The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 4

by Nora Roberts

  “My mother’s state of mind very much involves me. You can’t come in there talking about some store you’re thinking of opening in some house you’re thinking of buying, and how she’s going to be a part of it. It’s your business how you do business—”

  “Thank you very much.”

  “But,” Phoebe ground out. “You got her all worked up, making plans, making designs, talking about how she’ll be able to help more with the expenses. What happens to all that if you change your mind, or it doesn’t come through, or you just find something more interesting to play with?”

  “Why would I change my mind?”

  “Aren’t you the one who opened a sports bar, then sold it?”

  “Sold a piece of it,” he corrected.

  “Then a pub. And I don’t know what else.” Which was the crux of it. She didn’tknow, and he was taking her mother into territory she hadn’t mapped out. “You bounce, and that’s fine for you, Duncan, that’s just fine. It’s not fine for my mother. She doesn’t bounce.”

  “Let me sort this out. In your opinion, I’m irresponsible and unreliable.”

  “No. No.” She let out a sigh as the leading edge of her temper dulled down to the core of worry. “You’re casual, Duncan, and it’s part of your appeal. You can afford to be casual, and not just because of the money. No one depends on you, so you can do what you like, come and go as you please.”

  “Is that casual or careless?”

  “I say what I mean, and I said casual. I don’t think you’re careless. But my mother’s fragile, and—”

  “Your mother’s amazing. You know, I told her once she ought to give herself a break, but the fact is, you ought to give her one. Do you think because she can’t go out of that house, she’s less than amazing?”

  “No. Damn it, no.” Because the conversation, such as it was, had gotten out of her hands, Phoebe dragged them through her hair and tried to get back to center. “But she does. She’s been hurt and pushed and shoved into the corner so many times.”

  “I’m not going to do any of those things to Essie.”

  “Not on purpose. I don’t mean that. But what if, for whatever reason, you don’t buy that house, then—”

  “I bought it today.”

  That stopped her. That put a hitch in her stride, Duncan thought. He said nothing more, just picked up his beer, watched her as he tipped back the bottle.

  “All right, you bought the house. But what if you find it isn’t cost effective to fix it up? Or what if—”

  “Jesus. What if the voices tell me to put on fairy wings and fly to Cuba? You can ‘what if’ till next Tuesday; it doesn’t mean a damn. I finish what I start, goddamn it. I’m not stupid.”

  “You’re not stupid. I never said or meant you were.” But someone had, someone that mattered. “It’s just that this all came out of the blue, and for my mother it’shuge. I’m trying to point out the variables, and I’m trying to understand why you’d involve her in this. I can’t understand what you’re doing. I can’t understand what you want. From her. From me.”

  “Tied those two together,” he muttered, and pushed to his feet. “Must want something from you, so I use her. Let’s answer this first. You want to know what I want from you?”

  “Yes. Let’s start there.”

  He grabbed her before the last word was all the way out. The hell with biding time. He was too pissed off to bide anything. He had his mouth on hers, showing her what he wanted, taking what he wanted with an impatient anger he rarely let free.

  Hunger pushed and shoved at temper until his mouth ravaged hers.

  Her back pressed back against the porch column, and her hands were trapped between his body and hers. Every muscle in her body quivered. But not in protest, not in fear. There was a difference between fear and thrill, and she understood it now.

  When he broke off, there was suchheat in his eyes.

  “You got that now?” he demanded. “We’re clear on that point?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then—”

  It was her move now. All hers. Her hands were free so she hooked one arm around his neck, yanked his mouth back to hers. She would have chained her arms around him if her injured shoulder had allowed. When he pressed her against the column again, she nipped at his lip, rocked her hips against his.

  She let the pleasure flood her after months and months of sexual drought. The feel of his hands on her breasts, the feel of the night air on her skin when his busy fingers undid her shirt, unhooked her bra. The glorious sensation that rolled through her and escaped on a purring moan.

  She went wet and needy, arching to his hands and his mouth, quivering, quivering when he tugged at the button of her waistband.

