Rachel moved aside the rectangular pan she’d been alternately layering with cheeses, meat and noodles. This conversation was far more important than any culinary creation she could have come up with. Her eyes held Kirk’s in mute sympathy. “Tell me.”
He didn’t have to be told that she cared, genuinely cared. Kirk knew that. And, while he was grateful, he also knew that this was something that would have to evolve on its own, over time. If it ever did. He wasn’t able to talk about anything that was bothering him just yet.
He couldn’t. His feelings were like some formless, nebulous thing that refused to be contained, that refused to assume a definite shape. He didn’t want to become one of those misanthropic malcontents who dwelled on the downside of life and of themselves.
For the time being, that meant keeping his mouth shut. “Funny Face, I promised myself that I wouldn’t get serious tonight.”
“Too late.” She sighed as she drizzled a handful of mozzarella over a layer of sauce. There was no use pushing it. “Well, I’m here, if you change your mind and want to talk.”
It was one of the reasons he’d returned, he thought. Perhaps, subconsciously, the most important reason he’d returned. “I know that.”
Abandoning the preparations again, she wiped her hands on her apron. Coming around the counter, she took his hands in hers, enveloping them.
“No, really talk,” she insisted.
His eyes held hers. As altruistic as she was attempting to be, something definitely felt watery within her when he looked at her that way. She couldn’t quite blot out the warm sensations that were trying to break through.
She wasn’t reacting strictly as a friend, she chided herself.
It did no good.
“I know,” he repeated. But it still didn’t make it any easier to talk.
Suddenly self-conscious, feeling as if he could read her thoughts, Rachel dropped her hands to her sides.
“She can’t cook if you hold her hands.”
They both turned to see Cameron walking into the kitchen. He looked only mildly surprised to see Kirk standing there.
Kirk slid onto the stool again. “If that’s the kind of detective you are, I’d say the Bedford police force is in serious trouble. She was holding my hands,” he pointed out. Leaning over, he picked up a strand of shredded mozzarella and sampled it.
Cameron joined in and took a healthy handful. Rachel slapped his hand away. “When did you get here? I didn’t hear you come in,” he asked his friend.
Kirk nodded in the direction of the living room. “I knocked on the front door, but no one heard me. I thought I should come in before the wine got warm.”
Rachel looked pointedly at her brother. “I told you that television set was on too loud.”
Cameron leaned toward Kirk, taking the opportunity to pinch a bit of meat from the plate. “She still nags,” he confided. Rachel moved the platter of meat to the other side of the counter. Cameron looked at her innocently. “How long until dinner?”
“You keep nibbling,” Rachel said pointedly, “and there won’t be anything left for dinner.” She laid three wide noodles next to each other in the pan. “Not for at least half an hour.”
“Great.” Cameron motioned Kirk toward the living room. “That gives us time to see a couple of videos.”
Kirk looked skeptical about leaving Rachel alone, when she had all this work left. “Maybe Funny Face wants to see them, too.”
Ethan had drifted toward the kitchen, following the sound of the voices. “Who’s Funny Face?”
He hadn’t meant to ask a question, but his curiosity had gotten the better of him. It sounded as if his mother’s friend was talking about his mother. But how could he be? His mother didn’t have a funny face. She was pretty.
Rachel smiled. Any sort of question meant involvement, and that heartened her tremendously.
“That was my nickname when I was your age,” Rachel told Ethan. She looked over her shoulder at Kirk as she took out a fresh container of Parmesan cheese from the pantry. “Kirk insisted on calling me that.” Opening the top, she liberally sprinkled the contents over the pan. She glanced at Kirk. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you call me Rachel.”
Now that she mentioned it, he didn’t think he had, either. He said it now. “Rachel.”
Damn that knot in her stomach, Rachel thought as she felt it tightening, shrinking like leather left out in the sun. Kirk’s voice had been low, throaty, and her name—her name, for heaven’s sake—had seemed to glide along her skin like an invitation to a hot night of passion when he said it.
