Authors: Carol Grace

Granted: A Family for Baby (17 page)

BOOK: Granted: A Family for Baby

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She knew it was wrong. She knew she should shove him back onto the floor, or insist on sleeping there herself, but she couldn’t. She was a weakling. Inside and out.

Finally from somewhere in her foggy brain she heard the warning bells. And the voice of experience. This was how she got in trouble the last time. She put her hands firmly on his shoulders and took a deep breath. “We’ll trade places,” she said, “and then we’ll sleep.”

“Huh?” His voice was rough. His eyes were glazed. It took about thirty seconds for him to focus.

When she finally got through to him, he took her place on the bed and turned to face the wall. She wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her breasts against his back so she wouldn’t fall off. She nuzzled
her face into his neck, inhaling the musky scent of his skin and his dark hair. Somewhere, somehow, sometime in the middle of the night, the tension slowly oozed out of her body and she slept. So did he.

In the morning he was gone. Not very far gone. But she was aware of an empty space in the bed where he used to be. And an aching sense of loss. Someday, when she was married, someday when she’d found Mr. Right, or Daddy Right, she’d go to sleep in his arms and wake up in his arms. Squashing her disappointment at waking up alone, she turned over to see Brady laying out the breakfast.

“Good news,” he said with an impersonal smile. As if they hadn’t spent the night as intimately as a couple could, considering they were fully clothed. “The coffee’s still warm. Not hot, but warm.”

She nodded and ran her hand through her tousled hair. She felt like he’d thrown a bucket of cold water on her. How much longer before Brady’s deputy showed up? She longed with all her heart for a bath. She got up and washed her face and went to the bathroom while Brady’s back was tactfully turned.

Over a breakfast of leftover rolls and lukewarm coffee, she gathered her courage. “By the way, I found that picture of Travis and me that was on my wall.”

He cocked one eyebrow. “Really? That’s good.”

“Don’t you want to know where it was?”

“Not really.”

“In your top drawer,” she said.

He shrugged. “Must have been the janitor put it there.”

“You don’t have a janitor.”

A brief smile crossed his face. “Call it magic then. Black magic.”

“I call it theft.”

“So sue me.”

She didn’t sue him, she just gave him a look that asked what on earth he wanted with a picture of her and Travis? He didn’t see the look. He was busy reading the label on the artificial sugar packets as if he’d always wanted to know what they contained.

“What time do you think Hal will be here?” she asked casually as if it really didn’t matter.

“Not sure,” he said, equally casual.

When the silence got too oppressive and seemed to stretch on into eternity, she finally gathered her courage and asked Brady about his past. After all, this might be her last chance to ask him anything.

“I’ve spilled my guts to you, Brady, and still you haven’t told me anything about your marriage.”

He was leaning back against the bars of the cell looking at her. For a long time he didn’t say anything. She thought he’d refuse as he had in the past. But finally he spoke.

“What do you want to know?” he asked.

“Who was she? What went wrong?”

“I told you what went wrong. It was my job. People in law enforcement make lousy husbands.”

“Yes, I know. But how? Why?”

“Because every time they go out, their life is on the line. They don’t know if they’ll come home alive and neither do their wives. I’ve told you all this before.” The lines around his mouth tightened. “I don’t know why we have to go over it again.”

“That can’t be all of it,” she protested, sitting cross-legged on the bed. “There are policemen and sheriffs who have wives. Who have happy marriages. There must be.”

“Not that I know of. You have no idea of the stress.”

“I think I do. I worked in your office for over a year. I know what goes on.”

“It’s been a quiet year. And I admit Harmony isn’t San Francisco. That’s why I’m here. But I’m telling you that when and if things go down, I’m the one who puts his life on the line. Can you imagine how you’d worry if your husband went out one night to stop a brawl and didn’t come back until morning? What would you do?”

“You mean...you mean if I was married to a... a...sheriff?” She could barely get the words out.

“Yes.”

“Well, I’d worry, of course I’d worry. But I’d think, he’ll handle it. He can handle anything.”

“You really think that?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Yes, I really think that. Especially if the sheriff was you. Everybody in town believes in you. That’s why they voted for you.”

“But what if it happened again and again, what would you do?” he asked.

“I’d make the most of the times when the... the... sheriff was home.” She felt a blush creep up her face. “I mean if you marry a policeman or a sheriff you have to be prepared for that.”

“There’s nothing that can prepare you for when they come to your door and tell you your husband’s been shot. That your kid doesn’t have a dad anymore.”

Her lip trembled. “No, I suppose not.”

“I was the guy who had to tell my partner’s wife. I stood there at the door and watched her face fall when she opened it and saw me there. Before I could even say anything, she knew why I was there. I saw his kids
standing behind her. I saw her face crumple.” His voice broke. “Oh, God, it was terrible.”

She wanted to go to him, to put her arms around him and comfort him. But she was afraid. Afraid he’d rebuff her and shut her out. Tell her she didn’t understand. “Was that the day, the turning point?” she asked softly. “Was that when you decided to leave the city and come to Harmony?”

He shook his head. “That was another day. The day I came home at six in the morning after a night where I responded to a domestic violence call. When I tried to break it up they both turned. on me. One of them pulled a gun, the other had a knife. I got patched up in the emergency room and I came home.”

“At six in the morning,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“But you were okay,” she said, with a puzzled frown.

