James looked at the garage. “I heard Witmore was retiring. I couldn’t let the old place go to waste.”
Narrowing his eyes, Dusty pushed the bill of his cap up with his knuckles, then used them to scratch the spot where the hat had been rubbing just below his red hairline. “And, just like that, after eight years, you come flying back into town to rescue it?”
James lifted his shoulders. “Why not?”
“I ain’t buyin’ it,” Dusty said, pinning an inquisitive gaze on James’s face. “I figure you’ve either gone nuts or we’ve got ourselves a new underground gaming establishment here.”
James chuckled. “Nah. All my gaming’s above ground these days.”
Dusty’s head tipped back suddenly, as if he’d been hit. A brief wince crossed his face. “So you’re telling me not only are you a legitimate business owner now...you’re also on the straight and narrow?”
Smiling, James watched his friend’s face as the crystal-blue eyes roved his for flaws. “Believe it, Harbuck.”
Dusty bolted out a loud laugh. “You are nuts.”
“Maybe,” James acknowledged. He clapped Dusty on the shoulder. “We all gotta grow up at some point.”
“Hmm.” Looking unconvinced, Dusty jerked his chin at the tow truck. “Heard you were looking for a tow driver.”
“Yep,” James said as they strode over to Witmore’s tow truck. “You interested?”
“Clint’s done with the big rigs. Dad gave him the tow I was using around town so I’m in the market. What kind of pay would you be offering on a part-time basis?”
They haggled for a few minutes over commission, hourly rates, benefits and so on. In the end, they shook on an agreement and James handed over the keys.
Watching Dusty flip the key chain from one hand to the other, James leaned back against the tow truck’s grille and frowned. “You’ve been working for your old man since high school?”
“Here and there,” Dusty said with a scowl. “He trusts Clint and Hawk more than me, ever since that little incident involving you, me, a bottle of Johnny Walker and his tractor a few months before that fiasco with the Carltons.”
The Carltons. James’s heart did a little roll and his shoulders straightened. “So you’ve been around since then?”
“For the most part.”
“You ever cross paths with Adrian and her little boy?” James asked.
“Not so much anymore,” Dusty considered. “Not since she and Radley ended things.”
James’s pulse and jaw dropped simultaneously. “Radley Kennard?”
“One and the same.” Dusty nodded. “They divorced about six years back. It ruined him. She told everyone who’d listen that he took a swing at her a couple times. He was a cop. Lost his badge and everything. She slapped him with a restraining order. Poor guy hasn’t been the same since.”
James took a moment to close his mouth, pressing his lips together hard as he digested this new nugget of information. Adrian had been...married? And how in God’s name had she gotten involved with a creep like Radley Kennard? Radley’s younger brother, Scotty, had been one of the guys that ran in Dusty’s hell-raising crew...though even James had been wary around him and his family. Word then was the brothers had run cock-and dog-fighting rings in the woods—though James had never seen as much for himself. Even in his eagerness to fly headlong into the abyss, he’d known to steer clear of the likes of Radley Kennard.
As to the allegations of abuse...James’s blood ran cold at the thought. However life had treated her, she had never been the kind of person to point fingers falsely. She’d worked and fought for what she was and what she wanted. James couldn’t dismiss Adrian’s claims of abuse as Dusty had. And the thought of anyone hurting her like that made James’s fists clench until the knuckles cracked under the strain.
“Why are you interested in Adrian again?” Dusty questioned. “You should know better than that.”
James pursed his lips and took in a long breath—long enough to clear away the fog of rage that the thought of a man like Radley Kennard so much as touching Adrian had stirred. Slowly, his fists unclenched and he relaxed the fingers one by one, lifting one hand and using it to massage the knuckles on the other. “Why do you say that?”
Dusty gave him an incredulous look. “You’re kidding, right? The Carltons got you arrested twice. They practically ran you out of town. If I were you, the last thing I’d be thinking about is getting involved with Adrian. That can only lead to trouble.” He pushed off the tow to walk back to his truck. “Just ask Radley.”
It was more complicated than that. Though, since Dusty hadn’t mentioned the kid, James doubted he knew that Kyle was his son. “How do you feel about starting the week after next? I told a reporter over at the Courier this morning I was planning on opening shop then. She’s doing a feature in next week’s paper.”
“Sounds good to me,” Dusty said and smiled, tipping the bill of his hat to James. “And, hey, for the record, welcome back.”
“Thanks,” James said.
Dusty climbed up into his Dodge. “I’ll see you Monday after next.”
* * *
ADRIAN HAD NO CHOICE. It had to be done. Just after lunch the following afternoon, Adrian reluctantly asked Penny if she could manage the shop for an hour or two while she went home to work in her kitchen.
Her spring line of homemade candles was selling like hotcakes this year. If she didn’t find time to work on a new batch, she would sell out by the end of the week.
It was the slowest day of the workweek. Flora had only received a trickle of calls that morning. Penny could easily handle a fruit basket, a couple of baby arrangements and a spring wreath. Adrian figured it was her only chance to get away from the shop before the weekend Easter rush.
