by Deborah Camp
Gonzo chuckled and ran a hand over his bald head. “I wonder if Troy thinks you’re nuts.”
“He might, but right about now he’s figuring out that I know a hell of a lot more than I could have picked up on the Internet.”
“Oh, yeah.” Gonzo nodded. “I mean, Snoopy? That was just plain eerie.” He feigned a shiver. “I flushed some goldfish down the toilet when I was a kid. Will they be waiting for me when I reach the Pearly Gates?”
Levi chuckled at the image that conjured up. “Yeah. To exact their revenge.” He gave Gonzo a middle-finger salute. “Get out of here. I have work to do.”
“Man, that was such a weird coincidence.”
Levi slumped back in the chair and stroked his chin, feeling the scrape of new whiskers emerging. “I suppose, if you believe in such things.”
“You don’t?”
“Not in my world. Spiritualists call what just happened fate. That man was placed squarely in my path so that I’d have to run smack into him. I’ve read about the salvage yard murders before and I’ve discussed them with Trudy.”
Gonzo’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh yeah? Gets stranger and stranger. When’s Trudy coming home?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll be glad when she’s back here. I hate being away from her.” He sighed, feeling the weariness of sleep-deprived nights and the lead weight of loneliness weighing him down.
“We’ll all be glad when she’s back. When she’s away, we walk on eggshells around you.”
“Bullshit.”
“Hey, it’s true!” Gonzo held up his hands. “You’re not yourself without her, sunshine. Or, more like you revert to your old self when she’s not around. Have you set a wedding date yet?”
Levi winced. That question had become a sore spot in his life. “No. We’ve been busy.”
“To quote a man I know very well, ‘you make time for what’s important in life.’”
Levi raised his middle finger again. He hated having his own words rubbed in his face. “You do realize that in the past couple of months she’s moved to Atlanta, I had the fundraiser ball for Re-Home, and Darla got married. In fact, Darla just returned to work yesterday from her honeymoon. So, we have been busy.”
Gonzo gave him a cagey look. “Tell me something. Did you ever actually ask Trudy to marry you?”
What the hell was he up to? “She’s wearing my engagement ring, Gonzo.”
“Right. I know you asked her to wear that ring so that her straight-laced parents would think better of you and her, seeing as you two were living together, unhitched. So, you’re engaged. But did you ever ask her to marry you?”
Levi scowled at him, not liking where this was going. “You mean, the old-fashioned way? Bended knee and flowers?”
Gonzo nodded, a slow smile stretching his black mustache. “Let me tell you something, pal. I have taken a knee for one person and one person only. My wife. When I asked Anna to marry me, it meant something to me and it still does.” He winked. “Meant a whole hell of a lot to her, too. She said yes. And I’ll let you in on a secret.” He rested an elbow on his thigh and lowered his voice. “I wasn’t all that sure that she would accept my proposal. I’m rough around the edges and she’s such a lady. But I knelt in front of her and told her what was in my heart. She listened. She knew I was serious. And my Anna accepted me.”
Emotion knotted in Levi’s throat and he swallowed – hard. While Gonzo had been talking, he’d been remembering his “proposal.” He hadn’t asked Trudy to marry him. He’d been assuming she would now that she’d agreed to wear the engagement ring. When he’d brought up the wedding or asked her when she’d like to make it official, she’d hedged. Yeah. If he were honest, Trudy was dragging her feet. He would have married her weeks ago. Any time. Anywhere.
Gonzo stood and buttoned his suit jacket. At six-feet-five-inches, he was a tower of muscle. “Listen to a happily married man, sunshine. Ask her nice. Then when she says yes, you set the damn date and finalize the deal. We’ll all sleep better and breathe easier once that’s done.” With a smirking grin, he pivoted and left the office.
Levi swiveled his chair around and stared out the window at Atlanta’s Olympic Park until Darla buzzed him. He flinched, realizing that he’d been lost in images of Trudy’s olive green eyes, creamy skin, perky breasts, perfect ass, and her curvy-lipped mouth that made kissing almost better than sex. He pressed the intercom button. “Yes?”
