Come Morning (17 page)

Several minutes later, Briana straightened, removed the cloth, and leaned forward. Her voice was just the slightest bit shaky. “I wonder if it’s
ever
going to get better.”

Slade thought of another woman in another town, the shrill voice of her mother asking him the same question, accusation inherent in every word. In his nightmares, he heard Rachel’s cry:
“It’s your fault, all your fault. I told you and you didn’t listen. Why didn’t you listen?”

To Briana he said, “It’s supposed to.”

“That’s what the doctors tell you.” She scooted away from him, settling in the corner of the couch, pulling her legs up under her, facing him. “You must be convinced by now that I’m a certifiable nut case.”

“Far from it. In my line of work, I ran across a lot of victims and their relatives. Believe me, I know strong when I see it.”

With both hands, Briana brushed back her damp hair. “I wish I felt strong.”

“There’s a significance to the balloon, I gather.” Maybe if he could get her to talk about the hard parts, she could accept things more readily.

Briana supposed she owed him some explanation since he’d witnessed her emotional reaction several times now. She kept her eyes downcast as she forced herself to remember. “The day it happened, Bobby and I were in the Public Gardens across from the Boston Common when he found a balloon caught in a tree. He climbed up and got it, then tied the string around his wrist. He skipped along the walk, so happy that day.” Briana choked on a sob, but forced herself to go on.

“Robert was picking him up and he was late. They were going to the zoo. Finally, he arrived and I said good-bye to Bobby.” The very last time she’d kissed that freckled face and hugged that warm, energetic little body. Briana swallowed hard. “They crossed the street and I was taking pictures. Snapping away at this and that. Suddenly I heard sounds, like a car backfiring. Only it wasn’t that. It was gunshots.”

“Gunshots? I thought they’d died in an auto accident.”

Briana shook her head. “That might have been easier to handle. Maybe not. Anyway, I heard people screaming, brakes screeching, and a car speeding by, but I wasn’t looking at the street. I was trying to spot Robert and Bobby but I couldn’t, so I raced across the street. And … and my son was lying there on that dirty sidewalk, so very still. The balloon was still tied to his wrist, still dancing and whirling. The string stayed tied to his wrist even in the ambulance as I rode along, praying harder than ever before. But I knew it was too late.”

Slade edged closer. “Did they find whoever did the shooting?”

Again, she shook her head, more slowly this time. “The police talked with me repeatedly. Did Robert have any enemies? Did I? Or our families? I couldn’t come up with a single name. Finally they called it a random drive-by shooting. Two lives snuffed out and several more ruined. Just one of many random acts of violence happening all over the world in these terrible times, the officer told me. Two people in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Slade didn’t know just when he’d taken her hand, only knew that he held her chilled fingers wrapped in his own warm palm. “And no one saw the car or got the license plate number? I mean, isn’t it usually crowded along the Common?”

“It was very crowded, Saturday morning. But at a time like that, everyone’s intent on saving themselves, not in jotting down numbers, I guess. Besides, I’ve come to realize it doesn’t matter. Knowing the shooter’s identity wouldn’t bring Bobby back, nor Robert either.” She thought of the reason she’d begun this explanation and raised her eyes. “Then at the service in the cemetery, the minister’s wife had dozens of balloons released into the sky as her husband spoke. Apparently, it’s a tradition with them whenever a child dies, as sort of a sign of hope rising to the heavens, or whatever. I’d been holding up fairly well until then. I saw those balloons and I collapsed. Dad caught me and took me out of there.”

She let out a ragged breath. “I’ve simply got to get a grip. The trouble is that when you lose someone you bring into the world, there’s a disruption of the order of things. Our children aren’t supposed to die first.”

“And then I add to your problems. I’m sorry about losing my temper back there, Brie.” He rather liked the nickname he’d heard several people call her. Briana seemed too formal, somehow. “You’re right. I had no business being rude to Jimmy. I’ll go apologize to him if you think I should.”

She studied him, noting his sincerity, yet seeing more. “You know, I think there’s more to that encounter than you taking offense at Jimmy pressuring you. I think there’s something in your past, something involving being a firefighter, that triggers a response in you as upsetting as balloons are to me.”

