Читать книгу A Better Man - Emilie Rose - Страница 9

CHAPTER ONE

ROTH STERLING HAD sworn he’d never set foot in the godforsaken hellhole of Quincey, North Carolina, again. But twelve years after his escape, here he stood, eating those bitter words.

The town held too many memories. Most of them bad. But what choice did he have with his murderous bastard of a father due to be paroled from prison in two months?

He opened the door of his new apartment, stepped inside and shoved the key into his pocket. He had limited time to convince his mother not to allow the animal who’d beaten her for fifteen years back into her life. Better yet, Roth would persuade her to divorce the man and take out a restraining order. But even if she did, could the town’s five-officer team enforce it?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Restraining orders tended to be useless if the one being restrained chose to ignore them. He’d seen enough domestic abuse cases end badly during his time with the Charlotte Police Department to know the statistics. They weren’t good.

He’d spoken to his father only twice in the past seventeen years, most recently when his father had announced that he and Roth’s mother were going to move into their old house in Quincey.

Roth’s father had filled his ears with a load of rehabilitated, remorseful, I’ve-been-saved crap, and Roth hadn’t believed one word of it. The old man still had an evil glint in his eyes—the same glint Roth had often seen as a kid right before dear ole dad knocked him senseless. But Roth’s pleas to the parole board to keep his father behind bars had fallen on deaf ears, and he’d had to change tactics.

His parents’ return to Quincey was forcing Roth to do the same. Temporarily. Quincey’s advertisement for a police chief had provided a perfect cover. As the newly appointed chief, Roth would be in a position to insure that if his father laid a hand on Roth’s mother—or anyone else—he’d pay. Roth hadn’t been able to protect her when he’d been a kid, but he could now. He rested his right hand on the butt of his Glock. With lethal force, if necessary.

History wasn’t going to repeat itself. Not on his watch.

He rolled his shoulders, trying to ease out the stiffness, then strolled through the den, kitchen and each of the two bedrooms, noting the age and wear of Quincey’s only apartment building.

A fresh coat of off-white paint on the walls couldn’t compensate for the scarred hardwood floors, worn linoleum and old cabinetry. The place was clean, but it was a far cry from his condominium in the gated complex in Charlotte, with its clubhouse, gym, pool and hot tub, but these digs would suffice.

He wasn’t crazy about being on the ground floor. It made unlawful entry too easy. The sliding glass door onto the small patio could be a problem. He registered the inadequate locks on the doors and windows and the nooks and crannies where a perp could hide. He’d have to hit the hardware store before it closed if he wanted to beef up his security. Quincey used to roll up the sidewalks at dark. Did they still?

He returned to the living room and glanced out at his loaded-down Chevy truck and the rented U-Haul trailer parked by the curb. In the olden days his buddies would have shown up before his tires cooled to help him unload, but he’d seen no sign of Chuck, Joe or Billy since arriving an hour ago. At three on a Thursday afternoon they might be at work. He hadn’t notified them of his arrival. He’d counted on the Quincey rumor mill doing the job for him. No doubt the phone lines had started humming the minute he’d signed his contract last month.

He was looking forward to seeing the guys and catching up—if they still lived here. The letters between him, Joe and Billy had been sporadic, first because none of them had been the letter-writing type, and second, because Roth’s unit had often been deployed to places where mail delivery wasn’t high on the list of survival needs. By the time he’d settled in Charlotte the correspondence had ceased altogether. Maybe the guys had finally escaped. Twelve years ago that’s all any of them had wanted.

Any of them, except Piper Hamilton.

A hint of regret weighted his shoulders. Piper’s roots had run deep in the community, and she’d never planned to leave. He raked a palm over his freshly trimmed hair and tried to push away the memories, but he couldn’t force the image of her trusting blue eyes and long, sunlit hair from his head. He’d loved her. More than he’d ever loved anyone. And he’d hurt her. Deliberately. Not with his fists—his father’s modus operandi—but with his actions, his words.

They’d been little more than kids, too young to take on the commitment they’d been racing toward. The split couldn’t have been anything but good for them. But it hadn’t been easy. And he’d handled it badly. It had worked out for him. The Marines had given him his first taste of freedom from living in his father’s dark shadow and success and a career he loved. Had it worked out as well for Piper? Had she married and raised a family the way she’d wanted?

