Running From Mercy (3 page)

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Authors: Terra Little

BOOK: Running From Mercy
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He was at a point in his life where he was used to doing just about anything he damn well pleased, and he was imminently pleased with the prospect of writing Pamela Mayes's autobiography. Given her considerable fame as a songstress, Miles was certain that he'd have a bestseller on his hands. She was mysterious and withdrawn; she never granted interviews, and had a hard and fast rule of never addressing the personal questions that were frequently thrown her way. To Miles, all that added up to a woman with secrets.
As he strolled around town his first few days in Mercy, he'd heard many of the old-timers talking about Paris Greene and what a good, upstanding person she was. He didn't doubt that the woman would be truly missed. Pam, on the other hand—and here the voices lowered and turned sly—was another matter altogether. Some wondered if she would come, while others turned toward the horizon, eagerly awaiting her arrival as if she would suddenly materialize from thin air like a flying superhero. Where Pamela Mayes was concerned, the climate was decidedly cooler. He'd heard the word
scandal
more than a few times.
Whore
, too, which had raised his eyebrows in surprise.
His loosely knit plan to print the story of a struggling artist-turned-celebrated-vocalist was rapidly transforming itself into a quest to uncover the truth about a woman the world only thought it knew.
There's a story here
, Miles told himself. He would bet the whole of his media conglomerate on it. He only needed to figure out a way to get Pamela Mayes to open up and tell him all about it.
As Miles watched Pam from behind his dark glasses, he wished he could read minds. His job would be so much easier if he could.
THREE
Chad closed the door on the last of the mourners and sent the deadbolt sliding home gratefully. They were all well meaning, and he could see that they were sincere when they offered to help with whatever needed to be done, but he was glad to finally be able to breathe in peace. Whatever tasks lay ahead, he'd deal with them when the time came. But that was the future and this was now, and right now he needed to be alone with his thoughts.
Apparently, Nikki had felt the same way, because she pled exhaustion after barely an hour of having her hand pressed and her back patted and fled to the safety of her room. He was left alone to wade through clouds of high-spirited perfume and to stand in obligatory silence on the back patio while the men smoked cigars and thought they were offering words of comfort. He'd never quite understood the ritual of returning to the grieving family's home after a funeral. At a time when people would most want to rest and recuperate, they were forced to make smalltalk and to keep up a façade of emotional well-being. That in itself was exhausting; never mind the clean up after everyone left.
It gave him something to do, though. Platters of food needed to be put away, and he attended to the task automatically, as his mind wandered. He stretched out sheets of aluminum foil and covered cakes and pies, sliding them in the refrigerator without really taking note of what he was doing or of how he was doing it. He swept crumbs from the floor, dumped them in the trash can and stood the broom up inside the pantry. He leaned against the counter and devoured a hunk of chocolate cake in three quick bites because, with seeing to everyone's glasses being filled and their plates piled high, he hadn't had time to eat a damn thing all day.
Chad was licking frosting from his thumb when the knock came. Though his eyebrows rose, he stayed where he was and let her knock a second time. Then he walked to the back door and pulled it open. He'd known she would come. The only question in his mind had been when.
She had changed out of the classy black dress she wore earlier, into jeans and a T-shirt. The rubber soles of slightly broken-in Nikes squeaked across the floor as she made her way into the kitchen. She stood in the doorway separating the kitchen from the front room, rubbing her arms briskly, as if to ward off a sudden chill.
“She's really gone,” Pam said.
“She's really gone.”
“I thought Nikki would've still been awake. How is she doing?”
Chad glanced at his watch as he locked the door. It was after eleven. “Last time I checked on her, she was asleep. You could've seen for yourself how she was doing if you'd come at a decent hour, Pam.”
“You want me to leave?”
She had never visited Paris's home, not in all the years since she'd left Mercy and everything was new to her. The photos she'd seen paled in comparison to the inviting warmth of the real thing. She didn't know what she'd do if he opened the door and told her to get out.
