Karen Kendall - After Hours

“God. The guy sounds like a real charmer.”

“Irresistible. I pine after him to this day,” Peg said dryly. She rolled to her stomach again and dove under the water. When she surfaced again, she told Troy, “It ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me. I love it here, the kooky mix of people, the internationalism, the sun and water. You’ve got the beach bums in their flip-flops, the show-offs dripping diamonds and designer duds, the students with their backpacks, the moms with their toddlers and the old guys with their cigars and Guayabera shirts.” She swam down the length of the pool, doing an easy sidestroke.

On the return lap, she continued. “What I love most, though, is being part of After Hours. We have a little community there, whacky as it may be. It’s our corner of the world where we get to have fun working and make other people feel good. Transform them sometimes, other times just maintain their sanity in a crazy existence…a manicure can lift a woman’s spirits for the rest of her day. Or a great haircut. We get models coming in here on their way to the clubs, but we also get exhausted moms who wouldn’t make it through their weeks without a massage. I have one who can only afford it every six weeks or so, on the change she collects in a jar. She can’t tip much, but I adore her. It makes me feel good to make her feel good.”

Troy had an odd expression on his face and his gaze had grown distant. “Peggy,” he said, “I need to tell you—” He broke off as the phone rang inside the screen porch. “Who the hell is calling me at 1:00 a.m.? This can’t be good.”

He hoisted himself over the edge of the pool and strode, wet and naked, toward the porch. She was riveted by his body, sleek and silvery in the moonlight. The broad shoulders, the long lean legs, the powerful musculature of the whole. Maybe I hate jocks and football players, but I sure do like to look at them nude.

“Hello?” Troy answered the phone. “Samantha, what’s wrong?” He swore. “Call the cops!” He listened a moment more. “You know what? There comes a time when you just can’t worry about that. He’s doing it to himself. Call them.” He swore again. “I’ll be right there.”

“Troy?”

“I have to go. My asshole brother-in-law has just shown up at my sister’s house drunk. He’s trying to kick in the door, and she won’t call the cops because of the kids. Anyway, it’s still half his property, so I don’t know what the cops could do unless he’s actually threatening her or them. Right now all he’s trying to do is see them.”

“I’ll come with you.” She was out of the pool already, and hunting for her clothes on the porch.

“You don’t want to get involved in this.”

“The girls—maybe I can help with them.”

“Sam’s there, and she’s their mother.” He was already headed for the door, keys in hand.

Peggy ran after him, half-dressed. “She may not be able to handle her own emotions, much less theirs!”

“Fine. Whatever.” Even under these circumstances, he opened the passenger-side door for her, though he almost threw her inside. They were squealing out of his driveway in seconds.

She finished dressing in the car, and pulled her hair back into a ponytail with a rubber band she found in her tote. Troy’s face had set into hard lines, his jaw clenched.

“Does your brother-in-law have a gun?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Christ, I hope not.”

“Has he ever raised a hand to your sister?”

“His specialty has always been punching holes through drywall and occasionally turning furniture into projectiles. He’s never actually hit her or the kids. But he’s drunk, and he’s stupid, and I don’t like this situation at all. He disappeared on them seven months ago, and I wish like hell he’d stayed gone.”

Peggy echoed his sentiment. As she clung to the seat while they careened around corners and broke the speed limit, all she could think about was Danni and Laura and their brother, the helpless child victims in this situation.

She felt a soul-deep rage at men who terrorized and hurt the women and children in their lives, and quite frankly she hoped that Troy, who appeared to be one of the good guys, would beat the living snot out of his brother-in-law. Maybe it wouldn’t solve anything, but it would sure be satisfying.

“STAY HERE,” Troy ordered Peggy. He erupted out of the car and shot over the sidewalk, up the steps and into the house he’d parked in front of. It was a neat little bungalow on a postage-stamp lawn, painted a soft blue with white trim. A familiar Nissan Pathfinder sat in the driveway, the car that Samantha used to pick up the twins from powder-puff practice. Blocking it in was a shiny black Dodge Ram truck with inordinately big tires; Peg surmised that it belonged to Sam’s husband.

Peggy got out of the car despite Troy’s instructions and stood in front of the place, her heart feeling as if it were hurling itself against the wall of her chest. Were Danni and Laura okay? Was their brother okay? Was Sam okay? How violent had this altercation gotten while she and Troy were driving over?

A lower left panel of the door was splintered, leaving a gaping hole, but there was no damage around the lock or the jamb.

It looked to Peggy as if Sam had let her husband—ex-husband?—inside, maybe to get him calmed down, or maybe so that the neighbors wouldn’t call the police.

From inside the house she heard shouting. She moved to a window and tried to peer in through the half-closed blinds, making out Troy’s big body near an overturned armchair. He had another shaggy-haired man in a lock, his forearm across the guy’s throat. “Get the hell out of here and don’t come back, or I will pulverize you and then snap your neck like a chicken bone.”

“Troy, don’t hurt him!” Samantha, blond hair wild and cheeks tearstained, cowered in a far corner of the room, wearing nothing but boxer shorts and a T-shirt.

The smaller man called her something vile and told Troy to do something anatomically impossible. Peggy winced and hoped the kids weren’t hearing this, but she knew they must be. Where were they? Hiding under their beds, poor things?

“You can’t keep me off my own property, you son of a bitch!” The shaggy man snarled, trying to twist free. “And you can’t stop me from seeing my kids.”

Troy’s answer was to haul the man by the neck to the door. “You can see your kids during reasonable hours, when you’re sober. In the meantime, you piece of shit, get away from them and get away from my sister.”

The guy scrabbled ineffectively against Troy’s grip, kicked backward and even tried to turn and bite him. “I’ll file assault charges, damn you!”

“You do what you have to do. The cops can come out here and take a look at the door you were kicking in. They can ask Sam and your kids a few questions. And they can inspect you for nonexistent bruises. Believe me, I’d like to take your ass apart, but it’s not going to do my sister any good to have me in jail.”

Troy wrestled him off the porch and into the yard. Then he released his neck and gave him a kick in the pants that sent him sprawling. “Walk back to whatever roach motel you crawled out of.”

“Give me my keys, you prick!”

“Oh, sure. Frankly, I’d love to see you wrap your car around a telephone pole, but in the state you’re in, you’d take some innocent person with you. You’re not getting behind the wheel, you’re walking. And you start now.” Troy took a menacing step toward him, and the guy stumbled to his feet. Still cursing, he lurched down the street.

Peggy expelled a breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding. “Your sister has got to file a restraining order first thing in the morning.”