Give It All (30 page)

Duncan strode through the front lot and around the side of the bar, hand trembling to the stutter of his heart as he took out his key. When he was halfway up the steps, he heard it—footsteps overhead, running. Raina yanked the stairwell door open just as his fingers were about to clasp the knob.

“Oh my gosh.” She sounded breathless, gaze traveling the length of his body, then back up. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

She stepped back, and Duncan entered, shutting the door. For a moment they merely stared at each other as Astrid dropped from the fridge to the counter to the floor, mewling her alarm. The both of them were surely surprised to see him, after nearly two days’ radio silence. He was struck by the familiarity of this woman standing before him. That face and body and voice; her clothes, her smell. Her home. It all felt so strikingly like
his
; he was lost in the shock of it.

She snapped out of it first, laughing. “Jesus, come here.” She drew him close, clutching his shirt tight, burying her face against his neck. “Call a woman, why don’t you?”

“I had my phone confiscated until this morning.” His heart rose and his throat ached and he doubted heroin felt half this good. Not to be left out, Astrid drove her body into his calves, again and again.

Say you missed me,
he willed Raina.
Say you love me, that I’m all you’ve thought about.

But all he got when she stepped back was “Congratulations.” She rubbed his arms. “You’re officially innocent, huh? A hero, even. And a free man.”

“I don’t know about hero, and I’m only half-free for now. I
have to stay in town until I’m told otherwise.” Soon he
would
be free, though—free to leave, yet incapable of doing so for as long as this woman made him welcome in her life. Nerves crept in to temper Duncan’s pleasure.

He hefted his turbo-purring cat and kissed her head. “Yes, your primary food dispenser’s returned. How about that?” To Raina he added, “Thank you for feeding her.”

“I don’t think she’s even looked at her bowl, since that night you didn’t come home.”

Home? Is that where I am?
Dear God, he hoped so.

“I can’t fucking believe you found those bones,” she said, laughing. “Or that you didn’t bother telling me that’s what you were up to.”

“I felt foolish that I was looking at all.”

“Paid off in the end, though. Has Sunnyside come groveling yet?”

“No, not yet. I imagine they’ll wait until my exoneration’s a bit more official.”

“Maybe you could score yourself a raise.”

“That would come with negotiation . . . but I’m not certain I’d pursue it, either way.”

“No?” Her expression was impossible to read. Was that surprise? Relief? Disappointment?

“They’ve rather injured my feelings,” he said simply, setting Astrid down. She rushed to her dishes, not looking likely to resurface soon.

“What would you do instead,” Raina asked, “if you didn’t go back to them?”

He shrugged. “I’ve not decided yet.”
Ask me to stay, and I’ll do anything. I’ll chase ambulances, flip burgers, break rocks. Anything. Just ask me to stay.

“Well, one step at a time.” She looked around, seeming awkward somehow. “A courier came with an envelope for you this morning—a big fat one. I signed for it and left it on your bed.”

My bed.
The guest room bed, more like. If he couldn’t count Raina’s bed as his own, none would do.

“I’m guessing it must be legal stuff,” she went on. “But sounds like you won’t be needing it, huh?”

How could she so easily be chatting with him, this way? All Duncan wanted was to wrap his body around hers and stay that way for a week.

How? Because she’s cautious, same as you. Neither of us can seem to bare our hearts without first cracking each and every one of our ribs open. Why expect that of her, when you’ve been too cowardly to offer it, yourself?
He would, though, and soon.

“I need a shower,” he said, “and a change of clothes. Badly.”

“I’ll bet.”

“And a shave.”

She frowned at that one.

“Or perhaps not . . . ?”

“I like you scruffy, but whatever makes you feel like a free man, go for it.”

“Would you set aside an hour for an early drink with me?”

“Up here?” she asked.

He nodded. “Give me until one, to reacquaint myself with hygiene and grooming. Just a small drink—I feel I deserve a toast.”

“That you do. I’ll grill you about your detention once you’re all freshened up. And how you even found those things to begin with.”

“And I’ll grill you about the news—I’ve somehow been left out of the loop, even though I was wrapped up in the middle of the case.”

“It’s a date.”

