by J. M. Madden
The food still tasted good. Period. Stop worrying about things you can’t control.
“How was your day with Hope?”
Jess blinked, and her green gaze sharpened. “Something happened today, and it’s not anything you can change,” she said, holding up a hand when he opened up his mouth. “But it’s something we should talk about and be aware of. And you might let her counselor know.”
“Okay,” he said, putting his fork down, too concerned about his baby girl to eat. “Tell me.”
Jess grimaced and glanced down the hallway, making sure no one had crept out of their bedroom unexpectedly. “We went to the park today, and she had a bit of a meltdown. A little girl came over to play and I told her she could go ahead, but she refused to leave me. When I asked her to explain her fears, she eventually told me her mother had left her in parks before. I don’t know how many times, or anything, but it was enough to traumatize her. I eventually eased her mind enough that she could go play for a while, but watching her deal with it was hard.”
Paul was boiling. His hand clenched into a fist on the table, and if Tara magically appeared before him he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t do something drastic to her. This situation was so infuriating.
Then a cool hand covered his own, drawing his attention back to Jess. “I didn’t tell you this to make you mad, but to give you an insight into her heart. The people she relied on most treated her poorly, and learning how she should be treated is taking her a while to learn. I put her to bed every night at eight, but she doesn’t actually go to bed until she sees you pull into the drive. Did you know that? She stays up until she sees you get out of the car, then she goes to bed.”
He shook his head. “Does she really?” His heart softened at the thought.
“She does. And I haven’t said anything to her about it, because it’s a coping mechanism she’s created to deal with your absence.”
“How can I convince her I’ll always be back?”
Jess frowned, her thumb rubbing circles over the back of his hand absently. “I don’t think it’s smart to tell her you’ll never leave her. She knows that never isn’t real. Her mother probably told her that as well over the years. If she was any kind of mother at all, it’s natural to want to reassure your children when you go somewhere. Hope just needs to learn that she can rely on us to be there for her to the best of our abilities.”
She looked down at their clasped hands and seemed a little flustered. “Sorry,” she murmured as she let go, tucking her hand into her lap. “This little girl has had a rough life, and I want you to just be aware that it will take her time to come around. But she’s getting there. The dog definitely helps. Sophie is a real icebreaker, and Hope is always willing to talk about her. When in doubt, bring up the dog,” she laughed.
Paul nodded. It had been that way since they’d gotten her. And compared to how Hope had been before, she’d come miles in opening up. “Thank you for letting me know,” Paul said, looking down at his half-eaten meal.
“I don’t know if Tara met dealers at the park, or what, but Hope has very vivid traumatic memories of being left behind in one. Or several. That detail I couldn’t pin down.”
He shook his head, feeling slightly defeated. “I just don’t know. I knew she’d been addicted to drugs years ago, but she was digging herself out of the hole when I met her. She’d just gotten a job and was taking college classes. I had no hint she was a user.”
Jess sighed, lifting one foot to the seat of the chair and wrapping her arms around her knee. “And to give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe she wasn’t a user at first. Maybe that came later. Regardless, Hope has memories of it.”
“I’ll send an email to her counselor before her session tomorrow.”
Jess nodded, resting her cheek on her upraised knee. Her tawny hair fanned out around her, and he wanted to reach out and stroke it. She looked so sweet, sitting there looking at him like that. “Finish your dinner,” she urged, smiling gently.
Paul looked down at the food and realized that he was still hungry, even though he was angry. Tara had ruined so much for them. Deliberately, he took a bite of the vegetables and chewed. They were just as delicious as the pork. The two of them sat there quietly together as he finished his meal. He didn’t feel like she was watching him awkwardly cut his meat or anything. She was just there for companionship, which he appreciated.
Jessamy Swan was a conundrum to him. As beautiful as she was, she should grace runways or strut across movie screens. Instead, she was here with them, trying to straighten out their ridiculously complicated lives. And so far, she’d gotten further with Hope than he had. It was hard knowing that if he’d had his way, he would have kicked her out that first day. He was so glad she’d argued with him.
