“That’s crazy,” she said. “We barely know each other, and I’m not even going to think about having another baby unless I’m married.”
“Let’s get married, then.”
“Frank!” She laughed, but she wasn’t sure he wasn’t serious. “You want to marry me so you don’t have to use a condom?”
“No, I want to marry you because I don’t ever want this to end.”
“But this isn’t marriage, Frank. Marriage is loading the dishwasher and bandaging skinned knees and leaving the top off the toothpaste.”
“I never do that.”
“Me either, but—”
“See? We’re very compatible, and besides I’m crazy about you. I knew the first time I saw you. We can take it slow if you have doubts, but I don’t have any.”
“Well, you should. How many other women have you wanted to marry?”
“One,” he said. “No, two. The one I married and Jennifer Lopez.”
Teresa threw a pillow at him.
Chapter 8
She never slept well in a strange bed, but she was comfortable enough, and the sound of the surf helped. She was only half asleep when Frank got out of bed to take a shower, but she didn’t move until he came back and bent to kiss her. “Time to get up, sleepyhead. Get dressed, and we’ll go out to breakfast.”
She stretched and sat up. He drew back the drapes, letting in the sunlight and the ocean view. It looked like it would be another beautiful day. He was dressed in jeans and a navy blue polo shirt.
“Wear the shirt I bought for you yesterday,” he said as she picked up her overnight bag.
“Okay—where is it?” She looked around.
“Oh, I guess I left them in the car,” he said. “I’ll go out and get it.”
“No, Frank, I’ll wear something else,” she said, but he took his key card and headed on out the door. She shrugged and went into the bathroom. She washed up, brushed her teeth, and dressed in jeans. He tapped on the door, and she opened it wide enough to take the T-shirt. She snipped the tag off with her fingernail scissors and looked at the label. It was a size smaller than she would have chosen—she liked them loose for comfort—and she didn’t usually wear the V-neck style, but it was pretty, and she thought it would fit.
It did, if a little snugly, and she loved the color and the sea anemone design. It showed where they had been and what she liked—a definite plus for self-expression. Frank smiled when she emerged from the bathroom. “I knew it would look great on you,” he said, and then he held up the handcuffs.
“Why did you bring those in?” she asked. Police work wasn’t supposed to intrude on their holiday. In answer, he took her hand and closed one of the cuffs around her wrist. “What the hell, Frank?”
“You are under arrest,” he said. She was too stunned to resist when he put the other one on. “For grand theft, heart,” he added. He was smiling, but it didn’t feel like a joke to her. She was not amused.
“Take them off,” she said.
“You have the right to remain compliant,” he said.
“Very funny. Now take them off.”
“You said you liked handcuffs,” he said. “Remember?”
“This isn’t what I meant. Take them off right now.”
“Okay, okay.” He found the key in his pocket and unlocked the cuffs. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I guess we should have talked about it first.”
“Talked about what?” She rubbed her wrists. Her heart was beating too fast.
“I thought it might be fun to try something a little different.”
“Like role-playing, you mean? I’m not playing that role. I’m a little claustrophobic. I did not like it.” She spoke as emphatically as she could without raising her voice.
“Sorry,” he said and kissed her consolingly. “I shouldn’t have surprised you. Let’s eat, and we can talk about it later.”
She couldn’t think of anything to say. What had she gotten herself into now? She put on her shoes and picked up her purse while he told her where they were going—the hotel’s Beachfront Grill, the source of last night’s wonderful burgers. She said nothing as they headed down the stairs and across the parking lot. It was sunny but still cool, and she hadn’t brought her sweater. “Are you mad at me?” Frank asked.
“No, I just…I don’t know what to say.”
He took her hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry.” He sounded very contrite. “Are you really claustrophobic?”
“A little.”
“Obviously I didn’t know. Like elevators and—?”
“No, or only if I was trapped in one.”
They were at the entrance to the restaurant by then, and he opened the door for her. The large room offered a panoramic view of the ocean, and they were seated right away at a table next to one of the many picture windows. Like most restaurants in the coastal towns, this one specialized in seafood, but the breakfast menu offered plenty of variety, and the prices were very reasonable.
“What sounds good?” Frank asked her.
Teresa decided to be reckless. “I think I’ll have Bananas Foster French toast.”
“I’d like more protein,” he said.
“I love breakfast.”
“Me too.” He grinned. “Most important meal of the day.” He ordered a three-egg scramble with country fried potatoes. Teresa kept her gaze on the lovely view, but she was remembering linguini at the Perfect Place and the first-date awkwardness of not knowing what to say. Now they had been physically intimate, and she still didn’t know him. She wanted to go home.
“Teresa, please don’t be mad.”
“I’m not. It’s so beautiful out there.” She looked at him. His eyes were dark, filled with concern for her. Tall, dark, and handsome—every little girl’s dream.
“I didn’t mean to spoil the mood,” he said. “We can’t discuss it here, but the last thing I meant to do was upset you.”
