A deep affection for her friend rose up inside Mariah. “I know you only want what’s best for me.”
“We’ve talked about this before. If you allow that night to keep you from falling in love, then you remain a victim for the rest of your life.”
“Are you through?” Mariah asked. This time it was her turn to feel slightly impatient. They’d been over this a million times before.
“I’m through,” Janice agreed.
For the next few minutes the two caught up on news from Chicago and by the time they hung up, it was time to start getting ready for the barbecue at Finn’s.
What Janice had never understood about Mariah was that she’d found her happiness without a man in her life. She was fulfilled by her work as a teacher, warmed by her love for her daughter. She’d never needed a man to fill empty spaces or make her complete. She was complete on her own.
Sure, it might have been nice to find some man to share her life with, one who admired and respected the choices she had made, one who shared the same likes and dislikes.
There were times she admitted that it would be nice to have somebody to whisper to in the quiet, somebody to share a pot of coffee with in the mornings, somebody to make love with late at night. But she didn’t need that in her life.
At a quarter to six Mariah checked her reflection in her dresser mirror. She’d pulled her long hair back and fastened it at the nape of her neck with a mother-of-pearl clasp. She wore one of her favorite outfits, a turquoise sundress that would be cool and airy for a night spent in the late-spring heat and fun turquoise flip-flops. She’d even taken time to paint her nails a pearly pink.
She felt nervous as she turned away from the mirror. Tonight she would be seeing people she hadn’t seen in years. Classmates she’d laughed with, fellow students she’d seen on a daily basis.
But in the back of her mind as she thought of the young men she’d known in high school, she’d always wondered if one of them had been waiting for her that night, hiding beneath the cover of the woods and the storm.
Was she going to eat barbecue tonight, drink a beer and exchange old memories with the man who had raped her?
She shoved these thoughts away, refusing to allow her evening to be tainted by something that happened so long ago. “Wow, you look nice,” Kelsey said as Mariah met her in the hallway and they went downstairs.
“Back at you.” Mariah smiled at her daughter, who looked achingly fresh and pretty in a pair of pale pink shorts and a pink and white tank top.
“We can’t leave yet,” Kelsey said. “You’re the guest of honor and so we can’t be one of the first to get there. It’s so uncool.”
Mariah sat on the edge of the sofa. “Well, we certainly don’t want to be uncool.” Kelsey perched on the sofa’s arm, the clean scent of her shampoo battling with the latest had-to-have perfume.
Tiny yipped from his confines in the kitchen and Kelsey popped up to run to the gate and sweet-talk him. “We’ll be back before you know it,” she said. “I’ll bring you home a nice barbecued hot dog.”
“You’re spoiling that dog,” Mariah exclaimed.
“I know, but he deserves to be spoiled. He’s just so cute.” Kelsey reached over the gate and patted Tiny on his head. “I really don’t think we need to keep him gated like this. He lets us know when he needs to go out. Maybe tomorrow we can just forget about the gate?”
“Maybe,” Mariah agreed, and stood. “Come on, squirt, let’s get over to Finn’s. I’m sure nobody will say anything if the guest of honor is right on time.”
Mariah tamped down a touch of nervous tension as they got into the car. She didn’t know if her nerves came from the prospect of seeing old friends or the anticipation of seeing Jack again.
It was the crazy male-female thing that she’d briefly felt for Tom Lantry, a kick that in his case had lasted only until she realized he got that same kick looking at his own reflection in a mirror.
When they pulled down the long dirt drive that led to Finn’s place, Mariah noticed the changes that had occurred. The old farmhouse sported fresh white paint and a new large porch. A pristine white barn had replaced the old one that had listed precariously to one side.
The place looked prosperous, although there were some things that had remained the same. The old smokehouse stood in the distant pasture along with an old feed shed that had been mangled by a rampaging bull when Finn and Mariah had been twelve.
The driveway was already full of vehicles as Mariah nudged her car between an SUV and a pickup. As she and Kelsey got out of the car, the sounds of merriment coming from the back of the house drifted in the still evening air.
