Sweet Mercy Read online

  “Sleep in tomorrow. I’ll meet the beer truck.”

  “Won’t help. The other kids have to get up for school.”

  She noted the clock. “They’re already in bed, right?” “Good Lord willin’.”

  “Wish I could keep them for you, so you and Shirley could sleep. Maybe you can nap after they leave.”

  His shoulder-length dreadlocks shook with his laughter. “Girl, I was sure you were crazy. I just didn’t realize how much.”

  “I love your kids.”

  “And they adore you. But even if you had room back there in that glorified storage space you call an apartment, exactly when do you plan to get some rest yourself? You’re already working twenty hours a day, best I can tell, between running this place and caring for Skeeter.” He frowned. “It wouldn’t kill you to let someone help you for a change.”

  She’d been on her own since she was thirteen; doing for herself was a hard habit to break. “I have to make this place succeed. Skeeter’s counting on me.”

  Skeeter Owens was the closest thing to a grandfather Jezebel had ever had. They’d met in Reno, where he’d gone for a busman’s holiday to gamble; she’d been a cocktail waitress. He’d discouraged a too-ardent patron, and they’d conversed through the rest of the evening as she served his table. He’d given her a tip too big for her to turn down, no matter what strings might be attached. She’d never resorted to selling her body, but there had been lean, scary days in her past when that one last step was all that was left.

  But the only thing Skeeter wanted was to buy her breakfast and talk. Before she noticed, she’d spilled out more of her life story than she’d ever shared with a soul: orphaned by a fire at five, removed from her junkie aunt at eight, a chronic runaway from foster homes. He’d done the same, telling her about the kids he’d never had and the wife he’d lost a few years before. About the bar that kept him going. They parted with an agreement to write and an invitation from him if she was ever anywhere near Three Pines, Texas.

  She never expected to take him up on it.

  She hadn’t envisioned being a fugitive, either.

  His letters had begun to worry her a couple of years later, just when she’d needed to put distance between herself and Vegas, where she’d finally landed in the chorus line. She’d been witness to a murder, but not an important enough one to merit witness protection. Still, the detective to whom she’d given her statement agreed that a disappearing act might be a great idea until crime boss Russ Bollinger was behind bars. In the process of figuring out where to relocate, she decided to pay Skeeter a visit and check on him.

  Nearly a year later, she was still here and beginning to relax. After breaking a hip, Skeeter was in a nursing home until she could secure a place for him better than the ramshackle quarters he’d inhabited behind the bar. She, with not a shred of business experience, had scrambled to learn on the job, while running the enterprise that supported him.

  To her surprise, she was managing to do just that.

  She also had a goal, though how much she wanted it scared her to death.

  Her objective was a house, but not just any house. Okay, just a cottage, but…The Perfect Cottage. One she would turn into her first real home.

  If, that is, the owner would sell it.

  “Last call, folks,” Darrell said.

  “Who’s going to drive Bobby home?” she asked.

  “I guess I could,” Louie grumbled.

  “Hell, no, you won’t. You can’t hardly see the road,” Bobby complained.

  “Larry, you drive him, and you—” she pointed at Bobby “—get up here and give me a dollar.”

  Over the grousing, she smiled. “Keep it up, gentlemen. Christmas is looking festive this year, and here we are, only March.” A chorus of good-nights winged her way. More content than she’d ever imagined being, Jezebel set dirty glasses in the sink and began running water.

  CHAPTER TWO

  GROGGY FROM A RESTLESS NIGHT and three plane changes, Gamble trudged into the bright lights of the Dallas-Fort Worth terminal. He stopped to buy the biggest cup of coffee available, then made his way to baggage claim, where his brother would pick him up for the two-plus hour ride to Three Pines.

  He burned his tongue on the hot drink and swore. Dropped his duffel and rubbed at the grit of travel. He couldn’t spot Levi anywhere.

  Then his sister, Lily, appeared before him. Grabbed him and held tight. “I could kill you,” she whispered as she clung to his neck. “I missed you so much.”

