"No." Her eyes met his. "I don"t go out with policemen."
"I see. Then this is-"
"A party," she answered simply, then felt she needed to add the real reason behind her invitation. "And a way to show you that families can get along."
"What makes you think I need to see that?" He saw the knowing look that came into her eyes. He didn"t want anyone trying to make him rea.s.sess his life. He"d already come to terms with it, both past and present. Which meant he knew what his future would be like. More of the same. He turned from her as he took another long sip. "Why don"t you just stick to treating animals?"
She grinned. "I kinda thought I was." Eyeing her, Brady opened his mouth to retort, then found himself laughing. "Good," Patience p.r.o.nounced. "You have a nice laugh. Now, let"s go say hi to Shaw and Moira so I can unload this present. And then I"ll get you started on one of Uncle Andrew"s hors d"oeuvres."
Taking the box from her to enable her mobility, Brady let her take the lead. She wove her way toward the guests of honor like a freshly released arrow, all the while holding on to his hand. She"d taken it without a word. His first instinct was to pull back, but he kept his hand where it was, with her fingers around his. He savored the contact and told himself he was an idiot.
The crowd around Shaw and Moira turned out to be too thick to penetrate.
Patience looked at Brady over her shoulder. "We"d need a bulldozer to get through. Maybe later." She saw a huge pile of gifts not far off. She handed him the one she"d brought. "Just put that over there," she instructed.
"Any other orders?" he asked after he dropped off the gift.
She grinned again, wounding him without drawing a drop of blood, and slipped her hand over his one more time. "Yeah, follow me."
This time, she led him into the kitchen. For once it was empty. Almost. She stopped short as she came up on her uncle nuzzling his wife.
Her eyes danced as she looked back at Brady. Everyone in the family thought of what had happened to Andrew and Rose as their own personal miracle. "Looks like food isn"t the only thing cooking in here." Patience put her hand up in front of her face to pretend to block her view of the couple. "Sorry about that."
"Don"t be," Andrew laughed. Still holding the woman he loved close, he threaded his arm around her waist. "I"m not." He looked up at Patience and the man who had clearly caught his niece"s fancy, whether she was willing to admit it or not. "What can I get you two?"
"One of your canapes to start with. I promised Brady an experience he"d remember a long time," Patience said.
Andrew gave his niece a long, significant look and then smiled.
"All right. I"ve got a fresh tray right there. Do me a favor and take it out to the crowd, will you?" he asked Patience. And then his eyes shifted toward his wife. "I"ve got a little pressing, unfinished business to tend to first."
"Will do." Reaching for the tray, she smiled when Brady picked it up for her and started for the living room. She quickly followed in his wake. "Thanks."
"How long have they been married?" he asked her once they were clear of the kitchen.
"Over thirty years," she told him. "But he"s just recently found her again and I guess they"re like newlyweds right now." She glanced back toward the kitchen and didn"t bother hiding the sigh that escaped. If only her own parents had been half as much in love, maybe things would have turned out differently for all of them. She pushed the thought from her mind as she glanced back at Brady. "I think it"s sweet."
He"d forgotten about that. The resolution to the fifteen-year-old case had been in all the local papers. Rose Cavanaugh had driven off one morning fifteen years ago after an argument with her husband, only to disappear. Her car was found in the river the next day and it was a.s.sumed by everyone but the chief that her body had been washed out to sea. He never once gave up hope that he"d find her someday. Years later, he did. She had been working as a waitress in a diner up the coast. A blow to the head and her harrowing near-death experience in the river had caused her to lose her memory, something obviously in the past now, he thought.
How did it feel to have someone come back from the dead? he wondered. An emotion vaguely resembling envy fluttered through him before disappearing. He couldn"t have these normal feelings, normal reactions. He had to remember that.
"I guess your uncle was lucky."
She noted the wistful tone in his voice and wondered at it. At least this made him human, she thought. "Guess so."
He had to admit it. Dinner was everything Patience had promised. And more. The former chief of police knew his way around a kitchen. Brady couldn"t remember when he"d eaten a better meal. Everything he had was even better than the last. He had no idea why the Cavanaughs didn"t all weigh in at three hundred pounds.
More impressive than the meal was the company. Granted most of the department, active and retired, had been invited, but he"d never seen people get along the way Patience"s relatives did. Love seemed to echo from every corner, every pore. Not the sickeningly sweet kind but the living, breathing, you"re-my-brother-sister-cousin-child and I"d-go-to-h.e.l.l-and-back-twice-for-you kind.