“Looks like there’s a big crowd,” Kelsey said.
“Sounds like it, too,” Mariah replied.
Finn greeted them at the front door. He grabbed Mariah in one of his signature bear hugs, then released her. “You look gorgeous as always. Come on in, most of the gang is already here.”
He led them through a pleasant living room decorated in earth tones with framed pictures of two red-haired little kids on nearly every surface.
“Hey, Mariah.” The woman Mariah had known as Hot Pants Hannah smiled from the kitchen doorway. She wore a pair of Daisy Duke shorts that exposed the long, shapely legs that had given many a teenage boy a moment of breathless fantasy. Her brown hair, once almost boyishly short, now touched her shoulders, enhancing her prettiness.
“Hannah, it’s nice to see you again. This is my daughter, Kelsey.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Kelsey said.
Hannah smiled. “Not only gorgeous, but she has good manners, too.”
Mariah smiled. “Thanks for doing this.”
She smiled and nodded toward Finn. “It’s no big deal—he looks for opportunities to throw these shindigs. Last summer we threw together a barbecue because he had a cold sore on his lip and thought it would cheer him up.”
“She’s making that up,” Finn exclaimed, the look he gave his wife one of obvious adoration.
Hannah winked at Mariah and Kelsey. “Okay, maybe it was a stubbed toe.”
They all laughed; then Finn herded Mariah and Kelsey toward the sliding glass doors that led to an immense patio complete with a barbecue pit as big as Mariah’s master bath in Chicago. Half a dozen picnic benches filled the area along with folding lawn chairs.
People were everywhere, standing in groups, sitting on the benches and hovering around the two beer kegs surrounded by ice and chilling in oversized plastic garbage cans.
Kids played in the yard, both on a swing set and with dozens of lawn toys. Some chased one another in a game of tag. A handful of kids around Kelsey’s age sat at one of the picnic tables slightly away from the adults.
One of the girls, a cute little blonde, waved to Kelsey as they stepped outside. “Go on,” Mariah said, and smiled at her daughter.
Finn grabbed Mariah by the arm and led her to a group of people. Within minutes her head was spinning as she tried to put faces with names from her past.
Although she didn’t see Clay Matheson in the group, his wife, Sherri, greeted Mariah coolly. “Nice to see you again,” she said, although the brittle hardness in her brown eyes said otherwise.
Sherri had been the mayor’s daughter in high school. A pretty blonde who many of the girls had thought was stuck-up, she appeared to have put on about forty pounds since the old days.
“Nice to see you again, too,” Mariah replied.
“I heard you’ve been living in Chicago.” Her gaze swept down the length of Mariah. “I just assumed they’d have great clothing there, but maybe not.”
Bitch, Mariah thought even as she smiled, but before she could reply, an arm fell on her shoulder and she looked up into Jack’s knowing eyes.
“Hey, you,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you to arrive. Sherri, you don’t mind if I steal her away, do you?” He didn’t give her a chance to answer, but steered Mariah away.
“You scare the hell out of her,” he
said into Mariah’s ear, the warmth of his breath shooting that crazy electricity through her.
“Why should I scare her?” Mariah asked, half-glad and half-sorry when he dropped his arm from her shoulder. Wearing a pair of dark brown cargo shorts and a beige polo shirt, he looked cool and handsome.
His gaze swept over her in the same way Sherri’s had moments before, only in his case she felt his gaze like a physical caress. “Why should you scare her? Because you’ve come back here all sexy, sassy and single and everyone knows that years ago you and Clay had a thing for each other.”
“High school stuff, not real-life stuff,” she replied. She glanced over to where Kelsey sat with the other teens, her head thrown back in laughter.
Mariah looked back at Jack. “Speaking of Clay, I notice our good sheriff is absent.”
“Somebody said that something came up and he’ll be here later. How about I bring you a beer?” He gestured toward a nearby empty picnic table.
“Okay,” she agreed.
