by Mary McBride
The first time happened when she was making coffee. She'd forgotten how many scoops she'd already measured into the basket, so she'd had to dump it all back into the canister and begin again, not bothering to level off the excess in each scoopful because she knew that Sonny liked his coffee strong.
Then, while she was taking eggs from the refrigerator, she started thinking about the baby again. She'd chosen the names Alex and Alexis based on her maiden name, Sears. Now that the baby's surname would be Randle, she wanted to reconsider those first names. Plus, Sonny might have one or two definite opinions about a name.
Also, she decided, she really ought to keep a record of their lovemaking to help her pin down the exact moment of conception.
Back went the egg carton. Out came a pen to make a small notation on the calendar she kept on the refrigerator door.
After that she couldn't stop herself from peeking ahead nine months on the calendar, and then she peeked farther ahead, to December, picturing the baby's first Christmas. But this time Sonny's handsome face played a major role in her recurrent mother-and-child fantasy. Now she envisioned three red-and-green stockings hanging from the mantel, and for a moment she could actually see her husband's strong hands with the fingers slightly splayed to cradle a tiny person in a tiny pair of bright red Christmas jammies.
Well, except he wasn't her husband. Not yet.
She should probably be looking at the month of June and fantasizing about a wedding. It was only when she heard the water running upstairs that she suddenly realized she'd been daydreaming so long she'd completely forgotten to pour water into the coffeemaker, not to mention the eggs and everything else about breakfast.
So Melanie, the Princess of Planning, the Paragon of Preparedness, suddenly found herself scrambling around the kitchen to get the coffee brewing and the eggs scrambled before Sonny came downstairs. She almost laughed at her own distractedness and lack of efficiency, wondering if it was even possible to be wildly in love and minimally efficient at the same time, trying to recall if she'd been quite this ditzy the first time around.
It took Sonny a bit longer to come downstairs than Melanie had anticipated, and she was sitting at the table, halfway through her first cup of milk-diluted coffee and a revised list of baby names, when he finally appeared in the doorway.
As soon as she looked up and saw him standing there—jeans riding low on his lean hips, no shirt to disguise the sculpture of his chest, no shoes, bleary blue eyes and a day's worth of rough whiskers shadowing his jaw—Melanie wanted him. Wanted him with a vengeance. She absolutely ached to feel Sonny inside her again, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with creating a baby. She wanted him just for herself. Right here. Right now.
For the first time she noticed the bruise on his chest where she assumed the Keviar vest had stopped the bullet during the drug raid. The knowledge that she'd almost lost him before they'd had a chance to try again only increased her present desire.
Melanie took a quick sip of her coffee, hoping to clear her heart from her throat and maybe douse a few of the flames kicking up inside her. She'd consider herself lucky if steam didn't start escaping from her ears and nose.
"Morning', darlin'," Sonny said in a voice that was still a bit roughened by deep sleep.
"Good morning," she replied cheerfully, enormously relieved that the words didn't come out of her mouth as vapor instead of sound.
Out of a corner of her eye, she watched Sonny amble across the kitchen toward the coffeepot, and was immediately struck by the subtle change in his demeanor. He didn't move like a guest in her house anymore. He seemed perfectly at ease, reaching into a cupboard for a mug as if he knew just where it would be and filling it with dark liquid from the pot. As he sipped, he wandered over to the refrigerator where he stood staring at the calendar fastened to the door.
"What's the F for, Mel?" he asked between sips. When she'd made the notation of their lovemaking, she'd chosen an obvious initial from the four-letter word she was sure she wouldn't confuse with anything else. It also stood for fertility. She had debated using I for intercourse, but decided she might confuse it with the Roman numeral one, and S—for sex—was already taken to signify shopping.
"It's for us last night," she said. "I'm really serious about this baby, Sonny."
"Yeah. I can see that." He kept staring at the calendar. "If you weren't serious, you wouldn't have used a capital F."
Melanie put her pen down on top of her baby name list and pushed her chair back. "It's just a way of keeping track."
