TAKE A CHANCE ON ME

  He knew his laugh sounded cruel, and the remarkable thing was how little he cared. And how much he hurt. "It's the only question there is. Who's the lucky guy?"

  "Don't you dare do this to me."

  She stepped closer, and Thomas saw that her eyes blazed with anger, with sorrow. For a split second, he wavered. But he regrouped, seeing her suffering for what it was: a fine female performance.

  Thomas watched Emma move in slow motion, cupping her hands low on her belly. "I don't understand, either, but that doesn't change the fact that we're having a baby—and you're the father."

  The words cut into his heart and gut. They were words he'd convinced himself he'd never hear as long as he lived, yet she'd just said them. And God, how he wished he could believe her.

  But there was no way he could believe her.

  And the sickening truth was this: he'd been made cretinlike by a woman, his brains liquefied by the lure of sex, connection, love. Move over, Leo Vasilich—the new poster boy for male stupidity has come to town!

  "I don't … sorry … I can't even…" Thomas wiped his hand across his mouth in an attempt to stop the trembling in his lips and chin. "I can't talk to you right now."

  He turned away from Emma and started down the hallway, every muscle in his body aching with loss and shock. In a few days he'd call her to settle things between them. But for now, all he could do was put one foot in front of the other and get himself out of there, away from her.

  Away from the pain.

  "Thomas! Don't do this!" She was right behind him. "Talk to me!"

  He kept walking.

  "Thomas!"

  He heard Emma's shout even as he closed the car door and started the engine. She was standing in the doorway to the clinic, her eyes wide, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  For just an instant, he recalled how she'd looked in his dress shirt, leaning against the archway of his kitchen, sleepy and well loved and ready for more.

  It seemed like some other man's memory.

  He pulled out of the parking space.

  "Don't do this to us!"

  He heard her plea just as he put in a John Coltrane CD and cranked up the volume, wondering, briefly, who the us was.

  Herself and the baby?

  Or the two of them—Emma and Thomas?

  * * *

  Uh-oh. This is bad. So very, very bad.

  "Where the hell is the Tylenol?"

  Emma tossed things out of the drawers and cabinets like a crazy woman—paper clips, rubber bands, files, pencils—making a huge mess. Talking to herself. She threw the stapler across the room and Hairy ducked.

  I'll just be hiding over here in the corner…

  "It's aspirin you shouldn't take if you're pregnant, right? Tylenol's okay, right? Oh … ugh … not again…" Emma stumbled down the hall to the bathroom.

  Oh, I wish I could dial the phone. I'd call Bright Eyes or TV Man or that Velvet woman. Because Soft Hands shouldn't be by herself right now, that much is obvious.

  Speaking of obvious, you are such a complete idiot, Big Alpha!

  Emma staggered out of the bathroom and headed to the spare office, Hairy at her heels, and began throwing things from the new supply closet.

  "You stupid, stubborn two-stepper!"

  You got that right.

  "Shit, Velvet! Where's the damn Tylenol?"

  Uh-oh. She's crying so hard now. And there's nothing I can do to help her. Nothing…

  A large box tumbled down from a shelf, followed by a rain of medicine samples, and Emma slumped down on her knees in the middle of the mess and sobbed.

  "Oh, Thomas! No! This can't be happening!"

  Oh, Big Alpha. What have you done? She's practically howling now. Okay—maybe I should go to her, lick her, nuzzle her, wait … wait just a darn minute…

  What's that smell? What is it? Who is it?

  Uh-oh. It's the bad man.

  The bad man has been here! His scent is everywhere … everywhere…

  Emma raised her head to the sound of scratching. Hairy had jumped inside the box and tipped it over, and was now frantically digging with his front paws, sniffing, whining, and shaking.

  The dog popped out of the box, one of Aaron's old baseball caps in his mouth. Hairy's tail was flipped up between his legs. His eyes were nearly bursting from their sockets.

  Then he peed all over the carpet.

  Uh-oh. I'm such a bad dog.

  Emma wiped her eyes with her palms. "Good God, little man, what's wrong?"

