Wild Ride: A Changing Gears Novel (24 page)

“Alex, please, I need to explain.” Although he wasn’t certain himself what he wanted to tell her, except that he couldn’t stand the way she was looking at him, and he wanted to pull her into his arms and the hell with everything else.

He must have telegraphed his intention, for she stepped around him. “Fun and games,” she reminded him. “That’s all we were to each other. And now the fun and games are over.” She reseated herself, once more staring at her notebook.

“It’s not over between us. Nowhere near. You know that as well as I do.”

“Maybe Grandpa meant to write the letter and never got around to it, or he misplaced it. Years from now it could turn up,” she said.

All right. For now, he’d let her avoid the personal stuff, but he wasn’t going to lose her easily. He brought his mind back to the puzzle at hand. “Maybe. Or we could go looking for it.”

Her gaze was cool and level. “The letter or the painting?”

“Hey, a letter’s paper and ink. That Van Gogh is–”

“Canvas and oil.”

“You know better than that. It’s a masterpiece painted by one of the great artists of all time.”

“That painting is also loot. And if you find it you earn a fat fee. According to my research, you’ve become wealthy by finding and returning stolen art.”

“Olive Trees rightfully belongs to someone else.”

She nodded. “I know. How do you suggest we find it? You’ve already searched Grandpa’s house and half of Swiftcurrent.”

“True. But I don’t know your grandparents’ house or this town the way you do. The old homestead is the obvious place to start.” He paused and then, feeling a little foolish, related what the strange guy at the bike shop had said.

“Do you think the people of Swifcurrent are that backward? That someone could hang a priceless Van Gogh on their wall and no one would notice?”

“I think you’d be surprised what people don’t notice.” Like a man standing in front of her so in love with her he hurt all over.

“Let me call Gillian. She’s staying in the house. I want to make sure she’s okay with us turning up there.”

He felt his jaw tighten. “She could be involved.”

“No, Duncan. She’s not involved. She’s been looking after me for three days. She’s not getting drunk or high or visiting a stolen Van Gogh. She’s been cooking me soup and baking muffins.”

“And sleeping with the town detective,” he admitted.

She settled against the couch with her feet curled under her. He realized he hadn’t eaten and, opening the fridge, by process of elimination decided to cook up some eggs.

“Do you think Grandpa went to those L.A. people and died before he could hand over the painting? Then they came to the same asinine conclusion you did and went after me?”

He cut a blue corner off the block of cheddar and grated the rest while the pan warmed. He didn’t trust the ham, but the spinach looked okay. And the tomatoes.

“Maybe. But I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

As he began scrambling the eggs he used his free hand to pop two pieces of bread into the toaster. He decided to share his deepest suspicion mainly to see how she reacted. “I dropped some pretty heavy hints to your former brother in law about that Van Gogh. That was the day before I went rock climbing.”

She gasped. “Eric? You think Eric could–”

She stopped so suddenly, he said, “What?”

Alex sipped more wine, stalling for time he thought. Finally, she said, “it was Eric who put enough doubts in my mind that I researched you on the internet. He must have known what I’d find and that I’d be so angry I wouldn’t sleep at your place or let you sleep at mine.”

The toast popped up, sounding like an exclamation mark in the silence.
“That bastard. He knew you’d walk to work alone and he could terrorize you, making it look like I did it.” He buttered toast fiercely, slapped toast and eggs on two plates. “And he had my credit card information from when I bought the earrings. Easy to rent a car pretending to be me.”

He served up the food and she ate the eggs and toast the same way he did, barely tasting the food. Finally, she said, “Do you really think Eric could be involved? He was like a son to Grandpa.”

“I don’t know. But I think it’s time I had another talk with your former brother in law.”

“He’s gone to Eugene to an auction.” She put her empty plate down with a sharp click. Stared up at him. “Do you think that he could have — Gillian. I have to go talk to Gillian.”

She rose and began stuffing her arms into her coat. She winced, obviously forgetting the bandaged cuts on her arm.

“Wait. You can’t go now. It’s raining.”

“We’re in the rain forest. Get used to it.” And without so much as a kiss good-bye, she was gone.

Guilt wasn’t an emotion that troubled Duncan much—well, coming from his family background, it had pretty much been bred out of him. But tonight, after the way Alex had reacted when he admitted he’d broken into her apartment and searched through her things, he felt small and dishonest.
She’d left a couple of hours ago and he’d spent that time staring out the darkened window at the raindrops chasing each other down the pane. He thought he’d go insane if he had to listen to the sound of that drip, drip, drip much longer. Hadn’t anybody here heard of cleaning out the gutters?