He had a few ghosts to lay to rest and apologizing to Piper was at the top of the list.

In a town this size, he’d bump into her sooner or later, but he preferred to set his own timetable instead of waiting. He’d make it happen. The sooner the better.

A knock on the door preceded Doyle, the apartment manager. “Suit ya?”

“It’ll do.”

“Sure you want to pay month to month? Save ya fifty bucks a month if you sign a year’s lease.”

Roth had no intention of being here that long. “Month to month is fine.”

“Alrighty then. Y’all have a good day.” Doyle waddled down the cracked sidewalk toward his office.

Roth stepped outside. His furniture wasn’t going to unload itself. He headed toward his truck, aware as his boots pounded the concrete of the watchful eyes and shadows shifting at windows. But no doors opened, and no one came out to say hello or offer assistance as he rolled up the trailer’s door and lowered the ramp.

He’d expected more of a welcome, for curiosity’s sake if nothing else. After all, it wasn’t every day one of the town’s delinquents returned to head up the local law enforcement team.

He scanned the empty streets. An invisible noose tightened around his neck and claustrophobia closed in, slowly crushing out a lungful of the smog-free air.

Temporary.

Folks in a tight-knit community liked to stick their noses in your business, often acting as judge and jury, their opinions shaped by hearsay rather than fact. They usually helped out when you needed ’em—if for no other reason than to root for tidbits to tattle.

But apparently not today.

He checked to make sure his leather jacket concealed his weapon. The pistol could be scaring off people. He wouldn’t officially pick up his badge until Monday morning, but surely the citizens expected the new chief of police to carry a weapon in or out of uniform?

The temperature was mild for the end of March, but he’d work up a sweat. Regardless, he’d keep on the jacket. He unstrapped the hand truck and muscled his gun safe onto the two-wheeled unit. Getting the hazards out of the way and securing them was his first order of business. He manhandled the heavy piece up the walk. After he situated the steel box in the spare bedroom closet, he returned to the trailer and lugged boxes inside, stacking them in the rooms labeled on each box.

A couple of teenagers whizzed past on skateboards, staring hard but not slowing. Ditto the beige station wagon, navy sedan and silver pickup with a dented rear quarter panel and low rear tire.

Hell, he was starting to think folks didn’t want him here. You’d think they’d be pleased that he’d finally gotten his act together.

An hour later he had emptied the truck bed and had everything out of the trailer except the sofa, dresser and his king-size mattress, and still no one had offered assistance. That wasn’t like the town he remembered. Screw it. He’d hit the hardware store, buy better locks and try to round up a strong back to help him finish the job.

He locked up, hoofed it across the asphalt and turned down Main Street. This morning when he’d driven in he’d been surprised to find that little had changed in the past twelve years. There were a few more shops—he’d investigate another day.

He pushed open the door and automatically noted two customers, white males, sixties, and Hal Smith behind the cash register in what looked like the same blue apron he’d always worn. The store owner, with his wispy white hair in a bad comb-over that couldn’t hide his pale, spotted scalp, had to be eighty by now.

“Mr. Smith, good to see you again.”

The owner sized him up. Roth offered his hand and the man hesitated before returning the gesture. The shake was brief. “Sterling. Heard you was coming back. What can I do for you?”

The cool tone was hard to miss. Damn strange, considering Quincey needed a chief, and Roth was, if anything, overqualified, and he’d taken one hell of a pay cut for this job. What was the problem? “I need window and door locks.”

“Doyle’s apartment not secure enough for you?”

“No, sir. A credit card would jimmy anyone in.”

“Locks are on aisle three.” But Hal didn’t move to help. Maybe age had slowed him down.

“I also need help unloading a few bulky items. Know anyone interested in earning a few bucks?”

Smith glanced toward the other customers then at Roth. “Can’t say as I do.”

Roth nodded his thanks and turned for aisle three. Guess it would take a while for folks to figure out he wasn’t a hell-raising kid anymore. He wouldn’t be in town longer than absolutely necessary, but he’d be here long enough to show this apple had fallen far from his daddy’s rotten tree. He wasn’t white trash anymore.

* * *

ROTH STERLING WAS BACK.

Piper Hamilton fought a rising tide of panic as she reversed out of her parking space as fast as she dared. Her fingers cramped on the steering wheel and her palms grew slick.

