by Raina Lynn
The distinct splash of a body hitting the water in a swimming pool drew him to the backyard. Rick pulled himself out of the water, then executed a flawless cannonball, showering his delighted cousins, ten-year-old Desiree and eight-year-old Ashleigh. On the patio, white linen adorned two long tables. One was set for dining, complete with china and crystal. The other was decked out with enough food for a small army.
Garrett caught a movement to his left. Maggie! His gut twisted. How could she be here, too? He’d needed today to start regaining control of his life, his first day without her.
She rose from a lawn chair by the pool, an uncertain smile on her lips. He looked away, fighting a scowl. She poured a glass of iced tea and handed it to him. His wide fingers brushed her slender ones, and his senses screamed awareness of the contrast between her sensual warmth and the chill of the glass.
“What took you so long?” she asked.
Babe, why are you doing this? Get back to your life and leave me to sort through mine! “We took the scenic route.”
Her expression closed. “Why are you glaring at me?”
Disgusted by his failure to keep his feelings private, he schooled his face to bland neutrality. “Sorry, the drive took more out of me than I expected.” Then he gestured with the tea glass in the general direction of the bored caterer, who made unnecessary adjustments to the salad. “And this is a bit more than I bargained for.”
Her face opened in a relieved smile. “I talked Faith out of inviting half the police officers in northern California.”
Garrett recoiled, appalled. The last thing he needed today was the pity of his friends and a reminder of all he’d lost. When cops got together, they talked shop. Period. “Thanks.”
The pool house door opened and his parents strolled out onto the patio. His mother’s face blossomed when she saw him, but his father’s transmuted into dazed horror.
“What did you do to yourself, boy?” he thundered. The older man frowned as if struggling for memories that couldn’t be found.
A familiar dull ache lodged in Garrett’s throat at his father’s condition. “I’m fine, Dad,” he returned softly, casting a reassuring look at his mother. “Grab a seat.”
As the older couple sat down, he studied his mother. What he saw again grieved him just as much as the first time he’d seen it. She was killing herself caring for the man she loved. In the four years since a stroke had started Dad’s downhill slide, she’d aged ten, and Dad didn’t have a clue. He cast a discreet look at Maggie, his beautiful Maggie, willing to put herself through the same hell as his mother. The knot of resolve hardened.
At that moment, Ashleigh spotted Garrett, pulled herself from the water and flung wet arms around his neck. “Uncle Garrett! Now we can eat. I’m starving.”
A soggy eight-year-old was exactly what the moment needed, and Garrett’s laugh was heartfelt. It was then that Rick noticed him. The boy’s smile was more relief than pleasure. After a moment’s reflection, he forced a wave. Garrett nodded in return.
So much for a one-day reptieve. He tried to recapture the sense of freedom and peace he’d found as he and Blake had raced up the highway. But it was gone, and he feared the day could only go downhill from there.
Faith gave him the place at the table between Rick and Maggie. He wanted to slide into the easy camaraderie that used to be so normal for them. But those days were gone. So was the casual affection. As the caterer served their plates, Garrett remembered countless other backyard parties. The adults had sat around, watching the kids and swapping small talk. Maggie often leaned her head against his shoulder, and he’d occasionally nuzzle her hair.
Today, in sullen silence, Rick swallowed his displeasure at his father’s proximity. Maggie tried to avoid talking directly to Garrett, but the obvious effort to give him space only irritated him more. She shouldn’t have to walk a tightrope like that. On the other hand, she knew he needed to be alone, so why had she accepted Faith’s invitation in the first place?
The moment the caterer cleared away the meal, Desiree turned to her older cousin. “Rick, I bet I can swim under the water longer than you.”
Rick grinned at her. “Since when?”
“Since I’ve been practicing.” Her perky little face glowed with confidence.
“Prove it.” He shot from the table, both girls on his heels.
“Give your food time to settle first,” Maggie called out. Three disgusted faces turned toward her. “Find a board game or something.”
Muttering, the trio trudged into the house.
