The Third Mrs. Mitchell

“No problem.” Another long silence flowed past. “There’s a party Saturday night. Gray Hamilton’s folks are going up to Chapel Hill for the soccer game. He’s got the house to himself.” She blew a smoke ring, then grinned. “And a hundred of his closest friends.”

Trace shook his head. “Boring.”

“I suppose you can do better? Like playing computer games with Ren and Stimpy?”

He gave her the finger for calling his best friends by the names of cartoon freaks. “Beats getting trashed and passing out on the floor with a bunch of drunks tripping over you.”

“Gray’s house has twelve bedrooms. I plan on passing out on a bed in one of those.” Taking one last, long drag, Kelsey dropped the butt of her cigarette into a soda can on the windowsill. A tiny sizzle and a wisp of smoke proclaimed its demise. “Dad’s supposed to pick us up Saturday morning for breakfast.”

Her brother’s response was vulgar and totally appropriate.

“He’ll be pissed if you don’t show up again.”

“Am I supposed to care?”

“No.” Kelsey sighed. “But I have no intention of enduring another meal with him and the Bimbo by myself. And if neither of us goes, he’ll stand downstairs and yell at Kate for an hour. She doesn’t deserve that.”

Trace stared at the poster plastered on the ceiling above his bed, the landscape on some planet out of a heroin addict’s nightmare. “I hate her.” Kelsey knew he meant the Bimbo, the secretary their dad would bring to breakfast. Not Kate. Kate was all the mother he’d ever had.

She gave him the only reason that might work. “If we cooperate, maybe he’ll think about coming home.”

He cocked an eye in her direction. “Bullshit.”

“Maybe not.”

“I’ll think about it.”

That would have to do. “’Night.” She crossed to the door, listening for sounds of someone out in the hallway.

“Kelse?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s wrong with us? What else does he want?”

Kelsey rested her head against the panel and closed her eyes. “God only knows.” With a deep breath, she opened the door, stepped out and closed it behind her. “And She’s not telling.”

ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON, Mary Rose nosed Kate’s Volvo into a long line of equally sensible, passenger-safe vehicles and waited her turn to pick up Kelsey and Trace from school. She had to smile, thinking of herself as a car-pool driver. If she and Pete had stayed married—if their baby had been born—this might have been a daily routine in her life. That little boy would have been ten this year. There might have been brothers and sisters…

She shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut against the futile, irrational urge to cry. What in the world was she thinking? Why had that long-ago tragedy suddenly reared its head?

Because of Pete, of course. Seeing him again had undone ten years’ worth of forgetting and resurrected a pain she really couldn’t afford to relive. Except for Trace and Kelsey, children played no part in her present and future plans. There were real advantages to a life without kids, and she enjoyed as many as came her way.

The car behind her beeped its horn, and she realized the line had moved up. Easing closer to the van ahead of her, she scanned the groups of kids hanging around outside the school building, hoping to spot Trace and Kelsey among them. Even after she reached the head of the queue, though, the LaRue kids were nowhere to be seen. When minutes passed and her passengers didn’t show, the security guard told her to move on. Mary Rose tried to protest, but the woman in the bright orange vest simply shook her head and waved with both arms in a gesture that said, clearly, “Get out of the way.”

Two additional trips through the line later, Trace and Kelsey still hadn’t appeared. Muttering a few choice words, Mary Rose drove to the student parking lot—nearly empty now—and left the Volvo there. She had no idea where in the building Trace and Kelsey might be. But when she found them…

The nearest entrance was one of the doors on the back of the gymnasium. Rounding the corner, Mary Rose stopped short at the sight of what looked to be battle lines drawn up in the narrow asphalt alley between the high gym walls and the chain-link fence marking the edge of school property. Seven or eight Hispanic boys on one side taunted the three white kids who stood backed up against that fence. The gibes were in English, but there were extra comments in Spanish, with mocking laughter and lewd gestures. After a moment, she realized that one of the outnumbered boys wore the brilliant yellow, long-sleeved T-shirt she’d seen just this morning in the car on the way to school. Trace.

She started to call out, just as the fight exploded. One of Trace’s friends charged the other group and was sent sprawling on his back on the asphalt. When Trace bent to give him a hand up, he got a kick in the backside that sent him down on his face. And then there was a jumble of bodies, the sick sound of fists pounding against flesh, curses in English and Spanish.

