“Asking isn’t snooping.”
“That’s a matter of semantics.” When I see she’s not going to get going until I answer her, I admit, “It said my condition is inoperable. It said he can’t help me.”
All truth. It said someotherstuff, too, but I’m keeping that to myself.
Her eyes are overly bright as she stares down at me.
What does she see? A man much reduced, thanks to constant pain, ill health, and too much booze? A man who takes home half-in-the-bag redheads and shags them up against a wall? Or does she still see the boy she fell in love with?
I get my answer when she asks, “Is that why you were acting that way last night? Why you took Scarlet home? Because you wanted me to give up on you, onus, once and for all? Because you wanted to prove there’s no hope?”
I close my eyes so my expression won’t give me away. When I have myself in hand, I open them again and fix her with a penetrating stare. Or as penetrating as I can make it what with the excruciating pain in my head. “We’ve gone over this, Maggie. My taking Scarlet home had nothing to do with you, because, if you’ll recall, I told you to give up on us long before last night. That email from the sawbones at Johns Hopkins didn’t say a damned thing I didn’t already know.”
And yet there’d been a part of me—at the small, secret heart of me—that had wondered if…maybe…
She slants me a thoughtful look. “Why don’t I believe you?”
“Because you’re the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met. And because you’re so intent on staying stuck in the past that you refuse to see what’s right in front of you in the present.”
My comment is edged in bitterness, and the look on her face becomes as stark as the blood in the dirt that day the suicide bomber set off his explosives.
“Go home, Maggie,” I say again, more tired than I’ve ever been before. “Luc needs you; I don’t. Go home and forget—”
My sentence hangs unfinished. The part I can’t make myself say is soon swallowed up by the silence of the room after she whispers goodbye and turns to leave.
Chapter Seventy
______________________________________
Maggie
If you don’t disturb muddy water, if you just let it be, it will eventually settle and come clear.
That’s how I’m going to handle my crazy, conflicting feelings for Luc and Cash. Stay still. Don’t disturb the water. Hope things come clear.
Of course, the first step in making that happen is lettingLucknow that’s the plan.
The prospect fills me with dread. I don’t want to hurt him. But I don’t want to hurt Cash either. And I’m beginning to feel like I can’t have both of those things at the same time.
Unless, of course, Luc agrees with me. Hewasthe one to tell me I should behave in a way that means I never have to say I’m sorry. So he’ll understand, right?Right?
Yesterday afternoon, around the time Cash was being transferred to the VA hospital, Luc was charged and taken to Orleans Parish Prison to await his arraignment. This morning, I tagged along with Abelman for a visit.
Now I’m sitting across from Luc at a bulky plastic table that’s a weird blue color and bolted to the floor in a room full of a dozen other weird blue tables. There are vending machines in the corner, and a guard stands by the door.
He’s a small, dark man with eyebrows that meet at the top of his nose and a shadow of a mustache on his upper lip. He reminds me of a male version of Frida Kahlo, and the look on his face says he couldn’t be more bored if he were staring at a pot of water, waiting for it to boil.
Other than him, we’re blessedly alone. After Abelman assured Luc he’d arranged to get Luc in front of a judge tomorrow morning, he left to stand in the hall while I broke the news about what happened to Cash.
“Dr. Beckett says he’ll release Cash day after tomorrow, barring any setbacks,” I say now.
“Good God Almighty.” Luc pushes a hand through his hair.
I notice the way it makes the muscles in his shoulder bunch. Even in prison orange he still looks good. Skinny, shy Lucien Dubois has turned into the kind of man who wears his sexuality like a pair of well-fitted jeans, there for all the world to see.
Who’d a thunk it?
“Has he been caught?” he asks. “Rick, I mean?”
