That thought was an irritating sting inside of him, warning him about getting complacent. About going for the obvious. About believing without complete proof.
As a prosecutor he’d been forgiven for doing so. Had even, at times, been expected to trust without all the evidence.
Which was why he was no longer a prosecutor and was a cop instead.
And also why he could never just believe someone without proof.
Heidi Taylor had proof. More than just a photo.
Jasmine had been right about that freckle. But the doctor’s report specified an approximate time of injury, not just based on the patient’s visit, but on the level of discoloration. Of swelling. His estimation—a scientific report the doctor had testified to in court—put the injury at a time that Heidi claimed to have been with Josh. A time when she most definitely had not been at the gym. At least not officially. Members had to get in and out with an ID card. Heidi’s hadn’t been used within the doctor’s twenty-four-hour window. Which didn’t mean definitively that Heidi was telling the truth.
But Greg had spoken with the doctor that morning. Had that opinion verified. Firsthand. Face-to-face.
He’d told Jasmine Taylor he’d get the facts.
And now she was going to give them to him, too. That was the deal. He was sorry that she was going to have to testify, at least to him, against her brother, but that wasn’t his fault. Preventing further abuse lay on him, and he was going to get the job done.
Heidi had admittedly abused her husband—physically and verbally—in the past. And she’d lost control and had shaken her daughter. She’d told him all of it without him even pressing her. But she’d been through counseling and continued to go. She was healthy and wanting to be a part of her daughter’s life again, and Josh Taylor was trying to prevent that from happening—by abusing his wife. If the man didn’t get help, chances were he’d one day strike out at his daughter, too. Maybe not until she was a little older, until she tested him, pushed him too far...
Of course, Heidi could be manipulating Greg—but the prosecutor and the judge, too? “Detective Johnson?”
The voice, coming from a speaker near a heavy locked door, was not Jasmine’s. The door opened, and a fiftyish-looking woman in a pair of blue pants with a matching jacket and blue leather flats stood there. “I’m Lila McDaniels Mantle, managing director of the Stand. Jasmine’s running a couple of minutes late,” she said.
While he’d never seen Mrs. McDaniels Mantle in person, he’d been hearing about her for years. She’d taken on a benefactor’s idea—to create a haven for abused women and children to heal, under the theory that victims of domestic violence already felt so ugly inside that treating them physically well was a basic component to speeding up the healing process—and made the idea a huge success. The numbers of women who left the Stand to lead successful lives, as opposed to those who fell back into victimhood, were far greater than the state’s norm.
“I’m happy to wait,” he told her, taking stock of the smallish woman.
“No, I’ll take you down,” she said, and while her tone was soft, Greg didn’t feel like he had much choice but to follow her. “I told Jasmine the two of you could use my private suite for your conversation,” Lila said as she showed Greg through a doorway and then another pass-coded entry and down a hall. She moved too quickly for him to get much more than a glimpse of many of the rooms he passed—some with open doors, some not. Some larger community areas with several family room–like seating areas. A library. A big cafeteria area. A few women passed, some in pairs, some alone. None of them met his gaze or offered a greeting of any kind.
The lack of friendliness was a bit off-putting. Until he gave himself a mental shake—with a little berating on the side—and realized that the women in these hallways were most likely victims. Almost surely victims since they weren’t wearing The Lemonade Stand shirts he caught glimpses of on three different women in a couple of different rooms. Logic would follow that a man in their midst could very well make them uncomfortable.
And a man of his stature...
Walking beside Lila McDaniels Mantle, he hadn’t felt so big—the woman had a way of taking control and seeming much larger than her size—but Greg suddenly felt like hunching his shoulders a bit. Needing to make himself smaller.
The managing director didn’t speak to him at all—didn’t give him any kind of tour as she hurried him through the halls and toward a door marked with her name. But she smiled at every single woman in their midst—not seeming put out at all by those whose eyes never rose from the floor.
“You can wait for her here,” Lila McDaniels Mantle said, showing him to a conversation area in her office. “She’ll take you through to the suite when she gets here.”
The woman was matter-of-fact. Not friendly, but not at all unfriendly, either. Because she wasn’t sure she could trust him?
On Jasmine’s behalf, she was probably right. Because he had every intention of using the woman to get her brother’s conviction.
But it was the right thing to do. Surely, Lila would see that. Want that. An abuser held accountable. For Jasmine’s sake, even. As hard as it would be for her to have to admit the truth about her brother—in the long run, she’d be better off with him either healthy or serving time. That was the idea here—to prevent domestic violence from happening.
Against Heidi. And Bella. And Jasmine, too.
“I’m watching out for her,” he told the director as she took her purse out of a drawer.
“She thinks you are.” Mrs. McDaniels Mantle held his gaze with a steady stream that didn’t falter. He sensed her warning, whether through the look, or something else he didn’t know. “Josh Taylor saved his sister’s life. And every day his work, his personal efforts, are saving hundreds of lives in this state.”
“I’m aware of his work. Of Play for the Win.”
