“Sounds like it might be fun,” Kelsey said.
At that moment the doorbell rang. Dr. Hot had arrived.
Kelsey answered the door and he walked in, imbuing the entryway with palpable energy. A pair of jeans hugged his legs and a short-sleeved polo shirt perfectly matched his green eyes.
“Hi,” he greeted Kelsey, then turned his gaze on Mariah, and she suddenly wished she’d put on something pretty and feminine. “Are we ready to go?”
“Just let me grab my purse,” Mariah said, and hurried into the kitchen. Jesus, what was wrong with her? One look at him and her stomach began to break-dance and heat fired through her.
She grabbed her purse from the table, made sure the back door was locked, then rejoined Jack and Kelsey in the living room. “Ready,” she exclaimed.
Instead of the pickup truck he’d arrived in that morning, a sleek sports car awaited them. “Wow, nice ride,” Kelsey said as she slid into the backseat.
“My truck is pretty much a work vehicle. Charlie Barclay got this in on his car lot and I couldn’t resist it.” He opened the passenger door for Mariah.
“Boys and their toys,” she said lightly as she slid onto the beige leather seat.
He laughed, shut her door, then walked around the front of the car to the driver door. There was a quiet confidence in the way he held himself, as if he was a man who knew and liked his place in life.
As he slid behind the steering wheel, the car filled with his scent, a minty soap coupled with a spicy cologne. “Looks like somebody has been making headway on your yard,” he said as they pulled away from the house.
“Joel Clarkson. I’ve hired him to do some work around the house,” she said.
“He likes to drink, but I’ve heard he’s pretty handy when he’s sober. I just wouldn’t expect much from him on the weekends.”
“That’s what Finn told me when he recommended Joel,” she replied.
“Speaking of Finn, I’ve been invited to a barbecue tomorrow evening in your honor.” Jack turned left on Main.
“Yes, he called right before you came to pick us up, and told me he’d invited a bunch of the gang we went to school with. It sounds like it should be fun.”
Jack laughed, the sound deep and so pleasant it wove a wave of heat through her. “Finn’s barbecues are legendary here in town. Everyone eats too much, drinks too much and talks about old times.”
“I’d like to hear some of the gossip from when my mom was in high school,” Kelsey said from the backseat. “You know, maybe gather some blackmail information for the future.”
Jack laughed once again along with Mariah. “I’m afraid you’re going to be out of luck. As I remember, your mother wasn’t one of the wild ones at school. You’ll be hard-pressed to find blackmail material in her background.”
“That’s what I keep telling her,” Mariah said.
At that moment they pulled up in front of Ken’s Pizza Buffet and Arcade. “Hey, this looks pretty cool.” Kelsey was the first one out of the car.
Jack turned and looked at Mariah with a hint of apology. “This isn’t the usual place I take somebody, but I thought your daughter might enjoy it.”
“It’s fine,” she assured him. “It looks like fun.” And that’s what she wanted. Not candlelit dinner and romantic music, not soft glances and the promise of something deep and lasting. She just wanted an evening of fun.
Together they got out of the car and joined Kelsey on the sidewalk just outside the restaurant. As he opened the door, the robust aroma of tomato sauce and garlic spilled out, making Mariah realize she was starving.
Jack paid and they all went down the buffet line, filling their plates with pizza and salad. Then they found a booth not far from the entrance to the arcade room.
“Now, I want to know where you’ve been and what you’ve done since you just disappeared from school,” Jack said.
“Left town, got married, had Kelsey, lost my husband and became a teacher.” Mariah smiled. “That’s the short version.”
He raised a dark eyebrow. “There’s a lot of living in that short version.”
She shrugged, picked a piece of pepperoni off one of the slices and popped it into her mouth. “What about you? What’s your short version?”
“Went to college, became a vet, got married and got divorced.”
“Did you marry somebody from here in town?”
“No, I met Rebecca in college. She was from Kansas City. After our marriage I started a clinic there, but when we divorced four years ago, I decided to move back here. I like the small-town living.”
“I’m still trying to adjust to it,” Kelsey said as she dug her fork into the salad on her plate.
“I’m sure after spending your whole life in Chicago, Plains Point probably seems like a pioneer town,” Jack replied.
“It’s not that bad,” Kelsey conceded. “At least I met some kids at the pool today and they all seemed pretty cool.”
“How long do you think you’ll be here in town?” he asked Mariah.
“I’d thought just for a week or two, but that was before I saw the condition of the house. I’m thinking now it will take at least a month, maybe two, to get everything done.” She looked down at her plate, finding it easier to look at her pizza than into the evocative warmth of his green eyes.
For the next few minutes Jack and Kelsey chatted about movies and video games and music. He was good with Kelsey, not talking down to her in a way some adults did with teenagers. He seemed genuinely interested in her opinions and Kelsey responded easily.
Mariah found herself staring at him. His facial features radiated strength. A lean face with a well-defined jawline, a straight nose, dark brows that slashed straight and even over each eye. The only thing that softened him was the slight curl of his dark hair and the warmth that radiated from his gorgeous eyes.
