Something's Cooking

by Joanne Pence

  There he was again, the thin man with black hair, his gun silhouetted against the misty, yellow lights of the long tunnel. She ran. His footsteps echoed against the walls, coming ever closer, but she pushed on, feeling her heart would burst. Paavo, where are you?

  “Angie!”

  A gunshot filled the night. It hit her. No, she screamed. No!

  “Wake up, Angie.”

  Stop! Let go of me. Paavo!

  “It’s me. It’s Paavo. Stop struggling. It’s just a dream, Angie. A dream.”

  Slowly, the words began to make sense. She opened her eyes and saw Paavo sitting on the sofa beside her.

  “Angie, it’s okay now.”

  She sat up, her arms wrapping around him. “It felt so real,” she whispered.

  “I know,” he murmured, stroking her back, his voice warm and comforting, “I know.”

  She tried to relax, but the dream lingered. The sun was already filling the room. She was safe. Paavo was here. She let go of him and leaned back against the cushions, trying to make sense of what had happened. In a way, her dream seemed more real than what had really happened here last night.

  She knew Paavo had tried to hurry things along, but it had seemed to take forever before the noise stopped, the lights dimmed, and the last men from the sheriff’s department and county coroner’s office walked out the door. Then she had only dozed, emotionally and physically exhausted.

  She remembered how Paavo had somehow managed to fit his big frame beside her on the sofa. He had held her close, ignoring his own discomfort, until her trembling ceased. She had leaned her head against his chest, listening to his strong heartbeat and realizing that, once again, he had been there when she needed him. In his arms, she had finally slept.

  This morning, his hair was more tousled than usual and his five o’clock shadow had gone into overtime, but other than that he looked wide awake and energetic—quite the opposite of how she felt.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” she said, reaching for his hands. “I thought you weren’t coming back.”

  “Last night, when I saw your column in the Shopper, I called the police and told them to be on the alert, and I drove up.”

  “Thank goodness,” she exclaimed. She thought about his explanation. It was very odd. “I don’t understand,” she began. “Why you were concerned just because you saw my column?”

  “I don’t understand why you submitted it.”

  “It’s my job!”

  “And your safety is mine!”

  “But—” she stopped, uncertain of what he meant.

  “Who did you give this address to?”

  “No one.” What kind of a dummy did he think she was?

  “Your boss?”

  “No!”

  “Did you put a return address when you sent out your column?”

  “Of course not! I mailed it at the post office.”

  “The postmark—then a few phone calls to local realtors….”

  She shut her eyes in disgust. How could she have been so stupid!

  “We have to go to the station,” he said. “You need to make a statement.”

  She rubbed her forehead. The whole thing revolved around the Shopper. She’d sent her column to George Meyers, but there was no way he could be involved in anything criminal.

  “It won’t take long,” he said.

  She sighed and looked away. She didn’t want to hear it. She wanted to blot everything out, but he wouldn’t let her.

  “I don’t have to go back to the city until tomorrow,” he added. “I think you should return with me.”

  She sighed. “You’re probably right. Tomorrow, then.”

  “We have today,” he said quietly.

  She glanced at him. It sounded as if, almost as if, he wanted to be with her. She stood up and went into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “We have today.”

  The afternoon air was cold and heavy with the fog that seemed to constantly hover over the village. She was dressed in jeans, a heavy fisherman’s knit sweater, and boots.

  That morning at the police station, Paavo had guided her through the red tape with a minimum of time and frustration. She couldn’t have helped but notice the deference many officers gave him. Afterward, she had sat in an empty office, alone, for over a half hour while he concluded “police business.” She had thought it strange, but he had said she wouldn’t want to hear some of the gorier details. He was right.

  He had taken her to a diner for a good-sized brunch, and then they had driven to the beach. Although the sun peeked now and again through the fog, the air was cool and brisk, the wind sharp. Except for a couple of fishermen and the ever-present gulls, they had the beach entirely to themselves.

