Between Love and Duty (26 page)

“Thanks,” he said gruffly to his brother, and ended the call.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

SLEEP ELUDED HER.

Gee, what a surprise. It didn’t help a bit to pop out of bed, pad downstairs and check the security system control panel to be sure it was engaged. Several times.

She wasn’t trying to sleep in her own bed; the guest room looked way more appealing. It’s true her own bedroom was spotlessly clean. But she thought she might paint it after all. Maybe even have the carpet torn up and replaced with hardwood. She’d thought about doing that, anyway, someday.

Although she lay tense, listening for every sound, it wasn’t fear keeping her awake, she finally admitted. Or…not
only
fear.

No, it was Duncan. Seeing his face as he realized she was really walking out on him. She’d been shocked by how much he looked like that expressionless stranger who had met her at the door the first time she went there to talk to him. The man who didn’t look as if he knew how to smile—although he’d surprised her. Icy cold, controlled and guarded. His face had since become so much more readable to her, or perhaps he had let himself open to her.

No longer.

She kept replaying the whole scene. What he said. What she said. The awful part was, the more times she ran through it all, the more clearly she could see that she’d screened everything Duncan said and did through the filter of her childhood, of her greatest fears.

He was controlling, manipulative, impatient. But he wasn’t like her father, either. Seeing that was hard for her. Friends told her how, when they went home for the holidays, they found themselves reverting to old, often immature patterns. Long-forgotten resentments rising. Conditioned responses taking over. Well, Jane didn’t go home for the holidays. But she did have conditioned responses, and Duncan had a way of tapping them.

Aching inside, she tried to figure out why she hadn’t told him off. Fought to defend her competency. Convinced him to butt out. He was used to being in charge, used to being obeyed, but she’d discovered before that he was educable. Her father could never have said, “I was wrong.” Or, “I don’t like it that you won’t do this my way, but I’ll let you try your way even if you fail.” Duncan, she thought, had acted out of fear for her, not of her and what her defiance represented. That was the difference between him and her father.

One of the differences.

She struggled to articulate the bigger difference. Something someone had said recently had almost triggered a revelation. She hadn’t had time to let it catch hold…

Her eyes opened in the dark when the memory flooded back. It came in Hector Ortez’s voice.

He makes himself feel big by trying to make everyone else small.

That was what her father had done. He wasn’t confident enough in himself to make any judgments of his own. He believed in their small sect’s version of God, the leader’s interpretation of the Bible, his dictates on morality and propriety and politics and everything else, because Dad desperately needed someone to tell him what to do. His security lay in living within certain rigid rules laid out by someone else. And yet, deep within, he must know the truth: if thrust out into a world where he had to make his own decisions, he would be lost.

Like everyone else, he needed to feel strong. Big. He could only do so at his family’s expense.

Jane lay stiff, staring at nothing—no, at the past—and marveled. She’d never understood before quite what a threat she was to her father.

He had acted the despot out of weakness.

Duncan had become dictatorial out of strength. Strength, she thought, and a powerful sense of honor.

He had become the man he was because he couldn’t walk away from his brothers. Because people depended on him, because he felt responsible even when others would shrug and figure,
It’s someone else’s problem.
As with Tito.

And her.

Would she feel the same about him if he didn’t adhere so unshakably to what he thought was right?

She’d turned to him every time she was scared. Flung herself into his arms, leaned on him, accepted his protection and his expertise. And then—
oh, what an idiot I was—
she’d expected him to stand back and let her decide what she needed and didn’t need to stay safe. Boy, had she sent mixed messages!
Duncan, please come, I’m scared.
And then,
This was none of your business. It never was.

Of course it was. She’d made it his business. She’d given herself fully to him, and known when she was doing it that he would do whatever he had to do to keep her safe.

Tears blurred her eyes. With shock, she swiped at them.

Duncan felt responsible for her, yes. He wanted her, too. She knew that.

But he hadn’t gone shopping with her because he thought she needed a bodyguard, or because they’d made love. He’d done it because he believed she had needed him, and he was right.

She didn’t know a single other man who would have willingly spent
six hours
shopping with a woman, waiting patiently while she tried on clothes and shoes, ferrying packages to the car, giving his opinion on which shirt looked better, all to be nice.

Duncan had probably never given a woman flowers. Soft words weren’t his style. Had he ever in his life said “I love you” to anyone?

Why hadn’t she seen that taking her shopping was better than the biggest box of chocolates or bouquet of red roses ever? That it was the kindest, most loving thing anyone had ever done for her?

She turned her wet face into the pillow, knowing that she loved him and that maybe he had loved her, before she had misunderstood him so dreadfully, lashing out over and over. Because she was scared to have become so vulnerable to Duncan.

Was she capable of that much trust? Even if he would forgive her?

STAN’S AUTO REPAIR WAS a big place with four bays, a sparkling-clean front office complete with tidy waiting room, free coffee and pop machines, and what looked like a dozen employees all wearing dark blue coveralls. Duncan walked in feeling unaccustomedly self-conscious.

A big man who looked Samoan, maybe, or Hawaiian, smiled at him from behind the desk. The name “Tupa” was embroidered on the breast of his coverall. “How can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Hector Ortez.”

Tupa’s gaze dropped briefly to Duncan’s waist, and he realized his suit coat hadn’t covered the badge he wore on his belt. Tupa’s face had hardened when he met Duncan’s eyes again.

