He glanced over his shoulder again at Sam's bent head and decided she might just be the one to answer a few of the questions he had about Alayna's past.
"Alayna told me that she's divorced."
"Yep."
"Did you know her husband?"
"Yep."
Jack rolled his eyes. Getting information out of the woman was like pulling teeth.
He tried again. "She seems to have a few hang-ups about—well, what I mean to say is that her self-confidence seems to be lacking in certain areas."
"If you're asking me if her husband was an asshole, yeah, he was."
Jack turned, then grimaced when he saw that Sam had opened up the wound on the cat's side and was cleaning it. The woman must have a stomach of iron. He swallowed back the bile that rose to his throat and shifted his gaze to a spot on the barn wall above her head. "What'd he do to her?"
Sam's head snapped up, her gaze slamming into his. To Jack, it was like running headfirst into a steel wall.
"Why do you ask?" she asked suspiciously.
Jack shrugged. "Just curious."
Frowning, she turned her attention back to the cat. "Why don't you ask Alayna?"
He shrugged again, though she didn't see the uneasy gesture. "Didn't want to embarrass her."
Sam tossed the clamp aside with its square of soiled gauze and picked up her sutures. "Neither do I," she replied tersely, and bent back over her work.
Jack was sure that was all she was going to offer on the subject, but then she glanced up at him, her eyes narrowed, her mouth set in a grim line. "You ever see a woman who's been physically abused?"
Jack slowly nodded. "Yeah. Pictures."
"Well, that's how Alayna looked after her divorce. And he did it without ever laying a hand on her." She tapped a finger to her head. "Did it here," she said. "Played with her mind. Made her think she wasn't much of a woman." She wagged her head, scowling. "She's one of the smartest, warmest, most compassionate women I've ever known, and pretty to boot. He had her convinced she was none of those things."
Jack worked alone the next day. Although Alayna had left him a note, telling him that she had business to attend to in town, he suspected that she was avoiding him.
He couldn't say that he blamed her. She was probably embarrassed by her actions the night before. He was still having a hard time believing what Sam had told him about Alayna's past. Not that he doubted the truth in what she had shared. It was just difficult for him to believe that a woman like Alayna would fall prey to emotional abuse—but then he figured it was probably all those wonderful traits of hers that had made her a prime target. Warm, loving, compassionate. The whole time her ex was dishing out the abuse, Alayna had probably been dancing a jig, trying her damnedest to please him.
He sighed and tossed his hammer aside. It clattered musically against the tin roof he was mending. Don't let her get to you, Jack, he warned himself. Do your job and hit the road. Chase that white line.
Pressing his hands to the small of his back, he straightened his spine, easing out the kinks. Sweat dampened his shirt beneath his hands, making it stick to his back as he looked out at the road that led to the Pond House.
In the distance, he saw a cloud of dust appear, chasing a fast-moving vehicle. Not a minivan, though, he noted, and tried to ignore the stab of disappointment that came. It was a truck. School was out. The kids were coming home.
And Alayna was nowhere in sight.
Which left Jack in charge. And he didn't want to be in charge, he thought as panic set in. He didn't want the responsibility, the closeness that required.
He quickly started gathering his tools, hoping to make it to his cabin before they arrived, but the truck braked to a dust-churning stop just as he stepped down from the ladder he'd propped against the roofs edge. The truck's passenger door swung open, the kids piled out, the door slammed again and the truck made a wide U-turn, its driver honking as he accelerated in the opposite direction.
Jack felt the trapdoor slam shut in his face. Like it or not, he was caught.
Molly raced across the lawn, her cheeks flushed, her pigtails bobbing, that damn bear of hers tucked tightly under her arm. She skidded to a stop in front of Jack and peered up at him, her eyes wide and questioning. "Kitty?" she asked breathlessly.
That she would approach him, speak directly to him, caught Jack off guard. He nodded toward a box tucked up by a support post on the front porch, in the shade. She clambered up the steps, dropped to her knees beside the box, peered inside, then looked back at Jack over her shoulder. A smile stretched from ear to ear. "Kitty," she repeated, her voice heavy with relief. She hopped up and skipped down the steps headed straight for Jack. He stiffened as wafer-thin arms clamped around his knees. His heart knotted in his chest, his breath burned in his lungs.