“Jason and Hank are here for your two o’clock conference meeting with them, sir.”
“Right.” Levi ran a hand down his face and put aside thoughts of bended knees and a bewitching, auburn-haired woman who had turned his life upside-down. Back to work, Wolfe. He reached for a roll of blueprints and pressed a button on his desk. A hum sounded as a big, flat screen slid down from the ceiling. “Send them in, Darla.”
“And you wanted me to remind you of your four-thirty appointment with Dr. McClain.”
“Ah, yes. Thanks.” McClain. His trusty therapist. Perfect timing.
###
Staring out the French doors at the small, tranquil courtyard with its bubbling fountain, wind chimes, and bird feeders, it occurred to Levi that this tableau had soothed him many times when his sessions with Dr. Althea McClain had made him want to crawl out of his skin or scream until he lost his voice – again. Just like when he was a boy and he’d cried in abject terror and begged for someone to let him out of a dark cellar where rats scurried and squeaked.
“I don’t want to talk to your back, Levi. Not when I can look at your handsome face.”
He rolled his eyes as he pivoted on the balls of his feet to look at Dr. McClain in her expertly tailored navy blue suit and white silk blouse, so striking against her mocha skin. “Actually, I prefer looking at you, too. You’re letting your hair grow out?”
She raised a hand to pat her Afro. “Just a little. My husband thinks I would look great in corn rows, but I don’t know. When I was in school, I spent hours and hours on my hair.” She made a face of distaste. “It’s a Black girl thing. I even had a few wigs. Then one day when I was having my hair straightened, I decided I was sick of all the chemicals and the time it all took.” She snapped her fingers. “I went natural.”
“I’ve always liked it. But then, you know I have a thing for short hair on women.” He exchanged a grin with her.
“How is Trudy?” she asked, acknowledging the other woman in his life with short hair.
Levi eased himself down onto the couch and got comfortable. “Delectable.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her, making her smile grow. “A Black girl in my office has a different wig on almost every time I see her. It’s unnerving. I keep thinking she’s a new hire and she’s been on my payroll more than a year!”
She laughed at that, throwing back her head and letting loose her throaty chuckles. “My Aunt Latreese is like that. She has, at the very least, a couple dozen wigs and extensions.” She crossed her legs and picked up her tablet, switching it on and switching off her smile. “So, you said that your nightmares are more frequent lately?”
“That’s right. When Trudy is with me, I don’t have them. Or I didn’t. But a few nights ago, I woke up from one. It was a doozy. I was drenched in sweat, my heart was racing, and I was breathing like I’d run a mile. And Trudy was sitting at the foot of the bed in a little ball, her eyes as big as saucers.” He grimaced, remembering the look of fear on her piquant face. “I never wanted her to see me like that.”
“It’s good that it happened.”
His gaze snapped back to the therapist. “It didn’t feel good and I don’t think it’s wrong that I shouldn’t want to appear weak in front of her.”
Dr. McClain held his gaze, but didn’t speak for a few more moments, allowing the ringing tone of his words to hang between them to make him regret snapping at her. “She knows about the abuse you endured growing up. She knows about your nightmares and other PTSD symptoms. Naturally, she was concerned when you experienced that nightmare, but I would hazard a guess that
it upset you more than it did her. You were embarrassed.”
“Hell, yes, I was.” He tapped one foot on the wood floor as anger built in his chest like a bonfire. “I should be getting better. Not worse. Why would she want to stay with me if I’m not improving?”
Dr. McClain set aside the notebook and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her thighs. “You’re feeling anxious because she’s away from you. She’s coming back tomorrow?”
“Yes.” He lowered his voice. “That’s the plan.”
“But you’re worried she won’t be on the plane.” Dr. McClain shook her head, stopping him from speaking. “And why are you worrying?” she prompted.
