Mom curls back up onto the couch, clutching a pillow to her chest as my sister tries her best to crawl up to her. Laying her head in Mom’s lap, Steph grasps for a sliver of normalcy.
Anything that makes everything okay again.
“Promise?” Steph says to me as tears flood her eyes. She holds out her pinkie finger, and I wrap mine around it.
“Promise.”
I’ve been a rock and I feel like I’m starting to crumble. Steph is safe now in Mom’s arms. I can leave her for a bit. Just a little bit.
Whiskey walks into the room and jumps up on the couch, seeking a warm spot to snuggle behind Steph’s good leg.
“Brian. Moonshine. Now we own a dog,” I say when I see the look on my mom’s face.
A burst of laughter from her lips lights up the melancholy that’s settled over the room and she reaches over to scratch the puppy’s belly. Pulling myself up from the floor, I ruffle his ears and make an excuse to leave this space and find comfort somewhere else.
I’m drawn to the low voices in the kitchen.
***
“How’s she doing?”
Max’s voice startles me out of my single-minded goal of getting more coffee. Getting away from the living room for a bit and searching for Britt were also part of the plan until now.
Sitting in one of the dining room chairs, he has his phone out looking intently at the screen, a forlorn expression in his eyes as he locks the device and puts it back in his jacket.
“She’s shaken, understandably. Were you there?”
I ask because I’m curious and because I’m a reporter.
I ask because there’s something creeping up the back of my neck telling me Max knows more than he and Davis have let on.
That cold chill reaches my hairline and I shiver visibly despite my baggy sweatshirt.
Max taps the tabletop with his index finger, absentmindedly grabbing his top lip between his teeth.
“I was.” He stops tapping and looks through me. “It was my bullet.”
I suck my next breath through my clenched teeth. Oh, Max, I think, you poor soul.
“Don’t. You have that look in your eyes that people get when they hear you did your job. That ‘I’m so sorry it was you’ look and I hate that look,” he says standing up from the table, his full height causing me to look up more than I have to when looking at Brian. He’s looking right back down at me. “After what I’ve seen that degenerate do to women, to your sister ... I was happy to kill him. That’s off the record.”
He starts for the kitchen until I speak up, work past his words.
“I may have been thinking ‘oh poor you’ but I owe you.” I speak deliberately and quietly. “You’ve done me a favor, Max. I have a question, though. If it was State Police who tracked him down, why were you there when they went after him? Is it because it was a joint effort?”
Enough has happened over the last seventy-two hours that I feel completely clueless about everything, but this is one thing that doesn’t sit well. Departments work together a lot, but this is more than just a combined effort to catch a guy who beat up his girlfriend. I feel a little queasy when I watch Max scratch the back of his head before shoving his hands in his jacket pockets.
“I was close to the original case,” he says, his eyes downcast.
I know when people don’t want to give me a whole story.
“You know I’m good at getting answers, right, Max? I’m a journalist and while this isn’t a story — not for me — I’m going to get to the bottom of this. What original case? Who was Darren Judson?”
“That’s a good question, Ms. Barbieri. A really good question,” he says in a compartmentalized official tone, detached from my reality of the situation but firmly situated in his. I’ve heard Davis use it a hundred times. He’s said it’s what keeps him sane and sober. “He was a predator. He sought out women he thought were weak, ones he could control. Stephanie isn’t his first victim. But, she’s the first to fight hard enough to live.”
Nine words. Those words — she’s the first to fight hard enough to live — make the room spin.
I absorb them. All nine of them. I repeat them in my head.
I close my eyes.
“How many didn’t fight hard enough?” I let the words escape my mouth without hesitation. “How many?”
“At least two others in a different state.”
I open my eyes and reach for him, pulling him into a thankful embrace, thinking first with my heart instead of my head.
“Thank you. Thank you for saving my sister,” I whisper into the fold of his jacket as he wraps his arms tight around me, enveloping me in an embrace I swear he needs almost as much as I do. Maybe he needs it more.
I silently say a prayer for the others who couldn’t fight back against this monster. I pray for their families. And I say one for Max because this wasn’t just him doing his job; it was personal.
A throat clears behind Max and we drop our arms and step back from one another as though we’ve been caught doing something we shouldn’t be.
“Wyatt, we need to get back. Paperwork, coffee, and then you need to head out for some time off,” Davis says, as though walking into my dining room and seeing me hugging one of his officers is totally within the norm.
“I’ll meet you in the car, Chief. Thank you for the coffee, ma’am.” I watch him walk away quietly, peeking into the living room — at Steph — with a longing glance and he’s out the door.
“You okay, Stell?”
Davis brings me back to the here and now.
Taking a deep breath I turn back to face him. “Yeah, I think I will be. It’s going to be a long road for Steph, a few months of recovery, but we’ll get there.”
“I didn’t ask about Steph. I heard part of what Max told you,” he says. “When you told me Steph was in a bad relationship, I had no idea it was with this guy. Then when I talked to your sister a week ago and she told me his name ... we were already investigating him.”
“You feel guilty?”
“Of course I do. You and Stephanie are like my own kids. I should have had someone escorting her on campus. I should have made sure she was safe.”
