At Peace Read online

  “Out,” he ordered tersely.

  “Cal –” she started.

  “Get the fuck out.”

  “This scene is ridiculous,” she hissed, leaning toward him which, I thought, was not a very good idea.

  “You’re right,” he agreed.

  She changed strategies so fast I wasn’t keeping up.

  Her voice was a purr again when she began, “Darling, I thought –”

  “What, Kenzie?” he asked, his eyes moving the length of her, his lip curled in disgust. “You thought what? Fuck, woman, I had better head in junior high. You think I’d come back for more from your mouth? Sloppy. So sloppy, I was fuckin’ embarrassed for you.”

  At his words I’d drawn in breath but Kenzie’s face had gone paler than her signature flawlessly-pale-skinned pale.

  When Kenzie stood still as a statue and didn’t speak, he noted. “You’re still here.”

  “I –” she started.

  “Need to get a fuckin’ clue,” he finished for her. “Christ, how many times do we need to do this? It was a mistake, biggest fuckin’ mistake I’ve made in years. When I was doin’ you, I faked it. I had to jack off in the shower to get off after I was done with you.”

  I swallowed, wanting really badly to be anywhere else, anywhere but there.

  “You faked it?” she whispered, sounding horrified and beaten, her voice like a little girl who, way too early in her young life, just found out there was no Santa Claus.

  “Yeah and if your head wasn’t so far up your ass, you woulda noticed. Instead, you keep playin’ out this fuckin’ drama and, swear to Christ, it happens again, it’s not gonna make me fuckin’ happy.”

  He seemed to be pretty unhappy currently but I’d just met him, maybe he could get more unhappy which meant I never wanted to be near him again.

  “Cal, I –” she started again but he leaned forward and her mouth slammed shut.

  “Not gonna say it again. Get. The fuck. Out.”

  Thankfully, she’d had enough. She turned, avoiding my eyes, and walked in her teddy and stripper shoes out the open front door into the snow and bitter cold.

  I stood unmoving as he stalked to the door, slammed it and, to my extreme discomfort, locked it.

  I swallowed again.

  Then I said softly, “I’d like to go home now.”

  He turned to face me and his eyes leveled on mine.

  I pressed my lips together and my stomach clenched.

  He didn’t speak and I didn’t know what to do.

  Finally, his eyes dropped and I watched as they slid, slowly, from my face down my body to my feet and, just as slowly, starting back up to my face.

  During this journey I realized that my robe had fallen open and he could see my nightie. Pale lavender satin, short, hitting me at the upper thighs but there was a three-inch hem of smoky gray lace below that. The same lace was at the bodice over the cups of material covering my breasts. The nightie fit close at my chest and midriff but there was room to move around my hips and thighs. It was nowhere near as risqué as Kenzie’s teddy. It left something to the imagination and that was good, unless you had an imagination.

  Carefully, I pulled the edges of my robe together and his eyes speeded up to hit mine and I knew the instant they did, without any doubt, he had an imagination.

  My mouth went dry.

  “I’m Joe Callahan,” he stated.

  “Hello Joe,” I said quietly.

  “Cal,” he corrected me and I nodded but remained silent.

  When this stretched the length of the Porsche firing up and reversing out of the drive, Joe Callahan prompted, “You are?”

  “Your neighbor.”

  His heavy, dark brows went up. “Does my neighbor have a name?”

  I shook my head and his heavy, dark brows drew together.

  “You don’t have a name?” he asked.

  “I think I want to leave,” I told him.

  His face got hard but his voice got soft when he said, “Listen, buddy –”

  “No, please, Joe, I want to leave.”

  “Cal.”

  “Whatever, I’d like to leave,” I repeated.

  He started toward me and I backed up, lifting a shaking hand and he stopped, his eyes dropping to my hand before cutting back to my face.

  “I live next door, that’s it,” I said softly. “I wanted the music to stop. It’s stopped. Now I’d like to leave.”

