“How you doing, Kel?” Clay asked as she dropped off a pizza to them. Another first, she actually saw Will drinking. They all were. But Will seemed doubly cranky.
“Good as I get,” she said and took off, ignoring Jaycee’s glare as they passed. She assumed they despised her for interrupting their party time. As Will had been with Jaycee before he had jumped in the lake after her, it was no wonder Jaycee seemed miffed.
Drinking seemed to be the number one attraction of the night, not the bowling. Kelly didn’t know if it was because Jaycee kept slacking to hang out with the guys, but Alan was behind the bar and in the kitchen.
Her feet took her everywhere. Pizzas to this lane. Beers to that one. Lane three was jammed. Pins were stuck in lane seven. Mick had somehow got his foot stuck in the gutter of lane two. Busy was an understatement.
She was refilling beers at the bar when Will approached her. He sat on the stool and studied her. Staring contest? She gave him a cool gaze right back, not letting him know how much his brown eyes melted her.
“How’s your leg?” he finally said.
“Fine.” Kelly knocked the tap off and put another glass up. Jaycee hurried back to the bar, opting for Will’s attention since he was done hiding from society for the time being. He was a single available man on the market, and Jaycee seemed determined to get first dibs. “As fine as it can be since I can see the bone.”
Her resolve weakened at his almost smile.
“Ha. Ha.” Jaycee sneered. Then she turned her seduction act on Will. “How are you doing, honey?”
Kelly shook her head as she took off with the drinks.
***
Will couldn’t keep his gaze off Kelly. It had been stupid to come. He wasn’t even bowling.
Someone had run over Kelly. Pissed, he wanted to know who. Possessive, he wanted to see she was alright. Protective, he ground his teeth when anyone looked at her.
The men in the lane next to him took their shots. They were jerks, punks in the grade above him in high school. He remembered the tall bald one especially, Pete. He liked hurting women, Will recalled.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Pete drawled at Will.
Will could remember a few fist fights with him way back to first grade. He didn’t move.
“Thought you were going to kill yourself,” Pete said and his cronies laughed.
“You want another drink?” Jaycee said next to Will, leaning at his side like a stray cat who wouldn’t scram. He hadn’t encouraged her. He shook his head.
“Come kiss up to me and get me a drink,” Pete said as Jaycee stood. He smacked her ass. Acting like the bad girl she was, she giggled and shook her head.
“Three Jägers.” Kelly came up and plopped the shots on Pete’s table then walked up to his. “Sam Adams. Bud Light and rum and Coke.” She rattled the orders off in a bored tone. Will caught Pete eyeing her.
“What’s your name, honey?” Pete set his boot on the plastic chair and leaned his elbow on his knee.
“I wanted a rum and Diet Coke,” Alyssa said.
Kelly barely glanced at Pete. “Randy, we’re out of Coors. Want a Bud Light instead?” She grabbed Alyssa’s drink.
“Sure,” Randy said before he stood to bowl and Kelly walked away.
In a small way, Will was happy she was wearing pants instead of shorts. Especially around Pete.
“Who was that?” Pete asked, his eyes tracking after her every move.
Jaycee snickered. “The assistant.”
“What’s her name?”
“Kelly.” Jaycee forced a smile empty of glee. “She’s a prude.”
“She don’t like men?” Pete smiled at Will.
“It wouldn’t matter if she did.” She studied her nails, unaware Kelly had returned with the drinks. “She’ll never get laid the way she looks like a frumpy fat-ass.”
Kendra laughed and Daisy looked away to hide her giggles.
“Coors Light, Randy. Rum and Diet.” Kelly maintained a rigid face, but Will knew she had to have heard. She walked away as calmly as she had come.
“Her ass ain’t so bad.” Pete grinned as he watched Kelly go for the door where the lanes maintenance area started. “Don’t matter. I’ll show her how to like a real man tonight.”
***
Kelly turned from resetting the pin chamber for lane five and walked back through the crowded narrow hallway where the balls ended their spins. Will stood before the door. She jumped with surprise. She had not been expecting company in the clustered clanging pit of the lanes.
“What are you doing back here?” she said. She had work to do. And she really didn’t want to face him after Jaycee’s comment.
He shrugged. “Too noisy out there.”
“Post-trauma much?”
Another shrug. “They said it would fade.”
“Time heals all.” She leaned against the opposite wall.
He avoided her eyes, taking in the mechanics of the room. “Learn that line in nursing school?”
“Common sense, I guess.”
They were quiet and Kelly lost in the mute contest. “I’m busy out there, Will. What’s on your mind?”
He contemplated with an intensity which warmed her blood. He closed the gap between them with two steps and kissed her.
She pressed him back, but not too hard. At the lack of force in her resistance, he must have taken hope because he picked her up and held her against the wall.
She gasped and broke the kiss. “Stop.”
He gazed at her, as though he was wishing her to give permission.
“Stop. Please.” She made it firmer. Not as breathless. Reluctant determination and sadness raged a battled in her mind.
She slid down from his arms and left the hallway. Before she reached the kitchen, her phone buzzed in her pocket. Unknown number.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Kelly White, how are you doing?”
