Something New (25 page)

“We each briefly had the same foster mother, although not at the same time. When she—her name was Marisol—died, we both knew the guy who took responsibility for taking care of Mari’s final wishes. We were helping him out during a tough time, and we hit it off right away in an unusual kind of way. Her name is Abby, and we’ve recently taken a step toward something new.”

Really new.

Talking about Abby conjured images of Braden and the equally raw emotions he brought out in Rodrigo. Only, Rodrigo had never had this loose a conversation with his father before, and he had a feeling telling the guy he was stirred up about another dude would bring their talk to a screeching halt. Still, leaving all his mixed-up emotions about Braden unspoken twisted a sick feeling in Rodrigo’s stomach, almost like a betrayal.

Rodrigo took a fast swig of his soda and cleared his throat. “How about Mary?” The brief ease Rodrigo had experienced sharing details about himself withered away and pushed him back to that guarded place he’d lived in with this man for the last six months. “When did you guys meet?”

“Ah, my Mary. Now there’s a good woman.” Henry settled back into the booth, and from the dreamy expression on his sun-roughened face, Rodrigo would have thought the man was envisioning Marilyn Monroe. “I’d just about figured I was too old and set in my ways and that my hands were too rough and nicked and my fingernails too dirty for an attractive, nice, smart woman to want me. Then about ten years ago, this pretty woman who seemed like she was about my age was visiting with one of my neighbors. When she went to leave, her car wouldn’t start. I was working on my lawn close by. She asked me if I knew anything about cars. I know a bit.” Henry shrugged off that understatement, even though Rodrigo knew he’d done a stint in the army as a mechanic. “That was the first time I met Mary. She didn’t seem to mind that I had more rough edges than smooth, and the first time she laughed when I made some dumb-ass joke about the car’s dead engine, I fell in love with her.”

Henry pushed forward, leaned in, and lowered his voice. “I was sweating like a whore in confession, but I asked her out to dinner and a movie. She said yes. She was—is, as you know—a biology and chemistry teacher and way too fucking smart for me, but she liked me, and I wasn’t dumb enough to let her slip away. We were married a year later.” He fingered his wedding band. “We’ve been getting along together ever since.”

“That’s nice. Thank you for sharing that with me.” For the first time with Henry, Rodrigo found himself with a dozen more questions milling inside him and a mouthful of things to say that didn’t feel artificial or forced. Rodrigo looked at this man, who was so clearly in love with his wife, and thought maybe there was something in Rodrigo that was from his father after all. They certainly didn’t look a damn thing alike.

“I appreciate Mary’s kindness toward me,” Rodrigo said. “I suppose it was just as much a shock to her as it was to you that you had a grown son.”

“She sees you as a blessing, Rodrigo.” Henry made the words sound like a pat on his shoulder even though they came out a little gruffly. “That’s just the way Mary is.”

“Still, she could have chosen to distance herself from it and say you were on your own with me.”

Shadows passed through Henry’s eyes. “Mary wanted kids. We tried for a couple of years after we got married, but it didn’t happen. We couldn’t afford all that fertility stuff, and even if we could have, I think I would have been too worried about her health to try it.” Henry’s lips pressed tighter together, exaggerating the grooves cut into his skin around his mouth. “She hasn’t come out and said anything, but I think she hopes that if you and I grow closer that you’ll eventually view her as someone you can talk to when you want advice from a woman who could be like a mother.” He held up a hand even though Rodrigo had not opened his mouth. “I’m not saying she wants you to call her Mom or anything, but just, you know, when you think you might want to talk to someone who has mom qualities, she’d like to be there for you.”

A mother to go with the new father
. Rodrigo had never even really had one parent—unless he counted the time he spent under Marisol’s temporary care—let alone two. Plus, Rodrigo had to think about the needs of
two
people now in his new relationship, and he wasn’t at all sure he had the skills necessary to keep all three of them happy as a unit.
When the hell did my life get so fucking full of people I feel a responsibility to?

“Mary would like you to come over for dinner one night,” Henry added. “Maybe you’d like to bring Abby too.”

