by P. G. Forte
He didn’t believe he and Jasmine knew one another well enough yet to truly dislike each other, but that was a concession the nineteen year old did not seem willing to make. Even though she’d been back at school for a couple of weeks now, the tension she’d introduced into his relationship with her mother remained. And he still had no idea what to do about it.
“Speaking of cars,” Lucy said now, to Scout. “We should get going. You want to take yours, or mine?”
Scout climbed to her feet. “Oh, yours, definitely. If I’m really gonna buy myself one of those tanks, I’d better at least get used to riding in them.”
* * * *
“Oh, yeah. I’m feeling much better,” Ryan insisted. “Really. I’ll probably be back at work any day now.”
“Well, good.” Nick Greco nodded encouragingly at the younger man, as he searched in his desk drawer for a smoke. “You, uh... you look like you’re doing good.” He was pretty sure they were both lying through their teeth.
“Yeah,” Ryan repeated, grimly. “I’m real good.”
“But you know,” Nick muttered, still searching. “There’s no sense rushing things. I mean, if they’re willing to give you the time off, you might as well take it, don’t you think?”
Ryan sighed unhappily, staring down at the floor. “You might have a point.”
“Well, it’s just a thought.” Nick finally pulled a crumpled pack from the drawer. He looked at it dubiously. Who knew how long it had been in there, probably stale as hell. Still, it was better than nothing. He shook one out and placed it between his lips. Nick knew there was no good reason for him to feel guilty about Ryan’s injury. Hell, the guy was damn lucky to be alive. But emotions rarely responded to logic, and no matter what he told himself, he still felt culpable. That stake out had been his operation, after all, no matter that he hadn’t planned on it turning into a hostage situation. Or that Ryan had jumped the gun by going in first when he was supposed to have waited for his signal.
In fact, when he thought about it, that was probably why he felt so bad. If things had gone the way he’d planned it, would he have been the one who’d gotten shot? And, if he had, would he have been as lucky?
He’d finally located his lighter when a familiar knock sounded on his office door. He hurriedly removed the cigarette from his mouth, but was not quick enough. He knew by the hungry gleam in Scout’s eyes that she’d seen it.
Who’d have guessed that they’d both have so much trouble kicking the same bad habit? He was smiling as he came around the edge of his desk to greet her. “Hey, hon, what’re you doing downtown?” He kissed her just once, lightly, and felt the pleasure he always experienced at the sight of her unfurl in his gut.
Ryan stumbled to his feet to offer her the chair he’d been sitting in and Scout smiled at both of them, a hint of mischief in her eye. “Ohh, we were just out doing a little shopping, and Lucy suggested we stop by and say hi. Thanks, Ryan,” she added as she sank into the chair. “How’ve you been?”
“Great,” Ryan responded shortly, reaching for the door handle. “Yep, just great. Really. But I gotta go now. Got some things to do. I’ll catch you later, Nick.”
“That leg still bothering him?” Lucy asked, with her usual lack of tact, not even waiting until the door had closed behind him.
Nick felt a momentary flare of annoyance. He frowned at his cousin. “Yeah. It is. So, what’re you up to now, Luce?”
“What d’you mean?” She managed a look of surprised innocence that would probably have fooled anyone who didn’t know her well, Nick thought with grudging amusement as he leaned back against his desk. “It’s just that we hadn’t seen you in awhile and—”
He cut her off with a shake of his head. “And I wasn’t born yesterday. Let’s cut to the chase here, cuz. What do I gotta do this time?”
“You know, Nick,” Lucy drawled. “I’m not sure this job’s all that good for you. It’s made you way too cynical, for one thing. I just thought, since we’d all be sitting together at this dinner next month, it might interest you to know what everyone else’ll be wearing. So you can, you know, plan your own wardrobe accordingly?”
“Dinner?” Nick turned to his wife for clarification, only to find her gazing at him in exasperation.
“Nick! The winemaker’s dinner? At the new winery – Lupa e Cervo? It’s in a couple of weeks. We did talk about this, you know.”
“Right.” He rubbed his hand over his face. Damn, he was hoping she’d forgotten about that. The last thing he wanted to do right now was to waste a lot of money attending some stupid fundraiser. He’d been involved with a little private fundraising project of his own lately and, at the moment, he was pretty well tapped out. “But you don’t really want to go to something like that, right now, Scout, do you? I mean, the whole point of a winemaker’s dinner is the wine and it’s not like you’re gonna be drinking any.”
“Well, she can still eat, can’t she?” Lucy exploded. “Jeez, Nick, just because she’s pregnant, it doesn’t mean she has to sit home with you every night and be bored.”
“Thank you, Lucy.” Nick looked at Scout. “Sorry, hon, I didn’t realize I was failing so badly on the entertainment front.”
She frowned at him. “Nick, you know better than that. Of course I’m not bored! Jeez. It just sounds like fun, that’s all. I mean, how often do you get to attend a formal dinner held in a cave? And it’s part of the winery’s big Grand Re-opening, so you know they’re going to pull out all the stops. Plus, it is for a good cause.”
“And where’s your sense of heritage, anyway?” Lucy chimed in. “I mean, come on, Nick, it’s practically a cultural event. Very Italian. Like Carnevale. Or Lupercus.”
Nick stared at his cousin in astonishment. “Lupercus? Lucy, are you nuts? Whose heritage would that be? Not ours, that’s for sure! Tell me, are they gonna sacrifice goats there, too?”
Lucy scowled. “Well, really. That’s a very unenlightened attitude, Nick. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anything so ignorant in my life.”
“Oh, stop it, both of you,” Scout fumed, glaring from one to the other. “You’re being ridiculous. Look, let’s just forget the whole thing.”
Nick shook his head. “No. She started this. I want to hear what she has to say. Come on, Luce, enlighten me. Who’s everyone, huh? And why should I care what they’re wearing?”
Lucy’s chin rose fractionally and her brown eyes flashed. “Well, to be honest, I’m not sure what Sam’s wearing yet. But knowing him, you can bet it’s gonna be something very nice, and very expensive.”
“Yeah, and very black,” Scout added. She was trying to lighten the tension but he could have told her it wasn’t going to work. “But who gives a shit? Let’s just drop it, okay?”
Lucy grimaced. “Right. Black. To match his nice, expensive new car, which he’ll also probably be driving. And Dan will be wearing his new tux, so—”
“Dan’s got a tux now?” Nick asked in disbelief. He figured his cousin’s husband had always liked dressing up about as much as he did. “Jesus. How’d you ever talk him into that?” He saw the hot flush of color on Lucy’s cheeks and was unable to resist adding, “Oh. Right. What was I thinking? Never mind, forget I asked.”
He retreated back behind his desk and pretended not to notice the grin that Scout was working hard to suppress. He’d probably gone a little too far with that last jab. He wasn’t really angry with his cousin, after all. Just pissed that she was messing with his plans again.
He wasn’t at all surprised when she replied finally, in a deceptively gentle voice. “I don’t know, Nick, maybe I’m wrong. I just figured you wouldn’t want to embarrass Scout. You know, by being the only man there who couldn’t be bothered to wear something nice.”
“Lucy,” Scout sounded genuinely outraged. “I am not going to be embarrassed. For Christ’s sake, what’s wrong with you two today?”
He should have known better than to bait his cousin like that, Nick reflected. S
he was extremely protective of anyone she considered family, as he had good cause to know, but she had absolutely no sense of humor when it came to her relationship with Dan. Besides, much as he hated to admit it, she did have a point. Oberon had to seem pretty damn tame to Scout after the whole A&E scene she was used to. She’d probably gone to things like this dinner all the time when she was living in New York and LA. And he did want her to be happy here—
“So, is that it then?” he asked, smiling at both of them as he mentally calculated the cost of two tickets and the tuxedo rental. “Just the tux? I don’t have to go out and rent a limo now, too, do I?”
