Kiss Me, Kill Me

by Maggie Shayne

  5

  She’d heard her son’s soft strumming as she’d ascended the steps, gripping the rail on her way, due to the rum swimming around in her brain. Gabe stuck close, one hand on her elbow, and she found she liked the feel of a man so close to her side. She liked the smell of him, too. Clean and masculine, with a hint of musky cologne. It was heady, with the stars over head and the bullfrogs croaking in the distance. Good thing they were going inside.

  Rum and this guy and a late-summer Shadow Falls night were not a safe combination for her.

  Sam stopped strumming when she came in through the front door, Gabe following close behind her.

  “Hey, Mom. So how was the date?” He was sitting on the oversize brown sofa with his guitar, a Fender brand electric-acoustic she’d bought him for Christmas two years ago. The gleaming light wood finish was as spotless today as it had been when he’d first taken it out of its case. He treated the thing as tenderly as he treated his truck.

  “Pretty bad, actually.”

  “Yeah, I figured, when you had the waitress phone in for rescue. You have a few drinks?”

  “I had four. Precisely four. And I’m feeling them.”

  Sam grinned, then spotted Gabe’s confused look and explained to him. “Four is one more than her limit. And she never exceeds her limit. So it must have been a really bad date. Then again, I could have predicted that.”

  She closed her eyes. “So you know more than I do about men,” she said. “Big deal. Being one, you shouldn’t be so proud of that.”

  “Don’t need to know much to know you could do better.”

  She shrugged. “So you keep saying. No matter who I date. So where’s Sadie? I feel outnumbered here.”

  “She headed home after Gabe left to pick you up.”

  She looked at her watch. “But it’s only a little after nine.”

  “Yeah. Her mother called. She exceeded her limit, too.” He sighed heavily, and added for Gabe’s benefit, “Her limit, unfortunately, is three bottles.”

  “Ah, hell,” Gabe said. “I’m sorry. Is Sadie okay?”

  “Sadie’s always okay.” Sam set his guitar down. “I ought to call her, make sure things are copacetic. I’ll be back, though. We’re having dessert, right?”

  “You bet we are.” Carrie hung her handbag on the little hook beside the door and waved at Gabe to follow her into the kitchen, looking around her home as she did, trying to see it through his eyes. The living room was nearly all done in wood, the floors, the walls, the mantel. All were rich, knotty red-fox-colored hardwoods. The exception was the fieldstone fireplace that burned real logs. The prints on the walls were of wildlife and nature scenes. The giant window that reached up to the peak was undressed, because of the beauty of the view beyond it.

  In the kitchen, there was a section of real brick wall with a double oven built into it. The range top was part of the counter, which was black granite. Everything was black—the sink, the side-by-side refrigerator-freezer, the range hood, even the toaster and coffeemaker. To set it off, the walls were white, and the floor a black-and-white checkerboard of marble tiles.

  “Damn,” Gabe said. “The kitchen is as gorgeous as the living room. You’ve got great taste, Carrie.”

  “I like it. I want this place to be a haven. Home is important to me.”

  He nodded. “You’ve made a beautiful one here. And there’s a peaceful energy to it that’s like—it feels like it shuts out all the trouble outside. Sort of washes over you as soon as you walk in.”

  She leaned back against the counter and looked at him, touched. “You really feel that? Because that’s just how it feels to me.” He nodded, and she went on. “It’s important to me. I never had a home, growing up. Not a real one, anyway.”

  “No?”

  She shook her head, turning to open the fridge and stare blankly inside, mostly just to break eye contact. “We moved almost every year of my childhood, town to town, state to state.”

  Gabe frowned. “Was your father in the military?”

  “No. He was a drifter. Like you.” She licked her lips. “I hated it.”

  “Ouch.”

  She shrugged. “Just getting that out of the way.”

  “So you never want to leave here at all?”

  “I didn’t say that. We travel from time to time, and I’ll do a lot more of that once Sam is out on his own. But this is my home. It will always be my home. I like having it here, knowing my haven is waiting for me when I’m ready to return.”

