For You

by Kristen Ashley

  “You’re not my Alec. You never made me laugh. Colt made me laugh and you took that away too. You’re not Alec. You’re not Colt. You’re Denny.”

  “I’m your Alec.”

  “You’re Denny,” I repeated and went on. “And I’ve got it back, Denny, but I’ve lost a lot of it. You took it away. You tore it from me. Everything I had, everything I ever wanted, you took it all away. Happiness, laughter, family, babies, Alec, the real Alec, my Alec. You took it all away. Don’t make this worse. Please, just don’t. Put down the axe.”

  He shook his head. “I did all of this for you. For you. I coulda made you happy. I could still make you happy.”

  “It’d make me happy, you put down that axe.”

  “Feb –”

  “Don’t hurt anyone else for me, Denny. Not even yourself. Just put down the axe.”

  “You don’t understand. Why don’t you understand? Everyone knows, everyone knows it’s Feb and Alec. It’s always been Feb and Alec. It’ll always be Feb and Alec. No one’s loved you like me.”

  “You’re right about that,” I whispered. “No one’s loved me like you.”

  He read my words wrong, he read them like permission, his eyes went back to Colt and I knew, I knew what I was trying wasn’t going to work.

  “No one’ll ever love you like me,” he murmured and it was a vow. “All I’ve ever done, all I ever was, was for you.”

  Then he lunged, I closed my eyes and screamed but I still could hear the gunfire all around me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Stavros

  “What?”

  “You heard me, Feb.”

  I looked at Doc, speechless.

  Doc patted my knee and got up, saying, “You can put your clothes back on.”

  I didn’t move.

  Instead, I asked, “How?”

  He was walking to the sink and he turned to me, brows lifted, face carefully blank but, if I could think at that moment, I would have sworn he was trying not to laugh, and he repeated, “How?”

  I was back to speechless.

  “Feb, I’m guessin’ you know how.”

  “But –”

  “Have you and Colt been using protection?” Doc asked.

  “No… but –”

  “Then that’s how.”

  “I’m forty-two years old,” I reminded him.

  “You still have a period?”

  “Well, not anymore.”

  He chuckled. I went back to staring. He turned back to the sink and washed his hands.

  When he came around again, drying them, he said softly, “Get off my table, February, get dressed and go tell Colt you’re pregnant.”

  Then he tossed the paper towel in the trash and walked out of the room.

  * * * * *

  “Hey Kath,” I said, walking in the front door of the Police Station.

  “Hey, Feb,” Kath said back, grinning huge.

  Since she couldn’t know I was pregnant and probably wouldn’t be grinning huge at that knowledge, (like I was grinning on the inside), just maybe grinning, I asked, “What?”

  “Well, let me see…” Kath said then leaned forward when I made it to the front counter. “I gotta count ‘em down. First, Bethany kicked Cory’s ass out last night.”

  I leaned forward too and repeated, “What?”

  “Walked right into Tina Blackstone’s house, caught them in the act and threw a fit to end all fits.”

  I put both hands on the counter and leaned forward. “So that’s what all that noise was about last night. Colt was so pissed, I had to get creative so he wouldn’t go over there and wade in.”

  Kath nodded, still grinning. “Forgot, you and Colt live across the street from Tina.” Then her face changed, it went dreamy before she said, “Creative with Colt, bet that was fun.”

  “It was,” I affirmed with my own smile, because it really, seriously was. “Anyway,” I went on, deciding to share my own gossip, “Bethany may be loud but, the shocker is, Tina’s louder.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. She always struck me as someone with a big mouth,” Kath noted.

  “Yeah, a big mouth is one thing, a loud mouth another. Bethany could win awards and still Tina’s a lot louder.”

  Kath laughed then one upped me. “Did you know Bethany went into labor right then and there?”

  “No joke?” I breathed.

  “No joke,” Kath replied, “and, right after she had the baby, a little girl, by the way, she kicked his ass out. They hadn’t even cut the umbilical cord. Rumor has it, he’s moving in with Tina.”

  “Out of the frying pan, into the fire,” I muttered and Kath’s grin got even wider. “Wonder how Tina’ll take to Cory playin’ around.”

