Whiskey Island (39 page)

Megan reached for Niccolo’s hand and squeezed it. He realized she was thinking of Billy, and comforting him. Under the circumstances, he was touched. “Too much to drink?” she asked.

“We found empty bottles nearby, one just an arm’s length away. A lot of these guys are out on the streets because they drink. It’s not much more complicated than that. Eventually it kills them, one way or the other.” He paused. “Megan, I’m sorry you’re the one who has to do this. Casey wanted to come and spare you the ordeal, but she had Ashley. She couldn’t bring her here.”

“I was older than Casey when Rooney left. I probably remember him better.”

Jon turned to Niccolo. “And you saw him the night of the carjacking?”

Niccolo told Jon about his conversation with the man on Whiskey Island, including some of what had been said. “If it’s the same man, I’ll recognize him.”

“Are you both ready?”

Niccolo looked down at Megan, and she nodded. Jon led them past the huddling cops and down a slight incline. There was a man-size mound on the gravelly ground, covered by a canvas tarp. Heavy equipment dotted the immediate area. Jon waited until they had stopped just a few feet from the mound. Then he moved forward and pulled back the tarp.

Niccolo was grasping Megan’s arm, but his hand instinctively dropped in relief. He spoke quickly to spare her. “That’s not the man I spoke to.”

“You’re sure?” Jon said.

“It was less than forty-eight hours ago, and he was clean shaven.” This man, somewhat younger than the one Niccolo had encountered, had a long, scraggly beard. He looked away.

At the same moment Megan turned away. Her face was pale, and despite temperatures in the high thirties, her forehead was beaded with sweat. “It’s not Rooney.”

“It’s been a long time,” Jon said gently.

“It’s definitely not Rooney,” she insisted. She moved away as Jon covered the body again.

“Are you going to be sick?” Niccolo grasped her arm to support her.

She shook her head. “I don’t think…”

He guided her to a bench, nothing more than a slab of plywood resting at a slant between two pieces of rusting machinery. “Put your head between your knees.”

For once she didn’t argue. She rested her head in her hands and breathed in gulps of wintry air.

“It’s not Rooney,” she said at last, after her breathing had slowed. “I thought for sure it was going to be. Instead it’s somebody else’s father or brother or lover. Somebody will miss him, wonder about him….”

“Maybe not.”

“God, I hate waste.”

“Maybe he added something special to the world, something no one else could have.”

Megan lifted her head and glared at Niccolo.

He managed a smile. “All right, sometimes I still talk like a priest.”

“Do you really believe he added anything but heartbreak?”

“I don’t know this man. But Rooney Donaghue added three lovely, intelligent, sensitive daughters to the world population. He helped create a warm haven where men and women can go to be recognized, fed, fussed over—”

“And given the very same liquor that killed that man back there.”

“You’re careful. You’re concerned. You do the best you can to protect your patrons.”

Tears filled her eyes. “The world is a god-awful sad place, Nick.”

“Just sometimes.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “And sometimes it’s filled with miracles and second chances. Let me take you home.”

“My car’s at your house.”

“Then let me take you to my house.”

She seemed to consider that for an unnecessarily long time. “Will you give me something to drink?”

“Of course.”

“Feed me supper?”

“You know I will.”

“Hold me?”

His breath burned in his chest. “As long as you’ll let me.”

“Let’s go home.”

She couldn’t seem to stop shaking. The painting crew had gone home after Jon’s phone call, and Niccolo had closed all the windows and turned the thermostat up high. She was wrapped in a warm wool sweater of his that nearly reached her knees, and holding a cup of steaming, dark roast coffee spiked with enough amaretto to melt a glacier. But she was still cold, and the reality of what she’d seen was making itself known to every cell in her body.

Niccolo seemed to understand. He brought an afghan and tucked it around her. The afghan was made of granny squares crocheted in every color of the rainbow. Or it had been once. Now it was faded and well loved.

