He checked his watch. “Two hours. Nearly. About.”
“So,” Tara inferred, “a quickie.”
“Two hours?” he mildly argued before detecting that she was still teasing. She stepped her feet out of the jeans, leaving them on the floor. The hem of her robin’s egg blouse hung low enough to assure her modesty, then nothing below that but lovely bare legs. His hands went to his own shirt buttons. A more conventional start, he knew. After his shirt, his gun. Tara turned, he caught a glimpse of her derrière, then she spun onto the narrow captain’s bed, up on her knees and facing him holding a small decorative cushion before her sex with one hand, the other hand rising, suggestively, until her chin rested on the curled digits while the littlest finger poked her mouth. Unadulterated girlish coquette. Brash, though. He wasn’t sure what to make of her now.
“Don’t worry,” was her advice, as if reading his mind. “I’m no little girl, sir. Just helping you get charged up.”
He undressed more quickly. “No worries there.”
“So I see.”
His shoes gave him trouble, the laces needed to be untied while she giggled at him, then he chose to be less conventional than he may have been in a previous life. He stripped naked, the last item off being his damned watch, and when he approached she was expecting him to remain standing, but he went to his knees, to the floor, and she gasped as he guided the cushion to one side as though opening a curtain and with the utmost tenderness kissed her thighs.
Ryan slipped his tongue as low as he could go under her pubis and she adored this man and put her head back and the sounds she emitted let him know how much.
She felt herself opening, as he grazed her with his tongue.
He unbuttoned her blouse. From the bottom up. A slow, thoughtful ritual, conducted in utter silence and reverent, while she held the weight of his cock from underneath with one hand and stroked its upper surface with the other. Nibbling her lower lip was an involuntary reflex now, not guile. She let go to permit him access to ease the blouse off her back and arms, except that he used it to trap her wrists in the fabric awhile as he kissed her, her arms pinned behind her, then he let her finish the removal herself and undo the front clasp of her blue bra, which she slipped off her shoulders and gently, teasingly, let slip to the floor. Tara lay down then, her arms modestly crossed over her breasts, expecting him to lie his fine body on top of her. He surprised her by raising her left calf to his touch and kiss, and slowly his lips drifted upward, pecking at her skin, until the two of them lay prone together, side by close side. Skin to skin. No longer could she restrain herself, although she seemed afflicted by an incongruous shyness amid her desire. He was the more astonished one as she initiated their rhythms, their coupling, this sudden desperate shared joy, this happy outrage of cries and squeals and wilful moaning. A passion tripped up by laughter repeatedly. At first she was urgent, near frantic, fearing perhaps that he might soon be spent, but her confidence in their motion gained with his, and only when she called out and he was stifling her gasps with his fingers to restrict public awareness of this rampage did the pace quicken to a level that broke a near bellow out of him and she was the one laughing her head off now and trying to stuff her wee fist between his teeth.
He ended up mauling her elbow while he writhed and she giggled.
Lying together, recovering, grinning in a cartoon Cheshire way, she was somewhat tempted to say, “I love you,” and open herself to that adventure and to all that it might promote, but unable to trust herself in her present euphoria she said instead, “Willis will be incorrigible now.”
Ryan said, “I won’t be able to face him.”
“He’ll be pleased,” she replied, “to have that power over you.” They kissed again. Their tongues playful together.
His kisses closed her eyelids with such sweetness she sighed.
They lay quietly awhile.
The way Ryan sucked in a breath caused her to intuit that he had something to say. Perhaps something serious. Tara snapped her eyelids open and placed a forefinger over his lips. She didn’t want to hear any such words now, not when she wasn’t willing to say them herself, not yet, not here. Maybe sometime. Maybe never. Somehow she communicated that, that this was another of her complications, which he accepted, and they just kissed and touched lightly. Then she said, “Do you really have to go, really? Or was that just more of your imbecilic hick-town small talk.”
“If it wasn’t absolutely critical,” he told her.
She believed him.
Tara took a very deep breath. “So tell me your plan,” she invited.
He gazed at her, his head supported by his hand and upright forearm, his elbow on the bed. He knew what she was talking about. “Will you tell me yours?”
She nodded. “You first, though.”
That again. He took a while to begin.
“I know,” she said.
She could not possibly know his plan and he looked at her quizzically.
“To tell me,” she explained, “you have to trust me. I know that.”
So he told her. He trusted her. The story was difficult to bear in a way.
“It’s because it’s family,” she said when he reached the end. She asked, “Right? You’re not always such a bastard, are you, Ry?”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it does. If you’re up to becoming the father of my children—”
“We’re having kids already!”
“I didn’t notice anyone roll on a condom, did you?”
“I assumed—”
She placed her forefinger to his lips, laughing lightly at his sudden consternation. She was always able to catch him.
“Baby, you assumed correctly,” she said. “But. You know. I feel like I’m in this. To find out where it leads.”
They gazed at each other. She didn’t want him to say anything, but he did, “So am I,” and then she was glad that he spoke and was succinct. But she didn’t want him to say anything more just yet. No mush. She needed to come to terms with this on her own first. Words right now would affect her only as silly.