  “You and Colt might want to consider soundproofing,” Kath suggested and I figured that’d be a good idea. “But that’s not it,” Kath told me.

  “What’s it, then?” I asked.

  “Colt fucked Monica Merriweather.”

  I blinked fast about a dozen times before I asked again, “What?”

  “Yonks ago he told her he’d give her an exclusive on the whole…” she stopped talking, her expression changed and she waved her hand in the air in an effort to say words she didn’t really have to say, “then, he didn’t.”

  “I know.”

  “She’s pissed. She’s been in, like, every day for the last two months since it went down. Gettin’ in Colt’s face, gettin’ in everyone’s face and gettin’ nothin’. Colt’s sealed up tight. Sully’s sealed up tight. Everyone’s sealed up tight. Monica is persona non grata even more than she was persona non grata and pretty much everyone hated her before. Now she’s not gettin’ anything not just on that thing but on everything. She’s been locked out.”

  “I know that too, Kath.” And I did, Colt told me all about it.

  “Welp, did you know Monica and Colt had a showdown just two feet away from me not ten minutes ago? Apparently, that reporter from The Star’s got a book comin’ out and before it’s even in the bookstores he’s sold the movie rights.”

  I knew what she was saying.

  I couldn’t say I was pleased there was going to be a movie made about the Denny mess and I was also not pleased there was going to be a book but Colt warned me this was probably going to happen. We’d been through weeks of reporters hounding us anywhere they could get to us before they realized we weren’t talking, Sully wasn’t talking, the FBI weren’t talking. They finally figured out they were only going to get the information released as a matter of course and then the next story came along and they lost interest.

  What I could say was I was pleased that Monica wasn’t going to make her career from it. Colt had told me about her and since the day Denny came back to town she’d been a serious pain in the ass. Calling Colt, calling me, stopping by the bar, coming to the Station, bothering me when I was at Mimi’s. She’d written three articles about us and made some shit up and it wasn’t nice shit. Colt lost his cool and talked to Eli Levinson. Eli was one year ahead of Colt at high school, the wide receiver on the football team who went to law school, opened up his practice in town and Eli owed Colt a favor. Eli paid up by slapping Monica and The Gazette with a cease and desist which included a threat of litigation should they libel us any further. The Gazette had gladly printed a retraction and also just as gladly used that as an excuse to dump Monica’s ass. We’d heard word they’d fired her yesterday.

  Evidently she wasn’t too happy about losing her job and her promised (and reneged) exclusive on the story of the year.

  “Who won the showdown?” I asked Kath, even though I knew the answer.

  Kath was talking through her laughter as she answered, “Seein’ as Monica got physical and is currently in lockdown, I’d say Colt won.”

  My mind filled with visions of short, pudgy Monica going up against tall, lean Colt and I swallowed back a giggle and looked up the stairs.

  “She got physical with a police officer?” I asked.

 
“In the end, three,” Kath answered.

  I swallowed more laughter before saying, “So, is he in a good mood or a bad mood?”

  “Can’t say. Monica’s in lockdown, which is good, but she had her hands on him, which he never liked.”

  I felt my lip curl and said, “I don’t blame him.”

  “Prefers your hands on him, I reckon,” I heard from my side and I turned to see Marty standing there.

  My eyes went to his neck, the scar still vivid and I felt that familiar tightness in my throat just as I fought it back and forced a smile.

  “Hey Marty,” I said softly, reaching out and touching my fingers to his hand. His hand twisted and he touched my fingers back before both our hands fell away. “I hear you’re back in uniform.”

  “Yeah, a week. Thinkin’ about takin’ a vacation.”

  I laughed and Kath said, “You just had a month and a half off and then some.”

  “Yeah, through April showers, now sun’s out and I feel the need to go fishin’,” Marty answered.

  “Then what you doin’ at the Station on your day off?” Kath asked.

  “Heard Monica’s in lockdown so I came to take a picture.” He lifted up a digital camera. “Wanna put one in the visor of all the cruisers, do my bit to keep morale up.” He turned to me. “Wanna copy?”

