Killing Time

by Leslie Kelly

  No, he and Deedee had had more like a Mrs. Robinson thing. She’d been the older woman—though only by four years—who’d taught him how to last longer than sixty-five seconds in the sack. Or, rather, on top of the washing machine, or the nearest flat surface they could find in the basement. He wondered if Deedee would be surprised to know he’d once gone sixty-five minutes. Not counting the foreplay.

  “I’ll have coffee.” His mother frowned at Deedee for interrupting. “And, dear, would you get a rag and touch up this table?”

  God love her.

  Mick used her distraction to firm his resolve against talking about Caroline to his mother. His sister had been bad enough. It was hard to keep anything from Sophie. She was an observant person who hadn’t been put off by his claims that Caroline had been a casual friend. Luckily, since Sophie had moved in with Daniel and begun telling people her real identity, she had enough to focus on without worrying about his love life. Or, past love life.

  Not present. Caroline was definitely not part of his present.

  “So you’re going to rent out a room in your house. I still can’t understand why you didn’t just tell us if you needed help making the mortgage.”

  An old story. His parents were always trying to help, whether it was popping by to cook enough food for a battalion or offering him money. No matter how many times he’d told them he didn’t need their help, they never stopped offering. Sophie suffered the same endless good will.

  “I don’t need help making the mortgage.” True. He was fine, at least until the slow winter season came. That was the worst time of year in his business. So he’d thought he’d rent out a room in his big house—which he’d bought at auction and fixed up over the past two years—to fill in some. Of all the bad ideas he’d ever had…

  “And this Caro, she’s going to be living in your house, but you still say she’s not your type?”

  “She’s not going to live in my house,” he insisted as he sipped his rapidly cooling coffee, inhaling its aroma. Ed’s served good coffee. Good thing, since the food sucked.

  “What do you mean?”

  He sipped again. I mean the minute she finds out she’s signed a lease to room with the big bad wolf, a Day-Glo green room or a little cigarette smoke ain’t gonna seem so bad.

  “She’ll make other arrangements when she arrives Sunday.”

  In fact, he was going to make damn sure of it. He was ninety-nine percent sure Caroline would storm out on her own the minute she found out she’d rented a room in his house. And he’d give her every penny of her money back. The look on her face would be payment enough.

  But just in case, in the slim event that she liked his house enough to overlook the company, he’d developed a plan to help…uh…convince her.

  He wasn’t sure how yet, but one thing was definite. When Caroline Lamb arrived in Derryville, she was going to find a welcoming committee she’d never forget.

  CARO HATED FLYING. It seemed unnatural that something so big should stay in the air, defying gravity. If humans were meant to ride in airplanes, they’d be born with a frequent flier card and an airsick bag.

  Unfortunately, her job sometimes required long-distance travel. Like today. But, for once, landing didn’t seem much better than flying, which said a lot about how little she wanted to arrive at her eventual destination.

  “Derryville, Illinois,” she muttered. “How on earth could I have forgotten the name of Mick’s hometown?”

  She quickly put him out of her mind. Unfortunately, as had been the case for the past three weeks—not to mention the past eight years—he was never completely gone.

  She killed time in the usual way during the flight. And, as usual, she drew a few sidelong looks from her seat-mates and the passing flight attendant. Because she was singing.

  Oh, she tried not to, tried to do it just in her head, but she couldn’t help it. When Caro was nervous she couldn’t stop herself from breaking into song in a low, quavering voice. This time as she sang, she pictured Tootie and Blair and the gang.

  The woman next to her shot her a puzzled look. Caro almost identified the song as coming from The Facts of Life. Then she realized the woman probably wasn’t curious about the song. More about the wacky singer.

  Okay, so she was a professional twenty-eight-year-old woman with a great hairstyle, perfect makeup, wearing a thousand dollar Donna Karan suit and carrying a leather briefcase that had cost more than her first junker car.

  And she sang TV jingles under her breath.

  Sue me.

