The flimsy plastic water bottle crackled in Charlene’s grasp as she shadowed Brook back to the artificial comfort of the cheap upholstered chairs. She was almost sure she heard the clock on the wall ticking, until someone turned on the TV across the room and sitcom laughter rattled out.
Sam stared vacantly at the wall, and Brook returned to her smartphone. Gradually, Charlene found herself being pulled to study Sam. She watched him furtively as he stood and paced the room. There was something about him . . .
“Did Clay read the letter?”
Sam’s abrupt question startled her into answering. “No, he didn’t get a chance.”
“Did you read it?”
She sat ramrod straight. “Of course not.”
Looking up, Brook remarked, “I wonder what it said.”
“It was personal,” Charlene answered.
“So you do know something about it,” Sam prodded.
Lance’s hateful summery of the contents echoed in her mind and she shook herself. She would never divulge the secret. Besides, he could have been making it all up.
“Like I said, it was personal. I didn’t need to read it to know that.”
“So where’s the letter now?”
Good question. Her gut clenched. She rifled through her confused memory. “I think . . . it must still be in the shop somewhere.” If the detectives hadn’t found it and taken it as some kind of evidence. Highly unlikely, though, as she realized she hadn’t included the letter in her statement to the police. Fingerprints could be found on any of the other things Lance had touched, anyway. Like the sledgehammer. Or Clay’s wallet. Lance obviously hadn’t been worried about being identified.
What if the letter was still in the workshop for anyone to read? She eyed Brook and Sam. What if one of them found it and read it? As the caretaker of that letter, a strange protectiveness welled within her.
Just then, a doctor stepped to the doorway of the waiting room and called, “Sam Riley?”
Sam hurried forward. As the doctor took him aside, Brook and Charlene exchanged a glance, then watched and waited for the news.
Chapter Fourteen
“Why’d the doctor call Sam?” Charlene wanted to spring to her feet and insert herself into the conversation so she didn’t have to wonder any longer how Clay was doing.
“He’s obviously his emergency contact.” Brook pocketed her phone. “No living relatives, you know?”
Of course she knew that.
She strained to hear the doctor’s words, but couldn’t.
Sam nodded, turned, and walked grimly back. “Clay’s jaw is broken, all right. They’re setting it with metal bolts and his mouth has to be wired shut.”
“How will he eat?” Brook cried.
“Through a straw,” Sam said in disgust. His own jaw jutted forward. “If I ever get my hands on that guy—” He turned and his growling noises hid what Charlene was pretty sure were curses.
“So can we see him yet?” Brook appeared poised to jump from her chair as soon as the answer was yes. Automatically, Charlene’s own foot positioned itself strategically, ready to push off from the floor.
“Not yet.” Sam dropped back into a chair. “In a little while. They’ll let us know.”
A little while in doctor terms could mean hours. For the first time, Charlene noticed her empty stomach. She stood. “I’m going to get something to eat. Want me to bring anything back?”
“No thanks,” Brook said.
Sam gave no more than a slight scoffing noise, which Charlene took as a no.
Before grabbing a bite, she stopped off in the restroom and froze in front of the mirror.
Gone were her long, lustrous curls; her hair was shorn, cropped jaggedly uneven above her shoulders. Her fingers touched the locks numbly, then worked them, as if she could caress length from the tattered ends.
Without much weight holding it down, her hair puffed like a goofy clown’s wig. Or an ’80s perm.
Ugh.
She struggled to think positive.
It will be easier to care for. Less tangles. It’ll dry faster.
What will Ben think of it?
Her hands buried themselves in the mass and tugged desperately. She groaned and swung away from her reflection.
She’d just have to avoid mirrors till her hair grew back.
* * *
Her stomach appeased with a cafeteria sandwich, Charlene reapplied her lip balm and returned to the waiting room. Not a moment too soon, apparently. Sam and Brook were just leaving.
She caught up to them in the corridor. “Are you going to see Clay?”
