Aftershocks (9 page)

Patrick no longer had to hold up the entire adult end of the conversation. He had help.

Not that the kids needed a lot of prompting to talk. They couldn’t wait to tell about their days at school.

“How did you do on your biology test?” Patrick asked his son, remembering they were getting the tests back today.

“I got an A,” Dylan said with simple pride.

“That’s great,” he and Briana said in unison.

“I had to draw a picture of my favorite animal in school,” Fiona informed them.

“What did you draw?” Briana asked her.

“Dylan,” she said.

It was at moments like this, when his eyes met Briana’s in shared amusement, that he realized he’d been lonely. Not the all-by-yourself-with-no-one-to-talk-to lonely. He had a full life as a single dad with a
busy job. But lonely in a purely adult way. He missed having a woman in his life. Not just for sex, though he sure as hell missed that, but for companionship. Someone with whom he could make plans for the future, delegate chores, worry over the kids. He missed having a wife and he knew his children missed having a mother.

“Dad, it’s rude to stare.” Dylan’s remark brought him back to the present.

“Hmm?” He blinked and realized that he had been staring at Briana, probably with the same lovesick gaze his son had turned on her earlier. “Oh, sorry. I was lost in thought.”

“We watched you on TV, Daddy!” Fiona said, breaking the tension and allowing them to rehash the call-in show.

“I think we’ll get our funding now,” he told Briana with a smile.

“I’m so glad. Congratulations, you’ve worked tirelessly for that funding.”

“You helped a lot, you know.”

“Well,” Briana said, rising from the table, “the only thing I could find for dessert was chocolate pudding. I hope that’s okay.”

“Sweet!” Dylan yelled, jumping up immediately to help clear the plates without even being asked.

Fiona had recently started helping also, though it was painful for Patrick to watch her carry her plate to the dishwasher, her tongue between her teeth as she concentrated on not letting her knife and fork slide off the plate.

“What a big help you guys are,” Briana said. “Thanks so much.”

After they’d had the pudding, Patrick insisted on fin
ishing the dishes and Briana started to make noises about leaving. “Could you stay and read me my bedtime story?” Fiona asked.

“Um, well, I really should—”

“Briana has to go home to her own house, Fi,” Patrick reminded his daughter. Fiona’s lower lip began to tremble. Oh, boy. It looked like the entire family had a crush on his admin assistant.

“Well,” Briana said, glancing helplessly at him, “I guess I could read you one story.” She disappeared down the hall with Fiona.

After he’d done the dishes, checked his phone messages and gone through the mail, Patrick headed down to Fiona’s bedroom to find all three of them in there. Dylan had obviously decided to listen to the story rather than read quietly to himself, as he usually did.

Patrick paused in the doorway and watched the trio. His gut tightened. It was a wonderful picture, a great fantasy. Why the hell couldn’t it be real? All Briana had to do was take another job, a job he’d find for her, and they could spend as many nights like this as she was willing to spend. She seemed to like his children, she seemed to enjoy his company, and unless he was badly off the mark, she’d enjoyed their intimacy the other night.

What was holding her back from changing jobs?

“The end,” she said, and closed the book, returning it to the shelf. She’d glanced up and seen him standing there. “It’s time for me to go now,” she told the kids.

Fiona held her arms up mutely for a hug. Briana hesitated a moment, then walked over and hugged her, dropping a kiss on her forehead. “Good night, Fiona.”

“Night.” Fiona rolled over and pulled her favorite stuffed bunny into her arms.

Dylan walked to his own room and Briana followed him. Patrick stepped to his daughter’s bedside and dropped his own kiss on her forehead. “Night, sweetheart.”

“Night, Daddy. Love you.”

He was in time to see Dylan get the same kiss on the forehead that his sister had, and as Patrick passed Briana in the doorway, their bodies brushed. Oh, man, he wanted more than a kiss on the forehead from this woman.

Once he’d said good-night to his son, he walked back to the kitchen. Briana was standing there with her shoes on and her bag in hand. Suddenly, the atmosphere, which had been so easy all evening, turned awkward. “Well,” she said, running her fingers back and forth on the strap of her purse, “I’ll get going.”

He nodded. “I’ll walk you out.”

The night was warm for March, and the jacarandas for which the neighborhood, Jacaranda Heights, was named were in full bloom, their scent soft and evocative in the warm night air.

“You don’t need to walk me to my car.”

“I want to. I want to talk to you.”

“Oh.”

He waited until they were standing by her car. She unlocked the driver’s side but he stilled her hand before she opened the door. “Both my kids got a good-night kiss. What about me?”

