Fall Into Me (14 page)

High school graduation, and Angel wore yellow and red cords, as well as a salutatorian medal. A snapshot of her with her parents on the lawn before the local community college, she in cap and gown and bearing a diploma, her parents beaming with pride. A studio portrait of her and Jim in their early twenties, one of those shots that turned up in the engagement announcements section of the Daily Herald. Shit, they still had that thing on the wall, after what Jim had done? And Angel had to look at that every time she came in here?

No wonder she was having a hard time letting go of what the selfish bastard had done.

Darryl drained his glass and held it aloft, rattling the ice against the sides. Troy Lee frowned. What was that about?

Moments later, Hope appeared through the door with a pitcher. She took Darryl’s glass and refilled it, returning it to him. “Daddy, do you need a top off?”

“Sure, baby.” Ron handed her the glass.

Holy shit. Troy Lee stared. If he tried that, Angel would kick his ass.

“Troy Lee?” Hope held the pitcher of tea aloft. Her gaze scraped over him.

“No, thanks. I’m good.” He returned her stare for stare. If he could take Calvert’s Lord-you’re-a-dumbass look or face down any suspect out there, he could take her skepticism and mistrust. She could get over it and stop looking at him like that, because damn if he was going anywhere.

She gave a curt little nod, turned on her heel and disappeared down the hall once more.

Thankfully, he was only left staring at the rapidly melting ice in his glass for ten or fifteen minutes before Marie Henderson called them to the table. Angel squeezed his hand once as he slipped into the chair next to hers. At Marie’s request, Darryl offered a brief blessing then Marie passed the platter of roast beef and the bowls of field peas, mashed potatoes and squash with onions. Hope’s pair of teenaged daughters filled plates with a minimum of food and disappeared into the kitchen, giggling and texting.

A television sat in the nook off the dining room and Ron used a remote to tune in to the beginning of the football game.

Marie handed off a basket of rolls to Troy Lee. “Troy, you’re not from here, are you?”

“No, ma’am.” He took a roll and passed them to his right. Darryl received the basket without moving his gaze from the television. “I’m from Atlanta.”

Hope eyed him again. “Did you go to college up there?”

“I started out at Georgia Tech, then transferred to UGA when I changed my major to criminal justice.”

Angel slanted a glance at him from beneath her lashes while buttering her roll. “What was your first major?”

His attention narrowed to her mouth as she bit into the fluffy bread and licked a bit of butter from the corner of her lips. He dragged himself back to the question, lifted his gaze to her eyes, which glinted with a wicked awareness of what she’d done to him with the innocent action. “Um, physics and aerospace engineering. Mainly propulsion theory.”

Darryl turned his head. “What’s that?”

“Rocket engine design.” He accepted the gravy boat from Marie and drizzled the thick sauce over his potatoes.

“Rocket science.” Hope turned toward Angel and some sort of unspoken communication flashed between the two.

“Kind of. A lot of math, a lot of research into alternative energy options.”

Darryl frowned, looking at the television again rather than him. “Well, how the hell did you end up driving a cop car down here?”

Images flashed in his head, his father’s bruised and swollen face, head swathed in bandages, ventilator tubing invading his mouth, the flatline on the monitor once the life support had been disconnected. “Being stuck in a lab all day, crunching numbers, wasn’t for me.”

Hope shrugged. “That doesn’t explain how you ended up here.”

She was seriously beginning to get under his skin. He forced himself to resist the urge to lay his arm across Angel’s shoulders, just because he suspected it would get Hope’s goat. Instead, he smiled. “I graduated about the time Sheriff Reed was appointed. Two FBI agents with his and Tick Calvert’s professional reputations rebuilding a department from the bottom up? I was all over that.”

A saccharine smile graced Hope’s face. “So what do you do when you’re not working? Fishing, hunting?”

Darryl’s head swung in their direction again. “Hey, yeah. Ron and I leased some land from the Terrells this year. We’re out there about every Saturday.”

