“Six months,” she said, turning the page of a magazine. “But we just came from Henderson. We’ve been around here a long time. Lots of waitress jobs in the casinos, where the tips are good. We’ve been on our own about a year. Since my mom’s last boyfriend moved on.”
“Gosh, I’m so sorry.”
“Me, too. I’m pretty sure it was my fault.”
She reached for Hedda’s hand, grabbing it. “Hedda, it can’t be your fault.”
“No biggie,” she said, pulling her hand away. “There’s more where he came from.”
A familiar hurt crept into Jennifer’s breast and she wanted to promise never to leave Hedda. But she couldn’t promise anything.
“I want to say something to you,” Jennifer said. Hedda looked up from her magazine. “I know you have a lot to put up with—and that some parts of your life aren’t easy. You work hard, you have a lot of responsibility and, like me, you’re not rolling in dough. A lot of people would let that make them mean-spirited and sulky, but you see the bright side of everything. You let the tough stuff just roll off while you get on with your life. And you have the absolute best personality.”
“Yeah?” she said, smiling somewhat shyly.
“Yeah. And I’m just damn proud of you for that. You’re the bomb.”
Eight
Alex worked in the detached garage with the door up. He had put new tires on a secondhand bike, polished it up a little, replaced the seat and put some reflector tape on the rear bumper. It was a shiny red mountain bike and looked damn good even if it did have some miles on it.
It was that time of day—early afternoon. She finally came walking past after her shift at the diner. “Hey,” he called.
“Hey,” she returned. “New bike?”
“Sort of.” He wondered if she had any idea how much she had changed. She’d been in town just over six weeks, in the house next door for just a couple, but her transformation was amazing. The first time he’d seen that shocking bald head and pale face he’d figured she was sickly or homeless or addicted to something or other. But Buzz usually just fed high-risk transients, he didn’t employ them. And Buzz had good instincts. Over the weeks not only had her hair grown out, giving her a very sexy cap of thick, dark hair, but all that dog-walking and hiking and heavy food at the diner had rendered her tanned, freckled and filled out in just the right places. Her face was no longer so thin, her eyes no longer had that appearance of being sunken under a browless forehead. Rosy cheeks glowed under sparkling brown eyes under shapely dark brows. Those eyes would not sparkle unless she was happy.
The picture on the flyers showed a model-quality blonde. The girl in his driveway was a wholesome-looking country girl. From artificial and flawless to natural and squeezable. She had that scrubbed look of a pure beauty—literally, the girl next door. Of course, it didn’t hurt that she’d finally, very recently, traded in the men’s baggy fatigue pants for some stylish khakis that fit. Fit that cute, round little bum.
“Come and take a look,” he invited.
“Was there something wrong with your bike?”
“Yeah. I was bucking someone home and the whole frame got bent up.”
“Oh, Alex! Oh, God, did I do that?” She stepped aside to grab the handlebars on his blue mountain bike, examining it closely. “If I hurt anything, I could…” She twisted it left and right, rolled it back and forth, frowning in confusion. Then finally she looked at him and saw his grin.
“Gotcha.”
“You have a mean streak, don’t you?”
“I stopped by the bike shop and the guy had a really good deal on this secondhand number. Doesn’t look too bad, does it?”
“No. Doesn’t really look secondhand.”
“Go put on some shorts. Let’s take ’em out for a spin.”
She looked so surprised. Hadn’t she known he got the bike for her? “Are you kidding?”
“’Course not. I mean, Doris—I wouldn’t call you overweight, but I don’t want to spend all summer with you on the handlebars.” He shrugged. “Even if the view isn’t half bad…”
“Oh, my God, Alex,” she said, bending over to roll up her pant legs.
“You’d be better off in shorts,” he said. And he thought, I’d be better off if you wore shorts, that’s for sure.
“I don’t have shorts,” she said.
“How can you not have shorts?”
“Not everyone is as well decked out as you, Alex.” She grabbed the bike right out of his hands and mounted it. “I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve ridden a bike. Too long, that’s for sure.” She applied foot to pedal, went down the drive with a “Whooo-hooo” and yelled, “Can we go see the bighorns?”
“Sure. Let me get my keys.”
“You’d better hurry. I can’t hold myself back.”
She rode the bike in a couple of wide circles in the street in front of his house, trying to rein in her enthusiasm, but he took her at her word and hurried. The next thing he knew he was struggling to keep up with her. When he did catch up, they rode side by side, but they didn’t talk. Jennifer was completely absorbed in the bike, the ride, the bright sunny day, the wind whipping around her. He loved the look of satisfaction on her face. She sat straight and tall on the bike, and peddled fast and hard. Every now and then she would look over at him and smile. Her smile could get her into trouble; it was dazzling, stunning and unforgettable.
He was in trouble and he knew it.
They got to the park before the bighorns visited their favorite grazing spot, so she just kept going, around a couple of blocks and back to the park. She did this again and again, and finally the first of the sheep could be seen coming over the hill. She found a little patch of grass across the street from the park in front of one of the condos and plunked herself down. She patted the ground beside her.
“I guess you don’t like the bike,” he joked.