She shook her head, refusing to look at him.

He struggled to suppress his frustration.

“I don’t suppose I could fire you again until tomorrow morning?” he asked.

She smiled and shook her head once more.

“What I’d really like to do is fire you permanently.”

That got her to look up at him. Her eyes were a vivid green in the light from the streetlamps. “You’ve got no reason—”

He pulled her to him and kissed her with all the pent-up feeling and passion he’d been tamping down since the night in the elevator.

She gave a gasp of shock and stiffened for a second, then seemed to melt into him. She kissed him back, as hungrily as he was kissing her, and he knew one thing. She was as crazy for him as he was for her.

Why then wouldn’t she help him make things right?

He pulled away at last, panting and shaken. He was appalled at the sharpness of his desire. “That’s my reason,” he said.

She put the tip of her tongue out and touched her lips as though amazed at what she and Patrick had just done. “I can’t leave my job now.”

“Why not?”

“It’s complicated, Patrick.”

“What the hell is so complicated about it? Do you think Max Zirinsky or Dan Egan wouldn’t kill to have you on their staffs? Or there are positions at the hospital at a higher level, with a correspondingly higher wage. What’s so complicated about that?”

“I like working in municipal government. That’s what I trained in.”

“Well, there’s plenty of politics in policing and hospital administration.”

She rubbed her arms as though she were chilled. “I…I made a commitment. I can’t break my word.”

“Break it. I don’t care. Of course, I’ll never find an assistant as good as you. I’ll survive. But what about this?” He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and felt her quiver of response, watched her head tip back so he could kiss her. He spoke softly and from his heart. “Do you think this happens every day?”

She shook her head.

“Briana,” he said, realizing he had to be honest with her and let her know what he was feeling, “I’m falling in love with you.”

She gasped and made a shushing sound, but now that he’d gone this far, he’d give her all of it. “My kids are falling in love with you. Isn’t that worth something?”

“L-love?” she asked, as though it were an unfamiliar term.

“I know it’s too soon to be talking like this, and maybe things won’t work out between us, I don’t know. But I’d sure like to give it a try. In three years I haven’t met anyone who makes me feel as—I don’t know, as alive, I guess, and full of hope about the future as you do. Please, won’t you think about it?”

“I
have
been thinking about it. But what we’re doing at work is important, too, and I’m egotistical enough to think that I’m making a meaningful contribution at the office.”

“I know. You’re right. I’ll wait…but not too long.”

“Things will improve dramatically when the funding comes through from the bond. Why don’t we have this conversation again in a month?”

He nodded once, knowing she was right. Talking his assistant into quitting for entirely personal reasons wasn’t the best service he could render the people of
Courage Bay. “All right, lady. You’ve got a month. And in four weeks—less, if things calm down at work enough that I can replace you—you and I have a date with a king-size bed.”

“If all you want is sex—” she began, but he cut her off.

“You know it isn’t. If I only wanted sex, believe me, I could be having it every night. There are plenty of single women who actually think I’m a pretty good catch. But for some damned reason, the only woman I want, the only woman who’s keeping me awake at night, making me take cold showers and generally making my life hell, is you.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Oh. I’m not saying it will work out. Maybe it won’t. But in the three years since Janie died, I’ve barely looked at another woman.”

She glanced up, startled. “You mean you’ve never—” She slapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. What am I saying? That’s none of my business.”

He removed her hand from her mouth and kissed the palm. “Of course it’s your business. We slept together. I think that gives you a right to know about my sex life. And the answer is no. I haven’t had sex with anyone since Janie died. Not until you.” He brushed a hand over the gold of her hair, which was like a halo in the streetlight, and wished he could take her back inside and show her how much she meant to him.

“I had no idea.” She whispered the words, and it almost sounded as though she were close to tears.

“Well, going without sex for three years is not something you plan. But I loved my wife. I missed her for a long time. I still miss her. I guess I always will. And I
was so busy with the kids and work that I…I never got around to dating other women. I missed sex of course. I’m still a man.” He grinned in the dark. “But until you came along, I never did anything about it.”

He had no idea if he’d just made himself sound pathetic or needy, but he didn’t much care. He believed in the truth. He tried to be truthful always, especially with people he cared about. And he cared about Briana. More than he wanted to.

“I see.”

“I’ll tell you something else. You can go without for a long time and kind of put it out of your mind, but once you find a woman you desire again, once in three years is not enough.”

She laughed softly, but she sounded almost nervous. Why was she so skittish now? She’d been so passionate and open when they were trapped together in the elevator.

Maybe Briana was affected by something in her past, just as he was. He decided to find out.

