Resolved To (Re)Marry

by Carole Buck

  “Rushed out?” The inflection of the question was odd.

  Lucy made a face. “I was escaping from the telephone.”

  “Oh?”

  “I thought it might be Joey or Mikey. Or one of my uncles.”

  “You weren’t in the mood for New Year’s greetings from your family?”

  “Something like that.” She clicked her tongue and took a quick look at her watch. After the shock of realizing that she’d been talking to her ex-husband for more than three hours faded, she came to a decision. “I’m going to go back.”

  “Now?”

  “It’s barely nine, Chris. If I don’t go back tonight, I’ll have to come in tomorrow morning.”

  “You’re going to—what? Walk to the office?”

  “It’s not like it’s a ten-mile trek across freezing tundra.”

  “And then what? Do you have a car?”

  “Yes, but I took MARTA in today.”

  “The subway?”

  She nodded, wondering why Chris was asking so many questions. Surely he didn’t doubt that she was capable of getting herself from here to there and home in one piece. Travel was her profession, for heaven’s sake!

  She suddenly recalled the yellow cab she’d glimpsed earlier. “Maybe I’ll call a taxi from the office. The agency has an account with one of the local services.”

  “No,” her ex-husband said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I have a better—another—idea.”

  Lucy gave him points for the amendment. Few things got her back up more quickly than a man assuming that any scheme that came out of his head was ipso facto superior to any notion of hers.

  “Yes?” she prompted after a moment or two.

  “We can get a cab here at the hotel. The driver can take us to your office so you can pick up your files. Then he can take you home and me to my hotel.”

  Lucy felt a sudden fluttering deep in her stomach. Was this some kind of ploy? she wondered uneasily. Had Chris picked up on the response his unexpected reappearance had evoked in her? Was he figuring that she’d feel... compelled...to ask him in once they arrived at her town house?

  “Why don’t we get two cabs and go our separate ways?” she countered, cocking her chin. The possibility that her ex-husband might perceive her as some sort of sexual pushover rankled at a very visceral level.

  “Because I’d like to make certain you get safely inside your door.”

  He sounded sincere, she thought. And the expression in his eyes seemed very straightforward. But how could she—

  “Lucy.” Chris had moved from his side of the table. Although he wasn’t crowding her, he was close enough so she could catch a whiff of his cologne. Her instinct was to step back. But this instinct was overridden when he lifted his hand and brushed his fingertips very gently against her hair. His touch was feather-light, barely stirring the dark strands. “Please. I’m not envisioning pushing my way into your home. I’ll stay in the taxi while you go into your office. I’ll stay in the taxi while you go into your house. I’ll sit in front with the damned driver, if that’s what you want. I’d just like to start this particular New Year knowing that you’re all right.”

  No, he wasn’t crazy, Lucy reflected, her toes curling inside her black calfskin pumps. But there was a fair-to-middling possibility that she was on the verge of losing her own grip on reality.

  “Okay, ” she agreed throatily. “You don’t have to sit in the front seat. But you do have to promise to stay in the taxi.”

  “I know what I promised,” Chris said to Lucy as their cab came to a halt in front of the Gulliver’s Travels office building a short time later. “But would it be okay if I came in with you?”

  His ex-wife cocked an eyebrow, her expression wary. He clamped down on a spurt of anger at her continued suspiciousness. She had cause to doubt him, he reminded himself grimly.

  “Why?” she asked after a moment.

  “Nature calls. I need to use a rest room.” It was the truth.

  “Oh.” An expression he couldn’t read flickered across her face.

  “And I wouldn’t mind a quick tour of where you work.” This was the truth, too.

  Lucy studied him silently for a moment or two, then nodded. “Okay.”

  “Good.”

  “Whoa, man, whoa!” their driver cried as she started to open the door. He turned around, his gaze bouncing back and forth between them. “You both goin’ inside?”

  “We won’t be long,” Lucy said quickly. “Five minutes at the most.”

  The cabbie was not soothed by this. Fixing his eyes on Chris, he demanded, “What ’bout my money, then?”

