Authors: Rachel Gibson
She forced the image of Darlas big bare butt from her head and her mind back on the reason she was in Morts. Shed expected to dislike Mick Hennessy on sight. She didnt. No. I bought a house out on Red Squirrel Road.
Nice area. Are you on the lake?
Yes. She wondered if Mick had inherited his fathers charm along with his looks. From what Maddie had been able to gather, Loch Hennessy had charmed women into the sack with little more than a look in their direction. Hed certainly charmed her mother.
Are you here for the summer, then?
Yes.
He tilted his head to one side and studied her face. His gaze slid from her eyes to her mouth and lingered for several heartbeats before he looked back up. Whats your name, brown eyes?
Maddie, she answered, holding a breath as she waited for him to connect her with the past. His past.
Just Maddie?
Dupree, she answered, using her pen name.
Someone down the bar called his name and he glanced away for a moment before returning his attention to her. He gave her an easy smile. One that brought out those dimples of his and softened his masculine face. He didnt recognize her. Im Mick Hennessy. The music started once more and he said, Welcome to Truly. Maybe Ill see you around.
She watched him walk away without telling him the reason she was in town and why she was sitting in Morts. Now wasnt the best time or place, but there was no maybe about it. He didnt know it yet, but Mick Hennessy would be seeing a lot of her. Next time he might not be so welcoming.
The sounds and smells of the bar pressed in on her and she hung her purse over her shoulder. She slid from the stool and wove her way through the dimly lit crowd. At the door, she looked over her shoulder toward the bar and Mick. Beneath the lights above him, he tilted his head back a little and smiled. She paused and her grasp on the handle tightened as he turned and poured a beer from a row of spigots.
While she stood there, the juke playing something about whiskey for men and beer for horses, her gaze took in his dark hair at the back of his neck and his wide shoulders in his black T-shirt. He turned and placed a glass on the bar. As she watched him, he laughed at something, and until that moment Maddie hadnt known what shed expected of Mick Hennessy, but whatever it had been, this living, breathing man who laughed and smiled hadnt been it.
Through the dark bar and cigarette haze, his gaze landed on her. She could almost feel it reach across the room and touch her, which she knew was pure illusion. She stood in the darkened entrance and it would be near impossible for him to distinguish her from the crowd. She opened the door and stepped outside into the cool evening air. While shed been in Morts, night had descended on Truly like a heavy black curtain, the only relief a few lit business signs and the occasional streetlamp.
Her black Mercedes was parked across the street in front of Tinas Mountain Skivvies and the Rock Hound Art Gallery. She waited for a yellow Hummer to pass before she stepped from the curb and walked from beneath the glow of Morts neon sign.
A keyless transponder in her purse unlocked the drivers-side door as she approached, and she opened it and slid inside the cool leather interior. Normally, she wasnt materialistic. She didnt care about clothes or shoes. Since no one ever saw her underwear these days, she didnt care if her bra matched her panties and she didnt own expensive jewelry. Before purchasing the Mercedes two months ago, Maddie had put over two hundred thousand miles on her Nissan Sentra. Shed needed a new vehicle and had been looking at a Volvo SUV when shed turned around and locked eyes on the black S600 sedan. The showroom lights had been shining down on the car like a signal from God, and she could have sworn she heard angels singing hallelujahs like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Who was she to ignore a message from the Lord? A few hours after walking into the dealership, shed driven the car out of the showroom and into the garage of her home down in Boise.
She pressed the start button on the shifter and hit the lights. The CD in her stereo system filled the Mercedes with Warren Zevons Excitable Boy . She pulled away from the curb and flipped a U in the middle of Main Street. There was something brilliant and disturbing about Warren Zevons lyrics. A little like looking into the mind of someone who stood at the line between crazy and sane and occasionally pushed one toe over. Toying with the line, testing it, then pulling back just before getting sucked into looneyville. In Maddies line of work, there werent many who pulled back in time.
The Mercedes headlights cut through the inky night as she turned left at the only traffic signal in town. The very first car shed ever owned had been a Volkswagen Rabbit, so battered the seats had been held together with duct tape. Shed come a long way since then. A long way from the Roundup Trailer Court where shed lived with her mother, and the cramped little house in Boise where shed been raised by her great-aunt Martha.
Until the day of her retirement, Martha had worked the front counter at Rexall Drug, and theyd lived off her small paycheck and Maddies Social Security checks. Money had always been tight, but Martha kept half a dozen cats at any given time. The house had always smelled like Friskies and litter boxes. To this day, Maddie hated cats. Well, maybe not her good friend Lucys cat, Mr. Snookums. Snookie was cool. For a cat.
