Twice in a Lifetime (28 page)

Eddie was so dumbfounded that he rose out of his chair. “What…what do you think you’re doing?”

“It’s not enough,” the man answered matter-of-factly.

“But…but this is what we agreed to! You said so just this morning!”

McCoy shook his head. “I changed my mind. Now I want twelve thousand.”

Eddie couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His heart raced, his blood pressure rose, and he breathed so hard his nostrils flared. “This is…this is outrageous!” he shouted in a voice that hardly sounded like his own.

“Call it whatever you want,” the driver answered, his face impassive, his voice sounding as if this was nothing out of the ordinary. “If it’s too much, then I suppose I can stick around town a while longer. Folks here are real friendly.”

Inside, Eddie raged. He hadn’t bargained on McCoy proving to be so greedy. Still, he
was
rich, wealthy enough to afford what the bastard was unjustly demanding. To Eddie, Clara Sinclair was worth any price. Whatever he had to spend to make her his, it was a price worth paying.

In the end, it was only money.

“All right,” Eddie grumbled reluctantly. “Twelve thousand it is.”

He sat back down, pulled out his checkbook, and started to write out the new amount. He was halfway done when McCoy interrupted him.

“I’ve got a question,” he said.

Eddie’s hand came to an abrupt halt, his pen making an unintended mark on the paper. Was McCoy going to make
another
demand?

“What is it?” he asked curtly.

“After you’ve paid me to go away, what will you do if Clara refuses to become your wife? What if she still rejects you?”

Eddie shook his head. This was nonsense. “She won’t.”

“But what if she does?” the driver pressed.

“Clara’s smart enough not to make such a mistake.”

McCoy chuckled. “I don’t think you know her as well as you think you do.”

“Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts…” Eddie said.

The racer shook his head.

“Then why do you want to know so badly?”

“I’m curious.”

Eddie licked his lips. “If Clara was foolish enough to refuse what I’m offering, then I’d take away everything that matters to her.”

“How?”

“How?” Eddie echoed, warming to his explanation. “Just how hard do you think it would be for me to go into the bank’s records and make it appear as if Clara was behind on her house payments?”

“You’ve already told me this,” the driver said. “What happens then?”

“Then I’ll own her house and Clara will be out on the street, along with her son, her mother, and everything they own.”

What Eddie left unsaid was that he hoped it wouldn’t come to that; he wanted Clara, not her house. Threatening to take it was simply a means to an end. Regardless, he’d do it if she kept rejecting him. Though it would hurt him deeply, he would ruin her life. He wasn’t a man to be trifled with.

“Isn’t that illegal?” McCoy asked.

“Of course it is,” Eddie snapped, growing annoyed at all the questions. “Truth is, Clara has never once been late on a payment, but so what? I can change that, turn it upside down, and no one will doubt me for a second.”

“Because you’re so important…”

“That’s right. Banks
are
important, and the men who run them are powerful,” he continued, thinking about all the times his father had failed to flaunt his authority, preaching to his son that he wasn’t above the community; what complete hogwash! “Clara can claim that she’s paid up until she’s blue in the face, but it won’t do her any good, and that’s why she’s going to do
exactly
as I say.”

With that, Eddie returned to filling out the check.

“You’re a real son of a bitch.”

Once again, he stopped writing. McCoy’s voice had been menacing, his words spat in accusation. Eddie looked up. The other man’s face was twisted into a scowl, as if he was itching for a fight. Shockingly, so was Eddie.

“What did you call me?” he demanded.

“You heard me,” McCoy answered. “I’ve spent an awful lot of years driving from one town to the next, most of them a lot like Sunset, and during that time, I’ve met all kinds of people. Some were rich, others poor. Some were educated, most were not. But I have never met such a spineless, manipulative bastard as you.” The driver paused, letting a smile slowly spread across his face. “As long as I live, I’m going to be glad I played a part in bringing your life crashing down around your head. Just remember this: not everything is for sale.”

Eddie stood quickly, so violently that his chair toppled over onto the floor. “What…what is this?” he shouted. “What are you talking about?”

“Turn around and find out.”

Incredulous, confused, and more than a little frightened, Eddie spun on his heel just as two people stepped into the parlor. He suddenly felt ill.

Standing before him was Clara. Next to her was Sheriff Oglesby.

Clara couldn’t believe what she’d heard. She and the sheriff had been standing outside the parlor, listening to Eddie and Drake’s conversation. Several times, she’d wanted to rush into the room, to scream her outrage at Eddie, but every time she’d managed to fight down the urge, remembering what Drake had told her; until Eddie admitted to blackmailing her, until he acknowledged that he knew what he was doing was illegal, she couldn’t show herself.

