The Next Always

CHAPTER ELEVEN




TAKE TWO, BECKETT THOUGHT AS HE BANGED THE knocker on Clare’s door. This time he carried a cheerful bouquet of white daisies. No point in jinxing things by bringing her the same flowers as last week.

It struck him as a little weird, not just the deja vu, but especially the intense anticipation for the evening because of the postponement.

Just dinner, he reminded himself. He had to stop making such a big deal out of it in his head, or he’d screw up. He’d played it all over in his mind so often you’d think they were winging off to Paris to dine at . . . wherever people dined in Paris.

He’d have to ask her if she’d been there. She’d done so much more traveling than he had. Maybe she spoke French. Hadn’t she taken French in high school? He seemed to remember—

Good God, cut it out, he ordered himself.

He didn’t know whether to cheer or run when she opened the door.

She hadn’t wanted to jinx it either, he decided. She wore a different dress, this one with pink and white swirls topped with a thin pink sweater that stopped at her elbows. And made him think about kissing that spot again.

Should he have brought the pink roses? Was this a signal?

“I’m going to get spoiled.” She reached for the flowers. “I’ll start expecting flowers every Friday night.”

“Thought I’d mix it up.”

“Good plan, and thanks. Come on in. I’ll put them in water before we go.” As he did, she eyed the little shopping bag in his hand. “More?”

“Not for you.” As if to keep it out of reach, he shifted it to his other hand. “You’ve had enough. It’s a bribe so nobody pukes on me. A game for the PlayStation. I got a pretty good look at what they’ve got when I hung out with them, and I didn’t see this one. Where are they? Did you lock them in a closet?”

“No, but my parents may have by now. They’re having a sleepover at Marmie’s and Granddad’s.”

“Oh.” His mind instantly landed on all the things they could do to each other, alone in the house.

Slow down, buddy, that’s not what this is about. Slow and steady, a step at a time. He followed her into the kitchen, watched as she dealt with the flowers.

“Quiet in here,” he commented.

“I know. I can never decide if it’s spooky or bliss when they have a sleepover. I guess it’s spooky bliss.”

“You’re not afraid to stay in the house alone, are you?” He could offer to stay over, sleep in the kids’ room.

Or somewhere.

“Not as long as I don’t cave and read a horror novel. It’s a weakness, and then I sleep with the light on. I’ve never figured out how leaving the light on saves you from the vampires or ghosts or demons. There.” She stepped back to examine the flowers. “They’re so pretty. Should we go?”

“Yeah, I guess we’d better.” So he’d stop thinking of her bed upstairs, no kids in the house.

“That’s not your truck,” she said when they walked outside.

“No. Mom refused to let me take you out, at least this time, in a pickup, so she handed me the keys. Felt like high school.”

“When’s your curfew?”

“I know all the ways to sneak into the house.”

She pondered that while he slid behind the wheel. “Did you really? Sneak into the house as a kid?”

“Sure. I didn’t always get away with it, none of us did, but you had to try.” He glanced at her as he drove. “No?”

“No, I didn’t, and now I feel deprived.”

“If you want, when we get back, I’ll help you climb in through a window.”

“Tempting, but just not the same when I have the key. What did you do that you had to sneak in?”

He took a long pause. “Stuff.”

“Hmmm. Now I have to worry if one day the boys will decide to do stuff, then sneak into the house. But not tonight. My biggest problem with them at the moment is Murphy’s decided his life is unfulfilled unless he has a puppy, and they’ve joined forces against me.”

“You don’t like dogs?”

“I like dogs, and they should have a dog. Eventually.”

“Is that like Mom for we’ll see?

“It’s in the neighborhood,” she admitted. “I think about it because they ought to have a dog. They adore my parents’ pug, Lucy, and Fido the cat.”

“Your parents have a cat named Fido? Why didn’t I know that?”

“He thinks he’s a dog, so we don’t spread it around. Anyway, I think they should have one, feel guilty they don’t. Then I think, oh God, who’s going to housebreak it, train it, haul it to the vet, feed it and walk it and all the rest? I tried to talk them into a kitten, but they’re not having it. Kittens, Liam informed me, with no little disgust, are for girls. I don’t know where they get that.”

