The Tattooed Lady

THE TATTOOED LADY

by Leigh Michaels

Published by Leigh Michaels at Smashwords

http://www.leighmichaels.com

Copyright 2010 Leigh Michaels

All rights reserved

Cover illustration copyright 2010 Michael W.
Lemberger

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*****

Beth settled her sunshade in place and retied
her shoes, waiting for Ginny to finish her stretches. “Come on,
girlfriend. Let’s get going.”

Ginny stood on one foot and bent her other
knee till her heel nearly touched her thigh. “You weren’t so
impatient to get out on the path and start sweating last week.
What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I just want to get our walk in
early so I can have dinner ready by the time Josh gets off
duty.”

Ginny straightened her knee, retied her
trendy scarf at the throat of her pink warmup suit, and started off
down the walking path. “Everything all right between you and
Josh?”

Of course Ginny would go right to the heart
of things. She had an uncanny gift for that. Beth shrugged, trying
to make the gesture look careless. “What could go wrong?”

“Well, it wouldn’t be unheard of for the
honeymoon to be over. Three months of marriage does that to a lot
of couples.”

“Not us,” Beth said. She picked up the pace a
little and told herself that the tightness in her breathing was
just because she hadn’t been patient enough today to warm up her
muscles before starting to walk. It had nothing to do with the
extra five pounds she’d acquired since her Christmas wedding. And
it also had nothing to do with the fact that Josh had volunteered
to swap a shift and fill in for another firefighter today, even
though this was their three-month anniversary.

“You’ll forgive me if I mention that your
voice sounds a little hollow when you say that.” Ginny waved at an
acquaintance a hundred yards away, on the next loop of the walking
path. “It’s none of my business, of course. And I’m not trying to
get rid of you, Beth, but maybe you should start taking walks with
Josh sometimes instead of with me.”

“He’d rather go for a run. He says it’s
efficient – he gets more exercise in a shorter time frame.”

“You mean he thinks walks are boring?”

No,
Beth thought almost bitterly.
He thinks
I’m
boring.

Ginny was watching her with narrowed eyes. “I
hear they’ve hired a new firefighter at the station. A new
female
firefighter.”

“She scored highest of all the new
applicants, Josh said. And she passed all the tests.”

Ginny raised an eyebrow. “But before they can
get hired, don’t they have to – like – pick up another firefighter
and carry him out of a building?”

“Yeah.”

“And she did that? Wow. What does this woman
look like, King Kong?”

“I haven’t seen her yet,” Beth admitted.

“What’s stopping you? I make it a point to
check out every new teller at the bank, just so I know exactly who
Joe has hired lately and whether any of them are likely to put the
moves on him to spend lunch hours in the vault.”

“That’s a sexist attitude.”

“It sure is,” Ginny said comfortably. “And if
Joe hired tellers on the basis of their attractiveness, it would be
worse than sexist, it’d probably be illegal. But I’m not the one
who hires them – and there’s nothing wrong with a woman keeping an
eye on her husband.”

“It’s easy for you. You have a good excuse
for going into the bank every few days.”

“Like you can’t come up with a reason to stop
by the fire station to see your husband? What kind of a wuss are
you, girl? Take over some snacks for the guys. They love your
chocolate-chip cookies.”

“Everybody loves my chocolate-chip cookies.”
Including me, which is one of the reasons I’m out here sweating
this afternoon.
How many miles would she have to walk to get
rid of that extra five pounds, anyway? And would it make any
difference?

That’s thinking like a loser,
Beth
told herself.
And I’m not a loser.

Not yet, anyway
.

*****

Their three-month anniversary dinner was
ready by the time Josh’s shift was over. A creamy asparagus soup –
almost like the one they’d shared on the last night of their
honeymoon – was simmering on the stove, the yeast rolls were in the
oven, and the prime-cut steaks were ready for the barbecue grill.
Beth glanced at the clock and went to tidy her hair and freshen her
makeup. It took only ten minutes to drive from the central fire
station to their house, and she wanted to look her very best when
Josh arrived.

Ten minutes went by.

Fifteen.

A half hour.

An hour.

The soup curdled. Beth was pouring the last
of it down the drain when Josh finally came in. She barely heard
the back door bang because of the roar of the garbage disposal.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said.

“What kept you?” Beth’s voice was steady; she
was proud of herself.

“Farrah wanted to review procedure for a
toxic spill. We do things a bit differently than she learned at the
training center. Good, you haven’t started making dinner. I want a
shower first.” He aimed a kiss at her ear, missed, and went off
down the hall, whistling.

You haven’t started making dinner?
She
stood there with the pan in her hand and thought about hitting him
with it. The roar of the blood in her ears almost drowned out the
garbage disposal.

She put the steaks on the grill, pulled the
rolls out of the oven, and waited.

In less than ten minutes he was back, wearing
fresh jeans and a Lakewood fire department tee shirt, with his hair
still dark with water and curling gently against his neck. He put
his arms around her and kissed her deeply.

Beth’s heart melted. He was so very handsome
– so alive, so much fun, so sexy. And he was hers. Sometimes she
had to peek at his left hand – at the gold wedding ring he always
wore when he was off duty – just to make herself believe that of
all the women in Lakewood, Josh had chosen her.

