For Keeps

by Veronica Lynch

  That brought her straight up in her chair. Did they finally have enough probable cause to haul in the rape suspect who’d terrorized the west side of the county for the past few months? “Anything you can share with me?”

  “Naw. It’s just…well—in honor of the day I’m taking off early to go home and cook dinner for my…significant other.”

  “Dinner,” she echoed. “I hope this in-home date includes fine wine and soft music, perhaps slow dancing in front of a fire. And many, many long stem roses in her favorite color.”

  “You know me, Muldoon. Class act all the way.”

  “Then I’d say she is one lucky woman.”

  “The best. I’m nuts about her.”

  One lucky woman, Meg thought, to have the hunk of the Easton County Sheriff’s Department making dinner for her. Of course none of that mattered unless one took the chef’s broad shoulders and tight buns into account. And moss green eyes so warm and deep a woman wouldn’t think twice about jumping in without a life preserver.

  “I find myself helpless against the forces of true love. Give her my best.”

  “No matter what others say, Meg, you’re a champ.”

  “Let’s not advertise that too loud. I can’t have my rep as the Reigning Queen of Man Haters tarnished.”

  Meg hung up the phone, only to find herself contemplating ways to fill the sudden hole in her afternoon schedule.

  In an over-whelmed, under-funded human service agency, leaving early, even for a department supervisor, required an intercession from more than one angel, a couple saints and a note from the Pope. After bargaining with Lucy Hardigan, the best of staff counselors, to handle things, Meg sneaked out the back door and headed for the parking lot.

  She put the transmission into first gear and was waiting for the heater to start doing its thing when a brisk tap sounded on the driver’s side window. Once her heart rate settled back into a normal, healthy rhythm, she rolled down the glass.

  Greg Sunderson, CEO of The People’s Coalition, wore a smirk more oily than a used-car salesman desperate to meet his weekly quota. “Leaving early, Meghan?”

  Mentally she reminded herself it would be futile to remind him of the crisis call that lasted until mid-morning. Greg was constitutionally incapable of grasping the concept that crises sometimes occur outside normal business hours. These days the only thing that forced him out of bed in the middle of the night was a petulant prostate.

  Hungry because she’d forgotten to eat lunch, still upset over last night’s spat with Kee and tired beyond belief, she bit back the snotty retort sitting there on the tip of her tongue and remained appropriately civil. “I have a meeting outside the building.”

  “Not according to the sign-out board at the front desk,” he said in a sing-song voice. “Since you neglected to indicate a return time, I’m wondering when to expect you back.”

  For someone who routinely took two or three hour lunches, it fit the man’s passive-aggressive personality to keep close track of subordinates’ comings and goings. “Greg, I’m running late. I don’t know when or if I’ll be back which is why I signed out for the day.”

  He made a production of examining the asphalt beneath his feet where puddles from an early morning shower still lingered. “I need your help, Meghan. It’s an emergency.”

  It was always an emergency with this man. He possessed many habits, good and bad. He ran a multi-million dollar not-for-profit agency that served the poor and uninsured of the region with accomplished success. Cool under pressure, he functioned adroitly in public, using the charming side of his personality. In private, he micro-managed each program director at TPC with veiled threats or exaggerated compliments.

  One of the man’s nastier habits involved leaving time-sensitive materials to the last minute before delegating them to senior staff, then sit back and watch them scramble to complete the task by the appointed deadline. She could count on both hands the number of grant reapplications she’d completed for him, a few with literally minutes to spare.

  After putting the transmission into neutral, she glanced up at him and caught the familiar ‘gotcha’ look on his face. “What do you need?”

  He extended a sheath of papers through the open window. After unfolding them she immediately flipped to the last page of the Renewal for Funding Proposal. When she didn’t find the all important piece of paper, she glared at him. “Where is it, Greg?”

  “Well, gee, Meghan, I could have left it on my desk but, I uh—”

  She leaned close enough to smell the mints on his breath. “Give it up or I leave.”

