“Your eyes are brown.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Yeah.”
“Since when?”
“Since I put contacts in today. I didn’t want to take a chance with anybody recognizing me at the community center.”
“Nobody would recognize you with your blue eyes.”
“You did.”
I snorted. “Yeah, but I was in” love with you. I stopped myself in time. Looking away from his brown probing eyes, I grabbed a white carton and opened it.
General Tzo Chicken. I tilted the box and shook some out on my plate.
“You were in what?”
I shrugged. What could I tell him I was in other than love? I was in shock? I was in heat? I was in hot water?
With his chop sticks, he reached and grabbed a piece of chicken off my plate. “I wish you wouldn’t keep secrets from me, Abigail. You can talk to me.”
“And you can talk to me, but you don’t. You go all caveman on me.”
“What’s that mean? Go all cave man?”
“Not talking to me, showing up when you think something is wrong, grabbing me by the hair and pulling me back to your cave.”
“I haven’t grabbed or pulled.”
“You know what I mean.”
He heaved that big sigh of his.
“It isn’t easy for me to be back here,” he confessed.
“Well, who asked you to come riding in here on your big Harley and save the day?”
“You did after somebody threw a brick through your window.”
So he did know. I stood up and glared at him. “Not to save me, Scott. I can take care of myself. I wanted you to hold me, to be with me, to love me and be happy about it.”
“Happy about it? Come on. I can’t sleep at night worrying about you roaming the streets of inner city Clavania and staring down gang members. You are not invincible.”
“I am not Sarah.”
His shoulders stooped. “Don’t bring her into this.”
“She’s already in it, babe. Your whole life has been about saving Sarah. She’s dead, Scott. She’s been dead a long time. You can love me without trying to finish all my races for me. I’m a big girl. If I need protection, I will tell you. I swear it.”
He pushed back from the table and stood. Turning, he walked into the living room. “I’m beat. I’ll go to a hotel if you want.”
“Of course I don’t want you to go to a hotel.”
“Okay. I’ll take the couch then.”
“Don’t be like this.”
He did look at me then, the deep pain mirrored even with the colored lenses. “I’m trying, Abigail. I really am.”
My heart turned over. I closed the few feet separating us. “I know. I’m sorry.” I raised my hand to touch him, but lowered it again. I didn’t know if he’d want me touching him. “I wish you’d come to bed with me. I like it when you hold me. I promise I won’t try to infiltrate any banger’s hideout ever again. I have been smarter. I’m trying, too.”
In bed, Scott kept to his side and turned his back to me. This was a first. I felt like an old married couple—sharing space, and that was it. Resisting the urge to spoon him, I slid my foot over and touched his leg. He was still here. That was enough for me tonight. I fell asleep thinking we could get through this. Sometime later, a guttural howl woke me up. I gasped at the agony of it, opened my eyes, and saw Scott sitting up holding his head.
“Scott? Was that you?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry.”
“Did you scream? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” I scooted over placing my arm around him. His back was wet with perspiration.
“I’m okay.” He sucked in air as if he were having trouble breathing.
“No, you’re not.” I placed my fingers on his neck to feel his pulse racing. I reached to get the telephone on the nightstand. “I’m calling 9-1-1.”
“No.” He sucked in more air. “I’m fine. This happens sometimes. It’s an anxiety attack or a nightmare. Maybe both. It’ll pass.”
I placed the phone back on the charger, though I was not sure if I should believe him.
“Really. Just give me a few minutes.”
I slid off the bed and turned on the light. Crossing my arms, I studied him. He still had his face buried in his hands. I sat next to him and pulled at his arm. “Look at me.”
He did. His eyes were red and haunted.
“Tell me what makes you cry out like that.”
He shook his head slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. He didn’t want to tell me.
“Please.” I needed to know.
He rubbed his neck, his shoulders stiff. I moved behind him and kneaded the tense muscles.
“Is it a bad dream?”
“Yes, but it really happened.”
He was silent for a moment, and I thought I was going to have prod him to tell me more.
“It was before you came to work at the center. Just a few days, actually. I had been undercover for maybe six months. One night I remember being really hungry. I had…” He stopped. “I can’t tell you this.”
“You can. You can tell me.” I moved my legs hugging them around his waist and my arms around his shoulders. “I won’t judge you. I want to know.”
“Okay.” He sighed. “I had gone behind Bernie’s Restaurant. They throw their food out in foil so it keeps longer. I thought I’d see if anything was back there.”
I bit my lip. Oh, my heavens. Scott had been so hungry he had eaten out of garbage cans.
“Somebody else was back there. A prostitute was getting the shit beat out of her by her john. She was crying for help.”
I squeezed my arms. “So, you tried to help her?”
“No, I didn’t. I just looked through the garbage, took what I wanted and left.”
Oh, the poor woman.
Scott turned his head to stare at me. “It didn’t even cross my mind to help her. I remember thinking if she died, that was one less miserable person in this cesspool.”
“Oh, Scott.”
“So, you see what kind of man I am.”
