“Not long. He’ll be out like a light any minute if he’s not overexcited from today.”
“It was fun, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was. Thank you.”
“It wasn’t all me,” he reminded her.
“No, but you paid for everything, and you were so good with the kids.”
“I knew Sasha just needed handling,” he said.
“Uh-huh, and you know how to handle the female of the species, don’t you?”
“I know how to handle this one, anyway,” he said, and his hand slipped under her shirt. She hadn’t worn the one he’d suggested because the weather was too cold for it, opting instead for the long-sleeved navy T-shirt with the lighthouse design, which he had also paid for.
“You do,” she admitted, “but it’s bad for you to get your way all the time.”
“Is it?” He kissed her, cradling her head on one arm while the other hand crept under the band of her bra.
When she could breathe, she asked, “Exactly what are you trying to accomplish here?” She was teasing, flirting a bit, but she was also serious. He was unusually intent today, possessive in a new way. He had held her hand almost continuously in the aquarium.
“Staking my claim,” he said in much the same tone she had used.
Teresa held up her left hand, making the diamonds sparkle. “I think you’ve already done that.”
“I need to make sure of you,” he said. They kissed for a few more minutes, and Teresa was enjoying it more all the time. “Let’s adjourn to the bedroom,” he said.
“No, Frank.”
“Yes.”
“So you can ‘stake your claim’?”
“Yes.”
“What’s in it for me?” she joked.
He straightened, took her hand, and started to get up. “Allow me to demonstrate,” he said.
Teresa laughed and allowed herself to be helped up and led into her bedroom. He started to close the door, and she said, “I never close it.” He hesitated and then went ahead and closed it. He didn’t lock it. She didn’t think Aiden would get up, but she hoped he would know enough to knock first if he did.
Frank pulled her T-shirt off, not without help, and knelt to take off her shoes and jeans. He eased her back on the pillows and kissed her until she was breathless. She had not anticipated this and was wearing her least sexy underwear. He took them off, the bra too this time, and then he gave her the best oral sex of her life—not that the bar had been set very high.
“So far so good?” he asked, while she was still trying to catch her breath.
“Yes,” she managed to whisper. He smiled and stroked her face and then moved down to her breasts. “I love you,” she said.
“You only say so in bed,” he pointed out.
“I guess we’ll have to keep doing this, then,” she said. She didn’t have an excuse and didn’t know what else to say. He proceeded without further comment and “staked his claim” in no uncertain terms, again holding her wrists at the end. She didn’t think about whether she was bothered by it or not; it didn’t last very long, and she had other things on her mind.
“Well?” he asked.
Teresa smiled up at him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Are you sure?” Did he sense her uncertainty about giving up her independence, or perhaps the slight guilt she felt for not telling him about Brett’s call?
“I’m sure,” she said. “Do we need to have a talk about jealousy and possessiveness?”
“No,” he said. “I think we’re good.”
“I thought when you bought me a sexy shirt you must not mind if other guys look.” Had that been her idea or Alix’s?
“Not if they know you’re mine. I like to show you off a little.”
They lay in bed for a while longer and played a game of “Have you ever?” which proved they were more alike than they had supposed—he was more conventional than she’d thought, and she was less so than he’d expected. All too soon, she made herself get out of bed and put her clothes back on. “No, you can’t stay all night,” she said before he could ask.
He got up and reached for his pants. “Breakfast?” he asked.
“No!” she said, laughing. “Every time I try to draw a line, you try to blur it. I need to go to bed at a decent hour and get up and make pancakes.”
“I like pancakes.”
“Another time. We’re going to church and grocery shopping, and we’ll be waiting here with bells on for you to pick us up for the movie.” She kissed him. “Okay?”
“With bells on?”
“Ready to enjoy ourselves—I believe that’s the meaning.”
“I’d like to see you in literal bells,” he said. “Just the bells.”
She laughed again. “Go home, Frank. Tomorrow will be here before you know it.”
