Guilty

by Karen Fenech

  It was bullshit that Faith had any selfish reasons for taking Gaines on but Ryan’s gut tightened thinking of someone taking it into his head to act on Fahey’s accusations and the media feeding frenzy and go after Faith. She was no stranger to the media spotlight. From what Ryan had learned of her childhood and recent past, she’d been under constant scrutiny. The thought of her being picked apart in a bid for headlines made Ryan’s blood boil.

  He tried her phone again. Again, she didn’t answer. Ryan could send a patrol car to do a drive-by of her house but as he thought that he was already making his way back to his office where he’d left his keys. He would go to Faith’s house himself.

  She wouldn’t welcome a visit from him. He couldn’t blame her. He’d hurt her. The last thing in the world he’d ever wanted to do was to hurt her. Ryan thought of his son. But if he had to do things over again, he would not do them any differently.

  * * *

  Faith finished showering and drying her hair. From the hook on the back of the bathroom door, she plucked a fluffy powder blue robe that would ward off the chill of the old drafty house.

  She heard a vehicle pull into the driveway. She tensed. A reporter? No, she didn’t want the focus of this trial to shift from James Gaines to herself but that wasn’t the only reason she didn’t want to address the media. She’d learned of Gaines’s indictment just that morning. She hadn’t even spoken with Gaines before she went to her boss and put all she had into her appeal to represent Gaines. With her record of wins, her boss had been all too happy to assign Gaines to her. She’d had no reason to fear the case would be given to another lawyer in the office.

  In her haste to represent this case, she’d had little chance to do more than read Gaines’s name and skim the case file. She wasn’t prepared to face the media on Gaines’s behalf. Gaines deserved her at her best. With her mind consumed with thoughts of her father and the significance of this day, she was far from at her best tonight.

  In the morning she would adopt the hard outer shell she was known for in the courtroom and fight what was to come head on, but she needed this night for herself. As the doorbell rang again, she closed her eyes, not up to the confrontation answering the door would likely bring. Maybe if she stayed where she was whoever was out there would go away.

  When the bell rang a third time, she resigned herself to the inevitable. Whoever was at her door wasn’t leaving. Cinching her robe tighter, she went downstairs. In the hall, she swung the old wooden door open.

  Ryan.

  Faith’s heart gave a hard thump at the sight of him. He was a big man. The top of her head reached only as high as his shoulder. He wore a white long sleeved T-shirt over his tough hard body and faded jeans. His hair was short. Damp from the rain, the light brown strands looked darker. A couple of lines that hadn’t been there the last time she’d seen him now bracketed his mouth and were etched into the skin around his eyes. Those lines didn’t make him look any less handsome.

  His gaze met hers, his deep brown eyes, penetrating. Neither one of them spoke. They stood staring at the other.

  Faith had to swallow against the knot in her throat before she could break the silence and then all she could manage was his name. “Ryan.”

  It had been one year since their relationship ended. They’d only seen each other a couple of times since and only when their work crossed paths and necessitated they do so. Her conversations with Ryan at those unavoidable work encounters had been brief and strained.

  There hadn’t been any chance occurrences since she’d gone out of her way to change the times she shopped, to avoid places in Wade she knew he frequented. Not that she went out much anymore. She hadn’t wanted to risk running into Ryan and his pregnant wife. Faith had learned over the years that she could withstand a lot, but she didn’t think she could have withstood that. And now Ryan and his wife had a son.

  Faith had heard of the boy’s birth when she’d been at the precinct for a case, had seen the blue balloons Ryan’s cops had strung around the office. Jeremy. The boy’s name drifted like a cloud across her mind. She’d also heard that Ryan had filed for divorce. His impending divorce only made her pain worse because she knew it didn’t matter. Knowing he wouldn’t be hers, regardless, only sharpened the pain.

  She clutched the door knob, her grip tight enough to whiten her fingers. Seeing him at her door after a year apart shouldn’t still hurt this much. But it did. It did.

  Ryan didn’t look any less affected. His eyes bore into her as if he were starved for the sight of her. She’d never doubted he loved her. Their break up had shattered them both.

  Another silence grew. This time Ryan broke it. “I saw the news.”

  By way of an explanation as to why he was here, she supposed that covered it. “Everyone in Wade probably has by now.”

  “Are you all right?”

  He didn’t ask her why she’d gone after the Gaines case. One year ago she would have told him anyway, poured out the grief and pain she was feeling. But now, her emotions weren’t something she could share with him. She couldn’t open herself up to him like that again.

  “I’m fine. Now if that’s all—” Her words came out razor sharp. She didn’t want to cut him but she couldn’t go on standing here bleeding herself.

  “I doubt you’re fine. Local news station ran a clip of the scene at the court house. That had to be rough.” Ryan stopped speaking and looked directly into her eyes. “Fahey and the media are trying to blame you as much as Gaines. Though you didn’t kill that woman, they’re making you the enemy anyway.”

  Faith had expected nothing less. She knew defending Gaines would make her unpopular in Wade. She couldn’t worry about that, couldn’t worry about the public’s reaction to her. She was not important in this. Sharon Fahey and James Gaines were.

