Turn Me Loose Page 9

  He typed something into his laptop. “Maiden name?”

  “Montgomery.”

  “You’re an only child?”

  “Yes, but not by choice. They tried for years to get pregnant. Mom had so many miscarriages the doctor finally told her to stop trying. I was the miracle baby.”

  He typed away, scrutinized the data that came back. “If she came from money, why was your father distributing drugs?”

  She’d never really thought about it, not until Hawthorn exploded her life. After that, she’d thought about it late at night when she couldn’t sleep, trying to make sense of who she was, who she could become, always hoping and dreaming that one day she’d have the relationship she’d always wanted with her mother. “Because he’s a sociopath. And because my dad’s a sociopath, he took Mom’s miscarriages personally. He wanted a boy,” she said finally. “Really badly. I used to hear him yelling at her about it, how he worked his ass off to get her what she wanted, and what about what he wanted? Somebody to carry on his work, to follow in his footsteps. It was ‘all he asked her to do.’ Like the fact that I was a girl was her fault, not his. His moods dominated the whole house. I was little, maybe five or six when I first picked up on this. I felt badly about it, that he was so mad at her, so I tried to make him happy, tried to be the son he wanted. It would work for a while, and then I’d mess up. Miss a couple of shots in basketball, or get elected vice president of the student council, not president. He’d go back to ignoring me and picking at Mom. Nothing could please him when he was like that. Not her cooking, or the house, or me. By the time I was eighteen, I just wanted him to love us. I was willing to do anything. And, as you know, I did. The end.”

  “He fixated on a son because…?”

  “His ego. Women are weak. We are fatally flawed,” she said. She’d heard it a thousand times in a dozen different ways, but it all boiled down to the same thing. Inherent weakness.

  “I’m sorry,” Ian said.

  She focused on the highway zipping away under the wheels of her truck, taking her home. “Between you and a couple of psychology classes, I figured out what was going on. I’ve tried to set boundaries, take care of myself.”

  She could feel his gaze against her skin, but he didn’t push it. They drove for a couple of hours, Ian typing and clicking, asking questions when data came up. She checked her phone, then flipped up her turn signal to switch lanes in time for the next exit.

  “You don’t have to drive this cautiously,” he said.

  “This is how I always drive.”

  “You always drive the speed limit, indicate turns half a mile ahead, and never text and drive.”

  “Yes. Because after I met you, I lived in fear of being pulled over. I’d turn and walk away if I saw a cop in SoMa.”

  “That’s not your best move. Make eye contact. We’re more interested in the people who won’t look us in the eye.”

  Trust Ian to go straight for the logic and avoid the emotion. She came to a complete stop at the sign at the top of the exit, then consulted her phone and headed south.

  “Where are we going?”

  “We’re getting some lunch.”

  He looked around the exit. Enormous gas stations sat beside each off ramp, with chain fast food options hovering like fighter planes next to the mother ships. “You’re going to eat McDonald’s?”

  She headed down a county highway, away from the neon and twirling signs. “There’s a local place a few miles down the road. I hope you like barbecue.”

  “Love it,” he said. “When my brother was home on leave last year, we tried all of Lancaster’s local barbecue joints.”

  “Fat Shack is the best,” she said.

  “I prefer Smokehouse, but Jamie would agree with you.”

  “Home on leave from where?” she asked, interested despite herself.

  “The navy.”

  Something niggled at the back of her mind, a memory she couldn’t make gel into a thought. “I could see you in the military,” she said. “Why didn’t you join?”

  “I thought about it,” he said. His jaw was tense, his voice emotionless again. She didn’t ask. She wanted the right to question him, and for him to see she also exercised another option: the right to keep silent and allow someone some privacy.

  “You can ask, if you want.”

  “You obviously don’t want to talk about it. Sometimes even people who know each other well respect boundaries. I’m making a point,” she said.

