The Ground Beneath Read online

  “Micah stopped by earlier,” she says after clearing her throat, no response to anything I’d just told her. “He’s officially county sheriff now, Allison, and he took time out of his day just to stop by the house and ask about how you’re doing.”

  I close my eyes and sigh as silently as I can.

  Not this again.

  As Wyatt’s older brother, I’ve known Micah Mitchell for as long as I’ve known his brother. The six years that separated the two might just as well have been sixty for as little as they seemed to have in common though. Wyatt was athletic and outgoing, Micah more reserved, preferring solo hunting trips to football and the crowds it brought. In looks, Wyatt was blond with skin that only got color in the summer sun and kind green eyes that let me down in the end. Micah was his opposite, dark hair and eyes, his skin a shade of olive that must have come from his father. As often as possible, I kept my distance from Micah, not because I was trying to be unkind, but because I sensed something just below the surface that made me uncomfortable.

  But he’d been there for us after Wyatt died, offering whatever help we needed. He was still a deputy sheriff last year, not yet filling the position his and Wyatt’s father held until his death five years ago. I think his professional position made my mother feel safe and protected, but for me, his sudden proximity was smothering.

  “I don’t know why he keeps doing that,” I say, wishing he’d just stop. Mom and Dad had come to the delusional idea that Micah was meant to be Wyatt’s replacement, that it was perhaps all a part of God’s plan. “I’m perfectly fine here, and I’m sure there are better things he could do with his time.”

  “Oh, other than stop by and visit me,” Mom says with an edge of sarcastic anger in her voice. “At least he comes, Allison. How long is it going to be until you come home, until I get to see you again?”

  If I didn’t love my mother or understand her pain, I’d just hang up on her. “I’ve been gone less than two weeks,” I remind her. “And it’s not as if I’ve moved to the other side of the country. I’m only a couple of hours away.”

  “It might as well be South America.” Her voice falls, a sad, empty quality to it.

  She sounds nothing at all like the mother Abe and I grew up with, a mother who was always singing and moving, volunteering in our community and organizing luncheons and holiday bazaars for my father’s church. I thought that she’d recover after Abe’s death, that her faith would get her through the loss of her son. But it hadn’t, and how could I really blame her? No mother should ever have to lose a child.

  “I have to try to live a life,” I tell her quietly. “I lost him too, Mom. I think about Abe every single day.”

  The sobs that come aren’t put on—I know she can’t control them. I hold the phone to my ear, wanting to tell her it will be okay, but my words won’t help her—they haven’t before. I stand here on the balcony, life moving all around me on the street below, as my mother howls with misery and pain. I could stand here all night just listening until I hear my father’s voice in the background and then so very close when he must take the phone from my mother’s hand and says, “Allison? Is that you?”

  “Yes, Dad. It’s me.”

  “I hope you’re all right,” he says, then, “I’m going to tend to your mother now. I’ll be letting you go. I love you.”

  “Yes, Dad, I love you too,” I say, both relieved and hurt when there is nothing left but silence.

  “Well, that looked intense,” Lisa’s niece, Mallory, says. She’s sitting on the sectional directly across from the balcony, playing on her phone and swinging one of her crossed legs up and down like she just can’t be still.

  “My parents,” I say, walking to the chair opposite the sectional and taking a seat. “They’re still getting used to me leaving home.”

  “Oh, don’t I know all about that!” Mallory is a couple of years older than me, tall and blonde and beautiful and attending the University of Washington. She’s also a frequent visitor to her aunt and Sheila’s condo, usually just in time to sit down for dinner. “You’d think I still lived at home the way my parents are always on me, wanting to know everything that I do and trying to get my own aunt to nark on me… and for what?” She presses her lips together and rolls her eyes. “As if I’m not just like every other twenty-one-year-old girl?”

  I don’t know Mallory well enough to know what she might do that her parents don’t approve of, but her mention of Seattle’s nightlife over the last few dinners she’s spent here gives me an inkling.

