Uncharted Fate (17 page)

She was still feeling the ripples of the climax when he slid into her. Buried deep within her, he asked, “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she reassured him.

His greater length and girth made her feel full and taut. Jeff started to move within her and she gripped his waist with her knees, wrapping her arms tight around him as she followed his rhythm. He felt marvelous on her, the incredible feeling of weight and heat making her cry out.

And then, unbidden tears began to streak down her face. She'd missed this so very much.

Jeff felt completely different than Mike and Anna loved him for it, hoped he’d never leave her; wanted him inside her every moment of every day, even though she knew that was ridiculous. More tears slid down her cheeks as he came to his own climax and stiffened and shuddered inside her.

Settling his face against her neck with a happy sigh, he must have noticed the wetness on her cheeks. Straightaway, he was on his elbows over her, his eyes widening. "What's the matter, darling? Did I hurt you?"

"No, you didn't hurt me. I'm fine."

"You don't look fine," he said, wiping the tears away with his thumbs. "Are you upset we made love? I thought you wanted me the way I wanted you."

"I did. I do. It's just . . . I don't know."

"You don't know why you're crying while we’re making love?" He started to withdraw from her and she stopped him with her knees. He sounded distraught and concerned and she had to do something to make him believe her emotional outburst wasn’t about him being a bad or inconsiderate lover.

"No. Don't go."

"Honey, I don't understand what's going on. I thought you'd be happy right now, not crying. Help me out here."

"I am happy, happier than you could know." She wrapped every inch of her body around his and held him tight.

He snuggled against her again and gave her a squeeze. “Talk to me. I want to understand."

Her hands cupped his cheeks and she looked into his eyes. "I'm not sure how to explain it, Jeff. After we'd been married fifteen years, sex between Mike and me had gotten to the point where we made love very seldom. Like a lot of other couples, it became sort of perfunctory, to satisfy his need for the sexual act and for the release of tension climax brings. When we made love just now, it felt like the way it used to be with Mike, when we were first married. Only in many ways, better."

Her eyes had shifted away from his in embarrassment and when she looked back at him, his gaze was intent on her, completely focused on her words. No one had ever looked at her like he did.

"When you made love to me, it was incredible. I climaxed before you even entered me. I haven't climaxed in years. And then you were there inside me and I felt so full, so much like we were one person, as if we'd left our separateness behind and were now one being. Oh, Jeff. I do think I love you." She started to cry again.

Jeff kissed her through the tears, his lips tasting the salt of them. He loved her to distraction. What she'd said to him was so beautiful, he wanted to consume her. "Oh, Anna, I love you, too. You have no idea how much."

She smiled mistily. "I am happy, you know. These are happy tears."

"I know it. I don't understand it. I've encountered women who cry when they're happy, but I'll never understand it."

With her snuggled into his neck and shoulder, he idly ran his hands over her soft skin, and marveled at how silky women could be. His fingers played with her ear, then moved around to feel her kiss-swollen lips. He felt himself grow turgid again and pressed against her thigh, happy to find he was hard enough to love her again. "Do you mind?" he asked, looking into her eyes.

"No. I'd love it." With a self-conscious little smile, she admitted, "I'd have asked, but I wasn't sure you could do it again this soon."

"Me neither. Then again, I've never felt this way before."

They made love again, staring into each other's eyes, their hands clasped over her head and moving slowly as they savored this second time together. As he climaxed, he devoured her with a deep, powerful kiss he felt down to his toes.

His body relaxed immediately and he settled over her with a heartfelt sigh. Feeling a bit playful, he murmured, "Promise me something. If I ever make love to you in a perfunctory manner, you have my permission to take my gun from the drawer beside you and put a bullet through my head."

Then his kiss was hard and deep again, and not playful at all.

Chapter 15

It was after midnight when they got back to her house. Cam was alone in the living room, slouched in a chair. “Hey, sport,” Jeff greeted his son, “everybody else gone to bed?”

Cam looked up. “Brian has. Mallory may be awake in her room.”

