SULLIVAN'S MIRACLE Page 4

  “You want the short list or the unabridged one? You name ‘em, they’re on it somewhere. I have a talent for making enemies in this town, Maggie Webster. Check out any corner downtown near city hall or the courthouse. You’ll find somebody who wouldn’t mind one little bit if I wound up as sushi for sharks.”

  “I see.” She jotted something in her notebook. “What if this latest series of letters is related to the bombing? You don’t seem concerned in the least.”

  She was cutting too close. Sullivan sighed. “Frankly, my dear,” he said, mockingly, “I don’t give a damn.” And he really didn’t. Didn’t care anymore. Didn’t give a damn anymore about anything.

  She frowned, and the wariness in her eyes disappeared for one quick moment. “Why don’t you care? Why aren’t you worried about someone out there with you in his—or her—” she smiled with an edge of her own “—sights?”

  “Sugar-buns, making friends isn’t part of my job description.”

  She gripped her notebook at the sugar-buns but stayed silent, flipping her pen against one small finger.

  Sullivan gave himself another point and wondered, not for the first time, why he was bothering to rattle Maggie Webster’s cage. “The more people hate me, the more I figure I’m doing something right.”

  “Mr. Barnett.” She paused for a minute before tapping her pen on the pad. “I’m going to save your rear end in spite of yourself and your smart-alecky attitude. That’s my job.” She poked her finger at him. “But let’s clear up one thing first. You’re not going to call me ‘sugar-buns’ again. You hear?” Her own drawl thickened with each syllable, like heavy cream in a mixer. “Not. Ever. Again.” Tap. Tap. Tap.

  “Tough lady. I’m shivering in my boots.” Sullivan yawned and stared right back at her.

  Without breaking their gaze or glancing at his feet, she corrected him, “Sneakers.” Rising, she buttoned her notebook in her pocket and examined him for a long moment, her eyes wide and thoughtful as she added, “Maybe you’re not shivering in them yet, but you will be. Count on it.” She smiled so sweetly it was an insult.

  The words hovered between them until she turned and walked away.

  His head resting on the back of his chair, his feet still crossed at the ankles, Sullivan watched her long, narrow back and tight behind as she left the newsroom, smooth stride marked with that giveaway sway. Stopping once at Hinky’s desk, she thanked him with a nod of the head, and then was gone, the automatic door swishing silently behind her blue-and-white form.

  He figured she’d look back in triumph. She did.

  But triumph wasn’t what he saw on her face. He saw something else, something so disturbing he couldn’t put a name to it, but Maggie Webster’s last, almost-shy glance left him thumping the toes of his sneakers together thoughtfully.

  Outside, heat blasted Maggie in the face. Shimmering in blinding waves off the concrete sidewalk, it enveloped her. Her eyes still retained that last image of Sullivan Barnett leaning back in his chair, watching her with an unnerving emptiness in his blue eyes.

  In spite of the heat, she shivered.

  The reports could wait until tomorrow. She was going home. She was going to pour a tall glass of iced tea, turn the air-conditioning on high and forget about a surly, cantankerous reporter too thin for his height. Trying to generate a breeze in the humid air, Maggie shut her eyes and fanned her face with her hat. An image flashed. He’d scraped all that shaggy hair back from his angular face and secured it with a rubber band.

  A red rubber band. She could see it looped around that light brown hair that clearly hadn’t seen the inside of a barber shop in months.

  She opened her eyes. It had been a long day. She was tired of playing games. Everything she’d done in recent memory had involved game playing, so she shouldn’t be surprised if Barnett was one more player in a game where the rules changed too fast for her. Her life these days was like a life-and-death chess game on a computer. She couldn’t think fast enough. She didn’t trust her own reactions any more, because sometimes she felt as if she were looking in a carnival mirror where everything was changed, distorted.

  Maggie stuffed her hat back onto her head. She would deal with it. She’d have to. She’d managed everything else. She could live with this nagging uneasiness. She could.

