by Gayle Wilson
“That must be a real novelty,” she said. She looked up from her mindless prodding of the defenseless potato salad to smile at him, and then, faced with the opaque blackness of the lenses, realized the futility of that form of comfort.
“A novelty? Being afraid?” he asked.
“For you Considering what you do.”
“Working undercover?” His tone had lightened, and she was glad. It seemed they were back on less treacherous conversational territory.
“Always being that close,” she said. “Living on the edge.”
“I don’t think about it much. I guess you couldn’t do it if you did. I know the language, the attitude. It’s a skin that fits. I grew up with those guys. Punks. Hoods. Mafia types.”
“Wise guys,” Abby said.
“Not very. Considering the level of intelligence, I always wonder where that term originated. A hell of an oxymoron.”
She laughed.
“You laugh a lot, Sterling?” he asked softly. The glasses seemed to be focused on her face, and his own mouth was unmoving, the line of his lips almost set as he waited for her answer.
“What?” she asked, confused by the unexpected question.
“It just sounds so familiar. Hearing you laugh,” he explained. “And yet, considering what you told me about our relationship, I just can’t imagine you and me sharing a lot of jokes. Or am I wrong about that?”
They had shared a lot of things, of course. But he was right It hadn’t been that kind of relationship.
“Too long, Sterling When you take that long to answer a simple question, then it’s a sure indication you have something to hide. You know that as well as I do. So if you’re not covering up the reason Rob Andrews sent you out here to play bodyguard, then I’m wondering just what the hell you are hiding?”
Chapter Nine
She was taking too long again to answer. Nick supposed she figured it didn’t matter. She had already blown it, so she might as well think about what she was going to say before she said it. He waited, not rushing her.
“This is getting a little old, Nick.”
“I agree,” he said.
His mouth was dry, but he didn’t reach for the tea. He’d been pushing his luck in inviting her to sit down at the table with him. He wasn’t nearly as confident of his skills as he’d pretended.
“I’m not hiding anything,” she said. “I told you why Rob sent me. I told you the truth.”
“Now explain to me why he let you come.”
“Rob?” she asked, her voice puzzled. “I told you that—”
“Screw Rob. I’m talking about the guy whose baby you’re carrying. What the hell is he thinking about letting you take an assignment like this?”
Silence again, but he didn’t remind her this time of how revealing those hesitations were.
“This is my job,” she said finally. “He understands that.”
“You can always refuse an assignment. Andrews wouldn’t force you. In your situation he probably couldn’t. Not legally. Not even if he was that kind of bastard.”
“I want to make this case as much as any of you,” she said.
That was probably true, as far as it went. “And your husband’s willing to let you put your baby’s life on the line to do that?”
The question was hitting below the belt, but he needed an answer. And if you have to play the game in the dark, he thought, you can’t always follow the rules.
“There’s no danger to my baby,” she said sharply.
There had been no hesitation in that response. But there had been something. Maybe a tinge of fear Or deception? Only, he couldn’t figure out why she would lie to him about this.
“I don’t know. It’s seemed a little stressful out here the last couple of days to me,” he said sarcastically. “You’ve seemed a little stressed. That doesn’t worry you, Sterling?”
“Stop it, Nick,” she ordered.
“So what did he say when you told him?” he prodded, ignoring her demand. Despite his previous decision, his hand had somehow found his glass, the outside of it slick, sweating with condensation. He had already closed his fingers around it, preparing to bring it to his mouth when she answered
“I’m not married,” she said.
His hand stopped in midair, but he controlled the reaction, forcing himself to continue the motion he’d begun. Then he made himself take a sip before he spoke again.
“I guess a lot of people do it that way these days,” he said. His tone was carefully nonjudgmental, but he wouldn’t have pegged Abby Sterling for one who did. “It’s just not the usual order of things, I guess.”
“Rings, mortgages and then babies,” she said softly “I do know the order, Deandro, but sometimes things just don’t work out like they’re supposed to.”
It was the same phrase he had thought of this morning, and again it reverberated inside his head. He couldn’t ever remember having heard it before, not in any context But, of course, that was the problem. He couldn’t remember a hell of a lot he should remember. That he needed desperately to remember.
“It’s tough to raise a kid alone,” he said.
“Millions of women do it. And most of them do a good job.”
“If they have to,” he agreed “I just wonder how many of them would choose to do it alone if they had another option. If the father was around to do his part. Guys used to be better at that kind of commitment”
“A lot of things used to be different Once the department would have fired me for getting pregnant, married or not.”
“And instead here they are, giving you this plum assignment of playing bodyguard somewhere out in the wilds of south Louisiana. It seems to me, thanks to the women’s movement, Sterling, you got really lucky.”
His mockery was again apparent, but rather than getting angry, surprisingly she laughed. “Rob promised I could just come out here, put my feet up, and relax. Although it’s been a little short of that, it’s not been totally awful.”
“Wildlife intruders and cooking duty. Doesn’t sound too relaxing to me.”
