A Mother in the Making

It was such a lie, he could barely get the words out, poor guy. His face was so tight, and his gray eyes were like slits, he’d narrowed them so much. She gentled her voice and told him, “No, you’re not.”

And then it happened. His stomach began to heave. He pressed the shirt to his face. His shoulders shook. Sounds broke from his mouth.

He was crying.

Crying, with great, deep, scratchy, painful and achingly poignant sounds, and fifteen years of family grief and struggle had taught Carmen an instinctive response that came without her even thinking about it. She stepped close to him, took a hold of his big, warm body and let him sob his heart out in her arms.

Chapter Two

Carmen didn’t know how long they stood this way.

She had to stretch onto her toes to reach Jack Davey properly, even though he was already bent and crooked. The awkward posture must come from protecting that wound on his side. She was careful not to hold him too close because she could tell he was in pain. He laid his head on her shoulder and she cradled it the way she used to do when the sobbing body in her arms belonged to her dad, her sister Melanie or her brother Joe.

Just last night she’d held her other sister like this—eighteen-year-old Kate, after Kate had stumbled in at midnight, and Carmen had yelled at her because she was drunk, and Kate had yelled back, then burst into maudlin tears.

Carmen had run her hands across Kate’s wildly streaked hair and soothed her with little sounds and finally told her, “You have to get a grip, honey, you can’t let yourself get this messed up. What’s wrong?”

Kate had had no answers, and the tears had given way to petulant teen anger. “You have no clue, Carmen! You treat me like a child! How come you can’t just leave me alone?” Then she’d half stormed, half lurched off to the bathroom to hang over the sink and lose whatever cocktail of fast food and alcohol was sloshing around in her stomach.

Was there anything else in the cocktail besides alcohol?

Anything stronger?

Carmen was incredibly worried about her and had no idea what to do.

And now she had a stranger crying on her shoulder, and didn’t know what to do about that, either. Especially when she discovered that thinking about Kate had made her run her hands across Jack Davey’s hair in just the same soothing, helpless way, while she whispered, “It’s okay, it’s okay, just let it all out.”

Oh, Lord, had he noticed what she was doing?

She stilled the movement cautiously, not wanting just to rip her hand away. Resting on his dark head, her fingers found clean springiness and released the damp scent of his musky, nutty shampoo into the air. His body’s shaking began to ebb. She lifted her hand and patted his back in a rhythm of rough, awkward beats, finding pads of solid, well-worked muscle. He had the hardest, strongest body she’d ever felt. How could such a body possibly feel so vulnerable in her arms? What was wrong?

“I’m sorry.” His voice was like gravel. Or metal, rusted by his tears. “I am so…” he took a shuddery breath “…sorry about this.”

“It’s fine.” She pulled away. “I—I didn’t know if—”

“It’s okay.” He balled the shirt in front of his chest, a defensive maneuver that successfully put some space between them.

Carmen felt a little dizzy for a moment, and the air around her body was too cool again now that his body heat had gone. So strange. Every cell in her body seemed aware of how strong he’d been, and yet she was the one giving comfort. As she’d known for a long time, there was more than one kind of strength in a human being.

While she watched, still helpless as to what she should say or do next, he brought the garment to his face and wiped, as if it was a towel. He pulled it over his head, pushed his arms through the sleeves, looked down at the wet patch on the fabric made by his tears, and pulled it off again. “I’ll have to change,” he muttered.

“Do you want to…talk, or something?” she offered. “You shouldn’t just—”

“I’m okay.”

“You’re not.”

“Well, I’m embarrassed. But I know what this is about.”

“Maybe you should tell me. Please don’t be embarrassed.”

“Yeah, right!” he drawled. “This isn’t remotely embarrassing, sobbing on my kitchen contractor’s shoulder.”

“Well… But no, I mean, you’re a human being. We all—”

“Yeah, okay. I mean, the counselor said it would happen. That something like this would happen at some point. I’m sorry you were the one who got hit with it.” He massaged the heel of his big hand against his ribs, parallel to the fresh surgical scar. “I just got shot a couple of weeks ago, that’s all.”

