Cameron entered the waiting room. I was surprised to see him, because he and Jeremy were still mostly avoiding each other. Becca bumped me with her shoulder and motioned toward Cameron with her chin. “See, I told you we stick together, even when it’s hard,” she whispered and got up to go help Aiden with their sleepy toddler.
Cameron rushed to Jeremy’s side and put his arm around him. “I came as soon as I heard.”
“Thank you. I…” Jeremy shook his head.
“What?” Cameron asked.
“Nothing, just thank you.”
“I’m sorry, for so much, but I’m here now. Maybe we can talk later?”
Jeremy shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. I’ll probably need to cancel my date anyway.”
Cameron dropped his arm. “I hadn’t realized. I should have, but no one said. Shit.”
Ouch. This was painful to watch. They needed to work this out, preferably somewhere less awkward. “Jer, I can take care of Toni,” I offered. “I don’t think she’d want everyone to hover over her, anyway. That is, if we ever get to see her.”
Jeremy nodded. “I’ll wait to hear how she’s doing, and then Cam and I can go talk. Will you tell her to call me if she needs anything from me?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of her,” I said. “Just go and take care of yourself for a change. She’d kick your ass if she found out you used her as an excuse to get out of talking this out.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
After an agonizing ten minutes, Kate finally returned. “She’s doing well. I’m going to bring Trent back to her room. She had a panic attack, but she’s awake now. They’ll keep her for a little while longer, but once the doctor confirms the medication he’s given her has calmed her down, she’ll be released.”
***
An hour later, we were back at the house, and I was pretty sure I was driving her nuts.
“Trent, I don’t need another pillow or blanket, I’m not hungry, and I don’t need tea. Can we finally let Daniels tell us what he’s been here waiting to talk to me about?” she asked.
“Are you sure you are ready to talk about this? I mean, maybe we should wait and talk tomorrow,” I pushed.
She huffed and rolled her eyes. “Detective Daniels—”
“Please call me Dan.”
“Your name is Dan Daniels?” she asked, scrunching her forehead.
He shrugged. “My parents were extremely unimaginative.”
Reed chuckled. “Man, I thought you never told me your first name because you didn’t want to socialize with anyone outside of work.”
Daniels’s eyes widened. “You seriously didn’t know my name? We were partners for a couple of years. You’ve read my reports, and all of them had my full name on them.”
Reed shook his head. “I just thought you were trying to keep everyone from finding out something embarrassing, like your name was Herbert or something.”
“You think having the same first and last name isn’t embarrassing?” Daniels asked in a sarcastic tone.
Toni cleared her throat. “This is all very interesting, really, but do you think we could move forward to what we’re actually here for?”
“I don’t have anything new to share, just some follow-up questions mostly. I didn’t want you to worry about Zack and Trent seeing Miguel outside the bar when they were leaving,” Daniels told her.
I winced. Toni slowly turned to look at me. She had a fake smile on her face, and I could tell by the long pause she was taking that I was in trouble. “You saw Miguel? Were you planning on telling me?”
I put my hands up defensively. “Now, Wildcat, don’t get mad at me. I was going to tell you tomorrow, but I wanted to make sure you had a good night’s sleep first.”
Daniels pressed his fingers firmly against his temple. “Well, that’s out of the bag. Anyway, I applied some pressure, played against the captain’s lingering guilt about how Reed was treated by the department, and managed to get him to agree to assign someone to you until we can gather enough evidence to finally get at least a restraining order against Miguel Santos.”
He assessed her for a moment. “Toni, if you feel up to it, I need you to talk to me about that guy from the bar.”
She swallowed hard. “What do you want to know?”
“Did you know him before he walked up to you?” Daniels asked.
She thought for a moment. “I had a weird sense of déjà vu as soon as I saw him, but I don’t really have a clear memory. He said he was a friend of my mother’s and that he met me when I was really little. Maybe that’s what it was, but I had a creepy feeling the entire time he was talking to me.”
Toni looked down at her lap and seemed to fold in on herself. Daniels moved to crouch down in front of her. “Hey, don’t beat yourself up. After everything you’ve gone through lately, I don’t doubt you for a second. If this guy gave you a creepy feeling, we are going to dig into him until we know everything there is to know about him.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Reed stood up and headed for the door. “Kate should be getting off work soon, and I’d like to be home when she gets there. She’s off tomorrow. Would you guys like to come over for dinner?”
Toni perked up. “I’d love to. You don’t need to be at the bar, do you?” she asked me.
I’d do anything to keep that smile on her face. “I do need to go in for a bit, but I can get it done while you’re in class.”
She nodded enthusiastically. “Are you sure, though? I haven’t been much help to you at the bar yet.”
I kissed her head. “Please don’t worry about it. You’ve got enough on your mind, and I can cover this.”
We sat together quietly while our friends let themselves out. After the door closed behind them, I got up and locked the doors with the new deadbolts Aiden’s head of security had installed and turned on the alarm.
“Let’s go to bed,” I said and extended my hand to her.
“I’ve been in bed nearly all day.”
