by Anna Sugden
“Anyway, the two of us,” she continued to fill the awkward pause, “probably shouldn’t be seen together.”
“You have a point,” he said finally.
But his tone hinted that he wished she didn’t have one. He was still trying to make right what had happened between them tonight, and she couldn’t tell him that the truth had nothing to do with him. Most of it, anyway.
“At least let me follow you. Just to make sure you get home okay.”
“I keep telling you I’m okay. Really.”
His silence told her what he thought of that.
So she pulled the one card she had left. “Lieutenant Peterson, I go out, alone, in a patrol car every day. If I can’t drive myself home, maybe I shouldn’t...” She let her words trail away because his sudden shift suggested he’d already gotten the point. Even if he was convinced she was headed for a breakdown, he would have to let her go now. The last thing he would ever do was to question her competence as a cop.
But if she hadn’t painted him into a corner, he would never have given in. He would have followed her, insisted on protecting her, on being there for her, whether she wanted him there or not. She wasn’t sure what to do with that certainty as the lump in her throat that had finally decreased in size had another growth spurt. She should have been cried out by now, for today and probably a few lifetimes, but her eyes and nose burned again.
So sorry. So sorry. So damn sorry.
His whispered words settled as heavily on her heart now as they had when he’d said them while she cried. What did he have to be sorry for? He wasn’t the one who’d...pushed her seat back. And yet he’d apologized. With profanity, too, though he didn’t usually talk like the rest of the trash mouths at work.
At least he hadn’t asked her to explain why she was crying. She would have had to lie, and he would have seen right through her. It must not have made sense to him. She’d made the first move, after all. Well, maybe not the first, but certainly the second. And the third. So she had as much of an excuse as a grappler who’d started the fight and then whined over his bruises afterward. She probably had a few of those, too, if her sore tailbone from the steering wheel and her knee from a pesky seat belt buckle were any indication.
Her stinging eyes suddenly filled again. What was happening to her? She felt as if she were being ripped in two by slow, excruciating increments instead of a quick, merciful tear.
Now. Please.
Her own words sliced through her recollection with a razor-sharp knife of blame. She’d never initiated sex before. Never even wanted it really. Yet in that car, the cliché of settings for a romantic tryst, she’d begged Ben for it. She’d wanted him, all right, so much so that she hadn’t been able to get close enough. She’d needed to touch every part of him with every piece of her. Inside and out.
And for a few minutes, she had. She’d never experienced such sweetness or such pleasure as she found in that tender dance. He’d breathed in every breath she exhaled, and she, his. It had all seemed so right. So magical. So perfect.
And then the event was over, and suddenly, it wasn’t any of those things. She couldn’t get covered up fast enough, as if he wasn’t already aware of what was hidden beneath her clothes. As if any amount of clothes could cover her shame. For wanting it. For enjoying it.
What had she expected? Had she really believed that by climbing inside of Ben that she could fix all her broken pieces? The saddest truth of all was that on some level she had believed it.
She didn’t know how long she’d been staring down at her hands, but when she lifted her head, she caught him watching her again. Waiting. For what? An explanation as to why physical intimacy turned a strong, reasonably sane woman into a blubbering mess? She swallowed. If only she had an explanation to give.
With a sudden shift, Ben turned away from her and reached up to brush at the condensation building on the windshield to see something beyond it. At first it just looked like a flash of light, but then a pair of headlights came into view, drawing closer. The car pulled in on the far end of the lot.
“Who’s that? Is that a patrol car?” she whispered and sank low in the seat as though either action would help now, especially if the driver turned a patrol car’s spotlight on them. At least Ben had shut off the engine again, so no one would see the parking lights. She strained her eyes, trying to make out the vehicle’s shape. It didn’t appear to have a gumball on top, so it probably wasn’t a state police vehicle, but that didn’t rule out other agencies.
“How are we supposed to explain our presence here?” She would have asked whose bright idea it had been to meet at the park in the first place, but they both knew who was to blame for that. The same one who should have known better since she’d been patrolling the area herself.
“Undercover surveillance?”
“Funny.” They’d been doing something “undercover,” all right. That is, if coats counted. But that wasn’t something she was prepared to confess if an officer asked for their statements for trespassing after park closing.
“Better get our story together because he’ll be over here soon.”
Delia nodded. “I guess we could—”
“Keep our heads low and our mouths shut,” he finished for her.
“What?” She swiped at her side of the windshield and tried to see what he saw. The other driver must have parked and turned off his ignition as his headlights faded away, and his vehicle disappeared into a blackness that the sliver of a moon and the steady flutter of snowflakes weren’t enough to fracture.
“Do you think he saw the two cars down here?” she whispered. “There’s kind of a dip in the lot at this end, and it’s awfully dark.”
“Hard to say.”
“But there’s a chance he didn’t, right?”
“Can you see him now?”
That she couldn’t came as a relief. There was hope that they would go unnoticed, too. Of course, that meant that they couldn’t risk turning on the engine or the heat again, so they were stuck there for now, shivering in the dark.
