When Night Falls

by Cait London

  Uma’s head went back with the verbal blow, and her lips tightened. “Mmm,” she murmured. “Come in, Tessa.”

  “Yes, come in,” Mitchell invited tightly. Uma had stepped into the intimate corners of his life, the edges he didn’t want touched and had ripped them wide open. Maybe she needed to see just how ugly they were.

  Tessa glanced around the barren, newly repainted home. “I can’t stay…It’s so soft in here. Like love,” she whispered in awe as the old tomcat rubbed against her legs.

  “Remember Lauren? This used to be her house,” Uma said softly.

  “I remember her. She was sweet, like sunshine.” Tessa hadn’t been a loving person, always out for herself, but she bent to pick up the insistent tom and cuddled him close. He purred and seemed to smirk at Mitchell.

  “What do you want?” he thrust at Tessa and arched as Uma pinched his butt, just enough to warn him.

  “I’m sorry about Fred—your dad. I didn’t know that my husband—you know Max died of a heart attack right away—I didn’t know that he would even do anything like that. I should have known—I’d seen him with animals, and with men. We had a terrible fight that night—after I’d found out what he’d done. When you came to the house, I was more furious with him and myself and I—I reacted badly to you. Back then, maybe I was terrified of Max, too, of what he would do to me. It was so awful, what happened to Fred.”

  Mitchell heard his father’s dying screams echo through time. “You were just an innocent bystander in all this—right, Tessa?”

  Her face seemed to crumble beneath the makeup, aging her instantly. “No, I caused everything, and I’ll have to live with it for the rest of my life.”

  “Such sympathy.” He frowned at Uma, who had just pinched him again; he wasn’t used to being prodded or told to mind his manners; Uma would have to get the rules straight. Then he bluntly asked Tessa, “Anything else you have to say?”

  “Only that it was Fred that I wanted. I couldn’t believe he still loved your mother. When he turned me down, I decided to—to take something he loved just as much as her. That was you. And you weren’t buying. I was spoiled and young and—and I’m so sorry, Mitchell…so sorry,” she sobbed. “It wasn’t you, it was him. And it was my fault. He never once wanted another woman, only Grace.”

  Mitchell couldn’t move, couldn’t think, locked in the nightmare of that night. You’re all I’ve got left of her. You and Roman. I loved that woman with all my heart. “Get out.”

  Then, because Mitchell was in pain and couldn’t bear to let anyone see so deep inside him, he scowled at Uma, “You, too. Get out.”

  He turned and walked down the hallway, into the kitchen where breakfast and the rose blooms waited. He waited for the tom, his only male alliance in the house to follow—the doorway remained empty.

  Uma heard the crash and placed her arm around Tessa, who was shivering and holding the old tomcat tightly. “He’ll be all right. Thank you for coming.”

  Before he’d closed his expression into that tight dark mask, Mitchell’s pain had seared her. When he had turned and stalked away, his clothing bore stains of roses and grass, his body taut as if last night’s lovemaking hadn’t happened. Yet that one lush red petal had clung to his shoulder, refusing to be tossed aside.

  Uma knew how badly he ached; she wanted to go to him, needed to comfort him—and herself. But all his edges were up and bristling, cutting her out of his life. Get out.

  She shivered despite the morning’s warmth. Mitchell had just severed what they had without a second look back at her.

  “He’s so fierce, just like Fred,” Tessa whispered shakily as they moved out into the morning sunshine. “And honest. You can see the truth in him, and the strength. That unbending strength. That’s what I saw in Fred, why I wanted him so badly. I knew that if he wanted to love me, he could make everything right. I had only my body to bargain with, and still I was no match for Grace. Mitchell is like that. If he ever loves, it will be just one woman to the end, but he’s a hard man to understand.”

  There, in the fresh August morning, Uma knew exactly what Fred had said as he was dying. When a man loved a woman that deeply, he’d speak of that to his sons.

  And Mitchell had clenched that inside him all these years, withholding it from Roman. Both men were firmly against Grace, and yet they didn’t know how much she had tried, how the failure of her marriage had wounded her.