To Garrett, this was too much like tormenting him with the past, taunting him with a life he could no longer live. He couldn’t deal with it, not today. Blake and Faith went to check a weird noise coming from the pool pump, and his mother took Dad into the house.
“Maggie, I need to ask a favor,” he said when they were alone.
“What kind?”
“Could you and Rick go home early today? I need time to get used to the new order of things. You two being here isn’t helping.”
Maggie’s expression congealed into one of shocked pain. “How do you expect me to explain leaving to the rest of the family?”
Without intending to, Garrett had cast himself in the role of the bad guy. It embarrassed him, and temper opened his mouth. “Knowing how things stand between us, what were you thinking of coming here at all?”
“You can’t talk to Mom like that,” Rick snapped, slamming a board game onto the table. Green eyes burned.
“Your mother and I are having a private conversation.”
“Yeah, right.” He snorted, cutting his gaze to Maggie and blatantly dismissing his father. “Come on, Mom. Let’s go.”
“What about swimming?” Ashleigh asked.
“I’ll come back tomorrow, and you can show me your stuff. It’ll give you two another day to practice.”
Distantly, Garrett noticed how good Rick was with his younger cousins. No wonder they doted on him.
Faith and Blake wandered back to the table. “What’s up?” Blake asked, his arm draped around his wife’s waist.
“Dad told us to get out, so we’re leaving.”
Maggie shook her head in disbelief. “Don’t exaggerate.” She turned to her in-laws. “All this is a bit much for a furlough, so I think we’ll disappear. That’ll make for two less bodies to complicate things.”
“Stop compensating for me!”
Maggie gave Garrett an acid look over her shoulder as she steered Rick toward the house. “Someone needs to.”
Faith followed, trying to talk them into staying. Blake just looked at his brother, apology in his eyes.
“Sorry, bro. I should have thought this through better.”
On Monday, Maggie turned Garrett’s care back over to a reluctant Carl Sapperstein and avoided Garrett completely. If that was what he wanted, fine.
On Wednesday, the morning fog burned off early, leaving a perfect Bay Area summer day. Half the staff, including Maggie, took their lunches to the inner courtyard, and she snagged her favorite spot by the rose arbor.
“You reassigned him to me for punishment, right?” Sapperstein dropped his overtall, underfat frame into the lawn chair opposite her own.
She had no intention of discussing the real reason with an employee—friend or not—so she blinked at him with exaggerated innocence. “Would I do that to you?”
Sapperstein whimpered dramatically. “Boss, if I promise to do my charting like a good little boy, will you let me out of the lion’s den?”
Maggie covered her worry with a fat-chance-buddy grin. Every shift since Garrett returned Saturday night had reported a serious change in his attitude. “How bad has he been?”
Sapperstein snorted deep in his throat. “Monday, he took my head off. Tuesday, he told me where I could go and what body orifice it involved. We won’t talk about today.”
She took a bite of her sandwich. The bitter tang of too much mustard grabbed a disproportionate amount of her atte
ntion. Saturday’s fiasco had renewed Rick’s self-imposed penance, and he’d made lunch for her every day this week.
“Is he still being discharged Friday?”
“Blake’s orders,” she said, forcing the bite down her throat.
Sapperstein hooked a leg over the chair arm and swung his foot. “The outside world can be a scary place. Odd, though, he doesn’t strike me as a baby bird having trouble leaving the RPI nest. But is that part of it?”
The concept of Garrett being insecure about anything was still somewhat alien to her; then again so was this whole situation. Dubiously, she eyed the other half of her sandwich, then offered it to Sapperstein.
“Oh, wow,” he said after chomping into it with childlike glee. “I finally found someone who knows how to make a decent sandwich.” He waggled his eyebrows appreciatively. Then, gazing over her shoulder, his expression became fixed in midchew.
“What’s the matter?”
“I, ah, think I have some suppositories to count.” He got to his feet, and Maggie turned to see what had caught his attention.
Garrett slowly made his way along the sidewalk, his jaw set.
