Holly deserved better than this.
I just had to get through today and life would go back to normal. Clara was leaving tomorrow, and I’d put the memories in the past. Move forward.
“What did you guys do today?” I asked, eating another chip.
Clara glanced up, then her eyes skidded away.
Yeah, this hadn’t been one-sided. I could fool myself all I wanted but she’d felt that spark yesterday too.
Fuck. I was such a prick.
“We spent most of the day at the beach,” she said.
“I built a sandcastle,” August said proudly, shifting to his knees so he could bend down and gulp his lemonade from the cup’s straw.
“And we took one last drive in the Cadillac.” Clara’s eyes softened and she looked at me, really looked at me, for the first time this evening. “I hope you don’t mind a few extra miles on her.”
“Not at all.”
“It’s too bad you’re leaving so soon,” Holly said. “It would be fun to hear more stories about the junkyard. Karson rarely talks about it.”
Because it wasn’t a time I wanted to relive. I’d been angry and channeling a lot of false confidence. The stealing and the fights . . . I wasn’t particularly proud of myself at that age.
“What’s a junkyard?” August asked. The kid didn’t miss much. Obviously, it wasn’t something Clara had spoken to him about either. I doubted she would until he was older.
“It’s a place where they take old cars and trucks that are broken,” I answered.
“Do they get fixed?”
“No, not usually,” Clara said. “They call it a junkyard because most of it becomes junk.”
“Like garbage?”
She nodded. “Like garbage.”
“What about the Cadillac then? It’s not garbage.”
“Sometimes, the best cars get rescued,” I said. “That’s what happened to the Cadillac.”
“Oh. Sort of like my puppy stuffy that got ripped but Mom fixed it so we didn’t have to throw it away.”
I grinned. “Exactly.”
August snatched a chip from the basket, content with the explanation. His curiosity was infectious, but the questions I wanted answers to weren’t ones I could ask today. Mostly, I wanted to know about his father. Yesterday’s attempt to broach the subject had backfired.
“Did you tell her about the junkyard?” Holly nudged my elbow.
“No. It, uh, didn’t come up yesterday.”
Holly thought the junkyard was an interesting piece of my history. Like most people, unless they’d lived it, she didn’t realize how hard it had been. How close I’d been to breaking so many times.
Maybe it was my fault for not explaining it to her. But why would I want to rehash the struggles? She’d gotten the glossed-over version of the past. To her, it had sounded like an adventure. Again, probably my fault for not painting it in a dirty, rust-tinged light.
That was part of why talking with Clara had been so easy yesterday. She understood. She’d always understood.
“What about the junkyard?” Clara asked.
Before I could answer, the waitress appeared with our meals. Even with the few minutes it took to get August settled with his quesadilla, when Clara looked at me for an answer, I still hadn’t figured out exactly how to say it.
“The junkyard is . . . well, it’s mine.”
“Yours?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I own it.”
“Did you buy it?” She set down her fork. “When you lived in Temecula?”
“No, I didn’t buy it.” I gave her a sad smile. “Lou left it to me. In his will.”
“Oh.” Her gaze dropped.
“Who’s Lou?” August asked, his cheeks bulging with food.
“An old friend.” Clara touched his hair, then focused on her plate. Though her fork only poked at her enchiladas.
“Are we gonna see him too?”
She shook her head. “No, bud. He . . . died.”
“Oh.” August looked down. “How?”
“In his sleep,” I answered. “Surrounded by his collections.”
The sadness in Clara’s eyes broke my heart. “Did you see him often?”
“No. You know Lou.”
“Yeah.”
Lou didn’t like visitors, even me. The few times I’d visited, I’d made sure to call ahead first. I’d gone in the morning. And only on the last visit had he actually invited me inside his shack.
The inside of Lou’s home had looked much like the yard. There’d been piles stacked in hallways. There’d been shelves overloaded with books and boxes and binders. The kitchen counters had been so cluttered that the only free surfaces had been the sink and stove.
He’d led me through the maze and we’d sat at a small table, surrounded by his possessions. That was when he’d told me about Londyn and how she’d called for the Cadillac. How two days after that call, a fancy truck had shown up to haul it away.
I’d debated walking through the yard, but fear had stopped me, and instead, I’d left Lou to his solitude. I’d given him my card and told him to call me if he ever needed anything. That I’d stop by again.
He’d died before I’d had the chance.
Three months after the Cadillac had disappeared from the yard, so had Lou.
When his lawyer had called to break the news, and to inform me that Lou had bequeathed me all of his belongings, I’d nearly fallen out of my chair.
“I went to his funeral,” I said. “I met his sister.”
“He had a sister?” Clara asked.
“And two nieces. They were nice. Kind. They arranged for him to be buried beside his wife.”
Clara’s eyes bulged. “Lou had a wife?”
“She died young. In childbirth. Lou had been a mechanic back then. The junkyard had been in his family. After his wife and baby . . . he gave up his shop and moved to the shack.”
“Lou.” Clara pressed a hand to her heart.
“We didn’t really know him, did we?”
“No, we didn’t,” she whispered, her eyes glassy.
August looked up at Clara with worry on his face. “Mom?”
“I’m okay.” She shook away the sadness and smiled. “How’s your quesadilla?”
“Good.” He shrugged and took another large bite.
Holly leaned in closer, her hand finding my leg under the table. When I looked down, her brown eyes were waiting. They were the color of coffee, rich and warm. But they weren’t as pretty as Clara’s.
And I was a son of a bitch for making the comparison. Fuck.
“Maybe you should ask . . .” Holly nodded at Clara.
I gave her a slight headshake.
Either she missed it or ignored it, but when she turned to Clara and opened her mouth, it wasn’t to eat. “Karson has been putting off going back to Temecula, but he finally is. On Wednesday.”
“Seriously?” Clara’s face whipped to me. “This Wednesday?”
“In two days.” I lifted a shoulder. “Your timing is ironic. My plan was to go there tomorrow and check the place out before my meeting.”
“What meeting?” she asked.