“So, what are my options?” he asked.
She sighed and lifted her brows at him. “Well, just be aware that follow-thru is important with her. If you say you’re going to do something, you’d better do it. She expects disappointment, and whether she can articulate it or not, she’ll remember, and be heartbroken.”
Paul nodded. He already knew that. It was why he was so careful when he spoke to her in the mornings before he left for work. Today he’d told her they would play with the dog when he got home, but that hadn’t worked. “I had an emergency at La Jolla, and couldn’t make it home before her bedtime.”
Jess nodded. “Tell her what happened in the morning. But just be aware that she’s five. In her world, everything revolves around her, and all slights are to her.”
“Yeah, I’ve figured that out already,” he grumbled.
Jess chuckled and rested her hand on his own again, giving it a squeeze. Would she do that to his other one? The prosthetic side? He wasn’t sure if she would or not. Regardless, he took it for what it was. A sympathetic touch.
Something made him turn his hand over, though, and suddenly there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room to breathe. He glanced at Jess. If he let her go quickly, they could go on like it hadn’t happened. Yeah, that was the smarter option. Giving her fingers a squeeze, he let her hand go, because he wasn’t prepared for where things could go.
It surprised Jess when he turned the tables and squeezed her hand, then disappointed her when he let her go. Damn, she thought she might have broken through that upright crustiness he had. It had taken several days for her to just sit down beside him and get him used to her little touches. It was her nature to be touchy and not everyone responded well to that, but she was willing to be patient.
In spite of what Carolina thought, Jess didn’t sleep with men willy-nilly. There had to be a reason, an emotion, attached. And Paul, whether he realized it or not, was plucking at her heartstrings as hard as Hope was. The two of them together were really giving her emotions a workout.
When he’d squeezed her hand, a ridiculous little thrill raced through her, and it was so unexpected it made her draw in a heavy draught of air. What the hell was going on?
The man was a workhorse. That much was obvious. What was also obvious was that his heart was the size of a workhorse. He cared for everyone, though his gruff manner didn’t always show it. Jess could see the worry in his eyes as he mentioned the crisis at the hospital, and the outrage on behalf of his daughter’s predicament. He wanted to take care of everyone.
So, that was why he’d been shocked when she’d set the plate in front of him. Paul Jameson was the man that took care of people. He was never the one asking for or expecting help or care. Since he’d hired her to look after Hope, he didn’t expect her to care for him at all.
Which caused Jess, a closeted nurturer, to want to do more for him. She could see the tiredness in the lines around his eyes and around his mouth. He’d frowned a lot today. And she wanted to ease that tiredness. Potentially dangerous, but there it was.
To sidetrack herself, she pushed to her feet, removing his plate and carrying it to the sink. She rinsed it off and put the dishes into the washer, then used a rag to wipe everything do
wn. Which she’d already done before he got home.
“I might go take a shower and get ready for bed,” he murmured, pushing to his feet.
Jess turned and leaned back against the sink. Yes, the sooner he got out of here, the less likely she was to make a fool of herself. “Okay. And Paul?”
“Yes?” he asked tiredly.
“There’s nothing you could have done,” she said simply.
He grimaced and she knew that’s what he would be beating himself up over tonight as he tossed and turned in bed. Every night she could hear him moving around, and she wondered if he ever slept the night through. Or actually achieved deep REM sleep. If he did, it wasn’t for very long. She’d heard him cry out, and she wondered what he would do if she walked into his room at those times. Probably be embarrassed beyond belief and kick her out of his house.
Her heart ached when she heard him cry out, though, and it took everything in her not to make it awkward as hell between them.
Maybe he needed exercise before bed in order to sleep deeply, she thought, and fought not to blush. Paul was not the type to respond to her sexy cajoling, and she needed to remember where that line was. He definitively did not look at her in that way. She was the temporary babysitter, nothing more.