Something he"d never felt. Or, if he had, it was only in a small way. On a lonely road.
But he also had to get going. He could only be in the presence of a happy, functional environment for so long before he needed s.p.a.ce.
He and Patience were sitting outside, on the patio. She saw him shift restlessly. He"d lasted longer than she"d thought he would. "Time to go?" she guessed, watching his face.
"You don"t have to leave on my account," he told her. "I"ll get a ride with someone."
Abandoning her seat, she managed to match him stride for stride. "That"s all right. Let"s just go get the dogs. I"m tired."
He knew she was lying, but said nothing.
The ride back was conducted in basic silence. She tried to coax him into a conversation once, then decided to let him have a few minutes of quiet. G.o.d knew he"d earned it. When they reached her driveway, she half expected master and dog to bound out of the car together, head for their own vehicle and leave.
That he walked her to her door was a bonus she hadn"t expected. Tacoma led the way, with King bringing up the rear. She was aware only of Brady.
Digging out her key, she turned toward him. "I"m glad you came," she told him. "Very glad."
"Yeah," Brady half mumbled under his breath. "Me, too."
She didn"t believe him, but she wanted to. "Really? They can be kind of overwhelming when taken en ma.s.se like that, but no matter what happened at home, they always made me feel like I belonged. Made me feel loved."
He paused, wanting to kiss her, knowing he shouldn"t. For both their sakes. She didn"t want to get involved with a policeman and he just didn"t want to get involved, period. But he could feel himself weakening.
What came out, did so out of the blue. Purely a defense mechanism meant to cut himself off from her. "I shot my father," he said without any preamble.
She stared at him, stunned, trying to figure out how she should react to this. "Excuse me?"
"My father," Brady repeated. "I shot him." He looked at her for a long moment. "I just thought you might want to know that before you go any further with whatever you think you"re doing for my own good."
She tried to reconcile the man standing in front of her with the information he"d just given her. She couldn"t.
"You shot him?"
"Yes."
"Intentionally?"
He smiled then. It wasn"t the kind of question that first came to mind for a lay person. "Easy to see you"ve got police in your background."
"Answer the question. Did you kill him on purpose?"
For a second he allowed himself to go back to a time that was worse than living in h.e.l.l.
"I must have killed him a thousand times in my mind. Just as many times as I rescued my mother from him and talked her into running away with us. With Laura and me." He"d done neither. He blew out a breath, looking into the night. When he turned his eyes back in her direction, he seemed calmer and in control. "But did I aim the gun at him that night, dead center and pull the trigger? No. That was an accident."
Her mouth was bone-dry. "What kind of an accident?" she asked. "Handling-the-gun-and-it-went-off kind of accident?"
"No, more like wrestling-the-old-man-and-trying-to-get-the-gun-out-of-his-hand-before-he-killed-someone-worth-mourning kind of accident." He sighed. Try as he might, there were no regrets. His father had been a man who hadn"t deserved to live. "It went off. Hitting him in the chest. He was dead before he ever reached the hospital."
Things fell into place. She wanted to hold him, to embrace him and to tell him it was all right. "Do you want to come inside?"
"It"s late."
"I didn"t ask you for the time."
"No, I guess you didn"t."
She took a step back, the invitation reinforced.
"So?"
Brady followed her inside without another word.
Chapter 11.
The moment the door closed behind them, they knew. Knew this wasn"t a time for conversation, for words that were meant to soothe but came a distant second to true desire. They needed the comfort that came through touch, through the most basic of physical contact.
Through the mingling of bodies and, just perhaps, of souls.
Behind him, Brady heard the click of the lock as the door met the jamb. Hurting from memories he"d long since thought buried, he swept Patience into his arms and kissed her. Kissed her the way he"d been longing to for what felt like an eternity.
The neediness within Brady had brought him to a point of vulnerability he"d never experienced before, even at the lowest point of his childhood. Tomorrow there would be self-reprisals and regrets, but right now he needed this, needed to lose himself in this feeling, in this woman. He knew in his heart that none of this was real and that there was no salvation at the end of the path, but for now, he could pretend to believe in that. Believe in the sheer purity this woman represented. Believe in salvation.
Her world was so different from his, had been so different from his. Because, no matter what, there had been love for her to grow on. The way there hadn"t been for him.
