Deadly Secrets (New York State Trooper Series Book 3)

by Jen Talty

  The first time ever, actually.

  He was going to have to get over her. He no longer believed in the sanctity of marriage. Been there. Done that. Bought the T-shirt. Lost the T-shirt.

  Patty had her life planned out. She knew exactly the kind of man she’d marry and how many kids they would have. It was apparent when they hooked up that Patty knew what she was getting into, and frankly, she was using him for one wild fling because she’d never done anything crazy.

  She had also never done anything for herself. She had spent an entire childhood taking care of her parents and everyone else in the Harmon family. She needed to get outside of herself, just once, and he was happy to oblige. She was beyond beautiful. Her eyes were the most welcoming soft brown he’d ever seen. Her light complexion blended perfectly against her mousy brown, short hair, with just enough thickness to make running his hands through it a daily experience. Stroking her hair as they wheeled her toward the ambulance had been bittersweet.

  He never anticipated that he’d grow to care for her beyond the line he’d so carefully drawn for himself. He found himself longing to go for walks and to tell her about himself, to listen to her talk about anything. He kept telling himself it was because she never tried to change him. There were no ties with her, and it actually came as a shock that she’d been the one to call it quits. He’d been so stunned he couldn’t muster up a decent response.

  She broke up with him, and he put in his transfer papers. He sold himself on the idea he’d been in Lake George long enough, and it was time to move on.

  Seeing Patty, held at gunpoint, had forced him to start second guessing his current plans. He’d spent the last seven years bitter and angry until he came to this place. Dating Patty had made him never want to leave.

  He glanced at the sun, then back at his feet, and started to pace by his truck in front of Patty’s duplex, the combination of wet snow and the softened ground underneath made for a muddy path. The winters in Lake George, New York were brutal, including the month of April, but they were at least on the upswing, and any snow that fell wouldn’t stick long. He took in a slow breath, doing his best to keep his pulse from causing him a heart attack. Only two women had ever made him nervous.

  One was dead.

  The other, he hadn’t seen in seven years.

  Now, he could add a third. Patty made him nervous in an entirely new way. He felt like a schoolboy, asking his best buddy to ask some girl to be his girlfriend.

  Patty seemed to come back with a resounding no. Yesterday, at the hospital after her statement, she’d done everything but drop-kick him out of the hospital room. It was obvious she wanted him gone. So why had she demanded he come over tonight, saying they really needed to talk?

  His ex-partner, Frank, lived in the other side of the duplex. Frank’s car was nowhere to be found, although his wife, Lacy, was probably looking out the window.

  A tiny bit snow remained on the stairs from the last flurry, so Reese grabbed the shovel and cleared it away, the gesture unnecessary except to stall for time.

  Frank’s door flew open.

  “Hey, Reese,” said Andy, Lacy’s nephew. “Whatcha doing here?” Andy was a good boy who’d been through his share of shit in his short life. Andy’s father had murdered his mother, and tried to have Andy and Lacy killed. The boy seemed to be bouncing back, thanks to Lacy and Frank and the rest of the Harmons. They were good people. Just what a young boy needed to become a grown man capable of everything Reese was not.

  “Came to talk to Patty,” Reese said, giving the boy a good shoulder squeeze. “How goes things with you?”

  “Other than I’m failing science, good.”

  “I was always good in science. Let me know if I can help. You still got my number?”

  “I do.”

  “Text me anytime.”

  Patty opened the door to the upstairs apartment, then smiled at Andy and Reese. Her smile had always been so genuine, but this time it faded quickly. “Come on up,” she said.

  It saddened Reese that seeing him would bring her to a frown. He took the steps slowly, shedding his boots and coat at the top before entering the one-bedroom apartment that he had frequented just a few weeks ago. Their fling had lasted nearly eight months, the longest he’d had in seven years.

  And the only fling he didn’t want to end.