“Okay. I’ve told you my story. What’s yours?”

“There’s not much to tell,” she said, easing away from him. They ended up side by side, both leaning against her car.

“You left a job as city manager to come and be an admin assistant. I’m guessing you left your former job for a compelling reason. Bad relationship?”

Her hand was still in his, and now it squeezed into a claw against his palm.
Aha
. But Briana didn’t admit to a bad relationship. In fact, she shook her head.

“No. I—I just needed a change.” She sighed and looked up into the dark sky. “I was engaged, once. But it didn’t work out.”

“Did you end up with a broken heart?” That could explain her reluctance to get involved with him.

“No. A few broken illusions, perhaps. He was a slick-talking, smooth-moving cattle rancher, and we hit it off right away. Within six months we were engaged. I started planning the wedding, and he grew a little distant. Then I started showing him decorating magazines. I had such ideas for the ranch house. Oh, and the gourmet kitchen I was going to have installed. That house was badly in need of updating, you understand.” She laughed at the memory, but she didn’t sound bitter. “He’d usually change the subject whenever talk turned to home-decorating, and I thought it was just because he was a man. But then I happened to mention some ideas for a nursery. He didn’t merely change the subject on me that time. He changed women.”

“You mean that moron dumped you because you wanted to have kids?”

“Oh, don’t make a tragedy out of it. I think he dumped me because he’d gotten carried away on a fantasy of the two of us on a never-ending honeymoon. He thought nothing would change except that he’d have me there in his world, and here I was, hauling curtain samples and kids into his dream. We simply weren’t a fit.”

Patrick would let her decorate his house any way she wanted, he realized. He’d toss out everything, including the kitchen, and start again if that’s what she wanted. With a stirring of mingled pain and hope, he realized he’d even go along with the nursery. He loved kids, and he’d be happy to have more.

But after half declaring his love and seeing her back
off, he wasn’t about to freak her out with an offer to redecorate and set up a nursery.

If he did, she’d probably run from him faster than the ranch boy had run from her.

What he had to do was get the council back in session quickly, vote to release the funds and get Courage Bay’s emergency services fully functioning again.

Then he could go after the woman he loved.

P
ATRICK WAS ACTING
exactly as her uncle had predicted, Briana realized as she reached home, battling frustrated lust. Her boss was charming her—not seducing her exactly, but making it very clear he wanted to. Sure, the whole “I’ve been celibate three years since my wife died” could be a line that hooked women like so many gullible trout, but she couldn’t believe that.

Oh, she knew she was in trouble. It wasn’t just that Patrick had all but declared his love, which was plenty scary, though also wildly exhilarating. No, it was the way she’d caught herself imagining how nice his kitchen counters would look in granite, and that with a little rearranging, the furniture in the den would work so much better.

She crawled into bed, and Patrick’s words came back to echo in her head.
You and I have a date with a king-size bed
, he’d told her, with that fiery glint in his eyes that set her skin sizzling. In an elevator, in the dark, he’d been terrific. And if what he told her was true, he’d also been out of practice.

She smiled a cat-in-cream smile as she stretched among the heap of pillows she’d sewed herself. Patrick
in a king-size bed, and back in practice, was something to look forward to.

Of course, her bed wasn’t a king, but she had a feeling he’d do just fine in a queen-size bed.

Her body warmed at the thought of what the two of them could get up to between these covers, and she recalled that it would be happening in one short month if she took him up on his challenge. Sooner, if she got the evidence she needed to clear Patrick of wrongdoing.

How exactly was she going to do that, she thought as she yawned, wishing Patrick were beside her and that they were free to work out thorny problems like this together. She was tempted to start by talking to the reporter who’d broken the story in the
Sentinel
and trying to get a good look at the photograph they’d run. But of course it was impossible. Asking a nosy reporter a lot of questions was going to rouse his suspicions. There had to be another way.

It was the last thought she had before falling asleep.

When she woke up the next morning, a few minutes before the alarm was due to shrill, the answer was right there.

She’d been doing this since college, going to sleep pondering a problem and waking with the answer.

Yawning, she stretched and popped out of bed, anxious to get on with her plan. Patrick, as mayor, had access to computer files that were denied her. He had his access code written down in the Rolodex on his desk, cleverly hidden under his dentist’s phone number. She’d seen him flip to the number one day when he was checking the municipal budget. Since he hadn’t gone to the dentist, she was pretty sure that’s what the peculiar number and letter sequence was.

