To Love, Honor and Defend

by Beth Cornelison

  A spasm of regret twisted inside Cal.

  Truth was—she didn’t need him.

  Chapter 12

  That night, Cal looked straight into Renee’s eyes and scowled. “Do you need me to drive you home?”

  Libby was in the spare bedroom, helping Ally gather all her drawings to take home, while he waited with his ex in the front hall. When Renee didn’t show up at dinnertime as expected, Libby had put Ally to bed rather than keep her awake indefinitely, waiting for a mother who might not show.

  Now, at almost ten o’clock, Renee shot him a withering look, like a petulant teenager, and dangled her keys in front of him. “Hello? I have my own car. That’s how I got here.”

  “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

  “Why don’t you just say what you mean? You think I’m stoned, don’t you? Well, I’m not!”

  “When’s the last time you got high?” he pressed, although her eyes did appear clearer than in recent days and her speech wasn’t slurred.

  Renee set her jaw defiantly and narrowed her eyes. “None of your business.”

  “It’s my business if you put my daughter in your car.”

  “She’s my daughter, too. I’d never do anything to hurt her!”

  Cal almost choked. “What! Every time you shoot up, you hurt her! Your lifestyle, your gross neglect, hurts her every day. Your apartment is a disgrace. It’s dirty and smelly and full of bugs, and—”

  “Not everyone can afford to live like your swanky new wife.” Renee sneered as she cast an eye around Libby’s house. “I do the best I can!”

  “Your best would mean staying sober. For our daughter’s well-being, if not your own.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “What do you care about my well-being?”

  Cal swallowed the angry retort that sprang to his tongue, startled by the pain he saw in Renee’s eyes. “I…I care plenty about what happens to you, Nee. We were married once. We made a little girl together. I care about you and what you’re doing to yourself.”

  “Fine way you have of showing it. Trying to take away the only good thing I ever did with my life.”

  He exhaled with a whoosh. “I told you I’m not fighting for custody to hurt you, Renee. I’m doing it to protect Ally.”

  “Protect her?” Renee dropped her arms to her sides, her expression stunned, affronted. “From me? I love her! I’d never—” His ex wife’s eyes darted past him down the hall, and she pasted on a stiff smile. “Hey, sugar! Ready to go home?”

  Cal turned and watched Libby nudge Ally closer, his daughter’s hair still rumpled from her pillow.

  “I wanna stay with Daddy,” Ally whined.

  Renee shot him a glare full of resentment and laced with pain.

  Libby knelt beside Ally and brushed the flyaway curls behind the sleepy girl’s ear. “We’ll see you again this weekend, sweetie. But you need to go home with your mom now. Okay?”

  Ally hesitated, gave Renee a wary sideways glance. “Can Jewel go with me?”

  “Who’s Jewel?” Renee asked.

  “The cat.” Cal scooped his daughter into his arms and gave her a fierce hug. “Jewel lives here, kitten. But you can come see her again in a few days.” He kissed Ally’s cheek, inhaled the sweet scent of baby bath and innocence, and his throat tightened. Sending Ally back to the cesspool and neglect at Renee’s apartment ripped him apart. But obeying the letter of the law to win custody was so important. And he had to keep his nose clean for his parole and the conditions of Act 894 so his record could be expunged, so he could get his firefighting job, his life, back.

  He peeled Ally from his neck and handed her to her mother. “If you love her, then prove it,” he growled to his ex. “Put her first. Clean up your act and get straight.”

  Renee frowned and whirled toward the door. “By the way,” she said and turned to shoot daggers at Libby. “I know you were responsible for having Roach hauled in.” She flashed a haughty grin. “Nice try, but he made bail. Thought you might like to know.”

  Libby squared her shoulders. “The guy is trouble, Renee. You’d do well to stay away from him.”

  Cal’s ex looked at him then back at Libby. “So would you.”

  Cal gave Ally one last kiss on the forehead as Renee swept out the door and headed down the sidewalk. He stood in the open door and watched until Renee’s taillights disappeared around the block.

