“Have you considered the possibility that it’s time you found yourself a better class of friends?”
Paige snorted. “That 20/20 hindsight thing’s a real bitch.”
“Biff is making a lot of noise about this. He’s threatening to sue. Assault with a dangerous weapon. Pain and mental anguish. Whatever other trumped-up charges he can come up with. He knows we have money. His kind is really good at sniffing it out. If he finds himself an ambulance chaser, this could cost us a pretty penny.”
“Dangerous weapon? Oh, please. Lissa’s old man is a blowhard. He’ll rant and rave, but in the end, he won’t do anything. Bullies never do.”
“Your father is not going to find this amusing.”
Her own pain and mental anguish suddenly skyrocketed as a headache sprang to life directly behind her left eye. “Do we really have to tell him?”
Casey seemed to consider her question. “Why do the girls at school hate you?”
Heat suffused her face. “It’s nothing.”
“Paige,” her stepmother said, in that parental tone of voice that meant proceed at your own risk.
“Fine. If you must know, I was seen talking to Mikey one day in the cafeteria. Apparently he’s the sex god of Jackson High, so every feline claw in residence came unsheathed. Just in case ripping me to shreds became an option. How dare I, one of the Great Unwashed, have the audacity to actually speak to their god? Especially when he has the good sense to not even give the time of day to most of them?”
“I had no idea. It wasn’t like that when I was in school. There were cliques, but for the most part, they peacefully coexisted.” Casey went quiet for a moment. “Have there been any incidents I should know about?”
“It’s not like that. Mostly they just pretend I’m invisible. Or they did, until this whole shoplifting thing. Now they laugh behind my back. But it’s not that big a deal. I don’t care about any of them. I have friends. I have Luke, and the guys in the band. And—” She laughed, but there was little humor in it. “I guess I probably don’t have Lissa any more.”
“After what you did to her today? Probably not. Which doesn’t appear to be any great loss.”
“I’m sorry. Really. I wasn’t thinking about you having to deal with her old man or the cops. I just got so mad, I wanted to annihilate her.”
“You have a hot temper. While I understand your motivation, that doesn’t make it right, what you did.”
“It’s not like I hurt her. It was only water.”
“High-pressure water. No, you didn’t hurt her, but you could have.”
“Actually, it was pretty funny. It knocked her right on her—”
“Paige! You’re not making this any better!”
She’d never heard that tone coming from her stepmother, and it was shocking enough to bring her back down to earth. “Okay. So…I’ll just shut up now.”
“Good choice.”
When they got home, the boys were already there, waiting in their eclectic collection of beat-up cars for band practice. Paige retrieved her guitar and the keys to the studio, unlocked the barn, then helped Tobey carry in the various pieces of his drum set. For a few minutes, they busied themselves setting up equipment. “Hey, Paige,” Craig said, “where’s the nearest electrical outlet?”
“Behind that table. You can move it out from the wall a little.”
“Holy crap,” Corey said, “take a look at this mixing board. Sweet!”
“Touch a thing,” Paige said, “and I’ll amputate your fingers. All this stuff belongs to my old man, and he dropped a small fortune on it. You break anything and I’ll be homeless.”
“Hey, there’s Coke in this little fridge,” Tobey said. “Can we have some?”
“One each,” Paige said, wondering if this had been a mistake. But Casey wouldn’t let her go to Tobey’s house while she was grounded, and it had been decent of her stepmother to offer the studio space for their practice. Paige didn’t want to blow it.
“So what’s with the poster?” Tobey stood, Coke bottle in hand, studying the huge framed photo on the wall.
