No Greater Love than Mine

by Harper Bliss

  I have to remember my own words. The past is the past. Too much has happened to let it stand in the way. But that’s easy enough for me to say. I had a life to return to, a son who needed me. What did Angela have? Who waited for her to return home after our night of passion?

  I shake off the thought, smile at myself in the mirror, and head into the kitchen. I’m not stretching my culinary skills to the limit tonight. I’d much rather spend my time chatting with Angela than slaving away in the kitchen.

  My phone starts ringing and for a split second I fear it’s Angela calling to say she can’t make it. I look at the screen. Carl.

  “Hey, Momma,” he says, in that way of his. “Nervous for your big date?”

  I regret telling him, but he’s just like his mother—an expert at reading someone’s mood. He’s far better at prying information out of someone than I am, however. He’s the kind of son a mother can bare her soul to.

  “I’m not nervous.”

  “Of course you are, but that’s okay. It’s only normal.”

  I didn’t tell him that I knew Angela when he was still a boy. That’s a conversation for another time. All he knows is I’m having someone over for dinner—someone I like, a lot.

  I listen patiently. Carl thinks, because he’s getting married and I’m single, he knows much more about dating and relationships than I do. He probably does.

  “Just be your glorious self. No woman can resist that. And if things don’t go according to plan, excuse yourself and text me. I’ll call you and pretend I have an emergency. You know the drill.”

  “I’m fifty-eight, Carl. I’m not going to have my son fake call me when I’m on a date.”

  “Suit yourself, but know the option is there. What are you cooking?”

  “Roast chicken.”

  “Damn, Momma. You’re going all out.” I can hear the irony in his voice.

  “Hardly.”

  “I envy you your night. Beau is dragging me to a Log Cabin event.” He sighs dramatically and I can easily imagine the accompanying eye-roll. “Can you please remind me why I’m marrying a white republican?”

  “Because he’ll make the perfect son-in-law.” We’ve had a version of this conversation since Carl first had the hots for Beau.

  “As long as we never talk about politics at the dinner table.”

  “Correct.” Angela has only ever seen a picture of Carl, and he was still so young then. I’m getting about a million miles ahead of myself, but for a short moment I allow myself the indulgence of imagining their introduction. Carl would be his usual charming self. How would Angela react? It’s too hard to predict—I don’t know her well enough yet.

  “I have to go, Momma,” Carl says. “Call me tomorrow, okay?”

  “You’ll have me on the phone before eight,” I joke.

  “Make it a decent time. Love ya.” He makes a smacking sound into the phone and hangs up. A pep talk from my son is always welcome. But from now on, I’m on my own.

  Angela is dressed a bit more casually when she appears on my doorstep, beige linen pants with a pale-blue blouse on top. She offers me a bottle of Sonoma Pinot Noir and I’m pleasantly surprised by her choice.

  When I’ve escorted her from the hallway into the living room, she says, “Divorcing the commissioner must be lucrative.” She casts her gaze about the room. It lands on an artwork of a near-naked woman sprawling over the city of Los Angeles. “I’ve seen this before.” She walks toward the wall.

  It surprises me that the artwork sparks a memory in her, although perhaps it shouldn’t. I resist the temptation to jog her memory further. At some point, I’d like her to come to her own conclusion about it.

  She stares at the artwork intently while tapping a finger against her lips. “Why is this so familiar?” She turns to me.

  “It’ll come to you.” I give her nothing else but a crooked grin. “Drink?”

  “Whatever you’re offering.”

  “Shall we sit outside? It’s a lovely, smoggy Los Angeles evening.”

  She quirks up her eyebrows and follows me to the patio outside.

  “Remind me to never invite you to my place,” she says. “I couldn’t bear the disappointment on your face.”

  I pour us each a glass of white wine from an ice bucket next to the teak table. “Lest you think I bled the esteemed police commissioner of this city dry, rest assured I made my own money over the years.”