She arched her eyebrows at his profile. “You agree with him?”

“Kittens are for girls. Cats now, they can go either way.”

“You know that’s ridiculous.”

“I don’t make the rules. What kind of dog do they want?”

“They don’t know.” She sighed because the boys were wearing her down on the subject. “It’s the idea of a dog they’re in love with. I’m also told a dog would protect me from the bad guys when they’re not around.” She shrugged. “I’d go to the pound and adopt one, save a life, but how can you be sure the puppy you save won’t turn into a big, mean dog that barks at the mail carrier and terrorizes the neighbors? I need to research family-friendly breeds.”

He pulled into the restaurant parking lot. “You know Ry’s dog.”

“Everybody knows D.A.” She shifted to study his profile. “Ryder takes him everywhere. He’s a sweetheart.”

“Hell of a good dog. You know how Ry got him?”

“No, I guess I don’t.”

They got out of either side of the car, then he walked around to take her hand.

“He was a stray, six or seven months old, the vet figured. Ryder’s out at his place one night after work, putting some time into the house he built. It’s getting on dark, he’s knocking off, and this dog comes crawling in. Bone thin, his paws bleeding, shivering. It’s pretty clear he’d been out in the woods awhile. More than likely, somebody dumped him.”

Instantly her affection for D.A. doubled. “Poor thing.”

“Ryder figures he can’t just leave him there, so he’ll take him back home—he stayed with Mom a lot until he had the house closed in. So, he’d feed him, clean him up a little, give him a place to flop for the night. He’d take him to the pound in the morning.

“That was six years ago.”

Sweet, she thought—not the usual adjective applied to Ryder Montgomery. “I guess it was love at first sight.”

“I know we asked around, in case he’d run away, gotten lost. No collar, no tag, and nobody claimed him. By the morning, I can tell you, Ry would’ve been brokenhearted if someone had.”

“And yet, he named him Dumbass.”

“Affectionately, and all too often accurately. Montgomery, seven thirty reservation,” he told the hostess when they went inside.

Clare thought it over as they were escorted to the table. “You’re telling me this to illustrate pedigree doesn’t really matter.”

“People or dogs, I’d say it’s more about how you’re raised than bloodlines.”

Oddly that made her think of Sam Freemont, and just thinking about him annoyed her.

“But I get some breeds are better for kids,” Beckett added.

“It’s funny, Clint and I talked about getting a dog right after Harry was born. We thought we’d wait maybe a year, let them grow up together. Then, what do you know, Liam’s on the way, and we’re dealing with Clint’s next deployment, so it got put off.”

He started to speak, but the waiter arrived with the menus, the list of specials, offers for cocktails.

They studied the menus a moment in silence.

“Does it bother you when I talk about Clint?”

“No. It’s just I never know what to say. He was a good guy.”

“He was.” She made a decision. Lay it out, say what should be said. Nothing would be real between them unless she did.

“It was love at first sight,” she said. “He always said it was the same for him. Just instant, just . . . there you are, now let’s start planning the rest of our lives together. Heady stuff for a girl of fifteen.”

“Heady at any age, but yeah, especially.”

“I never had a single doubt. Never worried, never wondered. We argued sometimes, had more than a few scenes of high drama. But still, I never worried. My parents did; I certainly understand that better now than then. But he was a good guy, and they saw that. They loved him, too.”

“You were like the golden couple in high school. C and C. The cheerleader and the football star.”

“Heady stuff,” she repeated. “We were together two years before . . . we were together. Again, I was sure. I never worried. When he left for basic, I cried all night. Not because I was worried, but because I missed him like a limb.”

The waiter came back, took their orders.

“You were so young,” Beckett prompted.

“And bold. Fearless. I married him, went off with him, left my home, my family and friends without a single twinge of doubt or regret.” She laughed. “Who was that girl?”

“I’ve always thought of you as pretty fearless.”

