An Indecent Longing (27 page)

Forcing her attention back to the problem at hand, she fake-smiled and asked the mother to sit tight while she arranged for someone to help her set the arm.

Which she was going to do. Right after she called Child Protective Services.

By the time she left an hour later, she only wanted a quick shower and to crawl into bed. And hopefully not dream about the two men who’d abandoned her.

Gens apparently picked up on her mood and remained quiet the entire ride back to her condo. She wasn’t sure she could’ve answered any questions without breaking into a crying jag so she was grateful for the quiet.

And when her phone buzzed to indicate a text from her sister just as she was about to crawl into bed around nine that night, she considered ignoring it. But she knew she couldn’t. Not with what was going on.

How was your day?

Sucked. Two abuse cases at the clinic tonight and a twenty-year-old soccer player with possible sarcoma in her leg this afternoon.

Yeah, that really sucks. Hugs. But some good news. Threat should be neutralized in hours.

Good.

Good? That’s all you have to say? How about if I told you the intel came from an interesting source. Your Bs. D suitably impressed and grateful.

Translation: Ben and Ian had found Tosto and given the information to her dad.

Surprise made her fingers freeze over her phone. She had no idea how to respond.

Hey, you still there?

Yeah. Just shocked. What does that mean?

Guess it means your guys aren’t as done with you as you thought. D will be in touch soon. House arrest almost over. Luv u. Night.

But what if she was done with them?

Dorrie’s intercom rang around eight-thirty Friday night, startling her out of a TV coma.

Or maybe she’d been asleep. Which made her the most boring person on earth.

She sat for a second, waiting for Gens to answer, then remembered that he’d been pulled out.

Her dad had indeed pulled Gens and reinstalled Blank, completely healed.

She was glad to have him back, even if she knew he’d complain about her six a.m. yoga class at the studio down the street and the fact that she was in her office by seven-thirty and didn’t leave until after seven at night.

She’d missed him, missed his hounding. Knew he did it only because he was worried about her.

Nice to know someone was.

Rolling her eyes at her pity party, she grabbed the remote for the intercom just as it began to ring again.

“Ms. Haverstick, Mr. Shaw and Mr. Keller are here to see you.”

Her heart tripped over itself and began to race but her brain froze.

Ben and Ian were here? Why?

Her immediate response was to agree to allow them up. But her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and she couldn’t speak.

Neither of them had called or texted since Saturday night. Hadn’t contacted her in any way.

It hurt. She couldn’t deny that.

She wasn’t sure she was ready to see them. She wasn’t sure she would ever be ready to see them.

Even though that’s exactly what she wanted.

“Tell them I’m not accepting visitors tonight. Thank you, Mr. Charles.”

“Of course, Ms. Haverstick. You have a good night.”

She hadn’t had a good night since she’d been in bed with Ben and Ian..

With a sigh, she grabbed the phone she used to contact her sister.

Hey. What are you doing?

Nothing. How’s it going?

Shitty. And you?

Fucking awful.

Dorrie laughed, and the tears she’s been blinking out of her eyes leaked down her cheeks. Trust Risa to make her feel better and worse.

Do me a favor and give my street name to your doorman. I’m on my way over.

You shouldn’t.

Fuck it.

And that was so totally Risa, Dorrie knew she couldn’t say no.

Fifteen minutes later, her sister knocked. Dorrie barely had the door closed before Risa threw her arms around her shoulders and hugged the shit out of her.

Dorrie returned the tight hug with one of her own until they both began to laugh.

“Wow.” Dorrie sniffled. “We’re a miserable pair, aren’t we?”

Risa pulled back and shook her head, the hood of her sweatshirt falling to reveal her distinctive blonde hair gathered in a messy knot at her nape. Risa would never be caught in public like this. Only Dorrie and their dad ever got to see this side of her.

“Not for long.” Risa waved the large brown shopping bag in her one hand where Dorrie wouldn’t miss it.

“I have at least ten completely idiotic romantic comedies, two bottles of champagne, a bottle of Limoncello, a bottle of Chambord, a two gallons of ice cream and a box of brownies from that bakery on Christian.”