Concerned, Anna sat next to the teenager. “You two didn’t iron out your differences?”

“We had a long talk,” Cam said, clearly evading the issue. He stood jerkily. “It’s pretty late and I’ve got school tomorrow. We’d better get home, Dad.”

“Yeah, you’re right. You go on out to the car and I’ll be right there.” Cam nodded and left, his shoulders drooping.

Jeff reached for Anna, kissing her again. “Good night.  Pleasant dreams.” Their lips met for one more long, hard kiss. “If we didn’t have all these kids running around, I’d ask you if I could stay.”

“If we didn’t have all these kids running around, I’d say yes.”

Jeff let out an obviously frustrated groan, pressing his forehead to hers. “Don’t say things like that. It’s bad for my willpower.” He backed away slowly. “I’ve got to go. Really.”

“Yes, you do. Really.”

He bumped into the door, and, with a roll of his eyes, turned to open it. “Bye.”

Anna wandered back through the house toward her bedroom, her body still warm and satisfied. It was a good feeling. She glanced at Mallory’s door, but there was no sliver of light beneath it. Before going into her own room, she checked on Brian.

A hot shower relaxed her, and after drying off, she crawled into bed. At least tomorrow was Friday, and if she could get through it on only five hours of sleep, she’d have the weekend to recover. Closing her eyes, she drifted off.

In the depths of sleep, Anna heard a strange noise. It came again and she sat up, groggy and disoriented. The doorbell? With bleary eyes, she checked the clock. An hour or so had passed since she’d dropped off. Who would be ringing the doorbell at this hour of the morning?

Stumbling out of bed, she fumbled for the light and grabbed her pink quilted robe. Pushing her arms into the sleeves as she stumbled down the hall in a daze, she made it to the door and opened it with caution.

“Jeff?” she mumbled, trying to take in his tall form. She realized with a start, he looked worried and grim, and she panicked. “What is it? What happened? Is Cam all right?”

“Nothing happened. Cam is at the apartment, totally safe. May I come in?”

“Oh . . . sure. Why are you here? Did you forget something?”

He walked past her and sat in a chair, not on the couch. She sat across from him, peering at him, fuzzy-eyed. “It’s two AM. What’s going on?”

Jeff leaned his elbows on the chair arms and chewed his knuckles. He hated to tell her. Anna was only recently pulling herself together, and this might undo everything she’d managed to accomplish the last few months. It could destroy her. Her confidence where her kids were concerned would be shot. There was no choice, though. He looked up and watched her with an anxious eye, trying to infuse some of his strength into her by a kind of desperate telepathy.

“This is going to sound like a soap opera, but I have to say it anyway. I’m concerned about how you’ll feel about me after I tell you what I have to tell you. Please, whatever happens, remember how much I love you. No matter what else happens tonight, remember that, sweetheart.”

He winced to see her visibly taken aback. “You make it sound as if something awful is going to happen. What’s going on? You’re scaring me.”

“You’ll remember how much I love you?”

“Of course. Tell me what’s going on. Please. It can’t be that bad.”

“It’s worse.” He saw how agitated she’d become and knew he had to take the plunge. “All right. There is no easy way to say it. Mallory is on drugs.”

“What?”

“She’s been smoking marijuana and possibly heroine—for some months now.”

Anna sat, still as a rock on the sofa as Jeff continued, “She’s been smoking it on a regular basis, pretty much every day, I gather.” When Anna didn’t say anything, he stood and moved to sit next to her, his hand on her trembling arm. “I know it’s hard to accept something like this, but-”

“Hard to accept?” She turned on him like a mother panther. “More like impossible.” Her eyes went dark with anger. “How can you say something like that? You have no way of knowing. How dare you!”

“Cam told me about it after we left here. We talked a long time.”

“Cam? How would Cam know?”

“The night I helped Brian put a coat of varnish on the tape cabinet, Cam and Mallory were in the rec room listening to some music. She was acting spaced out-”

“No.” She jerked back around, her fists clenched on her knees as if to stop them from shaking. “My daughter’s never acted ‘spaced out.’”