“Yes, finally,” Brook said without slowing stride.
“About time.” Charlene fell in step.
Both Sam and Brook stopped and turned to her.
“What?”
“Actually . . .” Brook began.
“It’d be better if you didn’t come,” Sam finished.
She shook her head and felt her hair springing every which way. “But I want to see him, too.”
“Give us our turn first, is all I’m saying,” he clarified. “We don’t have to crowd him. Plus, he needs rest.”
“I know, but—”
“Brook’s his girlfriend. I’m his best friend. Who are you?”
His words stunned her speechless.
“We’re the nearest he’s got to family, and right now, he needs us.”
As they retreated down the hall, she barely heard him mutter, “Not the girl who brings him nothin’ but trouble.”
She eyed an exit. Leave this place, hop on a bus, and just go. But where? Back home? Where was that? Nothing felt like home anymore.
I should go back to Ben. He would never turn her away.
But his mom had . . .
So what. I’ll figure it out.
But today, she had to finish this. I won’t leave yet. That’s what Sam wants. Maybe Brook, too.
She crossed her arms and leaned against the wall, ready to wait as long as it took.
My turn is next.
* * *
The wall wasn’t comfortable. Charlene couldn’t stand propped against it much longer. Stubbornly, she refused to retreat to the waiting room, with its useless droning TV. At last she slid down to a sitting position right there in the hall, her shoes squeaking on the slick floor.
She received curious second-glances from passing doctors, nurses, patients, visitors, even a custodian. My stunning haircut. Or maybe it was her overall disheveled, forlorn appearance.
Her ears picked up distant noises, a medley of life and death, hospital style. Machines beeping, phones ringing, metal carts clattering. Laughter, crying, and everything in between.
Someone’s being born right now. Someone’s dying right now. Maybe not in this very hospital, but somewhere.
A rhythm of footsteps drew closer, and she looked up to see Brook and Sam stride past. Charlene sprang up too quickly for her fallen-asleep foot but ignored the pins and needles.
“So?” She directed her question at their backs. “How is he?”
Sam turned, looking inconvenienced and grouchy. “His face is full of metal. He’s had better days.”
Brook’s lips curled down and her eyes shone red and weepy. She sniffed daintily. “He looks terrible.”
Charlene’s hands grasped each other. “What room number?”
Brook glanced at Sam. His voice was firm. “Leave him be. He needs rest.”
Her arms dropped to her sides with a whap. “Are you kidding? I’ve waited all afternoon. I only want to talk to him.”
“Talking’s hard for him.”
“I only want to see that he’s okay.”
“Take my word for it, he’s okay. It’s not like this is life-threatening. It isn’t comfortable or convenient, but he’s gonna be fine.”
“What room number? If you don’t tell me, I’ll just get it from a nurse.”
“Go ahead. She won’t tell you, either.”
“Why not?”
“ ’Cause Clay doesn’t want to see you. Not now. Not ever. Got it?”
Her lips parted. Breath seeped out. She had to fill her lungs before she could reply. “He said that?”
Sam grunted a humorless laugh. “He can’t say much of anything. But he made it clear he doesn’t want any Charlene Perigard coming around.”
She stared at him and he stared back.
It’s a bluff. She looked at Brook, but she wouldn’t meet her eyes.
Charlene spun and walked away. She found the nurse’s station and made her request, only to discover Sam had been telling the truth. Clay had indeed requested that she not be allowed to see him.
“Don’t feel bad, hun,” the nurse said. “He’s been through a lot. Maybe when he feels better—”
“Whatever.” She hitched a shoulder. “Doesn’t matter.”
“First thing he wanted to know was that you were okay,” the nurse added.
We’re even, then. She gave a nod and turned away.
“I could give him a message.”
Charlene didn’t want to leave one, but she couldn’t be that petty. “Tell him . . . tell him I’m glad he’s okay.”
