by Lisa Gardner
I looked down, as if noticing the bottle for the first time.
“Part of my recon,” Brian continued easily. “You’re holding a beer, but not drinking it. Would you prefer a margarita? I could get you one. Though,” he eyed the gaggle of wives, who were well into the third pitcher and laughing accordingly, “I’m a little afraid.”
“It’s okay.” I loosened my stance, shook out my arms. “I don’t really drink.”
“On call?”
“Not today.”
“I’m not a cop, so I won’t pretend to know the life, but I’ve been hanging out with Shane a good five years now, so I like to think I understand the basics. Being a trooper is way more than patrolling highways and writing tickets. Ain’t that right, Shane?” Brian boomed his voice, letting the common lament of any state trooper carry over the patio. At the grill, Shane responded by raising his right hand and flipping off his neighbor.
“Shane’s a whiner,” I said, letting my voice carry, as well.
Shane flipped me off, too. Several of the guys laughed.
“How long have you been working with him?” Brian asked me.
“A year. I’m a rookie.”
“Really? What made you want to be a cop?”
I shrugged, uncomfortable again. One of those questions everyone asked and I never knew how to answer. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“I’m a merchant marine,” Brian offered up. “I work on oil tankers. We ship out a couple of months, then are home a couple of months, then out a couple of months. Screws with the personal life, but I like the work. Never boring.”
“A merchant marine? What do you do … protect against pirates, things like that?”
“Nah. We run from Puget Sound up to Alaska and back. Not too many Somali pirates patrolling that corridor. Plus, I’m an engineer. My job’s to keep the ship running. I like wires and gears and rotors. Guns, on the other hand, scare the crap out of me.”
“I don’t care for them much myself.”
“Funny comment, coming from a police officer.”
“Not really.”
My gaze had returned automatically to Sophie, checking in. Brian followed my line of sight. “Shane said you had a three-year-old. Holey moley, she looks just like you. No taking the wrong kid home from this party.”
“Shane said I had a kid, and you still took the bait?”
He shrugged. “Kids are cool. I don’t have any, but that doesn’t mean I’m morally opposed. Father in the picture?” he added casually.
“No.”
He didn’t look smug at that news, more like contemplative. “That’s gotta be tough. Being a full time police officer and raising a child.”
“We get by.”
“Not doubting you. My father died when I was young. Left my mother to raise five kids on her own. We got by, too, and I respect the hell out of her for it.”
“What happened to your father?”
“Heart attack. What happened to her father?” He nodded toward Sophie, who now appeared to be playing tag.
“Better offer.”
“Men are stupid,” he muttered, sounding so sincere that I finally laughed. He flushed. “Did I mention I have four sisters? These are the things that happen when you have four sisters. Plus, I have to respect my mom twice as much because not only did she survive being a single mother, but she survived being a single mother with four girls. And I never saw her drink anything stronger than herbal tea. How about them apples?”
“She sounds like a rock,” I agreed.
“Since you don’t drink, maybe you’re also an herbal tea kind of gal?”
“Coffee.”
“Ah, my personal drug of choice.” He looked me in the eye. “So, Tessa, maybe some afternoon, I could buy you a cup. Your neighborhood or my neighborhood, just let me know.”
I studied Brian Darby again. Warm brown eyes, easygoing smile, solidly built shoulders.
“Okay,” I heard myself say. “I would like that.”
Do you believe in love at first sight? I don’t. I’m too studied, too cautious for such nonsense. Or maybe, I simply know better.
I met Brian for coffee. I learned that when he was home, his time was his own. It made it easy to hike together in the afternoons, after I’d recovered from graveyard shift and before I picked up Sophie from daycare at five. Then we caught a Red Sox game on my night off, and before I knew it, he was joining Sophie and me for a picnic.
Sophie did fall in love at first sight. In a matter of seconds, she’d climbed onto his back and demanded giddyup. Brian obediently galloped his way across the park with a squealing three-year-old clutching his hair and yelling “Faster!” at the top of her lungs. When they were done, Brian collapsed on the picnic blanket while Sophie toddled off to pick dandelions. I assumed the flowers were for me, but she turned to Brian instead.
Brian accepted the dandelions tentatively at first, then positively beaming when he realized the entire wilted bouquet was just for him.
It became easy, after that, to spend the weekends at his house with a real yard, versus my cramped one-bedroom apartment. We would cook dinner together, while Sophie ran around with his dog, an aging German shepherd name Duke. Brian bought a plastic kiddy pool for the deck, hung a toddler’s swing from the old oak tree.
One weekend when I got jammed up, he came over and stocked my fridge to get Sophie and me through the week. And one afternoon, after I’d worked a motor vehicle accident that left three kids dead, he read to Sophie while I stared at the bedroom wall and fought to get my head on straight.
