RUNAWAY

by Christie Ridgway

  She looked out the window. “Is Bryce right? Do you want to go to the fire station?”

  The heat kindling inside him went cold. “I don’t know if I should go back there.” He didn’t know if he could go back there.

  “Owen…”

  “What?”

  Her gaze stayed trained on the window. “We didn’t talk about the other night.”

  “That’s right.” He touched the outside of his pocket. He’d made a habit of carrying around her THNX, sap that he was. “I appreciate what you shared with me. That night…it was a tough time.”

  “I know.”

  “And you…?”

  She shot him a quick glance. “You know darn well I have no complaints.”

  “Good.”

  “Good.” Her gaze cut his way again. “But…”

  “But?”

  “Does this need to be said?”

  That it could never happen again? That it had been a huge mistake? That he was an idiot for not being able to keep her taste, her scent, the feel of her silky skin out of his head?

  He steeled himself. “Does what need to be said?”

  “That it’s okay to delight in being alive.”

  “I…I don’t know what you mean.”

  “It’s all right to have enjoyed what we did, Owen. It’s all right to have enjoyed our…pleasure. You have nothing to feel guilty about.”

  Owen stared out the window. Would she still say that if she knew? Would she say it was all right if she knew that every cell of him wanted to “delight in being alive” again? Right now. Tonight. Tomorrow.

  But that was wrong, wasn’t it? She was temporarily here. He was temporarily needing her near. And he was afraid that all that “delighting” that he wanted was just an excuse to get away from what really needed to be done: Facing all the questions about his future.

  The next day, Owen felt so suffocated by the four walls around him that he gave in and agreed to go to dinner at Will and Emily’s house with Izzy. Though he didn’t want to talk shop with Will, he was fairly certain he could avoid what was happening down at the station by using the two women as a buffer.

  His plan was to settle himself on the couple’s couch and keep quiet.

  His worries were needless, he realized, when he limped into the house, using the cane that he’d been given by the orthopedist. No one was going to be expecting him to maintain his end of a conversation because there were too many of them going on. He and Izzy were not the only dinner guests. Will’s siblings were in attendance, too, along with a variety of spouses, girlfriends and roommates, which made it easy for Owen to hide behind the noise and chaos.

  As she’d been doing lately, Izzy wandered off, leaving him alone. When they were at his place, she didn’t hang around him, either. He supposed she read a lot of the time. He knew she talked on the phone often. It rang a heck of a lot—so much that the distinctive ring tone was starting to rub his nerves raw. Probably some of her calls were business related, and he’d brought up the fact that he was causing her trouble on that end—giving her the chance to say she needed to leave him—but she’d waved the concern away.

  Too bad he couldn’t bring up her other phone calls and have her wave away the concern he had about those, too. But that would mean admitting he’d been listening. That would mean admitting he was a little, um, well, irritated shouldn’t be the word, but it was, by the many times she’d been thrilled to hear from “Greg” and “David” and “Brad.” Of course, there’d been calls from “Jane” and “Sally” and “Taylor,” too, but—but wait, “Taylor” was a name that could go either way, meaning yet another possible hash mark under the column entitled “Male Callers,” right?

  The sofa cushion beside his bounced as a younger man dropped into the other corner. As tall and dark as his brother, but as skinny as only a twenty-and-change guy could be, Will’s sibling Tom gave him a quick smile. “Yo. Owen.”

  “Hey, Tom.” Owen smiled back, because Tom wasn’t the type to take conversation into any uncomfortable territory. He wasn’t likely to ask about the fire or about Jerry or about when Owen expected to be back on the job at the station. “How about those Raiders?” he added anyway, just to direct the conversation into a nonloaded area.

  The other man groaned. “Did you have to bring that up?” he asked, his expression pained.

  Owen did a quick mental review. It was early in the season, but the team was doing about as expected. “What’s the matter? Did you make a bad bet with someone on last week’s game?”

