“It wasn’t a great night.” He turned really blue eyes on Sicily. “How about you, Sicily? You hanging in there?”
She nodded. “Aunt Beth and I talked.”
“Did you.” It wasn’t a question. His gaze flicked to Aunt Beth, and Sicily wondered what that was about.
“We talked about her dad and my parents. Nothing I said surprised her.” Beth smiled at Sicily, differently than she had before. Sicily tried to figure out what was different and wasn’t sure.
The detective took his coffee and said, “Sicily, why don’t you sit down. Let’s talk about what’s going to happen today.”
He was really nice. He went through the kind of questions she’d be asked, without expecting her to answer any of them for him. He told her why the FBI agents were involved and Seattle and Sauk County police departments. “A surfeit of cops,” he said, laughing, and told her what surfeit meant although she could have guessed.
He seemed to be done about the same time the doorbell rang, but his eyes stayed on her face and he didn’t move, leaving Aunt Beth to go answer it. “What’s on your mind?” he asked.
Sicily looked down at the flowered place mat. “Well, I was kind of wondering. I mean, what’ll happen to him?”
“That depends. He’ll definitely be charged with first-degree kidnapping.”
“What’s the first-degree mean?” she asked, thinking maybe it wasn’t the really bad kind.
But he explained that if her dad had taken her only because he wanted her to live with him and didn’t think it was fair Aunt Beth had custody, then he would have been charged with second-degree kidnapping. “But he asked for ransom, and that makes the crime first-degree.” He went quiet for a minute, watching her. They could both hear voices in the living room, but Detective Ryan acted like they had all the time in the world to talk. “There may not be a trial if he pleads guilty. But if this does go to trial, you’ll probably have to testify, Sicily.”
“You mean, sit there in that box like on TV and lawyers will ask me questions?”
“Yes, and the defense attorney—the lawyer taking your dad’s side—will try to confuse you or make you say he didn’t do things he really did do.”
“Will he go to jail for a long time?”
“Yes. Kidnapping is considered almost as bad as murder. It’s punished severely. Sicily…” He took her hand. His was big and warm. “Are you feeling bad about what may happen to him?”
She gulped and nodded. “It’s really dumb, isn’t it? Because it was awful. But…well, he didn’t hurt me or anything and I don’t know if he would have.” She said that in a rush and wished she knew.
“Maybe not.” Detective Ryan was still holding her hand, and his voice was really quiet and nice. “But we don’t know. When he left a message like that, he was making an implicit threat. ‘Give me the money or else.’”
She nodded. The doorbell rang again, and there were more voices. She straightened and squared her shoulders. “So it doesn’t make any difference what I say today?”
“Unless you lie and say you went with him of your own volition—because that’s what you wanted to do—then no.” His voice and expression got harder. “Because he didn’t want to get to know you, Sicily. He thought he could use you to soak your grandparents for money. Whether you got hurt or scared, that didn’t matter to him. I know it’s complicated for you because he’s your father, but he doesn’t deserve for you to care.”
She nodded again, because she knew he was right, but she still felt funny inside about it. “When I told him I was tired of cheeseburgers, he brought me an egg sandwich the next time.”
The detective’s face softened again. “That’s the kind of thing that may influence the judge when he sentences your father. It may suggest he’s not all bad, that he really wouldn’t have hurt you. There’s a recommended range for sentencing. What you say could mean he won’t get as many years as he otherwise would have.”
“Okay.” Sicily took a deep breath. “I’ll say exactly what happened then.”
He smiled at her. “Good girl. Are you ready?”
She straightened her shoulders and nodded. “Yes.”
* * *
THE THREE OF THEM WENT shopping that afternoon. When Mike heard the idea, he volunteered his services as bodyguard and wheelchair-pusher. Beth made a call and determined that the mall had loaners available. Sicily, it appeared, sort of liked the idea that everyone might stare at her.
“You don’t have to work?” Beth asked.
He grinned at her. “Remember that time I’m due?”
“Yes, but…”
“This is how I want to spend it.”
She blushed, which made his smile widen. “You’ll probably be really bored.”
“Somehow I doubt it,” he said, feeling satisfied.
On the short drive to Everett Mall, he kept sneaking glances at her, often looking over her shoulder to talk to Sicily in the backseat.
The huge ease of tension made Beth a different woman. She still sat primly and she didn’t laugh outright, but he kept feeling a clutch in his belly when he remembered thinking that her face was too bony for real beauty. He’d wondered why his body had responded so powerfully to her. Now he thought, Damn, she’s gorgeous.
