by Terri Reed
He wanted to go back to that conversation, find out more about her, but he had the distinct impression she didn’t. Ryan, too, had memories he couldn’t bear to think about. Memories that spread the pain of being disillusioned through him. Keeping the evening light probably was for the best. He had so much turmoil going on in his brain right now, he was struggling as it was. “I think they’ll make the play-offs.”
“Did you play baseball growing up?” she asked.
“Yep, all the way through high school. But I was better at basketball. It was more fun. A faster game.”
A smile played at the corners of her mouth. “I like basketball, too. I played in junior high.”
“I can see you playing basketball. You should stop by the community center some time for a pick-up game.” She had an athletic grace about her. She was tall for a woman, lean, but with curves in all the right places. He blocked that thought. Noticing her figure was not a good move under the circumstances.
Keep it professional, Fitzgerald.
He couldn’t let his guard down because this woman held the power to devastate his family.
Apparently done with her attempt at conversation, she lapsed back into silence and finished off her meal.
He studied the contours of her face, liking the high cheekbones and the soft pout of her lips. What made her tick? If he understood her better, maybe he’d find a way to convince her to keep the information about his father from going public. “Did you grow up in Boston?”
She startled as if he’d poked her. “Oh, yes. Yes, I did. Born and raised in the same neighborhood where my mother grew up. My dad immigrated to America from Ireland as a young man when he was twenty years old. He met my mom not long after, and they were married three weeks later.”
Ireland. The country of his forefathers, who’d immigrated to America in the 1800s and settled Fitzgerald Bay. Meghan’s ancestry, too. And Olivia’s country.
Hurt reared at the reminder of his father’s fall from grace. He viciously subdued the pain, forcing it back to the cramped box in his soul. “You’re an only child?”
“Yes. I always wished for a brother or sister, but…” She shrugged. “I envy you having so many siblings.”
He thought of Douglas’s concern after they’d been shot at. “They’re the best. I’m the oldest. The responsible one. Mom expected me to keep the others in line, back then and now.” He gave a small dry laugh. “As a kid, I resented each baby who arrived—one more sibling to take the attention.”
“I imagine that’s normal,” she said.
“Maybe. But no matter how hard I tried not to care for each new baby brother or sister, I would always fall for them.” He shrugged. “I couldn’t help myself when they stared up at me with big eyes as if I were their entire world.”
He trusted his siblings implicitly. He’d lay down his life for each one of them without a heartbeat of hesitation.
He’d yet to meet anyone outside the family who inspired the same sort of trust and devotion. Oh, he’d dated, but never seriously. There always seemed to be something…missing.
His sister Fiona, the sensitive book lover, often lectured him that he didn’t give any woman enough of a chance and one day he’d regret it. He couldn’t conceive of losing control enough to open his heart.
“I can’t envision having such a big family,” she said. “It was always just Mom and Dad and me. Now it’s just me. They died in a car accident.”
The grief in her tone stirred an echo of empathy and understanding in his heart. His mother had been gone for years, but the loss was as fresh as if it were yesterday.
“I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.”
His cell phone chirped. He checked the number then answered, listened as he scooted his chair back and hung up. “We need the check,” he called to the waitress.
“What’s happened?”
Anticipation revved in his blood. “The BOLO on the Seville got a hit in Manhattan.”
Meghan scrambled out of her chair. “Then New York, here we come.”
“Not tonight. We’ll meet at the station first thing in the morning. I’ll make arrangements for us to take the first flight to New York. The NYPD can take care of it for now.”
“But—”
He held up his hand. “Nothing can be accomplished if we’re dead on our feet. Tomorrow will be soon enough. Besides, we don’t know if this is a real lead or another dead end.”
Worry clouded her pretty eyes. She bit her lip, something he’d noticed she did when nervous or scared. For a short time they’d managed to put the anxiety and fear aside. Now it slammed back into place. He could only hope they found Georgina tomorrow and arrested Christina. He wasn’t sure how much more of this Meghan could take.
Nor why her well-being mattered so much to him.
* * *
After escorting Meghan to his father’s house to retrieve her rental car, he’d followed her to the beachside cottage she rented. He’d made sure the place was secure before beating a hasty retreat, needing to put some distance between them.
His emotions were running high. His attraction to Meghan messed with his judgment. Not a combination that bode well for success. He had to get a grip. Keep things in perspective. He’d been delivered an emotional blow. A child was missing, a murderer on the loose and they had only one lead.
Instead of heading to his own home just down the beach from Meghan’s, Ryan went back to the police station. The place was well lit. He waved to Jackson who sat at his desk drinking coffee, waiting for a call on this quiet night.
From his office, Ryan made the necessary flight arrangements to New York for him and Meghan.
His brother Douglas appeared in Ryan’s office doorway. “Hey, I thought you left.”
“I did. Now I’m back.”
“You heading to the Big Apple in the a.m.?” Douglas asked, stepping fully into the room.
Ryan ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah. Taking Meghan with me since I know she’d just follow me anyway.”
