A Kiss in Winter Read online

  That’s when he saw the pencil markings on the inside of the linen closet’s painted door. There were three sets of growth marks, each one topped with a name: Caroline, Samuel, Macie. A date was scrawled beside each hash mark below the names.

  The very incompleteness of the progressions toward adulthood was enough to squeeze his heart. Caroline’s didn’t begin until age eight and continued until age eighteen. The other two began at first birthdays, but Samuel’s stopped at age thirteen, Macie’s at twelve.

  For some reason he was thankful that Miranda Stockton hadn’t repainted this door. It seemed right and natural for these children’s names to remain a part of this house, even if they had moved on to other places, other futures.

  As he touched Caroline’s name, he couldn’t help but wonder if somewhere in the apartment over the dry cleaner on the square, there was a door or a wall with pencil marks in yearly increments for Caroline’s first eight years—the years before she became a Rogers.

  When Caroline’s natural mother had died, it had been in the local news. Mick had been sixteen, old enough to grasp the horror of her situation, yet it was peripheral to his teenage world—that was, until he’d seen the photograph in the newspaper. It had been taken when the social services worker led Caroline out of that apartment by the hand. In the background, in the window of the dry cleaner, were Santa and his eight tiny reindeer, Rudolph’s nose a bright light. Mick recalled thinking what a miserable Christmas that little girl was going to have. Then, when he heard the details ground out by the rumor mill over the next days, he decided that little girl had never known what a happy Christmas was.

  But the main reason the photograph had stuck in his memory was because Caroline hadn’t looked lost and frightened, as one would expect a kid who’d been in an apartment with her dead mother for a day and a half would look. She looked mad. Even at sixteen, he’d paused in his self-absorbed adolescent activities to admire her courage.

  It was hard to equate that angry eight-year-old with the charming woman who had lured a raccoon out of his dining room today. It seemed she had recovered from her trauma.

  As Mick stood there, among boxes and bare windows, he was glad to know that some childhood horrors did have a happy ending.

  Caroline paced a hundred miles between the front door and the telephone in the kitchen. The late night news was over. Macie had been in bed for an hour. Sam wasn’t answering his cell phone.

  When Caroline had called Ben’s house, his mother had assured her the boys were fine. But as she hadn’t seen or heard from either of them since midafternoon, Caroline didn’t know how the woman could make such a statement with anything more than wishful thinking.

  Caroline was just finishing her circuit back at the front door when the telephone rang. She dashed to pick it up with the dread of disaster gripping her gut.

  Confirmation came when the voice on the other end identified itself as the sheriff’s department.

  Chapter 5

  You know I didn’t want to bring him in,” Deputy Gibson said when Caroline arrived at the sheriff’s office. He ran a beefy hand over the dark bristle on his head and looked like he meant it. She and Deputy Gibson had been around this block a few times before.

  Caroline closed her eyes for a second, biting back her question, Then why did you? Twelve hours. Sam only had to behave himself for twelve more hours, then he’d be on his way—

  She cut the thought off, shocked at herself. Did she really think the trouble would end when Sam went to college, where there was even less supervision?

  “Racing or spray paint?” she asked. He’d left with Ben, but he had his dirt bike.

  The deputy offered her a seat beside his desk. “The latter… tagging. I know he’s not a bad kid. And God knows, you’ve had your hands full. But I had to do something, Caroline.”

  She nodded. What could she say? He’d been caught doing spray-paint graffiti by the authorities twice in the past three years. Both times, the sheriff delivered him home with Sam’s agreement to restore whatever he’d painted back to its original condition. In the case of the abandoned house out on Millersville Road, it looked a hell of a lot better than it had originally.

  It had been six months since she’d extracted a promise that he would stop expressing himself on brick walls, railroad overpasses, and bridge piers. And, unless he’d gone someplace other than Redbud Mill to do his dirty work, he’d upheld that promise. He’d replaced vandalism with drag racing, which horrified her. Paint was easy to redo, split skulls and ruptured spleens much less so.

