Since You Went Away: Chapter Fourteen: The Philadelphia Story
Title: Since You Went Away - Chapter Fourteen: The Philadelphia Story
Authors: i-must-go-first & UbiquitousMixie
Fandom: Brenda/Sharon, The Closer
Rating: PG-13 (Overall M)
Word Count: 8267
Disclaimer: Not ours. Please don’t sue.
Summary: A late-night craving and a coincidental meeting lead a certain deputy chief to discover that there’s much more to the inimitable Captain Raydor than meets the eye, and to realize that her mama was right: sometimes all a single woman really needs is a good girlfriend.
Authors’ Note: A thousand thanks for all your support and lovely comments. Things are beginning to get interesting, in our humble opinion. If you're of the hat-wearing persuasion, we strongly suggest you hold onto those chapeaux...
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When a certain blonde deputy chief strode into the crowded IA bullpen, the smattering of officers at their desks stopped what they’d been doing and stared so avidly that Brenda Leigh automatically looked down to see whether her skirt was tucked up into her pantyhose. It wasn’t.
“Chief Johnson,” said a woman with iron gray hair and a smoker’s throaty tenor, her tone heavy with trepidation, “how can we help you today?”
“Oh, I just came to see Capt’n Raydor.” Brenda smiled, trying her best to make it clear that she was playing nicely.
“Oh.” The woman looked unabashedly relieved. “She just stepped out. I’m surprised you didn’t pass her in the hall.”
“She’s gone to a scene?” the chief asked, always curious.
The woman looked back at her computer screen. “Ah, no,” she said distractedly. “Visitor. You can probably catch her.”
Brenda nodded and turned on one heel, already rushing toward the elevator. Sharon had a visitor? She imagined Paul, Daniel, maybe even Helen (a cultured blonde who, in the chief’s opinion, couldn’t hold a candle to the brunette captain) -- None of them would be dropping by on a social call in the middle of a work-day. She jabbed fretfully at the elevator call button. What if something was wrong? What if there had been an accident or Clarissa was sick or -- Oh, God, what if it was about Vivien? How would Sharon be able to cope with that, coming on the heels of the tumultuous past weekend?
The elevator hovered on the ninth floor. Impatient, Brenda trotted toward the stairs.
She was a little dizzy when she emerged into the lobby five floors down and peered intently at the front desk. Two sergeants chatted with the receptionist, obviously vying for her attention; a delivery man was arriving with a towering tray of deli sandwiches; a middle-aged man standing near a potted palm checked his watch. There was no sign of Sharon.
The elevator doors slid open with a ding and a whoosh, revealing a very familiar black-suited form. All the way across the lobby Brenda saw the way green eyes lit up, and for a split second she thought her friend had seen her. Then Sharon called out “Richard!” in a bright, clear tone that bounced off the glass ceiling of the atrium. In four long strides she was hurling herself into the arms of the middle-aged watch-checker, narrowly avoiding taking out the potted palm.
Brenda Leigh gawked. From here she had a clear view of the other woman’s face, and she’d never seen that expression on it before, not with Daniel or Clarissa or even little Manzana. Sharon was incandescent with joy, her eyes alight and her mouth curved into a huge, very un-Captain-Raydor smile; and then her face was hidden as she burrowed into the man’s neck, careless of any damage she might do to what looked like a very expensive dress shirt, and pressed her whole body to his.
The man’s -- Richard’s -- low voice rumbled in greeting, and Brenda’s alert ears picked out the word “sweetheart.” Something unpleasantly hot coiled in her belly while her limbs tingled as if she’d been jolted with a taser.
Apparently nothing was wrong.
She set out across the lobby, skirting the oblivious captain and her “visitor.” No way could she face those stairs going the other direction.
As the elevator doors slid closed she heard that smooth familiar alto ask “Brenda?” The deputy chief was only too glad to be safely enclosed, already gliding seamlessly upward. She pursed her lips and paced the elevator, a flood of emotion burning in her cheeks.
What the hell had that been about?
It had been years since Brenda had gone out of her way to avoid being seen by the captain--but perhaps, she admitted, she hadn’t tried that hard. She could have just as easily taken the stairs or, in a pinch, hidden in the ladies room until the cheery pair had vacated the lobby. Maybe, on some masochistic level driven by her subconscious, she had wanted to be seen.
Hey Sharon, remember me? The woman you kissed? Brenda attempted to stifle the little voice echoing in the back of her head but it persisted. A few days had passed since Clarissa’s party--since the kiss. They hadn’t spoken of it and had, like the adults they were, awkwardly avoided the topic, making up for the uncomfortable morning-after by gestures of exaggerated kindness and contrived excuses. Now, apparently, Sharon was getting chummy with some handsome guy, someone she’d never bothered to mention. Certainly someone who called you “sweetheart” was worth telling your best friend about?
Brenda moodily stomped her way back to her office, willfully ignoring Gabriel’s attempt at calling her attention. She shut the door a little harder than she should have and slumped into her chair, pulling open her candy drawer. She had mercifully stocked up the day before and, while she silently thanked her instinct for its uncanny ability to foretell when she’d be in dire need of sugar, she pulled out a Twix. As she moved to close the drawer, she also snatched up a bag of M&M’s.
So. Sharon Raydor had a gentleman caller, an effortlessly good-looking man with the temerity to show up during the work day to whisk the captain off her feet. The blonde tore open the M&M’s with excessive force and the candies scattered across her desk, some tumbling onto the floor. “Shoot,” she scowled, popping a blue candy into her mouth.
It occurred to her, as she arranged the M&M’s by color on top of a crime scene photo of blood spatter, that there was absolutely no reason for Brenda to be so jealous. Who was she except a friend to the older woman?
Who, exactly, did she want to be?
Brenda popped a handful of orange candies into her mouth, the phone issuing a resounding chirp as she began to chew. A quick glance at the caller ID told her that it was Sharon.
“Yes?” Brenda asked coolly once she’d cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder, her nimble fingers tearing at the gold Twix wrapper.
“Call me crazy, but I could swear that I saw you in the lobby a few minutes ago,” Sharon said, the tone of her voice carefree and pleasant, belying the accusation in her statement. “Why didn’t you say hello?”
“I didn’t want to interrupt,” Brenda lied, instantly wishing that she had said she hadn’t seen her.
“You should have. I could have introduced you to Richard! He flew in from Philadelphia this morning completely by surprise, can you believe it?”
“How ‘bout that,” Brenda drawled, biting into her chocolate-caramel snack. “Maybe next time.”
“That’s why I’m calling. I know we had plans tonight, but I hoped we could take a raincheck on the film. Why don’t you join us for dinner instead?”
Brenda screwed her eyebrows together in confusion. Why on earth would Sharon invite her along as a third wheel on her date? Nostrils flaring, Brenda plastered on a fake smile that the other woman obviously couldn’t see. “That’s all right. You two have a good time without me.”
“I insist, Brenda.”
“Like I said...maybe next time. Listen, I’ve gotta go. Talk to you later.” She hung up before the other woman could say another word.
It should have been satisfying to act like such a selfish snot, but Brenda felt worse than ever. Her chocolate, her decadent, feel-good, beloved treat, tasted like ash in her mouth. For a split second she thought about lifting the receiver from its cradle and calling back, making some lame excuse and accepting Sharon’s invitation; and then she pictured the three of them sitting at dinner, somewhere with linen tablecloths and flickering candlelight, while Richard and Sharon played footsie under the table and Brenda prayed for someone important to die.
Hell, no. Sharon could insist all she wanted to; Brenda wasn’t going.
The deputy chief gulped down the ashy Twix and grabbed for another handful of M&Ms, hoping for better results. Candy shells shattered and crunched between her molars, and she scowled vaguely at her screensaver. She tried to convince herself that she was mollified by the dinner invitation the captain had extended, even if it was insincere (it had to be insincere, didn’t it?); but it was hard not to feel slighted. Sharon was her best friend, and surely she was Sharon’s too, and yet the other woman hadn’t even mentioned that she had some jet-setting silver-fox lover squirrelled away somewhere. Brenda was beginning to think that Sharon was pathologically secretive.
For some reason, though, this stung in a way that finding out about Vivien and Clarissa hadn’t. She thought they’d gotten past all this, that they’d formed an unusual sort of bond, shared something deeper than shopping for sofas and chatting over Chinese take-out. Splashing in the bathtub with Sharon’s granddaughter, hearing the reassuring rise and fall of the other woman’s breath as she slept beside her, wiping away the tears Sharon hadn’t been ashamed to shed while Brenda looked on: these were acts that meant something. They were... intimate.
That was it, Brenda admitted miserably to herself, moving on to a Reese’s cup like a ravening horde of one. She’d begun to see herself as the one person who had access to those simple, intimate aspects of Sharon Raydor’s life, and Brenda Leigh had never liked to share. As a child she’d been fiercely possessive of her toys, much to her mother’s chagrin. Not, of course, that Sharon was a toy. No, she was something rarer and far more wonderful: a true friend. Brenda didn’t want to share her.
The older woman had never looked at Brenda the way she’d looked at Richard. He probably knew all about Vivien’s disappearance. Hell, he was probably Clarissa’s godfather. Daniel probably called him Uncle Dick. And yet, where had he been Saturday night when Sharon had been sobbing her heart out? He hadn’t been anywhere around, supplying tissues and ooh-long.
And kisses.
Not that the kiss was the issue. That had been a sweet, chaste exchange between friends, a wordless expression of gratitude and affection. It had nothing in common with the way Sharon would be kissing her mystery man later tonight, needy and passionate and urgent. Not that Brenda had any desire to think about that, and not that she was being assaulted by a barrage of images of the same.
Perhaps the real rub was that, even as Brenda was totally caught off guard by the man’s appearance -- by his very existence -- her rational mind told her she shouldn’t be. Sharon insisted she wasn’t interested in dating anyone, and was cagey about her recent sexual history, both things that made perfect sense if she had some occasional, bi-coastal (because the man had “East Coast” written all over him) lover. The deputy chief thought of Sharon as she’d known her for the past three years, rather than Sharon as she’d known her for the last few months, and had to admit that such an arrangement seemed like it would suit the FID captain to a tee.
Brenda stared moodily at the candy wrappers littering the surface of her desk and wondered if she was the only person in the world not having sex.
Surely if Sharon was getting laid, Brenda could too.
