The Good Chase (3 page)

But she wasn't that person anymore and, she supposed, when it came down to it, she had Marco to thank for that.

“You know,” he said, using that syrupy, direct eye contact that had swept her off her feet as a twenty-two-year-old bartender, “I really did just come in here to say hello, see what you're up to.” He swept a gaze around the tent. “Surprised to see you here. You don't belong behind the bar anymore. Don't you have employees?”

He would never understand her, what she truly wanted, why she'd left him. She sighed and let her arms drop to her sides. “Why did you really come in here, Marco?”

“Uh.” He actually had the acting chops to look sheepish. “I miss you?”

“No, you don't.”

“It's been a few years. Maybe I came at things between us the wrong way. Maybe things have changed.”

“Nothing's changed. Believe me.” At least not with him. The man had sprung from an average childhood, but his sprint up the world's real estate development ladder had wrung out his humanity.

“Shea.” As he shook his head at the ground, she noticed he had a hell of a lot more silver in his hair. He would be in his early fifties now. “Listen. When you're done here this evening, why don't you come over to my place? We could have a quiet drink as old friends. I built a new house over in Sagaponack.”

“Ah, I get it now. You got dumped.”

“No. That's not it.”

But the slack of his mouth told the truth.

“She's coming back,” he added hastily.

“Of course she is.” Shea laughed and turned to her precious bottles, the lovely things that had given her courage and purpose, and had finally allowed her to ask for the divorce. “New houses on the beach. Yachts in Greece. Those things don't impress me, Marco.”

“They used to.”

She whipped around. Stared him down. “I was young and dumb.”

The sheepishness and humble pie died. Just vanished from his face. His posture straightened and tightened. “You know,” he said, “Shea Montgomery served on ice doesn't taste very good.”

“That's because you don't like strong drinks. You like them all watered down.”

He considered her with the flat stare she'd done such a great job of forgetting. “I'll never get why you changed.”

“I know, Marco. And that's the sad part. Enjoy your new house.”

His nostrils flared. “I will. Enjoy your . . . bar.”

Bar
said, of course, like she owned a whorehouse.

“I will. Because it
is
mine. And it's more than you ever let me have.”

He opened his mouth to defend himself, to say something awful like
I let you have everything. I gave you everything
, but she held up a hand to inform him of its pointlessness. Because when she'd left him, she'd made it a point not to take a dime from him. He had nothing to throw in her face.

“Have fun at the rest of the games,” she said as pleasantly as possible, knowing full well he wasn't going to stick around now that she'd shut him down. He'd come here specifically for the hunt. To him, she'd only ever been a conquest, a trophy.

Never again.

As expected, Marco turned and left.

*   *   *

B
yrne toggled his keys, duffel bag, and laced-together cleats in one arm as he let himself into his apartment on East 84th. The door swung shut hard behind him, and he let everything drop in a heap. Little chunks of dried mud skittered across the slate tile in the foyer. He got out the broom and dustpan from the closet and swept everything up, so that Frances, his housekeeper, wouldn't shake her finger in his face. She probably still would, but then she'd make him cookies and all would be well.

The adrenaline from the rugby had worn off on the long ride back into the city, and now the dizzy tiredness and sore muscles started to settle in. Not for the first time, he wondered how in the world professional athletes in their midthirties survived doing this to their bodies every day. Aging sucked.

In the bathroom, he stripped off the stiff, stinking rugby clothes—
sorry, Frances
—and tossed them in the hamper, then turned on the various knobs to start the overhead rain nozzle in his walk-in shower. He stood under the soothing spray and thought about the day. By the time he'd scrubbed off the dried sweat and mud and stepped out, pulling a towel around his waist, he had a pretty good hankering for some more whisky.

After reaching into the glass-front cabinet for his razor and shaving cream, he decided against shaving. He wasn't planning on going out that night anyway. A rare, blissful Saturday night, free of having to entertain one client or another. As he pulled his hand out of the cabinet, he caught sight of the little yellow toy caboose sitting on top. A pang of warm wistfulness shot through him, and then he closed the glass door.

