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Chapter Eleven
It was still new, this act of leaving together. Established without discussion in the weeks following their California visit, post-case directions now consistently plotted the same course. Today would involve any open eatery that might sate an all-day hunger.
If good fortune was any sort of friend, a deeper hunger might be satisfied later. Even an appetizer would be welcome; those first few morsels had been known to sustain a woman for days.
They'd opted for a slow and altogether unhurried pace, seeking to avoid discomforting mistakes or regrets that would raise the proverbial hammer on their efforts. The attempt to hide this 'settling into domesticity' lasted exactly 6 days before the mantle of secrecy was unceremoniously thrown off. Their coworkers had the dual role of being faithful friends and could be trusted with the fragile package that contained this new relationship. The upper brass, however, were shielded from the truth for the sake of team continuity. Reassignments would be handed out as dutifully as the company news letter. Which wasn't to say that Kate, the bastion of inconvenient insight, didn't appear to harbor suspicions.
There were still a few sensitive issues between them, one of which was waiting in the parking garage. Retelling an embarrassing childhood adventure with frantic hand gesturing, Natalie's freeform rant coaxed a rare careless smile from her future lover. Reaching the upper parking level and tearing her eyes from Stephen, Natalie scanned the line of cars to find his. And her.
The former Mrs. Connor sat cross-legged on the hood, the scene looking like a camera-less photo shoot. The woman employed one hand in primped her tawny curls while the other flecked away a speck of lint from her designer skirt. Hauling oneself uninvited onto a man's car was a blatant criminal infraction. Did she know nothing of the unspoken rules of guys and their toys? Whether Stephen's sigh stemmed from Lisa's presence or her presumptuous position was unclear. Hopefully both. The expected feeling of guilt at enjoying his nearly hostile reaction never materialized. Instead, a giddiness born of long standing envy bubbled from a purely possessive cauldron and Natalie clamped down on her lips to disguise the evidence. Jack had dropped the hint last weekend that his mother had found out about Natalie and was none too pleased. Lisa had clearly remembered Natalie from their brief phone conversation during the drive out of Tennessee and likely assumed they'd been involved at that time. Lisa's own romantic attempts with a string of rotating men had netted no results. Jealousy was natural, Natalie supposed. And in this case welcomed.
While she could say it was nice to put a face to the name, those sentiments were something of a lie. The face, entirely too pretty, evoked pangs of inadequacy that Natalie had sought to banish since her gawky childhood. Unsuccessfully. Still, it would be potentially entertaining to be introduced to the woman. The meeting could center around veiled insults and displays of public affection to mark her territory around their common link. But a chick fight on NIH grounds would hardly be a subtle way to announce their against-policy relationship. This woman could easily have Director Ewing's home number on speed dial and would be only too glad to call Kate personally. Reluctantly giving up the obvious entertainment, Natalie tugged on Stephen's arm to secure his attention.
"I'll stay here, if you want."
Of course he would, as he was all too aware of the logistics involved in maintaining some form of concealment. Still, she knew he'd appreciate the offer. It saved him from asking. The past had been departmentalized in his mind, a protective measure he used to preserve sanity. Lisa, ever rooted in the present because of Jack, was still someone he kept in a secured vault. Natalie would remain present, but hidden, since distance did not equate to deafness. Watching from a sniper-like position behind a support beam, Natalie angled her ear toward the coming conversation. There was no greeting as the woman took a break from the supermodel posing to glower at her ex-husband.
"Do me a favor? Say goodbye to your son."
Stephen almost looked relieved that it was Jack who'd found disfavor. "Why is he only my son when he's in trouble?"
"Because he gets more like you every day. And I'm going. to. kill. him."
"So I heard." His subtle hand gesture was meant to depose her from his vehicle. She declined to notice. "He sent me the world's longest text message explaining his reasons."
"My new carpet, Steve. My God. Can't he leave it at your place?"
Natalie's jaw dropped on the use of Steve. First she shows up unannounced spitting threats of murder from his car hood and then she calls him Steve? Who is this woman? And why does she look so…limber?
"As you're so quick to remind me, I'm never home." Stephen was fighting valiantly to avoid an argument and therefore sweetened his tone. Based on her sigh, it must have worked. If Lisa came here for a quarrel, she'd leave empty-handed.
"He just had to save it." Lisa's expression shifted into a slightly more civilized frown. "Forget baseball camp. Now he wants to be a vet. Practicing on my brand new, non-stain proof carpet." And then the manicured finger-pointing made its appearance, blessedly with little bite. "And I blame you."
"Why doesn't that surprise me?"
