Impervious (City of Eldrich Book 1) (5 page)

Chapter 7

M
eaghan tried at
dinner to push Russ for details about Jamie’s past, but he and Matthew were reticent, to say the least. She could barely drag speech out of them at all until she’d finally dropped it and changed the subject.

What were they not telling her? Was Jamie here illegally maybe? His father was wanted for war crimes? What was the big secret?

Meaghan resigned herself to waiting for now. In another week she’d be neck deep in office gossip and would hear all the ugly details soon enough.

By the next morning, the swelling in her toe had subsided enough so that Meaghan could wear flip-flops. Right after breakfast, Russ and Matthew trekked off to the hospital in Williamsport, for Matthew’s weekly session with Becky, the occupational therapist. Meaghan was left alone for the first time in her new home.

With no Internet connection for her laptop and the cell signal still spotty, she used the landline phone in the kitchen. She scheduled her storage pod to be dropped off on Thursday despite resistance from the Williamsport trucking company that now had it. At first, they flat out refused to drive to Eldrich, despite its inclusion on the service area map on their website. Meaghan changed their minds by informing them what she did for a living, reading them the part of the contract about delivery, and threatening to call the corporate office.

Then she called the city’s human resources department about filling out her employment paperwork. A motherly woman named Gretchen told her not to worry about it yet. She advised Meaghan to get settled in at home and they could take care of it all next week.

That was all she could do with a sore foot and no Internet. The day yawned ahead of her, empty. The pace of small town life would take some getting used to. Meaghan sighed and poured herself another cup of Russ’s excellent coffee and topped it off with a dollop of fresh cream. At least the food was really good.

She sat back down at the table and took a sip, wondering what to do with herself. A firm rap on the back door made her jump. She spilled the almost-full cup of coffee onto the table.

Meaghan grabbed up her laptop, clutching it to her chest, before the spill spread under it.

Another rap on the door, more tentative than the first.

Meaghan hobbled around the table, holding her laptop to her chest like a sleeping baby, and peered through the window in the kitchen door.

A man stooped on the back porch, pulling amber jars from a cardboard box and setting them with care in a line next to the door.

One of Russ’s foodie guys.

Meaghan pulled open the door. The man stood up fast and took a step backward.

“I . . . I bring the honey for Russ,” he said in a thick accent. Tall, with a strong build, he had indigo eyes, like Jamie’s, but rheumy and bloodshot. He had once been quite handsome, she could see, but the effects of too much drinking lay over his face like a veil, muddying his features. He looked about her age, with shaggy dark-blond hair shot through with gray.

He looked familiar. And it hit her. He looked like Jamie with twenty extra years and a drinking problem. This man had to be Jamie’s father.

“Hi, um, Russ and my dad are at the hospital right now. Do I need to pay you or . . .”

He shook his head. “Nuh. Russ leave the money for me.” He pointed at an empty flower pot next to the door. “In there.”

“I’m Meaghan,” she said. Juggling her laptop to her other arm, she held out her right hand.

He didn’t take it. He gave her a small shy smile, like it was something he seldom did, and shook his head. “My hand is dirty. From the bees.” His exhausted eyes met hers for a moment, then darted away.

Her gut fluttered and she felt her face grow hot. She flashed on her observation from the day before when she met Jamie for the first time.
If he were twenty years older, I’d be in trouble
. It hadn’t been an observation, she realized. It had been a prediction.

She was in trouble.

Still know how to pick them, she thought. Some things never change.

Now, she wanted him gone. Fast. An attraction to Jamie’s alcoholic father was drama she didn’t need. She saw a battered, rusty white pick-up truck parked in the narrow access alley.

“Okay,” she said, realizing she still didn’t know his name. “I’ll tell Russ you were here.”

“It’s good for your father you’re here.” His accent was unlike anything she’d ever heard before. Like Scandinavia mixed with Russia by way of Central America. With a stop in Jamaica.

