“But what if Dwayne figured something out?” Vivi said, looking out the front window at the ensuing carnival. She turned to Bonita. “He won’t care about the money if he finds out Tressa was gonna take off on him. Maybe he’s taken Tressa and skipped town? If those two wreck my wedding, I’m gonna hunt them down like it was the very first day of deer season—for the rest of their lives.” With that, Vivi headed into meltdown mode.
I decided to take Vivi for a walk outside and look around. I carried my cell phone in my hand, gripping it as if it carried the president’s nuclear codes, my eyes scanning the grounds for Tressa. The mayor was in the dunking booth and Kitty and Meridee were in line to throw the ball at the target. We waved to them as we passed. Dallas had finally pulled herself back together after her ride on Secretariat and hovered around Dan and Harry for interviews. The live truck from WTAL was all set up for the six o’clock news near the front of the house. No sign of Tressa.
I could see Vivi was getting more and more jittery. I had to admit, it didn’t look good. We were both standing out in the middle of the grounds, when my phone rang.
“Hello?” I said, trying not to sound desperate.
“It’s me, Tressa. My phone’s been dead and I was running late trying to get Dwayne off my tail. Hopefully y’all will still be there. I gotta go.” She sounded desperate and it made me nervous for her. I knew she was trying to get here and get Dwayne out of her life.
“Let’s get back to the office quick so I can tell the guys,” I said to Vivi, spiking my heels back across the grounds.
Vivi was walking at a clip to keep up, her feet wet and her sandals getting muddy. I updated the boys once we all sat in Lewis’s office, my watch saying it was now six o’clock. And we were still without a signature.
Vivi had almost worn a hole in the brand-new carpet. She never sat, just paced back and forth, biting her nails. Soon it was pushing seven o’clock. I knew no one was gonna stay at that courthouse waiting late for us to get this annulment filed before midnight.
I decided to call for backup. I needed a political favor, and Harry wasn’t the only one who knew a few people in high places. Kitty had been great friends with the probate judge of Tuscaloosa County for years. Harlan McIntosh had been a friend of my daddy’s, too, all the way back to high school. He would have to be my superhero for tonight.
I gave him a call and told him the basics of what was going on. He agreed to come out and wait with us so that once we got Tressa’s signature, he could sign his authorization before the midnight deadline. He said they were on their way over anyway to bring his grandkids to the petting zoo. This is why I know I can never leave Tuscaloosa, I thought. I had a history here, reaching back to before I was even born. I had a whole entourage of superheroes. It seemed like I always needed them, too.
All we had to do now was pray that Tressa and Dwayne would show before midnight.
40
The clock struck eleven, and we all sat motionless in Lewis’s office. We were becoming numb with fatigue and grief. Again, Tressa was not calling—or answering. Bonita and the tugboat captain had been walking the grounds all evening, but with no sightings of Dwayne so far. Vivi stood at the window with Lewis right behind her, rubbing her shoulders.
“You know, it’s not even the time thing,” Vivi said. “It’s the fact that legally you are married to that criminal, and she could decide to come after you again anytime. If she doesn’t show, we might never be able to get legally married. She is your legal wife and Tallulah and I will have nothing.” Vivi had taken all she could, her nerves and worry getting the best of her.
We all watched out the window as the petting zoo packed up the animals and pulled away and the carnival people broke down the merry-go-round and the dunking booth. Then my cell rang and everyone jumped. Tressa.
“We are right here in the office, Tressa. But if you don’t get here in the next few minutes, this deal is off.” I tried to sound demanding and in control. I wanted to throw her into a panic and get her here so the judge could have it in his hands by midnight. The stress was getting the better of all of us.
It was 11:45 p.m. when Tressa drove into the side yard. Her headlights bounced off the walls of the mansion. Everyone was in place. Sonny and Bonita were in the little closet with the listening devices. The judge went down the hall into another room. Sonny had signaled the other officers outside, a couple of them undercover and standing nearby with the captain of the tugboat, ready to ID Dwayne if he showed himself.
Vivi, Lewis and I sat in Lewis’s office alone, my heart pounding out of my chest. Lewis had put a briefcase with fake hundred-dollar bills banded together open and on his desk so Tressa could see it as soon as she entered.
Suddenly, the ceiling gave a loud creak. We all looked up, wondering if someone was still upstairs. It creaked again. The chandelier above Lewis’s desk was swinging, slowly. Another loud crack reverberated through the room, and the plaster around the base of the chain began to crumble to the desk below. Lewis grabbed Vivi and shoved her into the hallway as I ran out next to her, literally diving over her to the floor. Lewis leaped backward and pinned himself up against the wall just as the huge chandelier crashed down, a million pieces shattering all over the desk and floor below.
Lewis scuttled around the mess, trying to get out of the way in case anything else came crashing down from the second floor. I fell to the floor and Vivi ran into the wall in the hallway. Lewis was pushed up against her, covering her body with his. The chandelier glass had exploded over everything in sight.
Sonny came running in from the other room.
“Oh, my God,” he shouted, falling to his knees and bending over me. “Are y’all okay?”
Vivi was crying and holding her stomach.
