Читать книгу One Frosty Night - Janice Kay Johnson - Страница 11
ОглавлениеCARSON CALDWELL LEAPED to knock the shot away; then, when the ball soared over his head, he turned to watch it sink through the net. Whish. Really pretty.
I should have stopped it, he told himself furiously. He’d hesitated too long, not starting his jump until the ball was already leaving Bearden’s fingers. Too late, not concentrating.
This isn’t a game.
No, but Coach was watching. If Carson wasn’t careful, he’d find his ass sitting on the bench tomorrow night when Crescent Creek played Arlington High School.
He ran back down the court with the rest of the team, the sound of their feet thundering on the gymnasium floor. A shoulder jostled him hard, knocking him off balance. He flicked a glance at Coach, who paced the sidelines but didn’t see. A lot of this shit had been happening.
Wham. The ball hit Carson in the chest and fell away. Finkel snapped it up and tore back down the court, making an easy layup.
The whistle blew, echoing shrilly off the concrete block walls. “All right,” Coach called. “That’s enough for today. Hit the showers. Caldwell, I want to talk to you.”
Oh, shit, oh, shit.
Momentarily he was surrounded as they all walked over to grab towels and water bottles. There was another hard bump that had him cracking his shin against the bottom step of the bleachers.
“Mouth shut.” For his ears only.
Dylan Zurenko, senior, starting center and all-around asshole. It was another senior, Dex Slagle, who’d jostled him on the court. The two were tight. Carson had been flattered when they had accepted him into their circle.
He knew why they’d decided now he was the weak link. Daddy the principal. Stepdaddy, actually, but what was the dif?
Hearing the receding footsteps, voices and friendly taunts, he mopped his face with the towel, then draped it around his neck and took a long drink of the now lukewarm water.
“Your head isn’t on the court,” Coach McGarvie said from right beside him.
He closed his eyes for a moment, scrubbed the towel over his face again and faced his coach. “I guess it wasn’t today.”
“Hasn’t been since the season started.”
“I scored fourteen Tuesday night.” It had been only the second game of the season. The first game, right before Thanksgiving... Well, he’d mostly been shut out, but he thought he’d partly redeemed himself Tuesday.
“Good assists. You also fell over your own damn feet.”
He felt the flush climb his neck to his face. He had. Right here, in this gymnasium, in front of the entire student body. He had tripped and crashed down. People laughed. Afterward, he’d pretended his laces had come undone.
He couldn’t blame Zurenko for that one. His feet had grown two sizes since April. He was growing, too, but not keeping up with his feet. He wore a twelve now, but was only six foot one. He had dreams of the NBA, which meant he wanted to keep growing, but lately signals seemed to be taking too long to get to his hands and feet.
He stayed stubbornly silent. Like he had a choice.
Coach was about his height, not a big man. He’d played for some Podunk college—Ben said it was actually a fantastic liberal arts school, just not big-time where sports were concerned—and now taught history as well as coaching boys’ basketball. Last year, Carson had liked him. This year, McGarvie was all over his ass.
“Are you going to talk to me?” his coach asked.
He clamped his mouth shut. He couldn’t talk. Not about what was bothering him. It was...too big. And if he did, he’d be in deep shit. “Then I’m starting Guzman,” Coach said flatly. “You’re not concentrating, Carson. You’ve got all the ability in the world, but this season your heart isn’t in it.”
He couldn’t seem to help the surly reply. “I thought you said it was my head.”
McGarvie looked at him as if he was crazy, shook his head and walked away toward the locker room.
Carson went the other direction, past the bleachers, to where he could smack both hands on the porous wall of the gym hard enough to sting.
God. What am I going to do? he begged, with no more idea than he’d had since the morning after what he’d thought was the best night of his life.
Pride had him finally walking to the locker room. If he was lucky, everyone else would have showered and he could be alone while he took his.
* * *
BEN STOLE A glance at his stepson in the passenger seat where Olivia had been earlier. He could still smell her French fries and wondered if Carson could, too.
“Anything you want to talk about?” he said finally.
Carson shook his head, then grimaced. “I’m not starting tomorrow night.”
“What?” Ben hoped he didn’t sound as startled as he was.
“I’ve just been...I don’t know,” the boy mumbled. “Clumsy.”
“You have been growing fast.”
Head down, he shrugged.
“Let’s stop and get a pizza. I’m not in the mood to cook.” He’d almost suggested the Burger Barn, but that would make him think about Olivia, and he didn’t want to right now. Something was going on with Carson, and he needed to find out what it was.
