The Coldwater Warm Hearts Club (18 page)

No, she was mistaken. Jake wouldn't ask that. He was Mr. Big Stuff, after all.

But what if he didn't see himself that way?

She gave herself up to his mouth. It was a whole world of comfort, of pleasure, of...

If he was sending a message with his kiss, what was hers saying to him?

He pulled her close.

But when Jake let go of Speedbump to wrap his arms around Lacy more tightly, the dog saw his chance. He scrambled out of the sink, gave a monumental shake, then jumped down from the counter and made a mad dash around the loft.

Lacy broke off their kiss and lunged after the little mop with feet. Jake gave chase, too, but having two people tearing around after him only gave the dog wings.

Speedbump darted. He zipped. He ran under the coffee table without needing to duck. Then the dog leaped from the floor to the coffee table, did a bank shot off the back of the sectional, and landed in the middle of Jake's bed.

Once there, Speedbump burrowed between the pillows and did barrel-rolls to rub himself dry on the navy-and-white-striped shams.

“Guess I didn't need a towel for him,” Jake said wryly. “My pillowcases do just fine.”

Lacy retrieved the towel from the kitchen island and tossed it to Jake. “Now is the time to set some boundaries for him.”

“Oh.” He shot her a teasing grin. “You mean like the boundaries you set for Effie.”

“I wish.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Cats make their own rules. I don't know anything about how to deal with Effie other than to keep her in food, water, and clean litter. But my family has had a few dogs over the years.”

“You're ahead of me in the pet department, then.” Jake shrugged. “Dad was allergic to fur, so I was lucky to get goldfish.”

“The first thing you need to know about dogs is that they're pack animals. They need a leader. You have to show Speedbump you're the boss or he may decide he has to be in charge.”

“Him?” Jake pointed at the ball of fur rotating between his pillows.

“Size doesn't matter in dog psychology. It's all about attitude. I have a cousin who has a husky, a black Lab, and a dachshund, and, believe it or not, the wiener dog is the alpha of that little pack.”

Jake frowned. “I'm not part of anyone's pack. I'm the human and he's the dog and I'm not even sure he'll be staying.”

“You won't turn him loose, will you?” Even if she couldn't keep him, she hated the thought of Speedbump wandering alone, unloved and unprotected.

“No.” He scooped up the dog. It snuggled up under his chin and began giving him doggie kisses. Jake held him out at arm's length to escape the blatant show of affection. “Man, he's got the fastest tongue in the West. I think I should put an ad in the paper to see if someone has misplaced this little guy.”

“I'll take care of that for you,” she said with a stab of disappointment. She wished he'd keep Speedbump. When she was growing up, her family dogs had been a source of unquestioning love and comfort. Jake could use some of that.

She could use some herself. Of course, Effie had been warming up to her and vice versa.

“I'll have to get some dog food for him,” Jake said, sitting on the foot of the bed and vigorously rubbing the wet dog with the towel.

“You'll also need a couple of bowls for food and water, a collar and leash. Oh! And you'd better get a cushion and a small crate for him, unless you want company in your bed.”

Jake gave her a searching look. “My bed hasn't seen any company in a long time.”

Lacy swallowed hard. After that kiss, she could well imagine what it would be like to share Jake's bed. But she couldn't do it. It wasn't that she didn't trust him. Jacob wouldn't mean to hurt her. He never intended to hurt any of the girls he'd loved and left.

If she'd been able to separate that part of her from the rest, she'd have been sorely tempted to tumble between the sheets with him. Just the notion of lying down beside Jacob, the heat of his body, the scent of his skin mingled with fresh linen, the—

Lacy shoved those thoughts aside. The things that got drummed into a kid's head tended to stick there. Somewhere along the line, she'd been impressed with the idea that her body was unique and precious. A little holy, even. Lovemaking was more than just the joining of two bodies. It was a shared breath, a shared soul. She'd lost track of that back east, but now that she was older, sadder, and a little bit wiser, she knew it was true. If she went to bed with Jake now, she'd be giving him a piece of her heart she'd never get back.

