by Radclyffe
Bri shook her head. “I got an e-mail then too. She said everything was okay, that she was really busy, and wanted to know if everything was okay here.”
“Here, here?” Tory asked quietly. “Meaning me?”
“She didn’t say, exactly,” Bri said, looking uncomfortable. She adroitly avoided Reggie’s flailing hands and guided a spoonful of baby food into Reggie’s mouth. “She probably just meant work.”
“Probably.” Tory slid her arm around Bri’s shoulders. “I’m really glad that you came by. I’ve been going a little crazy just talking to Reggie, although it is nice that she never argues or contradicts me.”
Bri laughed. “So how are things.”
“I’m doing okay. You can tell her that, okay?” Tory rested her cheek against the top of Bri’s head for a second. “I really miss her, though.”
“Me too.”
“Are things all right with her gone and the busy season coming?”
“My dad rearranged the schedule some. It’ll be okay until Reese gets back. She won’t be gone that long.”
Tory gave Bri a squeeze. “I’m going to change, honey. Can you stay with her a few more minutes?”
“I can take her to Kate’s, if you want. She loves to ride in the cruiser.” Bri blushed. “The baby seat’s in the trunk.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re incredibly sweet?”
Bri grinned that cocky grin that had had her breaking hearts since she was sixteen years old. “Caroline does. Now and then.”
“I’ll just bet she does.” Laughing, feeling lighter at heart than she had since Reese left, Tory lifted Reggie from her high chair. “I’ll get her things together while you fix the car seat. And Bri? Thanks.”
“You know, I was sort of screwed up when I first met Reese, but she trusted me anyhow. Then the two of you took me in when Caroline and I had that bad spot last year,” Bri said quietly. “I think I might have been in trouble if you hadn’t.” She settled her hat low on her brows. “That makes us family, right?”
“Oh honey,” Tory whispered, kissing her cheek. “Yes, it does.”
*
Carter slid behind Rica on the beach blanket, extending her legs outside of Rica’s thighs, and wrapped her arms loosely around Rica’s waist. She nuzzled Rica’s neck just below her ear. “You’re shivering.”
Rica settled back against Carter’s shoulder, turned her head, and kissed Carter’s throat. “I’m not cold.”
“Sure?” Carter leaned to one side and retrieved the champagne bottle that she had propped up in the sand while they ate the sandwiches she’d picked up earlier. She refilled Rica’s plastic cup and then her own.
“Mmm.” Rica grasped Carter’s forearms and drew them securely around her middle. “The tide’s going out.”
Carter eased forward until her breasts and abdomen were tight to Rica’s back. “We’ve got a little bit of time.”
Rica tilted her head to see Carter’s face. “Do we? Funny, it doesn’t feel that way.”
“I do have to go back to the mainland for a while.” Carter had been wondering how to bring up the subject of her leaving, but now that the opening had arisen, she didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to think about it.
“For how long?” Rica’s voice was steady, almost emotionless.
“A few weeks. There are some important meetings I’ve been putting off, and now they’ve caught up with me.” She slowly caressed Rica’s stomach with one hand, stopping just below her breasts. “But it’s close enough for a visit now and then.”
“What is it that you do for my father?”
Carter sucked in a breath. “What happened to our deal?”
“The rules have changed.” Rica shifted around in Carter’s arms, drawing her legs up over Carter’s thighs as if she were sitting sideways in a chair, her torso nestled against Carter’s chest. Her eyes were wide and serious.
“Have they?” Carter asked, brushing her mouth over Rica’s.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Why?”
“Because we’ve been here for over an hour, and you’ve asked me about my work, and where I went to school, and what I like to do to relax.” Rica ran her tongue along the pulse that beat in Carter’s neck. “And because I told you.”
“Were they secrets?” Carter lifted the lower edge of Rica’s sweater and slipped her hand underneath. Her camisole was silk and glided beneath Carter’s fingers. Carter was grateful for the thin barrier that kept her from touching the firm, warm flesh beneath it. If she had been able to run her palm over Rica’s skin, she wouldn’t have been able to stop until she held Rica’s breast in her hand. Even as the muscles in her thighs trembled and twitched, she contented herself with pressing her mouth to the hollow at the base of Rica’s throat. “I just want to know you.”
