“And what’s your personal relationship with Miss Valdez?”
“She’s my fiancée,” I lie.
The lawyer starts to choke. The detective’s pen skitters off the edge of her notebook. Across the room, at the kitchen table, Lainey’s head pops up. She’s too far away to hear us, but she must see something in my face or something in the detective’s face that makes her eyes narrow. Her suspicious expression makes me want to smile.
That’s right, sweetheart. No backing out now. It’ll be in all the newspapers.
It’s a shitty thing to do, bind her to me in a way she can’t back away from, but we’ve danced around it for too long. We might as well dump all our baggage into one giant pile and let the vultures pick through it.
The detective recovers first. “Congratulations,” she says. “No ring, though? I’d have thought your three month’s salary would have conjured something with a little more…bling.”
We both glance at Lainey’s ringless left hand resting on her thigh.
“The ring’s being resized,” I answer, eyes still locked with Lainey’s. Hers are full of accusation. I press my lips tighter together to prevent the inappropriate smile.
She looks vexed, which is a hundred times better than the shocked and half-terrified expression she wore when I busted in thirty minutes ago. Her irritated face turns pained as the emergency tech swabs a tender spot on Lainey’s head. Seeing the pain on her face drains all my humor away.
“What jeweler did you say?” the detective prods.
“I didn’t.” Suddenly, I’m in a rush to get this over with. “Any more questions?”
The lawyer senses my annoyance and jumps in before I can make a mess of things. “It’s a clear case of self-defense,” she argues. “The deceased was fired today. Angered, he came directly here and decided to assault his replacement’s fiancée. She fought back, and in the ensuing struggle, the deceased was killed.”
I like that she didn’t use Chip’s name. He doesn’t deserve it. He’ll be forgotten, nothing more than a has-been, a footnote to my life and Lainey’s.
Tap tap goes the pen. “Why was he fired?”
“You should ask the front office. My client doesn’t make those decisions,” the lawyer stands up to signal that the interview is over.
Detective Ramos snaps her notebook shut. “I’ll be in touch. A man’s dead, so it’s not as if we can just zip his body up and call it a day.”
Why not?
“That’s exactly what you can do,” the lawyer says. “Everyone in Texas knows that the Castle Defense doctrine is held sacrosanct by juries. Ms. Valdez was in her home; she was being physically attacked. The law presumes she acted in self-defense. Even if you wanted to bring a case, you wouldn’t win.”
Ramos considers this for a moment and then turns to me. “Don’t go anywhere,” she warns.
“I’m playing on Sunday.” I spread my hands out. “Where would I be going?”
She scowls. “We’re not going to treat this case any differently just because you’re Nick Jackson.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to.”
The detective gives me one last glare before striding across the room to speak with Lainey. I start forward only to be hauled back by the lawyer. Her nails bite into my arm.
“Don’t ruin all your play-acting now by rushing to her side,” the polished blonde says out of the side of her mouth.
I force myself to relax. I watch as the detective asks Lainey a few more questions. The EMT guy presses something into Lainey’s hand. If it’s his number, they’re going to need a second body bag.
Finally, after what seems like an eternity, everyone is finally out. Including us. Lainey’s condo is a crime scene. Good thing I live upstairs.
“I’m so glad Cassidy is up with Charlie and your parents,” Lainey says, as we wait for the elevator to return from the lobby.
My knees buckle. I hadn’t thought of that. I reach out a hand and steady myself against the wall. “Thanks for that. I was wrecked before, and now I think you’re going to have to wheel me upstairs.”
Amused, she raises a hand to the top of her head, where there’s a little bald spot. “I’ve had better days.”
We stare at each other for a moment, lost in a moment of silent gratitude.
“Sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?” I say as the elevator doors slide open.
“Yes, I’m sure.” She shudders. “I’m done with people poking and prodding me.”
In my condo, I lead her down the hallway to my bedroom and hustle her into the attached bathroom. Inside the medicine chest, I find a bottle of painkillers. I tap out two into my palm and then pour a glass of water.
