Accompanying Alice Page 15

  Don’t think, he ordered himself. Concentrate: up, down, tug, release…breathe. Markum, he thought. Not Scully. It had to be Markum. Scully was too far removed from all of this, and putting the uniform on the dead Nicky was too subtle a message. Scully was more direct than that. If he’d thought Gabriel and Nicky were getting too close to him, he’d simply have met them someplace and pulled the trigger himself. One thing about Scully was you always knew where you stood.

  Markum was something else. Markum could lie with his heart in his eyes. Gabriel had watched him do that more than once. Markum also liked games. He played them well, he played to win, and he wrote the rules as he went along. Dressing Nicky in uniform was Markum’s means of sending a message to Gabriel that this was the way it would go down. He and Nicky had been assigned the kind of deep cover that forced them to abandon the protection of their official identities and adopt new ones as criminals—in this instance to become corrupt cops, instead of remaining special agents. Markum had set them up to take the fall for him. He’d leak their adopted identities little by little to the press: Cop on the take killed by cop on the take. He’d destroy Nicky’s credibility and his family, then do the same to Gabriel’s. Without credibility in the press, even if Gabriel stayed alive it would be hard to get a jury to believe him about Markum.

  Gabriel shut his eyes and forced himself to do ten fast pull-ups in succession, making his arms shake.

  Scully must have suspected Markum’s duplicity from the start, must have seen what Gabriel had been blinded to by friendship. And trust. Scully should have leveled with him before tossing him face first into the frying pan, Gabriel thought bitterly, given his undercover a sporting chance.

  But even as he thought it, Gabriel knew why Jack had remained silent. Because he would have defended Markum, then confronted him with Scully’s suspicions—and Si would have had time to deny everything and cover his tracks.

  Gabriel squeezed the swing bar in his fists until his knuckles ached from the strain. What a jerk he’d been.

  Sometimes, he knew, you trusted the wrong people. It was that simple. Sometimes it just got away from you. Sometimes, in attempting to defend what was right, you became what was wrong. Intellectually he could see how that happened: you spent so much time portraying sleaze in this work that sometimes you forgot who you were and became sleaze. When had that happened to Markum?

  Exhausted physically and emotionally, Gabriel went up and down on the bar, hearing and feeling nothing.

  The tail end of the sunset hanging in the sky bronzed him, glowing in the perspiration that coated his bare torso. Coming around the side of the house a short time later to find him, Alice paused and drew a shallow breath, startled by the picture of raw power and vulnerability he presented, the sudden realization of the emotional investment she was making in him by coming out here after him. Had already made when Aunt Kate had thrown the paper in his face. She

  was no longer out to help him because she was inherently a Samaritan. She was out here to be with him because he was Gabriel and she felt for him. And because she wanted to offer him something to hold on to, wanted to hold him.

  She set the closed pizza box she’d used as a tray to carry out a small cooler with a variety of cold drinks on the bottom floor of the play structure and watched him for a moment. He was not a tame man, she realized not for the first time, but one who could be infinitely dangerous to both her body and her heart. If he chose to be, that is. And if she let him. Ian, the rebel without a cause she’d fallen for in high school before she’d wound up with Matt had been like that. Sort of. He’d been her first true crush. Without touching her he’d made her sheltered Catholic inexperienced body and heart feel everything she’d never felt before. She’d really been one of his groupies rather than anything else. But she’d have done anything for him, literally anything, and that’s what had scared her about him: the way she’d wanted to let him swallow her up, think for her, tell her what to do.

  The memory made her shudder. She supposed everyone had a past that was blemished to one degree or another, but that didn’t make hers any easier to look at sometimes. Ian had also had a reputation for violent antisocial behavior that she’d believed was merely rebel-biker hype. Except, as she’d discovered almost too late, it wasn’t.

  But where teenage Ian had been controllingly, manipulatively dangerous, Gabriel was different. Older, more mature—in charge of himself, angry for a reason. Concerned for her, instead of immersed solely in himself. And, as one human being to another, she cared very much about him. Or maybe more than that.

