One Reckless Summer (36 page)

But it was just like she’d told Sue Ann; once you loved someone that way, you couldn’t
really
wish for that love to end—it was too big a part of your soul. So instead she closed her eyes and made a wish for the man who had brought out such reckless abandon in her this summer:
I wish for Mick to find true happiness.

Look, all I’m asking is for you to just have the tiniest bit of vision. You know, to just sit back for one minute and look at the big picture. To take a chance on something that just might end up being the most profoundly impactful moment for humanity, for the history…of history.

Carl Sagan

M
ick stood in front of the bathroom mirror, shaving. He generally only did it every two or three days, but a glance at his reflection after getting out of the shower had reminded him it had been a while, almost a week. He scowled at himself slightly.
So you managed to keep yourself shaved and in clean clothes out at that shit-hole cabin while
Wayne
was dying, but you can’t manage to do it
here,
where you have normal electricity and a normal life.
What the hell kind of sense did
that
make, besides none?

But he hadn’t felt like doing much of
anything
since getting back to the city. He’d gotten a new apartment in…well, kind of a crappy part of town, but it was what he could afford right now. He’d gotten one truckload of stuff out of storage so far, but hadn’t bothered to haul the rest over yet. Hell, at the moment, he just didn’t really care if he had a bed to sleep on or a decent place to watch TV. So far, he was sleeping on the same blow-up mattress he’d used out at the cabin and eating a lot of fast food.

It’s the heat,
he decided. It was hard to have much energy when it was so damn hot. Never mind that he’d had had plenty of energy in Destiny.

But you had to then, for
Wayne
.

And you were getting laid. Getting laid can do a lot for a guy’s energy level.

His gut clenched a little at the memory of Jenny beneath him, eager and willing. He closed his eyes for a second and shoved the vision aside.
This isn’t about Jenny. If anything, this is about
Wayne
; this is…mourning.

And he hadn’t been a
total
lazy ass since coming back to
Cincinnati
. He’d gotten his hair cut, which it had needed. He’d gotten a new tattoo, something he’d been thinking about since
Wayne
’s death. And he’d gotten his old job back with the same homebuilder who’d employed him the last few years. His old boss wasn’t crazy about the fact that Mick had quit out of the blue a few months ago and now suddenly shown back up, but apparently the fact that the guy still needed a good bricklayer outweighed that.

So Mick had started work again just this week, and getting back into a routine and feeling a little bit useful in the world…helped. To make him feel normal again. Kind of.
This weekend you should get your shit out of storage, once and for all.

As he left his building and crossed a pockmarked parking lot to get in his truck and head to the job site where he was erecting a stone fireplace for someone with a lot more money than him, he decided maybe when he got off work tonight he’d wander down to the bar he’d seen a couple blocks away from his new place. It looked like the kind of place where a guy might meet a willing woman. The kind of place a guy could drown his sorrows in more ways than one. The idea of getting drunk and laid and not feeling anything when it was over appealed.
Then why haven’t you done it yet?
That he couldn’t quite answer.

He hadn’t left Destiny because of Tolliver’s threat. He’d left due to one thing and one thing only. Because there was no reason to stay anymore. The one reason he’d had up until then had betrayed him in the worst way he could imagine. He still didn’t know why, and he couldn’t understand it.

Had she not comprehended what was at stake? Had she just…not taken their relationship as seriously as he’d thought, as seriously as
he
had? Well, he’d feared that, hadn’t he? Not that she’d hurt him, betrayed him, on purpose—but that she’d thought she felt more for him than she really did from being on the rebound from her asshole ex-husband. And if she didn’t really love him, surely that had made telling her dad easier.

Of course, maybe she’d told her father back before…well, before it was serious, back when it was just sex. But even then, she’d
promised,
again and again. She’d made him feel so sure he could trust her. Over time, he’d come to trust her more than he’d ever trusted
anyone,
including his brother.