“Thanks, friend,” she groused as he undraped himself from the chair and started to leave. “See if I ever feed you again.”
“Boss, I can see a family squabble coming a mile off, and I make every effort to not be in the middle.” He winked. “See ya back at the salt mine.”
Maggie took a deep breath as Garrett approached. I am not a wimp. I won’t run and hide. Keep telling yourself that, Hughes, and maybe one day you’ll believe it.
Restrained anger churned in his eyes, and a tightness pressed his lips into a flat line.
“Did you need something?” she asked, her voice not quite as stable as she would have liked.
“Maggie, I was out of line Saturday.”
Temper flared before she had a chance to swallow it back. “Well, at least you waited until Rick and I had eaten before you asked us to leave.” She supposed she shouldn’t be so sharp with him, but even after five days, she still hurt. He’d been polite, but the bottom line was he hadn’t wanted her there. “It wouldn’t have been so bad if Rick hadn’t overheard and decided to do his White Knight imitation and rush to my defense,” she said. “Now I’m stuck with him trying to expiate his latest sins.” Grimacing at her half sandwich, she stuffed it back in the bag. “Again.”
“I really am sorry. I was exhausted. I needed time alone, and I could have handled it better.”
She dragged her gaze to him, the remorse on his beloved face draining away the anger. “It’s okay. I shouldn’t have come Saturday, and I knew that beforehand.”
He sighed. “Ever since I jumped down your throat, I’ve tried to find an apology that didn’t sound trite.”
Here we are, again. Hurting each other. Apologizing. Wishing it hadn’t happened. There was a certain sick humor to it, and Maggie’s lips quirked uncontrollably. “How does this sound?”. she suggested. “The day didn’t measure up to my expectations, and I came down .with a major case of testoster one poisoning.”
A bark of rueful laughter erupted from Garrett’s chest. “Guilty as charged, Your Honor.”
The underlying problems remained, but the surface tension shimmered away like mist, leaving behind an unutterable sadness and a breach neither knew how to cross.
What do you want from me, Garrett? Don’t you know it tears me up that I won’t see you every day? They sat in silence, too vulnerable to risk the pitfalls of speech.
“Aha!” Blake’s sudden presence startled both of them. “My two favorite people. Together! Just like they should be.” He snagged Maggie’s lunch sack and gleefully rummaged through it.
“What is it about my food that people find so attractive?” She made a swipe for it, but Blake darted out of reach.
Deep lines etched his face, and his eyes looked hollow with fatigue, a picture totally incongruous with the wicked pleasure in his expression. Pulling out the half sandwich with a bite missing, he looked at it dubiously. “Another one of Rick’s?”
Maggie nodded.
With a shudder, Blake stuffed it back in the sack. “Oh, well, I’d rather go out and celebrate than brown-bag anyhow. This calls for champagne.”
“Oh?” Garrett asked, sharing a suspicious look with Maggie. “You’re entirely too happy for a man with bags under his eyes. What gives?”
“Yep.” He yawned. “Rough surgical load this week.”
“Okay, Blake,” she said, bracing herself. “You’re either punch-drunk from exhaustion, or your sneaky little conniving mind has been working overtime again.”
He pulled a face of mock hurt. “Boy, I know when I’m not toved—or appreciated. Besides, this didn’t require any effort on my part at all.” He burst out laughing.
Garrett looked murderous. “I’m not in the mood.”
Blake sighed contentedly, determined to savor the moment despite his brother’s rising fury. “Desiree woke up this morning with chicken pox. She looks like a blond leopard.”
Maggie gaped in confusion. Blake was a sensitive, loving parent. She couldn’t comprehend such a callous attitude over his child’s suffering.
“The best part,” he continued gleefully, “is that Ashleigh hasn’t had them either. Nor was she exposed by the same child Desi was.”
Maggie cast a confused look at Garrett, stunned to see him sitting deathly still, immobilized in horror.
“That’s right, big brother. My house won’t be safe for about three weeks.”