He saw her examining it. “My grandmother made it for me when I entered the seminary. She said it represented my new life. My days would be filled with bits of color, a little of this, a little of that, not like most people, whose lives are made up of the same relationships, the same places, year after year. But in the end, my life would all come together in one beautiful whole.”

“Like the afghan.” She huddled deeper into it. “Was she wrong?”

“No. I was wrong for thinking that was what I wanted.”

She clutched her coffee tighter. “Wrong or misinformed?”

“I entered the seminary for all the wrong reasons. I wanted to make my family proud. I wanted to be a little more holy than everyone else. I wanted to become God, I didn’t want to serve God.”

He said it so matter-of-factly, she was astonished. “You don’t think very well of yourself, do you?”

He dropped down beside her. “Actually, I think very well of myself. Now. But there were a few dicey years while I was coming to terms with this.”

“You don’t yearn to be a priest? Still?”

“I yearn to find my real calling and get on with my life. I know I need to take some time to rethink my future, but it’s not easy. By nature I’m not a patient man. I like to make things happen. That’s what got me into trouble in the first place.”

She shivered, and this time not from the cold. “I thought you were the soul of patience.”

“No, just a soul struggling to find some.” He put his arm around her and settled her against his shoulder. “You’ll warm up quicker this way.”

She closed her eyes and saw the man lying on the frozen ground. Her eyelids snapped open again, a groan escaping her lips.

Niccolo’s arm tightened around her as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. His words confirmed it. “The man who died out there wasn’t your father.”

“It could have been. The next time it might be.”

“We’re going to do what we can to make sure it’s not.”

“You said it yourself. There’s not a lot we can do.”

“And nothing at all right this minute. So you’re going to lean back and let me warm you up. Then, when you’re not shivering anymore, I’m going to make dinner.”

“I don’t think I can eat anything, Nick.”

“You’ll want to later.”

She noticed, for the first time, that he had turned on the stereo. A pianist was playing something melodically mournful. She wondered what it was and asked.

“Brahms. We’ll start heavy and lighten up. But I love his piano pieces, the rhapsodies and intermezzos. They make me want to learn to play.”

“Why don’t you?”

“No piano.”

“They must have had one at your church.”

“In those days I didn’t do anything I wasn’t already good at. God doesn’t have a learning curve.”

“And now?”

“This situation speaks for itself.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I’m not sure I’m very good at
this,
but I’m doing it anyway.”

She shifted so she could see his face, leaning back against his chest. “This?”

“Holding you. I feel like I have four arms and ten elbows.”

“For the record, you’re doing fine with the arms and elbows you have.”

“How are you doing?”

“I’m not shivering anymore.” Except that she was. Deep inside, where it had nothing to do with the winter air or what they had witnessed together.

“Your nose turns red when you’re cold.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. What color is it now?”

His gaze dropped, then returned to hers. “Pink.”

“Who needs a thermometer?”

“Not me. I’d much rather keep my eyes on you.”

“For a man who doesn’t know what he’s doing, you’re doing well.”

“Some of this is instinct.”

“They didn’t squeeze instinct out of you in the seminary?”

“It was a surprisingly humane education. They only dusted off the rack on alternate Thursdays.”

“Nick, when you’re giving up so much of what other people have, they must teach you ways to help you cope with what you’ve lost.”

“In other words, ten easy tricks to make celibacy fun?”

She smiled. “Something like that.”

“It’s not supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be a sacrifice.”

“And was it?”

“Oh, yes.”

She touched his bearded cheek. She hadn’t meant to, but she’d wanted to all day. His eyelids drifted shut. She studied his face, but particularly his mouth. She remembered how it felt to kiss him, and how sorry she had been afterward. He’d touched something inside her that men who’d taken more intimacies hadn’t even approached.

She was perilously close to falling in love with Niccolo Andreani.

His eyes opened. “Pale pink. Your nose claims you’re finally warming up.”

“Kiss me, Nick. No.” She put a finger over his lips. “Let me kiss you.”

He moved out of range. “Maybe not. The last time we tried this, it wasn’t much of a success.”

“The kissing was a great success. The woman was a coward.”

“And now?”