Contriteness, an emotion Natalie surmised was normally spared from Lisa's repertoire, found a home on her face. The shoulders lowered as the too appealing voice softened. "I didn't mean it like that."
"I know." Leaning against the car, Stephen looked to his ex with something close to fondness. However grudgingly, Natalie had to admit they made a stunning couple. "We did promise him."
"He was two."
"But he remembers. He gets the long memory from his mother."
The demeanor and tones smoothly shifted into something that sounded like a pair still on speaking terms. It didn't hurt that Lisa slid gracefully from the hood, landing like a dancer on one high-heeled foot. She then pivoted toward her ex-husband with a suggestive calendar-girl lean over the grill.
"You know what he's getting from his father? Dog training."
A long lingering and painfully staged glance capped her sentence as Lisa strode away. The erotic hip sway was a nice touch. Connor had said that Lisa was a jeans kind of girl, yet the body wrapped in a designer outfit was sensual enough to boil asphalt. Natalie took her own hips, devoid of runway model swing, straight to the car, the smirk plastered uncontrollably to her face.
"What did you ever see in her?"
The answer was slow in coming, perhaps because his attention remained on the departing hips. Nat's grin vaporized into rampant displeasure as a hard elbow to his side encouraged a return to present company.
"Well…" He gestured after the woman as if to declare the sway was reason enough.
Exasperated sigh came complete with eye roll and Natalie took a pointed step back. "You are such a man."
Whatever venom she'd injected into that pronouncement bounced right off him. Stephen straightened to full height, borrowing her previous smirk. "You'd prefer something else?"
"No," she conceded but raised a dangerously unmanicured finger. "But you'd better be half that distracted when I walk away."
Turning on her heel, Natalie stalked down the center lane to her own car, employing every clichéd movement she'd seen on those silly modeling shows. One hand splayed on her hip while the other dangled at her side, sweeping a grand arc through the air. One foot was placed directly in front of the other, almost crossing to make the sway more prominent. Posture straight and mechanical, face set in a pout. Though he was behind her, she kept that pout in place to stay in character. And he'd best be enthralled by the performance or she'd run him the hell over. What court wouldn't take pity on her plight?
So focused was Natalie on the presentation that when she arrived at her car, the strong arms spinning her to a halt against the fiberglass almost caused a scream of panic. Not that the sound would have been audible, as his mouth over hers sealed all protest from escaping. Something was unleashed in it that left no doubt they were moving forward at warp speed. Perhaps tonight was the time to drop all pretense of 'slow.'
Oxygen rushed into Natalie's lungs by the bucketful when he released her. A few gulps of air and words followed.
"Thought we agreed to discretion at work?" Not that she was complaining.
He considered this for a moment, then shrugged. "Must have been distracted."
Good answer. And every argument, every harsh word, every veiled criticism he'd ever uttered in her vicinity was forgiven. A quick resumption of tasty activities was interrupted by the sound of the elevator, but for once they didn't jump apart. His hand on her back steered them back to his car.
Granting a quick nod to the passing intern, Natalie slowed her step when the question hit her. "Does she usually call you Steve?"
He laughed, a sound angels weep over. "Only when she wants to irritate me. Which you shouldn't do."
Intriguing challenge. Stopping all forward motion, she turned to face him, eyebrow raised. "And if I do?"
Moving around her, Stephen continued to the car, throwing over his shoulder, "Then I'll be going home. Alone."
An engraved invitation couldn't have been clearer. Certainly the Age of the Morsel has been concluded, moving right on to whole bites. Rushing with renewed vigor past him, she claimed her place in the passenger seat, letting it serve as her RSVP. Stephen started the car but her hand on his face kept him from shifting into drive. A light kiss was deposited on his cheek as her hand trailed along his jaw, down his neck, over his shoulder and finally arrived at the package's treasured item. Covering his heart, Natalie whispered,
"Mine."
And that claim, staked through the dogged landmines of Amethyst, demonic radio, ceiling tiles, midget planes, leftovers, bird corpses and exes, was worth the exhausting effort. Because having secured the rights to sign for the package, she'd been able to bring it inside, dislodge all of the tape and dismantle the flaps. Once they were both comfortable with that progress, Natalie discovered that she didn't need to root out and extract the contents of it. She could simply climb inside the box to join him where his heart lived. With the protective filler removed, there was plenty of room for both of them.
Not that space for two was required for long as what began in a boxcar diner was continued well into the cloudless night. On the invisible line of an unspoken contract delivered between lonely souls, two finally became one.
Thus concludes Zaedah's little tale. True thanks to all who gave each chapter a chance, especially those who so kindly reviewed. Those little morsels of goodness encouraged me to see this story through.
