by Bonnie Dee
I thought of Micah’s voice as he offered his confession about finding his OD’d mom. Without seeing his face, I could feel his vulnerability and pain, the fragile heart he’d entrusted me with.
“I think he sees me differently. We became friends before we hooked up. I believe we have a connection beyond the sex.”
“Good luck, then. I’m rooting for you both.” Leah slurped a drink on her end of the phone before continuing. “Has Micah mentioned anything about Jonah coming up for a visit?”
“Yeah, and he said it’s because you guys are thinking of getting engaged. Is that true?” I’d been waiting for Leah to bring it up so I could.
“We’ve talked about it, but that’s as far as it goes,” she said.
I wondered if maybe J.D. was planning a surprise proposal and I’d just blown it.
“Jonah sounds pretty domineering,” I said. “I’d be really interested to meet the man who raised his younger brothers. It sounds like they barely scraped by.”
“Did Micah tell you about farming pot? I guess Jonah’s made a small empire for himself down there. Honestly, I’m a little nervous. I think he’s coming here to try to convince J.D. to dump me.” Leah sounded tense.
“Which he won’t be able to do,” I soothed her. “Screw him! J.D. loves you. He’s not going to listen to his brother.”
“I still…” She trailed off.
“What? Tell me.”
“I still worry sometimes that maybe he’s right. Maybe I’m not good for J.D. I come with an airport carousel of baggage. Maybe J.D. would be better off finding some woman who can actually see him to make a life with.”
“Bullshit! You know better. Don’t let this dude get into your head. Jonah can’t see inside your relationship. He doesn’t know how good for each other you two have been. You understand J.D. in ways no one else could. You guys love each other, and you’re going to last. Hear me?”
Leah laughed. “Yes, ma’am. Can you put that in a recording I can play back when I start to doubt myself?”
“Absolutely. I’ll leave you a voice message,” I joked, but I was half serious.
Mrs. Heidelberg started calling for me from the other room, ending my free time.
“I gotta go. We’ll talk again soon.” A thought occurred to me. “Or maybe we could go on another double date. It might be a lot better now that I don’t despise Micah so much.”
“We’ll arrange that for sure. Bye.”
I went to Sonia, dressed her up warmly, and we did a slow turn around her garden. She didn’t even try to move without her walker now, which was a relief since I could worry less about her falling down.
Partway around the circle, we took a rest on a stone bench. Moss grew on its legs, which were sunk into the earth the bench had been there so many years.
“He kissed me here,” Sonia suddenly said as she ran a hand over the cool slick granite surface. “Right here on this spot.”
“Who?” This was one story I hadn’t heard before.
“Joseph Hawkins. No one in my family ever knew. Joe did our gardening work. He wasn’t from a good family. My parents would never have approved.” Sonia looked at me, and she was one hundred percent present in those watery blue eyes for the first time in weeks. “We did more than kiss. That entire summer I spent with him, sneaking away whenever I could. We went to the lakeshore, or parks, or took long rides in his beat-up old jalopy. I was his girl that summer.”
I nodded, eager to hear more about this Romeo and Juliet story. “What happened?”
“Fall came. I went to private school. He went to public.” She shook her head. “I let him slip away because I was too scared to defy my family or be with him around my friends.” Sonia grabbed hold of my hand, her fingers like bird claws digging into mine. “I let love go because I was trying to be sensible. It was the biggest regret of my life.”
I stroked her gnarled knuckles. “I’m so sorry. Do you know what ever happened to him?”
“No. I never looked back. Never sought him out. I just moved on with my life. But I’m looking back now. Carl and I never had children, you know. With Joe, I bet I would have had half a dozen. The way we were together.” She exhaled a soft sigh.
Her pain filled me. I felt her loss, her youth gone in a flash, years passing, and the heaviness of regret. I gathered her into my arms and hugged. “I’m sorry, Sonia.”
“You’re a good girl, Gina. Find yourself a nice young man, or even a naughty one, that you like and you hold on to him.”
