Riverstorm Read online

  “It’s better than crying,” he said. “Stefan always called her the meanest woman alive.”

  Stefan had always been one for exaggeration. “That sounds like something a best friend would say.”

  “You were the only woman he ever thought was good enough for me,” he said. “And he knew me in undergrad at USC, so he’s seen them all.”

  Damn if it didn’t still hurt. “Then why didn’t he stop you from having sex with his slutty actress friend?”

  He winced. “Lizzie.” Was there a glimmer of emotion in his eyes? Regret? Chagrin? No, not Grant. He never looked back. He’d never loved her the way she’d loved him. It was pitiful how much she’d loved him and trusted him. During their two years together, it was like honey had replaced the blood in her veins, making her warm and slow.

  “I don’t know why I said that. It was forever ago. We were practically children,” Liz said.

  “It’s all right. The truth hurts. Anyway, it was my terrible decision. Not Stefan’s.” Grant’s gaze held steadfast on her face. “No one’s fault but mine.”

  An image of the tall, lanky girl wrapped around him, blond hair spread over his chest, crossed her mind like a photograph. He’d let this girl sleep in his arms. That had hurt the worst. He’d always kept to himself on his side of the bed, apart from her. You’re so warm, Lizzie. But the girl was all over him.

  Now, she examined the tips of her black pumps. Don’t let him see how much it still hurts. A discarded penny lay on the floor near the elevator. No one bothered to pick up pennies. “I should go. We’re supposed to commence at two.”

  “Yep. Go.” He tapped her toe with his. “Good luck with the verdict.”

  “Thanks.” She raised her head to say good-bye, but he’d already stepped away, headed for the elevator.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Grant

  GRANT SAT ON the edge of his swimming pool with his legs dangling in the water. His home in the Hollywood Hills overlooked the canyon. Birds called out to one another and unseen critters rustled in the brush outside his fence. It had been a hot, breezeless day, even for southern California, and the dense air hugged his skin and clothes until he felt like a damp washrag. The setting sun hovered between layers of smog, creating a myriad of orange and pink stripes. Even the sunsets were fake in this town.

  The senior partners had come by his office earlier with their proposal for a partnership. It was a dream come true. Or, so he would have thought. But something wasn’t right. His interest level was closer to apathy than excitement. The question was why.

  A beach ball bobbed near his legs. He picked it up and hurled it across the pool. When it floated back to him, he kicked it to the other side of the pool. What is it that’s bugging me?

  The partnership offer wasn’t justified, given his age and experience. They should give it to one of the other attorneys who had been there longer. It was his connection to Stefan they valued. Yes, that’s it. I don’t deserve the offer. He wanted to earn it on his own, not because of his friendship with a movie star. It always came back to the same truth. Rich people know rich people. Success was ninety percent about who you know. In his case, Stefan’s success had become his success. Was it warranted? Money talks. But that didn’t mean that he was worthy of the job.

  He would crawl out of own skin right now if he could. Shed it like a snake. Leave it for someone else. Get a new one. A better one that didn’t have the memory of Lizzie’s touch. Dammit, the interaction with Lizzie kept playing over and over in his mind. Like a tape, he’d played it back at least a dozen times. The way she’d looked at him with those chocolate brown eyes. She’d tried to hide it, but she still hurt from his stupidity all those years ago. He’d changed her, made her distrusting and suspicious. That killed him. No one as sweet as Lizzie deserved to hurt by an asshole like him. He should just stay away from her. A better man would. But he was not a better man. He wanted Lizzie.

  He wanted to win her back.

  Running into her today had not been an accident. He’d happened to be pulling into a parking spot on the street when he’d seen her walking toward the courthouse, wearing a light blue dress and large black sunglasses. Her brown hair, cut just above her shoulders, glistened in the sunshine. A slight limp was evident in her stride, accentuated by her black pumps. How she walked in those things, he couldn’t fathom. But the limp told him she was exhausted. She’d been in a car accident as a child that had left her temporarily paralyzed. Although she’d recovered almost completely, her left leg dragged slightly when she was tired.

