Liabilities (16 page)

He gave me that look that said I was being silly. “Open it.”

I unzipped the sporty Prada purse whose color was somewhere in the pink family. I didn’t comment on the small designer bag. He knew that it cost too much. It didn’t need to be said. I pulled out eye liner and mascara. There was more but I got the point. “Makeup, really? I don’t wear that much as it is. I would think makeup would draw more attention to me.”

“Keep looking,” he encouraged.

Fumbling around the purse until I felt something that didn’t feel like makeup, I pulled out a bottle. “Hair dye.” Black at that.

“It’s not permanent. I happen to like the color gorgeous hair. It sets my blood to boil when it spills all over me when you bend down to kiss me while riding my—.”

“Kalen,” I said stopping him. Too much sex talk and Turner would find us getting it on behind his house. “How did you come up with this?”

“After…” He hesitated, “After talking to a friend… we thought it best you hide in plain sight.”

“Yes, makeup,” and I trailed off. I remember a flash of a picture of Kalen with the heiress. I’d only caught the briefest of views. But I remembered her hair was black. “The woman in the pictures. Is that why you were with her?”

“Not exactly. I was telling the truth when I said I was giving you space,” he admitted.

I wasn’t exactly encouraged by his words. Then it all made sense. “I’ll look like her so when I’m going into your apartment and people won’t expect it to be me.”

Something snapped inside me. The thought of another woman in his space making love to him killed a part of me. My fist connected with his chest before I let him have it with my words. “You bastard, I’ve never even been to your apartment and a couple days after your declaration of love, you took her to your bed.”

He stilled my beating fist, makeup falling from the open bag to the ground. “She cares,” he said, but the
she
to whom he was referring was me.

“Of course I care,” I answered pulling my hands free, then shoving the purse in his chest.

He took it while I bent over picking up what had fallen out. “It’s hard to tell when you’re here playing house with him.”

“I’m not playing house,” I said, getting back to my feet. I shoved the makeup into the open bag he held and zipped it.

We gave each other the stare down. Neither of us willing to give in. “Keep this. We’ll leave in the morning,” I said referring to his bag of tricks that had broken through the shell of my heart with their meaning. He hadn’t denied sleeping with that woman. I wasn’t going to ask again. I didn’t want to know. I’d freed him. I couldn’t very well hold it against him.

He took my hand before saying, “I can’t watch him touch you.”

Letting go, I turned, wondering if I could give him what he asked. I hadn’t gotten two feet away when a voice rang out in the night. “Fire.” And then the bell from the schoolhouse rang. I looked back at Kalen, and we both turned to look in the sky to see the rising smoke.

A billow of black reached to mix with the grey clouds above. A chain of people were sending buckets of water from the pump to toss on the fire that threatened to get out of control.

Sick with the thought that Mary’s house was lit with flames. I helped by bringing extra buckets from nearby houses to help stop this before this turned catastrophic. If the fire raged on, it was possible another house could start burning from an ember caught in a breeze and land in just the right spot.

Kalen was helping by pumping the water. His impressive muscles worked the pump as if he was familiar with the task. Turner was closest to the fire tossing the water in the right spots to help. Everyone was here. Our community came together as one. But it was those two I saw.

By faith and by all the helping hands, the fire was extinguished before the entire house went up. Dark had almost settled in when Mary, carrying her son, came to inspect the damage. Her husband Thomas was among the men that had been working hard to save their house.

Mary’s lips trembled, and I went up and hugged her making sure not to squeeze my nephew. “His room,” Mary cried. “This is where his room is. What if he’d been in there?”

The baby was still small and I suspected he still slept in a cradle in the room with his parents. Grief however was understandable, so I didn’t feel the need to make that point. “The damage isn’t bad. Mostly external. Thank goodness for a little rain overnight. The wood was moist and not prime for fire.”

She nodded. “But who would have done this?”

That was the question. There wasn’t faulty wiring to blame. There hadn’t been a lightning strike. The fireplace wasn’t on this side of the house. This had been deliberate.

The answer came to me and I took off running. Mary called after me. “Where are you going?” There was no time to wait, no time to explain.

My breathing was labored when I reached the house. I hadn’t run that fast or long in more years than I could count. My heart thudded in my chest. I heaved open the door with the last of my strength and realized my mistake. If Mike was here, I’d exhausted all my energy. I wouldn’t be help to anybody including Violet and myself.

My older sister’s hair was a matted mess and covered her face. Her arm hung limply on the table. I cried out. She appeared dead and it would have killed me if she didn’t move. My voice made her stir. With difficulty, she lifted her head up from the table. Revealed through the strings of disheveled hair was a bloom of bruises visible in the fading light.

“Vi, what happened?”

When I came around the table, she hugged my waist and cried. Gently, I stroked her hair, pushing it back from her battered face.

Two figures pushed through the front doors. Turner and Kalen must have seen me running from the scene and followed, if Turner hadn’t already come to the same conclusion.

“Fuck,” Turner cursed getting an eyeful of parts of Violet’s face.

Kalen’s fist connected with the wall. I heard the noise but hadn’t seen it. We all looked up at the rage in his face. “Where is the guy that did this, lass?”

“Kalen, you can’t,” I pleaded. I remembered the brief conversation about how his father treated his mother. He’d been too young to protect his mother from his father’s hand. Seeing this would bring back those memories.

“Can’t what? And I thought his name was Jeremy?” Turner questioned, looking between us. If he hadn’t figured it out by now, he was putting it all together.

“Jeremy Kalen Brinner Glenn,” Kalen said not looking away from me. “And my father was an abuser. I vowed never to hit a woman nor sit back and watch any woman be victimized in that way ever again.”

