Wildwood Creek (6 page)

I look up, and the captain is watching me through curious eyes, waiting for my answer to Jeffrey’s question.

I straighten in my seat and say what is right to say. “It is one of God’s creatures, sir. And God’s creatures are meant for our kindness, surely as not. I do not suppose a kindness is ever wrong.”

“Hear, hear!” Mr. Searcy, a gentle mill keeper, lifts his glass. “May we have the patience of Job, the strength of Samson, and the countenance of Solomon.”

The others raise their glasses, and I do as well, but the sip of wine slips sour down my throat.

At the far end of the table, it is whiskey in the first mate’s glass. But he does not drink of it.

A
LLIE
K
IRKLAND
A
PRIL
, P
RESENT
D
AY

I
saw the mystery cowboy again the day before the first big meeting of cast and crew was scheduled to happen at the Berman. On Tova’s orders, I’d ventured out to do some errands. With the costuming personnel arriving next Monday, it was suddenly critical that there be a coffee machine, as well as various foodstuffs and a standing order for a deli tray to be delivered to the basement each day. Given the condensed time frame, there was concern as to whether the costume designers, stitchers, cutters, and fitters could accomplish the dressing of over seventy cast members in slightly under eight weeks.

My assigned mission for today was to finish equipping the basement with anything else needed to make it as self-contained and efficient as possible. Since that task brought me above ground, I was thrilled.

And then, suddenly, there was the mystery cowboy. Blake Fulton—I’d learned his name from the tuxedo rental card that was still taped to Tova’s wall. I rediscovered him, of all places, in the little city grocery store just down the block from the Berman. He was at the deli counter, ordering salami on
rye. My mind stumbled over itself, trying to place his voice when I heard it. Then I recognized something about the way he was standing.

The mystery man, in the flesh. Making sandwich selections. Go figure.

Slipping around a display of Granny Smiths, I listened in on his conversation. For the better part of two weeks now, the paper he’d given me hadn’t been touched, and after being horsewhipped with the thing the day Tova found it, I wasn’t about to mention it again. From time to time, she brought it up as a case in point—I was not to overstep my bounds and do anything that she had not
specifically
instructed me to do. In other words, I was not to think for myself . . . unless it was a case in which I was supposed to think for myself, such as the ordering of the fabric racks and shelving.

Now suddenly, here was the man. He liked mustard, lettuce, tomato, and a frightfully large helping of jalapeño slices on his salami sandwich. Yuck.

The girl behind the counter was flirting like crazy, and he was into it. Contrary to our encounter in the theater basement, today he seemed relaxed, friendly, and in no hurry. Right at home, even. The deli girl knew just how he took his coffee. “So how’s the work going on the building?” She paused to deliver a
come hither
look as she put the lid on his cup and handed it over the deli case.

Building?
I wondered.
What building?

“Going fine,” he answered amiably. “No problems with the rain.”

The deli girl took a minute to clue in to the joke. The last few months had been mercilessly dry in Texas, especially considering that it was spring. She giggled. “You’re funny.”

He favored her with a dazzling smile, straight white teeth,
twinkling hazel eyes, and then a little wink. The whole cowboy enchilada, so to speak.

“Just right,” he said after tasting the coffee.

Bracing a hand on her waist and jutting her hips to one side, she struck a pose, getting her groove on as best a girl can in a hairnet and plastic gloves. “So which building did you say you were working on? The Berman, wasn’t it? That’s such a pretty old place. I’d love to go inside there.”

The Berman? What?
I stepped back so quickly that a trio of apples rolled off the edge of the display and fell onto the floor.

Blake Fulton turned, saw me there, and registered surprise. I’ll bet he was surprised.

“Funny you should mention the Berman.” I picked up an apple and tried to put it back on the display, but it rolled back into my hands again. “Remember me?”

The deli girl shot a concerned look back and forth between us, but Blake Fulton quickly moved from surprised to flirtatious again. “How could I forget?” He graced me with one of the slightly off-center smiles that had been working so well across the sandwich counter, then he moved to the navel oranges, tested a few, and selected one for his lunch. “Orange?” He offered me one too.

