The Hero’s Sin (7 page)

She was so intent on figuring out a way to get answers that his question threw her. Of course he’d want an update. They had barely seen each other in
three days. During the few minutes when she’d approved the paint colors, they’d discussed her choice of a red accent wall in the main lobby but hadn’t talked about his aunt at all.

“I’ve been researching refinancing options, but her best bet is the local bank.” She opened the lid of the copier and placed her letter facedown on the glass. “Our appointment’s tomorrow morning. I’ll hit on her status as a longtime customer, and I hope we’ll be able to work something out.”

He nodded, his expression that of an impassive stranger. She closed the lid of the copier and pressed the start button but nothing happened. She pressed again, harder this time. Still nothing.

He reached down and picked up one end of an extension cord. Without a word, he plugged it in and the machine whirred to life. She felt her face heat, could almost hear him asking for the real reason she’d interrupted his work.

“Why exactly did the police drop the vehicular homicide charge?” she blurted out.

He stiffened, his eyes becoming even more guarded.
Way to ease into the topic,
she silently berated herself. Now that she’d brought it up, though, she wasn’t about to back down. If she did, she’d never get answers.

“You said it was because there wasn’t enough evidence, but the forensics teams that reconstruct fatal accidents are good. They can figure out what happened from skid marks.”

“There were no skid marks,” he said in a monotone.

Her mouth dropped open. It was the last thing she expected him to say. Because in the absence of skid
marks, the conclusion was that the driver had made no attempt to stop. That usually only meant one thing.

“Were you drinking that night?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

That had to be the truth. The police would have tested his blood alcohol level and detected the presence of any controlled substances. But the driver didn’t have to be impaired for charges to stick. The law viewed a vehicle as much of a weapon as a gun. If there weren’t skid marks, that alone should have been enough to prove that Michael was driving recklessly.

“Then why did the police drop the charges?” she repeated.

His chest expanded with the deep breath he took. “Because it was an old car and a blind curve. The investigators found a leak in the rear brake line and hardly any fluid in the master cylinder. They couldn’t prove the brakes hadn’t been bad before the accident.”

“But I can’t be—”

He didn’t let her finish. “It’s a matter of record. Look it up if you don’t believe it.”

“But I—”

He switched on the sander and turned his attention to the wall before she could mount any more protests or ask any more questions.

Realistically, what more could she say? Just because she couldn’t envision the Michael of today as a reckless driver didn’t mean his nineteen-year-old self was innocent.

People made mistakes, but they grew and changed as the years went by. Take Sara as an example. If she hadn’t decided to take a chance on a new life, she’d
still be researching case law at that boring law office in Washington, D.C.

I’m warning you. Stay away from Michael Donahue.

She heard Quincy Coleman’s voice in her head as she took the copies of her letter from the machine.

You don’t know anything about me.

This time she heard Michael’s voice, but the flesh-and-blood man was silent, his back to her as he sanded the wall.

She shut both voices out of her mind, focusing instead on the workday ahead. Once Laurie arrived for her first full day, they could start addressing envelopes and calling the phonebook companies to place ads.

First, Sara needed to make sure they had enough caffeine to get through the day.

The coffee was brewing when Laurie knocked on her upstairs door ten minutes past the time they agreed upon. Her color was high, her shirt had come partially loose from her slacks and her hair was even crazier than usual.

“I know I’m late, but I assure you I’m usually very prompt and it won’t happen again.” Laurie spoke so quickly that her words ran together, blurring the explanation, but she kept talking. “I even forgot what you said about taking that outside staircase to your deck instead of coming in through the office. And I know you mentioned the office was being painted so I should have—”

“Laurie, stop.” Sara couldn’t let her finish, especially because she suspected the man painting her office was responsible for Laurie’s agitation. “Just tell me what’s wrong.”

Laurie’s shoulders sagged and she dropped into the kitchen chair nearest the stairs. “Is it that obvious?”

Sara sat at an angle to her. “Yes. So spill.”

