Somewhere Only We Know (2 page)

"You guys go ahead." He wasn't the least bit hungry.

As his friends moved over to the buffet, Aiden crossed the room and put a bottle of beer into his hand.

"Thanks," he said, taking a long swig of cold beer.

"What do you figure? Give this a half hour, then say goodbye?" Aiden asked.

"Definitely not longer than that." He looked towards the front of the room and saw Leanne's smiling face gazing back at him from a large poster. Her parents had set up the same photos that they'd had at the funeral—a display of Leanne's life in photographs. He shook his head in bewilderment. "What are they thinking? When does this end? When do we stop celebrating the worst day in all of our lives?"

"They're thinking that they don't want anyone to forget their daughter," Aiden said quietly.

"I don't need a poster to remind me of Leanne."

"Maybe they do," Sara suggested, joining them. "Sometimes memories start to fade and people worry that they'll forget. I remember feeling that way after my mom died. As the years went by, I couldn't see her face as clearly. I couldn't hear her voice in my head. I couldn't remember her laugh. To tell you the truth, it scared me. I felt like she was slipping away. Perhaps the Parkers feel like that, too."

Sara's words rang true in his head. Leanne had been fading in his mind. While he hadn't been in a serious romantic relationship since then, he had dated other women. He had gone on with his life. Maybe that was why he hadn't wanted to come tonight. He felt like the Parkers were trying to pull him back into the darkness, and he didn't want to be there anymore. He'd gone through the anger, the guilt, the sadness and the multitude of
what ifs
that could have changed the outcome if only he'd done something different. He was over all that.

He looked away from the pictures, his gaze coming to rest on the newest arrival to the gathering—Mitch Warren. His heart sank. This was not going to go well.

Mitch was in his mid-thirties and was a fellow firefighter. Mitch had also been a good friend of Leanne's long before Burke had met her. In fact, Burke had always thought that Mitch had felt a lot more than friendship for Leanne, but Leanne had always dismissed that idea with a laugh, saying they were just good friends.

As much as Mitch liked Leanne, he did not care for Burke. And that dislike had only grown after Leanne's death. Mitch was convinced that Leanne's death was not an accident, that somehow Burke was to blame. He could understand that Mitch needed someone to blame, because he'd looked for a scapegoat himself, but some accidents were just that—unexpected, unexplainable and tragic.

Next to Mitch was Burke's youngest brother Colton.

Burke could see the worry in Colton's eyes. His brother worked under Mitch at a firehouse on the other side of the city, but he was caught in the war between Burke and Mitch, and there was nothing Burke could do about it. Colton would have to find his own way to a relationship with Mitch Warren.

He stiffened as Mitch saw him and headed in his direction. The last thing he wanted was a confrontation here, but there was nowhere to run, and it seemed obvious from the aggressive look in Mitch's eyes that he wanted to make a scene. He was itching for a fight.

"I can't believe you had the nerve to show up," Mitch ground out, anger burning in his eyes.

He told himself not to react. Mitch's anger came from a place of grief, and that was something they had in common. It wasn't something to fight over.

"Let's get something to eat, Captain," Colton suggested.

"Not yet. I'm done letting your brother act like he had nothing to do with Leanne's death, when we all know he did."

As Mitch spat out the words, Burke could smell the liquor on Mitch's breath. There was no question that alcohol was fueling his fire.

"Why don't we go outside?" Burke suggested calmly, seeing Chuck and Marjorie approaching, tense looks on their faces.

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Mitch replied. "You and I are going to have it out. I'm tired of playing your games. You don't want to answer my questions, but tonight you're going to have to do just that."

"Captain," Colton began again.

"Get out of my face, Callaway," Mitch said forcefully, shoving Colton away.

"What's going on?" Chuck Parker asked.

"It's Burke's fault, Chuck," Mitch said, looking at Leanne's father. "I know you don't want to hear that, but it's true."

"I don't understand." Chuck sent Burke a sharp look. "What's he talking about?"

