Lewis Security

by Glenna Sinclair

  “Right! I forgot about her.” She sounded excited.

  “Tell Sasha about that next time she tells you about her dad’s exciting job,” I grinned. She grinned back. It wasn’t easy to impress an eleven-year-old, not with the entire world available at the touch of a button. I took my victories where I could get them.

  “You finished your homework, right?” I asked as we got on the elevator in her building. “Mom will have my head if she finds out you didn’t.”

  “Oh, I did. I even started my book report for English, and that’s not even due for two weeks.”

  “Wow. You’re such a go-getter.” I winked and tousled her silky, spun-gold hair, but it was the truth. She wasn’t just smart. She had the sort of work ethic most parents would kill to see in their kids. I thanked my lucky stars on the regular.

  “You know I hate falling behind.” She ran a hand over her hair—briefly, without thinking about it. I realized the days of touching her hair were winding down. She would start caring about how she looked pretty soon, and I’d probably have to start asking for permission to hug her. It was natural. All parents went through it at one time or another. I wanted to keep her my baby, though. I couldn’t help it.

  Suzanne was starting dinner when we walked in, and Lizzie was kind enough to her old man to keep from running to her mother when she saw her. She always wanted us to think she loved us equally, and I was sure she did even though I wouldn’t have blamed her for favoring the parent she spent most of her time with. When they stood together the way they were just then, the similarities between them were enough to take my breath away. Lizzie could’ve been Susie’s clone, only a quarter century younger.

  “You hungry?” Suzanne was breading chicken cutlets. I smelled spaghetti sauce simmering and figured chicken parm was on the menu.

  “Thanks, but I have leftover pizza at the apartment. I should eat that.”

  She frowned. “You had pizza last night?”

  “It was a Saturday night. I figured the kid deserved a treat.”

  “Yeah, Mom,” Lizzie called out from the living room. “Lighten up a little.”

  “I guess you didn’t tell your father that you already had pizza for dinner on Friday night, young lady.” Suzanne winked at me, and we both watched with stern faces as our daughter dragged her feet into the kitchen.

  “Sorry,” she murmured. “I just love the pizza from the place by Dad’s so much.”

  I couldn’t pretend to care too much. “Two nights in a row won’t kill you. Just don’t tell lies next time, okay?”

  “I didn’t lie. I just didn’t mention eating pizza on Friday. Big difference.” She went back to her show in the living room, and I managed to hold back a laugh until she was gone.

  “That’s your daughter,” Suzanne murmured with a wry smile.

  “I love how she’s my daughter when she’s outsmarting us.” I stood in the doorway, trying to make sure there was space between us. It could be too easy sometimes to forget we weren’t a couple anymore, even when it had been over a decade since our divorce. I knew I was lucky my daughter considered me her father, since we split up before she was even a year old. Some women wouldn’t want their ex being a huge part of their kid’s life. Some men wouldn’t care. We weren’t those people.

  “So, there’s something I should tell you.” Suzanne chewed her lower lip as she made herself very busy around the kitchen. Too busy to look at me for very long.

  “What is it? Just get it over with.”

  She reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a diamond ring before sliding it on her left hand. All the while, her eyes were locked on mine.

  “He finally popped the question, huh?” She had been with Denny for a long time. He seemed like a decent enough guy—though that didn’t make me any happier to find out my ex-wife was getting married to somebody else.

  “Yeah. What do you think?”

  “What do you think I think?” I held out my arms for a hug, and she walked into them with a look of relief on her face. I swallowed back the bitter disappointment rising in my throat. She was really gone, forever. Even when I knew there was nothing left for us, the fact that she was at least single meant the chance wasn’t completely off the table. Even though we would never have gotten back together, knowing for sure that it wouldn’t happen was a whole new level of disappointment.

  She smiled up at me, patted my chest, and went back to fixing dinner. “I’m glad you approve.”