Her mind resolutely made up, Brenda opened the middle drawer of the desk, rummaging around pens and stray business cards until she settled upon the one she was looking for. She sat back in her chair as she traced her thumb over the embossed name, a wicked smile playing across her lips.
**
When Brenda jammed her finger against the button that opened the main door to the apartment complex twenty minutes earlier than the agreed upon time, she vaguely paused to consider that the cards were already stacked against Dr. Jack C. Mendell. To be fair, they’d never actually been in his favor, but Brenda Leigh Johnson was too stubborn to admit when she’d made a foolishly impulsive decision.
She waited impatiently by the door for his arrival, wondering if it was too late to change her mind. Would a migraine be believable? Brenda quickly pushed that thought from her mind; the last time she’d pulled that excuse, she ended up with a blinding headache of skull-splitting proportions, her body psychosomatically punishing her for her lie. A sick kitten would certainly be believable, but could she trust that she wouldn’t jinx the feline into vomiting all over the beautiful red sofa? Besides, as the cat spun around in circles in the middle of the room, chasing her own tail, Brenda knew that neither one of them would pass for being sick.
There was a knock. With a bracing sigh, the deputy chief plastered a jovial smile to her face and opened the door.
“Wow,” said Jack, his blue eyes roving over her form, pausing for several seconds on her cleavage, “you look spectacular.”
The blonde nearly rolled her eyes, biting back the desire to tell him that the rest of her looked just as good, if not better, than her breasts. “Thank you so much. Come on in.” She stood aside and allowed him to enter, already bristling at the overwhelmingly masculine presence in her living space. “I’m just about ready.”
“Take your time,” he added with a pearly white grin. “I’m a little early, I know. I was just so surprised that you called today that I didn’t want to give you a chance to change your mind.”
Brenda flushed. Of course she would be that obvious to a psychologist. “You were that surprised?”
“When I gave you my card a few months ago, I never expected you to actually call.” He chuckled, sitting down uninvited on the sofa. “I’m very glad you did.” His sharp eyes darted over to the cat’s acrobatic display on the carpet. “And who’s this little guy?”
“This is Sugar.” She had settled on the name last night when, at Sharon’s insistence via text message, she was reminded that she’d have to provide the vet with a moniker when she finally took her for her shots.
“Hey there, little fella,” Jack said, his charming smile directed at the white and gray animal.
“She’s a girl. We’re an all-girl household, aren’t we, Sugar?”
The psychologist laughed. “I’m honored to have been invited into the clubhouse. I have two dogs myself, both males. Domino’s a Dalmation and Butch is a Wiemaraner.” He grinned proudly. “They’re great. Guess you could say we’ve got ourselves a bachelor pad back home. I bet they’d love you.”
Brenda had no idea what a wiemawhatchamacallit was, but found that she didn’t care all that much to find out. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just finish up and then we can go.” And get this over with, she thought. She swiftly ducked into her bedroom, closing the door behind her with a relieved sigh.
Deciding at the last minute to go on a date with a man she didn’t know had not been one of her smartest ideas. She’d met Dr. Mendell on a case, where he had been a character witness for a man with Antisocial Personality Disorder who had set fire to a building, killing two people and seriously injuring one. The doctor had taken a liking to Brenda, despite her insistence that the nutjob be held responsible for his actions. He had managed to secure his patient long-term psychiatric treatment rather than prison time and Brenda had decided to lose his number.
Of all the men who had come on to her over the years, why had she chosen the one who had, for all intents and purposes, beaten her?
The answer was simple: Brenda was jealous and Jack was available. He was handsome enough with his dirty-blonde hair and his California tan; in her younger days, Brenda would surely have considered him a catch. Something had changed; the rugged masculinity and muscular physique did nothing for her anymore.
Out in his car, which was something imported and incredibly expensive and equally uncomfortable, Brenda gave herself what her daddy would have termed a strong talking-to. The point of this evening, she reminded herself, was to get to know someone new, someone she might be interested in spending time with. Jack Mendell was as likely a prospect as anyone else, and if she had no intention of giving him the benefit of the doubt, she might as well have stayed home. Then she’d be right back where she started, with all her eggs in one basket -- Captain Sharon Raydor’s basket.
“You’ll love this restaurant,” Jack promised, grinning over at her as he shifted gears, and Brenda forced herself to smile back enthusiastically. Then he lightly patted her knee through the sheer fabric of her dress, and Brenda stiffened. “They do great regional Thai food -- northern Thai, which is hard to get around here. The authentic stuff, I mean.”
Sharon had been to Thailand. There was a framed photo of her in her living room, tucked away in one corner of the large bookcase, showing the brunette against a background of rolling hills and lush green foliage. Brenda Leigh had imagined being there with her friend, standing upon that hilltop.
“I like Thai,” Brenda replied, mildly encouraged.
The restaurant, which Jack had termed “a quiet neighborhood joint,” turned out to be an upscale bistro. Brenda took in the teak tables and soft lights gleaming from burnished brass sconces, and again envisioned Sharon and Richard amid a sea of linen tablecloths and flickering candles. Blinking away the image, she smiled as Jack pulled her chair out for her. The smile turned into a wince as he pushed her a little too close to the table. Easing herself back, Brenda opened her menu, only to have it plucked from between her fingertips.
“You don’t need that.” Jack winked at her, his dark blue eyes twinkling. “I’ll order for us. Trust me, I know what’s good.”
Internally, and perhaps externally, the deputy chief bristled. She didn’t even know this man; how dare he presume he’d know what she wanted to eat?
It’s a new experience, she insisted to herself. Be open to new experiences. Sharon took you to that Cambodian sandwich place and convinced you to order the catfish, and you liked that.
So she sat quietly, smile pasted in place, while Dr. Jack reeled off an order to their black-shirted server, interrupting only when he added, “And tone the spice down a little, all right?”
Brenda’s lips flattened into a line. “I like spicy,” she cut in, and turned to the waiter. “I’ll have mine however you usually prepare it, please.”
The waiter nodded and smiled, and the skin around Jack’s eyes tightened for just a second before it relaxed. “Okay, Brenda,” he said slowly, his affable smile returning. “You like it hot. I’ll remember that.”
You won’t have the chance, she thought, and then reminded herself that she wasn’t allowed to think that way, at least not until after their appetizer had been served.
The crunchy little baskets of minced chicken and corn were delicious; the conversation was not. Jack regaled her with tales of the time he’d spent backpacking around Southeast Asia as a twenty-something. The anecdotes themselves weren’t at all objectionable, but there was something about his tone, the twinge of smugness it harbored, the way he laughed a little too loudly and long at his own jokes, that made Brenda long for her fuzzy pajamas and equally fuzzy kitty, and perhaps an extra large glass of Merlot.
Speaking of which -- Brenda flagged their waiter down as he passed. “Red wine,” she requested. “Merlot, malbec, whatever.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I should’ve asked if you wanted beer or wine with dinner.” Jack wiped his lips a little too precisely with his napkin and smiled again. He had a fleck of green cucumber skin trapped between his bottom teeth. “I don’t drink myself, but I don’t mind if you do.”
Brenda felt her mouth tighten, but she managed a small smile, and hoped the waiter returned very quickly with her wine.
Halfway through the main course she excused herself to the ladies’ room. As she locked the door of the little cubicle behind her, she sighed with relief. Brenda had the urge to bash her head against the wall. What in the world was she doing here? This had been a terrible, terrible idea. Her date was a perfectly nice man, or at least she supposed he was, but he did absolutely nothing for her. Sugar, pajamas, her lovely red sofa: these things beckoned like never before, the siren call almost strong enough to make her call for a cab. Somewhere out there was some perfectly nice woman who would swoon over a perfectly nice man like Dr. Jack Mendell with his sports car and his macho dogs and his fondness for northern Thai cuisine. Brenda Leigh Johnson wasn’t that woman.
Her fingernails sinking into the squares of toilet paper she held fisted in her hand, Brenda bowed her head over her splayed knees, her back slumping. Jack Mendell wasn’t what, or who, she wanted tonight at all, and neither were any of the other men whose business cards lay discarded in her desk drawer. The truth was that the blonde wanted something -- someone -- entirely different.
Had she always been moving toward this moment, locked in a bathroom that smelled strongly of incense and disinfectant, realizing what had probably been obvious all along? Admittedly, Brenda was notorious for avoiding deep introspection and situations of a serious personal nature. It was easier that way; no one--well, mostly Brenda--ended up hurt when she refused to accept the perfectly unmistakable.
However, now that Brenda was faced with this inevitable conclusion, she was the one who would end up hurt, because Sharon was still the one who was off with a man who was probably perfectly nice and who clearly made her happy.
Brenda, on the other hand, was alone. Unless, of course, she counted Dr. Jack, which she did not. She rolled her eyes and accepted her fate: she could not simply click her heels three times and return home.
When Brenda arrived back at the table, she was stunned to see that her entree had been cleared away. “Where’d the food go?” she asked hesitantly, already dreading his answer.
“I assumed you were finished,” Jack replied with a smile. “I ordered us dessert.”
The blonde blinked at him and slowly reached for her wine. She remembered in that moment that her sidearm was tucked in its holster in her purse; certainly a psychologist knew how dangerous it was to mess with a woman’s food? She took a large gulp. The night was almost over...the night was almost over...the night was almost over...
“I was thinking we could stop by this little art gallery nearby,” he suggested, thanking the waiter when he set down one plate of an unrecognizable fruity concoction and two smaller dessert forks. “I know the artist--he’s a minimalist. You’d love him. Give him six months and his work will be in the home of every actor this side of the Hollywood sign.”
This was dessert? Brenda wondered with horror, eyeing it with uncertainty as he stuck his fork into the corner of it, gathering up a bite-size of orangey goop. He held it up to her mouth and waited, his grin ever-present, until she gamely accepted the bite. It was sour and bitter and she puckered her mouth into an awkward smile as she quickly chewed, swallowed, and washed it down with another mouthful of Merlot.
“What do you say?” he prompted again, taking a bite for himself. He hummed in satisfaction and went back for another.
Brenda licked her lips. Sharon would never presume to know what she wanted without asking her. Sharon would never judge her for having a glass of wine with dinner or take her food away when she decided that Brenda was finished. Sharon would never make her feel like a pretty marionette to be controlled.