“Careful, Chief, you’re going to start sounding like the rest of us,” Mom says from the living room doorway. “If you’d put someone on Stephanie duty, you know as well as I do, someone in this town would have been beating on your office door wanting to know why you were giving preferential treatment.”
“But still, Jenny! I should have—” I watch as my mom holds her hand up against his rant.
“Stop, Davis. Stop. Some people are just plain evil. This man was pure evil as far as I’m concerned. He would have found a way. This way ... at least this way we’re fortunate enough to have brought her home from the hospital with us in a car rather than a hearse. So, please, don’t jeopardize your sanity for the sake of her safety. It was in God’s hands. The girl has forever had a guardian angel and they were obviously there, so stop,” she says. “Shit. Happens. She’s safe now.”
Davis is quiet. Contemplative.
“She’s safe,” he repeats, “I know. It’s just so hard to think I could have done more. But you’re right. He would have found her alone eventually.”
Quiet nestles into the nooks and crannies of the room, the clock on the wall ticks through the seconds, I hear the puppy barking upstairs and Britt running down the hall laughing.
She’s safe.
We’re all okay.
“Bring your bride over tonight for drinks, Davis. You need a night filled with some down time. Dale and I could use the company,” Mom says in the silence. I see the look — she’s giving the Chief of Police the “mom look” — and let out a laugh as she walks over and hooks her arm through mine.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says as Mom and I plant kisses on each of his cheeks. “We could use time with friends.”
Mom releases my arm as she gracefully steps from dining room to kitchen and I wrap both of my arms around
Davis’ neck, a whispered “thank you” passes from my lips to his ear, and he squeezes me firmly and releases me.
“You call me if you need anything, you hear me?” he says sternly, then follows Max’s previous path out the door.
Brian
Chapter Thirty-One
Christmas
The last few weeks haven’t been easy.
They’ve been damn hard.
Almost as hard as the stone I’ve been carrying around in my pocket.
It’s not too small, but not big. Definitely not gaudy.
It’s perfect.
It’s delicate and beautiful, a ribbon of silver — because she doesn’t like yellow gold — dotted with tiny diamonds surrounding a pale blue gem nestled in the center. Her birthstone.
Standing in my office at the Jumping Bean, my back to the door, I pull the box from my jeans. I hold my breath as I push the top back and hear the creak of the tiny hinge, and say a little prayer she’ll love it.
I had every intention of letting Stella help me pick out her ring, but when I saw this I couldn’t leave it at the jeweler’s. It cried out to me from the display case, my eyes drawn to its simple beauty and I knew it belonged on Stella’s left hand.
“Aw, you shouldn’t have. Thanks, dude. How did you know I wanted one of these?” Greg says as he looks over my shoulder at the ring in my hand. “Seriously, that blue will totally complement my eyes, don’t you think?”
“Bitch, please, it would never fit on your beer guzzling, skirt chasing man hands. Plus, it matches my eyes,” I fire back before looking at the band again and getting serious. “You really think she’ll like it? I don’t know why I’m so nervous.”
Greg leans against the filing cabinet, looking me up and down with his chin resting in one hand.
“I haven’t known Stella very long, but her world revolves around you and Britton. It wouldn’t matter if you’d gotten that ring out of the bottom of a Cracker Jack box or one of those quarter machines at the grocery store, Brian. That girl’s heart belongs to you. Yours belongs to her. And Britt? Shit, man, he’s the ribbon and bow on the package deal,” he says, winking at me.
“Dudes don’t wink at other dudes, Greg,” I say and he slugs me in the shoulder. “But yeah. Yeah, I know what you mean. I’m just scared. Everything moved so quickly, but every move we’ve made together has felt like it was meant to happen. I can’t imagine my life without her, without being here and having this time with Stella.”
Snapping the ring box shut, I take a deep breath in and breathe out all my worry.
Greg pushes off the cabinet and, clapping me on the shoulder as he walks past, says, “Man, I hope someday I find a girl who gets me all tangled up like that. It’s a good look on you.”
He’s back out in the kitchen headed toward the doors to the counter before the sadness in his voice hits me and I don’t have time to ask what he means.
***
There’s a car in my driveway when we get home and, as soon as I park, Britt detaches from his seat and launches himself out of the truck to run full speed toward my mom.
“Come here and give me some love, child,” she says holding her arms open for Britt as he flings himself into her embrace. “Oh sweet boy, I swear you’ve grown in the month since we’ve seen you.”
My mom makes every homecoming worth coming home to, even if it’s just me pulling into my own driveway and letting Britt out of the car. I watch from the driver’s seat as Mama pulls him in for another hug and my dad ruffles his hair — he’s convinced me and Stella we should let him grow it out to see how it looked; apparently it’s the “in” thing up here — and I hear Whiskey barking in the house at the commotion.
Stepping out of the Tahoe, Dad clasps my hand in his like we didn’t just see one another a few weeks ago.
“You found yourself a really nice place here, Bri.”
“I wish I could take the credit, but Jenny’s the one who found it,” I say looking up at the front of the house I’ve turned into a home for my son. “We’ve really done quite a bit to make it ours, though.”
