Upton was the first to break eye contact. “You’ve made a lot of enemies in your career, Juran. Just as a Field Training Officer alone. How many men did you wash out of the program? It’s no secret that you got the bad seeds because you were willing to ride them until they either quit or shaped up. How many criminals have you arrested? How many tickets have you written, domestic dispute calls have you answered? Ten years is a long time to make enemies. You’re a good cop. Don’t ruin it for yourself.”
Alex walked until his knee burned and still he pushed himself, testing the limits of his endurance, hoping the cold air and exercise would blow the anger away.
Looking at the problem from a cop’s perspective, he understood Upton’s point. The incidents all indicated someone other than the missing drug dealer. And everything else pointed to the dealer closing up shop and bugging out, presumably to open up somewhere else. Another murder unsolved, another murderer walking the streets. Just another busy day for law enforcement.
Except Alex couldn’t look at it from a cop’s perspective, not when his wife had been attacked and his house vandalized. Trying to force the memories that remained locked behind invisible doors didn’t help.
He looked up and discovered he’d walked all the way to the warehouse district. His feet guided him to the spot where he’d been shot. Forklifts zoomed past, their constant beeping drowning out the memory of gunshots echoing off the metal walls.
Alex bent and touched the cold ground, but nothing came to him. No sudden return of memory, not even a scrap he could grab on to.
The doctors warned that he might never regain all of that night. Was this how he’d live the rest of his life? Never knowing? Always looking over his shoulder? And what of Tess? Would he worry every time she walked out of the house? He’d learned last night not to push too hard, not to hold on too tight. He should have known she would eventually rebel. Hell, he couldn’t even be mad at her for the things she’d said because they were all true. She
would
have been safe if he hadn’t moved back in with her.
Chapter Eighteen
The front door lock clicked. Her heart leaping into her throat, Tess looked up from her book. Someday she wouldn’t jump at every creak and groan of the house. At least that was what she kept telling herself.
Alex stepped through looking very GQ in his charcoal suit and silver tie.
“Hey, you.” She put her book down and sat up.
“Hey, baby. How was your day?” He yanked on the knot of his tie.
“Lonely. How was yours? How’d the meeting with LT go? Did they catch the guy?”
He smiled, but his eyes held a dull pain that told her his knee was bothering him.
“The meeting went well.” He limped down the hall to the bedroom, pulling his still-knotted tie over his head.
Tess followed and Othello trailed her. “Yeah? So what’d he say?”
Alex threw the tie on the bed, shrugged out of his suit coat and tossed it on top of the tie. “I’ll tell you over dinner. How ’bout we go on that date we keep talking about, but never make it to?”
Her curiosity kicked up a notch. He was holding something back, she saw it in the veiled shadow of his eyes, but she wouldn’t push, not when he was this tired.
“Okay, sure. Where do you want to go?”
The phone rang. Alex picked it up and answered it with a gruff hello, unbuttoning his shirt one-handed. He held the receiver out to her. “It’s Shannon.”
Tess rolled her eyes and took the receiver. “Hey, Shannon, what’s up?”
Alex shrugged out of his shirt and let it drop to the floor. His belt buckle clinked, pants unzipped and fell to the floor, too.
No matter how long they’d been together, or how recently they’d made love, she always had this visceral reaction to his tight buns and muscular thighs. Everything inside her tightened into a ball of want.
“…red hair, like yours…”
Alex turned and saw the look on her face and his eyes darkened with desire.
“…visit…”
He’d been doing more than the physical therapy exercises. The muscles in his legs bunched and stretched with his sure steps. Except for today, he hardly limped anymore and nothing but two pink scars, about six inches long and running down each side of his knee, indicated he’d been injured.
“…right?”
He wrapped his arms around her waist and turned her so that her back rested against his chest. His hands slid inside her shirt and brushed already taut nipples. He bent his head and nibbled on the curve where her shoulder met her neck, sending electric charges down her spine and making her shiver.
“Tess? Are you listening to me?” Shannon’s voice drifted through the sensual fog of Tess’s brain.
“Mmmmhmmm.”
“No, you’re not. I can tell when you’re not listening.” A newborn’s angry wail floated through the phone line, bringing Tess back to the conversation. She stepped away from Alex. His hands dropped from her waist and he groaned, falling backward on the bed and pillowing his arms under his head.
“You had the baby?”
His gaze stopped its lazy exploration of her body and snapped to hers.
“I’ve been
trying
to tell you that,” Shannon said over the baby’s cries. “It’s a girl, Tess. She has red hair just like you and we named her Theresa, after you. Theresa Margaret.”
Tess’s knees gave out and she sank to the bed.
Margaret
? That was
her
baby’s name. Shannon wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t open up barely healed wounds. She ran a shaking hand through her hair and took a deep breath. “Th-that’s wonderful, Shannon.”
