The Marriage Beat

by Doreen Roberts

  This time, of course, she got an answer.

  “Hello, Megan, is something wrong?”

  It was amazing how her mother could make her feel guilty without actually saying anything, Megan thought. “Everything’s fine, Mom. I do call you just to say hi once in a while, you know.”

  “I hope this is one of those times?”

  Megan sighed. “I’m sitting here all by myself on a Friday night and I wanted someone to talk to, that’s all.”

  “What about that nice police officer? Isn’t he staying with you?”

  “Not all the time, Mom. I told you, he goes home to his apartment at night.”

  “I see. How is your arm? Getting better?”

  “It’s not aching so much, thanks.”

  “Good. Then why don’t you and your police officer come over to dinner tomorrow night.”

  “Mom, Tyler is not my police officer. I told you—”

  “I know what you told me, dear. I would like to meet him just the same. He must be quite special to give up his vacation to look after you.”

  Her mother was off on the wrong track as usual. Megan searched in her mind for an excuse why she and Tyler couldn’t go to dinner and couldn’t think of one. Actually, now that she thought about it, the dinner thing might not be such a bad idea. Once her mother saw the two of them together, she’d realize that there could never be any serious relationship between them. Then maybe she’d quit bugging her daughter about him.

  Apart from anything else, it would get her out of the house, Megan decided, and save Tyler from having to struggle with a meal. As long as they were with her mother they wouldn’t be able to argue, something that was becoming a habit judging by the last few hours they were together.

  “All right,” she said, giving in to the impulse. “We’d love to come. What time do you want us, and can we bring anything?”

  It felt strange to be linking herself with Tyler that way. Strange and just a little disturbing. Preoccupied with the thought, she missed what her mother had said and had to ask her to repeat it.

  She had barely hung up from the call when the phone rang. Her leap of hope made her sound breathless when she spoke her name.

  The husky voice that answered her sent shivers up and down her back. “I just wanted you to know that I’m at home,” Tyler said.

  “I’m glad you called,” she said unsteadily. “I appreciate the thought.”

  “If you need me I can be back there in ten minutes.”

  She was tempted to say she needed him. Only that, she was quite sure, would be a big mistake. “I’m fine, Tyler. Please don’t worry about me.”

  There was a long pause at the end of the line, then he said gruffly, “I’ll see you in the morning, then. Just be careful with that arm.”

  “I will.” She hung up, feeling as if someone had wrapped a warm blanket around her heart. He’d cared enough to call.

  Not that she should read too much into that, she warned herself, as she got ready for bed later. That was just Tyler’s way of easing his conscience. She would be very stupid to imagine it meant anything more than that. She would be incredibly stupid to want it to mean anything more than that. She and Tyler, she assured herself, would never make it together. They would drive each other crazy in much less time than it took for his first marriage to fail. She’d do well to remember that the next time she felt all cozy and warm at the sight of his rare smile, or at the touch of his fingers brushing her skin.

  In spite of her self-lectures, however, it took her what seemed an eternity to fall asleep. It wasn’t her aching arm keeping her awake, or even the warm, humid air drifting in the open window. It was the memory of Tyler’s voice, telling her he was only ten minutes away.

  Tyler’s sleep that night was haunted by dreams again. Dreams about his ex-wife, all mixed up with dreams about Megan, until he had the two of them confused. He woke up in a sweat, and with a strange feeling of excitement.

  Normally he greeted each morning with a kind of dull resignation, prepared to accept whatever the day might offer. He didn’t think much past that. In his job it didn’t pay to dwell on the possibilities.

  This morning, however, he felt a weird sense of expectation, as if something different were waiting for him just around the corner. He tumbled out of bed, still dazed with sleep and eager to get the day started. He was curious to know what it was that filled him with such a great feeling of anticipation.

  It wasn’t until he was fully awake that he remembered he wasn’t going to work today. He was on vacation, at the beck and call of a certain young woman who managed to raise his blood pressure every time he got within five yards of her.

  Tyler peered into the mirror and groaned at his bleary-eyed reflection. He’d offered to be her nursemaid in a rash moment of guilt, and had spent most of the time since regretting his stupidity.

  He was in a constant state of turmoil when he was around Megan Summers. She was either arousing his temper or arousing something else, neither of which was too comfortable.

  To make matters worse, he found himself telling her things he’d never talked about to anyone else. Things he thought he’d buried a long time ago. She had a way of dredging up his past. He didn’t want to remember his past. Most of it was too painful.

  His vision blurred a little when he thought about Mason. His brother had depended on him, and he had never been able to escape the feeling that he’d let him down when it mattered the most. Even now, so many years later, he still wished he could talk to Mason and explain why he was helpless to save him.

  Tyler shook his head, forcing his mind onto other things. He’d promised to cook breakfast for Megan, and he’d better get over there before she disobeyed him and tried to do it herself.

  He arrived at her apartment a little while later. She was listening to the stereo. He could hear the thud of the bass right through the door.

