Impervious (City of Eldrich Book 1)

by Laura Kirwan

  “I’m not freaking St. Meaghan,” she muttered as she screwed the lid back on the honey jar. She remembered the spilled coffee on the table, sighed, and grabbed a wad of paper towels to clean it up. There’s no such thing as love at first sight, she scolded herself as she mopped up the coffee. Just sexual instinct and people recognizing each other’s dysfunctions. He was a drunk. Her father was a drunk. She’d been ambushed by lingering codependent daddy issues masquerading as attraction. Nothing more.

  Besides, Meaghan had good reasons for being cautious. All she had to do was look in the mirror at the faint scar above her right eyebrow to be reminded. Her one, and only, experience with domestic violence. A boyfriend from long ago with a drinking problem and, as it turned out, a heavy fist. She’d moved in with him too fast and it didn’t take long for him to throw that first punch.

  Meaghan returned from the hospital with a black eye and five stitches where he’d caught her with his college class ring. Greg wept and begged for forgiveness, swearing it would never happen again. He made a brief show of AA. She took him back. It was only a matter of weeks before the heavy fist made a return appearance after a session of hard partying with his college buddies. Before his swing had a chance to make contact, Meaghan ducked under his arm, elbowed him in the throat, and drove a knee into his groin.

  He wept and begged again, clutching an ice pack to his crotch, while Meaghan packed her bags. He made a few halfhearted attempts to win her back, and then tried threats. He called one evening to say he was on his way over to hurt her like she’d hurt him.

  Meaghan borrowed a pump shotgun from a neighbor. She loaded it with birdshot, turned off the porch light, and waited in the dark. Greg, drunk, stormed onto the porch. Meaghan, a calm voice from the shadows, explained her rights under Arizona law to use deadly force to protect herself, told him to leave, and then racked the shotgun. At the sound, her would-be attacker whimpered, wet himself, and ran like hell.

  Meaghan never saw him again. But she never forgot the lesson she’d learned. At the first sign of an inclination for violence or a drinking problem in a man, she was out the door. No explanations, no pleas for forgiveness, no acts of atonement were sufficient to overcome her determination to protect herself.

  She mopped up the last of the coffee with a sigh and poured herself another cup. She took one sip and realized she didn’t want it anymore. Meaghan hadn’t expected something like this to ever happen to her again. She’d thought that particular part of herself was dead, that the nerve endings required to fall for a man had been fried beyond repair. There had been men on and off over the years, but she always found a reason to stop things before they got too serious. And there hadn’t been anybody since Michael, ten years earlier. A few dates here and there, but nothing more. No sex. No love. No attraction. Not even a hint of it.

  Michael had been different, or so she thought at the time. Meaghan believed then that she was in love with Michael, but she’d finally had to admit to herself that what she’d loved was not him, but what he could give her.

  She had wanted a child. Desperately. With Michael, she’d thought she’d managed to pull it off, to have it all. She thought she’d found a husband and had time to squeeze out a baby, maybe even two, before her biological clock ran out.

  They hadn’t even managed to get married before Michael started cheating on her. By the time the whole sad mess had fallen apart and Michael was gone, the heavy uterine bleeding had begun. Her gynecologist informed her that her uterus was so rotten with fibroid tumors the only treatment option was a hysterectomy. Her ovaries were salvageable so she wouldn’t be thrown immediately into the hormonal symptoms of menopause, but her fertility was gone, probably had been for a while.

  Putting on a brave face, Meaghan asked her friends to throw her a fibroid shower. Instead of baby stuff, she received stretchy pajama pants she could pull over her distended abdomen and DVDs to keep her entertained while she healed. She told everyone how relieved she was to have the whole “will I or won’t I” motherhood question behind her.

  And without a word, without even admitting it to herself, Meaghan grieved. She liked her friends’ kids well enough, but many days, too many days, the photos and parenting stories felt like a knife to the heart. Had she been able to acknowledge her pain, it might have made things easier. Instead she insisted she was fine and all was well.

