Forever Hers

by Walters, Ednah

  ***

  Amy could feel Eddie’s eyes on her. Humiliation upon humiliation had turned her into a bitch and she was taking out her frustration on poor Eddie. At one time, she’d had more allowance than she knew what to do with it. Wasted it away on parties and her friends. Now, she pinched pennies and could hardly afford to buy her daughter treats. She couldn’t even charge anything because she didn’t have a credit card. Fear of Nolan tracing it back to her had been more important.

  What good did that do to her? Zilch. He still found them.

  Amy shuddered and searched the parking lot again. A glimpse of a man at the end of the aisle was all she had. Same tan cargo pants, navy-blue shirt under a black leather jacket and a red baseball hat, Nolan’s signature outfit when off duty. She had rushed outside praying she had been mistaken.

  By the time she’d reached the entrance, the man was gone, yet the prickly feeling of being watched persisted. She hated these mind games Nolan played. Why couldn’t he just act like a man and approach her?

  “Mommy?”

  Amy tensed and turned to face her daughter. She’d been afraid to ask Raelynn what she’d seen…if she’d seen Nolan too. “Yes, sweetie.”

  “Is Mr. Eddie going to fix our car?”

  “No, sweetie, but he’s calling someone who will do it.”

  “Did Nolan break it?”

  Dread knotted Amy’s stomach. He had done it a few times back in Virginia. “Why do you say that, honey?”

  “I saw him,” she whispered.

  Ice fingers crawled up Amy’s spine. “Where?”

  “In the store. He waved.”

  That sniveling sack of shit. Amy reached out and caressed Raelynn’s cheek. Her skin was no longer clammy and her shaking had subsided. That was the last time he screwed with her child. Amy was done running. He wanted a piece of her, he’d have to come and get it, but on her terms. She didn’t know what she’d do, but she would think of something. It was time to fight back.

  “Is he coming to get us?” Raelynn asked just as the door open and Eddie joined them. “I don’t want to go back.” She shoved the thumb in her mouth.

  “No, sweetie. I will never, ever let that happen. I promise.” She patted her soft cheek then turned to face Eddie.

  He didn’t ask questions or push for an explanation, which was just as well. She wasn’t ready to answer them. Interestingly enough, she felt safe with him even though she knew she shouldn’t. She couldn’t afford to lower her guard or depend on anyone. Nolan was her battle and the less anyone knew the better.

  “I’m sorry for being snappy,” Amy said. “My daughter is not used to strangers and every time she freezes, it…it just kills me.”

  If he bought her explanation, it didn’t show. “That’s okay. The tow guy will be here in ten minutes.”

  “That’s fast,” she said. “Where are they towing it to?”

  “The guy mentioned Jack’s Auto.”

  Amy groaned.

  “Is that a problem?”

  It could be. “Not really. When I arrived here, I had a broken tail light and went to Jack’s Auto to have it fixed.”

  Eddie’s eyes narrowed. “They were not nice to you?”

  “No, no, that’s not it. They were very nice and friendly. Maybe too friendly.”

  “Someone hit on you?”

  “Not in a bad way.” Two guys had asked her out. She hoped they did that to all the women who stopped by their shop and didn’t remember her. It would be hard to explain to Eddie she was Amy Kincaid and Jessica Franklin—the names on her fake I.D. Other than Lauren and the Fitzgeralds, everyone knew her as Mrs. Franklin.

  A flash of red from the corner of her eyes had Amy whipping around, her heartbeat hiking, but it was the red tow truck pulling up into the parking lot. Eddie left the SUV to talk to the guy. A few minutes later, he slipped behind the wheel and followed the guy.

  The closer they got to Jack’s Auto, the more Amy worried about being recognized. That changed when they parked and Eddie jumped down then came around to the passenger side to open her door. She had the solution.

  “Could you keep an eye on Raelynn while I take care of the paperwork?” she asked.

  A surprise look crossed Eddie’s face, but he nodded. “Sure.”