The reasons why, though, didn’t really matter—all that mattered was that what he’d always suspected had turned out to be true: You couldn’t trust anyone in this world. It had been his mistake for believing he could. His chest, stomach, felt hollow with thinking of her, and of how he’d felt when Tolliver had told Mick how he’d found out about
Wayne
.

But no, this isn’t about Jenny. You’re just…hungry or something.

So he pulled through a Burger King drive-thru and grabbed a breakfast sandwich and orange juice and
scarfed
it down on the way and tried to tell himself it made him feel better.

Practically speaking, after a few days of mulling over the situation, he’d almost quit being mad at her. Quit being mad, but not quit being…hurt. Feeling…let down. Deeply. She’d proven what he’d already known all along—that they were too different, that there was just too much standing between them for their relationship to be more than a summer of hot sex. Just as he’d told himself that last morning by the cabin, he should have listened to his instincts.

In a weird way, he was almost
glad
she’d done something to tip him off, to make him realize that what they had couldn’t last—before it was too late. And as for all the shit he’d said to her those last couple of days, about loving her and taking care of her—well, even if he’d meant it, it wasn’t a mistake he’d make again, with
any
woman. He was better off alone. As always, the only person he could really depend on was himself.

Although after he drove back through the winding streets of the under-construction neighborhood and pulled up along the curb of the house where he was working today, he quit feeling hollow—and started feeling
pissed as hell
when he saw a goddamn cop car sitting there, one that said
DESTINY POLICE
on the side.

God damn it—what the hell was
this
about?

Barely able to contain his fury, he slammed his door and marched past the other guys at the site to where none other than Walter Tolliver stood leaning against his cruiser. “Damn it,” Mick snapped at him, “I did what you
said,
old man—and now you come here to make trouble for me?”

When Tolliver turned his head to face him, he looked…weirdly calm. Not at all like on the day
he’d
confronted Mick at the cabin. “It’s not like that. I’m not here to make trouble.”

Mick didn’t know what to make of that, but said, “Yeah, well, that
car
makes trouble. That goddamn
car
tells everybody on this job site that I’ve got the law on my ass. I’ve worked long and hard to put my past behind me, and I sure as hell don’t need you dredging it up.” He was trying to keep his voice down so the two guys hauling cabinetry up the driveway right now wouldn’t hear, but he had a feeling he wasn’t doing a very good job.

“Relax, Brody,” Tolliver said. “I told your boss and all those other
fellas
that I’m here on personal business,
nothin
’ legal, and that’s the truth.”

Personal, huh?
That blindsided Mick a little—and he wasn’t altogether sure he believed it. “What could you and I have to talk about that’s personal?”

The older man hesitated slightly,
then
looked Mick in the eye. “I’m here to apologize,” he said.

And Mick narrowed his gaze, still not quite believing. “You’re what?”

“I was wrong in what I said to you—it wasn’t my business. You can go wherever you want.”

“I know that,” Mick replied simply, gruffly.

“And if you wanted to come back to Destiny, that’d be fine with me.”

Mick couldn’t have been more taken aback—so he just answered honestly. “Well, it wouldn’t be fine with
me
. I was glad to see it disappear in my rearview mirror.”

Tolliver narrowed his gaze on Mick. “That’s funny, ’cause I thought you might be
fixin
’ to stay.”

Mick drew in his breath and decided to change the subject a little. “So why the change of heart? And what the hell brought you all the way to
Cincinnati
to tell me?”

Now it was the police chief who took a deep breath and blew it back out. “Truth is, Brody, I met a woman…who’s made me start
thinkin
’ maybe I judged you too harshly. Jenny told me you’d changed, but I didn’t give you a chance. I try to be a good man, and I try to make up for my mistakes. I didn’t treat you fairly, and
I’m
ownin
’
up to it, that’s all.”

