“You can’t leave your stuff.”

“I can.”

“You can’t, Clara. They took everything from you, but you held on to what you had left. You have to hold on to what you have. You always hold on to what you have. We both know that.”

We did.

We’d learned that early, packing our little suitcases with our meagre belongings that were prized possessions and taking it from foster home to foster home.

Still, I was letting it go.

“I’ll get a job making coffee and buy tie-dyed shirts and hippie jeans. I’ll be good.”

“Clara—”

“We’re leaving it.”

“Honey—”

I couldn’t do this.

I could not do this.

Not right now.

Buck thought I’d been using him.

When I’d been falling in love with him.

I felt the tears sting my eyes, and I whispered, “Don’t. Please. Don’t.”

She examined my face again.

Then my sweet Tia whispered, “Okay.”

“This is unnecessary, I can take the couch,” I told Detective Rayne Scott as I stood by his big, very comfy-looking bed in his bedroom while he opened a dresser drawer.

I was freaking out because the arrangement was, I was sleeping in his bed, and I was freaking out more because the arrangement included Damian and Tia sleeping together on the queen bed in his second bedroom.

“I’m good on the couch,” he muttered, pulling something out of the drawer.

“No, really, I can sleep anywhere.”

“Good,” he stated, closing the drawer and turning to me, carrying a T-shirt. “Then I’ll know you won’t be tossing and turning here.”

Oh dear.

“Listen, I—” I started, but he made it to me, and his hand came up and curled around the top of my shoulder.

“Clara, I’m a cop. Cops learn early to read people. On you, sweetheart, I’m readin’ heartbreak. It’s written all over your face. What you need to do is take my tee, put it on, climb into bed and go to sleep. What you do not need to do is expend the little energy you got left discussin’ somethin’ meaningless with me.”

I didn’t know what to say.

He was right.

And Tia was right.

So I also suspected he was a nice guy.

More than nice.

So I said, “Okay.”

He nodded and let me go. “Okay.”

Then he handed me the T-shirt, I took it and he started to the door.

“Rayne,” I called, he stopped and turned back to me. “Thank you,” I whispered.

He stood there and stared at me, his eyes moved to the bed and they came back to me.

He then tipped his chin up and walked out, closing the door behind him.

I took off my clothes, folded them and put them on the armchair in the corner that was also comfy-looking, perfect for curling up and reading a book. I donned his tee, climbed into his bed and turned off the bedside lamp.

What I didn’t do was sleep.

Not for a while.

And I had a feeling my track record for sleep was about to take a major hit.

First, I stared into the darkness.

After that, I stared into it some more.

A while of that, I turned my face into Detective Rayne Scott’s pillow, and I cried.

And cried.

I kept doing it.

Until I’d cried myself to sleep.

28

Is This Really Happening?

Getting to sleep late after a crying jag, I woke late and found, when looking in Rayne’s mirror in his master bathroom, that I had puffy eyes.

Fantastic.

I made his bed, folded his T-shirt, put it on his pillow and donned my clothes.

Then I went out and found Tia alone in the kitchen.

She smiled at me. “Coffee?”

“Please.”

She got up and got me a mug.

I sat down at the kitchen table in a bay window and looked out at the Phoenician sunshiny day.

“Sleep okay?” Tia asked, sliding the brew on the table in front of me.

I looked down and told the mug, “No.”

I picked it up and took a sip as Tia perched on a bent leg on a chair across from me.

“The boys are gone, we can talk now,” she said softly.

“That’s good since I’d like to know why you’re sleeping with Superman Damian Field Medic in Another Life.”

Her eyes got dreamy.

Oh wow.

“You like him,” I whispered my observation.

“Yeah,” she whispered her answer.

“Tia—”

She didn’t let me start.

“He makes me feel good.” She closed her eyes and did short shakes of her head before opening them again. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain it, but he makes me feel good…about me. I never thought I’d like to…” she pressed her lips together and released them, leaning forward and whispering, “you know, again, not after what Enrique let those men do to me.”

I nodded to her.

I knew.

I knew something else too.

If he’d wrought this miracle, Damian was all kinds of Superman.

“And you like to…you know…with Damian?” I queried.

Her eyes got dreamy again.

She liked it.

She definitely liked it.

Wow.

And…

Yippee!

“So Superman Damian seduced a convalescing gunshot victim?” I asked on a tease.

“Oh yeah,” she answered then giggled.

I couldn’t help it, it had been so long since I’d heard her giggle, and I’d thought I’d never hear it again, I giggled with her.

My heart wasn’t in it.

But that didn’t mean I wasn’t really happy for my best friend.

She wiped her eyes and then shared, “At first, he was very gentle.”

“I hope so,” I replied on a grin.

“Then, I got stronger, and, um…not so much.”

I started laughing because I could see, plainly, she liked the not so much.

Carefully, I asked, “Did you share about what Enrique did to you?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t have to. He knew all about it. And he doesn’t care, Clara, not even a little bit.”

Okay, maybe Damian was Superman.

I took a sip of coffee and continued my interrogation.

“So I take it he’s hanging in Seattle with us?”

The happy went out of her face and she looked out the window.

That wasn’t good.

“Tia?” I prompted, and she looked back at me.

Then she shrugged.

“I don’t know. I don’t care. His life is kind of…different. He has no roots. I don’t know if he wants to be rooted with me. If he does, then I’ll take it. I’ll snatch it up and I’ll take it. If he doesn’t, if he needs to be…out there…I’ll let him. But now, I just like feeling…” she shook her head and then finished, “me again. Or who I think I’m meant to be. And I like being with him and I’ll take from him whatever he’s willing to give me.”

I wanted more for her, but I also knew that we two, we had to settle for as good as we could get.