“True, I can’t forcibly make you leave town, but you know what, Simpson? I got this itch in my nose. If you chose to stay around here harassing Marissa, I just might have to scratch that itch. The best way I can scratch it is to nose around you and your family, adding to the ongoing investigation with your fledging business. What’s it called? Heartland Diamonds. Yeah, I think that’s what it’s called. So, do yourself a favor, take a long walk on a short pier.”
“You think you’re so smart. You don’t know what she’s capable of.” Mark’s voice sounded more menacing.
“I do know one thing, you will not ever lay another hand on her.”
“You think you can keep me from getting to her?” Mark glared at Riley and then turned around and glared at Marissa.
Fear paralyzed her.
“I’m sure you don’t want terms like spousal abuse and scar tissues to be spread all through the media and linked to your name.”
Mark had a stare-down with Riley before he turned to walk by Riley to the door. He turned back and when he was next to Riley, he brought his fist up. Riley caught the fist with his hand and spun him around. He grabbed his handcuffs and put it around Mark’s wrist and then grabbed the other hand and cuffed it.
“Good, now you get to spend time in jail for attempting to assault an officer.” Riley shoved Mark in a dining room chair and called one of his deputies to come and take him to the jail.
“You’ll never get away with this. No judge will buy anything like this,” Mark said scathingly.
“Want to bet on that? Judge Harper has ruled in my favor every time I brought something to court.”
Mark refocused his attention onto Marissa. “Tell me, Marissa, why did you decide to be a mole? Was it to get even with me?”
“I was not your mole, Mark.” Marissa began to feel the rage build up inside her.
“Who did you tell then?”
“I’m not revealing any names,” Marissa said, her face flushed.
“Tell me who you told. I have to get this information and get the company cleared of the charges. Help me in this.”
“Why should I help you? I’m not telling you anything.” Her jaw clenched.
“Marissa…” Mark said.
“I think you heard her answer, so stop pestering her,” Riley said.
Two deputies arrived and hauled Mark off to jail.
“Are you okay, Marissa?” Riley asked after Mark was taken out the door.
Marissa ran up to Riley and wrapped her arms around his waist. He placed a protective arm around her. “Yeah, I’m okay now. Thank you, Riley.”
He kissed her tenderly, moved his lips along her jawline to her neck, and then kissed that little spot at the base of her neck that gave her sweet sensations. He lifted his head up. “I’m glad we worked out the signals, otherwise, who knows what he would have done?” Riley said quietly.
“I knew if I didn’t call you, that you would have been here, and you were. You are a wonderful man, Riley. I love you. Now that Mark is in jail, I won’t need to stay at your house.”
“Well, I guess that’s true,” Riley said disappointedly.
“Thank you for letting me stay with you.”
Riley turned to walk out the door, and Marissa followed, stopping on the porch. Riley turned around and said, “Marissa, maybe you ought to enter your beetle bug in the car show!”
“Huh?” Marissa said confused, then laughed. “Do you think I could win anything for it?”
“Hell, you’ll probably get first prize.” Riley chuckled. He leaned over and kissed Marissa, then he turned and walked to his cruiser. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”
Chapter 23
Riley backed out of Marissa’s driveway and headed into town. He wanted to file the charges against Simpson even though it would only be a simple assault; at least he’d be in jail, possibly up to six months if he was found guilty.
After he filed the charge, he called Sergeant Miller in to find out the status of the Ferguson boys’ arrest warrants.
Sergeant Miller came into his office and sat in the chair. “We haven’t heard a peep out of those Fergusons all weekend.”
“Nothing at all, huh?”
“Nope.”
“Okay. Put in a call to a couple of sheriff’s departments in Wyoming, near the border, to see if they had any problems and if the Ferguson boys have been in their areas. If that proves unsuccessful, contact the Wyoming State Police.”
“Okay, will do.”
* * * *
Later in the day, Riley stopped at Marissa’s home. She was excited to see him and ran up to him for a hug. She wondered if the time would come that she wouldn’t be excited to see Riley. She hoped not.
They left to go into town for the car show, but before they did, they stopped at the Quartz Medical Center to visit Campbell. They arrived and walked to his room. He was sitting in a chair next to the bed.
“Hi, Campbell. How are you doing?” Marissa asked.
“I’m doing fine,” Campbell said in a muffled voice. “What brings you here?”
“We wanted to stop in and see you for a few minutes before we head downtown to the car show. Riley thinks I should put my Volkswagen in the show. He thinks I’ll get first place,” Marissa said, laughing. She could tell Campbell was smiling even with the bandages over his face.
“Sheriff, you got those boys yet?”
“No, according to Ferguson senior, they’re in Wyoming partying it up. We haven’t seen them, nor have we had any incidents at the bars the past few days.”
“You have a deputy outside his room. Do you think they would dare to come here?” Marissa asked.
“I think they’re stupid enough to do anything.” Riley grimaced.
“I agree,” Campbell added. “Have you been out to the dig site?”
“No. Riley asked me to stay away until he arrested the two Ferguson guys who assaulted you.”
“Good. I don’t want you to get hurt because them dumb-asses are after me.”
