Mr. Write (Sweetwater)

by O'Neill, Lisa Clark

  But it could be her father, wondering when she’d be done. And at the thought of what she’d just been doing, Sarah winced.

  Pushing herself to sitting, she fumbled the cordless out of its cradle on her desk. And tried to sound like a woman who hadn’t just had spectacular sex on the middle of her office rug.

  “The Dust Jacket, this is Sarah speaking. Hello?” she said when she heard only heavy breathing. Rolling her eyes, she nearly hung up.

  “I knew you were a bitch.” The breathing got heavier.

  “What? Who is this?” But she knew. She was afraid that she knew. “Jonas.” Her voice dripped with disgust. “A little old for obscene phone calls, aren’t you?”

  “You fuck just like one. Like a dog in heat.”

  Cold, suddenly cold all over, Sarah shot up, wrapped her arm around her legs. And looked out the window.

  Nothing there. No one out there. But she crawled behind the desk.

  “Look, I don’t know what your issue is.” She waited a beat until she could keep her voice calm. Until she could be reasonable. “But you need to stop. We’re not kids anymore, Jonas, and if you keep it up, they’re going to consider it harassment.”

  “Oh, I’m keeping it up alright.” When he laughed, panted, it made her skin crawl. “I’ve got it up right now.”

  “You’re disgusting.” Before she could slam the phone down, he delivered his parting shot.

  “Sarah?” And moaned. “I’m thinking about biting you while I come.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  TUCKER stood on the dock, watching the river eddy by in lazy currents. The late afternoon sky was the bruised sort of blue that he’d come to identify with gathering thunderstorms, and so vast as it stretched over the undulating water that he couldn’t believe it was the same atmosphere he’d lived under in New York.

  His parents had grown up with this sky. And when he thought about it, he couldn’t imagine how his quiet, sunny mother had been able to keep her sanity in the city. So much noise, so many people. And a sky that was mostly blocked by human construction.

  But she’d loved the cultural vibe, too – the museums, the galleries, the shows. Tucker had grown up in crowded public libraries instead of open air. He’d learned to appreciate performance art instead of learning how to depreciate rental properties.

  Tucker wondered, not for the first time, if he would have been the same person if his dad had lived. Would his father have respected the artist’s soul that lived in the brawler’s body? Or like his grandfather, would he have tried to turn him into just another reflection of himself?

  He liked to think his dad would have been proud of him, regardless. But since this river had taken him from them, there was no way to know.

  Tucker heard the soft sound of a paddle cutting through the water, and lifted a hand to shield his eyes against the sun. The relief was so strong that it spewed out as irritation.

  “You’re starting to look like those shrimp we boiled.”

  Sarah glanced down at the pinkened skin exposed by her tank top. “It got a little warmer than I expected.” She maneuvered the kayak closer to the dock with the ease of long practice. He couldn’t see her expression, because she was wearing both a cap and sunglasses, but it was easy enough to hear the distance in her tone. “You would think that I should know to always apply sunscreen by now, even this late in the day, but…”

  She shrugged, and Tucker tamped down his frustration. She’d been shutting him out ever since he’d tugged the phone away from her in her office and used it to call the police.

  “You always take off like that when a storm’s coming in?”

  “Got a little time yet.” She glanced at the thickening sky as the red kayak bumped against the dock. “And anyway, I grew up on this river. My father had paddles and fishing poles in mine and Noah’s hands before we could walk.” She began looping a rope around the dock cleat to secure the small craft. Tucker stepped forward to help, though it quickly became apparent that he was more of a hindrance. His hands felt big, unusually clumsy. When she stood up, wobbling, he snapped “Watch yourself,” and reached for her. The current slapped at the kayak with dirty, wet hands.

  Sarah grasped his outstretched arm. Instead of yanking her against him and kissing some sense into her as he wanted, Tucker set her on her feet. They hauled up the kayak together, and Sarah slid it onto a rack with several others that her brother used for tours. Her heels hung over the edge of the dock as she secured a couple fastenings. One of her feet nearly slipped, and Tucker couldn’t stand it any longer. With a soft curse, he pulled her away from the water.

  “You’re jumpy,” she said with cool amusement. “What’s wrong? Can’t swim?”

  “Like a fish.” His voice was flat. “My mother saw to that.”

  “Oh, Tucker.” Distressed, she took off her sunglasses as she turned around. “That was thoughtless of me. I’m sorry.”

  He didn’t want her pity. “You haven’t returned my last couple calls.”

  She busied herself with tying the sleeves of a green anorak around her waist. “There’s been a lot going on. I haven’t had time.”

  “That’s the dog ate my homework of excuses.”

  “Okay.” Her head came up, and there was finally something besides reserve in her expression. “I haven’t wanted to. How’s that?”

  “At least it’s honest.”

  She started to brush past him, but he grabbed her arm again. “You know I had to call the cops, Sarah.”

  “I didn’t say otherwise.”

  “No, you haven’t said much at all.” A spark of temper ignited in his voice. “Which is my point.”

  She pressed her fingertips against her eyelids. And when her chin started to quiver, Tucker could only think Shit.