After he was gone, she double-checked the windows and locked both doors. Elle Goodman had still not been found—forty-eight hours now, and no sign of her or her car. Scary.
Chapter 17
The time they got out of church could vary, and it was on the early side today, but Brett had said he would be waiting, and she knew he would be. He was early for almost everything. She felt a little guilty about not telling Frank, when they had agreed to no bullshit, especially because she now wore his expensive ring. It wasn’t a lie, but a sin of omission. Sometime in the future, when he was surer of his place in her life, she would at least tell him Brett’s version of the falsified grant proposal. It wasn’t as if she was having a tryst; she would speak to him briefly and leave Aiden with him for a little while. If Aiden balked, she would be sorry, but also relieved.
The park was located on a grassy hillock alongside the public library and a block from the Silver Screen. It held only swings, a sandbox, a slide, and a small duck pond, but was a popular place for library patrons to take their kids. They were almost to the movie theater when Aiden, looking out the window, cried, “Frank!” Surprised, Teresa saw the Acura parked in the theater lot. He was standing beside the car, looking up, his head back, and holding a handkerchief to his face. She glimpsed blood and immediately pulled over, half across the sidewalk, not taking the time to maneuver into a parking place.
“Stay in the pickup,” she told Aiden, who was already half unbuckled. She got out, and Frank turned and saw her. Blood had spattered the front of his shirt. “What happened?” she asked. “Did you have an accident?” She glanced at the SUV but didn’t see a crumpled fender or cracked windshield. A more dramatic possibility leapt to her mind—this was a symptom of some dreadful disease, and his rush to marry her was because he didn’t know how long he had to live. Not a Hallmark movie—a Nicholas Sparks novel.
He took the handkerchief away. “Your old boyfriend gave me a bloody nose,” he said. It didn’t look bad, a little pink and slightly swollen, probably not broken.
Her first, instinctive thought was, Did you hurt him? Instead she took a breath and said, “Are you okay? I thought you were trained in self defense.”
“Ha, ha,” he said humorlessly. “It was a fluke.” He dabbed at his nose again and said, “I think it’s stopped.”
Teresa found a moist wipe in her purse and gave it to him. “What happened? What are you even doing here? The movie isn’t for hours.”
Instead of answering, he looked down and said, “I’d better go home and change my shirt.”
“Put ice on your nose,” she advised. She waited for an explanation, but none was forthcoming. He didn’t ask why she was there, either. He knew she was going grocery shopping, and the Supermart was only three blocks away. Maybe he needed to shop too, or had hoped to run into them. She kissed his cheek, an awkward, comforting kiss, trying not to hurt him, and at the same time her face flushed with heat as she remembered last night, emotion heightened by this unlikely surprise.
Frank waved her away and got back in his car. She would have waited a little longer, but her pickup was in the way. She got in and buckled up. “Nosebleed,” she signe
d, checked for traffic, and backed into the street.
Aiden’s nose was pressed to the window. He didn’t seem upset—he knew a thing or two about nosebleeds. Teresa did her best to remain calm and matter-of-fact for him, but inside she was furious. She did have to have a talk with Frank about this stupid, unreasonable jealousy.
She found a parking place near the swings and waited for Aiden to climb out before she looked for Brett. She was half anxious, half dreading to see him. Aiden saw him first. He ran to him and hugged him tight. Brett’s hand was gentle on the boy’s hair, but when he raised his head he looked shocked and indignant. “Teresa,” he said, tight-lipped. There were tiny spots of blood on his shirt and even on his glasses, but he seemed unhurt.
“I saw Frank,” she said inadequately. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know if I can leave Aiden with you if you’re going to go around hitting people.”
“He provoked me!” She didn’t doubt it. Brett wasn’t easily angered. He was more likely to grow silent, morose—“sulking,” she had teased him. He hadn’t even been angry about being fired—sad, hurt, not angry—but it was easy enough where Frank was concerned.
