By Her Touch

by Adriana Anders

  “Go on, Leonard. We humans get to use the chairs now.”

  The cat dropped to the floor with a thunk, only to return to his rightful spot a few seconds later, right up under Clay’s chin like he’d been the night before.

  “Wow,” George said with a surprised frown. “Leonard’s a bit of a recluse usually. He doesn’t take to strangers quite so fast.”

  Little do you know.

  She walked to a counter, where she grabbed a dish and stuck it into the oven. “Brownies,” she said with a little smile, twisting a tomato-shaped timer and putting it on the table between them in a weird parody of some speed-dating ritual.

  She sat across from him with a glass of white wine, and he could see, even in this golden, candlelit room, a rosy blush high on her cheeks.

  “You’re beautiful,” Clay said unexpectedly with a nervous expulsion of air.

  “Oh. Oh, thank you.”

  “Thanks for inviting me over. Haven’t had a home-cooked meal in…” He swallowed. Years, he wanted to say, although it wasn’t quite true. Jayda and Tyler had invited him over before he’d taken off. Once. Only once, because he’d seen the look on Jayda’s face when the kids had checked him out, limp and tats and inappropriate vocabulary and all. He’d noticed that night that he couldn’t get a sentence out without an f-bomb or two, which was part of what had kept him alive these past few years. But now that he was out of the MC, well…he was just some cussing, inked-up asshole you couldn’t even have over to dinner.

  “It’s been a while,” he finished, and George nodded.

  “So. Welcome.” She cleared her throat, held up her glass, and knocked it gently against his bottle. “I’m happy to be able to offer you that.”

  He nodded and shoveled in a bite of fish, which, even cold, was delicious. “It’s good.”

  She smiled. “Thanks.”

  “Why’re you so nice to me, George Hadley?”

  “Nice? I’m just normal.”

  “You shouldn’t even be talking to me.”

  “I shouldn’t?”

  Clay shook his head. “No. You really shouldn’t.”

  “Why not? You said you weren’t going to hurt me.”

  “I’m not,” he said, although for the first time he wondered if that were actually true. “But I could, you know.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I mean, having me around isn’t necessarily a good thing.”

  She shrugged, indicating the room. “As you can see, there’s nobody here to complain. Except maybe Leonard, but he’d bitch at Mother Teresa. Although, apparently you pass muster.”

  “Oh yeah?” Clay glanced down at the cat, which, as if understanding their words, curled into a tighter ball on his lap and let out a funny, little birdlike trill. “Seems friendly enough.”

  “Yeah, right. You can push him off.”

  Clay let the cat stay, a vibrating heater. They were quiet as they ate, serenaded by the animal’s engine-like rumbling and the incessant song of the crickets outside.

  “What is that noise?”

  George cocked her head. “What noise?”

  “That… Like crickets, except…loud.” Unbearably fucking never-endingly loud enough to make a person go completely insane.

  “It’s the cicadas. They’ve graced us with their presence.”

  “This is a good thing?”

  “Every seventeen years. That’s how often they get to come out of hiding. And here they are, finally. Alive again!”

  “Wow. When you put it that way…”

  “Come on,” she said, standing up and heading for the porch, where it was overwhelming—ultra surround sound, with the added ominous rumble of distant thunder—and then down three steps into the backyard, which was bathed in pale moonlight. George took a central path, leading to the far end of the yard and the woods beyond. It was a jungle out here—plants barely held back by metal structures, poles spilling onto the walkway with abandon. The moonlight turned everything the same shade of gray or green, but alive, so damned alive with the buzzing, ticking, humming energy of unseen fauna and rampant flora that Clay had to stop, breathe, get his bearings, gather himself before following her.

  Close to the back of the yard, she stopped and turned to look at him, and although the colors were washed out, he could see the excitement on her face, could feel it in currents as electrified as the far-off flash of lightning.

