Liberating Lacey (22 page)

In other words, perfect.

Darkness had fallen by the time he asked if she wanted a third drink.

“No, thank you, Will,” she said as she stretched, then tucked her hair behind her ears. “I am at my limit.”

“Dinner? Sparks does a really nice steak, or I can probably get us into Nobu if you feel like rubbing shoulders with celebrities.” His smile was so open and inviting, so easy. His hair fell forward, brushing the top of his collar and curling over his ears, but the look wasn’t metrosexual, just too busy making gazillions to get a hair cut.

She wondered how the texture of softly curling hair would compare to a buzz cut’s bristle against her fingers, if he would kiss with the same laidback confidence he currently radiated. She wondered how it would feel to let him take off her clothes, piece by piece, lay her back the hotel’s fine cotton sheets and do his best to make her forget the man who walked out her front door without a backward glance.

Hunter was
gone
. He was many things, but wishy-washy didn’t make the list. She had to move on.

“I’d love to go to dinner with you.” She smoothed her hands over her dark-wash jeans. “Come upstairs while I get changed?”

Hooking up was slightly easier the second time. To his credit Will didn’t act like she’d extended an invitation. He even stayed on the opposite side of the slow, small elevator. Before she could extract the key to her room from her pocket, however, he cupped her jaw with one hand, bent his head and kissed her. The touch of his lips was light but not tentative, more of the same confident openness he’d been offering and if he didn’t send wildfire racing through her bloodstream, there was a warm hum as his mouth met hers and his thumb stroked her cheek.

It was a pale imitation, but she had to start somewhere. Hunter was gone. Maybe this was all she could expect.

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He drew back, his blue eyes searching hers. When he kissed her again the hand not holding his trench coat slid to the nape of her neck and his lips more firmly suggested she open to him. She did, felt a slight uptick in the hum when his tongue touched hers.

When he pulled away the amusement was largely gone from his gaze, replaced by a sensual confidence and anticipation.

“Yes?” he asked.

She took a step back as she felt for her key in her jacket pocket. She inserted it into the lock and met his eyes when the light went from red to green.

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Hunter shifted the Charger into neutral and coasted into Lacey’s driveway, then looked at the dashboard clock, bright green in the late-November morning gloom. Six-fifty a.m. He stared at the house, sizing up the situation. The light in her bathroom was on but flicked off as he watched. She was probably halfway through her regular morning routine, showered and on her way downstairs in her robe and slippers for her second cup of coffee as she read the paper. Not expecting anyone, least of all him.

And no matter the events of the last eight hours, he had no fucking business walking up the steps to her front porch, day or night. When the nurses kicked him out for his dad’s pre-op prep, he sat in the hallway until the thump of his pulse in his ears became almost unbearable. Pacing helped drown it out, but the nursing staff’s sidelong glances told him he needed to let off steam someplace else.

Sitting around the hospital was a no-risk activity that would drive him crazy.

Knocking on Lacey’s door was going to take more courage than anything he’d faced on the job, given that he had no right to be here. None at all, but if she came to the door in her robe, still soft and sleepy, maybe, just maybe she’d forget what he’d done.

A stifled, bitter laugh huffed out of him. There was no chance in hell she’d forgotten, let alone forgiven, but he had to try. As hard as it was for him to live with himself for the last four weeks, he was as good as gutted if he didn’t try.

He got out of the Charger and walked up the path, treading lightly on the steps. His finger was an inch away from her doorbell when the front door flew open.

“Jesus!” He put a hand on his right hip as he took a step back.

Lacey stood in the doorway, wearing black heels, an ankle-length black wool coat fitted to her curves, a scarf the color of an evergreen tree, and black leather gloves. Her purse hung from the crook of her elbow, her laptop bag was on one shoulder, her keys were in one hand and the ever-present BlackBerry was in the other.

It took him a split second to recover from the shock and take in her very alert, professional demeanor. Then he fixed his gaze on her face. Fierce joy surged in her eyes and his heart jumped hard against his breastbone. Then she blinked and the gates slammed closed, leaving behind only guarded blankness.

He recognized the look. He’d learned the thousand-yard-stare in the Academy, made an art of it on city streets. She’d learned it the hard way. His gifts to Lacey were a comforter cover she returned the same afternoon he walked out and the knowledge that you couldn’t trust anyone, ever, under any circumstances, because they’d fuck you and then fuck you over.

Especially him. He’d made his bed and now he’d lie in it.

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“Forget it,” he said. He turned away, disdaining the stairs in his eagerness to get away from his impenetrable walls reflected in her eyes.

“Hunter. What’s happened?”

Her voice wasn’t angry, or even nasty. It was just as polite and composed as the tone she’d used with Davis and Brianna.