  He held her hand as they walked along the shore now, the silence comfortable between them. Angie needed the silence. She needed to be there, her hand in his, away from the world which seemed so threatening.

  “I guess it’s no good to hide, is it Paavo?” she said finally.

  He glanced at her and then turned his gaze to the waves breaking far from shore. “The man who broke into your place last night has a long record of arrests for everything from muggings to armed robberies. He also has a reputation as a hit man, a gun for hire. We were never able to pin anything on him, though.”

  “A hired killer?” She stared at him. “What does that mean? Was he after me because I saw him at the scene when Sam was killed, or because someone else wants me dead?”

  “We don’t know.”

  She stopped walking and faced the water. “My God!”

  “I wish I didn’t have to tell you that,” he said. “But you needed to know it.”

  The breezes lashed at her face, turning her cheeks red, whipping her hair about as she pondered his words. She looked back at him. “If only I wasn’t so afraid,” she said quietly.

  “Anyone would be. There’s nothing wrong with the way you feel.”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  “You have faith, Angie. It makes all the difference.”

  They walked again, and she watched her shoes sink into the sand with each step. “Do you, Paavo?”

  He was thoughtful. “Most of the time, I guess not. But other times, like when Matt was killed, I want life to be more than just a fluke.”

  “Policemen need God,” she said. “Maybe more than most people.”

  He glanced at her with a sad, haunted smile on his face. “That sounds like something Aulis would say.” His words were little more than a whisper.

  They found a boulder with a flat top and sat side by side on it, facing the ocean. “I’m not clear about Aulis’s relationship to you,” Angie said. “Is he an uncle or something?”

  “No, nothing. In fact, I’m probably not even Finnish.”

  “But you said he raised you. A person just doesn’t raise someone else’s kid.”

  Paavo shrugged. “Aulis did. Maybe because he was a foreigner and didn’t know any better. Or maybe he kept us because he understood a lot more than anyone thought.”

  “You mean, you and your sister?”

  Paavo gazed at the sea as he spoke. “Jessica was five years older than me. I was about four when we went to Aulis.”

  “What happened to your parents?”

  A long time passed before he said, “I didn’t know my father, and I doubt his name was Smith. The only things I remember about my mother were her drinking, and crying, and the way she liked to get all dressed up and go out. One day she took me and Jessica to Aulis, who lived in the next apartment. She left, and I never saw her again.”

  Angie drew in her breath. “But why? What happened to her?”

  “Those are the questions I grew up with, Angie.”

  She didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t imagine a mother doing that, she simply couldn’t imagine it.

  “Jessica was older. Didn’t she remember your father?”

  “We didn’t have the same fathe
r. Jessie’s father was black. She had only the vaguest memory of him. Then lots of different men started coming around, and before long, there I was.”

  “I…I see.”

  Paavo’s gaze flickered over her face. “No, Angelina, I don’t think you do. I don’t think you could ever begin to.”

  She wasn’t sure what he meant. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I like the way you are—to me, you’re like a ray of sunshine. God! What a thing to say!” He grinned and shook his head.

  She studied his profile. The smile had vanished, and in its place there was a wistfulness, as arresting as it was heartbreaking.

  “Were you very young when your sister died?” she asked softly.

  He didn’t respond for a long time, and then, when he did, he didn’t look at her. But slowly, in his clipped, direct way of speaking, as the waves rolled onto the shore at their feet, he told her about his past. Every word he spoke, and especially the many he left unsaid, she caught and held and studied, until, in her heart, she understood.

  Paavo sounded like the kind of little boy perhaps every classroom has. He was the boy who was always getting into trouble, the skinny kid whose shirts were usually two sizes too big or too small, whose jeans were torn, and whose socks didn’t always quite match. The other kids, the ones who lived in nice houses and had parents who cared about them, didn’t exactly snub him; they simply didn’t see him. Angie remembered a boy in her school like that. She felt her throat tighten as she wondered how many times her own thoughtless remarks and disdainful looks hurt the child in her class.