“It’s an old publicity shot.” Paige came over to stand beside him. She liked the photo, liked the way it illustrated the dynamic between her father and his two best friends. Set against a clean white background, they stood in a comfortable grouping. Danny’s arms, wrapped around his wife, held her close against his chest. Paige’s father, just inches away, had a forearm resting on Casey’s shoulder. In his free hand, he clutched the neck of an old guitar, its butt end propped against the floor near his feet. The photographer must have stood on a ladder to take the shot, because all three of them were looking up into the camera lens. Casey’s hair had been long then, hanging all the way to her waist. Danny Fiore had the bluest eyes Paige had ever seen, and a single, deep dimple in one cheek. Rob MacKenzie had been so scrawny that his legs, encased in scruffy jeans, looked miles long.
“I know your dad,” Tobey said, “and your stepmother. But who’s the other guy?”
She just looked at him. Raised an eyebrow. Said, “That’s Danny Fiore.”
He looked blank. “Who’s Danny Fiore?”
This time, she couldn’t help herself. She gaped at him in incredulity. “You’re kidding me, right?” Tobey shrugged, unfazed by his unfathomable ignorance. She looked around the room. “Tell me he’s kidding.”
“I don’t think he’s kidding,” Luke said.
She slowly shook her head in disbelief. Said to Tobey, “And you call yourself a musician? Go home and ask your mother. Meanwhile, are we here to dub around, or are we going to play some music?”
Rob
He tapped his pen impatiently against the postcard resting on his thigh. It was hard to find anything meaningful to say. He barely knew the kid, but Casey said she was reading the cards he sent, that she seemed pleased by them, so he worked daily to come up with something pithy to write. His own off-the-wall brand of humor, blended with what he hoped was paternal wisdom, was a screwed-up way to try to build a relationship, but from this distance, it was his only option. He probably shouldn’t have run off and left Paige for his wife to deal with. He should have told Chico he wasn’t available. The kid was, ultimately, his responsibility, and his mother was right. He should be home, getting to know his daughter. When had Mary MacKenzie ever not been right? He’d spent decades ignoring her advice, to his own detriment. He’d been well into his thirties before he finally started listening.
His mind a blank, he temporarily gave up on the postcard. The scenery that flashed by his window was flat and boring, that boredom broken only by the occasional run-down farmhouse standing solitary in the distance. There had been a time when the road had piqued his wanderlust. Now, he just wanted to go home. He’d done more than his share of wandering, and it was getting old. He was getting old. It was no longer an adventure, showering twice a week, trying to sleep slouched against the rattling side of a moving bus, eating at random intervals dictated by the location of the nearest highway rest stop. Yearning for the intimacy of lying beside his wife at night. The playing was heaven; being onstage was close to a religious experience. But the trade-off wasn’t worth it. He couldn’t imagine going back to this kind of lifestyle on any permanent basis.
The bus hit a bump, and his postcard fell, drifting on an air current toward the center aisle. He reached out to grab it, but Chico was faster. He caught the card in mid-air, handed it back to Rob, then plopped down beside him. “Hey.”
“Hey. Thanks. Good catch.”
“So what’s with you, writing War and Peace in postcard-size bites? I’ve been watching you. Love letters to the little woman?” Chico waggled heavy, dark brows.
He let out a soft laugh. “Nah. They’re for my kid.”
Those dark brows went sky-high. “You got a kid, man? I didn’t know you had a kid.”
“Neither did I, until a couple of months ago. Paige. She’s fifteen—”
“Oh, boy.”
“—and she’s a h
andful. Right now, she’s giving Casey a real run for her money.”
“Girls,” Chico said, and shook his head. “You think boys are bad? They’re nothing compared to girls. I wish you luck with her, my friend. So…” Chico studied him with curious brown eyes. “You and Casey.”
“What? Does that seem so odd?”
“Hell, no. I had my money on you a dozen years ago. It just took you a while to catch up.”
“Yeah. Well.” He glanced out the window again, watched a broad expanse of brown farmland pass by in a blur. “How do you do it? At our age, how do you keep on keeping on? With a wife and kids at home, doesn’t the road get to you?”
