by Mary McBride
Shelby sighed aloud. She’d really been expecting the worst.
“How long are you planning to be away, Ms. Simon?” he asked.
“Well, I’m not exactly sure, Dave.” She couldn’t imagine why he was asking her. In the several years she’d lived at the Canfield Towers, she’d traveled extensively, and the doorman had never inquired about her schedule. “Why?”
“Somebody was here early this morning, looking for you. He wanted to find out where you were.”
He? A little warning signal went off in Shelby’s brain. Nobody ever stopped by her apartment or dropped in on her unannounced. Not her female friends and especially not any of the men she knew and occasionally went out with. So who was looking for her? And why?
“Did he leave his name, Dave?”
“No, Ms. Simon, he wouldn’t. I asked him... twice, in fact... but he was pretty unhappy with me by that time because I wouldn’t give him your present whereabouts or a number where he could reach you.”
Shelby’s heart was beating a little harder now and her palms began to sweat. She felt threatened, which was completely ridiculous and even irrational because Chicago was 250 miles away and she was here, at Heart Lake, safe in the middle of the beloved brass bed she’d slept in since childhood. And Lieutenant Mick Callahan was around. Somewhere. All she had to do was scream.
“What did this guy look like, Dave?” She was already imagining a gigantic, drooling, bug-eyed monster who dragged one leg. No. Wait. To even get halfway through the lobby of the Canfield Towers, the guy would have to look relatively normal. He probably still looked vaguely chilling, like Christopher Walken, maybe, or Kevin Spacey, or Jack Nicholson at his most menacing.
“Well, let’s see,” Dave said. “He was tall. Over six feet. Maybe six-two or -three. He was heavyset. Kinda scruffy-looking, to tell you the truth, Ms. Simon. In a tan corduroy jacket with leather elbow patches. He had reddish hair—what’s the word? Auburn?—and a big, sort of brushy red mustache.”
“Derek!” Shelby let her breath out and flopped backward on the mattress. It was Derek McKay from the paper. Thank God. She probably should have known that the ace reporter and inveterate snoop with the brushy red mustache would come looking for her after she’d left the office so abruptly yesterday.
“So you know him, then, Ms. Simon?”
“Yes, I know him. He’s a colleague of mine at the Daily Mirror. It’s okay. I’ll get in touch with him right away. I appreciate your concern, Dave.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” he said. “Do you want to leave me your address, Ms. Simon, just in case...?”
“No,” Shelby said emphatically. “Thanks, Dave. Anybody who needs to know will be able to find me. And thanks for letting me know about Joe’s condition. I’m so glad he’s okay.”
After she hung up, she lay there just breathing deeply for a minute while she stared up at the ceiling fan. It was still, and Shelby was trying to be still, too.
She wasn’t used to being wary and on guard. In thirty-four years, she’d never really been afraid of anything or anyone. Growing up in the suburbs, in the shady shelter of Evanston, and here on the quiet shores of Heart Lake, there had never been a single thing to fear. The sum of her caution as a kid had been looking both ways before she crossed a street and waiting half an hour after eating lunch before she dived into the lake.
But now, all of a sudden, the world seemed to have turned from a benevolent place to one where danger lurked on every corner, behind every tree, and in every single mailbox. And Shelby didn’t have the slightest idea what she had done to bring such imminent doom and destruction down upon herself. She wrote an advice column, for heaven’s sake. She tried her best to help thousands of people she didn’t even know. What was so terrible about that?
Maybe she should ask herself for some good advice, she thought.
Dear Ms. Simon,
I seem to be sinking deeper and deeper into a pool of self-pity. Help!!
Signed,
Miserable in Michigan
Dear Miserable,
You need to worry about others. What about your parents? Worry about them. Self-pity sucks.
Ms. Simon Says So
At the mere thought of her parents, Shelby rolled her eyes at the ceiling and sighed aloud. Well, that was one surefire way to forget her own problems. By focusing on theirs. Whatever they were.
