Trouble Won't Wait (14 page)

I earned my rights to protection, though, because he lived to tickle me when our parents were around, and torture me horribly when they weren’t. His favorite trick was to hang me by my belt loops from a huge old rusty spike driven high up in the trunk of a backyard tree. As soon as Mom and Dad pulled out of the driveway and left Marky in charge, that’s just where he’d stick me, until he heard their car coming back over the hill. Unless it was storming outside. It’s not like he was a
tyrant
, or anything.

Every time I see him, I make him apologize for being so mean.

“Marker!” I greet him. I know, childish, but it’s what I’ve called him since I
was
a child. Sometimes it’s “Marks-a-Lot,” with or without a “Sir” at the beginning. It was the only thing I could do to torment such a giant of a brother.

I stand to hug him, and he lifts me from my feet just to remind me he can, making sure to grab the back belt loop. He knows I’ll have a wedgie I’ll have to either live with, or pick out in the middle of the lunch-crowded restaurant. Yes, we behave in a very juvenile manner in my family, but at least we get along, unlike
some
families.

Pretending to enjoy the snuggie, I smile sweetly at him as we sit. “It feels like old times, hangin’ for hours in the elm tree,” I say, sighing. My missile hits its mark.

He cringes. “I was the world’s worst babysitter. Sorry.” He’d go ballistic on his son for torturing one of the girls like that.

The server brings us chips and salsa, and gets our drinks. Mark’s a teetotaler, paranoid about getting out of control when he’s drunk like he used to in college. I, however, go for a margarita with my lunch.

We exchange small talk, he tells me some silly story about Jake and his little dirt bike, and we order our food. Mark gets two entrees–two!–and I know he’ll eat whatever I don’t suck up quick from my own plate. His poor wife doubles all her recipes, just to make sure she has enough for him at every meal.

“How come Jake hasn’t been around this month?” It’s unusual, and I can’t recall being mean to the kid.

Mark looks across the table at me, his eyebrows stretching up a bit closer to his receding hairline, and I have a feeling young Ben has been confiding in his cousin. Naturally, Jake would have repeated his concerns to his dad. Naturally.

“What do you know?” All I can do is shake my head in resignation.

“That you haven’t slept in the same room with Mike since Thanksgiving, and he’s been showerin’ you with presents the whole time. Been usin’ his dipstick to check somebody else’s oil, huh?”

Must’ve been easy to deduce. After all, I’ve never been cross with Mike for more than a few hours before this. I nod, rolling my eyes at Mark’s silly way of describing The Indiscretion.

“Want me to kick his ass?”

Hey…cool. I hadn’t thought of that before.

“Watcha gonna do about it?”

Same old question, but at least I have an answer. “Nothing ’til after Christmas. I agreed to go to counseling for a month. But it’s over. Know a good divorce lawyer?” Oops, I left him wide open to tell a lawyer joke. Never mind that he once wanted to be one. Now he acts like they’re all bad.

“Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, an honest lawyer and an old drunk are all walking down the street when they spot a hundred dollar bill on the ground. Who gets it?” He barely pauses. “The old drunk, because all the rest are mythological.”

Mark waits for me to smile, then gives me the name of a guy he knows who is an
effective
lawyer.

“You tell Mom yet?” He’s looking at me the same way he did when I brought home Mom’s Buick with a big ding in the fender. His eyes say what his mouth mercifully doesn’t: “Bummer, Mand. But better you than me.”

“I wasn’t really planning to tell anybody until after the holidays.”

“Kenna and I were afraid you were thinkin’ of lettin’ Mikey slide.”

“I
did
consider it, for a while.”

“Why the hell would you do that?” Mark doesn’t get angry often, but he’s pretty irritated right now. Usually Irritated Mark is scary enough to make people comply with his wishes.

I’ll push the envelope though, knowing he’s soft inside. “It’s
my
life, Mark. And it’s my right to decide who to forgive, and for what.”

