McIver's Mission

by Brenda Harlen

  "Apparently you have this all figured out, so why don't you make this easy on both of us and leave? I'm not in the mood to fight with you."

  She could tell that her response surprised him. That he'd expected her to deny his accusations. What was the point? If he didn't know her well enough to know that she wouldn't have spent the night in another man's bed, he didn't know her at all.

  "Is that what you want—you want me to leave?"

  She nodded. "Yes. Please."

  He took a step toward the door, then turned back again abruptly. "No."

  "No?"

  "No," he said again. "I'm not going to make this easy for you."

  Her eyes were burning with fatigue, and she let them drift shut for half, a minute. She was too exhausted, mentally and physically, to handle a confrontation right now, but she knew he wouldn't give her any choice.

  "Dammit, Arden, I was worried about you."

  "Because you thought I was with Warren?"

  "Because some nutcase has been sending you threatening letters and I had no idea where you were last night. I tried your cell phone, almost every hour all night, but I kept getting your voice mail. I tried to page you, but you never responded. I was frantic."

  She felt the first nudge of guilt at her subconscious. She'd been so wrapped up in what was happening that she hadn't thought about the letters or Shaun or anything else. She wasn't used to having people worry about her. "I didn't ask for this," she said defiantly.

  "I didn't either," he said. "But this is what we've got."

  "If you have a problem with the way I conduct my life, maybe you shouldn't be a part of it."

  "Nice try, Arden."

  She rubbed at the center of her forehead, trying to massage away the building pain. "Why are you doing this?"

  "Because I care about you."

  The simple honesty of the statement, the heartfelt emotion in his eyes, dissipated the last lingering vestiges of annoyance. Still, she sighed. "I'm not good at this."

  "What 'this'?"

  "Relationships."

  He set his hands gently on her shoulders, rubbed them down her arms. "You'll get better."

  "I'm not used to having to explain myself."

  "I'm not used to pacing a hole through my carpet at 3:00 a.m."

  "I'm sorry. I was paged by an intake worker at the shelter before Warren and I had even finished dinner. She asked me to meet her at the hospital to speak to a woman who'd been beaten unconscious by her husband. I went straight to the hospital, and I left my briefcase, including my pager and my cell phone, in the car.

  "I spent most of the night with her, explaining her options, then I went to the office to draft the documents to get a restraining order, then I went back to the hospital to get her to sign them, then I came home."

  "It sounds like you had a rough night."

  "Yeah, I did."

  "And the last thing you needed was for me to jump all over you when you got home this morning."

  "Just about," she agreed.

  Shaun took a deep breath, prepared to grovel. "I'm sorry."

  Arden just nodded wearily, and her obvious fatigue made him feel a million times worse than if she'd yelled and screamed at him. He put his arms around her, breathed a silent sigh of relief when she leaned into him, because he knew it meant that he was forgiven.

  When she tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle a yawn, he lifted her off her feet and carried her toward the bedroom.

  "What are you doing?" Arden demanded.

  "I'm taking you to bed."

  "Make-up sex?"

  "To sleep," he corrected.

  "Oh."

  He grinned. "Don't sound so disappointed. I think your body needs rest more than stimulation right now."

  She yawned again. "You're probably right."

  "After you've had a few hours of shut-eye, then we'll see what happens."

  "You're going to stay?"

  She sounded surprised, which made him frown. Was he only here when he was getting her naked? Did she think that was all he wanted from her? He pulled back the covers on her bed and laid her down gently. "Yes, I'm going to stay."

  Her lips curved, her eyes already closing. "I like having you here."

  It was as big an admission as he was likely to get from her, and it pleased him. He lay down beside her, slipped his arm around her to hold her close. "I like being here with you."

  * * *

  When Arden awoke, the sun was filtering through the blinds, painting horizontal lines of light across the bed. She felt the weight of Shaun's arm across her waist, took comfort in his presence. After a week of going to sleep beside him almost every night, waking in his arms, it still boggled her mind that he wanted to be with her.