  “I can see that,” he said mildly. “Here’s your point. Things are different now. You can ask questions, refuse to answer them, decide where we eat, which, for the record, I would have let you do seven years ago, except all you said when I asked was I don’t care. That’s your point. Let me know when you’ve got it.”

  She pulled into the dusty gravel parking lot next to a low-slung white building with picnic tables dotting the grass and a big smoker behind the kitchen, cut the engine, and turned to look at him.”What happens if I admit I get it?” she asked.

  He didn’t pretend to not understand her question. Instead he turned the full force of those hazel eyes on her. It was like turning a gas burner from off to high, heat radiating instantly. “We figure that out together.”

  A minivan pulled into the lot next to them, startling Riva. The side door opened and a pack of kids poured out, the older ones helping the younger ones out of car seats and down the step to the gravel. “Let’s eat.”

  They ordered at the window, through which they could see the kitchen in full swing. Riva studied the operation, then made a conscious decision to shut off her work brain and ordered ribs, fries, and an iced tea.

  “Make that two,” Hawthorn said. “Inside or out?”

  Inside was dominated by two large televisions turned to competing news stations. She peered out the back window and found picnic tables covered with cheery red-checked vinyl tablecloths held down by large squeeze bottles full of the house varieties of barbecue sauce. Inside meant they wouldn’t have to talk. Outside would soothe her soul.

  “Out,” she said, then added, “If that’s okay with you.”

  “I prefer it,” he said.

  By unspoken agreement they ended up at a table shaded by a big oak with freshly minted leaves tossing in the breeze. Riva tucked her hair behind her ear and dug in her purse for her sunglasses. “It’s pretty,” she commented.

  “How did you find this place?”

  “I keep a list of recommendations I get from a bunch of different places. Customers, distributors, other growers, the internet. Last night I picked out a couple on this route.”

  “How did you get into the farm-to-table movement? Before you bite my head off, a colleague would know that.”

  She used the waitress arriving with their food to consider how to answer this question without giving too much away. “When I dropped out of college, I went to work at the natural foods market, mostly because after I had spent a lot of time thinking about a prison cell, I wanted to work outside.”

  He picked up a knife and fork to cut the meat from his ribs, but then set the knife down when the slightest pressure sent the flesh sliding right off the bone. “I didn’t know you dropped out.”

  “I did,” she said matter-of-factly. “I had to learn what I wanted, who I was, because all I knew was how to be what Dad wanted. I liked being outside, and felt stifled in classrooms, so I dropped out. That was the first step.”

  “Now you have Oasis and the farm. That’s a lot of progress in seven years.”

  “I started doing what I wanted to do, shaping my own future,” she said. “A future that includes kids like Isaiah. It’s one I can give my whole heart to.”

  “Sounds like a pretty good life to me,” he said quietly.

  * * *

  The rest of the drive was uneventful, but not as awkward as Riva expected. Lunch taught her that their shared history made things like sitting in a car together and having a meal together less stressful than it would have been
with a near stranger. She knew Hawthorn, how he moved, how he looked when he was angry, or focused, or even amused. For better or worse, they had history.

  The afternoon sunlight was fading when she merged into the traffic heading into Chicago. She pulled up alongside an old house in the historic neighborhood of Logan Square, and shifted into park.

  “Why not the driveway?”

  “The truck’s leaking oil.” She clambered out and shut her door, rounding the hood to stand by Ian. “Dad won’t like a big stain on the driveway.”

  “Anything else I should know before we go in?”

  Before she could answer, the front door opened and a yipping ball of hair topped with a bouncing pink bow barreled down the sidewalk toward them. “Oh, Sugar! Come here! Riva! Riva, honey, grab her!”

  Riva sat down on her heels and opened her arms, collecting a squirming ball of teacup Yorkie to her chest. “Hello, furball.” The tiny dog writhed and wagged and licked her face, giving Riva ample time to note how white her muzzle was, the cloudy spot on one eye. “Yes, I’m happy to see you, too.”