Maybe it was just the kitchen and the heat, she thought. God knew it was getting to feel hotter to her by the moment.
Her hair was untidily piled high on her head, held in place by hidden pins. It looked as if it would cascade down along her face and throat at any moment. There was a look in her eyes that he recognized as latent desire. Kirk felt an itch taking hold. He wanted to lose his hands in her hair, to bury his face in it and breathe in the fragrance that seemed to cling to it.
He’d been in enough dangerous situations to know when to evacuate. Kirk slid off the stool and crossed to Cameron. “How about being neighborly and offering me a beer? We’ll hold off on those videos until later.”
Cameron was more than happy to oblige. “My sister’s refrigerator is yours.” He pulled open the door and moved a few things aside to get to the six-pack Rachel had picked up earlier.
Ethan had turned his attention back to his handheld video game. The musical chimes caught Kirk’s attention as Cameron handed him a beer. Kirk popped the top, but didn’t drink.
“What is that thing?” Kirk motioned toward the game.
Ethan’s brow narrowed and puckered over the bridge of his nose. He looked at Kirk as if the latter had just landed on earth in a spaceship labeled Mars or Bust.
He held the game up. “This?” Kirk nodded. “It’s a Gameboy.” Ethan cocked his head, as if that could help him understand better. “Where’ve you been?”
“Ethan...” Rachel warned. She flashed an apologetic smile at Kirk.
There was nothing to apologize for. He had been out of touch with things such as games for a long time. The children he had encountered had never had a childhood. Had never had toys.
“Out of the country,” Kirk told Ethan.
Interest flickered mildly over the young face. He looked down at the animated game in his palm. “Don’t they have this everywhere?”
Kirk shook his head and smiled for the boy’s benefit. “Not in the places I’ve been.” He reached for the game, then stopped. “Do you mind?”
Thin shoulders rose and fell in feigned boredom. Ethan surrendered the game. “You can look at it if you want.”
He knew what a little attention could do. He’d been hungry for it himself when he was Ethan’s age. “How do you play?”
Ethan attempted not to look superior, but failed to carry it off.
“Uh-oh, famous last words,” Cameron muttered as he popped the top on his own can of beer. “But, hey, I’m used to sharing you.” He winked at Rachel over his shoulder before he followed Kirk and Ethan into the living room.
Rachel returned to placing the final layer on the lasagna. She would have felt infinitely more satisfied about the situation unfolding before her if the nervous feeling in her stomach hadn’t been so intense.
Sighing, she splayed a hand over her midsection, as if physically attempting to hold her emotions back. If she wasn’t careful, her feelings could get out of hand. And that would ruin everything.
She glanced toward the living room. It looked as if Kirk and Ethan might just begin to draw each other out over something as innocuous as handheld flashing lights and annoying noises.
Whatever worked, she thought, putting the pan into the oven and flipping the dials.
* * *
Ethan couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t listening any longer. Curiosity had egged him on until it all but vibrated within him, l
ike a child waving a hand at a teacher hoping to be called on.
“You were really there when the war broke out?” Ethan blurted out, obviously stunned at the stories Kirk was telling him.
Kirk placed his fork on his empty plate. Three helpings of lasagna was his limit. He wouldn’t have eaten that much, except that it had tasted so good. Kirk wasn’t certain where or when he had had his last home-cooked meal. Probably in this house, he mused.
“Yes,” he answered. It was the first time he had seen interest spark in Ethan’s face. “Right from the very beginning.”
“I have the news photographs to prove it,” Rachel put in to back up Kirk’s claim. Lately Ethan had a tendency to doubt everything anyone told him.
Kirk looked at Rachel, mildly surprised.
Cameron obviously saw curiosity etched on his friend’s face. “Rachel kept a scrapbook on you.”
He clearly caught the warning look that Rachel shot him, but he ignored it. He leaned back in his chair, grinning. “She’d scrutinize every photo in the newspaper, looking for your moniker.”
