Strawberry Wine Page 5
“Good,” he replied, then lowered his head and continued chopping his stalk of celery.
Chapter Four
It took just until the afternoon of their first day together on the case for them to be at each other’s throats again.
“So, what? You’re not gonna speak to me at all while we’re on this case? This will be damned difficult if we’re not speaking,” Laura said, facing him from the passenger’s side. She had gotten sick of the thwump thwump of the windshield being the only sound in the car.
They were on their way back from Long Island after interviewing an ex-employee of an adoption agency Terry Moave had named on the list he’d given in exchange for his freedom.
He continued to ignore her.
“May I remind you that I’ve tried to tell you what happened, but you’re the one who didn’t want to hear—”
He snorted. “If you’re so eager to confess your sins, go visit a priest. I could care less.”
“Caleb. You have every right to be pissed, but maybe if I told you—”
“To hell with this.” He pulled the car over and unbuckled his seatbelt. "Go ahead and take the wheel. Drive yourself home." He got out and slammed the door, leaving her inside.
“What the— Oh no you don't!” Laura burst out in frustration and slid out, slamming the door and following him outside into the rain. “Look, Caleb. I just want—” Furious with his unwillingness to hear her out, she trailed after him while he charged down the road.
“Take the car, Laura. Go home. Leave me the hell alone.”
“I'm following you the whole way back to Queens like this, and it'll be a hell of a bonus when some jackass steals your car!” she shouted after him.
As if suddenly remembering no one was in the car, Caleb turned and stared from her to the car. “Oh shit!” He sprinted back to his black car, Laura close on his heels while the rain showers pummeled them both. “Laura! Tell me you have the keys!”
****
They looked like a couple of drowned rats, or maybe drowned nuns, Laura amended. They both had the collars of their shirts up over their heads in a feeble attempt to stay dry. It didn’t work very well. She swore while her soaked feet squished in her sneakers, and she was sure that if they didn’t find shelter soon, she’d eventually have rainwater in her underwear.
They stuck to the paved shoulder of the road to search out shelter after, in true New York fashion, no one would risk picking up two hitchhikers on the side of the road.
It was a while before they finally came upon a small two-story house. Laura thought it looked like something straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. White picket fence and swinging bench on the porch. “Lord, how corny,” she remarked, but she felt a tightening in her chest.
Caleb knocked on the door, pushing his shirt off his head and straightening the soaked fabric as best he could. He reached over and pulled Laura's shirt off her head too.
She noticed the lace curtain at the window to their left move against the glass, and then a little voice boomed on the other side of the wall.
"Mooommmyyyyy Sunody's on poooossssshhhhhh!"
Laura blinked at the powerful lungs in what she assumed was a child and then laughed.
Caleb took a step back when the door opened and a plump young woman looked at them not without a little bit of sympathy at their bedraggled state.
“Can I help you?” she asked and her voice had a soft, raspy quality to it.
“Hi, my name's Detective Caleb McKinney.” He pulled his wallet out of the back of his jeans and flashed his badge before turning to Laura next to him. “This is Laura…my partner.” He added that last bit reluctantly, she noticed. “She accidentally locked my keys in my car, and I was hoping I could use your phone to get the garage to unlock it?”
Laura thought Caleb was deliberately avoiding her gaze now so he couldn’t see her glaring at him. And whose fault was it that we both got out of the car, McKinney?
“Oh sure, sure. Come on in. Come and get dry. Lordy, is it ever pouring. Might be time to start gathering animals two by two, huh?” she joked and ushered them inside.
Laura noticed that the woman's plumpness was due to what looked like a pregnant belly. She had soft brown eyes and dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. The woman looked about ready to pop, and Laura prayed that the kid didn’t decide to arrive while she and Caleb were here.
“I'll get you some dry clothes if you'd like, and we can dry those off,” the woman offered.
“Oh, we don't want to be any trouble—” Caleb said, at the same time that Laura replied, “Sure, thanks.”
Politeness, my ass. I'm freezing! Laura conveyed her message with her eyes to Caleb, who conceded.
“Okay, that'd be really nice of you,” Caleb replied. “If you're really sure it's no trouble,” he insisted, but the woman was already stepping back and sizing him up.
“You're a bit smaller than my husband, but I think I can find something. Follow me.” Then she turned to Laura “Laura, right? You can get out of those wet clothes. Bathroom's straight down the hall. I'll come bring you something in a minute.”
“Honey, who was that at the door?” a man's voice called from the top of the yellow carpeted stairs.
Laura guessed this was the bigger-than-Caleb husband, and the smile on the woman's face clinched it. She wondered if she had ever looked at Caleb with that same moony expression when they were together. Lord, she hoped not. How embarrassing. Yet she found that she just couldn’t tear her eyes away from the couple while the handsome man's eyes met his wife's. He was considerably taller and wider than Caleb. The woman was right about that. The look on his face matched the way Caleb used to look at Laura a lot of the time, and she felt a lump in her throat.
