LITMIR.BIZ

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prefers to keep to himself. That’s all.”

      “Still?”

      The thin, annoying whine of the teakettle pierced through the whoosh of the heat pumping through the floor vent. Mala straightened, swiping back a hank of her hair with her wrist. “What do you mean, still?”

      “Nana Bev!”

      “I know, honey,” Bev called over her shoulder. “And don’t you dare touch it—I’ll be there in a sec.” Then to Mala, “From when he was here before, when you were still in high school. Mind you, I only saw him the one time, but the way he hung back, that stay-away-from-me look on his face…” She shook her head.

      “I had no idea you even knew who he was.”

      “Which just goes to show there’s a lot about your old mother you don’t know,” Bev said. Mala rolled her eyes. “Anyway, he was staying with Molly and Jervis Turner, y’know—”

      Yes, that much she knew.

      “—and Jervis occasionally did some work for your father, when he got more calls than he could handle. He couldn’t handle the complicated stuff, but he was fine when it came to switching out plugs or installing new ceiling fans, things like that. Anyway, this was when I was still going into your father’s office a couple days a week to do the books. Jervis came by for his paycheck, and he had Eddie with him. Jervis wasn’t much of a talker, either, but he said the boy was staying with them until he finished out school, that his mother had died when the kid was six, and that the kid’d lived with various and assorted relatives down south since then. And that Molly and him might’ve taken the kid on sooner if anybody’d bothered to ask. Since you never said anything about him, I figured he wasn’t part of your group.”

      Mala forced her knotted hand to relax, then shook her head. “By his own choice,” she said, remembering how Eddie had rebuffed everyone’s overtures. Not rudely, exactly. But it hadn’t taken long for everyone to get the hint. For a while, Mala had regretted not trying harder—even as wrapped up as she’d been in her own hectic life, she’d sensed Eddie’s hanging back was actually a challenge, seeing if anyone would care enough to work for his friendship. But he’d scared her, she realized, even then. So she hadn’t met his challenge.

      He still scared her, she realized.

      He was still challenging her, too.

      She sucked in a quick little breath, then said, “I don’t suppose you know why Eddie left before he graduated?”

      Bev shook her head. “No. I rarely ran into Jervis or Molly. I’m not sure I even knew he had. But whaddya suppose possessed him to come back?”

      A question that had nagged at Mala for the past week. “I have no idea. Galen says he could probably find work anywhere, at a top restaurant if he wanted.”

      “Well, he’s sure not back because of Molly and Jervis, since they both passed on years ago….”

      The doorbell ringing made them both jump. Before Mala could answer it, both kids came roaring out from the kitchen, each one claiming whoever it was on the other side. Mala opened it to find Eddie standing there, a huge sack of salt slung on one hip. He glanced at the kids, sort of the way one might regard last night’s still unwashed dinner dishes, then up at her.

      “Hey,” he said without preamble, his voice just slightly laced with contrition, she thought. “I used up most of what you had out there in the shed, figured I may as well pick up some more while I was out. Heard there’s another storm predicted for the weekend.” The kids, clearly bummed it was only Eddie, retreated down the hall, halfheartedly calling each other names. Her mother, however, had eagerly taken their place. In fact, Mala noted with a slight twinge of dread, the woman was one step removed from panting.

      “Mom, Eddie King. My new tenant. Eddie, Bev Koleski. And yes, she bites.”

      “For godssake, Mala, where you get that mouth, I have no idea.” Bev reached out to meet Eddie’s already extended hand as Mala grabbed her purse off a hook on the rack. “We met, when you were here before,” Bev said, “but I doubt you’d remember me.”

      “No, ma’am, I can’t say that I do.”

      Her wallet clamped in her hand, Mala wedged between them before her mother bonded for life. “Okay, how much—”

      “Forget it,” Eddie said. “I’ll take it out in trade.”

      Mala blushed. Her mother chuckled, low in her throat. Mala sent her a brief but lethal glance, then forced her focus back to the deadpan expression in those ice-blue eyes. “Excuse me?”

      The eyes thawed, just a little. Just enough to poke at the snoring hormones. Then he grinned, all bad and little boyish, and she nearly lost it. “For the occasional use of your washer and dryer, is all I meant.”

      “Oh. Um, yeah, that sounds fair to me.”

      “I thought it might.”

      The phone rang. “You want me to get that?” Bev asked.

      “Please,” Mala said, sending up a prayer of thanks. Bev shuffled away; Mala looked back at Eddie, who shifted the salt to his other hip, which of course caused Mala’s gaze to likewise shift before she snapped it back up to his face. “Well, I guess I’ll just go on and put this in the shed,” he said.

      Mala sucked in a breath, let it out sharply. “Yeah. Thanks.”

      Eddie angled away, only to turn back, a combination of regret and defiance shining in his eyes. He glanced into the house over her shoulder, as if to make sure nobody else was in earshot, then said, his voice low, “I apologize if my directness earlier upset you. I didn’t mean to criticize your mothering, even if that’s the way it came out. It’s just that…” He looked away for a moment, then back at her, his mouth pulled taut. “When you live alone as long as I have, you tend to forget about things like being tactful. Or how to put across what you’re thinking without—”

      “—pissing people off. Yeah, I got it.”

      There went that half smile again. Mala’s heart stalled in her throat. “It’s okay,” she said softly, leaning against the door frame. Leaning into that I-can-see-straight-through-you gaze, wanting to reach out to him so badly, her teeth hurt. “As it happens, you gave me some things to think about.”

      One brow lifted. Skeptical. Amused. “Really?”

      A smile tugged at her mouth, even as a little voice said, “Watch it, sister.”

      “Yeah. Really.”

      One Mississippi…two Mississippi…

      “Well. Okay. That’s…good, then. Well…uh, tell your mama it was nice to meet her, okay?” He turned around and trudged away, his strides long and purposeful.

      “Nice butt,” Bev observed behind her. Mala jumped.

      “Oh, geez, Ma. Besides, what can you see under that shirt he’s wearing?”

      “A wealth of possibilities, missy. And what was that all about?”

      “You heard?”

      “Enough.”

      “Well, it was nothing. Just a little misunderstanding.” Mala managed a nonchalant shrug. “All cleared up now.”

      “Oh?”

      The woman could pack more meaning into a two-letter word than Webster’s in the whole flipping dictionary.

      “Don’t even go there, Ma,” Mala said, shutting the door a bit more forcefully than necessary and heading back toward the kitchen.

      “What? What did I say?”

      “You don’t have to say anything.” She went into the kitchen, pulled a mug out of the dish drainer, a box of tea bags from the cupboard. “What you’re thinking’s written all over your face.”

      “Like

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