“Yeah, there are. They don’t use the word hunky though. They use other words.” My stomach hollowed with that last statement. And then he finished with a raspy, “but none of them are you.”
Oh, Lord Almighty! More goosebumps!
“Well, surely you have a girlfriend who’s going to be very upset with me spending the night at your home,” I tried, not liking this thought either.
What was wrong with me?
“You know, you could just come right out and ask me if I’m seeing anyone. No, I don’t currently have a girlfriend who’s going to be pissed off that you spent the night at my house.”
I could feel Roman looking over at me when he said, “and it’s not just one night. You’re going to stay with me until either you can’t stand me or I can’t stand you or we decide we belong together.”
“WHAT?” I yelled.
“That’s right and you can blame your friend Cabe for keeping us apart for so long. I spent the last six years in turmoil. All I could do was think about you, dream about you, wonder about you, get scared for you. You think I don’t know what you’ve been up to? I know all about Safe Haven. I know everything that you’ve been doing. I stayed quiet and I stayed under the radar. I made sure there were extra patrol cars going by the house and I made sure they had regular checks,” He lowered his deep voice and said, “This is good work you’re doing. And Angel, so far, I haven’t learned one thing about you that doesn’t turn me on and you’re not keeping me at bay any longer.”
Turning towards him I said softly, “Thank you for looking out for the girls.”
You see, after all of the criminals who had targeted me were busted, and the discovery of the sex-trafficked girls, I opened a home for the victims of these monsters. Over the last six years, we’d been paying for schooling, counseling, and rehabilitation: basically, whatever the girls needed to get their lives back on track.
Unfortunately, most of the girls were from homes they couldn’t return to. The assumption usually is that most sex trafficked victims were stolen from somewhere and in a sense these girls were stolen, they were lured away from their lives in insidious ways - and the lives they had known - stolen from them.
These bastards would get young adult, glamorous looking women to recruit twelve, thirteen-fourteen-year-old girls and with coercion, drugs, threats, violence, starvation and displacing them geographically. This would leave the girls convinced this was their only way of life. The sad fact was for many of them, it was.
But I wanted to change that for the girls who had nowhere to go. Change it for the victims I could reach. I might not be able to save them all, but I could save a few. And those few might do the same for the next few. At least that was my hope.
We opened a safe house we called Safe Haven. Again, unfortunately, only about a third of the girls stayed with us. Many of them would use us for food and clothing and steal whatever they could from the house. Then they would go right back to the same man or men, as the case might be, who had been selling them. Now, the original girls’ we’d rescued; their captors were in jail. But the men had such a tight network, this Russian mob organization, that all any of the girls had to do was go back to the same place they’d been kept originally, and eventually somebody would be by to collect them.
But we never swayed from our goal to get help for as many of them as we could.
A very few, very lucky , number of the girls were able to go back to their lives before.
For the girls who were left, we provided counseling and a network of mentors who would help them transition to as close to a normal life as possible. Many had graduated high school. Three had gone on to college.
Two of those three were now working as counselors for the new residents of Safe Haven that became residents after I left the country.
Our youngest original victim was now graduating high school and was going away to college. She had devoted herself to the program and was instrumental in making Safe Haven what it was today by identifying, recruiting and networking other victims who were stuck in the same horrible circumstances she had escaped. She actually had become very successful and Cabe began to worry about her safety. Sending her away to college was a great way to get her out of our area and hopefully away from danger.
We took in new girls every week. Most didn’t stay, but once we had them, even for a night, we knew about them and they knew about us. Occasionally we would have issues with the predators who trafficked the girls but Cabe and his team dealt with them swiftly and took care of the security.
Remember the African American Goddess who was the first to help me on scene when Roman was shot? Well her name is Susan, and she’s become one of the most important players in Safe Haven. She now lives there with the girls and reports to me daily. No matter how hard we work, how many girls we rescue, there always seems to be so many more. So many we couldn’t get to.
And to make matters worse, Susan recently reported another horrifying revelation: the discovery of horribly abused young girls’ bodies being dumped after what can only be described as the worst treatment any human, much a less child, could ever endure. It turns out a faction of Russian Mob who operated in Stockton had a taste for young, and I mean young dark-skinned girls.
The younger the better. The darker the better.
Susan, Cabe, and I all agreed it was our responsibility and mission to make sure we protect this segment of our population who was being targeted in such a heinous manner.
Regardless of how exhausted I was, I wasn’t resting until we got to the bottom of this.
But in order to do that, I needed to bury my best friend and her husband, situate her niece, deal with the will, and ditch Tall Dark and Handsome so I could meet up with Susan and see with my own eyes how things were going at Safe Haven. I also needed to make arrangements to speak with the department in charge of investigating these crimes.
Roman brought me back to the conversation inside the truck when he said, “The minute you saved my life from dying on the side of the highway, my life became yours and you became my responsibility. Therefore, anything you’re involved in I’m involved in.” He went quiet for a beat and then said, “But I’d help with Safe Haven anyway. It’s important work you’re doing and I’m committed to protecting you, Susan and the girls. ”
“Thank you Roman. I appreciate your help, and I will accept it one hundred percent for the girls. But you can’t think just because I’m back and that I helped save your life that we are going to be a couple.”