Jess shook her head, wondering why these thoughts pestered her. Paul was no one to her, but there was something that definitely appealed to her. More than was normal walking into a situation like this.
She watched as he left the kitchen, his shoulders cocked like he was tired. Or something was aching on him. Maybe his prosthetic was causing him issues.
Jess had never been around anyone with a fake appendage. It didn’t freak her out, or anything. Quite the contrary. She was impressed with what Paul could do with the arm. They had fashioned it to be arm and hand-shaped. She wasn’t sure how high the prosthetic went on his arm. The coloring was off a little, but not too much. And it moved like a normal hand and wrist would, just a little slower. Paul didn’t seem to have the same grip strength in his right hand as his left, but for what he did, it was probably negligible. After a while, she wasn’t even aware of it.
She wondered how he’d lost it. Obviously it had been when he’d been in the military, but it wasn’t something she could just ask about. Was it?
Sighing, she turned off the lights to the kitchen and locked the patio doors. Paul usually did this, but he seemed more tired than normal. Then she sat down and opened the screen on her computer. It had been a while since she’d checked in on things, and she needed to make sure her investments were working correctly.
8
An hour later, she was just clicking out of her laptop when she heard something outside. Moving cautiously, she stepped away from the light of the laptop and into the hallway. Her gaze probed the dark, but she didn’t see anything. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end, though.
Paul had explained to her about the alarm system, but had he set it before he went to bed?
Jess stood there for a solid five minutes, looking for movement, but nothing happened. Finally, she turned and headed down the hallway. Perhaps a coon or dog had gotten into a trashcan or something.
As she walked down the hallway, though, her senses were still on alert, which was maybe why she heard a voice cry out. Then Sophie began barking like mad. Jess went still, her heart pounding, before bolting down the hallway to Hope’s door. She got there just before Paul did and flung it open. Her hand fumbled for the light switch beside her.
A man in black with a black ski mask on stood dragging at Hope’s arm. The little girl screamed and jerked, flailing, her scrawny little legs flashing white as she tried to pull away. Sophie was literally biting at the man’s ankles before he swung back a leg and kicked her.
Jess watched the little dog fly across the room and her fury surged. Before she could do anything, though, Paul was shoving past her, charging at the man like a locomotive. With one heavy swing of his left arm he punched the man, but Jess realized then that he had probably been in bed, because he’d removed his right arm. Shit! Lunging forward, she grabbed at Hope, pulling her from the man’s grasp as Paul hit him repeatedly.
The man in black had several inches on Paul, though, and more reach. Paul wasn’t a small man by any standard, but the man in black was very tall, probably close to six four or five. And he used that reach to punch Paul several times. Jess dragged Hope out of the bedroom and looked for a weapon to help Paul, but there was nothing, really, in the hallway or Hope’s bedroom. She pushed Hope into Paul’s office down the hall and grabbed an iron poker from the cold fireplace.
“Stay here, Hope. I’m going to help your dad.”
“And Sophie,” the girl cried, sobbing.
Shit. If something happened to that dog, it would break the little girl’s heart, and she’d already had so much loss…
Jess got into Hope’s bedroom just in time to see the man in black tumble through the window headfirst. She ran to it and watched as the man disappeared around the side of the house.
Paul was down on one knee near the closet, wiping blood from his face. Jess grabbed a dirty t-shirt from the floor and crossed to him. “Are you okay?” she panted.
Paul nodded and took the t-shirt from her, wiping at a gash on his forehead as he tried to catch his own breath. When he missed the cut, Jess stepped forward and took it from him, pressing it to the streaming wound above his eyebrow. Paul looked at her, and something flashed between them, some… understanding. “Is Hope okay?”
Jess nodded. “She’s in your office.”
