Stay (Dunham series #2)

by Moriah Jovan

  Nash curled his lip at her, then cast Vanessa an expectant look. She waved toward the door. “Not interested in being another notch in your bedpost. Get lost, Studmuffin.”

  He got to his feet and sauntered to the door. “You know what? That’s it. You ladies have insulted me for the last time. Vanessa, I’m gonna go sit in the grand parlor in front of your paintin’ and jack off in front of everybody.”

  “Okay. Don’t get your thing caught in your zipper.”

  He flipped her off and slammed the door behind him.

  “Feel better?” Justice asked, still chuckling.

  Vanessa nodded.

  “Kinda makes you wonder why you’re sitting here pining over a small-time prosecutor when you could be sleeping with a smart, funny, handsome man who happens to be a country legend, huh?”

  Vanessa blinked. Glanced at the door Nash had just exited. Pursed her lips.

  “I’m not pining,” she finally said.

  “Uh huh.”

  “I have no reason to pine. I mean, we’ve never even spoken to each other.”

  “And that appears to be the problem, right there.”

  Vanessa sighed, unable to understand it herself, much less find a way to explain it. “Look, it just— It caught me off guard, okay? Knox has always wanted to keep his Kansas City life separate from his Mansfield life. Since I don’t want to hear about my family it’s never been a problem. I don’t ask. He doesn’t tell. It works for us. But then—”

  “But then I asked you to be a bridesmaid and told you Eric would be your escort . . . ”

  “And found out that he works for Knox and has for—” She waved a hand. “—years. I—”

  “Freaked out.”

  Vanessa took a deep breath. “Bad. My watches melted. I mean, he left town when he was eighteen and I never— He just— He left.”

  “I . . . don’t understand.”

  Vanessa sighed. “Never mind. It’s stupid. Least said, soonest mended.”

  Leather creaked. The baby snuffed. Justice arose from the couch and went to the door. “Well, time to go put the husband down for his nap and bolt him to the bed in case he starts channeling Emeril again.” Justice paused at the threshold. “I’ll lock the office door. If you want to talk . . . ”

  No, she didn’t. She’d pretty much spilled her guts, and whatever she hadn’t spilled, Justice would be able to deduce anyway.

  Dammit.

  “Thanks.”

  The door closed quietly.

  “He doesn’t remember,” she whispered, as if staring at her holdings, her wealth, her dream that she’d built here in the heart of the Ozark Mountains, could make that all better for her. “How can he not remember?”

  Perhaps she would go visit Laura today as she always did when her spirit flagged and Nash couldn’t tease her out of it.

  She hauled herself out of her chair and went to immerse herself in her to-do list before she completely broke down.

  Vanessa finished butchering the porcupines, cleaned the butchery, and headed to the back of the property, where her cottage sat a little away from the others. A fragrant bouquet of pink flowers on the counter in her kitchenette surprised her and she buried her nose in them briefly.

  She went up the stairs to her bedroom, not surprised to see Nash sprawled over her bed, playing Tetris on a cheap hand-held. Naked. She went right past him, entered her enormous walk-in closet, dug out her whites.

  “What’s got your knickers in a twist, doll?”

  “Nothing,” she muttered, not sure if he could hear her through the wall, amongst the clothes. “Thank you for the flowers. How’d your meeting go?”

  “Oh, fuck that. You don’t care. C’mere and lemme love on ya.”

  She pursed her lips as she held one of many double-breasted chef coats in her hands and stared at it blankly. It wouldn’t help. It hadn’t helped. Not for the last eight months.

  “Nash, how long have we been sleeping together?”

  “I dunno,” he answered absently as the tinny music from his Tetris game got faster and faster. “When’d I crash my plane? Two years ago? Took me almost two months to get here, so . . . Yeah. Not quite two years.”

