Swinging his arms again, Chris returned to Aiden. “Who was the guy?” Aiden asked.
“I don’t knοw. You saw how much talking she did.”
Chris stood at the curb until Sonnie went around a corner; then he set off after her.
Aiden followed Chris. He followed him all the way to the front windows of a crowded Laundromat and stood beside him. Inside, Sonnie had dropped her sacks to the floor while she fed coins into a detergent dispenser. Her face was flushed, her movements jerky.
“Some might make a case for harassment here,” Aiden said. “Will you tell me one thing?”
“If it’ll shut you up.”
“She’s let you know she doesn’t want you around. Why don’t you leave her alone?”
“Because that’s not what she wants.”
“Really? You mean she really does want you shadowing her?”
“The minute she gets things started in there, I’m going in. I’m going to make her talk to me. She wore me down until I wanted—until she made me agree to help her. Then, when I’m too far in to want out again, she gives me the cold shoulder. I want to know why.”
“You want the woman,” Aiden said, checking out his fingernails. “You’ve fallen for her.” He was fussy about his fingernails.
“Now that would be a really stupid move, wouldn’t it?” Chris said. “In case you’ve forgotten, she’s married.”
“Το a man who isn’t around anymore—hasn’t been heard from in months.”
“She’s crippled.”
“Don’t try to fool me. You don’t give a damn if she limps. She’s cute—in a different kind of way.”
Chris stared at him. “You aren’t her type, so don’t get any ideas.”
“Geez, sometimes there’s no winning with you.”
“I’m going in. Go back to the Nail if you like.”
“When I came all this way to spend time with my old buddy? No way.” He indicated his car, which happened to be parked within his sight. “And I want you to enjoy my pink pony for a while. You haven’t felt power till you’ve held her in your hands. I’m telling you, Chris….”
Sonnie felt the instant when Chris decided to come into the Laundromat. The other man followed him. She’d made a mistake and now she didn’t know how to back out of the terrible mess she’d made.
Next she felt silence form in the middle of all the hum and clank of machines. She didn’t have to check around to see what had caught the awed attention of the predominantly female customers. Her entourage would silence just about any crowd. She ought to feel lucky to have two dynamically handsome men following her around. What she felt was quite different. Trapped would be a better term.
For the first time since the accident, she wore shorts. The police had taken her into the house to collect clothes. The only things that didn’t reek of smoke were in boxes on shelves in a backyard shed. There she’d found shorts and several outfits that would do until she got the washing done. All morning she’d watched Chris and his friend from a gap in the hotel room blinds. She’d watched, and waited for them to leave. In the end she’d given up.
There were two empty washers. After pouring in the little boxes of detergent, she divided the clothes and stuffed them inside the front-loading doors.
“Says not to overload the machines,” Chris’s friend said from behind her. “Those are overloaded.”
She ignored him. Every other washer was in use and she wanted to get through and go back to her room.
“You won’t get anything clean. The way all that stuff stinks, that wouldn’t be a good idea.”
A snicker from nearby was quickly cut off. Sonnie checked out the other patrons. Several young moms with toddlers winding around their knees and babies in their arms. A woman wearing a crocheted hat from which large sequins hung and glittered, and who might well benefit from her own turn in a washer. And several men wearing only undershorts and playing cards while they apparently washed the rest of what they’d been wearing. Gaunt bodies suggested they could use a good meal, not that lack of food had inhibited the growth of their hair—including straggling beards and mustaches.
“What d’you think would happen if you put goldfish in one of those?” Chris’s friend asked. “Ιn cold water, of course.”
“They’d die,” Chris said.
“Even if you set it on delicate? And you wouldn’t put in detergent.”
If they’d planned a way to make her even more nervous, it was working. She’d leave while her clothes washed, only she didn’t really have any place to go other than back to the hotel.
“Salmon swim upstream, don’t they?”
“Your point?” Chris said. He sounded explosive, as if he was so close to the edge he was barely hanging on.
“Well, can’t be as tough to take a whirl in a washing machine as it would be to fight all those currents.”
“We’re talking goldfish here, not forty-pound salmon.”
“Ah, a lot of those salmon aren’t anywhere near forty pounds.”
Sonnie spun around and studied first one, then the other man. They were seated side by side, on green plastic chairs. Chris’s expression was solemn. The other one, the one built with the lean lines of a tall quarterback, and who had startlingly blue eyes, and lashes that ought to belong to a woman, smiled until he finally accepted that she wasn’t going to be amused. He shrugged and bent forward to rest his forearms on his knees.
Without a word, Chris moved one seat to his right and patted the chair he’d vacated. “Sit down, Sonnie,” he said, “before you collapse. Who was the guy with the shaved head who tried to talk to you?”
“The man who threatened me at the Nail that night.”
“Damn it. Why didn’t you give a sign? I’d have run him down.”
“I know. That’s why I didn’t. He asked me to forgive his behavior. I was too shaken up to stay calm.”
“You should have—”
“I didn’t. End of topic.”
“I want you to sit down,” Chris said, raising his voice. “It’s my job to look after you.”