  “What about it?”

  “How do I know this ain’t some scam? How do I know you two ain’t plannin’ to sneak out of that buildin’ some back way I can’t see and leave me whistlin’ for my fare? Huh? Tell me that, man. How do I know?”

  The driver had a point, Chris conceded to himself. A point that impugned his and Lucy’s integrity, to be sure, but a point nonetheless. He glanced at his former wife. She’d let go of the door handle and was reaching for her purse.

  “No,” he said impulsively, placing a restraining hand on her arm. He felt a faint tremor of response. His own pulse accelerated in answer. Ten years, he thought, with the same combination of wonder and dismay that had engulfed him more than a couple of times in the hotel bar. Ten years, and their sexual chemistry was still very, very volatile.

  “No?” she echoed, lifting her gaze to his.

  He cleared his throat, removing his hand. “You bought the drinks. Let me pick up the cab fare.”

  “I can expense it, Chris.”

  “So can I.”

  “The meter’s runnin’,” the driver pointed out.

  Lucy expelled a breath in a huffy little sigh and gave in. “Oh, all right.”

  Unbuttoning his trench coat, Chris reached inside his suit jacket and extracted his wallet. He flipped it open and removed several bills. He’d made a withdrawal from an ATM at Hartsfield Airport, and he was carrying more cash than he normally did.

  “This is for the fare so far,” he said, placing the money in the driver’s upturned palm. “Plus another five to cover the time we’re inside.”

  “If it runs out and you’re not back, I’m gone,” the cabbie warned, folding the cash and tucking it away. “This is a holiday night, man. Guys like me make big bucks drivin’, not hangin’ around.”

  “Understood.”

  “We won’t be long,” Lucy stressed.

  The driver cocked his head. “No tip?”

  Chris bit back a suggestion that the guy not press his luck and plucked another five-dollar bill from his wallet. He forked it over.

  The driver grinned avariciously, flashing a gold-sheathed front tooth. “Happy New Year, man.”

  Lucy opened the taxi door and got out. Chris slid across the seat and exited the cab, as well. He shivered. The temperature had dropped a good ten degrees in the past few hours. A light snow had begun to fall, dusting the sidewalk like a fine sprinkling of confectioners’ sugar.

  “I suppose you would’ve tipped the guy ten,” Chris groused as he slammed the cab door.

  “Nope.” Lucy gave him a sassy smile. “I don’t pay blackmail.”

  They crossed from the curb to the entrance of the building.

  “The building locks up at six,” Lucy reported as they came to a halt. Her breath condensed in the frigid air, issuing from her lips in a silvery mist. “The security guard will have to buzz us in.”

  Chris peered through one of the glass doors, surveying the lobby. “I see a security desk,” he observed, aware that his need for a rest stop was growing more acute. “But no sign of a guard.”

  “Dam.” Lucy tucked her hands up under her arms. “He must be making his rounds.”

  Figuring that there was no harm in trying, Chris grasped the metal handle of the door through which he’d been looking and pulled. The door yielded to his touch. He hear
d Lucy make a small, surprised sound.

  “The plot thickens,” he joked, gesturing her ahead of him.

  “This isn’t good,” she commented with a frown as they stepped inside. “Tom could get in big trouble for not locking that door.”

  “Tom’s the missing guard, I take it?” It didn’t surprise him that she knew the man’s name. Lucy had always made a point of personally connecting with easy-to-overlook people like night watchmen, waiters and hotel chambermaids.

  “Uh-huh.” She undid the tie belt of her coat. “He’s new to the job, and kind of nervous about how he’ll handle it.”

  “Well, if the unlocked door and unmanned desk are any indication, he’s got a few things to learn.”

  They walked forward, their footsteps echoing in the empty lobby. Lucy suddenly checked herself in midstride, holding up her hand and tilting her head to one side.

  “What?” Chris asked sharply, halting as well.

  “Did you hear that? It sounded like—” she frowned “—drilling.”