  “This week’s game,” Tom mumbled. “I have tickets.”

  “And you have to work?”

  “And I have a girlfriend,” the other man said with a sigh.

  “Oh,” Owen answered, amused. “She doesn’t like football?”

  Tom slid lower onto the cushions, as if misery was yanking at his ankles. “At the moment, she doesn’t like me.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “Yeah,” Tom said morosely, his gaze going distant. Then he jerked upright. “Wait, wait. Who’s that?”

  “Huh?” Owen looked in the same direction. “Who’s what?”

  “Oh, baby. The world is looking up. Chic-lookin’ dark-haired chick just flitted into the kitchen. She has a very, very cute butt, and maybe Mr. Tom can find a new seatmate for Sunday’s game.”

  Owen reminded himself that Tom was just acting his age and gender. It didn’t help. “Was she wearing jeans and a red sweater?”

  Tom’s grin was appreciative. “Tight jeans, and—”

  “She’s with me,” Owen growled.

  “Oh.” The younger man’s smile died. “Sorry. No disrespect and all that.”

  “Fine.”

  Tom cast another speculative look toward the kitchen. “Except—”

  “Taken.” Guilt at the claim bounced right off him. “Irrevocably taken.”

  “I got that,” Tom said, “the minute your expression turned all ugly.”

  Ugly? Owen tried smoothing out his face.

  “I just wondered if maybe she could introduce me to someone. I’ve still got those tickets.”

  “So you and your girlfriend…?”

  “Gretchen.” Tom turned morose again. “Who am I fooling? I don’t want to meet anyone else. I don’t want to go with anyone but her to the game.”

  “Then you better make up with her or give away those tickets.”

  “Yeah.” He glanced over at Owen. “I fell for her the minute I saw her. I was at this friend’s birthday party and Gretchen walked toward me. I didn’t have some perfect-girl image in my head. You know, this tall, or this colored hair, nothing like that. But here comes this girl and she tucks her hair behind her ears and her eye catches mine and I step closer and…well, she just smelled right, you know?”

  “Sort of,” Owen answered. He was such a liar. That’s how it had been with Izzy. She’d walked up to him, put out her hand, and it had been just like Tom and Gretchen. It had just been right.

  Or at least he’d thought so.

  “Who could believe in love at first sight?” Tom continued, shaking his head. “But it happened to me.”

  That’s not what had happened to Owen! It had been right, but right for the moment, right for the weekend, but not right for…right for…Damn! This was exactly the kind of conversation he didn’t want to be having with Tom or with himself.

  “Why don’t you phone Gretchen?” he suggested. “See if you can get back in her good graces?”

  Tom brightened. “You think I should do that?”

  “Yeah. Find a nice private corner and give her a call.” And let me return to my peace and quiet.

  To his relief, Tom thanked him for the advice and wandered off. Owen was alone again, alone with thoughts that wanted to wander again toward Izzy and rightness, but he refused to let them. A little kid toddled by with a small car in hand, and he allowed his casted wrist to be used as a roadway.

  “There you are!” a voice called out.

  H
e and the kid both jumped, then looked at Emily. She was smiling at the little guy. “Your mom’s looking for you,” she said. “She has a cup of pretzels for you.”

  A plaster roadway was no match for pretzels, apparently. The toddler hurried off and Emily sat in the place previously occupied by Tom. “I’m sorry we’ve been ignoring you.”

  “No problem.” He couldn’t be impolite and say it was what he’d been hoping for, could he? With a gesture, he indicated the hustle and bustle as people moved in and about the room. “I’m enjoying the chaos.”

  Emily smiled. “It terrified me at first. I was an only child, and the first couple of times I found myself at a Dailey clan event I was overwhelmed.”

  Maybe that was why Izzy had integrated so well into this party atmosphere, leaving him as the solo man on the sofa. Coming from a large family like this, she was likely accustomed to the commotion. Emily looked in fine form herself.