Mary Rose headed back the way she had come, intending to summon help, but found the principal already running toward her, with Kelsey and another girl behind him. The sound of a siren in the distance heralded the approach of more assistance. For a dreadful second, she wondered if Pete would respond to the call, then decided with relief that the highway patrol would let the local police handle this kind of incident.

“Break it up! You hear me? Get back!” A big, heavy man, Mr. Floyd waded into the fight without any apparent concern for his own safety, jerking kids apart by the shirt collars. In another minute the police car arrived; between them, the three men separated the combatants and ended the fight.

“What’s this all about?” Mr. Floyd stared down at Trace and each of the other boys. “Who started it?”

But no matter how many times he asked the question, none of the kids would give an answer. Even after they were marched like a string of prisoners to the principal’s office and written up for violence on school grounds, no one offered an explanation.

“It wasn’t Trace’s fault,” Kelsey told Kate and Mary Rose later, after they got home. “Eric Hasty made a comment in class about a wrong answer Johnny Vasques gave. They’ve been sniping at each other all year long. And when Trace and Bo and Eric went outside at the end of gym class, Johnny and his friends were waiting for them. Trace was trapped. He didn’t have a choice.”

“You could have walked away,” Kate told her son as he sat at the kitchen table with an ice pack on the side of his face. “You didn’t have to fight.”

“And left Bo and Eric there by themselves? I don’t think so.” Dropping the ice pack in the sink, he stalked out of the kitchen, then pounded up the stairs to the refuge of his room.

“Men and their honor code.” Mary Rose shook her head. “Not a tradition I understand very well.”

“It’s like something out of the Middle Ages.” Kelsey folded her arms on the table. “Eric’s sister is a year younger than him, and when he caught her talking to Johnny at lunch last fall, he threw a fit. His family doesn’t think Mexicans and Americans should mix. So there’s been this running feud going all year, and today I guess it just erupted.”

Kate took her coffee cup to the sink. “I guess I’ll have to put Trace on restriction. Honor code or not, I can’t have him fighting in school.”

“Oh, come on, Kate. It’s not his fault.” Kelsey got to her feet. “He was just backing up a friend. It’s not like he started the fight.”

“The two of you should have been out front, waiting for Mary Rose to pick you up.”

“I told you, this thing started before school got out. I went to find Trace and they were already fighting. Please, Kate. Don’t punish him like that. I know he’ll stay out of trouble from now on. I promise.”

“How can you make a promise like that for your brother?”

“I’ll talk to him. Make him see he has to behave. You know he listens to me.”

“Does that include getting him to be polite when you go out with your dad tomorrow morning?”

Kelsey swallowed hard. “Sure. We’ll be good as gold. Cross my heart.” She suited action to words.

With a deep breath, Kate gave in. “Okay. No restriction this time. But if it happens again…”

“No more fighting. Guaranteed.” She gave her stepmother a quick hug and started out of the kitchen. At the doorway, though, she turned. “Does that mean he can come to Gray Hamilton’s party with me tomorrow night?”

Mary Rose’s first impulse would have been to say no. Kate hesitated. “They just live around the block, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And you’ll be back by eleven-thirty?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I suppose that will be all right, then.”

“Thanks!”

Alone with her sister in the kitchen, Mary Rose shook her head. “They’re a real handful, aren’t they?”

Kate nodded. “Since they got out of elementary school, I haven’t had much practice at discipline. L.T. was always the one in control, and he made the decisions pretty much by himself. Maybe I took the easy way out, but fighting with him was just more than I could bear.” She sighed. “Now I’m making the decisions. I’m not sure things are going very well.”

“You know what’s good for them and what’s right.” Mary Rose placed her empty cup in the dishwasher. “Trace and Kelsey will settle down as you get more practice and they get used to listening to what you have to say. Give yourself, and them, some time. Everything will work out just fine.”

She hoped.

SWEAT DRIPPED into Pete’s eyes as he swayed from side to side, breathing fast, dribbling the ball and looking for a way around the opponent crowding him. He feinted left; Tommy Crawford moved with him, arms spread wide, ready to steal. “Screw that,” Pete muttered, pivoting on his right foot to turn his back to Tommy.

