Chapter One
“I’m Daisy Aldridge,” I inform the guard stationed at the main gate of the Arnold estate. Trucks, vans, and trailers obscure the rolling hills for which the Virginia countryside is famous. It’s like the circus has come to town, though in Middleburg such things never happen.
The guard scans his clipboard and looks over our old delivery van. It’s what the New York advertising firms call branding. We call it frugal. With the body painted a pristine white and our company name, Mangler Laundry, scripted in giant, scarlet letters along the sides, it tends to get noticed. I love the van, but right now I’m under-caffeinated and drowning in sweat as the air conditioning has chosen this morning to quit functioning.
“Follow the path.” He points toward an open gate to the right. “There’ll be somebody to direct you on the other side of the hill.”
I nod and wipe perspiration from my forehead with the back of my hand. How anyone survived the humidity of a Virginia summer before air conditioning is beyond me. I manage to squeeze the van through the gate and crank the steering wheel left, right, and back again as I navigate over the pasture chewed up by the movie crew’s vehicles.
Up ahead, a man waves me over—he’s standing under the cloudless sky with the sun blazing on his uncovered head. “What’s your business here?”
“Got a call this morning for a rush delivery. Here.” I thrust my arm out the window to show him the invoice. “The costume department requested Confederate uniforms today.” Instead of the agreed-upon two days from now, I don’t add. Lucky for them, we’d made all the repairs, and the clothes were washed, pressed, and safely tucked inside plastic covers.
This guy needs a sunshade. He’s fair-skinned, fair-haired, and looks fairly close to having a case of sunstroke. Maybe it explains why he’s eyeballing me like I’ve got a passel of paparazzi hidden in the back. Whatever, I’m a second away from putting it in first gear and heading back to the shop.
Finally, he pulls a walkie-talkie from the side pocket of his overstuffed cargo shorts. “Andy, you expecting a delivery from…” He steps back to read the side of the van. “A Mangler Laundry?”
“Crap, now?” responds a static-riddled voice. “Yeah, send ’em over to trailer seven. We’ll meet ’em there.”
Guess I’m not the only one having a shit-fantastic day.
“Turn left.” Mr. Sunstroke points with his walkie-talkie. “Trailer seven,” he enunciates slowly, “the costuming department trailer…the one painted up with flowers.”
“Okay.” I don’t try to cover the annoyance in my voice before creeping along the rutted terrain.
Veering around a mudhole the size of a small pond—seriously, it looks big enough to swallow my van—has me thinking the Arnold family mustn’t know how much the movie people are tearing up their pasture. And given the dry weather we’ve been having, how did all this water get here? And isn’t it odd they even agreed for the movie to film here, in Middleburg, given the town’s hatred of attention? Though maybe Mrs. Arnold—a devout United Daughters of the Confederacy member—thought it was her duty.
All I know is there’s a colorful trailer up ahead with shapes that resemble flowers in a Daliesque way. I stop the van and lean over the steering wheel to get a better look. Down the long line of trailers, this is the only one that doesn’t look like dirty dishwater.
I get out and lean against the side of the van, hoping to catch a cool breeze. The unrelenting humidity has my thick hair coiling around my neck like a winter scarf. I scrape the wet strands into a high ponytail and wait, and wait some more.
Patience is not a virtue standing under the scorching sun. Eager to get back to the shop, I hike across the uneven field, march up the steps, and knock on the door.
“The party’s arrived,” answers a man’s voice from inside the trailer.
His voice is shrill and mean and I whirl around to run down the stairs when the door swings open and a hand snakes out and grabs me by the wrist.
A disheveled man dressed as a Confederate soldier yanks me inside. I’m in flight mode and pulling with all my might as he drags me into the trailer. My sweaty wrist slips free. The back of my head slams against the door, closing it behind me with a loud bang.
“Look at you.” His speech is thick with drink. Red-rimmed eyes ogle me like a thoroughbred at auction.
Dazed and trapped inside the frigidly cold trailer my skin prickles like hibernating bugs have awakened, their limbs stretching and searching for a way to escape the confines of my flesh. I swallow back the bile threatening to rise. My clammy, sweat-soaked back is plastered against the door. My gaze frantically searches the trailer for a way to escape.
The man, unmistakably drunk, lifts his glass in the air and leans in a few inches from my face. “A redhead. Does the carpet match the drapes?”
