by Jane Graves
“Don’t worry,” Sandy said with a smile. “We’re not letting this one get away.”
After they took the dishes to the kitchen and put them in the dishwasher, Sandy washed the casseroles while Renee dried them.
“Don’t take it seriously when John blows up like he did at lunch,” Sandy told her. “We’ve been going on at each other like that since we were old enough to talk. John just happens to be one of today’s targets. He’s not really as mad as he acts. He’ll be over it by halftime.”
Renee just smiled, knowing halftime wouldn’t do a thing toward improving John’s mood. “John and Dave are a little different from each other, aren’t they?”
Sandy laughed. “Like night and day. And Alex is different from the two of them. Dave’s so laid-back he’s practically in a coma. But he puts that to good use on the job. He can defuse a lot of situations because nobody sees him as an adversary, even people he’s dragging to jail. Alex, on the other hand, has the perp in one hand and a copy of the criminal code in the other. He’s nobody’s pal if he thinks they’ve broken the law. Alex was Dad’s favorite. Oldest son, you know.”
“And John?”
“To Dave, being a cop is a job,” Sandy said. “To Alex, it’s a mission. But to John, it’s a passion. He’s got this startling notion that justice will always be done. His brothers can walk away at the end of the day, no matter how things turn out. He can’t.”
Brenda snapped the lid on a plastic container she’d filled with leftover potatoes. “I don’t know what’s so tough about it. You don’t think about the job. You just do it. Can you imagine me zeroing in on a hostage taker and then stopping to wonder whether there are extenuating circumstances before I blow his brains out?”
“No, Brenda,” Aunt Louisa said, wiping the countertop with a dishrag. “None of us can imagine that.”
“I’m told what my target is, and I take it out. Mission accomplished.”
“But there’s a big difference between you and John,” Sandy said. “See, John actually has a heart.”
“True. But he could get over that if he really set his mind to it.”
Sandy gave Brenda a look of disgust.
“Oh, all right!” Brenda turned to Renee. “John’s a good guy. Really. I’m just saying he makes it hard on himself by thinking he can change the world when the rest of us know that it can’t be done. Guilty people are gonna walk, and innocent people are gonna fry. And there’s not a damned thing anybody can do about it.”
The world according to Brenda. A very scary place, Renee thought, particularly since she might be one of those poor, unfortunate people who were destined to fry.
A few minutes later they came back into the living room. The guys had fired up the game, and by the time the seating shuffle was complete, Brenda, Eddie, and Dave had commandeered the sofa while Ashley toddled around the living room. Sandy was sitting cross-legged on the floor with Melanie, Aunt Louisa had taken the chair next to the lamp so she could do her crocheting, and Grandma sat on a dining room chair by the sofa because of her recent back surgery.
John was left alone on his love seat. His very small love seat. On which Renee was required to join him.
She sat down gingerly, and immediately she felt a slight dip between the cushions that tilted her in John’s direction. She folded her arms and tried to make herself as small as she could. John seemed to be just as uptight as she was, and if everyone’s attention hadn’t been focused on the game, she was sure not a soul in the room would have believed they were actually a couple.
There wasn’t anything awkward about the rest of the family, though. They shouted, cussed, cheered, made side bets on every other play, cussed, collected the bets, then cheered some more. The whole room seemed to be in motion at once, with smiles and laughter and good-natured insults.
Renee knew her being here was all a sham, but for a long, heavenly moment, she closed her eyes and basked in the feeling of a family surrounding her whether it was hers or not, and suddenly she was so jealous of John she couldn’t stand it. He had this wonderful family that she was pretty sure he took for granted, while she’d had nothing but an alcoholic mother who had treated her like crap, and whom she hadn’t spoken to in years. The feeling of longing she had was so powerful she felt as if she were going to pass out.
She’d worried about the wrong threat here today. The problem wasn’t that they were all into law enforcement. The problem was that she liked them all just a little too much. What if she ended up in jail? She barely knew these people, but she couldn’t bear the thought of their thinking she was a criminal.
But most important of all—what did John think?
He sat stiffly next to her, not acknowledging her at all. In fact, he didn’t acknowledge much of anything. He merely sat with his arms folded, staring at the television, even though Renee could tell he wasn’t really following the game. He clearly hated having to pretend she was his girlfriend. And on the few occasions he glanced her way, his expression was laced with suspicion, as if he expected her to go nuts and take hostages at any moment.
As if she’d even consider such a thing with Brenda on duty.
“Alice?”
Renee looked around to see Melanie standing beside her, holding a deck of cards.
“Yes?”
“Wanna play Go Fish?”
“Melanie,” Brenda said. “Don’t bother Alice when she’s watching the game.”
“It’s okay,” Renee told Brenda, then smiled at Melanie. “I’d love to play. But maybe we’d better go over to the table so we don’t bother anybody.”
As she stood up, John came to attention, giving her one of the subtle warning looks she’d grown so accustomed to. She nodded toward the dining room table. He settled back on the love seat with an expression that said he didn’t much like it but he wasn’t going to stop her. Still, as she walked across the room with Melanie she was sure she could feel his gaze boring into her back. She wanted to whip around and shout at him, It's just a card game, not a prison break!