  When she'd first decided to become intimate with Shaun, she'd based the decision on logic and reason. It was a natural progression of the attraction between them. She didn't expect it to last.

  She still knew it wouldn't, it couldn't. But she was determined to savor every moment so long as it did. He'd become more than just a lover. He'd become a friend, a confidant. And she knew that—for the very first time in her life—she was starting to fall in love.

  The realization terrified her. Love made rational people do crazy things. Love made people hurt each other, and forgive each other, and open themselves up to more hurt and heartache.

  Shaking off the thought, she cast a quick glance at the clock on the dresser. It was just past noon, which meant that she'd slept for almost three hours.

  "Sleep well?" His lips cruised over her earlobe, causing shivers of anticipation to dance over her skin.

  She turned to him willingly, slid her arms around his neck and pulled his head down to meet his lips with her own. It was easier to accept the physical aspects of their relationship than the emotional ones, so that was what she focused on now.

  She felt his hands skim under her blouse. His touch was warm and familiar, although the intensity of her reaction continued to surprise her. He skimmed a hand over her hip, upward to toy with her breast. She felt her nipple pebble beneath his touch, and the heat coil in her belly.

  "Are we going to have make-up sex now?" she asked breathlessly.

  She felt his smile against her lips. "Have you forgiven me?"

  "Yes," she said.

  "Yes," he responded to her question in turn.

  * * *

  Chapter 13

  « ^ »

  Arden heard the sirens in the distance. She pushed open the courthouse doors, stepped into the night. The fire trucks whizzed past—a blur of flashing lights and screaming alarms. Icy fingers of trepidation trailed down her spine. She could smell the smoke. Its acrid scent hung in the air like a noxious perfume. Assaulting her nostrils. Churning her stomach.

  She clutched the handle of her briefcase tighter as she slowly moved across the parking lot to her car. Traffic on the street was at a standstill. Pedestrians clogged the sidewalk. She dumped her research into her car, then made her way through the crowd to stare, horrified, fascinated, as the fire department battled against the flames that poured out of the third floor windows of the apartment.

  Her windows.

  YOU'RE GOING TO BURN IN HELL.

  She could see the bold red ink, the menacing message, as clearly as if the letter was in her hand.

  Arden shook her head, tried to shake off the thought. It was a coincidence, nothing more.

  She so desperately wanted to believe that, but she knew better.

  This was personal.

  And she was terrified.

  She'd seen enough reports of fires on the eleven-o'clock news, but nothing she'd watched in the safety of her living room had prepared her for this. Nothing had prepared her for the shock of seeing her own home engulfed in flames. The heat was staggering in its intensity; the air was heavy with smoke, burning her eyes, her nose, her throat. Greedy tongues of flame licked at the building, ravenous, devouring.

  She scanned the gathering of spectators, breath
ed a sigh of relief when she saw Mrs. Dempsey dressed in a neon-green housecoat with Rocky tucked under her arm. She also spotted Kelly and Rick Larsen, the newlyweds who'd recently moved in on the second floor, and Mr. Fitzsimmons, the first-floor tenant who was older than the building itself. At last she spotted Gary Morningstar, the landlord, and she slowly meandered through the maze of people toward him.

  "Is everyone out of the building?" she asked, shouting to be heard over all the other noise.

  Gary turned, the relief on his face palpable. He nodded. "Now that we know you're here, everyone's accounted for." His eyes were tired, his face strained.

  "Any idea what happened?"

  He shook his head. "It looks like it started upstairs, but it escalated so quickly it's hard to say for sure."

  Arden could only nod, her eyes stinging with smoke, with grief, with guilt. All she had left were the clothes on her back: a faded pair of jeans and her University of Michigan sweatshirt, a battered pair of sneakers, jacket, and her cell phone. But it wasn't the loss that bothered her—it was the fear. Not just for herself but for everyone who had been in the building. She knew the fire had started in her apartment. She knew it had been deliberately set. And she knew that she would have been responsible if anyone had been hurt.