Dorrie felt tears begin to gather.

“Ian and Ben just stopped by.”

Risa’s eyes widened. “What?! Are you kidding me? What did they want?”

“I don’t know. I told the doorman I didn’t want to see them.”

Risa headed for the kitchen, bag in hand, and started emptying it. “Hmm.”

“Hmm, what?”

“Well, I’ve never known you to be a liar.”

Dorrie stopped in her tracks. “I’m not lying. I don’t want to see them.”

Now Risa turned to her with one of those looks, eyebrows raised, mouth slightly curved, like she knew all of Dorrie’s secrets. “Yes, you do. But I understand why you might want to make them work to get back in your good graces.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.”
Was it?
“I just don’t want…”

“To be reminded that they broke your heart.”

Her nose wrinkled. “They didn’t break my heart. That’s absurd. I wasn’t in love with them.”

Risa turned back to the bag. “Uh-huh.”

“What does
that
mean?”

Risa sighed dramatically then turned back to her with a bottle of wine in each hand. “It means you’re a dumbass if you think ignoring them will make your feelings for them go away. Yes, I’m all for making them miserable for a few days or even a week because they hurt your feelings but don’t let it go on too long or they’ll think you really mean it.”

“But I do mean it. I don’t want to see them again.”

Risa rolled her eyes. “Oh Dorrie, you don’t really mean that.” A pause. “Do you?”

Yes. At least, some part of her did.

“Dorrie?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

No, she wasn’t. She felt kind of numb actually.

“I’m fine. Maybe I’m coming down with something.”

Smirking, Risa started twisting off the top of the champagne. “Yeah, you’re coming down with a serious case of man trouble. In your case, double trouble.”

Dorrie sighed. “I really know how to screw things up, don’t I?”

“Don’t worry.” Risa smiled. “We’ve still got each other. And after I tell you what your men did, maybe you’ll be ready to cut them some slack.”

“What are you talking about?”

Risa’s smile widened. “Oh, didn’t I tell you? Ben and Ian went with Dad to deal with Tosto.”

For a second, Dorrie just stood there with her mouth hanging open while Risa laughed at her.

Then took the glass her sister slid her way and said, “Tell me. All of it. Now.”

* * * * *

Friday morning, her receptionist walked through her office door with raised eyebrows and a vase with one white and two red roses in her hand.

Dorrie’s cheeks immediately flamed. And her receptionist’s eyes widened. “There was no card but I assume you don’t need one.”

Trish had been with her since she’d opened her practice and was fiercely loyal. But her receptionist was close to her mother’s age and treated Dorrie like another daughter. She didn’t want to discuss her love life with Trish.

“Uh-huh. Date last night?”

She could actually answer that honestly. “No.”

Trish looked unconvinced. “Well, I’ll just set these here.”

Those flowers mocked her from the corner of her desk all day. Especially since neither Ben nor Ian contacted her. Which was just as well. She would’ve told them to back off anyway.

She’d spoken to her dad that morning for a few minutes. He’d told her she didn’t need to worry about the threat against her. It’d been taken care of.

The double-edged sword of that statement had made her pause before hanging up.

“Is it true?” she’d asked. “What he said.”

She knew her dad would understand what she was asking.

“To some degree, yes.” He had sighed and she’d been sure he would stop. Then he added, “But there are always several sides to every story.”

Of course there were. She just wasn’t sure which side she should be supporting.

Which made not being involved a viable option. Then she could get back to her life.

Her
safe
, boring life.

Luckily, she had a game the next morning, against one of the better, more physical teams in their league.

She knew the game would be a tough one and by the end of the first half, she had bloody shins when an opposing player had taken her down with a slide tackle on a breakaway. And she practically dislocated her shoulder trying to block a woman who looked like she benched at least five hundred pounds.

She’d had to be focused but as she was running off the field at halftime, she saw them.

They watched from the parking lot, sitting on the hood of Ben’s car.

She immediately dragged her gaze away but not before she caught Ben’s grin and Ian’s steady gaze.

What the hell?

