A Kiss in Winter Read online

  “No.”

  “Please.” Then she decided to let him think she was taking sides… his. “Don’t leave me out here with her.”

  For a long moment, she thought he was going to continue to ignore her. Then she heard the soft click of the lock, followed by the doorknob turning. He didn’t actually open the door, just unlatched it and let it hang there.

  Macie drew herself up and pushed it open, stepping inside. His boxes, the ones that had been helter-skelter and half-packed yesterday, were all stacked and taped closed. He’d taken down his posters, leaving pushpin holes in the walls that looked like buckshot spray. His CD rack sat empty. The shelf for his DVDs held only a dusty outline of where the collection used to be. He was moving out, leaving only ghostly scraps of himself behind.

  Things are never going to be the same again. It hadn’t hit her until this very moment. Something settled inside Macie’s chest like a cold dark pool, one that absorbed all heat and light and gave no reflection of what the future might be.

  “So you’re still going?” she asked in a hushed voice.

  Sam had been ignoring her, sorting through a stack of CDs, but now his head snapped up and he looked hard at her. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  There was such accusation in his gaze that she was momentarily speechless. “I—I just thought—I mean, last night—”

  He cut her off. “Doesn’t change anything.”

  If she wasn’t mistaken, he didn’t sound happy about it. “Well…” She inched closer to where he sat on his bed, trailing her hand on a cardboard box that had “desk junk” written on the side in Sam’s barely legible handwriting. “That’s good.” She bit her lip as she screwed up her courage to press on. “Do you have to go to court?”

  “No. They didn’t charge me.” Bitterness honed the edges of his words, making them as biting as a serrated blade.

  “Why do you sound so mad?” He hadn’t been charged. He was getting out of this boring little town and heading to college. What more did he want?

  “I’m not mad.” He threw the stack of CDs on the bed and they landed hard enough to belie his words. “She—” He shook his head, got up, and disappeared inside his closet. Thuds and bangs drifted into the room as he moved stuff around.

  Macie moved to the closet door, put her hand on the knob, and leaned her temple against its edge. “She what?”

  He didn’t turn around. He was on his knees, his head burrowed deep in the back of the closet, beneath his winter parka and his dress shirts—the only things remaining on the rod.

  It went against everything inside Macie to push him. She hated it when people around her were mad; but when Sam was upset with her, it felt like the big woodpecker that drilled holes in the siding of the house was pecking at her heart. “She what, Sam?” She tried to sound forceful, but her voice trembled.

  When he still didn’t respond, she picked up a shoe and hit him in the backside. “Tell me what’s going on!”

  He jerked around so quickly and with such anger, Macie stumbled back a step. “She just left me there! She left me sitting in that jail cell next to a druggie who puked his guts up all night!”

  “Maybe she couldn’t get you out. Maybe she had to wait until morning for a judge or something.”

  “Don’t you get it? They didn’t charge me! All she had to do was show up.”

  “She wouldn’t have left you there unless she had to.”

  “Think again.”

  “Did she say she left you because she wanted to?”

  “We didn’t get around to discussing her motivation.”

  With an understanding half-nod, Macie asked, “What did you talk about?”

  His halfhearted shrug told Macie she wouldn’t be hearing the details from his lips.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “What about Ben? Did he spend the night in jail, too?”

  “Ben wasn’t with me.”

  “Why?” Macie knew Sam did lots more stuff than he was caught for—tagging, trespassing, drag racing—but when he was caught, he was always with Ben. It was almost as if Ben walked around with a blinking arrow over his head that said Find juvenile delinquents here.

  Sam shot her an angry look. “What do you mean, ‘Why?’”

  “You were out tagging by yourself?” Her tone said how little she believed that possibility. Sam was a walking party, always drawing friends like rock stars drew groupies.

  “Yeah.” Just before he turned away from her, there was something in his eyes that made her think he was hiding something.

  “Sam?”

  “Stop interrogating me!” He turned on her in one quick, sharp movement. His face exploded red with anger, his teeth ground together as he said, “I’ve been interrogated enough!”