“You could lock her up,” Douglas suggested with a sardonic grin.
“Believe me, I’ve thought about it.” Ryan leaned back in his chair. “The woman’s become the bane of my existence.”
Douglas hiked a hip on the edge of Ryan’s desk. “You got it bad.”
Ryan shot straight up. “What? No.” Maybe. Oh, man. He wasn’t sure how he felt. He hadn’t wanted to get close, to like her. Or admire her. Or care about her. But he did. He liked her. Admired her. And, yeah, he’d started to care.
Douglas snorted. “I’ve watched the way you two have danced around each other for six months. Now you’re practically joined at the hip.”
“Not my doing,” Ryan snapped, feeling thoroughly cranky now.
“Right.” Douglas shook his head. “You know, she’s a good-looking lady. Smart, too. And stubborn.”
Ryan eased back again. “You got that right. Stubborn doesn’t even cover it.”
“You should bring her to Charles and Demi’s engagement party. She and Demi know each other.”
Ryan had forgotten about the upcoming celebration. Charles and Demi had become inseparable after Charles helped take down Demi’s stalker. Now he was going to make her his wife and the kids’ mom. They made a good couple. Complemented each other. Ryan was glad his brother had found some happiness after the heartache of his ex-wife’s abandonment.
He scowled. Bring Meghan? To a family function?
Hmm. Maybe if he included her, gave her a chance to know his family and came to care about them, she’d be less likely to go public with his father’s duplicity.
But bring a date? No, it wouldn’t be a date. He wasn’t ready for that. It would be a strategic move meant to protect his family. It wo
uldn’t mean he and she…they were a couple.
“I’ll ask her. After we get Georgina back and put Christina behind bars.” He pinned his brother with a hard look. “But it’s not a date.”
Douglas’s knowing grin burned a hole through Ryan’s conscience. “You keep telling yourself that.”
* * *
True to his word, the next morning Ryan was waiting for her when she arrived at the police station. He still had on his uniform.
“Did you get any sleep?” she asked. Her own night had been fraught with nightmares of guns and car chases.
“Some. There’s a cot in the back room,” he replied, running a hand over his stubbled jaw. “Hang tight for a minute. I’ll be right back.”
Meghan watched him disappear down a hall.
The knot that had formed in her chest last night when he’d asked her who’d hurt her had lessened slightly, but the tension in her shoulders hadn’t let up. Their dinner together had been congenial once the food had arrived. By tacit agreement they’d stayed away from the topic of his father and her revealing words. She’d enjoyed hearing how he felt about his family, his siblings. And though talking about her parents always brought a pang of sadness, talking to him was surprisingly easy.
In the light of day, she wasn’t sure what had transpired between them last night. But whatever it was didn’t matter. They had a lead on Georgina. Meghan might be holding her only living blood relation by nightfall and her cousin’s murderer would be in jail.
Dear Father in Heaven, please reunite me with Georgina.
Ryan returned with only the slightest bit of a limp, reminding her of the danger. Anxiety formed a lump beneath her breastbone.
He’d shaved and changed into civilian clothes. Well-worn jeans that looked good on his long, lean legs. A button-down dress shirt, open at the collar and rolled up at the sleeves. In his hands, he held two black flak vests with the words Fitzgerald Bay Police emblazoned across the chest and a small black case with a lock. Her anxiousness ratcheted up a notch.
“Any chance I could convince you to stay behind?” he asked, his blue eyes searching her face intently.
“No way.”
His mouth twisted at the corner. “Didn’t think so.” He handed her a vest. “Just in case.”
The heavy weight of the body armor slammed home how precarious the situation had become. But they were in this together. Partners.
She hoped that neither of them found their heads in the crosshairs of sniper fire. Again.
* * *
The plane touched down at JFK International Airport with a smooth glide along the tarmac. The engines revved as the reversers deployed. Impatience had Ryan unbuckled and poised to grab the bag with the flak vests from the overhead bin before the flaps on the wings let down.
Meghan remained motionless in her window seat. Her mouth pressed tight, her gaze trained on the seat back in front of her.
“You should have told me you were afraid to fly,” he said.
Her hands had a death grip on the armrests. “I managed.”
Yes, she had. His respect for her grew. The plucky woman hadn’t blinked or given any clue that she’d battled with aerophobia when he’d handed her the plane ticket. She was an enigma.
Bold and brash at times, yet every so often, like now, he glimpsed a vulnerability that touched him. And earlier, when she’d spoken of betrayal and hurt, he’d sensed and seen the anguish she carried deep inside.
A welling need to soothe and comfort rose till it became a painful ache in his chest.
Someone had her hurt badly.
Rage at the unknown person filled him. He could only hope Meghan suffered nothing more serious than a broken heart.
Not that he was dissing the pain of having one’s heart smashed to smithereens. He’d had his fair share of heartbreak. Who hadn’t? But there were worse hurts, which left scars that he marveled ever healed.
The memory of another young woman rose, making his already-stretched-tight nerves strain even more. Ryan had witnessed his best friend assault a girl he’d professed to love when they were in high school. Ryan had intervened and then turned in his friend to the police even though the girl refused to press charges.
