by Cait London
Mitchell turned in the direction of Madrid and wondered idly if the town still hated the Warrens.
If they did, it didn’t matter. He needed to settle the past, still brooding inside him, keeping him trapped. He needed peace.
He stood slowly, remembering the frustration of a nineteen-year old boy who’d lost everything and believed he was responsible for the fires—that his dismissal of a married older woman’s attentions had lit her husband’s murderous wrath. A powerful man, her husband had sent his henchman to the Warren farm.
Uma, a year younger, had come to tell him how sorry she was for his pain. She’d leaned forward, over his hospital bed, enfolding him with that fresh, untouched scent. It had taken only her tender kiss on his cheek to break his rigid control over the storms inside him.
Embarrassed that she’d seen the burns on his thigh, ashamed that he was helpless and weak and needy, he’d tugged her over him, her wrist too fragile in his callused hand. In pain and darkness, he’d taken that innocent mouth roughly, driven by the urge to salve the nightmare of his life.
Even then, he knew it was wrong to quell the wild rage inside him, to let his hand roam over those sweet uptilted breasts while pressing her hips against his hardness. The searing burns on his thigh meant little as he punished her for being good and sweet and knowing how badly he hurt.
He was striking out at the world, not Uma, and her slight whimper hauled him back to reality. He’d pushed her away, disgusted at showing his need to destroy, to take something that wasn’t his, to ruin because his life was in shreds.
Mitchell inhaled grimly as the windmill’s paddles whirred in the silence.
There was only one way to find out what drove him so ruthlessly, why he couldn’t rest—he had to face the past before he could move on.
Uma wrapped her arms around herself and stood in her darkened office. In the night, the room was soft and quiet, whispers of her mother and grandmother stirring in the shadows. They had passed on years ago, leaving her a legacy to tend—the lives in Madrid. They had been called “keepers,” and now it was her turn—to hold and treasure the lives of Madrid.
By habit, she took a fortune cookie from a glass jar, turned blue with age, and cracked open the confection. She raised the tiny slip of paper inside to the light coming from the street. “One cannot always be safe, but one can be glad for change.”
Nothing ever changed in Madrid, where two-story flat-fronted buildings bordered Main Street, where Charley Blue Feather argued with Lars Swenson about the moles crossing between their well-groomed yards. These skirmishes had raged through the years, Lars claiming that Charley’s moles were destroying Swenson turf. Charley’s reply was standard: “What do you want me to do? Brand them?”
Then there was Edgar MacDougal, who believed it was his right to have his evening pee off his back porch and onto his wife’s roses. Myrtle Hawthorne, his next-door neighbor and a spinster with ten cats, had objected fiercely, complaining to the police. In retaliation, Edgar had broadcast throughout Madrid that Myrtle had spied on him using binoculars every evening.
There was, of course, Sissy O’Reilly, a “fine, prime widow” who knew exactly what men wanted and how not to let them have it—without a cost. Kitty and Bernard’s pot-bellied pig, Rosy, was walked down Main Street every day, the big bow around her neck replaced by a sweater in the winter. Marcy Roper’s husband was having an affair with Janet O’Neil, only one of many discreet liaisons in town.
On the second floor of her father’s house, Uma’s office contained a drawing table, a large graphic computer screen, a high-tech computer, a smaller one she preferred when not doing graphics, and printers. The bookshelves lining the wall were filled with books, her CD music collection, and a player. This had once been her mother’s sewing room, and now Uma enjoyed that same mellow, peaceful quiet—that safe quiet. It was here, listening to her elderly grandmother, that she’d learned about the families of Madrid—she knew the darkness and the relations, the ugliness of greed and lust, and the sweetness of families mending and loving.
How many hours had she stood looking out this same window, watching people move through their lives?
With its sprawling porches and huge potted ferns, the house stood white and tall at the end of Lawrence Street, elegant yet comfortable and set amid her mother’s treasured gardens. Inside was a massive remodeled kitchen, a parlor, her father’s room, and a library. Her upstairs room was just down the hall, comfortably enlarged after her divorce from Everett.
