by Nora Roberts
Chapter Thirty-Four
“Are you sure you’re going to be all right?”
“Yes.” Emma gave Marianne’s hand a squeeze as they walked toward the gate at LAX. “I’m going to be fine. I’m just going to take a few more days to, well, let myself settle.”
“You know I’d stay.”
“I know.” This time the squeeze of a hand wasn’t enough. Emma turned and hugged her. “I wouldn’t have been able to go through with this on my own.”
“Yes, you would have. You’re stronger than you think. Didn’t you cancel the credit cards, close the bank accounts, and have the accountant play hide the money?”
“Your ideas.”
“That’s only because you weren’t thinking of practical matters. I wasn’t going to see that bastard get a penny. I still think you should talk to the police.”
Emma only shook her head. She was just beginning to believe she might get her pride back. Involving the police, the press, the public, would only heap humiliation on top of humiliation.
“All right, not yet,” Marianne said, though she had no intention of seeing Drew waltz away unscathed. “You’re sure the accountant will keep his mouth shut, about where you are?”
“Yes. He’s my accountant after all. When I told him I was getting divorced, he went into action.” It was almost funny, if such things could be funny. “I suppose after dealing with boring trusts and such all these years, he was excited by a fat, complicated divorce.”
Divorce, she thought. It was such a huge word. Such a final one.
Marianne kept silent a moment while they walked. “He’s going to find out where you are sooner or later.”
“I know.” Instantly nerves replaced regret. “I just want it to be later, when I’m sure nothing he can say or do will make me go back with him.”
“See the lawyer,” Marianne urged. “Get it started.”
“As soon as your plane takes off.”
Marianne shuffled restlessly, then popped a Lifesaver in her mouth. It was getting so there was no place you could smoke in an airport. “Listen, Emma, it’s only been a couple weeks since—since we came out here. Are you sure you don’t want me to stay a few more days?”
“I want you to get back to your painting. I mean it,” she added before her friend could object. “When a Kennedy commissions your work, your reputation’s made. Go finish the painting before Caroline changes her mind.”
“You’ll call me.” Marianne heard the announcement for her flight. “Every day.”
“I will.” She clung for one last minute. “When this is behind me, I’m going to want my half of the loft back.”
“It’s yours. Unless I decide to marry that dentist and move to Long Island.”
“What dentist?”
“The one who wants me to have my roots planed.”
Her lips curved. It was becoming almost easy to smile. “That’s certainly a novel, and disgusting, approach.”
It was good, Marianne thought, to see Emma really smile again. “Yeah, maybe, but he’s got these big brown eyes. Hairy knuckles, though. I don’t know if I could fall in love with hairy knuckles.”
“Especially since he’d always be sticking them in your mouth. That’s your last boarding call.”
“You call me.”
“Absolutely.” She wasn’t going to cry. Emma promised herself she wasn’t going to. But they both were. With one final hug, Marianne raced off.
Emma waited by the gate, watching through the windows as the plane taxied back. She was alone now. On her own. Decisions, mistakes, opinions, were hers to make again. And it terrified her. It wasn’t so long ago, she thought, she had been on her own in London. That had been such an exciting, such a freeing, feeling. And she’d been in love.
She wasn’t in love now. That was one small blessing.
As she started back toward the terminal, she scanned the crowd, watchful, jittery. Moments before, she felt anonymous in the noise and hurry of the airport. Now, now that she was alone, she only felt vulnerable.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that Drew might be hidden somewhere in the crowd—there behind the family on their way to Phoenix, or there, among the businessmen waiting to board for Chicago. She kept her head lowered, nerves jumping as she passed a gift shop. He could be in there, idling by the magazine rack, biding his time. He would step out, smiling, saying her name, just before he put a hand on her shoulder in that way he had, fingers digging in, grinding against the bone. She had to force herself to keep moving forward, not to run back to the gate and beg them to stop the plane so Marianne could get off again.
“Emma.”
