Night Call

by Radclyffe

  Chapter Eighteen

  Quinn parked the Volvo in the shade of the big maples bordering Whitman Park, three blocks from her house. She headed for the largest group of kids she could see, figuring Arly would be in the middle of the pack. A minute later she found Honor on a park bench watching an impromptu soccer game. She sat down next to her, slid an arm behind her shoulders, and kissed her.

  “Phyllis told me you and Arly walked over here. How are you feeling?”

  Honor sighed and leaned her cheek against Quinn’s shoulder. “Truth?”

  Quinn brushed her lips over Honor’s temple. “No, I prefer you lie to me whenever possible.”

  “If you didn’t bring the car, you’re going to have to carry me home.”

  “Is your incision bothering you?”

  “Not really. I’m mostly just out of gas.”

  “I figured you might be tired. I drove over.” Quinn stroked Honor’s hair and watched Arly outrun a boy two years older than her, deftly dribbling the soccer ball between her knee and foot. “She’s really good.”

  “Give her a ball and she’s in heaven.” Honor rested her hand on Quinn’s thigh. “What if she’s not tall enough for basketball? She’s going to be really upset.”

  “She’ll be fine. She can play point guard. That suits her personality better, anyhow.”

  “Are you any good at basketball?” Honor asked.

  Grinning, Quinn shrugged. “I’m going to have to be.”

  “Was Jack all right when Phyllis gave him the bottle?”

  “I fed him.” She hugged Honor gently. “Not that I don’t think your breasts are a marvelous invention, but I don’t think he really cares where dinner comes from. He chowed down, no problems.”

  Honor laughed. “Good. Because my breasts have other uses, and I’d like to get them back to that sooner rather than later.”

  Quinn nuzzled Honor’s ear. “Oh yeah?”

  “Children present,” Honor murmured, although she didn’t move away.

  “They’re not watching.”

  “Behave anyhow. If you tease me and I’m too tired to do anything, I’ll just get cranky.”

  “You don’t have to do anything.” Quinn kissed Honor’s cheek and drew back before she wanted to do more than she could do outside. “I’ll do all the heavy lifting.”

  “Somehow the idea of me lying there like a lump doesn’t strike me as sexy.”

  “You’re sexy no matter what you’re doing.” Quinn held Honor’s hand. “Besides, I was pretty much a lump when I got home, and you didn’t seem to mind.”

  “You were a gorgeous sexy lump. How are you feeling?”

  “I got five hours of solid sleep. I’m good.”

  Honor rubbed Quinn’s thigh. “I’m glad. Although that wasn’t exactly what I meant.”

  “I’m okay,” Quinn said quietly. “Healthstar brought in a preemie with NEC. Things went south pretty fast and we lost her.”

  “That’s rough. I’m sorry.” Honor rubbed Quinn’s hand against her cheek. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah.” Quinn sighed. “Better now. Thanks for this morning. It was just what I needed.”

  “Baby,” Honor murmured, “that was for me too.”

  “Good.”

  “Was Linda on last night? She hates it when kids are involved.”

  Quinn nodded. “Tristan and Linda did the transfer.”

  “I’ll call Linda when we get home. Check in on her.” Honor paused to wave when Arly shouted across the field that she had just made a goal. “I saw Tristan on the way over here. She and Jett were headed off somewhere together.”

  “Oh yeah?” Quinn gave Arly a thumbs-up. “Interesting.”

  “Is it?” Honor studied Quinn’s grin. “Oh. Huh. Jett doesn’t look like Tristan’s usual.”

  “That’s when you have to watch out,” Quinn said. “It’s the ones you don’t expect to get to you who always do.”

  Honor laughed. “Well that was certainly true for me where you were concerned.”

  “Really? I understood you went for the handsome, sexy types.” Quinn made a move to nuzzle Honor’s neck again and Honor pushed her away.

  “Oh, your nap definitely got your batteries recharged,” Honor said. “What is there about out of shape, recently pregnant women that you find so irresistible, Dr. Maguire?”

