by Arlene James
“Where is home, then?” he asked, braking to a smooth halt at the stoplight on Abrams.
Several moments crept by. He’d begun to think that she wasn’t going to answer when she looked at him and said, “I don’t know.”
He couldn’t quite imagine what she meant, wasn’t sure what to think or feel about such an answer. He said nothing more until he pulled into one of only four unenclosed parking spaces in front of her apartment building.
She unbuckled her belt, but before she could let herself out, he opened his own door. She subsided instantly, sinking back into her seat until he could get to his feet and move around to get her door for her. He extended a hand, and she placed her much smaller one in it.
“Every time I see you,” he said as she pivoted on the seat and put her feet to the ground, “I wonder afterward why I didn’t ask for your telephone number.”
“Wouldn’t do you any good,” she said matter-of-factly.
His face must have fallen as quickly as his heart, for she suddenly smiled and said, “I don’t have a telephone.”
He chuckled and shook his head, crooking an arm over the edge of the open door. “I’d like to see you again.”
Her gaze dropped to her toes, then rose slowly to his face. “Let’s talk about it tomorrow. At lunch. In Thanksgiving Square?”
That sounded like a date to him, so he didn’t quibble. If she wanted to go slowly, keep it on her terms, he could accommodate her. Nodding, he smiled and said, “Tomorrow, then.”
She stepped out from behind the door. He closed it and walked beside her to the locked gate set into the grillwork of the security fence. He was glad she was sensible enough to rent in a secured building. She punched in the code, then smiled at him as the lock clicked open.
“Thank you for the ride.”
He hadn’t expected to be invited in, but he didn’t intend to budge until that gate was locked firmly behind her. “Any time.”
She went in. The gate swung shut with a clang. For a moment they just looked at each other through the heavy grillwork, then they turned and went their separate ways.
Piper woke on Monday morning wanting never to see Mitch Sayer again.
It was shocking, nonsensical, downright rude, but she couldn’t help deeply regretting that they must meet. What had possessed her to suggest it? Why hadn’t she realized before that he was exactly what she’d come to Dallas to escape—anything that bumped her against her past.
She prayed that it would rain, muttering for God to pour torrents down on Thanksgiving Square right through lunch, but she knew that would be only a temporary reprieve. At some point she was going to have to tell the man that she didn’t want to see him again. And how would she explain that? How would she make him understand that he was too much like what she’d walked away from, too reminiscent of the old life that she absolutely had to leave behind or go mad? It would be better if she just never saw him again, but he knew where she worked and lived. He could find her if he wanted to. And he wanted to.
Sweet, merciful heaven, how had this happened?
Her father would probably say that God was testing her.
She didn’t want to know what her father would say. Not that this was about abandoning her family. This was about putting together a new life, one that she could bear to live.
Maybe Mitch Sayer could live in his parents’ hip pockets, but she wasn’t like that. She had been reared for independence. That made her uniquely qualified for this course of action. Maybe God had always known that she would wind up on her own, far away from those dear to her, that she was going to screw up so royally that she’d have to go off, find a way to start over again. But how could she do that if every time she turned around there was Mitch Sayer making her think of all that she’d lost?
She prayed for rain, and with gut-wrenching dismay watched the sunshine glitter against the office windowpanes.
At noon, feeling belligerent and rebellious, she unzipped her sandwich bag on her desk, but when she reached for the thermos bottle of soup, her hand wouldn’t quite close around it. She bowed her head and told herself that she was behaving irrationally. If she didn’t want to see Mitch Sayer, no one and nothing could make her. Except…her own sense of fair play.
Angrily, reluctantly, she slapped the sandwich back into her lunch kit and snatched up the strap. Good manners could be a downright bore and a burden.
Mitch hung up the phone, jotted down a last note with his left hand, then shoved back his cuff to check the time. Three minutes past noon. Rising swiftly, he snatched his suit coat from the back of his chair and threw it on, straightening his tie as the coat settled across his shoulders. He bent and opened the bottom desk drawer to grab a folded brown paper bag. Not wanting to lose precious minutes picking up something to eat, he’d packed a lunch of sorts that morning. Bag in tow, he sailed out of the office, giving his coat pocket one last pat to make certain that his cell phone rested safely inside.
He was pleased to have received three more contacts from airline passengers. One call had given his heart a momentary jolt. The gentleman on the other end of the line had wanted to know if Mitch had found a small slip of paper—with the combination of a safe written on it. Such a slip had apparently fallen out of his wallet at some point. Mitch was sorry to disappoint him, sorrier still to be disappointed himself, but at least, after a bit of conversation, the fellow had offered Mitch the name of another traveler who might be interested in speaking to him.
The other two contacts, one a letter and one a telephone message, would take more time to follow up on, but Mitch felt encouraged to still be receiving any communications connected with the airline notice. He prayed regularly for the person who had lost the letter, but he no longer felt the sense of urgency that he had in the beginning. Urgency had been replaced by eagerness. He strode down the sidewalk with long, swift strides and a smile.
