by P. G. Forte
“Maybe it’s not your feelings she’s worried about.”
“Yeah, well, the only one whose feelings Lucy needs to worry about is anyone who’d be stupid enough to try and cause trouble by telling Scout something she doesn’t need to know. The real question is, do we know anyone dumb enough to do something like that?”
No, Dan thought, pausing to open another beer, the real question is why you want Darcy here so badly? Because, no matter what Nick was saying, he had to know it wouldn’t sit well with his folks. But somehow, Dan doubted he was going to learn the answer to that anytime soon.
“Hey, I’m not saying you’re wrong, Nick. I’m just telling you how Lucy’s gonna feel about it, is all. You’re not gonna tell me I don’t know how your cousin thinks now, are you?”
“Oh, hell, no.” Nick smiled at him. “No chance of that. You are without a doubt the world class ranking expert on what makes Lucy tick. No question.”
“Fuckin’ A,” Dan said. And this time, it was his gaze that drifted across the patio and wandered longingly over his wife’s silhouette. Her features were lost in the shadows, but he could see her hands waving animatedly as she made some point or another, and he wished she’d bring those hands over here, and put them to better use.
Right. Like that’s gonna happen. With her parents sitting there, he knew she’d barely lay her eyes on him tonight, never mind her hands. In fact, as long as they were anywhere in the vicinity, they’d eat up her attention the way a fire would eat up all the oxygen in a closed room. The next couple of weeks were gonna seem awfully long. Long and lonely. And cold.
“So, uh, I understand Marsha was here?” Nick’s voice broke into his reverie. “And that guy that’s been hanging around her. Sam? What’d you think of him?”
Dan shrugged and took another drink from his beer. “Seems okay. Didn’t really get to talk to him. He’s another vegetarian, you know. Just like Marsha. So there’s two more who didn’t eat much. She seems to like him. But then, she seemed real fond of that asshole ex-husband of hers, too. Go figure.”
“Yeah. Kate and Mandy seem pretty taken, as well. I think they spent most of the day trailing after him.”
“Oh, you noticed that, huh? Yeah, well,” The lights in the spa illuminated the girls’ faces and glittered on the sparkly plastic jewelry they both sported. Dan shrugged. “What else’d you expect from girls at that age.”
That age?” Nick, who had also turned to watch the girls swung around, staring. “They’re eleven!”
“Yeah?” Dan couldn’t help chuckling. “And your point?”
“I don’t know about you, Dan, but I don’t recall being all that interested in girls when I was their age. Never mind grown women.”
Think a little harder then, bud, Dan wanted to say, but didn’t. He’d heard enough about the romantic exploits of young Nick Greco to suspect a little revisionist history was at work. “Well, but c’mon, Nick, it’s not like they’re planning on dating him or anything. He’s pretty safe crush material, is all. Besides, what difference does it make what you were up to at ten? They’re girls. They’re gonna mature at a younger age than guys, anyway.” Kinda like when you met Scout, from what I hear.
He chuckled at his friend’s dismayed expression. “Face it, man. Our little girls are growing up. And there’s not a damn thing we can do to stop ‘em.”
Nick groaned. “I’ve had a really rough day. If you’re trying to put me in a good mood, you’re doing a lousy job.”
“Look, what you really want to do is get yourself busy and knock Scout up. Just wait until you have a son, Nick. Then you’ll really know what grief is.”
“Like hell,” Nick snorted. “I don’t need a son to give me grief. I’ve got my mother for that.”
“Oh, I hear that, brother.” Dan lifted his bottle in a small salute. “And amen. But still, you know... it’s not quite the same thing.”
“Well, shit, Dan,” Nick smiled wryly, his eyes seeking out Scout once more. “I sure hope not.”
* * *
“I’m sorry,” Marsha mumbled, but her voice was muffled against Sam’s chest, and she wasn’t sure at first that he’d even heard her. He’d wrapped his arms around her and held her while she cried and it had felt... nice. Very nice, in fact. It had been a long time since anyone had held her.
