“I have no idea. We haven’t gotten that far.”
“As long as it’s not body parts, you’ll be okay.”
She gave a little laugh that suddenly took on a life of its own. “You...crack...me up.” She braced herself using his shoulder until the fit of laughter passed. “Sorry,” she said, wiping the tears from her eyes. “It was either laugh or freak out.”
She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Okay. Here’s the plan. One box at a time. Anything of value can go in one pile. Anything with a receipt might be returnable so that goes in another pile. Pure crap we’ll bag for the dump. Or recycling.”
“Playing Devil’s Advocate here, what if Marla shows up demanding all her shit back?”
Bailey picked up the box cutter she’d brought from home. “She can pay me now or pay me later—after she gets out of jail.”
“Sounds like fun. Can I help?”
Yes. Please. Thank you. Her neediness made her scowl. “Don’t you have a business to run?”
“Took the day off. I have to pick up the kids this afternoon. And I promised to take Sheri to lunch, but other than that, I’m all yours.”
Bailey looked at the armada of boxes and decided she couldn’t afford to be picky. Volunteer help was free help. She snatched up a box and shoved it into his arms.
“Have at it. With any luck we’ll be done by...Christmas.”
Paul laughed. Now, this, he thought, was the Bailey he remembered from high school. The girl who made up her mind to become Fair Queen and didn’t let anything or anyone stop her from her goal.
A moment later, Louise opened the patio door and called out, “We’re leaving, honey. Oscar’s appointment is in ten minutes. I’ll pick up some trash bags on my way back.”
To Paul, she said, “Thank you, again, Paul. We are forever in your debt.”
“Forever’s a long time. I’m happy to help.”
Her smile struck him as strained. He wondered again if this whole mess was making her ill.
“Is your mom okay?” he asked after Louise was out of earshot.
Bailey tipped a cascade of packing peanuts into a garbage can. “She’d better be. Without her, Dad would fall apart—worse than he already has.”
She examined the contents of the box, her top teeth worrying her bottom lip. Paul’s groin tightened. How could someone dressed in cut-off shorts, scuffed cowboy boots and an oversize men’s western shirt tied at the waist look so damn sexy?
She carried a stack of paperback books to the counter. They appeared to be six copies of the same title.
As she flattened the cardboard box, she added, “It’s kinda weird. I used to think OC was the strong one and Mom was a wimp. Now, she stands up to him, and he actually does what she tells him.” When she shook head, the navy bandana she’d used to tie back her hair slipped.
He curled his fingers into a fist to keep from reaching out to fix it.
“Believe me,” she said cheerfully. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
Me, neither. I never thought I’d see the day when I was lusting after Bailey Jenkins. Again.
Twenty or so boxes later, Paul stretched and let out a long, well-earned groan. “This sucks. I’m now an official member of the I Hate Marla Sawyer Club.”
“Told ’ya,” Bailey said, her tone far too chipper for someone dealing with an overabundance of junk.
She bent over and touched the ground, stretching in a yoga pose. Her shorts fit like workout pants, showing what she’d always called her saddle butt. He called it perfection. Just round enough to fill in her jeans, firm enough to show she was an athlete.
His male anatomy stirred. Again.
“Is it lunch time, yet?” Sheri called from the outer room.
“Hell, yes.”
Paul kicked the four-foot by six-foot box he’d started to open. It didn’t budge. “Are you coming with us, Bailey? It’s on me.”
She blew out a weary sigh. “Thanks, but the locksmith won’t be here until four. OC thinks somebody needs to keep an eye on things in case Marla comes back.”
From the doorway, Sheri Fast said, “Very good point. I’ve copied the majority of the files to a thumb drive, but I’m only about halfway through the initial eval.”
“Are any of these purchases showing up?” Bailey had been giving Sheri every invoice she ran across.
Sheri nodded. “Believe it or not, yes. She used an email addy linked to the business website to order everything you gave me. Whether she thought that would make the purchases appear more legitimate is anybody’s guess.”