“Mitchell!” Twenty feet farther away from the basket, Adam DeVries held up his hands. Pete sent the ball like a bullet straight toward his teammate’s face, watched in satisfaction as Adam caught and immediately redirected it in a soaring arch over the length of the court. Swish…the ball dropped straight through the net. Two points, and the game.

Adam came across the court. “G-good pass, Pete.”

“No thanks to Tommy, here.” He punched Crawford in the shoulder. “I thought you were coming down my throat.”

“Us short guys gotta be aggressive.” Tommy shook his head as Rob Warren joined them. “Sorry, man. The guy must be wearing Super Glue. I couldn’t shake the ball loose.”

Rob gave them all his slow grin. “We have to let them win sometimes, right? Anybody else ready for breakfast?”

Without debate they jogged off the outdoor basketball court of New Skye High School and headed across the street to the Carolina Diner. When he wasn’t working, Pete’s Saturday morning schedule never changed—two-on-two b-ball with DeVries, Crawford and Warren from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m., followed by the biggest breakfast Charlie and Abby could dish up.

“Three scrambled, double bacon, grits, biscuits and stewed apples,” he ordered a few minutes later. “And tea.”

“That’s a no-brainer.” Abby grinned at him. “You ever consider trying something different? Oatmeal’s good for your heart.”

Pete let his jaw hang loose as he stared at her. “My heart is doing just fine, thanks all the same.”

“Oh, really?” She raised an eyebrow. “Is that why you ran out of here the other night like the place was on fire? Without taking your pie?”

He snapped his mouth closed, feeling his cheeks heat up. “I had to get to the school.”

“It looked to me like you had to get away from Mary Rose Bowdrey. Fast.”

Three pairs of eyes lifted from the menus to his face. “M-Mary Rose B-Bowdrey is in town?” Adam sat back in his chair and linked his hands behind his head. “Isn’t she…?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Pete rearranged the salt and pepper shakers, started in on the sugar packets. “No big deal.”

Rob took a swallow of coffee. “You were married…what? A month?” Having done her worst, Abby sashayed back to the kitchen.

Pete shrugged. “Something like that.”

“Her sister’s in the middle of a divorce.” Like the Bowdreys and Adam, Tommy was part of the Old Town crowd—the families who traced their names back for a century or more in New Skye history, who mostly lived in big, elegant houses on The Hill, and who pretty much ran the town. “I hear the kids are really messed up over it.”

“If he ran his family the way he runs LaRue Construction, I’m not surprised the family got b-busted up. And speak of the d-devil.” Adam sat facing the door. “Here they are now.”

Pete heard the bell jingle, but he had his back to the entrance. There was no way he could ask who had just come in, so he sat there with a rock in his stomach, certain that Mary Rose had arrived with her family for breakfast. Certain that he could not eat a single bite with her on the premises.

But then the newcomers moved to a booth in his line of sight. He let his shoulders slump in relief. It wasn’t Mary Rose—just the kids, Kelsey and Trace, with their dad and his girlfriend.

Rob shook his head. “That is one unhappy bunch. Does L.T. really think his kids are going to warm up to the woman he left their mother for?”

“L. T. LaRue th-th-th-thinks he can g-g-get a-away with any damn thing he p-p-pleases.” Although usually barely noticeable, Adam’s stutter worsened when his temper flared. “I’m f-f-f-fixing one of his m-m-m-messes right now. He underbid me on the Whispering Pines n-n-nursing home job a few years ago, but the…the s-s-s-s-second-rate air-conditioning s-system already needs replacing, there’s n-no adequate insulation anywhere in the complex, and the ‘new’ stove and refrigerator in the k-k-kitchen were seconds bought at a scratch-and-dent sale.” He shook his head and muttered a word under his breath—without stuttering—that described L. T. LaRue perfectly.

Pete kept an eye on the LaRue kids while he ate. The epitome of sulky teenagers, they avoided looking at their dad when they spoke to him, which wasn’t often and only in response to a question. They appeared to be pretending that the woman sitting beside L.T. didn’t exist at all. Melanie Stewart, LaRue’s office receptionist and the focus of his midlife crisis, was barely a half a decade older than the man’s daughter. She wore her honey-blond hair piled high, put on her makeup with gusto and wore her clothes tight, displaying a set of curves that explained LaRue’s infatuation to any man with eyes in his head.

