Kiss Me If You Dare

29

I hiccupped on the way inside. I’d left my wig and sunglasses in Brad’s closet. Without my disguise to hide behind, paranoia crept over me. My face was plastered all over the Yooper Mafia’s Most Wanted list-what if somebody recognized me? Standing in the kitchen watching Sam ladle soup into bowls, I figured it was too late to turn back anyhow.

“Just one this evening?” The hostess, a different one for the supper hour, smiled as she greeted me.

“No. Thank you.” I pointed in Sam’s direction. “I’m just here to speak with Samantha a minute.”

“I’ll tell her you’re waiting, but I’m not sure how long it will be before she can break away.”

“No problem.”

“Okay.” She shrugged. “I’ll seat you in the dining area until she can get to you.”

She put me at a spot next to the window. The sun was just beginning to set over the lake, like a juicy grapefruit sinking into a red Jello parfait. My stomach growled. I wished I had placed an order. It had been a long time since coffee with Puppa this morning. And thanks to Austin, I never got one taste of Coney Deluxe at lunch. The last bite of the golden fruit was consumed by the horizon when Sam finally appeared at my table.

“Now’s a bad time, Tish. Why not come back around eight. I’ll have things cleaned up and we can talk.”

I planted my elbow on the table and leaned on my wrist. “No rush. I’m just making myself at home.” Perhaps the words came out with a bite of sarcasm. But that was no excuse for her to get that snarl on her face.

She looked down on me from her almost six-foot height. “You’ve been making yourself at home in places you don’t belong. Austin called and told me about your latest exploit. I asked you to stay away from Brad.” She ground a fingertip on the tabletop. “Don’t make me take out a restraining order.”

I stood, looking eye to eye with her. “Considering you’re standing in my great room, in my house, maybe I’m the one who should take out a restraining order.”

“Let’s not reduce this to a catfight. Joel and I got this place fair and square. You were dead, remember?”

“Pardon me for coming back to life and disturbing your thriving little enterprise and your cozy little family, while my fiancé lies dying in hospice care.” I poked a finger toward her chest. “Yeah, you’re going to have to get a restraining order to keep me away from Brad, because I’m not going to give up on him as easily as you did.”

Her eyes were fierce. “Give the man the dignity of his own choices. You have no idea what he’s been through. And thank God you’re not his fiancée. Where were you when he needed you? Hiding out in some commune?” She shook her head, voice filled with disgust. “Deal with this: you walked out on us-all of us-when we could have used a little help around here. You couldn’t handle things then. What makes you think it’s any different now?”

I shook my head vehemently. “I didn’t walk out. I did what Brad wanted me to do. He’s the one who sent me to Del Gloria. He’s the reason I’m still alive.”

Sam looked around the room as if realizing for the first time that neither of us had lowered our voices. A blush crept over her cheeks as she met the glances of several diners.

Her voice was a livid whisper. “You have to leave. I’m working.” She twirled and dodged tables on her way back to the kitchen.

I followed. “I need you to back me up, Sam. Please let me try to help Brad. If it’s all my fault, at least give me a chance to fix it.”

“The same way you fixed your grandmother’s situation? Hmmm. Maybe you should get involved. You’d probably put Brad out of his misery in no time.”

A quick inhale. How low could Sam get? “You’re just waiting for him to be out of his misery? What is wrong with you?”

“Don’t lecture me. I’ve been watching him go downhill the last six months, like a cancer patient who refuses chemo. It’s just a matter of time. And you can only hope it ends quickly. Painlessly.”

“What happened, Sam? You used to be the one painting the sky blue.”

“That was before… all this. Now I’m about to be a mother. That’s a pretty serious responsibility. I can’t afford to be hanging out over the rainbow with you.” She gave a wobble of her head. “Nice choice of clocks, by the way. Austin said Brad wanted it hung near the bed where he can hear it. Probably feels one hour closer to heaven every time it chimes.” A wry voice. “Gotta hand it to you. You can sure pick ’em.”

I crossed my arms. “You are not without blame, here, Samantha. If I recall, it was your idea to let Melissa Belmont and her kids hide out at the lodge. And between your ex-husband and her father, we’re lucky we’re still around to fight over the chimes on Brad’s clock.”

