Take a Chance on Me (39 page)

He took a stabilizing breath and grabbed a parking spot in front of the CYS drugstore. He told himself he could do this. He was an adult, an officer of the court who worked with violent criminals on a daily basis.

He could certainly summon the courage to purchase maxi pads.

He entered the front door like any normal customer and began scanning the aisles. He saw the sign hanging there as big as anything—Feminine Hygiene and Family Planning. Bingo. He'd hit the motherlode.

Two, three minutes tops and he'd have those pups in a plastic bag and be outs there.

Thomas strode down the aisle—and stopped. He stood before the shelves in a state of awe. Just how many different types of pads and tampons did the female race require? Dear God. Then his eye strayed toward the array of products apparently necessary for the proper functioning of the female reproductive system—douches, yeast infection creams, anti-itching ointments, personal lubricants, pregnancy tests, spermicides. His heart began to race. He struggled to keep his focus.

Thomas scanned row after row. What should he buy? Wings or no wings? Heavy flow or light days?

Curved edges or straight? He tried to imagine which of these pads would work best inside a tube sock tied around the tiny waist of a six-pound neutered male mutant dog, but was drawing a blank.

He felt like he might need a hit off the oxygen canister he'd spied in the front window.

"Is there something I can help you find, dude?"

Thomas turned around to see a teenage stock boy staring at him with a smirk. He was leaning one elbow on a doily full of even more feminine hygiene products—cartons and cartons of them!

"Your girlfriend send you on an errand?"

Thomas gave the kid a smile that positively dripped with courtesy, then said, "At least I got a girlfriend, punk ass." He turned back to the wall of paper products and removed the first thing he saw. At the cash register, he realized he'd selected a forty-eight-count box of extra long pads for nighttime flow.

They'd be perfect. They'd have to be. Because he was never going to do that again.

Ever.

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S he would come through for him one last time, he just knew it. Emma wasn't the kind of woman to let a piece of paper stand in the way of basic decency. When she brought up divorce for the first time, she said she would always love him. He remembered how her statement made him laugh at the time, considering the context.

Well, he wasn't laughing today. It better be true, because this was the end of the road for him—and maybe for Emma. The truth was, he was running out of options.

Aaron pushed up on the bridge of his Ralph Lauren shades and checked his gas gauge. He hoped to God she had some cash on her because he needed to fill the tank before heading back to Annapolis, and as they both knew, his credit cards—the ones that hadn't already been confiscated—weren't worth shit these days.

He sighed and cranked up the volume on his CD player. How long had it been since he'd been out to Beckett's farm? God—he couldn't remember, but he didn't think there were this many houses around the last time. The new developments were sprouting out of the ground like fields of giant McMansion mushrooms.