Together always (9 page)

It wasn't a comfortable realization. It was safer to think of her as a Uttle girl. Safer? He shook his head, setting the photo down.

I'll graduate from the academy next month. I think Mike is more excited than I am. I guess he always hoped that his own son would go into police work and I'm a good substitute.

Don't believe everything you see on television about the dangers of being a cop in L.A. It's not as bad as it looks.

Well, I've got a million things to do so I'm going to sign off now. Take care and write soon.

Love, Trace

He set the pen down, feehng as if he'd accomplished a difficult assignment. As the years passed, it became harder and harder to write to his mother, and the letters grew fewer. He'd never understand why she chose to stay where she was. It was almost five years now since he'd written to suggest that she come to L.A. Mike would help her find a job. And she'd written back to say that she couldn't come because Jed was ill and needed her to take care of him.

Something in Trace had broken then. He still didn't fully understand the rage he'd felt, but some final tie to his childhood had been severed forever. At every critical moment in life, Addie chose Jed. She chose a life with a man

who had beaten her and degraded her. Trace didn't understand it and he'd stopped trying. He never again suggested that she move to California.

He finished the last of his coffee, his glance settling on Lily's photo again. Those green eyes always seemed to hold so many secrets. He remembered the way she'd looked in her white dress, her thick black hair draped in a rich fall across one shoulder, those eyes looking at him in a way that was half a question, half a challenge.

His body tightened in a shockingly familiar way and he stood up abruptly, a short violent curse exploding out of him. He'd been concentrating too hard at the academy. Lily was just a kid, no matter what her eyes seemed to say. He poured another cup of coffee, scalding his tongue on the dark liquid as if punishing himself for his thoughts.

They'd been through a lot together. It was understandable that she was on his mind—in a way that was no longer childlike. Wasn't that supposed to be a normal part of a young girl growing up? She was aware of him as a man, not just a pseudo brother. There was nothing wrong with that.

They'd get through this stage, just as they'd gotten through everything else—together.

Book Two

Chapter Six

Seven Years Later

Dampness fell sporadically, more an omnipresent moisture than actual rain. It dampened the eucalyptus leaves and then dripped silently to the ground beneath. Most of the people around the open grave huddled under huge umbrellas.

Trace wasn't aware of the dampness. The misty drizzle was just one more touch of unreality in a day that was already surreal. He stood at attention, staring straight ahead. The collar of his uniform felt too tight, making it difficult to breathe. He blinked against the ache in his eyes, narrowing them under the brim of his cap. There seemed to be a hard lump where his heart should be.

He couldn't look at the dark casket, the wood shiny and wet. He couldn't look at the open grave where the casket would soon rest. That might make it real. None of this could be real. In a minute he'd wake up and find out that Mike wasn't really dead, that this wasn't his funeral. But he didn't really believe that was going to happen.

He didn't have to turn his head to see the men who flanked him, all of them in dress uniform, standing at attention out of respect to a departed colleague. It didn't matter that Mike had left the force nearly twenty years ago.

He'd stayed active as a volunteer, and he'd had a lot of friends on the force.

The formahty of the uniformed men only added to the surrealistic feel. He just couldn't make it seem real. Not the mourners, not the minister's voice droning on unheard, not the open grave or the looming casket. None of it felt real. Especially not Lily.

He looked across the grave to where she stood, surrounded by neighbors and friends who'd come to pay their last respects to Mike. It was the first time he'd seen her in ahnost two years. If he'd ever thought that her beauty was more his imagination than reahty, the truth stood before him.

Wearing a simple dress covered with a thin black coat, she looked Uke a painting of a medieval Madonna. She was all black and white. Black coat, black hair, her face without a hint of color. As if sensing him looking at her, she lifted her eyes to his. Even across the few feet that separated them, he could see the pain swimming in her green eyes. He glanced away. Her pain made everything too real.