“It’s because it’s family,” he admitted. “I’m not always such a bastard.” He was trying to make light but she could tell that this hurt him, that this was going to cost him.
“He’s lucky, Denny is, to have a brother like you,” she whispered.
“Not so much. When this is over, I’m going to kill him.”
She laughed. She believed him, too.
“Actually, something’s up. One of many compromises. A deal. I suspect that I’m going to break Denny’s heart, in a way that really will hurt him. We’ll see.” She was mystified, but he said no more. “So what’s your plan?” he asked.
She told him.
His affection for her didn’t come with a gauge, yet he cherished her even more. At the very least, he revelled in this, the idea. The chance it presented.
“So,” Ryan summarized, as though he needed to draw them a chart, “I’m the notoriously good guy, who’s going rogue, and you’re the notoriously bad, cynical, complicated girl who’s doing what’s right. And beautiful, really.”
“Finding our true selves, do you think?” She meant to be funny.
“Not such good news for me.”
“You’ll adapt. Well. You have to.” She sensed that she could say something then. “So I guess this works, huh? Me and you, I mean. In a way. Sort of. Maybe.”
They kissed, and she liked that he kissed her at length even in the aftermath of their lovemaking. That was so nice.
Then he said, “You have to do it sooner rather than later.”
“Do I? Why—? Are you—?”
“I am,” he told her.
“Today? Sure,” she promised. “I’ll go see your brother.”
“He might be working.”
“Then I’ll
talk to Valérie. If she’s out, I’ll talk to your dad.”
“Maybe,” he said, and he was ruminating over something, so she let him hold his pause awhile, “just talk to Dad first. Let him bring it to Denny himself.”
She nodded. That might be smart. Leaning way over, she snatched her underpants off the floor and fiddled for the leg holes while he ran his fingers along her spine.
“Hey, Ry, now that we know that sainthood is a distance off for you—”
“You’re going to hold this over me, aren’t you?” But he was kidding, too. Ryan swung his feet onto the floor and leaned over to clutch his clothes and pull them up in a bundle.
“Next time, and in future times, you know, like these, you will talk dirty to me, won’t you?”
The upper hand. The last word. She just could never let that go.
When he glanced back, Tara poked out her tongue at him, loving this.
Sitting behind him, she looped one arm over his right shoulder, the other around his waist, and pressed against him. She kissed the back of his neck, then rested her cheek against him. He felt her twin nipples, in particular, touch his back, and closed his eyes and concentrated on her nearness and delayed their departure awhile, the two of them just breathing, sitting there, skin to skin as though no skin existed, unwilling to budge.
Buck commenced scratching at the door.
Tara said, “You still have some time. Ryan. Make love to me before you go. Really make love to me, Ry.”
He did.
23
His task, Ryan speculated, was the easier of the two that needed to be accomplished. Tara’s assembled upon a higher moral ground, yet could prove to be much tougher. For him to successfully execute his plan, he had merely to be a bastard. Play that bit part. In so doing, forgo his integrity as an officer of the law, relinquish his sense of himself, and, while he was at it, damn his soul to a flaming hinterland of hell—although he admitted that that might be jutting over the top, a tad. Tara, though—she was being counted on to transform the world and that was not an exaggeration. By a landslide, the more difficult mission. He gathered his courage from that.
Ryan bided his time in a hollow off the edge of the northbound highway, his vehicle tucked out of sight in a thicket and ready to pounce.
Earlier, in Tara’s company, he made a joke about killing his brother, but the crime Denny committed was nothing to sneeze at. Ryan wrestled with the notion that he might have done the same if he’d worn Denny’s work boots. Or not. He was uncertain and would never know. Something had to be done about the bridge, that was evident, and help did not appear to be forthcoming. But to burn it down? Man. Especially when his older brother was the town’s top cop—putting him in a sticky position. Someday, maybe in Denny’s backyard, they’d have words about it all. Just not yet. Although on that front, he was handed a way, by Skootch, surprisingly, to get even. So in the end he might be able to work through a desire to strangle his kid brother.
Serves him right. I’m going to come through, too. He’ll hate me for it.
He was a cop, he knew the law, but he did not condemn his brother, not when he was on the verge of doing worse. At least, what could be construed as worse. Morally, yes, worse. He didn’t have a peg leg to stand on, and from a legal point of view both legs were hobbled, and him without a cane. It’s not as though he could ask anyone to rule on the finer points of jurisprudence. Your Honour, which do you think is the greater trespass, burning bridges or abusing your authority as a policeman to perpetrate a grave injustice?
Perhaps Tara could make that ruling, except that she knew his plan and while she didn’t exactly approve—how could she?—she was okay with it.
She understood.
Oh. Tara.
To trust someone with your hopes and dreams, and with your baggage, that was one thing, but with your moral decrepitude, that was something else. Again, over the top, he knew, but still. A whole other world opened for him, for them, and now he was going to do this. Nothing in life was ever simple. Or simple enough. At least she knew now that he was a complicated person, too.
Which seemed to count with her, for some reason.
He had to be complicated enough to suit her, to maintain her interest.