  “Why does it matter whether I approve?”

  She shrugged. “You’re Lizzie’s dad. You’ll always be her dad. Honestly, if you had a problem with the wedding, I would take that into account.”

  And she would, too. That was the kicker. She wouldn’t tell me to go screw myself if I told her I didn’t like the idea, mostly because she knew I wasn’t that jackass ex-husband who would have issues with anybody, no matter what. If I didn’t like it, she’d want to sit down and talk about it instead of throwing me out of the apartment.

  “What about you?” she asked.

  “What about me?” I leaned on the doorjamb and waited for what I knew what coming. We had this discussion once every six months or so. It only made sense that she’d want to bring it up then.

  “When will you finally break down and get settled again?” She smiled at me over her shoulder from in front of the fridge.

  “I don’t see any reason to do that,” I shrugged.

  “I hate to think of you being alone.”

  Yeah, well, that was your choice, wasn’t it? I bit back my words, since they weren’t fair. She might have been the one to leave, and she might have been the one to serve me with divorce papers, but I checked out a long time before she did. There were ways of leaving without really leaving. I asked a lot of her in those days, coming and going at random hours if I came home at all, never telling her what was going on in my head. She walked on egg shells when I was in my worst moods—and the thing was, I knew it. I knew she was afraid for me and even sometimes of me, when my temper was thin and I hadn’t slept in three days. I would never lay a hand on her, not ever, but she still had a scared, wounded look on her face most days. And I did nothing to fix that.

  “Sometimes it’s better that way,” I finally muttered. “I’m no good at being with somebody. You know that better than anybody else.”

  “Things have changed, haven’t they? I know you can’t keep up the pace you were at back then. You wouldn’t be alive today.” She was careful to keep her back to me when she spoke. There were only ten feet between us, maybe less, but it might as well have been a mile full of landmines. We both picked our way carefully through them.

  “That’s true—still, I’m not a nine-to-five guy.”

  “So maybe you need to find a girl who’s not nine-to-five. Somebody who would understand.” She glanced at me. “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re nuts.”

  “I knew that,” she smirked. “I mean it, though. Deflect all you want, but you know I’m right.”

  “I don’t know that. Stop putting words in my mouth.”

  The overhead light made her hair shimmer when she shook her head. “That’s fine. Act like I don't know you if it makes you feel better.” She was only teasing, of course. I decided to let it go before teasing turned into something more.

  “Did you guys talk about setting a date yet?” That was the sort of question one friend asked another friend when they announced they were getting married. And we were friends, or so I told myself whenever I felt like telling her to mind her own business.

  “Not yet. We’re taking it one step at a time. I want to be sure Lizzie’s okay every step of the way.” She finally stopped what she was doing at the stove long enough to took me square in the eye. “Do you think she will be?”

  That, I could answer without hesitation. “She’s the youngest old woman I know. More mature than a lot of the adults I’ve met in my life. And she has a smart, sensitive mother who only does what she feels is
best. I’m sure you didn’t just jump into this. And I met Denny, what, a year ago? It’s not like you two just started seeing each other.”

  “True.”

  “She’ll be fine. I trust you, and I trust her. Though I would maybe like to have dinner with Denny soon—just to be sure he knows what he’s getting into.”

  She smiled and came to me with her arms out, then slid them around my waist. “You’re a control freak.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re also a good man. And I love you.”

  I kissed the top of her head. “Love you, too.”

  I left a few minutes later, after giving my little girl one more kiss and one more hair ruffle. She smiled through it, brave, sweet kid she that she was. I left with a smile on my face, the way I usually felt after spending a couple days with my daughter. She and Suzanne were about to have a very serious conversation, but she would handle it well.

  Better than I was handling it. Sure, I was okay on the outside, but inside? I was raging. She was gone for good, some other man’s woman. I didn’t know until just then how much I missed her. Funny how that worked.

