She met his eyes with disarming directness. “What you said that night…about how I’d have reacted if he had hurt one of the girls…” She let out a long breath. “You were right. When he kept them so late those times, and I imagined him kidnapping them… I was so enraged, so afraid, I could have killed him. I wanted something bad to happen to him.”
Jack moved his chair, scraping it across the floor so that he could reach her hand to grasp it in his. “Feeling that way is normal.”
Now her gaze clung desperately to his. “Until the past couple of years, I didn’t know it was possible to feel so angry! I don’t like it.”
She might have been a little girl wailing about how the world was unfair.
“Sweetheart,” he said, “feelings don’t count as much as actions. You were angry. Okay. You didn’t cut the brake line on your ex’s pickup truck. Instead, you’ve dealt with him fairly and bent over backward to help his relationship with the girls. That’s what counts. Not the fact that you were steamed.”
Beth gave a small, broken laugh. “I sound ridiculous, don’t I?” Her hand turned to meet his, palm to palm.
“No. You sound like a nice woman pushed out of her comfort zone.”
“I don’t like to think I’m so unable to cope with anything difficult.” She made a face. “If I’m honest, I have to admit that I haven’t coped well. It took me too long to leave Ray. Even the little stuff… I endured those stupid phone calls for weeks before I got Caller ID! I don’t know why I dragged my feet. Because of what I might discover? Or because I was afraid he’d find another way to torment us that would be worse? I really, truly don’t know.”
“He was your husband. Once upon a time, you loved him.” Jack found himself wishing for one fierce moment that she hadn’t, that she had some other excuse for having married the jerk, bearing his children. He wanted her to love him and only him, her heart given without reservations, with no scars of past loves.
Impossible. Neither of them was twenty years old. He bore scars himself, deeper, more disfiguring ones than she could guess. Total, instinctive faith was beyond either of them now.
“I think,” Beth said meditatively, “I haven’t really loved Ray in a very long time. Isn’t that sad? I never admitted that to myself until the end. We moved to Elk Springs so full of hope. On my part, at least, it was hope that he would get excited about my owning the store and maybe become more supportive, that with a fresh start he’d see me differently.” She gave a faint sigh. “I doubt a new setting ever changes anyone deep down.”
“Probably not,” Jack agreed. “Any more than having a baby fixes a bad marriage.”
Beth wrinkled her nose. “At least we had our children before our problems.”
“Either way, your marriage is past tense now.” He hoped. His doubts were reflected in his grim tone. “I’m asking that you not make assumptions about me based on what your ex-husband would have done.”
“I will try.” It sounded remarkably to him like a vow; her extraordinary eyes now gazed solemnly at him. “That’s all I can do.”
The pressure in his chest intensified. “You’ve changed your mind about me?”
“I have reminded myself that you’re not on the streets busting crack houses and roughing up kids in gangs. You police a quiet town. I don’t know what I was imagining, but it isn’t Elk Springs or Butte County.” She smiled. “Your deputies probably hand out more speeding tickets than anything, right?”
The rape-murder of a fourteen-year-old girl by a school vice-principal a couple of years ago passed through Jack’s mind, as did the stabbing death last night at a tavern, the brutal beating of a teenage prostitute the day before, the dozen or more calls about breaking and entering handled every day, last week’s arson resulting in the death of an elderly man known for giving a hard time to middle-school kids who cut across his lawn.
A quiet town? Sure. Relatively speaking. Elk Springs wasn’t New York City or Miami. His beat was a rural one. But crime they had, big city problems joining the age-old ones of passion, greed and despair.
“We give a lot of traffic tickets,” he agreed. “But I have detectives who handle major crime.”
“You don’t do real police work at all anymore, do you?” Beth asked.
“Not a hell of a lot,” Jack said with some regret. “I’m an administrator and politician now. I provide the means for my officers to do their jobs. That translates to finding enough money so that they have adequate equipment and backup. I’m their advocate to the folks who write the paychecks, but in return I lean on my deputies if they’re not busting their guts to serve this county. If tough decisions have to be made, I’m the lucky guy who makes ’em. If you mean, do I answer calls when a house has been broken into, no. Not anymore.”