  For hurt it did. That came through very clearly in Paavo’s tale, even though he spoke not a single word of self-pity or unhappiness. But there was no talk of joy either, or of fun.

  His world, he explained, had revolved around two people, Aulis, and his sister, whom he adored. He told her how, as he had grown older, he’d met other boys like himself, outcasts, and they’d associated only with each other. But he knew the life those boys were growing into wasn’t what he wanted.

  When he spoke of his sister Jessica, his voice held a tone close to anger. And frustration, and helplessness—almost more than Angie could bear to hear.

  Paavo saw what his sister was doing. She liked to go to parties and to what she called “good” times, much as their mother used to do. He saw the kind of people she was running around with and tried to stop her. They were bad people, he would warn her, but she would laugh him off. “Don’t worry, Paavo. I know what I’m doing,” she would say.

  There was nothing he could do, for he was only fourteen, and she was his very beautiful, very grown-up, nineteen-year-old sister. And he believed her.

  Then, one night, she didn’t come home. She’d stayed out all night before, lots of times, and Paavo knew why. But this time he had seen the man she had gone with and felt uneasy, so uneasy that he went looking for her.

  By the time he found her, it was too late. The man had passed out, and Jessie was dead. There wasn’t even a phone in the cheap apartment for him to call for help. He shook her, again and again, desperately trying to awaken her, but he knew he could not. Finally, he held his sister in his arms and cried. When his tears stopped, he felt old.

  The coroner said it was a heroin overdose.

  Paavo’s story stopped there. He didn’t say anything more—not how he’d felt, or how he’d told Aulis, or even how he’d continued his life without the person who meant the world to him.

  Angie’s eyes filled with tears. She gazed out to sea, forcing herself not to cry. She couldn’t let him see her emotion.

  Finally, she took a deep breath and turned again toward him, taking in his soft wavy hair, his strong jaw, the fine contours of his face. “You’ve come a long way, Inspector Smith.”

  He scooped up a handful of sand and watched it slide through his fingers until just a little was left on his palm, then he tossed it away. His voice held a forced merriment. “Maybe it’s just two sides of the same coin. What do you think, Angel?” He glanced at her quickly, but not quick enough to hide the need showing on his face.

  “I think…I think you shouldn’t sell yourself short, Inspector. You can be proud.”

  He bowed his head in silent thought. She watched, unable to take her eyes from his face, once again finding her admiration and her heart going out to this solitary man.

  He reached over and took her hand from her lap. Raising it to his lips, he softly placed a kiss on the back of it, then lowered it again.

  Her throat tightened.

  He stood and held out his hand to help her up. “Shall we go?”

  As they walked, he draped an arm over her shoulder. She put her arm around his waist. Their steps slowed as they walked back to the car.

  Paavo opened up the Ferrari and roared along the highway. Angie had asked him to drive, knowing how much he’d enjoy it. She found a lot to laugh about, maybe as an antidote for yesterday, she thought, or to wipe away the pain of the past he had revealed to her, or simply because he was with her once more. They went to some antique shops and art galleries in the town of Bodega, holding hands and playing tourist. Angie smiled almost continuously, and her mind raced as if she was trying to fit a lifetime into one, all too short afternoon. She even got Paavo to concede that a couple of her jokes were funny. At a deli, they selected a mix of prosciutto, galantina, and gorgonzola cheese, plus freshly baked sourdough bread. Finally, they returned to the house.

  While Paavo built a roaring fire, she spread the food on the coffee table and added a bottle of chilled white wine.

  They sank down on the thick, flokati rug, and sat cross-legged, facing each other, in front of the fireplace. The light from the fire played against Paavo’s features, surrounding him with a warm glow. Her eyes drank him in, the sight more heady than any wine. The gentleness of the man, his caring and thoughtfulness, filled her senses.

  She cared too much, she knew that, and she knew he cared not nearly enough. She was a tool for him, a pawn. He had given her no reason to think otherwise. But now, just for this day, this night, he’d opened himself to her and let himself feel. Tomorrow he would be Mister Inspector again, but today, none of that mattered. “We have today,” he’d said earlier. Today.

