by Carol Caiton
So who was he now? Cop or construction worker? Or was he someone else altogether?
Maybe he should take some time to think about that. Maybe he'd reached the maximum endurance level for emotional loss. Was there an endurance level? Had losing every last person he'd loved as a boy, one right after the other, impaired his ability to cope with death? Shooting and killing Azram was a bleeding wound that wouldn't heal. So maybe something inside him had broken as well.
"That kid I shot and killed?" he said. "He was a lot like Joey. So much, that I tried to keep a distance from him. But just like Joey, the kid dogged my heels. He wanted to know what it was like to be a cop. He wanted to know if I'd ever shot anyone. He wanted to know . . . . Hell, he wanted to know everything about everything."
"Yeah," Michael said on a smile, "that sounds like Joey. He was the most curious pain-in-the-ass kid I ever knew."
It was a bittersweet memory that flooded Kyle this time because Michael had known Joey. He was the only person alive with whom Kyle could share those memories. And Michael was no more to blame, had no more control over what happened to his brother than he'd had over the asshole hiding in the shadows, waiting to destroy a young boy's life.
With the vague image of his brother in his head, he even smiled at the memory of Joey's curious nature. The kid had been only six years old when he found out what sex was, and Michael had caught him, three times, up on a roof somewhere, trying to catch sight of the act in progress. The little shit.
"Ya know what else?" Michael said, watching him from across the desk. "Joey would have found that gun no matter what. Maybe not that day. But he was always snooping around. One day soon he would have been looking for a place to hide his own shit and he would have come across that hole. —And stealing those guns . . . that was who we were, Kyle. It was what we did . . . how we survived. It wouldn't have mattered if we'd stolen those guns a year or two after we did. Joey still would've gone snooping around and found them. And he still would have shot his fool head off because that's who Joey was. He never left anything alone. —The little shit."
Jesus.
Jesus.
Hearing it put like that just about sucked the air out of Kyle's lungs.
Slumping back in the armchair he stared at Michael.
The little shit.
After all this time, after all that had happened to them both, how was it possible they still thought in the same phrases?
And everything Michael said was true—true in a way Kyle hadn't considered. Michael's memories had taken on the wonderful sad-funny truth that Joey had been, whereas Kyle had allowed guilt to overshadow everything until he hadn't even remembered the good times.
For a few minutes he couldn't speak. Then he was just too frigging tired to want to try. He had a lot to think about. A lot he needed to turn over in his mind.
Pushing himself up out of Rachel's chair, he looked into eyes so familiar, it was as though no time had passed at all.
"I looked for you, Michael. I had a lot of people looking for you. For a hell of a long time."
Michael stood up as well. He met Kyle's gaze and slowly nodded. "I know you did."
CHAPTER 10
He made it almost to the highway when his car gave out. The fact that he'd known it was going to happen didn't help and, as was the case during moments of frustration, the hits just kept coming. After hobbling the thing off the road, he pulled out his cell phone to call for a tow but his battery was dead. Sure, and what was next?
Reaching inside the glove box for the pad of paper he kept there, he scribbled out a note with the date and time of breakdown, stuck it on the dashboard where it could be seen, then locked up. At least he wasn't miles from civilization.
Setting out on foot, he headed for the highway. After a minute or so he realized he wasn't walking along all pissed off. In fact, he was taking this—the inconvenience, the rising heat of the day, and the unavoidable expense—in stride. Yesterday he wouldn't have been so accepting. He would have been swearing with every other step. But not today, and he knew why.
Spending time with Michael had made a difference. All right, he admitted, maybe baring his frigging soul had changed things. Maybe it really was therapeutic to talk things through. Not that he wanted to do it again anytime soon. And not with anyone he didn't know. But this odd sense of well-being made him feel lighter somehow, as though all the crap he'd been carrying around had physical substance and he'd unloaded about twenty pounds of it. He even felt a healthy resurgence of energy and a strong workout at the gym would have been invigorating. Better yet, sweating the afternoon away while shooting hoops with the kids would go a long way toward lifting some more of the guilt he was walking around with.
But he wasn't in Philadelphia anymore. And they weren't his kids anymore. Not one of them had been at the court the last three times he'd driven over there. And someone—probably Abdul—had used a can of spray paint to draw a big F U PIG on the backboard of both hoops as an ongoing, in-your-face reminder to all of them that he'd put a bullet in the chest of his kid brother.
Some of that newfound energy waned a little. He ached to see those kids, to have a welcoming basketball tossed his way. But that wasn't going to happen and the sooner he made some sort of peace with that, the sooner he'd unload some more of this crap. Maybe there actually was a maximum endurance level. Maybe death had in fact touched him one too many times now.
No. He corrected that thought. It wasn't death itself. He'd had to discharge his weapon more than once in the line of duty. Yeah, he'd had to adjust and resolve it in his head, but he'd killed before and had been able to move on. The difference was loss. Personal loss.