“Mom?” There was just enough exasperation in Kelsey’s tone to let Mariah know it wasn’t the first time she’d tried to get her attention. With a flush of heat in her cheeks she pulled her gaze away from the man across the table and to the teenager seated next to her.
“A couple of girls I met at the pool today just went into the arcade room. Can I go, too?”
Mariah wanted to tell her absolutely not, that she needed to sit in the booth and not leave Mariah alone with Jack for one minute. But even as she thought this, she knew it was crazy. “Okay.” She opened her purse and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. “Here. I imagine none of the games in there are free.”
“Thanks.” Kelsey grabbed the ten and shot out of the booth.
Jack smiled at Mariah. “She seems like a good kid.”
“She’s so good it’s sometimes scary,” Mariah admitted.
“It must have been tough, being a single parent.”
“She’s made it pretty easy by being such a great kid. Of course the worst years are just ahead.” She smiled ruefully.
Jack leaned back in the booth. “I imagine you’ve laid the foundation right so that the teen years will be a snap.”
“From your lips to God’s ears,” she replied. She’d hoped that some of the simmering tension inside her would dissipate as they chatted, but it hadn’t. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so nervous around a man.
“I always wondered what had happened to you,” he said. “One day you were sitting at your desk in front of me and the next day you were gone and never came back. The gossip was that you’d run away, but nobody knew why.”
“My father used to beat me.” The words fell from her mouth before she realized she was going to speak them.
His eyes widened, then narrowed. “The good Reverend Sayers was a child abuser?”
She reached for her water glass, needing to moisten her dry mouth as she thought of her father. “He’d preach charity and love on Sunday, then beat the hell out of me the rest of the week.”
“What about your mother?” he asked.
Mariah shrugged. “She bought into the ‘S
pare the rod, spoil the child’ theory.”
Jack’s features tightened at once. “Nobody knew? Nobody could help?”
“Finn was the only person who knew and he had enough problems of his own.” A new flush filled her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to get into all this. I left the last time my father took a switch to me. I decided that night that he would never hurt me again. I took a little money, a few clothes, and caught a bus to Chicago.”
He leaned forward, the warmth of his gaze washing over her. “You are an amazingly strong woman.”
She released an embarrassed laugh. “Not really. I just did what I thought I needed to do to survive.”
He shook his head. “I always knew there was something sad about you. Even though you smiled and laughed and on the surface seemed like a normal teenager, there was something in your eyes that made me sad for you.”
She looked at him in surprise. He certainly had paid more attention to her in school than she had to him. She didn’t know whether to feel flattered or uncomfortable.
He seemed to sense her discomfort. “I was an observer in high school. Nobody paid much attention to me, so that made it easy for me to see things that others didn’t.”
“You’ve definitely changed since high school,” she replied. Talk about stating the obvious—could she say anything more stupid?
He smiled. “My mother tells everyone I was a late bloomer. My first year in college I shot up four inches and gained some weight.”
“Finn told me that half the women in town went out and bought dogs or cats when you started your clinic here.”
He laughed. “It’s amazing what a difference a few years can make in the way people see you. Girls who never looked my way in school are suddenly bringing me casseroles and dropping off perfectly healthy animals who they think need my attention.”
“Hmm, I guess I should feel privileged that you asked me out for pizza,” she said lightly.
“I guess you should,” he agreed teasingly, but with a bold hot light shining from his eyes.
A crazy breathlessness swept over her. She’d have to take care. She had a feeling Jack Taylor had the potential to rock her world and that’s the last thing she wanted or needed in her life.
* * *
It was back.
The hunger.
The rage.
The ravenous need to feel the potent power of ultimate control. He’d managed to keep it at bay for almost six months, but now it was back, burning in his gut, tearing apart his brain.
He knew how to sate it. It had all begun so long ago with her. With Mariah. That was the first time the rage had become so great he’d felt he’d die from it. That night he hadn’t known where to find relief, what would stop the maddening demons from screaming in his head.
He’d scarcely remembered leaving his house with a garbage bag wadded up in his pocket. He’d run like a wild animal being chased by a predator, only for him the predator was an unrelenting growl inside his head.
Then he’d seen her. Standing in the grove of trees by her house. She was all that was good, all that was kind, and he wanted to smash that goodness and destroy as he’d been destroyed.
And he had. He’d taken her with a brutality that later would make him puke. But in her terror, in the very act of dominance, he’d reached a place he’d never been before, a place of utter and complete nirvana.
After he’d left her lying broken on the ground, after he’d puked up his guts, he realized the rage that had tormented him was gone and he was at peace like he’d never been before.
That had been the beginning. And for a year it had been enough. When the rage began to build again, filling him up to the point that he thought his skin would crawl right off him, he’d known exactly what to do.
Her name had been Gina and she’d been sitting in the town square. He’d come up behind her, thrown the bag over her head and raped her. This time he’d been smart—he’d worn a condom. He’d left her scared and broken and run like the wind when he was finished.
