A Done Deal

by Jenna Bennett

  Or maybe he was just really good at pretending.

  He was really good at pretending. He’d have to be. He must have been convincing when he was with Carmen. Maybe he hadn’t neglected to contact me because he wanted to keep me out of what he was doing; maybe the real reason really was that he was through with me. The baby situation may have been too much for him. Especially my statement that I wanted to try again. Most single men would run like the wind if a woman they’d bedded twice talked about slippers and pipes and babies.

  I might not ever hear from him again. And not because he was dead; because he didn’t want me.

  But somehow I didn’t think so. Somehow, I managed to hold on to the belief that he’d be back. Probably because if I didn’t, I’d be halfway to night court by now, ready to handcuff myself to him.

  I really was pitiful.

  Curling up on the sofa, I grabbed my phone and dialed my brother’s number. “Howdy,” I said when he answered.

  “Are you OK?”

  “Of course I’m OK. It takes more than a few guns pointed my way to scare me.”

  “Ha-ha,” Dix said coldly. “If you had any sense at all, you’d stay far away from that guy. Ever since you hooked up with him it’s been nothing but trouble.”

  “This wasn’t his fault,” I said. “I shouldn’t have been there.”

  “No,” Dix agreed, “you shouldn’t.”

  “They had it all worked out, and I stumbled into the middle of it. It was my fault.”

  “Uh-huh. If I didn’t happen to know that you’re telling the truth, I’d tell you to stop making excuses for him.”

  “I’m not trying to make excuses for him.” And then what he said registered and I added, “What do you mean, you happen to know I’m telling the truth? How could you know?”

  “I spoke to Detective Grimaldi,” Dix said.

  Of course. “She said you’d called her.” And she must have laid the blame for what happened firmly where it belonged. On my shoulders. I made a mental note to thank her. My family has enough hang-ups about Rafe as it is. “Although I don’t need you to check up on me, Dix. I’m twenty seven. I’m capable of taking care of myself.”

  “Of course,” Dix said. “That’s why you found yourself with a gun to your head on national news this evening. Because you’re so good at taking care of yourself. You just be grateful mother didn’t see it.”

  “I am. Believe me.”

  “So how are you? Really?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, leaning back. “I really am. It was scary for a minute or two, though. I knew Rafe wouldn’t hurt me, but I wasn’t sure about the others. There were a lot of them. With guns. It took me a while to realize that they knew what was going on and they really weren’t there to shoot him.” My mind probably hadn’t ticked over too swiftly, what with the stress and all.

  “What happened after you left?”

  “He drove me home,” I said. “And then Tamara Grimaldi and Wendell came and picked him up, to take him to night court. Apparently they want to make sure everyone sees him there, so there’s no question about the fact that he got arrested, too.”

  “It’s a tricky situation,” my brother answered. “Nobody else was there last time he was shot, but everyone believed that he was dead. They wanted to avoid a similar situation this time. They wanted to actually show, publically, that he was arrested along with everyone else.”

  “It makes sense.” And quite interesting how he knew so much about it. “You and Tamara Grimaldi must have talked a lot.”

  I heard what I can only describe as an audible squirm. He didn’t say anything, didn’t make a sound, and I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was wiggling like a worm on a hook.

  I grinned. That was new, and rather fun for me. I don’t often get to see my brother ill at ease—he’s much too well brought up to do anything embarrassing—and after all the squirming I’d done myself lately, while dodging pointed questions about my love life and my involvement with Rafe, it was nice to be able to play tit for tat. “What have you been up to, Dixon?”

  “Nothing,” Dix muttered.

  “You seem to know a lot about it for someone on the outside.”

  He took a breath. “Fine. I’ve been talking to Tamara. On and off.”

  My eyebrows zoomed halfway up my forehead. “Really?”

  “We were having dinner when you called me a few nights ago.”

  “When you told me you were doing a favor for a friend?” He didn’t answer, and I added, “What kind of favor?”