She’d heard the first whisper of impending doom when Mrs. Peabody had brought her geriatric cat into the veterinary clinic after lunch. Then it seemed each successive client had made a point of sharing the latest Roth sighting with Piper.

Roth had bought locks at the hardware store. Roth had hired a couple of high school kids to help him unload furniture. Roth had visited the market, but he hadn’t driven his big black pickup over to the old home place yet….

Roth this. Roth that. As if she wanted a play-by-play on the man she used to love—the one who’d dumped her and left her pregnant.

Most of the afternoon’s clients had also made sure Piper knew they wouldn’t welcome the man who’d usurped her father as chief with the community’s usual open arms and Southern charm. While she appreciated their loyalty, their animosity only added to her worries. If the town gathered their figurative wagons around her, Roth might think she had something to hide. And she did.

The only stoplight turned red as she approached the intersection at Main Street even though there wasn’t any oncoming traffic. She muttered a curse and braked hard. It had been one of those days when nothing went right.

She checked her mother’s real estate office parking lot. Empty. Hopefully Mom was at home guarding the fort and the treasure.

Piper ripped the clip from her hair and massaged her scalp, then tapped the wheel, urging the light to change. When it finally did she had to resist the impulse to race home. Not even being the chief’s—former chief’s—daughter made her immune to getting pulled over for a lecture. If anything, her father’s deputies had become a little overzealous in their honorary “uncle” roles since her father’s stroke six months ago.

Her father. She sighed. Eight weeks ago the town council had strong-armed him into resigning and told him they’d already begun searching for his replacement.

His bitterness over being stripped of the job that defined him for thirty years festered inside him like an abscess. He’d spread his infectious pus of discontent over anyone within hearing distance.

But why had the town council hired Roth Sterling? Surely there had been better candidates than a troublemaker who’d left town and not once come back to visit?

Her street finally came into view. She saw her mother’s sedan in the driveway of the home they shared and exhaled in relief. If her mother was at home, then maybe Josh would be, too. Piper prayed her son would be in his room, doing his imitation of an uncommunicative adolescent.

She threw the car into Park and raced up the walk. Her mother opened the door before Piper could reach for the knob. “I take it you’ve heard?”

Piper didn’t ask for clarification. “Yes. Where’s Josh?”

“Upstairs. I bought him a new game to keep him occupied until we come up with a plan.”

“Good idea.” Usually Piper didn’t allow her son to veg out on video games until after he’d finished his homework, but today she’d settle for anything that kept him out of sight.

“Piper, what are we going to do?”

The house smelled delicious, a testament to her mother’s stress level. Mom always baked when she was agitated. Piper put down her purse and hung up her jacket then checked to make sure Josh wasn’t nearby. To be on the safe side, she pointed to the kitchen and held her tongue even though her thoughts were tripping all over themselves. They reached the room on the opposite side of the house from his bedroom.

“We’ll do whatever it takes to protect him, but we’ll have to stick with the same story you told everyone before Josh and I came home.”

“Do you think Roth will buy it?”

“I hope so. I can’t believe he came back. He always wanted more than Quincey had to offer.”

More than she had to offer.

Strain lined her mother’s immaculately made-up face. As the town’s only real estate agent, her mother never looked less than magazine-advertisement perfect even when she was baking.

Her mother pulled a cookie sheet from the oven. “I cannot believe the town council kept their choice for chief a secret. They even conducted the interviews out of town. No one said a word about who they’d hired until Roth arrived today. And now everybody’s talking.”

Piper pressed a finger against the tension headache chiseling between her eyebrows. This spelled disaster in so many ways. “Does Daddy know?”

“Who do you think told me? Your father was there when ‘Sterling strutted into the g’damned station like he owned the place.’” She did a pretty good imitation of her husband’s rough drawl. “I thought Lou would have another stroke before I could get him off the phone.”

“I thought the council was being considerate of Daddy by not flaunting the interview process in his face. Now I’m not so sure.”

“It wasn’t considerate, Piper. It was underhanded. They started advertising for his position even before Lou resigned. I should have put the puzzle pieces together when Eloise Sterling canceled the lease on the tenants of her family’s home place. She only gave them thirty days to vacate.”

“How is Daddy taking this?”

“Not well. He immediately started predicting gloom and doom about you know who.” Ann Marie tilted her head toward Josh’s room. “Your father wants to come over and discuss our options.”