Fearing they would have more bad news, she glanced around. Sophie wasn’t laying where she’d landed. As if she knew it was safe to come out, the little dog limped out from beneath the bed, holding one paw off the floor. She looked pitiful, but she wagged her tail as she joined them near the closet. “Good girl, Sophie,” Jess crooned. “What a little badass you are, standing up for your girl. Stay there, girl.”
“Hold this here,” she instructed Paul. “I need to call the cops.”
She left Paul kneeling on the floor and bent down to pick up Sophie. When she went into the office, Hope was hiding behind the desk. She came out with a cry when she saw Jess holding Sophie. “I think she’ll be okay, but we need to call the police. Are you okay? Did the man hurt you?”
Hope rubbed her arm but shook her head as she took Sophie from Jess’s arms. “I’m okay. Did he hurt Daddy?”
“A little bit,” Jess admitted, crossing to the phone on the desk. She dialed 911 and reported what had happened. Police and an EMS would be on the way, the woman on the other end of the line told her calmly.
Jess didn’t know how dispatchers kept their cool so well. Her heart was still racing out of her chest, but she thought it was just the effects of the adrenalin. She looked up as Paul walked in the door.
“Daddy,” Hope cried, running across to him.
Paul leaned down and tried to comfort her with his body but still hold the cloth to his bleeding forehead. He swayed a little, and Jess hurried across the room to get him to sit in the chair near the fireplace. The knuckles of his left hand were bleeding too. He’d legit whaled on the intruder. Jess was amazed that the man had even been able to jump out of the window after the punches Paul had thrown.
Hurrying from the room, Jess went to the bathroom and dug beneath the sink. There was a small first aid kit here. She popped open the lid and sighed. There was barely anything in it. Maybe there was enough to get the bleeding stopped, though. Quickly, she wet a washcloth and returned to the office, her eyes darting to every window, watching for movement.
Paul grimaced as he allowed her to clean him up. “This is a lot of blood for Hope to see,” Jess whispered to him when he tried to push her away. That got through to him, and he allowed her to wipe away as much of the blood as she could. She taped three gauze four by fours over the still bleeding wound, hoping that it would stop the bleeding. Then she moved to his hand.
Oh, hell. “Did you bre
ak it?”
Paul grimaced and flexed his swelling fingers. “I don’t think so.” He stopped moving them, though.
Jess tried to clean up his knuckles, then went to the kitchen to fill a bag with ice. Wrapping the ice bag in a dish towel, she returned to the office and settled the wad on Paul’s hand. Hope looked up at her father, worry clear in her expression. He was murmuring to her softly, telling her everything was going to be okay.
Jess saw the flash of blue lights through the curtains of the window and went out to guide the police and firefighters inside.
Jess guided Hope away from her father as the EMTs started working on him. “Will he be okay?” she breathed, looking up at Jess with tears in her eyes.
Jess nodded, wrapping her arms around the little girl. “I think he will be. He got hurt, though, and it might mean he has to go to the hospital to get patched up.”
“Will they take him to his hospital? They would take really good care of him there.”
Jess frowned. “I don’t think so, honey. I think they have to take him to the closest one.”
A younger officer walked over to them, and she kneeled down beside Hope.
“My name is Officer Dowd. Can I talk to you about what happened?”
Hope nodded, tucking herself in even tighter to Jess. Sophie let out a painful sound, and Jess knew they would have to find an all-night vet for the little dog.
“I want you to tell me what happened tonight, Hope.”
Hope glanced up at Jess, then back at the officer. “A man broke into my bedroom and tried to take me,” she whispered.
“Have you seen this man before,” Officer Dowd asked.
Hope shook her head, but something about the way she looked made Jess think she was lying. Maybe it was the way her eyes stayed on the floor. “Hope?”
She shook her head again, then shrugged as she glanced up at Jess. “He kind of reminded me of my mom’s old boyfriend.”
“Really?” she asked incredulously. She looked across the room at Paul, but he was dealing with the medics. “He had a mask on, honey.”