She drove for a mile around the east side of the lake before turning into her driveway lined with thick towering pines and pulling to stop in front of the two-story home shed bought a few months ago. She didnt know how long shed keep the house. One year. Three. Five. Shed bought rather than leased for the investment. Property around Truly was hot, and when or if she sold the place, she stood to make a nice profit.
Maddie cut the Mercedes headlights and the darkness pressed in on her. She ignored the apprehension in her chest as she got out of the car and walked up the steps and onto the wraparound porch lit up with numerous sixty-watt bulbs. She wasnt afraid of anything. Certainly not the dark, but she knew bad things did happen to women who werent as aware and as cautious as Maddie. Women who didnt have a small arsenal of safety devices in their shoulder bags. Things like a Taser, Mace, a personal alarm, and brass knuckles, just to name a few. A girl could never be too careful, especially at night in a town where it was difficult to see your hand in front of your face. In a town set smack-dab in the middle of dense forest where wildlife rustled from trees and underbrush. Where rodents with beady little eyes waited for a girl to go to bed before ransacking the pantry. Maddie had never had to use any of her personal safety devices, but lately shed been wondering if she was a good enough shot to zap a marauding mouse with her Taser.
Lights burned from within the house as Maddie unlocked the forest-green door, stepped inside, and flipped the deadbolt behind her. Nothing scurried from the corners as she tossed her purse on a red velvet chair by the door. A large fireplace dominated the middle of the big living room and divided it into what was meant to be the dining room but what Maddie used as her office.
On a coffee table in front of the velvet sofa sat Maddies research files and an old five-by-seven photograph in a silver frame. She reached for the picture and looked into the face of her mother, at her blond hair, blue eyes, and big smile. It had been taken a few months before Alice Jones had died. A photo of a happy twenty-four-year-old, so vibrant and alive, and like the yellowed photograph in the expensive frame, most of Maddies memories had faded too. She recalled bits of this and snatches of that. She had a faint memory of watching her mother put on makeup and brush her hair before leaving for work. She recalled her old blue Samsonite suitcase and moving from place to place. Through the watery prism of twenty-nine years, she had a very faint memory of the last time her mother had packed up their Chevy Maverick and the two-hour drive north to Truly. Moving into their trailer house with orange shag carpet.
The clearest memory Maddie had of her mother was the scent of her skin. Shed smelled like almond lotion. But mostly she recalled the morning her great-aunt had arrived at the Roundup Trailer Court to tell her that her mother was dead.
Maddie set the photo back on the table and moved across the hardwood floor into the kitchen. She grabbed a Diet Coke out of the refrigerator and unscrewed the cap. Martha had always said that Alice was flighty. Flitting like a butterfly from place to place, from man to man, searching for somewhere to belong and looking for love. Finding both for a time before moving on to the next place or newest man.
Maddie drank from the bottle, then replaced the cap. She was nothing like her mother. She knew her place in the world. She was comfortable with who she was, and she certainly didnt need a man to love her. In fact, shed never been in love. Not the romantic kind that her good friend Clare wrote about for a living. And not the foolish, mad-for-the-man kind that had ruled and ultimately taken her mothers life.
No, Maddie had no interest in a mans love. His body was a different matter, and she did want an occasional boyfriend. A man to come over several times a week to have sex. He didnt have to be a great conversationalist. Hell, he didnt even have to take her to dinner. Her ideal man would just take her to bed, then leave. But there were two problems with finding her ideal man. First, any man who just wanted sex from a woman was most likely a jerk. Second, it was difficult to find a willing man who was good in bed rather than who just thought he was good. The chore of sorting through men to find what she wanted had become such a hassle, shed given up four years ago.
She hooked the top of the Coke bottle between two fingers and moved from the kitchen. Her flip-flops slapped the bottoms of her feet as she walked through the living room and passed the fireplace to her office. Her laptop sat on an L-shaped desk shoved up against the wall and she flipped on the lamp clamped to the hutch of her desk. Two sixty-watt bulbs lit up a stack of diaries, her laptop, and her Taking Names and Kicking Ass sticky notes. Altogether there were ten diaries in various shapes and colors. Red. Blue. Pink. Two of the diaries had locks, while one of the others was nothing more than a yellow spiral notebook with the word Diary written in black marker. All of them had belonged to her mother.