He’d hurt the woman he loved.

If she pulled that you’ve-really-let-me-down routine when she was a mother, she was going to have the best-behaved kids in the Pacific Northwest. He hoped to the bottom of his soul that he’d be their father.

His own mother, now departed, must have passed on whatever guilt gene Duncan possessed, for it was her voice he heard in his head.
Apologize.
Tell her you’re sorry.

He grabbed a jacket and raced over to Alex’s place, getting his first taste that riding a motorcycle in the Pacific Northwest was not for sissies.

He was dripping and chilled to the bone when he called her on the intercom and she answered so frostily she had to know it was him calling her. But at least she’d answered.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

A nice older couple who lived in the building came past him and the man opened the front door with his key. He raised his brows at Duncan and held the door for him as Alex said, “What did you say?”

He grit his teeth. He’d been prepared to apologize—did he have to grovel in front of a couple of seniors? “I said I’m sorry!” he yelled.

“You’ll never get anywhere yelling, dear,” the older woman admonished him. “You should have brought flowers and chocolate. That’s what Harold always does when he’s in the dog house, and we’ve been married forty-eight years.”

“Is there someone there?” Alex said.

“Yes, Harold and?”

“Daphne. Roland.”

“Harold and Daphne Roland. They think you should forgive me.” He winked at the woman, sensing an ally.

“Do they know what you did?”

“Do you want me to tell them?”

“No.” Alex said, “Come up.”

“Thanks,” he said with real gratitude as he walked in behind Daphne and Harold. He kissed the older woman’s cheek. “You got me past the first hurdle.”

“My advice is, whatever she calls you, agree with her.”

“Okay.” Duncan took mental notes, figuring a man who’d been married forty-eight years must be an expert groveler. “Then what?”

“Why, then you kiss her. After you dry off.”

He liked that part of the advice, so he thanked them and left them at the elevator while he ran up the stairs.

Alex let him in, but reluctantly. “You have five minutes,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said. That was a good start and he was proud he’d gotten the words out, not once but twice. And once with an audience. Didn’t seem like she was ready to fall into his arms, though.

His father would curse him for a fool for ever admitting he’d broken into her apartment. But his mother, what would she advise?

“Why are you screwing up your eyes like that?” Alex asked him.

“I’m wondering what my mother would tell me to say.”

“Your mother?”

He nodded. “She was a good woman. She’d be horrified at what I did, breaking into your apartment and searching it.”

“She was married to a thief.”

“Yes. But that was business. You don’t steal from people you care about. Or break into their homes.”

“Well, it’s twisted logic, but your mother was right.”

“I know. My dad, on the other hand, would curse me for a fool for telling you I was here. Don’t I get any points for honesty?”

She was wearing a red silk kimono that begged to whisper down her soft skin as it fell to the floor. But her eyes still looked sad and disappointed and the red silk might as well have been sprayed to her skin for all it was coming off for him. He thought he’d do almost anything if she’d look at him the way she had before she’d researched him on the internet. “One point for honesty. Ten demerit points for betraying my trust.”

“Give me your jacket, you’re dripping on the floor.”

He did and she hung it in the closet, all by itself so nothing else would get damp.

“I don’t know what else I can do but apologize and promise you I’ll never do anything like that to you again. Please Alex. Give me another chance.”

“You hurt me.”

He was getting pretty near the bottom of the groveling barrel. “Have you ever had the keys to a man’s place or stayed in bed while he went off to work or to play football or something?”

“Ye-es. But I don’t see–”

“And you never snooped?”

“Snooped?” She sounded outraged. Great. He’d met the one woman who wasn’t nosy about her partner.

“You know, checked his medicine cabinet.” What had his women done in the past? “Maybe peeked at his email looking for other women in his life?” She was starting to blush and he knew he’d nailed her.

“It’s different if you’ve been invited to stay and the person knows you’re there. That implies a level of comfort with–”

“Snooping?”

“Healthy curiosity.”

He smiled, knowing he had her. “But Alex, you offered to let me stay behind the first time we slept together.”

“You said no.”

“But if I’d said yes, you’d have been tacitly accepting that I might show some ‘healthy curiosity’ about you and your life.”

She fiddled with the cuff of her kimono but he knew from the way she was biting her lip that she was thinking about what he’d said. Finally, she glanced up. “What you did was still wrong.”

