Harlequin Superromance September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: This Good ManPromises Under the Peach TreeHusband by Choice

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Tomorrow I see Yvonne, and sweet little Olivia. I called again today to check on the little one and to confirm tomorrow’s appointment. Olivia is home and was up playing this afternoon. The surgery only took half an hour and she didn’t seem to be in any pain.

  Finally something went right for those two. Lord knows they deserve it.

  And while I’m out, I know what I can do to convince Max that I left him....

  She wasn’t going to think about that now. She knew what to do and she’d do it. She didn’t have to dwell on it.

  Her task was to dwell on Steve. To prepare herself.

  I know now what it means to be alone when you are with other people. I am on this journey completely alone. I have no other voices giving me opinions or helping me plan the task ahead of me.

  As I read more, as I go back in my mind to when I was with Steve, immerse myself in everything I know about him—good and bad—I feel as though I am becoming Steve.

  I can see him so much more clearly, now. And as I read, I can feel him, too. I never could before. I couldn’t understand how he could be so incredibly good at his job, so committed to catching the bad guys, so protective of the innocent, and then....

  Well there are some things it won’t pay to relive. I know that pain well enough.

  And I know, just somehow know, that right now Steve is cursing me for having escaped him. He waited a long time for this reunion. So much longer than the other times he returned to claim me.

  And this time his victory was going to be the sweetest of all because he was taking me away from a life I truly loved. A full, beautiful, healthy life.

  I don’t believe Steve is angry that I married Max. Or had Caleb. Though he’s incensed that I slept with another man. He’s glad about my Bennet boys because it gives him more power over me. There wasn’t a lot he could do anymore that would faze me. I just didn’t care enough about anything.

  Until Max. By marrying Max I gave Steve more than he’d probably hoped for. He’s got me now. Well and completely.

  Because just as I am getting inside of him, he’s been inside of me for almost half my life.

  He knows that I’ll do anything he says as long as he leaves Max and Caleb alone.

  My fate was sealed the day I said “I do.”

  I am so, so sorry, Caleb. I didn’t know then. I hadn’t figured it out yet.

  I will make this right.

  Goodnight, Little Man.

  The last words smeared as her tears fell to the page.

  * * *

  MAX COULDN’T REMEMBER much about the food he ate. And he would forever remember that Laughlin casino as one of the darkest places he’d ever been in. Flashing lights could do nothing to dispel the feeling of dread that came over him as he paid the dinner bill and followed the two policewomen out of the restaurant and down to the river walk.

  Diane Kolhase had suggested that he should at least see it before she drove them back across the Colorado River to the Arizona airport where they’d catch their flight back to California.

  In truth, she’d probably realized that he couldn’t just sit in one place and listen to the things she was telling him.

  Or maybe she hadn’t wanted to continue the conversation in one place—where someone might inadvertently overhear them.

  “You’ve been hinting all evening that you know something in particular,” Max said, walking in between the two women on the wooden sidewalk that ran behind the strip of casino hotels along the Colorado River. There were a few couples out strolling, but that Wednesday was a quiet night in the casino town.

  “I do.” Diane had done a fine job painting a picture of a larger-than-life cop that everyone would want to know. She’d spoken of awards and commendations. About Steve Smith risking his life to rescue a little girl from the hands of a pedophile before any irreparable damage had been done. About the man saving the commissioner’s recalcitrant daughter from a drug dealer she’d fancied herself in love with. About his fearlessness where the underground powers in Vegas were concerned.

  If he hadn’t been concerned with saving his wife’s life, Max would have been intimidated.

  “Tell me what you know,” he insisted.

  The Vegas detective, a few inches shorter than he was, glanced up at him. “Chantel told me your first wife was killed saving a fellow officer.” The words that came out of her mouth were unexpected.

  “That’s right.” Jill had come around the corner to see a man pointing a gun at a junior officer and had taken the perp by surprise from behind, knocking his gun from his hand. He’d knocked her to the ground and managed to get his gun and get one shot off before the other officer killed the man.

  The one shot had been all it took to end Jill’s life. She’d bled out on the street.

  “Chantel said the other officer was on a routine domestic violence call and the perp ran. Your wife was backup.”

  “We all heard the call come through on the radio,” Chantel said, from Max’s other side. The sound of her voice in the cool darkness was calming. Familiar. The voice he’d first heard as he’d stood over that puddle of blood in the street, telling him to walk away.

  To come with her.

  Chantel had seen him through those first horrible hours. She’d been at the funeral home with him, helped him make decisions he’d never expected he’d have to make. Jill’s family hadn’t arrived yet.

  “Jill was the first on the scene.”

  And in the space of a second, her life was over. And his had been irrevocably changed.

  It wasn’t going to happen again. “Tell me what you know,” he said to the detective.