“I don’t know why it scared me,” she mused. “Your job, that is. If Ray were a police officer… But of course he isn’t. I suppose cop just conjures up an image that scared me. It isn’t really you.”
Hadn’t she listened to him earlier, when he worried aloud to her daughter about lives he might have ruined by not handling incidents as sensitively as he might have? What did she think he was talking about? Giving a speeding ticket to someone only clocking five miles above the limit instead of ten?
Okay. She didn’t want to deal with what his job meant, not right now. It suggested violence to her. It made her think guns, fists, nightsticks, raised voices and obscenities. Right now she wanted to picture him as a CEO in a suit who never did any dirty work. Preferably, never had. Jack could live with that.
Eventually she’d be ready to hear what he really did for a living. She’d be ready to hold him when he came home after seeing a child’s brains spilled onto pavement, after he had to tell a mother and father their son was dead. She would listen when he talked about the politics of a murder investigation or the ruthless side of white collar crime. Beth Sommers was a woman who listened well and wouldn’t expect him to be Mr. Macho all the time.
For now, he had no trouble with letting her cling to a few illusions. They’d gotten to know each other too quickly. She hadn’t been happy needing a man she wasn’t sure she even liked. Give her time, Jack figured.
He was too relieved that she was willing to keep seeing him to insist she rip the blinders from her eyes.
“I’ll have to take you to a county council meeting with me some time,” he said. “Let you watch me in action. Now, there’s the old west. Forget the OK Corral.”
Her chuckle was as sweet and rich as chocolate. She parted her lips to say something, then tilted her head to one side. “Oh, I can hear the girls. Let me go tuck them in.”
He was waiting when she came back. Not sitting, like a good boy. Instead he prowled the dining room until she appeared. Beth hesitated in the doorway when she didn’t see him sitting where she’d left him, giving him a second to study her.
Damn, she was pretty. He loved the delicacy of her features, the contrast of pale skin with dark wavy hair, the grace of her every move. She had an old-fashioned look that attracted him, suggesting a gentleness and femininity at odds with the new millennium. He could see how she would have appeared to be the perfect stay-home mother and wife to a man like Ray.
What Ray hadn’t gotten was that the sexy and intriguing quality about Beth was the contrast between her pretty, gentle looks and the fact that she was a strong woman who had fought for an education and taught herself everything she had to know to run a business that employed half a dozen people. The gutsy, ambitious, smart side of her was where he’d seen a resemblance to Meg Patton.
“I’d like to kiss you,” he said in a voice made gravelly by a surge of pure sexual hunger.
Her eyes widened as she turned her head and saw him. If her nod was nervous, he understood. Other kisses had been more spontaneous. This time, it felt more like a vow. I will try.
Stopping in front of her, Jack lifted her hands and laid them on his chest. “Are you scared?” he asked quietly.
Her vivid eyes
flashed at him again. “Only of what you make me feel. It’s…new to me. I…really want you to kiss me.”
It’s new to me.
New. Jack had to grit his teeth against the triumph and desire that rose like a tide pulled by the moon. He, Jack, made her feel something unfamiliar. Maybe, just maybe, he’d been wrong and they could fall in love like a couple of twenty-year-olds. Hell, maybe two people in love didn’t see wrinkles and scars.
“You scare me a little, too,” he admitted, continuing awkwardly, “The first time I saw you I felt something I hardly recognized. I was standing there talking to Ray and knowing I had no business being attracted to you. Not just physically attracted, either. I felt this little click, like a key fitting into a lock. As if you were…right.”
That wasn’t very romantic or poetic, but the blue of her eyes deepened and she flushed a pale rose. Her hands crept up around his neck. “I think,” she said, “for that, I have to kiss you.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” he said huskily.