  “Thanks. Hey, sweetie, I’m going to talk to the car people. I’ll be right back, okay?” Raelynn nodded, her thumb slipping back inside her mouth. That habit was going to take forever to break. Amy hurried toward the service tech she’d dealt with before.

  “Jessica Franklin,” the buffed up young man with shaggy blond hair said, standing up to shake her hand. “Please, sit. I never thought we’d meet again.”

  She glanced over her shoulder, but she shouldn’t have bothered. Eddie had stayed by the car, where she’d left him. He was chatting with one of the mechanics, another one she recognized from her last visit.

  “It’s a small town, uh, Randal,” she said, reading the name on his desk. “We were bound to run into each other.”

  “What’s wrong with your car this time?”

  She explained what happened and Eddie’s attempts to restart the engine.

  “We can take a look at it and give you a call once we figure out what the problem is,” the mechanic said.

  Amy waited as the tech filled out the paperwork and wrote down the house phone number instead of her cell phone number. She was very particular about who she gave her cell number to. She signed the form, thanked Randal, then headed back to the SUV.

  They were pulling out of the parking lot when Randal flagged them. “You forgot to give me the key, Mrs. Franklin.”

  “Oh, so sorry.” She dug into her purse until she found it, her face aflame. “Thanks, Randal.”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow with some answers.”

  A glance at Eddie confirmed her suspicions. He was studying her with narrowed eyes. She cocked her brow in a silent what?

  “Mrs. Franklin?” he mouthed.

  “Married name,” she fibbed, but on the insides, she wondered how many more lies she’d have to come up with to cover her tracks.

  Silence filled the car as they drove away. Refusing to allow Nolan to screw up her day, she gave Eddie directions to the bridge.

  They didn’t get a chance to talk until after Raelynn was asleep that evening. Amy left the bedroom after reading to Raelynn and found Eddie in the kitchen putting dishes in the dishwasher.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said.

  “It’s the least I can do after that amazing dinner,” he said.

  Another silence followed as they worked side by side, the air heavy with unanswered questions. She had dreaded this moment, when Raelynn wouldn’t act as a buffer and it was just the two of them.

  “Where did you learn to cook like that?” he asked.

  Surprised, she answered truthfully. “Culinary lessons. My parents thought it was a productive way to spend my summer.” At seventeen, the private lessons had felt like a prison sentence.

  “So your parents live here in Sandpoint?”

  “No, Virginia.” Their disappointment in her at their last meeting was so vivid. Amy sighed, regret eating at her.

  “And Raelynn’s father?”

  “He died before she was born.”

  Eddie frowned and a pensive expression settled on his face. He closed the dishwater, dried his hands on a paper towel then studied her as she wiped the counter.

  “Then what the hell is going on, Amy?”

  Time to bullshit her way out of this. “What do you mean?”

  “I understand that some kids are shy around strangers, but what I saw today went beyond that. Raelynn was terrified in the store. At first I thought it was just the cops, but then I saw your face. Then there was your behavior afterwards in the parking lot, during our drive to the auto shop and home. What are you hiding from? And why are you two terrified of the police? Who did you see in the store?”

  “Nobody.” And that was exactly what Nolan was, a
nobody.

  Eddie’s jaws tightened. “Is that the best answer you can come up with? Again?”

  “It’s the only one I have.” She started out of the kitchen, but he moved so fast she was forced to take a step back. Her lower back connected with the counter and pain shot up her spine.

  She must have winced because Eddie asked, “Are you okay?”

  She shrugged.

  “If you are in trouble, I can help you.”

  Amy smiled and shook her head. “I had a feeling you’d say that. One, I’m not in trouble. Second, my life is complicated, so I won’t lie about that, but it is my life and I’m dealing with it. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  “If you are dealing with it. Which one is the real you? Jessica Franklin or Amy Kincaid?”

