by Nancy Warren
He felt like smacking himself upside the head. He knew why he’d followed her even as he didn’t want to know. He’d picked up the distress signals coming off her like cries from a sinking ship. When he’d caught her eyeing him on the escalator, he’d first noticed her brightness, the colorful clothes, the sexy attitude.
Her eyes were the eyes of a dreamer and when he looked into them he saw sex. It was crazy, but he’d felt instant chemistry, a powerful mix of heat and lust that could burn a man to cinders. But then he’d seen the mayday flares shooting out of them.
When would he ever learn? Wounded birds weren’t for him. He’d had enough—enough of doves with broken wings. He couldn’t fix them all and every time he failed, a little piece of him died.
He could tell himself to act differently next time. He still saw a wounded bird and he wanted to run to the rescue. He hadn’t fallen for one in a long time. Why this one? Why now?
Stupido.
His helmet brushed his thigh as he walked out into the blazing sunshine of the shopping center parking lot, squinting while he dug out his sunglasses. Once his eyes were shaded, he could see his buddy waiting, none too patiently, by a truck so clean it suggested its owner didn’t have enough to do, which in Rafe’s opinion was exactly the problem.
Because he could see impatience in the man’s every line, he slowed his pace, taking the time to admire a truly excellent BMW Motorrad K 1200 R. He pictured himself flying down the highway, leaning into curves. In a flash he pictured that sweet-eyed woman, still wearing her skirt, because what the hell, in a fantasy nobody had to wear biking leathers. She was in her skirt, her long legs tucked around his, the dragon tattoo he’d noted on her ankle flashing green in the sun.
Shaking his head at his own foolishness, he kept walking to where Matt Tanner was standing, leaning against his too-clean truck, arms crossed over his chest. “Well?”
“I didn’t see any English chick.”
“She was talking to the long-haired gal with a small tattoo on her ankle.”
Rafe nodded. “Her, I saw. But she was alone.”
“In the food court?”
“No. I followed her into a department store. She never hooked up with any English woman.” She’d also shoplifted, which he kept to himself for reasons he didn’t entirely understand. She’d thought better of it, so she hadn’t in fact stolen anything, which made him feel okay about his silence.
“Hmm.”
“What’s up with the British chick? You know something you should be sharing with an old buddy who is still on the force?”
Matt shook his head. “No. Nothing like that. She’s my tenant, new to the States, and has a bad habit of getting involved in things that aren’t her business.”
Rafe recalled the aborted shoplifting attempt and felt a frown pull his mouth in tight. “You’re sure we’re not talking illegal activities here?”
“Not unless being nosy, interfering, and bossy is illegal.”
He snorted. “Should be.”
Because of his training and the kind of work he did, Rafe’s eyes were never still. Even as he hung out in the parking lot, his gaze was sweeping the vicinity for possible trouble. His eyes narrowed behind the glasses.
There she was, his latest wounded dove, emerging from a mall exit to the east of where he and Matt stood. She walked quickly, as though she was late for something. She’d seemed like she was in a big hurry when he left her, so how had she come out of the mall so much later than he had? Had she hit another store the minute his back was turned?
He wasn’t even on duty, and petty shoplifting wasn’t exactly his area, but it irked the hell out of him to think that she’d gone and done such a stupid thing right after he’d confronted her.
“I gotta go,” he said.
If Tanner was surprised at the abrupt departure, he didn’t let on. “Yeah. See you later. And thanks.”
“No problem,” he said over his shoulder. He was already on the move.
Rafe followed the woman on foot. He liked the way she walked in her heels, with that sway to her hips. Her hair swung from side to side, a long, rippling curtain. She might be a petty shoplifter, but it didn’t erase the fact that he had a serious weakness for long hair. Hell, from the second their gazes had connected, he’d been hooked.
She walked into a bank without a clue she’d been followed. He didn’t enter, but took up a position on the street corner where he could see inside. To his surprise, she walked through the employees-only doorway and into the back.
Sure enough, within five minutes, she was back out front and settling herself into one of the tellers’ chairs.
He wondered, with an uneasy feeling in his gut, what a thief was doing working in a bank.
Chapter 6
Deborah Beaumont didn’t have time for sex. Not this morning. She had case files to review before she saw her patients today and she had to pick up her new eyeglasses. However, Jordan Errington, her partner in work and life, was running his hand up and down her front in his usual signal and she realized it had been a long time since they’d made love.
So, she obliged, raising her shoulders so he could slip the cotton nightgown off her body, making encouraging sounds when he rubbed her breasts and when his hand slid south, parting her thighs for him. After he’d caressed her a little bit, enough that she did have a mild buzz on, he asked, “Are you ready?”
He always asked. It was sweet and thoughtful, but sometimes she wished he’d just get on with it.
“Yes,” she whispered. When he entered her, she began to move in tandem with him.
She stroked his back while she wondered whether the Petersons would have done their homework this week. If yet again they hadn’t bothered, she was going to have to suggest a different therapist. Some people didn’t seem to realize that a successful marriage required effort.