“Why?” Rica didn’t ask accusingly, but more curiously. She covered Carter’s hand, placing hers outside the sweater, and guided Carter’s fingers upward to her breast. She arched her back at the first touch. “Isn’t this enough?”
When Rica’s nipple tightened into a knot beneath Carter’s fingertips, the sensation was like a fist in her midsection. Carter groaned softly. “It’s wonderful.” She rubbed her hand in a gentle circle over Rica’s breast and then back down her abdomen, breathing deeply until she could think again. “You must know I want you.”
“I do. It’s been in your eyes since the first time you looked at me.” Rica hooked her nails on the edge of the seam along the inside of Carter’s thigh and dragged her fingers up until they rested in the vee of Carter’s crotch.
“Jesus, Rica.” The sun was starting to go down and the wind had picked up. “We can’t make love out here.”
“I know. We should’ve slept together already, and we haven’t.” Rica squeezed the denim gently in her hand and rocked her wrist in a slow, steady circle. “I could make you come like this, though, couldn’t I?”
A muscle jumped along the edge of Carter’s jaw. “Yes.”
“Do you want me to?” Rica’s mouth hovered above Carter’s, her eyes so intense Carter felt feverish from the heat.
“Yes,” Carter gasped. “No. I mean, not—”
Rica relinquished the pressure. Her breasts were tight-nippled and distended beneath the cotton of her sweater. “That’s what I mean,” she said breathlessly. “You keep holding back. You want me, but you keep holding back.”
“It’s just—”
“I swore I’d never get involved with someone who worked for my father.” Rica gently removed Carter’s hand from beneath her sweater and eased back until her hips were no longer cradled against Carter’s crotch. “You make me forget things I shouldn’t.”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with that.” Carter knew she should let it go. That she should let Rica go now, but she couldn’t. “This is personal. It has nothing to do with your family.”
“It has everything to do with it, Carter. My whole life—everything I do—it all comes back to who my father is.”
“It doesn’t have to.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“It’s true if we say it’s true.” Carter didn’t know what she was talking about anymore. Rica’s father, her own job, the untruths between them—they all merged into one confusing tangle. She didn’t know which thread, if tugged even gently, would unravel the entire tapestry of secrets and lies. “Please, Rica, it’s just us here.”
“We should get back.” Rica stood and walked a few feet away, gazing out to the ocean, her arms wrapped tightly around her midsection.
“Damn it, Rica. Just talk to me.”
“About what?” Rica asked, her back still turned.
“Anything. Everything.” Carter stood, feeling helpless and frustrated. She wanted to make Rica understand things she didn’t understand herself. “I want to know who you are—every damn thing from the time you took your first breath.”
Rica laughed. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“Tell me about the first girl you ever kissed.”
“I was seventeen and she was in college. And we didn’t kiss—we fucked in the bathroom at a friend’s wedding. You?”
“I was twenty and so was she. I was so nervous I bit her lip and she bled on my shirt. I didn’t wash it for a month.”
“You’re not nervous when you kiss me.”
“Yes, I am.” Carter raked her hands through her hair, cursing herself for not being able to control her body. Not wanting to. She went to Rica, gently encircling her from behind again. She kissed the nape of Rica’s neck where the wind blew her hair away from her shoulders. “I don’t do anything for your father.”
Rica stiffened. “I know that’s not true.”
“I don’t, not directly. I’ve had some dealings with an associate of his.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“No. It isn’t.” Carter’s smoothed her hands over Rica’s shoulders. “I swear, it’s not what you think.”
Rica turned and studied Carter’s face. “I’m not sure that makes me feel any better.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“So am I.” Rica smoothed her hand over Carter’s chest. “It’s probably good if we don’t see each other for a while.”