Fuck, it hurt to hear that tone directed at him. He stopped but kept his gaze on the slate slabs that made up her sidewalk. Why not tell her? He couldn’t feel any more raw than he did right now. Besides, she would wonder. Worry. Despite the distant, cool voice, she was too good not to.

“My dad had a heart attack last night. He’s having triple bypass surgery this morning and I…I just wanted…”

What did he want? To erase the last month? If he got a do-over for the last four weeks, he’d make his dad go to the doctor after the third sick day and before the neck and back pain, two less-common signals of an impending heart attack. He’d figure out he loved Lacey when his heart started the weird, subtle pulsing in her shower, not somewhere around three a.m. while he sat by his father’s hospital bed, holding his hand, staring at each tick on the heartbeat monitor that meant his dad was alive for another second, and another, and another.

Gut-churning fear caused by a terrible loss of control did bring clarity. The ticks of his father’s heartbeat on the monitor deciphered the rhythmic thumping keeping pace with his own heart ever since that last night with Lacey.

You love…you love…you love…

He loved her. He had for a month, but didn’t recognize the emotion until God-life-the universe-karma took him down with the body blow of nearly losing his father.

Reorganized his priorities. Whatever.

Lacey said nothing.

At least he’d tried. The reality was he had no right to be here. Figuring out that the age difference, salary, cars, freaking roses in fireplaces, all of it didn’t matter even when you were in a relationship couldn’t give him back what he’d thrown away. Figuring out he loved her,
needed
her, didn’t fix what he’d done.

He put his hands on his hips and tilted his head back to look at the leaf-less branches arching over his head, bare and black against the lightening sky. They looked like arteries, veins, capillaries and the silence behind him was as stark as the tree limbs.

Whatever he wanted, comfort, compassion, her by his side as he waited, he wasn’t going to get it. He turned for one last look, her hair a living flame in the light from the open door. God, she was
beautiful
. He
loved
her. And he was
fucked
.

“You’ve got a big day ahead of you if you’re starting at seven. Sorry I bothered you,” he said, then strode down the path to his car.

Her heavy oak door slammed and her heels snapped rapid-fire against the slate. He assumed she was heading for the BMW but then she was in the Charger with him, all 170

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swirling red hair and black Mary Poppins coat. She dumped her bags haphazardly on the floorboards, dialing her BlackBerry as she fought free from an entangling strap.

With two quick phone calls she bailed on her breakfast meeting and asked her assistant to clear her calendar for the day.

She hung up, tucked the BlackBerry away in her purse, then buckled the seat belt across her body. Hunter felt her eyes on him but just sat back in his seat, one elbow on the window, the other wrist on the steering wheel, eyes front. If he looked at her he might have a heart attack of his own.

“My calendar is totally clear. What time is the surgery?” she asked.

The polite reserve was gone. She sounded like herself, a cautious version, but herself.

He didn’t believe in second chances. God knew he lived as if they didn’t happen and God knew he didn’t deserve this one, if that’s what it was, not something in the ballpark of a pity fuck. He didn’t care. It was a start.

He started the car, put it in reverse and backed out of the driveway. “Nine. They’re prepping him now.”

“What happened?” she asked again.

He told her the details as he sped to the hospital, weaving in and out of early morning traffic on Hanover, accelerating through yellow lights. Last night he’d been zoned out in front of the TV when the shift LT called and said the EMTs had his dad in the back of a bus on the way to the hospital. It didn’t look good, he said. Hunter didn’t remember driving to the hospital but he was there just in time to squeeze his father’s hand before the ER staff took him away.

The memory of his father, white as paper, scared and looking for him, would stay with him forever. Hours later the doctor told him the angioplasty showed three major vessels were ninety percent blocked, or worse. He was stable. Triple bypass surgery in the morning.

He braked sharply into a parking space in the hospital parking lot, but had to force himself to slow down when Lacey broke into a staccato trot as he strode down hallways, past the cardiac nursing desk, into his dad’s room.

The still man in the bed didn’t look like his father, the angular lines of his face sharp under pale skin. How had he missed the warning signs, trouble breathing, back and neck pain, uncharacteristic sick days?

His father’s eyes opened, the green irises vivid against the sheets, as he looked between Hunter and Lacey.

“Dad, you remember Lacey Meyers.”

Lacey stepped up to the bed and squeezed his father’s hand. “It’s nice to see you again, Michael,” she said.

“Not the best circumstances,” his dad rasped out.

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She laughed softly and gave his hand another squeeze. “No indeed,” she said.

“We’ll do it again when you’re feeling better.”

Interest sharpened his dad’s focus, then he glanced at Hunter. “Yeah? I’ll hold you to it.”

With another smile Lacey stepped back, giving Hunter room to hook the rolling stool with his foot and sit down by the bed. “How do you feel?” he asked for the thousandth time.

“I’ve got a catheter in me and I’m thirsty.”

“Nothing to drink until after the surgery, Dad.”

“Let me see if you’re allowed ice chips,” Lacey said.

When the swish of her coat faded in the hallway, Hunter turned back to his father.

“I love you, Dad.”

“Kid—“

“Thanks for raising me. I know it wasn’t what you expected and I know I wasn’t easy…” He stopped, swallowed down the lump in his throat.

“You were the best thing that ever happened to me.” The tight squeeze of his father’s hand was half its normal strength, but the emotion came through loud and clear. “The best things are never easy, Hunter.” He knew that now, in a way he never had before, but he still couldn’t talk around the lump. He just nodded.

After a soft knock on the door, Lacey came into the room and set a small cup of ice on the tray by the bed. “The nurse said they’re almost ready for you, so just a few of those. I’ll see you in a few hours, Michael.”

He helped his father scoop out a few ice chips, then just sat with him. When the nurses came to take his father to surgery, he gave his father one last awkward hug.

“Love you, Dad. See you soon.”

“Love you too, kid.”

It was the first time he’d said the words, even to his dad, or heard them from his father. They didn’t say things like that. They didn’t have to. He
knew
his dad loved him.

It was in every action, every decision, every sacrifice. That didn’t stop hot tears from welling up his eyes as he watched until the swinging doors closed behind the gurney.

He swiped at his eyes with the cuff of his long-sleeved t-shirt, then set his hands on his hips and inhaled, deep and slow.

“The waiting room’s this way,” Lacey said, gesturing down a hall. “I gave your cell phone number to the nurses. They’ll call every hour or so from the operating room, so if you want to wait somewhere else, we can do that.” He fumbled his phone out of the case on his belt and double-checked to be sure the battery had juice and the ringer was on high and vibrate. “I’d rather stay here,” he said.

“If it’s okay with you.”

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“Wherever you’re most comfortable,” she said, her brown eyes soft.

They had the cardiac care waiting room to themselves, the muted televisions broadcasting twenty-four hour news coverage. She shed her coat and slid her bags under a chair along the back wall. “Have you eaten?” she asked.

He slumped into a chair with his back to the wall and closed his eyes. “I’m not hungry.”

“I’m going to the cafeteria,” she said. “I need coffee.” When she returned she had a large white paper bag with her and two enormous cups of coffee. She set the bag on the coffee table, then popped open one lid to add creamer after creamer and five packets of sugar.

“It’s scorching hot,” she said after a sip. “I brought bagels and some fruit, too.”

“Thanks,” he said, but didn’t grab anything. While she was gone he’d figured out how to tell her what he had to tell her, but he waited until she had half the coffee and one bagel in her stomach before he spoke.

“Do you know Cecilia Bronson? She was Cecilia Hunter before she got married.” She paused in the act of bringing the coffee to her lips, probably flipping through her mental Rolodex of friends and acquaintances. “Yes, but not well because she’s ten or twelve years older than I am and she’s lived in Chicago for years. Why?”

“She’s my mother.”

Silence.

He slid her a glance, found shocked comprehension in her eyes as she connected Cecilia’s maiden name to his first name, as long-forgotten gossip resurfaced. He kept going, momentum helping ease the words from his throat.

“Thirty years ago Grandpa was renovating to her parents’ house in Regal Park. Dad was helping. She was seventeen, he was eighteen. One thing led to another and they eloped. Her parents cut her off and Grandpa wasn’t much happier. Six months later, I was born. Six months after that, she went back to her parents. She and Dad were living with me in a ten by twenty studio apartment not far from Juana’s, so I can’t say that I blame her.”

But he did.

Lacey carefully set her coffee down on the end table, clasped her hands in her lap and met his eyes without flinching.

Too late to stop now.
“Dad didn’t tell me much, but I’m guessing a baby was a liability to a girl looking to marry someone from her social class. Dad got custody of me.

She had visitation rights. I remember a few visits. She’d spoil me rotten, cheeseburgers for breakfast, candy whenever I wanted, too much TV, new toys and clothes every time I saw her. The usual shit non-custodial parents pull.

“One afternoon she was supposed to pick me up for the weekend. I’m waiting for her on the front steps. I was wearing my coat but I kept pulling my hat and mittens off.

I was four and if you think I’m a pain in the ass now, you should have seen me as a kid.

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Dad kept putting them back on and I kept taking them off. It got darker and darker. She never showed. Dad made me come in at bedtime, but I made him let me sleep in my coat and clothes, because I was sure she was coming. Next morning, I was back on the steps. I waited all day. She never came. I haven’t seen her since.

“Dad told me later she’d remarried and moved with her new husband to Chicago. I know she has kids with him because when I was fifteen I skipped school and spent a day in the library looking through microfilms of the society pages. There were wedding photos. Birth announcements. Sometimes pictures of her and her new husband and kids at some party here in town.