And she needed every piece she had left.

She started backing toward the stairwell. “I gotta go. See you.”

Then she turned tail and bolted out of his loft as if her pants were on fire.

They very nearly were.

The first time I called 911, I was four years old.
“Does your mother know you made this call, sweetie?”
the dispatcher asked in a syrupy voice.
“No,” I answered.
“Can she come to the phone?”
“She's in the other room. Daddy has a gun pointed at
her head.”
The dispatcher's tone shifted abruptly. By the time help
arrived, my father's tirade had run its course. He was sprawled
in his La-Z-Boy, watching
The Tonight Show
.
Mother brought him another beer as if nothing had hap-
pened.
She had plenty of bruises to back up a claim of abuse.
It all could have ended right then if only she'd had the grit
to press charges. “But I love him,” was all she'd ever say
about it.
If unconditional love really worked, Lester Scott should
have been the best man who ever walked this earth.

 

—Daniel Scott, who isn't the best man to walk the earth either. The difference is, he's always known it.

 

 

T
he shift from hell was finally over. Daniel hung the cruiser keys on the hook for the next officer who'd drive it. Valentina Gomez, the county dispatcher whose sharp eyes missed nothing, gave him the once-over.

“Long day, Danny?”

“No longer than most.”

“You're loco if you think I believe you. Sell that stuff someplace else,
chico
. No takers here.” Valentina pushed away from her desk and leaned back in her chair. The khaki uniform did her ample figure no favors, but her friendly smile and pretty face made most folks forget about the straining buttons below her chin. “It isn't every day one of our officers arrests his own father. That had to be a tough collar. You doing okay?”

“I'm okay. No drama. No regrets. It's not like he's really my dad,” Dan assured her. He hadn't even told his mother the man was back in town. He didn't want her to worry. Or worse, let Lester back into her life. “It's been a long time since I thought of Lester Scott as anything but a homeless bum.”

“Well,
hermano,
” Valentina said, “that homeless bum has been pestering the guard to let him see you since you dropped him off for processing.”

Lester had tried to talk to Daniel while he was escorting him to the cruiser. Once Daniel had him secured in the backseat, he'd shouted an abbreviated Miranda warning at him.

“You have the right to remain silent. If you know what's good for you, you'll use it.”

After that, Lester Scott had sulked and studied his own knees the whole time. The trip from Walmart to the sheriff's office had never seemed so long to Danny. He couldn't wait to unload his prisoner and get back out on his shift.

“Has he been sentenced?” Daniel asked Valentina. It should be a slam-dunk. Thirty days, for sure. Unless Lester had some priors, in which case, his stay in the county lockup might be an extended one. Or maybe Daniel's prayers would be answered and his father would have an outstanding warrant from Texas. He'd be more than happy to extradite Lester's sorry butt all the way back to Brownsville.

Valentina shook her head. “He's just been arraigned. Judge Preston will see him for sentencing tomorrow afternoon, but we're holding him overnight. He could easily hightail it back to Texas, you know.”

“I'm not that lucky,” he muttered and turned toward the door.

“Five minutes,” Valentina said. “Give the man five minutes and then you can race off to . . . whatever it is you have to race off to.”

Valentina knew as well as he did that all Danny had to look forward to was Stouffer's pizza on a TV tray. He couldn't even pick up a few scratch tickets at the PDQ Mart on the way home. He hadn't played any more poker since Anne left, but according to her a lottery ticket was just as bad. It fed his addiction, she said.

But he had no addiction. How could he convince her of that? It was like trying to prove a negative. It couldn't be done.

