Authors: Dawn Atkins
“You fainted.”
“I’m fine. I got up too fast. No big deal.”
“Has this happened before?”
“A few times. When you’re old, shit happens.”
“You should see a doctor.”
“I will not be interfered with. If it’s my time, it’s my time.”
She pushed to her feet.
Cara stared up at her, stunned by her attitude.
“Don’t look at me like that. People pass young in my family.
I’ve had a good life.” She wobbled, so Cara jumped up and helped her into a
chair, ignoring Rosie’s attempt to slap away her hand.
“You haven’t even seen a doctor and you’re giving yourself a
death sentence. Maybe your thyroid’s off or your blood pressure’s wonky. Insulin
issues make people faint. It could be a million minor things.”
“Eddie’s hernia was minor, but the surgery killed him like
that.” She snapped her fingers. “I know what I know.”
“Rosie…that’s crazy.”
“No. What’s crazy is running out on a good job with good money
and free room and board.”
“Don’t change the subject.” Cara grabbed a cloth to wipe up the
spilled tea. “You need to get checked.” She dabbed at the wet paper.
“I’ll take that.” Rosie tried to snatch it from her, but Cara
held it long enough to read FORECLOSURE NOTICE in red letters. She handed it
over. “Are you losing the café?”
Rosie balled up the paper and tossed it, missing the
egg-basket-shaped trash can by a mile. “When something’s done, it’s done. That
goes for people as well as diners. You take a dignified bow and let the curtain
drop.”
The double whammy of bad news left Cara speechless. Rosie was
sick and at risk of losing her café. “But you live here. You’ll be
homeless.”
Rosie’s face went slack, her eyes distant, and she spoke
softly. “My friend Frieda in Tucson will let me stay with her through the end if
I need that. I might not. It takes a while to evict a person.”
“Through the
end?
You seriously
think you’re dying? Does Jonah know this?”
“No. And don’t you say one word to him or Evan.” She jabbed a
finger at Cara. “I want them living their lives when I clock out. They’re not to
spare me a thought.”
“They’re your family. You owe them.”
“
You
owe
me.
Swear you won’t tell.”
Cara’s mind reeled. It was Rosie’s life, of course, but she was
acting irrationally, wearing a bullheaded expression exactly like Cara’s
grandmother’s the time a commercial for a new heart drug listed heart-attack
warnings, which matched what her grandmother called
heartburn.
Cara had pleaded with her to get checked.
That’s just drug company scare tactics. They want you to buy
their pills for a hangnail.
That had been that.
Six months later, her grandmother was gone.
Not this time.
Cara wasn’t about to
back off with Rosie. She had to get through to her. In an instant, she knew
how.
“Okay,” she said. “I won’t tell Jonah under one condition.”
“What’s that?” Rosie said warily.
“You go to the doctor and get checked out.”
“Shit.” Rosie banged the table, making the jelly beans rattle
in the bowl. “What’s it to you anyway? You’re on a bus Monday.”
“I care about you,” she blurted.
Rosie’s face softened for a second, then she made herself
glare. “Then you’ll respect my wishes.”
Cara’s rebuttal popped instantly into her head. “Eddie wouldn’t
want this. Mr. Never Say Die, right? You’re not acting like the woman he
believed in.”
This time, Rosie took longer to get back her game face. Cara
had made headway.
“Don’t you dare wave my dead husband’s flag at me.” Her eyes
sparked fire.
Cara went for the throat this time. “Jonah has lost too much
already. He can’t lose you, especially for no good reason.”
Rosie opened her mouth, then closed it. They stared at each
other over the soggy bank notice like two gunfighters, the chicken clock
clucking down the seconds until the showdown.
Finally, Rosie blinked. “If I do go and I’m not saying I will—”
she swallowed, then finished in a shaky voice “—you have to stick around for the
verdict.”
Cara considered that. She wanted to repay Rosie’s kindness.
Beth Ann did like it here. So did Cara. She loved working in the café. Jonah was
here. But he was more of a reason to go than to stay.
Their future was in Phoenix—their future and their safety.
Always there was Barrett and the impulse that hounded her:
Run, run, go, get away, don’t stop until you’re truly
safe.
If she left, Rosie would not see a doctor. Cara could tell
Jonah, but she wasn’t sure that wouldn’t backfire. For Rosie’s sake and in
Cara’s grandmother’s honor, Cara had to stay.
It wouldn’t take more than a week, maybe two, for an exam and
lab results, right?
“As long as my job and the apartment in Denver will still be
there, it’s a deal.” She was reasonably certain of that. Families cycled through
the shelter and there were always minimum-wage jobs.
“You’ll work in the café?”