“Vivi! Vivi! Baby, are you okay?” Lewis was in protector mode.
“I am, I think. What the hell?” Vivi asked. She was scared and rubbing her belly.
“Those damn construction workers. I had an inspection the other day and everything checked out. I don’t understand,” Lewis shouted. He held Vivi’s head in his big hands, looking at her, to see for himself if she was okay.
I found my head in Sonny’s lap as he knelt down beside me. I was scared to death, but decided here was as good a place as any to figure out what happened. So I stayed still.
“Blake, are you okay?”
“Yes,” I said. “Just scared, I think.”
Bonita appeared in the doorway from the side door to the outside, two undercover officers at her side. “Y’all expecting these two by any chance?” She had Tressa and Dwayne both in cuffs, each with an officer.
“What the hell?” Sonny said.
Sonny helped me up and we both brushed ourselves off.
“They were outside, planning on racing in here, grabbing the money when y’all were all knocked out, maybe even killed, by the falling light fixture,” she said. “But I saw them start running just as the lamp started swinging and radioed to the officers outside. They ran them down and cuffed them. They had found Dwayne dressed like a construction worker running from the building. Our tugboat officer took one look at him and confirmed that he was, in fact, the guy working out with Walter Aaron when he was murdered. Turns out, Dwayne set a small explosive up on the second floor to bring down the chandelier. I brought them inside—I thought you might like to do the honors, Officer Bartholomew.”
“Dwayne Martin, you are under arrest for suspected murder of Walter Aaron, and the attempted murder of Lewis Heart, Vivi McFadden and Blake O’Hara Heart. You have the right to remain silent...”
My mind wandered off as he spoke. I loved watching him work. He was wonderful in his element. Tough and strong and serious and with me, he was soft and tender and funny. I fell more in love with him with each word he spoke. I was so proud of him. His job was so important and few cops loved it as mu
ch as he did, or had as much ingrained integrity. Sonny Bartholomew was simply a good man. A really good man.
And I realized right then I would be a fool to let him go. Being with him in this moment made me certain I could learn to be a cop’s wife. I belonged with him. In fact, I could watch him do his thing all day. Bringing down the bad guys and helping the innocent was what drove him. Protecting people. He was one of those cops who was in it for all the right reasons and that made me respect him in a way I had never felt for someone before.
“I guess we read Tressa all wrong,” Bonita said to me. “Here we thought she was trying to escape Dwayne, when really she’d had him involved all along. Goes to show you can’t judge a book by its cover.”
“I guess not. Take ’em down and lock ’em up. I’m on my way. Fantastic job, Bonita.”
“What about the annulment paper?” Vivi asked Bonita with a prayer in her eyes.
We looked at the clock: 11:58 p.m.
“Oh, have your stupid husband.” Tressa sighed as Bonita handed her a pen and the paper from Vivi’s hands. “He’s no good to me now, anyway.” She scrawled a messy signature on the dotted line, then handed it back to Bonita.
At 11:59 p.m. exactly, the paper was handed to Judge Harlan McIntosh. He signed it that minute and turned to leave for the courthouse directly. We had made it—just barely, but we made it.
“Oh, Bonita, thank you.” Vivi ran over and threw her arms around her neck.
“Hey, baby, how’s about we get hitched?” Lewis said, looking at Vivi like he could eat her up. He kissed her like he would never let her go.
Sonny hugged me as Bonita and the two officers left with Tressa and Dwayne. As soon as they were outta sight, he held me up against him and squeezed me gently.
“I was so scared,” he whispered. “I thought you were hurt when I found you on the floor. Blake, I swear I don’t know what I would do if something ever happened to you.”
“I’m not going anywhere, baby, I promise. And...I need to tell you something.”
“What, baby?”
“I was wrong. I can’t wait,” I whispered in his ear. “We’ll have to be careful, Sonny, but I have never been so sure of who I am and what I want as I am right this minute.”
“And just what is it that you want?” He grinned.
“You, Officer, just you.” He kissed me, long and slow.
There we stood, Vivi and me in the arms of the loves of our lives.
41
Events at the station took forever, what with all the reports to be filed and information recorded. I stuck around for all of it, though, since I knew that afterward I’d get Sonny alone again for the first time in what had felt like forever.
To avoid suspicion, Sonny took off before me and I followed in my car soon after. I couldn’t wait to spend an entire night with him uninterrupted. The break we’d taken had been hard, but I realized now that the separation had been good for me, forced me to think. Nearly dying under that chandelier tonight, but for the grace of a few inches, had taken all of those thoughts to a whole new level.
Sonny was right, I’d realized. There was no way to predict how much time we had on earth, so we’d better use it wisely—and that included being with the people who meant the most to us. We would be careful not to flaunt what we were doing in front of everyone and his brother, but we would be together.
My relationship with Sonny, including the self-imposed break we took, made things crystal clear to me for the first time in my life.
I could shine next to him. I could be strong—and independent—and, unlike Harry, Sonny wouldn’t feel threatened by that. Now I could go into this relationship with a stronger heart than I’d ever had before. I could ask Sonny to love me, and give him everything I have in return, and neither of us would be weakened by that. Rather, we would become stronger together.
