Reluctant Dad

by Carla Cassidy

  Melissa bit her bottom lip, afraid she might laugh out loud at his words. She knew he thought her tears were for Bill. He had no idea that what she really grieved for was her own stupidity, the years lost to fear.

  How she wished she could tell him what was really in her heart, unburden herself of the secret of spousal abuse. But she couldn’t.

  “I haven’t found anything that might help,” she said as she stood from the bed. “What about you? Did you find anything else downstairs?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  She heard the tinge of discouragement in his tone. “Why don’t we stop and have some dinner, then we can go through the drawers in here and search the rest of the house later?”

  “Sounds good to me,” he agreed.

  Together they left the room, Melissa stopping only long enough to pick up Jamison. In the kitchen, she placed the baby in his carrier on the table, then turned on the lights to ward off the shadows of dusk that crept into the room.

  Dominic went to the refrigerator, at ease with the routine they’d fallen into when it came to preparing meals. “How about I fix us a couple of hamburgers?” he asked.

  “That sounds fine,” she agreed. “And I’ll make some macaroni salad to go with them.”

  For a few minutes they worked silently but it was a comfortable silence, broken only by the sounds of pots and pans, sizzling hamburger and Jamison’s coos—domestic sounds that, oddly, filled Melissa with a sense of contentment, of lightness.

  While the macaroni boiled, she sat down at the table and fed Jamison a bottle, her gaze lingering on Dominic, who busied himself cutting up tomatoes to garnish the burgers.

  “You seem very much at ease in a kitchen,” Melissa observed.

  He flashed her a quick grin, one that created a coil of heat in the pit of her stomach. “Self-defense. Growing up, my dad wasn’t exactly a terrific cook. By the time I was twelve, I had taken charge of the kitchen.”

  She tried to imagine him as a boy, but found it nearly impossible to consider him as anything but the wide-shouldered, handsome man he was at this moment. “Tell me about your childhood. What did you like to do, what kind of a little boy were you?”

  Dominic flipped the hamburgers. “If you asked my father, he’d probably tell you I was too somber as a kid.” He leaned against the stove, his gaze reflective. “When my mom died and my dad’s leg was hurt, I knew the life we’d had was over. For a long time Dad couldn’t work, so we ended up losing our house and practically everything else. Then Dad was offered the job as caretaker out at the cemetery and we moved into the little house there.” He flashed her a wry grin. “Growing up in a cemetery tends to make one rather somber.”

  “I’ll bet you were teased a lot.”

  “Mercilessly.” He carried the macaroni from the stove to the colander in the sink. He rinsed it with cold water, then turned back to her. “There were a couple of older guys who were real vicious with their taunts and teasing. That’s when I started to fantasize about becoming a policeman and one day arresting their butts.”

  “Did you get a chance to do that? Arrest them?”

  “One of them. He was a two-bit punk who bungled a gas-station robbery here in town. The other guy moved away. Last I heard, he was mayor of a small town in Colorado.”

  “Funny how things turn out, isn’t it?” She burped Jamison, then placed him back in his carrier. “I mean, strange that the winds of fate blew us together.”

  “And when this case is over, those same winds will blow us apart.” Although he said the words lightly, she sensed them to be a subtle warning. A warning to her not to depend on him, not to grow to care for him; a warning prompted by the impulsive kiss they’d shared.

  “What are plans your when this is all over?” she asked as she busied herself preparing the macaroni salad.

  “I’m not sure. There are days the idea of leaving Wilford and all my bad memories behind sounds real appealing.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “Where would you go?”

  “I don’t know. Right now the idea of leaving is just a vague one.” He removed the hamburgers from the skillet. “I pretty much just take things day to day right now.” He turned and looked at her and again she sensed his words were specifically directed at her. “I just know I’ve got no real place here where I feel like I belong. My future isn’t here.”

  The doorbell pealed, interrupting the conversation. As Dominic went to answer, Melissa picked up Jamison and trailed after him. He punched off the security, then opened the front door. Melissa’s heart dropped as she saw Detective Mawlins, flanked by two uniformed police officers.

