Harlequin Romantic Suspense July 2021 Box Set

by Carla Cassidy

  He appeared to be paying avid attention. She still couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Or believing. His gaze seemed softer still. More personal, too. She wanted to get distracted by that. To distract him. And couldn’t afford to do either.

  “He’s a guy who thinks of every eventuality and protects against them,” she said. “Not a man who’d ever hurt anyone. All those years... He’d stop my father, but he never gave back. He defended, but never attacked. It’s just not Josh.”

  He nodded. But whether or not it was in confirmation, she didn’t know. Wasn’t sure she could trust herself to know.

  She wanted to trust him, though. So badly.

  “Josh is meeting with Heidi today to discuss giving me custody of Bella, at least for now. I assumed, with all that’s going on, that he’d do it virtually, but obviously not. He’s going to offer, at my suggestion, that the two of them go to counseling together at whatever point it’s deemed appropriate. That they work together to become good and healthy parents to Bella. He’s telling her that I’ll make visitation as easy and home friendly as the courts will allow—she’s currently only allowed supervised visits, which I’m sure you know, and I’m sure you heard yesterday that that’s all Josh gets right now, too.”

  He nodded again. Felt like confirmation that time. Did that mean the prior one had not been?

  “She doesn’t really have a say at this point, as he’s been Bella’s full custodial parent, but he wants Heidi’s buy-in. He wants her to be willing to sign whatever papers are necessary to give me full guardianship. We aren’t sure about all the legalities, but he wants us all agreed before he calls his family lawyer to put things in action.” He’d actually talked about adoption if it came to that, but she’d cut him off at that point. There was no way he was going to give up Bella to that extent. No way.

  “I didn’t know he was going to meet with Heidi in person,” she added, again. “I would have warned him against that.” And wasn’t sure Josh would have listened on that one. Which could be why he hadn’t told her. If he was falling for Heidi’s lies again, they were in much more serious trouble than she’d even thought.

  “You think he still loves Heidi?”

  She shrugged. Had asked herself the same question many times. “Maybe,” she said. “I think he definitely loves the person she can be when she’s in a good place. But I know he sees the other side clearly now, too. Mostly, I think he knows what it’s like to grow up not knowing your biological parent, and he doesn’t want Bella to go through that. At the same time, he recognizes that it’s not healthy for her to be around an abusive mom. I think he’s hoping that the counseling, the divorce and losing custody have helped Heidi change.”

  “But you don’t believe that it has?”

  “I’d hoped, but, no, not really. She just didn’t seem... I don’t know...” Heidi had said the right things the time or two she’d seen her, but there’d been a missing...something, too. It was like she wasn’t fully engaged, and Jasmine had worried about what would happen when Heidi let it all loose. Would she be able to control it?

  “And now that she’s pulling this stunt, and I find out she was working him for partial custody when she’d already been told by the state that she wouldn’t be eligible for five years... I know she hasn’t changed.”

  He pushed a lock of hair away from her face, grazing her skin. She stared up at him. “Are you sure you’re open to seeing the change? To believing it can happen?”

  He wasn’t asking about Heidi, now. It was like she read words in his eyes. He wanted to know if she could believe that her brother had changed from who she knew him to be? Wanted to know if she believed Josh had become an abuser?

  Or was he just needing reassurance that she’d know if he had? That she’d be able to see if he had?

  She’d grown up a victim. He knew her history with adult relationships. She understood his doubt.

  “I know I’m able to see it,” she told him. And then added more, even though she was opening a door she’d rather not have him enter. “I’ve seen it in Wynne.”

  She wasn’t ashamed of her relationship with Wynne. Of having had a same-sex partner. She just didn’t expect others—men, mostly—to understand. Or not get all weird about it.

  Noah had thought it was cool. Until he found out that it didn’t make her open to threesomes.