“This is Caleb and Laura. They’re NYPD. They got caught in the storm. He seems to have locked his keys in his car.”
Laura watched Caleb open his mouth to correct the woman, but then Maggie turned to her and winked.
“Ah. Sucks when that happens. All too familiar with that,” the husband admitted with sympathetic brown eyes. He extended his hand first to Caleb and then Laura. “Jack Martin. This is my wife Maggie.”
“We appreciate your help a lot. I'll just call the auto shop and we'll get out of your hair,” he promised.
“Not until you're dry, you won't. And we were about to have lunch,” Maggie insisted.
“Oh no, really. No. We don't want to intr—”
“Son, don't even try,” Jack told him with an indulgent grin at his wife.
Laura could swear the woman was blushing. People like this actually existed?
While she changed out of her sopping wet clothes, a soft knock came from the other side of the bathroom door.
“Whatcha doin'?” a much more quiet version of the screaming boy they'd heard earlier asked.
“Baking a cake,” Laura replied, rolling her eyes.
“In da bafroom?” a curious voice pressed.
The 'bafroom' was bright and smelled of lemons. Clean yet lived in, with a small sock draped over the rim of the hamper in the corner and a soft baby blue robe hanging off the doorknob. The medicine cabinet was half-open, and Laura couldn’t resist taking a peek. Various makeup items here and there, children's cough syrup, some kind of cream for hemorrhoids (OUCH!), razors, multivitamins, tablets for heartburn...
“See my fingers?” the small voice asked. Sure enough, four tiny fingers poked in from under the door.
“Uh no, sorry,” Laura lied with a grin. The fingers slipped further inside, and she bit her lip to keep from laughing, imagining the poor kid on his knees trying to shove his hand further under the door.
“’bout now?” he asked.
“Nope. Sorry,” Laura replied, biting her fist.
“Jamie! Leave the girl in peace!”
She recognized Maggie's voice and swallowed a burst of sadness. Never, when her own mother had scolded her, had Karen Thatcher's voice held that undertone of amused, loving indulgence. Laura's eyes burned, an
d she tried to blink the threat of tears away.
“How do they fit?” Maggie asked her.
Laura tightened the blue sweatpants securely around her waist and straightened the sweatshirt. “Fine. Thanks a lot.” She turned the doorknob and cleared her throat. She was greeted with a tiny male grin.
“What's your name?” Jamie asked her. He was all impish grin, sandy blond hair and blue eyes that reminded her so much of Caleb.
“Laura. You're Jamie, right?” she asked, bending down so that she was eye level with him.
His blue eyes widened in surprise. “How'd you know?”
“I have magic powers,” Laura joked, hearing Maggie snort behind her son.
Following them downstairs, she spotted Caleb also garbed in a grey sweat suit. It had the words ‘I'd Rather Be Fishing' across his chest.
“They'll be here in about three hours, thanks to this mess outside,” Caleb informed her.
Three hours with the perfect family. Laura bit her lip uneasily.
“Hi. I'm Jamie.” The little boy extended his hand to Caleb, who smiled and tried to look serious when he took it.
“Caleb McKinney. Pleased to meet you.”
Laura watched them up close. The hard shell around Caleb seemed to crack just a little, and he seemed almost…warm, almost like his old self, and the desire to step closer to that warmth and envelop herself in it, even if it wasn’t directed at her, was so strong. If only…
Caleb's brows drew together in concern when he looked at her. She shook away the wistful thought and forced a smile.
“Does she have magical powers?” Jamie asked, pointing at her.
“Oh, she told you about that, huh?” he asked. “She sure does.”
She was almost afraid to imagine what dark, evil powers Caleb believed she had.
Her heart slowed back to its normal rhythm while Maggie led them to the table for lunch.
As they ate, Laura learned that Jack worked as an engineer, and Maggie was a school teacher for the second grade. High school sweethearts, they’d married against everyone's advice right after graduation and, from the look of it, didn't regret the decision.
Laura was almost embarrassed by the obvious love the two had for each other, but there was something kind of comforting about them. They let her know that sometimes, good things do happen, and people can be happy.
****
She and Caleb were sitting on the couch, drinking coffee as they waited for their clothes to dry, when Jamie climbed on next to Laura.
“Do you have a little boy at home too? Like me?” Jamie asked.
Laura choked on her coffee. “Oh shit, I'm sorry!” she said, wiping at the hot liquid on her pants.
Caleb smiled into his mug at her obvious discomfort, and she wanted to punch him.
“That's nod a nice word!” Jamie exclaimed in shock. “Daddy says it all the time when he drops stuff, and Mommy says it's bad.”
