Ray stood up as well and slung his arm around Dorothy’s shoulder, hugging her. “You should get ready for bed—you have to be up early. I’ll walk them out.” He kissed her on the cheek and then extended his hand to Zac, Diane, and Sam, showing them the door.
“Thank you, Dorothy. I appreciate your help and your cooperation. You’ve been very helpful,” Zac said as he gestured to Diane and Sam. He was handling this very well, better than Diane was, apparently.
Ray led them to the door. Dorothy gazed at Diane as she stepped past her, and from the look Dorothy gave her, Diane almost wondered whether the woman knew about her and where she’d come from.
At the door, Ray stepped outside with them and closed it behind him, glancing back, maybe to makes sure no one was listening. “Listen, whatever you may think of us, don’t judge us, and don’t link us to that. We aren’t that. We chose this. I chose this, my wives chose this. Our children are raised to make up their own minds, and we’ll support them in whatever lives they want to have after they’ve gone to school, gotten an education. I hope you find out where she came from, but don’t come back, and don’t mention to anyone that you talked to us.” He crossed his arms and held them tightly to his chest. He was an average man, wouldn’t stand out in a crowd, but very appealing the more Diane was around him.
She found herself stepping back and onto Zac’s toes. He gripped her waist and pulled her against him, extending his other hand to shake Ray’s. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Ray, and your family,” Zac said, and Diane didn’t miss the way his other hand tightened around her waist. Ray noticed and glanced at Diane, then Zac, but she couldn’t figure out what was hidden in his expression.
Sam, too, extended his hand. “Ray, it’s a difficult case. We won’t say a word. We knew, coming in…well, let’s just say you helped a lot. Take care of your family.”
Zac turned Diane away before she could say one word and helped her into the passenger seat. His hand lingering on her arm, he offered a gentle squeeze before shutting the door. Sam climbed in the backseat, and Zac started the engine and pulled out, driving down the dark road to the highway. It was only then that Sam broke the silence.
“I didn’t expect that.” He let out a deep sigh.
“A nice young family that resembles any other suburban family, except you have three women with the same man, living under the same roof, sharing his bed, and they all seem to care about each other. Wonder if the judge she works for knows?” Zac muttered.
“What happened to those women that they’d choose this life?” Diane said. “I don’t get it. But I stopped trying to figure people out long ago.”
“Should we call Child Services, make sure the kids are okay?” Sam said.
Diane couldn’t help herself when she slid around and stared in the dark at him. “Why would you even consider that?”
“Just to make sure. Do we ever take the word of the parents? They said they give the kids a choice, but how do we know? How do we know those kids are getting proper healthcare, an education? Come on, Diane, I thought you’d be the first one banging down the door to put a stop to what they’re doing.”
Sam didn’t get it, but then, she wondered if even she did. She stared out the windshield, and it was Zac who said, “Leave it alone, Sam. They didn’t have to talk to us. The deputy knows them, tried to hide them, too. Guarantee the chief is probably friends with them. This isn’t some random family on the county’s radar. If you didn’t notice all the kids yesterday when we showed up, creating a mess with all the yard waste, running, jumping, playing, having fun… Those aren’t kids living in fear. They’re happy kids. Let’s not start causing trouble for those folks. You may not agree with their choices, Sam, but who’s to say it’s wrong?”
Even Diane had to slide around in her seat and take a second look at Zac. “Seriously, Zac?”
“Diane, I’m not condoning it, but I’m not condemning them, either.” He glanced over at her. “It’s not my place. Just leave them alone. They don’t need someone starting trouble for them. They didn’t have to talk to us, and what you two may not have figured out is that they’ve helped us understand where we need to go next.”
“And where is that, exactly?” Sam asked from the backseat.
“Tomorrow, we’re heading up to Bounty,” Zac said.
No one said a word after that, and Diane, for the first time in years, was paralyzed as an icy, excruciating ache raced through her and threatened to choke off her next breath.
