Old Flame Read Online Free

is, an open question. But when you cut right through it, we were never a fit. Never one bone. Never one skin.
    Another Hell’s Kitchen Station of the Cross.
    We had met at the Church of the Most Precious Blood Confraternity Dance. I was seventeen; she was a year younger and a stunner. And for some unfathomable reason totally smitten with me. A shock, since adolescence wasn’t my best moment. I could only ascribe my good fortune to pheromones.
    We began dating and quickly became what was known in the neighborhood as an “item.” When I turned eighteen, I embarked on the first leg of your basic Hell’s Kitchen life journey. I enlisted in the Marine Corps. When my tour in Desert Storm was up, I came home.
    Instead of getting a job and settling in for the long haul, I crossed everyone up and enrolled in City College, and Ginny and I picked up where we left off. Two years later we married, and it was time to earn a living. I bid academia a reluctant good-bye and went on the force. Given the other choices —blue-collar work, or a job strong-arming people for my brother, Dave — it was a reasonable alternative. Do twenty years on the job, have a couple of kids, buy a summer cottage in the Poconos, cash the tax-free pension check, and if things got tight, there was always a security-guard job out there on the horizon. A pleasant life trajectory.
    But there was a snake in the Garden. The Marines had taken me out of the Kitchen and into the world. And I liked what I saw.
    When my tour was up, the Kitchen seemed a lot less interesting, and I wanted out. Ginny didn’t. We were headed in different directions. In the end, she was the one who left. I thought I would never see her again. Over was over. Besides, I’d had Johnnie B for company.
    Funny how things turn out.
    I pulled into her driveway and parked alongside a silver SUV.
    I got out of the car and went to the door. It swung open before I had a chance to knock.
    “Hi, Jake,” she said.
    Two words.
    That’s all it took.
    A jarring intimacy, the special kind of knowing that only comes from someone who has read your soul and knows all of your sins.
    Time had sharpened the once soft lines of her face. Her honey blond hair —auburn, when she served me with divorce papers — was tied tightly in a ponytail, making the angles even sharper. She wore a black velvet warm-up suit that was never intended to see a droplet of sweat, and pink step-in sneakers. A cute little hood sagged between her shoulder blades.
    Hardly widow’s weeds.
    She threw her arms around me. I got a whiff of expensive perfume and the sharp smell of gin. It surprised me. Except for the occasional beer with dinner, Ginny wasn’t a drinker. I guess grief went well with gin.
    “This is a surprise,” she said, stepping back and mustering a weak smile. “Long Island is way off your beat.”
    “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a beat.”
    She threaded her arm around mine and led me into the living room.
    The room was decorated in Hell’s Kitchen Luxe—expensive, but gaudy. Lots of heavy, dark wood, downy cushioned sofas, acres of plush carpeting, and lampshades with crystal thingies hanging from their bottoms. I settled in on the sofa and sunk to my hips. Ginny sat down beside me.
    “It’s been a while,” she said.
    “Ten years.”
    “Doesn’t seem like it.”
    “I expected Jeanmarie to answer the door,” I said.
    “She left a little while ago. Told me she came to see you. I wish she hadn’t.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “You don’t need any more crap in your life.”
    “That’s my call, isn’t it?”
    “I heard about your dad. I liked Dominic.”
    “Everyone liked Dominic, except Dominic.”
    “And I heard about you. I’m so sorry.”
    I shrugged. “The million-dollar wound. I’ve got the pension and I’m alive. A fair trade. And I’m off the sauce. Amazing how different the world looks when you’re upright. Tell me about you. I heard you married a fireman.”
    She studied her