  “I’m not going to charge him,” Deputy Gibson said. “It was that railroad overpass out on the highway. He hadn’t done more than start when I found him. But I do want him to know we’re serious. He’s headed to school, right?”

  “Yes, tomorrow as a matter of fact.” If she didn’t kill him tonight. If the deputy did decide to charge him, there would be court appearances and lawyers—two complications she didn’t really need right now. “Um”—she hesitated only for a second before she plunged ahead—“is there any way you can hold him overnight and still not charge him?”

  A half-smile appeared on the deputy’s face. “Want him to remember this, eh?”

  “You’re damn right.”

  “Normally I’d say no problem. But we’ve got a guy back there we pulled out of a meth lab this afternoon. He’s just about hanging from the ceiling.”

  Caroline’s mouth went dry. “In the same cell as my brother?”

  “Good God, no. But we only have one block. Sam’s getting a real lesson in what that stuff can do to a man.”

  Caroline had worried that Sam’s thirst for a thrill might someday lead him to experimenting with drugs. A night in lockup with a man like that might do more good than all of the drug prevention campaigns in the world. She drew a breath and said some of the hardest words she’d ever uttered. “Leave him.”

  “You’re sure?”

  She nodded. Please don’t make me say it again.

  “All right then.”

  As she started to leave with knees that threatened to collapse in upon themselves like a telescoping antenna, the deputy said, “I have to admit, the kid’s got one hell of a lot of talent. Can’t believe he can do that with an ordinary can of spray paint.”

  She kept walking. “Don’t you dare tell him that.”

  Caroline went home and started scrubbing the tile grout in the bathroom with a toothbrush. Once that was done, she emptied the kitchen cabinets and washed all of the shelves. As dawn cast a gray light in the eastern sky, she was on her knees waxing the hardwood floor in the living room.

  She didn’t know how Sam was faring, but it was the longest night she’d ever spent in her life.

  Macie sat on the front porch steps in the early morning cool, waiting for Caroline to bring Sam home. She didn’t know what the big deal was; it was totally stupid for the sheriff to arrest him. Sam’s graffiti looked way better than most billboards.

  As she sat there thinking about how weird it was going to be without Sam around this school year, she heard a buzzing muffler headed her way. A little bubble of excitement vibrated just beneath her breastbone. She looked up the brick street and saw Caleb Collingsworth’s black Civic headed toward her.

  She shot to her feet, to make sure he saw her, then thought better of it and quickly sat back down. She picked up the newspaper that was lying on the step next to her and spread it on her knees. She pretended to be reading, keeping her face raised just enough to ensure he could recognize her if he looked.

  The bubble of excitement burst in a shower of disappointment when the car buzzed on by.

  Before that disappointment could sink in, Caleb slammed on the brakes, sending the tires skittering and squealing across the bumpy bricks. He revved the engine twice before he threw the car in reverse. He backed up so quickly, Macie thought he might come up over the curb.

  The tinted passenger-side window came down and he leaned across the seat. “Hey, you’re the
girl from school yesterday.”

  A few of those droplets of disappointment burned like acid; she had introduced herself properly—and she hadn’t called herself “the girl from school.”

  She decided not to get up. “Macie,” she said dryly. “The name is Macie.” She turned her face back to the paper, not seeing anything but a blur of meaningless black and white.

  “I know,” he said. It was a lie, but he made it sound convincing.

  He shut the car off.

  Macie looked up again when she heard the door slam. She retained an outward calm, even though she felt so jittery she had to tuck her hands beneath her thighs to keep them still. Her breath felt like a big glob of cotton candy in her lungs.

  When Caleb sat on the step below where she sat, he was tall enough that they were still nearly face-to-face. He had on khaki shorts and a T-shirt that read 5th Street Surf Shop. His hair was blonder than she’d remembered, sun-streaked with darker undertones that said he spent a lot of time outdoors. Maybe the surfer shirt was legit.

