SULLIVAN'S MIRACLE

by Lindsey Longford

  “You know, I can’t think of one damned thing that you could say that would interest me right now.”

  “After you left the station, I went back to see Chief Jackson and Royal.”

  “What?”

  “You had made such terrible accusations. I was confused. I had to see if what you’d said made sense when I was with them. We’d been friends for so long. I don’t make friends easily, Sullivan. I don’t treat friendship lightly. It’s important to me. You were asking me to betray my loyalty to them, to trust you. But you wouldn’t return that trust. It was all one-sided.” A gulf breeze played with the hair curling around her face.

  “One-sided?”

  “I had to do the trusting. You got to decide if I passed the tests. Trusting goes both ways, Sullivan, or it leads nowhere. It’s a dead end. All you have to do is listen. Is that too much to ask?”

  He thought under the circumstances it was, but she kept looking at him with her eyes big and pleading, sapping his resolve. “Maybe I’ll listen, or maybe I’ll just look at you, all gussied-up in your pretty green dress. Is the dress for my benefit?” He gripped the edge of the doorjamb so that he wouldn’t trace the V neck of the dress.

  “Actually, for mine. After Seth’s Landing, I felt as if I’d never get rid of that smell.”

  He wouldn’t let her in. She’d had her say at the police station and again on his stoop. Maybe she had a point, but he didn’t have to invite her inside in her skinny green almost-a-dress. “Did you think dressing up would help get you through my door?”

  “Couldn’t hurt, is what I thought.”

  She was so tempting to him, the energy in her small body feminine and mysterious. She looked so determined and earnest, so intent.

  And underneath her lipstick and the brave banner of her green dress, underneath all that purpose burning in her, she looked weary and lost.

  It was the vulnerability that once again got to him, shoving aside any good sense he still laid claim to. “What the hell, Maggie. Come on in.”

  *

  Chapter 11

  « ^ »

  She ducked under his arm, glancing at him. “I didn’t think you were going to let me in.” Her skinny dress flowed with her movements, a clean, cool river over gentle curves.

  “I wasn’t.” Already regretting the impulse that had guided him, he shut the door with a snap. All she had to do was get three feet away from him and his willpower turned to jelly. He was drawn to her in spite of his every effort, and he didn’t like it one damned bit.

  Her arms upraised, she jabbed tendrils of hair back into the mass at the top. “Why did you change your mind?”

  “I don’t have one damned idea.”

  Her underarms were pale and smooth. He wanted to run his mouth over that smoothness, see for himself if it was as silky as he’d thought.

  “But you let me in. You changed your mind. Why?”

  “Curiosity again—I don’t know. Pass it off to delayed adolescence, if you want to. And, no, I’m not drunk,” he ground out. “I just had a few sips. Smell.” He leaned toward her and exhaled. “But I’m beginning to wish I were.” He followed her down the hall. “Why don’t you turn that sweet butt of yours around and leave? That’s what would make me happiest.”

  Looking over her shoulder, she didn’t say anything. In the kitchen, she glanced once at the newspaper clipping and then at the closed door to the beach. “Taking better care of yourself, Barnett?”

  Give the woman an inch, and she had all her sass back. “I’m working, Maggie. Say your piece.” He leaned against the sink, stretching his legs out. He was exhausted. Not up to a battle with Maggie. She looked fresh and cool, a curve of green drifting around his kitchen, stopping here, there, not staying in one spot.

  “I said most of what I had to on your step.”

  “Oh, good. You’re leaving, then?” He straightened quickly. “I’ll walk you to your car.” He wanted her to leave. He wanted her to stay. He still wanted her.

  Even though he’d seen how close she, Jackson and Gaines were, he wanted her.

  “No, not yet.” She passed by him to the bare counter, touched it and passed him again, the breeze generated by her movement bringing her scent to him. “Sullivan.” She stopped in front of him.

  “What?” Her scent was driving him wild.

  “When I returned, to talk with Royal and the chief?” She fiddled—there was no other word for it—with the flap of her dark green leather purse, lifting it and snapping, lifting and snapping.