  Through her mother, Uma knew. And she knew that Dani was right in wanting to meet Grace.

  Get out, Mitchell had said, slamming the door shut on her and the past. He was more like his father than he knew, proud and stubborn, and just as skilled at hurting….

  Uma brushed away the tears burning her eyes. Get out.

  Later that morning, Uma put the finishing touches on a new logo for Mrs. Westerfield, a client in Oklahoma City who wanted to market designer bags inspired by vintage styles.

  The duct tape over the bullethole in the window reminded Uma that danger circled Madrid.

  The ache inside her told her of Mitchell’s pain, the way he could easily close her away from him, even after two nights of lovemaking. She’d opened herself to feeling, to wanting desperately, to sensuality and hope and—

  And Mitchell had crushed it in his fist.

  Tessa had been shaky, but steady enough to drive; and Uma had almost run for her house and for safety. She felt as if pieces of her were scattered along the sidewalk from Mitchell’s house to hers.

  Uma let the tears gather inside her and roll down her cheeks, the sobs growing, choking her, until they burst into the quiet room.

  Out of habit, she reached for her fortune cookie jar. Her fingers trembled as she broke one open to extract the small paper that read, “Your actions to help another are justified.”

  She crushed the paper in one hand and the cookie in the other. She watched the crumbs fall into her wastepaper basket. Of course she was justified. She was half in love with a man who brooded about a death that wasn’t his fault. She wanted to protect Mitchell, to soothe him, and what did he do?

  Get out. The words rang cold as steel, as if he’d never kissed her like that, and she’d opened her body and her life to him.

  Did she regret the giving?

  No, it was honest and true, just as Tessa had said of Mitchell.

  Uma cried until the anger came, fierce and unrelenting, and needing release. They’d made love perfectly and Mitchell had torn the magic into shreds. Later, she would be reasonable and regret any hasty actions.

  Later would be too late; she needed to find Mitchell and nail him. “If truth be held in your emotions today, release them,” she muttered. “Holding darkness within withers the beauty…strike while the iron is hot…waste not, want not.”

  Mitchell had reached inside her, taken away her safety, and given her beauty, and now he had to pay for his Get out.

  Uma ran to her room, where she had shed his clothes, bent to gather them into her arms, and hurried to his house.

  Mitchell wasn’t there; his pickup gone. Uma hurried back to her car, tossed his clothes into the passenger seat, and shot back out of her driveway. Her tires squalled as she left Lawrence Street, passed Tabor Street, and bulleted down Main Street onto Maloney, cornering sharply enough to make her tires squeal.

  His pickup was parked in front of Roman’s garage. Her brakes screeched as the car slid sideways a bit, nicked Mitchell’s perfect back bumper, and stopped. Fiercely angry, now that Mitchell could dismiss her so easily, she ignored Lonny’s patrol car easing to park in front of the garage.

  Uma grabbed Mitchell’s shirt, jeans and belt that she had worn and hurried into the garage.

  “Where is he?” she demanded of Roman, who had just hefted a small motor from out of a dishwasher and stood holding it. A long rubber hose was draped around his neck.

  Roman, clearly wary of her mood, nodded to the truck, and to the two feet extending from beneath it. Uma didn’t think; she reacted. She walked to the work
boots she recognized as Mitchell’s, dropped the clothing, and bent to grab both of them.

  When she tugged, he grunted and the bump beneath the truck sounded like he had hit his head. She tugged again and the roller bench he lay upon slid from beneath the truck. Mitchell lay there scowling up at her and rubbing the grease mark on his forehead—it spread across his forehead like war paint.

  War, that was what she wanted—war on the man who had made love to her and then had told her to “get out.”

  “Here,” she said, bending to pluck up the clothes and dump them on his face. “I forgot these this morning. Thank you for the use of them. Goodbye. And by the way, Tessa was doing her best this morning, and you were just plain evil. About three years ago, she went off into a ditch—she was tipsy and sobbing and guilty over what she had done. She’d been visiting your father’s grave. We had a chat over tea and she explained everything. I thought you should know. I thanked her for you. And I refuse to be dumped like garbage.”

