House Of Payne: Scout

by Stacy Gail

Not since she’d been a ward of the state had Scout felt so lost.

  Grimly she tried to rally as she forced herself to put on a bright sundress for Rude’s welcome-home barbecue. But no matter how cheerful the yellow dress with black polka dots usually made her feel, or how she made herself smile until her cheeks hurt, nothing wiped out the bleak darkness devouring her from the inside out.

  She might be able to fool everyone else, but she wasn’t a good enough actress to fool herself.

  “Look at you, all bright and shiny… and alone.” Tonya was the first to greet her as Scout made her way to the long and narrow backyard behind the Panuzzi two-story brick Workers Cottage home. With little Sabrina on her hip, Tonya glanced past Scout’s shoulder just to make sure no one was bringing up the rear. “I thought you were bringing Mr. Perfect?”

  She couldn’t stop from wincing as the comment rammed a brass-knuckled fist into her open wounds. “Mr. Imperfect, you mean. We’re done,” she said even as Tonya opened her mouth to speak, and the act of saying it out loud drove the pain deeper, until it was all she could feel. “He was just using me to get at something he wanted.”

  “That motherfu—” Tonya pulled both lips in and bit hard, a silent self-reprimand to not swear in front of her baby. Then she threw her free arm around Scout and pulled her into a tight hug. “I hate him. Absolutely hate. You’re much too good for him, so I say it’s good riddance to bad rubbish, sister.”

  God, how she adored Tonya. “I guess he was the epitome of the phrase, ‘if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.’ I just wish I’d been able to see that before…” The rest of the words got buried under a tidal wave of tears that she refused to let fall. But the truth was unavoidable. She had seen something was going on with Ivar, right from the beginning. She’d just chosen to ignore the signs.

  If you ignore the signs, you wind up in a place you don’t want to be.

  Without a doubt, she was now in a place she didn’t want to be.

  “That mother F-word,” Tonya muttered, then pulled back to search her face. “Are you going to be okay?”

  Scout could only shake her head, because her throat was so clogged she couldn’t make her voice work. No, she wasn’t going to be okay. Not for a while. Maybe not ever. This wasn’t like the other heartbreaks she’d suffered in the past, not even with Vishous. She couldn’t just shrug this off like it didn’t matter and tell herself she was better off. She didn’t feel better off. She felt…

  Gutted.

  “I can’t talk about it.” Finally she got her voice to work, and wasn’t surprised it sounded like she gargled with sand. “I’m just here to give Rude a quick welcome-home hug and then I’m out of here. I don’t want to explain that Ivar…” She swallowed hard to keep her throat from clenching up again. “That he was interested in something other than me.”

  “Let me guess. Another shallow, glory hound A-hole trying to get his foot in the door at House Of Payne?”

  Didn’t she just say she didn’t want to talk about it? “What he wanted… it didn’t have anything to do with the House.”

  “Then WTH did that SOB want?”

  To Scout’s surprise the faintest flicker of amusement surfaced. “He wanted information on Frank Bournival, the guy who left me the penthouse. Also, you’re kind of hilarious when you’re trying not to cuss.”

  “Nothing makes me want to swear more than some S-head coming along to mess with my girls.” Wrapping her arm around Scout’s shoulders, Tonya guided them toward the deck and the main area of activity. “What’d he say when you found him out?”

  “I didn’t find him out. He straight-up copped to it.”

  “And then he just dumped you, that C-sucker?”

  “He, uh… he sort of did the opposite of dumping me. He said he couldn’t take not being totally honest about how we’d crossed paths, that he cared about me and that I meant too much to him to go another day living a lie.” Scout let loose a weird sound between a hiccupping sob and a laugh. “C-sucker?”

  “If the shoe fits.” Tonya frowned and searched her face. “But Scout, honey… I’m not sure it does fit. He said he cared about you? Like, care about you like a lover, or like he would for a maiden aunt?”

  “He just said he cared about me too much to go on lying. He wanted me to know everything that was going on with him so we could go on from there without any more lies between us. Can you believe it?”