  Everyone had their quirks, didn’t they? At least she wasn’t clicking her teeth or cracking her knuckles or blowing her nose into a tissue and then peeking at the goods like other people she’d sat next to on airplanes.

  All in all, her nervous habit seemed pretty innocuous. It was just the TV part that made it look weird. If she’d been humming the latest Alanis Morissette song, nobody would have looked twice.

  But Caro’s nervous singing habit stuck strictly to her childhood repertoire of TV theme songs and jingles. Like a gambler might only play at a particular table, or an athlete wear a particular pair of socks, Caro relied on her old standby for good luck in avoiding things like midair collisions: television.

  It had been her baby-sitter, then best friend and closest companion throughout her childhood. She’d needed somewhere to lose herself with two parents who worked all the time and either fought like cats and dogs or went at it like bunnies—depending on their moods—when they were home. Either way, she’d learned to keep the TV turned up as a kid. Loud—to block out the sounds. So loud that she could swear she still sometimes heard the tune the Huxtables had danced to in 1983 or every note from the Family Ties ditty.

  Family Ties or The Cosby Show her family definitely was not.

  From the seat in front of her, a man began to hum the song from Cheers. Funny how everybody responded to TV. Like it or not—and Caro liked it—television was as intrinsic to American culture as a Big Mac. It sparked water cooler debates, show-watching parties, betting pools and hairstyles.

  It was also good for airline small talk. Caro strictly avoided weather chats on airplanes, because of the whole lightning, burning, crashing thing. She stuck to TV. She just had to be sure she didn’t talk about any disaster movies of the week. Sitcoms were safe. Soaps were right out.

  This wasn’t the first time Caro had gotten distracted from her fear of flying by getting into a discussion of how the dancing midget had been the beginning of the end for Twin Peaks, or how lame the last season of Roseanne had been.

  Or this. “Mikey from the Life commercials did not die of a Pop Rocks and Pepsi eruption,” she said to the older woman sitting across the aisle. Caro was in the biz. She knew the urban legends.

  “Well, I heard he did.” The woman sniffed and turned away.

  The one beside her in the center seat continued to feign sleep, probably wondering why she always ended up beside the psychos on airplanes. Caro didn’t mind seeming psycho. It kept her distracted from the flying. Or, rather, the crashing. That was the part about flying that she really didn’t like—the crashing part. She wasn’t MacGyver, who’d crashed with four teenage gang kids and survived by making stuff out of other stuff.

  “Another one down,” she whispered after the plane landed.

  “Next time take a sleeping pill,” she heard. Turning, she saw her seat mate. The woman smiled. “I do. It works every time.”

  “Thanks.” Caro could have been put out with general anesthesia and she didn’t think that’d relieve the anxiety. Frankly, she’d rather be conscious and alert in the last few minutes before her death, if she really was going to do the crashing and burning thing.

  “Crash and burn,” she muttered. Funny, that’s pretty much what had happened on her first ever plane trip. Okay, not on her first plane trip, but rather right before it.

  She and Mick had crashed and burned right before she’d dropped out of college and flown out west, needing to make a
fresh start somewhere where she wouldn’t hear rumors about his latest escapades or run into him with his latest girlfriend. A distinct probability since the first couple of times she’d met Mick had been when he was with his girlfriend of the week.

  She’d heard the stories from the time she’d started school. Mick was the guy who’d climbed down a third-floor drainpipe to avoid being caught with someone in an on-campus sorority house. The charmer who’d somehow managed to get Hootie and the Blowfish to play at the homecoming dance. The prankster who’d rigged the electronic scoreboard at the football field to flash the answers to an upcoming midterm exam in a tough sociology class. The one who’d drawn over a thousand bucks in a charity bachelor auction…from the ex-wife of one of the professors, no less.

  The one she’d found hiding in the storage room of her dorm, trying to avoid the two girls he was dating at the same time.

