Callaghan's Way

by Marie Ferrarella

  She shrugged. It was far too complicated to dissect. “It didn’t change.” She saw the skepticism in his eyes. “Not exactly,” she amended. “It just got a little bent out of shape, that’s all.”

  “By Don?” He thought he already had his answer, but he wanted to hear it from her.

  There was no use in lying. She wasn’t about to protect Don’s memory. There was no one to protect it for. Ethan knew what his father had been. Knew more than she wanted him to know. “Yes.”

  From out of nowhere, Kirk’s anger flashed, hot and consuming. “The son of a bitch.” There was a silent apology in his eyes, an apology because somehow he had let her down. “I wish I’d been here.”

  Rachel could only laugh softly. His sentiment echoed hers so closely. “Funny, so did I.”

  She knew she had surprised him. He pressed her even closer and ran his hand along her back, comforting her, supporting her. Rachel thought how good it was to have him back. How wonderful it was to just talk to him. To have him here like this.

  She raised her head to look at him. Something stirred, something different. Electricity sparked through both of them, jolting them to a level of awareness neither was sure how to deal with yet.

  “You did?”

  She nodded, her mouth as dry as cotton. “Cameron’s been wonderful, but before I told him what was going on—” She stopped herself. She was getting ahead of herself. “Before I told him I was getting a divorce,” she clarified, when she saw suspicion enter Kirk’s eyes, “I secretly wished that you were here.” This part was safe to tell him. She didn’t want to tell him everything. It hurt too much to admit.

  It seemed an odd thing to say, when she’d had her brother here to take her part. Though he teased her, Kirk knew Cameron would do anything for Rachel. They both would. “Why?”

  The answer was very simple. “You were my knight in shining armor.” She smiled as she remembered the way she’d felt about him, even before she had her crush. Or had that crush been a part of her all the time? Maybe, she mused in retrospect. “I used to think you were invincible.”

  The silly sentiment almost made him laugh. And yearn a little. That surprised him. He hadn’t thought he was capable of yearning anymore.

  “I wish you’d been right.” If he had been invincible, then perhaps none of the rest of it would ever have affected him. Perhaps he could have witnessed all that misery and not had it leave an indelible mark on him. He had gone to record it, to bear witness to the world’s sorrow and to convince himself that he was not alone in his unhappiness. But, by and by, the magnitude of it had managed to overwhelm him. And it had burned him out. Misery didn’t love company. It was appalled by it.

  “What happened?” She asked the question so softly, he almost didn’t hear her at all.

  “When?” he countered evasively, knowing he’d said too much, alluded to too much.

  She had no idea when this devastation of his soul had begun. She chose the likeliest point. “When you left Bedford.”

  Shrugging, he avoided her eyes. And attempted to avoid the sensations sweeping insistently through him as he felt every minute part of her body against his, reminding him that he was still a man, with a man’s needs, even though he had thought those needs long gone and buried. “I bummed around, free-lanced, got a job.”

  Rachel frowned. He was being deliberately evasive, and it hurt her. “I’m not asking for a chronological development of events, Kirk.”

  The sharp note in her voice had him looking at her. His own defenses locked into place. “Then what are you asking for?”

  She bit back her frustration. This was Kirk, and he needed her, even if he didn’t want her butting in. “What happened to your soul, Kirk?”

  It was cynicism that curved his mouth this time, not humor. “I pawned it in one of those little out-of-the-way thrift shops along the way, traveling through one ravaged country after another. I don’t remember which one, so don’t ask.”

  She wasn’t going to allow him to put her off with flippant remarks. “Seriously,” she insisted.

  The music seemed to fade into the background. He looked into her eyes. “Seriously,” he echoed.

  He wasn’t going to tell her. Rachel let the matter drop. She was afraid she had struck a nerve. Afraid that Kirk had told her more than he wanted to, and more than she could assimilate right now.

  She wanted to help, not hinder.