  After a brief war of glares, he relinquished the last page of the RFP. Meg unfolded it and found the time and date stamp, indicating when the packet had been received in his office. Numbers jumped off the page with the brazenness of a blitz rapist.

  The request for renewal of funding, worth several hundred thousand dollars, had set on Sunderson’s desk for nearly six weeks—until he just happened to notice the filing deadline: February 14, 5 o’clock, EST.

  Man, this game was getting old. Hell, she was getting too old to maintain the façade of Miss Willing to Help Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere.

  Taking a deep breath, Meg folded the paper and carefully placed the entire packet back in his hand. “This belongs in Education and Outreach. I suggest you take it to their grants specialist.”

  He stepped back from the car. “No one can do an RFP like you, Meg. Hell, you can get this one cranked out in a couple hours, no sweat.”

  “It’s not my department, Greg.”

  He shook his head. “There was a time you'd help out with a smile on your face and an eagerness that isn't duplicated in the agency. But I've noticed over the last couple months, you’ve changed. Drastically. Many days you don’t arrive until nine on the dot; it’s rare that you stay past five. Staff could always count on you to work at least one day on the weekends but not anymore. I can’t begin to guess the cause for this change, nor am I interested in excuses.”

  As Meg felt the gorge rise in her throat, he raised a hand. “If it’s a man, I suggest you get off the Love Boat at the first available cruise stop and refocus on what’s more important.”

  Adding insult to injury, he raised a hand in a sign of peace. “I like you, Meghan, but I’d hate to see lack of commitment to overall agency goals or unwillingness to support the philosophy of team mentioned in your next performance appraisal.”

  Through a blinding haze, she considered all the nights she’d worked late to rescue this man and the entire agency with never a word of thanks but always demands for more. Perhaps it was time she stopped enabling this jerk-off artist.

  On second thought, there was no perhaps about it.

  Screw teamwork and screw performance appraisals.

  She did, however, follow Greg’s line of supposition and focused on the reason behind her taking a cruise on the Love Boat without a life preserver: Keenan Rossi.

  The voice of her beloved father, Padraig Muldoon, sounded in her head. “This one’s not afraid of you, or your job, Meghan love. He stands up to you and isn’t hesitant to voice what he wants. This man won’t ever let you down, my girl. He’s a keeper.”

  She considered all the years she’d worked in the field of crisis intervention. The long hours and boatloads of heartache with no one there to support her or who always had her back—until Keenan Rossi came along.

  Perhaps it was time to move beyond this unhealthy need to rescue others, rethink her options and start rescuing herself.

  “C’mon, Meg,” Greg whined. “It shouldn’t take more than a few hours.”

  She tapped the face of her watch. “Sorry, I’m late. You’ll have to find someone else.”

  If the man didn’t stop gaping like beached trout, he’d incur a major case of whiplash. “But. But you—”

  “Have a nice rest of your day. I’m going to my meeting, and I’m turning off my pager.”

  ****

  While waiting in line at the fresh
meat counter at the local Buy-Rite, Kee realized he couldn’t follow through with his plan without first consulting with his mother. He rifled the pockets of his slacks first, then his blazer in search of quarters for the pay phone. When the search turned up nothing, he pleaded with the guy behind the counter to give him for change for a five, the smallest bill in his wallet. Coins in hand, he commandeered the only working pay phone on the wall and called his mother forthwith.

  She answered on the first ring; her toned brightened after she heard his voice. “Keenan, love. How are you?”

  “I’m fine, Mom. Working hard. I want to surprise Meg with dinner tonight; I need your recipe for sauce.”

  More than fifty years ago as a blushing bride Assumpta Keenan Rossi learned the how’s and how not’s of making exceptional spaghetti sauce, gravy to those in the loop, at the elbow of her doting mother-in-law, Carmella Sanzone Rossi, late of Brooklyn by way of Sicily. As a result, no one cooked Italian like the red-haired, green-eyed Assumpta who still spoke with a thick West County brogue and could dance the toes off the best of them.