  “Jessica is my middle name, Franklin is my married name and Kincaid is my maiden name,” Amy fibbed. “I started using Kincaid after I moved here.”

  “Yet everyone around here calls you Mrs. Franklin.”

  Her face grew hot. Lying had never been one of her talents.

  “That’s not a crime.” She lifted her chin and added, “Unless you need me to get you something, I am off the clock starting now and need to start my other job.”

  For one brief moment, she thought he would refuse to move or ask more questions. Instead, he stepped aside and let her pass, but the determined gleam in his eyes told her he wasn’t going to roll over and play nice just because she’d given him some answers.

  CHAPTER 5

  Amy Kincaid. Jessica Franklin.

  Eddie stared at the names, his hand itching to press the send button. For three days, he’d been tempted to investigate her. Instead of pressing the enter button, he deleted the names and exhaled. He refused to resort to going behind Amy’s back. The only way to learn about her was to gain her trust.

  Voices drew his attention to the window and Amy standing on the pier, talking to Catherine, Sam’s grandmother. The woman was a talker and nosy. He’d met her the day after he arrived and was forced to explain his relationship with his cousin Baron. Worse, he had to listen to her life story. How she and her husband grew tired of living in L.A., retired early and moved to their lake house to be closer to their daughter, Sam’s mother, who lived in town.

  His gaze moved back to Amy. She looked amazing in a red one-piece swimsuit. No wonder he hadn’t heard her this morning. She still sang off key while cooking, and despite her assertion that she hated routine, she kept one that revolved around her daughter—breakfast, morning chores while Raelynn colored or played indoors, working on her computer outside while keeping an eye on Raelynn and her two admirers, lunch followed by reading time and nap while she worked, dinner, more reading, bed for the daughter, then she disappeared behind her laptop.

  He’d never met a more stubborn woman in his life. For three days, she’d retreated behind a wall of silence, not even complaining when he’d mowed the lawn. That was about to change. If she was scared of someone, he would teach her how to deal with her fear. That she was scared was a fact. Every time the phone rang, she jumped. If he appeared behind her without her realizing he was there, she gasped. It was driving him insane. The one time he got a verbal response from her, she’d told him the call was from Randal and that her car needed a new starter.

  He was in the kitchen when she entered the house, a towel wrapped around her waist, her pouty lips more pink than usual against her skin. She was shivering.

  “Coffee?”

  She looked from the cup in his hand then his face and scowled.

  “Don’t worry, I make a mean cup of coffee and I don’t go about scaring off people by offering to help them with their problems.”

  She chuckled at the rendition of the words she’d said the morning after his arrival. “I made the coffee, Fitzgerald.”

  “I added the cream.”

  She took the cup and sipped. “Not bad. FYI, you didn’t scare me by your offer.”

  He’d missed her sharp tongue. “I did, but let’s agree to disagree. So, what’s for breakfast?”

  “I was going to shower first.” She checked her watch. “Can you hang in there for half an hour?”

  “I can make breakfast. I make really amazing oatmeal.”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “Really?”

  “You’ll love it. Hit the showers. By the time you come out, I’ll have everything ready.”

  Shaking her head, she disappeared toward her bedroom. Left on his own, Eddie contemplated the contents of the fridge. He’d watched her cook and she made it seem effortless. He sucked at cooking. Chase had tried to teach him a few times with terrible results.

  He was chopping the apples for the oatmeal when the house phone rang. He picked it up. “Yes?”

  No one answered. Frowning, he placed the phone down.

  It rang again. By the third call, he was pissed. “Listen, you son of a bitch. You want her, you’ll have to go through me first.” He placed the phone down.

  Amy had a stalker. In most cases, the only way to deal with one was to catch him in the act and throw his ass in jail. The stalker angle didn’t explain Raelynn’s fear of the police though. Not knowing bugged the hell out of him. Chances that Amy was a fugitive and was being stalked were slim, yet there had to be a connection.