“I’d better not,” the blonde said, forcing a hint of disappointment into her voice. “I’ve gotta feed Sugar. I’m still workin’ on housebreakin’ her, so I’ve gotta stick to a routine--y’know, feedin’ her at the same time every night and all.”
Brenda held her breath for the barest instant, waiting for his response. Surely an intelligent man would find it odd that she was so anxious about housebreaking a cat. But then, Dr. Jack was a dog man.
“Ah yes.” Jack nodded knowingly, regaling her with tales of housebreaking his youngest dog, sparing no detail of soiled couch cushions and carpets while he inhaled the remainder of the dessert. It was just as well that it wasn’t chocolate; she would have had to stab him with the fork to keep him from devouring it.
The drive back to Brenda’s apartment complex was endless. She hated his car, hated the know-it-all tone of his voice, hated Richard, and hated that Jack wasn’t Sharon.
He pulled up in front of the building and turned off the car, looking at her expectantly. “Shall I join you and make us some coffee while you feed the cat?”
Brenda gaped. She couldn’t do this anymore. “Y’know what, Jack? I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She unbuckled her seatbelt and collected her purse from the floor. “This was nice an’ all, but I just realized I might have feelin’s for someone else, and I think I’d like to see where that goes. Thanks for helpin’ me realize that, Jack. You have a nice night now!”
Stretching limbs that had been awkwardly contorted in the low-slung seats of the sports car, Brenda reflected that this date hadn’t been a total loss after all. It had turned out to be pretty therapeutic -- appropriate, since Jack was a psychiatrist and all. And not only had Brenda not had to pay for it, but she’d gotten a free dinner into the bargain. Well, half a dinner, she mentally qualified, and then wondered if she was maybe a little hysterical.
She hovered in the lobby until she was sure Jack was out of sight, and then turned around and marched back the way she’d come, her heels ringing authoritatively on the pavement. The more she thought about Sharon and her mystery man, the angrier she became. Who did that designer-suit-wearing Yankee bitch of an FID captain think she was, anyway? You just didn’t go around kissing people on the mouth and then letting other people call you “sweetheart.” It was just rude, and Brenda was going to tell her so.
Brenda was so busy seething that her stomach didn’t tie itself into a thousand knots until she’d already turned onto Sharon’s street. What on earth was she doing here? For one thing, Sharon probably wasn’t even back from dinner yet, and if she was, Richard would certainly be there with her. They might be doing... things. In fact, it was entirely likely that they were doing things, if they only saw one another every few months.
The blonde felt all her features pucker into a scowl. Maybe Richard was a traveling salesman with a woman in every port. Or maybe he was married! She pictured a blurry wife and two-point-oh equally blurry children. Sharon obviously hadn’t thought this through... Or maybe she had. Maybe she knew, the home-wrecking Jezebel.
It was this thought that gave Brenda Leigh the push she needed to turn into the driveway, parking behind an unfamiliar car that she immediately pegged as a rental, stalk up onto the porch, and jab the doorbell. She wasn’t entirely sure if she was here to save Sharon from herself, to shake her until her perfect teeth rattled, or to hand her her ass. She’d make that decision when she actually saw her, if she ever came to the door.
She’s probably gettin’ dressed, Brenda reminded herself, and scowled harder.
When she heard footsteps approach and the doorknob turn, Brenda automatically looked down, suddenly very afraid of what she might see, so her gaze fixated first on the bare feet that were revealed to her. Soft, white, bare feet with nails polished an indeterminate dark color that looked black in the dim glow from inside the house, and with a band-aid on one ankle. She couldn’t have said why the sight of that band-aid suddenly made her feel like crying.
“Brenda?”
She looked up slowly, expecting bare skin or something thrown together in haste, and instead got chocolate-colored chinos, a wine-colored sweater, and a patterned silk scarf knotted and pinned at Sharon’s throat. She got inquisitive green eyes gazing at her with a touch of wonder from behind the lenses of Sharon’s glasses.
“Are you okay?”
The question, asked in Sharon’s familiar tone of careful concern, alerted Brenda to the fact that she was gawking, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, like a zombie. No, she thought, and then realized she’d said it out loud as Sharon’s eyes flared in alarm.
Confronted with the reality of this woman she considered her best friend, Brenda didn’t shake her or scold her or say a single word. She did the only thing she could think of.
She kissed her.
The innocence of their first kiss could have been written off as something that happened between friends under highly emotional circumstances. The second kiss could not, if only because there was a second kiss.
For a brief, stunned moment, illuminated by the warm glow of the interior of the house, Brenda Leigh could only think about one thing: she was kissing Sharon again. Her lips had slackened in shock and, when Brenda’s fingertips ghosted against the line of Sharon’s jaw, the other woman pursed her lips and kissed her back.
Like the first kiss, there was no time to marvel at how soft Sharon’s lips were or how shockingly different it felt to kiss a woman. It was over seconds later when Sharon stepped back, her eyes narrowing in confused indignation. “What the hell was that all about?” she asked, the befuddled tone of her voice masking the accusation.
Brenda blinked. She had no idea what that had been about or why she had done it or why she was doing any of this. She was acting like a certifiably crazy person. She quickly scrambled for the reason why she’d been acting this way in the first place and glared right back. “Your boyfriend,” she said, spitting out the word. “What’re you doin’ kissin’ people when you’ve got a boyfriend?”
The captain gaped, her face flushing brightly. “Are you insane?”
Brenda merely stared at her. She had, after all, walked out on a perfectly nice head shrinker of her very own.
“Sis? Everything all right out here?” Richard asked, coming up behind Sharon. Matching green eyes gave Brenda a once-over, his hand resting on Sharon’s shoulder.
The younger woman immediately felt as if she’d been doused in ice water. Brother? Richard was her brother? The resemblance was uncanny now that she had a chance to really look at him, from the shapes of their mouths to their identical eyes. How had she missed something so obvious?
“Brenda Leigh Johnson, I’d like you to meet my brother, Richard Raydor,” Sharon said dryly, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
“So this is the woman I’ve been hearing so much about.” Richard held out his hand and Brenda stared at it in wonder, an uncomfortable lump forming in her throat. “It’s very nice to have a face to match the name.”
Brenda slowly slipped her clammy palm against his, allowing him to guide their clasped hands in a firm handshake. She smiled politely and looked between the two of them. “It’s a pleasure.” She swallowed tightly. “I’m sorry, but may I use your powder room? I think I may be sick.”
**
Sharon stared out the living room window, watching the old woman across the street step outside and place a letter in the mailbox. Behind her, the faint sound of running water from the sink in the bathroom masked the sound of Brenda’s vomiting. She pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes.
“That was...different,” Richard remarked, coming to stand beside her.
“I apologize. I have no idea what’s gotten into her.”
He watched her for a moment, the faintest twitch of his eyebrow indicating his disbelief.
“Don’t,” she warned.
“I didn’t say a thing,” he replied, raising his hands in supplication.
“You didn’t have to.” She wandered away from him into the kitchen, where she set about making a cup of mint tea to ease the stomach of her neurotic friend--the same woman who was, for some reason, not okay and who had kissed her.
“I’m, uh, I’m really sorry.”
Brenda’s small, cringing voice startled the older woman and she whirled. How had Brenda tip-toed in here in those heels? Maybe they taught you that at CIA school. In fact, if female agents dressed the way they did in the movies and on TV, it would have to be part of the training.
Sharon realized the blonde was waiting for her to say something. “Don’t worry about it.” She handed over the waiting cup and saucer. “Mint tea. It will help.”
She tried to ignore the way Brenda’s huge, luminous eyes were glued to her face as the deputy chief stammered, “I must’ve eaten somethin’ that disagreed with me at dinner.”
Sharon hummed and busied herself wiping away a nonexistent speck on the counter. “You’re awfully dressed up.”
Brenda gazed down at her own fingers picking at the sleeve of her navy silk dress. She recalled that Sharon had complimented her warmly the last time she’d worn it to work (she’d had an important court appearance that day), and realized in the same breath that that was the reason she’d chosen to wear it for her date tonight. She felt sick all over again and gulped at the scalding tea.
The captain didn’t speak, and Brenda knew she was awaiting a response to her unasked question. “Yeah, I had a … dinner thing.”
Sharon frowned and opened her mouth, no doubt to say something about their planned outing to the movies, and the blonde hastily added, “I’d forgotten about it. So it’s just as well that Richard showed up, actually.”
“A dinner thing,” the taller woman repeated, and her eyebrows arched. “A date?” Brenda nodded a little too earnestly and Sharon continued, “You forgot you had a date?” For a second Sharon looked perplexed, and then her lips thinned. She wasn’t fooled in the slightest.
Before she could follow up, Richard lumbered into the kitchen. “He must’ve been really memorable, then.”
Brenda smiled gratefully. “He was,” she confirmed ruefully. “Won’t be seein’ him again.”
“You should’ve come to dinner with us instead,” Sharon’s brother continued, lightly rubbing his sister’s shoulder, and again Brenda kicked herself for not having immediately noticed the resemblance. As she studied them side by side, she was hammered over the head with the similarity of their lean, clean-lined forms, their perfect straight noses, even the shape of their hands. Some great detective she was.
“Tomorrow night?”
Distracted, it took Brenda a couple of seconds to register what Richard was asking, and then she instinctively looked to her friend for help, for a cue. Sharon gazed back at her, her eyes dark and opaque.
“Oh, well, uh, I might have to work.”
“I know,” Richard returned with an easy affability that reminded the chief of Daniel. “Sharon might have to work, too. But if you aren’t off engaging in very important police-type activities, come over tomorrow night at seven. I’m cooking, and I’m a much better cook than my sister.”
Brenda grinned weakly. “Sure.” She darted a look at the clock on the microwave. “And I should probably be goin’. I just dropped by to say hi and, ah, meet Richard.” And kiss you and throw up in your bathroom.
She was beginning to think that she’d gotten off easy -- that because of Richard’s presence, Sharon wasn’t going to press, wasn’t going to ask the hard questions, like why she’d scrounged up a last-minute date of desperation and just what the actual fuck Brenda Leigh had thought she was doing by grabbing her and kissing her.
Unlikely.
Sharon’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t rush off,” she said, her tone excessively pleasant. “Come into the living room and join us. Stay a while. I insist.”
Brenda Leigh swallowed another small sip of her tea, swishing the mint around subtly to take away the last remnants of hot, sour bile. No way could she refuse twice in one day when Sharon insisted.
