Brooding Angel

by Marie Ferrarella

  “I dropped a book.” Her eyes had looked at him accusingly as he entered. “Did you think it was me?”

  He didn’t react to the bait. “No. It sounded too light to be you.” Mitch had stooped down and picked the book up, handing it to Clancy.

  He had slowly looked around the room. The drapes were blue now. They’d been a mixture of gray and pink before. The bedspread matched them the way the previous one had matched the drapes that had come before these.

  But the room still smelled like her. Warm, inviting. Sensual. It smelled of springtime whispering of a sizzling summer to come. Mitch had lingered a moment before stepping back.

  No matter what the decor, the room was still the same. It still reminded him of her. It still echoed faintly of their lovemaking.

  He had tried to shrug off the heavy mantle he felt slipping over his shoulders. Any regrets he’d had about what he’d had to do had ended a long time ago.

  “It’ll work out,” he had told her quietly.

  The promise, coming out of the blue, seemed to surprise Clancy. “Will it?” she’d asked softly, her guard temporarily down.

  The urge to touch her had overtaken him before he could prevent it. He had moved forward and laid his hand over hers. “Yes.”

  Clancy had looked down at his hand. “Do you give written guarantees?”

  He’d glanced down at the book he’d picked up and handed it to her. It was one of the ones he had brought her before she’d left the hospital. The one written by Helen Keller. “Just read the book.”

  He had turned to leave.

  “You know,” Clancy had begun, so quietly that Mitch had had to turn around to look at her, uncertain whether he’d heard her voice or not. “When I was a little girl, my parents spent a few years at the embassy in Germany. There was a park not too far away. They’d take me there whenever their schedules permitted.”

  A partial smile had risen as she remembered. He’d been completely captivated, though he’d tried to keep that feeling at bay.

  “I used to love to look for dandelions. I’d pick one up and then blow on it, making a wish. Then I’d watch as the tiny tufts scattered in the breeze.” She’d looked up at him. The smile was gone. “Now when I look at a dandelion, I just see a weed.”

  He’d never made wishes. Except once. When his father hadn’t returned, Mitch had no longer seen the point in dealing with things that weren’t real.

  “It is a weed.”

  “Yes.” Sadness had seeped into her voice. “I know. No magic.”

  Mitch had crossed back to her, urged on by something he knew was foolish. He was very rarely foolish. But just this once, because she had looked so lost and he didn’t want her to be, he had cupped her chin in his hand and bent over the wheelchair.

  Very lightly, he had brushed his lips over hers and tried not to remember the passion that had once vibrated between them.

  Tried not to and failed.

  “You don’t need magic, Clancy, just determination.” He had stepped back. It wasn’t gone, he thought. What he had felt whenever he had held her in his arms, when he had kissed her, was still alive. Buried, perhaps. But not gone. “Good night, Clancy.”

  She’d only nodded. But when the door was shut, she had sighed. “You’re wrong, Mitch. I do need magic.”

  He’d heard her through the door as he walked to his room.

  * * *

  The scent of coffee wafting through the air aroused Clancy from her sleep. Disoriented, she took a moment to get her bearings. To remember.

  Cynthia was gone. Mitch was here in her place.

  Mitch.

  Warmth flushed through her as she remembered last night. For just a split second, she was a battleground of emotions. And then, very deliberately, Clancy banished any feelings that were attempting to gain a foothold.

  Pulling her thoughts into some kind of order, she dragged a hand thorough her hair. She concentrated, trying to remember what today was. Monday. She’d promised to call her mother today. That meant she was going to have to sound cheerful. She began to dread the charade already.

  Clancy was struggling into her wheelchair when she heard the light tap on her door. She stiffened instantly. “Yes?”

  Her eyes were fixed on her doorknob as it began to turn slowly.

  Mitch, already dressed in his uniform, peered into the room. He’d heard her stirring and had given her a few minutes. When the toast popped, he had decided it was time to fetch her. “I’ve got breakfast ready.”

