Masks and Lies Read online

  When Kendra had looked in the mirror she’d been able to understand the woman’s insistence. She’d looked a mess. She’d lost weight and her skin had looked awful. Her hair had been flat and lifeless, a tangled mess, and she hadn’t been able to believe the change that had overcome her in just a handful of months.

  Betsy had then proceeded to turn into a real mother hen around her and had offered her a job, but had also kept her so busy that Kendra didn’t even have time to think of heading down to the bar for a drink. Well, that wasn’t precisely true. She’d thought about it. She’d itched for it. But she hadn’t been able to. Betsy had made sure of that.

  The few times that she had found herself heading that way, inevitably she’d ended up bumping into somebody she knew who would distract her until she’d found herself back at her apartment still itching for a drink, but without having had one.

  Kendra didn’t know if Betsy had sent them to track her down, but the fact was that they’d stopped her from heading down a destructive path again. So she’d settled into Granville with her new family. She’d still continued to write to her mom, but hadn’t called her. Hadn’t spoken to her since she’d left. That hadn’t stopped her mom from calling her regularly, but Kendra just hadn’t known what to feel anymore.

  Which was why she’d gone off on her own for a year.

  She’d spoken to Betsy about it, and the woman had helped her to plan and save for the trip. She’d called Betsy regularly while she was away to let her know she was fine and catch up on all the news and gossip, and the woman had been excited to hear about all the places that she’d been travelling to.

  Her solo trip around Europe had been amazing. She’d backpacked and camped, and had had the most exciting time she could have ever imagined. She’d stayed away from the other people travelling the same way, after all, most of them ended up in bars and pubs when they were out together, and Kendra didn’t need to be tempted to go back to that again.

  Instead she’d found herself being befriended by older couples, people that reminded her of how much fun she and her mom used to have together.

  She’d seen so many countries, cities, sights, sounds. She’d eaten every imaginable type of cuisine she could and seen the life in all of the different places. She’d loved it. Absolutely loved it. But now she was back. Her funds were gone, and Betsy was eager to have her back home.

  So here she was. In her cozy and homey apartment with the smell of freshly baked pie wafting up from downstairs. As soon as she’d had a quick nap and a shower she’d head down to see everyone. And eat. Then arrange her working schedule with Betsy again. She needed to get back into a routine and earning money. She was broke, and without a schedule in front of her she knew that she’d find herself tempted to fill her time with behavior that she’d end up regretting.

  That thought had her thoughts turning sour and she pulled herself back upright and headed towards the shower, deciding to put off sleep until later on. Moving towards her bathroom, she tried to keep her thoughts light and happy. She didn’t need to think of her mistakes, and she definitely didn’t need to think of the fact that for most of her life she and her mom had been broke unnecessarily.

  What she needed to do was to put everything behind her and carry on. She wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted out of her life, her trip hadn’t helped her reach a decision in that regards, but for the moment, what she wanted was to get back into life in Granville.

  With a smile on her face, Kendra let the water run over her and enjoyed the fact that at least she had a plan for the rest of the day, even if the days after weren’t so clear.

  * * *

  Granville. Nowhereville. A pitiful excuse for a town if ever there was one. Mitchell Astley sighed at the fact that he was going to be stuck here. Though hopefully not for long. Hopefully he could do what needed to get done then get out of here and back to his life in the city. A real city. A place with stoplights and cars, and people. This place was like a ghost town.

  Though he supposed that at ten o’clock at night, places like this would shut up shop. He should have thought of that before of course, but it was too late at the moment. He should have stayed in a nice hotel in the city then headed out here in the morning. Instead, he’d been so eager that his quarry had returned that he’d headed straight here, ready to track her down.

  An image of sparkling blue eyes, rich brown hair, and luscious lips set in the face of an angel immediately sprung to mind, and Mitchell shook it away. He wasn’t here to pursue the girl, he was here to track her down and get her assistance and cooperation. Something he was sure that he’d be able to manage easily.