  God, what a dog. And she’d been crazy about him. Crazy about him for a year, up until the day she’d realized being crazy about a bad boy was a much different thing from being in love with one.

  Crazy was cool. Crazy was just fine for a college kid. But in love? Even worse, in love with Mick Winchester? Insanity.

  Exiting the plane, she got her bags and the rental car the studio had reserved. Then she hit the road to Derryville.

  By the time she arrived, it was full dark, a lovely September night with a sky full of stars and a huge watery moon. Too perfect a sky to be over a place Caro had begun thinking of as her personal hell.

  All except the house. Inside the pretty house was a lovely mother-in-law suite, waiting just for her. With antique furniture, a four-poster queen-size bed, an old-fashioned claw-foot tub. Plus a huge window overlooking the kind of neighborhood the Huxtable or Keaton kids would have lived in.

  Not the trailer park where Caro had grown up. Not the high-rise where she paid a fortune for her own small apartment now.

  All she could think about was arriving at the little oasis in Derryville. The lovely home with the nice, quiet old landlady on the nice, quiet old street. The house would be her home base, a place to escape from the frenzy that always erupted on a reality television show set.

  Best of all, the landlady would give her a physical barrier. She’d be a perfect chaperone in case Caroline lapsed into momentary insanity and lusted for Mick Winchester.

  No. No lust. No stroll down a mind-numbingly hot memory lane with a guy who’d always been able to fry her circuits with a smile or have her flat on her back with a touch of his hand.

  Damn. No woman should ever be unlucky enough to have a Mick Winchester as her first lover. Starting out with the best meant everything else was downhill from there. And it had been, until it got to the point where she hardly found sex worth it anymore.

  Another reason to hate the bastard. He’d ruined her sex life.

  When she arrived at the house, she parked in the driveway, surprised to note there were five or six cars parked on the street in front of the house. “Sewing circle night,” she mused aloud. “Or maybe a bake sale meeting.”

  Though she was tired, this would be a perfect time to meet some of the matriarchs of Derryville. With the production schedule set up by the studio, she had to get the cooperation of the townspeople as quickly as possible. The crew was arriving today and tomorrow, the cast at the end of the week. All the extras had to be screened and signed, the locations set, the schedule firmed. They needed the residents on board from day one.

  Swinging her soft carry-on bag over her shoulder, she left her other luggage in the trunk of the car. She wanted to sit down and have a nice hot cup of tea. Maybe some cucumber sandwiches or whatever small-town ladies served at Ladies’ Guild-type meetings.

  The front door was wide open, the screen propped as well, propped by a small refrigerator sitting on the porch. It was probably filled with lemonade, or raspberry iced tea. Buttermilk.

  “Okay, this isn’t Seventh Heaven,” she muttered, forcing the images of small-town family dramas out of her mind.

  This was real. Not TV.

  She raised her hand to knock, then noticed something funny. The noises coming from inside the house didn’t sound like a Ladies’ Guild meeting.

  Another indication that she wasn’t going to be walking into a room full of nice gentle ladies was the smoke. Thick. Spicy. Obviously from a cigar. Or ten.

  She froze, focused on the sounds. Male laughter. Deep. Raucous. Obviously from a man. Or ten.

  Holding her breath, she entered the house, instinctively keeping on her toes to prevent her heels from striking the hardwood floors. She followed the noise, the laughter and a loud stereo playing some deafening music.

  And suddenly found herself in a room full of testosterone.

  Ten. Yep. That’s about what it looked like, though a quick count told her there were really only five.

  Five men. Five big, laughing, smoking, drinking, scratching, snorting, belching, card-playing men. They were gathered around a card table that had been set up in the middle of what she remembered was the rec room.

  It looked wrecked, all right. Male paraphernalia covered every flat surface. Overflowing ashtrays. Empty beer bottles. A half-empty bottle of Jim Beam and a three-quarters empty one of Crown Royal. Empty glasses. Chip bags. Remnants of pizza in some large boxes littering the floor. Cards. Gambling chips.

