Damon Read online

  DAMON

  Vanessa Hawkes

  Damon

  Copyright © 2012 Vanessa Hawkes

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form by or any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

  CHAPTER ONE

  He was the strangest person I’d ever met. And my mother was clinically insane, so I know strange. Damon simply opened his eyes and saw a world different from the one most people see.

  He’d been hanging around outside Brewer’s Drugstore for three days. Some people said he was Joe Buckley’s grandson from down in Florida, some said he was just a weirdo who’d found a place where nobody ran him off. He didn’t appear to be homeless since he was driving a new red Mustang, which also drew a lot of attention. Chester Brewer said he didn’t mind the odd fella because he drew in business.

  Everyone in town had to come and see the stranger everybody was talking about, and the shiny cool car, and while they were there, they might as well pick up some aspirin, or batteries, or have a root beer float from the soda shop.

  “Soon as business tapers off, though,” Chester had said, “he’s gonna have to find himself a new place.”

  Chester’s store sat on the square and was housed in one of our town’s historic two-story buildings. He kept two long park benches out front on the covered walk, one on either side of the front door, so people could rest their bones for a few minutes while they ran their errands.

  He liked to keep the hometown feel.

  That’s where this strange man would sit, on the bench on the far left. He would simply sit there, watching the slow traffic and the curious passersby.

  It was just our way in Polar, Tennessee, I guess, not to bother people we didn’t know. Even when they sat on our own front porch.

  Our sheriff, James Eddie, did finally come by and talk to the man, and then came inside to give Chester the news. He said the stranger’s name was Damon Jennings. He was twenty-seven years old and lived in Nashville. Since we didn’t have a motel in town, he was staying in the garage apartment the Picketts kept advertised in the paper.

  At least ten people were gathered around in the drugstore that day, shoppers and the rest of us, and we all decided that a name like Damon didn’t sound trustworthy. “It has a kinda evil ring, don’t it?” Bella had suggested, and none of us could disagree.

  I told them it was because of Damien in The Omen – an old movie that had freaked out my mom so much she’d ended up in the hospital for a week after watching it on TV. But no one knew what I was talking about. They decided Damon sounded just too much like demon.

  This Damon Jennings told James Eddie he used to live here in Polar when he was a little boy. He said his grandfather used to sit him on one of the benches while he shopped the stores in the square, and now Damon only wanted to remember his past.

  Well, none of us could remember him. No one remembered Damon’s grandfather, either. And Chester knew everybody who’d lived in Polar for the past fifty years.

  Polar only had about a thousand people. You couldn’t blend in here.

  So, everyone was suspicious. Even if they didn’t remember a little boy named Damon Jennings, they ought to have remembered his grandfather, a local man named Tom Porter who had shopped in their stores and been their neighbor.

  I wanted to go talk to the guy, but Chester said I should just let him be, since we didn’t know anything about him and he might be someone dangerous.

  There was something familiar about him, though, and I couldn’t stop thinking about him, or wandering to the front of the store to look at him through the display window. He had a boundless, wounded quality about him. Like a stray dog.

  Of course, Chester thought every man was dangerous if I had any interest in him. He was always protective of me. He’d been best friends with my grandparents since childhood, and since my own grandparents were no longer around, he’d stepped in to keep an eye on me.

  He’d even given me a job full-time in the store after high school when it had turned out I couldn’t go to college because of my clinically psychotic mother.

  I’d been working there ever since.

  The pay wasn’t great, but I didn’t only take the job for money. I took the job so I would feel like I had a family. And I did. I had Chester and his wife, Bella. Bluebell was her real name, but we all called her Bella, for obvious reasons, and because saying Bluebell Brewer is a tongue twister.

  So, I wasn’t alone. But I knew what it was like to feel alone, and I recognized this state of mind in the strange man who sat whiling away the hours in front of the store. I sensed that he was alone, and looking for a place to call home.

  I liked the way he looked, sort of lost and lonely, and he had unusual eyes. The shade was my favorite color, sort of a stormy grayish blue, and they peered through the longest eyelashes I’d ever seen on a man. His golden brown hair was almost long enough to touch his shoulders and curled just enough to seem daring. I liked that, too. Whenever I had to leave the store, to pick up lunch or run to the bank, I would nod to him and smile. He would always nod back, though he never smiled.

  I could tell, though, that he meant to be friendly. He just didn’t quite feel comfortable. Or maybe he didn’t quite know how to smile.

  By Thursday, I’d decided to talk to him. He’d been sitting out there for four days, and I sensed that this day would be his last. Tucker, who owned the antique store next door, had tried to talk to Damon Jennings the day before, but hadn’t gotten much more out of him than James Eddie had. This Damon Jennings wasn’t much of a talker, but I thought maybe he would talk to me.

  I’d convinced myself that he and I had something in common. That we were soul mates of a sort. Bella told me that I had a crush on the stranger and that this crush would vanish about five hours after he left town.

  I reminded her that I was twenty-two years old and not prone to crushes anymore. She only laughed and left me alone to think about it.

  I suppose I’d been asking for a little ribbing after I’d declared myself kindred spirits with a man I was afraid to talk to.

