One Reckless Summer Read online

  “I’m in an afterglow, remember? So maybe I won’t feel so tolerant tomorrow.” Yet then Sue Ann’s voice softened. “Although it puts my mind at ease now that your dad knows.”

  Jenny rolled her eyes. “Well, that makes one of us. I’m really afraid I’ve created a rift between us that’s not going to go away, even when Mick does.”

  Sue Ann tipped her own cooler back to her mouth, then tilted her head speculatively. “I guess the question then becomes—was it worth it? To damage a permanent relationship for a temporary one?”

  And Jenny’s stomach dropped. She pursed her lips and informed her friend, “You’re supposed to say something like, ‘Don’t worry, your dad will get over this in time.’”

  Sue Ann cringed, flashing an oops! look, then tried to correct herself. “Um, don’t worry, your dad will get over this in time.”

  They kept talking—and not surprisingly, Sue Ann turned the conversation back to sex—but as the afternoon went on, Jenny’s gaze repeatedly found its way across the lake, to the thick woods that hid the Brody cabin from view. Was it worth it? What she’d sacrificed to protect Mick?

  The answer was complex—because it was so much bigger than Mick. It was about right and wrong, and life and death and punishment, and how she’d been forced to think about all those things in new ways since the night she’d crossed the lake. But it was also about Mick himself, the dark and light of him, the good and bad, the better man she saw behind the bad-ass with the skull tattoo. And it was even about the joy and excitement he’d brought into her life when she’d felt depleted and alone.

  And no matter how she sliced and diced it, no matter how she broke the situation up into pieces, issues, principles—when she asked herself Sue Ann’s question, every time she came up with the same staggering answer.

  Yes, it was worth it.

  Sorry, Dad, but I just don’t have any regrets about Mick, and I don’t think I ever will.

  Except for when he leaves.

  That she would regret.

  * * *

  The sky was clear—remarkably clear—and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse.

  Thomas Hardy

  * * *

  Thirteen

  As Walter eased his cruiser off the highway and into the gravel parking lot of the Dew Drop Inn, he realized he was breaking his own rule. But he was tired, and thirsty, and he just wanted to unwind a little. He was off duty, tired of this god-awful heat, and a beer sounded good for a change.

  That’s the only reason you’re here, he told himself as he put the car in park. Just for a beer.

  It was nearly eleven o’clock on a Tuesday, so the place was quiet—only a few other patrons occupied the bar, and most of them were gathered around the pool table, laughing and boasting.

  As he slid up onto the same stool he’d taken on his previous visits, he found himself examining the faces there, looking for Mick Brody. It had been a long time since he’d seen the Brody boy, but he didn’t think any of the scruffy fellas shooting pool were him.

  He’d listened carefully to every word of Jenny’s story, but he wasn’t convinced it was all true. She’d said she’d seen Wayne Brody lying in a bed, dying, but for all Walter knew, the guy was just strung out on drugs or something. The prison official he’d spoken to had said Wayne was real sick when he escaped, but he’d never said he was dying, so who knew where the truth lay.

  And maybe it was true, every bit of it, but that didn’t make him like it any better. Just because somebody was dying didn’t make them a good person, didn’t take back the bad things they’d done—and it sure didn’t wipe Wayne Brody’s crimes off the books.

  He tried not to think about what he knew, tried to pretend Jenny had never told him—but it was practically all he could think about these days. He barely knew which made his gut clench more: knowing where an escaped convict was holed up and having promised his daughter he wouldn’t do anything about it, or knowing Jenny was messing around with that kind of trouble, with a guy who Walter had never seen an ounce of good in. His Jennygirl. He’d thought he knew her. But suddenly it didn’t feel that way. Suddenly it didn’t feel like he knew her at all.

  He’d nearly forgotten all about the beer by the time Anita Garey emerged from the ladies’ room. She wore the same tight jeans as usual, and a purple tank top with lace around a low V-neck. It fit her tight, like most of the other clothes he’d seen her in, and just like before, he felt the very sight in his groin.

