The Right Road - Chapter Seven
Title: The Right Road (7/9)
Fandom: Prison Break
Pairing: Michael Scofield/Sara Tancredi
Characters: Michael Scofield, Sara Tancredi, Lincoln Burrows, Veronica Donovan, Frank Tancredi, various original characters
Rating: PG-15
Genre: AU, Non-Epilogue-Compliant, Alternate Reality
Length: 4,738 words
Summary: One single decision can sometimes change the world. Lincoln didn't go into that garage, and he didn't end up on Death Row. Michael didn't rob that bank, and he never stepped foot inside Fox River. Sara never fell in love with an inmate, and she locked the infirmary door every single night. If everything was different, would anything stay the same? You can read the rest of the story HERE.
Author's Note:This chapter contains some canon dialogue that does not belong to me. Also, after some deliberation (and some good advice, thanks very much) I decided to ignore the small matter of Crab Simmons selling Lincoln's debt to The Company before he could pay it back. *plays the AU card* Finally, if LJ would actually accept posts over 11,000 words, this chapter would have been much longer instead of me having to split it in two and save the second half for the next post. Hmph.
~*~
“Uh, Scofield, a quick word?”
Intent on finding Sara Tancredi amongst the milling guests now that the bride and groom have departed, Michael nevertheless slows his pace and turns to give his employer a polite smile. “Sure thing.”
Robert Middleton’s face is flushed, but his speech is as precise as it always is. “I trust you’ll be making the most of your connection to our fine Governor?”
Michael sighs inwardly. If he didn’t know the ferocity of his CEO’s ambition, it might be hard to believe that the man is wasting time on his son’s wedding day to prod an employee about networking. “Well, sir, as I said, his daughter is a friend.”
His employer looks almost amused by the non-committal reply, but only for a few seconds. “I assume you know the story of how one of our esteemed partners came to handle the Fox River retrofit, Scofield?”
“I do.” He can see Governor Tancredi near the main doors that lead from the ballroom, but Sara isn’t with him. Damn it. “Schappelle and Associates got the contract to retro Fox River in 1999. Four million dollar contract, head partner couldn’t crack it, so he subcontracted out to Mark Bristow.” His boss seems to approve of his recall, so he continues, because there’s no harm in making a good impression, no matter how impatient he is to get away. “Who basically went through the plan, crossed the t’s, dotted the i’s, grouted the tiles.”
“Exactly. Bristow saw an opportunity and he took it, because it’s all about getting out there and finding the work instead of waiting for it to come to you.” Robert Middleton rocks back on his heels, then claps one hand down hard on Michael’s shoulder. “Our firm hasn’t scored a government contract in the last twelve months.”
“I know that, sir.”
“Try to keep that in mind the next time you’re talking to the Governor, won’t you?”
Michael arranges his mouth into his most accommodating smile, hoping it looks a lot more convincing than it feels. “Of course.” To his eternal relief, he sees Mrs Middleton over his boss’ shoulder, making her way purposefully in their direction. “I think your wife is looking for you, sir,” he tells his boss cheerfully, and the other man sighs theatrically.
“A father’s work is never done,” he says, and then he’s gone, walking towards his wife with outstretched hands and a broad smile. Turning on his heel, Michael makes his way through the guests, snippets of conversation drifting over him - the cake wasn’t as good as the one we had, the bride was beautiful, how much do you think they paid for this - as he heads toward the last place he’d seen Frank Tancredi.
To his dismay, the Governor seems to have departed, and his daughter is still nowhere to be seen. Why the hell didn’t he suggest an actual meeting point, he thinks furiously, rather than just tossing out a vague ‘see you afterwards’? He makes his way to the bar area, then checks the main ballroom again, but all he sees are women who aren’t Sara and every new face that isn’t hers makes his heart sink a little lower.
When he finally sees her a moment later, he feels as though someone has grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, shaken him hard, then dropped him back on unsteady feet. She’s looking for him too, her long fingers twisting themselves in the delicate fabric of her wrap, and his whole body seems to go slack with relief. He manages to close the distance between them in a few long strides, and it’s an effort to speak her name in a normal voice when he wants to shout it to the rafters. “Sara?” She turns, obviously pleased to see him, and it’s suddenly even more of an effort to speak normally. “I thought I’d missed you.”
“I went to the bathroom,” she says matter-of-factly, then stops, looking charmingly mortified. “And I see we’re still over-sharing.”
He wants to pull her into his arms and kiss her soundly, but he settles for smiling at her. “My car is a couple of blocks away.” He thinks of the dark streets and the unavoidable fact that they’ve only just met, and he decides to make it easy for her to be cautious. “Did you want to wait here while I collect it?”
She hesitates, but only briefly. “I’m happy to walk with you.” Her dark eyes gleam as she gives him an impish smile. “I’ll be sure to tell my father you offered, though.”
He laughs quietly as he gestures towards the exit, picturing Frank Tancredi grading him on his social etiquette. Of course, it’s possible she’s not joking. “Well, that was why I asked, so thank you.”
It’s still warm outside, and a quick glimpse upwards tells him why. Thick clouds blanket the sky, hiding the stars and trapping the heat of the day. “You don’t have to wear the jacket and tie for my benefit,” his companion tells him, and he happily complies.
“Air-conditioning is one of the human race’s greatest inventions,” he says as he gratefully strips off his jacket and drapes it over his arm, “but it does make the real world more uncomfortable sometimes.”
“Summer formal occasions are much easier for women than they are for men.” She’s still playing with the end of her wrap, the silky fabric sliding over her hands. “For guys, it means suiting up from neck to ankle, but for women, it seems the more skin shown, the better.”
