Losing control was a sure ticket to disaster.
But he’d lost it with Sophie, no question about that.
Why?
Why now?
And why Sophie?
She’d stood there in her kitchen, her hair wild and salt-coiled, her eyes tired and pissed off, and it had been all he could do not to grab her and take her again right there on her kitchen floor.
Being Sophie, she would have argued. He’d have had to kiss her mouth quiet, show her that there were better things to do with it than talking all the time. She would have known what he was doing. She would have thought it was a great idea.
Or maybe not.
But whatever she decided, she would have been as involved as he was. She would have fumed at him, stormed around, or they would have been on the floor, together. No question about that.
Every time he’d looked at her in her funky kitchen, he’d lost the thread of his questions. He didn’t think she’d noticed. Not until that last question before he left. Smart, that was Sophie. She’d seen right through him.
But she’d been doing a little dance of her own, Sophie had.
For all her can’t-shock-me manner down on the beach, he’d surprised Dr. Sugar.
Remembering the tiny sounds she’d made as he’d entered her, he slowed as he took the left turn off the bridge.
Sophie hadn’t been as cool and collected as she’d pretended, not when she was pulling him down toward her, urging him inside her, milking him dry.
And afterwards? Arms folded, caution signs posted all around her, she’d watched him with those wary eyes as he’d asked his questions, eyes that shaded from blue to gray the longer he talked. He’d kept wanting to ask her what she was thinking, but he’d felt stupid and off balance. Underneath the questions, there was another dialogue cracking back and forth.
He’d wanted to ask her if he’d hurt her, he’d needed to know that she was all right, that he hadn’t—
But he had.
No curbs, no brakes. Full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes.
No protection, nothing. He still couldn’t believe that detail. Him? Mr. Always Prepared? Hell and damnation. He wondered now if he could have stopped in that last moment. He’d told her he would, that he could, but—
She hadn’t wanted him to stop.
That kind of attitude from a woman was a surefire turn-on.
With all the reasons to stay as far from Sophie Brennan as he could, he’d deliberately sought her out, rolled around on the beach with her—and wanted more.
And now? All he wanted was to turn his bike around and race back to her house. He’d give his last dime to see the expression on her face if he came strolling through her door.
He had enough sense not to.
Standing in the rain outside the first convenience store off the island, Judah held the phone receiver in his hand. He knew he was holding cold plastic, but what he felt was the hot silkiness of Sophie’s skin.
Sex.
It changed everything.
He groaned.
What had he done?
“Judah?” Tyree’s sleep-clogged voice rasped in his ear. “Why the hell you calling me at—” Metal clanged as something fell to the floor at the other end of the line. “—at 7:00 a.m., man? We’re off duty.”
“What’s going on, honey?” Yvonna’s husky voice mixed with the sounds of sheets rustling. “That’s Judah on the phone? Why’s he calling? And at this hour?”
Over the static-crackling line came Tyree’s muffled, “Hush, baby. You stay right here. I’ll be back before you know what’s what.”
More whispered sounds, then finally Tyree’s voice slipped over the wires. “Man, you got some nerve, you know? After the week we’ve had and then last night?”
“Busy, I guess?” Judah wrapped the grimy cord around his fingers.
Tyree yawned. “Where are you?”
“Off the island bridge, this side of town.”
“The island? Why? What’s out there?”
Judah cleared his throat. “I wanted more info on the beating vic we found.”
“Now that you have my attention, you better make it good, since I’m not on duty and you aren’t either. What you got?”
“Not much new. More work. Slog work. Hitting-the-bricks kind of work. I’m curious about the vic, curious about the baby we found. You in?”
There was a long silence. “Damn. I’m jumping up and down and hoorahing with excitement.”
“Like a hound dog on the scent. Can practically hear you baying, Tyree.”
