Bran stared at him, taking in the feral expression he’d never seen before. “You’re not afraid for yourself.”
“Should I be?”
He laughed, more in disbelief than anything else. “You’re in love with her.”
Zach didn’t look away but he managed to wipe his expression clean. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“This is all about her now.”
“It’s about Antonio Alvarez.”
“You’re not seeing her on the sly?”
Guilt flickered in Zach’s blue eyes, giving him away. His mouth tightened. “And if I am?”
“What, it’s just sex?”
“No, it’s—” He swore. “I don’t know. You know I’m not big on the idea of love and happily-ever-after.”
It wasn’t as if Bran ever imagined himself in love, but he felt something now he finally identified as pity. He’d lost his mother, brother and sister, but he, at least, had stayed in the same house, the same school, kept the same friends. Bran hadn’t been yanked into the unfamiliar, Dad had never remarried. Bran had been older than Zach, too, when the split happened.
In contrast, Zach had grown up with constant moves and new schools. His only parent didn’t know the meaning of the word “fidelity.”
“Did Mom ever even pretend to be in love?” he heard himself ask.
Zach made an indescribable sound masqueraded as a laugh. “You kidding? Of course she does. She falls in love extravagantly. She gets dreamy, girlish, excited. She’s made so many mistakes, she says, but this is real. Until she gets bored or—” His laugh was harsh. “Who knows with her? Lowell Carter—the guy who gave me his name—he was great. Treated her like a queen. He was a father to me. They stayed married four years, which was her record after Dad. But I think she was screwing around on him a couple years into the marriage. It was hard to watch.” He zeroed in on Bran’s face. “You’re engaged. Aren’t you in love?”
Even the question made Bran uneasy. He’d set himself up for it, after accusing his brother of being in love, though. “I guess not,” he said finally. “I don’t even know what that feels like. But I want a family. I want a woman I can go home to every day. Kids. Commitment’s what counts, not some romantic bullshit.”
“I’ve never even wanted that,” Zach said slowly. He had a strange look on his face. “Wife and kids, I mean. After I quit hearing from Dad...” His shoulders jerked. “And, Mom aside, I know too many guys who are divorced. Get to see their kids every other week, if they’re lucky. As cops, our odds are even worse than most people’s.”
“Paige likes her job, too. I don’t think she’ll mind my hours.”
Zach’s eyes, which looked eerily like Bran’s, could be damn penetrating. “Does she know you don’t love her?”
“I haven’t told her I do.” There’d been a few awkward moments when he could tell she was waiting for words he couldn’t give her. Bran thought she’d convinced herself he did, which was okay. He’d never walk out on a commitment, which was more than most men could give.
Not feeling anything he could call love? Maybe it should bother him, but it didn’t.
In that instant he had a thought that did bother him. What he felt for Zach was tangled, infuriating, but powerful. It might even be love. It was certainly more powerful than what he felt for Paige.
So what? He was thirty-seven years old. If he hadn’t stumbled head over heels in love with a woman by now, it wasn’t happening.
Bran swallowed the last of his beer and pushed back his chair. Looking down at his brother, he said, “Would a wife and family be so bad?” Before Zach could answer, Bran said, “I’m out of here. Paige wants me to look at silverware and china patterns, believe it or not.”
“Better you than me.” Zach walked him to the door.
Bran was halfway down the narrow, cracked cement walkway when his brother’s voice reached him. “Mom keeps asking.”
He didn’t even turn his head. “And I’ll keep saying no.”
“She’ll be the grandmother of those kids you’re planning.”
Bran flipped his brother off but that last shot stayed with him. Paige’s dad was okay, but Bran didn’t like her mother. Was she to be the only grandmother his children ever knew?
He paused for a minute, car door open, and gazed at Zach’s house. His mother, at least, had been likable. He grimaced at that. Too likable, apparently. Bran found it hard to forgive the damage she’d done to Zach. None of which meant she wouldn’t be an indulgent grandmother. As a mom, she’d been fun and affectionate. His kids probably would like her.
Bran found himself shaking his head. Her cheating had too much to do with making him the man he now was. Letting her back in his life...he couldn’t do it.
No was the right answer.
* * *
MOSTLY ZACH APPEARED at Tess’s after dark, but Sunday night he suggested she come to his house instead. He’d done some work she might like to see, he said. If she hadn’t already eaten, he’d cook.
He’d parked to one side of his driveway and left his garage door open, which she took as an invitation. Tess drove in and, as she walked the short distance to the house carrying her tote bag over her shoulder, saw Zach’s front door open. He stepped out as the new garage door slid closed behind her.
In the overhead light she saw that the old porch had been torn down and the bones of raw lumber framed a new one. He really had been making progress.
“Got a lot done today,” he told her, turning his head to assess his progress. He sounded satisfied. “As long as the skies don’t open up, I’ll shingle the roof tomorrow and build railings.”
“It’s wonderful.” She’d have to drive by in daylight to better take in the effect, but she had seen enough to know he had an eye for design. “I love wide front porches. I thought about putting one on my house but I’m afraid it would look wrong.”