“There’s no excuse for assault,” she said coolly. She touched Aiden’s shoulder, and he let go of Brett and turned to her. “Go swing for a minute while we talk.” He went, dragging a little, sat down in a swing, gave himself a halfhearted push, and then sat watching them. Brett looked at the ground, silent but seething. “It doesn’t look like he hit you back,” she said.
“No.”
“You need to clean your glasses, though.”
He took them off, rubbed the lenses with his handkerchief, and put them back on before he met her eyes. “Teresa, he said some pretty ugly things to me—about you, that you belonged to him, and he was pretty graphic. Damn! He was trying to provoke me, and I let him.”
“What do you mean? What did he say?” She couldn’t imagine what he could have said, what he would have said.
He shook his head. “He said to stay away from you and Aiden.”
“What did he say? About me?” He shook his head again. “What did he say to make you hit him? He could file charges for assault!”
“He said he would if I contacted you again. He said—” Brett looked away, distressed, and the words came out in a rush: “He said ‘her sweet little pussy belongs to me now’ and…what he would do to you.”
Teresa felt as if she had been slapped. It didn’t sound like Frank, and yet it did—your body is so responsive, so sweet all over. She didn’t think Brett could have made it up—not the awkward, tentative man she had known, always embarrassed when they had to discuss personal things like her period, sex, or birth control.
“That’s not the way you talk about a woman you love,” he said indignantly. “That’s not love! God! Love is supposed to make you happy, and I’m in hell, and you—are you happy, Reesie? With that man? He’s a bully. I don’t want him around my son!”
“He’s not—”
“I mean your son.” He was a little flustered now over his Freudian slip. She knew he did love him like a son. “He said if I bothered you or Aiden ever again, he would get me fired from the orchard too.” He glanced toward the swings and gave Aiden a little wave and a half smile, and Aiden, reassured, began to swing again, gently, still watching. Brett took a deep breath, and they both stood there with nothing to say. She felt the way she had after Frank put the handcuffs on her: not feeling anything, stunned into silence, with no idea what to say. Brett ran a hand through his hair. “What I don’t get is why you told him,” he said.
“Told him what?”
“That I’d be here, that we were meeting here.”
“I didn’t,” she said.
“You must have.”
“But I didn’t. I should have, but I knew it would upset him, and I didn’t think he needed to know.”
He shook his head. “He didn’t happen by and see me. He was searching for me. I was over by the library, and he was looking around for me. And he said the same words I did—visitation, joint custody, that it would never happen. You really didn’t tell him?” She shook her head. “Who did you tell? Somebody told him what I said.”
“Nobody, not even Alix. I didn’t have time. I don’t think she would have talked to him anyway—he doesn’t like her.” She didn’t mention that Alix might not be speaking to her now, although she had been cordial enough when they picked up Sasha and brought her home. Brett stared at her, mystified. She thought back, trying to remember what had been said and when. Nobody was around when she’d talked to him on the phone, not even Aiden, who was asleep and couldn’t have heard anyway. “I didn’t talk about it to anybody but you. You called me—Frank wasn’t with me.”
He took a deep breath. “Let me see your phone,” he said. She didn’t see why, but she got it out and handed it to him. Who was he going to call? “Oh!” he said. “This is yours? It’s pretty flashy.”
“Frank bought it for me.”
“Did he have access to it?”
“What do you mean? He bought it. He set it up for me.”
He touched keys, looked at the screen, and then took a step back from her, even more shocked than he had been when she came. She couldn’t imagine what he was looking at—surely Frank wouldn’t sext her. He hadn’t had the phone to take pictures of her—unless it was while she was asleep. Brett turned off the phone, opened something on it, took out the battery, and threw it away, toward the sandbox.
“What are you doing!?”
It took him a minute to get words out. “There is an app on your phone. It’s what they call a boyfriend app. It’s to track you. He can use it to listen to your phone calls and read your texts.”
She had never heard of such a thing. She shook her head. “That’s impossible. It can’t be legal.”