  Her mother minced down the sidewalk toward her, dressed in princess-pink ballet flats, ankle-length pants, and a cashmere sweater with frills at the hem, neckline, and button placket. Her hair was carefully done, her makeup impeccable. “Oh, dear,” she fretted from halfway through the flowerbeds lining the path. “I should get her leash.”

  Sugar, more interested in the newcomer than Riva, strained out of Riva’s arms. “She’s fine, Mom. A little help here?”

  Hawthorn reached out and caught the dog before Riva dropped it, cradling it in his left arm. The tiny thing braced its front paws on his chest and strained up to sniff at his jaw.

  “She likes you,” her mother said to Hawthorn. “She’s normally very reserved. I’m Stephanie.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Hawthorn said, shaking her hand like he wasn’t holding a tiny, ridiculous dog. “I’m Ian.”

  “Welcome, Ian,” she said, tearing up a little. “Any friend of Riva’s is so very welcome here. Oh, darling, it’s so good to see you!” She hugged Riva, squeezing her shoulders tightly. “How was the drive?”

  “Fine. Traffic was light.” Riva was surprised to hear her voice was level. She leaned back and studied her mother’s face, trying not to look like she was checking the state of her pupils. They were contracted, but the sun was in her eyes.

  “Oh, look at me, leaving you two out here on the walk! How stupid of me. Come in, come in.”

  “I’ll get the bags,” Hawthorn said.

  “I’ll get mine,” Riva replied. Which was how they ended up following her mother up the sidewalk, each of them carrying a suitcase and Ian with a Yorkie.

  Inside the house’s two-story entry, her mother was fluttering around Ian, not quite finishing sentences about the house or offering him something to drink while Ian looked around without seeming to do so. Riva knew only because she’d seen him do it dozens of times. For the first time, the plan became real.

  “Mom, we should get these suitcases out of the foyer before Dad gets home. Where do you have us?”

  “Oh, you’re right. Your father doesn’t like a mess. Come upstairs,” her mother said.

  “You can put Sugar down,” Riva said to Hawthorn.

  “She’s fine where she is,” Hawthorn replied.

  As she followed him up the stairs, his shirt shifted a little, exposing a leather tab clipped to his waistband. Riva saw the dull gleam of steel. With her free hand Riva reached up and tugged swiftly on his sweater, hiding what she now knew was a concealed weapon.

  Her mother opened a door. “We renovated three bedrooms into a two-bedroom suite with a shared bathroom. For when the grandchildren come to visit. Riva, you’re in here.”

  Riva followed her mother into a lovely guest room with a big four-poster bed and dresser on the far wall and a little sitting area clustered around the fireplace. The uppermost branches of the redbud tree were visible through the windows at the back of the room. “The nights are still cool enough for a fire.” Her mother opened the door next to the fireplace. “Bathroom’s through here, and Ian, you’re in the adjoining room. I’ll leave you two to get unpacked. Come on, baby,” she cooed, kissing Sugar’s head. “Come with mama.”

  Hawthorn handed over Sugar. Riva looked at him.

  Despite her best efforts, she was alone in a bedroom with Hawthorn.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The door closed behind Riva’s mother, leaving Ian and Riva in the bedroom together. Riva’s color was high, her eyes not quite meeting his, looking around the room at the ruffled curtains, the carpets on the dark hardwood floors, the chairs with throw pillows grouped around a rug in front of the wood-burning fireplace. The windows were old, tall and narrow, letting in lots of light weirdly refracted by the wavy glass.

  She was, he realized, looking anywhere but at him. Or at the bed. For a long, searing moment he let himself imagine Riva in that bed, her hair a tumbled red-brown tangle around her face as she slept, her lips soft, her face relaxed, not tense and angry and distrustful. Then, because he was an idiot and a masochist and into wanting things he could never have, he added a fading flush to her cheeks, reddened skin on her chin and neck from the scruff around his mouth, from his kisses as he made love to her while the fire crackled.