What kind of game was he playing? There was
no
remodeling going on in the Berman. Surely he realized I was aware of that. One thing was for certain: He’d caused me no small bit of agony at work, and this time I wanted some answers. “You know, you got me in trouble with my boss. She thinks you either wandered in off the street, or I made you up. Anyway, she would love to meet you. She’s got a few questions about those documents you gave me.”

I imagined bringing the mysterious cowboy to Tova, thereby redeeming myself. “We could walk down there now. She’s in the office.”

“Did she call the number on the top sheet?”

“What number? There was no phone number.”

He actually looked surprised. “I must’ve forgotten to write it on there.” He was already reaching for his cell phone. “Hang on a minute. I’ll get it for you.”

“Get
what
for me?”

“The phone number for you to give to your boss, Allie.” He looked at me when he said my name, his eyes bright in the neon glow of the deli lights. I was mesmerized for a moment before it occurred to me to wonder how he knew my name.

Then I realized I was still wearing my Razor Point Productions employee badge . . . with my name on it.

He tore a piece from his lunch sack and jotted a number on it. “Just have your boss call. They’ll explain it.” In one smooth movement, he retrieved his lunch and tried to hand me the scrap. No way was I falling for that trick again.

“I’ll just let you give that to her yourself. You know what they say about shooting the messenger.”

“Would if I could, but I’ve got a three o’clock flight to make.” He flashed another
aren’t I adorable
grin. “Sorry I got you in trouble. See you in eight weeks, Allie Kirkland.”

Underneath all the obvious thoughts about this ridiculous cat-and-mouse game, there was another one—stealthy and slightly insidious, like an undertow.
He didn’t even look at the badge again. He remembered my name.
Some annoyingly girly part of me liked that.

Taking my hand, he put the paper in it, then folded my fingers over the top before he sauntered off, leaving me momentarily stunned. He’d almost made it out of the produce aisle before my mind kicked into gear, and I hurried after him.

Rushing around the seedless grapes, I headed him off at the pass, hemming him up against a giant box of Rio Grande watermelons. A brilliant maneuver. “Now
listen
.” I shook the
paper with the phone number on it. “How stupid do you think I am? You just told that girl at the deli that you were doing renovations on the Berman building. And now you want me to deliver
yet another
message to my boss? No way
,
mister. Who are you really, and
what
is going on?”

His gaze tangled with mine, and I couldn’t tell if he was irritated or just amused. He glanced at his watch. Then, as calmly as if he were opening the door and stepping onto the front porch, he settled his hands on my shoulders and gently moved me aside. We were suddenly in close quarters as he slipped through the space between me and the watermelons, leaning close as he did. “Take the number to your boss, Allie. Tell her to call it. It’ll be all right.”

I felt his breath on my ear, and a jolt of electricity traveled down my neck, sliding under my T-shirt and raising an unfamiliar prickle there. Suddenly, there wasn’t one intelligent sentence in my entire pea brain, so I just watched him stride to the cash registers, pay at the self-check, then head out the door.

He was way too big for me to tackle, anyway.

My iPhone rang as I was juggling packages on my way out the door. I grabbed the call without looking, thinking it might be Tova with more instructions for me. Instead, my mother was on the other end. “Allie, how are you, sweet? Your father and I were just going through the summer calendar.” I felt the usual stab that came with the
your father
reference to Lloyd. Maybe it should’ve seemed natural after sixteen years, but it just never had been. Hard to say whether that was because the term had been forced on me before I was ready, or because my relationship with Lloyd was always more
miss
than
hit
. He just didn’t like me very much and never had.

“Fine. Good.” A knot formed in my stomach. I hadn’t told them anything about my new job. Day after day, I’d convinced
myself that, given the typical lifespan of downstairs production assistants in the Berman, I should wait a while to fight the family battle. Any given day, I could end up getting fired. “Working on wrapping up another semester.”