“What?” I make the mistake of inhaling. His breath so foul I close my eyes and lips to ward off the horrible stench of his bucket-of-vomit breath. I hear him stumble against a chair and open my eyes to see him listing to the side like a broken weather vane. My mind screams for me to run, to get out of here, but my limbs don’t respond. Instead, they’re intent on holding me steadfast and immobile as a butterfly stuck on a windshield.
The amber liquid in his glass sloshes over the rim and onto the white carpet as he rights himself and takes an unsteady step. “Roy,” he yells over his shoulder toward the back of the trailer. “You dog. How’d you know what I wanted?” His hand makes a circling motion in front of my breasts while he smacks his lips like an old man with no teeth salivating over a steak.
My heart flutters like a bird trapped within the confines of my rib cage, furiously beating its wings to escape. I open my mouth to scream, but only manage a pathetic wheeze. Go! I’m screaming inside, willing my limbs to move, to get out of here. I manage to reach back, grab the knob, and turn it, only to realize the door opens inward, and he has me pinned. I don’t have enough room to pull it open.
He leans in with a repulsive grin. “I like the schoolgirl look.”
My lungs aren’t working. I can’t breathe. With great difficulty, I whisper, “Get away from me.” How pathetic am I?
“No, baby.” He slurs, stumbles, and drops the glass on the pristine white carpet. “Don’t be like that. We’ll have fun. I promise.”
Time slows as I watch his tumbler hit the carpet and bounce twice before tipping on its side, the liquid spilling out in a circular pattern until it finally comes to a stop. My first thought is they’ll never get out the stain. My second is what the hell is wrong with me and why is everything blurry?
“Jason,” a deep voice calls from somewhere farther inside the trailer. “What the hell are you rambling on about?”
“Her.” Jason points to me like a child blaming a sibling for a disobedient act.
I force myself to whip around and face the door, grasp the knob, only to have my sweaty hands slide over it.
Hard fingers latch onto my shoulder followed by Jason’s rancid breathe at my neck as he slams me against the door.
The trailer seems to shudder as heavy footsteps pound closer.
“Get off her,” growls the other man.
Through my panic haze, I realize the man with the deep voice is pulling Jason off me, but his fingers aren’t ready to let go and they dig into my flesh. My shirt rips. The hand is gone, followed by a crash and the cracking sound of wood. Shaken, I turn to find Jason sprawled on his side atop the ruined couch, still clutching a piece of my t-shirt like a toddler with a favorite toy.
“Daddy needs some of that,” he chortles.
The man who freed me is massive and imposing, looming over me like a thundercloud. “You,” he growls.
My mind, overwhelmed by the situation, likens him to Zeus ready to strike me with a lightning bolt. In increments ticked off by seconds, his facial expression goes from one of indignation to something like recognition and, finally, to intense concern that creases his brows into deep channels.
I’m barely on the sane side of hysterics, if there is such a place. Hyperventilation has filled my lungs with air I cannot exhale, which only pitches me further into despair.
He takes a few steps back, kneels, and reaches out his arms with his palms skyward. “You’re safe...won’t allow… happen to you.”
His mouth is moving, but I only hear snippets because along with the pain in my lungs there’s a roaring tornado between my ears threatening to drag me into its darkness.
With two fingers he indicates his eyes. He wants me to stay focused. Inhale, he shows me, his massive arms lifting up from his side as his chest expands. Then he lowers his arms and exhales with his lips pursed together.
Even with my lungs on fire and blurry vision, the intensity of his green eyes is hypnotic. Like what I imagine Rasputin’s would have looked like, minus the crazy. And after a few hours—well, only minutes, or is it seconds—my heart rate slows, and I’m able to exhale and take in a bit of air. The elephant no longer sits on my chest.
“Are you stable?” Tentatively, he reaches out with his giant paw of a hand.
Jason picks this moment to heft his drunken body off the broken couch and promptly smashes into a table overburdened with bottles of alcohol.
I slam back against the damn door. The large man rises until I’m sure his head will reach the ceiling and slowly turns to glare at Jason.
“I….I need to go,” I stammer, hating how weak my voice sounds.
Even under his suit jacket, I see the man’s shoulder muscles bunch as he turns back to me. “Alright. I’m going to open the door for you.”
