by Sharon Sala
The light changed, but they didn’t move. Foot traffic parted and spilled around them like breaking waves, but he was too engrossed to notice. His first instinct was to protect her. Carefully searching the passing crowds for a sign of danger, he saw nothing that caused him alarm. When the crowd of people thinned, he pulled her back from the curb against a building, his arms tightening around her as her tears continued to flow.
“Caitie? Sweetheart?”
“I can’t do this,” she said. “I tried, but I can’t make this work.”
“Make what work?”
She lifted her head, her face streaked with tears.
“Pretend it didn’t happen. I know what I told the detectives…that maybe it was an accident when I was pushed. But I don’t believe it. I felt the hand in the middle of my back. Someone wants me dead, and I don’t know why. I’m afraid. I’m so terribly, terribly afraid.”
Mac wanted to shout; he needed to rage against the injustice of what was happening to her. But all he could do was stay close.
“Come with me,” he said, grabbing her arm and bolting toward the curb just as a phalanx of taxis came speeding down the street. “I’m taking you home.”
The nearest cab wheeled toward the curb as Mac hailed it. Moments later, she was inside and he was beside her, pulling her close. Still shuddering, she laid her head against his chest and closed her eyes. All the way home she kept thanking God for the man beside her, because she couldn’t do this by herself.
A short while later they entered the penthouse. Mac punched in the security code, disarming the alarm before it was activated, then helped her out of her coat.
“Do you want to lie down? Are you hungry? I can make you something to eat.”
She turned, her eyes still glimmering with unshed tears, and put her arms around his neck. She saw the shock on his face and knew what she was about to do would make it worse.
“You asked me what I want. I want you to make love to me. I’m so tired of being afraid. I need to remember what it’s like to know joy.”
“Caitie…sweetheart…that won’t—”
“Mac, for God’s sake, I know you’ve made love with women for less reason. Am I so awful that you can’t even sum up enough—”
He groaned. Seconds later, he lifted her off her feet and into his arms.
“That’s just the problem. I have been summoning up passion for you for some time now. What I want and what we should do are two entirely different things. I don’t just want to make love to you. It would be my pleasure. But it will change everything between us.”
“It doesn’t have to,” she mumbled.
“But it will,” he said softly, then lowered his head and kissed her tearstained cheeks.
Caitie shuddered on a sob. “I just need to feel something besides despair.”
Mac looked at her then, at the windblown tangles in her hair and her slightly swollen lips. At the tiny adhesive strips over her eyebrow and the very faint bruising still evident on one cheek. Never had a woman been as desirable to him, and never had it seemed so wrong. But he didn’t have it in him to deny her—not now. Not after he’d seen her cry.
“Then come to bed with me, love. It would be my pleasure to give you joy.”
He carried her down the hall and into her bedroom, then set her on her feet. Without speaking, he undressed himself first, instinctively giving her time to change her mind. But by the time he was down to his slacks, she was already minus her shoes and sweater.
“Wait, baby…let me,” he said, and gently removed the rest of her clothes, then pulled back the covers and laid her on the bed.
Caitlin’s heart was pounding, her skin tingling and flushed. His body was lean and muscular, his erection impossible to ignore. She reached for him, encircling him as he came down to her. She heard him groan, then felt the warmth of his breath on her face. After that, everything became a blur: Mac’s hands, his mouth, the weight of his body pressing her deep into the mattress, then the joining, filling not only her body, but fulfilling his promise.
The joy…the joy.
Caitlin dozed in the shelter of Mac’s embrace, her dark hair in tangles on his shoulder, her ear against his chest while he lay wide-eyed and stunned, staring up at the ceiling. He’d never considered himself prophetic, but he was about to change his mind. This had more than changed everything. It had changed him. He’d never wanted just one woman before—at least, never for long. But the thought of ever making love to anyone else felt like a betrayal, and the idea of giving her up to another man was obscene.
She jerked in her sleep, and he tightened his hold. There was a slight frown between her eyebrows and a tremble in her lower lip. He knew she was dreaming, and God only knew what horror was playing out in her head.
“Shh,” he said softly. “I’m here.”
At the sound of his voice, the tension in her muscles began to lessen.
“You’re safe,” he said softly. “You’re safe.”
She sighed as she rolled, curving her backside against him as one arm dangled off the side of the bed.
He turned then, spooning himself against her body and pulling the covers up over them both. She was warm and pliant, and his heart ached for her vulnerability. He slid his arm across her body and held her close, letting his hand rest just beneath the weight of her breasts. He closed his eyes. He felt privileged that she’d asked him to make love to her and guilty that he’d given in to her plea. She’d trusted him enough to let him into her home. Then she’d let him into her bed. Now there was something else—something she didn’t know—and he wasn’t sure when, or even if, he would ever tell her. But while he was playing the gallant bodyguard, he’d let down his guard and let her into his heart.
Buddy had been watching the clock for almost an hour. The moment it ticked over to six o’clock, he got up from his desk and headed for the door. Every leash he had on his emotions was coming undone, and he needed to be away from his colleagues before it showed.
