Aftershocks (13 page)

“I loved what happened in the elevator.”

He grinned up at her. “Me, too. But this time, we’ve got all night.”

And he was as good as his word. He kissed her everywhere, and what he wasn’t kissing, he was touching, stroking, learning with his hands.

She was close to begging him to take her, when he slipped her thighs apart and put his mouth just there. She felt zapped—shocked to the core—and tiny helpless cries escaped her.

He licked her until she couldn’t hold back, and every
part of her exploded; fireworks burst behind her eyelids and she let out a sob of relief.

Only then did he sheath himself. As he positioned himself at the still-pulsing entrance to her body, he smiled down at her with great tenderness and held her gaze as he entered her slowly.

Even though they’d been intimate in the elevator, this was completely different. It was light, and they’d made this decision as consenting adults, not as adrenaline-pumped earthquake victims. He felt so right moving inside her, reaching all her lonely places, that she longed to close her eyes and savor every sensation. But somehow she knew how important it was for him to look into her eyes, so she kept them open for him, ignoring the quiver of fear that such intimacy caused.

When he started moving faster, she lost her grip on conscious thought and concentrated instead of hanging on to him. He was beautiful, decent and gorgeous. If only she could stop her feelings from going too deep.

If only it weren’t too late.

His eyes darkened, his breathing harshened, his movements became half-crazed. As climax rocked her, she set off his explosion and they seemed to melt together in one perfect moment.

“I love you,” he said as he poured himself into her body.

I
LOVE YOU
. The words echoed in the air along with their labored breathing and pounding hearts.

Briana wished Patrick hadn’t said those dangerous words, those dangerous, magic words, as she played her fingers through her lover’s hair, feeling warmth coming off him in waves.

It was a moment of such perfect contentment, she wished she could make it last. He loved her.

After a minute or two, he raised himself up on his forearms so he could look down into her face. Cupping her cheek in his palm, he kissed her softly on the lips. “I didn’t mean to blurt out my feelings so soon,” he said. “They’re true, though. I do love you.”

“Well, I’m glad it’s not an automatic reflex thing, every time you climax.”

He chuckled. “No. Usually I’m not so articulate. If I’d thought about it, I wouldn’t have said it, I guess, but I didn’t think.”

“Oh, Patrick. I love you, too.”

What a tangled web she’d woven, and hadn’t she become well ensnared in it? The man she was meant to entrap had trapped her, body and heart.

“You do?” He seemed almost as surprised as relieved.

She smiled up at him. “I love you. I love Dylan and Fiona, I even love poor disaster-plagued Courage Bay.”

“That’s good, but I haven’t even had a chance to date you properly yet. You may think you love me, but wait until you see my woman-getting arsenal. You’ll be under attack and won’t know what hit you.”

“Under attack, huh?” she said, feeling girlishly silly and delighted at the idea.

“That’s right. Morning.” He kissed her lips. “Noon.” He kissed the spot where her breasts met. “And night.” As though he couldn’t resist, he came back to her mouth and kissed her again, deeply.

“What form will this attack take?” she wondered aloud, loving this fun-loving, sweet, sweet man, so different from the suit-and-tie mayor.

“My arsenal is mostly secret. However, I think it’s fair to say there will be wining and dining.”

She considered. “Two fine weapons.”

“I don’t think flowers would be going too far.”

“A woman always likes to receive a bouquet now and then,” she agreed.

“That’s more the mental siege, to break down your resistance, before I step up the attack and move into the physical phase.”

“Oh, you’re planning to bully me?”

He shook his head. “Woo you.”

“I like the sound of wooing.”

“After the wining, dining and flowers, there will be some very physical wooing, don’t you worry.”

“You’re sounding awfully confident.”

He kissed her again, a nice loud smacker. “Actually,
I’m not, but my heart’s gone now, and since I can’t get it back, I’ll just have to get you along with it.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling a prickle at her eyelids that surprised the heck out of her, “that is so sweet.”

“I know I’m pushing you, and rushing you and pressuring you and doing everything I shouldn’t, but I need you to realize that I’m also a package deal. You can’t have me in your life and not have Fiona and Dylan.”

She snuggled up to him and kissed his chin, then the tip of his nose, and then his lips, which still tasted a little of her. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m already in your life. And theirs.”

Even though she’d tried to resist him, Dylan was as up front about his own brand of wooing as his dad, and Fiona didn’t have to do a thing to steal her heart. She’d fallen for the little tyke the first minute she saw her.

Her happiness was slightly tarnished by a flickering thought for her uncle, but she pushed it aside.