  “She needed a date,” Dix said. “One who didn’t look like an undercover cop.”

  And she’d called my brother? Interesting. “So it really was a date. You said it wasn’t.”

  “It wasn’t. Not really. And I did it for you.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “We were keeping an eye on your boyfriend,” Dix said. “And that woman he was with.”

  “Carmen.” For a second I saw green. “He slept with her.”

  Dix hesitated. “Did he tell you that?”

  Not in so many words. “He told me he’d done what he had to do for the job, but that I shouldn’t worry because she wasn’t important.”

  “That doesn’t mean he slept with her,” Dix said.

  “Of course it does.” What else could it mean?

  There was another pause while Dix pondered my answer and—probably—tried to come up with something to say without putting his foot in his mouth. “How do you feel about it?”

  “Fine,” I said. “If I ever come face to face with her, you’ll probably have to hold me back, but I believe him. He did what he had to do to get the job done. And he’s a man, right? Men can do that sort of thing.”

  While women, for the most part, read emotions into sex, men can have sex for the sake of having sex, with no emotions required. Can’t they?

  Dix made a non-committal sound in his throat.

  “I’m upset,” I admitted. “I hate the idea that he slept with someone else. Even if it was just part of the job. And even if we aren’t together in any sort of relationship. It’s not like he’s exclusively mine. He never said he was. He never pretended to be. We never discussed it. But dammit, Dix, I want to kill her!”

  “Good,” Dix said. “For a second there I was worried. You sounded so reasonable.”

  “Please don’t tell anyone. Especially mother. Or Todd. They’ll just see it as another reason why I need to give up on him.”

  “We don’t discuss Rafe Collier,” my brother said. “Both mother and Todd prefer to pretend that he doesn’t exist. And they do have a point, you know.”

  “I know.” I should give up on him. I knew it. I just couldn’t.

  There was another moment of silence. “Did you talk about the baby?” Dix asked, his tone diffident.

  I told him we had. “And that’s another thing. Do you remember when he and Todd got into that fight in the hospital, and Rafe decked Todd, and I asked Catherine to go after him and bring him back? And he didn’t come? Well, it’s no wonder. She didn’t tell him the baby was his. He thought it was Todd’s.”

  “Oops,” Dix said.

  “I know. Why would she do that?”

  “I’m sure she didn’t do it on purpose. Catherine loves you. She wouldn’t lie about something like that. Had you told her?”

  I said I hadn’t. “I assumed you had.”

  “In front of mother? No, sis. I told you, if you decided to keep the baby, you’d have to tell everyone the news yourself. Including whose baby it was.”

  So Catherine might sincerely not have known the truth. “I’m still going to talk to her.”

  “Of course,” Dix said. “I should probably let you get to it. I’m glad you’re all right.”

  “I’m fine. And not that you asked, but Rafe is fine too. And Tamara.”

  “Good,” Dix said. He was probably referring to Tamara Grimaldi being fine, and not Rafe. “And good luck with Catherine. Don’t be too hard on her
. She loves you.”

  “I know she does,” I said. “I’ll be nice.”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  I thanked him again and hung up. And then I poured myself a glass of wine and dialed my sister’s number.

  Catherine is four years older than me, while Dix is roughly halfway between us. He and I have always been closer than Catherine and I. It’s partly the age-difference, I think—not that four years is a lot—and partly just the fact that Dix and I are more alike than Catherine and I. Or Catherine and Dix, for that matter. Physically as well as emotionally, my brother and I take after mother’s family, the Georgia Calverts. Blonde, blue-eyed, docile and reserved. Catherine is named for mother’s grandmother, Catherine Calvert, but she looks more like the Martins. My dad had dark hair and a stockier build than the Calverts. Dix has inherited dad’s physique, and so has Catherine. She also has his dark hair, sallow complexion, and stubborn streak. When I divorced Bradley, Catherine represented me in the divorce, and she would have nailed his hide to the wall and taken him for half of everything he owned if I hadn’t held her back. At that point I just wanted to be free of him; as far as I was concerned, he could keep all the stuff. Having it around just served to remind me of him anyway. But Catherine was out for blood, and would have gotten it if I hadn’t persuaded her it wasn’t necessary. She loves me, she’s fiercely loyal to both me and Dix, and when I got pregnant, I’d felt fairly certain I could count on her support. I hadn’t told her about it, no... but then I hadn’t told anyone else, either. Including Rafe.

