Angel's Peak

Two

Sean hadn’t slept real well after seeing his old flame, so he beat the morning rush in the bathroom before there was so much as a sound from the bridal suite. He was halfway through his Wheaties when Shelby came into the kitchen in her jeans and sweater, ready to head over to Arcata to school. She was studying nursing at Humboldt U.

“Well, well. It’s rare to see you before I get home in the afternoon,” she remarked, going for the coffee. “When you’ve been out prowling till the wee hours, you usually need your beauty sleep.”

Sean grunted.

“I guess that was ‘good morning,’” she said. “And same to you.”

Luke came into the kitchen next. “Well, hey there, sunshine,” he said to his brother. Sean lifted his eyes but not his head. Luke laughed at the grim expression. “Lumpy mattress? Did we put out the scratchy toilet paper?”

“Bed’s fine.”

“You want to grab a couple of the general’s horses and ride along the—”

“I’m going to be tied up. I have some errands,” Sean said.

Shelby lifted a stack of thank-you notes from the table and gave her husband a glare. They’d been married a couple of weeks and he was supposed to be adding his gratitude and signature to the notes she’d all but completed. “Luke…” she began. “Before you think about riding or fishing—”

“I know, I know,” he said, glancing at the notes. “It’ll get done.”

“You really think he’s going to do that girlie shit, Shelby?” Sean asked.

Shelby sat down at the table, confusion knitting her brow. She’d known Sean for about a year; he was the playful brother—the flirt and the comedian. They used to joke that Sean would have fun at a train wreck; his mood was perpetually upbeat. Luke had been the grump, but she’d softened him up. This crankiness from Sean was so unexpected. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“Fine,” he answered shortly.

Luke poured himself a coffee and sat down. “Fender bender? Speeding ticket? Pretty girl reject you? Food poisoning?”

Sean sat back in his chair. “I ran into Franci last night,” he grumbled. “Pure chance.”

Luke merely frowned; he didn’t remember her. Sean had dated prolifically.

“Franci Duncan,” he said in exasperation. “Who I practically lived with a few years ago. Remember? We broke up when she got out of the air force and I got assigned the U-2.”

“Oh, I remember her now,” Luke said. “Haven’t you seen her since then?”

“No,” Sean said impatiently, taking another spoonful of cereal. “I tried to see her, but she was gone. I tried to reach her mother to see where she was, and her mother had moved, which made no sense because she’d been in that house in Santa Rosa for at least ten years. Maybe twenty years, I don’t know.”

“You looked for her?” Luke asked. “This is the first I’ve heard about that.”

“Because I didn’t talk about it. And I didn’t find her,” Sean said. “Obviously.”

“What about her friends?” Shelby asked.

Sean was silent. He grimaced and finally said, “I checked with a couple of them, but they didn’t know anything.”

“That’s crazy,” Shelby said. “Women don’t give up women friends. Especially after they’ve broken up with a guy they’ve been with a while—that’s traumatic, even when it’s for the best. Who was her best friend? Her other best friend? I mean, it was kind of different with me—I was my mother’s caretaker and, while I had good friends, I had very little time for them. But I was always in touch with them when I—”

Luke put a hand over Shelby’s to stop her because Sean looked perfectly miserable.

“Oh,” she said quietly. “Well, who’d you ask?”

Sean shrugged uncomfortably. “We used to do things all the time with some couples—guys from my squadron and their wives or girls. We went four-wheeling, skiing, boating, camping, hiking…Two of them were married and one couple lived together. I asked the women. They hadn’t heard from her. I asked her former boss, the colonel in her old medical unit at the base hospital. I asked her neighbor.”

“Oh,” Shelby said again.

“Okay, she had a few girlfriends and I met them, but we didn’t get together with them and I couldn’t remember their last names. And it had been a while.”

“Um. A while?” Shelby asked.

“Okay, what happened was this—we had a fight. I got orders and she was going to get out of the air force, all at the same time. And she wanted to know…Thing was, I was transferring. I told her there was nothing stopping her from relocating to be closer to my next assignment and that pissed her off—that I didn’t exactly invite her to join me, that I didn’t make plans with her. I probably said I was sorry for that—I bet I did.”

“And you broke up over that?” Shelby asked.

“Sort of. Not exactly,” Sean admitted.

Luke put his elbow on the kitchen table and lazily leaned his chin into his hand, watching. Amused. And so glad some other Riordan male was taking the heat.

Sean took a breath. “She wanted to get married,” he said. “She said, either we at least get engaged and plan to get married, or I walk. Those were her words.” He made a slash in the air with his finger. “Line in the sand. Ultimatum.”