She couldn’t have fallen in love with a man who wasn’t trustworthy, and she couldn’t go on loving him without admitting how she’d come to work for him.

Phew, it wasn’t going to be easy, admitting that she’d taken the job under false pretenses. But when she explained why, and shared the results of her investigation, she hoped he’d understand that although she’d joined his staff with an ulterior motive, she would never have done anything to hurt him or his family.

Suddenly, a sense of urgency gripped her. As soon as she saw Joe Carlton, she’d tell Patrick everything.

They made love again, their newly expressed feelings adding a poignancy and intensity she’d never experienced before. “I never thought I could be this happy
again,” he said when he was buried deep inside her body and they were as close as two people can be.

By the time they’d finished round two, which had somehow morphed into round three without a break, Briana was feeling emotionally and physically sated.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “That depends. If we have to leave this apartment to find food, then no, I’m not hungry. I’m too tired to move. I may never move again.”

“How about if I told you I already have a salad and chicken breast prepared?” She wasn’t the only one who needed refueling. They’d both been pretty acrobatic that last round.

“In that case, I’m famished.”

She chuckled. “I also have a freezer full of stuff. I have domestic urges,” she admitted, as though it were a shameful secret. “When I’m upset or thinking deeply about things, I always cook. And since I live alone, well, like I said, I have a freezer full of stuff.”

He dragged himself out of bed and stepped into his shorts, leaving his chest bare. Which was just the way she liked it. If she had her way, he’d always go bare-chested. In fact, she might make it a rule for his entry into her apartment, she thought with a foolish sense of burgeoning happiness. Or maybe it was a burgeoning sense of foolish happiness. Could she be this lucky?

Tomorrow, she was going back to Acadia Springs, and whatever she learned there, she decided she was going to tell Patrick everything.

“You know what I can’t believe?” Patrick said over the salad and chicken breast and the homemade bread she’d taken out of the freezer and warmed.

“What?”

“Shannon really likes you.”

Briana almost choked on a cherry tomato. “If that’s like, I never, ever want to be on her bad side.”

He chuckled. “She’s mellowed, believe me. You should have seen her before she and John got together.”

“Patrick, the woman threatened me with violence if I ever hurt you or your kids.”

“Remind me to buy her a bigger Christmas present,” he said with a grin.

She tried to kick him under the table, but her aim wasn’t great.

“You know,” he said, catching her hand in his, “people hurt each other. It happens. You can’t not risk your heart on the chance it could get broken.”

She nodded, although he had no idea she’d been sent here to deliberately hurt him.

“Janie hurt me. And the kids. She never meant to, of course. No one plans to die suddenly one morning out of the blue. When she was first gone, I used to wish I’d never met her. Then I wouldn’t have had to face her dying.” His voice grew a tad husky, and he paused to take a sip of wine. “But I wouldn’t have Dylan and Fiona if I hadn’t loved Janie, and I can’t imagine the world without them.”

She felt tears prick her eyelids. “And she was able to leave a part of herself behind.” How could she be so lucky that such a man had fallen in love with her? “It must have been so difficult for you to lose her when the poor kids were so young.” She recalled Shannon’s earlier words about Janie’s pregnancy.

“It was hell. Pure, unadulterated hell. I was angry at
her for a long time. You know, those stages of grief everyone tells you about and you don’t believe you’re in?”

She didn’t completely, of course, but she nodded anyway, wanting him to continue.

“After I finally got it through my head that she was gone, I was furious that she’d left me. Furious that she’d left the kids.” He shook his head, broke apart a piece of bread but didn’t eat it. “It sounds awful to even say that, but it’s true. I was mad at her, mad at God, mad at the world.”

He looked up at Briana and smiled, the sad, wise smile of a man who’s been through a tragedy and lived to talk about it. “I knew I was finally starting to heal when I realized how grateful I was to her for those kids.”

She nodded and reached across the table to clasp his hand, so warm and leathery from all those years of firefighting. He squeezed back, linking their fingers. “Anyhow, I survived and the kids survived. Loving you is the same. There’s risk involved. You could get sick. I could get sick. One of us could die. You could end up not being willing to take on another woman’s children. I understand the risks and, for the first time in three years, I’m ready to take them.”

The tears now filled her eyes. “I think I’m the luckiest woman in the world,” she said. “I’m going to try so hard to make you happy.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Shannon had it wrong. So wrong. Hurt happens. Bad things happen. My happiness is not your responsibility. I love you. That’s my choice.”

“Right. I understand that. And I’m making a choice,
too.” She suddenly felt the need to lighten the atmosphere. “I’m making a choice to drag you back to bed.”

