The kid started blubbering, a state in which he remained until the police came and relieved Angel of her robber-sitting duties. Hank said they'd better believe he'd swear out a statement, after which followed some good-ole-boy shoulder-clapping and the kid was dutifully dragged off to the county jail and, presumably, his one phone call.
During this time, Jenna had been leaning against the front counter, her arms crossed tightly over her ribs, riding out the violent shudders periodically wracking her body. She nearly jumped out of her skin when Ugly Cat rubbed up against her shins. Terrific. Now the thing deigns to acknowledge her presence.
Angel waddled behind the counter, dusting off her prodigious behind and looking none the worse for wear as she gave Jenna the once-over. "You don't look so good, honey," she said—a gross understatement if ever there was one—as Hank, who'd disappeared into the bowels of the tiny store, reappeared with what looked like Angel's entire stock of Godiva ice cream.
"Looks like she got three or four bottles of Boone's Farm, too," he said, calmly pulling his wallet out of his back pocket, "So go ahead and add that in. You want me to clean up the mess?"
"Nah," Angel said, entering figures into the cash register. "I'm gonna close up now, anyway. I'll get it. That'll be thirty-three sixty-seven, with tax. Damn, wouldja look at that?" She proffered one chubby hand for Jenna's inspection. "Popped one of my acrylics right off."
Hank forked over a pair of twenties, Angel plopped the six cartons of ice cream into a bag and gave him his change, they traded speculations on how soon it might rain again, and Hank ushered Jenna back out into the muggy night air.
She made it as far as the edge of the parking lot before she fell apart.
* * *
Hank let the bag drop to the ground and wrapped Jenna in his arms, shushing her and repeating over and over that it was okay, nobody got hurt, there was nothing to be afraid of. But Lord Almighty, it'd been a long time since he'd heard a woman cry this hard, great, gulping sobs like she couldn't catch her breath.
"You c-could've been k-k-killed," she said, clinging to him like a baby possum and shaking so bad he wasn't sure how she was standing.
"Honey, I was in more danger from that damn cat than I ever was from Billy—"
"But I didn't know that! You d-didn't know that." She lifted her tear-streaked face to his. "When he turned that gun on you…oh, God, I'm so sorry…it was stupid, I know, throwing something like that—"
"It's okay, honey, you done good. Here…" He slipped her purse off her shoulder and clicked it open, hoping she had tissues inside. She did. He handed her one, which for some reason provoked a fresh wave of tears. "Hey," he said gently, "it's over." Clasping her shoulders, he bent slightly at the knees to peer into her face. "I know it was scary for a minute there—believe me, that little do-si-do didn't do my blood pressure any good, either—but the good guys won. And God willing, Billy Gundersen got the bejeezus scared out of him before he gets any ideas about using a real gun next time."
She blew her nose, then folded her arms tightly across her stomach, not looking at him. Her lower lip still trembled, though, which just tore him up inside. A second later, she turned and started down the road. Not like she was running away, exactly, but not like she wanted to hear any more of what she obviously thought was B.S., either.
Hank sighed, grabbed the bag with the ice cream, and easily caught up to her. "Jen—?"
She whipped around so fast he had to take a step back. "You pulled that little stunt to make up for what you couldn't do for Michelle, didn't you?"
"What? Where the hell'd that come from?"
"You couldn't catch whoever killed your fiancée, so you saw this as some sort of opportunity to atone for that."
"All I saw was a jerk with a gun who needed to be stopped before somebody got hurt! I'm a cop, Jenna. Taking out the bad guys is what I was trained to do." At the skepticism in her eyes, he said, "Okay, fine, maybe it felt good to win one. So sue me. But what happened in there had nothing to do with Michelle. A year, maybe even a month ago, yeah…the idea of getting even might've crossed my mind. But not anymore."
"Why? What happened a month ago?"
