by W. Ferraro
“Ms. Cervetti?” the Latin accented voice trailed in from the storefront.
CeCe walked out and the lieutenant and two uniformed officers greeted her.
“Lieutenant?”
“Gates called me. Where is Mr. Lowell?”
Before CeCe could answer, Max’s attention moved past her, over her shoulder, and CeCe heard movement behind her. She turned and found Jarod gruffly pulling Derrick along by his arm. They stopped a good distance away from CeCe. She watched as Jarod pulled whatever was in his mouth out.
The minute he was free of the gag, Derrick looked at CeCe and began pleading for her to listen, “CeCe, I swear I didn’t do this. You have to believe me!”
“Get him out of here,” Idarraga ordered, before the two uniforms escorted Derrick out. CeCe watched as they placed him in the back of the Appleton police car.
CeCe stared at Derrick’s dark eyes that remained connected to hers from the back of the squad car, as the flashing blue lights interrupted the dimming summer sun.
She was numb, her brain was shutting down; suddenly, she was so tired she just wanted to sleep.
“Ms. Cervetti? Did you hear me?”
“What?” CeCe was pulled from what seemed like an odd out of body experience, “I’m sorry?”
Max softened his voice and let his eyes roam over her face before repeating himself, “I said, I need to take your statement.”
“Can’t it wait? She looks dead on her feet,” Jarod barked out.
The Lieutenant eyes never left CeCe as he opened his mouth to argue, but CeCe spoke first, “No it’s alright, I can do it now.”
She turned to return to her office, when she passed Jarod he began walking backwards to accompany her.
“No. I’ll just go with Max.” With no other explanation she continued on her route, feeling his eyes bore into her back. She didn’t know why she didn’t want Jarod with her, but it didn’t change the little voice in her head telling her to do this on her own.
The next fifteen minutes felt like hours to Jarod. He sat on the counter in the store, examining his right hand’s knuckles. Opening and closing his hand repeatedly, focusing on the pain with each movements.
When he’d gotten her call and heard the fear in CeCe’s voice, he’d hopped out of his truck leaving the door wide open. He slid over a car’s hood in 70’s television fashion doing whatever he needed to do to get to her as quickly as possible. When he entered the store, he could hear Lowell banging on the door she’d barricaded herself behind. The next few moments seemed a blur to him, he needed to get the threat away from her.
He heard Lowell spouting what a mistake this all was, but Jarod honestly didn’t care. His fist connected to Lowell’s eye and it felt good. It felt good to immobilize the other man. To know he was the alpha, in true Neanderthal thinking, survival of the fittest, and in this sense, the toughest. With a quick application of a zip tie to Derrick’s wrist, Jarod’s attention returned to the girl. His girl.
When the door cracked open, and her scared beautiful eyes looked back at him, he felt his own soul begin to chip. He would do anything to keep that look from her eyes.
As he sat there, he began to chastise himself for not seeing it was Lowell. He’d run this guy through the investigation wringer and he came up clean, each and every time.
Jarod looked over his shoulder and looked at the dropped floral box. Hopping down, he went over to where it lay, squatted down and examined the mess. The bloom sizes were different than the ones before. These were smaller, daintier than all the others were. The floral tissue paper was pink and there was a handwritten floral note card thrown not far from where the flowers and box lay.
Jarod moved over to read the personal card.
Simple truth. I’ve missed you. –Derrick.
This was the position he was in when CeCe and Idarraga returned from the office. It was Max who inquired to what he was doing.
“Uh, just looking over the evidence. This is your department, Idarraga.” Jarod stood and looked toward CeCe who was successfully avoiding his gaze. “Cees, you ready? I’ll take you home.”
Finally, she looked at him and he thought she would just collapse, right then and there from exhaustion. All three walked out together, after the store was locked up, Idarraga went to his car while Jarod and CeCe walked to his truck. In the empty parking lot, the beater pickup looked even worse with its driver’s door open and faded interior light.
