by LS Sygnet
“Running out of time.”
“I ruined our truce, didn’t I?”
His eyes fluttered shut. “No, Helen, you haven’t ruined anything. I’ve been praying for this day since we met, I think.”
“You have?”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “You finally chose to tell me the truth. Not because you were backed into a corner and had no other choice. You finally trusted me enough to be completely honest.”
“Then you aren’t angry with me?”
Johnny lifted my chin. “I’m not happy about what you did, but I understand the logic that led you there, Helen. I am absolutely thrilled that you confessed the truth all on your own.”
I stood on tiptoe and nibbled his chin. “Please forgive me. I am so sorry I hurt you.”
He cupped my cheek with one hand, a thumb gliding over my lower lip. “All you ever had to do was ask.”
“Tell me that we’re going to be okay.”
Johnny let go of me. “As much as I’d love to stay here and work this out right now, I’ve really got to get into the city. We’ll talk more tonight. Deal?”
“Sure.”
Johnny paused in the doorway. “You can start by explaining to me why you still feel that ankle monitor is necessary if no one actually tried to abduct you again.”
Chapter 25
It was a valid question, one for which I had no new answer. Johnny might be testing me again. I never expected forgiveness, but received it. Trust would have to be rebuilt.
I marveled at Johnny’s restraint this morning. Any other day, had I nibbled anywhere, his resistance would’ve crumbled. This was no doubt a testament to how deeply my lies hurt him. I wasn’t sure I liked the consequences, or knowing that I behaved so badly to someone who loved me that much.
Baby steps.
My father had the wisdom and insight to realize where I belong. He made sure I had the opportunity to make the right choice. Invariably, any thought related to Dad plunged me into melancholy. I wondered if he reached his destination. Had he settled down somewhere into a quiet life? How would I ever know?
I wandered back into the office, the confessional as it were, and booted the iMac. A few clicks provided a vague answer. A relatively small amount of money was gone from my offshore bank account. “C’mon, Dad,” I said softly. “It’s your money. No need to be frugal now.”
There was no point in denial. Part of me was relieved that the account wasn’t all but empty, that Dad proved in the end that he was a bad guy through and through. That fear contradicted what I knew about him. He did make a dangerous gamble when he called Johnny. For all he knew, Johnny could’ve simply alerted the authorities at Attica and let us suffer the consequences.
I didn’t get sucked deeply into the pensive thoughts. The intercom from the gate chimed an interruption before things got too deep.
“Yes?”
“Behan’s here to make a delivery, Ms. Eriksson.”
I flipped on the monitor, just to be sure. Gillette still lurked in every shadow. Was it paranoia or something more? Paranoia this time, I recognized the delivery driver from the last time I had Behan’s show up with the results of an unfettered shopping spree.
The gate slowly jerked open. Within twenty minutes, they had all the baby furniture out of boxes and placed in the room at my direction.
“Hold on a minute. I’ve got a tip for you.”
“We’ll load the empty boxes up, ma’am.”
I made a beeline for the nursery when they were gone. The reality of my future descended on a soft cloud of hope. I eased into the rocker-glider and propped my feet up on the ottoman. I hummed softly and stroked my tummy.
Life could be better than it was before. It was already a 180 from where I sat yesterday. I thought about setting Dad free, the potential consequences before he made sure I wouldn’t suffer any. Truth was, he had set me free. All I had to do was accept the gift. Could I do it?
Thoughts swirled around in my brain. They pulled me into a peaceful slumber. I would eventually come to see it as my heart’s way of exerting a little control over my brain.
When I woke, I knew what I needed to do. Not because it would manipulate someone into seeing things my way. It needed to be done because it was the right act. That it felt really good was an unexpected side effect.
I took the elevator to the penthouse and used my key to enter.
Johnny and Crevan had their heads together at the desk in the office Johnny used to use for his base of operations. Devlin slouched on the sofa with one hand over his eyes.
“Am I interrupting something?”
All three jerked to attention.
“Helen!” Crevan exclaimed. “Look at you! Love the hair.”
Of course a compliment was the first thing to fall from my sensitive brother’s lips. I could learn a thing or two from exposure to his kindness-first heart. I stepped forward and hugged him. “Is Alex around?”
“No, he’s over at the club tinkering with his new sound system or some such. What brings you over here?”
I took a small step back and looked at Johnny. “I was hoping I could abscond with my husband for a leisurely lunch. I see David is gone… and Devlin is here. Are there new developments in the post-OSI era?”
Devlin’s expression was pinched. His eyes roved from Crevan to me.
Dammit. Stupid haircut!
“Only one,” Johnny said. He stepped around the desk and cupped my elbow. “Devlin decided to join us. You didn’t have anything to do with that, did you?”
I made an X over my heart. “I never said a thing. Can you get away for lunch?”
“The Bistro?”
I grimaced. “I’m not really in the mood for bistro food today. Would you mind if we hit the diner across the street from Downey Division? I’ve got this wicked craving for their cinnamon rolls.”
Johnny chuckled. “You’re craving it, or they are?”