  Before the accident, Clancy had always woken up hungry. She didn’t have an appetite anymore, only a hole that never seemed to be filled.

  “You cook?”

  His mouth curved. “I cook.”

  She couldn’t picture him at a stove. In the months that they had been together, she had done all the cooking. Or they had gone out. He’d never even taken her to his apartment, she thought. It was as if he could come into her world, but she couldn’t enter his. That had bothered her at the time, but it was something she had thought they would eventually work out.

  She’d thought wrong.

  Clancy shrugged and settled into the wheelchair. “I guess I can risk it.”

  Before she could say anything to stop him, Mitch circled behind her. He pushed her out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. Clancy swallowed the protest that instantly rose to her lips. She’d be alone today for the first time. She might as well save her strength for that.

  She turned in her seat to look at his face. “After all, what can go wrong?”

  Mitch snorted, positioning her opposite him at the small kitchen table. “That depends on how you like your eggs.”

  Food was so removed from her thoughts, it took Clancy a moment to remember the conversation they were having. “Sunny-side up.”

  He made them only one way. “They’re scrambled.”

  He said it as if it were a formal announcement. Clancy felt a smile forming in response. “Scrambled was my next choice.”

  He saw a glimmer of the Clancy he’d once known in the smile. The feeling of contentment that spread through him was a surprise. “Good.”

  Clancy looked at the table. He’d set two places. Nothing fancy, just neat. Like the man.

  Mitch brought over the coffeepot. Moving Clancy’s cup to the side, he poured until the coffee was almost at the rim. “Still take it black?”

  She nodded. So he remembered that, too.

  She wrapped her hands around the cup without lifting it to her lips. She let the warmth flow into her fingers, then along her arms. It stopped short of her heart. Nothing, she thought, would ever warm that again.

  “Mitch.” She saw him raise his brows as he waited for her to continue. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Yeah, I do.” He finished pouring his own cup, then added just a drop of milk. “Coffee’s too messy to drink without a cup.”

  He knew damn well what she was referring to. “I mean staying here.”

  He waited until his first long sip of coffee hit bottom. “You have a better plan?”

  Clancy looked down into her cup and saw her reflection shimmering on the surface of the black liquid, distorted. That’s how she felt. Distorted.

  “No.”

  He’d thought as much. “Then don’t mention it until you do.” Mitch dismissed her protest, then studied Clancy in silence. She was clearly in distress. A distress he had caused. “You know me well enough to know that I never do anything I don’t want to do.”

  That was clear enough. He hadn’t wanted to remain in her life the first time around and had abruptly left her without even so much as a decent discussion about the matter.

  “Yes, I know. You still don’t have to stay.” She shrugged and turned her attention to the plate before her. “They’re scrambled, all right.”

  Because silence was awkward, she looked for something to talk about. He would be on his way soon enough. “I never knew you cooked.”

  Mitch had always schooled himself in the ba
sics. He’d been on his own for a long time. Even before that there had been no one to pick up the slack. So he’d learned how to cook, how to sew on buttons, how not to shrink sweaters in the laundry. And how to be alone.

  He wasn’t very hungry himself, but went through the motions for her sake. “I live alone. Eating out gets pretty old. And expensive.”

  She hadn’t pictured him turning to anyone else. It was nice to be right about something. “Still unattached?”

  Still? Always was more like it. He shrugged, pushing his plate away. “I don’t like having to worry about anyone else.”

  She looked at him sharply. For just a moment, curiosity nudged her before apathy could push it aside. “Is that why you left me?”

  He knew he’d never given her a real reason, had never elaborated on his action beyond a cursory explanation that his work came first. He didn’t intend giving her a reason now.

  Mitch rose. “I’ve got an early day today, but I should be back around five.”

  Barring any lengthy reports to fill out, he thought, thinking of McAffee and his daughter’s debut as a turnip. He took a card out of his breast pocket and quickly wrote a telephone number on the back.