“It’s all right. Let’s just enjoy our breakfast and the view. This is good coffee, isn’t it?” She took another sip. She usually avoided too much caffeine, but it would be a long day. She looked out at the waves and remembered what she was thinking before he spoke. “I don’t even know your full name,” she said.
“That’s an easy one. Francis Prescott McAllister.”
“Prescott?”
“Yeah, we were supposedly descendants of William Prescott, who was some kind of Revolutionary War hero. It turned out it wasn’t true, but I was stuck with the name.”
“I like it.”
“What’s yours?”
“My maiden name was Maria Teresa Seguin.”
“Ah, my little Latina!”
“Only half.”
“You speak Spanish?”
“Only what I learned in high school, and I’ve forgotten a lot of it. Olvidé mas que recuerdo. My best line is Creo que su inglés es mejor que mi español.”
He didn’t ask her to translate. “So Lansing is your married name? You kept the jerk’s name?”
“It’s easier when you have kids—to have the same name.”
“Would you change it if you got married again?”
“Maybe, but I wasn’t planning to.”
“But you are now.” He reached out and gave her hand a quick squeeze.
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.” He said it teasingly, but she still didn’t like it. “Think about it—if we were married, I could put you on my insurance, and we could do the cochlear implant.” He could see she was about to protest and held up a hand. “I know you think he’s perfect, and I’m not trying to fix him.”
“Frank! Slow down!”
“When is Oktoberfest? I want to meet your boy.”
“Next weekend, and his name is Aiden.”
“Right. I know you and Aiden are a package deal, and I promise I’ll do my best to develop a good relationship with him.”
She took a deep breath. “I should teach you a few signs.”
“Yea
h, okay. Does he read lips?”
“Yes, but it’s hard work, especially with new people—a lot of guesswork.” She fingerspelled h-i. “You can use that for hi. Or this.” She made the sign for hello.
He didn’t try to imitate her. “Let’s not do it here.”
“If signing in public embarrasses you—”
“No, but I feel stupid because I don’t know any yet. You can teach me later. Oktoberfest is the whole weekend? We’ll go Saturday morning, then.” He wasn’t asking; he was telling her.
“Frank!” She was alarmed by how easily he could take control of her life, but it was as if she had been in freefall for a while, and now she had landed—safely? Or in a hostile wilderness?
“What?”
“Nothing—go on.”
“What do they have to eat? Anything good?”
“A few things—German potato salad, sauerbraten, Black Forest cake. Aiden will want hot dogs.”
“Is there a sign for that?”
She showed him. He nodded, but he didn’t try it. Still, he had asked. It was a start.
****
Walking back to the room, they held hands, and there was a sense of belonging they hadn’t had before. It was something she had been missing for a while without realizing it. A woman did not need a man to be complete, but raising a child as a single parent could be a very lonely struggle.
Teresa went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth, and when she came out, Frank was sitting on his bed and gestured for her to join him. When she did he took her hand and held it in both of his. The handcuffs were on the nightstand, and he nodded toward them. “I’m sorry I sprung those on you, but…you seemed so open, and I thought you’d like it.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know. No bullshit between us. You can always tell me how you feel. It’s not a big deal either way, but let me explain what I have in mind.”
“Not if it involves handcuffs.”
“No, I can see the handcuffs were a bad idea. The claustrophobia comes from not being able to get free, right? You’re okay in an elevator because you know the door will open?”
“I guess so.”
“Now if I took the belt from this robe”—the white terry hotel robe lay across the foot of the bed—“and tied your hands with it—”
“Which is not going to happen.”
“It’s soft and has a lot of give. If it was tied loosely, you could easily get free if you wanted to.”
“No.”
“The way it was explained to me is when you give up control, you don’t have to take any responsibility, and you can relax and just enjoy whatever happens.”
“Count me out. I’m not going to do it.”
“I’m not talking about dominance and discipline. This isn’t that at all. You know I would never hurt you, Teresa. I love you. This would be the simplest form of bondage, very light bondage. Lots of people do it.”
“No, Frank. This is not for me, and it never will be. If you want bondage games, you have the wrong girl. Maybe Lacey will play with you.” She couldn’t keep the tinge of bitterness out of her voice.
“Who?”
“Lacey Norman. Waitress at the Cougar Grill? She—”
“Oh, the kind of slutty one?”
“Young, blonde, well-endowed. I didn’t think she was slutty until she slept with Brett.”
“You’re kidding. He slept with her? It would be like gorging on Twinkies when you have fine Belgian chocolate at home.” She didn’t rise to the compliment, and he said, “So it’s a no?”
“It’s a no.” She suspected it was also the end of this little romance—if it had ever been one.
“Okay,” he said. “It’s okay.” He released her hand and pulled her toward him for a quick, gentle kiss.
“Did your wife let you do those things?” She thought the discussion was finished now, and she was just curious.
“Yes. She liked it. In fact she was the one who got me into it.”
“So it wasn’t like a deep-seated preference of yours, just something you got into with her?”
“Right. Like I said, no big deal either way. Forget I asked.” He kissed her temple and then let her go. “We don’t have to check out until noon. Do you want to head back to the beach for a while, or go on to Bedford Light?”