“I need to hold you right now,” I insisted.
“That sounds nice,” she said and took my hand.
Slowly, we walked down the hall to the bedroom. I wrapped my arms around her and buried my face in her hair. The scent of her shampoo and the warmth of her body calmed the desperate fear I’d tried to control all night.
Last night, we were on fire for each other. It was passion at its greediest, but tonight was about reconnecting and reassurance. Toni slid her hands under my shirt and lazily rubbed them up my abdomen. I framed her face with my hands and slowly kissed her.
I felt the desire building between us, but I wasn’t in a hurry. I lifted my arms as she raised my shirt over my head. Still, I didn’t move to undress her but let her continue to remove my clothes. Toni pushed me back on the bed and followed me down. She kissed and stroked me to the limits of my control, but still I held back. Somewhere in my haze of desire, she’d shed her clothes, and I groaned when her smooth skin rubbed against my heated flesh.
Our mouths met again in the same lazy rhythm. I gripped the sheets hard in my fists as she positioned herself above me and slowly guided me inside of her. She set a slow pace that had my eyes rolling back in my head.
“Never let me go,” she moaned.
I groaned my agreement and pulled her back into a deep, earth-shaking kiss. I wrapped one arm around her waist and the other around her shoulders, letting me grab a fistful of her hair. I never would have thought her slow and steady rhythm could lead us to ecstasy, but eventually the pleasure was racing through my body so hard, I thought for sure I’d die of the intensity. We groaned into each other’s mouths and continued to hold tightly to each other long after our bodies had cooled.
After a few more minutes, we each cleaned up and got back into clothes, since Jeremy had a habit of waking us up in the morning. Toni picked my T-shirt up off the floor and slipped it on. This was a shitty day, but I’d go through it over and over again if it always ended with her by my sid
e wearing my shirt.
Chapter 26
Toni
Zack met me out front in time for me to go to class. I’d passed my car keys to Trent, since both his truck and motorcycle were still parked in the loading bay of the bar. For the second day in a row, the ride to school was silent. We were both on edge after what happened yesterday, and I followed his example by scanning my surroundings, seeing if anything stood out.
Other than a pop quiz in the communications class I had with Jeremy, my morning had gone pretty easily. In my statistics class, which was large with nearly a hundred students, I slipped into my usual seat in the middle of the auditorium. Zack took the same seat he had yesterday in the back, where he could see the entire room.
We were both so focused on looking out for Miguel that neither of us noticed Trinity enter and take the seat next to me. She propped her combat-boot-clad feet up on the back of the chair in front of her and casually looked around the room.
“So this is what a classroom at Central looks like. Can’t believe I’ve never been in one before.”
I had arrived early, and there were still five minutes before the professor arrived. With so many students, I wasn’t looking to stand out, certainly not for disturbing the class. “What do you want, Trinity?”
She shrugged. “I just wanted to see what the big deal was about you. Personally, I don’t see why everyone is going through so much trouble to get to you, but Trent seems to believe you’re special. What do you have that I don’t?”
Was she for real? “What do you mean by ‘everyone’?” I demanded.
She smirked. “Oh, you’ll find that out soon enough. Don’t get too comfortable having Trent around. He’s always been there when I needed him. Can you say the same?” Before I could answer her, Zack rushed down the aisle.
“Is she bothering you?” he asked me.
I nodded.
“Good, then I didn’t call in backup for no reason. I was afraid I was going to look like a total jackass.”
By “backup” he must have meant Detective Daniels, because he entered the room a few moments later. He headed straight for Trinity and grabbed hold of her elbow. “Ms. Simms, would you come with me?”
She tried to pull her arm away. “Do I have a choice?”
“No,” Daniels replied simply. He pulled her to her feet and escorted her from the classroom at the same time the professor entered.
Instead of returning to the back, Zack took the seat Trinity had vacated. “Are you going to be able to pay attention?” he whispered.
“We’ll see,” I whispered back.
***
It turned out I wasn’t able to pay attention to the lecture. Zack proved to be an academic lifesaver in addition to a bodyguard, since he noticed my inattentiveness and took notes for me. We didn’t run into any more unwelcome surprises on the way home, and within ten minutes I was sitting in the living room chatting with Kate while Zack went to talk to Reed and Daniels.
She handed me a cup of coffee and sat next to me. “How are you holding up?” she asked. If anyone could understand what I was going through, she could, since her ex-husband, John Brandt, had stalked her for years before he was murdered last year.
“My instinct is to tell you I’m fine, but honestly I don’t really know. None of this makes sense. Miguel never seemed that into me before now. I mean, there were always other girls from nearly the beginning, so what changed?”
“You may never understand his motives. I never could figure out why John picked me over all the other women that threw themselves at him. What about me called to the monster inside of him? I’ll never have the answer to that, and I’m not sure I’d really want to hear it, either.”
“I’m sorry Reed is getting dragged back into police work. I know you both would probably rather get as far away from all of that as you can, considering how he was treated,” I said.