On his more rational days, he accepted that learned experiences naturally became a part of the human psyche. But now there were far more days when rationality was not a part of Buddy’s world. The more he fixated on Caitlin Bennett, the more scattered his mind became. At work, he was the man in charge. People came to him to fix their problems. And most of the time he did. No one knew how much he struggled to remain calm and organized. He was beyond suspicion in every way, yet when he left the job, he left sanity behind.
Out on the street, sounds were magnified, colors bled and ran one into the other like a kaleidoscope. He saw people’s mouths moving and knew they were talking, but the words echoed in his head, blurring consonants and vowels until he couldn’t distinguish one from the other.
In a panic, his stride lengthened until he was running for the subway. Once on board, he slid into a seat and closed his eyes, letting his head loll back against the window. Someone slid into the seat beside him, roughly jostling his arm as the car lurched into motion. He couldn’t bring himself to look for fear he would come undone. When he heard his stop being called, he came upright as if he’d been catapulted from the seat, pushing and shoving his way out of the car. He moved with the crowd as it flowed upward toward the streets. Moments later he emerged from the belly of the city, taking short, jerky breaths, like a newborn baby testing the world into which he’d been thrust.
“Hey, mister, step aside please,” someone said.
“Sorry,” Buddy mumbled. He shoved his hands into his pockets, lowered his head against the wind and started walking.
By the time he reached his apartment, he was on the verge of screaming. Thrusting his key into the lock with shaking hands, he was inside within seconds. Slamming and locking the door behind him, he moved through the rooms; ignoring dust and dirty dishes, he aimed for the bedroom. As he entered, he hit the light switch with the flat of his hand, illuminating the true insanity. Caitlin was everywhere in here. On walls, on the ceiling, bits and pieces of her had even been strewn
on the floor. Only his bed remained unsullied by her presence. He shed his coat and gloves, letting them drop to the floor where he stood. Next came his shoes, then his clothes, and finally he stood naked. Without a care for the pile of garments he’d just shed, he crawled into bed and pulled the covers up over his head. Sleep. He just needed to sleep. After that, everything would be okay.
“Buddy…Buddy…I can’t see you.”
“I’m here, Mother…right beside your bed.”
“Make it stop, Buddy. You have to make it stop.”
Buddy covered his ears, unable to hear her ask it again. Every day for the last month she had begged him to take away her pain. The cancer she’d been battling had finally gotten the upper hand. The tumors were huge knots beneath her flesh, their poison infiltrating vital organs—sucking the strength from her body with every breath she took. Short of putting a gun to her head, there was nothing left to do but wait for her to die. And oh God…as much as he loved her, he prayed for it to happen.
The guilt of thinking that was killing him, too, only by degrees. She was the only person who’d ever loved him—had sacrificed many times during her life so that he might have the superficial luxuries that his schoolmates had—and now he didn’t have the guts to grant her dying wish? How could this be? How could he be so weak?
She coughed and then moaned.
He stared at her face, holding his breath and praying she didn’t take another. But, like everything else in his life, his prayer wasn’t answered.
She gasped, her fingers curling into clawlike fists upon the sheets.
He laid his head down on the side of the bed and closed his eyes.
“Please,” he begged. “Please, God, no more. She can’t take any more…and neither can I.”
“Sir…is there anything I can get you?”
He looked up to see a nurse standing by his mother’s bed. He hadn’t heard her come in.
“No…no…there’s nothing I need.”
The nurse smiled gently and then patted his mother’s arm.
“This isn’t one of her better days, is it?”
Better days? He looked at her, wondering why people didn’t just come out and say it. For God’s sake, she was dying. Why couldn’t they just say, “Your mother is dying”?
“She’s in pain,” he said.
“Doctor is giving her the maximum dosage.”
“I know.”
The nurse sighed and then lowered her voice.
“She doesn’t have long, you know.”
Another minute is too long, he thought, but he didn’t say it aloud.
“Ring if you need me,” she said, and left the room.
His mother moaned. He stood abruptly and strode to the window, unable to look upon the colorless, wasting flesh.
“Buddy is Momma’s good boy.”
Her words hit him like a knife in the back. He looked past the windows into the night beyond the hospital walls. It was starting to snow. He hated the cold. When spring came he would—
His thoughts stopped. When spring came, she would be locked in some casket and six feet under. His mother’s springs had come and gone. This was the winter of her life—her last winter—and it would be over none too soon for him.
“I hurt, Buddy. Kiss away the hurts.”
He turned then, his face wreathed in torment, and walked to the side of her bed. The scent of death was all around her. He leaned down, ashamed to be holding his breath as he placed a quick, gentle kiss on her cheek.
Even though she’d been out of her head for more than a week, he would have sworn at that moment she knew it was him. At the touch of his lips, her thrashing stopped, her breathing slowed, as the muscles in her body relaxed.
He sighed. “I love you, Mother.”
Her eyes opened suddenly, startling him to the point that he took a step back.
“The pain…take away the pain.”
“I can’t,” he whispered. “You can’t ask that of me.”
She blinked, and as she did, tears rolled from the corners of her eyes.
“My son.”
“Yes, I’m your son.”
“Mind your momma,” she mumbled.
