Make You Feel My Love: A Small Town Romantic Suspense (Wishing For A Hero Book 1)

by Kait Nolan

  “That’s…wow. I knew he didn’t do jewelry but, damn.” Did the man know nothing?

  “I’d thought maybe you helped him pick it out.”

  Autumn handed the box back. “If he’d solicited my opinion, I’d have steered him in a direction that wasn’t going to piss you off.”

  Mary Alice studied Autumn as if she were a puzzle that made no sense. “You would have, wouldn’t you?” She shook her head with a wry smile. “I really wanted to hate you. I wanted to put this all on your head. All his other girlfriends did. But you really do try just to be a friend to him.”

  “It would be shitty of me to be anything else.”

  “But you love him.”

  It didn’t surprise Autumn that Mary Alice knew it. Probably everyone in town knew it except for Judd himself. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. I want him to be happy.” Even if it’s with someone who isn’t me.

  She picked up the wine again, giving Autumn a long look over the rim of the glass. “You really want Judd to be happy? Go after him yourself.”

  Autumn stared at her, so taken aback she could only sputter, “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, don’t look at me like that. You’re both selling yourselves short if either of you ever thinks you’re going to be happy with anybody else. No one else could ever compete with the bond between you.”

  She’d thought so herself for years, but hearing it so plainly stated by someone she knew loved him left Autumn feeling off balance.

  “I don’t know what his reasons are for not crossing that line with you, but I think it’s time you pushed him over it. If you don’t, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Autumn asked.

  Mary Alice polished off the wine. “Because I love him, too, and I want him to be happy. You’ll make him happy and whole in a way I never could.”

  It was as close to permission as she was ever going to get and the idea of it terrified her. Because that wasn’t something she was prepared to discuss with Mary Alice, Autumn edged toward the door. “I should go.”

  “It’s probably best if you don’t mention this conversation to Judd.”

  “No arguments there.” Autumn stepped back out into the cooling night. “For what it’s worth, I really am sorry about the bracelet.”

  “Eh, I’ll pawn it and put the money toward something fun. Maybe a weekend out of town with my girlfriends.”

  “I wish you all the best.”

  Mary Alice studied her. “I believe you mean that. So thanks. And I’ll wish you good luck. Judd’s a stubborn man. You’re going to need it.”

  Chapter 9

  By the time Judd got home, Autumn was sound asleep, curled up in her own bed with Boudreaux. She’d had two incredibly rough days and the skin beneath her eyes looked bruised. So he pushed the questions he needed to ask off until morning. He slept poorly, one ear cocked for any signs of distress from her room. But no screams dragged him from sleep. When he woke in the gray light of dawn, he didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

  Her room was empty, the bed neatly made, the suitcases stacked in a corner. Maybe she hadn’t spent as easy a night as he’d thought. He found her downstairs, already dressed for work and pouring coffee into a travel mug. Boudreaux sprawled at her feet. Catching sight of him, the dog’s tail made a steady thump against the cabinet.

  Judd scratched him between the ears. “Hey. Been up long?”

  “A while. I forgot how beautiful the sunrises are out here.”

  He stepped up beside her and followed her gaze out the kitchen window. A thin mist scudded along the surface of the water. That was the view that had sold him on this nineteen eighties monstrosity of a house. He could admit to himself now that a part of him had bought it for her, because he knew how much she loved the optimism of dawn. “Been a long time since you’ve seen one.”

  She hummed an acknowledgment. They stood side-by-side, watching the watercolor blush of color fade and the mist dissipate. But for the first time in a long time, the silence between them wasn’t easy. Her expression was shuttered, and he didn’t know where her head was. Was she thinking of her father? Was she still planning to leave? The idea of it cut him to the quick. A life without Autumn in it wasn’t something he wanted to contemplate. She’d been his compass almost all his life. Without her he’d be…lost.

  He thought of Nanna’s assertion. You have the power to make her stay. You always have.

  But what good was that power if he couldn’t keep her safe?

  Turning away from the window, Autumn scooped up her purse.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Going into work. I’m behind after the last couple of days, and I want a couple hours of quiet to myself before we open and all the Lookie Lous invade the library to ask about the fire.”

  “Not by yourself, you’re not. Give me ten minutes. I’ll follow you in.”

  He expected her to argue, but she just nodded and sat to wait with the dog.

  He hated this withdrawn, muted version of her. It was too redolent of the way her father had drained all her life and vibrancy. The bastard didn’t have the right to terrorize her back to silence. And after the evidence Charlie had found at the fire, hopefully he’d be well on his way to building a case that would get the son of a bitch put away for whatever remained of his time on earth.

  They caravanned into town, with a brief stop by Leo’s place to drop off Boudreaux. By the time they rolled into the library parking lot, Wishful was stirring, with parents toting kids to school or squeezing in a stop at Sweet Magnolias or The Daily Grind. His stomach growled at the scents of hash browns and bacon the breeze carried over from Dinner Belles.

  Maybe he’d slip over and grab some breakfast to go and bring it back before Autumn got too far into her work.

  She stopped on the sidewalk. “Judd. The door.”

