ONCE MORE A FAMILY

by Paula Detmer Riggs

  The doubt was a shadow creeping over her face and dimming the glow of loyalty and gratitude in her eyes. "That was in the past. You're behind a desk now."

  "Yeah, but not the right desk, honey." His grin came harder. "Like I said, I'm aiming for that big corner office overlooking the Tippecanoe. I figure two, three more years of pushing my guys to have the best arrest record in the whole damn department and I'll be a lock."

  She stared at him, then very slowly returned his hand to the bed. It took all his strength to let it lie there. "All right, Grady. I give up. I won't pretend to understand why you're doing this, but I know you well enough to know you're deliberately trying to drive me away."

  He nearly gave in then. Only the knowledge that he would surely let her down again kept him from taking back every lying word. "Ree, I'll always be glad you were my wife and the mother of my son. If you ever need me, all you have to do is call me, and I'll be there."

  "Thank you. I'll remember that."

  The calm in her eyes should have reassured him that he'd read her right. Instead, it made him edgy as hell. "Honey, it's better this way."

  "I suppose it is, yes." She drew a shaky breath, she squared her shoulders. "Well, now that we're back to where we were before you found Jim, how do we handle telling him that we're divorced?"

  Hell, he'd forgotten that. "We're scheduled to see McCurry next week, right? The doc said I'll be out of here in a day or two. I'll stay at my place until we go to Chicago, and you can tell Jim I'm still in the hospital."

  She gnawed her lip and considered. "I hate lying to him."

  "Isn't that what we've been doing all along, lying to him?"

  Her smile was a little sad around the edges. "Yes, I suppose we have," she conceded as she got to her feet and slung her purse over her shoulder. Her face seemed paler now, the bruises darker, but her eyes were very calm.

  "You know, it's a funny thing, Grady. Every time you've told me you loved me, you looked me straight in the eyes. Now, when you tell me you don't, you look everywhere but straight at me. It makes me wonder why."

  He dug deep and told himself it was for her. Even as he forced himself to lock his gaze on hers, pain was ripping into his gut. "I don't love you, Ria."

  She nodded slowly, her expression perfectly composed, an indomitable woman who had more character packed into that small body than he would ever have.

  "Jimmy's waiting," she said with only the slightest hitch in her voice. "I'll give him your love." She didn't wait for a reply, but instead turned on her heel and rushed out.

  He lay frozen, staring at the empty doorway until his eyes burned. And then he closed them tight and buried his face in the pillow.

  * * *

  "It smells like a frigging saloon in here."

  Sprawled half-naked and unshaven on the couch with the bottle of cheap tequila he was diligently emptying, sloppy swig by swig, Grady opened one eye and glared at his big brother. "Who asked you?"

  Kale walked to the window and jerked back the curtain. "When was the last time you had a bath?"

  Grady winced at the flood of sunshine and closed his eye again. "Go away."

  Instead, Kale slid open the window and filled his lungs before exhaling in a disgusted rush. "Mom would kick your butt if she saw you now."

  "She can try."

  "Tough talk from a guy who looks to be one step from a shroud." Kale picked up the bottle of antibiotic tablets on the table and grimaced. "Still full, you stupid idiot."

  "So?"

  "So you could lose that hand if the infection turns to gangrene."

  Because he wasn't as dumb as everyone thought, Grady slitted his eyes before opening them again. The glare from the damn sunshine seared his retinas big-time.

  "What the hell?" he muttered, holding up the hand encased in pristine plaster all the way to his elbow. "I've got another one."

  "Yeah, what you ain't got is good sense, Little Brother."

  "Go to hell." Because he didn't have anything better to do, he took a long, satisfying pull at the bottle, belched a couple of times and glared at the big man with the hot eyes. "How'd you get in here, anyway?"

  "Picked the lock."

  "Call a cop," he muttered.

  "You've had five of them coming around for days, banging on your door. Six, counting Tom Delaney."

  "Good man, Tom. Even if he did go private."

