by Cate Beauman
“Abigail, please.”
No answer.
“Abigail, I got a call from—” Screw this. He wasn’t going to stand here and yell over her music. “I’m coming in.” He opened the door and stepped in, stopping as he stared at the mess of denim and pale blue plaid scattered around the floor. “Wow, this is some project,” he tried.
She didn’t acknowledge him as she sat in the office chair, cutting along the seam of a very large pair of jeans, her foot tapping along with the beat of the catchy song. She’d taken off her sweater and twisted her hair into a loose bun, leaving her long graceful neck and smooth shoulders exposed in her black spaghetti strap top.
“We need to talk, Abigail.”
“So talk.” She set the long strip of the once-pant leg on the floor and got back to work, starting on the other leg.
“Can you set that down for a couple of minutes?”
“Nope.” She continued with her task.
He rocked back on his heels, unsure of how to deal with this side of Abby. This was the second time he’d seen it, and the first time hadn’t gone well. He blew out a deep breath and walked to the radio, switching it off.
She reached up and turned it back on.
He flipped it off.
She moved to turn it on, and he grabbed her hand. “Come on.”
“I’m sorry, I thought this was my room.” She tossed him a nasty look.
“It is.”
“My door was closed—or mostly.”
“Yeah, I know. We need to talk,” he said for the third time.
“If you’re expecting an apology, I can’t give you one.” She lifted her chin. “I had fun today. Your mother and I…” Her lip wobbled and she looked down. “I needed to go,” she mumbled.
“Abby—” He crouched down in front of her. “You have to talk to me if you’re feeling like you’re suffocating.” He took a chance and touched her knee. “We could’ve figured something out.”
Her miserable eyes met his. “You would’ve let me go to town on my own?”
“No, but—”
“Then what’s there to work out?” She huffed out a breath and stared at the floor.
“Today could’ve ended so differently. You know that as well as I do. You didn’t have your watch. There was no way for me to find you.”
“I was fine.”
“This time. Thank god everything worked out.” He touched her chin, wanting her to look at him. “We’re a team. This doesn’t work if we can’t communicate.”
She pulled away from his grip and stood, walking to the window. “I don’t feel like a team. I feel like I arrived with my pal from Los Angeles, but somewhere along the way he vanished.” She turned, facing him. “Where did he go, Jerrod?”
He got to his feet. “I’m right here.”
She shook her head. “No, you’re not. Everything’s different. I don’t know how to be around you anymore. I don’t know how to pretend that our relationship is simple the way you can.”
She wasn’t telling him anything he wasn’t struggling with himself. He jammed his hands in his pockets. “It isn’t simple for me either. So how do we fix this?”
“I don’t know.” She sat on her bed, her face in her hands. “I don’t know if we can,” she said wearily.
He walked to her, standing over her, staring down at her slim, slumped shoulders. How could he tell her about Margret now? It was tempting to wait until tomorrow. One day wasn’t going to change the facts. She looked up at him, lost, and he knew he couldn’t keep the truth from her, even for a few hours. “Abigail.” He crouched in front of her again, taking her hands. “Abigail, I have to tell you something.”
She swallowed. “What?”
“Ethan called.”
Her fingers tightened against his. “Alexa?” she whispered as the pulse pounded in her throat.
“Alexa’s fine.”
“Olivia?”
He shook his head. “Your family’s fine. It’s—it’s Margret.” Damn he didn’t want to do this.
“They found her?” She stared at him with such cautious optimism, he almost looked away.
“Abigail, she’s dead.”
Her hands went limp in his. “No,” she whispered as her eyes filled.
“They found her in Houston.”
She shook her head. “No.”
He gripped her fingers, willing her to take the strength he offered. “I’m so sorry, Abby.”
Tears fell down her cheeks. “When?”
“A couple days ago.”
“What did they do to her?”
He held her gaze, running his thumb along her knuckles, not wanting to say. “Abby—”
“I need to know.” Her voice broke. “I need to know what they did to my poor, sweet Margret.”