Her breath pushed out of her lungs, her knees buckled as a hand dropped to her shoulder.
“Emma? It is you.”
Dead white and dizzy with panic, she stared up at Michael. He was saying something, she could see his lips move, but couldn’t hear over the roaring in her head.
The pleasure died out of his face. Eyes narrowed, he pulled her to a chair. It seemed he could almost pour her into it, so boneless were her limbs. He waited until her rapid breathing slowed.
“Better?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”
“Do you always faint when you run into friends at airports?”
She managed what passed for a smile. “Bad habit of mine. You did startle me.”
“I could see that.”
“Startled” wasn’t the word, he thought. The word was “terrified.” She’d looked the same way when he’d dragged her to the surface of a wave over ten years before. “Will you wait here a minute? I’d better go let my parents know why I ran off on them.” When she only nodded, he repeated, “Wait.”
“Yes, I’ll wait.” It was an easy enough promise since she was sure her legs wouldn’t support her yet. Alone, she took long and careful breaths. She was already embarrassed enough and didn’t want to be a gibbering idiot when he returned. He was gone only moments, but she was confident she was in control again.
“So, where are you going?” she asked.
“Me? Nowhere. My mother’s got some kind of convention and Dad’s tagging along. I dropped them off because he doesn’t like to leave his car at the airport. Did you just get into town?”
“No, I’ve been here about two weeks. I was just seeing off a friend.”
“Here on business?”
“No. Well, yes and no.”
A flight had just deplaned. Streams of people marched by. She had to fight down fresh panic as she scanned for Drew.
“I’ve really got to go.”
“I’ll walk with you.” He didn’t offer his hand because he sensed her shying away from being touched. “So, you’re here with your husband?”
“No.” Her eyes shifted from side to side, ever watchful. “He’s in New York. We’ve …” She had to get used to saying it, to meaning it. “We’ve separated.”
“Oh.” He didn’t grin, at least not on the outside. “I’m sorry.” But he remembered her reaction when he’d come up behind her in the airport. “Amicably?”
“I hope so.” She shuddered. “Lord, they keep it cold in here.”
He opened his mouth to question. It wasn’t his place to pry, he reminded himself. Not into her marriage, or the ending of it. “How long do you plan to be in town?”
“I’m really not sure.”
“How about some lunch, or a drink?”
“I can’t. I have an appointment in an hour.”
“Have dinner with me, then.”
Her lips curved a little. She would have liked to have had dinner with a friend. “I’m trying to keep a low profile while I’m here. I haven’t been going to restaurants.”
“How about a backyard barbecue at my place?”
“Well, I—”
“Look, here’s my address.” Because he didn’t want to give her time to say no, he took out a card and scribbled on the back. “You can come by around seven and we’ll throw a couple of steaks on. Very low profile.”
She hadn’t realized how much she’d been dreading sitting in her room, picking at a room service meal, flipping channels on the television for company. “All right.”
He started to offer her a lift, but caught sight of a big white limo at the curb.
“Seven o’clock,” he repeated.
She sent him a last smile before they went their separate ways. Michael wondered if he could find a cleaning service at two o’clock on a Friday afternoon. Emma walked past the limo and took her place on line for cabs. Idly, she turned the card over.
DETECTIVE M. KESSELRING
HOMICIDE
With a shiver, she slipped it into her bag. Odd, she’d forgotten he was a cop. Like his father.
Michael stuffed two weeks’ worth of newspapers in the bedroom closet. His two twenty-gallon trash cans were already bulging. It was hard for him to believe that one man and one dog could accumulate so much garbage. And he was appalled that in a city like Los Angeles there wasn’t a single cleaning service to be had on a Friday afternoon.
He tackled the kitchen first with the bottle of Top Job he’d borrowed from a neighbor. The house smelled like a pine forest, but it couldn’t be helped. Then Michael lured Conroy into the bathroom with a slice of bologna. When he stepped naked into the tub and dangled it, the dog hesitated. They both knew bologna was a weakness. The moment the dog leaped into the tub, Michael slid the glass doors closed.