  “If you need anything at all, call here.” He held out the card to her. “Ask for me. Sara’ll patch you through.”

  “Sara?” The woman’s name rose automatically to Clancy’s lips.

  “Our dispatcher.”

  He picked up his holster from where he had left it on top of the refrigerator and buckled the belt. He saw her watching him. Inexplicably, it linked to another memory. Leaving her bedroom at dawn, trying to get into uniform without waking her. Knowing that if he did, he wouldn’t want to leave at all. She’d woken up and lured him back to bed that morning, then had watched like a contented, lazy cat as he’d gotten dressed to leave.

  “One year away from retirement,” he continued after a second, describing Sara. “Iron gray hair.”

  Clancy shrugged, moving the eggs around her plate with her fork. They tasted good, but she just didn’t feel like eating. “I wasn’t asking.”

  He took the fork out of her hand and held it to her lips, the way he would with a child. After a moment, she opened her mouth. He coaxed the fork into it.

  “Your eyes were.”

  When he filled a second forkful, she took the utensil out of his hand and grudgingly swallowed the eggs. “How is it that you supposedly can read my eyes now, and you couldn’t before?”

  He knew she was referring to two years ago. She seemed determined to bring that up, but he wasn’t about to go into it no matter how she set up the question. “The lighting is better in here.”

  One more forkful and Clancy placed the utensil down on her plate with finality. Mitch was just as evasive now as ever.

  So what was he doing here, playing at being her brooding angel, the way Cynthia had dubbed him? It made no sense to her.

  But then, so little about Mitch did.

  She picked up the card from the table, where he had placed it on her place mat. Mitch noticed the way she curved her fingers around it. She held it as if it were a talisman of some sort that could protect her. That could keep her safe.

  She was afraid, he thought. Afraid of remaining home alone.

  He cleared away the two plates, placing them in the dishwasher. His cup joined them. She was still nursing her coffee. “I could call in sick,” he began slowly.

  The offer surprised her. She had thought that nothing was allowed to interfere with his being a policeman. She felt herself growing resentful. Just how great was his guilt?

  Huge, if he was here. She knew he wouldn’t be if he had a choice. He wasn’t here out of compassion.

  That was his problem, not hers. She had more than her share to cope with. But she didn’t want him staying with her today because he felt it was his duty to remain.

  “And tomorrow?” she demanded hotly. “And the day after that? Are you going to stay home then, too? Are you going to turn me into your full-time career, Mitch?”

  The bitterness in her voice was thick enough to double for concrete. “No,” he shot back. “I just thought you might want a little more moral support.”

  “What I want,” she shouted at him, then lowered her voice, not wanting the neighbors to hear, “is to be able to walk again.”

  Her anguish spoke to him. Mitch squeezed her hand. “You will, Clancy. You will.”

  He said it so fiercely she could almost believe him. Almost. Clancy eyed him. “I thought you didn’t believe in miracles.”

  He dropped his hand to his side. “I don’t. Just facts.” His eyes held hers for a moment before he turned away to get his night stick. “I can pick up a copy of Brian’s Song for you tonight before I come back.” He tucked the stick through the loop on his belt.

  She was about to respond flippantly, then stopped. For whatever reason, he was trying to get through to her. It wasn’t fair to continue to snap at him. He didn’t deserve it. Not for this.

  “No,” she said softly, “just come back.”

  The change in her voice took him by surprise. He turned around slowly to look at her. Clancy’s fears were getting the better of her. He wished there was something, however small, he could do to erase them or at least alleviate them.

  “Know that old adage?” God, he was reaching for sayings now. “What doesn’t kill us—”

  “Makes us stronger.”

  He had inadvertently stumbled across a saying that was a favorite of her father’s. Her mother had had it embroidered and framed for him. Someone else had done the embroidery. Helen Clancy didn’t know which end of the needle to thread.