He spotted her standing beside a bench with her hands on her hips, tapping a toe. A wave of his hand sent her plopping down onto the hard stone seat. By the time he reached her side, she was munching a sandwich pensively. He dropped down beside her, abandoned his lunch bag to the vacant spot next to him and leaned close.
“What’s wrong?”
She lowered the sandwich to her lap and looked up at him with stormy amber eyes that flicked back and forth across his for several seconds. Then she dropped her gaze, bowed her head and in a small voice said, “Nothing.”
He didn’t believe it for an instant. His hand gravitated to her back, coming to rest between her shoulder blades. She didn’t seem to mind. Perhaps she didn’t even realize. Perhaps his touching her felt as natural to her as it did to him.
“Rough morning?”
She nodded.
“Want to tell me about it?”
She dipped her head a little lower, but then looked up, briefly met his eyes with hers and shook her head very gently. She’d plaited only the top part of her hair that morning, leaving the braid to hang down against the thick, bright curtain of her hair in back. He thought it the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen and only just restrained himself from stroking his hand over the shiny tresses when she sighed.
“I’m just in a lousy mood.”
“Let’s see if we can find a little help for that,” he said. Closing his eyes, he began to pray in a quiet voice. “Gracious Lord God, You have given us a glorious day, and an hour of it to spend together. We thank You for that and for this food we ask You to bless and for all the many other ways in which You show us Your love. Whenever the world beats us down, Lord, You always stand ready to pick us up again. Please lift up Piper now, Father. Let her feel Your love throughout the afternoon and always. Amen.”
When he looked up again, he found her blinking a wet sheen from her eyes. An anemic smile trembled across her lips. He realized he was holding her tightly against his side; his arm had slipped around her fully at some point. She seemed to realize it at the same time and stiffened slightly.
He quic
kly released her, asking, “Better?”
The smile grew a little more robust. “Yes, thank you.” She settled back a bit and lifted her sandwich toward her mouth. “Aren’t you going to eat?”
He remembered the brown paper bag at his side. “Oh, sure.”
As he pulled out hard-boiled eggs, a hunk of cheese, crackers and pickled peppers, she commented wryly, “Having your heat with a side of cholesterol, I see.”
He chuckled. “The peppers aren’t that hot, and my cholesterol is fine, thank you very much. I just didn’t have a lot in my fridge this morning.”
“I see.” Her sandwich in her lap, she broke the seal on a bottle of water. “Nothing in there to drink, I take it.”
He made a face, only then realizing that he’d forgotten the beverage. “Well, like I said, the peppers aren’t that hot.”
She produced the cap off a thermos bottle and poured water into it for herself, passing the water bottle to him. He saluted her with it.
“Thanks.”
“Think nothing of it.”
He thought plenty of it—and her—but he just smiled and gobbled his lunch.
Piper watched him eat the fourth boiled egg and the last of the peppers with a shake of her head.
“What?” he asked, swallowing.
“Oh, nothing. It’s just that, for someone I hardly know, I sure have seen you eat a lot. This is our third meal together.”
“Don’t forget the other night at the restaurant. We didn’t actually eat together, but we were in the same room.”
She laughed. “Lawyers. All right, our fourth meal. Just goes to prove my point.”
He shrugged and casually suggested, “Maybe we ought to find something to do together besides eat.”
A thrill of expectation shot through her, and she was struck suddenly by the contradiction with her earlier feelings. Why had she thought that she wouldn’t enjoy seeing him again? Something about Mitch felt comfortable and familiar; something else felt oddly compelling, if a little frightening. When she looked into his dark blue eyes she sensed the weight and significance of his experience as well as the earnestness of his emotions. The former drew her as well as repelled her; the latter tingled in her nerve endings, ephemeral, only the promise of a feeling.
But did she want that feeling? She couldn’t deny that she liked him, that he interested her, and yet anything more seemed perilous.
Her heart pounded as she lightly tossed out a refusal. “Like I said, I hardly know you.”
He sobered and softly rebutted that statement. “You know me. You already know everything important about me that there is to know.”
“Do I?”
“I’m not a complicated man, Piper.”
“Maybe I’m a complicated woman.”
“I don’t doubt it.” He didn’t have to say that it made no difference.
Her heart beat so hard that it hurt.
He wadded up the paper sack and seemed to ponder what to say next. When he did speak, the subject took her by surprise.
“Interesting case walked through my office door this morning.”
“Oh?”
“Umm-hmm. A thirty-eight-year-old man was caught peeping in windows at women in his neighborhood.”
Piper shivered. “Ugh.”
Mitch nodded. “His wife was the one who caught him. She hit him eight times with a baseball bat. Broke six bones. He’s in the hospital. She’s in jail. Neither of them want a divorce, because they have four kids under the age of thirteen, but the D.A. wants ironclad assurance that this won’t happen again if they get back together.”
“Can you give him that assurance?”