“Really,” Shelby said with a questionable tone. “After only two years of practically living together?”

“Okay, now you’re just making fun of me,” Sean said in a pout. “I admit, I shouldn’t have let her go. But I was younger. I was cocky then.”

“Oh, were you?” Luke asked.

Sean glowered.

“So, she said she was ready for marriage, you said you weren’t, you split up—is that right?” Shelby asked.

“That’s about it.” He made a face. “We might’ve said a few unnecessary things during the discussion. You know—angry things.”

“I’ll bet,” Luke said.

“And you tried to track her down? Later?” Shelby asked.

“After I transitioned into the new squadron. After training in the new jet. After I thought we both had time to simmer down a little bit. You know.”

Shelby looked at Luke and shook her head dismally. “Does this run in the family?” she asked. She and Luke had had a similar standoff, but she hadn’t let him get away with it and had pushed him hard. But Luke had been ready to be domesticated. All she knew about Sean was that he was considered a playboy by the brothers. This was the first time she’d heard about a steady girl.

“It’s possible,” Luke admitted with a shrug. “Except Aiden. He wants to get married, have a family, but if he didn’t have bad luck with women, he’d have no luck at all. He was married once. To a lunatic.”

“Lord,” Shelby said. “No wonder your mother is fed up with the lot of you. Sean, what happened when you ran into her?”

“She said I looked good and, no, she didn’t want to have coffee or anything else with me. She won’t talk to me. At all. And I even said I was wrong. Sort of.”

“Hm,” Shelby said. “Maybe she’s moved on.”

“Well, then, she has to tell me that. Explain that. Because—” He stopped. He couldn’t think of a reason why she owed him that, but he was sure she did.

“Now what?” Luke asked.

“I’m going to have to find her.”

“Why? You said you were done, she said okay, you caught up a few years later and it’s still done…I don’t see the issue.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Sean said in a very impatient huff. “Because you don’t know Franci.”

“Sure I do. We all knew Franci. Nice girl, Franci. Hottie.” He grinned. “We kind of all thought you’d marry her. But then when you didn’t and went to Beale alone, we all said, ‘There goes another Riordan.’”

“Here’s the thing—I shouldn’t have broken up with her. What I should have done was explain why we should stay together and why we didn’t need any kind of old-fashioned contract to be okay with that. We were young, only twenty-six and twenty-eight. There was lots of time to consider big leaps like marriage. There’s still lots of time, for that matter.” Luke, thirty-eight and barely through a similar crisis, lifted a brow toward his twenty-five-year-old wife. “We should have gone to Beale and worked it out. But I didn’t do that because she made me so frickin’ mad.”

It was silent in the kitchen for a moment. “Well,” Luke finally said with fake cheeriness, “I’d love to stay and chat about your pathetic love life, but I need to grab Art and get over to the hardware store before—”

Shelby was shaking her head dismally. “So you had a little hissy and said, ‘Fine, just go, then.’ Is that it? Kind of like, ‘My way or the highway,’ huh?”

“Aw, come on, Shelby,” Sean said pleadingly. “You know I’m not a guy with a temper! I’m a sweetheart. I’m not a fighter, I’m a lover. And I don’t have any problem seeing myself with one woman. You know? It’s just the whole marriage thing—it was not for me. Marriage scared the hell out of me. A couple of my brothers tried it and it screwed them up bad. And kids?” He shook his head. “Maybe when I’m old and worn out like Luke I’ll change my mind, but at the moment I don’t feel like being tied down like that.”

“Ah,” she said. “I see. So you’d like to have a nice chat with Franci and explain all this to her?”

“Something like that,” he said, making perfect sense to himself. “It’s no crime to have a fight, but we never should’ve given up what we had. We were good together.”

Shelby stood. “Not good enough, I guess. Too bad I have to get to class, Sean. You have such a deep hole to climb out of and I’d love to talk you through it. You know I’ve loved you since the moment I met you, and I’d be happy to help. But school calls…”

Sean stood from the table, as well. “What do you mean, such a climb?”

“Okay, the short version. You let her go because you didn’t feel in charge. You didn’t bother to look for her for such a long time that her trail went cold—and I imagine, to her, it seemed as if you didn’t care. You didn’t even know the names of her best friends. Or her mother’s friends. You paid no attention to the woman, except where it was useful to you. You even socialized with your friends, from your squadron, and then you were surprised that they hadn’t heard from her. And now I think you’re a little hurt that she won’t forget all that and give you another chance to treat her like someone you might get around to later, when it’s convenient. While she, at least at one time a few years ago, wanted to be thought of as someone you couldn’t live without.”