But she didn’t. Instead she sat down at the table with Melanie and tried to pretend John wasn’t even in the room. For a few hours more, she had the opportunity to play a dumb card game and delude herself into thinking her life was absolutely normal, and she decided that was exactly what she was going to do.
John sat on the love seat, drumming his fingertips against the arm, staring straight ahead as if he were focusing on the game. Right now, though, he could barely tell one team from the other, and if his life depended on stating the score, he’d be a dead man. He just wished everyone would get out of his house so he could have time to think, to find a way to fix this mess he’d created. Fortunately, nobody seemed to suspect that Renee was anything other than his girlfriend, which was a good thing.
But did they have to like her so much?
He didn’t get it. They found fault with every other woman he’d ever introduced them to, even though they supposedly wanted him to get married. Why did they have to choose now to decide Renee was the woman for him?
He was actually relieved when Renee got up to play a game with Melanie, thinking maybe he could turn most of his attention to the football game and the time would pass more quickly. He kicked off his boots and put his feet up on the coffee table, staring at the television, but no matter how much he tried to concentrate on the game, his gaze continuously shifted back to Renee like some kind of high-tech tracking device.
They’d been playing Go Fish for the past half hour. Ten minutes in, Grandma had joined them. He heard snippets of their conversation, Melanie squealing when she got four of something, and Grandma griping that the numbers on the cards were just too damned small to read.
Once, before Renee dealt the cards, she pointed to one of the clubs and told Melanie all those little black spots were puppy dog feet. Melanie giggled as if that were the most hysterical thing she’d ever heard, practically falling out of her chair in a paroxysm of childhood laughter. Even Grandma smiled at that
one. Renee played the game with the energy of a blackjack dealer and the good nature of a favorite aunt who indulges her niece at every opportunity.
And John couldn’t take his eyes off her.
He absorbed every nuance of movement and color and light she emanated, from her golden hair that shimmered with every toss of her head, to her long, slender fingers deftly fanning out her cards, to the radiant smiles she showered on Melanie. But on the few occasions when she glanced at him and their eyes happened to meet, her smile would fade. Just for a moment, he wondered what it would be like to be the reason she started smiling rather than the reason she stopped.
What if she weren’t a fugitive? What if she really were his girlfriend? Was this how it would feel? As though he never wanted to take his eyes off her?
Stop it. You’re forgetting who she is and why she's here.
But as the afternoon wore on, the image of Renee as a gun toting convenience-store robber slipped further and further from his grasp, and he started to see her as his family undoubtedly saw her—as a beautiful woman who was smart, friendly, and engaging. His brain automatically added sexy to that list, which he mentally erased, only to have it pop back onto the list again, this time in bold capital letters.
Very, very sexy.
Then Sandy got up from where she was sitting on the rug and headed toward him. He braced himself. No telling what she had on her mind.
She plopped down beside him. “I guess the Cowboys can’t count on you for a lot of fan support today, huh?” She grinned. “Alice, on the other hand, can count on you just fine.”
“Knock it off, Sandy.”
“Look at her,” Sandy said, as if he hadn’t been doing just that. “She’s really good with Melanie, isn’t she?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Even Grandma seems to be having a good time.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’re still pissed at me, aren’t you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why don’t you just get over it and tell me that it’s been a nice afternoon? Alice got to meet the family. Everybody likes her. That’s a good thing.”
“I suppose you and Aunt Louisa are going to pick out our china pattern tomorrow.”
“No. Silver tomorrow. China on Tuesday.” She patted him on the knee. “Now I’m talking seriously, John. She’s a good one. Do everything you can to hold on to her, will you?”
An hour later the Cowboys barely squeaked to victory, and John was never so happy to see a game end in his entire life. After the usual standing and stretching and gathering of casserole dishes, his family finally headed for the door. Renee joined him there to say good-bye.
Melanie tugged on John’s jeans. He knelt down beside her. “Alice is fun.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Are you going to marry her?”
“Well, Millie, we haven’t talked about that yet.”
“I like her. But she’s not very smart.”
“Oh?”
“I beat her at Go Fish. I never beat Mama.”
John had no doubt of that. That would be like pitting Tinkerbelle against Rambo.
Melanie skipped out the door. Grandma approached
Renee, her expression guarded. “If I come to your restaurant sometime, will you watch them make my food? Make sure there’s no funny business?”
Renee smiled. “I’d be happy to.”
Grandma turned to John. “Okay, then. I guess she’s got my vote.”
She hobbled out the door. Aunt Louisa was next. “It was such a delight to meet you, Alice. Hopefully Alex and Grandpa will join us next time and you can meet the whole family. How would that be?”
Renee smiled again. “I’d like that.”
Dave came next, holding Ashley. “Please don’t judge all of us by John. He might not be worth a damn, but his family’s really something.” He gave her a quick hug. “Don’t be a stranger,” he said, then followed Aunt Louisa out the door. Even Brenda offered a perfunctory but genuine good-bye before whipping out her dark glasses and making her eyes disappear.
