Envy Mass Market

“It took off on time,” he added.

As soon as Maris could pack her things, she and Mike had departed for the mainland. She left without a word to Parker, but he hadn’t expected her to tell him good-bye. He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve a kiss my ass, or a go to hell, or even a screw you. Her leaving without even acknowledging him had been more eloquent than any epithet. Eloquent, classy, and dignified. Typical of her.

Hiding behind the drapery, he had watched her departure through the dining room window. She had looked very small beneath her wide-brimmed straw hat. She’d also worn sunglasses to conceal her weeping eyes from prying strangers. The tan she had acquired on the beach seemed to have faded with the news of her father’s death. She had looked pale and vulnerable, fragile enough to break from the air pressure alone.

Yet there was a brave dignity about her that suggested an enviable inner strength.

Mike had stowed her bags in the trailer of the Gator, then assisted her into the seat. Parker saw her lips move as she thanked him. Then he watched until the utility vehicle disappeared from sight through the tunnel of trees. He would probably never see her again. He had expected that.

What he hadn’t expected was that it would hurt so goddamn much.

He had believed himself to be beyond the grasp of pain. After what he had endured, he had imagined himself immune to it. He wasn’t. He had decided to anesthetize himself with several belts of bourbon, but the first one had made him so sick, he’d thrown it up. He didn’t think there was an analgesic that would be effective against this particular kind of pain.

Now his back was still to Mike. He kept his stinging eyes on the surf. “Maris was worried about her father last night. Maybe she had a premonition.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. They were very close.”

After Noah’s call, she had been in a state of complete emotional collapse, but she’d had the wherewithal to tell Mike that her father had fallen down the stairs of their country house. She’d been told that he had died instantly of a broken neck. It had happened during the middle of the night.

The noise had awakened Noah. He had rushed to Daniel’s aid, but when he couldn’t get a response out of him, he called 911. The rural emergency service had reached the house in a matter of minutes, but it didn’t matter—Daniel Matherly was dead.

Noah had refused to accept the paramedics’ word for it. The ambulance ran hot to the small community hospital. Doctors there pronounced Daniel dead, making it official and indisputable. Noah had seen no point in calling Maris until daylight.

“She probably feels guilty for not being there,” Parker said.

“She said as much on the way to the mainland.”

“How was she when she left?”

“How do you think she was, Parker?”

He frowned at Mike’s snide comeback, but he didn’t challenge it. He had asked a stupid question with an obvious answer. “She probably felt like she’d been run through a thrasher.”

“You certainly did your part.”

Unlike its predecessor, that cutting remark demanded to be addressed. Parker came around. “Are you suggesting that I’ve been a bad boy?”

“You know it without my saying so.”

“What are you going to do, Mike? Park me in the corner? Ground me for a month? Restrict my TV time? Rap my knuckles with a ruler?”

“Actually, I was thinking that you’re the one who should be run through a thrasher.”

Parker agreed that that was the least he deserved, but, while it was okay for him to think it, he resented hearing it from someone else. “Getting Maris into bed was part of the plot. You probably guessed that.”

“I guessed it. That doesn’t mean I liked it.”

“Nobody asked you to like it.”

“Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Like it.”

A scathing retort was on the tip of his tongue, but he foundered under Mike’s incisive stare. Turning his head away, he mumbled, “Irrelevant.”

“I don’t think so. I think it’s not only relevant but key to how you progress from here.”