Dex shot her a look he hoped drilled into her misguided soul. “As far as I’m concerned, Andrew Clarke Smythe doesn’t have the right to take another breath. Tell him that for me, would you?”
DEX SMOOTHED CLEAN SHEETS on the bed in his guest bedroom and listened to sounds filtering through the door of the adjoining bathroom. The doctor at the Meriter Hospital emergency room had stitched up the cut in Alyson’s scalp and had diagnosed her with a slight concussion. Dex would have felt better if she’d stayed in the hospital overnight for observation, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Finally he’d agreed to take her home to his guest room. He’d bed down in the empty adjacent room. The master bedroom on the first level was too far away after what she’d just gone through. At least this way he could stay close enough to keep an eye on her, yet not be forced to sleep in the same room. He didn’t need to tempt himself. Being one bedroom away was bad enough.
He fluffed the pillows and threw them into place at the head of the bed.
A pulsing whir filtered through the adjoining bathroom door. Alyson’s breast pump. He’d heard it before in the time she’d been staying with him and each time he’d had trouble shutting the images from his mind. Images of the device fitting over her breasts, pulling at her nipples. The way he used to with his mouth. The way he wanted to again.
He grasped the television remote. He couldn’t stand here and let himself remember. The good memories would only tempt him. And the bad memories hurt too damn much. He switched on the set.
The ten o’clock news snapped on the screen. Dex stared at the blond anchorwoman and forced himself to listen to her words and to keep his mind off Alyson.
A losing battle.
“Sources in the governor’s office have confirmed that interim District Attorney Dexter Harrington will resign from his position.”
Dex’s heart stilled, then launched into double time. “Damn.”
“We were unable to reach Mr. Harrington for comment, but the same sources stated that the district attorney decided to resign after the governor’s recent pardon of convicted sex offender Andrew Clarke Smythe. Harrington will reportedly take full responsibility for the mistaken conviction at a press conference tomorrow.”
The bathroom door opened and Alyson stepped out. She was dressed in the oversize Wisconsin Badger T-shirt he’d given her, the hem reaching to the middle of her thighs. Unnaturally pale, she gripped the door jamb for support. Her concerned expression made it clear she’d heard the broadcast. “They made it sound like Smythe is innocent.”
“Yes. And that I railroaded him.” The muscles in his shoulders knotted. “When I was at the governor’s office, I never mentioned anything about the Smythe case. There’s no way one of the governor’s people leaked that story. The whole thing reeks of Smythe.”
“And when you add the apologies Smythe insisted you make, it’s going to look like the sources were right.”
A weight settled on Dex’s shoulders. Smythe had promised he’d destroy him. He hadn’t been kidding. “First Patrick, then my career, and now my reputation. What do I have left?” He looked at Alyson, at the concern in her eyes, the pallor of her face. Smythe wouldn’t get near her. Not again. Dex would make sure of it if he had to kill the bastard himself.
He stared out the window at the rain glistening on the roof mixing with the sheen of the lake stories below the window. “I feel so out of control. Like Smythe can do anything he wants to me, and I don’t have anything to say about it.”
She reached out and laid a hand on his arm, stilling him in his tracks. “I feel the same way.”
Dex looked down at her. Her face was as pale as the bandage around her head. “Oh, hell, I’m sorry.”
“About what?”
“I’m going on about lack of control of my career when you’ve lost so much more. A child.”
“Our child.”
“Yes. Our child.” He stepped to where she gripped the door jamb and placed his hand over her fingers. Her skin was soft to his touch, her fingers fine and long. Just the way her hand had always felt in his.
“I know how much your career means to you, Dex. You don’t have to explain or justify or apologize for your feelings.”
Her words penetrated his defenses and hit bone. Once again she had seen through him, reached out to him, and said the right thing. Just the thing he needed to hear. He searched her face. For what, he didn’t know. And she returned his gaze. Open. Vulnerable.
He swallowed into a dry throat. “You look like you’re going to fall over. The least I can do is get you into bed.”
Her glance rested on the bed before he realized what he’d said.
She released the door jamb and crossed the distance to the bed. She sat back against the headboard and stretched her long legs in front of her. The white bandage at her hairline stood out against her auburn hair. She looked swamped in his oversize T-shirt. Slender, delicate and in need of protection. She’d been through so much. With her father, with him, and now at the hands of Smythe. Yet when he needed her, she was there for him with a reassuring word. A touch. A firm grasp on reality. Under that delicate shell beat a heart stronger than steel.
A heart he knew was breaking with each day that passed.
He stepped to the side of the bed, wanting to touch her, to reassure her. “We won’t give up.”
She nodded, flinching slightly with the movement.
“And we’ll find Patrick.”
“I know.” She reached out and took his hand in hers. “Thank you, Dex.”
“For what?”
“For being beside me. For going through this with me. I don’t know how I ever could have survived this alone.”
He didn’t know how she’d survived all she had alone. Learning she was pregnant, giving birth, waking in the middle of the night to the baby’s cries. “Does it scare you sometimes? Having that little life totally dependent on you?”
“Are you kidding? It petrifies me.”
“How do you deal with it?”