  “Hey.” He grinned and visions of prom popped back into her head. “You aren’t mad, are you?”

  She sat up straighter and gave a breezy smile. “Why would I be mad?”

  “’Cause you think I didn’t remember your name.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Of course I do. It’s Macie.” He ducked his chin, looking at her with eyes that reminded her of the blue flame of her Bunsen burner in chemistry class. Suddenly all of those droplets of disappointment reassembled into one huge quivering mass of excitement.

  She gave his shoulder a shove. “You’re impossible.”

  “So my parents tell me.” He glanced toward the front door. “You live here?”

  “Why else would I be sitting on the front steps?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “Could be babysitting, I guess.”

  She was so nervous that she was coming off like a real bitch; she tried to undo some of the knots he tied inside her.

  “Yeah, this is home,” she said lightly. “Where did you say your house is?” There was so much she wanted to know about him, especially before school started next Tuesday. She liked thinking of him as “her” find; it thrilled her to think she would be his first friend in Redbud Mill. That would be something no one else could claim—even after he got swept up with the really cool kids.

  “Over on Chestnut.”

  Chestnut, where the lawyers and the doctors lived. “So, why did your family move from LA?”

  “My dad’s the new CEO for Biodynamics.”

  “Oooh, impressive,” she drawled. Biodynamics was a medical plastics company that employed a big chunk of people around there.

  Again the shoulder rose and fell. “I guess.”

  “You have brothers or sisters?”

  He looked down the street for a moment, then said, “A brother—still in California.”

  “Must be older than you, huh?”

  He nodded once, then said, “You wanna go for a ride? You can show me all the cool spots around here.”

  She laughed. “There aren’t any.”

  “Let’s go anyway.” He stood and offered her a hand up.

  “I can’t.” Macie felt guilty for sitting here enjoying herself when her brother was about to be brought home from jail.

  “Oh. Okay.” He looked like he was going to leave.

  “You surf for real?” she asked, and his posture immediately changed, as did the look on his face.

  “Yeah, I have since I was five.”

  “Seriously? Five?”

  “We lived a block from the ocean in Huntington Beach. My brother surfed. He started taking me with this little-bitty-ass board.” He indicated the length with his hand four feet off the ground. “It was so cool.”

  “Your mom let you go surfing with just your brother? How old was he?”

  He shook his head. “He was thirteen—and no way did she let us go alone. She went too—and paced back and forth on the beach, biting her nails.” He mimicked a woman quaking with fear.

  “If she was so afraid, why’d she let you go?” Even never having been in the ocean, Macie knew enough about riptides and undertows to know she’d never let a kindergartner go surfing.

  “Because she caught me sneaking out in the middle of the night dragging that surfboard. She figured there was less chance of me drowning if Carter taught me in the daylight.”

  Macie laughed. She saw the glitter in his eyes, in the brightness of his smile; there was something that just… glowed… when he talked surfing. “You must have been a pretty determined little kid.”

  He looked directly into her eyes. “Still am.” He paused, put a hand on his knee and leaned closer. “When I want something.”

  Her ears started to burn and she couldn’t breathe. “I—I’ve never been to the ocean.”

  “Too bad. You’d like it.”

  She started to say she doubted it; she didn’t like swimming where she couldn’t see what was swimming with her, in water that had an agenda of its own. Sometimes she wished she was just a little edgier—not quite out there with Sam, but someplace where the thought of taking a risk didn’t freeze her into immobility.

  “I’d really like to try it.” She decided there wasn’t any harm in lying, since she’d never actually be faced with surfing with Caleb.

  “I’d like to be the one to teach you.”

  Was that innuendo in his voice, or her imagination trotting off to fantasy land?

  “You miss it a lot.” There was no need to ask it as a question.

  He said, “Yeah. But it’s only a year. I’m going back for college.”

