Casey looked to Rob for help, but he was leaning those lanky hips
against the kitchen counter and had apparently discovered something riveting
inside his carton of Cherry Garcia. “This and that,” she told her
sister-in-law. Trish gave her a long, hard look, but didn’t ask any more
questions.
The mall was crowded. They wandered through the shops, looking at
everything, buying little. “This place is exhausting,” Trish said. “Why do I
even come here?”
“Female bonding,” she said. “That’s Rob’s theory.”
“To hell with bonding,” Trish said. “Just give me a tub of ice
for my feet.”
“Just one more stop,” she said. “There’s one place I still have
to visit.”
She’d always loved Victoria’s Secret. The smell of the place was
so exotic, the atmosphere so feminine, the clothes so beautiful. While Trish
looked at lounging pajamas, Casey fingered her way through a rack of silk
teddies, pausing to examine the white lace one with the satin ribbons and the
spaghetti straps. At her shoulder, Trish sighed. “Sweetie,” she said, “if I
had a body like yours, I’d buy the whole rack. What’s his favorite color?”
“Purple,” she said softly, still stroking the lace with her
fingertips. Then flushed, realizing what she’d admitted.
“Buy the orchid one with the black ribbons,” Trish said. “It’ll
drive him crazy.”
Casey sighed. “I can never keep anything from you,” she said.
“How did you know?”
“Honey, I’ve never known any man to take that much interest in the
inside of an ice cream carton. Are you going to tell me about it? Or did you
plan to keep it a secret forever?”
“I’m not sure I can. It’s like—” She tried to find words,
realized she couldn’t. “I’ve never felt this way in my life. Never. Not
even—” She paused to tamp down the seed of guilt that had sprung to life
inside her. “Not even with Danny.”
“Oh, honey. This is serious, isn’t it?”
“I’m thirty-three years old. Am I supposed to feel this way at
thirty-three?”
“I don’t know. How do you feel?”
“Like a teenager, high on hormones.”
“Well, hon, it isn’t over till it’s over.” Trish shoved aside a
couple of teddies, pulled out a peach-colored one and examined it. “So how’s
the sex?”
“
Oh. My. God
. White-hot. Steamy. Incredible. Trish, he
makes me laugh. In bed. Right in the middle of making love. And it’s not
just the sex. He’s bright, he’s funny, he’s kind and gentle and talented—”
“Sounds like a regular Lochinvar,” Trish said dryly.
“He’s also jackass stubborn, colorblind, and prone to occasional
tantrums when things don’t go his way.”
“He’s been in love with you for years.” Trish fingered a black
satin ribbon. “I knew it when Danny died. I saw the way he hovered over you,
like a mama bear protecting her cub, ready to maul anybody who came within
twenty paces. At one point, I thought he was going to haul off and boot your
precious cousin Teddy out the back door. Not that I would have objected.”
Trish’s eyebrows rose. “Why are you looking at me that way? Don’t tell me you
didn’t know.”
“I guess,” Casey said, “maybe I didn’t want to know.”
“Not everybody gets a second chance. If I were you, I’d latch
onto him and hang on for dear life.”
***
He was in the process of becoming intimately acquainted with
Casey’s laundry equipment when he decided to do something about Danny’s car.
He’d found it in the barn a couple of days ago when he’d been looking for the
storm windows, and it had been eating at him, the image of that exquisite
machine lying dormant beneath a shroud of dust. Danny had passionately loved
that car, and he would break down and cry if he knew what had become of it. So
while a load of whites tumbled in the clothes dryer, Rob took the spare set of
keys from the hook in the kitchen, flung the barn door open wide, and climbed
in behind the wheel of the Ferrari.
He fitted the key into the ignition. After a moment’s hesitation,
the engine roared to life. He could feel the power in the vibration of the
steering wheel beneath his hand, could hear it in the engine’s aggressive
purr. He caressed the shifter, then eased it into reverse and backed the car
out of the barn.