  She reached for the wine, carefully filling their glasses. They picked them up and leaned toward each other, clinking the glasses in a toast. As they raised the wine to their lips, they looked up, their eyes locking. A quickening began in her stomach and she lowered her glass, her hand suddenly unsteady.

  Paavo watched her every movement. She knew everything was written in her eyes, and knew there was no way she could hide the desire she felt. Nor did she want to.

  He reached over and took the wine from her, setting the glass on the hearth beside his own. Neither of them breathed. He got to his knees and took her arms, pulling her toward him as his lips met hers with a fire and urgency far beyond her expectations. It left her shaken and breathless and in need of more.

  He tasted like fine wine and smelled of the sun and the sea. She held his shoulders as his hands circled her waist, his kiss deepening as she softened in his arms. Her fingertips traced the strength of his back and wrapped themselves in his hair as she returned his kisses twofold.

  His eyes captured hers as his hands ran along the length of her body, to her hips and lower. He molded her to him, letting her feel the rapid pounding of his heartbeat, his hard need pressing against her body.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Sometimes, Inspector, you ask too many questions.” She replied with a kiss that left him no doubt.

  He lifted off her bulky sweater and eased her onto the soft rug as gently as if she were fine crystal. Stretching out beside her, he lightly ran his hand over her silky camisole, along her stomach, her midriff, her breasts. His eyes grew dark and languorous, and she raised her hands to his neck, pulling him down to kiss her again.

  His kisses seared with intensity. As his hand slid under her top, she lifted it away
, needing to feel the coolness of the evening air against her skin, and needing to feel his touch.

  She twisted her fingers into his hair as his mouth lowered to her neck, her shoulders, her breasts.

  He unzipped her jeans and removed them, then slid his hand over the soft skin of her belly to her hips.

  “You’re a beautiful woman, Angel. Your body is every bit as beautiful as your soul. That’s rare. It’s something a man can treasure.”

  She lifted his sweater over his head and began to unbutton his shirt. He relaxed, seeming to enjoy watching her undress him. She outlined his shoulders, then ran her hands over his broad, hard chest and flat stomach, watching his muscles ripple as she touched him. “What do you treasure, Paavo?” she asked.

  He removed the rest of his clothes and stretched out beside her. He was a handsome man, lean and strong. Her pulse throbbed in anticipation.

  His kisses ranged over her as did his hands, slipping between her legs and inside her. Her desire for him was as strong and immediate as his was for her. “You,” he answered finally. “I treasure you.”

  Her lips trembled as she kissed the mouth that so often spoke words that went straight to her heart. Her fingers ran over his stomach, then lower. She felt a tremor rush through him at her touch, felt his kiss deepen until he broke it off to slowly trail kisses down her body, from her breasts to her waist to the spot where his fingers worked their magic.

  Her body arched and tightened, both to pull away and to press closer, in agony and pleasure, not daring to allow him to continue, yet unable to bear to have him stop until, finally, her world wound tighter and tighter then snapped and shattered into glorious relief.

  She couldn’t move, could scarcely even breathe for a long while. “Paavo,” she whispered, and wrapped her arms around him. She ached to taste him, keep him, hold him, protect him, feel him deep inside her.

  He lowered himself into her slowly, cautiously, as if, even then, he remembered that he was a big man, and she was just a little woman.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered, her arms tightening. He lifted his head, and the look in his eyes sent her soul soaring.

  She was lost in him—a vortex of the man, the fire beside them, and the loud crashing of the waves onto the beach nearby. He made love intimately, expertly, with every bit of the seriousness and intensity he brought to everything else, and she found herself consumed by him, physically, mentally—spiritually, if such a thing were possible. Until, finally, in each other’s arms, their worlds spun wildly out of control, the sea and the fire blending with them, the sound and the heat swirling about until the chaos ended, and the world became still once more.