Tough Customer

by Sandra Brown

  They shared a box of popcorn. Occasionally their hands reached in at the same time and they had swatting contests. Once when she crossed her legs, her foot bumped his calf, but she excused herself and moved it away.

  It was a movie about two brothers, one good, one bad, both of whom hated their tyrannical father but loved the same woman. There was a scene where the leads made love--sexy, hungry, forbidden love. Dodge had never been so turned on by a film sequence, and it wasn't because he got flashed by a celebrated pair of tits that were probably insured for a million dollars by Lloyd's of London. It was because he was sitting next to Caroline, whose breasts were small but the objects of fantasies that each night left him sweaty and fretful on his damn sofa.

  He wanted her. God, did he. But he didn't touch her. For damn sure not during that movie scene. Even the slightest move in that direction would've shattered the trust she'd placed in him. Anyone who knew him would never believe their relationship was chaste, but to take advantage of her situation would be to abuse her worse than Campton had.

  Dodge didn't think about the future when she wouldn't be there to welcome him home after his workday, when he would no longer hear her humming in the kitchen, or catch the scent of her shampoo in the bathroom. He pretended it would go on like this forever. Except for his raging, confused, and chaotic libido, he was wonderfully content.

  Up till the day he was upended by a stupid, senseless, unnecessary calamity that made him want to pick up a baseball bat and attack God where he lived.

  That day, after his grind at the tire plant, Dodge called Caroline and told her it would be another hour or so before he got home. He went to task force headquarters for a scheduled briefing.

  He should have noticed the subdued atmosphere in the building immediately upon entering it. But he was thinking about Caroline and the pot roast dinner she had said was waiting for him. Pot roast was such an evocative dish. It connoted hearth and home. Permanence.

  His daydream of pot roast dinners for years to come was swaddled in such a rosy haze that he didn't pick up on the funereal mood among his fellow officers until he realized that they were all avoiding eye contact with him.

  He asked the room at large, "What'd I do?"

  No one said anything.

  "What's going on?"

  Silence.

  "Jesus. There's been another robbery? Did somebody else get killed?

  Goddammit! Was it Albright? What bank? When?"

  One brave soul cut off his tirade. "It's not that, Dodge. It's, uh, it's..."

  "What?

  What?"

  "It's Gonzales."

  It took a moment for Dodge to switch his thoughts from their elusive, clever bank robber to his former partner and best friend. But from there he made an instant connection between the glum mood in the room and Jimmy's name.

  His heart came to a sudden, thudding halt. He stopped breathing. He swallowed convulsively, but his mouth had gone dry, he had no spit.

  "There was an accident," one of his cohorts said. "Gonzales was ... He didn't make it."

  "Sorry, Dodge."

  "Hey, man, I'm sorry."

  "Goes with the territory, but ... shit."

  "Anything I can do, Dodge, just ask. Okay?"

  The murmured words of consolation barely registered. He turned his back to the other men and tried to assimilate what they were telling him. He couldn't. He came back around. "Jimmy's dead?" When that was affirmed with solemn nods, he started hyperventilating.

  "Take it easy, Dodge."

  "Where is he?"

  "The morgue. His folks are there."

  "I gotta--"

  "Dodge, you can't!"

  He made a dash for the exit but was grabbed from behind, and he began struggling savagely to shake off restraining hands. "You can't go to the aid of a cop, Dodge."

  "Think, man!"

  "You'll blow your cover."

  "Fuck that!" he yelled. "And fuck you. Let go of me."

  He continued to scream obscenities, but eventually he exhausted himself, and the reasonableness of what the other officers were saying sank in. He ceased struggling, and they released him. He dropped into the nearest chair and sat there for the longest time, trying to collect himself, wishing he didn't believe the unbelievable. Finally he looked up. "You said it was an accident. What happened?"

  A rock star had flown into Hobby Airport for a concert to take place that night at the Astrodome. Gonzales, wanting the overtime, had volunteered to ride in one of the squad cars providing police escort for the singer's limo. Word had leaked out of his arrival time. From Hobby Airport, the limo was chased by paparazzi and carloads of crazed, dope-fueled, fanatical fans.