He realL^ that the minister had stopped talking. No one moved as the casket was slowly lowered into the grave. Trace watched it disappear, still without allowing himself to believe in the reahty of what was happening. Lily stepped forward, bending to scoop up a handful of dirt, holding it tightly for a moment as if trying to fill it with love, and then she opened her fist. The damp soil hit the wood below with a faint thud, Uke the first beat of a death knell.

Feeling as if he were wading through quicksand, Trace moved around the grave until he stood next to her. He stared down at the shiny wood, noticing the smattering of soil that was Lily's offering. Bending, he filled his hand with moist earth. It brought to mind an image of Mike at work in his garden. Soil's the only lasting thing in this world, Trace. It'll be here long after you and I are gone and forgotten.

A damp musty smell rose from the soil he held, full of all the potential for life, now a witness to death. His eyes burned as he hfted his hand over the grave and opened his fingers. The soil sprinkled downward, mixing with what Lily had put there, a final offering to a man they'd both loved.

Beside him, Lily raised her hand to her mouth, stifling a sob. Trace put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close to lean against him. They stared at the casket a moment longer, reluctant to break this last link. The minister murmured a final prayer, his voice solemn.

The minister rode with them in the car to Mike's house. Mike hadn't been much of a church-goer but he and the minister had been personal friends. No one said anything during the short ride. There just didn't seem to be anything to say.

Looking back later, Trace remembered the afternoon as a series of vignettes, separate from one another, yet forming a coherent picture of loss. The house was full of people yet it felt empty. Mike's stocky presence was gone, leaving a gap that couldn't be filled by the friends who came to offer their condolences.

Lily moved among the guests, her slim figure wraithlike in the plain dark dress, her hair drawn back from her face. Trace watched for her, his eyes seeking her out, needing to know she was there. There was a bruised look to her eyes. Pinched lines around her mouth told of her grief more eloquently than words ever could.

People talked, at first in hushed tones, gradually in normal voices. An occasional spurt of laughter punctuated some of the more memorable stories of Mike's adventures. It was just as it should be. There was nothing Mike would have hated more than everyone standing around crying.

Trace forced himself to smile at the appropriate moments but his grief went too deep to allow room for nostalgia. He found himself glancing at the door, half expecting

to see Mike standing there, his face split by a wide grin, telling them that he'd only been kidding.

People began to drift away as the short winter daylight faded. Voices were subdued again. For these few hours, it had almost been as if Mike were still with them. But leaving his home now, they knew he was gone from them forever.

Trace shook hands and murmured his thanks until he felt like a mechanical doll. When the door shut behind the last guest, he slumped back against it, drained. A quiet noise in the living room reminded him that he wasn't alone.

Lily. What was he going to say to her? She'd left for England right out of college, taking a job tutoring an American family's children. Two years. It was a long time. He lifted himself away from the door and moved into the living room. Lily was gathering dishes into a stack, her movements sluggish, reflecting her exhaustion. Trace remembered that she'd flown in from England only this morning. God knew what time her body thought it was.

** Leave those."

She jumped at the sound of his voice, glancing up at him and then looking away. *'ril just put them in the kitchen."

* They'll keep where they are until morning. You look beat."

**rd rather get them out of the way." She added another plate to the stack. With a sigh. Trace moved forward, gathering cups and glasses as he went, stacking them precariously high before following Lily into the kitchen. They worked without speaking.

"Are you hungry?" Lily asked. **A lot of people brought food."

"No, thanks. Why don't you sit down and I'll make some tea. You still drink tea?"

Lily shut the refrigerator door and gave him a half smile. "Yes. Do you still think it tastes like bathwater?"

**Yes, but I don't have the energy for anything stronger right now.'* Neither of them seemed to have anything to say while the water boiled and the tea steeped. Trace carried a tray into the living room and set it on the floor next to the sofa. While Lily poured tea into sturdy mugs, he built a fire. The cheerful crackle of burning logs helped to offset the thick silence that seemed to fill the house.