“Did you have all your gold and sapphires in the safe in the room?” Riley asked.
“Yes. That’s probably all gone now,” Campbell said.
“There was nothing in the safe when we checked it for fingerprints.”
“I can’t remember if they had gloves on or not when they came after me.”
“They didn’t. We got their prints off the safe.”
“They are even stupider than I first thought.” Campbell brought a hand up to adjust the bandage.
“Do you want me to notify your family, Campbell?” Marissa asked.
“Nah, I’ll call them myself when I can use a damn phone.”
“I can see you’re getting agitated with the bandages on your face already.” Marissa winked at Riley.
“So, are you two an item now?”
Marissa and Riley looked at each other, then smiled.
“You could say we are,” Riley admitted.
After visiting Campbell, Riley and Marissa left and went to the car show lined up on the main street of Frankenburg. They held hands as they walked throughout the street looking at the old vehicles. They came upon Heidi and two of her kids and stopped to chat. Marissa watched Heidi’s eyes as she looked at them holding hands and then back to her eyes, giving her a knowing look.
“So, what’s been going on since yesterday afternoon when you left my place?” Heidi asked. Marissa could tell that Heidi wanted to know every detail.
“Well, Riley found out information on Mark, and he told me about it last night. Today Mark dropped in on me again and threatened me, but Riley showed up in the nick of time. Mark tried to take a swing at Riley, but Riley caught his fist and arrested him for an attempted assault of an officer. We just got back from visiting Campbell, and here we are,” Marissa said.
Heidi folded her arms in front of her with an amused look on her face. “Mmm-hmm.”
Marissa laughed. “We’ll talk later. Where are the rest of your kids?”
“Wit
h their dad. They don’t have any interest in old cars, so I brought Robbie and Stephanie with me.”
The three adults and two children walked down the other side of the street looking at the cars. Stephanie went over to Riley and put her little hand in his. Halfway through the walk, they sat on benches in front of Duncan’s Outfitters, and Riley left to go get some drinks for them.
“M’rissa, you can’t have Riley anymore, ’cause when I get older, I’m gonna marry him,” Stephanie said, her big blue eyes boring right into Marissa’s.
“Steph, that’s enough,” Heidi scolded.
“Oh, it’s all right. Let her have her fantasy.” Marissa pulled Stephanie in and gave her a hug. “You know, when you’re old enough to marry Riley, he’ll be an old man!”
“No, he won’t.”
“Well, I think he will, because you’re five years old, and he’s thirty-five. By the time you’re eighteen, he’ll be forty-eight!”
“Oh. I’m still gonna marry him.”
“Okay, sweets, when you’re old enough, we’ll see if you still want to marry Riley, okay?”
“Marry me?” Riley said as he walked up, startling them. He handed everyone their drink.
“Riley, you startled us. Stephanie says that when she’s old enough, you two are going to get married.” Marissa smiled up at him.
“So, does that mean you’re my girlfriend, Stephanie?” Riley cocked his head and eyed the little redhead.
Her eyes lit up, and then she smiled. “Yeah.”
Riley sat with Marissa on one side of him and Stephanie on the other side. They watched the people walk by and the judges going about judging the cars.
“Oh boy.” Riley rolled his eyes when he saw David and Cindy headed toward them.
“What?” Marissa asked.
“What’s this, Riley, you jumping in and taking all the women for yourself again?” Dave teased.
“We’re single, you’re not,” Riley said crisply.
“So I have a harem.” Dave snickered and laughed.
“Dave! Stop that,” Cindy chided.
“Yeah, Dave, you don’t want to get the missus jealous now,” Riley said, a smile tugging at his lips.
“Women outnumber the men in our society by a ratio of three to one.”
“I think you got your numbers backward.” Riley eyed Dave.
“What do you mean?” Dave lifted an eyebrow.
“The last time I checked, there were more men than women.”
“Well, that’s not the case in this town,” Heidi added. “There aren’t enough single men for the single women we have here.” She pursed her lips.
“Heidi, one day you’ll meet someone who will be right for you,” Cindy said.
Everyone was quiet for a few minutes. Then Marissa said, “I’m beginning to like these town events. What’s the next one?”
“Shakespeare in the Park.” Riley wrinkled his nose.
“What do they do with that?”
“Just north of town where we had the fireworks, a group of town actors build stage props and do a Shakespearean play. I don’t know why people like that, I sure don’t. I don’t know much about science, don’t know much about biology, don’t know much about English, but know even less about Shakespeare,” Riley quipped, and everyone laughed.
“I’m not too interested in it either,” Heidi added.
“That’s another one of those dang books we had to read in high school,” Riley said with a grimace.
“Trying to read and speak that kind of language seemed like nothing more than a tongue-twister exercise to me,” Dave chimed in.
“How about you, Cindy? Do you like Shakespeare?” Marissa asked.
“It’s okay. I can take it or leave it. I think Katy has to read it for her English Literature class. She’s not liking it too much.”
At six PM the people lined up along the main streets and watched as the owners of the old cars started their engines. One after another, they drove down the street to Highway 17 and up to Highway 17A business loop and then back into town to get ready to leave. Some continued on Highway 17 toward other destinations.