  “I look at our amazing kids and realize they came from you,” Quinn said gently, “and it’s like witnessing a miracle. Plus, you’re the most exciting, beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”

  Honor caught her breath. “You’d better take me home now. I think I’m ready for you to do that heavy lifting you promised.”

  Quinn jumped up and waved her arms. “Yo, Arly. Wrap it up. Time to go!”

  A minute later Arly came running over. “Did you see me score?”

  “Sure did,” Quinn said. “Nice move getting around that guard too.”

  Arly grinned. “Kevin is here. Can I stay just a little bit longer? He can walk me home.”

  Quinn shook her head. “No go, sport. But I’ll make a deal with you. We’ll come back after supper, okay?”

  “When will I be big enough to stay by myself?”

  “Soon,” Quinn said, slinging an arm around Arly’s shoulders while thinking in five or six years she might feel comfortable not knowing where Arly was every minute of the day. Big maybe. “Right now Mom’s pretty tired.”

  Arly grew serious. “Okay. We should take her home.”

  Honor rose, hiding her stiffness and the brief twinge of pain, and took Arly’s hand. “I think if I take a nap this afternoon, I’ll be ready to come back over with the two of you tonight. Maybe we can bring Jack. Sound like a plan?”

  “Deal.”

  Arly swung her parents’ hands as she walked between them toward the car. Honor smiled over at Quinn, and Quinn let the last remnants of sadness and regret drift away on the wings of children’s laughter.

  *

  Just as Jett reached the porch, Tristan came out of the cabin, jiggling her keys in her hand. Jett didn’t blame her for wanting to leave, but she didn’t expect the disappointment to be so sharp. She turned to go back down the steps to the car. Leaving was for the best, she knew that, but the prospect of spending the next day alone, when she’d be thinking of Tristan constantly, saddened her in a way that was completely foreign. After Gail, she’d felt shell-shocked—part angry and part wounded—but the pain had been blunted by her own self-recriminations. This pain was razor-edged and nearly unbearable.

  “There’s a mom-and-pop store a couple miles up the road,” Tristan called from behind her. “I’m heading out to get a few supplies. Unless you trust me to pick out steaks and wine, you’d better come along.”

  Jett turned back. “You want to stay?”

  Tristan came down the stairs and strode along the gravel path, slowing when she reached Jett. “Babe. One of these days you’re going to have to tell me why you think the only thing a woman would want from you is sex.”

  “Maybe that’s all I want,” Jett said, although even as she spoke she wasn’t sure she believed it any longer.

  “Things change,” Tristan said, almost to herself. She smiled ruefully. “Come on, let’s go shopping.”

  Jett climbed back into the car, acutely aware of Tristan just inches away as they drove along a narrow, twisting dirt road dappled with sunlight filtered through overhanging trees. For moments at a time she felt completely disconnected from anything she’d ever known, her past heartaches and mistakes seeming to exist in another lifetime. The Army, the desert, even the city she’d just left faded away, until all that remained was Tristan and sunshine.

  “Pull over for a second,” Jett said.

  Wordlessly, Tristan eased the Saab onto the shoulder of the road, leaving just enough room for one vehicle to pass. She regarded Jett expectantly.

  Jett leaned over, slid her hand behind Tristan’s neck, and tugged her close enough to kiss. She kissed her more slowly and more ca
refully than she’d ever kissed a woman in her life. She traced Tristan’s lips with the tip of her tongue, slipped inside to taste her heat, teased her by drawing back when Tristan would have probed more deeply.

  “Jesus,” Tristan gasped. “What are you trying to do to me?”

  “I just wanted to say thanks,” Jett said. “For bringing me up here. I thought if I kissed you out here, it wouldn’t be about sex.”

  “Wrong. Very wrong.” Tristan’s chest heaved. “But you’re welcome just the same.”

  Jett skimmed her fingertips over Tristan’s jaw. “I’ve never kissed a woman in the sunlight before.”

  “Christ,” Tristan whispered. “You kill me, you know that?”

  “Is that bad?” Jett asked.

  Tristan shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. A dusty red pickup truck piled high with wooden crates filled with chickens rattled by, but Tristan never took her eyes off Jett’s face.