  She tilted her head to one side. “Don’t you have anyplace like that? A home base?”

  He shook his head. “The closest thing to home for me is my mother’s place, and my mother and I—well, her idea of home is a pretentious, hollow mansion outside L.A. It’s like the polar opposite of what you have here. Cold. False, somehow.”

  “So what’s stopping you from making a haven of your own?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I’ve never thought I wanted or needed one yet. I always figured someday I might, but that day just hasn’t come.”

  “I see.”

  “So what’s the deal with Sadie’s family?” he asked after a long moment of comfortable silence.

  She closed the fridge and opened the freezer, spotting a tub of caramel crunch ice cream, and taking it out. “Her dad died six years ago. Ice fishing accident.”

  “He drowned?”

  She nodded. “Her mom wasn’t entirely stable, even before, and she pretty much hasn’t stopped drinking since. Holds down a minimum wage job, but just barely. And she’s totally dependent on Sadie. Sadie keeps the trailer clean, takes care of the money, pays what bills she can, brings home groceries when possible.”

  He sighed, lowering his head. “Does she realize she’s not really helping her mother at all?”

  “We’ve had that talk,” Carrie said with a nod. “She knows she’s enabling her mom to some extent. But at the same time, she’s making her home life bearable for herself.”

  “And making her mother dependent.”

  “I know. I know. But at what point does walking away help Sadie, rather than hurting her? She’s got two more years till she graduates high school. She can get into a good college. She has the grades, and she’ll qualify for hardship grants as well as scholarships. Meanwhile, she’s just making her life as tolerable as she can, and spending all the time she can away from home.”

  “I already got that she was tough. Smart. And way too wise for her age. Now I know why.”

  Carrie nodded. “I just hope she’ll have it in her to leave when the time comes. You know that woman’s going to heap as much guilt on the poor kid as she can.”

  “That kind always do.”

  “You sound like you know whereof you speak.”

  “Yep.” He didn’t say more, and instead opened a cupboard and located ice-cream bowls, taking three of them down. “But Sadie’s got a great role model in you. You’ll help her know how to make the right call, when the time comes.”

  “I hope so.” She scooped ice cream into the three tulip-shaped dessert bowls, then returned the carton to the freezer, opened the fridge and pulled out chocolate-, caramel- and strawberry-flavored sundae sauces, handing them all to Gabe. “Here. Take off the lids and give them thirty seconds each in the microwave.”

  “Okay.”

  He went about the task, while Carrie opened another cupboard and located crushed walnuts, pecans and M&M’s.

  He watched her as she sprinkled liberal portions of each onto the ice cream.

  “Wow. You really know how to make a sundae.”

  “We take our ice cream very seriously around here.” She handed him a tablespoon-sized ladle. “A little of each, please. I’ll get the whipped cream and cherries.”

  “How do you keep so trim, when you eat like this?”

  She smiled at him. “By getting lots of exercise and limiting ice-cream sundaes to one night a week. And thank you for the compliment.”

  “It was nothing but t
he truth.”

  She nodded at him to get moving, and he drizzled the now-warm syrups over the bowls of ice cream. She followed by spraying swirls of whipped cream, and then she dropped a cherry on top of each one.

  “Beautiful,” he said. She looked up and saw that his eyes were on her, not the sundaes. And then she shivered, because this…this attraction between them had come out of nowhere. She hadn’t expected it or been ready for it. And now that it was here, she didn’t know what to do with it.

  She managed to smile, and then snatched two of the sundaes and hurried into the living room, thanking her lucky stars when Sam came running back down the stairs.

  “Sadie’s fine. Her mom locked herself out of the trailer again and had passed out on the front lawn by the time Sadie got there. But Sadie got her inside and into bed.” He met Gabe’s eyes. “The woman’s a real basket case.”

  “Your mom was telling me. Sorry to hear it, Sam.”

  “Sadie deserves better,” Sam said.

  “She wouldn’t be who she is if she had it better.”

  Sam frowned at that comment, but took his sundae from his mom and sank onto the sofa beside his guitar. “I never thought about it that way before.”

