by Addison Fox
“You wanted to put them in a home.”
“No, I wanted them to get the proper care they deserved while taking the burden off of you.”
“They’re my parents. I did it willingly.”
“And are now playing the martyr because you did.”
That unpleasant rebuttal settled in the middle of the table between them, an oozing pile of resentment and anger that only seemed to grow bigger and more acidic.
How was it that things had gone so badly between them? They’d barely spent ten minutes with each other and were already fighting. Yet even as it bothered her, she couldn’t fully kill the resentment and the anger.
“Why are you really here? I can’t imagine James would be happy with you putting yourself in danger by being so close to a crime scene.”
“James doesn’t much care what I do.” Maggie ran a hand over the cold condensation on her glass, her cornflower blue gaze averted. “Our divorce will be final in early January. Just after New Year’s Day, as a matter of fact.”
“Your what?”
The resentment and anger grew smaller and faded in the face of Maggie’s news, before vanishing away as Bellamy moved around the table to take Maggie’s hand. “When did this happen?”
“Earlier this year.”
“But why? How? I thought you were so happy being married.”
“We were married. Happiness wasn’t a big part of it. A situation that got worse when he informed me he wasn’t interested in having children.”
“Oh.”
She’d not been a part of her sister’s life for some time, but the finality of that statement left its sting, chunking away a bit more of her years-old anger. “I’m sorry, Maggie. Really sorry.”
“It’s fine. We’ve said a lot of horrible things to each other and now we’ve just become numb. The New Year can’t get here fast enough.”
Bellamy wanted to say more—felt she should say more—but had no right. Whatever frustrations she might have over Maggie’s behavior the past several years, she wouldn’t have wished the dissolution of her marriage on her.
Neither would she ever have suspected there was anything wrong in the first place. James Corgan came from one of the wealthiest families in the state and had always seemed smitten with Maggie. Their marriage had happened quickly, but Bellamy had always assumed it was a love match.
Was she wrong about that? Or had things simply gone wrong, the same way her relationship with Maggie had changed into something neither of them recognized any longer?
“I guess we’ve both been keeping secrets.”
“I’m not keeping secrets.”
“Oh no?” Maggie raised a lone, perfect eyebrow. “Then what’s going on that has you the target of bombings?”
“I have no idea.”
“Come on, Bell. This is real life, not TV. People don’t just walk out to their car after work and nearly get blown up.”
“I’m well aware of that. It still doesn’t mean I have a clue to what’s going on.”
The lie tripped right on out, practically skipping around the room. For the first time in a long time, she wanted to open up to Maggie—wanted to tell her about the email she’d received—but she had no idea how. If she said something, would she put Maggie in danger, too?
And if she told her, she would also have to admit that she was out of work. She still hadn’t figured out how she was going to handle the taxes on the house her parents had left her or what she was going to do about getting a new car. She had a little bit saved, but nothing that was going to see her without a job indefinitely.
Especially if Sally Borne made good on her threat to blackball her from getting another.
“This is ridiculous.” Maggie drummed one painted fingernail on the table. “Surely you have to know something. Or we can ask around and find someone who might know what this is about.”
“I’m not making my personal life gossip fodder for the town.”
“But if someone can help you...”
“No. I will handle this and deal with it myself.”
“Just like you always do.”
Whatever subtle truce they’d arrived at vanished completely as Bellamy got to her full height. “Yes, Maggie. Just like I always do. I can handle myself and whatever comes my way. I’ve been doing it for years.”
The door to the kitchen opened at that moment, Donovan and Alex barreling into the room in a rush of feet and paws. The echo of Bellamy’s retort still hovered but even if Donovan had missed the words, there was no way he missed her standing up, hands fisted at her sides.
“Everything okay?”
“Fine. Absolutely fine.” Bellamy stepped away from her seat, extending a hand to Donovan and gesturing him to sit in her place. “Let me just get some fresh water for Alex.”
The ploy was either enough to divert attention or Donovan was simply too polite to say otherwise, but he took the offered seat as Maggie thrust his glass of iced tea on him while Bellamy busied herself with some water for Alex.
The awkwardness of the moment was quickly covered up with Maggie’s questions, her voice a sensual purr now that she was in the presence of an attractive man. As she listened, settling a large bowl of water on the floor, Bellamy felt herself closing up even further.
It didn’t matter how badly she wished things were different with her sister; it wasn’t possible.
And just like the loss of her parents, she was simply going to have to find a way to accept it.
* * *
DONOVAN PLACED HIS empty glass of iced tea back on the kitchen table and counted off the number of minutes until he could make a polite excuse and leave the room once more. If he’d known what he was walking into, he’d have found a way to stay outside with Alex a bit longer.
But they’d already done two perimeter sweeps of Bellamy’s small property line and found nothing. Nor had they found anything else inside the shed, even after Donovan ran Alex through the drill a second and third time. He’d finally given in and gotten a fresh treat out of the car, sorry that he’d put Alex through such rigor over an obviously clean site.