The baby stopped crying and Tess pictured the tiny red head nestled against Shannon’s breast, suckling greedily. She closed her eyes and fought the unbearable pain of loss and the aching in her own breasts.
Alex sat up and pulled her to him so she nestled between his legs. He wrapped his arms around her waist and leaned his chin on her shoulder to listen in.
“So, you’ll come tonight.” It wasn’t a question, nor a request, but a statement of fact. “Oh, Tess, she’s just beautiful. You’ve got to come see your namesake.”
Alex tilted his head and mouthed, “No.”
She should tell Shannon no, but her mouth wouldn’t form the word. She had a sudden need to hold the tiny infant close to her.
“Sure, Shannon, we’ll be by in about an hour.”
Alex jerked away and scooted off the bed. Angry strides took him to the closet where he pulled out a pair of jeans.
Tess replaced the receiver. “We’ll only stay a few minutes, then we’ll go to dinner.”
He pulled the pants on with jerky motions, then yanked a crewneck sweater over his head.
“I have to go, Alex. She named the baby after me.” And our daughter, but she couldn’t tell him that yet.
“You don’t
have
to do anything.”
“She’s the only family I have.” She hated pleading with him, hated the zing of anticipation she got from the thought of holding baby Theresa.
“And she treats you like shit.”
“So I should treat her the same?”
He grabbed his shoes and turned to pierce her with a haunted look. “Don’t do this, Tess.”
She glanced down at her hands clenched in her lap. “She has red hair.”
Alex cursed. “You’re torturing yourself,” he said, his voice strained.
What could she say? Deny the truth? Deny that holding little Theresa would break her heart all over again, make her ache for the baby she’d lost?
He let out a deep breath. “I don’t want you to go.”
“I know. But I have to go. I have to…see.” And hold and snuggle and pretend just for a moment.
“She’s not ours, Tess.”
“I know.” She swallowed and tilted her head back, willing the tears away and pushing the emptiness back into the hole from where it came.
Alex dropped to his knees between her legs and ran his hand up the outside of her thighs. “I don’t know what to say, what to do to take this grief away from you. Help me help you.”
She shook her head and more tears fell. “There will always be a part of my heart that mourns our daughter.”
“We can have others.”
Her chest constricted, making it hard to breathe. “We tried.”
“We haven’t been using protection.”
“We didn’t use protection for most of our marriage.” She touched his cheek. “I’m sorry I can’t give you a baby.”
His hands tightened on her thighs and his eyes grew even darker. “The doctors said there’s no medical reason we can’t conceive.”
“Doctors are often wrong.”
He reached for her, but she scrambled off the bed. “I need to get ready. Where are you taking me for dinner?”
“Tess, please—”
She looked back at him still kneeling by the bed. “I can’t, Alex. I can’t talk about this anymore. It hurts too much.”
He got to his feet and came toward her. She wanted to turn away because she didn’t want his pity, his regret, or his sorrow. But she needed his touch too much. He pulled her to him and she buried her face in the rough knit of his sweater, holding back the sobs and the tears, not wanting to cry anymore over the impossible.
Tess and Alex stepped into the hospital lobby. The smell of disinfectant and antiseptic reminded her too much of rushing in here with Tony. In her mind she heard the beeping, hissing and shushing of the monitors keeping Alex alive. The squeak of the nurses’ rubber-soled shoes had brought her out of many a light sleep while she sat at his side, holding his hand, willing him to live.
“You okay?”
“Fine. It’s just hard.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“No. It’s not the baby. Well, some of it’s the baby. Walking in here reminded me of the night you got shot.” She shivered and rubbed her arms, looking around at the families sitting on the couches waiting for word of their loved ones. “I thought you’d died.”
Alex touched her cheek, bringing her back to the present, reminding her that he stood before her, whole, alive, warm and vibrant. She leaned into his caress.
“That night’s pretty much a blank to me,” he said. “I don’t remember riding to the hospital. I do remember the pain. And I remember wanting to stay awake, needing to tell you I love you one more time.” He blinked and shook his head. “There’s more. I just wish I could remember.”
“It’ll come to you.”
“I wonder sometimes. It’s so damn frustrating having the answer yet not having it, and knowing others need me to remember. What if he kills again before I remember? What if he comes back and hurts you? What if I know him?”
She touched his arm. “You’re doing all you can. No one can ask more of you.”
“But it’s not enough.”
“It has to be for now.”
“I’m glad I have you to help me.”
She smiled. “Not half as glad as I am to have you around, eating my chocolate chips.”
One corner of his mouth turned up, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “What if I hadn’t recovered? What if I couldn’t walk anymore?”
“Then we would have dealt with it together.”
Tess grabbed Alex’s hand before they pushed open the door to Shannon’s room. Alex squeezed, giving her the courage to enter.