“Do you think they’ll be here long?” She wiggled her coat up next to her ears and buttoned it to just below her chin.
Ben flipped up his collar and rubbed his hands together. “Hope not.”
But just as they settled in to wait it out, another set of headlights came into view. Delia’s breath caught. Maybe the first driver had seen their two parked cars and had called for backup.
“You don’t think—”
“I don’t know. Do you have your weapon?”
“Of course.” She glanced his way. “But you don’t, do you?”
“It didn’t seem like a good idea with everything else happening.”
Since she was used to going in without backup, she was surprised by how much his being unarmed bothered her. After everything that had happened tonight, was she still tempted to rely on him?
She only hoped she wouldn’t need backup as the second car flashed its lights and Car Number One returned the favor before its lights faded again. Once the second car parked next to the first, Delia took a deep breath.
“Here we go,” she whispered.
Only they didn’t go. For several seconds, nothing happened other than the lights on the second car going dark. The fear that both drivers were racing toward them in the cover of darkness was so overwhelming that she bent to retrieve her weapon from her purse while still gripping the passenger armrest with her free hand.
Finally, when she was certain she couldn’t take this interminable pause any longer, the driver’s-side door on the first car opened and closed. Thirty seconds later, the same thing happened on the passenger side of the other car. Interior lights disappeared in the same staggered order.
“Oh.”
Such a tiny word, but when Ben said it, Delia’s eyes widened. Two cars. A meeting place. She swallowed. Maybe they weren’t the only ones with clandestine plans for tonight. Not that either of them had planned any of the night’s events.
Trapped by scene and situation, they waited in a silence pulled taut with speculation. Though the chill had worked its way through the layers of her clothing, her face felt strangely warm. She didn’t want to imagine what those other people might be doing in that car. Unfortunately, she could think of nothing else. Delia couldn’t see inside it—or see the car itself—and yet her imagination did a great job of painting its own pictures. Vivid images that deepened her blush.
She felt like a Peeping Tom, but she couldn’t look away. What if someone had been watching her and Ben not an hour before? As if working together hadn’t been enough of a risk, they’d put themselves in an even more vulnerable position by becoming “otherwise occupied” when they should have been on their guard. Another excuse for frustration over what had happened between them tonight. Another reason for regrets. Holding herself in a protective hug now, she shivered from everything but the cold.
“Sorry,” he said in a low voice. “Wish I could turn on the heat.”
Red taillights flashed on then, saving her from having to answer when she couldn’t explain. The passenger door winged open, and a figure she couldn’t make out stepped outside and closed the door before entering the other vehicle. Soon one car raced out of parking lot, the second nearly hugging its back bumper.
Delia couldn’t help but stare in the direction they’d gone for a long time after the dark and snow had swallowed them. What had happened inside that car? A lovers’ quarrel? A call from a duped spouse? Or maybe they’d decided that this location was too crowded? The last had a chill scaling her arms.
“Well, that happened,” Ben said as soon as the two cars had disappeared somewhere along Park Route 4.
“It didn’t take long, either.” She pressed her lips together as she realized her double entendre. If he’d been uncertain where her thoughts had gone as they’d watched those two cars, she’d cleared that up. “I mean the cars weren’t there very long.”
“Guess not.”
“Do you think they’ll come back?”
“Shouldn’t wait around to find out.” He reached for the keys and turned the ignition.
“It’s going to take me forever to thaw out.” She paused and then added, “I should probably...”
“Yeah, you should get going.” He cleared his throat. “In case they come back.”
He was giving her a break, and she knew it. From him. From things she wasn’t ready to face. From things he knew she regretted. It was such a Ben thing to do that it squeezed her chest and somewhere deeper inside.
She swung open the car door, snowflakes immediately landing on the interior, the wind stealing her breath. “Well, thanks for...for coming when I was worried.”
He cleared his throat. “Sure thing.”
Because she was tempted to believe he would be there for her, no matter what, she pushed herself out of the car and sank her boots into the accumulating snow.
He leaned over before she could shut the door. “You’re sure you’re—”
“I’m fine, Ben.”
A sheepish grin spread on his face, and Delia’s tummy did that familiar tumble.
“Drive carefully,” he said.
With that, she closed the door and slugged toward her own car. It had been there long enough that snow covered the windows, and there was a fine sheet of ice beneath the snowflakes. She’d only started scraping when his door opened again, and he joined her, helping her without a need to comment. Ben just being Ben. When they were finished, he waved her off without another goodbye or delay.
As she pulled onto the lane that led to the park entrance, he moved his car into position behind hers, continuing to follow at a safe distance like that until they reached the highway. When she turned off at the ramp, he continued on straight, toward his own home in rural Livingston County.
Immediately, she missed his nearness. He hadn’t pressed her for answers tonight, though his concern had settled on her shoulders with the weight and compassion of a touch. He deserved an explanation, for her tears, at least, if even she didn’t understand the rest. She owed him answers. Needed to explain. And she would. Later. When she was ready. She only hoped that later didn’t come too soon.