They made love twice more during the night, and when she awoke in the morning, she found herself alone in bed. The noise of the shower had woken her. She pondered the idea of slipping out of bed and joining Patrick under the pounding spray, but felt too lazy.

Instead, she lay there, sleepily remembering last night. She knew she’d never forget it as long as she lived.

She dozed a little until he came out, fresh, damp and smelling of her shampoo. “I used one of your pink plastic razors,” he said, rubbing his hand along his jaw as though it hurt. “Those things should be banned.”

“They’re not meant for men with sexy Irish beards,” she informed him.

He stared down at her for a long moment, as though imprinting her face on his memory. This was how he’d look, she thought, if he was heading off to war and might never see her again. Torn between wanting to stay and knowing he had to leave.

“I have to go,” he said, as though that were news.

“Do you want some coffee before you go? I could thaw some homemade muffins.”

“I’d love to, but if I stay any longer, we’ll end up back in that bed, and I’ll be late getting the kids. I don’t want them overstaying their welcome at Aunt Shannon’s.” He kissed her and grinned down at her. “We want her to volunteer again.”

She nodded enthusiastically. “Soon, and often.”

“See you tomorrow at the office.”

“Right.” Reality started to creep back, but Briana wouldn’t let it. The day was sunny, she felt well-loved,
and there was a nice drive ahead of her. By tonight, with luck, she’d know the name of the culprit who’d ruined her uncle’s career, and it wouldn’t be O’Shea.

Patrick kissed her quickly on the lips, but she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a longer, sweeter goodbye kiss.

“I love you,” he whispered, then drew away and left the room swiftly.

“I love you, too,” she said.

T
HE SECOND DRIVE
up to Acadia Springs was even more gorgeous than the first. She sang along to her favorite CDs, enjoyed the scenery and delighted in being newly in love. Since the retirement community was an hour inland, it was dryer and warmer than the coastal city she’d left.

As Briana drove, she mostly replayed scenes from the night before, warming with a glow of pleasure as she relived what had to be the most remarkable night of her life.

For the second time she pulled up in front of a neatly kept bungalow adjacent to a luscious green golf course. This time, she was pleased to see the drapes open, no papers on the front porch and a late-model Ford sitting in the garage. Having already worried about how she’d approach Joseph Carlton, she’d finally settled on the truth, or some version of it, anyway.

It seemed to her that lies had caused the trouble her uncle was in, and maybe the truth would be a good start for fixing things.

Consequently, when she rang the doorbell of number 233 Palm Avenue at two o’clock that Sunday afternoon, she was ready to come out about who she really was.

A woman in her seventies answered the door, wearing a bright sun-orange baseball cap and tennis gear. “Oh,” she said, looking startled. “I thought you were my doubles partner.”

“No, ma’am,” Briana answered with a smile. “My name is Briana Bliss. I work for the city of Courage Bay. I’m looking for retired officer Joseph Carlton of the Courage Bay police department. Would he be in?”

“Yes, of course. Come right in.”

“Thank you.” As she stepped inside, the nervousness she’d tried to keep at bay on the drive up returned. She had a feeling that, finally, she was going to get the truth.

The woman disappeared down a hall, and a few minutes later Briana heard an older man say, “It’s all right, May. You go on and play tennis.”

A short muffled conversation took place, out of her sight, and then an older man came down the hall toward her. Briana would have guessed ex-military from his stern bearing and upright posture if she hadn’t known he was a former police officer.

His hair was salt-and-pepper and a thin mustache graced his upper lip. Behind his glasses, his gray eyes were wary.

He looked at her a long moment, then, with a small sigh and an infinitesimal slump of his shoulders, he motioned her toward the living room.

“You
are
the Officer Carlton who served on the Courage Bay police force in the eighties?” Briana asked.

The older man nodded, gesturing her to a floral couch in greens and yellows. The decor was department-store Colonial, and everything was sparkling clean.

“Yes, I served in the eighties. And the seventies. And
most of the sixties, too. I retired in nineteen ninety-two.” Before he sank into what was obviously his favorite chair, a green wing chair with a footstool in front and a carefully folded newspaper on the polished side table, he paused. “Would you like some iced tea?”

“That would be wonderful, thank you. I’m a little thirsty after the drive up here.”

“I’ll get it,” came his wife’s voice.

“Then you go play tennis,” her husband called. “This young lady and I will be fine.”

“I…I don’t know what to call you. Retired Officer Carlton doesn’t sound quite right.”

“Call me Joe.”

She smiled. “And I’m Briana. Briana Bliss.”

“Bliss.” He shook his head. “Not a surname I recognize.”