  She was jostled aside by a television crew moving in for better footage of the fire. To them it was news. To her it was her life.

  A life that was so completely out of her control.

  * * *

  Arden went to Nikki's. She knew her cousin would worry if she saw reports of the fire on the news, so she preempted her concern by going over there. Nikki made a fresh pot of coffee for her, and Colin liberally laced her cup with whiskey. Their care and concern made her smile in spite of everything.

  A brief knock sounded at the back door, but before either Nikki or Colin could get up to respond, Shaun came into the kitchen. He ignored his brother and sister-in-law, pulled Arden off the chair and into his arms. He held her so tightly she couldn't breathe, but it felt good to have him there.

  "Why didn't you call me?" be demanded.

  She swallowed, not certain how to respond to the raw hurt she could see in the depths of his green eyes. Not willing to admit that it had been her first instinct to do so. She'd ignored the impulse to turn to him for comfort and support. She'd been relying on him too much. She prided herself on her independence, her ability to be strong and self-sufficient. She was afraid of losing that to Shaun. She was more afraid that she'd relinquish it willingly.

  "I went by your building. Your apartment—" He couldn't complete the thought "God, Arden. I thought you might have been in there and—"

  She laid her palm against his cheek, reassuring him with the comfort of her touch. "I wasn't. I'm fine." Her lips twisted into a wry smile. "Homeless, but fine."

  "Of course you're not homeless," Nikki interrupted. "You can stay here as long as you need to."

  Arden dropped her hand from Shaun's cheek and turned to her cousin, embarrassed to realize she'd forgotten, however briefly, that she was there. "I can't stay here," she protested. "You've just started redoing the spare room for the baby."

  Nikki waved a hand dismissively. "We have plenty of time for that. And I'm not going to have you living at some motel when we have more than enough room for you here."

  "It used to be your room, anyway," Colin reminded her.

  "I appreciate the offer," Arden said, meaning it. "But—"

  "I have more room at my place," Shaun said, surprising all of them with the statement. Arden especially. She gaped at him.

  "I'm not moving in with you," she said. "No matter how temporarily."

  "Why not?"

  "B-because." She was sure there was a reason. Probably half a dozen good reasons. But she couldn't think of a single one when he was looking at her like that.

  "Maybe we should let them talk about this privately," Colin suggested, nudging his wife toward the doorway.

  "There's nothing to talk about," Arden said. "Because I'm not staying at Shaun's."

  But Nikki and Colin had already disappeared, leaving her to face off against Shaun alone.

  "Why not?" he asked again.

  "It's not a good idea," she said, even though she wanted to take him up on the offer.

  "It's the best idea," he argued. "You don't want to impose on Nikki and Colin, but you know Nikki will worry about you if you're on your own."

  "I've been living on my own for a while now," she said dryly.

  "She'll still worry," he reminded her. "Besides, you've been sleeping at my house most nights, anyway."

  It was true, but having a toothbrush in his bathroom wasn't the same as having her clothes in his dresser. She knew his offer was dictated by circumstances, but moving in with Shaun seemed like such a leap, and she wasn't sure if she was ready.

  "Why don't we at least try it for a few days?" Shaun suggested. "If you're not comfortable with the arrangement, I'll help you find someplace else to stay."

  "What if you're not comfortable with the arrangement?"

  "Then I'll let you know."

  She was skeptical. "Promise?"

  "Yes, I promise." He slipped his arms around her waist and drew her closer. "To be honest, I'm kind of looking forward to having you under my roof for a while. These aren't exactly the circumstances under which I would have hoped for this to happen, but I'm learning to take what I can get."

  "You're sure you're okay with this?"

  "I offered, didn't I?"

  "Okay," she agreed finally.

