by Mary Calmes
“Jory—”
“Let it go, Sam.”
He rolled his eyes, but we both knew he wouldn’t say a word. No one said a word to Regina Kage. We all did exactly as she wanted. She was the matriarch, after all.
“Seriously, though, we should cancel, you’re in no—”
“I’m fine, and besides, I think she had trip itineraries printed up, and I want to make sure to get mine.”
He was disgusted, but I got the smile I was after with the shake of his head, the you are too much and I give up one that I loved.
“So,” I said softly as my gaze skated over him. God, I loved looking at him. The broad shoulders that the suit jacket accentuated, the snug fit of the tailored dress shirt over his massive chest, and the stubble that covered his square, chiseled jaw even though he’d shaved that morning before work.
“What?” he asked, and his voice was husky as he stared at me.
“You’re gonna take me home?”
“Yes.”
“And stay with me?”
“Yeah. I want to make sure you’re okay.”
I stared into those eyes that I loved as much now as I had the first time he’d kissed me all those years ago. “You’re taking care of me again.”
He grunted and it was all male, all growly bear. “And?”
“And it’s nice.” I smiled at him, taking a loose hold of his tie.
He sighed and I got a trace of a smile. “Okay, I’ll be right back.”
“Wait,” I said before he could leave.
“Why? What?”
“Come gimme a kiss.”
“No.” He snorted out a laugh and then bent and kissed my forehead before he walked out of the room.
I was lost in thought, every brain cell I possessed absorbed with Sam Kage and what I was going to do to him with an afternoon alone, when my name was called.
“Mr. Harcourt?”
When I turned, there was a doctor there, and I registered almost instantly that it really wasn’t fair. He got to look like that and be brilliant? Normally you were smart or pretty, not both. He even had bright blue-green eyes. I noticed that because they were the exact shade of turquoise that I wanted when I was growing up. I had hated my brown eyes with a passion. Now things were different. My daughter and I had almost the same shade of deep chocolate brown with hints of gold, and the man who woke up in bed with me every morning never failed to mention that as eyes went, mine were his favorite color.
“Mr. Harcourt?”
“Yeah, sorry.” I flashed him a quick grin. “That’s me.”
“Hi.” He smiled warmly as he closed in, offering me his hand.
“I’m Dr. Dwyer, and—”
“Jory, you—”
“Sam?”
My doctor called my man by his first name.
Sam stood there looking utterly gobsmacked.
Both men, my partner and the doctor, froze as they stood staring at each other.
What the hell…?
Doctor Dwyer had been interrupted by Sam’s return, and Sam had apparently been quite startled to see the doctor when he came charging back into the room.
I kept looking between them, feeling weirder by the second.
“Kevin,” Sam finally said.
The man took a step forward, and the smile, the light that hit his eyes, the shiver that ran through his long, lean swimmer’s frame, was not to be mistaken for anything other than absolute, quivering, pulse-pounding, blood-racing joy. Whoever he was, he was deliriously surprised and delighted to see Sam Kage.
I waited and realized that I had stopped breathing.
Who was this heavenly creature, this doctor who was looking at Sam like he was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his entire life?
“You….” Sam sucked in a breath. “What are you doing here?”
“Jesus,” the doctor gasped and rushed forward, arms lifted, ready to reach out and grab hold, reclaim.
Sam moved faster, meeting him and cutting him off, so basically, with his forward momentum halted, the good doctor was brought up short, almost to a jarring, lose-your-balance stop. Sam leaned, gave him the guy clench, tight-tight, then pushed off and back so Dr. Dwyer was basically left abandoned and bewildered, arms empty, looking lost.
“Nice to see you,” Sam said quickly, stepping close to the bed and taking my hand at the same time. “Jory, this is Dr. Kevin Dwyer.
We met in Columbia when I was there working that drug bust after Dom went into witness protection. He was with Doctors Without Borders at that time. What are you doing here in Chicago?”
Years ago, Sam had left me recovering in the hospital to track down a drug cartel in Colombia on a tip from his corrupt partner. We had been apart for three years, and at some point he had met the good doctor.
Dr. Dwyer seriously looked like someone had punched him in the gut or run him over with a truck. It was hard to tell which better described him at that moment. “I,” he started but stopped, and then his eyes flicked to mine. “Jory?”
I smiled at him. “Yes.”
He nodded. “Sam told me all about you.”
And yet Sam had never, ever mentioned Kevin Dwyer to me.
“Did you date?” I asked the doctor, because I didn’t mess around.
“Jor—”
“No,” he cut Sam off. “We lived together for three months.”
And my world imploded.
Chapter Two
“SPEAK.”
“I’m not a dog, Sam.”
He muttered something under his breath.
“I’m sorry?” I asked and realized my voice was much too sharp.
“I said….” He sighed, and only when I glanced over at him did I realize that his knuckles were white on the wheel. He was holding on tight. “I know you’re pissed, but I wish you would just talk to me already.”
“Why should I be pissed? It was a long time ago, right?”