“Actually, I’m not a hunter.” He could have sworn Angel kicked her sister under the table, but only serenity shown on Angel’s pretty face. Uninterested, Darryl turned away. Troy Lee shrugged, aware Marie Henderson was hanging on his every word, sizing him up, but without Hope’s distrust. “I play guitar with a local band and I run.”

“Run?” Marie forked up the last bite of peas on her plate.

“Yes, ma’am. Distance running. Mostly 10Ks, but I’ve run a couple of marathons. Right now, I’m training for the Atlanta marathon.”

“Oh.” Despite her polite smile, Marie appeared mystified that anyone would run for enjoyment.

“Mama, did you buy those pillows you were looking at in Dillard’s last week?” Thankfully, the conversation turned away from him with Angel’s question, but he couldn’t shake a familiar sinking feeling.

Fuck, could he blow this any worse?

“Better not let Mama hear you talking like that.” Hope perched on the end of the bed and propped back on her hands.

“I am not worried about Mama. Just what did you think you were doing, interrogating him like that?”

Hope’s plucked brows lowered. “Looking out for you, since you’re obviously not going to.”

Angel rested against the door, arms crossed over her chest. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve been seeing him, what? All of two weeks? You’re obviously sleeping with him and now you’re bringing him home.” Irritation and anxiety twisted Hope’s pretty features. “Didn’t you learn
anything
from what happened with Jim and Mark Cook?”

“Yes. I learned neither of them was the right man for me.”

“And he is?” Hope waved a dismissive gesture in the general direction of the den. “Good Lord, Angel, he can’t be more than twenty-four—”

“Twenty-six.”

“Fine, whatever. He went to college to be a rocket scientist, Angel. A rocket scientist. Do you know what kind of smarts that takes? And he’s a marathon runner. Talk about discipline. What exactly do you have in common with this boy, outside the bedroom?”

“You’d be surprised.” She tried to shrug away the crushing hurt and disappointment clutching her throat. Tilting her chin, she looked up at the ceiling and blinked hard before pinning Hope with a stare. “Basically, what you’re insinuating is that obviously it’s not going to last because I’m not enough for him. Not smart enough, not disciplined enough—”

“I never said that.”

“Darn it, Hope, you didn’t have to.”

“Angel.” Hope leaned forward, body vibrating with intensity. “What do you have in common with him? What makes him the right man?”

“We value the same things. Hard work, time to play, our families. He makes me laugh and being with him makes me happy. He likes spending time with me, which is more than I could ever say for Jim.”

“I don’t want to see you hurt again.” Hope’s voice trembled, and tears pricked at Angel’s eyes.

“He’s not going to.” Disbelief bloomed in Hope’s eyes, but stone certainty cemented in Angel’s mind. Hugging the sweet conviction to her, she crossed to sit by her sister. “I know you think that sounds naïve, but he won’t. He’s a sweetheart, Hope, kind and considerate, and he makes me a priority.”

“I just wish you’d slow down a little.”

“I slowed down for almost twenty years with the wrong man, Hope. How much more of my life do you want me to waste?”

Hope’s exhale was long and shaky. She rocked back and forth, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. Finally she slid a familiar teasing look in Angel’s direction. “Distance running, huh? Isn’t that all about the endurance?”

“Oh, yeah.” Angel laughed. “And he definitely has that going on.”

“I’m jealous.” Hope flopped back on the bed. “Darryl’s idea of endurance is staying awake past Jay Leno.”

Angel collapsed beside her. Immediate regret flooded her, as her head swam and her stomach pitched. Geez Louise, she was never touching anything Hope cooked again. She laid an arm across her eyes. Lord, she was tired. This afternoon was destined to be naptime for sure.

Hope poked her in the side. “He’d better be good to you or I’ll hurt him.”

The idea of her petite sister attempting physical harm to Troy Lee’s tall frame struck her as funny and she giggled.

Hope joined her, lifting an arm to flex a small biceps. “Hey, I’m serious. I could take him.”

