Broken Wings (A Romantic Suspense) (121 page)

I hate that painting, too. I hate the constant stink of antiseptic and that weird burning odor that accompanies the sound of the drill in the back rooms. It’s the smell of burning teeth. A very nasty smell, trust me.

Right now there’s a woman checking her kid in for an appointment standing in front of the counter, watching me type in her insurance info. The kid stands on his tiptoes to peer over the top and watches me with wild, frightened eyes. Going by his lack of records, this might be his first checkup. Welcome to the Pit of Despair, kid.

“Mom, can I have one?” he says, reaching for the candy dish.

“When you’re done, hon.”

I hand the card back with the clipboard of first-time forms and lean back in my chair, drawing in a long breath as I eye the clock. Four thirty is the last appointment today, and it’s 3:15. The sooner I can get out of here, the better. I don’t have a class tonight, so this is one of those rare evenings where I can actually rest, maybe get a few hours of sleep. Very soon I will be finishing my degree and I can finally quit this awful job, and get away from Burt.

Here he comes now.

Burt Simonson, DDS, is what a person who hates dentists pictures when you say
dentist
. Tall and lean with graying hair and oversized eyeglasses, he struts around the office like the king of his own little domain, and as soon as he sees me he openly rakes his eyes over my body.

It didn’t hit me until I started working here that the employees all have something in common. The dental assistants, the other receptionist, we’re all women and we’re all young. At thirty-four I’m the oldest. Laura, the other receptionist, is only nineteen.

He likes redheads, too. There’s me, Cassie the hygienist, and one of the assistants, though hers comes out of a bottle.

The implications of the pattern didn’t occur to me until I’d been working here six weeks and he started to get comfortable around me, and feel familiar enough to take an occasional look down the V-neck of my scrubs. I started wearing a t-shirt under them after that.

I slide the window in front of me closed, muffling whatever he’s going to say from the patients seated outside.

“There’s my favorite office milf,” he says, leaning against the counter next to me.

I flinch.

I know what that stands for. Every time he calls me that I want to punch him in the balls, but I need this job. I don’t even let myself scowl.

“Something I can help you with?” I say coolly.

“Yeah. I just got my new Benz. I thought maybe you could help me christen her.”

“You want me to smash a bottle on the trunk?”

He laughs.

I’d rather smash the bottle on his head.

“Nah, just let me give you a ride home.”

“No, thanks. I’ll take the bus.”

“Pretty young thing like you shouldn’t be riding the bus alone at night.”

First of all, it’s not night, I’m leaving at five o’clock. On the dot.

Second of all, I’m not that young anymore.

I suppose I am where he’s concerned. Burt is old enough to be my father. Hell, he could be the other receptionist’s grandfather, and he hits on her like this, too.

“I’ll be fine. I’ve never had any trouble.”

It’s not like we live in the kind of place where I need to worry about a bus ride. Castlebrook might be the safest small town on the planet. Mostly. I don’t even live in town, anyway.

It doesn’t matter. I could live in a demilitarized zone and I wouldn’t take a ride from this creep. I catch myself unconsciously plucking at the V-neck of my scrubs and stop myself, and turn to my computer. Hopefully if I look busy he’ll leave me alone and go, say, attend to one of his patients. You know, actually do his job.

“You’ve got a visitor.” He nods at the window before he rises to leave.

Sighing, I turn to slide the window open and take care of the next patient.

As the end of the day approaches, the appointments slow down and the waiting room empties out. I hop up, turn the lock on the front door so it can only be pushed open from the inside, and return to my desk to play Candy Crush until quittin’ time.

After the last patient leaves I gather up my tote bag, throw the strap over my shoulder, and head out.

I hear laughter in the back hallway and spot Burt chasing Stacy the hygienist out of one of the exam rooms, grabbing her ass. I turn away with a snap, push through the front door, and start walking for the bus stop.

It would be eighty-five fucking degrees outside. It’s almost October but the heat hasn’t broken yet. Beads of sweat slide on my face and neck and chest and itch between my shoulder blades by the time I get to the bench, and I have to tug the clingy, itchy fabric of my scrubs away from my skin to try to get some air.