He knows it’s nothing more than a casual, throwaway comment, but he’s not sure how he’s meant to have a conversation about bare skin when all he wants to do is find out if her skin feels as soft as it looks. He glances at her; her lips are curved in a smile that makes him think the comment wasn’t as quiet as casual as he first thought, and he decides to push back, just a little. “Well, as a man, I might be tempted to complain, especially on a day like today, but the silver lining seems reward enough.” He lets his eyes linger on the smooth, pale skin of her shoulders and throat, then lifts his gaze to meet hers.
Her smile falters, her eyes darkening in a way that has his pulse quickening. “Uh,” she mutters, her hands fluttering in the air, as if searching for the right thing to say, “So you didn’t use the valet service?”
He’s pretty sure she doesn’t want to hear that not only does he hate not having his car keys in his pocket, but that there are times when he thinks he’s only pretending to be a successful guy with an expensive car. “Sometimes it’s easier just to grab a free space.” He pulls his car keys out of his pocket and dangles them from the end of one finger. “Besides, I don’t have to wait for my car this way.”
She smiles, her shoulder almost but not quite brushing against his as they walk. “I like valet parking, but only because I hardly ever use it.” She shrugs. “I like the novelty value.”
It’s an interesting remark coming from the Governor’s daughter, and it tells him more about her than a five page dossier could have ever done. Smiling to himself, he unlocks his car, which seems to have appeared at the curb out of nowhere, and she raises her eyebrows. “Nice car.”
Again, he decides it’s not a good time to tell her he bought an Audi because it seemed like the type of car someone with his salary would buy. “It’s reliable,” he says, then slips in front of her to open the front passenger door for her. As he does, he is suddenly gripped with fear - fear that he has left his dirty running shoes on the back seat or that her seat is piled high with CD cases and empty water bottles. To his relief, it’s relatively clean inside and out, thanks to the recent trip to the local carwash. Realising he’s probably not giving off the calmest of vibes, he quickly steps back, pulling the door open for her. “After you.”
“Thanks.” She climbs into the passenger seat as gracefully as he suspected she would, smoothing her skirt down over her knees as soon as she’s sitting. He shuts the door carefully, then makes his way around to the driver’s side, fighting the urge to pinch himself. If someone had told him a few hours ago that the beautiful woman outside the church would be sitting in his car after the reception, letting him take her out for coffee, he would have asked if the heat had addled their brain.
After tossing his suit jacket onto the back seat, he climbs into the car and pulls the door shut behind him. Beside him, Sara stretches her legs out in front of her, the heels of her shoes rasping against the carpet floor. “Your last passenger must have had very long legs,” she murmurs in an aside that sounds a lot like a question. “I usually have to move the seat back when I get in a friend’s car.”
“My brother,” he tells her, relieved that he doesn’t have to mention another woman’s name. “He’s got an inch and a half on me.” As he starts the car, he tosses her a quick question of his own, although this one is far less loaded. “Air-conditioning or windows down?”
“Fresh air would be fine.” She pats the small clutch purse in her lap. “I’ve got a comb in my purse.”
“That would be a very small comb, I guess?”
She laughs, pulling the seat belt across her and fastening it with a loud click. “Are you insulting my purse?”
He grins. “Just amazed that you’ve managed to fit anything in there.”
“Well, if the truth must come out, my usual purse is a huge affair with many secret compartments in which I can lose things.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
It’s undeniably a warm night, but it’s comfortable enough once the car is moving. It’s only a short drive from the hotel to the all-night coffee shop he has in mind, and he’s glad. He’s never had a car accident in his life but, as he tears his attention away from watching Sara Tancredi cross her seemingly endless legs and back to the u-turn he’s currently performing, he can’t help feeling he’s pushing his luck tonight. “You want to text my licence plate number to your dad before we go any further?” He flashes a smile sideways. “I won’t mind.”
‘It’s okay.” Her tone is deadpan. “I’ve already slipped the GPS tracker under my seat, so we’re all good.”
His smile widens as he checks his mirrors, doing his best to concentrate on the traffic around him rather than the scent of her perfume. “How long have you lived away from home?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her settle back in her seat, her hands toying with the purse on her lap. “Longer than you might think, given my family dynamic.”
“You’re an only child?”
“Yes.” She gives him a rueful glance. “Sometimes that’s a good thing, and sometimes it’s not.”
He thinks of all the times he’d furiously wished, before everything had changed, that he didn’t have to deal with the dramatics of a brother who seemed determined to screw up every single life around him. “I know what you mean.”
She looks at him, obviously curious, but he doesn’t elaborate. Despite her earlier assurances, he’s still not sure she would want to hear about his family dynamic. “It’s this place here on the right, that okay with you?”
She smiles as she peers out the window at the approaching glow of the green and white sign. “Sure.” Turning her head to look at him, she wrinkles her nose and adds, “As long as you don’t let me buy anything with whipped cream on it.”
Here, at least, he’s on familiar territory, having had some version of this conversation with almost every adult female he knows. “Is that likely?” He slows the car, then changes into the next lane, smiling to himself as the Audi glides into exactly the position needed to reverse into the last free parking space as far as the eye can see.
“Very,” she says in a distracted tone, then adds, “and no wonder you never bother with valet parking.”
“What do you mean?” Putting the car into reverse, he twists in his seat, one hand braced against the edge of her chair, the side of his palm brushing against her bare shoulder.
She doesn’t move away from the touch of his hand. “That parking space was right under my nose and I missed it completely, but you pounced on it as though you were wearing night vision goggles.”
He might not be in the habit of hitting on beautiful women at weddings, but he’s pretty sure the topic of his LLI isn’t one likely to impress the ladies, to hijack a term his nephew is fond of using. “Practice makes perfect.”
“And a perfect parallel park on the first attempt.” She smiles at him. “You must have a good eye for distance.” She unclips the buckle of her seatbelt as he switches off the ignition. “Maybe it’s an engineering thing?”