  “Melissa Newman,” he spoke around Dominic, directly to her. “You are under arrest for the murder of Bill Newman. Would you step out here, please?”

  Melissa grabbed Dominic’s arm, suddenly realizing that the feeling she’d had earlier of time running out had been true. Time had indeed run out.

  Chapter 9

  Melissa stared at Detective Mawlins in horror, hoping she’d misunderstood him. She tightened her grip on Dominic’s arm, and held Jamison against her chest, wanting to hold him so tightly that nobody could take her away.

  “You have a warrant?” Dominic demanded, his voice filled with suppressed anger.

  Mawlins withdrew a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Dominic. “You’ll see it’s all nice and proper.”

  Dominic scanned the warrant, then looked at Melissa. “You’ll have to go with them, Melissa,” he said gently. He looked at Mawlins, his eyes shooting daggers. “This could have been done another way. You could have contacted Richard Wallace and made arrangements for him to bring her in.”

  Mawlins mouth sneered. ‘I don’t need to make any arrangements with a big-city lawyer. This is my town, and I do things my way.” He motioned Melissa out of the house with a gesture of impatience.

  She released her hold on Dominic and handed him the baby, her heart aching with despair. She stepped out onto the porch, chilled despite the warmth of the evening air. She stood still, silent, as Mawlins read her her rights. It wasn’t until one of the uniformed officers pulled her hands behind her back and she felt the cold bite of handcuffs that the reality of what was happening struck her.

  “Wait...” She struggled to get free of the hand restraints. “What about my baby? What about Jamison?” Tears splashed her cheeks—hot, frightened tears.

  “Melissa, don’t fight the cuffs, you’ll only wind up hurting yourself.” Dominic stepped close to her and touched her chin. “And don’t worry about Jamison.” He looked down at the baby in his arms. “I’ll take care of him until we can get you back home.”

  “You’ll call Richard? Tell him what’s happened?” Melissa fought to contain her tears. “And Samantha. Call Samantha,” she cried as the officers pulled her off the porch and toward the waiting patrol car.

  “I will,” Dominic replied.

  They placed her in the back seat with one of the officers. Mawlins got into the passenger side while the other cop got behind the wheel.

  As they pulled out of the driveway, Melissa twisted in her seat and looked back. Dominic stood on the porch, Jamison in his arms, both of them brushed by the golden twilight. How long would it be before she saw them again? How long would it be before she held her son in her arms?

  She turned back around, unable to bear looking at them until they were no longer visible. She closed her eyes, seeking the inner strength that had gotten her through the last painful days, and through the years of her marriage. The only thing she found inside was fear. A ripping, clawing terror.

  What would happen now? Would Richard be able to get her out on bail, or would she spend the next months languishing in a jail cell awaiting trial?

  She stared at the back of Mawlins’s head, wondering what had made him finally decide for certain that she was a murderer. “Why now? What’s different today from yesterday or last week? Why did you decide to arrest me now?”

  Mawlins turned and e
yed her, his gaze unfriendly and damning. “Motive,” he answered succinctly. “We finally figured out what yours was.”

  Melissa felt the blood drain from her face, and she drew a deep breath to alleviate a burst of light-headedness. How had they found out about the abuse? Bill had always been careful not to harm her anyplace visible, and he had never done the kind of damage that required hospitalization or emergency-room treatment. How on earth had they found out?

  Mawlins laughed, a distinctly unpleasant sound. “Yeah, I’ll bet you figured we’d never find out about your husband’s little fling with Grace Harrison.”

  “What?” Melissa stared at the detective in bewilderment. “What are you talking about?”

  Mawlins snorted. “Ah, so we’re playing the innocent act. Okay, I’ll play it your way. We figure you found out about your hubby’s afternoon trysts with Grace. There you were, pregnant with his child, and the man is playing footsie with another woman.”

