The Man She Once Knew (12 page)

“These will be fine.” After a beat, he added, “Thank
you.” Then he concentrated on trying to use his non-dominant right hand to apply the first one but he only managed a poorly fitted wrapping.

“Do you want help?” Her voice was hesitant.

He glanced up. Nodded. “If you wouldn’t mind.” It was torture, sheer torture, his rough hands being caressed by her slender soft ones. Watching the curls that were more evident each day as she shed some of the city veneer and wanting to bury his fingers in them, to lift her face to his and taste her—

His fingers curled involuntarily, and Callie looked up, worried. “Did I hurt you?”

He couldn’t speak, only shook his head. He tried to relax, to beat back the urge to grab and take.

She finished bandaging, but didn’t let go until she’d pressed her lips to each knuckle. “There.” She glanced at him and blushed. “Sorry. I always liked the idea that kisses can heal.” She dropped his hand and turned to face the faucet. “So you turned off the water below the sink first, is that right?”

Do that again. Kiss me—anywhere, anywhere at all. Just don’t stop touching me. Making me feel alive again.
He grabbed the coffee cup and sipped until his mind settled a bit. “Exactly. Otherwise you’ve got a hell of a mess to deal with.” One deep breath, then another as he focused on the task at hand and not the woman beside him. “Sometimes in old houses, there’s no cutoff below the sink, so you have to turn off the water either out front if there’s a waterline, or where the water comes in from the well.”

“What does Miss Margaret have?”

“
You
have a waterline out front,” he reminded her.

Her brow furrowed a little. “It just doesn’t seem real. I don’t—I can’t stay here. I have a life elsewhere.” But something sad and uncertain fled over her features then. “Or I did, anyway.” Her voice was so low, he wasn’t sure he’d heard her right.

He waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t, and he couldn’t afford to care. “So next you take off the handle.” He handed her a screwdriver.

She took it hesitantly, then removed the screw that held the handle in place. She laid first the screw, then the handle on the counter in order. “Like this?”

“Exactly. Then you—” A cell phone rang at that moment, and she scanned the room, then went to pick it up from the kitchen table. When she looked at the display, she frowned. “I’m sorry. I have to take this.” She put the screwdriver on the counter as she walked past him to the porch.

He watched her pace the boards, her expression by turns stormy and nervous. Her slender hands waved as she talked. At last she finished the call, flipped her phone closed and stood staring off the porch, her shoulders rounded.

He wasn’t sure what to do, whether to finish the repair himself and leave, or wait and see if she wanted to talk.

He was certain, though, that he didn’t like whatever had made her look so defeated.

At last she squared her shoulders and reentered.

“Problem?” he asked.

Her gaze snapped to his, the city lawyer replacing the woman who’d kissed his knuckles. “No big deal.” She walked back to the sink, but he could see that her mind was elsewhere.

“I can finish this. You go take care of whatever you need to.”

She flinched. “I can’t, that’s the problem.” A distracted pause. Her fingers grasped the edge of the counter. “I can’t fight shadows.” She looked so sad for a second that he longed to draw her close and comfort her.

Him, a convicted felon. An accused second offender.

But maybe he was better than nothing. “I can listen, too, you know.”

She bit at her lip as if deciding.

“Never mind.” He turned back to his task.

“I…I made a mistake. Lost a big case, too, but that’s the least of my troubles.” When he glanced over, her expression was bleak. “My boss made me take time off. I’m an embarrassment to him, and he’s up for reelection.” She fell silent.

“So you should be back there defending your turf, that’s what you’re thinking?”

“Yes.” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You’ve worked hard to get there.”

“How do you know that?”

“Even when you were being a rebel, you were a very determined one. You put everything into it.”

A tiny smile curved her lips. “I guess I did.” She shook her head. “I was such a mess. I ran away after my mother dragged me back home.”

“You did?” He thought for a minute. “She didn’t seem…Miss Margaret didn’t think much of her.”

“She was right not to.”

“Where is your mother now?”

“I have no idea. I don’t care. I’ve made my life.”

Then, as if done with the topic, she turned toward the sink. “Show me the next step.”

He hesitated. Wondered if he should probe further into her troubles. “You sure?”

