Pleasure in the Rain (15 page)

With Luke almost grown now, he didn’t relish the idea of spending the rest of his life alone. His relationship with Rachel was a comfortable one. It made no demands or even hinted at happily-ever-after and white picket fences. At one point, he’d believed in destiny and people who were meant for each other. A young man’s dreams. He no longer believed in any of that. If what he had with Rachel met the definition of compatibility more than love, he still appreciated her. She was smart and beautiful and he personally knew of a dozen men who envied him.

“So what’s the holdup, Ian?” Curtis asked with a punch to his left shoulder. “You need a reason to leave the office before midnight.”

A waiter approached them and handed Ian a cordless phone. “There’s a call for you, Mr. McKinley.”

“Now, who could that be?” Curtis joked. “We’re the only ones who ever bother you at this hour, and we’re all here.”

Ian shrugged and moved to the window, away from the noise of the party. “Hello.”

“Mr. McKinley?”

“Yes?”

“This is Detective O’Neill with the New York City Police Department. Is Luke McKinley your son?”

Alarm shot through Ian. “Yes, he is.”

“He was arrested tonight for possession of marijuana, Mr. McKinley.”

It took a moment for the words to sink in. One by one, they finally did, even as disbelief washed over him. “Is he all right?”

“Yes.”

“There must be a mistake. Luke has never-”

“No mistake, Mr. McKinley.”

The detective gave him the address of the station and told him where to find Luke. Ian hung up, feeling as if someone had just punched him in the gut. He found Rachel and told her everything he knew. When she offered to go with him, he asked her to stay and explain to the others that he’d had an emergency.

He caught a cab outside the building, imagining during the drive a hundred different scenarios involving Luke and jail.

When the driver pulled over at the police station, Ian handed him a fifty and sprinted for the door, his stomach churning. Inside, he took the elevator to the third floor. Even at this hour, the place vibrated with purpose. Still dressed in his tuxedo, he got his fair share of stares as he wound his way through a maze of desks littered with coffee cups and mounds of paper.

From the far corner of the room, a thin man with graying hair and skin that could use a little sunshine waved at him and called out, “You Mr. McKinley?”

“Yes.”

“Your son is in the room across the hall. Go on in. I’ll be right with you.”

“Thank you,” Ian said, while the detective went back to his call.

At the door, Ian stopped and drew in a deep breath before quickly turning the knob. Relief flooded him at the sight of Luke standing by the window with his hands jammed in his pockets.

His hair, long in front and short at the sides, halfway covered his eyes. His stance screamed defensive, his mouth set in a straight line. “Guess I messed up your party, huh?” he asked, his tone belligerent.

If Luke felt any fear, he wasn’t showing it.

“Is that what you meant to do?” Ian asked quietly, not at all sure where to go with this.

“I didn’t mean to do anything.” Luke shrugged, clearly a rebel with a cause, the origins of which Ian couldn’t begin to guess.

“They said you were arrested for drug possession.”

Another shrug. “Big deal.”

“Big deal?” Ian repeated. “Do you have any idea how serious this is?”

“It must be if you left your party to come down here.”

The verbal slap achieved its intended sting. “I know things have been busy lately, but-”

“Lately?” Luke interrupted with a short laugh. “You’ve been saying ‘lately’ since I was six years old. Probably before then, I just can’t remember so far back. You only have time for work. And Rachel, of course, now that she’s going to be your wife.”

Bitterness layered the declaration. The vehemence behind it shocked Ian. Luke wasn’t a big talker. For the past few years, getting information out of him took the finesse of a secret service agent. Ian chalked it up to teenage rebellion. The boy had been even less communicative since he’d told him about his engagement to Rachel. He looked at his son now and felt as though he were seeing him for the first time in a very long while. “I think we need to talk.”

“So pencil me in before your nine-thirty, and I’ll tell you all about how I know you wish I’d never been born.”

The anger in the boy’s voice hit Ian like a brick in the face. “Why would you say a thing like that, Luke?”

“Because it’s the truth.”

“No. It’s not. Son-”

“If it hadn’t been for me, she wouldn’t have died,” Luke yelled. “Don’t you think I know that?”

Ian grappled for composure. “Nobody could have prevented what happened to your mother. She had a stroke. How could you possibly think I would-”

“I don’t know,” he interrupted. “Maybe because you work all the time just so you don’t have to be around me.”

“Luke!” Ian stopped, at a complete loss for a response. Somehow, when he hadn’t been looking, something had gone terribly wrong between the two of them. Staring across at his son, part boy, part man, Ian wondered how Luke had felt this way without his knowing. How long had Luke been trying to get his attention? “Does this have something to do with my marrying Rachel?”

“I don’t care who you marry. I’m sure you’ll make all the time in the world for her.”

Ian felt as if someone had just held a mirror in front of him. He didn’t like what he saw. He thought about the party given in his honor tonight and realized the price. He’d spent the past seventeen years trying to make sure Luke had the things he himself never had as a kid. He’d sent the boy off to a camp in Wyoming every summer and to Austria in the winter with his ski team. In fact, he’d given him everything possible except one thing.

Time.

Maybe if he had, none of this would be happening.

Maybe if he had, he wouldn’t have needed this kind of wake-up call to see what a mess he’d made of things.

Ian sank down on the chair behind him. He raked a hand through his hair and wondered how he’d gone from such heights to such depths in the span of one night. Luke was in trouble. Ian could blame no one but himself.

