Eye of the Storm (8 page)

Marcy smiled. “I’ll go do that in just a minute.”

Sam and Marcy watched the
Lucky Lady
teetering on the forklift as it came out of the water. It was immediately evident that the storm had done more damage than Sam had been able to see with a few quick dives into the murky water of the cove. Damn. What would have been a relaxing all-day trip on water would take only a couple of hours on the Interstate. He’d been looking forward to some heart-to-heart conversation, maybe even another session of lovemaking. Neither was likely to happen along the busy concrete corridor.

He turned to Marcy. “While you’re calling Ileana, you might as well arrange for us to rent a car. The
Lucky Lady
won’t be going anywhere today.” Sam couldn’t help grinning at the sassy picture Marcy made in his shirt and a pair of his running shorts. When she came back from the payphone, he put an arm around her. “So what’s happening with our friends?”

“Ileana was frantic. Thought we were both swept out into the Gulf or something. I assured her we’d made it, that we were both okay, but she just kept crying. When she finally calmed down, all she could do was tease me about what had gone on between us.” Marcy shrugged. “I insisted it was nothing.”

“It was a lot more than nothing to me.”

She squeezed his arm. “To me too. What happened meant too much to talk about with anyone, even a good, old friend who’s enough of a romantic to want to see us back together.”

“Doctor Kramer?”

Sam turned to the marina owner. “What’s the verdict?”

“I can have the
Lucky Lady
running by the weekend so you can get her home. She’s
gonna
need some major repairs, though. Things I don’t have the equipment to do. If you want, I can get one of the ferrymen to bring her up to Tampa for you. Won’t be much tourist trade around here for a while, ‘til the mess from
Kellen
gets cleaned up.”

At first Sam hesitated, mentally visualizing him and Marcy taking a lazy trip back up the Waterway next weekend, the way he’d planned for them to do today. Then he came to his senses. He had to work, and she did too. Not to mention there was no guarantee she’d want to spend another weekend on the water, with or without him. “That’s a good idea. See if you can arrange it.”

“Sure thing. Make sure you leave a number where we can get hold of you if I run into any problems I don’t see now.” The mechanic disappeared under the stern of the
Lucky Lady
, apparently anxious to start the makeshift repairs.

“Sam?” Marcy turned to him from the pay phone. “The rental agency will bring the car around in a few minutes. Do you need to call your office?”

“No. I’m signed out to my partners until tomorrow. What about you? Will they be able to get along without you for another day?”

She smiled when he put his arm around her and laid his hand lightly along her hipbone. “I think so. Only pressing thing I had going today was a meeting with Gray
Syzmanski
. It can wait until tomorrow. It’s not as though his client’s locked up in jail. It took all of five minutes after the judge had set bail last week for the kid’s parents to bond him out.”

“Gray’s a good guy. We work out together twice a week.”

“So I heard from
Andi
. I’ve gotten to know him pretty well since he’s been with Winston Roe. Of course I’ve known
Andi
for years.” Marcy’s smile faded, but she recovered quickly and shot him a grin. “Leave it to you to exercise with a guy who’s crippled and can’t push you.”

“Gray pushes plenty hard. Just about as hard as any guy I’ve seen. Wants to keep as fit as he can for
Andi
and those two kids of theirs.”

“I guess. Look, I think that’s our car coming now.”

There it was. That brittleness he hated. At first Sam couldn’t figure out what brought it on—then it came to him. Gray and
Andi’s
kids. He should have kept his mouth shut, realized Marcy wouldn’t like reminders about the babies she’d wanted but didn’t have.

Though he should have dropped his hand from her hip, let her get on with her life, he couldn’t. The connection was still there, still too strong. If five years’ bitterness hadn’t severed it, Sam figured nothing would. “Come on, baby, let’s go home.” He opened the car door for her, then strode around to the driver’s side.

