by Mary McBride
"Well, you should be, goddammit."
"Sonny, you…" Melanie closed her mouth. Not only were they being gawked at by passersby, but they'd had this argument before at least a thousand times. What was it Sonny didn't understand about the word divorce?
"Just get in the car," she told him. "I'm taking you home and then I hope I never see you again. Never ever ever."
She slid behind the wheel and jabbed her key in the ignition while she waited for him to get in.
"Mel, I—"
"Don't say it. I don't want to hear it. It was a simple trip to the hardware store to get paint and you had to turn it into World War III."
"I lost my temper," he said almost sheepishly.
But there was nothing remotely sheepish in her voice when she replied, "That's too bad, Sonny, because you know what? You'll probably never find it again, either, in that chaos you call your life."
She jammed the car in gear, then turned up the radio so she couldn't hear him anymore.
* * *
Chapter 4
« ^ »
Melanie wasn't even sure how long she'd been sitting in the nursery, rocking in the maple rocker, staring at the unpainted drywall. Daylight had disappeared, and the little room was lit only by some stray light from the hall.
Her stomach growled angrily to remind her that she hadn't eaten either lunch or dinner. She might never eat again.
What a mess. What a horrible, freaking mess. There was no way she could deliberately or in all good conscience begin a pregnancy under so much stress. So, once again, she decided to cancel Monday.
She had to. It was one thing to say she intended to ignore the menace next door, but to actually do so was proving impossible. Sonny had spent the day hauling one load of trash after another out of the house and pitching it into the huge garbage bin in his driveway. Every time Melanie peeked out the window she cursed herself and promised she wouldn't do it again, but twenty minutes later—when she heard a crash or a thump outside—she'd find herself at a window, peeking out.
For a guy who claimed to be so distraught and distressed about the breakup of his marriage, he struck her as pretty cheerful. She heard him whistling half the time he was hauling trash. He paused to pat stray dogs and to chat with neighbors who bore housewarming gifts and, more often than not, while he chatted, he'd gesture toward her house. Melanie would have to jump back from the window so nobody saw her.
When Mike Kaczinski had stopped by with Connie and the kids, Melanie had hardly been able to tear herself away from the window. Oh, God. Little Michael had grown a foot and the baby, Jacob, was walking! It was all she could do to not run over there and grab up that little bundle of baby fat and giggles. Instead, she stood there like a spy and watched Sonny do it.
Damn him. He'd never paid all that much attention to the Kaczinski kids before so she suspected he was merely putting on a show for her, playing Daddy the same way he was playing Herbert Housekeeper and Cop on the Block. He was pretending to toss baby Jacob into the trash bin, and every time he swung him toward it, the little guy would squeal with glee. Each time Sonny stopped, Jacob would beg for more.
"More, Unca Summy. More."
Melanie finally had to turn away, not because she was afraid to be seen, but because it was breaking her heart and making her have second thoughts about canceling her appointment. She wanted her baby in nine months. Not ten.
She'd waited too long already. At thirty-one she was just barely under the wire for planning two pregnancies without things being dicey because of her age.
Aside from his chaotic lifestyle, that was probably the real reason she'd walked out on Sonny. "Let's wait a couple years, Mel," he'd say whenever she broached the subject of having a child. Or he'd brush her off with, "As soon as I stop working on the street, okay?" Or, "There's time, babe. We've got all the time in the world."
Her stomach complained again, and this time Melanie decided she'd best give it a little food before it shriveled up like a pitiful raisin. She gave a last, forlorn look at the bare, baby-duckless walls and then started down the stairs just as the doorbell rang.
With her jaw clenched like a vise, she almost couldn't ask, "Yes? Who is it?"
Through the door she heard, "It's Dieter, liebchen. So sorry I'm so late."
Dieter? Late? And then she remembered! Oh, Lord. Dieter Weist was to come at seven for a glass of wine and a consult on some architectural changes she was contemplating up in the playroom. She didn't want to insult the prize-winning designer by telling him she'd completely forgotten, so she slapped a bright smile on her face, opened the door, and welcomed him in.