His voice is calm, comforting even, and gives me the sense of well-being, which is insane given that Jason is leaning against the wall laughing like a loon in between swigs of whatever he’s drinking.
Graceful for one so large, the man moves beside me. “Who sent you?”
I’m not connecting the dots, probably because my brain is still oxygen-deprived.
“Why are you here?” he asks.
I pull in air and savor it like chocolate. “Delivering laundry,” I wheeze.
Jason takes a lurching step towards me. “Can’t she stay?”
The man whips back to Jason. “You stupid fucker. If you so much as twitch, I’ll send you to the emergency room.”
“Don’t be like that,” Jason whines, teeters back and slides down the wall with a bottle cradled against his chest.
Mr. Lethal, as I now think of him, turns back to me, all calm and controlled like he didn’t threaten Jason with bodily harm. “I’m Roy. Let me help you out of here.” He reaches out his hand like he’s going to take my arm.
“No!” I whirl around and open the door, grab the stair rail, and force my unsteady legs down the steps to march through the tall grass.
Two men unloading the costumes from my van stop and gawk at me. I wipe the tears from my eyes and glance down to see my tattered t-shirt hanging open in the front. Before I can scream at them to stop staring at me, I realize it’s not me, but something behind me, garnering their attention. I whirl around too quickly and stagger back, my arms windmilling wildly to maintain my balance.
Roy is chewing up the distance between us in long strides.
“Stop chasing me.” I increase my pace to a jog, ignoring the horrific pounding in my head and the way my legs shake like I’ve stepped ashore after months at sea.
Two steps from the van, he sprints past me and opens the door. “I’ll drive you.” Glances at my torn shirt and scowls. “Sit,” he commands, indicating the van’s bench seat.
Is he crazy? I don’t even want to be in the same zip code as him.
As if sensing the problem, he takes two steps back and to the side. “For a moment. To catch your breath.” He rakes his hands through his dark hair. “You shouldn’t have been there. Who sent you to the trailer?”
I tuck the tattered shreds of my shirt under the strap of my sports bra. “So this is my fault,” I spit out. Anger swells and fills the space previously inhabited by fear.
“That’s not what I meant.” His green eyes flash as he smooths his tie. “What a monumental fuckup this is. Look, I’m Roy Blackwood.” He reaches inside his suit coat and withdraws a business card, holding it between two fingers for me to take. “Let me help you.”
I snatch his card and, with as much dignity as I can muster, get behind the wheel.
“Scoot over,” he orders.
Does he believe I’m letting him drive? From the determined set of his jaw, I see he does.
“No.” I grab the door with both hands, yank it shut, and do my best to ignore him. My fingers fumble with the key, and it takes two tries to insert it into the ignition and start the engine. I push in the clutch and jam the stick into first gear.
“Here.” I snatch the invoice from the passenger seat and shove my arm out the window. “Our invoice.” I drop it and spin the back tires, knowing I’m tearing up the field, but too angry to give a damn. As I drive through the gate, I quickly glance in the rearview mirror to see him standing with his feet shoulder-width apart and his head lowered like he’s debating whether to chase after me.
An old memory rears its ugly head. “Don’t think about that, not now, not ever.” I grip the steering wheel and force my thoughts away from the sealed room inside my mind.
With lungs aching, head pounding, and limbs exhausted, I pull into the back parking lot of Mangler. It takes a good ten minutes before my hands stop shaking. I’ll be okay, I tell myself repeatedly.
I must regain my composure. My aunts can’t know what happened. They’d worry and hover. I don’t like hovering. But mainly, I won’t tell them because I’m protective. What could they do? What can I do? Why me?
“You deserve worse.”
Oh, God. Charlie is back, back inside my head. Don’t let him in. My voice sounds too crazy, even for me. It had taken three years to rid myself of him and the memory of that night. Only a few minutes inside that trailer and all the fear and pain had come flooding back.
I roll my hands into hard fists, my nails bite into my palms. I know it’s not enough to banish Charlie. Only pain will do. “It was nothing,” I tell myself. “Nothing happened.” Like a mantra, I keep repeating it until I’ve regained control.
I slide out of the van and gently close the door so it doesn’t squeak. Using the banister for support, I climb the back stairs, skipping the fourth one with the loose board, and open the screen door. The back room is empty. Like a burglar, I make my way to the file cabinet where I store my purse and pull out a fresh shirt.
