Redemption Road: Jackson Falls Book 5 (Jackson Falls Series) Read online

  And damn him for still being the man who’d put foolish notions in a young girl’s head. For opening up the cold steel box she’d locked all those emotions in and letting them fly free like butterflies. She’d long since gotten past her obsession with Jesse Lindstrom, but that didn’t stanch the flow of memories. Just being in the same room with him made her think of things that were better left forgotten. Dark, steamy summer nights, his muscled body gleaming, rising over hers. His hands, his mouth, the unspoken delights they’d shared. Their marriage might have been lacking in the communication department, but between the sheets, it had never suffered. In a decade of marriage, sex was the one thing, besides their son, that they’d gotten right.

  Furious with herself, she pressed harder on the accelerator in a vain attempt to outrun the ghosts of her past. What the hell was wrong with her? She felt ashamed to even be thinking about sex. She’d been a widow for six months, one week, and three days. Surely there was some standard protocol, some appropriate length of time for a widow to mourn before she started to think about sex again. Maybe she should ask her sister. Casey would surely know the answer. Casey always knew the answer, no matter what the question. This particular question was rather intimate to be asking somebody who’d never shared any personal information with her, but Casey was the only other woman she knew who’d survived the ravages of widowhood.

  She missed sex. There, she’d admitted it, and the sky hadn’t fallen. Colleen glanced up through her windshield to make sure, but the heavens above her head were still intact. She missed the hot, steamy pleasure, the slow build-up, that ultimate moment of release. Missed that most intimate of connections with another human being.

  She was only thirty-five, in her prime. Strong and healthy and normal. Was it wrong for her to feel such longing for that lost intimacy? She knew how Irv would answer that question. He’d laugh, and then he’d run those warm, comforting hands through her hair and cradle her head to his chest. And he’d tell her, in that no-nonsense lecturing tone he used whenever he found it appropriate to dispense advice, that she needed to get back on the horse and ride. He’d certainly told her often enough while he was alive. “Don’t mourn me when I’m gone,” he’d said. “You’re young and beautiful, and there’ll be other men. Just look at you! Who could resist that face?”

  A fat, salty tear rolled down her cheek. “Stop,” she muttered to herself. “Just stop!”

  But she couldn’t stop. It was suddenly all so overwhelming. Goddamn men. Sometimes, it felt as though her life had been controlled by men. Her father, Jesse, Irv, and now Mikey. Against her will, the tears spilled, gradually turning to sobs, until she was forced to search for a place to pull the car over because she was crying so hard she couldn’t see. Before she could slide off the road into the river, fate intervened in the form of her dad’s place. Harley’s place, she corrected herself. Colleen clicked her blinker and pulled into the barnyard. She came to a stop next to the crooked utility pole, shifted the car into Park, and broke down completely.

  It took some time to get all the poison out, but eventually, her sobs quieted, her tears stopped, and she was left with a stuffy nose and a wrecked face. She was ransacking her purse for a tissue when somebody rapped on her driver’s-side window. Startled, Colleen glanced up and into two sets of brown eyes: one canine, the other human. Both were staring at her as if she were an alien from outer space.

  Mortified, she fumbled with the window crank that only worked when the planets happened to align properly. After tugging at it, she managed to lower the window. The dog, its massive feet propped against the door of her car, slobbered all over her shoulder. Colleen sniffed and dabbed at her nose. Annabel Atkins, dark hair blowing in the wind and dark eyes showing a compassion beyond her years, said, “Are you all right?”

  “I’b fide,” she said through her stuffy nose. “I’b sorry. This was the odly place I could pull over.”

  “Should I get my dad?”

  Imagining what she must look like with puffy, red eyes and mascara streaks on her cheeks, Colleen sniffed and said, “For the love of God, dod’t do that.” She checked her reflection in the rear-view mirror and confirmed that it was as bad as she’d imagined. “Oh, boy.” She blew her nose on the tissue she’d found, then used a corner of it to try and repair the damage to her face.

  “Why were you crying?”

  How could she explain to a twelve-year-old? Colleen remembered being twelve. It had been the last time in her life—until she met Irv—when she’d been truly happy. Mama had died the following year, and that carefree little girl had died with her.

  She decided simplicity was the best way to go. “I was just feeling sad.” She took a final swipe at her nose with the tissue. “My husband died a few months ago, and sometimes it still gets to me.”

  “I heard about that. I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you.”

  The dog whined, and Annabel said, “Get down off the car, Ginger. You’re drooling all over Mrs. Berkowitz’s upholstery, and if you’re not careful, you’ll scratch her paint.”

  Thinking about her multi-colored paint job, courtesy of the used parts that had been fit together like jigsaw puzzle pieces to make the Vega whole, Colleen snorted. “I don’t think we need to worry about the paint.”

  “That may be true, but she’s being very impolite, and she needs to learn proper manners.”