  She began deflecting invitations and stopped reaching out to people. She worked her miserable job and went home to her silent house. She joked about how she had no business being a mother and how it all worked out for the best. But, no matter how she rationalized it, she felt like a failure as a woman and mourned the child she couldn’t conceive.

  Her friends drifted away as a regular presence in her life. She felt less and less connected to the world around her. By the time the pieces fell into place for her move to Eldrich, there was nothing to keep her from leaving. She had isolated herself so effectively that leaving everything she knew could be accomplished with barely a pang.

  And now, the first man she’d felt any attraction to in years was a careworn beekeeper with a drinking problem and an estranged son she had to work with every day.

  Oh, yeah. Some things never changed.

  Chapter 8

  When Russ and Matthew got home, around lunchtime, Meaghan was waiting.

  “The honey guy came by,” Meaghan said, arms folded across her chest.

  “Um,” Russ replied. After a moment he added, “You met him?”

  “I did. He said to call him if you need any more.”

  Russ started making a sandwich for Matthew’s lunch. Matthew walked in with a beaming smile, waved a drawing at Meaghan, and wandered past into the living room. “Dad,” Russ called. “Lunchtime.”

  Matthew shuffled back into the kitchen. He smiled at Meaghan, introduced himself and shook her hand, with no recognition, and sat down at the table.

  Meaghan stared at the back of Russ’s skull, willing him to turn around.

  Russ sliced the sandwich in half and put it on a plate with a pickle spear. He set the plate in front of Matthew with a glass of apple juice. Matthew eyed it with suspicion.

  “Turkey. You like this a lot.”

  Matthew nodded and picked up a sandwich half. He took a bite and, smiling as he chewed, gave Russ a thumbs-up.

  Russ puttered for a minute, ignoring Meaghan, and then turned to face her. “All right, fine. Quit the lawyer stare. What do you want to know?”

  “The honey guy. He’s Jamie’s dad, isn’t he?”

  Russ sighed. “Yes, John is Jamie’s father.”

  Meaghan snorted. “John Smith and James Smith? You couldn’t help them pick out better names?”

  Russ raised an eyebrow. “Pick out names? What are you talking about?”

  “Russ, damn it, will you stop it with the cryptic crap?” Meaghan pulled out a chair and sat down. “The guy has an accent that thick and his name is John Smith?”

  Matthew, who appeared oblivious to the conversation, stood up and put his empty plate in the sink. He walked toward the living room.

  “Dad,” Russ called after him. “Where are you going?”

  “To the sofa,” Matthew called back. “I’m sleepy.”

  “So?” Meaghan asked.

  Russ sighed. Meaghan never let stuff like this go and they both knew it. “Fine, his name hasn’t always been John Smith.”

  “Where are they from?”

  Russ coughed like he was choking on something. “Where do you think they’re from?”

  “Bosnia. Croatia. Kosovo. Somewhere like that.”

  “Yeah, somewhere like that.” Russ turned to the fridge. “You want lunch?”

  “Yes. And don’t change the subject. I have to work with Jamie. And you and Matthew know him like family. It would be nice to be let in on his history, even a little.”

  Russ started assembling two sandwiches. “Put the kettle on, would you? I need a cup of tea.”

  Meaghan got up, and wit
h far more stomping, banging, and clanking than necessary, filled the kettle, slammed it down on the stove, and turned on the burner. At least now maybe she was going to get some answers.

  She sat back down at the table. “So, what’s the story on those two? They’re refugees, right?”

  “Did Jamie tell you that?”

  “No, I figured it out on my own. I’m right though, aren’t I?”

  “Yeah, you are.” Russ brought the sandwiches over. “Eat. I’ll take care of the kettle.”

  Meaghan examined the sandwich. Turkey, it looked like, with red leaf lettuce and mayonnaise. “Did you make this mayo from scratch or scoop it out of a plastic jar like a normal person?”

  “It’s criminal that people eat that processed crap when it’s so easy to make.” The kettle whistled and Russ filled two mugs with hot water and tea bags. He carried the mugs over and sat down. “Let it steep a minute,” Russ said. “Want some honey?”

