Dare to Love (21 page)

“Wait a minute there, lady. You're a cop, not God. You told me yourself you can't help them all. Sometimes it's just too late before you get to them.”

Doug hoped she bought the words better than he had. He was still reeling from his own self-disgust, tasting the bitterness of his own guilt. He understood only too well how she could have shouldered the blame for the little boy's condition, and how her husband's desertion would only have deepened the quagmire of destructive emotions.

“I was there before it was too late, Doug. I missed the signs. All of them. The new set of friends, lower grades, unusual requests for money, disappearing allowance, lost interest in basketball, truancy. I thought they were all a phase—you know, like the terrible twos. Even the nosebleeds didn't clue me in.”

She laughed a humorless, shallow laugh. “He was nine years old and addicted to cocaine, and I thought it was the terrible twos.”

Doug was alarmed by the self-loathing he heard in Andrea's usually sweet voice.

“You can't expect yourself to see the symptoms in every child when you deal with hundreds every week,” he said, rubbing her arm gently, trying to work the circulation back into it.

“I wasn't a DARE officer then, Doug.”

“Then you have even less reason to blame yourself. How many cops do you know who can keep track of the everyday lives of the people on their beat? What were you, a truant officer?”

Andrea took a deep, shuddering breath and shook her head, and then shook it again.

“I was a sister.” Her words, when they finally came, were barely audible, thick with tears, but they hit Doug with the impact of a bullet. Dear God, he'd never imagined anything like this. He hadn't even known she had a brother.

And now he had to ask that question. He had to know.

“Did he make it, baby? Did Scotty get lucky, too?”

Andrea nodded, but her tears continued to fall relentlessly. Doug pulled her onto his lap, cradling her against his chest. He was prepared to shoulder as much as she would let him. She was his woman.

“Talk to me, Andrea. Tell me what happened.”

“It started as a dare out on the playground.” Her voice faltered. “Some bigger boys, sixth-graders, offered to let him lick some ‘sugar' off a mirror. He was always such a shy little boy, small for his age and smart as a whip. Most of the kids teased him, called him ‘teacher's pet,' made fun of his thick glasses. But that day, the most popular boys in school were being nice to him. Scotty licked. And when he got into gym class that afternoon he was a star.” Andrea was calmer now, reciting facts. “He was making baskets he'd never made before. The teacher told him that if he kept shooting like that, he'd let him work out with the sixth-grade team. Scotty had always dreamed of making the team, but he'd never thought he had a chance because he was so short. But that afternoon he felt like he could do anything. The girls that had always made fun of him were fighting over who would walk with him back to class, and Scotty was able to talk to them without tripping over his tongue.

“The next day, when those same boys were out on the playground, he worked up the courage to ask them if they had any more of that sugar. They laughed and talked him into some ‘better' stuff. They kept him supplied long enough to get him hooked.”

Doug felt Andrea shudder against his chest. He tightened his hold on her.

“Then they put it to him. Before anyone knew what was happening, he was addicted to crack.”

“How long before you knew?”

“He'd been using regularly for over a month. He was getting low on funds and I refused to give him any more. I thought he was blowing it on video games at the arcade.” Her words were bitter again, condemning. Doug had a terrible premonition that there was more to come.

“When it got to the point that he could no longer afford his usual stash, he settled for some cheaper stuff. It was bad. He had an allergic reaction to the stuff that afternoon at school. They had to rush him to Children's Hospital by helicopter. They almost didn't get him there in time.”

“What about your parents? I can just imagine how they felt, having missed all the symptoms when he was living in their home....”

Andrea slid off Doug's lap and got up from the bed. She wrapped her arms around herself as she headed for the bathroom across the room. She turned to face Doug just before she shut herself inside.

“They were out of town, Doug. They'd been saving all their lives for a European cruise. That year was their thirtieth wedding anniversary and they celebrated with a month on the Atlantic. Scotty had been staying with me....”