“Abigail.” He pressed her palm to his cheek, wishing he could vanish her pain.
“Please.”
He sighed. “They beat her.”
A moan escaped her throat as she closed her eyes and more tears fell.
“Abby.” He moved to the bed, sitting next to her, wrapping his arm around her.
“I promised her I would save her. I promised.” She sucked in several shaky breaths and rushed to her feet. “It’s too hot. I have to—I have to get out of here.” She hurried into the hall and down the stairs. The back door opened and closed.
Sighing, he stood, grabbed her jacket, and followed her down the stairs. They were at odds, but he wasn’t going to let her deal with this on her own. He moved to the back door, stopping with his hand on the knob, tightening his grip as Timmy leaned against the fence, holding Abby close, his Parker PD jacket draped around her shoulders while she wrapped her arms around him. Her powerful sobs muffled through the glass as Timmy pressed Abby’s face to his chest.
Jerrod dropped his hand and turned away, going back upstairs as he struggled to absorb the crushing blow. Mom said Abby wasn’t for Timmy, but maybe she was wrong.
~~~~
Shelby sat curled up on her couch, her laptop resting on the plush arm of the sofa as she entered the monthly ‘crime’ report she and Timmy had been discussing before their lunch was so interestingly interrupted. She rolled her eyes as she typed the details of Mr. Hannigan’s second drunk and disorderly and the Bohaken boys’ brush with the law regarding a bat and Ms. Tilly’s mailbox. Life in Parker was intense.
Pausing, she lifted her glass, savoring the pinot noir on her tongue, then stopped typing all together, settling back against cozy cushions, remembering the one-sided phone conversation she overheard Timmy having with his brother and the frantic way Jerrod had searched for his lady love…or client.
She’d had plenty of time to revaluate the whole Jerrod/Abigail situation. Maybe he didn’t have feelings for her. But there was certainly something going on. Timmy had mentioned a BOLO, and Mr. Cool had been ruffled in a way she’d never seen before—not even when he walked into his own home to see the love of his life in another man’s arms.
Shelby narrowed her eyes as she pursed her lips. What were they hiding? It had to be something big. Jerrod never yelled, and he’d shouted at his city princess plenty. Poor, defenseless Abby had been terrified. Don’t touch me!
At first she thought Abby’s quivering lips and waterworks had been an attempt to get out of the hot seat—she used the trick herself all the time—but the trembling and wild-eyed fear appeared to be genuine. And Jerrod sure as hell backed down quickly enough.
So what was up? Why was Abby so afraid? Shelby’s instincts had hummed every time she was around the beauty queen. She’d smelled a story all along—once she was wise enough to put her insecurities aside and concentrate on a potential upswing in her career. But she needed Abigail’s last name. Jerrod had been very guarded with it, and so had Timmy. Baby brother almost slipped at one point, but he caught himself, glancing her way, then at Jerrod, shutting his mouth as she followed them back from the barn.
Jerrod was going to get her out of this town after all. Eventu
ally he would figure out that she was the best damn thing that ever happened to him and come running to wherever she decided to settle. She could wait him out for a little longer. While she waited she might as well add another plaque to her wall at the office, but in order to do that she needed to figure out who the mysterious Abigail really was. Everything would come together after that. She was going to have to find a way back into Jerrod’s good graces and invite herself over for dinner. Clues to her big break were somewhere at the Quinn Family Farm.
Chapter Sixteen
Abby held the pistol in both hands and took aim, firing at the cans Tim set up for today’s lesson. The first piece of aluminum flew off the old tree stump, then the next one as she caught the side of it and smiled.
“Getting better,” Tim encouraged, his voice slightly muffled through her ear protection. “Go ahead and try for the next three—rapid shot.”
She nodded, licking her lips in the cold air and closed one eye, aiming again, pressing the trigger, once, twice, three times. Two of the three cans flew to the ground with a satisfying ping and thud.
“Nice,” Tim held up his hand for a high five.