  “Evening, Walter,” she said as if they were old friends.

  “Evenin’,” he said, nodding.

  “Sprite?” she asked, approaching him behind the bar.

  “No—I’ll take a beer tonight. Whatever ya got on tap.”

  “Comin’ up,” she said, reaching for a tall glass. “What’s the occasion?”

  He found himself perusing her shape again as she turned to fill the glass with foamy beer. Despite himself, he enjoyed the way she looked. She had a nice body—large, high breasts and an hourglass figure—and he supposed he couldn’t blame her for not wanting to hide it under a bushel.

  “Cat got your tongue?” she asked with a friendly grin as she set the beer on a napkin in front of him.

  Damn—he’d gotten so caught up in looking at her that he hadn’t answered. “Um, well…I reckon the occasion is…I’m under a lot of stress these days and just felt like unwindin’ a little.”

  “Can’t think of a better reason for a cold one than that,” she said, and he smiled in return, a reflex, since she was so attractive. He had the odd impression of her getting more attractive each time he saw her, but he supposed he was just imagining that.

  “Hear it might rain soon,” she added, “and I don’t know about you, but I say it’s about damn time.”

  He found himself chuckling a little, but he wasn’t sure why. Anita was just…herself. Genuine. Happy with who she was. He liked that. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” he said. “But yeah, a little rain would do a lot for my mood.”

  She crossed her arms, creating more cleavage where there was already plenty, but he didn’t mind. He guessed the more he was around her, the less shocking it became—and the more pleasing to his male instincts, even if those had been in hibernation a good long while. “So what’s got you stressed, Walter? If you need an ear, I don’t mind listening.”

  Sighing, he confided, “More trouble with my daughter.”

  She lowered her chin as if to chide him. “Don’t tell me you’re still mad at her about those pictures?”

  He shrugged. “Not really. But…turns out that was just the first sign that she’s…well, not the girl I thought.”

  “No? Who is she then?” Behind the bar, Anita reached for a highball glass and started making herself some sort of mixed drink.

  He wasn’t sure how much to say, but she had helped him think more clearly the last time he’d talked to her, so he decided to tell her what he could. “Jenny’s…gone and got herself involved with a no-good lowlife.”

  Anita tipped her head back, as if thinking, then resumed working on her drink as she said, “Let me ask you a question. This no-good lowlife—is he somebody you’ve had personal dealings with, someone whose character you’re completely sure about? Or is he a low-life…by reputation?”

  Walter thought about it, sipped on his beer. “Little of both, I reckon. He was a bad seed when he was young. She tells me he’s not that way anymore, but if thirty years as a cop has taught me anything, it’s that, mostly, people don’t change. They might try to change, they might claim they change, and they might even change—for a little while, but deep down, they mostly don’t change.”

  “Fair enough,” she said. “But you did say mostly.”

  “That’s right,” he replied. “Every now and then I’ll see somebody who surprises me, who really straightens their life up and does better. But it’s rare enough that I don’t believe it until I see it, and until I see it last a while,
too.”

  Finishing her colorful drink, she lifted it, took a sip, and said, “Mmm,” in a way that made his pants a little tighter. Then she faced him again and looked like she was about to tell him a secret. “Maybe I shouldn’t be this open with you since we just met, and since you’re the local law and I’m new in town—but in our brief acquaintance I’ve come to think of us as friends, Walter. Would you agree?”

  “I would,” he said, curious now, and a little worried about what she was getting at. He took another long swallow of cold beer.

