Bishop's Pawn

by Suzanne Halliday

  She looked at him long and hard and then glanced away.

  “Liam is a good man, Ginny. Now that you know his last name you can Google him if you want. He can be trusted, I promise.”

  “And what about you, Roman? I know Kelly. If she’s already marked you as hers, I don’t see where Liam Ashforth figures into this frankly. She’s made a choice whether you’re willing to recognize it or not. She isn’t going to dance to the tune of someone she doesn’t know, no matter what he calls himself. I’d say you have a whole other issue to confront rather than what happens when some miserable old prick dies.”

  He was actively trying not to think about what she was referring to. The primitive way he claimed Kelly, and the possessive nature of their connection, had the potential to trigger serious upheaval between him and his friend.

  Liam’s claim was as a half-brother. Roman’s was far more intimate, and Kelly’s willingness was obvious. Matty shocking his family by immediately gravitating to Roman had to be cosmic validation. His boss and friend didn’t know it yet but any decisions about the future were for he and Kelly to decide. Not Liam.

  “I’m not disputing your point. Any guidance you could offer would be great.”

  “You don’t need me, “ she scoffed. “You got the Matty James seal of approval the minute he started talking. They’re a package deal, ya’ know.”

  “Found that out the hard way.”

  “Care to share? She’ll tell me eventually, so you might as well spit it out.”

  Was this what having a mother-in-law felt like? He chuckled to himself and made a self-deprecating face. “Accepted town gossip without using my head.”

  “Ah,” she nodded with a knowing sigh. “Kelly would never have a baby out of wedlock. Sounds old-fashioned, I know, but that’s how she is. Deb wasn’t much of a role model but she sure as shit was a great example of what not to do.”

  He was glad to hear it. Was counting on that attitude in fact because no way was he having a kid without legal protections in place and he certainly had no intention of staying away from her. The damage was done and until a drugstore magically appeared and he could buy a truckload of condoms, the future, as Yoda so succinctly put it, continued to be in motion.

  “Can you tell me about the money? And Deb’s ongoing relationship with Ward. Help me understand what’s been going on.”

  Ginny unloaded a rapid-fire monologue that pushed a lot of his buttons.

  “Here’s the four-one-one. We met Deb about a year after she moved to Providence. My Sam is an ex-cop. He bought the town’s butcher shop when he took early retirment. Money isn’t really an issue for us, so we opted for a simple, country life. There was a minor kerfuffle when it came out that old lady James had an illegitimate heir. There are assholes everywhere, even here, and some thought then and still feel now that they had an unsubstantiated claim to the land.” She shrugged. “Deb was what you’d call stand-offish. A recluse. She hated dealing with people. Over time, beyond Sam and me, she isolated her and Kelly. We tried convincing Deb to let the girl go to school, but she was overly paranoid. Little by little she shared her story. How an older, powerful man seduced and abandoned her. I knew right away that my new friend put this man first.”

  Roman had a hard time not reacting to Ginny’s sad face and quick shrug. He knew neither signified indifference.

  “Poor Kelly. It didn’t require a crystal ball back then to see that her life wasn’t going to be easy. Not with a mother who gave all the emotion she had to someone else. Did Kelly tell you what her mother did for her birthday every year?”

  “Yes,” he answered solemnly.

  “Sam and I stepped in when we saw what was going on and made sure Kelly stayed with us. I can’t even think about what Deb had done before then. That man was first. Parental responsibility a distant and anemic second, maybe even third or fourth.”

  The force of his grinding teeth made Roman’s jaw lock. He’d sent quite a few to meet their maker. It’s funny how that happens in a war. This, however, wasn’t a war, but that didn’t stop him from entertaining a host of dark thoughts. Two people had to pay for fucking up Kelly’s life.

  One was already gone. He’d have to be content knowing she died after a miserable, deluded life.

  The second though. That piece of shit was currently in the land of the living. A status sure to change sooner than later.