  Chapter Two – Christa

  “Mom! You didn’t take your medicine.” I handed the plastic shot cup to my mother, along with a glass of water. “You know how important it is for you to take this every morning.”

  “I don’t see why I need it.” Mom put the cup down on the little table next to her easy chair. “You’re always trying to drug me. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”

  I rubbed my temples. “Mom. Please. You don’t want to live in a nursing home? Then you start taking your medicine when I ask you to.”

  “You would put me in one, too, wouldn’t you?” Still, that got her to take the pills. If she wanted me to stand on my head, I’d stand on my head. Anything to get her to cooperate with me.

  “Why do you have to watch me take them?” Always with the suspicion, that one.

  I held back a sigh as I slid my arms into my denim jacket. “Because I need to know whether you took them—and if you didn’t, I’ve gotta leave a note for Jackie when she comes in, so she can try to get them in you. But you should take them every twelve hours to be sure there’s a steady stream of medication in your system.” How many times had I given her that explanation? And how many more times would I have to?

  “Jackie?” Her eyes seemed to cloud over. “Who’s that?”

  “Jackie. The lady who comes in every day, Mom. Remember? Every day since you got home from the hospital.”

  “Hospital? When was I in the hospital?”

  “Never mind. Jackie will be here in a few minutes. I’ve gotta get to work.” I kissed her forehead, promised I’d stop in later in the day, then left for headquarters. In the eight months since Mom’s stroke, I had gone from an active agent to doing the sort of work new, untested agents did. Transportation, sitting in with clients while their assigned agent ran an errand or checked in with Pax, that sort of thing. I told myself at least two or three times a day that I was lucky to have a boss as understanding as Pax. That didn’t mean I liked becoming a de facto caregiver. In fact, I hated it.

  I hated myself for hating it, too. I hated the insurance company for refusing to pay out so my mother could receive care in a good facility—all the years she’d been paying on her policy meant nothing, thanks to their insistence that she wasn’t in poor enough shape to need long-term care. No, she just had almost no short-term memory and couldn’t remember anything about the two years before her stroke. She didn’t know the difference between her dreams and reality when she woke up in the morning. But she didn’t need care because she could walk and talk and feed herself—when she remembered to eat. I hoped the bastards who were getting richer by the day thanks to insurance premiums never had to watch a loved one deteriorate.

  My fingers found the volume control and turned the knob until loud, throbbing music filled the car and took up the space in my brain inhabited by regret and the feeling that I wasn’t doing enough for my mother. No matter how many times Jackie or one of Mom’s doctors or one of my conveniently absent family members told me what a great job I was doing in helping to care for her, it wasn’t enough. I should be doing more—though what, I couldn’t say.

  I told myself to get over it and focus on work—I owed Pax that much. Work helped me forget the mess my life was turning into.

  I could barely hear Lydia over the ringing in my ears as I walked through the front door. “I’m sorry—what did you say?”

  She smiled in that warm, understanding way she had. Our office manager had a way of keeping the men in line with a single look or raised eyebrow, but she treated me with kid gloves. I sometimes thought she felt sorry for me, the only active female agent. “I asked how your mother’s feeling.”

  “Oh. You know. The same. Doesn’t remember five minutes ago, but insists she can take care of herself.” I gave her a hopeless shrug.

  “It’s very cruel,” she said, clicking her tongue in sympathy. Yes, it was very cruel. I never understood before then just how much of life was made up of memory—not just memories, which were important, but actually being able to rely on memory. I knew it was Monday morning because yesterday was Sunday. I remembered yesterday. If somebody came to me and tried to tell me it was Wednesday instead, I would argue like crazy. I couldn’t blame Mom for arguing when she had no point of reference, just like I couldn’t blame her for sometimes taking what she was watching on TV and concocting stories about her life based on it. She couldn’t control her subconscious mind.