Mick swallowed. Not many people had apologized to him for much in life. He thought through it a minute and spoke the truth, even if it was humbling. “The fact is
,
you treated me
more
than fair. I could be in jail right now, but I’m not. So if running me out of town is the worst you did to me, I’m not gonna fault you for it.”

“Can you forgive Jenny, too? Because when you asked me how I found out about what you were
doin
’, I didn’t tell you
why
she told me. So I’ll tell you now. I didn’t give her much of a choice. I was
gettin
’ ready to head out to your place ’cause I knew your brother had gone
missin
’ and I’d had a tip somebody might be out at the cabin—and that’s when Jenny stopped me. She told me in order to protect you. And she made me promise to leave you alone. It was real important to her. Otherwise, you probably
would
be in jail now. So by
tellin
’ me, she pretty much…saved you. I hope you’ll forgive her.”

“I already forgave her,” Mick admitted matter-of-factly.

“She doesn’t know that.”

Mick crossed his arms. “Well, that’s probably best. I think we all know that her and me…” He stopped, shook his head,
glanced
down at his dusty
workboots
. “Hell, when you have to sneak around to see somebody, it’s never gonna work. It means there’s a hell of a lot keeping you apart. I’m sorry I hurt her, but
you
know and
I
know that she’s better off without somebody like me in her life.”

“I didn’t say that,” Walter Tolliver replied, surprising him.

Still, Mick raised his gaze back to Jenny’s father. “Nope, but I did. I appreciate you coming here, but you don’t need to worry about me darkening Jenny’s doorstep again. I got a life here, she’s got a life there, and it’ll be easier for everybody if we just keep it that way.”

Mick didn’t go to the bar up the street that night. Or the next night. Or the next.

Instead, he watched reality TV and decided that most of those people didn’t know
anything
about reality. And he thought a lot about his visit from Walter Tolliver—because apparently, miracles
did
happen. He couldn’t think of anyone on the planet he would be more surprised to get an apology from, and it gave him a grudging respect for the guy. He supposed that was why he’d gotten so honest with him before all was said and done.

As for Jenny, though…he didn’t like to think of her hurting because of him, but he was hurting, too, and what he’d told her father was true: All of their lives were going to be easier with him here and her there. People in Destiny would never accept him. And once upon a time—hell, as recently as a couple of months ago—he hadn’t cared what people thought of him, but somewhere along the way, he supposed that had changed. He’d started caring what Jenny thought of him. And now he supposed he cared what the people in Jenny’s life thought of him. He just wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad one.

And it did weird things to his heart to realize, to
wonder,
if maybe he’d been wrong in the end, if maybe this was more than a rebound thing she’d gotten caught up in, if maybe it had been just as serious, just as real, as she’d made it sound at the time. Just as real as it had turned out to be for him.

Even if that was the case, though, it didn’t alter the big picture. It was good he’d left when he did. In the end, she’d be happier without him—she’d be happier eventually settling down with somebody more
like
her, somebody who could give her more than he could.

It was Friday night when he brought home a Big Mac and some fries and ate at his old kitchen table while he watched the same television set he’d taken out to the cabin for Wayne. Local newscasters said the current heat emergency was still on and shelters were still open for people without air-conditioning. It was so hot now that it was killing people. The heat wave was finally supposed to break again tomorrow, but Mick decided he’d believe it when he felt it. And was thankful that at least he
did
have A/C. Not central air like at Jenny’s house, but an old wall unit that kept the place comfortable enough.

When a knock came on the door, he flinched. Shit. Who would be knocking at
his
door? Almost panicking reflexively from his days of hiding out with Wayne, he glanced at the picture of him and his brother as boys—he’d picked up a frame for it and set it on a shelf on his TV stand, next to the arrowhead—then remembered Wayne was dead and that he wasn’t doing anything illegal anymore.

So he decided it had to be somebody selling something and nearly didn’t answer, but when the knock sounded again, louder and more annoying this time, he abandoned his last few fries and went to the door.