The Brass Ring (16 page)

Jamie shuffled down the staircase, sneaking a quick peek out her front window. She smiled when she spotted CC’s car still there. Stevie’s minivan was once again noticeably absent. "Good, maybe I can have a chat with CC without Stevie being there." She grimaced slightly when she saw the contractor’s truck parked in the lot.

Jamie returned upstairs and took a quick shower. She dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt covered with her favorite charcoal gray sweater. She quickly blew her short blonde hair dry. She inspected her appearance in the mirror one last time before heading downstairs. She was bare foot. She smiled as she went out onto her deck. She had purposely chosen not to wear a bra or underwear. She felt slightly silly at the secret desire that things might progress between her and CC.

Jamie climbed over the railing and noticed that the sliding door was open, allowing the breeze to flow into CC’s living room through the screen door. Shyly she lifted her hand to knock on the metal frame of the screen door. Her movement halted suddenly when she heard an unfamiliar voice moaning from with inside. "Yes . . . oh baby, that feels so good." Jamie’s heart sank as she listened to the sounds of pleasure emanating from the strange woman. Jamie felt sick as the bile rose in her throat. Quickly she went back over the railing that separated their decks. Jamie dashed inside and ran into the downstairs bathroom. Her body rocked violently as she released the contents of her stomach.

Jamie was curled up in front of the toilet, her head resting against the wall. "Why did I trust her again?" she choked out as her head throbbed violently. All she could think of was CC making love to another woman just on the other side of the wall she was leaning against. She blinked back the tears that were welling up in her eyes. "It was too soon," she chastised herself. "I went from hating her to falling for her all over again in less than a day. I’m a fool," she finally concluded.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

C
C RUBBED HER ACHING temple as she returned to the kitchen.  She needed more caffeine if she was going to deal with her sister’s attitude.  Stevie was following close behind her.  CC loved her baby sister dearly but at that moment she wanted to ring her neck.  “Stevie,” CC growled as she turned and gave the smaller woman a cold stare.

“Fine.  I’ll drop it.”  Stevie held up her hands and retreated into the living room.  CC poured herself another cup of coffee and sighed heavily.  The past few days had really sucked.

Her car still wasn’t running and Jamie hadn’t been around much.  When she did encounter the blonde doctor, it was only briefly.  Jamie seemed distant since the other night.  She wasn’t hostile, just distant.  CC really wanted to talk things over with Jamie, but Jamie always seemed to be busy.  Stevie’s attitude towards Jamie just added to the mix.  “I slept with her too soon,” CC muttered absently.

“That’s all I was saying,” Stevie piped in from the outer room.

CC rolled her blue eyes in disgust.  Gripping her mug tightly, she walked back into the living room.  “Look, Stevie.  Just drop it,” CC stated firmly.  “I know it was mistake.  I should have waited until we got to know each other again.”  CC found herself smiling as she watched her niece in her playpen try to put her foot into her mouth.

“I just don’t understand why you slept with her,” Stevie said in bewilderment.  CC groaned at Stevie’s persistence.  “The two of you went from ‘gee you’re aren’t the jackass I thought you were’ to hopping back into bed together.  I can understand the night you both got loaded, but this last time . . .”  Stevie just shook her head.

“It felt right,” CC explained.  She was tired of having this argument with Stevie.  For the life of her, she could not understand why her sister was so angry with Jamie.  “We spent the day together, at your insistence I might add.  It was like it was before.  All the old feelings were still there.”

“That’s the problem.”  Stevie groaned bitterly.  “You are not getting to know her.”

“I know her,” CC scoffed.  “This is James we’re talking about.”

“No, this is Jamie Jameson,” Stevie snapped back.  “She’s not the sweet naïve little college girl you remember.”

“I know that,” CC argued.  “She’s changed and so have I.”

“Look, I like Jamie,” Stevie defended herself.  “But you’re rushing into this.  You’re acting like nothing has changed.  Come on, Caitlin.  You slept with her and now she’s blowing you off.”

“She isn’t blowing me off,” CC protested.  “She’s busy.  She had a life long before we ran into one another again.”

“Open your eyes,” Stevie warned her.

“What is this really about?” CC finally demanded.

“I just don’t want you to get hurt again,” Stevie said sincerely.  “But Jamie isn’t the little virgin you left behind.”