“No. She’s still mad enough to whack him, and he won’t own up to what he did.” He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “They both need counseling, but of course they can’t afford it. Her I can probably get into an offender’s program. Him…” Mitch sighed and shook his head. “There aren’t any victim’s programs for what’s wrong with him, even though he’s more in need of help than she is. Voyeurism can be a tough addiction to break, and he won’t even admit that he has a problem.”
Piper shook her head, trying to work through the situation to her own satisfaction, but it was a true conundrum. The victim and the perpetrator were both guilty.
“What are you going to do?”
He sighed gustily. “Well, about the only thing I can think to do is to build a case against the husband. It’s not my job. In fact, it’s the exact opposite of my job, but the D.A. can’t justify spending resources to do it. On the other hand, if a case is handed to him, the D.A. will file. He doesn’t want a Peeping Tom on the streets any more than I do, and if I can get charges against the husband, then maybe I can get them both the help they need to put their family back together. If not, four kids are probably going to grow up in foster care.”
Piper let her shoulders slump forward. “Forgive me for saying so, but that’s pretty depressing.”
“I think of it more as challenging,” he told her, “and when a case works out well, it’s downright exhilarating. I really wouldn’t want to do anything else.”
“I know what you mean,” she said automatically, and just like that she was right back there in the emergency room, her mind racing as she assessed a patient’s condition, hands flying smoothly through complicated procedures.
She felt the relieved thrill of stopping a bleed-out or feeling a heartbeat revive. She remembered the satisfaction of telling a family member that a loved one was going to make it and the defeating disappointment when it went the other way. Then compassion had become true empathy, knowledge had sharpened into actual realization and all the victories she’d ever known, all that had made her work worthwhile had turned to ashes and blown away in a puff of wind. In one awful moment she had gained real understanding and lost everything else.
The pain of it was as acute as any physical injury.
Gasping, she popped to her feet, her eyes filling with tears.
“Piper?”
She whirled away, aware that she was about to make a fool of herself, fearing much worse.
“I have to go,” she choked out, shaking free of the hand that he reached out to her.
Mitch called out her name again, but she couldn’t speak to him, couldn’t look at him. All she wanted to do was hide. She’d run all this way to Dallas to escape the pain, and she would do it even if it meant hiding from him.
Chapter Six
Mitch looked around the mostly paved square, scanning for a bright copper head, but once again he was disappointed. He should have gone after her that day, should have insisted that she tell him what was bothering her. Whatever it was, they could work it out together—he just knew it. Provided, of course, that he ever saw her again. He’d thought about going to her apartment the previous evening, but he couldn’t even get through the security gate to her apartment door. It seemed that he had only one other option, then. He set off toward the building where she worked.
Surely he was due some explanation, he told himself, striding quickly across a busy intersection and down the broad sidewalk. In reality, he just wanted to know that she was all right. She didn’t have to give him an explanation if she didn’t want to, so long as that bright smile was in place, so long as he could see that she was well. She didn’t even have to see him again, though his stomach clenched at the thought.
He reached the front of the Medical Specialist Insurance Company building and pushed through a heavy glass door into the cool marble interior. A bank of elevators lined the opposite wall. Short leather banquettes had been fixed to the walls on either side, perpendicular to the elevators, presumably so a non-employee could sit and wait for a friend or family member to come down. Every elevator but one required an electronic pass card, and it was clearly marked “Visitors.” Mitch walked to it and punched the up button set into the marble. The doors slid open instantly.
He stepped into the car. The doors closed, and the elevator began to rise even
as Mitch realized that there were no more buttons to push, no choice of floors to be made. The Medical Specialist Insurance Company was obviously careful to protect its workspace and employees from unwanted intrusion. He supposed they had to be.
As swiftly as it had risen, the elevator car stopped, and the doors disappeared. Mitch strode into a large room fashioned into a maze of modular cubicles and cordoned off by a half wall of wood, behind which a trio of receptionists sat, all with headphones and mouthpieces. A brisk older woman was talking on the telephone, while a stylish younger one carefully wrote something in a padded book. A reed-thin kid, maybe still in high school and wearing a blindingly white shirt and tightly knotted necktie, waved Mitch over.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes, I’d like to see Ms. Wynne, Ms. Piper Wynne.” Mitch turned away, hoping to forestall any questions, but the company had trained their employees well.
“I’ll need you to sign my register,” the young man said, sliding a padded volume to the edge of the half wall. A pen was attached to the spine via a beaded chain.
Mitch quickly scrawled his name, wrote “attorney” in the space requiring an occupation and “personal” under the column demanding to know his business. The kid turned the book and glanced over the entry, then looked up a number and punched it into a hidden keypad. After a few seconds he spoke.
“Mr. Mitchell Sayer, attorney, to see Ms. Wynne. Umm-hmm. Umm-hmm. I’ll tell him.” The boy—he didn’t look as if he could possibly shave—broke the connection and fixed Mitch with a no-arguments stare. “Ms. Wynne is out.”
Mitch tamped down his irritation. “Out for lunch? Because I can wait if I have to.”
“Out for the day,” the young fellow said, hitting the last word hard for emphasis. “Maybe longer.”
“She’s not ill, is she?”