“But Bunny and I leave the minute you get the results. And no
putting it off.” Jonah would ensure Rosie got whatever treatment was required.
Hopefully, it would be minor. A pill. A change in diet.
“So, deal?” Rosie held out a hand.
Cara shook it. “You’re doing the right thing.”
“You just shoved the foul end of the stick at me. Don’t act
like you’ve done me a big hairy favor.”
Cara fought a smile at Rosie being so Rosie.
She remembered the other problem. “Now what about the café? We
can’t let you lose it.”
“
We,
is it now?
We’re
going to save the café?” A wily look came into
Rosie’s eyes. “I might have an idea or two, but you’ll need to figure out how to
bring back the customers. Like the coffee and French toast and whatnot.”
It was immediately clear that Rosie had it all figured out, but
let her health troubles sink her too low to take action. The plan was to catch
up on her mortgage payments by selling half the space in her shop to the owner
of the gallery next door, who’d been after it for years. Rosie gave Cara free
rein to make changes in the café.
Two weeks wasn’t much time to turn around a restaurant, but
seeing the new light in Rosie’s eye, buoyed by Rosie’s confidence in her, Cara
would do her best. She felt similar to when she’d started college, like she
belonged, she counted, she could make a difference. Maybe Barrett’s release
hadn’t set her as far back as she had thought.
“I’m done in now,” Rosie said when they’d finished talking.
“Something tells me I should have sent you on your way that first day. If you
hadn’t flashed me those sad puppy-dog eyes…”
“Come on. You practically shackled me to the counter.”
“Yeah, well I can be my own worst enemy.” But there was new
life in Rosie’s face.
She had hope.
Cara had given
her that and that made her heart sing. She couldn’t wait to get to the café in
the morning.
What about Barrett?
Panic caught her short, but Cara forced it back. He had no way
of knowing where they were. A few more days couldn’t possibly hurt.
Could they?
CHAPTER SEVEN
T
HE
MOUTHWATERING
scent
of fresh-baked pastry hit Jonah’s nose fifty yards from the café, making his
stomach growl. It wasn’t yet five and CJ had been busy, making the most of her
last day, it seemed.
Inside, the smell was so strong and so good he felt dizzy with
hunger.
He noticed she’d set up a cart with coffee fixings. That to-go
idea Evan had suggested. What the hell? It was bad enough that customers would
gripe when the French toast went away with CJ. Now this.
Frowning, he followed the sweet aroma to an even sweeter
sight—CJ bent over, hauling a tray of whatever she’d baked from the oven.
“What are you doing?” he asked gruffly, covering for his dazed
look.
“Oh!” She jumped, tilting the tray.
He caught the rolls that slid off. “Ow. Damn. Hot.” He dropped
them on the counter. “That makes three,” he said.
“Three what?”
“Injuries you caused me.” Blisters added to the scraped thumb
and the lump on his skull. At least the powdered sugar hadn’t
hurt.
“That was your own fault. You made me jump,” she said
indignantly.
The sight of her backside had fogged his reflexes, but he
wasn’t about to admit that.
“Could you help me frost these?” She motioned at four trays, a
bowl of frosting and two pastry bags. “They’re pecan rolls for the express
coffee service and a side dish for breakfast or lunch dessert.”
“Hold on. You’re
leaving.
I won’t
have a waitress, let alone time to run a coffee cart, squeeze lemons or bake any
damn—”
“But I’m not. Leaving, that is.” Her cheeks went as pink as she
smelled. He noticed dots of dark blue in the pale sky of her eyes.
“You’re not?” Despite the risk of personal injury that would
entail, he wanted to grin. Maybe some football pads would help....
“Not for a week or so. It’s better for my, uh, job. Plus, the
money’s good.” She glanced down, so he knew that wasn’t the whole story. What
was up?
“While I’m here, I want to spiff up the menu.” She picked up a
roll, swirled frosting on it and thrust it at him.
“Spiff up the…what?”
“Taste first, bitch after.”
He took a bite.
Wham.
Sweet, spicy,
nutty glory, the dough so flaky it dissolved on his tongue.
“Tastes great, huh?”
He couldn’t pretend not to agree. She’d no doubt seen his
pupils pulsating again.
“It feels good to bake again.” CJ sounded relieved, as if she’d
been afraid to try. She frosted more rolls while he savored the rest of his,
explaining how easy they were to make, that Ernesto could do the baking and they
could freeze ready-to-bake trays.
Jonah reached for a second, but she slapped his hand. “No
eating up the inventory. Start frosting. At a price point of $3.95, that’s $3
profit. Rosie needs the cash.”
“Rosie won’t care. She’s pretty laid-back about the café.” He
picked up the pastry bag. Whatever the reason, CJ was staying. He decorated the
first pecan roll with a heart made of lips he could draw from memory.