“Not without your permission it isn’t. He could even make your phone call his number if he wanted and listen to you when you’re not on the phone, eavesdrop on all your conversations. It’s not legal to do it without your knowledge. You should take it to the police.”
“He is the police,” she said bleakly. She was wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt and a denim jacket, and the weather was mild enough, but she was chilled to the bone.
A dozen things were thrown into sharp relief. His mood the day before, a little grim and then persistent, possessive, needing to stake his claim—after her conversation with Brett. What he had said about thinking she was married—“you have to push through the hard stuff and do whatever is necessary.” Brett saying, “he would get me fired from the orchard too”—was Frank the whistleblower?
All the conversations she had had on the phone with Alix, discussing him and their relationship. His hostility to her best friend—was it after Alix theorized that he was mentally ill or might be an abuser? He knew she would be at the grill the first time he had joined them—he said she had mentioned it, but she didn’t think she had, not to him.
He had been talking to Lacey at the bar—could he have set that up as well? Urged Lacey to “console” Brett?
No, this was paranoia, but he had proved himself jealous and controlling.
She retrieved the battery and put it in her pocket. “What are you going to do?” Brett asked. She held out her hand, and he gave her the phone. It wasn’t until then that she decided she wouldn’t return anything to Frank. She wouldn’t confront him.
“I’m not going to the police,” she said, “but I’ll keep it in case I need it to get a restraining order. Can I borrow your phone for a minute?” She put hers in her purse, and while he was taking his out, she took off the ring, the amazing, perfect, channel-set band with its center diamond flashing in the sunlight, and threw it into the duck pond. She knew it might choke a duckling, but she didn’t care. She would have liked to throw the phone in, too, and pretend it had never existed.
She dialed Frank’s number. She didn’t wait for him to say anything, but spoke as soon as he picked up. “It’s over. I’m taking
Aiden to the movie by myself. Don’t come near us, or I’ll get a restraining order.”
Brett looked as if her words eased something in him, but all he said was, “Good.”
“He gave Aiden one, too,” she said. “So he could text me and Sasha. It’s not this sophisticated, but could you check it?”
“Of course. Are you going to let him stay?”
“Yes, if he wants to.” She signed to Aiden, “Stay with Brett or go to store with me?”
He signed back, “Brett,” and she turned to go and then stopped.
“Thank you,” she said to Brett. “I’m sorry.”
When she looked back from the door of the pickup, he was squatting in front of Aiden, smiling and signing. He stood up and went behind him to push the swing, higher than she would, as high as Aiden could want, the boy’s face lit up with the joy of a simple, uncomplicated pleasure. Her heart caught in her throat at the stark beauty of the moment.
She shopped on autopilot, not sure what she was buying or what she needed. When she came back to the park, Aiden parted casually from Brett and came running to her, talking and signing eagerly. In the car, she let him talk, glad she couldn’t respond while she drove. At home she put away groceries, made a light lunch they could supplement with movie popcorn, ate mechanically, tasting nothing, and kept a casual demeanor for Aiden. She told him Frank couldn’t go to the movie with them after all because of his nosebleed—he had to lie down and take it easy, so it wouldn’t start again.
She didn’t enjoy the movie. She still wasn’t feeling much, but thoughts crowded into her mind without order or logic, some practical, some verging on hysteria. Aiden said Brett liked his phone, so he must have checked it. She couldn’t take it away until she could figure out if she could afford to replace it. She could revert to her old, simpler phone and her old plan, which she hadn’t cancelled yet. There would be no wedding, no home with Frank, no online classes, no baby, no cochlear implant.
Alix was right. He was an abuser. This was abuse. If he was mentally ill, bipolar or whatever, it was no excuse. He was a police officer. He knew it was wrong. If he could be this controlling, what else might he be capable of, even worse than this? He wanted to tie her up. He had pressed to meet Aiden right away. What if he was a child molester, courting a single mother to get to her child, grooming him, flirting with Sasha? Was he stupid enough to think Aiden wouldn’t tell? She was too numb even to feel the horror of these thoughts.
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