by Karen Rose
Jamie’s palms held Thorne’s cheeks lightly, then he backed away. ‘I’ve got to get some sleep. As Gwyn so wisely pointed out, we need to be alert and on guard tomorrow. And every day thereafter until this is just a bad memory.’
‘This too shall pass,’ Thorne murmured, and shoved to his feet as wearily as Phil had, which made him worry about his old teacher all over again. ‘Jamie, is Phil okay?’
Jamie stiffened. ‘Why?’
Thorne rolled his eyes, but new dread seemed to settle around them. ‘Oh, like that was subtle.’ He could hear the panic in his own voice. ‘Tell me what you know.’
Jamie scrubbed his palms over his face. ‘He’s seeing a cardiologist. He’ll be okay, but he might need a procedure before it’s all fixed up. Probably just a balloon angioplasty. It’s not that bad.’
Thorne had trouble sucking in a breath. Fear, even more visceral than before, had taken hold of his throat, and he had to force the words out. ‘Which one of us are you trying to convince? How long has this been going on?’
‘Not long. A few weeks. He wanted to tell you, but couldn’t find the right time. Today was definitely not the right time. But let him tell you himself, Thomas. And when he does, know that he will be all right.’ Jamie’s lips trembled and he firmed them resolutely. ‘He’s a tough bastard. A lot tougher than he looks.’ He raised a brow. ‘So get some rest tonight. Don’t make him worry about you even more, okay?’
Thorne exhaled in a rush, suddenly lightheaded at the thought of losing Phil. It could not happen. But Jamie looked terrified, even though he was trying to hide it, so he dug deep and found some sass. ‘Guilting me much?’
Jamie pasted a smile on his face. ‘Only because it works. Goodnight, Thomas.’
‘Goodnight.’ Thorne waited until Jamie had wheeled from the room before sinking back into the kitchen chair and dropping his head into his hands once more.
Baltimore, Maryland,
Monday 13 June, 12.30 A.M.
Gwyn carefully closed the door to Thorne’s bedroom and slumped, wanting to bang her head against the wall. God, I’m such a bitch. Throwing that tantrum in front of her hosts. Why can’t I ever just keep my damn mouth shut?
But she had kept her mouth shut. For the past four years she’d been holding everything inside.
And Thorne had been silently waiting. All that time.
The knowledge thrilled and terrified her in equal measures.
A quiet knock on her door made her jump. She pulled it open to find a tired-looking Phil. ‘I’m so sorry to bother you, Gwyn. I need to look for the air mattress.’
Cheeks heating, she stepped aside to allow him entry. ‘You really don’t need to. I’ll sleep on the sofa.’ She glanced at the California king bed that took up nearly all the square footage of the room. ‘This is his bed. Besides, I can’t take all the Baywatch.’ She gestured to the posters. ‘That’s a lot of cleavage.’
Phil winced. ‘You can take them down if you want. We put them up as a joke. Ended up not being the right night for that kind of humor. But good luck getting Thorne to change his mind about the sofa, although Jamie and I thought you made an excellent attempt.’
Gwyn sighed. ‘I’m not normally so impolite.’
‘We took no offense. Just the opposite, actually. You care about him. And you saw him near death today. I’d say you’re entitled to a little upset.’
Her legs went rubbery at the reminder and she sat on the edge of the bed. ‘I’ve never seen him so still,’ she whispered. ‘Thorne is always full of life. But today he wasn’t. He scared me.’
‘You acted quickly and probably saved him. We’re grateful.’
‘I . . . He’s important to me too.’
Phil patted her shoulder and sank down to sit on the bed beside her. ‘You didn’t know he had feelings for you?’
‘No,’ she whispered, then frowned. ‘Did he tell you?’
‘No. Thorne’s never been that open with his feelings. But we could tell by the way he speaks about you, and the way he looks at you. And we could tell something had happened when you went to wake him up earlier. You both looked upset. You looked bewildered. He looked shattered.’