* * *
Sonny glared at the silver Porsche parked in front of Melanie's house when he could no longer glare at the tall Nordic type who'd parked it there a while ago before sauntering up the walk and ringing the doorbell. If this was a date, they were taking their sweet, damned time getting it under way. He checked his watch. Sven or Hans or whoever he was had been in there an awfully long time. Close to half an hour.
In the months since their divorce had been final, Melanie hadn't had all that many dates, and those that she'd had, she hadn't enjoyed one bit. At least not the ones when Sonny had tailed her.
There was the dinner at Reggio's and the James Bond movie afterward with that vanilla-ice-cream news anchor from Channel Twelve when Mel could barely stifle her yawns. Sonny could hardly bear watching her that night because she'd been wearing the same gray suit, the one with the little scrap of skirt that she'd worn when he'd fallen for her. The news anchor appeared to appreciate it, too, and seemed sincerely wounded when Mel hadn't invited him in for a nightcap.
Then there was the concert at Emlin Hall with some lawyer old enough to be her father where she'd actually nodded off for a good five or six minutes. She hadn't invited that old codger in for a nightcap, either.
The one and only nightcap occurred when she'd gone out with Bryan Bast, the real estate wonder boy, who'd somehow enticed her back to his downtown penthouse after an evening on the town. She'd stayed for half an hour and looked as if she'd been nursing a headache when she'd left.
She'd had a couple dinners with Sam Venneman, but Sonny hadn't even bothered to surveil those. Oversexed Sam needed Melanie's talents and organizational skills far more in city hall than he needed them in bed, so His Honor wouldn't have dared to put any moves on her outside of work.
But this Sven guy was a new player, a complete unknown. Not for long, though. Sonny called the precinct and asked Cathie Powers to run a quick make on the Porsche's plates. After she called him back, he stood staring out the kitchen window, nursing a headache of his own.
Who the hell was Dieter Weist and why was he still inside Melanie's house after all this time? Just when exactly was the big blond bozo planning to leave?
"You're walking a pretty fine line between surveillance and stalking, don't you think, Son?" Mike had said to him as they'd stood right here the night before.
But just as quickly as Sonny recalled those words, he pushed them out of his consciousness. He wasn't stalking her, for crissake. She was his wife.
* * *
"I see they've sold the house next door," Dieter said as he leaned forward to drag a broccoli floret through the dip that Melanie had thrown together. "Have you met the owners yet?"
"It's our new Cop on the Block," she answered without going into the grisly details.
Although she'd spent an incredible amount of time with this man when he was supervising the work on her house, she didn't really consider him a friend. Dieter was sweet with his graying blond hair tied back in a ponytail and his blue eyes framed by wire-rimmed glasses, but he wasn't someone to whom she could pour out her troubles. Anyway, the architect probably had enough troubles of his own, she guessed, since rumor had it that his longtime house-mate, Kevin, had just moved elsewhere.
"Really!" he exclaimed. "Good for you, liebchen. How did you manage to get us at the top of the list?"
"I didn't, ac
tually. It was simple good luck." Melanie took another sip of her wine to wash down the lie.
"Well, that should make you even more comfortable with your decision about having the little one." Dieter licked a dab of mayo from his finger. "With a policeman next door, you won't even need an alarm system. All you have to do is open a window and yoo-hoo."
She managed a tight smile while he contemplated the vegetables again, this time choosing a carrot.
"So, Monday's the big day?" he asked, immersing the carrot stick in the pale green dip.
Melanie nodded. For the moment, at least, her on-again, off-again pregnancy was on. "I've still got so much to do to get ready. The nursery isn't even painted yet. Dieter, let me ask you something."
"Anything."
"Can you imagine a shade called baby-duck yellow?"
He didn't even snicker. The man regarded her with his frank blue eyes and said, "Of course. I see it as a pale, pale gold. Is that the color you chose for the nursery?"
"Yes. Yes, it is." Melanie popped a crisp, plump bud of cauliflower in her mouth and chewed it almost smugly.
"Excellent choice, liebchen, especially since you don't know whether it will be a boy or a girl."