  A movement caught her eye. At the door of the barn, Harley Atkins stood, a greasy rag in one hand, watching her talk with his daughter. Shit. Sliding lower in her seat in a doomed attempt to become invisible, Colleen watched him stuff the rag in his pocket and cross the yard to her car. He crouched down by her open window, rested his folded arms on the door, and said, in an exaggerated Georgia drawl, “Well, well. If it isn’t the Widow Berkowitz, come to visit me on this beautiful Sunday morning.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself, Atkins. I didn’t come here to see you.”

  “Be nice to her, Dad,” Annabel said. “Can’t you see she’s been crying?”

  “I can see that. Everything okay?”

  He was much too near, invading her personal space. Up close, those blue eyes of his truly were stunning. His nose was red from the cold, his dark hair disheveled, a thick strand hanging out from under his John Deere cap and draping across his forehead. A tiny smudge of grease marred the otherwise smooth perfection of his face. She had the most ridiculous urge to reach up and tuck that strand of hair back under his cap.

  Slowly, insidiously, like the thin line of mercury in a thermometer, her Colleen-o-meter began to rise.

  Irritated, she said, “You need a haircut.” She hadn’t planned to say it. The words just spontaneously erupted from her mouth.

  “And you,” he said, without missing a beat, “need to wash your face. Unless you’re tryin’ to start a new fashion trend.”

  “Which fashion trend might that be?”

  He shifted position and grinned. “I dunno. Maybe the Morning After Walk of Shame look.”

  “Nice, Atkins.”

  “Just trying to be neighborly. Any more questions you need answered?”

  “I think that will do for now. And for your information, there was no morning after. Or night before. Annabel, thank you for your concern.” She shifted the car into reverse and shot Harley a pointed look. “Your daughter’s a nice kid. You might want to move away from the car. I’d hate to run over you.”

  His dark eyebrows lifted. Lazily, he said, “Do you spend all your free time threatening to run over people?”

  Her mouth fell open. How could he possibly know what she’d said to Teddy? “This is a small town,” he said. “People talk. But I shouldn’t have to tell you that. And although I haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting your cousin, I’ve heard enough about him to suspect that threatening his life was probably the appropriate response to the situation.”

  He was still leaning on her door, his face inches from hers, and her Colleen-o-meter hit a heretofore unreached zenith. This had
nothing to do with him, she was certain. She was simply deranged, a sex-starved widow, like a randy dog, ready to hump the leg of any attractive man who crossed her path. And he was, without question, attractive. Too damned attractive. “I really have to go,” she said.

  “You could stay for lunch. Come inside where it’s warm. Wash your face. Take your shoes off.”

  “I could,” she said, shockingly tempted by his offer. “But I won’t.”

  “Why do I get the feeling that you’re a complicated, high-maintenance woman?”

  “Maybe because I am?”

  Those blue eyes deliberated for a moment, then he swung loosely away from the door, took a step back, and wrapped an arm around his daughter. “Have a nice day,” he said. “Y’all come back now.”

  Without answering, she backed the car around, cut the wheel sharply, and fled down the road before the Evil Colleen could overtake the Good Colleen and do something really stupid.

  Colleen

  “Mikey! Breakfast!” This was the third time she’d called him. The third time he’d sleepily mumbled that he was coming. The third time he hadn’t come.

  The last time he’d answered, she’d recognized irritation in his voice. If he’d go to bed at a reasonable hour, instead of staying up half the night watching rented movies, he might not have trouble with mornings. He liked action movies, the kind that made her grit her teeth and contemplate investing in earplugs. Sylvester Stallone. Bruce Willis. Chuck Norris. Even with the volume turned down low, even with her pillow wrapped around her head, she still couldn’t shut out the sounds of gunfire and explosions. What was this obsession men had with blowing things up?

  Don’t coddle him, Jesse had said. Did cooking his breakfast before she left for work count as coddling? If it did, she was already sunk. Not that she was much of a cook. That had always been her sister’s thing. But any fool with a frying pan and a spatula could scramble an egg without destroying it. Even Colleen Berkowitz.

  She was pretty sure that the morning newspaper—the one she’d driven to town to pick up while he was still sleeping—sitting beside his plate, folded open to the help wanted ads, was enough to negate any crimes of coddling she might inadvertently commit. The red pen next to it, provided for the purpose of circling promising job possibilities, was a pointed reminder that if he thought he was staying here, he’d have to pull his own weight.

  Colleen checked her watch and sighed. Granted, her brother-in-law would probably not even notice if she arrived a half-hour late, but she was determined to earn every penny of her paycheck. Besides, the studio phone rang on a regular basis, and people had occasionally been known to wander in without an appointment. Somebody needed to be there during business hours to deal with those phone calls and walk-ins. Rob could certainly answer his own phone, his own door, but if he wanted to be taken seriously, he needed a buffer between him and the public. Besides, he was a little too open, a little too trusting, considering who and what he was. He’d been living in Jackson Falls long enough so the locals pretty much ignored him. They were used to him by now. But despite his vehement claims to the contrary, he was still a rock star, and as his assistant, it was her job to protect him from himself.