“No, but I don’t have any better ideas.” She pointed at the faucet. “What comes off now?”

He understood this one thing: sometimes thinking about your problems could drive you crazy and didn’t help one iota. Sometimes distractions were worth their weight in gold. “This is the stem,” he said, noting a metal rod. “See that little piece of rubber at the base of it? That’s called a washer.”

Callie cast him a grateful glance, and they continued with the task at hand.

A
REPORTER CALLED
J
OE
, sniffing around, Anna had told Callie on the phone earlier. Joe Santiago was her section chief and mentor; he’d put himself at risk in his attempts to deflect the D.A.’s fury from her. Joe was the main reason she still had a job.

Anna hadn’t needed to say what the reporter was trying to uncover. As Callie ripped at the vines she was trying to untangle from the gate at the Chambers house, she wondered if the leak had come from the defense counsel, who’d agreed not to press the issue in exchange for Callie being placed under supervision for the next year.

Of course, for all she knew, it could have been someone in her office. Her swift climb had created some enemies among those she’d leapfrogged, and to be frank, she’d been so focused on moving up that she’d left her share of bodies scattered in her wake.

“You ready?”

Startled, Callie looked up at Jessie Lee. “Ready?”

“For
Jeopardy
.”

“What?”

“It’s time to watch
Jeopardy
. On TV?” Jessie Lee’s
tone was filled with the sort of patience one demonstrates toward the clueless or infirm. “Granny insists.”

Callie stared at her. “Go right ahead. I’m not done.” She gestured toward the back gate.

“You have to come, too. Everybody does.”

“That’s nonsense. David won’t—” Callie’s voice died off as she witnessed the same man descending the ladder from the roof he’d been repairing.

“I told you.” Jessie Lee’s grin was unrepentant. “Now get a move on.” She grabbed Callie’s hand and all but dragged her inside.

David reached the back door before they did, and held the screen door open for them. “Ladies.”

Callie slowed and let Jessie Lee precede her. “Is this for real?” She kept her voice low.

His eyes crinkled at the corners. “You better believe it. As far as Granny Chambers is concerned, the world stops for Alex Trebek.” He bent nearer. “Just between us, I think she’s got a crush on him.”

“But…we have a list.”

“You’ve been working hard all day.” He glanced down at her hands and frowned. “Your skin is scraped.” He turned one of them over, then the second. “And you’ve got blisters. Where are your gloves?”

“They keep falling off. It’s no big deal.”

“Yes, it is. You have lady hands.” He towed her inside. “Stay right there.” He pointed to the sink. “Jessie Lee,” he called out. When the girl arrived, her impatient glance dissolved when she heard what he needed, and she raced off.

Callie joined him in the doorway. “Just let this be,” she hissed. “I’m fine.”

“You’re lucky you haven’t touched poison ivy,” he shot back.

“Hush up now, you two,” Granny ordered. “What is China?” she said to the screen. When the contestant echoed her, she socked a fist in the air.

“John Wayne attended USC on what kind of scholarship?” asked Trebek.

“What is football?” Granny craned her head toward David, brows lifted.

He nodded just as the contestant echoed her.

Granny’s grin was wide.

“The Greek word beginning with
H
that means unwarranted pride.”

Callie looked over at him, but his eyes were focused on the screen.

Granny shrugged. “What is
hubris?
” David prompted.

“Huh,” she responded, but quickly switched her gaze to the television.

Jessie Lee skidded to a stop before them. “Here.” She thrust the contents she held into David’s hands.

“Thanks, Jessie Lee.” He began bandaging.

“Science for one hundred,” said the contestant.

“The science of raising food or animals,” intoned the host.

“What is husbandry?” David answered softly at the same moment Granny crowed it.

Callie would only have been right on one of those three, but as the show continued, he never missed. The
topics ranged from seventeenth-century art to chemistry. She even got into the spirit of things, surprised to be having fun when most of her answers were wrong.

Once she and David had experienced joy, had teased and laughed with innocent exuberance, full of life and the high of being young.

She’d forgotten what that felt like.