“Not bad for my third day.” Smiling, her palm met his with a solid smack, pleased that her persistence was getting her somewhere. Thursday she shot numerous rounds and hit absolutely nothing without Tim’s help. Yesterday wasn’t much better, but today she was finally showing improvement.
“Not bad at all. I’ll set them up once more, then I should head back to town.” Tim walked to the old tree trunk, wearing blue jeans and his Parker Police jacket, his radio as always on his hip.
“Okay.” Abby set the pistol on the makeshift table they’d created out of logs and a two-by-four and cupped her hands around her mouth, blowing warm air on her chilly fingers, thankful he’d been able to give her any time at all. Their practice sessions were a welcome distraction, filling her quiet afternoons. Tim had come out to help her everyday since Jerrod told her about Margret.
The wind blew a frigid gust, and she hunched, pausing as she pulled off her ear protection, certain she heard Margret’s sobbing on the breeze. “Margret,” she whispered, pressing a hand to her chest as she thought of her sweet, beautiful friend. Her heart literally ached with sorrow; her stomach roiled with the anger of injustice. Margret died unspeakably at the hands of their worst nightmare—surely Dimitri or Victor was responsible.
She bit her bottom lip, blinking rapidly as another wave of guilt devastated her. She didn’t save Margret. She didn’t protect her from the monsters who thrived on greed and misery. I want to go home, Abby. I just want to go home. She sucked in several deep breaths, fighting back another bought of tears, haunted by Margret’s small, scared voice. How would she ever forgive herself for failing so miserably?
She wanted to be in Baltimore to lend support to the Stowers family as they prepared to lay their daughter to rest. She desperately needed to say goodbye to the young girl gone too soon, but she was stuck here, hiding on a farm, waiting for her day in court to bring down Lorenzo Cruz and the Mid-Atlantic Sex Ring. And she would take them down—for Margret, for herself, and the countless other lives they’d destroyed with their cruelty and lust for money.
Clenching her fist, willing her grief away, Abby picked up the gun, ready to continue with her practice, finding empowerment with each shot she mastered.
She was sick of feeling helpless, of depending on others to see to her safety. She understood the need for Jerrod’s protection, but she also needed to know she could take care of herself. She was no longer a captive in the stash house, but Dimitri, Victor, and Renzo still owned a piece of her. She was taking it back. Before her abduction, she’d never questioned her abilities to stand on her own.
“Okay.” Tim moved back to her side. “You’re good to—”
“Ten-seventeen-A in progress,” his radio belched. “Sixteen thirty-two Old Hamilton Road.”
He sighed, shaking his head. “Abby, I have to go.”
She lowered the weapon. “All right.”
“We can pick this up tomorrow.”
Footsteps crunched on the frozen dirt behind them. They both turned.
“Or you can finish up with Jerrod.” He smiled as Jerrod came their way in his winter coat and hat, his black knit cap accentuating his blue eyes and the dark stubble along his jaw. “Hey, big brother.”
“Hey.” Steam puffed from his mouth with his greeting. He stopped next to Abby and Tim, slipping his hands in his pockets.
“I’m heading out. Sounds like something’s heating up over at the Rutherfords’.”
Jerrod’s brow rose. “Shocking.”
Tim smiled. “It keeps things consistent. Abby’s finishing up her round if you want to give her a hand.”
“Oh, that’s all right.” She didn’t want Jerrod’s help. He made her too damn nervous. They’d barely spoken since Wednesday night, except for when he cornered her in the barn yesterday and this morning to ask her if she was okay. “I can wait until tomorrow.”
“Or you can give it a go and show Jerrod what you’ve got.” Tim’s radio squawked again. “I’ve gotta split. See you guys tonight.”
“Bye. Thanks,” she called as Tim jogged to the cruiser.
He stopped with his hand on the door, gesturing toward the cans with his head then got in and took off with a quick u-turn in the pasture. The air was uncomfortably silent as the police car whipped down the lane, lights blazing.
