Mirror, Mirror

by Linda Randall Wisdom

  She had no concrete evidence, but she knew whatever had sent Duffy into such a frenzy was now long gone.

  When she saw Mac returning to the house, she quickly turned off the alarm.

  “Did you find anything?” she asked the moment he stepped inside. He opened the patio door so Duffy could go outside.

  “Trampled grass that looked fresh, but I don’t know if someone was just there or was there an hour ago,” he replied. “Maybe someone was out there taking a walk.”

  “Or maybe someone was out there watching us,” she whispered, still looking through the glass door.

  Mac stood behind Dana with his hands resting on her shoulders. He gently pulled her back against him, crossing his arms in front of her as if offering her his protection. She reached up, curving her fingers over his arms. They watched Duffy amble around the yard, occasionally stopping to sniff a bush or mark his territory. He acted as if nothing had upset him.

  Dana closed her eyes and allowed herself to bask in the warmth of Mac’s embrace. She turned her head so she could rub her cheek against his chest. The crisp hairs tickled. She sighed when she felt his cheek resting against hers.

  “Are you sure?” he murmured, easily guessing her need. “I didn’t mean to, but I think I was a little rough with you. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  She tipped her head back and flashed him a smile that was pure female. She was a woman who’d been made aware of just what she had to offer a man.

  The right man.

  It only took her smile, not any words, to convince him she was more than sure.

  Mac didn’t waste any time before returning to the bed.

  “You’re going to be even later getting to the office,” he advised, even as he made damn sure she wouldn’t heed his warning.

  She looped her arms around his neck. “I don’t see why anyone would complain. After all, it is Saturday.”

  Mac should have felt guilty. After all, he’d just made love to a client. Made love to her more than once. He’d broken the commandment he’d made the day he’d opened his office. He’d known it would never be a good idea to get involved with a client. Yet, here he’d gotten involved with Dana, in spades. He’d always walked the straight and narrow with a client. Why had he changed his rules now?

  He’d even managed to keep his commandment when he helped out Kandy Kane. He’d found the man who’d beaten the stripper so badly she hadn’t been able to work for months. After her attacker was arrested, a grateful Kandy not only added a bonus to his fee but also invited him to frolic in a large waterbed with a fake fur covering. Considering Kandy had a body that had most men salivating, with luscious curves that earned her the big tips, it hadn’t been an easy decision. But he’d done it. He’d walked out of her apartment, cursing himself every which way. But he knew he’d done the right thing.

  Thou shalt not mess with gorgeous clients. Admittedly, he generally used a harsher expression than make love. Except the crude term didn’t apply where Dana was concerned.

  She was warm and openly responsive as she moved into his arms. And she smelled like baby powder, which he’d discovered came from the body lotion she kept on a glass shelf over the bathtub.

  If he was going to break his own rules, he couldn’t have done it with anyone more special.

  He couldn’t remember anyone else ever feeling so perfect in his arms.

  Damn, he felt complete with her—something he hadn’t thought he could ever feel.

  She now lay on her stomach next to him. He smiled as she drew lazy patterns on his chest. “Are you having fun?”

  “Yes, actually, I am.” She watched the dark hairs wrap around her finger. “What were you like as a little boy?”

  He absently rubbed the spot between her shoulder blades. He needed to touch her. To feel the silken surface of her skin.

  “I wasn’t anything special. Just a typical pain-in-the-ass kid who got into fights, played baseball and cut school when I could,” he replied.

  “I bet your mother wasn’t too happy with you playing truant.” She kept on drawing aimless designs on his chest.

  “My mom wasn’t around to be happy or unhappy,” Mac admitted, staring at the ceiling. If he was going to say things he hadn’t thought about for a long while, he couldn’t look at her and lose himself in eyes the color of cobalt. He found they tended to make him say things he normally wouldn’t.

  She was one dangerous woman.

  “Your parents were divorced?” she pressed.

  He let out a loud breath. “My dad eventually divorced her. She just up and left one day. She said she couldn’t handle my dad’s job. She didn’t like knowing he was going out there and could get killed at any time. He worked Narcotics. A lot of times he worked undercover, which meant he’d be gone for months at a time and he couldn’t contact us. We had no idea when he’d be back. He’d also been shot and knifed more than his share of times. One of the times he was in the hospital, she packed up her things and left. We never heard from her again.” He spoke to the ceiling.

  “Oh, Mac.” Dana’s voice was soft with pain. “She left your dad and left you too? How could she do that? You must have felt devastated.”

  He watched the sunlit patterns on the ceiling. It was easier than looking at her. “She didn’t feel any guilt about it. Dad was ticked off more than anything else. Probably because he thought he had to find someone to look after me when he was on a case. I showed him I didn’t need anyone. I could take care of myself.”

  She guessed there was more to the story, but he wasn’t ready to tell her. “How old were you when she left?”

  “About ten,” he said in a flat voice. “As Dad always said, I was big for my age, and as long as I didn’t burn down the house, he wouldn’t need to worry about me.”

  Dana rested her cheek against his chest, wrapping her arms around him. He combed his fingers through her hair. From this angle, he could see the scar along her hairline she’d talked about. He gently traced it with his fingertip.

