Callahan's Fate (4 page)

Raine
opened her
mouth to protest,
then
reconsidered.
 
She struggled to keep her small studio from
being cluttered, and she didn’t want to make a bad impression.
 
“All right,” she said.
 
“After the ferry ride back, we’ll go to the
store.”

This time, the Staten Island Ferry felt
like an old friend.
 
Earlier, she’d been
caught up in every detail of the boat and the unfamiliar experience of riding a
huge boat across New York Harbor.
 
Now
Raine
leaned against the rail, supported by Callahan’s rock-hard
arm, and gawked.
 
She pulled out her cell
phone to snap photos of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, a sailboat moving
across the water with grace, and a shot of the Manhattan skyline behind.
 
She chattered without any shyness as the
attraction between them increased.
 
It
shifted into something else, too—the beginnings of a friendship and maybe
more.
 
The unpleasant moments at lunch
had somehow brought them closer instead of destroying whatever beginning they
were making together.

The wind shifted and the temperature
dropped on the return journey.
 
The sun
faded behind a bank of clouds, and by the time they reached the Whitehall
terminal again, the day had turned cloudy.
  
Raine
shivered, wishing she’d brought along a
sweater to wear over her long-sleeved blouse.
 
Callahan cradled her closer.
 
“Are
you cold?”

She nodded. “Yes, a little bit.
 
Aren’t you?”

He laughed. “
Naw
,
I’m used to being out in all weather.
 
Winters are cold in New York, this is nothing.”

At the terminal, he insisted on buying
her a lightweight jacket from one of the shops and trimming the tags from it
with a pocket knife on his key chain.
 
“There,” he said. “Better?”

Raine
snuggled into
it, appreciating the soft sweatshirt material. “Yes, thank you.”

Her hair had become mussed, so she
pulled out a brush and ponytail band from her purse. “Let me go fix my hair,”
she said.

In the ladies room,
Raine
almost laughed at her windblown hair.
 
I look happy, though,
she thought as she
tamed her tresses into a simple ‘do.
 
When she emerged to find Callahan waiting for her, trying to look
nonchalant and failing, her heart did a triple flip.
 
She walked forward to meet him and he
surprised her with a quick kiss.
 
She
glanced up at him and he grinned.

“I missed you, doll,” he said.

She rested her head against his shoulder
for a moment, savoring the solid feel of his body, and inhaling his man-scent
with pleasure. “Let’s go home,” she said.

And they did.

Chapter Three

By the time they crossed the plaza from
the Staten Island Ferry to the subway entrance, a light rain had begun to
fall.
 
Callahan did his best to shield
Raine
and tugged the hood of her new jacket over her hair
as she protested, laughing.
 
They had to
wait a few minutes for a train, and the cars were full due to both the weather
and the time.
 
Late Saturday afternoon
was a popular time to travel.
 
If he’d
been alone, he probably would have griped with silent exasperation, but with
Raine
at his side, the mundane had become an adventure.

With standing room only for the first
few stops, Cal held onto a strap and let
Raine
clutch
the pole.
 
By the time they reached Thirty-Fourth
Street Station, closest to his walk-up apartment, the crowds had thinned enough
to give them seats.
 
The rain had slacked
to a fine mist by the time they reached street level, but dark skies loomed
overhead.
 
“How far is it to your
apartment?”

“Five blocks,” Cal said. “But if you’re
cooking, we need to go to the market first.”

 
“So let’s go.”

At the supermarket, they dashed through
the aisles, gathering the makings for a home-cooked dinner.
 
As they entered, she asked, “What would you
like?”

“Give me cook’s choice,” he replied with
a grin. “I’ll eat whatever you fix, and I’ll like it.”

  
Raine
considered his request.
 
“Okay, but don’t wait by the checkouts so
it’ll be a surprise.”

  
Cal cocked his head,
then
shook it. “
Naw
, I’m staying with you.”

 
 
Exasperated but pleased, too, she nodded.
“Suit yourself.”

  
He enjoyed watching her shop and loved the changing expressions on her
face as she made her choices. She selected a nice cut of tenderized round
steak, bought a small bag of golden potatoes, a large white onion, fresh
mushrooms, baby carrots, and some carefully chosen seasonings.
 
Raine
added a tub
of butter, a small bag of flour, and a carton of brownie mix.
 
She also bought a package of tea bags and a
canister of sugar.
 

He helped load everything onto the belt
at the checkout and reached for his wallet when the cashier asked for $58.94.

She tried to grab his hand. “I’m going
to pay.”

“C’mon,
Raine
,”
he said. “I asked you out to dinner.
 
I
would’ve paid for that, and it would’ve cost more.”

“You gave me the best day since I came
to New York,” she told him. “It’s my treat.
 
Let me give you something back.”

Her expression softened as she spoke, and
his protest died. “
Awright
, already,” he said. “Let’s
go home before we get soaked.”

Although he schooled his voice to keep
the tone light, fatigue dogged him.
 
His
recent work schedule, sleepless nights, and dark thoughts weighed hard and
heavy.
 
The damp weather brought a deep
ache to his bad shoulder, but he didn’t want
Raine
to
notice his pain.
 
Cal didn’t want
anything to mar their day together or to see pity in her pretty eyes.
 
