Suzanne Brockmann - Forever Blue

Lucy could see from Blue’s stance and from the way he held both hands in the air, palms out and facing his stepbrother, that he had no intention of letting this argument become violent. But Jenny was in tears, and Gerry pushed Blue harder and harder with every sentence he spoke. Lucy moved closer, wondering whether she should step in even though she wasn’t on duty. Not that she’d had much luck settling this afternoon’s disturbance….

The room was silent. Even the band had stopped playing. Sheldon Bradley, the chief of police, moved quickly to Gerry’s side, and Lucy was glad. He had far more experience than she did, in addition to being one of Gerry’s friends.

“I want him out of here.” Gerry’s voice started to get louder again. “Who the hell gave him permission to dance with Jenny Lee anyway?”

Was his speech slurred? He sounded funny, as if he were…

“Gerry, you’re drunk,” Jenny Lee said.

“It was your idea to invite him,” Gerry shot back harshly, turning to berate his fiancée. “Stepbrother or not, I didn’t think it was right to invite one of your ex-lovers to my wedding. But maybe you had some other kind of reason to want him here…?”

“When you sober up, brother,” Blue drawled softly, “you’re going to feel like a real idiot.”

“Stay the hell out of my life,” Gerry said, his eyes wild. “You’re not my brother. I don’t want you hanging around. I didn’t when we were kids, and I sure as hell don’t now.”

The flash of pain that appeared in Blue’s eyes left so quickly that Lucy was sure she was the only one who’d seen it. But she had seen it. Gerry’s bitter words had hurt Blue deeply.

“Come on now, boys.” Chief Bradley tried to step between the two men.

“Besides, Jenny Lee is mine now.” Gerry glared past Bradley at Blue. “You had your chance. You can’t have her.”

“She’s not going to be yours too much longer if you keep this up,” Blue said evenly, quietly.

“Is that some kind of threat? Because if that was some kind of a threat, I’m gonna…” Gerry swung at Blue.

Blue caught his hand effortlessly, stopping his stepbrother’s punch midswing.

“Now, come on,” the police chief said, “is this any way for brothers to treat each other?”

“He’s not my brother.” Gerry pulled his hand free from Blue’s. “If my old man hadn’t felt guilty for picking up and bedding Blue’s white-trash mama—”

Blue reacted so quickly that Lucy didn’t even see his movement. One moment he was standing several feet away from Gerry, and the next he had backed his stepbrother up against a support pillar and was holding on to the taller man by the lapels of his expensive tuxedo.

Chief Bradley looked as if he were thinking twice about getting on the wrong side of Blue. Still, he stepped forward. “Here now, boys. Let’s not—”

Blue ignored Bradley, glaring into Gerry’s eyes. “That time you went too far,” he said softly. “I don’t give a damn what you say about me, but you keep my mother out of this.”

“Blue,” the police chief said. “Son, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“You so much as breathe her name again,” Blue continued, “and there’ll be hell to pay, you understand me?”

Gerry nodded, finally silenced.

Chief Bradley wasn’t used to being ignored. “Blue McCoy, I’m going to have to ask you to unhand your brother.”

But Blue didn’t move. “You apologize to Jenny Lee, and then you go on home and sober up,” he said to Gerry, still in that same low, dangerous voice.

Gerry seemed to wilt, to sag, his arms going around Blue in an odd kind of embrace. He may have said something, whispered something in Blue’s ear, but he spoke so softly Lucy couldn’t hear it.

“As far as I can see, son, you’re the one who needs to be making apologies and clearing on out of here.” Chief Bradley looked around the room, searching for any kind of support. He spotted Lucy. “You on duty tonight, Tait?”

“No, sir. I’m here as—”

“Consider yourself on duty as of right now,” Bradley said grimly. “I’m ordering you to escort Lieutenant McCoy back to his motel. See that he gets there without any more trouble.”

“But…” Lucy glanced at Blue, who had let go of Gerry.

Blue turned to Jenny Lee. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“I am, too,” she said. She held her head high despite the tears that were in her eyes, and with a withering look at Gerry, she swept out of the room.

Blue turned and headed for the other door. Chief Bradley had pulled Gerry aside and was talking to him in a low voice. Lucy briefly considered waiting and voicing her arguments about being suddenly placed on duty during her night off, but she knew it wouldn’t make any difference. Sheldon Bradley ran the Hatboro Creek Police Department according to his own set of rules. With a sigh, Lucy turned and followed Blue. She had to run to catch up with him.

“McCoy—wait!”

He turned and waited, his face impassive, his eyes expressionless. Together, they walked in silence out to Lucy’s truck.

It wasn’t until Lucy was pulling out of the country-club driveway that Blue spoke.

“I’m sorry about that,” he murmured.

She glanced at him. He was watching her in the dim light from the dashboard. “You can’t help the way you feel,” she said quietly.

He shifted in his seat, turning so that he was facing her. “You don’t think I was…” He stopped and started over. “Do you really think I would make a move on Jenny Lee at the rehearsal dinner for her wedding to my stepbrother?”

Lucy pulled carefully up to the stop sign at the corner of Main Street and Seaside Road. “Everyone at that party was waiting for something to happen between you and Jenny Lee,” she said, taking a left onto Main Street. “Everyone at that party saw you dancing with her and came to the same conclusion—that you’re here to stir up trouble, that you want to win Jenny Lee back.”

Blue’s face was in the shadows, but she knew that he was watching her.

“Everyone at the party. Including you?”

She had to be honest. “Yes.”

“And if I told you everyone at the party was wrong? That I feel nothing for Jenny Lee…?”

“I’d have to assume you were only saying that in a last-ditch effort to get me to spend the night with you,” Lucy said bluntly, pulling her truck into the motel parking lot and rolling to a stop.

“That’s not true,” Blue said quietly. “Yes, I want you in my bed, but I wouldn’t lie to get you there. Come on, Yankee, let’s just leave the past in the past.” He reached out across the cab of the truck, gently touching her hair.

Lucy shifted away from him. “Don’t.”

“Lucy—”

She closed her eyes, trying to shut him out. “I can’t do this,” she said. “I thought I could, but I can’t.” She opened her eyes and looked at Blue. “I can’t be a substitute for Jenny Lee.”

Blue laughed, a flare of impatience in his eyes. “You’re not—”

“Look, McCoy, I’ve got to go—”

“Why don’t we go get a beer and talk about this?” he suggested. “Is that roadhouse—what’s it called? The Rebel Yell. Is it still around? Why don’t we go there?”

“No. Believe it or not, I’m actually on duty now. I’ve got to go back to the station and file a report.”

“You know damn well you could do that in the morning.”

“Yeah,” Lucy said. “But I want to do it now.”

Silence. Lucy stared out the front windshield, hoping and wishing that Blue would just open the door and climb out of the truck’s cab. She heard him sigh.

“Damn Gerry to hell,” he said tiredly. “I should have wrung his neck while I had the chance.”