The blood finished leaching from Garrett’s face. He was so pale, Maggie feared he might be in danger of passing out. Slowly, he shook his head in mute denial. “I can’t stay here another three weeks. I’ll go insane.”
“Will you two please clue me in here?” she demanded.
Blake laughed so hard he could barely stand. “Three weeks it is, bro. I called Mom just to make sure.”
“Be sure of what!” she snapped, ready to strangle them both.
He reined in his good humor long enough to smile at her beatifically. “I’m surprised at you, Mag. How could you not know that your hero—and mine—never had chicken pox?”
Maggie sucked in her breath. Childhood diseases could be life threatening for an adult in Garrett’s position.
“This isn’t funny,” she choked out.
“If he’d already moved in and gotten exposed, you’re right.” Blake rubbed his ear thoughtfully. “But since he hasn’t, that means I can laugh all I want. The way I see it, he has two choices. Stay here until I’m positive Ash is safe. Or he can find alternate housing.” He kissed Maggie on the cheek and ruffled Garrett’s hair. “Gee, I wonder where?”
Garrett’s face was a study in abject despair.
“You two set yourselves up as such great targets.” He turned on his heel and sauntered off. “If you need any help figuring things out, let me know.”
“I’ll kill him,” Garrett muttered under his breath:
“Not unless I get him first,” she snarled. “Why does he do that to us?”
Garrett was a long time in answering. “Rubbing our noses in our problems is his way of punishing us for the divorce.”
“Oh.”
They shared an uncomfortable glance, then their gazes skittered away. Blake couldn’t have made it harder on them if he’d tried. Then again, that had undoubtedly been the point
“Garrett?” she asked into the silence. “Is it true? You never had chicken pox?”
He shook his head. “Not even a light case.”
It felt extremely odd after all these years to suddenly discover something new about him. “What about when Rick—”
“I was gone on a sting operation for nearly a month. I missed the whole thing.”
The memory erupted from the recesses of her mind. Silence descended again. If talking had been strained before, it became impossible now. Yet neither could bear to be the first to leave. When Sapperstein came out and stalked toward them lo
oking as if he could eat somebody, she nearly kissed him.
“Sorry to intrude, boss,” he said, his jaw clenched in rare annoyance, “but I’ve got a real whiner squawking for management.”
Thank you! She fought down a smile and made herself appear professionally sober. “On my way.”
On Friday, a decidedly masculine knock sounded on Maggie’s office door. Her heart leaped into her throat. After twenty years, she couldn’t mistake that knock.
“Come in,” she rasped out.
Garrett shoved open the door and wheeled in. Tension lines marred his square features, and his hair was rumpled as if he’d been digging his fingers through it, something he only did in extreme agitation, and never if he caught himself at it. Maggie took it as a warning and braced herself.
“Are you busy?” His brow furrowed as he took in the mountain of papers in her in basket.
“Should be, but I’m not.” She hadn’t been able to concentrate since Blake dropped his bomb two days before. “You look like you’re not sleeping well.”
Fleeting surprise crossed his features. “So do you.” A wildness churned in his eyes she’d never seen before.
His breath rushed out in a single groan. “Maggie, never in ‘my life have I felt so closed in. I feel like I’m in prison. I can’t stay here any longer. T’ll be a raving lunatic.”
You’re close to that now.
He tapped his fingers on his knees, and his eyes darted around the room.
Her heart went out to him. “Three more weeks of Club RPI won’t be easy, but you’ll make it.”
He muttered an incoherent expletive and shot her an acid look. “Only if you sedate me for the next twenty-one days.”
Discreetly, she gripped the edge of her desk to keep from throwing herself into his arms. Garrett, come home where you belong. Give us a chance. Please? How can I live without you!
Even if he did come home, she knew there were no guarantees. True, he wasn’t a cop anymore. However, he wasn’t the same person either. How well would he adjust to his limitations? He’d spent his entire adult life courting danger like a lover, unable to take a simple cross-country flight without its insistent presence. Maggie couldn’t imagine him at a job empty of risk, yet what remained open to him that would satisfy that tremendous internal drive? Could she live with what he found?