Face the Music: Beyond Jackson Falls Book 1 Page 6

  “It is you!” the woman said. “I was thinking about you just the other day.”

  Paige stopped and pulled out her earbuds, cutting off The All-American Rejects mid-lyric. She and Lissa Norton hadn’t seen each other since high school, and their friendship—if you wanted to call it that—had ended on a bad note after they’d been caught shoplifting together. She was still mortified by what she’d done, pressured by Lissa’s taunts of “Chicken!” If she could have avoided the woman now, she would have. But sometimes, you had to do things you didn’t want to do, for the sake of civility. This was one of those times.

  “Lissa,” she said, her voice a little cool, even to her own ears. “It’s been a long time.”

  “It has. Eleven years. I had no idea you were home.”

  “I needed a little R&R. Touring takes a lot out of me, so I decided to come home, visit the folks, get some rest.”

  “It’s so good to see you!” If Lissa had been reading the tabloids, she gave no clue.

  A little of the tension she’d felt when she recognized her old school pal began to dissipate. Feeling a little more generous, Paige smiled at the boy, who grasped the stroller handle and clung to his mother. “Hi,” she said, scooching down to his height. “I’m Paige. Who are you?”

  “I’m Aaron,” he said, puffing out his chest proudly. “I’m four years old!”

  “I can see that. And who’s this?” She peeked at the sleeping baby in the stroller. “Is this your little sister?”

  “Dat’s Tess.”

  “What a nice name! And how old is Tess?”

  “Five months.” He looked to his mother for confirmation and Lissa nodded. “I also have a ten-year-old son,” she said. “Cody. He’ll be starting middle school in another year.”

  “Not possible,” Paige said. “We’re only twenty-nine years old!”

  “I know. I started young. Cody was born a few months after we graduated. As I’m sure you remember, I was a bit of a wild child back then.” Color flooded Lissa’s cheeks. “Cody and I lived with Mom and Dad until he was three. Then I met Derek, and we just clicked. Six years married, two more kids, and we just bought a house on South Street. He treats me like a queen.”

  Lissa’s life sounded so normal that fingers of jealousy tickled the back of Paige’s neck. Why she, who had so much, would be jealous of this woman’s life confused her. She was grateful for everything she had. She knew how lucky she was. Her life so far had been extraordinary. The one thing she didn’t have was the normalcy that Lissa was describing.

  And she was shocked to discover how much she craved it.

  “Listen, Paige…I’m glad I ran into you because there’s something I’ve been needing to get off my chest. I want to apologize. I can’t believe I was such a rotten little brat in high school.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” she said, fingers tangling awkwardly in the cord to her iPod. She took a step backward, but Lissa’s words pinned her in place.

  “But it was. A big deal, I mean. I was awful to you, Paige. You were my friend, and I let you take the heat for everything that went down. I was too afraid of my dad to admit the truth. You saw what he was like. He would’ve reamed me a new one if he ever thought I was behind it. Now that I’m grown, with kids of my own, I understand him a little better. And I realize what a little snot I was. I’m so ashamed.”

  Paige softened a little further. “It’s okay,” she said. “Really. It was a million years ago. So long ago I barely remember. We were stupid high school kids, and we were both responsible for what went down. You didn’t hold a gun to my head. Stuff happens. The world keeps on spinning. We’re cool.”

  “No hard feelings?”

  Feeling unexpectedly magnanimous, she said, “None whatsoever.”

  “Thank you. I’m not sure I deserve it, but thank you.”

  They stood awkwardly, neither of them sure what to say next. “I suppose,” Lissa said tentatively, “you’ve heard that Mikey’s back.”

  “Yeah. I saw him the day I got here.”

  “The two of you were quite an item, back in the day.”

  “Were we?”

  “Are you kidding? Those bitches at school all hated you. It’s a damn shame, isn’t it? A young, handsome guy like that.” Lissa shook her head in sorrow.

  “I’m not following you. What’s a shame?”

  Lissa raised an eyebrow and looked at her curiously. Said, “You don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  “About his leg?”