Car washes be damned; he’d always felt that a man didn’t truly
know a car until he’d washed it by hand. There was a communion between man and
car, something to do with the laying on of hands, something that few women
seemed to understand. He hosed off the top layer of dust, then soaped the car
lovingly, rinsed it and wiped it dry with a chamois so it wouldn’t water spot.
On a shelf in the barn, he found a half-empty can of car wax, and he waxed and
buffed and polished until the finish was sleek as butter beneath his fingers.
And he left it there, glistening in the sun.
He whistled as he folded towels and underwear, not in the least
fazed by the intimacy of handling a woman’s lingerie. He wanted everything to
be perfect, the house spotless when she came home, for tonight he wanted no
distractions. Tonight, to the tune of dim lights and soft jazz, over a dinner
accompanied by flickering candlelight and Dom Perignon, he was going to ask
Casey Fiore to be his wife.
He distributed the towels evenly, half in the downstairs bath,
half upstairs. Laundry basket in hand, he swung through the door to Casey’s
bedroom. On the night stand was a framed photo of her with Danny, his arms
folded around her, both of them smiling into the camera. It must have been
taken shortly before he died. Even though that damned baby face had kept Danny
looking a decade younger than his thirty-six years, it was evident in his eyes,
in both their eyes, the hell they’d been through.
Feeling as though he’d accidentally stumbled into some private
moment where he didn’t belong, Rob set the laundry basket on the foot of the
king-size bed, realizing too late that it was a blatant reminder that the woman
he loved had slept here with another man. His mouth dry and acrid, he went to
the bureau and flung open the top drawer, prepared to cram in Casey’s lingerie
and scurry back downstairs where he belonged. But it wasn’t lace and silk that
stared back at him from the open drawer. It was Fruit of the Loom. Danny’s
underwear.
She still had Danny’s underwear in the bureau drawer?
In the second drawer he found Danny’s socks, neatly paired up. In
the third, his tee shirts, precisely folded. By the time he reached a drawer
that held feminine apparel, his hands were shaking so hard he didn’t care if it
was the right drawer or not. He just dumped in her bras and panties and
slammed it shut.
The laundry basket was empty now. He had no reason to linger.
But of their own volition, his legs carried him to the closet. He opened one
of the bifold doors slowly, breathing a sigh of relief as he saw dresses and
skirts, blouses and slacks and a single lacy peignoir. Then he flung open the
second door, and his body went numb. The left side of the closet was crammed
with Danny Fiore’s clothes: pants and shirts and jackets and a black tux in a
dry cleaner’s bag, ties and leather belts draped neatly from an elaborate
contraption that hung from the back wall of the closet.
It didn’t have to mean anything. She simply hadn’t gotten around
to getting rid of Danny’s things yet. But a nagging little voice reminded him
that it had been nearly two years. Why would she keep a dead man’s clothes
where she would have to look at them every time she opened the closet door?
She wouldn’t. Unless she hadn’t yet accepted his death.
Rob slammed the door shut and took a look around the room. It was
all still here. Cufflinks on the dresser, Danny’s silver-handled hairbrush,
his electric shaver still plugged in, just in case.
It was the shoes that did him in, those goddamn size twelves
sitting there beside the dresser where their owner had left them, patiently
waiting for his return. Just like his loving widow.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
How the hell could he fill a dead man’s shoes?
Retrieving the empty laundry basket, he fled down the stairs and
flung the basket through the door to the laundry room. Two years should have
been time enough for any woman. And he would have sworn on a stack of Bibles
that what they’d shared had been genuine. But the evidence was all there. She
still hadn’t accepted Danny’s death. She was still waiting for him to come
home.
And he, Robert Kevin MacKenzie, had made a fool of himself.