“I concentrate on the love. I let the rest fall away and concentrate on the love.”
Could he do that? Could he concentrate on the love? His mother had been loving. Surely he had that in him somewhere. And God knew, Alyson provided a good example.
She watched him, her emerald eyes scrutinizing, assessing. Her hair spread like a silken auburn pool over the white cotton pillowcases. Her skin was nearly as white as the bandage capping her head.
He glanced at the sheet and comforter folded back at the foot of the bed. He should raise the sheet, cover her long, smooth legs and walk out the door, but somehow he couldn’t make his hands obey.
A slight smile curved the corners of her lips. “You worry, don’t you? About being a father?”
The weight bore down on him. “Shouldn’t I worry? I don’t have much of a role model.”
A little crease formed between her eyebrows. She pursed her lips as if deep in thought. “You’ve never told me about your father. Not in all the time we were together.”
“He wasn’t a man to be proud of.”
“But he was your father.”
“He was a drunk.” Memories of his father rushed through his mind in a tumultuous river. He tried to block them, to dam them up as he had for years, but he couldn’t.
Alyson didn’t say a word, she merely watched him as if waiting for him to go on.
“He had several run-ins with the law, including petty theft and a hefty number of DUI arrests. He also should have been brought up on domestic abuse charges a couple of times, but he sweet-talked my mom out of reporting him.”
“He hit your mother?”
He nodded. “And occasionally me. Always when he was drunk. The booze was always his excuse, but really he was just a pathetic loser.”
“I’m sorry, Dex. I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t want you to. I didn’t want anyone to.” And he still didn’t. But looking into her eyes, so compassionate and accepting, he couldn’t do anything but t
ell her whatever she wanted to know.
“So he must have done jail time.”
“Not enough. Not nearly enough. He was a charming man. He sweet-talked the judge, my mother, me. That man was forgiven more sins than most people ever commit.”
“So what happened to him?”
“He’s on parole. In a halfway house here in Madison.”
Her eyebrows arched toward the bandage at her hairline. “He’s still alive?”
“Yes. Though he doesn’t deserve to be.”
“You talk about him as if he were dead.”
“I like to think of him that way. It makes things easier. And more just.”
“Things? What things?”
“My mother’s death.”
She leaned toward him, as if trying to see into his mind, to understand what he was saying. The crease between her eyebrows deepened. “How would that help?”
“Easy. The bastard killed her.”
Chapter Eleven
Alyson’s eyes widened and a gasp escaped her lips. “How did it happen?”
Pain throbbed through the muscles in Dex’s neck and shoulders. He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to remember. One minute he’d been hiding his head in the sand, telling himself that his father would someday quit drinking, someday stay on the right side of the law, someday become a real father and husband. And the next thing he knew, he’d lost everything. His mother, his home and the bastard he’d pinned so many hopes on. “He was driving drunk and hit a tree. Nothing new. The only difference was, my mother was in the car. She was killed on impact. He walked into a prison cell.”
“How old were you when it happened?”
“High school. Barely fourteen. I lived in a succession of foster homes until I became of age.” He blew a stream of air through tight lips. “So that’s why I don’t talk about the bastard. He never cared about my mother or me, no matter how we both wanted to pretend he did. Booze was the only thing he cared about.” Dex rolled his shoulders, trying to relieve the pressure, the pain. “When he was done serving time for Mom’s death, he went right back to drinking and driving and stealing to finance his bar tab. He’s lived in jails, prisons and halfway houses ever since.”
Alyson’s fingers closed tightly around his. “I’m so sorry, Dex. I’m so very sorry.” Compassion ached in her voice. Compassion and sympathy and caring. But no pity. And for that he was profoundly grateful.
He looked deep into her emerald eyes. He’d loved her once. So much it had frightened him. And looking at her now, he could almost believe his love had never really died. That it was still there, strong as ever. Tempting him to trust. To forgive. To take her in his arms and promise her she would never be alone again.
And that he would never be alone.
Closing his eyes, he slipped his hand from hers and turned away. He had to get out of this room. He had to think. He opened his eyes and strode for the door. “I’ll be back in the night to check your pupils.”
“Dex?”
He stopped, but didn’t face her. He couldn’t. If he looked into her eyes once more, he might just lose all sense of reality. He might just let himself fall back into her arms. Fall back into his dreams. “Yes?”
“You’ll make a great dad. Trust me. You’re nothing like your father. There’s more love inside you than you’ll ever know.”
Dex stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him. He wanted to trust her. Not just about being a good father to Patrick. He wanted to trust her with his heart, his soul. And that scared him more than Andrew Clarke Smythe ever could.
ALYSON STARED at the closed door long after Dex left. His words echoed in her ears. His pain ached in her heart.
Her father had been greedy, corrupt and unconscionable. But that part of him hadn’t surfaced until she was an adult, more able to deal with his betrayal. Dex’s awakening to his father’s sins had come much earlier. And the fact that his father had killed his mother made it all the more impossible to accept.
She sank into the pillows and switched off the bedside lamp. It all made sense to her now. The feeling she always got that if she crossed the line, he would write her off. And the fact that he had done exactly that when she’d hesitated to believe his accusation against her father.