She was certain he didn’t think she’d clued in, or if he had, he believed he could trust her. She bit her lip at the thought of his trust and how she was betraying him. When she’d first seen the code, she’d thought nothing of it since she’d had no interest in snooping for information that was denied her at her level of clearance.

Now, as soon as her boss was out of the office for a time, she’d log in using his password and search the police files. She had no idea how much information she could access, but she was going to give it a shot.

“Morning,” she said cheerfully when Patrick rolled in a few minutes after her. Her computer was already humming, her e-mail box almost full. Patrick’s was probably overflowing. There were six messages piled up at her elbow, and a sheaf of faxes sat neatly stacked on the edge of her desk. She picked up both piles of paper and held them out to him.

“There are seventy-six messages here,” she told him. “One hundred percent of these citizens support you in making council vote to access the city’s bond.”

His face relaxed into a smile. “It’s going to be a good day.”

“And a busy one,” she agreed as both lines began to shrill.

“Mayor’s office, can you hold please?” she said to one caller, and picked up the next. “Mayor’s office.”

“I want to talk to Mayor O’Shea.”

“Certainly. Who’s calling, please?”

“It’s Bonita Alvarez. I voted for the mayor and I want to vote for him again to get the money he needs to do his job.”

“Certainly, Ms. Alvarez. I’ll put you through.”

She reached for the second line, and then noticed that Patrick was still standing by her desk. She’d expected him to go through to his own office. She raised her brows in a silent question.

“Dylan sent you this.” He handed her a white piece of paper, the kind used in home computers, rolled into a scroll and fastened with an elastic band, before heading in to his office.

Briana put the second caller on hold until Patrick could deal with Ms. Alvarez, then she pulled the elastic band off the scroll.

Dylan had drawn a picture of a dragon soaring over a castle where some kind of battle was taking place. She guessed Dylan was a kid who’d probably seen
Lord of the Rings
a few times and now lived part-time in a Tolkien universe. Under the picture was a note.

Thanks for the dinner. It was delicious. I hope you can come to our house again sometime.

It was signed simply,
Dylan
. Then, in smaller letters, obviously by the same hand, an addition had been made.
And Fiona
.

Briana loved her picture, and was certain it added a certain something to her decor when she pinned it to her bulletin board. She’d love to take Dylan up on his offer to visit, more than he could possibly imagine. But she had to figure out what his father had been up to first.

She put the second caller through and checked Patrick’s schedule. There was a luncheon speech at the CB Business Association, and then at three o’clock he had a meeting with Max Zirinsky. Okay, so she had two opportunities today. She rather thought lunchtime might
be her best chance. Whenever she was out at the same time as the mayor, she locked the outer office.

Once that door was locked, it was unlikely anyone would clue in that she was still inside. Snooping on her employer.

The pang of guilt that hit her was almost painful, especially with Dylan’s picture hanging on the wall behind her, a constant reminder that if she hurt Patrick, she also hurt his children.

But whoever had hurt Uncle Cecil hadn’t worried about
his
family, she reminded herself.

No. As much as she hated to do it, she was going to have to sneak into files she had no business seeing.

There was no time for more soul-searching as the phone rang again. In a sort of counterpoint, the fax machine whirred with astonishing regularity, and the e-mails continued to pour in.

A small percentage of people thought that Patrick was a hothead and a troublemaker. But more than ninety percent of those who responded to his television appeal were offering their support.

Around ten-thirty there was a lull in the phone calls and Patrick came out of his office, stretching his arms.

“Briana,” he said, “I think we’re going to get the money we need to start serving this community properly.”

She smiled dutifully. In truth, she was delighted that the emergency forces were getting the funding they needed, but she also knew this was another blow politically and professionally to her uncle.

If there was anything she could do to help Uncle Cecil save face, she’d do it. He’d been so hurt when she’d tried to talk to him the other night, and still so angry.

“Do you think it would be worth calling Councilman Thomson and the other two who sided with them? Perhaps they’d be more willing to listen to your appeal now they know you have so much public support.”

“Oh, they’ll listen, all right,” he said with relish. “But I’m done crawling to them. Those three can come to me with their hats in their hand.”

So much for the olive branch.

They had no time to discuss the matter further because the phone started ringing again. With a comical expression of dismay, Patrick retreated back to his desk.

Briana worked steadily through the rest of the morning. By eleven forty-five, things were quieting down again and she was able to stand up for a stretch herself. Her neck was tight, her shoulders knotted. She’d like to think it was from a morning on the phone, but really, she suspected a lot of her tension was from the knowledge that she was about to spy on her boss.

Well, she comforted herself, he need never know anything about it.

Picking up his speech, she walked into his office. Patrick was already shrugging into his jacket.

