by KB Winters
“I will!” He turned and ran full steam ahead back to Chase and I caught a hint of the questions he was already firing off as he took his place between Chase and the silver wheel.
I laughed at Chase’s raised eyebrows as he listened to the flurry of questions. Poor guy, never had a chance.
* * * *
“Okay, buddy, now all you have to do is hold that line,” Chase said after showing Jackson the proper way to hold the fishing rod.
We’d stopped the boat after sailing for a few hours and Jackson hadn’t been able to contain his excitement over the promise of fishing, so Chase set him up with a baited line and shown him the basics. Chase had trapped him into his life vest, and some kind of seat contraption to make sure he didn’t get carried off the side of the boat in case he caught a really big fish.
“What are we fishing for, boys?” I asked, standing at Jackson’s side and peering over the edge into the deep blue waters. Dusk would be falling soon, and I knew I needed to go down below and get something ready for dinner, but I wanted a few more minutes to soak in the sun. I also didn’t want to miss Jackson catching his first fish, on the off chance he got a bite.
“Yellow Tail Tuna,” Chase replied, taking his place on Jackson’s other side. “That’s mostly what’s out in these parts and what I brought bait for…”
“That helps,” I said, laughing.
Chase grinned at me. His face was showing signs of a sunburn and I made a note to myself to offer him some lotion later on. “Sit back, Mama. We’ve got this!”
I laughed even harder but didn’t argue. I wanted to see Jackson catch a fish, but the hours leading up to it wasn’t going to be terribly exciting. “All right, but if there isn’t a fish to cook in the next hour, I’m gonna have to go cook up some fajitas instead.”
“Ya hear that, bud? We have an hour.”
Jackson nodded, his face set in a very serious, all business expression. I ruffled his hair and crossed the boat to sit back in my chair. I picked up the novel Chase had loaned me and found my way back to where I’d left off. A few minutes later, Chase came to take the seat beside me. I put the book in my lap and looked over at him. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s a natural.” Chase grinned, but it slipped from his face as he met my eyes.
* * * *
An hour passed in the blink of an eye and Jackson hadn’t received so much as a bite. I eventually went down to the kitchen to start cooking dinner, leaving the boys to continue fishing. Chase had piled the bags from his trip into town in the small dining room and I went through one by one, unpacking the dry goods and canned foods. Everything that required refrigeration had already been put away. I checked the list I’d sent with Chase, and saw there was a check mark next to the line that read: Fajita seasoning. But I couldn’t find it anywhere.
I was about to go upstairs and ask, when I saw the door to Chase’s room open and there were two more bags sitting on his bed. I glanced up the stairs and heard Chase and Jackson laughing. It was odd to go into Chase’s room, but I needed the seasoning to make dinner. He wouldn’t mind…it wasn’t like I was snooping or anything.
With a roll of my eyes at my own neurosis, I went into his room and started rummaging through the bags. The first was full of clothing items so I abandoned the search and went to the next. I gasped as I peeked inside.
It was full of weapons.
“Looking for something specific?”
I whipped around at Chase’s voice and my face flushed. What was going on?
“I—um—no…what the hell is going on? Why do you have all…all that?” I gestured over my shoulder. Chase walked into his own room and reached around me, his face a fraction of an inch from mine, as he snagged the bags and then went to shove them in the overhead compartment above the bed. When he straightened, his mouth was set in a firm line. “What are you looking for, Melissa?” he hissed.
He wasn’t going to tell me? Oh, we’d see about that. I was beyond tired of lies and secrets and dangerous plotting.
“Where’s Jackson?” I demanded.
“He had to use the latrine,” Chase said. “I came to grab some snacks before we started fishing again. Now, tell me what you’re doing snooping around my room.”
Relieved that Jackson was safe, I turned my attention back to the disturbing findings. I glanced at the bag and then crossed my arms. “Tell me why you have all of that stuff.”
