Tommy's Mom

by Linda O. Johnston

  When she had called Tommy and him inside, he had noticed the pallor of her skin, the anguished, glazed look in her eyes. She looked the same now, almost an hour later. He hated to see her so upset. He wasn’t leaving until he knew what was wrong.

  She hesitated. “I got a phone call while you were outside.”

  “Who from?”

  “I don’t know!” Tears rushed to her eyes. He instinctively pulled her close. She trembled, and he held her even tighter, dipping his head so it rested on her soft and clean-scented hair.

  Apricots. She smelled like apricots.

  But then she drew back. “Sorry,” she whispered. She visibly pulled herself together. “Can you stay while I explain?”

  He nodded and followed her back into the kitchen, flexing his hands. They ached. Not with pain. Oh, no. That would have been acceptable.

  No, they were stupid enough to want to hold her again.

  “Would you like some coffee?” she asked brightly.

  The last time she had offered decaf this late. The caffeine jolt of real coffee might knock some sense into him. It didn’t matter which he drank, though. He accepted because it would be easier for her to speak if she did something productive. “Thanks. Now tell me about the call.”

  In an offhand voice, as if she talked about the weather at the beach that day, she described the mechanical voice and what it had said. But her jerky motions as she poured water and scooped grounds for coffee told him how hard this was.

  Her anguish fired his fury.

  He had wondered earlier if she knew something she wasn’t telling. That could still be true. But he didn’t doubt she’d received a call that had frightened her. Her terror was real.

  When she was done, he went to the phone and slammed in *69, to dial the number from which the last call was received. After ten rings, an irritated, non-mechanical voice answered. He’d reached a pay phone near a bus stop at the edge of Naranja Beach. Gabe forced himself to hang up gently.

  Holly sighed at the news. “I didn’t imagine it would be that easy.”

  “What was the person who called referring to?” Gabe demanded. “What did Thomas leave?”

  She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know.” She looked as needy as her small son had when he first woke from his nap.

  Was she lying? Gabe didn’t think so. He wished whoever made that damned call was right there, so he could practice restraint techniques on the son of a bitch. Hard.

  “We’ll figure this out,” he assured Holly. “Where would Thomas have kept something he didn’t want you to know about?”

  Her mouth opened as if in protest, then closed again. Did she think her husband would never have kept secrets from her? Her naiveté irritated Gabe—but not as much as the idea she’d been that close to Thomas Poston.

  Fool. He was her husband. Her loving husband.

  “I began going through the things in his study the other night,” she told him.

  “Let’s start there.”

  Gabe followed her down the hall. She pushed open a door that had been closed each time Gabe had been here.

  The small room was clearly a man’s study, containing only a scratched desk, a worn leather chair on rollers, a small television on a stand and computer on its own cart with wheels. There were papers everywhere. He followed Holly inside.

  When she reached the desk, she cried out, as if in alarm.

  “What’s wrong?” Gabe demanded.

  When she looked at him, her eyes were fearful once more. She gestured toward the messy desktop, which was strewn with papers, folders and magazines. “I—I came in here the other night when I couldn’t sleep. I started going through things but realized how monumental a task it was. All I accomplished was to put everything on Thomas’s desk in neat piles.”

  He glanced at the disorganized heap to which she pointed. “Who else has been in here?”

  “No one has been alone in the house except Tommy and me, and Tommy learned a long time ago that this room is off-limits. Someone—I’m afraid someone has broken into my house.”

  HOLLY MADE HERSELF remain calm as Gabe and she went from room to room, making certain nothing had been stolen.

  She hadn’t much of value to anyone else. The place settings of silver flatware that her parents had given Thomas and her as a wedding present were still in the dining room hutch, and so was her good china. Nothing electronic like TVs or Thomas’s computer appeared to have been tampered with.

  As far as she could tell, the only thing the intruder had done was to mess up Thomas’s desk.

  “You didn’t leave a window open in here, did you?” Gabe asked when they returned to the office.