  “Where are Sheila and Lisa?” I ask, wanting to leave the discussion of my parents behind me for now.

  Mallory tilts her head toward the hallway and shrugs. “Another one of their spats. They actually started yelling when you were on the balcony. Then Sheila got all flustered with me sitting out here, so now they’re in the bedroom hashing things out.”

  My heart falls. Sheila and Lisa had been having arguments over the past few days, something about Lisa wanting to start a new career and Sheila not being able to support it. I don’t know the specifics, and I’m just sad that it hasn’t been resolved, both for them and for myself.

  “We don’t have to stick around,” Mallory says, uncrossing her legs and sitting at the edge of the sectional. “Who knows how long they’re going to be in there going at it. What do you say you and I go get some dinner? And after that… who knows?”

  My initial thought is to tell Mallory no. It’s been my first full week working with Sheila, and learning so many new things has left me a little exhausted. My plan for this evening was to include nothing more than calling my mother—which hadn’t gone so well—perhaps sitting down for dinner and then going to bed early and sleeping in as long as I wanted to tomorrow.

  But just thinking it makes me realize how boring I’m being, and I can’t imagine that Abe would have wasted a Friday evening in bed sleeping if he were still alive.

  “Okay,” I say, embracing the eagerness that is now filling me. “Just let me change.”

  Dinner was spectacular. We had Vietnamese food at this lovely little restaurant in the International District before going to an art showing Mallory had two invites to. She’d spent most of our time there flirting with one of the caterers, a cute guy with tattoos and gauges in his ears, while I did my best to appreciate what was being touted as modern art. When she’d secured the phone number of tattoo guy and was finally ready to leave, I thought we’d be heading home.

  But she had other plans.

  It was well past ten by the time we’d pulled up to a nightclub called The Hive, and Mallory was literally pulling me out of the back of the cab so she wouldn’t have to go in alone.

  “I’m not even twenty-one—I won’t be able to get in,” I’d protested.

  But, drunk from the champagne at the art show, Mallory just laughed and waved my concerns away. “I know people in this town,” she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me across the sidewalk, nearly making me fall flat in my four-inch heels.

  True to her word, she’d gotten me in without me having to show my ID, and the smarmy guy at the door had waived the hefty cover charge for both of us.

  “They like to get as many hot girls as they can in here,” she told me between giggles. “It makes the guys happy.”

  I should have stopped her in her tracks then and told her it wasn’t my job to make men happy, but a part of me was intrigued by the night club and the chance to be a part of it, at least for one night.

  Once inside, The Hive was all swank with crystal chandeliers, a glossy wood finished bar, and small circular booths with blue velvet seats and small lamps in the middle that cast a moody glow over the tables. There was nothing at all like this in Coalton, and I doubted there ever would be.

  It took less than five minutes for the both of us to end up with drinks in our hands—mine a virgin one, as requested—purchased by two guys in tailored gray suits and matching trendy haircuts—they could have been twins. My naïveté about the big city showed
with me thinking the two men had bought the drinks out of the kindness of their hearts and without an expectation of anything in return. I’d even thanked them and said they didn’t have to do it, that it was such a nice gesture. One of them laughed, said something like, “Where have you been all my life?” before I found myself being led to one of those elegant tables with the blue velvet cushions and talking to one of the guys.

  “I’m in tech,” the one named Kevin says, one of his arms resting on the top of the cushioned seat behind me. “You know, software development. Working on creating some apps in my spare time. Doing really good. Easily hitting six figures this year.”

  “Oh… wow,” I say, trying to feign interest, though there is nothing interesting about a man who pretty much offers you his resume before anything else. But maybe that’s how it’s done in Seattle—maybe women don’t want to waste their time with men who have crummy jobs.

  “I work out six days a week,” he continues as I take an especially large drink of the non-alcoholic mojito in front of me. “Really been working on my abs and that six pack you girls love. You want to see it?” he asks, already pushing the line of his suit jacket aside.