Chase considered me for a moment, but before I could repeat my demanding question, he sighed. “Well, I was going to wait until tonight…when Jackson went to bed. But, we can do this now…There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”
My stomach clenched at the tone of his voice. “Okayyy?”
“I talked to Matt while I was out today.”
“And?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, stalling. “And things aren’t looking good. The woman you mentioned, Talia—”
“Henry’s whore?” I snarled.
Chase swallowed hard. “She’s dead.”
Dead? My stomach flipped upside down and then rolled back over again. If there had been anything inside it, the contents would have hit the floor between us.
“Melissa?”
My eyes flashed up to Chase. “He did it.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a horrifying, bone chilling statement of truth. I knew, she was dead and that Henry did it. He’d all but admitted to it on the phone with the mysterious Jensen. Make it look like an accident…
“What—uh, what happened to her?”
“There was a plane crash. Apparently, this Talia died upon impact.”
“Is Henry being investigated?”
Chase shook his head. “Not yet, but the FAA and the FBI are involved to figure out what happened. Naturally, they won’t tell Matt’s PI much of anything, but he’s poking around and working his sources to get us more information. But, Melissa, if Henry’s behind this, it’s not safe for you to go back to California until he’s caught and brought to justice.”
“If he’s brought to justice,” I said, my tone hollow and distant as my mind struggled to process everything Chase had just told me. “You don’t know what he’s like, Chase. He’s got really high friends in really low places. Connections with everyone. And the thing about it is, everyone owes him a favor because he’s made them all rich bastards. And if nothing else, he has endless means to pick up and run away to some country or island without extradition laws.” I ran my hand through my hair, exasperated. “And you know what? Even if he does run off, Jackson and I wouldn’t be safe because he’d still find a way to continue his bullshit empire from afar. He’s unstoppable.”
I shook my head as my words broke off, the rest of them too awful to vocalize.
He sighed, as though silently admitting that had been his thought as well. “I’m sure he will, Melissa. He’ll make a mistake at some point. Who knows, they may have evidence now and are building their case. The FAA and the FBI have a ton of resources.”
I nodded but I was a thousand miles away, lost inside my head and growing despair.
“Melissa?”
I brought my eyes to Chase and tried to force a smile, but it evaporated before it could fully form. I wanted to be okay. I wanted to be strong. Resilient. I didn’t want Henry to win—not again. I had to keep it together. But I was rapidly losing control of myself and each day was carrying me further and further away from the life I wanted.
“I’ll be okay, Chase. Thank you for telling me the truth,” my voice quivered.
I flicked away the beginnings of a tear and clenched my jaw to keep a hold on whatever control I had left over my frayed emotions. Everything was so raw and close to the surface. Each new bit of news ripped away at the tiny shreds of hope I’d been clinging to since my first visit to Matt’s office. What had started out as just a divorce case had spiraled so far out of control that it was hard to believe it was my reality, and not just a horrible nightmare.
The idea of divorcing Henry and losing my money
, home, and partial custody of my son had been awful enough to hold me in the sham of a marriage for years longer than I’d wanted to. But this? Knowing that until Henry was caught, I couldn’t go home again…
It was too much.
Right before I crumbled, Chase stepped towards me and I collapsed into his chest. “What the hell am I going to do?” I asked, my voice shaking, right on the brink of tears.
Chase’s hand went to the back of my neck, cradling my head with his strong fingers. “You’re not alone, Melissa. I’m here and I’m not leaving until I know you and Jackson are safe.”
I nodded against his firm chest and grabbed ahold of his strong shoulders and confident words, clinging on for dear life.
Chapter Eight
Chase
Holding Melissa felt good. Too good.
It wasn’t just that she was gorgeous—she was. But there was something else to it. I tried to tell myself it was some protective nature inside of myself. A hormonal thing passed down since the dawn of time for a man to protect his woman.
The problem was, she wasn’t my woman. And I’d gone into many situations with a female client and never struggled to keep things professional between us before—but with Melissa it was getting more and more difficult by the day.
By the hour.
