by Bobbie Cole
He seemed to have picked up on her scheme. After the others left, he asked her about her requests. “Memory games?”
“Card games,” she countered.
“Think you’ll be bored, do you?” This time his voice was edgy, less joking.
Charlie spread her hands on the dinette table in their suite. “Let’s cut the crap. You have memory issues—I was just trying to help.” She watched his features morph from congenial to outright angry.
“Charlie, while I appreciate your concern, butt out.”
“Pardon me?”
“I don’t want your sympathy, and there’s nothing you could do about my situation anyway. I’ve been to the best doctors, and they all say the same thing—that I can get shunts put into my skull to drain some of the fluid, but the memory loss is most likely permanent.”
The anger she’d felt disintegrated. “Seth, I don’t feel sorry for you.”
“Yeah?” He pierced her with a steely blue stare. “What do you feel, Charlie?”
Her name, soft on his lips, was her undoing. She rose and went to him. He was stiff at first, his arms hanging at his sides, his chest expanding with every breath.
“It’s only a hug, Seth, not a contract.” She pressed herself against him.
“Like I’d hate a contract with you, emotional or otherwise.” Finally his arms wrapped around her, squeezing her gently, letting her know how much her presence meant to him.
Charlie couldn’t have remained angry if she’d tried. “Why didn’t you tell me how bad your injuries were?” she asked.
Seth released her and held her at arm’s length. “I had my face rearranged, a new one sewn onto my skull, and got my cage rattled, my brains loosened. I walked away from it, so what else is there to say?”
She led him to the couch but didn’t sit when he did. “Want some coffee?”
“Sure.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t suppose you cook, too, do you?”
She grinned. “No, but I’m great at dialing room service. Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll have some food sent up.” She stuck a thumb in the direction of the hall outside their door. “Of course, Agent Double-O-Eight, or someone not as far up the CIA echelon as you and your buddies, will probably have to run their fingers over it to check for sugar bombs or veggie arsenic.”
He smiled in return. “This mean you’ll keep me company and talk to me so we can work this out?”
Charlie shrugged. “Nothing to work out. You had a job to do, so did I.”
“Yeah, but you weren’t assigned to follow me, get close to me, so whatever happened between us can’t be suspect because of your actions.”
She didn’t say anything. Whatever came out of her mouth wouldn’t make him feel better anyway, so she opted for silence while she found the number she needed and punched the buttons on the telephone.
She’d no sooner hung up the hotel phone than her cell phone rang—it was her father.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Mind telling me where you are and what the hell these two men are doing in your apartment?”
Charlie blinked. “What?”
“These two yahoos sitting in the middle of your living room floor. Who are they?”
“Dad? Why are they—did you hurt them?”
Sam sighed dramatically. “One of them has a headache and the other a sore jaw. You know that lamp near your front door? I’ll buy you a new one. I never liked that lamp anyway.”
Charlie chuckled. At least he wasn’t the one hurting. “What happened?”
“Forget what happened here. Where are you?”
Charlie gave Sam a condensed version of what had happened since she’d gotten off the plane in Houston. “I’m sorry I didn’t call. Things have been moving kinda fast, and I completely forgot.”
“Yeah, well I didn’t. Knew when you were supposed to get back, and you didn’t call, so I picked up some beer and a bouquet of flowers and thought I’d surprise you.” He snorted. “Guess I wasn’t the only one who got surprised.”
“You bought me flowers? Aw, Daddy!”
“They were five bucks at the store where I bought the beer,” he said, brushing aside her gushing. Then he swore. “Damn. I forgot to pick up something for my cell phone. My charger in the car is goin’ out on me.”
She asked again what had happened.
“I start to knock, see the door is open, walk in, and I ask the first guy if he’s Seth. He said no, so I clocked him on the jaw. The other guy comes at me, so I pick up the lamp and throw it at him.” Sam paused. “Once they started comin’ around, I asked them who they were, and they told me their badges were in their jackets. Figured I’d better call you to confirm.”
“So why are they sitting on the floor of my living room?” she asked indulgently.
“Because I haven’t untied them yet. Thank God you don’t always hang up your clothes—your bathrobe and nightgown were lying over the arm of the couch. And before you get all pissed off, I had to do something before they woke up. I’m an old man—they’re bigger than I am.”
At that, Charlie laughed. Sam was anything but helpless, but she could see his point.
“Look, Dad, I’ll explain everything else when I see you.”
“And when will that be? Charlene, you’re not getting off the damned hook here, so you’d better start talking.” Now he sounded upset, and she couldn’t blame him.
“Seth is one of them, CIA, and right now we’re in a hotel.” She gave him the address. “But I doubt they’ll let you in here.”
Sam snorted again. “They’ll let me in, or I’ll raise so much hell their boss in D.C. will hear me.”
He seemed to have turned from the phone a second. Charlie could hear him complaining in the background to one of the men on the floor. “Oh, shut up. I didn’t hit you that hard. I’m talkin’ here to my daughter—I’ll be with you in a second.”
She stifled a giggle and told him she loved him. “I have to check in with my partner,” she told him.
