“I don’t know. I didn’t have the connections with the students then I have now. I’ll find out and get back to you.”
“All right. As soon as you can, though.” He ate the last bite of his pie.
She still hadn’t touched hers. She sat silent for several minutes, debating with herself about opening the subject, but lost the battle.
Meg picked up her fork and then looked him straight in the eye. “Why are you so skittish around me?”
He was crazy to have her here. His conviction that he could get her out of his system, his need to prove he was stronger than this stupid attraction was failing dismally. She looked right in his space, as if she belonged. She always ate with gusto, enjoying her food—unlike every other woman he’d known intimately. They picked. They dieted. They didn’t eat. His attempt to classify her as that species of woman with meatloaf, potatoes, and pie was a total bust and he should have known better. He’d seen her eat at her grandmother’s on Sundays. Nothing had changed. Now she’d called him out.
“I don’t think skittish is the word exactly.” He leaned back in his chair.
“Scared, nervous, reluctant. Take your pick.”
“I’ll settle for not interested.” Bret stood with his plate. She took a bite of her pie. He watched as she savored the sweet confection. He returned to the kitchen before he drooled. He dawdled but he really had no good excuse to avoid her. Not one that wouldn’t give away the whole shooting match. Back at the table, he adjusted the papers in his file folder and closed it, a clear signal that he was done with their conversation. She obviously wasn’t much of one for signals.
“Why don’t you explain ‘not interested’ to me?” Her quiet tone challenged. “I could have sworn interested was the message when we kissed.”
Bret’s heart jumped into his throat. “I don’t have relationships. I have women in my life for sex.”
Meg shrugged. “Okay. Let’s have sex.”
He choked on his spit. “No,” he finally managed. He seized her plate of half-eaten pie and retreated to the kitchen sink.
She licked her fork and dogged him. “Why not? I’m more than willing.”
He hardened at the thought, his jeans becoming painfully tight. “Because you won’t have sex with me and walk away. Your heart will get involved. You’ll expect things, and that’s where I can’t comply, so it’s better not to start.”
She leaned against the door frame, staring at him, then licked her fork one more time. Shivers raced up his arms and into his hair, his eyes glued to her pert pink tongue.
“You don’t know that.” She offered him her fork.
He snatched the cold steel utensil, put it in the dishwasher, and turned to face her. “You’ll walk into my bedroom, stay naked for a couple of days of hot, wild sex, and then leave?” He stared at the touchable, ivory skin just above her neckline and forgot his skepticism, desperate to touch.
“So, you’ve thought about hot wild sex, too.” Her seductive whisper brushed across a tenuous will.
He closed his eyes, a hair’s breadth away from losing control.
It took a feat of unimaginable strength to get his tongue unstuck from the roof of his mouth. “You aren’t going to change me, Meg. I am never getting married. I am never going to have a relationship that involves one woman exclusively. That’s how I feel. That’s how I will always feel. You can’t have sex, then try to change the rules. Admit it. That’s what you’d try to do. I respect you, and your family, too much to expect you to live with my choice.
She studied the intent in his eyes. He squirmed, hoping like hell she believed him. At this moment, he wasn’t sure he swallowed all his pontificating.
He cleared his throat when she didn’t respond. “I want to maintain the ability to look you in the eye when I meet you on the street. I still have to work with you and your brother. Don’t make this harder.”
She chewed her lip for a moment, then closed the space between them. “If I was willing to promise I wouldn’t ask you to change, would you be interested?”
Lust peaked. The bulge in his pants swelled to obvious proportions. She leaned in so he could smell her essence. His nostrils flared, the musky scent blazing across his memory—imprinted now. Her head would tuck neatly against his neck and he was certain their bodies would mesh to perfection. He was plumb crazy. That’s all there was to it. But he kept his hands behind him gripping the counter. “No. It’s a promise you wouldn’t be able to keep.”
Her breath whispered across his neck. “You don’t know that, now do you?” The throaty question clenched every muscle in his body.
He licked his lips. “Yes, I do.”
She walked away from him. He followed her, already regretting, already wishing it could be different, wishing he could take and not be concerned about tomorrow’s relationship. But not with Meg. Not with who she was.
She slipped into her jacket. She walked to him again and leaned in until she was lip-to-lip. He held his ground, not pulling her into his arms and crushing her mouth against his. Fool.
“You’ll never have anyone better.” She twirled, picked up her notes, purse and jacket, and walked to the door, letting herself out.
“Probably not,” he whispered.
The sigh that escaped wasn’t relief like he expected, but disappointment.
Four days later, Meg shuffled the bags in her arms and twisted the knob on the back door of her grandmother’s house. After entering the kitchen, she kicked the door shut with her foot. Her grandmother stood at the stove with a daffodil yellow chef’s apron over black pants and a purple sweater.
“Well, hello, dear. Why are you here so early?” Olivia stirred whatever she was cooking in the pot. The kitchen was filled with too many inviting smells—roasting chicken, garlic, and apple pie. Meg’s stomach growled.