“I just recently moved to Courage Bay, Joe. I work for the mayor. The new mayor. Patrick O’Shea. I’m his administrative assistant.”

A rusty chuckle shook her companion. “Now, O’Shea’s a name I know well. Good kids, but they played their fair share of pranks. I’d heard young Patrick was the mayor down there, after the old one made a fool of himself.”

“Well, it’s sort of the election that I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Never mingled in politics myself.”

“Right. It’s not directly about politics. What I wanted to ask you about involves an arrest you made in the eighties. I don’t know if you’ll even remember any of the details, but I thought I’d ask anyway.” She’d also brought a copy of the article, including the grainy arrest photo from the
Courage Bay Sentinel.

May Carlton came into the room with two chilled glasses of iced tea in crystal tumblers. Thin slices of lemon floated on top.

“Thank you,” Briana said gratefully, and sipped the cool drink. May set a coaster on the table in front of her. “There’s more iced tea in the fridge if you want it, dear.” Then, after kissing her husband on the forehead, she left.

“You go on, now,” Joe said to her.

There was a short silence. “I understand you celebrated your fiftieth wedding anniversary,” she said. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks. How did you know?”

She explained about coming up the week before, when he and his wife were away, and he nodded. “You must have something pressing on your mind to make this trip twice in the space of a week.”

“It’s not urgent, but I believe it’s important.” She took the neatly folded photocopy out of her bag and passed it over. Joe Carlton studied the photo carefully for several long seconds and nodded. Then he raised his eyes to her.

He still had cop eyes, she realized. They missed nothing.

“This is Cecil Thomson. I arrested him in 1984. A misdemeanor.”

She felt as though someone had kicked her. For a long time there was only silence punctuated by muted traffic sounds from the main road and the ticking of a clock.

“How can you remember it so clearly?” She was startled and it must have showed. “That was more than twenty years ago. You must have performed hundreds, thousands of arrests in your time. How can you be so certain you remember this one?”

“Because Cecil Thomson was a prominent man, even then. He wasn’t president of the bank back in those days, but he was already a councilman.”

“Right.” Her stomach was starting to feel funny, as though she might be coming down with something. “What happened?”

“What’s your interest in this?”

How much to tell? How much to withhold? “Some damaging information about Councilman Thomson was leaked to the press during the mayoralty race. There’s been some suggestion…” She looked over at the older man whose eyes had seen so much and decided to trust him. “I’d like to keep this visit, and this conversation, confidential for the moment. There’s been a…suggestion made that the arrest and the photograph were false. That they were planted to ruin Councilman Thomson’s bid to become Courage Bay’s mayor.”

Joe chuckled, then he laughed out loud. But it wasn’t the kind of laugh that made you want to join in. It had a bitter sound. The feeling in her stomach grew worse.

“Oh, it was real all right. The photo. The arrest. The whole ball of wax.”

“But—but I don’t understand. Why was he never charged? And why did it take twenty years to come to light?”

“You look like a nice young woman, but if you’re involved in any kind of politics, even as the mayor’s secretary, you must know there’s dirty tricks even at the lowest level.”

“I hate to think that’s true, but I suppose you’re right,” she said.

The old man nodded, then settled back to tell his story.
“I was out on the beat one summer evening in eighty-four. It was a quiet night. A couple of kids had a few open beers on the beach. I could smell marijuana, but they’d got rid of that before I caught them, so all I could do was give them the usual talking to about drinking underage and then I drove them home to their parents.”

He stopped to sip his tea. Briana was amazed at how clear his recall was of an incident two decades old.

“On my way back to the precinct, I cruised The Lair, which was and still is the meanest part of Victory Park.”

Briana nodded.

“Prostitutes hung out there. Some drug deals went down. There were bar brawls and plenty of petty theft. I was doing a routine drive through and I saw a couple in a car. I might not have noticed them, but the car didn’t belong in the area. It was a new model Cadillac.”

Her heart sank still further. Her uncle had always driven Cadillacs. Always. He got a new model every four years without fail, and Aunt Irene got the four-year-old one.

Joe cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. “Well, I could see inside the car that there was a couple going at it, so I got out the camera and turned on the flash. There was a lewd act happening in a public place, and the woman was a prostitute I knew well enough. I’d arrested her before.”

“And the man?” Her throat felt so dry and scratchy she could barely get the words out. She knew, of course. Realized that on some level she’d suspected this for a while but had refused to believe it.