The decision still lay heavy on Ryan’s psyche but he didn’t regret doing the right thing. And he knew that Lily Wilkin was grateful, even if she refused to speak to him, claiming doing so hurt too much, brought back the nightmares. He understood. He’d had his share of nightmares from that day.
He could only pray that Meghan’s hurts weren’t nearly as horrific.
The plane jerked to a halt at the gate. Once inside the terminal, dodging travelers pulling rolling luggage, they weaved their way through the crowded airport. After retrieving his locked gun case from baggage claim, they headed outside to the taxi stand. Once they climbed into the yellow sedan, Ryan gave the address of where Dosha Meniski’s Seville had last been spotted.
As they wound their way into the city from the airport, Ryan pulled out his cell and checked in with the NYPD. Captain Gregson of the 13th precinct said he had an officer waiting for Ryan outside the apartment building where the car had been spotted. He spoke a moment longer, then hung up his phone.
“Have they seen any sign of Georgina?” Meghan asked.
Her anxiety sizzled in the air around her.
“No. But if they see Christina, they’ll detain her and take Georgina into custody,” he said, not sure how to lessen her anxiousness. He needed her to be ready for whatever came at them.
Meghan’s straight white teeth tugged at her bottom lip. She clutched the large nylon bag he’d stuffed the flak vests into and stared out the taxi’s side window.
“It’s going to be okay.”
She gave him a wan smile. “Thanks for saying so.”
They lapsed into silence. Hoping to get her mind off her worries, and because he was curious, he revisited their unfinished conversation at the Sugar Plum. “You never answered me.”
Her eyebrows arched. “Oh? I don’t remember the question.”
He didn’t believe that for a second. The woman was smart and on top of it like nobody’s business. He thought back to what she’d said about getting people to open up. Getting them talking about the familiar, the mundane, leading them to the words they were waiting to say. Good strategy. Would probably work better than his more straightforward, go-for-the-throat approach. Ask the right questions, she had said.
He wondered what question he should be asking. “Do you really believe forgiveness is possible?”
Surprise flickered in her hazel eyes, then settled into determination.
She did remember. He’d thought so.
“Yes,” she answered. “Like I said, it takes time.”
“A lifetime,” Ryan stated, thinking it would be that long or more before he could let go of the anger and hurt over his father’s infidelity and duplicity.
“Maybe” she said. “But it’s so much better than the ugliness. The soul-sucking nastiness that burrows in and eats away at you until you convince yourself death would be better than living.”
He blinked. Whoa. Where was this talk of death coming from?
The stress, the tension of being shot at and terrorized, no doubt.
Tread slowly, Fitzgerald, he told himself, suspecting they were approaching a special place of trust where she might actually open up. And that touched him.
But then again, judging by the shuttered look closing over her expression, he could be wrong. “I’m sure my dad would like me to forgive him and have everything return to the way it was before…” He swallowed the words before they were spoken.
“Before I came barging into your office with the truth,” she finished for him.
He gave a dry lau
gh. “Yeah. Something like that.”
“Life will never go back to what it was, but that’s okay. The past is over and done with. Now you have to figure out how to live in the now, then the future. And trust me when I tell you, finding it within yourself to forgive is the only way each day becomes bearable.”
“For me or my dad?”
She tilted her head in thought for a moment. “Both of you. But you mostly, since you’re only in charge of yourself, your emotions.” She shifted to better face him. Her lovely face held him in rapt attention.
“Forgiveness is for you,” she continued, seeming to warm to the subject, making him think she was speaking from experience. “Forgiveness releases the icky stuff so you’re free to love. To be in a relationship with God, with others.”
“What if I can’t release the icky stuff?” he asked, wondering what icky stuff she’d had to release, to forgive.
“Holding on to the bad feelings only hurts you,” she answered, her hazel eyes imploring him to understand what she was telling him. “Not the one who hurt you. They don’t feel any of what you’re feeling. We each only know our own pain, joy, hurt, anger, sorrow. We can empathize, we can have compassion… .”
Her mouth kicked up slightly at the corner in a wry grimace. “At least healthy, well-adjusted people can. But only you can choose to forgive. The cliché ‘Let go and let God’ is a cliché for a reason.”
“Here we are,” the cabdriver said as he pulled the yellow sedan to the curb.
Ryan almost regretted the intrusion. He helped Meghan from the cab, her words ringing in his head and rattling around his heart.
Forgiveness releases the icky stuff.
He certainly had a good dose of icky going on.
The address in New York turned out to be a low-rise walk-up apartment in the East Village on Avenue B. The area once referred to as Alphabet City in its seedier days, now looked to be getting a face-lift as several of the brick, prewar structures had scaffolding crawling over them like locusts. Ryan hadn’t been to this part of the city in years, not since he and his college buddies had haunted the Big Apple on the weekends. They’d covered every square inch of the island on the lookout for the best places to eat. Food was a big deal when you’re a growing young man in college.