“No, I’m the one who should be sorry,” he said, loosening his hold on her fractionally. She looked up as he continued, “That was unforgivable. I really didn’t mean it the way it must have sounded.”
She shrugged, trying to brush it off. “Oh, please, you didn’t say anything I hadn’t already been thinking.” She looked away again, unable to meet the self-reproach in his eyes. She had more than enough of her own. But he lifted her chin, tilting her head up so that she was once more forced to look at him.
His eyes glinted, hard and flint-like. “I know it. That’s what makes it even worse.” He said it very seriously, and she really wished that he would let her look away. Her lips had begun to tremble, and she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t start crying all over again.
“Okay, fine then!” she snapped, squirming a little as she attempted to create some distance between them. She shoved at his chest, but it was like trying to push a wall away. She hated giving in to anger, but anything was better than crying. “We were both wrong, and now we’ve both said we’re sorry. So what’s the plan here, Sam? What’s left to say? Is there anything else you need to do before we put it all behind us?”
She hadn’t really meant it as a challenge, but he obviously took it as such. “Just this,” he murmured, his gaze focusing suddenly on her lips.
She caught his meaning too late to stop him. “Wait!” she gasped in protest. The word changed into a grunt of surprise as his lips touched hers – tentatively at first, just testing the waters. But heat and desire tore through her in an instant, and sent her surging against him.
She felt him shudder as she rose up on her toes to meet him; and then the sudden, his sharp intake of his breath. His mouth twisted hard over hers. One of his hands swept up and anchored itself in her hair, the other descended to her lower back and pulled her close. His arms felt so good around her, hard and strong. She pressed closer still, her fingers clenching fistfuls of his shirt. Suddenly, the smallest space between them seemed an unbearable distance; a gap to be annihilated, a chasm to be bridged at any cost.
His tongue swept into her mouth, and the shock of it rocked her right down to her feet. After that, she was too lost in a spinning vortex of need to think of anything at all.
Her kiss was completely undisciplined, hot and chaotic, and everything Sam wanted. He thought he was going to drown, right then and there. He wanted to drown, with the taste of her mouth on his lips, with the feel of her body pressed against his, warm in his arms, and with no other thoughts at all to distract him.
But the thoughts came anyway, just as relentless and demanding as the drumming of his blood in his ears. He groaned in protest of his own actions, but still he forced himself to break off the kiss, pulling back just enough to be able to look at her. Forced himself to take long, deep breaths. Forced the air back into his lungs, hoping it would clear his head. Her eyes opened slowly, wide and dreamy, dark with passion, so clearly inviting that he almost kissed her again.
That would be a very bad idea. He knew it would be a bad idea, he was just having a little trouble remembering why.
She blinked back a little of her confusion, and then a tiny mischievous smile curved her lips. “So that was your plan, then? To kiss and make up?”
“I guess so,” he said, returning her smile with one that felt surprisingly shaky. “Did it work?”
She cleared her throat. “Ah, since I can no longer remember exactly what the problem was, I suppose it must have.”
“Well, good.” He took another deep breath and gently eased her away from him. “Why don’t you get in your car, now. I’ll, uh, I’ll wait here and make sure it starts, and all that.”
“Al
l right.” She eyed him curiously. “I can give you a ride back to your bike, if you want.”
“No, that’s okay. It’s not that far, and I think the fog’s lifting, anyway,” he lied. There was no way he was getting into that van right now. Vans like that had played a major role in some of his hottest youthful fantasies. If the interior matched the exterior in any way, there was bound to be a mattress tossed in the back of it. He didn’t think he could resist that much temptation tonight.
She stopped with her hand on the door handle and turned back to him. “Listen, I want to come out to the cabin.”
That got his attention, quick enough. “I, um... what?” Part of him, hopes soaring, wanted to tell her, Never mind the cabin, doll, let’s just do it right now in your van. But the more rational part of his brain forced him to keep his mouth shut and wait, because he knew he couldn’t have gotten that lucky, all of a sudden. They must have gotten their signals crossed again.