“I’m quite aware of that.”  CC snickered.

“I’m serious,” Stevie responded flatly.  “I wasn’t going to tell you this, but the night before the two of you hooked up together Brad saw her at the club.  She ended up in the parking lot with some girl.”

“Don’t do this,” CC warned her sister in a cold threatening voice.  “I know she was with someone that night.”

“You do?” Stevie said in surprise.

“I’m a cop.  I notice things,” CC explained in a flat tone.  “Let’s just say the lipstick on her collar wasn’t her color.  What I didn’t need to hear were the gory details.”

“I’m sorry,” Stevie said as she blinked in surprise.  “I just don’t understand why you would be with her so quickly knowing that she’s promiscuous.  Come on; it’s a little sluttish.”

“Don’t,” CC hissed out through clenched teeth.  “I wouldn’t worry about Jamie’s morals if I were you.”

“Excuse me?” Stevie gasped.

“Do you think Emma’s room will ever get completed if you keep banging the contractor every time she comes over?” CC questioned her triumphantly.

“How did you . . .?” Stevie stammered as she blushed furiously.

“I notice things,” CC taunted her.  “I also know that you’re not in love with her.  You just need someone right now.  She’s a buddy,” CC added with a shrug.  She didn’t want to argue with Stevie.  They had always been close.  She understood that Stevie was just looking out for her.  But until she talked to Jamie she wasn’t about to allow Stevie to trash her.

“What if that’s all Jamie’s looking for?” Stevie questioned her carefully.

“I don’t know,” CC answered honestly.  “If that’s all she wants then I guess that’s it.”

“What do you want?” Stevie inquired softly.

“I don’t know.”  CC sighed as she sat down next to her sister, stretching out her legs.  “Maybe we just needed one last time together to put everything behind us.  Maybe it means something more.  I don’t have a clue.  All I know was, at that moment, none of it mattered.  There wasn’t the past.  No thoughts of the future.  It just felt right.  It felt right to hold her and kiss her.”

“Okay,” Stevie blurted out as she patted CC’s knee.  “Speaking of gory details, I don’t need to hear everything.”  Stevie held up her hand as she grimaced.  CC laughed as she swatted her sister playfully.  “I just worry about you,” Stevie added thoughtfully.  “I can see that look in your eyes and it hasn’t been there is such a very long time.  Just try taking it slow.  Maybe have a date or go out for coffee before the two of you get naked again.”

“I promise,” CC agreed, smiling as she stood.  “With our schedules I just I hope I get the chance before the next ice age.”

CC’s smile vanished as she saw Jamie out in the parking lot hugging a small brunette.
  ‘Who the hell is that?’
the policewoman’s mind screamed.  She felt her sister standing next to her.

“Oh boy,” Stevie muttered as she grabbed onto CC’s coffee cup before it could spill.

“Not a word,” CC said sadly as she marched back into the kitchen.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

J
AMIE HUGGED THE small brunette tightly.  The woman was one of the few people she knew that she could hug without reaching up.  Meagan had chestnut hair and gray green eyes and was one of the truest souls that Jamie had ever met.  She couldn’t have asked for a better sister.  Of course they had only officially become siblings a few years ago.  But during all of those summer vacations and family trips they’d endured together, they had become sisters long before Jamie’s father married Meagan’s mother.

Jamie had endured a long hard week of sheer hell.  It seemed to her that every person she encountered was just plain rude lately.  She tried to write it off to her own emotional troubles.  Granted, she was upset about CC but she was trying to keep things in perspective and not fly off the handle.  She needed some distance from the tall policewoman before she overreacted.  She’d done that once twelve years ago and it cost her the woman she loved.  So if it wasn’t the possibility that CC was seeing someone, what was going on with the world?  She’d also double-checked her calendar just to ensure that there wasn’t another cause to the hostility that was surrounding her.

“Did you have any trouble finding the place?” Jamie asked her stepsister as she led her towards her home.  Despite Jamie’s over-analytical mind, she was notorious for giving horrible directions.  She was infamous for saying things like ‘you know, the place with the thing, turn right there’.

“No,” Meagan responded brightly as they entered Jamie’s townhouse.  Jamie smiled, thinking that she’d done a good job in getting her sister up there from Maryland.  “I just ignored what you told me and looked it up online.”

“You doubted me?” Jamie gasped in mock horror.

