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“See you around, Nurse Davis.”
“See you around, Chicago,” she replied pertly. She smiled as he went out the door and closed it behind him. She locked it and turned off the porch light and went to bed. She cried for the better part of an hour. Life was never going to be the same again.
* * *
The next morning, Tom paid the motel bill and went out to put his bag in his car, still parked under Annalisa’s carport.
She saw him and came to the door. “You leaving?” she asked quietly.
“Yeah.” He put the bag in the car and came around it to her back door. He studied her sad face. “Why don’t you come and see me off?” he asked, hating the words even as they came out of his throat. It would be agony for both of them, but leaving her at her own door was even worse.
“I’ll drive my car.”
“Cabs run out there.” He tucked a twenty dollar bill in her coat pocket. “Get a cab home.”
She bit her lower lip. “Tom, I’m not sure . . .”
He caught her hand and led her to the car, opening the door and helping her into the front seat. She didn’t even argue. She just fastened her seat belt.
* * *
The airport was crowded. It was almost Christmas. So many people traveling to see families, to spend holidays abroad, to visit loved ones. The airport at Raven Springs was decorated in red and green and gold, with holly and wreaths everywhere and a huge Christmas tree in the center of the lobby.
“It looks like Christmas,” he remarked to Annalisa after he checked his bag and the clerk gave him a paper ticket to replace the e-ticket he’d gotten online.
“Yes. Christmas.” She looked up at him with grief. “You be careful,” she said huskily. “Chicago has a lot of crime.”
“I noticed.” He bent and brushed his mouth against hers. But it wasn’t enough. He knew in his heart that once would never be enough.
He pulled her against him and kissed her as if he was going to war and was uncertain that he would ever return. He kissed her like a starving man. She kissed him back, her eyes pouring tears, her body straining to hold the contact even when he drew slowly away and looked at her as if she was the world, the whole world.
The loudspeaker was announcing the Chicago flight. He grimaced. “I have to go, honey,” he said gruffly.
“You could call me sometimes,” she said. “Send me messages and stuff.”
“It would be like rubbing salt in a wound.”
She acknowledged that with a tiny shrug.
He took a deep breath. “So long.”
Her heart was in her eyes. But she wasn’t going to make it harder for him. She forced a smile. “So long, Tom.”
He turned and walked away. She watched his broad back with eyes that loved him, hungered for him, would have died for him. Her life would never be the same. She’d come home every day of her life from work and expect to see his car sitting in the carport. Except that it never would be. Never!
* * *
Tom was halfway down his way to the concourse. He could do this, he told himself. He could walk away. He’d go back to his job. Nothing would change. She was a sweet interlude. Nothing more. He’d forget her.
He remembered that first meeting, when he’d told her she worked as a pole dancer. He remembered their first kiss, the way she cuddled with him, accepted anything he wanted to do to her, nurtured him. Hot soup at midnight. No real recriminations, except that she’d been afraid for him when he said he’d be right back, and he wasn’t, and she was frightened something had happened to him. She’d run to him, her face covered in tears, the fear tangible as she held him to her and shivered with feeling.
She loved him. Nobody in his whole damned life had ever loved him. He was walking away from a home and a family and a wife who’d be waiting for him, forever if she needed to. He was walking away from children playing around the Christmas tree every year. He was walking away from love.
He stopped dead. His feet felt as if he were wearing steel boots. He couldn’t force himself to take one more step. This was insane. It would never work. There were too many years between them. He couldn’t stop being a cop. He couldn’t give up the risk, the excitement.
He turned and looked back. She was still standing there, her long blond hair falling around her hunched shoulders, her face as tragic as if she’d just seen an accident with fatalities.
She looked up then, and saw him just standing there, just looking at her.
