At Close Range

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “With him being well, didn’t that give you hope?”

  “Sure it did.”

  “That must’ve made it even harder when he got worse.”

  She couldn’t believe they were talking about this. Jason was a topic held very close to her heart, taken out only when she was alone. And yet, tonight, with Brian, sharing him felt right.

  “Is it ever easy?” she asked. The question wasn’t rhetorical and they both knew it.

  “No, of course not.”

  “So which is better? To know beforehand, to be able to prepare, but to spend those last days in mourning? Or is it better to have your loved one there, perfectly normal and happy, enjoying what you think is a long life together, and then be left in shock when he’s snatched away with no time to say goodbye?”

  Brian shrugged. “They both suck.”

  It was her word. Her one leftover from the hardened teenager she’d left behind. She’d never heard him use it before.

  “Yeah, but look at it this way, Brian. Most people are looking for that one great love, wishing for it, missing it if they’ve settled for less. Some of them will never know what it’s like to find your soul mate. We had that. We know.”

  He studied her for several seconds, lips tight as emotion shone from his eyes. “You’re right.”

  “I’d choose those three years with Jason over a lifetime of settling.”

  He nodded. “Me, too.”

  As a boy, Bobby Donahue had had trouble sleeping. Getting under his bed quickly enough to avoid a drunken attack from his father was impossible when he was unconscious.

  Since taking control of his life, however, and later, control of the lives around him, the only nights he’d been up late involved a woman.

  Usually the same woman.

  Tonight was no different. The hours between Friday night and Saturday morning, he spent alone in the Flagstaff home he’d once shared with the two people he’d loved above all else. His wife and son.

  He sat, dressed in nothing but his skin, and searched for his woman—Amanda Blake.

  Stripped down he was completely raw, the man his Father in Heaven had crafted him to be.

  Nudity kept him grounded when life was throwing him more challenges than he’d bargained for.

  He was prepared for the hard work. Could handle anything he was given. He didn’t doubt that. Not for a second.

  He’d just found some things easier to conquer than others.

  The trial had not gone well that day, but he had things in hand. One way or another, Kenny Hill, a zealous young man Bobby dearly loved, would be alive to continue his good works.

  But Kenny wasn’t the reason Bobby was up. Living without his son, knowing that a year had passed in Luke’s life, a formative year, was slowly eroding Bobby’s peace of mind.

  He’d never loved anyone like he’d loved his son. Never.

  Not even Amanda, the boy’s mother. Luke’s kidnapper.

  The Internet was a wonderful tool. And his ability to hack into more sites than God didn’t hurt—not that anyone else knew about that ability.

  He stared at the screen.

  “Father, I give it all to You,” he said aloud. “Thy will be done. If Thou would have me search until my eyes go blind, I will do so.” There was a clue here somewhere. He was certain of it. A newspaper article, a picture, a mention of a homeless woman’s arrest, or better yet, some illegal activity for which he knew Amanda was well trained. Like breaking and entering.

  With a twist.

  Amanda would only go to homes that were empty. She’d pick the lock. She’d take food, clothes and any cash she found. Nothing else.

  Amanda was a class act.

  And she’d only rob others if she was desperate.

  Which she’d have to be, on the run, not only from the law, but from their church—the Ivory Nation.

  No one escaped the brotherhood forever. Amanda had already set a record for length of time on the loose avoiding Ivory Nation capture.

  With Bobby’s son.

  While he knew God would have him find the woman, bring her to penitence, Bobby also admired her. The only woman he’d ever loved. Amanda was good. The best. Which was why God had given her to him in the first place.

  They’d had a great work to do together. Had done it well. And if she’d remained faithful, they would’ve done so much more.

  Bobby reached for the hand gripper he kept close by and started to squeeze. When that didn’t ease his tension he scrolled faster through the Web sites, reviewing incident after incident, detail after detail, looking for the telltale signs in police logs across the country.

  And without his permission, visions of Amanda ran through his mind. Visions of her when she’d been a zealous follower of the Ivory Nation, proselyting on campus, while the brothers went about the seamier business of cleaning up God’s world for His people.

  He’d loved her.

  And she’d loved him, too. For the first time ever, he’d known what love felt like. Known what it meant to have it in his home.

  In those first couple of years they’d never gone more than a night or two without making love. He, who’d had all the sex there was to have, wanted only one woman. He couldn’t get enough of her. No matter how often Amanda spread her legs, no matter how long they were together, he always felt blessed by her beauty.

  She’d been so much more than sex. She’d been his companion. A believer in his cause. A missionary.

  She’d been a true daughter of God.

  Bobby had seen the Lord’s work in Amanda’s ability to reach people, her soft voice and big eyes touching their hearts in a way Bobby couldn’t. She could convince a crowd of undergrads at the college, or a roomful of executives at a business meeting, that giving money to support their work, to support certain political candidates, was something they wanted to do.

  And she’d done so willingly. In the beginning, she’d begged him to let her help make a difference in this dirty, evil world.

  And then she’d conceived a pure white child and he’d had to have her twice a day sometimes. When he looked at his woman pregnant with another of God’s pure souls, his cock wouldn’t be still.