Piper grimaced. Great. She’d have to play referee between her parents again. Any time they got together it tended to result in a verbal skirmish with Piper stuck in the middle while they took shots at each other. All because of the choices Piper had made twelve years ago. Guilt weighed on her.

But if she’d given in to her father’s browbeating and gone through with the abortion or her mother’s pleas to give up the baby for adoption, then Piper wouldn’t have Josh, and he was the best thing that had ever happened to her. The negative result was that her decision had started a feud between her parents that hadn’t ended.

They’d tried to keep that secret. Piper hadn’t learned until she’d returned to Quincey after her four-year exile that her pregnancy had ended her parents’ marriage. Well, not ended technically, since they were still legally married, but they lived on opposite sides of town with separate bank accounts, separate lives, and no amount of coaxing on her part had managed to get them to bury the hatchet.

“I’ll talk to Dad.”

“What good will that do? He’s too pigheaded to listen to any opinion except his own. But your father is right about one thing. Roth will find out about Josh.”

Piper’s stomach churned. She should start dinner—and not just to keep her hands and mind occupied. When Josh ventured from his room he’d eat anything that didn’t run from him, and it would be better if his feast didn’t consist of six-dozen cookies.

“Mom, we can’t undo the lies. We have our story, and we’re sticking to it.”

“All Roth will have to do is demand a paternity test.”

Piper had chewed off a couple of fingernails over that prospect this afternoon. “Please don’t borrow trouble. We have enough to worry about already. He didn’t want our child twelve years ago. Let’s hope that hasn’t changed.”

Piper hoped it would be enough. Otherwise catastrophe could strike, and she could lose the most important thing in her life. Her son.

* * *

THE FRONT DOOR OPENED Friday as Piper was preparing to close for lunch. She looked up, expecting to see a frantic pet owner with an emergency.

Roth Sterling filled the doorway—an entirely different kind of crisis. Even without the shoulder-length chestnut waves she’d once loved to run her fingers through there was no mistaking that rugged face, those seductive brown eyes or the mesmerizing mouth that had taught her so much about pleasure.

A lead weight crash-landed in her stomach. The hum of the computer and the yap of the dogs in the kennel in the rear of the building faded into a whir of white noise.

He looked the same. But different. Harder somehow, as if his youth had been chiseled away by age and experience that his spiky short hair only accentuated. His face was leaner, his cheekbones more pronounced. Shallow lines fanned from the corners of his eyes. Beneath a battered brown leather jacket his shoulders had filled out since the last time she’d seen him, held him, made love with him. Watched him walk away.

“Hello, Piper.” Like his body, his voice had morphed into something steelier. Sexier.

But despite all the changes, his effect on her hadn’t altered one iota. Her knees softened like butter in the sun and her breaths shortened. It took effort to force air through her vocal cords. “Hello, Roth.”

He crossed the waiting room, a confident stride replacing his old cocky swagger. Thick thigh muscles strained the fabric of his faded jeans. He’d been lean and rangy at twenty. At thirty-two he looked sinewy and dangerous. “You’re looking good.”

A hot flush started deep inside her, licking through her chest, up her neck and across her cheeks. She cursed the telling reaction.

She’d checked the mirror two minutes ago when she’d washed up after their last patient. Her slipping ponytail, baggy lavender scrubs and walking shoes were nothing to brag about. But at least she’d applied makeup this morning, because she’d known that eventually she would bump into him. And most of it was still on despite doggie licks and sweat.

“Liar.”

His grin, as devilish and dangerous as she remembered, rocked her equilibrium. “I always call ’em like I see ’em.”

Get a grip. Remember what he did to you?

She straightened, trying to find her backbone and the anger that had driven her for years. Both appeared to be AWOL. “Did you need something?”

“To say hello away from the prying eyes of Quincey.”

“Those same prying eyes very likely tracked your path to the clinic. But thanks for stopping by. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to lock up for lunch.” She hoped her cool, unemotional tone sounded as convincing to him.

His smile broadened. “That’s why I’m here. I came to take you to lunch.”

Alarm erupted inside her like a Fourth of July fireworks display. She couldn’t risk a trip—or a slip—down memory lane. “I already have plans.”

Piper reached for her keys and her knuckles bumped Josh’s school picture. One look at that photograph and Roth would know the truth. And he didn’t deserve to know. Not after what he’d done. Although he had no reason to come behind the high counter she wasn’t taking any chances. She scooted the frame behind her monitor.