“You don’t understand,” he said.

“But your real problem is, I do,” Shelby said. “You didn’t realize how much she meant to you until she was gone.”

Luke drained his coffee cup. He put it on the table. “When you have time, Sean, you should take a little course from Shelby. She’s seen every chick flick ever filmed. She knows things about this you and I have never thought of.”

Sean swallowed. Looking down he said, “Real quick, from a girl’s point of view, what do I do next?”

“Not what you think,” Shelby replied. “You better not do what you did before. Whatever it was that made you arrogantly think she’d never be able to leave you? Not that. You better do whatever it was you did that worked for her, that made her think she wanted a life with you. If you can even remember that far back. Because, brother, I think maybe you’re too late. And if you’re too late, you’re going to have to accept that and respect her space. If you turn crazy and give her trouble, I’m not on your side anymore.”

When Sean was alone in the house, he began asking himself what it was that had worked on Franci. Once they’d become a couple, he’d had lots of tricks up his sleeve. He was remembering the many areas where they had been compatible. Suddenly, it was hard to remember that, on a few issues, they had rubbed each other the wrong way.

Getting her to go out with him in the first place had been a real challenge. She’d been in the air force a while and knew her way around the jet jockeys, and she had a firm policy against dating fighter pilots. They had a reputation for being arrogant, self-absorbed idiots with short attention spans where women were concerned. Sean and Franci never discussed it, but Sean assumed she must have dated at least a couple to come up with that assessment. Which, as Sean grudgingly recalled, wasn’t far off the mark.

But there had been lots of positive things, too, and right now he was becoming uncomfortable imagining every little thing he had done to make her crazy with desire, to make her purr with satisfaction, because the chemistry they had in the sack was phenomenal. Those times she wasn’t in the mood, he knew what to say to change her mind. There were places he touched that would not only convince her to give it some more thought, but could turn her into a wild woman. And could she ever turn those tricks back on him, making him gasp and groan, driving him right out of his mind. None of those little things had worked on any other woman the way they had on Franci. She had a way of taking him so far beyond pleasure, he went out of his mind. He’d never been to bed with a woman who could please him the way Franci had, and he’d been to bed with far too many women.

What had he been thinking, letting her walk away?

Sean searched his memory for how he’d convinced her to take a chance on him in the first place and his mind was a blur. He’d probably been relentless in his pursuit because he did remember how he had felt when he first saw her. He’d taken one look at her and thought, Oh, Mary, Jesus and Joseph! She just did something to him. He had a lot of experience with attraction, but this was animal attraction. Primal and raw. He’d wanted her immediately. And he still wanted her that bad.

Sean first saw Franci when she passed through Iraq to pick up a planeload of medical evacuees. He’d tried to get her coordinates so he could get in touch when he was stateside again. He’d seen her a few times—she was in and out, arriving on a medical air transport, hanging around until they could gather up all their patients, taking off for the States again. She wouldn’t give him anything—not even a name. Of course, he managed to find out her name pretty easily, but that was all.

Then when he saw her at Luke AFB in the officers’ club, he decided it must be kismet; they were meant to be. But she hadn’t been any easier to convince. He remembered hoping she was as beautiful on the inside as she was sexy on the outside, because anything less would break his heart.

And she was. She was smart, strong, independent, confident, sexy and loving.

Franci was the kind of woman men looked at, but her sexiness was understated, not blatant. Franci was not cheap or flashy; she was classy and cool. She was long legged and dark haired with large, deep, dark eyes and thin, arched, expressive brows. Her mouth was a little pouty—soft and full. He could remember every detail of her body. But he couldn’t remember how he’d caught her. Sean’s typical move was to charm a woman, make her laugh, smolder her with his half-closed eyes, suggest, without being crude, that he could deliver satisfaction. He’d never shown an ounce of humility; he’d always been confident.

But he wasn’t confident anymore. Now he was frustrated, and he didn’t have the first clue about how to fix it. For once in his life, he didn’t know where to start.

He went to the second upstairs bedroom where Luke kept his computer. The desk was covered with so many wedding gifts that it was hard to see the computer. He moved a bunch of things out of the way and got the thing turned on. Franci had no phone or address listing when he’d called information, but after spending a couple of hours on Luke’s computer, doing a real-estate property search, he found Francine Duncan had purchased a house. It wasn’t unusual for women to have unlisted phone numbers, but property-title searches were public record. Still, he didn’t think his best idea was turning up at her house uninvited. But what were the options?