  “No one said anything about you staying home by yourself?” she asked. “Teachers at school? Other policemen? If your father wasn’t home all the time, someone had to have been there to take care of you.”

  “Some of the wives brought by meals when Dad was undercover. I had the entire precinct making sure I toed the line.” Mac’s laughter held no mirth. “They all knew my dad’s parenting skills were pretty limited and they didn’t want to see me thrown into the System. My ex-wife used to say I was too much like my old man.”

  Dana shot up. Her mouth dropped open in shock from the bombshell Mac dropped. “You were married?”

  “For three-and-a-half years.” He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and brought her down to him again.

  “Do you ever see her?” she asked.

  “Not since the divorce papers were signed, and that was quite a few years ago. She’s happier married to a masonry contractor who works regular hours. They’ve got four kids and six cats, and she drives carpool.”

  “It sounds like she didn’t want to do her fair share to make things work, “Dana said softly.

  “I don’t think either of us did,” he admitted, tangling his fingers in her hair and brushing it away from her face. His fingertips encountered the scar again.

  He frowned as he looked down at the narrow ridge that disappeared into her hairline. What was it about the faint mark that seemed wrong? Sure, it bothered him like hell that she was hurt so badly it left a permanent memory of her accident. He didn’t want to think how a little girl must have suffered that day. No, it was more than that that left him feeling unsettled.

  She reached up and kissed the hollow of his throat. “So I guess he wasn’t there for your football and baseball games.”

  Mac thought of the dark-visaged man who put terror into many a drug dealer’s mind. The man who had a boy hating him with a vengeance for letting his mother go and for never being there for him. “Actually, I was on the baseball team. Except, my dad tho
ught baseball was for wimps.” Even when I pitched a no-hitter against the school’s biggest rival.

  “Everyone needs someone,” she whispered. “That kind of pain is too sharp for anyone to handle by themselves.”

  That’s it!

  He shifted his body so he could better study the scar.

  “You said you fell and cut your head?” he asked, using his fingers to part the hair from the mark.

  Dana rolled away, taking the enticing warmth of her body with her. She shook her head so her hair settled back into place.

  “It was a nasty punishment for my doing something I wasn’t supposed to. I climbed up on a chair because I wanted a toy on a shelf. I overbalanced and fell. I hit my head on a corner of one of the shelves. I was told I bled everywhere, since it was a head wound. I only remember waking up in the hospital with a bad headache and feeling the stitches.” She leaned halfway over the bed and picked up her robe. She shrugged into it and tied the belt as she knelt on the tumbled covers.

  “But you also said that after the accident you couldn’t remember anything that happened before you fell. So how do you remember falling?” He sat up and pushed the pillows up behind him.

  “I don’t know. I guess because I was told I fell. Why do you want to know about something that happened years ago?” she asked.

  “Just curious. What do you remember about falling?” Mac took the stray loop of hair and tucked it behind her ear, letting his hand linger against the warmth of her neck.

  Dana frowned as she cast her mind back to that time. “To be honest, I don’t remember anything about it. My parents told me what happened, after the doctor told them I couldn’t remember how I fell. All I remembered was waking up in the hospital and crying because my head hurt.”

  “So they were there when you fell. I’m surprised one of them didn’t see you and catch you in time,” he said casually.

  She shook her head. “Maybe they were across the room and couldn’t reach me in time. Maybe they called out a warning that startled me. That could have been when I fell. Why are you asking me about this?”

  “I told you. I’m curious.” Mac’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Call it a legacy from being a cop. We like to see things settled. Everything tied up in a neat little package.”

  His brain started spinning as he tried to figure out why Dana’s parents might have lied to her. Years of work-related injuries taught him one thing, and that was what caused certain scars. One thing he knew was that the narrow scar along her hairline hadn’t come from connecting with the edge of a shelf. He knew the difference, since he had a couple of scars like hers on his body.

  Dana didn’t like the intense expression on Mac’s face. “What aren’t you saying?” she demanded. “Why are you so curious about something that happened years ago?”

  “I’ve seen scars like that before and they don’t come from hitting a shelf,” he said quietly.

  A cold trail of fear traveled down her spine. She licked her lips. “What do they come from?”

  Mac was silent for several moments. He kept his gaze level. “It’s a knife wound.”

  Dana couldn’t keep her eyes from his face. She didn’t doubt his words. But she still wanted to tell him he was mistaken.

  If it was the truth, that meant her parents had lied to her.

  “I’m going to take a shower.” She climbed off the bed and stopped by her dresser for underwear and a change of clothing. When she went into the bathroom, she closed the door with a soft click.

  She ran the water as hot as she could stand it. The spray pelted skin that felt ultrasensitive after Mac’s lovemaking.

  How could a child end up with a knife wound? If her parents had lied to her about her accident, were there other things they lied to her about?

  She ducked under the water to wet her hair, then squirted shampoo into her palm. She lathered up and vigorously scrubbed her scalp as if she could scrub away the scar.