***
When she pulled into the driveway, the Ferrari was the first thing
she saw. It gleamed blood-red in the afternoon sun, and the pain hit her like
a fist. She yanked on the emergency brake and sat there, staring in silence
while Trish gathered up her bags.
Keep your cool
, she told herself.
Take
a deep breath and try not to lose it.
“Hey,” Trish said, “are you okay? All of a sudden, you’re white
as a ghost.”
“I’m just tired,” she said, struggling to keep the tremor from her
voice. “Shopping wore me out.”
Trish looked at her oddly, but accepted her explanation at face
value. “Get some rest,” she said. “You look like death warmed over.”
On the pretense of rounding up her packages, Casey stayed behind
the steering wheel, forcing herself to take deep, relaxing breaths, until Trish
had backed her Jeep around and driven away. It was only then that she trusted
herself to get out of the car. She skirted the Ferrari, quietly let herself
into the house, and dropped her bags on the kitchen table.
She found Rob in his favorite spot, on the porch swing, his feet
up, a Heineken in his hand, his jaw set at that familiar angle that told her he
was spoiling for a fight. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she
said. “Why did you take Danny’s car out of the barn?”
He looked at her blankly. And then something in his eyes sparked
and caught fire. “I washed it,” he said brusquely. “It was filthy.”
She took a deep breath, but it failed to stop her trembling. “You
should have asked me first.”
Color flushed his face, and he slammed down his beer bottle.
“Forgive me,” he snarled, “for defacing a priceless exhibit from the permanent
collection of the Daniel Fiore Memorial Museum.”
She took a step backward. “What are you talking about?” she said.
“I’ve been in your bedroom, sweetheart. You’ve turned it into a
fucking shrine to His Eminence. Jesus Christ, Casey, his goddamn
shoes
are still sitting there where he left them!”
“We’re not talking about shoes,” she said. “We’re talking about
Danny’s car!”
“We damn well are talking about shoes! And about underwear, and
about cuff links, and about his goddamn razor that’s still sitting there,
plugged in and waiting!”
Her throat constricted so tightly she had trouble breathing.
“None of that,” she said quietly, “is any of your business—”
“
Nothing
is any of my business! I’m no more than a house
guest, am I? Good enough to fuck, as long as I don’t forget my place.
MacKenzie’s stud service. You should pass the word around to all your
friends. Maybe they’d like to take advantage of my special offer. Two for the
price of—”
She slapped him, hard, and they glared at each other. “You just
don’t get it, do you?” he said bitterly. “You just can’t see me. You never
could. All you could ever see was Danny. The man’s been dead for two years,
and he’s still all you can see! No matter what I do, I always come in a poor
second!”
“Is that what you think?” she said. “Is that what you really
think? Because if you’re that stupid—”
“At least I’m smart enough to get the hell out of here!” He got
up from the swing and slammed into the house, stalked to the guest room.
Flinging his suitcase on the bed, he began opening drawers and dumping their
contents into the open suitcase. “I thought two years was time enough,” he
said. “But you know what? No matter how long I wait, it’ll never be time
enough. They should’ve put you in the ground right along with him!”
She clutched the door frame. “Where are you going?” she demanded.
“Home.” He closed the suitcase and snapped the locks. “Where I
belong.”
In the vicinity of her heart, she felt a dull ache. “Fine, then!”
she said. “Go! Get the hell out, because if you’re that stupid, I don’t want
you! I don’t love you, and I don’t want you! Go back to your bimbos, and good
riddance!”
He glared at her. “Yeah? Well, guess what, dollface? I don’t
love you, either. I say that to all the women I fuck. You’re just one of
many.”
She picked up a ceramic figurine from the dresser and heaved it at
him. He ducked, and it shattered against the wall. “Get out,” she said
through clenched teeth. “Get out of my life and don’t come back!”
Rob yanked on his leather bomber jacket and picked up his
suitcase. “Send me a bill for services rendered,” he said. “You know my
address.”
And he shouldered her aside and slammed out the door.