“I’ll think about it.” Politeness kept Rodrigo from completely rejecting Mary’s offer, but no way could Rodrigo take Abby to meet Henry and Mary and leave Braden out in the cold. “Let me get back to you later, at a better time.”

A server in jeans and a Thomasine’s T-shirt brought their food to the table right then with apologies for the delay. She added a serving of
platanos
at no extra charge and told them to have a good meal.

“So…” Rodrigo inhaled the tangy scent of the
pico de gallo
with black beans steaming up from his plate. “Tell me what you’re doing now. I take it you’re working in the area?”

Henry nodded around a mouthful of Jonah’s sandwich. “We’re repainting the police station a couple of blocks away.”

“Oh? I have a friend who is a detective in that building.” Maybe Rodrigo could share something about Braden without coming right out and revealing that he’d let the man fuck him last night.

Henry had his brows raised, clearly waiting for Rodrigo to go on, so Rodrigo said, “He’s a hard-ass, but a pretty cool guy to have on your side…”

Chapter Thirteen

Abandoned.

From the passenger seat of Rodrigo’s truck, Abby stared at the house she’d lived in the first eight years of her life, heartsick at the empty shell it had become. Her farmhouse had been soft yellow with white shutters and doors. Now the siding was a faded tan with muddy brown treatments. The porch looked dark and gloomy rather than cheerful, and weeds had taken over the yard and oak trees.

Abby blinked away the threat of tears.
It’s not my home at all
. The clog in her throat made her feel like an absolute ninny. She hadn’t thought of this house as a home since the night her parents had been murdered, yet looking at it right now, the pull to run up and down the wide hallways while playing chase with her dad nearly had her looking over her shoulder and expecting to see his tall frame and red hair.

Next to her, Braden touched her arm, and the sensation jerked her back into the truck. “Do you want to get out?” He kept his voice gentle, and Abby could see equal concern on Rodrigo’s face next to Braden.

“Of course.” She opened the door and jumped out of the truck with a forced lightness in her step. “I need to go inside. I don’t think the outside is going to jog any memories of that day and night.”

Braden climbed out behind Abby, reading from a note in a file. “The house has exchanged hands a couple of times since you lived here. The last owners went underwater with their mortgage and walked away from it three months ago. Right now”—he turned in a circle, taking in not only the home, but the buffer of land surrounding it—“the bank is just sitting on it. It’s empty and shouldn’t be too hard to get inside.”

From the back of the truck, Rodrigo hauled a ladder out and settled it on his shoulder. “Looks like the previous owners gave up on it long before they moved out. At least on the yard.”

Braden led the way up the porch to the door. As he extracted a small case from his jacket pocket, he looked over his shoulder with a twinkle in his eye. “You didn’t see me do this.” He handed Abby the case file. “It won’t be going into my official notes.”

“I won’t say a word.” Abby held the file up to her mouth. “It’s locked in the vault.”

Rodrigo trudged up the steps with his ladder in tow. “Your boss know you pick locks, Crenshaw?”

“No.” Braden glanced over his shoulder and looked right into Rodrigo’s eyes. “He doesn’t know I fucked you last night either.” He took in Rodrigo’s tall, fit frame in jeans and a long-sleeved gray T-shirt and winked lewdly. “Some things are just for me, you know?”

“Smug prick.” Red cut through Rodrigo’s dark coloring.

Braden blew him a kiss. “And you know you love it.”

Abby kept the file over her mouth to cover her laugh. She didn’t know why, but listening to these two men exchange suggestive insults wrapped itself around her like two strong pairs of arms holding her tightly so that she didn’t fall. Suddenly, stepping foot inside this house didn’t fill her with nearly so much dread as had been eating at her all morning.

They’ll be here with me. They won’t let me break apart and lose my mind.

“Ahh…” The door snicked as Braden successfully picked it open. “And there she is.” He reached in to flip a switch as the door swung open. “No electricity.” Using his shoulder and back, Braden pushed the door open and held it wide. “I didn’t figure there would be, but it was worth a shot.”

Abby held her purse aloft with three fingers. “I have two flashlights in my bag.”

“I have a couple in my truck too,” Rodrigo added. “If we need more.”

