Requiem (21 page)

“
Claire?”

She met his eyes, but didn’t speak.

Lillian smiled. “She’s fine. Let her
be.”

“
This is good ladies,” Bex
said, his mouth full of food.

“
Thank you, Son,” Lillian
said. “Jared? Would it be a good time to ask how much longer you’ll
be engaged?”

“
No,” Jared said, shaking
his head with a smile. “I just got her to agree to set a date, Mom.
Don’t ruin my hard work.”

I laughed. “She has a point.”

“
She does?” Jared said,
surprised.

I patted his knee. “My parents’ anniversary
is on a Saturday this year.”

Lillian’s eyes brightened. “Oh, it is! How
wonderful! June first, then?”

Jared turned to me, cautious. “June
first?”

“
It’s an easy date to
remember,” I shrugged.

“
Of this year?” Jared
asked, cautiously hopeful.

Lillian and I shared the same boisterous
laugh. “Yes, Honey. Seven months from now.”

The smile that crept across Jared’s face was
slow, but it spanned from one side to the other. “June first.”

The conversation was monopolized by wedding
plans after that, and the afternoon was filled with excitement and
anticipation.

We said our goodbyes with kisses and hugs to
Bex, Claire and Lillian, and then Jared led me to the Escalade by
the hand. Once inside, he leaned over the console, took my face
gingerly in his hands, and pressed his lips against mine.

When he finally pulled away, I felt a bit
dizzy. A small twinge of guilt settled in. It was so easy to make
him happy, and I had grossly procrastinated something so
simple.

Jared drove slowly to the house, brushing my
hand with his thumb as he held it. A storm had rolled in, and it
fed into the new energy that almost crackled in the air between us,
as if he couldn’t wait to get home. He intertwined his fingers in
mine, kissing each of my fingers. “I feel like you said yes all
over again.”

“
I told you I would set a
date.”

“
You did,” he said. His
mouth widened to a broad grin. “Man! I feel like I want to stand on
a rooftop and scream! This is one of the best days of my
life!”

I giggled, nearly manic from the emanation
of Jared’s mood. Just as the moment peaked, it fizzled.

“
What are you doing?” I
said. He slowed the Escalade to a stop. “You’re not really going
climb onto a rooftop, are you?”

“
No,” he said, his smile
fading fast. “I spoke to soon.”

It was then that I noticed the blue and red
lights dancing all around us. “We’re being pulled over? But, you
weren’t speeding.”

“
That’s not what he
wants.”

I grabbed Jared’s hand, seeing the dark
silhouette of the police officer. The windshield wipers knocked
back and forth as we waited for his approach. He knocked on Jared’s
window with the butt of his flashlight.

“
Officer,” Jared said,
pressing the button for the window. The dark glass buzzed as it
lowered and then disappeared, revealing a face I had longed to see
again.

“
Ryan!” I yelped. My mouth
fell open in utter shock.

“
Good evening, Nina. I’m
afraid I’m gonna have to ask you to step out of the
vehicle.”

“
Don’t be an ass. It’s
raining,” Jared said.

Ryan nodded. “Just accompany me to the
cruiser, Ma’am,” he said, sounding very professional and
detached.

I nodded, looking to Jared. “It’s okay. I’ll
be right back.” I kissed him, and then scrambled to open the door.
I tried to be calm, to preserve Jared’s feelings, but Ryan was just
a few feet away. I had been so desperate to see him, and waited so
long, any false composure at that moment was impossible.

“
Nina,” Jared called after
me, but the tires sloshing through the wet pavement as cars passed
by drowned out the following words.

It was wrong, but in my haste to speak to
Ryan again, I ignored Jared and ran to the cruiser at full speed,
paying no attention to the rain.

The air was biting, and the rain instantly
dampened my clothes. I yanked open the passenger-side door,
assuming it would be as cozy as the Escalade.

It wasn’t.

“
Cheese and rice!” I said,
crossing my arms and bending at the waist. “You could hang meat in
here!”