“Well, I learned about fear when Harry came along. What’s this little person? What if I make a mistake? What if he gets sick, gets hurt? But even then, I didn’t doubt we’d manage it all.”

She picked up her water glass, smiled as she sipped. “We wanted four, with an option for five. Crazy. A potential of fivechildren. I imagine we’d have done that if he’d lived.”

“You were happy.”

“Oh yes. And sometimes brutally lonely, overwhelmed. That’s when fear would sneak in. But I was too busy for that, I told myself. I was proud of him. I hated being without him, hated knowing what he faced every day, every night. But he was made to be a soldier, like his father, like his brother. I knew it when I married him.”

The waiter brought the wine, and after the ritual, Clare sipped. “It’s good. Even better when it signals someone’s going to bring me food I didn’t have to cook.”

“You have more. You should finish.”

“Yes, I should finish.” And be grateful he was willing to let her.

“Harry was playing, and Liam was crying in his crib. I had morning sickness, so I had to let him cry until I’d finished. I knew I was pregnant. I hadn’t taken the test yet, but I knew.”

She paused for a moment, just a moment. “He’d only been back in Iraq three weeks. I never got to tell him we were having another child. It’s my biggest regret. I never got the chance to tell him. He never got to see Murphy, touch his face, smell his hair, hear his laugh. Murphy never had him. Liam doesn’t remember his father. Harry, at best, has some dim memories. Clint was a good father. Loving, fun, attentive. But they didn’t have time.”

“You never have enough.”

Understanding, she nodded, put a hand over his. He’d lost his father, too. “No, I don’t guess you do.

“They came to the door that morning. You know when you see them. The officer, the chaplain. You know without a word being said. The lights dim; the air goes out. For a little while there’s nothing at all.”

Beckett squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry, Clare.”

“I was holding Liam. I’d forgotten I’d picked him up when the knock came. He’s crying—teething and fussy, a little feverish with it. Harry’s hugging my leg. He must have sensed something because he started crying, too. And the baby’s inside me. Clint’s gone.

“The other wives came, to help, to comfort. I broke, a million pieces. There was fear and doubt and worry, and such horrible, horrible grief. I didn’t think I’d live through it.”

He thought of her, alone, two babies, newly pregnant, and widowed.

“Who could? How did you?”

“All I knew was I needed to come home. They needed to come home. It was the only clear answer for all of us, and it was the right one. I can think about Clint here, how much I loved him, and I’ve been able to accept that we had what we were meant to have. No more, no less. Now I have something else. I can think about him, talk about him. I have to, the boys deserve that. Just as they, and I, deserve the life we’ve made now.”

“I don’t know if it helps, but I know when we lost Dad, we were all just numb, I guess. Just taking a step at a time dealing with all the horrible, practical things you have to deal with. Eventually you find yourself in another place. Some of it’s familiar, some of it’s not. You make something else out of it, and you know you couldn’t have without the person you lost.”

“Yes.” Now she could be grateful he understood. “When you think of your dad, or talk about him, it reminds you of that. It’s the same for me. You knew Clint. We have a history that includes him, so since we’re seeing each other I don’t want you to feel awkward or uncomfortable.”

Beckett considered, went with impulse. “Do you remember Mr. Schroder?”

“I had him for U.S. history. I hated Mr. Schroder.”

“Everybody did. He was a dick. Clint and I, and some other guys TP’d his house.”

“That was you? Clint was in on that?” She sat back and laughed. “Oh my God, I remember that so well. You must’ve used a hundred rolls. It looked like a cargo ship of Charmin exploded.”

“No point in doing something if you do it half-assed.”

“You sure didn’t go half-assed on Mr. Schroder. And he was a dick.”

“Owen organized it, as you’d expect. Me, Owen, Ry. Two other guys whose names I must protect, as we swore an oath.”

“Clint never told me, and everybody talked about that hit for weeks.”

“An oath’s an oath. We had about fifty rolls, and it took forever to accumulate that much. If a bunch of guys walked into Sheetz or wherever and bought that much at a time, you’d be busted. So we bought a little at a time, in different places, snuck some out of the house, a roll or two each time. We had time lines and maps and lookouts, escape routes. It was a major campaign, and it was beautiful.”