* * *
B
ARRETT
W
ARNER
RAISED
his
face to the sun, soaked in the endless blue of the California sky and inhaled
his first breaths of sweet free air. It was the same sun, sky and air he’d
experienced in the prison yard, but the sky had seemed grayer, the sun dimmer
and the air had tasted bitter on his tongue.
He’d endured three long years of gray sky, dim sun and bitter
air. Three years behind bars, each minute of each day a slow drip of acid on his
soul. He’d felt like Prometheus—his liver plucked by talons from his stomach
each day.
Three years for an
accident.
If
Cara hadn’t struck her head so hard on the washing machine, he would have
apologized for losing his temper, held her, convinced her not to tear apart
their family, and all would have been well.
Instead, she’d accused him of trying to
murder
her and the best his lawyer could get him was six years.
Six years.
Anger flared, but he quashed it. In prison, he’d discovered it
was a personality disorder that caused his rages. He’d learned to manage it with
pills, mental tricks and the lesson of prison: patience.
It’s over now.
He was out. The
horror was behind him. Soon he’d hold his wife and daughter in his loving arms
again. They’d been a closed circle, inviolate, which he’d broken with his
unknowing outburst.
When he’d married Cara, he’d sworn before God and man to love
and protect her. Instead he’d attacked her. Even if he’d been out of his mind
for that wild moment, he’d still committed the act.
Cara hadn’t answered a single letter. She’d no doubt kept the
ones he’d written to Beth Ann from her. How
dare
she? By what
right?
Rage swelled, but he pictured a manhole cover dropped over
bubbling magma.
Easy now. Slow down. It will be okay.
You’ll see them soon.
Barrett couldn’t wait to begin fresh, united as a family, never
again to be parted.
The macadam grit crunched beneath his shoes as he crossed the
street, leaving behind the clang of steel locks, the meaty stench, and the
bellows and grunts of the animals he’d been forced to live with all these
months. Barrett looked ahead toward his mother, standing beside the Range Rover,
as elegant and self-possessed as ever.
As he reached the curb, her polished smile faltered. He’d
changed. He knew that. He was all muscle now, his face gaunt and raw-looking,
his lips red and chapped, his eyes haunted, circled in black.
His mother reached to embrace him, but he held up his hands.
“Not while I stink of prison.” He saw dry-cleaning bags through the window.
She’d brought fresh clothes as instructed.
Barrett noticed tears on her cheeks. “No more tears. It’s
over.”
His mother shook her head. “It’s not over, Barrett. They’re
gone. I’m so sorry.”
“Gone? What do you mean…
gone?
”
“Cara and Beth Ann took off. They wouldn’t tell Deborah where
they were going.”
He felt like he’d been punched. His insides seemed to collapse
and his knees sagged. “She ran away? She took Beth Ann?”
Rage surged, rattling the manhole cover. “She can’t do that. I
have rights. She’s breaking the law. I won’t have it. I won’t permit it.”
His mother jerked back, frightened of his outburst.
“I’m not angry at you,” he said. “It’s a shock, that’s all.”
Hands shaking, he took a pill from the envelope in his pocket and swallowed it
dry.
“Cara has been so cruel,” his mother said bitterly. “She
refused my help, cut me off. She’s probably brain damaged from the accident. She
shouldn’t be allowed to raise Beth Ann.”
“Stop,” he snapped. “Cara is my wife and I love her. Don’t
speak of her that way.”
His mother’s cheeks turned red at his rebuke.
“She’s afraid,” Barrett said. “She can’t help that.” He’d
studied psychology in the prison library and identified Cara’s condition. “It’s
part of her disorder to be paranoid and hysterical. When I find her, we’ll
straighten it all out.” He’d get her the psychiatric help she needed.
“I’m sure you will.” His mother was always on his side. He was
grateful to her for that.
“First, I want to change my clothes, then I want prime rib and
two martinis. Then I’ll make some calls.”
He knew exactly which investigator to hire. Francis Malloy knew
how to bend the rules when the case required it. Certainly this one did. They
were putting a broken family back together. They were on the side of the
angels.
He would let Malloy start skip tracing—using database searches
and other means to track someone down—while he went to see Cara’s mother.
Deborah adored him. He’d bent the rules to handle her asshole boyfriend all
those years ago. The creep had been stubborn, requiring an overnight in an
emergency room to convince him to leave the state.
Deborah probably knew more than she realized about Cara’s
plans. Barrett was very good at ferreting out information.
“It will be all right,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt,
reaching for the fresh clothes. He would
make
it all
right. He had to. If he didn’t get his family back, all his suffering and
sacrifice would have been for nothing.