The compliment shouldn’t embarrasses him, but it does. “Maybe.”
This time, he doesn’t get the chance to open her door for her. By the time he locks the car and joins her on the pavement, she’s already scoping out the lay of the land inside the coffee shop. As always, it’s crowded with the usual eclectic mix of late-night patrons, but through the window he can see a few spare armchairs, tucked in a back corner.
The air inside the café is artificially cool and scented with coffee, chocolate and cinnamon. There’s only one person ahead of them in the queue to order, and he quickly pulls the wallet out of his back pocket as he scans the blackboard above the counter. “What are you having?”
Sara shakes her head, her hand alighting on the back of his wrist as if to push his wallet out of sight. “You drove, so I’m buying.”
He wants to argue against such flimsy logic, but her delicate jaw is set in a stubborn cast that completely disarms him. “Okay.” He makes a show of putting his wallet away, acutely aware that his wrist seems to be tingling where she touched him. “But the next one’s on me.”
Having waited patiently for them to finish their negotiations, the girl working behind the counter now smiles. “What can I get you?”
Sara frowns at the menu for a few more seconds, then returns the girl’s smile. “I’ll have an espresso macchiato.”
He purses his lips. “That’s a serious coffee.”
She looks at him, obviously amused. “Too rich for your blood?”
He knows a challenge when he hears one. “Make that two.”
The girl behind the counter gives them another practiced smile. “Name for your order?”
The word is out of his mouth before his brain can register he’s not with his brother or his nephew on this particular visit. “Phineas.”
Beside him, he hears Sara chuckle, and he knows he’s going to have to explain yet another lame aspect of his life. “Phineas?” she murmurs as she pays for their coffee.
“Uh, family joke.” He wonders if the tips of his ears are bright red. It certainly feels as though they are. “My nephew likes to make up different names for each visit.”
“Sounds like fun.” They move away from the counter, and he watches her slender hands as she gathers up sugar packets and stirrers and napkins.
“It can get kind of silly sometimes,” he admits, smiling as he thinks of LJ’s more ludicrous aliases, “but we’ve been doing it for so long, it’s hard to break the habit.” Seeing an ideal pair of empty armchairs in the back corner, he reaches out and brushes her arm with the back of his hand. “Free table at the back.” Her skin is warm and smooth against his knuckles, and he wants nothing more than to slide his hand upwards, moulding his palm to the pale curve of her bare shoulder, then across to explore the delicate jut of her collarbone, then the hollow of her throat -
“Want me to wait for the coffee?” If she has any idea of the thoughts running rampant through his head, she’s not showing it.
“No, I’ll wait.” He needs, he decides dazedly, a few minutes of breathing space to cool his thoughts. “Save me a seat, okay?”
Her dark rose lipstick gleams as she smiles, and he knows a few minutes won’t be long enough. “Sure.”
She’s installed herself in the armchair closest to the window when he rejoins her - he’s not entirely sure, but he suspects he heard her laugh when the name Phineas was called out - and as good as her word, she’s put her wrap and her clutch purse on the armchair beside her. “I had to fight off a few kids with laptops, but it’s all yours,” she informs him as she scoops up her belongings.
He carefully puts the tray onto the small table in front of her, pleased to see that he managed the journey without spilling half the coffee into the saucers. He’s not normally a clumsy person, but tonight his hands and feet almost feel too big for his body. “Espresso shots after dark.” He looks at her as he drops into the chair beside her. “This will be interesting.”
She picks up a sugar packet, tapping the edge of it with her thumbnail. “What do you have planned for tomorrow?” For a brief moment, he thinks she’s literally cutting to the chase and asking him out. Then, much to his disappointment, she adds, “I hope it’s something you can do with a caffeine hangover.”
Aha. He unceremoniously tears open two packets of sugar and tips the contents into his coffee. “I’m spending the afternoon at the outreach shelter.” He smiles at her, noting the gleam that comes into her eyes. The impulse to ask her to come with him is on the tip of his tongue, but he manages to bite it back. “A caffeine hangover might help,” he quips as he stirs his coffee, and she laughs softly.
“Maybe you should have ordered a double shot?”
He makes a face of mock horror, then grins. “No, thanks. I think I going to have enough trouble sleeping tonight as it is,” he tells her, then immediately wishes he’d chosen his words with more care, and Sara’s sudden interest in her coffee cup seems to indicate he’s not the only one.
“Can I ask you something?” She’s still not looking at him, and he knows enough about women to know that’s not a good sign.
“Sure.”
“Did you already know who I was when you spoke to me at the bar?”
His gut tightens, because he recognises a rhetorical question when he hears one. “Yes.” She lifts her gaze to meet his, her expression faintly wary, and he knows this isn’t the time for saving face. “The bride caught me staring at you outside the church and was nice enough to tell me your name was Sara.” Her whole face softens, and he feels the hard knot in the pit of his stomach begin to dissolve. “Seeing you with your dad, I put two and two together, then I remembered your work in Kolkata.” He wants very much to reach across the small distance between them and touch her hand, but he doesn’t, because there’s something else he needs to tell her. “You want to hear something weird?”
“What?”
He hesitates, knowing that he’s running the risk of making himself truly sound like a stalker, but it could be awkward if she finds out later. If there is a later, he thinks. “Were you working at Fox River when they did the retrofit?”
A tiny frown puckers the smooth skin between her eyebrows. “Do you mean when they replaced all the old pipes?”
He knows the Fox River retrofit involved a hell of a lot more than replacing old pipes, but he has no intention of boring her to tears if he can help it. “Yeah.”
She shakes her head. “Before my time, I’m afraid, but I have heard a few stories about the mess the construction guys left behind from my nurse and the COs.” A half smile tugs at her lips, as if she’s remembering a particularly amusing anecdote, then she looks at him. “Why do you ask?”
