by Dez Burke
"Seriously?" he asks, and I nod. "I have the feeling you're going to be seeing a lot of Captain Williams. He seems quite sweet on your mother."
"Wow, I never saw that one coming," I blurt out. The idea of my mother dating or being the subject of a man's attention is so foreign to me that I have to ask, "You're sure?"
"Why are you surprised? Your mother's a fine-looking woman, and I think she's just about the right age for Steven." He laughs. "Anyway, it's time for me to go."
He gets to his feet and offers his hand to help me up. His hands are warm and strong. He's really a sweet man. I walk him to the front door, and he picks up a helmet that he had left on the porch. I notice a cool bike parked on the street.
"Nice ride," I say.
"You like it?" he asks stepping down from the porch. There's a spark in his eyes when he looks at his machine, as though he's really proud of it.
"Yeah, I don't know much about engines and stuff; I just love the feeling of freedom you get."
Memories of crazy rides on the beach with David hit me, and I fight the tears, which are threatening to come back.
"You have a safe ride now, you hear," I say as I retreat to the house.
I lock the door behind me and straighten the furniture in the main room. I'm thinking about picking up the rest of the stuff, and then I decide against it. I'm going to leave it there; it will be good for my mother to have something to do tomorrow. I'm just going to load the dishwasher and then lose myself in a good book.
The second I step back into the kitchen, the back door slams open. It's Brian. He's dressed just as he was when I ran into him at the pharmacy; he's got the total-badass look, and he's just as angry and sinfully sexy as he was that day.
But today I'm just as angry as he is. Perhaps more. I'm mad because he was a no-show at the service and at the burial. No matter what they fought about when David and he went their separate ways, it's no excuse for not coming to show his respect. And if he didn't care enough to bother attending the funeral, what is he doing here?
Before I have a chance to ask him, he grabs a beer from the cooler and sits on a stool.
Looking at the can as he cracks it open, he says, "I thought he would never leave."
I take a step in his direction to confront him, and then I think better of it. I just ignore him and do what I intended to do in the first place. I load the dishwasher with the dirty glasses. I throw side-glances at him. He's drinking his beer and watching me make a big show of acting as if he wasn't there.
I know it pisses him off because I've been doing it since I was a kid. Clamming up and sulking is my forte, and it's always driven him up the wall. It used to annoy the heck out of David, too. When I was a teenager, I would still do it every time I got raving mad about something. Instead of telling them what I was upset about, I would act as if they didn't exist until they figured it out.
Of course now that I'm an adult, I realize it's very immature behavior. It's a lot healthier to spit out what's eating you up instead of letting it simmer in you for days. However, today I don't think I'm being immature. If he can't figure out why I'm mad at him, then we really don't have anything more to say to each other.
Once the machine is loaded and closed, I take the few remaining cans from the cooler and place them in the fridge. The melted ice from the cooler goes into the sink. I leave it upside down to dry.
That's it. I'm done. I wipe my hands on the towel and glare at Brian then turn away and head for the door to the main room.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I shut off the light as if Brian weren't behind me in the room, and I hear him hiss. I'm starting to open the door when he springs from his seat and slams it shut with a hand flat on the door. I turn around. My back to the door, I give him the coldest stare I can muster, but when I do, my breath catches in my throat because deep down inside me there's heat soaring.
My eyes fall on his lips, and I so badly want him to kiss me as he did last time that it almost hurts.
"You don't want to talk," he growls. "That's fine because I'm not in a talking mood either."
And then I get my wish because he kisses me, and I let him until there's nothing left of me but a ball of need. I know I'm going insane because I urge him on with the crazy moans that escape my lips. My fingers thread in his hair, and I hold on to him as if my life depended on it. His hands go to my breast and then slide to my ass. He digs his fingers into my flesh and lifts me up. He's pinning me against the door, and it feels so good I never want him to stop. I wrap my legs around him as I need more, so much more, but we're wearing way too many clothes.
When he pulls his mouth away we're both panting.
I look into his eyes. His gaze mirrors the hunger I feel for him. It's incredible because there's not a shred of restraint left in me. God, I'm game for just about anything. I let go of his hair and put one hand on his chest next to a patch that says "Future organ donor," and I don't find it funny at all. I move my hand and uncover the Iron Tornadoes patch. Seeing it, I crash back to reality.
I don't want to, but I need to push him away. I need to know what happened between David and him. I need to know, but I'm so scared of the answer that the question that pops out of my mouth is not the one I thought I would ask.
"How did David die?"
Brian's grip lessens on my butt, and I drop my legs from around his hips. My feet reach the ground, and there's more space between us, but he hasn't let go of me yet.
"You don't want to know," he says sounding like Captain Williams. He closes his eyes and takes a step back.
"Yes, I do. It's eating me up. I have nightmares where I see him die a hundred deaths, and each one is more horrible than the last," I tell him.
"Did they let you see him?" The concern in his voice is tearing me apart. This means that he still cares about me, but it also means it had to be ugly.