  “Umm…” I look to Mallory for backup, for a hint at what I’m supposed to do in this situation, but her face is currently being swallowed by Kevin’s friend, and I’m all on my own.

  Kevin appears to follow my gaze across the table, touches my thigh and says, “They’re hitting it off. How about you and I grab a car and head back to my place?”

  “No, I don’t think… I mean, thank you for the drink, but I really should be—”

  “Should be what? You aren’t leaving, are you?” His hand is on my bare shoulder, his lips close to my ear. His breath smells like onions and something else I can’t identify.

  And for the first time since I’d left home, I’m starting to wonder if my parents were right.

  “Allison?” The loud, confident male voice comes booming out of nowhere, pushing through the voices and music in the club as I’m inching further away from Kevin.

  When I look up, I momentarily think I’m seeing someone who looks very much like Hunter Lawrence but who isn’t him at all.

  “Oh, shit,” I hear Kevin say off to the side. “You’re Hunter Lawrence.”

  And it is.

  He’s wearing a charcoal gray dress shirt, perfectly fit to show the broadness of his shoulders and the strength of his chest, his flat stomach leading to a pair of tailored trousers. His dark blond hair is combed to the side, making for an almost retro GQ look, the perfect frame for his angled, masculine face. But of course it’s those gorgeous big blue eyes of his that I find myself staring at.

  “I wanted to talk to you,” he says to me before looking toward Kevin and adding, “That won’t be a problem, will it?”

  I pull my eyes away from Hunter’s just long enough to catch Mallory and the guy her lips had been attached to gawking at Hunter.

  “Uh, no… yeah, that’s cool,” Kevin says, as if I needed his permission. “Maybe I could get an autograph?”

  “Sure… later,” Hunter says, putting his hand out to me, a hand I’m grateful to take.

  “I’ll be back,” I tell Mallory whose expression relays she’s impressed by who I’m about to walk away with.

  “You take as long as you want!” she shouts, her smile big. “And just text me if you’ll be making your own way home.”

  I nod at her, even though I don’t like the idea of splitting up at the end of the night.

  “You kind of saved me,” I tell Hunter as he leads me through the club, that big warm hand of his still holding mine. It’s fairly loud, and I have to raise my voice to be sure he can hear.

  “You didn’t look very comfortable,” he says. “Didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d be your type.”

  “No,” I agree. “He’s not.”

  He stops, looks into my eyes and raises his brows. “You want to go outside? There’s a back patio. We could hear one another better.”

  “Sure!” I say, not wanting to be yet another girl overwhelmed by how attractive Hunter Lawrence is, but unable to stop myself from feeling a thrill at his proximity.

  The back patio is filled with people, though not nearly as many as inside. A few of them get a startled look on their faces, the kind that come when you see someone you don’t expect to, a celebrity in your midst, but none of them take it further, going back to their quiet conversations or huddling into their small groups, making out or smoking cigarettes in the fresh night air. Hunter is still holding onto my hand as we walk along the cobblestones beneath us, a couple vacating an outdoor couch near a gas fire just in time for us to nab it.

  The first thing I think after sitting down is that I’m glad we found a spot next to the fire. It’s one thing to walk from a cab to the entrance of a club on a chilly night, but quite another to be sitting outside in a very short skirt and a sleeveless blouse.

  The second thing I think, as if in a delayed reaction, is that I’m sitting next to Hunter Lawrence, star quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks. Regardless of me having already seen him in Sheila’s office, I can’t help but to feel just the slightest bit star struck.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here,” is all I can seem to manage to get out as I turn to him.

  “And I didn’t expect to see you,” he says with what looks to me like a boyish grin. “Sheila said you were nineteen. I’m guessing you used a fake ID?”

