The Proviso

by Moriah Jovan

  Sheriff Raines had gone ashen; whether it was from Giselle’s threat to shoot him or Knox’s roar, Justice couldn’t tell. Footsteps sounded and came closer and closer until Knox was at the top of the staircase, looking down. Justice could see that he deduced pretty much what had happened instantly. He crossed his arms and looked at the sheriff.

  “She,” he said, nodding toward Giselle, “is my right hand. If she shoots you, just consider that I shot you. I don’t know exactly what you did, Raines, but you offended her, so you offended me. And she,” he continued, nodding toward Justice, “is my AP. I catch you fucking around with her again, I’ll kill you myself.” Raines’s eyes widened and he gulped. “Get lost.”

  He did, scrambling down the steps as fast as he could as the three of them watched until he disappeared from sight. Knox turned and strode away from them. “Arm her, too,” he threw over his shoulder as he disappeared back into his office.

  Giselle stuck her gun in the back of her waistband and looked up at Justice, her face softening into a smile. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about him anymore.”

  * * * * *

  70: SOME OTHER WOMAN’S SHOES

  Justice’s nerves, already strung taut, were not soothed in Giselle’s presence. She didn’t make small talk and she seemed a thousand miles away, but once they were in her low-slung BMW and on the way, Justice couldn’t contain her curiosity. “You— Knox— I thought— You know him?”

  Are you his lover?

  Giselle smiled. “He’s my cousin. We grew up together.”

  Justice blinked, unable to process that completely. She couldn’t imagine Knox as a baby, a boy, a young man, or anything other than what he was now. She couldn’t imagine that the woman she knew as his bitter enemy was his friend, his family.

  Justice felt utterly helpless, her image of Giselle Cox having been betrayed by the fact of her association with Knox, her willingness to do what Knox said. If nothing else, she had needed Giselle’s example to get through each day, and now . . .

  She is my right hand.

  “What are you going to do with me?” Justice whispered.

  Giselle shifted gears, looked over her shoulder to change lanes, and proceeded to zip around the southbound traffic. She drove like a demon just released from hell, though she sat relaxed in the seat, with one hand on the gear shift and the fingers of her other hand lightly draping the steering wheel.

  “I,” she said, “am going to pull a Pygmalion on you. You’re a beautiful girl, make no mistake. However, if this dress is anything to go by, your wardrobe came straight out of Sunday school, circa 1983. There’s nothing wrong with it, really, but it’s not appropriate for court. You look sixteen.”

  Justice gaped at her. A makeover? Perhaps she’d rather be shot dead. That wouldn’t have hurt as badly as knowing Knox thought she needed a makeover. She thought she might cry, but Giselle reached her hand out and touched the clenched fist Justice held stiffly on her knee.

  “Enjoy yourself, Justice.”

  “I’m not interested in a makeover. I just want him to let me go. I want to get away from him. Please help me.”

  “Oh, Justice,” she murmured, and withdrew her hand to shift again. Her humor had vanished and she seemed . . . sad. A bit. But Justice didn’t know why that would be. “You don’t get away from Knox. Nobody does. He’s a tornado and everybody who comes in contact with him gets sucked in. Don’t get discouraged and don’t show your fear. Trust me. I promise you, there will come a day when all this will have been worth it and you’ll be glad you persevered.”

  Justice swallowed at the odd answer. There was so much more going on under the surface and she didn’t trust this woman anymore.

  “I don’t—” Justice hesitated because she figured her pleading would be in vain, would more than likely get her in trouble with Knox, but she couldn’t not ask. “I don’t want to be there.”

  Giselle looked over at her, her sorrow seeming to deepen. Justice had never met anyone she could read so well, but then, it might all be an act. She took a deep breath and said, “Give it one more week, Justice. Just one week from the time I take you back home. Can you do that?”

  Was this a promise of rescue? Could Giselle possibly be powerful enough to forestall—

  “He threatened to kill me if I left. I’m really scared.”