He sighed. “It’s my schemas at work,” he said, slipping into psychology jargon as familiar to him as it was to his therapist.
“Which one?”
“Abandonment.”
“Possibly. That voice in your head could be saying that she will turn her back on you as your parents did. Could something else be at work inside you, too?”
He considered it, mentally flipping through how early childhood development could color an adult’s world. “You think it has something to do with me feeling defective?”
The therapist arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Is it that old devil at work? The one who tells you that you’re unlovable, bad to the core?”
He winced. “Maybe.” Shit, shit, shit. “Yes. Okay. Yes.”
“Levi, Trudy understands what it is to be strange, abnormal, special. She’s felt all of that herself. She doesn’t see you as defective and the adult in you knows she’ll be back with you tomorrow.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Yes, I know. I know she’ll be back.” Saying it made him feel better. “But I don’t understand why I had a nightmare when she was with me. I’ve thought of her as my security blanket.” He offered up a weak smile. “Like she was my shield against bad dreams.”
“What was the nightmare about?”
He tipped back his head and stared at the ceiling as the dolorous images returned. “I was strapped to my bunk like they did sometimes at the school in the Ozarks. The place was on fire and I was trying to get loose. My lungs filled with smoke and my eyes stung. Then there was no fire . . .” He closed his eyes, trying to piece the images together. “You know how dreams can skip around. And I got out of my bunk, but a man was there and he backhanded me. I was young. About seven, I think. I fell backward and down a staircase and into a basement. I looked up and the ceiling was a rolling blanket of flames. I heard Trudy calling me and I panicked. I thought she was upstairs in the fire. I tried to get up, but then I was back in the bunk, strapped down, and I couldn’t move. I couldn’t get to her. She needed me and I couldn’t . . .” He swallowed and blinked away the vestiges of the nightmare.
“Trudy might enter into your nightmares for a while.”
He shook his head, vigorously refuting that. “God, no.”
Dr. McClain smiled tenderly at him. “Yes, because she means so much to you and you worry about her. Naturally, those worries will manifest in your night terrors.”
“We thought my parasomnia was improving.” Damn it, he wanted to improve! Not relapse.
“I believe it is, even with this new wrinkle. They’re less frequent and you can go back to sleep after them now, can’t you?”
“Yes.”
“That’s an improvement. Think about it. Since you’ve entered into this relationship with Trudy, you’ve made so much progress. It’s natural to hit some roadblocks and take a detour now and again. But this is a good, healthy road for you to be on, Levi.” She scooted back in the chair, sitting straight again as she picked up the tablet and pressed the button to bring it to life. “Let’s discuss your living adjustments. Are you and Trudy meshing without too many concessions being made?”
“I suppose.” He rested his ankle on his knee and fingered the cuff of his trousers. “The thing is, she put most of her things in storage. She moved in only four or five pieces of furniture and a box or two of odds and ends. I told her she could bring in more, but she keeps saying that her things won’t look right in the penthouse.”
“This bothers you?”
“Yes. It makes it seem temporary to me. I don’t like that. It messes with my insecurities. I want us to feel permanent. This is not a trial for me. This is what I want.”
“Is it what she wants?”
“It should be. She’s the one who made the decision to move to Atlanta. I was fine with having homes in both Atlanta and Tulsa.”
“Were you? It posed no hardships? No inconveniences?”
“Of course, it did. But they weren’t unsurmountable.”
“You would rather she hadn’t moved in?”
“No! That’s not what I’m saying. Not at all. I told you. I want this to be permanent. I want to feel settled. I want her to feel settled.”
“Will you feel that when you’re married to her?”
“Yes.” The word came out in a long sigh and a wave of relief. He blinked, surprised at the gush of emotion.
The doctor let silence speak for her, but Levi heard her, loud and clear.
“Okay, okay. I admit, it won’t solve all my problems,” he amended. “But marriage will help.”
Dr. McClain smiled and gave a slow nod. “So, when are you getting married? I thought you weren’t planning a large wedding.”