From that room, she could see Lauren’s house next door. From a higher vantage point, Uma could see the leaf cluttered gutters, the moss on the shingles, the broken branches. Below were the untrimmed rose garden, the herbs and arbors and trellises aslant and weighed by ivy and weeds.
Uma tore herself away from the dream that she might see Lauren working there—
Lauren was gone, and nothing could bring her back.
Images of seven-year-old Lauren riding her bicycle, laughing as they raced, stirred in Uma’s mind. Then that deathly kaleidoscope of images—of the night, the car, Lauren falling to the sidewalk—passed through Uma’s mind. One moment Lauren was standing, happy, teasing Pearl with the scarf. The next instant her eyes had widened in shock. The next she was sliding in slow motion to lie still, her new cotton summer dress red with blood.
Uma brushed away the tears that always came. She crushed the fortune cookie into crumbs, letting them sift onto her desk. First there were four women, and now there were three.
She rubbed the chill she felt on her arms, despite the June warmth fluttering across the rose petals by the open window. She should finish the article for her newspaper column, which offered tips on dating and life for singles. Earlier articles had been collected for a popular relationship book, The Smooth Moves List.
And no one knew she’d written it, or the columns. Using her pseudonym, “Charis Lopez,” Uma wrote about how relationships should be, how to build them strong enough to endure—but then, she couldn’t even save her own marriage…
In reality, Uma should have had a full, busy life, working as a freelance graphic artist, writing a few articles, and the column. The writing was her own private, joyful secret, and so was the pleasure that her insights were lauded as helpful. Her articles had flown across the computer lines and no one in Madrid was the wiser.
She ran a fingertip over the velvety soft petals of the lavender roses on her desk. The variety was more flat and open than a usual rose—smaller, too. Just the same, the color was unique—
She should have told Lauren, who had faithfully quoted “Charis Lopez;” Lauren had hoped Billy, her husband, would change, but he never had.
Uma turned to the knock at the open door; her father stood outlined in the hallway light.
“You have that look. You’re thinking about Lauren. There was nothing you could have done to save her. You still have the nightmares, too. I hear you roaming the house.”
Uma nodded and Clarence said, “You should call Everett. Ask him to come over and watch a movie, or take you for a ride. It will only take him a minute to get here. Or you can stretch your legs and walk over there. It’s only a few blocks to his house.”
“No, Dad. I don’t want to bother him.”
“Bother Everett? He wants to remarry you. He’s over here more than at his house.”
“Because you invite him. You’ve been playing matchmaker for twelve years, since our marriage ended, Dad. He’s got to move on. I have.”
“I’ve always felt that I destroyed your marriage, or rather, that having that heart attack did. You saw me through it and you never went back to Everett. He’s a good man. You need to reach out and live—remarry Everett and mend. He’ll find someone—”
“I hope he does. Give it up, Dad. I’m just fine,” Uma said softly, used to the familiar prod.
Clarence was silent for a moment. He knew Uma’s limits. “It’s only right that I want to see you taken care of after I’m gone. He loves you.�
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“I know. That’s why I want him to have a good life with someone who can love him, and not as a sister or a friend. That’s all there is for me now. Don’t push it, Dad…please, not tonight. I feel as if something is about to happen.”
“It’s just the summer heat coming.”
“Maybe.”
The silence stretched into the night as Uma refused to carry the discussion further. Then Clarence said roughly, bitterly, “That Warren boy bought Billy Howard’s place next door. He’s back to settle old scores. Billy shouldn’t have sold it to him. He sold it and ran out of town two days ago, before we could hang him for the deed. Waited until the last minute, so no one would know. It was a hush-hush, long-distance deal.”
“Which Warren?” Roman? That girl-crazy, fast-talking, reckless show-off?
Or Mitchell? Mitchell, trying to do his best in school when he was too tired from hard labor at Fred’s ranch or working as a mechanic in their ramshackle town garage? Mitchell, hauling his father home from a drunk? Mitchell, lying rigid in pain in that hospital bed, trying not to show how badly he ached inside, grieving for his father, worried about his brother, and furious with life’s bad hand?