“Shot?” she echoed on a gasp, shocked not just at the fact of it, but the way he said it, almost apologetically.

“Line of duty.” He’d seen her reaction. “I’m a cop.”

“What, so you’re…used to it or something?” She was still shocked, line of duty or not.

“I meant, don’t go thinking I’m in the middle of a gang war, or I’ve just come back from a war zone. It’s just…it’s a risk, in my profession. It was bad luck. And it hurts. They’ve given me some time off, and I’m taking a backlog of vacation days, too.”

“I should think so!”

“But it all got pretty messed up in there—the bullet through my ribs, I mean—so I had surgeons poking around, fixing it up, stitching everything. I strained it, or something, coming down the stairs too fast a minute ago…to catch the phone. It’s feeling a little better now.”

“That’s something. Still, though…”

“But then I got the phone call from—” He stopped. “Yeah. She—the counselor—said I was bottling things up. My emotions. And it might come spilling out for no reason. She said I’d have some really strange reactions, maybe for weeks or even months.” He rubbed his side again.

“Is it still hurting bad?” Carmen asked. “Looks to me like it is. Don’t you need a doctor?” It seemed easier for both of them to focus on the physical damage, not the emotional, after what had just happened. “You’re still not standing straight.” He had one big, muscular shoulder lifted forward, and bent over from the waist.

“I’m fine. It looks worse than it is. Or that’s what they keep telling me.” He gave a sudden grin that dropped from his eyes and mouth far too soon. Carmen wanted it back. It changed his whole face. The man should grin all the time. But he was frowning when he repeated, “I’m fine.” Once more he wiped the hem of his shirt across his face.

She nodded. “Mmm. Really?” He didn’t look fine. He looked embarrassed, distressed and in serious pain. “Can I get you…?” She waved vaguely, at a loss.

“Glass of water would be good.” He nodded toward the faucet and the sink, both of which would be completely gone from here by the end of the day, with the help of C & C’s trainee, Rob, and some good tools. Jack looked down at the shirt. “I’d better, uh…”

Without finishing the sentence, he disappeared back the way he’d come. Carmen poured his water, feeling that it was nowhere near enough as a gesture of comfort and support.

Oh, glory!

Jack sank onto the edge of his bed and wiped his hands down his face. If he just could have drunk the water and been on his own for a minute, he would have been fine, but to be faced by a pair of concerned brown eyes, hands that visibly itched to give a comforting caress and a soothing feminine voice asking that classic, caring question, “Are you okay?”

That was what had broken him. That little question. And then when she’d pushed, after he’d said he was fine. “No, you’re not…” Her voice was a honey trap, sweet and clear and straightforward.

He’d never felt so awkward and embarrassed in his life. Sobbing on her shoulder like a kid who’d grazed his knees. He could still feel the way her body had pressed against him. Carefully, because of his wound. Softly, because she had too many curves to be anything but soft—two full breasts and a slightly rounded stomach that she probably thought was too fat. Generously, because it was incredibly generous of her to give him that comfort when they’d only just met and she had no clue what was wrong.

If he hadn’t been in floods of tears, he would probably have been aroused. Oh, yeah, he could still smell her on his skin! He lifted a forearm to his nose. Yes. A wholesome, intriguingly different sort of smell, like oatmeal and fresh wood shavings and peach.

“Get a grip, Officer Davey!” he muttered out loud.

He stood up and began to pace and breathe, then wondered if she’d be able to hear him going back and forth like a caged beast. She already thought he was a little scary, with his raw wound and hair-trigger emotions. He couldn’t stay here like this when he’d only come up to change his shirt. She deserved some further explanation as to why he was so messed up, even if a heart-to-heart was the last thing he felt like.

He rummaged in a drawer for another old T-shirt suitable for painting in, but his damned eyes were still stinging and what the hell were all his old shirts doing way in the back of the drawer, anyhow, when usually they were the only ones he could find when he looked for a new one?