Bosnian, she thought. Or Croatian. Or something. Close enough.

He met her eyes and she felt the heat again. No, she thought. Bad Meaghan. Don’t go there.

“Thank you,” she answered. Leave, she thought. Please leave.

As if hearing her thoughts, he said, his voice now gruff, “Tell Russ to call me if he wants more.” He turned away from her and marched back to his truck.

She fled back into the house, her heart pounding. A door slammed. She heard the truck cough into life and head down the alley.

Meaghan waited a few moments, then peeped out the window to make sure he was gone.

She gathered up the jars of honey and brought them into the kitchen, lining them up on the counter. She unscrewed a jar lid, dipped the tip of her finger into the thick amber liquid, and tasted it. She’d always thought of honey as sweet but otherwise flavorless. But this stuff—it tasted like roses and cut grass. And sunshine.

Meaghan sighed. Of course it was the most amazing honey she’d ever tasted. Because the world always conspired against her that way if inappropriate romance was involved.

She didn’t fall in love often, but when she did, she fell hard. And it always—
always
—started with that flutter in her gut, that moment of heat. She liked to believe that love was a conscious choice, something she could control.

Except when she couldn’t.

Jamie’s father—she didn’t even know his name—Jamie’s father was a fixer-upper, exactly what she’d sworn off of for years. A sad, broken man in desperate need of rescue. Signs of a drinking problem normally short circuited any spark of attraction she might feel for a man. Yet here she was with honey on her fingers and butterflies in her belly.

“I’m not freaking St. Meaghan,” she muttered as she screwed the lid back on the honey jar. She remembered the spilled coffee on the table, sighed, and grabbed a wad of paper towels to clean it up. There’s no such thing as love at first sight, she scolded herself as she mopped up the coffee. Just sexual instinct and people recognizing each other’s dysfunctions. He was a drunk. Her father was a drunk. She’d been ambushed by lingering codependent daddy issues masquerading as attraction. Nothing more.

Besides, Meaghan had good reasons for being cautious. All she had to do was look in the mirror at the faint scar above her right eyebrow to be reminded. Her one, and only, experience with domestic violence. A boyfriend from long ago with a drinking problem and, as it turned out, a heavy fist. She’d moved in with him too fast and it didn’t take long for him to throw that first punch.

Meaghan returned from the hospital with a black eye and five stitches where he’d caught her with his college class ring. Greg wept and begged for forgiveness, swearing it would never happen again. He made a brief show of AA. She took him back. It was only a matter of weeks before the heavy fist made a return appearance after a session of hard partying with his college buddies. Before his swing had a chance to make contact, Meaghan ducked under his arm, elbowed him in the throat, and drove a knee into his groin.

He wept and begged again, clutching an ice pack to his crotch, while Meaghan packed her bags. He made a few halfhearted attempts to win her back, and then tried threats. He called one evening to say he was on his way over to hurt her like she’d hurt him.

Meaghan borrowed a pump shotgun from a neighbor. She loaded it with birdshot, turned off the porch light, and waited in the dark. Greg, drunk, stormed onto the porch. Meaghan, a calm voice from the shadows, explained her rights under Arizona law to use deadly force to protect herself, told him to leave, and then racked the shotgun. At the sound, her would-be attacker whimpered, wet himself, and ran like hell.

Meaghan never saw him again. But she never forgot the lesson she’d learned. At the first sign of an inclination for violence or a drinking problem in a man, she was out the door. No explanations, no pleas for forgiveness, no acts of atonement were sufficient to overcome her determination to protect herself.

She mopped up the last of the coffee with a sigh and poured herself another cup. She took one sip and realized she didn’t want it anymore. Meaghan hadn’t expected something like this to ever happen to her again. She’d thought that particular part of herself was dead, that the nerve endings required to fall for a man had been fried beyond repair. There had been men on and off over the years, but she always found a reason to stop things before they got too serious. And there hadn’t been anybody since Michael, ten years earlier. A few dates here and there, but nothing more. No sex. No love. No attraction. Not even a hint of it.

