by Maria Geraci
So he now he was buddy. Definitely a step down from pal.
“My boss is Steve Pappas. Go ahead and give him a call. Tell him you need him to delay the demolition on the building so you and Casper can have a one-on-one.”
“All right, I will. And I’ll be sure to tell him you suggested it.” She pulled out her cell phone. “Um, you don’t happen to have his number, do you?”
She had hutzpah, he’d give her that. “Sorry, I’m not about to give you my boss’s personal cell phone number so you can ask him to delay a job that he’s already doing pro bono. But hey, I’m sure Rusty here will be happy to give you his home address if you ask real nice.”
She looked ready to spit.
God, he could be a dick. He didn’t mean to be. And he normally wasn’t. His momma had taught him early on how to talk to a lady. But there was something about Allie Grant that pushed all his buttons. The bad ones, as well as the good.
Rusty looked alarmed. “Allie, I know you’re Zeke’s sister and all, but I really can’t give you Steve Pappas’s home address.”
“I know that, Rusty,” she said, sounding sincere again. “But thanks anyway.”
“Good! So, if Tom isn’t pressing charges, then yeah, we’re all done here. Except I should probably run your license and give you a verbal warning. Only cause that’s what I would do for anyone else. Don’t want Zeke to think I’m giving his kin any special treatment. Considering you did actually break into the place.”
“No problem.” She limped over to her car to retrieve her driver’s license then handed it to Rusty.
“This will just take a sec,” Rusty said. “Then it will be all nice and proper.” He gave her a friendly wink and trotted off to his police cruiser.
Now that they were alone again, she seemed to have lost some of her earlier steam. He tried to think of a way to ease some of the awkwardness. “So you work for Florida! magazine, huh?” Tom asked, mostly because he was genuinely interested, and hell…what else were they going to talk about?
“I freelance for them. Why? You a subscriber?”
“I pick it up every now and then at the grocery. Good fishing articles.”
“Yeah, I don’t write those.”
“What do you write?”
She batted her eyelashes at him. “Ghost stories.”
He fought back a grin. He’d always liked that she never took crap from anyone. His gaze honed in on her knee again. “Wait right here.” He walked over to his truck to get the first aid kit he kept in the glove compartment, then crouched in front of her to inspect the cut on her leg.
She eyed him suspiciously. “What are you—oh, no need to go all Florence Nightingale on me,” she squeaked, realizing what he was about to do. “I’m perfectly fine.”
“You’re bleeding all over the parking lot. My parking lot, remember?”
“My parking lot. My building. You sound like a two-year-old. Is there anything here that isn’t yours?”
He decided to ignore that and instead moistened a piece of gauze with antiseptic then pressed it against her knee.
“Hey! That hurts.” She tried to pull away, but he secured her leg by placing his other hand firmly behind her calf. Her skin felt firm and smooth. What had she said earlier? That she’d gotten a warm and fuzzy feeling inside the building? Yeah, he was feeling pretty warm and fuzzy, too. But it didn’t have anything to do with any bogus ghost.
“Hold still,” he said.
“I think you’re enjoying this a little too much.” A thin line of blood oozed from beneath the gauze. She gulped, then quickly looked away.
He pressed tighter to staunch the flow. “Still can’t stomach the sight of blood?”
She whipped her head around. “How did you remember—never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters,” he said, catching her eye.
Then she started doing that thing she did whenever she got nervous. She began to talk non-stop. She asked him about his parents, his older sister, Katie, who was married and now lived in Daytona Beach, his grandparents, his aunt and uncle. She asked about his entire family. Except the most obvious member.
“How’s Brandy doing? Still stealing food from the garbage can?”
“Brandy’s dead.”
“Dead?” She looked stunned.
“She was a beagle and twelve years old when you knew her. So, yeah, she’s been gone awhile now.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” she muttered. Then she cleared her throat and finally asked, “How’s Lauren? I was sorry to hear about your divorce.”