Sonnie turned hot. She avoided checking reactions from the cheap seats and did as she was told. Promptly she closed her eyes.
Pressure against her side, Chris leaning close, was almost enough to make her cry out.
“Sonnie,” he said into her ear, “why did you run away like that last night?”
“I didn’t run away.”
“What would you call it when someone excuses herself to go to the bathroom and doesn’t come back?”
“I had to think about Roy and Bo.”
“What the….” He breathed heavily, angrily. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t have any right to take my trouble into their lives.”
“They want you there with them. That’s why they asked you to stay. They wouldn’t have insisted if they hadn’t meant what they said. There’ll always be a place for you with them.”
The butterflies in her belly sickened Sοnnie. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt like eating. “Why don’t you go back and apologize to them for me? Tell them I’ll be in touch.” He was choosing to forget how he’d embarrassed her by announcing that he’d stay with her while his friend used the cabin.
“Nope,” he said. “I’ll go back when you come with me.” She opened her eyes and looked at him. “You’re making a fool of me.”
Chris assumed the same forearms-on-knees pose as his friend.
“We didn’t have a chance for a formal introduction this morning. I’m Aiden Flynn. Pleased to meet you.”
The large hand that was thrust before her demanded attention. Sοnnie tried to touch palms quickly with Aiden Flynn, but he was too fast for her. Immediately her fingers were enveloped in a strong grasp.
For the first time she exchanged a dedicated examination with the man. He might put on a flippant act but he was one serious guy. “Hello, Aiden,” she said. “I didn’t hear where you’re from.”
“All ov
er,” he said, and the directness in those eyes didn’t invite deeper questions on the subject. “Chris and I go way back. We’ve lost touch recently. I decided to put that right.”
“Great timing,” Chris muttered, apparently engrossed in the card players. “Nothing like dropping in on very busy people.”
“He’s always had a charming way about him,” Aiden said, still holding her hand, still not smiling. “But he’s a hell of a good man to have around. Resourceful. Determined. Bad tempered. Arrogant. Good body. Winner of the best manacled-woman tattoo contest—”
“Stow it, Flynn,” Chris said, looking at them over his shoulder. “And you can quit holding hands. How long is this going to take?”
“What?” Aiden said.
“I wasn’t talking to you. How long does it take to wash the clothes?”
“You got a maid or something?” Aiden said, undeterred. “You never used a washing machine?”
They had the attention of everyone in the place—including the card players, who had breasted their hands and turned their chairs for a better view.
“Can I get a straight answer?” Chris said. “In case you’ve both forgotten, we’ve got places to go and things to do.”
Sonnie caught the eye of the woman in the sequined bonnet and saw…pity? An old irreverent streak that hadn’t surfaced much of late chose that moment to return. Sonnie shook her head and cast her eyes heavenward.
“They’re all the same,” the woman said. “Nο good, any of ‘em.”
Sonnie nodded. “But you try making one of them believe that,” she said. “They think every one of them’s a gift.”
“Men,” said a woman with four children who might have about eight years between them.
Sonnie congratulated herself on remembering a universal language guaranteed to create a diversion.
“Cute,” Chris said., while one woman after another joined in a comparison of annoying male traits. “How did you do that?”
“Please go, Chris,” she said, as quietly as she could. “I’m trying to work out what to do. When I do, you’ll be one of the first to know.”
“Damn it all,” he said, silencing the women instantly. He looked around at them, then aimed a winning grin at a little boy who appeared close to tears. “Have you started your Christmas list? Hope so. Takes a long time to write down all that stuff.” The child might not know much of what Chris was talking about, but the conspiratorial tone won out and produced a giggle.
“See,” Aiden said. “I told you he was resourceful.”
“Ma’am,” Chris said to the woman in sequins, “are you going to be here for a while?”
“I’m the attendant.”
“Ah.” Somehow he managed to sound enlightened. “So you’ll be here.”
“I’m paid to be here.”
“That right?” He worked his wallet from his back pocket and took out a clump of bills. “When our stuff’s ready, we’d be very grateful if you’d take it from those two washers and put it in a dryer. If that’s okay, we’ll stop back for it later.”
Our stuff? Sonnie sought about for something to say but came up empty.
“That’ll be fine,” the woman said. She pointed to a scale of fees on the wall, counted out several dollars, and handed the rest back to Chris. “I’ll be here all day. If you don’t get back before closing, I’ll lock your things in the back room.”
Chris thanked her and gave her another dollar—and held Sonnie’s elbow while he stood up. She had little choice but to stand with him. Aiden got up on her other side, smiled all around, and walked out of the shop.
Aiden continued to walk ahead of Sonnie and Chris. She was too aware of her left leg, of how much thinner it was than the right—and too aware of how she was being manipulated by a forceful man she’d been the one to pursue until he decided to be caught.
The street was all but deserted. To the right the ocean was visible, and a purplish haze hung on the horizon. A desolate atmosphere had slithered in to fill the landscape. Only here had Sonnie ever felt the presence of disaster borne on gardenia-scented air.