  She shook her head. “I’ve kept this room closed up since Thomas’s death.”

  “I’ll get an investigative team here right away,” he said. “Maybe we’ll find prints or other evidence. This and the doll have to be connected to Thomas’s murder.”

  They returned to the kitchen, where she poured them both some coffee. A while later, the doorbell rang, and a crime scene team came in, led by a detective named Jimmy Hernandez, who looked familiar to Holly. After Gabe introduced them, Holly stayed in the office while they went through things, took fingerprints, picked up other small things she couldn’t discern in tweezers and placed them in plastic bags—hairs, she supposed.

  She made certain they didn’t remove any papers. She had to go through things herself later to see if she could figure out what the caller could have been talking about.

  Would she even know it if she came across it? How could she, with so little to go on? But she would have to try. Tonight, after Gabe had gone. She wouldn’t sleep well anyway. And she had to know. Had to get this terror to stop.

  When the crime scene team finished, Gabe stood inside the doorway with her after letting them out. She figured he would say his goodbyes, then leave.

  Instead, he dropped a bombshell.

  “Holly, I’m staying here tonight.”

  GABE SAW THE SHOCK register on Holly’s face. And then her determination to tell him no.

  He forestalled it. “You got a threatening phone call. That person could call again. Do you want to talk to him or her?”

  “Of course not, but even if you stay the night, you won’t be here forever. And the person might only get angry if I look like I’ve called in the police.”

  “You’re a police officer’s widow. Of course you’d call them in. And I repeat—do you want to talk to that person?”

  “No.” Holly’s slender shoulders sagged. His heart went out to her, but he couldn’t let up. He had a case to solve. Two cases. And whether or not she assisted him willingly, he was damn well going to protect Holly Poston and her son.

  “Even worse than the phone call, someone has been in this house. Do you know when? How he or she got in?”

  “No.” This time the word sounded anguished. She took a step away as if he had struck her. But then she asked quietly, “Do you think he’ll be back? I’m going to assume it’s a man, because—because I just can’t imagine a woman so menacing.”

  Gabe didn’t contradict her. “Yes,” he said calmly, but with all the brutality that small word implied. “I believe he’ll be back. He wants something. He sent Tommy that doll to scare you both. He broke into your house and didn’t clean up, wanted you to realize he was here. He threatened you. So, yes, we have to assume he hasn’t gone away. That’s why I’m staying the night.”

  “All right,” she said finally, very softly.

  Perhaps he should have felt triumph at this capitulation. Instead, he felt like the biggest bully on all the state’s law enforcement agencies.

  HOLLY WATCHED out the front door as Gabe pulled his blue Mustang into her driveway. It had to be his personal car. She had seen him driving a sedate sedan, too, probably N.B.P.D.-issued.

  He didn’t come right into the house, but seemed to check something in the car.

  He glanced up and caught her eye. And scowled. No doubt he didn�
�t like her standing backlighted in the doorway—a target.

  But the creep who’d threatened them wasn’t likely to shoot her where she stood. He had been more insidious, scaring her son and attempting to intimidate her.

  And succeeding.

  With a sigh, she withdrew into the house. In a moment, Gabe joined her.

  “I’ve already changed the sheets on the bed in—” She stopped.

  He obviously misinterpreted her sudden silence. “If you haven’t, that’s fine. I can do it myself or else stay on the sofa downstairs.”

  She nearly laughed. She loved the overstuffed beige sofa in the living room. It was not only attractive, but it was one of the most comfortable pieces of furniture she had ever owned.

  But she surveyed Gabe’s broad and tall physique, catching the amused look in his eye. She flushed. Obviously, he wasn’t reading her mind. She wasn’t admiring him— Well, yes she was. But she was also assessing his proportions.

  Though her sofa was fair-sized, Gabe’s large body would be excruciatingly uncomfortable on it. And how much good would he do Tommy and her if he awakened with muscles too stiff to move?

