The Beauty Series (24 page)

He sat down on the same bench, reclining on the opposite corner. “So are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

He gave her a look of reprimand. “We dated for a year and a half. Which, for me, was practically a lifelong commitment. I think I can still tell when you’re upset.”

Strangely enough, she could read his emotions easily as well. His hair was shorter now, almost a buzz cut instead of the floppy hair she’d loved to run her fingers through. He seemed taller somehow, though it didn’t seem possible he would have grown. His posture was relaxed but expectant. She read his body language, his face, even without having seen him for years. Familiarity was a strange thing, muted with time but never turned off.

“My mom had a heart attack,” she admitted. “I was trying to get back there tonight, but my car broke down and then…” She didn’t really want to get into the specifics of her roommate being out of town and her secret boyfriend being a professor here. She shook her head. “It just isn’t working out. I guess I’ll have to stay. Maybe I can get a mechanic to repair my car in the morning.”

“On a Sunday morning? Not likely. Let me drive you back.”

She stared at him. “Back home, I mean. The four hour drive.”

“I know what you meant. I’ll take you there.”

“I can’t put you out that way.”

He looked away. “I owe you that ride anyway, even if it’s in the opposite direction. I’ve always felt bad for ditching you.”

She opened her mouth to reassure him.
No, it’s okay. I understood.
But she didn’t. She hadn’t understood how she could have meant so little to him because of what their parents had or hadn’t done. Because of something outside of her control.

Sighing, she said, “It was a long time ago.”

“It’s never too late to repay a debt. Let me drive you there.”

Temptation tugged at her. In a manner of speaking, he did owe her this, so she wasn’t just inconveniencing a stranger. And she really wanted to get home. Was her mother awake now? Was she afraid or in pain? Erin could only hope that the hospital care she received was expert, but what if her mother needed someone to advocate for her? Erin needed to be there, and she had no other way to go. No one else to take her. She glanced at her phone. Still no return call from Blake.

Would he be pissed about Doug taking her? Would he suspect that she’d been cheating on him? No, she couldn’t believe that. He’d understand when he found out that her mother was ill, when he heard that her car had broken down. When he saw the twelve missed calls from her. He had to understand. She’d make him understand.

“Okay,” she said on a resigned breath. “I appreciate it. And if you want, I can drive there, so you can sleep on the way.” She offered this even knowing he would refuse.

And he did. “Did I ever, in all the time you knew me, let another person drive my car?”

A reluctant smile touched her lips. “It’s late. You must be tired.”

“Never that tired. Not even for you, Erin.”

“You always loved your car,” she said with a touch of fondness.

“Even more now,” he promised. “This one I paid for myself.”

It took almost an hour for Doug to shepherd his friends back to their place and retrieve his car from a parking lot near the clubs. She watched her phone, hoping Blake would see her missed calls. She had begun to worry about him as well, but she had to trust he was safe. She also had to trust that he wasn’t just ignoring her or off with Melinda. Old worries couldn’t touch her now. Faced with failing her mother, with losing her, she had no energy for baseless fears. Blake was kind and loyal, and she wouldn’t doubt him. She only wished that he were here.

As Doug pulled to the curb in a sleek new Audi, she dialed Blake’s number one last time. This time it didn’t even ring, going straight to voicemail.

“It’s me. I got a ride back, with Doug.” She wasn’t sure how to describe him, and she certainly didn’t want to say
that guy I told you about who broke my heart.
“Don’t worry. Everything will be fine. I’ll see you when I get back.”

As she stepped into the low floor of the car, she realized the assurances were more for herself than him. Everything would be fine, with her mother, and with him. With herself.

“You okay?” Doug asked, concerned.

She forced a smile. “I will be.”

*     *     *

“Fifteen in the
corner.” The familiar thud and reverberation of his stick told him he’d shot true. The striped orange ball tipped over the lip of green felt and tumbled in.

His opponent was George Evans, professor of Greek Archaeology. Evans shook his head. “Goddamn. Are you hustling me, Morris?”

Blake snorted. “I wish.”

