Together Always

by Dallas Schulze

  "So what do you do for a living?" John took a swallow of coffee, cocking a brow at the other man.

  "Fm a cop." Trace glanced up. "Mike kept track of where you were through a friend of his at your company, but he never said much about what you did."

  "I work for an import-export business. I handle a lot of the foreign side of things. When I'm in the States, I'm based in New York." The explanation tripped easily off his tongue. It was absolutely plausible, would even check out if someone did any digging, but Trace's eyes took on a shrewd glint that made John wonder how much of it he bought.

  "Sounds interesting" was all he said.

  "I enjoy it."

  "Enjoy what?" The question came from behind him and John turned to see Lily standing in the doorway. She was wearing a pair of faded jeans that clung lovingly to her slim legs and a gray sweatshirt that should have concealed her feminine curves but somehow emphasized them instead. Her hair was pulled back in a low ponytail, her face untouched by makeup, and John didn't think he'd ever seen a more purely beautiful woman in his life.

  **Enjoy what?" Lily repeated the question, making him realize that he'd been staring at her. He turned back to the table as she walked farther into the room.

  "My work. I was just telling Trace that I enjoy my work. You teach, don't you?"

  "Yes. I was thinking that maybe I'd check around and see if there are any positions open here, maybe something part-time." She poured herself a cup of coffee and took a sip, wrinkling her nose at the taste of it.

  "I thought you'd be going back to England," Trace commented, his voice carefully neutral.

  "No. I told the Fairfields I wouldn't be back." She leaned back against the counter and looked at him, her heart in h^ eyes. "I thought it was time I came home for good."

  Trace didn't look up and John had the feeling it was deliberate, as if he were afraid of what he might see. Or maybe he was afraid of what his eyes might reveal. Interesting. Despite the fact that they'd spent the night before in the same room and presumably in the same bed, there were apparently still problems in paradise.

  He shifted his eyes from Lily to Trace in time to catch the other man's look, and there was no mistaking the message there. Whatever was going on between the two of them. Trace was warning him off. The look in those blue eyes burned with possessiveness. John acknowledged the warning with a lift of his brow. He had enough problems of his own without coming between the two of them.

  The morning was spent cleaning up the damage the winds had left behind. In the wake of the storm the sky was a brilliant blue, so clear it almost hurt to look at it. From higher in the hills it was possible to glimpse the pale blue of the ocean across the Los Angeles basin. It was a day of crystal clear beauty. Impossible to think of smog or summer days when the heat threatened to smother the city.

  Trace and John worked together easily, sawing the rough ends off the snapped branches and shoring up the fence well enough to get through one more year. Lily raked and swept the brick patio. It felt good to have something positive to do. In the simple, practically mindless tasks, there was a peace that all three of them treasured.

  It was a peace that wasn't destined to last long. In the early afternoon they had a visitor. Trace happened to be in the house when the doorbell rang. He glanced up, frowning and debating on whether to answer it. They weren't expecting anyone and he wasn't sure he wanted to see anyone, expected or otherwise. He shut the refrigerator door, carrying two bottles of beer in one hand and wiping his damp forehead on the tail of his shirt with the other.

  The bell rang again before he could get to it and he threw the door open, prepared to get rid of whoever was on the other side as quickly as possible.

  "Captain Jacobs." He was immediately conscious of his battered jeans, his unbuttoned shirt and the faint sheen of sweat that coated his face. Not to mention the two beers clutched in one hand. "Sir. I wasn't expecting you."

  "No reason you should have been, Dushane. I hope you don't mind that I've just dropped by like this."

  "No, of course not. Come in, please."

  Trace shut the door behind the older man, hoping he didn't look as uneasy as he felt. Mike and Bill Jacobs had worked together before Mike left the force and the two of them had remained friends. It wasn't the first time he'd seen the captain outside the station house, but he had a funny feeling that this visit was not purely social.