That only made Kirk feel guiltier for not having written. She’d kept far more faithful tabs on him than he had on her.
Rachel shrugged self-consciously, looking for a way to minimize Cameron’s words. He made her sound like some kind of lovesick idiot.
“I always liked keeping scrapbooks, remember? You just gave me a reason to.” Time to change the subject. She looked around the table. “Dessert, anyone?”
Kirk groaned in spite of himself. Cameron had confided that Rachel had picked up some cannoli. They had sounded a great deal more tempting forty minutes ago. “I don’t think I’ve got any room left.”
Cameron raised his brow encouragingly. “I’ll take his share.”
Kirk looked at his friend. Though large-boned, Cameron had an athletic build that didn’t have an ounce of fat on it. He had been eating like a starving man ever since he’d known him.
“Do you still have a tapeworm?” He patted Cameron’s stomach and felt his abdominal muscles. They were hard as a rock. “How can you eat like that and not gain an ounce?”
“Luck.”
Rachel arranged eight cannoli on a single large platter. Before she was finished, Cameron was helping himself. After a moment’s hesitation, Ethan took one, as well.
“Actually,” Rachel confided to Kirk, “he’s got a portrait in the attic that’s been steadily gaining weight for years.”
Ethan scowled as he looked from his mother to his uncle. A layer of cream outlined his mouth. “You don’t have an attic.”
Seeing that Cameron’s mouth was full at the moment, Kirk answered for him.
“It’s a joke,” Kirk told him confidentially, without the hint of a smile on his face. He didn’t want to take a chance on making Ethan feel as if the joke were at his expense. “There’s a famous story called The Picture of Dorian Gray. It’s about a man who sold his soul to the devil because he wanted to remain young forever. All the evil things he did became etched into the portrait in his attic, while he remained young-looking.”
“Forever?” Ethan asked, plainly fascinated in spite of himself.
Kirk nodded. “Until the end of the story.”
“Cool.”
It was a delight to see enthusiasm of any sort on Ethan’s face, instead of that black look he habitually wore these days. “Don’t get any ideas,” Rachel warned him affectionately. She leaned over to tousle his hair, only to have him pull back.
One step at a time, she thought, chiding herself for being overly eager.
Kirk felt for both of them. That in itself was a step forward for him, he thought. “It’s only a story,” he added for Ethan’s benefit.
Dark eyes turned on him thoughtfully. Perhaps even a little hopefully. “You have any more stories?”
Cameron exchanged looks with Rachel. This was the most animated and unbelligerent they had seen Ethan in a long while.
“Kirk has lots of stories,” Cameron assured him.
“Tell me one,” Ethan said challengingly.
Rachel brought over the coffeepot and poured three cups. Her eyes were on Kirk. He looked a little wary, so she gave him an encouraging look.
He folded his hands in front of him. “What kind of story?”
Ethan shrugged. He picked at the pastry on his plate, eating the candied bits first. “I dunno.” He raised his eyes to Kirk’s. “One of the war ones.”
The “war ones,” as Ethan called them, were too brutal to tell an eight-year-old boy, Kirk thought. For the most part, they were too brutal for anyone. Pausing, he dug through his memory, attempting to recall something that would not eat away at a man’s soul in the wee hours of the morning.
In the end, he settled for one about his escape through enemy lines in the dead of night. He’d been disguised as one of the fleeing refugees, his precious camera equipment wrapped up in rags. His olive complexion and bartered clothing had helped him blend in with a sea of people. Whole cities had found themselves displaced overnight.
He wasn’t given to embellishments, but even the facts took time to unfold. By the time he’d finished, Ethan’s eyes were huge. His world-weary sneer had vanished, to be replaced by something akin to awe.
“And you really did that? Escaped right under their noses?”
“Yes.” It was almost as if he were talking about something that had happened to someone else. The escape had been rather miraculous.
Ethan cocked his head again. Kirk recognized it as a movement that echoed Rachel when she’d been the boy’s age.
