by Dana Moss
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Ouch. Taffy held her head in both hands. Whoever had invented martinis should be strung up and quartered.
She blinked and glanced around. She was in her own room, in her own bed, and she assumed it was sometime in the morning, but it could have been the afternoon.
She dragged herself through the shower and then went down to the kitchen to make very strong coffee.
Her phone was plugged into the counter socket. She’d missed several calls but didn’t bother checking them right away. Not before coffee.
As she made a fresh pot, with hopes of staving off the nasty headache brewing, she heard a familiar purring sound, only this time it wasn’t coming from a black, four-legged friend, but rather a sleek, black, four-wheeled one. She looked out the window and saw her Bentley convertible come to standstill in the driveway. Ethan got out of it.
Taffy rushed to the front door. Ethan was just coming up the steps.
“Ronald called me. I still had your spare key so…” He dangled the key in front of him. He was acting as if nothing at all had transpired in New York. And Taffy might have wondered if all of that had been a dream if it weren’t for the fact that Ethan’s beard still hadn’t grown back yet.
“What are you doing here?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “The car. Helping out. If you give me the rental keys, I’ll take that car back to Ronald and pick up my truck.”
“Why?”
“Why not?” His mouth quirked up into a half smile.
Taffy was still standing on the threshold, open-mouthed and confused.
“Aren’t you happy to see me?” Ethan asked.
She was relieved. Happiness hadn’t yet had time to take root. And…
“Um… Are you here to pick up your things?”
He rolled his eyes. “For an aspiring sleuth, you’re sometimes way off the mark. Are you going to ask me in?”
Taffy stepped aside. “I don’t understand, Ethan. You’ve been ignoring me for two days. You were in New York, for goodness sake. Whatever possessed you to follow me there? And then you made all these assumptions—that were totally wrong, by the way—and Macy and Cher didn’t help matters—I know that…”
She followed him into the kitchen, where he poured himself the first cup of coffee. To his credit, he poured Taffy one too.
“Looks like you could use this. Too much partying for one New York socialite?”
She took her coffee but frowned at the mild insult. “You haven’t answered my question.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why did you follow me to New York? To Tiffany’s of all places! And then you dressed up like… I might have some explaining to do, but you do, too, Mr. Fancy Pants.” She could still picture him in that suit, though he was back in his ranger uniform at the moment.
“Taffy, this will come as a surprise to you…”
“Try me.” She took a sip of her coffee and scalded her tongue.
“The fact is… I used to be a part of that world.”
“What world are you talking about?”
“Your world. That world.”
Taffy scoffed.
“I’m serious.”
“You? You used to go to galas and star in the society pages?”
“Well, my parents did. And my sister, before she set up shop in Thailand—”
“Sister? You have a sister?! Oh my gawd, Ethan! The secrets—”
“Where she died of a drug overdose about eight years ago.”
Taffy bit her tongue. “Oh…”
“Let me explain.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I grew up in a world like yours. Went to the best private schools. Summers in Europe or wherever my parents wanted us to go—”
“Wait. You’re rich?”
He frowned and shook his head. “Not anymore. Does that matter?”
Sheepishly, she said, “Of course not. Go on.” She hadn’t meant to interrupt him.
Taffy listened to him talk about how he’d always wanted to join the FBI, how his parents had wanted something more for him, maybe something political, how they’d wanted him to marry well, and how that was pretty much all set up.
“You were engaged?”
“Not exactly but close. I never bought the ring. She didn’t mind the FBI stuff, at least at first, but my parents and even hers didn’t like it at all. And eventually I found out why.”
He went on to say that his father and all of his close business associates would later factor in a massive financial scandal that would lead his father to commit suicide and his mother, as a consequence, to get committed to an institution. His girlfriend had left quite a while before this when his career track didn’t look like it would provide the lifestyle she wanted.
“You remember the woman who interrupted us at the gala?”
“That blonde? That was her?”
“That’s why I hightailed it out of there. I swore I’d never speak to her again, that I’d never let her anywhere near my life again. And I admit, I was rattled to see you with Luke. I thought you’d basically done the same thing. I wasn’t thinking straight. I shut off my phone and just walked all over the city all night. Then I came home.”
Taffy had to sit down after all this.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before? We’ve been dating almost a year.”
He tilted his head back and sighed. “It was such a long time ago. I’m not even that person anymore. Maybe I should have told you, but what does it really matter in the grand scheme of things?”
“It matters because it’s a part of you. And if we’re going to be together, I want to know all of you.” She blinked. “But I don’t even know if we are going to be together, because you ran off, and then now you’re here and telling me all this stuff that I… I can barely make sense of.”