“Well, hey, man, I’m enjoying my time off. Maybe you should be, too, instead of waking me and Yvonna up on this fine, rainy morning?” Tyree sighed. “But you know how it is, Judah. You and me, we’re getting to know each other. Like I said, I don’t know who you are yet. It’s bumpy right now. For you, too. Getting used to your first full-time partner since—”
“Yeah.” Judah tightened the cord around his wrist. Partner. George was his partner. Not Tyree. “Yeah, since.” He took a deep breath. “I’m a jerk, Tyree. You’ll get no argument from me there. Don’t read too much into it. We can work together. It’s gone okay so far.”
“Word was, you didn’t want a partner.”
“I didn’t.” Judah rested his forehead against the wet chill of the metal cubicle. “I don’t. I like working alone. But it doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“I see.”
After a long silence, Tyree added, “So. You don’t like anyone. Not just me, huh?”
Judah’s laugh was rusty. “You got it. I’m not a people person.”
“I picked that up right away. Due to my keen detecting skills.”
“Can you live with that?”
A refrigerator door opened, shut. The sound of liquid pouring into a pot, a hiss as Tyree turned on a gas burner. “All right. You just don’t like the human race in general. I can live with that.”
“Good.” He tapped the cubicle. “That’s good.”
“Hey, man, don’t get all sloppy and emotional, hear? Folks’ll start saying we’re in love.”
“Yeah. You and me. A couple.” Judah snorted.
“Yep. Scandal in the department, huh?”
Judah laughed again. “Well, moving on from this love fest, what do you think about checking out the location where that beating victim—” He stopped, Sophie’s words echoing in his head. “We should check out the woman who was beaten last night. While I was on the island, I interviewed…Dr. Brennan. She made some pertinent observations.”
“Did she? The bodacious doctor babe had some—what did you call them? Observations? That why you’re up and about, Finnegan? Because of the doctor and her observations? You mean you haven’t crashed yet?”
“No.” He looked out at the puddles shining in the gravel of the parking lot, stared at the orange Stop ’n Go sign. “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d run down a lead or two.”
“That what you thought? That you’d run down a lead while I was sleeping?”
“Yeah, Tyree. That’s exactly what I thought. Just trying to do some of that sharing you said you wanted. Thought you’d want to know. That’s all.”
Tyree covered the receiver, but Judah heard the muffled, “Hey, Yvonna, you gotta hear this!”
Judah kept his mouth shut.
Sometimes you had to let the other guy have the last word.
Later, finally surrendering to exhaustion, lying naked and clean on his bedspread, he folded his arms under his head and somberly regarded the dark beauty of the carefully measured-out inch of Lagavulin single malt in his glass. Oblivion. Yes? No? He looked away, staring at the ceiling where shadows moved and flowed in endless gray.
He couldn’t sleep. He was past sleeping. He needed to sleep.
Oblivion, then. Half sitting, he reached out for the glass and sipped. He’d bought the whisky several years ago. At almost one hundred dollars a bottle, it had been a deliberate purchase. A thumb of the nose at the old
man.
Now, savoring the smoky taste of the sea in the Lagavulin, he reckoned he’d gotten his money’s worth. Even so, the whiskey hadn’t done anything so far to shut down the racket in his brain.
Tipping the glass up, he downed the remainder. The alcohol burned with the taste of sea and smoke all the way down to his gut. He wiped the bottom of the glass and placed it back on the side table.
All the jangle in his head had gone smooth and quiet when he’d been with Sophie on the beach. She’d done what the Scotch couldn’t. With her, he’d had that strange emptiness, that sense of being washed clean.
Peaceful.
Like what his daddy had talked about when he’d baptized his faithful flock. He’d used those words. Washed clean.
Bracing himself against the headboard, Judah sat up. He’d never let his daddy baptize him. The old man’s mix of hellfire and damnation had sent him running as far and as fast as he could.
A peculiar satisfaction rippled through Judah as he thought about the way he’d found peacefulness today. Nothing like barreling down the road to hell fueled on expensive liquor and sex. His preacher daddy would have erupted in fury and red-faced screaming.
Playing with the devil had its own reward.