After dropping the rental company attendant off, they rolled onto northbound I-75. For a long time they rode along past evidence of
Kellen’s
decimation, the only noise being the hum of the economy sedan’s tires over stress seams in the road. After turning off the highway and heading through downtown Tampa toward the house they’d once shared in Old Hyde Park where she still lived, Sam glanced at Marcy. From the way she stared out the window at passing cars and wrung her hands together, he guessed she was upset. “What’s wrong?”

“You said we were going home.”

He reached over and laid his hand over hers. “Calm down. We are. We’ll be there any minute now.”

“Don’t you understand? It’s over. We’re going home. Our separate homes, Sam. We’re still divorced. There’s still unsettled baggage between us. Too much for what happened on Cabbage Key to have been any more than a nostalgic interlude. Let’s just say
Kellen
swept away our good sense, made us face the fact there’s still a lot of feelings that probably won’t ever go away.” She reached up, brushed something off her cheek. “I’m glad we had the chance to be together for a little while. It makes me sad, but I know it’s got to end.”

“It doesn’t.” If Sam had anything to say about it, they’d move ahead, not back. He pulled into the driveway, the way he’d done so many times before. “If you think I’m walking away now, you’re not thinking straight.”

“You don’t have a choice. What you did to me wasn’t something that can be dismissed with an apology, even though at least now I halfway understand why you didn’t trust me.”

Hurrying around to her side of the car, he opened the door, blocking her with his body so she couldn’t bolt. “Baby, I trust you now. It was only at first—”

“What would you say if I called you next week, told you I was pregnant and said you were the father?”

Sam’s hand tightened on the open door. “I’d say I was thrilled.” He would be, even though he’d be hard-pressed to believe the same miracle had happened twice. “And I’d get down on my knees and beg you to marry me again and let me come back home.”

“But would you believe me?” she asked, her tone incisive.

Fuck, he couldn’t lie. Chances were, if she were to learn she was pregnant, one of her lovers’ condoms had failed in the past few weeks. The odds against him impregnating her again were too goddamn high. “I’d try. But it wouldn’t make any difference. I’d still want you. I’d believe you’d made your choice and wanted me to be the baby’s father, whether or not it had my DNA. “

“That’s what I thought.” She got out of the car and stared him down the way he imagined she would the toughest crook in the courtroom. “Now let me go. We’ve got too much baggage ever to get back together and make it work.”

She might have been right. But Sam wasn’t convinced of anything except that around Marcy he felt complete, fulfilled in a way no other woman had managed to accomplish since their split. Yeah, they had baggage—resentment, distrust, probably a dozen other disquieting emotions. Still, Marcy had reached out to him when they faced mortal danger. She’d admitted she still
harbored
a few warm feelings toward him too.

He had to touch her. Do something to reach her. Following her to the door, he set his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. “What we had back there was good. More than good. Do you really want to toss it away without—”

“It was sex, Sam. Incredibly hot sex and memories and fear, all jumbled together. Maybe, in a way, the storm forced us to acknowledge the parts of our relationship that always had been good. Perhaps it forced you to talk and me to listen. If there’s a God, maybe now He’ll grant us closure.”

Closure. The last thing Sam wanted. He knew, though, from the sound of Marcy’s voice and the tight set of her chin that now wasn’t the time to pit his limited debating skill against her innate talent for argument that she’d honed in courtrooms for over ten years now. “Maybe. Don’t count on it being over, though. I don’t give up easily.”

“Go on, Sam. Thanks for saving me. And for the best time I’ve had in bed for longer than I can remember. Thanks, too, for explaining after all this time why you shoved me away when I needed you most. Maybe now I can let go of the hate.” She stood on tiptoe, brushed a quick kiss across his lips.

Then, before he could stop her, she turned and stepped inside, leaving him staring at the dark-blue door with its bright, brass knocker he remembered having installed there soon after they’d bought the place.

Sam had never felt so alone.

