Chapter 10
TUGGED AT HIM
Blaze rounded the turn toward home.
As expected, his “three-hour fill-in” shift had stretched past six. Normal.
He passed the first row of townhomes before his and caught sight of Arden sitting on her front step, a glass of wine beside her, but no Gracie in sight.
He lifted a hand in greeting. She waved back, but even from the car, he could see the smile didn’t reach her eyes, her grin more forced than natural.
Nothing like the woman he’d shared lunch with earlier.
He parked, debated going through his front door to shower and change because his gut had other plans. Instead of heading for his own door, he walked the few units down to hers.
The sight of her hit something soft in him. Her shoulders slumped, fingers tracing the rim of her glass, that quiet defeat people tried to hide when they thought no one was looking, even with the same forced grin on her lips.
It tugged at him in a way he hadn’t expected. The same protective pull he always felt when his sister tried to act tougher than she was.
It hit him then. Arden reminded him of Gale. Fiery, composed, always pretending she was dry in a hurricane even if she was holding a toddler’s turned-inside-out umbrella.
But he knew better.
He’d seen that look before. The one that said a person was holding it together by sheer will and that maybe they didn’t have to anymore.
“Nice day to sit outside,” he said. “A little hot though.”
“Not as bad as it was and the sun being in the back makes the front more tolerable.”
“Gracie in bed?” he asked.
It was a little after seven. Last week Gracie was still outside running around at eight.
“She’s watching a movie in bed.” She held up the monitor behind her. He’d wondered what that noise was and thought it was just someone’s TV playing loudly with the windows opened.
“Needed a break, huh?”
“She was tired and barely keeping her eyes open at the table. Didn’t even have the energy to fight me on dinner, which was nice. We both had spaghetti and meatballs. Used to be one of her favorites, but lately, she doesn’t want much.”
“Sounds like a good dinner to me.”
“I’ve got leftovers if you want some.”
He found that sweet but wouldn’t impose. “I’ve got food from my mother from Sunday still. Family dinner and we all get leftovers.”
“That’s nice. My mother used to do that too. When I was closer.” She picked her glass up and took a long drink of the amber liquid. There was a touch of red to it.
“That kind of a day?”
“Yeah. Tell your brother I really like his cider. This is his berry one.”
“It’s new this year. A little sweet for my liking. I’m more a beer guy, but of course, got to support the family also.”
“I can see you as more of a beer drinker. I’ll admit that I checked out your brother’s site more once I realized who you were. You two look alike, but I don’t see him as a hard cider drinker either.”
“Looks more like a moonshine type guy, doesn’t he?” he asked, laughing.
“I might have had that thought.”
There was a natural smile on her lips again, and he was glad he could bring it out.
“Clay’s a tough one. He’s been making hard cider and sneaking it since he was a kid.”
“That’s more like it. I read he was in the Navy.”
“He was. Do you want to talk about my brother or your bad day? I’m going to assume it was after lunch because you’re different now.”
“Different how?” she asked, draining her glass. “Do you want one?”
“I’m good. Go get another if you want.”
“Nah. One is good. Just enough to take the edge off. And you didn’t tell me what is different about me. I try really hard for people to not get too close of a read.”
Exactly what he thought. “You’re just like my sister, Gale. I told you she’s an attorney, right?”
“Yep.”
“Tough as nails and pretty as a picture. She wants to disarm you with her looks and charm, and when you don’t see it coming, bam, right between the eyes.
She’s a bulldog in the courtroom and out for blood.
More like justice. But those that are close to her, we know where her cracks are.
She puts plaster on them fast, but her chips pick it away. ”
“That’s kind of poetic.”
“Now you’re busting my ass.”
She laughed. “I am. You’re lightening my mental load at least. And yes, the afternoon wasn’t wonderful.”
“Tough cases? Carol and Tom. That’s rough for me. Tom is in every few months with some mishap, but I see him failing. He was my old history teacher. Should have retired long before I had him, but he held on because he said he loved it.”
Just another case that he struggled with.
Someone he couldn’t fix.
He knew better. Knew he had to stop carrying that load, but sometimes it was heavy.
“That has to be even harder now to see him failing.”
“It is. But it’s life. They want help when so many put their heads in the sand.”
“I hooked her up with some resources and told her to call me with questions. I’ll give her a few days and then reach out myself to see how she’s doing. I think that’s the biggest problem. People ask for help once and walk away and follow-ups are forgotten. I won’t forget.”
“She’d appreciate that. So it wasn’t that case?”
“No,” she said. “More personal.”
“Ah. The ex? Or you can tell me to mind my own business.”
“Surprisingly, I should talk about it and get it off my chest, but the last thing I need to do is burden someone else with my problems.”
“No burden.”
“How about this? You go shower and change and I’ll see if Gracie is sleeping like I think. I haven’t heard a giggle in at least twenty minutes. If you want to hear more, you can come back. If not, no hard feelings. You’ve had a hard day yourself.”
“I’ll be back,” he said.
“Then I’ll have food. You have to eat.”
“How about a plate of spaghetti?”
“Deal.”
Blaze walked back to his place. Didn’t run, didn’t jog, didn’t even increase his stride. Just strutted back like he did around the hospital from one room to the next to get his work done.