Later I sat curled up against him on the couch and he told me stories of his four sisters, including the time they’d found him napping on the sofa and covered him in makeup. He’d spent two hours biking around the neighborhood in glittering blue eye shadow and hot pink lipstick before he happened to catch his reflection in a window. I laughed. Then I cried. Then he held me tighter and we both said nothing at all.
Summer slid away. Fall arrived, and just like that, it was time for him to ship out. He’d be gone eight weeks, back in time for Thanksgiving, he assured me. He had a good friend who always looked after Duke. But, if we wanted …
He handed me the key to his house. We could stay. Even girl the place up if we wanted to. Maybe some pink paint in the second bedroom, for Sophie. Couple of prints on the wall. Princess rubber duckies in the bathroom. Whatever it took to make us comfortable.
I kissed his cheek, returned the key to the palm of his hand.
Sophie and I were fine. Always had been, always would be. See you in eight weeks.
Sophie, on the other hand, cried and cried and cried.
Couple of months, I tried to tell her. Hardly any time at all. Just a matter of weeks.
Life was duller with Brian gone. An endless grind of getting up at one p.m., retrieving Sophie from daycare by five, entertaining her until her bedtime at nine, with Mrs. Ennis arriving at ten so I could patrol from eleven to seven. The life of a single working mom. Struggling to stretch a dime into a dollar, cramming endless errands into an already overscheduled day, fighting to keep my bosses happy while still meeting my young daughter’s needs.
I could handle it, I reminded myself. I was tough. I’d gotten through my pregnancy alone, I’d given birth alone. I’d endured twenty-five long, lonely weeks at the live-in Police Academy, missing Sophie with every breath I took but determined not to quit because becoming a state police officer was the best shot I had to provide a future for my daughter. I’d been allowed to return home to Sophie every Friday night, but I also had to leave her crying with Mrs. Ennis every Monday morning. Week after week after week, until I thought I’d scream from the pressure. But I did it. Anything for Sophie. Always for Sophie.
Still, I started checking e-mail more often because if Brian was in port he’d send us a quick note, or attach a silly picture of a moose in the middle of some Alaskan main street. By the sixth week, I realized I was happier the days he e-mailed, tenser the da
ys he didn’t. And Sophie was, too. We huddled together over the computer each night, two pretty girls waiting to hear from their man.
Then finally, the call. Brian’s ship had docked in Ferndale, Washington. He’d be discharged the day after tomorrow, and would be catching the red-eye back to Boston. Could he take us to dinner?
Sophie selected her favorite dark blue dress. I wore the orange sundress from the Fourth of the July cookout, topped with a sweater in deference to the November chill.
Sophie, keeping lookout from the front window, spotted him first. She squealed in delight and raced down the apartment steps so fast I thought she’d fall. Brian barely caught her at the end of the walk. He scooped her up, whirled her around. She laughed and laughed and laughed.
I approached more quietly, taking the time for a last minute tuck of my hair, buttoning my light sweater. I stepped through the front door of the apartment complex. Shut it firmly behind me.
Then I turned and studied him. Took him in from eight feet away. Drank him up.
Brian stopped twirling Sophie. Now he stood at the end of the walk, my child still in his arms, and he studied me, too.
We didn’t touch. We didn’t say a word. We didn’t have to.
Later, after dinner, after he brought us back to his place, after I tucked Sophie into the bed across the hall, I walked into his bedroom. I stood before him, and let him peel the sweater from my arms, the sundress from my body. I placed my hands against his bare chest. I tasted the salt on the column of his throat.
“Eight weeks was too long,” he muttered thickly. “I want you here, Tessa. Dammit, I want to know I’m coming home to you always.”
I placed his hands upon my breasts, arching into the feel of his fingers.
“Marry me,” he whispered. “I mean it, Tessa. I want you to be my wife. I want Sophie to be my daughter. You and her should be living here with me and Duke. We should be a family.”
I tasted his skin again. Slid my hands down his body, pressed the full length of my bare skin against his bare skin. Shivered at the contact. Except it wasn’t enough. The feel of him, the taste of him. I needed him against me, I needed him above me, I needed him inside me. I needed him everywhere, right now, this instant.
I dragged him down to the bed, wrapping my legs around his waist. Then he was sliding inside my body and I groaned, or maybe he groaned, but it didn’t really matter. He was where I needed him to be.
At the last moment, I caught his face between my hands so I could look into his eyes as the first wave crashed over us.
“Marry me,” he repeated. “I’ll be a good husband, Tessa. I’ll take care of you and Sophie.”
He moved inside of me and I sighed, and I said: “Yes.”
BY LISA GARDNER
The Perfect Husband
The Other Daughter
The Third Victim
The Next Accident
The Survivors Club
The Killing Hour
Alone
Gone
Hide
Say Goodbye
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lisa Gardner is the New York Times bestselling author of Hide, Gone, Alone, The Killing Hour, The Survivors Club, The Next Accident, The Other Daughter, The Third Victim, and The Perfect Husband. She lives with her family in New England, where she is at work on her next novel of suspense.
Visit her website at www.lisagardner.com.