"Thank you. Well, I don't want to take up too much of your time. I've made a list of some of the things I'd like to do with the playroom. Let me go and get it."
"Good. Good. This is excellent dip, by the way. Scallions? Or did you use chives?"
"Scallions," she said over her shoulder on her way into the kitchen, thinking how she almost cut off her finger earlier while chopping the garlic and green onions for the dip because she was looking out the window more than at the cutting board. She looked out again now as she pulled her playroom list from a drawer.
It was hard to believe that Sonny hadn't lobbed a hand grenade at Dieter's car or done something else equally insane. The fact that his place was dark, without even candlelight shimmering through a dirty windowpane, didn't mean he wasn't there lurking. She was fairly certain that he'd followed her on a couple of dates in the past few months, but she couldn't prove it. No judge worth his robe would issue an order of restraint based on her flimsy, "Well, I just felt his eyes on me."
Dieter was waiting for her at the bottom of the staircase. "Any time you want to get rid of the Tabriz," he said, gesturing toward the deep blue and crimson Persian rug that ran up the stairs, "just let me know. It's quite nice. Didn't you tell me your parents bought it on their honeymoon?"
"My grandparents, actually. It is nice, isn't it?"
"You'll take it up, of course, until the little one isn't tempted to spill glue and grape juice on it."
"Why no!" She blinked. That had never occurred to her. In fact, she'd been intending just the opposite by leaving all of her expensive Persian carpets just where they were to cushion all of the baby's trips and stumbles just as they had cushioned hers when she was small. "I thought I'd leave them down."
He gave a tiny grimace. "That doesn't sound like you, Melanie. You're usually so careful and precise."
As she followed him up the stairs, she couldn't help but think that the man was right. It didn't sound like her at all, leaving a small fortune in textiles to the mercy of a little person guaranteed to throw up and have all sorts of wet accidents. It sounded more like something Sonny would do, and she wondered if his bad habits were crossing the driveway, marching like little black ants, to invade her house.
Ah, well. Maybe she would take the carpets up then. She'd put that on her To Do list.
By the time they climbed the narrow stairs to the third floor, Dieter was breathing a bit heavily.
"Well, let's take a look at what you want in here," he said, rubbing his hands together while he gazed around the huge empty space. "Let's see your list."
Melanie stretched out her hand automatically, but the list wasn't in it. Dammit. "Sorry. I must've left it downstairs," she said. "I'll be right back."
"Fine. No problem. I'll just wander around and see if I see anything." He clasped his hands behind his back and started pacing toward the tall dormers at the front of the house. "Sometimes ideas jump out from odd places."
Melanie trotted down two flights of stairs, found her list on the little Queen Anne table in the front hall, and hoped Dieter wasn't going to think she was crazy to want him to design and build a small stage with a proscenium arch on the north side of the playroom. She wanted one just like the one in the house where she'd grown up, where she'd spent so many magical hours at play.
But then again, maybe he wouldn't think it was crazy. Maybe he'd think it was sweet and charming. After all, the man hadn't laughed at her vision of baby-duck yellow. Unlike some others, he knew precisely what she meant.
She was on her way back upstairs when she heard Dieter bellow, "Nein. Nein. Was is los?"
Good Lord, what was wrong? Had he been attacked by bats or spiders or something? Had he "seen" something horrible? Was there a ghost on the third floor? She quickened her step, but the big Bavarian nearly trampled her in his rush down.
"Dieter, what's wrong?"
"This is terrible," he said, barreling past her. "Fools! Idiots! Gestapo!"
It wasn't until she followed him out the front door that she realized why he was so upset. A police department tow truck, its lights flashing almost viciously, was backing up to his Porsche, preparing to tow it away.
"Nein. Nein. Halt. Was is los?"
Someone stepped from behind the truck to ask in a deep, familiar voice. "Are you the owner of this vehicle, sir?"