She decided her call to Derek McKay and the other calls could wait while she stuck her nose in this separation business.
Her mother wasn’t back from town yet, and her father was nowhere to be found. If Shelby hadn’t known better, she’d think they were deliberately avoiding her.
As she strolled back from the deserted carriage house, she saw Callahan standing down by the dock, skimming rocks out into the lake. It struck her as such a little boyish thing to do that she found herself smiling in a goofy way and nearly laughing out loud. Then she remembered what the lieutenant had told her about being abandoned by his father and then dragged around the country by his mother, and she thought he probably never got to do too many little boyish things when he was a little boy.
She was feeling almost tender toward him when she suddenly stopped smiling and remembered how irked she was by their earlier conversation about women and self defense. What a macho jerk. By the time she’d made her way down the winding sidewalk that led from the house to the shoreline, Shelby had worked herself into a proper snit.
“Hey,” he said, greeting her as he side-armed a small flat rock out across the water.
All of a sudden she noticed what a graceful athlete he was, and how beautifully proportioned his body was with its just right shoulders and just right waist and...oh, Lord!... buns that could put McDonald’s out of business. She didn’t ordinarily notice things like that.
Shelby almost stopped being mad at the patronizing pig for a second. Almost.
“Hey. We never got to finish our discussion about women and self-defense, Callahan,” she said in a voice fairly dripping with honey.
“I was finished,” he said, picking up another rock and skidding it across the surface of the lake.
“Well, I wasn’t. You know, this is a subject I write about pretty frequently in my column so I’ve done more than just read about it. I actually took a course in self-defense a few years ago.” Well, her schedule only permitted her to take half the course, but she didn’t have to admit that.
Callahan just stood there gazing at her, his expression somewhere between irritation and condescension.
“Want me to show you?” she asked.
“No.”
“Oh, come on. What’re you afraid of?”
“Nothing. I just don’t want to play your dumb little game.”
“You’re afraid of me,” she crowed.
He lofted an agonized gaze skyward and then sighed. “Okay. Gimme your best shot.”
Shelby shook her head. “That’s not how self-defense works, you idiot. You’re supposed to attack me.”
“Forget it.” He took a step away from her, then bent and snatched up another rock.
“Come on, Callahan.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.” The rock went sailing out and did a triple skim across the still water.
“You jerk. That’s the whole point,” Shelby said. “You won’t hurt me because I know how to counteract your moves.”
Again, he just stared at her.
“Chicken,” she muttered.
“You got that right.”
“Come on.” Shelby advanced toward him. She reached out and pushed his shoulder while she made a little clucking sound. “Brk. Brk. Brk.”
He laughed, deflecting her hand when she tried to push him again. “Get outta here.”
“Brk. Brk. Brk.”
“Jesus, Shelby.” He ripped the fingers of both hands through his hair. “Give it a rest, will you?”
“Not until you attack me so I can prove my point. What are you afraid of, Callahan? That I’ll knock you on your a
ss?” She pushed him again. “Huh?”
“Yeah. That’s what I’m afraid of, all right,” he said, his voice thick with sarcasm.
“Come on,” she taunted.
He dragged in a breath. “Okay. Shit. This is ridiculous, you know. What do you want me to do?”
“Attack me.”
“Attack you. Okay. How? From the front? The back? Sideways?”
“The front’s fine,” she said, priming her biceps and her quads and her gluteus max along with all the muscles whose names she didn’t even know, trying like hell to remember all the right moves she’d learned in class. “Go for it.”
He swore again, then reached out to put his hands gently on her shoulders.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. What are you doing, Callahan? Dancing?”
“Okay,” he growled. “Just remember you asked for this. On the count of three...One...”
The next thing Shelby knew she was flat on her back on the little strip of sandy beach, trying to catch her breath, blinking up at the autumn sky and Callahan’s smirky face. “That’s not fair,” she howled. “You said on the count of three.”
