Callahan's Fate (3 page)

Her first bite of the sandwich was
delicious, so she took her time eating and listened to Cal.

“So you’re a teacher,” he said. “And you
go all over the city?”

“Yes, pretty much.
 
I’ve never been out to Staten Island, but I
go to all the other boroughs.”

He lifted one eyebrow. “You go to the
Bronx much?”

“Twice a week,” she answered. “Why?”

A line appeared down the middle of his
forehead “I work outta the Forty-Eighth precinct there.
 
It can be a rough place.
 
You
gotta
be
careful there,
Raine
.”

 
“I am,” she said.

Cal’s skeptical expression didn’t fade.
“I hope so.
 
I’m
gonna
get you some Mace or something to carry.
 
You don’t go there at night, do you?”

“I haven’t, no.”

“Don’t.”
 
He blew out air between his lips,
then
frowned
again. “You don’t live there, do you?”

“Oh no, of
course not.
 
I live in a walk-up apartment on Essex
Street.”

His eyes widened.
“On
the Lower East Side?”

“Yes.
 
Is that good or bad?”

He chuckled. “Both, I guess.
 
It depends.
 
I was born and raised until I was fourteen in that area so I’m
familiar.
 
Parts of the neighborhood are
fine, some aren’t.”

It’s a small
world, after all,
she thought, and the words of the Disney tune floated through her head with
annoying clarity. “Where did you live?”

Callahan cocked his head to one side and
sighed. “I grew up in the Jacob Riis housing on the east side of Avenue D,” he
said.
 
“You know.”

Actually, she didn’t. “No, I guess I
don’t.”

He laughed but it lacked humor. “You
must’ve seen all the big brown apartment houses in that area, all alike towering
over the street? They’re the housing projects for poor people.
 
Jacob Riis is one of the oldest, dating back
to the 1940s, but they all look alike and they’re all traditionally rough
places.
 
It’s on the edge of Alphabet
City.”

“I’ve heard of that,”
Raine
said. Callahan sounded unhappy.
 
If he thought she would judge him for growing
up low income, he couldn’t be more wrong. “I just thought they were traditional
apartments, though.
 
Where did you move
when you were fourteen?”

His jaw tightened and his expression
darkened. “I didn’t have much family by then,” he said. “My mother died a
couple of years after her sister, and that ended what happy home life we had,
which wasn’t much.
 
My dad was killed in
the line of duty—he was a firefighter—when I was six, so my brothers and I went
to live with Gran in Brooklyn after our mom passed.”

I upset him by
asking,
Raine
thought and
ached to take away his pain.
 
His old
grief remained, and she didn’t know if there would be anything she could offer
to temper it.
 
She tried distraction
instead. “How many brothers do you have?” she asked.

Cal’s dark eyes hardened and he glared
at her. “What does it matter? Shut up about me already.
 
How’s your sandwich?”

Until then, it had tasted great, but she
swallowed a bite and almost choked. The impact of his harsh words was almost as
shocking as if he’d slapped her.

“Fine,” she said. Somehow she’d managed
to piss him off, and the day, so filled with promise moments earlier,
changed.
 
Raine
took a sip of water to wash down the food,
then
picked
up her napkin.
 
She blotted her lips,
then
laid the napkin over the remaining half of her
sandwich.
 
“I’m finished, though.
 
Thank you for the outing.”

With more force than she intended, she
shoved back her chair and stood.
 
Raine
reached for her purse and slung it across her chest,
bandolier fashion, and headed for the exit.
 
As she walked, she kept her head high.
 
She thought she heard a muffled curse from the table, but she didn’t
look back.
 
Outside, she paused to get
her bearings and tried to remember how to get back to the South Ferry
station.
 
If she could get there, she
could get the right train home, and then she could forget about Callahan.
 
She had a couple of books she’d
been wanting
to read, and she could pick up Chinese or
something on the way to her apartment.
 
Or maybe she could pick up something to cook at the market.
 

Raine
marched away
from the café with feigned confidence.
 
Ten feet into her stride, she tripped and almost fell.
 
A pair of strong arms caught her and hauled
her to her feet. “
Raine
, don’t run off,” Callahan
said. “I’m sorry.
 
I didn’t mean to be
such an asshole.”

“You were,” she snapped.
 
Her hurt feelings spawned anger, but she
found it hard to stay mad with his arms locked around her.

“Yeah, I know.
 
It’s just…well, I’ve got a lot of shit to
deal with, and I took it out on the wrong person.
 
It’s me, not you, doll.
 
And like I said, I’m sorry.
 
You’re the last person I want to hurt, and I
don’t want to ruin our day.
 
It’s the
best I’ve had in a long time. Won’t you forgive me?”

Should she? Several bad experiences with
past relationships made
Raine
hesitate, but her
instincts overruled. His mournful expression tugged hard on her
heartstrings.
 
“Oh God, Callahan, I
already do.
 
But won’t you tell me what’s
bothering you?”

He cupped one hand under her chin and
met her gaze. “Someday, sweetheart, I will, but not today.
 
Can we forget I hollered at you and go ride
the ferry again? We can go back to the café if you’re still hungry, although I
threw down a twenty-dollar bill to cover the check.
 
Or if you’re hungry, we can grab something at
the terminal.”