  His eyes held mine and something was happening in them, I just didn’t know what and, after witnessing that scene, listening to the way he spoke to her, what he said, how he said it and the utter humiliation he inflicted, I didn’t care. Then his gaze dropped to my body again, he closed his eyes and stepped to the side.

  I wasted not even a second. I ran to the door, unlocked it, threw it open, ran out and across the snow to my house. I threw myself through the side door, closed it, locked it, threw the chain and then armed the alarm.

  Then, quaking head to foot, I slid off the wellies, made my shaky way to my bedroom and got in bed with Tim’s robe on, pulling up the covers to my neck.

  I turned my head to the frame sitting on my nightstand. I could barely see it in the dark but I didn’t need to see it, I had the picture it held memorized. Tim and me, close up, he was behind me, both his arms around my shoulders, wrapped across my upper chest, his jaw pressed to the side of my head, my head slightly turned into him. He was looking at the camera. I had my eyes closed.

  We were both laughing.

  “Miss you, baby,” I whispered to the frame, my voice shaking as hard as my body still was.

  The frame had no reply, it fucking never did.

  * * * * *

  The next morning, Joe Callahan’s house was quiet and the shiny, black, new model Ford pickup was gone.

  It wouldn’t come back for three weeks.

  * * * * *

  It was four o’clock in the afternoon, I’d been at the garden shop all day and during the day it had snowed.

  I was sick of snow and I wished I’d picked Florida or Arizona or somewhere that didn’t have snow when I’d packed up my girls and fled Chicago.

  Furthermore, Kate was driving now. She’d turned sixteen and she got her license and I bought her a car. Tim would have been pissed I bought her a car. Then again, he’d have been pissed I bought myself a Mustang. As a cop, he’d seen too many accidents so he was all for staid, sturdy cars that were built so tough you could drive them through a building and only have to buff out a few scratches. He might have driven like a lunatic (which he did), but he wasn’t a big fan of me doing it (which I didn’t unless I was in, say, a Mustang) and he wasn’t a big fan of spoiling the girls.

  Then again, with a dead Dad, spoiling them had become something of a habit.

  And anyway, I didn’t have Tim anymore to help me take them places and pick them up. I also didn’t live in a household with two cars unless I bought one for Kate.

  So I did.

  She was a good driver, responsible, my Kate. Keira, now, Keira would probably be picked up joyriding when she had her learner’s permit with me in the car. Keira was a magnet for trouble. Kate would rather die a thousand bloody, painful deaths than break a rule or get into trouble. Keira would make a deal with the devil for a killer pair of shoes and not even blink.

  Even if Kate was responsible and a good driver, I still hated it when she drove in snow.

  This was what I was thinking as I drove home from the Bobbie’s Garden Shoppe, my now full-time job. I found out that morning that I was now full-time since Sabrina had her twins a week ago. She’d called Bobbie the night before and told Bobbie that her maternity leave was indefinite.

  “Thank God, the bitch could moan,” Bobbie had said this morning when she gave me the news and asked me to go from part-time to full-time. “Saves me from firing her ass, ‘cause, when she wasn’t moanin’, she was jackin’ around even before she was luggin’ them twins around. Yeesh, two babies in that belly of hers, looked like sev
en.”

  Bobbie was not wrong about that, any of it.

  But I was too busy thanking God for the full-time job. Tim’s life insurance policy had been used up on my Mustang, Kate’s car and taking a whack off the mortgage because of the down payment I put on the house. It had also gone out the door with the move. I had his pension, which helped, but not much.

  I’d put the money I made on selling Tim and my house into savings for the girls’ college. Tim’d had to pay off student loans forever and he wanted the girls to have their college paid for. We’d been saving but we didn’t have near enough for the two of them. I thought Tim would have wanted that, the house we’d bought together, fixed up together and lived in together as a family being sold and the money paying for the girls’ future. Using that money from our house was like him and me giving it to them and I liked that idea and figured Tim would too.