“We’re making summer schedules,” Mom said. That explained the unusual midday call. “I’ll be gone to Coronado Island with Whit, Ashley, and the grands the week of May 17, and Lloyd is scheduled to fly to Taiwan for merger talks with one of his clients. The twins have been invited to train at an invitation-only day camp with an Olympic-level coach. Their gymnastics team just swept the regionals. Emerson brought home gold in two events and Madison took the overall. The camp is an opportunity too important to miss. If they’re seen by the right people, it could mean scholarships and . . . well, who knows.”

“Sounds awesome.” I had that sinking feeling that comes with realizing major family milestones have been reached and no one even bothered to share them with you. “Tell them congratulations for me, okay? Actually, never mind. I’ll send a text.”

“It’s a little after the fact now.” The answer was sharp, and I could only guess at the meaning . . . perhaps that I would’ve been there for all the family happenings if I hadn’t chosen to run off to grad school in Texas.

“Guess so.”

“I’m hoping you’ll be home by that May 17 week, at least?” Mom got back to the point, and that explained the call, in a nutshell. Emerson and Madison weren’t old enough to shuttle themselves to their invitation-only camp. They needed a driver while Mom and Lloyd were away.

I sat down on the bench in front of the store, let the grocery load rest beside me, and contemplated a homeless woman pushing her shopping cart down the sidewalk. Did she have a
family somewhere? People she’d left behind because it seemed like every contact ended painfully?

“When is your flight?” Mom pressed. “I need to add it to the calendar. Lloyd says he’ll just go ahead and put you on salary at the law office the week you’re looking after the twins. Logan’s going to the beach with me. He doesn’t have soccer camp until the next week.”

“So, I’m the nanny while you’re gone? That’s why you’re in a hurry for me to get there?” I pressed my fingers to my mouth as soon as I said it. The little burst of venom burned, but I couldn’t stop it. Over and over and over our conversations led to something poisonous.

“Don’t be crass. You need the money, Allie, now that you’ve frittered away the little nest egg your grandmother left you. In truth, you’d have been better off if that money had never come along. We all have to grow up and settle into real life sooner or later. Lloyd and I are trying to help you.”

“I’m not coming home this summer.” There. I’d said it. It was out in the open. “I actually got a job on a project that’s filming here in Texas. It’s really exciting. We’re re-creating a—”

“A job as what . . . a runner, a tech, a secretary, a production assistant? You forget that I do know this business, Allie. They take in young starry-eyed kids, work them to death, pay them almost nothing, and send them on their way when the project wraps. That’s how it’s done.”

Tears welled and the street scene blurred.
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
“It’s what I want to do. It’s a starting place. Why are you always trying to make me into something I’m not? Why can’t you just be happy for me, for once?”

Empty air dangled between us, an impenetrable curtain separating two points of view. I pictured Mom slowly growing red from the neck up. “It’s a dead end, Allie. That’s why I can’t be happy about it. This . . . obsession of yours needs
to stop. It isn’t healthy. What happened to your father wasn’t your fault, and you have to stop trying to atone for it by . . . by . . . becoming him.”

“I’m becoming
me
.” Why couldn’t she understand? Why didn’t she ever see it? “And the real problem is that Lloyd doesn’t like
me
and he never has. I’m sorry I don’t fit in, Mom. I’m sorry to be such a disappointment.” I needed to just end the call before it got any worse. I knew I did, but I couldn’t push the button. I couldn’t stop hoping that, just this once, she’d say something more like Grandma Rita would have.
Run after your dreams while you’re still young, Allie. You’ve got all your life to settle down and start making compromises.

My mother’s answer was a disgusted snort. “Don’t be melodramatic, Allie. For heaven’s sake, show some sense. Come home while there’s a still a good job available for you here. You do realize that Lloyd is doing you a tremendous favor? That he has stuck his neck out with the partners . . . for
you
? Thirty thousand dollars a year with your kind of qualifications is nothing to sneeze at, and if you’ll go back to school and
at least
get your paralegal . . .”

I couldn’t think of anything more dismal than spending the rest of my life in Lloyd’s office. “It’s just . . . not what I want.” My voice cracked, and even though I hated the weakness in it, I couldn’t muster anything stronger. When would I ever get past the point of wanting her approval? Of begging for it and ending up wounded when it didn’t happen? “I already committed to the job. I won’t be coming home.”