“You were the unsung heroes of Boonsboro High. If we’d known we’d have thrown a party for you.”

“We had our own about a month later. Camped out in the woods near our place and got wasted on Budweiser and peach schnapps.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“Yeah, it was. Good times.”

“Charlie Reeder.” She pointed, got an aha glimmer in her eyes that sparkled green. “One of the others had to be Charlie. He and Clint were tight.”

“I’m unable to confirm or deny.”

“Charlie Reeder,” she repeated. “He was always up for trouble back then. Now he’s a town cop. You just never know. He likes men’s adventure novels and black coffee with a shot of espresso.”

“I guess you get to know people by what they look for in the bookstore.”

“I also have secrets. I know, for instance, that all the Montgomery boys like to read—and what they like to read. That you all drink too much coffee. I know that you and Owen go for sentimental cards for your mom for Mother’s Day and her birthday, and Ryder goes for funny.”

Lifting her wine, she shot him a knowing glance. “That’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

“A side benefit of the small-town merchant.”

“You bet. And I know of at least half a dozen customers who are planning to book a night at the inn for a special occasion, even though they live locally. You’re going to have a hit, Beckett.”

“It’ll be nice for Lizzy to have company.”

“Who? Oh, your ghost. She’s Lizzy now?”

“Well, we’ve gotten close. How do you think Hope’s going to deal with that?”

“Hope deals, that’s part of who she is.” Ghosts, Clare thought, were fanciful nonsense—and deliberately shifted the subject. “How’s the apartment coming?”

“Should be ready next week. Lizzy could take lessons from Avery, as she’s been haunting the place. She nagged—let’s say she persuaded Owen that the place needed a little more than paint, so it’s taken a little longer.”

They talked throughout the meal. A nice next step, Beckett thought, in the slow-and-steady plan. Maybe he’d suggest a movie next time, with a casual meal after. Keep it easy and traditional.

“This was wonderful.” She made a quiet sound of pleasure as they walked back to the car. “I can’t think of the last time I had an adult dinner out.”

“We can do it again.” He opened the car door for her. “As soon as you want.”

Tomorrow, she thought, then felt a little pang of guilt. She couldn’t spend two evenings in a row away from her kids. So she’d better make the most of the one she had. “I’ll check the schedule, see what I can work out.”

She turned, giving him the perfect opening to kiss her. When he didn’t, she slid into the car.

Maybe the dinner had decided for him that he wanted to stay friends. Take her out now and then, be a pal to the kids when he had the time and inclination.

She couldn’t fault him for that. Dating was meant to let people figure out if they wanted a relationship, and what they wanted from one. And a relationship with her had multiple complications, she thought as they started the drive home.

Which she’d certainly reminded him of by talking about the kids. She’d probably talked about the kids too much. What guy wanted to hear a bunch of kid stories out on a date?

And all she’d told him about Clint. She’d hoped to give him a clear picture of why she’d gone, why she’d come back. Who she’d been, who she’d become. And to be honest with him about how deeply she’d loved Clint Brewster.

And what man wanted to hear about a woman’s dead husband on a date?

Why couldn’t she have talked about books? Well, they had, she remembered. But just books or movies, or anything breezy and datelike?

Maybe, if they did go out again, she’d think of a list of appropriate topics beforehand. It surprised her just how much she wanted more, from Beckett, with Beckett. He’d made her feel like a woman again, with all those nerves, all those needs.

Safe topics, she decided. Start now.

“I meant to tell you, I read a review copy of Michael Connelly’s latest.”

“Harry Bosch?”

“That’s right. I think you’ll love it. And I’ve got a debut thriller author booked for an event next month. You might want to check it out. She’s good, and we have a local author signed up for the event, too.”

They talked books all the way home. Better, Clare told herself. She’d work on her dating chops. She knew how to have conversations that didn’t involve her children.

She just didn’t have many opportunities for them.