“I don’t care if it’s old-fashioned. I don’t care if it’s a Neanderthal way of thinking. I don’t care how it sounds. All I know with every cell in my body, I’m supposed to take care of you. I know you belong with me, Angel.”
“That’s ridiculous!” I was aghast. I mean, come on! This is modern times; he can’t tell me I belong with him!
Oh, Lord Almighty! Please save me from these well-intentioned men!
“Just to be clear here Roman,” my voice quivered as I said, “I appreciate you think somehow you have to pay me back for saving your life. I appreciate that obligation you feel towards me, but I want to be extremely clear about something; just because I’m a female and you’re a male does not mean suddenly we are going to be together. And it does not mean that you get to make me come home to your house and stay with you. You understand that, right? I am a lawyer. I’m fully functioning and for the last six years, I’ve been doing just fine keeping myself safe away from everyone and everything I know and love. You get that, right?”
“I get that. But you get this: it’s more than you saving my life. You’re going to have to give me a good, no great, damned reason not to want to be with you. So far, Angel, all you’ve done is turn me on. I like your strength. I think it’s sexy as hell.”
And then he smiled a big white Tall Dark and Handsome smile at me, that had me crossing my arms back over my chest.
Oh, Lord Almighty!
Chapter 7
Coffee and Quiet
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br /> T he next few days were a whirlwind.
First, I am not sure what I expected to happen when Roman took me to his place, but whatever it was …didn’t.
After giving us a tour of his lovely, two-bedroom home, he set Agatha and me up in his huge master bedroom, while he slept in his guestroom/gamer room.
“You can sleep in my room. I have a spare room with a bed,” he said.
“Are you sure? I can take the spare room. It doesn’t make sense for you to be uncomfortable. I can sleep anywhere.” It was true. I literally could sleep anywhere. I dozed for a couple of hours and I was good to go. I never slept more than four hours consecutively.
Raquel used to tell me it was my superpower.
“You stay here. I like the thought of you sleeping in my bed.” He gave me a funny look. “I’ll get your luggage,” he said as he left the room.
Looking around, I noticed his room was just like the rest of his home: neat orderly and clean, with huge chairs and his bed was the biggest I’d ever seen, but sparse. It made me think he didn’t spend much time here other than sleeping, and clearly, no woman had gotten her hands on his house and especially not on the master bedroom…. yet.
I felt a little like Goldilocks. He, his home and all of his furnishings were masculine and supersized and made me feel small and feminine. It gave me butterflies that felt kinda good.
That night he was the perfect gentleman and it made me feel a little like an ass that I had been so rude about coming to his home.
But he fixed that the next morning. Turns out I shouldn’t have felt bad in the least.
Like any normal person, I wake up a little grumpy and really don’t want to socialize, or speak, until after I’ve consumed my first or fifth cup of coffee. Coffee and I are old friends. We go way back; we have a long history and honestly, I could be in a relationship with coffee and be perfectly happy.
It’s just how I roll.
Well, it turns out Tall Dark and Handsome is a freakishly early riser and is also one of those truly annoying types who is happy and talkative in the morning. You’d think his early morning run and workout would have offset his energy level a little, but it didn’t. I finally got to a point where I stayed quiet and gave him the death stare, focusing all my mental energy on making him go mute, to no avail.
“You want to drink your coffee out on the patio?” he rasped.
Currently, I was standing by the coffee maker with my hip leaning against the counter, sipping my coffee.
“I have a table and chairs with an umbrella.”
I took a sip of my coffee.
“Last summer I put in an outdoor kitchen.”
Agatha, aka the traitor, wove around Tall Dark and Handsome’s ankles.
“I have a pool and a small pond with fish. Kitty might like checking out the fish,” He chattered on, looking down at Agatha as she wove in and out of his feet while purring up a storm.
Treason.
“Her name is Agatha,” I said, and grabbed the coffee pot and refilled my cup. “Where’s this patio?”
He smiled that ridiculously handsome smile of his and led the way to a sliding glass door located through the living room at the back of the house.
Well, now I knew where he spent all of his money. This backyard was a giant outdoor man cave. He didn’t just have a pool and an outdoor kitchen. He had a huge pool with a slide and a spa. An outdoor kitchen with pizza oven, fire pit, bar, and an outdoor living room complete with sectional and giant TV that hung over the fireplace. Everything but the pool and spa were under a metal roof held up by sturdy square pillars that matched his house.
I took a sip of coffee and watched Agatha waddle to the small shallow koi pond that featured a rock waterfall.
“Some backyard,” I grumbled. What can I say? I was still grumpy.
I sat on one of the bar stools and watched Agatha try to drink all the pond water, so I missed the first part of Tall Dark and Handsome’s strip show. I tuned in somewhere around the time he whipped his tee-shirt off over his head leaving him in his running shorts …only.