"No." He lets out a sigh of relief but it's my turn to be adamant. "Brian, I need to know; it's driving me insane."
He stares at me, and it looks as if he understands that I really do need to know.
"He was at the wrong place at the wrong time. He got into a knife fight and he lost. The blade went right through his chest. He was dead before he hit the ground," he says, and he studies my face. I keep my expression neutral while I process this. It doesn't add up—a knife wound is easy to hide. No need for a closed casket because of a knife wound. I shake my head and frown at him. I'm not buying it, and he sees it.
"They did a number with his body after he died..." he explains.
I try to put on my best poker face, but I fail miserably. Bile is coming up my throat. I make it to the garbage can just in time. I'm so angry right now that, given a chance to do so, I would probably kill whoever went after my brother's corpse—so much for all my passionate pleas against the death penalty in moot court exercises. It's one thing when you're looking at the issue from the dispassionate view of a bystander; it's another thing altogether when your family is at stake. Right this second I feel murderous—I want blood.
"How do you know?" The accusation is unmistakable. For a second, I see the hurt in in his eyes. It's worse than if I had slapped him.
"I was told about it by someone who was there," he says, his expression and his tone almost indifferent. "You sure know how to kill the mood." He turns away and heads for the back door, waving over his shoulder as he says, "See you around, sweet butt."
I grab the can of beer he left on the table and hurl it at the door. Bad idea—he hadn't finished it, and now I need to clean up the liquid splashed all the way to the door. As I mop, I start crying again. I hate it—I'm turning into a fountain, or maybe my mother.
I resolve to stop crying and try to reason with myself. After all, he was dead by then, so it shouldn't really matter. There was nothing left but an empty shell. It's not as if they hurt him. Only animals go after a dead body like that!
Cold reasoning doesn't work today.
My mother must never know. If she finds out, it
will push her over the edge. She's so fragile, I'm not sure I'm going to be strong enough to keep her together.
But what if Everest was right? What if David's captain was really sweet on her? Now that I'm wrapping my mind around the concept, I see my mother in a totally different light. Objectively, she's really okay. How old is she anyway? Fifty-five or fifty-six. When I was a teenager, I used to see her as ancient. Some of my law professors and some partners I interviewed with were probably older than she is, and I never thought for a second that their lives were over. I know they had rich professional lives, and I'm pretty sure their private lives were active as well, so why did I look on my mother differently?
It isn't hard to picture my mother and Captain Williams together since he was by her side most of the day. He's big and protective; he would surely make her feel safe. I play with the idea, seeing them sitting side by side on the swing and holding hands, maybe kissing, walking down the aisle in church. In my overactive imagination, she's wearing a pearl-colored dress and he's in his dress uniform, just like today. She looks delightfully happy.
Concentrating on that image, I go to bed with a smile on my face.
CHAPTER NINE
Everest was right. The week following the funeral, Captain "please do call me Steven" Williams comes around several times to our house. Officially, he's making sure my mother does the paperwork just right so she gets all the benefits she's entitled to since David died on the job.
Without Everest's warning, my normal reaction would have been to tell him that if I managed to get into one of the top law schools in the country, filling out their stupid paperwork shouldn't be a problem. But because I've been told, I play the helpless dumb blonde. I thank him profusely for helping my mother and let them both sit down side by side at the dinner table with the paperwork. I serve them iced tea and make myself scarce. He stays for a couple of hours, but they're not finished when he leaves.
The funny thing is that now I hardly recognize my mother—she's all chirpy, almost cheerful. I kept pinching myself to make sure I'm not dreaming.
Of course, the second she went to bed after his first visit, I returned to being my normal control-freak self and looked at the forms. There was nothing complicated about them, and yet they had only gone through one of the three pages.
Yeah, he's definitely into her, and the coolest thing is that she's into him, as well.
So much so that she's agreed to go out with him.
"Don't be silly, dear. It's not a date. I'm just accompanying him to a police social function," she tells me as she gets ready.
"Absolutely." What I really wanted to say was, Of course it's not a date, and it's true you're still wearing black. Black is black, but there's mourning black and sexy black.
I see her off, and I'm sitting on the porch swing reading a book when Everest arrives. I'm cooking dinner for him tonight and afterward he will help me decide what to do with my brother's two bikes. He'll check to see if they need any repairs first. The one David was riding the day he died was just released from evidence by the police. The cross-country one is much lighter, and I'm thinking about keeping it for myself.
Everest is all smiles, and I remember David's stupid biker joke.
"How do you recognize a happy biker?" I ask.
"All the dead bugs on his front teeth," Everest answers, and he laughs. "That's gross but close to home. I've eaten more bugs that I care to think about."
He kicks his bike stand down and opens a saddlebag.
"My confidential informant told me you like white wine, so I got a bottle," he says. "I'm a beer drinker myself, but the sales lady said Muscadet was good."
