The Strong Silent Type

by Marie Ferrarella

  Had she just been fooling herself? Was this what he was like with women? Made love to them until they were mindless, then bailed out? No, if that were true, she would have heard. Even though he was so closemouthed, in-house gossip would have brought word to her long before anything had exploded between them.

  He was turning away from her. Incensed, she grabbed his shoulder and yanked him around.

  “Damn it, Hawk, you owed me a little courtesy. You should have come to me to work out whatever problem is bothering you.”

  “You are the problem that needs to be worked out.”

  She felt as if all the air had been let out of her lungs. “What?”

  He struggled to keep his temper in check, his voice even. Struggled to keep from telling her more than he wanted her to know. But it wasn’t easy.

  “You’ve gotten under my skin. Gotten to me and I don’t want to be gotten to. So just go home, Teri. Go home to your nice house, your nice family and leave me the hell alone.”

  She wanted to fight him on this, to tell him that he wasn’t making any sense. That maybe he was feeling as scared as she was about the path they were on, but that it was okay because she’d hold his hand and he would hold hers and somehow they’d get through it together.

  He’d called her by her first name again. That had to mean something. She was grasping at straws, she told herself. If she had to do this much persuading, maybe they wouldn’t get through it together.

  Or maybe most of it was in her head, maybe most of the feelings were all one-sided. Her side, not his.

  Even she knew that there came a time when pushing wasn’t the way to go. Although it was against every single natural impulse she harbored, Teri stepped back, raised her hands and surrendered.

  “Okay,” she said quietly. “Okay. You win. Do whatever you want.”

  With that, she turned on her heel and walked out of his apartment. Before he could see her cry.

  Hawk stood where he was for a long moment, staring at the door she’d just closed. And then, letting loose with an oath, he doubled up his fist and slammed it into the wall.

  Chapter Fifteen

  H awk walked into his apartment, closing the door behind him. He removed his weapon and holster, placing it carefully beside the keys he’d dropped on the small counter. Dinner received a passing thought from him, then was abandoned in favor of something more liquid.

  Taking the bottle of beer out of the refrigerator, he dropped onto the love seat and aimed the remote at the television set. He had no preferences as to a program, only that there be a droning voice in the background. Silence just wasn’t cutting it for him anymore.

  He opened the bottle and took a deep drag from it, then stared down at the amber glass. He was rid of her, at least in theory. He and Williams had been partnered for two weeks now and were already working as if they’d been together from the very beginning.

  He had what he wanted. Trouble was, he didn’t want it anymore.

  Hawk took another long pull on the bottle. A bright, smiling woman on the set was pushing tooth whitener. Her smile reminded him of Teri.

  Everything reminded him of Teri.

  He’d thought that, given the right opportunity, he could easily reclaim his old habits, his old ways.

  He thought wrong. It was like a snake trying to get back into the skin he’d shed. Impossible. Like it or not, he’d moved on in his life. Maybe even grown. That was something she would have probably said, he thought.

  All he knew was that his old life didn’t fit him anymore. Working and coming home wasn’t enough, the way it had once been. Sharing a partnership with Williams wasn’t enough.

  The man was everything his old partner at Homicide had been. Quiet, reflective and a pretty decent enough detective when the chips were down. God knows Williams didn’t talk his ear off, the way she had. At times, it seemed as if he and Williams were even on the same wavelength.

  But there was no spark, no fire. No sheen. Everything seemed dull somehow. It was as if he’d been led out into the sunshine only to be pushed back into his cave again. The cave wasn’t good enough anymore. He wanted his sunshine back.

  Except that meant admitting he was wrong.

  Hawk frowned to himself. He wasn’t very prone to admitting he was wrong, he thought. So he’d continued to try. And continued to feel as if he were stumbling around in the dark, searching for the one way out of that cave.

  Sitting back on the love seat, he put his feet up on the coffee table, crossing his boots at the ankle and staring at the set.

  He still saw her.

  They inhabited the same squad room, albeit at different ends. It was easy enough to avoid looking her way if he put his mind to it, but avoiding hearing her was another matter. He couldn’t do that without putting in earplugs. He’d lost the knack of tuning things out. Tuning her out. He caught himself actually listening for her. For the sound of her laughter, which was the worst because it got under his skin. Reminded him of things he didn’t want to be reminded of. Like being with her. Like making love with her. Like being tied up in knots and welcoming the sensation.

  It was all wrong.

  He’d thought of going back to the chief and asking him for a transfer back into his old Homicide division, had even gone up to the man’s office once. But something at the last minute had kept him from going in.

  Maybe it was the fear that the chief would think of him as a royal pain. He’d never needed special treatment before. But that had been before that damned witch had cast her spell over him.

  It was all Cavanaugh’s fault, he thought miserably. All of it. He’d been happy before she came.

  No, he hadn’t, Hawk admitted as he drained the last of his bottle. Setting it down, he debated having another. But an entire sea of beer wasn’t going to cure what ailed him and nothing but a cure was acceptable right now.