  “And today is the anniversary of your father’s death,” Ryan said quietly.

  Ryan hadn’t been in Wade when her father had been put to death but Faith had eventually told him of it. She’d been surprised that he hadn’t already known. Though talk of her father had lessened, it hadn’t died completely.

  Her father’s death pressed down on Faith. She didn’t trust herself to speak as she fought back a surge of emotion. Ryan must have noticed that because his gaze softened on her.

  “Ah, baby.”

  He was hurting for her. She could hear it in his voice, in his endearment, and now she felt another wave of pain, apart from what she was feeling for her father. Her heart ached for Ryan. She wished they could go back to the way things were between them before the break up. But there was no undoing what had been done, by either of them.

  She was close to losing her composure and that was the last thing she wanted to do right now. Seeing her break down would only upset them both. She swallowed back the emotion choking her. “Ryan, it’s been a long day. I’m tired. I appreciate you thinking of me and coming by but you really need to leave now.”

  She thought—feared—he was going to reach out to her and take her in his arms. Worse, she feared her reaction if he did, feared she’d hold him to her and never let go.

  “Yeah.”

  There was frustration in his voice now. She could see in his eyes that he recognized her excuse for what it was, but also recognized the futility in pressing the matter further.

  “The media is going to continue to hound you.” Ryan’s jaw tightened with unmistakable anger. “I’m worried that all of this attention could stir things up. I’m going to have a patrol car drive by your house regularly. But if you see anything, if you need anything from my office—from me—come to me, Faith. No matter what’s gone on between us, you have to know you can always come to me.”

  She did know that. Just as she knew she wouldn’t go to him. Professionally, she would never drag him into what was sure to become a nightmare case with her and personally, no, she could never go back to being just acquaintances again.

  She clutched the door knob tighter, desperate for something to hold
on to. “I need to be up early.”

  She felt the weight of Ryan’s gaze but kept her eyes down. It would hurt too much to see in his eyes the pain, the disappointment and worse, the fact that he knew she was right to keep her distance.

  “Faith—”

  Finally, she raised her gaze to his. She held up her hand to stave off whatever he was about to say. She felt as if she’d been through an emotional wringer. She wrapped her arms tight around herself.

  Ryan watched her in silence, then shook his head slowly and returned to his vehicle. Despite her best efforts, tears filled Faith’s eyes anyway as she closed the door behind him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Faith stood with her back against the door, breath held, listening as Ryan’s SUV pulled away. Her heart felt as if it were breaking, driving home to her how much she missed him. As if she needed the reminder.

  The house now was too quiet. Her thoughts were too loud in her mind. The last thing she wanted was to be alone with them and to give them free rein.

  In desperation, she went into the living room, to the old TV she hadn’t replaced. She’d find a program where she could get lost in the lives of the people on the screen or where the noise alone of the endless chatter would drown out what was playing over and over in her head.

  She flicked the remote, searching for something that would fit the bill. Her hand stilled when she came to a news station that showed live footage of her father’s brother, Leighton Winston, exiting his downtown Boston corporate office.

  A reporter in jeans and a sport jacket that flapped in the breeze raced to Leighton where he hastily made his way from the building.

  Leighton was a tall, handsome man in his late fifties. Though a few years older, he closely resembled Faith’s father with his dark hair and strong jaw. The resemblance kept Faith’s gaze on Leighton rather than doing as she should have, flipping to another channel.

  Leighton moved briskly. His mouth pulled tight as the reporter and then several others moved forward to block his path.

  “Mr. Winston how do you feel about your niece representing James Gaines in the Sharon Fahey murder? Are you concerned that her role in what will likely be a gruesome and controversial trial will scandalize your family?”

  The media was using the Winston name to gain headlines and Faith’s stomach churned at being back in the spotlight.

  A camera zoomed in for a close up that caught the narrowing of Leighton’s eyes and the further tightening of his mouth.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Leighton said. His accent was that of cultured Boston. Accustomed to delivering speeches, his voice boomed. “I have no dealings whatsoever with that person. Let me be perfectly clear. My parents, brother, and I do not acknowledge her as part of the Winston family. Whatever she is involved in will have no bearing on us at all. The woman is dead to us. That’s all, people.”

  The no-neck driver who looked like he could also serve as Leighton’s bodyguard emerged from the limousine parked at the curb and bulldozed his way through the throng of media people, clearing a path for Leighton. A moment later, Leighton was behind the dark tinted glass of the limo and no longer visible.

  Her father’s family had cut all ties with her father years ago, when he’d defied them and chosen a path for his life they hadn’t approved of rather than fallen in line with the map of his life they’d designed. Marry well and spend his life in service to the Winston empire. Her father had married a woman the family considered to be far beneath him. When he’d refused to have the marriage annulled, his parents had disinherited him and cut him out of their lives.

  Faith had met her father’s family only once, when her father had gone to them for help when Faith’s mother was diagnosed with a rare form of spinal cancer. The Winston name carried a great deal of weight. More than money, her father had asked his family to use their influence to gather the best doctors available to treat Faith’s mother’s illness.

