To Love and Protect

by Muriel Jensen

  He shrugged that off. “I needed that money. Big business is expensive. And Delia is very high-maintenance, fashion-wise—and almost every other way.” His eyes went to the camera in her hand. “I suppose you got pictures.”

  “I did.”

  He took a few steps toward her. She held her ground.

  “You know I can’t let you show them to anybody.”

  She sighed and sat on the foot of the bed. Her heart was beginning to race. He looked bigger up close and very annoyed. She’d had to laugh in the face of threats from people like him her entire life. “Well, I know you wouldn’t like me to, but modern technology is an amazing aid in situations like this. I’ve already sent the photos to Officer Chris Norton.”

  His skin turned a frightening shade of tomato. He was clearly too furious to speak.

  “Sukie turned everything in Pimental’s bottom drawer over to the police yesterday,” she said. “Didn’t Pimental tell you? Oh, that’s right. He’s in jail. Apparently you weren’t his one phone call. It’s over for you, Mr. Tyree.”

  Tyree looked horrified by the news. She could see every deal he’d ever made with Pimental pass across his eyes as he contemplated the effect his partner in crime’s arrest would have on his own life.

  He sat beside her on the foot of the bed and put his head in his hands.

  “I guess that puts an end to a lucrative relationship,” Corie said.

  He lowered his hands and nodded grimly. “Yeah. It also puts an end to his affair with my wife. There’s an upside to everything.”

  It was Corie’s turn to be surprised. “You knew?”

  He gave her a superior look. “I’m not completely stupid.”

  “Then why didn’t you try to stop it?”

  “Because it didn’t really matter anymore. I no longer had to spend evenings with a woman I didn’t understand. We used to be crazy about each other, but that changed a long time ago.”

  “That’s very sad.”

  He sighed heavily. “Like I said, doesn’t matter. So, the young woman who once hit Pimental in the face with her tip can is now a crime fighter?”

  She had to smile at that. “I guess I am.”

  She stood and would have left the room, jewelry mystery solved, if Delia hadn’t chosen that moment to walk into it.

  * * *

  BEN, CARRYING A tray of heirloom tomato bruschetta, signaled Jack with a tip of his head that he was going up the stairway. Jack, offering lamb meatballs as he wound his way through the crowd, mouthed, “Wait!”

  Ben, however, had as much inclination at the moment to be careful as Corie did. He put the tray down in the kitchen and headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time. He’d seen Tyree go up, followed shortly after by Delia, and half expected the sound of a ruckus. But all was quiet. He hoped that meant Corie was already out of the bedroom or had managed to hide.

  He didn’t know which room was the master bedroom, but saw that all the bedrooms were open, showing off elegantly covered, pillow-mounded beds, except for one. That had to be it. When he heard screams coming from inside, he was sure.

  He burst through the door without hesitation to find Delia Tyree locked in mortal combat with Corie on the carpet.

  Cyrus Tyree tried to stop them but was upended as they rolled into him, screaming.

  At that point Ben had simply had it with everybody. He hauled Corie to her feet with one hand and Delia Tyree with the other.

  “The jewelry is all in the drawer,” Corie said in a breathless voice, her hair in her face. “Except for the necklace we have.”

  Tyree smirked at her. “So you did keep something.”

  “No, I didn’t. Someone sent me one of the diamond necklaces.”

  “What?” he demanded. “Sent it to you? I don’t understand.”

  “Oh, Cyrus!” Delia said with a growl. She sank onto the edge of the bed. “You never understand. I had Danny from Corbett’s put it in her home so she’d get caught with it.”

  “Danny?”

  She shrugged, studied her nails. “He does odd jobs for me.”

  Tyree remained confused.

  “So she’d go to jail.”

  He clearly still didn’t get it.

  “Because Robert hates it that she thinks she’s better than he is, and he’ll forever wear the scar that proves it’s true.”

  “You did that for Pimental?”

  “Yes, but it didn’t go according to plan. Your friend Bigelow runs such a dinky police department that even though she reported the break-in, the officer who responded never noticed the necklace. So I called in an anonymous tip and apparently the dispatcher missed it.”

  “No, she didn’t.” Gil Bigelow, Chris Norton and several members of the Corpus Christi police department walked into the room.

  “We got the message,” Bigelow said, “but I knew you had your jewelry back so I ignored it.”

  Corie turned to him in surprise. “How did you know?”

  “Mrs. Tyree told Mr. Pimental. He told me.”

  “And you let him get away with scamming the insurance company?” Corie challenged.

  Bigelow made a face. “Insurance companies run their own scams.”

  “I took pictures of everything,” Corie told Ben, pointing to the open drawer, “and I forwarded them to Chris.”

  Jack burst into the room, Grady right behind him. They relaxed at the sight of the Corpus Christi police.

  “I told you he wouldn’t need backup,” Grady said to Jack.

  “You did,” Jack replied, “but he has a terrible propensity for getting shot. I was sure he’d need us.”

  Corie was explaining the Tyrees’ scam to the police. It appeared that they were familiar with the case.