“Can you print a list?”
“After lunch. I’m famished.” She looked at Paul. “Is your brother joining us?”
Paul caught Bailey’s unmistakable look of surprise. She thought Sheri and I had something going on, but Sheri only has one Zabrinski on the brain—Austen.
As he escorted the beautiful accountant to his truck, he considered the idea of spelling out his feelings to Bailey. “I still have feelings for you and I’d like to explore those feelings as adults, not wet-behind-the-ears kids.”
Kids. Shit. He was picking up his kids today. Did he want to risk introducing Chloe and Mark to Bailey only to have her take off a month or two down the road? Hell, no. His kids had been privy to enough of his mistakes without adding an affair with Bailey Jenkins to the list.
“Useless,” OC muttered, his arms shaking from the effort of getting into his bed with only minimal help from Louise.
No. Worse than useless. He’d become a goddamn burden. He had to be driven everywhere. His wife had to load and unload his stinking wheelchair.
He didn’t know where she found the strength. She’d lost weight these past few months. His fault, too.
So had he, but he’d started with more. A lot more. Belly fat, mostly. From too many beers. Way too much whiskey.
Sugar and empty calories, Nurse Sharvis said, every time he asked for a bottle. More than anything, he did it to get under her skin. But there’d been a few weeks—a month, maybe—where he’d dreamed of booze, tasted it on his tongue, craved the smooth bite in the back of his throat.
Now, he didn’t yearn for the taste so much, but what he wouldn’t give for a temporary escape from this shit-hole reality he’d created.
“Nobody to blame but me,” he said softly, hating the prickling sensation behind his eyes. Tears for God’s sake. Like a worthless crybaby.
His pa would have laughed his ass off seeing OC like this. The man was as unsentimental as a fence post—and about as friendly. The only time OC ever saw him smile was when he hooked a trout.
Watching the dance between fisherman and fish—his father’s skill and experience paired with the fish’s need to escape, to live, to procreate—was the only good memory Oscar retained of his childhood.
By fifteen, he was working nearly fulltime, catching classes as he could. He officially dropped out of school when the principal found him asleep on the front step of school, the best shelter he’d been able to find, and assumed the smell of whiskey on his shirt came from OC’s drinking, not his old man, who had flung a bottle at his son when he kicked him out.
Pride had kept him from telling the truth. Pride nearly cost him life, too. He’d tried to hide the severity of his infection from Louise, foolishly treating his sore toe with some snake oil Marla recommended. By the time Louise identified the smell of rotting flesh, the infection had spread.
“Goddamn fool.”
He closed his eyes, worn out by the day’s effort. Not even two in the afternoon and he needed a nap, like a baby.
Baby.
The word always brought back the memory of Bailey telling him she was pregnant. “Paul thinks we should get married and have the baby. He said we could live with his folks until we can afford a place of our own.”
OC had blown up, of course. All his hopes and dreams for his daughter’s success and happiness blown to smithereens by some horny little boy’s sperm.
He knew Paul Za
brinski and didn’t have anything against the kid—except he was a kid. Still in high school. And he knew what small towns were like. Bailey might be Fair Queen this week but once word got out, she’d be a loser—just like her dad.
So, he’d shared his opinion.
“You terrorized our daughter,” Louise said later. “She asked for our advice and you called her a slut.”
He didn’t remember that, but he had been drinking. And whatever kind of relationship he’d thought he’d been building with Bailey was gone.
So much so that when her husband was killed and she needed help, she called her mother, not him. “Just you, Mom. I can’t handle OC right now.”
He’d died a little that day. And to kill the pain, he’d turned to his old friends, Jim Beam and Jack Daniels. At some point in the night, he tripped and fell and screwed up his toes—the ones that eventually turned black and needed to be amputated.
A gruff cough made his eyelids bounce open. Jack Sawyer. OC hadn’t seen Jack in over a month. They’d been friends once. Closer than most brothers. How could an honest man screw over a friend the way Jack did and still come calling?