When Brenda nodded and began to follow Sharon toward the living room, Richard playfully yanked on a lock of his sister’s hair. “Go ahead, Sherry. I’ll be right there.”
“Sherry, huh?” Brenda repeated with a bright smile, seizing any possible conversational diversion and running with it.
“Don’t even think about it,” the other woman returned humorlessly.
Brenda stood awkwardly on the edge of the brightly striped rug, hoping Sharon would sit first and she’d figure out what to do with herself. But having clearly picked up on her friend’s anxiety, the captain stood resolutely in the middle of the room, arms folded.
“I didn’t know you had a brother.”
“But I told you I had a -- Oh.” Brenda looked up from her perusal of a chair leg in time to see understanding and something else dawn in those warm green eyes.
“Yeah, ‘oh.’ I thought you meant you had a twin sister.”
The older woman grinned crookedly. “I told you I looked much better in a skirt,” she reminded, and at last sat down at one end of the sofa.
Brenda gingerly sat at the opposite end, wishing she were instead sitting in her car or, better yet, in her apartment. She hadn’t wished so strongly for the ability to turn back the clock in years. “I thought you were just bein’ cute,” Brenda said after a moment of silence.
“I’m always cute,” Sharon deadpanned. Despite her attempt to lighten the mood, neither of them was smiling. She sighed. “Brenda....why did you kiss me?”
“Why did you kiss me first?” Brenda spat back, plucking at the hem of her dress, pulling it as far over her knees as the material would allow.
It took a great deal of resolve for Sharon to refrain from rolling her eyes. “I know what this is about.”
“Would you care to share with the class?”
“You were jealous. You thought I was seeing Richard, so you went on a date with some stranger to get back at me.”
Humiliation burned anew in Brenda’s cheeks and she stared at the floor, wishing that it might just open up and swallow her whole. Her silence was all the response Sharon needed.
The older woman gave a derisive snort. “Do you really feel so threatened by the possibility of me spending time with other people who aren’t you? You don’t have any other friends of your own, and you don’t want me to either?”
Whatever Brenda was expecting Sharon to say, it wasn’t that. “What?”
“I knew you were possessive, but this is a little excessive, even for you.”
Brenda laughed. Smart, rational Sharon Raydor was wrong--for once. The deputy chief would have gloated, reveling in the minute victory, but she found herself far more concerned with making the other woman understand what even she had difficulty grasping.
“That’s not why I went on a date. I was---I was so mad and so hurt and...I didn’t kiss you because I’m lonely.”
“Why else would you?”
“Because I wanted to.”
Sharon blinked and slowly licked her lips, unaware that the habitual act had pulled Brenda’s gaze away from her eyes and directly to her mouth. Brenda had wanted to kiss her and so she had, and now she was looking at her as if she wanted to do it again. Something coiled tight and hot in Sharon’s stomach, a tense spring just waiting to be released. She struggled to find something to say and, when words failed her, she simply latched onto Brenda’s. “You wanted to kiss me.”
Brown eyes gave an exaggerated roll. “I wouldn’t have done it otherwise, would I? If kissin’ you was so horrible the first time, why would I have done it again?” She pursed her lips and twisted her body on the sofa until she was directly facing the captain, her dress rising a little higher up her thigh. “Is that why you’re pressin’ this so much? You hated kissin’ me and didn’t wanna do it again? Was it that horrible?”
The captain’s heart hammered uncomfortably in her chest. Everything about this situation made her want to retreat back inside her head. How could she possibly admit that she had been unable to think about anything other than the kiss they shared without also giving voice to the confusing jumble of thoughts and worries in her mind? “It wasn’t horrible, Brenda Leigh.”
The blonde nodded, watching her closely, hoping to read any shift in her carefully closed features. “Why is it that when you initiate the kissin’, we can pretend it never happened, but when I do it, you have to talk about it till the cows come home? I don’t think that’s a very fair double standard, now is it?”
“Because I need to understand,” Sharon responded abruptly, with a flicker of fire as if a match had been struck. She was sitting so rigidly that it was a relief to her, and probably to Brenda as well, when she sprang to her feet and planted herself in front of the other woman, hands balled into fists at her thighs. “Look, I -- Brenda --” She distractedly ran her fingers through her hair, swiping it back from the crown of her head, and she knew the younger woman saw that her hand was shaking. “You know, I was always the quiet one. The shy, awkward one who inevitably picked the wrong moment to be too opinionated or laugh too loudly. Richard was the gregarious one, the popular one. I never minded. I liked my own little world with my books and nature walks and old movies, and he shared his friends with me.”
The change of subject seemed so abrupt that Brenda Leigh blinked rapidly, startled, as her thoughts scrambled to catch up. “Okay,” she said quietly, waiting for Sharon to go on.
“I never had to make my own friends until I went away to college and didn’t have Richard there to do it for me,” the captain continued frankly. “I did all right, but the point is that I’ve never been good at it, Brenda. And somewhere along the way life happened and I stopped trying, stopped bothering. What I’m saying --” She paused for several seconds, her eyes meeting Brenda’s directly and scrutinizing. “ -- is that I haven’t had a really close friend for a long time. You -- your friendship means a great deal to me, and if I behaved inappropriately the other night...”
“You didn’t,” Brenda murmured softly. Her cheeks felt hot. She couldn’t figure out if Sharon was apologizing or chastising her or trying to let her down easily or what. For someone who was normally so direct, Sharon Raydor wasn’t very easy to read when it came to personal matters. “Unless you’re sayin’ you think it was inappropriate.”
“No. I -- No.” Sharon whipped her glasses off with one hand, not caring whether she warped the frames, and rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “What I’m saying, only I’m doing it badly, is that God only knows how it happened, but you’re my best friend, and I have no intention of jeopardizing that.” Her eyes locked on Brenda’s again then, wide and anxious and startlingly vulnerable without the shield of her glasses. “Because I sure as hell need a friend, Brenda.”
Instinctively Brenda rose, both of her hands reaching out to touch Sharon lightly above her elbows. “You’ve got one,” she reassured the taller woman, smiling a watery smile and only mildly embarrassed that she had to blink back tears and that her voice was unnaturally thick. “You’ve got me, okay? I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
Sharon’s arms went around her, hugging so tightly that for a second Brenda was startled. Then she returned the hug just as fiercely, soothingly patting the other woman’s back in the process.
“Okay,” Sharon agreed, her warm breath tickling the hair at Brenda’s ear. “I’m not going anywhere either, Brenda. Not even if I do trip over some drop-dead gorgeous man who wants to sweep me off my feet.”
“Or drive you off in his Italian sports car,” the younger woman suggested, resting her smooth, warm cheek against Sharon’s.
“Did yours have a sports car?” the captain asked, sounding mildly intrigued.
Brenda nodded, causing her curls to tickle Sharon’s skin. “And a weema -- wima -- a dog named Butch.”
Sharon giggled.
“Sharon, he ordered my food for me,” Brenda admitted tragically.
The other woman responded with an exaggerated shudder, and they both chuckled. And then they laughed. And then they laughed some more.
The rap on the door frame was, Brenda decided, a thoughtful touch. “Everything okay?”
Sharon didn’t spring away from the other woman this time, but turned in Brenda’s embrace to face her brother. “Oh, fine.” She lightly patted blonde curls where they lay against the smaller woman’s back. “Brenda Leigh just had a bad date.”
“Terrible date,” she confirmed cheerfully, breathing in the subtly spicy, clean scent she’d learned to associate with the captain. “But I’m feelin’ much better now.”
Sharon’s eyes sparkled and her teeth flashed in her quick, knowing smile. “It was probably the tea.”
“Probably,” the deputy chief agreed, and impulsively leaned forward to hug her friend again. “Now I really do have to go, but I’ll see y’all tomorrow night.” Finally stepping away from Sharon, she held her hand out to the woman’s twin. “Richard, so nice to meet you. I look forward to talkin’ some more over dinner. I want to hear all the dirt.”
Richard smirked, an expression that was uncannily familiar. “Somehow I suspect you might have more dirt on my sister than I do.”
Sharon whacked him across the midsection with the back of her hand and smiled guilelessly. “Good night, Brenda.”
“Good night,” the younger woman echoed. She really was feeling much better than she had when she’d arrived, she reassured herself. And if her eyes lingered on Sharon’s a few seconds too long and she felt a blush creep over her flesh as she finally turned away, well, where was the big deal in that?
And really, if Brenda listened to the rational little voice in her head, perhaps it had been for the best that Sharon had resolutely steered them away from hastily rushing into anything outside the bounds of friendship. She couldn’t deny that she was disappointed, but she chose to focus instead on the affirmation of the platonic relationship they shared.
The relief that continued to course through her with the new-found knowledge that Richard was Sharon’s brother, not her mystery lover, was, Brenda insisted to herself, perfectly natural, and nothing at all to feel guilty about. She never had liked to share; and tonight’s experience with the not-so-good doctor had left her feeling that looking elsewhere for companionship was just too risky. Having Sharon all to herself was... comfortable. Wasn’t that what friends were for?
After Brenda had left, Sharon crossed to the front door and flipped the lock. When she turned around, she was greeted by the wall of Richard’s chest.
“So that’s Brenda Leigh,” he said, his eyes gleaming.
“That is Brenda Leigh.” She ducked around her brother and stopped by the back of the sofa, fussily readjusting the throw. She felt his acute eyes tracking her every minute movement.
“The two of you seem very... close.”
A teeny, tiny part of the captain was tempted to use that psychic twin connection, exploit the fact that Richard often understood her better than she understood herself. Maybe he could explain this situation with a certain brilliant, maddening, unexpectedly sweet, drawling, beautiful bitch of a deputy chief. He could tell her why her lips had tingled and her heart had pounded when Brenda had pressed their lips together and oh-so-lightly stroked her cheek, and why that had scared her worse than having a loaded Glock cocked at her temple. Perhaps he could break it down into simple, monosyllabic words she might actually comprehend.
But on second thought, the last thing he needed after nearly fifty-five years was more ammunition to use against her. He’d never let her live down the desperate crush she’d had on his best friend throughout high school, or the time their mother had had to make her an emergency appointment with the dentist because she’d been practicing her kissing technique on her pillow and her braces had gotten horribly snagged on the lacy sham.
Sharon planted her hands on her hips and fixed her beloved twin with a steely glare. “Don’t you dare start,” she warned in her most no-nonsense tone. “Don’t forget, Richard: Sister Sherry is licensed to carry a concealed weapon.”