  While Kee scribbled down the list of ingredients, he returned his mother’s volley of questions—payback for the recipe. “Meg’s fine. She was bummed she couldn’t make dinner last weekend. Had a crisis call at the hospital… Engaged? Mom, please. The only way that girl will marry me is if I kidnapped her.”

  “I can’t imagine the girl sittin’ still long enough for that bit of malarkey, boyo.”

  At the sound of a throat clearing, Kee turned and acknowledged a young Latino who made a business of tapping his watch and frowning. The kid made gestures at the Out of Order signs on the phones flanking the one Kee was using. His message was clear: time’s up.

  Kee raised a finger in a sign of patience. “Look, Mom, I gotta go. Yeah, I know what today is. I’ll hit the flower shop on my way home. Next Sunday? Sure. Give my love to Pop.”

  He hung up the phone, made sweeping bow for the kid who was now dancing the cha cha in exasperation, took the meatball mix and sweet Italian sausage links from the man behind the meat counter and went to check out what the store’s floral department had to offer a desperate, last minute shoppers.

  ****

  Western New York offered a gamut of breath-taking scenery on a year round basis but never more so than when the annual February thaw made its presence known. Meg weaved her vintage sports car along Lakeshore Road toward Keenan’s home with one eye on the pewter clouds slowly gathering over the Canadian side of Lake Ontario. They were in for a beauty of a storm, the kind she loved best.

  After dinner, if Kee kept good on his promise, they’d open a bottle of wine, dim the lights, and build a fire in the field stone hearth. Through the wall of glass windows in the great room, they would revel in their own private view of the Queen of the Great Lakes while Mother Nature cast another of her wicked spells.

  With the radio tuned to her favorite oldies station and the volume ramped to the max, she sang a response to the Four Seasons who asked, ‘who loves you, pretty mama?’ It was rare for her to take the afternoon off, but after last night’s extended visit at the ER, she figured her time card would even itself out. Closely monitored, no doubt, by CEO Sunderson.

  “Perfection,” she murmured, not only for the sounds coming through the speaker as well as all the things that accompanied her favorite season, but for a man who for no particular reason often surprised her with random acts of kindness which warmed her heart and kept other body systems in top working order.

  By the time she unlocked the front door and was in the bedroom, exhaustion performed an energetic samba behind both eyelids. The expansive king-size bed beckoned. With a long, drawn out sigh, Meg promised herself she’d rest for fifteen minutes, then be up and ready to greet Keenan in an appropriate manner. She slid between the sheets and was down for the count in seconds.

  ****

  Three distinct triggers roused Meg from a luscious dream that featured a man with moss green eyes and a devil’s grin. Equally enticing, each whipped her senses into over-drive.

  Through speakers high up on the walls, Tony Bennett’s smoky voice crooned about a girl with moonlight in her eyes. From the opposite end of the house, mouth-watering aromas of spaghetti sauce sent her to new heights of anticipation. Open-mouthed kisses incited anticipation of a different nature. Firm lips and a pointed tongue traced the angle of her jaw.

  “Hungry, my Meggie?”

  “You know it,” she said, bringing Kee into her arms.

  “You’re wearing my favorite scents,” he murmured. “Citrus and melon.”

  “If you look farther, you’ll note that’s all I’m wearing.” She rose up on an elbow to give him a discerning look. “How long before dinner is ready?”

  His smile curled her toes. “We’ve got time.”

  “Then one of us is seriously over-dressed for the occasion.”

  After he came off the bed, he worked his long, thick fingers over the buttons of his shirt, slowly revealing a thick pelt of chest hair just beginning to gray. Shoulders, pecs, and abs advertised a man who often indulged in hard physical labor. The belt followed in due order, sliding beneath each loop with agonizing slowness. When free, it dandled from his index finger for a slow count of three before hitting the floor.

  “Need any help?” she asked, sliding one bare leg from beneath the covers.

  “Nope. Thanks for offering though.”

  “Anything to aid the cause.”

  Sharply creased slacks pooled at his feet, then sailed into a corner after a lateral kick of one foot. “Ready?”

  If he didn’t take her soon, she might resort to force. “Come down here and find out for yourself.”