  “Yeah, I can.” At the foot of the deck’s wooden steps, Tonya stopped and turned to face her while the scent of grilled meat wafted in the air. “The problem is, I don’t think you believe it.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “Why are you saying it’s over when the man tells you he cares enough about you that he needs to come clean? That sounds like the opposite of it being over. That sounds like he was trying his best to make a beginning. A beginning of something that could be beautiful.”

  “No. It was an ending.” This, she realized, was the root of the pain burning inside her. It wasn’t so much the sense of betrayal that hurt anymore, though that was still there. What really ate at her was her cruel, meaning-to-hurt reaction. “I was so hurt by what he was saying I turned right around and said something seriously harsh.” She squeezed her eyes shut, only to see Ivar’s frozen-over face. “Take my word for it, Tonya. I was a total bitch.”

  Her grip tightened, whether in sisterly support or a reprimand for cursing in front of Sabrina, Scout wasn’t sure. “What’d you do?”

  “He’s had a hard life, as bad as any of us strays. I… I threw some of that in his face, when I know better than anyone how those scars can be the most painful. Believe me, it’s over. I ended it when I did that.”

  “Oh, honey.” Tonya shifted her daughter to her other hip and gave Scout another one-armed hug. “Maybe if you give him time to cool off, you can fix things with a big apology and the promise of make-up sex. Men love that combination.”

  “Considering Ivar wasn’t really with me because he wanted to be in the first place, I’m pretty sure he’s decided I’m not worth the effort.”

  “You did not just say that.” Tonya let her go to put her frowning face right into Scout’s. “You’re already on the path to forgiving him for his F-up, but you don’t think he can forgive you for reacting to it? Really?”

  Was she on the path to forgiving Ivar? “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “That’s the stray’s one-strike-and-you’re-out mentality right there, honey. And that kind of thinking is all wrong.”

  Scout frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t remember how it was when we were in the system. You land in a new foster home—new people, new school, new rules. You stress over trying to learn it all, doing your best to find a way to belong in their world and be a perfect fit. Then one day something goes wrong. You leave a towel on the floor. You oversleep and miss a school bus. You mess up somehow. That’s when it happens—one strike and you’re out. They hit the eject button on you because you’re too much trouble to bother with. That’s the message that always comes through—you’re too much trouble to bother with. Then before you know it, you’re back at square one, going through the routine all over again in some other place, trying to be perfect while knowing deep down you’re doomed because no one is perfect. But I’ve got a newsflash for you—life doesn’t have to be that way anymore. Not if you give the people in your life a chance.”

  Scout hated that Tonya’s words were hitting a nerve she didn’t know she had. She had to be, because it was making her heart pound in the most painful way. “A chance for what?”

  “Give your Mr. Perfect a chance to forgive you for having a totally normal—and as I see it, necessary—reaction to him being a lying jerkface. I was the same way with Adam,” she went on while Scout just stared at her. Tonya glanced over the crowded backyard to where her husband sat with Mama Coco, looking the picture of settled suburban happiness with stylishly cut brown hair, frameless glasses a
nd dimples that Tonya swore made her tingly in all her girlie bits every time she saw them. “I still am, from time to time. Whenever I’m not perfect, I freak out like a crazy wench because I’m convinced our world’s crashing to an end. Then Adam quietly reminds me that love isn’t something that can be given and taken away like it’s a reward or a punishment. When love is for real, there are no takesies-backsies. It’s forever.”

  “That sounds beautiful, Tonya.” So beautiful, Scout didn’t have the heart to point out that Ivar didn’t love her.

  Tonya seemed to read her mind, because she gave her shoulders another encouraging squeeze. “Just remember that the world doesn’t necessarily end if you screw up, and in my opinion, you didn’t. He’s the one who pulled some stupid S-word, and you getting mad at him is the totally justified consequence. He should be man enough to take that, and take it gracefully. Ultimately it should be up to him to make it right, and if he tries to do that, be thrilled about it.”

  “Thrilled? Strong word.”