She gave him a brief little grin, then looked back toward the hill to watch the sheep come over and down the steep, curved path. They were the most amazing herd, lumbering down trails that humans would have trouble traversing, yet slowly and steadily and gracefully, they approached.
Then she thought about something Alex would probably never understand—she’d been given some mighty flashy things in the past several years. Jewelry, cars, clothes, a condo on the beach. Recently, these gifts had been from Nick, but before Nick there was Gregory, a gentleman in his sixties whose wife preferred to live in France while her husband, the president of a successful accounting firm, worked in Florida. Before Gregory there was Martin, whose full-time job was managing his money, and before Martin was Robert. All of them rich, all of them sophisticated and very civil. Well, until she got to Nick, who was sophisticated and civil at first, and always with her, but she caught on very quickly that he was a tough with a temper. It served her purpose to ignore that as long as he treated her decently. And generously.
The material things she’d acquired before, in that other life, the life of Jennifer, meant nothing compared to the bike.
She reached for his hand and held it while they watched the sheep. Neither of them spoke. The ewes were heavy with their lambs and the rams watchful, but again, they stayed in their bachelor groups. Some people came out of their condos and sat on their front patios to watch, a couple of cars pulled to the side of the road and stopped. Time flowed like a river while she held his hand and lived in the moment.
She hated for it to end, but when the sheep began the steep climb to go over the mountain, she turned to Alex and kissed his cheek. She had tears in her eyes.
“It’s a little overwhelming, isn’t it? The bighorns,” he said.
“It is,” she agreed. “Thank you for letting me ride the bike, Alex.”
“You can keep it at Louise’s if you like. So you can ride it anytime you want.”
She had long ago developed the fine art of accepting outrageous gifts graciously, but this was so different. So much more personal and touching.
She shook her head and a big tear slid down her freckled cheek. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
“Gee, Doris—you’ve been deprived.”
She laughed. “Yes, and no.”
He tilted his head and waited for her to explain.
“My mom and I were poor on and off while I was growing up. You know how fortunes can shift. We seemed to struggle all the time, with brief periods of relief. We had to rely on my grandparents to rescue us a lot, and there were food-stamp days. But later, after school, when I wasn’t poor, I’m beginning to see that in many ways I was even poorer. If that makes any sense.”
“I don’t get it,” he admitted.
“You can have material wealth and be emotionally bankrupt.”
“And you had wealth?”
“No,” she laughed. “But I had no trouble paying my bills, and always had plenty to eat. Now I realize there was some important stuff missing.”
He touched the tear stain. “Do you realize that when you first got to town, you didn’t have all these freckles?”
“I was always very careful with the sun. The sun really brings out my freckles.”
“You look like a fourteen-year-old girl. I could be arrested for what I’m thinking.”
“Alex, you don’t want to get mixed up with me. I know I’m not your kind of girl.”
“And how would you know that?”
“Instincts. Anyway, why are you thirty-five and single?”
“Like that’s a disease of some kind?” he countered.
“Ah. Gay. I understand,” she teased.
He didn’t waste a second thinking about it, but pushed her to the ground and kissed her. Kissed her very, very well, leaving absolutely no doubt as to his sexual preference. He expertly moved over her lips with precision and desire and urgency. When she didn’t part her lips automatically, he parted them for her with his tongue, but then he used the caution of a practiced kisser and didn’t invade the velvety cavern of her mouth. He teased. Hard, persistent lips, curious tongue. And held her so close.
Then he let her go.
She caught her breath. “Oh,” she said. “Not gay. Well, life holds many surprises.”
“I’ve been divorced about ten years. I’m not currently involved with anyone.”
“And you don’t want to get into anything with me. Trust me.”
“Here’s a surprise I don’t want to get caught in. I don’t want to be the rebound guy, even though the guy was a bum. You have to take at least six months, maybe a year before you’ll be able to make an intelligent decision about—”
“Rebound?”
“Yeah. You said you left a guy. An abusive guy.”
“This is true. But Alex, I didn’t love him. I was just with him. That’s why I’m pretty sure I’m not your kind of girl. You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who likes girls who can be with guys without loving them.”
He laughed at her. “Doris, you’re a kick. I don’t give a rat’s ass about what you felt for the last guy. Or the last ten. But you’re a little bit right. I don’t like girls who are just with me. So think about it. The ball is actually in your court, not mine.”
She lay on her back, and as he leaned over her, she looked at his handsome face and thought, you are not going to trap me and hurt me. I’m going to stay at least one emotion ahead of this. But she said, “There weren’t ten.”
“Well, that’s something. I guess.”
Alex was screwed and he knew it. He liked Jennifer a lot. Over the past ten years he’d had a quiver or two, but no big huge vibrations. There had been lots of fix-ups, something he attributed to the fact that he’d had so many female partners, and as everyone knew—women can’t stand the sight of a bachelor. But aside from some dates, some laughs, some nights on the town, he hadn’t been caught.
It was so ironic, the way she’d changed from a classy blonde to a down-home brunette with the most desirable freckles he’d ever seen. He’d married one of those sexy blondes ten years ago. She was so damn gorgeous that whenever he’d thought of her back then he’d just about burst into flames. He hated to leave her, couldn’t wait to get home to her. Then one night he found her in bed with one of his buddies.