  Gonzales and another officer were in the car directly behind the limo. One of the cars chasing the motorcade, trying to get between them, clipped the front bumper of the squad car. They were going so fast that the officer behind the wheel lost control. The car spun out and was slung into a telephone pole, hitting it broadside with such force, it was almost cut in half.

  Jimmy Gonzales was.

  Cut in half.

  The captain asked Dodge if he wanted to talk to a chaplain, a counselor, a psychologist. Dodge told him to fuck off. He didn't stay for the briefing.

  For a while, he drove around the city looking for someplace in which to vent his roiling anger but soon realized that his erratic driving was a danger to innocent motorists and their passengers. Where would be the sense in his killing somebody in a car crash? No one would appreciate the irony. Least of all Jimmy Gonzales, who would rebuke him from the cold slab in the morgue on which the halves of him lay.

  He wound up at a batting cage. It felt good to have something hard and potentially lethal in his hands, taking whacks at something as defenseless as Gonzales had been against the laws of physics and that goddamn telephone pole.

  He didn't go home until hours later. By then the pot roast had been put away. Caroline's eyes were soft with sympathy when she greeted him at the door. "It was on the ten o'clock news. I'm so sorry, Dodge."

  He nodded and walked past her into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator but didn't know what he was looking for, so he just stared into it sightlessly.

  "I want to do something to help you," she said with feeling. "But I don't know what to do."

  He slammed the refrigerator door, rattling glass containers inside. "You can't do anything to help. I can't do anything. I can't even go to his funeral. I've been ordered not to. I can't go see his parents. Nice folks, by the way. Proud as punch of their son Jimmy, the cop." His throat seized up, and he groaned, "Jesus."

  Caroline took a step toward him, but he rebuffed her. "There's nothing you or anybody can do, all right?" he shouted. "Don't you get it? The dumb asshole should have been off duty. Instead, he's dead! And for what? He died protecting that flaming fairy with pink hair and green satin pants, whose singing, frankly, sounds to me like a cat getting fucked in the ass.

  "And the person who caused the wreck fled the scene. Didn't even have the decency to own up to taking out a good cop and a great guy. Probably some cokehead. If I ever find out who..." He raised his hands, curled his fingers toward his palms. "If I ever find out who was driving that car, I'll kill him with my bare hands."

  "Dodge, you're--"

  "You don't think I mean it, do you?"

  "Dodge."

  "Think again, nice girl. I beat up your fiance, didn't I? Have you forgotten that?"

  "You're not yourself."

  "I'm exactly myself." He sneered. "This is me, Caroline." He pounded his fist against his chest. "Take a good look. This is the real me."

  He could feel the angry blood throbbing through the veins in his head and neck. He knew that his eyes were glowing with fury, that he was spraying spittle with each word, that he probably looked feral.

  That he probably looked like his old man.

  But even knowing that, he couldn't stop himself from saying what his father used to shout at him. "Just leave
me the fuck alone, will you?"

  With remarkable calm, Caroline sidestepped him and left the room.

  Then he had no one on whom to direct his rage, so he threw himself down into one of the kitchen chairs, put his head on the table, and sobbed till his throat was raw.

  He stayed there until dawn, benumbed by grief, steeped in self-loathing.

  When he realized the sun was coming up, he stirred. He toed off his shoes and tiptoed through the house to the bathroom, where he splashed his face with cold water. His shirttail was out, his hair standing on end, he had a full day's growth of beard. He looked like a derelict after a weeklong binge, but he was too weary in body and soul to make repairs.

  As he left the bathroom, he looked down the hallway toward the bedroom. The door was ajar, not quite an invitation, but she hadn't barred herself against him, which, after the way he behaved, she'd had every right, practically an obligation, to do.

