by Gayle Wilson
Everything carefully in its place. Abby believed she understood the reasons for that. Or maybe that was simply one more of those stereotypical ideas she had about the blind.
She refused to move into the bedroom nearest to Nick’s, the one Rob said Yates had been using. Her boss didn’t make the logical objection to her rejection of that room, the one about security that she had expected. Instead he took her bag to the one she directed him toward, the bedroom at the other end of the hall. As far away from Nick’s as she could manage.
“There’s only one bathroom, I’m afraid,” Rob explained. “Whoever did the modernizing downstairs apparently ran out of money before they did much upstairs.”
“That’s okay,” she said. It wasn’t, of course. That was the last thing she wanted. To share a bath with Nick. Suddenly her head was filled with images that were just as disturbing, maybe more so, than the ones she had experienced standing in the doorway of Nick’s obsessively neat bedroom.
He doesn’t remember me, she told herself. Not anything. Not the animosity. And certainly not the other. But she didn’t analyze why that thought should be reassuring when she had come here with the express purpose of trying to make him remember.
She had researched this kind of traumatic amnesia in the endless months while she had waited for Nick to remember. Had waited for him to call. Had waited for him to be able to do something about what had been going on between them.
No matter what she had hoped, however, all the experts she read had agreed. The closer to the trauma lost events had occurred, the less likely it was that the memories of them would ever come back.
And after all, those few weeks they’d been involved, the time right before the shooting, weren’t what Rob needed Nick to remember. They weren’t the important part of what he had lost, as far as he or the department or the FBI was concerned. Those days—and nights—weren’t important, she supposed, to anyone but her.
“You okay?” Rob asked again. She glanced up and realized that she had been standing with her hand on her stomach. Unconsciously touching the baby she carried.
“I’m fine. Maybe just a little tired,” she lied.
She wasn’t tired, except emotionally. After the upheavals of the last six months, she was emotionally exhausted. That was something else her obstetrician had been right about.
And instead of stepping back and forgetting all the things she couldn’t do anything about, could not change, no matter how much she might want them to change, here she was—in the one place guaranteed to bring all those useless emotions roaring back. Along with a whole hell of a lot of new ones, she acknowledged. She realized that from the moment she had faced those dark, unfocused lenses downstairs.
Just put your feet up and relax, Rob had instructed. Only, there was nothing at all relaxing about this, and in her heart Abby knew it was going to get much, much worse before it got any better. If it ever got better. And everyone’s hopes were riding on what happened out here. Including, she supposed, her own.
SHE JUMPED when the phone rang. Rob had thoughtfully moved it from Mickey’s old room into hers before he left. Abby had been unpacking her clothes, hanging things in the tiny closet and folding her underwear to lay it in the lined drawers of the big East Lake chest. She grabbed the receiver on the third ring, expecting to hear Rob’s voice, calling to check up on them.
But this wasn’t a voice she had ever heard before, she realized quickly. It was female, and it was heavily accented. A distinct accent Abby was very familiar with, however, having heard it all her life.
“You the new one?” the voice had asked in response to Abby’s hello, but the article had been pronounced “da.” Da new one.
Abby’s mind raced through the possibilities, but there was only one rather obvious conclusion to be drawn. “Maggie?”
“You switch off them alarms. I been out making groceries, and I’m coming in now. Don’t want to meet up with the sheriff while I’m doing it.” Except, of course, the words came out as “dem” alarms and “da” sheriff.
No one had mentioned to Abby if there was a code or a signal so she could verify this was really Maggie Thibodeaux. Again, the arrangements seemed too damn casual. Dangerous even.
But as Rob said, this watch had been going on for several months and nothing had happened. Maybe Mickey Yates had relaxed all those normal procedures with the slow, uneventful passage of that time. And this woman did know someone new was supposed to be arriving. That was a pretty good argument that she was exactly who she claimed to be.