“He in trouble?”

“No. Nothing like that.” Duncan managed a relaxed smile of his own. “His son Tito thinks someday he’ll kick my butt on a basketball court.”

“Ah.” Friendlier again, Tupa said, “I’ll get him.”

When Hector came through the door to the garage, his expression was stoic, closed. A cop, Tupa would have said. Whether it was Duncan or another officer didn’t matter; Hector had reason to distrust all of them.

“Is something wrong?” he asked. Alarm flared on his face. “With Tito?”

Duncan shook his head. He glanced to see that Tupa had discreetly withdrawn to a desk with a computer out of earshot. “I was actually, uh, wondering if you take a long enough lunch break that we could talk.”

Hector stared at him.

“I’d like to tell you where I’m coming from.” He cleared his throat. “Why I worry about Tito.”

He wouldn’t have been surprised to be rebuffed, but after a minute Hector nodded. “I have half an hour. I could take it right now.”

There was a panel truck parked by a gas station a block away that served great Mexican food out the side that rolled up. Hector suggested it, and Duncan nodded. He grabbed a burrito or a quesadilla there regularly.

Once they had their food, they sat at one of several plastic tables set up beneath an awning stretching out from the other side of the truck.

Duncan opened the bottle of lemonade he’d bought, took a long drink and began talking. He told Hector about his own father, about having to take responsibility for his brothers and why. He admitted that Tito had reminded him of his youngest brother in particular, small for his age, desperately in need of direction. And then he told him about Jane’s problems.

“You seemed angry enough at her, I had to wonder,” he said bluntly.

“I am angry because of everything that has happened. I was defending myself and yet I went to prison. I have been stripped of everything. I thought at least I had my family. My children. I don’t understand why this judge wants to take them from me, too.”

“I really don’t think he does. I spoke the truth yesterday. I believe you love Tito and can be a good father to him. None of us want to take Tito from you. I only fear your anger.” He hesitated. This was really what he’d come to say. “I think Tito does, too.”

Hector drew away, clearly offended.

“I ask only that you think about it,” Duncan said quietly. “Jane was right to yell at both of us. We were scaring Tito, and I think Lupe, too. You don’t want your son or daughter to be afraid of you.”

Hector became quiet. Duncan let that silence lay for a while as he unwrapped his burrito. Finally he ventured, “His grades seem to be improving.”

“He tells me that, now he is paying attention, the math is easy for him.” Hector shook his head. “It never was for me.”

Duncan laughed. “I think Tito is a really smart kid. Persuading him to pay attention, to try, is the real trick.”

The conversation went easier then. Hector confided his worries about Lupe and her children, Duncan told him how fierce Tito was talking about his former brother-in-law, Hector even asked what Duncan’s brothers now did. When Duncan told him they were cops, too, he nodded. “They do the same as you do because they admired you,” he said, as if it were a given.

“Or because we all wanted to make up for our father’s crimes.”

“But you say this Conall was only twelve the last time he saw his father.” Hector shook his head. “Only a boy. No, I think
you
are his father. You should be proud.”

Taken aback, Duncan didn’t try to argue further. A few minutes later, they dropped their wrappings in the garbage can and walked back to Stan’s Auto Repair together. Duncan didn’t say again, “Please think,” but they parted amiably.

He drove to the Public Safety Building aware of a peculiar sensation lodged under his breastbone. Hector, he admitted, had caught him by surprise.

Duncan was proud of Niall and Conall. He’d had a grim sense of satisfaction at a duty performed when they both turned out okay. But it had never once occurred to him to feel proud because they’d chosen to become cops, too. Not in his wildest dreams had he believed either of his brothers admired him.

Was it possible?

I think
you
are his father.
It occurred to Duncan how much he wished he could talk to Conall about it all. Maybe…have a beer with
both
his brothers. As a family.

TITO WAS SURPRISED WHEN he came home to see his father sitting on the couch holding baby Felicia while Yolanda and Mateo clutched at him and chattered. Good smells came from the kitchen.

Tito hesitated, his eyes flicking this way and that. If Jane was here, she must be in the kitchen. Or had Papa decided he no longer needed to listen to her?

But his father smiled at him and said, “Don’t look so worried. I called Jane today and asked if I could come here in the evenings, if I promised to be here only when Lupe is also.”

Surprised, Tito nodded. He silently stowed his basketball in the small closet and then went to the bathroom.

Papa wouldn’t lie, would he?
Churning inside, Tito wondered. He couldn’t betray his father, no matter what; he already knew that. Family was family. He didn’t think Duncan would want to see him anymore, though, and that hurt.

Through the door, he heard Lupe’s raised voice calling him. Although he wished he didn’t have to eat with the family, Tito went out to join Papa and the others at the table. Felicia usually cried during dinner, but cuddling with her
abuelo
must have put her in a good mood; she seemed happy lying in the playpen and gnawing on a cloth doll. Tito pulled out his chair and sat, head bowed, while Lupe asked for blessings.

Lupe had made
chili verde.
There were warm, homemade corn tortillas, too. Tito ate hungrily, watching his father out of the corner of his eye.

Papa had opened a Mexican beer, but he took only sips. When Mateo spilled his milk, Papa waved Lupe to stay and mopped up, then filled the glass halfway full again. He even put his hand on Mateo’s to help him lift it to his mouth.