Chapter 20
They’d just pulled in to the motel when the short, balding clerk who’d checked them in wandered from around the back, keys jangling in his hand. He waved as they climbed out of the SUV. “Howdy, folks.”
“Any messages?” Sam asked as the man unlocked the front door.
He hesitated for a second as if thinking and then shook his head. “No, sorry. Hey, how’d it go today?” He flicked on the light, holding the door open with his foot. His polyester pants, short-sleeved shirt, and brown tie looked even tackier in the light. Dated, thick glasses that looked as if they needed a good cleaning kept sliding down his nose.
“Fine,” Zac said. “We’ll be checking out in the morning.” He slid his hand over Diane’s lower back, turning her toward her room.
“Oh, okay. It was nice having you. Heard you went to see the Quinns? Nice family.” He smiled, showing off his crooked teeth.
Zac stopped Diane by gripping her waist when she turned with every intention of stalking over, grabbing the man’s shirtfront, and shaking the jerk for having lied earlier. Or maybe she would track down Wally or the chief and give them a piece of her mind, instead.
“Leave it alone,” Zac said as if reading her mind and urged her to keep going.
She gazed up at his expression and stopped herself from saying, Why don’t you go over and kick his ass? She realized he was holding back his annoyance, and if he went over there, he’d most likely grab the clerk and shove him against the wall. Maybe he remembered, too, how upset she’d been when he caved in and fought Sam on the side of the road. He urged her forward, and she realized he was prepared to toss her over his shoulder and carry her if she didn’t move, so she started up the concrete steps, Zac right beside her. She didn’t know what made her stop and look, but Sam was still standing at the bottom, holding the rail, glancing over his shoulder as if thinking and not really seeing all the cars that filled the parking lot.
She touched Zac’s arm. “Sam, you coming?” she asked.
He glanced up at her as if pulled from his thoughts and then ran his hand awkwardly up the back of his neck. “I need to make a call, if you don’t mind. I’ll come up when I’m done.” Sam didn’t wait for them to say anything, as he walked away and around the corner to the room he shared with Zac.
“What’s that about?” Zac asked.
“I don’t know. I’m hoping he’s going to call Marcie.” Diane pulled her key from her pocket and shoved it into the lock. She opened her door and flicked on the light. The maid had been in the room, as it was neat and tidy, the bed made. Even the clothes she’d left lying in a heap had been neatly folded and stacked.
The door clicked closed, and she watched Zac as he leaned with his hand pressed against the door, obviously thinking some pretty dark thoughts, by the expression on his face. Diane tossed the key on the end table, slid off her jean jacket, and unclipped her sidearm from her belt and set it on the nightstand.
“Hungry?” she asked him as she sat on her bed and went to lean back, but his dark eyes lingered on her in a way that made an awkward feeling rise inside her. She slid her legs back over the edge of the bed.
He shook his head as he stepped toward her slowly, watching her in a way that was all wolf, and she swallowed. The man was so large, and she could feel every part of him before he even touched her.
“Are you scared of me?” he asked, stopping right in front of her.
She had trouble swallowing and then wanted to kick herself as she started thin
king what an idiot she was being. But she couldn’t help the way he made her feel. One minute her heart would be racing, and she couldn’t breathe, and the stupidest things would leap from her mouth. She needed to be irritated with him, furious, because that helped her focus, and she really enjoyed the sparring that sizzled between them. But, as he stood right in front of her, another step closer to her space, she was having trouble making sense of what he wanted and why he was asking.
“No,” she choked out, her voice raspy.
He sat beside her, and the bed dipped as his leg touched hers. Her hands were now sweating, and he reached over and took hers in his, turning it over and staring at it. She wondered what he saw: her small, plain hand, clipped nails. Her hands were serviceable, uncluttered, nothing pretty.
“We should talk about tomorrow, driving into your hometown to see your family.”
