Leave it to Max (Lori's Classic Love Stories Volume 1) (2 page)

“You’re right, because I’m coming down there
to get it.”

Garrett blinked, then gaped at the phone, but
Andrew was already rattling off his arrival time—tomorrow. Agents
didn’t
do
things like that in the usual course of
publishing. Or at least, most agents of most writers.

But Garrett’s agent had once been his editor.
Andrew had yanked Garrett’s tome from the proverbial slush pile and
taken them both from eating canned tuna to smoked salmon, if not
imported caviar.

Andrew had always loved a good deal just a
bit more than he loved a good book, so a few years back he’d left
editing and become an agent. His caviar dreams were still just that
but he had high hopes, which explained why he felt he had to come
to Savannah.

Garrett cursed.

“It doesn’t matter what you say, I’m
coming.”

“I know. It’s one of your charms.”

“That’s me. Charming Andrew.’’

Garrett snorted. One thing Andrew was
not
was charming. That was why Garrett liked him so much.
Despite that, despite how well they worked together on the business
end, regardless of the fact that Andrew was the only true friend he
had, the quickest way to smother any breath of creativity would be
for Andrew to arrive in town. The man had an imagination
deficit.

“If you start hanging around, I’ll never
finish.” Garrett wasn’t required to admit that he hadn’t even
started. While he should be in the middle of the book, the only
thing he seemed to be in the middle of was a panic attack.

Silence from the other end of the line made
Garrett frown. Another thing Andrew was
not
was quiet. Had
he hurt the man’s feelings? Impossible. Andrew had few feelings to
hurt. Another reason Garrett liked him.

“You’d tell me if anything was seriously
wrong, wouldn’t you?” his agent asked in an uncharacteristically
sympathetic tone.

“Seriously wrong?”

“Like if you were dying of brain cancer or
congestive heart failure.”

“My, aren’t we cheery?”

“You’ve got me worried, Garrett. You’re just
not yourself.”

Garrett wasn’t sure
who
he was
anymore. That was why he’d come back here.

“This book is important,” Andrew continued.
“It’s your chance to be more than a paperback writer.”

“I
like
being a paperback writer.”

“But don’t you want to move up? Be bigger,
better, more?”

God, Andrew was such an agent.

“I always thought I did.”

As usual, Andrew took Garrett’s indecision
and made it a decision he wanted to hear. “Glad to hear it. This is
the opportunity we’ve been waiting for. Your first hardcover.” He
said the three words the way a patriarch might say,
Your
firstborn son.
“But with the size of the advance...the book has
to be
special,
Garrett.”

He resisted the urge to snarl. He hated that
word. It didn’t mean dink—especially when applied to a book. One
man’s special was another man’s crap.

“Special. Right.”

“What’s the idea?”

Special crap.

Garrett’s laugh ended up sounding just a bit
crazed. He snapped his lips shut but not before Andrew heard. The
man might be oblivious about some things, but he worked with
authors every day. Andrew knew trouble when he heard it.

“I might be able to catch a red-eye.”

“I’m fine.”

Or as fine as I can be as I watch the chance
of a lifetime go up in flames.

Garrett cleared his throat and put some steel
into his voice. “I’m not kidding, Andrew. If you come down here,
you’re fired.”

Andrew laughed. Technically, Lawton worked
for Garrett. But Garrett had never had the guts to point that
out.

“Okay.” Andrew managed to stop laughing for a
minute. “I’ll stay put. For now.”

After Andrew hung up, Garrett went inside,
made himself a drink and returned to the porch. Since coming back
to Savannah, an after work libation had become a habit. At this
rate he’d be doing an Edgar Allan Poe imitation before long. Why
was it that so many brilliant, famous writers were also drunken
psychotics? Made a man consider a change of vocation.

What person in his right mind would sit in an
office as the sun shone bright and stare at a computer screen,
never showing his face in the light of day because he was too
occupied with the people who lived within that little gray box?
Like one of those creatures of the night he wrote about, Garrett
only turned off his computer and ventured outside after dark.

You went where the Muse took you, or where
she said you must go. If you didn’t, she might go silent. She might
just run away and never come back.