  “Don’t touch me.” She slapped at his reaching hands. But he dodged, persevered, and gathered her against his chest. The sounds she made – small wounded sounds, like an animal caught in a trap – were so far removed from the other time she’d cried that he knew these came from someplace deep.

  He felt impotent. Unmanned.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured, for lack of anything better. To think he made his living with words.

  “I feel violated.”

  “I understand.”

  “He took something private, something lovely, and made it dirty.”

  “No.” Squeezing her shoulders, he eased her back. Her eyes looked raw, her face ravaged. “It wasn’t dirty.”

  She thumped her fists against his chest. “You weren’t the one who had to explain to your father that you’d been spied on having sex on your office floor. You weren’t the one who had to relay to the police – word for word – that someone had compared you making love to being humped like a dog.”

  “No.” Guilt was a living thing that twisted and writhed in his belly. “But I was the one who put you in that position. Not like that.” He shook his head when he realized how it had sounded. “It’s my fault.”

  “Tucker, no.”

  “Would you have been making love on your office floor if I’d been able to strap my hormones down until your father left? I don’t think so. And by the way, I appreciate the fact that he didn’t come after me with a gun.”

  “He’s not an idiot.”

  “No, he’s a father. A good father, despite everything. I envy you that.”

  When she stared, simply stared, Tucker finally said “What?”

  Sighing, Sarah dropped down onto the dock. “Kick your shoes off, Pettigrew,” she said, and did just that. “The water feels nice.”

  Confused, but willing to indulge her, he toed off his sneakers and sat. The water was warmer than he’d expected – like bathwater – and the current, for all that it looked lazy, surprisingly strong.

  “Tide’s going out,” she commented.

  If she wanted to discuss what amounted to the weather, so be it. God knew he hated to have conversation forced upon him. “I like the way the sky looks. Big, and just a
little mean.”

  “It does.” She kicked at the water as she examined it. “It really does. You’re so good at that. The verbal equivalent of the quick sketch. It’s one of the things I admire about your writing.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You said your mother worked in a bookstore. She must have been proud of your career.”

  Bursting. “I like to think so.”

  She waited a beat, then started to laugh. But it didn’t sound like she’d found anything funny. “What?”

  She studied his face. “You really don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?”

  “It’s… no.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t mean anything if I have to pull it out of you. So, I appreciate you coming here to check on me, but there’s no need for your worry, or your guilt. I’ll be fine.”

  When she started to rise, Tucker got the feeling that he was messing something up. And that the something was pretty damn important. “Sarah.” He grabbed her hand. “Tell me.”

  She watched the water swirl around their ankles for a long moment. “I feel… vulnerable,” she finally said. “Exposed, in so many ways. I feel like you’ve gotten a peek into every dark or dirty little corner of my life, through circumstance, or because I’ve told you. But you.” She lifted her hands in a helpless shrug. “You’re still this enigma. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t returned your calls, why I took off an hour early to come here this evening. To be by myself. Because I can’t decide if it’s because you’re private, or because you don’t think it’s my business to know.”

  He had to loosen the tongue that wanted to stick to the roof of his mouth. “What do you want to know?”

  “I want to know what you want to tell me.”

  He managed not to sigh. “Give me a hint.”

  “Okay. Okay then, if you’re going to be obtuse. How did you feel about having your sex life put on public display? Why didn’t you seem shocked when my father told you that your grandfather may have been involved in something illegal? And though I know you have to be hurting still, I don’t even know how your mother died. If you want me to lean on you, Tucker, then I have to know that you’re willing to lean on me. Otherwise all we have is sex.”

  “I was pissed off.” Especially when the police discovered that Linville had likely slipped into the unoccupied apartment over the gallery next door to spy on them. And that there was evidence he’d used it before. “My mom died from an epidural hematoma. She slipped on the icy sidewalk in front of her work, bumped her head. She laughed it off when I talked to her, said she must be getting clumsy in her old age. A few hours later, she was dead.”

  Sarah didn’t say anything, just reached over and took his hand.

  “I miss her. That’s inadequate, but any words would be. She would have liked you.” He kissed her hand. “And we have great sex.”

  He turned his head, saw the smile glimmer through the tears. “We do.”

  “I don’t lean easily. But it’s not because I don’t think you’re sturdy enough to handle it.”

  “Sturdy.” She pursed her lips. “There’s an adjective every woman longs to hear.”

  “I like a woman with a little substance. Hey,” he said when she splashed him.

  “Now you’re just being a jerk.”

  “You like that about me.”

  “God help me.” Then she slanted him a glance. “You never said anything about your grandfather.”

  The decision was surprisingly easy to make. “Get your shoes,” he told her and pulled them both to their feet. “There’s something I want to show you.”

  ALLIE glanced at her watch as she double-checked the lock on the store’s back door. Bran would be waiting for her, and since her car was in the shop – again – she was going to have to hustle to make it across town on foot before the storm that was threatening broke.

  Tucking the keys into the pocket of her madras dress, she hustled off the porch, around the corner… and screamed.

  “Easy love,” said the man whose chest she just barreled into full throttle. He took hold of her arms to steady her as her knees went to jelly. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Mortified, Allie looked up into Mason’s concerned face.