He looks at me like I’m stupid. The glasses he put on when the server took our menus are coming off. Mark can’t see with glasses. He takes them off to drive. He takes them off to read. He doesn’t actually need them. I know this because one of my best friends works at the optometrist’s office, and she told me Mark pestered the doctor–an old friend of
his
–to give him a prescription, so they got him the lowest one available. Mark has a bit of a complex about people thinking he’s dumb because he’s big. Wearing glasses makes him look smart, and he looks good in them too.

But now they’re off, and he’s focusing on me, eyes narrowed in either a squint or more profound irritation than before. “That’s just plain stupid, Mandy.” Easy for him, open and shut case, right? Watch me turn the tables.

“So if Kenna cheated, only once, just a big screw-up–pardon the pun–it would be ‘Sayonara, baby’?”

“It’s not an accident when somebody screws around, Man. It’s not like the guy fell down and his pecker poked her by
mistake
.” He still thinks I’m a moron.

“You’re missing the point, smart-ass. You don’t think you’d forgive Kenna, or at least try? Wouldn’t you consider forgiving her as opposed to losing her for good?”

A shadow falls over big Mark’s face at the thought of life without his pretty wife, his soul mate.

“Okay. But you decided not to. That’s good. Dumb and Dumber will be glad to hear there’s some fresh tail on the market.”

Dumb and Dumber are his friends, Dave and Danny. One lives next door to Mark, the other across the street. I used to give Mark all kinds of shit about his friends from high school buying houses so close to his, but I do think it’s cute that they’re all buddies and stick together. And do they ever!

Every weekend they all hang out in Mark’s garage, watching the sports package on his big flat TV. Dave and Danny have both divorced since they’ve lived in Mark’s neighborhood, and poor Kenna ends up feeding them every weekend, in addition to my Paul Bunyan of a brother.

“I thought your days of torturing me were over. You’d really set me up with one of them?”

He shakes his head. “Nah. I know how those two think. They’ll be glad you’re on the market, but I’ll kick their asses if they come near you.” That’s more like my big brother. “Just Halloween, I almost knocked their heads together for makin’ lewd comments about you.”

Mike and I had dressed as Fred and Wilma Flintstone for Halloween. I guess I was showing more leg, or something, than I thought I was. I’ve lost another fifteen pounds since then, so the costume probably wouldn’t even fit now. I like that Dave and Danny appreciated what they saw. I used to worship them when I was a teenager and they ran around with Mark. It’s tempting to tell my brother I’m not planning to be “on the market” at all, that I already have designs on another guy.

But what would he think?

“I’ll get somebody suitable lined up for ya by New Year’s.” Now he thinks he’s going to choose my next man?

I shake my head.

“You need somethin’ sooner than that? I’ll see what I can drum up.”

“Mark! I’m still living with my husband, for God’s sake. I’ve got a
daughter
to set an example for!”

He shrugs nonchalantly. “Just don’t go ridin’ a stranger’s stick horse when she’s around. Mom’s comin’ to get the kids the twenty-sixth, by the way.”

“You
told
her?”

“No. I told her the kids wanted to go see her, but you can’t get away. Sheesh, you think I’m some kinda nark or what?”

“Oh. Thanks.” What a relief. “Sorry. Anyway, I just
have
to tell you about this freak counselor Mike has us seeing.”

Mark laughs so hard he’s in tears by the time we’re done eating.

On the way out to our vehicles, I ask him, “Hey, you know any of those guys with the gas company Mom and Dad sell to?”

He nods. Mark knows everybody, like I said.

“How about one named Kraft, Adam Kraft?”

He looks thoughtfully at the snow-covered mountains to the south, and nods. “Yeah. Think he used to wrestle for Aspen.”

Mark was a high school wrestler because he could always win. Since his opponents were chosen based on weight class, he’d usually end up with a short fat guy he could easily wrap himself around in ten seconds flat.

“No, this guy came here from Texas.”

He looks at me like I’m a blonde in one of his jokes. “Same guy from wrestling, just moved back here, and he’s a honcho with the gas outfit.” His words come out slower now, carefully enunciated to make sure his simpleton sister understands what he’s saying. His look says, “
Duh!
” but he keeps that part unspoken. Now he narrows his eyes on me again. “You wrestlin’ him?”