“Slow down,” Turner said, being he was the most level headed of us at the moment.

Kalen ignored him. “If you won’t let me help her with him, then let’s leave now.”

Turner’s head whipped around to face me. He had been watching Kalen talk. Now I saw hurt mar his face. “You’re leaving.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Kalen protested.

A tiny voice came from the face pressed against my shirt. It was raspy and sounded dry. “He’s probably at the Brewster’s,” Violet said.

“Who is that?” I asked out loud not really directing it anywhere. My sister needed water. I didn’t have time to appeal to Turner’s feelings and Kalen’s vengeance.

“You wouldn’t remember. But their father was excommunicated for making Devil’s juice.”

“Devil’s juice?”I questioned.

“You know like Moonshine,” my sister croaked.

My mouth rounded in an O. Looking at my sister, I knew I couldn’t stay still any longer. "I have to get something for Vi's face." I headed out the back door feeling the bite of tension leak through the room.

I wasn't at all surprised when Turner followed me out back.

"Where you planning on telling me?" his voice was filled with anguish that tormented me more than Violet's bruised face.

"Yes," I pleaded, hoping he'd see the truth. "When I didn't see you all day, I came looking for you at your house. You were already gone. Then the fire."

This discussion aside, I needed to get cold water on the rag I snagged before heading inside. There wasn't ice. The dry ice used in iceboxes if she had some would burn not sooth. I pumped and held the rag under the spout with difficulty until Turner came and gave me a hand.

"You're leaving with him?"

"Yes, but it's not what you think." A sob threatened but I managed to hold it back.

He stood straight, the rag now sopping wet. "And what am I to think. That you lied to me, that your boyfriend showed up to collect you, and you’re leaving with him."

"No," I pleaded.

"That you lied about giving us a change." I stepped up to him determined to convince him of the truth.  He beat me to the punch line. "Do you love him?"

That stopped me dead. I couldn’t look at him. Lying wasn’t my strong suit. He didn’t wait for my answer seemingly to draw his own conclusion from my silence.

"Do you love me?" he asked, voice tight.

"Yes," but it came out as a whisper.

"You can't have it both ways."

"I know."

The rag dripped unconcerned with the heavy conversation taking place. "We'll finish this later. But promise me you won’t run before we have a chance to talk."

I nodded unwilling to say anymore. I'd hurt him and I didn't know how to fix it.

We walked back inside and the first thing I noticed was Kalen wasn't there. Violet still sat at the table. She'd laid her head back down.

"Where is Kalen?" I asked sharply.

Violet sat up. I moved to clean off some of the dried blood from her face. “Ouch.”

“Sorry,” I murmured. “Do you know where he went?” My tone wasn’t as frosty. She’d been through enough.

Tuner stood watching, waiting for what Violet had to say.

“I told him where I thought Mike might be.” Her voice was still raspy, and I remembered that I should have brought her something to drink. But her words chilled me. I met Turner’s eyes.

“I’m on it. You both need to leave. Meet me back at my place.” He headed for the door.

“What are you going to do?”

For a second he halted and turned. “I’m going to stop your boyfriend from committing murder. Then I’m going to put Mike in a holding cell for the council to deal with his crimes.” Crimes plural.

If he had set my sister’s house on fire, I wondered what else he was capable of. I thought of the convenient death of Mr. Fisher. Could he have killed him?

Turner left. The air that swept in was heavy with moisture. It hadn’t rained yet. But the promise was there.

As my first order of business, I headed in the kitchen and found a jug of water in the warm refrigerator. I poured Vi a half goblet of water and brought it to her. While she drank, I spoke. “Like Turner said, we need to leave.”

“Why? He won’t be back tonight.”

I sat because I felt like a mother standing over her to chastise. Her face was puffy on one side. I took the cloth to clean the rest of the blood away while there was still a tiny bit of light left to see. She listed to the side like she might pass out. “You don’t know if he’ll come back or not.”

The cloth must have hit a tender spot because she yanked back. “He won’t and it doesn’t matter, least of not to you. You’re leaving and I’m stuck with him.”

“You’re not stuck. If you’d just told someone or been honest with Father or Turner, they would have handled it.” She kept out of my reach as I tried to clean her up.

“And what?” she asked. “Where would I go? I couldn’t stay here. And I have no skills. What man would want me after ratting on my own husband?”

“You have skills.”

“Yeah, skills,” she said dryly.

I rolled my eyes. “I certainly wasn’t talking about that. You can bake.”

“Yeah, like that’s hard.”

“I can’t bake.”

“You can if you put some effort into it.”

I shook my head. “I’m not going to argue with you. You’re going to pack a bag and come to New York with me.”

Her one good eye widened. Then she moaned in pain as she slapped a hand over the puffy eye.

“Father thinks it’s a good idea too. He’s offered to pay for you to go to baking school or cooking school, whatever they call it.”

“No fooling?”

My head rocked side to side.

A faint hint of a smile grew on one side of her face. “So he’s the guy.”

I sighed. I’d wondered when she would ask. “He’s the guy.”

“What are you going to do?”

It was without specific words, but I knew we were talking about my choice between the two men in my life. “I don’t know.” And I didn’t. I loved them both, and I couldn’t see life without either.

“Well, I’m not going anywhere.”

My vision turned to arrows. “What?”

“Not right now. I need to rest and I don’t want anyone to see me looking like this.” She gestured drunkenly with her hands. But it wasn’t alcohol that caused her loopy movements. I hoped for a second that Kalen would kill him.