  With a surrendering sigh, she rested her cheek against his shoulder again and let the music take her. For a moment, she simply drew comfort from the fact that he was here. Drew comfort from him.

  The music pulsed all around them. Kirk wished she didn’t smell so good. Like salvation. Like a woman. He’d returned to strike at the heart of his problem, and to take solace as best he could from the friends he’d left behind. Cameron and Rachel. He’d thought of them as a unit. He hadn’t wanted to do anything else but be with them, to find a little peace before he completely self-destructed.

  Instead, he was having some very definite reactions to the woman he held in his arms. Those reactions had nothing to do with peace, and everything to do with deep, gut-wrenching sexual attraction.

  He felt almost disloyal for the stirrings that were curling through him, like a giant coil about to be released.

  Rachel silently prayed that the band would go on playing forever. Or at least a while longer. She hadn’t felt this good in a long time.

  “Hey, honey, how’d you like to wrap yourself around a real man for a change?”

  Rachel felt the hand on her arm, cracking the euphoric shell around her. At the same moment that she heard the question, she smelled the pungent cloud of alcohol engulfing her. She raised her head in time to see a dark glint entering Kirk’s eyes.

  “She’s with me.” Kirk’s voice was low, and all the more dangerous for it, like the warning growl of a cougar.

  Rachel turned around to look at the man whose hand was still on her arm. He was heavyset, tall, his eyes squinted into small slits as he attempted to focus them.

  “But she can be with me.” He exhaled, and Rachel stiffened, bracing herself against the smell. “Why don’t we let the little lady make her own choice?”

  Beneath her hand, Rachel could feel Kirk’s heart pounding, like an old-fashioned engine working up a full head of steam. She knew that at any moment Kirk was going to push her behind him and take the challenge the man presented. There was no doubt in her mind that Kirk had the advantage, even though he was smaller. The man was drunk and out of shape. Rachel had seen Kirk handle himself in a fight just once. She never wanted to see it again.

  Instincts had her turning so that she blocked Kirk’s reach with her body.

  “The ‘little lady’ has chosen,” she informed the drunk tersely, hoping that would be the end of it. All around the perimeter she could see that people had stopped dancing to gather around and watch, even though the band continued playing.

  But as she turned her back on the man, she felt his hand land roughly on her shoulder. He jerked her around to face him. “Then make it the best two out of three, sweetcakes.”

  “She said—” Kirk began, attempting to harness the rage he felt.

  Too drunk to realize the danger he was in, the man contemptuously planted a hand on Kirk’s chest and shoved him back.

  “Nobody’s talking to you.” He turned toward Rachel, ready to claim his prize.

  It happened so quickly, Rachel had difficulty absorbing it all. She raised her knee to deliver a strategic blow that would rid her of this nuisance, but she never got the opportunity to follow through. There was no need to. Half a second later, the man was on the floor at her feet, out cold. One punch from Kirk had ended the confrontation quickly.

  Scanlon’s bouncer came running over to them. The wooden floor vibrated from his hurried approach.

  Rachel didn’t wait for the man to speak. “He started it.” She pointed at the unconscious man, jumping to Kirk’s defense.

  Concurring murmurs
came from the ring of people around them.

  The round-faced man grunted as he took an arm and yanked the troublemaker to his feet. “Don’t worry, I saw the whole thing,” the bouncer assured her.

  He slung the unconscious man over his shoulder with no more difficulty than if he were a raincoat. Admiration shone in his small, deep-set eyes as he looked at Kirk. The customer had just made his job easier for him.

  “Hey, buddy, you ever want a job here, you come see me.” The bouncer turned toward the crowd. “Show’s over, folks. Go on having a good time,” he urged them patiently. Then he looked over his shoulder at Kirk and Rachel one last time before disposing of his burden outside. “Dinner’s on the house.”