“Weren’t you scared?” the boy asked.
Kirk’s eyes met Rachel’s for a brief moment before he answered. “Yes.”
Ethan blew out a breath, disappointed. “I thought you were supposed to be brave.”
The story, simple in its narration, had still left her stunned. She hadn’t allowed herself to think of the danger he lived with daily. The story forced her to face it. Maybe it was better that he hadn’t written. She would have spent a great deal of time worrying about him.
“Brave men are men who are afraid, but still go on and do things anyway,” Rachel told her son.
Kirk decided to indulge in a piece of the cannoli. He broke it off from Cameron’s plate. Cameron was on his second one. “Still the diplomat.”
Rachel shrugged away his comment. “I just see things a little more clearly than you do, sometimes.”
Cameron pushed himself back from the table and looked at Kirk. “The videos are waiting.”
Rachel wasn’t much on cleanup. She nodded toward the dishes. “I could use help stacking the dishes.”
“I’ll flip you for it,” Cameron said to Kirk, digging into his pocket for a coin.
Kirk raised his hand, stopping him. “That’s all right, I’ll do it. It’s probably a two-headed coin, anyway.”
“I’m a cop. I have to be honest these days,” Cameron said, taking his hand out of his pocket. “But you talked me into it.”
Rachel rose. “You two could learn from him,” she told them.
“Whatever you say, Rach.” Cameron looked at Ethan, who was already crossing the threshold into the living room. “C’mon, Ethan, you can show me how to work the VCR.”
Ethan stopped and looked at his uncle suspiciously. “You already know how to work the VCR.”
“I’m old, I forget.” Cameron began to place his hand on the boy’s shoulder, then thought better of it. Ethan didn’t need to be crowded, only nudged along.
Rachel turned toward Kirk as the others left the room. “You’re the guest for tonight. You don’t have to do this.” Although she was glad of the company.
He stacked the dessert plates on top of each other. “I don’t mind. It’s been years since I sat in a kitchen that wasn’t surrounded by a tent.”
She attempted to think of how that would be, and failed. “Was it really that nomadic?”
Nomadic was far too colorful a term for it. “You have no idea.” He
laughed.
“No, I don’t,” she agreed. “But I’ll let you fill me in while we load the dishwasher.” The more he talked, the more she would know, she thought. And perhaps the more he would heal. She decided that was why he had come home. Not to simply renew old ties, but to heal.
And she meant to help any way she could.
Chapter 8
Funny how he had completely forgotten how much he’d enjoyed playing baseball, Kirk thought as he watched video after video of games that had long since faded into the creases of his mind. Was that really him running the bases? Had he ever looked that young?
Lacing his fingers behind his head, Kirk settled back in the corner of the sofa, studying his image on the television screen. Absorbing the action. As he did, tiny fragments of pride, of the sensation of belonging that he had once experienced, wafted through him. A sensation as elusive as smoke.
As elusive as love. The thought came from nowhere. And faded away to the same place.
“You struck out a lot,” Ethan commented to his uncle as a very lanky-looking Cameron was retired by the opposing pitcher.
Cameron laughed. After taking a long pull of his beer, he said, “Yeah, but I had great form.”
Cameron’s and Rachel’s father had been very serious about taking videos. The tape they were watching had all the earmarks of one made by a professional. He’d panned the bench, capturing the expressions of each of the team members. The camera passed smoothly over a tall, restless-looking player.
Don.
Kirk heard the faint, sharp intake of breath, and glanced in Rachel’s direction. She had stiffened a little beside him. Not in the eager way a woman might when she saw someone she had once loved, but in the manner of someone unconsciously bracing for a blow.
Ethan was sitting on the floor in front of him. It occurred to Kirk that Ethan might not have seen these videos before. The stunned look on the boy’s face bore him out. He turned suddenly and looked up at Kirk. “My dad played with you?”
Kirk barely remembered Don. What he did remember, he didn’t care for. He gave no indication of his feelings as he spoke.
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