“
Sorry,” Ryan said, turning
up the heat. “I keep it cool so I can wear my coat. Can’t really
waste time putting it on before I make a stop.”

I laughed once. “A cop?”

“
Yeah.” He smiled and
looked down. “Yeah.”

“
I guess this means you’re
not coming back to Brown.”

“
Looks that way,” he said
without humor.

He was thicker than I remembered, but his
face was thin. Lean was probably a better word. A hardened
expression replaced his sweet smile. He appeared older; a long,
weary line of disappointment and horrendous experiences no man
should ever have to encounter reflected in his once bright, green
eyes.

By his hesitation alone, I could tell the
effort to pull me over wasn’t due to the anticipation of a happy
reunion.

“
You stopped
writing.”

“
I did,” he admitted. “I
used to sit on a dune and watch the sun set, thinking about
you…writing half of what I wanted. That was my nightly routine for
a long time.”

“
My postman has some
explaining to do.”

“
I only sent a few of them.
I was in love with you for a long time, Nina.”

“
I’m sorry,” I said, trying
the swallow the lump that had formed in my throat. It was pointless
to apologize after what I had done to him, but the words fell out
of my mouth.

“
Why? I’m not the first guy
to go war after my heart got broken. Half of my buddies wrote home
to girls that didn’t love them back. Some of them had girls that
quit waiting. I was one of the lucky ones, even though your smile
haunted me for a long time.”

“
Is that supposed to make
me feel better?” I said, wrinkling my nose.

“
No,” he said,
matter-of-factly. “After leaving, going half-way across the world,
I still missed you. I didn’t think it would ever go away. But
something changed, Nina.”

“
Oh?”

Ryan smiled. “I quit loving you.”

I nodded, my feelings conflicted. A small
part of me was hurt, and maybe a bit jealous that he had finally
gotten over me. The rest of me was overjoyed. “That’s…good? I
guess?”

“
No, that’s wrong. I still
love you. I will always love you as my friend. But I’m in love with
someone else.”

A grin streaked across my face for a
fleeting moment. “That’s exciting. Do I know her?”

“
Actually…I think you do.
And I need your help.”

“
Anything. I sort of owe
you, don’t I?”

Ryan sighed, nodding. “That’s where I was
going with this.” He paused for a moment. “You ever get the feeling
you’re never alone? I mean, even when you are.”

His words spoke to every moment of my life,
but I remained quiet.

Ryan ignored my silence. “Do you remember
the night Jared came into the bar? And the last night we were
together?”

My heart began to pound. I didn’t know what
direction the conversation had taken, but I felt instantly
uncomfortable. “What about it?”

“
I remember three things
about both of those nights: Jared’s sister, how strong she was, and
those crazy blue eyes. Everyone else says I’m crazy, Nina…but
you…you I know will understand.”

“
Don’t be so sure,” I said,
feigning bewilderment.

Ryan huffed, frustrated. “The night in your
father’s office. You said I couldn’t tell anyone about our plan
because Jared would find out. I thought he was in the F.B.I. or
something, but it’s bigger than that, isn’t it?”

I touched his arm. “You’re seeing someone
professional, right? About what happened to you over there?” The
words had to be said to protect those I loved, but the guilt was
overwhelming. Ryan didn’t deserve that from me—he had come to me
for a reason: because he trusted me to believe him. If the
consequences were different, I would have been the friend he’d
always been to me, but my choice was clear.

He paused. Anger made the skin around his
eye twitch. “What makes you think anything happened to me over
there?”

“
I uh…,” I swallowed. “I
really should be going,” I said, reaching for the door
handle.

Ryan grabbed my arm. “I saw her eyes. The
day she saved my life, I saw her. No one has eyes like her, and no
woman that size could have carried me out of there. Tell me where
Claire is, Nina.”

My door flew open, and Jared pulled me to my
feet. Ryan scrambled out of his cruiser, desperate. “I just want to
talk to her,” he yelled over the rain. “I don’t need to know how
she did it. I just…need to see her again.”