“I shouldn’t tell you,” Laurie said. “You’ll think I’m a high-maintenance employee. You might figure I’m too much trouble and fire me before I’ve even worked here a day.”

“I wouldn’t have hired you if I was planning to turn around and fire you, so just tell me what happened.” Sara braced herself, expecting to hear the name
Michael Donahue,
the way she had all week.

“You must not have seen today’s newspaper,” Laurie said.

Had somebody announced Michael’s return?

“Kenny took out an ad asking for another chance,” Laurie continued.

“Kenny?” Sara repeated the name while her mind switched gears. “This isn’t about Michael?”

Laurie frowned. “Why would this be about Mike?”

Sara suddenly found it easier to draw air into her lungs. “Never mind. What was in the ad?”

“A broken heart. Can you believe it? When I saw that thing, I got so mad I went tearing out of the house to confront him.”

Sara wrinkled her nose. “Not the best way to convince a man you’re not interested.”

Laurie laid her folded arms on the table and let her head drop onto them. “That’s what Kenny said. The problem is I think he’s right.”

Sara gently placed a hand on the other woman’s back. “Then why not give him another chance?”

Laurie’s head jolted up, the color returning to her face. “Another chance? Why the hell should I give him another chance?” She let loose with an unladylike snort, then
covered her mouth. “I’m sorry, that was unprofessional of me. You won’t hear that kind of outburst from me again.”

“Stop apologizing! I want you to be yourself around me. If that includes the occasional rant at your ex-husband, I’ll live with it.”

“You really won’t care if I gather up all the newspapers in town and build a bonfire on Kenny’s front lawn?” Laurie railed. “Or call him an ingrate who didn’t know a good thing when he had it? Because nobody loved that man like I did, and that sure as hell includes Chrissy, who didn’t love him at all.”

“Chrissy Coleman?” Sara asked in surprise. “Quincy Coleman’s daughter?”

“You’ve heard of her. She was Kenny’s high-school girlfriend before she dumped him for Mike Donahue. Who, by the way, looks even better than he did in high school. I just ran into him downstairs.”

Laurie’s story wasn’t making sense.

“You don’t have a problem with Michael?” Sara asked.

“Of course not,” Laurie said. “When we were teenagers, he was my hero.”

The words were strikingly like the first ones Sara had ever spoken to Michael. “How so?”

“I was head over heels for Kenny. Kenny was crazy about Chrissy. And Chrissy, well, Chrissy had her sights set on Mike. She begged him to take her with him when he left Indigo Springs. That was fine by me, idiot that I was back then. It left me a clear path to Kenny.”

“That’s not the way I heard it,” Sara said thoughtfully. “I heard Michael sweet-talked Chrissy into leaving.”

“Yeah, well. That’s the thing about small towns. You have to take what you hear with a whole shaker of salt and make your own mind up about people.”

It wasn’t until much later, when Sara ventured downstairs to close the windows that had been left open to air out the office, that Sara gave serious thought as to what her office manager had advised.

Laurie had told her to make up her own mind.

Sara yanked the first window closed. Isn’t that what she had done when she followed her heart to Indigo Springs? Hadn’t she vowed to quit doing what others expected of her and to be true to herself?

She positioned her fingers on the latch of the second window. Didn’t being true to herself involve choosing her own friends, without regard for people who tried to convince her she didn’t know her own mind?

Hadn’t she made up her mind about Michael long before now?

She tugged on the window but nothing happened. She tried exerting more force, but the window still wouldn’t budge. She moved back, arms crossed over her chest, wrestling with her problems.

Getting the window closed was minor. Getting Michael back into her life, however briefly, was major.

An idea occurred to her. Before she could consider its wisdom, she located her cell phone and found the phone number she wanted.

“Michael,” she said when she heard his voice. “It’s Sara. Could you come by? It’s going to be dark soon, and I can’t close one of the windows you left open.”

M
ICHAEL CLICKED OFF
his cell phone, pocketed it and ran a hand over his lower face.

“Trouble?” Johnny asked.