  He knew all about Kendra Wilcox’s background, knew everything about the woman. Except for where she’d been and what she’d done for the past two years. That he didn’t know. He’d tried to find out, but the woman hadn’t left a trail. He’d been lucky finding out that she was coming to this little town as it was. He’d happened to reconnect with an old friend in immigration and had mentioned the fact that he was worried about the whereabouts of the woman.

  Mitchell wasn’t sure if Paul thought the concern was because she was a victim or a threat, but whatever it was, the man had been on alert, and when her passport had been flagged coming back into the States from Spain, he’d immediately contacted Mitchell to let him know.

  It had then been easy to trace her movements to this little hole in the wall, and Mitchell had been left surprised at the destination. He might know everything about Miss Wilcox, but the fact was that he didn’t know how her mind would work. And that was something that he needed to do. He’d tried to figure her out, but she was an enigma to him.

  Outwardly she appeared incredibly strong and independent, but Mitchell knew that she wasn’t like that at all. Underneath she was incredibly vulnerable. It was the combination that made things difficult for him, that made her dangerous in a way. That made his job that much more difficult. And made her unpredictable.

  Seeing a light on in the main street, Mitchell took in the establishment and noticed that it was a little diner. Jackpot.

  A smile spread over his face as he pulled up at the curb and got out. With any luck this would all be over within an hour, he’d still have time to head back to the city and find a hotel. Easy as pie.

  Chapter Two

  The tinkling of the bell caught Kendra’s attention but she ignored it while she continued to relate all of her experiences to Betsy. Joanie was still working tonight, so Kendra knew that she’d handle it. Kendra wasn’t due to start working again until Monday anyway. Betsy had already told her that she needed to recuperate this weekend.

  Joanie was a good girl as well who could handle everything herself. Kendra had been surprised how much the girl had grown up in the year that she’d been gone, but even as grown up as she was she was still in high school and was due to start again on Monday for her senior year. As such, Joanie needed to concentrate on her grades so that she could go to college and get the scholarship that she’d been working towards.

  Which meant that right now it was a courtesy to let the girl deal with all the customers, she needed as many tips as she could get to add to her college fund. A college fund that even Kendra was preparing to add to from her secret stash of money set aside for the girl. She’d been adding to it, slowly but surely, in an effort to make sure that Joanie had enough to get the future that she herself had been denied.

  Besides which, Kendra had missed Betsy, more than she could imagine possible, and wanted to catch up with the older woman. The older woman who seemed to have aged a lot herself in the past year. In fact, more so than Kendra thought she should have done in that amount of time. Ignoring the thought, she instead concentrated on relating her experiences at the German Christmas markets.

  “I’ll bet it was mighty beautiful, Kenny,” Betsy said, and Kendra smiled at the nickname. Betsy was the only person that she’d let call her that.

  “It was amazing,” she enthused. “So magical,” she said wit
h a sigh. “I’ve got pictures but it doesn’t do it justice, Bets. I would love to go there with you. Show you it all,” she said with a wide smile and watched as Betsy smiled sadly at her in return before patting her hand affectionately.

  “Well, what was your second favorite place then?” she asked, and Kendra thought over that.

  “I have no idea,” she said with a wide smile. “There were so many places and they were so different. I mean there was Venice of course, which was awful in the day because it was loaded with tourists, but if you stuck around and waited for it to quiet down some you couldn’t imagine how wonderful it was. The Vatican was something to behold as well. And of course Paris was so beautiful, though the French were a bit standoffish, at least the ones I dealt with. Maybe it’s just Parisians, like you find with New Yorkers, or Londoners.

  “If you want to see a country, Bets, you’ve gotta get out of the big cities though. As much as they’re full of all the landmarks you associate with the places they really aren’t very representative of the place. Though Amsterdam was amazing. That place was super friendly, perhaps because they were all so relaxed,” she said with twinkling eyes and watched as Betsy seemed to assimilate her implication before laughing.