The boy’s head came up. “Uh, sure. Cool.”
Four and a half years since the divorce, and he and his stepson were still feeling their way, or sometimes that’s how it seemed.
Ben waited until they’d been seated at Rosaria’s Pizzeria, agreed on their order and received their drinks. Then he asked casually, “Heard from your mother lately?”
Carson looked surprised. “No. Not since...I don’t know. Like, August?”
Ben had spoken to Melanie briefly that time, so he only nodded. Her life had been a mess, as usual. He refused to own any part of that, but he always worried that she’d succeed anew in sucking her son in. After her initial noble gesture—ceding custody to Ben—she’d tried a few times. Once, the second year, Carson had run away because he was sure she needed him. After he’d been hauled back, he and Ben had done a lot of talking, and Ben thought his stepson was doing well at letting go of an unrealistic sense of responsibility. Nothing in his expression now suggested he’d even been thinking about his mother.
So that wasn’t the problem.
He tried another not-so-random sortie. “You mad at Coach McGarvie?”
Hunching his bony shoulders, Carson didn’t want to meet Ben’s eyes. “Not really,” he muttered. “I haven’t been together. That’s not his fault.”
“Anything I can help with?” Ben asked. Years of practice kept his tone easy, not too pushy. Kids this age didn’t respond well to pushy.
Carson sneaked a look at him before his gaze skidded away. “Nah.”
Was that some kind of shame or embarrassment he was seeing? Ben wondered. Hard to tell in the dim lighting.
“You know, I’ll listen anytime you want to talk,” he said.
“Yeah. This is—” He hunched again as much as shrugged. What “this was” remained unsaid.
A girl? Carson was sixteen, a junior in high school. What could be likelier? Ben watched more closely than he let on, though, and he hadn’t seen any particular yearning looks. Not the kind he’d been directing Olivia’s way on the rare occasions when he saw her, he thought ruefully.
He heard himself say, “You must wonder why I don’t date.”
His son looked at him in alarm. Ben worked to keep his amusement from showing. A parental figure planning to talk about sex? What kid wouldn’t be panicked?
“I figured, um...” Carson’s throat worked. “It was, you know, because things were so bad with Mom. And maybe because you have me...”
Ben reflected on what was actually a pretty darned perceptive answer from a teenager. “I guess at first it was because of your mother. And it’s true I wouldn’t want to set a bad example for you.” He’d never been the woman-of-the-week kind of guy anyway, though.
“Grandma was whining the other day. She said she wanted, um, more grandkids.”
Seeing the fleeting expression of pleasure on the boy’s face, Carson gave silent thanks to his mother. Both of his parents, really. They’d accepted Carson without question as family. They openly called him their grandson. Even if Ben married and his wife started popping out the babies, neither of his parents would ever act as if the new, related-by-blood grandkids were any more important than the one he’d already given them. And because of that, he hadn’t regretted for a minute returning to his hometown, even if it meant he had to keep seeing Olivia and face her complete indifference to him.
If she really was indifferent.
No, he was kidding himself. She’d retreated at warp speed today when he tried to get personal.
“Hey, here comes our pizza,” Carson said, recalling Ben to the present.
They’d ordered an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink pizza that would probably have Ben suffering from regrets a few hours from now, but, damn, it smelled good. Carson fell on his first slice like a starving dog. Ben wouldn’t have wanted to risk his fingers trying to take it from him. He grinned crookedly, remembering that age when it seemed he couldn’t ever get full. And Carson, he suspected, might end up several inches taller than Ben.
Mel had never talked much about her son’s father; in later years, Ben came to suspect she didn’t actually know which of many men had fathered him. The fact that she hadn’t put a name on Carson’s birth certificate seemed to corroborate that theory. Whoever the guy was, he had to have been tall and likely a good athlete, too, since Mel had never seemed inclined that way.
Ben had taken only a few bites when Carson reached for his second slice. Unexpectedly, though, he set it on his plate rather than immediately stuffing it in his mouth. “So, how come you don’t date?” he blurted.
Had there been a good reason he’d raised the subject? Ben asked himself. Oh, yeah—to open up the possibility of talking about girls and sex. It suddenly didn’t seem like such a good idea.
“Waiting for the right woman, I guess,” he said with complete honesty.