And I also wasn’t running anymore. I was no longer even worried about Dallas. She had calmed down since I’d threatened her with that privacy act and she knew she’d have to break the law to get anything on any of us. And she certainly couldn’t afford that with her job on the line. It was time to stop focusing on all the things that could go wrong, and turn my attention instead to what I could make right.
I smiled as I turned into Sonny’s long dirt drive. Before we’d left the station he’d whispered that I was in for “A night like you have never experienced.”
I couldn’t drive fast enough.
When I made it to the house, I found that Sonny had packed a picnic of snacks in a basket and grabbed a blanket to sit on. We took it out to a really secluded spot in his backyard. It was so fragrant in the summer night air. His beautiful German shepherd, Bryant, was already asleep in the little doghouse Sonny had built him.
Sonny pulled out a couple of bottles of cold Budweisers, and we sat down on the grass. “I’m so glad you’re here,” Sonny said. He had that playful look in his eyes that I had always loved, and the moonlight was dancing across his shoulders.
He laid me back on the blanket, the sweet scent of magnolias drifting overhead as he settled his face next to mine. His hands wrapped underneath me, pulling me up toward him. Nothing relaxed me like being with him. Nothing ever had.
“I love being here. It’s so intoxicating,” I said, as his lips traveled over my neck.
“Are you sure that’s not the beer that’s got ahold of you?” he mumbled while he continued tasting me.
“No, it’s you. All you,” I said, rolling my head back so he could get a better bite.
Sonny rose to his knees, scooped me up in his arms and carried me inside to his bed. Standing over me, he began unbuttoning his shirt. I lay watching him for a moment, then reached up and unzipped his pants.
He slowly undressed me, almost as if this magical night had made time stand still for us. He gently slid his body on top of mine.
I was entangled by him, seduced by his way, his smell, his bare chest. I was powerless against him. We stretched out and then wrapped ourselves around each other. I let Sonny lead. I wanted him to be in control and to just take me along for the ride.
“Now, about that little surprise I mentioned,” he said, reaching under his pillow and taking out a bottle of coconut massage oil. He had it wrapped in a heating pad to make it warm.
“I do believe I can assist you in relaxing all those muscles you banged up tonight.” He smiled at me as he removed the cap. I turned over to let him start on my back.
Straddling me from behind, he began working the warm liquid into my skin.
“Oh, baby, this is heaven.” I exhaled and stretched out my legs.
“Just be still and I will have you feeling good in no time.” His deep voice caressed me as much as the oil.
He slid his strong fingers around my shoulders, working on every muscle like he had a map to my body. His hands slipped down, gently stroking the side of my breasts, pushing slowly underneath my ribs, then around to my lower back. He worked his way lower, past my hips, pressing firmly but slowly.
Finally, I turned over and smiled up at him lazily. “You missed a spot,” I whispered. “Maybe even more than one.”
“I would never want to neglect my favorite parts.” He grinned.
I raised my arm over my head and rested the back of my hand on the pillows above me, exposing more of me to him. He stopped just long enough to pour some more of the deliciously hot oil into his palm. His long fingers slid gently from the side of my breast to my wrist, my skin tingling as he dragged his hand down my abdomen to my thigh, then slipped underneath to give me a gentle squeeze. Wherever he traveled, he worked his magic.
I don’t know why, but this time felt different with him, as though we were really an official couple. Not sneaking around, though technically we still were. Not the hot, wild passion that we had that day in my office. We s
hared a rhythm tonight that felt as if we belonged to each other.
Maybe the difference was in me. I felt free.
“Blake, you are so beautiful. I have never loved anyone like I love you,” he said as he kissed my wrist, then the crook of my arm, making his way to the top of my shoulder, up to the hollows of my collarbone, rolling his mouth under my jaw and then pressing his lips to mine. I opened my mouth and let him in, kissing him deeply and slowly.
If I never put my clothes on again, and could just lie next to Sonny’s muscled, tanned body pressing into me, I would be happy, satisfied and complete.
“I love you, too, Sonny. The kind of love people live for. The kind of love we die for. I have found all of that with you. I just want to lie here in your arms forever.”
“You just say the word, and I’ll make it happen. Forever.”
Sonny was delicious and sexy, sweet and precious all at the same time. How could I leave? I couldn’t. I was here for the night, although by this time there wasn’t much of it left. I doubted, with the capture of Dwayne and Tressa lighting up the news, that Dallas would be lurking outside Sonny’s tonight. We were not the top story anymore.
I wrapped my bare legs around him, dragging my calves along his bare backside. I kissed his chest, nibbling him, then looked up at him and smiled.
Both of my hands now over my head, he pushed his hands up my arms until he reached my palms. Clasping his fingers through mine, he made love to me with an emotion and a connection that we both had never felt. There was an awareness of what we were doing. It wasn’t as if I was falling into something uncontrollably. I was choosing this. We were choosing this. and we were us now. One. Nothing in my life had ever felt this right.
Eventually, he lay still on top of me, breathing in my skin and kissing my neck. “I know one thing now for sure,” he whispered against my skin. “I am never gonna let you go again.”
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