The Perfect Husband - Lisa Gardner [142]
She stepped into the bar.
Her steps did not invite interruption. She had a target and headed straight for it. Observant gazes plotted the trajectory and ran ahead of her to see who the lucky man was. The minute they figured it out, the gazes quickly hurried away.
If she could tame him, she was welcome to him. The rest of them had already learned to get out of his way—and they’d each learned that lesson the hard way.
He was hunched over a tumbler of amber liquid. His blue cotton shirt was rumpled and hung over faded jeans. His black hair had gone a long time without being cut. His lean cheeks were thick with unshaved whiskers.
Some of the women had found him handsome. He hadn’t appeared to find them to be anything at all.
He came day in and day out. He drank. He played pool. Then he drank some more.
Now the mystery woman arrived beside him. She slid onto the ripped vinyl stool. She gazed at him quietly. He didn’t look up.
She said matter-of-factly, “I love you.”
He raised bleary eyes. They were bloodshot and shadowed enough to indicate he hadn’t slept in weeks. It had been a month since she’d last seen him. The police had brought her Sam. Beckett had been carted off to the hospital and pronounced DOA. J.T. and Quincy had been hospitalized for broken ribs, and in J.T.’s case a punctured lung. She’d visited the hospital every day for a week. He’d lie there silently the whole time, not responding to her voice or her presence. He’d looked half dead, and at times she wondered if he wished that he were.
Then one day she’d shown up and he was gone. He’d dressed himself in his bloody clothes and walked out the front door. There had been nothing the hospital staff could do to stop him, and nobody had seen him since.
Difford’s body was recovered from the rooftop, where Jim had placed it as a decoy after he’d killed the sniper. A store mannequin’s head had been attached to Difford’s neck. Tess had attended the memorial service for the lieutenant and the sniper. Following Difford’s wishes, his body was cremated and his ashes scattered over the Atlanta Braves spring training field in Florida.
Two days later Tess had attended Marion’s funeral, where Marion was laid to rest next to her father in Arlington. J.T. still hadn’t shown up. It was as if he’d fallen off the face of the earth. That’s when Tess had known he’d returned to Nogales.
“What are you doing here?” His voice sounded hoarse, either from whiskey or tobacco or disuse. Maybe all three. His fingers picked up a cigarette case. He didn’t open it, he just twirled it between his fingers. It was the cigarette case that had belonged to Marion.
“You shouldn’t be down here,” she said.
His gaze slid down her body, then dismissed her. “Too virginal. I’m not interested.”
“I’m not in the sinning business.”
“Well, I am.”
“Come home, J.T.” She touched his cheek lightly. His beard was so long, it was silky. She reacquainted herself with the line and feel of his jaw, the fullness of his lips. She ached for him. She looked at him and she hurt. “Tell me how to help you.”
“Go away.”
“I can’t.”
“Women are always trying to change a man. You think there’s something more inside us, and frankly it’s just not true. I am what I am.” He jerked his hand around the bar. “Honey, this is me.”
“You are who you are. But this isn’t it. This is you drunk. I’ve seen you sober. I care for that man an awful lot. I think that man is one of the best men I know.”
His gaze fell to the table and the tumbler full of amber liquid. Shame stained his cheeks.
“I’m haunted,” he said abruptly. “Like an old house. I close my eyes and I see Rachel and Marion again and again. Sometimes they’re happy. Sometimes they’re sad. There’s nothing I can do about it. I reach out my hand to them and poof, they’re gone.” He opened his palm on the counter and flung the emptiness into the