“Okay,” Abby said, giving in to that logic. “You come around to the kitchen door. I’ll let you in there.”
“I wasn’t planning on unloading on the stoop. And I got my own key But you come on down anyways. I’m looking forward to meeting the charmer they think is up to handling that man.”
Abby could hear the rich chuckle that accompanied that comment in the few seconds before the car phone disconnected.
“LORD HAVE MERCY,” Maggie Thibodeaux said softly when Abby opened the door, her .38 out but, as she held her arm straight down at her side, partially concealed behind her right leg. “And you pregnant, too.”
“Too?” Abby questioned, but she knew what the woman meant.
Maggie shook her head in disbelief, her obviously dyed, too-red hair moving against the brown-freckled cheeks. She was very tall and thin, her almost skeletal frame swallowed by a cotton print dress gathered around her middle by a matching fabric belt that sported an enormous pearl buckle. That belt was the only thing that gave shape to her scarecrow figure
“A woman and pregnant. Dawlin’, that man’s gonna eat you up for breakfast and be picking the little bitty chewedup pieces of you outta his teeth all day long.”
Abby laughed. She couldn’t help it.
Surprise shone briefly in Maggie’s dark eyes “That’s good,” she said. “You got you a sense of humor anyways.”
“He can’t eat me. And I promise you if he tried, I’m too tough to chew,” Abby said. She reached for one of the paper grocery sacks, but the caretaker pulled it away.
“Uh-uh,” she said. “I carried babies. You don’t need no backache to go along with the heartache.”
For a moment, Abby wondered how she could possibly know, and then she realized that Maggie Thibodeaux could be talking about a hundred other things. Including Nick Deandro’s uncertain temper.
“Heartache?” she asked, but she moved back out of the doorway, to let the woman enter and carry the bags over to the table.
Maggie put them down, and then she turned, putting her hands on angular, mannish hips that didn’t look as if they were capable of expanding enough to carry a child. She surveyed Abby up and down. “How far along you?” she asked.
“Six months,” Abby said. There was no way Maggie could make the connection. At least, no one else had.
Maggie nodded. “Be borned about Christmastime then.”
“Close,” Abby acknowledged.
“You all gonna be here until then?”
“I’m not sure,” Abby said.
Her caution was both instinctive and protective. She supposed there was little danger of Maggie or anyone else connecting their presence out here with the D.A.’s ongoing indictments against the mob, which unfortunately were getting some play in the New Orleans paper, which had reliable inside sources. Those indictments, based on the source’s information, had an excellent chance of getting results.
Nick’s name had not been mentioned, of course, but still, the less said about police business, the better. Abby didn’t believe there was such a thing as being too careful Not with Nick’s life. Not when she was charged with protecting it.
“You hungry?” Maggie asked suddenly. “I can make you a sandwich after I get the other stuff out of the trunk.”
“I can do that. And I can help you with the groceries.”
Maggie considered the offer a moment. “You put that gun down. Guns make me nervous. I don’t like them things in my kitc
hen. I’ll unload the groceries. You put them away. Cans go in the pantry. Most everything else goes in there.”
She pointed to a side-by-side refrigerator-freezer and then headed back to the outside door. She didn’t look back to see if Abby had obeyed her injunction against weapons in her kitchen.
Abby looked down at the gun she held. Waving it around at Maggie did seem a little ridiculous The woman didn’t seem to be a threat to anyone. Maybe this was why they all had gotten so complacent out here. It felt so normal. An old country house. And a lady who cooked and cleaned—familiar Southern terminology.
And whatever tinge of apprehension Abby had felt standing in this kitchen with Rob earlier this morning had disappeared. So normal, she thought again. She put the .38 down on the counter and began putting the groceries Maggie had brought in away.
They ate lunch sitting together at the kitchen table. Dreading her answer, Abby had asked about the possibility of Nick joining them, but Maggie shook her head.