  She drew inward; he’d never lashed out at her quite like that. He’d been mad, but never with this kind of blistering anger. She hadn’t come in here to make things worse. “Sorry.” She twisted her fingers in her other hand.

  He turned from her, his shoulders tight, his breathing ragged. He scooped up the CDs he’d thrown on his bed earlier.

  Macie’s insides felt like liquid in a blender. Sam’s anger dissolved her determination to unearth the core of the problem, leaving only her need for things to be right between them. When she found her voice again, it was small and weak. “When are you leaving?” The plan had been to take him today; clearly that wasn’t happening.

  He gently put the CDs in the box, as if his softened actions could make the apology he couldn’t seem to bring himself to speak. His voice sounded nearly as small and defeated as hers when he said, “In the morning.”

  Macie started to leave, then stopped. “I just don’t want things to be like this. You and Caroline—”

  He cut her off with a voice again as jagged as broken glass. “Nothing’s going to fix me and Caroline.”

  Macie left the room feeling the monster that was destroying her family had just gained speed and maybe a few superpowers. She had no idea how to outmaneuver him.

  Chapter 6

  Nothing did fix things between Sam and Caroline. And Macie never discovered what had transpired between them before they’d arrived home from the jail.

  The three of them had moved Sam into his dorm room with Sam and Caroline behaving like strangers. Whenever they passed one another, their faces froze into masks of stubbornness and their mutual resentment used up all of the oxygen in the atmosphere, leaving Macie short of breath. They spoke, but didn’t say anything. It was all yeses and nos and “Put that there” and “I’ll hook up my computer later” (which was easily translated to: Just drop the stuff and get out of here).

  When she and Caroline had left the University of Kentucky yesterday, there hadn’t been tears and promises to call, as Macie had envisioned there would be on that life-changing day. It was awful to admit, but she had felt like a sharp stick had been removed from her midsection when they’d left Sam behind and driven away from campus late yesterday afternoon.

  Since they’d been back home, Caroline’s moods seemed to alternate between relief and irritation—and irritation had the upper hand. Her face was creased with frowns and pinched lips. Her nervous pacing was about to drive Macie insane. There didn’t seem to be any time when she acted like Caroline.

  Macie supposed that was why she’d put off telling her sister that she was going to go to the fair with Caleb. It shouldn’t make any difference; once at the fair, Sam had always taken off with his friends and Macie with hers. Caroline usually roamed with her camera, visiting with friends and neighbors as she meandered. But there was no way Caroline would see it that way. Macie going with Caleb would be breaking tradition—a tradition Caroline had carried like a torch from their lives with parents to their lives without. It had been an ironclad rule: the Rogerses went to the fair together on Friday night—come thunderstorms, or sickness, or empty bank accounts.

  It was three o’clock. Time was running out.

  Macie found Caroline looking at a photographi
c proof sheet under a bright light with a magnifier. A good sign; Caroline was always in a good mood when she was working.

  As Macie studied her sister from the shadow of the hall outside the cramped little studio room, she saw, for the first time in days, the muscles in Caroline’s shoulders had lost their rigidity. Her hands moved smoothly, not the jittery nervous hands of the past couple of days. For a long moment Macie just watched. The deep red in Caroline’s hair reflected the intense light as she bent over her work; Macie had always been envious of her sister’s hair. But Macie knew there were things in Caroline’s life that weren’t to be envied.

  In many ways Caroline had been a mystery. Separated from Macie by almost ten years and a different gene pool, Caroline had seemed distant in ways that couldn’t be accounted for by those things. She seemed made of flint when the rest of the family had been fashioned out of sandstone. It had to do with her life before she was a Rogers, but Macie had little insight into that life. Caroline never spoke of those years, as if she’d been dropped from the sky onto the Rogers farm at the age of eight. Macie had asked her mother about Caroline’s “real” mother once and had gotten a sad smile and a warning not to mention her to Caroline; the woman was dead, God rest her soul.

