Winds of Fortune (20 page)

“It happens,” Deo said with a nonchalance she didn’t feel. She’d worried a time or two that she wouldn’t remember the name of the woman under her or inside her, but she’d never cared enough about anyone to cry her name in those few moments of complete and total surrender. Feeling irrationally jealous, she pulled Nita back between her legs. “I get that she’s a lover. What else?”

“It’s not relevant.” Nita gripped Deo’s wrists and pushed away. To her surprise, Deo released her. Free, she had nowhere to go and, instead, stayed where she was.

“Don’t you think I deserve a little more than that, seeing how I just stood in for her?” Deo tucked in her shirt and started to walk toward Bradford.

Where Nita expected anger, she heard resignation, and that made her feel almost worse than anything else that had transpired in the last few disastrous moments. She owed Deo an explanation, since she wouldn’t accept an apology, and she fell into step. “She’s an ex-lover.”

“That part I figured out.”

Nita hesitated. She hadn’t told anyone, ever. Because she couldn’t. And Deo was the last person she wanted to tell, because she hadn’t been thinking about Sylvia. Not consciously. It hadn’t been thoughts of Sylvia that had kept her awake the last few nights and it hadn’t been Sylvia in that bar making her half crazy because another woman had her hands all over her. That had been Deo. And only Deo. But she knew the two were tangled up in her mind, and worse, in her body. She was grateful for the dark, because all she could see was the glint of moonlight in Deo’s eyes and the outline of her face. And she was thankful that Deo would not be able to see the shame in hers.

“Sylvia is the wife of my brother’s partner and the biggest mistake I ever made in my life.”

“Wait...your brother’s gay and his partner has a wife?”

Nita laughed mirthlessly. “No. My brother’s a cop and his partner on the force is Sylvia’s husband.”

“That sounds like a tricky situation.”

“It’s a cardinal sin. No one messes with a cop’s wife. If I’d been a man, they probably would have taken me somewhere and beaten me until I wished I were dead.” Nita sighed. “Since they couldn’t do that, they cast me out.”

“Your brother?”

“My whole family. They’re all on the force and they all know. Half the force knows. Sylvia and I were…indiscreet.” Sylvia had demanded sex when they were at a retirement party for one of Nita’s father’s friends. She couldn’t say no, she’d never been able to say no, and Sylvia’s husband had walked into a downstairs bathroom while Sylvia was taking her against the wall. Sylvia hadn’t stopped fucking her despite her husband’s outraged shout, and Nita had climaxed while he watched. “We all pretend it didn’t happen, but everyone is happier if I keep my distance.”

“Jesus. What about her? You still see her?”

“God, no. Even without the uproar from my family, Sylvia…Sylvia told her husband
I
had seduced
her
. He believed her, because he loved her.”

“I guess you did too.”

“Believed her, or loved her? Neither.” Nita stopped walking. She had said all there was to say. She had been unable to resist what Sylvia made her feel, and after tonight she couldn’t even lie to herself any longer. She still hungered for it. The wild passion, the consuming pleasure, the mind-melting burn of orgasm as it swept through her. Her weakness humiliated her. “I don’t expect you to do the renovations now.”

“Why not?” Deo studied Nita in the light of cars passing behind them. “I’m not angry.”

“You should be.”

“Why? Because we fucked when we both wanted to?” Deo shrugged, feigning calm. If Nita walked away with this between them, she’d never get close to her again, and she wanted to now, more than ever. Not just because of the sex, which had been unlike anything she’d ever experienced. But because she knew what it was like to pull a family apart, to be pushed aside and abandoned in payment for her sins. “That’s business. This is what it is.”

“What it is, is over.”

“All right,” Deo said, forcing herself to leave when she wanted to protest. When she wanted Nita naked in her bed, calling
her
name when she went blind with pleasure. “I’ll call you when I’m ready to start work.”