Alone, in my bedroom, with my arms wrapped around her, a hand lost in her hair, it was impossible to keep my thoughts professional.
When she looked up at me, her eyes coated with shiny gloss from unshed tears, my heart dropped out the bottom. I was in trouble. Big, big trouble.
I loosened my grip on her and took a shuffled step backwards. “We’ll figure it out, okay?” I said, trying to clear my mind of the memory of the way her perfect boobs felt against my chest—and how much better they’d feel if we were naked.
“Yeah…” Melissa dropped her eyes to the space I’d put between us.
“Uhm, do you need anything? Help with dinner?”
She shook her head. “No. If you could just look after Jackson for me.”
“Of course.”
“Thank you,” she said softly. “For everything.”
“Of course,” I repeated, adding a bob of my head.
“I’m ready!”
We both turned at the loud proclamation and saw Jackson racing down the hall from the bathroom. He was beaming and couldn’t hold still. “All right, bud. Let’s go catch some fish!”
Melissa laughed and wiped away the last traces of her tears. I backed out of the room and took the stairs two at a time to chase after Jackson as he bolted back on deck.
I was still stewing, wondering why Melissa had really gone into my room. Not only was it an invasion of my space, but it grated on me that she didn’t trust me. I didn’t have long to think about it because Jackson had a bite on the line and we worked together for the next twenty minutes, hauling in a perfect, three-foot tuna by the time Melissa came up to tell us dinner was ready.
“Aw, man! Look, Mama!”
“Oh my God! Baby, you caught one!” She beamed at her son who couldn’t have looked happier than if he’d just died and gone to Heaven.
“Did you see me?”
Melissa nodded and wrapped her arms around her son as I finished off the fish. I’d always hated watching them suffocate and preferred to end their lives more swiftly with a blow to the head. “He was amazing! A natural!” Truthfully, I’d done most of the work as the fight proved too much for the little guy to handle on his own, but he never let go of the rod.
Jackson came over to the fish and I had him hold it up while Melissa used my phone to take a picture since her phone was back with her SUV. “Jump in there with him, Chase!”
I blinked in surprise but did as she asked and wrapped an arm around Jackson’s narrow shoulders as he hoisted the fish up as high as he could manage.
“Perfect!” Melissa cheered as she snapped a few more photos of the two of us. “That’s a keeper!”
I kept my arm around Jackson a moment longer, finding myself overwhelmed with a sudden swell of emotion inside my chest. It was impossible not to think about the day when I might have a son—or daughter—of my own to take fishing. Jackson was the first kid I’d truly spent any amount of time with. Even in previous jobs, if a child was involved, they kept to themselves or their parents and stayed out of my way. Jackson had latched onto me since the beginning and I knew when this job was over, I’d miss having my little three-foot buddy around to help me out. It was exhilarating to open a new window into the world for a child. First with the boat, and then with the fish.
It was a feeling I could get used to. Someday.
I glanced up from the top of Jackson’s head and caught Melissa smiling at me. My heart stumbled inside my chest and I cleared my throat. “Sounds like your mom has dinner ready. What do you say you go keep her company while I get this guy into some ice?”
Jackson nodded and ran across the deck to take his mother’s hand, chattering a mile a minute in play-by-play fashion as they went below to start on the dinner Melissa had prepared.
* * * *
“What a day,” Melissa murmured, sinking into the same chair she’d occupied the night before. “I didn’t think I was going to get Jackson to sleep. He was talking about the fish right up until his little eyes finally closed!”
I joined in her soft laughter and took the chair beside her. This time, I’d brought the wine and glasses up while she wrangled Jackson through his bedtime routine. I poured two glasses and set one on Melissa’s side of the small table between us. “I’ll bet! It’s a pretty big milestone.”
Melissa’s laughter feathered off and she brought her eyes over to me. “Thank you, Chase. That was…that was very special for him. You’re making this whole thing so easy on him. And I was—” she choked up, her eyes pooling with fresh tears. She swallowed hard. “I was worried whether I was doing the right thing here. I didn’t want to traumatize him by taking him out of his whole life, but I couldn’t leave him behind either.”