  “You’re letting bugs in the house,” Libby called from the couch, where she’d propped up her feet. “Jewel thanks you for the toys, but I’d rather not have mosquitoes buzzing in my ear while I sleep.”

  Cal batted a moth away as he shut the door and faced his wife. “Roach.”

  “Hmm. What about him?” Libby flipped the page on the magazine she’d picked up.

  Plucking the Southern Living from her hands, he tossed the magazine on the coffee table. “It was him out at the lake. I’d bet money.”

  “Based on what? Where’s the evidence?”

  “No proof, just a gut feeling.” He sat on the edge of the sofa beside her, his hip bumping hers. Even that casual contact raised his blood pressure, teased his imagination. It would be so easy to push her back in the sofa cushions and cover her with his body, lose himself inside her. He stroked her thigh, starting at her knee and moving up her satiny skin. Under her cotton gown. Higher.

  She caught his wrist and pushed his hand away. “I don’t deal in feelings. Only facts.”

  I won’t let myself get hurt again.

  A bruising weight settled in his chest.

  Somehow he had to make her see she could trust him not to leave, not to hurt her. Or to let her get hurt. He refused to repeat the mistakes he’d made as a teenager when his mom had needed him. With so many things working against him, he had a real fight on his hands. But Libby was worth the fight.

  “Roach threatened you when you had him arrested the other day. The man had pure venom in his voice, in his eyes. He wanted to kill you.”

  He tried again to touch her, smoothing a hand over her shoulder and down her toned arm. Whatever she did at that kickboxing class worked. She had great muscle definition in her slender arms, sleek legs. He could almost feel those legs wrapped around his waist….

  She rolled to an upright position and rose from the couch, moving away from him. Again. Distance. Always the gulf between them. The desire humming through him hardened into frustration.

  For a few sweet moments, she’d relaxed her guard when she’d returned home from her ordeal at Lake D’Arbonne. She’d held on to him, let herself need him for a minute.

  And then withdrawn, determined to fight her own battles.

  Libby marched across the same Persian rug he’d worn out earlier in the day, then spun to face him. “It’s not Roach.”

  “How do you know?”

  “There was another note with the voodoo doll. I didn’t read the note, but it was on the same blue paper that the other threats from the stalker came on.” She raked her hair back with her fingers. “I started receiving the letters from the stalker well before I saw Roach at Renee’s, and before I saw him at the park and called in the police.”

  “You’re sure?”

  She nodded, shuddered. “I hate this.”

  “I know. I do, too.” He stepped closer and drew her into his arms. Though her back was stiff, she didn’t resist. Small progress.

  “I swear to you, Libby, we will find this guy, and we will have our lives back. We’ll have the future fate stole from us before—”

  “Fate?” She backed out of his arms, her eyes dark and stormy. “Fate didn’t break us up. You did. Your choices did. You chose Renee over me. That is why we lost everything we had.”

  He let a breath hiss through his teeth. “No, I chose my child, being a father. And not because I didn’t want you. How many times do I have to explain this?”

  She sent him a pained look. “I don’t need anything explained to me. I lived it.”

  Compunction pounded him. “I
never meant to hurt you, Lib. Never. Lord knows, I hated giving you up. It ripped me apart. I felt like a vital piece of my soul had been torn out.”

  He saw her tense, and she stared at him, confusion and disbelief filling her eyes. “What?”

  He studied her shocked expression through narrowed eyes, the thud of his pulse keeping time with her mantel clock. “Didn’t you understand that? Libby, I wanted to marry you, not Renee.”

  She stumbled back a step, shaking her head. Her mocha eyes misted, and she hugged herself. “But you were so matter-of-fact, so blunt, when you told me it was over, when you walked out.”

  “I was numb, Lib. I was struggling to accept the cruel twist fate had tossed in my path. I was trying to do the right thing for my baby, but I was hemorrhaging inside.”

