Turn Me Loose (Paradise, Idaho) Read online

  “Alcohol, hydrocodone—Vicodin—and Ritalin,” the doctor said. “Party drugs. Mix enough of them with enough alcohol, and your party ends up right here.” Stacy’s eyes were open again. “Want to tell me where you got that?” he asked her. “Raid your grandparents’ medicine cabinet? Or from someplace else? We’d all like to know where you’re getting your drugs.”

  “I didn’t!” Stacy said. “I just went out.” She was agitated now, her eyes—their pupils still abnormally small—darting between Rochelle and the doctor.

  “With a guy,” Rochelle said. “Some guy. What guy?”

  Stacy got an expression on her face Rochelle recognized. The expression of a girl with five older siblings and a stubborn streak. And she didn’t answer.

  “Do you remember where you were?” the doctor asked.

  “No,” Stacy said. “No. I don’t.” She was looking panicky again. “I don’t remember.”

  The doctor nodded. “Blackout. Vicodin and Ritalin? That’s amnesia time. The memory comes back sometimes, usually in pieces, and sometimes it doesn’t. You might think about that before you do it again. About what that means, and the neural pathways you’ve altered forever.”

  Stacy didn’t answer, and Rochelle turned to the doctor and said, “I’ll deal with it. Thanks.”

  He shrugged, the disgust obvious. “We gave her some oxygen, that’s about all.” His gaze took in all of Rochelle this time, and she knew what he was seeing. Her tank top, cutoff blue jeans, flip-flops, and long, messy blonde hair, not to mention her body. She probably could’ve chosen her middle-of-the-night wardrobe better. She shifted under his scrutiny, and not in a good way. Trashy, he didn’t have to say. Dismissing her, the way she’d been dismissed so often. And then she thought, Hell with you, straightened her spine, and stared right back at him. What he thought of her? That wasn’t her problem.

  He glanced away. “I’ll get somebody to take that out,” he told Stacy, nodding at the IV. “And you can go on home and sleep it off.” Again. He didn’t have to say that, either.

  Stacy didn’t say much herself until she was dressed again and in Rochelle’s car.

  “Thanks,” she said when Rochelle had started it up and was headed toward campus again. She lay back with a sigh, and Rochelle hardened her heart against the sickness and fatigue she could see in her sister’s face. Against the fear and confusion she’d heard in her voice, the little-sister call she’d responded to so many times throughout her all-too-short childhood. Skinned knees and nightmares and wet beds and spilled milk. What you got when you were the oldest of six, when you’d grown up in a three-bedroom house in Kernville, sharing a room with your sisters and helping make breakfast for eight so your mom could get to work. What she was done with, and what she wasn’t one bit done with.

  “Give me the number for your boss,” Rochelle said. “I’ll call and tell her you’re not coming in today.”

  “Never mind,” Stacy said. “I’ll do it.”

  “No. You’ll fall asleep. Give me her number.” When Stacy didn’t say anything, Rochelle looked at her more closely again, remembering the look on Stacy’s roommate’s face earlier. “You’re kidding. You’re going to tell me you got fired. That was a great job. That was in the library.”

  “Just because I was late a couple times,” Stacy said. “I’ll get a new job. It’s only been two weeks. I’m really tired. Can we talk about it later?”

  Two weeks? Stacy had always been responsible. Always the good girl. Something was very wrong. Rochelle pulled into the apartment building’s parking lot and stopped with a jerk. “Nope. You’ve just OD’d. And you can call it whatever you want,” she said when her sister opened her mouth to object. “I shelled out for the co-pay. I was there. You OD’d, you got into a situation that could’ve ended really badly, you lost your job, and school starts in a week. You’ve hardly even been out to see the folks, and now I know why. You’re way off track, and right now, you’ve got two choices. I call Daddy and tell him what’s going on, or you move in with me. You can’t pay for this place anyway without a job.”

  “I said I’ll get another job,” Stacy said. “I’m an adult. I’m allowed to make my own choices.”