  Melissa stared at him in horror, unable to make sense of his words. Grace Harrison and Bill? Grace was the twenty-year-old granddaughter of Mabel Harrison. Mabel was the wealthy, outspoken president of the Wilford Ladies’ Club. Mabel’s daughter—Grace’s mother, Claudia—was equally overbearing. Melissa’s impression of Grace had always been of a young woman painfully shy, lost in the shadows of her strong mother and grandmother.

  “The way we speculate it happened,” Mawlins continued, “is that you finally confronted Bill about his little affair. Maybe you demanded he give her up, and maybe he told you he had no intention of giving her up. In any case, you argued. Maybe he turned over to take a nap, telling you he wasn’t going to talk about it anymore. Now that filled you with rage—the fact that he could just calmly take a nap while you were so hurt, so angry.”

  Melissa listened to his scenario, appalled that he could make a set of falsehoods sound so reasonable.

  “So you went into the kitchen, got a big old butcher knife and stabbed him.”

  “That’s not what happened,” Melissa said faintly. “I didn’t kill Bill!”

  Mawlins snorted again. “You can tell it to the judge,” he said as he turned back around to face forward in his seat.

  The next forty-five minutes passed in a haze of unreality for Melissa. Once they arrived at the Wilford County Jail, she was fingerprinted and photographed. Her personal items were taken from her, then she was led to a jail cell.

  “You’re in luck,” the jailer said as he locked her inside the small six-by-eight cell. “Looks like you won’t have to share these deluxe accommodations with anyone else.”

  When he left, the utter silence rang in Melissa’s ears. She looked around, wondering how anyone managed to live years of their lives in such surroundings. How long would she be here? Surely Richard could get her out on bail. Surely she wouldn’t have to spend an entire night here.

  She walked over to the iron bunkbeds and sat down on the lower bunk. Her head ached. She rubbed her brow with two fingers, her head spinning with the new information she’d gained.

  Bill and Grace? A week ago Melissa would never have believed it possible. Bill didn’t have affairs. But a week ago she hadn’t found a wedding picture with Bill as the groom and another woman as the bride.

  She’d thought she’d known her husband. Or at least, she’d never dreamed he was capable of such deceit. Surely the police were wrong about Grace. Bill had been many things, but not an adulterer.

  Still, as she thought of that damning photo Dominic had found, all confidence in her husband’s fidelity seeped away.

  Had Bill somehow known that Melissa intended to leave him when the baby was born? Had he started seeing Grace to hedge his bets? Bill was a man who’d never liked to be alone.

  If it was true that he had been seeing Grace, perhaps he intended to fill the void Melissa would leave behind by installing Grace as the next Mrs. Newman. If that was the case, the killer had not only saved Melissa from further abuse, he’d probably saved Grace, as well.

  She stretched out on the bunk, her thoughts drifting to Dominic and Jamison and that moment when she’d seen them standing on the porch as she’d been taken away.

  Her heart constricted painfully as she thought of her son. Her arms ached with emptiness. When would she see him again...hold him again? And how would she ever tell her son about his father, a man she now realized she knew nothing about?

  She could only hope that Richard Wallace would be able to defend her against these charges, that eventually she would be able to get out of here, live a normal life with her son, maybe even find a healthy, happy relationship with a man—a man like Dominic.

  For those moments in the kitchen earlier while they’d prepared the evening meal, she’d been able to imagine what her life would be like with him. She’d been able to imagine that after they’d eaten dinner and cleared away the dishes, he would take her in his arms, carry her into the bedroom and they would make beautiful, tender love to each other.

  For the first time since her arrest, tears filled her eyes. Tears for Bill, who even though he’d been a cold, mean man, hadn’t deserved to die. Tears for her son, who would never know his biological father and might know his mother only through visits to prison. She cried for herself, for all the lost years she’d given to Bill, all the dreams that had been destroyed. Finally, she cried because she might never get an opportunity to know a good, wonderful kind of love—the kind she thought Dominic had to offer to the right woman. She sobbed because she knew she would never be that woman.

