Authors: Missy Fleming
“What are you doing today?” the woman asked.
“I stopped by Duncan’s firehouse and dropped off a basket of goodies. He’s the firefighter I told you about.”
“Baking for a man is the surest way into his heart.” She sighed. “I love a man in uniform.”
“Grandfather Bernie was in the army, wasn’t he?”
“World War II. The night before he shipped out, he took me ice skating at Rockefeller Center and proposed.” Catherine grimaced, either in pain or at a memory. “Those were the longest two years of my life, always waiting for bad news.”
“I can’t imagine.”
Then, a pretty smile stretched her wrinkled face, giving the illusion of youth. “Even in the middle of a war, Bernard managed to send me a dozen red roses on my birthday.”
“They are your favorite.” Olivia remembered visiting Catherine’s office at VDB as a little girl, there was always a fresh vase on her desk and the phantom scent tickled her nose.
“You were too fussy for roses. Said if a guy liked you enough to send flowers, he should find out what kind you actually preferred. Such a spitfire.”
“And I still think that.”
They were quiet for a few minutes. “It is nice to have you here, Olivia.”
“I feel good being here, with you and in New York. Healing. I miss my bakery, my apartment with a peek of the ocean from the bathroom window, but this city is like a favorite sweater. Fits just right.”
“Do you want to go back?”
“Not really. I’m home. Or I will be once I find a permanent place to live.”
“Wonderful.” She wheezed in a lungful of air. “The penthouse?”
“Too many memories. I need somewhere I can make a fresh start.”
“This will be yours.”
Startled, Olivia realized she’d never considered what happened to the house after Catherine passed. Considering their estrangement, she hadn’t thought her name was in the will anymore. The idea chilled and humbled her, so she played it off with a joke.
“Too big for a single gal like me.”
“Find a man. What about Simon? Or this firefighter?”
“Playing matchmaker now?”
“Just want to see you settled and happy.”
Heat crept into Olivia’s cheeks. “I have a date with Duncan tonight.”
“Good. Is he worthy?” The question was followed by a flinch of pain and her grandmother shifted in the bed, trying to get comfortable.
“What do you need?” Olivia asked, standing and hovering, fear creeping up her spine.
“My youth back.” Catherine waved a hand. “I’d rather talk about men. Duncan?”
“He’s got a lot of wounds, similar to mine.” She sank into the chair again. “It’s hard to explain. I thought about him quite a bit over the years, never romantically, but seeing him the other night, attraction hit me hard. I’m attracted to his ghosts because they’re mine too, but he is nice to look at as well.”
“Be careful. All I ask.” Her eyes drifted shut but she continued to probe. “And Simon? He’s quite a looker.”
“That he is. We’re friends. I don’t see him that way. I mean, maybe I would if Duncan wasn’t in the picture.” Again, she blushed. If she was completely honest, she’d admit how much she loved teasing and joking with Simon, or how when he smiled, flashing that dimple, her stomach did weird things. They wouldn’t be a good fit, though. Before the drugs and falling buildings, he’d have been perfect. She doubted they had much in common outside of VDB anyway and worried if they did get involved, her darkness would ruin his happy-go-lucky attitude.
“Fun to see you flustered.”
Catherine drifted into unconsciousness, ending their conversation. Olivia stood and stretched, staring down at her grandmother with a smirk. She was so glad they had moments like this, if only they lasted. Glancing at the clock, she saw there were still a few hours before she needed to get home and start primping for her date. The word sent a flutter through her chest. It’d been so long since she’d been with a guy. She’d dated, sure, but not anything with this level of anticipation. Her fingers itched with the desire to bake her uneasiness away, but she decided to search for another way to pass the time, not as therapeutic but just as healing.
She wandered into the kitchen and found Anna folding towels in the adjoining laundry room.
“Is she sleeping?”
“Fitfully. Do you know what she did with my parents’ stuff?”
“It’s all boxed up on the third floor.”
“Here?”
“Yes.” Anna finished a pillowcase and stacked it on the counter. “I asked Catherine about it and she said she could never bring herself to sort through it or get rid of it. Go on up. I’m sure she won’t mind.”
