The Third Mrs. Mitchell. Lynnette Kent
smile. “But not every woman is supermom. You’ve got special powers.”
“Sometimes even two parents aren’t enough to keep kids out of trouble,” Rick said. “I heard at church this morning that the cops raided a big party last night, arrested the whole bunch.”
Pete looked up from his plate. “Were they fighting? I swear, if any of the REWARDS kids were involved, I’m gonna take some skin off their hides.”
“Nah, this was the right side of the tracks, up on The Hill.” As opposed to the “wrong side,” Pete understood, where the kids in his rehabilitation program came from. “The beautiful people’s kids were drinking, getting crazy. Some of them went out cruising, got picked up for driving drunk. There were some private mailboxes knocked down, cars vandalized. The cops found grass in the house. Er…marijuana,” he corrected himself with a glance at their mom’s frown.
Jerry shook his head. “Makes you question what the people with all that money have in their heads for brains, that they can’t raise their kids right, keep ’em out of trouble.”
Pete wondered if Kelsey and Trace had been at the party. He could imagine how upset Mary Rose would be if her niece and nephew were arrested. She’d been worried about them yesterday, obviously caring about the trouble they were having with their parents’ divorce. Years ago, he’d been surprised at how real she was, how easy for a guy from the other side of town to tell his dreams to. To live his dreams with.
Not. Maybe if they’d been left alone, if the baby had lived, if they’d had a chance to work on building a marriage…
Regret stabbed him, stronger than anything he’d felt in a long time. Having Mary Rose in town was beginning to look like a recipe for the kind of remembering he really didn’t like to do.
“Earth to Pete.” A booted toe kicked his foot under the table. “Pass the gravy.”
He looked blankly at Jerry. “What?”
“Gravy, man. You deaf?”
Pete reached for the gravy boat. “Nah.”
Dumb, maybe. He thought about Mary Rose in her pink shirt and tight jeans, and sighed silently.
Really, really dumb.
STARING OUT her window on Sunday afternoon, Kelsey watched her father slam the door to his SUV and stride up the front walk. Seeing him two days in a row had to be a recent record.
She’d begged Kate not to call him, but that had been a waste of breath. At least he’d left the Bimbo at home. And that was the only good thing she could say about the afternoon ahead of them all.
The bell didn’t ring, but she heard the front door slam shut. He must’ve walked in without even knocking.
His voice came up the stairs as loudly as if he stood just outside her bedroom. “Kelsey Ann LaRue, Trace Lawrence LaRue, y’all get yourselves down here right this minute.” He waited five seconds. “Don’t make me come up there. You’re not too old for me to take my belt to you.”
She remembered her last encounter with that belt all too clearly. Ignoring the pitch and twist of her stomach, Kelsey eased off the bed and walked slowly to open the door. Trace looked at her from down the hall, his face white with a combination of hangover and nerves. He hated it when their dad yelled.
“Come on.” She tilted her head toward the stairs. “Let’s get this over with.”
Kate waited for them at the bottom of the steps, trying to smile but looking every bit as nervous as Kelsey felt. She’d never been arrested before, never done anything quite this bad. There was no telling what her dad would do about it.
He was staring out the French doors into the side yard, but as they stepped into the living room, he whipped around to face them. “Have you lost what brains you ever had? Bad enough you were drinking, but to get in a car and go knocking down mailboxes…In one of my neighborhoods, no less. What kind of stupid is that?”
Kelsey shrugged one shoulder. At the time, it had seemed immensely funny to knock over mailboxes that her dad’s company had set up. Now she didn’t have an answer.
“Don’t give me that sullen face, young lady. You’re gonna explain this until I’m satisfied with what I’m hearing.”
Staring at his clenched fists, Kelsey got nervous. “I was drinking. Not thinking straight.”
“No shit. And you dragged your brother along for the ride? I thought you might have more sense, boy.”
Kelsey caught Trace’s glance, knew he was wondering if she would give him away for having been the one to think up the stunt to begin with. “We didn’t start out to—to cause trouble,” she said, trying out her guiltiest look. “It just kinda happened.”
“Yeah, right.” He propped his hands on his hips and shook his head. “I’ll just have to see what I can do to fix it, is all. I’ve got a call in to the D.A. If we’re lucky, he’ll be able to get this whole situation handled before the court system even sees the paperwork.”
Kate stepped forward. “L.T., I really think Kelsey and Trace need to realize there are consequences to behavior like this.”
He gave her a quick, contemptuous glance. “Oh, you can bet there are consequences.” His gaze shifted to Kelsey. “You’re not going anywhere but school for the next six months, you hear me? No ball games, no parties, nothing. You can sit here and twiddle your thumbs and think about how stupid you were last night. Same goes for you,” he told Trace. “Forget the rest of soccer season. You’re off the team.”
“You can’t do that!”
Kelsey watched her dad’s face change and knew the protest was a mistake. Closing the distance between them, he took a handful of Trace’s T-shirt and brought their faces together. “You want to watch me? I’m not having my boy raising hell in this town, ruining the reputation I’ve built these last ten years. You’ll behave, or you won’t leave the house.”
Letting go with a shove that rocked Trace back on his heels, he whipped around to face Kate. “I don’t know what you’re thinking about, either, letting my kids go to a party like that. Anybody with common sense would know that a houseful of teenagers with no supervision means trouble.” He sneered as he looked their stepmother up and down. “But you’re not real strong in the common-sense department, now, are you? So let me make it plain. Keep those kids in the house, except when they go to school. Got it?”
Before she could say anything, he marched to the front door and slammed it one more time on the way out. In the silence, they heard the squeal of tires as he stopped at the corner, then roared away.
The three of them stood for a long minute without moving a muscle.
“I don’t know what he’ll be able to convince the district attorney to do,” Kate said finally, and went to sit in a chair by the fireplace. “I wouldn’t count on getting off without some sort of punishment from the court.”
Aunt Mary Rose came in from the kitchen carrying a tray loaded with a plate of cookies, glasses and a pitcher of lemonade. “I gather the storm has passed. Y’all want something to drink?”
Kelsey looked at the tray, tried to imagine putting a cookie in her mouth or swallowing a sip of lemonade. Tears burned her eyes and her stomach clenched. With a gasp, she turned and bolted up the stairs. She made it to the toilet in the hall bathroom just in time. Since she’d spent half the night throwing up and hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch, there wasn’t much to lose.
Somebody started up the steps. “Kelsey?” Kate would want to make her feel better. Like that was even possible anymore.
Still retching, Kelsey managed to shut and lock the bathroom door. Then she curled up in a corner, buried her face in one of her stepmother’s soft turquoise towels and cried.
WHEN HE CAME off duty on Monday afternoon, Pete got the message that the