The Protector (5 page)

“Gage, where have you disappeared to now?” Rachel O’Malley muttered the question to herself when leaning on the doorbell to his town house failed to get a response. Shifting the sack she carried, she pulled out her keys, flipped through the ring to the one marked with a gold crescent, and used it to let herself into Gage’s home.

She was invading his space, but she’d done worse in the past. He’d finally given her a key after he found her sitting on the front stoop at 1
A.M.
, having waited patiently there since 8
P.M.
for him to get home. He was shocked sober enough to bawl her out for being careless with her safety. The scowl and the anger had set her back on her heels, but still…it had been nice to see that he cared.

After that, when he’d gone out drinking and knew she was in town, he wore his beeper and carried a phone. He wasn’t a man who wanted others to worry; he just wanted to passively kill himself.

Rachel did not like to worry about friends and Gage had her worried. If he couldn’t handle Thanksgiving, there was no way he would be able to handle Christmas. She knew what it was like to grieve; Tabitha had been her best friend. And since losing his wife in the way he had, there was a big hole to grieve, but still, Gage was alive. Someday he had to start remembering that.

He was a good man. An award-winning reporter with the
Chicago Tribune,
he fought his battles with the power of his words. And while burying himself in work was a decent short-term answer, it was a lousy long-term one.

He’d fired the housekeeper again. Rachel knew it as soon as she walked into the kitchen and saw the dullness of the linoleum and the stacked, washed dishes in the draining rack. Gage was too neat a man to leave unwashed dishes around. But he wouldn’t see the rest of the small details that made a house a comfortable home; he’d only feel them as they accumulated.

She opened the refrigerator to store the Cool Whip to go with the cherry pie she’d brought over. Gage had a sweet tooth.

The milk was sour. She didn’t have to smell it to tell; she only had to pick up the plastic gallon to see it. It was the little things that made the grief intense: buying milk by the pint instead of the gallon, cooking for one. Her heart hurt to see the signs of continuing grief.

She was half in love with Gage herself, had resigned herself to living with that fact. Friendships under the stress of the last two years either fractured or melded people together, and Rachel felt like her heart had been soldered together with his. She was going to get him through this if it killed her. She owed it to Tabitha. She’d wrestle with her own emotions later when it was time to move on.

She took off the cap and poured the milk down the sink.

Getting Gage through this second year of holidays was going to be more difficult than she thought. She picked up his phone, saw there were six messages blinking on his answering machine, and since she knew five of them were hers, got further annoyed. The least he could do was listen to her worry about him.

She was surprised when she caught her sister at home. She had expected to leave a message on the answering machine. “Kate, could you rescue my gray-and-white suitcase and shove it in a closet?” She had been planning to head back to Washington, D.C., and already had tickets for an early morning flight out of O’Hare. As Kate had offered to give her a ride to the airport, Rachel planned to spend the night at her sister’s place and had already moved her luggage to Kate’s trunk.

It was best to put those plans on hold.

On call with the Red Cross and the Emergency Services Disaster Agency to handle trauma situations involving children, Rachel traveled so much she kept apartments in both Chicago and Washington. Staying longer in Chicago would create headaches as she was serving on the presidential commission on school violence next year. The preparation work was just ramping up, but she would figure out a way to work around it.

“That bad,” Kate commented.

“If he didn’t love so deeply, he couldn’t grieve so deeply. But he’s drowning in it.”

“Drinking?”

Rachel checked Gage’s trash and didn’t see any liquor bottles. “Doesn’t look like it.” He’d promised her and he was a man of his word. “But he could use a friend. I’ll stick around for the holidays.”

“It will be good to have you around. If I’m out when you swing by, help yourself to dinner. I’m buried in turkey; Dave and I barely made a dent in it. There’s no need to try and get to the grocery store tonight to replace perishables.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Give Gage a hug for me? I like him.”

At least someone in her family did. Gage’s lingering animosity toward Jack had polarized her family. “I’ll do that.”

Rachel hung up the phone, then looked around the kitchen trying to decide what to do. She had prepped herself to have Gage answer the door, to smile and keep her emotions to herself. She even searched out the
TV Guide
in case he didn’t want to talk. For him, she’d tolerate a football game.

Gage called her sticky, sometimes as a compliment, sometimes with a touch of irritation in his voice. She stuck no matter how hard he tried to shake her off.

He thought it was because her overactive sense of doing good wouldn’t let her leave him alone. She didn’t tell him he was essentially a nonpaying patient. He’d be ticked and she really didn’t want to explain the notes she kept out of habit. How did she explain she was just worried enough to want to stay close without sounding paranoid?

She needed Gage. She was thirty-five, and the last few years had drained her more than she would admit even to family. The old stuff she had buried from her childhood was back disrupting her dreams. Her sister Jennifer’s cancer had pushed the subject of mortality back to center stage, and she just wanted a chance to stop moving for a while and catch her breath. With Gage, there was a reason to stop. As much as she helped him, he helped her. He listened.

She picked up his jacket from the chair at the kitchen table, caught the faint smell of his aftershave, and rubbed her hand on the fabric as she walked to the closet to hang it up.

Where was he?

A check of the garage showed his car was missing. Knowing Gage, the odds were good he had stayed local. Rachel found her keys and locked his house. Shoving her hands in her pockets, she set out searching.

Three

C
assie? Open up. I know you’re in there. I can see the lights are on.” Jack tried to keep the frustration out of his voice. She was going to ignore his thumping on the door. The blinds on the front window had been lowered and the door had stained-glass panels preventing a look inside, but the lights were on and her car was still here. So much for wondering what she’d think about unexpected company.

