That Was Yesterday

by Vella Munn

  If a face appeared in the window, what would she do? Mara asked when the image refused to fade. Less than two weeks ago a certain face had propelled her into hell. That monster had turned everything she believed about herself into a mockery. He’d made her—

  Had, Mara reminded herself. Past tense.

  She was free, and if he came back here, she had her pistol. She now knew how to use it.

  Was she really capable of violence?

  Without questioning what she was doing, Mara walked to the front door and opened it. “Lobo. Come here, boy,” she called.

  But later, even with the dog snoring comfortably at the foot of her bed, Mara was aware of each passing hour.

  There were already three students in the classroom the next morning when Reed called. “What’s this about a search of your place last night?” he asked as soon as she came on the line.

  “What? Where are you?”

  “At the police station. They were there when you got home? Damn it, I knew I should have followed you.”

  “You couldn’t,” Mara shot back. “You had to go drinking, remember?”

  “Yeah. I remember. What happened?”

  Mara gave him a thumbnail sketch of the incident, downplaying it as much as possible. She told him nothing of the emotions she’d had to weather overnight and the constant battle she was fighting to force herself to remain here. “Lobo might have been chasing rabbits.”

  “Rabbits? Come on, Mara, don’t give me that.”

  “All right. Look, I don’t know why he was upset. Maybe the police did something to disturb him.”

  “And maybe someone was there who shouldn’t have been.”

  Maybe. Mara turned so she could look outside. It was an incredibly beautiful day, not too hot, just enough of a breeze. She should want that…not flight. “Lobo isn’t used to having people come by when I’m gone.” She was talking to a man who’d spent last night with dangerous men. What would he have in common with a woman who panicked because someone left her purse in an ice-cream parlor? “I get hikers sometimes this time of the year, kids wandering around.”

  “Yeah? Damn it, Mara, he knows where you live.”

  She was surrounded by people. Today was an ordinary workday, and she wasn’t a character in a horror movie. Reed hadn’t mentioned her call to 911 the other night. Maybe he didn’t know. “What are you doing there? Who told you about last night?”

  “I had to use the department’s computer. Last night’s log was there.” From where he stood in Captain Bistron’s office, Reed could see the reception room. It was here that he’d first seen Mara Curtis and felt the need to reach beyond himself. Now he wanted almost nothing except to be with her, keeping her safe. But she was a grown woman, Mark Curtis’s daughter. She didn’t need a keeper. “Mara? I want some time with you. Away from all this.”

  “Time? Away?”

  “I’ve been asking around. If you want, I can get the keys to a place on the beach for the weekend. A rental the captain knows about. I think I can get away.”

  “This weekend?”

  “That isn’t enough notice?”

  Mara took a breath. “That’s not it. It’s just, I didn’t— I had no idea you were going to suggest that.”

  “Neither did I. Will you come? We could walk along the beach, barbecue hot dogs for dinner. Talk. We’d each have our own bedroom. Clint can look after Lobo, can’t he?”

  Silence spread over and around Mara and took her away from the surroundings that suddenly felt both alien and stifling to her. He wanted to be with her. Despite everything they’d said to each other, and more important, what hadn’t been said, he didn’t want things to end. If she said yes now, he would know he was much more to her than someone she’d taught how to keep from getting run off a road.

  “Mara?”

  Separate bedrooms. He wasn’t going to pressure her. All he was offering was conversation…and a weekend away from waiting for shadows to move. “Yes,” she said with her eyes closed, remembering the challenge of his body. Remembering her own need. “I’ll come.”

  Chapter Nine

  It was dark by the time Reed and Mara reached the two-bedroom cabin at Pacific Beach. The exterior wood had been bleached by years and weather, easing the building’s impact on its surroundings. The high-ceilinged living room opened onto a large, yet private, deck overlooking the ocean. There were two shelves full of books, a fireplace, an old-fashioned kitchen and a wheezing refrigerator. Best of all there was no TV.

  Mara breathed the tang of salt air and lifted her head so the breeze from an open window touched her cheeks. For a moment she did nothing more than acknowledge where she was and what had brought her here. Then, feeling the energy rolling up unseen from the ocean, she spoke. “You really were able to get away? This isn’t— If this is going to cause trouble for you…”

  “Everyone thinks I’m headed to Chicago.”

  Feeling both bold and shy, Mara closed the distance separating them. He’d broken free. That alien and frightening world he lived in these days couldn’t claim him in this cool and quiet place. He was here for her; she didn’t know what to do with him, but he was here. Reed held out his hands, and she placed hers in them.

  “No regrets?” he asked.

  “Please don’t ask me any questions. It’s just, I’m not sure whether this is right.”

  “It is,” he said. “You need it. I hope you can relax here.”

  “How could I do anything else? Look at this place. It’s perfect.” Mara tightened her fingers around his, making him, if it was possible, even more real than he already was. “Clint’s watching Lobo. There’s nothing I need to think about until Monday morning.”

  “Good.”

  Suddenly Mara was frightened. Not of Reed, but herself. It might help if she could convince herself that any woman facing a weekend with a man would feel a certain amount of trepidation. But she didn’t know what other women did or felt at times like this. She didn’t know what, if anything, she was expected to say.