  “You want to get married?” she blurted, startling herself even as the Tetris game blipped off abruptly. She heard the rustle of her bedclothes and the pad of bare feet on Persian rug, then that hippie face atop that ripped and cut rodeo body appeared in the threshold of the closet. She noted his rugged beauty absently, the habit of a longstanding, comfortable relationship where nothing was a surprise.

  She preferred him this way, with carefully dyed shoulder-length black hair instead of his natural—and all-too-recognizable—dark blond hair, immaculately cut, and clean-shaven face.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he asked quietly. “You been spacin’ out on me for months and now you’re wantin’ to get married?”

  She flinched.

  “Hell, no, I don’t wanna get married,” he said. “Particularly to you. An’ you don’t wanna get married. Particularly to me. What if I’d said yes?”

  “I don’t know,” she murmured. “I just—”

  Nash reached into the closet and caught her hand, tugging her out and sitting on the edge of the bed. He pulled her down onto his lap so she straddled his hips. He wrapped his arms around her and stroked her back. “What happened? Somethin’s had you all knotted up for months.”

  Vanessa’s mouth tightened because she wanted to cry again, but how low had she sunk that she’d cry over a man—a boy—she’d never spoken to, while being held by her lover?

  “Um, the— Let’s just call it the fish that got away.”

  He started. “Taight?”

  She huffed. “No! Not Sebastian. With him, it was like— Well, like you and me. Only shorter. And public.”

  “Then—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Nash.”

  He pursed his lips. “Does this mean I’m not gettin’ laid right now?”

  “I’m going to Laura’s, so I need to make some cookies.”

  He said nothing for a moment, then, “You been doin’ an awful lot of that lately.” Yes, she had. The ladies over at Laura’s house were beginning to worry and wonder, too. He sighed. “Then I guess it’s back to chess, but damn, Hilliard’s beginnin’ to bore me stupid.”

  That was a lie. He was waiting for Knox to wake up from his nap so they could get back to the game they’d had going for days—

  “Oh. Your Raumschach boards came in today’s delivery.”

  Nash’s face lit up and he practically dumped Vanessa off his lap to jump into his clothes. “He know yet?”

  That made Vanessa chuckle in spite of herself. Two years now, any weekend when Knox could spare a minute away from inn business, they’d played chess, both men on equal footing, neither able to get the advantage of the other. At first, Knox had thought playing chess with an uneducated country music stud from the wilds of Montana would waste all of five minutes. Nash had never found a casual player who could beat him, so he’d assumed Knox had no more skill than any other opponent he’d ever had. They were brilliant, perfectly matched, very competitive—and they were both happy to have an equal to play without getting involved with chess clubs.

  “Going out to Rocky Ridge?” Knox asked an hour later, shuffling into the kitchen as she pulled the last cookie sheet from the oven, dodging her scurrying kitchen and waitstaff like the pro she was.

  Vanessa didn’t bother to answer; she only made peanut butter cookies for one reason.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him wipe his hand across his mouth, as if troubled. “Ah, Vanessa. About this morning— Eric didn’t mean—”

  “Did you see your chess boards?”

  “Yeah, thanks but—”

  “Probably better go find Mister Thompson before he has a fit.”

  “Vanessa, he only meant—”

  Her mouth tightened.

  “It’s just that your mother and sister—” />
  “Stop. Just stop talking. Right now.”

  “But he—”

  “Knox! Shut up! You can go on back to Justice and gossip and theorize all you want, but I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to know. And don’t make Alain yell at you again or I’ll kick you out of the kitchen completely.”

  Knox sighed, but then winced in pain when he took a step. She looked at him fully then and for the first time since he’d taken up temporary permanent residence to recuperate from his injuries, she noticed how pale, how thin and gaunt he looked.

  “I am apparently not feeding you well enough.”

  His mouth twitched. “I don’t dare get corn-fed around you and your knives. As far as I know, human is the only meat you haven’t put on the table yet and you’re as likely to serve me for dinner as porcupine.”

  “With a dandelion and mustard greens salad under a rose-petal and blackberry vinaigrette. I think Granny Clampett would approve.”

