by Addison Fox
“It’s been hard to give up alcohol?” Belle asked, warming to her subject.
“Not as hard as you might think. It’s a heck of a lot easier when you have a good reason.” Reese patted her stomach, still devoid of any visible bump. “But I do miss it from time to time.”
“You really don’t need to open that just for me.”
“Nonsense. We’ll cork it up, and I’m sending it home with you.”
Belle took the offered glass and waited until Reese had poured a fresh club soda for herself before proposing a toast. “To my future niece or nephew.”
“And to my child’s future aunt,” Reese added, a delighted twinkle filling her eyes.
“I’ll toast to that.” Belle lifted her wine.
“Cheers.” The light clink of glasses filled the kitchen before Belle was gestured into a seat. “So paperwork, huh?”
“It’s about as constant as death and taxes. And proof that whatever cop shows make people think police work is all about is a dirty, rotten lie.”
“No stakeouts with sexy partners?”
“Not a one,” Belle said, shaking off an unbidden image of her forty-four-year-old partner, Jared, in silky boxers and nothing else. With the ensuing shudder that rolled down her back, Belle reached for her drink and took a good long swallow. “Not ever.”
“My dad was always pretty down on cop shows. Said they were about as true to life as superheroes and vigilante jus—”
Reese stumbled over the last word, clearly catching herself on the image of an unsupervised individual meting out justice as they saw fit. The happy, light conversation that had carried them to the kitchen and through their afternoon toast faded away.
“Justice,” Belle said quietly, finishing Reese’s sentence.
“A concept I stopped believing in quite a while ago.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Reese looked up from her determined focus on wiping beads of condensation off her glass. “Positive.”
* * *
Reese fought the urge to flee—highly unlikely in her own home and with a MPPD cop present—and tried desperately to get that lighthearted sense of friendship back. Only there wasn’t any getting it back.
Just like she’d never get her father back. Would never get a chance to ask him herself what he could possibly have been thinking to go so out of bounds like he had. To turn so determinedly toward the darkest aspects of his nature.
And worst of all, to decide that it was not only permissible but that it was somehow his right to take the lives of others.
“I think justice still exists. It’s not always easy to find and it’s often blind for a reason, but it’s there all the same.”
Reese shrugged. “If you say so.”
They sat there for a few minutes, the silence filling up with all the things she wanted to say. Or ask, really. What had those last minutes been like, between Belle and her father? Had Russ told her why he’d made such horrible choices? Or had Belle been so focused on fighting for her life that she hadn’t even asked?
Although the realities of that last day had been explained to her by the Feds, their descriptions had been almost clinical in nature. The family of a confessed serial killer, it seemed, were meant to get explanations but weren’t given the room or the time to express their grief or ask their own questions about their loved one.
“Do you know what the worst part is?” The question came out in a whisper, almost as if she were afraid to voice the words. Yet, in that moment, Reese knew she had to push forward. Had to get some answers to the questions that refused to abate.
“What?”
“He seemed so normal. Through it all, he’d remained so calm. So him. Why didn’t we know? Or maybe, more to the point, how didn’t we know? Two weeks before it all happened we’d been at the cabin, cleaning it out for spring. That cabin—” She broke off, the reality of the place where Russ Grantham had kidnapped and taken Belle swallowing her up. The place where he’d then taken his own life.
“He was a good man,” Belle said.
The tears Reese had been determined to hold in welled up, hot and fiery behind her eyes. Hoyt had said the same about Russ. And funny enough, her mother had used the same words as she sneered over Hoyt’s role as father to Reese’s child.
Good man.
What did that even mean anymore?
“No, Belle, he wasn’t. Not in the end. Not when it mattered.”
“I know what I know.”
“And so do I. And what I can’t seem to reconcile is why you all seem so bound and determined to excuse his behavior. Or worse, to attempt to exonerate him somehow.”
“I’m not excusing anything.”
“Oh, no?” Reese stood then, unable to sit still any longer. “You’re not? Or more to the point, is that your way of excusing yourself? You were more than happy to go after him. Is this now your way of making yourself feel better about it?”
Unbidden, her mother’s words from earlier that week came back to her.
He bore up under the weight of Jamie’s death, doing what was right, anyway, as a leader of the police department. All those years spent following the law and locking up criminals who always got out in the end, who always got a future when all his son got was a cold grave. And what did he get for it?
What did he get for it?
What had any of them gotten for it?
Suddenly exhausted, she dropped back into her chair, laying her head on her crossed forearms. Had she, even for a moment, entertained the same train of thought her mother had jumped on? That somehow Russ had been driven to his behavior and everyone else was to blame?
Because whatever she thought—and she thought a lot—she didn’t believe his actions should be blamed on anyone else.
But, oh, how she missed him anyway.
She’d lost her father and everyone thought she should just move on, accept the bad and forget all about the good. To forget about all that had come before the good went away.
To accept that he was a soul who’d lived entirely in darkness.