“Yes,” Meagan asserted firmly.

“I’m wounded.”  Jamie chuckled as they removed their coats.

“Did you just get off duty?”  Meagan inquired thoughtfully as she settled down on the sofa.

“Yes,” Jamie responded with a yawn.   “I’ll just put on some coffee for us,” Jamie suggested warmly.

“If you need a nap or something, it’s okay,” Meagan interjected.

“No way.”  Jamie waved her off as she shuffled off to the kitchen.  “I don’t get to see you that often anymore.”

“Okay,” Meagan called out as she scanned Jamie’s sparse living conditions.  “Jesus, Jamie!  When are you going to unpack?”

“It’s getting there,” Jamie called back as she carefully measured the coffee.  “I’ve been busy,” Jamie explained once she returned from the tiny kitchen.

“You look wiped, kiddo,” Meagan noted thoughtfully.  Jamie rolled her eyes at the term.  Meagan was two years younger than Jamie.  She’d been a bit of a wild child while they were growing up while Jamie had been a role model.  Jamie always said that she’d saved everything up for when she came out.  Despite their differences the two had always gotten along.  It didn’t hurt that Meagan had finally outgrown her days of partying.  Now the once feisty teen was a financial officer with a devoted husband.

“Are you certain you don’t need to get some rest?” Meagan suggested.

“No, I’m fine and I’m off for the next couple of days so we can spend some time together,” Jamie explained.  “I just had a really long week.”

“You want to talk about it?” Meagan offered in a comforting tone.

Jamie shrugged as she sat down next to her sister.  Perhaps it would do her some good to vent a little.  “I don’t know,” Jamie mumbled as she collected her thoughts.  Meagan quirked her eyebrows to encourage Jamie to continue speaking.  “It just seems that lately I’ve been crossing paths with the rudest people on the planet.  For example, the other day I was going to the post office.  You passed it on the way here.  It sits on a curve of the rotary.”

“Not very safe,” Meagan noted.

“That’s why they put some lights there,” Jamie explained quickly.  “I pulled around the rotary and got stuck behind a car that’s double parked.  I can’t go around because cars are coming up behind me.  The driver can’t see this because she’s looking for something on the floor.  So I beep my horn.  I swear that’s all I did,” Jamie added in her own defense, knowing that Megan would assume that she offered the woman a single digit salute.  “There were parking spots just a few feet ahead of her.  She pulls up a centimeter and I’m forced to pull out into traffic and go around.  Then I park in one of the spots and she pulls in behind me.  We both walk up to the mailbox at the same time.  She tells me ‘you go ahead’ in the snottiest tone I have ever heard.  I never wanted to bitch slap someone so much in my life.”

“You didn’t?”  Meagan laughed.

“No.”  Jamie blew out an exhausted breath.  “I just rolled my eyes and mailed my letter.  I really didn’t want to get into it with her. “

“How rude.”  Meagan shook her head in disgust.  “I did notice that the drivers around here are a little tense.  What’s with all the detours?”

“The Big Dig.”  Jamie groaned.  “It’s getting better.  I know that Massachusetts’ drivers have their own way of doing things.  It’s part of the charm of living up here.”

“Something more than a rude driver is getting to you,” Meagan pointed out.

“It’s just that everyone I’ve run into this week has been like that,” Jamie blurted out in exasperation.   “I expect it at work.  The folks I see there are sick or injured.  It’s hard to stay upbeat when you just broke your arm.  But the other day I went to get pizza for everyone.  I’m dressed in my scrubs, heading back to the hospital loaded down with several pizza boxes, and this guy shouts out ‘hey where you going with all that food?  I’m hungry.’ ”

“Ugh,” Meagan grunted in sympathy.

“I know what he said was innocent enough but it was the tone,” Jamie bemoaned.  “You know that flirty ‘I’m a cool dude’ tone.  Did this guy actually think he was going to get my phone number or get lucky with me?  Tell me truthfully.  Does that random shouting out in the streets work with you straight girls?”

“No.”  Meagan laughed.

“It must work on someone since so many men do it,” Jamie noted as she went into the kitchen to get their coffee.

She came back with the coffee mugs in hand.  “Even in North Hampton or P-Town I’ve never heard a woman yell out ‘Hey beautiful’ or ‘I love you’,” Jamie explained thoughtfully.