I slug his naturally bulky arm hard, leaving my hand regretting my move. “Mark!” Just my luck, his name comes out a squeal, giving me away. “No. I met him when I was out walking. He has a house by the cemetery, and I’ve talked to him some.”

“Uh-huh. I’ll have a little talk with him, myself.” He’s chuckling as he enters his over-sized, heavy-duty truck, making it seem like a little Toyota inside.

“Don’t you dare!”

He was kidding. I hope.

* * * *

I’m walking the loop and freezing my tail off. It’s frigid out today. I don’t think it’s been above zero, a real good day to be inside by a fire. Still, the sun is out and I’m in high spirits after lunch with Mark. A thin layer of sweat keeps trying to come out along my spine, but just as it breaks, the freezing wind finds a way past my layers of clothing, blasting over my moistened skin. My poor ears are nearly numb, even with a headband over them. Yeah, I’m probably a lunatic. But I know at the end of my walk is a reward that will make me all warm and toasty, and tide me over until tomorrow.

When Adam comes out his back door, he looks at me like I’ve lost my marbles. He refuses to stay outdoors while we talk, so I gratefully follow him in. I peel off my gloves and scarf, followed by headband and jacket, making a messy heap of fluffy red fleece on his counter.

I turn back to face him.

He’s tossed his coat across his couch and stares at my stack of outerwear.

With a wave in front of his eyes, I ask, “Hello? Anybody in there?”

His gorgeous blue eyes turn to mine. “Did you come out in this cold to exercise, or to see me?” He still thinks I’m nuts, I can tell, but he’ll accept it better if it’s because I’m nuts for him.

“One is the mission, the other is a bonus,” I answer with what I hope is a coy smile. While he mulls this over, trying to decipher my code, I blindside him with, “Why didn’t you tell me you’re from Aspen?”

Definitely caught him off-guard. “How’d you find that out?” Why would it be a secret?

I’m tempted to tell him I Googled him. Turnabout is fair play, and all. His jaw is all tight and he’s been looking everywhere but at me since I said
Aspen
. Now he knows how I felt about my books.

“My brother. Knows everybody.”

Adam’s eyes narrow on me in pretty much the same way Mark’s did earlier.

“Mark House. He wrestled, and he remembers you. You must’ve been good.”

Adam’s smirk tells me he knows Mark House, but he shakes his head.

“Yeah, Mark
the
House. Manor Mark. That’s the one.”

He looks me up and down as if he expected Mark’s sister would be an Amazon, rather than utterly average in size.

While he’s still off-kilter, I move in again. “So you were a rich kid, then? Come from some family dripping with diamonds, grew up in a mansion?”

“Not everybody who grew up in Aspen is rich, you know,” he snaps. Maybe he was one of the poor slobs whose parents
worked
for the rich folks. It would be a sore spot, I suppose.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed.”

Now he looks guilty, perhaps feeling bad that he was so short with me.

“Why didn’t you tell me when I asked where you moved here from?” He’d answered truthfully, but it would have been simple to tell me he was from Aspen.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Mandy.” He sounds weary, dismissive.

Nice. I’m pissed, and subsequently pissy, when I retort, “And just why is that,
Adam
? Why all the secrets? You take mystique to a whole new dimension, let me tell ya.”

He couldn’t possibly look any stiffer. “I have my reasons for why I do or do not tell you things.”

Period. End of discussion, huh? And if I don’t like it, tough shit.

I’m already wrapping my scarf around my neck. My headband is on. I jerk the coat around my shoulders and yank gloves over wrists on my way out. I’m biting back myriads of responses when I shut his door quite forcefully, and stomp my anger-warmed body back to my house.

Think you can go around keeping secrets from me and I’m supposed to just live with it? Who the hell are you, anyway? And Laura? What about that shit?
God, how stupid
am
I for carrying on with this virtual stranger? The guy could be an ax-murderer for all I know. Well, a very cute ax-murderer, with a good job, anyway. Still, all those secrets… He has his reasons, does he? I know right where he can shove his reasons!