“Yeah, it was a long time ago,” he growled, raking his fingers through his thick copper-colored hair. As he got older, it was getting darker, which I found interesting. “But you’re thinking about it and you’re thinking really hard, and if you would just come out with whatever the hell is going on in your head, that would be good.” I wasn’t ready to put my thoughts into words yet.
“Jory,” Sam said softly.
But it would sound like an accusation, and I needed it to not be.
“I lied, yeah?”
He had.
“Why would I do that?”
I could remember the discussion so clearly. I’d questioned him in that diner about how many guys he had slept with while we had been apart. The inquiry had begun with me asking about women and then, when he replied that there had been none, moved on to men. That had been seven years ago.
“Jory?”
I looked out the window instead of at him.
“What would you have done if I told you that night that I had slept with four guys but the fifth guy… that one I liked?”
I closed my eyes. Hearing it now was painful. Hearing it then… I would have run.
“It only lasted three months.”
Part of me really wanted to hear the story and part of me didn’t.
“I was hurt, and he took a bullet out of me and stitched me up and gave me a shot. When I saw him a week later in a bar, I bought him a drink to say thank you.”
I could see how that would have progressed.
“I was really drunk, things weren’t going well… one year had rolled by already and we weren’t any closer….” He trailed off.
The rain was sluicing down the glass in rivulets.
“It got late and he offered to let me sleep it off at his place because it was close by.”
My body flushed hot and then went cold.
“When we got there, when the door closed, he wanted something more, and I… you get it. I don’t need to tell you.”
I did.
“It was nice to have the normalcy in the middle of
all the crazy, to have a small place where I could go to just breathe.”
“It was a sanctuary,” I said, holding my breath.
“No,” he said, his voice low and gravelly. “It was just not blood on the pavement and ten-year-old boys killing each other in the street and girls who should be planning sleepovers turning tricks and shooting up… it was just not horrible.”
“I thought you were in the jungle.”
“I was everywhere, J.”
“I see.”
He pulled over, put the SUV in park, hit the hazards, and turned to face me. Not that I saw him, but I could hear the leather seat creak.
“We should get home, Sam.”
“Look at me.”
I rolled my head sideways.
He reached out and took hold of my chin; his fingers slid over my skin, his thumb tracing my bottom lip. “Our home, yours and mine, that’s my sanctuary. What I had with Kevin… I mean, I was in the middle of a big fuckin’ mess in a foreign country, and I was tired and lonely, but still, it’s no excuse for what I did.”
“What did you do?”
“For just a minute, just like a second, I stopped thinking.”
I didn’t understand. “Sam?”
He brought his left hand up to join the right, framing my face, smoothing his thumbs over my cheekbones. “I felt so bad for using Kevin… I was such a shit to him. I fucked him, I ate his food, I slept in his bed, and I treated him like a whore.”
I leaned out of his hands and he let them drop away.
“That was how it went, and then when I realized what I was doing, I tried to apologize to him and end it, and—”
“He didn’t want to,” I cut him off.
“No.” His voice rumbled out of his chest. “He didn’t.”
“Because what you thought was bad was his wet dream.”
“I wouldn’t go—”
“He liked you in pieces that he got to put back together, he liked being the guy who submitted to you, liked being the one you held down and ordered around. He wanted you to stay in his bed.”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat.
“And?”
“And what?”
“I want to hear the end, Sam.”
“And I want you in my lap.”
It took me a second because he had changed topics so quickly.
“What?”
“If I’m baring my soul any more, I want you in my lap.”
I shook my head. “No, I can’t do—”
“Fine, it ended,” he said, and turned to grab hold of his seatbelt.
I opened my door.
“What’re you doing?” he barked, lunging fast but not quick enough as the door swung wide.
I turned to look at him. “I’m not sitting in your lap. This is not a tantrum I’m throwing, and you don’t get to treat me like a drama queen or a petulant child. This is you caught in a lie of your own making.
Finish the story or I will get out and walk home and you can go back to work and pick me up later when it’s time to go to your mother’s.”
His eyes locked on mine.
“Your choice.”
“You’re madder than I thought.”
“I’m not mad,” I assured him.
“Hurt, then.”
He wasn’t getting an answer. I just waited.
“Close the door,” he breathed.
Leaning out, I grabbed the handle and pulled it shut before turning back to him. I was startled by the look on his face.
“You don’t get to leave me,” he whispered, and his eyes were cold and dark like water under ice. The transformation was scary.
“Sam?”
His eyes were narrow slits. “I forbid it.”
Forbid? “Sam, what’re you—”
“We weren’t together, you were fucking any guy who asked, and—”
“Sam, don’t go all defensive and shitty, all right? I’m not hurt because you slept with someone, I’m hurt because you lied about being in a relationship with—”
“It was nothing! It was shit!” he yelled at me, and I heard the pain and the frustration and, most of all, his fear. “You—it meant… I only ever wanted—”
“Stop.” I put up my hands before I moved quickly, unbuckling my belt, climbing over the console between us, and scrambling into his lap, my knees on either side of his hips.