  Gamble closed his eyes and hung on. For months after Charlotte’s death, he’d locked himself in the cottage, refusing to speak to friends or family alike. He’d never meant to be cruel; it was simply that drawing the next breath felt beyond him most days.

  But he realized now just how much he’d worried all of them. “I’m sorry.”

  Lily drew back. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.” She scrutinized him. “You’re exhausted, I can see. But you’re not such a ghost anymore, are you?”

  His shoulders sagged. “No.” Damn it all.

  Lily plastered herself to his side, one arm around his waist. “You’d better not even think about leaving again.”

  He wouldn’t begin with a promise he couldn’t keep. He was here only to dispense with his past. “Where’s Levi?”

  “Behind you,” said a male voice. “I can’t decide whether to hug you or kick your ass.”

  “Take your pick. I wouldn’t put up much of a battle.” Gamble turned to face the year-older brother people said could be his twin. Levi’s hair, however, was chestnut-brown, where Gamble’s was black, and Levi’s eyes were nearly navy, instead of Gamble’s lighter blue.

  “You look like hell,” Levi said before pulling him into a fierce, back-slapping embrace.

  After so long alone, Gamble had forgotten what it felt like to be with someone who loved him. He lingered longer than normal, and Levi didn’t appear any more ready to let him go.

  They broke apart, and Gamble saw a bright sheen in his brother’s eyes that must have resembled that in his own.

  Then he realized that Lily was openly crying, and Levi’s cheer was forced.

  “What’s wrong?”

  His siblings traded glances, then observed him as if measuring his resilience.

  His chest constricted. “Is it Mom? What’s happened?”

  When they still hesitated, his temper stirred. “I’m not going to break. Tell me.”

  “She was in a wreck late last night.”

  “How bad?”

  “A broken leg, a concussion, some internal bleeding. Car’s totaled.” Levi scrubbed at his face. “She made it through the surgery, but she’s still unconscious. Noah’s with her. The doctor says we shouldn’t worry yet—”

  “But you are.”

  Levi regarded Lily uneasily.

  “You don’t have to protect me, either,” Lily said. “I’m not a kid, Levi.Yes, we’re worried,” she answered Gamble. “Mom has seemed…fragile lately.”

  “And no one told me?”

  Levi’s jaw tightened. “Would you have come?”

  Gamble halted in midstep. “You’re out of line.”

  “Guys,” Lily cautioned. “Fighting won’t help her.”

  Gamble continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “You can’t believe I wouldn’t have been here in a heartbeat if I’d known.” What if she never regained consciousness? How much time had he lost with her?

  Levi raked fingers through his hair. “Of course you would. Mom and I actually had a fight over you.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “The cottage. She didn’t think I should make you return to deal with it.”

  “She believed I couldn’t handle it.” His jaw clenched. “I’m not a kid.”

  “She loves you, Gamble. She wants you to live again. She’s ecstatic about the great reviews you’ve gotten for your show.”

  “She shouldn’t be shielding me.” It was hardly the first time, though. Marian Sm
ith had never given up on her second son, even in the darkest days. It was she who had reminded Gamble of Charlotte’s deep regret that he’d abandoned his art to care for her. She had let her son grieve longer than she’d wanted, but though she’d granted him room to find his way, she’d watched him with an eagle’s eye. She’d slipped into the house and left him food each day when merely getting out of bed had been too much for him. Picked up the brushes he’d snapped like so many twigs during the rage that followed his one attempt to paint. Pressed a kiss to his hair when he’d sat on the porch, staring blindly.

  Loved him far better and longer than he deserved.

  And put him first, even when it hurt her for him to go.

  “Let’s hit the road.”

  “What’s your bag look like? I’ll get it.”

  “This is it.”

  “Gamble, you can’t cut and run again, damn it.”

  “I didn’t take much with me,” Gamble explained.

  “You’ve been gone a year and those’re all the clothes you own?”

  “Not everyone’s a clotheshorse like Noah.” Their younger brother had saved his allowance to buy an Izod shirt when he was seven.

  Levi chuckled. “Lily would kill for half the wardrobe.”

