Somewhere in His Arms (50 page)

             
Alec took a cookie for himself, double chocolate mint. “Lucy's great.”

             
Pat smiled. “I assume she's the nurse.”

             
“What makes you say that?” Alec replied, flushing under the man's steady gaze.

             
“Because you happened to mention she had big, brown eyes that time we spoke on the phone.”

             
“Oh.”

             
Pat chuckled to himself and turned toward the football game. “How's Rooney holding up?”

             
“He's making a brave go of it,” Alec replied without much feeling. He hadn't been paying much attention to the game anyway. “So what brings you all the way out here?'

             
“I spoke to Rudy,” Pat said, and cheered as Rooney guided the ball past the confused goalkeeper who stood dumbfounded over what just happened. He turned his head slightly to find Alec with a thoughtful expression on his face. At that moment he looked just like Maggie. “He told me everything.”

             
“He did?” Alec didn't sound the least bit surprised. “And what did you say?”

             
Pat took another sausage roll and made a good show of chewing and swallowing before answering: “He said you killed that man.”

             
“He was no
man!”
Alec scowled. “He was an animal who deserved to die like one for trying to murder my wife!”

             
“I wasn't judging lad,” Pat soothed. “I was about to congratulate you.”

             
“Y--You were?”

             
“Rudy said his neck was broken.”

             
Alec shifted uneasily on his chair cushion. “Yeah? S-So?”

             
“That's my boy!” Pat reached across and gave Alec’s knee a fatherly slap.             

             
Alec laughed in relief and tossed the chair cushion at him. “Why don't you stay to supper? Lucy will probably bring home a feast fit for king!”

             
“You know what, laddie?” Pat smiled broadly. “I just may do that!”

              Lucy pulled up to the beach house after dropping Tia off. The rain had stopped but had left a foggy haze on the windshield. She took a cloth and wiped the condensation off and winced. There was a car in the driveway.
Pat!
She'd been dreading this. She'd half hoped she wouldn't have to see him. Muttering to herself, she got out and grabbed her bags. While Tia had gone wild with the bonus Rudy had given her, Lucy had bought only the bare necessities. She'd bought a new pair of pajamas and some underwear for her husband who seemed content to wear them down to the elastic. A few other items included some towels and the like, but nothing compared to Tia's eventual haul of clothes and toys for her grandchildren.

             
As she approached the door, she fumbled for her keys. But there was no need to as Pat flung open the door.
Great.
He called for his stepson who quickly took her bags and helped her inside.

             
Lucy threw a wary glance at the hulking menace and took dinner into the kitchen. She busied herself with removing the various cartons and plastic ware. Alec came in and rifled through the cabinets for plates and napkins. “He's staying for dinner.”

             
“That's fine,” she murmured, holding out a container of fish and chips. “I went to The Blue Boar Pub. I didn't know what he would like, so I guessed.” She peered up at him with a worried frown. “I got a little bit of everything and some beers too.”

             
“What kind?” he said, rummaging around in the bag.

             
'They're in the other bag,” she said.

             
He pulled them out and grinned from ear to ear. “Newcastle?”

             
She nodded. “I had to go to three different stores until I finally found it. I didn't know what he would like, so I asked the man to give me a little of everything.”

             
Alec pulled out several cans of Old Speckled Hen as well. “These will do nicely.” He gave her a kiss and frowned as she headed for the bedroom. “Where are you going, love? Aren't you hungry?”

             
“Tia and I had a huge lunch. I'm knackered.” She rose on tiptoe and kissed him lightly on the mouth. “I need to lie down for a bit. I bought that stuff for you guys anyway.”

             
He felt her brow. She was a tad warm. “Are you feeling all right?”

             
“I'm fine,” she sighed and left him. Lucy wet a washcloth and placed it over her eyes and rested on the bed. Of course she
wasn't
fine! She'd started her period. Again! She'd hoped she was pregnant and was heartbroken to find out she wasn't in the shower that morning. Outside in the kitchen she could hear Pat's uproarious peals of laughter. Alec was having a good time as well. Lucy sighed. At least someone was happy.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Pat stayed with them for a week once Alec found out he was crashing at a hotel. Lucy didn't mind. She was far too sick to mind much of anything and stayed in bed most of the time. Alec was a doll about it, bringing her boxes of chocolates
, and hooking up her TV on the nightstand so she wouldn't have to squint at the screen. Pat had even brought her some flowers, apologizing profusely. She tried not to let on how much his insult had hurt her and thanked him graciously, but she couldn't hide the fact that she was depressed.

             
Understandably, Alec was worried and fretted to Pat as he walked him to his car. “I thought she was getting better. But she seems to be falling right back in!”

He raked a frustrated hand through his pitch-black hair. Pat thought he spied a few errant grays. Worry, no doubt.