She’d called me by the right name for a change. She knew who I was and exactly what she was saying. Words of wisdom I took to heart.
“I will, Mrs. Heidelberg.”
After a few more minutes in the cool sunshine, I walked her back inside and put her down for a nap. Then I thought about Micah some more. He’d popped up unexpectedly in my life. Not the man I wanted to get involved with, but one who pulled at me inexorably. Lists of pros and cons—none of that mattered. I knew what my heart wanted, and I was going to give in to it, dangerous and foolish as that might be.
Would I get hurt again? Probably. Was it worth taking the risk? Time would give me the answer to that.
*
Micah
I floated through the next day in a sort of happy stupor like I’d never felt before. This wasn’t merely post sex satisfaction, that pleasant ache in the muscles reminding me of the great workout the previous night. I knew that sensation well. This was something different, something more, a warm, comfortable, chicken soup sort of feeling that made me keep grinning until Rob, my bartender, asked what the fuck was wrong.
“Nothing. Not one damn thing.” For the first time in years, it was true. Telling Gina about my mom had lifted a weight I hadn’t even realized I was carrying. Keeping that secret might have protected J.D. from heartache, but it had only added to mine.
“In fact, I’m feeling so fine, I’m gonna give you the evening off. Let me take care of a few things and then you can go,” I told Rob.
“Maybe I need the hours,” he argued just to argue, then shook his head. “Never mind. I’m outa here.”
I went into my office and spent some time on my betting ledger. I still kept a paper record, which would actually be easier to hide or permanently destroy if necessary than an electronic version. The bookie business ebbed and flowed. Sometimes I was ahead. Sometimes I took a hit when my clients struck a winning streak, but overall, I made money.
As I counted out payouts from the cashbox, half my mind was on Gina. The woman was as much of a live wire in the sack as I’d imagined she would be the first time I met her. But the sex, great as it had been, wasn’t really what had me dwelling on her. I could get great sex from any number of women. What Gina offered was far more fulfilling, and that was alarming. She’d somehow wiggled her soft, sweet way under the Teflon shield I wore. She scratched my surface, gotten me to trust her and to really like her. What might she do with that sort of power over me?
I could freak out about it and close up like a turtle drawing back into its shell. Or I could take another tentative step forward and embrace something different in my life. One thing for sure, if I was going to be with Gina, all the illegal stuff probably had to go. She wasn’t the sort of chick who would approve or look the other way if she found out. Not even about this piddly little bookmaking business and most definitely not about aiding gun smugglers. Hell, I supposed I was a gun smuggler simply by participating as much as I had.
I had to end it. I’d already told Dale me helping him was a one-time-only thing, but I needed to make sure he understood—if I could ever reach the guy. He’d been ignoring my calls for several days.
“Hey, boss. Somebody here to see you,” Rob yelled from the other room.
Another big smile hatched on my face. I was sure it would be Gina. The woman couldn’t keep away from me. She’d come back for another round. Guess I wouldn’t be giving Rob that evening off after all.
I hid the ledger behind a piece of fake wo
od paneling and went out to the bar, mostly empty this early in the afternoon. Only a couple of regulars sat on their stools.
Two big, hulking guys with faces like granite stood at the bar. One of them was the bald guy who’d screened me for Abakumov. The other I recognized as one of the guys who’d helped unload the truck at the warehouse.
Rob shot me a what the fuck? look.
Spit dried in my mouth, and I swallowed hard. “How can I help you?”
Baldie jerked his thumb toward the back. I turned and led the way to the pool room.
The guys loomed on either side of me, boxing me in, in case I decided to run. This was not good. Something was wrong, and instinct told me it had to do with Dale’s radio silence.
“What?” I asked flat out.
“Where’s your partner?” the broken-nosed man with the bald head asked.
“I don’t know. Haven’t talked to him in days.”
The man from the warehouse, a blond guy with a scar bisecting his eyebrow, grabbed hold of my arm and squeezed.
“Where?” his partner demanded again.