"Oh, I love Muscadet. Really, I do. I didn't know anything about wine either when I left for New York, and then I found this job in a good restaurant where the owner gives all her staff a basic lesson about which wine goes with what type of food, and then made us do a blind tasting. That was fun. I'm no connoisseur, but I do really like this one. It's great with fish, and it needs to be served chilled..."
I ramble on as I finish preparing dinner. I tell him about Lyv and the people in the restaurant and how it was so convenient because it was close to my dorm. When we sit down to eat, he's wearing an ear-to-ear grin.
"What's funny?" I ask.
"Now I know what it's like when you're really spilling your guts," he says. "So, the other day, that really was you being quiet."
I laugh. He's right. I'm very talkative, and maybe more than usual tonight because I'm nervous. I like him, and I would like him to stick around a bit, but then again I don't want him to get the wrong idea. I do enjoy his company, but I'm not on the market for a boyfriend. David's death has left me too raw emotionally to consider getting into a relationship. And then there's Brian. I'm not sure what the deal is with him, so I try very hard not to think about it, which takes a lot of work. The truth is that it's an impossible task because there's not a single corner of this house that I don't associate with a memory of David and him.
I don't know how to tell Everest that if this is going anywhere, I'd like to take it really slowly. Perhaps there's no need to tell him anything—he could just want a friend, or a harmless no-promises-let's-just-have-fun fling. I stop talking.
"Stop fretting," he says. "You're safe with me. Tonight it's just dinner, and then maybe a little ride on the beach and possibly some light kissing."
"Do I look nervous?" I ask as I flush. The heat on my cheeks is overwhelming.
"No. Don't worry, you're not an open book to me... yet." He takes a drink from his glass and keeps on studying my face. "This is what I'm good at. I read people."
I raise my eyebrows.
"There are little gestures you're making that show you're not totally comfortable around me, which doesn't offend me since we barely know each other. But at the same time, you're also being very open, and telling me a lot about yourself, which means you've decided I'm somehow trustworthy. So I think you like me, but you don't want to be rushed into anything because there's been too much upheaval in your life lately."
I nod. He's drawing a pretty accurate picture.
"Did you leave someone behind in New York?" he asks.
"Nope. The only exciting things I've taken to bed with me for the past few years have been romance novels. What about you? Do you have someone in your life?"
"I've been a free agent for a while, but before that, I dated a girl for a couple of years. For a while I thought she was the girl."
"What happened to make you realize she wasn't?"
"I decided that my psychology degree would be put to better use if I became a cop instead of a therapist, and she dumped me." He doesn't sound bitter, just a bit sad.
"What's wrong with being a cop?" I ask.
"Officially, the danger. I think the truth was that she had issues with the social status and the pay. A few months after we split, she married some doctor," he says.
"If she really dumped you because of the pay, then you're better off without her," I say.
"Funny, that's word for word what my mother told me." He's clearly amused.
"A very wise woman, your mother."
We finish eating, and he helps me clear the table.
CHAPTER TEN
I leave all the dirty dishes in the kitchen for later, and we go to the garage, turn on the lights, and open the garage door to look at David's bikes. Everest tinkers with the big machine that just came back, and then he rolls it out of the garage and takes it for a ride around the block.
While I wait for him to return, a pack of bikers ride by. It's not unusual, since my street links two main roads, yet they startle me. Suddenly, I feel very vulnerable. I'm alone in the house, and the glaring lights of David's workshop make it impossible for me to see outside while making me a perfect target. It seems as though they're slowing down as they drive by the house, but it may just be my overactive imagination.
I shrug the uneasiness away. I've got to get a grip on myself.
Soon enough, E
verest returns from his short test ride.
"It's in perfect condition," he says as he wheels the monster back in. "I can tell your brother took real good care of it, but I agree—it's too heavy for you."
He turns around to look at the other machine, higher and leaner, the one David taught me on, the one he never meant for me to ride alone. He taught me because he believed it was one of those things I should learn how to do, even if I never got any real use from it. At the time, he probably thought either Brian or he was going to be around forever to take me places.
Before he removes his helmet, I grab mine and get on the lighter bike.
"Come on, I'll take you for a ride," I say as I kick the machine to life.
The look on his face is priceless. There's so many different expressions colliding, but what remains in the end are surprise and amusement. He doesn't falter—he climbs on behind me, and I can't decide if he's brave, suicidal, or just a trusting soul. There's no tension in his body as he wraps his arms around my waist.
We roll down the street toward the beach, and I'm having more fun than I have in a long time. I love this feeling of freedom, but right now it's all about more physical sensations. There's the blissful state I get into after a glass of wine, the vibration of the engine between my legs, and then Everest's strong body against my back and his hand on my stomach... wow. This is getting distracting. I concentrate on the driving as we reach the sand, and I ride all the way to the pier, where I can lean the machine against one of the posts.
As Everest shifts his body to get off the bike, I realize this has been distracting for him as well. We remove our helmets and sit together on the sand. The swash of the waves is relaxing, and the moon is bright enough to let me study his profile as he looks at the ocean.
"That was interesting," he says with a sheepish smile. "I had never ridden behind a woman before."