It had turned out that Melissa Belmont’s father was Frank Majestic. I hadn’t seen that slap in the face coming until the man’s ugly mug was staring me in the eyes, demanding that I tell him where to find my AWOL father. Apparently, Dear Old Dad had turned in Majestic once before, a sin that fell in the “unforgivable” category. Samantha had been there with me on the couch that day. She’d made the leap that saved my life, tackling Majestic’s crony to the ground before he could shoot me in a spot more serious than the arm.

I frowned at the breakthrough in my memory and shrank against the counter. “Sam. Let’s not fight. We’re on the same team. We want the same things.”

“What is wrong with you? Everywhere you go, there’s a dead body. And you want me to let you hang out with Brad? You know, it’s just a matter of time before someone tracks you down and tries to kill you again. If not to get back at you for that whole drug thing, then to get back at your dad for whatever it was he did. It’s like a plague.”

“Well, doesn’t that fit right in to your ‘fast and painless’ plans for Brad?”

“You know what? Why don’t you take care of your family, and I’ll take care of mine. I think Brad made it plain today that you two no longer have a relationship. I’m going to honor his decision. And if you have a compassionate bone in your body, you’ll honor it too. Go find your father. But leave Brad alone.”

Joel entered the room. “Everything okay in here, Hon?”

Samantha looked at me. “Well?”

I glared back and forth between the two of them with their haughty attitudes. We’re right and you’re wrong, their crossed arms and stiff lips said.

“Have it your way. I hope you can live with yourselves.” I tromped toward the door, pivoting at the last moment. “By the way, you’ve got thirty days to vacate my property.”

Out the door and into Puppa’s truck. I peeled out, snow flying behind the vehicle as I raced up the drive. Just around the bend, a car came at me on the one-lane road. I slammed on the brakes and pulled to one side, letting the startled woman pass. Traffic on my backwoods driveway? I spun the wheels in anger. Uhhh. I hated Samantha and Joel for what they’d done to my once-private hideaway. I fled to the lake house, the scenery passing in a blur of tears. Puppa was sitting in the living room, reading a newspaper, and looking lost in the empty space.

He lowered the pages as I entered. “How’d it go?”

I flopped forlorn onto the love seat, feet asunder, hands in my lap. I couldn’t even talk, my throat was so full of pent-up anger and grief. Though I tried to stop them, tears kept dripping down my face. I wiped them on my hands, and wiped my hands on my pants, not caring if Puppa saw me at my crudest.

“Not good, eh?” he said. He folded the paper and set it on the floor by his chair. He walked over, snuggling me on the love seat, a little pat on my shoulder. My body gave an occasional shudder while I told him the day’s events. As I talked, my emotional baggage gradually packed up and shipped out. By the time I got to the latest visit to the lodge and my argument with Sam, my stomach was gurgling.

“Hungry?” he asked.

I nodded, staring off.

“Come on. Food always helps.” He got up and pulled me to my feet, dragging me, mute, into the kitchen. “What’ll it be?” he asked, opening the freezer door. “Pizza, fish sticks, potpie, or TV dinner?”

I shrugged my ambivalence.

“Patricia,” he said, pulling out two potpies, “don’t take Samantha’s overprotective attitude personally. She’s been through a lot with this situation. She suffered a broken heart early on when Brad first threw in the towel. You can’t expect her to get her hopes up now, when it seems he’s bent on dying. She needs to take care of herself more than ever.”

“I’m so angry.” Grabbing the printed cardboard from Puppa, I tore open the boxes, digging out the delicate frozen pastry as Puppa set the oven. Chunks of crust fell on the counter. “Sam’s not leaving me with any options here, short of kidnapping Brad and sneaking him off to Mexico.”

Wordless, Puppa set a cookie sheet on the counter.

I slammed the pies onto the metal tray. “Gee, you think border patrol would be suspicious?”

Puppa slid supper in the oven and set the timer. “Don’t get yourself worked up. You can’t control what Sam or Brad does. Ask yourself what you can control, then focus on that.”

I scooped crumbs into my hand and tossed them in the trash. What was my course now? Would I fight for the lodge? Would I fight for Brad? Would I disappear into hiding? Would I return to Del Gloria and finish my college education? I had loads of options, just no answers.

Opening the fridge, I fished for the cottage cheese. The stamp on the container promised it was fresh. I put it out, along with a bag of not-quite-stale bread and a slab of butter. “I haven’t heard anything more about Melissa. What’s she up to these days?”

“She cut ties with the area and relocated, forwarding address withheld. Said she’d love to be back in touch when the kids are older. Right now she’s just lying low and working on getting her life in order.”