He looked at her. Then he looked into his coffee mug. “It’s all so long ago in the past. A lot of that is partially why I ended up leaving the FBI. And believe me, I wanted to tell you. Mitch even encouraged me to. I guess I was waiting for… I don’t know.” He looked at her again. “For things to be more settled between us. For you to be more settled. Or maybe I was just scared to dump all the heavy stuff on you too soon.”
He sat down next to her at the long kitchen table. “Then when you left for New York… When I realized—after what I’d said—that you might not come back. When your friends told me about Luke and it hit me that there was real, immediate competition, I flew out there because I thought—”
“You thought I’d chosen Luke.”
“It tore me up inside, but I knew, if that’s what you wanted, I had to let you go.”
“So you did.” She looked down at her hands. “You just walked away.”
He frowned slightly. “I walked into something I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have gone out there. It was up to you to come back. If it was going to be for the right reasons.”
“You wanted me to fight for you for a change?”
“I wanted you to fight the parts of yourself that kept you running off to New York.”
“Well, I’m back.” She smiled.
He started to smile too but then stopped himself. “For how long this time?”
She looked around her kitchen. “I was planning to be here for as long as it took to pack actually…”
His face fell.
“Because I thought you didn’t want me back.”
“That’s not true. I always wanted to—”
She held up a hand. “But now I think I’m here for good.”
He risked a small smile. She did too.
“I know I can’t be in two places at once, even though I sometimes want that. But the truth is… where you are is where I want to be.”
Ethan slipped his hand in hers. As he leaned in for a kiss, Taffy heard another car pull into the driveway.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Taffy went outside. Macy and Cher piled out of Ellie’s car. They squealed, “You’re home!”
Cher b
ounded up the stairs. “Did you hear that Maria’s bringing charges against Lorne? We’ll be able to go home soon!”
Ellie fake-pouted. “I think they should stay.”
Cher slipped an arm in Ellie’s. “A couple more days. We’re going to celebrate our freedom!”
Macy whooped in agreement.
Taffy said, “Celebrate how?”
“We were going to stay at the resort for a couple of nights. Until we get our flights home.”
“We thought you might like your house back,” Macy added. “And your cat.”
“And your boyfriend.”
That boyfriend stepped out to join them.
The girls squealed again. “Ethan!” They threw their arms around him. Had they finally accepted the fact that Taffy liked her life here?
Quietly, so Ethan didn’t hear, Macy said, “I talked to Luke a few minutes ago. He asked me to tell you he’s sorry about the gala. He said he pressured you. He was nostalgic for the past. But he said he was wrong and you were right, that it was time to go forward, not back. He sounded very mature and understanding about it all.” Macy nodded sincerely. “And I told him your boyfriend here was a good match for you.”
“You said that?”
“It’s true, isn’t it? But don’t name your baby Oregon or Abandon or Eugene or Salem. Portland might just squeak by, if it’s a boy, but really this state doesn’t have many options—”
Taffy touched her arm. “Don’t worry, Macy. I intend to take my time with all this. Thanks for passing on that message from Luke.”
“My pleasure. He’s a good guy. He’s going to take me out for lunch when I get back. He wants to help me put all this behind me.”
Taffy smirked, picturing the two of them at The Boathouse. “I’m sure he does, Macy. I’m sure he does.”
When Taffy asked how they could afford move over to the resort, Cher had been vague, explaining simply that she’d come into a bit of money, at least enough for one room for a few nights and two flights home. And she claimed that Greg had been able to give her a little discount.
Taffy and Ellie helped them pack up. Their stuff was everywhere, and Cher seemed a bit stressed about losing certain things. “Maybe I left that bag at your place, Ellie. Can we swing by on the way to the resort?” She punctuated her sentence with a sneeze. And then another. Taffy remembered that Midnight had been all over her room earlier. She hoped he’d lay low until they were gone.
Although Taffy wasn’t exactly sad to see them go, she would miss them after they flew back to New York. This had been an unforgettable experience, though not one she wanted to commemorate with a tattoo, she thought as she watched Macy stuff their sketched designs into her bag.
Taffy felt a palpable relief watching Ellie drive away with Macy and Cher.
Midnight reappeared and leapt up to the porch railing where he perched triumphantly. Ethan came up behind Taffy and slipped his arms around her waist.
“They don’t seem too disappointed that you’re not going home with them.”
“They also seem to like you now. What happened?”
She turned in his embrace so that she could see him.
“We talked. I promised to let you go to New York every other Christmas.” He winked.
“And every other weekend?” She winked back.
“You know, if you’d really rather live there…”
“Don’t you dare try breaking up with me again!”
“What I mean is, I’ve come to some realizations of my own, Taffy. I could go there, if that was what you really wanted.” He sighed. “We could always come here for holidays.”
Maybe he’d be willing to try that, for her sake, and now she knew how well he could play the part, but she also knew it was not his ideal habitat. He preferred Oregon. And maybe…. Maybe she did too.