  Here, standing right here, she wanted to be taken without thought, without care, without boundaries. Desperate, she reached for him. And the shock of pain in her shoulder had her crying out.

  He jerked back as if she’d punched him. “Christ. Christ.”

  “It’s all right. I moved wrong, that’s all. Don’t—”

  But he held up a hand, turned away. He paced up, he paced down. Stopped and took a long, long gulp of his warming beer.

  “You’re hurt. You’re still hurt. Jesus.” And, setting the beer down again, he scrubbed his hands over his face.

  “It’s not that bad. Really.”

  “You’re still hurt. And I’m not going to bang you against the post like…Okay, okay, another minute here.”

  He paced up and down again. “You pissed me off. No real excuse but I’m taking it.”

  “No excuses necessary as it was obviously mutual.”

  “Regardless. Anyway, that should answer the question, which I’m still trying to exactly remember as all the blood’s drained out of my head. The second had to do with…” He’d turned to face her again, and just stared.

  She stood, leaning back against the post, shirt open, hair tumbled, cheeks flushed.

  “Wow. Seriously. Hold on,” he said when she glanced down, then began to button up. “Would you not do that for just another minute. Maybe two? Since I’m not allowed to touch, it seems only fair I be able to look. You’ve got this really terrific body. It’s all just…just exactly right. And the way you’re standing there, and this light, and…Okay, yeah, you better close up shop there. That’s about all I can handle.”

  “You’re a strange man, Duncan.”

  “I’ve heard that. I want you, and it’s keeping me up at night. I don’t mind that so much, even though I like to sleep. But some things rate insomnia. You’re one of them.”

  “Thank you. I think.”

  “But to get back to the rest. I think the point’s just been made that I don’t need to use Essie to get to you. And you know what? You should think more of her than that. More of me, too, and more of yourself.”

  “You’re right. You’re absolutely right, and I’m absolutely wrong. I hate that. My excuse, since we’re using them, is I love her so much.”

  “I get that. You’re lucky to have her.”

  Phoebe raked a hand through her hair. He meant that, exactly that, she realized. He saw her mother, and saw the value of the woman she was.

  “I know it. People, a lot of people, look at the situation and think she’s some sort of burden. You don’t. And I’m sorry for the way I handled this.”

  “I would be, too, except I got my hands on your breasts.” She laughed. “Want that beer now?”

  “Better not, I’m driving. Duncan, please don’t take this the wrong way. I see the bars—you tended bar. And I could see if you bought a cab company, or a car service or some such thing. Maybe you have, I don’t know, and that’s part of it. I don’t know how you do this sort of thing. And I don’t know what you could possibly know about running a retail craft boutique.”

  “We’ll find out, plus I wouldn’t actually be running it. I’ve got somebody in mind for that. And you’re thinking, hell, he can afford to lose a couple hundred thousand here or there.” />
  “No, actually, I was thinking you’ll probably find a way to make it work. I’m thinking I was scared because I came home to find my mother happy, bubbling with it.”

  “She was happy when she started with Reuben.”

  Now Phoebe pressed her fingers to her eyes. “Obviously I didn’t connect those dots for myself before I came haring out here and laid into you.”

  “Hair trigger,” he said, without heat.

  “About some things, obviously. Now that I’ve connected those dots—or you have for me—I’m thinking if you hadn’t had this idea I can’t understand, exactly, my mother wouldn’t have a chance to try something exciting.”

  “I wouldn’t have made the offer if I didn’t believe I could sell the sheer hell out of her work.”

  “Which, if I hadn’t flown off, I’d have come around to on my own rather than driving out here to jump all over you. Which I don’t regret because you got to get your hands on my breasts.”

  He smiled slowly. “How long before they think you’ll be a hundred percent?”

  She reached up with her good arm to touch his hair. She liked how it always looked as if he’d just taken a wild ride in that fancy car of his. “I’ll get a note from my private duty nurse clearing me for physical activity.”