Going into his closet, he flipped on the switch, and rows of lights illuminated the cherrywood nooks that stored all his clothes. Frances had gone to the dry cleaners, he noted, the section with all his suits looking fuller than usual. With supreme satisfaction, he walked past the suits and the carefully pressed shirts and hanging ties. Not for another thirty-six hours would he have to think about which tie went best with which shirt, and for what client or meeting, and what that particular combo said about him. And thank fuck for that.

Instead he went for the splintering, crooked dresser stashed way in the back. The top drawer stuck as he wrestled it out, but he'd been opening it so many years that he knew its secrets. He removed his favorite pair of shorts and a Wharton T-shirt and pulled them on.

After a brief stop in the second bedroom, which served as an office—no crises had popped up on the computer he used for work, just a reminder of a late Sunday night conference call to Hong Kong—he padded out to the kitchen and found the only bottle of whisky he had. An intensely peaty one that he'd been sipping from on the rare occasions he drank at home.

Tonight seemed to call for it, however.

He brought the whisky and his phone over to where his laptop sat on the glass-topped coffee table. The sun was lowering, cradled in the tops of the buildings on the Upper East Side. No matter how much his job tended to drain him, he'd never tire of the view it had afforded him.

He stretched across the large coffee table and straightened the little green toy train engine resting in its center, then he flopped backward onto the couch.

His phone jumped, buzzed, lit up. George. A mass text to all of Manhattan Rugby.

OK. Rhode Island has a games with a rugby tourney next weekend. Competition looks loose. Who's in?

Byrne cracked his neck, then took a good earthy mouthful of the whisky, thinking too late about what Shea had said about nosing the glass first.

His phone danced with immediate positive replies going around the group, and then one text sent directly to him. From Dan.

When are we going to get real competition? We're better than this.

Byrne scrubbed his face.
Leave the team if you want. I didn't force you to join.
He'd said it to Dan a million times.

No response. Then Dan's affirmation came through, sent to the whole club. They had enough to field a team, and Byrne was already planning to bring along earplugs. Thinking about his workweek to come, he'd need a good day on the pitch, a good weekend away from the city.

Curiosity got the better of him. He opened his laptop and searched for “Rhode Island Highland Games.” Next weekend's event popped up with a list of all the attractions.

His phone rang, Erik's name flashing on the screen.

“What's up?” Byrne said.

“Need your help to get into Portrait this week. Last-minute visit from a big fish and I gotta make it count. Can you call in a favor?”

“Sure.” Byrne made a note to call the head of the restaurant group that owned Portrait, one of his clients. “You out for Rhode Island? Didn't see your name pop up.”

“Yeah. Sorry. Looks like you're stuck with Dan.”

“I'll survive.” Byrne tapped his laptop screen. “There'll be whisky there again. Might give it another taste.”

Erik chuckled. “Really? You didn't mention how the drink went today.”

Byrne hissed through his teeth, remembering Shea's open demeanor until he'd tried to flirt. “Not so good, I'm afraid. Kind of got knocked to the dirt.”

A pause. “Let me tell you a little story.”

Byrne smiled, in spite of himself. “Here we go.”

“There once was this German guy who believed everything his American roommate told him. This was back when the German first came to the States in college, when he was young and naive and not nearly as dashing as he is now. Anyway, the American told the German, who had a girlfriend he was crazy about, that American girls loved beef jerky. And that they loved men who made their own beef jerky.”

Byrne was already laughing.

“So the German researched online how to make beef jerky, and he ended up with a bedroom strung with drying meat and no more girlfriend.”

“The moral of the story?” Byrne could barely get the words out, he was laughing so hard.

“To not try too hard, or else it looks desperate.”

“Or maybe not to listen to your friends.”

“I don't know about that. That was damn fine jerky. I miss it.”

“Not the girl?”