“The lighthouse,” she said. They had supposedly settled the matter, but she didn’t particularly want to be in a hotel room with him right now.
They loaded the car and walked across the lot to the hotel desk. While Frank took care of the bill, Teresa ran her eyes over the headlines of the Powell City Register lying on the counter. A familiar name caught her attention—Linedecker. She picked up the paper. The third body found under the riverbank at Big Devil Creek had been identified. The name was being withheld pending notification of next of kin, but the victim was a young woman who had disappeared from Yaholo several months before. In the damp of the riverbed, her partially clad body had decomposed quickly. No traces of DNA were found to link to a suspect, but it was believed she had been sexually assaulted and strangled—while Wade Linedecker was safely locked up in state prison.
The hair on the back of Teresa’s neck stood up. Yaholo was not much bigger than Cougar and about the same distance from Powell City. Small towns like Cougar might not be as safe as she had assumed. She remembered Frank saying Chelsea shouldn’t bicycle home alone after dark. He was just being a cop, but maybe he was right.
She pointed the item out to him. “So Linedecker was telling the truth,” he said.
“It’s odd that somebody else would choose the same place to bury a murder victim. A copycat?”
“It was before he revealed where he’d buried his. It might be somebody who knew him, somebody he told. I imagine they’ll look at his former cellmates and other associates.”
Chapter 9
The weather stayed nearly perfect as the day went on. Frank and Teresa visited Bedford Light, which catered less to tourists than Oxhead and was more authentic to its historic origins, and drove on to Guardian Bay. It was a small but lively town with a quaint little harbor full of fishing boats, a whale watching station, several good restaurants, and dozens of gift shops where a wide range of souvenirs could be bought. One store was completely devoted to kites, which Aiden would like, and numerous shops offered everything from jewelry to sunglasses.
Teresa had her hands full keeping a lid on Frank’s desire to buy her everything she showed an interest in. She wondered if he was trying to make up to her for the earlier unpleasantness. They did buy saltwater taffy for Aiden and Sasha and fudge for Alix and spent considerable time in the largest T-shirt shop, where any of a wide variety of designs could be heat-transferred onto the shirt of the buyer’s choice. He bought a white crew neck with a picture of the Guardian Bridge for himself, and when she couldn’t immediately choose which of two she wanted, he bought them both. She had the lighthouse design put on a long-sleeved navy blue shirt and an intricate flower pattern on pink.
They ate lunch at Tavier’s, a quiet, charming family restaurant with a view of the harbor. Considering what she’d had for breakfast, she wanted something light and settled for a salmon-and-cucumber salad while he ordered a steak sandwich. Tavier’s had no children’s menu, so they crossed it off the list of possible places to take Aiden. She was emotionally exhausted and a bit tired of eating out, but she did her best to enjoy herself.
After lunch, they stood for a while at the sea wall, soaking in the sun and the view. Frank suggested a whale watching expedition, but Teresa was ready to go home. “Okay,” he said, “but I’d like to make one stop on the way.”
This proved to be a shopping center where Frank took her to a store called Cellphone Source. “This is too much!” Teresa protested.
“I’ll feel better if you have a decent phone for emergencies,” he said. He asked her a few questions about her preferences, but ignored all of her objections. He bought her a state-of-the-art smartphone with a lot more features t
han she would ever need and a smaller, simpler phone for Aiden. “I know you’ll have to set limits for him,” he said, “but he can use it to text you.”
“He’s six years old!”
“Does the little girl he plays with have one?”
“Yes, but I don’t think it’s anything fancy. I think she’s too young, but Alix said kids are smarter than we are about them and she might as well have one.”
“Good argument. It will be a great way for them to communicate and help with their reading skills. ”
“If we want them to learn text-speak.”
“It’s a way he can fit in better with other kids, too—he can text them if they don’t know sign language.”
“I think it’s too much for a boy his age, and this one is way too fancy for me. I won’t be able to figure out how to use it.”
“Yes, you will. I’ll get it set up for you, and it will be a cinch. Are you sure this is the color you want?”
“Frank, I really don’t think this is a good idea.”
“It’s a great idea, and you know it.”
She gave in, but a little later, as they drove back into familiar territory, she thought, Wait, what just happened? This isn’t me. This isn’t the person I am. The entire weekend had been like a dream in which she struggled to control events and kept failing. She decided she would work out how to make herself clear to Frank and give the phones back in the next few days.
He insisted on carrying her overnight bag and most of her packages into the house. He’d had only a quick look at the living room when he paid Chelsea the week before, and she couldn’t say no when he asked for a tour. “This place come furnished?” he asked.
“No, just the appliances. The rest is mine, mostly things my parents gave me when they moved to the city.”
He admired the paintings she had hung—one of bamboo and chrysanthemums and one of fishing boats—and commented on the size of the television set. “I guess I’m used to my big screen,” he said.
“It’s big enough for us,” Teresa said. “And it has closed captioning.”
The Rebound Effect Page 7