She tried to close her eyes, tried to sleep. But despite her throbbing head and weary bones, blessed unconsciousness wouldn’t come.
She couldn’t help thinking of Dex in the next room, alone with his bitter memories. If only she could have held him in her arms, kissed him until the shadows disappeared from his eyes.
She shook her head. He would never have accepted her touch, her tenderness. Even if she could have given it.
She’d loved Dex with her whole heart, her whole being. When he’d turned her away, it had almost killed her. And in the last fifteen months, nothing had changed. She still loved him, still yearned for his touch, his companionship, the glow in his eyes that once was there when he looked at her.
But now she knew why Dex could never give himself fully. Why she’d always felt as if she were walking a tightrope when they were together. Why he’d been so quick to write her off when she’d taken her first misstep. “Maybe it wasn’t me who was afraid to trust, Dex. Maybe it was you all along.”
SMOKE.
Dex jolted awake. His heart rattled against his ribs. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t breathe. He fumbled for the light he’d set next to him on the floor of the empty room. Finding the switch, he flicked it on. Nothing but darkness met his gaze.
He threw the blanket aside and scrambled to his feet. He didn’t need a light to confirm what he already knew. The room was filled with smoke. There was a fire in the house.
Alyson.
Pulling on his pants and shirt, he crossed the room in three steps and touched the door with an open hand. The wood was cool to the touch. Good. The fire wasn’t right outside his door. But he had to hurry. Smoke could kill long before fire ever showed its flame.
The smoke was stronger in the hallway, thicker. He crouched low, trying to find clearer air closer to the floor. There was a full-blown fire, all right. He could hear the crackle of flame over the pounding of his pulse. He wasn’t sure how far up the stairs it reached, but one thing was clear: they had to get out of here.
Groping his way the few steps down the dark hall, he located the door to the guest room and pushed it open. He ducked inside and shut it behind him. Through the haze and darkness, he could make out Alyson’s form on the bed. “Alyson. Wake up. There’s a fire.”
She stirred, then jolted into a sitting position. Her hair tangled around her face. Her eyes shone bright in the moonlight filtering through the window. “Fire?”
“Hurry.” He grabbed her hand and half lifted her out of the bed. They wouldn’t be able to escape by the staircase, that was for certain. The hall was already choked with smoke, much of it pouring under the bedroom door with each second that passed. They’d never make it out without succumbing to the smoke. And the fire. No, the only way out was the window. He crossed the room, pulling Alyson with him.
She turned to him when they reached the window. “Can we get out this way? Aren’t we pretty high off the ground?”
On this side of the house, the window was three stories above the ground, a dormer window set high in the middle of the sloping roof. He peered out the glass. “We don’t have a choice.”
“We aren’t going to be able to jump. There’s a brick patio below this window.”
“But there’s a trellis, as well. If we slide down the roof to the trellis, we’ll be able to climb down.”
She nodded, as if his plan was logical.
He hoped to God her faith was justified. “With all the rain, the shake roof is going to be slick as ice. We’ll need some way to control our descent.”
She glanced around him, hurried to the bed and grasped the sheets. “We’ll tie these together.”
“It’s worth a shot.” He helped her strip the sheets from the
bed and tie them, yanking the knots as tight as he could. When he was satisfied it would hold, he turned back to the window.
He slid the sash up. Fresh air rushed into the room. They took hungry breaths. So far, so good. The only thing in their way now was the screen. He unfastened the latches and gave the bottom edge a shove. It didn’t budge.
Damn. As old as the house, the screens were painted in place.
Fire crackled from downstairs. Dex glanced at the closed door. The air grew thicker with smoke by the second. The rush of fresh air would fuel the fire. He hit the screen’s bottom edge with the heel of his hand, again and again.
Finally the paint seal broke and the screen swung into the night, skidding down the shake roof and clattering to the brick patio three stories below.
Alyson handed him the sheet rope. He threw one end outside and tied the sheet to the old iron radiator under the window.
Both coughing from the smoke, he grasped her hand to steady her as she threw a leg over the windowsill. She wore only the T-shirt she’d slept in, her feet were bare. Not ideal clothing for a late-night climb, but it would have to do. There was no way they’d be able to locate her clothing and shoes in the dark. “The wood shake is going to be slippery, especially with bare feet. Hold on.”
Without hesitation, she hoisted herself outside. She clung to the open window, wind whipping the hem of her T-shirt.
Dex hoisted himself out the window and clung beside her. The air was clear out here, and he took several deep breaths into his lungs. “I’ll go first. That way I can stop you at the bottom.” The wood shake cold and slick under his bare feet, he grasped the sheet and gave it a hard tug. It held. So far, so good. He started easing himself down like a mountain climber, letting the sheet slide through his hands. The roar of the waves below filled his ears along with the roar and crackle of fire.
He glanced down. The edge of the roof was getting close now, as well as the end of his bedsheet rope. Nothing but darkness loomed below. As long as the trellis was in the place he thought it was, they’d be all right. If it was more than a few feet to the left or right, he wasn’t sure they could reach it on the slick shake shingles.
Claiming His Family Page 10