He shifted the shopping bags to his right
hand to ease the strain on the opposite side.
 

“How far is it?”
Raine
asked as a light shower began to fall.

“Couple more blocks.”

The rain intensified, and by the time
they entered his building, it had become a downpour.
 
They were both drenched and their shoes
squeaked as they crossed the lobby to the elevators.
 

“Why do I smell donuts?”
Raine
asked as the elevator doors shut.

Callahan laughed. “There’s a bakery on
the first floor, other side of the lobby.
 
You can’t get to it from here, you have to go outside and around to the
entrance.
 
The first three floors have a
variety of offices and stuff, like a dance studio and a couple of shops.
 
One sells vintage clothes, if you’re
interested.”

Raine
glanced down at
her wet clothing. “Normally, no, I’m not.
 
Right now, though, I might take a look for anything dry.”

He laughed. “We’ll take care of that,
doll, once we get to my place.”

They stepped out onto the sixteenth
floor, into the familiar drab corridor.
 
Cal wondered how it appeared to her eyes.
 
He led her down the hall and around the
corner,
then
unlocked his door.
 
With a wave of his hand, he stepped back. “Go
on in.”

His door opened into the kitchen, and he
sighed with relief to see the sink, situated at the end of a strip of
countertop to the left, empty of any dirty dishes.
 
The cupboards above were closed, and straight
ahead the stove and fridge appeared clean.
 
An empty coffee mug rested atop the microwave oven, but he didn’t think
anyone would call the single infraction messy.
 
The dinky table with two chairs behind the door held salt and pepper
shakers, yesterday’s mail, and his checkbook.

Raine’s
gaze swept over
the room and she grinned. “Wow, this is nice.
 
It’s like a real kitchen, almost.
 
I love the hardwood floors, and you even have a window.”

Her pleasure in his place puffed him
up.
 
“Yeah, I like that, too.”

Beads of water clung to the glass, but
she stepped over and peered out.
 
“It’s
even got a street view.”

Callahan watched as she walked through
his place, past the shelf marking the line between kitchen and living
room.
 
His laptop computer rested there,
and so did the high stool he used as a seat.

In the front room, his sleeper-sofa was
in couch position against the brick wall.
 
It faced the flat-screen television hung opposite.
 
A pair of windows overlooking the next street
flanked the steam radiator.
 
The black
shoes he wore with his uniform rested in the floor, but overall he thought the
place looked pretty good for a single guy.
 
Raine
walked to the windows and glanced
out.
 
“You’ve got an awesome place,” she
said. “I’m glad we came here, not to mine.
 
My apartment is really small, and the rooms are narrow.”

Cal shrugged. “It’s a place to call
home.
 
Let me grab you a towel.”

He ducked into the bathroom off the
living area and returned with a couple of bath towels.
 
In his absence,
Raine
had removed her jacket.
 
She draped the
sodden garment over one of the kitchen chairs and faced him with a slanted
smile. “My blouse is wet, too,” she said.
 
He could see it was, and more.

 
Her nipples perked prominent, and he ogled
them.
 
Goddamn, but he wanted to tweak
them or take them in his mouth.
 
Not yet
, he told himself,
it’s too soon
.
 
He might scare her away.
 
“You can borrow one of my T-shirts,” he
said.
 
He dug one out of a chest beneath
the room divider. “It’ll be too big, but at least it’s dry.
 
Bathroom’s through there if you want to
change and dry off a little.
 
I don’t
have a hair dryer, though.
 
I wish I did,
for your sake.”

“It’s okay,” she said.
 
“Thanks.”

After she vanished into his small
bathroom and shut the door, Cal stripped down and changed into dry
clothing.
 
He put away the groceries and
took six ibuprofen tablets for his shoulder.
 
His fingers massaged the sore spot and he winced.
 
You’d
think after almost a year, it wouldn’t hurt anymore, but it does.

For a moment, as he stared through the
kitchen window without seeing, he was back in the parking lot where he’d been
injured, reliving the moment.
 
Raine’s
voice brought him back to the present, and he
turned.
 
She stood barefooted in the
kitchen behind him. His NYPD T-shirt swamped her, but the navy blue enhanced
the color of her eyes.
 
She’d tamed her
hair and pulled it into a tight, high ponytail.
 
“I have one question,” she said.

“Shoot it to me.” He wondered, though,
what she might ask and if he had anything in the bathroom that would pique
curiosity.

“Do you just sleep on the sofa?”

Cal glanced at it. “Sometimes,” he
replied. “It folds out into a bed, but it takes up a lot of space so many times,
I don’t bother.
 
Why?”

“It doesn’t look very comfortable, for
one thing.”

He laughed. “It really is, though.
 
Most of the time I’m so tired, it wouldn’t
matter anyhow.”

Raine
scrutinized
him. “You look like you could use a nap.
 
Why don’t you kick back while I cook?”

The idea appealed.
 
He stretched his arms upward and yawned.
“That sounds like a plan, but I doubt I’ll sleep.
 
I’ll turn on the television and relax, if you
don’t mind.”

“I don’t or I wouldn’t have suggested
it,”
Raine
told him.
 
“I’ll be busy prepping and cooking.”