“You didn’t say anything about being fair.” He grinned as he held his hand out to her. “Here. Up you go.”
She slapped the helping hand away and got up on her own, pulling twigs and leaves out of her hair. “Okay. Shit. I wasn’t ready, but this time...”
He did it again. Whatever he’d done the first time, he did again. And this time, even as she was toppling, Shelby was aware of the smooth and efficient way he’d unbalanced her. Dammit. It was what she’d intended to do to him.
She hit the sand with a loud oof as the breath sailed out of her chest, then she closed her eyes a moment, not because she was in pain, but to block out the sight of Callahan, looming over her like some stupid, grinning colossus.
“You okay?” he asked. “Yep.”
“Had enough?”
“Nope.” Shelby clenched her teeth and summoned every ounce of strength that remained in her body, then blasted her left leg out in Callahan’s direction, in the hope of cutting the son of a bitch off at the knees.
He must’ve seen it coming, though, because he leaped back just out of her range. God, the man had the reflexes of a snake! And then—before she could plan her next move—he was on top of her, his sudden weight forcing another little oof from her lungs. She raised her hands to push him away, but that turned out to be a big mistake when he linked his fingers through hers, stretched her arms over her head, and pinned her to the beach like a chloroformed butterfly.
“Say Uncle,” he said, grinning down at her.
Fuck you.
Shelby didn’t say it, but she thought it clearly enough as she forcibly wrenched her hips in order to shove him off. That was probably her second mistake—or was it the third?—moving like someone in the throes of passion beneath him.
His grin subsided and the light in his eyes altered from mirth to heat, from one sort of conquest to another. Or was his expression just mirroring her own?
Shelby’s breath was gone again, but its absence had nothing to do with her fall. It was because Mick Callahan’s mouth was mere inches from hers. Because she felt the strength of his erection where his jeans made contact with hers. Because she felt the sudden, hot, heart-stopping sweep of her own desire, which was a lot more than being turned on. It was more like being turned inside out.
Nobody had ever cursed her as the preamble to a kiss. Some men whispered her name. Some uttered a hoarse “C’mere.” Some didn’t say a word. But Callahan muttered a harsh “Damn you” as his mouth came down on hers.
The kiss flared out of control the instant it began. It was as if they were both starving, trying to consume each other. Tongues. Teeth. Lips.
Instinctively, Shelby opened her legs and Mick groaned as he pressed harder against her. If it hadn’t been for several layers of clothing, he would have been inside her, which seemed like the only thing in the world that she wanted at that moment. Boy, did she want it.
This was...
“Yoo hoo, Shelby.” Her mother’s voice drifted down from somewhere near the house. “Honey, will your friend be staying for dinner?”
Callahan broke the kiss, lifting his head and shifting his warm weight to the side.
It took Shelby a second or two to find her voice, and even then it came out sounding pretty sultry when she asked him,“Will you?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead he just perused her face as if he were seeing her for the first time. His gaze moved almost leisurely from her eyes to her mouth, and then back to her eyes. A tiny grin played at the corners of his mouth. Shelby couldn’t tell if it was bafflement or pleasure.
“Will you be staying?” she asked again, knowing full well she meant more than just for dinner, and knowing he knew exactly what she meant.
“Yes,” he answered quietly.
Shelby tried not to smile too broadly as she turned her head toward the lawn and called, “Yes, Mother. He’ll be staying.”
CHAPTER NINE
At six that evening, Harry Simon came bearing gifts— two bottles of an outrageously expensive 1996 Merlot that he knew his wife would love. The side entry to the kitchen was open, but still he tapped one of the bottles on the frame of the screen door.
“Harry?” she called.
“It’s me, Beauty.”
He opened the door and stepped inside the old house for the first time in several months. Linda was standing at the sink, scrubbing potatoes with the same grace and enthusiasm she brought to almost everything she did.