Garrett had never thought his Muse, voice,
gift—whatever— would get testy on him.

“Another day, another piece of crap.” He
toasted the rising moon. “Very special crap.”

Garrett drank, but the burn of alcohol in the
depth of his empty stomach did not jump-start his Muse. How had Poe
managed?

What had brought on this uncharacteristic
detour to the bottle? The fact that Garrett could no longer write?
Or the fear that he’d never been able to in the first place?

The last time, Savannah had been magic for
him, and when he’d left he’d written his first book in a whirlwind
of creativity that had earned him money, accolades and stellar
reviews.

He had already been here a week, and his Muse
was as quiet as the house he’d rented, far from the madding crowd
on River Street, from the gaily painted trolleys that chugged
around and around the historic district, from the red-brick museums
and the nighttime ghost walks and the white marble monuments—from
everything that made Savannah, Savannah.

He’d never before had a problem with
inspiration. Fresh vistas, an illusion of freedom, the reality of
solitude—all fueled his creativity. He rented a new house for every
new book, kept his personal belongings to a minimum and his
emotional entanglements even lighter. He was living the life he’d
dreamed of all those years ago and loving it—or he had been, until
nine months ago.

“When everything went to hell.”

The sound of his own voice, unnaturally loud
in the darkness, made Garrett place the tumbler of whiskey, still
half finished, upon the porch railing with a
thump.
He
suspected Poe had done a lot of talking to himself, too.

Perhaps a brisk walk through this fair city
would clear his head. Certainly couldn’t hurt.

Fall in Savannah was a thing of beauty. The
air, as warm as a midwestern summer night, smelled of the sea and
the South. To a boy raised on the tang of red-dirt Missouri, the
scent of Savannah could make you weep for more. Everything here
moved slower, lasted longer, dug deeper. That was why he’d run all
those years ago.

Garrett turned in to the Colonial Park
Cemetery, final resting place of several Georgia governors and one
Button Gwinnett, signer of the Declaration of Independence—though
many disputed that the body in Button’s grave was actually Button.
In Savannah, things like that happened all the time. Sometimes upon
exhumation and DNA testing it was discovered not only that the
famous body in the grave was not famous, but that it was actually
several bodies tossed in just for rascally DNA fun.

How could a writer of horror not thrive in a
place like this?

Yeah, tell it to the Muse.

In each city where he’d lived, Garrett became
familiar with the cemeteries. For some reason they soothed him, and
he often walked at dusk, dawn or any time in between through the
peaceful resting places, dreaming, plotting, even conversing with
those who weren’t anywhere but inside his head.

A shuffle to his rear made Garrett slow. He
angled his head and caught sight of a tiny shadow flitting between
the moon-pale headstones. His friend had come back—but which one?
Someone’s mommy was awfully lenient in the wandering-child
department.

Tonight Garrett didn’t mind the company. He
meandered through the cemetery, shadow in tow, reading the names on
the stones and making up stories to go with them, like a creative
writing exercise. Not that he’d ever taken creative writing, but
he’d heard about it.

Looped about one stone was a rosary; along
another some garlic; a third sported a necklace of unknown origin,
perhaps voodoo by the appearance of the feathers. Over two
centuries of cultural, ethnic and religious diversity at its
finest.

Garrett looked but did not touch. He
respected offerings to the other side. Whatever worked. If he
thought it would help him get an idea, he’d make a few offerings
himself.

As he continued to walk, alone, yet not
alone, Garrett heard the teasing lilt of his Muse, and as he
wandered out of the cemetery and the dark city streets, he no
longer thought about his shadow companion, but instead listened to
the strains of a story tumbling about in his busy brain.

The
thump
followed by the muffled cry
did not register in his tossing, turning sea of turmoil until much
later—and by then the damage was done.

* * *

“Hello, Ms. Frasier,” the duty nurse chirped
as Olivia skidded into the brightly lit foyer of her local
emergency room. “Third door on the left.”

Livy nodded, not bothering to answer. Her
heart blocked her throat, anyway—just as it did each time she was
called to this place.

Everyone knew them here. As soon as Max had
walked in, alone, the duty nurse had called Livy. Livy had to
wonder if her number was on their speed dial by now.