  He went to the door and pushed it open. Its hinges creaked, but that didn't waken her because she was already awake. He sensed she was even though she was facing away from him, lying on her side, her knees pulled up nearly to her chest. She lay on top of the covers, fully dressed except for her shoes. The pads of her toes, perfect dots of flesh, were lined up against the balls of her small feet.

  The sight of her caused the bitterness that he had nursed through the night to disintegrate, and all he was left with was emptiness.

  He walked to the bed and lay down, close to her, but without touching. He expected her to tell him to get away from her, that she couldn't stand the sight or sound or smell of him. But she didn't. She lay perfectly still, and that silent acceptance of his presence emboldened him to speak.

  "I was wrong last night," he said in what, for him, passed as a whisper. Even so, his voice sounded abnormally loud. He tried lowering it another decibel. "When I said there was nothing you could do to help me, I was wrong. There is something."

  "What?" Her voice was muffled by the pillow beneath her cheek.

  "You're doing it."

  "I'm not doing anything."

  "Yes you are. You're ... you're being." He moved his head closer to hers, closed his eyes, and pressed his face into her hair.

  "Just being?"

  "That's enough. Actually, that's a lot."

  She turned over until they were face-to-face. She didn't rebuke him for rubbing his face against her hair, which he was afraid she might. Her regard wasn't judgmental. More like tender.

  "I'm sorry for flying off the handle." Then he snuffled with disgust. "That's an understatement. I went way beyond that."

  "You were upset."

  "I was. Am. But nothing excuses the way I acted and the things I said."

  "I didn't take them personally."

  "Good. They weren't directed at you."

  "I know. I understand." Her sweet expression said she did.

  It made his throat tight. "Do you think you can forgive me?"

  "I saw you at your worst, and I'm still here."

  He shook his head sadly. "That wasn't my worst, Caroline. Not by a long shot."

  "I'm still here," she repeated softly.

  Gazing into her calm, sherry-colored eyes, he felt little cracks forming in his mean ol' heart. It had been toughened early by the loss of his mother, who'd loved him, hardened by his father, who hadn't, then made stony by the man's ceaseless cruelties.

  But his callous heart didn't stand a chance of remaining so when Caroline looked at him as she was doing now. Little fissures in it opened, allowing trickles of her gentleness, kindness, and goodness to get inside.

  He was nearly suffocated by yearning. "Caroline." He stopped, swallowed noisily, tried again. "Caroline, a few weeks ago, you were engaged to another man." Again he paused, at a loss for how to express himself. "I'm bungling this, dammit. What I'm trying to say--"

  "I know what you're trying to say." Her voice, unlike his failed attempts at whispering, was a perfect whisper. It was little more than a breath, a vibration of air that was felt more than heard.

  She leaned forward and touched his lips with hers. When she withdrew, her eyes skated over his face, taking in his features, which he knew weren't classically handsome. Not even close. He'd never minded his looks until now. Miserably he wondered if there was anything in his off-center face that she could possibly find appealing.

  Her hand came up, and he felt her fingertips, as soft and cool as flower petals, touching his scruffy cheek and chin. Then, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his again. And this time they stayed.

  He made a sound that, had he been a woman, would have scared the hell out of him. It sounded like something you'd hear in the darkest heart of the jungle. But Caroline didn't flinch. Instead her lips relaxed invitingly, and his tongue did what tongues seem to do by instinct. A few heartbeats later, he couldn't remember what it had been like to kiss any other woman because he was kissing Caroline. The word kiss was suddenly, wondrously redefined. It became an act of love, an engagement not merely of mouths but of souls.

  Even more miraculous, she was kissing him back with a boldness and fervor that stunned and thrilled him. It was she who first left off mouth kissing for other parts. She pushed aside the collar of his shirt and pressed her open lips to his neck. If she was doing that, then surely she wouldn't mind if he slipped his hand under the back of her shirt and touched her skin. She didn't. When he splayed his hand against her delicate spine and applied pressure, she scooted closer to him, until her body was flush with his, and their middles started rubbing against each other.