Valentina had tried to encourage him, in ways both subtle and overt, to go for counseling with Anne. The dispatcher was working on husband number two, Tomas Gomez, attorney at law. After a stormy first marriage, this time Valentina's vows seemed to have taken effect. She was determined that everyone around her should bask in marital bliss, too.

“Come on, Danny,” Valentina urged. “If you don't see Lester now, he won't give the night guard a moment's peace.”

“All right,” Daniel grumbled. “But only five minutes.”

He stomped through the door marked
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
and told the guard to set Lester Scott up for a visitor. He could have taken him into the interrogation room, but he decided on keeping a plate of glass and phone wire between him and Lester. It was as close as he could bear to be to the man.

All through his growing up, Danny hadn't been afraid of the bogeyman or monsters under his bed. Not when he lived with a real live one. Half the time, his dad seemed perfectly normal. The other half, he was a hard-fisted demon. Danny never knew which one would meet him at the door when he got home from school. He got used to telling people he fell down a lot to explain the bruises.

Then when Lester lost his job at the electric company because he couldn't be counted on to show up for work regularly, he stopped trying to hide his drinking. Things went from bad to worse. Daniel's mother was a good ten years younger than her husband, but with the way he put her down constantly, she looked older.

Finally, a few weeks before his high school graduation, Danny had had enough. He couldn't think about moving on and making a life for himself if his mother was stuck with his father. Lester would kill her eventually. It was what abusers did.

That night, when Lester came home mean-drunk as usual, Dan was ready for him, lying in wait for his father in the garage. One way or another, the nightmare was going to end.

He beat his father to a bloody pulp.

Even now, his heart raced as he remembered how he'd felt that night. Scared. Determined. Out of control. Blood screamed through his brain. He always thought his father was a few bricks short of a load, but Daniel must have gone a little crazy himself that night. When Dan picked up a tire iron and would have ended Lester, Jacob Tyler appeared from the shadows and held him back while his father limped away. Dan was never sure whether to thank his friend for keeping him from killing his father or despise him for letting Lester live.

But either way, it was the beginning of the end of their friendship. Lester lit out for parts unknown before Dan had a chance to finish the job when Jake wasn't around.

Lester stayed away from Coldwater Cove for a few years—long enough for Daniel to get his degree in law enforcement and come home to take his place in the sheriff's office. Then the bum started straggling up from Texas during the summer months. Since he broke no laws, Daniel had watched him warily, but never spoke a word to him.

Led into the visiting cubicle by the guard, Lester plopped down in the chair on the opposite side of the glass. Both he and Daniel picked up the phone receiver on their respective sides. Silence filled up the space between them so completely, it crowded out everything, even air. Daniel was hard pressed to breathe. Intellectually, he knew Lester couldn't hurt him or his mom anymore, but that old kernel of fear was still about to pop inside.

“You want to see me. Here I am. Now what?” he demanded.

Lester met his gaze for a few seconds, and then looked away. “Among other things, I want to say . . . I'm sorry.”

“I'd ask what for, but I told Valentina I'd only give you five minutes. We both know it would take a lot longer than that for you to list the things you should be sorry for.”

The old man's eyes glistened. “You're right. And I'm sorry for tonight, too.”

“Sorry for shoplifting or sorry you got caught?”

“Both.”

“That's the first honest thing I've ever heard you say.”

“I didn't mean to embarrass you, son.”

“No.” Danny slammed his palm down on his side of the table. “You don't get to call me that.”

“Fair enough. Reckon I don't.” Lester sighed. “You got a son of your own now, I hear tell.”

Danny didn't say a word. There was no way he'd let Lester into his son's life. The man was a toxic swamp.

“Carson,” Lester said. “That's his name, ain't it?”

If they hadn't been separated by thick glass, Danny would have jumped down his father's throat. “How do you know that?”

“I seen him around. Your wife, she takes him to the park and lets him play in the sandbox there from time to time.”

“Stay away from my family.” Danny's knuckles whitened as his hands fisted involuntarily. He narrowed his eyes at Lester.