  As he caught sight of what she had, his hand moved to the butt of his gun. “I see it.”

  The plate glass door had been broken. Even from here, he could see something red spilled across the worn tiles of the lobby. Tension whipped through him, but he didn’t voice the question that immediately sprang to mind. When was Livia due to arrive?

  “Wait here.”

  The lock was nothing special, and there was no security to speak of. The vandal had simply been able to reach through the hole in the glass to unlock it. Hell, a smaller person than him could’ve fit through the hole itself. Judd strained to listen as he pulled the door open, mindful of where there might be prints. He heard nothing but the crunch of broken glass beneath his boots as he stepped inside carefully avoiding the pools of what was very definitely paint. Paint, not blood. There was no broken body sprawled out of sight, and some of the strain eased. This was vandalism, not murder. More than likely, whoever had done it was long gone.

  Graffiti was scrawled on the walls in the same red paint dumped on the industrial tile floor. Faithless whore. I see you. Over and over around the big bulletin board for local announcements. And smack in the center was a grainy, photocopied black and white picture of Autumn. Stepping closer, he identified it as the shot from the staff page on the library’s website. But it wasn’t her name scrawled beneath in bold, block letters. It was Harper Jackson.

  “What the hell?”

  Moving beyond the small lobby into the library proper, he circled the perimeter. No one bolted for one of the other exits, and there was no other obvious sign of vandalism. The damage seemed to be confined to the entryway. He’d do a more thorough search in a bit.

  Autumn stood in the lobby, face pale and stricken as she stared at the bulletin board.

  “I told you to wait outside.”

  “How could he possibly have found out? I was careful.”

  A sick feeling set up in his gut. “Careful about what?”

  She closed her eyes, wincing. “I never wanted you to know about it.”

  Before the last couple of days, if anyone had asked, Judd w
ould’ve staked his life on the fact that they told each other nearly everything. But she’d kept the secret of her mother for years. And apparently there was more. He couldn’t stop the dual flashes of hurt and dread that spurted through him.

  “Know about what, Autumn?” He knew he was pulling out his no-nonsense cop voice but couldn’t seem to dial it back.

  “You’ve been wondering how I’ve been supporting myself with my hours cut back so far at the library. You haven’t asked, but you’re not stupid. You know I haven’t been making enough off the pools at Dinner Belles to truly balance it out.”

  Dear God, had she gotten into something illegal? “Have you been gambling?”

  She snorted out a humorless laugh. “No. Nothing illegal. I’ve been writing.”

  “Writing what?”

  “Novels. I started self publishing them nearly a year ago, and they’re doing pretty well.”

  Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t that. His muscles loosened. “Why wouldn’t you want me to know about that? I think it’s great you’re doing something you like and making a success of it.”

  “Because of what I’m writing.”

  “What, are you gonna tell me you’re writing those drug store novels with the women ripping the men’s shirts off?” One glance at the look on Autumn’s face wiped the smirk right off of his. Oh, crap.

  “Um…” he cleared his throat and tried to salvage. “So the half-naked men books. That’s…” Great? Interesting? Nice? “And it’s going well?”

  She rolled her eyes. “There are no half-naked men on my covers, but yes, it is romance. Romantic suspense. So…like if we went to see an action movie, but the romance part of the plot—you know, the part that I like—was the main part of the story.”

  Huh. Chick-Action. Okay… “Help me out, Firefly, because you look like Jimmy Newman when I have to go haul his ass in after a three-day bender. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Hell, you’re doing something you like, right? And you’re doing well with it? So I’m happy for you.”

  “Thanks.” She said it grudgingly, like maybe she didn’t want his support in this.

  What was that about?

  “I’m just surprised this is the first I’m hearing about it. An author in town is something people like to talk about. I’d think Reed would have you signing books over at Inglenook and everyone making a fuss.”

  “It’s not that glamorous. And also, no one knows because I write under a pen name.”

  “Oh.”

  “Because of the sex.”

  “Oh.” There was no other safe thing to say.

  “Because we live in the buckle of the Bible Belt and there are a lot of Puritanical people who feel like they have the right to dictate what other people read based on their own religious or moral beliefs. People who think it’s okay to denigrate the most popular genre of fiction because it’s written predominantly by women, for women, and it celebrates feminism and a woman’s right to not only choose but also demand and expect satisfaction from her partner.” Her eyes snapped to his and her finger got all up in his face. “If you ask whether that’s like women’s porn, I’m going to hit you. It’s not.”

  Judd held up his hands in peace. “I didn’t say anything.” But he was thinking plenty.

  Autumn wasn’t repressed. She’d had adult relationships, same as he had. But it was one of the rare things they never discussed. Knowing she’d written books with that kind of explicit content made him wonder exactly what was in her head. Were those scenes purely made up for the story or were they fantasies of hers? What would it be like to see that side of her?

  You need to stay the hell away from that side of her.

  Pulling his mind out of the gutter, he circled back to the topic at hand. “What does that have to do with this?”