Michael had been different, or so she thought at the time. Meaghan believed then that she was in love with Michael, but she’d finally had to admit to herself that what she’d loved was not him, but what he could give her.

She had wanted a child. Desperately. With Michael, she’d thought she’d managed to pull it off, to have it all. She thought she’d found a husband and had time to squeeze out a baby, maybe even two, before her biological clock ran out.

They hadn’t even managed to get married before Michael started cheating on her. By the time the whole sad mess had fallen apart and Michael was gone, the heavy uterine bleeding had begun. Her gynecologist informed her that her uterus was so rotten with fibroid tumors the only treatment option was a hysterectomy. Her ovaries were salvageable so she wouldn’t be thrown immediately into the hormonal symptoms of menopause, but her fertility was gone, probably had been for a while.

Putting on a brave face, Meaghan asked her friends to throw her a fibroid shower. Instead of baby stuff, she received stretchy pajama pants she could pull over her distended abdomen and DVDs to keep her entertained while she healed. She told everyone how relieved she was to have the whole “will I or won’t I” motherhood question behind her.

And without a word, without even admitting it to herself, Meaghan grieved. She liked her friends’ kids well enough, but many days, too many days, the photos and parenting stories felt like a knife to the heart. Had she been able to acknowledge her pain, it might have made things easier. Instead she insisted she was fine and all was well.

She began deflecting invitations and stopped reaching out to people. She worked her miserable job and went home to her silent house. She joked about how she had no business being a mother and how it all worked out for the best. But, no matter how she rationalized it, she felt like a failure as a woman and mourned the child she couldn’t conceive.

Her friends drifted away as a regular presence in her life. She felt less and less connected to the world around her. By the time the pieces fell into place for her move to Eldrich, there was nothing to keep her from leaving. She had isolated herself so effectively that leaving everything she knew could be accomplished with barely a pang.

And now, the first man she’d felt any attraction to in years was a careworn beekeeper with a drinking problem and an estranged son she had to work with every day.

Oh, yeah. Some things never changed.

Chapter 8

W
hen Russ and
Matthew got home, around lunchtime, Meaghan was waiting.

“The honey guy came by,” Meaghan said, arms folded across her chest.

“Um,” Russ replied. After a moment he added, “You met him?”

“I did. He said to call him if you need any more.”

Russ started making a sandwich for Matthew’s lunch. Matthew walked in with a beaming smile, waved a drawing at Meaghan, and wandered past into the living room. “Dad,” Russ called. “Lunchtime.”

Matthew shuffled back into the kitchen. He smiled at Meaghan, introduced himself and shook her hand, with no recognition, and sat down at the table.

Meaghan stared at the back of Russ’s skull, willing him to turn around.

Russ sliced the sandwich in half and put it on a plate with a pickle spear. He set the plate in front of Matthew with a glass of apple juice. Matthew eyed it with suspicion.

“Turkey. You like this a lot.”

Matthew nodded and picked up a sandwich half. He took a bite and, smiling as he chewed, gave Russ a thumbs-up.

Russ puttered for a minute, ignoring Meaghan, and then turned to face her. “All right, fine. Quit the lawyer stare. What do you want to know?”

“The honey guy. He’s Jamie’s dad, isn’t he?”

Russ sighed. “Yes, John is Jamie’s father.”

Meaghan snorted. “John Smith and James Smith? You couldn’t help them pick out better names?”

Russ raised an eyebrow. “Pick out names? What are you talking about?”

“Russ, damn it, will you stop it with the cryptic crap?” Meaghan pulled out a chair and sat down. “The guy has an accent that thick and his name is John Smith?”

Matthew, who appeared oblivious to the conversation, stood up and put his empty plate in the sink. He walked toward the living room.

“Dad,” Russ called after him. “Where are you going?”

“To the sofa,” Matthew called back. “I’m sleepy.”