  “But it was all the little towns and villages that made it all so amazing, Bets. The people, the real people, you got to know there. I guess it’s kinda like Granville. You can feel the heart of the place when you get to meet the grass roots folk,” she said as she thought over it all.

  “Like in England,” she continued, “the people in the towns and cities are all kind of distant and reserved, but head into a quaint little village and everyone’s super friendly, relaxed, and open and warm. I couldn’t believe the difference. And the thing was, I went into the local cities with some of the villagers and they changed. When I asked why, they said that you wouldn’t get anywhere in the cities if you didn’t act like the rest of them there. You’d just get pushed around too much.”

  “Sounds like a cycle,” Betsy commented with a smile. “Everyone in the city puts on an act, huh?”

  “Maybe,” Kendra said with a smile. “Anyway, I don’t think I could pick anywhere out of it all. Except the German markets. That really stood out. Such an amazing feeling of Christmas. The Germans know how to do it, I have to say. So warm and friendly and exciting,” she said with her own excitement brimming through her with memories of it all.

  “How was all the food?” Betsy asked, and Kendra laughed.

  “Not a patch on yours, Bets.”

  “Oh pssh,” Betsy said, waving the praise away.

  “It was good. And versatile. Really versatile. It’s amazing how there’s so much divergence in Europe. Like it’s about the same size as the US, right? But the contrasts seem to be so much stronger. Even within a country everything is so different from one side to the other. You don’t get the same feeling here. I mean I know the states are different, but this was just so much more, you know? Such diversity of cultures in such a small area. It’s no wonder people love travelling there. You don’t need to go very far to be in a completely different world.”

  “You’d go back,” Betsy said with a smile.

  “I would. I plan to,” Kendra said with a smile blooming as the thought solidified itself in her head. “You know, I really do. I plan to go back. I love being home, but I want to experience life and live it all.”

  “One of these days you’ll settle down, Kenny, have that house with the white picket fence and two point four children.”

  “Not bloody likely!” she barked out in amusement and watched as Betsy raised an eyebrow at her. “What? You know the whole husband and children thing isn’t for me.”

  “That ain’t what surprised me. ‘Not bloody likely’?” she asked in bewilderment.

  “Spent a while with an Englishman. It was his favorite phrase. Kind of rubbed off,” she said with a shrug.

  “Oh? Spent a while with him, did you?” Betsy asked in interest, and Kendra laughed.

  “He was old enough to be my father. Though I guess in my case it was more like my grandfather. His daughter died while she was away at University. She’d always wanted to travel so he was doing it in her memory,” Kendra explained.

  “Oh, that’s so sad,” Betsy remarked.

  “Touching that a dad would love and honor his daughter so much though,” Kendra said with a smile as she thought of the old man.

  “You know, Kenny –”

  “Don’t start, Betsy. I’m happy with my life here. Alone. No family. No responsibilities. No more chance that someone’s going to hurt me,” she declared. Betsy was only the second person that she’d told everything to. Nick had been the first, a sort of purging of her soul. Betsy though was a person who she trusted, and in general Betsy respected her decisions with regards to the whole matter.

  “Your mom called while you were away,” Betsy added softly. “A lot. She cares, Kenny.”

  “I know. But I don’t want to deal with her right now. She lied to me, Bets. For twenty years she lied to me. For twenty years she lied to him. I just … I just … I need more time,” she confessed quietly. “The pull’s still there, you know?” she confessed even more quietly and felt Betsy’s hands reach out for hers.

  “I don’t think it’ll ever go away, Kenny. Alcoholics never feel completely free of that lure.”

  “I feel so stupid,” Kendra said with a sigh and a hand down her face. “If I’d never gone to that bar that first night, I wouldn’t have ever known, would I? I wouldn’t have ever been drawn into it all. Every day’s such a bloody battle. Every day I stop myself from reaching for that oblivion. Every day I have to remind myself that it’s not worth it. Every day my fingers itch for a glass or a bottle.”