Like, he wasn’t wearing anything else.
I gulped my coffee.
I couldn’t help myself. I looked. I looked at every muscle, and line, and bulge on that fine man’s body.
I broke out in a flush and a fine sheen of sweat covered my body, and my dang palms started itching again.
Good God.
I took a giant gulp of the last of my coffee. I couldn’t tear my eyes away. I literally could not make myself stop watching him .
This was crazy. And was going to be super embarrassing if he caught me horn dogging him.
I decided it was time for me to take a shower and get the day started about the time his beautiful body dove into the pool. I would not survive a wet Roman.
“I’m going to go in and get ready,” I said.
Agatha ‘the traitor’ wouldn’t come with me and insisted she stay outside with Roman.
Where was the loyalty?
Later that morning Agatha and I sat next to Tall Dark and Handsome in his truck plotting his demise. Well, truthfully, it was only me. Agatha was laying against his thigh purring up a storm after spending the morning with Roman. They shared a lovely breakfast of tuna and eggs.
I was pointedly ignoring them both until we finally reached Jenna’s home where we were meeting the rest of the ladies before heading to the airport.
The level of elation I felt when we pulled up into her drive and saw that all of the other ladies were already there was seriously off the charts. I’d had about enough of Tall Dark and Handsome’s cheery disposition, and was ready to get back to my sister’s.
I thought for sure I’d be able to shake him at some point during the brief visit at Jenna’s before the group of us ended up piling into assigned vehicles and heading out to pick up Isabella. But he stuck to me like I was his lifeline and he would drown if I got more than a few feet from him.
Plus, he absconded with Agatha’s carrier and refused to hand it over.
We ended up riding in the SUV with Cabe and Becca, who, bless her beautiful heart, talked nonstop and very colorfully about all the animal rescues she’d been involved in and the latest dogfighting ring her and her cohorts had broken up. She kept the stories up the entire drive to the airport. This allowed me to completely ignore Roman and work on my iPad answering emails.
We had a very emotional but rewarding reunion when we picked up Isabella from the airport. Cabe seemed to be more interested in her than he had shown to any female I’ve ever seen in all my six years of knowing him.
A distinctive trait of Cabe’s was his refraining from touching most women. He was such a handsome, attractive guy that it would be easy for women to take any contact he might make the wrong way, so he kept his hands to himself. I was surprised quite frankly, that within minutes of Isabella arriving, Cabe was kind of manhandling her. I wasn’t sure if it was due to his blind loyalty to Antonio, who was Isabella’s uncle and Cabe’s best friend who had just died, or if it was because Isabella was stunningly beautiful in a vivacious Sophia Vergara kind of way.
For instance, when he wanted to break up the emotional girl group we’d engulfed Isabella in when she arrived, he could simply have said, “Okay ladies it’s time to go get the luggage.” But no, he reached in and pulled her out of our group so he could speak directly to her. It was almost like that boy on the playground who pulled your pigtail because he liked you. Now I personally didn’t think this was a great strategy for Cabe, but quite honestly, I’m not sure he could help himself, and it was going to be interesting watching him fumble around a bit.
I’d have to keep a close eye on these two. It might be fun to watch this play out. Little did they know what was coming was big. I was the executor of Raquel, Isabella’s aunt, and Antonio’s will. Due to the verbiage of the will, these two would be spending quite a bit of time together, but I couldn’t alert either of them about it until the will was read to all interested parties, w
hich wasn’t happening until the day after the funeral per Raquel and Antonio’s instructions.
We made it to the estate, where I then proceeded to go over some other uncomfortable things with Isabella, and warned her this was not going to be an easy transition.
There were a lot of forces working against her, but I knew she would have the staff, Cabe, and I would be there for her too. At the same time, we needed to let her make this transition on her own and not impose our will or what we thought was best for her. So that’s how I approached it.
In my opinion, if she did not have room to grow, she was never going to understand what a capable strong, smart woman she was. So my strategy was to be hands-off. I would step in only when or if she needed me. Cabe, on the other hand, was going to be like a bull in a china shop with Isabella and for that sake alone I was insisting on staying at the estate. Roman was going to have to deal with himself.
After I broke the news to Roman that I was staying at the estate until after the will was read, things quickly shifted.
“I think it's best if I stay at the estate for now,” I said.
“Angel…” he started, but I interrupted him.
“I need to keep an eye on things for Isabella. I owe it to Raquel and Antonio.”
With his hands on his hips, he watched me closely for a minute like he expected me to go on or simply by staring at me he would get me to change my mind.
It didn’t happen.
He seemed to resign himself with that knowledge and started making plans. What these plans were I didn’t know, but without saying a word, he walked a few feet away from me with his phone to his ear, speaking rapidly.
The next day was the funeral and I’m not exaggerating when I say burying one of your sisters is one of the most heart-wrenching things you’ll ever do. I can only imagine burying a sibling or a child would be more difficult, but since I had neither and would never have either, this was the closest I was going to come to experiencing this level of grief.
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