  Kale grabbed the wastebasket by the desk and carried it with him to the couch. Glass clinked against glass as he tossed in empties. "He said to tell you he's cutting his fee in half on account of catching Old Whiskerface."

  Grady reared up, then yelled at the hammer blow inside his head. "That sucker belonged to Jimmy, damn it!"

  "Jimmy was with him when he caught it. They took a vote and decided to let Whiskers go. Seems Jimmy wanted you to be with him when he caught the big one."

  Grady bit off an obscenity before carefully lowering his head. "Guess I blew that, too."

  "Aren't you beat up enough without hammering yourself for not being perfect?"

  "Not even close," he muttered, shutting his eyes.

  * * *

  Jimmy glanced up from the ball he was about to whack, his head tilted to one side and a hopeful look on his face. "Is that Dad's truck?"

  Dad. It was the first time Jimmy had used that word.

  Mason and Ria exchanged looks. Grady had been out of the hospital for four days now. He called Jimmy every day, and every day he pretended the doctors wouldn't let him come home. Neither Mason nor Sarah liked the plan she and Grady had come up with, but they'd agreed she had no option.

  They'd also had a few choice words to say about their second son's mule-headed thinking. "Sounds more like that fancy German job of your uncle Kale's, tiger," Mason said in his gruff way.

  "Your dad's still in the hospital, remember?" Ria said, hating to lie, yet hating the alternative more.

  In three days they were to see Dr. McCurry. She had a feeling he would advise them to tell Jimmy the truth. After that, she and Jimmy would move back to her place and start making a life without Grady.

  "Looks like another wild-and-woolly croquet tournament," Kale said as he stepped through the gate.

  "Hi, Uncle Kale. Wanna play?"

  "I don't know, Jimbo. I hear you're pretty unbeatable."

  Jimmy beamed. "That's 'cause I'm Champion of the World. Dad said."

  Kale gave a low whistle. "If your dad said it, it's bound to be true."

  "Your turn, champ," she said with a smile.

  "Watch this, Uncle Kale," he said with a cocky grin. The resilience of youth, she thought. Less than two weeks ago he was sullen, withdrawn and antagonistic. He still had his moments, but each day was better than the one before it.

  "I'm watching, sport," Kale said, fixing his gaze obediently on the ball.

  "You, too, Grandpa," Jimmy ordered before hunkering down. He took his time, then rested his sneaker on his own ball, and gave it a whack, sending her ball flying.

  "I give up," she said with an exaggerated sigh of relief.

  "Mom hates to lose," Jimmy confided in his grandfather with a gleeful grin, which Mason acknowledged with a thoughtful nod.

  "Your grandmother's the same way. Owes me pert' near a hundred thousand dollars in this gin tournament we've had going on since we got married. I keep trying to collect, and she keeps talking me into double-or-nothing."

  Jimmy made his shot, then glanced up. "What's double-or-nothing?"

  Mason bent to rake a twig from in front of his ball. "You don't know double-or-nothing, boy?"

  "Uh-uh."

  "Well now, son, that's a real interesting strategy you and me might want to explore, seeing as how I owe you six bits already."

  Ria and Kale exchanged grins. "Dad's in his element," he said, shipping his hands into his pockets.

  "My money's on my son." Ria leaned her mallet against the tree and walked toward the house. Kale fell in step beside her.

  "Heard something today I tho
ught might interest you," he said when they reached the patio.

  "What's that?" she asked, reaching for the pitcher of lemonade Sarah had set out on the picnic table before driving into town to have her hair done.

  "Grady's put in his resignation," Kale said, hiding a smile when she sloshed lemonade onto the table. "Word'll hear is he's going to accept that job in Oregon."

  * * *

  Chapter 15

  « ^

  "Leave me alone, you bastard," Grady grumbled as he felt the cold splash of a washcloth against his face.

  "I can't imagine what possessed that doctor to release you so soon. No doubt you badgered him into it the way you badgered me into loving you again."

  It took him a minute, but he managed to pry open his eyes. It was Ria all right. She'd pulled up a chair and was busy wringing out a washcloth into a basin of water.