  He’d give anything to see her like that.

  Anything? Including his career?

  He cleared his throat. “That went well.”

  “I’ll ask her to move you.” Riva stared at him.

  He resisted the urge to shove his hands in his pockets. “It’s better if you don’t.”

  “You do understand that she’s given us adjoining rooms because she’s so desperate for grandchildren that she’d encourage a colleague to knock me up.”

  He thought he knew the depth and breadth of his desire for Riva, the way it tasted, smelled, felt as it pooled in his body, overtook his brain. He clearly suffered from a failure of imagination, because not once had he imagined her pregnant or holding a child. His child. The child they made together. He didn’t let himself think of that kind of future, because his body was a ticking time bomb already.

  But now it was there, Riva’s slender body ripening with a baby.

  And suddenly something that had been abstract and off-limits before—a wife, children, a future—swam into sharp HD detail. He’d been young when he got cancer, so getting married and having kids was never at the front of his mind. As he grew older and watched his friends pair off, get married, start families, he’d been content with what he had: a future with the LPD and politics. But at the words “knock me up,” a howling regret surged inside him. Because he could imagine Riva married, pregnant, teaching her kids to gather eggs, feed the sheep, weed the garden.

  She was staring at him. In their new and improved relationship, that counted as a quip, and quips deserved fast, snappy responses. “I do know,” he said. “But that’s why it’s beneficial. If we need to talk after lights out, I don’t have to creep down the hall to your room and raise suspicions.”

  And he could keep an eye on her, for two reasons. The cop in him wouldn’t put it past Riva to sneak out. The man in him balked at the thought of leaving her unprotected.

  “We’re going to share a bathroom.”

  “I promise to put the seat down.”

  She shot him a glare. “That’s not the problem.”

  “So what is the problem?”

  More glaring.

  “I’m not dense, Riva. We’re going to be sharing a bathroom, which means getting naked to do things like shower. Our bedrooms are separated by only a couple of doors. There’s a fireplace in yours. Very romantic. That’s the problem.”

  She deflated a little. “I just didn’t think we’d be this close.”

  “It’s not as close as the front seat of my car.”

  “True.”

  The tension crackling in the air between them ebbed, leaving Ian in the near-constant state of arousal Riva
inspired in him. But obviously she needed some space. “I’m going to go for a run,” he said abruptly.

  “I don’t run,” Riva said, warning clear in her voice.

  “You don’t have to come with me,” he said. “Thanks for your help on the stairs.”

  “No problem,” she said. “I’m going downstairs to try to salvage dinner.”

  “What?” he said, caught off guard.

  “Dad’s criticized Mom’s cooking for so long she’s basically terrified of her kitchen. They order out a lot. But she’ll feel like she needs to cook because that’s what Dad thinks a family should do. I need to intervene before she gets started.”

  * * *

  He schlepped his suitcase and laptop bag into his bedroom, which was smaller but contained a similar volume of chintz and ruffles, and changed into shorts and a T-shirt. His suitcase had a small, secured compartment for his Sig P938. Ian locked it away. The laptop he left closed on the small desk by the windows. It was password protected, with an encrypted drive. When opened, the screen showed only the operating system’s logo; nothing connected it to the city of Lancaster, much less to the police department.

  When he trotted down the stairs to the entryway, he could hear Riva in the kitchen. He followed the sound of her voice and found her and her mother sharing a glass of wine. Riva stood behind the kitchen island, which looked like an operating table in a Swedish-designed spaceship, surrounded by gleaming white cabinets that could contain dishes or a pantry or the fridge or a body. She had managed to maneuver her mother to the opposite side of the island, commandeering the cooking space. Onions sizzled on the stove.

  “I’m going for a run. Need to work out the travel kinks,” he said. “When should I be back?”

  “We’ll eat around seven,” Riva said.

  “Great.”

  “—seems like a nice man” was the last thing he heard before he jogged down the front steps and onto the sidewalk.