It came to him then, not in a blinding flash of clarity, but as a slow and final acceptance that this was the last thing he could do for her. Everything inside him began to shut down as he took a tissue from the packet at her bedside and made a small wad of it in his hands.
“Close your eyes,” he said softly, and as she did, he put the tissue against her nostrils, taking great care not to put pressure on anything that might later show a bruise. Then he covered her mouth with his hand and waited for it all to stop.
She bucked once beneath his hand, which surprised him. He’d expected her to lie still and die. But as he watched her struggling to breathe, he supposed it was just the body’s instinct for survival that made it happen, because he was only doing what she’d asked.
Her tiny little fingers curled around his wrist, the brittle nails digging deep into the flesh, and still he stood his ground, stifling her intake of oxygen.
Suddenly it was over. Her fingers slid off his arm and onto the bed. He stuffed the tissue into his pocket, took one quick look at the heart monitor that had flatlined, and made a run for the door.
“Nurse! Nurse!” he called, as he dashed into the hall. “Come quick. Mother isn’t breathing.”
Buddy woke abruptly, gasping for breath, only to stare around the room in disbelief. It took several seconds for him to realize he was not in his mother’s hospital room and that she’d been dead for several years. He swung his legs out of bed and strode to the window. Feathery white flakes drifted past the glass on their way to the ground.
Hell and damnation, it was still snowing. God, but he hated the cold. And the snow. He hated the snow. There had been snow everywhere on the day of his mother’s funeral.
His stomach growled as he began to dress; then he went to the kitchen for something to eat.
The refrigerator was quite literally bare. After a quick search of the cabinets, he realized that if he wanted to eat, it was either order in or go out. Suddenly the thought of spending another night alone in this place seemed too much to bear. Hurrying back into the bedroom, he began to dress to go out. Out of curiosity, he turned on the surveillance device and listened to a bit of the tape that was recording, but he heard nothing and supposed they were asleep. He turned off the speakers and bent down to pull on his boots. When he had time, he would listen to all the tapes. Right now, he wanted to eat.
Once he paused and cocked his head, thinking he heard something scratching in the wall, and then he smiled, remembering. It wasn’t the rat, that was for damn sure. He’d sent that to dear Caitlin—in pieces, of course, but he’d sent it just the same. It seemed only fitting, since he considered her the rat in the woodpile of his life.
Only after he exited the building did he think to look at the time. It was almost midnight. Maybe, if he hurried, he could make Dubai’s Market before it closed. He started to jog.
Ten blocks later, he turned the corner and breathed a sigh of relief. The lights were still on. He could already taste the pastrami on rye. But to his dismay, when he was still about half a block from the deli, he saw the lights go out. A woman was coming out of the door, her back to the street as he started to run.
“Wait!” he yelled. “Wait!”
Angela Dubai spun, a look of fear flashing across her face as she saw a man running toward her in the dark.
Fumbling for her keys, she turned in a panic toward the door she’d just locked, seeking safety inside the store. Her heart was hammering against her eardrums as his footsteps came closer and closer. Suddenly the lock turned and she dashed inside, but before she could shut the door behind her, she felt his hand upon her shoulder. She screamed as she spun, flailing out at him with her fists.
He hit her without thinking, and when she slid to the floor, the keys loose in her hand, he felt surprise at seeing her lying t
here.
“Stupid bitch. All I wanted was some food.”
He picked up the keys and locked the door behind him.
She lay limp at his feet, her neck turned at a crazy angle, and he knew that she was dead.
“It’s your own fault,” he muttered, and began dragging her down the center aisle away from sight.
As he did, the glow from a night-light fell on her face. He’d been to the market countless times before. He knew who she was. The owner’s daughter. Her name was Angie or Agnes, something like that. Dark shoulder-length hair fell out from beneath the kerchief she’d tied around her head. But as he looked at her, fresh from his nightmare, he saw Caitlin instead.
“Caitlin? Caitlin? Why are you here? I keep killing you. Why won’t you stay dead?”
In a sudden fit of rage, he pulled out his knife and slashed the woman’s face. Without a heart to pump it, blood simply oozed.
“All I wanted was something to eat,” he said, then wiped his knife on her coat and put it back into his pocket as if nothing had happened.
Well aware of the layout of the store, he helped himself to some bread and meat and a six-pack of beer. With her keys in his hand, he locked the door behind him as he left. Several blocks over, he tossed them down a storm drain and kept on walking.
Caitlin woke with a gasp, her eyes wide with fright, only to find herself wrapped in Mac’s embrace. In that moment, everything that had transpired before came flooding back—from her wanton request to the abandon with which she’d taken him to her bed. Not wanting to wake him and face what she’d done, she stilled, her mind still in a whirl.
She didn’t regret what had happened. Regret for something that wonderful would have been a lie. But she’d used it—and him—in an effort to distract herself from the truth. That wasn’t fair—to him or to her. What had happened between them tonight meant nothing to him, of that she was sure. But it had opened her eyes to a whole new aspect of herself. All these years she’d been lying to herself. She didn’t disapprove of Aaron’s brother. On the contrary. She was smitten. Lord only knew how long the feelings had been there. Probably from the start.