  Rachel let go of the sigh she’d been holding as the bouncer walked away and the crowd began to disperse. She smiled at Kirk, attempting to lighten the tension that had all but sawed through them. “Well, it seems you got out of paying this time.”

  Taking her arm, Kirk escorted her back to the table. He was accustomed to stalking through life alone, eschewing manners and the finer points of etiquette. Somehow that didn’t seem fitting around Rachel. She brought a gentler world into being for him.

  He held her chair out and waited until she was seated again. “Does that mean I still owe you a dinner out?”

  She raised her eyes to his. “What do you think?”

  “I think I can bear it a second time, if need be.” Humor faded as he looked at her shoulder. He could make out the faint, smudged imprint of the man’s fingers on her collarbone. Kirk sobered immediately. “Did he hurt you?”

  That dangerous look was back in his eyes, the one she didn’t recognize. She shook her head, quick to reassure him. “How about you?” She glanced at his hand. His knuckles were red. “Your knuckles sting?”

  Kirk passed his hand over them reflexively. He’d been so incensed that he hardly felt anything when he made contact, but now his knuckles throbbed. “I’ve had a lot worse.”

  She winced. “I’m sure.” Perhaps that was the source of his pain, she thought, all those things he had been forced to witness. His beat had been the seamier side of humanity, the side that had fed his basic pessimism until it all but engulfed him. “Will you tell me about it?”

  The coaxing note in her voice tempted him to unburden himself. But it wouldn’t be fair. He had to do this very carefully, to spare her as much of the horror of it as possible. But he owed her a degree of honesty. He always had.

  “Some of it. Eventually.” He looked at her. “But not tonight.”

  She’d known that even before he told her. She’d seen it in his eyes. Rachel sighed. “You know, I used to think you were closemouthed. In comparison, you were positively gregarious then.”

  He toyed with his glass for a long moment before looking at her. When he did, it all but tore at her heart. “It’s going to take me a while, Funny Face.”

  She studied him. He looked so tortured. “Is that why you came back? To work out the kinks?”

  Yes. “No, I came back because I missed your funny little laugh. I even missed Cameron’s ugly face.”

  They weren’t even dealing in half-truths yet. But they would get to the truth, she promised herself. They had to.

  Rachel reached across the table and placed her hand over his, as if to absorb all the things he couldn’t say. “We missed you, too.”

  The display of emotion made him uncomfortable. He drew away. “You were telling me about your ex-husband before we were interrupted.”

  Nice try, Kirk. “I was not,” she countered with a smug grin. Checkmate.

  He leaned back in his chair, determined. “All right, tell me now.”

  “How come I have to talk and you don’t?”

  He spread his hands, as if her question had the simplest of explanations. “Because I just rescued you, that’s why. You have to grant my request.”

  Rachel raised her chin defensively. “I could take care of myself.”

  She probably could at that. Cameron had written that he had taught her some self-defense moves. “Humor my frail ego, okay?”

  Because it was Kirk, she relented.

  “Okay.” She shifted beneath his gaze, uncomfortable with the subject. Uncomfortable with her own failings. She should have bailed out at the first sign, not lingered and hoped.

  She took one of the last of the breadsticks and toyed with it, needing to have something to do with her hands. “There’s not all that much to tell.”

  The hell there wasn’t. She was afraid of Don. Or had been, at one point. Kirk got down to the crux of it. “Do you think he could give you any trouble?”

  Rachel’s head jerked up. She looked at him sharply. “You don’t know?” She had assumed, that since Cameron and he corresponded, Cameron had told him.

  Kirk drew his brow together, confused by the expression on her face. “Know what?”

  “Don’s dead.” Even as she said the words, it still didn’t seem true. Don had been such an overwhelming force for her to deal with for so long. “There was a car accident a couple of months after the divorce.” She stared at her fingertips. “That’s when Ethan really began to change on me.” She blew out a huge breath. “I think that he blames me for the accident somehow.”