Though his game had definitely improved. The first shot had been embarrassing. The cue had ricocheted around the table, somehow managing to miss every single goddamn ball.

His eye had escaped the blast unscathed, but his depth perception had still been affected. Something about the way the skin formed around it, or rather didn’t form, made a subtle difference.

This was his first time playing pool since the explosion, his first time being around people in a social setting. These men, privately, were kinder than the ones who’d questioned him at the party. They made no comment on his ineptitude and still included him. Slowly, he learned to compensate for the change. Even when he suspected the others were tired, he’d wanted to continue playing. To keep improving. To finally learn to deal with his injuries instead of avoiding them.

He circled the table and nodded to the side pocket to signal. Bending at the waist, he lined it up. There was his usual aim, the straight line between his stick, the cue, and the glinting side of the black eight ball. But that was wrong. If he made this shot, the cue would skate past the eight ball entirely and probably end up in the corner pocket, costing him the game.

He tilted the stick a few degrees. He preferred to change his aim rather than angle his head, he’d found. Now it appeared as though the cue would hit the eight ball dead-on, sending them both in a useless arc across the table. He pulled back and made the shot.

The cue brushed the eight, changing its course enough to head for the middle. The eight ball rolled slowly into the side pocket and landed with a clink against the other balls.

“Good game,” Evans said, clapping him on the shoulder. “I mean that. You’re welcome to come back and kick my ass anytime. At pool, that is. I’ll wipe the floor with you about Knossos anytime.”

Blake chuckled. “I have no doubt.”

They’d had something of a debate about the ancient Greek citadel. Blake had been less informed than his opponent, and it had felt damn good. Evans had given him a few recommendations for journal articles to read as well. There was something exhilarating about talking with someone, the connection. The energy in the room.

Evans brushed the chalk from his hands. “I’m going to head out, actually. Don’t know if the missus has been calling while we’ve been down here, but I figure I ought to head home nonetheless.”

Blake waved him off but stayed near the pool table instead of joining the other men for a cigar. Something about Evans’s words niggled at him. What if Erin had called him? He pulled out his phone, relieved to find the screen blank. No missed calls.

Then he noticed the bars were missing. No signal either.
Don’t know if the missus has been calling…
Damn. These old buildings had horrible reception to start with, and they were in the basement. For all he knew, this was some sort of old bomb shelter.

He ignored the men in the corner and took the stairs up to the building. Still nothing, and he didn’t stop walking. Pushing outside, he waited impatiently for his phone to regain signal. Like the piece of dumb machinery it was, it continued to show no signal, and like the dumb outdated guy he was, he didn’t know how to tell it to check again.

A sudden sense of panic overtook him. Irrational. Erin knew where he was tonight, and they already had a plan to meet tomorrow. Still, he couldn’t deny the warning bells going off inside his head. Instinct had kept him alive and relatively safe all this time. Even the painful scars were a blessing when he considered the alternative. He’d learned to trust those damn bells.

He pressed the button to restart his phone, but he didn’t wait for it. He strode in the direction of his car. It was late anyway, time to go, and he would apologize to the guys later for leaving so abruptly. He needed to check on Erin, to make sure she was okay. Because the bells told him something was wrong.

He was halfway to her apartment when his phone decided to buzz and beep at him. His heart dropped from his chest. Thirteen missed calls. An unlucky number, he thought uselessly. All from Erin. What could have happened? He’d missed her. He’d failed her. Grimly, he pressed the voicemail button to find out exactly how.

E
rin woke up
with a start. She turned to her mother, who was sleeping peacefully, the machines beeping softly. Someone had dimmed the lights since she’d last been awake, leaving only a soft lamp above and a soothing blue from the machine monitors. Squeezing the limp hand she held, Erin turned toward a soft scuffing sound.

A nurse gave her a sympathetic look. “I’ve gotta kick you out before the nurse shift changes. You can come back in after she’s been seen by the doctor.”