  Despite the cost, Mara drew away from Reed and moved unsteadily to the deck. The moonlight was barely strong enough to allow her to make out the tips of the waves, but sound filled in what her eyes missed. This wasn’t the desert, and yet the physical impact was the same. Nature dominated. Man was nothing more than a visitor.

  Reed came and stood behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders. She could have leaned against him—a great deal of her wanted to—but she held herself erect. Mara breathed deeply, feeling salt air settle through her lungs. She was aware of nothing except the sound of the surf, and Reed’s touch. Most of all Reed’s touch.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I don’t know,” she told him. “It feels so different here.”

  “Are you nervous?”

  Mara could have given him a quick denial, but both of them deserved more than that. “No,” she began slowly. They hadn’t touched during the drive over. She hadn’t trusted herself to reach for him. But that was before, when they were listening to the stereo and talking about the weather and the incredible sense of isolation that was part of any middle-of-the-night storm. When they were learning that they both loved spring mornings and hot afternoons and Sunday football games. Now, gathering what she’d learned about him into her, Mara leaned against Reed’s chest. His arms tightened around her shoulders, and the back of her neck tingled where his breath touched it. He made her feel strong. He made her weak. “But—”

  “But what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What don’t you know?”

  “What we’re doing.”

  “Mara, we’ll go at your pace. Listen to me, will you?” Reed turned her around. The gesture was a question and, possibly, an answer. “When I asked if you wanted to spend the weekend at the ocean with me, it was because this was the only way I could ensure that we would be together, without interruptions. Do you know what I’m saying?”

  “I think so.”

 
; “I hope you do.” Reed leaned forward and brought his mouth close and yet not close enough to hers. “I’m not sure I’ve really stopped thinking about you since that night in the police station.” For a moment he was silent. “But what you’re feeling, thinking, experiencing…unless you tell me what’s going on inside you, I can’t put myself in your place. Knowing what’s happening inside someone, that’s not something I’m good at. I wish I could make everything right for you. I wish I could reach out and haul that man in and throw him behind bars, but I can’t.”

  “Oh, Reed. I’m not asking you to live my life for me. Just as I can’t take over yours.”

  “Mine?”

  Mara shook her head. She blinked but didn’t drop her eyes. If she faltered now, she might never get started again. “Do you have any idea what I’m talking about? Let someone else do it. There must be detectives, or the FBI, or someone, who can do it. You don’t have to be the one taking those risks.”

  “Jack…”

  “Yeah.” The word tasted bitter. “I know. Jack. I just hope he’s worth this.”

  “He is, Mara. He’d like to meet you.”

  Mara leaned back, but not enough that he couldn’t go on touching her. “You told him about me?”

  “When I brought him the roses.”

  Jack knew about her. Reed had told him. “The roses. Did he like them?”

  “He was surprised, but yes, he liked them.”

  After days of feeling cold, Mara was suddenly aware of heat flowing loose and easy through her. She felt like a leaf twisting in a swift current, a child clinging to the metal bar holding her in a roller coaster seat. Like a child, she shivered in fear. Like a child, she could barely wait for the ride to begin. “What did you tell Jack about me?”

  “That I’ve met someone.”

  Someone. She was someone to Reed. Still, Mara resisted, briefly, when Reed drew her into him and touched his mouth to hers. She didn’t want to care any more than she already did for this man who was so filled with dangerous and incomprehensible courage.

  Did she?

  The battle surged, then died. Shutting out everything, Mara gave in to the need to absorb the warmth of him, to run her fingers past buttons and fabric to strength and heat. In gratitude for the quiet oasis he’d given her, she touched her mouth to his throat. When he sighed, she arched toward him, feeling him along her length. Her daring courage shocked her, yet felt right. He’d put his own urgent task on hold to be with her. He’d told Jack about her.

  When she drew away, seeking his eyes, he pulled her back to him. Their kiss began gently as if they’d never done this before, then deepened. When he asked, she parted her lips and let him in. He probed at her mouth, his hands hard and strong on her back. Mara slid her hands up to his neck. She held on, feeling the roller coaster gain momentum.

  “Mara?”

  “Yes?” she made herself say.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” he asked with a forefinger now at the base of her throat, his mouth close to the vein at the side of her neck. Through his finger she felt his pounding heart. “What either of us is doing?”

  Yes. “No.”

  “We should…” Now his breath feathered downward, warm and moist, touching at cleavage. “We should have talked about this. Made some rules.”

  Mara shivered and tossed back her head. She remained silent until his fingers took over the journey already mapped by his breath. “Yes. We should have.”

  But maybe it was too late for rules. He kissed her throat, the side of her neck, ran his tongue over her ear while she shivered, while she moved her fingers to his waist. They hadn’t turned a light on in the living room. Night spun a shadowed web over her, the ocean a soft backdrop for emotions that weren’t soft at all, that might be no easier to control than the tide.

  Then, as everything except wanting was in danger of being stripped away, Mara pulled back, breathing deeply. Still wanting. Hearing the other message.