“It was Cecil Thomson. I knew him pretty well, too. So I snapped their photo, and Cecil, well, he got himself
pretty riled up. When I look back on it now, I think I probably would have let him off with a warning—it was a first offense and I’d never seen him down in that part of town before—but he got belligerent on me. I remember I smelled booze, so I guess he’d had a few drinks and wasn’t acting too smart. Anyhow, I arrested the pair of them and took them down to the station, filled out the paperwork and attached the photograph to the file. Cecil Thomson must have sobered up some by then, because he demanded the phone, and guess who he called?”

“His lawyer?”

Joe shook his head and his mouth twisted in a cynical grimace. “No, he did not call his lawyer. He called the police chief. They were great buddies in those days. Old Chief Conway’s gone now. Died of lung cancer. Let me just say, I don’t mourn his passing.”

“So, Un—So, Cecil Thomson called Chief Conway. What did the police chief do?”

Joe gave another humorless laugh. “He let Cecil Thomson go. Told me I’d been too quick to judge, that there was insufficient evidence and we wouldn’t be taking this one to trial. He even let the hooker go free.”

“But…” Briana’s head was reeling. “He was the police chief. Surely it was his duty to support his officers.”

“That’s not the way he saw it.”

“But how could he stop you going above his head, or even to the newspapers if you’d wanted to?”

“I guess he knew I wouldn’t do either of those things.”

“You mean you’ve kept this secret all these years?”

Joe Carlton stared down at his hands, and suddenly she wished she didn’t have to press him for answers. He
obviously didn’t want to talk about this, something which he confirmed when he said, “Here’s the part of the story I wish I didn’t have to tell you, but it wouldn’t be right not to. I got a promotion the next week. Now, I was in line for one and sure as hell deserved it, but I always thought the timing was too much of a coincidence. Yeah. I kept my mouth shut, and I probably would have anyway. But I also took the promotion.” He shook his head. “Never felt right about it. But I had a wife and kids to support. And that’s the story.”

Her head was whirling. But one huge piece of the puzzle was still missing. “It’s not quite the end of the story, though. Why did you leak it to the papers twenty years later? Was it for revenge?”

He chortled. “That’s a good one. If I’d ever thought of it, I probably wouldn’t have had the guts to leak information the way they love to do these days. No. The photo from the arrest disappeared very conveniently that same night. I guess the chief figured that if I did try anything, it would be my word against his and the good councilman. But I’d taken a couple of pictures, see? I always did. In case one didn’t turn out.”

He sat back and sipped more tea. “I clipped the clearest one to the file and I kept the backup.”

“Why?”

“I suppose that photograph was a reminder to myself that I wasn’t any better than the next man.”

“So you kept that photo all these years?”

“Sure did. I probably should have tossed it when I retired, but I’d mostly forgotten about it by then. My daughter was up here a few months back. She’s married to a fellow that works for the
Sentinel
. She was going
through some old boxes in the storage locker, looking for I don’t know what, and she found that picture. Like I said, I’d almost forgotten about it. Well, after she got through wondering what I was doing with a picture of two people going at it, I told her the story. I guess maybe it eased my conscience a little.

“I never expected she’d take that picture with her and run straight to her husband.” Joe stopped to rub his jaw and a sly twinkle flickered in his eyes. “At least, I don’t think I did.” He chuckled a little. “Maybe I wasn’t sorry, though, that the truth finally came out.”

Oh, and was the truth ever coming out. She felt ill. Faint and nauseous. Her uncle had always been someone she admired and looked up to. He loved his wife, and he loved her. How could he go to a prostitute in the first place? Then use political influence to get the charge dropped, and then lie to his own wife and niece about the incident? The only truthful thing he’d told them was that he believed Patrick had planted the story.

And he’d jumped to that conclusion because he knew all about political dirty tricks and influence peddling.

And the irony was, that was the only part of the story that wasn’t true.

Her uncle had been wrong on so many levels. Patrick hadn’t set Uncle Cecil up. Patrick hadn’t known a thing about the arrest until he’d read it in the paper. It was the arresting officer’s son-in-law who’d made a timely news story out of an averted scandal.

The only person who’d been set up, she now saw, was her own gullible self.

“Are you all right over there?”

She’d dropped her head in her hand and closed her
eyes as the shock of the truth hit her. “Yes. Yes, thank you. I’m fine. I—I’m glad to hear that Mayor Patrick O’Shea had nothing to do with starting false rumors.” That at least was true.

“If that mayor of yours is anything like he was ten years ago, when he was a young fireman, why, he’s as honest as the day is long. He comes from a good family, but he was one of the biggest sticklers for honesty and integrity I ever saw.” The older man leaned forward. “After the scandal with the last mayor, I’m awfully glad you’ve got a good man doing the job now. Especially since you’ve had all that trouble down there.”