When she sensed from Jordan’s quickened movements and harsh breathing that he was approaching climax, she gave a theatrical shudder and a soft cry. He immediately followed with his own shudder and grunting sigh. Normally, of course, she wasn’t an advocate of faking orgasm, but she didn’t have the time or the enthusiasm right now. Nor did she want to discuss her feelings, which was definitely the downside of being romantically involved with a fellow therapist.
Not that they’d had time to discuss much of anything lately, with their busy practice and their book coming out. When Jordan gave her a kiss on the cheek and rolled off her, he headed for the main bathroom in her townhouse, leaving her the ensuite. She dashed into the shower, trying to make up the minutes of her day that she’d sacrificed to keeping her own relationship running smoothly.
She and Jordan kept separate homes and even though they worked side by side, rarely drove in to their downtown office together. She had her glasses to pick up, his appointments might end at a different time from hers, so, even though they were linked personally and professionally, they both respected each other’s independence. One day she suspected they’d move in together, but for now, this system worked.
The first thing she did once she reached the office was to slip on her new reading glasses and gaze lovingly at the copy of her book Perfect Communication, Perfect Love the way she’d view her own child.
The guidebook she’d co-authored with Jordan was the culmination of years of work as a counselor. She tried, in her practice and in her life, to find the order in life’s chaos. Systems that made sense.
Deborah craved order the way a different woman might crave food. She didn’t need her degrees in psychology to tell her that growing up in chaos had undermined her sense of security in self and family and so she had compensated by creating rules and guidelines. It would have been one woman’s coping mechanism if she hadn’t found those same rules successful in helping her patients cope with their problems. Especially in the area of interpersonal communications.
And in the midst of helping her patients make sense of their lives and relationships, she’d met Jordan. Sweet, reliable Jordan, who
m she’d met while teaching the Transtheoretical Model of Change to other therapists. She had noticed him right away. His hair was reddish-brown and he had an intellectual face and the calmest blue eyes she’d ever seen. No turbulence tossed in their depths; looking at him was like gazing at a glassy lake, calm and clear. She somehow knew, just from a glimpse at him, that he was one of those people born with the secret of living calmly in a chaotic world.
They were a perfect match. The order she strove so consistently to maintain in her own life was effortless in his. She felt their perfection first in working together, when she’d hired him, and then as a couple when they’d moved slowly but inevitably into intimacy.
A feeling of calm stole over her every time she looked at the book with their two names on the jacket.
Everything was fine. Her system worked.
She noticed a fingerprint on the dust jacket of her book and, using the dusting cloth she kept in her bottom drawer, she carefully rubbed the surface back to a perfect gloss.
Her intercom buzzed. She checked her schedule. “The Petersons are here,” Carly said.
“Thank you.” They were right on time. She appreciated punctuality in clients.
She rose and crossed the soft blue carpet, chosen for its soothing color, and opened the door. Henrik Peterson sat stiffly, his body facing away from his wife’s, thumbs busy with his cell phone. Janine Peterson sat beside her husband reading a magazine.
“Janine and Henrik,” she called, “please come in.”
They walked into her office, not even glancing at each other. Henrik stood back and waited for his wife to enter first, but he did it without making eye contact.
Deborah wasn’t getting a good feeling about this. They settled themselves in the seating area she’d designed to look like a living room. Gentle lighting, neutral colored armchairs. A glass and marble table.
She sank into a chair across from them with her notebook and smiled.
Mrs. Peterson smiled back at her. Henrik wore the expression of a man who had to be somewhere ten minutes ago and didn’t have time for this.
“How did we do this week?” She glanced between them. “Henrik? Would you begin?”
He stared at the glass table. “Not good.”
Silence.
“You remember your assignment from last week?”
He shifted irritably. “Yeah, yeah. Write down something about Janine that bugs me.” He shrugged. “There are so many things I didn’t know where to start.”
Making a note to talk later about why he belittled his wife, she said, “Let’s see what you wrote on your worksheet.”
She’d designed the binder system herself. The folder kept pages neat and uncreased and she had instructions and questions that could be modified for each particular client. Task sheets with nice, long areas for self-expression.
“I didn’t have time to fill out the form.”
If he thought a divorce wasn’t going to be a big waste of his precious time, he was fooling himself, but of course she didn’t allow her frustration to show. “All right. Perhaps next week you’ll have a little more time.”
Mrs. Peterson, like most of her female clients, was more communicative. She opened her binder without prompting and Deborah could see her neat, looping writing covering the page.
“You asked us to choose one minor area of conflict to focus on. I chose how he never helps with the dishes.”
“Huh,” said Henrik.
“Go on, Janine.”
“I did exactly what you said. I waited until we had a relaxed time with not a lot going on and—”
“Relaxed? How can I be relaxed with you nagging all the time?”
The words went through Deb like tiny arrows. Puncture, puncture, puncture… She’d heard those words, and that tone, so many times in her life. Her father yelling at her mother. Her mother yelling at her father. Her siblings adding their loud voices to the mix.
“Henrik?”