  This exploration was laced with incredible danger. She was raw and fragile, her thinking skewed. In another minute, maybe in only a few seconds she might not be able to stop. And taking any more steps before she understood herself, and him, was unthinkable.

  “Reed?” How had she remembered to speak? “I think…”

  “You think…” His voice was as harsh as hers.

  “We don’t know each other well enough.”

  “You really believe that?” he asked, his hands now settled over her collarbone.

  “You don’t?”

  “What I know,” he said with his mouth too close to hers, “is that I want to understand you in a way I’ve never understood anyone else. But I’ll do it at your pace. Tell me what you want, what you need.”

  He was handing her that awesome responsibility? “What we need is to unpack.”

  Holding hands, they walked out to the Corvette and pulled their belongings out of what storage space the sports car had. Reed had driven because he wanted to see how her car handled. Now, with his hand draped over her shoulder, he told her he preferred her Corvette to his Jag but wasn’t sure why. Maybe it had to do with the motor sounds. Maybe it was simply because this was her car.

  Mara explained that she’d been able to buy it for less than market price because the former owner had picked up too many speeding tickets and his insurance was being canceled. “I don’t know if buying it was a wise move. I swear every cop in the county does a double take when he sees it.” She didn’t tell him how easy it had been to slide into the vehicle when he was the driver, and how difficult it was when she was the one sitting, alone, in it.

  They went back inside. Reed dropped his overnight bag on his bed and followed Mara into the heavily paneled room where she’d chosen to sleep. Her belongings were folded into a duffle bag that had begun service when the Curtises all but lived in motel rooms. She pointed at a frayed strap. “I should retire this sad, old thing. It’s just that every time I see it, it brings back memories.”

  Reed lowered himself onto the side of the bed. He watched as Mara unzipped the bag and began unpacking her clothes. She had another pair of jeans, a sleek one-piece bathing suit, shorts. A nightshirt. “No dresses? What if we decide to go out to dinner?”

  “Dressing up is not my idea of a vacation.”

  Reed flopped back on the bed, just missing Mara’s clothing. “What is your idea of a vacation?” he asked with his eyes closed and his hands under the back of his head.

  The gesture stretched the fabric over Reed’s chest. Mara could see the outline of his ribs, the breadth of his shoulders. His nipples pressed against taut cotton. His jeans rode low on his hips. Between his hipbones there was a firm stretch that tested her self-control. She stood over him as his body drew her to him, and pressed her nails into her palms. “I don’t know. I’ve been so many places.”

  “You don’t have any burning desire to go anywhere?”

  “I love the feeling of being settled somewhere. Of having—” Having a sense of security? That wasn’t hers these days.

  “Settled,” Reed repeated. “Not having to look for new banks, no more disconnecting and connecting utilities.”

  “Getting to know people. Planting roses.” Mara shook out a shirt, wishing it was silk because even polished cotton felt too rough at this moment. “Have you kept Jack up-to-date on what you’re doing, how things are going?” she asked, trying to care without worrying.

  “I’ve tried, but he doesn’t ask many questions.” Reed opened his eyes; they weren’t quite focused. Mara felt as if she’d been rubbed with sandpaper. “I talked to his doctor about that, about his depression.”

  Mara turned away, pretending to be concerned with hanging up her clothes. “Are you sure it’s depression?”

  “It has to be.” Reed spoke forcefully. “He wouldn’t just give up like that. Not Jack.”

  “Maybe you don’t know him as well as you thought you did.”

  Reed pushed himself into a sitting position and then, so quickly t
hat it startled her, he stood. “No. I know Jack. He’s one person I do know. Look, I hate admitting this, but I was up until four a.m.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Business. Telling lies and listening to lies. Mara, I’ve got to hit the sack. We’ll have tomorrow for…”

  She’d said something to upset him, something about Jack. “Of course,” Mara muttered and reached for him. The only thing she could touch was his arm. “It’s exhausting, isn’t it? Having to weigh everything you say.” His arm under her fingers was taut. Was he thinking about that damnable commitment of his? Even tonight was he unable to shake himself free?

  “I guess,” Reed whispered.

  Then give it up. Walk away from it. “Maybe you’re the one who needs this weekend.”

  “Maybe. Mara? Tomorrow we could walk along the beach. Talk. Maybe we’ll go swimming.”

  “Maybe,” Mara said and dropped her hand, spreading her feet in preparation for turning away.

  No. She couldn’t let him go this way. Not if they weren’t going to wake up strangers.

  Uneasy, Mara stood on tiptoe and ran her hands over Reed’s shoulders. For a moment he simply stared down at her, a puzzled look on his face, his fingers flexing and relaxing, flexing and relaxing. Then, slowly, the dark faded from his eyes. She no longer touched muscle laced with tension. “I love this place,” she whispered then. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

  “Thank you for coming.”

  Mara was the first one up. She tiptoed around the kitchen familiarizing herself with it. She debated showering and dressing but was afraid the sound of running water, a wall away from where Reed slept, would wake him. She slid her bare feet across the floor, while the breeze from the open window over the sink cooled her legs, trying to remember if she’d actually slept or simply spent the night wrapped around the echo of Reed’s final words.