“Oh. Right.” Erin knew they had snuck her in against the official visiting hours. She was so grateful for the nurses’s tired smiles and gentle words. The doctor, too, seemed kind and knowledgeable. Even the room was welcoming, more like a modern styled bedroom than a hospital room—if she didn’t count the bed. At least her mother was receiving excellent medical care. Her pallor still scared Erin. Her mother’s eyes had fluttered open for a few minutes in the middle of the night.

“Erin,” she’d murmured. “You came.”

Desperate, Erin had spoken urgent words of love and apology, but her mother had drifted back to sleep without another word.

Erin stood, wincing at the twinge in her back. The metal and plastic chairs were not the most comfortable for sleeping, but she wasn’t about to complain. She forced a sleepy smile as she gathered up her purse and luggage.

Doug was propped up against the wall, an empty cup of coffee dangling from his fingertips. He straightened as she came out, rubbing his eyes.

“How is she?”

“I told you to go home and get some sleep,” she scolded softly. “But she seems well. Stable, they said. Right now it’s just the medicine keeping her sleepy, but they said it’s best she doesn’t move around too much anyway.”

His expression was sympathetic. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m fine.”

He studied her. “No offense, but you look awful.”

“Now why would that be offensive?” she asked dryly.

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly.

“It’s okay.” She scrubbed at her face. Surely he was right anyway. Worry and lack of sleep probably imprinted dark shadows under eyes. Her hair felt unruly and knotted to the touch. “You really should head home, though. I can take it from here. You don’t have to wait for me either. In town, I mean.”

“Then how would you get back?” he protested.

She waved a hand. “I’ll figure it out, now that I have time. I’m not sure how long I’ll need to stay here, so there’s no point in you hanging around for this. And wouldn’t you miss work? You’d better drive back today.”

Doug had sped on the open night roads, pulling into the hospital at four thirty in the morning. She glanced at the clock now, surprised to see it was already eight.

“No, I—” He paused, unaccountably at a loss for words. “I want to be here. To help you, if I can. I’m not asking to start anything right now. I know it’s not the time. But if sometime in the future, you and I were to…”

“Doug, what about the girl you were with?”

“She’s just a friend,” he said dismissively. When she raised an eyebrow, he amended, “With benefits.”

She shook her head. He would never change—not that she’d been waiting for that. She doubted they would have worked in the long term, even if there hadn’t been the horrible situation with her mother and his parents.

He seemed to follow her line of thinking. “I’m sorry about what happened when you came. I had no idea that would happen. And then when it did, I panicked.”

She stopped with him with a hand on his forearm. “I understand. I did my share of panicking. It was a bad situation.”

His nostrils flared slightly. He looked away. “I know your mom didn’t steal,” he said tightly.

It was as close to an admission as she would ever get, and more than she deserved, really. It wasn’t their fight, it was their parents’. Maybe they could fight it—fight the precedent, she thought wryly—except they weren’t together anymore. Never would be again. What she had with Blake was so much deeper than anything she’d experienced before. She wanted Doug to find that with someone else. Neither of them deserved to settle for each other.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

His expression was earnest. “You don’t have to decide now. I just wanted to tell you—”

Whatever he was going to tell her was cut off by sharp footfalls and a commanding masculine voice. She looked up at the counter, and like a dream, Blake was there. He spoke quickly to the nurse on duty, who pointed in Erin’s direction. Blake turned, his gaze burning bright with concern and love and something else. Something territorial that made her heart skip a beat.

“Blake,” she whispered.

The space closed between them. His gaze never left hers.

“Ah,” Doug said from beside her. “I see my position here has been made redundant.”

Only then did she realize that her hand was still on his arm, how it might have looked as they sat close together. How it might seem that she had accepted help from Doug. For a bleak moment, panic overtook her.

Until Blake arrived and gave Doug a brief nod of acknowledgement. She fell into Blake’s arms without understanding the mechanics of it. One moment she was sitting on the hard-backed chair, the next she was encased in a warm, solid hug and
this
, this was what she’d so desperately needed last night. Almost as much as, even more than, the ride to her hometown. She had needed his strength, his support.