  Giselle sucked in a sharp, deep breath and looked out the window. “I’m sorry.”

  “Would he really do that?” she whispered.

  “Well,” she said finally, “he’s not going to kill you today. Or any time this week. He just sent you on a week-long all-expenses-paid vacation, my dear, and our first stop is the spa.”

  Justice’s head spun. Knox—the same Knox—had sent her with this woman so she could go to a spa? “I— I don’t understand,” she whispered.

  Giselle chuckled. “Yeah, that’s a common reaction when it involves Knox. He plays his cards close to the vest and makes no sense most of the time.”

  “That’s why you took that money? To buy me clothes?”

  “Yes.”

  Appalled and outraged that she would be wearing the dirty money it took her so much to resist, Justice said, “Do you know where that money comes from?”

  “Yes,” she replied immediately, this time with a bit of a steel edge. “I know exactly where that money comes from.”

  That was not the answer Justice expected and she blinked, but she dare not ask the next logical question. Yes, Giselle was easy to read, but that served the same function as the rattle at the end of a snake’s tail.

  “Justice,” Giselle said with purpose, “my goal is to help you be as comfortable in real life as you are online.”

  Justice started. Swallowed.

  “Being comfortable with who you are when you’re behind a computer and being lauded and paid for your opinions, and courted by prestigious institutions where you could hide away and write? Not the same as being comfortable in your own skin. Being comfortable in your own skin no matter where you are or what you’re doing and knowing what you want are the first and most crucial steps to power.

  “You have opportunities that most women your age would kill for and yet— You’re an AP in a backwater county on the outskirts of Cowtown. Why? Is what you wanted in any way similar to the reality?”

  “No,” Justice murmured, ashamed that Giselle Cox thought she was hiding away from the world.

  “Do you really know what you want?”

  “I did, once.”

  “I’m guessing that didn’t work out for you.”

  “No.”

  “Perhaps you should think about what you want now. Take some time to think about what you’ve learned in that office.” She paused. “You asked me to teach you to be powerful and I told you I couldn’t do that.”

  Justice nodded.

  “Knox can and he will if you let him. If you choose to stay with him, he’ll teach you everything you ever wanted to know about power.”

  “I didn’t choose to stay,” she snapped. “I can’t choose to leave.”

  Giselle made no reply and the silence went on, as she had apparently said all she wanted to say. As usual, Justice felt the silence uneasily.

  Though the minute she began to get comfortable with it, Giselle spoke again suddenly, and Justice jumped. “Do you know anything about guns?”

  “Rifles and shotguns, not handguns.”

  “Knox wants you to start carrying a weapon. Of course, if you turn it on him,” she said, her voice suddenly hard and cold like iced marble, “I’ll make sure that’s the last thing you ever do. However,” she went on, back to her usual humor, “you need to carry a weapon like everyone else in that office. Knox can’t protect you from Raines every minute of every day. You’re in the roughest part of Chouteau County now and he wants to keep you safe.”

  Justice’s head spun. “Safe?” she squeaked. “Who’s going to keep me safe from him?”

  Giselle slid her a glance and said softly, “You
may enjoy not being safe from him, Justice.”

  . . . how about a piece of that fabulous ass up against the wall over there?

  Justice thought her chest had been kicked in. “You and, and—”

  “Oh, heavens no,” she said. “We weren’t meant for each other.”

  Which simply confused Justice even more.

  “You’ll be our house guest for the next week, my husband and me, I mean. I’m going to teach you how to dress and how to walk and how to present yourself to a jury. Henry Higgins had six months to turn a Cockney flower girl into Hungarian royalty, but I don’t have to teach you diction or proper manners. Well, I don’t know about the manners. We’ll go somewhere and try you out. This is the part of power I can teach you, Justice. Women don’t just get power from character. We get it from beauty and presentation.”

  “That’s manipulative,” Justice sniffed, looking out the window.