  Before he could talk himself out of it, he’d taken the elevator up to the sixth floor, assuming that’s where she’d be. He’d been right. The moment she’d come out of the bathroom, he’d wanted to scoop her into his arms and take her home with him so he could look after her. He would feed her lasagna and draw a bubble bath. Tuck her into his bed and make her get a good night’s sleep.

  While they’d chatted at the elevator, he had examined her closely. Dark smudges under her eyes hinted at the lack of sleep that makeup couldn’t disguise. She was pale and much too thin. She’d always had a nervous stomach—unable to eat when she was under stress. It was this work of theirs. After time, the pressure took its payment.

  Even so, she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

  His stomach growled. Time to go inside and eat dinner. The cement retained the afternoon’s heat and scorched the bottoms of his feet as he sprinted toward the house. An empty pizza box lay open on the table. The room smelled of the leftover coffee in the pot he hadn’t bothered to wash that morning. Coffee for one, not two. He couldn’t seem to remember to cut the amount in half now that Mandy was no longer there. He poured the cold coffee down the sink and threw the soggy grounds into the trash can.

  No wonder he was hungry; it was almost eight. The clock on the coffee maker was off by an hour. He’d neglected to move it forward during daylight savings. He surveyed the contents of the refrigerator: a six-pack of beer, mustard, ketchup, and a few cheese sticks. It would be takeout again. The neighborhood Thai and Italian restaurants knew him. The usual, Mr. Perry?

  After ordering several Thai dishes, he popped the top off a beer and went back outside to wait. His lower body ached from his earlier workout, and he winced as he sank into a lounge chair. The phone buzzed from the side table. Hadley Perry. The older of his two sisters, calling to check on him. Pretend you’re fine. A licensed psychologist, she was several years into a successful private practice in their hometown of Legley Bay. Of the three siblings, Hadley was the only one of them who had stayed in Oregon. Kristen, the baby of the family at only twenty-four, lived in Seattle where she worked as a kindergarten teacher. Shy and bookish, Hadley was twenty-nine, but acted forty-nine. Her biggest social activity being church on Sunday mornings. He didn’t like to think about sex and his sisters, but he was fairly certain Hadley was a virgin.

  He answered the phone. “Hey sis.”

  “Hi. Just checking on you. I got your message about Raymond. How are you feeling?”

  Hadley was often concerned with how he was feeling. “I don’t know. Not great, I guess.”

  “Completely normal for you to feel that way. He’s been a father figure to you. You’re going through a lot of change.”

  “I hate change.”

  “I know,” Hadley said.

  Should he tell her he’d seen Lizzie? She would pry into it, make him examine his feelings, and tell him he’d not had closure when it came to Lizzie. He decided to confess anyway. “I ran into Lizzie at the courthouse today.”

  “Ran into?”

  “Okay, actually, I went to the sixth floor hoping to run into her.”

  Silence from the other end of the phone.

  “You there?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’m here. Let’s put Lizzie aside for a moment. I want you to answer something for me. Why did you marry Mandy when you didn’t love her?”

  A jolt of electricity coursed through his body. “I l
oved her. I did.”

  “If you could’ve spent time with anyone in the world, would you have chosen Mandy first?” she asked.

  “Depends on the activity.”

  “Should it?” she asked.

  “You tell me.” Sweat beaded his forehead. He swiped at a fly buzzing too close to his ear. Where was she going with this?

  “I’ve found that in strong marriages, spouses are best friends. They like to spend time with each other more than with anyone else. They are each other’s strongest supporters. They provide a haven for their spouse to make mistakes and be vulnerable. Is this how you felt about Mandy?”

  He hesitated. He’d felt that way about Lizzie, but not Mandy. Even in the beginning, when it had been fun, she was not his best friend. Best friends made you feel good about yourself. Buoyed you in hard times. Had your back. Made you laugh. Supported you during your screw-ups. Definitely not Mandy. “No.”