Was she really sorry? Or just being polite? If anyone had a right to gloat over his failures, it was Allie. He could hear the unasked question in her voice. What happened to your marriage? He’d been asked that a lot lately, but he never gave anyone a straight answer. It was nobody’s business but his and Lauren’s. He considered telling Allie the truth. But she hadn’t asked out loud, and besides, what was the point? In the end, he picked the easiest response. “Thanks. And Lauren’s fine.”
“And Henry?”
“He’s eleven and grows about an inch a day.”
She smiled.
He finished bandaging her knee, then stood and faced her. The parking lot was dark but there was enough light from the nearby road that he could see her cheeks were flushed. A result from her line of questioning? Or had she been affected by his touch? The same way he’d been affected by touching her.
Rusty came back from his cruiser looking like he’d swallowed a hornet. “Um, Allie, did you know your license has been suspended?”
“What? No.” She laughed nervously. “Run it again, Rusty.”
“I already did,” he said miserably. “Three times.”
“But that’s impossible. I’d know if my license was suspended, wouldn’t I?”
“Not exactly. Happens all the time. Think back. You get stopped by a cop recently?”
“No—well, I did take a right on a red illegally. But the sign was so out of the way, I mean, really, anyone would have been confused. And the cop was just so dang nasty. Not nice, like you would have been, Rusty.” Rusty rewarded her flattery with a smile. “I gave him my license but I couldn’t find my proof of insurance, but…I mean, I do have insurance and I told him that, but he still tacked on another fine. I paid the ticket so everything should be cool. Right?”
“Did you go to the courthouse and show them your insurance papers?” Tom asked.
She pressed her lips into a tight line.
Rusty took off his cap and scratched the top of his head. “There’s the problem.”
“All right, well, I can take care of that when I get back to Tampa.”
Rusty went silent. Tom had a bad feeling he knew exactly where this was going. Allie must have, too, because she laughed again, sounding even more nervous than before. “You’re not going to arrest me, are you?”
“No, no, not gonna arrest you. But I can’t let you drive, Allie.”
“Oh, come on! This is ridiculous. You know me, Rusty. I’m not some criminal.”
“Sure, sure, of course not. But I can’t bend the rules just because you’re the boss’s little sister. I’m real sorry, Allie.”
Her shoulders slumped in defeat. “It’s not your fault, Rusty.” She glanced at the VW bug parked in the center of the parking lot. “How am I supposed to move my car if I can’t drive?”
“Golly, Allie, I sure would like to help you with that, but with Zeke gone, I’m in charge and I’m the only patrol car on this side of town tonight. Can’t let down the citizens of Whispering Bay. They’re all counting on me.”
“You can move your car in the morning,” Tom said.
Rusty nodded his head in agreement. “Good plan.” Then he frowned, like he just realized the other part of Allie’s predicament. “You’re staying at Zeke’s tonight, right? I bet Tom wouldn’t mind giving you a ride.”
“I can walk,” she blurted, looking horrified by Rusty’s suggestion.
“I’m afraid
I can’t let you do that,” Tom said. Without asking her permission, he went to her car and pulled the suitcase from the backseat. “This all you got?”
The struggle on her face was clear. Walk two miles in the middle of the night or get a ride with him. She might not like him but she wasn’t dumb. Without saying another word, Allie Grant locked up her car then climbed into the front seat of his pick-up truck.
The horror of her current situation was not lost on her. For the first time in twelve years, Allie was completely alone (as clichéd as it sounded) with The One Who Got Away. Or rather, The One Who Ran Away, tossing pieces of her broken heart along the highway.
Okay, so maybe that was a tad bit dramatic.
She watched Tom Donalan out of the corner of her eye. His big hands gripped the steering wheel—strong, and masculine, and…lovely. It was an odd trio of words to describe a man, but there it was. Tom was gorgeous. Always had been. And probably always would be, no matter how much Ben and Jerry’s she overdosed on.