  "We were just cleaning up some of the storm damage. It's warm out." He gestured to his scruffy clothes and held up the two beers as illustration.

  "Nothing too serious, I hope."

  "Not really. We're pretty well done."

  "We? You and Lily? I saw her at the funeral. I was glad she made it back from England in time for that."

  Trace nodded, preferring not to remember the funeral. It was assuming a hazy image in his monory and he wanted to encourage that as much as possible.

  *'Mike's son got here last night.'*

  Captain Jacob's bushy eyebrows shot up. "John? Good God, I haven't seen him in twenty years or more."

  "I gather he hasn't been here in twenty years or more. He's in the back if you want to see him."

  The captain nodded. "I'd like that."

  Trace gestured toward the kitchen with the hand that held the bottles. "You know the way. Can I get you something to drink?"

  "No, thanks. This is a semiofficial call and I'd better keq) my nose clean."

  "Is there some problem?"

  The older man shook his head. "Not exactly. If you don't mind, I'm sure Lily and John will want to hear what I have to say, so I'll just wait and save myself having to say it twice."

  "Of course." What Trace really wanted to say was that he minded very much. He reined in his impatience while Captain Jacobs greeted Lily and John and the two men swapped a few stories of the last time they'd met just before John left home. Trace took a long pull of his b^r, his eyes narrowing as he watched them. It was clear that they shared a lot of memories and he found himself wondering, not for the first time, just why John had left home.

  "Trace? Can I have a drink?" Lily's quiet request drew his attention away from John and the captain.

  "Sure." He handed her the bottle, watching as she tilted her head back to take a swallow. Her face crinkled at the taste and he smiled, taking the bottle from her. "If you don't like the stuff, why did you want a drink?"

  "I always think that maybe I've exaggerated how awful it tastes."

  *'You haven't." He took a swallow and then set the bottle down on the stone wall that ringed the property. Lily linked her hands through his arm. The casual touch burned through his shirt, leaving the imprint of her palm on his skin.

  '*They look like old friends." Trace was so aware of her touch that it took him a moment to realize what she was talking about. He forced his eyes to focus on the two men who'd wandered across the yard to study the patched fencing.

  "Captain Jacobs has probably known John since he was a kid."

  "You're not still worried about last night, are you?" The change of subject threw him off balance. She was looking up at him, her eyes a clear deep green that reflected her emotions.

  "Lily—" He broke off, frustrated. John and the captain were moving toward them. This wasn't a conversation he wanted to cram into a few brief moments. He wasn't sure it was a conversation he wanted to have at all.

  "Captain Jacobs wants to tell us what they have on Mike's murder." John's words proved an effective distraction. Lily's fingers tightened on Trace's arm and he put his hand over hers, squeezing gently.

  By unspoken consent the four of them moved into the house. It didn't seem the kind of discussion to be held in bright sunshine. Once they were all seated in the living room, Captain Jacobs didn't waste any time.

  "The three of you know that Mike and I went way back. We were partners and we stayed friends after he left the force. I want the person who killed him as much as any of you do."

  "This doesn't sound like good news," John said dryly.
<
br />   Captain Jacobs shook his head. "It's not. To be blunt, we don't really have anything to go on. No fingerprints, no apparent motive, nothing. And the one witness we have is turning out to be not much better than nothing at all."

  Trace leaned forward, his expression intent. 'T didn't know we had a witness at all."

  Jacobs ran his hand over what little hair he had left. "A Mrs. Betty Levy. She came to us yesterday. She's kicking seventy in the teeth. She was out walking her dog the morning of the break-in and says she saw a man run from the building."

  '*Why didn't she say something right away?" Trace demanded. "Damn, we might have had a chance if she'd said something the day it happened."

  "She doesn't know enough to give us an ID, Dushane. All she saw was a man running from the store. About the only good it's done us is that we can eliminate a gang-related incident. The man she says she saw was gray-haired and rather thin."

  "What kind of a car?" Trace leaned forward, wanting, needing, something solid to grasp, but Jacobs shook his head.