  The noise. He couldn’t take the fucking noise. The deep, constant background sounds drove him a little crazier every day. And this woman loved it? They were worlds apart, weren’t they?

  “This is not the end yet,” she said. “They’ll get louder over the next week or two. And then… Oh, this is…” She swallowed, pressed fingers to her mouth, and he wondered if she was going to cry. “And then they’re gone. Seventeen years before we see these guys again.” She grabbed his hand, squeezed, and he could barely even understand the level of emotion this woman felt over something so…so inconsequential. So annoying as these loud-ass insects taking over the night—and more than a little real estate inside his brain.

  “Not the most pleasant sound I’ve ever heard. So fu—so damned loud,” he said.

  He hated how disappointed she looked at his words, hated even more the way she took her hand away from his, leaving him bereft. For those few seconds when she’d touched him, the noise hadn’t been quite so bad. Like a Mute button, she’d staved off the panic.

  He wished she would do it again.

  * * *

  “Loud? Yes, I suppose they are,” George agreed.

  Loud? It was beautiful.

  He looked away from her in a way that smacked of avoidance. “How can you even sleep here? I need the A/C on just to drown out the night noises, and now this… Man. I’d go crazy.”

  “Oh, I…I like it.” And here it was again, that moment when George realized she wasn’t quite the norm. “Let’s go back in.”

  He followed her inside, and they sat and picked up where they’d left off. Only George felt the tiniest bit crushed. She shouldn’t, of course. It was stupid to think anyone would understand her excitement at such silly things.

  They sat at the table, a little too close, a little awkward. Leonard hopped right back up onto Andrew’s lap, and George shook her head.

  “He’s really into you.”

  Andrew shrugged, looking, if she wasn’t mistaken, a little sheepish. Was that a flush on his cheeks? He took a bite of trout, and the flush deepened. His eyes rose to hers.

  “This is—oh God—this is amazing. Best thing I’ve had.”

  She laughed.

  “I’m serious, what did you do to make this so…” He chewed, groaned a little, and swallowed, taking another bite and then another. “This has more…flavor than anything I’ve eaten in months.”

  She shook her head and took a bite of her own. “It’s just trout, you know. It’s local, from over in Madison County, but nothing special. I guess the butter’s local too, so maybe that’s what you like about it? Fresh ingredients, I suppose?”

  “You’re an amazing cook. That’s what it is.”

  It was her turn to blush. Compliments made her feel awkward, and rather than continue to endure his, she deflected. “Sorry about going overboard outside with the cicadas. I…I get worked up about that stuff. I guess I’m just a hippy at heart.” She waved her hand in the air. “It’s…it’s the magic of it. Of these creatures. Of the world, you know?” He didn’t. She could tell, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “They spend seventeen years underground and then, all together, they come out. As one. They sing their song, and they slough off their shells and journey up into the trees. A long, arduous climb. All in the service of nature. Propagation. Beautiful, lovely, natural. This is the world around us. This is beauty.” Lord, how lame. But it was true. And George couldn’t
ignore something that moved her so very much.

  “I guess I…I see what you mean.”

  “Yeah.” She took a bite, not tasting the food anymore. “I’m sorry.”

  “What? What for?”

  “I get excited. About things.”

  “No, it’s fine.” He took a swig of beer, his eyes on the bottle in his hand and then, suddenly, unexpectedly, on hers. “It’s actually refreshing. I mean, you are. Refreshing or… I’ve seen a lot of pretty nasty shit.”

  She nodded, waiting for more.

  “So you…you’re like this breath of fresh air. Like this clean, perfect, sweet person.”

  “Um. No, that I am not.”

  “Whatever you are, I’m afraid I’ll…” Another swig, and Leonard the antisocial cat fell from his lap as Clay stood. He towered above her, big and overwhelming. “I gotta go, George. This was—I kid you not—amazing. Best meal I’ve ever had. I just can’t… I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, no. I’m sorry. No, don’t—”

  “Look, you’re a… You’re a real nice lady, all right? I just… I don’t… You don’t deserve this.”