By the time Jack returned to the table with their beer, several others had joined them and for the next hour they chatted about old times.
The kids and teens ate first; then the adults fixed their plates and returned to the tables to feast on barbecued brisket and fresh ears of corn and a dozen other side dishes that had been brought in to add to the spread.
No matter whom Mariah visited with, she remained acutely aware of Jack. He mingled with the others and each time she heard his deep laugh, a tiny rivulet of heat flooded through her. It was obvious he was well liked and admired by everyone.
As night fell, Finn and Hannah lit tiki torches. Most of the young kids fell asleep and the group thinned to eight couples.
Kelsey and the cute blond girl named Katie, who Mariah now knew belonged to Joe and Gretchen Arrowood, had their heads together whispering and giggling like long-lost best friends.
“There he is, finally,” Finn said as Clay joined the party. He went directly to his wife, kissed her on the cheek and then flopped into a lawn chair.
“Missing kid,” he said.
“Oh no, who?” Linda Graham asked. Linda had been a cheerleader in high school and she’d married one of Clay’s best friends, Charlie. She still had her pretty smile and the sweet personality that had made her liked by both the girls and the guys in school.
“Missy Temple. Her mother went in to wake her up this morning around ten and she wasn’t there. The bed hadn’t been slept in and Mrs. Temple didn’t know where she might have gone.” Clay took the beer Sherri offered him with a grateful smile.
“She has a reputation for being wild,” Roger Francis said. “Maybe she’s just holed up with one of her friends.”
Clay raised an eyebrow. “You into teenage girls, Roger?”
Roger grinned easily. “Nah, I’m just into gossip. As coach of the football team I hear plenty. Nathan Wilkens, my star quarterback next year, mentioned one day that Missy liked to smoke more than her share of weed and she talked about dating college boys.”
“Maybe one of those college boys ran off with her,” Sherri said.
“Maybe,” Clay replied, and took a drink of his beer. “I’m hoping she’ll show up in the next couple of days, sorry for worrying her mama.” He smiled at Mariah. “What’s it like to see all these ugly mugs again after all this time?”
“It’s been wonderful,” Mariah replied. “We’ve been talking over old times the whole night.”
“We’ve all changed, that’s for sure,” he said. “Take Jack there.” He pointed a finger toward Jack, who stood nearby. “I remember a time when I could bench-press his squirrelly ass with one arm. Then he went off to college and had a makeover or something.”
Jack smiled. “It was self-defense. I figured if I was eventually going to come back here to live, then I’d better bulk up so you wouldn’t pick on me anymore.”
Clay snorted. “Everyone knows if any man would hurt a hair on your head, half the single women in town would lynch the perpetrator. That’s the problem with being so damned good-looking. Everyone wants you. Believe me, I understand the problem.” He preened and ran a hand through his thinning hair as everyone else jeered him.
“I don’t get it, Jack. You can have most any woman, but you care more about the dogs and cats in town than the women who own them,” Roger exclaimed.
Jack’s gaze flickered to Mariah. His eyes glowed in the illumination from the torches. “Maybe I’m just waiting for some special woman to come along and change my ways.” Heat flamed in Mariah’s cheeks and she breathed easier as Jack broke the eye contact.
“How long you going to be in town, Mariah?” Linda asked.
“Initially I figured on being here just a week or two, long enough to get the house set up with a local Realtor. But I hadn’t anticipated all the work that needed to be done on the place. It’s probably going to be a month or two before we head back home.”
“I heard you have Joel Clarkson helping you out.” Roger’s wife, Marianne, wrapped her arms around her shoulders as if staving off a shiver. “That man gives me the creeps.”
“Ah, he’s all right,” Finn replied. “Joel’s a loner and kind of weird, but you can’t argue that he does good work when he’s sober.”
“He always seems to be lurking around in the shadows like somebody who has something to hide,” Marianne exclaimed.
Roger laughed and leaned over and patted her leg. “Marianne sees boogeymen in all the shadows.”
“And I think on that note, it’s time for me and Kelsey to head home,” Mariah said as she stood.