She mused over the inconsistencies in him, a convicted felon reviled by most of the town yet capable of such kindness, clearly self-educated far beyond the high school graduation he’d missed. The cynical prosecutor in her would have dismissed the last few days as an aberration, a con job.

But as he gently cleaned and doctored her hands, his touch light but reassuring, his nearness a beacon of both sensual promise and comforting strength, Callie’s thoughts tumbled like a child’s unsteady tower of blocks.

Her fingers jerked in response to the tumult in her mind.

“Sorry,” he said unevenly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m almost done.”

You didn’t hurt me
, she nearly protested, but in her confusion, she instead remained silent until he was done. Her brain was exploding with too much input: questions about David, worries about her job, conflicted feelings about Oak Hollow and the unwanted responsibilities that had been dumped on her by a woman she owed a lot to.

The second that David was finished, despite
Jeopardy
not being over, she didn’t return with him to the living room but instead escaped outside and put away her tools.

She was sorry to leave the respite of a lighter atmosphere, of time spent with a man who brought back the boy. She couldn’t afford it, though; she had to figure out how to deal with the reporter, had to plan her next step in the quest to regain her reputation, how to extricate herself from Oak Hollow without hurting anyone. She couldn’t seem to think straight around David. They were all but done with the list. She’d walk home and use the time to get her head on straight.

D
AVID STAYED
until the game show was over a few minutes later, when he discovered that Callie wasn’t with them anymore and must have gone outside. He followed and began piling the vines Callie had cleared, along with the rotten shingles he’d replaced on the roof. The shadows were lengthening, and they needed to finish up. He had a debt to pay off, however unsettling it was to spend time in Callie’s presence, and only plowing through the list would accomplish that.

By the time he’d carried his last load, he still hadn’t seen her. She hadn’t said a word after his clumsy bandaging job. Had he hurt her that much? He was no nurse and never professed to be, but he’d apologized, hadn’t he? There was no reason for her to just take off like that. Now he had to find her and apologize again, he guessed, yet what the hell else could he say but—

He went stock-still. Her clippers were gone.

And, he realized, so was she.

Damn it. She’d come to the house with him, so she would be on foot. The shadows lengthened quickly in
the mountains as evening approached. She’d be out there alone, dressed in that tight T-shirt and jeans practically painted on her legs, every curve and half her naked flesh on display with God knows who driving by—

“Jessie Lee!” he bellowed.

The girl poked her head out. “You two want to stay for supper?”

“She’s gone. I’m not sure she knows her way from here. Tell Granny I’ll be back in the morning to clean this up before I start again. I’ll just put the rest of the tools up in the shed—”

“Let me,” Jessie Lee said, sprinting toward him. “I’ll take care of it. You go rescue the city slicker.”

“You sure?”

She nodded.

“Thanks. And tell Granny I appreciate the invitation.”

He charged toward the piece of junk he was driving. He needed time—and funds—to do an engine overhaul, but for now he held his breath until the vehicle started, then took off in the direction he hoped she’d gone.

A
S SHE WALKED
, Callie’s mind was filled with images and questions. Why would Anna call her with that veiled warning? Anna got along much better with Leslie Carlson, the other attorney who shared Anna’s services, and Callie and Leslie were not friends, never had been. Both were too competitive. Was this a ploy on Leslie’s part to frighten her into coming back before the D.A. was ready for her to? But if Callie stayed in Nowheresville, she left others in her office a clear field. Out of sight, out of mind.

The D.A. had refrained from firing her only because of her record, which up to then had been sterling.
You’re the brightest lawyer on my staff, Callie. What were you thinking, withholding critical information? The sky was the limit for you, and now I’ve got a judge raising hell over your behavior. I’ve admired your guts in the past, but you went too far. You’d better thank your lucky stars for that not-guilty verdict or you’d be out on the street already.

Gerald had taken steps to keep Callie’s screw up quiet, but if she became an open liability, he’d have no choice but to fire her. In addition, she’d lost a high-profile case, which reflected badly on him. So when Gerald had forced a vacation on her in lieu of a suspension, she knew he’d gone as far as he could for her. If she showed up at the office now, especially with a reporter sniffing around, she risked losing everything.