  Patty wore a pair of sweatpants that hugged her round ass like a glove. The sweatshirt, on the other hand, was three sizes too big. Her short brown hair was styled, and pushed behind her ears. It looked as if she were trying to grow it out. He’d always liked her short hair, but he also thought a few inches longer, maybe falling just short of her shoulders would be perfect.

  As he entered her apartment, he wondered what her response would be if he asked her about starting over.

  By the look on her face, she might barf on him again. He swallowed. Never in a million years did he think another woman could make him feel so much. He’d fought it so hard when it came to Patty, that it shouldn’t have surprised him she dumped him. It had only been two weeks, but she seemed like she couldn’t care less that they were over.

  He, on the hand, could barely hold it together. Putting in for that transfer had made him feel sick, but he didn’t know what else to do.

  “I swear that boy grew an inch just in the last month,” he said, falling back on small talk.

  “His father gave up parental rights.”

  “His father is in prison,” Reese said, “for trying to kill the boy. I would certainly hope his rights were stripped away.”

  “Frank and Lacy are filing for adoption.”

  “That’s great,” Reese said. Frank wouldn’t up and leave Andy like his biological father had. It saddened Reese that Andy had to know the ugly truth about his father, but on the other hand, Reese believed it was better than not knowing your father altogether.

  “Can I get you a drink?”

  “How about a cup of hot chocolate?”

  “That, I can do,” she said. “Why don’t we sit in the family room?”

  He stood in the middle of the small room and contemplated where to sit. The chair, so he could see her beautiful figure outlined in the moonlight glowing over the lake? Or the sofa, where he could feel the heat coming from her body?

  He chose the chair, a safer distance.

  From the chair, he could see out the window. The lake was no longer a frozen tundra, but he suspected the water felt like a freezer box, even though they were only weeks away from putting the patrol boats in. He had often thought about putting down roots here, buts roots were not his strong suit.

  “Thanks.” He took the mug she offered and blew on the liquid, then sipped it, before placing the mug on the coaster. Patty was big on coasters. A habit he’d acquired, and would probably take with him to his next place of employment. “How are you doing today? You don’t seem to be limping too badly.”

  “Doesn’t hurt too bad, but it’s been a long twenty-four hours.” She sat on the sofa, tucking her good leg under her, and sipped her cocoa. “Thank you,” she said. “I can’t imagine it was an easy thing to do…to kill a man.”

  “I did my job.” He continued to stare out the window instead of at her. He drew in a long, deep breath. Reese McGinn, the emotionally unavailable man, a pile of emotions who could barely form two words together.

  They grew silent. Normally, he enjoyed the quiet. Preferred it. Now. This moment, watching her long fingers wrap around the mug as she brought it to her pink perky lips, he wished for noise. Anything. The silence made him feel as though he were about to jump out of his skin. He shifted his position three times.

  “I just found out a couple of days ago.” She changed positions on the sofa, lifting her injured leg up, propping her foot on a pillow. “So I’m trying to get used to the idea...”

  “Found out what?”

  “No questions, just let me get through this. Okay?”

  He nodded.

  “Yesterday made me realize, aga
in, how precious and short life is, and that life doesn’t always go as planned.”

  He stared at her, watching her sip from her mug between words. He had drained his as soon as it cooled, but she took her time. She deserved so much more than he could ever give her. He could be a rock. A pillar of strength. But he couldn’t be a partner. He couldn’t share his entire self with anyone, not even her.

  He would hurt her, and he couldn’t live with that.

  “My childhood was difficult,” she continued, “and I promised myself I would do things differently. I thought if I planned everything out, I’d have the perfect little family.”

  “I’m sure you’ll have everything you want.”

  “Let me finish.” She was crying.

  He moved to the couch then sat next to her, putting an arm around her. It felt so good just to touch her that he told himself that would be enough. “You’ve been through a lot. No one deals with facing death the way you have easily, and you need to just go through—”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  “Really, you just…” he heard the words, but his brain was taking a while to decipher the words meaning. “What did you just say?”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  “Come again?” He shot up from the couch, then walked to the other side of the room with his mouth hanging open. “Did you just say pregnant? As in a baby?”