  “No, really, I wasn’t watching where I was going and I…” She was babbling. Allie forced herself to rein it in. “I guess I’m just a little jumpy.”

  “Understandable.” Mason’s tone was grim. “Having a peeping tom in the neighborhood’s bound to make everyone a bit nervy.”

  It made her sick. Poor Sarah. “My brother has stepped up routine patrols. Hopefully that will deter him.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen the cars driving by.”

  Allie didn’t want to be rude, and would have liked – more than was wise – to continue shooting the breeze with Mason. But she really needed to get moving. “Um, I would love to stay and chat, but I’m afraid I have to go meet my brother.”

  “Of course.” But Mason frowned as he glanced around the parking lot. “Where’s your car?”

  “It’s in the shop.”

  “Again?” The tsk was disapproving. “Whether that speaks to British manufacturing or your local mechanics, I can’t say. But regardless, you shouldn’t be walking around alone. I’ll escort you.”

  “Oh.” Her heart fluttered. “That’s sweet. But I’m sure it isn’t necessary.”

  “Don’t be silly.” He cupped her elbow, and heat shot through her. She remembered perfectly – though she’d been doing her best to forget – how his body had felt, brushing and bumping against hers as she’d led him through the steps of the dance.

  “Are we heading to the police station?” Mason wondered as they moved toward the street.

  “Oh. No, not that brother. I’m meeting Branson, my twin.”

  “Ah. I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

  “No.” Thunder rumbled, and Allie sent the sky a cautious glance. “As Will and I are both working such long hours, I’m afraid that a lot of my father’s care has fallen to Bran. He hasn’t been out and about much.”

  Though hopefully, that was about to change.

  The wind picked up, an angry breath, and Allie wished she’d thought to bring an umbrella.

  “We seem to be developing a habit of strolling around town outrunning storms,” Mason commented.

  “We might just beat it,” she said as they turned down the alley that ran behind the Playhouse. Then the first drops fell in noisy splats. “If we run.”

  “You never did tell me where we’re headed.”

  “The Sweetwater Playhouse,” Allie said, and because she was already racing ahead, missed Mason’s expression. “I’m trying to talk my brother into opening it again.”

  SARAH walked with Tucker across ground broken by gnarled tree roots, and blanketed with needles from loblolly pines, and the prickly little balls from sweetgums.

  The river spread wide here, just below the bluff, rustling stands of chartreuse cord grass as it meandered out to sea. The exposed mud banks were the color of espresso, and the consistency of wet concrete. She’d lost many a shoe to their quicksand-like depths in the pursuit of oysters for roasting.

  An egret, flushed from its hiding spot in the grass, soared white and elegant against a sky that was turning ominous.

  “It’s a beautiful spot.” She turned to examine the blackened ruins of the old building that had stood for over a century before fire took it to the ground. She hated to think of the books that had been lost, and the life with them.

  “My grandfather owns it.”

  His voice was as hollow as the burned-out shell of the library.

  “Prime piece of real estate,” she commented casually. “Of course, local lore says it’s haunted. A ghost light, which apparently swoops down on the unsuspecting. Or the really drunk. Mostly, I think it’s just an excuse for teenagers to come out here and mess around. I’m surprised Carlton hasn’t put up a fence, or at the very least a couple of no trespassing signs.
Or a big ass house, come to that. I’m sure someone would pay a pretty penny for that view.”

  Tucker continued to stare at the water. “Two men already paid for it with their lives.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  Sighing, Tucker pinched the bridge of his nose. “The bank statement, the one you saw on the table that day that you brought me the flyer.”

  “Tucker, I really hope you don’t think that I was trying to calculate your net worth.”

  He turned his head, lips quirked. “That wouldn’t take too long.” But the amusement was short-lived. “When we left Sweetwater after my dad died, it was a real clothes-on-our-backs kind of thing. My mom packed up and took off in the middle of the night. And we moved around a lot, even after we’d been living in the city for a while. I used to think it was due to work, or finding a nicer place to live or a better school district, but now I’m starting to believe she might have been scared.”

  “Of your grandfather trying to take you away from her?”

  “That’s part of it. And more, what he may have been willing to do to get me.”

  “You mean she thought he would… what, kidnap you?”

  “I think she knew – or at least suspected – he was a man who wasn’t above circumventing the law to achieve an objective. It’s a prime piece of real estate,” he agreed with her earlier assessment as he admired the view. Even with the failing light, it was spectacular. “But there was a public library here, and it, and the land it sat on, essentially belonged to the citizens of Sweetwater.”

  Sarah peered through the gloom at the crumbling tabby, the broken and blackened remains. And remembered her father’s story of arson. “You think he had the library burned down.”

  “I’m pretty sure my mom thought so. She left articles – newspaper clippings – following the investigation, and my grandfather’s single-handed funding of the construction of the new Sweetwater library in a safety deposit box in the bank. The one from which you saw the statement.”

  “A man died.” She felt sick.

  “Which makes it first degree arson, and carries a prison term of at least thirty years. I looked up the South Carolina penal code.”