  And while Greg most definitely didn’t send out that kind of vibe, she didn’t want to find out she was wrong and be disappointed some more. It wasn’t like she and Greg were ever going to be anything. It didn’t hurt to want to think good thoughts about him.

  “You still care about her,” he said, seeming to take a step back without moving his feet. Cars flew by occasionally. She’d been aware. Paid no attention. And suddenly felt as though they were on display, standing out there with his SUV between them and the road.

  Who was going to think twice about seeing them out there?

  “I do.” She wasn’t going to lie. Most particularly not to him. If he caught her in one little white stretching of the truth, it could be over for Josh. After seeing William Brubaker in court the previous afternoon, she was fairly certain the man was determined to win his case. Regardless of whether or not Josh had abused his wife. She figured he believed Josh had done it. That he believed Heidi. And his mind was closed to any other scenario.

  “Is it hard for you? Seeing her married to someone else?”

  “No!” She heard how loud her voice had become and softened her tone. “Not at all. I want her happy, and it wasn’t going to happen with me.”

  “Because you couldn’t give her a second chance? You said all three of your exes were abusive, so I’m assuming she was? And agreed to leave you alone as long as you didn’t ruin her political aspirations by going public with her abuse?”

  He paid attention to what she’d told him. There was no doubting that much.

  “Because she’s a woman who faces public scrutiny, and backlash from political opponents, every day in her public life, which gives her a tendency to be insecure in her private one.” She told him another truth she hadn’t spoken to anyone else. Because she had to. For Josh’s sake.

  Or was it because there was something about this man that compelled her to be her real self with him, in a way she’d never been able to be with anyone else?

  Oh God, was she in trouble here? Falling for this guy for real?

  Did that mean that underneath all of his avowals of wanting honesty, and his good-guy demeanor, he had a mean streak, too?

  “And I’m too sensitive to other people’s emotional nuances to be at peace with that. Wynne’s a strong, public person. She has to be to make the differences she’s making. I’m someone who likes to keep my private stuff private.”

  She couldn’t decipher his expression as he continued to watch her. And couldn’t have him thinking she didn’t know her own mind. Or wasn’t perfectly rational and reliable.

  “Wynne was there when I got the rest of my stuff out of the place I’d shared with D—Mike.” She’d almost used Des’s real name. She had to be more careful. “She stood up to him, not backing down, when he made a verbal slur or two. And when we left, she was so understanding—in an emotional way. She sat with me as I worked through it, sharing the emotion with me. It was...oddly compelling. Of course I know now that I was susceptible, due to the relationship challenges I face. Wynne fit my pattern. Anyway, a deep friendship was solidified that night, and I found myself relying on her as things happened in my day and wanting to be there for whatever she happened to be facing. I knew she was gay, but didn’t care, one way or the other. I never really have thought too much about a person’s sexual orientation. She was Wynne, and I was falling in love with her, with the us we were creating. To me, sex is a culmination of being with someone who you want to be with more than anyone else. That’s what powers the need to see, to touch, to be intimate. That’s what pow
ers the arousal. Sexual attraction grows out of an emotional bond, not a predilection for body parts.

  “I can be equally aroused, and satisfied, from either sex if the emotional bond is there. And, for me, it also has to be monogamous from the very beginning. Sex is the one thing you share with your partner that no one else in the world gets to share. Or have a part of. Truthfully, for most of my life, I thought everyone was built that way, but that a lot of us just followed societal norms because that’s what we’d been taught. Or for procreation. It wasn’t until Wynne had such a hard time accepting that I could be satisfied with just her after I’d been attracted to men, had sex with men, that I saw how different I was. She was beautiful and charming...and I never wanted anyone else when we were together...” She shrugged.

  “And that’s when she became abusive? When she started to think you were attracted to men, too? That you couldn’t be satisfied only by her?” he asked.

  His voice, the motorcycle that sped by, the sun in her eyes, all hit at the same time. She wanted to get back to the Stand. To collect Bella and go home.

