by Lyn Cote
He walked inside the home that he’d felt so comfortable in just days ago. Had it really been just days since he’d held this silent woman? Now, it was if he were walking onto uncharted land. He paused by the kitchen bar. He cleared his throat. “You’ve been getting calls?”
“Oh, did Chuck send you?” She sounded disappointed.
Maybe she’d wanted Chuck to come, not him. He steeled himself against this thought. “Yes, Chuck said I should take care of this. That you’d feel more comfortable talking to me than a stranger.” Though he knew the exact opposite was probably true.
“You came about the phone calls?” she asked as if he had been speaking in a riddle.
He wished he could tell her the truth—that he’d come because he’d grabbed at any excuse for coming, for being here with her once more. Connie, I want to be near you, hold you once more. But would this be the last time they were together?
The shaft of fiery pain that shot through his heart nearly made him gasp. He steadied himself with a hand on the kitchen bar. “When did this start?”
“I’m sure it’s my client—my former client, Floyd Sanders. He accepted a plea bargain on Tuesday morning. He called me that night. He used vulgar insults. But I thought…he was just angry, that he would be smart enough not to call again after I hung up on him. But then he called the next evening…and he threatened me. I recorded him on my answering machine.”
He had the sudden urge to find Sanders and put his hands around the creep’s throat. Instead, after years of routine investigations, Rand pulled out his note pad and pen. “What form did the threat take?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What did he threaten to do to you?”
“Nothing specific.” She looked down. “Just that ‘I’d pay.’”
He nodded, preparing his constricted throat for speech. “Did he call again tonight?”
“Yes. At least, I think it’s him. Someone just keeps calling, letting it ring and ring. I haven’t answered.”
As if on cue, the phone began ringing. Rand strode over and picked up. “Rand O’Neill for Connie Oberlin.”
Breathing on the line.
“I’m a detective with the Taperville force. What do you want?”
The line clicked. Dial tone.
He hung up, disappointed. He’d had several comments he’d wanted to make to the jerk. “That may take care of it. If he thinks the police have a personal…interest in your safety, he may drop it.”
“If it doesn’t—” She still wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“I think it will.” A fierce protectiveness rushed through him. Connie, I would do anything to keep you safe.
Don’t leave me, Rand. Connie could feel these words forming deep in her throat. She swallowed trying to hold them back. He was just investigating Troy’s disappearance. And he was right all along and I wouldn’t listen. I was such a fool. He doesn’t want me.
Really? her inner voice countered. Is that why just days ago he held you in his arms in this very room?
It didn’t mean anything to him. He never said anything.
Did you say anything? the voice chided.
I couldn’t. He didn’t want me to. I didn’t want to.
Rand tucked his pad and pen back into his jacket pocket. “I guess I should go.” He stayed where he was.
“No.” Suddenly desperate, she put her hand out and touched his sleeve. Don’t leave yet. I don’t care about Floyd Sanders. I want you here. But she offered, “He may call again….”
He didn’t move. Her hand stayed where she laid it. She repressed the urge to clutch his sleeve.
Finally Rand spoke in a heavy even tone. “I’ll make sure Mr. Sanders realizes the consequences of any further harassment of any kind.”
Again, they stood in tableau. Then Rand moved a step backward and Connie looked up into his eyes. The look she saw there was a revelation.
He’s looking at me the way Jack looks at Gracie, the way Gil looks at Patience, the way Troy looks at Annie. It’s the look of love. Rand loves me.
The thought stunned her.
“I guess I should be going,” Rand said, but didn’t move.
“No.” She closed her hand over his wrist, the look in his eyes told her all she needed to know, all she needed to act. I don’t want you to go. “Stay. Please.” She swallowed, trying to moisten her dry mouth. “We’ll talk.”
“You want me to stay?” he said, sounding as if each word cost him.
“Yes.” Then, daringly, she drew him along with her toward the love seat. The love seat where they had spent many evenings just sitting in each other’s arms. She perched on the edge of the cushion, still clinging to his wrist.
For a moment, only a moment, he held back. Then he sank down beside her and pulled her near. “Connie,” he murmured. “Connie.”
A deep sigh flowed out of her and she snuggled closer against his firm chest, deeper into the cradle of his strong arms. “Rand.”
Time passed. Connie felt and heard the beating of his heart under her ear. At first, it matched her own rapid pulse, and then it slowed to normal. Still, wonderfully, he didn’t release her.
“I can’t lose you,” Rand finally murmured, amazed that he could say this aloud at long last.
“I’m not going anywhere.” She looked up and smiled at him. “And I’m not letting you go, either.”
“But…” He had to know. He had to ask her. He couldn’t form a relationship with her if at the back of his mind… There was no subtle way to ask this. He braced himself. “Do you still have feelings for Troy?”
She stilled in his arms. She waited till her heart stopped throbbing again. She couldn’t look at him.
“Tell me,” he coaxed. “Get it out. Let it go.”
She looked at him then. Moments passed.
What was she thinking? Had he pushed her too far? He had a hard time swallowing. “You don’t owe me any explanation,” he conceded.
That was certainly true.