  “You had nothing to do with it—unless you tampered with the brakes somehow.” Rachel looked at him, surprised at the note of suppressed annoyance she heard in his voice. “And I’m getting the distinct impression that if you did, Don deserved it.” He’d known the triple-letter high school jock fleetingly in school, and hadn’t cared for him. He’d been surprised when he learned of Rachel’s wedding, three months after the fact.

  She shook her head as she placed the broken breadstick on her plate.

  “He might have deserved being horsewhipped, or whatever the modern equivalent of that is these days, but no one deserves to be splattered across a highway.” She closed her eyes and felt ashamed of the relief she’d experienced because Don couldn’t take Ethan away from her anymore. “Especially if he has a son who loves him.”

  What she was telling him didn’t jibe with the vibrations he had picked up at the house from Ethan. “Then they were close?”

  She thought of the times when Don had gone out of his way to ignore his son. Of the way Ethan had stood, hanging his head, rejected. He had always returned for more, determined to break through to his father. It had broken her heart. “Not exactly, but Ethan loved him.”

  Having lived through it himself, Kirk heard what wasn’t being said. “And Don? Did he love Ethan?”

  She shrugged. “In his own way.”

  Kirk pressed, determined to get as much of the story from her as possible. “Which was?”

  She’d shared all she intended to share for tonight. Kirk had gotten a great deal more from her than she had from him. She had no desire to turn Scanlon’s into a confessional.

  An enigmatic smile graced her lips. “I think we’ve exceeded the twenty questions you’re allotted in exchange for conquering the hairy beast.” She planted her elbows on the table and rested her head in her upturned hands. “I don’t answer any more questions until you do.”

  “Kirk Callaghan, photojournalist,” he began reciting. “Social security number—”

  She held up her hand, not in surrender, just to stop him for a moment. “This isn’t an interrogation.”

  Kirk grinned at her in reply. “Had all the signs of one.”

  He said the words lightly, but she read more meaning into them than he had intended. “Have you ever been interrogated?”

  “Once,” he admitted. “In Iraq. I managed to escape, though, before the situation got out of hand.”

  His mouth grew grim. His escape had cost another man his life that night, leaving Kirk with a debt he could never hope to repay. He sent money to the man’s widow regularly. But he knew money fell painfully short of repaying her for her husband’s life.

  She saw pain flicker in his eyes. It was still too raw. “Sorry, I don’t mean to s
tir up any bad memories.”

  Kirk shrugged. “Not your fault. That’s all there seem to be right now.”

  She had seen his work in newspapers, magazines. She couldn’t believe that some of the pride she felt about his accomplishments hadn’t managed to catch up to him, as well. “They were all bad?”

  The conversation was descending to depths where he didn’t want it to go. He didn’t know how it had managed to get away from him.

  “Depends on the point of view.” He looked at her empty glass. “Want another drink?”

  “No.” I want answers. I want you to really smile again. Most of all, I want to help.

  “Want to go?” he suggested.

  She really didn’t want the evening to end just yet. But what they had to say to each other couldn’t be said with a sax blaring in the background. “Some night air would be nice.”

  He felt a smile over his lips. She could always draw them out of him. “I think I might be able to scare some up for you.”

  Kirk took her hand and rose from the table, drawing her up with him. For a moment, an odd feeling sauntered through him. He felt as if he were a man on a date with a woman.

  He had given up simple things like that a long time ago. Subconsciously, he’d wanted to be alone, wanted to eschew relationships, because he couldn’t open up to anyone. It was all basically simple. If there was no relationship, there was no pain.

  Besides, this wasn’t a woman he was with, it was Funny Face. Funny Face, who mattered far more to him than any other woman ever could.

  “Come on. I think they have a fresh supply just outside the door.” Kirk underlined his urgings with a wink just before he led her out.

  The minute movement brought a flutter to her stomach. Rachel remembered the effect that wink used to have on her. It was sexiness encapsulated.