  Giselle chuckled. “You could look at it that way, yes, but consider this: When you know you look fabulous, you’ll feel powerful and then people will assume that you are. They will give you respect and then that will in turn feed your power. It’s a cycle. And besides,” she added, “why would you want to look a week-long shopping spree in the mouth?”

  Well, truly, Justice did want to relax and enjoy herself, but couldn’t bring herself to that. Knox would be livid if he knew she was having fun. Giselle promptly disabused her of the notion.

  “Believe me, he doesn’t care how it happens. All he cares about are results. Your having fun or not having fun doesn’t even register with him.”

  Finally they reached a high-end spa on the Plaza. For the rest of the morning, Justice was massaged, mudded, oiled, lotioned, exfoliated, manicured, pedicured, and generally pampered. Once the strangeness of being nude in public—or pretty close to it—and being cared for as if she were a baby wore off, she relaxed and enjoyed it.

  “Hair is next.”

  “But—I like my hair.”

  “Needs a more flattering cut.”

  Justice was silent because Giselle’s statement was final and if Giselle was offended, Knox was offended. The last thing Justice wanted was to offend Knox.

  It took a while to cut Justice’s hair once her waist-length braid had been unceremoniously cut at the midpoint of her shoulder blades, then packaged up to be sent to Locks of Love at Giselle’s behest. That done, she instructed the hairdresser in a tone that brooked no argument,

  “You will not color, straighten, curl, or otherwise chemically alter her hair. Take out all that bulk, cut it so it flatters her face, and for crying out loud, give her a hot oil treatment or three and a good shampoo.”

  When he turned Justice around an hour later to look at herself, she gaped.

  Her hair was short but very full, very shaped, and didn’t look as short as it felt. Where before was frizz, frizz, and more frizz, there were fairly large, smooth, sleek curls all over her head that bounced. It was long enough in the back to barely brush her collar, then it curved softly up around her face. Where before was a dark red mahogany was a burnished red-copper that gleamed. She would have never suspected that her hair could look like that, that she could look like that.

  Justice wondered how she could have gone her whole life without thinking to do this herself, never mind that she’d never had the money to do it or maintain it.

  “Makeup.”

  The cosmetologist and Giselle were giddy with the abundance and rich copper color of the freckles on her cheeks and over her nose, but Justice was mortified.

  “You can’t be serious,” she said when they both agreed that she should never, ever cover those up ever again. But Giselle would have her way and Justice knew it would be pointless to argue—

  —but when she saw the finished product, she couldn’t stop staring at herself. “That’s me?” she whispered.

  Giselle swung down and got in her face, a wide grin on her face. “Yes! Aren’t you gorgeous?”

  Yes, that girl in the mirror was gorgeous. Justice didn’t know that girl.

  “Lingerie.”

  Justice thought she would die of embarrassment at the things she picked out.

  “Justice,” Giselle finally said, frustrated, “you cannot wear cotton granny panties for the rest of your life. No matter how good you look on the outside, cotton granny panties will kill your confidence every time. It’s just not—” She looked for the right word. “It’s just not done.” She shuddered.

  “Tomorrow, clothes,” Giselle said as they dropped into her car, bags of shampoos and conditioners and oils and lotions and lingerie having been dumped in the trunk. “I’ll loan you something to wear tomorrow. Tonight, you get to sleep without dreading working for Knox in the morning.”

  Justice shifted uncomfortably, because she still wasn’t sure that everything she said wouldn’t get back to Knox. Giselle laughed. “Knox is a bastard. I sure wouldn’t work for him.”

  Giselle lived in a beautiful house, pale yellow, white trim, with an iridescent green barrel-tile roof and three gables. She parked in the back and they walked up flagstone stairs onto a deep covered veranda that spanned the width of the house.

  “This is beautiful,” Justice whispered, looking at the stonework that defined flower beds in front of the porch. She could only dream about living in a house like this.

  “My husband built the flower beds. He likes to play in the mud on the weekends.”