He’d fought not to show anything, pain etched on his face, those light brown eyes shadowed. And he was so helpless and young, battling a town that wanted him gone.
And he’d misunderstood her need to comfort him, dragging her onto the bed with him.
“It’s that Mitchell. The one who dragged old Fred out of the fire and spent a couple of days in the hospital. Billy sold him that old Warren farm and Fred’s old garage down on Maloney Street,” Clarence brooded. “You can believe a Warren didn’t come by all that much money honestly. He’s probably in with the mob. Or running his own gang.”
“Billy is a real estate agent, Dad. It’s his business to sell. Lauren and Billy lived in different houses. They bought them cheaper and remodeled them and they sold at a profit.” Only it was Lauren who did the work, and managed the real estate office while Billy gambled and cheated.
“I didn’t kill her, Uma, I swear,” he’d said, paling as Uma had faced him that day. With people moving around them, pawing through the sale goods on Billy’s lawn, buying furniture and household goods that Lauren had treasured, Uma could have hit him—she didn’t want to think of the violence storming within her. A placid woman, always choosing a sculpted, neat, safe life, she had been stunned. But just then, she felt as if she could ignite and hurl a fireball from hell at him.
“Did you cause her to be shot, Billy?” Uma had demanded, furious with the man who had used her friend, selling off anything of value from the front yard, people milling around, shopping for a dead woman’s—Uma’s friend’s—bargains.
“No, I’ve been all over that with the law. Why does everybody think it was me?” he’d whined. “You’re all against me. The whole town.”
“Because you hurt her. Everyone knows how you treated her—the gambling and the affairs. And don’t you dare sell off her personal things, or I’ll be back and I won’t be nice. If you run, I’ll find you. Don’t you dare sell anything that was hers alone, not one dress, not one piece of paper, not one memento of her life,” Uma had said, meaning it. It was the first threat in her life, and she meant to keep it. Lauren’s things wouldn’t be thrown away in the trash.
Uma shifted the lace curtains aside to watch a late model pickup prowl out of the night, the streetlights dancing on the metal. The driver used only the parking lights, yellow in the night, like wolf’s eyes, and Uma shivered slightly. Ever since Lauren’s death, she’d noted every unfamiliar car in town, watched for the murderer’s narrow, hard face.
Why hadn’t they found the car or the man?
The pickup pulled into Lauren’s driveway, just one house away. A door slammed in the night and a man slowly walked out into the pool of light from the street just past the house next door. He was tall and broadly built, and then Uma knew that Mitchell had arrived. There was no mistaking his height or build, the way he locked his wide spread feet, his hands on his waist.
And she wondered if Mitchell had come back as her father had said, “to settle the score.”
She wouldn’t like it if he did, not one bit. Madrid needed to remain just as it always was—safe.
The next evening, Uma stood on the sidewalk, looking at the house Lauren had loved. It was small and neat, a one-level white frame and red brick ranch. Just an everyday house that Lauren had made into a home circled by herbs and roses. The huge ferns on the front porch were dead from last winter, a rubble of tree leaves cluttered the meandering porch that Lauren had treasured. One of the upstairs windows had been crudely nailed shut, and a rusted rain gutter hung askew.
The wary old tomcat her father tried to seduce with canned salmon watched her from beneath an untended shrub. Only Lauren had managed to pet and hold the cat. “You miss her, too, don’t you?” Uma asked.
While the cat seemed to wait, a small breeze swept through the hot, still night and Uma shivered, her fingers chilled despite the warmth of the casserole in her hands, seeping through the tea towel. Lauren.
She could almost hear Lauren’s whisper curl around her. I’ll always be with you…
Uma braced herself to meet Mitchell Warren again; he’d called her office to tell her that Billy had left Lauren’s things with a note to call Uma. The beef stroganoff casserole she held was only neighborly, despite her father’s bad mood—“You what? You’re taking food to a Warren? No daughter of mine—” he’d begun as she had walked out of the house.