  But to allow him to sleep in the empty bedroom… That would mean she had to reveal something personal. Very personal.

  She steeled herself, noticing the way Gabe’s gaze shot unspoken questions. “I’ve already changed the sheets on the bed in Thomas’s room upstairs. It’s not very sentimental, I know, but even though I miss him, I’m not a person who subscribes to hanging onto a deceased loved one’s old unwashed sheets and towels as if that somehow keeps them closer.”

  Gabe’s suddenly blank expression signaled he’d gotten her unspoken message. Thomas’s room. Not their room. She felt embarrassed, as if she had been describing her total failure as a cop’s wife.

  Well, she had been. No getting around that.

  And Thomas and she hadn’t shared a bedroom for over a year. Nor a bed.

  “I understand,” Gabe said. She chose to interpret that as his acknowledging she was permitted to deal with her grief her own way, eschewing sentimentality if she wanted.

  Not as acknowledging that he somehow understood the failure of her marriage in all but its legality. How could he? Not even she did.

  “I should sleep upstairs. It’s smarter for me to stay near the people I’m taking care of.” His tone was gentle. Too gentle.

  It made Holly consider crying—from mortification about her failure, from grief that her marriage was a farce, and that, even though she was sorry Thomas was dead, she couldn’t grieve for him like a good wife should.

  “Fine,” she said brusquely. “Come upstairs, and I’ll show you your room.”

  He followed at a reasonable distance, yet she felt his presence behind her as if he helped her up the steps.

  Thomas’s room was the one past Tommy’s. Holly’s was across the hall. She had the master bedroom, with a bathroom attached.

  “This is where you’ll stay,” she said brightly, opening the door to Thomas’s room. As Gabe looked inside, she reached into the linen closet along the hallway and extracted a set of bright yellow towels and a washcloth. “That’s the bathroom you’ll use. I’ll leave these on the counter.” She set the towels on the brown and gold tile. “If you need anything else, just ask.”

  “I will. Thank you, Holly.”

  She turned to head across the hall to her own bedroom, but she felt his touch on her arm.

  “You’ll be fine, I promise. Both Tommy and you.” His deep green eyes regarded her with such frank assurance that they made her feel safe.

  No, not safe. Anything but safe, with this large, handsome cop standing so near her bedroom door, after she had been so lonely for so long….

  She tried to tear her stare away. He smiled. His even, angular features softened just a little. Lord, but he looked irresistible.

  Except to her.

  She noticed how much his broad jaw and sculptured cheeks were shadowed, this late at night, with the unremitting growth of his dark beard. She wondered what he would do in the morning—go home to shave?

  “Good night, Holly.” There was a huskiness to his tone. No wonder; she saw a flicker of desire in his eyes.

  It ignited an answering flame inside her. No, this was wrong.

  “Good night,” she said firmly. But his touch was still on her arm, and he tightened it ever so slightly.

  How did she get wrapped in his arms? Had she moved? Had he?

  It didn’t matter. She tipped her chin up to receive his kiss.

  His lips moved very gently over hers, as if all he intended was the most detached of good-night kisses. But her own mouth wasn’t as restrained. She kissed him back, using her hand at the back of his head to hold his head down to hers.

  This was their second kiss. Heavens, how seductive it was! His lips ground down on hers. She tasted him, let her tongue enter his mouth as he drew it in and touched it with his own.

  She pressed the lower part of her body against his, tightly. Hard. He was hard—there, down below. She moaned—until she realized that there were two places of hardness: one very natural. One very unnerving.

  A gun. That must have been what he was doing in his car. He wasn’t wearing the shoulder holster she’d seen on him before, but he must have retrieved his gun. Cops always carried guns.

  And she knew better than to kiss a cop.

  Quickly, she pulled away. She let her gaze rove down his shirt to his snug jeans and the two bulges—one not in front but at the side.

  And then she looked back up at him.