“I know, and I humbly apologize.”

She nodded once. Sharply.

“You know, I don’t apologize. It goes against my nature.”

“That must be why you do it so badly.”

“Wench,” he said pulling her against him. “Am I forgiven?”

“Well, it seems we both have larceny in our family history. I suppose I’m going to have to become more broadminded.”

“Was Gillian okay?” She’d stormed out of his place muttering something about Gillian. He wasn’t going to ask if her sudden need to see her cousin was related to the missing painting, but he hoped she’d volunteer any information she might have gathered.

“She wasn’t home.”

“Oh.” He smelled her sweet, familiar scent, and pressed his lips to her throat. “I need to be inside you right now more than I need my next breath,” he said against her skin, knowing how special she was since he’d been so damn close to losing her.

He slipped the tie from the silk kimono and kissed her. Because she was still sore in places, he kissed her all over, careful, gentle kisses that eased into careful, gentle loving.

And with every kiss, he tried to let her know his feelings. He wanted to ease into the big declaration slowly. He’d never told a woman he loved her before.

He was scared to hell he’d somehow screw it up.

“I should go home,” Gillian whispered, snug against Tom’s chest. Spending time at his place was getting to be a habit. They’d ordered a pizza, watched TV. Well, watched ten minutes of TV and then ended up having sex on the couch in the den. Now she was naked in his bed and it was getting late.

“Don’t.”

“But if I wake up with you every morning, leave with you, then people are going to think—”

“That we’re sleeping together. Do you have a problem with that?”

Was he kidding? She’d been wanting to get him into bed since she first started thinking about sex. Now she knew why. She must have had some intuition that they were meant for each other. She sighed.

“What is it? Do you have a problem with people knowing about us?”

She shook her head, burrowing into his chest as though she could hide there.

He didn’t let her, though, and tilted her chin until she was looking up at him. The planes of his face were so cleanly sculpted. He was so serious and straight and unmessed-up.

“I was thinking my self-destructive streak must have started in high school. Maybe if I’d run for the school council, or hung out at the library instead of sneaking away to smoke dope and have sex, maybe we could have dated and history might have been different.”

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“Sure.” Like she wasn’t baring her soul.

“Those school council and library girls bored me.”

A delighted giggle shook her. “Really?”

“Yeah. I know I’m straight and pretty boring myself. And with a girl like that I’d have ended up in a Friday night bowling league, making love to my wife three times a week after the eleven o’clock news.”

Actually, that sounded like heaven to her after the roller coaster her life had been—except three times a week was never going to be enough with Tom. Based on the way he was with her, she didn’t think it would be enough for Tom, either.

“You mean I’d have bored you if I was one of the good girls?”

“Frankly, I don’t think you have it in you to be boring. Don’t hit me or anything, but I don’t think you have it in you to be a good girl, either.”

“But I’ve changed.”

“Sure you have. You’ve grown up. But I suspect there’s a part of you that will always dare the devil.”

“I’m not going back to drugs and booze. Not ever.” She felt as though she was always trying to convince him she’d changed and she wondered if he would ever truly believe her. And if he didn’t, what future could they possibly have?

“I know you’re not.” He sounded irritable. “You talk about me trusting you. What about you? You have to trust me to believe in you.”

She blinked. She’d never thought of it that way before, but he was right. Maybe she didn’t have to carry the burden all alone. Trust was a two-way street. She drew in a deep breath. “Okay. I believe you. But if you don’t think I’ll go back to drugs, what were you talking about?”

“Well, let’s see. Suppose we joined the Friday night bowling league, right?”

“Mmm-hmm.” She kind of liked the image of the two of them bowling on Fridays. It felt so permanent, so small town, so, absolutely, everything she wanted.

“And let’s say, for instance, I’m overcome with a desperate urge to take you, right in the bowling alley.”

She giggled. “Does this often happen to you when you’re bowling?”

He dropped a hand to her butt and squeezed. “I’ve never been bowling with you.” After a few minutes of kissing and silliness, he continued. “So, I’m in the bowling alley, overcome with lust.”

“Right.”

“What do we do?”

“We could go home?” Home. She liked the sound of that, especially in connection with Tom.

He shook his head. “Can’t go home. We’re in the ninth frame. I’ve got a strike, you’ve got two spares. We’re about to break the club record.”

