Too Hot to Hold (7 page)

She could still smell the scent of his skin on hers and was reluctant to wash that away just yet. She thought she could still feel his fingers tracing her tattoo. And so she moved to the kitchen table, listening to the rain on the windows and looking through the morning editions of several newspapers she read for work—some her competitors and some, like the one whose headline caught her eye, merely tabloids she read to see what rumors they were printing.

The story was on Cutter Winfield, and the reporter claimed to have a reliable source feeding him information about the missing heir.

She flipped the pages to read the copy.

Cutter Winfield has been a mystery for years. Now, with the death of his mother, an independent source close to the Winfield family claims that Cutter is indeed alive and well, and purported to be readying to take on the title of Winfield yet again
.

Cutter found his outlet in being part of an elite group of the military… and a chance to keep his true identity hidden from the media. Amidst rumors of his true paternity and increasing troubles with the law, he left his family and has never looked back
.

The picture this reporter painted of the lost Winfield heir would’ve made a great movie.

She’d been on the Winfield story herself for as long as she’d been reporting. It had always fascinated her, the way Cutter disappeared from a seeming fairy tale life. With Deidre’s death, everything about him was stirred up again, and put a kink in her plans to take some time off to figure out what was happening with Aaron.

Aaron
. God, what a mess.

Her past with him was exploding in a way that threatened to quickly spiral toward something she had no control over.

Sure, she’d tried, had methodically gone through Aaron’s list of men, searching for some semblance of power over the situation. The patch provided a small clue, but it wasn’t enough.

She could choose to let herself be haunted by Aaron or she could do her job. She’d finish up her current story on the death of Deidre Winfield and then she’d figure out a way to convince Nick to help her unfold the mystery of Aaron’s phone calls.

Thanks to the relentless, driving rain, Nick blended easily into the background of the cemetery, away from the media frenzy of the press, who were pretending to be respectful and give the Winfields their privacy in grief.

Nick knew the Winfield family—Walter, in particular—didn’t really want the private time.
Life without the press to see it, record it and send it out to the voting public isn’t worth living
, Walter used to say.

Even hidden as Nick was, this was dangerous, made his heart pound and throat tighten, which was exactly why he forced himself to stay put, feet planted to the muddied earth until his mother’s coffin was lowered to the ground.

He’d made the drive from Kaylee’s apartment in Maryland to New York for the burial for so many different reasons—for an unshakable need to show respect for the woman who’d given him life, a sense of honor and pride in proving that he could give all of this up and because he’d never, ever had a feeling of closure with the Winfields.

After today, he still didn’t. Probably never would, and that made his ulcer—the one he’d had since he was a child—burn.

After he’d left home, he’d seen Deidre in person only once. He’d been in New York with Kenny and Chris—it had been two years after Maggie passed and Kenny had hauled the two boys with him on a business trip in an attempt to keep them out of trouble.

Nick hadn’t wanted to be that close to his home territory, but it had been the middle of August, and the Winfields traditionally shut down their Manhattan home and spent most of their time in the summer house.

And he saw her—slim and regal in a simple white suit, no sunglasses to shield her.

She saw him too, looked at him for a moment with no real expression on her face, and he remembered thinking,
If she calls to me, I’ll walk over to her
, despite the cameras that followed her relentlessly, flashbulbs popping like small firecrackers echoing in his ears.

She’d simply brushed by him as if he was invisible and continued walking. And he cursed himself for being weak, for letting himself get pulled in again. For letting himself feel.

He’d rented a car using a fake ID and driven back to Virginia without telling Chris or Dad where he was going or why. Didn’t give a shit about anything but the feel of the road under him and the hours-long drive that put space between him and his old life.

He hadn’t been back to New York since, until today.

Now he brushed the wet hair out of his eyes and scanned the crowd. The extended Winfield clan was all there, but he honed in on his immediate family.

His sister looked suitably classy. Eric looked the same. The familiar chill started at the base of his spine, worked its way up as it always did when he caught a glimpse of these people who were supposed to be his family, whether it be on TV or in the newspaper. But this, this was the first time in eleven years that he’d actually seen any of them in the flesh, that he’d been this close to the blood ties that he would’ve done anything as a kid to cut.

He was supposed to be a part of them, should feel something, any kind of connection, kinship.

But there was nothing, the same disconnect from childhood. He knew it didn’t matter, that he was better off.

The front page of the paper Nick had torn away and held on to tightly throughout the graveside ceremony was now crumpled in his fist, the page with the headline that read
Cutter Winfield—a Special Forces Soldier. Hidden by the US Military?

Nick wasn’t prone to panic; early life experiences coupled with his training taught him that knee-jerk reactions did no good. The report claimed to have a legitimate source, but Nick knew that his family would rather die than admit him into it.

None of these so-called reports ever panned out. It helped that Nick had been reclusive, that he looked like his mother’s side of the family and not like a Winfield. He’d never been tagged by anyone in that regard, although he was stopped frequently to ask if he was some kind of movie star or model.

The advent of video enhancement made things slightly more interesting for him. He’d been helped only because the picture the press claimed was him was really one of his nurse’s sons. If the Winfields knew the difference, they weren’t saying. But if that was all about to change, he needed to play defense harder and faster.

He turned from the scene at the cemetery and started to walk away, his head pounding. And when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket, he knew exactly who it was. He’d ignored his dad’s numerous phone calls, sent them all to voice mail and responded with a brief
I’m fine
text message. But Dad wouldn’t be deterred for much longer.