  So I had to talk to him, to prove myself right. Or wrong. I was hoping for right.

  When my lunch break came, I sauntered outside, pretending to barely notice he was sitting there, pretending to take a great interest in the freshness of the spring air.

  In fact, I could hardly breathe.

  He was watching me, I knew, and so I probably put on a more animated act than appeared normal. I’m sure he knew I was working up the nerve to talk to him. He might have said something to make the task easier, but he didn’t.

  I could see his foot and part of his leg out of the corner of my eye. He wore dark brown hiking boots and jeans. I’d nodded to him coming out of the store, but I’d been so nervous I didn’t notice anything else about him, except that his eyes seemed to call to me.

  I felt he wanted me to be there. That he wanted someone to talk to him. That maybe he’d been waiting all this time for someone to take the time to just talk to him. Not interrogate him, but really talk to him like a friend.

  I decided to try it. There wasn’t anything interesting going on in my life.

  “Has much changed since you were here as a kid?” I finally asked, backing up to sit on the far end of the long white bench.

  He looked at me for a moment, with his eyebrows raised, and then turned his head to stare out at the street. “The cars have changed,” he said. “The people dress different.” H
e nodded toward the statue of the historical figure guy in the courthouse island. “He used to be stone and now he’s bronze.”

  I relaxed and made a show of flipping my hair behind my shoulder and crossing my legs. “We had a tornado about six years ago and a tree fell on him. They had to take donations to put up the new one.”

  “What was his name?” This time he took an extra moment to look me over. He scanned my face, my torso, and then my legs as he looked away.

  I tried not to let it go to my head when he fought a grin and even blushed a little. Maybe he only thought I was dressed like a hick, or maybe I had a smudge of something on my face or clothes. I did a quick inspection, then tried not to be self-conscious.

  After thinking for a minute, and realizing I wasn’t very patriotic, I had to shrug. “I don’t know. Patterson, or… something. He was in a war, maybe, or was in politics?”

  Our conversation stalled and after a couple of tense minutes, he leaned forward, fiddling with a thick rubber band while he gazed around.

  “I’m Maggie.”

  He glanced at me and nodded. “Damon.”

  “Are you staying in town long?”

  He sat back, slouched down in a comfortable position and let out a long breath. “Till I get tired of the view, or somebody runs me off.”

  I wanted to find out more about him, and this type of conversation was going nowhere. “Everybody thinks it’s kinda strange you sitting out here every day.”

  He shrugged slightly, showing no reaction on his face, and didn’t try to justify himself. He had something of a mild nervous problem, I noticed. His left knee never stopped bobbing. I thought maybe he was a musician and he was keeping time to a song in his head. Or maybe his legs were getting sick and tired of sitting all day. Judging from his solid physique, he certainly was no stranger to exercise.

  I slid to the edge of my seat, and then stood. “I was gonna go over to the café and pick up some lunch. Wanna come?”

  He looked upward, considering my offer. Then he met my gaze and frowned quizzically. “Do you know of a big house around here? It’s red, two stories in the front, one in the back, with a sharp, sloping roof?”

  “Corky’s saltbox?”

  He stared at me, blinking with those oh-so-appealing long eyelashes.

  “It’s just back behind my house,” I told him. “Corky died about three years ago. He said they had houses like that out by the ocean and he dreamed of the ocean. Is that where you stayed when you were little?”

  He shook his head slowly, seeming to be somewhere else. “My grandpa lived behind that house. In a house with two front doors.”

  I stomped my foot. “Get outta here! That’s my house.”

  That caught his attention and he looked me up and down again. “No kidding?”

  Now that we weren’t strangers anymore, I sat down, just a bit closer, unable to wipe the grin off my face. “You stayed there? When?”

  He turned toward me and relaxed considerably, even smiling a little, with his eyes. “I had to be about five, six. I don’t remember very much, just a few things.”

  Despite that incredibly sexy hand dangling just inches from my hand, and those entrancing blue eyes, I was able to use a portion of my brain.

  “That was my grandmother’s house,” I said, thinking as I went along. “She and my grandfather built the house a long time ago. So….”

  “I remember other people living there,” he said. “An old lady who gave me animal crackers. And a dog with a leg missing.”

  “That was my grammy’s dog, Millie. She got hit by a car and lost her leg. She died about four years ago. Gram, I mean. The dog died a long time ago.”

  He nodded seriously, appearing equally baffled by this coincidence. “I remember a baby, too,” he said. “I put a spider on its forehead and it started screaming bloody murder. I remember because I got a whooping and then I went outside and stepped on a nail. It was a bad day.”

  Bella stuck her head out the door and asked if I planned to ever go get those sandwiches. I waved her away, barely aware of the interruption. This didn’t seem very funny anymore. “I think that was me! What year was this?”

  He watched Bella depart then looked at me and shrugged. “Twenty years ago, I guess. Twenty-one.”

  “That had to have been me.”

  We both leaned back and stared at each other. Both of us trying to figure out the connection here.

  “Your granddad couldn’t have been my granddad,” I told him. “My grandfather died about twenty years before I was born.”