  “Thank you for asking about her,” I whispered, then I turned and hurried to the kitchen for a cup of coffee before our Monday morning status meeting. It meant a lot that people still cared, even months later—usually, friends and even family forgot and went on with their lives—but there were times when I wanted to go back to my life, the way things used to be.

  “Good morning.” My back was to Pax when he entered the kitchen, so I could close my eyes for a moment and smile at the sound of his voice without him seeing. No matter the mood I was in, hearing that deep, rumbling voice always made me feel better.

  “Good morning to you, too. This was your weekend with Lizzie, wasn’t it?” That would account for the smile in his voice. He was always in the best moods after spending a couple of days with her.

  “Yeah. We had a good time.”

  “I’m glad. You were overdue for a good time.” And I was overdue for a cup of strong coffee. Even loud music couldn’t wake me up as well. I leaned against the counter and watched him fix a cup for himself. How he managed to look so damn good after spending most of his time in his office was beyond me. He was like a freak of nature with his massive chest and arms, and a pair of thighs that looked like they could crack walnuts. I’d known him for years but he never failed to have a strong effect on me, like the thermostat suddenly jumped twenty degrees.

  “What about you? How was your weekend?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Next question, please.”

  “That good, huh?” Funny how I didn’t mind hearing sympathy in his voice. Normally, I hated feeling like people pitied me. It wasn’t pity coming from him, but more like concern. He showed it in all sorts of ways, such as letting me step down from active status. I knew he did it because he cared, even if it was only as a friend.

  There was a burst of laughter from the conference room, and we both smiled. “I sort of miss chatting with you early in the morning, before the rest of them get here.”

  He grinned. “Me, too. A little sanity before the insanity starts up.”

  I made sure my smile didn’t fade even though that wasn’t what I meant. I thought he might know that, too, and was just being clever. Just pushing me away again, like always. He wouldn’t come straight out and tell me there was no chance for us—sometimes I wished he would. Just put an end to it already, all the hoping I’d been doing for years. Whenever I thought we were closer than ever, whenever there was a moment when we looked
at each other and I couldn’t breathe because it felt like my heart was expanding all throughout my body, he would find a way to remind me there was nothing between us. We were just friends—close friends—and business associates. Nothing more.

  I couldn’t help but feel jealous as everybody talked about their assignments. Even boring jobs like sitting with a wealthy socialite whose husband tried to have her killed was more interesting than nothing. I told myself to grow up and stop thinking about what wasn’t—the more I did, the bleaker my life looked.

  Pax kept everybody in line, as always. A room full of alpha personalities could get out of control pretty quickly if there wasn’t a strong leader at the head of the table. Did anybody sitting around that table see the way I looked at him? I glanced around. They were all too busy talking among themselves to notice—I hoped.

  After the meeting—in which I had nothing to offer—Pax motioned for me to follow him. It was actually a relief to get out of that room full of testosterone and competing egos. I loved the guys, no doubt, but they were a bit much to deal with after I had already dealt with enough that morning. I felt a headache coming on as I walked into Pax’s office and sank onto the little vinyl covered couch with a sigh.

  “You don’t look too good.” I winced at his appraisal and tried hard to remember the last time I washed my hair. Friday? Eek. I hadn’t done much more than jump in, wash quickly and jump out in weeks and weeks. My legs had gone unshaved for months—not like anybody was looking at them. Even if it wasn’t early winter, I wouldn’t have been wearing skirts around and my bed was perpetually empty.

  “Thanks?” I muttered, eyes closed, rubbing the bridge of my nose.

  “Here. Catch.” I opened my eyes just in time to see a bottle of ibuprofen flying my way, which I caught with one hand. I dry swallowed three pills and tossed it back to him.

  “I’m gonna say something and I hope you don’t take it the wrong way.” He leaned back in his swivel chair, hands folded behind his shaved head. Even with my temples throbbing, I couldn’t help noticing the biceps bulging against the tight, long-sleeved tee.