An orange Dodge reared over a hillock in his side-view mirror. Ryan checked the radar gun. The bastard wasn’t even speeding. Which figured—nothing was ever easy when you wanted it to be.
Ryan O’Farrell started the engine on his squad car as the Dodge sped by at the legal limit. Before he moved out from his spot amid the trees, he rubbed his face with both hands. A postcoital sleepiness delayed him, but that was mere excuse. He was now going to do something he should not do. That he didn’t really want to do. That was flagrantly wrong.
But he decided to do it. Though he hesitated.
He had a choice. He knew that. But his mind was made up.
Ryan took a deeper breath, his last as a relatively innocent man, and steered his vehicle onto the highway. He stepped on the gas and surged forward. To announce his descent into the morass of corrupt humanity with appropriate fanfare, he popped on his revolving lights, and then for good measure, the siren. Ready or not. Here I come. Sorry, buddy. Over the top, perhaps, but our lives just took a turn for the worse. Yeah. Both our lives. But mostly yours.
He raced after the garish bright orange Dodge. Driving a car that colour was reason enough for an arrest. When the orange blob tried to outrun him, Ryan got mad, and commenced a high-speed pursuit.
■ ■ ■
Tara did not doubt that Willis Howard cosseted a legitimate complaint, but she also knew what he did not—that she was willing to make it up to him another time. Even though she’d skimped on her duties in favour of robust lovemaking upstairs and so was behind on things, her next task took precedence. The opportunity to put her plans into motion had arrived. Her turn to act. She called Alex O’Farrell. They arranged to meet by the riverside. Expecting to tangle with Willis’s righteous ire on her way out the door, she was bewildered instead by a scenario not anticipated.
Willis was busy talking to two men.
She’d seen them about town and knew who they were. Everybody did.
SQ detectives.
Everybody in town refused to talk to them in any meaningful way.
Apparently, Willis Howard didn’t receive the message.
What Willis could possibly relate to the policemen Tara did not know, but she was alert. With swift clarity, a whoosh, she allowed that she and Willis could never resolve their differences and simply be friends, or become happy business partners forevermore. She readily detected in his marrow an inner malevolence, and most of the time this is what she most trusted to locate in him.
“Willis, I have an appointment. Gotta run.”
“What? I’m busy myself right now. As you can plainly see.”
He huddled with the detectives by the clay pottery stand she recently redesigned, adding the works of local artisans. Funny, that he chose that spot to conduct his subterfuge. You fucking Judas.
“Lise can help take care of things,” Tara sang out.
Lise was dusting the upper shelves.
“No, she can’t. She doesn’t have a clue. Hang on for an hour.”
“I have a clue,” Lise objected.
“Can’t,” Tara let him know. “Muddle through, Willis. I know you can. See you!” She didn’t want to add, but did anyway, “I’ll make it up to you.” At that moment she caught the interested glances of the police officers, and bolted.
Her larynx felt raw, ripped, even though her screaming had pretty much been silent. Rapturous, her only word for it. That second joust with Ryan took her where she’d not been before—Hey, Daddy-o, you were fine, we had some times, but geez, let’s face it, you were old, sweetie. I just found out there’s a difference—and now she strolled along on her own two feet feeling a seis
mic pummelling through her limbs and joints. She was so far gone for a few moments that she might have let out a telltale scream, which would have Willis Howard pounding on her door wondering if she’d just been murdered, or, knowing him, wanting to interrupt, to prohibit such wanton joy within earshot. And she did scream, she couldn’t help herself, only she had no voice by then, no sound escaped her, although her throat hurt afterwards.
A small mercy, the silence of my scream. Tah.
She felt it coming. Ryan did well by her, he had good hands, good instincts, I adore his penis although that wasn’t what did it and it wasn’t only him or sex after abstinence, which was part and parcel, too. Her own pent-up fright and enthusiasm for her new life, Mrs. McCracken’s demise, the spectre of death, fleeing, quitting the profession and now, suddenly, in her life, a guy. Romance, perhaps like never before, swayed and surged inside her and she could hold nothing back, nothing she could sequester for next time, or another time. Somehow she landed in that room seized by a greater wonder and urgency than she was ever privy to before and never fully imagined.
Whooshes!
She was overcome.
A confluence, she was guessing, that may not easily return.
Tara ambled down the winding couples’ walk, quickly at first, then she measured her steps as though to counter the river’s flow. As if treading water. She wore low heels, comfortable enough but the pointy toes were an ill fit for the stone and dirt surface, and the breezes that scuffed the mountaintop during the hillside internment ceremony were now rambunctious in the valley of the town below. As if Mrs. McCracken still wanted, and expected, her say. Along the way stood the monstrosity of a barge, or whatever it wanted to call itself—a slum built on a rusted stack of oil cans, it looked like—and she didn’t want to go that far down the shore to pass it by, so she detoured across the grass to the water’s edge and sat where she could keep an eye out.
She’d been wantonly and basely sexual with men before, but never, she reflected, never so spontaneously crazily passionate and nuttily delivered out of herself. Never so beguiled. Never so happy. She revelled in the difference. Thought back to exquisite details. The intimacy. Her own inner storm. She felt atilt. An axis bent.
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