  He hadn’t been happy at all before Teri had stormed her way into his life. That was the whole problem. Being with her had shown him a glimpse of what being happy could be like.

  She’d make him laugh. More than that, she’d made him feel.

  And fear of feeling was what had gotten him to this juncture in his life.

  He didn’t want to be in it anymore.

  Muting the TV, he took out his cell phone and punched in a number.

  Maybe she should have taken her father up on the invitation and gone to the movie. It was one of those action-buddy movies he favored. She did, too. But she didn’t feel as if she’d be good company tonight. Besides, her uncle was coming and the last thing she wanted to hear was to have him ask how the new partner was working out.

  He wasn’t. Oh, he was likable enough and, unlike Hawk, Mitchell talked. Talked a great deal and actually seemed interested in what she had to say. But that was just the problem. He was unlike Hawk and all Mitchell did was make her miss Hawk more.

  She had to get over this, she told herself sternly, had to get over being like some stupid, mooning adolescent who’d just broken up with the captain of the football team. She was a grown woman and these things happened. It was all part of life.

  A life without Hawk.

  “Okay, enough is enough. This has gone on for two weeks. You’ve got twelve hours to shape up, Cavanaugh, you hear me?” she demanded of her reflection in the hall mirror.

  The reflection didn’t look too convinced that it could be done.

  She heard the doorbell and didn’t bother stifling the groan. It wasn’t one of her siblings, because they all had keys and never bothered to ring. Her father believed in the open-door policy. If it was one of her cousins, she just wasn’t in the mood to make small talk. But there was no use trying to hide because her car was parked outside in the driveway. They’d know she was home.

  Maybe this was better, she told herself. If she had to pretend for someone, she wouldn’t have time to dwell on how rotten she felt.

  The doorbell rang again, more insistently this time. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” she calle
d out, hurrying to the door.

  He was the last person in the world she’d expected to see on her doorstep.

  It was like a fantasy she might have conjured up, but even as she conjured, she would have known in her heart that it couldn’t possibly happen.

  Except that it had.

  She wondered if somewhere there was a gaggle of devils purchasing ice picks.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi,” he responded.

  Well, she thought, at least he hadn’t lost his knack for scintillating conversation. After a beat, she stepped back and gestured inside the house. “Do you want to come in?”

  “Yeah.”

  She waited. Hawk remained standing where he was, as if he were glued in place. “Might help if you moved your feet.”

  Like someone coming out of a trance, Hawk came to and crossed the threshold into her house. There was no turning back now, he thought. His hands felt cold. He shoved them into his pockets and glanced around the area. “Your family around?”

  She shut the door and turned around to look at him. “Rayne’s over at Cole’s place. My father went to the movies with my uncle.” Nameless suspicions began to form. “Why?”

  “No reason.” They were alone, he thought. That was good. He’d have better luck getting this out if they were alone.

  She noticed that he was only wearing his jacket. It was a cold night. What was he doing here?

  Teri led the way into the living room. “Do you want anything to drink?”

  For the first time since he’d left childhood, he felt as if his courage was flagging. He would have liked a drink. A stiff one. But he wasn’t about to fall back on artificial props now, not after he’d come so far in his life. That was for losers like his parents had been. “No thanks, I’m okay.”

  She felt awkward around him. As if she’d somehow slipped her skin on backward and it wasn’t fitting quite right. She didn’t like the sensation.

  He was here to say something, she thought. But what? That he was leaving the city? No, it couldn’t be that. Hawk wouldn’t come to tell her; he’d just leave. Vanish like smoke. That was more his style.

  God, but she’d missed him. Missed him so much that her stomach ached. These past two weeks had been the hardest she’d gone through in a very long time. The feeling wasn’t unlike having some kind of death in the family. And in a way, she supposed there had. A death to what she’d hoped was to be.

  “Would you like to sit?” She indicated the sofa behind him.

  He looked over his shoulder, then shook his head. “No, I’ll stand.”

  She licked her lips, searching for something to say. “So how’s it going?”

  He thought of putting up a pretense. But that wasn’t why he was here. “Not good. Bad.” He looked at her. “Hell, actually.”

  That was surprisingly honest of him, she thought. Teri made the only guess she could. “Williams talk too much?”

  He wanted to touch her. To run his fingers through her hair, to bury his face in her neck and smell that soft scent of soap that clung to her skin.

  Fighting urges, he shoved his hands into his pockets. “He doesn’t talk at all.”

  She laughed shortly. “Should be heaven for you, not the other place you mentioned.”

  She was sharp. Didn’t she get it? Was he going to have to stand here and spill out his guts to her? Taking his hand out, he ran it through his hair. “Yeah, well, it’s not.”

  She saw the quick flash of healing bruises. This was new. She stifled the temptation of taking the hand in hers and examining it. “What’s with your knuckles? Or am I not allowed to ask that?”

  “Nothing.” She kept on looking at him, drawing the words to the surface as if she were levitating them from inside of him. “I slammed my fist into a wall.”

  “Why?” she deadpanned. “Did the wall do something to annoy you?”

  “No,” Hawk snapped, irritated. “I did something to annoy me.”

