Facing It (22 page)

“Shit,” Cookie breathed. Tick understood the single syllable completely.

He jerked his chin at his partner. “That explains why he was so pissed off at you for riding me about hiding out from Cait the other day.”

“Explains tonight too.”

Frustrated, Tick tugged a hand through his already tousled hair. “So now what do we do?”

Tori unfolded her legs and stretched. “Not much you can do. Pushing him is probably the worst thing you could do under the circumstances. He’s got to work through the healing process.”

“This thing with his temper flaring is new.” Concern glinted in Cookie’s eyes. “The guy is usually really controlled. Something’s got him stirred up.”

This time Tori’s Lord-you’re-an-idiot look included both of them. “It’s Ruthie.”

Tick blinked. “Our Ruthie?”

“No. Ruthie Garner from
Today in Georgia
. Yes, our Ruthie.”

With a long exhale, Tick shook his head. “Ah, damn it. How do you know that?”

“Because I’ve seen them together, the way they look at one another. It’s obvious.”

He resisted an urge to drag his fingers through his hair again. “She’s…it’s not a good time for her.”

“Maybe not.” Tori gave another nonchalant roll of her shoulders. “Or maybe it’s the best timing in the world. She’s healing too. Maybe right now, each of them needs what the other brings to the table. It’s pretty clear they’re not rushing anything.” She smothered a wide yawn. “But you do not need to go pushing there, either. The best thing you can do right now, for both of them, is give them time and space.”

He took Cookie’s advice and slept.

Once Chris kenneled Hound, he stumbled to his bedroom and somehow managed to divest himself of his shoes and gun belt. He hung his uniform shirt, all brass in place, over the footboard, collapsed facedown across the covers and let the exhaustion take him.

He slept until almost noon, when Hound’s hungry whine shook him from a dreamless doze. After emptying his bladder, he fed the dog and turned him loose to run the backyard for a few minutes while he swigged a bottle of water that did little to quell his grumbling stomach. The idea of food set nausea churning in his throat.

Hound was none too happy about returning to his pen, but Chris ignored the big, limpid eyes and shuffled back inside. There, he slumped in the recliner and finished off his water. The light flashed on his answering machine and he ignored the two messages there.

Shit, he was supposed to work tonight, a seven-to-seven. He dragged a hand down his face. He couldn’t deal with that. Seven hours should be enough notice. Rolling sideways, he snagged the cordless phone and called in sick to dispatch, something he hadn’t done in years.

Not since Kim, anyway.

He didn’t feel guilty for it, either. Instead, a blessed numbness washed through him, the urge to sleep tugging at him. He pushed up and lurched back to his bedroom, letting the dark, soothing slumber take him once more.

That became his routine for the next two days as well. After the jingling of his cell phone woke him late in the evening on the first day, he shut it off without looking at it, turned off the ringer on the landline and let the machine pick up. He didn’t bother listening to the messages.

His existence narrowed to sleep, rudimentary care of the dog, water or soda to stave off thirst and hunger, and more sleep. When his body fought back, trying to jerk him into alertness, trying to give his mind time to work, he scrounged up the half a bottle of strong pain pills he still had from the days after Kimberly had gone after him with the knife and used those, a few at a time, to force the drowsing dead-to-the-world state.

Late in the afternoon on the third day, an insistent pounding infiltrated his half-drugged consciousness. He lifted his head, listened for a moment, dropped back to the pillow. If he ignored them, maybe whoever it was would go away. The room spun in a slow, sickening swirl, and he closed his eyes. Desperate hunger gnawed at his stomach, a bitter medicinal aftertaste lingering in his mouth.

The knocking didn’t stop. With a frustrated growl, Chris dragged the other pillow over his head. Shit. If he didn’t answer the door, that should be a pretty good sign he didn’t want company.

The noise faded, whether it really ceased or he couldn’t hear it through the heavy down covering his ear. He sighed, sinking back into the drug-induced doze.

“Chris.” Tick’s voice, a heavy hand shaking his shoulder, bringing him to the surface.