“Thank you.”
Olivia returned to the foyer and climbed the winding staircase to the other floors. The second was mostly closed, save for her dad’s old study and Anna’s room. As she made her way up farther, she began to see signs of neglect—a burnt out light bulb, dust on the banister, the scent of musty air. All the doors were shut and the first one she opened brought her to a standstill.
The room was filled to the brim with boxes. She gawked at the sight, unable to process what she was seeing. Most were labeled ‘Melinda’ and Olivia did nothing to stop the tear slipping down her cheek. Instead of checking the other rooms, she decided to start there.
Jittery, with a mix of exhilaration and anxiousness, she lifted the first box and set it on the floor in the hall. Sitting cross-legged next to it and blowing dust off the top, she ripped the tape and tumbled into her past.
D
uncan approached Olivia’s building a little before seven with doubt nipping at his heels. His nervousness mixed with a strong dose of excitement, causing his knees to feel uncharacteristically weak. Each step he took towards the green awning, his pulse increased, shortening his breathing and making him wonder if he’d put enough damn deodorant on. At least he hadn’t taken any pills, he wanted to remember every single moment of tonight, sober.
“Just don’t screw up,” he growled to himself. He needed to keep his mind away from those dark, damning places. It only added more unwanted pressure.
Talk about a goddamned roller coaster of emotions.
His thoughts vanished when she stepped outside. One look at her and he lost all sense of time and space. There was only Olivia, black dress caressing her knees and red heels clicking on the pavement as she strode up to him. He tried to speak, but his mouth refused to work. Most of her gorgeous hair was swept on top of her head, secured by a sparkly clasp. Plus, somehow, her eyes were bigger, darker.
“Wow, you are beautiful,” he managed to say once he recovered.
“Thanks.” She raked her gaze over him. “You don’t look too bad yourself.”
He’d worn jeans and a button down shirt because they were the nicest things he owned, besides an old, ill-fitting suit. There weren’t many occasions in his life that required decent clothes and, same as most other men he knew, shopping landed right up there with the plague or the proctologist.
“Nice dress.”
“It was Mom’s. I found it this afternoon at my grandmother’s house. She has everything upstairs, all their stuff, boxed up and sitting in the dark.” Olivia shook her head and fingered the silky material. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be a downer. I’m happy you’re here.”
“Don’t apologize for missing your parents.” He reached out and squeezed her hand. “It must have been a shock.”
“Yeah. I need to go through it all, I guess, get some closure.”
“I can help,” he offered, though the prospect engulfed him in a cold sweat. Was he strong enough for her to lean on?
“Thanks. It’s sweet of you. I’ll think about it.”
He shifted his feet in the following silence and cleared his throat. “We have reservations at a little Italian restaurant not far from here. It’s a warm night, so I thought we’d walk.”
“Perfect.” She linked her arm through his, making him the luckiest man in the world.
Jesus, what a chump. ‘Luckiest man in the world’ didn’t resemble anything he’d ever said, especially about a woman he hardly knew. What the hell had gotten into him? Duncan enjoyed his reputation of being a hard, tough-talking fireman. Yet, here he was, acting like a pussy in a Meg Ryan movie.
“I forgot how much I love the city. L.A. is too bright, too shiny. Everyone there has an agenda, which I always considered bad enough in New York.” She peeked at him through her lashes. “I’ve actually been considering sticking around. This is home.”
“I take it things are going better with the business? Hell, is VDB even considered a business or is it more of a global conglomerate?”
She tossed him an amused glance. “My family referred to it as an empire, which I guess is appropriate enough. Grandmother ran the company after my grandfather died suddenly, until Dad reached an appropriate age to do it with her. It should’ve been his alone, but she had been beneficial for the company and stayed on in a time when it wasn’t common for women to hold positions of power. I came back because of my grandmother. My only intention was to see her and reconcile before she passed on, but Catherine being Catherine, there were other plans.”
They reached the restaurant and he held his questions until they were seated, frowning at the dim interior. Not ideal considering he wanted nothing more than to stare at her all night. The hostess handed them menus and rattled off the specials. Duncan didn’t hear a word she said, finding himself transfixed by the gold starfish necklace Olivia wore. It dangled above her soft cleavage, tantalizing him, demanding his attention, or his lips. Finally, the woman left them alone.