A hand fell on his shoulder. “Hi, guys. Who won?”

Another Saturday-morning ritual—Jacquie Archer came in for breakfast before starting her workday as a farrier. Thanks to mild weather and good terrain, the counties around New Skye were known as prime horse country, and Jacquie had a full-time job visiting stables and farms to shoe their horses.

Pete looked up at the woman beside him. “Hey, Jacquie. The best team, of course.”

She rolled her eyes. “There’s no ‘of course’ about it, Mitchell. You’ve been running this little tournament since tenth grade and I’ve decided the outcome just depends on who got to bed later on Friday night.” Arms crossed, she stared at them with one eyebrow raised. “Considering the four of you are bachelors with the social lives of slugs, that makes the odds practically even.” While they were still protesting, she turned on one booted heel and went to join her daughter, Erin, in the booth next to L. T. LaRue and his kids.

“‘The social lives of slugs.’ Man, I’d call her bluff on that one.” Tommy finished his toast, then shook his head. “If it weren’t the truth.”

“I’ve got a construction b-b-business to run. This is all the time I can s-spare.” Adam poured syrup on his pancakes. “Besides, who’s she to talk? When’s the last time we s-saw Jacquie with a d-d-d-date?”

Pete gave it some thought. “That would be the senior prom. Remember, she left right after graduation to go up north so she could train with that Olympic rider. When she came back a couple of years later, she’d been married and widowed and had Erin.” The girl must have heard her name amidst the din, because she looked at Pete and grinned. Even wearing jeans and a T-shirt, she made him think of an elf, with her pointed chin, dark eyes and short dark curls, so different from her mother’s corn-silk blond braid.

And so different from Kelsey LaRue in the seat behind her, who was dressed like some jailbait rock singer all the kids idolized—tight jeans, belly-baring tank top and too much makeup. As Pete let his gaze wander, he noticed L.T. pointing a finger at his kids, talking hard and getting red in the face. Before he finished, Kelsey jerked herself out of the booth.

“I don’t give a damn about what you planned or how much money you spent.” Her voice shut down all the other noises in the diner. “If you wanted to be with me and Trace, you should’ve stayed at home. I’ll go to hell before I go anywhere with you and your…your…concubine!”

She stomped through absolute silence to the door, flung it open with a hysterical jingle of the bell and stormed outside. Before the door could close again, Trace caught the handle and followed his sister.

Another mute moment passed, then folks at the tables and the counter started up their conversations again, throwing a few sidelong glances at L.T. and Melanie in the process. Pete looked at his basketball buddies. “Do you suppose those kids are walking home?”

Rob sat facing the streetside window. “Looks like it. They’re at the corner, waiting for the light.”

“That’s no good. It’s a five-mile walk through some of the worst parts of town.” And the girl was dressed like a hooker ready for work. In those neighborhoods, there would be guys ready to take the offer, even at ten on a Saturday morning. Pete put cash for his share of the breakfast bill on the table and got to his feet. “Thanks for the game, guys. See you next week.”

Just as he reached the door, he felt a tug on his sleeve. Abby stood behind him, holding the box with his lemon meringue pie slice. “You’re always rushing out these days. Take it easy, okay?”

He took the box and gave her a one-armed hug. “I’ll do my best. You keep Charlie on his diet.”

Then he went out to make sure Mary Rose Bowdrey’s niece and nephew got home safe and sound.

CHAPTER THREE

KELSEY DISCOVERED almost immediately that two-inch platform sandals were not designed for walking. The kind of walking she was doing, anyway—jogging across the four-lane highway outside the diner, or striding uphill on the shoulder of the road with pieces of gravel slipping underneath her arch, her toes, her heel.

The third time her ankle turned on a rock, she kicked the damn shoe as far as it would go…across the road and into the ditch on the opposite side.

“That was stupid.” Trace finally caught up with her. “How are you gonna walk home with one shoe?”

She couldn’t answer, because that would mean loosening her jaw and taking her teeth out of her upper lip, which was the only thing keeping her from breaking into tears at this point. And she wouldn’t cry over him. She wouldn’t.

Heaving a sigh, Trace crossed the road and sidled down into the ditch. As he bent to pick up her shoe, a car roared up the hill in their direction. Instead of passing by, though, the dusty red Jeep stopped right beside her, blocking Trace on the other side.