He was doing his job. Doing it well. And felt guilty as hell for some reason that was baffling the hell out of him. And kind of pissing him off, too.
The director looked as though she had more to say. But shook her head and went for the door. “I’m very late for lunch with my husband,” she said. And then stopped, turned back, came to rest directly in front of him.
“We all have jobs to do,” she said, seeming to choose her words carefully. “And lives to save,” she added. “The key is to figure out whom to save.”
He was going to save them all. Or as many as came into his circle of influence.
“And you do that by figuring out why you’re saving any of them at all.”
He wasn’t following. Frowned. Wished he’d remained standing. The woman was nothing like he’d imagined her.
And everything like he had.
“Why you?” she said to him. “Not why should lives be saved. Why should you be the one saving this particular life?”
What the hell...?
Greg stood, not sure he was going to bother with a response, or even stick around and wait for his appointment. He was in some frickin’ twilight zone. Definitely not a place for a guy like him who didn’t understand needy women well enough on a good day.
His mother was about the only woman he ever got. She was a rock. Happy. Capable. Always there. Always ready. And friends from high school, college, even the prosecutor’s office. Women who understood there were boundaries, and respected them, too.
Women with reasonable expectations...
“Oh, Lila, I’m so sorry I made you even later...”
The voice was fresh air blowing into a confined space. Something a little more normal. Definitely expected.
“Jasmine,” he said, feeling as though he’d known her for a lot longer than a day, judging by how familiar she seemed to him. How glad he was to see her there. “If now’s a bad time, we can set up something else...”
He couldn’t get the offer out fast enoug
h. He’d heard the resort was acres and acres of lush beauty with a beach and ocean below. Sacred gardens. Woods. Lovely bungalows. That reality and his current one didn’t mesh. At all.
“No.” Jasmine met his gaze. “I’m ready. Just had a new student come in this afternoon, and I wanted to make sure he felt comfortable and wouldn’t dread coming back to us in the morning,” Jasmine continued as Lila McDaniels Mantle, with one more glance at Greg, told Jasmine she was happy to help anytime and then said goodbye.
Leaving Greg feeling relieved.
And like Jasmine Taylor had just saved him from a fate worse than failing.
CHAPTER 5
Meeting him at The Lemonade Stand had not been the best choice. The second she saw Greg Johnson standing there in Lila’s office, she’d recognized her mistake. The Stand was her safe place. A little haven in the world where warm fuzzies were free to roam at will.
They now roamed right over to the detective. She wasn’t going to fall for him. Wasn’t even going to entertain the idea of feeling safe with him, either.
He was there on business. And while his business was incredibly personal to her heart and happiness, he wasn’t included in the heart part.
Wanting to lead him straight out to the parking lot, to have their meeting standing on the curb if need be, she thought of Bella and straightened herself out. She wasn’t a vulnerable young woman anymore, looking for someone to be her partner through life, to share the ups and downs, to love her like no one else ever could.
She was a grown woman who’d learned the hard way that she was better off living alone, loving those who needed it most. And trusting Josh to have her back.
“Would you like something to drink?” she asked as she let them both into the private suite behind Lila’s office. “Lila always has tea on hand.”
The living quarters were small, and yet, a place where Jasmine could picture herself being perennially happy. With the rose-colored wing-back chairs made of the finest silk and claw-footed end table, the antique china in a hutch, silk roses in a solid crystal vase, and pictures of faraway places on the walls, she always felt like she could lose yourself to joy in that room. The small adjoining kitchen with table and chairs, and the separate bedroom, were decorated with equal combinations of feminine opulence and whimsy.
So unlike the Lila that ran The Lemonade Stand with a firm, practical, loving hand.
Greg declined refreshments. He shot a pointed look toward the lovely, welcoming couch and pulled out one of the kitchen chairs. Jasmine busied herself brewing some lavender tea.
Maybe she should have thought a bit more before immediately accepting Lila’s offer to have this meeting in her quarters. Greg Johnson’s big presence was a bit much.
Didn’t fit.
And yet she wanted him there. Was happy to see him.
“What do you need to know?” she asked, bringing her tea to the table and sitting down opposite him—not that he was really facing the table. More like he’d pulled the chair out away, facing the biggest expanse of unoccupied room in the small space.
Josh would be the first to tell her that she had to fight any attraction she might feel to the man she was certain was going to help them. Because she had no other friends whom she was vulnerable enough with to confide her lowest lows, her brother had been the one left to pick up her pieces each time she’d ended up broken from another failed relationship. She didn’t need him to tell her, though; she had looked her issues in the eye and taken them on as the baggage they were—lessons to her, but not in charge.
She couldn’t honestly tell herself that that baggage had had no hand in choosing her outfit: a knee-length black-and-white-striped stretch cotton dress or her favorite pair of thin, soft black leggings. The outfit, while completely circumspect for school, showed how slim she was, while making the most of breasts that, while not overly large, had a shape that seemed to attract attention. And while Bella had been smearing peanut butter on the table while she ate her toast, Jasmine had plugged a curling iron into an outlet within view and spent a little time working on the ends of her hair.
