Aelissm and June talked about what seemed like random things. It was a tendency of theirs that Pat had become accustomed to, though he hadn’t quite mastered keeping up with their rapid changes in subject. They slipped from discussing Nick’s newborn son to the first appearance of the chipmunks up at the cabins a couple days ago to June’s classes at the high school to Aeli’s class at the college and a couple times Pat had to ask them to explain how they’d gone from one to the next without losing a beat.
“When you’ve been friends for as long as we have, you kinda rub off on each other,” June explained.
“Yeah, but what scares me is that Luke can launch in any time and know right where you’re at and exactly how you got there.”
“Well, he’s smart. And he’s been with me for over half a year now,” June replied. “You’ll catch on, too, Pat. Just wait. We’ll have you thinking you’re crazy.”
“If crazy is what it takes to live life again, then that’s not so bad.”
His comment must have caught them by surprise, because they fell silent and stared at him. Then understanding dawned on Aelissm and she nodded.
“I didn’t think you were serious. But I’m glad you are.”
June lifted a brow in silent inquiry. “Now, I’m lost.”
“Ah, the shoe’s on the other foot now, ain’t it?” Pat joked.
After that, the mood lightened again and Pat made a mental note to take caution when he voiced his thoughts. Especially around Aelissm. She was too fragile right now and didn’t need him jerking her already frayed emotions around with a careless word.
When they’d finished eating, June cleared their plates and they headed up the driveway to the pools on the other side of the dirt parking area. By now the sun was nearly setting and the sky above them was a deep blue laced with flares of golden clouds. After strolling down the ramp into the pool house and turning around the corner of the desk, Pat and Luke headed to the left to the men’s changing rooms while June and Aeli ducked right into the women’s. There was no one else in the dressing room.
As Pat stripped out of his shirt, he heard June and Aelissm giggling.
“So I’m right?” June asked.
“Damn skippy. Pat has a very nice body. Strong, toned chest and arms and those legs…. You’ll see.”
“I thought so. He’s quite gorgeous, even with his clothes on.”
“Yes, he is.
Pat’s jaw dropped. “I can hear you!”
“We know,” they chorused and broke into a new fit of giggles.
“Are you trying to make me blush?”
“Yes. Have I succeeded?” Aelissm asked slyly.
“That’s for me to know and you to never find out.”
“Spoil sport.”
Pat glanced at Luke and found the boy smirking. “Are they always like this when they’re together?”
“Always,” June replied.
“Hey, Luke and I were trying to have a conversation. Quit eavesdropping.”
They giggled again and Pat listened as their laughter trailed away until the sound of hinges whining and a door slamming announced their departure from the pool house. Pat shook his head, smiling.
“They beat us out,” Luke remarked.
Pat laughed. He was about to comment when a man walked in dressed in a manner that caught Pat’s attention. His jeans showed crisp fold lines and the shirt tucked into the waist was a thin cotton shirt. Pat he decided he was a guest of the Ramshorn and pulled off his jeans, watching the man.
“Evenin’,” the stranger greeted in what he must have thought was a Montana drawl. Now Pat was certain he wasn’t from around here.
“Evening,” he replied.
“That your boy?” the man asked, inclining his head toward Luke. “He must have his mother’s coloring.”
Pat didn’t like the tone in the man’s voice and noticed that Luke had inched his way toward one of the changing stalls as if to hide. Pat smiled politely and stepped to block the man’s view. Thinking of June, he replied, “He does.”
The man held his hands in the air. “All right. I didn’t mean anything.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. Luke, why don’t you get changed in there?” Pat suggested, pointing to the stall. He ducked down to nonchalantly study his reflection in the mirror, every detective-honed instinct concentrated on the other man’s body language. Pat wasn’t about to leave Luke alone in the changing room with him, though he wasn’t exactly sure what it was about the man that struck him wrong.
Pat changed into his swim trunks standing guard outside Luke’s stall, then asked if the boy was ready yet.