  Even with a low mortgage and no car payments, I still had a teenager driving and insurance was a bitch. Utilities, groceries for three people and we were living in a small town but it was part-farmers, part-blue collar and part-affluent. The affluent part meant all the kids tried to keep up with the Joneses with designer gear, jeans, purses, shoes, the right makeup, the important accessories like MP3 players and cell phones. Hell, Keira’s cell phone bill, considering she texted seventeen thousand times a day, nearly broke the monthly bank even though I told her time and again not to do it.

  Bobbie paid pretty well considering, and she had full benefits for full-time, which was more important. Her garden center was enormous, the biggest in three counties and everyone went there. She sold it all, lawn furniture, craft and hobby stuff, pet supplies, not just plants. But I worked the plants, I was good at it, always was and spring was coming. Even with the snow, it was getting close to gardening season and things, always steady, were definitely picking up for Bobbie.

  I turned on my street, deep in my inspection of the roads which, I noted with some relief, had been mostly cleared. The spring snow was wet and sloshy, not icy, thank God. Kate would get home okay.

  I took in a relieved breath and it caught in my throat when I saw the shiny, black, new model Ford pickup in Joe Callahan’s driveway.

  “Shit,” I whispered on my exhale.

  I drove passed it, turned into my drive and parked under the awning that came out from my two car garage. The previous owners had torn down the one car garage and put in a two car one with a double awning at the front. This worked since the garage door opener didn’t work and I didn’t have the money to replace it and I further didn’t enjoy cleaning snow off my car.

  The previous owners had also built an extension all along the back of the house. This meant we had an extra bedroom with full master bath and an open plan study that ran off the living room/dining room area. Most of the other houses on the block had extensions too. And two car garages or the garages had added awnings. They also had built on back decks (our place did too, again along the back of the house) or above ground pools or playsets. You name it, it was there. It was a family neighborhood, established, middle-middle income folks or old-timers who’d been there for ages and stayed there because their mortgage was paid off. Families just starting out or couples who liked where they lived so, when they needed more room, they just built on. Yards were huge, there was plenty of room and anything they did, they did it house proud so it only upped the standard for the entire neighborhood.

  The only house that had no add-on, except a back deck, was Joe Callahan’s. It was still a two bedroom crackerbox, kitchen, dining room/living room and two bedrooms with a full bath.

  I’d been lucky to find a place on that street.

  Lucky, except for Joe Callahan.

  I went into the house, dumped my purse and headed back out.

  I needed to shovel. Part of living in that neighborhood was taking care of it. You shoveled. Joe Callahan’s neighbors on his other side, Jeremy and Melinda, cleared Joe’s front sidewalk part of the time, the other part I did it. It wouldn’t do for anyone to let down the ‘hood and since Joe wasn’t there, someone had to do it.

  No way I’d do it that day, though. No way in hell. He could shovel his own damned walk.

  I went out to the garage and grabbed my leather work gloves and the snow shovel.

  You could say I pretty much missed Tim a lot. When I was in a fight with Keira which was too often and Tim used to be able to handle her better than me, definitely Daddy’s little girl then again they both were. When Kate would get wound up by an assignment, an assignment that was something she could do no sweat, but she wanted to do it perfectly, better than any kid in the history of kids could do and Tim could settle her down too. When I was in bed at night, alone and wanting more than my vibrator to take care of business, wanting Tim’s hands, his mouth, his cock and, maybe more than all those, the sweet nothings he would whisper in my ear.

  And when I had to shovel the freaking snow.

  I started at the front stoop and made my way down the walk that led to the drive, the snow heavy and wet but at least it was easily removed. I was shoveling a line down our drive, which would take for-freaking-ever to clear, thinking of the price of Bobbie’s snow blowers and how much my discount would be and if she’d put them on an end of season sale when Colt’s GMC pulled into his drive.

  Feb Owens and Alec Colton were pretty famous. I’d known them before I moved in and I’d known what happened in that town before I’d moved there. It was sick what happened to them, that serial killer obsessing on Feb and Colt and killing people that Feb knew. Everyone knew about it, it made national news and she was so gorgeous, and Alec Colton so hot, that made the story bigger news.

