I woke with a start, a weight I didn’t understand on my arm. I’d dreamt of Gloria. She was young and beautiful, like the day we met. She walked right up to me and touched my face, told me that it was okay. That’s what she kept saying over and over again: It’s okay.

I had no idea what she was talking about.

I didn’t recognize the space I was in when I woke. Light came through a window, diffused through the sheer curtain hanging lopsided over it. There was stuff all around me, clothes and chairs and heavy furniture that I didn’t know. And then she moved.

It came back to me in a rush, the whiskey and the words and the kiss. Her lip gloss was still sweet on the tip of my tongue.

“Alli?”

She mumbled something and then curled up on her side, a little snore indicating she was sound asleep. I sat up now that my arm was free, slipping my cell from my back pocket. It was a little after seven. Someone would be by soon to pick her up. I closed my eyes, a groan slipping from my lips when I remembered that Matthew was on the schedule this morning.

Matthew. The religious kid.

I needed to get out of there. The last thing I needed was for my coworkers to think I was sleeping with the clients.

Alli didn’t notice when I stood, didn’t seem to hear the door open. I caught sight of the glasses on the coffee table and grabbed them, carrying them into the kitchen before I let myself out. We all had keys to her house, courtesy of Stone Security. I locked up behind me before driving off, anxious to put as much distance between me and Alli as possible.

She was leaving town tomorrow, and I wasn’t on the schedule until she got back. For two weeks, I wouldn’t have to see her.

There was a little ache in my chest at the thought. I told myself it was relief.

Alli was…she was nothing like Gloria, nothing like the woman I had spent so much of my life with. She was the exact opposite. A woman like her was a good—what did the kids call it these days?—rebound girl. But she wasn’t for me.

If I ever found a woman I wanted to be with again, it wouldn’t be someone like Alli.

But, again, she was beautiful. And that body…but I was intensely lonely, too. Every woman looked good to me these days.

I drove across town, trying to decide between going to the warehouse and trying to find a quiet spot while the construction was underway, or going to my apartment and surrounding myself with memories that I’d thus far failed to deal with. Gloria and I had had a house downtown when she was here. But the medical bills and the cap on her insurance had left me pretty deeply in debt after her funeral. I had to sell the house. The apartment was a quarter of the size the house had been, so I sold most of our furniture, too, keeping only the bed and a few other necessities. Most of what filled the apartment was boxes and boxes of Gloria’s clothing, her photo albums, her scrapbooks, her awards from work. It was all Gloria. I never really noticed—or cared—but I’d gotten kind of lost in our relationship. Her stuff was everywhere, and mine…well, I didn’t need much.

The house was hers. The furniture was hers. The décor was all her. The kitchen—oh, how she’d loved to bake!—and the dining room. The spare bedrooms were full of potential projects, things she wanted to do with her students, things she used to fill her days during the summer. And I couldn’t part with any of it.

I let myself into the apartment, her smell surrounding me. Boxes were stacked neatly, four deep, in the living room, a few of them open. I liked to hold her blankets, her clothes. I liked the sense of closeness it brought me late at night. There were more boxes in the short hall, boxes in the bedroom. I’d never gone as far as to hang her clothes in the closet, but her favorite blouse was buttoned around a pillow on the bed.

Was it strange? Probably. But she was the only family I had from the time I was fourteen.

My family was a pathetic smear on the face of humanity. My mother ran off when I was two. My father was an alcoholic who managed to hold down a full-time job. A functioning alcoholic, that’s what they called them. But my father…he was a cruel man. Sometimes, I didn’t blame my mom for taking off. Other times, I was pissed at her for leaving me behind.

Gloria’s family was different. They lived on the other side of the tracks, the picture-perfect family. Her father was an executive at a local bank, her mother the queen of charity. They were often pictured in the local paper, diamonds glittering on her neck and at his wrists. Gloria was their youngest child. She had two older brothers and an older sister, all pictures of perfection like their parents. One of the first things Gloria ever said to me was that she was happy she didn’t have to put on an act when she was around me.

Her parents never knew she was pregnant. My father…he knew. He blew his top and threatened to castrate me if I thought for one second that I was going to expect him to pay for my bastard child. We knew the moment the stick turned pink that we wouldn’t have any parental support. That’s why we ran, why she emptied out her bank account and boarded that bus with me.

They could have found us if they’d wanted to. Gloria was paranoid the first few weeks, always looking over her shoulder, expecting a private detective to grab her and drag her home. When it never happened, I think it broke her heart. Proof that your parents really just don’t give a shit is always a harsh reality.

We both swore we’d never let our boy feel that way.

I lay back on the bed and pulled her pillow onto my chest, remembering our days together. They were good, those days. Things were hard those first few years, but we were probably happier then than we ever were. Justin was little, so full of love that it broke my heart just to look at him. Gloria was beautiful and always quick with laughter. And we were so full of hope, so convinced that we had a hundred years to be together.