And sure enough, “To pack up some of the stuff?” she elaborated. “I thought maybe tomorrow, sometime in the afternoon, if that’s okay?”
“Sure. Okay. Whatever. That would be fine,” Sam answered with a casual shrug. He even managed a small smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
As he watched her climb into her van alone, he tried very hard not to feel too disappointed.
* * *
“Well, that was enjoyable – not.” Nick grumbled as he got into bed. “Shit. I thought they’d never leave.”
“Nick!” Scout slid herself closer and gazed at him reproachfully. “I think they were just waiting for you to talk to them.”
“I talked,” he groused. He didn’t want her taking their side. He was feeling grumpy and tired and out of sorts, and he wanted her to take his mind off everything that had gone wrong. To soothe away the anguish he had been working most of the day to suppress, not comment on his relationship with his family. And definitely not stick up for them. “I talked plenty.”
“You barely said two words to your mother, or your aunt. And I don’t know what was up between you and your uncle.”
Nick shrugged. “Nothing new, really. I just wasn’t in the mood to listen to the usual complaints, is all. They were all in lousy moods, anyway. Even Lucy.”
Scout chuckled in the darkness. He loved the sound of her laugh, loved her smile, loved the mischief in her voice when she said, “Yeah, I noticed. She, uh... isn’t real fond of Darcy, is she? What’s up with that?”
But there was no way he was opening that can of worms tonight. “Oh, who knows? What did you think of her?” he asked instead.
“Darcy? She seems okay. She wasn’t a whole lot more talkative than you, though. Is she always that quiet? Must be one of those cop things, I guess.”
“Hey,” he snarled, only half-playful, twisting up onto his side, and pinning her against the mattress. “What’s with all these cop jokes, today? You got a problem with me being a cop all of a sudden?”
“And what if I do?” she peered up at him challengingly. “Are you prepared to do something about it?”
Good question. Guilt and fear turned his insides cold. What would he do? And what was she asking him to do anyway? She couldn’t be serious... could she?
“Nick?” her voice broke into his thoughts, soft and a little cautious. “Are you okay?”
“What do you think about it, Scout?” he asked, “We’ve never really discussed it.”
“What do I think... about you being a cop?” He heard her take a deep breath and let it out again. “Oh, I don’t know,” she answered slowly. “I never really thought about it. It’s always just... been there.”
“Don’t give me that shit,” he said, suddenly angry with her denial. “You must have given it a little thought. You have to have worked up some opinion about what I do. Or about days like this, when I have to work late, and our plans get screwed up. Or when I have to stop in the middle of whatever we’re doing and go to work instead. Hell, everyone else has had an opinion about it my whole life. Every woman, anyway. Why should you be any different from the rest of them?”
“Now, there’s a lovely thing to say.” She pushed him away and struggled to sit up. “Thank you for that. I can’t tell you how wonderful that makes me feel.”
“Oh, hell. You know that’s not what I meant,” he mumbled, drawing her back down. “Why shouldn’t you have the same opinion, is all.”
“And just what is this magically invariable opinion that all your women have to have?” she asked, her voice quiet suddenly, and cold.
“That it sucks. That I should quit being a cop and do something else. That if I’m going to continue to lose myself in my work, I can damn well expect to lose them, too. ‘Cause they’re sure as hell gonna lose interest in me. Or go find someone else who’ll give them what I can’t, or won’t.” He stopped abruptly, too drained to continue. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters,” she said softly. “But Nick... it doesn’t have to be that way, you know. I don’t have to feel like that, just because others have.”
He laughed; his voice sounded loud and harsh in the quiet room. “C’mon, babe. Why not, huh? What’s changed, after all? You can’t tell me that’s not exactly how you did feel all those years ago? When we first got together?”