  When Russ said “honey” she felt her face grow hot. “Yes. Then stop fussing and talk to me.”

  Russ fetched a jar of honey and two teaspoons. “Fine,” he said, sitting back down. “John and Jamie are refugees from . . . Bosnia.” He seemed to be tasting the word, trying it out to see how it sounded. “Somewhere like that.” He took a bite of his sandwich and chewed for moment. “Look, Meg, the thing you got to know is they left a damn horror movie behind them. Jamie was only a kid and he watched his mother killed right in front of him. John was a prisoner and they tortured him for days. Jamie had to watch that too. It was so bad. You can’t imagine how bad.”

  Meaghan felt her impatience and indignation evaporate. She’d been so obsessed with getting the details that she’d never considered how awful they might be.

  “God,” she said. “Poor Jamie.” This was so much worse than she’d imagined. “He seems so normal. Happy. I never would have thought . . .” She trailed off. Twelve years old and watching that happen to his parents. Her respect for him grew. That kind of resilience required phenomenal inner strength.

  “Yeah, amazing, isn’t it,” Russ said. “He was like a wild animal when they first got here. It took Matthew six months to get him to even speak. But when he finally did, it was almost flawless English. He told me later he learned it watching TV. The guy is smart as hell. And tough.”

  “How did Matthew get involved?”

  Russ’s face flushed. “I don’t really know. I wasn’t here for all of it. I got here right after they did.”

  “Did he sponsor them or something?”

  “Um.” Russ set his sandwich down. “Not exactly. They kind of came here outside official channels.”

  Meaghan raised an eyebrow. “John’s not a war criminal, is he?”

  Russ shook his head. “No, no. Well, I guess it depends which side you were on. There was a fight for control and John lost. I don’t know all the details. From what I do know, the other guy was the war criminal. Complete bastard.”

  “And he took his revenge,” Meaghan said.

  “Yeah. He did.” Russ shoved his plate away, his sandwich half eaten. He opened the honey jar and stirred a spoonful into his tea cup. “This stuff is so damn good. You taste it?”

  “I did,” Meaghan said, trying to keep her voice flat. “It’s good. So they’re here illegally?”

  “Yeah. Matthew got them set up with new identities.”

  Meaghan nodded. “John never really recovered from what happened to him, did he.” It was a statement, not a question.

  Russ sighed. “No. I guess he didn’t. He drinks. A lot. How did you figure out he was Jamie’s father?”

  “The eyes,” she said. “They have the same eyes.”

  Chapter 9

  Her storage pod arrived Wednesday afternoon. Meaghan could tell the delivery driver didn’t want to be there. He got the pod off the back of the flatbed truck and into the driveway as fast as he could, thrust a clipboard at her with shaking hands, and told her to sign it. His impatience and anger couldn’t mask the body language betraying his fear.

  She remembered her mother, in that stupid dream, warning her to trust her gut. Fine, she thought. The moving company probably let the pod fall off the side of the truck somewhere along I-80, all her stuff was broken, and they knew she was a lawyer. That would explain his fear.

  Meaghan took her time reading the form, signed it, and handed the clipboard back, grateful she’d had the foresight to pay extra for damage insurance. He ran to the truck, scrambled in, and roared off with screeching tires. Yeah, they’d smashed up her stuff. That had to be it.

  She spent the next few days unpacking and, despite her prediction, everything was intact. After three days she was almost moved in, except for a few boxes. They weren’t anything critical, merely artwork, photos, that sort of stuff. But she couldn’t bring herself to unpack them. If she still had unpacked boxes in the corner, then she could convince herself the move was temporary.

  On Saturday, Jamie came by and picked up Matthew to take him fishing for a few hours. Matthew didn’t fish any longer, he merely watched Jamie, but he seemed to enjoy it and their fishing trips gave Russ a badly needed respite. Russ used the time to escort Meaghan around Eldrich, which to Russ consisted of the weekly farmers’ market in the town square and the food co-op. A shiny new supermarket sat on the edge of town, but Russ avoided it unless absolutely necessary.