  This is it—I've got to make her pay attention. She has to understand this. Okay. Emma, look!

  She watched the dog keep the hat in his mouth, stand on his hind legs and spin. Then he did a little roundabout and a back flip, just like one of his dance routines.

  Then he howled, louder and higher and with more desperation than she'd ever heard from such a small animal, and she sat up straight. Slowly, she began to tremble with understanding. "Hairy?"

  Soft Hands, listen to me! This hat belongs to the man who killed my master!

  "Oh, my God, Hairy. Oh, my God, no."

  * * *

  Leelee didn't expect them back this soon. She put aside the book Guns, Germs, and Steel, which Thomas had bought her at the mall, and stood up from the porch rocker. She stretched, waiting to see Emma's old Montero come down the lane first, followed by Thomas's silver-bullet Audi.

  Maybe he'd let her drive it again tonight.

  Leelee squinted. She didn't recognize the car—some kind of maroon beater Chrysler with a vinyl roof that might have been white at some point in the last century. She couldn't see who was behind the wheel, but the car was making sputtering noises like an old man with a nasty case of bronchitis.

  The car skidded to a stop in the gravel and Aaron got out.

  Aaron?

  "What are you doing here?"

  "Where'd Beck go?"

  Leelee took a few steps down the porch stairs. "What?"

  "I just saw Beck turn out of the drive. Where was he headed, Leelee?"

  The hair stood up on the back of her neck and along her forearms. There was something wrong with Aaron. He looked weird. "Beck went to the grocery. What's it to you?"

  "When's Emma coming home?"

  Leelee shrugged, instinctively stepping back up the steps to get away from him. He followed her. "They should be here any minute and I don't think you're welcome here."

  "You know everything, don't you, you little brat?"

  Okay. She was scared now. Something wasn't right with the way his eyes looked. Like he was drunk or something, but Aaron didn't drink. Did he?

  She took a deep sniff of him and smelled liquor, and her stomach flipped. "I want you to leave, please," she said.

  "Oh, I don't think so."

  "I'm going to call the police."

  "No you're not." He grabbed her by the upper arm and pulled her over to the railing, pushing her down until she sat in front of him. He leaned into her, much too close.

  "Who's 'they,' Leelee? You just said 'they' are going to be home any minute."

  "Emma and Thomas—her boyfriend."

  The look on Aaron's face was priceless, and if she hadn't been so scared she would have laughed at him. Aaron had always been the big man, so certain he was the one who called the shots.

  "Boyfriend." The word came out in a hateful hiss of liquor breath and she had to turn her face away. "When the fuck did she get a boyfriend?"

  "Nice language to use around a child, dipshit." She tried to squirm away from his grip. "Let me go."

  "Who is this guy? Answer me." Aaron's fingers tightened on her arm.

  "You're hurting me, loser."

  "Who is he?"

  "What does it matter to you?" Leelee heard her voice go high and loud and she sounded like a frightened little kid. "You don't have any business buffing into Emma's life. Now that she finally got smart and got rid of you, she's never been happier—"

  Aaron's hand whipped across Leelee's face and her he
ad snapped back from the impact.

  "Shut the fuck up."

  "Oh, my God—"

  "I said shut up."

  She couldn't believe it! This was something she'd always pictured happening in L.A.—that she'd be walking down the street and some crackhead would stick a gun in her face and threaten to kill her. But not here. Not someone she knew. Not in Wholesome World. This was too bizarre to be real.

  But when Aaron's palm hit her face again, she knew without a doubt it was real. The pain was sharp, and the metal of the gun felt cold against the hot place on her cheek where he'd just hit her. And she started to cry.

  "What are you doing, Aaron?" There was nothing she could do to stop the tears, and now her whole body shook. "I don't understand why you're doing this."

  "Of course you don't."

  "Why are you hurting me?"

  "I wish I didn't have to."

  She opened her eyes to find him smiling down at her.

  "When's your birthday, Leelee?"

  "Whaa—?" His fingers dug into her arm and he shoved the gun into the hollow below her cheekbone. What a strange thing to ask.