“I want you to turn around and look at me.”
Pam turned slowly and met his steady gaze. He stared at her for several seconds before a grin tilted one corner of his mouth. Unsteady hands rose to scrub across his face roughly. “That wasn't so hard, was it?”
“All of this is hard. Paris being gone is hard, being back here is hard. I said I was never coming back here and she
knew
that. I think this must be her idea of a joke, dying on me and forcing me to step foot in this awful little town again. I can't believe she would do this to me.”
“I don't think she planned it,” Chad said carefully.
“I did, though. I had it all worked out. We'd die together in a boat crash or else our plane would go down over the Atlantic, on our way to a tropical island. We'd be little old ladies when we went and we'd go
together
. But this,” she waved her hands in the air, “this feels wrong. Like the world is off balance or something.” She caught herself pacing the floor and came up short, pushed her hands through her hair, and looked at him.
“Seeing you again is hard, Chad.”
He nodded, considering her. “I feel the same way. This isn't quite like watching you on television or hearing you on the radio. The last time I saw you, you were getting on a bus and mooning the town as the bus rode off into the sunset.”
“You're exaggerating,” she said, flashing him a shaky grin.
“A little bit, maybe. The concept is the same, though. You left and never looked back.”
“What did I have to look back on?” She waited for an answer, but he didn't offer one. She shook her head knowingly and moved toward him. “There was nothing here for me except for a town full of hateful people and an orphanage I was too old to live in. I had nothing here.”
“You had Paris,” Chad challenged. “She was here. And after Nikki was born you had her too.”
“I never abandoned them. They always knew where I was and how to reach me. I didn't have to be here to have a meaningful relationship with them, and I saw them as often as I could.”
“You had me.”
She dropped her head and turned away from him. “See, I knew this would happen if I came here. This is part of the reason I stayed away. When you and Paris got married I thought things had worked out the way they were supposed to. You had Nikki, and Paris was settled. I knew you'd be good to her and treat her the way she deserved to be treated. I couldn't put myself in the middle of that.”
“You could've if you really wanted to. You could've been a part of our family, if you cared enough to try.”
She looked at him like he'd lost his mind. “And play what role? Come to visit and do what? Watch you be a husband to my sister and pretend that seeing you with her was normal? Bounce Nikki on my knee and be content with it? I don't think so.”
“I needed to be a father to my child. Was that such a bad thing, Pam? Can you blame me for wanting to see Nikki grow up?” He heard his own voice and struggled with lowering it for fear of waking the very person they were discussing. “Besides that, you didn't leave me much choice, did you? You had to know I would go to Paris after you left.”
“Don't talk about her like she was second best.” She wiped away unexpected tears and pointed a stiff finger at him. “She was a better person than I'll ever be, so don't you dare stand here and talk about her like she wasn't good enough.”
“You're right. She was a better person than you are. I won't argue with you on that one. She had spirit and guts and she never backed down from a challenge.” He let her stew on that in the seconds it took him to turn on the tap and fill a glass with water. He drank half of it, set the glass down with a soft thump, and gave her his eyes. “While you were flitting across the country making records and living the high-life, she was here raising a child and making a home.”
She slapped the shit out of him before she could think about it. One second stretched into the next with them staring each other down. Chad licked his lips and watched her mouth search for words with little success.
“Chad, I . . .”
He reached out, wrapped his hand around her neck, and dragged her closer to him, breathing down into her face like he was winded from running a race. “The truth hurts, doesn't it, Pam? You can't hop on a plane and run from it anymore, can you? Where are those dark glasses you love to wear like a fucking tragic martyr when you need them, huh?”
“I didn't come here for this.”
“Then what did you come here for?”
“I came to check on Nikki.” She slapped his hand away and replaced it with her own, absently rubbing the spot where his palm had burned into her skin. “I thought she might want to talk.”