  “I never kissed anyone until I’d been in the service a couple of years, and then, well…” Jett shrugged. “Everyone pretty much had to hide.”

  “I hate myself for being a little bit glad that this was a first.” Tristan wanted to be Jett’s first, because she was coming to realize Jett was her first in all the ways that counted. She’d never wanted to give herself to another woman the way she did right now. She’d never hungered to know another woman, heart and soul, as much as she wanted to know Jett. And God help her, she just wanted her. She wanted to climb over the gear shift and into Jett’s arms. She wanted her out of those clothes so bad, she thought she might cry.

  Jett frowned. “You’re shaking.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  Jett reached for her. “Don’t blow smoke at me. Something’s—”

  Tristan jerked away. “Christ, Jett. I’m not made of stone. You’re driving me out of my mind.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “Don’t be sorry. God damn it.” Tristan threw her head back against the seat and fisted her hands on her thighs. She squinted up at the sky and took a deep breath. “If it weren’t so fucking painful, it would be great.”

  “What?”

  Tristan turned her head and grinned at Jett. “Being this turned on.”

  Jett laughed. “You’re a little bit crazy.”

  “No, I’m a lot crazy.” Tristan held out her hand and Jett took it. Tristan rubbed her thumb over the darkly tanned, wind-roughened skin. “This is different, this thing between us.”

  “Tristan, I don’t think—”

  “Don’t,” Tristan said quickly. “Don’t tell me there’s nothing here, because I know differently.” She released Jett’s hand, straightened, and started the car. “At least for me.”

  Jett didn’t contradict her, because she didn’t understand what was happening, and even more importantly, she had no idea what she wanted to happen. So she didn’t say anything, and she didn’t touch her again.

  *

  Tristan was careful not to push for the rest of the afternoon. She’d gone too far in the car earlier, moved too fast, and Jett had immediately withdrawn. Even so, Tristan had experienced a sense of giddy freedom, almost elation, when she’d voiced her feelings to Jett. Still—too much, too soon. Hell, even she didn’t know what it meant. All she knew was that she’d never enjoyed shopping for groceries and cooking a meal with anyone quite so much. Come to think of it, she’d never actually done those things with any of her dates. Her dates were just that, appointments for some social function with the unspoken understanding that sex would likely follow. One step up from a business arrangement. The only thing that made those encounters anything more than cold, calculated exchanges was the fact that she and her companions genuinely enjoyed one another. But just the same, those dates were nowhere near as enjoyable as the afternoon she’d spent with Jett doing something as simple as barbecuing steaks. Part of the pleasure had come from Jett finally relaxing enough to tell her a few things about her life. They’d discovered a shared love for baseball. They were both Yankees fans. When Tristan confessed to having a huge collection of classic sci-fi movies on tape, Jett was eager to see them.

  And all the time they’d talked, moving around each other in the small kitchen, carrying plates of food back and forth, opening wine, refilling glasses, Tristan remembered the dark, dusky taste of Jett’s mouth and the strength in her hands. A few times, Tristan had had to walk out of the room on the pretext of checking the coals in the grill or opening another bottle of wine, because she couldn’t hide how much she wanted her. Because somehow, she had to convince Jett she wasn’t with her just for the sex.

  Now Jett sat on the top step of the wide wooden front porch, her back braced against the rough-hewn post that supported the slanted metal roof above their heads. The sun rode low across the lake, gilding the treetops and painting long, wavering shadows on the opalescent surface of the water. Jett’s profile appeared carved in bronze, and Tristan ached to run her fingers over her cheekbones and along her jaw. She wanted to taste her and lose herself in the hot mystery of her mouth. Tristan shifted in her Adirondack deck chair, her legs tight and her stomach twisting. She needed to think about something else, and quickly, or else she was going to need to excuse herself for a few minutes.

  Looking for a diversion, Tristan lifted the bottle of wine from the floor next to her and poured half a glass for herself. “More wine?”

  “No. Thanks.” Jett indicated the nearly full glass beside her. “I’m good.”

  “We could have gotten beer,” Tristan said.