  No sense in doing anything halfway, she reminded herself dryly, and swallowed. For all her

  other flaws, committing herself less than wholeheartedly to anything was not something she had to worry about—not even when she should. A sense of impending decision lodged her heart in her throat. She gathered her emotions about her and crossed to him.

  “Gabriel.”

  She touched his back where he hung from the bar of the swing, and he recoiled, startled, then dropped to the ground and swung on her defensively. Prepared for this response, she slipped past his fists and framed his face between her hands, drawing his mouth to hers, pressing herself into his arms. “It’s me, Gabriel,” she murmured. “Don’t worry, it’s only me.”

  “Alice?”

  His face was half in shadow, half in fading sun, reminding her again of the two sides of him, one the professional liar, the other very, very real. She stroked his face with her fingers, brushed her lips over his again. “Yes, Gabriel, I’m here.”

  He pulled his face up but not away, holding himself rigid, reaching for the frame of the swing, not sure whether he should trust his numbed senses or not. Not sure if she was real. “Why?”

  She stood her ground, not afraid of his distrust, his apparent rejection, only dipping her chin slightly to kiss his chest below the hollow of his throat. Then she looked up at him again, eyes steady, lips bowed. “I didn’t think you should be alone. I didn’t want to leave you alone. I wanted to be with you.” Again she pressed toward him, slid her hands down the sides of his neck. “Hold me, Gabriel,” she whispered. “Hold onto me.”

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” His voice was strained, his arms were folding around her. “Do you know what you’re asking?”

  “Yes.” She fitted herself to him, feeling the possessive rightness, naturalness, between two bodies that somehow belonged to one another. “I’m asking you to let me be with you. I’m asking you to share what hurts you and what makes you feel good with me. I’m asking you to touch me, Gabriel, and to let me touch you.”

  His arms tightened around her. “I don’t want you to think you’re rescuing me from anything, Alice. I don’t want this kind of charity from you.”

  “So help me, Gabriel,” she whispered fiercely, “I’m not capable of this kind of charity. Believe me.”

  “I want to, Alice.” His arms were beneath her shoulders. His hands pressed around them, then up, into her hair. “God, I want to.”

  “Then do,” she urged. She struggled to get closer to him; he held her away.

  “Be sure.” The warning was filled with passion. “God, Alice, please, be sure.”

  “I am, Gabriel. Trust me. I feel like you belong here. I belong here. I don’t know what else there is, but for now...” Her hands moved restlessly through his hair. “Come to me, damn you, Gabriel. Please.”

  “Alice.” Her name was a hoarse sound in his throat. “Allie...” He held her away an instant longer, searching her face for any hesitation, then crushed her to him.

  There was no gentleness in his kiss. His mouth bruised, plundered, demanded, and then quite suddenly gave, gentling, caressing—worshiping—moving from her mouth over her face and throat, along her neck, into her hair, then came to rest at her ear. His heart pounded. His breathing was ragged. She felt the rhythm of both against her breast, felt the staccato tremble of her own heart and lungs matching his. He dragged his lips, parted, warm
, moist, over her ear. Around them the twilight deepened, closed them in the dark and intimate shadows cast by the maple trees and the play structure. Gabriel slid his hands down Alice’s back, up her sides. He stroked the curve of her breasts with his thumbs.

  “We can’t do this here,” he muttered. “I want to make love with you, but not in front of the whole neighborhood.”

  “What about the top of the play structure,” Alice whispered. “It’s enclosed, private—”

  “Cramped,” Gabriel murmured. “Hard.”

  Alice pressed her forehead to his chest and slid her hands boldly down his back, settling her hips against his. “That’s not the only thing that’s—”

  Gabriel made a sound low in his throat and sought her mouth, silencing her. “Quiet, woman,” he mumbled. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you it’s impolite to speak to people about afflictions they can’t do anything about.”

  “Afflictions they can’t do anything about, yes.” Alice nodded and leaned back into a play structure upright, wantonly dragging him to her. “But not about things we could find a solution for.”

  She rubbed her chest provocatively against his, dropped her head back, eyes open, lips parted…full…promising. He couldn’t resist her. He bent to her again, immersed himself in her.

