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“You know, we never finished our conversation,” he grunted. “The one where I tell you all about myself in case you wanted to rethink our…f…friendship.”
Had he stumbled over that word?Good.Because she was beginning to hate it.
“AndIalready told you,” Pixie responded. “Nothing you say will change my mind.” The things that formed you in your past, make you more real, she added to herself.
Doug shrugged, sending his pectoral muscles rippling. And wasn’t that a lovely sight to behold?
“It’s been a long day,” he puffed. “So I’ll give you a few more pertinent details about my life as I close up the cottage, then we’ll have more of a conversation tomorrow. Deal?”
“Deal,” she said. “But not because Ineedto know,” she rebuked. “It’s because you want to lay it out for me. And seriously?” She raised an eyebrow. “It sounds kind of like you’retrying to drive me away. But it won’t work.” She crossed her good arm over her chest.
Doug snorted. “I already tried cutting you out of my life, once, and you see how well that worked for me. I figure telling you my horror stories probably won’t do the job, either.”
“Now you’re getting it,” Pixie responded decisively.
With a sigh, Doug went into his bedroom for a moment, then came back out, tugging a clean T-shirt over his head. He didn’t sit next to her on the couch, but took one of the two chairs across from her, and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.
“You wondered where I went this morning,” he began.
This morning seemed like a really long time ago, but Pixie knew Doug meant to tell her where he’d disappeared to after the call he’d received.
“I figured it wasn’t SWAT stuff, or you would have said,” she speculated.
Doug gave a wry twist of his lips. “Well, it wasn’t. Then it was,” he answered cryptically, holding up a hand when she went to interrupt. “No. Let me explain.”
Pixie nodded.
“I not only work for the OPD and SWAT, I’m on call with…MECASA. You know what that organization is, right?”
Pixie knew, as did every teacher—she supposed—in the state of Maine. And suddenly, things Doug had andhadn’tsaid, started dropping into place. His mother. His mistrust and aversion to women. His abhorrence of being touched. Him being taken away from his mother’s home and placed with his aunt and uncle, and lastly, the highly overprotective jobs he’d made his life’s work.
She chose to ignore her flash of intuition, and urged Doug to continue. “I’ve heard of MECASA, for sure. They do excellent work. You had a…case this morning?”
He dropped his head and cradled it before looking back at her, scrubbing his hands over the scruff on his cheeks. “We did. An emergency. And the guy we’d been monitoring wasn’t exactly happy to see us.”
“What happened?” Pixie questioned. “Ifyou can tell me,” she added.
“He had a gun; had shot his wife and was holding his daughter hostage. I called Mason and got SWAT on scene. Luckily, we resolved the stand-off without any additional bloodshed.”
“And the girl? The mother?” Pixie held her breath.
“The mother is going to be okay after some touch-and-go surgery. And the little girl is safe.”
“Doug…” Pixie choked up. “That’s…magnificent work. I’m so glad it turned out the way it did.”
“Me, too. It doesn’t always.” His face closed down, and Pixie knew that was the end of the conversation for tonight.
But he’d given her enough to see deeper into his psyche, and her heart bled for him. To be ten, and to be sexually abused by your own mother.
It was beyond horrific.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Epiphany.
Pixie had clearly experienced one this evening, and Doug…had not. He could see there was something new in her eyes the minute they’d left the restaurant. And she wasn’t just blowing smoke. She really was seeing herself as stronger, more confident. Why couldn’t he manage to do the same about himself? Then maybe he’d be the man Pixie…
No.He couldn’t go there. He’dneverbe the man Pixie turned to for everything. He was incapable of getting that close to a woman.
