As it turned out, she didn’t have to talk to Brian.
He talked to her.
They met at the hospital later that evening. Elise’s room overflowed with flowers and friends from the post office. Murmurs of laughter filled the small room as Peggy and Pat and even Buck Aguilar cooed and showered the new arrival with rattles and blankets and an infant-sized postal service uniform.
Deciding to give the others time and space to admire Baby Brian, Sheryl slipped out and went in search of a vending machine. A cool diet soda fizzed in her hand as she paused by a window, staring out at the golden haze of the sunset.
“Sher?”
She turned and smiled a welcome at Brian. He looked very different from the man who’d rushed out of Elise’s room this morning, his face drenched with sweat and his eyes alive with exultation. Tonight, he wore what Sheryl always teasingly called his realestate-agent’s uniform—a lightweight blue seersucker jacket, white shirt, navy slacks. His conservative red tie was neatly knotted.
Leaning against the window alcove, Sheryl offered him a sip of her drink. He declined. His gaze, like hers, drifted to the glorious sunset.
“Have you been in to see Elise and the baby yet?” she asked after a moment.
He nodded. “For a few minutes. I could barely squeeze in the room.”
“Did she tell you what she’d decided to name him?”
“Yes.”
The single word carried such quiet, glowing pride that Sheryl’s heart contracted. God, she hated to hurt this man! They’d shared so many hours, so many dreams. Caught up in her own swamping guilt and regret, she almost missed his next comment.
“I need to talk to you, Sher. I don’t know if this is the right time... I don’t know if there is a right time.” He raked a hand through his hair. “But this morning, when I saw what Elise went through, when I was there with her, I realized what marriage is really about.”
Sheryl wanted to weep. She set her drink on the window ledge and took his hands in hers.
“Oh, Brian, I...”
He gripped her fingers. “Let me say this.”
“But...”
“Please!”
Miserable beyond words, she nodded.
He took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Marriage means...should mean... sharing everything. Giving everything. Joining together and, if it’s in the picture, holding on to each other at moments like the one that happened this morning.”
“I know.”
He swallowed, gripping her hands so tightly Sheryl thought her bones would crack. “It shouldn’t be something comfortable, something easy and familiar or something we just drift into because it’s the next step.”
“What?”
His words were so unexpected she was sure she hadn’t heard him right.
“Oh, God, Sher, I’m sorry. This hurts so much.”
“What does?”
“When I was with Elise this morning, I realized that...that I love you. I’ll always love you. But...”
That small “but” rang like a gong in her ears. In growing incredulity, Sheryl stared up at him.
“But what?”
“But maybe... Maybe I don’t love you enough,” he finished, his eyes anguished. “Maybe not the way a man who might someday stand beside you and hold your hand while you give birth to his children should. I think... I think maybe we shouldn’t see each other for a while. Until I sort through this awful confusion, anyway.”
Sheryl wouldn’t have been human if she’d hadn’t experienced a spurt of genuine hurt before her rush of relief. After all, the man she’d spent the better part of the past year with had just dumped her. But she cared for him too much to let him shoulder the entire burden of guilt.
“I love you, too, Brian. I always will. But...”
He went still. “But?”
She gave him a weak, watery smile. “But not in the way a woman who might someday cling to your hand while she gave birth to your children should.”
Chapter 9
Sheryl arrived home well after nine that night. Wrung out from the long, traumatic day and her painful discussion with Brian, she dropped her uniform in the basket of dirty clothes that Button, thankfully, had left unmolested.
She thought about crawling into bed. A good cry might shake the awful, empty feeling that had dogged her since she woke up this morning. Arriving at the hospital too late to share the miracle of birth with Elise after all those months of anticipation had only added to her hollowness. The subsequent breakup with Brian had taken that lost feeling to a new low.
As if those disturbing events weren’t enough, another lowering realization had hit her as she’d driven home through the dark night. Just twenty-four hours off the task force, and she missed Harry MacMillan as much as she missed her ex-almost.