“I don’t have any excuses, Reese.” A warm hand covered hers where it lay folded over her arm. “I don’t need them. I stand by my decisions and that includes the very difficult decision to go after Russ once I believed he was at fault. I can’t and won’t apologize for that.”
Although the words hurt, there was something soothing in their honesty. More, there was the acknowledgment that Belle had suffered, even if she’d still pushed forward to do what was right.
“But none of that means I can’t see that you’re hurting and that you have every right to the warm, loving memories of your father. No one has a right to take that away from you.”
Reese lifted her head up, her gaze meeting soft, understanding blue. “That’s been the worst part. It’s like a switch flipped and all that came before doesn’t exist. As hard as it was, it wasn’t like that with Jamie. We were allowed to grieve. Allowed to remember him in the time before his addiction without that being tainted by what he’d become.”
“You’re still allowed to grieve. You can with me. And I know you can with Hoyt and his family.”
Oh, how she wanted to believe Belle. That the events this past spring could somehow be overlooked if there were enough understanding and acceptance. That if she only wished hard enough, the very people who’d been confronted with her father’s demons could make all the pain go away.
“How can you say that? From the accounts shared with my mother and me, he was going to take you down with him, only changing his mind there at the end.”
“But he did change his mind. As hard as all this has been, that’s what I can’t let go of or forget. In the end, he did change, Reese.”
Overwhelmed with the lack of artifice or any sense of lingering anger from a place where there should have been plenty, Reese
struggled to put it all together. And once again found herself confiding in Belle instead.
“My mother’s not very excited about the baby.”
“When did you tell her?”
“Wednesday. After telling Hoyt and the rest of you all, it felt wrong that she didn’t know.”
“And she didn’t handle it well?” Belle toyed with the stem of her wineglass, her voice never wavering from the same warm and gentle cadence she’d used since sitting down.
“Best I can tell, she’s not handling anything these days.”
“I tried to go see her. About a month ago. She wasn’t having any of it.”
“You tried to—” Of course Belle would have. She was one of the strongest people Reese had ever met and clearly was the type to go talk to Serena Grantham. “You tried?”
“I did. But she wasn’t ready to talk to me or hear what I had to say. Maybe she never will be, but I don’t think the same can be said for news of her grandchild.”
“I don’t know. She seemed pretty fixated on the unmarried part. And if that weren’t enough, the whole Hoyt-Reynolds-is-the-father part just about put her over the edge.”
“She doesn’t like Hoyt?”
“Which brings us back to where we started. Since the Reynolds family is now tainted with my father’s crimes, I’m some sort of emotional traitor.”
Belle’s eyebrows winged up. “She said all that?”
“I inferred it.” Reese played with the edge of her napkin where it sat below her sweating glass. “But I know I’m right.”
“Well, I know I’m right, too. A baby’s happy news, no matter the circumstances. You just need to give her a bit of time to work her way around to it.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
That warm, soothing hand came down over hers again. “Not gonna happen. Just like I knew your father, I know your mother. Give her some time to get used to the idea. Once she does, I know this baby’s going to do a lot to help put the bad where it belongs.”
“And where’s that?” Reese asked, amazed at how easy it was to believe in Belle’s certainty.
“In the past. Firmly and finally in the past.”
Chapter 11
Heavy, thumping bass echoed from the front of Reese’s house, nearly shaking the windows with the deep, steady rhythm. Whatever Hoyt had pictured in his mind, Reese Grantham as a heavy metal lover was not it.
Not it at all.
Yet, here he stood, the evidence obvious as he caught sight of her silhouette through the front curtain, her head bobbing up and down to the music.
“Reese!” He pounded on the door, trying to get her attention. When the head bouncing only continued, he pressed a finger to the doorbell and refused to let off the ringer.
“What the—” Reese’s shout floated over his head as the door swung open, the music spilling out over him like a wave.
He pulled his finger off the small white button. “I tried the bell. And knocking. And yelling—”
She cut him off with a wave of her hand and ran down the hall toward what could only be called the hell-mouth. The music cut off abruptly, even as the air still seemed to shimmer around him. He stuck a finger in his ear and jiggled, not sure if he’d ever fully hear again. And briefly wondered how developed his child’s hearing was at this stage.
He’d have to look it up. Just like he’d been looking up its size and shape and developmental goals each day, amazed at the idea that his baby was somewhere around the size of a grape at the moment.
Thoughts of babies and auditory development faded as images of that spider on her front porch filled his mind’s eye. He’d been willing to give her some room to think it was a high school prank, but nothing about the incident sat well with him.
He glanced over his shoulder, but all he saw was the bucolic neighborhood in the throes of Texas summer. Grass browned by the sun. A light breeze drifting through trees. And sun so hot he could see shimmering waves emanating off the pavement.
Reese ran back down the hall, her bare legs and feet visible beneath a pair of old UT shorts. He pulled his gaze off her street as an unmitigated shot of lust curled in his belly.
“Don’t run.” He stepped into the house, escaping the early evening heat for the cooler air-conditioning.