And Molly clung.
Slowly he dipped his chin and stared at the halo of blond hair pressed against his thigh. Slower still, he lifted a hand to cover it. He smoothed his palm across the top of the child's head, the calluses on his fingers snagging on the fine, blond strands. "He's going to be fine," he assured her, his voice husky. "Sam took good care of him."
"Where's Alayna?" Billy stood about six feet away, scowling.
Jack carefully unwound Molly's arms from around his legs and set her aside. She immediately ran back to the box and knelt beside it. "In town," he replied, picking up his toolbox again.
"She comin' back?"
Jack heard the uncertainty in the boy's voice, though his face revealed nothing but his dislike for Jack. "Yeah. She'll be back."
"When?"
"Don't know."
Billy tossed his backpack to the ground and Jack could almost hear the wheels turning in the kid's head. Freedom. Nobody in charge. He wondered how much trouble the kid could get himself into before Alayna returned. Plenty, Jack suspected.
Knowing he was the only adult around to stand between Billy and a full-scale rebellion, Jack tried to think of what Alayna would do if she were home. "Take your school things to your room," he said, improvising, "and start on your homework."
"I don't have to do what you say."
"Yeah, you do," Jack returned.
"Why?"
"'Cause I'm bigger than you."
Billy eyed Jack a moment as if weighing his options, then shrugged. "Okay." He stooped and hooked a finger in the loop of his backpack, dragging it from the ground and to his shoulder. "Come on, Molly."
Jack watched the two disappear inside the house, and narrowed his eyes in suspicion. The kid was up to something. What, he wasn't sure. But something. If he wasn't, Jack figured that the boy would still be standing in the yard debating Jack's right to give him orders. The kid was that stubborn.
Jack headed for the ladder again, cussing Alayna for leaving him in the lurch with one breath and, with the next, praying she'd come home before the kid tried a fast one on him.
* * *
Five
« ^ »
Jack heard the back door open and scooted up to the roofs ridge and looked over in time to see Billy tiptoeing across the flagstone patio below. From his vantage point on the Pond House's roof, Jack had a bird's-eye view of the grounds and the kid's every move. He muttered a curse as he watched the boy dart a quick look behind him before he hightailed it for the barn, then disappeared behind it.
The kid was up to something. And probably no good, Jack concluded with a frown. He turned away and picked up a piece of tin, angling it into place on the roof. It wasn't his problem, he told himself as he worked his hammer free from the loop on his tool belt. He was a carpenter, hired to do a remodeling job, not a damn babysitter. He upended a nail over the tin and quickly hammered it into place.
And glanced in the direction of the barn again.
What was the kid doing sneaking around, anyway? he wondered irritably. He ought to be in the house doing his homework, as Jack had instructed.
After more than a week living a little less than a hundred yard
s away, Jack knew Alayna's and the kids' routine by heart. He'd made it his business to know their schedule so that he could avoid the kids as much as possible. The only time he saw them was at dinner, and then just long enough for Jack to choke down enough food to appease Alayna and then split.
According to the schedule he'd witnessed, the kids should be in their rooms doing their homework, and Alayna should be in the kitchen preparing their dinner.
But Alayna wasn't home.
"Damn!" he muttered under his breath.
He eased to the ridge of the roof for another look at the barn. His eyebrows shot up. Was that smoke? He squinted against the sunlight to see better. Damn him for a blind man, if it wasn't, he cursed silently, recognizing the thin threads of smoke as they curled around the side of the barn.
Setting his jaw, he headed for the ladder and quickly climbed down from the roof, then stalked angrily for the barn. Just before he reached the rear of the building, he lightened his steps, wanting to take the kid by surprise. He hoped to scared the hell out of the little brat. Pleased with the image that thought drew, he eased to the side of the barn and peeked around the corner.