Chico leaned back on his tailbone and crossed his ankles. “Let me tell you. It’s called paying the rent. It’s how we make our living. My wife and kids? Three hundred days a year on the road keeps a roof over their heads and food in their bellies. We all have different journeys in life, MacKenzie, and not all of us made it big like you did. Most of us actually have to work for a living.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but again, Chico was quicker. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. You’ve earned everything you have. I’m just stating facts. You made it to a level in music that I can only dream about. And being on the road so much is a hardship in some ways. But I’m a musician. I may not be rich, I may not be famous, but by God, I’m making a living doing what I love. And in my book, that makes me a rich man.”
“You want to hear something really dicey? You say I’ve earned everything I have, but the truth is, there’s only one reason why I got to where I got: Danny Fiore.”
“Not true. Your talent outshines all of us.”
“It is true, and here’s why.” He shifted position, stretched out his legs as far as the cramped seating would allow. “I’ve never told this to anyone before, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t repeat it. Drew Lawrence—the Ariel Records executive who signed Danny—told me this a couple of years ago. It blew me away, because I had no idea. I’ve never said a thing about it to Casey, and I don’t think she knows, either. But when Drew offered Danny that record contract—” He met Chico’s dark eyes. “Danny told him it was a no-go unless we signed together. He wasn’t doing it unless he could take me along.”
Chico considered it. Finally said, softly, “Wow.”
“That’s what I call loyalty. And I feel so damn guilty. Because sometimes, I hated him for the way he treated Casey. I didn’t think he deserved her. Sometimes I wanted to smash his head into a brick wall until I knocked some sense into him. And now, here I am, living off the fruits of his labor and sleeping with his wife. It really makes me proud.”
“You didn’t always hate him. You two, on stage together, you had this connection. You drew sparks from each other. Everybody could see it.”
“In all the ways that mattered, he was my brother.”
“And you have to look at it that way, man. Who’s to say it was loyalty that made him do it? Maybe he was afraid he couldn’t make it on his own, without you. Ever think of that?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. But sometimes, I feel invisible. And it’s not a good feeling.”
“Do you think I asked you to come on tour with us because you were an old friend and I thought you might say yes? I asked you because you’re the best guitarist I know. And that has nothing to do with Danny Fiore. That’s pure, one hundred percent Rob MacKenzie. So stop stewing over meaningless trivia. He did you a favor. One flipping favor. And how many did you do for him? You wrote the goddamn music. You played on the records. You produced the damn things. You toured with him in venues that packed in fifty-thousand screaming fans. I’d say your karma quotient trumps his by a mile.”
“And then I ended up with his wife.”
“The guy died, MacKenzie. If you’ve ever heard those little words ‘until death do us part’ you know damn well she’s not his wife any more. That death thing is pretty final. You two made it legal, right? So she’s your wife, and Fiore has no say about it any more. You’re the one she’s sleeping with these days. Be grateful. She’s a good woman. Smart and kind and sexy. You deserve her just as much as you deserve anything else you have.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“I’m right. Now, do yourself a favor. There’s a rest stop coming up in about a half-hour. Find yourself a pay phone, call your old lady, and tell her you love her.” Chico stood, swaying slightly with the motion of the bus. “I guarantee you’ll feel better after.”
“Thanks. I didn’t mean to spill all this angst in your lap.”
“It’s the road, man. Makes us all a little crazy after a while.”
Casey
It wasn’t like her to be so cranky. What Paige had done was wrong, but it was hardly time to call in the major crimes unit. In truth, what the kid had done was sort of funny, in a sick and twisted way. Even Scotty Deverell had been having trouble keeping a straight face at the sight of a bedraggled and sopping Lissa Norton. Biff Norton had, as usual, blown it all out of proportion. His threats were ludicrous, and if she told Rob about them, he’d probably laugh himself silly. So why had she lost her temper with her stepdaughter? There was no reasonable explanation. She’d simply been filled with rage, a rage that came from out of nowhere, and disappeared just as quickly.