“Just telling you to read the signs.”

Byrne's laughter finally petered out. The little clock on the top of his laptop screen caught his attention. “Oh shit, I gotta run. Expecting a phone call.”

“That's right, it's Saturday. Tell the lovely Caroline hello.”

“I will. See ya.”

“Beef jerky!” Erik yelled, and Byrne hung up.

Not five minutes later, right on schedule—Saturday at six thirty—the phone rang again. The picture on the screen showed a dark-haired woman with a round face holding a baby, the little girl only days old. Never failed to make Byrne smile.

“Hey, sis.” He sank deeper into the leather couch, propping up his feet on the table in front of the toy train engine. “How was your week?”

“Oh, you know. Fine, I guess.” Her South Carolina accent contrasted with the sounds of the New York sirens outside. “I'm exhausted. Baby K is wearing me out. I have to drag her everywhere. It's hard to get things done.”

Byrne gritted his teeth. What the hell was Paul doing while Caroline had to run around with a little kid?

“Got your pic earlier this week.” He looked up to the framed photo of the curly-haired toddler, which sat on his bookcase between the sci-fi hardbacks and the red toy train coal car. “Man, is she a cutie.”

“Thanks. And I got the box of books.” A sadness seeped through her gratefulness.

“Oh good! You're gonna love the sci-fi series. The aliens are awesome, and the captain of the garbage freighter is so tough. Right up your alley.”

“A chick freighter captain?”

“Yep.”

“Does she kick ass and have ten guys on the side and can just wander around the universe having adventures?”

“You know it.”

Caroline sighed dramatically. “Someday. That'll be me.”

“Me, too.”

He loved making her laugh. It reminded him of when they were younger, taking turns softly reading chapters to each other out loud until Mom and Dad told them to conserve light, or until Alex threw something at them and growled at them to shut up. Then they'd close the battered, dog-eared paperback, stuff it into a crack in the wall that didn't get wet when it rained, and lie in the dark, whispering about the characters they'd just read, guessing what might happen next.

No wonder fantasy and science fiction were always their favorites. Even in the darkest, craziest worlds, there always seemed to be hope rippling under the worst of circumstances.

“You don't have to keep sending me books, J.P.,” she said. “I do live near a library. This may come as a shock to you, but books there are
free
.”

“I know, but that's not the point.”

The point was to send Caroline things he knew she'd love. The point was to send her books she could sell to a used bookstore when she was done and get some money, or donate to a charity and get a little tax break.

The point was to help a beloved sister who refused any other kind of help he offered. She couldn't rip up a box of books like she—or Mom and Dad—could rip up a check.

“Kristin loves the board books, too,” Caroline added.

“Good. I'm so glad.” He glanced into the kitchen, where, above the microwave, sat the last part of the toy train: the blue cow car with the broken sides. The little metal cows that went inside had long since been lost to time.

“How are they?” he asked, not having to define
they
.

Caroline pulled in a breath and heaved it out. “All right, I suppose. Mom's quilting with the church, and Dad comes over to play with Kristin when she does it. He took a second job. Night janitorial stuff over at the high school.”

Byrne squeezed shut his eyes, his chest hurting. “I sent them a check when I sent you the books. Can you make sure—”

“I saw it.” She sighed as she said it, and Byrne knew exactly what that meant. “I can't make them cash it, J.P.”

“And if I wrote you a check and told you to give half the cash to them and keep the other half for yourself?” He'd tried this avenue before. Didn't hurt to try again. Not when he pictured the broken, second- and thirdhand furniture his family ate on and slept in.

Caroline said, “I think you know the answer to that.”

“I'll come down as soon as I can,” he said, resigned.

“We'd love that.”

Boxes of books were great, but they weren't him. He knew that. If he could package himself up and send it down to his family every month, they'd be ecstatic, but what he was doing here in New York for them was going to be even better. And soon he could tell them all about it. Soon he would be able to give them everything. He could feel it in his bones.