Michael had stopped by Pollock Construction to return the sander he’d borrowed and caught Johnny closing up for the day. His friend seemed so eager to go home to his bride that Michael had tabled plans to invite him out for a burger and a beer.

“Nothing like that,” he said, “but you got any spray lubricant I can borrow?”

“Sure. What for?”

“Uh, my, um, aunt. There’s a window she can’t get to shut.”

“You’re a terrible liar.” Johnny went behind a counter, ducked down and handed him the bottle of lubricant. “Want to tell me who that really was?”

Michael figured there was no point in keeping up the fiction. “Sara Brenneman.”

“And she wants you to shut her window?” Johnny’s tone conveyed his skepticism.

“It’s stuck.”

Johnny laughed and slapped him on the back. “Sure it is.”

The window
was
stuck, although it turned out Michael
didn’t need the spray lubricant. A little elbow grease worked just fine. He was fastening the latch and wondering why Sara hadn’t asked one of her neighbors to wrestle the troublesome window closed when the office door swung open.

“That’ll be the pizza,” she said brightly, as though they’d agreed to make a night of it. “Half pepperoni and half mushrooms. I took a chance you’d like one or the other.”

He stayed where he was while she dealt with the delivery man, deciding she looked more like a teenager than a lawyer in blue-jean shorts and a yellow T-shirt. The tangy scent of tomato sauce, cheese and pepperoni drifted toward him and his mouth watered, but he wouldn’t swear the pizza was the source.

“We better get upstairs and eat this while it’s hot,” she announced when the delivery man was gone, her light-brown eyes wide and earnest.

“I don’t remember us making plans to have dinner.”

“We didn’t,” she said, “although now that you’re here, you might as well eat.”

She headed for the staircase, assuming he’d follow her. After a moment’s hesitation in which he discovered his willpower was weak, he did. When he got to the second floor, she’d already set the pizza box on her kitchen table.

“Are you up for beer?” Without waiting for his answer, she yanked open the refrigerator door. “I’m not a big drinker, but beer always tastes good with pizza.”

After setting two bottles of ale on the laminate countertop, she pulled a can opener out of a drawer and popped off the caps. “Paper plates and napkins are on
the top shelf in that long, thin closet. We’ll eat outside on the deck.”

“I don’t remember saying I was staying,” he protested, although he couldn’t imagine leaving now. This glimpse of how she operated when she had her mind set on something was too intriguing. It remained to be seen exactly what she planned to do next.

“Of course you’re staying. I heard your stomach growl.” She picked up the beer bottles. “You get the pizza, napkins and paper plates.”

Surrendering to the inevitable, he did as she asked. The wooden deck, which was tucked into the sloped hillside, flowed from the house and afforded a great deal of privacy. He looked over the side, locating the posts dug into the ground, admiring the architect who’d made the most of the space allotted.

“I love it out here at twilight.” She was already seated on one of the two wicker chairs positioned on either side of a small glass-top table. “My neighborhood in D.C. was never quiet, not even in the middle of the night. This is like my own little slice of heaven.”

“Funny,” he said. “Indigo Springs has always felt like hell to me.”

“That’s harsh.”

“My car’s in front of your house. The longer it stays, the more gossip there’ll be.”

She turned a clear-eyed look on him. “So what?”

“What are you doing, Sara? We agreed to keep things between us strictly business.”

“I didn’t agree to anything.” Her chin had a stubborn tilt.

“You didn’t
dis
agree. Not after you found out why people around here aren’t happy to see me back.”

“
Some
people,” she corrected. “I’ve decided not to listen to what they say about you.”

He closed his eyes and kneaded the bridge of his nose. She knew who he was and what he’d done, yet she still looked at him with tenderness. Something equally soft turned over inside him. The argument he’d been about to make about how a single good deed couldn’t make up for his past leeched out of him.

Sara kept the conversation going until they’d had their fill of pizza, explaining the steps she was taking to build her business, asking why he’d gone into construction.

They cleared the plates when they were finished, bringing them into the house to dump them into the wastebasket.