  He thought she hooked like an angel, with the sunlight coming in through the window trapped in the dark hair fluffed around her face. Because it hurt too much to look at her and know she would never be his, he closed his eyes again.

  "What the hell are you doing here?" he muttered.

  "Cleaning you up."

  "The hell you are."

  "I promised Jimmy he could see you today, and I'm not going to break that promise, just because you look like a bum."

  "Forget it, honey, 'cause as soon as my head stops spinning, I'm booting your butt out of here and jamming a damn chair under the knob."

  "Try it, and I'll break your other hand instead."

  It was a dream, he decided—until the cold cloth slapped him in the face again. For good measure she'd added soap. He sat up spitting and cursing. Only when the pain crashed again did he remember why sudden moves of any kind were a bad idea.

  "Go away, Ree. When I'm on my feet, we'll work out custody."

  Ria heard the defeat in his voice and wanted to lay her head against that big, horribly bruised chest and weep. "You need a shower and a nourishing meal first, and then I'll help you shave."

  His sigh was weary. "If that's what it takes to get you out of here."

  "Hold on to me, Grady. We'll do this together."

  "I'll do it alone. I'm used to it."

  She considered it a measure of his stubbornness that he got himself stripped and into the bathroom without passing out. Even so, he was as pale as death, and his hand shook a little as she wrapped it in a plastic bag, secured with a rubber band she'd found wrapped around one of the newspapers piled up outside his door.

  "Hold on, I'll turn on the water," she said, opening the frosted door to the tiled stall.

  "I'll do it," he muttered, lurching past her.

  "Grady—"

  "Go torment someone else," he muttered, closing the door in her face. The water came on hard, and she heard him gasp.

  "Serves you right, you stubborn jackass," she muttered, glaring at him through the clouded glass. He was so terribly proud—and so badly bruised, inside was well as out.

  The man needed tending almost as much as he needed to be loved.

  Like it or no, he was going to have to let her do both those things.

  * * *

  The shower door opened, and she stepped into the spray, crowding him against the corner. "Hey," he managed to get out before his heart wedged in his throat. She was naked, her breasts already pearling with drops of steam.

  "Hand me the soap," she ordered, her cheeks pink.

  "Ree—"

  "The soap, Grady." He used his good hand to fumble it into hers. "I'm taking you back to the lake with me, and then—"

  "No. I appreciate the effort, but no."

  She worked up a good lather, then reached past him to return the soap to the dish. "You lied to me."

  "The hell I did." He grabbed the hand she'd been aiming at his chest. Suds ran down his arm to drip onto the tile.

  "You said you wanted to be chief."

  He made a decent enough stab at meeting her snapping gaze. "I do."

  "Here, not in Oregon."

  He bit off a half-formed curse. Even so, it had her mouth firming. "I am prepared to forgive you, however," she said with a stern look.

  "You are?"

  "Of course. I admit I've never given any thought to leaving Indiana, but if that's what you want to do, Jimmy and I will adapt."

  "I don't remember asking you to come."

  "Of course you didn't. We're a family. Where else would we be but with you?"

  The steam curled around them, warming his skin and turning her hair to liquid silk. She'd never seemed more beautiful. He'd never wanted her more—or felt more inadequate. All she had to do was look at his wrecked body to know what kind of man he really was. Sooner or later she'd figure out she'd made a mistake, tying herself to a guy who would never be more than average.

  "Ree, for God's sake, don't do this."

  She moved closer, trapping his arm against her breasts. "No one's going to need you the way I need you, Grady. No one's ever going to want you the way I want you. I love you, you idiot. If I have to say it every day for the rest of our lives before you believe me, then that's what I'll do."

  He threw his head back and let the spray pound his face. It sounded as though she was offering him salvation and absolution. Paradise. There had to be a kicker, a sneaky left jab ready to take him to his knees. Happiness couldn't be that easy.

  "I don't know how to be any better than I am, Ree, and that's not good enough."

  "Because you think you failed us?"