She had no time for bitterness or hatred, except for the man who’d killed her friend Lauren. Who was he? Where was he?
One press of Uma’s finger to the bell and the door swung open; a tall, powerful man filled the space. There was that same shock of dark brown hair, neatly trimmed now but his body had changed from a boy’s lankiness to a man’s more muscular throat and broad shoulders, all packaged in a dirty white T-shirt and worn jeans.
In his stocking feet, Mitchell was just as she remembered, and the eighteen years since she had seen him had stamped Fred Warren’s features on his face—blunt nose, high cheekbones, and hard, almost cruel mouth. There was the same six-foot-three height and the unique amber, almost golden brown eyes, the same dark brown wavy hair, neatly trimmed.
His gaze traveled down her light green summer dress, the linen shift long and cool against the evening heat, her summer sandals practical in worn leather.
“Uma,” he said quietly and quickly folded Madrid’s small shopping paper, tossing it aside.
“Hi, Mitchell.” She handed the casserole to him. “Be careful. It’s a next-door neighbor welcome. It’s hot. I thought you might like something filling and homecooked, rather than a summer salad.”
“Thanks. You’re right. I’m not much on salads.” He held the dish awkwardly, big hands gripping the delicate tea towel she’d embroidered.
She pushed away the last time she’d seen him—hurting, striking out at the world, a boy too young to handle life’s raw patch. “I’m glad you called my house today. Is this time good for you?”
Mitchell nodded and opened the door wider. “Yes, of course. Come in. Or would you rather look at Lauren’s things when I’m not here?”
Lauren. Uma moved into the house, standing in the foyer. In the living room, she noted the red stain on the cream berber carpeting, and it reminded her of Lauren’s blood seeping through her dress. Had Billy hired someone to kill her? “Now is good for me. Did you get your business done today?”
“Just the usual, filing deeds on the old place, the garage and this house—setting up telephone, electricity, whatever, just paperwork.”
Small talk filled big uneasy spaces, she thought, aware of him standing and studying her with the light at his back. She accepted her ordinary appearance, well settled into the security of it. A plain, brown-haired, ordinary woman with gray eyes, of small bust and boyish hips, whom people would term “willowy.” She preferre
d her long hair on top of her head, though a few tendrils escaped in the summer heat, curling at her face and nape. With only a light moisturizer and a little lip balm, long cool dresses and colors that were soft and soothing, she just wanted to cruise easily through life.
The deep line between Mitchell’s brows marked a lurking sadness, shifted and changed now from hatred and frustration; it lay in the shadows of his eyes, the hard slashes beside his mouth. She ached for young Mitchell and what he must have faced.
In turn, he studied her face, just an ordinary face, she thought—a little too wide and Nordic to be called pretty.
“You’re just the same. Soft and sweet and caring.”
“No, I’m not the same. No one is. I’m a realist now, not a girl. I’ve been married and had a child, a sweet little baby. Crib death, they said.” She tensed, closing her eyes as the familiar pain squeezed her heart. Christina. So soft and tiny and sweet, snuggling warm in her arms one night, and gone the next morning.
She smoothed a light spot on the wall where a picture of Shelly, Pearl, Lauren, and her as girls had hung. They had had such bright dreams…
She felt an embrace, just the brush of a kiss on her cheek, and caught a scent. She could feel Lauren here—waiting. Waiting for what?
The old tomcat eased through the hole in the screen door and tail high wound around her legs. Then he strolled to Mitchell and nudged and purred loudly. While Lauren had petted and coddled the old cat, Mitchell bent to scratch the gray tom’s ears roughly and the animal leaned into the favor. He crossed back to Uma and strolled across her shoes and then leaped through the screen door hole, back outside.
Only Lauren had touched that cat.
Aware that Mitchell studied her, Uma struggled to maintain the conversation. “I’m a freelance graphic artist now. I’m divorced, living with my father, and I’ve lost Lauren.”