“Yeah. One burned out, tired, and hungry one. They should have pulled you off the case then so you could get some rest.”
“Maybe they should have, because I realized I didn’t care anymore. I didn’t care about anybody or anything except trying to survive. It was disgusting.”
“You still worked the case, didn’t you?”
“Oh, I was on automatic pilot by then. Exchange the info disks, report any gang or drug activity, watch Bryant’s back. And when you showed up, make sure you weren’t dealing.”
I tightened my arms around him.
“I didn’t like what I had become. Being Eli was like not even being a person. I didn’t give a shit about anybody, and nobody gave a shit about me.”
“But you know that wasn’t true. Your mom, your family. They love you. Even Bryant. I know he considers you a good friend.”
“When I was on the streets, it was different. I don’t ever want to be that again.”
“You won’t. You said you weren’t doing long-term, undercover work.”
“Don’t you see? I could be that way again given the right circumstances. I hate that part of me. In the dream…in my dream I’m the john beating her up.”
I moved around so that I was now in his lap. Kissing him briefly, I drew back. “You’re too hard on yourself. The dream is just a dream. That day you were in a really tough situation. Of course, you were going to be hardened. But when I knew you, when you were still Eli, I saw how you cared.”
“I didn’t care about that prostitute.”
“You did and you do or it wouldn’t be bothering you. Maybe you can still find her.”
“I did.”
“Was she dead?”
“No. I tried to help her. She cussed me out, and that was it.”
“Well, see? You did try to help her.”
“Maybe she would have let me the night she cried out for help.”
“Sc
ott.” I shook my head. “Honey, you’ve got to stop this. You can’t save every person.”
“Neither can you, Joan of Arc.”
“All right. I get it. Me Pot. You Kettle.”
“Look at our pretty ebony shade.” Scott grinned for the first time. I grinned back.
****
Scott had told me he would stay through Saturday and help with the fieldtrip. The staff of the community center were taking the kids to a pumpkin farm an hour and a half out of town for a cookout and hayride. Scott and I fell into a pattern of me going to work and him helping at the center in the afternoons and going with me on audits in the evenings. He never told me what he did while I was at work in the mornings. However, I did notice I had a new window in the bedroom, a motion detector light installed outside of the apartment, and a phone jack complete with phone in my bathroom. Lovely. I could talk on the phone while I peed.
I hadn’t made any headway with Angel. While Scott had been in another part of the building with the elementary kids, I had gone to see Angel’s grandmother again. My friend Minnie, at the museum, had asked for one or two more pieces of Angel’s work which she had offered to try to sell in the amateur exhibition the museum was hosting in November. I thought if Angel saw his work was good enough to sell in an art museum, he might realize it was worth his time and manly effort. On Thursday I drove us to Minnie’s instead of back to the Candle Factory. Once again, Scott didn’t agree with my plan to help Angel. He sat beside me in a tense silence.
“Look. Angel’s artistic skill is the key to getting him out of the Nights.”
“You can’t win this. It’s too late for him.”
I didn’t reply because I didn’t want to argue. But it wasn’t too late. Angel had to see how good he was. Minnie had raved over his abstracts.
When we arrived at the museum, I pulled the prints from the backseat. Scott followed me inside without comment. I’d met Minnie Winthrow two years ago when I was assisting with an audit of the museum. I’d just passed my CPA exam, and Minnie insisted to Dale that I should do the audit solo. Because Minnie’s husband was one of the wealthiest businessmen in the state, and a client of Wainwright and Potter, Minnie got her way.
I’d been in awe of her ever since. Not only did she have a Steel Magnolia personality, but she had this gorgeous coffee cream complexion I’d kill for. Even at seventy-three she had very few wrinkles. And that wasn’t because of plastic surgery either. It was good genetics. She’d told me so herself. In Minnie’s, office I stood anxiously like a mother hen as Minnie held up a painting of a wino laid out on a park bench. The background included dark streaks running across the canvas. In the foreground several pigeons preened and strutted perhaps waiting for a morsel of bread. One pigeon off to the left side was sprawled on the ground as if it had been stepped on. The scene was disturbing and powerful.
“I don’t like this,” she declared.
I clutched my hands. What? I thought it was incredible.
“But,” she continued, “I want it. I think I could get eight for it.”
Since I’d never seen anything under fifty dollars even at the amateur exhibits, I knew Minnie was talking eight hundred dollars.
I glanced at Scott. He approached Minnie standing behind her and studied the painting.
“Who would want that hanging on their wall? It’s depressing.”
Minnie looked over her shoulder and her glasses at Scott. “Pain makes a statement.”
“It’s not a statement I’d want in my house.”
“Perhaps, sir, I could interest you in the bowls of fruit the kindergarteners drew during their visit last week.”
I covered my giggle with a cough. Not very convincingly, if Scott’s glare at me was any indication.
Minnie placed the canvas on her desk. “I’ll have to have it matted and framed. Do you think Angel would mind? I’d take the cost out of his commission.”