With a smile, Judah gulped the last of the amber liquid in his glass and slid under the covers into sleep, his last conscious memory the compassion in Sophie’s blue-gray eyes as he’d closed them and then lost himself in her.
It was two in the afternoon before Sophie walked into the Peds ward, a plump pink teddy bear tucked under her arm.
She hadn’t allowed herself to think about Judah. She’d deliberately closed the door on the events of the morning. The slight soreness in her body, the marks he’d left on her, marks she’d welcomed, were invisible to the outside world. She’d opened a closet in her mind and locked the memories there.
Where they were safe.
She hoped that when she was sixty, she wouldn’t open that closet and find nothing but dust.
She had no intention of living the rest of her life on memories and lost dreams.
She had plans.
A smart woman knew when it was time to reach out for what she wanted.
And Sophie knew what she wanted.
She walked over to the crib. The small, neatly lettered sign read Baby Doe. She traced the letters. “How’s she doing?”
“Like a princess.” The nurse on duty smiled and walked over, her white shoes shushing across the floor. “We fed her. She ate. Went to sleep. Woke up, ate again. She’s quiet, but alert. All her signs are good.”
Sophie traced the tiny ear, smiled as baby-brown eyes watched her. “Have they done a hearing test, too?”
“Not yet, but she’s responsive to sounds. It’s been slow up here today, so we’ve all been playing with her. It’s been hard to resist her. She reacts to sounds, stimuli. She’s been well taken care of, no abuse, no signs of dehydration. She’s one of those quiet babies, that’s all. An easy baby. Seriously, I don’t think this cutie has a single thing wrong with her.”
Sophie placed the teddy bear in the crib and lifted Baby Doe out. “Except that she’s here. And nameless.” Cuddling the baby in her arms, she went over to the rocking chair that one of the doctor’s wives had contributed to the Peds ward. Sophie glanced at the nurse. “Has anyone called about her? Any inquiries at all?”
“Nothing so far.”
Unexpected relief flicked through her, embarrassing her. How could she be so selfish? She wanted the baby’s family found. Truly, she did. But this baby felt so right in her arms. And she didn’t want the beating victim, that poor, poor woman, to be this baby’s mother. It would be too sad a history for an infant. The tiny mouth moving next to her breast made her yearn for something. But Baby Doe was someone else’s little girl, not hers. Not hers to think about. Hers for these moments only, she reminded herself. Anything else was an illusion. “She’ll be here a little longer then. Until someone claims her or Children and Families sets something up.”
“Their offices have been closed because of the holiday. That will slow things down even more. We might not hear from them until tomorrow—oh, heck. Tomorrow’s Sunday, isn’t it?”
Sophie nodded.
“With all the shift changes up here, I lose track. We won’t hear before Monday or possibly Tuesday. DCF is backed up.”
“Not like the instant response TV shows suggest.” Sophie smoothed back the cap of dark hair, twiddled her fingers in front of the baby’s eyes. The baby’s cheeks creased upward, and a pink tongue poked out of her dot of a mouth. “Oh, look. She’s smiling. Yes, you are, aren’t you? You’re smiling at me, you little sweetie-pie.” Sophie tapped the button nose.
Following the movement, brown eyes crossed. Sophie made her hand flap and float like a butterfly across the space between them.
Baby Doe gurgled.
“My goodness, you can talk, can’t you?”
Baby Doe slid a gurgle into a goo-gah.
“You didn’t have anything to say before. That was all, right?”
More gurgles and soft coos. And all the time the baby watched her with solemn attention.
“You are a clever little girl, aren’t you?” Snugging her closer, Sophie bent her head and, nose to nose, nuzzled the baby. “Just the smartest little girl in the whole wide world.”
From the corner of her eyes, she saw the grin on the nurse’s face. “I know. I’m a pushover. But it’s hard to resist this sweetheart.” She sighed and stood up. “I suppose I should—”
And then she remembered that she had the whole day to herself. She could do anything she wanted.
What she wanted right this minute was to stay here in this padded, comfortable rocking chair and cuddle this baby.