“So soon? Hell, I just got here,” Clay exclaimed.
“Your loss,” Roger said, also getting up from his chair. “We’ve got to head out, too.”
“I’ll walk you to your car,” Jack said to Mariah, who motioned to her daughter that they were leaving.
“That’s not necessary.” It was a weak protest. It was dark and in truth she would welcome his presence next to her.
“I know, but it’s what I want to do,” he replied. He took her by the elbow, his touch warm and with a hint of possession.
If any other man had touched her like that, she would have pulled away, but she didn’t from Jack. “It was fun, wasn’t it?” he asked as they walked around the side of the house toward the front where all the vehicles were parked.
“Other than the fact that Sherri’s gazes were sharp enough to cut skin, it was very nice.”
“She’ll be fine once she realizes you haven’t come back to steal her husband.”
Mariah laughed. “A husband is the very last thing I’m looking for,” she replied.
“And why is that?”
“My life is pretty full as it is.”
“It’s been four years since I’ve been in any kind of a relationship. I don’t need a woman to cook or clean for me. I don’t need anyone for much of anything. But there are times I think it would be nice to have somebody to share the good times and the bad with me.”
“I feel the same way, but most of the time I’m okay alone.” She pulled her keys from her purse and looked for her daughter, who had yet to round the back of the house.
“There’s that strong woman talking,” he said teasingly.
She shrugged and smiled. “I guess that’s just who I am.”
“I’d like to kiss you,” he said. His voice was low and intimate in the darkness that surrounded them. “That’s just who I am.”
“That’s crazy,” she said with a half-breathless laugh. Her heart beat so fast in her chest she felt as if she couldn’t draw a full breath.
“You used to drive me crazy years ago,” he replied. He ran his index finger down the side of her face. “I’ve never admitted this aloud before, but I had a terrible crush on you years ago.”
“Oh, I never knew.”
“I would have been horrified if you’d known.” He dropped his hand from her face as Kelsey appeared at the corner of the house. “I just want to let you know, I’ve waited
all this time to get a kiss from you and I intend to get one before you leave town.”
He stepped back from her. “Good night, Mariah.” He turned on his heels and headed toward his car.
It was later that night as Mariah lay in her bed that she wondered if a high school crush could have led to rape. And she hated the fact that whoever had raped her had stolen the pleasure of a man wanting to kiss her.
“You certainly were friendly to her,” Sherri Matheson said the minute she and Clay were in the car and on the way home from Finn’s.
Clay shot his wife a quick glance. “No more friendly than I would be to anyone,” he replied.
Sherri made that hrumping sound deep in her throat that tightened all of Clay’s stomach muscles. Jesus, he’d rather face a hopped-up meth head than Sherri when she made that familiar little noise.
“Sherri, honey, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he exclaimed. “I sure as hell wasn’t overly friendly to Mariah. Do we need to swing by and pick up the kids?”
“No, Mom is keeping them overnight.” Sherri slapped the air-conditioning vent to blow more fully on her face. “She certainly seemed plenty friendly with you. I saw her looking at you when she thought nobody else was watching her.”
There was no point in arguing with her. Clay knew after ten years of marriage that when Sherri got something in her mind, nothing could persuade her otherwise.
With four kids, aged eight, six, four and two, the nights that he and his wife got alone were rare. And a quick glance at his wife’s stony expression let him know he’d better do something or this childless night would go to waste.
“Sherri, honey. Mariah Sayers doesn’t mean anything to me. There’s only one woman I’m crazy about and that’s you.” He pulled into the driveway of their neat little ranch house and parked the car, then turned to further reassure his wife.
But she was out of the car with a slam of her door. “Ah jeez,” Clay muttered as he got out of the car and followed after her.
“I’ll bet her house doesn’t smell like dirty diapers and old sneakers,” she snapped as she waited for him to unlock the front door. “I’m sure it would be much nicer for you to go home with her than come here with all the chaos of the boys and me as fat as a cow.”
Broken Pieces Page 7