  “Savannah! Are you all right?”

  While I cogitated, Catherine answered the phone, her voice as close to hysterical as I’d ever heard it.

  “Of course I’m all right,” I said. “I guess you watched the news.”

  “Yes! Oh, my God, what happened?”

  “Nothing much. The police and TBI raided a nightclub I happened to be at. It was my own fault.”

  “He held a gun to your head!” my sister shrieked.

  “Not really. He wouldn’t have shot me.”

  “You don’t know that!”

  “Of course I know it,” I said. “I love him. He’d never hurt me.”

  “He...!” She stopped. “What?”

  “I love him.”

  There was silence. Then Catherine said, her voice carefully calm, “I don’t think I understand the situation.”

  “No,” I agreed, “I don’t think you do, either. And on that note, I have a bone to pick with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Last month, at the hospital, when I asked you to go after him? He said you neglected to tell him that the baby I lost wasn’t Todd’s.”

  “It wasn’t?” And then she caught on. “Oh, God. Savannah...”

  “Yeah, yeah. I slept with Rafe Collier. I didn’t make sure I used protection. I got pregnant out of wedlock. I brought shame on the family.”

  “No,” Catherine said, “that’s not it.”

  “It’s not?” I’d expected to hear at least one of those.

  “You can sleep with anyone you want. Even Rafe Collier. It’s none of my business.” She hesitated. “Although...”

  “Yes?”

  “I remember what he was like in high school. Are you sure getting involved with him is a good idea?”

  “Positive,” I said. “If Rafe’s not the problem, then what is?”

  “You sent me after him,” Catherine said, “and you didn’t give me the information I needed. So instead of helping, I went out there and broke his heart.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Didn’t you see the look on his face?”

  “Of course I did,” I said. It had been the reason I’d asked Catherine to go after him in the first place. Part of the reason. The other part was that I just wanted him back. But he’d looked so upset, so angry, that I’d been worried.

  I heard the sound of Catherine’s earring click against the receiver. “I never thought I’d feel sorry for Rafe Collier, but I did that night.”

  I winced. “Did he... say anything?”

  “Not much,” Catherine said. “I had to run to catch up with him, and he was already unlocking the door of the car by the time I got there. It wasn’t a long conversation.”

  “Was he rude?”

  “Not at all,” my sister said. “I’m sure he would have preferred to leave without talking to anyone, but he was polite.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I told him you sent me after him,” Catherine said, “to make sure he was all right. He told me he’d survive.”

  Ouch.

  “I asked him to come back inside,” Catherine continued, “but he said no. He had to get back to work and besides, you didn’t need him, you had your family there.”

  “He was wrong,” I said.

  “Yes, Savannah,” my sister answered patiently, “but I didn’t know that then. Nor, I assume, did he.”

  I mumbled a shamefaced no.

  “Why didn’t you tell him?”

  “I was scared,” I said. “I never expected to get pregnant. It never even crossed my mind. And when I did, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I could handle having a baby on my own. Any baby really, but especially his. Mother would have had a fit if I showed up with Rafe Collier’s baby.”

  “She would have gotten over it,” Catherine said. “And Dix and I would have supported you.”

  “I figured you would. Once you got used to the idea. But everyone would have been shocked. And I didn’t want to be a single mother, and he never promised me anything...”

  Then again, he never made plans, as he’d told me earlier. Suddenly the fact that he hadn’t said anything about the future didn’t seem so monumental. He’d been happy to see me again when he came back last time. There’d been no indication that he didn’t want to keep seeing me.