“One of the partners at my firm handled that.” He holds his breath, waiting for her to pick up her purse and get to her feet or, at the very least, ask him why he hadn’t mentioned this earlier.
To his relief, she does none of these things, offering him a wry smile instead. “Small world.”
“Sometimes.” He reaches for his coffee cup. “I would have mentioned it earlier but I -” But what? You were too distracted by her mouth and her voice and her legs and the shadowy cleft between her breasts? Too immersed in the need to make her want to be with you, too focused on sounding and behaving like a nice, normal guy when so often you feel the exact opposite? She’s watching him, waiting for him to go on, and it’s suddenly easy to say the words. “I guess I had other things on my mind.”
Her smile changes, becoming something mischievous, something that makes his pulse stutter and begin to race. “So you’re the one I can complain to about the infirmary being too small and the air-conditioning ducts never working properly?”
He takes a welcome breath of cool air laced with the subtle scent of her perfume, and returns her smile with one of his own. “I hate to disappoint you, but it was before my time, too.”
She settles back in her chair, crossing her long legs in a delicate swish of skin and silky green dress. “How long have you worked there?”
“Almost five years now.” He looks at her, wondering if he should tell her there are times when he can’t remember what life was like before he became the person everyone seemed to expect him to become. “Sometimes it feels a lot longer.”
She gives him a sympathetic smile. “Not your dream job either?”
The last time he had this conversation, it was with his brother. He sincerely hopes this version turns out better than that one did. “I thought it was, back in the day, but now I’m pretty sure it’s not.”
“What would you like to do?”
“I don’t know,” he tells her, uncomfortably aware he sounds like a listless high school student talking to the careers counsellor.
"Well, you're still young." She doesn't quite look him up and down, but as far as his libido is concerned, she might as well have. "You've got time to go in a different direction, if that's what you really want."
"That's the thing," he admits reluctantly. "I don't really know what I want. I look at my brother, working out of that rundown old gym downtown, and I know he’s never been happier, and I think maybe I should do the same.”
She arches one well-shaped eyebrow at him. “You want to work in a gym?”
He laughs at that. “Ah, not quite.” Running his finger along the rim of his coffee cup, he tries to picture himself outside the walls of Maxwell, Middleton and Schaum. “I love the science of it and the beauty in the finished structure, if that makes sense, but lately I’ve been thinking I need more than just making sure our buildings don’t fall down.”
She smiles, obviously remembering their earlier conversation. “Your brother - sorry, what’s his name?”
“Lincoln.”
“Lincoln must have really turned his life around. He spent a lot of time in juvie, didn’t he?”
Michael hesitates, then decides he might as well get this particular story out of the way. If what he’s about to tell her changes the way Sara Tancredi sees him, then it’s better he knows now. “Juvie wasn’t the end of it, unfortunately. He did some jail time, too.” Her gentle expression doesn’t change, so he takes a deep breath and keeps going. “He got caught up in a lot of bad stuff when I was in high school. Borrowed some money from the wrong people when I was eighteen, then had trouble keeping a job and couldn’t pay it back. Ended up having to work off his debt.”
It’s the sanitized Reader’s Digest version of some of the worst years of his life, but even those vague bullet points make him feel more than a little bleak. As if seeing it in his face, Sara puts down her coffee cup and reaches across to him, her fingertips dancing over the back of his hand where it lays on the armrest of his chair. Her voice is soft, her eyes never leaving his. “I don’t want to turn therapist on you” she says quietly, looking at him as though she’s trying to fathom a particularly knotty puzzle, “but it sounds as though you feel responsible?”
Michael stares at her, belatedly realising that of course a doctor who has had personal experience with group therapy would be able to see two steps ahead in this particular tale. “For a long time, I thought mom’s insurance money had paid my way through college.” He takes a deep breath, remembering too many harsh words, so many sneering judgments. “And I never stopped ragging on my brother for how he’d wasted his half on booze and pot and crappy cars that he never got around to fixing up, never once dreaming that there was no insurance money and the only reason I went to college was that my brother borrowed the money from the kind of people who don't take too kindly to missed payments.”
She looks pained. “I guess you’re not talking about a couple of hundred dollars.”
He wonders if she’s always been a perceptive person, or if her time spent with the inhabitants of Fox River has given her the gift of cutting straight to the heart of a conversation. “By the time he told me, he still owed ninety thousand, give or take a couple of bucks.”
She stares at him, her coffee apparently forgotten. “That’s a lot of money to owe a loan shark.”
“Exactly.” Maybe he should drink some more of his own coffee, but at this moment in time, he might gag on it. “Of course, there’s no such thing as a free ride, and he just got in deeper and deeper.”
“And you didn’t know?”
“No.” He looks at her, willing her to understand how he could have missed the real reason why his only brother was falling apart. “All I saw was that he didn’t care about anyone but himself.” She opens her mouth to speak, so he quickly continues, knowing he needs to get this out of his system now so that they can move onto something else. “One night, he found himself in a bad place.” God, if there were awards handed out for understatement, he’d had to build himself a trophy case. “He turned up on my doorstep in the middle of the night, finally deciding he was ready to tell me the truth.”
He thinks of that night, how tempted he’d been to ignore Lincoln’s call, how he’d barely been able to understand his brother’s desperate words over the phone when he finally answered. He thinks of kissing Veronica chastely on the forehead and putting her in a taxi, knowing he was doing the right thing, no matter how lovely - and lonely - she was. It’s not something he likes to remember, let alone discuss, but something of his thoughts must show in his face, because Sara’s hand touches his once more. “You don’t have to tell me any more if it’s bringing back bad memories.”
“I know.” He smiles at her, quietly astounded to realise it’s the truth. “But I want to.”