“I ain't come near 'im. Like I said, I just seen 'im. Ain't no law against a man looking at his own grandson, is there?”

Unfortunately, there wasn't. Since Lester had disappeared from their lives so completely after the beating Daniel had given him, his mother had never taken out a restraining order. The man wasn't a registered offender, so there was nothing to keep him from hanging out in a public park.

“Only thing is,” Lester went on, “I ain't never seen you there at the park with 'em. Looks to me like you been staying away from your family, too.”

“That's none of your business.”

“No. It's yours and it appears you're not taking care of it.”

That sounded so eerily like his mother-in-law, Celia, Dan wondered if Lester had been mooching coffee from her on her back stoop and shooting the breeze about him.

“You have no room to talk,” Danny said.

“You got the right of it there, I'll not deny it. I screwed the pooch big time when it came to you and your mother. Sometimes, I look back and it's like my life happened to somebody else for a while. Like some stranger was living in my skin and doin' those terrible things.”

“No, I'm pretty sure it was you.”

Lester nodded. “It was. I'm not trying to make excuses. I own up to the past. I'm just telling you how it feels, knowing what I did and not being able to change it. I wish I coulda gave myself a good shake and knocked some sense into me or . . . well, like you said, five minutes ain't enough time for me to tell you all the things I'm sorry about,” Lester said in a maddeningly calm tone. Then his voice dropped to a near whisper. “But it don't mean I ain't sorry for them all the same.”

Lester was trying to play him. Dan was sure of it. “I'm not going to help you get out of jail.”

“Never thought you would and I ain't asking you to. But I want to help
you
. If I can.”

Danny scoffed.

“Reckon you're right to doubt. Never did help you much. And now I don't have nothing in my hands but ten fingers. All I can offer is advice.”

“Pass.” Daniel started to rise.

“Hear me out and then I won't bother you no more,” Lester said, lifting a hand in what looked like supplication. Dan still mistrusted the man's motives, but the gesture stopped him from leaving.

“There's something broke in my brainpan, Danny. That's what I mean about the stranger in my head. I knowed it since I came back from the war. That ain't no excuse for the things I done to you and your mother but that don't make it less true that I was sick. Prob'ly still am. My fault is that I didn't try to get better. I wouldn't let nobody help me,” he admitted. “Then I fell into a bottle and that took away any chance of making things better. And now my butt's sitting in jail 'cuz I made the choices I made.”

“No argument here.” The man deserved to die alone.

“The thing is, you're where
you
are 'cuz of choices you made, too. Don't throw it all away, son. Whatever it is that's keeping you from your boy and that pretty little wife of yours, it ain't worth it.”

Danny started to hang up, but then he wondered aloud, “How do you know I'm the one to blame for our breakup?”

“When you live like I do, all you got is time. So to fill up the time, I watch folks. Where they go. What they talk about. Don't nobody think twice about saying whatever pops into their heads in front of me. It's like I'm not even there. . . .”

Lost in thought, Lester's eyes glazed over for a moment. Then he gave himself a little shake.

“Don't care what you say, watchin' folks is better than a play most days.” Lester leaned forward on his bony elbows. “Anyhoo, I been keepin' tabs on your missus and there ain't any other man involved. I'd a seen him by now. Stands to reason you're the culprit. Tell me it ain't another skirt.”

“No.” A few stray thoughts about an old girlfriend did not count. “There's no one else.”

“That's good. Otherwise, I'd stop bumping my gums right now on account of you bein' too stupid to help.”

“What gives you the right to—”

“The right of a man that did everything wrong. I don't want you to end up like me. You know what the trouble between you and her is. You know what you gotta do. I see it plain as the nose on your face. Fix it, boy,” Lester said with sudden fierceness. Then his shoulders slumped. “Otherwise, you're not lookin' through a pane of glass right now. You're lookin' in a mirror.”