“He don’t like eating ‘round other people,” she said, the sharp blade of her knife cutting in three parts the loaf of crusty bread she had unwrapped and put on the counter. “Makes him uncomfortable. Me, I always take a tray up to his room.”
Abby nodded, trying not to think about that either, as she went back to pouring the tea that had been made sometime earlier and placed to cool in the refrigerator.
The roast beef po-boys Maggie fixed were wonderful, as was the potato salad that she piled high on one side of their plates. As they ate, Abby discovered that Maggie baked her own bread. And that she liked Nick Deandro.
“Didn’t care much for that fat one. Messing around my house like a big ol’ pig. Didn’t ever pick up a thing he put down,” Maggie said. “Make hisself a snack and leave everything out, all over my counters. The other one, now, that one’s a gentleman.”
Abby fought a smile, wondering if that distinction was based strictly on neatness. She, too, had a bad habit of leaving things out. The smile faded as she realized that doing so here might have consequences she preferred not to think about.
“This is the same guy who’s going to chew me up and spit out the pieces?” Abby asked, injecting a lightness she didn’t feel into her question.
“Oh, he’s got hisself a temper, for sure. I ain’t denying that. But when he loses it, it’s for good reason.”
“Such as?” Abby asked. She felt a little guilty about picking Maggie’s brain, but the woman seemed more than willing to talk. And Abby was, she found, more than willing to listen.
“’Bout things he can’t do no more. You know?” Maggie’s brown eyes examined her face.
Abby nodded, not trusting her voice. This was something else she was going to have to get over—her emotional response to anything connected to Nick’s blindness. Mickey had warned her.
“I guess that’s not hard to understand,” she said.
She picked up her sandwich again, but despite the homemade bread and the slices of roast and the thick, succulent gravy, she found she didn’t want any more. She laid it back on the plate and noticed as she did so that her hand was trembling.
“Don’t you worry,” Maggie said softly, apparently having noticed the same thing. “He ain’t really gonna hurt you. He ain’t a woman-hurting kind of man. He’s just all messed up inside right now.”
Abby’s eyes lifted from the sandwich. She suddenly felt an almost overwhelming need to confide in Maggie Thibodeaux. To tell her the secrets she had told no one else. To unburden on a perfect stranger the feelings she had kept to herself through these long months. Somehow, she felt Maggie would understand.
But she couldn’t, of course. Nick Deandro didn’t remember her. It was extremely unlikely now that he ever would. And no one else had ever known about their relationship or the guilt she had felt when Nick had been shot. Had he been found out because of their secret meetings? Because of his association with her?
She had been so surprised at herself when she had given him permission to come over the first time he’d called. And more surprised by her reaction when she’d opened the kitchen door, and he’d stepped inside, out of the protective darkness. It had been totally unexpected, even to her Her response had been automatic and spontaneous, had seemed so natural. When she had moved into his embrace, her mouth opening eagerly for his first kiss, she had known that it was right she was there. So right.
But in the few weeks they had been involved, they had made no real commitments. She had willingly made love to Nick without them, the last time taking no precautions against exactly what had happened. That was so unlike her as to be an aberration of character. But she wasn’t denying responsibility. Besides, she had always heard there were no accidental pregnancies.
Which meant that she must have intended to have Nick Deandro’s baby. No one who knew either of them would ever believe that. And there was no reason to think Nick would believe it either. Not now. Not even if she told him.
Besides, Abby admitted, everything had changed. Nick had changed. All messed up inside, Maggie had said about him, but it was more than that, of course. Nick had physically changed
And after months of brutal self-examination, Abby still didn’t know how she felt about that. Maybe Maggie’s phrase fit her as well, because she couldn’t imagine the man she had loved being any other way than how he had been when she had fallen in love with him. And that hadn’t included not being able to see.
She had secured the house, checking both the alarm system and the doors and windows before she went upstairs. Maggie had left after supper, as soon as she had finished cleaning up the kitchen. Suddenly, the house felt too big and too empty.
