Tall Dark Defender

by Beth Cornelison

  Before he left today, she intended to find out.

  Chapter 10

  Jonah was examining Haley’s baby picture on a side table in the living room when Annie finished settling the kids in for their naps. Her heart ached, knowing she’d not had a professional picture made of Ben as an infant. The early months of his life had been the tumultuous prelude to her leaving Walt, and the months since her divorce had been too financially tight, too busy with her hours at the diner to have her son’s picture made.

  But she needed to capture her son’s early years on film soon, someday….

  “Someday may be closer than you think.”

  Though she said nothing, Jonah turned as if he sensed her standing behind him. “Your children are precious. You’ve a right to be proud of them.”

  “Thank you.” She managed a small smile of appreciation, then grew serious. Time for answers. “Tell me about your childhood.”

  Jonah raised his head, stood straighter, arched an eyebrow in surprise.

  “You said you were abused. How bad was it? What did your mother do? How did it change who you were?”

  Jonah inhaled deeply and dragged a hand along his jaw. His callused palm rasped against the shadow of beard on his chin as he released his breath slowly through pursed lips. “Wow. You know how to cut to the chase.”

  He jerked his head toward the sofa she’d gotten from the secondhand store. “Sit?” He settled on one end of the couch and patted the cushion next to him.

  Instead she took the rocking chair across the room from him and squeezed the knobby armrests. “I’m listening.”

  Jonah leaned forward, propping his forearms on his thighs and bridging his fingers. “I grew up in a white-collar neighborhood, went to a good school, had a circle of friends I hung out with. Most of the normal stuff.”

  He shrugged. “But every once in a while my dad would lose his temper and take out his frustrations on Mom. If I tried to defend her, I’d catch as bad as she got. He generally left my older sister alone, but even she took a backhand across the mouth for a sassy remark or an ear-ringing slap if she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. As I got older, when I sensed he was in one of his moods, I’d provoke him so that he’d come after me to start with instead of Mom.

  “I lied to my teachers or whoever would ask about where my bruises came from. By the time I was thirteen, I’d started picking fights with kids in the neighborhood. Part of that was me venting my internal rage, and part of it was to cover the constant parade of injuries my dad gave me. I got the reputation of being a bully on purpose, so no one questioned the black eyes and split lips as much.”

  A bully. Annie shuddered.

  “And your mother? How could she let this happen to you? I left Walt when I realized he could turn his violence against our kids next.”

  “She tried to protect me and got hurt for it. But she also lived in denial. Dad would apologize and beg her forgiveness, promise to change, tell her he’d get counseling and she’d stay. She loved the bastard for some reason, and I couldn’t convince her to leave him. She died of cancer when I was fifteen. My sister was away at college by then, and I had no desire to live alone with my dad, so I left home.”

  Annie frowned. “And went where?”

  “The streets for a while. Then I went to this gym one day, looking for work.”

  “As in a boxing gym like the one where we met the other day?” She couldn’t hide the disdain in her tone.

  He nodded. “Yeah, but in my hometown in Arkansas. For a while I did odd jobs, real menial stuff, in exchange for a cot in the locker room. Then I found out you could earn money working as a sparring partner with the guys who were training for competitions. I asked for that job and got it.”

  When she sent him a dubious look, he shrugged and flashed her a self-deprecating grin. “I had plenty of experience getting beat up, so why not get paid for taking a few hits?”

  Annie stared down at her lap, her hands fidgeting restlessly. While her heart ached for the teenager Jonah had been, relying on the violence that was his father’s legacy to survive, her new insights about his past only confirmed what she’d feared. Violence was a part of who he was. His casual attitude about hopping into a boxing ring to pound another man chafed against her memories of being Walt’s punching bag.

  “So you turned the abuse your father taught you into a profession?” She surged from her chair and paced across the living room, uneasy with the truths she was learning. How could she be attracted to another man with a tendency toward violence? What was wrong with her?

  “A profession?” He snorted. “Hardly. I just made a few bucks exchanging jabs with guys in the evening. And sparring was nothing like the abuse I took from my old man. For one thing, I wore pads and headgear.”

  She spun to face him with a sigh. “My point is, when you got away from your father, rather than leave the abuse in the past, you continued fighting. It was a lifestyle for you. You chose to fight.”

  He met her gaze evenly. “I chose to heal. I chose to turn my life around and use what I knew to help other people in the same situation.”

  She blinked, gave him a humorless laugh. “Excuse me? How does sparring help other people?”

  A muscle in his jaw twitched, and he took a slow, measured breath. “It doesn’t necessarily. But being a policeman does, if you do your job right.”

  She sat straighter, remembering his telling her he’d once been a cop. She listened attentively as he explained.

  “The thing is, the kid who went to that gym looking for work, the teenager who got into the ring to earn a few bucks isn’t the same guy sitting here today. Back then I was full of rage, full of hatred for what my father did. I was confused, alone, just…mad at the world. But the owner of the gym saw something worthwhile in me and took me under his wing. He talked to me, listened to me when I was ready to spill my guts and helped me work through that anger I had pent up inside. He showed me how that fury was destroying me, how holding on to that anger hurt me, not my dad.”