  He wasn't sure how a guy went about getting a decent woman out of her clothes. He had no experience with that. But Caroline solved the dilemma for him. She began gracefully peeling off her garments. He tore at his as though they'd caught fire.

  When she lay beside him on her back, fully naked, he was struck with a terrible case of stage fright. She was so beautiful, he felt like he was about to defile a national treasure or a religious icon. Some might think her nose too pert and her lips too narrow, but he thought hers was the most beautiful face he'd ever seen. Her spare frame didn't represent the ideal of womanhood, but he had never desired a body with the passion he felt for hers.

  The sunlight coming through the slats of the blinds painted peaches-and-cream stripes across her pale skin, which was adorably sprinkled with freckles. Her nipples were virgin pink, and the hair over her sex was a soft, golden red.

  She smiled up at him. "Are you ever going to touch me?"

  Gingerly, he placed his hand on her torso, and it almost spanned her rib cage. He felt burly. Hairy. Huge. "You're so ... pink. And little. I'm afraid I'll hurt you."

  "You won't."

  "Your ribs--"

  "They hardly hurt at all anymore." She put her hands on his shoulders and pulled him down to cover her. "You won't hurt me, Dodge."

  They began kissing again, and his inhibitions were soon abandoned. One brush of his tongue, and her nipples went from sweet to wanton. She sighed his name and moved restlessly beneath him. Her small hand closed around him and guided him. He nudged her with the tip of his erection, and she was soft and wet and receptive, so, with a low groan he claimed her.

  His fingers threaded through her hair to cradle her head. He put his lips directly against her ear. "The first time I saw you, I wanted this. I wanted to be up you like this. Inside you. I wanted to feel your ... your..." He knew all the crude words and phrases to say, none of the sweet and romantic ones. "I don't know how to say it right."

  She turned her face toward his and rubbed her lips across his jaw. "You're saying it just fine."

  Pressing deeper, he groaned. "God, you feel good."

  "So do you." Folding her legs around his hips, she arched up. "Stay as long as you like."

  He didn't, he couldn't. Not that first time. Months of pent-up passion drove him toward a quick completion. But the next time lasted longer, and the time after that...

  Dodge didn't know that happiness lik
e this was possible. He'd never experienced it before. In the days and weeks that followed, he was saturated with a soul-deep peace and contentment that even his sadness over Jimmy Gonzales couldn't reach.

  He didn't think he could be any happier.

  He was wrong.

  Six weeks after the morning they first made love, Caroline shyly informed him that they had made a baby.

  CHAPTER 22

  WAKE UP, LADIES. SKI JUST CALLED FROM MERRITT." Dodge whisked aside the blackout drapery.

  Berry came up on her elbows and blinked against the sudden light.

  Caroline sat bolt upright. "What's happened?"

  "Starks has been at it again. I'll give you the scoop on the way."

  He disappeared through the door connecting his room to theirs. Caroline and Berry looked at each other, each taking a moment to remember where they were, why they were there, what had happened to Sally Buckland, and what they'd talked about long into the night.

  Then, as if a starting pistol had been fired, both flew into motion. Dodge returned within five minutes to find them dressed, suitcases packed, ready to leave. Because Ski had checked them in, and the sheriff's department was handling the bill, they were able to skip the checking-out process.

  Dodge was curt with the valet parking attendant, who didn't retrieve their car as quickly as he wished. Berry couldn't help but be amused by his impatience, because she could relate to it. Like father, like daughter. The thought made her smile.

  She wanted time to reflect on everything that her mother had told her last night. Caroline had talked until she was exhausted and Berry was too sleepy to retain any more information about the unorthodox love affair that had brought her into being. She and Caroline had agreed to wait for morning to continue, but the situation in Merritt had evidently become imperative. The rest of her parents' story, specifically why they'd been apart for thirty years, must keep for now.

  Dodge snarled imprecations at Houston's rush-hour traffic. Caroline insisted that he allow time to get coffee at a fast-food drive-through. "You'll be unbearable until you have some."

  "I guess a cigarette is out of the question."