But the wolves were nipping at her heels, and staying away allowed the rumor mill to continue to grind. You were only as good as your last conviction, and others would view her continued absence as confirmation of her guilt, along with a healthy dose of cowardice.

Stay away. Go back.
The defendant had been guilty, no matter that her witness had been seeking to exact her own revenge for his earlier rape and beating of her. That didn’t change the fact of his guilt, but one overzealous cop’s behavior during the arrest had gotten crucial evidence of the recent crime excluded from testimony. Without it, the defendant would go on to do more violence, so Callie had made her choice not to reveal the
witness’s ulterior motive once she learned of it. Now the defendant was free, and Callie’s efforts to stop him were all for naught.

“Well, lookee here, Stanley,” came a voice that chilled her.

Her head whipped around to see a huge pickup roll up beside her. She’d been so lost in her thoughts she hadn’t heard the bass rumble of its motor. Although the passenger window was down, in the dimming light she couldn’t make out the face.

There were no houses nearby, no place to run. Callie stood her ground. She’d dealt with thugs before.

“I do believe we got us the outlander who thought it was one hell of an idea to let that murdering son of a bitch out of jail.” The speaker leaned closer, and she recognized him then.

Mickey Patton.

Showing fear was the worst thing you could do with a predator, she’d learned.

She wasn’t in a position of power now, however, and in the animal kingdom, confrontation could escalate to violence. She had to tread carefully.

“Got nothin’ to say for yourself, girl? Why don’t you invite the lady to join us, Stanley?”
Lady
was said with a sneer. “It’s gettin’ dark out here, sugar. We’d best give you a ride to town.”

“I’m fine, thank you,” she managed. “I’m out for the exercise.”

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about your girlish figure. Looks mighty fine to me.” His voice was oily,
and even if his eyes weren’t clearly visible, she could feel them run over her body like an unseen hand. She shivered in disgust. She’d been around too many men like this, men who treated women as less than human to feel superior when they were the pathetic ones.

But pathetic didn’t mean not dangerous. She cursed herself for being too casual, for treating Oak Hollow like Mayberry. In her job, she dressed in clothing that never incited and clearly said
Do not take me lightly
. Yet here she was, on a deserted road with nothing but her wits to protect her.

“I’d get out, but I’m still recuperatin’ from that bastard tryin’ to kill me, see. Stanley, get your ass out of the truck and help the lady inside.”

“Mickey, I don’t think…”

An ally, however unwilling. Callie’s attention was caught on the driver. “No need. I’m visiting Mrs. Chambers, and it’s about time for dinner.” She turned around. Granny’s was close.

“I didn’t ask what you think, Stanley, now did I? Move it.”

“Mickey…”

“Goddammit!”

She saw Mickey start to open the passenger door, injured or not, and she knew her time was up. She took off running toward Granny’s and heard him bellowing. Waited for the truck to come after her and tried not to panic.

A car appeared over the rise ahead, and she tensed.

Then she realized it was David and nearly collapsed from relief. Thank God.

David slammed on the brakes, leaped from his vehicle. “What’s wrong?” But at that same instant, his attention snagged on the man emerging from the pickup. His expression hardened to stone. “Get in the car.” He started forward.

“Oh, yeah, come on,” taunted Patton.

“David, no!” She reversed course and threw herself in his path, lowering her voice. “You can’t. If you touch him, you’ll be back in jail.”

“You always do what she tells you, Davey boy?” Patton’s mocking singsong was like a red cape to a bull. “My, my…guess you best be real careful, like she says. You sure wouldn’t want to wind up back in Jackson sooner. ’Course you’ll be there anyway, so what’s the difference?”

David brushed right past her.

She wheeled to put herself in his way again. It was like standing in front of a freight train at full speed. “David, please!” There was no way to do this with subtlety, not now, so she put both her hands on his chest, desperate to distract him. “I’m all right. He didn’t hurt me. Take me back, please. David—”

His focus snapped to her, but the man she saw was half-mad. Logic would make no impression. His eyes burned, and his entire body was rigid with fury, nearly shaking with the power of his craving to do damage to the man taunting him from the safety of his status as victim.

Looking at him now, anyone would wonder how David could be innocent of the assault. If she hadn’t known other facets of him, she’d judge him guilty as charged.