  That was it. That was enough. “Like hell you are,” Rochelle said. “You’re an about-to-be junior who turned twenty-one six weeks ago and grew a whole new crop of stupid. You really want to disappoint Daddy like this? You’re the only one of us to go to college. You know how proud he is of that? You want to see his face when you tell him you got fired? You want to see it in about half an hour, when he stands here in his work boots, ready to get up in that combine all day in this heat, listening to you tell him how you’ve been screwing up? You think he’s still going to be giving you that check every month? You really think so?”

  Stacy’s mouth opened again, and Rochelle got a rush of anger so strong, she could hardly contain it. “Do not say it,” she warned. “Do not tell me that a hundred and fifty dollars doesn’t matter. It matters to him. And it should matter to you. You should know what that’s costing both of them.”

  A few tears were trickling down Stacy’s pale cheeks now. “All I did was go out. And I’m sick. I need to sleep.”

  “Right,” Rochelle said. “Get out of the car. We’re packing a few things, you’re sleeping it off at my house today, and we’re coming back for the rest of your stuff tonight. Congratulations. Your living expenses have just been cut down to the bone. And you know what? You’re going to get a new job, too.”

  Rochelle’s day had to get better. Except it didn’t.

  By the time dawn had begun to tint the sky pink above Paradise Mountain, Stacy was showered and fast asleep under clean sheets in Rochelle’s spare room. Rochelle briefly contemplated going back to bed herself, but it wasn’t worth it, not for an hour. Instead, she went into her tidy kitchen, featuring every drawer organizer known to man and not a single beer can or pizza box, and made coffee. She lifted her mug toward the tiny terra-cotta pots of herbs lining the windowsill, looked out at the weeping birch that stood in full, glorious leaf at the edge of her backyard, and spoke aloud. “Here’s to small blessings. And big ones.”

  She hadn’t had any sleep, true, and for her, calling in sick wasn’t an option. She knew—even if Stacy didn’t—how much a good job mattered, and her job as the assistant to the dean of engineering wasn’t just good. It was great. For her. She was tired, but that was all right. She had her day so organized, it would practically run itself. All she needed was her to-do list and her orderly brain. Check and check.

  A few hours later, she was starting to cross off tasks exactly as anticipated. She was in the dean’s office, running through the week during their usual Monday-morning meeting.

  “. . . And Dr. Halvorsen is complaining about Mechanical Engineering’s conference budget,” she finished. “Says the department can’t come in under it after all, and he needs a variance. I think you’re going to have to handle that one.”

  “Gotcha,” Dr. Olsen said, making a note. He looked at Rochelle more closely. “You OK?”

  “Does it show?”

  He just looked at her, and she sighed. “Sure. Just something with my sister. Big families. Nothing to worry about. Long night, though. Fortunately, I don’t have to wow anybody today. The only thing I’ve got is the new Computer Science lecturer finally showing up and needing to get situated. At least I hope he’s showing up, or there’s going to be a scramble.”

  “Cutting it close,” her boss observed. “You got a place set up for him?”

  She put her head on one side, feeling a little better. “Now, what do you think?”

  “I think you’ve got a place for him, and an orientation packet, too. Hope he’s good at getting oriented. Only time I’ve ever heard of a faculty member—even a lecturer—being offered a spot, or taking it, for that matter, without ever setting foot on the campus.”

  “Well, they were desperate down there. Nothing like a last-minute medical leave for classes nobody
else is equipped to teach.” She closed her notebook and stood up. “And it’s only for a semester. You can stand anything for a semester. Or anyone. T. Wayne Cochran. Wayne? Software geek from San Francisco, willing to take a part-time lecturer job in Idaho for one semester? Talk about desperate. Why?”

  “Why indeed,” Dr. Olsen said. “But I bet you’ll find out.”

  She snorted at that one. “Only because it’s my duty to know all, so you don’t have to. Ten bucks says he’s got skinny arms and a beard.”

  He didn’t.

  A NOT-SO-CHANCE ENCOUNTER

  Travis Cochran was hot, sweaty, and a little dirty. He was also late, but who cared.

  He’d been cool and clean enough when he’d started out this morning from the University Inn, even though he’d gotten into town late the night before. But when he’d pulled out of the parking lot for the five-minute drive to the university, the old Ford’s ride had told him that he had a flat. And by the time he’d jacked it up and changed the tire, he’d been . . . yeah. Hot, late, and with a smear of grease across one sleeve of his blue button-down.

