InSight

getting cold. You can thank me properly later.”
    “Hmmm, that sounds enticing. You sure you’re hungry?”
    Abby laughed. “Eat up, Detective.”
    They talked while eating, and that comfortable feeling swept over her again, as if she’d known Luke McCallister all her life. It scared her to death.
    They finished dinner, then shared the cleaning up. Abby rinsed the dishes and put them in the dishwasher, while Luke put the leftovers away and cleaned the table. When she shut the dishwasher, she felt his hands around her waist, and he pulled her toward him. His touch set off internal fireworks.
    “Come here, Abby.”
    As much as she wanted him, something he said earlier bothered her. The words fell from her lips as if they’d been waiting for the perfect moment. “I think we need to get a few things straight.”
    He ran his fingers through her hair, causing a major case of distraction. She pictured him leaning back, studying her face.
    “Like what?
    “I don’t know where to begin. What you said before, about your getting on track because of me. I don’t want gratitude confused with something else. I offered a few options for your consideration, that’s all.”
    “Do you think what I feel is gratitude?”
    “I don’t know. Is it?”
    He took her in his arms and whispered, “No.”
    She knew he waited for a signal, but she couldn’t give him one and didn’t know why. She moved back so he could see her lips. “That first time in my office, you said you grew up hard. What did you mean?”
    Again, a long Luke silence she’d grown to expect while he decided to divulge one of those secrets he’d kept bottled up for so long, the cork had become one with the bottle. He let go of her and walked into the living room.
    “You’ve heard the stories. Father takes off, leaves the mother with a kid.”
    Yes, I’ve heard the stories. Lived one just like it.
    “My story is the reverse. My mother left when I was ten and my kid brother eight. She walked out the door one day and never returned. I remember her kissing our cheeks before she left. Didn’t think much of it at the time. Thought a lot about it later.
    “My father never said a word, and he never mentioned her name again. When I asked about her, he made it clear we weren’t to discuss her. He was always a mean son of a bitch, but he grew hard. Ran our house like a boot camp. If we didn’t do what he said, he dispensed his own brand of punishment.”
    Abby moved in front of him. “Like what?”
    “Besides beating the crap out of us? How about pulling me off the football team before the big game because I came home ten minutes after curfew? Or deciding not to let me go to the senior prom—on the night of the prom, ruining not only my time but also my date’s. He did the same thing to Joey. As soon as I graduated from high school, I joined the Marines. Got some college during my hitch, then finished my degree in night school when I got out.”
    Abby listened, getting her first insight into Luke’s family history. “He sounds mean.”
    “Mean and bitter. For years I wondered why my mother didn’t take us with her.”
    “And that made you wary of women.”
    He didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Are you psychoanalyzing me?”
    “Getting to know you better, that’s all.”
    “You know me better than anyone ever has.” Luke took her face in his hands. This time they were firm against her cheeks. “You’ve seen inside me, and I’m not sure I like it. I’m afraid one day your X-ray vision will see things you shouldn’t see.”
    “What are you hiding, Luke?”
    “Nothing.”
    “What happened to your brother?”
    “I don’t know. When I got out of the Marines, he was gone. My father said he didn’t know where he went.”
    “And you never saw him again?”
    “No. I used every resource to find him and my mother—hospitals, death records, you name it—but I couldn’t. Funny, I can find a car a thousand miles away, but I can’t find my own kin. I still look.”
    “Where’s your father?”
    “Dead.”
    “When?”
    “Years ago.”
    “How?”
    “Enough, Abby!” A paper-cut edge crept into Luke’s voice. He rose and walked toward the window. “Enough.” He turned his back to her, discouraging further conversation. “I’m not your patient and this isn’t therapy. It happened a long time ago. He’s dead. He was a bastard and I hated him. There, I said it. If you ask me, he lived too long. Now I don’t want to talk about