  Her fingers lingered over the narrow ridge of scar tissue. She forced herself to think back to that day. She had wanted her favorite doll, but it had been put up on the shelf. She was too impatient to wait until someone could get it down for her. So she pushed a chair over to the shelves and climbed up. When her mother came in and found her on the chair, she called out to Dana. Dana panicked and fell.

  Be honest with yourself, Dana. Mac is right. How could you remember falling? Wasn’t it what you were told?

  All she did was come up with more questions.

  Wasn’t it said that people start acting completely differently after a blow to the head? Could that have happened to me and just not shown up until now?

  She panicked as the shower stall seemed to crowd in on her. She quickly rinsed off and climbed out. As she dried herself off, she told herself she was better off not thinking about any of this. After her accident, her parents had urged her to forget it had even happened. It was easy enough to do when her wound healed and left nothing but the faint scar. She wished she could go back to that time and forget it all over again.

  Dana took her time drying her hair and putting on some makeup to hide the shadows that darkened her eyes. She did everything possible to help her put a little bit of distance before going back out there.

  When she finally did, she found the bed neatly made up and no sign of Mac. Then she heard the shower running in the guest room.

  A search of the refrigerator revealed she didn’t have much left. It didn’t seem to matter to Duffy, as he happily tried to nose his way past her to see if there was anything there for him.

  “You’re out of luck,” she informed the dog. “There’s not even anything here for your master and me.”

  “He figures anytime a refrigerator door is open, it’s meant for him.” Mac’s hair still glistened with water droplets as he entered the room. “Come on, I’ll take you grocery shopping.”

  “That must be an exciting prospect for you,” she said drily.

  “Only if we can find some of those ladies in white uniforms giving out free snacks.” He tossed his keys up into the air and caught them. “You do it at the right time, you can make a meal out of it.”

  Dana nudged the large dog to one side and closed the door. She presented Mac with a stony stare. She wasn’t going to let him charm her out of her bad mood just yet. “Just as long as we don’t talk about scars anymore.”

  “And here I was going to show you the cute one on my butt.”

  She didn’t smile. “I can see that you think there might have been more to my fall off that chair. I don’t know if there was and I don’t want to know.”

  Mac grew still. “Sometimes you’re better off if you know the truth.”

  “My parents have never lied to me. Just leave it alone, Mac. I mean it.” She privately resolved to remain firm on the issue. Now she knew she wasn’t eager for answers that could change her perception of her family. She’d already lost so much, she didn’t want to lose any more.

  He shrugged.

  Dana felt a small victory at Mac’s capitulation, but she had a good idea it was still far from over. If she knew her PI, he’d find a way to tackle it from another direction.

  Mac eyed the mega grocery store with a wary eye. There wasn’t any way this place could be called a mere grocery store. Not when they had video rentals in one corner, a pharmacy in the other, along with a florist and even a popular fast-food franchise inside.

  “All they’d have to do is sell furniture and you’d be all set.” He pushed the cart for Dana while she consulted her list and put things in the basket.

  “I don’t come here as often as I used to,” she admitted. “Probably because there was a store not far from the office and it was easier to stop by there after work.”

  He grinned when she added a box of large dog biscuits to the basket. Duffy would definitely be her friend for life.

  Mac never thought of grocery shopping as a fun activity. Truthfully, he avoided it all costs. His idea of grocery shopping was stopping long enou
gh to fill the cart with a variety of frozen dinners, coffee and any junk food that appealed to him.

  Dana had different ideas when she shopped. She took the time to carefully examine every item before she dropped it into the cart. But he did like watching her small frown as she made her examinations. At the same time, he was never so grateful as when they were in the checkout line and her items were being scanned. Dana wrote out a check and handed it to the cashier. A moment passed before the woman smiled uncertainly.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Madison, but I have to call the manager about this,” she said, picking up the phone next to her register.

  Dana was surprised. “I’ve written checks here for larger amounts than this,” she said. “Is there a new policy?”

  The checker didn’t reply as she turned away to speak softly into the phone. A minute barely passed before a man wearing a white shirt and tie approached them.

  “Ms. Madison.” He also spoke softly as he steered them away from the checkstand. “I thought you understood the last time you were in here that we can no longer accept your checks.”

  “What are you talking about?” She kept her voice low. “Are you saying something is wrong with my check?” She felt the heat of Mac’s body behind her, and it gave her comfort. She had a horrible feeling this wouldn’t be pleasant.

  The man hesitated before explaining. “I’m sorry, Ms. Madison, but in the past two months, four of your checks have been returned by the bank due to insufficient funds. While you were fairly prompt in making them good, the management does have a policy about this type of situation when it happens too often. As you know, I explained that to you when this last happened. Naturally, if you pay cash or use your ATM card…” His voice fell off under her glacial stare.

  She felt light-headed as the words rang inside her brain. “I have never bounced a check in my life,” she said slowly and succinctly. “And I haven’t been in this store for at least three months. There has to be a mistake.”

  The manager glanced past her to Mac, who stood silently by her side. The man flushed. “I’m afraid there’s no mistake, Ms. Madison. In fact, I was the one to assist you the last two times when you came here to settle the problem.”