  “I didn’t know for sure about the money until Kelly found the stash but we always suspected Deb returned from her bi-annual trysts with an envelope of cash. That’s when she’d lay in supplies. Kind of obvious, ya’ know?”

  Oh hell yeah, he knew. That’s exactly how she managed to avoid attention. The property taxes were paid by escrow and she supported them with the cash handouts she got for whoring out to that disgusting man.

  “As I said, toward the end, the relationship strained. You can imagine, I’m sure, what a hard rural life, punctuated by delusion, depression, and fantasy did to Deb’s appearance. And hearing what you said about Liam chopping away at Ward, I’m assuming that was happening around the time Deb became pregnant. She dropped of a massive stroke, did you know?” She was shaking her head. In a soft murmur, she added, “Lots can change between one moment and the next.”

  Yeah. Tell me about it, he thought.

  “Kelly was already in total charge of Matty. She’s the only mother figure he’s ever known.”

  His sense of authority and supreme self-confidence were making statements he wasn’t in a position to execute, but that didn’t stop him. “I’m taking them both away from here.”

  Ginny sniggered and sat back to eye him with what was best described as pity. “Good luck with that. I think you may discover she has other plans, and if you know anything about her at all,” she drawled with eyeball emphasis on his mauled neck, “surely you’ve figured out that nobody is the boss of Kelly, except Kelly.”

  He weighed what to tell her. Liam was right to insist on a strict information blackout but all the reasons why were things Kelly and Matty’s guardian angels needed to know. Bad actors were everywhere and tended to appear when a previously quiet matter goes public. Being straightforward was part of protecting Kelly.

  “Ginny,” he started with a good deal of hesitation. “Kelly doesn’t realize this yet, but she’s a wealthy young lady. Same for Matty once I fill Liam in on the boy’s parentage.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said. A confused albeit worried frown marred her face.

  Roman sighed. Where to start? “When Liam discovered he had a sibling, a trust fund was immediately set up.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “He did it because as I keep saying, Liam Ashforth is a good man. He had his legal team direct everything he took from Adam Ward into an investment account. An account that will be turned over to her as soon as we clean up her legal status.”

  “Oh, my word.”

  He was glad she didn’t need further explanation. The money was going to complicate things because he had a growing feeling that Kelly wasn’t going to play ball. Not willingly, anyway.

  He picked up the rhythmic clicking of an old wall clock as the hands counted off seconds and minutes. Without knowing why, Roman found it the perfect soundtrack to the irregular conversation.

  Across the table, Ginny appeared deep in thought. She was picking at the cuff of a sleeve, and there was a pensive glower on her face. He shifted, sat forward and folded his hands on the table in front of him. While considering his next move, he was distracted before she reached across the table and took his hands.

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m going to help you, Roman Bishop. My Sam and I lost our son when he was just a boy. Kelly and Matty are the grandkids we never had.”

  He didn’t ask Ginny about the loss of their son. Hearing her say the words sparked the familiar feeling of loss in his bones that haunted him for years. It sucked that he understood all too well what she probably went through.

  In a way
, Kelly and Matty were lucky. Sure, the life Deb James provided to her offspring barely resembled anything ordinary, but having the equivalent of an extended family on hand to balance out the bullshit was nothing short of a godsend.

  Ginny gripped his hands forcefully and looked at him. She had the expression of someone who knew what she faced wasn’t going to be easy.

  “Listen to her. Really listen when she speaks. Kelly may be young, but you have no idea how much fortitude that girl carries inside. Disregarding her feelings would be unwise. She has plans and dreams like everyone else, and those dreams are what kept her going. You can’t just strip away the past because suddenly the future has more options. Don’t be surprised if she tells you which pot to piss in on your way home if you try to force anything.”

  Fuck. He knew that without her saying it. Whatever the hell was happening in her bedroom—all that equipment and stuff, everywhere—told him she had her shit together.

  “But we don’t have the luxury of time, do we?” Ginny asked. “If her father is dying and there’s even the remotest possibility that he could hurt Kelly from the grave, Matty too, we have to move fast to shield them both.”