  “Is it possible you married her because you didn’t love her? She was safe. She couldn’t hurt you,” Hadley asked.

  “That makes no sense. She did hurt me. Time and time again.”

  “What did being with her remind you of?” Hadley asked. “Who did it remind you of.”

  And there it was, like a boulder pinning him to the ground with its weight. The truth. The simple, horrifying truth. “Dad.” It reminded me of Dad. How had he not seen this?

  “You’re comfortable with that kind of relationship,” Hadley said, “because that’s what you know.”

  He married her because she was like his father. Critical and judgmental, withholding of physical and emotional affection.

  “Many people choose spouses that are like one of their parents. When you’re damaged by childhood trauma, it is not uncommon to turn away from the one who would be good for you.” She paused. “Which brings me back to Lizzie. Tell me about what it was like with her.”

  “She was all those things you mentioned. More so even. And yet, I chose to hurt her. To this day, I couldn’t tell you why.”

  More silence from his sister.

  “What? I can hear you thinking,” he said.

  “Examine why you chose to cheat on her. If you don’t understand why you did it, you’ll never have a successful relationship with a woman. The right woman.”

  Damn. His sister was good at her job.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Liz

  LIZ RUBBED AWAY her little niece’s tiny fingerprints from the glass casing of the antique clock with a paper towel. Westward moving sun outside her Santa Monica office illuminated every mark and smudge, and her father was coming for lunch. He noticed flaws like fingerprints.

  The clock had been in the Teeny family for three generations. Betrothed to Liz on the day she graduated from law school, it haunted her office as both a reminder of her father’s grandiose expectations and of the inevitable passing of time. Made from a piece of walnut tree that fell during a storm on her great-great-grandfather’s property back in 1926, it was sturdy yet delicate, each stroke of the maker’s fine work reflected in the smooth wood and seamless seal.

  The face boasted roman numerals and black metal hands. The second hand ticked away, stealing time with dogged purpose. The jury was still deliberating. Day three. She might lose her mind. She may have already lost her mind.

  She traced the quote carved into the wood with her fingertips. “Time and tide wait for no man.”

  Her offices, on the tenth floor of a building that faced the ocean and had access to restaurants and bars where she could take clients if she needed. Location is key, her father had advised after he’d finally accepted her decision to leave a large, prestigious law firm to open her own practice. You must project an image of sophistication and wealth to combat your youth and tiny stature. She disagreed with him, albeit silently as she did not argue with Doctor Samuel Teeny. It was a pointless exercise, one that left both parties frustrated and hurt. Everyone from his surgical staff, to his friends, to his wife and two daughters understood it best to nod and agree.

  It had been five years since the day she’d hung her proverbial shingle. She hadn’t once regretted the decision. Success, however, had nothing to do with the location of her office. It was winning that mattered. Win she did. From her first solo case, a civil suit where she convicted a professional basketball player for date-raping a young woman he’d drugged at a party, to the last case against Senator Rick Murphy. In some instances, the district attorney had been unable to convict, but she had won in a civil suit. If they couldn’t put the bastard in jail, at least she could win a cash settlement for her client.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. It was her father, looking relaxed in casual khakis and a light blue linen shirt.

  “Hi Daddy.” She crumpled the paper towel into the palm of her hand and moved across the room to give him a big hug. The paper towel embarrassed her. An admittance of imperfection.

  “I’m sorry, Liz, but I have to cancel our lunch.”

  “Oh, why?” She knew why. An unexpected surgery.

  “Duty calls. Sorry, honey.” Her dad swept a hand through his salt and pepper hair. He was slight with a runner’s lean physique. His dark complexion and brown eyes matched his daughter’s.

  Pretend like you understand. “It’s no problem. I have a lot of work to catch up on anyway. You could’ve just called to let me know.”

  “I was already here when I got the call from the hospital.”

  “Right.” Always the call. It seemed to come right as they were about to embark on a family outing or dinner or someone’s birthday.