Was she about to be abducted? In broad daylight at ten o’clock on a Saturday morning?

She braced herself as the door opened. The guy who got out didn’t look like a pervert—he was actually pretty cute, for being so old. His hair was too short, but he had great shoulders, visible under a sleeveless navy sweatshirt, and fantastic legs. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him.

Then he flashed a badge. “Pete Mitchell, with the highway patrol.”

Had her dad sent the cops after them? Typical. “Was I speeding or something?”

The state trooper frowned at her. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be walking home on this road. Get in, I’ll give you a ride.”

Trace came around the front of the Jeep. “Who’s this?”

Another flash of the badge. “I’m taking you and your sister home.”

“Yeah, right.” Kelsey took her shoe back from Trace and braced herself with a hand on his shoulder while she put it on. Thank God the ditch wasn’t filled with water. “Like we haven’t heard the drill since we were babies. ‘Don’t ride with strangers,”’ she mimicked in a falsetto tone.

The man rolled his eyes. “I’m glad to know the message stuck. Too bad you didn’t hear about staying out of the wrong neighborhoods. This road takes you right into the worst part of town.”

“We’ll be okay.”

“Sure you will, ’cause you’re riding with me.”

Kelsey crossed her arms and stared at him, hard. “No way.”

Hands propped on his hips, Pete Mitchell shook his head. “Look, I’m a…a friend of your aunt Mary Rose. We’ve known each other a long time.” He cleared his throat. “She wouldn’t like it if I let you wander around town on foot. It’s an hour’s walk, easy, from here to your house. Just get in the car, and I’ll have you home in ten minutes.”

A friend of Aunt M’s? Oh, yeah…this was the guy who had stopped Mary Rose in the diner Thursday after the game. They’d talked for a second, then he’d left, and Mary Rose had stared around with a dazed look in her eyes and her cheeks blazing bright pink.

Just friends? Sure they were. This might be interesting, after all.

Kelsey let her hands drop to her sides. “I guess maybe we would be smart to get a ride. It’s a long way home.” She gave Pete Mitchell a friendly smile.

Trace’s eyes widened. “Kelsey? What the hell—”

The trooper relaxed and grinned back at her, and suddenly she realized how sexy he was.

“I’m glad to hear you’ve got good sense. Let’s go.”

Kelsey got into the front seat of the Jeep while Trace, muttering under his breath, climbed in back. The engine started with a rumble but Pete Mitchell waited until both she and Trace had buckled their seat belts before shifting into first gear and starting up the hill.

“Manual transmissions are so cool,” Kelsey commented, watching the trooper change smoothly from second to third.

He let the engine noise build to a roar, then flashed another one of those grins before easing into fourth. “Makes the driving a lot more fun. But working a clutch takes practice. You’re not old enough for a license yet, are you?”

“I’ve got my learner’s permit. But all I get to drive is my mom’s Volvo. It’s automatic. Boooorring.”

“I notice your aunt’s Porsche is a six-speed. Maybe you should bug her to let you drive.” His smile looked…wicked?

“Hey, good idea.” She glanced out the window at the neighborhood they were going through, at houses with sagging porches and yards littered with tires and trash. A gang of boys stood on one street corner, smoking and jiving each other over gangsta rap from a boom box on the sidewalk.

Kelsey shivered. Walking past that group would have been scary. No question.

She felt more than saw Pete Mitchell glance across at her. “That was some argument, back at Charlie’s.”

So much for polite conversation. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“No problem.” He nodded and glanced at Trace through the rearview mirror. “I hear you played a good game Thursday. Leading scorer on the JV?”

“Yeah.” Trace was at his most uncommunicative.

“Bet you can’t wait to get on to the varsity squad. You’re in—what?—eighth grade? I guess you’ve got a couple of years yet. Think you’ll play football, too?”

“Don’t know. Maybe.”

Pete gave up on coaxing the boy into saying something on his own. Forcing a kid to talk was the quickest way to kill any chance for communication. The best results came from letting them know the option was there and then backing off until they decided to take it.

Sure looked as though the LaRue kids could use somebody to listen, though. The air around the two of them practically boiled with what they weren’t saying. A divorce in the family was toughest on the kids—all this bad stuff happening around them over which they had no control.