"Ah. So the F is for…"
"Fabulous," she murmured, sliding her arms around his waist and pressing her cheek to the warm skin of his back. "Fantastic."
"Well, that's a relief, Felix." He let out an exaggerated sigh. "For a minute there I thought it was a grade."
Melanie laughed softly. "No. I don't post those on the fridge. I keep them in my secret notebook."
"I see," he said. He drained his mug, then reached out to set it on the counter before turning to pull her close against him. "So," he whispered, "what did I get?"
She loved the feel of his lips drifting across her temple, warming her with his breath, stoking the fire inside her. "Last night?"
"Uh-huh."
"You got an A-minus."
Sonny jerked his head back and glowered down at her. "An A-minus?" he muttered. "An A-minus?"
It was all Melanie could do to not burst out laughing. She did her best to keep a straight face. "Well, there has to be room for improvement, don't you think, if we're going to be doing this for the next fifty or sixty years?" As she spoke, she pressed her hips against his.
"Well, yeah, but…" Sonny's words diminished to mere breath as he kissed her ear, her jaw, her neck, her collarbone.
Trying to pretend she wasn't tantalized one bit by the kisses, Melanie murmured, "It makes perfect sense. See, if I had given you an A-plus for last night, Sonny, there wouldn't be anything left to strive for or to look forward to." Her hands were moving over the lithe muscles of his lower back, along the waistband of his jeans. Her fingers were nearly tingling with his heat.
"That's true." He stopped kissing her long enough to lift his arm, crook his elbow, and cast a lazy glance at his watch. "Kinda early for striving, Mel. It's seven-fifteen."
"Mmm," she purred. "I've been looking forward to striving since I woke up at six."
She slid her fingertips into his back pockets, intending to urge him even closer. Her right hand encountered his cell phone in one pocket just as her left came into contact with a little square package that felt suspiciously familiar.
"You won't be needing this," she said, easing the wrapped condom from its snug place against his backside. "Might as well just pitch it," she added breezily. "What do you think?"
Sonny didn't say a word. He stood motionless, not even trailing those delicious kisses along her throat anymore.
What had she done? Melanie wondered. Had she made him angry somehow? She didn't understand this at all. It was pretty unnerving, being kissed and fondled one minute, and getting the silent treatment the next.
"What?" she asked.
"Mel." He sighed, then looked down at the floor for a second—pretty guiltily. Melanie thought—before he said, "We need to talk."
"About what?"
"This." He took the little package from her hand. "And that." Now he angled his head toward the calendar.
Her heart started drumming, this time with absolute dread instead of wild anticipation. She felt a little dizzy. A lot dizzy. "I think I need to sit down."
* * *
While Mel sat stiffly, as if she'd just been strapped into the electric chair, Sonny poured himself a second mug of strong coffee. He had to be the world's biggest jerk for doing what he'd just done, telling a woman in obvious heat that it was time for a little talk.
"More coffee, babe?" he asked.
"No. No, thank you." Her voice wafted across the space between them like a chilly breeze, but even so ther
e was the smallest suggestion of a tremor in it.
God. What did she think he was going to say to her? Better yet, what the hell was he going to say?
You hurt me, Melanie?
You broke my heart?
Broke his freaking heart! What kind of geeky, whiney, adolescent sentiment was that?
He strode across the floor, thumped his mug of coffee on the table, turned one of her bentwood chairs around and straddled it. It wasn't so different from the routine he went through before he questioned a suspect. Brusque. Intimidating. He could feel his adrenaline kicking up.
You broke my heart.
You might as well have stuck a knife in my gut.
You hurt me.
"Look, Mel, I just think we ought to…"
There weren't any more words to be had, not safe ones anyway, not ones that could make it past the lump gathering in his throat, so his mouth just hung open for a moment before he snapped it closed and shook his head. "I don't know," he muttered. "Hell."