The arousal that had been churning in Carter’s stomach tightened into a heavy ball of disappointment. “Why?”
“Because then when we do see each other again, maybe instead of talking, we can just have sex and get it out of our systems.”
“I like talking.” Carter kissed her. “But I like this too. I’ll call you when I get to Boston—”
“No. I don’t want to talk to you when you’re there. Doing whatever it is that you don’t do for my family.” Rica took a step back, breaking contact with Carter completely. “I’ll see you when you get back here. Where it’s just us.”
“It might be a few weeks.”
“I know.”
Carter watched helplessly as Rica packed up the remains of their meal and started toward the boat. She quickly rolled up the blanket and towels and followed. She was shivering now too. She found the jacket she’d left under one of the seats and handed it to Rica. “Here. You’re going to freeze.”
“Thanks.” Rica pulled on Carter’s jacket and wrapped her arms around her knees. She watched Carter push the boat off the sand and jump adroitly in. She rested her cheek against her knee and studied the woman who was still so much a stranger, but who seemed with each passing hour to be more and more a part of her world. And that’s what she hadn’t wanted to happen.
From the time she had been old enough to understand what it was her father did, she had carefully separated herself from all that entailed. As she’d gotten older, it had become even harder to do. She’d come to recognize that every family gathering was always more than that. Men took her father aside for whispered conversations in the midst of a wedding party, birthday gifts were bestowed like tithes, and guests subtly vied for the coveted seats at the tables closest to her father’s. There was always an undercurrent of unrest and danger.
She wanted none of it, and she had distanced herself as much as she could considering her father’s agenda for her. Now she found herself almost totally alone.
Until Carter. Carter threatened to draw her right back into the very arena she’d fought so hard to leave behind. She couldn’t let that happen. Time was what she needed. Time to close the doors Carter had opened.
Chapter Seventeen
“Hi, good morning. Hello, how are you?” Tory greeted the patients already gathered in her waiting room as she hurried toward her office.
“You have a nice holiday now, Dr. King,” one elderly gentleman called.
Memorial Day weekend. The start of the busiest time of the year. Oh yes, it will be wonderful.
“Thank you. You, too, Mr. Durkee.” Tory gave Randy a harried smile. “Everything okay?”
“Dr. Burgoyne is here,” Randy said. “I sent her back.”
“Thanks,” Tory said, checking her watch. For once, she wasn’t late. “Give me fifteen.”
“You got it.”
When she reached her office, Tory found her new associate perusing the photographs of Tory during her Olympic rowing days. Reese had done the same thing, the morning they’d met, but the similarity ended there. Bonita was a petite African American woman of thirty, with almond skin and warm brown eyes. “Good morning. Have you been waiting long?”
Bonita Burgoyne turned with a smile. “No, not really. I was early. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to live in a small town where it just takes a few minutes to get from one place to another.” She laughed. “I’m still on big-city time. In Rhode Island I had an hour commute and needed to get ready two hours early for anything.”
“Did you get settled in?” Tory dropped her briefcase on her desk and gestured to the chair in front of it. She sat down and glanced automatically at the framed photograph on the right-hand corner of her desk. Reese was right, she looked gorgeous in her desert camouflage BDUs. For just a second, Tory forgot what she was doing and thought back instead to their last phone call, which had been almost a week before. The connection hadn’t been great, but it was clear enough for her to hear that Reese was tired, and more than that, troubled. Troubled by the things, Tory imagined, that she had seen or perhaps done. Things that she hadn’t told Tory, and might never tell her. Unconsciously, she reached out and ran her fingers along the edge of the silver frame.
“How long has she been gone?” Bonita asked quietly.
Tory looked up with a start, then shook her head ruefully. “I’m sorry. Just about a month.” Actually, thirty-one days, five hours, and seven minutes.
“I saw the picture on your desk when I was looking at the ones up on the wall. I don’t mean to pry, but I’ve got a cousin there, too. I can relate.”
“It’s all right,” Tory said. “I hope we’ll be friends as well as colleagues.” She added quickly, “But you’re not required to share anything that you don’t want to.”
