by Kayla Perrin
“Is there somewhere we can go?”
“The chapel, the cafeteria?”
“Cafeteria,” he said.
A few minutes later, they were seated at a table for two in a corner, cups of coffee steaming but ignored between them.
“I meant what I said back in Hawaii, Baden. I’ve always had a thing for you—more than a thing,” he said. “I was pissed when Sean asked you out first.”
“If you say he called ‘dibs’ again, I swear to God, Jesse...”
“No, not dibs,” he said. “I don’t want you slapping me upside the head or something. He just had the good sense and the good taste to know he’d found a diamond.”
“In the rough?”
He shook his head. “Cut and polished to absolute perfection,” Jesse said.
“How long did you know about Shaun, the girl, I mean?”
“Sean and I were partners, Baden,” he said. “I told you how close a relationship that is. Each of our lives depended on the other. When he told me, yeah, I was taken aback for a bit, but it was all so far in the past it didn’t matter. I did some research on transgendered people. Sean didn’t fit any of the stereotypes that I’d had. That’s what got me in trouble.”
“In trouble? What trouble?”
“The reason I’m suspended.”
Baden looked startled. “Suspended? You said you were on an extended forced vacation. I thought you meant you were being forced to take a ton of accrued vacation or comp hours.”
Sighing, he shook his head. “No. I’m on a six-week suspension from the department.”
“This has something to do with Sean doesn’t it?”
He nodded, then rubbed his eyes.
“Go on,” Baden urged.
He looked at her, a weariness in his eyes that aged him more than the work he did on the streets as a cop.
He shifted in his seat, rubbed his hands on his thighs and then clasped his hands together on top of the table.
“It was a couple weeks after the...” He paused and glanced at her.
“It’s okay, Jesse. The wedding-that-wasn’t is always going to be a part of our shared past.”
He shook his head as if he were the one having issues in coming to grips with the past.
“It was a couple weeks after the wedding date,” he said. “Sean was acting crazy. Reckless. He was taking chances that didn’t need to be taken. Antagonizing suspects. Basically being an asshole. And he refused to talk about it.”
“I wondered how he took my...running off.”
Jesse shrugged. “Publicly he was stoic. He walked into the squad room that following Tuesday morning and said to everybody there, ‘Well, if anybody had any bets going on, it’s time to pay up. She dumped me. So give my number to your sisters and ex’s.”
Startled at that, Baden pressed for more information. “He made light of it?”
Jesse nodded. “In public. In private, he was a mess, just a freaking mess. I’ve never seen anybody go off the deep end like that. I was scared for him, Baden. Really scared. All he’d tell me was that you had more balls than he did. When I’d ask what he meant, he’d just say something like, ‘Let’s go kick some drug dealer butt.’”
Shaking his head, Jesse recalled that time. “Baden, he was going after perps like he had a quota to fill. Then we got called out to a club, The Palisades.”
“Never heard of it.”
“You wouldn’t have,” he said. “It was—is—a private social club for the gay, bisexual and transgendered community.”
She looked stunned. “Here? In Raleigh?”
“No, Miss Sheltered from Reality. Actually it’s tucked out in the county, between Raleigh and Cedar Springs. There are gay folks, you know.”
She hit his arm. “I realize that. And I’m not sheltered from reality. I try to hide from it sometimes, but I’ve never been sheltered from it. Well, apparently except when it came to Sean.”
“The Palisades is in the county, and it’s been operating for about five years. Every now and then the department would get a call out about a domestic dispute or some sort of altercation, but this call out was different. A biker group came upon a couple patrons after they’d left and, let’s just say, trouble ensued.”
“What happened, Jesse?”
“When it was over? One guy was dead, three were in the hospital and Sean had a hit put out on him by the biker gang.”
“Oh, my God.”
“It was a classic cluster fuck from the get-go,” he said. “Sean was like a crazy person.”
“Did he kill the man?”
Jesse shook his head. “No. It was clear that the bikers picked the wrong transvestites to hassle. The two of them who were attacked could have handled the five bikers and gone on to enjoy their evening. But Sean...” Jesse shook his head. “Sean was like... I can’t even describe it. The dude who was killed had his carotid artery severed by a size-thirteen, spiked high heel. Sean sent two more to the hospital where at least one of them remained for about three months.”
Baden’s eyes widened and she covered her mouth, horrified by the recount of the carnage.
“Why was he so violent?”
Jesse shrugged.
Baden regarded him, and then reached for and squeezed his hand. “Jesse, we’re being honest here. Please, no more secrets between us. It’s the only way we can move forward as us.”
“Us?”
She nodded.
“I know, Baden. I want there to be an us.”
“Then let’s get the past out of the way and put it where it belongs.”
“The department cleared both of us,” he said.
Baden stared at him. “The truth, Jesse.”
He sighed. “The official report says two citizens were in imminent danger and that backup was stuck trying to quell the near riot from Palisades patrons trying to come to the scene.”
“And the unofficial report?”
“There was no unofficial report, but I think Sean was fighting back against every slight or slur he may have suffered while he was a boy trapped in a girl’s body. Seeing those two Palisades patrons being attacked and knowing that he hadn’t been straight-up with you about his background, I think it was just all mixing together and came out in that moment.”
Baden nodded. “I get that.” Then she voiced a question she’d been wondering about ever since Jesse had given her that photograph of Shaun. “Did anyone else in the department know? About Sean, I mean.”