  Mindful of walking in on her unexpectedly again, he rang the bell. She didn’t answer and after trying a couple of times to get her attention, he gave up and opened the door with the key she’d given him.

  She was dancing, waltzing around the room with her good arm outstretched, and the other tucked in at waist level. She was wearing shorts and a sleeveless denim shirt.

  Her legs, like her arms, were lightly tanned. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off them as she swept gracefully around the floor.

  Suddenly the legs came to an abrupt stop and he heard her gasp. “I wasn’t expecting you so early,” she said, sounding breathless.

  He jerked his gaze to her flushed face and held up the key. “You didn’t hear the bell so I let myself in.”

  “Oh, sorry. I guess it is a little loud. I’ll turn it off.”

  He watched her, mesmerized, as she leaned over to turn off the stereo. Silently cursing, he tore his gaze away from her before his imagination took him to where he wasn’t supposed to go.

  Several albums lay scattered over the coffee table, he noticed. It looked as if she’d been up for some time. “Have you eaten breakfast yet?” he asked her, as she closed the door.

  “No, I’ve been waiting for you.” She walked over to the coffee table and began piling the record albums on top of each other.

  “You’re not wearing your sling,” Tyler said, frowning at her arm. “And where’s the bandage?”

  “I took it off when I had a shower.”

  “I’ll wrap it again for you. How does it feel?”

  “Better. It only hurts now when I use it.”

  Concern made his voice rise. “You’re not supposed to be using your arm.”

  She gave him a rebellious look. “I’m not using it, exactly. I meant when I touch it.”

  He wasn’t at all sure that was what she meant. He wasn’t going to argue with her, but he was going to make damn sure she didn’t use her arm while he was around. “I’ll get the bandage. Where is it?”

  “I’ll get it. It’s in the bathroom.”

  By the time she returned, he’d s
tacked the albums back in their rack.

  She stood in silence while he wrapped her arm and tied it in the sling. When he’d finished, she said in a small voice, “Could you please fasten my bra?”

  “Sure.” The word came out more like a croak. Steeling himself, he fumbled with the catch while he fought the urge to brush his fingers across her bare back. His mouth was dry by the time he was through Moving away from her abruptly he headed for the kitchen.

  “My mother has invited us to dinner tonight,” she announced, following behind him.

  Shock waves rippled down his spine. He reached for the coffee canister and opened it. “Us?” he repeated carefully.

  “Well, actually she invited me,” Megan said hastily. “But since I can’t drive, she included you in the invitation.”

  Things were getting too complicated, Tyler thought, as he measured coffee into the pot. Dinner with her mother sounded just a little too cozy for his liking. What was it Megan had said? My mother gets the wrong idea about everyone I meet.

  That’s all he needed. A mother who suspected something was going on between him and her daughter. The only thing that was going on was in his treacherous mind, but he could hardly tell Megan’s mother that. She’d think he was some kind of weird lech.

  “You don’t have to drive me if you’d rather not,” Megan said, sounding deliberately offhand. “I can always get a cab.”

  Realizing that he’d taken too long to answer her, he said quickly, “Of course I’ll drive you. That was part of the deal, right? I was just wondering how your mother might feel having to feed a total stranger.”

  “My mother likes to cook. She’s good at it.”

  “Then you’d better not mention my feeble efforts.” He held the coffeepot under the faucet and filled it to the line with water.

  “You’re doing just fine for a beginner.” Standing alongside of him, she reached up in the cupboard for the mugs.

  He tried to ignore the enticing length of her body stretched so close to his arm. He tried not to notice the fragrance that had intrigued him the night she’d come out of the shower. He tried desperately not to imagine her in the shower.

  He could remember vividly the feel of her slim waist in his hands, and the feel of her supple body sliding over his shoulder the night of the lessons. His entire nervous system reminded him potently of the sensations he’d felt then.

  He swallowed hard, trying to concentrate on something else...anything else that would take his mind away from how much he wanted to hold her again.

  This was crazy. He couldn’t have the hots for this woman. She was everything he’d spent the last six years doing his best to avoid. She was too independent, too outspoken, too rebellious, too fond of getting her own way.

  Forget that she was also intelligent, funny and sexy as hell. Right now he was feeling vulnerable because she needed him. Being needed made him feel good inside, as if in some strange way he was making up for what happened to Mason.

  He felt that way whenever he helped out someone in need, and that’s all it was with Megan, he told himself as he measured coffee into the pot with grim determination. She needed him, and he needed to be needed. It was as simple as that. Just as soon as her arm was healed, and she was no longer dependent on him, they would go their separate ways.

  Well, not quite, he remembered with a jolt. There were still the self-defense lessons. He’d have to find some way of getting out of that deal. There was no way he could wrestle around with her on the mat now. He was likely to lose his cool and forget all the reasons he should stay out of her life.

  He was still trying to figure a way out of the lessons as he drove Megan to her mother’s apartment early that evening. The need to do so was becoming increasingly necessary. All day long he’d been tortured by the urge to take her in his arms and kiss her until she begged for mercy. This whole situation was getting out of hand.