  “You’re good with it now, though,” he said, tilting his head. “You look very good with it.” Both Emily and Will shone with the same light he’d noticed beaming from them in Vegas. “You and Will.”

  “Yes.” Just then, the man in question passed through the room and her gaze followed him. As if he felt it, he suddenly pivoted, walking backward while he shared a look with his wife. He gave her an intimate smile, then exited the room, causing Emily to turn back to Owen. “And you and Izzy?”

  “Can we talk about something else?”

  Her brows rose. “Uh, sure. How about those Raiders?”

  “Tom has tickets to Sunday’s game, I know that.”

  “But he’s on temporary outs with Gretchen,” Emily answered.

  “Yeah. But I think he’s on the phone over there…” Owen turned to indicate the corner where—

  Where Izzy stood, her shoulder leaning against the wall, her cell phone at her ear. He swore he could read her lips, and on that smiling mouth was the name of yet another hash mark for the “Male Callers” category. “Who is John?” Owen demanded.

  “What?” Emily asked.

  He couldn’t stop himself. “Who is John—and Greg and David and Brad? There’s likely more, because that damn phone of hers is ringing all the time.”

  “Am I the only one who thinks she needs to get a little more varied with the ring tone? Aren’t you sick of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’?”

  Okay, he knew he shouldn’t press it. He was, after all, the one who wanted to not talk about Izzy. “Emily,” he heard himself say anyway. “The woman takes more phone calls in a day than the department takes training runs in a year.”

  Emily laughed. “Yeah. You must be really sick of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’”

  “I thought they were calling regarding work, and then I thought they must be that large family of hers checking up on her, but she says they’re all friends.”

  “They’re not her family, that’s for sure.”

  “Huh?”

  Emily glanced over at Izzy, still chatting in the corner. “They forget she exists most of the time, I think.”

  “What are you talking about? She said she comes from this big Italian family. She implied they were the close-knit group you immediately think of when—” He broke off, frowning at Emily’s compressed lips and shaking head. “They’re not close-knit?”

  “Not with Izzy. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you…”

  “Maybe you should,” he insisted. “What’s the deal?”

  “Izzy won’t thank you for feeling sorry for her…”

  “I know how unpleasant it is to be felt sorry for. Don’t worry about that. Just spill it, Emily.”

  “She’s adopted.” Emily darted a glance at Izzy and lowered her voice.

  Owen had to lean closer to hear her over the hubbub in the house. “And?”

  “And her parents quickly lost interest in having an infant. I think it was a passing phase, they fancied the idea of a child, but they run a tour agency—”

  “She said that. Global excursions, particularly to Europe.”

  “Right, and they discovered that a baby put a crimp in their business plan. So they shuffled her around to various relatives, moving her from one Cavaletti to another to another. I don’t think she stayed anyplace for more than a year or two.”

  Izzy. He tried imagining her circumstances. “Didn’t anyone think that was cruel?”

  “I don’t know what they thought. I only know they let Izzy live with a succession of mostly maiden aunts and elderly widows. I think twice in her life she spent summers with families with kids. In essence, she raised herself.”

  Oh, Izzy.

  “So instead of counting on the Cavalettis, she’s made a family of friends for herself all over the country.”

  “The ones who hold on to her stuff,” Owen said.

  “Yeah. You know about that?”

  “Boxes have been showing up at my place.”

  “Oops.” Emily looked like she was biting back a smile. “I might be guilty of, um, letting it slip out that she’s had a change in circumstance.”

  “It’s making her crazy, having all her things showing up.”

  Emily’s head tilted and her eyes narrowed. “Is it making you crazy?”

  “No.” Izzy was making him crazy—her scent, her mouth, the memories of the two of them in bed—but not those cartons that kept arriving on the doorstep.

  “Izzy’s good at getting people to like her,” Emily said.

  “Probably because of all that moving around she had to do,” Owen surmised.