  “I’m an idiot,” I said.

  “Yes, you are,” my sister agreed.

  “It’s just... I love him, Catherine. And the idea of telling him that I was pregnant, and having him look horrified, because all I really was, was a few hours of fun between the sheets; he certainly didn’t want me having his baby—or worse, to have him ask me to marry him, not because he wanted to, but because he thought he had to, after knocking me up... all because I was too stupid and inexperienced to make sure I didn’t get pregnant in the first place...”

  I trailed off, having totally lost the thread of my soliloquy.

  “He wouldn’t,” Catherine said. “He cares about you. Any idiot can see it. You’d have seen it too, if you weren’t so neurotic.”

  “You think?”

  “Yes,” Catherine said, “I think. He told me he hoped you and Todd would be very happy together. And not to bother sending him an invitation to the wedding.”

  “I hope you told him I have no plans of marrying Todd.”

  “I had no idea whether you planned to marry Todd or not,” Catherine said, “since you hadn’t talked to me about it. So I did my best to let him down easy. You and Todd have been friends forever, there’s always been an understanding between you, I’m sure you didn’t mean to hurt him, blah blah blah...”

  “Oh, God.” And he’d come back to Nashville three weeks later and found me with Todd. I’d done everything wrong.

  “Listen, Savannah,” my sister said. “God knows I have no reason to want you to get involved with Rafael Collier. Not aside from the fact that you seem to want to be. But if you plan to keep him around, and it sounds like you do, you’ll have to make sure mother knows he’s off-limits. She’ll give him hell if you don’t. She loves Todd. She’s always wanted you to marry him. And you remember how she treated Jonathan in the beginning.”

  I nodded. “She stopped once you married him, though.”

  Catherine allowed that she had. “Are you planning to marry Rafe?”

  My mind blanked for a second, rebelling against coming right out and saying it. Then I reminded myself that I’d promised there’d be
no more prevarication. “If he wants me. If he doesn’t, I’ll take whatever I can get.”

  Catherine was quiet for a second. “I just want you to be happy, Savannah. We all do. Even mother. If he’s who you want, then more power to you. As long as he doesn’t hurt you, I have no problems with him.”

  “He won’t hurt me. Ever.” In fact, he’d taken great pains not to hurt me. Had blown his cover and risked his life with Perry Fortunato back in September, so I wouldn’t get hurt. I hadn’t realized before how much I’d been a part of screwing up his life and his career. It was my fault his cover was blown. My fault he’d be unemployed soon.

  I shook the thoughts off. There’d be time for them later. “Tonight wasn’t what it looked like. I walked into the middle of a raid, and he was trying to get me out.”

  “With a gun to your head?” my sister asked.

  “I know it looked bad, but they wouldn’t have shot him, and he wouldn’t have shot me, and it took me just a few seconds to figure out what was going on. It looked good, though, didn’t it?”

  “It looked scary,” Catherine said. “I thought you were going to die.”

  “Convincing, do you think?”

  “Yes,” Catherine said, half-choking, “it looked convincing.”

  “Good. That way, maybe nobody will realize that Rafe was in on it all along. I’d hate for something to go wrong and for someone to send another hitman after him. It’s not fair to make him keep killing them.”

  “No,” Catherine said, in the voice of one humoring the mentally deficient, “of course not.”

  “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

  “No,” Catherine said. “I think you’re in love. And maybe a little crazy. I mean... Rafe Collier? Have you lost your mind, Savannah?”

  “You don’t know him,” I said. “He’s wonderful. I know he isn’t ‘our’ kind of people. Mother will have all sorts of fits. Todd won’t ever forgive me. And most of Sweetwater will probably snub me when I come home to visit. But I love him. It’ll be worth it.”

  If he’d have me.

  “If that’s how you feel,” Catherine said, “then it’ll definitely be worth it. Tell him I’m sorry.”