hate it.”
“And adding them to my benefits? That’s like asking for a raise I don’t deserve, isn’t it?” Mercedes moaned. This wasn’t her. She was never weepy and helpless, but she had never had two kids to worry about. Was this what Porsha was running from? If so, she could sympathize. She really could.
“Look here, Mercy. I’ll support you, you know that,” Harrison said. “Pete will, and some of the others, but I can’t speak for everyone.” He looked at Mrs. Yamamoto.
She was throwing stitches at a great rate. Without looking up, she said, “You can’t keep the children in that little apartment.”
“You want me to move out?” Mercedes’s heart plummeted. Where would she go?
Mrs. Yamamoto shook her head. “I mean we have two empty units and Mrs. Edith has been waiting for a ground floor apartment for a long time.”
Harrison felt for his cigarettes. “If Edith moves into Mercy’s unit, we can sell Edith’s and that pays for renovating the two at the back.”
“And the children would be in the back of the complex where not so many people would see them. I like to see them, Mercedes,” Mrs. Yamamoto said, her tone apologetic. “They are charming. But not everyone is of the same opinion.”
Mercedes looked to Harrison. “Do you think that would work?
He set a dry cigarette between his lips and shrugged. “It’s worth a shot.”
Mercedes hadn’t thought of a more reasonable option by the time she brought both kids home that afternoon. Of course, she’d been preoccupied with mentally trying to undo the small scene she’d caused in the doorway of Dayton’s classroom. She’d peeked in on him when she had picked up Ayjia to take her to after school care. Dayton had seen her leaving with his sister, assumed he was going too, and Mrs. Pinchmouth had had to interrupt her lesson to straighten things out.
Dayton had been near tears, but he had refused to cry in front of his new classmates. He’d bravely retaken his seat and Mercedes had hated herself all over again. She didn’t know how she was going to get through this, but Dayton figured he had the solution.
“Now can you phone her?” he asked.
“Let me get my shoes off.” Mercedes kicked her sandals into the closet and dialed the cordless phone Dayton handed her. She got voicemail of course.
“I’ll text her and let her know it’s important,” she told Dayton.
He dropped to his knees beside the Lego bucket and dumped it out, ign
oring Ayjia as she tried to show him some of her artwork from daycare. Mercedes hadn’t had the heart to leave him there with Ayjia until five so she was reduced to answering a few emails between pouring milk and stirring packaged macaroni and cheese, hoping the phone would ring with an accompanying miracle.
Maybe if she moved Ayjia to afternoon kindergarten and they at least both left the school at the same time? She would ask the school if she could do that.
The phone rang an hour later. Dayton leapt to his feet.
Mercedes smiled at him when she heard her sister’s voice, even though Porsha’s voice was flat in her ear. “What?”
“Dayton wants to talk to you. Here you go, hon.” Mercedes handed over the receiver, then tucked her fists into her armpits, praying Porsha wouldn’t screw this up.
Dayton took one step away and said, “‘lo?” Then, “Can you come get us?”
Porsha’s voice came through, tinny but clear. “Soon. I’m busy.”
“But Auntie M made me go to school and I don’t like my teacher. She’s a pill.”
“She put you in school? She really did?” Porsha’s voice rose with disbelief.
Ayjia waited for her turn, face tilted up to Mercedes’s. “I like my new teacher.”
“That’s good, sweetie.” Mercedes hugged the girl into her leg and motioned with a finger over her lips for Ayjia to stay quiet. She wanted to eavesdrop.
“Can you come?” Dayton asked. “Please?”
“After school, hon.”
“Tomorrow?”
“No. When it’s finished. In a couple of weeks.”
“What?” Mercedes reached out toward Dayton. “That’s not— Let me talk to her.” What a hideous, hideous mistake she’d made. Although now she thought about it, she wasn’t sure what else she had expected.
“But I want you to come now,” Dayton said, turning away from Mercedes’s extended palm.
“God, Dayton, this is pay as you go. I’m not losing minutes so I can listen to you whine. It’s just a few weeks. I’ll call again soon. I have to go. Give Ayj hugs and kisses.”