  Once inside, the entire expanse on Justice’s left was open, front to back. Three different areas were delineated by rugs and furniture placement. Closest to the back was a desk. In the middle was a grouping of leather sofas, club chairs, and a coffee table in front of a fireplace over which was a TV no thicker than a painting. At the front of the house was a black grand piano.

  But the most wonderful thing about that room was the fact that the entire wall, save the fireplace and the TV, was covered in floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with books of all types. The ceiling was twelve feet high and so there was a ladder and track to reach the higher books. There wasn’t one spot of blank wall or shelf that could be seen, and Justice stood and stared in awe.

  “Pick anything you want,” Giselle said as she bustled by to dump some of Justice’s bags on the stairwell landing. “Bryce will be home in a bit and I asked him to pick up dinner. I guarantee it’ll be Greek.”

  I see Kenard hasn’t managed to put a collar on you yet.

  Justice shot a look at Giselle, unable to believe what she thought she just heard.

  “Bryce? As in, Bryce Kenard?”

  Giselle released a resigned chuckle. “Oh, please don’t tell me you’re a groupie too.”

  “Yes! How—? He’s all anybody talks about at school.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “You can’t have told anybody. You didn’t have people hanging off of you all the time.”

  Giselle burst out laughing then. “Nobody knew I’m related to Knox, either, did they?”

  Justice released a breath, unable to hide the stars in her eyes now. Bryce Kenard. Never in a million years had she thought she’d ever encounter him.

  “Well, don’t have an orgasm, Justice,” Giselle said wryly. “He’ll be home in a bit and you can fawn all over him in person. But come upstairs for a minute. I’ll loan you some clothes and a robe. I want you to take that dress off right now because it needs burned.”

  Justice’s mouth dropped open, stunned out of her delight. “Burned?” she squeaked. “This is my favorite dress!”

  “You’ll get a new favorite tomorrow.”

  “No! I worked hard to buy this dress!”

  “Fine. I’ll get it framed. Hand it over.”

  “I will NOT!”

  “Oh, leave her alone, Giselle,” came a deep hoarse voice from the archway to the kitchen. “How would you like it if someone took your favorite dress away from you and burned it just because they didn’t like it?”

  Justice gasped and her hand went to her mouth at the sight of
the man in the doorway, his head down as he sifted through mail. He was badly disfigured, the entire left side of his face matted with scars, as was his left hand. And he was huge, bigger than Knox. She took a step back from him, but he’d turned and set the mail on the kitchen island, walking out of sight while taking off his coat and tie.

  This was Bryce Kenard?

  She’d never had to do a class assignment on him, but she’d heard enough lectures, enough stories, to know his name and respect his genius. No one had ever mentioned this.

  Justice knew Giselle hadn’t missed her reaction to her husband and also knew she had every right to be offended at her. She sighed and turned to Giselle. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured. “That wasn’t kind of me.”

  “You’re right,” Giselle agreed readily, but without anger. “Lesson number one: Don’t let appearances deceive you—good or bad. You miss getting to know a lot of good people that way.”

  “Lesson number two,” called that gravelly voice from the kitchen, though she couldn’t see him. “Never, ever let people know your first impression, good or bad.”

  “Especially since he just saved your dress for you,” Giselle muttered, that undertone of humor back in her voice. “Come on. Let’s go eat.”

  And as Justice turned, she caught a glimpse of a very large painting over the staircase and she sucked up a breath, her mouth opening slowly as she looked up, up, up.

  Her eyes wide, she studied it. She knew Giselle was watching her, but she didn’t care. Her hostess was laid out nude on a bed, strapped to it, but that wasn’t what got her. What got her was the symbolism of the locks and the keys and the books.

  She put her hand to her mouth and she could feel tears begin to roll down her face. “Oh,” she whispered. “Oh.” Justice swallowed. “Oh my. You— It didn’t come easy to you.”

  Giselle went to her and hugged her. “No, it didn’t,” she murmured and led her to the table where dinner awaited. “It still doesn’t.”

  * * * * *