  Roman bowed his head as relief spread through his tension-wracked body. Oh, thank god. Looking up, he grabbed one of her hands and kissed it. “Thank you for understanding. If it was up to me, she could have all the time she needs to come to grips with these changes. But that’s not the hand we were dealt.”

  Plus, he thought silently, Liam was going to be a son-of-a-bitch when Roman briefed him. Just as he had when Rhiann came back into his life, the guy was sure to over fucking react and bring the security hammer crashing down with a vengeance. Unfortunately, Liam had a tendency to overcompensate when it came to people and things he felt passionate about. Discovering a ready-made branch of the family tree was going to throw the guy, big time.

  Thinking he was smart and clever, Roman said, “Coaxing her off this land is going to be hard, huh?”

  “Pfft,” Ginny grunted. “She was going anyway. This is what I mean about listening. The girl has plans, Roman. Don’t be a man and hear what you want while disregarding everything else. Sam does that, and it drives me batty.”

  A jolt of inspiration made his head jerk. “I don’t suppose you’d like to come to New York for a, uh…vacation?”

  She chuckled. “How the hell did men come to rule the world?” She tut-tutted and tossed around all sorts of grandmotherly shade about silly men until he laughed too. “Scared of a twenty-three-year-old country girl are you? Cheese and crackers! They can’t make this stuff up!”

  “Shall I take that knee-slapping cackle as a no?”

  He couldn’t remember the name of the movie, but something happened with the old woman in the blink of an eye that reminded him of a scene where everything is normal one second and then bam! The viewfinder tunnels in rapidly to hyper-focus on a single moment. And those hyper-focused moments are always important.

  “Are you sleeping with that girl?”

  He started a head-shaking denial and stammered like a first-time petty criminal caught with his pockets full of stolen goods. “Er, uh, what, no, I mean, Ginny. Uh. It’s not, no. Uh.”

  Real smooth, asshole.

  “That’s what I thought,” she scolded. “You work fast.”

  “Well, actually,” he instantly shot back, his voice sounding droll and self-mocking.

  Grandma Ginny gave good eyebrow. So good that he felt a hot flush spread across his face. He’d been about to admit that Kelly started what he certainly finished until his determination to protect her, no matter what, stole the words from his mouth.

  “Relax. You’re not the first macho man to be handed his hat by a girl half his age.”

  “What?” he barked. “Half my age? Jesus, Ginny. I’m not that fucking old.”

  She snickered and gave him a pithy, “What’s that expression? Thou doth protest too much? But thanks for the confirmation.”

  Miffed, he blurted out, “I didn’t confirm anything.”

  “And you didn’t deny. Here’s my point. You and Kelly have to figure this out together. I’m not one for lectures, but I will say this. You’re both adults. And you both knew what you did was going to make things more complicated. I’d say that means this one’s on you. Will I agree to be on stand-by in case I’m needed? Yes. Yes, Roman. That I will do. I promise. If you hit a speed bump or things go screwy, I’ll step in even if it means going to New York.”

  There wasn’t much left to say after that, so they chatted amiably until everyone wandered back to the house. His head was reeling from all the new information on his plate, and he wasn’t sure what to do next.

  “That was an excellent story, Matthew.”

  Kelly glanced over her shoulder and watched Roman close the storybook. He was nodding appreciatively.

  “The illustrations are great.”

  “I know what that means,” Matty crowed. “Look.”

  She turned slightly, wiping her hands on a dish towel, and watched them. Matty took the book, dropped it to the carpet and got on his belly as the pages flipped. Pointing, he turned and looked up at Roman.

  “This says who drew the pictures. Kiki told me. And this is the au-thor,” he carefully enunciated the way only a small child did.

  Roman stretched out alongside Matty, leaning on an elbow as he looked to be closely inspecting the things being pointed out. Feeling a little bit like a forgotten outsider, she’d been reigning in a surge of jealousy ever since Matty decided the stranger in their midst was deserving of all his attention. He took to Roman like, well, like she didn’t know like what since Matty never took to anyone.