“Yeah,” Luke replied.
“Let’s go join your mom, then.”
Pat rested a hand on Luke’s shoulder and they left the changing room together. Just as they were about to step out the door to the pools, the man tried to grab Pat’s arm. Pat told Luke to meet his “mom” in the pool and, clenching his teeth, turned around. “Look, mister, my patience is about worn out.”
“I just thought I’d tell you… I think his mother was cheating on you. He doesn’t look much like you at all.”
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
“Just thought you might want to know. My wife got knocked up by some asshole and tried to claim the kid was mine.” The man shrugged and turned back to the changing room. Pat watched him go, irritated. After a moment, he followed Luke outside.
“Isn’t there some rule about not swimming for at least half an hour after eating?” he asked as he joined June, Aelissm and Luke in the larger pool. The smaller pool was too hot for such a warm night.
“I don’t plan on swimming…. I’m going to soak,” Aelissm replied, leaning back on the stairs. She rested her elbows on the step behind her to prop herself upright. “And besides, it has been a half hour.”
Pat had to look away. Aelissm Davis was far too sexy in that modest, moss green bikini and that she seemed oblivious to the fact made her all the more appealing. June made just as beautiful a picture in her blue two-piece suit, but there was something about Aelissm that Pat found irresistible. Her body was a little fuller than her friend’s, softer and more inviting. Why didn’t the Ramshorn have a cold pool? he wondered. He could have used one right about now.
To distract himself, he watched Luke for a while. When the boy reached the other end, he told June about the man in the dressing room.
“Luke told me,” she said. “Thank you, for protecting him like that. I think you just earned yourself his respect… and trust.”
“Tell me June. I know Luke is from Seattle, but I want to say he lived for a time near the Hood Canal Bridge on the peninsula… before he came here, I think.” Pat hesitated, wondering how June would react to his question. His curiosity won out. “His father was shot by a sheriff’s deputy in July, wasn’t he, after pulling a gun on the deputy?”
June nodded, but said nothing.
“I thought that’s where I knew the name from. I knew the deputy involved fairly well… Ben Conner. He took it really hard. Had a difficult time coming back and in the end, he couldn’t. He resigned in October. It’s a pity because he’s a good cop. And he’s a good man.”
“He is.”
“You know him?”
“We all went to high school together, in Poulsbo,” Aelissm supplied when June didn’t answer. “And we’ve been friends since second grade, when Ben’s family moved from Northstar to Poulsbo.”
“I haven’t talked to Ben since a few weeks after the shooting,” June said quietly.
“Why not?”
She shrugged. “Like you said, he took it hard. He wouldn’t believe me or Uncle Bill when we told him Luke was fine.”
“Ah.” Pat didn’t know what else to say. There didn’t seem to be anything, really. He shook his head instead. “What a small world.”
“Yeah, and Unk is the center of gravity.”
He heard the door swing open, then slam shut and turned his gaze. The man fr
om the dressing room had come out and his dark eyes flicked over the three of them, then toward Luke at the deep end of the larger pool. June called Luke over and the boy obeyed without question. She tucked him protectively against her side. The four of them moved away from the stairs, more to distance themselves from the stranger than to allow him to use the steps.
“I’m not going to ask,” the man said, glancing from Pat and Aeli to Luke and June.
“Good,” Pat replied.
“Bunch of assholes around here, anyhow. You try to be friendly to them and they look down their noses at you.”
“The only one here who’s looking down his nose is you, buddy. If you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you left us alone.”
Rarely did he ever feel the urge to use his size to dominate another man, but he made an exception for this one. He was several inches taller and used it to his advantage, looking down on the other man. With another shrug, the man swam away, down to the other end of the pool.
“Do you know who he is, June?” Pat asked quietly.
“No, but we get a lot of people up here who are just stopping on their way through to wherever.”