Gwyn closed her eyes, regret a sharp spear in her chest. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt him. But I didn’t know.’ Not until Lucy had raised the possibility early this morning. Or at least I didn’t know that I knew. She looked into the kind eyes of Thorne’s foster father and decided to trust him because Thorne did. ‘I’m confused. I don’t want to hurt him, not ever. I just don’t know what to do.’
‘You’re allowed to be confused. You’re allowed to take your time to figure things out. And once you have, you’re allowed to say no. Although,’ he continued when her mouth fell open, ‘I don’t know why you would. He’s a fine catch.’
‘Yes, he is. All the women want him.’
‘And yet he’s had no one for years.’
‘Four years,’ she murmured. Again the knowledge that he’d waited all that time. ‘I don’t know why he’d even bother with me. I’m . . . messed up. And not always very nice.’
‘He seems to like you anyway,’ Phil noted. ‘You don’t have to decide tonight or even tomorrow. Just don’t keep him hanging too long. I have to say, though, the timing of his revelation is very unfortunate. Blurting it out on a day that was already intense doesn’t sound like the careful Thorne we know. Why now?’
She pursed her lips, considering her answer, then shrugged. ‘I found him in time this morning because I’d just discovered that he’d been chasing all my dates away. I’d gone to yell at him.’
Phil chuckled. ‘All right. That sounds like the Thorne we know. It was a shitty thing to do, but I can picture him doing it.’
‘This evening I made him tell me why. Lucy warned me that this might be the case, that he had feelings for me, so I wasn’t, like, blindsided.’
‘But?’ Phil prompted.
She shook her head, uncomfortable saying more. Uncomfortable that he’d felt that way for seven fucking years. That was a fifth of his life, wasted.
‘He needs to be focused right now,’ was all she could think to say. ‘We all do.’
‘I agree,’ Phil said. ‘And on that note, I’ll say goodnight. I’ll leave getting Thorne to sleep in your capable hands. You’ll find sheets and a blanket in his closet.’
He left the room, but Gwyn didn’t move. Sitting on the edge of Thorne’s big bed, she stared up at the wall of posters featuring Pamela Anderson and every other big-bosomed actress of the 1990s. It was a side of Thorne that she hadn’t anticipated, and it made her . . .
Irritable, she decided. Because if that’s what Thorne wants, he’s shit outta luck. That is not me and never will be.
It wasn’t like she was unhappy with her body, because she wasn’t. She was thirty-eight but barely looked thirty. At least that was what she was told. And she was vain enough to want to believe it.
Thorne, of course, was built like a god. That was indisputable. And if she said she’d never wondered what it would be like with him, she’d be a dirty liar. She hadn’t gone to all his neighborhood league soccer games because she’d been a sports fan, for God’s sake. It was because Thorne in a pair of shorts was too much perfection to pass up. But she’d never let it go beyond idle wondering – and maybe some lusting – because they’d been friends.
And because she’d never thought she would have a chance in hell. He’d always dated women who looked like the airbrushed bimbos on the posters. Flight attendants, traveling saleswomen, singers who played Sheidalin on their tours. Nobody who was permanent. She’d never seen him in a real relationship.
Because he was waiting for me.
Bullshit, the small voice in her mind said very loudly. He can’t be serious.
But he’d seemed to be. And she trusted him. More than anyone except Lucy. I’ll figure it out,
but not tonight. She found a blanket and sheets in his closet, then went looking for him, hoping she could convince him to go to sleep.
Approaching the kitchen, she heard Thorne and Jamie in deep conversation. About Phil’s heart. Oh shit. Not now. Goddammit.
Her own heart stuttered at the fear and pain on Thorne’s face. When Jamie rolled his chair out of the kitchen, he didn’t see her because he was heading down the hall in the opposite direction. But she saw him stop a few feet down the hall to wipe his eyes and square his shoulders before heading off to bed.
Poor Phil. Poor Jamie and Thorne. Quietly she dumped the blanket on the sofa and went to the kitchen, where Thorne sat with his head in his hands.
Baltimore, Maryland,
Monday 13 June, 12.50 A.M.