He flipped open his ringing cell and Dad was speaking before Nick got the
Hello
out.

“What are you doing?”

“Walking.”

“That smart mouth never got you into anything good.”

Nick shook his head, the mood dissipated momentarily and he wondered why this man could call him out every single time with a minimal amount of chafing on Nick’s part. Only Dad and a handful of superiors. “I went to the funeral.”

There was silence on the other end, and then, “I’m coming home.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“You’re alone. Your brothers aren’t there.”

How Dad always knew that was beyond him, because yes, Nick was alone. Really alone. And it was the first time that had happened since he’d been eight years old and Jake had barged into the special education classroom where they’d stuck Nick.

Jake had stared at Nick’s face and then at his throat where the trach was still in place. “That must feel weird.”

I’m used to it
, Nick had signed, because at the time, his teachers, his family, everyone thought that he didn’t know how to speak, that he actually couldn’t speak. But he could, because he’d practiced in private every single chance he got, covering the trach and hearing the comfort of his own rough voice, biding his time until the plastic tube came out for good.

“I have no idea what the fuck you’re telling me,” Jake had responded, in that demanding, blunt and somehow charming way he’d had even way back when. “Teach me.”

And so, after school, behind the auditorium where the teachers would come out during their breaks to smoke, Nick taught Jake the sign language he’d learned. Jake, of course, insisted they modify it so no one could understand what the hell the two of them were talking about.

When Nick spoke his first words, he waited for Jake’s reaction.

“I always knew you could speak,” Jake told him.

Just like Nick had always known his past would come back to haunt him.

“This will go away.” Dad’s voice was calm and quiet. “Now that Deidre’s buried, the press will find something else to focus on besides looking for Cutter.”

“I hope that happens fast.”

“I’m sorry about Deidre.”

Nick opened his mouth to say that he wasn’t sorry, but nothing came out. He didn’t want to feel anything for the woman. Shouldn’t. And he closed his eyes and pictured Maggie’s face, her warm smile, and let himself remember the woman he’d always think of as Mom.

Maggie was there when he’d developed bronchitis, when he’d bucked at going to the hospital. She’d stayed with him non-stop, got him through the worst of the illness. She spun him stories, read him poetry and sang songs she’d written. He still remembered that comfort, wondered if Deidre had ever done that for Eric or for Cass.

Maggie, cremated, ashes spread—
So you can come visit me anywhere and everywhere
, she’d told her sons. And yes, that had been a terrible day, a terrible time.

Still, to know the love of a good mother for nine months was better than never knowing it.

“It’s okay to be upset over this. I’d be worried if you weren’t.” Kenny paused. “I’ve seen the reports, the papers.”

“They’re bullshit,” Nick retorted, threw the now sodden paper he’d still been holding in his palm in the nearest trash bin and headed toward his car. He was soaked to the skin. “I’m not worried.”

“And you’re sure you don’t want me to fly in?”

“I’ll be fine, Dad. I’ve got some things I’ve got to take care of anyway.”

Being all alone gave him that powerless feeling he remembered all too clearly.

He did not do alone well, not off the job. Jake and Chris got along just fine with solitude but Nick needed something to fill up the silence.

Going back to Kaylee’s place wasn’t an option, no matter how easy it would be to put himself into her care for another night or two or more, to drown his grief inside of her.

He already knew more about her than he wanted to. Her apartment was clean and sleek and modern, but it wasn’t a home. There were no pictures that he saw and nothing looked lived in. The furniture still appeared to be new. Maybe she’d just moved in recently, maybe she’d come from California or Seattle and had ten brothers and sisters and went home to visit every Christmas and Thanksgiving.

Maybe he had to stop thinking about her before he got himself into some real trouble.

Six shots of the local pombay did nothing to her, and yet Sarah Cameron had to practically carry one of the male doctors back to his tent after he’d had half that amount. He’d been attempting to win the bet forged around the open area of the refugee camp as midnight approached.

“You could join me, you know,” he murmured against her now, his skin damp from the humidity, his body hard against her own.

And yes, joining him would be easy—would help them both to forget that they were in the middle of a refugee camp in the DRC, and it would mean nothing to her but a release of the relentless, restless energy that had pervaded her since the man she loved had disappeared.

“You’ll be passed out before you get your pants off,” she told him. “By the way, you owe me. Ten dollars. American money.”

She’d never see that money, was only a guest here and would be gone long before this man was able to drag himself out of the bed. Vince, the American reporter she’d been working with for the past week, would want to stay here through the night and be on the road by dawn. She hadn’t been able to sleep and spent most of the evening trading stories with the locals and the doctors.

They’d begun telling ghost stories around the campfire, fueled by the locals’ tales of the living dead—zombies—that they swore were true. The superstition went that once you heard the story, you needed to tell it to another person to rid yourself of the bad karma that went with it.

Sarah understood superstitions, understood karma and Africa and its many facets as well as she understood her own soul. She’d grown up here and when she was little—maybe five or six or seven—she’d loved ghost stories. She and her sister would sit under the old porch on the family’s farm in Zimbabwe in the dark, only a thin beam of an old flashlight between them, and with the whisper of the tobacco leaves as a soundstage they’d try to scare each other silly.

Sometimes, they used classic stories from books they’d gotten out of the school library—others were from local traditions, like the tales of walking zombies, thanks to local voodoo legends.

But those ghosts were always smoke and mirrors, never flesh and blood. They were never real, and Sarah and her sister would end up laughing until their sides hurt and Mom would call them back inside the house.