“It’s a little early for that, Johnny,” Crevan piped up. “Babies can’t start to taste what the mother eats through the amniotic fluid until about 20 weeks. Researchers believe at that point that they start to influence cravings.”
Devlin chuckled. “Do we even want to know how you know that, Crevan?”
He grinned. “Alex and I watched an old National Geographic special the other night. In The Womb. You guys should really check it out. Very cool stuff.”
“Can you give me about ten minutes, Helen? We were just plotting some logistics when you came in. I’d like to finish up, then we can have as long a lunch as you like.”
Crevan laughed. “You can have him for the rest of the afternoon, Helen. We outvoted him and vetoed his presence for the rest of the day. A good mood should never be wasted in the office. It’s been so long since we’ve seen him this –”
“That’s enough,” Johnny said.
I felt heat flush my cheeks. No doubt they surmised the reason for Johnny’s improved mood.
“Ten minutes. Go raid Crevan’s refrigerator.”
“You know, the bistro used to make these really yummy fruit, yogurt and granola parfaits. It might tide me over until lunch.”
“Sounds good,” Devlin said. “Want some company?”
“Sure!” I glanced at Johnny. “Meet me downstairs in ten?”
He nodded, and only a tiny bit of darkness leeched into his eyes.
I stood on tiptoe again and kissed the corner of his mouth. “Don’t be long.”
His hands gripped my waist. “Don’t ruin your appetite in the bistro.”
“Ha! Not possible. I want you to run an errand with me before lunch. Believe me, I’ll be starving again in no time.”
We were barely on the elevator when I began grilling Devlin. “Okay, what’s going on?”
“You tell me,” he grinned. “Johnny floated in here this morning looking like heaven descended to earth. Are you finally making peace?”
“Trying,” I said. “He’s not feeling particularly generous with what his new li
ttle venture plans to do, but I know David is on board.”
“He is,” Devlin said. “And so am I.”
“So?”
“Helen, I understand why Johnny is reluctant to share this stuff with you. Actually, I think I might’ve gotten a lead that nobody else had uncovered yet.”
“Oh?”
“Let’s refocus on your hunger.”
“I don’t want to refocus on anything. You know how I get when people start cutting me out of the loop. It’s what makes me apt to go off sleuthing on my own and get up to my neck in hot water.”
“I won’t be manipulated by you. Let’s not forget who you’re talking to. I’m not Johnny. My logic isn’t completely obliterated by your considerable charms.”
I slugged him in the arm and took off for the bistro the second the elevator doors opened. They didn’t have the parfait with the kind of fruit I wanted, so we waited while they whipped one up with strawberries alone – in vanilla flavored Greek yogurt.
“Tell me your clue.”
“No way,” Devlin shook his head. “You’ll dash off to investigate on your own after you ditch Johnny at the diner.”
I wiggled my ankle. “Wearing it willingly now. Doesn’t that prove something to you?”
“Maybe that you’ve got a little bit of common sense after all?”
“You’re in rare form today. What made you decide to accept Johnny’s job offer? You can at least tell me that.”
“He called on the way to Darkwater proper this morning, asked me to meet him here. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to hear what he had to say, so I met him. He came clean with what Crevan’s working on. I told him I already knew.”
I chuffed out a soft breath and paid for my treat. “Mmm. Delicious. You should buy one. How’d he take the news that you spied on them and dug into the matter on your own?”
“I think he said something about admiring my initiative, but that I should’ve told him what I learned immediately.”
“You found something they hadn’t?”
He nodded. “Which I will not under any circumstances share.”
“Meanie.”
“Pragmatic,” he said. Devlin turned to the clerk at the counter. “I’ll have the strawberry-blueberry parfait, thanks.”
“I know why you’re all trying to shield me,” I mumbled around another bite. “What you all fail to realize is that anything that might interfere with uninhibited eating is completely off the table. I’m surprised I didn’t die of starvation when I was trapped on The Celeste. Trust me. Gillette had to die based on food deprivation alone.”
“Can’t you just trust that we’re doing everything possible to protect you now, Helen? Why are the details so important to you?”
“I don’t know. What if there’s something I know, but don’t realize I know that could help the investigation?”
“If you really feel that way, then this is a conversation you should have with your husband. Who, if my eyes don’t deceive me, is heading this way.”
“Was that ten minutes already?”
“I wouldn’t suggest saying that if you want his mood to remain… improved.”
I turned around and smiled. “Wanna bite?”
“Sure,” Johnny said.
I spooned a bit into his mouth.
“Mmm, that’s very good, Doc. Crevan says they’re delicious. He’s right. Asked you to bring one back upstairs for him, Devlin.” To me, “Ready to go?”
“Yes. Thanks for the company Devlin. See you later.”
Johnny fell silent.
“That was in the general sense,” I said. “I have no plans to meet him specifically at a later time.”
“Am I driving or are you?”
I grinned. “Me. You can pick the car up after lunch and help me do the grocery shopping.”
“Wise move to eat before we get to the store,” Johnny chuckled. “With your love of frozen shakes, I presume that’s not the errand you mentioned before we have lunch.”