“I plan to hang a porch swing,” he said, stepping back to let her in. He added a careless, “Should help sell the house.”
A vicious slice of pain told her she hadn’t accepted the knowledge that he’d be moving on as well as she’d thought. Or...maybe, deep down inside, she had let herself think he’d change.
“God knows,” he continued, oblivious to the blow he’d struck, “I’m unlikely ever to use it. I sit on my butt in the patrol car too much of the time as it is.”
Somehow she managed to laugh. “You know, it might be good for you to slow down once in a while and rock a little.”
He gave her a wicked grin. “I prefer to do my rocking in bed. With you.”
Of course, she blushed.
He looked satisfied at that, too.
She admired the new refrigerator he’d bought, which had the freezer compartment on the bottom. It surprised her that he’d spent several hundred dollars extra for a feature like that on an appliance that would be staying with this house. Probably, she thought with another sharp reminder, he considered it a selling feature.
While he dished up dinner, she wandered down the hall to see if he’d started on the bathroom. He hadn’t, but when she stuck her head into the two empty bedrooms, she saw that he had stripped the wood floors. Her noise crinkled at a smell she hadn’t noticed until now, probably because whatever he was cooking had overcome it.
Dinner was simple: a salad and marinated chicken breasts over rice. While they ate, he told her about the police records he’d received concerning his sister’s murder.
“I can’t believe there isn’t more. What do you want to bet there’s a full box stowed somewhere down in the basement?”
“Why would they try to block you?” she asked.
He made a sound in his throat. “My best guess? Some of the old-timers are still around and maybe they know they didn’t do what they should have.”
/> “So what will you do next?”
“Apply pressure. Keep looking into the background of everyone I can think of who was around enough to have noticed Sheila and known where her bedroom was.”
Thinking about that felt like fingers crawling up Tess’s spine. “He’d have had to, wouldn’t he?” she realized. “He couldn’t exactly start flinging open bedroom doors until he found her.”
Zach grimaced. “Actually there were only two bedrooms downstairs, my parents’ and Sheila’s. Plus a bathroom, of course. Zach and I had the room upstairs.”
“Like the one in this house?” Did that bother him? she wondered. How much did this house resemble his childhood home?
“Bigger and open. It was pretty much an unfinished attic with steep stairs. One window.” His mouth curved. “Bran and I thought it was cool. Mom especially hated going up there. If we weren’t too noisy, we could stay up all night if we felt like it, and be as slobby as we wanted, too.”
Tess laughed. Two boys sharing might not have been as congenial a few years later when his brother wanted to sneak girls home to listen to then-popular hard rock but was stuck with his kid brother as a roommate. She decided not to mention that, though, given that he and Bran had never had the chance to find out what happened to their relationship when one was a teenager and the other still a boy.
“We wished we had a bathroom up there, though,” he said slowly, betraying his unease with the parallels between his childhood home and this house. Where he would be plumbing in a bathroom upstairs. Another selling point, he’d tell himself, but it had to be more.
They were cleaning up after dinner when Zach’s phone rang. He glanced at it where it lay on the kitchen counter and groaned.
“Speak of the devil.”
“Your brother?”
“My mother.” He wore an odd expression as he frowned at the phone.
“Why don’t I give you some privacy?” Tess offered, driven by instinct.
He looked at her, those creases still in his forehead, and she thought he was disconcerted by something.
“That’s okay,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t mind you hearing anything I say to her.” He picked up the phone. “Mom.”
Fortunately, Tess couldn’t hear his mother’s side of the conversation. After a minute Zach said, “I asked again, Mom. He still says no. If you push too hard it’s never going to happen.”
Tess dried dishes and put them in the cupboards. No dishwasher. Zach had confessed to being irritated enough at having to wash his dishes by hand. He was about to have one installed without waiting until he replaced the cabinets and flooring.
“He’s not married, but he is engaged.” Pause. “Uh, it must be pretty soon. They went shopping for china today.”
“July twenty-third,” Tess said softly.
“What?” Zach covered the phone. “Really?”
“Paige told me.”
“Huh.” He put the phone back to his ear and repeated the date. Then he looked wary. “Yeah, I have a friend here. We just had dinner.”
His mother said something.
“Yes, a female friend.” Pause. His gaze slid sidelong to Tess, then away. “Uh, no.” He listened again. “You know I would.”
No mystery what his mother was going on about: she wanted her son to get married and give her grandchildren. It was classic. And that “no” confirmed Tess’s worst fears, sinking like a lead weight into her belly.
“So, how’s Henry?” he asked suddenly. He listened, an odd look crossing his face. He said goodbye to his mother a minute later, shaking his head as he set the phone down. “Go figure.”
Pretending for all she was worth that she hadn’t listened to the conversation and wasn’t hurt, Tess replaced the dish towel on its hook. “Go figure what?”
“I thought Henry was history. But she almost sounded fond of him.” He gave a short laugh. “Did I tell you he’s husband number five?”
“Five? Are you serious?”
His mouth twisted. “Yeah, constancy is not my mother’s middle name.”