  She didn’t like the idea of him leaving so soon. But really, she thought, she’d be leaving, too. Next year, everything would be different. “Is your brother going to school out there?”

  He screwed his mouth to the side, like he was chewing on the inside of his cheek for a minute. “No. He’s twenty-five.”

  “Oh. What school are you planning on?”

  “UC Santa Barbara; the one closest to the beach.” He smiled and she could just see him standing in the sand with the sun and the wind in his hair. It was a very hot picture.

  “We don’t have an ocean. But…” She cast around in her mind looking for something to interest him. “I know it’s kinda lame, but the county fair is this weekend. They have rides and stuff if you want to go to that.”

  “With you?” he asked, his face serious.

  “Well, yeah, I mean, you don’t have to, but you wanted me to show you around and I thought—”

  “Hey”—he put a hand on her arm and she could swear she felt a shock that went right to the pit of her stomach—“I want to go with you. I just didn’t know if you have a boyfriend or something.”

  “No!” She realized too late how desperate she sounded. “I mean, not at the moment.”

  “All right, then. When are we going?”

  “Friday night, seven o’clock?” Day after tomorrow; it seemed centuries away.

  “I’ll pick you up here.”

  “Okay.”

  He started to leave; this time she didn’t stop him. She didn’t really want him here when Caroline and Sam got back. Caroline had nearly knocked the back door off its hinges when she slammed it as she left. Macie could only imagine what she was doing to Sam during the car ride. Once Caroline’s temper got loose—which wasn’t often—it was like a tornado touching down, skipping here and there, erratic in its path, lashing at the guilty as well as the innocent. There was no stopping it; you just had to hide in a culvert and wait for it to run itself out.

  Caleb stopped halfway down the steps. He pointed to the newspaper. “You’re pretty talented, reading upside down like that.”

  “Oh!” Crap. The newspaper was indeed upside down on her lap. “I just picked it up.” Her cheeks flamed hot. “I hadn’t started reading yet.”

  He grinned and nodded knowingly before he trotted back to his car.

  Minutes after Caleb p
ulled away, Caroline and Sam arrived. When Macie saw the van approaching, her ecstatic buzz evaporated, leaving her sober and tense. As Sam and Caroline got out of the van and slammed their respective doors, Macie eyed them as someone armed with a slingshot would an enemy toting a rocket launcher; keeping the danger in sight but careful not to draw attention to herself.

  She needn’t have worried. Neither Sam nor Caroline even glanced her way as they entered the house—through opposite ends. Caroline went to the back door that led to the kitchen; Sam the front so he could dash directly up the stairs and head to the sanctuary of his room. Neither one of them said a word. This was going to be worse than Macie had expected.

  Caroline and Sam were never quiet when at odds. They huffed, they stomped, they clashed, they pleaded, they accused—but never, never refused to confront one another. That uncharacteristic silence rattled Macie. It shadowed her all day long; she could feel the weight of it at her back and its hot fetid breath on her neck. It was a living, breathing thing, a monster that had invaded their family, threatening to tear it apart.

  Sam was supposed to leave for college today. Was he still going? If he was, there was precious little time to slay the beast and mend the seams of their family. So, finally, at four o’clock in the afternoon, Macie went to Sam’s closed bedroom door. She stood outside for a long moment, listening. His stereo was on, but not at its usual wall-shaking volume. She couldn’t hear anything else, no movement, no scraping of boxes as he organized for school.

  Normally, she would approach Caroline first. But there was nothing normal about the course of this discord. Besides, at the moment her sister was extraordinarily forbidding as she hacked away at the backyard hedge with a pair of gigantic shears; Macie valued all of her limbs as well as her digits. Plus, she could work on Caroline over the next few days. This might be her only shot at Sam.

  She raised her hand, took a breath, and knocked. After waiting a minute with no response, she knocked again—harder.

  “Go. Away.”

  “Come on, Sam. Let me in.”