Was this what she’d looked like before, or had the events of the past week opened her somehow? He was hungry to know, but mostly hungry to be near her, to listen to her talk about anything at all, to watch her interact with the unexpectedly cheerful girl whose photo had caught at his heart. Had Sicily ever been as solemn and…fragile as he’d imagined, either? Had the photographer caught her at a bad moment? Or was she, too, finding some peace?
Mike’s role, as he’d anticipated, was to do a whole lot of standing around, guarding the entrances to dressing rooms and to occasionally give a thumbs-up.
Sicily was not a greedy shopper. She pondered each possibility, agonized over this or that, even when Beth said, “Let’s get both.” Sicily worried about price tags and what was on sale and what wasn’t, making Mike suspect she’d been the one to figure out how to stretch her mother’s limited income. Beth stayed patient. She also slipped a few purchases through that Sicily hadn’t okayed—socks, underwear, a cute sweater, a second pair of pajamas, a pair of dressy sandals Sicily had rejected even while watching wistfully as the shoe clerk packed them away in their box. Mike left them a couple of times to ferry purchases out to his SUV.
They ate lunch at the food court, which took an astonishing length of time because Sicily wanted to inspect the menu board at every single vendor, go back twice, and finally a third time before she made up her mind.
“She’d better learn a gear faster than first before she has to sit down and take the SATs,” he muttered to Beth.
She giggled. “Don’t see that happening.”
He stared at her in amazement. The sad, withdrawn, wounded woman he knew had giggled like a carefree girl? Was it possible?
The sound elated him. Made him feel young, too. Hopeful. He had an overpowering desire to kiss her, but the middle of a crowded mall food court didn’t seem the place, especially since Sicily had finished maneuvering the wheelchair and was gazing across the table at them with interest.
Over lunch he kept having a feeling of unreality. Mom, dad, kid, he thought bemusedly, except I’d never heard of either woman or girl until a week ago.
Man, I want this. A bubble of humor rose. Go figure. His mother was right. She always said she was,
and damned if it didn’t usually turn out that way. He looked forward to admitting it.
Falling in love didn’t happen to order, though. Maybe he hadn’t been ready until now, but he thought it was more likely that he hadn’t met the right woman. He wasn’t the man he’d been before his son’s death. Every time he’d dated a nice, uncomplicated woman, he had found himself fidgeting and scrambling for conversation.
Apparently he’d needed a woman who was scarred inside and out. A complex woman whose emotional repertoire often made him feel as if he was standing on shifting ground. A woman who was somehow also fierce in protecting this girl she hadn’t known until a month ago. And he had been surprised at her sexual response when Mike touched her. Almost…virginal.
Mike studied her speculatively. How experienced was she sexually? Given her history and the wall she kept around herself, he had to guess she hadn’t had a wild and crazy sex life. Man, his body was hardening at the thought of her peeling that T-shirt over her head. At wondering whether she’d touch him boldly or timidly.
It was a good douse of ice water when he thought, Or whether she’s ready. Could she open herself to the risk of allowing anyone’s hands all over her, or the bigger risk of letting herself care about someone else?
Sicily might be the biggest risk Beth was able or willing to take right now.
Then he’d wait. Mike’s jaw firmed. It had taken him eight years to get here. He was the right man for her. He’d give her the time she needed, even if it killed him.
* * *
“SICILY GOING TO STAY holed up in her bedroom?” It was after dinner. Mike had helped clear the table. Now, one hip propped against the kitchen cupboard, he watched her fill the dishwasher.
Her mouth curved. “There’s a certain ceremony to putting away new clothes. She didn’t have a chance earlier.”
“You rip off the tags and shove whatever it is in a drawer.”
She laughed. “Women do it differently. And Sicily… Well, I told you she hasn’t had much that’s new.”
“You weren’t kidding about how seriously she takes shopping.”
Turning off the faucet, Beth made a face. “She takes almost everything that seriously. Send her to pick out a cantaloupe with instructions on how to tell whether they’re ripe, and ten minutes later you find her carefully handling every single one. It’s like…” She hesitated.
“She can’t let herself make a mistake.”
Surprised, she looked at him. “I suppose that is it.”
Those laser-sharp eyes watched her all too intently. “Do you let yourself make mistakes?”
She snapped her attention back to what she was doing. “I made a big one last week.”
“Aren’t we past that?”
“Sometimes, you can keep bad things from happening.”
“And sometimes you can’t. We both know that, Beth.” His voice was so gentle, she could hardly bear it. Didn’t know whether she could trust what that tone suggested.
