by Lisa Ladew
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
She looked at him questioningly. He smiled sadly. “Rumi again.”
“What does it mean?”
“To me, it means that the places we’ve been hurt the deepest offer us our greatest chances to understand humility and compassion. And to be close to God, if you believe in him.” He sounded tired, worn-out.
Jen shook her head slightly. He peeked at her out of the corner of his eye. “What?”
“You’re so … deep. How old are you?”
“28.”
“You’re only two years older than me. How are you so …” she hunted for a word. “Self-aware?”
He took her hand. “I’ve been through some horrible things in my past. And I guess I’ve been searching for ways to justify them or be OK with them for a long time.”
She curled her fingers around his, feeling genuinely concerned for him. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Nah, no sob stories on the second date. Are you done eating? I want to show you something.” He pulled his hand away and finished his food in two bites. Jen ate her Pb&M quickly, her curiosity piqued.
***
20 minutes later, after they’d changed into dry clothes, Coleton pulled her by the hand to a non-descript building butting up to the local aquarium. She pulled back for a second, looking at the front of the aquarium longingly. She hadn’t been since she was a child, but she used to love coming here with her mom.
She let Coleton pull her inside where an empty reception counter greeted them. Coleton weaved them around it to a door in the back. Jen wrinkled her nose. “What is this, a veterinarian’s office?” She smelled animals. And fish?
“Kind of. You’ll see.”
He pushed in the next door and called out a name. “Kyle? Are you here?” Jen looked around with interest at the animal cages stacked on top of each other. They were all empty.
A voice drifted to them from behind another door. “Back here Coleton.”
They crossed the room, the smell of fish coming even stronger, and Coleton pushed open the door. Jen immediately forgot all about the smell. “Oh my goodness they are so adorable!” she cried, and dropped to her knees in front of the man who must be Kyle.
He was cross-legged on the floor with a sea lion pup, about the size of a Jack Russell Terrier on his lap, and his back up against a large kennel filled with 20 or so more of the sea lion pups. He was bottle-feeding the one on his lap from an over-sized bottle. The pup snuggled into him and looked at him adoringly with wet black eyes that took up most of its face. Behind him, the rest of the pups climbed all over each other and nipped at his clothing, pulling it through the holes in the chain link. A few made a low stuttering bark, and when they saw Jen they swarmed towards her as much as they could, barking excitedly.
“Jen, this is Kyle. He’s in charge of wildlife rescue in town and he’s been overrun by sea lion pups for the last week. I told him I’d help him feed them today.”
“Hi Kyle,” Jen smiled and reached out to touch the pup on his lap. She pulled her hand back, indecisive. “Is it OK if I pet him?”
“Her. And yes. Rhetta, say hello to Jen.”
Rhetta only had eyes for Kyle though. Jen pet her gently on the back and thought she felt soft and silky, like the soft fur of a puppy’s ear.
“Bottles of slop are on the counter. Only the littlest ones need to be bottle fed. The rest will eat out of a bowl. Grab a bottle and grab a baby.” Kyle nodded to a smaller kennel that held much smaller sea lion pups than the ones behind him. “There’s nothing to it.”
Jen stood up enthusiastically and got her bottle, then made her way to the little kennel. When she opened it, the 6 pups inside rushed her on their awkward fins, yipping and honking excitedly. Jen fell backwards, laughing. One of them got its mouth on her bottle and she pulled it to her, not sure what to do about the others. Coleton picked them off one by one and put them back in the kennel. Then he grabbed his own bottle and settled in to feed the smallest pup.
When the noise of the pups calmed down enough for them to talk, Jen looked at Kyle. “Where did they all come from?”
“Area beaches. They come on shore to warm up. And we get called when there’s no mother nearby. We come check them out and if they are small enough and don’t look like they are getting enough food we bring them here to feed until they are big enough to survive on their own. It happens every year.”
“What happened to their mothers?”
“We don’t know. They may have just been separated. Or mom could have gotten sick or been eaten.”
Jen looked down at the slick ball of fur and fat in her lap and felt sad for it.
“But don’t worry. We track a few of them every year and most of them do great once we release them. They have babies of their own even.”
Jen smiled down at the pup in her lap, feeling a rush of elation. She loved animals, especially the babies. And now she was getting to feed a baby sea lion. She glanced at Coleton, who was wrestling with his own pup, and tipped him a wink, feeling a confusing mixture of emotion when she did so. A glance down at the phone in her pocket told her it was still peeking out, so Hunter and Sgt. Sadler were getting a eyeful of sea lion pup. Good, at least they wouldn’t be worried about her. Although the feeling that there was absolutely nothing to worry about when she was with Coleton was even stronger now. As long as you stay away from his dad.
An hour later, after every pup was fed and the tiny room had been cleaned and each pup had gotten a pet from Jen, Coleton offered to take her on a behind-the-scenes tour of the aquarium. She accepted, and when she felt his hand touch hers, she folded her fingers into his willingly enough, feeling half-guilty, half-sad, as she did so. Don’t forget half-fascinated and half-happy, she chided herself.
“Kyle must be a good friend.”