“Is anyone interested in getting a pizza and coming to our place to eat?” Cindy asked.
Riley looked at Marissa and she nodded.
“Yeah, we can do that,” Riley said.
“How about you, Heidi? Want to bring the kids and have pizza with us?”
“Yeah, they’d like that.”
They meandered down the street to Southerlyn’s Jewelry and went upstairs to Dave and Cindy’s spacious two-bedroom apartment.
* * * *
After eating the pizza they sat around talking. Riley’s cellphone rang and he walked into another room to take the call, and then came back and said, “Marissa, can you stay here for a little while? I’ve got something I have to do.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Ah, yeah, someone was rushed to Quartz Medical Center. The person was beat up pretty bad.”
“Who was it?” she asked quietly.
He leaned close to her ear and spoke low so the others couldn’t hear. “Casey.”
“Would you like me to go with you?”
“It might be a good thing, though I don’t know her condition.”
They said quick goodbyes to the others and then left.
“I guess she’s pretty beat up,” Riley said. “She asked the staff to call me, said that she wanted to speak to me.”
They walked into Quartz Medical Center, and the nurse led them over to Casey. There was a caseworker present when they arrived. Casey’s face was bruised with one eye swollen shut and bruises all over her face. She looked at Riley and then at Marissa.
“What is she doing here?” Casey asked, her voice barely audible.
“Remember when I stopped by and visited with you a couple months ago and I told you that someone in town was concerned about you?”
Casey looked at Riley and then at Marissa. “It was her?”
“Yes, it was,” Riley said.
“What happened to you, Casey?” Marissa asked.
“I…I want to get away from him. I’m tired of being his punching bag. I want to file charges, but I’m afraid he won’t let me go and he’ll come after me no matter where I go.”
“You’re started in the right direction, Casey. We’ll put you in a secure place so he can’t get to you,” the caseworker said.
“But where will that be? My parents won’t talk to me, my best friend won’t let me stay with her, and I don’t have any place to go.” Tears spilled from the corners of her eyes.
“First off, Casey, if you press charges against him, he’ll be in jail for a while. Secondly, that will give you some time to get someplace where you can start over,” Riley said.
“If you file the charges, you and I will go and talk to your parents and see if we can get them to let you come back home until you can get back on your feet again,” the caseworker said.
“I know they won’t let me. My father is unforgiving and hard.”
“If they don’t, and nobody else will let you stay with them, I’ll let you stay with me,” Marissa offered.
Casey’s eyes widened. “Why would you do that for me?”
“I’ve been in the position you’re in now. I got out of it and started over. It wasn’t easy, and I still struggle with a lot of things. But I had reached the point where you are at now, I didn’t want to be his punching bag anymore, and I escaped my marriage with my life. You deserve better than this. No one has the right to beat up on another person, and you don’t deserve this abuse.”
“We will keep him in jail as long as we can, Casey. With the charges, and a restraining order, we’ll do what we can to keep him from getting to you. But the real question right now, and the answer has to come from you, is what do you want to do? Do you want to file charges and work with the caseworker to get your life in order? Is this what you want to do?” Riley asked.
Casey laid there for a few minutes. Sh
e let out a sigh and then said, “Yes, I will file charges against him. I don’t want him near me ever again.”
“Okay, I’m going to send a deputy over, and he’ll take your statement and file the charges. Your caseworker here will help you with getting a lawyer to represent you and file restraining order against him. If he threatens you, or if he comes near you, or calls you, anything at all, you call the sheriff’s department. We will do everything we can to protect you.”
“If it doesn’t work out with your parents, you call me, okay?” Marissa gave Casey her cellphone number.
“I’ve been nothing but mean to you all your life, why would you do this for me?” Casey asked.
“Well, like I said, I’ve been there myself. We women have to stick together and rid ourselves of abusive men. We don’t deserve that kind of mistreatment.”
After Riley and Marissa left and got into his truck, she asked him, “Do you think she’ll stick to the charges and restraining order?”
“I don’t really know. I thought you would know that better than me.”
“Well, the success rate is not that great. Women usually go back to their abusers because they are either desperate, feel they deserve it, or for some reason or another.”
“I guess we’ll see what she does with this.”
Riley and Marissa went back to her place. When they got to the house, Marissa asked, “Riley, would you like some iced tea?”
“That sounds good,” he answered and then sat in the couch.
Marissa brought in two tall glasses of iced tea and set them on the table. She snuggled up next to Riley, and he put his arm across the back of the couch. Marissa still couldn’t believe that Riley loved her and how wonderful it felt to have him near her. She hoped these feelings she was experiencing never ended.
She let out a gentle sigh and looked up lovingly at Riley. Her hand stroked his face, feeling the rough, unshaven shadow, and she felt a muscle clench along his jaw. She leaned forward as he brought his lips closer to hers and he was staring at her. His lips claimed hers, and he crushed her to him. His slow, drugging kisses left her mouth burning with fire. He moved his lips down her throat as his hands roamed her body.
Blue as Sapphires Page 25