She waved off my apology. “Honestly, I’ve been afraid that he’s missed it. He seems to enjoy his studies to become a social worker, but I’m scared it won’t be enough to satisfy his hero complex. And hey, maybe you can help me distract him from wanting a baby.”
“He really wants a baby now?” I asked, happy to have a change of subject.
She looked down the hallway to make sure he was still in the kitchen with the other guys. “Yes. He’s turning twenty-nine soon, and apparently that’s given him baby fever. I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. I should have a better grasp on that by now, but I spent too many years doing nothing more than existing. Now the only thing I know about my future is whom I want to spend it with.”
“I thought you wanted to become a therapist?”
She shrugged. “I want to help women who are in a situation like I was. Help them and their families heal from abuse and find a way to break the cycle. I think I’ve found another way to do that without continuing with school. A women’s advocacy group approached me to work as a nurse for their battered women’s shelters in the area.”
“And if you get the job?” I pushed.
She smiled. “I’m twenty-five, and I’m getting a little jealous of Becca. I see that dreamy look she gets when she watches Aiden holding Scott, and I can’t wait until it’s my turn to see Reed holding our baby.”
“I feel so out of touch with everything that’s going on. You and Reed talking about babies, and Hope came home yesterday, right?”
Kate smiled. “She did. Hope didn’t need the NICU for as long as they thought. Honestly, I think Becca was a bit further along than they guessed. It was probably only off by a couple of weeks, but Hope is as healthy as a full-term infant now.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll be the cool aunt for a few more years.” I was not ready to go having babies, no matter how hot Trent got me.
Kate’s eyes filled with tears, and she attempted to surreptitiously wipe them away before I caught her. She tried to speak, but her voice wavered, and she cleared her throat. “You have no idea how much that means to me. I’ve got Cameron, but I miss my parents. You and Becca have given me back that feeling of family.”
I narrowed my eyes and turned my head to study her. “You aren’t already pregnant, are you?”
She shrugged. “I, uh, kinda quit taking my birth control a couple of weeks ago.”
“You are so totally knocked up!” I said, bouncing in my seat.
“Shh, I don’t want to get his hopes up until I know for sure.”
I mimicked locking my lips. “I won’t tell.” Now I understood why she thought about running by herself when her ex found her last year. The thought that I could put her in danger, or Becca and her family, terrified me. Maybe I should leave and save everyone from the drama surrounding me.
Kate grabbed my shoulder and shook me. “I know that look you’ve got on your face. Don’t you dare try and take off by yourself, thinking you’re going to protect any of us.”
“It was just a passing thought. Don’t worry.”
She narrowed her eyes at me and pursed her lips. “I’d ask you to promise me you wouldn’t do it, but I know you are every bit as stubborn as Becca and I are. It won’t help, because we’ll worry about you, and if I think you’re going to try it, I’ll tell the guys.”
Yeah, she would, too. Not that I could blame her; if I were in her place, I’d tell, too. It wasn’t like taking off would really work, though. I didn’t have anywhere to go to hide. I’d been pretty sheltered, or controlled depending on how you looked at it, and I didn’t have many contacts outside of my family and this group of friends.
My phone rang, and I groaned when I heard the special ringtone. It was my mother, and I’d been dreading this call since my father appeared in court on behalf of Miguel. It was the second act of the “Tear Toni Down” play my parents seemed to know by heart. I considered letting it go to voice mail, but Graciela Padilla could be a stubbornly determined woman, and she’d keep calling.
I sighed and answered my phone. “Hello, Mother. What do you want?”
“Is that any way to speak to your mother? We are having dinner with the Santoses tomorrow evening at seven.”
She was expecting me to fall in line and play the dutiful daughter at this dinner, but that wasn’t happening. “Well, have a good time,” I replied, pretending I didn’t know what she was asking.
Kate gave me a puzzled look, and I put my hand over the bottom of my phone and said, “It’s my mother.”
She nodded and went into the kitchen, I presumed to give me privacy, until Trent walked in the room. I hadn’t even realized he’d returned from work. He sat next to me and took my hand without saying a word. He always seemed to know what I needed, and dealing with my mother, I definitely needed his support.
“Antonia, are you listening to me?” she demanded, gaining my attention again.
“Sorry, I got distracted. Have a nice evening with Mr. and Mrs. Santos. I’m not really sure why you’re calling to tell me about it,” I continued to feign ignorance. I knew it wouldn’t work, but she wasn’t the only stubborn woman in the family.
“I do not appreciate your sense of humor, young lady. You know perfectly well your father and I expect you to attend. Now, we’ve given you a few days to apologize on your own, but since you haven’t, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to bring our families together.”
Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself to have it out with her. I reached out and grabbed Trent’s hand, borrowing some of his strength. “Well, now I know where I stand. Good-bye, Mother, don’t call me again.”
I hung up before she could say anything else and started to shake. “Why is he more important to them than I am?” I sobbed.
Trent pulled me to his chest and rubbed his hand down my hair. “I’m sorry, Wildcat. I wish I could fix this for you. They don’t know what they have, but I do. I love you, and I’ll be here next to you through the good and the bad.”
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