  “You say you took pictures?” one of the officers asked. “Are you from the insurance company?”

  Corie opened her mouth to explain that she’d originally stolen the jewelry and wanted to prove she’d returned it, but Chris Norton spoke first, holding up his cell phone.

  “I’ve got the pictures right here,” he said. “She told me her suspicions about the case when I investigated a break-in at her home.”

  He went on to tell them about the planted necklace. “Chief Bigelow, being Mr. Tyree’s friend, knew the jewelry had been returned to the Tyrees, so we teamed up with Miss Ochoa and her boyfriend to prove it.”

  The officer narrowed his glance. “That’s a little unorthodox.”

  Chris shrugged. “It’s Querida police work.”

  Corie smiled gratefully at Chris. She guessed he’d had a discussion with Bigelow because the chief seemed willing to let him talk.

  Ben told the officers that the county sheriff had Pimental in custody and could fill them in on more of the activities, specifically mentioning Cyrus’s father’s will. One of the officers took down their contact information, explaining they’d have to answer questions.

  Everything in the velvet box was poured into a plastic evidence bag. Corie gave them the necklace to add to it.

  The officers led the Tyrees away, Bigelow and Norton following, though Chris turned back to give Corie a grateful smile.

  Jack gathered Ben and Corie to him when they were alone. “Thank God!” he said. “What were you doing with the necklace in your purse, Corie?”

  She sighed with relief. “I hoped this was going to end tonight, and I wanted to be rid of the darn thing.”

  They started down the stairs. Apparently the sight of their hosts being taken away in handcuffs put a quick end to the party. Guests left in a stream while Walther looked on in confused surprise. Sarah stood beside him, apparently explaining why the four of them had hired on.

  “I hope he got payment in advance,” Jack whispered to Ben.

  “Yeah.” Ben gri
nned. “He still owes us for tonight.”

  * * *

  “I DON’T SUPPOSE you want me to drive?” Ben asked Corie as they approached her truck. Jack had taken Sarah and Grady in his rental. “I mean, it’s late and you have had a rough evening.”

  She astonished him by walking around to the passenger side. “I am really tired. Do you mind? I’m sure you’re tired, too.”

  “I don’t mind at all.”

  Corie leaned her head back and closed her eyes as her old truck rumbled along the highway. She was happy, for once in her life, to let someone else be in charge. She was exhausted and she was dealing with the overwhelming realization that she wanted Rosie’s fairy tale. Ben and her forever. Soren and Rosie as their children. And more children. She had her own fairy tale.

  She rolled her head sideways on the headrest and opened her eyes to look at Ben’s profile. He was unusually quiet; his mouth and chin set in hard lines. It was entirely possible she’d ignored him one too many times. He had made it clear he’d like her to stop scaring him to death.

  He’d been right. She did treat her life like an extreme sport. How else could she come to terms with it? It had never been like anyone else’s life with a shared history, common qualities and similar expectations.

  So, what else was there to do but fly in the face of all the cautions and run ahead, flat out, toward...what? She’d never really examined that part. But now it was time. What was she running toward? That was easy. Love. She was madly, deeply in love with Ben. This life was finally going to lead somewhere.

  The question was: Did Ben still love her? He’d said he did the other day, but since then she’d ignored his advice and done what she did best—whatever she wanted. Maybe it was time to stop that.

  “Do you realize what we’ve accomplished?” she asked lazily. “We put Pimental away, proved that Tyree did get the jewelry back, and got Teresa her house and property. Our lives are our own again.”

  * * *

  BEN THOUGHT ABOUT her question before he answered, considering her words. “Our lives are our own again.” Our own. That didn’t necessarily mean “My life is yours and your life is mine.” He’d have liked it better if she’d put it that way. She probably meant “Your life is yours to go home to Oregon, and my life is mine to do whatever I want with like I’ve always done.”

  She behaved like a loner only half the time now, so her statement could be open to further interpretation. She’d told him she loved him, though she never thought twice about dismissing his thoughts on anything.

  Something had changed her lately. She seemed much less the reckless kid and simply a headstrong woman. Until tonight, when she’d terrified him with her plan to photograph Delia’s jewelry to prove she’d gotten it back.

  “I know,” he said, taking the light and lazy tone in which she’d asked the question. “We’re like a pair of crime fighters ready to retire.”

  “Castle and Beckett?”

  “Boris and Natasha.”

  She laughed and punched his arm. “Funny, but they were really bad guys. I’m sticking with Castle and Beckett. They’re not ready to retire but the principle is the same.”

  There was a protracted silence.

  “Have you heard anything from Cassie yet?” Ben asked.

  “No. It’s possible whatever scandal she was dealing with is more important at the moment than Jack and I are.”

  She’d said that easily enough but he’d detected underlying disappointment in her voice.

  “Maybe her father hasn’t been able to reach her.”

  “Maybe.”

  He put a hand out to pat her knee affectionately. “I’m sorry. Wanting to see her must be making you crazy. Not that you’re ever completely sane.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “For most of my life, I thought I’d never see either of my siblings again. But now I have Jack and...one day we’ll all be together.”