The humidity makes it a futile gesture.

When Burt rolls up, it makes me wish I was wearing a turtleneck. He’s got Laura the jailbait receptionist sitting in the front seat of his new Benz. I can see he splurged. It’s one of those ones with the hardtop convertible roof.

“Want a ride?” he shouts.

“It’s a two seater?”

He nods at Laura. “Sit on her lap!”

“No, thanks,” I say in a voice that could freeze salt water.

I mean to say, “Fuck off and die, you disgusting pig,” but he signs my paychecks and this was the first and only job I could find while I work on my degree.

Burt laughs, and Laura joins him. They’re fucking laughing at me. Worst of all it’s a kind of “I’ll get you eventually” laugh, like he knows he’ll wear me down. He’s already asked me to join him for dinner.

Not a chance.

The Burtmobile rolls off into the sunset, leaving me sweltering in the heat until the bus rumbles up five minutes late at quarter after five, meaning my girls have been home alone for over an hour. I tromp up onto the bus and slide my card through the reader to pay for my seat.

Of course, it’s full. I walk to the back and stand, holding one of the posts, and brace myself for forty-five minutes of this. If I had my own car it would be a ten-minute drive.

Yawning, I sway with the motion of the bus as it rumbles off.

By the fourth stop I can finally sit down and collapse into a seat. I smell like ass, my feet hurt, I’ve been up for fourteen hours already, and I just want a nap. Oh, and some food. Real food.

By the time my stop rolls up I’m starting to nod off. Somehow I manage to scrape together the brains not to fall asleep and miss it, and jab the button on the side so the driver pulls over.

I lurch back down to the pavement and start walking. It’s another fifteen minutes to the house from here at a brisk pace, and I manage a brisk pace as long as I can.

My first thought on seeing my home is always the same. I hate this place. The entrance to Hunter’s Run is landscaped like the driveway to a grand mansion, rows of trees leading up to a guarded gatehouse.

When I walk up, the guard on duty, Todd, is kicked back in his chair, reading an issue of Popular Mechanics. I stop at the gate and clear my throat.

“Rose.” He sits up. “On your way home?”

“Yeah. Can I trouble you for a ride in the golf cart?”

He sighs. “Yeah, sure. Hold on.”

I stand there while he locks up the gatehouse and hangs one of those little moveable clock signs marked WILL RETURN, the time set ahead ten minutes. The golf cart is parked on the other side of the gate, which really only stops cars; I just walk around it. I settle in next to Todd and he starts it up, the little motor buzzing like a lawnmower as he drives me down Elm and then up Beech Tree Street, to my house.

I resent the goddamn thing more and more every time I see it. With five bedrooms, it’s practically a mansion. It was all Russel’s idea. Russel Hayes, my ex-husband. I “kept” the house, if you could call it that. Between alimony and child support and my salary I can barely afford the payments and food for my two daughters.

The house is a gaudy monstrosity, dominated in the front by an empty garage and a towering high-ceilinged foyer.

Todd stops and grunts.

I have neighbors. Behind me are the Lincolns. On the driveway side of my house are the Bartons. Across the street are the Moores.

I don’t know who lives on the other side. I’ve never met them and, as far as I know, the house is empty. I’d have assumed it was abandoned, except that it’s clearly furnished and somebody must be paying the bills, or else there’d be a notice from the sheriff tacked to the door.

Somebody has apparently moved in, though. There’s a car in the driveway. A big, obnoxious muscle car, a nineteen-sixty something, black with lots of shiny chrome.

“I’ll have to say something,” Todd says.

Of course. The home owner’s association. There are so many
rules
in this place. Don’t do this, don’t do that. You can’t actually
park
in your driveway, the car must be in the garage, unless it’s within three years of the current model year. We wouldn’t want Mrs. Campbell the block captain to be offended by the sight of a four-year-old car.

“Let me handle it,” I sigh.

I don’t know why I keep piling other people’s problems on myself. I should just let Todd handle it, stumble into my house, and flop on the floor for a nap.

Of course I can’t.

“What?”

“Yeah, I’ll say something. He must have just moved in. Seriously.”

“Right.” Todd shrugs. “If you insist.”