  Mitchell slammed the clothes aside. “You what?”

  “I said, I refuse to be dumped like garbage on the morning after. You needed to know the truth. I just didn’t have time last night to prepare you. I was very busy. I contacted Tessa because I cared—I cared, or last night wouldn’t have happened. You think that I am the sort of woman who has flings because—because?”

  Uma paused to suck in air and anger, just getting warmed up. “You’ve been feeling guilty all these years because you thought you caused that fire by turning Tessa down. It wasn’t you she really wanted, it was Fred. So you’ll have to stop hiding behind all that self-installed guilt, because it doesn’t fit anymore. She served you the absolute truth. If you can’t handle that, then you’re not the man I think you are.” She kicked his boot for emphasis. “And by the way…I’ll pay for whatever damage there is to your pickup. It was in my way. I hit it.”

  “You what?” he demanded again, this time louder.

  “I hit your pickup. It was there and it reminded me of how awful you were this morning, when I was just trying to help—”

  “You’ve been crying,” he noted softly, as if seeing her for the first time. “Your eyes are all puffy and red. The braids look nice, though. Your mother used to put ribbons in them…pink. What’s that stuff in your hair? Bread?”

  Uma brushed the fortune cookie crumbs from her hair and then her face where they had stuck to her tears. “Mmm. I didn’t notice my eyes were puffy and red. However, thank you for being so observant and noting that I’m not exactly looking tip-top this morning, for some reason,” she said and tried to walk out of the garage with as much dignity as she could manage.

  Then she turned and walked back to Roman. “Your brother hasn’t told you everything about the night Fred died, and it’s important that he does.”

  “What?” Roman tensed, and his expression closed.

  Uma knew instantly that Roman carried his own secrets and wasn’t releasing them to his brother.

  “Ask him.” She pushed her torn dignity into a heap and marched out to the sidewalk.

  “’Morning, Ms. Uma,” Lonny said uneasily.

  “Lovely morning,” she returned on a sound that she hoped wasn’t a sob. She knew he’d never seen her so irrational or angry…and she’d been taught always to act like a lady. Uma had just thrown every bit of her mother’s “quality” teaching into the trash can and Mitchell had caused it. “How’s Irma?”

  He looked at her warily. “Okay, I guess.”

  “I’m glad. Please tell her that I said hello, will you? Why are you looking at me like that? Is there a problem?”

  He blinked owlishly and glanced over her head to where Mitchell stood. “Uh. No. No problem.”

  “Good. Then have a lovely day. See you.”

  She didn’t turn when Mitchell said “Women” in that dark tone that somehow explained his thoughts about the whole sex.

  Sex. Her hand trembled on the steering wheel as she reversed; metal squeaked as her car pulled back from his pickup. Oh, yes. They’d had plenty of sex, hadn’t they? That was something they both understood. But was there anything else in a man’s heart who could tell her to get out of his life so easily?

  After driving a few feet, Uma pressed her foot to the brake, and the car screeched to a stop. How could she want Mitchell so, and how could he could slam all the doors of his life to her?

  She shook her head and began driving again, only to stop the car abruptly. How could she possibly understand him?

  Uma gripped the steering wheel and slowly pulled a few more feet, before stopping with a screech of tires. She decided that—“While he’s mad, I may as well make him good and mad, because Dani deserves to know her grandmother. And because Grace didn’t deserve what she got. And because I know everything that happened.”

  When Uma looked in her rearview mirror, she saw Mitchell, Roman, and Lonny standing in the street. They looked confused and uncertain. Lonny was scratching his head. Roman was standing hip-shot, bending to rub his damaged knee, and Mitchell was rubbing his forehead as if he had a headache. There was no reason for his obvious confusion. She was being perfectly logical after the man she’d made love to for two nights and who could be so endearing and sweet and tender had just told her to “get out.”

  Oh, she would all right, but Dani and Grace deserved to know each other. “Men,” she said, using the same tone Mitchell had, and soared off to her home. Too angry to work, she sat down to write a searing Charis article on the benefits of releasing anger upon the one who has acted poorly. She inserted “justified” in front of “anger.” Yes, her anger with Mitchell was justified.