  "Blue. Medium-sized. Might have had two doors or then again it could have been four. He went east or maybe south. She didn't think anything of it until one of her neighbors told her what had happened and then she decided maybe she ought to tell us what she'd seen."

  "I guess it's better than nothing," Lily offered.

  **Not much!" Trace heard the snap in his voice and shook his head. "Sorry. I just hoped maybe we'd have something to work with."

  "Where are those precocious twelve-year-olds with the eagle eyes when you need them?" John's dry comment brought reluctant smiles.

  **Yeah, let's hear it for precocious twelve-year-olds." Trace leaned back on the sofa, reaching out to catch Lily's hand in an absent gesture. *'So we don't have anything, then?"

  "Not much. We're still working on it. We're going back through Mike's case files, looking for anyone who might have held a grudge, but he'd been off the force a long time. Anybody who was holding a grudge against him would most likely have done something about it years ago."

  **So you have no idea who killed Dad and you don't really expect to have any idea." John's succinct summation didn't leave much room for hope. Jacobs backed away from anything quite so final.

  *'We aren't giving up. Not by a long shot. We're going to get this guy. Sooner or later something will turn up."

  No one said anything for a long moment. They all knew just how thin Jacobs's promise was. No matter how much the police wanted to catch Mike's murderer, they couldn't do it without some clues, some evidence.

  Jacobs left soon afterward, leaving a vague depression behind him. It was impossible to recapture the morning's calm. They finished cleaning up the wind damage but no one seemed to feel much satisfaction in the results of their efforts.

  Dinner was a take-out pizza and it was eaten in virtual silence. They all went to bed early, and neither Trace nor Lily suggested they spend the night together. Perhaps she felt the same need for a little distance between them that he did.

  Trace lay in bed, his hands behind his head, staring into the darkness. There were no winds tonight and the house was quiet. There was a waiting quality to the silence and he wondered if the others were as wide awake as he was. Too much had happened too quickly. He still hadn't dealt with Mike's death and now there was Lily.

  Lily. He didn't have to close his eyes to remember the way she'd felt in his bed, in his arms. She'd felt so right, as if she were made to fit only him. But that was what he wanted to believe. Lily wasn't for him. Oh, maybe for a little while he could let himself pretend, but it could only be pretend.

  Lily was sunlight and laughter. She was brightness. The angel on the Christmas tree. And he was none of those things. It didn't matter how many years had gone by or how many miles he'd traveled, there was a part of him that would always be poor white trash. He could never forget where he came from. Jed's face was clear and sharp in his memory— the bitterness, the weakness. He hadn't been the man's son but Jed was as close to a father as he'd known all his young years. What if the seeds of Jed's particular madness lay somewhere inside him, just waiting to come out?

  He shuddered and pushed the thought away. It didn't matter how often he told himself that nothing on earth could ever make him like Jed, there was still a niggling doubt in the back of his mind. As the twig is bent, so grows the tree. The old truism came to mind. He couldn't have spent all those years living Hke trash and not carry the scars. Sometimes he could feel them burned deep into his soul as if they were something alive and eating into him.

  Just thinking about Lily was enough to soothe the ache, and when she was with him, he could almost imagine the marks weren't there. But she deserved someone who could come to her whole and unscarred.

  He could pretend for a little while, but that was all it could ever be—just make-believe.

  But it was one thing to know that was the way it had to be and another to make his heart believe it. It was impossible to just walk away from her. She was too much a part of him. Too much a part of his life. So he told himself it was all right to stay close to her, all right to be a part of her life for now.-

  *'I DON'T KNOW about anybody else, but if I don't get out of this house, Fm going to go nuts." Trace threw down the deck of cards from which he*d been dealing his thirtieth game of solitaire and looked at his companions. Lily glanced up from the book she was supposedly reading, though she hadn't turned a page in at least ten minutes.

  "I could use some time out of the house."