“You alone?” OC asked. Your wife isn’t welcome here, he could have added but didn’t.
“Yep. Can I come in?”
“Sure. I could use some help pulling this big ol’ knife outta my back.”
Jack’s mouth pulled to the right—the way it always did when he was upset about something, but he clutched the brown paper sack he was carrying to his middle like it might protect him from whatever OC could throw at him. He sat on the edge of the chair, the sack making a crunching noise as his fingers squeezed and released it.
“Things are getting outta hand here, OC. Marla’s always been high-strung. Seems like lately she’s gone over the edge a bit. But we can still make it right between us.” He held up the sack like a peace offering. “I brought you a bottle.”
OC’s mouth went dry, and a nest of meat bees took up buzzing in his chest. “You think a bottle of booze is going to make up for ruining my business and sending me and my wife to the Poor House?”
Jack ran a hand through his lank, brownish-gray hair. He’d started growing out his sideburns, OC noticed, to make up for the thinning spot on his crown.
“Oh, come on, OC. It’s not that bad. Marla said she borrowed a few bucks to pay off some bills, but nothing big. She can fix it. Hell, she would have had the accounts all back to normal by the time we left for New Mexico if you hadn’t gotten in her face about letting Bailey move in.”
Jack reached for OC’s water glass. He picked it up, leaned over to pour the contents into Louise’s big leafy fichus, and then set the glass on the bedside table.
A second later, OC heard the “crack” he knew all too well—a plastic screw top breaking free of its seal. As Jack poured a few glugs into the glass, the tangy aroma permeated OC’s senses.
“Guess we’ll have to share a cup, huh? Won’t be the first time. Do you remember when we were up on—?”
OC reached out and grabbed the bottle from Jack’s hands. He threw it with as much force as he could muster—an embarrassing lob that failed to hit the wall. The sack landed on the carpet, half out of the bag.
Breathing hard from the effort, OC leaned sideways so he could look Jack in the eye. “I don’t remember shit. Most of the time I was drunk or hung-over. Made for easy pickings for you and your wife, didn’t I?”
Jack’s hurt appeared genuine enough. OC wanted to believe he knew nothing of Marla’s embezzlement, but not admitting and not knowing weren’t the same thing.
“You drive a new pick-up, Jack. Mine’s ten years old. You have three new rods. You showed them to me the last time you stopped by—a month or so ago. Your wife told my wife you’re buying a place in New Mexico. It never crossed your mind to question all that abundance?”
Jack picked up the glass and gulped down about half. He held up the glass, staring into the amber liquid. “I figured it was my turn. I’ve been working like a dog. Ten...twelve...even fourteen hours a day. If that don’t earn me the right to buy a truck, I don’t know what does.”
OC didn’t have a response, which was just as well because Jack sprang to his feet and tossed what was left of the booze in OC’s face. If OC had been talking, he probably would have ingested some and that might have been all it took to get him hooked again.
OC used the edge of the sheet to wipe off the liquid. The smell nearly gagged him. But even dunking the corner of the blanket in the plastic water pitcher that followed him home from the hospital didn’t clean it up completely.
He dropped back on his pillow. He didn’t have enough energy to try to get out of bed and take a shower, but, hopefully, Nurse Sharvis would arrive before the smell drove him out of his mind.
“Honey, would you mind running home to check on your dad? Nurse Sharvis just called. She has a family emergency and can’t come today.”
Mom’s voice sounded as frustrated as Bailey felt. Going through boxes of other people’s junk was not what she came home to do. If she hoped to gain any traction in sales at the Marietta Fair, she needed product to sell.
“Sure, Mom. Paul and the accountant should be back from lunch any minute. He’ll probably keep an eye on the place until I get back.”
She’d wanted to go to lunch with them. Normal people, doing normal things. But, even if she hadn’t been worried about Marla showing up, Bailey knew she had to keep her distance from Paul.
Broken people had no business glomming onto healthy, happy, normal people.
As if on cue, a man’s voice called, “We’re baaack.”