~*~
Fandom: Prison Break
Pairing: Michael Scofield/Sara Tancredi
Characters: Michael Scofield, Sara Tancredi, Lincoln Burrows, Veronica Donovan, Frank Tancredi, various original characters
Rating: PG-15
Genre: AU, Non-Epilogue-Compliant, Alternate Reality
Length: 4,738 words
Summary: One single decision can sometimes change the world. Lincoln didn't go into that garage, and he didn't end up on Death Row. Michael didn't rob that bank, and he never stepped foot inside Fox River. Sara never fell in love with an inmate, and she locked the infirmary door every single night. If everything was different, would anything stay the same? You can read the rest of the story HERE.
Author's Note:This chapter contains some canon dialogue that does not belong to me. Also, after some deliberation (and some good advice, thanks very much) I decided to ignore the small matter of Crab Simmons selling Lincoln's debt to The Company before he could pay it back. *plays the AU card* Finally, if LJ would actually accept posts over 11,000 words, this chapter would have been much longer instead of me having to split it in two and save the second half for the next post. Hmph.
~*~
“Uh, Scofield, a quick word?”
Intent on finding Sara Tancredi amongst the milling guests now that the bride and groom have departed, Michael nevertheless slows his pace and turns to give his employer a polite smile. “Sure thing.”
Robert Middleton’s face is flushed, but his speech is as precise as it always is. “I trust you’ll be making the most of your connection to our fine Governor?”
Michael sighs inwardly. If he didn’t know the ferocity of his CEO’s ambition, it might be hard to believe that the man is wasting time on his son’s wedding day to prod an employee about networking. “Well, sir, as I said, his daughter is a friend.”
His employer looks almost amused by the non-committal reply, but only for a few seconds. “I assume you know the story of how one of our esteemed partners came to handle the Fox River retrofit, Scofield?”
“I do.” He can see Governor Tancredi near the main doors that lead from the ballroom, but Sara isn’t with him. Damn it. “Schappelle and Associates got the contract to retro Fox River in 1999. Four million dollar contract, head partner couldn’t crack it, so he subcontracted out to Mark Bristow.” His boss seems to approve of his recall, so he continues, because there’s no harm in making a good impression, no matter how impatient he is to get away. “Who basically went through the plan, crossed the t’s, dotted the i’s, grouted the tiles.”
“Exactly. Bristow saw an opportunity and he took it, because it’s all about getting out there and finding the work instead of waiting for it to come to you.” Robert Middleton rocks back on his heels, then claps one hand down hard on Michael’s shoulder. “Our firm hasn’t scored a government contract in the last twelve months.”
“I know that, sir.”
“Try to keep that in mind the next time you’re talking to the Governor, won’t you?”
Michael arranges his mouth into his most accommodating smile, hoping it looks a lot more convincing than it feels. “Of course.” To his eternal relief, he sees Mrs Middleton over his boss’ shoulder, making her way purposefully in their direction. “I think your wife is looking for you, sir,” he tells his boss cheerfully, and the other man sighs theatrically.
“A father’s work is never done,” he says, and then he’s gone, walking towards his wife with outstretched hands and a broad smile. Turning on his heel, Michael makes his way through the guests, snippets of conversation drifting over him - the cake wasn’t as good as the one we had, the bride was beautiful, how much do you think they paid for this - as he heads toward the last place he’d seen Frank Tancredi.
To his dismay, the Governor seems to have departed, and his daughter is still nowhere to be seen. Why the hell didn’t he suggest an actual meeting point, he thinks furiously, rather than just tossing out a vague ‘see you afterwards’? He makes his way to the bar area, then checks the main ballroom again, but all he sees are women who aren’t Sara and every new face that isn’t hers makes his heart sink a little lower.
When he finally sees her a moment later, he feels as though someone has grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, shaken him hard, then dropped him back on unsteady feet. She’s looking for him too, her long fingers twisting themselves in the delicate fabric of her wrap, and his whole body seems to go slack with relief. He manages to close the distance between them in a few long strides, and it’s an effort to speak her name in a normal voice when he wants to shout it to the rafters. “Sara?” She turns, obviously pleased to see him, and it’s suddenly even more of an effort to speak normally. “I thought I’d missed you.”
“I went to the bathroom,” she says matter-of-factly, then stops, looking charmingly mortified. “And I see we’re still over-sharing.”
He wants to pull her into his arms and kiss her soundly, but he settles for smiling at her. “My car is a couple of blocks away.” He thinks of the dark streets and the unavoidable fact that they’ve only just met, and he decides to make it easy for her to be cautious. “Did you want to wait here while I collect it?”
She hesitates, but only briefly. “I’m happy to walk with you.” Her dark eyes gleam as she gives him an impish smile. “I’ll be sure to tell my father you offered, though.”
He laughs quietly as he gestures towards the exit, picturing Frank Tancredi grading him on his social etiquette. Of course, it’s possible she’s not joking. “Well, that was why I asked, so thank you.”
It’s still warm outside, and a quick glimpse upwards tells him why. Thick clouds blanket the sky, hiding the stars and trapping the heat of the day. “You don’t have to wear the jacket and tie for my benefit,” his companion tells him, and he happily complies.
“Air-conditioning is one of the human race’s greatest inventions,” he says as he gratefully strips off his jacket and drapes it over his arm, “but it does make the real world more uncomfortable sometimes.”
“Summer formal occasions are much easier for women than they are for men.” She’s still playing with the end of her wrap, the silky fabric sliding over her hands. “For guys, it means suiting up from neck to ankle, but for women, it seems the more skin shown, the better.”