  She rested her cup on the coaster and caught his gaze. Her eyes filled with a mixture of hurt and fear. His gut tightened as if he’d been sucker punched. She was pregnant. He was going to be a father. The last time a woman uttered those words, he’d been overwhelmed with gratitude...but no sooner did he feel joy, than he felt the most agonizing pain he’d ever felt in his life.

  A pain he thought he had buried so deep it couldn’t resurface, yet, here it was, hitting him so deep that all he could see or feel was the rage and pain that had been sieged upon him years ago.

  “How?” he asked. “I mean, we always used protect…” then he remembered. It only took one broke condom... He started to pace in front of the coffee table, as he’d done outside. He ran a hand across his head. His heart swelled with a mixture of fear, anger, joy, and hope. How could one moment in time cause so many conflicting emotions? He had no idea how to respond. How he really felt. He needed time to think. Just as he turned to tell her that, he walked right into the coffee table, dumping the rest of her cocoa all over her lap, turning her sweats into a chocolatey mess.

  “Crap, I’m sorry.” He stood there, staring at her like a fool.

  She looked at him with narrowed eyes. “I need a towel.”

  He stumbled to the galley kitchen, then grabbed the paper towels. By the time he got back, she’d already gotten a towel from the bathroom.

  “At least the sofa is leather, and the floor is hardwood. I need to change.” She disappeared into the bedroom while he continued to clean up the mess, trying not to think.

  His baby. At one time, he had wanted a child. Then Jessica destroyed everything.

  Now? He wasn’t entirely sure of anything. He’d been so closed to the idea, he never allowed himself even a fantasy of being a family man.

  The last time he was only twenty. What the hell did he know? How could he know his soon-to-be bride would destroy the one thing that gave him hope for a better future than his mother, or the man he called Father, had made for him?

  He sank to the floor, not caring about the residual wet seeping into his clothes. He had done his best to forget the final words of his mother before she died, and the secret she took to her grave.

  Reese had tried to find his real father, but had almost no information. His grandparents didn’t help, maintaining they’d always believed Allen McGinn, who was still rotting in prison, was Reese’s father. Reese had been seven when Allen was convicted of murder.

  He’d been devastated. Allen hadn’t been the best father in the world, but he’d tried. The few times he got off drugs, he’d play ball in the yard and take Reese fishing. When he left, Reese was left empty-hearted, with a likewise drug-addicted mother who was incapable of taking care of herself, much less him.

  When he was twenty, she died, after telling him the truth about Allen, but never telling him the name of his real father. When asked, she’d said, “You don’t want to know. He would have been worse than Allen.” She slipped into a deep coma and died three hours later.

  “Hey.” Patty’s voice snapped him out of his trip down not-so-happy memory lane. “Sorry I just blurted that out.” She sat down on the other side of the sofa as he eased himself onto the couch as well. “Not how I wanted to tell you.”

  “You’re sure about this?” He’d done the honorable thing with Jessica, and in the end, got his heart ripped out. Patty wasn’t Jessica. The two women couldn’t be more different. That knowledge did nothing to help him sort through how he really felt. Or what this really meant for him. “How do you feel?”

  “I’m a little scared, but physically, I feel fine.”

  “Everything that happened yesterday? The baby… its okay?”

  She nodded. “I’m not so sure you’re okay.”

  He had to agree. “This is kind of a big deal.” He tried to push the negative thoughts out of his head, reminding himself that maybe he was being given a second chance, but a second chance at what? He stood and started pacing again, a nervous habit he’d developed over the years. He tried to stop, but it helped him sort the chaos in his brain.

  “It’s a very big deal,” she said. “Unexpected, but it’s a reality.”