“I should be going,” he said. “I don’t want people to talk any more than they’re already going to.”

“I already told you I don’t care what people say.”

“A friendship works two ways, Sara.” They weren’t separated by more than a foot in her small kitchen. “If we’re going to be friends, you’ve got to let me have some say.”

“Is that all you want from me?” she asked. “Friendship?”

“Yes,” he said quickly.

“You’re an awful liar,” she said. It was the second time today he’d been told the same thing.

“How do you know I’m lying?”

She put her hands on his chest, which brought her lower body into contact with his. His erection was straining against his jeans.

“That’s how,” she said.

She was tall enough that their mouths were just
inches apart. He read the invitation in her eyes. To take her up on it, he only needed to lower his mouth.

“I’m still leaving town,” he said. “Maybe as early as Saturday.”

“Does anyone ever tell you to lighten up?”

The question was so unexpected he laughed. “No.”

“Well, they should. Because you think way too much.”

“Isn’t thinking a good thing?”

“In your case, no. Don’t you ever just do what you want and damn the consequences?”

That hadn’t been the way he’d operated in a very long time. Experience had taught him to consider all possible outcomes before he acted, the way he should consider them now. His brain didn’t seem to be cooperating though, not when he could smell the clean scent of her and feel her warm breath on his mouth.

“Aw, hell,” he said an instant before he dipped his head and kissed her.

He’d been trying to block the taste of her from his mind since Monday night, when they’d kissed on the porch swing. He’d convinced himself kissing her couldn’t possibly feel as good as he remembered.

He was right.

It was even better.

Her mouth was pliant beneath his, as though they’d kissed a hundred times instead of just a few. Their noses didn’t bump, their teeth didn’t grind and they seemed to know exactly what pleased the other.

He smoothed a hand down the length of her back, pressing her against him. She came willingly, making sexy little sounds back in her throat.

She was close, but he wanted her closer. His hand drifted even lower, over the curve of her bottom and down the bare skin of her thigh. He couldn’t seem to stop touching her. His hand glided up and over her hip. Her T-shirt had ridden up, exposing the smooth skin of her waist. He stroked her, then his hand ventured higher, cupping her breast.

She pressed her breast into his palm, her warm tongue thrusting into his mouth. He heard his own harsh breathing. He was losing control fast, the way he had on the porch swing that night, the way he seemed to whenever she was in his arms.

The distinct sound of glass breaking pierced his consciousness.

He lifted his head, hoping one of them had bumped an end table or a curio cabinet and knocked a glass to the floor. He already knew he wouldn’t find anything because the sound had come from downstairs.

“Did you hear that?” he asked, his voice uneven.

She stared up at him, her pupils wide, her mouth well-kissed, her long hair disheveled. “I don’t care what it was.”

He swallowed, wishing he could adopt the same cavalier attitude, but it was impossible, especially since he had a good guess what had happened. “It’ll only take a few minutes to check out.”

He heard frustration in her sigh before she unwound her arms from his neck. One of his hands was still in her hair, the other on the warm skin just below her breast. Abruptly he let her go. “It came from downstairs.”

He preceded her down the steps, his gaze immediately zeroing in on the window that had been so hard
to close. A hole pierced the center of the glass, radiating outward in a starburst pattern.

“Damn it,” he exclaimed.

It took only seconds to find the rock, even though it was surprisingly small, only two or three inches in diameter. He held it out to Sara. “I told you my car shouldn’t be parked in front of your place.”

“You think someone broke my window because of you?” She sounded incredulous, unwilling to accept what he knew was true.

“It makes sense,” he said, thinking of Quincy Coleman and Kenny Grieb. Either one could have sent a warning message.

“It makes
no
sense,” she retorted. “That’s not a rock. It’s a pebble! If somebody wanted to send a message, they would have sent a louder one than a pebble makes.”

Michael examined the rock, unwilling to call it a pebble or concede her point. He wasn’t imagining things. There were people in town who hated him. “What other explanation could there be?”