“At eleven o'clock at night, you thought she might want to talk.” It wasn't a question. “It's nice to know that at least one thing hasn't changed, Pam. You're still as full of shit as you ever were.” He saw the intention in her eyes and quickly put up a hand. “I wouldn't do that if I were you. The way I feel right now, you might get slapped back. Then we'd both be cowards.”
“Why are you doing this?” Pam was exasperated. “Did you hear what I said? The only reason I came here was to see Nikki. Can't you just go and get her for me?”
“She's asleep.”
“Well, wake her up!”
Chad forced himself to look away from her. “She's not a toy, Pam. You can't just pick her up and put her down when the mood strikes you. So no, I will not go and wake her up simply because you want to talk. Her mother is dead. We buried her today, in case you forgot. I think letting her sleep is the best thing we can do for her right now.”
“In case I forgot . . .” Pam stared at Chad with her mouth hanging open in disbelief. “What the hell does that mean? How could I forget?” Angry now, she pushed against his chest and sent him stumbling backward. He barely managed to regain his balance and narrowly missed ramming into the counter behind him.
“Pam . . .”
“You bastard,” she hissed through clenched teeth. Then she went wild on him.
Chad tracked the course of her flying hands with his own and finally caught them just as they came toward his face. He brought them to his chest and held them there, waiting for her to calm down so he could speak. By the time she was done struggling against his hold, she was breathing hard and tiny bubbles of perspiration sat on the bridge of her nose. He watched them catch the light and then he caught her eyes.
“You said you loved me. You said we were best friends and that what we had together was special. We talked about getting married and having children and leaving here together. And then you got on that bus and left me here.” He squeezed her hands and made her look at him. “Eighteen years you stayed gone. What the fuck was I supposed to do?”
“Marrying my sister was the best idea you could come up with?”
“She had my child.”
“She was my best friend.”
“Mine, too,” he said softly. “She filled the hole you left behind. Having her was the next best thing to having you.”
“That's sick.”
He released her hands when she tugged and then spread his arms wide in surrender when she fisted them in the collar of his shirt. “You want to fight me, go ahead. I'm only telling you what you came here to hear, and you know it. You want me to tell you that all these years I still thought of you? Fine, I will. You want me to tell you that sometimes I looked at Paris and wished she was you, looked at Nikki and wished that it was the two of us raising her? Then that's what I'm saying. I'm telling you right here and right now that you damn near killed me when you got on that bus. But hell, you knew that already, because I begged you not to go. And you went anyway.” He took both of her hands and held them between his, used them to nudge her back and away from him. “Go ahead and admit it, Pam. Your ego needed to hear that. You got what you came for, and now you can do what you do best, which is run. Only this time have the decency to say a proper goodbye to Nikki, will you? You owe her at least that much.”
“Are you leaving already, Aunt Pam?”
Chad's head rocked back on his neck and his entire body stiffened as the sound of Nikki's voice cut through the tension in the kitchen. He wondered how long she'd been standing there and how much she'd heard in the process. He massaged the bridge of his nose with stiff fingers, waiting for the explosion he expected to come.
Pam took a moment to rearrange her expression before she looked at Nikki, and when she did, there was none of the hurt and confusion from minutes ago. Her lips trembled into a gentle smile. “I thought you were asleep,” she said.
“I was and then I heard you guys down here.” Nikki looked from Pam to Chad curiously. She could've sworn they were arguing and she wondered what they could possibly have to argue about at a time like this. “Is everything all right?”
“Everything's fine,” Chad put in evenly. “How are you doing? Do you need anything?”
“Just my mom, but I can't have that, so I guess not.” She was silent for a moment. And then, “Are you leaving, too, Aunt Pam?”
“Not just yet, but you know I have to eventually, Nikki.”
“I don't want you to go yet.”
“Then I won't.” Pam reached out and gently smoothed the creases from Nikki's forehead.
“Yet,” Chad snapped. Two pairs of eyes trained on him, one irritated and the other surprised, but he ignored the pull of them in favor of concentrating on the simple task of swallowing the rest of his water without choking. “I'm going to bed,” he said and left them standing in the kitchen.

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