Maddie tapped the Diet Coke bottle against her thigh as she gazed at the top white book. She hadnt known theyd even existed until her great-aunt Marthas death a few months ago. She didnt believe Martha had purposely kept the diaries from her. More than likely shed intended to give them to Maddie someday but had completely forgotten. Alice hadnt been the only flighty female on the Jones family tree.
As Marthas only living relative, it had been up to Maddie to settle her affairs, see to her funeral, and clean out her house. Shed managed to find homes for her aunts cats and had planned to donate most everything else to Goodwill. In one of the last cartons shed sorted through, shed come across old shoes, outdated purses, and a battered boot box. Shed almost tossed the battered box without lifting the top. A part of her almost wished that she had. Wished shed spared herself the pain of staring down into the box and feeling her heart shoved into her throat. As a child shed longed for a connection with her mother. Some little something that she could have and hold. Shed dreamed of having something she could take out from time to time that tied her to the woman whod given her life. Shed spent her childhood longing for somethingsomething that had been a few feet away in the top of a closet the whole time. Waiting for her in a Tony Lama box.
The box had contained the diaries, her mothers obituary, and newspaper articles about her death. It had also held a satin bag filled with jewelry. Cheep stuff, mostly. A Foxy Lady necklace, several turquoise rings, a pair of silver hoop earrings, and a tiny pink band from St. Lukes Hospital with the words Baby Jones printed on it.
Standing in her old bedroom that day, unable to breathe as her chest imploded, shed felt like a kid again. Scared and alone. Afraid to reach out and make the connection, but at the same time excited to finally have something tangible that had belonged to a mother she hardly remembered.
Maddie set her Coke on the top of her desk and spun her office chair around. That day, shed taken the boot box home and placed the silk bag in her jewelry box. Then shed sat down and read the diaries. Shed read every word, devouring them in one day. The diaries had started on her mothers twelfth birthday. Some of them had been bigger and taken her mother longer to fill. Through them shed gotten to know Alice Jones.
Shed gotten to know her as a child of twelve whod longed to grow up and be an actress like Anne Francis. A teen who longed to find true love on The Dating Game , and a woman who looked for love in all the wrong places.
Maddie had found something to connect her to her mother, but the more shed read, the more shed felt at loose ends. Shed gotten her childhood wish and shed never felt so alone.
Owning and running bars was in Micks blood. Micks great-grandfather had made and sold cheap grain alcohol during Prohibition and opened Hennessys two months after the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed and the spigots once again flowed in the United States. The bar had been in his family ever since.
Mick didnt particularly care for belligerent drunks, but he did like the flexible hours that came with being his own boss. He didnt have to take orders or answer to anyone, and when he walked into one of his bars, he had a feeling of possession that hed never felt with anything else in his life. His bars were loud and raucous and chaotic, but it was a chaos he controlled.
More than the hours and feeling of possession, Mick liked making money. During the summer months, he made tons of money from tourists and from the people who lived in Boise but owned cabins on the lake in Truly.
The coin sorter stopped and Mick slid stacks of coins into paper sleeves. An image of a dark-haired, red-lipped woman entered his head. He wasnt surprised that hed noticed Maddie Dupree within seconds of stepping behind the bar. It only would have surprised him if he hadnt noticed her. With her beautiful smooth skin and seductive brown eyes, she was just the sort of woman who drew his attention. That small mole at the corner of her full lips had reminded him just how long it had been since hed kissed a mouth like hers and worked his way south. Down her chin and the arch of her throat to all the soft places and sweet parts.
Since his move back to Truly two years ago, his sex life had suffered more than he liked. Which sucked. Truly was a small town where people went to church on Sundays and married young. They tended to stay married and if not, looked to remarry real quick. Mick never messed with married women or women with marriage on their minds. Never even thought twice about it.
Not that there werent plenty of unmarried women in Truly. Owning two bars in town, he came in contact with a lot of available women. A good share of them let him know they were interested in more than his cocktail list. Some of them hed known all of his life. They knew the stories and gossip and thought they knew him too. They didnt, or they would know he preferred to spend time with women who didnt know him or the past. Who didnt know the sordid details of his parents lives.
Mick shoved the money and receipts into deposit bags and zipped them closed. The clock on the wall above his desk read 2:05. Traviss latest school photograph sat on a polished oak desk; a sprinkling of brown freckles scattered across the boys cheeks and nose. Micks nephew was seven going on fourteen and had too much Hennessy in him for his own good. The innocent smile didnt fool Mick one bit. Travis had his ancestors dark hair and blue eyes and wild ways. If left un checked, hed inherit their fondness for fighting, booze, and women. Any one of those traits by themselves wasnt necessarily bad in moderation, but generations of Hennessys had never cared squat about moderation, and the combination had sometimes proved lethal.