“Take these.”
“Yes, sir.” She salutes like a smartass but swallows the pills. “I can refill them with this.” She waves the paper in her hand. It’s a script for Vicodin.
“The emergency tech gets to live another day,” I quip. She winces. “Too soon?” I ask.
“A little.” She leans toward the mirror. “Is there blood in my hair?”
I part her hair carefully. “A little bit.” I lift her onto the vanity and turn on the faucet. “Does it hurt much?”
“Hurt more when it was being pulled out. It’s just an ache now.”
I carefully dab a lukewarm cloth onto her head, watching her closely for any wince.
“Hell of a way to start the season,” she murmurs, leaning her head against my chest.
“Yup.” There’s no point in denying it. The newspapers are going to go crazy. Blogs, talk radio, even the sports channels will all be talking about this. “Let them. I don’t care.” I rinse out the washrag and wipe it across her cheeks where tears of anger and fear smeared her makeup. Part of me would like to go down to the morgue, or wherever Chip’s body is, and shoot a few more bullets into his corpse.
“Everyone’s going to say this is a complete circus.”
“I agree. It’s salacious, and until the next drama, it’ll be the top news story in all of sports.”
“That sucks.”
I shrug. “If it wasn’t this, it’d be something else. Let them talk. Once we win, they’ll shut up about it.”
“As if you need more incentive.” She knows the pressure is on this year, and that’s why I fought this relationship for so long.
“Maybe I did. I played well last year because I had something to prove. This year, I’ve a new challenge. New motivation.” I’m not going to run away from someone as amazing as Lainey. With her beside me, I’m a stronger player and a better person. “Now hush up, because we’re going to bed.” I toss the rag into the sink and then hoist her into my arms. She curls her body into mine, hugging me tight.
“You’re getting to be bossy.”
“Yes.” Keeping one hand under her frame, I use the other to pull down the covers.
“You going to be like this for the rest of our lives?”
I pause in the midst of pulling her bottoms off, take a deep, joyful breath, and then continue on, pretending she didn’t just rock my world. “Probably.”
“We’re going to fight,” she warns. Her arms come up so I can pull off her shirt. “I can be bossy myself.”
“You don’t say,” I reply deadpan. She delivers a weak swat across my chest. “It’s one of my favorite things about you.”
“Why’re we going to bed?” she asks. “It’s six o’clock.”
“I told you. I’m wrecked.” I’m not even joking. Arriving at the apartment, the first thing I laid eyes on was blood in the hallway. My heart was in my throat as I stepped over Chip’s body to get into Lainey’s bedroom. Finding her huddled against the nightstand, the gun between her legs, is going to haunt my nightmares for weeks.
I shuck all my clothes, keeping my boxer briefs on, and climb into bed with her. Her hand immediately drifts down to the elastic waistband. I catch her fingers and pull them up to my mouth.
“Not tonight,” I say.
“Why not?”
She laughs softly but snuggles close. “Let’s not do a big wedding like Charlotte and your brother. Let’s get Cassidy and go to City Hall. We can have a big celebration when Nate gets back. Maybe in the summer.”
“That’s good for me.”
“Your parents might be upset,” she warns.
“So? This is our love story. We’re doing it our way. They can marry Nate and Charlie again if they need to have another wedding.”
“Did you really buy me a ring?”
I pull away slightly to look at her in surprise. “Did you hear me?”
“Nah, I read your lips,” she admits.
“Huh. I best be careful in the future,” I tease.
“You know it.”
“I figured we could pick one out together. We’re a team now,” I tell her. “Let’s get you something gaudy. I mean, if they’re going to talk about us, let’s give them something really worthwhile.”
Her laughter loosens up the remaining tightness in my chest. All’s well in our world. Chip’s gone. We’re in love. It doesn’t matter what happens in the upcoming season. I’ve already won.
She winds her arms around my neck. “How traumatized are you?”
“I can foresee needing a lot of comfort tonight.”
“Like down here?” Her fingers slip inside the loose cotton to find my ready cock.