Jared glanced at me, and then back to Ryan.
“Unless you’re charging us with something, we’re leaving. Good to
see you again, Ryan.”

“
I’m not crazy!” Ryan said,
desperate. The rain was more of a downpour, but he was
unfazed.

My steps were small and quick, trying to
keep up with Jared as he led me by the arm to the Escalade. Once
inside, I turned around, holding the seat with both hands as I
watched the stand off between the two men I loved in such opposite
ways. Ryan, in his puffy, standard-issue policeman’s coat simply
watched Jared glower at him. It was a new side of him, as I
half-expected a nasty exchange of words.

Jared slammed the car door behind him before
shoving the shifter into gear. The speedometer passed the point of
speeding before we were out of Ryan’s radar range, as if Jared
dared him to stop us again.

“
Okay. Jared? Jared!” I
said, fumbling with my seat belt.

“
He knows.”

“
It certainly seems that
way,” I said, bracing myself as Jared weaved through the traffic.
“Claire will lay low for a while like you said to. It will be
fine.”

“
You heard him, Nina. He’s
been holding onto this for months. He’s not going to let it
go.”

“
Okay…so we figure it out.
It’s not the worst thing that could happen right now. You told me,
and the world didn’t come to an end.”

“
Yours did.”

I winced. Jared feeling that way had never
occurred to me. “That’s not true,” I said, shaking my head. I
rested my hand on his. “Everything before that night was
make-believe. This is what’s real.”

Jared pulled into the drive of my parent’s
home, and then waited for the garage door to open. “You don’t work
for the police department, Nina. The same one that Claire
meticulously picked off a year ago.”

“
He just wants to know why
he saw her in the desert, Jared. It has nothing to do with
Graham.”

Jared closed his eyes, exasperated. “Maybe
not to Ryan, but for someone that can’t pass his psych eval and is
still in physical therapy, he was accepted into the the Providence
P.D. without a hitch. It wouldn’t be hard for someone to connect
Ryan to you, and anyone who could pose a problem knows you are a
direct connection to me, and Claire…and Graham. This is not an
innocent oops, Nina. This is a potential threat.”

“
Everything is a potential
threat to you people,” I grumbled.

“
You people? Since when are
we not on the same side?” Jared said, taken aback. He shook his
head, and then headed to the house without waiting.

I followed in silence, cursing myself. An
hour before, we had set the date of our wedding. Now I was getting
the cold shoulder.

Bex sat the top of the stairs, cleaning his
fingernails with a large knife, nodding to us as we passed. He was
less of the boy I knew, and more like his older sister. Even
Lillian’s unparalleled goodness couldn’t prevent Bex from losing
his innocence.

Jared rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll
er…I’ll see you in the morning. I’ve got some things to do.”

“
You’re going to find
Claire?”

“
We need to
talk.”

“
Okay,” I nodded, wrapping
my arms around him. He shifted, uncomfortable in my arms. “I didn’t
mean it. I suppose I’m just surprised at your reaction. He’s not in
love with me, anymore. I thought you’d be relieved.”

I gripped his t-shirt in my fists, bracing
for him to pull away. Instead, he paused in thought, considering my
words. “That means Ryan being Claire’s Taleh means something else,
and we don’t know what that is.”

I sighed, irritated at his negativity.
“Maybe it just means that they are supposed to be together. Like
us.”

Several emotions scrolled across Jared’s
face, finally settling on a mixture of relief and delight. He
tightened his arms around my back. “You think so?”

“
What other explanation is
there?”

A wide grin spread across Jared’s face. “It
doesn’t matter. I like that one.”

Chapter Twelve

The One

“
No way.”

“
Way.”

“
A cop?” Beth said, her
voice raised an octave.

“
One of Providence’s
finest,” I replied.

She took a sip of coffee, and then shook her
head. “I don’t believe it. Chad hasn’t said a word.”

“
Ryan hasn’t told
anyone.”