Sunny Chandler's Return

“Is that any of your business?”

“No.”

“So?”

“I’m curious.”

She ran her fingers through the soft body hair that grew toward the satiny stripe which bisected his stomach. “I wanted to. He thought we should wait.”

Ty’s laugh was unkind and unflattering to the other man. “I don’t wonder. He was afraid he couldn’t measure up.”

Impishly, she touched the part of him that was now taking a well-earned rest. “I didn’t know until now that the saying had a literal application.”

Ty winced with pleasure, but continued with his train of thought. “He wasn’t the man for you and he knew it. He didn’t want you to find it out until after he had married you. You were what he wanted, but everything that attracted him to you also scared him.”

She leaned her head back and looked up at him. “Am I so scary?”

“You would be to a man who’s afraid to call your bluff.”

She gave him a dirty look, but replaced her head in his lap. “If you’re so expert on the whys and wherefores of marriage, why haven’t you tried it again?”

“I never found the right woman.”

“Latham Green has a limited selection. The city would have afforded you more choices.”

“But I couldn’t stay in the city.”

She heard the change in his voice. The words were spoken with clipped emphasis. They were harshly, bitterly spoken. Sunny hated to disrupt the mellow mood, but she wanted to know what haunted him. He had helped her unlock her own emotions, to correctly label them and deal with them. Maybe she could help him in the same way.

“What happened, Ty?”

“I left.”

“But why? Tell me.”

She felt the muscles beneath her head contract as he wrestled with his decision. Finally his stomach muscles relaxed and he began talking.

“My partner and I, who was also my best friend, were put on this top-level case. Security was high. Very few people knew about it.

“We understood from the beginning that it was a dangerous assignment. We were to smoke out the leaders of a dope ring, who were suspected to be within the department itself.”

Sunny soothingly strummed his thigh with her fingertips. He was still tense, and she knew what an effort it was for him to talk about this painful episode in his life. Yet she felt that it was a catharsis he needed.

“Our investigation went on for months. One night my partner called me at home. He was excited. A paid informer had given him some news that wouldn’t keep. I agreed to meet him in a coffee shop. We were careful not to discuss anything over the phone. There was always a chance that our quarry was on to us.”

He fell silent. Several moments passed. Sunny could feel his fingers moving through her hair, otherwise she might have thought he had fallen asleep; he was lying that still.

“Apparently they were,” he said. “My partner hailed me from across the coffee-shop parking lot as soon as I pulled in. I went toward him.” His voice cracked. “The first bullet hit him right between the eyes. Then the others, one right after the other, slamming into him—”

“Don’t, Ty.” Sunny turned her face into his stomach, pressing it into the hair-dappled skin. Her arms went around his waist and hugged him tight. “Don’t think about it anymore. I’m sorry I asked you.”

“No. I’ve needed to talk about it for a long time.” He drew in several deep breaths. “After he was murdered, I doubled my efforts to find the bastards who were responsible.” He snorted a bitter laugh. “The main culprit ended up being the head of the Vice department, the very one who had sent us out to crack the case.”

Sunny made a sympathetic sound. “What happened?”

“I nailed him. He’s serving time. They couldn’t pin my partner’s murder on him, so he got away with that. They offered me his job.”

“Why didn’t you take it?”