“You probably could.” Hope might be the perfectly behaved daughter, but she had a protective mean streak under the mannerly exterior. Angel lowered her arm and examined the tiny crack in the plaster ceiling, the one that had been there since this had been her bedroom. “But you won’t have to. He’s not going to hurt me.”

The deep sense of contentment and security still glowed within her when she went looking for Troy Lee minutes later. She found him in the den with her father and Darryl, and he jumped to his feet as she entered. She leaned against the doorjamb. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah.” A hint of desperation darkened his eyes and he rubbed a hand over his hair. “I’ve got to be on duty in an hour or so.”

“Bye, Daddy.” She came down the steps to drop a kiss atop her father’s head. He touched her cheek in absent affection. “Bye, Darryl.”

Her brother-in-law grunted in response.

Troy Lee cleared his throat and offered her daddy his hand. “Nice meeting you, sir. You too, Darryl.”

She patted Troy Lee’s chest as she passed, and he fell into step behind her. “I need to speak to Mama real quick before we go.”

Tension seeped from him in a relieved exhale as they entered the hall. She cringed. She loved her daddy to pieces and accepted his foibles for what they were, but between him and Darryl, and Hope’s prickly interrogation, Troy Lee had to think she had the craziest, and probably rudest, family ever. Good thing he seemed determined to hang on to her.

In the kitchen, Mama and Hope pored over the advertising circulars from the Sunday paper. Angel leaned down to brush a kiss over her mother’s cheek. “Mama, we’re gone.”

Her mother spun to wrap her in a quick hug. “Bye, sweetheart. I love you. Troy, it was good to meet you.”

His grin seemed a little strained. “You too. Thank you for dinner. It was wonderful.”

A pleased expression brightened her mother’s features. “Why, thank you. It’s nice to be appreciated. Angel, don’t you be a stranger this week.”

“No, ma’am. Bye, Hope.”

“Talk to you later.” Hope glanced up from the JCPenney ad, and Angel was reassured to see the animosity gone from her gaze. “Nice to have met you, Troy Lee.”

“Right.” He inclined his head, then glanced at his watch. “Angel…”

“I know.” She kissed her mother again. “Bye, Mama. Love you.”

Outside, she looped her arm about his waist. “Sure you still want me after meeting them?”

“I’m sure.” A relieved laugh burst from his throat as they walked across the grass, brown after the last frost, to where his Jeep waited under a pecan tree. “Angel baby, that was brutal.”

“You’re the one who volunteered to come.”

“Yeah, I know.” He pulled open the passenger door and helped her climb up. “Your sister hates me.”

She waited until he came around to the driver’s seat. “No, she doesn’t. She’s just protective.”

“That’s one word for it.” He gave her a look as he fired the engine. “Listen, about that tea-glass rattling thing…how do I get in on some of that action?”

“Rattle a glass at me just once, Troy Lee Farr, and you won’t be getting any action.”

He shifted into reverse and looked over his shoulder to back into the drive, that wonderful grin playing about his mouth. “Oh, you’d probably give me a little action.”

“No. None. Absolutely none.”

Hand on the gearshift, he leaned in, lips a breath away from hers. “Not even a little?”

“No. Not even. I don’t do rattling tea glasses.” She laid her hand over his chest, his pulse thudding against her palm. “But you’d be surprised what asking me nicely will get you.”

“I’ll have to remember that.” He kissed the corner of her mouth, then straightened, patting her knee before shifting into drive. The warmth engendered by his simple touch lingered long after they’d turned onto the highway.

“I’m telling you, man, it was the worst meeting-the-family scenario you could imagine.” With Chris at his side, Troy Lee jogged up the rear steps to the sheriff’s department. A cool breeze swirled a few stray leaves across the parking lot. Silence hung heavy in the late-night air.

Chris punched in the code to unlock the heavy metal door and dragged it open. “It couldn’t have been that bad.”