“Oh, you don’t call your old man, but you’ll call your partner? I see how you are.”
Charlie started to retort that it must’ve been a trick she’d learned from him, because she’d heard her mom complain often enough about how Sam would cover every base but home if he had the chance.
“I’ll talk to you again tomorrow, okay?” she said instead.
Sam’s voice was gruff. “I love you, Charlene. Watch your ass.”
He wasn’t exactly the type of father to make chicken soup or take his daughter to the ballet, but then she wasn’t the chicken soup and ballet type daughter. Besides, his heart was in the right place. She felt her cheeks grow pink. And he’d bought her flowers. How sweet.
When she hung up, she caught Seth watching her. Suddenly her throat went dry. The look in his eyes was dark, brooding.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“Of you.” His eyes held wonder, confusion, pain and something she couldn’t identify. “I wonder what it is you ever saw in me, but I have no problem with what I see in you.”
Charlie felt buoyed and deflated all at once. What did she say to something like that? He wasn’t angling for a compliment. He was giving one. “You became my best friend,” she finally said, finding her voice. “I could tell you things I couldn’t tell anyone else.” She swallowed before continuing. “Of course, at the time I didn’t realize that your job was to get me to reveal what I thought and did.”
The tender thread of intimacy between them began to unravel.
He raised his head as if stretching his neck muscles and closed his eyes. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s all we had going for us.” He relaxed, opened his eyes and leveled his gaze upon her again. “Do you?”
Honesty was stronger than pride. She shook her head. “No.” She moved toward the couch where he still sat. “We had a lot more than that.”
He patted a place beside him. She’d rather have crawled into his lap, but
she sat next to him then turned to face him, crossing her legs and propping her elbows on her knees, studying him.
“You want to know what we talked about?” she asked.
“Please.” His relief was visible, tenuous.
She smiled and sat back, leaning against a cushion. “We discussed places we’d been. I remember you telling me about Singapore, Taiwan, Bangkok, cities where you’d traveled. We never discussed our jobs—that was something neither of us was eager to get into, but we talked about facets of our work, and yours involved a lot of travel.”
He shook his head. “Weird thing is that I can tell you right now about streets in those cities, but I couldn’t tell you why I was there.”
“But you’re remembering something. Maybe that’s a sign that your memories are coming back,” she said hopefully.
“What else did we talk about?”
Charlie thought a moment. “Family. I was an only child—you were, too. You talked about your aunt in Louisiana and how she raised you after your parents died.” She paused and gauged his reaction. He hadn’t told her much, but he’d mentioned the aunt in passing.
Seth didn’t seem sad. Quite the contrary—it was as if a veil had been lifted. “Aunt Patricia. Everyone called her Patty. She was my father’s sister.” His face brightened, and he guffawed. “I’ll be damned. Of course.” His voice grew excited. “I can see her house, a big two-story on Magnolia.”
He looked at her in surprise. For a moment, Charlie thought he was going to kiss her. His hands grasped her shoulders, and she felt his excitement running through both of them. Then, it was as if a large wave of reality washed over him, and he dropped his grip on her.
Charlie waited, knowing he’d remembered something else.
“She died,” he finally said, “about two years after I got out of training. I was in China at the time and couldn’t make it back in time for her funeral. She knew she was going and had left instructions with her attorney that I most likely couldn’t be reached until after she was laid to rest.”
Seth groaned. “God, why now? Why couldn’t I have remembered this crap right after the accident? It would have saved us so much time.”
Charlie leaned forward, clasped his hands and drew them to her lap. “There’s nothing you could have done in Mexico, Seth. I was in Houston, and you were stuck there for a long while. What’s past is just that… It can’t be relived.”
He nodded and clenched her hands, circling his thumbs over the insides of her wrists. “I guess what’s bugging me now is that so much has happened that was out of my control, and I hope I haven’t completely destroyed whatever you once felt for me.” He tugged on her hands and brought her closer.
Charlie’s heart skipped a beat. At last. She was tired of carrying a grudge. It was time to put the past completely behind them and work on what they could salvage today.
Seth brushed his lips against hers. “I’m sorry, Charlie, for everything. For being a lying, conniving, secretive jerk who used you, even if it was my job. I should have come clean with you or bowed out of the assignment, something, as soon as I realized I was falling for you—and I’m sure that I did.”
She kissed him back, practically throwing herself into his lap. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I’m falling for you now. And while it feels like the first time, I know that it’s not, because it feels too familiar.” His lips claimed hers once again, and this time the pressure he exerted was stronger, more demanding. His hands left hers and held her head, lovingly, tenderly, with an excruciating gentleness that left her breathless.
Just when she felt she’d melt completely, a loud thumping on the door alerted her that their food had arrived. Damn it.
She disengaged long enough to stare into his eyes before answering the door. “Hold that thought.”
Seth moaned softly when she left to collect their food. He didn’t know if he could suffer more unrequited arousal without exploding. Every time she was near him, every time he looked at her, he felt himself harden with a heat that threatened to combust. And damned if they weren’t always interrupted by either growling stomachs from lack of food or from food itself making an appearance at an inopportune moment. Maybe it was a sign that one of them needed to become a chef. Forget the cops and robbers stuff, nix the spy games and concentrate on culinary arts.