  He’d contemplated changing, but his road trip from California had depleted his supply of clean shirts. He’d taken that trip slowly, but then, he’d been taking a lot of things slowly lately. And he didn’t care that much about impressing anybody anymore, either. So he didn’t change. Instead, he walked back into the motel, washed his hands, rolled up his sleeves to hide the grease, and headed out again.

  He took it slow through the edge of town, too, before making the two turns to the university, his windows down against the heat that was already beginning to build.

  Not hard to orient himself at all, not here. It was a far cry from the office towers of San Francisco, the cranes and jackhammers of the city’s latest building boom, the guys in skinny hipster jeans and black-framed glasses crowding every coffee shop, talking start-up as if they’d invented the concept. Here, puffy white clouds floated like cotton balls in a cerulean sky, huge elms cast dappled shade on the sidewalks, and the few young people in view moved along those sidewalks like they had time on their hands.

  He found the parking lot for the massive new brick edifice that was the Engineering Building and headed through the stone portico into a wide hall echoing with summertime emptiness. After consulting the old-fashioned directory board in the lobby, he took the stairs two at a time to the fourth floor. His footsteps rang out against the tile floor of the long hallway that led to the open doorway at the end. He entered a large room with three more doors leading off it, dominated by a central workstation where a young woman sat.

  Step one: check in with the dean’s assistant and start . . .

  Wait a minute. He knew that face. And when she saw him and pushed back from the desk, he knew the rest of her, too.

  Rochelle Marks, her nameplate read. But then, he knew that, because he’d been corresponding with her about his living arrangements. He just hadn’t connected her with . . . her. Because he’d forgotten her name.

  He hadn’t forgotten her, though, not one bit. And finding her right here, right now? That made his day, suddenly, just about perfect.

  Kind of like that first night, when he’d spotted her on the dance floor in a noisy, overheated Spokane bar, her hands up in the air, rocking out to a country band. It had been a dark, cold Friday night in January, and snowing hard. His flight to San Francisco had been cancelled, and he’d been in a dark place, impatient and frustrated after a series of client meetings. About to go to a much darker one, too, although he hadn’t known that at the time. That night had been the only bright spot, but it had sure been that.

  She’d been a bright spot all by her sweet self, dressed in low, tight jeans that hugged every generous curve, and a wrap-front red sweater that revealed a whole lot of wow. Her long blonde hair had swayed with every movement of her hips in a hypnotizing rhythm, and it had been hard to decide whether he’d rather see the front or the back view, but he’d known he wanted to see more of all of it.

  Every guy in the bar had been looking, but Travis had been the one who’d taken her home.

  He looked at her now, wearing a sleeveless white blouse buttoned up past all that spectacular real estate, and a print skirt that covered way too much of those man-eating thighs. He remembered sliding one hand inside that cherry-red sweater and closing it over firm, warm flesh. She’d filled his hand and then some, and he had big hands. He’d known right then that his hands, mouth, and every other aching part of him were in for a long, slow road trip, the kind that took you all night long.

  His other hand had been wrapped in her hair at the time, as he recalled, tugging her head back for his kiss, and she’d made a noise into his mouth, a whimper that had just about pushed him over the edge all by itself.

  She’d liked her legs pulled up high, and that had been just fine by him. There weren’t many things in life better than a woman on her back with her legs wrapped around your waist, her arms flung up by her head, her eyes closed, and her mouth open and panting hard.

  Oh, yeah. It had been way too long since . . . anything. But especially since her.

  Right now, her eyes weren’t closed. They were narrowed, accentuating the long, exotically tilted shape she’d inherited along with her high cheekbones, as if some Cossack had wandered into the gene pool at some point. Those eyes were the same vibrant blue as the sky outside, and as unreadable and cool as she’d been warm and wide-open on that January night eight months earlier.

  “Hi,” he said. “Rochelle.”