He should have known she’d figure it out. He patted her hand. “You know what they say: there’re a million stories in the big city. But we’ll save that one for another day. I’d better go so you can get some rest.” He rose and walked to the door.

Briana followed. “Thanks for yet another rescue. And for a great beach picnic.”

“Will you be all right now?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Good night, then.”

Long after he’d walked out of sight, Briana stood in the doorway, sliding her tongue over her lips, tasting him.

In the morning when she went out, she saw that not a single balloon was visible from any of the mailboxes up and down her street.

Chapter Eight

“I
can’t believe how much you’ve managed to accomplish since I saw you last,” Irma said. She was standing in the archway of Briana’s kitchen, where two workmen were installing new cupboards. “First the entire house painted inside and out, and now this.” She swung back to smile at her young friend. “Maybe you should come down to my place and help me make some changes.”

“Your home is lovely and perfect as it is, Irma,” Briana answered, leading the way to the front porch. “I hope you don’t mind sitting out here, but I’ve given away most of Gramp’s furniture except in the bedroom I’m using.”

“This is fine.” Irma settled herself in the cushioned wooden rocker, adjusting her gauzy burnt orange harem pants and billowing black top as she sat back. Poking at her ebony black upsweep with a long crimson fingernail, she eyed Briana. “Well, this extensive renovation must mean you’re planning on staying.”

Briana toed off her white canvas shoes and drew her legs up under her as she made herself comfortable in the companion chair. “Don’t you start, too. I hear that from everyone I talk with, it seems.” Everyone except Slade, who seemed convinced that she’d be returning to Boston. “The truth is, I’m still not sure what I’m going to do.”

“Waiting for divine inspiration, my dear?” Irma asked, not unkindly. She’d been by once when Jeremy’s son, definitely sober, had been preparing the house for painting and had told her that Briana was resting, an odd occurrence in midmorning, to be sure. She’d driven by the following week and seen both of them painting away, so busy they hadn’t spotted her. And finally, she’d run into them shopping together in town several days ago, so thoroughly wrapped up in a discussion they were having that neither noticed her. Irma was beyond curious and had moved into downright nosy. This afternoon, she’d simply had to stop by and find out for herself. “Or has Slade something to do with your ambivalance?”

Briana wrinkled her forehead. “What makes you ask that?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I rather had the feeling the two of you had become friends. Good friends.” Irma was careful not to put too much inflection in her voice.

Briana shrugged. “I suppose we have. But certainly not close enough that he would affect my decision to go or stay. The fact is that right now, I’m having a great time redoing this house.” She glanced over her shoulder through the open door into the living room at a pile of large books and design sketches. “Those are carpet samples and drapery swatches. I think I’ve finally settled on the right selection. I never realized how exciting it can be to all but gut a house and redo it from the ground up. And do it my way.”

Irma raised a penciled brow. “In all the times you moved, you never redecorated a place?”

“Oh, sure, some. New curtains, a paint job, my own furniture. But here, I kept only a few special mementos of my grandparents and the rest I gave away. When I finish, whether I use this house as a vacation home or a permanent residence, it’ll be just as I want it. I even had them take down a wall in back so I could enlarge the bathroom. I’m having a sunken tub installed with Jacuzzi jets. How’s that for decadence?”

“I love it!” Irma declared. “It’s so good to see you smiling, Briana. And I do believe you’ve picked up a bit of the weight you lost.”

“Probably.” Working alongside Slade over the past couple of weeks, he’d insisted they stop regularly and often for meals. “It’s Slade’s fault. The man’s appetite is huge.”

“Is that a fact?” Irma’s expression turned speculative. “Personally, I’ve always preferred men with huge appetites.”

Her friend had chosen to deliberately shift the meaning of her words, Briana thought, and they both knew it. But she smiled nonetheless. “You’re terrible, and for your information, I wouldn’t know about his
other
appetites, but he sure likes to eat.”

“How about the drinking?” Irma asked. Her second husband had been altogether too fond of alcohol, which had hastened his demise. She’d hate to see Briana, who’d had more than her share of problems, get involved with a drinker.