“Grin and bear it, pal,” Michael suggested as Conroy bristled with indignation.
It took a half bottle of shampoo, but Conroy bore up like a soldier. He did howl occasionally, but that could have been in response to Michael’s singing. When they were both wrapped in towels, Michael searched through the linen closet for his hair dryer. He found it, and a frying pan he’d given up for lost.
He dried Conroy first, though the dog had yet to forgive him. “You ought to thank me for this,” Michael told him. “One whiff of you and slut dog’s going to crumble like an oatmeal cookie. She won’t even look at that stuck-up German shepherd.”
It took Michael thirty minutes to mop up the flood of water and dog hair. He was about to try his hand at salad making when he heard a car pull up. He hadn’t expected her to take a cab. He’d imagined her arriving in a limo, or some spiffy rental car. As he watched, she passed bills to the driver.
There was a breeze to ruffle her hair and the boxy cotton shirt she wore. Its size and mannish style made her appear smaller and only more feminine. He watched her draw a hand through her hair, brush it out of her face as she looked toward the house. She’d lost weight. He’d noticed that at the airport. Too much weight, Michael thought now. She’d gone from looking slender to almost unbearably fragile.
There was a hesitation in her he’d never noticed before, in the way she walked, in the nervous glances she sent over her shoulder. He’d been a cop long enough to have seen that same kind of controlled panic many times. In suspects. And in victims. Because she looked as though she might bolt, he opened the door.
“So you found it.”
She stopped dead, then shielding her eyes from the sun, saw him in the doorway. “Yes.” Her stomach muscles slowly unknotted. “You’ve bought a house,” she said and felt foolish immediately. “It’s a pretty neighborhood.”
Before she could step inside, Conroy raced to the door. He intended to bolt, to roll around in the din and grass until he’d rid himself of the undignified and all too human scent of shampoo.
“Hold it!” Michael snapped.
That wouldn’t have stopped him, but Emma’s soft purr did. “Oh, you have a dog.” She crouched to rub his head. “You’re a nice dog, aren’t you?” Since Conroy was disposed to agree, he sat down and let her scratch his ears. “Yes, such a nice dog. Such a pretty dog.”
No one had ever accused him of being pretty. Conroy mooned at her with the one eye that showed beneath his hair, then turned his head to sneer at Michael.
“Now you’ve done it.” Michael took her hand to help her to her feet. “He’ll expect to be complimented on a regular basis now.”
“I always wanted a dog.” Conroy leaned against her slacks, the picture of devotion.
“I’ll give you fifty bucks to take this one.” When she laughed, Michael drew her inside.
“This is nice.” She turned around the room, comforted by the sound of the dog’s nails on the floor behind her.
A big gray chair looked cushy enough to sleep in. The couch was long and low, inviting afternoon naps. He’d tossed an Indian blanket in gray and red stripes on the floor as a throw rug—and as a sop to Conroy. Vertical blinds let in slashes of sunlight.
“I’d imagined you in one of those slick condos near the beach. Oh, Marianne’s Legs” Delighted, she walked over to the print he’d hung over the couch.
“I picked that up the night of your show.”
Emma glanced over her shoulder, one brow lifted. “Why?”
“Why did I buy it?” Thoughtful, Michael tucked his thumbs in his pockets. “I liked it. If you want me to start talking shadows and texture, forget it. The fact is, it’s a great pair of legs, shot with a great deal of wit.”
“I like your opinion a lot more than a discussion on texture.” She turned back, smiling. It had taken them hours to set this shot. Not that it had been so difficult really. They just hadn’t been able to agree on the shoes.
It showed Marianne’s legs, crossed elegantly at the knee, with a ladylike flounce of hem sliding across them. They’d finally decided on plain black Chucks for her feet.