  He’d insisted on delivering Luke himself. Nothing would ever compare to the power and love he’d felt as he’d reached up and pulled out their perfect boy. He’d bawled like a baby.

  In the months that had followed, he’d been there as his beautiful and loyal woman had suckled their infant, nourishing Luke through the miracle of her body. He’d held her breast while their son fed, and fed himself on the leftovers.

  And he’d cried then, too, giving thanks for his changed life: from drinking tainted water to supping on God’s nectar.

  The blinking cursor brought Bobby back to the air-conditioned room. The house was far too quiet. Too dark and foreboding. This was no longer the house of love he’d built.

  And he was no longer just lonely, worried and angry. He was also uncomfortably turned on. Bobby knew what he had to do.

  The same thing he’d been doing since Amanda’s defection two years before. He couldn’t bed another woman. He couldn’t be untrue to her memory.

  God had made that clear to him when He’d told Bobby he’d have to give up Amanda. That He needed Bobby to make the supreme sacrifice.

  He’d made Bobby promise that he’d never tarnish the memory of the love he and Amanda had shared by coupling with another woman.

  And bedding a man would be a sin. God was very plain about that one.

  With a couple of clicks, Bobby was in a private live chat, his Web camera aimed and ready.

  And a minute later his screen revealed the naked body of an attractive woman named Jane, her glorious red hair and welcoming smile familiar as her voice filled the cold room with a warmth he was eager to enjoy.

  He used the camera to show her that he was following her orders, while he watched her pleasure herself. The illusion they were creating washed over him, soothing him, giving him a few minutes o
f escape.

  And hopefully enough of a release to be able to sleep.

  6

  B rian looked at his watch. Almost two in the morning. Once again, he’d had no concept of the time. “It’s late.”

  “I know.”

  “I told Cynthia not to worry if I didn’t make it home.”

  Hannah sat up and wrapped her arms around her middle. She’d never changed out of the navy skirt and jacket she’d worn to court that day. Suits were pretty much all he saw her in anymore. “No, Brian, go,” she said. “I really appreciate you staying this long, but I’m a big girl who’s been living alone for years. Most of my life, really. I’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” he said, but still didn’t intend to leave. “Just as I don’t doubt that if the situation were reversed, there’s no way you’d let me stay by myself.”

  “I…”

  “My folks and Cara’s were around after Cara died, but if they hadn’t been, you’d have stayed, wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course, but…”

  “And last year, with Carlos…” He’d avoided the name, mostly because he knew that her emotional reaction to Callie’s death was worsened by the grief she’d already been fighting. “I never would have left that night if Joan, Maggie and Donna hadn’t been here.”

  Joan had been a sorority sister from ASU, as well, though a year behind Hannah and Cara. Maggie and Donna were fellow judges Hannah had known for several years, though he’d only met them at Carlos’s funeral.

  “Cara and Carlos were people, Brian. Callie’s a cat. People lose pets every day. You expect to lose them. Their lives are much shorter than ours.”

  “Hers shouldn’t have ended yet. And expecting to lose them doesn’t make it any easier when it happens, does it?” He threw her own words back at her.

  He wasn’t leaving. No matter what she said. Ever since her drug-addicted mother had lost her to the foster system sometime in Hannah’s early youth, Hannah had been alone. He knew the story.

  She’d taken care of herself. Survived.

  But tonight, Hannah’s eyes were communicating something else.

  Tonight, Hannah Montgomery was afraid to be alone.

  “Can I ask you something?” Hannah had no idea how late it was. A long time after their two o’clock check, but there was no hint of dawn through the window blinds. She’d taken off her sandals and jacket.

  “Of course.” Brian had stripped down, too. Sort of. He’d lost the tie. And taken off his shoes when he’d put his feet up on the couch. Though they sat close together, their legs weren’t touching.

  She and Brian rarely touched—except for the occasional supportive hug or hand squeeze.

  “Do you think there’s something wrong with me?” It was a leading question. She’d known that before she asked.

  Even so, his answer mattered.

  “What kind of wrong? Like do I think you should take a sleeping pill and get some rest—that kind of wrong? Or do you look like you’re getting the flu kind of wrong?”

  He knew what she meant. She could tell from the way he wasn’t meeting her eyes.

  She should just let it go. Soul searching wasn’t a common practice with either of them. They both had too much baggage. To look was to hurt. Period.

  But it was almost morning and she hadn’t been to bed. Overwhelmed by exhaustion, both physical and emotional, she wasn’t herself.

  She studied him through eyes that burned with fatigue. Brian’s features were strong, confident. But it was his mouth that drew her. It turned up just a hint at the corners, with full lips that smiled easily. They seemed to promise comfort. To promise that everything would be okay.

  Must be what his patients’ parents saw every day.

  “I’ve been caregiver only three times in my entire life…” She broke off when she heard how far back into her thoughts she’d gone; she’d intended to leave most of the hell unvisited.

  “Jason and Carlos. And Callie?”

  “Right.” God, how she hurt. How she’d always hurt. “And all three of them died younger than they should have.”