  “And Hannibal Lecter.”

  “And why is he the bad guy? He’s just epicurious.”

  Knox snorted.

  She handed him a breadbasket and he piled a dozen cookies in it. “Orange juice?” she asked sarcastically.

  “Is there any other drink in the world? No, there is not.”

  “Your doctor told you to lay off the sauce a while back.”

  “You know what? As long as Justice doesn’t know and you keep your mouth shut, what my doctor wants doesn’t matter.”

  Vanessa pursed her lips. “Don’t you think the suicide-by-sugar plan’s kind of stupid now that you got your inheritance and that family you always wanted?”

  “Well, you’re probably right about that, but until I decide to get on the wagon, you don’t breathe a word.”

  She signaled a server to take the food out to the grand parlor so Knox wouldn’t try to carry it himself. “So. Dad. You think you can handle the phones and play chess at the same time?”

  He smirked. “Yeah, I think so. Give my love to Laura.”

  “Sure thing.”

  * * * * *

  7: Low-Rent Rendezvous

  By mid-afternoon, the office teemed and thrummed with the comings and goings of attorneys, county deputies, Kansas City cops, state troopers, criminals, and witnesses—

  —just another day in a prosecutor’s office.

  Eric sat at Knox’s—his—desk sorting through a handful of very old résumés and wondered if he should try to get in touch with any of these people.

  A state trooper burst through his door, dragging a blond twelve-year-old boy who turned the air blue with profanities he’d learned direct from his mother and grandmother. Eric sighed and pointed to one of the wooden chairs in front of his desk.

  The officer snarled at the boy and cuffed him to the chair without having to be told. With one slap upside the kid’s head, he stalked out, his dignity offended by having to wrestle with the brat.

  The boy spat at Eric, but it missed his mark; it was an old tactic and every cop knew to park the kid far enough away from any available human target.

  “What’d you do this time, Junior?”

  His nostrils flared. “Fuck you, Cipriani,” he returned. As usual.

  What a waste of skin, doomed from birth. It wasn’t the kid’s fault; he hadn’t chosen his family. When he still wouldn’t answer the question, Eric went back to reading résumés, knowing his phone would ring at any moment—

  “Cipriani.”

  “I want to file charges on that boy of yours.”

  Eric sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, not bothering to correct the assertion, considering “that boy of yours” was county shorthand for “Simone Whittaker’s kid, you know, the kid with the same name as the prosecutor.”

  Yes, it is true that Simone Whittaker had a son approximately nine months after I left for college and claims that I am his father. DNA testing has confirmed that I am not. Your press kit includes copies of the lab tests and all court documents, including his original and amended birth certificates.

  “Do something with him. That’s the fifth time in two months he’s taken off with something he could pawn.”

  “What was it this time?”

  “Brand new CB radio.”

  “They still make those?”

  “Eric!”

  “Sam, I don’t even know why you bother calling. Just send me the damned bill. As usual.”

  He hung up and looked at the boy, who stared off to his left, out the window at the bleakness of winter. He did that a lot, Eric had noticed, as if he were far away, perhaps on a pirate ship or the space shuttle on his way to Mars. Maybe in a car running two hundred on a NASCAR track or pumping a bicycle in France, a hundred other cyclists on his tail. He remembered those fantasies, the escape, the need to get away from his life. Too bad the kid couldn’t read; there were whole libraries available to lose himself in.

  Thirty-two-year-old Eric Cipriani looked at the twelve-year-old Eric Cipriani, wondering how many more Whittaker-spawned issues would crop up today.

  “I hate your mother,” Eric said matter-of-factly. That got the kid’s attention and his eyes narrowed at him. “Look, tell me what you need. I’ll give it to you. Food? Money? Clothes? A place to stay besides juvie? What? Just tell me.”

  He stared at Eric stonily.

  “Dammit. What do I have to do to get you to act like a normal human being? You cannot keep stealing shit to pawn, and I’m about this close to getting social services out to your house.”