“No, I think you can skip that. This time,” Lucy said. She looked partly mollified.
Scout was also looking pleased but puzzled as she got up to go. “Nick, are you really okay with this?” she asked hesitantly. “Because, honestly, if you’d rather we didn’t go—”
He smiled at her, reassuringly. “No, of course not. It’ll be fun.”
He was using the same tone he’d used earlier, when he was speaking with Ryan, he realized. And about the same level of veracity, as well. “Really. I’m looking forward to it.”
* * * *
Ryan lay on the padded table and tried hard to pretend he was lying on a tropical beach. It shouldn’t be too difficult to manage, given his therapist’s choice in music. The soft cheerful sounds of ukulele and drum wafting through the examining room should have provided an easy escape from the cold dampness of the world outside. But it couldn’t ease his troubled thoughts.
He shifted restlessly. His leg was feeling wonderful at the moment, warm and practically pain free, just as it had in the shower. But elsewhere, ripples of a tingling warm numbness radiated outwards from the dozen or so needles that were scattered across his skin.
Wherever the spreading ripples intersected one another he was aware of disconcerting surges of energy, prompting random memories that sparked and faded, seemingly without pattern or purpose. Stupid things, most of them. Inconsequential. Like part of the route he had taken every day to his first after school job. Or the taste of blueberry pie. A snatch of a song that he’d been listening to on the drive over. Or that funny little catch he’d heard in his mother’s voice when he’d called, after his injury, to tell her not to worry.
It was as if a lifetime’s worth of memories were stored in your body’s cells, he thought uneasily – preserved there forever, like insects trapped in amber. As though the past was something you could never really get away from. As though you were doomed to carry all the pleasures, all the pain – all the mistakes you thought you could at least learn something from – around with you for the rest of your life. No possibility for a fresh start, a clean slate, a second chance, a last minute reprieve.
It was a sobering thought, dour and daunting. Depressing as hell.
He took a deep breath and tried to relax. He tried to ignore the memories that kept cropping up, but it was impossible. His attention was snagged again and again by the jumbled images and his muscles were tight from the effort he was making to keep from jumping off the table.
“How’re we doing Mr. Henderson?” the cheerful voice of Brent Hoffman, his therapist, intruded. Ryan opened his eyes and glared at the man. With his grizzled, shoulder length hair and beard and his bright aloha shirt Hoffman matched the decor of his office, but little else on the mainland.
“Fine.” Ryan grated the word through clenched teeth.
The other man chuckled as he pushed aside the curtains and entered the cubicle. “I still think you’d find these treatments a lot more comfortable if you didn’t tense up your muscles like that, you know.”
“So you’ve mentioned,” Ryan said as Hoffman began to remove the needles one by one, vigorously pummeling the areas where they’d been embedded – all except for those on his injured leg. There, the therapist was content to merely run his hands around in brisk, circular motions an inch or two above the skin, humming an odd, tuneless melody as he did so.
“You know, I’m a little disappointed. I really thought we’d see more improvement, by now,” he commented with a frown.
“Hmm.” Ryan had heard this before. It was what all the specialists he had seen in the last couple of months had said. Though none of them could tell him what was wrong. Mostly they just handed out prescriptions for the pain, along with vague advice that he try to take it easy.
Well, what the hell did they think he was doing? He pretty much had to take it easy, didn’t he? It wasn’t like there was a wide range of other options available to him.
To give him credit, Hoffman had said nothing about taking it easy. And so far, he’d prescribed nothing stronger than a rather foul tasting herbal tonic. Ryan could live with that. For one thing, there was no danger of his ever becoming addicted to the disgusting stuff. For another, even if his leg wasn’t responding the way it was supposed to, at least these treatments still offered him a few days’ respite from the pain.
He could definitely live with it. He just hoped he wouldn’t have to live with it for too much longer.