  This whole episode with Sam had cast their sister in a different light. Caroline hadn’t been much older than Sam was now when their parents died. And Macie couldn’t imagine Sam taking on two kids to raise—especially if one of them was like him, continually riding on the edge of recklessness.

  What would her sister’s life have been like if their parents had lived? Macie bet Caroline would be off somewhere photographing rain forests, or starving children in Africa, or wars in the Middle East—important things, not brides and soccer teams. After six years, the weight of Caroline’s sacrifice was finally beginning to sink in.

  Caroline rarely dated, which didn’t make sense. She was a beautiful woman, certainly intelligent and talented. For a long time, Macie had thought it was because she felt she had to spend evenings and weekends with her and Sam. But the days when they needed someone at home with them all the time were long gone and Caroline’s dates were still as rare as G-rated movies.

  Macie didn’t want to live alone like Caroline. She wanted someone to be there at the end of the day, to love her, to share her joys and her heartaches.

  She stepped into the studio.

  Without looking up, Caroline said, “Hey, sweetie. I’ll be ready to go at six.”

  Caroline was back; her work had sent away the tense creature that had temporarily taken her place.

  Macie cringed at what she was about to do. It was sure to bring that creature back. “Well, actually…”

  Caroline raised her head and looked at her. “What?”

  “Well, um, I told Caleb I’d go to the fair with him.” She rushed on as she saw disappointment cloud Caroline’s normally bright gray eyes. “He’s new in town, and since school hasn’t started yet, he doesn’t know anyone, and you’ve always told us to make people feel welcome; he’s lonely and bored, and—”

  “Okay, okay. I get the picture.” Caroline raised her hands to ward off the onslaught of excuses.

  “Don’t be mad,” Macie said, her voice so pleading that Caroline felt a jab of guilt. She’d been a real bitch the past couple of days and Macie had taken the brunt of it.

  “I’m not mad. I was looking forward to tonight, that’s all.” The fair had been a Rogers family tradition. Since she was eight, Caroline had looked forward to it in the same way other kids looked forward to birthdays and Christmas. It was impossible to imagine going alone.

  She’d wanted change. She’d wanted freedom. Now it was happening so fast that she worried what that freedom would cost.

  She didn’t like the idea of Macie running around the county with a boy nobody knew, especially in that jazzed-up little car of his. “Why don’t you just meet him there, like you do your other friends?”

  “I already made plans for him to pick me up. I don’t have any way to get ahold of him.” Macie edged toward the door. “I need to take a shower.”

  “Wait a minute.”

  Macie stopped but fidgeted like there were hot coals under her feet.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Caroline said, working to make her voice suggestive and not authoritative. “I mean, you’ve only seen him for a few minutes; you don’t know anything about him—you don’t even have his phone number. Getting in a car with a stranger is… irresponsible.” That should carry some weight; Macie was nothing if not responsible.

  “Come on, Caroline! Don’t you think I have any common sense?”

  “Well…” Macie was chock-full of common sense; hadn’t Caroline been wishing her sister would become a little more of a risk-taker? But why did she have to choose something that could have long-lasting repercussions? Why couldn’t she have started with riding a roller coaster or taking up ice-skating?

  “He lives over on Chestnut,” Macie said stiffly. “His dad is the new CEO at Biodynamics. His brother is still in California, so he doesn’t have anybody to do stuff with.” She looked Caroline in the eye. “And he’s nice.”

  “I don’t know…”

  Macie drew herself up straighter. “Stop treating me like a baby! What do you want? A full background check, his family tree… a fingerprint? Next August I’ll be going away to school. Are you going to have to approve all of my social activities then, too? Sam’s the one you can’t trust, not me!”

  The words were too true to argue with. It was the sharp attitude that knocked Caroline off balance. It was so unlike Macie.

  Before Caroline could regroup, Macie said, “I’m going to take a shower.” She then turned brusquely and left the room, her anger lingering like sickeningly sweet perfume.