  I shook my head. “Thanks, but no. I’ve seen enough of Monica for awhile.”

  “Reckon so,” Marty replied and I gave him a smile that said more than the fact that I thought he was funny. It was the smile I’d given him in his hospital room and more than a dozen times besides, in fact, every time I went to his house, with Colt, with Mom and Dad, with Dee and the kids, all of those times bringing casseroles or Mimi’s baked goods, all of them not ever going to be enough to say “thank you for taking a bullet to the neck in an effort to protect me”.

  After I gave him my smile, I turned to Kath.

  “Okay if I go up?” I asked, my eyes going to the stairs before I looked back at her.

  “Sure,” she said.

  I smiled at her, gave Marty’s arm a squeeze and then headed up the stairs.

  Colt was at his desk, his back to me, his hand holding a phone to his ear and I got a tickle in my belly from both seeing him and from holding my secret.

  He turned to me and I read right away he wasn’t in a good mood. He tipped his head to the chair by his desk and I headed that way.

  “You got until Friday, Ned,” I heard Colt say as I sat down beside his desk and I knew he wasn’t in a bad mood just because of Monica but because we’d hired Ned to build onto the garage and he was jacking us around getting it finished. This was unusual. Ned was known to get his work done on time and on budget. Then again, Ned’s wife had chosen about two days into our job to do a runner with one of Ned’s workmen, leaving Ned with two kids not yet in kindergarten and, therefore, Ned’s mind was on other things.

  “Yeah, I get it, I know you’ve hit the shit but you said it’d take three weeks. We’re workin’ on week six and I got a driveway full of crap. Both Feb and I are parkin’ our cars on the street and Feb’s car’s barely got its new plates,” Colt told him and I smiled to myself because my new car with new plates was a cute, little, blue, convertible Volkswagen Beetle.

  I’d won that fight using my high-heeled black shoes, a lacy black teddy that Jessie and I picked up at Victoria’s Secret and the pool table. My strategy worked, by the time I asked him, Colt couldn’t say no.

  This was well before his birthday. On his birthday, he got what he’d always had way back when. Mom’s pork tenderloin with her famous mustard sauce followed by an angel food cake and the whole family packed around our dining table. Dee had given him a framed picture of me and Colt that she took at the bar. It showed Colt at his stool, his legs spread, me standing between them. I had one arm around his shoulders, my other hand on his chest and my lips were resting on his hair. He had his forehead on my shoulder. We were both in profile but you could see we were both laughing. I didn’t remember why we were laughing, but I did remember how his laughter felt sounding against my body. It was a great present and at that moment that picture was sitting on his desk.

  My present was good too, it involved lacy underwear and high heels again, this time red and it included garters and stockings with seams up the back.

  I liked Dee’s present best.

  Colt liked my present better.

  “Nope, Ned, don’t buy that since Jackie’s been watchin’ your kids,” Colt went on, paused then sighed and said, “Just get some focus and get it done. Yeah?” He listened for another second then said, “All right, later,” and he put down the phone.

  Without hesitating, he rolled to me, leaned in, nabbed me behind the neck and pulled me forward for a hard, longish, closed-mouthed kiss right in front of everyone in the bullpen.

  Back in the day Colt had been affectionate. He held my hand. He sat close and put his arm around my chair. When he walked me to class, he either had his thumb hooked in the back belt loop of my jeans or his arm around my shoulders.

  Now it was the same and then some. If I was close, he was close, kissing, touching, holding hands, nabbing me and pulling me in to touch his mouth to the necklaces at my neck, wrapping his fist in my hair to hold my head steady just so he could talk to me. No matter where we were or who was watching.

  At first I figured this had to do with what happened that day, what he’d walked into at the bar, what he’d walked into at Susie’s. But I thought it’d die down. When it didn’t, I decided it had to do with all that and all that came before it and the fact that Colt was making up for lost time. I didn’t mind this, not at all. I didn’t care who was watching either and I was happy to make up for lost time and I’d be happy if it lasted the rest of my life.

  “Whatcha doin’ here, baby?” he asked when he let me go but he stayed leaned into my space so I stayed leaned into his.