---
Authors: i-must-go-first & UbiquitousMixie
Fandom: Brenda/Sharon, The Closer
Rating: PG-13 (Overall M)
Word Count: 8267
Disclaimer: Not ours. Please don’t sue.
Summary: A late-night craving and a coincidental meeting lead a certain deputy chief to discover that there’s much more to the inimitable Captain Raydor than meets the eye, and to realize that her mama was right: sometimes all a single woman really needs is a good girlfriend.
Authors’ Note: A thousand thanks for all your support and lovely comments. Things are beginning to get interesting, in our humble opinion. If you're of the hat-wearing persuasion, we strongly suggest you hold onto those chapeaux...
-
When a certain blonde deputy chief strode into the crowded IA bullpen, the smattering of officers at their desks stopped what they’d been doing and stared so avidly that Brenda Leigh automatically looked down to see whether her skirt was tucked up into her pantyhose. It wasn’t.
“Chief Johnson,” said a woman with iron gray hair and a smoker’s throaty tenor, her tone heavy with trepidation, “how can we help you today?”
“Oh, I just came to see Capt’n Raydor.” Brenda smiled, trying her best to make it clear that she was playing nicely.
“Oh.” The woman looked unabashedly relieved. “She just stepped out. I’m surprised you didn’t pass her in the hall.”
“She’s gone to a scene?” the chief asked, always curious.
The woman looked back at her computer screen. “Ah, no,” she said distractedly. “Visitor. You can probably catch her.”
Brenda nodded and turned on one heel, already rushing toward the elevator. Sharon had a visitor? She imagined Paul, Daniel, maybe even Helen (a cultured blonde who, in the chief’s opinion, couldn’t hold a candle to the brunette captain) -- None of them would be dropping by on a social call in the middle of a work-day. She jabbed fretfully at the elevator call button. What if something was wrong? What if there had been an accident or Clarissa was sick or -- Oh, God, what if it was about Vivien? How would Sharon be able to cope with that, coming on the heels of the tumultuous past weekend?
The elevator hovered on the ninth floor. Impatient, Brenda trotted toward the stairs.
She was a little dizzy when she emerged into the lobby five floors down and peered intently at the front desk. Two sergeants chatted with the receptionist, obviously vying for her attention; a delivery man was arriving with a towering tray of deli sandwiches; a middle-aged man standing near a potted palm checked his watch. There was no sign of Sharon.
The elevator doors slid open with a ding and a whoosh, revealing a very familiar black-suited form. All the way across the lobby Brenda saw the way green eyes lit up, and for a split second she thought her friend had seen her. Then Sharon called out “Richard!” in a bright, clear tone that bounced off the glass ceiling of the atrium. In four long strides she was hurling herself into the arms of the middle-aged watch-checker, narrowly avoiding taking out the potted palm.
Brenda Leigh gawked. From here she had a clear view of the other woman’s face, and she’d never seen that expression on it before, not with Daniel or Clarissa or even little Manzana. Sharon was incandescent with joy, her eyes alight and her mouth curved into a huge, very un-Captain-Raydor smile; and then her face was hidden as she burrowed into the man’s neck, careless of any damage she might do to what looked like a very expensive dress shirt, and pressed her whole body to his.
The man’s -- Richard’s -- low voice rumbled in greeting, and Brenda’s alert ears picked out the word “sweetheart.” Something unpleasantly hot coiled in her belly while her limbs tingled as if she’d been jolted with a taser.
Apparently nothing was wrong.
She set out across the lobby, skirting the oblivious captain and her “visitor.” No way could she face those stairs going the other direction.
As the elevator doors slid closed she heard that smooth familiar alto ask “Brenda?” The deputy chief was only too glad to be safely enclosed, already gliding seamlessly upward. She pursed her lips and paced the elevator, a flood of emotion burning in her cheeks.
What the hell had that been about?
It had been years since Brenda had gone out of her way to avoid being seen by the captain--but perhaps, she admitted, she hadn’t tried that hard. She could have just as easily taken the stairs or, in a pinch, hidden in the ladies room until the cheery pair had vacated the lobby. Maybe, on some masochistic level driven by her subconscious, she had wanted to be seen.
Hey Sharon, remember me? The woman you kissed? Brenda attempted to stifle the little voice echoing in the back of her head but it persisted. A few days had passed since Clarissa’s party--since the kiss. They hadn’t spoken of it and had, like the adults they were, awkwardly avoided the topic, making up for the uncomfortable morning-after by gestures of exaggerated kindness and contrived excuses. Now, apparently, Sharon was getting chummy with some handsome guy, someone she’d never bothered to mention. Certainly someone who called you “sweetheart” was worth telling your best friend about?
Brenda moodily stomped her way back to her office, willfully ignoring Gabriel’s attempt at calling her attention. She shut the door a little harder than she should have and slumped into her chair, pulling open her candy drawer. She had mercifully stocked up the day before and, while she silently thanked her instinct for its uncanny ability to foretell when she’d be in dire need of sugar, she pulled out a Twix. As she moved to close the drawer, she also snatched up a bag of M&M’s.
So. Sharon Raydor had a gentleman caller, an effortlessly good-looking man with the temerity to show up during the work day to whisk the captain off her feet. The blonde tore open the M&M’s with excessive force and the candies scattered across her desk, some tumbling onto the floor. “Shoot,” she scowled, popping a blue candy into her mouth.
It occurred to her, as she arranged the M&M’s by color on top of a crime scene photo of blood spatter, that there was absolutely no reason for Brenda to be so jealous. Who was she except a friend to the older woman?
Who, exactly, did she want to be?
Brenda popped a handful of orange candies into her mouth, the phone issuing a resounding chirp as she began to chew. A quick glance at the caller ID told her that it was Sharon.
“Yes?” Brenda asked coolly once she’d cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder, her nimble fingers tearing at the gold Twix wrapper.
“Call me crazy, but I could swear that I saw you in the lobby a few minutes ago,” Sharon said, the tone of her voice carefree and pleasant, belying the accusation in her statement. “Why didn’t you say hello?”
“I didn’t want to interrupt,” Brenda lied, instantly wishing that she had said she hadn’t seen her.
“You should have. I could have introduced you to Richard! He flew in from Philadelphia this morning completely by surprise, can you believe it?”
“How ‘bout that,” Brenda drawled, biting into her chocolate-caramel snack. “Maybe next time.”
“That’s why I’m calling. I know we had plans tonight, but I hoped we could take a raincheck on the film. Why don’t you join us for dinner instead?”
Brenda screwed her eyebrows together in confusion. Why on earth would Sharon invite her along as a third wheel on her date? Nostrils flaring, Brenda plastered on a fake smile that the other woman obviously couldn’t see. “That’s all right. You two have a good time without me.”
“I insist, Brenda.”
“Like I said...maybe next time. Listen, I’ve gotta go. Talk to you later.” She hung up before the other woman could say another word.
It should have been satisfying to act like such a selfish snot, but Brenda felt worse than ever. Her chocolate, her decadent, feel-good, beloved treat, tasted like ash in her mouth. For a split second she thought about lifting the receiver from its cradle and calling back, making some lame excuse and accepting Sharon’s invitation; and then she pictured the three of them sitting at dinner, somewhere with linen tablecloths and flickering candlelight, while Richard and Sharon played footsie under the table and Brenda prayed for someone important to die.
Hell, no. Sharon could insist all she wanted to; Brenda wasn’t going.
The deputy chief gulped down the ashy Twix and grabbed for another handful of M&Ms, hoping for better results. Candy shells shattered and crunched between her molars, and she scowled vaguely at her screensaver. She tried to convince herself that she was mollified by the dinner invitation the captain had extended, even if it was insincere (it had to be insincere, didn’t it?); but it was hard not to feel slighted. Sharon was her best friend, and surely she was Sharon’s too, and yet the other woman hadn’t even mentioned that she had some jet-setting silver-fox lover squirrelled away somewhere. Brenda was beginning to think that Sharon was pathologically secretive.
For some reason, though, this stung in a way that finding out about Vivien and Clarissa hadn’t. She thought they’d gotten past all this, that they’d formed an unusual sort of bond, shared something deeper than shopping for sofas and chatting over Chinese take-out. Splashing in the bathtub with Sharon’s granddaughter, hearing the reassuring rise and fall of the other woman’s breath as she slept beside her, wiping away the tears Sharon hadn’t been ashamed to shed while Brenda looked on: these were acts that meant something. They were... intimate.
That was it, Brenda admitted miserably to herself, moving on to a Reese’s cup like a ravening horde of one. She’d begun to see herself as the one person who had access to those simple, intimate aspects of Sharon Raydor’s life, and Brenda Leigh had never liked to share. As a child she’d been fiercely possessive of her toys, much to her mother’s chagrin. Not, of course, that Sharon was a toy. No, she was something rarer and far more wonderful: a true friend. Brenda didn’t want to share her.
The older woman had never looked at Brenda the way she’d looked at Richard. He probably knew all about Vivien’s disappearance. Hell, he was probably Clarissa’s godfather. Daniel probably called him Uncle Dick. And yet, where had he been Saturday night when Sharon had been sobbing her heart out? He hadn’t been anywhere around, supplying tissues and ooh-long.
And kisses.
Not that the kiss was the issue. That had been a sweet, chaste exchange between friends, a wordless expression of gratitude and affection. It had nothing in common with the way Sharon would be kissing her mystery man later tonight, needy and passionate and urgent. Not that Brenda had any desire to think about that, and not that she was being assaulted by a barrage of images of the same.
Perhaps the real rub was that, even as Brenda was totally caught off guard by the man’s appearance -- by his very existence -- her rational mind told her she shouldn’t be. Sharon insisted she wasn’t interested in dating anyone, and was cagey about her recent sexual history, both things that made perfect sense if she had some occasional, bi-coastal (because the man had “East Coast” written all over him) lover. The deputy chief thought of Sharon as she’d known her for the past three years, rather than Sharon as she’d known her for the last few months, and had to admit that such an arrangement seemed like it would suit the FID captain to a tee.
Brenda stared moodily at the candy wrappers littering the surface of her desk and wondered if she was the only person in the world not having sex.
Surely if Sharon was getting laid, Brenda could too.