"I'll tell you what I'm talking about," Mitch answered, not giving Burke a chance to explain. "Ask Burke why Leanne was on the road that night. Ask him why she was so close to the firehouse. Ask him why there didn't happen to be any security cameras in that particular neighborhood. Go on, ask him."

"Leanne was going to her yoga class," Marjorie cut in. "We already know that, Mitch. She went there every Thursday night."

"And it's not far from the firehouse," Chuck said.

"She wasn't going to yoga. That wasn't the way to the studio."

"She took a shortcut," Marjorie interrupted. "Leanne was always cutting through back alleys."

"I don't believe that. Leanne was upset with him." Mitch pointed an accusatory finger at Burke. "Leanne left me a message that day. She was crying. She said she had to talk to me about him."

Marjorie put a hand on Mitch's arm. "Mitch, we understand that you're upset. You and Leanne were so close. But this isn't going to solve anything. We'll never know what Leanne wanted to talk to you about."

"We'd know if he'd talk," Mitch said, glaring at him again. "But he just stands there and says nothing."

Burke had more than a couple of reasons for why he'd never responded to Mitch's questions, but there was no point in trying to explain that now…or ever. Nothing would bring Leanne back or change the past.

"Let it go," Chuck said firmly.

Mitch shook his head. "So he gets a free pass? No, he needs to pay. He needs to feel some of the pain that the rest of us are in."

Burke saw Mitch pull his hand back a split second too late. He tried to duck, but he was pinned in. Mitch's fist connected with his jawbone, the force of the man's anger making it a solid, purposeful punch.

He stumbled backwards, his head spinning, and knocked into one of the waitresses handing out glasses of champagne. He tried to stop himself from falling, but he got tangled up with the woman, and the next thing he knew he was on his ass on the floor with champagne splashing into his eyes and across his stinging face.

"Oh, my God," the waitress said, on her knees next to him. "I'm so sorry. Are you all right?"

He looked into a pair of emerald green eyes framed by thick dark lashes and felt like he'd been punched again. "Maddie Heller?"

"Burke Callaway?" she asked, the same amazement in her voice.

As he stared into Maddie's face, he didn’t know whether his night had just gotten better or a whole lot worse.

Chapter Two

Maddie stood up as two men helped Burke to his feet while several others hustled the man who had punched him out of the club. A busboy came to clear the broken champagne glasses while Pamela, the director of catering, suggested Maddie return to the kitchen and change her wet server's blouse for a dry one.

She was moving in that direction when Emma Callaway intercepted her, a happy, surprised smile on her face. "Maddie Heller? Is it really you? I thought you were living in Europe."

"I was for a while," she said as the always affectionate Emma gave her a quick hug.

While she'd been better friends with Emma's older sister Nicole, she'd gotten to know Emma in high school. Once Nicole had her driver's license, she'd often been tasked with driving her younger siblings around, and Maddie had accompanied Nicole on many of those trips.

"So you're back now," Emma began. "And you're…"

"Working here part-time," she finished.

"What are you doing the rest of the time?"

"Still figuring that out."

"Last I heard you were dating some handsome Italian restaurateur and living on the Amalfi Coast."

"That was a couple of years ago. It didn't work out."

"Sorry about that."

"Nothing to feel sorry about." She paused as her gaze came to rest on the diamond ring on Emma's left hand. She grabbed Emma's hand and pulled it up to take a better look at the ring. "This is beautiful. You're married?"

"Over a year now. His name is Max. He's a police detective, and we're amazingly happy."

"I'm so glad," she said, thinking Emma looked really happy. There was a sparkle in her eyes and a glow to her skin.

"I should make sure Burke is okay," Emma said, glancing over her shoulder. "Where did he go?"

"I think he left. Who was that man who hit him?"

"A friend of his former fiancée, Leanne Parker. She died a couple of years ago. They were planning their wedding at the time."

"That's so sad," she said, her heart twisting a little for the pain Burke must have gone though.

"It was horrible. Burke has had a rough time since then. He didn't want to come tonight. I guess he should have followed his instincts."

She nodded, then saw her supervisor sending her a pointed look from across the room. "I'm sorry, Emma. I would love to catch up, but I need to get back to work."