“You didn’t have to buy this. I know the outrageous price Runyun set. I owed you at least a print.”
“You gave me one once already.”
She remembered the picture she’d taken of him with her father. “But I wasn’t a professional then.”
“I imagine an early McAvoy would be worth a tidy sum if I ever wanted to sell it.” He felt her quick, instinctive jerk when he touched her arm. Gun-shy, he thought automatically. It was natural enough for a woman to be gun-shy right after the breakup of a marriage. “Let’s go into the kitchen. I was just getting started on dinner.”
The dog followed them in, resting his head adoringly on Emma’s foot when she sat at the table. Michael poured wine in glasses he’d borrowed from his neighbor. He turned on the radio, low. Emma recognized Nat King Cole’s creamy voice as she idly scratched Conroy’s head with her other foot.
“How long have you lived here?”
“Nearly four years.” He was glad to have company in the kitchen, a rarity for him unless he counted Conroy. He had fresh vegetables lined up on the counter. Puzzling over them, Michael wished he’d asked his neighbor for a recipe for tossed salad. He remembered to wash the lettuce, then taking up the neighbor’s carving knife, prepared to chop it up.
“What are you doing?” Emma asked.
“Making salad.” Because of the way she was looking at him, he paused with the knife over the head of romaine. “Maybe you don’t like salad.”
“I’d rather eat a hot-fudge sundae, but I like it well enough.” She rose to inspect the vegetables. She counted four fat tomatoes, slightly underripe, a half-dozen peppers of every color and description, leeks, mushrooms, a gourd of some kind, a full head of cauliflower, and a bunch of carrots. “There’s certainly enough of everything,” she decided.
“I always make a lot,” he improvised. “Conroy’s a fiend for salad.”
“I see.” Emma smiled, then took the knife from him and set it aside. “Why don’t you let me do this, while you deal with the steaks?”
“You cook?”
“Yes.” Laughing, she began to tear the lettuce leaves. “Do you?”
“No.” She smelled like wildflowers, fresh and delicate. He had to fight back an urge to press his lips to her throat. When he smoothed her hair behind her back, she lifted her head, eyes wary. “I never imagined you cooking.”
“I like to.”
He was standing close, but not so close that s
he felt afraid. As she scrubbed a green pepper she realized she wasn’t afraid around him. Uneasy perhaps, but not afraid.
“You’re good at this.”
“I took top honors in vegetable chopping five years running.” She brushed him away. “Go start the grill.”
Later, she carried the salad out to a round wooden table beside a pathetic bed of petunias. A critical glance told her he was handling the steaks well enough, so she went back in. Emma wasn’t sure what to make of the giant package of paper plates in the cupboard. A further search unearthed a trio of empty beer bottles, a drawer full of ketchup and mustard packets, and a mother lode of Chef Boyardee pasta meals in a can. She checked the dishwasher, discovered that was where he stored his laundry, and wondered if he had a clothes hamper somewhere full of dishes and flatware.
She found them in the microwave—two pretty china plates with baby roses painted around the edges, matching bowls, and a pair of steak knives and forks.
By the time he’d grilled the steaks, she had the table set as best she could.
“I couldn’t find any salad dressing,” she told him.
“Salad dressing. Right.” He set the steaks down. Now that she was here, looking so right, so simply right smiling at him with one hand resting on the dog’s head, he thought it was foolish to try to pretend he knew what he was doing with the meal.
If they were to get to know each other, really get to know each other this time around, she might as well see what she was getting into from the first.
“Make sure Conroy doesn’t get any idea about these,” he said, then walked to the chain-link fence and swung over. He was back in a few moments with a bottle of Wishbone and a fat blue candle. “Mrs. Petrowski says hello.”
With a laugh, Emma glanced over and saw a woman leaning out of the back door of the house next door. Because it seemed natural, she waved before she turned back to Michael.
“Her dishes?”
“Yeah.”
“They’re very nice.”
“I wanted to do better than a burger on the beach this time around.”