Carson’s eyes were a bright blue, his hair a sandy brown that, like most of the other boys, he wore spiky. Right now, those blue eyes were sharp enough to make Ben feel like squirming. “There aren’t that many single women in Crescent Creek. I mean, your age.”
The last was a little condescending. Middle age wasn’t exactly looming, damn it; Ben was only thirty-five. But what Carson had said was right: most of the really appealing women his age were already married. More so in rural Washington than would have been true in the city, but he didn’t get to the city much anymore.
Ben braced himself for Carson to ask about Olivia, since he did know they’d gone together in high school, but instead his stepson picked up his slice of pizza, then set it down again.
“Don’t you ever, you know, want to have sex?” His voice cracked at the end, and he turned his head quickly, cringing at the possibility that anyone had heard him.
More than you can imagine.
Ben heard himself make a sound he couldn’t quite classify. A groan? Damn, he wanted sex...but not with just anyone. With Olivia. He hadn’t been able to picture anyone else in his bed since he’d set eyes on her again after his return to Crescent Creek. Two years and four months ago, to be precise.
Carson suddenly blushed. “Or, oh, wow, maybe you are and you’re just making sure I don’t know about it.”
“No.” That came out so harshly, Ben had to clear his throat. “I’m not. And, yes, I do. Want to.” Was he blushing? “Unlike a lot of men, I’ve just never been into casual sex.” He hesitated. “I’m not saying that as a parental lecture, but to me, the whole thing is awkward when you’re with a woman you don’t feel much for. Sex with a woman who is essentially a stranger doesn’t hold any appeal to me.”
All the color left Carson’s face. He looked...shocked.
And Ben had no idea why.
For a strange moment, they stared at each other.
Then the sixteen-year-old gave an elaborate shrug and said, “You know that’s totally abnormal, don’t you, Dad?”
Ben let himself relax. Even enjoy the rare reference to him as “Dad” and not “Ben.” “Yeah,” he said, “but then I chose to spend my life working with teenagers, and what’s normal about that?”
They exchanged grins and resumed eating. It wasn’t until considerably later that Ben realized he still didn’t have the slightest idea what was weighing on his kid.
* * *
THE MINUTE OLIVIA opened the front door and smelled dinner cooking, she realized her mother was trying to make amends. Wonderful. What she’d really like was to go straight to her bedroom. Now she had to be nice instead.
In a better mood, she’d have laughed at herself for her sulkiness. As it was... She sighed and went to the kitchen.
Mom even wore an apron as she tore lettuce into a bowl. At the sight of her daughter, she offered an uncertain smile. “I didn’t hear you come in. I hope you didn’t already have dinner.”
“I’m just late. It smells good.”
“Beef stroganoff.”
“I can tell.” She forced a smile. “What can I do?”
“Oh— If you’d like to set the table?”
Olivia did escape upstairs briefly to dump her messenger bag and change into slippers, but then she went back down. Were they actually going to have a real conversation?
Apparently. Olivia had no sooner spooned stroganoff onto her noodles than her mother said, “I’m sorry I took you by surprise today.”
Olivia didn’t know how to respond to that. It’s all right? It wasn’t. Why didn’t you tell me what you were thinking? Now, there was the question.
“Lloyd’s wife wants him to look at those houses, too,” she offered.
“They’re really very nice.” Mom sounded so hopeful.
What could she say except “I’m sure they are”?
Both finished dishing up.
“I didn’t stop to think how you’d feel,” her mother said in a burst. “I mean, that this is your home.”
“You forgot I grew up here?”
“Of course not!” Mom visibly settled herself. “It’s just that it hasn’t been home for you for a long time. Until these past few months, of course.”
“I’ve been home for nearly a year now, Mom.”
Little crinkles formed on her forehead. “But I never dreamed you’d stay. Or were even considering staying.”
“I was focused on keeping things going for you and Dad,” Olivia said honestly. “I...hadn’t gotten so far as to think about what would happen when he was gone.” Unlike Mom, who apparently had been revving her engine waiting.
“Would you consider staying?” her mother asked after a minute.
Would she? Olivia felt a tug both ways, and that surprised her. Newly graduated from college, she’d have laughed at the idea that Dad’s hardware store was the sum total of her ambitions.
“I’ve been...happy at work since I came home,” she said slowly. “Making changes. We’re selling a lot of Christmas gifts.” Thanksgiving weekend, never that big in the past, had been fantastic this year, despite the death of Charles Bowen only days before. “There’s more that could be done to make the business even more successful.”
