Sunset Hearts

by Sunset Hearts (lit)

  Jerald felt heat fill his face. He nodded before taking a seat at the table.

  “You’re staying for dinner, right?” Alan asked him. “I made plenty.”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  Alan was in the process of breading cube steaks. He rinsed the flour from his hands and opened the plastic bag. He arched an eyebrow at Jerald as he held up the spool. “Fishing line?”

  “You said you needed some,” he mumbled. “I figured I’d pick it up for you.”

  Alan winked at him again. “Thank you. That’s very thoughtful. I appreciate it.”

  * * * *

  Alan desperately struggled not to laugh as he turned his back on them and set the spool of fishing line on the counter, out of his way. Fishing line!

  So it wasn’t flowers or a card. In Jerald Carter’s world, it meant a lot more than some mushy, sentimental mumbo-jumbo. Alan had mentioned a few days ago that he needed to add a spool of fishing line to his next shopping list, but he’d forgotten to do it.

  Jerald might appear to be a stonewalled hardass to those who didn’t know him, but inside hid a sweet, lovable marshmallow.

  Translated, fishing line was Major Carter-ese for “I’m sorry I acted like an asshole.”

  That and the fact that he’d tried to make nice with Daphne.

  While Alan cooked dinner, his back turned to them, Jerald talked with Daphne. Alan sensed her starting to loosen up around Jerald, which would be good for both of them. She had no family, no friends who could take her in. He didn’t know her whole story, but he would get it out of her eventually.

  She wasn’t going anywhere if he had anything to say about it. He didn’t want to lose Jerald, but the other man would have to get used to having her around for the foreseeable future.

  * * * *

  During dinner, Alan’s cell rang. He left the room to take it, then returned a moment later. “Would you mind if I took a charter tomorrow morning?” he asked Jerald.

  “Why would I mind?”

  He nodded toward Daphne, who sat with her back to him.

  Jerald realized what he meant—babysitting. “I’ll be around in the morning.” He had been hoping to start moving in. Who was he kidding? He didn’t have much. He could have been totally moved in by lunch if he got his butt in gear early enough and with both of them packing his stuff.

  That wouldn’t happen now, though. Not with her around. He just hoped she didn’t stay very long.

  “Thanks.” Alan put the phone back to his ear. “Yeah, meet me at the marina at seven sharp. Great! See you there.” He gave Jerald a peck on the cheek as he sat at the table again. “Thank you.”

  “Yeah, no problem.”

  Jerald took care of the dishes while Alan helped her take a bath and get settled in bed. If Jerald could pick a descriptor to label Alan, girlie would be at the bottom of the list, but caretaker would be at the top. Jerald hoped Alan didn’t get in too deep with this girl. Not that he worried about him romantically, but attracting any kind of attention from the Scorsini family was not a good idea.

  Hopefully she’d tip her hand soon enough. Then Jerald could use that to force Alan to see reason.

  When Alan returned to the kitchen, he wrapped his arms around Jerald’s waist and kissed the back of his neck. “You are the best. You know that?”

  “Why?”

  “Why, my ass. Do I have to embarrass you and say it?”

  He finished rinsing the last plate and dried his hands. “Please, don’t.”

  “So we can move you in tomorrow afternoon after my charter?”

  Jerald took a deep breath. “We need to hold off on that.”

  Alan studied him. “You’re not pulling some passive aggressive bullshit and holding that over my head so I’ll get rid of her, are you?”

  Yes. “No! Jesus, I just…” He tried to think of a way to get through this without starting another fight. “It took me what, two years of you working on me to get me to agree to move in. I’m not like you. I can’t just jump right in with open arms like you can. Maybe after I get to know her better I’ll feel more comfortable. I need time to get used to having a stranger around.”

  Alan crossed his arms in front of him. “So this means I’m not getting laid in the foreseeable future.”

  “You know, you can come over to my place and spend the night.”