When he pulled up at her house, she thought of the quiet. She could work on the website for an hour undisturbed. She could have the unspeakable luxury of a long bath. She could do absolutely anything she wanted to do without any other responsibility or concern.

“Nights are getting cool,” she murmured as he walked her to the door. “Almost chilly. Summers never last long enough.”

“And winter’s too long.”

“But this one will be special. The inn,” she said when he gave her a puzzled look. “It’ll open this winter.”

“That’s right. The way it looks, we’ll be freezing our asses off when we load in.”

“It’ll be worth it. I’d love to help. In fact, I’m dying to.”

“The more hands and asses, the better.”

“Then I’ll plan on it. I had the best time.”

“So did I.” He leaned in, a light touch on her shoulders, a long, slow, dreamy kiss.

No, oh no, she thought as her skin went to humming. A man didn’t kiss a woman like that when he just wanted to be good friends. She wasn’t that out of the loop.

“Better go in,” he said quietly, “before you get cold.”

She smiled at him, unlocked the door.

“I’ll call you.” She stared at him, flummoxed when he stepped back.

He wasn’t coming inside? Had all the signals changed while she’d been in dating retirement?

“Make sure you lock up,” he added.

“I will. ’Night.” She opened the door.

Wait a minute. Proactive, isn’t that what Avery said? Going in alone when she damn well didn’t want to be alone wasn’t being proactive.

“Um, Beckett, I’m sorry, and I know it’s silly, but would you mind coming in? Empty house.” She gave a helpless shrug that embarrassed her.

“Sure. I should’ve offered. Spooky bliss,” he added when he stepped inside. “I’ll check the back door.”

She’d manipulated him and she wasn’t sorry. She’d be sorry, she admitted, if she turned out to be wrong and he didn’t want to stay with her. To be with her.

She’d be humiliated.

But if she didn’t find out now, she’d go crazy wondering.

She hated wondering.

“All clear.” He walked back from the kitchen. “Not a bad guy in sight. But you should still get a dog. A house never feels empty with a dog. Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah, thanks. Can I get you a drink?”

“Better not. I should get going.”

“I have to ask you something.”

“What?”

“When you kissed me at the door, was that a let’s-have-dinner-again-sometime kiss, or was it something else? Because it felt like something else to me.”

“Something else?”

She slid her arms up his back, took his mouth as she wanted to.

“It felt like that.”

He dropped his brow to hers. “Clare.”

“Beckett, don’t make me ask you to come upstairs and check in the closets.” She laid her hands on his cheeks. “Just come upstairs.”

She stepped away, offered her hand. He took it, held firm. “I’ve wanted to be with you when I didn’t have the right to.”

“As long as you want to be with me now.”

They started up together.

“I didn’t want to rush you. I figured you’d need time to get used to the idea, to be sure.”

“I tend to make up my mind quickly.” In the bedroom, she turned to face him. “We’ve been friends a long time, but I have a confession to make. You know I can see the inn from my office window.”

“Yeah.”

“When we had that hot spell in the spring, you’d be working outside now and then, up on that scaffolding, on the roof. With your shirt off. I’d watch you.”

She laughed a little, her eyes on his. “And I’d think about you and wonder what it would be like. Now I can find out.”

She laid her hands on his chest. “Here’s something I haven’t done in quite a while.”

“It’ll come back to you.”

She laughed again, relaxed and easy. “That, too, but I meant it’s been a while since I undressed a man. Let’s see if I remember how this part goes.”

She slipped the jacket off his shoulders, eased it down his arms, then tossed it on the little chair beside her closet. “So far, so good,” she decided. She unfastened the first button of his shirt, the second.

And he found himself trapped between pleasure and desperation.

“I thought you’d be shy.”

She opened the shirt. “You did?” She angled her head. “I haven’t been fifteen and innocent for a long time either.”

“It’s not that, or not just.”

“Ah, the mother of three, the young widow.” She drew the shirt off, tossed it over the jacket. “You’ve probably heard how little boys are made.”

“Rumors.”