  “Deserve what?”

  “What I have to give.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I know who you are, she wanted to say. I know about the Sultans. I know you’ve done bad things, but so have I. Maybe we both deserve a second chance.

  “I…gotta go,” he said, putting down his bottle with a final thunk, footsteps pounding down her hall and out the front door with depressing finality.

  George considered getting up, considered running after him. But she couldn’t, she wouldn’t, because he had to want to stay.

  Her gaze landed on Leonard, who, offended, licked his paws on Andrew’s recently evacuated seat cushion. You couldn’t force an animal to stick around when he didn’t want to—she knew that. Some creatures, like Leonard, you couldn’t even cajole.

  She knew it, but she didn’t like it.

  In the distance, a vehicle started up and rumbled off down the road toward town, echoed by the hum of thunder from over the mountains. Would it just effing storm already? George looked down at her plate, where half of an unappetizing fish sat congealed in the hardened butter sauce she’d restarted three times. On the table beside her elbow, the buzzer sounded, a perfect end to this ridiculous parody of a date she should never have embarked on to begin with.

  10

  By the time the sun came up, Clay needed to run, to feel the pain in his thigh, the ache in his back, the rough burn of his knuckles and eyelids, the sharper torment of his blistering chest. Distraction was what he needed.

  So, up and out, ignoring the gaudy sunrise, the moist air and dry ground, and onto Blackwood’s sleepy streets, pounding the pavement, breathing, aching, wanting.

  I want.

  What the fuck did he want?

  It wasn’t about what he wanted, was it? It was about need. Necessity.

  Get rid of the ink. Go to court. End of story.

  He pushed himself harder as he approached the bottom of the slope he’d only driven up thus far, then cranked the pace and forced himself to jog the steep drive. Up, up, up, above all the shit, the morass of his life, the memories.

  He made it to the top of the mountain, fueled by self-recrimination, and collapsed on the outcropping of rock overlooking Blackwood and the foothills beyond—all the way to Charlottesville, which was nothing but a pinkish haze on the horizon.

  He should go. Find someplace else to hide out—because he couldn’t even trust his own team anymore. Because this case was huge—weapons, drugs, prostitution, racketeering. With every possible state and federal agency involved now, it was so much bigger than he was. But Clay had been the one to break it wide open—mostly due to his fearlessness in the face of odds that had seemed truly impossible. He’d cared more about taking them down than his personal safety; his very existence was just that.

  He closed his eyes, remembering how he’d felt the day he’d finally been patched in to the Sultans, the way Handles had thrown that heavy arm around his shoulders. It’d been so good, on so many levels. Being accepted, after so many months of groveling, brought in, loved…a fucking brother.

  “One of us now, kid,” Handles had said, his voice full of pride. And fuck if Clay hadn’t felt it.

  And how messed up was that? To be an agent, to be undercover, to believe in what you were doing in the deepest, darkest part of your soul, but in order to get there—Jesus, he’d become one of them at heart.

  He’d loved those dudes. His brothers.

  And now, Bread was dead.

  Bread, who’d been somewhere on the compound the day all the shit had gone down. Bread, finally, had saved his life, once all hell broke loose. Jesus, Bread had risked it all that night when he’d bludgeoned Handles over the head and hauled Clay from the room, out the back door, and away from the firefight.

  And me, a chunk of my leg shot out and two little, round scars in my back. Put there by Handles himself. Dear old Dad.

  Get your goddamned story straight. He kept hearing the lawyer’s words. Straight? What the hell was straight?

  The confusion of rights and wrongs, friends, enemies…that was what made Hecker’s directive so difficult to follow.

  Stay alive was not an order he’d been given. Not directly by Hecker or McGovern or anyone else, but with Bread dead, he was all they had left. They needed him to make this case, to make the charges stick, because without him, all they had were random accusations of murder, torture, and gun and drug offenses with a few recordings to back them up.