  “It’s the only way you should think about it. Look for the positive. There’s always something somewhere, even if it’s sometimes tough to find it. Sometimes it’s not apparent until years down the road, even.”

  “Yeah?”

  Gabe nodded.

  Sam took a spoonful of ice cream. “I’ve heard that philosophy before, Gabe, but I have to tell you, I’m not real sure I buy into it. If everything has a positive side, what’s the positive to Kyle being missing?”

  “I don’t know, pal. Kyle’s path is his own to walk. We can’t figure out anyone’s issues but our own. We can try, but we’d only be off base. When things happen where you can’t see any good side, it’s usually best to focus on things where you can. Hold on to the good.”

  “That’s tough to do right now.”

  “The bad stuff is there. Shit happens, as they say. The question is, do you focus on it and feel bad, or try to find reasons to feel good in spite of it?”

  Sam nodded thoughtfully. “Doesn’t it seem…callous to try to feel good when someone you care about is in trouble?”

  “Does your wallowing in misery make his situation any better?” Gabe asked.

  “No.”

  “So what’s the point of being miserable, then?”

  Carrie listened to the conversation and tipped her head to one side. “That’s got to be the most unique perspective I’ve ever heard.”

  “Well, it’s just the way I see things. Doesn’t mean anyone else has to agree. But if it helps a little, you’re welcome to it.”

  Sam met his mom’s eyes and gave a slow, deep nod, as if to say, I told you this guy was awesome. Then he set his bowl aside and picked up his guitar. “That riff you showed me, Gabe. Was it—” He played a series of chords as Gabe nodded.

  “You dropped the G, right at the end there.”

  Sam did it again, and this time Gabe nodded in approval while Carrie beamed. “That was really great, Sam!” she said.

  “Gabe taught me more in a couple of hours than all my lessons combined.”

  “You had a good foundation to begin with. That’s important,” Gabe said. “Maybe we can do this again soon.”

  “I’d love that.”

  “Me, too,” Gabe said, sliding a meaningful but subtle glance Carrie’s way. “But I think we’d better call it a night for now.”

  Carrie was surprised to see that her bowl was empty, as was Gabe’s. Sam’s was nearly so. How had dessert passed so fast?

  “If we have to, I guess,” Sam said, but he kept right on playing.

  Carrie got to her feet and followed Gabe to the door. He paused there, turning, staring down at her, making her feel butterflies in her stomach. “So the search resumes at 8:00 a.m., then?”

  “Yeah, and it’s my day off from the hospital, so I’ll be there.”

  “Sam, too?”

  She smiled. “Sam, too. And probably Sadie, as well, if her mother’s not too incapacitated.”

  “I’ll see you there, then.”

  “Okay. Good night.”

  “Night.” He looked at her for a long moment, then his gaze shifted to her son, behind her on the sofa. The strumming had stopped, so Carrie presumed Sam must be watching with undisguised interest. The brat.

  Meeting her eyes again, Gabe held them for an intense moment that was almost as intimate as a good-night kiss would have been. Then he backed away, turned and moved across the deck and down the steps to the driveway beyond. She closed the door after he left and was watching out the window as he made his way to his VW Bus. Just as it started up and pulled away, she noticed Rose, standing in the window of the garage apartment looking out at the driveway. Even as Carrie looked up at her, the curtain fell closed and the silhouette behind the glass moved away.

  “I think he likes you, Mom.”

  She turned sharply, sending her son a don’t-be-ridiculous look, while inside a little voice was saying, Do you really think so? She bit her tongue and didn’t ask the question aloud. It was, she told herself, the kind of thing a sophomore girl with a crush would say. No, not even that. Sadie wouldn’t be caught dead acting so…stupid.

  “He’s totally not your type, is he?” Sam asked. “I mean, he’s just the opposite of the kind of guy you’re looking for.”

  “I’m not looking for anyone.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  She nodded, sighed and walked to the sofa to sit down on the far end while her son continued strumming. “So what do you think I usually look for in a guy?”