“Yeah, we’ve been friends for a long time. Since we were eight. Every time I come back here I go see him first.”
“Come back here?”
“I moved away when I was 12. I always come back though. This is where my mother and sisters are.”
“You didn’t move away with your mother?”
They were walking along the back side of a huge aquarium. Jen made a show of studying the fish inside, so she didn’t have to look at Coleton’s face. She tried to keep her questions light, like it didn’t matter if he answered them or not.
“No, I—” From the corner of her eye she saw Coleton drop his gaze to the floor. “I ran away.”
She squeezed his hand and looked at him.
He looked back, deeply. “I ran away and when they brought me back kicking and screaming I refused to live with my father. So they sent me to San Fran to live with one of my mom’s sisters. Since I’ve been an adult I’ve lived here off and on, but I don’t like to stay too long. My dad lives here. And he’s not a nice man.”
Jen tried to think of something to say to respond to that, but Coleton took two steps forward until he was right up close to her. “But I don’t want to talk about him. I want to talk about you, Jen. And how beautiful and sweet you are. And how glad I am that you are here with me.”
Jen took a step backward, then another, but didn’t let go of Coleton’s hand. The thick glass wall behind her stopped her retreat. Coleton slowly took another step, until he was only inches away. Even more slowly, he lowered his face to hers, giving her plenty of time to pull away, step to the side, or tell him to stop. She did none of those things. His lips touched hers and she felt her body melt. Her traitor lips kissed him back. Her condemnable hand snaked behind his neck and pulled him closer. And her stupid brain watched it all, never offering so much as a token protest.
Chapter 16
Fiore Savoy puffed his first cigar of the day, still enjoying his number 2 house with its sweeping views and quiet landscape. As he thought the word quiet, his glance flicked to his neighbors to the left. That useless yapping rat with a collar had barked its last bark the day before. And
wasn’t that fine? Now if his telephone would stay quiet, he could enjoy his morning.
As if thinking of it had summoned a call, the damn thing buzzed beside him. Fiore cursed and picked it up, pressing the stupid little button to answer the call.
“Boss. I have, ah, news.”
Ah, shit, Fiore thought. This sounds bad already.
The voice pushed on, a tiny tremor in it. “The first thing I’m going to tell you might sound like bad news, but I think you’ll like it. I think you’ll like it a lot. But the second thing …”
“Just fucking spit it out!”
“OK, OK sorry. The undercover unit has an officer dating your son. He met her and liked her so they are just taking advantage of an opportunity.”
Fiore fought an urge to chuck the phone over the railing. This was what he was supposed to like? This fucking stronzo thought this was good news?
“But look, you know how you’re always pushing me to fuck with him, right? To convince him that he’s better off working for you, with you, than not? This might be what does it finally. If he figures out the police aren’t going to leave him alone, even though he aband— even though he hasn’t been working with you, the cops still harass him? So then what choice does he have but to come back to you? To do what the cops think he’s doing anyway.”
Abandoned. That’s what the stronzo had been about to say. Yes his son had abandoned him. 16 years ago his own son had turned his back on his father and everything that his father stood for. And Fiore didn’t understand it. He offered his son everything anyone could ever want. Money, power, influence, wealth that would last for generations. And his son said no. He didn’t want anything that came from Fiore Savoy, like it was dirty or something. He turned his back on the entire family.
Fiore sighed. His only son. All his other children were girls. Good girls that loved the family, but girls nevertheless. He couldn’t turn his empire over to a girl when he retired. He wanted to give it to his only son. So was this a good thing? Only time would tell.
“And the second thing?” he said, his voice weary.
“Well, um. OK. Remember I told you about the investigation into your new guys and their operations? The cops have upped the game a little bit. They are operating a pawn shop downtown, and one of them invented a way to track every bill that goes in and out of the shop and they are running all the money from every arrest and bust in the town through this little machine, and the DA says it’s a miracle and it’s going to revolutionize the way they connect cases. And I’m not sure if this means you can be connected to the street operations. And, well, they are planning on patenting the machine and sending it out to every cop shop on the West Coast. That and the items database that goes with it. Which means they’ll be able to track money and items anywhere in the state.”
In the quiet that now filled his ear, Fiore realized he had a headache that was trying to kill him. Fury washed over him. “And why didn’t you smash this machine, stop this distribution?” His words were tight and laced with anger.
“I did what I could! But once the DA knew, there was nothing I could do! Don’t you see? I could lose my job. My reputation.”
“Your reputation! That is not important. It’s my reputation that is important! Your reputation is shit! And so is your job. I’ll see to that.”
Fiore pulled the phone from his ear and did chuck it over the railing. He didn’t feel any better. And the phone was smashed to bits on the rocky slope beyond the house. Sweet Mother Mary what a butt-fuck.
This was bad. And those fucking cops were getting a little too big for their britches. Fiore got up and shuffled into the house. He would nap. And when he woke up he would decide what to do about the cops. And his son.