  Angela sits down and, as soon as she does, kicks off her sandals. “By unearthing the depths of people’s souls?”

  I snicker and shake my head. “By making the most of my proximity to Hollywood.”

  She tilts her head. “You sold your soul to the devil?”

  “Kind of.” I hold up my glass. “You might have heard of a little TV show called Criminal Intent.”

  She nods. “The one where every single week a woman gets brutally murdered, if she’s lucky. If she’s not, she gets raped as well,” she deadpans.

  “If you put it like that.” I can’t help but chuckle.

  “I never really watched it,” she says. “What’s your involvement?”

  “Together with a friend, I came up with it. My friend’s still an executive producer, while I sold my stake in the whole business a few years ago.”

  “Selling your soul’s a lucrative business, indeed.”

  “Let’s just say I wasn’t very happy with the direction the network wanted to take the show.”

  “So, in the end, you did the right thing.” She peers at the glittering water of the pool, then back at me. “If you’ve made all this money, what are you doing replacing the likes of Roger Bradley?”

  “Helping out where I can.”

  “Atonement,” she says, “for inflicting that awful show on humankind.”

  “Ouch.” It doesn’t really hurt my feelings. I know the show’s reputation and nobody remembers the first two seasons, when the storylines were far less grim, and I still had a say.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t judge like that. I’ve really never watched it. If I’d known, though.” She sips from her wine.

  “Would you have watched?”

  “With great interest.” Her gaze wanders again.

  “How’s your shoulder?”

  She looks at it as though its condition can only be assessed by doing so. “To be completely honest, but don’t tell anyone at work, it’s still quite painful.” She sighs. “I went to the shooting range this morning, and it was not good.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “You can’t rush a healing wound.” She purses her lips. “Much as I would like to.” She inhales a lung-full of air and lets her head drop to her shoulders, looking up at the sky. “Christ, this place is unbelievable. It’s so peaceful. It’s like I’m not in the city anymore.”

  “It’s quite a change from Downtown.”

  “Even with a place like this, you haven’t been able to scoop up a significant other?” There’s glee in her tone. Is she flirting? “That I’m alone in my shabby two-bedroom in Culver City, that’s no wonder, but you.” She throws her arms wide. “With this.”

  I shrug. “I had to learn the hard way that a mansion on the hill isn’t a babe magnet.”

  “Maybe you’ve been trying to attract the wrong kind of babes.”

  “I’m also not very interested in anyone who could fall into the babe category.” I look into her eyes. “Give me a hard-as-nails policewoman over a babe any day of the week.”

  Angela lets out a loud cackle. “I remember now, Subtlety was never really your strong suit. Not when it came to… certain things.” She doesn’t look away. In that moment, it feels like we’re on the same page exactly.

  “What can I say? I’m getting on. I have no time for subtlety any longer.”

  “Valiant effort at an excuse.” The corners of her mouth curl into a smile. “But as a seasoned detective, I see right through it.”

  “Obviously.” I wish she was sitting closer to me. I’d put a hand on her a
rm, but from where I’m sitting, I’d need to lean over uncomfortably.

  I haven’t seen Angela in two decades, yet sitting here with her feels totally natural. Like something we should have been doing all our lives.

  9

  Angela

  When Jackie takes me inside for dinner, I’m still trying to get over the view from what she described as her patio, which I’d call more of an outside living room.

  She leads me to the dining table and I sit facing the artwork I stopped at earlier. I recognized it instantly, but didn’t want to say. I didn’t want to start our evening that way.

  A replica of it hung on the wall of the hotel room we spent the night in. We both thought it a great piece and saw it as luck shining down upon us, what with having found the only hotel room in the world without tacky wall decoration.

  I can’t believe she went out and bought the exact same thing—and gave it such a prominent place in her spectacular home.

  “I have made for you”—She shows up next to me with a plate in her hands—“Roast chicken with assorted roasted vegetables.”

  “That looks delicious.”