The weekly Sunday dinner had been moved to early evening instead of afternoon. Meg usually breezed in with sufficient time left to hug, kiss, and sit to eat. Today she wanted time with her grandmother. She’d gone grocery shopping yesterday, gone home after church today and changed into her comfortable jeans. She’d hoped to find her grandmother alone and wasn’t disappointed.
“I thought I’d come early and help you cook for a change.” She set her bags on the counter. “What are you making?”
“Stuffing for the chicken. What did you bring?” Olivia walked toward her, spread her arms and pulled her into a hug.
She hung on for a minute, needing the sturdy support after five nights of jumbled dreams and no contact with Bret. “Just some appetizers, chips, salsa, dips.”
Her grandmother released her and looked her in the eye. “What’s wrong?”
Meg sighed. “Leave it to you to pick up on it.” She drilled Meg with the don’t-stall stare. Meg fidgeted. “Can I take my coat off first?”
Olivia laughed, the lines around her blue eyes crinkling. “Of course, dear, and I’ll pour us both a drink.”
She shrugged out of her coat and went to hang it in the coat closet. On her return, she slumped into a chair as her grandmother put two glasses of cola on the table.
Her grandmother sat across from her, a half smile on her face. “So talk. Problems with Bret?”
Meg choked on her drink.
At the police department even though it was his day off, Bret leaned back in his chair and massaged the back of his neck. He usually went to the Good Shepherd Church for services on Sunday. But today he was too irritable to sit through singing, socializing, and a sermon.
Principal Marsh had given him a list of names for students who had recently been in trouble at school. Cross-referencing them with Meg’s notes on the victims hadn’t gleaned any information. He’d asked the principal to check on the boys that Meg had mentioned, but he had yet to get back to him.
He hadn’t heard from Meg since he’d turned down her offer of no-strings sex. The vision of her standing in his kitchen whispering “let’s have sex” chased him in his waking moments and beguiled in his sl
eeping ones. Hopefully, she’d gotten the point and stayed away from him. God knows, next time he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep his hands off her.
Tom walked into the room, still in his suit from church. “Hey. Dispatch had a message from your mother.” He handed Bret the piece of paper.
He groaned and rubbed his eyes, staring at the note in Tom’s hand like it was a wolverine. Dammit. She wasn’t supposed to call him here. He had avoided calling her back the last twenty times she’d called his cell phone, though, so he shouldn’t really be surprised.
“Problem?” Tom laid the note in front of him and sank in a chair next to his desk.
“Not one I want to deal with.” Bret acknowledged the puzzled expression on Tom’s face. He never talked about his family. Never. He didn’t really know why. Ashamed. Frustrated. Pissed off with them. They were so different from the Applegates, from Bill and Helen specifically, that he really couldn’t talk about the realities without raising his need to punch a wall. Yet Tom had been his friend for almost four years now. Wasn’t it time? Why was he so uncommunicative about it? It’s not as if he’d chosen them as his parents.
“My mother is difficult. Demanding. Selfish.” He leaned forward and straightened the paperwork in front of him. “My parents can’t be in the same house with each other. It’s open war. I don’t think either has a nice thing to say about the other. My father regularly takes vacations alone without telling her. Then she calls me.”
“You don’t have any siblings, do you?” Tom asked.
“I wish.” Bret twisted his neck to relieve the tension.
“Where’s your father now?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care.” Bret shifted in his chair. “My father and I have a deal. He doesn’t tell me anything about what he’s doing and I don’t have to lie to my mother. I honestly don’t know what he’s up to this time. Her solution is for me to come home and sit with her. That’s not going to happen.”
“Like literally come home and sit?”
“Yes, literally.” He reached for the desk phone. “I better call her or she’ll be showing up on my doorstep.”
Tom rose. “Let me know if you need anything. Don’t forget Sunday dinner tonight at my grandmother’s.”
He looked at the paperwork on the desk. “I don’t think I can make it.”
Tom went to his desk on the other side of the room. “I can’t take that for an answer. My grandmother specifically asked me to invite you and make sure you come. Please don’t make her mad at me.”
He shook his head, torn between his respect for Olivia and his desire to stay away from Meg. He scratched his ear then ran his hands through his hair.
“Come on. We can both use a break from this case. Besides, how can you turn down my grandmother’s cooking?” Tom looked at him like the very idea implied insanity.
“All right. Let me call my mother first and clean up this paperwork.” Bret wadded up the message and scored a two pointer throwing it in the wastebasket. Battered by so many conflicting emotions, he thought his head might explode.
“I’ll leave you to it. I have a report to write from last night.” Tom grimaced.
He relaxed into his chair, more than ready to talk a bit and put off calling his mother. “Excitement? Heard you had a fight at the Blue Moon.”
Tom shook his head. “Yep. Two of the Murray brothers, a little stupidity, and too much alcohol.”
“That’ll do it. What was the argument about?”
“Patsy Cline.”
Bret raised a brow. “Come again?”
“Yeah, the country music singer. Don’t ask. It really isn’t worth repeating. I’m going to get some coffee while you call your mother. Want some?”
“Yeah.” He stared at the phone.
Tom paused in the doorway. “My grandmother would say you’re dawdling. That you should seize the day. Do the things you don’t want to do, so you can get on to the things you do want to do. Think roasted chicken and apple pie.”