  He raised one eyebrow and quickly surmised what I was desperately fighting not to conclude. My grandmother couldn’t have been having an affair with his grandfather. The idea made me shudder. I mean… my grammy having…. Yuck.

  I could hardly look at him now. “Wow.” I slapped my knees. “Well, I’d better go get lunch before Bella has puppies.”

  “Hey,” he called as I tried to make a quick escape. “I need to see that house, and the red house.”

  I loitered near the edge of the sidewalk, gripping a post. “I don’t know,” I hedged. “My mother… she’s not well… and doesn’t like visitors.”

  He stood up, surprising me with his height, and the width of his shoulders. “I just need to have a look around,” he said. “I’ll buy everyone lunch, then you can take me out there.”

  “Well, I have to go back to work.”

  “They don’t care,” he said, a certain wisdom sparkling in his eyes. “You spent fifteen minutes yesterday talking to your friend on the sidewalk when you went to take change to that antique store over there.”

  Really. “They would mind if I got into a car with a guy nobody knows.”

  “You know me,” he said and smiled at last. He had a wonderfully bright, handsome smile. “We’re old friends.”

  “Not if you put spiders on my head.” But, dammit, his smile was as charming as his eyes. “Tell ya what. I get off at four today because I’m working Saturday this week. You can come up to the house about four-thirty. But, I can’t let you go inside.”

  He nodded, his smile turning even warmer. “I promise not to put insects on you this time.”

  “You’d better not,” I told him and jogged across the street to the café.

  I didn’t know it then, but my life began that day.

  ***

  He was gone when I returned, and I’d bought an extra burger for him. He hadn’t shown up by the time the phone rang an hour later.

  It was my mother.

  I turned my back to Bella and Chester and tried to keep my voice down.

  “You have to speak slower or I can’t understand you,” I said, trying to stay calm.

  “There’s a burglar!” Mama hissed. “In the house!”

  “A burglar?”

  Bella pulled on my shoulder. “A burglar? Over at your house?”

  “No, it’s Mama, ya know,” I told her, holding the receiver against my stomach. “I think she forgot her pills at lunch. She probably saw a burglar on TV.”

  Bella gave my shoulder an understanding squeeze. “Go on home and check on her. It’s slow today.”

  I lunged to give Bella a kiss on the cheek and she scurried away, laughing and swatting the air.

  “Magic!” my mother screamed just as I put the phone back to my ear. I jumped near to the ceiling.

  “God, Mama! Don’t yell! I’m here. I’m on my way home. It’s just the electric guy reading the meter or something. Sit tight.”

  “I can see him. He’s outside now.” Her quivering voice was deep and soft and I could easily imagine her kneeling on the hardwood floor, peaking through the yellow curtains. “He’s poking the porch with a stick. Oh no, he’s coming after me, Maggie. He’s in the house!”

  “No, he’s not,” I assured her with my calmest tone. “I know who it is. It’s just Kenny. I asked him to come out and see how much it would cost to get the house painted. He was supposed to come last week but he never did. Just ignore him
and he’ll be gone in a few minutes.”

  Her voice dropped to a low, shaky whisper. “Oh… my… god. He saw me. He’s gonna kill me. He’s been planning this for months. The devil sent him to get me!”

  “I’ll be right there,” I told her and hung up.

  I drove as fast as my coughing, sputtering old car would go and made it home in three minutes flat. Although it had to be Kenny, I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something actually did happen to my mother.

  Briefly, I entertained the idea that it might be my new pal Damon, but I hadn’t given him my address. I’d expected him to be there when I’d returned from the café.

  He was probably out driving around looking for the red house. Maybe he’d found it.

  But, surely, he wouldn’t be poking the porch with a stick.

  It had to be Kenny, checking to see if any of the planks needed to be replaced. Something extra to tack on to the bill.

  When I pulled up at the house Kenny was backing out in his lime green truck, just as I’d suspected. “Gotta go home and do the numbers,” he called through his open window. “Call ya later.”

  I waved at him, knowing it would be another week before I heard the bad news. Kenny wasn’t exactly busting his tail to make a million before retirement. He preferred to gouge people when he could and take plenty of time off for fishing in between.

  Mama was curled up asleep in the corner of the living room when I got inside, completely burned-out, still clutching the curtain in one hand and the telephone in the other.

  It took me a good half hour to wake her up, make her take her pills, and put her in bed.

  Dr. Sanderson in Nashville had diagnosed her as a paranoid schizophrenic and kept her doped up on anti-psychotic drugs. The medication succeeded in keeping her calm and nicely glazed, but that was about it. There was no cure.

  I was only glad to come home every day and find the house in one piece. Her rages were unparalleled. Which was why I kept the house furnished in garage sale whatnots.

  Most everyone in town pitied me, but I didn’t bother much with self-pity anymore. I was past that stage in my life. Mama had been this way since I was born so I didn’t really expect anything different. Some people were afraid of me, because they thought I might be like her, but I hadn’t shown any signs yet. Though, I always crossed my fingers and knocked on wood whenever the possibility came to mind.