But he noted a shift in her expression. Did she really want to tell him? He decided, he must wait in silence. If she wanted to tell him, then she would. If she could not, he wouldn’t be able to commit completely to her because she wouldn’t have committed to him.
She must tell him the truth, put whatever was in the past behind her, behind them. Seconds ticked by. He had a hard time breathing. Would they make it or not?
“I was in love with Troy.” She stroked his cheek. “A long time ago. Before he married Annie.”
Though expected, her confession stabbed into him, a dull blade of pain under his heart. “I know how it feels to let go of a past love,” he whispered.
She pressed her cheek to his as though thanking him. Then she feathered his hair away from his face, her touch comforting him. “I loved Troy even before he dated me in high school. When he broke up with me in our sophomore year, I acted like I didn’t care. But it hurt.” She paused and wouldn’t meet his eyes.
He understood why. You’d rather keep this secret, but you want someone to know, want me to know you’ve suffered, too. He sat absolutely still, not wanting anything to stop the flow of her words, somehow waiting to share in the release she’d feel when she’d purged herself.
“Then Annie entered high school and he started dating her.” Connie’s voice wilted with regret. “I didn’t let on that I still cared. I had no right to. Troy wanted Annie. Not me. And she was almost a sister to me.”
Rand heard the anguish in her voice. He licked his dry lips. “What happened…what did you do when they got engaged?”
“I knew then that I had to stop loving him.” Pulling away, she rubbed her arms as though they were freezing, though a warm breeze fluttered in through the sliding door. “If Annie married Troy, I knew it would be a sin to continue to have feelings for him.”
That would matter to Connie. She wouldn’t behave dishonorably to a friend…or enemy. “What did you do?” Rand finally asked.
“When I came home from co
llege for Christmas, I faced the fact that I needed help to get rid of my feelings. I went and talked to our pastor. I told him the truth about…about how I felt about Troy. I asked him, ‘I know he belongs to Annie now. How do I stop loving someone?’”
Rand echoed her question silently. Did he really still love Cara? Was it possible to love Connie as he had loved his wife? Yes.
“My pastor said,” Connie continued, her head bent low, “that sometimes people become fixated on one person. Their feelings outlast the relationship. He said he’d seen this with people who had been divorced and still wanted to go back to their spouse no matter what.”
“That makes sense.” To have something to do with his hands, Rand stroked Connie’s hair. “It must have been pretty tough on you to tell someone.”
“It was, but it helped me put everything into perspective. He told me that it wasn’t a sin to be attracted to Troy.”
Rand caught her eye. “Even when Troy was going to marry someone else?”
She fingered her hair behind her ears, her fingers brushing his. Sparks flew up his arms from her touch. “The pastor said whom we are attracted to is something that is very hard to control since it comes from deep inside a person for reasons humans just don’t understand. But he said I must take charge of my mind. My mind could lead me to sin.”
Rand let his arm rest on the love seat, just inches from Connie. “What does that mean?”
“He read me the passage in Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount, where Christ taught about adultery, about having lustful thoughts.” She stopped to sigh.
She leaned back against his shoulder and then rested one slender hand on the back of the love seat, just touching the sensitive skin on the back of his neck. “The pastor asked me if I would actually sin with Troy, knowing now he’d given his promise to Annie. I said no. I’d never hurt Annie, never commit a sin like that.”
“So you didn’t let yourself think about Troy?” Rand stared over at her, trying to make eye contact. He wanted to hear this. He wanted to tell her to stop.
“He said whenever I had thoughts about Troy, I had to consciously stop and turn my mind to other things. He told me never to imagine that Troy and I were anything but friends. He told me never to be alone with Troy.”
“Did Troy or Annie ever guess you had feelings for him?” Rand stood up suddenly, gripped by a need to move.
“No, I don’t think so. I’ve been very careful.” She gazed at him, resting her head against the love seat. With her index finger, she traced the seam of the upholstery. “But I wasn’t able to move on. I still felt the attachment, infatuation. For whatever reason. I can’t explain it.”
Rand shoved his hands into his pockets. “Maybe it had just become a habit.” Like my standing apart after losing Cara.
“Maybe. But after Troy and Annie became engaged, I was never in love with Troy—not the way you said it that day in your driveway. I didn’t…” She shook her head, looking down. “I’d accepted that he’s happiest with Annie and the boys. But that night in the E.R. when I saw Troy, looking so…awful, my feelings for him changed. I finally saw him as…just Annie’s husband. I don’t know how to explain it, but it was as if someone had clipped a thread of my life and I was changed.”
Rand nodded. He could understand that. It had been a shock, a life-changing moment.
“Before, when you and I argued, about whether Troy had been kidnapped or had run away,” she said, “I just couldn’t believe that Troy could betray Annie. I couldn’t accept that he would treat her like that…leave her and his sons penniless. But that night, I saw that it was all true, terribly true. It was somehow like he’d betrayed me, too. That’s stupid, I know.”
“No, it isn’t stupid.” He moved to the love seat again.
“Do you remember how I reacted when we found out that Uncle Lou had paid protection money? When I said I should put away childish things like expecting perfection in the ones I love?”