“I can still do that, you know. It’s good for me.”
“Pregnant women are supposed to be running from one end of the house to the other?”
“Why not? If it was good for me before, it should still be good for me now.”
Hoyt wasn’t so sure about that—he’d have to check the baby website—but he could hardly argue with the lithe form and strong sexy legs that he still hadn’t managed to tear his gaze from.
“You’re a heavy metal fan?”
“Guilty.”
“Neighbors don’t mind?”
“I think it scares them away.” Reese smiled. “Plus, old Mrs. Campbell next door needs hearing aids and the family on the other side uses that house as their second home, so I’m sort of exempt from annoyed neighbors.”
“Lucky for you.” Or them, Hoyt added silently to himself.
“What’s going on?”
Hoyt fought the shot of irritation that something had to be going on for him to show up, but buried it under the same steady annoyance that had accompanied him all day. Hell, half the week, if he were honest.
He’d gone to the high school to help her and the damn woman had shrugged him off like a nuisance. Like his concerns were extreme at best and paranoid at worse. He wasn’t paranoid. And it galled him that she wasn’t taking things seriously.
And hell, what really bothered him was that Belle had been out here all afternoon, talking to Reese about any number of things, and Reese hadn’t bothered to call him or text him since Wednesday.
Not that he’d called or texted, either, but that was beside the damn point.
“I wanted to see you. Does something have to be going on?”
“No, not at—”
The rest of her sentence was effectively swallowed by his mouth as he pulled her close, anxious and needy to get his hands on her. And his mouth. And whatever else she was willing to let him put on her because damn, the woman was under his skin and nothing seemed to change that.
In fact, Hoyt admitted to himself as he settled his hands at her hips while her arms wrapped themselves around his neck, it kept getting worse.
Way worse.
Somehow, he couldn’t find a way to complain about it when her lush lips opened, her tongue wrapping around his in long, lapping strokes. Hoyt gave himself a moment to simply drink her in. The taste of her. The feel of her. And the strange, calming effect she had on him, even as his body drew tauter and tauter under the sensual onslaught.
Long moments spun out between them, a balm after a long week spent working the ranch, riding Stink all over their property and worrying like an old grandma over Reese’s safety.
He’d believed he could handle it. No, damn it, he would handle it. But it was nice to feel all of it recede as this thing between him and Reese tightened its hold even further.
She broke the kiss first, even as her arms stayed in place around his neck. “That’s quite a hello. Maybe I’ll ignore my doorbell more often.”
“Hello to you, too.”
“Why don’t I start over? Instead of asking why you’re here, I’ll tell you what I really wanted to say.”
The fact that she started again warmed something inside his chest. Something that only grew warmer when he realized that she’d understood how frustrated he’d been by her greeting. “What’s that?”
“I’m glad you’re here and would you like to join me for dinner? I was about to order a pizza, just as soon as I finished vacuuming.”
“I’d like that.”
“Then let’s get to it. The vacuum isn’t qu
ite as much fun without a bit of Metallica in the background, but I’ll make do.”
She’d nearly turned back to the vacuum when his hand snaked out, pulling her close. “No way. I’ll finish the floor. You go order the pizza.”
“How will they hear my order over the racket?”
“That’s your problem.” Hoyt shrugged his shoulders, feeling lighter than he had in days. “I’ve got some cleaning to do.”
* * *
The woman watched from the clearing in the field. She’d already sent the kids off with her ex, well aware that they’d be back later. Especially when Paul caught wind that she’d sent Ben over with an ear infection and a runny nose.
Paul didn’t do runny noses. Or sick kids. Or kids, really, at all.
He’d been her big mistake and she now paid for it each and every day. That and the fact that Paul wasn’t Jamie. He never had been, but she’d pretended to herself that he could be. That if she tried hard enough and took care of him well enough that she’d bring him around. All she’d done was give herself a miserable decade of marriage and two kids who had a father who wanted as little as possible to do with them.
The antithesis of Jamie Grantham.
Oh, if only Jamie had lived. If only things had been different and she’d found a way that last year in high school to help him. His family sure as hell hadn’t, which only meant she should have tried harder.
He’d hidden the drugs from her at first. Or maybe not hidden, exactly, but he had concealed the depth of what he was doing. They’d smoke pot and it was only after he’d drop her off at home after their dates that he’d go find the harder stuff. Not that it would have made a difference, she knew. She was in love with him, and there was nothing he could have done that would have changed her mind.
Nothing at all.
And then he’d gone and died, taking too much too fast and wrapping his car around that tree. Her mother had cried for days, so grateful that her daughter had already been dropped off at home that night and wasn’t anywhere near that death trap of a car. Her friends had told her over and over how lucky she was to have escaped Jamie’s drug addiction. And poor Mrs. Grantham had cried on her shoulder and hugged her tight at the funeral, sick at the loss of her son. Even Jamie’s father had hugged her and thanked her for being such a good influence on Jamie.