It wasn’t until she saw him sitting in his SUV that she realized he could have left her there. But no, he waited and even had the passenger door open. She climbed in and dropped the bag between them. “You forgot this along with your manners.”
He frowned. “Do you always have to be so nice?”
She considered his words. “You’re right.” She snatched up the food, got out of the car, hot-footed it to a garbage can in front of the restaurant and dumped the bag in with the rest of the garbage.
Head held high, she climbed back into his SUV, and slammed the door. “I’m working on being a bitch. You know, you really do earn the nickname Tanya and I gave you.”
“What is it?” he asked. “Asshole? Jerk?”
From his voice she could tell he’d lost his attitude. Not that it mattered. He still deserved hers. “No.” She met his gaze head on. “Little Dickhead.”
Shock widened his eyes. “Little?” He fell back against the seat and laughed. The deep rumble sounded rusty, as if he hadn’t laughed in a long time. When his laughter stopped, he rested his head back and stared up at his ceiling. He let out a deep breath. “Damn, I’m tired.” He closed his eyes for a second, then he tilted his head to the side to stare at her. “I got out of line again.”
“You think?” she asked.
“It comes with the job. Sort of. We see so much—”
“So only dickheads need to apply to be a cop?”
He sighed. “I deserve that.” He closed his eyes a second as if to collect his thoughts. “In my line of work, I’ve seen way too many men do terrible things to women. And nothing grates on my nerves more than when I see those women turn around and go right back to the men.”
“And you think that’s what I’m doing?”
“When you defend Stan, yeah, that’s what I think.”
She sat up a little straighter. “I’m not defending him. I’m voicing my opinion. I broke up with him.”
“I hope you meant it.” His gaze met hers and held and when the silence grew awkward he said, “Now, can I please take you to your mom’s house and see if anything was taken so I can finish making out that paperwork?”
She nodded, even though the idea of walking into her mom’s house right now was almost more than she could bear.
Five minutes later, he pulled into the driveway. She sat staring at the white-brick home, mentally seeing the word “cancer” written in red across the front.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she lied. She wasn’t okay. Nothing was okay.
~
Brit watched her as she walked up the sidewalk. Each step looked measured, forced. He remembered the hospital bed, the medical supplies, the smell. How hard was it to watch a person die slowly, piece-by-piece, day-by-day? And when that person was your mother….
Not that he had any overwhelming love for his mother, or his old man who’d died instantly of a heart attack, but he couldn’t imagine losing his sister, Susan. Then he thought about losing Keith. That pain had been quick, deep, and while it still hurt like he’d been gut-shot, he hadn’t had to watch his friend die slowly.
“We could do this later,” he said, regretting being a dickhead.
She looked up, pain in her eyes. “No.” Fitting the key inside the front doorknob, she opened it and walked inside.
The first thing Brit saw were the black footprints trailing across the beige carpet. His black footprints. Guilt made him want to remove his shoes now.
Moving like a robot, she picked up a lamp from the floor and set it on a table. She went to the back window, covered with a piece of wood that he’d found in the garage last night.
“I could call someone to fix it.” He pulled out his phone. “And to clean the carpet. I think that might have been us that left—”
“No. I’ll call someone later.”
He looked at his cell phone. “Do you have a cell phone?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to need that number.” He turned on his phone. “What is it?”
“I don’t know it. I just got a new one.” She took off down the hall.
He snapped the phone shut. Did she not want to give him her number, or did she really not know it? He heard her opening the door to the master bedroom. He thought about the hospital bed, the oxygen tank, and the cold feeling of a terminal illness he’d gotten from the room last night.
Slipping the phone in his pocket, he went to join her. She sat on the edge of the hospital bed. He expected to see tears, to hear the sniffles that she’d let out this morning when he’d held her. Her eyes were dry, but he saw pain in her expression. He felt it. Grief. It dominated the room like a living, breathing animal. He stood there, sensing her pain seep into his skin and curl up into his chest. Odd how there was even any room in him to feel her pain when he had so much of his own.