Their lips met, a shy brush as if he and she were young and unpracticed. He wrapped one hand around her nape and felt the heavy silk of her hair and the smooth delicacy of her skin. He kneaded gently until her head fell back and her eyes became slumbrous. Then he kissed her again, nibbling on her lower lip, persuading her to let his tongue slide along hers. Tenderness was a strong rein on the jolt of need that made him want to crush her mouth under his, lift her skirt and grip her buttocks, wrap her legs around him, take her right here on the dining room table with her children awake upstairs.
Or maybe no rein was strong enough. The kiss deepened; his mouth hardened. She made small gasps and leaned against him. One of her hands squeezed his shoulder, the other threaded through his hair and tugged when he tried to lift his mouth.
He heard his own groan and couldn’t seem to prevent himself from flattening a hand on the small of her back and pulling her tight against the bulge she had to feel through his slacks and her jumper. She arched and rubbed her cheek against his rougher one.
“I wish…” she breathed as much as said.
Jack wished, too. That her children weren’t home. That he was surer about how ready Beth was.
“Wish what?” If ever a man needed to clear his throat.
“Never mind.” Pink as her cheeks were, she blushed more deeply yet.
“Our time will come,” he promised, his gaze holding hers with clear intent. “We can be patient.”
Her small wriggle almost undid him. “I don’t feel patient,” she complained.
Fingers biting into her arms, Jack eased her back. “No,” he agreed, with a hint of grimness. “I don’t feel very patient, either.”
She laughed at him, her eyes sparkling. “Good.”
Suddenly amused despite his acute frustration, Jack asked, “Are you flirting with me?”
“Yes.” Beth’s mouth formed an O of surprise. “Yes, I think I am. Well. That’s something I haven’t done in a long time. I didn’t know I still knew how.”
“I think—” he grinned at her “—you must have been damned good at it. Something comes easy, you don’t forget.”
“I never was that good at flirting.” She made a face. “My father wouldn’t let me date until I was seventeen. He didn’t like me even looking at boys. He grounded me once for a month because a friend and I went to the mall and he caught us hanging around with some boys from school.”
“So naturally you married the first guy you seriously dated,” Jack concluded.
“Yep.” This smile, a little sad, didn’t brighten her whole face the way the last one had. “If I’d had a chance to…to play, the way other girls did. And if I hadn’t been in such a hurry to leave home…” She sighed.
“We can always second-guess ourselves, and our parents.”
If I’d punched Ed Patton’s lights out, Jack couldn’t help thinking. If Meg had trusted me with our son…
But for the first time, the bitter regret was missing. One step forward and he could be kissing Beth Sommers again, feeling her delicate strength and shy passion. He wasn’t so sure he wanted to be anywhere else in his life. Another road might have missed this moment, and he intensely wanted to be here.
If only her house were empty… Now, there was a regret he felt.
“Mmm.” Beth touched his jaw with her hand. “I’d better say good-night. I know perfectly well Stephanie is lying up there wondering why you haven’t gone and what we’re doing down here.”
“Do they like me?”
“Are you kidding? They rushed to peel all the apples for the pie because I said you were coming. I assure you they don’t rush to help in the kitchen very often.”
He heard an undertone she meant to hide from him. “But?”
“But.” Beth lowered her voice as they reached the foot of the stairs. “Lauren is a little nervous about you, I think. Despite everything, she’s still a big fan of her dad’s. Maybe she’s hoping we’ll get back together. She asked tonight if you were coming just for dessert or forever. Now, Steph is in the mood to take to you just because she wants to reject her father. So…yeah, they like you, but their feelings are complicated.”
Dessert or forever. The pie had been good, but forever sounded better to him. The realization made him edgy.
Be certain, he thought. Make damn sure this is more than the thrill of being Sir Galahad.
“Your feelings and mine aren’t as basic as first grade arithmetic either,” he pointed out. “One plus one doesn’t equal two anymore.”