  The first call Eddie placed was to the local police. He had put off calling them the last few days because he had been busy trying to figure out Amy and winning over Raelynn. Now he might need their help.

  “Sally Paige, please?”

  “Who’s callin’?” the woman on the end of the line asked.

  “Eddie Fitzgerald.” He put a cup of oatmeal, three cups of water, chopped apples, salt and cinnamon in a pot as he waited. He turned on the stove and stirred the mixture.

  “Detective Fitzgerald,” a high-pitched voice said. “It’s wonderful to hear from you. Baron mentioned you’d be in town sometime this weekend.”

  Eddie chuckled. “Does that mean you haven’t caught the burglar?”

  She laughed. “I wish.”

  “Then we need to talk, Ms. Paige.”

  “Sally, please. And yes, we need to talk. The lead detective on the case wants to see you too. Do you think you can stop by in the next day or so?”

  “Sure. Is four o’clock today okay?”

  “That would be wonderful. We’ll be waitin’.”

  As soon as he hung up, he placed the second call to a sporting goods store. They needed boxing gloves and guards for practice. Putting the phone down, he searched inside the fridge, found a large container of plain yogurt and added some to the oatmeal. He stirred the mixture, tasted it and grinned. Perfect. He turned off the stove.

  Amy walked back into the kitchen as he scooped the meal into two bowls. As usual, she wore shorts, except the material was soft and the edges frilly as though she’d cut off a pair of sweat pants. The neon green color of her tank top added flecks of green to her brilliant blue eyes. The top hugged her generous chest, drawing attention to it.

  Eddie shifted uneasily as blood rushed to his groin. The high kitchen counter came to his rescue, but he had a feeling it was too late. Amy watched him with a naughty gleam in her eyes that said she knew how she affected him. Sometimes, he wondered if she deliberately dressed in the bare minimum to drive him nuts.

  She cocked her brow. He gave her the pitcher of orange juice. “Go on outside and stay put,” he ordered. “I’ll bring everything.”

  Amy chuckled as though she knew he was deliberately kicking her out. The gentle roll of her hips as she walked away shot his imagination into hyper drive. He needed to get laid. The problem was every time he thought about kissing or bedding a woman, he saw Amy’s face, her body, not Clarissa’s, his current girlfriend. Eddie chuckled. Clarissa would probably laugh if he ever called her his girlfriend. They hooked up every other weekend and that was it.

  When was the last time they’d spoken? Not when he was in Montana, or since he arrived in Idaho. He would call her tonight. Maybe hearing
her voice might keep the fantasies about Amy at bay.

  He could hope.

  Eddie sprinkled brown sugar on top of the oatmeal, placed two spoons and glasses on the tray then carried it outside. The look on Amy’s face when he placed the bowl in front of her could only be described as skeptical.

  “Looks are not everything, Amy Kincaid. Taste it.”

  She took a spoonful and took her time savoring the taste. “Hmm, not bad. Yogurt?”

  “Gives it the creamy texture,” he said.

  “Cinnamon…nutmeg…fresh apples…I’m impressed.”

  “Good because it’s my family recipe. Wouldn’t want my father to think I’d failed to reproduce the one thing he’d passed down to me.”

  “And your mother?”

  Eddie’s hand stilled. “What about her?”

  “Any recipes?”

  He relaxed and chuckled. “No. She wasn’t around much to contribute to the family cookbook.”

  Amy frowned. “Sorry to hear that.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about. Her loss. I’ve got a question for you. Nothing personal,” he added when she frowned. “How good are you with the Glock?”

  She made a face. “So-so. I don’t even like guns.”

  “Then why buy it?”

  “I didn’t. Lauren loaned it to me. You know, for the break-ins.”

  She was determined not to talk about her problem. That was cool. He wasn’t going to push. She would confide in him when she was ready. “Have you thought of a way to defend yourself if the burglars make it inside the house?”

  “Point and shoot.”

  “Good. Threats don’t scare criminals. Action does. What if you don’t have the gun and they do?”