If not more.
Sighing, Sheryl pulled on a pair of cutoffs and a well-worn pink T-shirt adorned with a covey of roadrunner. Try as she might, she couldn’t seem to get her mind off the marshal. As soon as he bagged Paul Gunderson, which she sincerely hoped he would soon do, he’d be off after the next fugitive. That was his job. His life. Chances were that she’d never see him again. Utterly depressed by the thought, she scooped Button out of the nest he’d made in the middle of her bed.
“Come on, fella. You’re going to keep me company while I sob my way through a schmaltzy movie or two.” She knuckled his head around the topknot she’d tied with a red ribbon. “Since I don’t have to work tomorrow, we might just make it an allnighter.”
They were halfway through Ghost, her all-time favorite tearjerker, when the doorbell rang. Treating Sheryl to an ear-shattering demonstration of newly awakened watchdog instincts, Button dug his claws into her bare thighs and sprang off her lap. Yapping furiously, he raced for the foyer.
Sheryl swiped at her tear-streaked cheeks with the bottom of her T-shirt and followed. To her surprise and instant, bubbling pleasure, she identified Harry MacMillan’s unmistakable form through the peephole. Reaching for the door chain, she shouted a command at the dog.
“Quiet!”
Naturally, Button didn’t pay the least attention to her. His ear-shattering barks bounced off the walls.
“Will you hush! It’s Harry.”
She jerked the chain off, flicked the alarm switch and threw open the door. If anything, Button’s shrill yips went up a few decibels when he recognized his nemesis, but the marshal had come armed this time. Flashing a grin at Sheryl, he knelt down and wafted a cardboard carton under the dog’s nose.
“Like pizza, pug-face? I got double pepperoni for you, pineapple and Canadian bacon for us.”
The nerve-shredding barking ceased as if cut off with a knife. To Sheryl’s astonishment, Button plopped down on the tiles, rolled all the way over, then scrambled back onto his paws. Jumping up on his hind legs, he danced backward, inviting Harry and the pizza in.
The marshal rose, smirking. “Even hairy little rodents can be bribed. It was just a matter of finding the right price.”
Sheryl stood aside, her heart thumping at the crooked grin. “Did you come all the way over here just to bribe your way into Button’s good graces?”
“That, and to cheer you up.”
Palming the pizza high in the air, he followed her into the apartment. He placed the carton on the whitewashed oak dining table and shrugged out of his jacket. The leather holster followed his sport coat onto the back of a chair. Sheryl turned away from the gun and drank in the sight of Harry’s broad shoulders and rugged, tanned face. The smile in his warm brown eyes acted like a balm to her spirits, pulling her out of her depression like a fast-climbing roller coaster.
“What made you think I needed cheering up?” she asked curiously.
“Let’s just say my cop’s instincts were working overtime again. I also want to go over the info you gave us on the Rio card one more time. Even the FBI’s so-called expert can’t crack the damned code.”
Ahhh. Now the real reason for his visit was o
ut. She didn’t mind. Working a few hours with Harry would do her more good than sobbing while Patrick Swayze tried to cross time and space to be with Demi Moore. Or lying in bed, thinking about Brian.
“Have a seat,” the marshal instructed, heading for the kitchen. “I think I remember where everything is.”
Button trailed at his heels, having abandoned all pride in anticipation of a late-night treat. Sheryl settled into one of the rattan-backed dining-room chairs as instructed and hooked her bare feet on the bottom rung. With a little advance notice of this visit, she might have traded her cutoffs and T-shirt for something more presentable. She might even have pulled a brush through her unruly hair. As it was, Harry would just have to put up with a face scrubbed clean of all makeup and a tumble of loose curls spilling over her shoulders.
He didn’t seem to mind her casual attire when he emerged a moment later with plates, napkins and a wineglass filed with the last of the leftover Chablis. In fact, his eyes gleamed appreciatively as his gaze drifted over her.
“I like the roadrunners.”