I never expected her to be gone after only twenty-two years of marriage.

It wasn’t fair.

I sighed as I got up and forced myself into the bathroom. I hadn’t been here in so long that the soap was dried out in the dish. I tossed it out and opened a new one, climbing into the shower with a weight as heavy as the world on my shoulders. I closed my eyes as the water pounded down on me and thought about the dream I’d had. It’s okay. What did that mean? Was she telling me to move on? Or was that just the wishful part of my mind implying her permission for what I’d done last night?

Alli was the first woman I’d even looked at since Gloria. Definitely the first woman I’d kissed since Gloria.

Guilt was a funny thing, wasn’t it?

There’d been another woman once. A dispatcher at the sheriff’s office some ten years ago. She’d been beautiful and different, a woman willing to do things I thought I wanted. But I put a stop to it when flirtation became a heated make-out session in the back of a squad car. I kept it to myself for so long that it weighed heavy on my shoulders. And when I finally told Gloria, she just smiled.

I knew.

How? No one knew.

I know you. I knew the moment your thoughts strayed from me.

That’s what it was like with Gloria.

But Gloria was also the woman who held my hand in the hospital less than a week before she died and made me promise that I’d marry again someday.

I can’t die if you don’t promise. I can’t leave you alone to be miserable for the rest of your days.

I promised. But was that a promise I could really keep?

I could hear my phone ringing as I stepped out of the shower. I stubbed my toe on a box as I made my way to the bedroom, cursing under my breath until the phone was pressed to my ear.

“Sullivan.”

“Hey, Crispin, this is Patrick. Could you come down to the warehouse for a few minutes?”

“Something wrong?”

“No. Just need to talk.”

My heart sank. Matthew must have seen me drive away from Alli’s house that morning.

 

 

Construction was progressing slowly. The front lot was filled with heavy trucks and lumber and power tools, jutting out toward the road like they had the right to take up whatever space they could. The front door was no longer a simple metal door. They’d cut it out and expanded the hole, putting in a large, double glass door that would eventually open in on a reception area. The warehouse itself was divided by dozens and dozens of two by fours, each marking off a new wall or creating a new doorway. Twice, I nearly ran into workers not paying attention to their surroundings, as I made my way to the back of the building where Patrick had taken over the office that existed before construction began.

“Crispin,” he said, standing from behind the huge computer array that Jack had designed, “please, come in.”

He closed the door behind me, gesturing for me to take a seat in a spare chair by the desk. It was a small room, and the desk was huge, making me claustrophobic. I chose to remain on my feet.

“What’s up?”

A saw burst into life not far from the office door, making conversation impossible for a moment. Irritation crossed Patrick’s face.

“I’ve told Jack we need to temporarily move our offices while this is going on. He said it couldn’t possibly be that bad.”

“He’s not here.”

“Isn’t that the truth.” Patrick threw himself into a chair. “I got a call this morning from Alli Collins. You know that she’s headed to Memphis tomorrow to see her daughter graduate, right?”

“I do.”

“The plan was for me to drive her because she has some sort of fear of flying. But she decided, just this morning, that she needs someone trustworthy to run her store while she’s out of town. Even suggested that I could hook up our computer system there and run the office remotely from the store.” He ran his hand over the top of his head. “It’s a brilliant idea.”

“That’s generous of her.”

“Yeah, well, since she wants me running her store, she suggested that you should be the one to drive her to Memphis.”

“Me?”

“You.”

I shook my head. “I’m needed here. I’m working that other case, the Billings case.”

“I’ve moved Quentin onto it.” Patrick crossed his arms over his chest. “Her suggestion makes sense. Matthew is afraid of his own shadow, and Quentin knows the store as well as I do, so I’ll need him here.”

I shook my head again. “Patrick, I really don’t think it’s a good idea. I’m not equipped to spend that much time with Ms. Collins.”

Patrick smiled. “She’s quite a hell cat, isn’t she? I think she’s come on to us all, even Jack.”

I shoved my hands into my pockets and rolled on my heels, searching my thoughts for a way out of this. I couldn’t go to Memphis with Alli. It would require six to ten hours a day in a car. With her acting the way she had last night, I’d have to become an octopus to keep her off me.

Patrick picked up an envelope and held it out to me. “Credit cards and the hotel information for Memphis. There are also some phone numbers in there if you should have any trouble.”

“I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

“It’s not really up for debate.” Patrick waved the envelope at me. “You can take the SUV out back. The keys are under the sun visor.”

Reluctantly, I took the envelope. Patrick immediately turned back to the computer, his jaw tightening when the saw started outside the door again.

So much for having some space from Alli. Two weeks on the road, alone in a vehicle. That was going to be a real test of my patience.