He knows it’s nothing more than a casual, throwaway comment, but he’s not sure how he’s meant to have a conversation about bare skin when all he wants to do is find out if her skin feels as soft as it looks. He glances at her; her lips are curved in a smile that makes him think the comment wasn’t as quiet as casual as he first thought, and he decides to push back, just a little. “Well, as a man, I might be tempted to complain, especially on a day like today, but the silver lining seems reward enough.” He lets his eyes linger on the smooth, pale skin of her shoulders and throat, then lifts his gaze to meet hers.
Her smile falters, her eyes darkening in a way that has his pulse quickening. “Uh,” she mutters, her hands fluttering in the air, as if searching for the right thing to say, “So you didn’t use the valet service?”
He’s pretty sure she doesn’t want to hear that not only does he hate not having his car keys in his pocket, but that there are times when he thinks he’s only pretending to be a successful guy with an expensive car. “Sometimes it’s easier just to grab a free space.” He pulls his car keys out of his pocket and dangles them from the end of one finger. “Besides, I don’t have to wait for my car this way.”
She smiles, her shoulder almost but not quite brushing against his as they walk. “I like valet parking, but only because I hardly ever use it.” She shrugs. “I like the novelty value.”
It’s an interesting remark coming from the Governor’s daughter, and it tells him more about her than a five page dossier could have ever done. Smiling to himself, he unlocks his car, which seems to have appeared at the curb out of nowhere, and she raises her eyebrows. “Nice car.”
Again, he decides it’s not a good time to tell her he bought an Audi because it seemed like the type of car someone with his salary would buy. “It’s reliable,” he says, then slips in front of her to open the front passenger door for her. As he does, he is suddenly gripped with fear - fear that he has left his dirty running shoes on the back seat or that her seat is piled high with CD cases and empty water bottles. To his relief, it’s relatively clean inside and out, thanks to the recent trip to the local carwash. Realising he’s probably not giving off the calmest of vibes, he quickly steps back, pulling the door open for her. “After you.”
“Thanks.” She climbs into the passenger seat as gracefully as he suspected she would, smoothing her skirt down over her knees as soon as she’s sitting. He shuts the door carefully, then makes his way around to the driver’s side, fighting the urge to pinch himself. If someone had told him a few hours ago that the beautiful woman outside the church would be sitting in his car after the reception, letting him take her out for coffee, he would have asked if the heat had addled their brain.
After tossing his suit jacket onto the back seat, he climbs into the car and pulls the door shut behind him. Beside him, Sara stretches her legs out in front of her, the heels of her shoes rasping against the carpet floor. “Your last passenger must have had very long legs,” she murmurs in an aside that sounds a lot like a question. “I usually have to move the seat back when I get in a friend’s car.”
“My brother,” he tells her, relieved that he doesn’t have to mention another woman’s name. “He’s got an inch and a half on me.” As he starts the car, he tosses her a quick question of his own, although this one is far less loaded. “Air-conditioning or windows down?”
“Fresh air would be fine.” She pats the small clutch purse in her lap. “I’ve got a comb in my purse.”
“That would be a very small comb, I guess?”
She laughs, pulling the seat belt across her and fastening it with a loud click. “Are you insulting my purse?”
He grins. “Just amazed that you’ve managed to fit anything in there.”
“Well, if the truth must come out, my usual purse is a huge affair with many secret compartments in which I can lose things.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
It’s undeniably a warm night, but it’s comfortable enough once the car is moving. It’s only a short drive from the hotel to the all-night coffee shop he has in mind, and he’s glad. He’s never had a car accident in his life but, as he tears his attention away from watching Sara Tancredi cross her seemingly endless legs and back to the u-turn he’s currently performing, he can’t help feeling he’s pushing his luck tonight. “You want to text my licence plate number to your dad before we go any further?” He flashes a smile sideways. “I won’t mind.”
‘It’s okay.” Her tone is deadpan. “I’ve already slipped the GPS tracker under my seat, so we’re all good.”
His smile widens as he checks his mirrors, doing his best to concentrate on the traffic around him rather than the scent of her perfume. “How long have you lived away from home?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her settle back in her seat, her hands toying with the purse on her lap. “Longer than you might think, given my family dynamic.”
“You’re an only child?”
“Yes.” She gives him a rueful glance. “Sometimes that’s a good thing, and sometimes it’s not.”
He thinks of all the times he’d furiously wished, before everything had changed, that he didn’t have to deal with the dramatics of a brother who seemed determined to screw up every single life around him. “I know what you mean.”
She looks at him, obviously curious, but he doesn’t elaborate. Despite her earlier assurances, he’s still not sure she would want to hear about his family dynamic. “It’s this place here on the right, that okay with you?”
She smiles as she peers out the window at the approaching glow of the green and white sign. “Sure.” Turning her head to look at him, she wrinkles her nose and adds, “As long as you don’t let me buy anything with whipped cream on it.”
Here, at least, he’s on familiar territory, having had some version of this conversation with almost every adult female he knows. “Is that likely?” He slows the car, then changes into the next lane, smiling to himself as the Audi glides into exactly the position needed to reverse into the last free parking space as far as the eye can see.
“Very,” she says in a distracted tone, then adds, “and no wonder you never bother with valet parking.”
“What do you mean?” Putting the car into reverse, he twists in his seat, one hand braced against the edge of her chair, the side of his palm brushing against her bare shoulder.
She doesn’t move away from the touch of his hand. “That parking space was right under my nose and I missed it completely, but you pounced on it as though you were wearing night vision goggles.”
He might not be in the habit of hitting on beautiful women at weddings, but he’s pretty sure the topic of his LLI isn’t one likely to impress the ladies, to hijack a term his nephew is fond of using. “Practice makes perfect.”
“And a perfect parallel park on the first attempt.” She smiles at him. “You must have a good eye for distance.” She unclips the buckle of her seatbelt as he switches off the ignition. “Maybe it’s an engineering thing?”