A hint of a flush rose in Sheryl’s cheeks. She definitely should have changed...or at least put on a bra under the thin T-shirt.
“We have a lot of them out here,” she said primly, then tried to divert his attention from the covey of birds darting across her chest. “Why do you want to go over the Rio card again?”
The glint left his eyes, and his jaw took on a hard angle that Sheryl was coming to recognize.
“I’m missing something. It’s probably so simple it’s staring me right in the face, but I’ll be damned if I can see it.”
“Maybe we’ll see it tonight.”
“I hope so. My gut tells me we’re running out of time.”
He passed her the wine and plates, then dug in his jacket pocket for a dew-streaked can of beer. The momentary tightness around his mouth eased as he popped the top and hefted the can in the air.
“Shall we toast the baby?”
“Sounds good to me.”
Smiling, Sheryl chinked her wineglass against the can. She sipped slowly, her eyes on the strong column of Harry’s throat as he satisfied his thirst. For the first time that day, she felt herself relax. Really relax. As much as she could in Harry’s presence.
Sure enough, she enjoyed her sense of ease for ten, perhaps twenty, seconds. Then he set his beer on the table, brushed a finger across his mustache and dropped a casual bomb.
“So did you give Brian his walking papers?”
Sheryl choked. Her wineglass hit the whitewashed oak tabletop with more force than she’d intended. While she fought to clear her throat, Harry calmly served up the pizza.
“Well?”
“No, I didn’t give Brian his walking papers! Not that it’s any of your business.”
“Why not?”
She glared at him across the pizza carton. Getting dumped by Brian was one thing. Telling Harry about it was something else again.
“What makes you think I would even want to?”
He leaned back in his chair, his expression gentle. As gentle as someone with his rugged features could manage, anyway.
“I was there, Sheryl. I saw him with Elise. I also saw your face when he went dashing back into her room.”
“Oh.”
A small silence spun out between them, broken only by the noisy, snuffling slurps coming from the kitchen. Button, at least, was enjoying his pizza.
Sheryl chipped at the crust with a short, polished nail. She wanted...needed...to talk to someone. Normally, she would have shared her troubled thoughts with Elise. She couldn’t burden her friend with this particular problem right now, though, any more than she could call her own mother in Las Cruces to talk about it. Joan Hancock adored Brian, and had told her daughter several thousand times that she’d better latch onto him. Men that reliable, that steady, didn’t grow in potato patches.
Maybe... Maybe Harry was just the confidant Sheryl needed. He knew her situation well enough to murmur sympathetically between slices of pineapple and Canadian bacon, but not so well that he’d burden her with unsolicited advice, as her mother assuredly would.
She stole a glance at him from beneath her lashes. Legs stretched, ankles crossed, he lounged in his chair. He looked so friendly, so relaxed that she couldn’t quite believe this was the same man she’d almost taken a bite out of on Inga Gunderson’s front porch. His air of easy companionship invited her confidence.
“Brian and I had a long talk tonight in the hospital waiting room,” she said slowly. “I didn’t give him his walking papers, as you put it. I, uh, didn’t get the chance. He gave me mine.”
A slice of pizza halted halfway to Harry’s mouth. “What?”
“He said that his time with Elise this morning changed every thought, every misconception, he’d ever formed about marriage.” She nudged a chunk of pineapple with the tip of her nail. “And about love. It shouldn’t be easy, or comfortable, or something we just sort of drift into.”
Snorting in derision, the marshal dropped his pizza onto his plate. “No kidding! He’s just coming to that brilliant conclusion?”
Sheryl couldn’t help smiling at the utter disgust in his voice. Harry MacMillan wouldn’t drift into anything. He’d charge in, guns blazing...figuratively, she hoped!
“Don’t come down on Brian so hard,” she said ruefully. “It took me a while to figure it out, too.”
Across the table, golden brown eyes narrowed suddenly. “Are you saying that’s all this guy was to you? Someone easy and comfortable?”
“Well...”