  As though they had a will of their own, his hands moved deeper between them, across Alice’s breasts. She released a soft sigh of pleasure and frustration when they peaked at his touch. Her hands moved restively up and down his back. His fingers opened a button on her blouse, knuckles grazed her skin. In some distant part of his brain, he knew he shouldn’t do this, knew it would only make things worse when he had to call another halt. But she touched him where reason did not, filled his heart, took away the pain, the loneliness, the internal affairs and undercover cop’s constant sense of not really belonging. He undid another button, let himself be dragged deeper into the moment by her inarticulate murmur of encouragement. He’d stop soon,

  he promised himself, but not yet. He couldn’t let her go yet—

  From somewhere out of the lengthening dusk, car doors slammed, then sneakered feet slapped on concrete.

  “Could not.”

  “Could so!”

  “Bet ya!”

  “You’re on.”

  The sound of boys’ arguing voices carried over the clang of the backyard gate opening then closing. On reflex Gabriel shoved Alice’s buttons back through their buttonholes and thrust her behind him, grabbing his own shirt off one of the swings in the same move and sliding it on. Mamie’s sons rounded the corner of the house, crossed the yard and burst into the tent they’d set up earlier. Gabriel seized Alice’s hand, kept his voice low.

  “Come on,” he urged.

  “Wait,” Alice protested. “I’ve got to get—”

  “Leave it. Let’s get out of here while we’ve got the chance.”

  Alice tugged her hand free. “Gabriel, what’s with you?” she asked, matching the pitch of her voice to his. “This is my backyard. I’m allowed to be—” She stopped suddenly as a thought struck her, and she reached out to feel his cheek. It was warm and, she imagined, red. The idea delighted her. “You’re embarrassed.”

  Gabriel stuffed his hands in his back pockets, swung away from her. “Ah, hell.”

  Alice laughed soundlessly. “You are!”

  He looked over his shoulder at her. “Aren’t you?”

  “No.” Alice tilted her head, surprised. “It’s weird, but I’m not. Oh, if we’d been caught, I might be. But we weren’t. I don’t know, maybe I’m finally starting to mature, after all.”

  “You’re maturing and I’m regressing then,” Gabriel said dryly. “It’s been twenty years since the last time I was caught doing any heavy necking on the swings, but I can still feel Aunt Sarah’s broom on the back of my head.” His quiet laughter was full of self-mockery. “You make me feel about as in control as a teenager on his first car date, Alice,” he said. “I’m not sure I like that. I know I can’t afford it. At least not until this case is over.”

  Alice cupped his cheek in a palm, stood on tiptoe to brush a light kiss across his lips. “You make me feel incredible,” she told him softly. “Alive, sexy, special, beautiful, adolescent, more than myself, confused... I don’t think there’s anything you don’t make me feel. Even though it’s only temporary—”

  Temporary, Gabriel thought, not permanent. Transient.

  The damned words that spelled out what he was. Had always been. He didn’t think he’d ever hated them more.

  “—just learning that there can be more to life than...” She laughed softly. “Learning that maybe there’s more to me than I thought. That makes it worth it.”

  She hesitated, and for a moment the night held only darkness and possibility, the murmur of boys squabbling in the tent near the house. Then Alice dropped her hand from Gabriel’s face and drew a settling breath, turning to collect the pizza box and cooler of drinks from the play structure, becoming herself again. “I thought you might be hungry so I brought out a few different kinds of pizza and some beer, only I didn’t know if you drank beer, or what type—light, regular, dark, dry—so I brought out some pop and some diet pop and some juice boxes, and—”

  “Alice.”

  She looked back at him, waiting. Gabriel studied the darkness around his feet. It was crazy, but what he wanted to say was, “When we make love it won’t be temporary. When we make love, it’ll be for keeps.” Instead he took the pizza box from her. “When I’m not driving I drink beer with pizza,” he said. “Let’s take this back inside and have some.”

  Chapter Nine

  The party was breaking up by the time they got inside. Aunt Kate’s nylon stockings were rolled down around her knees and she was carrying her teeth in a glass. Uncle Delbert had stripped to his undershirt and loosened his pants. Mamie and George were nowhere in sight. Alice’s sisters, Grace’s Phil, and Skip, who had arrived late, milled about near the front door tying up two black plastic garbage bags filled with the evening’s litter.