  He was breathing heavily, and his smile was rueful. “Sorry, Holly,” he said. “I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”

  She heard a dual meaning in his words: no one outside would hurt Tommy or her.

  And he would not touch her again.

  “Good night, Gabe,” she managed to say, and then she fled into the safety of her own room.

  GABE WOKE AT DAWN the next morning and sat up in the bed that had once belonged to Thomas Poston.

  Had Holly and Thomas ever made love in it?

  Why had they had separate bedrooms? Not that it was his business.

  The glow of morning streamed in between the mini-blinds at the windows, and Gabe studied the room. With its austere wooden furniture and little to show it had been occupied, the small bedroom lacked the hominess of the rest of the house. Lacked what Gabe assumed to be Holly’s touch.

  Maybe she hadn’t spent much time here. But that didn’t mean Thomas hadn’t spent a lot of time in Holly’s room.

  With a growl, Gabe threw off the sheet and got out of bed. He had slept well, considering that he’d kept his ears alert for anything other than sounds that were normal to this house: a breeze blowing through open upstairs windows, the electrical hum of the clock radio and refrigerator, distant freeway traffic. This street was too far from the ocean to hear the waves—unlike Gabe’s own overpriced apartment just a couple of blocks from the beach.

  He’d heard none of the noises he had been prepared to deal with: no intruders. Not even a ringing phone.

  There had, though, been an occasional moan from Tommy’s room. Once, he rose from bed to check on the boy. But Tommy seemed to be sound asleep, peaceful, and nightmare free.

  He had heard Holly get up three times and pad softly down the hall to her son’s room. He had considered joining her, but discretion had won out over desire. He didn’t want to face that sexy, beautiful woman in the middle of the night. A woman he had foolishly kissed…again. A woman who had responded to him—but whose emotions were strung out to the limits with fear for her son and mourning her husband.

  A woman who, if she noticed Gabe at all, saw him as a convenience, a protector, a cop…but not, damn it, as a man.

  Gabe had slept in his boxers. He threw his shirt on, though left it unbuttoned, and went across the hall to the bathroom. Tommy was there, pulling up his pajama pants. “Hi, sport,” Gabe said softly. “You’re up early. Let’s let your
mama sleep in, okay?”

  Tommy nodded.

  Gabe wasn’t sure what to do with the boy, but Tommy showed him. He helped him wash his face, brush his teeth and comb his hair. They returned to his bedroom and Tommy picked out the clothes he wanted to wear that day. After helping him dress, Gabe told Tommy they were going to play a game that required him to stay upstairs till Gabe came back for him.

  He took a quick look around downstairs to assure himself the house was secure. He went back for Tommy and settled him at the kitchen table with a glass of milk and a bowl of dry kids’ cereal while he went upstairs to shower. His shave would have to wait.

  He dressed in the clothes he’d worn the day before, thrust the gun that had been in easy reach all night back into his pocket. Of course he’d needed to carry it. But if Holly hadn’t felt it…

  No use thinking about that. He suspected it wouldn’t be the last time his body would crave more from Holly Poston than his intellect would allow.

  When he returned downstairs, Holly was seated with Tommy at the wooden table. Her robe was a bright green that contrasted becomingly with her brunette hair and light complexion. When she saw him, the smile on her full lips lit the room brighter than the daylight cascading through the kitchen windows. “Thanks for taking care of Tommy,” she said. She appeared well-rested despite her nighttime forays to check on her son, and the dark circles he’d noticed before beneath her sparkling brown eyes had nearly evaporated.

  “He took care of me,” Gabe protested good-naturedly. “Showed me where everything was. He’s a great kid.”

  Tommy, holding a spoon of colorful sugar-coated cereal nearly at his mouth, grinned up at him with a milk mustache.

  “Glad you’re awake, Holly,” Gabe continued. “I need to get on my way. I have to stop at my place before I head for the office.” He rubbed his stubbled chin. “What are your plans for the day?”

  He caught her flash of annoyance at his intrusive question. This was his business, even if she didn’t want it to be.