  The three of them shared a faint smile, but their hearts weren’t in it.

  “I need to see her,” Gamble said. “I’ll never forgive myself if—”

  Levi gave a sharp shake of the head. “Not gonna happen. Mom’s tough.”

  “Not exactly the celebration we’d planned for her sixtieth birthday,” Lily said, leaning into Gamble’s side and suddenly sounding very young indeed.

  He squeezed her shoulders as he and Levi shared a silent understanding. “Levi’s right. Mom’s a survivor. She’ll be fine. We’ll just postpone the party.”

  He kept his fears to himself. Hold on, Mom. I’m so sorry. Please—

  But he wasn’t certain with whom he was pleading, his mother or the God who had abandoned him on the day Charlotte died.

  * * *

  JEZEBEL STUBBED HER TOE on the ugliest couch in North America. She would have cursed, long and loudly, but she couldn’t afford to break her own rule.

  She sat on the couch she’d covered with a velveteen crazy quilt in vivid jewel tones and rubbed the offended toe.

  “Mroww—” Oscar leaped from the stack of gardening books on the garage-sale coffee table to the sagging cushion beside her and tried to worm his way onto Jezebel’s lap.

  “The beer truck is coming. I don’t have time for you,” she complained. But she picked him up and rubbed her nose into his long black-and-white fur as her fingers went to work.

  Soon, he was purring so loudly that Rufus ambled over from his spot by the space heater she liked to pretend was a fireplace. Ignoring the feline perched on one of her legs, he plopped his big, shaggy golden head on the other.

  Jezebel chuckled as each refused to acknowledge the other’s existence. The big old hound, part golden retriever and part heaven-knows-what, had been with her since she’d found him as a puppy, abandoned in the alley behind a strip joint in Tahoe. He was all she’d brought with her when she’d fled. She and Rufus had traveled many a mile together, and no cat, however fat or feisty, was going to ruffle him.

  She indulged in a few moments of sheer sloth in a life that was seldom conducive, nuzzling and petting both animals until everyone was happy, herself included.

  Pretty pathetic, Jez ol’girl. Admit it—you’d rather be wrapped around a good man.

  Maybe so, but the sticking point was that word: good. She’d sworn off men and sex long before she’d left Vegas. Her life journey had put her in contact with too many males to count, but most of them were married and cheating or divorced and bitter…or just sorry in general.

  She’d long ago made her peace with the tendency of redblooded males to ogle her generous proportions; she barely noticed it anymore. She and this figure had been cohabiting for a lot of years. It was a helpful tool, yes, but it was just as much a pain in her curvy behind.

  She’d used it when she had to, but most times, she’d sell her soul for a pair of boyish hips and an A-cup bra. Okay, B. No need to get carried away.

  Anyway, here in Three Pines, population seven hundred forty-nine, men like the one who’d fit her secret fantasy were simply a dream, as were the babies and white picket fence that were supposed to go with him. Oh, there was Levi Smith, the town’s veterinarian and most eligible bachelor, but his type went for sweet and wholesome. Anyway, such fancies were absurd for a woman with her background, even if she’d ever tell anyone. Which she wouldn’t.

  But she had found the house part of the fantasy and drove by it at least once a week. It didn’t belong to her yet, but she desperately wished for it to. Her carefully hoarded savings would make the down payment. She was determined that Skeeter would have a proper home in which to enjoy whatever days were left to him.

  Jezebel Hart hadn’t survived her rough-and-tumble life on good looks alone. She had grit aplenty, and she wasn’t afraid of hard work. The cottage she already thought of as hers would require plenty of both. Like Sleeping Beauty, it had lain a long time beneath the tangled vines of heartache and loss, according to local lore.

  She wanted to kiss it back to life.

  She plucked the cat from her lap and gave Rufus one last rub, then rose. “Okay, guys, keep the party down. I’m off to work.”

  Then she went out the door of what barely qualified as a shanty, rounded the corner and entered the same building from the side, just as the beer truck rumbled into the parking lot.