“Or we could go to New York for holidays. Listen, Ethan. I know I’ve been a brat about not wanting to settle down—really settle down—here with you. I may always feel a restlessness to return to New York. I can’t promise you that will ever change—”
“I don’t expect that kind of promise, but what I need to know is, will you always have that restlessness with me?”
She looked at him long and hard. And then she looked inside. She saw and felt the frightened child she used to be, the uncertain young woman she still was, and the blank outline of who she might become in the months and years ahead.
“To be honest, I’m scared beyond belief to fully give my heart to you. And to this place.”
“Don’t you think I’m scared too?”
“You never seem scared of anything.”
He took her hands in his. “I’m mostly scared of losing you.”
She looked away, biting her lip. She felt a fluttery, uncomfortable feeling in her chest and a floodwater of tears about to burst.
“Why does love feel scary? What does fear have to do with love?”
“Nothing,” Ethan said quietly. “Fear has to do with loss, and none of us gets a life without some loss sprinkled in, and loss goes deep when we’ve loved someone or something. It’s not love we’re afraid of, it’s the loss of it.”
“We’re afraid before we even have it?”
He nodded. “There’s no way around it. We can only do our best to overcome it.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Maybe by making the love larger than the fear, I guess.”
“The fear won’t go away?”
“I don’t think so.”
“But the love might?”
“I suppose there are never any guarantees—”
“So that’s why we make promises, dramatic declarations, have weddings, get married. It’s really all to ward off those fears, isn’t it?”
“That’s only one way to look at it. The other side would be that all of those expressions are celebrations of love in spite of fear.”
“No guarantees, huh?”
“No part of life comes with them from what I can see. But that’s not a good reason to give up on love. What kind of life would it be if love weren’t a possibility?”
She considered that. “Love is a possibility rather than a guarantee.”
He held her closer. “And a reality. It’s something real, Taffy. And I want to share it with you.”
She half expected him to get down on one knee but was so grateful he didn’t because that would have sent her reeling right over the edge, and she wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. She needed to take things in stages.
“And you really would go back to New York with me if I wanted—needed—to do that?”
“I would.” He pressed his lips into the top of her head and she wrapped her arms tightly around his back. She smiled into his chest.
“You look good in a suit, you know. Like… really sexy…”
“Hate the ties though and the snug collars. Ugh.”
“And your smooth cheeks, so I can see that strong jaw more clearly…”
He pulled back and rubbed his one-day-old growth. “You know, I didn’t mind it that much. I could shave like that for a while. For a change.”
Taffy smiled, looking up at him. There was a little sparkle in his eye.
In a slightly husky voice, he said, “And I still have the suit.”
She arched one eyebrow. “You do?”
“And a fresh blade for my razor…”
“It’s not like I want you to change or anything… I like you the way you are. I do. I love your rough ranger side, too.”
Warming to Ethan’s range of personalities, she assessed her situation: Loyal-as-Lassie amateur sleuth was no lapdog, but she had finally been let out of the doghouse and was now entertaining the possibility of a lap dance.
Ethan slipped one arm around her back and tipped her sideways so his other arm could swoop under her legs. She gasped and giggled as he carried her over the threshold, up the stairs, and into her bedroom.
Midnight tried to follow but Ethan managed to kick the door shut before he co
uld slink in. Taffy heard one faint meow beyond the door, and then all was quiet. Until their own private music started, accompanied by their own private dance.
* * *
A while later, after Ethan had left to return the rental car, Taffy checked her phone and saw she’d missed several calls from Maria. She had half a dozen voicemail messages waiting for her, too, but she didn’t bother to check them just yet. First, she called Maria back.
“I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“I saw, but Ethan was here and… well, you were right. Everything turned out all right.” Taffy was still glowing from the all rightness of it all.
“Good. Fine. That’s not what I called about. Are you sitting down?”
“No. Why?”
“Lorne’s dead.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Maria said, “I think you should come down here.”
“To the station? I didn’t think I was welcome there.”
“I’m making an exception. I need your help.”
Taffy poured some food in a dish for Midnight and then headed out to meet Maria.
As she drove, she went over the last bit of her phone conversation with Maria.
“We found him in the bathtub, in his resort room,” Maria had said. “He’d clearly been drinking, and there was evidence of drugs.”
“He passed out? Drowned?” Taffy had asked.
“Maybe intentionally. Or maybe not. I had been trying to tell you some of what we’d found out last night, but you were in no shape—”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry. Not my finest moment.”
“While you were out of town my team discovered letters and emails from an unknown ISP address that was eventually traced back to Russia. It looked like Lorne’s debtors were coming to collect.”
“You think they killed him?”
“I wonder if he was trying to take care of it before they got there. Based on what we’ve discovered it seems he was in pretty deep, had been for years. He’d been paying back in small increments, and he’d recently led his contacts to believe he was coming into some money and would get it to them soon.”