"This pair of ornery females showed up in town and knocked my life right on its sorry butt. And in the process," he continued when she averted her gaze, like she couldn't bear to look at him, "got me to rethink the way I was looking at a few things. So believe me, what I did tonight had nothing to do with trying to fix the past. Except…when it was over, it was like…"
He stopped, fighting for words he wasn't sure were there. But he needed to make her understand. Hell, he needed to make himself understand what had taken place tonight. Not back at the Git 'n' Go, but inside his head.
Maybe walking would help jar a few things loose. And besides, if they didn't get this ice cream in a freezer within the next twenty minutes, that was more'n twenty bucks down the drain. So he started down the road, trusting Jenna would at least follow, his muscles relaxing some when she did.
"Look, I was totally nuts for weeks after Michelle's death," he said. "Even though I wasn't on the scene when she was shot, it didn't take much for me to picture it. If I'd've caught her killer? I wouldn't've thought twice about wasting him. And I made good and sure everybody and his dog knew it."
She glanced over at him, then back away. "I doubt anyone blamed you for feeling that way," she said quietly, her voice still unsteady.
"Nobody did. But one of the reasons the force shrink suggested I go on leave was because he said I might have something like flashbacks if I got in a similar situation, which could lead to me doing something stupid. Okay, I thought, six months. Until I calmed down. Thing was, though, I didn't. If anything, the more time passed, the madder and more frustrated I got. So I finally turned in my resignation."
He stopped when they came to a crossroads, watching Jenna's face while they waited for somebody's SUV to rumble through the intersection. "Tonight was like a test I wasn't expecting. But as mad as I was at that punk, I didn't lose it. My adrenaline level might've gone through the roof, but I was definitely focused on the moment. In control." He gave a humorless chuckle. "As much as you can be in control of a loose cannon, anyway."
She didn't say anything; they crossed the road and kept going. And so did Hank. "And not once did I feel like I was in some kind of déjù-vu situation. You know, with you?" he said when she shot a puzzled glance at him. "Different situations, different people. Different outcomes. In other words," he said softly, "if there's an upside to what happened tonight, it's that now I'm sure."
"Of what?"
"That I'm ready." When she looked over at him, her brow creased, he added, "Before tonight, the thought of wanting you scared the hell out of me. Now it doesn't."
She returned her attention to the road, her lack of comment provoking Hank into saying, "You're thinking too hard."
"I've never been through anything like that," she said, sounding like she was running on half power, which in turn gave Hank a real bad feeling. "I'm allowed."
They continued on toward the Double Arrow in silence for a bit until she said, "I don't suppose Angel put a spoon in that bag by any chance, did she?"
"Hold on, let me check." Hank poked around in the bag for a sec, then chuckled. "Damned if she didn't. Which one of these you want?"
"Whatever's handy. I'm not picky."
He handed over one of the cartons and the spoon; she removed the top and stuck it on the bottom like a saucer, then dug in. Three or four bites later, she said, "So. You ready to go back? To being a cop?"
"Nope," he said, a little surprised at that, to be honest. "What would be the point? That's a phase of my life that's definitely over."
She spooned in another bite. "So now what?"
Ah, hell. The conversation had just taken one of those turns he hated with a passion, where all he knew was that it had taken a turn, but damned if he had a clue where it was headed. They reached the motel, turning down the path that led to the c
ottages. "Dunno. I kind of enjoyed fixin' up the Arrow. Maybe I'll sell up and start a restoration business. Maybe I'll just keep running the Arrow. Or expand it, you know, turn it into something more—" he grinned "—upscale."
"You'd be happy with that?"
He shrugged. "Why not? Hadn't thought about it until just this minute—" which was true "—but it's another way of takin' care of folks, right?"
"Loners don't make very good caretakers, Hank."
"Another phase of my life that's done with," he said deliberately, then looked over, trying to read her expression in the moonlight as they approached her cottage. He couldn't. But he wasn't so thick that he hadn't picked up on a change in her attitude about things, about them, a change that obviously had something to do with what had just happened but that went way beyond it, too. Unless he was mistaken, unless he did something real quick, the window of opportunity for them was about to come crashing down.