He waited for more—for
Christ, I missed you.
For a kiss so deep she’d taste the way he’d ached for her these past few hellish days, in his chest and skin and bones and blood.

“I’ll get something thrown together for lunch,” she said. “You’re probably starved.”

“That would be nice. The feds seemed to think I deserved mainly untoasted bagels and packets of light cream cheese.”

“Our tax dollars hard at work.”

I missed you so much. Say you missed me.

She turned her attention to the fridge.

Under the hot spray of the shower, Duncan assured himself,
That’s simply how she is.
And he liked her as she was—
loved
her as she was. So he’d just have to take the rose with the thorns, as they said. It wasn’t as though he was much better with these things.

Duncan lathered and scrubbed and rinsed, toweled himself, dressed in a button-up and fresh jeans—a sort of hybrid of his old and new selves. He styled his hair but left his nascent beard alone. He didn’t feel like himself anymore, so there was little
urgency to look the part. He pulled on socks, then sat on the edge of the bed, holding his breath as he ripped the courier service’s plastic envelope open.

Inside, between sheets of bubble wrap, was a velvet box, long and slender as a remote control. He popped it open, turned it this way and that, watched the sun catch on innumerable, exquisite facets.
Yes,
he thought. This was right. Exactly right.

When he found Raina in the kitchen, there were easily ten bottles of champagne lined up on the table. She gestured at the selection like a spokesmodel.

“Goodness. I’m spoiled for choice.”

“I get sent samples all the time by distributors, but I don’t really like wine, so they just sit in the cupboard, waiting for something worth celebrating. And I’d say your exoneration more than qualifies.”

He picked a bottle and Raina washed a pair of dusty flutes while he opened it.

“I hope it pairs with grilled cheese,” she said, watching him pour. “That’s about all I’ve got the ingredients for.”

“Cheers.” He handed her a glass.

“To your freedom, Inspector Welch.”

They clinked, and he said, “Sit.”

He dragged the other chair around the table, close enough for their knees to brush. Astrid claimed his lap, but he dropped her back on the floor. After a deep drink that he barely tasted, he set his glass aside, then Raina’s, and took her hands in his.

She looked a fraction as nervous as Duncan felt. He cleared his throat.

“Being detained left me with quite a lot of time to think.”

“I’ll bet. Especially if you might have a job search ahead of you.”

“About that, but other things as well. More pressing things. Things I’ve had on my mind since before I even found those bones.”

“I’m sensing some sort of revelation.”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.” He reached into his breast pocket and drew out her present. It was a heavy thing—a bracelet of quarter-carat round diamonds, three dense rows, set in platinum.

Her eyes were gigantic, pinned to the dangling cuff. “Whoa. What the fuck?” Her chin jerked up. “Duncan?”

He’d pictured this exact item in his mind, as he’d sat in those depressing cinder block rooms at the BCSD, pictured giving it to her. He’d felt his throat ache and his heart race as he’d rehearsed words in his mind. And this was the least of the gestures he intended to make this morning.

“It’s a gift. Open your hand.” He had to do it for her, uncurling her fingers and laying the bracelet across her palm.

“A gift?”

“Yes, a gift. I want to spoil you.”
I love you.
He could think those words, but not quite seem to push them through his lips. He imagined if the bracelet had been better received, the words would’ve followed more easily.

“Spoil me?” she echoed.

He nodded.

A long, long pause. “You want to dress me up,” she corrected slowly.

Duncan’s heart went from pinwheel to boulder in a single beat. “No—”

“You still want to
Pretty Woman
me, don’t you?”

And he couldn’t help blanching, because once upon a time . . . yes, he had. Badly. He’d wanted to strip away what he’d seen as her cheap packaging and remake her as someone more . . . worthy. Worthy of him, he’d thought, as though he’d been anything special. He’d wanted to fix her exterior as he’d spent years doing with himself. He’d wanted her tattoos gone. Her clothes replaced. Yes, he’d wanted all that. And it shamed him to think it now.

He shook his head. “I like you just as you are. All I want is to treat you.”

She frowned but held her tongue.

“Tell me you like it.”

Raina studied it, draped along her palm like a snake, glimmering.