Bonita laughed. “I don’t have any deep dark secrets. As I told you during the interview, I don’t like the pace of city living and I don’t like the kind of medicine I’m being forced to practice with all the restrictions and bureaucracy in a big hospital. I want a quiet life, and I want to practice medicine that matters.”
Tory noticed that Bonita neatly managed to avoid mentioning what she wanted in her personal life. Tory knew she was single. She didn’t know if her new associate was a lesbian. Indeed, she knew very little about Bonita beyond her professional credentials, which were exemplary, and the fact that she was easy to talk to and seemed to have a calm, centered personality. Just what Tory needed in a medical partner.
“That’s pretty much what you’ll get here,” Tory said. “Peace and predictability.” She looked at the photo of Reese standing outside a tent in the desert. She could feel the heat on her skin just looking at it. “Most of the time.”
“How’s she doing? Does she say?”
“She’s a Marine,” Tory said with a small smile.
“Ah. One of my sisters and two of my brothers are cops, just like our father.” Bonita shook her head. “And they never talk about how hard it can be, either.”
“How did you escape the call, then?” Tory wondered at the trace of bitterness in Bonita’s voice.
“Never even heard a whisper. I had enough of the tough-guy attitude growing up. It’s the last thing I wanted in my life once I became an adult.”
“I think I can understand that. But we don’t choose who we fall in love with. And I wouldn’t change anything about Reese.”
“Good for you,” Bonita said sincerely.
“Yes. I know.”
*
Carter snagged a drink from a passing tuxedoed waiter and moved off to one side of the stone patio into the shade of a huge flowering dogwood. At seven p.m., under the golden glow of the setting sun, the expansive gardens behind Alfonse Pareto’s home were a riot of color
and fragrance. Their beauty, however, was eclipsed by that of the woman Carter watched as she sipped her 1995 Krug. She hadn’t seen Rica in three weeks, and while she hadn’t thought it was possible to forget how striking she was, she had been wrong.
Rica wore a white two-piece evening dress—a sleek sleeveless silk top subtly styled like a bustier and a floor length fishtail skirt—with heels that brought her close to Carter’s height. Her hair was pulled back from her face and held with a comb at the base of her neck. She looked exotic and untouchable. Every time she gazed in Carter’s direction, her eyes passed over Carter’s face as if they were strangers. Each time it happened, Carter felt the affront as if she’d been slapped. Finally, she couldn’t take it any longer.
Against her better judgment, she eased her way through the crowd and waited until Rica had stopped speaking to yet another of the men Carter recognized as Pareto’s captains. Then she closed the final gap between them.
“Ms. Grechi,” Carter said quietly, her eyes sweeping the crowd, relieved when she saw that no one was paying any particular attention to them. It wasn’t the smartest move for her to approach Rica in full view of people who might take notice, but she couldn’t help herself. Up close she could see that the top of Rica’s ensemble laced in the back, leaving her skin tantalizingly displayed beneath the thin silk strands. Carter’s fingertips tingled with the need to caress the small bare patches of skin.
“Carter,” Rica said.
When it seemed that Rica might not say anything else, Carter murmured, “You look amazing tonight.”
Rica slanted Carter a glance, then fingered the sleeve of Carter’s plain, black, tab-collared shirt while she slowly perused the belted trousers. “You’re probably the only woman in my father’s entire acquaintance who could manage to show up wearing this and not cause a stir. Prada?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I like the look.”
“I’m glad.” Carter sipped her champagne. “I called you when I was out on the Cape.” She’d only been able to get away once for more than a day in the last few weeks, and although she could easily have made the short trip out to the Cape with a smaller window of time than that, she was afraid she might be called back when she was there. She hadn’t wanted to rouse Rica’s suspicions by making another abrupt departure, so she had forced herself to stay away. But the longer she had gone without seeing Rica, the harder it had been to sleep. The harder it had been to concentrate. The harder it had been to do anything except think about Rica and how much she wanted to see her again. “I left a message.”