  “No, it’s not, because it’ll mean he’s fighting for you and will do anything to keep you. And if he doesn’t try to make it right…” She shook her head, her caramel-colored curls bouncing so that little Sabrina squeaked happily and reached for them. “That means you’re better off without him, sweetie.”

  Scout was still letting those words sink in when she heard her name. Looking up, she saw a face she hadn’t seen in at least a year.

  “Rude.” Remembering why she’d forced herself to come to the barbecue in the first place, she gave Tonya one last hug before she headed for the deck, populated by Rude, Papa Bolo and Rude’s two older brothers, Anthony and Gino, along with several of Bolo’s grandkids.

  Rudolfo Panuzzi, the youngest of the Panuzzi children and named after Rudolph Valentino, was Coco and Bolo’s wild child. By the time Scout entered the Panuzzi home, all their children but Rude had left the nest, and Coco and Bolo were filling the void with fosters. At the time, sixteen-year-old Rude had been resentful of the newbies and hadn’t bothered to hide it. He’d made it plain to everyone who wasn’t stone cold deaf that he should be enough to keep his parents occupied. The tantrum he’d thrown when his parents had come home with not one, but two new foster sisters—Sass and Scout—was still etched into her brain.

  Not exactly the best first impression anyone had ever made, but by that point in her life, Scout had been used to being unwanted. Rude’s animosity had made her friendship with Sass solidify that much quicker, and she tried her best to play peacemaker between her new foster sister and Rude. For some reason known only to him, he’d taken the bulk of his frustration over getting two new sisters at once out on Sass, despite Scout insisting that she was the one who’d been the unexpected addition. That was when he’d earned his nickname. Until that time he’d been Rudy or Rudolfo, but now only his parents called him that.

  To everyone else, he was Rude.

  “I’m so friggin’ sorry I wasn’t able to get home in time for the anniversary party,” he said by way of greeting, stepping forward with arms open wide. That in itself was a shock, but when he caught her up in a gruff bear hug, the stunning what-the-fuckery of the moment froze her solid. Rude didn’t do apologies, and he sure as hell didn’t do bear hugs. “There was a huge sandstorm in Kuwait and everything with an engine got fucked up. I saw everything you posted online though, and the videos were epic, especially Mom and Dad’s last dance. I watched that one about a dozen times.”

  Just when she thought her heart couldn’t hurt any more than it did, it proved her wrong as she imagined Rude watching his parents dance half a world away while he sat helpless, unable to get to them. “You were missed.” Not by her or any of the strays, of course. But she was fairly sure Papa Bolo and Mama Coco had missed their youngest son.

  “You really outdid yourself this year. Everyone said it was the best party yet.” At last he backed away and smiled down at her. “Gotta tell you straight-up, I’m seriously grateful for everything you do for the family, Scout. I mean it.”

  She bit her tongue hard to stop from asking who he was and what had he done with the real Rude. Then she remembered Tonya’s claim that Rude had been downright cordial to her and Adam. Maybe the military had been experimenting on personality transplants, and Rude was one of their success stories.

  “No problem.” Not quite sure what to say, she backed up half a step and gave him a lightning-fast but thorough study to see if he really was Rude. Wavy black hair with a widow’s peak, square jaw that made him the perfect poster boy for the jarhead Marine stereotype, midnight black eyes, cleft chin. She’d always thought he would be one hell of a hot package if it weren’t for his unfortunate disposition, but now with his personality transplant, the hotness came through in a big way. “Welcome home.”

  “It’s good to be home.” His smile turned lopsided as she continued to stare at him. “And it’s good to see everyone together. Everyone except Sass, anyway. Tonya told me she won’t be coming.”

  “She had things to do.”

  “Yeah. Wash her hair and clean her grout. I heard.” For a second the sharp irritation that so often carved his expression in the past surfaced in all its vicious glory. “Nice of her to put her own shit ahead of a family get-together. See where her priorities lie, as usual.”

  Aha. There he was, the real Rude. “Here’s the thing… if Sass attends every other party involving the Panuzzi family except your welcome-home shindig—and you can’t see what that means—it’s not my problem. It’d be great if you guys could find a way to get along, but if you can’t, you can’t. I’m done playing peacemaker between you two.”