A pounding on the front door stopped her from answering.

She raised her eyebrows. “I’d say we’re about to find out.”

She opened the door to reveal a middle-aged woman and a tall, lanky boy of about thirteen or fourteen. The woman’s lips were thinned and the boy looked miserable. The woman nudged the boy. “Go ahead.”

“I’m sorry.” The boy stared down at his feet.

“Tell her what you’re sorry for,” the woman prompted. “And look her in the eye.”

The boy’s head rose, but his gaze still didn’t quite
meet Sara’s. “I didn’t mean to break your window. I was trying to hit the street sign.”

The woman held up a slingshot. “We own the sporting goods store down the street. Donny told me that Ben took this from inventory.”

“Miserable little tattletale,” Ben said under his breath.

“Don’t talk about your brother that way,” the woman scolded. “I’m Edna Stanton, by the way. We live above our store, too. I’ve been meaning to welcome you to town, but not this way.”

Sara smiled. “I’m Sara Brenneman and this is Michael Donahue.”

Michael tensed, waiting for the woman to recognize his name, but she greeted them both cordially. Then she nudged the boy again.

“I’ve got some money saved up,” Ben said. “I’ll pay for the damage.”

“Darned right you will,” his mother said.

After they were gone, Sara leaned back against the closed door and simply looked at him. “Well?”

“I don’t blame Ben for being mad at his little brother,” he said. “His mom was scary.”

“I was talking about the broken window and you know it,” she said. “It didn’t have anything to do with you.”

“It could have.” He hadn’t been careful enough after the anonymous call and the slashed tires. It hadn’t occurred to him that the women around him might be targets. “I need to check out my aunt’s house.”

She pressed her lips together, her thoughts a mystery.

“Are you sure?”

He could have told her he wasn’t sure of anything when he was around her, but then she’d touch him or kiss him and his brain would shut off again. “I’m sure.”

This time he thought he pulled off the lie, but that fact didn’t bring him satisfaction.

S
ARA KEPT
her face expressionless, an achievement she was perfecting through practice.

She’d managed not to expose her feelings last night after a rock—no, a pebble—had stopped Michael from finishing what she’d started. Neither had she reacted this morning when Michael told her he wasn’t coming to the appointment at the bank.

Her poker face was firmly fixed now as though Sara wasn’t dismayed to learn that the stout, balding branch manager was an unfortunate anomaly.

Unlike the majority of town residents, he was a transplant.

“Moved here from Harrisburg a year ago in February,” Art Price said in response to Sara’s question. “The job opportunity was too good to pass up.”

“So you don’t know Mrs. Feldman?” Sara gestured to the woman occupying one of the straight-backed chairs in Art’s office. She made a mental note never to buy uncomfortable office furniture.

Felicia Feldman was twisting her hands in her habitual nervous gesture. Sara captured one of them for a reassuring squeeze, although she couldn’t predict how the meeting would turn out.

What mattered at the moment was that they appear confident, just as what mattered last night was that
Michael never know how much his latest rejection stung.

She was determined not to give him a chance to turn her down again. She’d decided his baggage was far too heavy for her to carry.

“I know Mrs. Feldman now.” Price picked up a stack of papers and riffled through them, bringing Sara’s attention full-circle. “I’m curious as to why you took out this loan, Mrs. Feldman. The monthly payments seem high for someone at your income level.”

“My husband took out the loan without telling me.” Mrs. Feldman stared down at her hands. “I’m ashamed to say I signed the papers without reading them.”

“Never a good idea.” Price pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose. “You should have contacted us as soon as you knew you’d have a problem making the payments.”

“She did,” Sara said, then explained the bills had been sent to a post-office box Mrs. Feldman didn’t know about until after her husband’s death. “But you raised a good point. Why did your bank give the Feldmans a loan when it was clear they’d have trouble making the payments?”

“I can’t enlighten you on decisions that were made before I started working here,” Price said. “It’s water under the bridge anyway. All I can do is speak to the current situation.”