  “And spend an hour hunting for my clothes in the morning after the rats have carted them away? I think not.”

  “It was one raccoon, and I told you, it’s gone. My trailer’s not that bad.”

  “It’s not that good, either.”

  It was already after eight. Normally they would have tumbled into bed by now and been halfway to getting laid or going to sleep. He didn’t want to piss Alan off, but he didn’t want to sit on the couch and end up with a worse case of blue balls than he already had.

  Jerald leaned against the counter. “I’ll come by in the morning and stay with her,” he said. “Maybe you and I can go out for dinner or something tomorrow night.”

  “I wouldn’t feel right leaving her here alone.”

  Of course you wouldn’t. He pushed away from the counter and headed for the door. “I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

  Alan caught his arm. “So this is how it’s going to be between us from now on?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, bullshit you don’t. You’re pissed because I won’t toss her out on her ass. The doctor told her she should stay off her feet as much as possible for a few days until the worst of her cuts heal. You don’t expect me to kick her out unable to walk, do you?”

  Jerald knew he shouldn’t say it. Still, he couldn’t stop himself. “I expect you won’t kick her out at all. It’s your house. I don’t have any say about what you do in it.”

  Alan let go of him as if he’d been scalded, shock on his face. “That’s not fair.”

  “I don’t want to fight with you about this, about her. Let’s not do this, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow.” He leaned in to kiss him, but Alan leaned away.

  Jerald found he was getting pretty good at not slamming doors even when he really, really wanted to. He stalked out of Alan’s house and managed to not squeal the tires when he pulled out. He stewed all the way home. An hour later, he lay in bed, watching TV, when his cell rang. He felt tempted not to answer, but it wasn’t worth exacerbating the situation.

  “Hello.”

  “I’m sorry,” Alan said. “Please have a little patience.”

  He had to say it. “I’m trying to have patience, but when every bone in my body screams there’s something wrong, it’s hard for me to sit by and watch the man I love being pulled into something that’s none of his business. I’m a cop. My job isn’t just about fish and game, you know. It’s not only my instincts, but my training telling me this girl is bad juju.”

  Alan fell silent for so long Jerald had to look to make sure the call didn’t drop. “That’s sweet that you feel that way. I’m sorry you’re worried. I do appreciate your concern, but I am a big boy. My dad was a cop too, remember? I promise, if I feel this is too much, I’ll turn the situation over to you and defer to your judgment. Does that make you feel better?”

  “A little. I won’t really feel better until life gets back to normal.”

  “Any chance of talking you back over here tonight?”

  “You need to get to sleep. You’ve got to be up early for your charter.”

  They said goodnight and Jerald turned off the TV. He lay there another hour, stewing, before finally dropping off to sleep.

  Chapter Six

  I will be nice to her, Jerald mentally chanted through his shower the next morning. Instead of being able to sleep late on his day off, or getting up early to do something pleasingly productive like moving in with Alan, he was getting ready to go to his boyfriend’s house and babysit a mobster’s runaway girlfriend.

  Terrific.

  Not on his daily to-do list, that’s for sure
.

  He arrived just as Alan was preparing to leave. Alan kissed him, long and deeply.

  “I really appreciate this. I don’t like leaving her alone if I don’t have to.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe you can come home with me later and show me exactly how much you appreciate this.”

  “Why can’t you stay here and let me show you how much?”

  Jerald stepped away. “You know why,” he grumbled.

  “She could care less what we do. She’s grateful to have a roof over her head.”

  “I care, okay?” This had already started out badly. “She still asleep?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be back after noon.”

  “Be safe.”

  “I will.” Alan kissed him one last time.

  Jerald set about making himself breakfast before sitting on the couch to eat and watch the morning news. She emerged a little before seven.

  At least she’s not some lazy thing that sleeps all day.

  He watched her slowly hobble from her room and down the hall toward the bathroom. “Why aren’t you using the chair?” he called out.