  He continued to smile at her. "The month and year you were born."

  "I, uh—"

  "How old are you? You're supposed to be some sort of fucking genius, right? So answer the question—when is your fucking birthday?"

  She gulped down air, and got another whiff of the liquor on him. He stunk to high heaven. She thought she might hurl. "May fifth, 1989."

  Aaron chuckled to himself in a creepy, soft way that made Leelee cringe.

  "Well, that answers that." He smiled at her again. "I always wondered if you might be my kid. Wouldn't that be cozy? Close but no cigar, as they say."

  Leelee's throat hurt and her chest felt tight and it was the ugliest feeling she'd ever experienced in her life—ugly because she realized she was so desperate that she was actually disappointed that Aaron wasn't her dad. Because then the hole would be filled—even with a complete loser—but it would be filled at last.

  She was so ashamed and so scared that she started to cry hard. Was he going to kill her now? Was he going to wait for Emma to come home and kill her, too?

  But Thomas would be with Emma…

  She sniffed and raised her head. "You won't get away with this. Thomas will kick your ass."

  Aaron scowled at her, then checked his watch. "I said shut up."

  "He's a special investigator with the state police and a rugby player and he loves Emma more than you ever did and he'll squash you like the larva you are."

  That was the last thing Leelee remembered.

  * * *

  Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.

  With shaking hands, Emma picked up Aaron's old baseball hat and, as if she needed to know for certain, she brought it to her face and inhaled.

  Yes, it absolutely smelled like Aaron to her pitiful human nose, so she could only imagine the intensity of the scent for Hairy.

  The dog was a pathetic, trembling mess. His tail was still curled between his legs and his back was hunched and he was telling her … telling her that Aaron had killed Scott Slick.

  Oh, God.

  Emma's hands went flying through the box of junk. She didn't know what she was looking for but she needed proof that she was wrong, that Hairy was wrong, that this could not possibly be true.

  She pulled out a half-dead racquetball, a sweatband, a pair of gym socks, the cuff links she gave him on their second anniversary, a birthday card she'd given him a few years ago, old patient files that he should have taken with him, a scratch pad, a few veterinary textbooks … Emma's hand went back to the pad, and flipped through the pages.

  She'd found something all right, but it didn't ease her mind. Page after page contained Aaron's familiar penciled scrawl, numbers and the names of sports teams that would look like gibberish to anyone unfamiliar with bookmaking.

  Unfortunately, she knew just what she was looking at. And on several pages, Aaron had written Scott Slick's name and phone number.

  She had to reach Thomas. Despite everything—everything that had just happened here between them, he had to know this. Detective Massey had to know this. Aaron had to be caught.

  And then the image popped into her mind: how desperate Aaron had been the last time she'd seen him, lowering himself into the Z and saying, "You have no idea what you've just done."

  If he was capable of killing Slick, he was a violent man. Had that been a warning? Some kind of threat?

  Emma pushed herself off the floor and punched in the numbers to Thomas's beeper, then called the state police to get a message to Regina Massey. Then she called home. When no one answered, the flesh on her arms prickled into goosebumps and her breath came shallow and quick.

  Leelee.

  Oh, God. Leelee!

  * * *

  Thomas didn't consciously know where he was headed until he pulled into the parking lot of Chesapeake Urology Associates and cut the engine.

  He had no idea whether Rollo was still in his office. He had no idea how late Rollo saw patients on Thursdays. He could be at a meeting. He could already be home. Thomas had no idea.

  But he needed him. Now.

  Thomas whipped open the glass door and it slapped against the waiting room wall. Until he saw the startled expression on the receptionist's face, Thomas hadn't even considered that he might look like a deranged fiend, a man on the edge.

  Which, of course, he was.

  "May I help—"

  "Where's Rollo?"

  "He's with his last patient, but … Mr. Tobin?"

  Thomas flung open the door that led to the exam rooms and doctors' offices and took wide strides down the white fluorescent-lighted hallway, scanning, listening, until he heard Rollo's voice from behind a closed door. He pounded on it.

  "What the—" Rollo's face went from anger to shock in the blink of an eye. "Thomas?"