“Your grandmother doesn’t know my mother.”
“Maybe not. But she’s usually right.”
“So I’ve noticed.” Bret picked up the phone on the desk. He hated making personal phone calls at work, but he didn’t want to run outside and he sure as hell didn’t want her calling during dinner.
His mother answered on the first ring, a bad sign. Usually she let the staff answer it and he’d wait long minutes for her to come to the phone. When she heard his greeting, she launched into her harangue, exactly what he’d feared.
“Why haven’t you called me back? I’ve been frantic.”
“I’ve been working long hours, Mother. Not getting home until late and at the office early.”
“Those are excuses. I’m your mother and I’m in crisis. Don’t you care?”
Bret bit his tongue to keep from uttering the unacceptable. “What’s the problem, Mother?”
“I think something’s happened to your father. It’s been almost a month. He isn’t home yet.”
While it was true many of his father’s trips were ten days or less, it wasn’t unheard of for him to leave for much longer.
“Are you listening to me? I think something has happened to him. You’re a police officer, right? Find him.”
He twisted his mouth until his cheeks hurt. “What makes this time different from the others, Mother?”
“I checked his closet. There’s nothing missing.”
Since his parents didn’t share a bedroom, he didn’t know how it was plausible she’d know. Trying to navigate this was like walking through a minefield with the odds pretty damn good that he was going to blow off a body part or worse.
He exhaled loudly. “All right, Mother. I’ll do some checking.” His mother’s triumphant cry made him cringe.
Tom came back in the room and set Bret’s coffee on the desk, then walked to the opposite side of the room and sat down at the other desk to write his report.
“You must come home, now. Don’t you see? It would be easier for you to track him from here.”
“No, Mother. I don’t need to come home. I’ll make some calls from here and I’ll let you know.”
“You don’t understand how distressing this is to me. I need support. After everything I’ve done for you, why can’t you show a little more interest in my feelings?”
Bret clamped down on every instinct that suggested he mouth off at her. “I’ll check into it, Mother. Let’s not make any other decisions until I see what I can find out.”
“Will you call me back this time?” His mother’s voice dripped with fake tears and trauma.
His ground his teeth. “Yes, Mother. Let me hang up and I’ll make some calls.”
It was ten more minutes before he could extract himself.
Tom looked over from his report writing. “Problems?”
“Only in my mother’s world.” Bret picked up his cell and dialed a number he knew by heart, but rarely used. When his father’s business manager answered, he put it point blank.
“Where is he and how long until he gets back?”
Meg stared at her grandmother. “How in the world do you do that?”
“Honey, I’ve been watching you around Bret now for months. It’s obvious something is going on.”
Meg squirmed in her chair. “Nothing is going on.”
“So you say.” Olivia took a sip of her cola. “Want to try that line again?”
“What do you want me to say? I’m crazy about him. Happy now?”
“Why was that so hard to admit?” Her grandmother had a puzzled look on her face. As if she didn’t know.
“You can say that considering how much this family grills each one of us about our love lives? Look at Robin and Chad. Poor Chad got harangued to death about Robin.”
“And look what happened there. He’s happy now. I want you happy, honey. Nothing wrong with that.”
Meg collapsed back into her chair. “No, there isn’t.”
Olivia folded her hands in fr
ont of her. “So, tell me all about it.”
“He doesn’t want anything to do with me. Says he’s not getting married, not into relationships. I’ve tried several times, but he keeps pushing me away.”
“Have you kissed him yet?”
Meg’s face flushed. “Do I really have to answer that?”
“That’s a yes.” Her grandmother grinned. “And how was it?”
Meg let out a deep sigh. “Fireworks. For me only, I think, though. Maybe. But, after our last conversation, I’m not sure. He’s not going to do anything about it, even if he felt something. He’s pretty adamant about no relationships.”
“Do you have any idea why? You know, Robin had been let down by so many people, she didn’t want to give Chad a chance. Is that Bret’s problem?”
Meg sat quiet for a moment. “I honestly don’t know.”
“Well, maybe you need to find out. You can’t fight what you don’t know. He’s coming for dinner. I had Tom invite him.”
“Ah, Grandma…”
“You need to talk to him. What better place than a neutral environment.”
“With all the family around? That is not a neutral environment. No, thanks.” She drained her drink and eyed her grandmother’s expression. “What have you got up your sleeve?”
Olivia feigned offense. “Just a little old-fashioned concern for my granddaughter.”
Suspicions bloomed like new tulips in the spring. “What did you do?”
“I haven’t done anything other than to invite a friend of Tom’s to dinner. You need to do the rest.” Olivia rose and went to the stove, fussing with the pots.
Meg followed her grandmother to the stove. “Methinks you doth protest too much.”
“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about. Talk to him, honey. That’s my best advice.”
Meg began to unpack her appetizers and prep them. Her family would be here soon. Bret shortly after probably. Stifling an overwhelming embarrassment caused by his rejection, she thought about her next step. Yes, she needed to talk to him. No, it couldn’t be here.
Echo Falls, Texas Boxed Set Page 28