Try though she might, Bailey couldn’t tamp down the squiggle of excitement that darted through her chest. She hoped it wasn’t what she thought it was...that old feeling she didn’t want to call love.
“If that Arnold Schwarzenegger imitation was for my benefit, you should know he hasn’t been governor for a couple of years.”
Paul laughed as he walked into the back room. “Hey, look at the progress. Way to go, Bailey.”
She straightened, arching her back to relieve the tension of bending over. “Really? I was just thinking these boxes were multiplying like Tribbles.”
“Tribbles. I forgot you were a cowgirl Trekkie. Believe it or not, my kids are huge Star Trek fans. We have the whole TV series on DVD.”
“We brought you lunch,” Sheri Fast said, holding a To-Go box from the Main Street Diner.
Bailey recognized the eco-friendly packaging. “That’s nice of you. Thanks.”
“Paul changed his mind about twelve times before settling on the Chinese Chicken salad. God, I hope you like it,” she said, rolling her eyes in a friendly, girlfriend-he’s-got-it-bad air.
Bailey couldn’t help but laugh—especially when she spotted Paul’s blush.
“Four, at most,” he insisted.
Bailey’s mouth watered when she opened the lid and inspected the fresh greens and a plethora of yummy toppings. A small plastic container of dressing was tucked into one corner of the box. “This looks like enough for two people. I should take it home to share with OC. His nurse had to cancel.”
“Do you need me to drive you?”
Distance. Distance.
“Thanks, but I managed to make it over here in Dad’s truck this morning. Doesn’t have power brakes, but I drove slowly.”
She grabbed her purse and the salad and headed toward the door. “I’ll be back in an hour, if that’s okay?”
Paul picked up a broom and held it in front of him like a sword. “I will defend this place to my death, m’lady.”
“Please don’t. I haven’t found a single bit of junk worth it. Just threaten to call the Sheriff, and Marla will run away.”
He frowned. “And people think I micromanage.”
She drove slowly—in part, enjoying the freedom of being behind the wheel again. She’d missed driving almost as much as she missed riding. She understood what her father was going through better than h
e knew. Being dependent on other people for the smallest little thing was humiliating and depressing.
Maybe his new prosthetic leg will help, she thought.
She wasn’t sure which was worse—the old, bitter drunk OC or the new, defeated and humbled OC?
Bless you, Paul Zabrinski, she thought as she walked up the ramp. Her father wasn’t the only one who couldn’t handle stairs well. Especially after a long morning of being on her feet.
The front door was unlocked, as usual. She dropped her purse on a chair and set the take-out container on the kitchen counter. Humming under her breath, she took two plates from the cabinet and divided the lush greens evenly.
Her mouth watered as she drizzled the aromatic dressing over the mosaic of large hunks of chicken and crunchy Chinese noodles. She grabbed a cloth napkin and fork before starting down the hallway.
Her humming lodged sideways in her throat the moment she caught a whiff of an unfamiliar—yet too familiar—smell. Booze.
“Dad?”
She hurried into the master bedroom, equal parts fear and dread making her hands shake. She was so focused on the unmoving body on the bed she tripped over something on the floor. Pieces of lettuce fell like green rain, but she managed to recover her balance.
She looked down. A distinctive brown paper sack. An amber pint bottle.
Her stomach clenched. Tears sprang to her eyes. Disappointment pressed heavy on her chest, making it hard to speak.
“Oh, Dad, how could you? You heard the doctors. You drink, you die. Is that what you want? Then why the hell did I spend the whole morning trying to fix this mess you made? Why, OC? Why?”
Her father came to on the bed, either passed out or sleeping. He opened his eyes and looked at her. His eyes weren’t bloodshot and rummy. He didn’t appear drunk, but he’d had an entire lifetime to practice faking sobriety.
Her fingers clenched the plate. It took every ounce of self-control she possessed not to dump the salad on his lap and storm off. The only thing stopping her was the knowledge either she or her mother would have to clean up the mess.
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