Nita watched Deo walk away and want twisted through her. She despaired of ever forgetting the feel and taste of her. Hard muscles and tight-nippled breasts. Hot whiskey and sunshine.
Oh God, what have I done?

Tory tucked the chart from the last patient under her arm and paused when she saw the light filtering from beneath Nita’s closed door. It had to be close to ten p.m., and despite taking the day shift all week, Nita had been in the office every night until after Tory had left. It had been so busy, they had done little more than pass one another in the hall, but the few times they’d spoken, Tory had noticed that Nita seemed tense and preoccupied. It wasn’t her nature to interfere, but she hoped they were becoming friends. She knocked on the closed door.

“Come in,” Nita called.

“It’s just the middle of July,” Tory pointed out with a smile. “If you keep it up, you’re not going to make it to Labor Day.”

“I don’t think paperwork is going to kill me,” Nita said, “although there have been times I’ve wanted to kill myself if I had to fill out one more insurance form.”

Tory laughed and settled into the chair across from Nita’s desk. “I know. I just wanted you to know I don’t expect you to work eighteen hours a day. You’re doing a great job. I’m really glad you’re here.”

“Thanks.” Nita flushed with an unexpected surge of gratitude at the affection in Tory’s voice. Until the debacle with Sylvia the year before, her sister Lena had been her closest friend and confidant. Now when they spoke at all, it was strained and coldly formal. “So am I. I know we don’t have to decide anything right away, but I already know I want to stay.”

“Good. Then we agree.” Tory tapped the file against the edge of the desk and pretended to frown. “In which case I definitely don’t want you overworking. It’s Friday night. Shouldn’t you be taking advantage of all the hundreds of women in town?”

Tory’s tone was playful rather than suggestive. Still, Nita stared down at the desk to hide her reaction, because she had been considering just that for the last few hours. The brief, frantic sex she’d had with Deo had completely turned her inside out. She couldn’t stop thinking about it, about
her
, and she was as terrified as she was on edge. It was just like the way it had been with Sylvia. She craved the taste of her, the feel of her, and she was constantly aroused. She’d talked to Deo on the phone twice during the week to approve the purchase of materials, and just the sound of her voice had left her wanting to come. It was worse in person. She’d seen her once when she stopped by the house in the evening. She hadn’t expected Deo to be around that late but she had still been there, checking on the early stages of the project. The sight of her had made her wet and, afraid that Deo would read the lust in her eyes, she’d made some excuse and escaped as soon as possible.

Tonight she had been thinking that if she wore herself out with someone else, a stranger, she could get Deo out of her system. Maybe that’s what she should have done with Sylvia, instead of allowing Sylvia to control her. Instead of meeting Sylvia in some roadside motel every time she called, instead of letting Sylvia walk into the hospital and fuck her in an empty examining room or stairwell or supply closet any time she wanted. Instead of biting into her own flesh to still her screams while Sylvia went down on her at a family barbecue with Sylvia’s husband just outside the open bedroom window, playing baseball with her brother and the other cops. Sylvia had craved the risk and Nita had craved Sylvia’s relentless, insatiable hunger for her.

Shuddering from the memories, she said hoarsely, “Maybe. Maybe I should.”

She must have given something away in her voice, because Tory tilted her head and regarded her with concern. “Something wrong?”

“No.” Nita feigned a smile. “A case of the blues, that’s all. I think I’ll feel better when I’m settled. I feel like my entire life is packed in boxes.”

“Are things underway at the house?”

“Yes,” Nita said curtly, and then, realizing how that sounded, went on, “Deo has a crew working outside on the roof and the windows and another inside redoing electrical.” She hoped her voice hadn’t trembled when she said Deo’s name, because she hadn’t felt quite steady. “Before long, I’ll be able to live there.”

“You’re not going to try living there while they’re still renovating, are you? God, Reese tried that when she first moved here, and after a few weeks the constant disruption really started to get to her.” Tory smiled. “Fortunately, I got her to move in with me.”

“I’m sure that wasn’t difficult,” Nita said, hoping to change the subject.

