Making It Right. Kathy Altman
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need to turn on the light—the floods on the outside of the store provided plenty. He rounded the table and bent to scoop up his keys, and spotted the mobile alarm clock he hadn’t been in the mood to chase that morning. With the two oversize rubber wheels on either side of a small white plastic body, and two buttons positioned like eyes, the thing reminded him of Princess Leia. It chirped and beeped like an overcaffeinated R2-D2.
“There you are, clock-bot.” He reached under the table and snatched it up. “Why are you hiding? Tell me you didn’t eat my turkey.”
His cell rang, and he frowned at the unfamiliar number on the screen. “Hello?
“How’s it hanging, G?”
Gil swallowed an oath. He lurched at the wall and slapped around until he found the light switch. The inside floods did their thing and he blinked in the sudden brilliance.
“I understand you’ve been talking with Valerie Flick,” Gil said tightly.
“She’s been trying to negotiate a deal with me since she got her real estate license. You know what kind of commission she’d get for handling the sale of Cooper’s?”
“No surprise the bottom line is all about your bottom line.”
Gil stalked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Damn it. Something reeked and he hoped to hell it wasn’t his turkey. He grabbed a beer, popped the top and settled on a stool at the butcher block island that served double duty as his dining room table. “Even if I had the money,” he ground out, “you wouldn’t get it. You know as well as I do you already got your hands on more than your fair share of the business.”
“You just can’t let it go, can you, G?”
“I can forgive, but I’m sure as hell not going to forget. Not if it means setting myself up to get fleeced again.”
“If you can say that, it means you haven’t forgiven me at all.”
Gil banged an elbow onto the island, shoved his fingers through his hair and rested his forehead on the heel of his hand. “I’m not singing this refrain with you, Ferrell. Not anymore.”
“You’re a hard man, bro. What’s the matter, no luck with your Millenium Falcon prize problems?”
Gil let loose a bitter chuckle. His brother had mashed together a Star Wars reference with the Millenium Prize, which offered one million dollars for the correct solution to any of seven unresolved math problems.
He wished he had time to concentrate on something like that. For years, he’d been fascinated by the mass gap. But he barely had time to do the books for the hardware store at night while honoring his online tutoring commitments. What he earned from tutoring kept him in groceries. And the occasional poker game.
“No,” Gil said. “No luck.” But it was Bartender Kerry’s face that floated across his brain.
He wondered where she was living now. Had her friends made room for her?
“I’m not giving up on this,” Ferrell said. “You don’t want to be there at the store any more than I like being poor.”
“So everyone says.”
“You’ll never make a go of it.”
Gil sat up and swigged his beer. “I hear that a lot, too.”
When his brother progressed to threats, Gil disconnected the call and set his phone aside.
Ferrell hadn’t sounded high, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still on drugs. Asking wouldn’t have accomplished anything.
Finally, tiredness gave way to exhaustion. Gil banged his empty bottle on the island and turned toward his bed. His sheetless bed. He’d dumped the linens in the washer before opening the store that morning and forgot all about them.
Hell. He wanted to sleep, not make the damn bed. But no way he’d catch any Zs without a sheet over his bare feet.
He yanked off his jacket, let it drop to the floor and went over to the bed. Grabbed a fresh set of sheets from underneath and tossed them onto the mattress.
With one hand, he snagged a pillowcase. With the other, he picked up a pillow with a little too much force and it ended up sailing over his shoulder. It caught the blinds beside the bed and with a rattling protest, the vertical slats popped out of alignment.
Gil bit out an oath and swung around to fix it. Through the opening he caught a glimpse of the opposite side of the street and froze.
What the—?
He pulled at the blinds, widening the gap, and pressed his nose to the glass.
In the dress shop parking lot across the street, Kerry paced behind the bumper of an older Honda. Her arms were folded across her chest as her hands rubbed fiercely at her bare arms.
What was she doing over there? And where the hell was her sweater?
She sagged against the bumper. Pushed one hand into her hair.
The blinds clattered back into place as Gil lunged for his jacket.
* * *
WITH A FRUSTRATED MOAN, Kerry dug in the side pocket of her purse for her cell phone. Way to go, chickie. Not even twenty-four hours in the apartment and already she was calling Eugenia for help. At eleven thirty at night.
Her brand-spanking-new landlady would not be impressed.
She dropped her purse on the trunk, sagged down onto the bumper and reluctantly thumbed through her contacts. It could have been worse. She could have been making this call at two in the morning. Though the reason Snoozy had sent her home early was hardly something to celebrate.
She had to do better.
A scuffing sound had her jerking to her feet. With liquid knees, she squinted through the late-night gloom.
Gil Cooper loped toward her, blond hair flopping, glasses glinting as he passed under a street lamp. The lean, muscled ease of his movements was a clear contrast to the gracelessness he’d shown at the bar. The disparity intrigued her, while his undemanding smile provided an instant balm to her frustration.
Despite the heavy pull of a plaintiveness she was damned tired of feeling, she straightened her spine.
“Hey,” she said.
He stopped a few paces away and gave his head a shake when he had to catch his breath. “Now you know I’m out of shape.”
An exaggeration if she’d ever heard one. Still, she rested her free hand on one well-padded hip. “Who am I to judge?”
His gaze dropped, and even in the anemic glow of the dress shop’s outdoor lights she could see the smolder. She couldn’t help a rush of gratification, even as she acknowledged he wouldn’t look at her that way if he knew what she’d done.
He held out the jacket he carried. “I’m wondering if I should call the sheriff. You look like you’re casing the joint.”
Her lungs seized and she fell back a step. God. Maybe he did know. And he was still talking to her?
“What?” she croaked.
The amusement leaked from his expression. “Bad joke.”
She pulled in a breath. “I’m staying in Eugenia Blue’s apartment.”
“I figured that.” He pushed the jacket into her hands. “Either she didn’t warn you about the cool spring nights in Castle Creek or you forgot your sweater at the bar.”
She took her time tucking her phone into her back pocket, then accepted his jacket with a lofty air. “Or maybe I’m conducting an experiment.”
His eyes lit up. “What kind of experiment?”
“The kind that involves postdusk lake proximal air and...and the exposed skin of a—” she floundered