  "I'm sorry. It's an emergency. I'll be in your office."

  "Is it Pam? The kids?" Rollo looked like he was going to keel over, and Thomas suddenly felt like a jerk.

  "God, no. Nothing like that."

  The anger reappeared and Rollo lowered his voice to a harsh whisper. "Goddammit, Thomas, this better be good."

  He closed the door in his face.

  Oh, now wasn't this pleasant? Thomas looked around the nicely appointed office, remembering clearly that fateful day. He sat right here in this same leather chair as Nina sat beside him and said to Rollo, "Excuse me, but we are not an infertile couple. I am perfectly normal. He's the one with the defect."

  Women. Why was it that the worst moments of his life—and the best—were in the company of women?

  Why had he allowed himself to trust a woman?

  Why had he loved one?

  Was it worth it—the moments he'd spent in Emma's company, in her arms, inside her body, hearing her laugh, seeing her smile, feeling what he would have sworn to God above was love?

  Maybe it was. Maybe that was the real hell in all this—that he wouldn't have done a thing differently if he'd known in advance that it would turn to shit.

  Maybe it was worth it just to know what it felt like. Just once in his life. Maybe it had been worth it to his own father, all those years ago.

  With a sigh of disgust, Thomas promised himself not to be so hard on the next fool who wandered his way looking for a hit man, lost and desperate because of a woman.

  His beeper went off again, making four calls from Emma in the last half-hour. He'd talk to her when he was good and ready and not a moment sooner.

  "What the hell, Tobin? I was with a patient!"

  Rollo pushed past him and threw himself into his office chair. He looked as fierce as he did on the rugby pitch, big and nasty and ready to knock heads.

  "Emma's pregnant."

  Thomas watched the air empty from his best friend's lungs, his face soften.

  "Say again?"

  Thomas rose from the chair and started to pace. "She's pregna
nt. I'm about to blow. Punch a wall. Break somebody's arm. I don't know what to do."

  "Sit down." Rollo stood up from behind his desk when Thomas continued to pace. "Sit down, dammit!"

  Thomas wheeled on him. "She had the nerve to tell me she hadn't been with anyone else! I want to believe her! God, how I want to believe her—"

  "Sit down, Thomas."

  "Fuck!"

  "Sit down."

  "But I'm sterile! I'm supposed to be sterile!" Thomas glared at him. "Right?"

  Rollo reached over his desk and grabbed Thomas by the tie. "I said sit down. Right now."

  He collapsed with a thud.

  "Can I get you a soda or a cup of coffee?"

  "God, no."

  Rollo picked up his phone. "Giselle, I've got a situation here. Please bring me Thomas Tobin's chart."

  Rollo ran both his hands through his thick brown hair and took off his small wire-framed glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Finally, he looked up.

  "How far along is she?"

  "Hell if I know."

  "How long have you two been sexually active?"

  "Three Saturdays ago. And we've been real active."

  "Oh, boy."

  "What? What the hell is that supposed to mean—Oh, boy!—like you're on the Tilt-A-Whirl at the fair or something when I'm telling you that the only woman I've ever loved just lied to me! She—"

  After a meek knock, the door opened a crack and the receptionist inserted Thomas's file through the gap.

  Rollo was up on his feet. "Thanks," he whispered, looking sheepish.

  Thomas watched him open the chart and nod to himself. He threw his glasses across the desk.

  "What is it you want to ask me?"

  "Huh?"

  "Why are you here, T? What is it that you want me to tell you?"

  "I don't know—"

  "That I made a mistake six months ago and you're not really sterile? Because I can't tell you that. You are sterile by all conceivable medical measurements."

  "I know that."

  "Do you want me to assure you that there is absolutely no chance whatsoever that you could have fathered that child? Because I can't tell you that, either."

  Thomas leaned forward in his chair. "What did you just say to me?"

  Rollo laughed and threw up his hands. "I don't have any magic answer for you, T. You took a pounding seven years ago and the swelling and pain eventually went away and it looked like you were in the clear. Then last winter…"