I nodded. “So what’d she have? A boy or a girl?” Melissa had been expecting her third child at the time of the ordeal.

“Little boy. Named him Gerard Owen Russo.” Puppa’s face blushed with pride. “Your cousin Gerard married Melissa in July.”

I slumped against the counter. Another Russo baby. So, both my bachelor cousins were married off. I’d missed two weddings and a funeral while I was dead.

I put on a smile. “I’m glad for Gerard. Seemed like he and Melissa really respected one another, just from the little time I saw them together. And to be honest, I was getting worried he was one of the casualties this spring. Nobody’s said a word about him.”

“He took a bullet to the knee, so he has to take things easy now. But he and Melissa couldn’t be happier. I sure miss them around here, but they’re both glad to be on a new adventure. Justin Jones wasn’t as lucky.”

I’d never heard the name before. “Was that the skinny kid with the gun?” I’d called him Skuzz, loathing everything about him, right down to the waistband on the Hanes peeking out from his low-riders.

“He was one troubled kid. Shouldn’t have been involved with Majestic to begin with. He met his match when he messed with Candice.”

I bristled at the name. “I guess I’ve been reluctant to ask about her too. Tell me she’s behind bars.” At least if she were in jail, I’d feel better. She’d confessed murder to me and I’d closed my eyes to it, instead leaving it to the police to solve the case and arrest her. But things had snowballed and next thing I knew, she’d shot Brad. No wonder I’d blocked the event from my memory. How do you live with guilt like that?

“Candice left Frank with a head injury-too bad the guy’s got a skull like a steel drum-then took off. Just vanished,” Puppa said.

“She vanished?”

So Candice was still out there, on the loose, able to hurt anyone at any time for whatever reason. The two halves of my heart tugged in opposite directions. How could you love someone deeply on the one hand, but hate so much of what they’ve done on the other? And yet, wouldn’t it be for the greater good if she was taken out of commission, after what she did to Brad… all because of me?

The timer dinged.

“Dinner is served,” Puppa said, putting on oven mitts.

We ate the steaming potpies in the dining room, the two of us lost at one end of the twelve-seat table.

“So, whatever happened to you that night?” I asked. “The last I saw of you was at the Watering Hole honkytonk. We were diving for cover out the back door. You went one way, Candice went the other.” I shrugged. “And I almost took a plunge into Mead Quarry.”

“That night just kept getting better and better,” Puppa said. “I caught up to Candice and tried to get her to turn herself in. Told her she could cut a deal, get involved in the witness protection program, but-” he shook his head and gave a sigh of disgust-“talk about stubborn. She just waved her gun at me and threw me out of the car. She must have changed her mind about running when she realized Majestic would be on the warpath. Sounds like she got to the lodge just in time to save you.”

“Just in time to shoot Brad, you mean.”

Puppa cradled his head in his hands as if weary. “I think she’s got problems with men.”

“That’s one way to put it. Plus she’s got control issues, a cold-blooded streak-”

“Enough. She’s suffered enough. You don’t need to heap on more condemnation.”

Humbled, I nodded. “You still love her, don’t you?”

“Never stopped.” He rubbed at a spot under his eye.

“I used to think she was a cancer in my brain, always there, always on my mind, growing over the years. I’d have done anything to have every memory, every thought of her surgically removed from my head. The idea of being with another woman turned my stomach. It was like she’d ruined me. It was Candice-or nobody. But after studying and praying and puzzling over it, I realized that I wasn’t infected with a cancer. I was infected with love. I love that woman unconditionally. She’s capable of murder, yet I still love her. When I realized she was involved with Majestic and the local drug trade, I wanted to be angry. I wanted to hate her. Maybe then I could stop wanting to be with her. Maybe then she’d be out of my head. But it made no difference. Since that night at the Watering Hole, I’ve tried to find her. I want to bring her home. Show her that I love her no matter what. If only she’d let me.”

He broke into tears, and then so did I, weeping beside him, my cloth napkin soaked in the by-products of grief.

Was I crying because I was sympathetic to his plight? I knew better. I cried because the woman he loved unconditionally took from me the man I loved unconditionally. My shoulders heaved and I struggled for air. My heart beat painfully, squeezed by some cruel hand inside my chest.

I loved my grandfather. I really did. But I couldn’t ignore my own torment. There was only one way to ease the pain of my broken heart.

I took a calming breath. At least now I knew what course I would take.