As they walked closer to his vehicle, Jarod grabbed onto her hand, his heart warming when she didn’t pull away from his hold, but he hated the fact her hand was cold as ice, confirming her adrenaline crash. They walked hand in hand and he wished their walk was longer, but it came to a quick close. He opened the passenger door and nestled her there before walking around to the drivers. However, when he placed the key in the ignition, the engine would not turn over.
“Yup. Should have seen that coming,” he mumbled. “Give me your keys, we’ll leave the Beast here and retrieve it in the morning.”
Without a word or fight, she pulled her keys out of her bag and exited the car. Once they were in the mustang, Jarod watched as she started to nod off.
When he pulled up to his apartment he couldn’t believe how out cold she was. She never even stirred when he carried her out of the car and up the stairs. He had just gotten her into his bed, when she roused enough to say, “Don’t leave me,” then fell into a deep sleep.
“Not a chance, Kitten.” He whispered back.
Jarod sat in the chair watching CeCe sleep for hours. She never moved or made a sound. She looked like one of those slumber princesses little girls go gaga over. Her dark hair hung in a perfect curtain along the pillow. Her full lips looked plump and inviting. Her long lashes cast the smallest of shadows on her soft cheeks, and her chest rose and fell in perfect REM sleep.
It was closing on 3AM when he decided to get some shuteye himself. With the stealthiest of moves, Jarod laid down on the bed, on top of the covers she was snuggled into and gently pulled her towards him. Unconsciously, she nuzzled into his embrace and continued her undisturbed sleep. He nodded off inhaling her wonderful unique scent and continuing his self-serving actions of pushing the doubts that Derrick Lowell was CeCe’s stalker out of his mind.
The buzzing of his phone pulled Jarod from his dreams. With a quick look at the bedside clock, he had only fallen asleep three hours ago. With a look to CeCe, she remained unmoved and still asleep, Jarod slid out of bed and grabbed his phone and walked into the bathroom. With the door closed behind him, he answered, “Idarraga?”
“Yeah, Gates, I wanted to let you know, you were right, Lowell isn’t our guy.”
Shit.
“I said no such thing,” Jarod answered for lack of anything else to say.
“Yeah, well, whatever, but when you mentioned looking at the flowers, I took the pictures from my phone and had my guys examine them. After talking to Lowell, all his info checked out. He had receipts and corroboration from the florist. I’ll be processing him out of custody within the hour.”
Jarod remained mute, suddenly intrigued by the chipped grout on the bathroom floor, when the other man broke the silence only then did he respond, “Yeah, okay.”
“I’ll be calling Ms. Cervetti after I hang up with you to let her know.”
“Don’t bother, I’ll tell her.”
“I think it would be best if I tell her. You know, officially, considering it is a police matter.”
Fuck that shit! Jarod didn’t want to share anything that occurred between CeCe and him, but he lashed out at the dig, “Well, she isn’t in your bed, now, is she?”
His words were met with silence.
Just keep opening your mouth, Asshole!
“I’ll call her later this morning and let her know,”
“Yeah, you do that,” Jarod disconnected the call.
When he felt himself gain some sort of control over the emotions swirling through him, Jarod padded back to the bed and tried qui
etly to crawl back in. Just as the mattress dipped down under his weight, CeCe roused. Blinking fast she took in her surroundings and sat up quickly. Her hair fell over her face, and she just as fast flipped it back over her head. She pulled the sheet up covering herself even though she was still in all her clothes.
“Gates!?! What the hell?”
She continued to look around as if the walls would offer an explanation.
“Kitten, calm down. You were dead on your feet, I brought you here to decompress.” Even he knew how pathetic that reason sounded.
She looked at him alarmed and annoyed, then, as if something clicked, she threw the covers off her and stood. She looked down and seemed surprised to find herself completely clothed. He got some joy out of that.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going down to the police station.” She answered as she looked around vigorously for her bag and keys.
What? Did she hear his phone call? Did she have ESP? He was seriously missing something, and it pissed him off.