  Jett planted one foot on the porch and draped her arm over her bent knee. “I’ll admit, beer is a little more my style, but I enjoyed the wine.”

  Tristan sat forward on the end of her chair. A foot of space separated them. “I’m really glad you came up here with me.”

  “I’m glad you invited me.” Jett couldn’t miss what was so plainly written in Tristan’s eyes, and the look had been there all afternoon. She owed Tristan more than a safe, polite response. But she had no idea what to say, how to explain that she had no reference for the afternoon they’d shared. She’d spent all her life with men and women in close quarters—comrades—eating together, sleeping together, living and breathing and dying together. But she couldn’t remember a single day that she’d spent in the company of someone by choice, for the pleasure of it. She wanted to tell Tristan how special this day had been, even more because Tristan wasn’t asking.

  “I don’t know how to do this,” Jett said.

  “Do what?”

  “Be with someone—a woman—like this.” Jett stood abruptly, frustrated by her inability to express what she felt, especially since she didn’t understand most of what was happening. With her back to Tristan, she braced her forearm against the post and leaned out over the railing, watching night fall and the moon ascend. “I’ve known women I would die for, and those same women I’ve never touched, never told a secret to. I’ve made love to women whose names I didn’t know, whose names I didn’t need to know.” She rapped her fist sharply on the post. “Nothing about being here fits, Tristan.”

  Tristan rose. “Was there ever a woman to bridge that gap? A woman you knew, a woman you touched?”

  “No.” Jett bit out the word, half turning. Tristan was right behind her. So close, so close. “No. There wasn’t. There was only my mistake.”

  “Whatever happened, that doesn’t mean things couldn’t be different with someone else.”

  “What if I don’t want things to be different?” Jett’s back was to the railing and Tristan was almost against her now. She kept her hands clenched at her sides. “I don’t like complications. I prefer sex to be simple.”

  Tristan laughed abruptly and took another step. Jett only wanted what Tristan herself had always been satisfied with. The physical connection had always been enough. It could be enough again. “Hey, I think you know I’ve never been one to disagree with that. So why do you keep running?”

  Jett couldn’t answer. Tri
stan was a breath away, so near Jett could make out flecks of moonlight dancing in her eyes. Her skin shimmered with silver highlights. Jett swore waves of heat swirled and danced around them. She was so beautiful. Still, Jett didn’t touch her, because she didn’t believe her. Someone would get hurt, and she didn’t want it to be Tristan. “Back off, Tristan.”

  “No.”

  “Tristan,” Jett warned, her voice low and tight.

  “Simple.” Tristan began to unbutton her shirt. “We’ll keep it simple. Just the way you like it.”

  The white shirt parted, exposing Tristan’s breasts. And just that fast, the distant croak of frogs, the mournful cry of a loon, the wind in the trees—all went completely silent. The stars winked out and the sky overhead became an endless void. The world receded until there was only Tristan, living, breathing, offering Jett a gift more precious than the promise of tomorrow.

  “Take it,” Tristan whispered. “Please, Jett. Take it.”

  Jett slipped her hands under the edges of the white cotton shirt, sliding her fingertips along Tristan’s collarbones until she gripped Tristan’s shoulders. She turned her suddenly, forcing Tristan’s back against the post, then leaned into her, her mouth against Tristan’s ear.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re asking?” Jett pushed a leg between Tristan’s. “Because I’m not going to ask again.”

  Tristan dug her fingers into Jett’s ass, forcing Jett’s leg more firmly into the cleft between her thighs. “The answer is yes.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Hold on to the railing behind you,” Jett said, keeping Tristan pinned to the post with both hands on Tristan’s shoulders and one leg between her thighs. She slid her teeth along the edge of Tristan’s jaw, then down the center of her throat. When she reached the hollow between Tristan’s collarbones she sucked the soft skin between her lips and tugged at it with her teeth.

  “What?” Tristan muttered, struggling to find her mental balance. She’d fantasized about Jett doing something just like this so many times that she was halfway to an orgasm already. She swept her hands up and down Jett’s back until Jett pushed her shirt down over her upper arms, tethering them close to her sides.