She was no beauty, and Beth knew it. She was
shorter than average, so every extra ounce seemed to show. Her hair
was plain brown, her eyes were ordinary blue. And she was a teacher
at the local pre-school, with just one class of four-year-olds each
morning – so her after-work conversation was seldom very exciting,
either.

As if he’d read her mind, Josh asked, “How
was school today?”

“Jamie head-butted Ryan in the tummy in a
squabble over their favorite swing, and Ryan threw up.”

“So just another normal day at pre-school
then, huh?” He lifted the corner of the dishtowel which covered the
yeast rolls and took a deep breath. “Man, that smells good. And
steaks? What’s the occasion?”

“Nothing special,” she teased. “I was just
thinking about where we were three mon...” She stopped
suddenly.

“Where we were... when?”

“No big deal,” Beth said. And she told
herself it
wasn’t
a big deal. He’d just forgotten, that was
all. He’d been in a hurry after his shower because he was rushing
to get back to her.

That must be why – for the first time she
could recall – he hadn’t put on his wedding ring.

*****

Josh didn’t wear his heavy gold band at work,
of course. A ring on a man’s hand could be dangerous, he had
explained. Too many firefighters had lost fingers when their rings
caught on equipment, or on the unpredictable loose edges that were
always a hazard at a fire scene. Because of one particularly
horrible accident many years ago, the Lakewood fire department had
decreed that firefighters were not allowed to wear jewelry on the
job.

Beth, who loved Josh’s big, strong hands, had
shuddered at the idea of one of his long, expressive fingers being
torn away. So though she had bought him a wedding ring and had it
engraved with their names and wedding date, she made sure the box
it had come in was always right on top of his dresser – so he could
easily put the ring away when he got ready for work and easily find
it when he came home again.

And he always had. Until tonight.

She told herself she was being ridiculous.
But the next day, as soon as she was home from her morning
preschool class, she mixed up a batch of chocolate-chip cookie
dough. When the first two pans to come out of the oven had cooled
enough to handle, she slid the cookies onto a big glass platter and
drove to the fire station.

The overhead doors were open to the early
spring sunshine, and the two big fire trucks stood ready with doors
open and turnout gear in place as always.

“I brought treats,” she called as she went
in, blinking a bit as she walked from sunshine into shadow.

A couple of firemen were polishing the brass
rails on the oldest of the fire engines, which was now more of a
relic than a useful piece of equipment. Fred – the more experienced
of the two – nudged the other fireman and said, “Go get the
captain, Hank.”

Was there something a little guilty about
Fred’s tone? Surely not. Beth’s imagination had gone into
overdrive, that was all.

“I’ll get him,” Beth said brightly. “Is he in
the kitchen?”

“No – he’s back in the gym,” Hank
admitted.

She set the plate of cookies down on the step
of the fire engine and walked across the garage to a small storage
area. Last fall, the guys had spent their own time and money
cleaning the room out, painting the walls, and fitting it up as a
workout space. But now that the weather was nicer, why was Josh
spending time in a cramped, makeshift, airless gym when he could be
outdoors?

He can’t exactly run five miles when he’s
on duty,
Beth reminded herself.
A firefighter has to be
right beside the truck when an alarm comes in, or he’s not much
use.

Josh was in the gym, all right, but he wasn’t
alone. He was standing at the head of a padded bench, spotting for
the weightlifter on the bench. The moment Beth saw who was lying
there, gripping the heavy iron bar, her internal sirens went off –
louder than any fire alarm she’d ever heard.

“Hey,” Josh said. “What brings you down here
in the middle of the day?”

He didn’t sound guilty, she noted. He also
didn’t sound terribly interested in Beth as he helped the woman on
the bench guide the bar back into the rests.

“Chocolate-chip cookies,” Beth said. She
couldn’t take her eyes off the woman as she sprang up from the
bench as gracefully as if she was dismounting from a balance
beam.

On her right shoulder blade, clearly visible
beside the strap of the skimpiest black tank top Beth had ever
seen, was a tattoo. Before Beth could spot what it was, the woman
slung a towel over her shoulder and turned around.

She was tall – at least six inches taller
than Beth. She had white-blonde hair, cut very short in an upswept,
angular style that suited her elfin face and high cheekbones. She
had huge blue-violet eyes and a build that could have graced the
red carpet at the Oscars. There was certainly no doubt about her
being female, and she obviously didn’t need padding in the
flesh-colored sports bra which peeked though the armhole of the
tank top.

Josh said, “Beth, this is Farrah, our newest
team member. Farrah, this is Beth.”

Not
This is my wife.
Just –
Beth
, she noted woodenly.

Farrah advanced, holding out her hand. “So
nice to meet you.” Then she seemed to think better of it and wiped
her palm vigorously on the towel. “Sorry. I’m pretty hot and
sweaty.”

Far more
pretty
than
hot and
sweaty
, Beth thought. “How do you like the fire department so
far?”

“Oh, it’s great. The guys have been
wonderful. Very welcoming.”

“Did you say you brought cookies?” Josh
asked. “I hope you didn’t leave them with Hank, or they’ll all be
gone.” He led the way out of the workout room.

Beth didn’t object; the room had seemed to be
too small for the three of them.

“Hey, guys, leave some of those for the rest
of us,” Josh called across the garage to Hank and Fred.

“We were just sampling while they were still
warm,” Hank said. “Hey, captain, I’ve got an idea. We need to raise
funds for some more equipment for the gym. Maybe we could have a
bake sale.”