Sean was in the kitchen having a sandwich when Luke and Art came back from the hardware store. Art was such a kick; every time he saw Sean he greeted him as if he hadn’t seen him in months or even years. Art was a thirty-year-old man with highly functional Down syndrome, a kindhearted soul who worked hard to help Luke around the property. And Luke, whom Sean had just barely realized would make a great father, worked hard to be sure Art felt appreciated.

“Sean!” Art said, beaming.

“Hi, Art. Go fishing this morning?” Sean asked.

“No, we had trash to haul to the dump and then we went to the hardware store for stuff. Later I might fish. Did you go fishing?”

“Sort of. I was looking up stuff on the computer.”

Luke got out the bread and sandwich makings. “Any luck finding contact information on Franci?” he asked.

“Got an address, but no phone number,” Sean said. “I did a computer search—and lucky for me, she bought a house.”

“Do you have a new girlfriend, Sean?” Art asked.

For some reason, the question embarrassed Sean. The fact that Art, who didn’t really know him at all and was about as worldly as a ten-year-old, would assume that he always had a girlfriend made Sean uncomfortable. Maybe Franci was right about him; she’d said he’d never settle down with one woman because he was all about the chase but not the commitment. It wasn’t entirely true, as he was discovering. He’d settled down with Franci, just not all the way. “Not really,” Sean answered. “I had a girlfriend a few years ago and we lost touch. I want to see her again, talk to her about that, see if we can…date again.”

“Oh,” Art said. “That’s cool.”

“And the problem is?” Luke asked.

“She took one look at me and fireworks shot out of her ears. I think she hates me. At least, she’s still mad. But it could mean she still cares,” he added hopefully. “If I knew where to run into her again, I could try my persuasive charm on her without crowding her. I might’ve tried something like that the first time around. Like being at the officers’ club every time I thought she’d be there, till she got so sick of me shadowing her, she gave in.”

Luke laughed. “Suave,” he said.

“Think I should throw myself on her mercy? Nah,” he answered for himself. “From what I saw, she doesn’t have a lot of mercy in her right now. Besides, humility really isn’t my strong suit.”

Luke laughed at him. “And, God forbid, we manly Riordans always play our best cards.”

“You know what I mean. What woman wants a man who grovels? Did you grovel? When you and Shelby—?”

“I hate to burst your bubble, pal, but I said I’d do anything that would make her happy. I know—it’s hard for you to imagine your tough big brother caving like that, but when I got down to it, I was doomed without her. She’s the breath in me.” Then he grinned. “But she doesn’t make me grovel anymore. She lets me pretend to be the big man.”

“Swell,” Sean said, a long way from understanding all the rules for this game. The part he did almost understand was she’s the breath in me. “There you go—I’m just plain better at the whole short-term hookup.”

“Well, if that floats your boat, have a good time.”

There was the problem. Short-term hookups just didn’t do it for him anymore. Truthfully, they hadn’t in a long time. In fact, he’d been wondering why he’d been feeling so dissatisfied, so marginally happy rather than jazzed all the time, and the second he saw Franci, he understood why.

“Listen, mind if I ask you something?” Luke asked, while he was shuffling lunch meat, cheese and bread. “You were with her a couple of years. Seemed like it was a good couple of years but it ran its course or something. You broke up, and for four years you were okay. You managed. Why can’t you just walk away now?”

Hard to explain, Sean thought. “You ever get this idea in your head about how things should be, then you just stay the course, even if it doesn’t feel exactly right?”

“Me?” Luke asked with a facetious laugh. “Did you think I was just faking being a dumb grunt who almost lost his own woman?”

“I wasn’t ready to get married,” Sean said. “I didn’t like getting pushed up against a wall and we both walked away mad. Six months later I was thinking, I might not be ready to get married, but I’m not ready for this to be over, either. I thought I could compromise if she could. So I called her cell phone. I left a couple of messages and she never called back. A few more months and I thought, all right—if it takes marriage to make her happy, I could probably work with the idea, as long as she gives me plenty of time to adjust. Maybe we could have a long engagement, just to make sure we’re doing the right thing. So I called again and the cell phone was shut off. Her e-mail bounced back—undeliverable. Her mother, who she’s very tight with, had moved. And if you think I was teed off before, the idea she’d just ignore me like that when I’m fucking trying—that really pissed me off.” And ripped my heart out. Just like I’d ripped her heart out by saying no way. What a couple of fools.

“That’s a bad word,” Art said very quietly. Art wasn’t one to judge or harangue, but he also wasn’t one to miss anything.