She turned to him when they got to the porch steps, holding the ice cream in front of her like a shield. Apologies flickered in her eyes as about a million moths pinged off the porch light, too dumb to recognize a lost cause when they saw it.
Hank liked to believe he was at least smarter than the average moth.
"You still thinking?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"About?"
She sighed, her smile sad. "Couldn't tell you. It's as if there are all these bits and pieces of ideas floating around, but nothing connects with anything else. I just…I just need some time to be alone. To sort some things out."
Hank slipped his free arm around her waist and pulled her close, planting a kiss in her pretty dyed hair. "And maybe you should forget about thinking for tonight and just try and get some sleep. Plenty of time for figuring things out tomorrow."
She rubbed her cheek against his chest. "I know this wasn't what you had in mind for tonight."
"Neither was disarming an idiot teenager. But there will be other nights. And mornings." He let her go, then handed over the rest of the ice cream. "I'll bring breakfast. How's nine sound?"
"Actually, I…" He could see the refusal teetering on her lips. But at the last moment, she smiled and nodded. "Nine sounds great. Thanks."
She brushed her lips over his—a chaste, first-date kind of kiss—then he watched her go inside, not liking at all the way things suddenly felt unsettled. Not that they were exactly settled before, but at least there'd been progress.
And since when did he expect things to go without a hitch? Which is all this was—a hitch, a kink to work out. She was still shook up, was all. If she stayed that extra week, he had eight whole days to convince her she could trust whatever this was between them.
And if she didn't, he was screwed.
He walked back down the path to the office to check on things and pick up the dog. Six, no seven, cars were in the parking lot, all with out-of-state plates. Not bad. Word was getting out, at last. Danny was still in the office, sitting at the desk behind the counter with his feet up, listening to one of those new groups that all sounded the same to Hank. The kid scrambled to sit up straight when he saw Hank, as Mutt dashed out from behind the counter like Hank'd just arrived back from three years at sea.
Hank made over the beast for a second or two, then picked up the mail and began sorting through it. "Everything okay here?"
"Oh, yeah," Danny said, getting up, the light glinting off his spiked hair. And the single silver stud in his nose. He didn't dress crazy, though, so that was something. "Quiet as usual, although we got two more calls for cabins in August." Then he leaned forward. "Heard about the robbery over at the Git 'n' Go, though. Can't believe Billy Gundersen would be that dumb."
Hank looked up. "I won't even ask how you know."
Danny grinned. "Shoot, they haven't had anybody in jail since I was in the eighth grade. Big news. Heard his gun wasn't real, though."
"Nope."
"That make things better for him?"
"Not much."
"Good. About time something or somebody put the fear of God in that—"
"What's this?" Hank held up a note in Danny's skinny, nearly indecipherable handwriting, at the corner of which was stapled a very spiffy business card. Hinton Properties, it said.
"Oh, some guy came by today, said he was a developer out of Tulsa. Said his brother or somebody had stayed in one of the cottages a couple weeks back and really liked it, so this guy, Mr.—" Danny craned his head to read the card upside down "—Hinton asked if he could take a tour of the place. I couldn't get hold of you and didn't want to seem rude, so I said sure and showed him around. Then he asked if you might be interested in selling, but I told him I didn't know, he'd have to talk to you about it. So he said for you to get in touch with him as soon as possible and left his card."
"Huh." Hank took the note, folding it up and slipping it into his back pocket. Here he'd just been talking about possibly selling up, so…maybe this was a sign? After all, if he did sell, he guessed there'd be no reason for him not to move to D.C. to be near Blair. And Jenna, if things worked out. With his experience, he could maybe land a desk job on a force out there or something. Never mind that the thought, right at the moment, turned his stomach.
Lord, he was suddenly so tired, he could hardly move. If he didn't get himself to bed soon, Cherise was going to have to vacuum around him right there in the lobby come morning. Which wasn't an option, anyway, since, come morning, he had some serious courting to do. So he said goodnight, called Mutt and headed back toward the house, praying that Jenna's thinking wouldn't take her down any paths he couldn't follow.