Funny, he thought. His wife was fifty-six years old and she still looked to him the way she did in high school. Her hair was still as blond as it had been then, and she still wore it the same way, pulled back by a headband—usually of black velvet—and falling in a soft pageboy that perfectly framed her face. He’d never thought about it before, but she must’ve gone through scores and scores of black velvet headbands over the past forty years.
This evening she was wearing beige slacks that looked very nice from his vantage point behind her, and above the slacks one of her own creations, or as he tended to think of them, the sweaters from hell that had driven a stake through the heart of his marriage.
He had retired early—the advance planning had taken a good three years at the firm—not just for his own amusement, but in order to spend time with his wife. Unfortunately, her business had begun to come out of the cottage at about the same time that he started winding down his caseload, and by the time he literally got his gold watch, Linda Purl Designs had gone ballistic and his wife was working twenty-six hours a day and traveling nine days a month.
At first he’d been a pretty good sport about it, if he did say so himself. Actually Linda’s hectic schedule hadn’t bothered him so much in the first months of his retirement when he was able to tee off at the club at eight o’clock on a Monday morning rather than fight traffic into his downtown office, when he was able to read fiction late into the night instead of legal briefs, when he was able to join his brother on safari in Kenya on one week’s notice or to take off spontaneously for some fishing in Key West or some golf in South Carolina.
The thrill of it all wore off after a few months, though, and Harry began asking himself why the hell he’d retired if he couldn’t spend his time with the love of his life. His moods darkened considerably. He muttered. He sulked. He turned into a goddamned martyr. Those were Linda’s words, not his. In his opinion, Harry had a legitimate grievance. Even more, he had an unwavering desire to live the rest of his life in the company of the lovely Linda
Simon, not the perennially distracted and frequently absent Linda Purl.
Their marriage turned into a minefield.
When Linda had calmly but firmly suggested he move out to the carriage house, he’d indulged her in the belief that the so-called separation would last a few weeks, a month at most, and then they’d resolve their difficulties. In other words, she’d cut
back on her professional obligations and spend more time with him, putting an end to his sulking and muttering and goddamned martyrdom. But that hadn’t happened. Yet. His wife was as stubborn as she was talented and beautiful.
“Where’s our daughter?” he asked, setting the wine bottles on a table by the refrigerator.
“Upstairs,” Linda said. “She said she had some calls to make.”
“And her...um... friend?”
She laughed. “He’s taking a walk.”
“Seems like a nice enough young man, don’t you think?”
“I haven’t had much time to talk to him, actually.” She scrubbed her potato a little more aggressively when she added, “He and Shelby were going at it pretty hot and heavy a while ago down by the dock.”
Considering their relationship as bodyguard and protectee, that should probably have surprised Harry, but nothing his daughters did surprised him much anymore. They’d inherited their unpredictability from their mother.
He was standing directly behind her now, looking down over her shoulder at the plain gold band on her wet left hand, the ring he’d slipped on that finger so long ago. Sometimes it seemed like just yesterday instead of thirty-five years ago. He dipped his head to kiss her neck.
“Don’t start, Harry,” she said quietly but firmly. “Can’t blame me for trying.” He sighed. “What’s for dinner besides potatoes?”
“Steaks and salad.” She turned off the water. “Let me get these in the oven, and then you can help me with the salad.”
“This is nice,” he said ten minutes later, standing beside her while she sliced a red onion and he pared a cucumber. “So, you think Shelby really likes this Callahan fellow?”
“Who knows? Shelby spends so much time butting in to other people’s love lives that she doesn’t seem to have any time for her own.”
He nodded in agreement. “She’s been doing that for a long time, hasn’t she? Butting in, I mean.”
“Yes, she has. I’d say she cut her teeth on Beth and Sam.”
“Well, she wasn’t wrong about that, Linda,” he said, shaving the last of the dark green skin from the cucumber. “If I’d known that Beth was thinking about eloping, I would’ve locked her in her room and thrown away the key. And anyway, it wouldn’t have worked out. Sam got married to somebody else a couple months after he left, didn’t he?”