  “Thank you.” There’s a hint of smugness in her smile, but it doesn’t bother me in the least. “Enjoy.”

  She sits down across from me and I lose all interest in the view behind her, no matter how breathtaking it is. Jackie’s wearing a beige sleeveless top and it takes most of my willpower to drag my glance away from her arms as she picks up her cutlery. Maybe it’s the piece of art hanging so close to me that shifts something inside of me. My sentiments about tonight seem to be evolving in her favor with every minute that passes. My reluctance seems to evaporate.

  “Not hungry?” she asks, a lopsided grin on her face.

  I give her my version of a bashful smile, which I’ve been told has nothing bashful about it, and cut off a piece of the chicken she has served. I chew with gusto and end with an exaggerated ‘hmmmm’. I really need to pull it together.

  Jackie puts her fork down, leans back, and studies me.

  “It has come to me,” I say. I point at the wall. “I remember.” I spear another piece of chicken onto my fork. Jackie may have produced the moistest roast chicken ever, yet the taste of it is lost on me tonight. My senses are otherwise occupied. It’s as though I’m discovering her all over again. Jacqueline Cooper version 2.0. I may not have been very impressed with Criminal Intent the few times I watched it, but I am impressed with how she has leveraged it into securing her financial future—and this dream of a house. The way she’s looking at me, as though she can somehow sense my emotions have made a leap, isn’t helping.

  “I’m glad you do. It always stuck with me.” Her gaze softens. “It was the first piece of art I bought for this place.” A small smile appears on her face. “At first, Carl, who thinks himself an interior designer just because he watches all those home decoration shows on TV, mocked me relentlessly. He said it was too on the nose, too kitsch. But even he has come to appreciate it.”

  “Did you ever tell him about… us?” I ask.

  Jackie shakes her head. “I couldn’t at the time and by the time he was old enough… what we had was so long ago.”

  I pause to reflect. I put my fork, with the piece of chicken still pronged onto it, down. “Back then, I was too hurt to accept it. But I do understand why you did what you did. For Carl.”

  Jackie narrows her eyes. “I hope one day you can forgive me.”

  “That day may be today.” Something twists inside me. The guard I’ve been desperate to keep up since I came face-to-face with Jackie again shatters as I sit here glancing at her. At her high, patrician cheekbones. That dark, intense glint in her eyes. The way the color of her skin makes the beige of her top seem bright as the sky outside. I don’t step back in time twenty years—that’s not possible because of the life we’ve lived since—but how I felt about her then rushes back, floods my senses, causes a riot in my stomach that makes it impossible to touch another bite of the food she has prepared.

  In that moment, I realize I want her. I’ve always wanted her—and only her. There’s never been anyone else and it’s, at the same time, a harrowing and exhilarating feeling. Because I’m sitting across from Jackie in her house, with the same piece of art hanging above us that once graced the wall of the hotel we made love in twenty years ago.

  I see something strain in her muscles. She’s holding something back. It’s not words. It was never words that we had between us. It was something much more far-reaching than that. Passion. Wordless and deep. Unmistakable. It’s quickly coming back now, all the feelings I’ve kept bottled up for years. They’re overtaking me and Jackie looks me in the eye and I know the next step needs to come from me. It’s the only way. I was the slighted party. I need to make the next move—the one that backs up the words I’ve just spoken.

  I push my chair back. I stand and look at her for an instant. It’s been twenty years so it’s statistically impossible not to have met another woman who could rival her in beauty and grace, yet that’s how it feels. I remember what I said at the Greek restaurant about the unlikeliness of every single person on the planet wanting the same thing: a relationship. I still stand by my words, but I feel they no longer apply to me. Not when I’m looking at Jackie like this.

  I slowly walk over to her. She looks up at me. When she rises from the chair to her full length, she’s a few inches taller than me, and I remember how that used to make me feel. Not when we were lying in bed—because that only happened once—but when I looked at her during the week-long seminar. Back then, I didn’t much care for the subject of psychology of domestic abuse or whatever it was, but I very much cared for the instructor. That eloquent, elegant woman with shoulders so broad they didn’t quite match her delicate demeanor.

