Though Megan crammed in every activity her family was up for and more, it was only a temporary fix to her main problem – the problem where Ryan wouldn’t get out of her head. Whenever she got a second to think, she found herself straining to remember every detail since she first saw his camera flash out of the corner of her eye as she tackled Jersey St Claud. To her surprise, it was fairly easy. At first, she tried to chalk it up to her police training, but, never one to lie to herself, she knew it was more than that. She’d looked forward to seeing him, even if it was only to avoid him.
Now, standing in the middle of her apartment, all family gone and nothing but empty time staring her in the face, she felt very alone and perhaps a little scared as well. Even if she wanted to, the only way she could talk to Ryan was to ask Kat where he lived. And, to do that, she would have to talk to her sister – something Kat didn’t seem willing to do. Her other option was to call the station and ask someone in the department to look up his file, which didn’t seem a very bright idea. Either she’d never hear the end to the teasing, or the captain would panic and think she’d lost her mind and was going to kill Ryan for taking the picture.
She slowly spun in a circle, studying her apartment. It was unloved, unlived in and suddenly very depressing. Her life had never bothered her before but take away the business, the work and the crime fighting and she was left with an empty apartment and a few posters on the wall. Poetry was never her thing, but even she could see the strange collation of the barely decorated home and her life. Without the job, she was a barely decorated person – empty, alone, neglected. And the saddest part of all was that she had done it to herself. No one forced her to live this way, to put her personal life on hold. Other cops still managed to try to have a life outside work. They might be lousy at it with drinking problems and failed marriages, but they were out there, endeavouring to feed the human inside themselves, the part that wasn’t the cop.
Megan blinked, stopping in shock as she lifted her hand to her face. Drawing her fingers back wet, she realised tears slipped over her cheeks. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried, not even as a child. The hard shell had taken over, until the woman inside her was buried so deep she had all but disappeared.
‘What have I done?’ she whispered, thinking of Ryan.
So what if he blackmailed her? He was something tangible in her world. He had been hers, hadn’t he? If only for a short time, when they were together, he had been hers. Why had it taken her so long to see it? She thought of his face, of the hints over the past year only now becoming clear. Somehow, with the publication of the Little Darling Detective photo, she’d filed him away in her head as a nuisance and never gave him a chance to be anything else. She ignored her attraction to him, denied it, just as she denied any part of her that needed a life outside being a detective. But, all along, he’d been right there, smiling at her, begging her for her attention. And she’d thrown it in his face repeatedly. Yet, still he tried, never giving up on her.
‘Never giving up until now,’ Megan said, still not moving, barely making a sound in her dim empty apartment. The hour was late yet the pulse of the city echoed faintly from behind her window. This wasn’t like Montana, the endless silence, the peace, Ryan. No, the city was thriving, lonely and even a little cruel. ‘Oh, fuck. What have I done?’
Shivering, she crossed to her couch and curled up into a ball. More tears slid over her cheek. It took getting him and losing him to make her realise she even wanted him. She was a stubborn know-it-all fool and she’d lost the first thing in her life she might actually want more than her career. When she closed her eyes, she saw his face, the brief last glance, the hurt, the disbelief, the anger. People didn’t easily recover from what she had done. She let him go. And, now that he was gone, she knew there was a chance he’d never come back.
‘Oh, fuck. What have I done?’
‘I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to boss you around or say things I shouldn’t have or be mean. I love you and I didn’t mean to hurt you. Please, forgive me, or I’ll . . .’ Megan paused in her rushed apology, unsure how to proceed. She’d been on the verge of saying, ‘Or I’ll beat the shit out of you if you don’t’, but somehow that didn’t seem the way the apology thing was done. ‘Or I’ll apologise over and over again until you do.’
‘That’s OK, Megs,’ Kat drawled, stepping back to open her front door. ‘This first one was painful enough to watch. I’m not sure I can listen through it again.’