  “Steve Smith was having an affair with a woman he’d saved during a robbery attempt. She was young. A dancer. Making it on her own. These two hoodlums looking for drug money grabbed her from behind....”

  Max heard only one thing. “Did Meredith find out about the affair?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Did you know Meredith?” It was a question he’d wanted to ask, but hadn’t yet.

  “I met her a couple of times, but no, I wouldn’t say I knew her. I don’t think anyone on the force really did. Steve liked to keep his private life private.”

  Not a bad practice. Unless you were hiding something.

  “She left him while the affair was going on. After Meredith was gone, Steve wanted the woman to quit her job. She was in one of the classy shows in one of the elegant hotels on the strip, but apparently he didn’t like her on stage at all. His partner at the time was a guy I used to date and he told me about a phone call he overheard between Smith and the girl. He was saying that even the greatest couples have their low moments.

  “The girl wouldn’t quit. Six months later she ends up dead.”

  Max kept walking and listening. Chantel’s grasp on his wrist kept him focused.

  “What was the C.O.D.?” Chantel asked.

  Cause of death. Max recognized the term.

  “Car accident.”

  He started to breathe a little easier.

  “She’d been drinking and hit a tree.”

  “But you think Steve had something to do with it?” Chantel asked.

  “He was with her that night. And when the autopsy came back, the coroner said that she’d been beaten—before the accident. I figured there’d at least be an internal investigation, but next thing I knew the report was sealed. The beating didn’t cause the death and that was that. But talk was that there’d been a witness, a neighbor, who’d heard Steve and the woman fighting. She’d fled the apartment and a couple of minutes later and three blocks away, she wrapped her car around a tree.”

  “She’d been running from him,” Max said.

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “Why didn’t anyone pursue this? They had the
neighbor’s testimony.”

  “The guy was high at the time. And drinking. He couldn’t remember some pertinent details and his testimony would never stand up in court. There’s no way the LVMPD would bring up one of their own on such flimsy evidence. Most particularly when you were talking about a decorated officer with a clean record who was in with the commissioner.”

  Chantel’s fingers squeezed harder around his wrist.

  And Max asked, “Do you know if Meredith ever filed charges against him?”

  “Not in Las Vegas she didn’t. I’m not saying she didn’t talk to someone about Steve, but if she did, no one came to her rescue. You have to understand, Doctor, the job we do, it requires a certain bit of steel around the edges. Sometimes that steel can be misinterpreted, or come up against something soft and....”

  “Surely you aren’t condoning a man getting rough with his wife.”

  “Of course not! And neither would the LVMPD or any other police force I know of. But at the same time, the force might be more apt to suggest anger counseling, or some other assistance, before they’d ruin a man’s exemplary record with formal charges.”

  “Cops are generally controlling by nature, Max,” Chantel reminded him, in a tone that probably told Diane Kolhase that Chantel and Max had had the conversation before. “That doesn’t make them abusive.”

  Jill had been a control freak. He’d teased her about it. And she’d not only admitted to it, but been extra careful to control her need to control.

  “Is there any way for you to find out if Steve Smith ever had anger management counseling, or any other assistance? To find witnesses from the night his girlfriend was killed? Or to see if anyone knows where he is now?” he asked, staying focused because if he didn’t he wouldn’t be able to remain calm.

  “I can do some checking. It might take a few days.”

  Max nodded. They walked. The night air chilled his ears. And kept him from burning up inside. He wasn’t a violent man.

  He was a man who’d dedicated himself to saving lives.

  And right then, he wanted to end one.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  LITTLE OLIVIA HAD a G-tube, which they’d planned for. She needed it only until she could swallow on her own.

  That was where Jenna came in. Helping the little girl learn to swallow again.

  She worked with Olivia for an hour, in five minute spurts, in between which she kept up a steady flow of light conversation to avoid any chance of Yvonne asking personal questions.

  The woman whose house they were using wasn’t at home, but had already arranged different homes for them to meet at every day for the next week. Jenna agreed without hesitation to the plan. One thing she and her sister victims had learned was how to be savvy.

  It was good, felt healthy, to be living part of the life she’d loved. To stay in touch with that self, even if only for an hour a day.

  Or so she told herself.

  In the end, this time wouldn’t change things for her. But it could matter a whole lot to Olivia. And Yvonne.

  Still on a high from seeing Yvonne’s relieved smile as Olivia moved her tongue slightly, in the manner they’d practiced before surgery, she left the house, slipping through trees in the neighborhood, silently apologizing to homeowners as she cut across lawns, and made it to the closest bus stop just as the bus was pulling up.

  She’d planned the trek well, and had waited out of sight until she saw the bus one street over, on its way to the stop.

  She had to know the routes. And she prayed that if Steve was in the area, if he’d already figured out that she hadn’t run, that she was off her normal course, that he wouldn’t try anything out in the open.

  That had never been his way. Steve had a reputation to protect. His public image mattered to him.