“So?” Meaghan asked.

Russ sighed. Meaghan never let stuff like this go and they both knew it. “Fine, his name hasn’t always been John Smith.”

“Where are they from?”

Russ coughed like he was choking on something. “Where do you think they’re from?”

“Bosnia. Croatia. Kosovo. Somewhere like that.”

“Yeah, somewhere like that.” Russ turned to the fridge. “You want lunch?”

“Yes. And don’t change the subject. I have to work with Jamie. And you and Matthew know him like family. It would be nice to be let in on his history, even a little.”

Russ started assembling two sandwiches. “Put the kettle on, would you? I need a cup of tea.”

Meaghan got up, and with far more stomping, banging, and clanking than necessary, filled the kettle, slammed it down on the stove, and turned on the burner. At least now maybe she was going to get some answers.

She sat back down at the table. “So, what’s the story on those two? They’re refugees, right?”

“Did Jamie tell you that?”

“No, I figured it out on my own. I’m right though, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, you are.” Russ brought the sandwiches over. “Eat. I’ll take care of the kettle.”

Meaghan examined the sandwich. Turkey, it looked like, with red leaf lettuce and mayonnaise. “Did you make this mayo from scratch or scoop it out of a plastic jar like a normal person?”

“It’s criminal that people eat that processed crap when it’s so easy to make.” The kettle whistled and Russ filled two mugs with hot water and tea bags. He carried the mugs over and sat down. “Let it steep a minute,” Russ said. “Want some honey?”

When Russ said “honey” she felt her face grow hot. “Yes. Then stop fussing and talk to me.”

Russ fetched a jar of honey and two teaspoons. “Fine,” he said, sitting back down. “John and Jamie are refugees from . . . Bosnia.” He seemed to be tasting the word, trying it out to see how it sounded. “Somewhere like that.” He took a bite of his sandwich and chewed for moment. “Look, Meg, the thing you got to know is they left a damn horror movie behind them. Jamie was only a kid and he watched his mother killed right in front of him. John was a prisoner and they tortured him for days. Jamie had to watch that too. It was so bad. You can’t imagine how bad.”

Meaghan felt her impatience and indignation evaporate. She’d been so obsessed with getting the details that she’d never considered how awful they might be.

“God,” she said. “Poor Jamie.” This was so much worse than she’d imagined. “He seems so normal. Happy. I never would have thought . . .” She trailed off. Twelve years old and watching that happen to his parents. Her respect for him grew. That kind of resilience required phenomenal inner strength.

“Yeah, amazing, isn’t it,” Russ said. “He was like a wild animal when they first got here. It took Matthew six months to get him to even speak. But when he finally did, it was almost flawless English. He told me later he learned it watching TV. The guy is smart as hell. And tough.”

“How did Matthew get involved?”

Russ’s face flushed. “I don’t really know. I wasn’t here for all of it. I got here right after they did.”

“Did he sponsor them or something?”

“Um.” Russ set his sandwich down. “Not exactly. They kind of came here outside official channels.”

Meaghan raised an eyebrow. “John’s not a war criminal, is he?”

Russ shook his head. “No, no. Well, I guess it depends which side you were on. There was a fight for control and John lost. I don’t know all the details. From what I do know, the other guy was the war criminal. Complete bastard.”

“And he took his revenge,” Meaghan said.

“Yeah. He did.” Russ shoved his plate away, his sandwich half eaten. He opened the honey jar and stirred a spoonful into his tea cup. “This stuff is so damn good. You taste it?”

“I did,” Meaghan said, trying to keep her voice flat. “It’s good. So they’re here illegally?”

“Yeah. Matthew got them set up with new identities.”

Meaghan nodded. “John never really recovered from what happened to him, did he.” It was a statement, not a question.

Russ sighed. “No. I guess he didn’t. He drinks. A lot. How did you figure out he was Jamie’s father?”

“The eyes,” she said. “They have the same eyes.”