  He cocked an ear and listened for a few seconds, but heard nothing that struck him as unusual. “No. Sorry.”

  Lucy glanced around then called out, “Tom? Can you hear me? It’s Lucy Falco from Gulliver’s Travels!”

  No response.

  “Do you want to forget this?” Chris asked after a moment or two. Although he did not consider himself a particularly intuitive person, he had an uneasy feeling about this foray.

  “No.” Lucy’s refusal was quick, unequivocal, and accompanied by a decisive shake of her head. “I really need to pick up those files. Besides, I thought you wanted to use the—” She broke off, smacking her brow in a “Stupid me” gesture. “I know why Tom isn’t at his desk. He must be upstairs with the repairmen!”

  “The... repairmen?” The hit-to-the-forehead move was poignantly familiar. The sight of it made him remember the way he’d used to tease Lucy that if he ever genuinely wanted to deprive her of speech, he wouldn’t gag her. He’d tie her hands.

  “They arrived as I was on my way out. Just a few minutes before I bumped into you, as a matter of fact. There’s some problem with the toilets on the third floor.”

  Chris allowed himself a fleeting moment to contemplate the concept of repairmen who were willing to work after hours on a holiday. After nearly eight years in New York, the idea was almost incomprehensible to him. Then he said slowly, “That could have been the noise you thought you heard.”

  Lucy endorsed this suggestion with a quick smile.

  “I’m sure it was,” she said. “In the meantime, we’d better get a move on, before our taxi driver decides to take off. The men’s room is that way.” She pointed. “And Gulliver’s Travels is this way. Last door on the left.”

  Chris emerged from the john about two minutes later, his trench coat slung over his arm. He retraced his steps to the point where he and Lucy had separated, then headed down the corridor she’d taken. He noted that the last door on the left was slightly ajar.

  He opened his mouth to call out Lucy’s name.

  And then he heard it. Not drilling. No, indeed not. What he heard was a muffled thud, followed by what sounded like a very human yelp of distress.

  Chris had been a champion sprinter in high school. Fast-off-the-mark instincts kicked in, fueled by a rush of adrenaline. He cast his coat aside and started running.

  Lucy, he thought. If something’s happened to Lucy—

  He skidded to a halt in front of the last door on the left and flung it open. Then he charged inside.

  He saw two thugs. One mustachioed and wearing mud brown. The other burly, bearded, and clad in dark blue.

  They were attacking Lucy!

  “You bastards!” he roared, ready to kill.

  “Chris!” his ex-wife cried, kicking at her assailants. “Lookout!”

  Look out? Look out for what?

  A split second later, something wielded by someone clouted the back of his skull.

  Christopher Dodson Banks saw stars.

  Then he saw nothing at all.

  Five

  Lucia Annette Falco’s life had prepared her to cope with a lot of different situations. Unfortunately, being stashed in a storage room after having been bound around the wrists and ankles with duct tape and tied back-to-back with her temporarily insensible former spouse was not one of them.

  To put it bluntly, she didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or scream her head off. Alternating between the three had a certain appeal. So, too, did trying to do all three simultaneously.

  She’d worked herself into quite a state by the time Chris regained consciousness. While anxiety about his condition was the primary reason for her upset, guilt was a close second.

  This is my fault, she thought, staring miserably at the stuff-crammed shelves that lined the small storage room. She was sitting with her back to the door. Her companion in captivity was facing it. If only I hadn’t been so insistent on coming back to get my files...

  There was nothing in those files that required her immediate attention, and she knew it. She could have left them sitting on her desk until after the start of the New Year with a clear conscience. But, noooo... She’d wanted to impress Chris with the heaviness of her work load and the dedicated professionalism with which she bore it.

  See how indispensable I am! she’d been trying to communicate. I may have been a pizza parlor cashier without a college degree the first time you laid eyes on me, but I’ve made myself into the linchpin employee of a very successful business with a worldwide reach!

  Gritting her teeth, Lucy strained against the bindings on her wrists and ankles. They didn’t give. She then tried struggling against the ties that had her rubbing spines with her unconscious ex-husband. They didn’t give, either.