Her mind resolutely made up, Brenda opened the middle drawer of the desk, rummaging around pens and stray business cards until she settled upon the one she was looking for. She sat back in her chair as she traced her thumb over the embossed name, a wicked smile playing across her lips.
**
When Brenda jammed her finger against the button that opened the main door to the apartment complex twenty minutes earlier than the agreed upon time, she vaguely paused to consider that the cards were already stacked against Dr. Jack C. Mendell. To be fair, they’d never actually been in his favor, but Brenda Leigh Johnson was too stubborn to admit when she’d made a foolishly impulsive decision.
She waited impatiently by the door for his arrival, wondering if it was too late to change her mind. Would a migraine be believable? Brenda quickly pushed that thought from her mind; the last time she’d pulled that excuse, she ended up with a blinding headache of skull-splitting proportions, her body psychosomatically punishing her for her lie. A sick kitten would certainly be believable, but could she trust that she wouldn’t jinx the feline into vomiting all over the beautiful red sofa? Besides, as the cat spun around in circles in the middle of the room, chasing her own tail, Brenda knew that neither one of them would pass for being sick.
There was a knock. With a bracing sigh, the deputy chief plastered a jovial smile to her face and opened the door.
“Wow,” said Jack, his blue eyes roving over her form, pausing for several seconds on her cleavage, “you look spectacular.”
The blonde nearly rolled her eyes, biting back the desire to tell him that the rest of her looked just as good, if not better, than her breasts. “Thank you so much. Come on in.” She stood aside and allowed him to enter, already bristling at the overwhelmingly masculine presence in her living space. “I’m just about ready.”
“Take your time,” he added with a pearly white grin. “I’m a little early, I know. I was just so surprised that you called today that I didn’t want to give you a chance to change your mind.”
Brenda flushed. Of course she would be that obvious to a psychologist. “You were that surprised?”
“When I gave you my card a few months ago, I never expected you to actually call.” He chuckled, sitting down uninvited on the sofa. “I’m very glad you did.” His sharp eyes darted over to the cat’s acrobatic display on the carpet. “And who’s this little guy?”
“This is Sugar.” She had settled on the name last night when, at Sharon’s insistence via text message, she was reminded that she’d have to provide the vet with a moniker when she finally took her for her shots.
“Hey there, little fella,” Jack said, his charming smile directed at the white and gray animal.
“She’s a girl. We’re an all-girl household, aren’t we, Sugar?”
The psychologist laughed. “I’m honored to have been invited into the clubhouse. I have two dogs myself, both males. Domino’s a Dalmation and Butch is a Wiemaraner.” He grinned proudly. “They’re great. Guess you could say we’ve got ourselves a bachelor pad back home. I bet they’d love you.”
Brenda had no idea what a wiemawhatchamacallit was, but found that she didn’t care all that much to find out. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just finish up and then we can go.” And get this over with, she thought. She swiftly ducked into her bedroom, closing the door behind her with a relieved sigh.
Deciding at the last minute to go on a date with a man she didn’t know had not been one of her smartest ideas. She’d met Dr. Mendell on a case, where he had been a character witness for a man with Antisocial Personality Disorder who had set fire to a building, killing two people and seriously injuring one. The doctor had taken a liking to Brenda, despite her insistence that the nutjob be held responsible for his actions. He had managed to secure his patient long-term psychiatric treatment rather than prison time and Brenda had decided to lose his number.
Of all the men who had come on to her over the years, why had she chosen the one who had, for all intents and purposes, beaten her?
The answer was simple: Brenda was jealous and Jack was available. He was handsome enough with his dirty-blonde hair and his California tan; in her younger days, Brenda would surely have considered him a catch. Something had changed; the rugged masculinity and muscular physique did nothing for her anymore.
Out in his car, which was something imported and incredibly expensive and equally uncomfortable, Brenda gave herself what her daddy would have termed a strong talking-to. The point of this evening, she reminded herself, was to get to know someone new, someone she might be interested in spending time with. Jack Mendell was as likely a prospect as anyone else, and if she had no intention of giving him the benefit of the doubt, she might as well have stayed home. Then she’d be right back where she started, with all her eggs in one basket -- Captain Sharon Raydor’s basket.
“You’ll love this restaurant,” Jack promised, grinning over at her as he shifted gears, and Brenda forced herself to smile back enthusiastically. Then he lightly patted her knee through the sheer fabric of her dress, and Brenda stiffened. “They do great regional Thai food -- northern Thai, which is hard to get around here. The authentic stuff, I mean.”
Sharon had been to Thailand. There was a framed photo of her in her living room, tucked away in one corner of the large bookcase, showing the brunette against a background of rolling hills and lush green foliage. Brenda Leigh had imagined being there with her friend, standing upon that hilltop.
“I like Thai,” Brenda replied, mildly encouraged.
The restaurant, which Jack had termed “a quiet neighborhood joint,” turned out to be an upscale bistro. Brenda took in the teak tables and soft lights gleaming from burnished brass sconces, and again envisioned Sharon and Richard amid a sea of linen tablecloths and flickering candles. Blinking away the image, she smiled as Jack pulled her chair out for her. The smile turned into a wince as he pushed her a little too close to the table. Easing herself back, Brenda opened her menu, only to have it plucked from between her fingertips.
“You don’t need that.” Jack winked at her, his dark blue eyes twinkling. “I’ll order for us. Trust me, I know what’s good.”
Internally, and perhaps externally, the deputy chief bristled. She didn’t even know this man; how dare he presume he’d know what she wanted to eat?
It’s a new experience, she insisted to herself. Be open to new experiences. Sharon took you to that Cambodian sandwich place and convinced you to order the catfish, and you liked that.
So she sat quietly, smile pasted in place, while Dr. Jack reeled off an order to their black-shirted server, interrupting only when he added, “And tone the spice down a little, all right?”
Brenda’s lips flattened into a line. “I like spicy,” she cut in, and turned to the waiter. “I’ll have mine however you usually prepare it, please.”
The waiter nodded and smiled, and the skin around Jack’s eyes tightened for just a second before it relaxed. “Okay, Brenda,” he said slowly, his affable smile returning. “You like it hot. I’ll remember that.”
You won’t have the chance, she thought, and then reminded herself that she wasn’t allowed to think that way, at least not until after their appetizer had been served.
The crunchy little baskets of minced chicken and corn were delicious; the conversation was not. Jack regaled her with tales of the time he’d spent backpacking around Southeast Asia as a twenty-something. The anecdotes themselves weren’t at all objectionable, but there was something about his tone, the twinge of smugness it harbored, the way he laughed a little too loudly and long at his own jokes, that made Brenda long for her fuzzy pajamas and equally fuzzy kitty, and perhaps an extra large glass of Merlot.
Speaking of which -- Brenda flagged their waiter down as he passed. “Red wine,” she requested. “Merlot, malbec, whatever.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I should’ve asked if you wanted beer or wine with dinner.” Jack wiped his lips a little too precisely with his napkin and smiled again. He had a fleck of green cucumber skin trapped between his bottom teeth. “I don’t drink myself, but I don’t mind if you do.”
Brenda felt her mouth tighten, but she managed a small smile, and hoped the waiter returned very quickly with her wine.
Halfway through the main course she excused herself to the ladies’ room. As she locked the door of the little cubicle behind her, she sighed with relief. Brenda had the urge to bash her head against the wall. What in the world was she doing here? This had been a terrible, terrible idea. Her date was a perfectly nice man, or at least she supposed he was, but he did absolutely nothing for her. Sugar, pajamas, her lovely red sofa: these things beckoned like never before, the siren call almost strong enough to make her call for a cab. Somewhere out there was some perfectly nice woman who would swoon over a perfectly nice man like Dr. Jack Mendell with his sports car and his macho dogs and his fondness for northern Thai cuisine. Brenda Leigh Johnson wasn’t that woman.
Her fingernails sinking into the squares of toilet paper she held fisted in her hand, Brenda bowed her head over her splayed knees, her back slumping. Jack Mendell wasn’t what, or who, she wanted tonight at all, and neither were any of the other men whose business cards lay discarded in her desk drawer. The truth was that the blonde wanted something -- someone -- entirely different.
Had she always been moving toward this moment, locked in a bathroom that smelled strongly of incense and disinfectant, realizing what had probably been obvious all along? Admittedly, Brenda was notorious for avoiding deep introspection and situations of a serious personal nature. It was easier that way; no one--well, mostly Brenda--ended up hurt when she refused to accept the perfectly unmistakable.
However, now that Brenda was faced with this inevitable conclusion, she was the one who would end up hurt, because Sharon was still the one who was off with a man who was probably perfectly nice and who clearly made her happy.
Brenda, on the other hand, was alone. Unless, of course, she counted Dr. Jack, which she did not. She rolled her eyes and accepted her fate: she could not simply click her heels three times and return home.
When Brenda arrived back at the table, she was stunned to see that her entree had been cleared away. “Where’d the food go?” she asked hesitantly, already dreading his answer.
“I assumed you were finished,” Jack replied with a smile. “I ordered us dessert.”
The blonde blinked at him and slowly reached for her wine. She remembered in that moment that her sidearm was tucked in its holster in her purse; certainly a psychologist knew how dangerous it was to mess with a woman’s food? She took a large gulp. The night was almost over...the night was almost over...the night was almost over...
“I was thinking we could stop by this little art gallery nearby,” he suggested, thanking the waiter when he set down one plate of an unrecognizable fruity concoction and two smaller dessert forks. “I know the artist--he’s a minimalist. You’d love him. Give him six months and his work will be in the home of every actor this side of the Hollywood sign.”
This was dessert? Brenda wondered with horror, eyeing it with uncertainty as he stuck his fork into the corner of it, gathering up a bite-size of orangey goop. He held it up to her mouth and waited, his grin ever-present, until she gamely accepted the bite. It was sour and bitter and she puckered her mouth into an awkward smile as she quickly chewed, swallowed, and washed it down with another mouthful of Merlot.
“What do you say?” he prompted again, taking a bite for himself. He hummed in satisfaction and went back for another.
Brenda licked her lips. Sharon would never presume to know what she wanted without asking her. Sharon would never judge her for having a glass of wine with dinner or take her food away when she decided that Brenda was finished. Sharon would never make her feel like a pretty marionette to be controlled.
“I’d better not,” the blonde said, forcing a hint of disappointment into her voice. “I’ve gotta feed Sugar. I’m still workin’ on housebreakin’ her, so I’ve gotta stick to a routine--y’know, feedin’ her at the same time every night and all.”
