She gave him a squeeze this time and when he groaned she mumbled an apology, she’d forgotten that he was as battered as the story she was telling.
“No one likes to be rejected no matter how sugar coated you make it. I realize that. I thanked him for the flowers and the dinner when the night was over. He dropped me off at my home and he seemed a little hurt but understanding.
“It was two nights later that he walked in on me. I was completely taken by surprise. Obviously, the next day I changed the locks on my shop and my home. He’d helped me find my home also and I didn’t want to have a repeat performance there. I think it was shortly after that he packed up and left town. I haven’t heard from him since.”
“Thank you for sharing.” He gathered her closer. “You’re shaking.” He tugged the cover out from under her and put it over her. Not without a groan here and there.
“I really should let you rest.”
“You’re not going anywhere, I want to hold you. Glenna, you know all the things he said to you were only to hurt you and make him feel like a man, right?”
“In the logical part of my brain yes. Emotionally? It’s been long enough that I’m starting to understand he was taking his insecurities out on me. I’m just glad he’s gone and I never have to deal with him.”
“Everything in me, especially the agent part, wants to go after the bastard and make him pay. But I promised you I wouldn’t. Can you finally get past this? Can you move on? Glenna, my feelings haven’t changed for you in the past hour. If they had, they wouldn’t be real.”
Glenna tensed afraid he was going to back away. Tell her that he couldn’t get past what had happened.
“Relax, I want you to know I still want you. I am still in for the plan to let everyone know we’re a couple. And when we get the bad guys we’ll have had enough time to know if you can get over my law enforcement and baggage.”
She grinned into the side of his chest where she was content to cuddle.
“I’m pretty sure I’m half way there already. I know I am over the ex-stuff. It’s the worry every day that I’ll have to work on. Can you get over what I’ve just told you? Because there’s more.”
“More?”
“Yeah I’m a hot mess.”
He laughed and then groaned. “I told you not to make me laugh. Okay, tell me the rest of your messy story.”
“Before you and I can move on, I have to let go of what happened that night. That means when we’re in Brooklyn I need to talk to my parents alone. Maybe when you and Finn go with Reagan to the range. I have to forgive myself, understand I’m not at fault. After actually reliving the events of that night with you, I feel like a weight has been lifted and I can see a glimmer at the end of the tunnel.
“I’ve held my emotions in for over ten years, it’s going to take time. I thought I’d let it go and moved on when I met Lance and actually allowed myself a relationship.”
“You do know he’s gay, right?”
“Exactly, had I not been going through the motions and caught up in the romance and the fact that I actually felt better about myself when he was around, kind of like I’d found a new girlfriend. I may have caught on a little sooner to that fact.”
“You have no feelings for him?”
“None whatsoever. I realized that the minute you walked in to the shop. The bolts woke my body and emotions up from a ten year coma. And it scared the hell out of me.”
She could feel him grin where his cheek rested on the top of her head.
“Good to know it wasn’t one sided.”
“Definitely not. And now you know all my dark secrets. Please be patient with me, I’m sure my insecurities about my self-worth will raise their ugly heads if or when you get a little too close.”
“For you I have more patience than you’ll ever need. By the way, if I didn’t think you were a good woman you wouldn’t have been invited to my home. I’d have put you up at a hotel before I’d expose you to my son.”
Warmth and his love, yes they had met only days before but the intensity of their situation had brought them close at lightning speed. She felt like she’d known Patrick and Finn for years. She couldn’t imagine her life without them.
Yet fear burned deep in her soul that one day the worst would happen.
“You’re thinking again, you tensed up. Talk to me.”
“Nothing you haven’t heard before this evening. Let me just say this…” She swallowed and pulled in her courage because she was about to jump.
“I think your plan, idea, and or suggestion is a good one. We’ll be solving the case and we will be testing our relationship one day at a time. So, yes to your proposal, such as it is.…I’m ready to give this trial fiancée or couple thing a go.”
Instead of words he pulled her into his side with one arm around her and tilted her chin up with his free hand. He looked into her eyes as he lowered his head. Tingles and pops exploded over her at the first brush of his lips. Soon the kiss was deep with a tangle of tongues and emotions. If it weren’t for the hospital with all its tubes and beeps, things may have gotten more out of control than Glenna was ready for, and still might have.
The nurse had arrived to take Patrick’s vitals again. “I guess your blood pressure is going to be a little elevated?”
He was there for observation throughout the night. They’d both forgotten where they were apparently. Glenna scrambled out of the bed as carefully as a scramble could be so she didn’t hurt him. Her stomach jumped with nerves as they had when she was a teen and her ma caught her sneaking in after curfew.
Glenna gave the woman, who appeared to be somewhere between thirty and sixty, an embarrassed smile. Fit, tanned, with frosted hair, she looked like she would have been more at home on a tennis court than walking around a hospital in scrubs in the middle of the night.
“Ah, don’t worry about a thing I am sure the young lad is all the better for your bedside manner.”