“It was.” Only the soft murmur of jailers’ voices drifting from the space behind the holding area disturbed the jail’s quiet. An occasional radio squawk and a dispatcher’s reply wafted out of the radio room. Troy Lee fell in behind Chris as they started up the narrow stairs to the squad room. “You know that Ben Stiller movie where he’s meeting his girlfriend’s parents and the dad is the former CIA guy who hates him?”

“Yeah?”

“This was worse.”

“How so?”

“Where do you want me to start? I have zilch in common with her dad, her mother looked at me like I was crazy for running, and her sister? Hell.” Juggling his ticket book and campaign hat, Troy Lee tugged his wallet from his back pocket and opened it to extract a couple of ones for the soda machine. “She kept looking at me the way Calvert does Cookie.”

“Really? How’s that?” At Cookie’s dry voice, Troy Lee jerked, dumping half the contents of his wallet on the floor. The metallic cover holding his ticket book slammed into the tile with a clatter. F-uck. His face and neck hot, he leaned down to gather everything, then straightened to meet Cookie’s intelligent gaze. Cookie dropped a stack of reports in his outbox and reached for another folder. “So? How does he look at me?”

“Like the farmer guarding a hen house against a fox,” Chris replied for him. With a slight grin, he slanted a look at Troy Lee. “Is that right?”

Recalling the suspicion glinting in Hope’s blue eyes, Troy Lee set his hat and ticket book on the counter. “That covers it.”

Cookie’s brows lifted in inquiry. “And who’s looking at you like that?”

Troy Lee fed a couple of dollars into the soda machine and tossed a can at Chris before popping the tab on his own. “Angel’s sister.”

“Meeting the family, huh?” Cookie stapled a couple of copies together and laid them aside.

“Yep.” The weirdness of this, talking about Angel’s taking him home with Cookie, shafted through him. He shrugged it off. In the scheme of his relationship with Angel, Cookie didn’t matter, any more than Morgan or any other woman he’d dated did.

“He doesn’t fit.” Settled in at one of the empty desks, Chris didn’t look up from the end-of-shift recap he was filling out.

“Yeah? How so?” Cookie scrawled his signature across a report and slid it in the file.

With a sip of too-sweet cola, Troy Lee dropped into the chair adjacent to Cookie’s desk and waited. After a moment, Chris looked up at him and Troy Lee gestured between them. “You don’t want to answer this one for me?”

“Smart ass.” Chris dropped his gaze back to the paper.

Troy Lee twisted in the chair and reached for his own blank form before he darted a look up at Cookie. “The sister doesn’t trust me. The mother doesn’t get me. The dad and I have nothing in common.”

“Sure you do.” Cookie’s chair squeaked as he leaned back, arms behind his head.

“Huh.” Troy Lee grunted in disagreement. “Like what?”

“You both care about his daughter.”

Silently, Chris lifted a finger and made an imaginary tally point in the air. Struck by the idea, Troy Lee paused with his pen over the report and turned the notion over in his mind. Maybe he wasn’t as fucked there as he thought he was after all.

“Same with the sister. She’ll come around. It just takes time.” One corner of Cookie’s mouth lifted in a crooked grin. Down the hall, the front door opened, a quiet exchange of voices going on at the front desk.

Chris signed his recap and took it to the copy machine. “And you’re saying Tick will too?”

“I will what?” Calvert strolled into the room, dressed casually in jeans and an untucked polo shirt. His bearing spoke of intense exhaustion.

Cookie darted a look up at the large clock hanging over the counter and scowled. “What are you doing here?”

“We’ve been at the hospital.” Calvert collapsed into the chair at what had once been Jeff Schaefer’s desk and dragged both hands down his face. “Cait’s catching a nap there and I needed some air. Figured I’d walk over here, see what was going on.”

“Something happening with the baby?” Chris’s brows dipped in a troubled expression. Troy Lee concentrated on summarizing his shift and keeping his mouth shut. With Calvert in the room, his gut was already jittering, the slight burn starting between his ribs. If he said anything, it would come out wrong and piss Calvert off. Besides, the guy seemed tense and edgy enough without Troy Lee’s adding to it.