“I guess he thought the pleasure of your company would make up for those,” she suggested.
This time Nick laughed. “Was he right?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. After all, here we are having a civilized dinner together. No one who knew the two of us a few months ago would have thought that would ever be possible.”
“Did everybody know about our ‘personality conflict’?” Nick asked, cutting another bite of ham
“In the O.C. unit? I guess so. It was pretty obvious that we weren’t admirers of one another.”
“Your guy know?”
“My guy?” she repeated, her voice puzzled.
“The kid’s father. The one who’s not around”
“I didn’t say he’s not around,” she said stiffly.
“If he let you come out here, Sterling, then he’s not around. Not in any way that matters.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Deandro. As usual.”
In the silence that followed her comment, he could hear the sound of her fork clinking against the plate. Then ice tinkling in her glass.
“So, did he?” he prodded finally.
“Did he know that you and I didn’t get along?”
Nick nodded.
“Why don’t you just ask if it’s someone in the unit?” she said. “What game are we playing now, Nick?”
“So is it somebody on the force?”
“What the hell business is it of yours?” she demanded angrily. “My private life doesn’t have anything to do with this assignment. Rob Andrews didn’t think so when he sent me out here. So why don’t you just get off it, Nick.”
“I’m just curious as to what he’s doing while you’re here.”
“Minding his own business?” she suggested.
“Which I should be doing?” he asked, allowing his amusement to show.
“It would be nice for a change.”
&
nbsp; “Okay. Only, before I do, tell me one thing, Sterling. One thing that I just can’t seem to remember.”
“That’s not funny, Nick.”
“It wasn’t meant to be. I’m serious.”
“Something you think I can tell you?”
“Maybe.”
“What is it?” she asked. Grudgingly.
“That phrase you used. Where’d you hear it?”
“What phrase?”
“The one about rings, mortgages and babies,” Nick said softly. “I just wondered where you’d heard it.”
More silence. A long one this time. And he knew what that meant. He had been on the right track all along, and then he had let himself get sidetracked. He had let Abby lead him astray. He had doubted, because of his blindness, what his instincts had been telling him about her all along.
Background. They had a lot of background. That’s why she’d been so familiar. Why he’d reacted to the perfume she wore. Which meant, he realized suddenly, that it was possible—
“I don’t know,” she said, interrupting that realization. “Just…around, I guess. Why?”
“Yeah? The strange thing is I thought that this morning. Those very same words. They were right there in my head, just exactly like you said them. But I don’t think they’re a saying or anything. Do you?”
Another pause. Telltale delay Abby really wasn’t very good at deception.
“Maybe,” she said. “It’s just the way things are supposed to happen. The order. Everybody knows that.”
“And sometimes, for one reason or another, they don’t.”
“Sometimes they don’t,” she agreed softly.
“You in love with him, Abby?” he asked. Suddenly, unexpectedly, his throat was thick, tight and aching, as he waited for her answer. Wondering what she’d tell him. If she’d tell him anything. If he would want to hear it.
“I was,” she said finally.
The whispered words had come into his darkness after a long time. He knew from that she had really thought about what he’d asked her, trying to decide, maybe. And there was another question, of course, that he needed to ask. But somehow he couldn’t.
He wasn’t even sure that she understood that he now knew. Or sure that he wanted her to understand. And more importantly, he wasn’t sure he really wanted to hear what she would say if he asked that second question. After all, she had already told him a lot. Maybe more than he had wanted to know.
I was, she had said. Very definitely past tense. THE DREAM AGAIN, Nick thought, coming awake with a start. He must have been dreaming. But there were none of the now-familiar images in his head when he opened his eyes to the darkness And his body wasn’t hard, aching with need and desire.
It had been. Last night. He had done a lot of thinking up here last night. Thinking about Abby. About what she had said. There were too many clues that fit. Too much revealed by her responses. Revealed in both what she said and what she didn’t say.
Even revealed in how she had responded when he’d pulled her to him. In her mouth’s answering movement. In her voice. Her scent. In the way her body felt under his fingers. Too many clues. Too much circumstantial evidence piling up not to build the case he had built.
Abby Sterling was the woman from the dreams. The woman his subconscious mind had been trying for months to force him to remember. He just hadn’t been exactly sure why remembering her was so important. More important, apparently, than anything else, even the case he’d been working. And now he knew why.
Abby Sterling was carrying his baby. With his strong sense of family, his sense of responsibility and duty, that alone would have been enough, of course. The guilt over letting her carry that particular burden by herself would be enormous. For someone like him, anyway.
And he had realized last night that that’s exactly what she had been doing these last few months. Carrying all that responsibility alone. While he’d been hurt. While he couldn’t even remember her.
It made sense out of the so-called mystery woman’s calls to the hospital. Not someone involved in the hit, as Rob had believed, but someone involved with him. Judging by the intensity of the dreams and by his reactions to Abby since she’d come out here, his body’s unthinking physical reactions, she was someone he had been totally involved with. Totally in love with.