A
NDREA FELT
a little better after her shower. In four years' time she'd never once talked about Scotty, never once shared her anguish with anyone. But while it had helped to talk about it, to be wrapped within the secure cocoon of Doug's arms, the guilt was still just as bitter, as unrelenting as ever. How could she ever promise to love and to cherish again? What did those empty promises mean? She'd promised to look after Scotty. Her parents had left an innocent little boy in her hands and had come home to a nightmare.

“Mmm. That smells good,” she said, finding Doug in her kitchen ladling tomato soup into two bowls.

He sat down across from her, passing her a package of saltines. “I called the hospital. Jeremy's sleeping peacefully.”

“Thank God.” Andrea had never meant two words more in her life. Maybe they could just put the past twelve hours behind them.

“So where does your divorce fit into all this?”

She looked at Doug over the spoon suspended halfway between her bowl and her mouth. He was watching her intently. It wasn't over yet.

Andrea's first instinct was to throw him out, to plead fatigue, to lie to him, but she couldn't. She loved Doug. She couldn't give him promises, she couldn't give him commitments or a future. But she could give him the truth. He deserved that, at least.

She put her spoon back in her bowl, leaving it there.

“As soon as we knew that Scotty was going to make it, John jumped on the incident as proof of my inappropriateness for police work.”

Doug dropped his own spoon, disgust flaring across his stubbled face.

“Wait.” Andrea held up a hand, forestalling what he might say. “In a way he was right. As a cop, I should've seen the signs long before Scotty snorted that bad batch. But that wasn't what broke up our marriage. It was the way I had failed at home. I was trained to see the signs, to protect the public from people like those who'd started in on Scotty to begin with, and I'd been so complacent in my knowledge that I lost perspective. I never put two and two together where my brother was concerned. John was worried that I'd fail my own kids like I failed Scotty, that I couldn't do my job and take care of a family, too. He wanted children. He just didn't want me to be their mother. Not unless I gave up my career.”

“And you couldn't do that.”

Andrea felt so incompetent. “Nope. At the expense of my marriage, in spite of the vows I'd taken till death do us part, I chose my career over my husband. I was served with divorce papers exactly one month after Scotty's overdose.”

Doug swore, getting up from the table to pour his soup down the sink. He didn't say anything else, but the rigid set of his shoulders told her what he thought of John's sense of timing. It felt good to have someone champion her, even though she'd been in the wrong.

She helped Doug with the dishes and then followed him back down the hall to her bedroom. She pulled on her sleep shirt while Doug showered, listening to him set the soap in the dish, wondering if she'd ever share a house with him. She doubted it. After all he'd heard, she doubted that Doug would ever ask her to.

“I'd like to meet Scotty.” His words were easy enough as he came through the door into her bedroom, but they sent Andrea into a panic.

“You can't.” She sat frozen at the foot of the bed, staring at him.

Doug stood rooted to the spot, his towel slung loosely around his hips, beaded drops of moisture clinging to the hair on his chest. “Why not?”

The words were more challenging than curious.

Andrea felt trapped. She'd never intended to confess the rest. It was her biggest humiliation.

“He hasn't spoken to me in almost three years.”

“What?” Doug was staring at her as if he'd never seen her before.

“He hates me,” she said flatly.

“That's ridiculous. He was the one who made the mistakes. How could he hate you?”

Andrea rose to her little brother's defense. “He was a child, Doug. A little boy just waiting for someone to catch him, to help him out of a situation that was too big for him to handle. He'd trusted me to watch out for his welfare, to guard and protect him. I failed to do that.”

“You're not God, Andrea. He can't hold you responsible for thugs on the playground.”

“He can do whatever he chooses to do, Doug, and I, for one, can't say I blame him. Things haven't been easy for him. After his overdose became public knowledge he was forced out of his Cub Scout troop, and that summer, scared parents didn't want him in T-ball. The couple of boys that used to be Scotty's friends weren't allowed to play with him anymore. He'd always been a shy boy, slow to make friends. How could he have been expected to deal with total rejection? He felt like I let him down. And he's right, I did.”