The light on the two-line phone went out, indicating Madison had ended her call. The sound of her boss’s desk drawer opening and closing filled Piper with urgency. She wanted Roth gone before Madison came out. Even though Madison had become more friend than employer over the past five years, Piper had never shared the intimate details of her history with Roth. She didn’t intend to start now.

She circled the desk, opened the door and tipped her head to face her nemesis. She’d forgotten how tall he was.

“Don’t let me keep you. Have a nice day.” She added a saccharine smile.

“What? No welcome back?”

“Did you really expect one?”

Roth folded his arms and rocked back on his heels. “We need to talk about what happened, Piper.”

“No, we don’t. The past is over. No need to rehash it.”

“We left things…unsettled.”

He had no idea what an understatement that was. Piper checked over her shoulder to make sure Madison hadn’t left her office yet. “No, Roth. You made your feelings perfectly clear when you shoved a fistful of money at me and told me to visit the clinic and take care of my problem. But that was twelve years ago. I’m over it and over you.”

“Did you?”

She blinked and swallowed, trying to ease the knot forming in her throat. From the moment she’d heard of his return she’d known this question would come up. She should have been prepared. But she wasn’t. And she’d never been a good liar.

“Did I what?”

“Visit the clinic.” His eyes searched her face.

Her heart pounded and her palms moistened. The door handle slipped from her fingers. Stick with the facts.

“Dad drove me to one in Raleigh. It’s far enough away that nobody here would know…” She bit her lip, unable to finish because that’s where the truth he needed to hear stopped. Anything she added would have to be a lie.

“Piper,” Madison called as her footsteps squeaked down the long tile hall, filling Piper with a mixture of relief over the interruption and dread over the upcoming meeting. “Mrs. Lee’s Chihuahua is in labor and it’s not going well. I have to cancel our lunch and make a house call. If the labor drags on or I have to bring Pebbles in for a C-section, I’ll call your cell.”

Madison reached the archway between the treatment rooms and the waiting area and spotted Roth. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize we had company.”

Her ex-lover and her boss stared at each other. Then Madison hiked an expectant eyebrow at Piper. Piper reluctantly accepted that she couldn’t avoid making introductions. “Madison, this is Roth Sterling, Quincey’s new police chief. Roth, Dr. Madison Monroe.”

Madison smiled and extended her hand. She, unlike Quincey natives, tended to avoid the gossip and intrigue of small-town living. But her interest in the new male specimen couldn’t be missed. Piper lost her appetite.

“Nice to meet you, Chief Sterling, and some other time I’d love to hear what brought you here. But I have to run.”

“Good to meet you, too, Doc,” Roth replied. “And the answer is simple. I came home.”

Piper didn’t like the sound of that. Home implied a certain…permanence.

Madison’s eyes widened. “Home? You’re a local?”

“Yes.”

Madison shot Piper a look that promised an inquisition when she returned, then with a wave she grabbed her med-kit, and rushed out the door.

Roth’s dark eyes zeroed in on her, making her feel antsy and uncomfortable. “You’re not the veterinarian?”

She couldn’t believe he remembered her long-ago dream. “I’m Madison’s assistant.”

“What happened to vet school?”

She wiggled her toes in her shoes. “Plans change.”

He flashed one of his lethal grins and her abdomen quivered. “And because yours have, you’re now free for lunch. Let’s go.”

No. No. No. “I need to set up the surgical room in case Madison needs it.”

“I’ll wait.”

She did not want to spend any more time with him. “Look, Roth, while I appreciate your invitation, I really don’t have time for a long lunch break.”

“Then I’ll get a takeout from the diner and we’ll eat here.”

Alone behind a locked door? She searched for another excuse to avoid this encounter and couldn’t find one. “The gossips would be the ones feasting if you did that.”

“Sounds like Quincey hasn’t changed.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “We’re sharing a meal, Piper. If not lunch, then dinner. I’m not on duty until Monday. I can park it right here—” he pointed at a waiting room chair “—and wait until you’re available.”

Not what she wanted to hear. She wasn’t going to be able to avoid him. Resignation settled over her.

“When you put it like that, how can I refuse?” If she did, she’d only arouse his curiosity, and the last thing she wanted was Roth Sterling snooping around in her personal life.

“Exactly.”