  When Paige just stared at her without comprehension, Lissa’s eyes widened. “I am so sorry,” she said. “I just assumed that—well, you’re related by marriage, right? I can’t believe nobody in your family told you.”

  Paige squared her jaw. Grimly, she said, “Lissa, what the hell are you talking about?”

  And Lissa said, “Two years ago, Mikey lost a leg in Iraq.”

  * * *

  SHE FOUND HER father in the kitchen, slapping together a peanut butter sandwich. Knife in hand, Rob looked up, startled, when she strode furiously into the room. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded. “How the hell could you not tell me?”

  “This conversation might go a little easier,” he said, “if I knew what you were talking about.”

  “Mikey!” she said. “How could you not tell me about Mikey?”

  His face changed. Clearly, this was one conversation he wasn’t prepared to have today. While she stood fuming, he turned back to his sandwich, calmly finished making it, then picked up the plate and the glass of milk he’d just poured for himself. “Sit,” he said, crossing the room and setting them on the island in front of her. “Eat. We’ll talk.”

  For an instant, they waged a silent battle, although the unspoken words were clearly heard by both parties. Then the starch went out of her, and without another word, she sat.

  Rob returned to the counter, made a second sandwich and poured another glass of milk. He put the bread and milk away, then he carried his lunch to the granite island and took a seat beside her.

  With her white-knuckled hands wrapped so tightly around the glass of milk that he feared she might crush it, she said, “Talk.”

  Rob took a sip of milk and said, “It’s not like we were deliberately keeping it from you. It just never came up.”

  “That’s a cop-out and you know it!”

  He set down the glass of milk a little harder than was necessary. “No,” he said, “it’s not. How often have we talked in the last couple of years, Paige? For more than five minutes at a pop?”

  “Don’t you dare to lay the blame for this on me!”

  “I’m not laying any blame, I’m just stating fact. Casey and I haven’t seen you in more than two years. Between your schedule and ours, things have been a little crazy. When we were in Budapest, you were in Honolulu. When you were in London, we were in Toronto. We lead busy lives. Casey and I are juggling a lot of stuff. So are you. That kind of lifestyle isn’t conducive to long, serious conversations. The few times we did talk, I never thought to mention it.”

  “That’s kind of a big thing to forget, Dad. You should’ve called me when it happened.”

  “What went on between you and Mikey happened twelve years ago! How the hell was I supposed to know you’d even care?”

  Everything went still inside her. “So, what, Dad? You just figured I didn’t give a shit?”

  “Ah, hell.” Rob ran a hand through his hair. “That came out wrong. I’m sorry. I should’ve told you. It was a pretty chaotic time. I don’t have any other excuse except that it simply never occurred to me.”

  Paige lifted her glass of milk and took a long, slow swallow.

  “Drink up,” he said with false joviality. “I know it’s not vodka, but it builds strong bones and teeth.”

  She set down the glass. “Not funny, Dad.”

  He picked up a napkin and handed it to her. “Milk moustache.”

  Like a small child, she dutifully wiped, then sat, lost in th
ought, the crumpled napkin clenched in her fist. “It’s just such a shock,” she said.

  “I know.”

  Her eyes met his, and she realized that his pathetic attempt at humor had lowered her fury level a few notches. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know all of it. He was working some kind of security detail, and there was an explosion. They tried to save the leg, but there was too much damage. They had to amputate.”

  She buried her face in her hands, trying to absorb this shocking revelation. She’d always been comforted by the knowledge that, even though they hadn’t crossed paths in more than a decade, Mikey Lindstrom was out there somewhere, living a life he’d chosen, presumably happy in that life. It was devastating to know that something terrible, something life-changing, had happened to him, and she hadn’t even known about it. Somehow, she should have known. Even without being told, she should have known.

  Her dad lay a hand on her quaking shoulder. Tenderly, he said, “You okay, sweetheart?”

  “I will be, but it might take me a while.” She swiped a tear from her eye. “Here I’ve been throwing myself a massive pity party, when all I lost was a fiancé.”