  Her shoulders are still as impressive, and her arms, my God, I can’t wait for her to hold me in those arms, and erase the last twenty years from my life.

  I’ve stood up and walked over to her, but that’s as far as my move will go. I’m too undone to take more initiative. Past hurt turned into apprehension wars too much with the sudden desire inside me.

  “Kiss me,” I whisper. “Please.”

  Jackie doesn’t say anything. She tilts her head, takes a step closer, and folds her hands over mine. The touch of her skin stokes the flames of lust inside me. Maybe I never came here for a meal, maybe it was about this all along. Jackie’s touch. This moment of pure joy just before she kisses me. Because I know she won’t deny my request. I know she feels the same way. Otherwise, why would she have taken the time to break down my barriers? This woman sees something in me I haven’t seen in myself for decades. She sees the desire that’s still alive inside of me, while, all this time, I was convinced it had died years ago.

  10

  Jackie

  My heart beats furiously in my throat. To see Angela like this again, ready to surrender to me, after all these years, is taking my breath away. But I must keep my wits about me. She’s the one who walked over to me. She’s the one who has just asked me to kiss her. So what am I waiting for? It’s what I’ve wanted to do since she stepped into Roger Bradley’s office. Or no, since I spotted her file among my new clients. And here we stand, hand in hand. A dream come true. I’d best not screw this up as well.

  I tilt my head and look into her eyes. There’s not a hint of that icy steel in them. They’re all warmth and sparkle and desire. Angela Hill wants me. The realization hits me like a blazing ball of fire. I touch my lips to hers and the floodgates of my memory open. My night with Angela was my first time with a woman. How did I ever walk away from that?

  This is no time to think of my son, and rehash all the reasons why—I’ve done that enough over the past twenty years. This is no time to think at all. This is a time to feel. To revel in the sensation of her lips against mine. It’s only the softest, briefest of pecks, yet the heat that spreads through me is the greatest I’ve felt in my life. Because everything’s different now and
this means something. It’s the start of something. Of a second chance. I know this in my bones.

  Angela withdraws her hands from mine and runs her fingers up my arms. My skin instantly breaks out into goosebumps. Our lips meet again and as they do, she presses her palms against my biceps. I part my lips and try to find her tongue with mine. I come up empty.

  I pull back and open my eyes. Angela keeps her hands on my arms, but the rest of her seems to have retreated. I don’t say anything, just arch up an eyebrow.

  She needs a moment. A few seconds to process what’s happening. This isn’t just any kiss. This is a kiss between Angela Hill and Jackie Smith. It makes all the difference in the world. Perhaps I should have known that very first time when we kissed, that I was never meant to kiss anyone else like that again.

  Angela brings her hands from my arms to my chin, cupping my cheeks, and draws me to her. It’s this very motion, this small act of her pulling me near, that I’ve craved so much, that it opens the floodgates of my memory even wider.

  We were so much younger then, had so much more life to live, and we had no idea that it would be such a furtive thing between us. What’s one night in a lifetime? Yet it has remained with me like a strong force ever since. Not always on a conscious level, that would have been unbearable, but the feeling of Angela’s hands all over me has stayed with me through the years. To have her hands on me again now is a sensation so powerful, I can no longer hold back. I want to kiss her, yes I do, but I want to do so much more. I want to make up for all the kisses we were unable to exchange. For all the nights I missed her lying in bed beside me.

  This time, Angela kisses me, and her tongue slips in from the get-go, inviting mine to dance with hers. And dance we do. I curl my arms tightly around her waist, hoping to convey that I have no intention of ever letting her go again, and kiss her like there’s no tomorrow. As far as I’m concerned, tomorrow doesn’t need to show up any longer. I’ll always have this moment. The moment Angela came back to me.