He came home early from his job as a cop. With a gun on his belt, he had somehow managed not to shoot them both. To this day he wasn’t sure how he had pulled that off, because the pain of her faithlessness had seared through him with such ferocity he could still call it up and relive it.
Later, after she’d gone, he had found out that that wasn’t the first time. Of course. Someone who will take that kind of chance has taken it before and will take it again. In fact, she’d been through quite a few men since then, in marriage and otherwise.
The pain of the breakup had been fierce, but by now the only thing he still felt plenty bad about was how stupid he’d been. There is nothing more pathetic than idiots in love. He’d run into them on the job every once in a while. A woman would call the police department and say the ex-boyfriend or-husband wouldn’t leave. Sometimes it was dangerous, but often it would be some fool sitting on the curb in front of her house, crying. A miserable clod suffering through the pain of being dumped. He’d pull him away, saying, “Buddy, in a couple of years when you’re sane again, you’re going to remember this night and be so freaking embarrassed.”
Needless to say, his feelings for Jennifer scared him a little. After all, she’d been with a guy she didn’t love—a guy the law had looked at closely many times. So what was to say she couldn’t be with Alex for a couple of years and then with someone else on the side? Déjà vu?
But there had been something about the way she measured out the details of what she had told him. She seemed to be playing it very safe—almost afraid. And when she did let a little piece of information go, it was clearly the truth, even if it wasn’t particularly flattering. She didn’t have to tell him that she hadn’t loved the last guy she was with.
Then there was that underwear dance, and it wasn’t just the underwear, although that was dynamite. It was that there was joy in her. Joy that didn’t come out to play very often.
It boiled down to this: She let freckles grow on her nose, danced in her underwear when she thought no one could see, sang off-key very, very loudly when something moved her, let herself gain ten pounds, cried at the sight of the bighorns grazing close by and took very jealous care of Alice. She was a good person and somehow he knew this absolutely.
Jennifer had gone straight home to the computer, but she didn’t do her usual Internet search. She just couldn’t wait to write to Louise.
Dear Louise,
I know your advice is good. My new friends are kind, honest people and I must learn to let down my guard a little. Growing up with my crazy mom was both awful and wonderful, but I never knew what to expect. It was like growing up in a minefield. It could be a happy day filled with rewards like ice cream for dinner, or it could be a bad day when all the blinds are drawn and any sound at all would be either weeping or yelling. I learned to walk very gingerly till I knew. I trained myself not to have expectations. I was scared a lot as a kid and I had to find a way to give that up before I became crazy, too. The way I managed was to maintain control. Oh, my goodness, I had so much control. Do you know how hard it is to give up? You can’t imagine.
I rode bikes with Alex to see the bighorns today.
He kissed me.
Love,
Doris
Alex would have much rather stayed in the grazing park for another few hours, kissing and talking, but he had had to go to work. As he listened to the briefing for his shift, his mind was all tied up in how grateful Jennifer had been for the bike. He was happy about that and was planning for tomorrow’s assault on the girl next door. While one of the robbery detectives was outlining a plan for surveillance of suspects who’d been very successful in ripping off quiet little neighborhood bars, Alex was taking some notes, but he was thinking about freckles. He glanced over
at Paula to make sure she was paying closer attention than he was.
When the briefing was done, his sergeant asked him to come into his office. Paula said she had some things to look up on the computer and told Alex to take his time with the boss.
“You ran a check on an out-of-state the other day,” the sergeant said. “It flagged the FBI and the bureau would like to talk to you.”
“Who was it?” Alex asked.
“Hell if I know. Don’t you know who you ran?”
“Can’t recall,” Alex said. In fact, it could have been anyone. He was a robbery detective and any suspects would be checked for out-of-state warrants. In Las Vegas, where there were three hundred thousand visitors a day, there were a lot of nonresidents. The way the system worked was that if you ran a check on someone the feds were watching, it would flag them and then they’d get in touch to see what the locals had. If, for example, he did a computer check on the president, the Secret Service would be knocking on the door within the hour.
In Alex’s case, he’d run a great number of people in the past couple of months.
“Is this urgent?” Alex asked.
“I’m not sure. Here,” he said, handing Alex a phone message slip. “Call the guy and ask him when he wants to see you.”
“Jesus, I hope these guys don’t screw up a perfectly good investigation,” he groused, reaching for the office phone. It happened all the time. They’d be working on a case, have someone pinned down for a crime, start writing the warrants for search and seizure, get a team ready to go in and get the suspects, and the feds would step in and say, “S’cuse me—but we’re looking at them for federal crimes. Dibs.”
“Dobbs,” said the voice that answered the phone, and Alex was momentarily thrown. Dibs. Dobbs.
“Ah, Detective Nichols here,” he said. “Metro. Robbery. You wanted a call about an interstate search?”
“Yeah. Let’s grab a cup. Starbucks on Charleston. Don’t bring your partner.”
Right away Alex hated this guy. “Is this about my partner?” he asked.