She walked away, heading aimlessly down the hall in a mental fog, reading no signs, following no arrows. She wrinkled her face. As if she’d ever wanted to waste her time and effort tracking Clay down in the first place. It was all that letter, that irksome letter.
Sorry, Margaret, but why? Why couldn’t you have just sent it by mail?
The letter.
Clay still hadn’t read it for himself. He would need to now, to verify or dispel Lance’s claims. It likely still lay in the woodshop for anyone to read. Anyone being Sam or Brook.
As Charlene made up her mind, she shook her head in disbelief. What was the unrelenting pull to get the letter to Clay, and only Clay, where it belonged? It wasn’t like he was going to appreciate her effort.
* * *
The taxi pulled over where Charlene directed. “I won’t be long,” she informed the driver as she exited. “I just have to get something.”
Nearing the workshop, she spotted Sam’s brown truck parked at the side of the building. Suspicion sprang up like a red flag. Shouldn’t he still be at the hospital? She glanced over her shoulder at the taxi, still in sight on the side of the road. Its presence gave her a little reassurance, not that the driver was looking out for her. He was only paid for transportation, after all.
Her steps were soft and muffled as she reached the open workshop door.
Déjà vu hit her, only this time Sam stood where Clay had earlier that day. He wasn’t working, though. He was holding Clay’s letter.
And reading it.
Incensed, she opened her mouth to speak sharply, when Sam stunned the words dead in her throat by revealing a lighter and flicking a flame to life.
She sensed his intentions a second before he acted, and she dashed forward just as he held the fire to a corner of the irreplaceable letter.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she cried as she snatched the paper.
Sam’s surprise was quickly replaced by irritation when he recognized her. “You.”
He tried snatching the letter back, but she scurried away, jumping over wood and dodging tools, trying not to trip on debris or slip on sawdust. Briefly out of sight behind a workbench, she folded the letter and slipped it in her pocket.
Sam loomed over her a mere second later. “Where is it?” he demanded, eyes sweeping her.
“How dare you?” She glared. “That letter’s not yours. You have no idea what I’ve been through to get that to Clay safely, and you—you—”
“And you have no idea—”
“You should be ashamed! Those are a mother’s last words to her son. I thought you were Clay’s friend. I thought—” Seeing his expression of annoyance and anger, the thought came like a revelation, like a punch to her gut. Winding her. Flooring her. “Oh. Oh!” She’d seen this look before—on Clay. Her eyelids stretched wide. “You’re the one. In the letter. Clay’s . . . Clay’s real dad.”
Sam’s eyes closed as weary resignation washed over his face, accentuating the leathery wrinkles and deepening the shadows. “I thought you didn’t read it.”
Her hand came down on a sawhorse for support. “I didn’t.” She pulled in a stabilizing breath. “That guy—Lance—he read some of it out loud, to taunt Clay.”
“But he never said my name?”
“No.”
Sam’s face showed a guarded measure of relief. She studied him. How had she not seen it before? In many ways, he was a taller, older version of Clay.
“You have to tell him,” she said. “He deserves to know. How could you have known him this long and not told him? He trusts you.”
Sam shook his head. “I meant to tell him. I wanted to, but it’s never been the right time. I tried after Margaret’s funeral.” He rubbed work-worn fingers over his face. “I got a letter from her after she died. I never even knew until then . . . about him. She told me someone was going to give him a letter. I didn’t want him to find out like that.” His voice held agitation mixed with regret.
Charlene let him go on. She sensed he needed to unburden himself, and she, though an unlikely choice, was the only one available to listen.
“She gave me so little time. And it was too late. She was already gone.” His gaze wavered. “She was always too hard on herself.” His words halted and he regarded her coldly. “After the funeral was the wrong time to tell him.” Remembrance flashed hard and hateful in his eyes.
Realization washed over her. “You saw what happened, the men who took him . . .” She lowered her head, not wanting to admit and prove him right, once again, that she, though indirectly, had brought that trouble on Clay. “Did you follow them?”