  “But the co-op’s gotta cost more, right?” Meaghan asked. “What’s the difference?”

  Even as the question came out of her mouth, Meaghan regretted it. For the fifteen minutes it took them to drive downtown, he lectured her about the “food-industrial” complex and the evils it wrought upon the world and how nobody should eat stuff produced farther than ten miles from home.

  “Fine, I get it,” she finally said. “Local good, distant bad. I will never question your hunter-gatherer creds again. Can we stop for coffee? Or is coffee evil too? I know they don’t grow that within ten miles of our house.”

  “Um,” Russ said. “Well, you have to make some allowances for certain things . . .”

  “Like coffee,” Meaghan said.

  “Yes, but I buy only fair-trade organic—”

  She cut him off. “I don’t care. I want caffeine. They can grow it in crude oil in a lab for all I care.”

  Russ wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Pathetic. You have so much to learn about food. There’s a great little place next to the co-op if you can wait a couple of minutes.”

  Car parked, a cup of coffee in hand from Eldrich Brew, the funky little coffee shop next to the co-op, Meaghan followed Russ across the street to the farmer’s market in the town square. Russ planned to hit the co-op on their way back to the car.

  Unlike some of the farmers’ markets she’d been to in Phoenix, which were mostly craft fairs with the token produce table for the look of things, the Eldrich farmers’ market was the real deal. Pickup trucks surrounded the square, fronted by stands laden with produce, fresh bread, cheese, eggs, and all sorts of jams, jellies, and preserves. She saw several signs for organic meat.

  “Does John Smith sell his honey here?” Meaghan asked Russ.

  “Why do you ask?” He wore a knowing smile.

  She wanted to smack that cheesy grin off his face as she felt her cheeks grow hot. “No reason. Merely curious.”

  “He should be here. Unless . . .”

  “Unless what?”

  “Um. Unless he drank too much last night.”

  Now it was Russ’s turn to blush, Meaghan noticed, feeling satisfied and disappointed at the same time. John was trouble, and Russ just confirmed it. But as victories went, it felt pretty hollow.

  “He’s not a bad guy,” Russ said. “He could be a really great guy if he sobered up. But it’s not hard to understand his compulsion to drink considering all he suffered.”

  “Oh, bullshit,” Meaghan said. “Drinking is a choice. Plenty of people suffer and still manage not to pickle themselves.”

  “Wow. Way to feel the compassion,”
Russ responded.

  “Fine. I get that it’s a disease, but it’s the only disease I know of where the cure is simply telling yourself no.”

  “Simply?” He shook his head.

  “Jamie lost his mom. He suffered and he’s not a drunk, is he?”

  Russ shook his head. “No, but—”

  “Don’t ever expect me to have sympathy for this shit. Not after Dad and Greg. Been there, done that.” She tapped the white mark above her eyebrow. “Got the scar to prove it.”

  Feeling bolstered by her tough talk, Meaghan turned away from Russ only to see John sitting about twenty feet away on the lowered tailgate of his truck, counting money. A table stacked with honey jars sat in front of him. As Meaghan watched, a couple of older women walked up and made a purchase. He gave them his shy smile, but barely looked up. The two women whispered something to each other and giggled as they walked away.

  “Oh, look, Meg,” Russ said, noticing John. “Let’s go kick him in the balls and then tell him how his drinking is a choice.”

  “You know I’m right,” Meaghan said, her face flaming again. “I’m not trying to be mean. I know he went through something awful, but he drinks because he chooses to. No other reason.”

  “Yeah, but I think he’s salvageable.”

  “So, what’s that got to do with me?” She felt her face get even hotter.

  “Well, I thought, maybe, if he had someone to motivate him—”

  “Oh, Russ, please. Tell me you aren’t thinking of trying to fix us up. Not. Gonna. Happen. Just because you make bad choices doesn’t mean I have to.” It was out of her mouth before she could stop herself.

  Russ gave her a frozen look and walked towards John.

  “Russ,” she called after him. “I’m sorry.”

  He ignored her.