“Daisy, is that you?” Aunt Stella calls.
Shit. I mark her progress by the creaks in the hardwood floor. I yank off the torn shirt, stuff it at the bottom of the drawer, grab a new one, and manage to get it over my head in time.
“We thought you’d a been back a while ago.” Aunt Stella’s smile drops.
“Me too.” I smooth the cotton fabric of the fresh shirt under my hand. “They were unorganized. I don’t think they knew I was coming.”
“Hmph. Bunch of too big for their britches, if you ask me.” She’s ready to turn but stops. “Are you sure you’re alright, dear?”
“Yep.” I nod. “The air conditioning’s not working in the van. Need a strong cup of coffee is all.”
This time she does turn and moves in her rolling gait to the front of the store. “Did you get a signed invoice?”
“I tried,” I mumble.
“They’re the type to be sticklers for that sort of thing.”
They’re far worse than that. Careful to keep my expression impassive, I follow her to the front of Mangler. It was once an old general store, and we’ve kept the glass window facing the sidewalk and the long, wooden counter across the width. Quaint is the word city people use when describing Middleburg. During the spring and fall, tourists swarm the town and make it miserable for everyone who lives here.
Aunt Mae, with her reading glasses on top of her head, pulls the brown paper from the roller, preparing to wrap up some linen napkins. “We shouldn’t have delivered to them.” She lifts her arms to rip the paper. “We shouldn’t have taken the contract.”
The delicious aroma of fresh coffee draws me to the counter. Two tablespoons of sugar followed by the dark liquid, and I might be able to make it through the day.
Aunt Stella goes to lend her sister a hand. “Archie’s about ready to strangle us.”
Archie owns the company that washes most of the generic items like sheets, the tablecloths for some of the restaurants in town, and items that can be washed and dried in commercial machines. He picks up on weekdays and gets them back to us washed and pressed the next day. We handle the delicate items, the vintage clothing, heirloom pieces, and take charge of repairs as needed.
My economics professor at the community college calls Mangler a recession-proof business. Our customers are some of the wealthiest families in the United States. Not the ones you see written about in the tabloids, but the families who guard their privacy fiercely. Their ancestors owned the oil and coal companies, invented machines, ran factories, and laid the tracks trains run on today. The money made from those early exploits provides dividends allowing them to live out their lives in the beautiful countryside of Virginia like displaced royalty.
Aunt Mae gives her identical twin the side-eye. “Then why’d we accept the contract?”
“Because we’re the best in the business and I won’t have some city company coming in here and doing our job.”
While my aunts bicker, I sip my coffee and concentrate on acting normal. Without meaning to, I mutter, “I don’t think we should deliver to them again.”
“Did something happen?” Aunt Stella asks.
Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut? I sip my coffee to steady my nerves. “I don’t think they liked me on the movie set.”
From their reflections in the glass, I see them look at each other and back at me.
“Were they rude?” Aunt Mae, at seventy-two, is sharp of mind and wit.
Yes, I want to scream, but control my voice and heave out a sigh. “Not welcoming.”
“Humph. Serves us right for taking in cheap linen.” Aunt Stella shakes her head. “I knew I shouldn’t have done it. And the costumes—probably made in China.”
I retreat to the sorting room like a wounded animal. I wish I could go home and take a long, hot shower and scrub the top layer of my skin off. Instead, I pick the easiest mending job, Mr. Yancy’s foxhunting coat. The buttons need replacing and the frayed hem needs restitching. When I mentioned he might consider a new one, he’d replied he could get a season or two more out of it. The man is rich as Croesus but would fight you for a dime.
The basic repairs take twice as long as usual with my lack of focus and the intermittent shaking of my hands. Get a grip, I tell myself. It’s over. You’re fine. You were almost out of there anyway. But I hadn’t had to escape on my own because the other man, the one who seemed to suck all the oxygen out of the trailer by his sheer size, helped me. I retrieve his business card from my shorts pocket and smooth the crumpled edges.
Roy Blackwood
President
Titan Services Group
“Daisy,” Aunt Stella calls, “you have a visitor.”
I’m in no mood to socialize, but I tuck the card away, take a deep breath to compose my face, and walk around the corner to see him, here, at Mangler. He being Mr. Roy Blackwood, looking like a giant beside my petite aunts.