  And wished she’d met Greg under different circumstances. That he wasn’t a cop. In a position of power.

  How could he sit there so calmly, accept her so calmly? As though it all made sense to him? As though she made sense to him?

  “She was never physically abusive,” she said, needing to finish this off. She’d started it. It had to end. “She just got extremely possessive, and she’s already got that take-charge personality. And then, once, when I wouldn’t say that I was a lesbian, she was verbally abusive. It was like, in her mind, I wasn’t fully accepting of who we were as a couple. The abuse only happened that once. Neither of us allowed it to go any further than that. And I didn’t offer her an agreement—she asked for one. She heard herself screaming horrible things at me and immediately stopped. Midsentence. She knew we had to break up. She had other issues going on and put herself in counseling and got herself right. And while I care deeply about her, I’d already begun to realize that we weren’t right for each other. Not because of the sex, but because of the lives we’d chosen to live. I wasn’t happy being the partner of a politician. I dreaded the dinners, the constant smiles, the fund raising. And once that emotional bond waned, so did the sexual desire. We stay in touch, though we don’t see each other all that much anymore. I get the feeling Andrea doesn’t like me.” She shrugged. He now knew all about a part of her life even Josh didn’t know.

  Her brother had known Wynne. Knew they were friends. Roommates. But...

  “So, just to be clear, given the right relationship...you...feel arousal for men, too?”

  Wynne was special. Important to her. Jasmine didn’t regret that they’d loved each other. Or how they’d loved each other. Wynne just hadn’t been the right life-partner relationship.

  “I most definitely feel it,” she told him.

  And could have sworn she saw him smile.

  CHAPTER 14

  When exactly he got the idea that he could help Jasmine and still see her brother pay for his crime, Greg didn’t know. It kind of grew on him. And the more he knew of her, the more he got to know her, the more it all made sense.

  Jasmine had suffered more than a lot of women before she’d even reached adulthood. At a time when she should have been carefree and exploring her own strengths, she’d been forced to protect the brother she’d loved. And then watch him protect her.

  She was aware. Responsible. She took accountability. There were no chips on her shoulders that he could see. No blaming others for what went wrong in her life. There was only facing the challenge and doing what you had to do to get to the other side.

  The one constant in her life, through all the battles, appeared to be Josh. Of course she couldn’t imagine him in any kind of role that made him dangerous. To her or anyone else.

  That crash was going to be a hard one. Probably the hardest in her life. She’d need a friend. Someone who could deal with whatever fallout she might suffer and remain calm—as Josh had seemingly always done.

  Maybe he, in all of his dread of drama, his calm demeanor, his logical, problem-solving mind, was what she needed.

  Maybe Liv had prepared him.

  As a friend, that was. Jasmine had made it quite clear that she wasn’t looking for more than that. And if she ended up with her three-year-old niece, which seemed almost inevitable from where he sat, she’d have enough to deal with without the added uncertainty of a new relationship.

  But a friendship...that just was.

  Appeared almost to be already.

  Regardless, he had to stick close to her. Because the bottom line was that if Heidi was telling the truth, and he had no doubts that she was, then Josh Taylor was a potentially dangerous man. And Jasmine and Bella, as his closest family, stood a good chance of becoming his victims.

  That was it. That was why he couldn’t get this woman off his mind. Because he sensed that she could be in danger.

  The idea made sense. Sat well with him as he hung at home Friday night, thinking about her. Picking up his phone to call her a time or two and setting it back down.

  He could tell her to watch out for herself. She was never, ever going to suspect that her brother would hurt her. She’d just quit trusting Greg to be open to the truth.

  He had one hell of a job ahead of him. One that might just help him find some peace for a conscience that he’d been battling since the last case he’d prosecuted. The reason he’d left the prosecutorial side and gone back to the academy to become a detective. As a lawyer, he’d once won a conviction with the evidence he had, sent a fall guy to jail and allowed a criminal to walk free.