Rob had been gone for too damn long. That was the problem. They’d been apart for more than a month, and she wasn’t handling it well. That explained why she was pacing her kitchen on a lovely autumn afternoon instead of going outside and enjoying the beautiful day. This long-distance marriage thing was for the birds. And to put it bluntly, it was more than just his companionship she was missing. As Paula had so eloquently put it, a phone call every day did not make up for a warm man in her bed every night. Her hormones were obviously out of whack. If he didn’t come back soon, she was going to jump in her car, track him down, and drag him home.
She paused in her pacing, wheeled around, and headed for the living room. She moved to the stack of CDs beside the stereo, shuffled through them and found the one she wanted. The Edge of Nowhere. If she couldn’t have the real thing, she could at least have a reasonable facsimile. She popped the CD into the player and let it flow over her, the soft tones of her husband’s voice, the weeping guitars, the sophisticated and bluesy arrangements that were classic MacKenzie.
The music that Rob MacKenzie created transported her to another place, some rich and vivid Shangri-La. He was an amazing composer, light years beyond her meager talents. She could always come up with a catchy melody and solid lyrics. What Rob did was turn simplicity into symphony. His arranging skills were second to none. He knew instinctively where to add strings, where to add horns, where to weave in a countermelody that brilliantly complemented the lead melody. He was the one who took their vague scribblings and turned them into hit songs. She’d never been able to figure out how he did it. He jokingly referred to his gift as auditory hallucinations, and sometimes she wondered if that was really so far from the truth.
He’d written this, his first solo album, without her, in a cabin somewhere in the wilds of Oregon, after he’d walked away from his long-time partnership with Danny. The Edge of Nowhere, both the song and the album, had perfectly captured his state of mind at the time, as he took faltering steps into the unknown to find out whether he had the chops to carry a solo career.
As if there’d ever been any question about that.
She’d already made her own escape. After Katie died and her marriage fell apart, she’d moved east, putting three thousand miles between herself and Danny Fiore. While Rob was searching for himself in that remote cabin on a pristine lake in Oregon, Casey had rented a tiny two-bedroom apartment in the North End of Boston, where she began her own journey of self-discovery.
He’d brought her the finished album on her thirtieth birthday, and sold her on the jazzy concept he’d been contemplating for his second solo offering. She took the bait, and they began working together on that second album. For a time, they’d work
ed on opposite coasts, connected by telephone and fax machine. Until one day, he packed his guitar and his cat, flew east, and moved into her guest room.
Living together had felt natural to both of them; after all, they’d lived together the entire time they were in New York. In hindsight, she realized that people probably believed they were together. A couple. But it wasn’t like that. They worked together, they played together, they ran together. He was her best friend, and although she loved him—she’d always loved him—their relationship was strictly platonic.
Then he’d kissed her on that beach in Nassau, and everything had changed between them.
Kissed was, in reality, a vast understatement. Ravished would be more accurate. There hadn’t been one iota of civilized behavior in the kisses he’d laid on her, standing in the frothing surf on a moonlit Bahamian beach, both of them semi-drunk on alcohol and thoroughly intoxicated on each other. It had been wonderful, and terrible, and heady, and impossible, the most exciting moment of her life. Until he remembered that in spite of a lengthy marital separation, she was still legally wed to Danny. Because somewhere beneath the raging barbarian with plundering lips and wandering hands lived a gentleman who’d been raised properly by a mother who’d managed to instill strong moral standards in nine little MacKenzies, he had backstepped and apologized for crossing the line.
The ensuing battle had been a doozy. Not their worst, not by a long shot. But a doozy nevertheless.
The next day, he’d done his best to convince her that it was the tropical setting, combined with the booze and the lengthy bout of celibacy on both their parts, that had been responsible for their lapse in judgment. And he’d told her it was time to get off the fence: Either divorce Danny and move on with her life, or give her marriage another try.
Even in her deep denial, she’d recognized the subtext of his message. As long as she was still tied to Danny, Rob MacKenzie wasn’t willing to take that giant step forward with her. If she severed the tie, the next move would be up to her.
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