“I
was
okay until I went upstairs and saw my wife was in bed with another guy. A friend of mine. She told me it wasn’t the first time. She told me it wouldn’t be the last, as long as I was a cop. I told her I’d find another job, and I found this one. I told her about Harmony. About how different it was. Not risk free, but better. But it was too late. She wasn’t interested. She wanted to call it quits.” His voice was flat. His expression blank. But there was pain in his eyes he couldn’t conceal. Suzy knew now why he hadn’t wanted to talk about it. And how much it had cost him to tell the story. Her heart tripped, she blinked back a tear. He wouldn’t want her sympathy, but just in case...

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He shrugged. “It’s over. She married somebody else,
a meat packer or something, and she has a new life. So do I.”

“But not a new wife.”

“No. I’ll never get married again.”

“But it’s not because of your job.”

“Yes, it is.”

“But Brady...”

“I said it was.”

He could say what he wanted, but Suzy saw the look on his face, heard the tone of his voice, and she knew that the real reason he’d never marry again had more to do with his wife’s infidelity than anything else. He’d been betrayed, he’d been hurt, and he’d never gotten over it. Maybe he never would.

She didn’t have a chance to argue. Because at that moment they heard a key turn in the lock on the outside door and saw Hal amble down the hall toward the cell. When he saw them, he stopped in his tracks. He was so shocked, he dropped his key ring.

“Sheriff. Suzy. What the hell?”

“I’ll explain it all in a minute. Just let us out,” Brady said.

As soon as the door swung open, Suzy grabbed one of the boxes from the diner and brushed past Hal on her way out to her car. Brady followed her with the other box.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said, after stowing the boxes in her trunk.

“Don’t say anything,” she said. “Except goodbye.”

He drew his eyebrows together. “It doesn’t seem like enough. I don’t want to leave you like this.”

“How do you want to leave me?” she asked, getting into her car. If she stayed another minute, she’d burst
into tears and she’d done enough crying over Brady to last her a lifetime.

He leaned over to talk to her through the open window. “I want to ask you something. You can say no if you want to, but I wondered...would you consider...”

Her heart skipped a beat. Then another. “Yes?”

“How would you like to be an honorary deputy? You’ve earned it.”

“No.” She turned the key in the ignition, closed the window and left Brady standing in front of his office.

Brady didn’t go right home. He stood there for a long time in the quiet of a Saturday morning, staring at the street where Suzy’s car had disappeared around the corner. She couldn’t get away fast enough. He didn’t blame her. It had been a hard night for her. Putting up with him and listening to the story of his life. Of course she didn’t want to be a deputy. What was he thinking?

Now he had forms to fill but and phone calls to make. And he needed to get out an all-points bulletin on Bart. It took him half the day to do all the paperwork. Then he finally headed for home. To his big empty home and his big empty bed. He felt empty himself. He stood in the shower realizing he was drained. And there was no one to talk to. No one to eat with or sleep with. As if he wasn’t used to being alone. One night with Suzy and he was spoiled. He’d gotten used to having her around.

He was too restless to enjoy the peace and quiet of the country and his barn, and his refrigerator was empty as usual. So after he’d showered and changed, he headed back to town to have dinner at the diner. Suzy wasn’t there. He ate by himself. People stopped by his table, but he didn’t feel like talking to them. Didn’t feel like explaining what had happened. So he didn’t. He ate
and then he drove the few blocks to Suzy’s house. The lights were on all over her house.

He could see her framed in the window of her living room. She was swinging Travis up in her arms. She might have been laughing. Travis might have been squealing. Brady’s gut twisted with some painful emotion he’d never felt before. Inside that room was love and laughter, and he’d never felt so alone in his life. Or so envious.

He didn’t go in. Didn’t want to intrude on their family circle. If two could make a circle. He saw that it could. He sat there watching until Suzy pulled the drapes and turned off the light. Then he went home.

He avoided the diner as much as he could for the next few weeks. He couldn’t stand watching Suzy wait on customers, wondering if she’d found somebody to marry her. Instead he had one of the deputies order him something to go, or he would heat some soup in the microwave oven. He worked late, though he didn’t really need to. But it was better than going home. Home. It wasn’t a home, it was a house. There were times, while he sat at his desk late at night, when he wondered why he’d run for sheriff. It was the loneliest, most ungratifying job in the world.

One Monday morning a few weeks after the night in the jail, Hal burst into his office.

“Didja hear about Suzy?” he asked.

Brady looked up from his desk. The blood drained from his face. If he hadn’t been sitting down, he would have fallen down. “No, and I don’t want to,” he said.

Hal stopped in his tracks. “But...”

“I said I don’t want to,” he said and pounded on his desk for emphasis. He didn’t want to hear she was engaged
or married or whatever. He didn’t want to hear about her. Period.

“Okay,” Hal said. “Have it your way.” And he left.

But the news ate Brady up. The news he hadn’t heard. The news he didn’t want to hear. It tore him apart. He paced back and forth. He put his hat on and opened the door. Then he took his hat off and sat down at his desk. He picked up the phone and slammed it down in its cradle. How could she? How could she marry someone else? If she married anybody, it had to be him.

What about those nights when he didn’t come home? Would she look for company elsewhere as his wife had done? No, because she was Suzy. And he was not going to let her marry someone else.

He grabbed his jacket, stormed out of the office and walked the three blocks to the diner. He opened the glass door just as she walked out.

“Wait a minute, I came to see you,” he said, grabbing her by the arm.

“That’s funny. I was coming to see you.” Her hair blew across her cheek.

“To tell me the news?” he asked.

“Then you heard?” she asked, buttoning her jacket against the cool wind.

BOOK: Granted: A Family for Baby

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