  She had no choice. But no matter where she was, no matter who she was with, there was always that bewildering sense of—of wrongness lurking at the edge of her consciousness.

  Something even more troubling had happened with Barnett. When she’d looked at his long, scowling face, reality had blurred for unending, frightening moments. She jammed her hands into her pockets. She’d lost her sense of who she was, where she was. Caught off guard, she’d covered her confusion—surely she had. But she couldn’t afford any more lapses like that around him.

  Taking her hands out of her pockets, she reached up and stuffed the hair sliding down her cheeks back under her hat. Keeping her guard up with Royal was hard enough, but Royal wasn’t Sullivan Barnett. As smart as he was, Royal saw her the same way he’d always seen her. Barnett could complicate her life.

  He saw too much. She’d hate to have him really curious about her. Right now he was annoyed with her, but he’d leave her alone to do her job.

  She hoped.

  “Took your time, babe. What kept you?”

  She looked up into Royal’s smiling face. Sunglasses masked his eyes. Surprised, lost in her thoughts, Maggie had the unsettling notion that she was looking at a stranger. She blinked, and reality slid back into focus. “Subject wasn’t cooperative,” she finally answered.

  “Are reporters ever?”

  “Not to cops.” She struggled to return his smile. “What are you doing here?”

  “Told you I’d pick you up when you were done.”

  She grimaced. “I forgot. I’m sorry, Royal.”

  His reply was slow in coming. “Feed me and I’ll think about giving you a pass.” He hung his sunglasses onto his jacket pocket and rested his broad hand on the nape of her neck.

  Uncomfortable, she murmured, “Don’t.”

  “No?” He looked down at her. For an instant, frowning, he tightened his hold. “Whatever you say, babe.”

  His touch was light, barely there, but despite his words, he didn’t move his hand.

  “Just the heat, Royal, that’s all.” She didn’t know what else to say. She shrugged.

  His hand fell away and he stepped back. “You don’t like me touching you anymore, do you, Mags?”

  He’d finally brought it out into the open. In a public place, at a time when she was still shaken from her encounter with Sullivan Barnett, Royal had decided to confront her.

  Sleek red-gold hair, green eyes and a killer smile. Long legs in double-pleated cream slacks threaded with a slim black belt, broad shoulders under a light navy jacket cut loose enough to hide his shoulder holster, he was leaning casually against his restored ‘68 Mustang.

  The tension in his folded arms gave him away. “It’s been a long time for us, you know,” he said in his deceptively easygoing manner. “Matter of fact, seems to me things have been real frosty between us since—let me think now…”

  She knew to the minute when things had changed.

  He unfolded his arms and straightened. “Since the accident, right, Mags? Wasn’t it around then?” He waited. “Come on, Mags,” he coaxed. “No cop ever forgets a shootout. Since then, right?”

  Heat-stunned, frayed from the skirmish with Sullivan Barnett, she couldn’t think of a solitary thing to say. Her brain had abruptly gone to sleep.

  Royal pulled his sunglasses out again and swung them back and forth. “It’s the truth, isn’t it, Mags? Been since the accident?”

  “Can we talk about this later, please?” Her mouth was chalky dry.

  “Ah, but that’s the whole point, right, babe? We don’t talk about it anymore, do we?” He shook his head. “You can’t keep putting me off, Mags, and expect me to think everything’s
hunky-dory.”

  “No. I know. But not now. Not here. We’re in the middle of Main Street

  , Royal. This conversation—” She paused, not knowing what else to call what was coming. Disaster, maybe? “—can’t it wait a little longer?” Looking around at the passing shoppers staring at them, Maggie added, “We’ve waited this long.”

  He pushed his glasses back onto his face, covering his cool eyes. “So we have, babe. We’ll postpone it.”

  Relief pouring through her, Maggie sighed.

  “Until we get to your house,” he added gently. “We can’t put off talking about what’s happened any longer. I’ve missed you.”

  Stubbornness made her say, “We’ve seen each other almost every day.”

  “But it hasn’t been the same, has it? You never used to keep me at arm’s length and now you do.”