“Have you got my speaking notes for this thing?” he asked her.

“Yes. Right here. Archie sent them up earlier.”

“Good.”

“You’ll probably have some questions thrown at you about the funding crisis.”

He nodded. Obviously, he’d thought of that, too.

“And I got a call from the
Sentinel
, checking on the time you’d be speaking. I imagine they’ll want an update on the results of your call-in show.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if all the media were there.”

She handed him another sheet. “I prepared these, just in case you need them.” As he glanced down at it, she explained, “I’ve totaled the numbers of calls, e-mails and faxes, and tallied the numbers of those who expressed support and those who were against you. The numbers and percentages are at the bottom. It’s not a hundred percent accurate, of course, but it’s pretty close. Do you want me to run off a couple of extra copies for any media reps that show up?”

He grinned. “Briana, you are one in a million.”

She tried to keep her expression pleasantly neutral, but she had to admit, the compliment thrilled her more than she liked to admit.

But this was the kind of work she loved. Sure, she was overqualified for photocopying and transcribing notes, but she was also helping Patrick with political strategy, which she thrived on. Her salary might be at a clerical level, but the actual work she was doing was challenging.

What could be more rewarding than helping to save a city she’d grown to love?

A
FTER MAKING SURE
the hallway outside her office was empty, Briana stepped back inside and locked her door. She felt like an intruder. If Patrick returned for something, or the building superintendent needed to get in…well, she’d have a heck of a time explaining what she was doing at her boss’s desk, and with the outer door locked.

No help for it. If she was going to be a snoop, she was going to have to get used to the guilt.

She crossed to Patrick’s office and took a seat at his
desk. Janie smiled at her from the framed photo. There were smaller pictures of Dylan and Fiona, taken at school, Briana imagined. Their innocent faces grinned at her, with that mouthwatering O’Shea grin. Their innocence made her feel small and sneaky and she had to resist the impulse to turn the photos facedown so they wouldn’t watch her do her dirty work.

Honestly, she’d never make it in a life of crime.

Flipping through Patrick’s Rolodex, she found the card for his dentist. And there was the code, scribbled under the dentist’s phone number.

Please, don’t let Patrick have changed his access code, she thought as she pulled up the police department’s internal Web site. She typed in Patrick’s name and his user code, which she’d used often enough. So far, so good.

It took her a few false starts, but she finally got to an area of old arrest files.

Obviously, these weren’t used often, so they’d been archived. When she clicked on the file, it asked for her password, and she began to type in the access code on the dentist’s file.

Briana got four of the ten digits entered when the phone rang. She was so tense that she jumped a mile and almost screamed. The phone would automatically be routed to the main reception desk at city hall, so she ignored the ringing and took a shaky breath.

Her fingers had hit a wrong key when she’d jumped, so she deleted what she’d typed and reentered the password. She swallowed. There was a risk that this transaction was being monitored somewhere, and that it could come back to Patrick as part of a report, though
she’d never seen it happen yet. Still, if the password was outdated and someone noticed…

Well, Patrick had talked often enough about firing her. This would give him cause. She pushed the Enter key.

The file opened.

Since she had both her uncle’s name and that of the woman, it didn’t take more than five minutes for the particulars of the case to come up. The arresting officer was Joseph Z. Carlton.

Briana felt queasy at the thought of what her aunt and uncle had been subjected to over this. The incident had occurred more than twenty years ago. According to the scant details, which included a file number that probably corresponded to a moth-eaten manila folder filed in an old archive box somewhere, the charges were later dropped.

Or had there ever been any charges in the first place?

Did Joseph Z. Carlton even exist?

Briana knew how close Patrick and Max were. The police chief had been one of Patrick’s major supporters. But would either of them have stooped to anything so low as falsifying a police record in order to win a municipal election?

It seemed inconceivable to Briana, but obviously her uncle believed the two men had conspired against him.

She noted all the details, then logged out and carefully returned Patrick’s Rolodex to its original position. Grabbing her purse, she left the office, this time for real.

As bad luck would have it, she bumped into Lorna Sinke in the hallway.

“Oh, Briana,” the older woman said, looking puzzled. “I thought you’d gone for lunch.”

“I forgot something and had to come back,” she said, striving for a calm tone. “Is there something you need?”

“No. That’s fine. It’ll keep.”

Briana left the building, knowing she had the first piece of the puzzle—the name of the arresting officer and the police file number. She wanted to know what was in that arrest file and needed to see the original photo.

Once she was in her car, she headed for a mall and found a public pay phone. After calling the police administration office, she asked to speak to Officer Carlton.”