He couldn"t remember ever feeling love. Couldn"t remember ever feeling anything but a sense of duty toward his mother and sister, because they"d had no one else. For his father, he"d felt nothing but hatred, such enormous hatred.
He gave as good as he"d gotten.
He wanted to be cleansed. To forget, just for a moment, that he was this man who couldn"t feel. Who had no love to offer, no evidence of love in his life. He wanted to cross the border and to quietly slip out of his world into hers.
The heat of the kiss grew, spreading all through him, absorbing him into the fire. Cleansing him.
With a hesitation that was completely foreign to him, Brady touched her, letting his fingers trail along her back, up her sides. Antic.i.p.ating the press of flesh against flesh. The swell of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, pressed so urgently against him, filled him with both desire and a sense of sweetness that came from nowhere and left him in awe and wonder.
Things happened inside of him, things he couldn"t understand. Things beyond the physical.
Sounds filled his head. Distant noises that steadily became louder.
Whining?
Moaning?
And then he felt Patience press her palms against his arms, pushing him back. Not urgently, but just enough to make him stop.
Reality dawned on him. What the h.e.l.l was he doing? An apology hovered on his lips, but the look in her eyes was amus.e.m.e.nt. He didn"t understand.
"We have an audience," she told him. When he said nothing, just watched her, Patience nodded her head toward the two dogs who sat side by side like a furry Greek chorus not two feet away, watching their every move. Tacoma made a high-pitched noise that sounded very much like whining. Something akin to a rumbling noise came from King. "I think Tacoma"s jealous."
"Of me?" Brady felt as if his brain was encased in a fog.
He watched as a smile rose into her eyes. Desire crescendoed inside his belly. He wanted nothing more than to stand here and bask in the light, in the warmth he felt emanating from her.
"No," Patience corrected. "Of me. I think she likes you. A lot. She wants to be the alpha female." And then she blew out a breath as if she were trying to get her bearings. He could identify with that, he thought. Cupping her hand to his cheek, she said, "Whatever you"re thinking, hold that thought. I"ll be right back." She looked at the two dogs. "C"mon, you two. Your masters need some alone time."
Aching for her, Brady watched as she led the two dogs away to another room. He heard a door close somewhere down the hall. She was back in less than a minute.
For the sake of future tranquillity, he tried to talk himself out of making love with her. And had very little success.
"Okay," Patience said cheerfully as she presented herself in front of him again, "where were we?"
He wanted to frame an apology, something about being carried away by the moment and the import of what he"d just shared with her on her doorstep. The words refused to come and then they were halted altogether. The very air stopped in his lungs as she took his hand and placed it on her breast.
"I believe you were here," she told him, rising just slightly on her toes. "And your mouth-" she moved closer "-was right here."
Like a man in a dream, he felt his heart all but stop. Felt her breath on his lips. Felt everything within him tightening like a wet leather string left out in the sun. He"d never wanted someone so much in his life, couldn"t remember ever wanting anyone the way he wanted her.
And it scared him. Scared him because it took control out of his hands and placed it in hers. "Patience-" he began.
"Yes," she whispered, "we"ve both exercised more than a little of it. Now it"s time to act on the way we both feel."
He wanted nothing more than to take her. But he"d always been aware of consequences and in this case there were huge ones. For both of them, her as well as him. "You"re going to regret this."
"Only if I stop." Feeling so much she didn"t know where to begin, Patience tried very hard to contain it all and to move forward slowly. But move forward she would. Because to step back at this point was unthinkable. Her eyes held his. "Rule Number One. Don"t ever, ever, tell me how I"m going to react to something-because you have no way of knowing."
He feathered his fingers through her hair. Golden highlights gleamed at him from the strawberry strands. "I thought Rule Number One was no policeman."
A very s.e.xy grin curved the corners of her mouth. "You"re not wearing a uniform right now," she pointed out. Then, surprising herself a little and him a great deal, she began to unb.u.t.ton his shirt. Slowly. Seductively. She could feel his pulse drumming beneath her fingers. "And pretty soon, you won"t be wearing anything at all."
Whatever control he thought he had over himself shattered into a thousand pieces. Needs began to urgently pound through him, demanding satisfaction. Demanding her.
Hardly knowing what he was doing, he found the zipper at the back of her dress and pulled it down to its base. The turquoise fabric seemed to sigh right off her body. Sigh the way he realized he had as he saw her standing in a lacy white bra, matching panties and stockings that seemed to have no earthly way of staying up.
Excitement tightened like a fist within his belly. He felt himself hardening even more.