“I haven’t seen signs of it since those first few days. I think he was out of sorts, suddenly finding himself here in an unfamiliar place where he knew no one, not even the father who’d left him everything. He tried drinking his troubles away and quickly discovered that was no answer.”

Although Slade’s estrangement from his father and his unsettling upbringing were problems enough, Briana felt there was something more, some incident or event that happened to him, likely connected to his work as a firefighter, that was the true basis of his melancholy mood swings. She couldn’t forget his words the night they’d kissed by Mayberry House.
I’m not a very nice man. I’ve done things, things I’m not proud of.
What could he have meant? She’d tried to segue into a discussion on those disturbing statements several times over the past couple of weeks, but Slade had danced around the topic. She had no choice but to bide her time.

“We had beer together once and shared some wine at dinner, but that’s the extent of his drinking these days.”

Irma tipped her head, her large gold hoop earrings grazing her shoulders. “It takes a good woman to show a man the error of his ways.”

Briana shook her head. “I doubt I’m in any shape to influence anyone these days. Besides, Slade’s very much his own person.”

Reading between the lines of what her friend was saying, Irma wasn’t so sure Briana was seeing everything clearly. She’d heard so many conflicting stories around town about Jeremy’s son. There were those who said he was rude, tactless, and arrogant. Jimmy Kendall, who was sort of a liaison for the firemen, said he wouldn’t have the man on his team on a bet.

Others felt Slade had lightened up, actually chatting with shopkeepers in a friendly way, even smiling and being polite now and then. And Irma’s friend, Dottie, who worked with abused women and children, had told Irma at bridge last Friday that Slade had not only donated several truckloads of furniture to the shelter, but had spent two days doing badly needed repairs. The word in some quarters was, the man had gone from surly and reclusive to helpful and accommodating in less than a month. If that was so, something had to have motivated him, and Irma felt sure she was looking at the reason. “Do you like him, Briana?” she asked finally, blunt as always.

Taken aback, Briana frowned. She should be used to her elderly friend’s ways, yet she hadn’t been prepared for the question. “Yes, I like him. He’s had his problems, like most of us.” Some, told to her in confidence, she wouldn’t repeat, while others were common knowledge around town. “He’s trying to get past that, as we all are. He’s a hard worker—I don’t know how I’d have managed all this renovating without him.” And he’s softhearted when it comes to little girls and stranded kittens, she thought, and much bigger girls who have a tendency to indulge in crying jags.

Plus, when he kissed her, she forgot her own name.

Briana felt the heat rise in her face. She stood, walking to the doorway, presumably to check on the kitchen’s progress, and attempted to change the subject with her back turned while her skin cooled. “I sure hope they finish today. The tile people are scheduled to do the floor in there tomorrow.”

Irma’s shrewd gaze stayed on the back of her head for long minutes, then she decided to plunge in. After all, what were friends for if not to meddle in their lives? “Briana, you’re not getting seriously involved with Slade, are you?”

Swiveling about, Briana frowned. “That sounds very much like a warning. Is there something I don’t know about him that worries you?”

Irma waved a bony hand. “Not specifically. I’ve only had two conversations with him. It’s his eyes more than anything. Even when he smiles, there’s a dangerous cast to his eyes. Perhaps you should have a chat with Medea.”

Briana shook her head, dismissing the suggestion of talking with Irma’s fortune-teller friend. “I think I’ll pass. But you can stop worrying about me. I’m hardly the impetuous type.”

“Mmm, I wonder if all women aren’t impetuous around certain men.” She studied her young friend. Though Briana had said she didn’t know about Slade’s “other appetites,” Irma wasn’t convinced. “Tell me, are you sleeping with him?”

Briana’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, that’s blunt enough. Honestly, Irma!”

Irma waved a manicured hand. “At my age, I don’t have time to beat around the bush. I know you’ve lived alone for several years, and that’s not healthy. I ought to know, I’ve been alone for twenty years. It’s not natural. So, are you?”

Briana knew if she didn’t answer, Irma would just keep it up. “No, I’m not.”

“Maybe you should. You can learn a great deal from pillow talk. A little healthy sex wouldn’t do you any harm, either.” Rising, she adjusted her tiny granny glasses. “Well, I’ve got to run along. They’re having a sale at Bonaventures that I don’t want to miss.”