It wasn’t, of course. But she hadn’t seen Nick Deandro since he had appeared briefly this morning at the front door. She hadn’t heard him either, so she had asked, just to make sure he was inside, before she locked the door behind the caretaker.
“He’s here,” Maggie had said. She had patted Abby’s arm. “You go on and lock up the doors. He ain’t gonna set off your alarms.”
Abby had smiled, unoffended by Maggie’s comforting gesture. It felt good to have somebody reassure her, even about such a small worry as that. She had worried alone for such a long time.
Millions of other women raised children by themselves, she had reminded herself over and over. She was as capable as they were. It was just not the way she had ever intended to do this.
Rings, mortgages and babies. Nick’s words echoed in her head, almost mocking. That was what she had always intended. And what Nick had suggested he wanted, too, but instead…
She flicked off the light at the bottom of the stairs, plunging the house into darkness. There should be a way to turn on the lights at the top from down here, she thought, but although her fingers examined the wall carefully, there seemed to be only the one switch.
She didn’t turn it on again. There was a railing and as she stood there, eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness, the stairs seemed to materialize before her. As did a soft glow, building from the top down. Moonlight, she realized. Strong enough to penetrate the moss-festooned branches and drift into the upper level of the house.
She started up the steps, aware for the first time of a low ache at the base of her spine. She felt a splinter of unease push into her mind, and she firmly rejected it. The rational side of her brain reminded her of the car ride out here over some pretty crummy roads, of bending over the low bed to unpack her suitcase, and of the number of times she had reached up to put the cans Maggie had bought onto their proper shelf.
“What did he mean?” Nick asked.
His voice had been soft, but the words had come unexpectedly out of the moon-touched black at the top of the stairs, and her heart almost leaped out of her throat.
“God, Nick,” she said, when she realized who had spoken. She hadn’t been looking upward as she climbed, but now that she was, she could see him, silhouetted against the moonlight.
“Do you always have to hide in the damn darkness?�
� she said angrily. Her pulse had slowed, but the same sensation that she had felt on the porch was churning inside her again.
“Is it dark?” he asked, his voice velvet with feigned surprise. “Sorry I hadn’t noticed.”
Abby’s lips tightened, fighting nausea. Overreaction. Overreacting to him. To the whole situation.
“Is that supposed to be funny?” she asked angrily.
“Not to me,” he said. “It’s not a damn bit funny to me.”
It took the wind out of her indignation, leaving it flat and limp and lifeless. Leaving her ashamed.
“What do you want?” she said, trying to control the tremor in her voice She thought she could still hear the quiver, but she prayed that he could not.
It was like dealing with a strange animal. She knew that she couldn’t afford to let Nick Deandro sense her fear. He was too bright, too astute not to figure out just from her tone that there had been more to their previous relationship than Rob had let on. Especially if she allowed the emotions she felt whenever she was around him to invade her voice and influence her behavior.
Only belatedly did she remember that the whole purpose of Andrews sending her out here was exactly that—to remind Nick of their previous relationship. She just wasn’t sure that was her own agenda right now. Or whether she could deal with it.
“What did Andrews mean about you needing to rest?” he asked.
The question caught her off guard. It meant that Nick had been listening to what they were saying even before he’d appeared in the doorway. She tried to remember exactly what had been said, but her mind had been in such turmoil then—as it was now—that she couldn’t be sure.
“Are you sick?” he asked, probing the dark silence. “Injured? Or maybe just emotionally distraught, Sterling?”
She read ridicule into the final words, and suddenly all the initial feelings Deandro’s natural arrogance had once aroused in her reared their heads again, overcoming her pity.
“Are you?” she countered bitingly.
“I’m just trying to figure out why they would send you,” he said. There had been no reaction to the mockery in her question. Apparently he still had better control of his emotions than she.