“We’re not. We both want a simple ceremony. We haven’t set a date, though.” He felt the weight of her gaze. “We’ve been busy with other things.” He glanced up at her penetrating dark eyes and then away. “And yes, it bugs the fucking hell out of me.” He stopped fidgeting with his trouser cuff. “Gonzo says I should ask her to marry me. Properly, you know.”
“Properly.” A few seconds ticked by. “Oh, yes. As I recall, your proposal was unorthodox. You talked her into wearing the engagement ring.” She was quiet for a few more seconds and then chuckled. “Gonzo could be on to something.”
His gaze snapped back to her. “You think I should do the whole schmaltzy down-on-one-knee thing? You think that’s what Trudy is waiting for?” He shook his head. “I don’t know. She’s not all into over-the-top gestures.”
“Asking a woman to be your wife is over-the-top?”
He stared out the French doors as scenes of him kneeling before Trudy played out – a surprised Trudy, a laughing Trudy, a sentimental Trudy, an appalled Trudy.
“Are you concerned she might say no?”
Ouch. He slammed his eyes shut and his heart kicked painfully. “There’s always that possibility. I’m a lot, Althea. She would be shouldering my phobias, my hang-ups. I’ve complicated her life so much already.” He held up a hand. “I know that’s my hang-ups talking. I hear it, but I can’t help it. That’s how I feel.”
“And your feelings are what we’re here to discuss. Levi, Trudy is used to a complicated life, don’t you think?”
“No.” He faced her again. “No, I don’t. She has loving parents, a sister and brother she’s close to, plus other relatives. She grew up loved and nurtured.”
“But she harbors self-doubt and she deals with a poor image of herself,” the therapist pointed out. “That stems from complications, Levi. Classic early maladaptive schema. You know this. Trudy has obviously suffered. Her feelings have been stomped on and, perhaps, she was the butt of jokes from her peers. A close family can’t protect you from every asperity.”
He didn’t like to think of Trudy as being psychologically flawed, but fragments of things she had confided chilled him as they swirled through him like snowflakes in a gust of wind. Because of her psychic visions, she’d been made fun of, misunderstood, shunned. She’d thought she was going crazy and had even contemplated suicide. “You’re right,” he whispered. “She’s been through her own hell.”
“So, maybe you are her security blanket.” That notion and Althea’s smile dispelled the chill he’d felt. “Just maybe she is anxious to return home to you and she will feel more settled when she’s
certain that marriage is really what you want. That being engaged simply isn’t enough for you. Perhaps she feels that she’s disrupted your life and you could be yearning for your world to return to the way it was before you met her. Maybe she believes that she’s not enough to keep your attention from wandering and that you might regret not being able to sexually engage with your other lady friends.”
As she listed the presumptions, he shook his head at each, stubbornly rejecting them. “No, no. She knows better.”
“Does she? Can she? Or maybe her early scarring distorts her view as an adult, too.” Dr. McClain typed something into the tablet and then shut it off. “Assumptions are the termites of relationships. What do I always say is the key to any interaction?”
“Communication,” he recited, gaining another big smile from her, and he was struck once again by her cool, dignified beauty.
“You once told me that the reason women feel you are such a good lover is because you ask them what they like and don’t like and then you put that information to good use. That’s what makes a good mate, as well.”
He narrowed his eyes. “So, are you treating me for PTSD or are you a relationship counselor now?”
“They go hand-in-hand.” She tapped her delicate, gold wristwatch. “See you next week?”
“Definitely.” He stood and jerked at the sleeves of his jacket. “Unless I’m out of town. In which case, we’ll have to meet via computer screen.”
“Are you planning a business trip?”
“Maybe. Trudy and I might work on a serial murder case in New Orleans. I’ll let you know. I might need your expertise on what makes the killer tick once I get into it.”
“I’m at your service – for a price.” Her eyes danced with mischief as she stood and rested a hand on his sleeve. “Don’t fret, Levi. I’m fairly certain she’ll say yes.”