Earning her an “Auntie JJ looks peetty” from her niece as they headed out the door.
“How old were you and Josh the first time your father got violent at home?”
The question felt like a slap. Her fault. She’d let herself spend too much time with the baggage...
He’d come there for information that would help Josh. Nothing there to feel good about. Except giving it so that her brother could be free from the nightmare that was Heidi.
“I was four the first time I remember knowing that I had to get Josh upstairs in my doll closet and be really quiet until Mom came to find me,” she said, with very little emotion. The story had been told. It was out. No longer a memory with the power to cripple her.
“Your mother told you to go?”
Dipping her tea bag, she lifted it out of the cup, dropping it onto the side of the china saucer.
“No,” she answered eventually. “I wasn’t even sure she’d find us. I have no idea what I was planning to do from there. Spend the rest of our lives in my closet? It was a separate walk-in closet in my room that my parents built into a dollhouse.”
“Your father, too?”
She nodded. He’d had a good side. A great side. A side that allowed you to love him. A side the world saw. So did all three of her exes.
And Heidi.
“Mom says that the first time I protected Josh was when I was three and he was one. He was just learning to walk and couldn’t take many steps on his own. My father was in one of his rages and apparently I laid Josh down on the floor and got down beside him, pulling a blanket up over the top of us, as though we wouldn’t be seen. According to my mom, when my father saw that, he stopped yelling in midsentence and walked out.”
A decent man had lurked inside him.
“So you grew up with violence? It wasn’t just something that happened later.”
“It’s all we ever knew.”
“Did he ever hit you?” Greg asked.
“Not when Josh was old enough to stop him.”
“But before that?”
She shrugged. More old news. Dealt with. No more power to hurt.
Ah, but she was there to help Josh. “Yes. He broke my tooth when I was six. I have a permanent cap on it.” That was one she remembered specifically. “He had an active backhand,” she said. “It was a part of our lives, almost as frequent as Saturday morning cartoons. And some weeks, as prevalent as bedtime prayers.”
She thought about how that sounded. How...horribly victimized it made them all sound, living like that for so many years.
“He was also generous. Encouraging us to show interest in things and then supporting that interest, both with time and money. He was at every game and school play. Took an active role in holiday shopping and made a wonderful Santa on Christmas mornings.”
And by afternoon he’d have a bourbon, retreat to his home office to work, and come out raging if something wasn’t going his way.
“He’d say the most awful things,” she said aloud, without conscious choice to do so. “From calling one or the other us an imbecile or stupid, to telling my mother she was worthless. He’d tell us his rages were our faults. And if anyone dared talk back, he’d throw a backhand.”
“So his anger was work related?”
“Not necessarily. One Christmas he flew off because the swing set he was trying to put together fell over and the top bar hit him in the head. He just had a lightning, vile temper.”
And the rest of the time, when he wasn’t angry, he was a regular husband and father. One who’d amassed enough wealth to provide them all with whatever material things they wanted or needed. He was always generous and seemed to take real joy out of giving to them.
“You said that he didn’t hit you after Josh was old enou
gh to protect you.”
“I said, since he was old enough to stop our dad,” she corrected. They were dealing with the truth here, not versions thereof. “He was tall for his age,” she added. “I told you about it last night. The way he grabbed me up and left the room...” She said she’d been fourteen, which she had been. But Josh’s protection had started even before that.
Which would be pertinent for Greg to know.
“When I was ten, in fifth grade, Josh and I were playing a video game one night after dinner. My job was to clear the table, and I forgot. We’d been playing before dinner, too, and I was beating him at the game.” Not that it mattered. But it stuck in her mind. “My father came in and saw me there and told me that if I didn’t get in the kitchen and get the table cleared, I was going to get a spanking.”
He hadn’t been in a temper. But he’d been serious about the spanking. She’d known that. She’d also known that her mother had already cleared most of the table. Mom had known about the ongoing video game, and they only had half an hour more to play before homework and bedtime. Mary had liked that she and Josh got along so well together. Played together. She hadn’t told Jasmine she could be excused, but when she’d seen them trying to finish their game, she’d smiled and left to clear the table herself.
Their father had only cared that one child wasn’t meeting their responsibilities.
“He told Josh that if he didn’t get up and help me, he was in for it, too.”
Josh had looked at him—and lost a point on the game. “When Josh protested, saying he hadn’t done anything wrong, that clearing the table wasn’t his job, our father’s face turned red, and I knew there was going to be trouble.”
She sipped tea. She’d been over the event multiple times, in joint counseling with Josh when they were younger, and as an adult, too. They’d learned from this incident and were able even to joke about it between the two of them now.
Looking at the detective, she was glad that she’d tended to her issues, done the work, so she could be healthy and healed. She’d hate to be less than her best in front of the man who was there to save them from this current nightmare.
Harlequin Romantic Suspense July 2021 Box Set Page 68