  “Jury should be in by now,” he said. “You’re going to lose this one.”

  Had they been talking about the case? No, they hadn’t. He had this way of always bringing it back to her failures. No segues to prepare me. I’m always caught off guard.

  “We’ll see,” she said.

  “You had no evidence. I never understood why you took this one in the first place.”

  “Because he did it and he should pay.”

  “When the D.A. couldn’t get him, I don’t know why you thought you could. Can’t pick the losers, Elizabeth. That’s not how you keep your reputation as a shark.”

  If there’s a chance, I’m going to take it. What had Grant said to her one time? You’re like a dog with a bone when you want to get to the bottom of something. She knew going in this was going to be a tough one to win, but she had to try, regardless if she worked for free or not. For Meve. For all the women out there who were assaulted and left to die in dark alleyways. Anyway, she had enough money. She lived frugally. Someday, when she was even more weary than now, she would leave this place and never look back. For now, she fought.

  “Not to mention that this girl can’t pay you.”

  “If we win, she will.”

  “If.” He looked at this watch. “Must run. Sorry about lunch. But patients have to come first.”

  “I know, Daddy.”

  After her father had left, she looked out the window. Her favorite part of this office was the view of the ocean and pier. It was low tide—the crashing surf, nature’s clock. She blinked, resisting the desire to rub her tired eyes, and walked over to her desk to thumb through a pile of mail. Nothing important, other than an unopened envelope at the bottom of the stack, addressed with slanted penmanship in purple ink. It appeared to be a personal letter. Odd that it should come to her office. She turned it over. The return address was written above the flap on the back of the envelope.

  Lola Porter

  124 River Road

  River Valley, Oregon

  Lola Porter? It took a moment to place the name. Lola was Liz’s mother’s first cousin. Lola was Aunt Sally and Uncle Jimmy’s daughter. Liz’s grandmother, Marcia, and Lola’s mother, Sally, were sisters. That would make Lola Liz’s cousin, once removed. Or something like that. She could never keep the cousin thing straight. Regardless, Liz knew Lola only from photographs. She’d moved to Europe after she’d graduated
from high school and never returned home. She lived in France, if Liz remembered correctly.

  When they were children, Liz and her sister, Peggy, had escaped hot L.A. summers with trips to visit their Great-Aunt Sally and Uncle Jimmy on their small farm in River Valley, Oregon. Liz smiled as she thought of those carefree days in the fresh air and sunshine. Every day had been an adventure. They helped their aunt in her vegetable garden and swam in the river and took long drives on country roads. Uncle Jimmy taught them how to milk a cow and gather eggs from the chicken coop. Helping Aunt Sally in the vegetable garden was Liz’s favorite. A warm tomato plucked directly from the vine and devoured whole was like eating sunshine.

  She unfolded the letter.

  Dear Liz,

  We’ve never met in person, but I’m your mother’s cousin. Your mother, Karen, and I are contemporaries. Your Great-Aunt Sally was my mother. I’ve recently moved back to my parents’ farm after living abroad for many years. As I’m sure you remember, I’m an only child; my mother left the house and property to me when she died ten years ago. I had the house boarded up and the furniture covered—that sort of thing—hoping that someday I could return.

  When I turned eighteen, I left for a backpacking trip across Europe with friends and never returned to Oregon. I met a young artist, Henri, on a train from Paris to the south of France, and fell madly in love with him. He was ten years older than I and seemed so sophisticated and mysterious, not to mention his accent and brown eyes. After we married, we lived frugally in the countryside.

  We were poor but happy for almost forty years. Last year, he passed away. What I didn’t know is that he bought a hefty life insurance policy, and he’d secretly been paying into it since the day I married him. Suddenly, money is no longer a concern.

  Now that I was able to afford it, I decided to make a trip home to Oregon. I figured I’d sell the old place and then return to France. But now that I’m here, I’m not so sure. I’m going to stay long enough to fix it up and then decide what to do. After ten years of neglect, the old place is run down.