  “Between you and me,” she went on, “I like myself. I’m proud of who I am. Looking around this bar, it may not seem like I have much, but I’ve worked for what I’ve got, and I’m happy to have it. When I was young, see, I fell in with the wrong sort of people, and I made some regrettable decisions. But then one day it hit me that I’d stayed in those bad situations too long, that I was a full-fledged adult, and that this was it, my life, my one shot at it, and I didn’t like where it was. So I finally got myself out of those circumstances, I went back to school and got my GED, and I even got a few credits from a community college to help me learn how to run a business. I turned it all around, Walter, and I’m a good person, and maybe more importantly, I’m living proof that people can change.”

  Walter found it shockingly easy not to judge her. He supposed she hadn’t told him much he couldn’t have guessed by looking. But from the moment he’d met her, he’d felt that good person inside her and overlooked the rest. “That’s the thing,” he said, starting to feel the beer a little. “You are livin’ proof. You are a good person, I can tell that from talkin’ to ya. But I haven’t seen any proof or any good in this fella Jenny’s mixed up with.”

  “Have you looked for it very hard?” she asked.

  “Well, I haven’t really seen the boy since he was young. But…I know for a fact that he’s involved in somethin’ right now that…well, he shouldn’t be.” He couldn’t say “something illegal,” because he was the law, damn it, and if he knew about something illegal, he should be putting a stop to it. And he liked Anita enough that he didn’t want her to know he wasn’t doing his duty just to keep a promise to Jenny.

  “Listen,” Anita said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, “I obviously don’t know this guy or your daughter or anything about the situation. But here’s a few things I do know.

  “People can change. And I’m willing to bet you brought your girl up right and that she’s no dummy, so maybe you should be more open-minded about her faith in this boy. And even if it turns out he’s bad to the bone and you were right all along, she’s gotta learn that for herself. And she’s gotta know her daddy’s there for her, whatever happens.”

  He must have looked uncomfortable at that last part, because she added, “Take it from me, Walter—you let too many wedges get driven between you, and soon you and her’ll be miles apart. That’s what happened with me and my mother. To this day, I believe she wanted to forgive me for some of the things I did when I was young, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it, and she died without us ever mending fences. You don’t want to lose your daughter over this—or anything else, do you?”

  “Of course not,” he said, horrified at the very thought. He couldn’t imagine his life without Jenny in it.

  “Look, you told me she just came through a shitty divorce—and I can tell you from experience, that’s a rough time for a woman. She’s going through changes, trying to rebuild her life, trying to figure out what she’s got to offer the world. Now you might not like the ways she’s doin’ that, but you gotta let her do it. Understand?”

  Despite himself, Walter nodded. Anita spoke with such authority that it was hard to disagree with her. Or maybe it was…wisdom, the hard-earned kind, that he heard in her voice. Either way, the stuff she said made sense. He just wished it made him feel better about Jenny’s association with the Brodys.

  Walter drained his beer, and when Anita asked if he wanted another, he was actually tempted. Just because he enjoyed her company and, given his mood, the idea of going home to a quiet, lonely house didn’t appeal very much right now.

  But the last thing he’d want to do was get drunk. He was the chief of police, after all, and he needed to keep folks’ respect. He’d never lost it, but he’d also always lived carefully. To have another beer with Anita Garey because he was upset and lonely wasn’t living carefully. “Nope, I’m done,” he said. “How much do I owe ya?”

  She flashed him a look he couldn’t quite decipher—something like kindness, something like confidence, something like…flirtation? But no, he was surely imagining that last part. “It’s on the house,” she said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Gotta keep the local law happy,” she joked, and he laughed. Actually laughed. It was the first time in a while. Probably since the Fourth of July. Which reminded him…

  “Did you go to the park on the Fourth?”

  She nodded. “Thought I might see you there, but I didn’t.”

  “I…ended up goin’ to a picnic.”

  She smiled, tilted her head slightly. “That sounds nice.”

  I should have asked her.

  But then, no. That had been when Jenny had told him about Mick Brody and the whole day had been shot to hell. And besides, he still couldn’t imagine what people around here would think if he showed up someplace with Anita. Because they wouldn’t be able to see in her what he saw.