"Well, I don't understand this," she said in a tight, small voice. Her fingers were trembling as she fiddled with the pen and pad of paper on the table in front of her. She'd already rearranged the salt and pepper shakers half a dozen ways, and aligned her mug of coffee so its handle sat on a perfect east-west axis. "I thought… Don't you want to have a baby, Sonny? Is that what this is all about?"
"Yeah," he murmured. "Sort of."
Her gaze jerked up from the notepad. There was surprise, disappointment, even a little despair in her expression.
"No," he said quickly, trying to erase that wounded look. "That's not what I meant. I'd love to have a kid. I just don't think we should rush, that's all."
"'Rush'?" She repeated the word as if she didn't quite comprehend it.
"I think we should wait until we're sure," he said. "About us."
Then, still unable to get to his own painful bottom line, to articulate his deep hurt, Sonny let his voice drift off again. God, he was such a coward. "I think we should take it slow. Just to make sure. Take some precautions. You know."
She sat up a little straighter and her blue eyes got a little frosty. Her voice iced over when she said, "I noticed you weren't in a rush to take any precautions last night."
"You ambushed me." A little grin flared, then fizzled on his lips.
Across the table, however, Melanie wasn't grinning. Her lips turned down in a bitter curve. To Sonny, his ex-wife looked as if she'd been sucking on lemons for the past year or so.
"Oh," she exclaimed. "So it was all my fault, then?"
"Last night wasn't anybody's fault, Mel, for crissake." His hands came up and his voice rose in spite of his intention to keep it level and low. "Will you just listen to me for a second?"
Before she could reply, the doorbell rang. They both sat quietly, glaring at each other—a featherweight and a welterweight, sent to their separate corners by the bell.
Without a word, icy or otherwise, Melanie pushed back her chair and stood. She cinched the sash of her robe with such force she nearly bisected herself at the waist, then squared her shoulders and marched out of the room.
* * *
Melanie probably wouldn't have been so quick to open the door if she hadn't been angry or if she hadn't been aware that she was reasonably safe with the Cop on the Block just a shout away. When she jerked the door open, Sonny's partner, Mike Kaczinski was just reaching for the buzzer again.
"Hey, Melanie," he said, giving her a quick, tight smile. "I'm sorry if I woke you up. I know it's really early, but I figured… Well, I was looking for…"
His glance flicked over her shoulder, into the hallway. "There you are. I've been trying to call you for hours, man," Mike said irritably. "I guess you turned your phone off."
"What's up?"
Sonny's deep voice reverberated through Melanie's bones as he came up close behind her. She could feel his body heat seeping through the fabric of her robe. For a moment she forgot that she was angry and bitterly disappointed, forgot that he was still the same old, haphazard, not-ready-for-fatherhood man she'd once been married to.
"A body in a Dumpster," Mike said. "It wasn't easy to identify it, but we're pretty sure it's Lovey."
Now Mike glanced at Melanie again, and she instantly read the meaning of his all-too-familiar expression. It was a combination of Pardon me, little lady, I don't want to burn your delicate ears and Sorry, ma'am, but this is official police business. It was a look that had irritated her in the past, but right now she was more than happy to take the hint.
"Well, I'll just let you two have some privacy."
She ducked beneath the arm that Sonny had braced against the door frame and beat a retreat to the kitchen. Once there, she plopped back into her chair at the table and stared out the window while she absently listened to the low and serious "cop" voices filtering back from the front door.
Her gaze played over the house next door. The house. The thirty-year mortgage that went with it. The stupid minivan parked in the drive. What was all that? Just a way for Sonny to worm his way into her house and eventually into her bed, and then, once there, letting her know he really hadn't changed at all? Was it all a ploy to get back at her for being the one to leave?
If so, she'd fallen for it like a ton of used Channing Square
bricks. Like a willing fool. All that remained to be said now was one big Gotcha from Sonny.
She heard his footsteps going up the stairs and a moment later caught a glimpse of Mike strolling around outside the house next door. He gazed up at the boarded windows on the second floor and shook his head in a kind of bafflement, then sauntered over to the huge Dumpster, stood on tiptoe, and peered in. It was the cop in him, she thought. Sonny did the same thing. Wherever they were, they were always on the lookout for dead bodies.