  Interrogation was Royal’s strength. He’d keep at her and at her and at her and she’d finally tell him.

  She took a deep breath. “You’re right. I haven’t been fair to you, have I?”

  “We’ll work out what’s fair. Come on, let’s get you home. Get you a cold beer. You’ll feel better then.”

  She stroked the hot metal of the car. “Tea. Very cold. Lots of ice.”

  “Tea it is, then.”

  The sleek metal burned her fingertips. She’d loved this car from the first time she’d seen it dismantled in Royal’s garage. “The car looks good. You’ve really worked hard on it.”

  “You helped, too.”

  Puzzled, she glanced at him. “That seems so long ago, but it wasn’t, was it?” She touched the red car again. “It’s really beautiful. Great paint job. Really.” Thinking of the evenings in his garage, she swallowed.

  Royal’s fingers brushed her cheek, but she couldn’t look at him.

  “Don’t force it, Mags. We’ll wait and see, right?” He opened the car door. “Hop in.” He yanked her hat off and flung it into the back seat. “It’ll be okay, Mags.” He tapped her lightly on her nose. “I promise.”

  She touched his arm as he started to shut the door. “You’re a good guy, Royal.”

  He propped his forearms on the roof of the car and looked down at her. She wished she could see his eyes, but she was looking into the sun. Even without sunglasses, his eyes would be unreadable. She wished she knew what he was thinking.

  “Bet your boots, babe,” he said and smiled. “Nobody better. So long as you keep me out of temptation’s way.” His grin went a mile wide. As he opened the driver’s door, he added, “Don’t worry, we’ll work this out. After all, I taught you everything you know about being a cop.”

  She wanted to cry.

  He slid in beside her and started the engine. Adjusting the visor and removing the Police Business sign, he turned to her, his left hand looped over the steering wheel. His right hand lay on the back of the seat within touching distance of her arm. “I wish I’d been with you that night. You took a stupid chance stepping into the middle of that holdup.” He reached out, but dropped his hand when she moved. “You were lucky.” He threw the sign under his seat as he edged the car into traffic. “I should have been there.”

  “Why?” She shook her hair, hiding her face while she braided it into a controllable plait. Using one of her elastic ties, which she’d found on his car floor, she worked the curling tendrils into the plait, her fingers moving quickly. She concentrated desperately on her task, wanting him to drop the subject.

  “If I’d been there, it wouldn’t have happened.”

  She didn’t like to talk about that night, especially not with Royal. “You couldn’t have done anything I didn’t do, right?” She twisted one stubborn strand into place. “Or are you telling me that I messed up and that a guy wouldn’t have gotten himself shot? Is that what you’re saying, Royal? Is it?”

  He didn’t answer.

  Maggie wrapped the elastic tie around the end of the curling strands. The elastic was red, like Sullivan Barnett’s, and she ripped it off, wincing as loose hairs caught in it. “Because if that’s what you’re implying, don’t you ever say so anywhere in my hearing, Royal Gaines, or I won’t be responsible for the consequences.” She threw the elastic back down on the floor. “Understand?”

  “That bastard shot you.” Royal’s mouth was a tight line. “You almost died.”

  “Almost is the key word here, isn’t it? Isn’t it?” She gripped his arm. “I survived.”

  She shook his arm. “Cops take risks. Cops get shot. I did my job. I got shot, but I’m still a good cop. I’m the same person I was before. I can still outshoot ninety-eight out of a hundred guys at the target range.”

  “But not me,” he said, sparing her a quick glance in spite of the traffic. “You’ve never outscored me, not under any conditions or with any gun,” he reminded her in a grainy voice. “I’m better, and you know it. That’s why if I’d—”

  “I haven’t changed,” she interrupted, desperately trying to convince him, or herself, she wasn’t sure which. She just knew she had to make Royal believe her. “I want to do my job. I can do my job if everybody will back off and leave me alone.”