The compliment shouldn’t embarrasses him, but it does. “Maybe.”
This time, he doesn’t get the chance to open her door for her. By the time he locks the car and joins her on the pavement, she’s already scoping out the lay of the land inside the coffee shop. As always, it’s crowded with the usual eclectic mix of late-night patrons, but through the window he can see a few spare armchairs, tucked in a back corner.
The air inside the café is artificially cool and scented with coffee, chocolate and cinnamon. There’s only one person ahead of them in the queue to order, and he quickly pulls the wallet out of his back pocket as he scans the blackboard above the counter. “What are you having?”
Sara shakes her head, her hand alighting on the back of his wrist as if to push his wallet out of sight. “You drove, so I’m buying.”
He wants to argue against such flimsy logic, but her delicate jaw is set in a stubborn cast that completely disarms him. “Okay.” He makes a show of putting his wallet away, acutely aware that his wrist seems to be tingling where she touched him. “But the next one’s on me.”
Having waited patiently for them to finish their negotiations, the girl working behind the counter now smiles. “What can I get you?”
Sara frowns at the menu for a few more seconds, then returns the girl’s smile. “I’ll have an espresso macchiato.”
He purses his lips. “That’s a serious coffee.”
She looks at him, obviously amused. “Too rich for your blood?”
He knows a challenge when he hears one. “Make that two.”
The girl behind the counter gives them another practiced smile. “Name for your order?”
The word is out of his mouth before his brain can register he’s not with his brother or his nephew on this particular visit. “Phineas.”
Beside him, he hears Sara chuckle, and he knows he’s going to have to explain yet another lame aspect of his life. “Phineas?” she murmurs as she pays for their coffee.
“Uh, family joke.” He wonders if the tips of his ears are bright red. It certainly feels as though they are. “My nephew likes to make up different names for each visit.”
“Sounds like fun.” They move away from the counter, and he watches her slender hands as she gathers up sugar packets and stirrers and napkins.
“It can get kind of silly sometimes,” he admits, smiling as he thinks of LJ’s more ludicrous aliases, “but we’ve been doing it for so long, it’s hard to break the habit.” Seeing an ideal pair of empty armchairs in the back corner, he reaches out and brushes her arm with the back of his hand. “Free table at the back.” Her skin is warm and smooth against his knuckles, and he wants nothing more than to slide his hand upwards, moulding his palm to the pale curve of her bare shoulder, then across to explore the delicate jut of her collarbone, then the hollow of her throat -
“Want me to wait for the coffee?” If she has any idea of the thoughts running rampant through his head, she’s not showing it.
“No, I’ll wait.” He needs, he decides dazedly, a few minutes of breathing space to cool his thoughts. “Save me a seat, okay?”
Her dark rose lipstick gleams as she smiles, and he knows a few minutes won’t be long enough. “Sure.”
She’s installed herself in the armchair closest to the window when he rejoins her - he’s not entirely sure, but he suspects he heard her laugh when the name Phineas was called out - and as good as her word, she’s put her wrap and her clutch purse on the armchair beside her. “I had to fight off a few kids with laptops, but it’s all yours,” she informs him as she scoops up her belongings.
He carefully puts the tray onto the small table in front of her, pleased to see that he managed the journey without spilling half the coffee into the saucers. He’s not normally a clumsy person, but tonight his hands and feet almost feel too big for his body. “Espresso shots after dark.” He looks at her as he drops into the chair beside her. “This will be interesting.”
She picks up a sugar packet, tapping the edge of it with her thumbnail. “What do you have planned for tomorrow?” For a brief moment, he thinks she’s literally cutting to the chase and asking him out. Then, much to his disappointment, she adds, “I hope it’s something you can do with a caffeine hangover.”
Aha. He unceremoniously tears open two packets of sugar and tips the contents into his coffee. “I’m spending the afternoon at the outreach shelter.” He smiles at her, noting the gleam that comes into her eyes. The impulse to ask her to come with him is on the tip of his tongue, but he manages to bite it back. “A caffeine hangover might help,” he quips as he stirs his coffee, and she laughs softly.
“Maybe you should have ordered a double shot?”
He makes a face of mock horror, then grins. “No, thanks. I think I going to have enough trouble sleeping tonight as it is,” he tells her, then immediately wishes he’d chosen his words with more care, and Sara’s sudden interest in her coffee cup seems to indicate he’s not the only one.
“Can I ask you something?” She’s still not looking at him, and he knows enough about women to know that’s not a good sign.
“Sure.”
“Did you already know who I was when you spoke to me at the bar?”
His gut tightens, because he recognises a rhetorical question when he hears one. “Yes.” She lifts her gaze to meet his, her expression faintly wary, and he knows this isn’t the time for saving face. “The bride caught me staring at you outside the church and was nice enough to tell me your name was Sara.” Her whole face softens, and he feels the hard knot in the pit of his stomach begin to dissolve. “Seeing you with your dad, I put two and two together, then I remembered your work in Kolkata.” He wants very much to reach across the small distance between them and touch her hand, but he doesn’t, because there’s something else he needs to tell her. “You want to hear something weird?”
“What?”
He hesitates, knowing that he’s running the risk of making himself truly sound like a stalker, but it could be awkward if she finds out later. If there is a later, he thinks. “Were you working at Fox River when they did the retrofit?”
A tiny frown puckers the smooth skin between her eyebrows. “Do you mean when they replaced all the old pipes?”
He knows the Fox River retrofit involved a hell of a lot more than replacing old pipes, but he has no intention of boring her to tears if he can help it. “Yeah.”
She shakes her head. “Before my time, I’m afraid, but I have heard a few stories about the mess the construction guys left behind from my nurse and the COs.” A half smile tugs at her lips, as if she’s remembering a particularly amusing anecdote, then she looks at him. “Why do you ask?”