“Daisy,” his voice is rich and dark. His brow lifts in a sardonic arc. “I think we have some unfinished business.”
I’m silently praying he doesn’t reveal anything in front of my aunts. “We do?” I squeak.
He reaches inside his jacket, pulls out a folded sheet of paper, and places it on the counter. “I forgot to sign the invoice for you.”
“Oh,” escapes on a breath, and I lean against the wall for support, hoping I look nonchalant.
“Well, it sounds like our Daisy had a hard time of it at that set of yours.” Aunt Mae makes the word ‘set’ sound distasteful.
His eyebrow rises higher as he looks from my aunt to me. Please don’t tell them, I beg with my eyes. “The shooting schedule has been hectic. There was confusion when Daisy arrived.”
My anger flares at his nonchalant tone, which is ridiculous given I want him to keep our secret. But a part of me is speared through the heart as he quickly brushes it aside and charms my aunts. I think of all the things I should have done at that trailer instead of freezing up and gulping for air like a freshly caught trout. Like before. Like always.
Deflated, I drop into a chair like an unloved doll.
“Our Daisy won’t be rushing off like that again.” Aunt Stella crosses her arms. “Driving out there and waiting around in the midday heat. Why, she came back looking like a sheet left too long in the bleach-water. I tell you, we’ve had nothing but trouble from those movie people.”
Aunt Mae throws in an “Amen.”
“No siree,” Aunt Stella continues, like a fully loaded truck barreling downhill with no brakes. “No more deliveries.” She squares her shoulders. “They drop off and pick up. That’s what’s in the contract we signed.”
“I agree.” He cuts a quick glance my way. “You have my word the responsible party regrets the egregious mistake.”
My slight aunts tag-team Roy with their grievances against the movie people and their manners and the poor state of the costumes. They remind me of small birds chasing a hawk away from their nest.
To his credit, Roy’s at ease as he nods and agrees and even commiserates with them.
I want to hate him, to blame him for what happened to me. But as I observe him with my aunts, that’s not the way I feel, and though it makes no sense to me, I relax in his presence and scrutinize him unobserved.
Roy’s suit is custom, the fabric expensive, and the cut classic. His shoes have a mirror shine. The way he holds himself is confident, like he knows no one can beat him. The hard lines and angles of his face add to his magnetism. In short, he’s devastatingly handsome, and I’m sure he’s well aware of this fact as his eyes periodically flick over me and the rest of the room.
How old is he? Why is he here? And why was he in the trailer? And how did he know how to help me? Now that I’m calmer and in a safe environment, I realize Jason was vaguely familiar. Obviously, he’s an actor, so I must have seen him in something. I’m mentally scrolling through the articles I’ve read about the movie when I realize the room is silent and everyone is watching me like they’re waiting for me to respond.
Aunt Mae’s head tilts to the side. “Dear, did you hear what Mr. Blackwood asked?”
What did I miss? “Sorry.” I sit up straight and tuck a curl behind my ear. “What?”
“I was telling your charming aunts I’d like to make up for my brusque behavior and take you out to dinner tonight.”
Mae and Stella are smiling like schoolgirls. Mr. Blackwood has won them over. Et tu, aunties.
There’s no way he wants to have dinner with me. Not someone like him. “No,” I respond firmly and add, “I appreciate you taking the time to bring the invoice.”
His lips form a seductive smile. “Breakfast tomorrow.”
Before I can answer, Stella gives me a stern look, and pipes in, “Yes, she’d love to.”
I shake my head, knowing resistance is futile. They’re tenacious as terriers and have no intention of letting a handsome man, one they perceive as being interested in me, escape.
“Good.” He adjusts the cuff of his shirt. “I’ll see you at ten.”
In silence, almost like we’re all in a collective trance, we watch him walk out of Mangler. A man wearing an equally impressive suit opens the rear door of a black Suburban, and Roy slides his substantial body inside.
“Always love a man who knows how to dress well.” Stella flips the door sign to the closed position.
“His tailor must be English,” Mae pipes in. “Fits his body perfectly.”
“And what a body.” Stella giggles like a teenager and fans her face with the invoice.
“I don’t want to go,” I tell them.
“Pfft,” they reply in unison.