Brenda held her breath for the barest instant, waiting for his response. Surely an intelligent man would find it odd that she was so anxious about housebreaking a cat. But then, Dr. Jack was a dog man.
“Ah yes.” Jack nodded knowingly, regaling her with tales of housebreaking his youngest dog, sparing no detail of soiled couch cushions and carpets while he inhaled the remainder of the dessert. It was just as well that it wasn’t chocolate; she would have had to stab him with the fork to keep him from devouring it.
The drive back to Brenda’s apartment complex was endless. She hated his car, hated the know-it-all tone of his voice, hated Richard, and hated that Jack wasn’t Sharon.
He pulled up in front of the building and turned off the car, looking at her expectantly. “Shall I join you and make us some coffee while you feed the cat?”
Brenda gaped. She couldn’t do this anymore. “Y’know what, Jack? I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She unbuckled her seatbelt and collected her purse from the floor. “This was nice an’ all, but I just realized I might have feelin’s for someone else, and I think I’d like to see where that goes. Thanks for helpin’ me realize that, Jack. You have a nice night now!”
Stretching limbs that had been awkwardly contorted in the low-slung seats of the sports car, Brenda reflected that this date hadn’t been a total loss after all. It had turned out to be pretty therapeutic -- appropriate, since Jack was a psychiatrist and all. And not only had Brenda not had to pay for it, but she’d gotten a free dinner into the bargain. Well, half a dinner, she mentally qualified, and then wondered if she was maybe a little hysterical.
She hovered in the lobby until she was sure Jack was out of sight, and then turned around and marched back the way she’d come, her heels ringing authoritatively on the pavement. The more she thought about Sharon and her mystery man, the angrier she became. Who did that designer-suit-wearing Yankee bitch of an FID captain think she was, anyway? You just didn’t go around kissing people on the mouth and then letting other people call you “sweetheart.” It was just rude, and Brenda was going to tell her so.
Brenda was so busy seething that her stomach didn’t tie itself into a thousand knots until she’d already turned onto Sharon’s street. What on earth was she doing here? For one thing, Sharon probably wasn’t even back from dinner yet, and if she was, Richard would certainly be there with her. They might be doing... things. In fact, it was entirely likely that they were doing things, if they only saw one another every few months.
The blonde felt all her features pucker into a scowl. Maybe Richard was a traveling salesman with a woman in every port. Or maybe he was married! She pictured a blurry wife and two-point-oh equally blurry children. Sharon obviously hadn’t thought this through... Or maybe she had. Maybe she knew, the home-wrecking Jezebel.
It was this thought that gave Brenda Leigh the push she needed to turn into the driveway, parking behind an unfamiliar car that she immediately pegged as a rental, stalk up onto the porch, and jab the doorbell. She wasn’t entirely sure if she was here to save Sharon from herself, to shake her until her perfect teeth rattled, or to hand her her ass. She’d make that decision when she actually saw her, if she ever came to the door.
She’s probably gettin’ dressed, Brenda reminded herself, and scowled harder.
When she heard footsteps approach and the doorknob turn, Brenda automatically looked down, suddenly very afraid of what she might see, so her gaze fixated first on the bare feet that were revealed to her. Soft, white, bare feet with nails polished an indeterminate dark color that looked black in the dim glow from inside the house, and with a band-aid on one ankle. She couldn’t have said why the sight of that band-aid suddenly made her feel like crying.
“Brenda?”
She looked up slowly, expecting bare skin or something thrown together in haste, and instead got chocolate-colored chinos, a wine-colored sweater, and a patterned silk scarf knotted and pinned at Sharon’s throat. She got inquisitive green eyes gazing at her with a touch of wonder from behind the lenses of Sharon’s glasses.
“Are you okay?”
The question, asked in Sharon’s familiar tone of careful concern, alerted Brenda to the fact that she was gawking, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, like a zombie. No, she thought, and then realized she’d said it out loud as Sharon’s eyes flared in alarm.
Confronted with the reality of this woman she considered her best friend, Brenda didn’t shake her or scold her or say a single word. She did the only thing she could think of.
She kissed her.
The innocence of their first kiss could have been written off as something that happened between friends under highly emotional circumstances. The second kiss could not, if only because there was a second kiss.
For a brief, stunned moment, illuminated by the warm glow of the interior of the house, Brenda Leigh could only think about one thing: she was kissing Sharon again. Her lips had slackened in shock and, when Brenda’s fingertips ghosted against the line of Sharon’s jaw, the other woman pursed her lips and kissed her back.
Like the first kiss, there was no time to marvel at how soft Sharon’s lips were or how shockingly different it felt to kiss a woman. It was over seconds later when Sharon stepped back, her eyes narrowing in confused indignation. “What the hell was that all about?” she asked, the befuddled tone of her voice masking the accusation.
Brenda blinked. She had no idea what that had been about or why she had done it or why she was doing any of this. She was acting like a certifiably crazy person. She quickly scrambled for the reason why she’d been acting this way in the first place and glared right back. “Your boyfriend,” she said, spitting out the word. “What’re you doin’ kissin’ people when you’ve got a boyfriend?”
The captain gaped, her face flushing brightly. “Are you insane?”
Brenda merely stared at her. She had, after all, walked out on a perfectly nice head shrinker of her very own.
“Sis? Everything all right out here?” Richard asked, coming up behind Sharon. Matching green eyes gave Brenda a once-over, his hand resting on Sharon’s shoulder.
The younger woman immediately felt as if she’d been doused in ice water. Brother? Richard was her brother? The resemblance was uncanny now that she had a chance to really look at him, from the shapes of their mouths to their identical eyes. How had she missed something so obvious?
“Brenda Leigh Johnson, I’d like you to meet my brother, Richard Raydor,” Sharon said dryly, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
“So this is the woman I’ve been hearing so much about.” Richard held out his hand and Brenda stared at it in wonder, an uncomfortable lump forming in her throat. “It’s very nice to have a face to match the name.”
Brenda slowly slipped her clammy palm against his, allowing him to guide their clasped hands in a firm handshake. She smiled politely and looked between the two of them. “It’s a pleasure.” She swallowed tightly. “I’m sorry, but may I use your powder room? I think I may be sick.”
**
Sharon stared out the living room window, watching the old woman across the street step outside and place a letter in the mailbox. Behind her, the faint sound of running water from the sink in the bathroom masked the sound of Brenda’s vomiting. She pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes.
“That was...different,” Richard remarked, coming to stand beside her.
“I apologize. I have no idea what’s gotten into her.”
He watched her for a moment, the faintest twitch of his eyebrow indicating his disbelief.
“Don’t,” she warned.
“I didn’t say a thing,” he replied, raising his hands in supplication.
“You didn’t have to.” She wandered away from him into the kitchen, where she set about making a cup of mint tea to ease the stomach of her neurotic friend--the same woman who was, for some reason, not okay and who had kissed her.
“I’m, uh, I’m really sorry.”
Brenda’s small, cringing voice startled the older woman and she whirled. How had Brenda tip-toed in here in those heels? Maybe they taught you that at CIA school. In fact, if female agents dressed the way they did in the movies and on TV, it would have to be part of the training.
Sharon realized the blonde was waiting for her to say something. “Don’t worry about it.” She handed over the waiting cup and saucer. “Mint tea. It will help.”
She tried to ignore the way Brenda’s huge, luminous eyes were glued to her face as the deputy chief stammered, “I must’ve eaten somethin’ that disagreed with me at dinner.”
Sharon hummed and busied herself wiping away a nonexistent speck on the counter. “You’re awfully dressed up.”
Brenda gazed down at her own fingers picking at the sleeve of her navy silk dress. She recalled that Sharon had complimented her warmly the last time she’d worn it to work (she’d had an important court appearance that day), and realized in the same breath that that was the reason she’d chosen to wear it for her date tonight. She felt sick all over again and gulped at the scalding tea.
The captain didn’t speak, and Brenda knew she was awaiting a response to her unasked question. “Yeah, I had a … dinner thing.”
Sharon frowned and opened her mouth, no doubt to say something about their planned outing to the movies, and the blonde hastily added, “I’d forgotten about it. So it’s just as well that Richard showed up, actually.”
“A dinner thing,” the taller woman repeated, and her eyebrows arched. “A date?” Brenda nodded a little too earnestly and Sharon continued, “You forgot you had a date?” For a second Sharon looked perplexed, and then her lips thinned. She wasn’t fooled in the slightest.
Before she could follow up, Richard lumbered into the kitchen. “He must’ve been really memorable, then.”
Brenda smiled gratefully. “He was,” she confirmed ruefully. “Won’t be seein’ him again.”
“You should’ve come to dinner with us instead,” Sharon’s brother continued, lightly rubbing his sister’s shoulder, and again Brenda kicked herself for not having immediately noticed the resemblance. As she studied them side by side, she was hammered over the head with the similarity of their lean, clean-lined forms, their perfect straight noses, even the shape of their hands. Some great detective she was.
“Tomorrow night?”
Distracted, it took Brenda a couple of seconds to register what Richard was asking, and then she instinctively looked to her friend for help, for a cue. Sharon gazed back at her, her eyes dark and opaque.
“Oh, well, uh, I might have to work.”
“I know,” Richard returned with an easy affability that reminded the chief of Daniel. “Sharon might have to work, too. But if you aren’t off engaging in very important police-type activities, come over tomorrow night at seven. I’m cooking, and I’m a much better cook than my sister.”
Brenda grinned weakly. “Sure.” She darted a look at the clock on the microwave. “And I should probably be goin’. I just dropped by to say hi and, ah, meet Richard.” And kiss you and throw up in your bathroom.
She was beginning to think that she’d gotten off easy -- that because of Richard’s presence, Sharon wasn’t going to press, wasn’t going to ask the hard questions, like why she’d scrounged up a last-minute date of desperation and just what the actual fuck Brenda Leigh had thought she was doing by grabbing her and kissing her.
Unlikely.
Sharon’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t rush off,” she said, her tone excessively pleasant. “Come into the living room and join us. Stay a while. I insist.”
Brenda Leigh swallowed another small sip of her tea, swishing the mint around subtly to take away the last remnants of hot, sour bile. No way could she refuse twice in one day when Sharon insisted.
When Brenda nodded and began to follow Sharon toward the living room, Richard playfully yanked on a lock of his sister’s hair. “Go ahead, Sherry. I’ll be right there.”