  Rude’s black brows shot up. “Whoa, sister. I wasn’t trying to start anything.”

  “Glad to hear it, because I’m in the mood to finish anything, and I doubt you’d want that at your own party. You get me?”

  “Loud and clear.” He nodded, eyeing her warily. Damn, she should have taken a bitchier line from day one, if his total compliance was the result. “You okay?”

  “Yes. No.” Then she shook her head. “Just hating the common stray’s belief that one strike and you’re out is the way the world is supposed to work.”

  “Huh? Scout—”

  “I really am glad you’re home safe and sound, Rude. It’s great to see you.” With a forced smile and a wave to the men behind him—currently bickering over the definition of what medium-rare was—she tried to make a swift exit.

  “Theresa! Come give your mother a hug.”

  Shit.

  It was getting harder to keep the smile in place as she made her way to Mama Coco, taking the seat Tonya’s husband courteously vacated so Scout could sit next to her. Desperately she wanted to keep Adam there, but after a quick hug of greeting he made a beeline for Tonya and his daughter.

  And to think, she’d almost made a clean getaway.

  “Look at you, sweetie.” Leaning over for hugs and kisses, Mama Coco patted Scout’s hand while looking her over with those sharp, eternally mothering eyes of hers. “That dress is so bright and happy, perfect for a party.”

  Good topic, she thought, hope rising. Now if she could just get away before any mention of Ivar… “Thanks, Mama Coco. Dandelion yellow is my favorite.”

  “Hm. Unfortunately you usually wear that bright and happy dress when you’re feeling down. Is everything okay with you and Ivar? I notice he didn’t come in with you.”

  Goddamn it. “Everything’s… fine.”

  Mama Coco blinked. “Theresa, did you just lie to my face?”

  Oh, man. “It a party for Rude, Mama Coco. I’m not going to bring my problems into something like that.”

  “You’re not bringing problems, you’re sharing with your mother who’s nosy and won’t let you go until you cough up at least a little something. And don’t tell me you weren’t trying to get out of here without talking to me. I’ve seen too many of you kids ducking out without trying to be noticed. I know the look.”

  Scout sighed. There
was really no avoiding it now. “Something broke between Ivar and me. He started the break, and I finished it. Now I don’t know if it can be fixed, and I wouldn’t know how to try to fix it even if I wanted to. Which is odd, coming from me. I can scout out anyone else’s trouble and get ahead of it. Fix it, if necessary. But with my own problems, I have no idea what to do.”

  Mama Coco gave it a moment’s thought. “Take yourself out of the equation.”

  “Sorry?”

  “If you’re having trouble looking at the problem because it’s too close, take yourself out of the equation. Just think about what you’d do if Payne had your problem,” Mama Coco expanded, smiling at her continued bewilderment, “or Tonya, or Sass. If any of them had the situation you’re dealing with, what would you do?”

  “Keep my nose out of their business.”

  “Smarty pants. Try again.”

  “I suppose I’d… I don’t know. Go to the root of the problem and work on it from there.”

  “Ooh, nice plan.” Mama Coco nodded. “So what’s the root of the problem?”

  It hurt to think about it, much less say it, but Mama Coco had a way of getting things out of her. “A lie. Or maybe it’s what’s behind the lie that is the real root of the problem.”

  “Behind the lie?”

  “There’s one driving force in Ivar’s life. He needs answers to some pretty deep questions,” she said, thinking it through. “I can sympathize, because answers are what I need right now. I know a lie brought him into my life—a life he wouldn’t have had anything to do with otherwise. I need to know if he genuinely felt a desire to be with me, or if he was just in my life to use me.”

  That brought Coco’s brows down. “Ivar isn’t another Vishous, is he?”

  God, would she never live that down? “I don’t know what he is, because without having the answers he’s looking for, his whole world is on hold. That means I’m on hold, too. If I could just get him the answers he needs, I’d have a clearer picture of what his motives really are.” She let out a slow breath. “And I might also have a clearer picture of what I need from him.”