* * * *
The rain had tapered off by the time Siobhan headed back down the coast later that day. But the sky, flat and gray as unpolished silver, promised more rain to come. The sea was rough in the aftermath of the storm. Huge waves raced each other to the shore, the powerful swells curving forward like the necks of horses. White manes of spray, whipped up by the wind, trailed in the air behind them.
Despite the danger, there was a magnificent wild beauty to the scene that appealed to her. She longed to stop the car and getting out to walk for a while on the beach and enjoy the weather. But there were animals back at the center that needed her care and she’d been gone long enough. Besides, she had a school class coming by tomorrow on a field trip and she still had to collect the rocks and other specimens they would be studying.
The same reminder she would give herself when she passed the exit for the Totawka Brewery and the urge to stop for a drink presented itself. Or maybe it was more than a drink she was looking for. The CD she had put in earlier was on its second play and the lyrics to Safe in the Arms of Love were dredging up treacherous longings.
It had been ten years since the accident that claimed the lives of her husband and their eight-year-old twin daughters. Ten years during which she had lived like a hermit, tormented by grief and regret, just skating along on the thin edge of insanity. As long as she remained emotionally uninvolved, she could handle the memories, and the guilt. But each time she found herself on the verge of becoming attached to anyone, she was haunted by dreams and hallucinations. And by increasingly poignant reminders of the children she had sacrificed for the sake of her own selfish pleasure.
Yet, despite her obvious mental instability, she was physically healthy. Her body continued to crave a return to normalcy, even if her mind could no longer handle it.
The brief, anonymous sexual encounters she allowed herself from time to time did almost nothing to assuage her physical needs, and even less to ease her loneliness. But at least they had little adverse effect on her mental state. Still, it was far more rewarding – and probably healthier in the long run, as well – to depend on her dog for affection, and to expend her excess physical energy in her martial arts classes.
Her sister Marsha was fond of saying that everything worked out for the best, eventually. And while Siobhan wouldn’t go quite that far, she had to admit that she had become a fairly proficient fighter over the years as a result of her almost constant training. Plus, the strength and speed she’d developed from her classes came in handy when dealing with recalcitrant wildlife.
Still, all these benefits notwithstanding, it was not quite the life she would have chosen for herself.
* * * *
Lucy glanced uneasily at the clock. Dan was late getting home from work again tonight. This made the third, no, the fourth time now, in the last two weeks, and she wasn’t aware of any pressing business at the nursery that would account for it. T
he kids had already retired to their rooms to finish their homework. She’d let them eat when the chicken cacciatore she’d made for dinner had threatened to fall to pieces in the pot. And she was on her second glass of Pinot Noir, as she tried to concentrate on the catalog in front of her.
The dog seemed to sense her concern. He nudged at her leg with his nose and whimpered softly until she’d put down a hand to stroke his head.
She couldn’t imagine why she hadn’t considered keeping bees before now. She thought about it as she turned through pages of ads for everything from smokers and extractors, to the bees themselves. With all the fields full of flowers she had access to, it seemed the most obvious thing in the world for her to be doing. There would be all that honey they could market, both at the nursery and at Marsha’s teashop, as well as wax for making candles.
It might even keep her too busy to wonder what Dan could be up to on nights like this.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she finally heard the sound of his Explorer turning into the driveway, and hurried to meet him at the back door. “At last! Dan, what kept you?”
He smiled at her affectionately as he came up the porch stairs. Giving her the patented Cavanaugh smile which he’d passed on to both of their kids – long on charm and confidence, yet just sheepish enough to disarm almost anyone. Even after all these years, she still found its appeal awfully hard to resist.
“What’s the matter, babe? Miss me?” he asked as he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight.
“Well, yes, actually. But that’s not the point. Your dinner’s completely ruined. The dog is desperate for his walk. And I don’t know how many phone calls you missed.”
“Someone called here?” He released her abruptly and bent to pet the dog, who clambered around them, begging for attention. “Who was it? Did they say what it was about?”