Sonny! My God, she should have known. Poor Dieter had been in the United States for more than thirty years and Lieutenant Sonny Randle, King of Chaos and Emperor of Aggravation, had just reduced the poor mm to babbling in his native tongue. Lieutenant Randle was still wearing his denim shirt and jeans, but his badge was prominently displayed on his shirt pocket, not to mention the tough cop look so prominently displayed on his face.
"Ja, ja. It's my car."
"Well, I'm afraid it's parked too close to the fire hydrant, sir. We're going to have to tow it."
"Nein. Nein. It's my car!" Dieter wailed.
Melanie looked at the fire hydrant and mentally measured the distance to the Porsche's front bumper, concluding there was at least a foot to spare. "Sonny, you can't do this," she howled.
"Oh, no? Stand back and watch, babe," he said out of the corner of his mouth. "Hook 'er up, fellas," he called to the towing guys.
"Nein!"
Dieter practically threw himself across the hood of the little car. "Please don't take it, Officer. Let me move it. Please. Bitte schön. I beg you."
"Well…" Sonny drawled.
"I have the keys right here." He dug in his trouser pocket and produced a jingling ring of keys. "See! I will move it away from the hydrant. Ja?"
Melanie stepped forward. "Dieter, you don't have to…"
"Shush," he told her brusquely. "I will handle this, Melanie. Please."
"Fine. Okay." Dismissed by the German, she threw an evil, it's-all-your-fault look at Sonny who seemed to be enjoying himself no end.
"Well, I guess I could let you off the hook just this once," he said, rubbing his jaw as if he were actually contemplating something. "But you can't just move it a foot or two. You're going to have to get that vehicle completely out of my sight."
"I can do that, Officer." The architect hurried around to the driver's door to unlock it. "It isn't a problem. I was just leaving anyway."
"Dieter!" Melanie protested. "What about…?"
"I'll call you," he said. "Next week. Thank you, Officer."
The Porsche's engine came to life, its headlights rose from their wells, and Dieter sped away while Sonny and his two tow truck cronies exchanged high fives and slapped one another on the back.
"You need us for anything else, Lieutenant?" one of them asked.
"That'll do it, guys. Thanks."
That did it, all right. Melanie was so furious she thought the top of her skull might
actually blow off.
"I could just kill you. Sonny," she shrieked. "Careful, Mel. That could be considered threatening an officer of the law, you know." He grinned, a gorgeous white slash of a grin between the deep crevices beside his mouth. "I'm just doing my job, ma'am, keeping the community safe and the hydrants accessible in case of fire." He snapped a salute. "The Cop on the Block, at your service."
The fact that he looked so damned sexy just made her angrier. "You're ruining my life, Sonny Randle. In fact, ever since you moved in, I haven't had a life. I've hardly even eaten and my head hurts like hell."
Melanie spun on her heel and nearly ran back toward her front door, but she should have known that Sonny would get there first and block her entrance. Hot, furious tears burned her eyes.
"Get out of my way."
"Let me fix you dinner, babe." As he spoke he held up his hands to deflect her swats and slaps.
"No."
"Come on."
"No!"
He caught her hands in his and pulled her toward him, then lowered his voice close to a whisper. She could feel his warm breath at her temple when he said, "I screwed up, baby. Big time. I know that. But now I know how to do this right. How to do us right. Let me come in, Mel. Just to talk. Just for a little while." When he stopped speaking, his lips pressed against her hair in silent supplication.
"Oh, Sonny." Melanie leaned her forehead against his chest. "There's nothing to talk about. Can't you see that? Don't you understand? There is no us anymore."
"Okay. No us. Let's talk about you, then. Let's talk about you and this baby business of yours."
Her chin snapped up. She had no idea he knew. "You know about that?"
He sighed roughly. "Honey, everybody in city government knows about it. Hell, everybody in town! If I hear one more joke about sperm banks, I'm going to have to start breaking heads."
"I, uh, I didn't realize you knew."
"Can we talk about it?" he asked softly.
She studied his face a moment, trying to get a fix on his attitude, not knowing exactly how to deal with this quieter, less aggressive side of him. There was something in his eyes—a sadness or a sorrow, perhaps even a pain—that she'd never seen before. Good Lord. He actually looked vulnerable.