  “Works for me. Meanwhile, how about going out with me Sunday? Sunday-afternoon barbecue at a friend’s. It’d be a chance to get to know each other, dynamics with others, before we lose ourselves in wild, sweaty sex.”

  “All right. Why not?”

  “I’ll pick you up about two.”

  “Two. I need to get home.” She rose to her toes, kissed him, softly, slowly, on either cheek. “I hope I keep you up tonight.”

  He watched her walk away, flick a killer smile over her shoulder. And decided the odds were heavily in favor of insomnia.

  As her car drove away, he went back to sit, to prop his feet on the padded hassock. Eating cold pizza, drinking warm beer, he thought it had been a hell of an interesting day.

  12

  The call came through at seven fifty-eight. The kid was smart, very smart. He hadn’t panicked, hadn’t tried to play the hero. He’d used his head, and his legs, dashing away from the bungalow in Gordonston, hopping fences between the pretty backyards back to his own house, to the phone. And to nine-one-one.

  He’d given names, the address, the situation. En route to Savannah’s east side, Phoebe listened to the replay of the emergency call and thought the boy had the makings of a good cop.

  He’s got them sitting around the kitchen table. Mr. Brinker does. Mrs. Brinker, Jessie, Aaron, even the baby. Um, Penny, in her high chair. He’s got a gun. I think he’s got two guns. Jessie’s crying. Jesus, you gotta do something.

  She had more information. It came rolling in as she and Sykes sped toward the pretty neighborhood. Stuart Brinker, age forty-three, associate professor. Father of three—Jessica, sixteen, Aaron, twelve, and Penelope, two. Recently separated from his wife of eighteen years, Katherine, thirty-nine, art teacher.

  Twenty minutes after the nine-one-one, Phoebe walked through the barricade forming the outer perimeter. The media was already doing stand-ups outside the barricades. There were some shouts in her direction from reporters. Phoebe ignored them, signaled to one of the uniforms.

  “Lieutenant Mac Namara and Detective Sykes, negotiators. What’s the situation?”

  “Four hostages, three minor children. HT’s got them in the living room now.” He gestured toward the tidy white bungalow with azaleas blooming pink and white in the front yard. “Curtains closed on all the windows there. We can’t get a visual. HT’s got a couple of handguns. No shots fired. First responder’s been talking to him off and on. The word I get is the guy’s really polite, but isn’t doing a lot of communicating at this point. Kid who called it in’s over there with his mother.”

  Phoebe glanced over, saw the gangly teenage boy sitting on the ground, head in his hands. A woman sat beside him, her arm hooked firmly over his shoulder, her face pale as wax.

  “Sykes?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got him.”

  Phoebe moved on toward communications, and the edge of the inner perimeter, as Sykes walked to the boy. “Lieutenant Mac Namara, negotiator.”

  Information came fast now. Tactical had the house surrounded, the near neighbors evacuated. Sharpshooters were moving into positions.

  “He won’t talk much,” the first responder told her. “I’ve been trying to keep the line open with him. He sounds tired. Sad, not angry. He and the wife are separated—her idea, he says. Last time I got him to talk, he thanked me for calling before hanging up.”

  “Okay, stand by.” She studied the log, the situation board, then pulled out her notebook as she picked up the phone. “Let’s get him back on.”

  He answered on the third ring, and his voice was brutally weary. “Please, is this necessary? I want some time with my family. Some quiet, uninterrupted time.”

  “Mr. Brinker? This is Phoebe Mac Namara. I’m a negotiator with the Savannah-Chatham Police Department. I’d like to help. How is everyone in there? Everybody okay?”

  “We’re fine, thank you. Now please, leave us alone.”

  “Mr. Brinker, I understand you want to be with your family. You sound as if you love them very much.”

  “Of course I do. I love my family. Families need to be together.”

  “You want your family to be together, I understand. Why don’t you bring them out now? All of you together. I’d like you to put your weapons down now, Mr. Brinker, and come out with your family.”

  “I can’t do that. I’m very sorry.”

  “Can you tell me why not?”

  “This is my house. This is the only way we can be together. I thought about this carefully.”