“And why the fuck would you do something like that?” he placed his hands on his hips and stared her down.
“Well, Mr. Nosey, I need to talk to Derrick. He didn’t do this. I know that, and I need to apologize to him. And right the wrong.” She met his gaze, jutted out her hip and gave the attitude right back.
Okay maybe this was a sick and twisted dream he was having.
“How do you know?” he asked quietly as he searched her face.
“Because I know Derrick. All I can hope is he will forgive me, for everything.” She said the last part under her breath, but he heard it loud and clear.
“And what the fuck is that supposed to mean, CeCe?” he yelled at her retreating back.
She had reached the door before he caught her. With his hand on her upper arm, he turned her around so she faced him. Nose to nose he repeated his question.
His blue eyes searched her hazel ones and where he hoped he would see an obvious denial, he saw her pride and what she so desperately clung to. It cut him, deeply. He released her.
“It means I can no longer live in fantasyland. I need to wake up from dreamland. This is life. My life, and I will not have regrets. With each passing day, it seems my dreams are getting further and further away from me. I can’t allow it. Like how it was my dream to fill my store with only my designs, but now, considering, they will stay just that, a dream. I will not allow another aspect of my life to be hazed over because of what I feel physically, when I know, emotionally, I couldn’t bare it.” Her voice cracked, but by God, she never let the water that pooled in her beautiful eyes spill over.
He needed to tell her, he needed to go for broke, but even as his brain was screaming for his tongue to do just that he only said, “Someone once told me, dreams are just desires your heart is too afraid to ask for.”
Her lip quivered as his words triggered the memory of a long ago time, when a girl and a no good young man sat on the hood of his Camaro and looked out over the valley on a warm fall night. That was when she first told him about her dream to design clothes, and when he first saw her speak with such passion and hope.
“Sounds like someone who needed something to grasp onto.”
“Maybe, but words like that can only be spoken when they are believed. I believed her then because I knew she was completely sincere. She is also the most beautiful girl I know. I’ve ever known.”
“Jarod…”
“Why are you fighting this, and me, so hard? Is it so hard to listen to your heart? To believe in me? If you want to deny your dreams, then go ahead, but I will not deny mine. My dreams then and now, have only ever been about one thing. I’m looking at the object of all those years of dreams.”
He watched as she struggled for control, and he focused on that, and the pain radiating from his leg and thigh. Wanting the fire that burned there to consume him because he knew what was coming. He knew his pleas were met with the ultimate of resistance.
CeCe finally broke from their locked gaze and looked at the new day’s sunlight beginning to filter through the small window. When she returned her attention his too close face he knew he had lost. “You want the truth why I can’t have those dreams become reality? It’s because you have the power to destroy me. Do you hear me? I can’t let you in any further. I can’t not have control. What you are asking me will require me to renege on the one promise I made to myself.”
He had no words, nor did he move a muscle when she took two steps backwards and placed her hand on the doorknob, saying in departure, “I’m choosing to leave what you and I had as incredible sex and a dark memory that has been repainted. Your debt is repaid; now, leave me to move on with my life as I want to.”
Jarod watched as she walked out of his room, and his life, on her terms. He was unable to do anything about it, either.
“Remind me what the hell I am paying you for?” Dylan demanded.
“Fuck you, Cross,” Jarod shot out of the seat he occupied opposite Dylan’s desk in the S&D office and began to pace.
“I pay you for results, and instead I have CeCe terrified to be in her own store knowing that someone is watching her!” Dylan continued to bark as he got up, and turned to look out the huge window behind him.
Jarod didn’t need Dylan telling him he fucked up, but Jarod needed something to focus his aggravation on, and until something better appeared, Dylan would do.
Dylan turned back around and with less gusto said, “So where are we with finding out where the cable IP address is coming from?”
“My guy is working on it now, but as he said, whoever this guy is, he’s good at covering his tracks. It is going to take him a couple of days to crack it.”