I step out of the cart. “Thanks for the ride.”

He gives me a curt nod. “Anytime.”

As the golf cart buzzes off toward the front gate, I trudge up to the door of my neighbor’s house and knock lightly. This is a bad idea. Maybe if he or she doesn’t notice me I can just go home and forget about this. I have enough trouble keeping my own place up to snuff.

I can’t afford a landscaper like everyone else on the block, and I’m constantly fighting my youngest, Kelly, over her fixation on getting a pool. We can’t get a pool. It’s in the rules.

No answer. I start to turn away from the door when I hear the lock rasp and it swings inward.

“What?” the man inside snaps.

I blink.

He’s, um. He’s wearing pants, I mean that’s a start. Nothing else. Barefoot, but I’m not paying much attention to his feet. I’ve never seen anyone so muscular in person, like an underwear model, but he’s covered in tattoos, almost to the point I’d think he was wearing a transparent shirt.

There’s a dragon on his chest and chains around his belly and figures tattooed down both arms, stopping where they’d be covered up by a dress shirt. I can’t make them all out, because he’s swathed in bandages. He towers over me and bores into me with startling blue eyes.

“What?” he says again.

“You can’t park your car there,” I say meekly.

He glares at me then at the car.
“What?”

“Is that the only word you know?” I snap, anger bubbling to the surface through a thick layer of fatigue.

“Lady, it’s my driveway. I’ll park my car in my fucking driveway if I damn well please.”

He slams the door in my face.

I clench my fists, and my teeth.

You asshole. I go through all this shit to live in this stupid neighborhood with these people that look down on me and call me a slut behind my back. I work for that perverted weasel and eat ramen noodles three times a week so my kids can have real food, and I try to do you a
courtesy
and keep the stupid block captain off your back for their stupid rule, and
this
is what I get?

I pound on the door with my fist.

It swings open again.

“
What?
”
he bellows, louder.

“Listen, asshole,” I snap at him, rising on my toes to stand a little taller. “It’s not my rule, okay? If you don’t move that jalopy, Postimia Campbell is going to file a complaint with the HOA board and tow the goddamn thing and give you a fine.”

“What the fuck is a HOA board? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m trying to
help you
, you obnoxious jackass.”

“Did you call my car a jalopy?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Who the hell are you, anyway?”

“I live next door. I’m your neighbor.”

“Great. Go read the neighborhood watch meeting minutes or something.”

He rolls his eyes for emphasis.

“I told you—”

He slams the door in my face.

Then opens it.

“Get off my porch, lady.”

Slam.

I stand there fuming for a second and then stomp down the front walk, down to the driveway and then to the street. There are no sidewalks in Hunter’s Run. People aren’t supposed to walk here. If you own a house in this craphole you should have a fancy car to drive.

When I finally get back to my own house, my oldest daughter, Karen, opens the door before I even touch the knob.

“Hey, Mom,” she says brightly. “We made dinner.”

Oh come
on
.

I trudge wearily into the house, and I can smell burnt food. When I walk into the kitchen, Kelly is standing in front of the stove, stirring a pot of macaroni and cheese. Judging from the marks on the stovetop, it boiled over repeatedly while she was cooking the noodles. Karen has a full pack’s worth of hot dogs rolling around in butter in a frying pan.

They’re a little scorched, but they’re still good. I turn down the heat and roll them around a bit to make sure they’re actually hot in the middle and not just burned on the outside, while Karen lays out buns.

They didn’t do such a bad job. I need to stir the mac and cheese a bit. The cheese powder got a little lumpy. At least they didn’t burn the house down. I want to be home to meet them but I have to work to buy them food. They’re not the only latchkey kids at school. That’s what I tell myself.

Karen, my oldest, is fourteen. I had her when I was still in college. Her father, my ex, was one of my professors. Since I got pregnant by him, I had to quit to save his job.
That was nice of you, Russel
. Kelly came along four years later, and a few years after that I guess I was too worn out for him and he decided to trade up for a new model. After taking half his coeds out for a test drive first.

If anything good came of my marriage, it’s these two. Karen makes me the most nervous. She’s starting high school this year and she looks so much like me when I was her age. It feels like a million years ago.