  His words reverberated through Annie, and she hugged herself. She’d heard much of the same admonitions and advice from Ginny. Ginny had been her rock when she’d felt overwhelmed by the turmoil and danger of leaving Walt. Annie understood without his explaining further how important the owner of that gym had been for Jonah.

  Jonah rubbed his palms on his jeans and continued. “He taught me to channel those bottled-up emotions and release them through my boxing. I sweated out the grief and worked off the tension and hatred. Took it out on a punching bag so that I didn’t blow a gasket one day and let it out on some shmuck who ticked me off. I poured all the fear and frustration and rage I had for my father and what he’d done to us into my workout and learned to fight a clean, fair fight in the ring. No cheap shots. Keeping control and perspective.

  “I’d been in a downward spiral, and he pulled me back from the brink and set me on a better path.”

  “How so?” Annie leaned forward, enthralled by what she was learning about Jonah’s past.

  He rolled a palm up. “I went back to school, joined the police academy and was on the job for nine years before I left the force.”

  Annie drew her eyebrows together and shook her head. “Why did you quit?”

  Jonah flopped back on the sofa and rubbed his hands over his face. Grunted. “I guess I…answered one too many domestic disturbance calls and had had enough.”

  He clenched his teeth, and the distant look in his eyes told her his thoughts were miles away from her living room, deep in troublesome memories from his years as a cop. Annie’s heart thundered as color crept up his neck and flooded his cheeks, his nostrils flared and his jaw tightened.

  “Every time I’d leave a home where I knew abuse was happening, regardless of whether I’d been able to do anything to help the people involved, I’d feel that frustration knotted up inside me again, and I’d go to the gym to work through it, work it off.” He inhaled deeply and expelled it in a whoosh. “But
in all the years I was a cop,” he said, meeting her eyes with a hard, level gaze, “I never lost my cool with an abuser—much as I wanted to knock the snot out of ’em. Never.” He paused, letting that fact sink in.

  A shiver chased up Annie’s spine as all her conceptions about Jonah shattered and reassembled in new patterns. Her spinning thoughts made her restless, and she shoved to her feet, paced across the floor and back.

  “So…boxing, sparring saved my life. The things I learned from Michael kept me on track, kept me sane.”

  Her pulse tripped, and she jerked her head up. “Michael. You’ve mentioned him before. He’s the one you said lost his savings to the gambling ring that operates out of the diner.”

  Jonah nodded. “He was my mentor, my guardian angel when I needed him. He moved down here to Lagniappe a couple years ago to manage Frank’s gym, the one we were at the other day.” He paused and drew his eyebrows into a frown. “Michael was a good man at heart, but…he was no saint. Gambling became an addiction. When he lost his savings, he…lost hope. He was ashamed and thought he was out of options.”

  Annie heard the grief that vibrated in Jonah’s tone. He sucked in a deep breath and pushed it out through pursed lips. “He…killed himself just over a year ago.”

  She gasped and pressed a hand to her mouth. “Oh, no. Jonah, I’m so sorry.”

  His jaw tightened. “I blame the thugs who stole his money for his death. That’s how I got involved with this investigation. I wanted retribution for Michael. I wanted to shut down the bastards’ operation and bring them to justice.”

  “Alone?”

  He sighed and glanced away. “For the most part. Right now I’m just getting information, trying to figure out who’s involved, how the operation is run. When I have all my facts laid out, enough proof to hang these guys, I’ll take it to the authorities. But I don’t want anyone, even someone on the fringes of this thing, to get away. I want solid information, hard evidence that no judge can toss out, no lawyer can explain away.”

  The passion in his voice fueled the fire inside Annie, the determination she had to free herself from the danger she’d unwittingly landed in. If she wanted to keep her kids safe, if she wanted to protect herself and still scrabble out a living, the criminals at the diner had to be stopped.

  But she wouldn’t sit back and leave it to Jonah to bring the men involved to justice. She would not be a victim again, would not passively let someone ruin her life again as Walt had done.

  Screwing up her courage, Annie balled her fists and pulled her shoulders back. “I want to help. I can search Hardin’s office for files or financial records, or—”

  “No.” Jonah shook his head.

  Irritation tickled her gut. “But I have access to his office and can—”

  “No! I can’t let you get in this mess any deeper. It’s too dangerous.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s not your decision whether I’m involved or not. And I’m already in danger. You said so yourself.”

  “Think of your kids, Annie. You can’t put yourself in harm’s—”

  “I am thinking of my kids! The sooner we build a case against these creeps, the sooner I can get my life back.”

  “Not we. Let me handle this. The only reason I told you what was going on is because you needed to be aware, be alert. So you could protect yourself. But now, with Hardin’s murder, the stakes are higher. I have to be careful how I proceed. Changing anything now about the cover I’ve set up might tip someone off.”

  She pictured Hardin’s bullet-riddled body and almost changed her mind. The idea of being so vulnerable, with an unknown enemy lurking, lying in wait, scared her senseless. She swallowed the bitter taste of fear in her throat and raised her chin. “All the more reason to let me search Hardin’s office. You don’t have the opportunity and the access I have. I can do this. I have to do this. I can’t let fear or danger dictate my life again.”