Allie forced her attention to the road in front of them. She had no business thinking about his hands. Or any other part of him. He was a Class A jerk. Best not to forget that.
She settled back in the truck’s leather seat and tried to relax. Ten minutes. If she could spend eight hours on her feet wiping down tables and pretending she loved dishes with the name of Tofu Surprise, she could certainly do ten minutes in a car with Tom Donalan.
Relax. Concentrate. On anything but him.
She discreetly took in her surroundings. The inside of the truck was clean, not fancy or new, but well kept. No empty McDonald’s wrappers or beer cans strewn on the floor. A faint hint of him lingered in the air. Sniffing things out had always been a talent of hers. Some people remembered faces. Allie remembered smells. Eau de Tom Donalan was a mixture of ocean air, soap, and aftershave. Clean and sexy, not too overpowering. In other words, just right.
Growing up, Zeke had grudgingly nicknamed her The Nose. She’d been able to smell Buela’s picadillo halfway down the block. But a more practical trick had been her ability to sniff out any lingering traces of pot (no matter how much Zeke had tried to mask it). Sibling blackmail had helped finance the ten-speed bicycle she’d used for beach transportation the summer before middle school.
Had she imagined the lemon smell back at the senior center? She didn’t think so. But where had it come from?
Tom glanced at her. “So, how are you?”
“Well, let’s see. My license is suspended and some twit won’t let me spend a few hours in an abandoned building so I can make a living. But other than that, just peachy.”
He shifted in his seat. “No, I mean, how have you been?”
“You mean, as in the past twelve years?”
He nodded.
“I’ve been great, Donalan. Really. I mean, other than the night you took a blowtorch to my heart, I’ve been just great. Of course, there was that year I spent in rehab after taking all those pills. But I hardly ever relapse anymore.”
He looked mortified.
Or ready to laugh.
She couldn’t tell which (or which she preferred). Mortification, she decided. After all, why shouldn’t Tom Donalan feel bad for the way he’d dumped her? And a mighty dumping, it had been. But she didn’t want his pity. Or anything else from him, either.
Correction: She did want something from him. She wanted to spend time inside his precious building.
“Oh, relax. It was just a high school romance. I was over you within two weeks.”
He didn’t say anything, not that she expected a response, but it felt even more awkward now than before. So she began to babble, because that’s what she did whenever she got nervous. And it was hard not to be nervous around the guy she had practically begged to take her virginity. She wished she could say this was an exaggeration, but unfortunately, it wasn’t.
Tom, please, just do me.
Had she really said those words to him? Yep. She most certainly had. The Night of The Great Humiliation Part One, as she liked to call it. She wished she could say that over the years the sting had eased some. But it hadn’t.
She kept her eyes on the road ahead and told Tom all about her current life back in Tampa. Her part time job at The Blue Monkey, her roommate Jen and her crazy antics—which elicited a laugh from him and startled her into glancing his way. She was shocked to find that the truck was parked in front of her brother’s house.
How long had they been here?
It was only a ten minute drive but she’d managed to talk non-stop. He, on the other hand, hadn’t gotten in one word. Geez. She’d probably bored him to death.
Only, he didn’t look bored. He looked—
“So what about you? Are you happy?”
He broke eye contact. “Happy enough.”
Allie waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. She’d practically spilled out her entire life for him and all she got in return was two words?
Great! She was happy.
He was happy enough.
They were good. Move along, people, there’s nothing more to see.
“I hate to ask again, but is there any way you can postpone the demolition on the building? Just for one more day?”
“I know you think I’m a dick, and I don’t blame you. But it’s not up to me. We can’t build the new rec center until the old building comes down. There’s a schedule—”
“And a budget, yeah, yeah, I know.” It was like talking to a brick wall. She decided to try another angle. “You must have spent time in the building. Have you ever seen or heard anything strange? Anything that might lead you to think the place might be haunted?”
“There’s no ghost, Allie. Trust me on this.”
Trust him?