  The bedroom door creaked open, and her son shambled out, his hair a mess, his clothes looking like he’d slept in them. Colleen bit her tongue, torn between conflicting desires: to be his friend, to be his mother. She knew which of those desires was more important, knew Jesse would expect her to toe a hard line. But it was so hard. The Mom in her wanted to tell the kid to comb his hair and put on clean clothes. The needy woman inside her wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold on tight, for fear that he’d disappear as suddenly as he’d shown up, without warning or notice.

  He walked into the kitchen and leaned over her shoulder, bleary-eyed, to examine what was in the frying pan. “Morning,” he mumbled.

  “Good morning. What time did you finally go to bed last night?”

  “I don’t know.” He opened the fridge and stood frozen in place, contemplating its meager offerings. “Sometime around three, I guess. What time is it, anyway?”

  “It’s quarter to eight. I have to be at work in a few minutes.”

  He took out the milk carton and began opening cupboard doors in search of a glass. “Why didn’t you just let me sleep?”

  She took a glass from the cupboard and handed it to him. “I wanted you to have a good breakfast before you started your day.”

  Pouring the milk, he said, “I’ve been living in a dorm. My idea of breakfast is a cup of coffee and a candy bar.”

  “Which is why I’m trying to make sure you’re getting proper nutrition.”

  “Mom? You’re trying too hard.”

  His words stung. Maybe she was trying too hard, but wasn’t she doing it for the right reasons? It had been a long time since she’d been given the opportunity to mother anyone. It was a little like throwing darts in the dark, hoping to hit something. Or like tossing mud at a wall and waiting to see how much of it stuck.

  “What’s this?” he said, looking at the newspaper.

  “What’s it look like?”

  “I don’t know how it looks to you, but to me, it looks a lot like pressure.”

  She glanced at her watch again. “Mikey,” she said, “if you’re not in school, you have to work. It’s how civilized people live.”

  He returned the milk to the fridge, took a fork from the drawer, and ate a bite of scrambled egg directly from the frying pan. “Eggs are cold,” he said.

  “If you’d come the first time I called you, they wouldn’t be.”

  “I need some time,” he said.

  “Time?” she said. “Time for what?”

  “Time to get my head together. Time to figure out where I’m going and what I’m doing. Just plain time.” He set down the fork and, frying pan in hand, walked back to the table and picked up the newspaper. “I can’t eat cold eggs.” He crossed to the trash can, tossed in the newspaper, then emptied the contents of the frying pan on top of it. “I’m going back to bed.”

  “Damn it, Mikey!” He might as well have slapped her across the face. Hurt and furious, she watched as he retreated to his bedroom and quietly closed the door. If he’d slammed it, she might have felt better. At least she would have known he gave a damn. It was his deadly calm, his cool air of detachment, so like his father’s, that broke her heart.

  Old hurts ran deep. His. Hers. She’d hoped, when he showed up at her door, that they might be able to resolve their differences. But she should have known better. She’d done the unforgivable, and now she was paying the price.

  With a sigh, she filled the frying pan with water and dish soap, wiped down the counter and the table, and headed downstairs to work.

  ***

  The filing was done, the mail sorted, the phone silent. Rob was between projects, and business was pretty much nonexistent. After pouring himself a mug of coffee and scooping up a couple of jelly doughnuts, he’d barricaded himself in his office an hour ago, and she hadn’t seen him since. Colleen had gone through every drawer in her desk, exploring, sorting, organizing. She’d lined up all the books on her bookshelf with military precision. She’d washed the telephone receiver with antibacterial soap. She was seriously considering dusting the awards in the locked display case when his door opened and he came out, barefoot, his hair looking like he’d spent the last hour raking his fingers through it. In one hand, he carried a ledger. In the other, a pile of papers. Absently, he said, “You wouldn’t happen to be any good with numbers, would you?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Numbers?”

  “Record-keeping. Accounting stuff. Ali always kept the studio business records for me. When she left, she dumped the whole mess in my lap. I’ve been avoiding it ever since. All I’ve done is toss more stuff on top of the pile. This morning, I decided to give it a whirl. It didn’t take me long to realize it’s a hopeless mess. Looks like she was a couple of months behind. I should’ve kept better t
rack, but numbers aren’t my strong suit. Neither is organization.”

  “No kidding. I’ve seen your desk.”

  “If I turn it over to my accountant in this condition, I’ll be looking for a new accountant.”

  “Why haven’t you asked Casey for help?”

  “She’d probably skin me alive if she saw what a mess it is. Plus, we’re creative partners, but we keep our money separate. It’s not her responsibility. The studio’s my toy.”

  “That surprises me. The two of you are so connected, I’d think you’d have joint everything.”

  “It’s just easier this way. We have a household account that we both dump money into, but when we got married, I had my money and she had hers, we had different banks and accountants and investment firms, and with all the different revenue streams coming in, it would’ve been a logistical nightmare to merge it all. So we kept it separate.”

  “No prenup?”

  “It never occurred to us. We’re not expecting things to go south, and even if they did, why would either one of us want to hurt the other? She’s been my best friend since I was twenty years old. I trust her with my life. Besides, if anybody ever needed to worry about getting cleaned out by a disgruntled spouse, it’d be her. I have a lot of money, more than I know what to do with. But your sister? She is one wealthy woman. Danny was worth a fortune.”