But it had been hard to hold back…

It hadn’t been much easier at the bank. All morning, she’d struggled to act as if nothing was wrong, like it was just another day. The worst part had been catching Eddie staring at her with his goofy grin; she didn’t want to imagine what disturbed fantasies were rolling around in his head.

As the clock neared noon, Eddie had left for his meeting with Drake; Clara had followed, dodging rain puddles as she hurried down back streets leading to the hotel. Sheriff Oglesby was waiting at the rear entrance; Drake had informed the lawman of their plans that morning. Edna Gilbert let them inside. Making their way to the parlor, they listened to Eddie incriminate himself.

Now, she no longer needed to keep quiet.

“How dare you?!” Clara shouted, her voice quavering with fury. She moved quickly, closing the distance between them, and slapped Eddie hard across his face; in the small room, the blow sounded as loud as a gunshot.

Eddie’s eyes went as wide as saucers, not from pain but from shock. “Clara, wait…I didn’t…I…” he stammered. “I never—”

Before he could lie, Clara hit him again. She reared back a third time, but the sheriff grabbed her wrist.

“Hold on,” the lawman said. “No one’s going to disagree that he had the first two coming, but that’s enough for now.”

“I don’t know what you think you heard,” Eddie argued, pressing his palm against his rapidly reddening cheek, “but I assure you that I wouldn’t—”

“Stow it, Eddie,” Sheriff Oglesby cut him off. “We’ve been standing outside the whole time. I heard every word loud and clear.”

“Then you misunderstood! I didn’t mean that—”

“Let’s you and I go down to my office and have a talk,” the lawman continued. “I’m particularly interested in one word: blackmail.”

When they had come up with their plan, the intention wasn’t to put Eddie behind bars but rather to render him impotent. Tommy had made the analogy that the banker’s threat was like a loaded gun pointed straight at their heads; they needed to remove the bullets. But if Eddie ended up falling hard, if he went to jail, lost the bank and all his wealth, his life ruined, then so be it.

Suddenly, Eddie seemed to realize all he stood to lose. His panicked eyes found Clara. “I wouldn’t have gone through with it!” he swore. “I love you! I have
always
loved you!”

Clara stared hard at him. She remembered all the times he had approached her at her teller window, making pathetic come-ons, ignoring how she rejected him. She thought back to their talk in his office, when he’d proposed marriage and then threatened her with losing her home if she didn’t accept.

Because of all that, she had no pity for Eddie Fuller.

“You have no idea what love is,” Clara said matter-of-factly.

Her words made Eddie begin to lose control. His body trembled. Spittle wet his lips. Veins stood out on his neck. But when his fury overflowed, it was turned not against Clara but against the man he undoubtedly blamed for stealing her away.

“This is all because of you!” Eddie roared at Drake.

Completely unhinged, the banker lunged toward his perceived rival for Clara’s love, intent on tearing the man limb from limb. Clara was so frightened she screamed. But Drake was as calm as he was behind the wheel of the Plymouth. Before Eddie could reach him, he was out of his chair. He sidestepped a weak attempt at a punch, and then drove his own fist into Eddie’s stomach so hard that it lifted the man off the ground.

“Unfff,” Eddie wheezed, the air violently driven from his lungs.

When he fell to the floor, he lay in a heap, his hands holding his midsection, rocking back and forth, heaving and retching.

The next thing Clara knew, she was in Drake’s arms, holding him tight, thankful that it was finally over.

“Come on, now,” the sheriff said as he pulled Eddie up onto unsteady feet. As the banker was led from the parlor, it sounded like he was crying.

Once they were alone, Drake asked, “Are you all right?”

Clara nodded. She was about to ask him the same when Edna Gilbert stuck her head through the doorway and said, “Looks like you got him.”

“I hope so,” Clara answered.

“Serves him right,” the hotel owner remarked with a broad grin. “Standin’ in the way of love like that. I hope when he’s locked up, they lose the key.”

Clara couldn’t have agreed more.

Outside, the rain had stopped. Blue sky poked through the disappearing clouds; as the sun shone down, its light reflected off puddles, passing cars, and the wet sidewalks. Clara and Drake looked up, feeling the warmth of the afternoon, reveling in what had happened. Luring Eddie into their trap had been risky, but somehow everything had worked out. Now they were finally free to start their life together, to let their love bloom.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Drake said.

Clara smiled. “I was just thinking about how different everything looks now that our troubles are behind us.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he replied. “I lost my best friend, my car, and nearly all my savings, which means I can’t open a garage.”

“I suppose you’re right…” she said, feeling a bit deflated.

Drake chuckled. He pulled Clara close, pushing hair off her cheek and looking deep into her eyes. “In the end, none of that is important,” he explained. “What matters is that I have you. Together, we can do anything.”