“Cam said she was, the first night he met her. I believe him.”

“He’s wrong.”

He grabbed her arm and tried to get her to look at him. She wouldn’t budge. “Anna, she admitted it. She told him she’d smoked a joint after school and one in the bathroom while he was here.”

Anna was shaking so badly he was afraid she was going to faint. Instead, she swung wildly toward him. “No, it can’t be. Why didn’t we notice anything at supper if she was that ‘spaced out?’”

“We didn’t pay much attention to her. I probably should’ve noticed something was wrong—I’ve done training. I was so busy enjoying your company that night, though, I barely noticed anyone else. As for you, you simply haven’t been looking for something like this. You didn’t expect it, thus you didn’t see it.”

“No. She couldn’t be doing something like this every day without me noticing it. You’re wrong. Cam’s wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.”

“Has she been any different the last few months?”

Anna wrapped her arms around her waist and rocked in her seat. “If anything, she seems less truculent. I figured she was getting over her grief.”

“It may be she’s been masking it with dope. Cam said she told him she smoked pot because it made the pain go away for a while.”

“Oh God,” she moaned, leaning forward and clutching her sides. “I can’t believe this is happening. She’s a good kid. Her father’s accident has thrown her, but basically she’s a good kid.”

“I’m not saying she isn’t. Good kids get into trouble with drugs, too.” He squeezed her forearm. “She’s a young girl who has been unable to cope with the pain of her grief. It doesn’t mean she’s bad. It means she needs help.”

“Why didn’t Cam say something earlier? Why did he wait this long?”

Weary, Jeff leaned his head back on the sofa. “He was trying to help her without involving us. He was hoping if he confronted her with it, she’d stop. She promised him she’d stop.”

Anna’s head sank in despair. “I take it she hasn’t stopped?”

“No. From what Cam says, I’m afraid things have gotten even worse.” He could feel her tremble beneath his fingers, and when he tried to put his arm around her shoulders, she stiffened and drew away. He sensed that in some subtle way, he'd just become the enemy, a threat to her and her family. She’d become the mother panther. With no small twinge of regret, he removed his arm. What would she do when he told her the rest?

“Cam confronted her again tonight,” he continued. “She didn’t deny she was still smoking pot pretty heavy. He warned her one last time if she didn’t stop, he’d tell me. She became upset and told him she didn’t think she
could
stop now. She’s up to three or four joints a day—a couple before school, after school, and more after supper to bolster her high. She’s gotten some unusually strong stuff at school a few times lately, and it’s made the situation even worse.”

“Oh, no.” Anna stood and started to pace in front of him as he watched, his worry growing. “This is incredible. What am I going to do?”

He stood, too, and braced himself against the front of the sofa.
She’s not going to like this. She’s not going to like it at all
. “I’m going to arrest her for possession.”

“What?” She spun around, her mouth open in disbelief. “Are you out of your mind? She’s my daughter. And she’d be your future stepdaughter if I’d accepted your proposal tonight. How could you do something like that?”

“I think it might be the best thing to do for her under the circumstances,” he reasoned.

“Why? Because you’re a cop? Are you that dedicated to your precious duty you’d turn in the daughter of the woman you say you love?”

His face hardened. “You know it’s not anything like you described. Or you should.”

“How can you expect me to know anything right now? I’m surprised I know my own name.”

“You should know
me
better than that.”

“Obviously, I don’t!” she shouted, her nose an inch from his face. “Maybe that's why I didn’t agree to marry you tonight. We don’t know each other well enough to get married. And it was never more obvious than it is right now. I’m glad I said no.”

He felt the blood drain from his face. Her angry words hurt him deeply. He needed to make her understand. “We’re straying from the point. I think arresting Mallory will be the best thing for her.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I
am
thinking of her, Anna, I swear it. I’m trying to help her and you, damn it. Listen.” He stuffed one hand in his pocket, and held the other out to her. “Cam gave her a chance to quit on her own. Either she didn’t want to or she couldn’t. I suspect the latter. She admitted tonight she didn’t think she could quit anymore.”