He watched as she set everything on the coffee table, arranging who got what and making room for their drinks. Somehow seeing Charlie in a domestic mode soothed a side of him he hadn’t known existed. He wanted more of this calm domesticity, but that in and of itself was disturbing. Both of them were career law enforcement.
Well, she was. Didn’t appear he’d have much to offer to the job if he couldn’t pull himself together without his memory screwing him. Remembering his childhood or a city he’d visited was one thing. Recalling minutia, details pertinent to an assignment? That was a whole new ballgame, one in which he wasn’t sure he could play.
As Charlie settled beside him, Seth thought of what had just happened between them. It wasn’t fair of him to saddle her with a man so unlike the one he’d been before the accident. Not that he was some invalid who had to be babysat, but he was hardly the same person. He swallowed his disappointment. She deserved better. Someone who could talk shop, understand her job and what she went through on a daily basis, share the ups and downs of police work, and both commiserate and brainstorm with her. Would she be as effective if she was worried about him?
He hated doing so, but he broke the mood before she could pick up where they’d left off. He asked about the phone call she’d just received.
“Your dad, I take it, was on the phone earlier?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah.” She smiled. “Seems he bought me flowers.” She laughed while spearing a bite to eat with her fork. “It’s been so long since a man gave me flowers, I hardly knew what to say to him. Didn’t want to make too big a deal about it because it would’ve embarrassed him. But it was sweet.” Then she covered her mouth with her napkin and shook her head. “Not that I was implying anything. I mean, I wasn’t hinting.”
He reassured her he was fine with the subject. “I take it I never gave you flowers?”
She shook her head. “That’s not important. It’s that he did this. Sam isn’t the hearts and flowers type.” She chuckled. “He also bought beer if that tells you anything. What father takes his daughter daisies and beer?”
“What makes you think they’re daisies?”
She blushed. “Because I used to love them when I was a kid. Those and carnations.”
Charlie continued talking between bites. “My father and I play this ‘what if’ game when I’m on a case. He’s retired from the force, and he puts me through all these scenarios, taking me from one idea to another until I finally get where I’m meant to go. I think Sam always wanted a boy, but he got me instead.”
“I’m sure that’s not the case,” Seth said.
“Probably a little of both,” she confessed, “but I’m okay with it. So is he, especially since I turned out to be so much like him. It’s one more thing he can secretly lord over my mother, who pretty much loathes the man. He’s just happy to be out of the relationship with her, while Mom hangs onto the past like it’s her favorite winter coat she can’t give up, no matter how ratty and worn it is.”
Suddenly she narrowed her eyes and squinted at him. “Why this conversation? You get cold feet while I was collecting this stuff at the door?” She indicated the food on the coffee table.
Seth shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not sorry we went there. I just realized that I’m being unfair to you.”
“How so?” She put her fork down and wiped her lips again.
Although it pained him, Seth tried putting things into perspective for her. “I’m no longer the man you met last year. I’m not sure about a lot of things—you’re the only thing that even makes sense to me anymore.”
She seemed impatient. She set her jaw and nodded, but he didn�
�t get the feeling she agreed with a damn thing he said, just that she wanted him to get to the point.
“Charlie, like I said before, I hope I haven’t destroyed what we had.” He took a deep breath. “I hope we can at least remain friends. Good friends.”
He may as well have slapped her, if her expression was any indication. Seth immediately regretted having said anything at all.
“Friends?” She tossed her napkin onto the table. “You want to be my friend? As in going to movies or maybe even having a beer with me and my dad? Or maybe you thought we’d be weekend bed and bath buddies now and then but not live together?”
“That’s not what I meant at all,” he tried explaining.
But it was too late. He could tell he’d done more than just piss her off this time. She was hurt, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it at this point.
Life as she’d known it had never been so all-consuming and complicated since she’d met Seth Taggart. School, then the academy, life on the force, time with her mom and dad, albeit separately. Life had been the job, the occasional after-hours drink with one of her coworkers, a day off now and then. But never the emotional upheaval she’d experienced since meeting and falling in love with Seth.
Charlie tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep peacefully, unable to simply rest when she was awake and staring at the ceiling. She didn’t even have a problem admitting to herself that she was in love with him. Of course, she hadn’t let him know she felt the same now as she had the previous year. For one thing, there hadn’t been time. For another, whenever it seemed the appropriate moment to discuss or show him, there had been one interruption after another. Now this. Was he crazy or was she? Didn’t he know she didn’t give a damn what obstacles they’d have to overcome as long as they could be together? Or was that not enough for him? How could they go on like this, living on what-ifs and maybes? It wasn’t fair to either of them, and perhaps that was what he’d been thinking when he’d suggested they be friends.
She looked at the clock beside the bed and groaned. She was of a mind to march into his bedroom and tell him off, let him know just where he could shove his self-sacrificing suggestion. At least one of them would feel better. Might as well be her.