“I love my boys, so much.” She ran her hands slowly up his bare chest, closing her eyes at the sensation. “I really loved the process of making them.”

She turned, lifted the hair she’d left loose around her shoulders. “Would you mind?”

He drew down the zipper, inch by inch. It was like a dream, he thought, just that filmy and sweet. And like the most intense of realities. Hot and stirring.

She stepped out of the dress when it fell to the floor, turned to him again. And reached out for him.

No dream, no longer, but real and wanting him as he wanted her. No dream when he could, at last, feel that smooth skin, the way her heart beat strong and fast under his hand.

It was she who drew him to the bed. Her fingers combed through his hair, ran down his back while their lips clung. Under him she moved, sexy and sinuous, impossibly seductive. He’d thought he knew her, had been sure of it. But he never knew this open and eager woman lived inside her. That woman caught him by the throat, could have driven him to heaven or hell at her whim.

Alive. Everything in her alive and beating, and hungry. Those rough-palmed hands stroked over her, waking her skin, her pulse, her senses. She couldn’t get enough—the muscles in his arms, the press, the weight, the shape of his body. The way their breath mingled in another drowning kiss before he took his mouth to her breast.

Her breath exploded in a gasp. Delight, desire—she let herself go, fall heedlessly into both.

They stripped each other. Not a word, too frantic for words before they tumbled back down. She wrapped around him; rose to him. An offer. A demand.

When he buried himself in her she cried out, a sound of relief and release. He struggled for control as he felt her shudder, shudder, shudder. But she rose to him again, and in that single, powerful surge, snapped his will.

He took her, riding on that hot, rising wave of need until his own release ripped through him, emptied him.

She couldn’t get her breath, and wasn’t sure—if she ever did—if she’d let it out with weeping or cheering. She felt foolishly like doing both.

“I can do better,” he mumbled with his face buried in her hair.

“Hmm?”

“I can do better. I kind of rushed that.”

“No, I rushed it, and thanks very much for keeping up the pace. Oh my God, Beckett.” Ah, she realized, she let it out on a long purr. Even better. “Please don’t move yet. Stay.” She wrapped her arms around him to make sure he did.

He stayed—happy to—but rose up to his elbows. “Look at you, Clare Murphy—sorry, Brewster—all mussed and flushed. You’re so damn pretty.”

“I like feeling mussed and flushed and damn pretty. And look at you, Beckett Montgomery, all smug and pleased with yourself.”

“Sure. I just nailed the neighborhood bookseller and town sweetheart.”

She choked out a laugh, pinched his butt. “You’d better not go bragging to the crew.”

“I was going to take out an ad in the Citizen.”

She liked looking into his face, so relaxed now, into his eyes, so deep and blue. “Make sure you say I was amazing.”

“Nothing but the truth.” He bent down to kiss her. “You destroyed me.”

“It’s good to know I haven’t lost my touch.”

He pressed a kiss to the side of her neck, to give himself a moment. He didn’t want to think of her with someone else, not even the man she’d married. Stupid of him, maybe; selfish, certainly. But right then and there, he just didn’t.

He lay quietly awhile until the feeling passed. “I want to see you tomorrow.”

“Oh, Beckett, I can’t go out again tomorrow. The boys.”

“We don’t have to go out. Or we can take them somewhere.”

“They have a birthday party to go to tomorrow afternoon. That’s something that starts now and goes on forever on Saturdays. You could come to dinner on Sunday. It has to be a little early because it’s a school night.”

“What time?”

“Five thirty?”

“I’ll be here.”

He rolled off, took her hand as he sat up. “I should go.”

She wrapped her arms around herself, faked a little shudder. “And leave me in this empty house all alone—without a dog.”

He grinned. “You’re not afraid.”

“No, I tricked you, but I had to get you in bed somehow.”

“And thanks.”

“And now you’re going to make me work to keep you here?”

“The car’s outside in the drive. You know people are going to see it, especially if it’s still there in the morning.”

Amused he’d be concerned for her reputation, she sat up with him. “Beckett?”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s give them something to talk about.”