  “Because Harper Jackson is my pen name. I don’t know how my father could’ve found out about it, but the subject matter of these books is exactly the kind of thing he would’ve punished me for. He’d have used it as evidence that I am exactly the faithless whore he accused me of being. Case in point.” She waved a hand at the walls. “If this isn’t a threat that he wants to carry out the promise he made that day in the courtroom, I don’t know what it is.”

  Judd clenched his fists until his knuckles went white. He’d seen the results of her father’s form of punishment. The man had a gift for beatings that left no permanent scar. He would bring hell itself down on Jebediah’s head before letting him lay a finger on her again. Breathing out the rage, Judd forced himself to focus on the immediate problem.

  “He’s not going to get near you.” Reaching for his radio, he called in to dispatch and gave the order for Jebediah to be brought in for questioning.

  Autumn stared at the vandalized wall. “You’re going to have to tell the rest of the department, aren’t you?”

  “Probably. Unless I happen to find conclusive evidence that Jebediah was behind this directly.”

  She wrapped both arms around her middle. “I…Are people going to have to read them? The books? In the department, I mean.” She obviously wasn’t comfortable with that. And given her prediction about how the locals might take the news, he couldn’t blame her.

  “Listen, I can put a gag order on everybody. Keep the details under wraps for the sake of the investigation. We’ll do everything we can to keep your pen name a secret.”

  “I think that cat’s out of the bag. There’s no way you’ll get the scene processed fast enough that we can clean all this up before we open. Word’s going to get out.”

  Judd hated the dejection in her eyes and how this whole thing had dimmed something for her that she clearly loved. He gripped her shoulders and turned her to face him. “I’ll work fast. We’ll go ahead and call Tyler at the hardware store to get some paint prepped. We don’t need to leave the flyer up. I’ll be bagging it for evidence. It will be okay.”

  “Mitzi may kill me herself.”

  “She won’t. You can’t be blamed for someone else’s actions.”

  “My boss is absolutely one of those conservative pearl clutchers who thinks she can push her own agenda on everyone else. She’s going to say that I’ve sullied the good name of this institution by association or some similar bullshit.”

  Judd had some creative suggestions as to what Mitzi could do with her attitude, but he kept them to himself. “It’s going to be okay,” he repeated. He just hoped it was a promise he could keep.

  While Judd processed the scene, Autumn searched the rest of the library, making certain nothing else was out of order. The computers were fine. Nothing else appeared broken or vandalized. He’d targeted the entrance, where she couldn’t fail to see the threat. Given what Judd had said about her father’s health, he probably couldn’t manage more than that. But it was enough to destroy her peace of mind.

  It infuriated her that he still had any power over her. For years she and her mother had been victim to his special brand of psychological warfare. She’d thought herself finally free of it. But that had only been true while he was caged. She’d worked so very hard to build a life she was proud of, a life on her terms—not his—and now within forty-eight hours, he’d managed to threaten all of it. Her home, her job, even her relationship with Judd.

  Judd hadn’t actually answered her question about whether they’d have to read the books as part of the investigation. Maybe she’d luck out and her father slipped up enough to leave a nice, clear fingerprint somewhere. Maybe it wouldn’t come to them combing through her work. She couldn’t think about what it would mean for Judd to read it. Not if she was going to get through today.

  “Whoa.” The sound of the stunned male voice drew her from the circulation desk.

  Contractor Brody Jensen stood in the entryway, looking up at the bulletin board wall. Autumn’s pulse jumped, but Judd had already taken down her picture. There was only the graffiti left.

  “That’s a helluva thing. Any idea who’d do this?”

  “I’ve got some thoughts
on the matter,” Judd rumbled. “I’m done collecting evidence, so you’re clear to take care of this.”

  “Take care of it?” Autumn echoed.

  “Tyler told me what happened,” Brody explained. “I’ve got some time this morning before I have to be on another job, so I figured I’d get things sorted for you. I’ll get the primer on before I go back for supplies to patch the door. Not quite sure what we’ll do about the floor.”

  Autumn wasn’t at all sure that they had the right to do that without involving the library director, but she decided it was better to ask forgiveness than permission. “Thank you, Brody. I really appreciate it. And if you’ll get me the bill, I’ll—”

  “What on earth? Oh my God!” Mitzi’s horrified screech echoed in the tiny lobby as she stepped through the door that had been propped open.

  Autumn fought the urge to cover her ears with both hands.

  “Now Mrs. Farnham, calm down,” Judd began.

  “Calm down? Calm down? The library has been vandalized!”

  “Yes, and I’m investigating.”

  “With all due respect Officer Hamilton—”

  “Chief.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “That would be Chief Hamilton. Chief Curry had a heart attack and has stepped down.” That announcement shut Mitzi down long enough for Judd to finish. “I assure you, the department will be treating this with the utmost priority and sensitivity. Now, as I’m sure you don’t want patrons to see this, we should all get out of Brody’s way so he can get to painting.”

  “But the library’s budget—”

  “Think nothing of it,” Brody assured her. “Consider it a joint donation from Edison Hardware and Jensen Construction.”

  “And your building insurance should cover the door and replacement of the floor,” Judd added. “Go on inside now. Get some coffee going if you need it. I’ll be along shortly to ask you some questions.”