‘Then, you forgive me?’ Megan rushed inside, grabbing Kat in a big hug. Her sister looked adorable in her ivory stretch-lace camisole. Its high ruffled neckline and satinribbon trim had a Victorian feel that was contradicted by the bright-red-highlighted bangs framing her face. The full white skirt also had lace trim along the bottom edge, high enough to show off her bare feet. ‘I’m so glad. I’m so sorry, Kat. I don’t know how it happened, or why I am the way I am, but I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to boss you around, or order food for you when you can talk for yourself, or not call you back when you leave fifty messages on my phone in one night just because you can’t sleep and want to talk. I have taken so much for granted, like having you as a sister. In my mind, you would always be there when I needed or wanted to come around, but that’s not how life works, is it? People disappear and you can’t find them, and I don’t want that to happen with you. I don’t what to go months without seeing you, or being here for you, or –’
‘Megan,’ Kat said, pushing her away with a small laugh. ‘I accepted the apology, now do me a favour and stop apologising.’
‘Oh, yeah, sorry.’ Megan nodded, somewhat nervous. This was new ground for her and she’d been so worried Kat wouldn’t listen, would slam the door in her face like she felt she deserved.
‘You look like you could use a drink,’ Kat said, motioning towards the kitchen. ‘Come on, let’s see what I’ve got.’
Megan followed, tugging on the drawstrings to her hooded grey knit shirt. Cropped, it fell to just under her breasts with a white tank top showing from beneath. With the grey stretch pants and running shoes, the outfit was the only thing she could force herself to put on. Her period had started, making the effects of her mild depression all that more out of character.
‘Or is this rushed heartfelt apology the result of too much drinking?’ Kat paused by the entryway, leading to the hall that would take them across to the kitchen. ‘Do you need to sober up? Should I put on coffee instead?’
‘I haven’t drunk since we came back,’ Megan admitted. ‘But coffee sounds perfect. I didn’t sleep too well last night.’
‘So you are sober?’
‘Completely.’
‘Have you eaten? You’re paler than normal.’
‘Sure, I . . .’ Megan frowned. ‘I can’t remember, honestly. I was so worried you wouldn’t let me say what I needed to and I am really –’
‘Ah!’ Kat held up her hand to keep another apology from coming out. ‘Fair warning, you start up again and I might just go all hormonal on you. Pregnant women do that, you know.’
‘Oh, I know. I worked this case where a pregnant woman found her boyfriend cheating on her with her cousin and her sister. She grabbed a shotgun and waited until they were all three in bed together before –’
‘How about we save the cop stories for, um, let’s say after my morning sickness is gone.’ After flipping the switch to turn on the kitchen light, Kat moved to the cupboard. Like the rest of the house, the room was white from the walls to the appliances, even the floor. There were touches of red where Kat had started to decorate with cherry-blossom wall hangings and matching towels. The room was pristine, the type of state-of-the-art kitchen Zoe would have loved to have in her home. Since Kat wasn’t much for cooking and Vincent was never home, it was never used.
A box of crackers was on the counter and Megan picked them up. ‘So are you very sick?’
‘I think it’s jetlag hanging on. I didn’t feel terrible until we got on the plane.’
‘Should you even be flying when you’re pregnant?’ Megan frowned.
‘I have no clue.’ Kat stopped what she was doing, leaving the cupboard open as she faced her sister. ‘I didn’t know I was pregnant before we left. I snuck a test from the grocery store once we got there. I thought maybe my menstrual cycle was messed up. I never expected the thing to truly say I was having a baby.’
‘How late were you?’
‘Ah –’ Kat glanced away, giving a sheepish smile ‘– month and a half.’
‘And you didn’t think to test it before then?’
‘I didn’t want to.’ Kat turned, pulled a tin of coffee grounds down and set it on the counter. She took the empty coffee pot and filled it with water.
Megan studied the appliance’s many buttons and odd space-age shape. ‘This coffee pot looks like a time portal.’
‘Don’t even try it, sis.’ Kat lifted the lid and filled the back. ‘No matter how much you want it to, my coffee pot will not bring you back to the eighties.’