  Planned out, not impulse, she thought as she made notes. Not anger but sorrow. “You sound tired.”

  “I am. I’m very tired. I’ve done my best, but it’s never quite good enough. It’s exhausting to never be quite good enough.”

  “I’m sure you’ve done your best. It’s hard, don’t you think, to make important decisions when you’re tired and upset? You sound tired and upset. I’d like to help you, Mr. Brinker. I’d like to help you work this all out so you can make the right decision for your family.”

  “I painted this living room. Kate picked the color. I didn’t like it—too yellow—and we argued. Remember, Kate? We fought over the yellow paint right there in the Home Depot, and she won. So I painted it. And she was right. It’s sunny in here. She was right.”

  Living Room,Phoebe wrote on her pad, circling it. “You did the painting. I’m terrible at painting. Can’t get the cutting-in part. Have you and your family lived here long?”

  “Ten years. It’s a good place to raise children. That’s what we thought. Good neighborhood, good schools. We need a bigger house, but…”

  “Your family’s grown.” Family, family, family, Phoebe told herself. Focus on family. “How many children do you have?”

  “Three. We have three. We didn’t plan on Penny. We couldn’t really afford…”

  “Penny’s your youngest, then? How old is Penny?”

  “Two, Penny’s two.”

  Phoebe heard an excited child’s voice call: “Daddy!”

  “Is that her I hear?” Now she heard a choked sob from Brinker and kept talking. “She sounds very sweet. I have a little girl. She’s seven, and I just wonder where the years went. I love her more than anything. She sure keeps me busy, though. I imagine your family keeps you very busy.”

  “I’ve done my best. I don’t know why it’s not enough. If I’d gotten the full professorship, we could afford a bigger house.”

  “You sound discouraged. It must be hard. You have an older daughter, is that right? Jessie, and then a boy in the middle, Aaron. Your wife, Kate, and you must be very proud. Still, it’s a lot of work. I understand that. A lot of worry.”

  “I needed that professorship. I needed ten
ure. I needed Kate to understand.”

  The use of past tense, and the despair, set off alarms. “Tell me what you need Kate to understand, Mr. Brinker.”

  “That I can’t do any more than I can do, or be more than I can be. But it’s not enough. I’m the husband, I’m the father. I’m supposed to make it work. But things fall apart; the center cannot hold.”

  “That’s Yeats, isn’t it?” She closed her eyes, hoping she hadn’t made a mistake.

  There was a beat of silence. “Yes. You know Yeats?”

  “Some. And I think sometimes that’s true, things do fall apart, or seem to. The center can’t always hold it all. But I also think things can be rebuilt, or reformed, and the center shored up again to hold it all differently. What do you think?”

  “Once it falls, it’s not the same.”

  “Not the same, but still there.”

  “My family’s fallen apart.”

  “But they’re still there, Mr. Brinker, and I hear how much you love them, every one of them. I don’t believe you want to hurt them. Or that you want to hurt them by hurting yourself. You’re the father.”

  “Weekend father. Perish instead of publish.”

  “I hear you’re discouraged, and you’re sad. But you’re not ready to stop trying. You and Kate, eighteen years together, and those beautiful children you’ve made together. You don’t want to stop trying. You love them too much.”

  “She doesn’t want me anymore. What’s the point? We made it all together. I thought we should end it all together. Here, in our home. The five of us, going together.”

  Thought we should.This time his use of past tense told her they might be turning a corner. “The five of you need to come out together, Mr. Brinker. Your children sound frightened. I can hear them crying now. You and your wife are their parents, you and your wife are responsible for keeping them safe and well.”

  “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

  “Look at your children, Mr. Brinker, look at your wife. I don’t believe anything’s more precious to you. You don’t want to hurt them. You can make the center hold. Look at the yellow walls. You gave them that sunny room, even when you weren’t sure it would work. Put the guns down now, Mr. Brinker. Put them down, and bring your family out. You said you’d done your best. I believe you. Now, I believe you’ll do your best again, and put the guns down. Bring your wife and your babies out.”