  He’d gotten into the Sultans, had managed to get a colleague in after him, and now…now Bread was gone and Clay was alone and he wasn’t safe anywhere.

  The only reason I’m alive is ’cause nobody knows where I am.

  And that thought led right back to the memories he’d tried hardest to suppress over the last few hours: George Hadley in her perfect storybook world.

  Images flew at him: her messed-up cat, purring in his lap; kissing her; his goddamned aching hard-on… He closed his eyes on the view again, the better to remember her arms around him, the solid reality of her grip, the good, clean wholesomeness of her. He didn’t deserve it. Any of it. He deserved the shitty-ass motel, the pain in his body, the fucking zap of the laser. He deserved to die, even, but…

  Man, she was hot.

  The thought hit him unexpectedly. Out of place and weird. But up until now, she’d been…something else. Something too pristine, a little uptight. A sexy doctor, but still his doctor. And completely out of reach. Now, with the things that had happened, she was different. Hot and essential and available. So, of course, he’d gone and botched that up. Well, he kind of had to, right? When things were way too good to be true? You couldn’t go around living the high life with a giant X on your back.

  Could you?

  * * *

  A busy workday helped George think about something other than Andrew. Except in the end, she couldn’t stop thinking about him at all.

  It was later than she usually got home, because like an idiot, she’d prepped a room and waited at the clinic for him to arrive. When he hadn’t, the only person she’d been angry at was herself.

  Irritated all over again, she slammed her car door and headed toward her house.

  “Hey, neighbor,” called Jessie from somewhere beyond the hedge.

  “Hi, Jessie.”

  “Busy?”

  “Oh.” She paused. “No.”

  “Wanna come hang out?”

  “Yes!” she yelled a tad too loudly. Distraction! “Let me get cleaned up and—”

  “Oh, take your time. I’ve got the booze tonight,” Jessie said, rattling something in what might have been a bucket of ice.

  “Oh, good. I’ll bring snacks.”

  “Match made in heaven,”
Jessie said.

  George ran inside to feed Leonard, then back outside to put the chickens to bed, pick a bowl of salad, and, with a mournful glance at the sky, turn the sprinkler on.

  Back inside, she pulled out leftovers and some of the same mini quiches she’d made for her in-laws. Just as she was headed out, her gaze fell on the pathetic, untouched tray of brownies from the night before, and with a bratty huff, she picked it up and stuck it in her basket before slamming out the front door and heading over.

  “Oh my God, how are you still single?” asked Jessie when George unpacked everything in the kitchen. “What a cornucopia of delight.”

  “Where’s Gabe?”

  “At a sleepover.” Jessie’s smile faded. “I am such a mess. My boy goes on a sleepover, only like the third one in his entire life, and I’m putting a brave face on it. Like, I love the free time to, you know, drink alone on the porch and all, but my little boy’s growing up, and he’s already deserting me!” The last bit was moaned in an “I’m having a breakdown” kind of voice that George could appreciate, although probably not entirely relate to. Solitude was, after all, her norm.

  “I’m sorry” was her inadequate response.

  Jessie, though, didn’t seem to mind. “Oh, whatever. I really need to get over myself. Here, have a glass and tell me about your day while I plate these amazing morsels you brought.”

  “We need to wash the lettuce.”

  “On it. Wash lettuce. That’s something I can handle. Now grab yourself some vino. It’s on the front porch.”

  A few sips into her glass, George’s phone rang. The number was Uma’s. “Hello?”

  “George? Hey, it’s Uma. Hope now’s an okay time?”

  “Hi! Yes, it’s fine. What’s up?”

  “I hate to call you for work things at night, but…”

  “No, please, don’t be ridiculous. Are you okay? Is this an emergency?”

  “Um, no,” Uma said with a bit of a laugh in her voice, and George relaxed again. “Well, not my emergency, in any case. It’s…um, somewhat delicate.”