“I tried, but I lost them. I finally caught sight of them taking off from an old warehouse. When I got there, I went in, and there he was . . . my son.” Sam’s lip curled angrily. “What they did to him—”
He broke off and looked away. “I took him back here to my place. Took care of him.” His mouth tightened. “It’s no wonder he doesn’t trust easily. I’ve worked long and hard for that trust, and now . . . I’m in no hurry to destroy it.” His words were gruff as his eyes met hers. “Are you going to give him the letter?”
“I have to.”
“When?”
“Soon.” She bit her lip. She didn’t want to destroy Sam and Clay’s friendship, but Clay needed to know the truth. She thought of the painful memories he carried of the man he believed was his father. “But it would be better if you could tell him who you are first, yourself.”
“I need time.”
“How much?” You’ve already had so much.
“Now’s no good. Not after what just happened.”
She nodded. “There’s never going to be a perfect time.”
“I know that.” Irritation edged his voice. “When I saw you, I knew you were from his old life. I’ve read the news. Seen the pictures. I figured you might be the one bringing the letter. I’d grown complacent. Then there you were, storming in to upset everything.”
“So you tried to run me down?”
“I did no such thing.” He grunted, then muttered, “Nothin’ wrong with trying to scare you away.”
“Why’d you take a bus to Woodfield when you have a truck?”
He regarded her like she was stupid. “I never know when Clay’s gonna take off to visit the grave. I don’t want to risk him spotting my truck there. He’d have questions.” His voice rose. “So can you keep quiet about what you know, or not?”
She could have taken his words as a threat, but she didn’t feel it. She felt only sympathy. “I can, for a little while.”
“Thank you.” Sam glanced around at the workshop wreckage. “He’s built a good life here. Come back from so much. He doesn’t talk about his time in prison, or before, and I don’t want anything—anyone—reminding him of that.”
Anyone,
meaning me.
She followed his gaze and shivered, recalling Lance’s rampage. “He really destroyed this place, didn’t he?”
Sam picked up a splintered spindle. He ran his hand over the smooth surface and stopped at the jagged break. “We were already behind on orders. And now Clay’s out of commission.” He shook his head. “We’ll lose business. There may not be any coming back from this. It’ll take days just to get the shop cleared and back in shape. Then we’ll have to start over. With deadlines to meet, I don’t know how—”
“I could help,” she broke in, surprising herself.
“What?” Sam looked on the verge of a guffaw.
“I know I don’t have any experience, but I learn fast. I’ll work hard, and I can do the easier stuff, like clean and organize, sand and stain, handle calls . . . whatever you need to get the business back on track.” She crossed her arms. “You know you need help.”
Sam set the broken spindle down. “Why would you want to do that?”
She lowered her gaze. “Clay was a friend to me and my brother, when we needed one the most.” She almost added, And it was my fault Lance found Clay, but she didn’t need to give Sam another reason to dislike her. She met his eyes. Brown eyes, like Clay’s. Besides, she had to stick around to make sure he kept his promise to tell Clay the truth.
“I can’t pay much.”
“I’ll only need enough for food and rent.”
“You can’t stay here,” he was quick to say.
“I’ll find a place in town. So do we have a deal?” She stuck out her hand.
“You’re sure you wanna do this?” His mouth lifted crookedly. “It’s hard work.”
“Then I’ll work hard.”
They shook, one quick hand pump.
What about Ben back home? her mind whispered disapprovingly. He has his family, his mom, dad, and sister, she rationalized. She would visit him plenty, but she needed a break from that town. Nothing permanent. Just a break. This was perfect. Stay busy. Stay productive. Help someone.
Catching sight of a clock made from a slice of tree trunk, she realized how long they’d been talking. “Uh-oh, I forgot I have a cab waiting. I’ve gotta go. My tab’s racking up.”
After the Thaw Page 14