“Right. Sorry about that.” Laura nodded and then smiled apologetically at Jack and Maggie.
“No we don't, Jamie. We're not like your mommy and daddy,” Caleb explained.
You could say that again! Laura thought.
“How come? She's pittie,” Jamie pointed out.
Laura's cheeks warmed, and she wanted to sink into the couch.
Caleb cleared his throat but otherwise didn’t comment. His eyes were on Laura, and her cheeks were hot now.
“You don't have a ring. You need a ring to be a mommy,” Jamie informed them.
Oh God, just shoot me now. Please. A bullet in the head. Anytime now, Laura pleaded mentally.
“Maybe when I get bigger, I get a ring and we can be mommy and daddy?” Jamie asked, looking at Laura and smiling.
“Sure kid, look me up,” she replied, laughing, glad for the moment of levity.
“So now you can't ask her anymore, okay?” Jamie told Caleb, who raised his eyebrows and looked as red faced as Laura was sure she must. “Oooh! I know!” Then the little boy bolted off the couch and charged up the stairs.
“Where's he going?” Laura asked his parents.
“I'm almost afraid to guess,” Maggie replied, laughing.
Small footsteps thumped in one direction followed by a few seconds of silence, and then the footsteps began again, coming closer and closer until he was charging back down the stairs. In his haste, he tripped over the last three steps and fell the rest of the way, falling on his side.
All four of them rose in surprise, and Maggie rushed over to her son, who stared at the floor and blinked for a second before his lower lip quivered and he started to cry.
“Awww. Come here, baby.” His mother gathered Jamie up into her arms, and he buried his face in his mother's neck.
”I falled down!”
“I know, baby. I know. Bad stairs. Bad!” Maggie made a point of making sure Jamie saw her smacking the stairs.
He reached down and copied his mother's actions, smacking the railing. "Bad!" He sniffled, holding his arm.
Laura had a brief flash of memory of her mother backhanding her into the stairs when the young girl had told her one of her mother’s boyfriends touched her in a bad way.
Laura blinked, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe. It was all too much. If she didn’t get out of this house right now, she was going to scream. “Excuse me,” she mumbled and almost raced for the door. She stood on the porch, taking in deep gulps of heavy, metallic-tasting air. The gusts of rainy wind rushed past her. She stood outside for a good five minutes before Jamie poked his head out the window. His eyes were a little puffy and glistening, but he was no longer crying.
“I'm all better now,” he assured her, and Laura cracked a small smile.
“Good for you.”
“I have a pezent for you.”
She stepped closer, curious, and he handed her a small toy soldier through the window.
“When I get bigger, I give you a ring, promise. But this is okay too, right? Till I get lots of money?”
“Honey, are you sure you want to giver her Sergeant Buck?” Maggie asked, kneeling next to her son.
"I'm sure. But you gimme Buck back when I get a ring. Deal?” Jamie extended his hand.
Laura took a deep breath, this boy's sweet gesture easing the pain in her heart a little bit more. “Deal.” She took his small hand in hers.
****
She fingered the toy soldier while Caleb drove them back to the city.
“You okay?” he asked grudgingly from the driver’s seat.
Laura turned her face to the window. “Yeah, like you give a damn.”
He was silent for another minute before he spoke again. “You kinda flipped out back there. I just wanna make sure you’re not gonna flip out when things get hairy.”
She turned back to face him, and her fingers clenched tightly around the small toy. “Wow. You’ve got some nerve. Let’s get something straight. I’ve been a cop for a while now. A damn good one. Don’t you dare doubt my ability to handle the stress of my job.”
He lifted his hands off the steering wheel for a second. “Hey, relax, Jesus! I won’t do it again. I was just trying to…” His voice trailed off, and he focused back on the road.
“What?” Laura asked.
She saw him clench his jaw.
“Nothing. Forget it.”
She felt a twinge of guilt in her stomach as she wondered if he actually had been trying to comfort her. She could have laughed at that stupid thought. He hated her. Those days were long over.
****
There was a sudden commotion outside her small room and what sounded like Caroline McKinney's voice. Laura carefully opened her door and poked her head out. She saw Caleb's face. Her heart did that funny squeeze thing in her chest that'd been happening a lot now whenever she looked at him.
Caleb spotted her and walked towards her, his eyes widening. “Laura, geez! What did she do to you?”
Caroline McKinney looked at Laura, and the woman's eyes grew large, horrified.
“You miserable bitch,” Caroline hissed into the other woman's face, and both Laura and Caleb stared at his mother in surprise. “I suspected something like this but, my God, woman. How could you?”
“Who are you to tell me how to raise my child? You look down your nose at me. The little whore deserved it, running around like a common tramp. How many times has your golden boy had her on her back, huh?” Karen sneered through a haze of alcohol.