He moved across the office and set the money on the top shelf of the safe, next to the printout of that nights transactions. He swung the heavy door shut, pushed down the steel handle, and spun the combination lock. The tick-tick of the lock filled the silence of the small office in the back of Morts.
Travis was giving Meg hell, that was for sure, and Micks sister had little understanding of boys. She just didnt get why boys threw rocks, made weapons out of everything they touched, and punched each other for no apparent reason. It was up to Mick to be the buffer in Traviss life and to help Meg raise him. To give the boy someone to talk to and to teach him how to be a good man. Not that Mick was an expert or a shining example of what made a good man. But he did have firsthand knowledge and some experience in what made an asshole.
He grabbed a set of keys off the desktop and headed out of the office. The heels of his boots thudded against the hardwood floor, sounding inordinately loud in the empty bar.
When he was a kid, no one had been around for him to talk to or teach him how to be a man. Hed been raised by his grandmother and sister, and hed had to learn for himself. More often than not, he learned the hard way. He didnt want the same for Travis.
Mick flipped the light switches off and headed out the back door. The cold morning air brushed his face and neck as he stuck a key in the deadbolt and locked it behind him. Right out of high school hed left Truly to attend Boise State down in the capital city. But after three years of aimless pursuits and a rotten attitude, hed enlisted in the army. At the time, seeing the world from the inside of a tank had sounded like a real smart plan.
A red Dodge Ram was parked next to the Dumpster and he climbed inside. Hed certainly seen the world. Sometimes more of it than he cared to remember, but not from the inside of a tank. Instead hed viewed it from thousands of feet in the air within the cockpits of Apache helicopters. Hed flown birds for the U.S government before getting out and moving back to Truly. The army had given him more than a kick-ass career and a chance to live a good life. It had taught him how to be a man in a way that living in a house of women had not. When to stand up and when to shut the hell up. When to fight and when to walk away. What mattered and what wasnt worth his time.
Mick started the truck and waited a few moments for the vehicle to warm up. He owned two bars, and he figured it was a very good thing that hed learned to deal with belligerent drunks and assorted dipshits in a way that didnt require throwing fists and cracking heads. Otherwise, hed get little else done. Hed be in one fight after another, walking around with a black eye and busted lip like he had growing up. Back then he hadnt known how to handle the dipshits of the world. Back then hed been forced to live with the scandal his parents had created. Hed had to live with the whispers when he walked into a room. The sideways glances at church or the Valley Grocery Store. The taunts from other children at school or, worse, the birthday parties he and Meg had not been invited to. Back then, hed handled every slight with his fists. Meg had retreated within herself.
Mick flipped on the headlights and shoved the truck into reverse. The Rams taillights lit up the alley as he looked over his shoulder and backed out of the parking space. In a larger town, the salacious lives of Loch and Rose Hennessy would have been forgotten within a few weeks. Front-page news for a day or two, then eclipsed by something more shocking. Something bigger to talk about over morning coffee. But in a town the size of Truly, where the juiciest scandal usually involved such nefarious deeds as a stolen bicycle or Sid Grimes poaching out of season, the sordidness of Loch and Rose Hennessy had kept the town talking for years. Speculating and rehashing every tragic detail had become a favorite pastime. Right up there with holiday parades, the ice-sculpting contest, and raising money for the towns various causes. But unlike decorating floats and instituting after-school just-say-no-to-drugs programs, what everyone seemed to forget, or perhaps didnt care about, was that within the wreckage that Rose and Loch had created, there had been two innocent children just trying to live it all down.
He shoved the truck into drive and rolled out of the alley and onto a dimly lit street. A lot of his childhood memories were old and faded and thankfully forgotten. Others were so crystal clear he could recall every detail. Like the night he and Meg had been woken up by a county sheriff, told to grab a few things, and taken to their grandmother Loraines house. He remembered sitting in the back of the squad car in his T-shirt, underwear, and sneakers, holding his Tonka truck, while Meg sat next to him, crying as if their world had just ended. And it had. He remembered all the squawk and adrenaline-laced voices on the police radio, and he remembered something about someone checking up on the other little girl.
Leaving the few city lights behind, Mick drove through the pitch-darkness for two miles before turning onto his dirt street. He drove past the house where he and Meg had been raised after the death of their parents. His grandmother Loraine Hennessy had been affectionate and loving in her own way. Shed made sure he and Meg had things like winter boots and gloves and were always filled with comfort food. But shed completely neglected what theyd really needed. The most normal life possible.