“One of the partners at my firm handled that.” He holds his breath, waiting for her to pick up her purse and get to her feet or, at the very least, ask him why he hadn’t mentioned this earlier.
To his relief, she does none of these things, offering him a wry smile instead. “Small world.”
“Sometimes.” He reaches for his coffee cup. “I would have mentioned it earlier but I -” But what? You were too distracted by her mouth and her voice and her legs and the shadowy cleft between her breasts? Too immersed in the need to make her want to be with you, too focused on sounding and behaving like a nice, normal guy when so often you feel the exact opposite? She’s watching him, waiting for him to go on, and it’s suddenly easy to say the words. “I guess I had other things on my mind.”
Her smile changes, becoming something mischievous, something that makes his pulse stutter and begin to race. “So you’re the one I can complain to about the infirmary being too small and the air-conditioning ducts never working properly?”
He takes a welcome breath of cool air laced with the subtle scent of her perfume, and returns her smile with one of his own. “I hate to disappoint you, but it was before my time, too.”
She settles back in her chair, crossing her long legs in a delicate swish of skin and silky green dress. “How long have you worked there?”
“Almost five years now.” He looks at her, wondering if he should tell her there are times when he can’t remember what life was like before he became the person everyone seemed to expect him to become. “Sometimes it feels a lot longer.”
She gives him a sympathetic smile. “Not your dream job either?”
The last time he had this conversation, it was with his brother. He sincerely hopes this version turns out better than that one did. “I thought it was, back in the day, but now I’m pretty sure it’s not.”
“What would you like to do?”
“I don’t know,” he tells her, uncomfortably aware he sounds like a listless high school student talking to the careers counsellor.
"Well, you're still young." She doesn't quite look him up and down, but as far as his libido is concerned, she might as well have. "You've got time to go in a different direction, if that's what you really want."
"That's the thing," he admits reluctantly. "I don't really know what I want. I look at my brother, working out of that rundown old gym downtown, and I know he’s never been happier, and I think maybe I should do the same.”
She arches one well-shaped eyebrow at him. “You want to work in a gym?”
He laughs at that. “Ah, not quite.” Running his finger along the rim of his coffee cup, he tries to picture himself outside the walls of Maxwell, Middleton and Schaum. “I love the science of it and the beauty in the finished structure, if that makes sense, but lately I’ve been thinking I need more than just making sure our buildings don’t fall down.”
She smiles, obviously remembering their earlier conversation. “Your brother - sorry, what’s his name?”
“Lincoln.”
“Lincoln must have really turned his life around. He spent a lot of time in juvie, didn’t he?”
Michael hesitates, then decides he might as well get this particular story out of the way. If what he’s about to tell her changes the way Sara Tancredi sees him, then it’s better he knows now. “Juvie wasn’t the end of it, unfortunately. He did some jail time, too.” Her gentle expression doesn’t change, so he takes a deep breath and keeps going. “He got caught up in a lot of bad stuff when I was in high school. Borrowed some money from the wrong people when I was eighteen, then had trouble keeping a job and couldn’t pay it back. Ended up having to work off his debt.”
It’s the sanitized Reader’s Digest version of some of the worst years of his life, but even those vague bullet points make him feel more than a little bleak. As if seeing it in his face, Sara puts down her coffee cup and reaches across to him, her fingertips dancing over the back of his hand where it lays on the armrest of his chair. Her voice is soft, her eyes never leaving his. “I don’t want to turn therapist on you” she says quietly, looking at him as though she’s trying to fathom a particularly knotty puzzle, “but it sounds as though you feel responsible?”
Michael stares at her, belatedly realising that of course a doctor who has had personal experience with group therapy would be able to see two steps ahead in this particular tale. “For a long time, I thought mom’s insurance money had paid my way through college.” He takes a deep breath, remembering too many harsh words, so many sneering judgments. “And I never stopped ragging on my brother for how he’d wasted his half on booze and pot and crappy cars that he never got around to fixing up, never once dreaming that there was no insurance money and the only reason I went to college was that my brother borrowed the money from the kind of people who don't take too kindly to missed payments.”
She looks pained. “I guess you’re not talking about a couple of hundred dollars.”
He wonders if she’s always been a perceptive person, or if her time spent with the inhabitants of Fox River has given her the gift of cutting straight to the heart of a conversation. “By the time he told me, he still owed ninety thousand, give or take a couple of bucks.”
She stares at him, her coffee apparently forgotten. “That’s a lot of money to owe a loan shark.”
“Exactly.” Maybe he should drink some more of his own coffee, but at this moment in time, he might gag on it. “Of course, there’s no such thing as a free ride, and he just got in deeper and deeper.”
“And you didn’t know?”
“No.” He looks at her, willing her to understand how he could have missed the real reason why his only brother was falling apart. “All I saw was that he didn’t care about anyone but himself.” She opens her mouth to speak, so he quickly continues, knowing he needs to get this out of his system now so that they can move onto something else. “One night, he found himself in a bad place.” God, if there were awards handed out for understatement, he’d had to build himself a trophy case. “He turned up on my doorstep in the middle of the night, finally deciding he was ready to tell me the truth.”
He thinks of that night, how tempted he’d been to ignore Lincoln’s call, how he’d barely been able to understand his brother’s desperate words over the phone when he finally answered. He thinks of kissing Veronica chastely on the forehead and putting her in a taxi, knowing he was doing the right thing, no matter how lovely - and lonely - she was. It’s not something he likes to remember, let alone discuss, but something of his thoughts must show in his face, because Sara’s hand touches his once more. “You don’t have to tell me any more if it’s bringing back bad memories.”
“I know.” He smiles at her, quietly astounded to realise it’s the truth. “But I want to.”
~*~