Walking along the side of the highway, feeling the heat of the sun on his skin, he wondered if he'd ever wear a badge again. After talking with Michael, he didn't know what the future held. During the last few months of working construction, he was damned tired at the end of the day. But it was a cleansing kind of tired. On the inside anyway. He stayed to himself, did his job, and went home. He got on fine with the rest of the crew, but he didn't touch their lives and no one touched his. No one until Michael. —And a five-foot-five little blonde who drove a silver-beige Mercedes that had just pulled onto the shoulder up ahead.
He smiled and quickened his pace to an easy jog. The passenger window slid down as he drew near, so he propped both forearms on the roof, bent over, and grinned. "Hi there. I thought you didn't like me anymore."
She frowned, but it looked more like a lopsided smile. "If your manners have improved you may get in."
"I may, huh?" His grin broadened.
The lock disengaged and he opened the door. "Thanks for stopping," he said, climbing inside.
"Where's your car?"
"In purgatory."
Her confusion was apparent and he chuckled. "It's waiting for me to call and have it delivered to junkyard heaven."
He liked teasing her. It was so damned easy. He fastened his seatbelt and said, "What are you doing out here in Clermont?"
"I'm learning my way around." She waited for an opening in traffic, then pulled onto the highway.
"Do you spend a lot of time driving around by yourself?"
"Yes. It's a good way to—"
"Yeah, I know. A good way to learn your way around." He'd done the same thing when he arrived in Orlando. But he'd had to go it alone because he didn't have anyone in the area to help him out. She did. "Where's your sister?"
She glanced at him, then back at the roadway. "I suppose she's at her home, or doing the things she usually does on weekend days. Where would you like me to take you?"
Not his business, he reminded himself. So where did he want her to take him? "How would you like to go car shopping with me?"
"Right now?"
"Yeah. Unless you'd rather keep driving around by yourself."
The smile she gave him was spontaneous and full and it lit up the car. "I'd rather go car shopping with you," she said. "Where would you like to go?"
>
"I don't have anything specific in mind. Just pull into the first dealership you see and we'll start looking around. That okay with you?"
"Yes."
"Okay. Do you have a cell phone I can use?"
She pointed toward the back seat. "It's inside my purse. It falls to the bottom so you may have to take things out to find it."
He reached behind the driver's seat and came up with the same big leather bag he'd seen before. The first item he pulled out was a tablet PC. He propped it against his stomach and dug inside again. Next came a paperback book. He turned it over and read the title. It was a dictionary of American idioms with a bookmark inserted about fifty pages in. Did people actually read dictionaries? After a couple more tries he found the phone.
"Who are you going to call?" she asked.
"A towing company." He studied the phone for a minute then turned it on.
"For the junkyard heaven?"
He smiled. "Yeah."
She reached over then and covered the phone and his hand with hers. "Don't call yet."
"Why not?"
She took her hand away and put it back on the steering wheel. "What's the trade-in value of your car?"
He snorted. "The only thing worth more than fifty bucks on my car is the set of tires I put on it."
She made a face. Then her expression smoothed out. "May I suggest waiting?"
"Sure, I can wait." He turned the phone off again.
She rode in the passenger seat while he test drove a Jaguar. After that he tried out her Mercedes and pulled into the next dealership along the highway. It was getting close to dinnertime when they stopped once more and went inside still another showroom.
He was checking out an SUV when he felt Jessica's hand slip into his.
She smiled up at him and tugged. "Come see."
He let her pull him along to the other side of the showroom, and then he spotted what it was she wanted to show him—a deep blue, soft-top, all-terrain vehicle. The top was down, the padded roll bars exposed . . . . It was compact, sporty, and looked good.
"You like that one, huh?"
She smiled back at him. "It looked like something I thought you might like."
He answered her smile. "You're right. I do like."
Circling the vehicle, checking it out, he pulled her along behind him. But when he hunkered down to look at the tires, she hunkered down beside him instead of pulling her hand free. He grinned at that because he knew damned well she had no idea what to look for.
"What are we looking at?"
He chuckled. "We're looking at tread, the size of the tires, the width . . . ."
"Is that a man thing?"
"You mean a guy thing?"
"Yes. A guy thing."
"Well, since I don't know a single woman who thinks about tread or tire size, I'd have to say yes, it's probably a guy thing."
"Then tell me why a guy thinks tires are important to look at."
He stared into her eyes. Again, her curiosity was a genuine desire to understand something. But he didn't answer right away. Instead, he saw the faintest hint of blue in her gray eyes , the soft, natural flush of pink along her cheekbones, and the smooth translucence of her skin.
For the second time that day, something inside him shifted. He paused, considered the shift, then lowered his eyes to her mouth. Her lips were soft and pouty. Vulnerable. He wondered how those soft lips would feel under his and brought his gaze back up to hers.
As soon as he did, he knew she recognized the direction of his thoughts. He saw the knowledge in her eyes. She took a wisp of a breath that went straight to his groin and warm color rushed into her face. Then she lowered her head and stared down at the floor.
His fly grew real uncomfortable real fast.
Straightening, he stood up and pulled her to her feet beside him. Her hand went slack in his hold and he tightened his grip.
"Relax, Jess. It's okay."
No way was he going to let her take off. Not until he figured out what had just happened and what he wanted to do about it.