“You don’t have to arrest her.”

“It may be the only way we can make enough of an impression on her to get her to stop.”

“She can do it if I help her.”

“I don’t think so. She’s tried on her own and failed. If we wait, we take the chance we’ll find her sprawled across her bed someday, OD’d on something.”

Anna paled. “You don’t know that’ll happen.”

“And you don’t know it won’t.” He stuffed his other fist in his pocket. “I think we should get her in here and talk to her.”

“Now? It’s after three.”

“I don’t care what time it is. I want her in here.”

“No. You’ll scare her.”

“She needs to be scared!” he yelled, raising his voice for the first time.

“No.” Anna crossed her arms in defiance.

Jeff did the only thing he could think of and shouldered her aside, heading for Mallory’s bedroom. Anna ran after him and tried to grab his arm, but with grim determination he kept going. He pulled Mallory’s door open. “Mallory? Mallory, wake up. We need to talk to you.”

Mallory woke with a start and skittered to the far side of the bed. Her long blonde hair tangled in disarray around her wide-eyed face. Her pale green sleep shirt hiked up her slender legs, making her seem so young and innocent. Jeff pushed through the regret coursing through him.

“Come on out to the living room, Mallory,” Anna said, edging past Jeff in the doorway.

He nodded when Mallory’s gaze flicked to his. “I think you’d better.”

Mallory looked anxiously from Jeff to her mother, then she seemed to realize there was no choice and slithered off the bed. Running past Anna, she crouched on one of the living room chairs, pulling her knees up to her chin and hugging her legs. Jeff saw the look of dread that pinched her face.

Anna sat on the arm of the chair and reached out to brush away the wisps of hair hanging in Mallory’s eyes. She took a visibly deep breath. “Have you been smoking pot?”

Mallory nodded, silently, not looking at her mother. But she shot an accusing look at Jeff, which he caught.

“Why, honey?” Anna asked her daughter. “Why would you do something completely unlike you when you’ve always had strong feelings against drugs?”

Mallory shrugged, her body language radiating hostility.

“You’ve got to talk to us sometime,” Anna reasoned. “How did you get started on it? Who gave it to you? Answer me.”

“Terry.” Mallory huddled down deeper into herself.

“I should have known.” Anna jumped up and paced back and forth in front of Mallory, who hid her face against her legs. “Why did you take it from her? You knew better.”

Mallory shook her head, grinding her forehead into her knees. “I felt so awful after Dad died. It hurt and it hurt and it hurt. Terry told me pot made her feel better after her dad left, and she talked me into trying it. And she was right. For a while, it did make me feel better.”

“What about when you came down from the high?” Jeff asked.

“Then I’d smoke another one.” Defiance bloomed in scarlet splotches over Mallory’s pale cheeks as she glared at Jeff.

“Did you ever try anything stronger?” he asked, pressing her.

“A few times I got some pills and once I tried coke. Coke was awesome.”

Anna stopped in the middle of the floor and swung around to face Mallory. “Cocaine? You used cocaine?”

“Only once. It’s way expensive.”

“If you could’ve afforded it, you’d have tried it again?”

“I dunno. Maybe. It was just yesterday, actually.”

“Merciful heavens,” Anna mumbled, collapsing on the edge of a chair.

Jeff cringed. The fact that Mallory had escalated her use of drugs after talking with Cam last week about quitting said a lot about how deep her addiction went. His mouth was dry and he tried to swallow but felt like choking instead. He was more frightened for this poor girl than ever. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve to hide what he was feeling.

Jeff walked over to stand in front of Mallory’s chair, his hands on his hips, and gave her a prolonged look. “How long did you figure you could get away with this sort of thing, especially since Cam knew?”

“Cam ratted on me. I don’t ever want to see him again.”