“Sherry, huh?” Brenda repeated with a bright smile, seizing any possible conversational diversion and running with it.
“Don’t even think about it,” the other woman returned humorlessly.
Brenda stood awkwardly on the edge of the brightly striped rug, hoping Sharon would sit first and she’d figure out what to do with herself. But having clearly picked up on her friend’s anxiety, the captain stood resolutely in the middle of the room, arms folded.
“I didn’t know you had a brother.”
“But I told you I had a -- Oh.” Brenda looked up from her perusal of a chair leg in time to see understanding and something else dawn in those warm green eyes.
“Yeah, ‘oh.’ I thought you meant you had a twin sister.”
The older woman grinned crookedly. “I told you I looked much better in a skirt,” she reminded, and at last sat down at one end of the sofa.
Brenda gingerly sat at the opposite end, wishing she were instead sitting in her car or, better yet, in her apartment. She hadn’t wished so strongly for the ability to turn back the clock in years. “I thought you were just bein’ cute,” Brenda said after a moment of silence.
“I’m always cute,” Sharon deadpanned. Despite her attempt to lighten the mood, neither of them was smiling. She sighed. “Brenda....why did you kiss me?”
“Why did you kiss me first?” Brenda spat back, plucking at the hem of her dress, pulling it as far over her knees as the material would allow.
It took a great deal of resolve for Sharon to refrain from rolling her eyes. “I know what this is about.”
“Would you care to share with the class?”
“You were jealous. You thought I was seeing Richard, so you went on a date with some stranger to get back at me.”
Humiliation burned anew in Brenda’s cheeks and she stared at the floor, wishing that it might just open up and swallow her whole. Her silence was all the response Sharon needed.
The older woman gave a derisive snort. “Do you really feel so threatened by the possibility of me spending time with other people who aren’t you? You don’t have any other friends of your own, and you don’t want me to either?”
Whatever Brenda was expecting Sharon to say, it wasn’t that. “What?”
“I knew you were possessive, but this is a little excessive, even for you.”
Brenda laughed. Smart, rational Sharon Raydor was wrong--for once. The deputy chief would have gloated, reveling in the minute victory, but she found herself far more concerned with making the other woman understand what even she had difficulty grasping.
“That’s not why I went on a date. I was---I was so mad and so hurt and...I didn’t kiss you because I’m lonely.”
“Why else would you?”
“Because I wanted to.”
Sharon blinked and slowly licked her lips, unaware that the habitual act had pulled Brenda’s gaze away from her eyes and directly to her mouth. Brenda had wanted to kiss her and so she had, and now she was looking at her as if she wanted to do it again. Something coiled tight and hot in Sharon’s stomach, a tense spring just waiting to be released. She struggled to find something to say and, when words failed her, she simply latched onto Brenda’s. “You wanted to kiss me.”
Brown eyes gave an exaggerated roll. “I wouldn’t have done it otherwise, would I? If kissin’ you was so horrible the first time, why would I have done it again?” She pursed her lips and twisted her body on the sofa until she was directly facing the captain, her dress rising a little higher up her thigh. “Is that why you’re pressin’ this so much? You hated kissin’ me and didn’t wanna do it again? Was it that horrible?”
The captain’s heart hammered uncomfortably in her chest. Everything about this situation made her want to retreat back inside her head. How could she possibly admit that she had been unable to think about anything other than the kiss they shared without also giving voice to the confusing jumble of thoughts and worries in her mind? “It wasn’t horrible, Brenda Leigh.”
The blonde nodded, watching her closely, hoping to read any shift in her carefully closed features. “Why is it that when you initiate the kissin’, we can pretend it never happened, but when I do it, you have to talk about it till the cows come home? I don’t think that’s a very fair double standard, now is it?”
“Because I need to understand,” Sharon responded abruptly, with a flicker of fire as if a match had been struck. She was sitting so rigidly that it was a relief to her, and probably to Brenda as well, when she sprang to her feet and planted herself in front of the other woman, hands balled into fists at her thighs. “Look, I -- Brenda --” She distractedly ran her fingers through her hair, swiping it back from the crown of her head, and she knew the younger woman saw that her hand was shaking. “You know, I was always the quiet one. The shy, awkward one who inevitably picked the wrong moment to be too opinionated or laugh too loudly. Richard was the gregarious one, the popular one. I never minded. I liked my own little world with my books and nature walks and old movies, and he shared his friends with me.”
The change of subject seemed so abrupt that Brenda Leigh blinked rapidly, startled, as her thoughts scrambled to catch up. “Okay,” she said quietly, waiting for Sharon to go on.
“I never had to make my own friends until I went away to college and didn’t have Richard there to do it for me,” the captain continued frankly. “I did all right, but the point is that I’ve never been good at it, Brenda. And somewhere along the way life happened and I stopped trying, stopped bothering. What I’m saying --” She paused for several seconds, her eyes meeting Brenda’s directly and scrutinizing. “ -- is that I haven’t had a really close friend for a long time. You -- your friendship means a great deal to me, and if I behaved inappropriately the other night...”
“You didn’t,” Brenda murmured softly. Her cheeks felt hot. She couldn’t figure out if Sharon was apologizing or chastising her or trying to let her down easily or what. For someone who was normally so direct, Sharon Raydor wasn’t very easy to read when it came to personal matters. “Unless you’re sayin’ you think it was inappropriate.”
“No. I -- No.” Sharon whipped her glasses off with one hand, not caring whether she warped the frames, and rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “What I’m saying, only I’m doing it badly, is that God only knows how it happened, but you’re my best friend, and I have no intention of jeopardizing that.” Her eyes locked on Brenda’s again then, wide and anxious and startlingly vulnerable without the shield of her glasses. “Because I sure as hell need a friend, Brenda.”
Instinctively Brenda rose, both of her hands reaching out to touch Sharon lightly above her elbows. “You’ve got one,” she reassured the taller woman, smiling a watery smile and only mildly embarrassed that she had to blink back tears and that her voice was unnaturally thick. “You’ve got me, okay? I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
Sharon’s arms went around her, hugging so tightly that for a second Brenda was startled. Then she returned the hug just as fiercely, soothingly patting the other woman’s back in the process.
“Okay,” Sharon agreed, her warm breath tickling the hair at Brenda’s ear. “I’m not going anywhere either, Brenda. Not even if I do trip over some drop-dead gorgeous man who wants to sweep me off my feet.”
“Or drive you off in his Italian sports car,” the younger woman suggested, resting her smooth, warm cheek against Sharon’s.
“Did yours have a sports car?” the captain asked, sounding mildly intrigued.
Brenda nodded, causing her curls to tickle Sharon’s skin. “And a weema -- wima -- a dog named Butch.”
Sharon giggled.
“Sharon, he ordered my food for me,” Brenda admitted tragically.
The other woman responded with an exaggerated shudder, and they both chuckled. And then they laughed. And then they laughed some more.
The rap on the door frame was, Brenda decided, a thoughtful touch. “Everything okay?”
Sharon didn’t spring away from the other woman this time, but turned in Brenda’s embrace to face her brother. “Oh, fine.” She lightly patted blonde curls where they lay against the smaller woman’s back. “Brenda Leigh just had a bad date.”
“Terrible date,” she confirmed cheerfully, breathing in the subtly spicy, clean scent she’d learned to associate with the captain. “But I’m feelin’ much better now.”
Sharon’s eyes sparkled and her teeth flashed in her quick, knowing smile. “It was probably the tea.”
“Probably,” the deputy chief agreed, and impulsively leaned forward to hug her friend again. “Now I really do have to go, but I’ll see y’all tomorrow night.” Finally stepping away from Sharon, she held her hand out to the woman’s twin. “Richard, so nice to meet you. I look forward to talkin’ some more over dinner. I want to hear all the dirt.”
Richard smirked, an expression that was uncannily familiar. “Somehow I suspect you might have more dirt on my sister than I do.”
Sharon whacked him across the midsection with the back of her hand and smiled guilelessly. “Good night, Brenda.”
“Good night,” the younger woman echoed. She really was feeling much better than she had when she’d arrived, she reassured herself. And if her eyes lingered on Sharon’s a few seconds too long and she felt a blush creep over her flesh as she finally turned away, well, where was the big deal in that?
And really, if Brenda listened to the rational little voice in her head, perhaps it had been for the best that Sharon had resolutely steered them away from hastily rushing into anything outside the bounds of friendship. She couldn’t deny that she was disappointed, but she chose to focus instead on the affirmation of the platonic relationship they shared.
The relief that continued to course through her with the new-found knowledge that Richard was Sharon’s brother, not her mystery lover, was, Brenda insisted to herself, perfectly natural, and nothing at all to feel guilty about. She never had liked to share; and tonight’s experience with the not-so-good doctor had left her feeling that looking elsewhere for companionship was just too risky. Having Sharon all to herself was... comfortable. Wasn’t that what friends were for?
After Brenda had left, Sharon crossed to the front door and flipped the lock. When she turned around, she was greeted by the wall of Richard’s chest.
“So that’s Brenda Leigh,” he said, his eyes gleaming.
“That is Brenda Leigh.” She ducked around her brother and stopped by the back of the sofa, fussily readjusting the throw. She felt his acute eyes tracking her every minute movement.
“The two of you seem very... close.”
A teeny, tiny part of the captain was tempted to use that psychic twin connection, exploit the fact that Richard often understood her better than she understood herself. Maybe he could explain this situation with a certain brilliant, maddening, unexpectedly sweet, drawling, beautiful bitch of a deputy chief. He could tell her why her lips had tingled and her heart had pounded when Brenda had pressed their lips together and oh-so-lightly stroked her cheek, and why that had scared her worse than having a loaded Glock cocked at her temple. Perhaps he could break it down into simple, monosyllabic words she might actually comprehend.
But on second thought, the last thing he needed after nearly fifty-five years was more ammunition to use against her. He’d never let her live down the desperate crush she’d had on his best friend throughout high school, or the time their mother had had to make her an emergency appointment with the dentist because she’d been practicing her kissing technique on her pillow and her braces had gotten horribly snagged on the lacy sham.
Sharon planted her hands on her hips and fixed her beloved twin with a steely glare. “Don’t you dare start,” she warned in her most no-nonsense tone. “Don’t forget, Richard: Sister Sherry is licensed to carry a concealed weapon.”
---