  Jonah surged off the couch and strode over to her. “Look, I know how much you want this all to be over, and I respect your courage and willingness to help, but—”

  “Courage?” She gave him a humorless laugh. “It’s not courage, Jonah. It’s desperation. Panic. I’m scared to death, but I have to do something before the whole situation explodes in my face. If there’s even a chance I could be on their hit list because of that stolen money, I have to act. I won’t sit by and risk my children getting hurt by this. It’s necessity, not courage.”

  He cupped her cheek in his massive hand and stroked her jaw with his thumb. The comforting gesture sent ribbons of sweet sensation coursing through her, muddling her thoughts.

  “Don’t sell yourself short,” he murmured, his low voice stroking her, adding to the pleasant hum vibrating from deep inside her. “Leaving your husband, starting over, standing up for what’s right…you had to have a lot of courage to do all you’ve done. Being brave isn’t the absence of fear—”

  “It’s doing what you must despite the fear. I know, I know.” With a disgruntled sigh and a nod, she lifted her hand to his wrist and pulled away from his deliciously distracting touch. She needed to stay focused on the problem at hand. “Ginny practically tattooed that saying on my forehead. So, fine, call it what you want, but I need to help. Don’t shut me out of this, Jonah.”

  He shook his head again. “If you want to do something to protect yourself, then go to the self-defense class at the police station we talked about. But stay out of this.”

  She raised her chin. “Fine. I’ll go to the class. But I’m tired of sitting back while the world stomps all over me. I have to do something—with or without your help.”

  “Annie—” His dark brow lowered, and his eyes narrowed to slits. “If I agree to let you help, do you promise you’ll follow my instructions? No going it alone or taking unnecessary risks. Understood?”

  Her pulse fluttered with anticipation and dread. “I promise.”

  “Remember, these people have a lot of money at stake, and if they suspect you of meddling in the operation or feeding information to the police, they’ll kill you without asking questions.”

  Her stomach pitched, but she steeled her nerves. She had no choice but to help Jonah. She couldn’t live under this cloud of fear, couldn’t bear the idea of her children living under a threat of danger. Wishing she weren’t in this predicament didn’t make it so.

  “You promise you’ll go to the class?” he asked, his eyes drilling hers.

  She raised a hand. “Promise.”

  Sighing his resignation, Jonah drew her to the sofa and pulled her down onto the cushions beside him. “All right. Let’s make some plans. I don’t want to leave anything to chance. We have too much at stake.”

  Jonah angled the seat in his truck to a more comfortable position, settling in for the long night ahead. Annie would balk at the idea of him camping out on the street to watch her apartment, but the stakes in this case kept getting higher. He remembered her saying she’d thought someone followed her to work the day before. Coupled with Hardin’s murder, he wasn’t about to leave her home unguarded.

  Acid flooded his gut when he thought of Annie becoming involved in his investigation. He should never have agreed to let her help him, but what choice did he have? He’d seen the determination and passion that fired her eyes. She’d have acted on her own if he hadn’t let her help him. At least this way, he could keep closer tabs on her involvement.

  He scanned the parking lot and the oak-tree-lined yard. Everything was quiet, dark, still. A stark contrast to the turmoil writhing inside him.

  Telling her about his abuse, his history with Michael and his mentor’s suicide had been wrenching. Painful. He never relived those memories if he could help it. But Annie had asked him point-blank, and she wouldn’t have been satisfied with evasion or half-truths. He needed her to trust him.

  The question he was left with, however, was where did they go from here? He couldn’t deny his attraction to her. His feelings went deeper than
the protective instincts she aroused in him. But given her history, knowing the hardships she’d already survived, he was the last person she needed in her life.

  Even after he’d explained to her how he’d gotten involved with sparring, explained how the physical outlet for his emotions kept him sane, he’d seen the doubts and disapproval in her body language. She wanted nothing to do with any form of violence, even the controlled, therapeutic version he practiced at the gym.

  Not to mention the fact that any future with Annie had to include being a father figure to her kids. And his only example of fatherhood was the horrid one his father had set. What kind of father would he be?

  The notion of having a family, sharing his life with a wife and being a role model for children left him in a cold sweat. He wanted those things, deeply, but only if he was sure he could give his family what his father hadn’t. Love. Security. Happiness.

  He didn’t have a clue where to begin creating a healthy family life. It wasn’t that he feared he’d physically hurt Annie or her kids—he’d cut his hand off before he’d raise it against them—but there were so many other ways to fail a family. He’d be damned if he’d repeat his father’s mistakes, but he didn’t have any other point of reference. On the job, he’d faced down armed gangbangers without a second thought. But being a husband or father, being in a position to screw up the lives of those you love, scared the hell out of him.

  Which left him with only one option. Never marry. Never have children. Never recreate the hellish existence that passed for his childhood home.

  Jonah dragged in a lungful of oxygen, his chest knotting with regret. As much as he wanted his own family, as much as he wanted Annie, he was destined to be alone.

  Chapter 11