“Storm coming,” Aiden called back to them. “Think we’re going to get that hurricane?”
“Could be,” Chris shouted. “You’ll knοw it if we do.” She’d been too preoccupied to follow the weather forecast as closely as people usually did down there.
“You and I need time alone,” he said to her. “You’ve been through a lot, but trying to turn me off now doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. You need me more, not less.”
“No. No, you’re wrong. I’ve been thinking for hours. I’m not sure what I ought to do, but it’s going to be different from what I’ve been doing.”
“You’ve decided you don’t want to know what really happened when you crashed?”
“I crashed. That’s it. Time to accept it.”
“I see. So what does that mean?”
“Just what I’ve said. I’ve done enough damage already. And I’ve been warned about it. Sometimes you have to accept that you’re not going to win and move on.”
“Run away, you mean?”
She tried unsuccessfully to pull her arm from his hand. “You ought to knοw about running away,” she told him. “You’ve already admitted that’s what you’re doing.”
He didn’t even flinch, but the last thing she expected was his light kiss on her lips. She caught at his shirt to steady herself. The kiss stopped as quickly as it started, but they didn’t step away from each other.
He crossed his arms around her and studied her face. “You’re right,” he said. “Mostly. I was running away—past tense. You stopped me, and I’m not going to run anymore. Not as long as I’ve got something to stay put for.”
“You can’t make me responsible for your actions.”
“Can’t I?” he asked, bending tο kiss her again. This time for much longer. The thought came and almost instantly left that she was a married woman standing on a public street and kissing a man who wasn’t her husband. His hands were in her hair, caressing her neck, the sides of her face. And she leaned on him, and wished they were somewhere private, somewhere that would allow them to go wherever the moment took them.
They paused for breath and Sonnie rested her face against his chest.
“Are you ready to tell me everything now?” he asked. For an instant she felt disoriented. “I’ve told you.”
“No, you haven’t. You’ve barely begun. I want to know about your husband—all about him. What happened the last time you were together? Why was he away so much when you were pregnant? He wasn’t even playing most of the time.”
“Don’t,” she said. “Please don’t.”
“Too late. You came here because you don’t believe what you’ve been told to believe. There have to be reasons for that, and you surely haven’t shared much about them with me. Vague comments, but not much more.”
“I know I more or less begged you to help me.” His fingers on her mouth distracted her. “I know I did. But I shouldn’t have. It’s too dangerous. If I don’t give this up I really believe someone will get hurt. Someone else.”
“Nothing doing.”
She frowned at him.
“You’re trying to get rid of me. I’m not going. You’ll have to get a restraining order to stop me from following you around. You prepared to do that?”
He was making this too hard. She’d…She was never going to forget him, but she owed it to him to cut loose now. “I’ll do it if I have to.”
“No, you won’t.”
A hint of sunlight played over the hair and skin at the open neck of his shirt. Sonnie watched skin move over bone and touched it before she could stop herself.
“No, you won’t,” he repeated.
“No, I won’t,” she agreed. “But I’ll find a way to keep you safe. Being around me isn’t safe. Where’s Aiden?” She turned her head.
“He’s playing with the Harley.” Chris said. “It’s not his thing. Look behind you. See that pink monstros
ity?”
“The pink Mustang? Isn’t it beautiful?”
Chris groaned. “Not you, too. It belongs to Aiden. Do not encourage him to talk about it.” He picked up her locket and turned it over. He snapped it open and said, “Who’s Jacqueline?”
She couldn’t explain, or even tell him he had no right to pry.
He looked more closely and said, “Ah. You had a little girl, too.”
“Too?” Despite the heat she turned cold. “You had a little girl, Chris?”
He laughed. “No such luck. Slip of the tongue. I was thinking about something else. But this was your baby, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” Sometimes it was easier to be straightforward. “I like thinking about her. This makes me feel I’m still carrying her with me.”
“This isn’t the time or the place, but I…You’re very important to me. You know what l almost said then, but I’m not ready to say it, and you’re not ready to hear it. You may never be. But you asked me to stand with you in whatever comes and I agreed. We didn’t sign any contracts, but we might as well have. D’you understand?”
She nodded. “But I’m going to make you see that it was a bad idea from the beginning.”
“Good luck. Even you aren’t that persuasive. Let’s move before we manage to draw another crowd. The intrepid few will be on their way to Mallory Square shortly. Not that there’s going to be much of a sunset.”
Sonnie wasn’t sure what to do next. “Ι’m probably going back to Denver.”
“I don’t think so.” Chris held her hand and they strolled back toward the Bariyan Inn. “Have the police told you when you’ll be free to start putting the house back together?”
“They said within a few days. What do you think Edward was doing in that room? In a sleeping bag?”
He didn’t want to scare her, but neither could he pull punches anymore. “I think he was waiting for you. Ena said he’d mentioned liking you and how kind you were to him. Maybe not too many people were kind to Edward and he wanted to spend time with you.”
She shuddered. “He waved to me and I waved back. That was it. I never met him. Was he planning to attack me in the night?”
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