As she pulled into her driveway, she chanced a glance over into James’s neighboring one. Yep. There was that black sportster sitting on the cracked pavement. She fumbled her keys as she walked briskly to her front door. Even in her hurry, she avoided the grass she tended so carefully, sticking to the footpath that skirted her front beds. There were the annuals and perennials she and Kyle had planted together. The hydrangeas were blooming like crazy and she was pleased to see Kyle’s favorites, the citrus trees, coming back from the harsh winter.
If James saw her come home, he didn’t hail her in time to stop her from escaping inside the cottage and bolting the three locks she’d installed on the door when she and Kyle had first moved in. She couldn’t avoid him forever. She knew that. But she could damn well try...
Breathing a sigh, she walked back to the kitchen and shed the light crocheted sweater she’d left the house in that morning. Opening the window over the sink to let in the scent of Kyle’s sweet olives, she took a moment to indulge in the light, cool breeze that blew through the screens and over her bare arms. She opened the half door to the back porch and smiled at the sound of birdsong. Feeling close to relaxed, she covered her shorts and tank top with a red apron and got to work.
Any mother of an seven-year-old boy knew that silence was a rare thing. So she worked without music, unless the birdsong and the jangle and ting of wind chimes counted. Humming to herself, she melted wax and cut wicks. She dyed the wax, except what she set aside to use with one of her bestselling scents, gardenia. She’d discovered over the years that gardenia had its own hue, turning the wax a lovely shade of green.
Carefully, she measured out her various essential oils. Each reacted differently with the wax and some could even eat through plastic or remove paint so here the process became a bit intricate.
Just as she was beginning to measure and stir, a deep, bass note rent the quiet, making her flinch. The scent, wax and dye mixture she was currently working on tipped over and spilled across the hardwood floor of the kitchen. She shrieked in alarm, then again in anger when the clash of dru
ms and guitars of Audioslave followed.
James was, indeed, home. After doing what she could about the mess, Adrian threw the ruined bits into the sink and glared out the window above it, raising herself onto her tiptoes to look over the fence line. But her honeysuckle vines prevented her from seeing anything. The whine of a power saw joined the musical blast. Her teeth ground together as she fought back a growl.
She had half a mind to go pound on his door. She was a few steps from her door when she realized what she was doing...
No. No way in hell was she facing the embodiment of her problems. Balling her hands on her hips, she glared again through the window at the fence and the small bit of James’s house that was visible through glossy green leaves.
Muttering, she walked back to the sink and salvaged what she could of the wax. One of the other neighbors would surely be as offended as she was. They’d go over, put an end to it...
But it was early afternoon. Most of the neighbors were at the office. The kids were in school.
She was on her own.
Cursing, she went back to making her candles. As the hour stretched into another and the sounds of Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks” followed closely on the heels of Van Halen’s “Eruption,” her movements became jerky. She broke two mason jars, spilled more wax on the floor, cursed up a storm...
Adrian figured he was baiting her. She’d avoided coming into contact with him since his visit to Flora days ago—when he’d promised to prove his worth as a man, a father. This had to be his way of getting her over there, face-to-face so they could hash it out again....
“Moron,” she muttered, mopping up another mess. If this was his way of showing her he was a changed man, he was failing miserably. Just as her gardenia mixture failed... She thought seriously about murdering him.
Another half hour. Zeppelin was replaced by Sublime, Guns N’ Roses and finally Red Hot Chili Peppers. She scowled as she affixed her labels to the fronts of the finished mason jars. Yep. He knew all he had to do was play a little Chili Peppers for her to remember...
It took her back instantly to that night she’d driven him home. Or, rather, when she drove him to the harbor where his father’s boat was moored. He’d invited her aboard for a drink. There had been something different about him that night. All that day, in fact. Where friendship had smoothed the rough edges between them with ease, and even jokes and laughter, there had been something amiss that night, a shift back to the haunted shell she’d found in the barn nearly a week before. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to just leave him, so she followed him onto the deck of the Free Bird, the daysailer that looked as if it had seen better days. There was a tattered pirate flag flying off the stern and more than a little rust to be seen, but all in all, she was a clean boat, one James took pride in. She could see it in the way he ran his hand over the mast and helm.
She’d followed him belowdecks where he admitted to sleeping most nights. He’d told her how he couldn’t bring himself to go home—to his mother, his stepfather, the disappointment and feelings of hopelessness they generally cast in his direction. She’d taken his hand because she understood, at least to some degree. It didn’t take a genius to see that her mother felt the same way about her—and she told him as much. His hand had squeezed hers a moment or two before he released it and got up to grab them both a beer.
He’d turned on the radio then, a small portable player. They sat on his bunk. About midway through the drinks, he finally admitted what had been troubling him for most of the day. It was the anniversary of the wreck that had claimed Reverend Bracken’s life. She hadn’t known quite what to say so she’d simply listened as he told her what happened that night—and why Zach Bracken’s death haunted him so.