“Christ,” he growled, hands on my thighs, grabbing hold, fingers digging into my muscles as he jerked me forward so my ass settled over his groin, the bulge in his dress pants sliding over my crease. “Don’t leave me.”
I pushed forward, against him, rubbing, grinding. “Why? Because you want to keep fucking me?”
“Well yeah, that too.” He scowled, taking my face in his hands and pushing my hair out of my eyes. “I knew the difference then, I know the difference now. You’re it, you’re home for me. If it’s not you, it won’t be anybody. I can’t settle, it’s all or nothing.”
I sighed, looking at him. “I know.”
He brightened, and I saw it, and it was really so dear. “I love you so much it hurts.”
And I knew that too. There were too many years between us for me to have doubts about that. But he had lied, and that wasn’t like him.
“Why were you so scared that night that you would lie?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. It was brand new, you trusting me again, and if I fucked it up and you sent me away… what the hell was I supposed to do, J?”
I stared into his eyes.
“There was no way I was losing you then, and there’s no way I’m letting this come between us now. I’m sorry I lied about Kevin Dwyer. It was stupid, I should have just said. But you were a scared rabbit back then.”
“Not anymore?”
“No,” he sighed. “You haven’t been that guy in a long time.”
I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around his neck, hugging tight, shoving my nose against the side of his neck, inhaling him.
“Oh please,” he murmured, one hand cradling the back of my head, gently knotting in my hair, the other on the small of my back, holding me close. “I am sorry for never telling you about Kevin Dwyer, but it was a long time ago and doesn’t mean shit, I swear to God.”
I tightened my arms, pressed closer, and heard him exhale into my shoulder. He needed to know everything was okay; it was imperative that his home was in order. He needed it so he could do his job out in the world. “He’s a very handsome man.”
He grunted, not paying attention, tipping my head back to kiss the base of my throat. “There’s this one freckle right here that drives me crazy.”
“I said,” I repeated, “he’s a very handsome man.”
“We both know that you’re the only thing I see.”
And it was true. I had been surprised and that was all. “Let’s go home, Marshal; maybe I have time to do you before my husband shows up to take me to my mother-in-law’s for dinner.”
“Oh yes, please,” he whispered before he kissed me harder and held on tighter.
SAM turned onto our street and then took the left into the driveway along the right side of the house. It ran along the fence separating our property from the Petersons’, where the circus had come to town.
There were at least ten squad cars on the street and another two and an ambulance in the driveway. I didn’t get to make an inquiry; I was shoved through the back door of my house into the kitchen and told to lock the door behind me. I bolted to the window and watched Sam walk back down the driveway to the street. I could see through the chain-link fence into the Petersons’ front lawn; saw all the neighbors standing across the street and a lot of policemen traipsing through the yard. I wanted to go outside, but that would be a bad idea, so I walked to the front door to see if the mail was splattered by the front door.
My whole life I’d had a mailbox; only since we’d moved into this house did I have a mail slot that everything got shoved through. As I expected,
my stupid cat, Chilly—all white except for his nose and the tips of his ears, which were black—was lying on his back on the mail, feet up in the air. Why he did it every single day, I had no idea. Sam thought maybe it was something new coming into the house on a daily basis that didn’t smell like him. It was just weird.
“What are you doing?” I asked my feline friend.
I got the talking he always did with me, a soft chuffing, before he rolled to his feet to prance over and greet me. He was a “second-chance pet,” which meant that when we adopted him from the humane society, he was alone on one side of the cat enclosure. He was in one of the stacked metal cages instead of the Plexiglas area where all the others were. I had walked over to him and he had shoved his little paw through the bars and put it on the top of my head. Right that second, I was a goner.
“Second chance” meant that he had been adopted and brought back. Twice. Apparently he was manic. It was a match made in heaven!
I had had specific directions. Sam had said to go to the humane society and get a long-haired, declawed older cat that would be mellow with the kids. He liked long-haired cats because that’s what he had been raised with. His mother always had Persians or Himalayans, so he knew how to care for them, the brushing that was needed, and figured that would be good for the kids, to teach them responsibility. A Maine coon, he had told me, was also perfectly acceptable.
It really was an easy request if he’d have sent the right guy. I wasn’t him.
When I brought Chilly home, he peed on himself in the carrier because he was scared. I felt so sorry for him but even though I wanted him to make a good impression, I just couldn’t bring myself to add to his terror by bathing him. So, unfortunately, the cat Sam saw for the first time reeked of urine, still had claws, and possessed a sort of crazed look in his eyes. It was not the best first impression that was ever made.
Dylan saved me by coming over with some kitty bath wash that you didn’t need water for, but afterward Chilly smelled more like linen-scented piss than anything else. Sam was not impressed.
We had one of those Chia Pets that you buy at Walmart, because Kola had wanted one. It was basically a head, Mr. Grass Head, and Chilly took one look at that thing and decided that it needed to be batted off Kola and Hannah’s desk and dumped onto the floor.