“Okay.” She nodded, though it had been so long since she’d bowled she really didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Can’t leave then. But there’s a room behind the shoe rental place, a small storage space where they keep supplies and extra shoes. If I had needs, could we go in there for a quickie?”

“Yeah. You’re the cops. You probably wouldn’t arrest yourself for indecent behavior.”

“You see? You didn’t hesitate.” He grinned at her and his face lit up, as it had been doing a lot lately. She got the feeling she was loosening Tom up a little. With a jolt of pleasure, she realized she was good for him, as he was good for her. “Admit it. The idea turns you on.”

“A quickie with you in a bowling alley?” She sighed blissfully. “With the clank and bang of the balls going down the lanes, and knowing there were all kinds of people out front? While we were tucked away being intimate? I’d love it.”

“Most girls who hung out at the library and were on school council wouldn’t love it. You see what I mean? I’d be lost with a woman like that.”

She put her palm to his gorgeous, safe, trustworthy face. “Yes, you would be lost with a woman like that. Is that why you never married?”

“Probably.”

She was silent for a few minutes, blissed out on the picture he’d painted of them. “So, you’re saying you want to go bowling with me?”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. Friday night?”

“This Friday?”

“Sure. Why not?”

She rolled away from him to lie on her back and stare at the ceiling. “What about Eric?”

“I wasn’t planning on asking him along, if it’s all the same to you.”

“You know what I mean. It’s not going to be easy, is it?”

“Look, this is a small town. If you’re not sure about splitting from Eric, then this is the time to tell me.”

“No.” She reached for him, touching his face, running her fingers over his lips. “I would never go back to Eric. But he could make trouble.”

Tom shrugged, but he didn’t deny the accusation. “Sometimes when trouble comes, you have to stand up to it.”

“Maybe we should take this slowly.”

“I don’t want to take it slowly. Hell, we’ve taken twelve years to get this far. I don’t want to wait any more.”

“Okay.” She was tired of waiting, too. “Hey, guess what?’

“What?”

“I got a job today.”

“You did? That’s great.” He knew how scared she’d been of being rejected, so his hug held meaning and support. “I knew you could do it. Where’s the job?”

“Green Thumb.”

“The plant nursery?”

How many places in Swiftcurrent were called Green Thumb? “Yes, the garden center.”

Tom was starting to chuckle.

“Who hired you?” Sometimes it was great knowing each other’s histories. She was starting to grin herself. “Old Mr. Stokes.”

“The same old Mr. Stokes who tried to have you put in jail when you were seventeen for stealing all his roses?”

“We planted them along the highway as a statement against roadside litter,” she told him piously.

“It was a drunken lark.”

She snorted with laughter. “That, too.”

“And you got that old coot to give you a job?”

“I told him how sorry I was for what I’d done, but also pointed out that those roses are still thriving, so obviously I knew what I was doing, even back then. We planted and fertilized them properly.”

“You’re making this up.”

“I’m not. He was pretty shocked at first. He said, ‘Young lady’, like I was still seventeen, ‘those roses cost me two hundred dollars wholesale.’”

“And he tried to make the council pay for them, since they ended up on municipal property.”

“My grandpa ended up paying for them, and I had to work every penny of it off in the garden.” Which she’d loved, except for the humiliation of knowing she’d let her grandparents down, again.

“Go on.”

“So I said to him, ‘Mr. Stokes. I’ve grown up and I’ve changed. I’ll work for free until I’ve paid off the two hundred dollars,’ pretending I didn’t remember it had already been paid off.”

“The old bugger probably took you up on it, too.”

“You know what he said?”

“Plus interest?”

She laughed. “Yes. And I said sure. But once I’ve paid that off, if he’s satisfied with my work, he lets me stay on.”

“And he agreed?”

“He sure did. Part-time, and at slave wages, but it’s a start.”

“I am so proud of you.”

“Thanks,” she said, and kissed him. She felt as though she could never get enough of kissing him. She decided to tell him her other decision. “I’m also enrolling in a program for adults to finish high school. I start in January.”

He turned their bodies so he was leaning over her and the bedside lamplight fell on her face. “I think you are brave and amazing.” He kissed her nose. “Your eye’s almost completely healed now.”

“Yes.” She didn’t want to talk about this. It was from another lifetime, so she tried to roll him back, but he was a solid man and when he decided he wasn’t budging, not much was going to move him.

He traced the faded bruise with a gentle finger. “My first guess was that a drug dealer did this to you—.”

“I told you, I fell,” but she didn’t look him in the eye when he said it.