              “It takes time, laddie,” he told his stepson consolingly. “Yer mum was the same way after we lost Rosie.”

             
“Rosie...?”

             
“Yeah,” Pat said, “yer mum and I tried for the damnedest time trying to get pregnant.” He sighed, shaking his head at the painful memory. “I was off training and they called me out during the firing drills and told me she'd lost her.”

             
“God, dad,” Alec gulped back tears grieving for a sister he had never known. “I didn't know. Why didn't you or mum ever say anything?”

             
“It's not something you boast about laddie,” Pat said sadly. “You and yer brother were barely out of nappies. We tried again but we couldn't have more. Yer mum cried herself to sleep for months.” He threw his duffle into the rental car. “I think it hits a woman more, though a man grieves just as much in his own way.”

             
Alec nodded. There were times when he couldn't even look at a picture of a baby without wanting to curl up into a hole somewhere and weep. “Does it get any better?”

             
Pat shrugged.
“You
get over it a little. But the pain is always there for
her,”
he laid his huge paw on Alec's chest, “waiting to grab at you when you least expect it. So have a care for the lassie and never ask why she's sad. You
know
why. Just be there for her. She'll thank you for it.”

             
Alec was overcome with emotion and threw his arms around Pat. “I will, dad.”

             
“There, now laddie.” Pat hugged his stepson awkwardly. He'd never been one for cuddles, but he supposed the poor boy needed his dad more than ever. He patted his back soothingly. “It'll get better, I promise.” He pulled away and held Alec away from him. “I want you to pick yerself up, laddie and go do what you came here to do.”

             
“B-But he won't see me, dad!” Alec protested and blurted out: “H-He's into those porno movies.”

             
“He's
what---!”

             
“I found him on one of those websites.”

             
“How long has he been into---” Pat couldn't bring himself to utter the word. “It'll kill yer mum.”

             
“I know,” his stepson sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. It was beginning to drizzle. Pat bent his six-foot four-inch frame into the small hatchback and grunted.               “Hell, the bloody Japanese keep shrinking these cars year by year!”

             
“Why didn't you rent a truck?” Alec said, laughing at Pat's discomfort.

             
“I don't like driving something that's bigger than me!”

             
“So, where you headed? Back to London?”

             
Pat peered up into Alec's eyes and was again reminded of how very much he looked like his mother. He thought all things considered, that he and Maggie had done a good job of raising him to be a fine young man. “I thought I'd head up to check on me house.”

             
“San Francisco?” Alec frowned in confusion. “We didn't break anything.”

             
“I know that, laddie!” Pat chuckled. “But I might decide to sell the place. I've got to see if there's anything worth salvaging.”

             
“Well, you could start with the bathroom. I hit my head on the ceiling trying to take a shower in that rust bucket!”

             
Pat roared with laughter and Alec's lips twitched a little at his stepdad's good humor. “If you decide to stay, give us a ring, and we can fly out together. It won't be much longer. Till the end of the month at least.”

             
“I will, laddie.” Pat started the car and tipped a wink at the young man and drove off. He whistled to himself as the rain drummed lightly onto the windshield. Of course, he was going to check out his house. But that didn't mean he couldn't do a little reconnaissance on the side and check out the cottage as well. From what Rudy had told him, there was much to investigate, and he didn't want to involve his stepson who would have his hands full with his brother.

             
This was something he would do on his own; he only hoped the cold ball of dread in his belly wasn't a portent of things to come.

* * *

             
“Do you see him?” Lucy whispered to her husband who peered through a pair of night vision binoculars. After Pat left, Alec had decided that he was going to find Gavin and drag him kicking and screaming back to London--in chains if he had to. Lucy wanted to help, so they'd gone to a military surplus store and stocked up on various items that only belonged in the “how to abduct wayward siblings and get away with it” manual.

             
They parked their car in a darkened alley adjacent to the building where Gavin was said to be staying. For nearly two hours, they'd sat patiently munching on pistachios and swigging Cokes out of shared bottles. The only people Lucy had seen emerging from the apartment building were various occupants that included a ballerina still wearing her tutu, a transvestite, and some guy carrying a naked mannequin. “Well?” she hissed.

             
“Shh,” Alec hissed back and peered through the lenses. At first he was afraid he'd have to call it a night, but then he saw him getting out of a black SUV with two other men. Gavin had sheared off his hair into a neat buzz cut, but Alec knew that jaunty stride anywhere. He handed the binoculars to Lucy. “That's him, the tall one.”

             
She peered through the lenses and saw a tall young man with close-cropped hair accompanied by a black giant and a short, stocky fellow. “Who's the toady?” she whispered.

             
“That's his manager, Harvey. The Tree is the bodyguard.”

             
She watched as the men climbed the stairs and disappeared into the condominium. “Now what?”