“Go easy on me,” I croak out. “I already had one heart attack.”
She swings into a sitting position. “I promise I can bring you back to life.”
No lies were spoken.
Epilogue
Lainey
10 Years Later
“Don’t keep looking out the window,” I admonish, as Nick pulls aside the curtain for what seems like the hundredth time in the last ten minutes.
“It’s important to see how he drives. You can tell a lot about a guy based on that,” he replies, his face still glued to the glass. “Are you sure we should let Cassidy go on this date? Girl’s only fifteen. She should be in her room studying or something.”
I hide my smile by rubbing my cheek between Nick’s shoulder blades. He’s having a hard time letting Cassidy go.
“Daddeeeeee!” A high-pitched voice squeals through the speaker system. “I’m ready for the pictures! If you don’t come down soon, we’re going to be late.”
Nick sighs, his shoulders drooping. “Why couldn’t you have backed me up when I told her no?”
“Because, like you said, she’s fifteen. It’s time. Speaking of time, I wish your son would hurry up and arrive.” I press a hand to my aching back. “I think I threw a disc walking up the stairs.”
My dear husband spins from the window and drops to his haunches, low enough to press an ear against my protruding stomach. “Hey, champ, now would be a good time to come out. You’d be saving your old man a world of hurt. If you come out now, I’ll buy you a battery-operated Porsche. Top of the line. How about it?”
Son number three remains stubbornly silent. He’s already a week overdue and is showing no signs of wanting to leave the nest, much to my intense dismay.
With another sigh, Nick straightens and leans in to give me a hard kiss. It doesn’t last long, though, because the screeching begins anew. Cassidy might be on the cusp of womanhood, but she doesn’t have much more patience than a flea.
“You better get downstairs before Cassidy loses her kittens,” I murmur against his mouth. Reluctantly, he drags his lips from mine.
“Coming,” Nick bellows, not bothering to use the intercom system. Years of barking out orders on the football field make it easy for him to project his voice. The squawking immediately stops.
He gives my giant stomach another pat before striding out of the bathroom.
I follow at a slower pace, which is a good thing when our youngest barrels down the hall.
“Slow down there, cowboy,” his father warns, catching the seven-year-old by the arm. “Where’s the fire?”
“Cassie says the baby’s coming,” Thane shouts. His eyes dart around his father’s to pin on my stomach. “Is it? Is it going to drop out right now? Have you peed yet? Cuz Harper said when his mama had a baby she peed right on the floor. That’d be gross.”
Gross things fascinate Thane. “I’m not peeing on the floor, baby.” I run a hand over his short brown hair, dark like his daddy’s. “Your brother isn’t ready to come out yet.”
“I wish we were having another girl,” Thane grumps. “We’ve already got three men in the house.”
I hide a smile behind the back of my hand. Ever since Thane learned he wasn’t the youngest anymore, he’s been referring to himself as a man. I find it adorable, but he’s a serious boy, so I can’t let on that it amuses me or I’d hurt his manly feelings.
Nick swings our soon-to-be middle son up into his arms. Long, lanky legs dangle down the side of Nick’s frame. Thane’s going to be a tall one—taller than his daddy, for sure. “I’m not good at making girls, son. Besides, we’ve got Cassidy and your mom. No other girls can compare to these two.”
“Uncle Reese says I smell like a barn and that if we had more girls around, maybe I’d smell better, and then Sancha would like me instead of Dobson the dickhead.”
“Thane! Language!” I scold. I wait for Nick to add his rebuke, but he’s staring at the ceiling, nearly dying from the need to laugh.
“Sorry, Mama,” Thane says, completely unrepentant. “Uncle Reese says that—”
“Uncle Reese isn’t going to be babysitting you anymore if that’s the kind of language he’s using,” I warn.
“Uncle Reese didn’t say Dobson was a dickhead,” Thane says, with a most put-upon tone. “He said dickheads were guys that were so dumb, their heads were in their dicks. Dobson is dumb and so he’s a dickhead. It’s two plus two,” he informs me.