  It was a fact that had nearly gotten her killed the time she’d dared to tell someone at the LVMPD about his problem. The LVMPD family counselor she’d sought out had gone straight to Steve, supposedly out of respect. Steve had been humbly embarrassed, begging for the whole thing to be forgotten for her sake, because she was a jealous fool who’d lied to try to make him pay for a supposed liaison that had never happened. She’d had no bruises at the time, no proof. She’d expected her cry for help to be protected by confidentiality laws. Apparently those didn’t apply when the psychiatrist worked for the police force.

  She’d never spoken to an LVMPD official again. Partially because he’d made certain she never dared get close to one. The scar on her thigh was her reminder.

  Two stops, a transfer and a shortcut through a neighbor’s yard and she was at her next carefully planned destination.

  A place for necessary business. Nothing more.

  Keeping her eyes trained only on what she had to see to complete her task, she pulled the spare shed key out of her pocket, a key she’d stored with a spare house key in the magnetic holder on the underside of the glove box in her car. Coming from the back side of the shed, keeping trees between herself and the house, she hurried to the door, had it unlocked and was inside in fewer than thirty seconds.

  The box was right where she knew it would be. Right where she’d left it. She only had the one pair of black dress pants and a white blouse to go with them and she tried to keep them clean as she climbed over the lawn mower, up onto the trunk behind it, and reached behind a can of nails for the box that held all of the drill bits.

  Opening the box, she lifted out the top tray and reached inside for the mint tin. That was all she needed. The mint tin.

  Shoving it into the waistband of her pants, she reversed the order of her activity, until she was once again standing on the floor in front of the lawn mower.

  She didn’t glance out the shed’s small window. If the roses were wilting there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.

  And if... No, Caleb wasn’t there. He’d be at the day care, going every day now, she was sure, which was just what his father had thought in his best interests from the beginning.

  Children needed to be socialized. They needed to learn how to take turns and stand up for themselves at the same time. They had to learn pecking orders and how to get along in groups. They had to find their own inner strength, without relying twenty-four-seven on the parents who were there to protect them.

  She didn’t disagree with any of that. They were all necessary lessons. She just didn’t think Caleb needed to learn them before he was able to speak up for himself. Until he could tell someone if he was mistreated.

  She didn’t think he needed to join the track team before he could run.

  Still, Max had never taken an unscheduled day off from work since she’d known him. He had patients and he’d be at the office. Which meant Caleb wouldn’t be home.

  Which was why she’d chosen that particular time to visit.

  With fumbling fingers, she pulled open the little metal tin in her hand. The five one-hundred dollar bills were there, just as they’d left them. Max had teased her the day she’d insisted on stashing the money. He’d had both hands on her waist as she climbed up to reach the shelf, and had lifted her down, sliding his hands up her body as he’d done so.

  They’d made love in the seat of the riding lawn mower.

  That had been before Caleb. Or maybe the day their son had been conceived.

  Those five one-hundred dollar bills had been the first she’d earned as a fully licensed speech pathologist. They’d symbolized freedom and a new life to her. All the things Max had been telling her she had. She’d wanted to give them back—to them. She’d told him they’d put those exact bills away, hide them ceremoniously, and get them out on their thirtieth anniversary to spend on whatever they wanted.

  The vow they’d made that day, even more than their wedding vows, had bound them to a lifetime together.

  They’d vowed to
be together thirty years from then. To spend the money together.

  Trembling, she took the dollars and shoved them into her bra, the side opposite her untraceable cell phone. She wasn’t going to cry.

  It would serve no purpose, and might call attention to her as she made her way back to the bus stop.

  Back to The Lemonade Stand where, for now, her secrets were safe.

  Closing her mind to voices from the past that would weaken her ability to take care of the task at hand, she closed the box and strode for the door. All that was left was leaving the tin box where Max would be sure to find it empty.

  A movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. Something had moved in the yard.

  Flattening herself against the wall of the shed, she moved toward the window, looking sideways and tilting forward only enough to see out.

  Steve was back. She just knew it had to be him out there someplace.

  She’d underestimated him. Again.

  Without conscious effort her mind began cataloguing everything in the shed. Things she could throw. Things she could use as tools. Tools that could be used against her if Steve got his hands on them.

  She was on her own property. He was there uninvited. It would be self-defense.

  She had to know how much time she had...could she get out the door and to the other side of the tree trunk before he knew she was there? She had to get him away from this house. Away from Max and Caleb.

  She wasn’t ready for the showdown. Was only just beginning to figure him out and didn’t yet know how best to use the information to get the better of him, other than some half-formulated idea of getting him to confess while she had her phone on so that someone else could hear the whole thing.

  The plan, in its current state was too simplistic. Implementation didn’t stand a chance against Steve’s powerful mind. At the moment, a plan didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting him away from Max’s home.