“But there must be an upper limit.”
“That’s true,” she agreed. “We can’t draw a lot of new customers unless the population increases.” Which they both knew wasn’t happening. “But what we can do is meet the needs of locals so that they don’t feel the need to drive to Miller Falls or even Everett to shop. We can be more competitive for builders, for one thing.”
“How?”
“Initially, lower profit margin. Long-term, we’d be buying in greater bulk. No, we still can’t compete directly with a Home Depot, say, but if we can come close, convenience will trump cost savings for local builders and remodelers.”
Her mother nodded her understanding.
“What I’d really like to do is to continue to expand stock. Go way bigger into clothing.”
That’s where much of the boosted sales had come from; Dad had never carried anything but the most utilitarian of carpenter pants, work gloves and the like. Olivia had added rain gear, parkas, hats, gloves and socks. Flannel shirts for men, cute T-shirts for women and even some clothes for kids. Mostly outdoor and work related but attractive. The last clothing store in Crescent Creek had closed six or eight years ago, and its stock had appealed to the matrons, not younger shoppers or men.
“We’ve got the floor space in the loft to make clothing into a huge sideline. I see a possibility for gift items across the board. Garden art as well as shovels and wheelbarrows, for example. And then expand in every area. We have electrical—why not sell a line of lamps and expand the number of lighting fixtures we carry? Plumbing? More choice of sinks and fixtures plus add some extras, like bath mats and hampers. We can keep our core business but appeal more to women.” She hesitated, the rush of ideas slowing as she broached the opportunity she’d been toying with. “You know that Swenson’s next door is going out of business.”
“Yes, I was sorry to hear that. Mr. Swenson’s in poor health, you know.”
“I do. My first thought was that we could use the floor space for some of my ideas.” She eyed her mother a little nervously. It was supposed to be Dad she’d have to sell on the idea. “My second was that we could buy Swenson’s and integrate it into our business. Appliances are pretty closely related to hardware and home improvement. Maybe we could pare down the stock to the bestselling brands and do both—sell appliances and use some of the floor space for other stock.”
Mom was staring at her, either riveted or shocked. Olivia was a little startled to have heard the energy in her voice and to realize how enthusiastic she was.
So, okay, maybe she had been thinking ahead. Somehow it hadn’t occurred to her that her mother would very likely want to sell the business once Dad was gone. As in, the minute Dad was gone.
Mom blew out a breath. “Well. I knew you’d made some changes, but I hadn’t realized how many ideas you have. I’ve been...well, a little self-absorbed.”
“Dad hasn’t been gone very long.”
Um...not the most tactful thing to say, when they’d both been trying to be conciliatory.
Without moving a muscle, Marian withdrew. “No, of course not,” she said with obvious reserve. “I suppose my instinct is to tell you to go ahead with your plans within reason. Even if we decide to sell, success should bring a higher price.”
At least she’d said “we.”
“Why don’t you talk to Mr. Swenson so we can get an idea what it would cost to take over his business and lease?” her mother suggested. “After that, we can both think about what’s best.”
“That makes sense,” Olivia agreed. “I can...help you with the house in the meantime.”
Mom lowered her gaze. “Thank you. My goodness, our food is getting cold.”
Prompted, Olivia picked up her fork. It occurred to her that eating together wasn’t something they seemed to do very well anymore.
Several bites later, her mother said, “Did I see you with Ben Hovik today?”
She froze with the stroganoff halfway to her mouth. Mom could only have seen them in the rearview mirror while she was retreating.
“We talked for a minute.”
“Such a handsome man. It’s a shame you let him get away.”
Olivia set down the fork. “Let him get away? He ditched me, Mom.”
Her mother must have seen the gathering anger on her face, because she said hastily, “I didn’t mean that the way it sounds. It’s just that, well, I’ve had the impression he could be interested again.”
“Would you want to open a second act with a man who’d dumped you the first time around?”
Her mother’s mouth trembled, and after a moment she neatly folded her napkin and set it on the table to signify that she was done, although she hadn’t eaten half of what was on her plate. “No,” she murmured. “When you put it that way...no.”
Upside of both losing their appetites? They had leftovers for tomorrow night’s dinner.
* * *
OLIVIA’S HAND HOVERED over the telephone on her desk in the office. She already had the phone book open: Crescent Creek School District appeared in the government pages at the front. All she had to do was dial the number for the high school and ask to speak to the principal.