“Didn't your parents fight it? Didn't they try to reason with the parents who were blackballing him?”

“
I
tried. Mom and Dad were too busy dealing with Scotty. But people are a funny lot when they're scared. Scotty's mishap, as the other parents termed it, hit a little too close to home. They were horrified by the danger that had entered their upper-middle-class elementary-school hallways through my baby brother. They were running scared. They didn't bother to be tactful when they let me know that I'd blown it. After all, I'm a cop. Why hadn't I prevented things from getting so out of hand?”

Doug threw down his towel. “I don't believe this. What about Scotty? Didn't you try to reason with him? He's your brother, for Pete's sake. You can't go through life ignoring each other.”

Andrea felt tears choking her throat again. When would she ever have cried enough?

“I tried to talk to Scotty,” she said, meeting Doug's gaze squarely. “Even after I visited his hospital room and he demanded that I leave, even after he'd told me repeatedly that he hated me, I still tried. I wanted to apologize, to do whatever I could do to help him through the mess he was so ill-equipped to handle. But my attempts only seemed to upset him more. At first he screamed at me every time he saw me, and then later, the few times he'd talk to me at all, he was formal and awkward, as though I were some great-aunt of his. It was his counselor who finally suggested that Scotty might need some time, and mine who reminded me that I could only bang my head against a wall so many times before I broke. So I've been giving him the time he needs, for more months than I care to count.”

Doug grabbed up Andrea from the foot of the bed, crushing her in his arms, doing his gut-level best to erase her loneliness, to fuse it with his own. But even as he held her, he doubted that he'd ever really have her. They weren't just dealing with a failed marriage, with scarred emotions. Her ex-husband's words were too deeply embedded in her heart, her own crucifixion of herself too complete, her brother's condemnation ringing too loudly in her ears for her to ease up on herself. Doug wasn't sure she'd ever recover. He had no idea how to make things better for her.

He led her to the bed, tucking her under the covers, wondering if Andrea's self-loathing might just be bigger than both of them. He wanted so badly to lie with her, to hold her through the night, but he knew better than to try. Now he understood why Andrea insisted on being alone.

He was zipping up his jeans before Andrea realized that he was going to leave her. The walls of her apartment closed in on her, reverberating with all the words they'd absorbed that night, replaying memories that were demons just waiting to destroy her.

“Don't go. Please don't go.” She heard her voice begging Doug to stay, and didn't even care. She couldn't bear to be alone. Just for one night, she couldn't bear to be alone.

Without a word Doug slipped out of his jeans again and crawled in beside her, pulling her back into the safe haven of his arms. His leather wristband pressed comfortingly between her shoulder blades.

“It's okay, baby. I'm right here,” he said in the most tender voice she'd ever heard him use. It slid over her skin, touching her in all the right places, offering her forgetfulness within the magic of his desire.

She snuggled against him, desperately eager for him to take her away from herself, from her thoughts and fears, from her belief that she was a lesser being, and transport her to a place where she was desirable, beautiful, courageous.

She waited for Doug's fingers to trail across her skin, to take possession of her breast, to tease her to the point of insanity. She expected the hair-roughed heaviness of his thigh to slip between her legs, to spread them apart and ready her to take his most intimate offering. But he didn't. He simply lay with her.

Andrea lay awake long into the night, refusing to cry. She didn't blame Doug for not wanting to love her. It had been a long time since she'd loved herself.

* * *

L
ITTLE SPIRALS OF HEAVEN
spun down Andrea's body, settling in her womanhood, nudging her awake. She didn't move. She didn't even want to breathe, for fear that she'd make the magical dream go away.

Calloused fingers captured her breast beneath her nightshirt, teasing the tip of her nipple. Every ounce of Andrea's concentration settled in that spot, glorying in the miracle of her awakening.