I nodded. “He’s an amazing kid. That whole thing was special for me too, you know.”
Melissa smiled and blinked back the tears. She took the glass of wine that I’d offered and took a long, slow sip. “I’m glad.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” She turned to face me, keeping her glass firmly in hand.
I hesitated for a moment to figure out the right way to phrase my question. I didn’t want to upset her, but the more I was figuring out about Henry and what he was capable of, the more questions I came up with. “You said…earlier…that Henry was well connected and capable of some dark stuff. So, if you knew that, and knew he was having an affair, then why did you stay for so long?”
Melissa drew in a deep breath and I wondered if I’d crossed a line. “For a long time, I held onto hope that things would change. That eventually he would come back to me and decide he was ready to give up the stuff that was pulling him away from me and from Jackson. At one point, not that long ago, we were trying to have another baby and I was very torn about it. I thought that maybe another baby would be a wakeup call to him. But I think I knew deep down it wouldn’t matter. I’d just be twice as stuck.
“When we got married, he was a nobody. I mean, really, he worked part time as a timeshare salesman. You know, those people who do the sales pitches to a room full of people who just wanted a free vacation?”
I smiled. “Sure.”
“Yeah, that’s what he did. He was good at it, but those guys don’t get paid all that well, even when they can sell. I actually made more money than he did the first year we were married. I worked at a bank.” She smiled at the memory and I sat back, suddenly feeling as though I were intruding on a private moment. Then, her expression crumbled and turned cold again. “He got his break when he was selling the shares. Some big time guy came in, kind of undercover, and after hearing Henry’s pitch, he offered to buy the whole complex of condos if he could also get Henry in the deal. He wanted
him to work for him on future projects. Henry took the deal and studied under him for about eighteen months. He made a lot of money in a very short amount of time and everyone in the real estate world knew about him. Overnight it seemed.”
“That’s impressive.” I’d never heard of her husband before taking the job, but then, I wasn’t in the real estate business.
“Yeah,” Melissa agreed with a nod. She swirled the contents of her wine glass and then took another drink. “Anyway, that was really the beginning of the end. I just didn’t know it at the time. But when I play it back, that’s where things got ugly.”
“How so?” I was full on prying now, but I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted to know what had happened to the beautiful woman in front of me. How she’d transformed into the strong, resilient woman I was getting to know.
“Henry started working ridiculous hours, traveling all over the place, and he had his first affair.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. We’d been married about three years by that point. I was at work and Henry had stopped by to visit. He used to do things like that.” She paused to heave a sigh. “Anyway, while he was still there, this woman in line was acting odd. She kept staring at us. Henry didn’t seem to notice. When he left, she made a beeline for my teller window and asked if I knew that the man who had just been kissing me was seeing another woman. He was seeing her best friend, which is why she’d been so agitated seeing him with me. When I explained that he was my husband, she was utterly horrified and went running out of the bank.”
“Holy shit,” I breathed, my eyebrows halfway up my forehead. I couldn’t even fathom.
“Yeah,” Melissa said. “It was insane. I asked Henry about it that night and he tried to play it off like it was a mistake. Eventually, he apologized and begged me to stay with him and forgive him. I did, but only on the condition that we see a therapist. So, we did that for a while, but Henry missed more appointments than he made. He always blamed it on work and for some dumb reason, I forgave him.
“Things changed when I got pregnant. He was building his own empire then but managed to come home almost every night. He was actually very sweet and I thought maybe things would finally get back on track for our marriage. But by the time Jackson was two, he was back to his old ways, and that time around he didn’t even bother hiding it. He had a lot of celebrity clients and would go out partying with them. So, sometimes there would be pictures of him at some club with a half-naked woman in his lap on the front of some gossip magazines. Eventually I just stopped asking him about it and let him do what he wanted. I was busy trying to raise our son.”