She smiled, despite the use of the wrong name. She’d recognize the drawl anywhere. “Actually, it’s Kelly Newland now, Gannon.”
“Right, right. Had to hunt your new number down from your brother.”
She leaned her butt on the rack of bowling balls. “Easier said than done, huh?”
“You know, there isn’t much that has intimidated me in my career with the federal government, but Grant tops the list.”
Half of a smile graced her lips. No, Grant wouldn’t go easy on the FBI agent who she’d met from Norbert’s death. Norbert’s death by drug interaction wasn’t a stellar case. He had been a preliminary gubernatorial candidate, so his death had warranted the attention of federal law enforcement. Gannon had really been pulled into the case because of Betsy’s suicide, though, since her death had crossed state lines.
“Be happy he’s the only brother you met.”
Kip Gannon struck her as a sharp man, always one step ahead and keen on details. He’d been a polite and laid-back man to answer questions for.
“I was surprised to hear you’d left Atlanta, gotten divorced.”
“Not as surprised as I am to get a call from you.” Norbert’s death was half a year ago. While she respected the detective, she had no clue why he’d be calling her now.
“I told you I’d stay in touch. I was going through some files and something snagged me. Got a minute?”
“Sure.”
“We found Betsy in the Alabama state woods, barely over the border. Remember?”
She scoffed. She’d never forget the day. Kelly tried to revive Norbert, and Betsy had stood there, shocked. As soon as she left the hospital, she drove to the Talladega National Park and hung herself in the forest. “Of course.”
“Forensics found nothing unusual. Typical suicide. Except for the toll ticket. It was paid for by a credit card registered to the name of R. Denner. Ever hear her mention it?”
“No. I hardly knew her. She started at the hospital a week before Norbert came in. We didn’t talk about much other than work.”
�
�Hmm.”
“Maybe it was a friend of hers?”
“I can’t see her picking up a pal on her way to hang herself. Video in the parking lot showed her tearful, distraught.”
“She was shocked. Maybe she wanted a shoulder to cry on.”
“Maybe. There wasn’t much of a trail past the card. Billing address went to a vacant apartment in Miami. I wanted to run it by you,” Gannon said. “Why the divorce?”
His question seemed personal, not professional, but she wasn’t offended. “Caught him cheating.”
“Foolish man.”
“To get caught red-handed?”
“That too.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Didn’t surprise me much. You leaving your job didn’t make sense. You excelled at it. But the husband? Ha.”
“I’ll take the liberty to consider you a friend rather than an acquaintance, but I didn’t excel at—”
“Still haven’t learned how to take a compliment, I see.”
She sighed. “Why’d you expect a divorce?”
“I’m not the most thoughtful man in the world. I may never understand the female mind. But I could tell you were in a rough spot. Guilty even though it wasn’t on your shoulders to begin with, sad the daughter wanted her father again, stress about your coworker not handling it all. The old man dying hit you hard. Now if I’d been married, if my wife had been moping and frowning like you’d been? I’d at least have gone to the funeral with her.”
Kelly let the breath out of the corner of her mouth. She’d been the only one from the hospital to go to Betsy’s funeral. When she had asked John to go with her, so she didn’t have to go alone, he claimed he was swamped at work.
Mick ran past her with a toilet plunger and she snapped back to the present. Busy night at the bowling alley.
“Look, Gannon, I’m kind of busy. If there’s anything else you need to know—”
“We’ll stay in touch. Seeing as we’re friends and all.” He hung up with a chuckle and Kelly returned to her tasks.
For the rest of the night, she ignored their lane for as much as she could while still doing her job. She brought the guys their drinks and food but it was a test to her patience to not meet Will’s eyes every time she came near him. As if she needed another reason to avoid them, the freaky drunk guy in the adjacent lane made her feel like he was a wolf after a lamb.
At the end of the night Randy came to her and said his good-bye. “Make sure he gets home alright.”
She peered around his shoulder. Jaycee clung on Will’s arm and it stung against her wishes. Daisy provided a much too detailed display of affection on Clay’s lips. Kelly’s neighbors seemed to have their nights arranged already, so she frowned in confusion at Randy’s comment.
Chapter 22
After Kelly helped close down the kitchen later that night, she and Alan were the only ones left. She pitied the owner and told him she’d lock up. He had to have been bone weary from the exceptionally busy night.
She shut off the lights and locked the rear door behind her before she made some sense of who Randy had referred to. But not why. On the pavement behind the bowling alley, she found Will on the ground with a fist in his eye. The wolf from lane five had delivered the punch.
“Will!” She ran to him. A fight was not an alien situation to her. She couldn’t count the number of times she had broken up her siblings from beating someone to a pulp.
Will landed a few hits and managed his way on top, but then he was kicked in the knee.
“Hey!” She reached in to pull him away and his face contorted in pain.
“Get away from him!” Will slammed the guy to the ground as frantic red and blue lights bounced off the sleeping brick walls.
Fred came first. The wolf man lobbed a drunken punch at the officer.
“Get ‘im outta here,” Eric said, nodding at the wolf. The younger cop stepped with a lazy pace and nodded towards the car.