“Or maybe it does,” she said softly, her face tilted up, “and we just don’t remember how to trust anything so simple.”
In a rough voice, Jack said, “Trust, we can work on. If you’re willing.”
“I think,” she spoke with wonder, “that I am. Or I wouldn’t have called you today.”
“Good.” On the one, inadequate word, he kissed her hard and turned and blundered out before he was tempted to do more.
Patience had never been one of his virtues, which was maybe one reason he’d been a hard-ass cop and not a hostage negotiator. But for Beth, and for the possibility of a life that didn’t feel empty, he could work on this, too.
Patience and trust. Now was when he felt the ache of old scars, and guessed as she quietly shut the door behind him that she did, too.
But he wanted her trust, he wanted her touch, he wanted her love. Since an emotional plastic surgeon wasn’t available, he guessed this wouldn’t come as easily as he’d like.
But, hell, what in life worth having did?
RAY SAT ON THE HARD wooden chair, facing the circle of a dozen men in the anger management class. One was a dentist; Ray knew, because Doug Renfrew had filled a cavity for him once. Generally the men didn’t talk about professions and went by first names only. Others around the circle were blue collar like Ray. They had callused hands, poor grammar.
All had wives who had left them or were threatening to. Several, Ray gathered, were here under court order.
They were him. He was them.
Decent men, mostly, who couldn’t control their anger. Who let it spill over until they hit their wives or children. A few resented being here; others were ashamed. Ray was one of the latter.
He still had moments when he blamed Beth. Why had she had to change? Why couldn’t she have stayed the gentle, compliant girl he’d married? He wasn’t such a bad husband; what was her excuse for kicking him out?
But lately he’d wondered: Did anybody stay the same? Had he been taking out anger about other things on her? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been a loving wife and mother even when she did work. If he’d given her more credit…
“When I’m at work,” one of the men said suddenly, “I get so pissed, but what can you do? Punch the boss? It just boils in me all day. Then I go home, and the woman hasn’t even put dinner on. The kids are screaming and running in circles and their crap is all over the floor. What’s she done all day?” He looked around, bafflement and remembered
anger on his bluff face. “And then she gives me some lip, and I just lose it. She calls the cops, and it’s my fault. Yeah, I shouldn’t have hit her, but why can’t she try?”
The counselor stubbed out his cigarette. “You ever asked her what she does all day?”
“Oh, she gives me this goddamned list, but it doesn’t put food on the table or shut the kids up.”
“What about work?” the dentist said. “What’s happening that makes you so angry?”
They talked about work for a while. Most of these men were too old to walk out on a job they hated and start over. Ray had been thinking, though. All he’d ever wanted was to be a long-haul trucker, his own boss. But it seemed in recent years that there was more and more pressure to deliver loads in unreasonably short periods. He’d taken to popping uppers and swilling coffee until he had the jitters even when his eyelids weighed more than the load. Last week he’d woken up behind the wheel just before he clipped the rail. It scared him, and he’d pulled over for a nap. He was half an hour late getting to his destination, and he didn’t get paid. Half an hour! The goddamn cheapskates didn’t want to keep any inventory. It was okay if he risked his life bailing their asses out at the last minute. He was sick of it.
“Ray?” The counselor sounded as if this wasn’t the first time he’d spoken Ray’s name. “You haven’t said much.”
Voice loud and clipped, he said, “I get pissed at work, too. I used to come home wanting to hurt somebody. I’d go three, four days without sleep. I never did hit Beth—my wife. But we yelled a lot. We’ve been divorced a year, and I blamed her for the breakup. Now I’m thinking…maybe if I’d made some changes, we could have stuck together.”
“What kind of changes?”
“I’m a long-haul trucker. I own my own rig. Maybe I’m getting too old for it. I don’t know. I never wanted to work for anybody else. But the idea of coming home to my own bed every night looks better all the time. I could have a life like other people.” He shrugged. “I’d make less money, but I could go to my kids’ school plays. You know?”
Jack Murray, Sheriff Page 16