  "Have you guys come to any kind of agreement?" Colin asked, poking his head into the kitchen.

  "Yeah. Arden's going to come home with me," Shaun said.

  "Good," Nikki said.

  Arden raised an eyebrow.

  "Come on," Nikki said. "I'll let you raid my closet until you can replace your own things."

  "I'd appreciate that," Arden said, following her cousin up the stairs. "The only clothes I have are those on my back." She sniffed, inhaled the acrid scent of smoke that had permeated her attire. "And they don't smell very good."

  "Help yourself." Nikki gestured to her closet. "Nothing fits me right now, anyway."

  Arden glanced at her cousin's slightly protruding belly and smiled. "You look great," she said honestly, enviously. What would it be like, she wondered, to carry the child of the man you loved?

  "I feel great," Nikki admitted. "We're all so thrilled about the baby. Carly can't wait for her baby sister. No matter how many times we tell her it might be a boy, she keeps insisting otherwise."

  "Are you going to ask about the baby's gender?" Arden asked.

  "I don't think so. Colin wants to be surprised."

  "And you?"

  "I just want a healthy baby."

  "She will be," Arden said. Then, "Everything's different this time around, isn't it?"

  "Yeah." Nikki's smile was luminous. "But shouldn't we be talking about your situation now?"

  "What's to talk about? My apartment burned down, and I'm going to stay with Shaun for a few days until I find somewhere else to live."

  "Are you sure you don't want to stay here?" Nikki asked. "I was kind of looking forward to having my former roommate back."

  "You have your family together now. You don't need me underfoot."

  "You're family, too," Nikki reminded her. "And I like having you underfoot."

  Arden took a sweater out of the top drawer, tossed it on the bed. She added a couple of T-shirts, a sweatshirt, and a pair of jeans before moving to the closet.

  "Do you want to stay with Shaun?" Nikki asked.

  Arden sighed. "Yeah, I do."

  Nikki smiled. "Those orange blossoms might not be so far off."

  "He offered his spare room, he didn't propose."

  "Spare room," Nikki scoffed.

  "The invitation never would have been issued if my apartment hadn't burned down," Arden said.

  Her cousin just smiled. "I guess time will tell.
"

  Arden turned her attention back to the contents of Nikki's closet. She didn't know how to respond to her cousin's teasing. She hadn't allowed herself to think that far ahead. Her relationship with Shaun had already been so much more than she'd expected, so much more than she'd hoped. If she allowed her thoughts to wander, she sometimes found herself thinking that they could have a future together. She wanted to believe they could. But there was still so much they didn't know about each other. So much he didn't know about her.

  She pulled a navy skirt out of the closet and tossed it onto the bed. She selected a few more items, blinked back the sudden sting of tears. "I don't even have a spare pair of underwear."

  Nikki pulled open a drawer, but Arden shook her head. Nikki's taste ran more to satin and lace than she was accustomed to.

  "I'll wash out the ones I have on, so I can wear them again tomorrow. Then I'll have to go shopping."

  "Is everything gone?" Nikki asked gently.

  Arden shrugged. "I can only assume so," she said. "It wasn't as if I was allowed to go inside and take inventory." She didn't tell her cousin that most of the damage seemed to be focused on her apartment. She didn't want to think about that fact, and wonder, and worry.

  It was possible that she'd been wrong to connect the fire to the letters she'd been getting. The fire could have started for any number of reasons—maybe it was faulty wiring or something like that.

  And maybe her twisted pen pal had meant it literally when he'd said she would burn in hell.

  * * *

  Shaun had no doubts about why he'd offered to open his home to Arden. When he'd gone by her apartment and found the street blocked off by police barricades and fire trucks, he'd experienced a moment of bone-deep, paralyzing fear unlike anything he could ever have imagined. And in the split second that he'd considered she might be in that burning house, emptiness had threatened to swallow him whole.

  It was then he knew, without any doubt or qualification, that he loved her.