* * *
"You mean, Hank just, like, grabbed the gun out of Billy Gundersen's hand?"
A piece of toast poised on its way to Blair's mouth, Jenna's niece sat across the dining table from her, eyes the size of the blue cornflowers that dotted the sides of the roads. This much enthusiasm, especially for something that had plagued Jenna's dreams all night long, she didn't need.
"Yeah," she said into her coffee. She was bathed, she was dressed, she was coiffed, but she still felt like something regurgitated. "Except it turned out not to be a real gun."
"What a dork," Blair said, munching. "Billy, I mean."
Jenna forced her gritty eyes to focus across the table. "Because the gun wasn't real?"
"N-o," Blair said, squeezing two syllables out of as many letters. "For doing something that lame to begin with." Then she apparently got a good look at Jenna's face. "Were you scared?"
"I wasn't exactly having a good time." She winced as another scalding sip of coffee went down her throat, then said, "I'm just glad you weren't with us."
"Oh, I dunno. It would've been cool to see Dad in action like that."
Jenna set down her mug with a soft thunk. "Dad?"
That got a shy, glittery grin and a half shrug. "I'm trying it out. To see how it fits, y'know?"
"Seems to fit pretty well from where I'm sitting," Jenna said with as much of a smile as she could manage this morning.
The grin widened. A second later, the sound of the Fraziers' van horn propelled her niece out of the chair. "Do I look okay?" she asked, twirling around to show off the new mini-dress they'd bought in Tulsa the day before. Libby had asked if Blair would like to come to Sunday School with them; to Jenna's surprise, Blair seemed keen on the idea.
"You look great," she said. "Even if I wouldn't mind seeing another three inches of fabric on that dress."
That got a "Jen-na" and a kiss on the cheek before Blair clomped over to the door. Just before she opened it, however, she turned back, looking a little sheepish. "Y'know, I kinda wish we didn't have to go back right away. I mean, couldn't we stay just a few more days?"
"Not this time, sweetie," Jenna said, feeling as if something cold and nasty had crawled inside her to die. "But you'll be back to visit. Thanksgiving, maybe."
"Thanksgiving?" Blair frowned. "But I thought…" At Jenna's lifted brows, she added, "I mean…the way you and Dad have b
een acting around each other, I kinda thought…you know. That you'd get together."
"Excuse me? I thought that was the last thing you wanted."
"Yeah, well. Maybe it wouldn't be so awful."
Jenna blew out a stream of air, then shook her head. "Sorry to disappoint you, sweetie."
"But—"
"There's the horn again. Go on, you don't want to make them late." At Blair's crestfallen expression, Jenna said, "We'll talk later, okay?"
Blair stared at her for another second or two, then yanked open the door and stomped off, letting the screen bang shut behind her.
Great. There was a twist to things she hadn't expected. Now she could add disappointing Blair to her list of transgressions. Although Blair would get over it, she imagined. Hank, however…
His knock on her door made her jump out of her skin. She managed a reasonably steady, "Come in," standing and clearing away Blair's plate when he did. He'd brought Mickey D's, she noted with a wry smile. Ruby's was closed on Sundays.
He set the bag on the table and came into the kitchen, snaking an arm around her waist from behind and planting a kiss on her temple. She managed not to flinch, even though her heart did.
"Where's my kid?" He let go, thank God, plucking a mug from the drainer and pouring himself a cup of coffee.
"Off to church with Libby et al.," she said, afraid to look at him. Afraid he'd see the truth in her eyes before she was ready.
"You tell her about last night?"
Jenna nodded, breathing a sigh of relief when he ambled back out to the table, emptying the bag of what she guessed were Egg McMuffins and hash browns. The smell wasn't doing a thing for her nervous stomach. "She thinks you're cool and Billy Gundersen's a dork."
"Guess I should be grateful it's not the other way around," he said, settling in at the table. "So she went to church, huh?" She heard him take a gulp of coffee. "Guess I should think about going back, then."
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