I dangled my keys in front of him. “Changed my mind. You drive, I’ll eat.”
“I have no problem with that, but I don’t know where we’re going.”
“Annell’s Sewn Bit o’ Heaven in Downey.”
“And why are we going there?”
I shot him a coy look. “I think it’s time you see what I picked out for the nursery.”
Johnny’s smile made me feel better than anything in my life to date, hands down.
“Really?”
“I only ordered the stuff yesterday, so if you have any suggestions, now’s the time to make them. Before Annell gets too far into the project.”
“So when you say picked out, you meant what exactly?”
“She’s custom designing some stuff for me. I had a dream the other night, and it was so precious, Johnny. I had to write it all down and find it for the boys’ room.”
“The dream when you looked so happy,” he said softly. “And you stayed up all night moving furniture.”
“I wanted to do it earlier before I fell asleep.”
“Would you have let me help you?”
I chuckled. “Would I have had a choice?”
“No.”
“Let’s go. I can’t wait for you to see it.”
Thirty minutes later we strolled out of the store. Johnny threaded our fingers together. “Let’s walk to the diner from here. It’s only a few blocks.”
“Did you really like my idea?”
“It’s perfect, sweetheart. I loved it.”
We walked to the diner, sat side by side in the booth and enjoyed looking forward to a happy future instead of dwelling on an unhappy past.
What was that old saying? Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Chapter 26
Johnny flipped on the news and sprawled out over the sectional in the family room after we cleaned up the mess from dinner. He hadn’t brought up our conversation that morning again, even though we spent the whole afternoon together.
I suppose he felt as reluctant to disturb our fragile truce as I did.
But the longer I thought about it, the more his question gnawed at my gut. Did he believe I knew something I just hadn’t clearly recalled yet, or was the question a symptom of his lack of trust that I was even capable of telling the truth? I suspected the latter, though he’d given no indication of raging mistrust all day.
In fact, our afternoon felt an awful lot like what a normal first date was. You know. For normal people. No one could ever accuse us of that.
I wandered around a bit under the pretense of arranging groceries in a convenient manner. This went in the butler’s pantry. That went in the cupboard. Those belonged in the food pantry. Johnny settled into something I was accustomed to seeing. He watched the news, calmly bland no matter how incendiary the rhetoric became on screen.
Any more organization would’ve bordered on obsessive compulsive behavior. I sighed and closed the pantry door… drifted across the room. “Want something to drink?”
“Mmm, I’m good,” Johnny said.
“The saga of Joe versus the Devil continues, huh.”
“Yeah.” He craned his neck to see around me.
“Sorry,” I said and started to move away. Johnny gripped my wrist suddenly.
“Don’t go. Just… don’t block the news.” Punctuated with a lopsided grin.
Dangerous gambles run in the Eriksson family. I stretched out on the sofa and tucked my head into the juncture of his shoulder and arm. Breath froze in the chest behind me. I reached for Johnny’s hand and slid it up beneath my shirt.
“Helen.”
“They’re jumping around. Feel that?”
“I feel it,” he said softly.
I smiled and started tracing the corded veins on his arm with the tip of my finger. “Do you want to finish that conversation we started this morning?”
“Have you remembered something else?” The timbre of his voice sobered instantly. It clearly quelled my parano
id fears.
“No. Should I remember something else about it?”
“I guess I’m having a hard time seeing how you jumped from Gillette to Sanderfield in this thing. Believe me, this isn’t about lack of trust in your instincts. I just wish I knew the threads that made you connect them, beyond Sanderfield’s pressure to close OSI.”
Ever want to recoil from a memory? It was the sensation that I felt.
“This is why I haven’t pushed you, Helen. I know it’s painful and raw, even though a whole lot has happened since then. You’ve had almost a year of never ending crap raining down. This one went too far. Gillette took something precious away from you. God help me, I only made it worse.”
“No,” I said. “You didn’t make it worse.”
“I made you feel like property. Even though that wasn’t my intention, it was fear and frustration and anger, knowing that I did that to you just about killed me.”
The conversation lapsed into the comfort of touch, his hand stroking my belly while I continued to trace the bifurcated highway of veins on his arm. The hairs suddenly rose and Johnny shivered.
“That tickles, Doc.”
“Sorry,” I stilled the fingertip.
“Don’t stop.”
I tilted my head against his arm, craned my neck and stared up at him. “You know what you said this morning – when you said goodbye to the boys?”
His eyes morphed into my universe again when he stared down at me and shook his head. “I’m not sure. One specific thing?”
“When you told them that you love them.”
“Helen, I do. I love them so much, and I know you do too. I never doubted that. Not really. I said a lot of things in anger that I absolutely didn’t mean. Guess I’m hoping you did too.”
Whatever I thought to say when I brought up the subject of that sweet first communication fled. I rolled close to Johnny and rested my head against his chest. “Your hope is rewarded. For once.”
He didn’t push me away or throw me on the floor. Instead, Johnny’s arms wound around me. Warm. Strong. Comfortable. The slow thud of his heart against my ear quickly lulled me to sleep.