  But I found shortly after moving in that they were cool. They were also happy. It was like that whole deal didn’t touch them. At the time I moved in, she was at the end stages of pregnant and they’d been high school sweethearts, separated by something I didn’t know and finally back together.

  I’d married my high school sweetheart so I got that, totally, their happiness. Then again, Tim got me pregnant at seventeen so I kind of didn’t have a choice.

  Still, I wouldn’t have chosen anything else. Not then, not ten years later, not until someone shot him and even then I would have still chosen Tim. I would have just chosen Tim having a less dangerous job. And I definitely would have chosen not to get served what I got served after.

  I shoveled and watched Colt swing down from his truck.

  Then I stopped shoveling when he turned my way and called, “Hey Cal.”

  My body turned to stone.

  “Yo,” a deep voice said from right behind me.

  Stiffly, I turned and stared at Joe Callahan standing right there, this close behind me. I hadn’t heard his approach. He was wearing jeans, a black thermal and his black leather jacket. In the daylight, as gray as that daylight was, he was different. The sinister was gone. The only thing left was the rugged and interesting.

  “Hey Violet,” Colt called and I stiffly turned back.

  “Hey Colt,” I called to him and watched February, carrying their little boy, Jack, coming out of their house and her head was turned to see who Colt was talking to.

  “Wow!” she yelled. “Hey Cal!”

  “Feb,” Joe Callahan’s voice rumbled.

  “You in town awhile?” Colt asked, taking Jack from Feb and expertly planting the baby in the crook of his arm while his other arm slid along Feb’s shoulders.

  “Nope, leave tomorrow,” Joe Callahan answered.

  “Got time for a beer at J&J’s?” Colt asked.

  “Yep,” Joe Callahan answered.

  “Vi? What about you?” Feb asked me.

  I’d been to Feb’s bar, J&J’s Saloon, a half a dozen times. Her family ran it which meant I met them too. It was a nice place. It had been around awhile so it was worn in, the kind of joint you liked to stay and drink a few. Everyone in town hung there and Feb’s family made you feel welcome.

  I liked having a drink there, shooting t
he shit with Feb, who was nice, and her brother Morrie, sister-in-law Dee, and Mom and Dad, Jackie and Jack, who were all just as nice as her.

  Still, there was no way I was going when Joe Callahan was going.

  “Thanks, I have something on,” I answered.

  “Another time,” Feb called, I nodded, they both lifted a hand in farewell and headed toward their house.

  “Later, Cal,” Colt called.

  “Yeah,” Joe Callahan called back.

  I went back to shoveling, deciding I’d pretend he wasn’t there.

  This effort failed when his big hand curled around the handle of the shovel.

  I stayed bent to my task but tipped my head back to look at him.

  “How you doin’, buddy?” his voice rumbled, it was a soft rumble and not pissed off or post-drama that involved a Hollywood movie star, it was a lot different and my stomach, for some strange reason, pitched.

  “Can you let go of my shovel?” I asked.

  His answer was to pull the shovel out of my hands.

  My stomach pitched again, this time for a different reason, slightly afraid and I straightened and turned to him.

  “Can I help you with something?” I asked.

  “Your name’s Violet,” he told me.

  “Yes.”

  “Violet,” he repeated quietly.

  “Yes,” I repeated too, not liking him saying my name quietly because I kinda did like his rumbly deep voice saying my name quietly.

  He took a step into me and I stood my ground. He couldn’t exactly cause a scene in my driveway, not with Colt home across the street. Joe Callahan might be big, and he might even be bigger than Alec Colton, but I figured no one messed with Colt. It might get ugly but it’d be a fair fight.

  Joe Callahan’s neck bent so he could look down at me and he started speaking as if we’d been having a long conversation, I’d been asleep the first part and woke up during the middle. “She makes six million dollars a movie, two movies a year, four times that in foreign endorsements for everything you can imagine, hair shit, ice cream, you name it, they pay her enough, she sells it.”