“I’m a pretty good law enforcement officer for a small town. I’ll never be one of those brilliant minds that get hunches and solve complex crimes in a second. I’m a little slower, methodical, and I do things by the book. Once I realized it wasn’t a stranger who did this to you, there was only one other possibility.”

She shifted. “You’re heavy. Let me up.”

“Did he ever hit you before?”

“It was the goddamn door!” she yelled.

“It was Eric!” he yelled right back.

A sob broke from her throat and she turned her face. He let her go then and she rolled to her side.

Tom rubbed her back, slow and gentle. “You have to stop covering for him.”

“You don’t get it. You don’t know what he’s like. Eric told me he’d get me using again and force me into rehab. And he has the stuff to do it anytime he pleases.” Her voice was rising and her chest felt tight. “I can’t ever go back there. I don’t know if I could clean up a second time.”

“My God. That’s evil.”

She had to make Tom understand. “There’s something wrong with him. Something twisted. He can be so charming and sweet, but at his core I think he’s sick.”

“Honey, I can help you, but you have to be willing to go on record—otherwise I can’t touch that bastard.”

“I can’t take the risk. Please understand. I’m finally starting to feel like my life can be good again. He’d destroy it if I tried to get the police involved.”

“But I’m—”

“Please.”

He kissed her. “In this bed I’m your lover, not a cop.”

“And what does my lover think?”

“That it’s time for lights out.”

She fell asleep happier than she’d felt in years. Maybe, just maybe, her life was about to get better.

She awoke with a smile on her face. It was early and Tom was still dead to the world.

She was filled with energy and purpose, however. Today was the day she’d finish moving all her stuff out of the house she and Eric had shared and turn over her keys. It seemed a symbolic gesture, as well as a practical one. When Eric found out about her and Tom, he was not going to be happy. She didn’t want any of her stuff held hostage, even something as mundane as an old tube of lipstick.

Then, once the house was sold, and the assets—such as they were—split, she’d be free of Eric. She had to believe that.

She dressed quietly, then puttered around happily in Tom’s kitchen, feeding the dog and cat who already treated her like a well-loved servant, wondering if Tom liked a big breakfast. She shrugged and decided to get started on coffee. While that was brewing, she checked out his fridge. Pretty good for a single guy, but then Tom had been alone for enough years to have grown out of frozen dinners and takeout.

There was fruit, fresh vegetables, eggs.

She heard him go into the bathroom, whistling.

Coffee was ready. She placed it, along with a pitcher of milk and his sugar pot, on the table.

When she heard him rummaging around in the bedroom,and guessed he was dressing, she called out. “Hey, bring my bag in with you, will you?”

“You leaving already?”

“No. I need my artificial sweetener.”

“That stuff will give you cancer.”

“It keeps me thin. I’ll take the risk.”

“Exercise will keep you thin.”

“Just bring it.”

“Sure,” he rumbled in a just-awakened voice. In her state of bliss she imagined hearing that voice every morning of her life. Imagined all the tiny things they’d get to know about each other.

She was at the counter, chopping leeks to go in her omelet. She figured a single man who kept leeks in his fridge was going to take his fair share of kitchen duty, and being on the receiving end of his cooking probably wasn’t going to be a hardship.

She felt him in the kitchen, even though she hadn’t heard him. He was soft-footed for a large man—she wondered if it was more cop training.

She waited for him to kiss the back of her neck; the possibility seemed to shimmer. But after a minute, when his lips hadn’t fallen there, she wondered if maybe he wasn’t much of a morning neck-kisser. She could live with that.

“Gillian,” he said, and the neck that had seconds ago quivered with anticipation, now prickled with foreboding. It was his cop voice.

She put the knife down slowly and turned.

“How would you explain this?” he asked, holding out a small baggie of white powder that wasn’t sugar substitute.

Her gaze flew to his as despair filled her. This was it. The end of the line. She’d told him she was clean. He’d said he believed her.

“You’re the detective,” she said, crossing her arms to keep the trembling from showing. “You figure it out.”

“Gillian, I am asking you for an explanation.”

“You’re not going to get one,” she said and walking to him, took the purse hanging off his other arm and turned on her heel and walked out of the kitchen.

“Wait!” he yelled from behind her.

His phone began to shrill in the sudden silence. “I’m on call. I have to take that. Don’t move.”

She turned, crossed her arms under her breasts, and gave him her best tough-girl glare. “Are you going to arrest me?”

“You’re pissing me off. Don’t move.”