“Lolly?”
“Yes, Dr. Brennan?”
“I’m going to stay a bit longer. I’ll look after Baby Doe while I’m here.”
“Sucker.” Lolly grinned again and walked back to her station.
Sophie smirked and kissed the baby’s sweet-smelling neck. “Not me. I’m a tough ER doc, remember?”
“Sure. No need to convince me. I know you made a point of being certified as a foster parent so you could baby these little guys. And that you used vacation time to do it. Yep, you’re a softie.” Lolly guffawed and shook her head.
“Short term. A week here, couple of days there. No biggie,” Sophie said.
“Well, thanks. This will give me a chance to catch up on the paperwork. Yes, yes—” she nodded as Sophie lifted an eyebrow “—I’m a sucker, too. But she’s so gosh-darned hard to put down. I figured the paperwork could wait. It did, but now you’re here, it’s back to work for me. No more yielding to temptation.”
“Yielding to temptation’s not all bad, you know.” Sophie tried to hold back the tiny smile, but she couldn’t.
“That’s what I’ve heard.” Lolly’s sudden giggle had them both laughing.
Sophie set the chair rocking again with the tip of her toe. “Do you have children, Lolly?”
“Two.” Lolly rustled papers, looked over. “But they’re teenagers. Love ’em to death, I do, but, jeez Louise, they’re hard to cuddle. And they don’t have that nice baby smell.” Green flashed on the computer as Lolly opened a file. “I miss that smell. There’s nothing else like it. Stinky socks aren’t the same.”
“You have a boy?” Sophie rocked the chair gently back and forth, and the baby’s eyes glazed over.
“Two. Seventeen and fifteen. And in my weak moments I think it might be nice to have another baby in the house.”
“So you work Peds rotation instead?”
“Exactly.” Lolly flashed a wicked grin. “Best of both worlds.”
“But you have your babies. And the awful truth is they’ll always be your babies even if they are hairy and tall and sweaty—”
“Don’t forget horny! At this age, sex is all they think about. It’s enough to make me want to run away from home sometimes. I swear, you can s
mell the testosterone in the air.” Shaking her head, Lolly went back to her file.
Sophie laughed and wiggled deeper into the chair, her toe pushing the rocker in a steady, comforting rhythm.
Lifting one starfish hand to her lips, she pressed a kiss against the softness. “You need a name, don’t you, angel baby?”
As if she understood every word, the baby watched Sophie with grave attention. From across the room, she heard the faint tapping of computer keys. Through the broad plate-glass windows, a splash of sunlight dappled the floor.
This was good. After the blood and death in the ER, rocking Baby Doe was very good. It soothed her hungry heart.
And filled her soul with an unexpected peacefulness.
“Angel.” Sophie leaned her head against the tall back of the chair. “That’s what you are. That’s your name, baby girl. While you’re here with me. Angel.”
A hungry heart. That’s what she had. Like the one Bruce Springsteen sang about. How long could a heart live with this aching hunger without shriveling up and dying? Oh, her heart was indeed hungry.
Holding Angel close to her breasts, Sophie drifted into a half sleep, a dream state where all things were possible, even this.
Chapter 7
Like a mole coming up from its tunnel, Judah blinked at the sudden shaft of sunlight.
“Nice.” Tyree yawned and stretched out his hand, turned it in the warmth. “After the storm.”
Judah was confused. His semiconscious dream had involved Sophie’s mouth, her supple body and what she’d been doing with both. He echoed Tyree’s yawn, blinked again to chase away those images. “I think I fell asleep.”
“You did. Because of my smooth driving.”
“Right. The smooth driving.” He yawned again and peered at the neatly groomed lawns in front of the compact, old-time Florida concrete houses around them. “Odd place for the woman to be found, don’t you think?”
“I do.”
“Doesn’t look like the kind of neighborhood where folks go around whomping on each other.”
Tyree opened the unmarked squad’s door. “You think that happens only on the wrong side of the tracks?”
Dead Calm Page 9