Her eyes swept up to his, shy and uncertain now.
And what was it about that look that fired up every bit of testosterone in his body?
He sucked in a long breath. Yeah, he knew what it was. His prowess as a male had been called up and challenged, that's what it was. That fast, Jessica Breckenridge had morphed from a nineteen-year-old girl into an alluring young woman and the rules had suddenly changed. Her pretty gray eyes had seen his interest. But she hadn't shot him down. Unsure? Yes. She was skittish now. And damn if that wasn't one hell of a motivator.
Giving her fingers a light squeeze he said, "If a vehicle takes over-sized tires, they're expensive to replace, specialty tires even more so."
She swallowed, still watching him cautiously. "Are these specialty tires?"
"Yes."
"Do they increase the value of the vehicle?"
The pulse in her throat fluttered. Oh, sweetheart.
"Yes, they do."
He smiled slowly, lazily. "So," he said, watching her, "do you want to go for a test drive?"
The uncertainty in her eyes increased.
Another male voice broke the moment. "We have one of these right outside if you folks would like to go for a test drive."
Kyle grinned. He lifted Jessica's hand to his mouth and kissed the backs of her fingers. Her eyes opened wide at that and he said, "Yeah. A test drive would be good." The chase had begun.
She was quiet as he pulled the jeep out onto the highway. He wasn't in any hurry to interrupt that quiet either. He used those minutes to review the facts and to remind himself, again, that she was nineteen years old. The ten years he had on her were ten years of life experiences, most of them rough, that she hadn't had a chance yet to take on.
Or had she?
Not rough maybe. Not out on the streets with the dregs of humanity. But she'd definitely seen something of the world.
He thought back to the conversation they'd had in the parking garage the first day they met. She'd told him she hadn't been a child since she was eight years old. If that was true, then she'd been actively participating in the work force for nearly as many years as he had. She spoke fourteen languages, had mingled with a variety of cultures, told him she had a global knowledge of finance, and laid claim to a savvy business acumen. So maybe he'd put that knowledge to the test and see just how far her experience stretched.
Changing lanes, he did a U-turn at the next traffic light and headed back in the other direction.
"Jessica, does your knowledge of finance include getting the best deal on a car?"
Her eyes flashed to his. "I bought the Mercedes I drive just a few weeks ago and I paid fourteen thousand dollars less than the asking price. Why? Have you decided to buy this one?"
He flicked on the turn signal, slowed down, and turned into the dealership parking lot. "No. I want the blue one. The one in the showroom. Think you can handle the negotiations for me?"
The smile she gave him was brilliant. "Certainly. I'd be happy to."
He had to pull his attention away from her and focus on where he was going. She was stunning when she smiled like that. But she was the proper Miss Breckenridge again. Did she think that was going to deter him?
Not happening, sweetheart. You're just as aware of me now as I am of you.
"Okay," he said. "You've got the ball." He told her the parameters he'd like to work within then said, "Let's go give it your best shot."
As he opened the door to get out he heard her murmur, "Give it your best shot . . . give it your best shot," and he smiled. Apparently she hadn't reached the Gs in her book of idioms yet.
Walking around to the passenger side, it occurred to him that he did a lot of smiling when he was with her. And what transpired over the next ninety minutes had him grinning all the way to the bank.
The salesman met them in the parking lot and Kyle pointed toward the showroom.
But Jessica put her hand on his
arm. "Give us a minute, please," she said to the salesman. Then she slid her fingers into the crook of his elbow and squeezed. "Will you step back over here with me?"
Grinning, he put his hand over hers. Obviously, she didn't want him interfering. "Sure," he said. And to the salesman, "We'll be back."
Those fingers on his arm squeezed again and his lips twitched. All right, he'd keep his mouth shut.
They walked several yards away before she pulled the tablet out of her big pocketbook and went online. Then she asked about the make, model, and year of the car he'd left on the side of the road.
Curious, he stood beside her and watched as she pulled up the blue book value. Then she did the same for the jeep he wanted. After that, she compared competitor's prices within a hundred mile radius and saved the better deals to her Favorites. She checked current lending rates, made a sound of disgust, then turned off the tablet.
Armed with the results of her research, they strode back over to the salesman, went inside, and sat down to work out the details.
She asked about dealer incentives. She asked about government incentives. She pointed out a competitor's rebate offer and another's advertised sale price, and the salesman agreed to match it. Then she took them both back across the showroom floor to the blue ATV and pointed at the sticker and its list of fees.
"This is overpriced," she said, indicating one of the options. "As well as this one," she added, directing their attention to another option farther down. She skimmed the rest of the list, checked something online, then smiled. "Shall we go sit down again?"
Fascinated now, Kyle had no problem keeping his mouth shut. He was enjoying the show.
She got a reduced price on the two options she'd pointed out, then she asked the salesman which bank the dealership preferred to work with. Turning to Kyle, she asked him the same question. With a frown, however, she rejected both. Instead, she searched inside her purse for her cell phone, scanned her Contacts, then smiled, dialed, and greeted someone named Marjorie who, he and the salesman were to learn, was the regional manager of a nationwide chain of banks.