  And he cared what people thought. A shameful truth—but there it was.

  As he rose to go, the full measure of that shame struck, along with the full measure of how nice he felt it would be to just talk with her some more. In some…different setting, not a bar, not a place where he was the police chief, not a place where anybody else’s opinion mattered. Someplace new.

  “Anita,” he said, looking back up, and realizing that he was suddenly nervous as hell.

  “Yes, Walter?”

  He pursed his lips, wished his throat didn’t feel so dry, and tried to meet her bold, striking gaze. “I don’t really know how to go about this, but…would you maybe want to come over to my house for dinner some night?”

  He felt like he might throw up and wished he could blame it on the beer, but cold, stark fear was the only culprit. And he felt even sicker when he saw the surprise in her green eyes. Uh-oh. He was out of line here, the only one of them feeling this way. He felt the urge to fix it. “I shouldn’t have asked—beer probably went to my head since I seldom drink. It’s all right if you want to say no.”

  By the time he finished babbling, though, he realized her perplexed look had transformed back into one of confidence, and that now she was smiling at him. “Well then, I’m glad you had that beer, since I don’t want to say no. In fact, Officer, that’s the nicest offer I’ve had since I got to Destiny.”

  When Jenny first heard the noise, she couldn’t place it. It was familiar, but…

  And then she realized…it was raining outside! Actually raining! For the first time since she’d come home. Finally! She walked to the front door and opened it wide, staring out to see the drops wetting the front walk and plopping into the lake in the distance.

  And then the skies opened and it poured.

  She could almost feel all of Destiny sighing in relief.

  The weatherman had predicted rain for the next day or so, but had been unsure of how much, and this looked like a desperately needed soaker—thank goodness. She could stop watering the flowers incessantly, and the lawn would green up again, and the air would feel breathable for a little while. Ah…

  Of course, after a few minutes, she got used to the rain and decided to do something constructive. But first, she put a stack of her mom’s old albums on the stereo in the corner, having found she liked listening to music she knew her mother had enjoyed, and even finding some of it to be surprisingly hard rock, records Jenny hadn’t known her mother owned. So even Judy Tolliver had a little bit of a secret side. That made Jenny smile, and he
aring the music made her think about her mom living, thriving, being happy—as opposed to the shrine, which had only made her think about her mom dying.

  While she listened to the records, she did some computer work—catching up on e-mail and doing some web-surfing. In particular, she found herself Googling topics she thought might be part of the curriculum she would create if she found herself teaching at the high school level this fall.

  She still wasn’t at all sure about staying—especially if her dad continued to be angry with her—but she found herself returning time and again to Mick’s advice about doing what felt right.

  She wasn’t sure if Destiny would feel right to her forever, but in ways, it was starting to feel right for right now. Maybe a year, maybe more. Maybe sticking around would be the exact move that would fix things between her and her father. Maybe once Mick was gone, her dad would relax.

  Ugh—once Mick was gone? She sighed, her stomach sinking to realize, once more, that he would be leaving soon—but then she went back to trying to concentrate on the lesson plan she was reading online. Not that it worked. Once she got Mick on the brain, he tended to stay there.

  Just then, Night Ranger began to sing the rockin’, “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me,” and Jenny’s gut pinched.

  Oh God, I wish I didn’t love him. If only I’d truly kept it casual, like I planned. What a nightmare. But it was too late for that now.

  Now all you can do is muddle through—and hope you don’t fall apart once and for all when he goes.

  Just after dark, Jenny sat curled up on the couch, rereading Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time and listening to the rain. After a few stop-and-start downpours earlier, the rain now fell in a steady rhythm, and she’d turned off the A/C to open the windows and let the fresh air inside. She knew “green” didn’t have a scent, but that’s always how she thought the air smelled after it rained in Destiny—green and fresh and fertile, like new life was emerging all around her.