A Man to Rely On

“Toni, no,” Marisol called, but too late. Toni had already opened the door and stood just inside it, staring.

Marisol came up behind her and stared too, at the white single bed with its pink puffy comforter. The pink curtains, faded by the sun, still hung in the window, and the pink fluffy rug still lay by the bed.

She took Toni’s shoulder and urged her gently over the threshold into the hall. “You don’t want to stay here,” she said. “We’ll fix up the guest room for you.”

“Why can’t I stay here?” Toni whirled on her, her face fixed in the stubborn pout Marisol recognized too well. “What’s in there you don’t want me to see?”

Marisol closed her eyes and breathed deeply through her nose—a technique she had read somewhere was calming, but she couldn’t tell that it made any difference now. She still felt as if she’d swallowed broken glass, as if there was no move she could make that didn’t hurt. “There’s nothing special here to see,” she said calmly, though a voice in her head screamed Liar! “It’s just a house. You can look at it later. Let’s unpack our things first.”

Toni blocked her mother’s passage down the hall, arms folded across her chest, mouth set in a stubborn scowl. Already she was taller than Marisol, having inherited her father’s height. “What was the deal with you and your mother, anyway? How come I never met her? How come she didn’t want you attending her funeral? Why do you always keep so many secrets?”

Not secrets, Marisol thought. Just things no one needs to talk about anymore. She wet her dry lips. “I didn’t get along with her husband. She chose him over me.” The truth, but only part of it.

“And that’s it? You let something like that keep you apart for what—twenty years?”

“About that.” She forced herself to look her daughter in the eye, to not flinch from that disdainful glare. It was so easy to judge at this age, when you were so sure of right and wrong. “I’m not proud of it. If I could go back and do things differently, I would. But I can’t. So now I have to live with it.”

Toni scowled at her, then pushed past, headed to the living room. Marisol followed her daughter and sank onto a sheet-covered sofa, her legs suddenly too weak to support her. Oh God, why had she come back here? True, she hadn’t seen any other choice. But everything felt wrong. There were too many bad memories in these walls, too much hurt to have to deal with. She looked around the room, at the shrouded shapes that were like so many ghosts, taunting her.

Toni slumped in the chair opposite. “So what do we do now?” she asked.

Marisol took a deep breath. “We’re going to do whatever we have to,” she said. That was how she’d lived her life. She’d done tougher things to survive before. She could do this. She could do anything as long as she knew it was only temporary.

S COTT R EDMOND LEANED against the door to his father’s office and watched his dad, attorney Jay Redmond, shuffle through stacks of folders. “I need to pick up my dry cleaning,” the old man muttered. “I know the claim slip is here somewhere.”

“Just tell Mr. Lee you lost it,” Scott said. “It’s not as if he hasn’t known you for years.” That was one good thing about living in a small town for years—everyone knew everything about you.

And that was the worst thing about living in a small town as well. Mess up even once and no one ever forgot it. Make a habit of screw-ups and it could take years to rebuild a reputation, something Scott was finding out the hard way.

Two years ago he’d been the top-selling real estate agent in town, riding the tail end of a housing boom that had brought wealthy investors from Houston, three hours to the north, to buy up old homes or build new ones on vacant land for weekend retreats. Scott had wined and dined these high rollers and become something of a roller himself. He’d ended up with habits he couldn’t afford and made some really stupid mistakes. Only his dad’s influence and Scott’s own remorse had kept him from serious trouble.

So here he was at thirty-four years old, starting over at the bottom. A one-man real estate office sharing space with his attorney father.

“Found it!” His father held a yellow slip of paper aloft triumphantly. “Now I won’t have to defend Eddie Stucker wearing my golf clothes.” He settled back in his worn leather desk chair. “Speaking of golf—how’s Marcus Henry’s latest project coming along?”

Scott almost smiled at this not-so-subtle maneuvering of the conversation to Henry’s—and Scott’s—latest triumph. Scott suspected heavy lobbying from Jay had led Cedar Switch’s biggest developer to award Scott the exclusive listing for his most ambitious project to date—an upscale development centered around a Robert Trent Jones golf course, private lake, stables and green belt.

“The roads are going in this week and next,” Scott said. “I’ve got some people coming from Houston this weekend to take a tour. Once the streets are in and the clubhouse starts going up, we expect to see a flurry of interest.”