Something told her to step carefully. “I’m sorry.”
“My mother cheats on her husbands.” Zach sounded disturbingly matter-of-fact. “She always has someone waiting in the wings.”
Did he realize he had just explained his rootlessness, his unwillingness to commit to any place or anybody long-term? How easy it would be to hate his mother, a woman who must be impervious to the destruction she had left in her wake.
“Do you have a picture of her?”
His eyebrows went up in surprise, but after a moment he took his wallet from his hip pocket and laid it open on the counter. He removed a picture from a plastic sleeve and handed it to her.
Somehow, Tess wasn’t at all surprised to see that his mother was movie-star gorgeous. His spectacular cheekbones and blue eyes had come from her. Not his coloring, though. She had the auburn hair she’d passed to her oldest son and a smile that hadn’t quite reached her lips, but could be seen in her eyes. The photo was only shoulders up, but the woman in it looked delicate.
Handing the picture back, Tess suddenly felt tall and gawky.
“She’s very beautiful.” What else could she say? “It must have been weird, having the kind of mother men were turning to stare at.”
Zach carefully replaced the photo and closed his wallet, leaving it on the counter. “I didn’t notice when I was a kid. But once I hit adolescence...yeah. I was incredibly embarrassed. I wanted her to put a paper bag over her head before she went out.”
Despite the grief squeezing her chest, Tess laughed at his expression, and he reached out and pulled her close. He leaned back against the counter, his feet spread enough that she could stand between his legs.
“Come on,” he said, “I was a teenager. Of course she embarrassed me.”
Tess made a face at him. “My parents didn’t embarrass me. I was too sure I was an embarrassment to them.”
“Seriously?”
She nodded. “I was this height by the time I was twelve. I towered over my mother, not to mention all the other girls my age and ninety-nine point nine percent of the boys. I was unbelievably skinny. To make matters worse, I developed a couple years later than most of the girls. I thought of myself as a giraffe.”
Zach bent his head and rubbed his sandpaper cheek against her cheek. “Spots and all?”
“Oh, God, yes.” She laughed again. “Too bad teenagers don’t have the perspective to know that someday they’ll be laughing about their worst despair.”
She felt his chuckle vibrate his chest before she heard it.
“You and I would not have had a steamy romance in seventh grade, I’ve got to tell you. Or any other kind of romance.”
Tess pulled back in mock offense. “Because you didn’t like beanpoles?”
“Because the top of my head might have come up to your chin.” He pinched her chin lightly. “I was scrawny and short. It’s funny, I’d almost forgotten until Bran reminded me. He said he thought I was taking after Mom.”
“She’s petite?” Naturally.
“Yep. Dad was a big guy, though.” An emotion ghosted through his eyes that might have to do with regrets. “To my surprise and Mom’s, though, about my sophomore year in high school, I started to grow. And grow. Forget back-to-school shopping. I needed a new wardrobe quarterly.” Amusement colored his deep voice. “Mom grumbled. I was secretly delighted.”
“Of course you were. So there you were shooting up at the same age I finally needed a bra.”
He squeezed her butt then moved one hand up to cup a breast. “And the results were very nice.”
She pressed her lips to his throat, inhaling a scent that was uniquely his. His hair had still been damp from a shower when she’d first arrived. She’d never let
herself live in the moment before, but now she held no more illusions. This is all she would have with him. Then treasure the moments, she thought fiercely.
“You know,” she murmured, “when you tear apart your bathroom, you can shower at my house.”
“I am sleeping there a lot of the time anyway.”
“I like it when you sleep there,” she admitted, then felt a shaft of alarm. Would he take that as a hint that she wanted something more than their existing relationship? Well, so what? she thought defiantly. She did. What she felt was hers, whatever the consequences would be.
He’d gone still. Not for long enough to be obvious, but Tess felt it. But then he relaxed, tugging her closer again. And his voice was husky. “I don’t usually stay the night with women. But with you... I like it, too.” He was silent for a moment. “When you’re not there,” he said more slowly, “it feels wrong.”
Pleasure and anxiety made a peculiar mix, but she felt both. He’d just told her she was different...though he wasn’t altogether happy about that.
Tess rested against him, pretending she hadn’t noticed. She was struck by the fact that they’d never had the usual talk people who were dating did about prior relationships. Partly, of course, because they hadn’t dated. They’d just sort of drifted into sleeping together because he was there to protect her anyway. Once he didn’t need to, what would happen?
Tess believed in facing her fears. So it was a little bit of a shock to discover that she was afraid to confront this one. It was bad enough knowing he’d pack up and leave eventually...but what if he lost interest even while he remained here in town?
Which left her two options: scramble back to safety now or enjoy the time she had with him and not dwell on what was ahead.
Making her choice, she tipped her head back and tugged him down into a kiss.
* * *
IT WAS NO secret that Hayes was enraged to be questioned first by Detective Easley from CCPD, then by the two detectives from the special investigative unit. A couple of people quietly told Zach to watch out for retaliation.
The Closer He Gets Page 19