  “Mawlins did this on purpose,” Dominic said to Samantha and Tyler, who had arrived only minutes after Melissa had been taken away. “By arresting her this late in the day he knew she would have to spend at least one night in jail, that no arraignment can take place until tomorrow.”

  Dominic’s heart squeezed tight as he thought of Melissa’s face—so stark, so frightened, looking out the back window of the patrol car.

  “You called Richard?” Samantha asked.

  Dominic nodded. “Before I called you. He’s on his way, said he’d meet you down at the jail, and you could put your heads together about bail.”

  “The D.A. will probably request no bail or an exorbitant amount,” Tyler said. “Melissa’s trust fund is tied up until she’s twenty-six. That’s still six months away.” He looked at his wife. “We can always use the law firm to obtain a bond.”

  Samantha moved to Tyler and they embraced. Seeing their love, their utter commitment to each other, intensified a lonely ache inside Dominic, an ache he hadn’t been aware of until this moment. And it scared him when he realized that somehow the ache was tied to Melissa’s absence.

  How had it happened that in the space of a little over three weeks he had become so accustomed to having her around? That he anticipated the scent of her that wafted through the house? That he looked forward to the gift of her smile on the rare occasions when she bestowed him with one?

  “Mawlins is going to be sorry. He’s made a big mistake in thinking Melissa is the murderer,” Samantha said as she moved away from Tyler.

  “What does he have against the Dark family?” Dominic asked curiously. He looked at Tyler. “You mentioned that Harvey Mawlins hated Jamison Dark, that they’d battled in the courtroom on various occasions, but surely this vendetta has to do with something other than a couple of tough cross-examinations.”

  Tyler smiled wryly. “Actually, it was a little more than tough cross-examinations. About twelve years ago Harvey decided he was tired of law enforcement and wanted to dabble in local politics. He threw his hat into the ring in the mayoral race and most people assumed he’d win. About two weeks before the election, Harvey was called to the witness stand in a case. Jamison was the defending attorney, and Jamison tore him apart.”

  Tyler paused for a moment to draw Samantha close against him. “Jamison made Mawlins look stupid, ineffectual and lazy. He raised questions about the man’s honesty and integrity. By the time Jamison was finished with him, Mawlins withdre
w his name from the ballot and crawled into a hole to lick his wounds.”

  “So Mawlins definitely has a reason to want to see Melissa behind bars.” Dominic felt his heart ache for the woman caught in an old war of resentment and grudges that had nothing to do with her.

  “Dominic.” Samantha stepped toward him and placed her hand on his arm. “I know baby-sitting wasn’t exactly what you had in mind when you came to work for us, but—”

  “Don’t worry about little Jamison. I’ll stay right here with him.” Dominic patted her hand in reassurance. “The important thing is for you and Tyler to meet up with Richard and figure out a way to get Melissa back home as soon as possible.”

  Samantha nodded, squeezed his hand, then walked with Tyler to the front door. “We’ll be in touch,” she said, then she and Tyler left.

  The silence of the house immediately pressed in on Dominic. He hated not being able to do something to help, being left behind to baby-sit. And yet, he knew his job was as important as any other to Melissa. The safety and welfare of her son would be utmost in her mind.

  Dominic left the living room and went to the nursery. Inside the small room, he turned on the lamp on the dresser and peered into the crib. Jamison Dark Newman slept the peaceful slumber of the innocent, unaware that his father had been murdered, or that his mother was in jail.

  As Dominic stared down at the tiny boy, Jamison’s hands opened and closed, and a smile lifted the corners of his mouth, as if happy dreams were just within his reach. If only Dominic could see to it that Jamison always got his dreams.

  Strange, how a baby he’d known nothing about four weeks before had managed to crawl so deep into his heart. Was it because his hands had been the first to hold Jamison? His face the first the infant had gazed at? Was that what made Dominic feel so...so paternal?

  He covered the baby with a lightweight blanket, then left the nursery. In the living room, he picked up the phone and punched in the numbers for the police station. When his call was answered, he asked for Officer Matt Hampstead. Matt was not only a good cop, he was something of a computer nut.