“I think it’s fine.”
“Good.” She picked up the telephone on her desk and told someone named Jordyn to come get the paintings and take them to Pendleton Framers. In a moment, a tall slim woman with wire framed glasses entered the office.
“Here they are, Jordyn.” Minnie handed her the canvases. “Tell him I need them by the fourteenth.”
“Yes, Minnie.” She accepted the paintings and hurried out.
“I want to meet this child. Can you get him here?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
You can probably guess between Scott and me which of us said what. “Minnie, I’ll call you.” I took Scott’s hand and pulled him from the office. After we were settled in the car, Scott began.
“How can you even think of doing this? Need I remind you Angel Carlisle has already put you in the hospital once?”
“That was circumstantial, Scott.”
“Come on.”
“I won’t do it by myself. I’ll get Darvey to go with me.”
“Darvey, hah.”
I shook my head but said nothing. I didn’t know what Scott had against Darvey. He had done so much to help me when I’d been searching for Eli, and he’d let me stay at his house to protect me. Scott should be grateful to him instead of treating him like a rival.
A rival. I took my eyes off the road for a moment and gave an astonished look to Scott. “You’re jealous.”
“Jealous?” He snorted.
“You shouldn’t be. He and Delia are dating.”
“Don’t change the subject. I want you to stay away from Angel, his paintings, his grandmother, and anything else to do with him. I mean it.”
“You’re wrong about him.”
“What if I’m not?”
I didn’t have an answer for that question. I waited for more demands, more orders, more predicted doom if I didn’t stay away from Angel. None came. Scott suggested we go out for dinner at a cozy restaurant nestled on the side of a mountain. We sat next to a wall of glass overlooking the many twinkling lights of the city.
“How did you find this place?” I asked as I watched the line of white and red lit movement on Interstate seventy-five below us.
“I asked Conley where I could take someone to make her fall in love with me.”
What? Was this the same Scott who had cursed and run when he had unintentionally declared his love for me? What was he doing? What was he up to?
My eyes flew to his heated gaze. I squirmed in my seat feeling the temperature go up about ten degrees. He tilted his head still gazing at me sending me signals of what he’d like to be doing right now with me instead of sitting on the other side of the table
“Yeah?” I quipped. “How many times has it worked?”
“You can be my first time. How would that be?”
I recognized his words from the first night I had been at his house, slept in his bed, the first time he had slept in his bed. Gulp.
I shook my head. I had no idea what to say.
“When I get you back to your apartment, I’m going to love every inch of you.”
My hand knocked over the long-stemmed glass of water. A waiter hurried over and mopped up the water with a large snowy white napkin apologizing as if he’d something to do with it.
I realized Scott had changed tactics on me.
Later that evening, he nibbled my neck as I tried for the third time to get the key in the lock of my front door. His hands gripped the door frame, and he pressed me up against the door.
“Would you wait? I can’t get the door open.”
Sliding one hand down, he steadied my hand, the key entered, and the knob turned opening the door. He held back as I deposited the keys in my purse and set it on the counter. I bypassed the motorcycle and faced him.
Now what? Right here on the floor next to his Harley?
Scott sauntered in, closed the door behind him and locked it.
“I want to make a deal with you tonight,” he declared as he came to stand in front of me and cradled my head in his hands. “I want your promise that
you’ll give up on Angel.”
His hands had moved to my shoulders where his fingers kneaded the muscles. “What kind of deal is that?” I tried to sound stern but failed.
“I promise I will do anything you want, give you anything you want tonight.”
“Sexually?”
“Anything.”
“Cheesecake from Bonhoeffer’s?”
His hands stilled. “If that’s what you want.”
“You’ll take a bath with me?” I knew he hated taking baths. He was a shower man from way back.
“Yes.”
“Hmm.” I was really liking this, but I didn’t want to give up on Angel. I knew I could help him. I knew it.
“I can take your Harley out for a ride by myself?”
A slight hesitation. “Do you know how to drive a motorcycle? I could teach you, and you could…take it out.”
I almost had him. I could tell by the look on his face the offer was painful. Scott treasured that Harley like it was a baby. He didn’t even like leaving it in the parking lot.
“Paint your fingernails red?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
“I care about Angel. He’s a good artist. He could get out of this.”
Scott lowered his head and kissed me. “Please,” he whispered against my lips. He rained tiny kisses along my cheek to my ear. “Please,” he repeated. His fingertips traced my spine under my shirt. “Please.”
He was still pleading with me an hour later in my bedroom. He had asked me what he could do to pleasure me. And he said it with a straight face, so he got points for that. Plus for not scowling when I laughed. What could he do to pleasure me? Presently, he was giving me a pedicure. So intent on his task with his head bent, he peered at my freshly lotioned toes which he was now carefully filing. I considered loopholes to ‘the deal.’
“Can I give Minnie Angel’s granny’s number?”
“That’s not giving up on him.”
“I told Minnie I’d get Angel over there to meet her.”
Unforgettable Heroes Boxed Set Page 80