It had been good, but it hadn’t been as good as with Mariah. In all the times after, it had never been as good as it had been that first time.
Even when he’d escalated it by not covering their faces, by staring into their eyes as he raped them, it hadn’t been the same. Even when he’d choked the life out of them, then carried them to his secret place and buried them, it hadn’t been as good.
And now the hunger was back.
The hunger and the rage.
Tonight somebody would pay. Tonight some woman would die and as he raped her, as he choked her until the life flicker in her eyes vanished, he’d think of that first time.
And Mariah.
Chapter 7
Mariah stood on the back porch and surveyed the work Joel had done. The yard finally looked like a real lawn instead of an abandoned lot, and in the flower beds, now without the cover of the weeds, a few petunias and impatiens she’d bought and planted that morning bloomed in reds and purples.
Wafting on the summer breeze was not only the scent of freshly mowed grass but also the faint whiff of hickory smoke coming from the direction of Finn’s place. Kelsey was in the yard with Tiny, the little dog chasing her as if the cast on his leg were a tiny booster rocket.
Kelsey’s laughter rose in the air as she played with her companion and for a moment Mariah was filled with a contentment she hadn’t known in a very long time.
This house and this land weren’t bad. She’d once believed they were, but in fact they had the potential to bring somebody years of happiness.
Kelsey’s laughter helped change her perspective, but she knew that part of her good feeling this morning came from the residual glow of the night before. There was no denying that she’d enjoyed the dinner with Jack.
They’d chatted until Kelsey had returned to the table, talking about the town, bits and pieces from high school days and their present lives. It had been superficial chat that seemed appropriate for a casual date. As the evening went on, she found herself relaxing, but the electricity she felt between them never completely went away.
It had been close to nine when he’d brought them home and left them with the promise of seeing them at Finn’s barbecue. She didn’t like the fact that she wanted to see him again. She knew it would only complicate things for her to get close to anyone here in town.
She’d said good-bye to Plains Point years ago and within a month, two at the longest, she would say good-bye again. There was no room in her life for a relationship with a hot vet from a small town she wished to escape.
With a sigh she went back into the kitchen and into the utility room, where a load of curtains was waiting to be moved from the washing machine to the dryer.
The odor of bleach greeted her as she opened the washing machine door. She loved the scent of bleach, so clean and fresh. It would be nice if a jug of bleach could be poured over the first seventeen years of her life, leaving behind a whitewash of her memories rather than the harsh stains of reality.
For eight months after she’d run away, she’d drifted from homeless shelter to homeless shelter in Chicago, afraid for herself and the life she carried inside her. But even though those days and nights had been frightening, she’d been filled with a wondrous love for the baby growing inside her.
She remembered lying on a cot and rubbing her growing tummy, thinking this was finally somebody who would love her. This child would love her as her parents hadn’t, and she’d vowed to be the best mother she could be.
And so far she had been. She’d been the mother she’d never had, loving and available. She’d been a room mother and a Brownie leader. She’d gone on the school field trips and encouraged Kelsey to have her friends over whenever she wanted.
The ringing phone pulled her from the past and out of the utility room. It wasn’t the house phone but rather her cell on the kitchen counter.
“Tell me you still can’t cook,” Janice said.
“I still can’t cook.”
Mariah laughed and sat at the table. “What’s this all about?”
“I was thinking about all the movies I’ve seen about small towns and I started worrying that you might be turned into a Stepford Wife.”
“That might be difficult, considering there’s no evil husband around. Besides, it would take more than a miracle and modern science to make me a cook.”
“How’s it going otherwise? Is Kelsey screaming to come home yet?”
Mariah gazed out the window where Kelsey was still being chased by Tiny. “She spent a couple of hours at the public pool yesterday and met some kids. Then last night we went out to dinner with the veterinarian who fixed the new dog and she hung out with some of the kids at the arcade. She seems fairly satisfied here for now.”
“Whoa, back up. What’s this about dinner with a vet? Who is he and what does he look like?”
“His name is Jack Taylor and I went to high school with him. As far as what he looks like, suffice to say that Kelsey calls him Dr. Hot.”
“Hmm, if he passes the Kelsey test, he must be hot. Are you seeing him again?”
“I’m sure I’ll be seeing him again. It’s a small town,” Mariah replied.
“You know that’s not what I mean,” Janice replied impatiently.
“Honestly, Janice, it would be pretty stupid for me to look for a relationship in a town I’ll soon be leaving,” Mariah exclaimed.
“And it’s about time you did something completely stupid in your life,” Janice countered. “A brief affair with a man nicknamed Dr. Hot would probably be good for you.”
“Have you been talking to my daughter?”
“No, I just don’t want you to wind up like me, alone and so set in my ways I scare off most men. You’re young and gorgeous and you deserve to have a healthy, loving relationship with a special man.”
Mariah laughed once again. “How did we get from brief hot affair to happily ever after?”
Janice’s familiar low chuckle filled the line. “I’m being a pain, aren’t I?”
Broken Pieces Page 6