“Yes.” Rand wished he had comfort to give her.
“I was thinking that over last night and I recalled a verse I memorized a long time ago.” She recited, “‘When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.’” She held up both arms to him, asking him to come close, to hold her. “Rand, I think I’ve finally put away my childish feelings for Troy. I’m free of my past infatuation over him now.”
Rand took both her hands and drew her into his arms. He buried his face in her neck and rocked her gently.
“What about you?” Connie murmured into his ear.
He stilled. “What about me?”
“Are you still in love with your wife?” Her voice faltered.
“No.” His voice didn’t sound strong enough. He couldn’t let her think that. He repeated it, “No.”
She rubbed his arms with her hands. “Then what is it? What kept you fencing with me?”
He tucked her deeper into his embrace. “I think it wasn’t that I still loved Cara. It was the pain…of losing her…in such a violent way. She didn’t just die. She was kidnapped and murdered. I should have been able to protect her. I was a cop. And I couldn’t even protect my own wife.”
Connie lifted her face to his and kissed him—once, twice. “We live in a world where terrible things happen to good people. I don’t know why your wife had to die such a terrible death. But it wasn’t your fault, none of it.”
He held her tightly. Again, he heard the pastor’s voice at little Michael’s christening—I assure you that whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it…. Christ told Nicodemus, “You must be born again.” Rand gazed down at the top of Connie’s head and felt a rush of love that nearly weakened his knees. I’ve been given a second chance, Lord, and I won’t turn my back on her…or You. I’ll believe that we have a chance to make it together in this harsh world.
“What are you thinking?”
“I was just thanking God for you. I love you. I’m never letting you go.”
She rose on tiptoe and kissed him again. “You’d better not. I want to hold you like this every evening for the rest of our lives.”
He kissed her forehead, her eyes each in turn, and then lowered his mouth to hers. “I love you, Ms. Constance Oberlin, and I will hold you like this every night for the rest of our lives.”
Epilogue
The following June, Connie balanced the two large brightly colored large but lightweight boxes in her arms as she negotiated the steps up to Annie’s apartment. “It’s me!” she called out and then paused as a wave of vertigo rushed through her, making her feel faint.
“Here, let me help you with those.” Annie met her at the top of the steps, peering around the boxes. “Are you sure it’s really Mrs. Rand O’Neill behind there?”
Connie chuckled, getting back her equilibrium. “Just Connie will do.”
“How was the honeymoon?”
“I’ve been back well over a month.” Connie let Annie take the top gift. “You could call me.”
“We never get to talk anymore.” Annie led her into the living room decorated with blue-and-pink crepe paper. “I had finals about the time you returned and I’m doing an internship. I’m sorry, Connie. I’m just so busy—”
“Yes, we’re all so busy,” a very pregnant Gracie agreed and hugged Connie. Then an equally pregnant Patience took her turn welcoming Connie.
Connie was busy with her new husband and new career in adoption law. Floyd Sanders had stopped harassing her, but she had decided she’d rather make her career in protecting children and creating families.
Soon the apartment was abuzz with chattering women. Finally, Annie stood up. “I’m so happy you all could come to Patience and Gracie’s combined baby shower.”
The women, many from the neighborhood, who had known Gracie since babyhood and Patience as a child, all clapped and called out happy comments.
“Before we start the games—” Annie halte
d as the back door slammed.
“Mommy!” her twins yelled. “Daddy says can he take us for ice cream?”
“Yes, anything!” Annie smiled even as she scolded. “Go. This is for ladies, not boys.” Annie shooed the two back out of the living room. “Tell your father to keep you at the park for another hour.”
Connie felt a cautious breath of relief. Uncle Lou had paid Troy’s debts when Troy agreed to attend Gambler’s Anonymous and go to counseling with Annie. No charges had been pressed against Troy when parts from his truck had been found at a chop shop. Evidence there had proved that he hadn’t stolen it.
Connie, along with Gracie and Patience, had talked Annie into giving Troy another chance. Troy was working unpaid overtime to repay his uncle and Annie was taking fewer subjects and working only part-time for Jack. Annie and Troy had managed to hold their family together though the road was still rough.
Finally, the baby shower games had been suffered through and the gifts had been opened. Annie and Connie served white buttercream cake and strawberry ice cream. The sickly sweet smell of the frosting made Connie’s stomach lurch.
“No cake?” Mama Kalanovski, who owned the café down the street, gave Connie an assessing look. “And how long you been married?”
“Just six weeks,” Connie said. “Why do you ask?”
“That’s long enough.” Mama nodded and several other of the ladies gave Connie interested glances.
Connie caught on. “No, no. Not possible.”
Mama nodded knowingly. “You get you one of those tests like I see on TV at the drugstore. I bet you a free lunch at the Polska that you and that detective of yours are expecting.”
Connie shook her head, resisting the idea.
The pounding of feet on the back steps interrupted the conversations.
“Mommy, look. Daddy got us popcorn instead.” The twins charged into the room with two white paper sacks of the treat.
The aroma of buttered popcorn hit Connie’s queasy stomach. She leaped up and ran for the bathroom, nearly colliding with Troy.