Ever the queen, Shannon sat in a halo of light that illuminated nothing but her and a tiny bundle nestled in her arms. Three tiny figures launched themselves at him and Tess. Six-year-old Caitlyn and four-year-old Elizabeth headed straight for Tess. Sarah, the baby at two, wrapped her chubby arms around his knees and he lifted her up.
“How’s my princess?”
She laughed, her big blue eyes dancing. Out of all the girls, Sarah looked the most like Shannon. She was also, secretly, his favorite, probably because he was her favorite. She pointed a tiny finger at her mother and new sister.
“Tressa,” she said, with a solemn tone in her toddler voice.
“I see that. A new sister, huh?”
Tess leaned over the bed, blocking his view of the baby. Sarah wriggled in his arms and he let her down.
Caitlyn, Elizabeth and Sarah crowded around Tess and the baby. Alex’s gut twisted at the look of yearning on his wife’s face. She brushed at a stray tear and cuddled the newborn closer to her breast, huddling over her, as if she was afraid someone would take the baby from her.
He hoped Roger realized how lucky he was to have four gorgeous, healthy, happy children.
Alex tuned out Shannon’s detailed recitation of the labor and delivery and made his way to the back of the room. He wanted to give Tess more babies, to fill her empty arms and the vacant place Maggie had left in her heart. He wanted to see Tess cuddle and look with wonder at their child’s tiny fingernails. Six months ago it had been the last thing he wanted, but that had more to do with their shaky marriage than the actual thought of having kids. Now that they were working through their problems, things were different.
They’d been through the tests, countless hours of sitting in doctor’s offices, enduring their poking and prodding, waiting for results only to discover nothing wrong with either of them. Then they’d found out Tess was pregnant with Maggie and for five brief months life had been perfect. Or so he had thought. Now he wondered if Tess’s loneliness and discontent with his work schedule was beginning even back then. Before Maggie’s death.
Movement to his left had him turning in that direction just as Roger stepped out of the shadows. Alex experienced a déjà vu stronger than any before. A shadow emerging from the deeper shadows. A hand knocking his hat off. Gunshots. The pounding of retreating feet.
Roger laid a hand on his shoulder and Alex pulled his thoughts back to the present. “You okay? You look like you saw a ghost.” Roger’s concerned gaze looked him over. His own face was drawn and pale. No doubt Roger had been up all night while Shannon gave birth. “Knee bothering you?” he asked.
Alex shrugged his hand away. “The knee’s fine.”
Roger backed into the shadows and leaned a shoulder against the wall. “Heard you’ve been asked to come back.”
Alex shot a look at Tess but she was too busy studying the baby and talking to her nieces to have heard. He had planned to tell her over dinner tonight, but now he considered putting it off. She was dealing with enough crap with the baby.
Chicken. You’re afraid of her reaction.
“So, you coming back?” Roger looked at his wife and four kids without expression. Shouldn’t he be over there with his new daughter? Then again, for Roger this was a bi-annual occurrence. Still, fourth or tenth, Alex would have been right beside Tess.
“If I can get Dr. Ford to sign the medical release.”
“Alex, come here and meet Theresa Margaret,” Shannon called.
He stilled. “You named her Margaret?” he said to Roger. What the hell? Surely even Shannon couldn’t be that dimwitted to name her daughter after Tess’s dead daughter, could she?
Roger looked away. “Shannon’s idea. She said you wouldn’t mind.”
Of course she did. Sometimes Shannon still managed to surprise him.
Stiffly, forcing his legs to move, he walked over to the chair and looked down at the sleeping newborn in Tess’s lap. Theresa’s top lip hung over her bottom. One hand curled around her ear. Bright red tufts of hair stuck straight up from her scalp.
The red hair reminded him of Maggie. By the time he’d made it to the hospital she’d already been taken to the morgue, but he’d been able to see her. She’d been so damn tiny—a lot tinier than this baby. He hadn’t been able to hold her, not because they wouldn’t let him, but because he just couldn’t. He’d felt too guilty, had been too angry at himself and so damn scared that it could have been Tess lying there. And relieved that it wasn’t. He’d never admitted that to anyone, especially not Tess. The overwhelming, knee-weakening relief of learning that Tess was okay. The prayer of thanks he’d sent up to God that He’d spared his wife and taken the baby instead.
Tess looked up at him with pleading eyes, silently begging him not to say anything. So she’d known the baby’s name and hadn’t told him. For some reason he felt a sense of betrayal.
“Would you like to hold her?” she asked, even though her body language screamed she didn’t want to give the baby up.
Watching Tess hold the baby made him hurt. He wished he could give her the baby she so desperately wanted. He stepped back, shook his head. If she’d lived, Maggie would have been sixteen months. He thought about that a lot. Every month he wondered what she would look like, what milestones she would have achieved. With that red hair she probably would have been a replica of Tess. But he often wondered what qualities he would have been passed on to her.