  “You never told me how you felt. How could I have known?” Tears welled in her eyes. “Your leaving, your stoicism the day you walked out, told me you didn’t care. I felt used and discarded. No more than the inconvenience I’d been to my mother and her boyfr—”

  Her hiccupping sob hit him like a fist in the gut. She lifted a hand to her mouth and turned her back to him. He moved up behind her and circled her with his arms.

  Kissing the crown of her head, he murmured, “I thought you knew. I thought I’d said it in every kiss, every look, every minute we spent together. Whether we were practicing your closing argument for some big case or catching crawfish in Bayou Laterre.”

  She gave a short, soft laugh. More a burst of air, really. Angling her head, she glanced back at him. “I still have mud in my pores from that fiasco.”

  He squeezed her tighter. “But you had fun. Admit it.”

  She pivoted in his grasp and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I always had fun with you. I missed that when you left.”

  He lowered his head, pulled her nearer, until his lips were a breath away from hers. “We can have fun again. We have a second chance to make this work.”

  He closed the distance between their mouths, and he felt the tremor that shook her. Or maybe he was the one who trembled. The sensation of her lips moving against his and the minty taste of her toothpaste as her tongue mated with his rocketed through his system, shaking the ground beneath him. With his kiss, he tried to say all the things he’d never had the courage to say before. The tangled web of emotions that had never died for him, only rooted themselves deeper in his heart.

  Only one shadow still lurked in the path of the bright future he wanted with Libby—someone wanted to kill her.

  He broke their kiss, a cold sweat popping out on his brow and a sense of urgency drumming a war beat in his head.

  “We have to find this guy. Your stalker.” He held her at arm’s length, regretting the flicker of fear that obliterated the hazy desire in her eyes. “We can’t wait on the police. We have to figure out who he is and stop him before he gets to you.”

  She licked her kiss-swollen lips, and he determinedly squashed the surge of heat. Later. Encouraged that this time there would be a later, Cal shoved his libido aside for more pressing concerns. Like Libby’s life.

  “It could be anyone, Cal. In my line of work, enemies are more common than friends. My conviction list is long and varied. Who knows what set this guy off?”

  Gripping her hand, he led her back to the antique couch. He pulled her down beside him, trying not to think about the sexual fantasy he’d indulged in moments ago regarding a quick tumble with Libby on this same sofa. “Okay, you want to deal in facts, let’s look at the facts as we know them.”

  “Facts. Okay.” Libby nodded and pushed back up from the couch.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I need paper and a pen. I think better when I can write things out, look at them, draw charts and so forth.”

  Cal had to smile at that. So logical, so orderly.

  He watched her cotton gown swish around her legs as she left the room and admired the way the cloth slid over her curves. Steady, boy.

  “Meet me in the kitchen. We can work at the table,” he said. He rubbed his hands on his face and decided a shot of caffeine was called for.

  Libby entered the kitchen while he stood staring into the refrigerator. He glanced up, met her curious eyes, saw the distrust that drifted through her gaze.

  And he saw her stop the suspicious thought, watched her push the concern aside and give him a small smile. An olive branch?

  “I’ll have one, too, please.” She settled at the end of the table, uncapped her fountain pen.

  “One what?” He squeezed the refrigerator door handle, praying he was right about what he’d just seen.

  “Whatever you’re having. Make mine diet.”

  Relief spilled from him in a slow exhale while hope swelled in his chest. Maybe they could build on the fragile foundations of trust and faith they’d forged tonight.

  Maybe…

  “All right. I got my first letter—” she opened her calendar and ran a finger across the page “—on the third of last month. I didn’t keep it because it really wasn’t threatening. Didn’t ring any warning bells other than it seemed strange.”

  Cal took two diet colas from the shelf and closed the refrigerator. He popped the tabs on both and set one beside her.

  She glanced up from her note making, lifted the can to her lips, then hesitated when her gaze collided with his. For a heartbeat, she just stared. Five years of waiting and wishing and regrets passed between them in that moment.