  Damn!

  She returned to her exercise in self-flagellation.

  While her ploy with the files had been bad enough, her surrender to Chris’s let’s-share-a-cab proposal had been even worse, she reflected. If only she’d stuck by her guns and gone her separate way!

  She understood what had prompted her acquiescence, of course. She’d wanted to prolong their time together. Never mind her misgivings about Chris’s reasons for desiring to see her to her door for the first time in more than a decade. Deep down, she hadn’t been ready to say goodbye to him again. Deep down inside, she’d felt a need to—

  The man she was tethered to stirred, gave a guttural groan, then stirred again.

  “Chris?” She invoked the name as if it were a prayer.

  There was more stirring, followed by yet another groan. Then, uncertainly: “L-Lucy?”

  Tears threatened. She blinked them back. Relief sluiced through her, sweeping away a lot of emotional debris.

  “Uh-huh,” she managed to affirm. Then, instinctively trying to lighten the moment, she asked, “Do you wish you’d stayed in the taxi?”

  Chris made a sound that was midway between a chuckle and a gasp. “Oh...God,” he said, shifting his position. The movement felt awkward to Lucy, as though he were having trouble getting his brain and body in sync. “Please. Don’t make me laugh.”

  “Are you okay?” she questioned, desperately wishing she could get a look at his face. She’d pleaded with their captors not to tie them back-to-back, but they’d insisted that that was how it had to be done.

  “Okay is a relative term.”

  “Chris—”

  “I’m conscious. I don’t seem to be bleeding. I can wiggle my fingers and toes.”

  “Do you think you might have a concussion?” She’d tormented herself with this possibility all the time he’d been out. Phrases she’d picked up from TV medical shows—like subdural hematoma—had echoed ominously through her brain.

  “I doubt it. I have a very thick skull.”

  The self-deprecating comment struck a responsive chord, but Lucy ignored it. “Are you seeing double? Feeling dizzy or drowsy?”

  “No.”

  “Well, if you start experienc
ing any weird symptoms—” She stopped, not wanting to finish the sentence.

  “You’ll be the second one to know. All I’ve got right now is a headache.”

  “Bad?”

  Her ex-husband gave an odd, edgy laugh, as though remembering something he’d just as soon not. “I’ve had worse.”

  “Oh,” she replied, feeling compelled to say something. She wished she could move her hands. She flashed briefly on a memory of Chris teasing her about how much she gestured when she spoke. She pushed the recollection away as quickly as she could. “I... I’m sorry.”

  There was a pause. Lucy felt Chris shift position again. Then he quietly asked, “Are you all right?”

  The question surprised her. “Aside from being tied up and really, really ticked off, you mean?”

  Another laugh from Chris. This one, unlike the one that preceded it, held a hint of genuine humor. “Yes.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Those two thugs. They didn’t try to...hurt...you?”

  It took a moment for the implications of this carefully phrased query to sink in. Once it did, Lucy flushed. Was that why Chris had looked so murderous in the few moments before he was knocked senseless? she wondered with an involuntary shiver. Had he come charging to her rescue like the Seventh Cavalry because he thought that she was on the verge of being—

  “No, Chris,” she said hastily, feeling the heat in her face intensify. “They didn’t hurt me. They roughed me up a little, but they weren’t trying to...you know.”

  “Would you tell me if they had been?”

  Lucy closed her eyes, hearing echoes of old arguments lurking beneath this query. She clenched her fingers, pushing the past away once again. She had to concentrate on the here and now.

  “Yes,” she said after a moment, reopening her eyes and staring straight ahead. “I would.”

  She heard what sounded like a sigh. “I hope so.”

  There was another pause. Lucy suddenly felt Chris’s spine arch and the muscles of his upper back ripple and tense. She deduced that he was testing the strength of his bonds, much as she’d done a short time earlier. After a few seconds, she heard him exhale on a curse and knew he’d been frustrated in his bid to break free.