Billy sat with his back against the weathered wood, a cigarette clamped between his fingers, blowing smoke through puckered lips. A pack of cigarettes lay on the ground beside him and a box of kitchen matches lay just beyond.
Jack stepped around the corner. "Didn't know you smoked."
Billy was on his feet and had his hand behind his back before Jack took the next step.
He lifted his chin and eyed Jack defiantly. "Who said I did?"
Jack had to choke back a laugh. The kid had balls, that was for sure. With smoke curling up from behind him, the evidence on the ground at his feet, he still wanted to deny his guilt.
Jack dropped to his haunches, turned his back to the barn wall and sat down, stretching his legs out in front of him. "Nobody." He picked up the pack of cigarettes and tossed them in his hand. "Just saw these cigarettes and figured they were yours."
"I didn't steal 'em, if that's what you're thinkin'."
Jack lifted a shoulder. "Didn't say you did."
Billy eased closer, prepared to run if the situation called for it. "I bought 'em from a kid at school. Used my lunch money."
Jack looked up at him. "How much did you pay?"
"Three bucks."
Jack whistled through his teeth at the hefty price, then lifted the lid on the box and looked inside. Less than half a pack remained. "You smoked half a pack, already?"
When it appeared that Jack wasn't going to whip him or knock him around like the other men in his life probably had done, Billy sank down onto the ground beside him, but still kept an arm's length between them. Just in case.
"Nah. The kid only had half a pack." He held out the half-smoked cigarette for Jack's inspection and grinned sheepishly. "This is my first one."
Jack nodded toward the cigarette. "You know those things'll stunt your growth, don't you?"
Billy snorted. "Yeah, yeah. That's what you grownups say about everything that's cool."
Jack shook out a cigarette from the pack. "Mind if I have one?"
Sensing a comrade in crime, Billy relaxed a little more. He gave his shoulder a lift, much like he'd seen Jack do earlier. "Sure, dude. Why not?"
Jack clamped the cigarette between his teeth, then let it dangle there while he reached for the matches. He flicked his fingernail across the head of one and a flame flared to life.
Billy's eyes widened in awe. "Cool, dude. How'd you do that?"
Cupping his hands around the flame, Jack touched it to the end of the cigarette, then stuck the match into the dirt, snuffing it out. "I don't know," he said with a shrug. "Just a trick I picked up." He took a drag on the cigarette, but was careful not to inhale. He didn't want to choke in front of the kid. He had a lesson to teach, one his own father had taught him years ago.
He shook out another cigarette and offered it to Billy. "Want another one?"
Billy eased closer. "Sure, why not?" He poked the cigarette between his lips and held it steady with fingers no longer than the length of the cigarette while Jack struck another match and held it to the cigarette's end. Billy inhaled deeply, then bent double, coughing and choking.
Jack pounded him on the back. "That one have a bone in it?" he teased.
Billy sat up, his eyes watering, then grinned. "Yeah. Guess it did."
They sat for a while, saying nothing, just smoking. Or at least Billy was smoking. Jack wasn't a smoker. He'd learned his lesson the hard way years ago from his old man. The same lesson he was about to give Billy. He just let his cigarette burn, taking a puff now and again just to make himself look as if he was an active participant.
When Billy snubbed his cigarette out in the dirt, Jack handed him another one. Billy's grin was a little weaker this time, and his coloring wasn't quite the same, but he took the offered cigarette with a "Thanks, dude" and puffed away.
Jack watched an army of ants march by, swatted lazily at a fly, then stubbed his burned-out cigarette in the dirt.
"Alayna'd have a wall-eyed fit if she knew we was out here smokin'," Billy said after a bit.
Jack just nodded his head. "Yep. Probably would."
"Kids aren't supposed to smoke, you know," he added as if Jack might not be aware of that fact.
Jack had to turn his head to hide his grin. "I see kids smoking all the time. Some of 'em not any bigger than you." He cocked his head to look at Billy. "How old are you, anyway?"
Billy straightened to make himself look taller. "Seven," he said proudly. "I'll be eight 'fore long."