  He brought his gaze back to her face and kept it there. He would watch her eyes. And he would know when she finally saw him for what he was. It would hurt, but it was necessary. "There's no 'think' to it. It's a fact. I swore an oath to protect, and I made promises in church. I broke both."

  He braced for scorn. Instead she used a word that had his jaw dropping before he slammed it shut.

  "What if Monk had killed Brenda? Would that have been my fault?"

  "Of course not."

  Her eyes were a clear green and full of challenge. "Why not? I asked Flynn to look into it. Monk found out, and he took it out on Brenda. He could have killed her. If he had, it would have been my fault."

  "Ree—"

  "Even though I was doing what I thought was right, I would have set events in motion, just the way you did by going after a man who destroyed lives for money."

  She had him cornered. Neatly, ruthlessly backed into a dead end.

  On the street, he would already be bracing to dodge the first swing, his fists bunched and ready, his body folding into a street fighter's crouch. He hadn't a clue how to fight a woman who refused to listen to reason. Who used words instead of her fists. Who could melt him with a smile and have him on his knees with a kiss. He took a breath. In spite of the steam that was sapping his strength, his muscles were hot-wired and edgy, his nerves humming. He nearly leaned forward and wrapped himself up in her strength. But that would shame him. A cop didn't lose his cool. It was one of the unwritten rules. Rules pounded into Grady by three generations of cops.

  "You're not going to give up, are you?"

  "Not on your life, my dearest. I gave up once, and spent three miserable years wishing I hadn't been such a coward. As someone I love very dearly said to me not so long ago, I learn slowly, but I do learn."

  He drew a breath. He'd felt this way twice before. The first time had been on the rainy Saturday morning when he'd walked into an airless, dismal classroom to face a sixteen-page police academy entrance exam. He'd been so uptight he'd barely gotten out his name for the examiner. Five years later he'd nearly thrown up before fumbling out a marriage proposal.

  "I'll let you down again. I'll try not to, but I will."

  "I'll let you down, too. But we'll forgive each other and keep on loving each other, like your folks."

  "God help me, I … need you, Ree. Every morning without you I had to find a reason to make it through one more day."

  "Oh, Grady, so did I." Somehow she'd worked
it so his arms were around her and she was pressing him up against the back of the shower stall, out of most of the spray. The tile felt slick and cool against his back. She felt wonderful, her soft body molding to his. If it was a dream, he never wanted to wake up and find her gone.

  "You fight dirty," he murmured, kissing her temple. The smell of steam and soap had never seemed so erotic. "I can see I'm in for a rough ride these next fifty years or so."

  She drew back and looked up at him, her eyes full of hope, her mouth vulnerable and pale. "So that's a yes?"

  Whatever she wanted, it was already hers. Still, he made himself take his time. Even a man in love should know what the heck he was agreeing to. "I don't know. What's the question?"

  She frowned, looking adorable and exasperated and precious. "I believe we were talking about marriage."

  Happiness was a hot coil in his belly, waiting to unwind. "We were?"

  "Of course. Well, more specifically, I asked you to marry me again."

  It took him a minute to fight his way past his need to crush her hard against him. The last thing he needed was another splintered rib. "Guess I could do that," he said past the thick emotion in his throat.

  "I still have the ring. Your ring." She drew back to look up at him. Her face was shiny and wet. With tears.

  His hand shook as he brought it up to wipe her cheeks. "You're the damnedest woman," he managed, his voice husky with the things he should say. Words that he would offer over the years when the emotion didn't threaten to break him. "You only cry when you're—" He stopped suddenly, still unsure.

  "When I'm what?" she prodded, her eyes brimming.

  He shrugged. "Nothing. It was just something Jim and I talked about."

  "Happy?" she said with a smile that slipped right down inside and grabbed his heart.

  "Yeah." He swallowed. "Are you?"

  "Oh, yes." She wiggled against him, and the body he thought half-dead suddenly came alive. "Are you?"

  "I will be," he muttered, helpless to keep from grinning. "As soon as I get you out of this shower and into bed."