He tried to shrug the older man off. “Go away.”

“Wake up.” Tick tapped his jaw, hard. “Come on, Parker.”

Chris rolled to his back in the opposite direction, an arm shielding his eyes from the too-bright sun slanting in between the blinds. The movement caused another sickening wave of motion to spin through his brain. “Leave me alone.”

“Shit.” Pills rattled against plastic and the bed dipped hard, Tick shoving his arm aside to grip his chin and flip his eyelids up. “How many of these did you take?”

Chris tried to fight off the firm hold, but his arms felt like lead, heavy and useless.

“Chris. This is important. How many did you take?”

It took him a minute to get his vision focused enough so that Tick’s face was something other than a blur. The investigator glowered down at him, deep concern in his eyes and the slashes by his mouth. Chris finally managed to shrug him off. “Four.”

“You only took four this time?” Tick rattled the bottle again. “Or you took four total?”

“Four this morning.” Chris shifted to sit on the side of the bed. He buried his face in his hands. “Four last night. Four yesterday morning.”

“Holy hell.” Anger trembled in Tick’s deep drawl. “It’s a wonder you didn’t puke and aspirate. Or stop your damn heart.”

Chris didn’t respond, trying to fight off a wave of nausea and dizziness.

“Come on. You’re getting in the shower.” Tick hooked a hand around his biceps and hauled him up. Chris’s stomach heaved and fury spurted through him, made hotter by his failure to tug free of Tick’s easy hold. “And if you’re not out in five minutes, I’m coming in after you.”

“Go to hell, Tick.”

“It’s time to get it together, Parker.” With his free hand, Tick gripped his chin again, forcing Chris to look at him. “Ruthie’s in the living room. You want her to see you like this?”

The question set him back. Ruthie, here?

Chris shook his head and immediately regretted it, the floor pitching up at a weird angle, making the queasiness quiver in his throat. “You shouldn’t have let her come.”

Tick’s exasperated sigh rumbled between them. “I didn’t have a hell of a lot of choice in the matter. She was hell-bent on checking on you herself, never mind I was coming over here anyway after you called in again today.”

Closing his eyes, Chris didn’t reply. God, he really wished the house would stop moving around him.

“Come on.” Tick tugged him toward the bathroom with a gentle hand. “Shower, shave, get some food in you. You’ll feel better.”

Once in the bath, with the door closed, shower running and steam beginning to silver the mirror, he glanced at his reflection and wished he hadn’t. He looked worse than he felt.

In the shower, he leaned against the tiled wall and tried to pull it together. Hell, he’d really done it this time. If there was a way out of this situation without spilling the entire sad, sorry truth about his life, he didn’t see it.

This would be worse than dealing with his partner and sergeant in the emergency room.

He ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. Shit, it would have been good if he’d thought about that before he went off the deep end. The water beat down around him, pattering to the floor. He blew out a long breath. He wasn’t sure who he looked less forward to facing—Tick or Ruthie.

Ruthie cracked a couple of eggs into a cereal bowl and whisked in a small amount of milk. The rich smell of coffee perking wrapped around her, the coffeemaker gurgling and hissing as a steady stream of dark liquid fell into the carafe.

Her stomach still felt hollow and jittery with nerves and worry. All the way over here—no, ever since Chris hadn’t answered the phone the third time she’d tried to call him yesterday—she’d worried about what they’d find. Something had happened, something her brother wouldn’t discuss, and Chris’s comment about “not being whole” kept repeating in her mind, taking on implications that horrified her.

Tick’s grim expression when he’d strode out of Chris’s bedroom moments earlier hadn’t eased her mind any. But his only comment had been a terse statement that Chris was in the shower, cleaning up.

He rummaged in the utility room off the kitchen and reappeared with a tennis ball in one hand and a rope toy in the other. “I’m going to go turn the dog loose for a while. Doubt he’s had any real exercise the last couple of days. Save me some coffee.”

With a quick kiss across her cheek, he disappeared through the sliding glass door. A few seconds later she heard an excited
woof
.