“Everything the man touches turns to gold,” Jay said. “Getting in with him is one of the best things that could have happened to you. You’ll give the other agencies around here a real run for their money. Before long this office won’t be big enough for you. You’ll have to have new space, hire associates…it’ll be just like the old days.”

The old days of only two years ago? “Not just like them,” Scott said. “I’m done with life in the fast lane.”

His father’s expression sobered. “You’re right,” he said. “You shouldn’t try to take on too much. Better to keep things manageable. You don’t need the stress.”

Scott resented the implication that he wasn’t strong enough to handle whatever the job required. If he wanted a different kind of life now, it wasn’t because he couldn’t cope with more. He’d simply learned some things about himself and what was important to him now.

Others didn’t see things that way, though. To them, he was Scott Redmond—Jay’s boy who’d had such a bright future and thrown it all away.

Scott would probably spend the rest of his life paying for the recklessness of that one half year.

He was about to excuse himself, to walk to McDonald’s and grab some lunch when the door opened and a woman entered. She was beautiful, with long dark curly hair, smooth, olive skin, a classic hourglass figure and an air of money and poise he associated with socialites from Dallas and Houston who spent weekends shopping in the “quaint” shops on the town square.

Jay rose to greet his visitor. “May I help you?”

“Mr. Redmond?” She flashed a dazzling smile. “I’m Marisol Luna.”

But of course they had both recognized her by then, the beautiful face less strained, the clothes less severe than they had been in countless pictures splashed across the front pages of newspapers and filling their television screens each night. The Lamar Dixon murder trial had all the elements of riveting drama: the celebrity victim, the beautiful accused, wealth, glamor, sexual affairs, gambling and unsavory secrets. People chose sides, wagered bets on Marisol’s guilt or innocence and read everything they could find about the case.

“Please sit down.” Jay gestured to the chair before his desk. “What can I do for you? Ms. Luna? You’ve gone back to your maiden name?”

“I thought it best.”

She sat, demurely crossing her legs at the ankles and smoothing her skirt down her thighs. Scott struggled not to stare at her.

“This is my son, Scott. You might remember him from school.”

Scott stepped forward to shake her hand, a brief silken touch gone too soon. He was sure Marisol did not remember him, though he had never forgotten her. His heart beat faster, remembering that day on the bridge. She wouldn’t have known him then, of course, but later, she had come to their house once. He’d been fourteen at the time, in awe of her sixteen-year-old beauty and her notoriety.

A notoriety she maintained years later, when the local papers were full of news of her marriage to basketball great Lamar Dixon. He’d seen Lamar on the basketball court once in Houston. Lamar had netted twenty-seven baskets in that game and hadn’t even broken a sweat. The papers had reported his last contract at seventeen million, making him one of the highest paid stars in the NBA.

And of course the murder charge and trial had only added to her reputation.

“I’m sorry about your husband’s passing,” Jay said. “And about everything you’ve been through.”

“Thank you.” She folded her hands in her lap. She looked very…contained. Behind the outward polish, Scott sensed she was shaken by more than grief.

“How have you been?” Jay asked.

“I’ve been fine.” Her voice was flat. Unemotional. The voice of someone concentrating on staying in control. Scott could feel the tension radiating from her, and she sat so rigidly he imagined she might shatter if touched.

Jay’s response was to relax even more, leaning back in the chair, hands casually clasped on the desktop. He’d once told Scott that the best way to handle fearful or nervous clients was to ease the tension with small talk. “It’s been a while since you’ve been back to Cedar Switch, hasn’t it?” he said. “I imagine it’s changed a lot since then.”

“It’s been a long time,” she said. “To tell you the truth, I’m more surprised by how much has remained the same.”

“Really?” Jay leaned forward. “Having lived here so long myself, it seems as if every other day some old building is being torn down and replaced by something new.”

She shifted in her chair. “I guess what I mean is that, for me at least, the town has the same feeling it always did.”

Scott and his father waited for her to elaborate on what that feeling might be, but when she did not, Scott wondered if she was waiting for him to leave. “I’ll let you two talk in private,” he said, moving toward the door.

“I don’t mind if you stay.” He felt a jolt when their eyes met, a shock of recognition that, even after all these years, this woman could stir him somewhere deep inside. He settled slowly into a chair a little ways from her and searched for something innocuous to say.

“Is your daughter with you?” Jay asked.

Scott vaguely recalled the mention in news reports of a teenage daughter.

“Yes. Antonia isn’t too happy about being here in ‘East Podunk’ as she insists on calling it.”