“Harder than you might think. I wasn’t too trusting of relationships at the time and Reese…Reese had never been in one.” Tory shook her head. “God, we were a pair.”

“It’s funny,” Nita mused almost to herself, “when you see a solid couple you think that things have always been that way. That they never had issues to work out.”

“We’re solid,” Tory said. “As solid as any two people can be, but we certainly have issues.” She sighed. “I never expected Iraq. I don’t remember Vietnam, and who really imagines a war like this?”

“Where are things with that now?”

Tory grimaced. “Nelson’s illness has just about eclipsed everything else, and now Reese is working double and sometimes triple shifts. We haven’t really talked about it.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing.” At Tory’s surprised glance, Nita shrugged. “Reentry must be terribly disorienting. One minute, she’s half a world away in the middle of a war. Added to the pressure of keeping other people from being killed, she must have been worried about her responsibilities to you—and then she’s wounded and captured. A few days later she’s home again. God, my head is swimming even thinking about it.”

“You’re saying that the best thing for her is just that she’s home,” Tory mused aloud, although she was really talking to herself. “That she gets used to being here, back in her life,
our
life, for a while before she…
we
…make any decisions.”

“I think so.” Nita leaned forward. “Even though she’s terribly busy, I imagine it feels good to her to be surrounded by people she loves, doing the work she loves.”

“Why didn’t I see that?” Tory said reproachfully.

“Because she scared you to death and you thought you were going to lose her, and none of us sees too clearly when we’re terrified.”

“I think you’re good for me.” Tory smiled and wagged her finger at Nita. “Now you have to stay.”

“I’d like that,” Nita said softly, feeling just a little bit better for the last few moments of connection. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed that.

“So? Are you going to get out of here before it’s too late to go out and have fun?”

Laughing, Nita threw up her hands. “I’m going. I’m going.”

“Good,” Tory said, rising. “Let loose a little.”

“Whatever you say,” Nita said, laughing too.

“I don’t want to see you back here until Sunday afternoon,” Tory said on her way out of the room.

When Nita contemplated the next thirty-six hours, she wondered how she would fill them. Of one thing she was certain. Letting loose was the last thing she wanted to do.

*

Tory arrived home an hour later, and the house was dark. Her heart sank as she climbed the stairs to the rear deck. Reese must be working an extra shift again. She wondered how long Reese could keep up the relentless pace without folding. Even
her
formidable will and strength couldn’t hold up forever.

“You need to stop worrying so much,” Reese’s voice came to her through the dark.

“You can’t see my face, and I know I’m not talking to myself,” Tory said, now able to make out the image of her lover reclining in a lounge chair. Already, her heart felt lighter. “So how do you know what I was thinking?”

“You were sighing.” Reese reached out to her.

Tory laughed and clasped Reese’s hand. “Up. If I lie down there with you, I’m going to fall asleep or want to make love. Unfortunately, I’m tired enough for the first and too tired for the second.”

“I’m not sure I followed all of that,” Reese said, unfolding her length from the chair and rising. She slipped her arm around Tory’s waist. “But I got that you’re tired. Want a glass of wine and a soak in the tub?”

“Oh God, that sounds good,” Tory murmured, resting her cheek against Reese’s shoulder. “Yes to the wine, but can I have it in bed?”

“Leg still bothering you?”

“A little.”

“Then why don’t you go upstairs and I’ll be up in a few minutes with your wine.”

Tory kissed her, lingering on her mouth and lightly teasing just inside with her tongue. “Thank you.”

A few minutes later, Tory stretched out in bed and murmured appreciatively as Reese handed her a glass of red wine. Sipping slowly she watched with pleasure as Reese stripped and joined her beneath the sheets. “How’s Reggie?”

“Talking up a storm.” Reese took the glass when Tory offered and tasted the wine. “Words are right around the corner. It’s amazing.” She watched the red wine swirl in the glass. “She changes so quickly. I would have missed so much if I’d been gone longer.”