She felt like one herself at the moment, a corpse sitting at the kitchen table, one who simply hadn't had the good sense to fall over yet.
"I've got to go down to the precinct for a while, Mel."
Sonny was standing in the doorway, tucking his white polo shirt into his jeans. He'd already slipped on his shoulder holster, along with his stony-cop expression. All he lacked was a big shiny badge pinned to his chest, a bright tin star that proclaimed Sheriff.
"Fine," she said, hearing her cold tone and hating the way she sounded. The word came out of her mouth like an ice cube from a dispenser.
So, of course, Sonny offered one of his beleaguered sighs as he came toward her. "I wish I had time to fight, babe," he said, leaning to kiss the top of her head.
For Melanie, all of a sudden it was déjà vu. It was their marriage breaking apart, shattering all over again. It was almost too much to bear a second time around.
"Mel?" He tilted her chin up.
"What?" Plink. Another ice cube.
"I love you."
Then it wasn't ice cubes falling from her mouth, but hot tears streaming from her eyes. She couldn't even speak except to utter a choked, "Oh, Sonny," as he strode out of the room.
* * *
Mike was wearing dark shades on the drive to the station so Sonny couldn't read the look in his eyes, but there was no mistaking the grin that kept flitting across his partner's lips.
"Say it," Sonny said from the passenger seat of the unmarked Mercury.
"What?"
"Whatever it is that's putting that goofball smirk on your face."
The goofball smirk turned into a laugh. Mike took his left hand off the steering wheel and cupped it to his ear. "Listen, Son. Do you hear that?"
Sonny rolled his window down a few inches. "I don't hear anything but traffic."
"Oh. Okay. Never mind." Mike gripped the wheel again. "I thought I heard the tinkling little sound of wedding bells."
"Very funny," Sonny grumbled.
"So, do I need to get my blue suit to the cleaner's so I can play best man again?"
He didn't answer, partly because he didn't know the freaking answer, and partly because he didn't wa
nt to think about Melanie right now. Every time he thought about her, he saw those huge tears running down her cheeks. And what had he done about them? Pretty much the same as always. He'd walked away as fast as his fumbling feet would carry him. God. He'd rather take on six drugged-up, knife-wielding, jack-booted gang members than one tiny, crying woman. Mel didn't cry often, but when she did, it killed him. It just killed him.
"Tell me more about Lovey," he said, reaching into the pocket of his windbreaker for a cigarette.
"I told you all we know so far," Mike said. "A couple sanitation guys found her body late yesterday behind a Dumpster they only pick up once a week. The medical examiner estimates she's been dead four or five days. The official report should be coming in sometime today."
Sonny cupped his hand around the lighter's flame, pulled in a long drag, then blew the smoke out the window.
"I thought you were trying to quit," Mike said.
"I am." He exhaled more smoke along with a muted curse. He thought of Saturday night when he'd scoured half the city looking for the prostitute after her frightened phone call. Lovey was probably dead even before he'd given up and gone home.
Whoever had beaten and stabbed her, had also stuffed the piece of paper with Sonny's address and phone number in Lovey's mouth. Only it turned out that Sonny, rushing to join Mel, had scribbled the wrong numbers for the address of his new house. He'd written the numbers of the house that had been torched the other night.
Slink Kinnison's message was abundantly clear. Anyone who snitched on him could expect the same treatment that Lovey had received. And Sonny, as the ringmaster of those snitches, better back off. Or else.
Sonny swore again. "Goddamn that Heilig. This wouldn't have happened if he'd done his damned job right, if he hadn't cared more about dragging his ass home the other night than he cared about giving Lovey some protection after she begged him."
"Hey." Mike's voice was sterner than usual. "Heilig's got two-year-old twins and a brand-new baby in an incubator at Saint Catherine's. Cut the poor guy a little slack on this one, okay?"