The Wreck (33 page)

He nodded. “Other than your Aunt Carly,
my very best friends.”

“I’m sorry. That’s an awful lot to lose
all at once.”

“Yes,” Brian said, surprised by the pain.
He couldn’t believe it was still possible to feel it so acutely. “It was a
terrible time for everyone.”

“My mom said you were Auntie Carly’s
boyfriend in high school.”

“That’s right. Four and a half years, in
fact.”

“So why didn’t you two get married before
now?”

What to say?
“We went through a bad time after the
wreck, and circumstances kind of came between us. I had to leave for college, and
Carly wasn’t able to come with me like we’d planned.” He shrugged. “We never
saw each other again until recently.”

“Do you wish you’d gotten married back
then?”

Brian smiled. “You have no idea how much
I wish we had. But you can’t undo the past. All any of us has is right now, and
you’ve got to do the best you can with today.”

She nodded in agreement.

“I’m very sorry you lost your friend in
such an awful way,” he said.

“Thank you. I’m sorry for you, too.”

Brian looked up to find Carly staring at
their intertwined hands. He released Zoë and made room for Carly on the
blanket.

“Everything okay?” she asked tentatively
as she sat next to him and returned his phone to her bag.

“Zoë and I were just having a very nice
chat,” he said with a wink for the girl.

“That’s right.” Zoë’s face lit up with a
smile that was in sharp contrast to the sadness of a few minutes earlier. “I
was just making sure he’s worthy of you.”

Carly laughed. “And?”

Brian waited breathlessly for Zoë’s
reply.

With an impish sideways glance at him,
she said, “He’ll do.”

B
rian was almost asleep when the door
between their adjoining rooms opened and Carly tiptoed in. Amused, he
whispered, “What are you doing?”

“I thought you were sleeping.” She slid
into bed with him. “Zoë kicked me out.”

Brian laughed softly as he pulled her
tight against him. “Why? Did she find out you snore?”

Carly poked him. “I do
not
!”

He laughed and nibbled on her neck. “I
was missing you anyway.”

She wrapped her arms around him. “Oh,
yeah?”

“Uh huh. I’ve gotten used to sleeping
with you.”

“I know,” Carly said as she kissed him.
“Me, too. She told me to go sleep with my fiancé. She guaranteed me—and I’m
quoting here—that her morality won’t go to hell in a handbasket, and she won’t
tell her mother we slept together on the trip.”

Brian’s laughter echoed through both of
them. “She’s so funny.”

“She also said she never gets a hotel bed
all to herself. Apparently, she has to share with Lilly when they travel.”

“I always had to share a bed with Sam. He
used to kick the shit out of me—I think on purpose.” He paused before he added,
“Jeez, I haven’t thought about that in years.”

Carly caressed his face. “It’s amazing
how it can still hurt so badly, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Like I told Zoë today, it doesn’t hurt
every day anymore. But when it does…”

“It takes you by surprise.”

“Yes.” He worked a hand under the T-shirt
she had worn to sleep in and rubbed her back. “I had the best time with her
today. With both of you.”

“I used to imagine spending a day with the
two of you. I’ve wondered how it would feel to see you with her, but when I
came upon the two of you holding hands… It was overwhelming.”

“I felt an immediate bond with her.”

“I think it’s safe to say the feeling is
mutual. She said, and again I’m quoting, that you’re a ‘hottie.’”

He snorted with laughter. “She has great
taste in men, just like her Auntie Carly.”

“Mmm,” Carly said, getting into the back
rub. “Lower.”

He tugged at her shirt, eased it over her
head, and tossed it on the floor. “That’s better.”

He felt her relax under his hands as he
worked out the kinks that had gathered in her neck and shoulders over the last
few stressful days.

“Go to sleep,” he said, leaning over to
kiss her cheek.

“Brian?”

“What, honey?”

“Will you make love with me?”

“Anytime you want.”

“How about now?”

“With Zoë right next door?”

Carly turned over and reached for him. “I
can be quiet. I’ve had a lot of practice.”

Brian smiled, and the feel of her breasts
against his chest made him tremble with desire, just as it had when he was
eighteen. “That’s very funny.”

She clutched his shoulders. “We haven’t
made love in days. Do I need to be worried?”

“Of course not.” He smoothed the curls
off her face. “I’m sorry, honey. I’ve just had so much on my mind. This thing
with Zoë and everything with the case.”

“I know. And even though you’ve been so
great about it, I’m still afraid it’s put up a wall between us. There’s a crazy
man after me, but I wasn’t truly afraid until the other night when I had a
couple of hours to wonder what I’d do if you never came home again. After you
found out.”

He touched his lips to hers. “Where else
would I have gone? You’re home for me, Carly. It took me half my life to
realize that, so you won’t be getting rid of me any time soon.”

Combing her fingers through his hair, she
devoured him with a kiss that left him weak with need. “Love me, Brian.”

“I do. You know I do.”

“Show me.”

“Turn over,” he whispered.

“Why?” she asked nervously.

He nudged her onto her belly. “Just do
it.”

She glanced at him over her shoulder.
“What are you going to do?”

He brushed his lips over her ear and
dragged a finger slowly down her backbone. “Trust me?”

She trembled. “Of course I do.”

“Then let me show you something new.”

“There’s
more
?”

His laughter was soft and easy, just like
the movement of his hands on her back. He massaged her shoulders until he felt
her tension drain away.

“Feels good,” she whispered.