As Renee stood at the door and waved good-bye, John remembered Sandy’s words: Do everything you can to hold on to her. Now that was all he could think about. Holding on to Renee. For hours on end. Maybe all night long...
How had this happened? How, in the span of a few hours, had his perception shifted so dramatically that he saw not a woman accused of a crime, but a woman he wanted in so many ways—to talk to, to touch, to hold, to make love to....
He blinked away that thought and watched out the window as the last car disappeared around the block. After the pandemonium that had taken place all afternoon, the house was suddenly so quiet he swore he could hear his own heartbeat.
“Well, it looks like we pulled it off,” Renee said. “They never knew, did they?”
“No,” he said, still looking out the window. “They never knew.”
“I was afraid they’d ask me something and I’d screw up and say the wrong thing. I didn’t, did I?”
John closed his eyes. “No. You didn’t.”
“Did I say too much? Not enough?”
“It was fine, Renee. They liked you.”
“Then what’s the matter?”
He turned around slowly. Thanks to her, his family had never suspected she was anything but his girlfriend. And that made it even harder to do what he had to do. But he had no choice. None at all.
He glanced toward the bedroom, where the handcuffs still dangled from the headboard. That small shift of his gaze was all it took for Renee to understand. Her words came out in a hoarse whisper.
“You have to lock me back up.”
He paused. “Yes. I don’t want to, but—”
“Duty calls?”
He expelled a harsh breath. “What am I supposed to do, Renee? Tell me. What am I supposed to do?”
“Let me go, maybe?”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“John—”
“Don’t make this hard for me.”
Her hand crept to her throat, as if she were suddenly having a hard time breathing. “I guess I should have known, but I guess I thought...after everything… She looked at him plaintively. “I-I just can’t believe you’re going to do this.” They stared at each other a long, shaky moment. God, he hated this. But there was absolutely nothing else he could do. He was hovering in a terrible limbo—in good conscience he couldn’t take her in, and in good conscience he couldn’t let her go.
“I won’t try to get away, John. I promise. Please. Just for a few more hours at least...”
Her voice trailed off, and the plaintive look in her eyes made John realize just how much he wanted that, too. He wanted this situation to become normal, where she wasn’t an armed robbery suspect and he wasn’t a cop, and words like responsibility and duty and obligation never even had to enter his mind.
“For just a few more hours,” she whispered.
Damn it. Why was she doing this to him? He was in a hell of a position here. Why couldn’t she see that?
“We can do this one of two ways,” he told her. “Either you can walk in there, or I can drag you in there.”
Tears sprang immediately to her eyes. “Damn you! I did what you asked me to, and this is how you treat me?”
“You’re still a fugitive. You seem to have forgotten that.”
“How could I forget? You won’t let one minute pass without reminding me!”
“I’m just doing my job!”
“No, you’re not. Your job would have been to take me to the police station. Instead, I’m here. And now you don’t know what to do with me. You could take me to jail, but you know what will happen if you do, and you can’t live with that!”
In a fit of frustration, John clamped his hand onto Renee’s arm. He dragged her down the hall and into his bedroom, then sat her down on the bed.
“No, you don’t, John. No!”
She started to stand again, but he shoved her back down. She tried to ya
nk her wrist away, but he was too quick. He snapped the dangling handcuff around it.
Renee glared at him. “Why did you bring me here in the first place? If all I’m going to do is sit here in handcuffs, I might as well be in jail!”
“Don’t push me, Renee!”
“You can’t do it, can you? You can’t take me to jail. Because you know I’m not guilty. You know I didn’t rob that store. You know I didn’t shoot that clerk. But still—” She held her cuffed wrist up defiantly, then dropped it back to the bed, the chain rattling against the headboard. “Still you’re acting as if I did it!”
The tension crackled between them with an intensity that practically lit the drapes on fire.
“I’m asking you one more time, John. Do you think I’m guilty? Or am I an innocent woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
“There’s no evidence—”
“Damn it! Would you forget the evidence for five seconds? I don’t want the cop version. I want your version.”
He turned away, desperately needing to walk out of this room, to stay out of this room, until he felt more in control. But then she spoke again, her voice soft, with a tenderness to it that caught him off guard.
“I realized something today,” she said. “I was wrong out there in the woods. Your problem isn’t that you don’t care. In fact, sometimes you care so much that it tears you up inside.”
He needed to get out of there. Right now.
“You know the truth, don’t you?” she said. “You know!'
He turned to face her, which was his first mistake, and his second one was thinking he could maintain any objectivity at all where she was concerned. She eyed him with such intensity that he felt as if she were looking right inside him. He turned away again, knowing he was on the verge of stepping over a line he’d never intended to cross, and once he was on the other side of it, there would be no going back.
But she was right. He knew the truth. How could he deny it any longer?
“The cop side of me says you’re guilty,” he told her. “And that part of me wants to take you straight to jail and be done with it. But still there’s something....”