  “Came by to tell you I got a reservation at Costa’s tonight,” I told him, having decided Costa’s was the perfect place to tell Colt, if it all went okay, he was going to be a father. We’d had three more reservations there since it went down with Denny and because of his work we’d had to cancel all three.

  He smiled but asked, “I thought you were on tonight.”

  “Called Cheryl. She could use the extra shift.”

  Colt’s smile got bigger. “What time?”

  “Seven.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Colt?” I called and he leaned in closer.

  “Right in front of you, honey.”

  “Please, don’t miss this one,” I whispered, his head tipped to the side and his gaze grew intense.

  “All right,” he whispered back, seeing I was going to say no more, not then, and letting me have it. “I won’t miss it.”

  My fingers curled around his knee and I pushed. “Promise me.”

  His fingers went into the hair at the side of my head, his palm warm against my cheek when he replied, “Baby, I promise.”

  I pressed my cheek into his palm.

  Then I smiled.

  * * * * *

  “What do you think?” I asked Phy as I came out of the dressing room.

  “Danny! Quit it and come here!” She ignored me and the other patrons staring at her aghast as she shouted loudly to her son who was racing through the rails of clothes.

  “I like it, Auntie Feb,” April, Phy’s daughter was giving me the once, twice and three times over.

  “Thanks, baby,” I said to April and looked at Phy. “Phy?”

  Phy looked at me as Danny slunk toward her, his lip sticking out. “You look good in everything, Feb.”

  “Thanks but ‘good’ isn’t what I’m going for.”

  “It’s too tight,” Danny announced, arriving and stopping just outside his mother’s reach to cross his arms on his little boy chest and glare at my dress.

  I smiled at him. “Now that’s what I’m going for.”

  Phy gave me a look which ma
de me laugh softly and I went back into the dressing room and changed back into my jeans and tee.

  I was thinking the dress was overkill considering in a few months I wouldn’t be able to wear it anymore. Furthermore, I was going to need a whole new wardrobe for awhile. Money wasn’t getting low but it was flowing out pretty damned fast.

  I’d cashed in some CDs and some bonds, bought the car, the garage door opener and paid Ned. Colt and I had also pre-paid a cabin by a lake in Wisconsin for a week in June. He’d want to fish, I knew, and I’d want to do absolutely nothing but be with him, even if he was doing something as mind-numbingly boring as fishing, so that worked for both of us.

  Colt and I, Dee and Morrie, Mom and Dad as well as a number of other citizens helped pay for Angie’s funeral. It had been as nice as a funeral could be.

  Mom and Dad had flat out paid for Joe-Bob’s. His had been nicer, most of the town showed up which meant most of the town shut down to do it. It was the biggest funeral I’d ever seen, standing room only at Markham and Sons, the few people left in town to drive by would have seen Joe-Bob went way past five on the funeral popularity scale, tipping the pointer straight to the unheard of ten.

  After, Mom and Dad, Morrie and I had thrown a huge party at J&J’s. We gave out tickets, first drink free and Dad grilled bratwursts in the alley that Dee, Mom, Mimi, Jessie and Lorraine had cleaned up with Morrie, Jimbo, Al, Sully and Chris’s help doing the heavy work. They’d festooned it with lights, balloons and streamers. It wasn’t a place of death and kidnapping and blood anymore but a happy place, a place to party. We’d partied and, as usual, the party had lasted all night.

  I reckon Joe-Bob would have liked that.

  With all that spending, it was lucky that it was summer and turnover at the bar always went up in summer. But it was more. The races were on and we were now a place of interest, almost a tourist attraction. Folks coming into the bar to see where a serial killer made his final kill, to have a look at the woman who was his obsession. Some even took pictures of Joe-Bob’s stool, a stool Morrie, on his own and not telling anyone, had taken away and reupholstered in black velvet, a big, black, satin ribbon attached across the seat, the sides of which were big, satin bows. Every day upon opening, Morrie or Darryl or me poured out a draft and rested the mug on the seat. It was a memorial of sorts. It was also a stool no one but no one put their ass on anymore and never would.