  That’s what was baffling. If she hadn’t been there and seen with her own two eyes how Matty had reacted, first with a protective outburst, only to wind up being the stranger’s new best friend.

  And what was she doing while those two bonded over boy things? Hmph. She was behaving like a green-eyed twit on one hand while entertaining all sorts of dirty thoughts on the other.

  Was this normal? How she felt? How could it be? It didn’t seem feasible that a rational person with no interest at all in the opposite sex would suddenly turn into a rapacious sex glutton. But that’s how she felt. Roman couldn’t move without her eyes darting to his crotch. If he walked across the room, she was eyeing up his junk and wondering all sorts of stuff. Practical stuff like what does it feel like when it starts getting hard or her new favorite thing to ponder…sex or suck? Guys had a thing for blow jobs. Every magazine article, on demand movie and book, made it seem like oral sex was the thing to do. This endless musing led to being caught several times licking her lips while her eyes were glued to his bulge.

  Normal? Shit. She had no way of knowing and it didn’t help one little bit that she found it so difficult to keep thoughts of her mother out of it. Debbie whored herself out to one man over the entire span of her adult life, and it ended up killing her spirit.

  She couldn’t help but ask over and over if she was walking down the same path. And then Roman would look at her, and she’d see the intensity in his gaze. This was no passing fancy. If she was wobbling emotionally like a spinning top running out of steam, so was he. Kelly saw it in his expression. This thing hit them both like a bolt of lightning.

  Flipping the light off over the sink, she gave the kitchen a final once over and went to join her two guys in the living room. Her foot caught an imaginary dust bunny, and she stumbled awkwardly. Her two guys? Oh my god. Presumptuous much?

  Roman looked up first. And then Matty. One pair of eyes she knew like the back of her hand. The other drew her in and made her tummy do summersaults.

  Matty had moved and was reclining with his head resting on Roman’s side. He was rambling on about something and wiggling about like any rambunctious preschooler. The big man appeared completely at ease.

  He’ll make a wonderful father she reflected, and then just as quickly pushed the thought away.

  Roman’s
smile warmed when she approached. He even held up a hand for her to come and sit with him. She sat cross-legged near his head and offered a quick wink. Matty never stopped talking.

  “We have a list! Ya’ wanna see?” With that, he jumped up and ran to the bookshelf where his storybooks were shoved in haphazard piles.

  Roman quirked a brow and looked at her with amusement in his expression. She shrugged her answer. When Matty was a man-on-a-mission, it was easier to just get out of the way.

  Kelly’s jaw cranked open in surprise when Matty returned and instead of walking around them, tossed stapled pages of paper on the floor and scrambled to climb over Roman as if he was a piece of playground equipment. The boy’s instant connection with the unexpected visitor baffled her. People he knew, like the librarian in Fairley, those folks he wouldn’t speak to, but this guy? He was all over him like fruit flies on a rotting peach.

  An annoying suspicion grew in her head. Didn’t he keep insisting that he was more friend than employee to…that other guy? Maybe Roman Bishop was just wired to get along with Matty because of his relationship with…”

  Roman was trying to focus on the stack of papers Matty was waving in his face. “Kik says I have to read all these books before I can go to school. She lets me do the checkmark. See?”

  Matty couldn’t wait to go to school. He’d go right now if he could. She totally got it, because school was something she’d been denied. Getting him ready to learn and make friends was top priority. The book list was her way of keeping Matty moving forward.

  The only thing missing from her detailed plans was what the hell to do about the house and land. The Dulbs would take advantage the second she left and not even Sam and Ginny had a decent suggestion for how to handle things.

  “Time for your bath,” she declared from left field. Suddenly she was tired of thinking. Tired of having her brain overwhelmed with too many changes all at once. “Straighten up this mess,” she muttered irritably, “and I’ll go fill the tub.”