He cleared his throat, trying like hell to tame the desire coursing through him. “What does your grandmother have planned for you?”
Olivia glanced up from her menu. “To run the empire, of course. She claims it’s my legacy and is determined to lock me into place.”
“How’s it going?”
“Long story short, I’m somewhat capable, so far at least.” He shared her grin. “To make a long story short, I rose to the challenge, one of my own design, and discovered I’m not as much of a misfit as I thought. I resurrected a project of my father’s which, in turn, helps me feel closer to him.”
She set her menu down as the waitress returned to take their order. He resisted flashing her an annoyed look, hating to be distracted from the light in Olivia’s eyes, the passion that didn’t seem to dim as she asked for the rosemary chicken, the passion he wanted to bury himself in. Reining in his irritation at the interruption, Duncan ordered the fettuccini, took a sip of water and continued the conversation.
“Sounds like you’re making your grandmother happy at least. Disappointing family is never an easy thing.”
“You know this from experience?”
“My soon to be ex-wife and our kids.” He nearly choked on the bitter uselessness he always felt when talking or thinking about them. “Being married to a firefighter is far from a picnic, but being married to a firefighter after 9/11 was a nightmare.”
“I imagine it turned a lot of you into ghosts.”
“Some took it harder than I did, believe it or not, and a lot of marriages paid the price. I stopped being there. Threw myself into the job to hide my hurt and the pill popping. We became strangers. She didn’t do anything wrong, other than not magically knowing what was going on inside me.” He patted the pocket of his jeans in habit, a little dismayed the pill bottle wasn’t there. “It’s taken this long to recognize the harm I caused and it is an uncomfortable knowledge, one I do anything to avoid.”
“If it were me, I’d be thankful I dodged a bullet, torn between relief and guilt because my guy came home, but I’d slowly begin to understand he didn’t walk away unscathed and the grieving would start all over. It must have been hard.” The waitress placed a basket of rolls between them and Olivia reached for one.
“For a long time I didn’t understand what I was doing. It’s difficult for me to look at it from Leslie’s point of view, but I’ve been trying. I have done immeasurable damage, the trick is finding a way to fix it.”
“You’re trying, that’s the important part.” She pinched off a piece of bread and stuck it in her mouth. His eyes zeroed in on her lips, erasing his reply about his lack of effort. “Two kids, right?”
“I have a son, Adam, who’s almost thirteen, and a daughter, Amanda, who is fourteen. Neither is a great age to begin with, but add in an absentee, angry dad and the situation is a million times worse.”
“How?”
“I’m not around and our relationship is shakier now than ever. Amanda is great at playing the drama queen. Got her on the phone earlier, but she spent the whole time sighing loudly and mumbling. Adam, he’s into video games and electronics.”
“Most kids are these days.” Olivia played with her necklace, distracting him.
“The other day I took him to buy a game. Thing cost me over sixty dollars.” Shame filled his voice as he said, “I missed his middle school graduation.”
Olivia reached across the table and laid her hand on his. “It might not seem like it now, but they notice when you’re making an effort. You have to keep being there and showing them you’ve changed. Be relentless. The attitude is your punishment, so take it.”
“Take it.” Duncan chuckled. “I’ll have to get a flak jacket to armor myself against them.”
“You need to be patient and consistent.” She smiled. “Divorce is hard on kids, even without the other variables. I was older when my parents almost separated, but it still hurt.”
“I’m working on it, trust me.” He fought the urge to scowl and steered the conversation away from him. “Your parents ended up changing their minds about divorce and that’s why they were in the tower. Meeting lawyers, right?”
“You remember?” Her voice softened and the vision of her in the candlelight stole the air from his lungs. He recovered enough to nod and she explained, “They hit a rough patch and decided to separate. I was old enough to know that no relationship is perfect, but it came as a total shock. One weekend in August, they spent some time together and realized they still loved each other, that their marriage was worth fixing. Almost a fairytale ending.” She lifted her shoulders. “At least they were together.”