Abby shoved her free hand in her jacket, looking from the cans to Jerrod, trying to think of a way to end the awkward moment. “I can clean up if you’d rather go back inside. It’s pretty cold…”
“Nah. Go ahead and practice.” Jerrod crossed his arms at his chest, clearing his throat.
She shrugged, studying the sinful effect a day’s growth of beard had on an already gorgeous face, trying to ignore the frenzy of nerves invading her stomach. How was she supposed to concentrate on her accuracy when he was standing here looking like that? “Okay.” Licking her lips, she put her hearing protection back in place, took the stance Tim showed her and fired, missing her target each time she tried. She huffed in frustration, sliding him a glance, her cheeks heating despite the frigid air.
“You’re a little stiff.”
“I know. I’m…” She almost confessed to her jitters. “I did fine when Tim was here.”
“Yeah, well now I’m here,” he muttered as he stepped up behind her.
She locked her shoulders tighter as their bodies brushed, and he settled his hands on her waist.
“Relax, Abigail.”
She breathed in his familiar pine scent and swallowed. “I’m trying.”
“Stand up a little straighter.” He adjusted her hips, correcting her form. “Put your left foot out a bit more in front of you.”
She did as he instructed.
“Bend your arm here and position your hands a little more like this.” He cupped warm hands over hers on the weapon. “Good.” He stepped back. “Now aim and give it a go.”
She pressed the trigger, hitting each can dead center. “I did it.” Grinning, she looked at him.
He gave her a small smile. “Good job. I’ll line them up again.”
She nodded, glancing at his ass in dark wash denim as he walked ahead and set the cans right. He turned, starting back, and their eyes met, holding. She looked at the ground, hating that nothing was the way it used to be.
“Okay, go for it.” He stood to her side.
She tried to stand as he showed her, fired, and missed.
“Close.” He moved behind her, making slight corrections, his hands on her hips, then her arm. “Now try.”
She fired and hit her targets. “How do you know?”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I didn’t.”
“Show me. I want to see you shoot.”
“This is your lesson.”
“I’ve been out here for a while. I’m getting cold.” She handed over the pistol in
the darkening skies and hurried to set up fresh cans. “Be a showoff for once,” she said on her way back. “Tim definitely likes to.” She moved well out of the way as he dropped the empty clip, shoved a full one home, and blew each can off the trunk, hitting the aluminum a second time before it fell to the ground. She stared in amazement. “Holy crap, Jerrod.”
He shrugged again. “You don’t make Marshal if you can’t handle a gun.”
She laughed incredulously. “You more than handled it.”
They grinned at each other for the first time in too long, and for just a moment everything felt exactly right. Talking to Jerrod soothed her as nothing else could. Seeing him smile was even better. “Tim was going to show me a couple of basic defense moves after we finished with this,” she said in a rush, taking a chance. Despite the rocky few days she wasn’t ready for him to walk away.
“We can do that if you want.”
Her shoulders relaxed as she nodded and pulled off her earpiece. “For a few minutes anyway.” They picked up the cans, leaving them in the recycling receptacle and started toward the house. “I told Mary I would help her with her dress.”
“I can’t remember the last time I saw my mother in anything but blue jeans or her robe.”
“Get ready to be amazed.”
He smiled as they climbed the steps, and he opened the door for her.
Abby stepped in and moaned, treasuring the slap of warmth and scent of cinnamon and apples as Jerrod closed the door behind them. “It smells so good in here.” She took off her jacket, hat, and boots.
Mary pulled a pie from the oven and hurried to the cooling rack. “Maybe I can actually get you to eat a healthy slab of this later.”
She breathed deep again. “You can count on it.”
“I’ll hold you to it.” Mary moved to the stove next, stirring the chili in a huge pot. “I’ll serve you up a piece at the O’Neils’ myself.”
“I’ll be ready. What can I do to help?”
“Nothing yet, honey, but I’ll let you know when I need a hand.”
“Call when you’re ready.” Jerrod secured the pistol in the lock box and set the metal above the cabinets. “We’ll be in the exercise room.” He looked at Abby. “Ready?”