Which was one more proof point that he was too far around the bend over Bellamy Reeves. He trusted Alex implicitly. The dog was well trained and had never let him down. That wasn’t about to change.
What he now needed to figure out was how he was going to get Bellamy to let him stay. There was no way he was heading back to Austin and leaving her alone. He briefly toyed with the idea of leaving her at his parents’ home. He would consider it if things went truly sideways, but wasn’t quite ready to give in and bring his family into this mess.
Which left him and Alex as her newest houseguests.
He’d met the woman who’d arrived earlier, remembering her after the basic introductions. Maggie Reeves had been a year behind him in high school but he still recalled her reputation as one of the most popular kids. Funny how it hadn’t mattered to him then and mattered even less now.
Yet somehow, in looking at Bellamy’s sister, he sensed it was deeply important to how she saw herself.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you,” Maggie said, her smile broad.
“High school, probably.” Donovan nodded after taking a sip of his iced tea. “I haven’t spent much time in Whisperwood since then.”
“What brings you here now?”
“I’m part of the APD’s K-9 unit. We support the surrounding communities in addition to Austin and I’m here to help the chief.”
“On Bellamy’s case?”
“Among others.”
Donovan heard the genuine interest in Maggie’s voice, but couldn’t shake the underlying tension that hovered in the kitchen. He was the last person to criticize family dynamics, but there was a stiffness to Maggie and Bellamy’s relations
hip that struck him as sad.
Not your business, Colton.
And it wasn’t. But knowing what Bellamy had been through in the past few days, he couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t lean on her sister.
“What you do must be fascinating. Law enforcement. And working with your sweet dog, too.”
Maggie kept her distance from Alex, but Donovan had seen how her gaze kept darting to the large form currently slurping water in the corner of the small kitchen. Even that was curious. Bellamy had warmed to Alex immediately, but Maggie kept looking at him as if he were going to attack her at any moment.
“Alex is my full partner. We work together to find and diffuse bombs as well as missing persons and drugs.”
“Wow.” Her gaze shifted to the dog once again, but her tension seemed to ebb ever so slightly. “He can do all that?”
“He’s pretty amazing. His nose can find far more than we can ever understand. And his training ensures he knows how to tell me what he’s found.”
Jiggling the ice cubes in his glass, Donovan glanced over at his partner, now seated on his haunches with his tongue lolling. “We’re going to leave you two alone. Alex and I have a few more things we need to do outside.”
Before anyone could protest, Donovan made his escape, a quick nod all the dog needed to follow along. They weren’t outside more than ten minutes when Maggie found her way to the back of his SUV. Donovan finished reordering his gear and turned at her quiet greeting.
“Hello, Ms. Reeves.”
“It’s Corgan. Maggie Corgan. For at least a little while longer.” She muttered that last piece, even as a bright smile remained firmly on her face.
“Of course. What can I do for you?”
“Bell and I have a tough relationship. We haven’t agreed on a lot of things for a long time and it’s chipped away at what we used to have.”
While he couldn’t deny his loyalty to Bellamy, something in Maggie’s words tugged at him. He knew what it was to have a distance between him and his loved ones. More, he knew what it was to want to close that distance but have no idea where to start.
“I love my sister,” Maggie continued. “I care for her very much and I hate to think that she’s in danger. Please take care of her. And please keep me posted if there’s anything I can do.”
“This is an active investigation but I’ll do my best.”
“Thanks. I guess that’s all I can ask.”
He watched her walk away, her physical look at odds with what he sensed lay beneath the surface. Maggie Corgan was a beautiful woman. Her hair was perfect, as were her body, her clothes, her car and her jewelry.
Yet beneath it all he sensed a woman who had very little.
As Maggie started her car and drove off, Donovan wondered if Bellamy understood that at all.
* * *
BELLAMY PUTTERED AROUND the kitchen, at odds with herself. Donovan and Alex were still outside—his SUV was visible in the driveway—but she didn’t want to go out to see what they were doing. Maggie’s visit had hit hard and she was still raw over the way they’d left things.
Her sister’s news was unsettling, as well. It was the holidays and here Maggie was anticipating a divorce in the next few weeks. A small voice whispered that she should have invited her to spend the holidays together but she’d ignored it. And allowed the years-old anger and pain to prevent her from saying anything.
Wherever she’d once expected to be in life, thirty-five and alone, with no relationship with her sister, was so not it.
Which meant she needed to do something.
She retrieved the empty glasses from the kitchen table and washed them all in the sink, and was drying the last one when Donovan and Alex returned to the kitchen.
“We’ve swept your yard and shed three times and haven’t found anything. You’re clean.”
Clean? Just like the glasses, only instead of washing out a bit of iced tea, he was hunting for bombs. Items designed to maim and kill. On a hard swallow, Bellamy nodded. “Thank you.”