  “Oh, Alice, there you are,” Helen exclaimed, sliding neatly away from the possessive hand Skip had settled on the middle of her back. “We’ve been wondering where you’d gone. We’ve got to go, but you should know Skip has a proposition for you.”

  “Helen, I don’t think now’s the time.” Skip squirmed uncomfortably. “I really think it would be better if I wait until after I’ve talked to my partners to ask—”

  “Nonsense,” Helen said firmly. “No time like the present.” She turned to Alice. “Skip thinks maybe he and a couple of friends of his would like to invest in a bookstore with a coffee shop or vice versa, or just a coffee shop with wifi or…” She glanced at Skip. “Anyway, they thought maybe in an office building, you know, with a captive audience, and that maybe you could scout locations, put the plan together, oversee the design, hire and fire—you know, run it.”

  Alice turned from Skip, to Helen, to Gabriel and back again. “What?”

  Skip shrugged uneasily, nodded. “I know your store is shutting down and I mentioned the possibility. There’s nothing firm yet, you understand, but the idea makes sense, and I could use the investment—”

  “Ahh.” Alice ran a hand through her hair on a puff of disbelieving laughter. Was the man really desperate enough to try buying Helen’s affections by attempting to solve her sister’s unemployment problem? If so, then for all the years her mother had said he’d been coming around, Skip had a lot to learn about Brannigans in general, and Helen in particular. Where matters of the heart were concerned Brannigans dealt strictly from the gut, never from the size of the pocketbook. She sent Gabriel a didn’t-I-tell-you-about-her and damned-if-you-didn’t-hit-the-nail-on-the-head-about-him look. “Ahh.” She laughed uncomfortably again, shook her head. “Skip, I appreciate the offer, but you look like she’s railroaded you into this, so I really don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t say anything,” Helen urged. “Just think about it. Keep
your mind open to the options. Skip’s going to talk to his partners tomorrow. He’ll be at the picnic tomorrow night—you’ll discuss it then. Now, Gabriel—” Helen grabbed Phil’s arm and pulled him forward “—this is Phil, the bridegroom. Phil, Gabriel. We got him a tux this morning. He’s your new usher. That means we’ll put Skip with me and let Gabriel escort Alice. Now you don’t have to worry if your brother’s wife goes into labor. We’re still two by two. Right? Well!” She kissed each of her sisters quickly. “Gotta run, got people arriving at the airport and train stations simultaneously in the morning, got car pools to figure out. Meg, will you—”

  “No.”

  “Edith?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Sam—”

  The screen door slammed behind them. Gabriel looked at Alice. “Did you ever feel like you were living with a tornado instead of a sister when you were growing up?”

  “Frequently. It got worse after she went to the Point.”

  “Who went to the Point, Alice dear?” Aunt Kate asked fuzzily from behind her.

  Alice turned. “Helen.”

  “Oh, Helen!” Aunt Kate rolled her eyes as though that subject was a lost cause. “I don’t understand why they want to let women play army, anyway, but I guess that’s none of my never mind, is it? I tried, but when your father let her go off—humph, well! Let me tell you—”

  “Aunt Kate,” Alice interrupted, “did you need something?”

  “Hmm? Oh, no, dear, everything’s just fine. I just came out to say good night.”

  Alice brushed her aunt’s cheek with a kiss. “Good night, Aunt Kate. Sleep well.”

  “Thank you, Alice dear. You, too.” Aunt Kate sighed, patting Gabriel’s hand. “You sleep well, too, young man, and since we couldn’t get you to sleep somewhere else tonight, I do hope you’ll at least think clean thoughts while we’re here.”

  “Aunt Kate,” Alice warned.

  Gabriel’s lips twitched.

  Aunt Kate waggled a placating hand in the air and headed for the bathroom. “I know, I know, it’s none of my affair, and it really shouldn’t be yours, either. But that’s all right, don’t listen to me, go ahead and fornicate right here in the living room. I promise I won’t listen...” Her voice trailed off behind the click of the bathroom door.