  “Don’t do that to yourself. You can’t compare. Apples and oranges. Your loss is just as valid as his.”

  “Jesus, Dad, don’t go all Dr. Phil on me.”

  “Good to know your sense of humor’s intact. You’ll survive.” He indicated her sandwich. “Eat. You’re too damn skinny.”

  They finished their sandwiches in contemplative silence. “My thoughts,” she said, “keep running in a million different directions. Every time I try to follow one, it just doubles back on itself. Trying to pull them all together is like trying to herd cats.”

  “It’s a lot to take in.”

  “If it’s this hard for me, how must it be for him? How’s he handling it?”

  Rob stood, carried the plates and glasses to the sink, and rinsed them. “Not as well as his parents would like.” He opened the door of the dishwasher and placed the dishes inside. “Rose and Jesse are worried about him.”

  Thinking back to the day she’d run into Mikey at the convenience store, she said, “There was something very different about him the other day. His attitude seemed…brittle. Not like Mikey at all. And I noticed something odd about his walk, but I was so involved in my own drama that I never gave it a second thought.” She clamped her mouth shut and shook her head.

  Rob closed the dishwasher and leaned on his palms over the island. “Hell, who would handle it well? How do you handle something like this? I’m not sure I could do it.”

  “Me, either.”

  “He’s changed, Paige. He’s not the same guy who went away twelve years ago. He may look the same, but there’s all this turbulence going on under the surface. Sometimes he’s short-tempered, irritable, standoffish. I realize he’s seen things, experienced things, that had to have a negative effect on him. He wouldn’t be normal if they hadn’t. But the family’s been walking on eggshells since he came home, because he feels like a walking time bomb. Nobody knows when he’ll explode.”

  “Mikey was always so proud. So determined. An idealist. I always admired that about him. He knew exactly who he was and where he was going. He really believed in what he was doing, going off to serve his country.”

  “I think he’s lost heart. He just floats around, with no real purpose. He took a job with the Jackson Falls P. D. because Jesse kept hounding him to do something. He’s renting an old trailer in the park on River Street. Jesse tried to talk him into buying a house. Hell, he would have bought it for him. But Mikey wouldn’t have any of it.”

  “Doesn’t he have friends? Some kind of support system?”

  “There’s a girlfriend. Amy Tardiff. She teaches at the high school. Amy’s a ball of fire, and everybody keeps hoping they’ll settle down together, but so far, it hasn’t happened. As far as anyone can tell, the only friend he has is a guy named Gunther.”

  “Mikey mentioned him. He owns the convenience store?”

  Rob nodded. “Gunther’s a Vietnam vet. A little odd, and considerably older than Mikey, but he’s likable enough. I think they understand each other in a way that nobody else can. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

  “He was so popular in high school. Everybody liked him. I don’t understand. Haven’t any of his old friends tried to get through to him?”

  “I think most people don’t know what to say. It’s an awkward situation, and it makes them uncomfortable, so they avoid him. His mother’s tried, but she hasn’t made much headway. His relationship with his father’s a little testy right now. Jesse doesn’t approve of the way his son’s living, and they’ve had a few go-rounds about it.” Rob shrugged a shoulder. “He’s angry. It’s understandable. But sooner or later, you have to start living again. You have to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and move on. Because if you don’t, life won’t sit there and wait for you. Life keeps on moving, and if you don’t move with it, it’ll mow you over.”

  “This is terrible, Dad. Isn’t there something we can do?”

  “If it was up to Casey, she’d give him milk and cookies and warm fuzzies. I fall more into the tough love camp. Either way, there’s only so much anyone can do. Mikey has to take the initiative to help himself. Until he takes his first step out of that dark place he’s gone to, he’ll just stay adrift. It’s a damn shame, but it is what it is. My recommendation? Stay out of it.”