Maybe he wanted to move faster to get his answers, but he knew enough to tread carefully.
The fact that Arden trusted him enough to open up that she’d had a bad day was more than he expected. It was more likely she’d clam up and change her mind when he returned.
But when he walked back ten minutes later, she was on the porch step again, a plate full of spaghetti and two meatballs, with a napkin, fork and two bottles of water sitting next to her.
He sat on the step by her. “I’ve got to get some chairs out here,” she said. “Sorry about this.”
“It’s fine. I never sit on my front porch. I enjoy being in the back.” Fewer eyes. There were some neighbors walking around now. One person waved, but otherwise not too bad.
“I’ll make sure I get an umbrella like you’ve got for my table so I’m not getting burned or blinded.”
“It helps.” He dug into the spaghetti, twirling it on his fork and taking a massive bite. “Good,” he said, chewing.
She smiled. “It’s not from a jar. I promise. I make as many things homemade as I can even if I’m heating Tyson chicken strips for my daughter.”
“Have you tried breading your own and cooking them instead? Calling them another name. I don’t know, freezing them that way so she thinks they aren’t yours?”
“Now that is brilliant and I’m disappointed I haven’t thought of it myself, but I’m going to. Thanks.”
He shrugged. “Hope it works.”
He was waiting for her to make the first step toward her bad day, but the longer the silence went on, the more he figured he was right. She changed her mind and there was only so much frivolous talk he could come up with, like breading her own chicken strips.
“About earlier.”
“Be more specific? Could be earlier with our lunch, which was great, or earlier when your day turned sour after that awesome twenty minutes with me.”
Her head went back, her neck exposed, the laugh bubbling out of her mouth. “You’re full of yourself. I should have known, being a cocky doctor and all.”
“There you go.” He nudged her arm with his elbow. They were sitting close enough, so why not?
Though few would say he was full of himself. Cocky, yes. All of his siblings were, but he’d never thought he was better than anyone else.
Never thought nothing and no one could touch him.
What he had and where he got resulted from hard work and nothing more.
“I got a call from my ex this afternoon. That normally sets me off.”
“Sorry about that. The one scene I witnessed told me you had a decent handle on the situation.”
Best not to say otherwise and get her back up.
“I try. I’m sure you’re curious.”
“I’m curious by nature, but I won’t pry.”
“I think that is why it’s easy to talk to you. You don’t push. You don’t even nudge. You leave it out there and patiently let the mouse come to you for the nibble.”
He laughed and covered his mouth. “I was with you until the last part. Now I’m thinking you’re afraid I’m the trap ready to catch you.”
Maybe he would. In a much different context.
If he weren’t interested, he wouldn’t be sitting here next to her and would be at his house with his feet up watching mindless TV.
“Nah,” she said, waving her hand. “I don’t see that. My ex and me. It’s complicated. I tried to protect or help him for years. I think it’s just my nature and when I realized it was hurting not just me but Gracie in the end, I left him. We’ve got supervised visitations for custody right now.”
“He’s violent?”
“Not physically. He’d break stuff and throw things, but never hit me or Gracie.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “There are more forms of violence than physical.”
“If anyone is aware of that, it’s me, which is why we left.
Today, he called when I left the ER. I answered, walked outside, which was a good thing, and let him get his frustration and anger off his chest over the custody situation.
I thought it was over, but when I left work hours later, there was a note on my car. ”
“A note?”
She let out a sigh, reached into the back pocket of her jean shorts and unfolded the paper and handed it over.
“It could mean a lot of things. Or it could just be a way to get a reaction out of me.”
Blaze read it and every part of his being that said not to overreact was shoved in the corner.
He turned his neck to the side, heard the pop, lifted his shoulders and dropped them while he tried to form his words and keep the anger from them. “Do you have a restraining order against him?”
“No. I haven’t needed one. He normally follows the rules.”
“But he didn’t last week,” he argued. “I heard that part.”
“Nope,” she said, all but spitting the word out. “It was the first time he’d done that. Guess he’s got a new girlfriend and she wants to meet Gracie. That’s not happening. He’s not allowed to be alone with her, and there is no way some woman I don’t know is coming into the picture.”
“And now this note? Maybe you need to go back to your lawyer? I know a good one if you need to change.”
She let out a sound somewhere between a snort, a cough, and a laugh. “I’ve got everything documented. I was going to give it a few days for things to settle down before I passed the information on, but now that I’ve got that letter, I’m not sure what to do. I don’t know for certain it’s him.”
He had Ford in his head to not jump the gun right there with Gale snapping the same thing. But the other part of his brain had Clay whispering, “Fuck that, do what you can to protect them.”
“Is this his handwriting?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “No one writes anything anymore. I can’t tell you the last time I even watched him sign anything let alone write. It could be, but this is all caps and that’s harder to tell.”
“Who else could it be? Sounds like him right after the phone call? Could he have driven there to do it? He knows your car and where you work, right?”
“Yes, he knows those things, and yes, he could have done it since he gets out of work at four and it was close to four-forty when I got to my car. I don’t know who else it could be. But I also know that confronting him with this will only make matters worse. At least right now.”
“Maybe you need to just worry about you and Gracie and not him.”