  Startled, she turned, which made her lose her balance. She grabbed for the wall as he bolted off the couch, managing to reach her before she fell. He wrapped a supporting arm around her waist. “Jesus, if you hurt yourself, he’ll fucking kill me.”

  “I’m sorry.” She sounded close to tears.

  “Hey, I’m sorry I scared you.” He did feel badly about that. “Let me help you.”

  “I’m okay.” He wished she’d use something other than that shitting-bricks-scared tone of voice.

  “No, you’re not okay.” Clearly, she wasn’t. Her face looked pinched with pain. “Let me help you into the bathroom.”

  She finally nodded. She leaned on him for support while he helped her make it into the bathroom. When she emerged a few minutes later, he waited next to the bathroom door with the office chair.

  “Sit.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Sit, or I carry you.” No way in hell would he give Alan something to get angry about.

  She finally sat. He pushed her into the kitchen, to the table. “What do you want for breakfast?”

  “Cereal is fine.”

  “No, I’ll cook you something.” Maybe when Alan heard he’d cooked for her he’d get laid later. “Eggs?”

  “Thank you.”

  He hated making small talk, wasn’t good at it, but would do it anyway to make Alan happy. Try to be nice to her. Proves how much I’m in love. “Scrambled?”

  “That’s fine.”

  Jesus, she sounded like a timid mouse. It pissed him off someone had done something to make her act like that. She shouldn’t have to live in fear. “Tell me a little about yourself.”

  “There’s not much to tell.”

  When she didn’t continue, he fought the urge to sigh in frustration. “Are you originally from Florida?”

  “Born here. I grew up mostly in Orlando.”

  He waited, trying to figure out something else to ask her, when she looked at the small stack of magazines he’d left on the table. “What’s this?” she said, pointing.

  “Sudoku magazines. I’m sort of addicted to them.”

  “What is that?”

  “What is what?” He plated her eggs and brought them and a mug of coffee over, along with the milk and sugar.

  “Sudoku. I don’t know what it is.”

  He laughed as he sat across the table from her. “You must be from another planet.” He pulled a magazine from the stack and showed her. “They’re number puzzles. Nine-by-nine grid, divided into nine boxes of nine. You have to fill in the missing numbers, one through nine, based on what they give you.” He showed her.

  “That looks complicated.”

  “Not really. Once you get the hang of it, you can blast through the easy ones. There are tricks to solving the more complex ones. I love these things.” He smiled. “It’s Alan’s fault. I couldn’t shut my brain off at night after a really bad incident at work. After a few nights of insomnia, he handed me a book of them and told me to go do some. Helped me focus and quiet my mind.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Better than crossword puzzles, because you don’t need any reference books to look stuff up. And better than the find-a-word puzzles, which I used to do, because even with those you’re thinking about words. This is all numbers.”

  “I could use something like that.”

  She looked haunted, vulnerable. Like she’d witnessed things best left undisturbed in her memory. “You should try these then.” He teased another magazine out of the pile and brought her a mechanical pencil from Alan’s desk. “Here. I’ve got plenty of them.”

  He showed her how to do them. “Once you get the hang of it, it becomes automatic.”

  “Does it really help you not think about things?”

  Maybe if he shared a little she might reciprocate.

  “A lot of people think what I do is pretty simple because I’m marine patrol. It’s not. I’m a cop, just like any deputy. The difference is, my beat is spent on a boat or in a truck, and my crime scene might be at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, or it might be in the middle of the Withlacoochee State Forest.”

  He took a deep breath. “Year before last, fourth of July weekend, a couple of families went out on the water. Everyone goes out on the big holidays, whether they belong there or not. These people did not belong there. They’d been drinking.