  PAIGE

  SHE STAYED OUT of it for days. Took long, solitary walks, trying to work out in her head why she felt such a need to reach out to Mikey Lindstrom. Was it some misplaced sense of obligation because she’d broken his heart all those years ago? If so, it hardly seemed fair. After all, his marriage proposal hadn’t been remotely reasonable. She’d been seventeen, for God’s sake! A kid, with her own dreams and ambitions, and college in her near future. She’d been nowhere near ready to marry anybody. Certainly not ready to become a military wife, stuck on a base somewhere with other wives twice her age while her husband spent most of his time deployed overseas. Even her adolescent brain, clouded as it was by teenage hormones, had figured that out.

  Besides, they were even, weren’t they? He’d broken her heart first, when he dumped her a year earlier to go off to college. In her seventeen-year-old mind, that had left them with an even score. All debts paid, all responsibility shared. Nobody owed anybody else a thing.

  So why did it trouble her, far more than it should have, that the only friend he appeared to have in the world was a Vietnam veteran twice his age? Mikey had always been a little aloof, but friendly enough, once you got past that barrier he put up between himself and the rest of the world. He’d been liked by everyone who knew him. An angry and withdrawn Mikey was impossible to picture. It went against every memory she had of him.

  And there were memories. They had a history, an ancient and complicated one. Once upon a time, she’d loved him. Then, for a while, she’d hated him, until she loved him again. When they parted that final time, even though she’d been the one to call things off, his heart wasn’t the only one left bloodied and battered. It had taken her some time to get over him, some time to move on with her life and feel whole again. But move on she had, and her chaotic life hadn’t given her time to reminisce about her star-crossed teenage romance with Mikey Lindstrom.

  Occasionally, over the years, she’d thought about Mikey, always with some mix of regret and nostalgia, anger and embarrassment, curiosity and a steely determination to keep that door firmly shut. Their family connection had occasionally provided her with vague details about his life; she knew he was career military, knew he was in the Middle East, knew he wasn’t married. Other than that, she’d done her best to forget she ever knew Mikey Lindstrom.

  But you never forgot your first love, no matter how many years or miles separated you, and for some inexplicable reason, she couldn’t get past this feeling that Mikey was sinking, and she was the only one wh
o could save him.

  It was a responsibility she didn’t want. A flagrant violation of her plans. She’d come here intending to wallow in her own misery until she was ready to go back and face the music. Ry’s infidelity had gutted her. It really pissed her off that even though her own life had just entered the third circle of hell, some nagging part of her was determined to play nursemaid to a man she hadn’t seen in a dozen years.

  He’d probably tell her to go take a hike, anyway. There was no way Mikey would want her snooping around in his personal life. In spite of their history, in spite of the family connection, if the shoe was on the other foot, she would tell him to take a long walk off a short pier. Besides, she wasn’t the nurturing type. She never had been. Sweet, nurturing and maternal were not words anybody had ever used to describe Paige MacKenzie.

  She was more like Dad. Tough love was her modus operandi. If you fell down, you got back up. That was how she lived her life. She hated showing any sign of weakness, and it was almost a guarantee that Mikey felt the same way. He wouldn’t appreciate her meddling.

  So why was she so determined to meddle?

  * * *

  WHEN THE POLICE dispatcher told her it was Officer Lindstrom’s day off, Paige put on her running clothes and climbed into her MINI and, with the top down and her hair streaming in the wind, drove into town to track him down.

  She followed Casey’s directions to the trailer park, where mobile homes were lined up in rows like tin cans on a grocery store shelf. Number 7 was beige and nondescript, in its driveway an aging blue Ford pickup and a shiny black Harley. Paige pulled up behind the truck and shut off the car, checked her appearance in the mirror—and what, exactly, was the point of that?—took a deep breath, and headed for the trailer door.

  It took him a while to answer. When the door creaked open and he saw her standing there, he gaped at her in surprise. His hair stood up in rooster tails, and sleep crystals dusted the corners of his eyes. At two-thirty in the afternoon. “Paige,” he said.

  “Mikey.” She didn’t wait to be invited in, just breezed past him and stood there in his living room, looking around.