Frisk Me(82)

He was glad it was different. Though it was still too easy to remember what it had been like before.

Luc sat at a tiny white table as she pulled a mug out of the cupboard, also with lemons on it.

He studied her, looking for signs of a broken woman, but there were none. She was simply the curvy, warm woman he remembered.

A little sadder maybe. How could she not be?

But this was not a woman who’d let herself be destroyed by the loss of a spouse.

She was a survivor.

Just as Mike would have wanted.

“You’re looking good, Bev.”

She laughed as she handed him the coffee, black, the way he liked it. “Good of you to say. Mid-forties aren’t agreeing with me. The hair is easy enough to fix, thank you, Clairol. The lower metabolism…” She patted a rounded hip. “Not so much.”

She smiled, poured herself coffee, and sat across from him, studying his face.

“You’re looking happy, Luc.”

The word surprised him.

Happy? Was he?

If he was, he didn’t deserve to be.

Bev smiled into her coffee. “I know that look.”

Luc groaned. How was it that all females thought he had a look lately. “Do I even want to hear this?”

“Probably not, but what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t tell you that you have the mark of a woman all over you?”

He glanced down at his light gray polo and jeans.

“No, not like that,” Bev said, waving her hand. “It’s on your face. Someone’s got you feeling happy and you don’t know how to react.”

An image of Ava with crooked glasses, messy hair, and a sassy smile flitted through his mind. He pushed the thought away.

Luc wasn’t going to go there. Not now. Maybe not ever.

Instead, he reached across the table for Beverly’s hand. “What about you, Bev? Are you the woman making some guy happy?”

It was a bold question, and he hoped she wouldn’t take it as an affront to Mike’s memory.

But it had been two years. And if anyone deserved to be happy, it was this woman.

To his relief, a shy smile crept across her face and she glanced down at the table.

“Maybe. It’s early yet, but there’s this single dad at Joey’s school. We’ve done coffee a couple times, and have dinner plans on Friday.”

Luc squeezed her hand. “Can I watch Joey for you?”

She glanced up in surprise, and he regretted her astonishment. He should have been here all along, helping out.

“I should have been around,” he said gruffly. “I’m hoping better late than never…”

She squeezed his hand back. “Luc. You don’t owe us anything. And his grandparents are watching him this weekend. But thank you.”

Luc cleared his throat. “Beverly, we never really talked about what happened that day.”

“The day when Mike died.”

Luc flinched at her candor. “Yes.”

Bev stood and retrieved the coffeepot even though they’d both barely touched their mugs.

“Luc, have you ever talked to your mom about what it’s like to be married to a cop? To have four sons that are cops?”

He frowned. What did his mother have to do with this?

“Not really,” he admitted.

“Growing up, did you ever see the tension on her face when your dad was later than he said he’d be? Or the slight bracing every time he left for work in the morning?”

Luc swallowed. Nodded. Sure, he’d seen it.

Beverly’s expression was both sad and kind. “Being married to a cop isn’t like being married to a Wall Street broker or a bartender or a marketing manager, Luca. The back of your mind…the back of your heart…always knows that every time you kiss him good-bye in the morning might be the last time you ever see him.”

Luc opened his mouth, but she cut him off.

“I know you think there were things you could have done differently, and maybe there were. But Luc, it could have just as easily happened if he’d been called to a domestic dispute case gone wrong, or hostage situation, or just some unstable whacko.”

He opened his mouth again, but Bev wasn’t done. “It could have just as easily been you that was shot, Luc. You ever think about that?”

Her quiet statement rolled over Luc like a semi.

He hadn’t thought about that.

Not once had it ever occurred to him that he and Mike had walked side by side up the walkway to that decrepit house.

It hadn’t even really occurred to him that he’d been two feet away from Mike when the bullets ripped through him.

Luc had never stopped to think that when the * had opened his front door and taken aim at a cop, he’d done so at random.

It could have just as easily been Luc who died that day.

And it could have been Mike who was beating himself up over his partner’s death.

Bev nodded as she saw that he understood. “I don’t blame you for feeling what you feel, Luc. I know you feel guilty, just as I know in my heart that Mike would have the same struggles, the same survivor’s guilt if things had ended differently. And I would have told him what I’m telling you now: don’t let a terrible twist of fate destroy your life. It’s done, Luc. It’s done. And the best any of us can do is put our best foot toward tomorrow.”