The single, hesitant syllable curled Harry’s hands into fists. At that moment he would have taken great pleasure in shoving the absent real-estate-agent’s face not just into the hallway wall but through it. Hell! It didn’t take a Sherlock Holmes, much less a U.S. marshal, to figure out that the jerk hadn’t fully committed to Sheryl. If he’d wanted her, really wanted her, he wouldn’t have moved so slowly or made any damned appointments! He would’ve staked his claim with a ring, or at least with a more definitive arrangement than their sort-of engagement.
But after seeing them in each other’s arms the other night, Harry had assumed...had thought...
What?
That Sheryl loved the guy? That she wanted Brian Mitchell more than he showed signs of wanting her?
The idea that she might be hurting was what had brought Harry to her apartment tonight. That and the sudden lost look in her eyes when the idiot had rushed back into her friend’s hospital room and left her standing there. That look had stayed with Harry all afternoon, until he’d startled Ev and Fay and the FBI expert still struggling with the key words from the postcards by calling it a night. Driven by an urge he hadn’t let himself think about, he’d stopped at a pizzeria just a few blocks from Sheryl’s apartment and come to comfort her.
He now recognized that urge for what it was. Two parts sympathy for someone struggling with an unraveling relationship: anyone who’d gone through a divorce could relate to that hurt. One part concern for the woman he’d worked with for two days now and had come to like and respect. And one part...
One part pure, unadulterated male lust.
Harry could admit it now. When she’d opened the door to him in those short shorts and figure-hugging T-shirt, a hot spot had ignited in his gut. He knew damned well that the slow burning had nothing to do with any desire to comfort a friend or to grill a team member yet again about the postcards.
It had taken everything he had to return her greeting and nonchalantly set about feeding her and the mutt. He couldn’t come anywhere close to nonchalant now, though. Any more than he could keep his gaze from dipping to the thrust of her breasts under the thin layer of pink as she rose and shoved her hands into her back pockets.
“I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner, Harry.” She paced the open space between the dining and living rooms. “I loved Brian. I still do. But I wasn’t in love with him. I guess I let myself be seduced by the comfortab
le routine he represented.”
Thoroughly distracted by the sight of those long, tanned legs and bare toes tipped with pink nail polish, Harry forgot his self-assigned role of friend and listener.
“Comfortable routine?” He snorted again. “The man has a helluva seduction technique.”
“Hey, it worked for me.”
The way she kept springing to Brian’s defense was starting to really irritate Harry. Almost as much as her admission that she still loved the jerk.
“Right,” he drawled. “That’s why you’re pacing the floor and ole Bry’s off on his own somewhere, pondering the meaning of life and love.”
She turned, surprise and indignation sending twin flags of color into her cheeks. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“Yours, sweetheart.”
He rose, barely noticing the way the endearment slipped out. Three strides took him to where she stood, all stiff and bristly.
“You deserve better than routine, Sheryl. You deserve a dizzy, breathless, thoroughly exhausting seduction that shakes you right out of predictable and puts you down somewhere on the other side of passion.”
“Is... Is that right?”
“That’s right.” He stroked a knuckle down her smooth, golden cheek. “You deserve kisses that wind you up so tight it takes all night to unwind.”
Harry could have fallen into the wide green eyes that stared up at him and never found his way out. Her lips opened, closed, opened again. A slow flush stole into her cheeks.
“Yes,” she whispered at last. “I do.”
Her breasts rose and fell under their pink covering. A pulse pounded at the base of her throat. Slowly, so slowly, her arms lifted and slid around his neck.
“Kiss me, Harry.”
He kissed her.
He didn’t think twice about it. Didn’t listen to any of the alarms that started pinging the instant her arms looped around his neck. Didn’t even hear them.
He’d hold her for a moment only, he swore fiercely. Kiss her just once more. Show her that there was life after Brian. That life with Brian hadn’t come close to living at all. Then his mouth came down on hers, and Sheryl showed him a few things, instead.
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