* * *
BEN SHOOK THE snow off his coat, stepped out of his boots and turned the dead bolt on the door behind him. In the living room just steps away, his sweatpants that served as pajama bottoms still hung over the wing-back chair where he’d tossed them after Delia’s call. That she’d been worried enough to ask him to meet her had concerned him so much that he’d changed out of his night clothes and raced out the door without bothering to lock it.
Strange how long ago that call seemed now. Only a few hours and so much had changed. He’d been almost asleep when she’d called, and now he doubted he could go to bed if the fate of humanity rested on him catching a few z’s.
As he hung his jacket on the coat tree, he glanced down at the blue flannel shirt he’d thrown on over his T-shirt and the well-worn jeans he’d paired with those boots. If he’d had any idea what would happen with Delia tonight, he would have dressed nicer. Perhaps been prepared in the safe-sex department. On the other hand, if he’d known that tough-as-nails Delia Morgan would end up in despair after what had been the most amazing physical experience of his life, he would have thought twice about showing up at all.
Oh, who was he kidding? He would have gone if she’d needed him, even if he’d known that he would end up as miserable and confused as he was right now. He only wished he could have made whatever it was better for her.
But why had she been so upset? That same question that had nearly ripped him apart earlier, while he’d waited, praying for her to stop crying, clamored for answers again. He’d thought it was tough keeping his cool during the bank robbery attempt. That was nothing compared to the white-knuckled strength it had taken him to keep from pulling her into his arms and soothing her distress.
And after he’d comforted her, he would have demanded that she tell him what was wrong or at least urged her to tell. The truth this time. Could it have been only that they’d made love? Or could he have hurt her? He couldn’t bear that thought. Still, something told him that whatever it was, it had to be more than that.
Shaking his head, he grabbed the pants off the chair and then his state police sweatshirt from the rocker opposite it. His lovemaking skills might not have earned him a standing ovation—or even polite applause—but they couldn’t have warranted her sheer devastation, either.
I keep telling you I’m okay.
Just as his instincts had told him she was lying every time she’d said it, he was convinced that there was more to the story. He would bet every minute left in his career that there was. He grimaced as he pounded up the stairs. That wasn’t much of a bet when his career might have a shorter shelf life than a banana in the sweltering heat.
Tossing his sweats on the bathroom counter, he twisted on the shower faucet. He stripped and dropped his clothes into a pile, trying to forget how Delia had helped him remove at least some of them earlier. How he’d helped her peel away hers.
He stepped under the spray, hoping to wash away all thoughts of Delia, all of the questions. But just as the steamy water splashed his face, another thought struck him so hard that his head jerked back.
The two cars. A quick meeting. Sure, it could have been an illicit tryst, but it just as easily could have been a drug deal. Or some other illegal exchange. Anything. Because of the awkward moment they were experiencing, he and Delia had jumped to that one conclusion instead of considering all of the possibilities.
How could he have missed that? Delia at least could blame her rookie status. What was his excuse? Maybe he didn’t deserve to be a police officer. First, he’d allowed himself to be set up regarding alleged mishandling of evidence, and now this.
The truth was when Delia Morgan was in his line of vision, he didn’t see anything else. He didn’t even care. All he could think about was Delia and whatever she was hiding. He neede
d answers almost as much as he needed her, and he needed her so much it terrified him.
If he had any sense at all, he would run, not walk, in the opposite direction from her. Far enough away that he could reclaim his priorities. His career and his future were on the line, and his sense of self-preservation had fled the moment her heart thrummed against his chest, awakening tender emotions. Those fragile shoots that had no business sprouting on such unseasoned and unprepared ground.
He shouldn’t be thinking about planting any kind of roots with Delia, or anyone else, when his whole life was nothing but rocks. Big rocks. But how was he supposed to get back to finding solutions to his own problems when he could still hear the sobs that had crowded that car with her misery and could still feel the aftershocks that had shook her even after her tears had dried? Maybe if he found answers to help her, he would finally figure out how to help himself.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BLURRY RIBBONS OF light trailed after Delia as her car grasped for purchase on the deserted, snow-covered streets of Brighton. When had the road conditions become so bad? But what did she expect? Even if the snow had been light when she’d first gone out, it had been falling for hours, and now it was close to 2:00 a.m.
It had taken far longer than the twenty minutes it should have to make it back to town. That was unfortunate because it gave her more time to stew over tonight’s events. Somewhere between Exit 155 and Exit 147 on the interstate, she’d gone from regretful and humiliated to downright frustrated.
And then to hopping mad.
She wasn’t even allowed to have this one moment. Why the hell not? Why couldn’t she have been sated and amazed like any other woman who’d just had her world rocked? And Ben had definitely rocked her world. But she couldn’t even relish the moment. Instead, she had to feel dirty and ashamed. Just for wanting Ben—the nicest guy she’d ever met—more than she’d ever wanted anything. Even more than she’d wanted to escape from the phantoms in her memories.
You’re frigid like your mother. Not a real woman.