Chapter 17
Jen let herself be kissed. She let the sensations in her body wash away the swirl of confusing emotions from her mind. Her body responded at once; nipples hardening, breath coming in short gasps through her nose, heat twining its way down her spine all the way to her sex. Coleton tasted lightly of peppermint and his skin, up-close, smelled like salt and ocean. His tongue met hers and she gasped lightly in his mouth. He brought his free hand up to her hair and ran his fingers through it, causing tingly goosebumps to break out over her skin. She didn’t want her first kiss in months to end. But at the same time, guilt finally started to weigh on her.
She broke the kiss, and pulled back from him slightly. His eyes fixed on her, burning her with their intensity. He ran his fingers through her hair one more time and then stepped away, pulling her back beside him so they could walk on, past the aquarium.
“You’re for real, aren’t you?”
Jen’s heartbeat doubled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I haven’t had a girlfriend in 3 years, because ever since I started making so much money I haven’t found one real woman who didn’t immediately throw herself at me sexually, once she found out about my bankroll.”
Jen gave him a sideways look. “Really?”
“Really.”
“You must be hanging out with the wrong people.”
Coleton laughed. “I must be.”
“Coleton, there’s something I have to tell you though.”
He stopped walking and pulled her hand to face him, his face set like he’d been expecting it.
“I’m not totally available. I really like you a lot. And I wish I’d met you two months ago. Or three years ago. Maybe things could have been different. But I don’t see us going anywhere serious.”
His mouth drooped slightly and his eyes lost their light. Jen felt her heart crimp at his sadness.
“Can I ask why?”
Jen took a deep breath. “Things are just … complicated. I’m sorry.” The guilt she felt earlier started to press on her like a physical weight. What was she doing? He was a perfectly nice man, and she was dating him as an undercover cop. She was his Adam. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again.
They started walking, Jen’s throat constricting painfully.
“Maybe I can change your mind.”
Or maybe you’ll hate me eventually, she thought, shaking her head slightly.
They’d reached the very back of the building. He pulled her through an exit door into the strong, late-afternoon light. They walked slowly, hand-in-hand, back towards their cars. “Why did you go out with me if you are … unavailable?”
Jen was caught. She knew she’d created this. But now she had to tell her first outright lie. But she could cushion it with truths at the same time. “Because you’re handsome, and sexy, and sweet, and interesting. And I guess I wished that things were different. And because it was just lunch. And just surfing.”
He nodded. “But it’s more than that too.”
“I know it is. I felt it in your kiss,” Jen breathed.
“I have been burnt by the fire of love.”
Jen stopped short and stared at him, her heart racing again. Coleton gave her a half-smile. “Don’t worry, it’s just Rumi again.”
Jen let herself be led to her car. And when she finally made it home she only cried until she fell asleep.
***
Jen woke the next morning, her hair knotted in her face and her head pounding. She heard Jerry and Sara talking in the kitchen, then Jerry’s laughter. She looked at the clock. 9. She’d slept in again. Slept for over 12 hours actually. Well it had been a hectic and emotionally draining week. She was entitled every once in a while.
She lay on her back in the bed, thinking about Coleton. Thinking about his kiss and the way she’d responded. I shouldn’t have kissed him, she thought. He was a sweetheart though. Taking her to feed the sea lion pups. And taking her surfing. God, maybe someday they could be friends. If he didn’t hate her when he found out. Which he should.
Jen put a finger to her lips, remembering the pressure of his mouth on hers. Replaying the sensations that had swept her body. She didn’t miss Adam, but she did miss having a boyfriend. A crushing feeling of loneliness pulsed through her. She turn
ed away from it, reaching for anything that would make her feel better. Hunter’s face appeared in her mind. She smiled reflexively at the feelings of warmth that accompanied it.
A knock sounded on her door. “Yeah?”
“Jen, are you OK?” Jerry called through the door.
“I’m fine. I’m getting up.”
“Sara and I are heading out to Emma’s place. Do you want to come with us?”
“No thanks.” The last thing Jen wanted was to watch all the happy couples hold hands and kiss all day.
“Sgt. Foley came by here last night to see if you were OK.”
“Hunter came here?”
Jerry was silent for a moment. “Yeah, Hunter said he wanted to make sure you weren’t upset. I told him you were sleeping already.”
“OK, thanks Jer. I’ll call him.”
“Are you upset, Jen?”
“No, I’m good,” she lied.
“OK, call me if you need me.”
“I will, thanks.”
Jen scrambled out of bed and found her pants from the day before, pulling her phone out of the pocket. She pulled up Hunter’s messages to see if he’d texted her. The only texts she found were the ones from the day before that she’d already responded to.
Good Intel work. It’s looking more and more like he’s clean. You are done for the day unless you want to debrief.
I don’t.
Are you OK?
Yes, fine. Heading home.
She hadn’t thought anything about the Are you OK? last night, but now she saw it in a different light. He was worried about me? I wonder if he knows I kissed Coleton. She shook her head. Of course he did. He’d had a front row seat to it. For some reason the thought made her sick to her stomach. Like she’d done something bad or unethical.
Jen wished she had someone to talk to. Someone who already knew everything that was going on. Who would understand. Hunter’s face flashed in her mind again but she shook her head. She had to admit that she had a teeny crush on him and calling him when she was off-duty probably wasn’t a good idea. Loneliness settled in on her again.