* * * * *

Inside, Marcy regarded the blinking light on the phone, wondering if she dared ignore it, crawl into bed, and forget about the outside world. Damn it, she’d wanted to ask Sam in, so much she ached inside. It had taken every bit of strength she’d been able to muster to stop with that brief touch of lips to lips, then close the door in his face.

No. She’d made a life apart from him. She had lovers, as he so painfully had reminded her with his hesitation, his carefully chosen answer to the hypothetical question she’d raised about how he’d react this time if she turned up pregnant. She had a job as important as his, and since it was only a little past noon, she might as well keep the appointments she’d made before leaving for Ileana’s wedding. After listening to her messages, she called her office, then dressed and headed downtown. If she were lucky, she’d have an hour or so to go over the case of
Florida v. Stephen Katz
before her meeting with Gray.

Would Gray leave her office after their meeting and go join Sam at the gym? Disgusted with herself for mooning over Sam when she should have been working, Marcy slid her briefcase under her desk and rifled through case folders until she found the one she wanted. Setting aside her vanity, she fished a pair of reading glasses out of the drawer and began reading.

Stephen Katz. Twenty-one years old, a senior at the University of Florida. Marcy had met his parents, although she didn’t know them well. Prominent couple, always taking part in some charity or other.
Neighbors
of Sam’s parents. In any case, they’d attended her wedding. Stephen would have been starting kindergarten about then. As she read the charge—aggravated assault that took place a week ago at a sleazy club on Nebraska Avenue—she felt for the boy’s family. What the hell had the kid been thinking, venturing into an area known best for its pimps and whores and dealers?

Now he was in hot water up to his neck. Though he claimed he’d been robbed at knifepoint and that he’d fought back in self-
defense
, the arresting officers had looked at him and at the other guy and arrested Stephen. Apparently Manuel Soto, the would-be robber, was still hospitalized, while Stephen had escaped serious injury.

Harper Wells, her boss, apparently would take heat from the large Latino community if Stephen were allowed to walk. That had been one of the messages waiting for her when she got home. It made no difference that the so-called victim had a rap sheet that required a binder clip, not a staple, to hold it together. He’d been badly hurt, from the information in the file that mentioned a cut throat and serious blood loss.

Marcy closed the folder. Gray would be along any minute. While privately she considered the case in question one in which a variant of the old southern
defense
,
He needed
killin
’
, might have merit, she dared not decline to prosecute the case. Not if she wanted to keep her job. Maybe…but Gray hadn’t sounded when he made the appointment as though he’d entertain the thought of letting his client plead to a reduced charge.

Stephen could have been her son. Hers and Sam’s. Well, it wasn’t likely, but it could have happened. If she’d gotten pregnant that first time they made love under the bleachers… There was no use thinking about that, or getting sympathetic toward an accused even before Gray presented the silver-tongued plea she knew was coming. Trying to be fair, she opened the file again and read the medical report on Stephen’s supposed victim.

She shouldn’t have bothered. The lab test results showed Soto had been high on coke and booze upon admission…and that pot apparently made up a significant portion of his diet. The injury Stephen supposedly had inflicted—some bruises and a shallow cut on the neck—was consistent with Stephen’s claim that he’d defended himself with his fists and a box-cutting tool.

“Hey, hot stuff. Welcome back.” Cam Willis stuck his head inside her door, a big grin on his face.

“Go away, Cam. Can’t you see I’m busy?” Normally Marcy would have said something provocative and flashed a sexy smile at the tall, blond and handsome assistant state attorney, but today he seemed so young—so trite. Hell, it wasn’t his fault he couldn’t hold a candle sex-wise to her ex, or that her memories of Sam had been refreshed, in spades, during the past seventy-two hours or so. Cam would probably be a great lover, too, in another ten years or so.

“Bennie’s after work?”

Marcy forced a smile. “I don’t think so. Thanks anyhow.”

“Sure.” Cam shrugged, as though her refusal was of no consequence to him. It probably wasn’t. “Thought I’d let you know Gray
Syzmanski’s
waiting to see you. Must be exciting, going up against him and Tony Landry.”