Kelly crouched to the pavement as Will struggled to sit up. “Will, what the hell are you doing?” She checked over his bloodied face.
“What’s he doing?” Eric said in the darkness as he approached.
Not him again. Kelly never had a problem with members of law enforcement. She’d worked with plenty who came in the ER. She’d definitely dealt with a couple when Norbert’s daughter ambushed her. Gannon was a great man. But Eric’s incompetency and lack of ethics had her grudging his presence.
“What’s he doing?” His shiny boot kicked Will’s foot. “He’s getting drunk and mean. Like his daddy did.”
“Will?” She tried to help him up.
“Gonna drink and drive, huh?” Eric spat on the ground near Will’s hip and kicked at his foot again.
Kelly stood up and gave him all of her five feet and three inches worth of guts. “You touch him one more time, it’s police brutality. My brother will kill you in court.”
Eric held his hands up, grinning at her defensive tone. In mockery. “Here you are again. Trying to tell me how to do my job. He’s drunk. And he was violent. He’s going in.”
“Will?” She returned to the ground when he moaned in pain, holding his knee, ignoring Eric. If anything she guessed Eric had been picked on all his life and was a bully cop now because he was authority.
Kelly noticed the blood on Will’s lip, smelled the alcohol on his breath, and gently fingered the swelling at his eye.
“No wonder your mama didn’t want you,” Eric went on. “You’re like Dennis. A good-for-nothing drunk.”
Kelly considered Eric, scheming how she could hurt him without getting arrested. Her attention flew back to Will, his head hanging down. All she could see was a boy, abandoned and unwanted. Churchston had practically spat on him because of his association to his father. Never wanted and never welcomed. No wonder he doesn’t believe in love. He’s never been on the receiving end of it. Eric was a living testament. Churchston thought one thing of Will. All brawn and balls and no brains nor bravery.
Heart cracking, Kelly was wise enough not to feel sorry for him. He wasn’t a boy anymore. He was a man with a lot of baggage. He wouldn’t want her pity or her heart, but she could still have his back.
“Come on.” She helped him to his feet, no easy going since he had the physique of the Hulk.
He winced on his knee and Kelly worried it might be worse than she imagined.
“Now, Kelly. You leave him be.” Eric stood back some as though Will was a threat. “I’ll take it from here.”
“Take it to hell. We’re going home.” She grunted under the weight of Will at her shoulder.
“He’s under arrest, Kelly. Public intoxication and assault. You shouldn’t be messing with him. He’s dangerous. He’s good for nothing.”
Kelly continued towards her car.
“Now wait a minute.” Eric trotted after her. “You can’t leave. You put him down and I’ll—”
“You okay?” she asked. Will’s breathing was labored. Cracked rib? Internal bleeding? What did the wolf do to him? And why? Medical training insisted she check him out before moving him, but she wasn’t about to leave him for Eric.
“Kelly. In the name of the law, I’m telling you to stop.” Eric held his hand up.
She ignored him and helped Will into her car. He didn’t speak on the way home and to her relief, Eric must have been too chicken-shit to follow them to the stone house. He and Fred would have had their hands busy with the wolf man anyway.
“Here.” She patted Will’s pockets for his keys when she parked at his house, “Sit tight and I’ll go open the door.” He was still uncoordinated, but she managed him inside. She eyed the outline of the couch and let him slide down to it as gently as she could. His descent was like an elephant plopping down. She winced and sought the light switch.
She studied the room as she moved through it. There were hardly any furnishings. TV, couch, table. That was it for the living room. It was sort of empty, but clean.
She went to the kitchen a
nd found it tidy, unused. In the fridge she discovered packaged microwave dinners and protein shakes. No wonder he eats from Alan’s so much. The thought brought another twist in her gut. Probably never learned to cook. Because no one was there to teach him. She began to understand his view of the world. Accepting it, no, understanding it, yes.
She took a bag of peas and a tray of ice. Before returning to him, she went in the bathroom and collected necessities from another empty but clean room.
“Will?” She sat on the edge of the couch since he had stretched out long-ways. Pulling his shirt up, she felt his chest for swollen lumps, any cuts and scratches to clean. He must have taken a couple hits on his right side because he inhaled sharply at her touch.
He hadn’t said anything but groaned. She felt his arms and legs. Her hand didn’t even cover half his biceps. She slowed her palms on his arms, and swallowed, trying to be professional, not thinking about the desire he caused from contact. He needed her help and she wouldn’t let him down. A flare of heat burned from her, head to toes. She stilled her hands.
Men, women, babies, children, adults and elders. Nursing gave her the experience of feeling many people’s bodies in the duty of her work. Some sinfully attractive, some utterly hideous. Cushiony fat, taut muscles, wrinkly leather, and smooth satin. She had felt a wide range, but she had never lost her heart with a simple caring touch.
“Hey, Will, can you hear me?” She took off his shoes, then scooted to examine his face. Pressing ice to his lip, she wiped the blood away. She whistled and slapped his cheek. “Come on. Open your eyes.”
His chest rose and fell in a steadier rate and he cracked on eye open. The other was too swollen to open much.
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