  He almost reached for a pen to give her. He missed the authoritative click-click he was used to. This indecisive Maggie made him very nervous.

  How could she turn him inside out like this? All that sweet fragrance and her delicate curves. More than that, though. Her essence—that was what pulled him. Something in her nature that sang to him like a siren song, pulling him off course, pulling him to her and the knife-sharp rocks.

  “They were head-to-head, talking.”

  Mrs. Reid had said a detective had talked to her. Sullivan should have asked her which one, but he’d been uncomfortable with her grief. He’d wanted to exit as fast as possible after he’d retrieved whatever files Reid might have left. “They’re buddies.”

  “Not really.” She smoothed the leather flap shut. “Although Royal likes the chief, well, we all do. He’s behind his cops all the way. And we give him our loyalty in return.” Now she fiddled again with her hair, not with her usual purposeful efforts to control the mass of curls, but in troubled distraction.

  “Good for you. I’m sure Johnny’s real glad you’re all behind him.”

  “Listen to me for a minute, will you?” Exasperated, she reached out to hold his arm.

  But he turned, and her square palm with its short nails slid in a light scratch down his bare chest.

  “Maggie. You listen to me.” He jerked out a chair and gestured to it. “Sit. Don’t move until you’ve finished. You’re making me nuts with all your hither-and-thithering.” He leaned over her. “I’m listening. Talk.” He glared down at her.

  “This was different. There was … an atmosphere. Do you know what I mean?”

  He did.

  “I felt like a stranger, an outsider. As though I’d interrupted something. Jackson was so—” she stopped “—I had the strangest sense he was putting a spin on things for me. Handling me, like a hostile civilian.” She slid the strap of her purse off her shoulder and tied knots in it, one after the other until a row of them shortened the strap to a tennis-ball-size loop.

  “You’ve never felt that way before?” His curiosity caught for real, Sullivan was listening. “This was different?”

  She buried her face in her purse. “Very.” The topknot of her hair wobbled, threatening to surrender to gravity.

  “How?”

  She lifted her head and her eyes were shiny with tears, but she wouldn’t cry. Not Maggie. “You’re going to think I’m insane.”

  “Probably. But tell me.” He craved to touch her. Once more. That was all. One touch would be enough.

  “I haven’t told anyone this. I’ve been too frightened to talk about it.”

  He couldn’t imagine Maggie frightened. She had a born-in-the-soul courage. “Talk to me.” He gentled his voice. She was holding herself together by sheer will. He’d believed she couldn’t affect him anymore, but her effort moved him in spite of himself. Her courage had always gotten to him, right from the beginning, creating a reluctant and unwanted admiration for her. “I won’t tell anyone.”

  “You wouldn’t. I know that. That’s part of what’s weird. Royal and Jackson are my friends, but I can’t tell them. Somehow, in spite of anything that makes sense, I trust you.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why I do, but I figured it out when I realized that I didn’t want to tell them everything, couldn’t.”

  “Like what, Maggie?” He reached out to her and stopped. Not smart, Sullivan. Stick to business. “Go ahead.”

  “While I was in
the hospital and doped up for pain, sometimes I’d open my eyes and not recognize anything, anyone. I was so scared. I’d drowse and wake, feeling lost, as though I were looking for something.” She laughed shakily. “I know it was the medication, the loss of blood, the operation—all those things. But I was so different when I finally surfaced through that drug fog and stayed conscious for longer periods. I felt as if I’d been reborn and had a second chance at life.”

  “That’s not uncommon, Maggie.” He wished Lizzie had had one more chance. That would have been enough. He would have bullied her into marriage, never let her push him out the door even for those brief hours. “People who’ve gone through similar experiences report the same feelings. You’re okay.” He wanted to sit down and pull her onto his lap, comfort her.

  “Don’t you start handling me, too. Once today was enough to last me for a lifetime.” She grimaced. “The problem was that I didn’t see people quite the same way I had.” Her words gushed in a torrent. “Everything is off center. Skewed. I’m not sure of myself about anything. Like at Taggart’s. I don’t know what happened to me.”