“What’s going to happen to it when you and Stella get married?”
No beating around the bush with this man. I take a minute to think about it because we haven’t even discussed where we’ll live or if we’ll sell one house or the other. What if she wants to sell both and buy one together?
Dad’s watching me carefully and a smile breaks his still tanned face.
“It’s okay, Brian. One thing at a time,” he says like he’s read my mind.
“I don’t know if I can handle one thing at a time. Lately I feel like I’m juggling a hundred different things and failing at it. Horribly.” Britt leads Mama into the house, talking her ear off the entire way, while I help Dad with their bags and have a little one-on-one. We may not have this chance again while they’re here. “Between the coffeehouse, getting Tommy settled into the business and all the wedding talk, it’s just been a lot. Not to mention trying to be there for Stella and Steph while Stephanie tries to heal after all she’s been through.”
I’m gasping for breath by the time I’m done and Dad’s grabbing either side of my neck, urging me to look at him.
“Brian. You need a break.” But I’m still panicking inside. “You need a break. Take Stella for a long weekend while we’re here and get out of here. If the weather stays mild, go stay in a cabin in the woods for a weekend and keep each other warm. I’m sure Dale’s still got his old hunting lodge in the Southern Tier. Pack a bag, get your girl, and get gone for seventy or so hours.”
“But-”
“Don’t talk back, boy.”
My dad never calls me “boy” anymore. He used to do it when I was a teenager because I was being argumentative, which I am being now, but with good reason. I don’t feel right just dropping everything and leaving Greg and Tommy with the shop.
“Time with just Stella would be nice, but I can’t expect Tom and Greg to be okay with me taking off for the weekend at the drop of a hat. I’ll think about it, though, and talk to the guys to see if they’d be set for a few days without me.” I’m making excuses and I don’t know why.
Dad looks at me out of the corner of his eye and makes a disapproving tsking sound with his tongue and teeth.
“Sometimes I think we did too good a job with you, Brian. Such a good head on your shoulders and good work ethic you don’t know when to give yourself time to recharge,” he says taking his ball cap off just to put it back on. “That’s how burnout happens, kid. Don’t burn out.”
He walks off toward the house, leaving me dumbfounded and standing in the driveway holding my mom’s purple paisley suitcase wondering why I can’t just let work go for one weekend.
***
“Want to go to the woods with me?”
“Are you feverish? Did you get bit by a tick and are suffering from a Lyme related illness? The woods?”
Stella stops folding towels and stares at me from across the table.
My parents have taken Britt out to visit something called the Shoe Tree and left us at the house. Dad’s reasoning was that we needed “down time.” It’s more like he didn’t want Mama smothering Stella and forced her out of the house under the guise of showing the little man all their old haunts.
Stella’s still watching me, waiting for an answer.
“Not, like, the woods, but a cabin in the woods. I was thinking a few days away to talk about things, our future, you know.” I set the towel I just folded into the laundry basket and step around the end of the table and deliberately toward her, wrapping my arms around her shoulders. “Things have just been crazy for the last month or so. I want to get away and spend time with just you for a while. Preferably naked, but we can find some middle ground if twenty-four seven nudity is an issue for you.”
She lets a low laugh rise from her belly. I feel it vibrate through my ribs as she pulls me closer to her and lay her head as high up on my shoulder as she can without standing on her tiptoes.<
br />
“Nudity I don’t have an issue with, provided we bring all the food we’ll need so we don’t have to leave,” she says, the smile on her face pulling at my shirt. “When can we go? I need a break from reality.”
I lift my head away so I can look down at her eyes, shining bright with an urgency — a need — for an adventure, even if it’s just us in a cabin exploring one another.
“As soon as I clear it with the guys. When do you want to go?”
“Next weekend. We’ll get through Christmas with the family and leave the next morning. Britt can stay here and hang out with your parents ... right?” She adds the question a little late and I can’t help but grin.
“Dad got to you first, didn’t he?”
“Maybe.” She laughs again, holding her thumb and index finger together. “Just a little.”
Stella puts her thumb nail between her teeth, biting gently and giving me puppy dog eyes, and it’s nothing I ever thought I would see her do.
It makes my body come alive.
Every time I watch her bite down on that thumb, pulling the digit into her mouth a little further, I feel my boxers get a little tighter.
“You’re trouble,” I say gruffly, reaching up to pull her hand from her mouth and kissing her thumb as I move my other hand up to her neck, urging her mouth closer to mine. “You’re in trouble. How long do you think we have until they get back?”
“Probably not enough time ...” she says and lets out a squeal as I bend down, grabbing her by the waist to hold her in place on my shoulder before standing back to my full height. “Brian! Let me down!”
But she’s laughing like I haven’t heard her laugh in weeks. I love that sound.
I also love the sound of my palm connecting with her backside. I rub gently over the soft denim covering her and I hear a moan escape her lips.
Reaching the bedroom, I toss her onto the bed and crawl to her, settling myself between her legs.
“You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Stella.” I swoop down and capture her lips with mine, deepening the kiss as our bodies meld together and sink to the mattress.
To Have Page 20