**So, how was England?"

**It was nice. I enjoyed tutoring the Fairfield children. They were a handful but they were nice kids."

**Did you get to see everything you wanted to see? I know when you left you had plans to see every square inch of Europe."

**I didn't manage quite that much but I did get to travel a bit."

**Good. I'm glad you didn't spend all your time trapped in a classroom."

**No, I didn't."

Silence descended again. Europ)e wasn't what was in the forefront of either of their minds but it was safer than what they really wanted to talk about.

**So, how's life as a cop? I hear you're up for a promotion." She tried to sound cheerful but her words rang hollow.

**Yeah. I'll believe it when it happens."

"You didn't write very much."

He shrugged uncomfortably. "I'm not much good with letters." Besides, what would he have written? He couldn't have told her how he really felt. He wasn't even sure himself. He hadn't known since the summer she turned eighteen, but that wasn't something he could think about now. So he'd limited his letters to an occasional note and told himself it was for the best. And he'd lived in dread of the day she'd write to say that she'd met a wonderful man she wanted to marry.

*'Mike always keeps me up-to-date on what you're doing." She stopped abruptly, reahzing what she'd said. "I guess you'll have to do your own writing from now on, won't you?"

*'I guess so." T^ce stared into the fire, his jaw tight. Mike's absence was suddenly a presence in the room. It wasn't possible to ignore reality any longer.

*'Did you let his son know?"

Trace shrugged, swallowing down the hot tea in a gulp before getting up to find the bottle of Scotch Mike had always kept underneath the bookshelves. He poured himself a healthy dose before turning to look at Lily again.

'1 sent a telegram to the last address I could find but I don't know if he got it. It was somewhere in the Middle East, some Podunk country with an unpronounceable name."

''Had they spoken? Mike said one time that he was thinking of writing Michael."

"I don't think he did. I don't know exactly what happened between thein but Michael hasn't been home in close to twenty years."

Trace paused, taking a quick swallow of Scotch, hoping it would burn away some of the ache in his chest. "He should have come home."

Lily nodded. "Maybe he thought there'd be more time." She leaned her head back, staring into the fire, her expression pensive.

Trace watched her, wondering how it was possible that she grew more beautiful with each passing year. Her face was like a fine porcelain sculpture, lighted by the deep green of her eyes and the soft coral of her mouth. With her hair caught back, the delicate angles and planes were exposed in a way that not many women would have dared.

His eyes traced the line of her throat and touched on the soft swell of her breasts before he could drag his gaze away.

For just a moment he could taste her, the way her mouth had softened under his, the way her body had molded so perfectly to him. Six years hadn't dulled the memory. Six years hadn't altered the need.

"What happened. Trace? What really happened to Mike?"

Trace's fingers tightened over the glass. "I told you when I called you in England."

"All you said was that he was shot."

"Isn't that enough?" He finished off the Scotch and poured himself another one, grateful for the excuse to turn his back to her.

"I need to know what really happened."

"Just leave it alone. You know enough." If she heard the tightness in his voice she chose to ignore it.

"I want to know the whole truth. I want to know everything, Trace."

"Fine!" He spun around, splashing Scotch onto his hand with the sudden movement. "Fine. You want to know everything? What shall I start with? You want to know how it felt to walk in and see Mike lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood, his eyes open and staring? You want to know how many times he was shot and how long it took him to die and how much pain they think he was in? Is that what you want to know?"

He stopped, choking the words off. He took in a deep breath, regaining his control, fighting down the anger that wanted to break loose and smash something just for the satisfaction of hearing it break. The look in Lily's eyes was all he needed to tell him how close he was to doing it. She sat stiffly in her chair, her eyes on him, wide and holding a hint of fear. It was the fear that slammed his control back into place. He never wanted to see a woman look at him with fear. Not any woman but especially not Lily. It reminded

him of too many things in his childhood that he didn't want to remember.