“He’s back on the ventilator.” Calvert rested his elbow on the chair arm and propped against his fist. “It’s set low, but the longer he’s on it, the higher the chances he’ll develop a lung infection. Plus, we’d just gotten him off the feeding tube and nursing, and this interferes with that, so Cait’s upset and…”

He shook his head, his voice trailing away. Troy Lee glanced up in time to see the look he exchanged with Cookie, who watched him with concern.

“Needed a break, huh?” Cookie pulled his gum from his pocket and extracted a piece.

Calvert nodded, understanding passing between the two. Yeah, they’d be okay. Cookie was right—with enough time, Tick would come around. The lead investigator stretched out his legs on a harsh sigh. “So what’s going on?”

“We’re getting ready to go home.” Leaning on the counter, Chris capped his pen and tucked it in his shirt pocket. “And ragging Troy Lee’s ass about meeting the girlfriend’s parents.”

“There’s a girlfriend?” Calvert quirked an eyebrow. “I thought you had a fan club.”

Like Calvert paid that much attention to anything other than how he screwed up. Troy Lee sucked in a breath, trying to figure out how to proceed without saying something stupid. His chest hurt and he patted his pocket, seeking and not finding the roll of antacids.

“You’re out of the loop.” Cookie dropped the last set of reports and files in his outbox. “There’s been a girlfriend for two weeks. The fan club is all in mourning. There is great wailing and gnashing of teeth in Chandler County.”

Calvert gave a huff of amusement. “So who’s the lucky girl?”

Neither Chris nor Cookie jumped in to answer for him this time. Troy Lee signed his report and rose to make a copy. He glanced sideways at Calvert. “Angel Henderson.”

“Really.” Calvert fixed Cookie with a pointed look.

Anger simmered under Troy Lee’s skin. No need to wonder what that was all about. Again, the strangeness speared through him, and once more, he sloughed it off. Whatever had happened that night with Angel and Cookie had been a one-time thing. It didn’t
matter
.

With a jerky movement, he jabbed the original report in the box mounted on the wall then tossed his copy in his own officer mailbox. He turned to discover Calvert watching him with a speculative expression and a half-smile. Irritated, Troy Lee lifted his chin. “What?”

Calvert made that small, amused sound in his throat. “Trying to imagine you and Ron Henderson meeting for the first time.”

Troy Lee released a breath, a grin pulling at his own mouth. “It was uneventful. He was too focused on the football game.”

“I can believe that. Word is that if their preacher starts getting close to twelve-thirty, Ron taps his watch, reminding him the pregame show is about to start.” Calvert dragged his hands down his face again and slumped deeper in the chair. “Sure as hell glad my meeting-the-family days are behind me. Cait’s grandfather likes me.” He grunted. “Although, apparently her brother had, or has, reservations where I’m concerned.”

“My God, the irony,” Cookie deadpanned.

“Shut up.” Calvert crumpled an empty report on the desk and tossed it at his partner, who deflected it back with a laugh and an open palm. “It’s not the same thing.”

“Sure it is.”

Chris tagged Troy Lee’s chest. “Let’s leave them to duke it out. If you want to run in the morning, I’ve got to get some sleep.”

“Yeah, me too.” It might be a good thing Angel had planned an early night. He tended not to get a lot of sleep when they shared a bed. A different warmth spread through his chest. He might not be sharing her bed tonight, but that was okay.

Seeing the beginnings of trust and commitment in her eyes earlier had been satisfaction enough.

Once the younger deputies had cleared the room, Mark studied Tick. Head tilted back, eyes closed, he appeared to be slipping into a doze, although stress and weariness still strained his face. Damn, he looked like hell.

After several quiet moments, in which Mark wrapped up his own end-of-the-day paperwork, Tick blew out a long breath and straightened. “I need to get back over there.”

Mark picked up his keys from the desk. “How about I give you a ride?”

Tick rose, a hand over his lower right side. “It’s only four blocks.”