Dylan pressed, “But you think he will be able to.”
“I bet my life on it,” Jarod countered.
“Let’s just make sure it really is your life you have on the line, not CeCe’s,” Dylan clarified when his desk phone buzzed.
Dylan, the guy you were expecting is here.
“Thanks, Josie, send him in.” he pressed the intercom button. Dylan looked to Jarod and said, “Our conversation will have to wait.”
“I’ll head out,” Jarod began for the door.
“No, I think you should stay.”
The pretense of Dylan’s directive left Jarod puzzled, and then suddenly, it was clear when Derrick walked through the office door. He did not notice Jarod right away.
“Hey, Dylan, thanks for taking the time to see me,” Derrick said as he extended his hand to the other man. “I will make this quick, I wanted to let you know I plan on asking CeCe to marry me in a couple of weeks when we head to Napa. She considers you her family, and I wanted you to know my intentions.”
Suddenly, there was a new target for Jarod’s anger.
Jarod saw red. “No fucking way!” he bellowed as he began to charge the newest arrival. However Dylan must of known that would be his move, for he stepped in front of Jarod, holding him in place.
Derrick, caught off guard from the objecting outburst, as well as the unexpected addition to the conversation, took a moment to steady himself. When he was ready, he directed his next statement to Jarod, “Excuse me?”
No way could CeCe marry him. Over Jarod’s dead body. “You heard me.”
“Gates, you aren’t really in a position to have an opinion,” Dylan pointed out and Derrick must have found that statement as a point in his column.
“Look, I’ve had my fill of you. I know all about your weekend in Boston as well as your past with her.” Jarod’s face betrayed his shock enough for the Fucktard to call him out on it. “Oh, what? You didn’t think she would tell me? She told me everything, and I am not going to lie, it hurt, but for us to move forward and for her to accept my proposal, we cannot have secrets. I accept that. She assures me all that happened between the two of you was nothing more than sex, and I believe her.”
With ease, Jarod threw off Dylan’s block and charged Derrick. He had Lowell’s coll
ar before Dylan was able to pull him off the other man. When Jarod was forced in the opposite direction, he paced away running his hands through his hair trying to find some sort of calm and stop the feeling his house of cards was falling around him, and was failing miserably.
“Shit! Come on guys!” Dylan said from one man to the other before turning his attention to Jarod, “Do you really think this is what she would want, Gates?”
“Him?” Jarod barked, knowing that wasn’t what Dylan was asking.
By the look on Dylan’s face, he too knew Jarod was grasping at straws. When everyone had taken a breath, Dylan turned his attention back to Derrick, “You don’t need my permission, but I appreciate the gesture. I’d be thrilled.”
Derrick went to leave the office, but stopped and faced his adversary, “I love her, man.”
Jarod didn’t know where his calmness came from, but it was as if he was a balloon and all the air was leaving him. He looked Lowell in the eye and spoke clearly and honestly, “I’m sure you think you do. But, I’ve loved her forever. I’m the better man for her.”
“Says you.”
“Says CeCe.”
“You and I both know that is bullshit. You are oil to her water. Look, I get it. How could a man not fall in love with her, but I’m asking you to back off, this is the last time I will be civil about it.”
Jarod folded his arms across his chest and quirked his eyebrow, knowing even Fucktard here couldn’t believe that threat would mean anything, “Oh, and what does that mean?”
Derrick swallowed then looked the other man square in the eye, “It means, CeCe’s heart only has room for one man, and I’ll be damned if that man isn’t me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a ring to buy.”
Jarod watched as the other man exited the office and disappeared from his sight. He turned to Dylan and tried to refocus his anger, “You knew he would be here, and that he’d tell you what he did.”
Unabashed, Dylan answered, “I had a feeling. After he was arrested for stalking and harassing CeCe, and then accepted her apology, as well as that of the police, he reached out to me, wanting to talk. I narrowed it down to either his intentions for CeCe, or to tell me how much of an asshole you are.”