The street was deserted. The chill in the November evening made Jack wish he’d thought to wear more than a windbreaker. Her bookstore was in the old section of Lincoln Hills’ downtown, nestled between a candy store and a bike shop. The businesses were part of one old brick building sharing a common roof and parking lot. He’d leave, but he was beginning to worry and he hated that feeling.

Jack heard a sudden scramble inside to throw locks. The front door opened so fast he saw Cassie wince as the corner of the door caught her left foot. She wasn’t wearing shoes. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you.” He heard the loudness of the Christmas music playing and felt stupid. Deaf, why hadn’t he remembered the obvious? She was now partially deaf.

And she was still gorgeous. Her hair had grown back. She’d always looked a bit like a pixie, but now her face was framed by curling brown hair. The suppressed pain had disappeared from those dark chocolate eyes.

She had gone with the oval frames for glasses that had a thin band of gold at the top, and they drew more attention to her spectacular eyes. Thankfully the fire had just brushed her face and those burns had long ago disappeared under the skill of a surgeon’s knife. Overall, it was a great face. He leaned against the doorpost, enjoying it.

“Jack. You were looking for me?” Cassie asked, her words breaking into his thoughts.

“I missed you.” He saw her blink and realized what he’d said. “At the party. We missed you at the party.” She grinned as he dug himself out of the quicksand of words he hadn’t meant to say. “Sandra insisted you needed a care package.”

“That’s for me?” She looked at the sack he held. “All of that?”

He felt like laughing at her stunned expression. “I caught a look at some of what she was packing. I sure hope you haven’t had dinner yet. It started with ribs and went on from there.”

“Smokehouse Eatery ribs. I’ve dreamed of them. Come in, please.” She reached out and caught his jacket sleeve, tugging him inside.

She stepped out of the way, then closed the door behind him.

The bookstore had been transformed since the last time he visited. Not that he often entered bookstores, but hers was worth a visit. It showed her touches. Whimsical. Rare books. Rare toys. The bold red fire engine sitting on the corner of her worktable had to be from the 1950s.

Cassie stopped at the counter and leaned over to nudge down the music volume. No radio or CDs for Cassie; she had a stack of vinyl records on a turntable. “White Christmas” ended and “Jingle Bells” began. It set a festive mood.

Jack made a place for the sack on the table that dominated the center of the room. It was custom built to be her come-and-linger table where she put out coffee and cookies for her customers. He slid his jacket over the back of a chair.

It was obvious she’d been sorting and shelving books. Several books with colorful jackets were spread out in a semicircle on the floor beside the glass-enclosed shelves. Curious, he studied the two turned his direction:
Wings for Victory,
with its World War II vintage B-52 and parachuting soldier, and
Gene Autry and the Redwood Pirates,
the horse and its rider racing up a trail. Popular children’s books from another decade.

“I think you’d like
Uncle Wiggily in the Country.”
Cassie pointed to the book nearest him on the floor. “It’s got pictures in it.”

He shot her a smile. “That book looks older than I am.”

“1940. The jacket is in good condition, and the color-plate pictures are excellent.”

“What’s it worth?”

“Ninety.”

“That’s highway robbery.”

Her laughter was a delight to hear. “If I wanted to hold it a while and sell it as part of a set, I could get in the low three figures.”

Cassie rolled down her long sleeves and looked down to catch the buttons at the cuffs. “Was Cole at the party?”

Jack wanted to tell her not to roll them down for his sake. But he didn’t know how she felt about the scars, if they made her self-conscious or embarrassed. If he said nothing, did he make it worse than if he acknowledged them? They looked a great deal better than the day the doctors first removed the gauze to air the burns.

“Cole was there, most of the firefighters, a good percentage of the dispatchers. The place was packed.”

She glanced back up and smiled. “I’m glad. Charles and Sandra have been getting squeezed lately with the station closing right after the movie theater. They not only lost the business of firefighters stopping by the restaurant before and after their shifts, but Charles lost the extra income he earned working paid on call with the station.”

“He seems to be weathering the transition. And Sandra is happy to have him off the fire runs.”

A new record dropped and “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” began to play.

Their conversation had already veered through its normal course of subjects and she looked to be searching for a new topic. They were casual friends, the kind you could be comfortable around, the kind with whom you could share a laugh and a smile when paths crossed. There was respect, trust, humor…and not much that was personal beyond work.

His plans to change that hadn’t worked out as he hoped. Cassie had been in and out of the hospital with the surgeries, and he’d walked into a summer of crises in his family that had absorbed his time and attention.

He hadn’t wanted Cassie catching grief because of him. So he flirted a bit when he saw her at a fire scene or a fireman’s gathering, made a beeline to sit beside her when they ended up at the same certification training, but otherwise let the relationship drift as casual friends. He should have never let the distance between where they lived, the schedule clashes, what other guys in the small community of firefighters would say keep him from asking her out.

He was paying for it now. He wanted her feeling comfortable to talk about her plans, to stretch beyond that and talk about the holidays, family, what it was like to have dreams about a fire…but he didn’t know how to begin. Stalling, Jack reached over and picked up one of the cars on the table destined for her rare toys shelf. “They don’t make cars like this anymore.”

The Model-T was heavy, made of metal, its black paint still shiny. The tires were thick rubber, the steering wheel an aged white plastic. He turned it over and found stamped on the bottom the signature Hubbley Toys of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

“Raise the hood and check out the engine.”