Clara believed him. Ever since their unlikeliest of meetings, her life had undergone one change after another: she had mended most of her troubles with her son, while Tommy had broken off his relationship with Naomi; Eddie’s threat of taking away her home was no more; and even though her mother’s memory continued to deteriorate, she no longer had to face it alone. But the most unbelievable change of all was having Drake by her side.

“I love you,” she said.

He didn’t answer with words, but instead leaned down to kiss her, making it clear that he felt the same.

“What do you say we go celebrate?” he asked when their lips parted.

Now
that
sounded like a wonderful idea.

H
AVE A GOOD EVENING
. Stay warm!”

Clara waved to Roy Washington as she stepped out of the Sunset Bank and Trust and into the autumn evening. Darkness was coming fast, the days shortening. A nippy breeze stirred fallen leaves, swirling them around her feet and sending a chill racing through her; she stuffed her hands deep in her pockets, desperate for a bit of warmth. Still, as she quickened her pace down the empty sidewalk, her smile was as bright as summer. Her life was good.

Ever since Eddie had been hauled out of the hotel parlor by Sheriff Oglesby, everything at the bank had changed for the better. Roy, who had been fired shortly after Theo Fuller’s death, was brought back to guide the bank through the turbulent waters Eddie had steered them into. An auditing of the books showed that Eddie had cost them tens of thousands of dollars—mostly out of sheer incompetence, but some funds had been embezzled to buy expensive clothes, drink, cigars, and other luxuries that had caught his fancy; that included the money he’d attempted to give Drake to leave town. For that, Eddie had been sentenced to thirty years behind bars. At his trial, Clara had expected him to protest his innocence, to complain that he was too important to go to jail, but he had barely said a word in his own defense, sitting with slumped shoulders, a beaten man. He would never bother anyone, especially Clara, again.

She walked past the post office, the grocery store, and the Sunset Hotel, where so much had happened last spring, before finally arriving at her destination.

The doors to Solomon Burke’s auto garage stood wide open; inside, two men were bent over beneath an open hood, peering into an engine. Music was occasionally punctuated by the clang of a tool against metal.

Even though he couldn’t possibly have heard her approach, Drake noticed her arrival. “Give me a minute,” he said.

Clara nodded, stamping her feet in the chill.

Of course, this wasn’t what they’d intended when Drake had first proposed giving up racing and staying in Sunset. But when all his money had been destroyed in the Plymouth’s crash, his dream had been lost, or, at the least, postponed. Fortunately, he’d had no trouble catching on with Solomon; five minutes under the hood with Drake would have convinced anyone he was a good mechanic. Because he was easy to work with, as well as a good listener, he immediately fit right in. He still socked away as much money as he could afford to save; maybe he would someday open his own business, or he might even buy Solomon’s. Either way, she knew he was happy.

Patting his boss on the back, Drake was done for the day. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and began to wipe grease from his hands; he never managed to get them completely clean.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “I was never the best when it came to changing the distributor on a V8 engine. Amos had it down to a science.”

It wasn’t often, but Drake’s old friend still came up in conversation occasionally. Miraculously, the thug who had been jettisoned from the Cadillac had survived his injuries. Once he could talk, he had explained that Amos was a morphine addict who’d stolen money and drugs from Sweet Woods, a small-time hood from St. Louis; he and the other tough had died in the crash that claimed Amos. For months after, Drake had sifted through his years with the mechanic, searching for something, some sign of his drug habit, but had come up empty. Clara suspected that there was a part of Drake that blamed himself for Amos’s death; if he’d known about his friend’s addiction, he could have saved him. So now when Amos was mentioned, it was always the good things, times on the road and under the hood, never anything that had happened in Sunset.

“So what’s so important to show me that I have to stand out here in the cold?” Clara asked playfully.

Drake chuckled. “It wouldn’t be much of a surprise if I just blurted it out, now would it? Come with me.”

He led her around the back of the garage, past DeSotos, Chryslers, Oldsmobiles, and other makes, all in various stages of repair. True to his word, one of the first vehicles Drake worked on had been Clara’s truck; after his long hours tinkering with it, the pickup ran better than it had in years, though it still occasionally sputtered to a stop if it idled too long.

“You’ll never guess who brought in his car today,” Drake said.

“Who?”

“Wilbur Marsh. That was his Studebaker that Solomon and I were working on.” Drake shook his head. “He hasn’t taken very good care of it.”

“Did he say anything about Naomi?”

“Not a word.”