  The adage, done in blues and whites, hung in her father’s office and had something to do, she recalled, with a mix-up over luggage. Theirs had gone to France, while they had not. The gift had been an example of her mother’s sense of humor.

  “Yes.” Her assurance was given fondly. “I know.” She looked down ruefully at her legs. “Boy, I really must be stronger.”

  “Maybe not now, but you will be.” Sardonic humor was better than none, he thought. He laughed under his breath and then touched her cheek without meaning to. He dropped his hand to his side once more and turned toward the front door.

  “Mitch.” Her voice followed him.

  He heard the fear there, the need she wouldn’t admit to. He turned. “Yeah?”

  Clancy moved away from the table and then pushed herself toward him. “If I asked you to do something, would you?”

  He studied her face. “That all depends.”

  That was Mitch. Always cautious. Someone else would have promised without knowing what he was committing to. But not Mitch.

  She tried not to think about what she was asking. Only that she needed it. “Would you kiss me again before you leave?” She hesitated. “For luck.”

  Mitch didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned down until his face was level with hers. He cupped her cheek with the palm of his hand. He meant only to brush his lips over hers again, the way he had done last night.

  But this time, the kiss wasn’t that brief, that chaste. That comforting. This time, emotions long silenced broke through, taking the lead.

  For both of them.

  It unsettled more than it settled, raised hummocks in fields that had been plowed flat.

  Mitch splayed his fingers, combing them through her hair as the kiss deepened. She tasted exactly the way she had when they had shared nights of passion, exactly the way he remembered.

  Exactly the way he yearned for her to taste.

  She still managed to take his breath away. His breath and his mind. He felt himself getting lost in her, just the way he used to.

  If only...

  There were no ifs allowed in this. No regrets. He’d known what he was doing when he had walked out on her. And he knew what he was doing now. He was here to help her, nothing else. He couldn’t allow the skeins to get tangled up on him.

  She wasn’t completely dead, she reali
zed. Almost, but not completely. Not if he could raise one ember within her and make it burn. And he could. He could make her head spin and her pulse beat wildly, erratically, like a butterfly captured in a net.

  She still wanted him, she realized abruptly. And he didn’t want her. He just pitied her, nothing more.

  Mitch raised his head, his lips leaving hers before he completely drowned in the kiss. Leaning his hand on the side of her wheelchair, as much for support as anything, he looked at her.

  “Don’t lose that number,” he instructed, touching the card she still clutched in her hand.

  “I won’t need to call.” She was going to do this on her own, she vowed, even as her pulse raced faster than a car revving up to take off in the Indianapolis 500. She didn’t want to need him.

  He saw the stubborn glint in her eyes. Mitch nodded, acknowledging her words. “Just in case.”

  He left quickly. Before he couldn’t.

  Chapter Eight

  The loneliness began as soon as Mitch shut the door behind him. It floated throughout the apartment like a specter that had lost its way. Frustration followed quickly on its heels.

  It became a day filled with frustration, with one incident piled upon another like a child’s tower of building blocks that threatened to fall and bury her at any moment.

  Somehow, stubbornly, Clancy kept digging herself out.

  Digging, perhaps, because Mitch had sparked something. He’d managed to wake up, however temporarily, her old, obstinate desire to overcome whatever adversity rose in her path.

  The therapist called at ten to reschedule her twelve o’clock appointment for tomorrow. When Clancy heard the woman’s voice on the other end of the line, a wave of disappointment drenched her. She was hungry for the sight of another human being. In the hospital, even though she’d been cocooned in her depression, her room had been a center of activity, with people constantly entering. Doctors, nurses, friends.

  Mitch.

  And when she’d come home, Cynthia had hardly left her side all day. Mitch had dropped by on three separate occasions in the evening.

  Now Clancy faced hours of solitude. There were only the voices coming from her TV. Her interest hadn’t been roused sufficiently to watch any particular program yet, but the background noise, the glow from the set, was somehow comforting. It kept her from feeling completely alone.