  Fear squeezed his heart so tight he could barely breathe. He needed time. He needed to think. He needed a stronger drink than hot cocoa. “So what do you need from me?” He knew it was a shit thing to say. A cop-out from manning up and doing the right thing, which would have been to beg her to take him back. To get on his hands and knees and tell her he’d do anything to make this work.

  Once bitten, twice shy.

  “I don’t really know,” she said calmly. Too calmly, and that made him even more jittery. “I’m not asking for anything. Your involvement in this baby’s life is up to you. I understand you’re planning on moving, and that’s okay. I’m not asking you to be something you’re not.”

  “But I am going to be a father.” He struggled with anger and old fears. He wasn’t used to this emotional shit. He’d thought it died the moment Jessica aborted his baby. “We’re going to be parents.”

  She nodded.

  He stopped pacing in front of the picture window, put his hands on his hips and said nothing. A million things rattled his brain, but he just couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea that this could really be his reality. A family. Yet, she wasn’t asking him to be a father. She’d just, and quite flippantly too, stated that his involvement was up to him.

  “You okay?”

  He found his tongue...sort of. “I’m… I want to be with you. With our baby. I just wasn’t…wasn’t… Well, it’s not what I expected, but…” why couldn’t he just blurt out the words?

  “We have time to work out the logistics.” She stood, and limped toward the door. “I think we need to both let this all sink in.” His brain registered that her hand shook as she placed it on the door handle, but he wasn’t sure what that meant. She was saying one thing, but her body was telling him something else.

  “You want me to leave now?” He managed to shake some of the cobwebs from his brain and organize his thoughts. The break-up. Not wanting to break-up, but not being able to commit, or even express he didn’t want things to end. Now, a baby? A baby that he knew, at the bottom of his heart, with everything he was, he wanted.

  And loved.

  And she wanted him to leave. Holy shit. Did he actually think those thoughts? He’d been torn about the break-up, and then seeing her with a gun to her head, well, he knew then he wanted to get back with her. But a baby? Him a father? “I know I’m not handling this well, but I think we’ve got a lot to discuss. And plans. We need to make plans. I mean…
a baby. That’s big deal and we’ve got—”

  “I think you need some time to think about all this.” Her words and tone were even. Too even. Patty had never been your stereotypical overly emotional female, but some emotion right now might actually be nice. Instead, he got stoic. A little voice in his head reminded him that she had a tendency to keep her own emotions close to her chest.

  “No,” he nearly yelled. “We should be talking about where we’re going to live and things like that. I mean, we’re going to have a baby together.”

  “We are, but for one, it’s not going to happen for a few months, and two, I’m going to be living right here. For all I know, you could be in Buffalo this time next year.”

  “I can’t believe you just said that. That you could think I would just walk away.” How could she act like it was no big deal, and he could waltz in or out anytime he wanted. That wasn’t going to happen. If he was going to be a father, he was damn well going to be a father, hook, line, and sinker. He gave Allen kudos for at least trying. Reese could do more than try. He took in a deep breath, calming his nerves. He didn’t want yell at her, though he did want to take her by the arms and either shake her till she came to her senses or… “You can’t do this alone.”

  “Oh, yes, I can,” she said, as she stood taller. Prouder. As if he’d somehow insulted her intelligence and capabilities. “You’ve made it clear the entire time I’ve known you that you’re not a family man, and I accept that. I don’t want to change you, or trap…” her words trailed off with a slight tremor.

  “A baby changes everything.” He reached out and took her hand. Tentatively, she held it for a moment and then pulled it away, clasping her shaking hands together. Her trepidation saddened him. What little emotion she showed through her body, terrified him because he was… the way he’d treated her from day one… was the reason she couldn’t trust he’d stick around. Do the right thing.

  The right thing doesn’t always turn out to be the right thing. He was going to have to get that voice out of his head.

  “I don’t want you to do this out of obligation.” Her brown eyes softened as she stared directly into his. “Please, take a day or two think about all this. Then we can talk. Please? I think we both need it.”