  “What are you thinking about?” Megan demanded, as he pulled up at a light. “You look as if you’re preparing for battle with that fierce frown. My mother isn’t that tough to get along with.”

  He smoothed out his face at once. “I’m looking forward to meeting your mother. Didn’t you say she was in real estate?”

  Megan gave him a sharp look, as if she suspected he was deliberately changing the subject. “Yes, and she’s very successful at it. She works long hours, but she makes a pretty good living. She had to with three daughters in college and now a son getting ready to go, too.”

  “What about your father?”

  She hesitated, and he felt a pang of sympathy, guessing what she was going to say. “My father died when I was fifteen,” she said quietly. “Heart attack. It was all very sudden and a terrible shock.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said grufly.

  “Thank you.” She sighed, then added, “My mother worked hard, mostly weekends and nights, to keep the family going. She was gone a lot of the time, and since I was the eldest, I sort of took over for her.”

  “That must have been tough for a young girl, taking care of four younger kids.”

  “It was. They were pretty good, but they didn’t like being bossed around by their sister. That was Mom’s job, and I think they resented me taking over. I had to get really tough with them to get them to listen to me. Things got pretty hectic at times, fighting all four of them. It all worked out in the end, of course. By the time I left high school Mom was making enough to hire a housekeeper.”

  Tyler was beginning to see where some of Megan’s assertiveness stemmed from. She was used to taking charge of a situation without much time to get her point across. He imagined that her mother wasn’t the only one good at her job.

  “You went to college?” he asked, as they waited at yet another light.

  She nodded. “Community college to learn the travel business. I always wanted to travel and that seemed a good way of managing it. What about you?”

  “Police academy for basic training, then the department sent me to college for a special law enforcement program.”

  “Was it hard?”

  He shrugged. “Sometimes. I guess the toughest lesson to learn was to separate myself from civilian life.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “It’s what every cop has to do. We have to learn to deal with the conflicts between us and the general public.”

  “Conflicts?” She regarded him curiously. “I don’t understand that. Don’t people generally respect the police? After all, they expect them to protect them against criminals.”

  He sent her a wary glance. “The public don’t always understand our actions. For instance, they want us to enforce the law, yet if we arrested everyone who broke a law we’d run out of jail space within days. We have to be selective and know what the priorities are. Sometimes there’s a thin line between them.”

  “I can imagine. I never thought about it that way before.”

  Warming to his subject, he decided to go on. “The public expects us to find and arrest criminals, but doesn’t understand that we are forced to follow certain procedures. Those procedures have to be maintained, even if it means letting the suspect escape.”

  She gave him a guilty look. “Like when that thug snatched my purse.”

  “Right.”

  “I see.” She was quiet for a while and he wondered if he’d upset her. Then she added in a small voice, “I guess there’s a lot that people don’t understand about police work.”

  “What most people don’t understand is that we’re on a different side of the wall from them. We have to be. We’re out there on our own, and we can’t rely on the public to help us. A cop is no longer part of the civilian world. He’s part of a team, and he has to learn to think like a team. Once you become a cop you lose all civilian identity. It’s like you become someone else.”

  “You must have wanted to be a cop pretty badly.”

  “I did.” He knew she was wondering why he’d chosen his profession. She’d asked him once and he’d
evaded the answer. He didn’t know if he’d be able to answer her now if she asked.

  Luckily he didn’t have to make that decision. She pointed out her mother’s street just then, and he followed her directions to the apartment building.

  “Mom sold the house a couple of years ago,” Megan told him as they drew up at the security gate. “She didn’t want to have to maintain a house all by herself.”

  “I can understand that.” Tyler wound down the window. “Which button?” He leaned out and pressed the button she’d indicated, and after a moment a pleasant voice said, “Marjorie Summers.”

  “Tyler Jackson. I’m with Megan.”

  “Yes, Tyler, come on through.”

  A buzzer sounded and the gate swung open to allow them to drive through. Tyler watched in the rearview mirror as it closed behind them. “Pretty impressive.”

  “And pretty expensive,” Megan said, making a face. “Too rich for me, I’m afraid. Not that I’d want to live in the same apartment building as my mother and brother, anyway.”

  She hopped out of the car when he pulled up in the parking space. He followed more slowly, feeling a little apprehensive now that he was about to meet Megan’s mother.

  He hoped that she didn’t get the wrong idea about him. As long as he kept his eyes off Megan, he told himself, Marjorie Summers wasn’t likely to notice that her daughter lit up all his lights whenever he so much as looked at her.

  All he had to do was keep his attention on the mother instead of the daughter and just maybe he could get through this evening without getting into any deeper water than he was already.

  The minute the door opened he knew it was a futile hope. Marjorie Summers was a carbon copy of her daughter. Older, of course, more mature and sophisticated, but there was no denying that when he looked at Megan’s mother, he was seeing Megan as she would look at that age. And she was going to be gorgeous.