“We can get something before we board,”
she said and smiled because she couldn’t resist his charm or the incredible
attraction she felt toward this man.

Callahan grinned and heaved a sigh.
“Good,” he said. “I was afraid maybe I’d lost you already.
 
You’re something, you know that?”

His words pleased her, but before she
could summon a reply, he bent closer and kissed her without giving her a chance
to realize his intention.
 
Cal’s lips
grazed hers, light and warm as a summer breeze.
 
A delicious electricity rippled through her body at contact, and she
moved to make the kiss last longer.
 
He
groaned as his mouth latched onto hers, firm and hard.
 
Callahan kissed her long and hard.
 
Raine’s
awareness
of his heat and the way his lips delivered a lingering caress made her almost
giddy, and when he pulled back, her hands clutched tight to his
shirtsleeves.
 
She’d been kissed before, but
no first kiss had ever affected her with such intensity.
 

His wide smile filled her with delight,
so she shelved the incident.
 
They held
hands on the way back to the terminal and the conversation picked up almost
where it went awry without a hitch.
 
Raine
wondered, though, what demons haunted him or what
skeletons might lurk in his inner closet.

“So you work out of the Forty-Eighth
precinct in the Bronx?” she asked as they entered the building. “Do you live
nearby?”

“Hell no,” Callahan replied with
feeling. “I’ve got a place in midtown Manhattan, pretty nice place, and it’s
cheap ‘
cause
the Garment District isn’t trendy
yet.
 
I like to keep work and my home
life, such as it is, separate.
 
I haven’t
had a Saturday off in a while, since July maybe, and I just worked ten days
straight.
  
Normally I work five days,
two off, then another five and three off, but sometimes it doesn’t work
out.
 
My days off rotate or are supposed
to, but that doesn’t always work either.”

“And I thought I had it bad, working
five days a week,”
Raine
said. “Do you always work so
many hours?”

He shrugged.
 
“Yeah, I guess.
 
I’d like to make homicide detective one of
these days so I do my best to impress, and I got nothing else to do most
times.
 
Besides, since I’m single, I pick
up a lot of shifts for the guys with families.
 
If they need time off with a sick kid or for a family event, a birthday
or something, or to go to a funeral, I’m the guy they know will work for them.
 
Most of the time, I haven’t had anything
better to do anyway.
 
Beats staring at
the four walls, you know?”

Raine
did and
didn’t.
 
Her tiny place was her haven,
her safe place from the rest of the world, and she savored time spent
there.
 
But she understood, too, that after
so many solitary hours, the apartment often began to feel like
confinement.
 
“Yes.
 
So I guess you don’t get many weekends off
then?”

“Nope,” he said. “I got tomorrow, though,
and I need the time to relax.”

A sigh escaped her lips.
 
Figures, she thought, he’ll want to do your
typical guy stuff, watch sports on television, go to the gym, or shoot pool or
something.
 
Her Sunday would consist of church, if
she cared to go, catching up her laundry, and maybe cooking.
 
Most of the time, she grabbed takeout or
heated something in the microwave, but on Sundays, despite her lack of cooking
space, she sometimes made a home-cooked meal.

As they moved through the crowds
entering the ferry terminal, she noticed the dark shadows beneath his eyes.
“You look so tired,” she said.

Cal turned toward her with a small
smile. “I am,” he said. “I don’t sleep much.”

“If you’d rather go home and take a nap,
I understand.” She would, but she’d be disappointed, too.
 

He shook his head. “
Naw
,
I was already coming down here when I met you.
 
Let’s go ride the ferry across one more time, then we’ll figure out what
to do.
 
You want something else to eat?”

“No, thanks, not unless you do,” she
replied.

“I’m good.
 
I’ll take you out for a nice dinner later
then, to make up for lunch,” Cal said.
 
“
Whaddya
like?
Italian?
Asian?
Seafood?”

“How about a
home-cooked meal instead?”

They had reached the upper level of the
terminal as she spoke.
 
Callahan guided
her to the right, away from the crowds. “Wait a minute.
 
I
gotta
be sure I
heard this right,” he said.
 
His lips
curved into a wide smile. “Did you just offer to cook for me?”

Raine
nodded. “I
did.”

“I’m impressed.
 
That’s a new one for me.
 
Most of the women I’ve ever been around
wanted me to take them out, see a show, have a meal, but my pockets aren’t that
deep to do it very often.
 
I like the
idea,
Raine
, a lot.
 
Can
you cook?”

“I know my way around a kitchen, yes.”

“Then, hell yeah, sure, I’d love it!
 
It’s a date.”

“Absolutely!”

Cal tightened his hold on her hand.
 
“C’mon, doll, then let’s ride the ferry out
and back, then we’ll do some grocery shopping.
 
How are you fixed for a kitchen at your place?”

“It’s basic—two burners, a microwave,
and a mini-fridge,” she said.
 
Raine
made a quick mental assessment of her pots and pans,
then inventoried the seasonings she kept on hand.
 
“I don’t have a table, but we can make do
with chairs.”

“Or we can go to my place,” he
said.
 
“I’ve got a four burner apartment-sized
gas stove with an oven, full-size refrigerator, and plenty of room.
 
The kitchen’s the bigger of the two rooms.
 
We can stop at the supermarket on Eighth
Avenue.”