Young lad? Glenna grinned at Patrick, he was anything but that. “Patrick, I need to get home and make sure Finn’s okay and asleep. I’ll come back as soon as I drop him at school.”
Patrick gave her a look she couldn’t decipher and then grinned. “I like the sound of that.”
Funny thing, she knew exactly what he meant. He’d like that fact she’d called his place, home as if she were already there to stay.
“I do too.”
She glanced at the nurse who stood at the computer entering notes. She walked to the bed side and leaned in.
“I can’t make any promises, but I can promise that I want this to work.”
“I’m good with that. Now go take care of our boy.”
Chapter Fifteen
Glenna unlocked the door and crept in the kitchen as quietly as possible, she didn’t want to wake Finn. He’d had a long emotional day. He needed his rest for the big game in two days, she glanced at the clock and realized it was well after midnight. Tomorrow she corrected.
“Hey, Glenna.”
She’d been in the process of locking up, she swung around a hand going to heart. “Good grief, Finn, you’re always sneaking up on me.”
She blew the breath out. She was more on edge than she thought. She pulled a chair from the table and sat to give her heart time to stop racing.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t sleep. I was reading until you got home.”
“Finn, I should have called. I was afraid of waking you. I should have known you’d be worried.”
He settled into the chair across from her. A serious expression on his young face. He reached across the table and took her hand.
“Before we get into the adult emotional stuff I need to know how Dad is.”
“Adult emotional stuff?”
He just raised a brow.
“Your dad is doing okay. He’s very sore and I have a feeling tomorrow or Friday is going to be the worst. But he’s on the mend. We were lucky there were no broken bones.”
“Other than his nose, it was a little
crooked from a school incident. Maybe now it will be straight.” Finn grinned at her for a moment, then his expression was serious again. “Adult emotional stuff now.”
“And what exactly would that be Finn?”
This must be about what she’d interrupted when she’d gone back to the hospital room earlier. He had been in deep conversation with his dad. Glenna glanced at the clock, he had football practice in the morning.
She held up a hand. “Finn, you have to get up early. Can this wait until breakfast? I promise you, I won’t avoid whatever this stuff you want to talk about. But you need your rest.”
He tossed a look at the clock himself. “Give me five minutes then I’ll go to bed and sleep like Horace.”
At the mention of his name Horace thumped his tail on the floor but otherwise didn’t move a muscle.
“Five minutes.”
“Did you agree to Dad’s plan?”
So this was what the two had been talking about. They were close. She should have guessed Patrick would have told his son.
“What are your thoughts Finn?”
“I know you’re scared. I saw how seeing my dad in the hospital tore you apart. I hope you can overcome the scared, Glenna.”
She brushed the lone tear that had escaped away and sniffed. How old was he again? A wise sixteen year old, that was for sure.
“I’m terrified of loving both of you. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened.”
“I know. I can’t say that it gets easier. But there are times when you don’t think about it because Dad’s on an easy case, and then there’s the hundreds of times he doesn’t let me or my grandparents know what he’s up to, but he always comes home. I’m sure with your family you’ve heard this a lot that anyone can get hurt every day, not just special agents.”
Refraining from rolling her eyes she answered, “Yeah, I seem to remember hearing that a time or two.”
“Well did you agree?”
“I agreed to a trial engagement or couple whatever we want to call it, but yeah, I agreed to take it one day at a time.”
“That’s all we could have hoped for.” He slid the chair back and knelt beside her. “Don’t you think it will be easier for both of us if we have each other to make it through the scary times?”
And then the blubbering started in earnest. Finn gathered her in his arms and awkwardly patted her on the back. He murmured words of comfort and if she hadn’t been crying so hard she would have laughed at his young inexperienced attempt to comfort her and stop her tears. He was growing into a good man.
She eased a way, picked up a paper towel that had been on the table and wiped away the damage. Probably making her resemble a raccoon if the dark smudges on the paper towel were any indication of the state of her mascara.
“You’re a wise young man, Finnegan McGinnis.”
“Finnegan Kendal McGinnis, that’s my full name. I’m just a kid who wants his dad to be happy.” He gave her another hug, stood and grinned. “Glenna you make me and Horace happy too.”
He clicked his fingers at the dog and the two left the room. Glenna swiped at the tears again, then realized she needed to wash her face and get ready for bed. She couldn’t seem to summon the energy to move though. It had been an emotional day.
*****
Glenna flipped a pancake and stifled a yawn. She had fallen asleep at the table waking around three in the morning and managed to wake up enough to finally go to bed. And then the alarm had gone off at five. It hadn’t seemed like more than a minute.
“Good morning,” Finn said as he came into the kitchen.
“Good morning yourself, are you ready for tomorrow night?”
“I will be after practice.”
He reached across to snatch a piece of bacon managing to avoid her attempted swat. He dumped the books he’d had under one arm and swung a chair around to straddle it.
“Hey, that’s no way to sit at the breakfast table.”