  * * *

  GAMBLE PAUSED after leaving his mother’s hospital room and scrubbed his hands over his face to dislodge the grip of despair. The too-familiar scents, antiseptics and cleansers, blood and sickness…and death.

  On just such a night, he’d walked through these halls for the last time, rudderless and reeling. A widower, a term for someone who’d had a full life, who’d shepherded children to adulthood, seen silver strands weave themselves into his wife’s hair and his own.

  He had none of that—no wife, no child. Only a too-brief past that, despite all the worries over Charlotte’s health, had sparkled with joy and love like diamond-bright drops of dew in a summer dawn.

  And here he was again. The sight of his mother had been a fist to the heart. Even if he hadn’t hated hospitals because he’d spent so many hours in them with Charlotte, he would have felt the impact of this. Marian Smith loved the outdoors; she should have sunshine on her face, not fluorescent lights. She ought to be surrounded by her flowers and herbs, not impersonal machines exuding beeps and heartless digital messages.

  “Gamble?”

  Reluctantly, he turned at the voice. Blinked. “Helen?”

  Charlotte’s best friend smiled. “How are you?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  She gestured to her scrubs. “I work here.”

  “I thought you lived in Dallas.”

  “My folks can’t manage without help, so I’m back.”

  “What about Ricky?”

  She shrugged. “We’re divorced.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It happens.”

  A long, uncomfortable pause.

  “Gamble, I never knew how to talk to you when Charlotte died.”

  He averted his eyes from the pity in hers. “There was nothing to say.”

  “I read about your show. Charlotte would be so proud.”

  “It’s not—” what I wanted. Not if losing her was the price. But he kept silent.

  “She loved you so much.”

  “Don’t.” The old fury whipped through him as if he’d never mastered it. He turned away, seeking an exit.

  She grabbed his arm. “Gamble, she honestly believed she could bear that child for you and make your life together even better.”

  “Well, she didn’t, did she?” Bile rose in his throat. All the dark days rolled back over him like a menacing
fog.

  “You have to forgive her, Gamble. Put it behind you.”

  “Leave me alone,” he all but shouted. With immense effort, he called back the beast that clamored to spread the hurt.

  Palm out in warning, breath coming hard, he met her shocked gaze. “Helen, I’m sorry. I’m just not—”

  Ready.

  He fled past the crowded waiting room filled with his mother’s friends and ducked into the stairwell. Halfway down a flight of steps, he sank onto the bottom one and tried to breathe. He couldn’t deal with any more sympathy just now, or the pitying stares.

  Or the knowledge that the progress he thought he’d made could be destroyed so easily.

  After a few minutes, a door opened above him. “Gamble, you here?”

  Gamble stirred. “Yeah. Come on down, Noah.”

  His younger brother descended and crouched beside him but didn’t speak. Noah had always been the peacemaker. When Gamble and Levi were going at each other, over toys or chores or girls—or just for the fun of pounding a brother—Noah would step in and try to use logic.

  He hadn’t had a lot of success when the two of them had their blood running high, but Gamble knew Levi felt as fiercely protective of their sibling as he did. “Sorry. I’ll go back to wait with you all now.”

  “Doc told us to head out for the night. We can return in the morning, and he’s got Levi’s cell number to call at any time. Her vitals are good, and they think she’s stable, that it’s her body’s protective reaction to stay under while she heals.”

  “I can’t just leave her here like that.”

  Noah’s gaze was sympathetic. “We all remember how you slept in chairs to be with Charlotte every minute. No one doubts your devotion, Gamble. But even if being inside a hospital wasn’t making you crazy, there’s nothing we can do right now but wait. Go home and get some rest. You look like something the cat dragged in.”

  He didn’t attempt to deny how being in this place again impacted him. He sought a smile. “You’re just jealous because I’m prettier.”

  Noah snickered and shoved him. “Believe me, bud, I’d be happier if you were.” Noah’s Newman-blue eyes and killer lashes, coupled with their mother’s blond hair, were only some of the features that had made strangers stop their mother on the street to coo over him as a little boy. Now grown women did.