  And right there in the middle of it, staring at her with a big ol’ shit-eating grin, sat a sexy-as-sin Mick Winchester.

  MICK HAD KNOWN she was there the minute Caroline walked into the room. Even if he hadn’t been expecting her he’d have noticed the change in the air. Female molecules, scents and energy stood out in this place. Especially when they were such attractive molecules, intoxicating scents and seductive energies.

  He was the only one who saw her at first as she stood there, clad in another one of those power suits tailored to fit perfectly against her curvy little body. And another pair of wickedly high-heeled shoes that accentuated the long, soft legs he remembered.

  Forcing his mind out of his crotch, he continued to wait, keeping a casual eye on his cards, the other on her.

  Caroline looked shocked. Confused. Ready to faint. Then, ready to kill. She’d obviously seen him.

  “Hey, Caroline!” he called, keeping his teeth clamped on the soggy end of a half-smoked cigar.

  All the men at the table, his card-playing baseball team buddies, glanced around to follow his stare. He should have told them about her, or at least prepared himself for their reactions. That may have prevented his fists from tightening as Ty Taylor made a soft wolf whistle and Ty’s twin brother, Eddie, muttered something mildly obscene under his breath.

  Why he’d want to smash in the teeth of one of his longtime buddies, he really couldn’t say. But he gave Eddie a warning look that instantly shut the other man up.

  “What is going on?” Her voice was thready and shaking.

  “Poker night. Five card stud. Ten dollar max bid,” Mick explained. “And Jimmy here is kicking our asses.”

  She clutched her bag. “I mean, why…why are you here?”

  He ignored the question. He also ignored his own slight tinge of remorse for planning this outrageous welcoming party for Caroline. He could have just called her and told her the truth any time over the past few weeks. But her snippy, impersonal little e-mails and faxed messages had kept him from doing it.

  “Guys, this is Caroline Lamb. She’s the producer for the new TV show being shot up at the old Marsden place.”

  Though he would have sworn not one of the men in the room would have held a door for his own mother after two hours of bourbon, cigars, raunchy talk and cards, each of them stood up and nodded to Caroline. Mick rose as well, acknowledging what he’d always known about Caroline. She brought out a basic male instinct from any man she came across. The good, the bad and the ugly. “The ugly” might have accounted for this whole welcoming reception, which had seemed like such a fine idea the other night over a few beers at the Mai
nline Tavern, but was making him feel a bit small now.

  He shrugged off the feeling, remembering that Caroline was a champion at making people feel small.

  “Nice to meet you,” Ty said. His greeting was echoed by the other card players.

  Mick quickly went around the table, introducing them all. Caroline remained silent until he reached the last name.

  Then she just stared, waiting for the punchline. So he gave it to her. “Caroline’s my new roommate. How are you doing, roomie? Have a good flight?”

  He almost heard her back crack as she straightened it in a stiff stance a Master Sergeant would envy. “This is your house?” Her voice didn’t so much as quiver.

  “Yep.” He sat back down, throwing his cards face-down onto the pile in the center of the table. “Damn.”

  “This is your house?” she repeated.

  He looked up. “Uh-huh.”

  Her already creamy face went a shade paler and her lips trembled a little bit. He wasn’t sure whether that was fury or dismay and had to gulp down another bit of unfamiliar guilt.

  “Who was the woman? That day. Who was the older lady I met here, the one who baked the pie?”

  “My mom.”

  The guys, who’d slowly retaken their seats around the table, snorted. Then Jimmy said, “You need to change your locks.” He gave Caroline a glance and wagged his eyebrows at Mick. “Never know when she’s going to walk in on something, uh…personal.”

  “Hey, she make you any of her chocolate chip cookies lately?” Eddie asked. Mick ignored him.

  “You let me think…” she began.

  He shrugged. “I tried to tell you this wouldn’t suit you.”

  “I thought this was her house,” she said, not seeming to care that she was basically repeating herself.