  Later, Clyde crushed the roses in Pearl’s English garden. He needed the empty-headed twit, chattering all the time, pretending people actually listened to her. Right now, Pearl served his purpose—using her could bring Shelly and Uma right into his hands.

  Too bad that Mitchell and Roman Warren had come to town. Too bad for them.

  And Uma wasn’t taking hints, like the bullethole in her window, a perfect warning served at the same time thunder struck.

  Soon, he’d have to stop warning and the games would end. Lauren was just the start, then that dimwit Pete Jones, who had asked for more money after the shooting. He shouldn’t have done that. No one messed with Clyde.

  He tugged up his black gloves and smoothed his new tailored suit and adjusted his fedora, fueling the hatred inside him. Uma had to die, of course; she knew too much. And she’d only angered him by aligning herself with a Warren, and everyone knew they were bad news. Gossip about them ran through Madrid like wildfire. Clyde really didn’t want Uma whoring. It wasn’t ladylike.

  Clyde skimmed his dapper appearance and thought about Walter, whom he had seen earlier, parked on the street outside his home. If Walter thought that the dying sunlight hid the gleam of his elegant hip flask as he tipped it high, he was wrong. Clyde had known Walter since childhood and knew his weaknesses.

  Walter was apparently very angry, flinging the hip flask into Pearl’s garden. Obviously in pain, he eased out of the car and slammed the door. He rubbed his genitals as if they ached and cursed, “Bitch. That Uma is going to get what she deserves.”

  Clyde watched Walter hobble up the elegant walkway. Apparently Uma was one woman with whom Walter could not score. Clyde had kept very close count of Walter’s affairs, because they’d make excellent blackmail fodder—when he chose to act.

  The fever rose to hurt something, anything, now. Uma, Shelly, and Pearl would have to wait, because Clyde didn’t want to kill them without enjoying their fear…he rummaged for what would squeal and pleasure him and thought of Rosy, the Ferris’s pot-belly pig. Clyde had stepped in Rosy’s mess once, spoiling a perfect shoe shine.

  Yes, Rosy was a perfect candidate for tonight.

  “But I don’t need a dishwasher,” Shelly said as Roman and Mitchell muscled a dishwasher into her house. “I can’t afford one.”

  “You can this one,” Dani said with a grin.
“The old man tuned up a throwaway down at the church thrift shop and put a new hose in her. He sure can make a motor hum.”

  Shelly had discovered that Roman knew how to make women hum, too; his kisses in the fallen tree branch were sweet and tender and hungry. She’d just managed to tear herself loose, fighting her way out of the leaves and twigs to her feet. Roman was frowning, obviously in pain as he had bent to rub his knee. She’d fought running and her conscience. “Can I help you?”

  He’d scowled at her and struggled to his feet. Though obviously favoring his knee, he had refused to bend and rub it. “No. Get away from me.”

  Uma had been crying and angry, because apparently the brothers shared the same defense, slam-door-shut style. Shelly had seen Uma angry only the one time she’d confronted Billy with his treatment of Lauren.

  Now, Shelly wondered if anger was contagious as Roman continued to interfere with her life.

  The men ignored Shelly as they discussed how to hook the dishwasher to the sink. A new empty space beneath the counters had greeted Shelly when she’d come home from Uma’s house. To make matters worse, Roman was quietly explaining installation procedure to Dani, now lying on the floor beside him, her head under the kitchen sink. When he asked for a tool, she dug into the battered box and hauled out the right one.

  Mitchell stood, his arms folded, watching Roman and Dani. Then he looked at Shelly. “Saw your car at Uma’s. Is she okay?”

  “No, she’s not. I could kill you.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “You think she just—?” Shelly glanced at Dani, who was suddenly sitting on the floor, watching the exchange with Mitchell.

  “What did he do, Mom?” Dani asked, rising to her feet and scowling at Mitchell. “Did he hurt Uma?”

  “Not exactly. Uma tried to help him, and—”

  Mitchell’s hand slashed the end of her sentence. “She shouldn’t have.”