“I do know that.”
“She’s resilient.”
Beth took a deep breath and closed the dishwasher. “She astonishes me.”
“You astonish me.” A notch deeper, his tone was intimate and warm. “You and Sicily have a lot in common.”
She felt extraordinarily vulnerable when she looked at him. “Do you think so?”
“I’m getting the feeling she’s a lot more like you than her mother. I wonder if that’s occurred to her.”
“I hope it doesn’t. It might seem disloyal.”
“Maybe.” He was quiet for a moment. “Those nightmares you have. Are they about your mother?”
Beth stiffened but hoped he couldn’t tell. “No. It’s weird maybe, but what I remember best is hiding. Squeezed into this tiny, dark space, trying desperately not to make a sound. That’s when I felt safest, so why does it haunt me now?”
“Maybe—” his voice was a soft growl “—because you knew you weren’t safe.”
“Maybe,” she whispered.
“You know I want to be here every night to hold you when you have a nightmare.” His mouth quirked. “The rest of the time, too.”
She squeezed her hands together. “You don’t know me.”
“I do.” He’d been keeping his distance, but now he took a step closer and ran his knuckles up the side of her neck, ending up with them tucked beneath her chin. “Maybe we have something to discover about what we’re like in happier times. But don’t tell me we don’t know each other. You know better.”
Stunned that the moment had escalated so fast, before she’d had time to think it all through with her usual meticulous care, she searched his face. “I suppose I do,” she admitted. “But I have to think of Sicily, too.”
“She likes me. I like her.”
The big bubble of emotion that had so shocked her yesterday swelled in her chest again, as if she’d been pumped full of helium. It was astonishing to discover that despite it, she could feel humor. Narrowing her eyes, she said, “You sound smug.”
Just like that, he was grinning. “I feel smug. Because she does like me. And because you didn’t say, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know how I feel about you.’ You implied the only hang-up is her. Which means you like me.”
“I let you sleep with me, didn’t I?”
“Not exactly.” His grin became wicked, then died. Suddenly, she could see his uncertainty, even…vulnerability? “I’m pushing you. Everything has happened fast, I recognize that. But within a few days of meeting you, I knew. I haven’t wanted to go home to my own bed all week, Beth. I’ll do it for now. Maybe Sicily does need some time. Or you do, too. But I want you to know I’m serious. I’m in love with you.”
She gaped.
“Probably I’m not the kind of guy you’d normally fall for. You’re class. I keep picturing you with a man who has money, sharp looks, dresses well.”
“A businessman. An attorney.”
“Yeah. I guess that’s it.”
“A man like my father,” she said flatly.
Mike took that in. “Or maybe not,” he said slowly.
This was scary, in a different way than anything she’d felt before. No. Really? Beth came close to laughing. How funny. It turned out the woman who feels nothing had been kidding herself all these years.
“I think I do need time.” She let herself look into Mike’s eyes, and believe what she saw. I’m braver and stronger than I knew, she reminded herself, and took a frightening leap. “But…I’m in love with you, too.”
He groaned, and took her into his arms. “I want you two to be my family,” he told her, in a near echo of her earlier thoughts.
“I want that, too,” Beth admitted, shaken but…happy. Yes, happy. The real deal.
He bent and nuzzled her cheek. “Beth…”
“Hmm?” Instinctively, she turned to seek his mouth.
He brushed his lips across hers. “I won’t ask you to marry me yet.”
There it was again, a laugh rising up in her, part of that happiness. “How patient of you.”
He nipped her earlobe. “It’s my middle name.”
And then she was laughing, and somehow crying, too, and holding on tight to him. He watched her, worried.
“I never thought…” she gasped.
“Thought what?” He brushed away the tears so tenderly.
“That I might ever have everything. That I’d ever want it. Poor Rachel did, so much, and now here I am, the lucky one.”
&nbs
p; “You deserved it as much as she did.” His voice had deepened. “You know what I live for?”
She shook her head.
“The day when you’ll laugh without being surprised. When you’ll throw yourself into my arms without a second thought. When you’ll do something Sicily already has—you’ll trust me. Absolutely and completely.”
Maybe her mouth wobbled a bit, but she answered with a smile. “I’ve come so far in a week, I feel safe to say you’re going to be amazed.”
“I already am,” he whispered, and kissed her.
* * * * *
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CHAPTER ONE
WHEN JESSICA TAYLOR lost her virginity three months and six guys ago—after fiercely guarding it for fifteen years—she’d been stone-cold sober.
Making Her Way Home Page 25