“What?” His face was red and his shoulders up around his ears with tension.
“Do you think that’s helpful?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Showing up isn’t enough. You have not been using your book. I cannot help you if you won’t use the book.”
He tried to interrupt but she stopped him with a hand in the air, rather like a kindergarten teacher, which was at about the right emotional level. “Do not interrupt me. I am suspending your session. It’s pointless to continue with counseling or with me—” She stopped to drill him with her gaze. “—until you are willing to do the work.”
He went even redder in the face, but what did he expect? He lived in emotional disorder and he’d remain in that state until he did the work.
“I suggest you go home and think about whether you want to continue with me. If you decide you do, then please fill out the workbook as I asked you and phone my office to book your next appointment. Or I could help you find a therapist who might be more suitable for you.” Then she rose. “I’m sorry, Janine,” she said, feeling that she’d let this nice woman down. The one who was willing to do whatever it took to save her marriage.
“It’s not your fault.” They both glanced at the man stalking toward the door.
“Good afternoon.” The farewell sounded formal and old-fashioned, which was fine by her. Polite behavior was governed by rules too.
The Petersons shuffled out and she thought she might use the time remaining in their slot to get ahead on some reports, when her intercom buzzed. Carly’s voice came through a little tinny. “Stephanie Baxter is on the phone for you.”
Stephanie wasn’t scheduled to see her for weeks. They’d finished regular therapy after Stephanie had made such good progress that Deborah had dropped her sessions to four a year simply for maintenance. A call from her between regular sessions could only be bad news. “Thanks. Put her through.”
“I need to see you right away,” said the shaky voice on the phone.
“Where are you?”
“At the mall.”
Deb’s heart sank. Stephanie plus mall equaled trouble.
“How soon can you get here?”
“I have to go to work.”
“Okay. Come when your shift ends. I’ll wait for you.” She and Jordan had planned to have dinner together, but she suspected she’d be too busy helping a client in crisis.
“I almost took it.” Stephanie’s hands shook. “I almost took the watch. It was in my bag. I would have—” She gazed at Deborah with naked appeal. “I would have.”
“But you didn’t.”
“He stopped me.”
“Who?”
Her eyes fluttered closed and she put her shaking hands over them. “This guy. I don’t know who he was. He was following me around the store, watching me.”
“A store detective?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I didn’t stay around to find out.”
“Okay. Let’s go back to the moment outside, in the mall, when you first experienced the urge. What was going on?” Shoplifting was an addiction, like drugs or alcohol, Deborah believed, but in Stephanie’s case it was also a cry for help. Her psyche’s way of clanging a fire bell.
“I took back the ring from Derek. We got re-engaged.”
“So, you’d broken off the engagement? I didn’t know that.” The careful neutrality of her voice was deliberately soothing. She made a note on her pad with one fluid motion. No wonder Stephanie was in crisis if she was trying to dump the most stable influence in her life.
“Yeah. Yes. We had a fight and I gave the ring back.”
“I see. What was the fight about?”
“It’s dumb.”
Silence.
“If it was enough to break your engagement over, it can’t have been dumb to you.”
Stephanie stared at the floor. “I guess. It was about my mother. He thinks she’s too demanding of me. Too clingy.”
“I see. What do you think about that?”
; Her body stiffened and Deborah watched her hands clasp each other tightly, as though meeting for the first time. “I don’t know. My mom’s never had it easy, you know?”
“Yes. I do. You’ve told me before about your father’s drinking and jail time.”
“He wasn’t much of a dad, but he tried. Mom’s so happy that I found Derek. She thinks he’s the best thing that ever happened to me, so to have him talk about her like that, and to tell me that I need to create more distance between us...” She shrugged. “I guess I lost it.”
“What made you reconsider?”
“He says he loves me and he’s sorry. He never meant to hurt me. And all my friends tell me he’s the best thing that ever happened to me too.” She glanced up and her eyes were troubled. “I haven’t had great luck with guys.”
You’re not kidding. Deborah mentally went over the list of winners Stephanie had spent time with during the time she’d been in therapy. There was the drug addict, the guy who thought Keep Austin Weird was his personal one-man mission, the mechanic who’d turned out to be running a chop shop, the amateur boxer who practiced on his girlfriend when he was frustrated. No, Stephanie could not be said to have sterling taste in men.
“He’s just so different. That’s what attracted me to him in the first place. I decided I was finished with losers and creeps, and when I met Derek it was like a sign. He wears a suit and tie to work, he doesn’t drink, he never borrows money off me.”
Hardly a list of qualities in the perfect husband, but still, for Stephanie, it was a big step forward.
“Why do you think you got that urge to shoplift right after you got engaged again?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. This woman had been sitting beside us at the food court—”
“You got engaged at the food court?” She never interrupted a client, and she’d heard some strange things, but getting engaged at the food court was about as wretched a story as she could ever imagine having to tell one’s grandchildren.
“Well, re-engaged. The first time it was at a fancy restaurant and the waiter served the ring on a silver platter.” She mimed a dome with her hand. “You know, one of those with the round lids you lift off?”