  “Stress trauma…”

  Her fingers were twisting and twisting in the loop of the purse strap. “No. Different. It’s like the gun doesn’t belong to me anymore. I wasn’t scared at Seth’s Landing. Not even when Tolly and his troops were chasing us. Certain parts of my life don’t mesh anymore.” She took a deep breath, the green knit shifting and flowing with her, and looked out at the gulf, obscured by the outside lights and the blinds he’d closed. “So when I saw Royal and Jackson huddled together, it was as if I didn’t know them. I did, once upon a time. But I don’t now.” She shivered.

  “I told you I went back to see if your accusations made sense to me when I saw them face-to-face. I wanted to explain more of what had happened at Seth’s Landing, too.”

  “I figured you would tell them everything.”

  “Sullivan, when I opened the door and they looked at me, I wanted to run. I was scared.”

  He’d worried earlier that she might be in danger, and he’d turned his back on her and left her with them. Sullivan knelt on the floor and grabbed the chair back, enclosing her in the harbor of his arms. “Shh, Maggie. Don’t be scared. I’ll take care of you.”

  “Sullivan, I didn’t tell them you knew the clerk.”

  Mrs. Reid’s detective had gotten to her awfully fast.

  “Royal asked. I lied.” She dropped her head. “I don’t know why, but I lied to a man I’ve trusted with my life. And now he’s a stranger to me, and I’m telling you things I couldn’t trust him with. Couldn’t trust the chief not to make me take sick leave or force me to go on early retirement if I tried to explain how confused everything was.” She rubbed her nose with the leather strap and dropped it, her hands quiescent.

  “Aw, Maggie. Don’t torture yourself like this.” He bent forward and laid his forehead against hers. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about, but you’re okay. I’ve seen you in action, remember? You’re gutsy as hell. And I heard your report to Jackson. Your mind works fine. The accident didn’t change you. Made you see what your life meant to you, that’s all. You don’t have any reason to doubt yourself.”

  “No?” The shine of tears lingered in her eyes and her mouth was pink and full, her lipstick chewed off as she’d tried to explain her story. “Want to hear the really goofy part?”

  “Sure.” He lifted her out of the chair and settled her in his lap, wrapping his arms around her and rocking her like a child.

  “In spite of everything, I’d be partners with Royal again. He wouldn’t hurt me. I don’t know how someone found out about your meeting, but I can’t believe in my heart Royal was involved in that clerk’s death.”

  “A man—Paul Reid. A man with a wife and child.”

  She nodded. “Paul Reid. He shouldn’t have died there in the mud. Someone found him out there, but it wasn’t Royal. I know that in the deepest part of my being. Royal might cut a few corners, but he’s not a dirty cop. Can you give my judgment that much trust?”

  “I don’t know.” He’d only given one other person in his life that kind of trust. “You’re asking me to be someone I’m not.”

  “No, only to recognize that some things in life have to be taken on faith. Some things can’t be documented in black and white. I can’t see the moon some nights, but I know it’s up there behind the clouds. I haven’t seen atoms whirling in a table, but I know they’re there. I accept as facts things I can’t see or touch. Things I can’t verify with my senses.” She curled her fingers against his neck. “Oh, Sullivan, there’s more to life than what we can smell or taste—or feel.”

  He pulled her closer. “That’s not my style. I don’t take anything on faith. You know that.”

  “I know it doesn’t make sense to you, but I’d trust Royal with my life.”

  Sullivan felt her fingers skim over his neck as she wound them into his hair.

  “With my life. But not with what I’ve told you. There’s the kind of faith I have in Royal—and the no-holds-barred faith I gave you when I rang your doorbell. I knew you wouldn’t let me down, no matter how angry you’d been when you left. I knew I could tell you what it’s been like for me these last months and you wouldn’t handle me. I knew you would listen and not think I was crazy.”

  She rubbed her face against his bare chest and he trembled with the need to give her what she asked.