Thorne’s chest hurt, burning from the shuddering breaths he was forcing in and out. When he caught the scent of lavender, he didn’t move. Didn’t look up. A chair dragged across the floor and she was there, sitting close enough that he could smell her vanilla shampoo. The next breath he drew was easier, the next even easier.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
‘For yelling at me?’ he asked.
‘No. I’m not sorry for saying you needed to rest or that you were much more than a guardian. I’m not even sorry for the way I said it.’
‘Then for what?’
‘Taking your bed.’
He snorted a half-laugh. ‘Really?’
‘Well, no, not really. I would have totally slept there, but I couldn’t take all the Pamela posters. That much boobage, Thorne . . . That’s just wrong.’
He laughed quietly, then stiffened when her hand touched his knee. Quickly she retracted it. ‘And I’m sorry about Phil.’
He sighed. ‘You heard what Jamie said?’
‘Yes. I was coming back to tell you to sleep in your own bed and I heard.’
He sighed again, his head still in his hands. ‘I have to figure out how to fix my face so that Phil doesn’t know I know. He’s bringing me an air mattress any minute.’
‘Not tonight. He came to look for the mattress and I told him I’d just take the sofa.’
Thorne lifted his eyes and met hers. They were filled with compassion and kindness and affection, and the sight made his eyes sting. ‘I remember the day I came home from school and found all those posters on the walls.’
‘You didn’t put them there?’
He scoffed. ‘Hell, no. They did, thinking I’d like them because I was seventeen and straight. Women like that aren’t my type.’ You are, he wanted to add. But he didn’t. He’d give her space to be in control of her own decisions even if it killed him. ‘I took them down eventually. They just put them up today as a joke.’
‘Why didn’t you tell them you didn’t like Pamela? I think those guys would move heaven and earth for you.’
‘They would. They did.’ The memory was bittersweet. ‘I had no home. No one who cared. Sherri was gone, and I thought my life was over. At seventeen. But Jamie and Phil, they cared when they didn’t have to.’
Her swallow was audible. ‘I love them for that. For being what you needed.’
‘They always have been. During the trial, I continued my studies with a tutor – paid for by Jamie – because Phil asked me not to give up. Not to assume I was going to prison. He had faith in Jamie, so I did too.’
‘When did you realize they were together?’
‘The first day.’ His lips turned up. ‘They told me. Said they didn’t want me to feel pressured to stay if I didn’t want to. But Phil already knew I was okay with it. He was also coach of the debate team, and Sherri and I were both members. We’d debated the topic of marriage equality and Phil knew where Sherri and I both stood. We’d seen the wrong side of discrimination too many times to be okay with doing it to someone else. But I felt . . . more secure that they told me. Because it meant they trusted me in their home, with their private lives. They weren’t afraid I’d kill them or steal from them or betray them.’
‘I’m so glad you had someone who loved you,’ she whispered fiercely.
He turned to search her face. ‘You didn’t?’ Because they’d never spoken of any of this, not in all the years they’d been friends. He knew precious little about Gwyn’s life before she’d joined his law firm. She’d had her secrets and he’d respected that. Now . . . now he wanted to know. Everything.
‘Not really. I had my aunt, but I was on the outs with my family long before I ran away from home.’
‘And joined the circus,’ he supplied. He knew that much because it had been on her résumé. He’d found her fascinating then. He still did.
‘Yep.’
It wasn’t enough, not nearly, but he could hear Jamie telling him to give her time and space. So he didn’t push. Just drew in her scent, letting it calm him as it always did.
‘I was lucky, I know,’ he said. ‘And after the trial, they kept doing nice things for me. It took me a long time before I could just accept it and say thank you.’
‘Kind of like today?’ she asked, and there was a wistful note to the question. ‘When everyone came together to help you?’
‘Yes. Exactly like that.’
She nodded once, thoughtfully. ‘It’s hard, learning to accept that people might want to help you, to do things for you, for no apparent reason.’
‘Maybe that they love us is reason enough.’