“Yeah, I know. Come on.”

In silence they made the short drive. Mark pulled into the main parking lot, and Tick glanced at him in surprise when he stepped from the driver’s seat. Mark shrugged. “Figured I’d walk up with you.”

Tick nodded and didn’t demur. The lobby was quiet and deserted; the middle-aged woman working the front desk graced Tick with a warm smile of recognition and handed them passes for the nursery floor. In the elevator, Tick still didn’t speak, leaning on the wall, his eyes closed, leaving Mark with the impression he was centering himself, gathering his reserves. The door slid open with a soft hush.

Instead of heading straight for the NICU, Tick stopped by a darkened room canted off from the nurse’s station. Even in the dim shadows, Mark could make out Falconetti on the cot there, a thin blanket covering her shoulders, her features reposed in soft sleep. Seemingly satisfied, Tick backed out and headed down the hall to the NICU.

After a brief conference with the charge nurse, they scrubbed and gowned. Nearly a month after Lee’s early birth, the NICU atmosphere and rules were more familiar and being surrounded by tiny reminders of what he’d lost so long ago didn’t twist Mark into quite as many knots.

No longer requiring the enclosed isolette, Lee curled into a modified fetal position on a raised table-bed with low clear sides. Even with the respirator tubing and all the various wires and IVs, he looked bigger, stronger, than the last time Mark had seen him, three or four days earlier.

Tick laid his palm along the thin little back, long fingers nearly covering him, and leaned down so his mouth was near the baby’s ear. “Leebo, Daddy’s back again.”

The baby didn’t respond and over his shoulder Tick slanted a glance at Mark. “They sedated him to get the ventilator tube in.”

Mark started to hook his thumbs in his belt, remembered the sterile gown and crossed his arms over his chest instead. “He looks good, still. Bigger than the other day.”

“Yeah, he’s up a few ounces and an inch or so.” Gaze on his son’s face, Tick feathered his fingertips across the little nape, stroking, caressing. “You were right, you know.”

Mark lifted a brow. “About?”

“I can’t control this. I can’t make it better for him or for Cait, and it makes me crazy. It’s damn hard, Cookie, and some days even the praying’s not enough.”

“Yeah.” It was hell, being caught in a set of circumstances beyond control. He’d learned that the hard way, during those dark days and weeks and months following Jenny’s disappearance. “A day at a time, Tick, or an hour. Sometimes five minutes. That’s what you do—what you can do—and somehow you come out on the other side.”

“Are you there yet?”

“Getting there.” He didn’t mention Tori’s name, didn’t bring up how she’d become his guideline in the still-treacherous morass of getting through the lingering grief and guilt.

“I really wasn’t prepared.” Tick’s dry laugh was little more than a huff of sound. “Weird, huh? I loved him before he was even here, and you know how much we wanted this. I just didn’t realize how much he’d change me, how much I’d love him. The way I feel about him, the way I feel deeper about Cait now…hell, Cookie, it’s so strong sometimes it’s scary.” A beat fell between them and Tick lifted dark eyes to Mark’s. “I don’t know how you stood it.”

He didn’t have to say what “it” was. Even so far away, the loss of his wife and unborn child didn’t slam Mark in the chest quite as hard. It hurt, he suspected it always would on some level, but he was getting better, getting through.

“I did what I could do. An hour, a night, a week.” Mark eyed the easy movement of Tick’s fingers against the baby’s skin, thin wisps of dark hair fluffing out from his nape. “It’s going to be all right, Tick. You, Falconetti, the baby. You’ll be fine, together, and it’ll be good. You just have to hang on together.”

Tick didn’t look at him. “So you think that’s what it’ll be with you and Tori? Helping one another handle the past?”

Surprise shivered over Mark. He hadn’t expected that, the closest thing to acceptance Tick had yet displayed toward his relationship with Tori. He swallowed hard. “Yeah, I think so. Looking to the future together. I’m telling you, Tick, it’s real.” He grinned. “So real it’s scary sometimes.”