“First the kissing, then the assessment.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want you to run away again. Decide right now that this isn’t going to set us back a month. I miss you when you’re gone.”

Her heart turned over. She could swear that it did. And from its new position, she could feel it beating harder and faster. “I missed you, too,” she said softly. “I’m just no good at this, and I don’t know if I have any instincts for relationships. Sex, yes, but relationships?”

“Novices, both of us.”

“Maybe we can learn together.”

“I have more to learn than you do. I have a terrible feeling I’ll flunk the patience test right off the bat.”

“Then we’ll get it over with and go on from there.”

“I’m not prepared for this.”

For a moment she thought he meant he wasn’t ready, that this was too much, too soon. Then she realized he was talking about birth control, that he was afraid she might get pregnant.

“I’m healthy, I’m on the Pill, and you’ve been celibate. We’re safe.”

“Megan…” He groaned and lowered his lips, and she met them fiercely. His were hot and sweet, and she wondered briefly how she could have been so afraid that she’d repressed the memory of how extraordinary it was to kiss him, how right, how completely, surprisingly perfect.

She threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled him closer. Their noses bumped, and she smiled against his lips. “Don’t worry, this always takes practice.”

“This could be one of those things I don’t mind having to learn.”

“I have a funny feeling soon you’ll be able to teach the course.”

His eyes were dark, but oh so easy to read. She knew desire, and she knew hesitation. He was weighing what he felt against what he knew and believed. She took the decision out of his hands. She pulled his head down and teased his lips with her tongue.

She had forgotten how wonderful it was just to kiss a man, to take the time to do it properly, to tease and coax and accept without pushing quickly for more. She had forgotten the sweet anticipation, the slow building of pressure, the distant enticement of release.

She had never known how wonderful it was to kiss a man she might be falling in love with.

His beard was soft against her cheeks and chin, his lips firm and seeking. He nibbled at the corner of her lips, kissed a trail to her nose, then returned with sudden ferocity to deeper, darker kisses.

She kneaded his shoulders and caressed his neck lightly with her fingertips. She wanted to find each inch of him and claim it as her own, each fold and crook and smooth expanse of skin, the definition of each muscle, the smooth ridge of bone.

Time floated on a cloud. After what might have been moments or hours, he shifted her body so her breasts pressed against his chest. She spread wide his flannel shirt, and his fingers splayed against her back, holding her closer. She regretted the sweater, the afghan and everything else between them. She took a moment to slip the sweater over her shoulders and let it fall with a satisfying swish to the floor. The afghan slid away with it.

He took the signal for what it was and reached under the hem of her turtleneck to caress the bare skin of her back. His fingers were thick, rough, warm, a carpenter’s fingers, and every inch of her flesh preened in response.

She followed the path of his fingers, reaching behind her to unhook her bra with one deft twist. “I’ll save you from trying that.” She was surprised at the sound of her voice, at the heat in words she’d meant to be funny, at the thrill that shook her when his fingertips brushed the side of one breast.

“This is going to get out of hand very quickly.” It wasn’t an apology or a joke, but a warning.

“Oh, it’s already there.” She threw back her head as his palm closed gently over her breast. She was a passionate woman with few inhibitions, but she had never experienced this immediate rush of sensation, this fierce determination to yield her body and take a man inside her. She had been lulled by the sweetness of their kisses, drunk on the knowledge that she was his first—at least in a very long time—and, because of this, she was in control. Now she realized, with the small part of her mind still working, that what was between them no longer had anything to do with control and had everything to do with abandon.

He pushed up her shirt, and she helped him strip it off, working on his as soon as hers disappeared. His chest was muscular and lightly sprinkled with black hair. Her breasts pushed against it, skin melting into skin, flesh yielding to flesh.

They were lying together now, face-to-face on the narrow sofa. If she’d been aware of each movement, each step along the road to completion, she was no longer. Now time didn’t float but seemed to stop between one heartbeat and the next. She was aware only of the feel of his body against hers, the hesitancy of his movements, the fumbling of fingers unsteady with desire.