  Faith had learned of all of that later. At the time, at just seven, she’d been awed by her surroundings. She remembered the smell of lemon in the big house made up of what seemed like acres of wood furniture and floors, all polished to a blinding sheen. Faith had stood straight, her father’s gentle warning not to lean back and risk dirtying the pristine white wall at her back uppermost in her mind.

  Her father had told her these people were her grandparents and uncles. She hadn’t understood why they didn’t seem to like her. They didn’t look at her. It was as if she wasn’t in the room with them. And then they’d made her father cry.

  It wasn’t until Faith had grown that she’d understood what had taken place that day and that her father’s family had turned down his plea for help. Eight months after that visit, her mother died. There hadn’t been money for a funeral, just a sparsely attended burial. The Winstons had not attended.

  Faith hadn’t contacted them when her father died. But she had contacted them before his death. In desperation, as her father had, she’d gone to them to beg for their help when her father had been indicted for murder. Faith had received the same icy refusal her father had.

  Leighton was still in view of the camera. He’d said that Faith was dead to him. Faith turned off the television. Leighton and his family were as dead to her as she was to them.

  * * *

  Ryan remained in Faith’s driveway, unable to get the hurt, haunted look in her eyes out of his mind. Yeah, the media was partly responsible for what she was going through, but the blame for the rest of it rested squarely with him. His fault. He bowed his head. He would never forgive himself for all he’d put her through.

  Being in his presence was enough to hurt her. Hurt them both. Being with her and knowing he no longer had the right, was no longer welcome to touch her, gutted him.

  Coming here had been selfish on his part. He’d wanted to see her, to find out for himself how she was. His visit hadn’t done her any good. All he’d done was bring back their past and hurt her all over again. She’d stood with her arms wrapped around herself, shielding herself. From him.

  He released a long slow breath filled with regret and sorrow. What had he expected? That she’d have forgotten all he’d done to her? That the hurt had healed? And yet, he’d come here anyway.

  In the last year she’d strengthened her reputation as a formidable defense attorney, made a life without him, as she certainly should have. She hadn’t married and if there was a significant other in her life, where the hell was he tonight? Jealousy slammed him at the thought of Faith with another man. But, no, he didn’t believe she was with anyone. If she were, she wouldn’t have reacted so strongly to him showing up at her door. And didn’t that make him the biggest bastard for feeling relieved and grateful that she hadn’t fallen in love with another man.

  The media circus was camped out across the street. More of them had gathered in the short time he’d been with Faith. He swung around a van now parking by the side of the road, and bit down on his back teeth hard enough that his jaw cracked.

  A short while later, Ryan was back in his office. A knock on his open door had him glancing up from the report he wasn’t reading. Galbraith stuck his head in Ryan’s office.

  “Don’t know if you’ve been watching the news. There’s something about Miss Winston. Figured you’d want to know what’s going on.”

  Ryan’s mouth thinned. “I’ve seen it.”

  “Her family’s on now. An uncle. Mean son of a bitch.” Galbraith shook his head.

  Her family? An uncle? Ryan was up from behind his desk and walking around it before he realized he was even moving. When they’d been together, they’d been in the whirlwind of their love. Other than her mother and father, she hadn’t spoken of family. Ryan had been too wrapped up in her and figured they’d get around to talking about things like that. That they had time. He grunted. So much for that.

  In the break room, the men and women who weren’t on duty were gathered around the TV. A toned, polished man in his late fifties was st
riding to a limousine parked at the curb in front of a Boston high rise. This feed was noted as an earlier recording. A caption below the feed identified the man as Leighton Winston and gave his title as CEO of Winston Enterprises and uncle of Faith Winston, attorney representing James Gaines in the Sharon Fahey homicide.

  As Ryan listened to Winston state to a reporter that Faith was dead to the Winston family, his blood heated. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to talk about her family. Or wanted him to meet them. When he’d taken her to Blake to meet his family, the Turners, he’d wanted to show her how serious he was about her and expected she would do the same, but she’d put him off. He hadn’t pushed, again thinking they had time for all of that. Now he knew why she hadn’t taken him home to meet Grandmommy, Granddaddy, and the two Juniors.

  Ryan’s anger built and he hurt for her in a way he’d never hurt for anyone else. How alone must she be feeling tonight.

  Again, he wanted to go to her. That hadn’t worked out well earlier. But there was one person Faith wouldn’t turn away.

  * * *

  Faith’s doorbell rang as she was switching off the television. Turning it on hadn’t been a good idea after all. This time she was just going to ignore whoever was at her door but then a voice penetrated the scarred wood.

  “Faith? Faith!”

  Dee. The one person in Faith’s life that she would open the door for now. Faith turned the lock and then the knob. Dolores Delgado—Dee—stood on the porch. Short and stout with hair as black as coal that she wore short and in tight curls, she wrapped her arms around Faith in a huge hug. Faith wasn’t a tall woman but she towered over the tiny Dee.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to defend James Gaines? I would have met you right after and brought you home.”

  Faith returned Dee’s embrace. “There wasn’t any need.”

  Dee drew back and arched one pencil thin black eyebrow. “No need? From what I’m seeing outside there was every need. And not just for the ride home.”