Setting her whisk aside, she tilted the small pan over the burner to allow the melted butter to cover the bottom before pouring in the egg mixture. She was plating the fluffy eggs and a couple of pieces of toast when a door opened down the hallway and quiet footsteps sounded on the carpeted floor. Her heart gave an unsettled leap.

She made sure her face betrayed nothing but friendly concern, not wanting him to know how completely he’d terrified her with his sudden withdrawal from her, from life. She set the plate on the small kitchen table and waited, wrapping her fingers tightly around a mug bearing the ABAC logo.

He appeared in the doorway and her throat tightened. He looked miserable and absolutely awful—his damp hair tousled, blue eyes dull and slightly unfocused, his jaw clean-shaven but cheeks and eyes sunken. Jeans and a pale blue T-shirt hung on his body.

When he met her gaze, something flickered deep in his eyes and his mouth firmed, but not before she witnessed the slight tremble of his chin. She forgot friendly concern, a blend of relief and anguish roiling through her. The empty mug hit the counter with a thump and she went to him, pressing to him, her arms about his waist.

He froze for an instant at her embrace, then he folded her close, his hold on her near-bruising in intensity. She tucked her face into his throat, the clean scents of soap and shampoo and male filling her nose, his skin warm and slightly damp against her lips. He shuddered in her arms, a harsh half-groan, half-sigh rumbling from his chest before he buried his face in her hair.

“Oh hell, Ruthie, I screwed up bad this time.”

She flattened her palms on his back and urged him closer. “No, you didn’t. It’s all right.”

He pulled back and ran a hand over his already mussed hair. “You don’t understand. When this…” His voice trailed away and he glanced over his shoulder, his expression closing.

“He’s outside with Hound.” She reached for his hands, rubbing her thumbs over his knuckles. “He’s not going to push. As far as anyone is concerned, you’ve had a stomach flu and took some of your accrued sick leave.”

His mouth tightened. “Sure.”

“He’s worried about you, though.” She curved her fingers along his jaw. “So am I.”

He looked away on a muttered curse. Ruthie took a step back, holding on to one of his hands. “You need to eat something. I made you some eggs and toast. I’ll get you some coffee.”

She gave him a light push toward the table and filled the ABAC mug before finding another, this one bearing a sailboat, for herself. Joining him at the table, she found him staring at the food but not eating, one thumb tracing the fork tines.

Folding both hands around her mug, she let the warmth seep into her palms. “Chris?”

He shook his head and slanted a halfhearted grin in her direction. “You shouldn’t have to deal with my crap, Ruthie.”

She lifted her cup for a quick sip. “I thought of it as offering support to the man I’m falling—”

As she bit the statement off, their gazes met and clung, the unsaid reality of what she’d been about to say hovering between them. He dropped his gaze first, rubbing both hands over his face, elbows resting on the edge of the table. A shaky laugh escaped him. “Damn, I wish I was half as strong as you are.”

She shook her head, not believing that he didn’t see how damn strong he really was. Or how weak she could really be. “It’s all relative. Now eat.”

The food and caffeine made him feel more human, although nerves continued to jitter low in his gut. The feeling only worsened when Tick strode inside, tossed Hound’s toys in their basket in the utility room and stopped at the kitchen sink to wash his hands.

The older man helped himself to coffee, fixed Chris with an appraising look before he glanced at Ruthie. “I need to talk with him. Can you give us a minute?”

She darted a look at Chris and nodded. “Sure. I’ll step outside and call Mama, check on the children.”

Tick waited until she was gone to move. He pulled a chair from the table and eased into it, his hands curved around the mug, his expression troubled. Everything Chris had managed to eat turned to a cold, hard lump in his belly. Oh hell, this was it.

Tick’s dark gaze flicked up to his and he tapped his fingers on the heavy ceramic cup. “Listen, I don’t know what’s going on with you and Ruthie. And I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I know I can’t put you back on patrol until whatever is going on is worked out. Plan on riding a desk for a while.”