"Give me your number," Emma said, pulling out her phone. "Nicole would love to catch up with you."

"Sure, that would be great," she said, giving Emma her number. "I'll see you soon."

She hurried back to the kitchen where her friend Alicia stopped her with a wide-eyed expression of curiosity. "What is going on out there? I heard you got in the middle of a fight."

"Wrong place, wrong time—story of my life." She moved toward the dressing room to change her shirt. She'd hoped that returning to San Francisco would change her luck, but trouble seemed to follow her around. She tossed her damp shirt into the laundry basket and quickly put on another one.

"Do you know why those men were fighting?" Alicia asked.

"I have no idea. It's a memorial celebration, so I guess grief must have had something to do with it."

As she took a quick look in the mirror, she wished now she'd put on a little more makeup, that her blonde hair wasn't pulled back in a tight ponytail and that she wasn't wearing a white shirt, black skirt, black nylons and a pair of really ugly but practical and comfortable black pumps. It would have been nice to show Burke that she was looking better these days. But for some reason she and Burke always seemed to meet up at the oddest times, in the most unusual places.

Not that anything romantic had ever happened between them. Well, almost nothing…

"Who are you primping for?" Alicia asked curiously.

"No one." She quickly turned away from the mirror and made her way back into the dining room.

As she took up her new post at the buffet table, she looked around for Burke, but he was gone, as were the rest of his family members. She felt a wave of disappointment, which was ridiculous. She should be glad Burke was gone. He'd rarely seen her at her best, and she was nowhere near her best right now, so it was just as well he was gone.

Maybe the next time they ran into each other there would be less drama and she'd be wearing better clothes.

* * *

After ditching his family and friends with assurances that he was fine, Burke went home, changed out of his champagne-drenched shirt and put an ice pack on his rapidly swelling left eye. He was pissed that Mitch had gotten the jump on him. He had five brothers; he knew how to fight, but he hadn't wanted to fight Mitch or ruin the Parkers' memorial or celebration or whatever the hell it was.

He sat down on the couch, tried to watch some television, then opened his computer and read through some of his favorite news sites, but nothing grabbed his attention. He felt restless and distracted, his mind replaying the evening's events, and it wasn't just the sucker punch that had left him feeling unsettled, it was seeing Maddie Heller again.

How crazy was that? He hadn't even known she was in the city. And there she was—right there to break his fall.

He smiled at that thought. He wished he'd had a second to talk to her, but his family had urged a speedy departure, and he'd gone along, thinking it would be good to put some distance between Mitch Warren and himself. He'd thought that situation was resolving, but it seemed to be getting worse. Mitch was completely blind when it came to Leanne's accident. He couldn't seem to see any picture but the one he'd created in his head.

Burke couldn't help wondering what the Parkers thought about their exchange. He really should apologize to Leanne's parents.

That thought ran around his head for another few minutes. Then he jumped up from the couch, grabbed his keys and headed out the door. He could probably catch the end of the party.

Ten minutes later, he pulled up just down the block from the Hanover Club. Now that it was almost nine, the street had cleared out and there were plenty of parking spots. As he got out of his car, he saw a crowd of people come through the front door, including Marjorie and Chuck. The party was obviously over.

He jogged up the hill as Chuck placed the posters of Leanne in the back of his sedan.

Marjorie gave him a surprised look. "Burke. You're back."

"I wanted to apologize. I hope you know that the last thing I would ever want to do is ruin a memorial gathering for Leanne."

"You didn't start it," she said, but there was a hint of uncertainty in her voice. "What was Mitch talking about? Is there something we don't know?"

"Mitch is just stuck in a circle of anger and grief. I wish he could get himself out of it. Leanne wouldn't have wanted him to be so unhappy for so long."

Marjorie slowly nodded, but there were shadows and a little doubt in her eyes, as if she was starting to wonder if Mitch knew something she didn't.

"Anyway, I'm sorry," he said.

"It's not your fault," she replied. "I'm just glad you came. I wasn't sure. You seemed hesitant this year."