  “Probably,” Emily agreed. “But I’m not sure she allows herself to depend on anyone, in case they disappoint her like her parents and relatives.”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Izzy move past the couch and out of the room, her phone no longer in evidence. “She has so much,” he murmured. “Beauty, brains, charm out the wazoo—”

  “But no trust,” Emily interjected, pushing to a stand. “I don’t know that she can believe that anyone will make a lasting place for her in their life.”

  Owen wasn’t, that was sure.

  Though he shouldn’t feel guilty over it, because that was the way both of them wanted it. She’d made that clear the day she’d run from him in Las Vegas. His runaway bride was back, but it was only to end their marriage.

  Chapter Nine

  I zzy was using her foot to shove the latest delivery away from the front door when Owen hobbled down the stairs. His eyebrows rose. “Another box?”

  Heat crawled up her neck. “Somehow this address got out. Blasted e-mail loops.”

  “How many is that now?” he asked, sitting on one of the steps.

  “Nine.” She kicked at it, moving it just an inch or two. What was in this one? She couldn’t remember. “I should just take them all straight to the Salvation Army.”

  “And lose your Louisa May Alcott books? Why would you do that?”

  Izzy waved her hand. “All that happy family/ happy romance was the stuff of childhood fantasy. I’m grown-up now.” She knew the score and knew the difference between what a child longed for and what an adult could depend on. She glanced over at Owen, still aware of the embarrassed heat of her face. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

  “Not inconvenient for me. You can store them in the garage, if you want. Indefinitely.”

  Indefinitely. But there was a definite between them, a definite end date to this interlude. To their marriage. She snuck another look at him and noticed how tired he looked. Not sleeping again, she figured. His gaze was fixed, unseeing, on the shelving in the living room that held the vintage firefighter memorabilia.

  And that reminded her…

  “Say,” she said, giving the box one last push with her foot so it was out of the way of the door. “How about we go for a drive? You can show me all the Paxton, California, scenic locations.”

  They could both use a diversion. She certainly wanted to think about something other than the belongings that were catching up with her. She had to be ready to leave at a mo
ment’s notice; it had always been that way for her, and too many things would only make it harder when she had to pick up and go.

  Shoving the thought away, she noted the remote expression on Owen’s face and the shadows under his eyes. He needed a change of place, too. “Let’s get out of here, Owen.”

  “You’ll have to play chauffeur,” he reminded her.

  She slapped on a grin, trying to lighten both their moods. “There’s nothing I like better than to drive a man…crazy.”

  A smile ghosted over his mouth as he got to his feet. “You’ve got it down pat, sweetheart.”

  Heat washed over her again, across her face and down her body so that her skin felt too tight beneath her jeans and sweater. That night in his bed had been an aberration, but that didn’t stop her from remembering every moment of it, from the first sure thrust of his tongue to the gentle withdrawal of his erection from the still-pulsing liquid center of her body.

  She cleared her throat. “I could use some fresh air,” she murmured.

  “Won’t help,” he offered. “Last night I opened my window and stuck my whole head out and it didn’t erase any thoughts from my brain or take my temperature down a single degree.”

  Oh, and as if that little comment cooled her off. She ignored him as she brushed past on her way to retrieve her purse. His low laugh was as good as a touch, though. It ruffled through her hair and traced like a fingertip down her spine.

  Bad man.

  Being closed up in his SUV didn’t help matters much. Yes, they each had their own bucket seat, but this close she could smell his shampoo and see the strength of his long legs from the corner of her eye. Forcing her attention to the road, she said, “Where to?”

  He directed her to his elementary school first. It was a typical, somewhat sprawling, suburban public school, with handpainted notices about the upcoming Fun Run and Halloween Festival taped to the surrounding fence. It was Saturday, so the fields were full of knee-socked little kids playing soccer. They moved about the grass in huddles and she and Owen idly watched their antics for a few minutes from the parking lot.