Good for them, he thought. He cleared his throat, dispelling the flowery sentiment as their food was placed in front of them. They ate in silence for a while, his gaze rarely leaving her face for long. The scar on her eyebrow intrigued him and if he looked closer, he saw the remnants of the hard life she’d lived—lines around her mouth and eyes that shouldn’t be there for someone her age, how her nose appeared to have been broken at one point. And yet, she was still beautiful to him.
“How long did you know the men who died from your house?” she asked.
“Two of them went through the academy with me. We were in the same year. Paulie grew up on the same street as me, we were friends since high school and our wives were close. Going back to work was hard. Our house was lucky, though. Some lost more, or everyone, and we were able to keep our remaining crew together once they started refilling positions across the city.”
“I haven’t been down there since I left two days after the attack. In my mind, it’s where my parents are buried, not at their grave, and I need to visit, but it scares me.” She pushed the food around her plate. “Something Frank said earlier affected me and I can’t shake it. I have no clue if they are among those listed as missing. I’ll have to ask, but with Grandmother’s illness, there’s never a right time.”
“If you decide to go, I’ll come with you. I can help.” He paused, his mouth dipping into a frown. “Wait, what did you mean when you said you left Ground Zero two days after? I handed you off to an ambulance crew. Didn’t they take you to a hospital?”
“No.” She shook her head. “There were too many others who needed help. They set my arm, stitched up the worst cuts, and sent me to a hospital. But I came back right away. I was in shock. I felt if I waited long enough, they’d pull my parents out alive. Reality sank in the next day. By then, I aided the relief workers with distributing water and whatever else they needed. Anything to keep busy and not confront the truth.”
He closed his eyes, reflecting on the chaotic days following the attack. They thought if they dug long enough and deep enough, they’d find someone alive. The few they did were far in between.
“I can’t believe you stayed that long. The aftermath was worse than before or during, when we had an actual mission. The rest became mindless, gut-wrenching digging.”
“Something about the place kept me tethered there. I’ve caught myself three times this week looking up at the blank space in the skyline. New Yorkers have gotten used to it or, at least, accepted it. I keep expecting the towers to be there.”
“I used to get pissed off at the tourists milling around.” His lips twisted into a smirk. “Me being me, I’d go there after having a few drinks and go off on them, shouting that it wasn’t a tourist attraction to photograph. Another time I got arrested for punching a random guy walking down the street in Brooklyn wearing one of those mass produced 9/11 t-shirts.” He hung his head in shame. “Not my proudest moment.”
“I have a confession, too.” She grinned, leaning forward as if sharing a secret. “I was at a club in L.A. and heard these fancy Hollywood types talking about how it was an inside job, conspiracy theories and all that bull about the collapse being a controlled demolition. I threw a drink in the guy’s face and left pretty deep scratches on his cheek. Unlike you, I ran before the cops were called.”
“I knew we’d get along,” Duncan joked.
They split an order of tiramisu for dessert and kept their conversation geared towards more light-hearted things. All the while his fingers itched with the desire to touch her, trace her collarbone. They were walking to her place when he shared a little of what he was feeling, the words tumbling of his mouth in a waterfall.
“You’re easy to talk to. Hell, you get my demons better than anyone, except the guys at the house. It’s like I’ve known you forever.” He flinched. “But that’s a little embarrassing to say.”
She smiled up at him. “It’s hard to find a person who shares what we experienced. Not even my sponsor, who helps me immensely, can quite grasp the reason why I fell into drugs. No one understands how it lingers. You do.”
“You’re amazing.” She gave a startled laugh. “No, I’m serious. I have to say this before I chicken out. I thought about you a lot. It made me feel so damn guilty wondering about a young woman I was trapped with while my brothers were dying. Somehow you stayed with me. It wasn’t romantic or moony, just a lasting curiosity.”
They stopped across the street from her building and he wished he’d kept his damn mouth shut, but she reassured him. “I feel the same, Duncan. You stayed with me, too. I saw your face, telling me it was going to be okay. That hour or so we were together, when the world fell apart around us, you became special. Plus, it’s hard to ignore the obvious attraction, which is new and very welcome,” she finished with a coy smile.