  Caroline stood speechless, her stomach suddenly queasy. She’d held this family together through tragedy and disruption; suddenly it was falling apart in her hands.

  Mick moved up and down the stalls of the fairground’s cattle barn, looking over livestock for sale. His joy as he inhaled the pungent mixture of hay, manure, and cowhide was something he would never be able to explain to his father’s satisfaction. There were no words. It was an inexplicable combination of the emotional and the visceral—like fear or love.

  The fact that he, a psychiatrist, couldn’t come up with words to express this feeling told him how lousy he was at his job. If only he’d come to that realization sooner.

  Turning his mind away from the unalterable past, he moved to a young Simmental heifer. As he read over the cow’s posted data, he ran his hand along her side. Her hair felt coarse and warm under his palm, the solid flesh beneath filled with life. She wasn’t yet mature enough to breed; still, she’d be a good building block for his herd. Good bloodlines.

  The cow turned her white face toward him and twitched her red-brown ears. She appeared bored, yet mildly irritated by his interruption of… whatever cows busied their minds with as they stood cooped up in a stall. He wondered briefly if teenage cows had the same distorted thought patterns as teenage girls; a thought that threatened to drag him back into the dark mood he’d tried to leave at the farm when he’d left an hour ago.

  He ran a hand across her hindquarter, then patted her side. Offering her a smile, he said, “Tired of getting felt up by guys who won’t even buy you dinner?” She blinked slowly, apparently not impressed in the least with his charm.

  A camera flash made him turn.

  Caroline Rogers stood not six feet behind him, looking at him through the lens of her camera. She took another shot, and this time the flash left a huge purple hole in his vision.

  She lowered the camera. “Hope you don’t mind.”

  He glanced at the cow, then to Caroline again. “Oh, you’re asking me.” He put both hands on his chest. “I thought maybe you were the cow paparazzi and this lady here was the bovine equivalent of Madonna.”

  Caroline smiled. “Jessica Simpson.”

  He tilted h
is head.

  “This cow is much too young to be Madonna. Jessica Simpson—young hottie.”

  He gave the cow a gentle elbow in her ribs. “Hear that? She called you a hottie.” Then he turned back to Caroline. “Should she be worried about this appearing on the front of the Barnyard Star with a caption about her being seen in a crowded nightspot canoodling with a date of another species?” He ran his finger along an imaginary mustache, like playboys in old black-and-white films.

  Caroline’s face drew into a mask of mock outrage and her hand covered her heart. “I’ll have you know, I’d never sell my agricultural celebrity photos to such a rag. I am an artiste.”

  As she lifted that dainty little nose of hers in the air, Mick had the overwhelming urge to wrap his arms around her; this was their second meeting—and the second time she’d stirred alive his long-dead sense of playfulness.

  Instead of snatching her off her feet and swinging her around, he said, with a slight bow, “My humble apologies. I didn’t mean to degrade your talent. Perhaps you’ll let me treat you to an elegant meal”—he dragged out a pathetically fake French accent to finish—“say… Italian saus-age and ze le-mon shake-up, to demonstrate my most sincere regret.”

  “Sure your date won’t mind?” Caroline lifted her chin toward the cow.

  “Alas, mon chere and I come from two different worlds.” He looked to the ground and shook his head gravely. “Ours is a love zat can never be.”

  Caroline laughed. “All right, I’d love some coronary-clogging carnival food. But only if you cut out that awful accent.” She stepped closer and lowered her voice. “I think you can get arrested around here for sounding like that.”

  He grinned, somehow managing to appear both contrite and devilish at the same time, as he put a hand on the small of her back and gestured for her to lead the way.

  Outside, the light cast from the vapor lamps high over the fairgrounds was a watery imitation of the light inside the barn. The aromas that teased Caroline’s nose were less earthy. The smell of heated sugar made her mouth water as they passed the cotton candy and caramel apple vendor. She picked her way carefully across the thick cables that snaked from rumbling generators to various tents and trailers.