Jesse shook his head. “No one to my knowledge except me. It wasn’t something he talked about. Frankly, I don’t even think it was something he thought about until...” Jesse’s gaze met hers.
“Until he asked me to marry him,” she finished.
“Yeah. If our backup hadn’t gotten there, I think there would have been more than one fatality. And Sean refused to go to a ceremony where the Greater Raleigh LGBT group honored our so-called heroism. He got written up for not going.”
“I don’t understand something.”
“What’s that?” Jesse said taking a sip from his coffee then frowning. “It’s cold now.”
“This was more than a year ago. What did that have to do with your suspension?”
Jesse rubbed his eyes. “Let me get some more coffee.”
He picked up the two cups and returned a few moments later, the contents again steaming. He took a sip from his, but Baden just wrapped her hands around hers.
“I mentioned a biker gang.”
She nodded.
“The Sons of W.A.R., they call themselves. I mixed it up with one of them after Sean’s funeral. Sent him back to the hospital.”
This time it was Baden who let out the heavy and weary sigh. “An unprovoked attack.”
“Oh, n
o,” Jesse said. “There was provocation and plenty of witnesses. Thank God, not any of Sean’s family, though. Between The Palisades incident, a couple cases that got pretty dicey, Sean’s death and that funeral fight, well, the department’s shrink decided I needed a time-out. I objected, vigorously, and when it was all over, I got six weeks to contemplate my insubordination and to think about the error of my ways.”
“What happens now? With the police department, I mean?”
“I have a hearing scheduled for mid-October.”
“I want to be there with you.”
“That’s not necessary, Baden. I made this mess.”
“Jesse,” she said, pushing aside the coffee cups, “I am going to be there for you.”
He smiled. “All right, Baden.”
She glanced at a clock on the far wall. “We should get back upstairs.”
When she would have pushed her chair back to depart, Jesse stayed her.
“Baden, there’s one thing you haven’t told me,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Why you called off your wedding to Sean.”
Had her complexion been any lighter, the blush would have reddened her face. As it was, she glanced to the right, to the left, anywhere except at Jesse.
“Baden, we agreed. Total honesty.”
“It’s not honesty I’m avoiding here.”
“What then?”
“The look you’re going to give me.”
“What look? Just tell me, baby.”
She smiled at the endearment and then shyly looked away before taking a breath and meeting his gaze head-on.
“I couldn’t marry Sean because I was in love with you.”
A broad grin filled his face.
She punched him. “That look!” she said. “That’s the smug and knowing look I didn’t want to see.”
He laughed, got up, pulled her to him and clasped his arms around her waist drawing her close, flush with his body.
“It may be smug, Baden, but that’s because you just gave me the best gift ever.”
He lowered his head and covered her mouth with his, sealing their forever bond.
Epilogue
“You know, Carlton, this is a lovely place for someone recently released from the hospital to make a full recuperation,” Henrietta Calloway told her husband.
Indulgent but not gullible, Carlton Calloway smiled. “Nice try, dear. But we’re here for a wedding, not a long-term visit.”
“I’m sure Baden could find a nice condo on a beach for us to lease.”
“Hey, Uncle Carl,” Baden said, sidling up to her uncle. With a wink at her aunt, she said, “Do you need to be rescued?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Carlton said. “Your auntie here was making the ‘let’s move to Hawaii’ argument.”
“It is a beautiful place to live,” Baden said. “Sheer bliss.”
“And perfect for a recovering cardiac patient.”
Carlton shook his head. “You have milked that for five months now, Henry. And if you don’t slow down, you’ll find yourself right back at Duke.”
“That’s why I’m advocating a Hawaiian hideaway.”
Baden laughed. “It’s time for you to give me away,” she told her uncle.
She kissed her aunt on the cheek and whispered, “I have some condo brochures you can check out. There’s a three-bedroom unit I think you’ll particularly love.”
“I heard that,” Carlton said.
* * *
The sun was setting in a fiery blaze of golden reds, deep golds and luscious oranges. An orchid-draped arbor was secured on the beachfront, as wedding guests, many of them barefoot, surrounded it. They watched as Baden, on the arm of her uncle, made her way to the arbor. The simple white dress she wore was embroidered with seed beads. Around her neck was a ceremonial lei.
An identical one graced Jesse’s neck.
As she approached and Carlton handed her off to Jesse, he bent low. “I love you, Baden Calloway.”
“I love you more, Jesse Fremont.”
“So you two decided to do your own vows?”
Their guests giggled.
“No, Reverend,” Jesse said. “It’s your show now.”
The bride and groom laughed along with the others. And then the vows were spoken. To have and to hold. For richer or poorer.
Until death do we part.
When the minister declared Jesse and Baden husband and wife a cheer went up among the assembled Calloways and Fremonts who’d flown to Hawaii for the wedding.
But Baden and Jesse didn’t hear them. They were lost in love and in each other.
* * * * *
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ISBN: 9781460316566
Copyright © 2013 by Harlequin Books S.A.
The publisher acknowledges the copyright holder of the individual works as follows:
SEVEN NIGHTS IN PARADISE
Copyright © 2013 by Kayla Perrin
THE WEDDING DANCE
Copyright © 2013 by Carmen Green
ORCHIDS AND BLISS
Copyright © 2013 by Felicia Mason
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