Strange as it seemed, on this, she did trust him. At least, she believed that he believed what he was saying. Funny, even after all these years she could still read his expressions. When he said he knew nothing about a ghost, he meant it.
Which meant there was nothing left for her to do but reach into the back seat of his truck and pull out her overnight bag. Tom got out of the vehicle and opened the door for her. Gentlemanly enough, she supposed, but she also had the feeling he was going to try to walk her to the front door.
“I got this,” she said, but he ignored her and kept walking alongside her anyway. There was probably no use in arguing, so Allie let it slide.
The front porch light snapped on, which meant her sister-in-law knew she was here. Knowing Mimi, she was probably peeking out the window as well. Allie tested the door and found it unlocked, but before she could twist the knob, Tom placed his hand over hers, stopping her cold. “Hold on. I want to say something.”
She glanced down at their hands then lifted her gaze to meet his. For the first time tonight he looked nervous. Oh, this was golden. Tom Donalan was about to apologize for breaking her heart. Ha! It’s just a little too late for that, buddy!
“I was really sorry about your grandmother,” he said quietly. “I wanted to come to the funeral. But under the circumstances, I thought it was best I stayed away.”
Allie snatched her hand from his. He was apologizing for missing Buela’s funeral?
Buela died three days after The Night of the Great Humiliation. Her death had been unexpected. The doctors said it was a heart attack, but it had taken Allie a long time to come to grips with that diagnosis.
A part of her wanted to shove Tom in the chest. To knock him off her brother’s front porch. But that was silly. Buela’s death hadn’t been his fault. Just like she knew it hadn’t been hers, either.
In the immortal words of the Beatles, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. Life goes on. The lyrics to the song began playing in her head. Quiet and warm and oddly familiar.
Allie frowned.
Where had that come from?
Allie had never in her life quoted the Beatles. Either out loud or in her head. She rubbed her arms up and down.
Tom frowned. “You cold?”
“No�
��I just…”
Weird.
He looked concerned, so she straightened back her shoulders and tried to sound normal.
“No worries about Buela’s funeral. That was twelve years ago, and yeah, you were right. It was best you stayed away.” Allie didn’t think she could have handled seeing Tom at the funeral. And Zeke? He would have punched Tom’s lights out. “It’s nice that you remembered her, though. After all this time,” she added.
Neither of them said anything for a few long seconds. Oh God. They were having a moment. She didn’t expect to ever get an apology from Tom for leading her on that summer after high school. What happened was twelve years ago, for God’s sake. She was a grown woman. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t hate Tom Donalan.
“About your car. You’ll have to move it before nine. Because—”
“Yeah, I know. The building is coming down. Don’t worry. I’ll get Mimi to help.”
He looked distracted, but he nodded. “So long, Allie. It was really good seeing you again.”
Strangely, she realized that a part of her (a very tiny part, maybe) thought it was good to see him again, too.
The Beatles were right. Life does go on.
Running into Tom Donalan hadn’t been as terrible (or as satisfying) as she’d always envisioned. She hadn’t fallen into a puddle at his feet. Or thrown a grenade at his head (another fantasy courtesy of Chunky Monkey).
Maybe this was the closure she’d subconsciously needed all these years.
He walked to his truck and turned around one last time, pausing before he got inside. Like he was trying to memorize what had just happened. Like it was good-bye forever.
Did he think she’d give up that easily?
If he did, then he never really knew her, because despite the fact that she didn’t think either one of them was particularly eager for a repeat meeting, Tom Donalan would be seeing her again a lot sooner than he could ever imagine.
Other than her brother Zeke, and her niece and nephew, Mary Margaret Grant (known to everyone who was anybody, as Mimi) was the one person in the world Allie loved best. Mimi married Zeke at the tender age of eighteen after discovering she was pregnant. Allie was fourteen at the time and although Mimi was only four years older she seemed so sophisticated and beautiful. Mimi had always been incredibly kind to her and there wasn’t anything in the world Allie wouldn’t do for her sister-in-law.