  “One of the guys gets the bright idea to race down the channel and challenges the other guy. Problem is, one of the boats strayed too far outside the channel, hit bottom, and slung a six year-old boy out of the boat. Kid didn’t have a life jacket on, either.” He swallowed back bile at the memory. “The other boat ran him over, didn’t see him and couldn’t have stopped in time anyway. Two hundred horsepower outboard with a stainless steel prop. Like a damn meat grinder. You ever see pictures of manatees with prop wounds?”

  She nodded.

  “Think what would happen if a prop did that to a forty-pound kid’s belly and chest.”

  She paled and reached for his hand. “I’m sorry.”

  “I arrived on scene first. I’d been out near the head marker. Nothing could be done for the poor kid. When I could finally sleep, I had nightmares like you couldn’t believe. Couldn’t close my freaking eyes without seeing him. I don’t do sleeping pills. That’s when Alan told me to try these. I started doing an hour of them before I went to bed and it worked like magic. I still had nightmares, but at least I could zone out before I tried to go to sleep. My mind worked on something else.”

  He sat back and let out a deep breath. “The worst day I’ve ever had on the job. I hope to God I never have another one like it before I retire.”

  “How long have you been in?”

  “Too damn long, it feels like some days. Over twenty years. It was still called marine patrol when I joined after college. Now we’re under Fish and Wildlife. Everyone still calls us marine patrol though, even though that’s only part of what we do.”

  After she finished eating, he helped her to the couch. Then he cleaned up the kitchen and washed the dishes before he returned to the living room and settled in the recliner Alan had purchased a few months earlier. Super comfortable, and more than one evening he’d fallen asleep in it to have Alan wake him up and drag him to the bedroom to spend the night. He suspected Alan bought it specially for him, yet another enticement to try to keep him there with him.

  “You don’t have to stay here with me if you have other things to do,” she said. “I’ll be okay.”

  “It’s my day off. I don’t mind.” He started working on a Sudoku puzzle.

  “Earning boyfriend brownie points?”

  He looked up at her soft comment, then spotted her playful smile. He laughed. “Yeah, maybe you could say that.”

  “I’m sorry I’ve caused problems between you two.”

  Okay, that made him feel guilty. “You didn’t
cause a problem.” I will not interrogate her. I will not interrogate her. “If you want the honest truth, I’m a very private person. In my line of work, I like to end the day and settle in and decompress. Alan has a calming personality and I don’t socialize very well. I don’t want you to feel bad about being here, seriously.”

  “Thank you. I promise as soon as I can I’ll be out of here and out of your way.

  Aw, shit. “I don’t want to run you off. That’s not what I meant.” That is what I meant, but Jesus Christ I don’t want Alan to think I actually said that!

  “No, I know. I understand. Besides, I have to get moving and find a job and a new place to live anyway.” She fell quiet and sat there working a Sudoku puzzle. The TV seemed to annoy her. “Is there anything special you want to watch?” she asked a few minutes later.

  He shook his head. “Not really. I usually listen to a cable music channel if Alan’s not home. I don’t watch much TV.”

  “Oh, how does that work?”

  He picked up the remote and showed her how to activate the channel guide. “There, those channels.”

  “Do you care what I put it on?”

  “Please, no rap or gospel music. Or kids stuff.”

  She smiled. “I guess that means classical is out too, huh?”

  “Channel eight-forty.”

  She laughed as she changed the channel. “He’ll be happy we have something in common,” she teased as she set the remote on the coffee table. As the peaceful sounds of Mozart filled the living room, Jerald felt some of his tension melt away. He liked many different kinds of music. When driving or on a boat, or trying to work around the house, he liked upbeat contemporary stuff, or rock and roll.

  When he needed to decompress, he turned to his “aural Novocain,” as Alan had dubbed it. “You like classical?” he asked.

  “My mom taught piano. She used to play in her spare time. She especially loved Chopin and Brahms.”

  Ah, a little of her mysterious past revealed. “Do you play?”

  “No. I was never any good. I enjoy listening to it though.”

  Now she had his interest. “Tell me a little more about yourself.”