  If he was going to be her friend, help her through what lay ahead with her brother, she had to trust him. Therein lay his biggest challenge. Jasmine Taylor didn’t even fully trust herself. And she most particularly didn’t trust men like him who fit her pattern. He had to let her get to know him.

  To tell her he’d been a prosecutor before he’d been a prosecutor’s detective. And maybe tell her how badly he’d let Liv down, too.

  With that thought in mind, he picked up his phone. Added her to speed dial and then tested the button.

  He heard ringing. Six times. And then got her voice mail. The button worked.

  * * *

  She heard the phone ring. It was on the counter in the kitchen where she’d set it after speaking with Josh that evening. He’d read Bella her story. Blew her good-night kisses. Accepted the kisses the little girl’s lips put on her phone screen. And then, once Bella was tucked in, Josh had asked her to do something she absolutely didn’t want to do.

  Talk to Heidi.

  His ex-wife needed reassurances that if she went along with Josh’s plan, Jasmine wouldn’t try to keep her from her child. He’d insisted that she just wanted to know that Jasmine would still give her a say in decisions regarding Bella’s future.

  She’d promised to call the other woman but hadn’t had the chance. Heidi had shown up on her doorstep half an hour after Bella went to sleep. She’d claimed Josh had given her the code to get past security and into her neighborhood. And wanting to keep peace, and because Heidi met her gaze without that wild-eyed look, she’d let her in.

  Josh was certain they could all work this out as a family. That Heidi had seemed calm with accepting that while she couldn’t have custody of Bella for another three years at least, Josh wouldn’t have their daughter, either. He seemed to think that he’d be able to talk Heidi into dropping the abuse charges against him, too.

  And that was the only real reason she was sitting in her living room, listening to Heidi, hoping to God she hadn’t made a mistake. All she had to do was listen, to let Heidi talk, to help her feel heard and understood, and then maybe they could talk about the fake charges.

  “Who’s calling you this late at night?” Heidi asked when the phone’s ring f
inally quieted.

  “I don’t know.” She knew who she’d most like to talk to at the moment, but figured that would have been a mistake, too. She didn’t need more of Greg Johnson in her personal life. No matter how much she might want him there.

  “It’s Josh, isn’t it?” Heidi stood up, and Jasmine forced herself to remain calm. If she didn’t engage, Heidi would sit back down. They’d been through some pretty horrible scenes during their years as family, and Jasmine always seemed to have a calming effect on the younger woman. “The two of you, you’re working me. In this together. I knew it!” Her voice grew louder still. “There’s no breaking into the two of you. It’s like this impenetrable wall. Always there for each other. Protecting each other. Well, I’ve got news for you, Jasmine. You aren’t going to be able to protect him this time. You two think you’re so perfect, but he’s not. He hurt me, Jasmine. He abused me, and he’s going to pay, just like I had to.”

  She wished she had her phone. Could be recording this. Surely the court would see that Heidi was out for revenge.

  “Tell me about it.” She forced herself to speak with a compassion she just didn’t feel. Not anymore. Not for this woman. “But keep your voice down. You don’t want to wake Bella. You don’t want her telling anyone you were here or that she heard Mommy yelling.”

  Heidi watched her through narrowed eyes. She didn’t sit. But her voice was lowered when she spoke again. “He grabbed my wrist so hard it was bruised to the elbow,” she said, her eyes starting to get a more faraway look. “When I tried to pull away, he wouldn’t let go, and that’s how it got sprained. But that’s not the first time he hurt me,” she said. “It’s just the first time there was any evidence.”

  Jasmine could hardly sit still, but she knew from past experience that if she stood, Heidi would take the move as aggressive, as though Jasmine was standing up to her, and get defensive.

  She had to talk her down. Not raise the fight in her. And, it occurred to her, maybe she could get something out of Heidi to take to Greg. Something that could prove the lie to her accusations.