  The kid swallowed, but otherwise showed no reaction.

  Eric sighed. “Better the devil you know, eh?”

  Eric Junior still wouldn’t answer, but Eric knew. Living with Simone and LaVon had to be hell, but at least it was familiar. And Eric Senior had to tread lightly; his life was inextricably woven with those women’s lives. Any action he took against them, legal or otherwise, could be seen as retaliatory—and he was in the power position in a county with a corrupt reputation.

  It would look bad and for the sake of his career, Eric couldn’t allow himself to get caught up in their drama any more than they forced him to.

  “Deputy!” he bellowed finally, and a deputy showed up in a moment or two. He gestured to Junior, and the deputy unlocked the bracelets to haul him off to the juvenile facility, not a word between them.

  None were necessary, but the baleful glance the boy shot back at Eric made him catch his breath with the memory of a little girl who had looked at him that way long ago. Her eyes were just that color of brilliant turquoise and told him everything that was in her heart.

  Please talk to me. Please don’t make me go back home to my mother and my sister with nothing to show for what I did for you.

  Guilt hit him in the same place it always did, low in his gut, sharp, a white-hot fire poker piked into his belly.

  He hated dealing with Simone’s kid. Two or three times a week, he lived through the day he had walked away from his savior, the little girl who’d begged for some acknowledgment from the big badass of Chouteau High. He owed her so much, not the least of which a simple “thank you,” but he’d turned his back on her, too humiliated that a twelve-year-old girl had done what no one else could or would, too afraid to talk to her in case someone accused him of rape again, too aware that she had saved his life—

  It never went away, that vile concoction of shame and regret, humiliation and fervent gratitude that had pooled in the bottom of his soul for the last thirteen years.

  That kid needed something from him or he wouldn’t go to such lengths to get his attention, but Eric couldn’t figure it out. Apparently, he continued to fail whatever test the boy kept giving him and it frustrated Eric to no end, but if he wouldn’t speak . . .

  Eric’s phone rang again. He didn’t have to wonder who would call so soon after his namesake’s arrest, but he checked the name on the display anyway.

  “LaVon, good afternoon,” he said, affecting a cheer he didn’t feel. “Why are you up so early? Shou
ldn’t you be hung over or something?”

  “You half-breed bastard,” she snarled at him.

  “Have I thanked you yet today, LaVon?”

  Nothing else drove Simone and LaVon Whittaker madder than when he rubbed their noses in the fact that their machinations had only served to make him fairly powerful.

  “Oh, fuck you.”

  “So are you calling about the press conference or Satanette’s spawn?”

  “What’d you do with him?”

  “You know where he is and you know I’m going to keep him at least overnight.”

  “You think he can suck you off all night?”

  Eric yawned.

  “Simone’s on her way up there to get him and you better have him ready.”

  “LaVon, you know the drill. He stays until I say he can go.”

  He hung up in the middle of one of her tirades questioning his parentage, which wasn’t an entirely unreasonable thing for her to question. He questioned it often enough himself.

  Another knock at his door and Eric looked up to see his youngest prosecutor poke her head in his door. “Simone’s here.”

  No shit. “Get rid of her.”

  “Eric, let me get a restraining order on her and be done with it.”

  Eric cocked an eyebrow at her. She sighed and disappeared, closing the door behind her. Poor Lesley, always having to deal with Simone and LaVon Whittaker since Justice had passed that chore onto Adam, who had passed it on as soon as he could get away with it. It’d always been the low man’s job.

  He heard Lesley’s stern voice, then the inevitable screeching. She had little patience for the entire business and would have Simone dragged out by a deputy the minute Simone dropped the first F-bomb, which usually took under ten seconds.

  Eric shook his head and wondered what it would take to get Simone Whittaker out of his life, then decided that nothing short of her death could solve the problem.

  * * * * *

  8: Needs Must, When the Devil Drives

  April 2009

  Vanessa looked at the printout of the obituary Knox had sent to her via email with the entire message in the subject line: