Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series) (36 page)

“All the way to Texas?” she asked, well knowing the full extent of his stubbornness.

“Most likely I’d of gone through with it. I tell ye I had a night I’ll never forget though. Couldn’t sleep a wink, sat in the bathroom feelin’ sick an’ shakin’ with cold, unwillin’ to admit what it was my body was tryin’ to tell me. ‘Twas definitely one of those long, dark nights of the soul. Round about three o’clock there’s a knock at the door, so I tug on some jeans an’ go to answer it, shirtless an’ shoeless, half-hopin’ it was someone come to shoot me an’ put me out of my misery. The coward’s way out was lookin’ mighty attractive at that point.”

It had been his father. Casey had never seen the man look the way he did that night, standing there in that posh hotel. There was an aura to him that Casey was not to understand until a long time later. Brian had been calm and had asked his son nicely if he could have a word. Casey had stepped into the hall, not wanting to wake Melissa, knowing if she did he would have a real scene on his hands.

“Da’ asks me point blank if I love her, an’ I stood there on that red carpet, half-naked, with the occasional passerby starin’ at the two of us an’ knew I couldn’t answer him. Lookin’ back I see that he knew it too. I remember it as bein’ one of the worst silences of my life, I wanted to say ‘yes’, I wanted to love her, it seemed I’d never wanted anything as much for if I didn’t love her, what did that mean about me an’ what I’d been doin’ for the last four months?”

“He said if I couldn’t answer the question then an’ there it wasn’t goin’ to change itself to suit me, an’ that gold, given time, tasted as bitter as an iron bit in a man’s mouth. Well I got the point, an’ I knew I’d have to make the break, an’ the sooner the better.

“I asked him if that was all he had to say, an’ he replied ‘yes’ and started walking away down the hall, then he turned back an’ said ‘Yer a stubborn bloody goat son, but I love ye.’

“I went back in the room then, not likin’ what I was about to face, but mightily relieved at the same time. I got dressed an’ then I woke up Melissa. Told her I couldn’t go, that the both of us knew it wasn’t right, an’ it had only been meant as a summer thing.” He winced at the memory. “She didn’t take the news real cordial-like.”

“No,” Pamela said, feeling a twinge of sympathy for the girl, “I don’t imagine she would have.”

Melissa had yelled, cried and broken furniture once she realized Casey had truly decided against leaving with her. He had finally managed to leave, realizing his presence wasn’t going to lend itself to calming her. He snuck out a side door, not wanting to face the stares of the staff in the hotel lobby.

It was still night as he stood in the alleyway, though the dark was of a quality to make him know dawn was near. He stayed there for a moment realizing he didn’t know where he was going. Should he go home, could he? While he was standing there wondering his father had pulled up in his car and said, ‘D’ye need a lift home, boy?’ Casey’s knees had almost buckled in relief. He got in the car, but his father just sat there, not moving and so he had turned to see what the delay was.

Casey shook his head, voice thick with emotion.

“Daddy’s hand was shakin’ on the gear shift, an’ I could see in the reflection of the rearview mirror that he’d tears in his eyes. I’d never seen my father cry an’ it scared me that I’d been the cause of finally witnessin’ the man break in that way. He didn’t so much as turn his head just said real soft, “Don’t ye ever scare me like that again son, I thought I’d lost ye for certain.”

“I took his hand so,” Casey put his large callused hand over the top of hers, ‘an said, ‘I’m sorry Da’, I never meant to hurt ye.’ We sat there in that street for a bit an’ if I live to be a hundred darlin’ I’ll not forget the color of the mornin’ sky an’ how my Daddy’s hand felt beneath my own.”

He looked down, hand still tight over Pamela’s. “There’s been many an hour I’ve regretted those two months when we didn’t speak, I didn’t have him for very long after that. I wasted a lot of time bein’ angry over somethin’ that didn’t matter in the end.”

She didn’t say anything, just leaned across the table and kissed him gently on the forehead, knowing it was a thing he’d have to forgive himself for.

“Now where does Robin fit into this picture?

“Well I’m just gettin’ to that bit. Melissa called me a couple of days later, was real sweet on the phone, said she was leavin’ an’ wanted to say goodbye proper, not leave things as we’d done, angry an’ cryin’. I was a bit foolish, thought it’d relieve my conscience some to go an’ smooth things over. No one answered to my knock but the door wasn’t locked an’ I thought perhaps she’d only stepped out for a minute or was in the bath. An’ so I walked in an’ there they were, the two of them—Melissa an’ Robin, bare-assed naked, wrapped around each other like a couple of snakes.”

Casey knew he ought to leave, but he couldn’t move, the sight of the two of them had paralyzed him. Seeing Melissa with another man hurt his pride and little more, but that the man should be Robin cut him to the bone. There wasn’t anyone he trusted more and he felt as if he couldn’t breathe much less turn and walk out of that room. He managed finally, though he bumped into walls a time or two. It was shock he supposed, making him clumsy. Robin had come flying down the hall behind him, wrapped in a sheet, but Casey couldn’t make out anything he was saying, for he was that upset. He had finally looked at Robin and realized the man was stricken, begging for forgiveness. Casey had not been in the mood for apologies though and had shoved him so that he fell down in a tangle of sheets and bare skin. Then Casey had run, not wanting Robin to catch up with him.

The nearest pub was only half a block away and he had gone and swiftly gotten pig-drunk, picked a fight and soon found himself lying outside the pub door, head ringing and rain falling in his open mouth. He would have laid there until he sobered up or drowned, if one of the girls from his neighborhood hadn’t happened by and dragged his ungrateful arse home.

“Woke up with the filthiest hangover I’d ever known, feelin’ mighty sorry for myself in any number of ways, felt used an’ dirty, an’ when I made the mistake of sayin’ so Daddy said ‘that’s a mixture of yer cock an’ yer pride talkin’ boy, an’ neither has the sense of a goose.’ The man never had any sympathy for a hangover an’ he made my life miserable that day.”

Casey carried a head about with him that day that felt like an anvil that had been smacked one too many times. When Robin showed up at his door, he wasn’t in the best frame of mind to deal with him. Robin had wanted to explain, but Casey had said there was no explanation he could give that would justify what he’d done.

“I remember standin’ there in the doorway,” Casey said quietly, “rain pissin’ down in sheets an’ half the neighborhood tryin’ to cock their ears through their curtains an’ I’m feelin’ this terrible pain in my chest, an actual physical pain. The man was my best friend an’ he’d broke my heart an’ I hated him for it. He wouldn’t go, though, had tears in his eyes sayin’ if he thought I really loved her, he’d never have done it. There seemed nothin’ I could say to that so I spit at his feet. ‘Twas what my Granny Murphy used to do when she broke with someone permanently. Robin had lived in Belfast all his life an’ knew what it meant. He went a little white around the mouth but still he just stood there an’ he seemed to get smaller, as if the rain pourin’ off him were shrinkin’ him somehow. I was beginnin’ to think I’d have to hit him to get rid of him when Da’ came to the door an’ said, in this real gentle tone like he was talkin’ to a frightened an’ confused child, that it was probably best if Robin left.”

Casey’s eyes were distant with the memory, and yet she knew he saw the eighteen-year-old friend he’d broken with as if it were yesterday.

“He turned an’ walked down the path real slow, shoulders hunched against the rain. ‘Twas the last time I saw him until that night in the pub playin’ poker. I didn’t know how I’d missed him until I saw him again.”

“Where did he go?”

“He moved to America an’ married her.”

“He
married
her?”

“Aye, an’ was miserable the whole time, to hear him tell it.”

“Have you forgiven him?”

Casey shrugged. “It’s of no matter now, he had a miserable marriage to a woman I never loved anyhow, an’ I,” he lifted a hand to her face and ran a thumb along her cheekbone, eyes dark and sweet as a summer night, “found you. It’s hard to feel bitter under those circumstances. Robin came from a different place than I did, though he only lived but the two streets over. As a boy I didn’t understand what his life at home must be like, but Daddy sat me down when he thought I was capable of listenin’ an’ told me not to take the betrayal so deeply, an’ to try an’ understand why Robin might have done as he had. At the time I was insulted that he’d even suggest it, but later I came to understand the wisdom of what he was sayin’. It’s always that way, it seems, with the things our parents tell us, takes years to understand what they were really sayin’. D’ye suppose it’ll be that way with our children?”

She heard the note of hope in his voice and gave him the reassurance he sought.

“Of course it will, they’ll be as stubborn and unmanageable as you were and they’ll drive us completely crazy but we’ll realize many years later that we wouldn’t have had them any other way. Likely our son will run about the country leading poor, innocent girls astray.”

Casey snorted. “There was nothin’ innocent about Melissa, I was the naïve one in that relationship.”

“Well I,” she batted her lashes, “was an innocent when I fell into your nefarious clutches and look at me now, a complete wanton by your own admission.”

“If ye remember correctly,” he said sternly, “’twas yerself that asked me. Now considerin’ that I was half-wild with lust for ye as it was an’ just fresh from five years in prison, I think I can be forgiven for not exercisin’ the strictest of morals. An’ rememberin’ further, ye didn’t so much ask as tell me that we would be makin’ love, an’ my opinion of not much matter in the situation.”

He pulled her up from her chair and around the table, tumbling her into his lap.

“I don’t remember a great deal of protest on your part,” she said, poking his midsection with an indignant finger.

“Well lass a man will have his weaknesses an’ ye know full well yer mine.”

“Even if I don’t have skin like a peach?” she said, only half in jest.

“More like white roses,” he murmured huskily against her ear, “wet with rain.” He ran his hands over the skin in question, making it apparent that, for all intents and purposes, story time was over. “Come on, ye wanton woman, an’ take yer husband to bed.”

“Wait a minute,” she said, albeit slightly breathlessly, “you haven’t finished the story.”

Casey gave her a decidedly impatient look. “Aye I have, there’s no footnotes nor epilogue to be had, ye know life is never tied up as neatly as those novels yer so fond of readin’.”

“No happily ever after?”

“Now I never,” he ran his teeth lightly down the side of her neck, “said that. That’s the part I’m working on right now—the happily ever after bit.”

“You’re doing...quite a good job...on that... part,” she said, eyes closing in bliss, joints melting to liquid under his sure touch.

“Oh but that’s not the end of it.”

“It’s not?” she cracked one eye open to find him looking at her very tenderly.

“No, it’s not.”

“Then what is?”

“First,” he said putting her hand palm up to his lips, “let’s see what we can do about makin’ one of them unmanageable an’ pigheaded children ye mentioned, an’ I’ll tell ye the end of the story afterwards.”

“Promise?” she said faintly, powers of speech rapidly deserting her.

“Promise.”

LIKE SMALL PLANETS PLACED WITHIN the vicinity of Jupiter, everyone in Jamie’s orbit seemed to get pulled into his philanthropical galaxy. Pamela was no exception. A mere two days after visiting him, he called to ask if she was interested in taking pictures for a project of his.

“I understand you’ve the eye, so I thought perhaps you’d use it for a little project of mine.”

With Jamie,
little project
could be a euphemism for anything from ensuring a child received adequate dental care to overthrowing the existing government. With this in mind she said yes, with just enough hesitation to make Jamie laugh.

“Don’t worry, it’s not armed rebellion—just a pictorial for your brother-in-law’s housing project. He wants to get some booklets done up before he takes his case to the city councilors. He occasionally asks for my help in an advisory capacity, so I said I’d handle the making of the booklets. I thought you might like the work.”

“I’ll have to run it past Casey first.”

She approached Casey with some trepidation, but with the thought firmly in mind that she was a grown woman, and she didn’t plan to confine her life to the dingy walls of their flat, waiting for him to come home each night.

Casey heard her out and then said exactly what was on his mind.

“Ye know I believe strongly in yer talent with the wee box. I saw proof enough with the bits of weddin’ work ye did in Boston an’ I don’t doubt Pat needs the booklets done up. I’m just less certain of yon man’s intentions. It’s convenient for him, no? He’s an excuse to spend time with ye an’ it all looks perfectly above board an’ innocent.”

“It
is
all perfectly above board and innocent,” she said calmly, “and the fact is I won’t be working with Jamie at all. Pat has final approval on the photos and I’ll be on my own other than that.”

She could see the strain in his expression as his emotions fought for primacy. Jealousy of Jamie wasn’t a new theme in their relationship, and Casey’s feelings were not without foundation.

Finally he sighed in capitulation. “I can see by yer face there’s no dissuading ye anyway. Just mind that the man has always had feelins’ for ye and likely still does.”

She took his face in her hands and looked him directly in the eyes. “I love
you
man, can you just remember that?”