Shed refused to sell the old farmhouse where he and Meg had lived with their parents. For years it sat abandoned on the outskirts of town, becoming a haven for mice and a constant reminder of the family that had once lived there. A person couldnt enter town without seeing it. Without seeing the overgrown weeds, the peeling white paint, and the sagging clothesline.
And Monday through Friday, for nine months out of every year, Mick and Meg had been forced to pass it on their way to school. While the other children on the bus chatted about the latest episode of The Dukes Of Hazzard or checked out the contents of their lunch boxes, he and Meg turned their heads away from the window. Their stomachs got heavy and they held their breath, praying to God no one noticed their old house. God hadnt always answered and the bus would fill with the latest gossip the kids had overheard about Micks parents.
The bus trip to school had been a daily hell. A routine tortureuntil a cold October night in 1986 when the farmhouse erupted in a huge orange fireball and burned completely to the ground. Arson had been determined as the cause of the fire, and thered been a big investigation. Almost everyone in town had been questioned, but the person responsible for dousing the place with kerosene had never been caught. Everyone in town thought they knew whod done it, but no one had known for sure.
After Loraines death three years ago, Mick sold the property to the Allegrezza boys and hed thought about selling the family bar too, but in the end he decided to move back and run the place. Meg needed him. Travis needed him, and to his surprise, when hed returned to Truly, no one really talked about the scandal anymore. Whispers no longer followed him, or if they did, he no longer heard them.
He slowed the truck and made another left, turning into his long driveway and heading up a hill seated at the base of Shaw Mountain. Hed bought the two-story house shortly after hed moved back to Truly. It had a great view of the town and the rugged mountains surrounding the lake. He parked in the garage next to his twenty-one-foot ski boat and entered the house through the laundry room. The light in his office was on and he turned it off as he passed. He moved through the dark living room and took the stairs two at a time.
For the most part, Mick didnt really think of the past that had been such a focus in his childhood. Truly didnt talk about it anymore, which was ironic as hell, because he just didnt give a shit what people said and thought about him these days. He walked into his bedroom at the far end of the hall and moved through the moonlight pouring through the open slats of his wooden blinds. Shadow and muted strips of light touched his face and chest as he reached into his back pocket. He tossed his wallet on his dresser, then grabbed two fistfuls of his T-shirt and pulled it over his head. But just because he didnt give a shit about the past didnt mean that Meg was over it. She had her good days and bad days. Since the death of their grandmother, her bad days were getting worse, and that was just no way for Travis to live.
Moonlight and shadow spilled across the green quilt and solid oak posts of Micks bed. He dropped the shirt by his feet, then walked across the room. Sometimes he felt that moving back to Truly had been a mistake. It felt as if he were standing in one place, unable to move forward, and he didnt know why he felt that way. Hed bought a new bar and was thinking of starting a helicopter service with his friend Steve. He had money and success and he belonged in Truly with his family. The only family he had. The only family he was ever likely to have, but sometimessometimes he couldnt shake the feeling that he was waiting for something.
The mattress dipped as he sat on the edge and pulled off his boots and socks. Meg thought all he needed was to meet a nice woman to make him a good wife, but he just couldnt see himself married. Not now. Hed had a few good relationships in his life. Good right up until the moment that they werent. None had lasted more than a year or two. Partly because hed been gone so much. Mostly because he didnt want to buy a ring and walk down the aisle.
He stood and stripped to his underwear. Meg thought he was afraid of marriage because their parents had been so bad, but that wasnt true. The truth was that he didnt remember his parents all that much. Just a few watery memories of family picnics at the lake and his parents cuddling on the sofa. His mother crying at the kitchen table and an old heavy telephone thrown through the television screen.
No, the problem wasnt the memories of his parents fucked-up relationship. Hed just never loved one woman enough to want to spend the rest of his life with her. Which he didnt consider a problem at all.
He pulled back the quilt and lay between the cool sheets. For the second time that night, he thought about Maddie Dupree, and he laughed into the darkness. Shed been a smart-ass, but hed never held that against a woman. If fact, he liked a woman who could stand up to a man. Who gave as good as she got and didnt need a man to take care of her. Who wasnt needy or weepy or crazy as hell. Whose moods didnt swing like a pendulum.
Mick turned on his side and glanced at the clock on his nightstand. Hed set his alarm for ten a.m. and was ready for a full seven hours of uninterrupted shut-eye. Unfortunately, he didnt get it.