She wanted to demand they leave, wanted to know why they were there. Just to torment her? She’d thought she’d made it clear she didn’t want to see them but maybe she hadn’t.

And you really do want to see them.

She wanted to tell herself to shut up.

Well, she’d just have to ignore them. Maybe then they’d get the hint and leave.

For the rest of the game, she tried to keep her eyes off them. She managed. Mostly. And only because that beast she’d put on her ass in the first half had wanted revenge. If she hadn’t, well, she might’ve ended up with at least one broken bone.

But they didn’t leave and, by the time the clock ran out, her nerves were shot.

She gathered her stuff, ready to go over and give them a piece of her mind.

They were gone.

By the time she got home, she’d almost convinced herself they hadn’t been there, that she hadn’t really seen them.

Then she went to unpack her bag and found the bag of lollipops. They were the exact brand she kept in her office for the children. She’d been known to have one every now and then.

How the hell they’d managed to slip the pops into her bag was a mystery. One that made her smile.

Monday morning, Trish had an even bigger smile when she walked in with a plain brown paper package only slightly bigger than a box of cards.

“Still no date last night, huh?”

Dorrie shook her head, biting her lip to hide her own smile as Trish set the box in the center of her desk.

“Well, open it. Let’s see what he sent today.”

She didn’t need any more encouragement. Tearing the paper away revealed a box of bandages, obviously for children, bright yellow and covered with smiley faces.

She actually had to blink away tears.

“Well, I’ll be damned. Whoever he is, he’s got game.”

Dorrie had the almost uncontrollable urge to give credit to both men while hoping it wasn’t just Ben. Then she shook her head and shooed Trish out of her office on the pretense of having work to do.

Instead, she picked up her phone.

They sent me flowers. And gave me lollipops. And smiley face bandages.

Seconds later, she got a reply.

Aw. That’s sweet. But I’d make them suffer a little longer.

I’m not going to make them suffer. I’m moving on.

Uh-huh. Right. You do that.

Now you’re just being mean.

Sweetie, you know I love you. But you have it bad for those guys. So make sure they feel your wrath then forgive them.

I don’t know if I can.

And that was the real problem. As much as Ian deserved to hate her father for what he’d done, Dorrie loved her dad. And so did her sister and the smartest woman she knew.

Talk to you later. Need to call my mom.

Okay. Send my love.

Dorrie sat there for a minute with her phone in her hand, staring at Risa’s last text.

Risa’s mom had been a nightmare. Mentally unstable and verbally abusive on her worst days. On her best…the kind of mom every girl dreamed about. The kind who baked cookies and made doll clothing. Until the day she’d committed suicide when Risa had been eight. She’d downed twenty bennies with a bottle of gin. The only good thing was she hadn’t been able to make Risa drink the soda she’d dissolved the other ten bennies into.

Somehow Risa’s mom had discovered that her husband had been having an affair for the past six years and had another daughter. Luckily Risa’s grandfather had known about his daughter’s mental issues and hadn’t killed his son-in-law in retaliation.

Jesus, no wonder they were all fucked up.

Her mom picked up on the second ring. “Hello, sweetheart. How are you? Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine.”

“Hmm, since you’re calling in the middle of the day, I know that’s not true. So what’s up?”

In her mind, she saw her mom as she always did, her chin-length, sable brown hair perfectly cut, no strand out of place, her gray eyes a perfect match for Dorrie’s. They resembled each other to such a degree that when Dorrie had been a teenager, people had mistaken them for sisters. It helped that her mom had been only twenty when Dorrie had been born.

It would’ve been a horrific scandal in Philadelphia society if Elisabeth Haverstick, daughter of Dr. Anders Haverstick, chair of internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, had been known to be carrying the baby of a Russian crime family member.

“Does Granddad still hate him?”

Her mom fell silent for several long seconds. Dorrie knew the pause wasn’t because her mom hadn’t understood her question but because she was thinking about her answer. Her mom had learned at an early age to never answer in haste. You’d always reveal something you didn’t want to.

Then her mom sighed, almost too quietly for Dorrie to hear. “Yes. And that will never change.”