  John looked up from the television. His eyes swung from Trace to Lily. **Count me out. I've got a lot of lost time to make up for on Dallas. I'm still trying to figure out who shot J. R."

  Lily laughed. "You're not going to find that out from this week's show."

  "No?" He shrugged. "Who cares? I've been out of the country a long time. This way I catch up on what people are doing. You two go on without me."

  Trace wasn't going to argue with him. It wasn't that he disliked the man, but it felt strange to have a third person always around. It didn't seem to make any difference that he hadn't seen Lily in two years or that he'd lived apart from her for much longer. In a way, it had always been the two of them, even when he didn't see her every day. Not even Mike had changed that feeling. Somehow, with John, things were different.

  He couldn't put his finger on what it was. He didn't know if it was the shift in his own relationship with Lily or if it was the fact that everything had changed around them, but John seemed to slip between them in a subtle undefinable way. Whatever it was, Trace was just as happy when he chose to stay home, leaving him and Lily to go out alone.

  It was a cool night, but the skies were clear. Trace's *65 Corvette, his most prized possession, swooshed down the hill into Glendale. It was past rush hour and traffic on the Ventura Freeway was light. Neither he nor Lily spoke. It was enough to be out on the open road, alone together. The

  freeway curved north around Hollywood and swept into the valley. From there it was a short trip to Mulholland Drive. Trace heard Lily sigh with pleasure as he turned the 'Vette onto the famous road. It had always been one of her favorite places to go.

  The 'Vette's engine was a low growl as it took the hills and sharp curves, as if born to run on a road like this. At the top of the drive Trace pulled into a shallow turnout and shut off the engine. The sudden silence was almost a presence of its own. The lights of the San Fernando Valley were spread out below them like billions of jewels on a swathe of black velvet. Seen from this distance, it was hard to believe that people lived and died under those sparkling lights.

  ''It's beautiful, isn't it?" Lily's voice was low, in keeping with the still night.

  '*It's about the only time the valley looks good."

  They were quiet again, staring out at the stunning display beneath them.

  "You know, you haven't— John's been there and all, but you haven't acted like you had any interest in me."

  Trace didn't need to be a mind reader to
hear the hurt beneath her words. He reached out to catch her hand in his.

  "Lily, I— Sometimes I can be a real jackass, but the one thing in the world I don't ever want to do is to hurt you."

  "I know that." He could see the curve of her cheek in the starlight as she looked down at their linked hands. "But it's not your fault if you don't feel the way I feel about—"

  "Don't." Trace cut into her words. "It's too soon for anybody to be talking about the way they feel. Look, we've just been through a pretty rough time. Things have changed so quickly, there are times when I'm still not sure what's going on. Let's not rush into anything."

  "We've already rushed into quite a bit," Lily said quietly without looking at him.

  '*l know, but let's take things a little slower from here on. We hadn't even seen each other in two years until the.. .until the funeral. Maybe we should get to know each other again."

  As if he didn't know her in the innermost recesses of his soul already. She was part of every breath he took.

  **You mean we should date?" He didn't need a bright light to see the way she wrinkled her nose in surprise.

  "I.. .yeah, I guess that's what I mean." Coward, It wasn't what he meant at all. Why didn't he have the guts to tell her that they were all wrong? That they would always be friends, always be linked by their past—but it couldn't be anything more?

  "So I guess we could consider this our first date."

  **Yeah, I guess we could."

  She tilted her head to look at him and he caught the glimmer of her eyes. ** What's your sign?"

  *'What?"

  "What's your sign? That's one of the questions you always have to ask on a first date."

  "Really? I didn't know there was a handbook on it." Her mood had shifted so quickly from intense to humorous that Trace felt as if he were stumbling, trying to catch up with her.

  "There are just certain things you do. One of them is to find out the person's sign, and I need to know what kind of a car you drive and how much you earn a year. Of course, I can't ask that directly, so generally it's best to ask what you do for a living."