  “I believe that.”

  * * *

  CASSIE TRIED ANOTHER tack to gauge his thoughts. “I’ve been talking to Teresa about Rosie.”

  He hesitated a beat. “Yeah?”

  “Yes. I’m adopting her.”

  He looked away from the road for an instant, his eyes catching light from the traffic, their expression indeterminate.

  “That’s a big step.”

  “Well, she has this fantasy...”

  Before she could tell him about it he said, “It’s pretty clear she thinks of you as belonging to her. Or that she wants to belong to you.”

  She sighed. “I know. I sort of get her, where not a lot of people do. And it breaks my heart that she knows her father just signed off on her. I mean, if he’d do that, it’s probably for the best, but it’s time for me to step up. Teresa would keep her, of course, the same as Soren, but I think Rosie needs someone’s individual attention. She needs a family—even if it’s just me.”

  “So—will you stay here?”

  “I’m not sure. I have the job here, which is a definite plus if I’m going to support a child. And Rosie would still be able to see Soren. They act like they hate each other, but that’s just kind of a sibling-like thing. Right now, with all the other children gone home, they’re anchoring each other. And I can take my online classes at night from anywhere.”

  “Well, if you stay, that might be a problem,” he said, focused on the road but looking relaxed.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve pretty much decided to take Soren home with me.”

  “No!”

  He shot her a quick glance. “You don’t think it would work?”

  “It would be perfect. I just didn’t know you were thinking about it.”

  His smile faded. “But, if you stay here, he won’t be around to help ground Rosie. He’ll be in Beggar’s Bay with me.”

  She sighed. “I’ll just have to help her see how good that will be for him. She’ll be fine. I’ll...be fine.”

  * * *

  SO, SHE WAS STAYING. That pretty much put paid to the question of whether or not she needed him. He watched the road, grateful for the straight stretch home. His brain was thinking about the popular theory that if you loved someone and their hopes and dreams were different than yours, the thing to do to prove your love was to let them go.

  That went against everything he felt.

  He found the lighted parking lot of a small supermarket and pulled off the road.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked, her tone concerned. “Are you feeling sick?”

  He parked under a light, turned off the truck and faced her. “I am,” he said. “Sick of this waltzing around between us, sick of not saying what’s on my mind, sick of hoping that if I just don’t push, you’ll come around.”

  “Come around?”

  “Understand what I feel,” he clarified, “not just what you want.”

  She waited for him to continue.

  He groaned. “Would you please do me the courtesy of acting like you know what I’m talking about? I love you, you love me. How are we going to make this work?”

  She looked a little off balance. He liked that.

  “I thought it sort of was working, isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s not!” he declared. “You scare me to death all the time with your free-for-all approach to everything. We argue about it. You even made a concession to being a law-abiding citizen when you told Chris Norton everything, but then you broke into city hall, you came to Tyree’s party in disguise, marched up to his bedroom and confronted him—”

  “I didn’t confront him. He just happened to walk in.”

  “Well, what did you think would happen when you walked into his bedroom!”

  “You’re yelling.”

  “Oh, good. I’m glad you can hear me because
that’d be a first.”

  * * *

  WHEN JUANITA USED to yell at her, Corie grew calm and quiet. It used to drive her stepmother crazy. It had become her go-to defense in life.

  “Ben,” she said reasonably, “you seem to think that because you’ve told me something, I should do it, or if you’ve warned me against something, I shouldn’t do it. That’s a little Neanderthal.”

  He put a hand to his eyes and just held it there for a minute. When he dropped it, his voice was calm. “I don’t think that, Corie. But I do believe that when you love someone, you have a responsibility to try to keep yourself safe. If you need me, I’m here. If I need you, you’re stealing jewelry, breaking into buildings or cornering criminals...”

  She rolled her eyes at that exaggeration. “Okay, I’m here now,” she said, crossing her hands on her lap. “A captive audience. What do you need from me?”

  That hand went to his eyes again. “Love,” he replied finally. “Loyalty, dedication, passion. Forever.”

  Put into such clear words, it was unsettling. She opened her mouth and stammered over a reply. She finally said in a frail voice, “That’s a lot to give away.”

  “Damn right,” he said. His voice boomed in the small space. “Except that you don’t really...give it away. You offer it, it comes back to you, it’s nurtured, it grows, it fills the space and pretty soon...it’s everything. It’s love.”

  “I love you,” she said, putting a hand to his arm. “It just doesn’t sound like what I have to give is what you want.”

  “What do you think I want?”

  “Someone who thinks and acts like you do.”

  “Corie, I don’t. I want someone who listens to what I think and respects it, and acts in a way that I can live with. I would do that for you.”

  She wasn’t sure she saw the difference.

  When she struggled to stifle a yawn, he conceded. “Maybe we should talk in the morning. When we’re not so tired.”

  “Good idea,” she said. He turned the key, backed out of the parking spot and headed for the highway.