A memory from her childhood danced through her, her mother had said those same words to Matt. He’d always had a swagger and tried to act macho. Glenna had always figured it was because as a math boy, as they called him, he had to keep up with Tyler in the manly department.
“Man, you sound just like Dad.”
Nonetheless, he swung the chair around and sat properly. A feeling of love so strong nearly buckled her knees. How had she come to care so much for a motherless boy of sixteen in such a short time? She marveled at the fact a few weeks earlier she was dumped at the altar, and single again and relatively happy about it, just pissed and embarrassed.
And now she had a temporary and maybe a permanent family.
“These are almost done, then I will take you to practice on my way to the hospital.”
“Have you heard from Dad this morning?”
Placing the steaming pancakes, with a generous side of fresh fruit—his coach had advised the team not to eat bacon. Apparently, the grease floats to the top of the stomach too quick with all that exercise.—onto the plate she placed it in front of him. He hadn’t waited until the dish hit the table before diving in.
“Whoa, it’s not going anywhere.”
“Sorry, but you cook so much better than Dad.” He gulped some milk to wash it down. “Don’t tell him I said that.”
She chuckled. “I promise. As to your question, no I haven’t. I figure if something was wrong the hospital would call and if he’s sleeping I don’t want to wake him.”
“Yeah, Mrs. Bigely, that’s my health teacher, says the best healer is sleep. It’s why some trauma patients slip into a coma.”
“That’s true, and sometimes the doctors induce the coma for that reason.”
For a few minutes they ate in comfortable silence. Glenna enjoyed the time. This is what it would be like if she made the engagement real. It was all up to her. Or was it? People drew close during intense situations. It was best for all of them if they kept this to a trial until after the intense settled down.
“Do you go right to school after practice or do you have a break?”
“I have athletics, first period. It gives the team time to change and get ready for school.”
“But don’t you have to do something for gym, or I mean athletics, to get a grade?”
“I’m graded on my participation in football. That’s my athletics.”
“That makes sense.”
“What’s your plan?” Before she could answer he continued. “Speaking of plans what will happen to the case?”
“Medically speaking, I’m sure the doctors will tell your dad to take it easy the next couple of days. I’m sure he’ll be given a list of instructions. Which I will do my best to make sure he follows.”
Finn’s laughter carried over the room and most likely to the neighbors. He finished up his breakfast before he commented.
“Good luck with that. I’m sure it’s going to be business as usual.” For the second time since she’d met the young man he reached across the table and took her hand—Patrick and Finn both tended to do that when they were going to say something important. “Glenna, I trust you to take care of my dad.”
As with the previous evening she had to swallow down the emotion.
“I know you do, I will make him toe the line.” To break the tension she added. “You do know he outweighs me by probably a hundred pounds, right? I will do everything in my puny power to make him rest.”
He grinned. “That’s all I can ask.”
Together they stowed the dishes in the washer and straightened the kitchen. He took care of Horace while she fed Agnes, who ignored her since she’d been gone so much. Apparently she was in the cat house for neglecting her little furry friend.
“Let’s go, Finn.”
After she dropped him at school, she took the travel time to the hospital to consider what she’d agreed to, and waited for the dread, the nerves, or any of the other emotions she usually felt when someone got to close to her. But nothing happened. In fact, the opposit
e occurred. As she pulled into the parking lot, anticipation of seeing Patrick filled her with joy and a happiness she couldn’t remember ever having.
Nearing his room she could hear voices, she stopped outside the door. Should she enter? It didn’t sound like doctors, no it sounded like…. She peered around the door she’d been correct. Officers’ Beckworth and Jones. She should give them time to take Patrick’s statement. She could call Effie. She spoke with her briefly yesterday before she’d called Tyler.
No, she would talk to Effie in person later. Glenna wanted to hear what happened, because she had a feeling the story she’d heard had been sugar coated for his parents, Finn’s, and her sake. When she stepped in all three men stopped talking and pinned their attention on her.
“This is official business Ms. Beckett, please step out.” This from Jones, she did not like him. He was so full of himself.
“She can stay.” Patrick patted the side of the bed.
“I don’t…” Jones began.
“She’s involved in this. After all these are the same perps who broke into her shop.” Beckworth moved to the bed so she could reach Patrick’s side.
“Now where were we?” Beckworth asked.
*****
Patrick had never been so glad to see someone in his life. It was as if the light entered with her. She was young, fresh, beautiful, and real. All the things he never thought a beautiful woman could be. Joyce had really done a number on him when it came to judgment. Glenna was showing him how, he realized now, most women were. Joyce was the exception, not the other way around.
Once she settled next to him, her bottom sidled up to his, making it hard to concentrate on the questions the officers were asking.
“Um, you said there four?”
Patrick started. “Yes, I know we only saw three on the tapes from the shop, but the fourth seemed to be a little less athletic than the others. Before all the action, I did my best to take mental note of their builds, as their faces were covered as they had been during the break-in.”
Abandoned (The Beckett Series Book 6) Page 16