She wished she could be absolutely sure she wasn’t using what she’d overheard as an excuse to talk to Ben. It was only yesterday she’d indulged in true confessions. What would he think, her calling the very next day?
Olivia moaned. Maybe she should call the police department instead... She got as far as starting to close the phone book before stopping and spreading it open again. No. This was really more Ben’s bailiwick. He might even know enough to say, No, the police investigated and there’s no truth to it.
Finally she dialed. When she asked to speak to Mr. Hovik, she had to give her name and was told, “I’ll have to check to see if he’s available right now.”
Not a minute later, he came on. “Olivia? Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing like that. I mean, not really...” She rolled her eyes, then started again. “I heard something I thought I ought to pass on, that’s all.”
There was a slight pause. “Concerning?”
“The girl. Well, the night she died.”
“Ah. Hold on a second, will you?” Muffled voices suggested someone else had been in his office. He came back on. “Olivia? Can you take time to have lunch and talk about this?”
Oh, heavens. Had she been hoping—?
Maybe, she thought. Then she remembered that sharp spike of anger she’d felt the day before when she’d said, Would you want to open a second act with a man who’d dumped you the first time around? No—she was doing what she believed was right, that’s all.
“Sure,” she said. “I didn’t bring anything today.”
“I won’t suggest Guido’s.” There was amusement in his voice.
“Please don’t.”
“Not much privacy at the café or the Burger Barn.” He sounded thoughtful.
“No.”
They agreed on pizza. He’d pick her up.
She used the time before he came to study the loft space she was envisioning as an expanded clothing department. She tried to decide how much of a deterrent the long staircase would be. Maybe to some of the older folks. In this vast old building, installing an elevator wasn’t all that feasible, and certainly not in the foreseeable future. They could seed the downstairs, so to speak, with some of the products available upstairs. Tempt shoppers, but also make some appealing items available to people who really couldn’t climb the stairs. Of course, she’d have to hire extra help...
Ben called her mobile phone when he was a couple of blocks away, and she stepped out on the sidewalk just as his Jeep pulled up in front of the hardware store, meaning he didn’t have to find parking. He leaned over to open the door for her. Her heart did some gymnastics at the sight of his lean, handsome face. Thank God he wasn’t smiling. Given her history, she’d probably have fallen off the curb.
She was belting herself in when a horn sounded behind them.
Ben glared into his rearview mirror. “Makes me want to just sit here for about ten minutes,” he muttered but immediately started moving anyway. “Downtown parking is grossly inadequate.”
“You’re telling me?” Olivia was glad for a neutral topic. “I’ve been campaigning for angled parking. I think the street is wide enough, and it would accommodate a few more cars on every block.”
“Plus pleasing anyone who didn’t master parallel parking.”
“Right.” She couldn’t help smiling, even though they both knew he was reminding her of the driving lessons he’d given her. She had been an exceedingly timid parallel parker. Still was; living in downtown Portland, she had rarely driven.
They talked about other possibilities, including a city-owned block not far away that could be converted to parking.
The pizza parlor turned out to be mostly deserted, maybe because the usual lunch hour had passed. The couple of other groups didn’t pay any attention to their arrival. Not until she and Ben were seated in a booth and had ordered did he prompt her. “What did you hear, Olivia?”
“You know how many kids we have working for us.”
He nodded. “I’ve sent a few your father’s way.”
“Right. He said you’d persuaded him to hire Tim Allard.” A senior in high school now, Tim had shaggy hair and a sort of sullen, hulking mien. She’d blinked the first time she saw him, but he’d grown on her.
“He still working out?”
“Lloyd says Tim is his best worker. If Tim is interested, Lloyd would like to hire him full-time once he graduates.”
“Good.” Raising a questioning brow, Ben waited for her to go on.
“Anyway, I was out in the lumberyard yesterday afternoon and overheard a couple of the boys. They didn’t see me in the next row. They were talking about a kegger, how lucky they were that word hadn’t leaked out.” She wished she didn’t feel as if she was betraying a confidence.
His dark eyes were steady on her face. “What makes you think this kegger was that night? It’s been almost six weeks.”
She took a deep breath. “One of them was nervous—I could tell. The other one said, ‘If anybody had talked, the police would have been all over us, and they haven’t been.’ No, a direct quote is, ‘So far we’ve skated.’”
A nerve ticked in his cheek. “Damn,” he said. “I’ve been afraid of something like this.”
She stared at him in astonishment. “Wait. You mean...you knew?”