“I honestly don’t know. Why? What’s happened?”
Baldie stared hard into my eyes as if trying to ferret out lies. “Part of our shipment’s missing. We’re short on pieces from several different crates.”
I’d never opened the crates to look inside, but apparently some damn expensive weapons had been taken from the stash in the warehouse. Sweat prickled all over my body as my mind raced. Would Dale? Could he? Did he have a contact he could even sell them to? Oh hell, yeah. Dale Croft was the most hooked-up guy I knew in this city. He had more connections than a telephone company.
But I defaulted to denial. “How do you know it wasn’t the seller who shorted you? Or someone along the route might have lightened the load? Or even one of your own guys may have gone back to the warehouse and—”
Scar punched his fist into my face, and stars exploded in front of my eyes. I cupped my smashed nose with my hands, and warm blood quickly filled them. A stream of curses flowed through my mind, but I kept from blurting them out. The last thing I wanted to do was piss off these guys worse than they already were.
“Abukamov’s men don’t betray him.” Baldie sounded like that spy in the old Bullwinkle cartoons, Boris.
“I don’t know anything about it, I swear.” My voice was muffled by my hands and the blood filling my nose. “I can try to find Dale and talk to him.”
Scar moved, and I flinched away to avoid another blow, but he kept his hands to himself.
Baldie gave me another long, piercing glare. “Find your partner and the missing items, or you will pay for them.”
Panic and pain made my head throb and my vision go blurry as if I might faint. These tough guys wouldn’t stand for that. I pulled my shit together and nodded. “I’ll find him, but…if I can’t, what sort of damage are we talking about here?”
The man looked at the shabby back room of my bar and shook his head. “More than you can afford, my friend. You better search hard.”
“Four days.” Scar spoke at last, and his voice sounded like rusty nails being hammered into my coffin.
They left without another word. I took my bloody face to the restroom to clean up and gently wiggled my swollen nose as I stared in the mirror. Not broken, so that was a small comfort.
My mind raced like a hamster in a wheel, an endless circle with no way out. I would try to track down Dale but guessed he was long gone from the city. If I couldn’t find him or the weapons, I couldn’t raise that much cash myself even if I sold the bar. I might have to take a permanent trip back home and pray Abakumov’s reach didn’t go as far as Kentucky.
My immediate fear was for my life and then my livelihood. It would be painful to lose The Raptor’s Roost. I regretted every action that had put my bar in jeopardy. But then it abruptly occurred to me that fleeing town also meant disappearing on Gina. I’d bailed on women dozens of times in my life, but this one would actually hurt me more than the girl. And I hated that just as I’d gotten her to trust I was a decent guy, I’d destroy that trust. I craved her good opinion of me and wanted to spend more time with her.
No. I wouldn’t run away. Somehow I’d fix this thing, whatever it took. In the meantime, though, I’d have to keep away from Gina so she didn’t get dragged into my mess. I’d push her away temporarily until I sorted things out.
Chapter Sixteen
Gina
It shouldn’t have surprised me that Micah fell off the face of the earth following our night together. He sent me a few messages, then claimed to be really busy and stopped responding to my texts and calls. The brush-off hurt more than I wanted to admit, even though I’d half expected it. This was Micah being Micah, playing his player’s game. I packed my disappointment and humiliation into a tiny space deep inside me, like one of those plastic storage bags you suck the air out of to make them smaller.
It’s not that bad, I told myself. You didn’t have time to get really invested in him. You’ve been hurt worse in the past. You’ll survive. These were all sensible sentiments but didn’t touch that little package of pain stored in the basement of my heart.
A couple of days later, I’d nearly convinced myself I was okay about it all, when Micah sent a text. I really do want to see you again. Just need a little time to take care of something.
Way to mess with my head and heart, giving me hope, stringing me along. What was so important he couldn’t spare two minutes to tell me about it? Anger replaced hurt. I have a hot temper when someone crosses me and Micah was spinning my head but good.