‘I’m not stuck in the eighties.’
Kat giggled. ‘Tell that to the movie posters on your living-room walls. I bet you still have those spandex tights you wore in high school.’
‘Leave the posters alone,’ Megan said. ‘And I never once wore spandex.’
‘Uh-huh, do I need to get out the pictures?’
‘That was Halloween and you know it. Quit trying to bait me.’ Megan grimaced. ‘Now, about you. What’s going on? Why are you so scared to be pregnant? Are you worried about Vincent? Has he said or done something?’
‘No, Vincent’s great. He’s the best husband a girl could ever have, even if he forgets the time, knows a little too much about giant fire ants and milks poisonous spiders as a hobby.’ She gave a small humourless laugh, continuing to make coffee as she talked. ‘It’s one hundred per cent me. I’m not ready. What do I know about being a mom? I’m selfish and as distracted as my husband. Who’ll get the kid to school on time? And what’s worse? The kid being raised by someone like our flaky mom raised us? Or Vincent’s parents, plastic-surgery Mimi and Big Vincent with the cellular phone glued to the side of his head? Can you imagine all the ways the kid’s going to get screwed up?’
‘OK, it’s my turn to tell
you
to shut up. You are going to make a great mother. You are not our mom and Vincent is definitely not his socialite parents. So you need to shut up, stop worrying about it, relax and know that a baby born out of the love you and Vincent feel for each other can’t be screwed up.’ Megan crossed over and hugged her sister around the shoulders. ‘Trust me, I know everything, remember. I’m always right.’
Kat laughed. ‘You really think we’ll be good parents?’
‘I know so.’ Megan sighed. ‘And, if you ever start acting too much like mom, I promise to smack you over the head.’
‘Perfect.’ Putting the tin back into the cupboard, Kat cleared her throat. ‘It’s your turn. What’s up with you?’
Megan’s face fell and she sighed. ‘I suck.’
‘What brought about this sudden insight?’ Kat smirked. ‘I could have told you that.’
Megan tried to smile, but the effort was weak. She knew her sister was joking, but she wasn’t in the mood. She’d spent the last week beating herself up. ‘I’m serious.’
‘No, I think you’re just a little lost, what with being off work.’ Kat grabbed her box of crackers and walked out a door. Instead of back to the hallway, the door led into a dining room. An elegant scrolled-ironwork chandelier hung over a polished dark-wood table. Sophisticated hand-carved details accented the high-backed chairs. ‘You’ve had too much time to think.’
Kat opened a panelled door on the china cabinet and Kat took out two stone coasters and set them on the table, before taking a seat at the head of the table as they waited for the coffee to brew. Megan sat next to her, leaning back in the chair. ‘I still can’t believe you live here.’
‘It’s growing on me and don’t change the subject. You’re about to tell me why you’re beating yourself up.’
‘I already told you in my apology.’ It wasn’t a complete lie.
‘Uh-huh, yeah, I’m flattered,’ Kat answered dryly, unconvinced. ‘And I’m new to your planet.’
‘Fine. I fucked up and it wasn’t just with you.’
Kat lifted a brow, the box of crackers untouched next to her. ‘Go on.’
‘Ryan,’ Megan mumbled, leaning forwards to rest her head on her arms so she didn’t have to look her sister in the eye. ‘I treated him like shit and I need you to tell me how to find him so I can apologise, only I have a feeling he won’t want to see me.’
‘Yep, you’re probably right.’ Kat nodded.
Megan’s heart dropped. She hadn’t expected agreement; in fact, she had counted against it.
‘I have a confession. When Ryan and I first came up with this idea, I pushed it because I wanted to prove to you that you weren’t always right. The man has cared for you since the first moment he saw you and he’s a really good guy.’
‘He blackmailed me into dating him.’
‘I wouldn’t call it blackmail. At best, he tricked you into noticing him and, if you ask me, it was a damn good plan. It worked, didn’t it? I just can’t believe you went along with it, especially as far as Montana.’