“Nah, you’re messing it all up.” A new voice adds his two-cents from the end of the hallway. Our oldest boy pushes away from the wall to shake his head at Thane. “Get it right. Dickheads are guys who think with their dicks. The guys with their heads up their dicks are assholes.”
“Gray! That’s enough,” I cry and shoot my husband a pleading look, but Nick is so red from holding in his laughter, I swear he’s going to explode.
“I am getting it right,” Thane replies indignantly. “The asshole is where the poop comes from. That’s different than the peehole. I ain’t the one wrong. You are!”
“Am not,” taunts Gray.
The two launch themselves at each other. Nick finally gathers his self-control and wades into a mess of flying fists to separate our two boys. Born only eleven months apart, the two look almost like twins. Their identical mouths are set in mulish lines, and their brown eyes spark fire at each other.
“None of that now,” Nick says. “You two promised to get along and take care of your mama tonight. You reneging on your promises?”
“No, sir,” chorus my two angels. They straighten their shoulders and shoot to my side, each one taking a hand. “We got you, Mama.”
“Thank you,” I say. “Now, we’re going to go downstairs and see your sister and daddy off.”
Halfway down the stairs, I stumble to a halt as Cassidy floats into the foyer. Standing under the crystal chandelier Nick had flown in from Milan when we bought this house seven years ago, my eldest child looks like she should be on the front cover of a magazine. Dressed in a peach gown with tiny sleeves and a skirt with so many layers of chiffon, we could cover the entire house from end to end.
Nick slaps a hand across his chest. “Where’d Cassidy go?” he asks in mock surprise. Although, by the tone of his voice, part of that shock is very real. She’s growing up, and it’s so bittersweet. Nick proposed to me after his third SuperBowl win, right on national television and while that was romantic and all, it was what happened after I said yes that cemented him as a hero across the world.
He got down on one knee, took Cass’s hand and said that he was ready t
o accept the position as her daddy—the one she’d identified the very first moment she’d seen him. She threw herself into his arms so hard, it knocked his Super Bowl MVP-ass on the ground. He’d bought her a ring and hung it on a necklace around her neck. It was his promise to be her daddy forever after. There wasn’t a dry-eye in the entire stadium or so I heard.
“Daddy.” Cassidy rolls her eyes. “Obviously, I’m standing right here.”
“Nah, Cassidy’s a little girl.” He holds his hand up to his hip. “About so high. I used to carry her on my shoulders. You’re…you’re not a girl.”
She flushes, lifts her full ball gown skirt slightly and swishes it back and forth.
“Cassie’s still a girl, Daddy,” Thane says.
Nick reaches up and ruffles his hair. “Is that right?”
“Dad was being fascist,” Gray interjects.
“Facetious,” I correct.
“Whatever,” Gray replies with a scowl.
“Ha!” Thane points at his brother. “You missaid a word.”
“Missaid isn’t a word! And it’s mispronounce!” Gray yells back.
I move in between the two arguing boys before fists can fly again. “Cassidy, you look amazing. Greta did a marvelous job with you.”
“Thank you,” my daughter says. Her eyes sparkle like dark jewels. “And thank you for letting me go to the dance.”
Nick grumbles under his breath about boys and hormones and how a fifteen-year-old at a prom is too young, but Cassidy and I ignore him.
“Go stand by the fireplace,” I instruct. “We’ll take a few pictures there before Ryan comes.”
“Ryan’s a terrible name,” Nick says. “Do you know how many successful quarterbacks there have been named Ryan? None.”
“That’s fine, Daddy, because Ryan’s an engineer. Not a football player.” Cassidy flounces over to stand in front of the unlit fireplace.
“Don’t remind him,” I advise. “Your dad can’t believe there’s a guy out there who doesn’t love football.”
“Ryan says real football is played with your feet,” Gray says.
Nick nearly crushes the camera between his hands. “I can’t believe we’re letting Cassidy go on a date with a boy who doesn’t even appreciate real sports.”
Be Mine Page 19