  WELCOME TO PARADISE

  Rochelle stared. At the lean face, strong nose, firm jaw—and the lips that had been cut just too damn fine for anyone born with ovaries not to imagine kissing. At dark brown hair that was a bit longer now, long enough that you’d have something to curl your fingers into if you needed to hold on to his head for . . . any reason. And at the way he stood: tall, slim hipped, and loose limbed. His shoulders were broad under his blue button-down, the tanned, sinewy forearms that emerged from the rolled-up sleeves thick with muscle. Thicker, surely, than she remembered. He had one thumb hooked in the front pocket of his Levi’s, with the fingers of that big hand splayed along his thigh. He stood like a rancher, like a cowboy, and he moved like one, too.

  Travis. He’d come back at last to find her. After eight months, he’d either remembered her, or maybe, just maybe, he’d tracked her down. She hadn’t asked for his phone number, and she wouldn’t have called him if she’d had it. She didn’t want to admit how long she’d waited for him to call her, or how it had felt when she’d given up. Now, her mouth had gone dry, and she licked her lips and saw him watch her do it. She didn’t know what she was going to do about him, but she had a feeling that at some point, self-control was going to become one hell of an effort.

  The dean chose that moment to come out of his office with a stack of papers in his hand. He dumped them into Rochelle’s in-box, nodded at Travis, and turned to go.

  “Dr. Olsen, I’m thinking?” Travis said. “I’m Wayne Cochran. Your new Computer Science lecturer.”

  The dean turned back in surprise, then put out a hand. “Brad Olsen. Glad to see you made it. We were wondering.”

  Travis—Wayne—quirked a corner of that firm mouth as he shook hands. “Yeah. Bet you were. I’m here now, though.”

  “Has Rochelle got you all set up, then?”

  “Nope. Haven’t given her a chance. But I’m sure hoping she will.”

  “Well, I’ll leave her to it. Welcome to Paradise.”

  “Thanks,” Travis said. “It’s looking good so far.”

  Rochelle waited until Dr. Olsen had gone back into his office, then said to Travis in a voice she was shocked to find she could still control, “You son of a bitch.”

  “Whoa.” He had a hand up. “Hang on.”

  She’d stood up without realizing it, was hanging on to the edge of her desk and leaning halfway over it. It was all she could do not to charge right around it and punch him in t
he jaw. Her mama’d done her best to raise her to be a lady. Too bad it hadn’t taken. “Travis? Travis? You give me a fake name, you lie to me, and then you think it’ll be funny not to let me know it’s you I’m talking to all these weeks? Think you’ll see just how flustered you can make me, showing up here?”

  He wasn’t looking quite so cool now. “First off,” he said, “it’s not a fake name. My name’s Travis Wayne Cochran. T. Wayne. My family calls me Travis. And maybe I wanted to be Travis that night.”

  “Oh, yeah. Because it was such a special time.”

  He started to say something, then seemed to stop himself. “Know what? I’m going to leave that right there. Because the next thing I’m going to say is that I forgot your name, and I lost your number, or I didn’t keep it, but that doesn’t mean I forgot you. Things got a little . . . complicated in my life after that night. I actually didn’t know it was you I’d been emailing with. So, yeah. Son of a bitch? Probably. And one-night stand? Guilty.” He must have seen how she winced at that, because he softened his voice. “But messing with you? No. And glad to see you—yes. Definitely yes. Hell, yes.”

  “Well,” she said, “that makes one of us.” She stalked over to her credenza in her heels, pulled out the shiny red folder she’d stashed there, then walked back over, doing her best to breathe along the way, and handed it to him. Time to do her job. She might not be a lady, but she was a professional. “Here you go. I understand you’re paid up on the rent, so all you have to do is call Carol Ritter and pick up the keys to your apartment. Cottage in back of her house, actually. I already checked that it’s stocked for you in terms of linens and all. And you’ll need to check in with your department, of course. The books are ordered for your class. I made sure of that, since the Computer Science department is doing some scrambling at the moment. The reason for your late hire. They’re below us on the third floor, by the way. Otherwise, there’s a list of grocery stores and banks and anything else you might need, and a local calendar of things to do.” Not that you’ll need help finding those. She bit her tongue on the words.