Someone who shared with him the memory of that telling phrase. Rings, mortgages and babies. Had that been a plan they’d talked about? Or an invitation? Had he already asked Abby Sterling to marry him before he’d been shot?
His baby, he thought, the wonder of that interfering, as it had interfered over and over again last night, in the logical thought process he was trying to follow. When he put everything together, that was the undeniable conclusion he came back to again and again. Abby Sterling was carrying his baby.
Good Italian boy that he was, he should be celebrating. Breaking out the champagne. And he would have been, of course, if it hadn’t been for one small thing. The doubt and uncertainty he had heard in Abby’s voice.
And the undeniable reality of her answer last night. You in love with him, Abby? he had asked I was, she had whispered finally. Definitely past tense.
He couldn’t blame her for that. He wasn’t the same man who had fathered this baby. There was no one who was more aware of that reality than he was. More aware of the changes. Changes even beyond the obvious one of his blindness.
He had always been so damn sure of everything. Sure of himself. Of his abilities, both physical and mental. Now that surety had been compromised. He’d been made He’d let himself get shot, and as a result…
He took a breath, deep and hard, but he forced himself to complete the thought. As a result, he had been reduced to stumbling around in the darkness, both figuratively and literally, while this case and this relationship moved in new directions. Moved beyond him. I was, Abby had said.
Despite the frustration that was building, the same frustration that had kept him awake too long last night, Nick was aware that there was something that he should be concentrating on instead of this. Something that was even more…
Smoke, he thought suddenly. He took another breath, drawing it deeply into his lungs. Something was burning, the smell as acrid as the toast Abby had thrown outside this morning
His room was at the top of the stairs. If something were burning downstairs, then the smell would probably drift straight up that opening, just as the black wisps that had filled the kitchen at breakfast had eddied toward the opened door.
He was out of bed and pulling on his jeans almost before that thought had formed. Abby. The fear engendered by the image of Abby caught in the conflagration this wooden structure would become was almost paralyzing. Consuming.
He fought his panic, trying to remember everything he had ever heard about fires. About what to do if you were caught in one. And what not to do. He found the closed door to the hall and felt it carefully. It wasn’t hot, so he opened it. He hesitated, knowing he couldn’t afford to make any mistakes. He didn’t have time to fall or get lost. Every second counted.
The smoke was stronger out here in the hallway, but not yet overpowering. He considered crawling, keeping as low to the ground as possible, just like everyone told you to do. But he could breathe, and after all, his wasn’t the normal situation. Whatever action he took would already be slowed by his blindness, by the demand that he make no mistakes in getting to Abby and getting her out of here. And in getting..
Deliberately, he blocked that thought. Denied the words before they could form because he knew he couldn’t afford to think about that now. He reached out and touched the newel post, orienting himself. This was no different from anyone else having to move through a dark house at night. As if the power had gone already. No different except he was probably better at this than most people would be. Experienced.
The hall seemed endless, however, and he forced himself to reach out to touch the next door. Still checking. It was just where he expected it to be, thankfully. No
mistakes so far.
Abby’s door was closed, and he hesitated. It would be a hell of a note if she thought he was an intruder and shot him. A hell of a note, but logical, given their situation. Given what had happened the other night. He knocked instead, pitching his voice loudly enough that he hoped she would recognize it.
“Abby,” he called. “It’s Nick. I’m coming in.” He waited, however, knowing better than to do that without an acknowledgment that she understood Her door opened instead.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“There’s smoke. From downstairs, I think.” He pushed her back inside and closed the door behind him.
“Smoke? I don’t smell anything.”
“But I do. I think there’s a fire, Abby. Somewhere. I think the smoke is coming up the stairwell. Maybe that means it’s at the back of the house. This room’s at the front, I know but. . Look out your window and see if you can see anything.”
He listened as she moved away from him. And then her voice came from across the room. “I don’t see a thing, Nick. No smoke Nothing. Are you sure?”
Was he? he wondered. He hadn’t seen the fire, of course. He hadn’t seen a damn thing And there had been no heat. Nothing but the scent of smoke. Could he be wrong?
At his hesitation, she moved, coming back to him. “I’m going to look down the stairs,” she said.
“Abby.” He could hear the uncertainty in his own voice—the doubt—and he hated it. As he hated this situation, which made him totally dependent on her. But she was right, of course. He could be wrong about everything. The fire. The location. And if there was fire, then they had to get out of the house, the quickest and easiest way.
“Come on, Nick,” she said. “Stay with me. Stay close so I know exactly where you are.”
Knowing he had no choice, despite the building anxiety for her and the baby, he reached out. She took his hand, holding it in her cold fingers instead of putting it on her shoulder as he’d expected her to do.
The journey that had seemed to take him an eternity was a matter of seconds with Abby leading the way. The smoke was much stronger now, so dense it was almost a physical presence in the hallway. He thought she had stopped at the top of the stairs. Looking down them, he supposed He waited, but this was taking too long. Precious seconds of hesitation.