  “I didn’t ask you to trust me.” The curve of her against him was seduction, persuasion, reason enough. But it was the memory of her at Taggart’s, at Seth’s Landing; the memory of her standing so bravely in her green shoes and dress on his front step—those memories threatened to conquer him.

  He’d tried to convince himself that her only appeal was physical. He’d told her that the bond humming between them was nothing more than sexual. But the Maggie of those memories seduced him with her courage, her vulnerability, her spirit.

  That spirit lured him, spoke to him in a language he heard distantly and longed to understand.

  “Trust me. A little. Please.” She lifted her face to his, her eyes unguarded and warm, daring him to leap into the unknown with her.

  She left him defenseless.

  A tendril of her hair tickled his nose, brought with it her scent, her sweetness. With her in his arms and her scent lingering near his mouth like a voice calling him, he couldn’t fight her, couldn’t fight himself. No longer wanted to.

  She’d come to him tonight out of the dark in her leaf-green dress like a promise of spring, tender and vulnerable.

  She asked him for trust.

  She asked him to slash the bonds of earth and soar beyond the horizon.

  He didn’t know if he could.

  Didn’t know if he had it in him to forget the lessons he’d made himself learn through the years. To depend only on himself. To look before he leapt. To lower his barriers and trust her when logic, the ruling principle of his life, argued against it.

  But logic, ah, logic was a weak soldier against the lure of Maggie’s spirit.

  “I’ll try,” he muttered into the curls tempting his mouth. “It’s not the answer you want, Maggie. It’s the best I can do.”

  “That’s all I want, Tin Man,” she whispered. “I never wanted to live in Oz, just find my way home to Kansas.”

  Straightening in one motion with her in his arms, Sullivan covered the distance to the bedroom, where the green cursor, the only light, blinked its silent command as he laid her on the bed among the rumpled sheets and lowered himself on one knee beside her.

  Dim, the room was filled with memory and possibility, shadows and substance, the quiet ticking of the clock echoing the slow beating of his heart. There was more here than the pulse of desire. More than the craving of his body.

  Something outside his comprehension, beyond his understanding.

  Risk.

  For her. For him.

  Tantalizing.

  And terrifying.


  In that strange light, as he knelt on the bed, his right knee close to the curve of her waist, wonder moved in a deep tide through him.

  “It won’t be only anonymous sex, will it?” There was wonder, too, in her eyes.

  “No,” he murmured, touching her face, pushing away a stubborn brown tendril near her cheek. “Something else entirely.” He twined his fingers in her hair, loosening the topknot, letting the rich mass of her curls spill free. “Did you come to chase away my phantoms, Maggie-the-Cop?” He lifted one long curl and separated the strands, spreading them across his pillow in a cloudy fan.

  “How could I? I have my own. They comfort me in the night when I’m frightened and lonely.” She stroked her fingertips across his mouth, and he caught one gently with his teeth, tasting her. She turned toward him, one knee raised, her dress sliding up her thigh.

  Shadows and shadows.

  “What do you want?” He raised her hand to his mouth and turned it over, kissing the palm of her hand.

  “Whatever you want,” she whispered, the honeyed sunshine of her voice glowing inside him, blending with the tide swelling in him, pushing back the phantoms.

  Her voice offered entry to paradise when he’d thought to linger forever at the gates, locked outside.

  With the backs of his knuckles, he edged the ribbon of green higher, letting his hand span her waist where the delicate flare of her hips began. Thumb and little finger resting on the points of her hipbones, he pressed the heel of his palm softly across her, smoothing the silky slide of her panties against her skin, his, as he rotated his hand.

  As he trailed his thumb under the lace border at her waist, he felt the flutters in her abdomen, felt them inside himself as she walked the fingers of both hands up his ribs to the underside of his arms and down his back, circling the sagging waistband of his gym shorts. Easing himself beside her, he lay facing her, watching her eyes change, darken, as he slipped his forefinger inside the bottom edge of her panties, brushing against her in minute sweeps closer to her intimate heat.