One day, a little over a month ago, Naomi had disappeared from Sunset. Gossip around town was that she had hooked up with a man who’d come into the Marshland and decided to run off with him. Another rumor was that she was pregnant and had gone to live with relatives in Arkansas. For her part, Clara hoped that Naomi had decided to take a chance and gone to either New York or Hollywood to chase her dreams. Even though the young woman had caused her plenty of sleepless nights, Clara didn’t wish her ill. She figured that Naomi deserved happiness, wherever it might be. Who knew, maybe one day there she would be, up on a billboard or on the cover of a magazine.

Drake suddenly stopped. “Close your eyes,” he told her.

Clara did as he said and he took her by the elbow and led her a short distance farther.

“Open them.”

A vehicle sat beneath a tarp. “It’s a car,” she jokingly guessed.

“Give the lady a cigar!” Drake shouted like a carnival barker. “But this isn’t just any old car. This one is special.”

With that, he whipped away the tarp with a flourish. Even with as little as Clara knew about cars, she recognized its make right away; it was a Plymouth. While it wasn’t exactly the same as the one Drake had driven into Sunset, it had many of the same features: the curve of the hood, the shape of the headlights and side mirrors, and the black exterior. It had a few dents in its panels, some rust marring one of the wheel wells, and a crack across the passenger-side window, but it was a beauty all the same.

“I got it for a song,” Drake explained. “Chris Gilliand didn’t want it anymore, so I took it off his hands. It still needs a lot of work—the windshield wipers are busted, the trunk has to be forced open, and someone took a knife to the rear seats—but it’s on its way to respectability. It might be an eyesore on the outside, but under the hood, it’s a thing of beauty.”

A sudden thought struck Clara, making her smile falter. “Is this because you want to start racing again?” she asked.

Drake laughed loudly. “No, it isn’t,” he answered. “That itch has been scratched. I’m done behind the wheel.” He paused. “I was thinking that once I got it going, this might be Tommy’s.”

In the months since Drake’s arrival, it sometimes felt as if Tommy had changed into a completely different person. Out from under Naomi’s influence and with a strong male role model in his life, he was doing better than ever. Together, he and Drake had set about repairing the house; they rehung the fallen gutters, patched the roof, and had finally put the garage doors back up. Resuming an old tradition, all three of them had made almost weekly outings to the movie theater, indulging Tommy’s newfound love of monster flicks. At school, Tommy’s grades had started to improve and he’d made a few friends. He still had his moments of teenage rebelliousness, but that was to be expected; Clara didn’t mind a little sass now and then, not so long as she had her son back.

Unfortunately, not everything with her family had gotten better. Christine’s memory troubles plagued her more and more frequently. Just yesterday, she’d readied a load of laundry to hang on the line to dry; the problem was that it was pouring rain outside. She stumbled on names, forgot familiar phone numbers, blanked on addresses, and had even called Drake “Joe” once or twice; fortunately, he’d taken it in stride, never showing a hint of unease. Late at night, Clara often unloaded her worries to Drake. He always listened carefully, making the occasional comment, promising that they would do whatever they could to help Christine. Often, Clara thought about what he’d told her on the porch swing: that as long as they tried as hard as they could, that was enough. She still worried about her mother’s future, but she knew they wouldn’t let her go without a fight.

“So do you want to go for a ride?” Drake asked.

“It runs?” she replied.

“You better believe she runs.” He opened the driver’s-side door. “The other door doesn’t open so hot,” he explained.

Clara got in and slid across. Drake followed, put the key in the ignition, and started the Plymouth’s engine; the rumble was familiar.

“Are you sure you remember how to drive a car like this?”

Drake grinned. “I couldn’t forget if I tried.”

While he drove around to the street, Clara couldn’t help but think about how blessed she was to have met him. In the six months since Drake had unexpectedly given up racing and settled down with her in Sunset, she’d been blissfully happy. But as overwhelming as those first days together had been, what had followed was even better than she could have hoped. It was the day-to-day moments that made Clara fall head over heels for Drake: the way his hair was often mussed up; how he always tapped the wall just inside the kitchen door when he left after lunch; the unrecognizable yet pleasant tunes he whistled while he washed the dishes; but especially how he would surprise her with flowers or a note when she least expected it, just to tell her how much he loved her. Her heart still drummed faster every time she saw him, every time she heard his voice.

A week ago, Drake had proposed; Clara had tearfully accepted. Sometime next spring, they would be married. Tommy had been as excited as she was, something for which she would be forever grateful; later, she learned that Drake had asked her son’s permission for her hand. Their ceremony and reception would be a simple affair, with music and food, but she was already counting the days. Forever stretched out before them. Even after all the heartbreak that had battered her life with Joe’s death, something wonderful had happened.

Love had changed her life. Again.

“So where do you want to go?” Drake asked, his free hand draped over the steering wheel.

“With you, I’d go anywhere,” she told him. “As long as we go fast.”

He chuckled. “That, I can most definitely do.”

Whatever road they went down, they would drive it together.