  “You’re coping better though,” Betsy consoled. “I see it in you, Kenny. Every extra day adds a little bit more strength to you.”

  “Don’t tell me that, Bets,” Kendra said sadly. “All that means to me is that when I do fail I’ll be back to square one, I’ll be weak again.”

  “You won’t fail,” she said sternly. “You won’t, Kenny. For one thing, I won’t let you.”

  Wiping a tear away and smiling at the older woman, Kendra looked at her and said, “I missed you. And I’m lucky I’ve got you in my life.”

  “Always, Kenny,” the woman said with a motherly pat on her hand. “Now how about we get you some good ol’ American food in that system of yours? It’s been too long for you.”

  “Thanks, Bets,” she said with a smile then got up with the older woman to head to the counter so that she didn’t have to eat on her own at a table. Turning around, she glanced about herself and spotted the customer who’d entered a while ago.

  Squinting her eyes as though that would help, Kendra took in his form and tried to place it. Suddenly it hit her.

  “Nick?” she asked in amazement as the man with blue eyes and blonde hair from her first foray into drinking suddenly crystallized in her memory. “What are you doing here?” she asked as she moved closer.

  What a strange turn of events.

  Mitchell looked up at the woman approaching him and smiled at her. That was easier than he’d thought. He’d thought with the amount that she’d drunk that night that she wouldn’t remember him. How lucky for him. Or maybe not, he suddenly thought as his smile slipped. Now he was stuck with a different dilemma.

  He’d wanted an opportunity to talk to her, but hadn’t expected that he’d have to do so under the guise of someone who she’d already met. Scanning back to two years ago, he tried to think of what he’d told her at the time, but honestly couldn’t remember. Which was a problem, seeing as how her memory of their time spent together seemed to be much clearer than his.

  How did the person that had been drunk as a skunk remember it all better than the person who hadn’t touched a drop? Damn, he hadn’t been prepared for this development.

  “Do I know you?” he asked and watched as she blushed in embarrassment.

  “Oh.
Sorry. I … well, I thought you were someone else,” she said as she hastily scrambled backwards, and Mitchell cursed himself. That obviously wasn’t the way to play this. He’d scared her off.

  “Wait,” he said suddenly and watched as she stopped in her tracks while she wrapped her arms around herself. A gesture he remembered her using when nervous or feeling vulnerable. Jeez, that one night together and day after was seared in his memory. At least her actions at the time were, though apparently not his own. Which was incredibly frustrating. Why could he remember everything about her at the time? Obviously it was all because of his job. That was clearly it.

  Narrowing his eyes at her, he studied her and couldn’t help but admire her even more. She’d aged in the past two years. Twenty-two now, and much more of a woman. She’d been beautiful at the time, but she’d also been plastered. Of course, that hadn’t stopped him from enjoying her advances towards him. Advances that she hadn’t remembered at the time, and he doubted that she remembered even now.

  She’d been three sheets to the wind, and he’d had to watch her as numerous men came up to give her attention. When she’d looked incredibly unsteady and ready to head off with the man who’d managed to curl an arm around her, he’d stepped in and rescued her.

  He’d done so by punching the other man, and Kendra had stared up at him in confusion before plastering herself against her ‘protector’ and kissing him without any sort of restraints or timidity. She’d been incredibly passionate, and he’d had a hard time removing her from him.

  When he’d taken her back to the small apartment that he’d rented in her home town she’d promptly flung herself at him again, declaring that life was for living and he deserved a reward for helping her. He’d been tempted, oh so tempted, to take her up on the offer. But there had been three things stopping him.

  One, the fact that she’d been completely smashed, two, the fact that he hadn’t been married to her, and three, the fact that he’d been there on a job. He’d been very conscious of the fact that had those three conditions not been true though that he would have readily and eagerly taken her into his bed. Which had been a bit of a surprise seeing as how he’d never actually been seriously tempted before.