“He reminds me of Bryce,” Aelissm said, shifting closer to Pat. “Not in how he looks… but how he acts. Sort of…. I don’t know. Arrogant. I wish he’d leave.”
She soon got her wish. The man left the pool only a few minutes later and headed back into the pool house. A few minutes after that, he was dressed and climbing in his silver BMW. Pat frowned. He didn’t like the man anymore than Aelissm did, for much the same reason. Only he was reminded of Sara.
Chapter Seven
PAT OPENED HIS EYES and listened for a moment, wondering what had woken him. When he sat up, he groaned at the aches that had accumulated in his muscles after a few hours of sleep. Then he heard whimpers coming from Aelissm’s room and pushed himself out of bed, stiff and sore from the afternoon’s ride. He carefully opened the door between the rooms and even in the near-blackness of the room, he could see that Aelissm was asleep and that her dreams were not pleasant. He slid onto the bed beside her and called her name.
“Come on, sweetheart, wake up.”
“Pat?” she asked. Her eyes were wide and frightened.
“It’s me,” he said. “I’m here.”
He gathered her in his arms and she curled in his lap, clinging to him. She shivered convulsively. He pulled the blankets around them and let her rest her head on his chest, smoothing a hand over her tangled hair. She seemed so small and fragile pressed against him, he thought as he absently combed her hair with his fingers to calm her. How could she be so strong and willful one moment and so weak and terrified the next?
Pat needed to know what had happened with Bryce and Adam to make such an independent woman fall apart like this. He knew she was strong; she wouldn’t survive in her chosen field of study if she wasn’t. He remembered what she’d said about Adam, what scared her the most about him. She had thought she’d known who he was and that she could trust him. That was enough to burn anyone. Pat knew all too well. He’d thought he’d known Sara, but had been proven horribly wrong about her.
It seemed like a long time before Aelissm began to relax. When she finally spoke, her voice was so quiet that he almost couldn’t hear her.
“I’m sorry, Pat. I don’t mean to keep falling to pieces on you. You probably think I’m nuts.”
“Not in the least,” he assured her. “But you do need to stop apologizing for being human.”
“Thanks.”
“That must have been some nightmare.”
He felt her tense up again and stroked his hand down her back.
“It was about Adam… when he….”
Her tears were hot and wet on his bare skin. “Shh. We can talk about it in the morning. Try to sleep.”
“No,” Aelissm croaked. “I need to tell you.”
Pat’s chest tightened with the trust she placed in him. He could not imagine her more vulnerable than this as she lay curled against him, still trembling from her dream. She expected him to protect her from her memories and to hold her with no less or deviant intention than to comfort her. Pat wasn’t sure he could be all that she needed, not when sleep had allowed his own demons to rise so close to the surface. He felt raw, as if someone had taken sandpaper to his nerves, and his attraction to the slim woman in his arms was iodine in the wounds. Still hazed by sleep, the warm, natural scent of her was a potent temptation and the feel of her pressed against him threatened to overwhelm him. Even Sara’s memory struggled to compete.
Pat blinked his eyes against the darkness and sought any visual distraction. At last, they focused on the narrow strip of glittering, star-spattered indigo outside the window. He tried desperately to train his thoughts on Aelissm’s quiet sobs and the night sky… on anything but the flood of desire raging through his veins or the torrent of bitter memories.
“After Bryce’s death, my life flipped upside down,” Aelissm began unsteadily. “All the questions and the people… it was so unreal.”
“I can imagine,” he murmured.
“I tried to go back to a normal life, I did, but Adam wouldn’t leave me alone. At first, he was always asking if I was all right and if I needed him. Then, after I told him I wanted to be by myself for a while to clear my head, he started calling and coming by my apartment every day. I changed my number and then I moved. I thought that would be enough, that he’d get the hint, but he cornered me outside my new building as I was coming home from class… it was a new summer course and at night, so it was dark. He shoved me against the wall. He told me that I was mean to play these games with him, especially after what he’d done for me. Then he told me that if I didn’t stop running from him, he’d make what Bryce had tried to do to me seem like a daydream.” She paused to wipe under her eyes and sniff. “I didn’t recognize him.”