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AN EXCERPT FROM TRUTHS AND ROSES

By

Inglath Cooper

   Prologue

New Orleans, Louisiana

The ball flew out of the quarterback's hands, whistling down the length of the Superdome field like a missile. A missile aimed at Will Kincaid.

From his spot on the fifteen-yard line, he narrowed his gaze, willing the oncoming ball to land in his waiting hands. Nothing existed except this moment. There were no fans lunging to their feet, no vendors hawking popcorn and Cokes in the stands, no TV cameras zooming in on him. Just the knowledge that within his reach hung the brass ring.

The moment he'd waited for all his life. The Super Bowl. A single chance in which to make his mark in history. He could taste the victory, feel its reassuring caress through the sweat and grime that covered his face. His. It was his. Before his eyes flashed an image of his father's face.

"You'll make me proud out there, son. Never given me reason to be ashamed yet. I know you won't start tonight.”

Winning. Nothing else mattered. Determination roared up from deep inside him. He launched himself at the ball, reaching, reaching…

It landed solidly in his grasp, and he catapulted forward. A hand grabbed for his shoulder, missed, and snatched again. He ran, flat out, every self-doubt that had ever plagued him pushing him down that field. But just as Will's feet crossed the line, the safety tackled him, taking him down, slamming him into the unforgiving turf. His right knee twisted and took the full impact of his weight.

The resounding crack echoed in his ears.

He lay there, not moving while thousands of fans roared their support, hero worship for a young man who, at twenty-nine, had reached the top of the ladder he’d chosen to climb. Nausea rose inside him, swift enough to draw a groan from his midsection. Then the blackness overtook him, and everything else faded against the backdrop of his father's unreadable frown.

Chapter One

Hannah Jacobs had long been aware that most of the people in Lake Perdue considered her a mystery. They thought it odd that a young woman would go months without showing her face at a public function. Odd that she seemed content to work in a small-town library week after week, month after month, year after year, when most of her peers had moved away to make their fortunes.

They didn't know that the old brick building with its slate roof and musty memories of the flood of '64 suited her. It no longer mattered that she'd once entertained other dreams. The library had become her solace. Her refuge. Books did not question or judge. They made safe companions.

Jenny Dudley, as assistant librarian, did not share Hannah's passion, but she went about her work with singular efficiency and enthusiasm. In the past few years, she had become Hannah's closest friend. But even with Jenny, Hannah avoided talking about anything personal, preferring, instead, to discuss topics associated with the library—which books had received favorable reviews in Publishers Weekly, how many they could order and stay within budget.

Today, though, their conversation did not run toward anything so dry. Hannah would have given a day's pay to be arguing the merits of stocking the shelves with extra copies of Faulkner. Avoiding Jenny's eyes, she reached for the L encyclopedia and shoved the volume into its proper spot.

“It would do you good to get out for a change, Hannah,” Jenny said. “A parade would be just the thing. You need to start living a little." At forty-five, Jenny followed her own advice, coming in with a new hairstyle every week. Keep a man guessing, she said, convinced it would eventually help her find the man she'd been searching for in the twenty-odd years since she'd lost her husband.

“I don't have time today.”

“Don't you ever get tired of the same old routine? You're here every day except Sunday. And every night you head straight for that old mausoleum you call home. You're the only person I know whose spice cabinet is alphabetized. Not to mention that you've read ninety-five percent of the books in this library. Books and reality are two different things, you know. What you need, Hannah Jacobs, is something to ruffle your feathers a bit.”

Hannah closed her eyes and rubbed a hand across the back of her neck. She'd heard it before, how the romance of spinsterhood had gone the route of the wooden icebox. “Jenny, don't start this again.”

“A young woman like yourself ought to be getting out more.”

“Jenny.” The word was a warning.

“And I can't understand why you insist on playing down your God-given good looks. It's like you're trying to hide them or something. Why on earth don't you-”

“We've been through this before, Jen. Please.”

Jenny muttered something about the folly of a woman hiding her light under a bushel then made a mock salute of truce. “All right. But it's not as if a local hero comes home to roost every day of the week.” With a what's-this-world-coming-to sigh of exasperation, she urged the metal book cart down the aisle and said, “You really aren't going?”

“It's February,” Hannah said, hoping to divert Jenny's mission. “How can you have a parade in February?”

Jenny shrugged. “No one ever complains about having the Christmas parade in cold weather. What's the difference?”

A gust of wind caught a limb of the pine tree outside the front window, slapping it against the pane. Hannah flinched then reached for another book. “Parades are for soldiers coming home, retired war veterans, even Santa Claus. Not football players,” she added with a shake of her head.

“For goodness' sake, Hannah, you act like Will Kincaid's an ax murderer or something. He won the Super Bowl.”

“And the rest of the town is acting like he's the messiah.”

“Oh, that's hogwash. You know he's just a local boy made good. What's wrong with giving him a little pat on the back?”

“Certainly a contribution to mankind.” Hannah aligned the row of encyclopedias in soldier-like precision despite the fact that the two-thirty school bus would drop off a dozen or so hands to interpose A with C and P with Z.

“Come on. Sandy will be here after school to work the front desk. We could slip out for a few minutes-”

“I have a dental appointment at four.” For all the sorrow in her voice, she could have been announcing her imminent departure for Tahiti.

The corners of Jenny's mouth puckered in a frown. “I guess I'll go by myself then.”

Hannah didn't take the bait. “I'm sure you'll have plenty of company.”

“Well, then, you might just be sorry,” Jenny said, attempting one last tack. “He's awfully good-looking, if all those magazine articles are anything to judge from.”