My fingers flew. Bullshit! What’s going on?
A few seconds later, his message pinged back. Business stuff. I can’t talk about it.
Sometimes I absolutely despised texting. We needed to have an actual conversation about this. On the phone at least, but preferably in person.
The drama queen part of me wanted to show up at his place unannounced and have it out, force him to look me in the eye and tell me what was happening with him. My more pragmatic side cautioned calm and patience. This might be a really dire business issue, a threat to pull his liquor license or someone embezzling, or…whatever else small business owners had to contend with. I refused to go psycho over it no matter how much I wanted to see Micah face-to-face.
Maybe it was an even more personal issue, such as him coming to grips with having revealed his big secret to me. I could respect his request for some time to process.
Then something happened that obliterated all my obsessing about Micah. I went into Sonia’s room one morning, and she was dead.
As a caregiver, particularly dealing with geriatric clients, that’s always a possibility. I’d already lost one before. Mr. Kale, my first. I’d been the blind man’s eyes for most of a year, which was the reason I’d been a perfect choice to aid Leah. But when he died, I wasn’t on shift. Being present was very different. To walk into Sonia’s room expecting to wake her up for the day and find her still and cold stopped my own heart for a moment.
I stood frozen briefly before confirming she wasn’t breathing and had no pulse, then I called 911 and HomeCare to inform them about the death. After that, there was nothing to do but wait for the ambulance so the EMTs could tell me what I already knew. That time alone, sitting beside her, saying a prayer, and listening to the antique anniversary clock tick away the seconds seemed to take an eternity. And at the same time, it flashed past in the blink of an eye.
I was too shocked to feel anything. I tried to focus on that last glimpse of Sonia I’d had in the garden, her true personality temporarily free of dementia as she told me about the love of her life. I couldn’t feel sadness for the loss of her and knew she would be relieved to escape the body and mind that had failed her.
With the EMTs’ arrival, the house went from silent to noisy. They checked Sonia’s vitals and pronounced her. After they left, I waited again, this time for the coroner to pick up the body.
A representati
ve from HomeCare arrived to go through their standard questions and paperwork with me. Every step of the process must be strictly by the book.
It was nearly one o’clock before Mrs. Heidelberg’s body was taken and the questions were finally finished. The HomeCare rep suggested I pack my things in preparation for vacating Sonia’s house. After she left, I was alone once more.
I made myself a cup of coffee and walked in the garden while I drank it. The wind was cold, but inhaling fresh air cleared the cobwebs from my brain. Everything felt more real. My time with Sonia was over. I wouldn’t see her again. At last my brain absorbed the news. I sank down on the bench we’d sat on together only a couple of days before, and I began to cry.
I cried for how frighteningly quickly life rushed past us all. I cried for a woman who, at the end, had no family members by her side. I cried for Sonia’s lost love with whom she might have had an entirely different sort of life. Would it have been better or worse? That unacceptable boy—would he have given her true happiness? Or maybe overall she had been happy with the choices she’d made. One memory of regret didn’t cancel out the events of an entire lifetime.
I shivered as another gust blew straight through my coat. Finishing my coffee, I walked back into the house, and then I began to pack. I’d have to find someplace to stay for a while. I’d sublet my apartment to someone, so I couldn’t exactly boot him out in the middle of the month. For tonight, I could go to my parents’ house, except I didn’t feel like making that long a drive. I wanted my own place, or at least my friends around me. I could probably crash on Leah’s couch for one night. No longer than that since she and J.D. pretty much filled the small apartment. And I had other friends I could ask too. But what I really wanted...
Instinct drove me toward Micah’s place. I told myself it was so I could inform him about Mrs. Heidelberg since he sort of knew her, but I knew better. I could text him that news. I just wanted to see him. Needed to. I craved his comforting arms.
I found parking a ways down the street and made my way to the bar. The Raptor’s Roost neon sign glowed brightly against a dark window. The building’s weathered façade suggested this had probably been a neighborhood bar in one form or another since before Prohibition.