Diane yanked her hand away and ran it up the back of her neck, ruffling her hair. She stood up and then paced, because she hadn’t allowed her thoughts to go there, not once, not yet. “That’s not my family. Jack was my family.”
Zac was right behind her, his large hands around her shoulders, kneading, pressing into her tight muscles, massaging. “Diane, you have to think about it. We have to talk about it.”
“Why now? Do we have to talk about it now?” she snapped and tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her, as he continued to press into the muscle stretching across the back of her neck, determined to work away everything she was holding on to.
“I don’t want you walking in there and falling apart. If you see your family, your father…well, we need to talk about what could happen. The last thing I want to worry about is whether you’ll pull your gun, jam it in your dad’s face, and do something really stupid.”
“What the hell do you take me for?” she snapped, trying to turn around, but he held tight, digging into an especially tight knot, and she leaned her head back and groaned. “I’m a good cop, and I know how to distance myself, stay professional. If I recall, it wasn’t me who was pounding the crap out of Sam, rolling around the side of the highway, landing us on the wrong side of the chief here to begin with. I kept my cool.”
“Diane, knock it off. I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work.”
This time, she managed to step away and turned to face him. Zac allowed his hands to fall to his side before letting out a frustrated sigh and stepping into her space again, setting his hands on her shoulders.
“I’m not doing anything, Zac.”
“Bullshit. You’re trying to push me away, make me angry, turn the tables and stir things up so you don’t have to think about what we’re walking into. This has got to hurt you badly. Anyone else would be going out of their mind, worried about facing their past.”
“I’m not. I’ll be fine,” she snapped and crossed her arms over her chest as he stepped closer again, sliding his hands around her shoulders, pinning her in.
“No, you’re not fine. You’re coping. You’re getting through, but this is pushing every one of your buttons. Even with the Quinns, you struggled. I could see it, how you were with the wives, with him.” He slid his hands up to her cheeks and ran his thumb over them in a loving caress. “Sam and I can go without you, do this for you. You stay here or check in to a room at a local motel and wait for us while we go talk to your family.”
For a second, she considered how much easier that would be and almost breathed a sigh of relief. “No. I can’t let you do that.”
He didn’t say a word, just watched her with an expression she couldn’t make out.
“I have to go,” she said. “This is my case, and how would it look if I was passing off this investigation to you and Sam to handle? Questions would be asked by Green, and the other cops would never let me live it down. They’d say it was too much, sending a woman in to do something that only a man could handle. Even the DA and Casey would be wondering, too. Do you have any idea how hard I have to work to be a cop? Everyone would know, including my entire OPNET team, that I had personal issues with this case. You know this, Zac.”
Zac leaned down and pressed his forehead against hers, his warm breath brushing like silk across her skin. It was pleasant, minty, and she wondered for a moment if he was going to kiss her. It would be so easy to just look up, reach up, and give a sign, a hint, that it was okay. As she stared at his full lips, even with the mark at the corner extending to the scars on the side of his face, she reached up and skimmed her hand over the line and to the patches of puckered skin along his jaw. He went to pull back as if her touch hurt, but she didn’t drop her hand. Instead, she slid her flattened palm across his cheek, sliding her finger up and around his eyes and forehead to his clear hairline, over to the ridged skin and missing earlobe. “Does it hurt?”
He went to pull away, to lean away from her hand, but this time she held his gaze. He hesitated as if having to think until, slowly, he shook his head. “Don’t touch it. It’s revolting.”
Diane set both hands on each side of his face, one side perfect, the other marked with scars here and there. “There’s nothing revolting about you. How did you get the burns?”
This time he pulled away and walked across the room, putting distance between them. “You are so good at distracting me. No, we’re going to talk about Bounty.”
A knock on the door was her saving grace. Zac let out a sigh of frustration and then pulled open the door, and Sam strode in, looking tired and irritated.
“Everything okay?” Diane asked Sam.
Sam shoved his hand up the back of his head and groaned.