Aelissm’s voice was surprisingly steady as she told her tale. Pat saw again the strength in her. He knew very few people who could have come through such an experience so well and his respect for her only grew. Resting his cheek on the top of her head, he tightened his arms around her, trying to tell her that she didn’t have to face Adam alone anymore. She wrapped her fingers around his forearm in response and squeezed.
“I moved to my parents’ after that night and asked Uncle Bill to help me put a restraining order on him,” Aelissm continued after a while. “Every time I dream about it, every time he finds me, I wonder if it would have been so bad, to be with him. It couldn’t be any worse than what I’m going through now. And then I come to my senses and look at who he became after that night and I know I couldn’t do it. I would have killed myself. Or him. Now there’s a thought.”
The last was said with a thread of humor in her voice and Pat pictured a self-mocking smirk on her face. “My sweet angel, I think he really underestimated you.”
“It certainly doesn’t feel that way.”
“I know,” he replied. “It’s late. We should probably be getting back to sleep.”
She was silent for a while and he wished he knew what thoughts were weaving through her mind.
Finally, she whispered, “Stay with me.”
“I shouldn’t.”
“Please.”
He leaned back against the headboard and tugged the blankets tighter around them. “I’ll stay.”
She snuggled deeper into him and sighed raggedly. Her breathing slowed and deepened, her skin warmed and her tears slowly dried up. Pat guessed that she must have found the comfort and reassurance in him that she needed because she was already asleep. He kissed the top of her head, smiling sadly, and took a deep breath.
How can life get so out of control? he wondered. And was there a way to ever regain the balance? He’d been mired in work and self-loathing for so long that he began to doubt.
He knew firsthand how brutal misjudging someone could be. When he’d first met Sara, he’d been fascinated by her. With a mane of shimmering red waves and sharply
intelligent honey-colored eyes, she’d been a walking dream. Her laughter had seemed so rich and vibrant and the way she could play a room had left him speechless. He’d met her by chance, when he’d attended a friend’s wedding in the ritzier part of Seattle. Pat had been utterly dumbfounded by Sara’s careless wealth. Genuine diamonds and gemstones had glittered at her neck and in her ears and even the little combs that pinned her hair back from her flawless, fair-skinned face were set with winking yellow topaz in a shade that nearly matched her eyes. Pat recalled looking up to see her standing on the balcony as he stood in the sprawling lawn of the mansion. She’d been sheathed in an exquisitely tailored gown of gold satin. Pat also recalled looking down at his best three-piece suit and feeling as under-dressed as if he’d come in ratty jeans and a grease-stained t-shirt.
It was safe to say that he’d been her inferior right from the start. At the time, her superiority had been fun. She’d been the sophisticated older woman and he’d been the lovesick, inexperienced cop. At twenty-three, he’d fallen into a young man’s fantasy. And now, looking back from twenty-eight, the mere thought of her sent a shiver of nausea through him.
His newly married buddy had introduced them. Sara’s first glimpse of Pat had been a long one as her experienced gaze raked over him with obvious pleasure. That night had been one of the best in Pat’s life… and one of the worst. If he had only looked past the stunning exterior wrapped to perfection in smooth gold satin, he might have seen the darkness in her heart and saved himself five years of anguish and torture. He still wasn’t sure what was the worst part about it. As a cop, he’d counseled more women—and men—about getting out of abusive relationships than he cared to count and yet, he’d fallen into the same trap. It was embarrassing, too, for a man his size to be so controlled and debased by someone as little as Sara. She was more than a foot shorter than him and petite. It amazed him, the amount of anger and fire he’d found in such a small woman. Then again… dynamite came in small packages, too, he mused. Whoever had said that was a genius.
Mountain Angel (Northstar Angels, Book One) Page 11