She shivered as the covers rolled away, but she welcomed the bite of cool air on her skin. Her nightshirt slid up her body, exposing her belly and then her breasts to the early-morning light. And then she felt one of her nipples being grazed by bearded stubble, by the hot velvety sleekness of a tongue, by lips that suckled her with fierce longing.

Andrea abandoned herself to the magic that only Doug could give her, refusing to allow thought to interfere with the perfection he was creating. She opened her eyes, relinquishing sleep so she could join Doug in the world he'd made for them.

He lay on his stomach beside her, his naked buttocks tight and firm to her hungry gaze. His dark head nestled against her chest as if he had come home, as if he was where he'd always belonged, as if her body was his haven.

“It's about time you joined me, woman.” He lifted his head from her breast, fondling her moistened flesh with his thumb as his gaze bore into hers.

She slid her fingers boldly over his behind and then back up to fan out over his shoulders. “All you have to do is ask,” she said, meeting his gaze.

“Oh, I'm askin', lady. I'm askin' real hard.”

He pushed his thigh between her legs, spreading her open, and climbed on top of her.

“See how hard I'm askin'?” He nudged her womanhood with his bulging penis.

Andrea nuzzled her face into his neck, inhaling the musky male scent of him, tasting the saltiness of his flesh, flooding her senses with all that was Doug. She spread her legs wider, accommodating his swollen flesh, and rocked her hips upward, taking all of him in one brazen thrust.

“God, woman. How do you do this to me?” He ground her hips into the bed, taking over from her, filling her body so completely that she couldn't possibly feel empty again. He pulled out slowly and plunged again, and again, and again, giving Andrea the most exquisite pleasure she had ever known.

And by the time his body was pulsing with release, flooding her with his seed, Andrea had never felt so cherished in her life. She clutched him to her even after he was spent, marveling at his ability to take a mass of knotted string and make it feel like spun gold.

* * *

G
LORIA WAS REALLY
getting mad. She'd done everything a mother could do, even a couple of things that most mothers probably couldn't, and still Andrea was alone. Gloria didn't get it. She'd thought for sure when she managed to pull off Thanksgiving that Andrea would finally at least announce that she had a boyfriend, maybe even bring him around for dinner. But nothing of the sort had happened.

She was beginning to worry that there was something fundamentally wrong with her daughter. Maybe that jerk ex-husband of hers had done more than desert her. Maybe he'd turned her off from men in the biblical sense. Of course, even fundamental wrongs could be fixed. And it was Gloria's job, as Andrea's mother, to do the fixing. After all, if a girl couldn't talk to her mother about sex, who could she talk to?

Gloria chose her time carefully. She wanted to have an entire afternoon free of the guys so she wouldn't have to embarrass Andrea by announcing that they were having ‘woman talk.' On the first Sunday in December, she sent her husband and son to a Cincinnati Bengals game and then called Andrea over to help wrap Christmas presents.

“That pile over there on that chair are Scotty's gifts and these on the table are your father's. No, Andrea, don't use that paper yet—those rolls of paper are for Scotty's gifts, and for the ones we're taking to the orphanage. Use the green foil on Pop's, and save the red foil so I can do yours.”

Gloria surveyed her dining room, taking a last look at the order with which she'd arranged everything. It was likely to be chaos by the time they were finished.

“How're Mark and Amy, Ma? Have you seen them lately?” Andrea reached over her mother to rip a piece of tape from the dispenser on the table.

“I think they're flying to Vegas to get married over Christmas.”

“They're eloping? Did they tell you that?”

“Of course not, Andrea. You don't tell someone you're eloping, or else it wouldn't be eloping. You just run off and get married, all by yourselves, just like it was any other normal day. And then afterward—after you've done it and you're really married—then you tell everybody.” Gloria figured it couldn't hurt to make sure Andrea had a thorough understanding of these things.

Andrea smiled. “Then how do you know they're going to do it, Ma?”

Gloria's heart turned over. Her daughter really did have a beautiful smile. She carefully folded in the corners of the paper she was wrapping around a shirt box.