“Tell me.”

“What would I ever wear this with? I don’t own a single dress. Not even a skirt. I’d get mugged if I—”

“Stop. Tell me.”

She closed her hand with a sigh. “It’s beautiful. It’s the most beautiful, exquisite,
expensive
thing anyone’s ever tried to give me.”

“Tried to?”

She took his wrist, turned his hand over, and let the stones pool in his cupped palm. She closed his fingers gently. “I’m not a girl who takes diamonds from a man.”

He laughed, flustered. “It’s not a ring. It’s not a leash, either, or a promise of any sort, or some brand to mark you as mine. I’m not after your freedom, Raina. I’m just a man who wants to give a woman an extravagant, ridiculous gift. Because I spent two nights away from her and missed her. Because I want to delight her.”

Her fingertips rubbed his knuckles, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. She let his hands go. “I appreciate the thought. But I don’t
delight.
I’d have thought you knew me well enough to realize that.”

Desperation fell over him, suffocating. “Take it, please.”

Finally those brown eyes met his. She shook her head, looking sad. “No.”

“I told you once, I’m not a man who begs, but again, I’ll demean myself for you.
Please.
All I want is to take your breath away, and this was the only way I could think to.”

She smiled, the gesture weak. “It’s very you, Duncan. But it’s not me.”

“Okay, then . . . I’m sorry it seems to have offended you.”

“I’m not offended.
I’m
sorry if I led you to believe that I’m something I’m not. Like the kind of woman who expects gifts like that one.”

“Not expects them, no. Forget the bracelet—it was only a preamble anyway.”

“A preamble? To what?”

He took a breath, let it out slowly. “I want to fund the improvements your father wanted to make to the bar.”

Silence. Dead silence.

Nervous, Duncan went on. “I don’t know how much it might cost. To add a kitchen, quite a lot, but perhaps that could come later. But to start, I thought fifty thousand could go quite a way to—”

“Stop.” She shook her head, eyes shut. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“All the things your father had wanted but hadn’t had the chance to do. I want to make those things a reality. To help the bar stay viable once the competition arrives.”

“Those were my father’s plans, not mine.”

“I assumed—”

“Yeah, I can tell you assumed. A lot. Listen, Duncan. That’s insanely generous—
insanely.
But you don’t know what I want. I don’t think you even know
me
, not like you think you do.”

“I don’t
know
you?” In a breath his desperation sharpened to something far more aggressive.

“I thought you did . . . I’ve never been with a guy before, and thought, ‘He gets me. He knows me, and there’s nothing he’d change about me.’”

“And there isn’t. And I
do
know you.”

“How can you, if that’s what you think I want—”

“I don’t know how to touch you,” he demanded, “to make you come in three minutes flat? I don’t know what your skin smells like, and how your voice sounds, first thing in the morning?”

She looked taken aback, as though he’d threatened or insulted her.

“I don’t know what the sadness in your eyes looks like,” he asked, “when you think of your father, and touch his things, and listen to his music?”

“You’ve never met my father.”

“And I’m not speaking as though I do. I’m speaking about you. And your feelings—lust and satisfaction and amusement.”

“What the fuck is this about?”

He considered it. “This is about you, and me. Perhaps I chose the wrong gift, perhaps I overstepped my bounds, but I
do
know you. I’ve memorized you. I’ve seen things in you I
ache
to experience, written all over your face. Longing. Attachment. Grief.”

“You want my grief? You’re more than welcome to it. Have at it.”

He glared at her tone. “I’ve grieved for one person in my entire pathetic, empty life.
One
person, whom I knew for a
year.
Your father cared for you for twenty times longer, and surely a thousand times deeper, than
anyone’s
ever cared for me. So yes, I want your
fucking
grief. That’s a pain you earn, and a pain you get gifted with. I want that pain.”

Her head was shaking, eyes hot. “No, you don’t. You have no fucking idea how bad this shit hurts.”

“No, I don’t. I
want
to. I’m asking you to let me close enough
to risk feeling all that one day.” He stared at her hard, diamonds biting as his fist squeezed, anger tensing the whole of him. “What is this? What are we?”