This time Max had broken something. And not a
vase or a plate or a cup. This time he’d broken a bone.

Livy was livid. Where had he been in the
dark?

Being a lawyer, Livy knew all about horrible
things. Having lost Max’s father before Max was born, she had been
terrified ever since that she’d lose Max, too. Her mother said she
was overprotective. Of course, Mama was eccentric—a bohemian, a
hippie, a free spirit, a nut—it all depended on who you were
talking to at the time.

Mama thought Max should be allowed to roam
the streets freely and return at will. “You can’t keep the child in
a glass case, sugar, no matter how much you might want to.”

Glass case? Very funny. Max would break that
in no time fiat.

Livy slammed her palm against the door to
room number three. Max sat atop the exam table—small and wan and
scared. He damn straight ought to be.

His hair had bleached in the summer sun and
the bright lights made it shine white. Livy had never been able to
figure out where the amazing blond hair had come from. Her own was
light brown, nothing special at all. His father’s hair had been
black as the wings of a raven. The only hints of the man in Max was
the deep, dark shade of his eyes—and a wandering soul.

The doctor—Smith, she recalled—gave Livy a
smile meant to comfort. Such niceties never worked on her, so he
got down to business.

“There is a fracture. Almost didn’t see it
because of the growth plates at this age, but that’s what we’ve got
a radiologist for. Max will be fine. Nothing a shiny new cast and
some Tylenol won’t cure.”

She growled at his happy face, and the good
Dr. Smith wisely left the room. ‘‘Spill it,” Livy snapped.

Max stared at the ice bag on his forearm,
then swallowed. “I was hangin’ with Sammy.”

‘‘Where?”

“Out near his house.”

“When you say ‘hanging,’ what does that
mean?” She had visions of him swinging upside down on gnarly tree
limbs, ripping open arteries in his thigh, landing on his head,
falling into a coma—

“I don’t know. Doin’ stuff.”

“What kind of
stuff?”
Livy sounded as
if she were in court, but she couldn’t help herself. Questions were
her business. Panic was her life.

“Kid stuff. Guy stuff. Stuff. You know?”

Livy hadn’t a clue, and she was starting to
get a headache. “Well, next time you feel the need to do ‘guy
stuff,’ could you be done by dark?”

“Maybe.”

Grinding her teeth really didn’t help a
headache, Livy discovered. She sat next to Max on the exam table.
“How did this happen?”

“I tripped.”

“Really? I’d never have guessed. Where were
you when you tripped?”

Max flicked a glance at her from beneath his
overgrown bangs. No matter how many times she took him to the
barber, his hair was always long. No matter how many times she cut
his nails, they always resembled those of the Wicked Witch.

Livy resisted the urge to brush the bangs
from his face. Resisted, because if she lost the anger, she’d start
to cry. Call her sensitive, but when she got a call from the
emergency room as she was frantically dialing anyone who’d ever
known her son and asking where he was in the dark of the night...
Well, that kind of stuff preyed on a mother’s mind.

“I cut through the cemetery. And I fell.”

“Aw, Max. I told you about cemeteries. How
they’re dark, and there’re all those stones hidden in the grass,
just waiting for boys to fall over them. See what happened?”

“It’s funny, but every time you tell me
what’s going to happen, it always does.”

Max was an accident-prone, self-fulfilling
prophecy.

“Yeah, call me psychic. Wait.” She put her
hand to her head. “I’m getting another flash of the future.” She
dropped her hand. “You’re grounded, buddy.”

“But, Mom—”

“Grounded. Two weeks.” Hooking an arm around
his thin shoulders, she pulled him close. The sweet scent of his
hair soothed her panic. He was here and he was whole—albeit
cracked. All things considered, they’d gotten off lucky.

Again.

Max was no dummy. He knew better than to ask
his mom about vampires.

The first time she’d caught him watching a
black-and-white horror movie, she’d come home the next day with a
stack of books about Hollywood makeup and special effects. She’d
explained movies and how they weren’t real—just like all the other
fun things, such as Santa and the Easter bunny and the fairy lady
who collected teeth. Although Max thought that last one was nearly
as scary as a mummy chasin’ you through a cave.