Zac and Diane exchanged a look.
“Marcie won’t take my calls. I’ve left a dozen messages. I know she’s listening but won’t pick up. I called Richard; he said he’d call her, and he did.”
Diane exchanged a worried look with Zac. “Did Richard talk to her?” Diane asked, because she didn’t like where this was going, sounding like things had gone from bad to worse for Sam and Marcie. She knew the mess Marcie had been in, crying, devastated, and broken, as she drove away. Sam had hurt her badly.
“He called me back as if we were in high school. Yeah, she talked to him. I can’t believe it. She won’t call me. Richard told me to get on a plane and go home now.”
Diane and Zac exchanged another look. She knew he was wondering who Richard was, what the story was, but he wouldn’t ask right now.
“Sam, you should go,” Diane said. “Zac and I’ll be fine, but you and Marcie…you have things to work through and talk about. Richard’s right. What did she say to him?”
He shook his head. “He wouldn’t tell me other than to get my butt back there, saying I have some problems on the home front that I need to look after.” Sam jammed all ten fingers through his hair and pulled. Anyone could tell how frustrated he was, as if, at any moment, he’d slam his fist through the wall. “Diane, I can’t leave you with this.…” He circled his hand as if it would be distasteful to say it: polygs and her dirty past and all. Frankly, she was surprised at Sam, but then maybe he couldn’t handle any of her stuff. It was too deep, obviously, and that hurt more than if he’d just walked away and ignored her.
She had to look away as a painful throb threatened to close up her throat. “Go home,” she said. She turned her back on him and flicked on the TV. “I don’t need your help, Sam. I’m a big girl, and if that’s the only reason you’re here, then that sucks. You should be with Marcie. You have some things to come clean about with her, as well, and you know how badly you hurt her. You were angry, and I hope you can see it now, but everything you said to her was because you felt that she had damaged your pride. She took care of business, and maybe you’re feeling unmanned because of it. You didn’t think to do what she did, make another deal to protect your friends.” She glanced up, and she could see how well she was pushing him away. He didn’t have a clue, because from the look in his eyes, he was about ready to tell her where to go.
“Diane,” Zac said in warning, but she
ignored him.
“I mean, come on, Sam, sometimes you can be a real prick,” she said. “You say things so hurtful the damage can’t be repaired. Look at Richard and Maggie, what they went through. It was a miracle they found their way back to each other.” She picked up the remote and started flipping through the channels, from one news station to the next, giving him her back.
“Diane, turn off the TV,” Sam said.
Diane turned up the volume and sat on her bed, pulling her knees up, watching the image of a fire and a family who’d lost everything. It was horrible, and it should have bothered her, but she was so hurt and mad at Sam that she refused to look at him, wishing he’d take the hint and leave. Zac, too. She wanted to be alone so she could wallow in her sadness. She heard the door click and let out a sigh.
“He’s gone.”
She started, because she hadn’t realized Zac had stayed. He took off his leather jacket and draped it over the back of a chair.
“Move over.” He tapped her shoulder, and she slid her bum over on the bed. Zac set a pillow behind him and took the remote from her hand as he joined her. He turned off the TV, tossing the remote on the bedside table. He slid his arm around her shoulder, and she leaned her head in the crook of his arm. He made it so easy, but she still didn’t want to talk.
“Let it go, Diane. Sam’s not the bad guy here. Don’t start pushing all your friends away.”
“I thought he was my friend, but he can’t handle my past.”
“You can’t handle your past. He’s trying; give him a break. He is your friend.”
“Why is it so easy for you? You seem to know and understand what happened to me. I wonder if you know more about what I came from than I do, at times. What’s your story, Zac?”
“This isn’t about me, Diane. This is about you.” He slid his other arm around her to pull her closer, but some panic started to spill out of her, so she pulled away and scooted around on the bed, crossing her legs, facing him.
Bounty (Walk the Right Road) Page 13