  In one smooth move, Kee sank onto the mattress, rolled her beneath him, and separated her thighs with his knees. “I thought about us, about this, all day. I behaved like an ass last night. I’m real sorry.”

  Eager, warm and wet, she waited for the first welcoming thrust. “I’m sorry, too.”

  Slow and easy would be reserved for another occasion. Moving in sync as long-time lovers will, rising up to seek the other, filling their needs, they climbed. Higher, then even higher, until… The phone on the nightstand rang.

  “Ignore it,” she commanded.

  But like that annoying little pink bunny, it kept going and going.

  Resting his brow on her shoulder, he groaned. “I had to do a little inventive trading in order to leave early. I’m on call till eight. Sorry.”

  She had no right to complain, nor offer a snarky comment, even if either might be well deserved. “We each do what we’ve been called to do, Keenan.” She glanced at the now silent black desk phone. “If it’s an emergency, wouldn’t the dispatcher set off your pager instead of calling on the land line?”

  “You’re right,” he said and returned to the moves that made her eyes cross.

  Making love should be this much fun, she decided. With Rossi, it was always a blast. Each time was new, exciting and vastly different from anything that came previously. The thought of being on call and the ever-present threat of postponing moments like this took on new meaning. Then, like a tidal wave approaching shore, release was right there, waiting for that one crucial move that would—

  The phone resumed in a second, more insistent assault. “Don’t you dare stop,” she ordered and grabbed the receiver. “Yes? What is it?”

  “Meghan, Greg Sunderson here. I’ve been considering our unfortunate—”

  Oh, God, she was almost there. “Can’t this wait till the morning, Greg?”

  “Ah, but you see—”

  She had the presence of mind to cover the receiver milliseconds before the orgasm hit. Keenan, smug grin on his face and knowing full well who was on the other end of the line, leaned close to whisper sweet erotic nothings in her free ear. The snot knew how much she liked it when he did that.

  “Come for me, Meggie. After, you can finish me off. You know how much we both like it when you take me in your—”


  “Meghan are you there?”

  “Then we’ll start over again,” Kee promised. “I have a pot of hot fudge simmering in a warming pot and a fresh can of whipped cream. We could—”

  “Answer me, Meghan.”

  “I’ll even throw in a couple cherries. I luuuvvv hunting for fresh fruit.”

  “You have five seconds to respond,” Greg thundered, “or your position as Director of Crime Victim Services will be in serious jeopardy.”

  For the first time in months, her lips creased in a smile so wide it made her jaws ache. “Will it really?”

  “Other department heads may tolerate the insubordination you displayed today; I will not. Tomorrow morning, first thing, we’ll meet to determine the appropriate disciplinary action.”

  With Lent approaching it didn’t take much imagination to figure out the type of punishment her boss had in mind. “Let me save you the trouble of sharpening the nails and erecting a cross. I resign.”

  Greg didn’t speak for several seconds while Keenan silently pumped both fists in victory. “But—your replacement won’t be—”

  “It’s immediate, Greg. I’m sure you’ll man the hotline, supervise the paid and volunteer staff, complete year-end reports to our funders and handle the monthly crime stat meetings with your usual aplomb.”

  “I wasn’t expecting you to—”

  “Trust me, Greg. The first time’s the hardest.”

  “I will ruin you for this, Meghan. Your reputation won’t be worth shit in this town.”

  “Quite frankly, Greg. I don’t give a damn.”

  As Meg rolled to her side to replace the receiver into its nest, she discovered an exquisite bouquet of long stem yellow roses tucked into a cut glass vase on the nightstand. It hadn’t been there a few minutes ago, but who cared? They were there now, and yellow roses were her favorites.

  Tucked in the middle of the bunch was a lace edged tulle bag filled with candy hearts, all imprinted with those cutesy messages of love and devotion. Corny, yes, but another of her favorite sweet treats. One tug opened the bag; the hearts tumbled out into her palm.

  The most appropriate of all phrases landed on top. She palmed it, then looked into the face of this very special man. “What are you doing this weekend, Keenan?”