  “Anyway, when did you rescore to qualify?” He raised his hands briefly. “All right, all right. Nobody’s bugging you, Mags,” he said, and his smile was good-natured. “Least of all me.”

  “No? It sure feels like I’ve got the whole department breathing down my neck! I’m tired of people watching me, watching me all the time, waiting for me to make a mistake, to fall apart.” Her voice was shaking now no matter how many deep breaths she took, and Royal sent her a probing glance. “Okay. I was shot, I was in the hospital for a long time and now I’m fine. I’m fine!”

  “Easy, babe, you’re pushing it again. You don’t have to convince me. I’m your partner, remember?” He pulled into the driveway of her apartment building. “After we’ve eaten, right? Then we’ll see where we are.” His smile dazzled her, but she knew she would feel better if she could only see his eyes. “In the meantime, babe, where we are is home. Your home, that is.” He slid out of the car. “And you owe me a meal.”

  Maggie grabbed her hat and reached for the door, but he was there before her, opening it and waiting for her to get out. He never opened the door for her when they were on duty, but off duty he’d always held doors for her, taken her arm and treated her with an old-fashioned courtliness. This time, though, he didn’t touch her.

  He waited, as he’d promised, until after they’d eaten the hastily scrambled eggs and microwaved bacon.

  His coat was off, hung neatly over a chair. He’d rolled up his sleeves while helping her scrape dishes and load the dishwasher, but he’d kept his shoulder holster on.

  Folding the dishrag, he kept his back to her as he said, “I bought the ring, you know. I got it before you were shot, but afterward I never found the right time to give it to you.” He snagged his jacket and fumbled in the inner pocket as he turned.

  Royal had never fumbled anything in the two years Maggie had known him, and she hurt for him as she watched his fingers close around a small velvet box.

  “This is as right a time as any, isn’t it, babe?” He reached her in one stride and tugged her close, the ring box bumping her chin as he tilted her face to him. “Let’s have one kiss, Mags, for old times’ sake, and then we’ll decide if you should bother opening the box.”

  He was moving her backward into the living room in a dance she recognized with her mind but not her heart, and she couldn’t find the words to protest. She could remember loving him, but she couldn’t remember unloving him. Sometime during the lost months, this sunshine-haired man anchoring her head and taking her mouth had become only a friend.

  Frantic with loss, she pressed against him, pulled him even closer until the strain was awkward. His arousal was hard against her belly, and she moved in a pantomime of desire, willing it to sweep over her. But as she touched his smooth, corn-gold hair, she remembered Sullivan Barnett’s rumpled brown shagginess, his somber, h
ostile face etched with lines of pain. Under her stroking fingers she felt Sullivan Barnett’s rough dark hair, not Royal’s sleek gold.

  Royal moved his mouth urgently, seeking entrance with the teasing movement of his lips, using his tongue to coax her participation, and she tried, she tried. She wanted to love him the way she dimly recalled doing, and so she opened her mouth to the heat of his tongue, yielded to the pressure of his arms lifting her against him and pinning her to him. He moved one hand down her neck and unbuttoned her shirt, slipping his fingers inside, against her skin, and moving them in such skillful, inventive ways.

  He groaned when he touched her nipple, tugging at it.

  And Maggie felt nothing. Nothing at all.

  Royal was the one who stopped. “It’s not happening for you, is it, Mags?”

  “No,” she whispered, embarrassed for them both.

  “That’s what I thought. Making love should be a little more than one hot body and one reasonably accommodating one. You can’t fake the feeling, babe. You can fake the motion, but not the notion.” He ran his open palm once over her hair.

  Maggie wanted to say something, but words wouldn’t alter what had happened, and she owed him honesty.

  Carefully holding her by the arms, he set her back from him and buttoned up her shirt. “Guess that’s that.” When he reached the top button, he pulled her close to his chest again in a tight embrace that said more than his words.

  “I don’t know what to say, Royal. I wish I could explain what happened, but I can’t.” She rubbed her face into his chest, finding comfort at last. He was, after all, her friend, her partner, and had been, for a brief, unreal time, her lover.