  Maybe…

  Jewel trotted into the kitchen and announced with a loud meow that she was ready for a midnight snack. And the spell was broken.

  Averting her eyes, Libby finished sipping. “Thanks,” she mumbled, indicating her drink with a little lift of the can before she set it on the table.

  “No problem.” He put the cat’s food bowl on the floor before he sat down. “What did the first letter say?”

  With that, they launched into an itemized rehashing of the past weeks. The mounting menace in the stalker’s letters. The creep’s uncanny ability to know where she was and what she was wearing. His pursuit of her in the courthouse stairwell. The sabotaged elevator. The warning at Stan’s cabin.

  “You said you told Stan you would be at the lake? Right?” Cal rubbed his thumb along the scar on his chin, thinking aloud.

  “Besides needing to let him know I’d not be at work, I figured it was the decent thing to do since it’s his cabin.”

  “And we know he was in the building the night you were followed on the stairs and the night the elevator crashed.”

  Libby groaned and shook her head. “Don’t even go there. Stan and I have been friends for years. He has no reason to want to hurt me.”

  Cal sat forward in his chair and braced his arms on the table. “You sure about that? What about professional jealousy? Do you think he’s trying to scare you into leaving the D.A.’s office? The comment in one letter about you staying at home where a woman belongs could point toward—”

  “No! It’s not Stan.”

  He tipped his head from side to side, stretching the tired muscles in his neck. “No one else knew you’d be at the lake.”

  “I could have been followed.”

  “Were you? Did you see anyone behind you driving up to the cabin?”

  “No.” She sighed. “But that doesn’t mean—”

  Cal circled Stan’s name on the paper he’d taken from Libby’s notebook. “He’s still a lead suspect in my book.”

  Growling her disagreement, Libby pushed her chair back and took her soda can to the sink to rinse.

  Cal drummed his fingers on the table and studied the notes they’d made. “So, the cops found no fingerprints on the notes or the notepad. The guy is smart enough not to leave evidence. What about the envelope seal? Can’t they get DNA from the glue if he licked the seal?”

  “They tried that.” She slid back into her chair and finger-combed her hair. “Apparently he used a sponge or rag to wet the glue. The handwriting analysis points
toward an individual living under a great deal of stress or pressure, but these days, who isn’t? And stalking an A.D.A. must be a stressful preoccupation.” Sarcasm tinged her tone, and he reached for her hand.

  “We’ll find him, Lib. Okay? I won’t rest until I know this guy is caught.”

  “It’s not your job. It’s mine and the police’s.”

  He drilled her with a firm gaze. “It is my job to make sure you’re safe. I’m your husband.”

  Libby caught her breath, jolting at his reminder of their marital status. He caught wistfulness, a flicker of something warm and promising in her chocolate eyes, before she visibly reined in her emotions and slipped her hand out of his.

  Taking up her pen again, she scribbled a note on the paper in front of her. “I think we’re overlooking something rather obvious. Maybe I haven’t given it much credence before now because the reality was too frightening, but…”

  The fear that sparked to life in her eyes racheted his pulse up a notch. “What, Lib?”

  “He planted that notebook in your things. He’s been in this house. He could live near here and be watching us through a telephoto lens or…”

  The idea of someone spying on Libby, someone breaking into her house, raised the hair on the back of Cal’s neck.

  Not knowing the who, the where, the when of this scum’s threat roiled inside him. Not since he’d learned the truth about his mother’s frequent “accidents” had he felt such a sense of helplessness and protective rage.

  “Libby, maybe you should leave town. Get away from h—”

  The phone trilled. Libby flinched, gasped.

  He looked at his watch. It was after midnight. A call this late could only mean trouble.

  Ally.

  If something was wrong…

  Libby started to rise, but he waved her back down. “Let me get it.”

  He snatched the receiver from the cradle on the third ring. “H’lo?”

  “Is this Cal Walters?” the male voice asked.

  “Who’s asking?”

  “This is Reyn Erikson again. We talked earlier about you volunteering for the Clairmont VFD.”