  He shrugged. “Definitely not good looks. You tend to go for pretty homely types. And boring is definitely on your wish list.”

  “Bad-looking and boring. That’s what you think I want in a man?”

  “And smart, I guess. And employed. And ordinary. You like conformists.”

  “I am a conformist. Or hadn’t you noticed?”

  He smiled at her. “Not as much as you like to think you are.”

  “Oh? So you think there’s a wild streak in your old mom, just waiting to be let loose?”

  “Mmm-hmm. And I think it’s starting to tug at its leash a little now that Gabe has appeared on the scene.” He strummed another chord with a sweeping flourish. “But I’m just a kid. What do I know?”

  “Yeah,” she muttered, and her gaze shifted to the door again. “What do you know?”

  The searchers gathered again at 8:00 a.m. and boarded the bus, Gabe, Sadie, Sam and Carrie taking adjoining seats. The door began to close, then opened again to admit a latecomer.

  Ambrose Peck hurried up the steps, looking harried. He wore khaki trousers, with an off-white button-down shirt and a brown windbreaker. His hair was neatly glued to his head. He wasn’t tousled or disheveled, but he still managed to look harried. It was his expression, Carrie thought.

  He quickly made his way up the aisle, pausing beside Carrie. “I swear, I’m never late for anything. Can’t believe I overslept.”

  She smiled back, though she was groaning inwardly. “It’s all right. You made it. That’s all that counts.”

  “Yes, I guess so.” He met the eye of the man in the seat ahead of Carrie and Gabe’s, and the man slid over to make room.

  He sat on the edge as the bus rumbled into motion. “I was too late to be assigned to a group, though. Is there room in yours?”

  Gabe offered a friendly smile from his window seat beside her and said, “There’s always room for one more.” He ignored Carrie’s kick in the ankle and kept on talking. “We’ve got Nate with us again today, too,” he added, with a nod toward the man sitting in the seat beside Ambrose.

  Ambrose looked sideways, noting his seatmate for the first time. “Oh, yes! Hello again, Mr. Kelly.”

  “Mr. Peck.” Nate, who usually looked depressed, actually offered a
half smile when he greeted Ambrose. Highly unusual for him.

  “You two know each other?” Carrie asked.

  “Mr. Kelly and I had a fascinating talk about the state of the ski business here in town yesterday,” Ambrose explained. “I offered a few suggestions that might ease his—”

  Nate cleared his throat heavily and meaningfully. And Carrie wasn’t sure, but she thought he might have thrown a little elbow, too.

  Ambrose flinched and shot him a quick look, then smiled, though it looked more like he had a bad case of indigestion. But it always looked that way, she thought. Smiling was not a natural expression for him.

  “I’m sorry. Of course any financial discussions I have with someone are confidential. Client or not.”

  “Besides, nothing’s likely to help much at this point,” Nate added.

  It was the longest sentence Carrie had ever heard the man utter. He was notoriously grumpy, gruff and mostly silent. And the worse his business went, the less he spoke. His face reminded her of the fisherman on the boxes of fish sticks in the market. Thin and chiseled, as if it had been carved into Mount Rushmore. Gaunt and grim, too.

  “We’re all hoping for a long snowy winter, Nate,” she told him. “Things are certainly starting out nicely. The inns are booked up already.”

  “Yeah, because it’s warm.”

  “Well, that’s true.”

  “And dry,” Nate added. “Warm and dry.” He shook his head slowly, sadly.

  “Maybe the cold and the moisture are saving themselves up for huge snowfalls later on,” she offered in a cheerful tone.

  “Hmmph.”

  Ambrose stepped in and tried to engage the grumpy old ski lodge owner in small talk as they made the short drive to the areas they were to search this morning. Nate Kelly responded more than Carrie had seen him respond to anyone. It seemed he actually liked the irritating financial wizard.

  And maybe Ambrose wasn’t really all that irritating. Maybe he was perfectly fine, and she was just too smitten with Gabe to notice it.

  In short order their teams were marching into the woods, maps in hand, beating the undergrowth in search of Kyle.