  Brian sat up on the couch. “If you think—”

  Raising one hand, Hannah shook her head. She didn’t need him to tell her the deaths weren’t her fault. She’d already been over the facts a thousand times.

  “I know they didn’t die because of me.” She wanted to make that quite clear. “I mean, I could hardly be responsible for Jason’s cancer when he was diagnosed before we even met. But he was in remission when I met him. His prognosis was the best it had ever been. There was honest-to-goodness hope.”

  Brian stared at her. “And?”

  For a second, she’d forgotten she was talking to a doctor. A pragmatist. When she’d first known Brian, he’d been an undergrad at Arizona State University slightly full of himself, and a little fonder of partying than she was.

  “I wore him out,” she said. “He wanted to make love all the time and I knew it wasn’t good for him, that the doctor said he had to take it easy, give his body a chance to build the antibodies it needed…”

  “I don’t think he’d have put it quite like that,” Brian said. “And while there’s a lot to be said for rest, there’s even more to be said for the power of the mind in combating some of these diseases. You being there with Jason—making him happy—probably gave him months he wouldn’t otherwise have had.”

  Brian was a very sweet man. A good friend. The best.

  “And I’m guessing, from everything you’ve told me about him, from everything Cara said, having you there in the end—an end that was inevitable—made those days priceless for him.”

  “I made it hard for him to go,” she said now, remembering when Jason had lain in her arms, weak and in excruciating pain, in tears because he was going to die and she would have to face a life without him. In the end, the dream that he’d reiterated time and again, that he wanted her to fall in love, have a family, be happy, had fallen apart and he’d begged her to swear she wouldn’t give another man what she’d given him.

  Wanting to calm his panic, she’d made the promise they’d both known she wasn’t likely to keep.

  That had hurt him, too.

  “And we both know that you took excellent care of Carlos.”

  “Jason and I tried to have a child,” she said. Something she’d never told anyone before. “Our whole marriage. That’s why he wanted to make love so often.”

  “You sure it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that he had a beautiful woman he adored in his bed?”

  She might’ve been embarrassed if she hadn’t felt exhausted. If this had been someone besides Brian.

  “I wanted so badly to be able to have his child. I think it would’ve comforted him to know that whatever life I built would always include a part of him.”

  “It will anyway,” Brian said, his face serious. “The best part. He taught you how to love fully.”

  Maybe. Probably. “Still, such a simple thing, getting pregnant, and I couldn’t even do that.”

  “I’m sure the doctors told you that Jason’s medication made him sterile.”

  “There was a slight chance he could still…”

  “Very slight. Miraculously slight. Like a vasectomy reversing itself.”

  “It happens.” Or maybe that was just an old wives’ tale.

  “Your lack of conception had nothing to do with you, Hannah.” Brian’s voice was firm. “And neither did Carlos’s death.”

  “I laid him on his tummy.”

  Brian’s sigh spoke volumes. They’d been through all this before. Carlos had been sick to his stomach and she hadn’t wanted him to spit up and choke. That night, the risk of SIDS seemed far less than the risk of asphyxiation. That’s what Brian had told her several times over the past months.

  But she needed to say this.

  “And look at Callie,” she continued, her case gaining strength as she presented it. “What kind of caregiver gets so involved in her own life,
in a trial, that she doesn’t notice her declawed and completely cowardly cat slipping out the door with her?”

  “You’re human, Hannah. And we don’t know for sure that’s how it happened.”

  “If we’re going to believe there was no foul play, which everyone seems to, then we have to assume I let her out.”

  His sigh, this time, sounded more resigned. “Like I said, you’re human. She’s never slipped out before has she? From what I’ve seen, she ran and hid whenever you picked up your keys.”

  “She did. She hated riding in the car.”

  “And you had her eleven years.”

  She nodded.

  “So having her slip out would be the last thing you’d expect. Or even watch for.”

  “Parents have to be on guard at all times. They have to expect the unexpected.”

  “And you did. I’ve never seen a more involved, conscientious and yet fun parent as you.”

  Being Carlos’s mother had been fun. She’d managed to keep both promises she’d made to Jason—she had a family and was happy, but had fallen in love again, too—albeit differently.

  And then one morning, it hadn’t been fun at all. She’d gone in to check on her sleeping son before her shower and found him oddly still….

  “I should’ve known.”

  How could she have been blissfully asleep when her baby was dying across the hall? How could she have lain in bed for five minutes after she finally woke, stretching, anticipating the day ahead, with a dead baby in the next room?

  “There’s no way you could’ve known—”

  “Instinct.” She pounded on the one thing that no one could ever prove to her. Or disprove. “Motherly instinct,” she clarified. “I don’t think I have it. I don’t know how to nurture.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Hannah blinked. The Brian she’d known in college might have said that. Not this one.

  “Think about it, Brian. Think about where I came from. The first three months of my life I wasn’t held, fed, changed on a regular basis. By the time Child Protective Services got me, I was suffering from malnutrition and God knows what kind of skin conditions. I knew my guardian ad litem better than some of my foster families. I missed a vital part of my emotional education.”