She was quiet for a moment. ‘I think that’s the very hardest thing to accept,’ she said, and he wasn’t sure who she was talking to, him or herself. She stood, the movement fluid and graceful. ‘Go to bed, Thorne. And please sleep there, under all the Pamela posters. I’ll be fine on the sofa. I promise. Tweety will sleep next to me.’
He swallowed hard, clenching his hands into fists because he wanted to touch her so damn badly. ‘All right. We’ll have to leave by eight.’
‘I’ll be ready.’
Annapolis, Maryland,
Monday 13 June, 3.15 A.M.
He woke with a jolt as cold feet pressed against the backs of his legs. ‘Wha . . .’ But then he smelled coconut and Kathryn. She’d showered with the special body wash that he’d bought her to cleanse the stink of her job from her body. ‘Mmm,’ he hummed when her hands roamed up his chest. One thing about a woman in her twenties, she had voracious appetites and he loved that.
‘Did everything go to plan?’ he asked her.
‘It did,’ Kathryn purred in his ear, then nipped his ear lobe. ‘Just like clockwork. How was your day?’
‘Had to get rid of the idiots I sent to bag Thorne. They nearly killed him.’
‘And I missed it? Did you film it?’
He chuckled. Kathryn was as bloodthirsty as Madeline had been. ‘No.’
She smacked him lightly on the shoulder. ‘What do I keep telling you? Those sessions are training gold. You show videos of them to your new recruits and I guarantee they will never fuck up.’
‘Next time you can film it,’ he promised.
‘Good. Now can we get on to the fun stuff?’
‘Absolutamente.’ He rolled onto his side to look down at her. She was so very pretty. ‘That means “absolutely”,’ he said teasingly.
She chuckled. ‘That one I figured out on my own.’
Kathryn didn’t have Margo’s capacity for numbers or languages. Margo had inherited her mother’s proficiency with languages and was fluent in six of them, while Kathryn often had trouble even with English, her Spanish deplorable. But Kathryn was a strategic thinker with a killer body, and he was happy to have her in his bed for the foreseeable future.
He never would have wanted Margo anyway. From the time she’d been old enough to crawl, she’d been Colin’s. The thought made him sigh.
‘Aw, don’t be sad,’ Kathryn murmured.
‘It’s . . . I miss him.’
&
nbsp; ‘I know.’ Kathryn pushed him to his back and straddled him. ‘But I can take your mind off all that for a little while.’
That would be welcome. ‘Then by all means, please proceed.’
Eight
Chevy Chase, Maryland,
Monday 13 June, 9.25 A.M.
It was remarkably the same, Thorne thought as Jamie navigated the streets leading through Chevy Chase. The houses had always been grand and well kept. The cars had always been luxury models. The signage in the yards had always warned trespassers to keep away.
Grand houses gave way to smaller homes in more middle-class neighborhoods, until they stopped in front of a bungalow painted a cheerful yellow with a garden full of roses. Jamie put his van in park. They’d brought his vehicle because it was easiest for him to enter and exit with his chair.
It wasn’t the most maneuverable of automobiles, but Jamie had mad driving skills, which was good because they’d had to lose no fewer than five news vans and four cars. Some of those cars probably held reporters. At least one had been the cop tasked with their surveillance. Thorne felt safer without the constant police presence, especially since they were hoping Prew would give them real information. He might be loath to meet with them if he thought the cops would find out. The man had a pension to hold onto, after all.
‘Detective Prew is expecting us,’ Jamie said into the quiet of the car, because no one had said a single word since they’d left that morning.
Thorne had been lured from his room by the smell of coffee, to find Jamie and Phil at the kitchen table with Gwyn, already dressed. They were all elbow-deep in paperwork. Jamie had brought up the box with the file from his trial and they’d located one of the EMTs and the ME who’d done Richard’s autopsy.
Thorne could only blink blearily at them. He’d fallen asleep only an hour before. He’d tried to sleep all night, he truly had, but he’d only lain in bed looking at the ceiling and alternating between thoughts of the woman who’d died in his bed and the very live woman asleep on the sofa. Everything within him had wanted to go to Gwyn, to lose himself in her scent, in the soft feel of her skin. But he hadn’t.