“It was my fault.” Although his voice remained detached and he couldn’t quite meet her eyes, she saw on his face enough sadness to wrench at her soul. He talked about how his father had picked him up from a party. It was in the early hours of the morning as Zach Bracken drove James home on a backcountry road in the pouring rain and, after some silence between them, began to talk to James about how drinking and partying wasn’t the way, about how it nearly ruined Zach’s own life before he found sobriety and the solace of God. James had let the words roll over him and away, only half listening.
Then something had run out into the road—an opossum, a raccoon, a dog...nobody ever knew for sure. Zach swerved. The car flipped into a ditch. James was knocked unconscious. He woke up in the hospital the next day to his mother’s grieving face. She’d told him in broken words how his father had asked the paramedics to retrieve him from the vehicle first, although his father had known he himself was bleeding to death.
“He died before they could operate,” James told her, in that detached voice that was almost a monotone by that point. “He used to tell me over and over how God saved him, how the ministry saved him...and he died because I was a stupid kid—too much like the man he was before...”
Adrian had watched him break down in gut-wrenching sobs he’d clearly been holding back for far too long. She’d been able to do nothing but hold him through it. He’d grabbed onto her like a lifeline until it was all over, until the back of his shoulders stopped quaking beneath her cheek, until she lifted his face enough to dry it on her sleeve. He’d looked at her then, all the weight of the world in his eyes. A light flashed into them. Longing and hunger broke through behind that light and he kissed her.
Red Hot Chili Peppers had been playing on the radio—“Under the Bridge.” After he left Fairhope weeks later, Adrian hadn’t been able to listen to that song again without remembering what she’d felt in Free Bird’s cabin as he kissed her and she’d fallen head over heels in love with him.
She’d tried so hard to forget, but damn it, she could still remember how his lips had felt on hers, the little licks of fire under her skin as it went from something stolen and hesitant to something deeper, hotter and very much requited. He’d bitten her, just a little, on the lower lip. She’d thought at that moment that she would burst into flames. She remembered even now how she’d desperately hoped he would keep on kissing her if she did burst into flames so that she’d at least die happy.
His hands had moved over her. Down her back, back up into her hair. She’d had a lot of it then. He’d coiled it around his fists until both her tresses and his fingers were balled tight against the back of her head.
She’d wanted him. The days leading up to that night she’d thought seriously about doing something about it. More than anything, she’d wanted to make him forget about being sad, about being haunted and lonely. She’d wanted to give him something else...
Peace.
Adrian blinked. She was standing in the middle of the kitchen. At some point, she’d wrapped her arms around herself at the onslaught of eight-year-old memories. She could feel everything she’d felt then, every tug of his mouth and hands, every burn and brush with temptation and hunger, every little bit of awakening love had brought.
It was enough. She wrested the apron over her head, threw it onto the floor and left the house. Before she knew it, she’d stomped up to his front door.
She didn’t bother knocking. Who in God’s name would hear her over the noise of “The Righteous and the Wicked”? Tearing her way through the screen door, she had to throw her shoulder against the sticky front door before it gave and she stumbled into James’s house.
The great room opened up beyond the entry hall. Wood floors. Lots of glass and sun. The room was untidy, furniture not quite set to square. Boxes everywhere, overflowing. The stereo and speakers were set up on and around the fireplace mantel. In here the music was deafening.
Covering her ears, she caught movement on the other side of all that glass. On the back deck. A tall, broad frame of a man. Muttering amidst the noise, she walked through the open sliding glass door and stalked up to him. “James!” s
he practically screamed.
The muscles of his shoulders tightened. His head jerked toward her and he spied her through the clear safety glasses he wore. “Adrian,” he said with an affable grin as he disengaged the power saw and turned to face her. “Hey! Did you just let yourself—”
“Are you kidding me, with the noise?” she asked before he could finish, throwing her arms out. “Just listen! Who could possibly think with all this racket?”
The grin wavered for a moment. “Oh, you mean the music.”
Her jaw dropped before she clenched it and let out a mocking, “Duh!”
He pulled off the safety glasses and studied her as he tugged off the gloves, too. The grin hitched back up a notch as he reached some conclusion. It was then she realized he was sweaty and smelled like lumber. He wore a sleeveless, white work shirt, cargo shorts...and a tool belt.
She fought not to lick her lips as her gaze flipped to his left arm where all the tattoos were. It was the first time she was able to make sense of the colors and shapes. On his thick upper arm was a ship bobbing on stormy seas, being attacked by a giant octopus—a kraken. The tentacles were rending their way through the sails, pulling the old-fashioned man-of-war down into the depths.
Those depths kept going. Sea life dotted his arm as it wrapped around and down to his forearm where coral took over. She caught sight of a black-inked anchor on the inside of his wrist. On the back of his hand was the ocean bottom where the bones of some long-forgotten sea beast rested.
She swallowed. The effect was quite stirring. The artwork was impeccable. She felt that she could almost reach out and touch those cool waters, the bones resting in the deep, the wood of the ship’s bow, the rubbery tentacles of the kraken...
Blinking again, she wrenched herself out of the reverie and moved her gaze up...up, up, up to his face. Another distraction in and of itself, sweaty and flecked with sawdust. His hair was mussed, a few dark curls stuck to his forehead.
His Rebel Heart Page 7