“No,” she answered slowly, hesitantly. She shook her head, and then continued more firmly. “No, I don’t think so, Nick. I honestly don’t remember ever feeling that way. It was just—”
“Oh, bullshit!” he growled fiercely. “Don’t lie to me now, Scout. I’ve told you. It doesn’t matter. Can’t we just—”
“I am not lying, God damn it!” she insisted. “What is this, anyway? I thought we were over that? When are you going to stop—”
“Hey, I’m ready to stop it, whenever you are, babe. You really want to go there? Then fine, let’s go. You didn’t resent my work twenty years ago? Like hell. That’s a bunch of crap. How about that last afternoon we had together then, huh? You tryin’ to say now that you weren’t so fuckin’ pissed off about me going to work you didn’t run straight to—” He stopped dead, hit suddenly and belatedly by the realization of something she’d told him months ago. Something he heard, and thought he understood, but which obviously had never made it very much past his ears. Straight to Glen, he had been about to say; which is what he’d believed for most of twenty years. But... she hadn’t.
She really hadn’t.
He was so shocked by comprehension, and by the dazzling relief he felt, that he nearly missed the fact that she had gone very still.
“I went where?” she asked, and there was no missing the deadly fury in her voice, or the rage sparking fires in her eyes.
“Home,” he answered slowly, remembering what she’d told him. “You came here. You... you really weren’t angry with me, after all... were you?” He still couldn’t quite get used to the idea.
She really had loved him back then. And he had known it, too. But everyone else had been so sure she was lying. And, in the end, they’d very nearly convinced him he’d been wrong about her.
“No, not then, I wasn’t,” she snarled. He could see the hurt and the anger burning in her eyes. She had a right to both. She’d always been willing to do whatever she had to – for him, for them. But right now he could tell he’d pushed her too far. She wasn’t going to give him another inch.
“Honey, c’mere.” He reached for her, but she backed away from him, until she was kneeling right at the edge of the bed. Poised for flight. As though she were getting ready to run. His muscles tensed. She’d better not try. He wouldn’t let her make it to the door.
“No. Don’t touch me. Don’t even think of—”
He forced himself to stay calm. “Scout, I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
“Damn right, you didn’t. So what else is new? I don’t know what I have to do or say to convince you I—”
“You don’t have to convince me of anything. I’m an idiot. I know that. Just... try an
d understand. I’ve been going crazy here all day worrying that you would start to resent what I do again. Worried that—”
“That I would be just like everyone else. Yeah, I got that. You made that point plenty clear before.”
“No! Worried that I would lose you. Afraid I’d blow my second chance with you, and never get another. I couldn’t bear it, Scout.”
Her face crumpled. Her muscles sagged, almost imperceptibly. “Nick, I—”
He shook his head. “Twenty years is a long time to have one idea in your head; even if it is the wrong one. I know it’s taken me longer than it should have to readjust my thinking. But... I think I got it now, I really do.”
“Well, it’s about time, then.” She sighed as she lay back down and curled herself into his arms. “Because what I can’t bear is for you to doubt me and to always think I’m lying. Shit, Nick, it’s bad enough that most of your family still believes I’m out to wreck your life. I gotta have someone who’s on my side.”
“Scout, you know I’m always gonna be on your side,” he said as held her close. “Besides, they don’t think that.”
“Yes, damn it. They do.”
“Well, maybe a little. But never mind them now. Just tell me you understand what I have to do. And that you’re okay with it.”
“Well, of course I’m okay with it. Would I even be here having this discussion if I wasn’t? I mean, sure there have been times when I don’t like it, but it’s a part of who you are, Nick. For as long as I’ve known you, it’s been... what you do, how you live. I think it’s where your heart is.”
“No.” He stopped her with his fingers against her lips. “Oh, no. That’s where you’re wrong, see.” He stroked his fingers down her face, looking deep into her eyes. And then gently laid his hand over her chest, where he could feel her heart beating. “You want to know where my heart is, Scout? It’s right here. Right where it’s always been, ever since the night we met.”
“Oh, Nick...”
“All those years when you were gone, I never understood what was wrong with me. I thought my heart was broken when you left, but that wasn’t it at all. It was just... missing. You’d taken it with you, Jen. You’d taken it away. You’d gone somewhere I couldn’t find you, and left me—”