Barrett would get his family or die trying.
* * *
L
OUIS
STEPPED
SLOWLY
into the circle of sun where Beth Ann had put the
cream. She held her breath, held still. Today was the day she would pet him.
Monday, he’d taken one sip before he ran. Tuesday, he’d drunk
half the bowl, watching her with his one eye. Yesterday, he’d finished it,
hardly giving her a glance.
He was used to her.
She was glad they were staying long enough for her to make
friends with Louis. It was because her mother had talked Rosie into going to the
doctor, which was so dumb. Doctors helped you.
She wasn’t supposed to know about Rosie, but Beth Ann was
excellent at finding places to hear important facts adults wanted to hide.
Sometimes she was sorry later—like the night her mom and
grandma had argued about Beth Ann’s dad, with her mom saying he was mentally
disturbed and Grandma Price saying her mom exaggerated.
It
was an accident. You were both struggling. You hit your head.
I know what I saw,
her mother had
snapped.
He had murder in his eyes.
Murder in his eyes.
That made Beth
Ann feel as cold inside as if she’d gulped a whole ICEE at once.
Had her dad wanted to
kill
her
mom?
But her dad
adored
her mom and Beth
Ann. He used to say so constantly, his eyes all watery with love. Her mom said
he’d hidden his bad side from them, and that was even scarier. Did everyone have
a bad side?
That made Beth Ann’s stomach jump, and it started the black
blob in her brain that surged whenever she thought about The Terrible Thing.
She pushed it away and focused on Louis, who walked right up to
the bowl without even looking at her. He trusted her.
His pink tongue made a cute lapping sound. Her heart pinched
with love. She couldn’t wait to pet him. She longed to lift him onto her lap,
brush the dust from his fur and make it shiny.
Beth Ann rocked side to side on her butt cheeks, inching
forward. The pine needles crackled.
Louis froze and stared at her. After a few seconds, he went
back to the cream, his tongue slow at first, then quick, quick, quick. She moved
more. This time only his ear twitched.
Two more moves and Beth Ann was close enough to touch him, but
she decided to be a bit more patient just in case.
She could do it. She had self-control now.
She hadn’t had self-control when she was six. If she had, she
wouldn’t have been so greedy for ice cream that she’d let her dad in the house
for Family Night and caused The Terrible Thing.
She pushed away that thought and stared at Louis. Before long,
he’d cleaned the bowl. He looked straight at her,
thank
you
shining from his one golden eye. She smiled back.
He licked his one front paw, then rubbed it over his face again
and again, washing it. That was so cute her heart squeezed.
She let her hand come out slowly. Louis leaned out and sniffed
it, then licked her finger, his tongue like the scrub side of the kitchen
sponge.
Then he rubbed his cheek against her finger and her heart
melted totally. She wanted to hold him, to promise to protect him and take care
of him.
Her mother was always trying that with Beth Ann, but Beth Ann
couldn’t let her. It would be cheating.
Sometimes, when the dreams got bad, Beth Ann had to fight hard
to keep from throwing her arms around her mother’s neck and crying and crying.
She had to be strict with herself. She had to take care of her own sadness. She
didn’t deserve to be hugged and patted.
But here was Louis and she could help him if he’d only let her.
Beth Ann reached out, but Louis shot off, a black blur against the trees, almost
like he didn’t think he deserved her hugs either.
That made her want to talk to Serena again. Rosie’s throwaway
phone had had fifty-five minutes of talk time. So far, Beth Ann had only used
ten on two calls to Serena.
“No llores,”
Serena had
said the first time.
Don’t cry.
But Serena had been
crying, too. Talking to Serena had made Beth Ann feel stronger and calmer, so
she wasn’t sorry she’d done it. Serena pinky-swore to keep the calls a secret
and Beth Ann knew she would.
Beth Ann picked up the bowl and started for Jonah’s shop. She’d
already made one box. Today, he’d promised to show her how to make one with
secret buttons to open it. She wanted to hide her phone in the box.
“Hey, Jonah!” she called, stepping into the shop. She liked
being here. She liked the wood smell, the flecks of wood floating in the
sunlight through the windows, the quiet.
“What’s up, Squirt?”
She smiled. She liked that name better than
Bunny.
“Louis licked my hand and rubbed it with his cheek!”
He turned to her on his stool. “I’ll be damned. We’ll have to
call you the Cat Whisperer.”
“I like
Squirt
better. I hate
whispering.”
“Squirt it is. But I put Bunny on your nameplate.”
“My what?”
He held out a low sign with her name in wood letters. “Put it
on your worktable.”
She did. It looked nice. She only wished it said Beth Ann
instead of Bunny. “Thank you.” She noticed a stack of toothpick boxes and some
glue.