Jack shook out another cigarette, lit it, then passed it to the kid. Billy accepted it, but a little slower this time. The kid didn't even seem to notice that Jack wasn't smoking. Jack stole a glance at the boy and saw that he was looking a little green behind the gills. "You feeling all right?"
Billy slid a little lower down the wall. "Yeah. I'm okay." He rolled his head to the side and looked up at Jack. "You aren't gonna tell Alayna that we've been smokin', are you?"
Jack lifted a shoulder. "Don't see why I should."
His reply seemed to relieve Billy somewhat because he rolled his head back around and stared off into the distance. His eyes had a glassy look, and his face was as white as his T-shirt. Maybe whiter, Jack decided, noting the dirt stains.
It won't be long now, Jack thought as he turned his gaze to the distant hills. He felt sorry for the kid, knowing what was coming, but figured it was the best way for the boy to learn that cigarettes weren't good for him. Kids rarely listened to the advice of adults, thinking that their elders were just stupid and old-fashioned. Jack knew, because he'd thought the same thing of his own old man.
Things didn't change much over time, he reflected philosophically. Just your perspective as you grew older.
"Jack?"
"Hmm?"
"I don't feel so good."
Jack turned his head to look at the boy. Tousled brown hair in need of a cut. Faded, baggy jeans with a grass stain on one knee. High-top tennis shoes with their tongues hanging out and their laces untied. An oversize T-shirt with a Chicago Bulls emblem emblazoned on its front. Billy looked like a hundred other kids Jack had seen on the streets, all of them searching for an identity, a place to belong.
His own son would never experience any of those things.
Jack swallowed hard, forcing back the memory, the pain. "What hurts?" he asked, trying to keep an emotional distance from the kid.
Billy let his head slide along the wall until it rested against Jack's arm. "My stomach," he said miserably. He dropped the half-smoked cigarette to the ground and clutched his stomach. "It feels like the inside of a washing machine. You know, all churnin' and foamy inside."
"Are you going to be sick?"
"I—" Billy lunged forward, falling to his hands and knees and gagging.
Jack scrambled to his feet and grabbed the boy, pulling him to his feet, as well. With one
arm looped around the boy's waist, holding him upright, and the other holding the kid's hair from his face, Jack held Billy while he emptied his stomach.
"I'm dyin'," Billy wailed, his fingers digging into the arm Jack had wrapped around his waist to support him. "I—I'm dy-y-ing."
"No, son," Jack soothed. "You aren't going to die. But I bet you won't ever smoke a cigarette again, will you?"
Billy retched again at the mention of cigarettes. "No, oh, jeez, no, I promise. I'll never smoke again."
Jack squatted down beside the boy and lifted a wide hand to smooth the limp hair from the boy's pale, sweat-dampened face. In doing so, he exposed a band of freckles sprinkled across his nose, and a scar on his forehead. Without wanting to, or even knowing why he did it, he pressed his other hand against the boy's chest, feeling the frantic beat of his heart, the warmth of his body. He was alive.
And Jack's son wasn't.
Jack dropped his hand to his knee and curled the ends of his fingers into the taut denim. "You gonna be okay?" he asked, his voice husky.
Billy straightened, drawing in a slow, deep breath, and tested his lungs, his ability to breathe without puking up his guts again. "Yeah. I think so. I—"
"Billy!"
At the shocked sound of Alayna's voice, both Billy and Jack spun and found her standing by the side of the barn, her eyes wide in alarm.
Her gaze moved from them to the almost empty packet of cigarettes and the stubbed-out butts on the ground. Slowly she lifted her gaze to Jack, her blue eyes dark with accusation. "How could you?" she whispered. "How could you!" she repeated in a near scream. She rushed across the distance that separated them and pulled Billy into her arms, and away from Jack, crushing the boy against her.
"But, Alayna," Billy began, his voice muffled by her breasts.
"It's okay, Billy," she soothed, shifting him to her side, but keeping her arm locked protectively around him. "We'll get you to the house and get you cleaned up." With a last scathing look at Jack, she turned, and marched for the Pond House.
That McCloud Woman Page 7