Taking a cleansing breath, Abby walked into her old house, into an empty cave she barely recognized. Her memories of this house were attached to someone half her height who saw everything from a completely different angle. The hardwood floor squeaked under her sneakers as she moved, and that was definitely familiar. But where her mom had once stamped her own country-girl personality over every color painted on the walls or wallpaper border used, and her father had souvenirs from his hunting and fishing trips, this place had an impersonal modern taupe color on every wall Abby could see.

I can’t feel even a hint of them here.

“There used to be a huge marlin mounted here.” Abby pointed at an entry wall. “And then my mom had this little bench with hearts cut out of the wood. There was a big floor vase next to the bench with stalks of dried flowers in it.”

“It’s tough to see things changed from the way we remember them.” Braden curled his hand around Abby’s arm and brought her attention back to him. He rubbed up to her shoulder, massaged her neck, and offered an encouraging smile. “You take this in whatever direction you need to go.” He took the file out of her hand. “You take the lead, and we’ll follow and listen.”

Rodrigo leaned the ladder against the wall and pecked a kiss to the top of her head. “Just tell me when you need me.”

Feeling lifted, Abby nodded and squeezed their hands. One of the first things that struck Abby as she moved through the living room to the dining area to finally the kitchen was how much smaller this house was in reality than she’d ever thought as a little girl. Abby never remembered her father dwarfing each room when he entered, yet every time Braden and Rodrigo followed her into a room, the space immediately felt like it shrank by a quarter. The personal touches in the kitchen—like the nicks in the wood indicating her growth, and her mother’s mural of a cottage in a wildflower meadow—were long gone, and the walk-in pantry was now a tiny bathroom.

Nothing left to show we ever lived here.

Picking up her pace, Abby backtracked to the foyer and went down the hallway, racing for her old bedroom. More of that taupe color coated the walls, but by this point, Abby had no illusions that the multicolored pastel dream room she’d spent her nights in as a little girl would have remained. Logically, she’d known the house would look entirely different. Eighteen years had gone by. Even if her parents had survived and still lived here, they would have made changes to reflect their life and the times. As a teenager, Abby certainly would have nagged for an upgrade from the soft, childlike room to something bolder and more in line with her emerging personality.

Still, Abby had not expected to feel as disconnected to this place as she did right now.

There is still one room to check.

Backing out into the hallway, Abby took a half dozen more steps and came upon the only room in the house with the door firmly closed.

Seems fitting somehow.

The frantic heartbeat she’d not had to deal with before kicked in and pumped blood so fast it deafened her hearing.

Facing the demon, Abby exhaled and said, “This was my parents’ bedroom.” And just as when ripping off a Band-Aid, Abby pushed the door wide open in one fell swoop.

The space had no furniture, and the walls were not her mother’s favorite peach color any longer, but in here Abby could somehow envision the soft, warm shade through the tan…and she could also see blood spatter coating it grotesquely and her father as he lay slumped against it.

You can do this
. Almost outside herself, Abby watched her breasts lift as her breathing quickened.
Pull it together. This is why you’re here.

“I came down from the attic through that closet and my mother was here”—with two steps, Abby pointed at the floor—“and my father was there.” She lifted her arm in the direction of the wall straight ahead.

Braden circled Abby and crouched down so he could look up at her downturned face. “What do you remember first? Can you tell me?”

For a good long minute, Abby stood there mute, her mind a blank. Or rather, too much data from that day and night rushed at her, and she couldn’t sort it out. Then her nose tingled, and she nodded, almost to herself. “I remember I couldn’t smell the oranges.” She rushed to the built-in seating and leaned over it to unlock and raise the glass. “The window was cracked open but I couldn’t smell the oranges.” She saw the question on both men’s faces from across the room. “One of the orchards we drove past on our way out here butts up against our backyard. Back then, when the windows were open, I could always smell oranges.”

“But you couldn’t that day,” Braden prompted.

“No.” This time, flashing back made Abby crinkle her nose and swallow down the acrid taste of bile. “I smelled blood—this sharp, coppery smell—and…excrement.”

Braden turned to Rodrigo. “Bodies empty out when people die.”