“Yes, you do,” he said as he worked his
way to her lower back. Hooking his fingers into the waistband of her bikini
panties, he pulled them down slowly. When he reached her feet, he tossed the
panties and his boxers to the floor. He started the massage again with her feet
and then moved to her calves.

“Brian.”

“Yeah?”

“When do we get to the sex part?”

He laughed. “In a minute. I promise.”

Inhaling a deep, frustrated breath, she
rested her face on the pillow but watched him out of the corner of one eye.

His fingers coasted over her inner
thighs, causing her to tense. “Relax, honey.”

“I’m trying, but you’re making me nuts.”

“Good,” he whispered against her ear,
sending a shiver through her. “That’s the point.” Only his weight partially on
top of her kept her from launching off the bed when he buried his fingers in
her wet heat.

She groaned and pushed back against his
hand.

He kept it up until her thighs began to
tremble and she clutched him from within. Moving swiftly, he withdrew his
fingers, raised her to her knees, and entered her from behind just as she
climaxed with a restrained cry. He gripped her hips and pumped hard all the
while biting his lip to keep from coming too soon.

When he felt her spasms begin to subside,
he reached around to coax her up again.

“
Oh
,” she gasped as he continued
the relentless pace. “
Brian
.”

His lips were pressed to her back, his
fingers sliding over her most sensitive place, and his concentration was so
intense he didn’t dare try to speak for fear of losing control. Instead, he
pushed harder and deeper and was soon rewarded by another soft cry of
completion. Cupping her breasts, he went deep one last time and lost himself in
her. “
Carly
.”

As he landed half on her, half off, he
was panting, sweaty, and so depleted he could only rest his head on her back
and gulp for air. “Everything okay down there?” he finally asked.

“Mmm,” she purred.

“Was that a good mmm?”

“
Mmm
.”

He smiled. “So we agree new things are
good?”

This time she added a nod to go with her
“Mmm hmm.”

He reached up to lace his fingers through
hers.

“Bri?”

Taking a page from her book, he said,
“Hmm?”

“Can we do that again sometime when I
don’t have to be quiet?”

With his cheek pressed to her back, he
laughed. “Definitely.”

Michael
got home after midnight and moved quietly through the house so he wouldn’t
disturb Mary Ann. She hadn’t slept much since they found out about Zoë. He
hadn’t slept so well himself, but it wasn’t just because of Zoë. The pressure
to solve this case sat on his shoulders like a thousand-pound weight he carried
with him twenty-four hours a day.

They had spent three hours grilling Luke
McInnis and had searched every inch of his house without finding a thing that
tied him to any of the crimes. Either Luke was one cool customer, or he was
innocent. They’d had no choice but to release him when they had failed to crack
him. Michael hated that he was so desperate to solve this case that he had
actually begun to hope it was Luke—a kid his sons had grown up with.

He opened a beer and sat in the dark
living room. So many thoughts spiraled through his mind. No wonder he couldn’t
sleep. Not only was he obsessed with the case, but he was also worried about
Brian and Carly, concerned about Mary Ann, curious about his granddaughter, and
missing Sam more than he had in a long time. And that Zoë had been born on
Sam’s birthday. Incredible.

A sniffling sound came from the end of
the hallway. His poor Mary Ann. She was heartbroken—again—and that bothered him
more than anything else. With one big swallow he downed the rest of the beer
and got up. He left the empty bottle in the kitchen and picked up the 9
millimeter handgun he kept close to him at all times these days. Tugging off
his tie, he unbuttoned his white uniform shirt on his way down the hall.

“Hey, babe,” he said from the doorway. He
left the light on in the hallway so he could see her.

She pushed the hair from her face and sat
up against the headboard. “You’re so late.”

He put the gun in the bedside table
drawer, sat on the edge of the bed, and kicked off his shoes. “I left you a
message earlier that it was going to be a long night. Did you get it?”

“When I got home from dinner with Carol.”

“How’d that go?”

Mary Ann shrugged. “She feels terrible,
of course. She said she begged Carly to tell Brian she was pregnant, but when
Carly chose not to, she and Steve had to respect her decision. We should be two
mothers focused on throwing together a wedding that’s fifteen years overdue.
Instead, we spent the whole night talking about the granddaughter we share—a
granddaughter she’s gotten to love and care for, and I never knew I had. It’s
hard not to resent Carol for that. I keep telling myself it wasn’t her fault,
but that doesn’t make it any easier to hear what a great kid Zoë is.”

He wiped the tears from her face and
brought her hand to his lips. “I hate to see you so upset. What can I do for
you?”

“You’re doing it.”

“Oh, I can do better than that.” He
quickly shed the rest of his uniform into a pile on the floor and got in bed.
“Come here.”

She curled up against him and released a
deep rattling breath. “I want to be so mad with Carly, but I can’t quite seem
to get there.”

“She’s crazy about that boy of ours, and
her devotion to him has never wavered, even during all the years he was gone,”
Michael reminded her. “She made a huge sacrifice for him. Maybe it wasn’t what
was best for us, but it
was
best for him. You have to know that.”

“I
do
know that, Michael. I think
that’s why I can’t seem to stay mad with her. She suffered as much as anyone
after the accident.”

“Maybe even more so.”

“Maybe,” she conceded. “When I think
about the empty lives she and Brian have led when they should’ve been raising
their daughter together, and then add to it everything Sam and the others were
denied, that’s when I really get mad. Whoever this monster is, the list of
things he’s taken from us and so many others just gets longer and longer. I
blame
him
for the fact I don’t know my granddaughter. It’s
his
fault.”