  She studied his face. He looked worn, tired. She squelched the protective feelings. That wasn’t what Hawk wanted from her. What did he want from her? “Doesn’t seem very fair to take it out on the wall.”

  “No, it doesn’t. And it’s not fair to take my problem out on you.”

  She frowned. This was getting more obscure instead of clear. “Now you lost me. I was doing fine talking about walls, but this is kind of dicey. This is about people—”

  She was making fun of him, he thought. And he deserved it. Knowing still didn’t contain the anxiety that telegraphed itself through him. “Will you shut up for a second and let me get this out?”

  “Well, since you put it so nicely, how could I refuse?”

  He took a deep breath, a runner preparing to make a dash for the finish line. “I was wrong.”

  She was glad there were no breezes floating through the house or she would have been picking herself up from the floor.

  “Go on,” she urged slowly. “Not that I don’t agree with that, blanketly, but I would like a few more specifics to go on.”

  “I was wrong when I thought that if we weren’t always in each other’s faces, things would get better.”

  What was he up to? It couldn’t be as simple as what she was thinking. “They haven’t?”

  “They haven’t.”

  Feeling as if she had nothing to lose, she pressed. “What kind of things?”

  Patience snapped and so did he as he repeated loudly, “Things.”

  Nice to know some things remained constant, she thought. “Contrary to popular belief, if you raise your voice to say something, that doesn’t explain anything or make it clearer.” She crossed her arms before her. “Try again. What things?”

  He was a man who didn’t believe in laundry lists, so he summed it up. “My life.”

  “You were looking to improve your life by getting rid of me.” She said the words slowly, as if she were trying to digest them, or at least make some kind of sense out of them.

  “No, damn it, I was just trying to get my life back to where it was.”

  “And you didn’t?”

  “No, I did,” he contradicted, and then laid all his cards on that table. Or thought he did. “Except that I don’t like it the way it was anymore.”

  “Hard man to please.”

  She shrugged and he thought that maybe he’d blown it. Maybe she didn’t give a damn what he felt or did. But instead of walking away from the table and his losses, the way he always had, he decided to dig in and fight.

  “I know. But you did.”

  Teri blinked and wondered when her hearing had gone out on her. “Did what?”

  “Pleased me.”

  He had a way with words, she thought. “My union rep at Feminists Daily will be very happy to hear that.”

  He stared at her for a second, then shook his head as if that could somehow help clear away the cobwebs that had descended over it. This wasn’t coming out the way he’d wanted. But then, everything around Teri was unpredictable. That was part of the attraction. “Damn it, you know what I mean.”

  “Maybe.” She was beginning to, or at least thought she was. But she’d gone down the wrong path before. This time, she wanted the bread crumbs to clearly lead the way to markers, not more bread crumbs. “But I want to hear you elaborate it. Articulate for once in your life with something less than a bearlike growl, Hawk. Talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  He tried again. “I’m thinking that life with you was bad—”

  She shook her head, managing to keep the smile back. “Not your best start.”

  He pushed on with determination. “But life without you is hell.”

  “Better.” She waited. Nothing followed. This was going to be a long process, she thought. “That wasn’t the end of it, was it?”

  “No,” he snapped, then fell into silence again as he tried to phrase things in his head, phrase them the way he knew she wanted to hear them.

  She cocked her head and looked at him, amusement entering h
er eyes. “These other words, are they coming anytime soon?”

  “I want you back.” It was a blunt statement, but it summed up everything.

  “How, Hawk?” She searched his face, trying to delve into his soul, warning herself not to get too carried away. “How do you want me back? As a partner?”

  It was a start, he thought with relief, one he could build on. “Yes.”

  She pretended to consider his request and then shook her head. “Might be difficult—Mitchell and I get along beautifully.”

  She was kidding, he realized. And maybe, just maybe, the window of opportunity hadn’t shut down. “I could kill him,” he offered mildly.

  Teri nodded her head slowly. “Yes, that would dissolve the partnership. But it might make it hard being your partner if you’re in prison.” She allowed herself a broad smile. “It’ll be simpler if we just get the chief to switch us back.”

  Damn, it was going to be all right, he thought. He knew her well enough for that, to know when he was in the hot seat and when he wasn’t. “Okay, we’ll do it your way.”

  The smile went from ear to ear. “That has a nice ring to it.”

  “Since you brought it up—” He began to feel around inside his pocket, hoping what he’d brought with him hadn’t fallen out somewhere. And then he breathed a sigh of relief as his fingers came in contact with the metal.

  “Brought what up?”

  And then the banter died on her lips as she stared at what he held in the palm of his hand. It was a ring. A perfect, beautiful, heart-shaped diamond ring.

  Words stuck to the roof of her mouth and had to be pried out one by one. “I don’t suppose you got that from the bottom of a Cracker Jack box.”

  “No.”

  She held her breath as he took her hand and slipped the ring on her finger.

  Her heart hammered as she stared down at the gem. “Look at that. It fits,” she whispered in awe.

  He hadn’t left that to chance. “I asked your sister if she knew your ring size.”