“I’d like to discuss what’s going to happen next.”
“Of course.”
“You can’t stay here. Not by yourself.”
“Where do you think I’m going to go?”
“Your sister’s would be a place to start.”
Whatever ideas she had about making things better with Maggie, dragging her into this mess wasn’t one of them. Bellamy pushed back from the counter and crossed the kitchen to face Donovan. “Absolutely not.”
“She cares for you. And she’s worried.”
The thick lines of his body projected capable strength and something inside of Bellamy melted. How easy would it be to just move in, wrap her arms around him and sink in? The imprint of his lips lingered on hers, the heady sensation of their kiss still in the forefront of her mind.
But much as she wanted to talk to him and tell him how she felt about her relationship with Maggie and all that she desperately wished she could make right, it wasn’t his problem.
None of this was his problem.
And a few kisses couldn’t change that.
“I’m not bringing her into this.” Bellamy said.
“But we can put protection on you both. Can make sure no one harms either of you.”
“I’m staying in my house. That’s non-negotiable.”
“You can’t stay here alone. That’s why Alex and I are moving in until this is handled.”
“You can’t move in.” The words came out on a squeak, even as a sly sense of delight curled beneath her skin.
“Since you seem to feel similar about going to your sister’s, it’s the only way.”
Bellamy ignored how neatly Donovan made his argument and searched for some way to push back. “But this is my house. And you’re assigned to my case. You can’t live here.”
“This is Whisperwood. The town is small and I’m from here. The department is well staffed but they don’t need to put someone out here full-time. And I can work from here as well as Austin. On the few times I need to head into the city you can come with me.”
“You can’t upend my life this way.”
Donovan glanced down at Alex, his smile broad as he placed a hand on the dog’s head. “We just did.”
* * *
THE UPENDING OF her life began immediately, and with surprising regularity. True to his promise, Donovan and Alex kept close watch on her and their days together had taken on an odd sort of routine.
Four days into life with her new roommates, Bellamy found herself once again heading down I-35 with Donovan and Alex, straight into Austin. The afternoon traffic was thick, with cars bumper-to-bumper as they approached downtown.
“This is ridiculous.”
“No more ridiculous than a woman who’s fighting off bomb threats to her life.”
“I meant the traffic,” Bellamy said. “I sort of thought the rest of it all had moved into the realm of the absurd.”
His grin was broad as he glanced over at her. “Consider it an absurdity I’m determined to end.”
She was grateful for that, the quick confidence that he could fix things going a long way toward soothing the nerves that refused to abate. She’d forget about the situation at LSP and her car and her shed for a few moments, and then it would all come streaming back, like a film on constant replay.
She wanted to believe it was over—a temporary madness that had descended in her life and vanished just as quickly—but the presence of man and dog suggested otherwise.
As did the unshakable feeling that things weren’t over, no matter how badly she wanted them to be.
“You really believe you can stop whatever’s going on?”
“Of course. That’s my job. That, and keeping you safe in the process.”
; “Isn’t that the chief’s job?”
“We work together. Archer Thompson’s a good man. If it’s on his caseload, he’s committed to handling things.”
“For the biggest employer in Whisperwood. Isn’t that a conflict?”
The easy smile vanished. “You always go around accusing the police of being in people’s pockets?”
“I’m not—” She broke off, aware that was exactly what she was doing. “No, I’m not trying to suggest that. But I do know that much of his funding comes from the fact that LSP is such a huge business in Whisperwood. The tax contribution alone is significant. It can’t be easy for the chief to have to investigate them.”
“There’s nothing easy about his job. Doesn’t mean he can’t handle it.”
The quiet stretched out between them once more and Bellamy was forced to look at her behavior through Donovan’s eyes. What must he see when he looked at her? A lonely woman, living in a small house all by herself. No obvious ties to anyone to speak of, made more evident by what he’d observed between her and Maggie. And now she was going around accusing the Whisperwood police of corruption.
The thought had whispered through her mind more than once over the past few days, but now that it had taken root, something had the words spilling from her lips.
“I wasn’t always like this.”
“Like what?”
“Suspicious and unkind.”
“Is that how you see yourself?” Donovan kept his eyes firmly on the traffic but it took no less power out of his question.
“Some days. Others I feel like I’m drifting through life on autopilot, not sure how I got there.”
“You suffered a big loss. You’re entitled to grieve.”
“Am I? Or has it become a convenient excuse to stop living?”
* * *
SOMETHING IN BELLAMY’S words tugged at Donovan. He wouldn’t have called her unkind—hadn’t even considered her through that lens—but he did see the suspicion and the anger.
And the fear.
How did a person deal with that, day in and day out? Yes, the bomb threats were new, but dealing with ill and infirm parents, then losing them, had been a part of her life for far longer. That sort of pressure would change anyone.