  For the briefest of moments, I think I’m in trouble, like he might rat me out to Sheila, but I just as quickly realize that’s not the case at all. “No. Mallory seemed to know the guy at the door. He just let us in.”

  “Oh, Lisa’s niece. That’s who that was.” He nods as if it all makes sense to him.

  “You know her?” My chest burns at the idea he does. Hunter has a reputation, and from what I’d seen Mallory doing tonight, it wouldn’t be a shock if the two had already met under different circumstances.

  “Only through Sheila,” he says. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her out before.” He nods again, then threads his fingers together and cracks his knuckles, his right knee lightly bouncing up and down as though he’s the one who’s nervous.

  “What was it you wanted to talk to me about?” I ask him, wondering if there truly was something or if he’d just said it to help me get out of Kevin’s grasp.

  He raises his brows like he’d not been expecting the question. “Oh… yeah.” After wiping a few fingers over his forehead like he’s got a stress headache, he says, “Sheila told me to stay away from you.”

  I’m surprised he brings it up, but not surprised it’s what Sheila said to him, and I tell him as much. “She said the same thing to me about you.”

  He laughs, uneasily I think, and then he drags the hand he’d been rubbing his forehead with behind his neck before dragging it back down to his side. “I’m sure you’ve heard stuff about me.”

  “I’ve heard things about every celebrity,” I say. “Not that I’d know how much of it’s true or not.”

  What I’ve heard about Hunter is what I imagine most people have, that he’s an amazing player on the field and perhaps an even better one off the field. He has a reputation for dating a lot of different women, a common headline on gossip sites along the lines of When Will Hunter Lawrence Settle Down? or Has Hunter Lawrence Met The One? He’s sometimes tied to actresses who shoot movies or TV series just across the border in Vancouver, B.C., but as far as I know, these relationships are brief, nothing more than physical. And some of them might even be pure speculation.

  “Some of it is,” he says, seeming to relax somewhat, but not making direct eye contact with me, “but a lot of it’s made up. People get bored.”

  He’s right about that, and you don’t have to be a celebrity for people to make things up about you. For a town like Coalton, one that prides itself on coming together through times of tragedy, I’d found myself the subject of all kinds of rumors and half-truths, even our
local paper and a once trusted reporter friend exposing every personal detail about the tragedy. But at least the stories about me had quieted, while I imagine they never end for Hunter.

  “You’re from Mountainside,” I say, deciding to leave the talk of women and rumors behind us. “I don’t know if Sheila told you, but I’m from Coalton. You and I grew up less than five miles from each other.”

  “I kind of wondered about that. She said you were a family friend.” Then he looks down toward my lap. “And she mentioned you’re married?”

  He asks it in present tense, you’re, not were. I wouldn’t expect him to keep up with news from back home, and it’s obvious Sheila hasn’t told him the full story. I think of my engagement and wedding rings that are now safely stashed in my dresser at the condo, less of a burden in no longer wearing them but also less protection, no shield against men who would otherwise steer clear of a woman already spoken for.

  “I was… but…” There is no easy way to say what happened to Wyatt without eliciting further questioning or the condolences people, even perfect strangers, feel required to give to you. And I don’t want to speak about the accident, don’t want to have to go back to that day I lost so very much.

  “But?” Hunter asks after several beats of silence.

  I sigh, deciding to provide him with the bare minimum of truth and hope he won’t ask for more. “But he died in an accident,” I finish, leaving it at that.

  He looks taken aback. “Oh… I’m so sorry. That must have been hard, huh?” There’s empathy in his voice that tells me he might actually care about my answer.

  “We all face hardships in our life,” I reply, now thinking of the tragedy in his own life, how one doesn’t think about Hunter Lawrence without also thinking about the great loss he suffered when he was a boy. He’s probably just as anxious as I am to leave discussion of our tragedies behind us. “They taught us to be tough back home, didn’t they? I mean, we have to be pretty hearty coming from a place you have to dig your way out of after a big snow, right?”